Bowman put out a statement saying it was purely accidental. [captioning made possible by th, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers rooms, washington, d. C. October 2, 2023. I hereby appoint the honorable mike bost to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, Kevin Mccarthy, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the order of january 9, 2023, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. The chair will alternate recognition between the parties, with the time equally allotted between the parties and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the majority whip minority whip will be limited to five minutes, but in no event shall the debate continue beyond 1 50 p. M. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from north carolina, mr. Nickel, for five minutes. Mr. Nickel thank you, mr. Speaker. Its monday morning and the federal government is open for business. We came just hours away from a shutdown this weekend, with 209 House Democrats and 125 House Republicans voting to put people over politics. A Government Shutdown would have been a disaster for the American People. And im glad democrats and Reasonable Republicans were able to come together to get a shortterm funding package to the house through the senate and on to the president s desk, with just hours to spare. This shortterm funding package includes an extension of the f. A. A. Authorization, funding for Flood Insurance programs, 16 billion for Disaster Relief and, most importantly, it will keep the lights on for the over 6,500 federal employees in north carolinas 13th district. Looking ahead, this shortterm funding package gives us more time to come together, find Common Ground, and pass bipartisan spending bills for the full year. For democrats, that means funding for ukraine. Our support for ukraine cannot waiver. Waver. I wish we didnt have to spend any money in ukraine, but if Vladimir Putin wins, well have to spend a thousand times more trying to contain an aggressive and emboldened russia around the globe. If we abandon ukraine, russia will win. Putin will win. Support for ukraine is in our national interest, mr. President. Mr. Speaker. For republicans, that means securing the border and taking up immigration reform. As a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus and a member of the new democrat coalitions immigration and Border Security task force, i remain focused and committed to working across the aisle to secure our border and advance comprehensive immigration reform. I believe that the best path forward is through the bipartisan keep america open act that ive cosponsored and is being led by the Problem Solvers Caucus. This legislation upholds the top line numbers agreed to in the bipartisan budget agreement. It includes funding for ukraine, which is desperately needed. It includes title 42 reform legislation that i helped introduce with a Bipartisan Group of members earlier this year that will help secure the southern border while giving us more time to enact meaningful, longterm reforms to our overburdened immigration system. And it includes bipartisan reforms to increase transparency and address longterm spending, an area where i agree with my republican colleagues. The path to 218 votes on the budget wont come from the far left or the far right. It comes from the center with proposals just like this one. The reality is that weve only got 44 days to get this done and were right back where we started over the weekend. We never should have been in this situation in the first place. A shortterm c. R. Is a bandaid on a longterm problem. Thats why ive introduced the bipartisan no budget, no pay act. My bill would withhold members pay if both houses dont agree to a concurrent budget resolution by april 15 for the fiscal year starting october 1. Or if both houses havent passed all the regular Appropriations Bills by september 30 for the fiscal year starting october 1. Folks, we could have been in a situation right this morning where our entire federal government work force was getting no pay, but members of Congress Still would have been getting their paycheck and thats wrong. This bill will incentivize congress to get it done and prevent future Government Shutdowns. This brinksmanship is no good for our economy. Listen, folks. I came to congress to get things done. And ill continue to set aside the noise, find Common Ground wherever it exist, and deliver for the people of north carolinas 13th district. Thank you and i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Mr. Joyce mr. Speaker, i rise to address the house and ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Joyce mr. Speaker, last month more than 400,000 Illegal Immigrants crossed the gap into Central America on their way to our southern border. Nearly double the number that had arrived in all of 2022. Lets put that number in perspective. 400,000 is more than double the populations of altoona, johnstown, chambersberg, lewis luetown, lewistown, newport, mcconnellsburg, green castle, huntington, shippensburg and bedford, all of those combined. It is clear that President Bidens border policies, which welcome ill illegal immigration, have created a National Security crisis, a Public Health crisis, a humanitarian crisis, all due to the porous southern border. Since joe biden took office, there have been a total of 7. 6 million encounters at our southern border. And for the third year in a row, americans now are on track to see the worst border crisis in our nations history. This year we have seen Public Schools used as Holding Facilities for Illegal Immigrants. Instead of being used for American Students who are already suffering from historic learning losses following bidens prolonged school shutdowns. While an influx of Illegal Immigrants has strained the food banks, the shelters and the hospitals along our southern border, this administration continues to turn a blind eye and refuses to assist the communities that are threatened and the communities that are in need. It is time for the senate to pass the secure the border act, which would, first, force the Biden Administration to restart construction of the border wall, second, increase the number of Border Patrol agents, third, end catch and release, and finally, deploy the new technologies that our Border Patrol agents have requested in order to help secure our southern border. President bidens failure to address this crisis is simply unacceptable. And report after report from eagle pass, san diego and mcallen show that this crisis will only continue to worsen each and every day. We cant afford business as usual from washington. And we cannot abandon our Border Patrol agents who deal with this problem. It is time for democrats in congress to join us and deliver Real Solutions and not more empty promises to the American People. Thank you, mr. Speaker. And i yield. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from oregon, mr. Blumenauer, for five minutes. Mr. Blumenauer thank you, mr. Speaker. Were going to pick up where we left off over the weekend. Sort of the High School Drama about governing the house of representatives. We have some people who are playing with fire. Weve watched them work to the brink, it happened earlier in the spring when we were dealing with the debt ceiling. And were back at it now dealing with what were going to do in terms of funding the government going forward. We know where this ends. There will be an agreement in november or december or january that largely follows the outline of what we all agreed to do in the spring. Democrats and republicans, President Biden had an agreement that set the top line numbers to be able to move forward with the budget. Ultimately i think the governing wing of the Republican Party will come around and work with a unified Democratic Caucus to be able to fulfill the commitment that we made in the spring. Whether or not Kevin Mccarthy is speaker or not is largely irrelevant in terms of this larger issue. The governing wing of both parties will come together and i think will do what is right for the American People based on what we agreed to do months ago. In the meantime, we actually have work to do. There are issues that need our attention. In the New York Times two days ago, its only a matter of time before more dams fail. We watched two dams in libya collapse, killing more than 11,000 people. This should be a wakeup call for those of us in the United States. There are more than 91,000 dams in the United States, the average age is 61 years. About 1 3 of those, the failure would result in loss of life and significant economic and environmental damage. The infrastructure and jobs act included hundreds of millions of dollars for dam safety. Welcome. But a miniscule amount of what we need to do when there are about 76 billion of immediate need dealing with dam safety. There are some very costeffective solutions. One of them we pioneered in the pacific northwest, which is just removerring the dam removing the dam. In 2012 and 2014, we transformed the ecosystem of the risker in washington, the largest river in washington, the largest dam removal in american history. And we are currently working on an even larger project with four dams being removed on the river in Southern Oregon and northern california. Dam removal is much more Cost Effective. Ive worked on the infrastructure and transportation and Infrastructure Committee to try and have a system where any time a dam removal was more Cost Effective than trying to renovate it, that it would be authorized. Were looking at the changing landscape, the problems with the colorado river, where the dams no longer have intakes, where theyll be able to get the water out. Were looking at dead pools being formed along the colorado river. We have to rethink the way that the hydrology works, the dam works. The Climate Change has radically adjusted our notion of what we can and should do with them for the future. This is but one example of a simple, commonsense, direct effort that we should take that will save lives, save money and regenerate the environment, as were going to see in the Klamath River basin. Working with native americans, working with naturebased solutions for climate challenges, were all going to be better off. And then we can perhaps stay away from the side shows here that are entertaining, but dont get us anywhere. Thank you and i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. Mcclintock, for five minutes. Mr. Mcclintock mr. Speaker, Benjamin Franklin described the limitations of any deliberative body in his closing speech to the constitutional convention. He said, when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views, from such an assembly can a perfect production be expected. Well, we have certainly approached these limits in our deliberations in recent days. And i want to pause for a moment and assess where we are and where were going. The roman empire fell for many reasons, but the two most prominent were that it destroyed its economy by overspending and it failed to secure its borders. Clearly these two selfinflucted clam selfinflicted calamities are verging right now upon our country and were fast running out of time to avert them. For this reason, House Republicans have sought, with the most slender of majorities, to reverse these policies, albeit imperfectly. A few weeks ago, we passed h. R. 2, the strongest Border Security bill in a century. Over the past months, our majority on the Appropriations Committee has drafted the 12 Appropriations Bills which bend Discretionary Spending down and enact important reforms. Now, i admit that we are inex cluesably late in that prose that we are late in that process. Last week we began taking up and adopting appropriation bills that now comprise 70 of federal Discretionary Spending on the eve of an impending shutdown. Weve learned from experience that a Government Shutdown can be administered in a manner that does enormous damage to the economy and to the lives of millions of americans. The president , if he wishes, can destroy every Small Business on federal land and those adjacent to federal land. Obama went so far as obama barry memorial and chained the gates of every federal land and barricaded the townoutsover Yosemite Valley so people couldnt pull over to catch a glimpse. President biden wanted to create a panic and force an immediate resolution. We put forward a 30day continuing resolution. And enacting the Border Security bill that we had previously passed. 21 republicans joined House Democrats to defeat this resolution. Now out of time and faced with a shutdown, our conference directed the speaker to put a 45day continuing resolution without the previous reforms as the only way to revert a shutdown and continue our work. We canceled the october recess to complete this work. Yet now, we are faced with a threat that a republican will move to vacate the republican speaker of the house. It will only require four others to join the democrats. The immediate effect would paralyze the house indefinitely. Just when we are on the verge of completing the appropriations process that will initiate discussions with the senate that are vital to change the dangerous path that our country is on. I cannot conceive of a more counter productive and selfdestructive course than that. The supreme irony is this is being proposed by selfdescribed conservatives. Do they believe that when the democrats to remove the republican speaker they will name a more conservative replacement . Of course not. The democrats will recruit the more liberal republicans to run the house. This is what happened in california in 1994. Coalition speaker will move the administration to the house sharply to the left and end the Republican House majority that the people elected in 2022. I implore my republican colleagues to look past their prejudice, their passions, their opinions, local interests and selfish views and to make a wise decision when its needed most in this critical moment in the life of our country, i yield back. Iflt the chair recognizes the gentleman from florida, mr. Gaetz for five minutes. Mr. Gaetz thank you, mr. Speaker, i rise to raise a question, what was the secret side deal on ukraine . House democrats and President Biden have said that as Speaker Mccarthy was asking republicans to vote for a continuing resolution to avoid having to take up the plusup ukraine money, that the speaker of the house was actually cutting a side deal to bring ukraine legislation to this floor with President Biden and House Democrats. So let me get this straight, to extend joe biden spending and joe biden policy priorities, the speaker of the house gave away to joe biden the money for ukraine that joe biden wanted. It is going to be difficult for my republican friends to keep calling President Biden feeble while he continues to take Speaker Mccarthys lunch money in every negotiation. And the speaker of the house has responded to these reports of a secret side deal on money for ukraine, opaquely stating that he still wa