Floor Speeches

Republicans accused the White House of a "lack of leadership"; Democrats said "take-no-prisoner" Tea Partiers are holding up a deal.

While most Democrats on Wednesday opposed the GOP's bill to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency authorities, three Democrats spoke in favor of it on the House floor and said failure to rein in the EPA would hurt job creation in rural areas of the country.

The House was debating H.R. 910, which would prohibit the EPA's regulation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) was the first Democrat to speak out in favor of the bill, and rejected the idea put forward by other Democrats that the bill should be called the "Dirty Air Act." He said letting one agency decide how to regulate GHG is putting too much authority into a single agency.

"No single government agency, however, is sufficiently positioned to tackle the complex solution that's required to address carbon emissions," he said. "The answer has to be multi-pronged."

House Republicans on Wednesday said legislation limiting regulation on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is needed to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing de facto taxes on U.S. companies, while Democrats warned limiting the EPA would set back decades of progress on the environment.

The debate took place in the context of the rule for H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which would prevent the EPA from regulating GHG. Republicans see this as a needed step given the EPA's effort to do through regulation what Democrats cannot pass through Congress, such as a cap-and-trade policy.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said in his opening remarks in the debate that the Clean Air Act should not be used as a basis for EPA regulations on GHG and that only Congress should have this right. Sessions said GHG regulations would cost hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years and for that reason, the bill would help save jobs.

"It's a jobs-protection bill," he said.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) on Wednesday put forward a motion to adjourn the House shortly after noon in order to force the two parties to negotiate a FY 2011 budget agreement. Jackson also protested a Republican proposal to pass a one-week spending measure that would cut $12 billion from the budget while funding Defense spending for the rest of the year.

“That’s no compromise,” he said. “For months, the Republicans have said that as we reduce spending, everyone has to take a haircut — including the Department of Defense. But now, the Republicans propose increasing military spending.”

Jackson cited a press report saying Republicans were cheering the prospects of a government shutdown.

“So if the Republicans won’t compromise at the negotiating table, maybe we should get everyone down here to the floor to talk things over,” he concluded. “Mr. Speaker, I move that the house do now adjourn.”

Jackson requested a recorded vote at about 12:30 p.m., but it failed 36-367. All 36 “yes” votes came from Democrats, and 141 Democrats voted with Republicans not to adjourn the House.

—This post was updated at 12:55 to reflect the vote results.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on Wednesday said the murder of several United Nations workers by Afghan protesters is a far worse offense than the burning of a Quran in the United States, which prompted the attacks. He also criticized Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's reaction to the Quran burning.

"There needs to be even greater condemnation of the notion that [the Quran burning] in any way justifies murder," Frank said on the House floor. "That includes a condemnation, in my judgment, of the president of Afghanistan, our increasingly unimpressive ally, Mr. Karzai, who I believe added to the furor there by insisting that the man who burned the Quran should have been prosecuted."

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Wednesday morning offered no clues that Republicans and Democrats are close to a budget deal, and instead said the Republicans' failure to compromise is raising the risk of a government shutdown.

"Rather than compromise with President Obama and the Democrats in the Senate and the House, Republicans are threatening once again to shut down government, as they did in 1995," Hoyer said on the House floor.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) on Tuesday said the U.S. Congress has "killed" Washington DC residents over the past several years by not allowing them to pay for their own needle exchange programs.

"We have the highest AIDS rate in the United States only because the Congress of the United States has killed -- I used these words advisedly -- killed men, women and children in the District of Columbia by keeping the District for ten years from using needle exchange so that AIDS would spread throughout the city," she said on the House floor. 

The GOP-led House earlier this year approved a bill preventing the needle exchange.

She added that DC has higher AIDS rates than other major U.S. cities "because of the wishes of the Congress of the United States, which is responsive to nobody in the District of Columbia."

Aside from the lack of a needle exchange program, Holmes Norton cited recent House votes to reinstate a school voucher program in the District, and prevent federal funds to DC clinics that provide abortion services. She compared these votes with the work of racist Southern Democrats who wanted to keep control of the D.C. government out of the hands of D.C. residents.

She said that before D.C. home rule was granted in 1974, District residents were ruled by the federal government, and "that was mostly the work of Southern Democrats whose reasons were, among others… most definitely racial," she said.

"What is happening today is not the work of Southern Democrats," Holmes Norton added. "It is the work of the new Republican majority." In an email to The Hill on Wednesday, Holmes Norton's staff said she was not trying to imply that Republicans had racist motivations (an earlier version of this story said she did assign these motivations to the GOP).

She charged Republicans with running an "autocracy," and implied that Republicans do not see D.C. residents as full citizens.

"Who do you think you are?" she asked. "The residents of the District of Columbia are free and equal citizens. We will not be traded off like we were slaves." 

Holmes Norton also warned that DC funding is at risk because the federal government may shut down if no spending deal can be reached for the rest of FY 2011. She said the government is "stupid enough to close down because Republicans won't take the best deal."

-- This post was updated on April 6 to reflect comments from Del. Holmes Norton

House Democrats and Republicans sparred on Tuesday over who should be keeping an eye on the actions of Internet service providers.

Lawmakers debated whether consumers or government oversight would be better to monitor Internet service providers (ISPs) to ensure they are not restricting access to content.

The debate arose in the context of House consideration of rule for H.J.Res. 37, which would disapprove of the Federal Communication Commission's net-neutrality rule from late last year. Republicans brought up the resolution under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to disapprove of recently enacted regulations.

Republicans argued that the FCC had no right to regulate the Internet and that the pending rule must therefore be pulled back. "This bill today is about congressional prerogative," said Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.).

Republicans on Tuesday afternoon blamed the possibility of a government shutdown on Senate Democrats, who have yet to pass any FY 2011 spending deal.

Republican members spoke just after House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that his morning meetings in the White House today did not yield an agreement on a FY 2011 budget. Frustration over the lack of a deal spilled out onto the floor, and Tea Party Republican Paul Broun (Ga.) charged that Democrats are purposefully avoiding a deal.

"This has been their game plan all along — to attempt to divide the Republican party, back us into a corner, and to shut down the government for their own political purposes," he said. "Mr. Speaker, our Democratic counterparts are gambling with the future of this nation."

Tea Party Republican Paul Broun (Ga.) on Monday evening accused Democrats of purposefully wanting to shut down the government.

"I believe they're dodging their responsibilities on purpose," Broun said on the House floor. "The Democratic leadership is trying to pack us into a corner with only two ways out: keep spending money at their outrageous levels, or shut down the government.

"I believe they actually want to shut down the government for their own political purposes," he added.