Stephen Horn: “I think it is time that America woke up and all of us, as colleagues, woke up as to what is going on in this Chamber.…”

“I think it is time that America woke up and all of us, as colleagues, woke up as to what is going on in this Chamber. Not since 1910--and the end of the days of czar Joseph Cannon, the Republican Speaker--has this Chamber been under such rigid control. The people sent us here to vote issues up or down. Some days we lose, some days we win. We abide by a majority vote. We ought to be voting, by majority, on those issues that the people who sent us here expect us to be voting on. We ought to have the chance in this Chamber to vote on substance when substance is in the bill before us. This is not a mere redesignation of EPA in to a Cabinet department. This legislation has authorized at least 16 Presidential appointees and several new functions, much of which I agree with. I am an original cosponsor of this legislation. I believed it should be elevated long before President Bush suggested it, and President Clinton reaffirmed it. However, I think it is wrong for the Committee on Rules operation, the political guillotine of the House, where nine Democrats overrule four Republicans almost every day of the week in order to deny us the right to vote substance up or down. Please vote against the rule. The Thurman-Mica bipartisan amendment to establish cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment procedures in this legislation deserves to be considered.”