In the News

With our new Speaker of the House now in place, I offer some observations to my Republican colleagues, including Speaker Ryan himself.

Our biggest challenge will not be internal; it will be external, particularly an unreasonable president who refuses to compromise on even bipartisan, essential policies that directly affect our national security and economic growth.

With his veto last week of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2016, President Obama again demonstrated to the American people that he is the source of Washington’s dysfunction. This legislation authorizes funding for our military, and it had already passed both chambers — with a veto-proof majority — even in the Senate.

For 53 years, Congress and the president have authorized the NDAA, and it is a process that is generally immune to politics, making the president’s actions that much more reckless and unconscionable — not befitting of a commander-in-chief. Only four times has the NDAA ever been vetoed, and every previous time it was over something technical or easily reconcilable. Using the NDAA as leverage to pass his budget deal, marked the first time a president has held military funding hostage to further his own domestic legislative agenda.

For six years, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid blocked all legislation from even reaching the president’s desk. This resulted in the fewest number of vetoes by a president since Chester Arthur (1881-85). Now, with Republicans controlling both Houses, Mr. Obama already has more than doubled his veto count and is threatening to increase that number by vetoing bipartisan legislation coming out of the House and Senate.

In the early moments of the 114th Congress, the president vetoed the bipartisan Keystone Pipeline Approval Act. The decision was expected, as he had maintained for a long time that’s what he would do — but it still confused many members on both sides of the aisle. Ultimately, the president turned his back on the ready-to-launch 42,000 private sector American jobs and the nearly $3.4 billion his own State Department estimated the project would add to our nation’s economy to side with the far-left environmentalists.

And Keystone is not just a bipartisan issue in Congress; Canada’s newly elected progressive, environmentalist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a staunch supporter of it, and labor unions in the United States widely support its approval.

This decision speaks to this Congress’ real challenge of how we push forward with reasonable pro-growth policies when we have a president who is ignorant to economic realities.

I recently learned first-hand how difficult dealing with this Administration can be. When I introduced H.R. 3192, the Homebuyers Assistance Act, with the support of original co-sponsor Rep. Brad Sherman. California Democrat, I never imagined a minor technical fix to a complex issue would receive an official veto threat from the White House. But it did.

After H.R. 3192 passed the House, Rep. Sherman said, “This has got to be the least important bill I’ve ever seen a veto threat for. I think the president would veto anything he himself wouldn’t vote for.” That is ridiculous.

H.R. 3192 would provide a formal hold-harmless period for those making a good-faith effort to comply with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (TILA-RESPA) Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule, which became effective on Oct. 3, 2015.

It is a commonsense measure to protect the nearly 600,000 Americans each month refinancing or buying a home and doesn’t stop the rule from being implemented; it just provides a temporary hold-harmless period for those seeking to comply with an extraordinarily complex rule.

Three weeks ago, Yahoo News published a story titled, “U.S. mortgage applications tumble after rule change.’ The fears of the mortgage industry were confirmed within two weeks of the rule being implemented, and those disproportionately hurt by the rule are the ones the CFPB is designed to protect. My bill is a simple solution to this problem.

In another example, earlier this month, the House passed, with bipartisan support, H.R. 702, a bill that would lift the ban on crude oil exports. This ban is outdated and provides no benefit to America or our allies throughout the world, and is a critical step toward boosting American economic development, creating more U.S. jobs, and strengthening our national security objectives.

We have the resources to supply our Asian and European allies with North American energy and mitigate the national security risks that come with dependency on Russian and Middle Eastern oil. Ending this ban is a win for economic security and a win for national security, but, despite these potential outcomes, the president has also indicated he will veto H.R. 702 if it comes to his desk.

Right now, the House is doing its work, passing bills that address serious and immediate challenges facing Americans, it is time for the president to work with us.