[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 157 (Sunday, November 9, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H10529-H10531]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1930
                FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS, 1998

  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Committee on Appropriations be discharged from further consideration of 
the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 104) making further continuing 
appropriations for the fiscal year 1998, and for other purposes, and 
ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Latham). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Louisiana?
  Mr. OBEY. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, under my 
reservation it is my understanding that the gentleman is attempting to 
bring to the House a 1-day CR. I would like to ask a number of 
questions so that all Members might understand where we are at and 
where we expect to be about 2 days from now.
  Could I first inquire if the gentleman could inform Members what the 
expected schedule is tonight?
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the Majority Leader does not appear to 
be on the floor, and I am not prepared to address the entire schedule. 
I do know that it is the intent of the leadership to bring up the fast 
track some time tonight, and the appropriations bills that remain have 
to be taken up. Included among them are the Commerce-Justice-State 
bill, which is being conferenced, as the gentleman knows, 
simultaneously with the activities on the floor. The District of 
Columbia bill, which passed the House, is being entertained by the 
Senate, and the foreign operations bill is pending, having been fully 
conferenced, and is awaiting the decision to move forward with many 
issues, among them being the U.N. population planning issue.
  Mr. OBEY. Further reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, and I 
really do not want to object, but my leadership on this side of the 
aisle has asked that we try to elicit some understanding of what the 
schedule is tonight. Members have a right to know what the expectation 
is about when fast track is going to be taken up, they have a right to 
know whether further legislation will be taken up after fast track 
tonight, and they also have a right to know whether we are intending to 
be here tomorrow, whether Members will, in fact, be able to get back 
for Veterans Day or not, whether there are going to be further 
conferences tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask is there not someone from the leadership on 
the gentleman's side of the aisle who can tell us what the story is, 
because, frankly, I have had two or three Members over here who are 
indicating they are inclined to object to consideration of the CR 
without that information.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Would the gentleman yield further?
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I certainly share the gentleman's zeal 
to end the process and to finish this session of the 105th Congress, 
and I know that Members have lots of things that they would like to do 
and simply to return to home.
  However, I might add that if the gentleman objects, the fact is that 
we will not have a continuing resolution to keep the Government in 
operation after midnight tonight, and certain Government activities 
will close down.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, if I could reclaim my time under the 
reservation, let me simply say that is not so. The

[[Page H10530]]

question is not whether we object. The question is whether somebody can 
take 5 minutes to tell us. I mean, the motion can be renewed at any 
time, but, frankly, the gentleman from Louisiana and I are totally in 
the dark about what is happening, I think every other Member here is 
totally in the dark about what is happening, and I think Members have 
some right to know what the situation is. And so I would again ask 
whether anyone from the gentleman's leadership can tell us what the 
plans are for tonight, for tomorrow and for Veterans Day.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Would the gentleman yield further?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am advised and would explain to the 
gentleman that the intent of the House is to go ahead and continue 
along a very long list of suspensions, and that eventually we will get 
to the vote on the fast track legislation. The gentleman knows that 
that vote is going to be very close, and so I would expect that when 
people on all sides of the Capitol feel that they have exhausted their 
opportunity to discuss it with Members, that they will bring it up. But 
in the meantime we have these suspensions, and I would be happy to read 
them to the gentleman, but I do not think that is necessary.
  But let me point out that all we are attempting to do at this point 
is to provide for a 24-hour extension so that Government will not close 
down after midnight tonight. That is a 1-day extension with all of the 
conditions which were included in the previous continuing resolution 
which we passed 2 days ago. It is a simple 1-day extension.
  I hope, I sincerely hope, that at the conclusion of that 24 hours, we 
will be able to go home and we will not have to have any more CRs. But 
I cannot assure the gentleman of anything at this point.
  Mr. OBEY. Again under any reservation let me simply say I, too, hope 
that we can finish in 24 hours, but, frankly, I do not approach this 
like I am a permanent president of an optimist club, and it just seems 
to me that we have massive confusion here.
  Let me ask the gentleman, does the gentleman know how many bridges 
the administration has given away today to try to pick up votes?
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. This gentleman does not have sufficient fingers to 
count.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I think today was roads, highways, not 
bridges today.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield further?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I would point out to the gentleman that 
currently signed into law in the 1998 appropriations cycle is the 
military construction bill, the legislative branch bill, the Defense 
bill, the Treasury bill, the energy and water bill, the VA/HUD bill and 
the Transportation bill.
  Cleared for the President, and sitting on his desk and awaiting his 
signature are the Interior and the Agriculture bill, and just a couple 
days ago we passed the Labor-Health bill with an overwhelming margin, 
and we would expect him to sign that.
  Remaining are three appropriations bills: foreign operations, 
Commerce-Justice, and District of Columbia. They are pending in the 
process, and I fully expect and hope that within the next 24 hours we 
are going to be able to take up those bills and pass them and send them 
to the President, and he is going to sign them into law. It is my 
expectation that if we are so lucky, after this, the expiration of this 
24-hour continuing resolution, we would be able to go back and do the 
things among our constituents that we have planned.
  Mr. OBEY. Again under my reservation of objection, Mr. Speaker, let 
me simply explain to the Members what I understand is happening with 
respect to one of the appropriation bills.
  The State-Justice bill has a number of contentious items. Frankly, 
right now, although there is language which apparently may meet with 
the approval of the administration, we have a meeting going on right 
now with a number of lawyers to try to decipher what that language is 
and to see whether or not we can work our way to agreement on that. If 
we can, I would grant that there is the possibility of going to 
conference tonight without a lot of problems on the State-Justice bill.
  But we still have confusion about the other two bills.
  Let me ask, does the gentleman know of any other so-called compromise 
language which is circulating with respect to Mexico City? There are 
rumors rampant about different language being floated by the 
administration, by somebody else. Has the gentleman been given any 
language that would effect the Mexico City provisions of the foreign 
operations bill?
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield further, the only 
language that I know about is the language that was sent to the Senate, 
and I am told that the Senate has some language of their own which they 
are sending back to us. But beyond those two sets of language, I know 
of none.

  Mr. OBEY. Could the gentleman further tell us, under my reservation 
of objection, what are the plans for handling the D.C. appropriations 
bill?
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it was our intent to receive some 
notification from the Senate in handling the D.C. bill individually; 
however, it looks as if the Senate is currently acting on a proposal 
that might join all three bills and send it back to us. We would expect 
that if that is the case, we would receive it sometime tonight and that 
we would act on either a joint bill, sometimes known as an omnibus 
bill, which would include all three appropriations bills, or we would 
handle each of them individually.
  I would tell the gentleman it would be my preference if we can 
conclude the Commerce-Justice-State, conference, then we can take that 
up this evening, or tomorrow.
  Mr. OBEY. If I can just, under my reservation of objection again, 
note that I am informed that so far staff has found at least 50 
mistakes in the Senate version of the State-Justice-Commerce bill as it 
was sent over here. I am not saying that by way of criticizing, I am 
saying that by way of alerting Members to the fact that it is essential 
that we have enough time to read out those bills at a staff level, and 
perhaps Members of the leadership who have not served as committee 
chairs do not sufficiently appreciate the need to make certain that we 
have these things right before we proceed.
  But my concern is that a lot of Members want to know whether they 
should cancel their Veterans Day plans. If they are going to be back in 
their districts for Veterans Day, they are going to have to leave here 
Monday. We are being told that people should expect to be here Monday, 
and I think, frankly, I doubt very much that a 1-day CR is going to be 
enough, and I would ask why we have not just proceeded with a CR that 
is 4 or 5 days so that Members would have some clarity about what is 
going to happen on Veterans Day.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has explained that he is 
not a member of the optimist club, and I have to tell the gentleman 
that I am an eternal optimist and that it is my hope that all of our 
business can, in fact, be concluded by at least this time tomorrow 
night and that Members will be back in their districts by Tuesday. But 
obviously in view of the uncertainty of the bills before us, it is 
impossible to give the gentleman a guarantee.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I guess under my reservation of objection 
again, I guess I would simply say that this is not the most organized 
way to end the session that I have ever seen, and I would simply ask 
that before any actions are taken with respect to any of the three 
appropriation bills, that both our leadership and the ranking members 
on each of those subcommittees be given ample time so that whatever 
changes might be contemplated by the minority to the greatest extent 
possible can be cleared with our side so that we do not run into some 
last-minute blowups.
  Mr. Speaker, we are not going to elicit any information.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

[[Page H10531]]

  Mr. LIVINGSTON. I just wanted to assure the gentleman that it is my 
intention that not only our joint leaderships, but that the gentleman 
and I and the respective subcommittee chairmen from both the majority 
and the ranking minority members have full opportunity to review all 
proposals before they hit the floor and that the staff has adequate 
time to read it and make sure that mistakes are not made.
  The fact is that the committees are working, and especially, I think, 
the Committee on Appropriations in this instance is working as 
expeditiously and efficiently as is absolutely possible under rather 
uncertain conditions, and I am proud of the job we are doing, I am just 
not able to give the gentleman any guarantees about the ultimate 
schedule.
  Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. Again, further reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, 
I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin and the 
chairman of the committee is correct. Just on the Commerce-State-
Justice bill it will take 12 or 13 hours of staff time just to read 
through, to proofread, that one bill.

                              {time}  1945

  So we need a lot of lead time. We have been trying to pre-read the 
portions that are more or less agreed to. But even in spite of that, it 
is going to take that long a period of time, just to read on the one 
bill.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation, let me simply make 
this point, I think we have terrific staff on the Committee on 
Appropriations. But as good as they are, they are likely to make some 
significant mistakes if they are reading out these bills when they have 
been strung out through night after night with virtually no rest.
  It seems to me that if there is not a reasonable expectation that we 
can finish, that we ought to recognize that so that Members can get 
some sleep. My observation is that this place usually works better and 
the Members get along better with each other when their tails are not 
dragging, and everybody's are, as far as I can see right now, and 
certainly the staff.
  Mr. Speaker, we are not going to get any more information, but what 
we have been told so far is that the fast-track legislation is going to 
come up sometime tonight, that we may or may not be moving ahead with 
other appropriation bills, and, if we do move ahead with them, they may 
or may not be in an omnibus form, and we do not really have any idea at 
this point how long it is going to take to read out these bills or to 
bring them to the Congress in a form which is safe for Members to vote 
on.
  Under those circumstances, I would simply say I am dubious that a 
one-day CR is going to solve anything.
  Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Louisiana?
  There was no objection.
  The text of House Joint Resolution 104 is as follows:

                             H.J. Res. 104

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 
     106(3) of Public Law 105-46 is further amended by striking 
     ``November 9, 1997'' and inserting in lieu thereof ``November 
     10, 1997'', and each provision amended by sections 122 and 
     123 of such public law shall be applied as if ``November 10, 
     1997'' was substituted for ``October 23, 1997''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Petri). Without objection, the joint 
resolution is considered and passed.
  There was no objection.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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