[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 37 (Wednesday, March 29, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H1585-H1586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  LIMITATION ON AMENDMENTS DURING FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3908, 
             2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
during further consideration of H.R. 3908 in the Committee of the 
Whole, pursuant to House Resolution 450, no further amendment shall be 
in order except as follows:
  One, pro forma amendments offered by the chairman or ranking minority 
member of the Committee on Appropriations for the purpose of debate;
  Two, the amendment printed in Part B of House Report 106-549 and 
numbered 12; and
  Three, the following further amendments:
  Amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) regarding 
certain reductions and limitations;
  Amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) 
regarding an across-the-board cut;
  Amendment offered by the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) 
regarding U.S. military in Colombia;
  Amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) 
regarding buy America;
  Amendment offered by the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci) 
regarding building technology assistance conservation activities;
  Amendment offered by the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) 
regarding the Food and Drug Administration;
  And an amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) 
regarding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
  Each further amendment may be offered only by the Member designated 
in this request or a designee, shall be considered as read, shall be 
debatable for 20 minutes, equally divided and controlled by the 
proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall 
not be subject to a demand for a division of the question in the House 
or in the Committee of the Whole.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  Mr. OBEY. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, I think Members 
need to understand that the reason they were kept here until midnight 
tonight is because there was an expectation and a hope that we would be 
able, by holding Members here this late this evening, to get Members 
out roughly around noon tomorrow so that all Members of the House, not 
just a few, could catch planes back to their districts.
  That would have necessitated, in my judgment, a number of the 
amendments just described being at least debated tonight. A number of 
those amendments would not even have been in order if the committee had 
not worked with Members in order to help them get them in order, and so 
I think it would have been fair to ask those Members to debate those 
amendments tonight, because if we had not helped them, they would not 
have been able to debate them at all.
  Secondly, there is at least one committee chairman in the House who 
has an amendment which is going to take longer than the others. It 
would have been very helpful if we could have had that amendment 
debated tonight and the vote coming tomorrow.

                              {time}  0000

  That is what happened with a lot of people. An awful lot of people 
had their amendments debated late tonight, but evidently he does not 
want to take it up tonight.
  So I think Members need to know that it is my judgment that under 
this agreement, they had probably better not plan on being out of here 
much before 2 o'clock. I regret that. I wish some of these amendments 
would be considered tonight. I am sorry that the authors would not be 
willing to do that, but I want Members to understand the problem.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say to the gentleman, when 
we were here at 9 o'clock, we were told it was unlikely that the 
amendment on Kosovo, in fact, we were not going to get to the amendment 
on Kosovo, and people on the gentleman's side of the aisle sent some 
staff home. We were under the impression it was not coming up tonight.
  And then when we came back to the floor, we were told we might 
consider it at 11 o'clock. Some of the cosponsors of the amendment had 
dismissed their people. They did not have all of their material, and I 
suggested that we come in fresh and get right on it. I did not care 
what time it was.
  So I would say to the gentleman if it inconvenienced the House, I 
want to apologize for that. But we were operating under the assumption 
that it would not be considered tonight and we wanted to make sure it 
was considered when Members were prepared and we could have a full 
debate. So I wanted the gentleman to understand what the confusion was.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman 
from Ohio. Let me simply say that I had intended to vote for his 
amendment, and I still do. But the fact is that I have been asking 
people all night long to enable us to finish the gentleman's amendment 
and a number of others. No one ever talked to me about the assumption 
that the gentleman's amendment was not going to be considered

[[Page H1586]]

tonight. We have had a lot of people have their amendments offered 
tonight. We did not intend in any way to truncate the debate.
  But since a lot of other Members had been asked to consider their 
amendment in other than ideal conditions, I did not think it was too 
much to ask the gentleman to do the same thing.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would continue to yield, I 
would say to the gentleman it is not just an understanding on the 
cosponsors on this side of the aisle. It was also that understanding 
from Members who were helping on the amendment on the other side of the 
aisle. We just had misinformation and miscommunication.
  But I would say to the gentleman, I am certainly not going to argue 
with him if he might vote for the amendment. Whatever we need to do, 
let us get it up in the morning and give it good consideration.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, again reclaiming my time, all I will say is 
that Members should, for purposes of planning, understand that this 
delay means they are probably not going to get out of here until around 
2 o'clock instead of noon.
  Mr. Chairman, with that I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Florida?
  There was no objection.

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