[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 94 (Friday, July 12, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H4564-H4566]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring about
the schedule for next week.
Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. PELOSI. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased to announce that the House
has completed its legislative business for the week.
The House will next meet for legislative business on Monday, July 15,
at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and at 2 o'clock p.m. for legislative
business.
I will schedule a number of measures under suspension of the rules, a
list of which will be distributed to Members' offices later today.
Recorded votes on Monday will be postponed until 6:30 p.m.
On Tuesday and the balance of the week, I have scheduled the
following measures for consideration in the House:
On Tuesday, H.R. 5093, the Department of Interior Appropriations Act
for Fiscal Year 2003;
On Wednesday, the Treasury and Postal Operations Appropriations Act
for Fiscal Year 2003;
On Thursday, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act for Fiscal
Year 2003;
And again on Thursday and on Friday, the Department of Agriculture
Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2003.
Mr. Speaker, the conferees are meeting this morning to complete work
on the President's emergency defense and homeland security supplemental
appropriation request, and I intend to schedule that conference report
as soon as it is available next week.
Obviously, Mr. Speaker, we have a busy and productive week ahead of
us, so I would advise Members to expect long days and nights as we work
to complete our work on five appropriations bills next week.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that presentation.
I would just like to know how late he expects these long days and
nights to go. Are we talking 3 a.m. in the morning? Can Members make
plans with their families in the evening?
Mr. ARMEY. I thank the gentlewoman for the inquiry. As the
gentlewoman may have noticed, other than Monday, we have appropriations
bills on each of these days. Appropriations bills come to the floor
under the 5-minute rule. This provides ample opportunity for maximum
participation by the Members.
One can never say for certain. We will try to work as late as is
necessary to maintain the schedule for the completion of the bills,
with an eye toward a reasonable time to catch our planes for our
weekend work recesses at home on Friday. So while I would anticipate no
extraordinarily late evenings, we must be prepared, I think, to work
into the evenings each night to sustain that schedule.
Ms. PELOSI. I appreciate that.
I would like to further inquire, Mr. Speaker, if there is any other
legislative business besides appropriations bills that the gentleman
expects to come up next week.
Mr. ARMEY. I thank the gentlewoman for that question. We do not see
anything. Obviously, we have several things out in conference, and
insofar as any of those conferences, and most hopefully the emergency
supplemental conference should report, we would want to bring those
conference reports to the floor as quickly as possible.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the leader that I had a
couple of issues in that regard.
As Members know, the Senate will finish a very tough corporate
accountability measure early next week that the President and the
Speaker have expressed support for.
Given deep concern about the corporate scandals and impact on
pensions and retirement savings of Americans, we in this House need to
act as quickly as possible. Would it not make sense simply to adopt the
Senate bill and send it right to the President before we leave for the
August recess? Is that possible?
Mr. ARMEY. I thank the gentlewoman for her inquiry. I, too, like the
gentlewoman, am so pleased that the other body has finally understood
how necessary this is and has finally tried to catch up with the House,
which passed a bill on April 24 with a vote of 334 to 90, and 119
Members of the gentlewoman's own party voted for that excellent product
from the House.
While the other body is finally getting aware of the urgency of
moving on this, and we do, indeed, hope they might complete work on a
bill that relates to our work next week, we would be quite anxious to
get to conference with them as quickly as possible and
[[Page H4565]]
work out the most reasonable and effective compromise between the two
bodies to get sent to the President as soon as possible.
So I would join the gentlewoman from California in wishing Godspeed
and good work to the other body so that we could get to that conference
and complete the work so ably begun in this body almost 3 months ago
with that marvelous vote of 334 to 90 on our own bill on this matter.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, if the subject were not so serious about the
pensions of America's families, the hopes and aspirations for their
children and their children's education that has been greatly
diminished by the collapse of the stock market, I would think that the
distinguished majority leader was jesting in the comments that he just
made.
Mr. ARMEY. No, no, Mr. Speaker.
Ms. PELOSI. The Senate has acted very responsibly and in a manner
that I hope this body will follow suit on in the bill that they have
passed. The difference between the House bill and the Senate bill is
drastic. That is why I asked that we take up the Senate bill tout suite
and send it to the President.
I had a couple of other questions, however.
Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will continue to yield,
if, indeed, the subject were not so grave before the American people,
we might find this body willing to pick up the work product of another
body that had taken 3 months to even see how serious the problem is.
But since this body so quickly perceived the problem, so effectively
worked on the problem, we must insist on the opportunity for this
body's earlier prompt, timely, and most professionally well done work
to be honored in the process.
There is no way that this body could consider its duty to America to
take the tardy, less well-understood and generally-feared-to-be-less-
effective legislation from the other body, when we have the most
perfect opportunity to go to conference and get it right.
Ms. PELOSI. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. The fact is
that the events that have followed the passage of the bill in this body
have demonstrated its weakness so very clearly.
So again, I reiterate my request of the gentleman to take up the
Senate bill ASAP so we can send it to the President.
Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will continue to yield,
this body demonstrated on April 24 that there is nothing to be learned
from the second kick of a mule. Unfortunately, it took 3 months and
several more kicks for the other body to wake up, and there is no way
that we will set our good work aside, take up their work, and deny
America the opportunity to have a well-conferenced work where the work
of this body can be presented in this process.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I reiterate, methinks the gentleman doth
protest too much.
Mr. Speaker, another bill that I am wondering will come up is the
bill on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, on which I
serve as ranking member. We finished our work a long time ago, and have
been hoping to move that very important piece of legislation.
Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. PELOSI. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) to
pursue that question with the very distinguished majority leader.
Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, the gentlewoman from
California, for yielding to me, and am pleased to have the opportunity
to engage the distinguished majority leader in a question or two.
It seems to me when the majority leader points the finger at the so-
called other body for not doing its work, it comes on the tail of a
workweek, so-called workweek, that we have had here of a half an hour
on the floor Monday, we were out of session Wednesday by 4:30,
yesterday by 1:30, and today at the late hour of 10:29 we have
concluded legislative business.
It seems to me that there are a lot of important things for the
country and the Congress to engage in. One of them is the business of
the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The saber-rattling of
the al Qaeda is out there saying they are going to attack America
again, yet we have had an intelligence bill languishing in the
Committee on Rules for 1\1/2\ months.
I would be very interested in knowing and inquiring of the majority
leader why that intelligence bill is not on the floor and why that
platform for supporting some changes and reforms in the intelligence
community is not leading the way here at a very, very important time in
the Nation's history.
Mr. ARMEY. If the gentlewoman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, I
do appreciate that the fact of the matter is before we left for our
July 4 work recess we did advise the body to prepare to come back for
this week just past and spend their time in the committee room, where,
indeed, 12 of our committees worked, the last of which finishing at
1:30 in the morning last night on this very important business of
homeland security.
We also had the Committee on Appropriations mark up four bills this
week. We did in fact have the committee work week that we asked and
anticipated for the week. I am sorry the gentleman from Indiana (Mr.
Roemer) missed out on all the fun, but the committee members that
worked so late in the evening will tell the gentleman that their work
was comprehensive and exhaustively attended to during the course of
this week.
{time} 1030
The bill under consideration about which you ask has not been filed
by the Committee on Rules; therefore, it is not prepared to bring to
the floor. The committee chairman has himself been steeped in work on
homeland security and I would guess that the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Goss) will be very anxious to get together with his ranking member
and work out any final details they need to in order to file a bill, at
which time, obviously, we would move the bill to the floor as quickly
as possible and maintain the excellent work record of this body that
has indeed done a level of work for the past 2 years that would be
commensurate with two legislative sessions in order to keep pace with
all that is before us and stay so far ahead of the other body that just
does not seem to be able to catch up with the enormous amounts of work
we produce.
Mr. ROEMER. I would just engage the majority leader a little bit
further on this particular bill in saying that the committee reported
this unanimously out of the committee a month and a half ago in a
bipartisan fashion after we worked very hard on it. The reason it is
not filed, my understanding from staff is because the leadership has
not asked that it be filed, that as soon as they ask that it be filed
that the bill will come immediately to the floor. Why is the leadership
not supportive of the intelligence authorization bill coming to the
floor, especially in light of the defense appropriations bill having
already gone through this body?
Mr. ARMEY. I thank the gentleman. Let me say to the gentleman as
clearly as I can, this leadership has an unqualified respect and
admiration for the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss). And when it comes
to the business of filing the chairman's bill, this leadership is at
the chairman's disposal, with all due respect and admiration for an
outstanding Member of this body. And I promise the gentleman from
Indiana that as soon as the chairman decides that he would like to file
this bill, it will be attended to by the leadership and by the
Committee on Rules.
Mr. ROEMER. I would just say to the distinguished majority leader, as
a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence nobody has
higher respect for the bipartisan way that the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Goss) handles that committee. We respect him. We work with him,
and we look forward to that very important bill coming to the floor,
especially before something else happens in this country or abroad and
so it does not get so far behind the defense appropriations that has
already gone through.
If the distinguished gentleman would further respond to a comment, we
had plenty of time this past week to do another bipartisan piece of
legislation, which was the reauthorization of the AmeriCorps National
Service Bill. Thousands of Americans have lined up to volunteer in this
country in light of September 11. The President of the United States
has put a high priority
[[Page H4566]]
on this bill. Yet, again, this is a bill that has not made its way to
the House floor.
Would the majority leader care to comment with all the time we have
had on the floor this past week, why that priority of the President has
not come to the floor?
Mr. ARMEY. I appreciate the gentleman's inquiry. The fact of the
matter is we have attended to a great many matters, and when and if
that bill is appropriate to be brought to the floor in the judgment of
the majority leader, the bill will then be brought to the floor. That
time has not yet come.
Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. ROEMER. I thank the majority leader, and I thank the gentlewoman
from California. I hope this bipartisan bill will get to the floor. I
think it would pass with over 300 votes.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I would encourage once again the leaders of
the majority to bring the Senate bill to the floor expeditiously.
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