[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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