[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 133 (Thursday, September 25, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H8923-H8925]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. SANDLIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of scheduling, I yield to 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman).
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I 
would be happy to talk about the schedule to the extent we know it.
  Mr. Speaker, according to the calendar we announced at the beginning 
of the year, next week was scheduled to be the last week of the first 
session of the 108th Congress; and while the House by and large has 
completed its work for this session, the Senate is a little behind us, 
maybe several weeks behind us, and we still have some more work to do. 
So we will be here beyond October 3, certainly. We will be completing 
appropriations bills, as well as other important priorities.
  In addition, the President's recent request for additional resources 
for the war on terrorism through the supplemental is something this 
Congress will be considering. Of course, that means we will need 
additional time in session.
  While I understand that Members are anxious to know about votes for 
October, especially for the week of October 6, we have not yet 
finalized a number of key decisions that need to be made before we know 
exactly what that schedule will be. Hopefully by the close of business 
tomorrow, Friday, we will be able to distribute a ``Dear Colleague'' 
letter to each office which will indicate the days when we expect to 
have votes for the entire month of October. This information will also 
be on the majority leader's Web site hopefully by the close of business 
tomorrow.
  For next week, in addition to a lengthy list of bills that we will 
consider under suspension of the rules

[[Page H8924]]

starting on Tuesday, we do have a long list of conference reports that 
could become available.

                              {time}  1300

  These include, but are not limited to, the FAA authorization, which 
has to get done, as we all know, the DOD authorization bill, military 
construction appropriations bill, energy and water appropriations bill, 
and, of course, the Energy Policy Act of 2003.
  No one can say at this time which days any of these bills will be 
considered by the House. It is difficult to know, but I would stress 
that we will expect to be voting on one or more of these conference 
reports, and we should expect to be here next Friday.
  Members should know we may well be working late into the evening next 
Friday, October 3, 2003, to consider some of these conference reports. 
I would try to answer any further questions the gentleman from Texas 
has.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, I will reclaim my time.
  Mr. Speaker, it was indicated that there was hope to have a schedule 
available as soon as tomorrow for the month of October. As of right 
now, is there an expectation that we would have legislative business 
during the week of October 6, 2003, even though the other body has 
decided not to be in session during the week?
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I 
think we will have a better answer to that as of tomorrow close of 
business. But my expectation would be we would have business here on 
the floor even though the Senate will be out, the other body, in part 
because of the work we need to do on the supplemental, and in part 
because of possibility of other important work in the appropriations 
conference reports.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, I note that it was indicated that we could 
be working late into the evening next Friday. And, of course, that is 
contingent on many things. But I would like to know if there is a 
possibility that we will not be working late next Friday so that the 
Members can schedule their transportation needs, and also would request 
an answer to why we would be working late next Friday and confounding 
scheduling when we have not been working on Mondays and Fridays in the 
past.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, that is certainly a fair question. And I 
honestly do not think we will have the answer to that until some time 
midweek next week, depending on how the conference reports are going. 
My point earlier was that Members should be prepared to be here on 
Friday, if necessary. We do not know if that will be necessary, but if 
there are conference reports that are ready to go, I think it is 
important that we are here to get our work done.
  So it seems like it would make sense for Members not to make plans 
for Friday that they are unable to get out of. We will see what happens 
as of next week.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, is there an idea about what time we might 
know tomorrow about the upcoming week's schedule so that our Members 
can make their scheduling for airplanes or other modes of 
transportation and deal with their families and events at home?
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am advised by the majority leader's 
office that it will be available as soon as possible tomorrow, which, 
in House terminology, probably means tomorrow afternoon or evening. It 
is going to take a while to make some decisions on some matters that 
are not entirely in our control, including working with the Senate on 
how we work through the supplemental. So I would think tomorrow 
afternoon sometime.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, in the event that we do meet late next 
week, during the week would our business that week be consideration of 
the Iraq supplemental appropriations legislation? And, if so, can 
Members be assured that we will have a fair process for consideration 
of that bill, a process that would allow full debate so that Members 
will have the ability to address all of their concerns of justification 
and accountability?
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will further yield, I 
appreciate the question. And my own sense is that it is very unlikely 
we would see the supplemental appropriations bill on the floor next 
week simply because the committee has not yet gone through the hearing 
process to the extent they would like to. My understanding is they 
would like to hold additional hearings next week.
  In fact, the members of the subcommittee have indicated that they 
will be going on a trip this weekend, I think, to Iraq to gather 
further information. So it seems very unlikely it would be before us 
next week.
  In terms of the rule, we have not worked that out yet with the 
Committee on Rules. I certainly have not talked to the chairman of the 
Committee on Rules, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), but 
that is a decision that would be made as we get closer to that vote.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time.
  Mr. Speaker, we passed a continuing resolution today that will take 
us through October 31, 2003. Would you anticipate that we would be able 
to finish all of our legislative work for the year by the end of 
October?
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, another fair question from the gentleman. I 
wish we could provide a definitive answer. That is certainly our hope, 
that by the end of the month of October that we would be completing our 
legislative business for this session of this Congress. But it would 
depend on our progress with the Senate on a number of these conference 
reports that we talked about earlier.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the information from the 
gentleman. I noticed in the initial remarks that several conference 
reports were mentioned that would be coming up including FAA and DOD 
and military construction and energy and water. Certainly, those are 
important matters. But in looking at that list, I would note that many 
of those things have not been brought forward yet because we have not 
been scheduling Friday and Monday.
  Secondly, I would note that in that list, from what I am reading, 
that neither the Medicare prescription drug legislation nor the tax 
credit legislation is on that list. But could Members be told which one 
of those two are most likely to come to the floor? Is there a 
possibility of the Medicare prescription drug legislation coming to the 
floor and is there a possibility of the child tax credit legislation 
coming to the floor?

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would further yield, I 
would say absolutely. It is our hope that we would have both of those 
conference reports coming back to the House floor. Certainly they were 
not excluded from the list because we do not hope to do them, but they 
were not in the list because it is unlikely we will do them next week. 
So it will not be something imminent. On both of those conferences, we 
would hope to come to a resolution.
  As the gentleman knows, being on the Committee on Ways and Means, the 
members of the Committee on Ways and Means on the conference and the 
members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce are working diligently 
with regard to the Medicare conference and their staff, even as we talk 
this afternoon. So we are very hopeful we can resolve both of those and 
bring them to the floor before completing our work for this session.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. So there is certainly 
the possibility that in addition to the ones that you listed, since we 
are working extra hours next week and working late through Friday, 
there is the possibility that Medicare prescription drugs and/or the 
child tax credit legislation could come up for consideration next week 
since we do have additional time next week?
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Texas knows some of the 
complexities of some of these issues and knows the progress we have 
made, but also the ground we have yet to cover. So I think it is 
unlikely, from my point of view, it is unlikely we will see it next 
week. But I think it is very likely that we will make significant 
progress in the next two weeks, particularly if we are here for a 
considerable amount of time the week of October 6, 2003, to be able to 
make progress on these conference reports. Even in the absence of the 
Senate being in session, we can still work on conference reports.

[[Page H8925]]

  So our hope is to continue to push with regard to all of the 
conferences. We named a number of them earlier. We hope to have them 
come to the floor over the next several weeks as we complete our work.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Certainly we hope since we are working a little bit 
later, we can consider Medicare prescription drug legislation and the 
child tax credit. That is, of course, very important.
  Does the gentleman expect that we could move forward and go to 
conference on the Labor-HHS-Education bill sometime next week? Since we 
do have additional time, would that be a priority?
  Mr. PORTMAN. It certainly would be a priority. It is my understanding 
that the Senate formally requested a conference just last night on what 
is the second largest now of our 13 appropriations bills. It is 
certainly a very important bill for us to be able to complete on an 
independent basis and that is our goal. We cannot commit to a day next 
week when we would consider a motion to go to conference, but I think 
it is very likely it could happen next week.
  Mr. SANDLIN. The House earlier today was supposed to consider a rule 
to send the FAA conference report back to conference. When the 
conferees reconvene, would the gentleman expect them to work in a truly 
cooperative manner and accept the will of both Houses of Congress with 
regard to halting the privatization of air traffic control towers as 
has been debated here on the floor?
  Mr. PORTMAN. It is our understanding that Members of that conference 
from both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol have 
indicated that a couple of relatively small changes are necessary to 
get that bill into position where both the House and the Senate can 
pass the conference report. That is what we are working toward. Those 
grant programs administered by FAA expire, as the gentleman knows, at 
the end of the month. I know that the chairman of the Committee on 
Transportation and Infrastructure and so many other Members in this 
Chamber would like to get this bill to the President for signature as 
soon as possible.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his 
information and cooperation today and would ask that the gentleman and/
or the leadership of the majority let us know just as quickly as 
possible tomorrow about the scheduling, so that our Members can make 
their scheduling for their transportation, and also let us know if 
there is any possibility of the Medicare prescription drug bill or tax 
credit bill or FAA bill or any of that coming up next week.

                          ____________________