[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 67 (Thursday, May 19, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3676-H3677]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished majority leader 
for the purposes of inquiring of the schedule for the coming week.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the distinguished minority whip 
yielding to me.
  The House will convene on Monday at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 
p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several measures under 
suspension of the rules. A final list of those bills will be sent to 
Members' offices by the end of the week. Any votes called on these 
measures will be rolled until 6:30 p.m.
  On Tuesday and the balance of the week, the House will consider 
several bills under a rule: H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research 
Enhancement Act of 2005; H.R. 2419, the Energy and Water Development 
Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006; and H.R. 1815, the National 
Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2006.
  In addition, Mr. Speaker, we plan to consider the Military Quality of 
Life Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006 sometime later in the 
week.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the leader for that information. If I could go 
through a couple of these bills. The defense authorization bill, Mr. 
Leader, do you expect at this point in time to have that on a 
particular day of the week? Do we know when that will be?
  Mr. DeLAY. While it is certainly subject to change, I would expect us 
to consider the stem cell bill on Tuesday, followed on Tuesday by the 
energy and water bill. Hopefully, we could finish that bill by Tuesday 
night and start the DOD authorization bill on Wednesday and Thursday, 
if necessary, and complete the week with the military quality of life 
appropriations bill.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that response. With respect to 
the defense authorization bill, can you tell us now what kind of a rule 
might be applicable to the consideration of that bill?
  Mr. DeLAY. I would anticipate the same types of amendments being 
allowed that has been sort of tradition around here on the DOD 
authorization bill. The Rules Committee did make an announcement 
tonight about filing amendments in a timely fashion. Most of the 
amendments would be considered by the Rules Committee, but obviously it 
is too early to tell what the Rules Committee will finally do.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information and would ask 
that certainly the substantive Democratic amendments be made in order. 
This, obviously, is a very important bill, a large sum of money, 
critically important at a time when we are confronting terrorists in 
Iraq and around the world and our men and women are in harm's way. All 
of us want to make sure that we have our ideas on how we can best 
strengthen our efforts in that bill. So to the extent that the leader 
can prevail upon the Rules Committee to allow such amendments as 
Democratic Members and, for that matter, Republican Members want to 
offer, I think that would be in the best interests of full 
consideration.
  Mr. Leader, the stem cell research legislation you indicate will be 
on Tuesday. It is my understanding that that bill will be brought to 
the floor and that it will not be subject to amendment; it will be 
considered as reported out of committee. Is that accurate?
  Mr. DeLAY. We are working with your side on a unanimous-consent 
request to bring the bill up even without a rule. Hopefully, we can 
agree to a lengthy debate. This issue is so important for an up-and-
down vote. Hopefully, we could have a full and open debate on this very 
important issue. And it will be hopefully done under a unanimous-
consent request that will be worked out with your side, probably on 
Monday.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the leader. I know that our leader and your office 
are working on that unanimous consent and the parameters of the 
consideration of, as you point out, a very, very important bill. There 
are obviously different points of view on the legislation.
  I know we are going to be meeting Monday night and going to come in 
early Tuesday. Would you have a thought as to when, because of the 
importance of this bill, our Members want to be sure that they are 
here, as I am sure yours do as well, what time of day you would expect 
to be considering that piece of legislation?
  Mr. DeLAY. In working with the minority leader's office and your 
office, there have been requests to accommodate some Members and start 
this debate early in the afternoon instead of early in the morning. I 
would, along with the unanimous-consent request, anticipate us working 
out an agreeable time, and I would expect after discussions already 
being held that we would anticipate the debate to start on that bill 
somewhere early in the afternoon and running for the length of time 
agreed to by both sides.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the leader for that information and appreciate his 
working with Leader Pelosi in determining that, because this is 
important. I think all Members will want to make sure that that time 
frame in which it will be considered, they will be available to be on 
the floor or be watching the floor debate with the ability to come to 
the floor to offer their thoughts. I thank the gentleman for that 
information.
  Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield, I want to reemphasize, we are 
trying to work out with your side as lengthy a debate as necessary to 
have a full and important debate. Even though we would discourage any 
amendments to this very important issue, we would want to have 
opportunities for every Member to participate in the debate. So we 
would work out with your side enough time so that we can thoroughly 
debate this issue.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the leader for that observation. The happy 
circumstance is we both certainly agree on this procedure, that it 
needs to have a thorough airing and debate and discussion. There are 
strong views on either side of this issue and quite obviously the 
consequences of this bill are very substantial. Whether it passes or 
whether it fails, the consequences are substantial. So we appreciate 
the fact that there will be significant time to discuss and debate this 
issue.
  Mr. Leader, I have two items left. The Head Start reauthorization has 
now, as you know, been marked up by the committee. I know it is not 
coming next week, and we will be out the week after that for the 
Memorial Day work period. Can you tell me when you might expect the 
Head Start reauthorization bill to come to the floor?
  Mr. DeLAY. We do have a very, very full schedule over the next few 
weeks. As the gentleman knows and most of the Members know, the 
Appropriations Committee is trying their best to get all the 
appropriations bills out of the House before the July 4 break, so there 
is very little time between now and the Fourth of July to do other 
bills. We are considering the Head Start bill, but we do not have any 
immediate plans to consider the Head Start bill reauthorization and 
hope that we can get to it as soon as possible.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman and would hope that we could try to

[[Page H3677]]

move that as quickly as possible. Obviously, people will want to be 
planning for the next school year and next Head Start year.
  Lastly, Mr. Leader, the highway bill. As we know, the highway bill is 
now more than 2 years overdue in terms of reauthorization, has been 
sitting for some period of time. The Senate has now passed that bill. 
Can you tell us when we might appoint conferees for the highway 
conference?
  Mr. DeLAY. As the gentleman knows, this House passed the highway bill 
some weeks ago and the Senate just finished the highway bill in their 
Chamber. We will probably have to consider some type of short-term 
extension next week, hopefully an agreed-to extension bill. And if the 
Senate requests a conference next week, I believe that the Speaker will 
be prepared to appoint House conferees next week.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the leader for that observation and hopefully we 
can, in fact, move on that. We not only passed it last week but we 
passed it a number of times before that. Mr. Leader, I would simply 
observe on our side and, frankly, on your side that the Senate number 
is a number that I think our committee certainly and this House could 
well approve.

                              {time}  2030

  I know the President does not like that number, but very frankly, as 
the gentleman knows, our own committee almost unanimously on voice vote 
passed out an authorization figure at, I think, 375, so $80 billion 
more than the Senate-passed bill.
  I would certainly hope that the Congress could exercise its will. The 
Senate was at 218. We were at 284. Now it is a little bit in between 
that. I would hope that we could move this conference as quickly as 
possible. It has been held up a long time and has a significant 
consequence for jobs, as the leader knows, significant consequence for 
contractors, States, municipalities, localities, and we have been a 
long time waiting for this passage that is now some 2 years late.
  But I appreciate the leader's observation that we will appoint 
conferees next week, and hopefully perhaps the leader can help 
accelerate that conference so we can agree. And then the President, of 
course, will have to do what he thinks is best and make a 
determination, and then we might have a shocking event and he may veto 
a bill and send it back to us, and I am relatively confident we would 
work our will at that point in time.
  I do not know whether the leader wants to make an observation.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I would just say that the President has been 
criticized for not vetoing any bills over the last 4\1/2\ years, but it 
has become a tradition around here to include the President as we do 
legislation through the House and the Senate and therefore working out 
any of our differences so that he would not have to veto a bill, and I 
do not see that the highway bill is any different than anything else we 
have been doing for the last 4\1/2\ years. So he is obviously a major 
player in this process.
  The House, as the gentleman says, has expressed itself at a number. 
We think the President will sign the bill. The Senate has chosen to do 
otherwise. Hopefully, we can work this out in the conference committee 
so that the President will not have to mar his record by vetoing a 
bill.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I recall that Democrats, 
when they were in charge, had a slightly different perspective, 
believing we were a co-equal branch of the government. We would adopt 
our policies based upon what we believed to be in the best interests of 
this country, and that the President, as a co-equal branch of the 
government, would make his determination, and if we disagreed we would 
override his veto. As a matter of fact, I voted to override a number of 
vetoes that the previous Democratic President disagreed with us on.
  The gentleman is right. We do not seem to do that. We have a 4\1/2\-
year unblemished record, as the leader points out, of not doing 
anything that this President did not want us to do.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding to me.
  I would just point out to the gentleman that in the good old days 
that he refers to, yes, this House had a great reputation for wanting 
to spend more money, and those days have changed in that the President 
is adamant about spending and spending the right amount of money to do 
the job and the House has concurred in that many times and have voted 
in the House. And it has been a pleasure to work with the President to 
hold down spending and make sure that every dollar is spent properly.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, does the gentleman by any 
chance remember the ag bill?
  Mr. DeLAY. Which ag bill?
  Mr. HOYER. The ag bill that was passed some years ago. The President 
was not too excited about that spending level, as I recall. He signed 
the bill, nevertheless.
  Mr. DeLAY. He signed the bill.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I have been here for some period of time, as 
the leader knows, and the only bill that Ronald Reagan vetoed that was 
overridden by the Congress was a bill in which he said we did not spend 
enough money in 1983. He vetoed it because we did not spend enough 
money.

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