[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 164 (Sunday, December 18, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H12172-H12176]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF MOTIONS TO SUSPEND THE RULES

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 631 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 631

       Resolved, That it shall be in order at any time on the 
     legislative day of Sunday, December 18, 2005, for the Speaker 
     to entertain motions that the House suspend the rules 
     relating to the following measures:
       (1) The bill (H.R. 1185) to reform the Federal deposit 
     insurance system, and for other purposes.
       (2) A bill to reauthorize the Temporary Assistance for 
     Needy Families block grant program through March 31, 2006, 
     and for other purposes.
       (3) The resolution (H. Res. 545) expressing the sense of 
     the House of Representatives on the arrest of Sanjar Umarov 
     in Uzbekistan.
       (4) The concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 284) expressing 
     the sense of Congress with respect to the 2005 presidential 
     and parliamentary elections in Egypt.
       (5) The bill (H.R. 4501) to amend the Passport Act of June 
     4, 1920, to authorize the Secretary of State to establish and 
     collect a surcharge to cover the costs of meeting the 
     increased demand for passports as a result of actions taken 
     to comply with section 7209(b) of the Intelligence Reform and 
     Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.
       (6) The bill (S. 1988) to authorize the transfer of items 
     in the War Reserves Stockpile for Allies, Korea.
       (7) The bill (H.R. 2329) to permit eligibility in certain 
     circumstances for an officer or employee of a foreign 
     government to receive a reward under the Department of State 
     Rewards Program.
       (8) A resolution honoring Helen Sewell on the occasion of 
     her retirement from the House of Representatives and 
     expressing the gratitude of the House for her many years of 
     service.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Latham). The gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Sessions) is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the 
purpose of debate only.
  This resolution provides that certain specified measures may be 
considered under suspension of the rules at any time on the legislative 
day of Sunday, December 18, 2005.
  Mr. Speaker, we are gathered here on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in 
Washington, D.C., December 18, 2005. We have had our priest to open up 
this beautiful House today, asking that America and Americans 
understand our responsibilities. We are here today because we still 
have work yet to be done, but there are people that we need to give 
thanks to.
  Mr. Speaker, our families expected us home weeks ago, but we are here 
because we have an obligation and a duty.
  Mr. Speaker, we are here today under protection of members of the 
Capitol

[[Page H12173]]

Hill Police Department, members of the United States military who 
protect our great country, our staffs, as well as the people who work 
for the United States House of Representatives who serve with honor and 
distinction. We deserve to give them thanks for all that they have done 
on what surely will be the last day of this first session of Congress. 
But there is still much work left to be done, and we recognize that we 
are here to do that.
  The Republican leadership of this House has set forth yet again a 
positive legislative agenda for the remainder of this week and the 
balance of this first session of the 109th Congress. The goal of this 
plan is to address a number of outstanding issues that still remain on 
Congress' calendar before we adjourn, and we must utilize this schedule 
to make sure we maintain our commitment to improving America's economic 
and national security.
  One of the things, Mr. Speaker, that sets America apart from other 
nations is that we do not expect others to do the work for us. We take 
part and get it done ourselves, and that is what this Congress is 
doing.
  Over the past year, we have passed a number of important new 
education, health care, trade, tax and national security bills that 
will keep America safer and healthier, create new jobs and improve our 
economy. This rule will allow the House to consider a number of 
additional bills today under suspension of the rules that will ensure 
that Congress can complete more additional work necessary before we go 
home for the holidays.
  This rule makes in order the consideration of eight bills under 
suspension of the rules. These bills will accomplish important domestic 
goals such as reforming the Federal deposit insurance system and 
reauthorizing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant 
program through March 31, 2006.
  The suspension authority allows us to consider necessary and 
noncontroversial items such as H.R. 4501, which amends the Passport Act 
in order to comply with the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism 
Prevention Act of 2004; a bill to authorize the transfer of items in 
the War Reserves Stockpile; and H.R. 2329, to allow an officer of a 
foreign government to receive an award under the Department of State 
Rewards Program under certain circumstances.
  This rule also recognizes the importance of democracy throughout the 
world. H. Con. Res. 284 expresses the sense of Congress with respect to 
the 2005 presidential and parliamentary elections in Egypt. Another 
resolution, H. Res. 545, expresses the sense of the House of 
Representatives on the arrest of Sanjar Umarov in Uzbekistan.
  Finally, we have a great opportunity today to honor a very dear 
friend of mine and a friend of this House, Helen Sewell, as part of the 
suspension calendar today. This resolution honors Helen for her 
outstanding service to the United States House of Representatives 
throughout her work in the Republican cloakroom. During this time, 
Helen has not only touched the lives of countless Members who have 
served in this body but also counts President Ford, former President 
George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush as good friends. It is an 
honor to stand here today and to join my colleagues in recognizing 
Helen Sewell for her over 70 years of service in the United States 
Congress.
  All of these bills scheduled for consideration today by the House 
leadership are on behalf of the American public who enjoy broad support 
from both Members of the majority and the minority parties.

                              {time}  1315

  This rule simply provides us with the tools needed to ensure that all 
of this important work is completed before we adjourn and leave 
Washington to join our families and our communities to celebrate the 
holidays. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle to support this noncontroversial and balanced bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Sessions) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself 
such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I do not object to this rule that will 
allow for the consideration of a number of suspension bills, and I 
expect that these bills, all of them, will be approved if not 
unanimously certainly overwhelmingly by this House.
  As we gather here today, the Sunday before Christmas and Chanukah, it 
is the process and the way the Republican leadership are running this 
House that I strongly object to. These last few days, in fact the 
entire year, I think is a great example of how not to run a government.
  Sometime today we expect to consider and vote on the Defense 
appropriations bill. No one will have time to read and examine the 
final product. We will not know what last-minute goodies are tucked 
into the bill. Mr. Speaker, we read news reports that drilling in the 
Arctic will be in the bill, but we do not know if ANWR is included 
because we have not yet seen it. And what drilling in Alaska's 
wilderness has to do with the Pentagon is beyond my comprehension, but 
there are some in the Republican leadership who do not care about the 
regular process and want to tuck this in the Defense bill because they 
know it cannot be enacted on its own.
  We also do not know exactly what else is attached to the Defense 
appropriations bill. Is there funding for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and 
Wilma? And if so, what are the details? Will there be funding for the 
prevention of a possible avian flu pandemic? Are there campaign finance 
reform provisions included in any of these bills? And if so, who 
approved them?
  And then there is the Defense authorization bill, which has been held 
up for much time because the White House did not want language in it 
that banned torture. This is the United States of America, Mr. Speaker. 
If we stand for anything, it is out loud and foursquare for human 
rights. And torture is something that we, as a civilized society and as 
a decent people, should reject.
  Now, the President, from news reports, has apparently now accepted 
the language by Senator McCain which would ban torture, which is a good 
thing. But some suspect that it is only because the Justice Department 
has assured him that he can get around the language banning torture, 
and that is a bad thing. But despite the apparent capitulation of the 
White House on the issue of torture, we still do not have a Defense 
authorization bill, and nobody can tell us why.
  We are also told a budget reconciliation bill will come up today. 
Does anyone have a clue what will be in that bill? This is a bill that 
will impact all of our citizens and could potentially have an adverse 
impact on the most vulnerable of our citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, whether you are a liberal, a conservative, or whether 
you want more government or less, I think most of us would agree that 
whatever government we have must be competent and responsive to the 
people. Now, the Republicans control all of government. They control 
the House of Representatives, they control the Senate, and they control 
the White House. It is clear that they are unable to be effective 
stewards of our government.
  Now, putting aside the corruption scandals that hang like a dark 
cloud over the Congress and the White House, what we see is an 
inability to govern. When Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast, the 
Federal Government responded miserably. The President put a political 
appointee in charge of FEMA who was incompetent. The President took 
responsibility, but ultimately the incompetence and cronyism of his 
administration led to a disaster that included the loss of many lives.
  On the war in Iraq: no weapons of mass destruction, no ties between 
the Iraqi government and al Qaeda, and no imminent threat to the 
security of the United States of America; yet we rushed into war. 
Whether the intelligence was manipulated or not, clearly this 
government did not do its job. It failed, and over 2,100 Americans are 
now dead.
  But now we are in Iraq, Mr. Speaker. We were there with no post-
invasion plan, we are there with no-bid contracts that have led to 
massive corruption and fraud, our soldiers lack the most basic 
protective equipment, and

[[Page H12174]]

with a chain of command that resulted in grave abuses of human rights 
by some of our own uniformed men and women and some of our Iraqi 
allies. Ultimately, the President again took responsibility. But, Mr. 
Speaker, with all due respect, I am tired of the speeches. I, like so 
many others, want genuine reform and change. I want accountability.
  This all brings me to this Congress. There is a reason why this 
Congress has only a 25 percent approval rating. It is because you are 
doing a lousy job. You are trashing the rules and regular order. The 
selling of legislation to the highest bidder, the hard-ball tactics 
against your own Members to win votes, your lack of oversight and 
demand for accountability from this administration, all that and more 
is catching up to you. People are watching. People do care. They 
believe that you cannot competently run this government, and they want 
the government back.
  The mess that we have before us cannot be blamed on Democrats. After 
all, as I have said, Republicans control everything. You cannot blame 
this on Bill Clinton, even though some of you try, because he has been 
gone now for a full 5 years. This is your fault. The battles going on 
behind closed doors are between your right wing and your far right 
wing. For those of us in the minority, and many on your side who want 
good government, this is a frustrating period.
  Mr. Speaker, nobody denies that leadership of Congress is a hard 
task, but either you live up to the responsibilities or you acknowledge 
it is time for a change. After this sorry year, it is time for a 
change.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from 
Massachusetts, who has very well articulated some of the differences 
that exist in this body. Our ability to work through those differences 
is why we come to work.
  We recognize and know that we began this year with a presentation of 
the State of the Union by the President of the United States who 
clearly outlined those things which would be important goals for the 
year, not only for Congress but for the American people and certainly 
those things that deal with the war in Iraq.
  My party, the Republican Party, has been very conscientious about 
those things which we believe we told the American people that we would 
do last November. We reiterated we would not raise taxes, as the 
Democrat Party wanted to do. We indicated that we would not cut and run 
from the war, which is what many people in the Democrat Party want to 
do. We recognize that those things that are ahead of us are very 
difficult choices that have to be made.
  We have concentrated our activities on an attempt to streamline the 
budget process and make ourselves available to working with government 
for more efficiency. We accomplished for the first time this year a 
chance for all of our appropriations bills to be done by the July 4 
break. Given the world as it was, that was a great idea. But we then 
were struck with a number of the largest hurricanes that have ever hit 
the United States of America, the largest storms in the history of the 
world.
  We have worked through adversity. It has not been easy. It has caused 
great consternation throughout the United States. But I am pleased to 
tell you that this Congress has still come to work, we have debated the 
ideas, and it is the Republican Party that has the responsibility as a 
result of our being the majority party to come up with a plan of how to 
lead.
  We have attempted to work as much as possible with the President of 
the United States and with our colleagues on the other side of the 
Capitol in the United States Senate on those things that would empower 
America. One of those things which we think we have done a very good 
job on is to say that we disagree with the rhetoric that says we have 
to raise taxes; that we have to increase spending; that we have to have 
government to be the answer.
  We still reject those ideas here on what we think will be the last 
day of the first session of the 109th Congress; I still reject that in 
the face of adversity from the Democrat Party and those elements today 
who bring their case forward. We respect those thoughts and ideas. I 
respect very much the disagreement that we have in the Rules Committee 
on a regular basis. The articulation not only by the gentleman from 
Massachusetts but by others is very measured and very well said. 
However, we simply disagree with that; and that is why we will proceed 
the way in which we do. I respect our colleagues who bring adversity 
and their thoughts to the floor, and we will continue to do that today.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Kucinich), I just want to say a couple of things.
  First of all, we are here 3 weeks after the Republican majority said 
we were to adjourn, in part because they have not done a very good job 
of getting our business done.
  Secondly, we can argue about priorities and we can argue about 
policies, and that is all fine and good; but one of the issues that I 
raised is the issue of competence. When we have disasters in this 
country, like Hurricane Katrina, the response of the Federal Government 
was miserable. It demonstrated a stunning incompetence that I am not 
sure has been fixed yet. People are still not getting response from the 
Federal Government in the Gulf States that they, quite frankly, 
deserve.
  Thirdly, in terms of debate and how legislation is brought to the 
floor, I think that is another failure of this Congress. We do have 
debates in the Rules Committee, sometimes at weird hours, where not a 
lot of people get to hear them. But routinely, on major pieces of 
legislation, they are brought to the floor with very little advanced 
notice. Oftentimes, people do not have a chance to review what is in 
the legislation.
  That is going to happen today with the Defense appropriations bill. 
No one will have an opportunity to review it. We will find out in a 
week or 2 weeks from now, because some Washington Post reporter or New 
York Times reporter or L.A. Times reporter will dig into it and find 
all these little goodies that none of us have a chance to know about in 
advance. That is not the way things should be done.
  The Rules Committee, for example, routinely shuts us out of offering 
amendments to important pieces of legislation. We had a controversial 
resolution on Iraq that was on the floor the other day, and yet an 
alternative that was proposed by the ranking member of the 
International Relations Committee was deemed out of order. We had a 
pension reform bill that some of us had issues with, and we were denied 
a substitute.
  On major bills that matter, we are shut out; and we are oftentimes 
not allowed the opportunity to try to get our points of view across on 
the House floor. And I would say that I think the American people are 
starting to catch on to that, and they do not like that form of 
government. This is supposed to be a deliberative body where important 
issues get debated.
  Again, I have no problem with the suspensions that are being brought 
up here today. But in comparison to some of the issues that are facing 
this country, from poverty to the war in Iraq, to health insurance and 
the high price of gas, what we are talking about now is killing time 
with some relatively trivial matters. There are more important issues 
before us.
  The deficit. You have accumulated the biggest deficit in the history 
of the United States of America as a result of your policies. That is 
not a success story, in my opinion. Again, we can differ on policies, 
but let us approach this legislation in a responsible way, and that 
means giving all sides, including people on your side, who have 
differences of opinion the opportunity to be able to debate these 
things fully on the House floor.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts for 
yielding me this time, and I continue invoking this question about 
rules and the climate that exists in this House where on one hand we 
feel we can come together on some things by unanimous consent and by 
facilitating the work of this House, and sometimes it is the right 
thing to do; and other times on rules we understand, and we are still

[[Page H12175]]

waiting for a rule which would facilitate including the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge in a Defense appropriations bill, and that would be a 
distortion of the purpose of the rules of the House.
  It leads to the greatest fears of the American people that they 
cannot get an up-or-down vote on something of a critical policy nature 
which relates to not only the past but the future of this country.

                              {time}  1330

  I want to say that as we stand here in this season of peace and 
goodwill towards all, we need to reflect on how rules create a climate 
that can either achieve peace or go in the opposite direction. I agree 
with my colleague from Massachusetts that war is an issue here.
  Now, there are some who say we are not in Iraq for oil. I would take 
issue with that. The drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge makes the connection between war and energy policies and 
exploitation. I would suggest we need to move to a new paradigm, where 
we can achieve peace through alternative energies through wind and 
solar and geothermal and biomass and green hydrogen, where we can 
achieve peace through conservation.
  Yet today, through a change in the rules, we will see a bill brought 
before us that will enable drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge. It is not only not necessary that we do that, because we all 
understand that this is a nonrenewable source of energy, there is an 
endpoint, but we also need to understand there are moral implications. 
There is a moral dimension to the plan to drill in the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge. This plan will lead to the destruction of the humble, 
natural way of life, the religion, the culture and the health of the 
Gwich'in Tribe, which for more than 20,000 years has lived on their 
ancestral lands in harmony with the natural world.
  Now, many of us observed our religious traditions today. Every day 
the Gwich'in observes their religious traditions in the Arctic in 
harmony with the natural world. The drilling for oil in the coastal 
plain of the Arctic Refuge called by Gwich'in the sacred place where 
all life begins will disrupt the caribou calving grounds, and it will 
lead to long-term decline not only of the herd but of the Gwich'in 
Tribe, which depends on that porcupine caribou for its survival.
  We cannot minimize this. The Gwich'in have a basic human right to 
survive. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women 
are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable 
rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
  Well, the bill to drill in the Arctic Refuge will deprive the 
Gwich'in of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 
Christian teaching tells us to do unto others as we would have them do 
unto ourselves. We learn from other spiritual insights that what we do 
unto others we actually do to ourselves.
  We cannot in the consciousness of the true American spirit, of 
everything this country is said to stand for from its inception, return 
to a history of exploitation of native peoples any more than we could 
return to a history of slavery or a history of exploiting women where 
women had no rights.
  We must take our stand now. Now we have to change the path we are on 
by changing who we are. When we perpetrate acts of violence unto 
others, we are damaging ourselves as humans. We cannot do this to the 
Gwich'in Tribe. We cannot do this to the Arctic Refuge because it will 
destroy the land, it will destroy their herd, it will destroy the 
Gwich'in Tribe, and another part of the true America will die.
  Mr. Speaker, we must not only be in the search for alternative 
energy, we must begin a search for an alternative way to live. We have 
to escape this cycle of destruction. It is time for us to reconcile 
nature.
  Here we are in a season of peace and goodwill towards all. We must 
begin today to find a new path to peace on Earth with our native 
brothers and sisters, with the Gwich'in and with ourselves.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, we have had an opportunity again today to 
hear wonderful debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, the 
gentleman from Cleveland, speaking about some of those things which he 
deeply believes in. I also have a deep belief that we should be 
drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
  The American way of life, our ability to have energy independence, 
the opportunity for us to be able to explore for and find energy will 
determine, in my opinion, the success or failure of the economy of the 
United States. I do understand that many people who talk about this new 
way of life simply want us to ride bicycles and to destroy our economy 
to where we are no better or no worse than a Third World nation.
  America, I believe, has set itself on a course where we believe that 
there is no problem bigger than a solution, and that we will find those 
avenues through research and development that can lead us on. An 
example of this would be we have utilized technology in our past for 
some 25 years. We have used about 21 million barrels of oil a day. It 
has been about constant what our utilization has been in the United 
States, and yet we continue to grow our economy. We continue to utilize 
these things with an increased population through efficiency.
  The gentleman from Ohio had a chance to vote for a comprehensive 
energy bill just this year, a comprehensive energy bill that would put 
the Federal Government at the apex, at the forefront of making sure 
that we would lead the way through the government of finding and 
utilizing new technologies. The government will create a critical mass 
as a result of the spending which we will do to change government 
buildings and the way we do business to the most efficient forms that 
are available to us now and to create the future.
  But I would say that this body, Mr. Speaker, needs to be mindful of a 
future that we are not afraid of, that the past which some of our 
Members would want us to go to find this opportunity for a new world 
with tribes and with global people who have been incapable of solving 
their own problems and addressing change is not the direction we should 
go.
  We need to support an economy. We need to move forward to make sure 
we are solving the world's problems. Poverty and hunger are still 
problems in this world. We have opportunity today, as we handle bills, 
to solve some of the most basic problems through research and 
development, through medicine, and the opportunity for us to go to 
world leaders like Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, a leading 
edge in technologists and research and development people, people out 
at Stanford University Medical Center, like Dr. Bill Mobley, who are 
looking at genes and gene therapy and the opportunity through research 
and development to solve problems.
  These problems, Mr. Speaker, are what America develops and spends 
their precious resources on to help the people of the world.
  Yes, we know that there are people who want to go back and who want 
us to ride bicycles everywhere we go and to have an economy that is far 
different and do not do trade with the world, and isolate America, and 
cut and run from the war, and do not accept the responsibilities of the 
world leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, I reject that thought process. I believe it will be done 
through the constant prodding and leadership of this House of 
Representatives, through our Speaker, Dennis Hastert, and through 
committee chairman like David Dreier from the Rules Committee, who give 
of themselves some 27 years of service as Mr. Dreier has given. Yes, we 
will even talk about years of service for Helen Sewell, who for over 70 
years came to work almost every day for the benefit of America's 
future.
  This is simply an experiment that we are engaged in, Mr. Speaker. 
There is no blueprint. There is no direction to say how we will handle 
things in the future, for we know not, any of us, what lies ahead of 
us.
  But I have the confidence that the Republican Party and the things 
which we have done and will do will lead this great Nation, and the 
people will understand a vision, and we shall not perish. In God we 
trust.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

[[Page H12176]]

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. I would respectfully suggest to my friend, this isn't 
about returning to just riding bicycles. This is about getting off a 
treadmill, a treadmill of dependence on oil, which leads us inevitably 
to war, which leads us to the destruction of the global climate, which 
leads us to separation from each other.
  We are in a moment right now where we are going to determine the 
future of this country and we cannot maintain our economic power in the 
world if we continue to rely on oil, because it is a nonrenewable 
source of energy. That is why drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife 
Refuge is a false solution, in addition to being a violation of the 
human rights of the Gwich'in. There is no need to distort what this 
debate is about.
  You know, we are in Iraq because of oil. We are not signing the Kyoto 
Climate Change Treaty because of oil. We ought to realize this world is 
interconnected and interdependent, that we are one with the world. The 
sooner we understand that, the sooner we end this separation, which 
puts us in a position where we have our troops right now the Middle 
East at war. We need to change our direction.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me end as I began here with a plea 
that we strive for a better process. This is not the way we should be 
running our government, bringing bills to the floor at the last minute 
without having given people the opportunity to read what is in them. We 
should have learned last year. When the Republican majority brought a 
bill to the floor, we had to meet again and fix it because someone 
snuck a provision in there that would allow certain Members of the 
Congress and their staffs to be able to review people's IRS records. We 
went back and quickly fixed that after it became public that it was in 
the bill.
  We can do so much better than what we see going on right here at this 
present time. I think this more than anything else is one of the 
reasons why I think we need a change of leadership in the Congress. I 
think there needs to be checks and balances. There aren't checks and 
balances right now. There needs to be oversight, there needs to be 
accountability.
  We need to do the people's business in a more deliberative way. We 
have to move away from this pattern of locking people out of 
opportunities to be able to participate in debates and offer their 
amendments.
  Mr. Speaker, having said all of that, we have no objection to this 
rule that will allow for filler between now and the time that some of 
these important conference reports come to the floor.
  I will close with this. I think every one of our colleagues needs to 
know that you are not going to know what is in any of these bills that 
are coming to the floor. You will find out in the newspapers. That is 
not the way this government should run.
  Having said that, we have no problem with the rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts 
for the opportunity for us to be here today and his collegial support 
of this rule. The gentleman very clearly understands as a result of his 
career that he has spent not only serving as a member of professional 
staff but also as a Member of Congress that Congress does engage in a 
lot of issues and ideas.
  I would submit to him two things: Number one, that the process that 
we are going through is not perfect. It has existed this way because we 
have chosen the form of government that we have whereby two bodies get 
together on pieces of legislation that are of importance. This is 
something that we have lived through for a long period of time.
  I would say to the gentleman that I respect his disagreement about 
how we should do everything in the day, and in the light of day and 
hold everything for days and let everybody know. In fact, almost every 
single piece of any bill has been debated and voted on. There are 
positions that Senators and Members of this House have taken that I 
hope are included. I hope that even though they may not be something 
that was completely understood by one body or another, they were well 
thought through thoughts and ideas that would be contained.
  I believe that the idea of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one 
that has been debated in this country for over 10 or 12 years. It is 
time for resolution. For someone that does not understand that putting 
this on the DOD bill would be appropriate, I wonder who uses more 
energy than anyone, and it would probably be the Department of Defense. 
I think there is an intrinsic interest in us making sure that our own 
security of this country is participated in by and as a result of this 
being on the bill.
  Mr. Speaker, lastly, I disagree with those who say that we need a 
change of leadership.

                              {time}  1345

  I do recognize that the other side, the Democrat Party, has different 
ideas about how to do things. But I am proud of my leadership, and I 
believe that the service of Dennis Hastert and those that are committee 
chairmen and those that are part of our leadership have stood the test 
of time to make sure that we are open and ready to do business, that we 
have the leading-edge thought process of this great Nation, that we are 
open to hearing from those who can help lead us to the greater 
pathways, and lastly, that we work with those constitutionally elected 
officials in a process to make sure that our Constitution is alive and 
well and a model to the world.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud of Dennis Hastert and his leadership of this 
House of Representatives and those Members, whether they be from Iowa, 
Texas, California or Massachusetts, who come to this great body for 
service to this great Nation. Once again, I am proud of that which we 
do.


                   Amendment Offered by Mr. Sessions

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Sessions of Texas:
       Add at the end the following:
       (9) The bill (H.R. 797) to amend the Native American 
     Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996 and 
     other Acts to improve housing programs for Indians.
       (10) The bill (H.R. 358) to require the Secretary of the 
     Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the 50th 
     anniversary of the desegregation of the Little Rock Central 
     High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and for other purposes.
       (11) The resolution (H. Res. 456) expressing support for 
     the memorandum of understanding signed by the Government of 
     the Republic of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement on 
     August 15, 2005, to end the conflict in Aceh, a province in 
     Sumatra, Indonesia.
       (12) The concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 275) 
     expressing the sense of Congress regarding the education 
     curriculum in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, again I urge my colleagues to join me in 
supporting this rule to provide that suspensions will be in order at 
any time on the legislative day of December 18, 2005.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the amendment and on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Latham). The question is on the 
amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions).
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution, as 
amended.
  The resolution, as amended, was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________