[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 14 (Wednesday, January 24, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H913-H915]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM
(Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute.)
Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise to address the House for the purpose
of inquiring about next week's schedule, and I yield to my good friend,
the majority leader, Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
am glad that I am still his good friend. We are going to remain so.
On Monday, the House will meet at 2 p.m. for legislative business. We
will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. There will
be no votes before 6:30.
On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour debate
and noon for legislative business. We will consider additional bills
under suspension of the rules. A complete list of the suspension bills
for the week will be announced later this week.
On Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 o'clock. We will consider a
long-term continuing resolution. I want Members to hear that because on
Wednesday we will consider the long-term continuing resolution. We have
a continuing resolution which expires on February 15. The long-term
will cover approximately nine appropriation bills that failed to pass
in the last Congress and will fund most of government, other than the
Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department.
The House will not meet on Thursday and Friday next week in order to
accommodate the Democratic Members issues conference. I thank my friend
for yielding.
[[Page H914]]
Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for his response. I would like to
inquire further on the topic of the continuing resolution.
I know the appropriations chairman has said that that would be a
resolution that would not have earmarks in it. First of all, is that
still the position of the majority that there would be no specific
Member-oriented, district-oriented earmarks in this CR?
Mr. HOYER. I believe that that is essentially the case. The only
reason that I do not answer that absolutely is there are some earmarks
I think that are being looked at that have general application to the
operations of certain departments; but beyond that, the answer is yes.
Mr. BLUNT. And with that caveat, otherwise should we anticipate this
will be a CR that just extends the current CR? Would we expect to see
either policy or additional funding language in the CR?
Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. BLUNT. I yield.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
There are some problems that are raised because bills failed to pass,
military construction being one, the veterans being another, which have
put us in a position where if there is not additional language and
funding in the bill, and they are, of course, both as a result of the
earmarks not being funded and as a result of the caps not being met
that was in the Republican budget that passed but did not pass the
Congress, and the level of funding in the 2007 bills that did not pass,
there need to be some things in there that Mr. Lewis and Mr. Obey are
both aware of. As I understand, they are working together in a
bipartisan fashion. The staffs are working together.
So I will tell my friend, although I cannot tell you specifically
because they are still working on it, as you know from your past
experience that these are works in progress, that my expectation is
there will be additional funding for programs that will be very
adversely affected if they were required to go forward at 2006 levels
or the lower of the House- or Senate-passed bills.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that response.
I would ask further, if there are additions like that, which the
obvious place to determine the merits of those additions is the House
floor, will there be the opportunity for amendments and the ideas of
other Members to be advanced?
Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BLUNT. I yield.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
The answer to that question is we are working closely with the
Senate. The CR expires, as you know, on February 15. The Senate has a
very difficult challenge. I know that Mr. Reid is trying to work with
Mr. McConnell to figure out how they can do it.
What we are really trying to do is trying to see if we can have a
Senate and House agreement so that we can meet that February 15
deadline with this CR, which would not necessitate going back to a
subsequent CR; in other words, making this a CR through September 30 of
this year and take care of the 2007 funding cycle.
As Mr. Obey has indicated, the reason for that is we are now
proceeding on the 2008 cycle, and until we put the 2007 cycle behind
us, it is difficult to focus on that.
So I frankly don't have the answer to that question at this point in
time because those discussions are going on between the House and the
Senate.
Mr. Lewis and Mr. Obey are involved in what we are doing here, and we
are, after all, talking about nine bills, numerous departments and
agencies and objects, and frankly, if that bill is open to amendment,
CRs, as you know, generally come with closed rules, and they are clean
CRs usually, but even some nonclean CRs, and that is for the public's
sake, things that have additional items other than simply funding
levels at a given level, have been closed rules.
Obviously to try to get through nine different bills on the House
floor between now and February 25, much less February 15, if the bill
is open to amendment, as appropriation bills generally are, as you
know, would be something probably we would not be able to do. So that
is being discussed, trying to figure it out.
I don't have a definitive answer for you here on Wednesday, but I
want to tell you candidly that I believe there will not be a full
opportunity in the sense that there has been, and I am not sure that I
can represent to the gentleman that there will be an open rule.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for his response. In that regard,
normally when we have had a closed rule on a continuing resolution, it
has been a continuing resolution that did not include much or normally
nothing in new policy, and we will have to watch these circumstances
and hope that if there is a significant policy addition or significant
financial addition, there is the normal process that goes on with
appropriations bills to have a debate and a discussion about that. We
are hopeful that whatever this bill is, it is as narrow as it can be
and also that we get it out of the way as quickly as we can so that we
can get on with the appropriations work for the next year.
I understand the challenge this creates for the appropriators, but
the more we try to do the 2008 work in the 2007 bill, the harder that
is, I think, to move that bill along quickly as well.
{time} 1515
Let me ask one other question.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, if my friend would yield before he asks
another question, as my friend knows well, having not passed
appropriations bills, and, frankly, leaving in December without passing
appropriations bills was, of course, the other body's judgment, we
passed the bills through here except for the Labor-Health bill, we are
placed in an extraordinarily difficult position. We labored long and
hard, and I was then a member of the Appropriations Committee, on our
bills. We considered them here on the floor. There was debate. There
were amendments offered. They passed.
Frankly, the ideal, as you well know, would have been to have them
pass, go to conference and pass them through both Houses. But we are
now confronted with a lot of work product over a year on all of these
bills out of the Appropriations Committee now sitting, frankly, in
limbo with a deadline of February 15 to have a short-term CR, which we
are not for. We want to complete this business.
So we have a challenge that I think is relatively unique, given all
of this work product, of just not having a simple CR which says we do
'06 levels, because all that work product would be, A, down the drain,
and B, was responding to needs that the administration wants, that our
military wants, that our veterans want, that others need. So that is
the challenge confronting Mr. Obey and Mr. Lewis.
I know you appreciate that. The failure was not on this side of the
Capitol, but the fact of the matter is, wherever the failure was, we
are now confronted with trying to solve the problem.
I thank the gentleman.
Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate my good friend's comments in that regard too.
As my friend knows, I argued and he argued and others did in November
and into December that it would be so much better for this Congress if
we could have worked with the other body and get these bills done last
year. I regret that we didn't. I wanted to. I wanted to at least get
some of them done. I think all of our colleagues on this side were on
that side of the debate, or virtually all of us, and now we are faced
with this work.
One other topic I would like to bring up today, because we didn't get
to discuss it during the privileged motion, but I know my good friend
from Maryland cares about the House, cares about the procedures of the
House.
The topic that was raised earlier by the minority leader of an
amendment submitted to the Rules Committee and then the Member who
submitted it asked that it be withdrawn before the meeting; there may
have been a similar occasion in the past, we can't find one in our
research. I am hoping that was the fits-and-starts of a new Congress,
rather than a new standard.
Occasionally Members, and your Members did it often during the last
Congress, submit an amendment, realize as the debate develops and the
discussion goes on that that is not an amendment that is in their best
interests, or anybody else's, to be offered, and then request it be
withdrawn.
I think we honored on every occasion, I believe, and if we did not,
that
[[Page H915]]
is beside the point, my belief is on every occasion, if a Member wanted
to withdraw an amendment, we allowed that Member to do that. I hope
that will be the process from now on in this Congress as well. I would
be pleased to have your reassurance that we are headed in that
direction.
I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I certainly reassure
you we are moving in that direction, and I would hope that would be the
case. I hope the gentleman will take this as a very friendly
observation that in this case, the gentleman wouldn't take apparently
yes for an answer. We were going to give him an amendment.
As you know, the day before we had been bitterly criticized for not
giving amendments. I was not there and I did not participate in this
decision, but the committee was confronted with wanting to be in a
position to give an amendment. Then when they were told the gentleman
didn't want the amendment, they in effect took yes for an answer. The
gentleman did not.
I understand that. We want to accommodate that. You are absolutely
right. If a Member doesn't want to offer the amendment, he didn't have
to offer the amendment, he did not offer the amendment. Nobody has been
forced to offer an amendment. He was given the opportunity to do so.
But we do understand that Members make decisions that maybe that is
not what I want to do, and I would like to withdraw it. Certainly I
hope we will accommodate Members in the future.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank you for that response. I would hope that would be
the case. It has happened frequently. The gentleman has made no
suggestion that this is unique or no one has ever thought about this
before. It has happened frequently. When it has happened in the past,
generally submitted by Members on your side to a Rules Committee at
that time controlled by our side, when the Member said, wait a minute,
I've changed my mind, that was always honored, with no sense of no,
wait a minute; you put the piece of paper down, you now have to stick
with it, even though we haven't acted yet.
Mr. HOYER. I want to say, Mr. Leader, we also wanted to give you a
substitute, but you didn't want that either, and we didn't give you
that substitute, then, I guess.
In any event, your point is well taken, and I don't want to be
jocular about the fact. We really do want to make sure that you can
come to this floor and think you are being treated fairly and openly
and have an opportunity to make your legislative case. That is the way
this body ought to work.
I know the first 2\1/2\ weeks now we have been moving on an agenda,
rules changes and others, that we wanted to get done. As you know, some
of these have involved rules changes, as this particular bill did.
As you know, although Mr. Dreier talked about having hearings on
this, rarely does either side have hearings on the rules it presents.
The rules package is put together by the majority party and there
aren't hearings on it. It is offered on the floor and it is voted up or
down. In this case we offered your rules, as you know, as they were in
being in the 109th Congress. There were some additions we wanted to
make.
But your point is well taken. I share your view that we want to make
sure, whether we disagree, that you feel you got the opportunity on
your side of the aisle to make your case.
Mr. BLUNT. Well, I appreciate my friend's comments. We look forward
to that happening. I think we all will benefit from more debate, more
discussion. That has always been the desire here, and often the
minority doesn't feel like they get quite their opportunity to do that,
but we hope that we have an opportunity to do that and look forward to
moving to a process to where all the Members are involved, the new
Members.
Some of these issues, I will admit, that we have dealt with in the
last 2 weeks, in fact in the last Congress, the Congress I was in the
majority in, passed bills highly similar. But the 60 new Members didn't
get to participate in committee.
But that is behind us. I am prepared to look forward. I hope that we
have those opportunities. We will look carefully at the character of
the CR and hope that it is as minimal in its changes as possible and
that all the members of the Appropriations Committee are part of that
discussion.
____________________