[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.

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