[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 19 (Wednesday, January 31, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H1113-H1116]
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.)

[[Page H1114]]

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader, 
for information about next week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 2 p.m. for legislative 
business. We will consider several bills under suspension. There will 
be no votes, however, until 6:30.
  On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 for morning hour business 
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 and Thursday, the House will meet at 10. In addition to 
suspension bills, we will consider H.R. 547, the Advanced Fuels 
Infrastructure Research and Development Act. Now, because we have come 
to a point where, as you know, the committees have just recently been 
fully organized, they are starting to have hearings but because we have 
not produced as much legislation, we have been dealing with a lot of 
work so far, I know the gentleman will be upset and my colleagues will 
be upset that they will have to work at home on Friday.
  I want to reiterate that. When Members are home, they are working. 
They are listening to their constituents. They are having town 
meetings. They are attending meetings. They are attending the chamber 
of commerce or the Lion's Club or the Rotary or the PTA.
  So that, although we will not be here on Friday, I want to assure the 
public that I know, I know that Mr. Blunt knows and every Member here 
knows that when they are not here, they are in their home, they are 
working on behalf of their constituents. So we will not be here on 
Friday as scheduled because the flow of work will not be ready for 
Friday that we can go through the regular order.
  As I have told the gentleman and his colleagues, we really do want to 
get to the regular order so that there are opportunities to consider 
bills in committees, report them through the Rules Committee, amend 
them on the floor and proceed as both sides, I think, would like.

                              {time}  1600

  Mr. BLUNT. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
the information.
  I don't want to belabor the point. I certainly do want to join him in 
sharing this sense of how hard our Members do work and where they work. 
We talked about this at great length a couple of weeks ago. And I think 
the early discussion of being on the floor of the House 5 days every 
single week was widely enjoyed by the late-night comedians and others. 
And I said at that time, and I still believe, our problem is not that 
the Members of Congress don't work 5 days a week.
  Frankly, our problem is that too many Members of Congress work 7 days 
a week. And on those times when we don't have work in Washington and 
can be in the district, people want to meet with Members in their 
office. It does give Members a chance to, during the normal workweek, 
relate to people, activities, and ongoing events that they otherwise 
can't relate to. I think almost all of our Members are more than 
willing to take time on a Saturday to meet with people who normally 
work Monday through Friday. Frankly, most of the people that you would 
want to meet with see that as a much greater imposition than the 
Members of Congress who really do work more than 5 days a week at home 
and in Washington. The work of the Congress is important work, and it 
doesn't all occur here on the floor of the House while we are voting, 
nor does it all occur in Washington.
  I would like to yield to my friend, the ranking member on the Rules 
Committee. He has an observation, I think.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  I congratulate both the majority leader and the distinguished 
minority whip for recognizing especially those of us who are in 
California.
  I have a whole series of meetings that I am going to be holding in 
California in the next couple of days, and it has been virtually 
impossible to hold any kind of weekday meeting with constituents 
because of the challenges that we have faced over the past month.
  And I know that our 3-hour workdays and then the half hour on a 
Friday have made it important to note that we have been working here, 
but it has made it virtually impossible to be able to hold, as I said, 
any weekday meetings in California.
  I would like to just raise a question, Mr. Speaker, to the 
distinguished majority leader about the issue of the schedule for next 
week. Now, it is my understanding that the legislation that we are 
scheduled to consider in the Rules Committee may come up under an open 
amendment process, allowing us an opportunity to have amendments 
proposed on the floor. The thing that concerns me is that while we have 
had a wide range of measures brought to the floor under suspension of 
the rules, I have looked back at this legislation that we are going to 
be addressing next week, and while it will be wonderful to have an open 
amendment process, it will be great if that, in fact, is going to be 
decided by the Rules Committee, it will be a wonderful thing to be 
seeing, but the fact is when this legislation was last considered, it 
was considered under suspension of the rules and passed unanimously 
without a recorded vote. A voice vote, in fact, was all that was 
necessary.
  So I will, just for the record, Mr. Speaker, say to the distinguished 
majority leader, and I thank the distinguished minority whip for 
yielding to me, that I am concerned about the notion of utilizing an 
open amendment process on a matter that is noncontroversial and very 
easily could be considered under suspension of the rules if it is being 
done solely for the purpose of saying, aha, we have moved beyond closed 
rules and we are now considering issues under an open amendment process 
when, in fact, there may not even be any amendments proposed because 
when this last came before us, it was considered under suspension of 
the rules.
  I thank my friend for yielding, and if you would like to yield to the 
majority leader to respond.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would be pleased to yield to my friend, the majority 
leader, for a response to that.
  Mr. HOYER. I will say to my friend this is such a difficult process 
on this side of the aisle. We considered last week a piece of 
legislation, and one of your Members went to the Rules Committee and 
asked for an amendment. We gave him an amendment, and then he wrote, 
apparently, and it caused a great deal of controversy, that we allowed 
the amendment and he really didn't want the amendment.
  So then we came to the floor with the amendment still allowed. Of 
course, he didn't have to offer it. Nobody was forcing him to offer it. 
But there was great consternation that we had allowed the amendment 
and, indeed, a substitute, which you apparently didn't want either. So 
it is very difficult for us. Now we bring a bill that has an open rule 
and it is so lacking in controversy that it ought to be perhaps a 
closed rule or a suspension.
  We will try to figure out what you really want, and when we do, we 
will try to do something that pleases you. We are having difficulty so 
far.
  Mr. BLUNT. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I think the point my good 
friend from California is making, and I would like to emphasize, is we 
hope we are now moving to rules that are open when possible, that allow 
amendments when an open rule is not possible. I think the point he was 
making was that hopefully this just isn't to go on the record and say, 
as my good friend just did, well, once we allowed you an amendment that 
the Member decided he didn't want and then you complained about that. 
We don't want this to be cited as, well, don't you remember the time we 
gave you the open rule on a bill that passed unanimously without 
amendment in the last Congress? It is time to move on.
  My good friend from Maryland knows my high regard for him, and I am 
going to do my very best, at these weekly opportunities to talk about 
the schedule, to not just complain about the process. But I do know 
that my friend, who has been here longer than I have and understands 
and appreciates the process in the House, knows that it is to 
everybody's advantage if we get to the place where we are debating 
these bills, where the ideas that are brought to the floor can stand 
the challenge of debate and amendment, and we need to get

[[Page H1115]]

there. As I said last week, I am prepared to look forward, as 
disappointed as I was about the way the previous few weeks have been 
handled, but there are only so many weeks that you can just be 
satisfied to think that, well, I am hopeful that next week will be 
better, and I guess here we would be hopeful that the open rule would 
not just be the example of the open rule we got on this kind of bill, 
but the beginning of real debate and real opportunity to amend in this 
Congress.
  I would like to yield again to my friend.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to say to the majority leader that I 
didn't bring up the issue of process, but since my very good friend and 
classmate from Maryland did bring up the issue of process, pointing to 
the fact that an amendment was made in order even when that Member did 
not want to have the amendment made in order, which was clearly stated 
in a letter that was submitted to the distinguished Chair of the Rules 
Committee, recognizing that that was an unprecedented move, because I 
will tell you, having served as chairman of the Rules Committee, time 
and time again, we would have Members testify before the Rules 
Committee, making a request that amendments be made in order, and then 
we would get a letter from that Member asking that that amendment be 
withdrawn, and every time we would immediately disseminate that.

  So the only reason that there was a great deal of consternation on 
the issue that my friend has raised is that the action that was taken 
by the Rules Committee was completely unprecedented. In fact, in all 
the research that we did, we were never able to find any instance that 
ever before, under either the Democratic majority or the Republican 
majority, had action like that been taken. So that led us to be 
concerned. Similarly, as we look at the prospect of moving ahead with 
very important legislation that passed unanimously without any 
amendment, I would simply say, Mr. Speaker, that to simply use, as the 
distinguished minority whip has said, that as an argument to say we 
provided open rules is, I think, a little bit of a stretch.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from California. 
Of course, the gentleman to which he refers, as he knows, voted for the 
rule. In addition, as the gentleman knows, we gave your side the 
opportunity to have unanimous consent to amend the rule. You chose not 
to ask for that. We would not have objected to it. It gives us both 
good talking points, I suppose, but I think the point of this whole 
discussion is we want to get beyond talking points.
  I say to my friend, and everybody in this House knows that Roy Blunt 
and Steny Hoyer are good friends who spend time together and respect 
one another, like one another. It is very difficult, I know, having 
been in your position for 4 years, not to take the opportunity to 
express grievances about what you believe is not being done that is 
fair to particularly the minority side. I understand that.
  I simply want to say that we intend, as we have said, and one of the 
reasons we are not meeting Friday is because we have told committees we 
want them to do the regular order, have hearings, have votes in 
committee, bring bills to the Rules Committee, allow amendments, and as 
a result, they have said that is going to take us a little more time. 
So we do not have work to do. And we are not going to hold Members 
here, as Roy Blunt and I have discussed, if we don't have work to do. 
But we are going to try to get to substance.
  I will say, for instance, on today's bill, we were very pleased that 
57 Members on your side of the aisle voted with us on this. It was not 
a bipartisan two or three or four or five or six Members. A quarter of 
your caucus, indeed over a quarter of your caucus, voted for this bill. 
It was a bill that we needed to get through on substance. We think that 
speaks well for the substance, and that is what we are really talking 
about. We want to get to substance in a fair way. And we want to work 
with you, Mr. Dreier.
  Certainly, I want to work with my good friend, the Republican whip, 
who is, I think, very sincere in his desire to make sure that we have 
legislation move through this body in a way that all the participants 
can feel they got a fair shot, whether they win or lose.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his response.
  I would say that while we don't want to debate the bill again that we 
voted on today, all of the Republicans voted for the motion that would 
have improved the bill. Certainly the option of the February 15 
deadline has impact. I don't even want to argue the point that some of 
our Members then voted for final passage, but all of our Members would 
have liked to have had a more wide-ranging debate on the points that 
were raised in the motion to recommit that all of our Members voted 
for.
  We also noted in the bill we just passed that rather than allocating 
funds to Members' committees and other offices of the House, this bill, 
essentially a bill that contained the funding for half of the 
discretionary spending, provided a lump sum in excess of $1 billion. I 
think the exact quote that I will refer to for the leader was ``to be 
allocated in accordance with the allocation plans submitted by the 
chief administrative officer and approved by the Committee on 
Appropriations.''
  A pretty wide-ranging ability to now set specific allocations and for 
the Appropriations Committee to approve those.
  I am wondering specifically, does the majority intend to use these 
funds to create a new committee that is not currently in existence or 
currently authorized?
  I will yield to my friend for a response.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Certainly, those dollars which are allocated in contemplation of the 
administrative officer having an ability after a change, obviously, in 
management, if you will, to some degree, to have some flexibility, and 
as they plan, we will have a better idea of how they are going to spend 
that money, which will obviously have to be approved in the funding 
resolution out of House Administration, brought to this floor and voted 
upon by the Members. But certainly, parts of that fund would be 
available if the House decided to create a committee. You refer to the 
Select Committee on, I am sure, Energy.
  Mr. BLUNT. I am. Or other select committees but that one, 
specifically.
  Mr. HOYER. Or other select committees, if the House chose to do that 
through whatever mechanism it chose to do that. Yes. The answer to your 
question is a portion of that money would be available for that 
objective.
  Mr. BLUNT. And if I understand what my good friend said, that money 
would be available, but would be authorized specifically by the funding 
resolution that would come from the House Administration?
  Mr. HOYER. Of course, any committee, select committee or otherwise, 
unless there was a separate bill appropriating money towards that 
committee, we would expect that to be in the funding resolution for 
committees out of House Administration.
  Mr. BLUNT. Again, reclaiming my time, just to be sure I am right on 
this, the funding resolution would come before the entire body before 
the appropriating committee would decide to do their allocation out of 
this one billion-plus dollars?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. HOYER. I don't know that that refers to all the money. That 
probably would not be accurate. And if I go further than I have already 
gone, I may be incorrect, and I don't want to misinform either you or 
the body because I have not talked to either House Administration or to 
Mr. Obey about the specific allocation of these funds. Obviously, if 
the CR passes, they are appropriated to this fund for the CAO under the 
language that you read subject to the Appropriations Committee's 
approval.

                              {time}  1615

  However, in terms of the select committee or committee, my 
expectation would be that that specific item, not necessarily other 
items, would be subject to the funding resolution out of House 
Administration and come to this body.

[[Page H1116]]

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time I have here, does the 
gentleman have a sense on the specific Select Committee on Global 
Warming and the Environment, or whatever it might be called, when that 
issue may come to the floor as a question?
  Mr. HOYER. Well, if it is included in the House Administration 
funding resolution, and I am not saying that it will be, it may be in 
some other vehicle. But, if it did, that usually comes middle of March, 
late March, so that the committees can have a sense of what their 
funding capabilities are.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that information. I am sure that all 
of our Members, as they hear the news about the ability to work in 
their districts on Friday, will be hoping to be on a plane Thursday 
night or Friday morning. I am not sure that I listened carefully to 
your sense of what would be the end of the day on Thursday since we 
would not be here on Friday. I am sure you said that, but if you would 
repeat.
  Mr. HOYER. I don't think I said a time on Thursday. As you know as 
well, perhaps better than I do over the last years, particularly as you 
were the leader, you cannot always predict the time frame. But I would 
hope on Thursday we would get out at a reasonable hour to facilitate 
Members returning home.
  Mr. BLUNT. Would you expect that the Thursday schedule would meet the 
standard that we have been trying to set on the Friday schedule, if we 
can at all?
  Mr. HOYER. Yes.
  Mr. BLUNT. That is all I need to know.
  Mr. HOYER. Let me retract that because I don't want to make a rule on 
that.
  Mr. BLUNT. I understand.
  Mr. HOYER. I want to have Members be very clear. If we are able to do 
our work within the time frame of Thursday, it may well be a late 
Thursday. When I say late, 5, 6, 7 o'clock Thursday, as opposed to 1 or 
2 o'clock. So I maybe answered too quickly on the Friday schedule. 
Because on Friday we very definitely will be trying to get out, as I 
have said, no later than 2 o'clock and as close to 1 as we can. That 
gives us 4 hours. As you know, we have agreed that we will go in at 9. 
So that gives us 4 hours of legislative time to work on Fridays.
  Committees, as I might tell my friend, you might be interested, the 
Government Operations Committee will be having hearings on Friday of 
next week, notwithstanding the fact that we are not here. So not only 
are they working at home, but there also will be people working here in 
Washington, notwithstanding the fact that we are not on the floor.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would also like to say, Mr. Speaker, as it might make 
that answer easier for the future, I did not mean in any way to set a 
standard for future weeks. But I was thinking in terms of this week, 
looking at 2 days of suspensions, 1 day of a bill that we have had on 
suspension before, even though it would have a rule, that I would think 
it would not be an unreasonable goal for us to set to get our, 
particularly our west coast Members, on the way home on late Thursday 
afternoon, rather than having to wait until Friday morning.
  But I would also assume, having done both of the jobs you have held 
in the last few months, that there will be times when we will not 
necessarily need to be here on Friday, but to meet that goal we may 
have to work late enough on Thursday that many Members would not be on 
Thursday flights. I clearly understand that.
  Mr. HOYER. I don't want to prolong this, but I do want to say that 
the gentleman is correct in terms of, that is why I answered glibly and 
quickly. So I think the gentleman may be correct. I don't want to 
pledge that, but he may be correct because of the factors that he has 
pointed out.
  I would say, in closing, that I know there has been some, joviality 
is a kind word, about what Mr. Dreier mentioned in the schedule getting 
out at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
  But I will say with all due respect to my friend, notwithstanding 
that joviality, we believe that the last 3 weeks in terms of what this 
House has done in terms of its ethical standards, in terms of dealing 
with the safety of Americans in the 9/11 bill, in terms of dealing with 
the minimum wage, energy, dealing with college costs, dealing with 
prescription drugs and dealing with stem cell research, dealing with 
passing a CR that has funding for work that sat on the tarmac, if you 
will, and never got off the ground to the President for approximately 
14 months or 13 months. We believe that we have provided a schedule in 
which we have done very substantial work. We hope the American people 
are pleased with that, and we continue to try to do that.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
  I know many of my colleagues on the floor assume that yielding that 
time gave you a good chance to talk about the last few weeks, and there 
are things to talk about. But I am sure you are getting plenty of 
discussion from all of the Members of the House, including the Members 
of the majority, about the schedule. I think that the determination for 
next week, which I believe would have been the first 5-day week we have 
had scheduled to work all 5 days, I think the determination of next 
week shows the leader's willingness to look at the facts of the week, 
rather than to be pinned down to a standard that doesn't necessarily 
let the Members do all of the work they need to do in the various 
places they need to do it. I am glad to see that change.

                          ____________________