[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 64 (Friday, April 20, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H3714-H3718]
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. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring about 
next week's schedule, and I yield to my friend from Maryland, the 
majority leader.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  On Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour 
business and 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 p.m.
  On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour 
business and at noon for legislative business. We will consider 
additional bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of 
those bills, Mr. Speaker, will be available by the end of business 
today. We will also expect to consider H.R. 362, the 10,000 Teachers, 
10 Million Minds Science and Math Scholarship Act; and H.R. 363, Sowing 
the Seeds through Science and Engineering Research Act.
  On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. on both 
those days. On Friday, no votes are expected, and Friday is not 
scheduled at this date. We will consider H.R. 1332, the Small Business 
Lending Improvements Act; and H.R. 249, a bill to restore the 
prohibition on the commercial sale and slaughter of wild free-roaming 
horses and burros.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for that information.
  Last evening we did appoint conferees to the conference on the 
emergency supplemental for the war. Would we expect to have a 
conference report, do you think, sometime next week? I think it has 
been 94 days now since the President requested that, and I am wondering 
if we would anticipate a conference report anytime next week.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BLUNT. I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Of course, as he knows, it was only 38 days ago that the President 
made his last request for an addition to the supplemental, and 94 days 
sounds like longer than I think it has been. But notwithstanding that, 
we do expect the supplemental to be on the floor next week. That is our 
expectation. If things go as we hope, the supplemental will be on the 
floor, and, hopefully, we can get that to the President either very 
late next week or no later than a week from this coming Monday. We 
think that is important.
  As you know, you and I and others were down at the White House to 
discuss whether there was room for agreement and accommodation on this 
issue. We are still having those discussions, as you know, and we are 
hopeful that that can be reached.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for that response. And we 
would hope to see that bill next week on the floor or as soon as 
possible because there is some great likelihood from that White House 
meeting that the gentleman mentioned that there is going to have to be 
a second bill if we can't resolve these issues that lead toward a veto.
  On one of those issues we did yesterday, the House voted on the 
motion to instruct the conferees to sustain the House position. Does 
the gentleman have any information on the likelihood of the House or 
Senate view of the deadline issue that we discussed yesterday?
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for 
his question. And, frankly, I don't want to anticipate what the 
conferees are going to do, having been appointed just last night. There 
was a vote on the House floor. Frankly, the vote would have had no 
effect whether it passed or

[[Page H3715]]

failed in light of the fact that it instructed the House to do what it 
had already done. So if it had failed, presumably the House was going 
to be in the same position that it otherwise would have been in.
  But notwithstanding that, I don't want to anticipate what the 
conferees are going to do in light of the fact that they have just been 
appointed, but I do know that the chairmen of the conference on both 
sides, House and Senate, want to see this matter resolved quickly, sent 
to the President, would want to see the troops funded. We were very 
pleased to see the Department of Defense make it very clear, as, 
frankly, General Speer and General Ward made clear to me in Europe, 
that funding is available and will be able to be accommodated through 
June.
  As the gentleman knows, last year when the President made a request 
for a supplemental, that was not passed until mid-June, that 
supplemental. So I was pleased to see the Department of Defense 
indicate that that would be okay. It is not perfect. That is not what 
they would choose, but, in any event, through the month of June. We 
hope to get this work done long before that.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that answer, Mr. Speaker. I hope 
we can. I think we do need to continue to talk about how we ultimately 
resolve this issue.
  Now, in the information that I am getting from both the Defense 
Department and our Members that have military installations is that 
while the war effort, itself, with lots of changing of categories of 
money and determinations of money around may be very well up through 
June, that the defense effort generally is impacted because money that 
would have been spent for National Guard training or money that would 
have been spent to pay obligations to a contractor are not available in 
this process.
  Now, the last time Secretary Gates, at least, who was not Secretary 
at the time, said that the spend-out was not quite as quick, and he 
also said that the need was not quite as critical. But the gentleman is 
absolutely right in pointing out that last time this process took a 
long time, and one of the reasons it took a long time was that the 
House leaders, the majority leaders at that time, were in conflict with 
the Senate about additional spending. I don't see any of those 
discussions, frankly, going on, but the additional spending last time 
at $14.5 billion did not occur because the House leaders wouldn't 
accept that and we passed the bill in the House last time a month after 
the President sent the request up, and then it was a number of months, 
almost 4 or 5 months, before we got a final bill because we were 
fighting that additional spending, and at some point we are going to 
have to also engage not just on the issues of deadlines and whether or 
not we are micromanaging the effort, but the additional spending was 
the real problem last time. I would like to think that there was some 
effort going on there. I don't know that there is.
  My next question, though, is that the gentleman's goals for the 
appropriations process really would require us to pretty quickly move 
on the budget itself. We missed a deadline that we often miss. I don't 
want to belabor that point, but that April 15 deadline we normally had 
to hit if we had a real opportunity to get the bills out of the House 
by the Fourth of July, which we did in the first part of the last 
Congress and all but one of the bills in the second part of the last 
Congress.
  What is your sense of where we are on the conferees for the budget 
and a final budget document?

                              {time}  1215

  Mr. HOYER. Obviously, we are very hopeful that we will pass a budget, 
that we will pass a budget in a timely fashion. As you know, we did 
pass a budget through the House in a timely fashion. The Senate passed 
its budget. It is now in conference.
  Because of the April break, Easter-Passover break, we have not 
reached the April 15th. As a matter of fact, I talked to Mr. Conrad 
just an hour ago, I talked to Mr. Spratt just an hour ago, and we are 
very hopeful that we will come to an agreement.
  I would observe, of course, last year the disagreement was between 
the Republican leadership in the Senate and the Republican leadership 
in the House. I understand what the gentleman is saying. Some of the 
votes in the Senate were overwhelming and bipartisan in terms of some 
of these issues. So this is an issue that we've got to overcome. We 
hope we can overcome it and move the budget.
  But I want to tell the gentleman, he is absolutely correct. I am very 
focused. Mr. Obey is very focused. We are going to pass appropriation 
bills in a timely fashion. We hope to finish by the 30th of June. Very 
frankly, the more quickly we can move appropriation bills, perhaps the 
more flexibility we will have in June's schedule. But as you know, June 
now is scheduled for every Monday and every Friday meeting to effect 
that business, which is critical.
  As the gentleman knows, we met last year for the full year. We left 
here in December and nine of the 11 appropriation bills were unpassed. 
We don't want to be in that position. The gentleman knows, and I know, 
that part of that problem was the Senate's inability to move its 
business as quickly as we would like, as quickly as we did. The Labor-
Health bill, of course, never passed this floor last year, but we are 
hopeful that that will happen.
  I will go over the schedule of the appropriations process with the 
gentleman at some point in time. We are hopeful that mid-May to the end 
of June we will pass our appropriation bills. I will tell the gentleman 
it will be my intention to discuss with both Chairman Spratt and 
Chairman Obey that if the budget process cannot be resolved, not in 
this House, but in the other House, that it would be my hope that the 
House would mark its bills to the House-passed number, as you know we 
have done in the past; and that would certainly be my intention.
  Again, I have not discussed that with Mr. Obey at this point in time, 
that's premature, nor have I discussed it with others, but we are 
hopeful to move ahead on the appropriation bills.
  As you know, passage of the budget has a much greater impact in the 
Senate than it does in the House with respect to the rules process 
under which appropriation bills are considered in the Senate.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for sharing that with me. And 
certainly there were occasions where we had to do exactly what the 
gentleman is suggesting, and that is always one option. At some point, 
based on the meeting the deadlines we hope to meet and you hope to meet 
on the calendar, you have to decide whether that is the option you have 
to go to or not, as opposed to a conference report that we can agree to 
that lets us move forward that way.
  I would also like to repeat one of the comments the gentleman made 
simply because we don't get much credit here or didn't get much credit 
for efforts we did make to control spending. And you are absolutely 
right, a year ago at this time the fight was between the Senate, which 
was led by Republicans at the time, and the House that was led by the 
Republicans on that additional spending.
  And I just want to make the point that you already made once, but we 
don't hear it emphasized very often, but that was the fight. House 
Republicans did win, and we spent $14.5 billion less than our friends 
on the other side intended to spend, offered to spend, wanted to spend; 
and that is what that time frame was all about.
  We do, I believe, have more concerns in overall defense spending just 
because the spend-down has been quicker this year than last year, and 
Secretary Gates, not me, would be the source for that view of the 
difference in the 2 years. But clearly, the process, as the gentleman 
rightly pointed out, is never as easy as we want, as quick as we want, 
and there are obstacles there.
  I would like to, before we conclude today, ask a couple more 
questions. One is the concern that I have and many of our Members have 
on the rule that was used this week to waive PAYGO for the D.C. bill 
and to create a new obstacle for Members who hope to offer a motion to 
recommit.
  Twelve years and, now, a few months ago, when Republicans took 
control of the House, they extended the motion to recommit to the 
minority at that time and never failed to offer that motion to recommit 
under the traditions of the House. I believe, while it often was not

[[Page H3716]]

allowed the minority in previous years, never in either previous times 
or the last 12 years was an actual tabling motion put in the rule, 
which creates a different circumstance intentionally, but a different 
circumstance than was ever created in this House before.
  And I wonder really two things: Would that tabling motion be 
something that we will see again? And also, would we expect to see the 
PAYGO effort in the future waived for the principal reason to be on the 
floor and handled in a separate vote and a separate piece of 
legislation, like we did this time?
  Is that now the anticipated norm for this process, Mr. Leader?
  Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BLUNT. I would.
  Mr. HOYER. The gentleman and I have a slightly different perspective 
on what the rule provided.
  First of all, as you know, motions to recommit were available in both 
of the bills that were on the floor. The tabling referred to that, if 
the second bill had not been adopted or the PAYGO provision had not 
been adopted, they would both be tabled. The reason for that was, we 
wanted to be consistent with our pledge to the PAYGO principle.

  What we didn't want, what I don't want, and you and I have discussed 
this, is, I'm frankly ``perplexed,'' might be the word, as someone who 
has been in the legislative body for some 40 years; and I think the 
parliamentarians were accurate in their determination of germaneness, 
but germaneness has always meant to me in 40 years, I will tell my 
friend, that it is pertinent to the subject at hand.
  You know that when you add a PAYGO provision, which frankly you 
abandoned on your side in 2002, you did not want to be constrained by 
PAYGO. I understand why you didn't want to be constrained by PAYGO 
because you couldn't pay for your tax cuts. You talked about spending. 
We've cut revenues very deeply. There were different philosophical 
arguments about that; but the fact is, they were not paid for, and as a 
result, the deficits have in large part expanded very greatly.
  With respect to the rule, yes, the rule was structured in a way that 
limited to the subject matter at hand, whether it was the tax bill or 
the D.C. voting rights bill, motions to recommit to those subjects, as 
opposed to expanding to subjects that, frankly, from my perspective, 
are used for political purposes.
  I will tell my friend that the motion last night and the motion on 
the previous D.C. bill had nothing to do with D.C. voting rights. And 
last night's bill had everything to do with trying to focus on our 
Members being targeted. And, in fact, the memorandum that you sent--not 
you, but somebody sent around to all of your Members expressed the 
purpose of your motion to recommit to target Members for political 
reasons, from my perspective.
  In that context, if you are asking me if it is my intent in the 
future to try to limit you from doing that, the answer to that question 
is ``yes.'' If your question is, do I want to make sure that you have a 
motion to recommit with or without instructions, a motion to recommit, 
of course, kills the bill, as the motion to recommit to report back 
promptly kills the bill.
  The irony is, the gentleman from North Carolina offered a motion to 
recommit the other day with respect to guns that related to the 
District of Columbia. Excuse me, I'm not sure it related directly to 
the District of Columbia, which would have had the perverse effect of 
offering the amendment and, if adopted, would have killed the amendment 
in the same process. That is because it was referring it back to 
committee. The committee would not have reported out that amendment.
  If he had really been interested, in my opinion, in passing that 
amendment, as opposed to politically giving a vote that was difficult 
for Members on our side of the aisle, what he would have done is moved 
his gun amendment to be reported back forthwith and had his vote on 
that up or down.
  But I will tell my friend, as he well knows, I want to make sure that 
from my perspective, and I have told him, I will not suggest a change 
in the rules, we did not change the rules, there was some discussion 
about that, without discussing it with him. I want your side to feel 
that you are getting a fair shot at relevant motions to recommit with 
or without amendments that do not kill the bill in the process. I don't 
think that is something that is unfair to expect.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, I thank my friend for that.
  But I do think in that view of this that there is a significant 
restriction of the rights available to Members. Members have to defend 
what they do on the floor. Let me make a couple of points.
  One is, in the incident you mentioned when the gentleman from Texas 
offered a motion to recommit well within the rules, and, by the way, in 
that case and many other cases the only option that the minority has 
had has been the option of last resort, unless you take that away, 
which was the motion to recommit. All of our amendments were rejected; 
no matter how germane they might have been, they were not allowed.
  The Members of the House are the ones who have the opportunity to 
decide what is the right vote and what's not. And, in fact, stopping 
that vote offered under the rules by a Member in good faith I think was 
a violation of that Member's rights as a Member of the House.
  Now, you could have had that vote, it might have killed the bill, but 
you could have started a new bill just like you did anyway. The only 
difference would have been that the Member of the House that brought 
the issue to the floor would have had his full rights as a Member to 
have his issue not only debated, but voted on. And we were literally 
seconds from actually having that vote, which under the rules of the 
House would have sent the bill to the committee promptly.
  There may have been no way to leave the committee with that bill, but 
you could have started a new bill just like you did. The only 
difference would have been that the gentleman from Texas would have had 
his motion voted on, as I believe he had a right to.
  On the other issue, we did have PAYGO for 8 years of the 12 years we 
were in the majority. We complied with it. We still never took away the 
ability of your side to do just what you said we shouldn't be able to 
do.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield on that issue?
  Mr. BLUNT. Let me finish the thought, and then I will.
  I can give you many instances where not only did your side try to 
avail themselves of that right, which we never then took away, and it 
probably did create political concerns for our Members; but the House 
has been here longer than any Member has been here and will be here 
longer than any Member will be here. And beginning to change the rules 
in that way or change the rights of Members to offer their objections, 
their ideas, their improvements as Members always have is a bigger step 
than I think the gentleman may realize.
  And in terms of whether things are germane or not, I very well 
remember a bill to create the Homeland Security part of our government 
and the motion to recommit was about corporate inversions. Now, that is 
every bit as tangential as anything the gentleman just mentioned. But 
we didn't go back the next week and say, we're never going to allow the 
minority to have that vote again because it was troublesome for us. 
Troublesome for us and protecting the rights of Members as they relate 
to past Members and future Members I think are two different things.
  I will yield to my friend.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  We could go on for some period of time on this. We have a different 
perspective, not on providing fairness for all Members. I said the 
gentleman from North Carolina; it was the young gentleman from Texas, 
and I thank you for correcting me on that.
  Frankly, I want to tell my friend that if the gentleman from Texas 
was sincere, in my view, in wanting his amendment adopted, he would not 
have rereferred it to committee. Very frankly, in my opinion, his 
amendment would have passed. The bill would have been reported back 
forthwith, and the bill would have passed.
  We all make a judgment as to what the purposes of amendments are. My 
view is, the gentleman voted against the underlying bill. The gentleman 
was opposed to the underlying bill. His motion was to do two things: to 
provide

[[Page H3717]]

an instance where on an issue not related to voting rights in the 
District of Columbia, but on an issue he thought the majority of the 
House supported which, I think he was correct, he wanted attached to 
that, and therefore create a dichotomy for Members. They either had to 
vote for an issue they were for and kill the bill, or vote against an 
issue they were for and be perceived as being against the proposition.

                              {time}  1230

  I understand what you are saying. I do not believe that it is fair 
legislative process to necessarily believe that that needs to be made 
in order.
  Now, having said that, we did not amend the rules. Consistent with 
the rules, we provided a process on PAYGO. You waived PAYGO on a 
regular basis when it was in effect. As a result of doing so, you 
narrowed the scope of amendments. Not only did you do that, but you 
also waived the necessity to pay for things from time to time.
  But, having said that, I want to reiterate to my friend, and we have 
had good discussions and will continue to have good discussions, but I 
am not going to say that we are going to allow our Members to be put in 
very difficult positions for what we perceive to be for political 
reasons only, not for the substance. If the gentleman from Texas had 
wanted to amend the substance with the motion to recommit, he had that 
available to him and have it reported back forthwith so it could be 
adopted. He had that available to him. He chose not to take that route.
  It caused us some consternation, as was noticed, I am sure by some, 
particularly to me, because I felt very strongly about that bill. The 
majority of this House has now passed that bill, with significant 
support from your side of the aisle. As a matter of fact, it was a bill 
sponsored by one of your leaders, a former chairman of your campaign 
committee.
  We want to make sure that we consider legislation on this floor 
fairly, and we will certainly work with you toward that end. But I 
don't want to assure the gentleman that I am not going to try to 
provide for the consideration of legislation and amendments thereto 
which are germane and relevant.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would say to my friend, we do have a disagreement on 
this and I think we do see what my good friend perceives as a minor 
change in procedure differently because I don't think it is that at 
all.
  I would say a couple of things: one is 18 times at least in the 
minority our friends on the other side used the same rule that my 
friend now so vigorously objects to because it would kill the bill. 
Eighteen times. They never were able to do it, but 18 times used it, 
many times with the provisions just like the one I cited earlier that 
were every bit as tangential as the one the gentleman is speaking to.
  Also I am sure in terms of, I don't know if the word was 
``sincerity'' or what, but I do know that our friend from Texas is a 
sincere and dedicated Member.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield on that, you understood my 
phrase. It was my perception. I did not question his sincerity. But the 
perception of what he did, offering the amendment, and within the ambit 
of the same amendment he offered killing the bill to which the 
amendment would be attached, appeared to me to be an act that was at 
least contradictory.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, my friend knows as well, if not better than 
anybody, how to explain exactly how a Member could be motivated to do 
both of those things and has defended the rights of the minority for a 
number of years in an extraordinary way on similar kinds of issues. But 
the point here is that we are about more than the moment, and my friend 
said that he wants to do everything he can to prevent his Members from 
being put in a difficult political situation. The truth is, this is a 
difficult job, and Members who run for it should understand it is a 
difficult job and there are things that not only have to be decided, 
but have to be explained as part of that job. And while changing a 
procedure, a process, in a way that has never been handled before with 
this tabling inclusion this week may seem insignificant, I don't think 
it is.
  Also, on our side during the time we had PAYGO, my friend mentioned 
spending, we never waived PAYGO for spending. On any spending bill, we 
always adhered to the PAYGO rule. You always had that available to you.
  We will move forward. I do appreciate the fact that we are going to 
continue to talk about these issues before we do anything to change the 
overall rules of the House. I am concerned, however, when we change 
what one of our outside observers has referred to recently as the norms 
of the House. This rule this week was not only outside the norms of the 
House; it was unique in the way it handled this tabling issue. It was 
not unique in the way it divided the bills. I am not complaining about 
that. I am complaining about the potential for a Member to use all the 
tools previously available to them to actually, frankly, stop 
legislation that they didn't like if they didn't like it. But you can't 
do that unless 217 other people join you in that.
  We are not in the majority on our side, we understand that, and for 
us to do anything under the rules of the House, with a majority vote, 
Democrats have to join us. If we make those options too appealing, that 
is, frankly, not our fault. Changing the rules for the momentary relief 
of Members has greater long-term consequences than I believe my friend 
realizes.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his observations. This has 
probably gone on longer than the Members or the public wants it to, but 
let me simply observe that waivers obviously relate to and PAYGO 
relates to entitlement spending, and while you may not have waived it 
with respect to spending, because PAYGO does not affect discretionary 
spending, what it affects, of course, is entitlement spending.
  The reason it affected the D.C. bill was because the Member from Utah 
would have had to have been paid and would have been entitled to be 
paid. So a relatively de minimis sum was involved in that.
  Frankly, the gentleman and I have a disagreement in terms of the rule 
that was used. First, the rules have not been amended. They have not 
been amended. Secondly, this rule was consistent with our rules.
  The only thing that this rule did that I think caused so much 
consternation on your side was it adopted PAYGO without opening the 
bill up to what were amendments that were extraneous to the subject 
matter and offered the bill on its merits. You were free to offer a 
motion to recommit, with or without amendments, on the subject matter 
of the bills, either bill. That was your right then.
  The tabling simply referred to making sure that we kept our promise 
that bills would have PAYGO on them, and if they didn't have PAYGO on 
them, we weren't interested in passing them, because we were going to 
be faithful to our pledge on that rule. That is what the tabling dealt 
with. It didn't deal with your motion to recommit.
  If you had defeated H.R. 1906, the second bill with the PAYGO 
provision, H.R. 1905 would not have gone forward. But our side of the 
aisle believed that both were important and wanted them together 
because we wanted the PAYGO provision in there, a relatively de minimis 
sum in terms of the budget, but consistent with our rule.
  If I can make another observation on another matter, you mentioned 
the supplemental had been pending 94 days. It has been pending 73 days. 
I think that is an important distinction. That is almost a month of 
legislative work, if not more.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, we will get our staffs together and look at 
the calendar later because they seem to be in disagreement on that, 
even at this moment as you give me that information.
  I am going to make one, hopefully, final comment on this issue for 
now, though I am sure it is going to be an issue we talk about in the 
future.
  Mr. HOYER. I am sure.
  Mr. BLUNT. For my friend to understand, it is not a concern about 
this bill. It is not a concern about what happened on that bill. It is 
the fact that the tabling addition may be within the rules, but 
extraordinary. If it is within the rules it has never been done before. 
The tabling addition changes the consequences of a Member's motion. 
When you change the consequences of a Member's motion, you take a right 
away from the Member that the Member previously had.

[[Page H3718]]

  We may have to discuss this. I can see we are still not quite on the 
same wavelength. It is not about this bill, Mr. Hoyer. It is not about 
this week. It is about doing something that has never been done before 
that has consequential impact, and I believe this does. I think you and 
I should continue to talk about it. I think our Members in the minority 
are justly concerned about it, as you would have been in the minority 
if we had done something we never did in the majority, which is change 
the consequences of your motion to recommit.

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