[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 97 (Friday, June 15, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H6566-H6567]
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 take this time for the purpose of inquiring 
about next week's schedule. I yield to my good friend, the majority 
leader, for information about the schedule next week. In light of the 
agreement we reached this week, any sense you could give us at all 
about the remaining 10 appropriations bills would be helpful.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I hope my recitation of the schedule for next 
week is a little more accurate than my recitation of the schedule last 
week, which had a little bit of a problem getting done.
  In any event, my distinguished friend, on Monday the House will meet 
at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour business and then at 2 p.m. for 
legislative business. We will consider several bills under suspension 
of the rules. A complete list of those bills will be announced later 
today.
  On Tuesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning hour business 
and 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday, the 
House will meet at 10 a.m., and on Friday the House will meet at 9 a.m. 
We will consider the following fiscal year 2008 appropriations bills: 
Energy and Water Development; State, Foreign Operations; and the 
Legislative Branch bill.
  In addition to that, in the week following, I am waiting for it to be 
written up for me, but I know Financial Services we hope to have up on 
the last week of the session; the Commerce, Justice, Science bill and 
the Interior bill in the last week; and then in July, the week we get 
back, which is the second full week of July, we expect to have the 
Labor-Health bill, the Agriculture bill and the Transportation-HUD 
bill.
  In addition, after that, we will have the Defense appropriations bill 
as we had always planned to have that, approximately mid-July.
  I want to tell my friend that obviously the three bills that are 
scheduled for the second week in July may slip to the third week in 
July because of the difficulty of getting together all of the projects 
that will be added to the bills as a result of Members' initiatives and 
the committee's action. But whether it is the second week in July or 
the third week in July, they will be in mid-July sometime.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that. I would ask my friend, on the Energy 
and Water bill that we expect to do next week, it is my understanding 
we will come back at a later time and finish that bill, once time has 
been adequate to allow projects that would have otherwise gone in at 
some time even later than House passage.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield further, yes, the Energy and 
Water bill, again because of the numbers of projects in Members' 
districts that are very important to them and, I think, to the country, 
but will take time to vet properly to make sure that they are justified 
and to check with the agency, those projects are going to be added 
after we consider the Energy and Water bill, which is scheduled for 
next week.
  But before the Energy and Water bill is sent to the Senate, we will 
have those add-ons added to another appropriation bill that will come 
to the floor and will be, therefore, subject to Members' actions on 
each and every one of the legislatively added provisions. When that 
bill passes, those provisions will then be added to the Energy and 
Water bill and then, and only then, sent to the Senate.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that.
  I would also ask, this was covered extensively last night, but just 
to verify this one more time as we look at the schedule for these 
appropriations bills and for next week, on Monday of next week, we 
intend under unanimous consent to reinstate the rule that we had at the 
end of the last Congress that would provide for a point of order on any 
projects that are put in a conference report that we hadn't had an 
opportunity to see prior to that. That would happen on Monday?
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield further, let me be precise.
  Mr. BLUNT. I will be glad to yield, and I am not trying to be 
unusually prescriptive in describing that.
  Mr. HOYER. Let me be precise so there won't be any misunderstanding. 
I am not sure, but I think your rule dealt with more than 
appropriations conference reports. I may not be correct on that.
  But in any event, the rule that will be offered Monday night, 
hopefully by unanimous consent, will be a rule that will say that a 
point of order will lie to a conference report from the appropriations 
conference which has added a project that was not listed in either the 
House consideration or the Senate consideration, and that point of 
order would have 10 minutes of debate on either side, 10 minutes for 
those in opposition to allowing the conference committee report to be 
considered, and 10 minutes for the proponents of the conference 
committee report being considered, effectively adding a third to the 
hour.

                              {time}  1700

  So it would be an hour and 20 minutes of debate rather than just an 
hour.
  Obviously if the point of order is sustained, then the conference 
committee with the add-on or add-ons would be referred back to the 
conference committee.
  Mr. BLUNT. That is the way I understand it, my friend, and our 
agreement at this point is for these appropriations bills, although in 
our rule last year we also extended that to authorizing bills. As you 
know, we don't want to continue that discussion, but the agreement we 
made this week, the majority

[[Page H6567]]

leader is fully in compliance with the agreement we made so we can move 
forward with these appropriations bills with the understanding that 
while now we will have a significant opportunity to look at the 
remainder of the specific Member projects or earmarks in the bill, we 
also would have an opportunity to have a debatable point of order on 
the conference report if those appear.
  I would also like to ask about energy. I know in previous discussions 
on the floor at the end of previous weeks, I believe we discussed the 
likelihood that there would be an energy bill on the floor by July 4. I 
know in either this week's schedule or future scheduling that the 
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the Ways and Means 
Committee, and the Energy and Commerce Committee have all delayed some 
markups that they had intended, and I am wondering if the leader has a 
sense of what that means in terms of an energy bill on the floor, and 
also that bill on the floor in light of the appropriations works we 
just discussed.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield, obviously the gentleman is 
correct. There has been a change in the July schedule in part because 
of the moving of three of the appropriations bills to July. So they 
will not be considered in June. It was always the intent, however, that 
there would be an announcement prior to July 4 of component parts of an 
energy policy, not necessarily one bill but an energy policy prior to 
July 4. We always contemplated energy bills being on the floor in July. 
As far as I know, that is still the plan.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank you for that response.
  In addition to that, every indication I have up to this point is that 
those energy bills would go through the regular order of the committee. 
Is that what the leader and the majority still anticipates?
  Mr. HOYER. That is correct.
  Mr. BLUNT. On another topic where we had some discussions that 
indicated there would be an effort to have a vote before the August 
work period on the topic of trade. And of the agreements out there, 
generally the discussion was that there would be a significant effort 
made to have the Peru agreement on the floor in July. I know these take 
a significant amount of time because of the various things that have to 
be done in this trade promotion authority process. I am wondering on 
trade if my friend has a sense where those items might be.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and not with precision 
in the sense of weeks or months or days, I mean. Obviously as the 
gentleman knows, Chairman Rangel and Chairman Levin of the subcommittee 
is working very closely with Ambassador Schwab and Secretary Paulson 
and the administration on these issues.
  They have reached an understanding and that is moving forward, I 
believe, but I could not tell the gentleman at this time what will be 
scheduled or when it will be scheduled. As the gentleman well knows, 
there is discussion with reference to Peru and Panama and actions that 
may be taken in Peru or Panama, and that is being discussed, as a 
matter of fact, I think today between Ambassador Schwab and Mr. Rangel 
and others.
  Clearly I think things are moving forward on that, but I cannot give 
the gentleman any time frames.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank my good friend for that. We are interested in 
that. We will continue to talk about that both on the floor and off. It 
would certainly be one of my goals. By this time next week if we have 
any information on that, we can begin to get a sense of meeting those 
deadlines. Under this process, as the leader well knows, a number of 
things have to be done. There is very little flexibility in the time 
frame once you start the clock on a particular agreement, and the clock 
has to start right here in the House of Representatives. I look forward 
to that. I thank my friend for the information.

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