[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 132 (Friday, September 7, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H10308-H10310]
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 yield to my good friend, the majority
leader, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), to give us the
information about next week's schedule.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
On Monday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour
business and noon for legislative business, with votes rolled until
6:30 p.m. In addition to several bills under suspension of the rules, a
list of those bills of course will be made available by the close of
business today, we will consider a resolution in commemoration of the
terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.
On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. in a pro forma session.
There will be no votes. No legislative business or votes are expected.
The tragic loss of Mr. Gillmor saddened us all. His funeral is on that
day, and many Members will be attending. It will take place that
morning in Ohio.
[[Page H10309]]
There will later in the day, when those who are going to Ohio return,
on the steps of the Capitol at 4:30 p.m. be a meeting of the Members
who are here from both the Senate and the House in remembrance of those
who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, in that tragic and vicious
attack on our country and on so many innocent people.
The House will not meet on Wednesday or Thursday in observance of
Rosh Hashanah and will meet at 10 a.m. in pro forma session on Friday,
and I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman. I also thank the gentleman for his
accommodation to the schedule. I know I want to go and many other
Members will want to attend the memorial service for our good friend
Paul Gillmor who did so much work for his constituents in this House,
and I know in an already short week that was a real challenge to be
able to figure out what we should do and how we should do it.
My understanding now is, just to repeat some of what you said, that
in addition to the 9/11 commemoration resolution on Monday, everything
else on Monday on the floor will be a suspension vote.
Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. BLUNT. I would yield.
Mr. HOYER. Yes, that is our intention. There will be suspension votes
so that we do not have a lot of controversy.
I will say, however, as the gentleman well knows, that Monday will be
a very important day because General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker
will be on Capitol Hill on the House side testifying on their report to
the Congress and to the American people with respect to their analysis
of the present situation in Iraq and the present situation of our
troops and the security and stability of that country.
So it will be a very important day, but the gentleman is correct, we
will not be scheduling other than suspension votes for that Monday, and
there will be no votes on Tuesday in recognition of the funeral and
that so many Members will be attending the funeral.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that. I was being asked by one
of my colleagues, because of the importance of the Petraeus and Crocker
testimony, if there was any way that could be moved to the House floor
for the hearing, but I'm assuming that we'll have work going on on the
House floor on these suspension bills.
Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. BLUNT. I would yield.
Mr. HOYER. That is correct. We will be starting legislative business
on the floor a little after noon. So there will be work on the floor
proceeding.
It is my understanding, however, as the gentleman may know, that the
hearing is in the Cannon Caucus Room. So we'll accommodate both media
and the public, and as we all know, some of the most important hearings
in history have been held in that room. So we certainly recognize the
importance of this hearing, the gravity of the information that we will
be receiving, and we have attempted to accommodate that.
Mr. BLUNT. It's my understanding, also, for the leader, on that
hearing, not only the Members of the committee but other Members who
are not on the committee will have accommodated opportunities for
seating at least to be there to hear what General Petraeus and
Ambassador Crocker have to say.
Mr. HOYER. That's my understanding, yes, sir.
Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that. Only a couple of other questions about
the schedule that now has largely been postponed for next week.
At one time, I think it was the original intent or at least my
impression that the TRIA issue would be voted on, the extraordinary
loss issue that might occur as it relates to insured property on
Monday. I've been also told that there is now a PAYGO rule because of
the way that bill has been calculated to have some potential costs. I
wonder if we have anymore information about how quickly we may be able
to get to this version of TRIA that we had hoped to be on the House
floor next week, and I yield.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. We believe the TRIA
bill is a very, very important bill. Chairman Frank has been very
involved in this, as have bipartisan Members of the Financial Services
Committee been involved in this. The gentleman is correct. As a result
of what has happened for next week, we determined that both the FHA
bill and the TRIA bill, which were both scheduled for the beginning of
next week, would be moved until hopefully the following week.
{time} 1545
We believe for TRIA and FHA, in light of the subprime issues, that
Chairman Frank is working with the administration. I know he has talked
to Secretary Paulson with respect to their proposals and ours on ways
to respond to the subprime crisis, the mortgage foreclosure crisis.
So we want to put those bills back on as soon as we can.
The TRIA bill, as you observed, has raised an issue of PAYGO, as to
whether or not there is a financial consequence of the legislation. The
CBO has made an estimate. Clearly, however, there is no payout if a
terrorist attack doesn't happen, so there is a contingency it would
have to happen. We are trying to address that, which we did not
anticipate, frankly. As a result, however, we are trying to look at
this to see whether or not we can both move the legislation as quickly
as possible as well as accommodate the issue of PAYGO.
Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that answer. Another issue that my good
friend and I have talked about even earlier this week is on the trade
agreements throughout there. We did notice that Ways and Means
Committee had a hearing scheduled on the Peru Free Trade Agreement next
week, which starts a clock. It would almost inevitably bring that bill
to the floor on an understood date. That hearing has been scheduled. I
wonder if my friend has any information on either that agreement or the
other agreements out there, particularly the agreement on Colombia.
Mr. HOYER. As the gentleman well knows, there are four trade
agreements that are the subject of consideration by the administration,
and four of our trading partners: Peru, Panama, Colombia, as you point
out, and South Korea. Those have not been transmitted to the Congress,
but it does start the clock.
And in discussions with the chairman, I know the chairman has been
focused. As you know, he visited Peru and Panama. I am not sure he
visited Panama, I just talked with the Panamanians. Surely those two
groups are the focus of the committee at this point, on Colombia,
focused, as well as South Korea.
As I discussed with my friend earlier in the day, I am hopeful that
the chairman, the chairman believes that Peru will be the first of
those to move. We are hopeful that those, that that agreement will
move, and then we will have to see the scheduling for the other three.
But I do expect Peru to move, hopefully, within the next 30 days, or
about, somewhere probably early next month.
Mr. BLUNT. I have a couple of other questions that are more in the
long-range view of schedule. One would be on appropriations.
Mr. HOYER. I will tell the gentleman that I am not very good on long
term. We found a lot of contingencies coming up.
Mr. BLUNT. This week even short term was a challenge.
Mr. HOYER. That's right.
Mr. BLUNT. But on appropriations, we have around 3 weeks left in this
fiscal year. The Senate, I believe, has only passed one of their
appropriations bills.
I am wondering if we can begin to anticipate in any way when we are
going to have a bill or a CR, either one, that will move us to where
the government continues to do what it has outlined to.
Mr. HOYER. The House, as the gentleman knows, has passed all 12
appropriation bills. I might say we did so, for the most part, with
bipartisan votes, significant bipartisan votes, not necessarily a
majority on each side, but significant bipartisan votes.
The Senate, as you point out, has passed two, although I understand
that we just read across the desk, the military construction bill was
just reported with a request to go to conference. We are hopeful that
the Senate will pass other bills within the near term.
It's my understanding that the Senate does expect to be moving a
number
[[Page H10310]]
of the appropriation bills in the next 2 weeks.
The fiscal year ends, of course, September 30. If we have not passed
those appropriation bills, we will have to make an accommodation to
keep the government running. We usually do that in the form of a
continuing resolution, a CR, as we call it, which simply provides for
the continuation of funding of government at present levels until such
time as we can complete the appropriation process.
We are hopeful that we will complete the appropriation process in the
near term. I won't define the near term, but we are hopeful that it
will be nearer rather than further apart; but we are looking at all the
alternatives that will be necessary to keep government operating as the
American public expect and as we expect it.
Mr. BLUNT. On the appropriation bills, again, as I reminded the
majority leader earlier today, the Republicans voting for the
appropriations bills, most of them had a number of Republicans that
would sustain a Presidential veto if that turns out to be the result. I
would anticipate that we need to be thinking about how we move this as
quickly as possible.
In that regard, the Senate has already produced a fall calendar for
their Members. Our Members would benefit as early as possible to having
a sense to where, if we are not going to be here in the fall, I think
the Senate intends not to be here the week of Columbus Day and maybe
the week of Thanksgiving and maybe the week after that. I wonder if the
leader can give us any sense of when to expect a fall calendar or your
views on that at this point as Members make their plans for the fall.
It appears the Senate, by the way, it appears our friends on the
other side are scheduling as if they intend to be here for quite some
time.
Mr. HOYER. The Members already have a fall schedule. It's the Senate
that wants a winter schedule, and I am somewhat concerned about that.
As you know, initially Mr. Boehner, my predecessor as the majority
leader, had projected October 3 or thereabouts, 4th or 5th. When I
became the majority leader, it was my responsibility to address the
schedule.
I thought we would need at least another 3 weeks, so I added on to, I
believe, the 26th of October, which is a Friday.
Since that time, of course, the leader of the Senate has announced
the schedule that you just observed, with a week off at Columbus Day.
We do not have that, of course. We have Columbus Day, returning Tuesday
at 6:30. That has not been modified at this point in time and, frankly,
I don't expect to modify it.
It doesn't mean it won't be, but I have no plans to modify that
expectation at this point in time. Frankly, I would like to see us do
as much work as we possibly can by the October 26 date that we have
projected as our date. We will see where the Senate is at that point in
time.
But in answer to your question about the fall schedule, sometime in
the next 2 weeks, probably not this coming week, because we are not
going to be here most of the time, but the following week, in
discussions with the Senate, we intend to have some discussions with
the Senate leadership with Mr. Reid, the majority leader, next week, to
determine more precisely what he anticipates being able to do, and,
therefore, what our responsibilities will be to be here to respond to
what the Senate does.
As I say, we put all the appropriations bills on their plate, if you
will. We need to pass those, or, in some form, pass funding for the
various agencies.
So the answer to your question, Mr. Whip, is that we expect to have
some more precise formulation for the fall and hopefully not winter
schedule by the, not next week, but the following week.
We are aware of the fact, and I used to hear from everybody, now I am
hearing from everybody on both sides of the aisle, they understandably
want some certainty in the scheduling so they can schedule their work
in their districts.
I understand that. We are going to try to accommodate that.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for his response. Time in the
district is important to the Members. It's better used, of course, if
they can have some anticipation of that time.
My only suggestion would be that at this point in the year we
normally don't know when we are going to finish, but it might be
possible to come up with some blocks of time that even if we are
working, we would know that we would not anticipate being here during
those blocks of time. That would be helpful.
Mr. HOYER. I want to thank my friend for joining in discussions on
that issue before we came to the floor today. I think the gentleman is
correct. I think Members would find that useful. If we can accommodate
that, I would like to do that.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank you for that information. I know we all look
forward to the report early next week from Ambassador Crocker and
General Petraeus. Even though, because of the focus on that schedule
being here one day, I think it's an important day for Members to be
here, and appreciate the fact that we have scheduled it in that way.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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