[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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