[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 150 (Thursday, October 4, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H11298-H11299]
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 friend from Maryland, the 
majority leader, for the purpose of inquiring about the schedule for 
next week.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  It is Thursday, 3:15 p.m., and we have finished our business. A lot 
of people have talked to me about that, and I just thought I would note 
it.
  On Monday next, the House will not be in session in observance of the 
Columbus Day holiday. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for 
morning-hour business and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes 
rolled until 6:30 p.m. next Tuesday. We will consider several bills 
under suspension of the rules. A list of those bills will be announced 
by the close of business tomorrow.
  On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for 
legislative business. We expect to consider H.R. 2895, the National 
Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act; H.R. 2095, the Federal Railroad 
Safety Improvement Act; and H.R. 3056, Tax Collection Responsibility 
Act.
  On Friday, there will be no votes in the House.
  That is a change in the schedule so everybody will want to note that. 
That means we expect to have no votes on any Friday for the balance of 
the month.
  Mr. BLUNT. I am sure that will be well received. While we are on that 
topic, I wonder if my good friend has any sense of the anticipated 
November schedule, if we are working in November.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, I thank my friend 
for asking that question.
  The expectation for November is that we will be in until November 16. 
I don't mean straight through, but we will come in usually Monday 
nights and we will see about the Fridays because we don't know what the 
Senate is doing. Obviously we need to do the appropriations process and 
fund government. The CR runs through the 16th of November.
  I want to tell all Members and the distinguished whip, my friend, 
that the Speaker and I would both like to conclude the business of the 
first session of this Congress by November 16. I don't want to 
represent that I think that is probable at this point in time, but that 
would be our desire and that is what over the next 5 weeks we are going 
to try to work towards.
  We will not be in session either of the last 2 weeks of November, 
which would mean that Thanksgiving week, which is the week following 
the 16th, the week of the 19th, and the week following that, we would 
not be in session. Obviously, it would be my hope we would have 
concluded our business and would not, therefore, need to come back in 
December. I don't want to make that representation, however. The 
gentleman is well familiar with the fact it is too far out and the 
appropriations process is still not as sure as I would like it to be at 
this point in time. But the last 2 weeks of November we will not be 
here.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that information. That is 
incredibly helpful, as is the notice on the Fridays this month. With 
that kind of notice, our Members have the kind of time they need and, I 
know, appreciate on both sides of the aisle to take advantage of that 
time. Like you, I hope we can find a way to be done by November 16, but 
I am very appreciative of knowing the schedule for the next two weeks 
in November if we aren't done.
  In the process of getting done, I asked last week when you couldn't 
be on the floor, and I will just ask again, is there any anticipation 
with four Senate appropriation bills completed, and in fact the Senate 
having named conferees on those four bills, is there any anticipation 
we can go to conference on one or all of those bills in the near 
future?
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Obey and the leadership have met. It is our hope we will be able 
to go to conference on a number of these bills, and there has even been 
some discussion on some of the bills that have not yet passed. We 
passed all 12 of our bills, of course. It is our desire to go to 
conference on these. I can't say when exactly that will be, but I can 
tell you that I am in the process of discussing

[[Page H11299]]

this with the chairman of the committee to see how quickly we can get 
that accomplished.
  Mr. BLUNT. That would be helpful, and I appreciate the information on 
that.
  On the Military Quality of Life bill, I think we have had that the 
second longest, the Homeland bill, and then the Military Quality of 
Life has been here about a month, and that bill has contained 
substantial increases for veterans and for military personnel and their 
families for a long time. This year I think those increases amount to 
$18.5 million a day, and I just advance the thought that the sooner we 
can get that bill finalized, a bill that all Republicans in the House 
voted for, a bill that all Democrats in the House voted for, they can 
begin to benefit from those new changes and new benefits. All four of 
the bills are important, but that bill, I think, particularly is a bill 
that has an easy path to a moment when veterans and people currently in 
the military would benefit from the changes in that bill. So whether it 
is Homeland or Military Quality of Life or the other two bills sent 
over, I would be eager to see us move forward on those, but 
particularly on the Military Quality of Life bill.
  Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BLUNT. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  We obviously want to have all 12 of the appropriation bills signed. 
They all passed with an average of 285 votes in this House. There has 
not been less than 81 votes for any one of the Senate-passed 
appropriation bills to date. These bills have enjoyed broad bipartisan 
support.
  Very frankly, the MILCON Quality of Life bill is $4 billion over what 
the President requested. We believe, and obviously the vote reflected, 
that it is at an appropriate level to ensure that our veterans and our 
active-duty military have the medical care that was promised to them. 
So we were pleased that that passed overwhelmingly, notwithstanding the 
fact that is over what the President has asked for, and he indicated he 
was going to veto bills if it was over what he asked for. What he 
really meant, apparently, was if they were over what he wanted.
  These bills passed very substantially in both Houses. We would hope 
the President would come to the table. Mr. Obey and Mr. Nussle have had 
some discussions. I will tell you, those discussions have not indicated 
any movement at this point in time. They hope that will not be the 
case.
  We want to see the MILCON bill signed. Frankly, we want to see the 
Labor-Health bill signed, which provides for a billion dollars more in 
basic biomedical health research on cancer, heart, lung, blood, 
diabetes and other diseases that inflict our citizens, and Pell Grant 
increases.
  I appreciate the gentleman's observation regarding the MILCON bill, 
and I share his view. But I hope he also shares our view. Not all of 
the bills have passed with as big a margin, but an average of 285, 
indicating pretty good bipartisan support on all of these bills. And 
the case has been in the Senate, the ones that they have passed, that 
the President would discuss with us how we can get this process 
completed at levels that we can agree on and not be told to do.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that. And I also appreciate the sentiment 
that the process works better if we agree on a process rather than 
being told about a process.
  On MILCON for several years now, whether it was health care to 
retirees, starting a formula that ended the post-Civil War concurrent 
receipt problem, we have come together and passed good legislation, as 
I think we did this year, and this is a bill that had virtual 
unanimity. I am not sure that anybody voted against this bill. I would 
hope to get it done. I would hope to get all of our work done, and get 
it done in a way that we talk to each other, that gets a product on the 
President's desk that he can sign that we are all able to work together 
on and get done.
  I would also like to see that happen on the Child Health Insurance 
Program bill. We believe that there is room for us in that discussion, 
and hope to be able to get there. I would tell my good friend as the 
whip on this side, I believe whether it would have been yesterday or 
Monday or 2 weeks from yesterday, we will sustain that veto, but we 
want to do that in a way that either now or later gets us in that 
discussion so that we continue this important program so that it works 
best for kids who don't have access to health care.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the observation and I appreciate the 
gentleman's assertion that the veto will be sustained in this House. In 
the other body, as you know, they have more than sufficient votes to 
override the veto. There are senior leaders in the Senate, very senior 
leaders in the Senate in the gentleman's party who believe that the 
President has based his veto on incorrect information and incorrect 
premises. Senator Hatch and Senator Grassley, both of whom are 
conservative Republicans, leaders in your party, who believe this bill 
does, in fact, accomplish what the President said that he wanted to do, 
at your convention in 2004, that he wanted to add millions of children.
  We are hopeful that we can convince some of your ranks not to vote as 
Republicans or Democrats but to vote in a way that does reflect, I 
think, what all of our priorities are on the health care of our 
children. So we understand what your representation is and your 
confidence level is, but in this case, we hope you are in error.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate the sentiment. If I am not in error, I hope 
we don't just waste the 2 weeks, and instead begin the discussions that 
we need to get to a bill that puts the health care of kids who don't 
have access to insurance first.
  On one more appropriations topic, two comments made this week by 
Chairman Obey, and I was interested in more information from the 
gentleman. One was that we won't do any supplemental funding for our 
troops in Afghanistan and Iraq this year, and I believe he may have 
said ``and potentially not next year,'' and then the other was the 
question raised by him of having an income tax surcharge placed on 
people who pay the income tax to the tune of about $150 billion.
  I believe you and others have said that surcharge will not be coming 
to the floor, and I wonder if you can verify that. And also any 
information you have about the likelihood of how we sustain our troops 
in the field between now and the end of the year.
  I yield to my friend.

                              {time}  1530

  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  With respect to your latter question, sustaining our troops in the 
field, under the continuing resolution, we think that the authority to 
do that exists, and we've been advised that.
  With respect to if we pass the Defense appropriations bill, it's our 
advice as we understand it from the Pentagon that they will have 
sufficient funds through the beginning of next year to fund their 
needs. Mr. Obey, I'm sure, will be discussing with us and others on the 
status of the supplemental.
  I note that he's left now, but the chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee was on the floor. He has indicated he thinks that they will 
have sufficient funds if the Defense appropriations bill passes and is 
signed by the President. That passed, as you know, in an overwhelming 
vote here as well. We hope to see that bill get to the President. I 
don't know exactly what's going to happen to it in the Senate, we'll 
have to see that, but I hope that will pass.
  With respect to the first question, there's no intention of bringing 
a surcharge to this floor. What Mr. Obey was saying is that this war 
was projected to cost $60 billion by the White House when it started. 
We're going to be at $1 trillion before too long. That bill is going to 
be paid by somebody. We talked about our children and grandchildren 
will be paying this bill. And what Mr. Obey's point was is that the 
people who are being asked to sacrifice are those going into Iraq, 
those families who send people to Iraq, and that the rest of us really 
aren't paying much of a price, but our grandchildren and children will 
pay that price. I think that was his point.
  But in answer to the gentleman's question, we have no intention of 
bringing such a bill to the floor.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman and I yield back my time.




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