[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 153 (Wednesday, October 10, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H11465-H11466]
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, to tell us what the plans are for next week.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the distinguished Republican whip for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday 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. We will consider several bills under suspension of the 
rules. A list of those bills will be announced by the close of business 
on Friday.
  On Tuesday next, 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. for 
legislative business. We expect to consider the President's veto of the 
Children's Health Program; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 
legislation; a resolution regarding the withholding of information 
related to corruption in Iraq; H.R. 2095, the Federal Railroad Safety 
Improvement Act; and H.R. 2102, the Free Flow of Information Act.
  On Friday, there will be no votes in the House.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that information.
  On the President's veto on the SCHIP bill, we expect that vote to 
come, I believe the gentleman said, on Thursday.
  Mr. HOYER. Thursday, the 18th.
  Mr. BLUNT. On Thursday, the 18th. I really have two questions about 
that. One is, what time during the day do we expect that to happen? 
After the 18th, we will have 5 more weeks before the extension expires, 
and I'm wondering if we can anticipate any effort to include the 
minority, if in fact the President's veto is sustained.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. I don't know exactly what time. I 
would hope sometime around the middle of the day, noon or thereabouts 
we would consider the veto, maybe closer to 1 o'clock, but certainly in 
the middle of the day.
  Of course our expectation is that so many of your Members will 
determine that this policy is absolutely one that ought to be adopted 
that we will override the veto and that 4 million additional children 
will be covered. That's certainly our hope. I know that's not your 
expectation.
  So in the event that that does not happen, I think the answer to your 
question is, I would certainly be prepared to discuss the matter with 
you. No one has any intention of, frankly, seeing children dropped from 
the Children's Health Insurance Program.
  As you know, the President's proposal, if we adopted the President's 
proposal, would result in a net reduction of 840,000 children from the 
current program. We think that's not appropriate and, therefore, we 
want to move legislation forward, appropriate funding levels, and we 
would certainly be available to discuss that.
  We do anticipate, however, and are very hopeful that the Congress 
will work its will on this legislation.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that information and for his 
attitude about this.
  We were concerned this week, many of our Members were concerned, 
including the Members who had voted with the majority, when the leader 
on the other side of the building suggested that if this bill wasn't 
approved there would be no bill. We're not for that. We're for 
including the children that are covered now. I think that does mean 
that you have to go beyond the President's proposal, though in fairness 
to the President's proposal, his proposal would not have taken people 
off this program without intervening Congresses and intervening 
budgets, in my view.
  But that's not the purpose of the debate here. The purpose of the 
debate is to try to have a program that works for children. I'm hopeful 
that we can arrive at a bill that I vote for, that the President signs, 
that keeps this program going.
  I'm very pleased that the gentleman doesn't take the, if it doesn't 
work out to override the veto, as I believe it won't, that we still 
need to work together for a program that works well for children. And I 
appreciate the gentleman's comments on that.
  And if we do sustain the veto, I pledge that I'll work hard with you 
to try to make this program work in the way that the majority of House 
Members, the majority of House Republicans, feel that it should to 
continue the current program.
  Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield?
  Mr. BLUNT. I would.
  Mr. HOYER. I would love to work with you on this issue just a little 
before we have the veto override, if perhaps we could convince you to 
be helpful at that point in time.
  But if not, as we have in the past, I want to say something; my 
friends on my side of the aisle know this. I have always found the 
gentleman from Missouri, the Republican whip, to be open to discussion 
and reasonable discussion to see if we can move forward.
  I don't know what exactly was said on the other side, but I would 
reiterate that nobody, I think, in this House, as I said in the debate, 
closing the debate on the CHIP bill when we passed it through this 
House very handily, that I believe every Member of this House wants to 
ensure that children have access to health care. And we need to work on 
how that can be accomplished. We think the bill we passed does that. 
But we certainly will be available to make sure that happens however we 
can get it done.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that. I appreciate my friend's comments. And 
as many Members, most Members of the House know, we are good friends.
  On the bill that the House voted on, as you know, I don't think House 
Republicans had the opportunity to have input there. I believe Senate 
Republicans may have. House Republicans did not. And I would like to 
see us work together to be sure that the priorities and the program are 
all exactly what the American people think we're talking about and what 
we hope to be talking about.
  As we near that November 16 day, my other concern would be the fact 
that we apparently are not meeting yet on any appropriations bills. I 
believe on the four bills that have been sent over from the Senate, 
that our side is ready to join the Senate, who has already named 
conferees, and name conferees at any moment, and hope to see that 
happen.
  I wonder, do we have any sense of any effort to get some of these 
appropriations bills before the House and on the President's desk in 
the month of October? Or even before November 16? And if we have a plan 
there, can you give me an idea of what that might be?
  We've had four bills now. Some of them we've had for over a month. 
One, the Homeland Security bill, it is obviously important we continue 
those efforts; the Military Quality of Life bill.

                              {time}  1800

  We have had conferees named by the Senate for over a month now. We're 
ready to name our conferees, I believe, and I wonder if there is any 
way we can go ahead and at least start a conference to have a chance to 
get some of these bills signed into law.
  And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  We are desirous, of course, of passing all 12 appropriation bills out 
of conference, through both floors, and to the President. We want to do 
that. We are working towards that end.
  I will tell my friend I have talked to Chairman Obey. There are 
discussions going on between the House and Senate. He is correct, there 
hasn't been a conference yet. There are still some

[[Page H11466]]

issues that need to be resolved. But we are hopeful, in answer to your 
question, that appropriation bills will be on the floor and will be 
passed and will be sent to the President prior to the 16th of November. 
And as I have told my friend before, we have no intention of getting to 
a place where the government is shut down. The best way to do that is 
passing our 12 appropriation bills and having the President sign them. 
We hope we can reach that objective, but obviously at this point in 
time, much work remains to be done. But we hope to be doing it.
  The Senate, as you know, was not in session this week and we are here 
in an abbreviated session because of the untimely and sad death of our 
colleague Jo Ann Davis. But we hope to move appropriation bills and we 
hope to have them on the floor, as the gentleman asked, prior to 
November 16.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would hope so.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield.
  Mr. BLUNT. I will yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I don't want that read as saying I believe that we can get 
all 12 appropriation bills before November 16 because the Senate has 
only passed, as you point out, four of the 12 at this point in time. We 
are hopeful that they will have bills on the floor next week and can 
get through those bills in a relatively short period of time so that we 
can move ahead. But I didn't want to leave the impression I thought 
that all 12 would possibly be moved through by the 16th of November.
  Thank you.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for those observations.
  Of course, Mr. Speaker, I have been in the job he is doing now and in 
the whip's job on the majority side, and I do know that waiting for the 
Senate to pass their bills and taking blame, as we did and as others 
will in the future, for not getting our work done is a frustrating 
thing. But if we can move some of these along, I believe it's better.
  I also, in response to the gentleman's comments about having the 
President sign the bills, hope that we are dealing with the reality 
that the President actually does have to sign those bills, and if he is 
not willing to sign the bill, we can go through the efforts of a veto 
and sustaining or overriding and all those sorts of things, but before 
we can get next year's business started, we actually have to have the 
President sign a bill. And I hope we are developing a strategy to do 
that.
  On FTA, the Peru FTA has been through the markup phase in the Ways 
and Means Committee, and I'm wondering when the gentleman expects that, 
the first of four pending trade agreements, to come to the House floor.
  And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  And I say to him that we had discussions on that today with Chairman 
Rangel and we are going to try to move Trade Assistance Adjustment to 
provide for any dislocations that might occur that Members are 
concerned about. And I'm hopeful that we can move as well the Peru FTA 
hopefully by the end of the month, but in no event later than November 
16. So it is very much my hope between now and then. But we will 
certainly pass at least the Peru FTA along with the Trade Assistance 
Adjustment.
  I will say to my friend that Panama is another bill that I think 
might be possible; however, the gentleman knows there is a problem that 
has arisen unrelated to the provisions of the trade bill but which are 
of great concern to many Members on both sides of the aisle.
  Mr. BLUNT. I understand that. And, of course, I also understand that 
up until now, we have always done these trade bills in sequence based 
on the time they were negotiated, at least under the TPA regimen we 
have when the House has been involved in trade bills. And Colombia, 
Panama, South Korea are all out there. I hope we can figure out a way 
to have the kind of debate those bills deserve.
  I would also like to say to my friend I appreciate the accommodation 
of the House schedule this week based on the loss of our colleague from 
the First District of Virginia, Jo Ann Davis. She cared about the 
things this Congress does. She was a great Member of Congress. I think 
it's fair to say she was particularly focused on the armed services and 
on Federal employees, both of which she had a real opportunity to 
impact.
  And I would say that I remember her seat over here where she almost 
always sat, that last week she was able to be here with us, just 
looking, and it was obvious the great health challenge she was facing 
and the incredible effort she was making to be here to cast the last 
week of votes she was able to cast. And for your quick accommodation of 
the schedule so that we could participate in her memorial service 
tomorrow and also, frankly, recognize her service by the House not 
being in session tomorrow, I am grateful to you for that.
  I would yield for any comments you might want to make.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding, and I want to join him in 
commending Jo Ann Davis and sending our sympathies from this side of 
the aisle to her family.
  I had the opportunity of working with her on a number of Federal 
employee issues. She and I both represented large numbers of Federal 
employees. She was very conscientious, hard working, focused, obviously 
very concerned about our national security, represented very 
substantial defense establishments, Navy establishments in her 
district. Her district was across the Potomac River from mine, as the 
gentleman probably knows, and we will miss her. I know that her 
constituents will miss her. And we were certainly pleased to have the 
opportunity to make sure that any and all Members who could go and 
wanted to go would be able to attend the services that will be held for 
her tomorrow at 1 p.m.
  I thank the gentleman for his observations and join him in my 
commendations to her.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate your efforts to do that. She was an example 
of public service and personal courage.

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