[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 9, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H7897-H7899]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              HOUSE RESERVISTS PAY ADJUSTMENT ACT OF 2008

  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules 
and pass the bill (H.R. 6608) to provide for the replacement of lost 
income for employees of the House of Representatives who are members of 
a reserve component of the Armed Forces who are on active duty for a 
period of more than 30 days, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 6608

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``House Reservists Pay 
     Adjustment Act of 2008''.

     SEC. 2. REPLACEMENT OF LOST INCOME FOR HOUSE EMPLOYEES ON 
                   ACTIVE DUTY UNDER INVOLUNTARY MOBILIZATION 
                   ORDER.

       (a) Payment.--
       (1) In general.--For each active duty month of an eligible 
     employee of the House of Representatives who is also a member 
     of a Reserve component of the Armed Forces, the Chief 
     Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives shall 
     pay to the employee the amount by which--
       (A) the amount of regular compensation the employee would 
     have received from the House of Representatives if the month 
     had not been an active duty month, exceeds (if at all)
       (B) the total monthly military compensation paid to the 
     employee for the month by the Secretary of Defense.
       (2) Eligibility.--An employee of the House of 
     Representatives is eligible for purposes of paragraph (1) 
     with respect to an active duty month if the employee was an 
     employee of the House of Representatives during each day of 
     the 90-day period which ends on the day on which the employee 
     reports for active duty under an involuntary mobilization 
     order.
       (b) Determination of Compensation Employee Would Have 
     Received.--
       (1) In general.--For purposes of subsection (a)(1), the 
     amount of regular compensation an employee would have 
     received from the House of Representatives for a month shall 
     be equal to the amount of compensation the employee received 
     from the House of Representatives for the base month 
     (excluding any bonus or incentive payment made during the 
     month), increased (in a compound manner) by any cost-of-
     living adjustments applicable to the compensation of 
     employees of the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer 
     for months occurring after the base month.
       (2) Base month defined.--For purposes of paragraph (1), the 
     term ``base month'' means, with respect to an employee, the 
     most recent month for which the employee received 
     compensation from the House of Representatives which precedes 
     the active duty month.
       (c) Special Rules Regarding Amount of Payment.--
       (1) Reduction for amounts paid from other sources as 
     replacement of lost income.--The Chief Administrative Officer 
     shall reduce the amount of any payment made to any individual 
     under subsection (a) with respect to an active duty month by 
     the amount of any payment received by the individual under 
     section 910 of title 37, United States Code, or any other 
     source that is provided to replace income lost by the 
     individual during the month.
       (2) Minimum amount required for payment.--The Chief 
     Administrative Officer shall not make a payment otherwise 
     required under this section if the amount of the payment (as 
     determined under subsection (a), taking into account the 
     reduction made under paragraph (1)) is not greater than $50.

[[Page H7898]]

       (d) Definitions.--In this section--
       (1) the term ``active duty month'' means, with respect to 
     an employee of the House of Representatives who is also a 
     member of a Reserve component of the Armed Forces, any month 
     during which the employee is not able to perform duties for 
     the office of the employee's employing authority because the 
     employee is on active duty under an involuntary mobilization 
     order for a period of more than 30 days;
       (2) the terms ``Armed Forces'', ``active duty for a period 
     of more than 30 days'', and ``Reserve component'' have the 
     meaning given such terms in section 101 of title 37, United 
     States Code; and
       (3) the term ``total monthly military compensation'' has 
     the meaning given such term in section 910(e)(2) of title 37, 
     United States Code.
       (e) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized 
     to be appropriated from the applicable accounts of the House 
     of Representatives such sums as may be necessary for payments 
     under this section.
       (f) Effective Date.--This section shall apply with respect 
     to active duty months beginning on or after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 3. ENSURING CONSISTENCY WITH CODE OF OFFICIAL CONDUCT.

       Clause 8 of rule XXIII of the Rules of the House of 
     Representatives is amended by adding at the end the following 
     new paragraph:
       ``(d) Nothing in this clause may be construed to prohibit 
     the disbursement or receipt of any payment authorized under 
     section 2 of the House Reservists Pay Adjustment Act of 
     2008.''.

     SEC. 4. CLARIFICATION OF ELIGIBILITY OF SURVIVORS FOR HOUSE 
                   GRATUITY.

       The last undesignated paragraph under the center heading 
     ``House of Representatives'' and the center subheading 
     ``Contingent Expenses of the House'' in the first section of 
     the Legislative Branch Appropriation Act, 1955 (2 U.S.C. 
     125), is amended by adding at the end the following: 
     ``Nothing in this paragraph may be construed to prohibit the 
     Chief Administrative Officer from paying a gratuity to the 
     widow, widower, or heirs-at-law of an employee of the House 
     who dies during an active duty month (as defined in section 
     2(d) of the House Reservists Pay Adjustment Act of 2008).''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Brady) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania.


                             General Leave

  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I ask that all Members have 5 
legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks in the 
Record on this bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. I yield myself as much time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6608 provides supplemental income to House 
employees who are Armed Forces reservists and who are involuntarily 
called to active duty. The House will supplement the active military 
duty pay by making up the difference between the employee's military 
salary and the employee's House salary prior to their call to active 
service.
  To be eligible for the supplemental income, employees must be 
employed by the House for at least 90 days prior to military 
activation. The cost of the pay supplements will come from appropriate 
House accounts and not charged to the employing office. In addition, 
the employee's salary will be subject to the cost of living adjustments 
in the same as other House employees.
  Mr. Speaker, I introduced this bill to address family hardships 
caused by some reservists and National Guard members being deployed for 
the second or third time. These servicemen and women earn military 
wages while on active duty and must leave their families and jobs, 
often for an undetermined and unpredictable amount of time.
  The private sector is supporting our soldiers and sailors by 
continuing to pay the difference between their usual salary and their 
active duty pay. This bill will offer the same for House employees.
  This is a good bill with strong bipartisan support that honors the 
devoted public service of our House employees. Our active duty 
reservists should not endure undue financial hardship for heeding our 
Nation's call to service.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support H.R. 6608, the House 
Reservists Pay Adjustment Act. I thank Chairman Brady for his 
leadership on this issue, and I'm proud to join with him as a cosponsor 
on this important bill.
  The men and women of the United States Armed Forces make many 
sacrifices to protect our freedom. They are asked to spend time away 
from their families, to put themselves in harm's way, and, in the case 
of some House staff, to accept a salary that is less than what they 
would normally earn in civilian life during the period that they are on 
active duty. The gap in pay experienced by these servicemen and women 
often causes undue hardship on themselves and their families and 
increases the already heavy burden placed upon them as they leave for 
battle.
  I am pleased to be able to find any reasonable method of assisting 
House staff, who are also members of the military, with the personal 
sacrifices they are asked to make to defend their country. This bill 
would compensate active servicemen and women for the difference in 
their combat pay and their official House salaries. These individuals 
have found not one but two careers that serve the public, and they 
should not experience a financial penalty for doing so.
  I congratulate Chairman Brady for introducing this bill, and I urge 
my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 6608.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I will inquire of the 
gentleman if he has any other speakers.
  Mr. EHLERS. I have another speaker. Myself.
  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve.
  Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Continuing with the discussion of energy, Mr. Speaker, let me just 
say I have a deep interest in the topic and have had for many years. 
Most of my colleagues here remember and recognize that I am a 
physicist, and physicists deal with energy all the time.
  One of the biggest problems that we address is that energy is 
intangible. The public simply doesn't recognize what it is, how its 
obtained, what the limitations are, and so forth; and I think we should 
do a better job of educating them about these problems.
  Another aspect is that energy is critical to every aspect of life.
  As an example, we talk about the agricultural revolution. But very 
few people recognize that the agricultural revolution, even though 
attempted a number of times many, many years ago, did not actually 
succeed until people learned to domesticate their animals so they could 
do the plowing and thresh the wheat and so forth.
  The second major revolution in history is the industrial revolution, 
once again directly tied to the use of energy. It's the first use of 
nonhuman and nonanimal energy with hydropower to drive the mills, later 
coal to drive the steam engines and so forth. And so the major 
revolutions in history took place in connection with the use of energy 
and the development of new forms of energy.
  We are now at a critical point in our life as a Nation and as a 
planet. If we do not recognize the changes required in our energy use, 
we are going to retrogress. Instead of advancing, we will lose the 
advantages we have from our copious amounts of energy and end up in a 
state where we have less energy than we had before. This will have 
disastrous economic effects, unless we change our direction.
  If you look back over history, virtually every recession has been 
tied to a dramatic increase in the cost of energy, which is something 
that we also have occurring now.
  So this is a serious problem, something that should be addressed 
immediately, and should not wait for next year. There are a number of 
excellent proposals out there from both parties. I would hope that we 
would winnow these out and come up with proposals that truly accomplish 
what we have to do, and that is to preserve our standard of living by 
developing new sources of energy, certainly developing those that we 
already have and know about which we are not really using properly.

                              {time}  1545

  It's essential that we do this, but this isn't going to happen by 
itself. We need help from the Congress to lay down the guidelines for 
the people in the energy industry, to researchers in the national

[[Page H7899]]

labs and other labs to really tackle this problem and come up with new 
ideas.
  I don't care if it's wind energy, which happens to be a part of solar 
energy; whether it's wave energy, which is also derived from solar 
energy; or whether it's photovoltaic cells. Naturally it helps that 
very soon photovoltaic cell research will be so good that we will have 
photovoltaic shingles on every house because we can make them at a cost 
that eventually will be less than that of the asphalt shingles. If we 
do that, every house becomes a power-generating system, and much of the 
electrical needs of each homeowner can be met just by the use of solar 
shingles on the roof of their home.
  This would be a tremendous boon to our country. Relatively free 
energy; you just buy the shingles which you have to buy anyway, and you 
get essentially free energy out of it.
  So there are many options that we should be pursuing, and we should 
be encouraging and helping as a Congress, so that we can help the 
public that is becoming desperate about what to do about the cost of 
energy and the price of energy.
  So I sincerely hope our Congress will tackle this issue and deal with 
it, and meet the needs of the public and of the planet at the same 
time.
  With that, if you have no further speakers, I'm pleased to yield such 
time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. 
Foxx).
  Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Congressman Ehlers. I just want to add my 
comments to the ones that you've made.
  I think that while I'm very much in support of this bill and we want 
to do whatever we can to help our employees bridge the gap between 
their military pay and the pay that they would receive here, I think 
one of the best things we can do for all the citizens of this country 
is to bring down the high price of gasoline, and that would serve 
everybody very well.
  We can do that. We know we can do that. All we have to do is announce 
that we are going to expand the supply of American-made energy, and we 
will immediately bring down the price. That will help all of our 
citizens, which is what every Member of this Congress should be doing.
  We will get to the alternatives. We can be completely energy 
independent in this country, but we can't do it overnight. In order to 
get to energy independence with alternatives, which Republicans 
support, we must supply more gas and oil in the short term, and I 
support those efforts.
  I ask the Speaker, again, to bring forth the American Energy Act so 
that we can have an up-or-down vote on it and let the American people 
know are you a pro-American energy person or an anti-American energy 
person. That's the issue that we're facing.
  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I find myself a little miffed 
that they would have to politicize this soldier bill, but I understand 
we have two soldiers on that side of that bill.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support this bill.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. EHLERS. I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brady) that the House suspend the 
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 6608.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and 
nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

                          ____________________