[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 9 (Thursday, January 15, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H368-H369]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. CANTOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. CANTOR. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland, 
the majority leader, for the purpose of announcing next week's 
schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend, the Republican whip, for yielding.
  On Monday, the House is not in session. Monday is the Federal holiday 
to celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. I might observe, 
as I am sure all the Members know, that today is in fact Martin Luther 
King's birthday, January 15. Extraordinary life. His bust is in the 
Rotunda. It is a real honor to be able to honor his birth and his 
message and his vision on Monday.
  This is a particularly auspicious recognition of the life of Martin 
Luther King, Jr. How proud he would be to know that the day after we 
recognize his birth and his message and his contribution to our 
country, we will inaugurate the 44th President of the United States of 
America, an African American; a statement that the dream, although not 
clearly still fully recognized, nevertheless is a dream shared by all 
of America.
  On Wednesday, Madam Speaker, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for 
legislative business with votes no earlier than 3 p.m. Let me reiterate 
that. We will be meeting on Wednesday at 12 p.m., with votes not 
expected before 3 p.m. Obviously, with the inaugural day, we don't want 
to have people have to come in too early, not necessarily because of 
anything they may be doing the night before, but because of scheduling 
they may or may not be here the night before.
  On Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. 
On Friday, no votes are expected.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A 
complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of 
business tomorrow.
  In addition, Madam Speaker, we will complete consideration of H.R. 
384, the bill we were just considering, the TARP Reform and 
Accountability Act, we expect to complete. We also expect to consider a 
privileged resolution relating to the disapproval of the obligations 
under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman, Madam Speaker.
  And I would like to bring the gentleman back to a conversation that 
we had last week regarding the SCHIP bill. Because, frankly, Madam 
Speaker, I'm a little bit concerned that the Democrat majority is not 
fulfilling President-elect Obama's calls for bipartisanship. Because I 
would say to the gentleman, last week you told the House that you were 
working towards having the SCHIP bill available to us for a full 48 
hours before bringing it to the floor; and as the gentleman knows, that 
did not happen.
  And I know the American people are not concerned about the process 
here in this House, but I do know that the public wants their Congress 
to function openly. This truly is about bipartisanship and 
transparency, and I believe that the American people deserve both.
  And as we discussed, Madam Speaker, last week, there are 55 new 
Members of this House. Those 55 new Members had less than 24 hours to 
review a 285-page bill that spent $72 billion in American taxpayer 
dollars, and none of these Members were even allowed to offer an 
amendment.
  So I would like to ask the majority leader if he would commit to 
allowing at least 48 hours for Members and the American public to 
review bills prior to a vote in the House.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding and I appreciate his 
observation.
  I did say we were going to try to give 48 hours. I may have said we 
were going to give 48 hours, but we did not give 48 hours, the 
gentleman is correct. The gentleman probably knows the reason we didn't 
give 48 hours is because we hadn't gotten a CBO scoring, so we were 
unable to finalize the bill until we got that scoring. We did give 
approximately 24 hours.
  But I say to the gentleman, with all due respect, yes, it was a 
lengthy bill, but of course the bill had been passed almost in exactly 
the same form either in the CHAMP bill or in the SCHIP bill itself, so 
that clearly the overwhelming majority of the text of the bill and the 
provisions of the bill have been available essentially for over a year.
  But having said that, I want you to know and I want to reiterate my 
intention to give the maximum amount of notice; 48 hours I think is 
clearly a target that we want to set. I don't want to make a commitment 
that we will not bring a bill without 48 hours notice. The gentleman, 
if you would confer with your predecessor--his predecessors, I would 
say--sometimes it's very difficult to do that.
  But the gentleman is absolutely correct, not only new Members, but 
all Members are certainly entitled to have the respect for their view 
and their opportunity to represent their constituents, to have 
appropriate notice, and we will certainly strive for that. I've 
reiterated to the committee Chairs and to our leadership that I want to 
follow regular order to the extent possible. And when I say the extent 
possible, we're in extraordinary times. This did not necessarily relate 
to the SCHIP bill, other than we had clearly considered that twice, had 
it voted upon numerous times in this House, and the overwhelming 
majority, I don't know the percentage, but I would say 95 percent of 
the bill was exactly as we had passed it in either the CHAMP bill or 
the SCHIP bill. But I am aware of the gentleman's concerns, and I want 
to tell him I share his concerns, and we will be working toward the end 
that he seeks to achieve.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for that.
  Madam Speaker, I would also ask the gentleman if he would commit to 
allowing both Republicans and Democrats the ability to offer amendments 
on a regular basis, especially as, in this instance, when a bill comes 
to the floor without committee consideration.
  Mr. HOYER. I understand the gentleman's concern. As you know, we are 
now considering a bill which has both Republican and Democratic 
amendments, very important bill, conditions for accountability and 
transparency and dealing with mortgage failures in the present bill 
that's on the floor. And certainly that will be my objective.

                              {time}  1415

  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Madam Speaker, I would like to further inquire of the gentleman, 
along those lines, I know that we now are looking at next week, as you 
suggest, beginning the legislative process on the consideration of a 
stimulus bill. And I would note that two of the gentleman's chairmen, 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) and Mr. Obey from the 
Appropriations Committee, have released summaries of the House 
Democratic economic recovery package. However, both gentlemen have not 
publicly released legislative texts. And I would say to the gentleman 
it is one thing for us to have a summary of the bill; it is another 
when we are contemplating spending $825 billion of the taxpayers' money 
as to when the text of a reported stimulus bill could be made publicly 
available.
  Mr. HOYER. I would hope and expect the text to be available by the 
end of business tomorrow. I'm very hopeful that that will be the case.
  Again, you understand the practical problems as they are now drafting 
all of the agreement. But we want it available, and hopefully the text 
will be available by the end of the week.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Madam Speaker, I further say that the Appropriations Committee on the 
Republican side of the aisle are extremely concerned, and they should 
be, that they will not be given the customary 3 days to review the text 
prior to any markup, and this is, after all, the committee rule. Our 
members are being told that today, Friday, and next Tuesday will count 
as the 3 days required under the committee rules; however, as we all 
know, on Tuesday almost no one will be allowed in the building due to 
the inauguration.
  So, Madam Speaker, I ask the gentleman from Maryland, the majority 
leader, in his capacity as the leader and a former appropriator, can he 
ensure us and ensure the members of the Appropriations Committee that 
their markup will not begin before next Thursday?
  Mr. HOYER. I cannot give the gentleman that assurance given the time 
frame that Mr. Obey is on. Obviously, as you know, the President and I 
think

[[Page H369]]

in a bipartisan way this administration, without reference to the 
specific stimulus package or recovery and reinvestment package that 
we're talking about, believes that we need to act with dispatch. We 
need to act carefully. We need to act correctly. But we also need to 
act with dispatch.
  I have just been told, by the way, that the text of the bill is 
online as we speak. So what I was going to say is that we need to act 
with dispatch, and as you can see, we're apparently doing that.
  We have a crisis that confronts us. We have lost over 2.5 million 
jobs. We lost a million jobs in the last 2 months. People are hurting. 
We have and I know of you have a sense of urgency. We have worked with 
this administration to try to respond to the economic crisis that 
confronts us. Very frankly, Democrats worked in a very bipartisan way 
and a very supportive way with this President and the Secretary of 
Treasury in trying to respond to this crisis. As a matter of fact, I 
would suggest that Democrats were more responsive to the President's 
request and Secretary Paulson's request than some Members of his own 
party.
  But that aside, we believe we need to act, as I said, with dispatch. 
We are doing that. I'm glad that this is online because now the 
committee will have Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and 
Tuesday. Clearly while one may not be able to get into the Capitol, 
although I would be surprised if the Appropriations staff could not get 
in the Capitol, and I don't want to adopt that premise because I don't 
know that to be the case, but in any event, the text will be obviously 
available to anybody all over the country to look at, to comment on, 
and to be prepared to act on at the appropriate time. In addition to 
that, every Member now will have at least 1\1/2\ weeks to review the 
text of this before it comes to the floor.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for his remarks. I know that it's 
not customary for us to count holidays and weekends in those 3 days, 
but I do thank the gentleman for the intent of his remarks.
  I would like to turn, Madam Speaker, to the issue of committee 
ratios. And I do know that there has been some progress made on the 
Energy and Commerce Committee. Essentially, Madam Speaker, my question 
to the gentleman is the ratio on the floor of the House is 59/41. And I 
am, as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, particularly puzzled 
how there is any justification for a ratio particularly on that 
committee where it is 63/37. And if he could allow me some insight as 
to how a ratio could be that different and what the reason for that 
would be.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. Yes, I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I didn't know you were 
going to ask that question; so I don't have the specific facts in front 
of me. But it is my belief that the Ways and Means Committee has 
historically had a ratio, when your side of the aisle was in charge and 
my side of the aisle has been in charge, that did not reflect the exact 
ratio of the House. That's also true on a couple of other committees as 
well.
  Generally speaking, however, in the discussions between Speaker 
Pelosi and Leader Boehner, the ratios were within a point or 2, I 
think, of the existing ratio. I know that we recently accommodated a 
request from the leader, from your leader, on the Energy and Commerce 
Committee, which I thought was appropriate for us to do. But I think, 
generally speaking, it reflects pretty closely the ratios between the 
parties in the House. But I think if you will look historically, and 
again I regret that I did not look it up, but I think historically the 
Ways and Means Committee has generally reflected a greater majority 
membership than the specific ratio of the parties on the floor of the 
House.
  Mr. CANTOR. And I do say to the gentleman we appreciate the gesture 
on the part of the Speaker working with our leader to accommodate this 
disparity in the ratio on the Energy and Commerce Committee and 
hopefully in that spirit can continue to work together to try to slim 
down that disparity on the other committees in which it does exist.
  Lastly, Madam Speaker, I would like to clarify what action the House 
will be taking next week on the bailout funds. As the majority leader 
has stated, he expects the House to vote on a resolution of 
disapproval. More plainly, for all the people of this country, this is 
a bill to block the remaining $350 billion in bailout funds from being 
spent.
  So to clarify again, Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman to 
respond to the statement that voting ``yes'' would block the bailout 
funds and voting ``no'' would allow the bailout funds to continue to be 
spent; is that correct?
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. The gentleman is correct. In the legislation which was 
passed pursuant to the request of President Bush and Secretary Paulson 
authorizing the TARP, they had asked for, as you know, $700 billion in 
one lump sum. We believe, the majority on both sides of the aisle 
believe, that that ought to be at least in two tranches, two segments 
of $350 billion. The legislation provided that for the second tranche 
to go forward, the President would have to ask for it. President Bush 
has now asked for that $350 billion, and that the Congress would have 
immediately before it within 3 days the introduction of a resolution of 
disapproval of the request and that that would have to be considered. 
Any Member 6 days thereafter could ask that that resolution be brought 
to the floor. Now, in this case 6 days thereafter would have been 
Sunday; so that would have been not appropriate or practical; so we 
put, as you know, in the rule the ability of the majority leader to 
call it up next week.
  The legislation does not provide for the issue becoming moot. Now, 
what I mean by that is I don't know whether the Senate has voted--they 
may vote tomorrow. They obviously began procedurally on their 
resolution of disapproval today. If that resolution is not passed, then 
our action would be essentially without meaning but not necessarily 
without importance to the Members who want to vote on it, so that 
sometime next week, Wednesday or Thursday, my expectation is that we 
have Members who will want to vote on it. I will be discussing it with 
your side. I will discuss it with you and discuss it with our side 
bringing that to a vote, notwithstanding the fact that the Senate may 
make such a vote not a meaningful act in that President Bush's request 
would have already been sanctioned because both Houses need to 
disapprove and if the Senate didn't disapprove, our action will not 
effect a disapproval.
  Mr. CANTOR. So I ask a follow-up, Madam Speaker, to the gentleman 
that the process for consideration of that resolution is yet to be 
determined?
  Mr. HOYER. My expectation is we're going to have it on the floor next 
week. Members on both sides want to vote on it, but as I said, it will 
not have any legal effect if the Senate defeats the resolution of 
disapproval.
  Mr. CANTOR. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland, the 
majority leader.

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