[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 93 (Friday, June 19, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H7067-H7071]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. McCARTHY of California asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman 
from Maryland, the majority leader, for the purpose of announcing next 
week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House is not in session.
  On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning-hour debate 
and noon for legislative business.
  On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for 
legislative business.
  On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The 
complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of 
business today.
  In addition, Mr. Speaker, we will consider H.R. 2892, the 2010 
Homeland Security Appropriations Act, and the 2010 Interior and 
Environment Appropriations Act. We will also consider the National 
Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2010.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman.
  And I would just like to ask: he noticed two appropriations bills for 
next week, the Homeland Security and the

[[Page H7068]]

Interior. I was just wondering if the gentleman could tell us what he 
believes next week's process will be in terms of amendments.
  And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  The two appropriations bills are two of the 12 appropriation bills 
that it is my intention to see us send to the Senate by the end of next 
month. Obviously, as the gentleman knows, the fiscal year ends on 
September 30; therefore, in order for us to get these bills completed 
and do them individually rather than bundled in an omnibus, which I 
think is a far preferable process, it's necessary for us to move these 
bills in a timely fashion. The rules, therefore, will try to 
accommodate both the Members and the time frame and the time 
constraints that we confront.
  I would say to the gentleman that we tried to reach, over the last 
2\1/2\ months, some agreement on time constraints. Indeed, I offered to 
have a choice of amendments by your side after we reached a time 
agreement. We were, as the gentleman knows, unable to reach such 
agreement. In fact, I was told by your leadership that no such 
agreement was possible.
  In 2004, on the bill that we did yesterday, when the majority was 
then your side of the aisle there were 16 amendments in total offered 
to the bill we did yesterday, 10 by Republicans--of course it was your 
bill and you were in charge--and six amendments offered by Democrats. 
We asked for preprinting of amendments so we would have some idea of 
what amendments would be pending, and your side filed 102 amendments. 
That is more amendments total than were filed by either party in 2004, 
2005 and 2006, so it was clear that if we had had a rule that provided 
for the 5-minute rule, with 434 Members having the right to 5 minutes 
on each amendment, that it would have been impossible to finish that 
bill, much less 12 bills, by the end of July, very frankly, so that 
ultimately we had to do a structured rule to accommodate doing the 
people's business in a timely fashion.
  I'm sorry that we couldn't reach agreement. There have been no 
further discussions, although I did talk to Mr. Cantor, who is not here 
today--or at least not here this afternoon--I did talk to him on a 
number of occasions about this as recently as the night that we went to 
the Rules Committee to get the structured rule. I have not heard from 
him or from Mr. Boehner with respect to any option available to us for 
time constraints.
  In fact, Mr. Obey, as you know, had a colloquy with Mr. Lewis on the 
floor on the rule that was essentially an open rule. And the colloquy 
essentially asked by Mr. Obey, Can we reach time agreements? And Mr. 
Lewis responded, I'm afraid my conference might very well have a 
revolution on its hands and you might have a new ranking member, in 
which he indicated that time constraints were not possible. Therefore, 
I say to my friend from California that we are considering a rule 
which, as I said, will allow us to consider amendments on substance, 
but allow us to do so in a time frame that may well be shorter than has 
been the case in the past.
  Let me say to you that when we last considered the Commerce-Justice-
Science bill in 2006 when your side was in charge, you got a unanimous 
agreement from Mr. Obey on time constraints. Those time constraints 
provided for consideration of approximately 17 hours on the bill.
  In 2007, we got--not time constraints, but about the same amount of 
time. Now, unfortunately, after we thought in 2007 we were going to 
have agreement to do about the same time that we gave to you when you 
were in the majority, notwithstanding that, we went 50 hours over. Now, 
50 hours, in terms of legislative time, is at least 2 weeks of time, 
unless of course you have a day like yesterday. But in terms of a 
normal day, that's 2 weeks. We simply cannot complete and do our 
business in that context.
  So I tell my friend that we are considering a structured rule because 
we believe that if we are going to get our work done, that's necessary. 
We believe it has been amply shown--amply shown--in 2007, and because 
we were unable to reach, over 2\1/2\ months, an agreement on time 
constraints, that the only way you are going to allow us to get our 
work done is if we limit the time frame in which we can act.

                              {time}  1530

  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank my friend for expressing the 
desire to get the work done in this House, and I will tell you from 
this side of the aisle, that is our desire as well.
  Knowing when we talk about time, we believe we can get our work done 
on time as well. But having only been in this House 2\1/2\ years and 
seeing bills come to the floor and knowing, even when we brought the 
stimulus, the whole idea about time, that soon we found out, because 
somebody rushed the bill to the floor, that there were AIG bonuses in 
the bill at the time. I always think the American people believe it's 
okay to have some checks and balances; it's okay to have debate on the 
floor; it's okay to have some amendments asked upon the bill process.
  And I ask my good friend who brought up the number of amendments, the 
thing that I would recall, though, this is in a world of preprinting, 
and when you deal with preprinting of amendments, that you have to 
submit them earlier, there are numerous ones you submit but they will 
not come to the floor. Much like when we started the debate this week, 
we did not enter the first Republican one until six of them had already 
been denied. So even though a quote will be named of a hundred and some 
amendments, that's not the number that we'll take up.
  And when we talked about the ability of having an agreement on time, 
that came to pass after the bill had started. And I would think in the 
idea of making sure that the best products come out of this floor that 
a time idea would not be until you start the bill. Look to where the 
process is, and how would it be wrong to have a debate?
  When I just watched the legislative branch today, we only had one 
amendment that we all agreed to. We had one chance of a motion to 
recommit, which we were able to save the taxpayers $100,000, where 374 
people came together and said, yes, we could do better, that we don't 
have to settle for good; we could settle for great. But how much more 
money could we have saved had we had that opportunity to offer it?
  And one thing I would say to the gentleman is if we did have an open 
rule, as it was before, and we talked about maybe taking away the 
preprinting, maybe we could be a little faster in the process. And I 
think looking at the history of what happened this week, we could have 
gotten it through faster in an open rule.
  So I ask the gentleman, as he talks about having a closed structure 
in the process, is there any assurance that we know you're going to 
agree to that plan or maybe even have an open rule as we progress?
  Mr. HOYER. I'm sorry. Would you repeat the question.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. You had said earlier that you were 
looking to----
  Mr. HOYER. I know what I talked about, but at the end you asked a 
question, and I'm not sure I got exactly what the question was.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Well, the assurance, will you stay with 
that, or is there any ability to open it up, to have an open rule?
  Mr. HOYER. Let me respond to the gentleman's observation with respect 
to starting the bill without agreements on time. We did that in 2007. 
We went 50 hours over what we agreed to in time constraints the year 
before when you were in the majority. My belief is, and I tell my 
friend this very sincerely, and I think my friend knows my reputation 
about working across the aisle and working in an honest, open fashion, 
is that the agreement was that we would do exactly, not to the minute, 
but within the framework of the agreement that we gave to you to 
consider the bills that you brought to the floor in 2006. We expected 
the same consideration. Notwithstanding that, notwithstanding that, we 
went 50 hours over what I thought the agreement was.
  Now, 50 hours, as I told the gentleman, is 2 weeks. And 2 weeks is a 
long time in terms of the weeks we have available to do our bills. In 
fact, at this current time, we have approximately 7 weeks left to 
complete the appropriations process, House, Senate,

[[Page H7069]]

and sending it to the President, if we do it in a timely fashion. Now, 
usually we do not do that, and I think that's unfortunate. Both sides 
don't do that. But I'm very hopeful that we will do it.
  Let me make one additional comment. You mentioned the AIG bonuses. 
Clearly, the AIG bonuses weren't in that bill to which you referred. 
That bill, of course, came from the administration of your party and 
the Secretary of the Treasury from your party. And as you know, when 
they originally submitted the bill, it was a 3-page bill for $700 
billion.
  Now, the gentleman is correct that we didn't have appropriate 
constraints in there to preclude AIG's doing that, but they certainly 
weren't in the bill. And to represent that as the case, I'm sure the 
gentleman did not mean to imply that they were in the bill. They 
clearly were not.
  So I say to my friend we've had experience on this. It's not as if 
you would like to believe or represent that we have a clean slate, that 
we're coming at this just brand new, clean, and everybody wants to be 
fair and balanced. The fact of the matter is that did not occur in the 
last year. Unfortunately, we didn't do the appropriations process very 
well last year. Both parties point the finger at each other for the 
blame. Irrespective of whom was to blame last year, we didn't do it. I 
don't like that. I want to see the regular process pursued, and I 
intend to provide for timeframes in which to do that. And as I say, for 
2\1/2\ months I pursued an effort to see if we could reach time 
agreements, as we gave to you in 2006. We have been unable to do that. 
I think that's unfortunate. But having failed to do that, I, frankly, 
want to tell the gentleman that I will not advise Mr. Obey nor the 
Rules Committee nor the Speaker to proceed for an hour or 2 hours or 5 
hours or 10 hours before we get an agreement on time constraints, which 
was the practice, frankly, in 2007, and I don't intend to go down that 
road again.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Just to clarify to my good friend that on 
the other side of the aisle in the other house, they had passed an 
amendment to deny the right for those AIG bonuses. And if I recall when 
I was sitting on this floor, those lights were all green saying ``yes'' 
to the resolution, that they would have 48 hours, the American people, 
to see that bill. But in the short timeframe, within the next day, that 
was not to be true. That was not the agreement that transpired on this 
floor that, yes, it was handed out after midnight and, yes, we voted on 
it the next day.
  Mr. HOYER. Would my friend yield on that point?
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I will gladly yield to my friend.
  Mr. HOYER. For what purpose was the 48 hours asked for?
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. It was the motion to instruct. And one 
thing I would say----
  Mr. HOYER. For what purpose was the 48 hours asked for?
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. If I may just finish, the one thing I was 
asking for was really for the American people to be able to see it, be 
able to read it and be able to understand it.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield again?
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Gladly, to my friend.
  Mr. HOYER. Isn't that what preprinting of amendments attempts to do? 
I yield back.

  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman.
  One thing I would say as we continue forward, if I could just finish 
with this discussion, if it is your intention to close down and 
continue to have a preprinting, is there a number in the gentleman's 
mind that he could tell this side of the aisle that the Republicans 
would be able to have a number of amendments just to have a check and 
balance for the American people when we talk about the billions of 
dollars that will be spent in these appropriation bills, even though 
we're being denied the amount of time that we can debate it?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding because that's a good 
question. That's exactly what I offered your leadership.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Do you have a number in mind?
  Mr. HOYER. No. I offered it to your leadership. I didn't mention a 
particular number, but I offered that to your leadership for over 2\1/
2\ months. Your leadership concluded that they could not make or would 
not make such an agreement. I tell my friend that it's difficult to put 
a number on the amendments because, as the gentleman says and as I told 
you, we asked for six amendments. We offered six amendments in 2004 to 
that bill that was considered yesterday, six. Now you may say you would 
have winnowed 102 down to a lesser number. I don't know what the lesser 
number would have been, whether it would have been 70 or whether it 
would have been 50 or whether it would have been 40. But as you know, 
without a structured rule, with 5 minutes for each Member of the House 
to speak, you can do the math. Five times 400, obviously, is 2,000 
minutes. Divide that by 60, you have a lot of days to consider that 
bill.
  I think the gentleman is probably correct, it would not have been 102 
amendments, but I don't know what number there would have been, and 
it's impossible to put a number on it unless we know how many 
amendments are requested. If as was the case in 2004 and we only asked 
for six, giving us 10 would not have seemed to make much sense. On the 
other hand, if we asked for 20, maybe a higher number certainly would 
be in order.
  So I say to my friend, we will have to see how many amendments are 
sought, but we are not going to go down the road we went down in 2007. 
And I say to the gentleman, in my opinion, the problem with his party 
is they're hoisted on the petard of their performance in 2007 in trying 
to argue that somehow we don't have reason to be concerned by 
filibuster by debate. Yesterday was filibuster by vote, and we wasted a 
lot of time yesterday, unfortunately. Many hearings were cancelled on 
health, on safety, on statutory PAYGO and other matters that we 
couldn't have hearings on because we were voting four times on an issue 
with essentially the same result each time.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I do appreciate the decades of service 
you have provided, and, again, I say I have only been here 2\1/2\ 
years. But as I always studied and watched Congress and understood the 
idea of a filibuster, never did I think a filibuster was 20 minutes. 
Never did I think when you came to the floor, on the very first 
amendment a Republican took up, that in 20 minutes somehow it got 
called a filibuster.
  And from one perspective on this side of the aisle, please 
understand, you set the rules. Nowhere did we not abide by the rules. 
You asked for preprinting; we provided our amendments preprinted. You 
said to go along with the debate; we got into the debate. We were into 
20 minutes. And I think the American people like the idea of debating 
on this floor.
  But if I may move on, there is just one final question on this. The 
reason I asked you about the number of amendments on the Republican 
side, you've got to understand the questioning of why I would. We just 
took up a legislative branch, and you said you weren't sure about how 
many Republican amendments there could be in the future, but to my good 
friend, there were none. There wasn't one Republican amendment. So our 
ability within the rules as they're constructed, we have one motion to 
recommit, and you know what happened? 374 people in this Chamber joined 
hands together. That doesn't come around very often to save the 
taxpayers $100,000.
  So think for one moment what the American people would save in a time 
of crisis, and you look in my district where it's 15.9 percent 
unemployment, if they see a few more dollars saved, it helps them a 
great deal.
  But if I may move on, to my good friend from Maryland, I would like 
to ask him about cap-and-trade. The Speaker has announced and I have 
read a lot of what she has said about if you don't finish this bill in 
Agriculture and Ways and Means by a certain date, you lose the right of 
authority. And the Speaker had a goal of considering the cap-and-trade 
bill on the floor prior to the July 4th process. Does my friend believe 
that time will still be the case, that we will see the bill before July 
the 4th?
  Mr. HOYER. The energy independence and climate bill to which the 
gentleman refers, as you know, was

[[Page H7070]]

marked up in committee and passed out of committee prior to the May 
break. Since that time, there have been a lot of discussions, and the 
Speaker did, in fact, say that committees with concurrent jurisdiction 
ought to act by the 19th, today, to try to bring this matter to 
conclusion. As the gentleman knows, I did not announce that bill for 
next week. I don't want to say it's not possible, but I have, for the 
last 3 months, been telling people, particularly the press that asked 
me the schedule, that I thought the energy independence and climate 
bill would be on the floor either the last week in June or the first 
week we get back in July. So that was the timeframe from my 
expectations. At this point in time, I have no reason to believe that 
it's going to be on the floor next week, but I want to make it clear to 
the Members that work is being done as we speak on this bill. The 
Agriculture Committee and Ways and Means in particular are working on 
this bill. We believe this is a very critical and important bill. This 
is one of the President's priorities. So I say to the gentleman that I 
have not announced it on the schedule. My present expectation is that 
it will not be on for next week, but if agreement was reached today or 
tomorrow and it was possible to move forward, it is possible. And if we 
have the time to do that, it is possible that we would consider it next 
week.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. If I just may follow up on that, should I 
believe what I read in the paper, that even though this bill has three 
different committees of jurisdiction with the Agriculture and the Ways 
and Means bill, if it was not taken up by a certain date, would they 
lose the jurisdiction right to take up the bill before it came to the 
floor, or will we expect it to come out of those committees before the 
floor?

                              {time}  1545

  Mr. HOYER. I think that, obviously, is going to be up to the Speaker 
and committee Chairs as they discuss this. But I think, again, we deal 
with time constraints, and we want to do things right. But we know that 
if you simply do not set targets to get things done, the legislative 
process, which I have been at for over 40 years, sometimes can delay, 
and you don't get things done. So you set target dates to get things 
done, and this is what she has done. I don't think it's so much a 
question of losing jurisdiction as it is a sense of trying to get 
something done by a date so that you can then move on to final passage 
on the floor of the House.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman.
  And if I may move on to another subject. During the debate of the war 
supplemental, one major issue was dropped from the bill. The bipartisan 
provision to prevent release of detainee photos was removed from the 
final version, knowing the release of these photos could create greater 
tension in the very region that our troops are now fighting. As the 
gentleman knows, the Senate unanimously passed the Lieberman bill 
yesterday, preventing the release of detainee photos. I am just 
wondering why the bill didn't come to the floor today to protect our 
troops.
  Would you consider that to be brought up next week?
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gentleman's question. I think many of us 
share the view that the present action was well advised as it relates 
to the safety and security of our troops. On June 11, as the gentleman 
may know, just a few days ago, the President wrote to the Chairs of the 
House and Senate Appropriations Committees and said as follows:
  ``I deeply appreciate all you have done to help in the efforts to 
secure funding for the troops. I assure you that I will continue to 
take every legal and administrative remedy available to me to ensure 
that DOD and detainee photographs are not released.''
  In light of that--and of course, the court has put a stay on the 
release, as I'm sure the gentleman knows. So there is no present 
intention by the administration to release these photos. So while the 
Senate acted yesterday, obviously there's no need for us to act 
immediately on this. I am sure that the committee will consider it in 
due course.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman. And knowing that 
and with the Senators knowing that as well, they still passed it 
yesterday unanimously.
  Do you believe we could take it up next week?
  Mr. HOYER. I think we could do a lot of things next week.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I look forward to that. I appreciate 
that.
  Mr. HOYER. Well, I didn't say that we would do that next week. You 
asked me, could we. We could.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Well, I would never bet against you. I 
appreciate the opportunity to bring that up.
  And to my good friend from Maryland, knowing that this is the last 
colloquy before the Fourth of July break, as we look forward to when we 
come back, there are a lot of big topics coming before this House. I 
will tell you from a personal level, it was a little disturbing on some 
of the items I'm reading about. Because in this House on this side of 
the aisle, I participated really for the first time coming back this 
year of inviting our President to our conference, inviting President 
Obama to the conference because we wanted to work in a bipartisan 
manner. We worked on the idea of the stimulus bill where we got 
together and we created ideas that he asked for, and we gave it to him. 
We could create twice as many jobs with half as much money, scored by 
his own administration. And when I look forward, one thing that we did 
early on was, this leadership on this side of the House signed a letter 
to the President, talking about, we want to work together on health 
care. We want to find common ground. We want to make sure that all 
Americans have access to health care. We want to make sure that we 
solve this problem. And in doing that, we even put together our own 
working group. We set out our principles, and we continue to put them 
forward. And one of the concerns I had when I tried to find information 
from the other side of the aisle--I would go to the President's Web 
page. First there were eight items; and as we got closer, it would get 
down to three items. They were actually taking things off the Web site. 
But then when I read in the newspaper Politico where people are being 
directed on your side of the aisle not to talk to Republicans on the 
health care issue--I don't know if you read that quote, but I can 
provide it to you. And then when I hear of other people that are 
outside of these Chambers working on it, being told not to talk to 
Republicans or they would not be put in the room, I'm just wondering if 
there's a chance that that behavior will change and that we will have 
the opportunity to work together, that we will have the opportunity for 
our ideas to be presented. That is something the American people would 
want, that we could work in a bipartisan--much like earlier when a 
Republican produced the motion to recommit, and 374 people came 
together to save the taxpayers $100,000.
  I yield to my friend from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I'm not sure what quote and who was instructed not to speak to 
Republicans because I have had a number of discussions with my good 
friend Roy Blunt. So I didn't follow that direction, I haven't give 
that direction, and I want to make it clear that from the Speaker's 
perspective and mine, anybody on our side of the aisle who wants to sit 
down with anybody on your side of the aisle at any time to discuss 
health care issues, either in committee or in subcommittee, they are 
more than free to do so; and I would encourage them to do so. In fact, 
as I think the gentleman may know, all of the three committee Chairs of 
Energy and Commerce, Education and Labor and Ways and Means have been 
sitting down with their ranking members.
  Now there was a change in ranking members, as you know, on the 
Education and Labor Committee. Frankly, I'm not sure that you've made 
the change on Education and Labor. Maybe you have.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Yes, we have.
  Mr. HOYER. In any event, so I'm not exactly sure about Mr. Miller. 
But I know that Mr. Rangel has had discussions with Mr. Camp; and I 
know that Mr. Waxman has sought and indicates to me--and I wasn't 
there--but he's had discussions with his ranking member as well, Mr. 
Barton.

[[Page H7071]]

  So let me assure the gentleman that we welcome bipartisan 
participation. I told that to Mr. Blunt. Mr. Blunt and I, I think as 
you know, have a history of working together successfully on behalf of 
legislation in this body, and I have great respect for him. He heads up 
your health task force. We have had discussions; and I've asked him to 
provide me with any suggestions that his task force has that he 
believes would be useful for us to discuss further; and I'm very 
hopeful that he will do so. As you know, we put a discussion draft on 
the table today for discussion. Our side has put some principles out as 
well. I'm hopeful. I know the President's hopeful that we can discuss 
those. We did have an unfortunate experience, as the gentleman recalls, 
when the President said he wanted to sit down and talk about the 
stimulus, and he was coming down to meet with your caucus, and a half-
hour before he got there, your leadership instructed all of your 
Members to vote ``no'' on the bill before talking to the President. I 
thought that was unfortunate. But notwithstanding that, it's our 
intention to continue to try to seek bipartisan input and agreement 
where that can be possible.

  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Well, I thank the gentleman. The only 
thing I would say, having been in that caucus, the President came to 
the caucus that we had invited him to prior to our retreat because we 
wanted to speak to this President before. And I will tell you, knowing 
that these are closed-door sessions, but this is probably one of the 
best caucuses I had been to. I thought it was very honest, open, talked 
about the issue, discussed the issue. There were times when the 
President disagreed with us. He said, I philosophically disagree. But 
other times he said, You know what, that's a good idea. Let's work on 
that. But as the President left that caucus, the other side introduced 
the bill, so in essence in part we felt crushed with the opportunity to 
even work in a bipartisan manner. But we continued along the trail 
where we put the working group together, and we didn't go out and score 
the bill our way. We took the President's scoring, which will tell you 
how many jobs and how much money it would cost; and our focus was on 
small business and job creation. It created twice as many jobs with 
half the amount of money. Our whip, Mr. Eric Cantor, personally handed 
it to the President; and the President said, This isn't crazy at all.
  So we, on this side of the aisle, really look forward to working in a 
bipartisan manner and especially after seeing the scoring on the latest 
health care bill from the Democratic side, where it would only help 15 
million of those uninsured but costs more than $1 trillion, knowing 
that that does not solve the problem, but continues to cost taxpayers 
tremendous amounts of money. I appreciate your assurance that maybe the 
attitude has changed, that the quote from Congressman Jim Cooper to the 
Politico where he was told not to work with Republicans, that that will 
change. I appreciate your work on that and the words you have said 
today.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Gladly.
  Mr. HOYER. Because I know the gentleman doesn't want to 
mischaracterize my remarks.
  I have never said we have changed our opinion. That has been our 
opinion expressed by our President, expressed by me and expressed by 
others, that we desire to work in a bipartisan mode. But the gentleman 
surely understands that there were, I can tell you, people on your side 
of the aisle who indicated to me that they wanted to vote for a number 
of the pieces of legislation that dealt with the stimulus; but the 
party pressure was so great to vote ``no'' that they didn't feel 
comfortable doing it. I may in private give you those names so you can 
check on the veracity of my representation.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Well, I appreciate the gentleman because 
when I was sitting here on the floor, and I saw 17 of your Members join 
with everyone voting ``no,'' the bipartisan support, that there was a 
better way, that there was an opportunity. That kind of goes back to 
the whole debate about amendments. I always thought, coming to this 
floor, that maybe the power of the idea should win, and no one should 
be afraid of an idea or an amendment, that we would actually be better. 
But I think the opportunity to spend time with the gentleman--and I 
appreciate it if some Members on your side thought differently in the 
past, that we can get the message out. I appreciate the work that you 
have done.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I yield back the balance of 
my time.

                          ____________________