[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 109 (Thursday, July 22, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H5959-H5961]
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 the gentleman for yielding.
  On Monday the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate 
and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed until 6 p.m. 
on Monday. The House, on Tuesday, will meet at 9 a.m. for morning-hour 
debate and 10 a.m. 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. A 
complete list of suspension bills, as is the practice, will be 
announced by the close of business tomorrow. In addition, we will 
consider the Transportation and HUD appropriations bill and the 
Military Construction and VA appropriations bill of 2011. We're also 
expected to consider items from the Senate, including Senate amendments 
to H.R. 4899, the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010. There are 
obviously other possibilities of bills coming from the Senate, and we 
will consider those as time permits.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for that and would ask him if he 
could respond to some reports about several measures, perhaps, and the 
possibility of these measures coming to the floor next week, if he 
could give the House an update.
  One would be the oil spill response legislation that's coming out of 
the Resources Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee, and the Ways 
and Means Committee; the small business taxpayer fund bill in the 
Senate; the FAA authorization bill from the Senate; the 9/11 
compensation bill; and the Education and Labor OSHA bill relating to 
mining, if the gentleman could give us an update on those measures.
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.
  Rather than going into each one of them individually, I will say to 
the gentleman that each of those bills is under consideration. With 
respect to oil spills, there are significant discussions going on among 
the committees of jurisdiction, and we will, if we have a product to 
move forward, be prepared to do so.
  We believe responding to the oil spill is critical. We've done so, as 
you know, with two bills this week, passed unanimously through the 
House, and so that we will be proceeding to look at the oil spill issue 
to try to ensure, to the extent we can, A, it doesn't happen again, and 
B, if it does happen, that we are prepared to respond to it and the 
industry is prepared to respond to it.
  With respect to the other pieces of legislation, they are under 
discussion, some in this House and some in the Senate, as you know.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman, and, Mr. Speaker, I would ask the 
gentleman if the Members should be prepared for a possible Saturday 
session next week.
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Possibly. I say to my friend that, because next week is our last week 
and we will be recessing for the August break at that point in time, I 
would put Members on notice that there will be certain matters that we 
must complete and that we will complete and, as a result, Members ought 
to make sure that they have flexibility for next Saturday.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, the majority leader announced two appropriations bills 
for

[[Page H5960]]

floor consideration next week. I'd note, Mr. Speaker, that the fiscal 
year ends just over 2 months from now, and yet we're only now just 
beginning consideration of the first of 12 appropriations bills that 
fund the entire Federal discretionary budget. But I would ask the 
gentleman, Mr. Speaker, if he could tell us whether to expect those 
bills coming up for consideration on the floor under an open rule.
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I will be talking to Mr. Obey tomorrow and/or Monday to get his views 
on consideration of those bills, and at that point in time, I will be 
able to give you a clearer view on how those bills will be considered.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman whether he could 
commit to the House that he would continue to advocate for an open 
rule. I know the gentleman has always been and joins me in wanting full 
and open debate in the House, whether it will be his position that 
these appropriations bills would come to the floor on an open rule.
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.
  As the gentleman knows full well, because he and I have been involved 
in discussions, I have consistently been for considering the 
appropriations bills in a timely manner with agreement between the 
majority and the minority, as occurred in 2006 when Mr. Obey and Mr. 
Lewis reached agreement on the consideration of those bills. The 
gentleman is accurate when he says that that is my preferred option on 
the consideration of appropriations bills. But, as I say, I have not 
talked to the chairman, and I will be talking to him to get his view on 
how these bills can most effectively be considered.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Turning to the issue of the troop funding bill, Mr. Speaker, the 
Senate sent the House the troop funding bill supplemental about 2 
months ago, and it appears that that body will be sending us back the 
exact same version of the bill next week. I would ask the gentleman, 
Mr. Speaker, is that his understanding of the bill, and is it his 
understanding that that is the bill that we can expect the House to be 
voting on?
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.
  The Senate, as you know, has not completed its consideration of the 
supplemental and are debating other issues, some of which we sent to 
them, and as a matter of fact, I think some of those have the 
majority's support. The small business lending bill, in particular, I 
would hope they would bring to us.

                              {time}  1620

  We included a number of things, not the least of which is trying to 
ensure that 140,000 teachers around the country remain on the job for 
our children and for our schools. I don't know whether the Senate will 
include that or not.
  We also included money for border security, which was not in the 
Senate bill. FEMA and Haiti, and oil spill money, I believe, were in 
the Senate bill initially. We have also included that. There are other 
items that we have included to try to grow jobs and expand the economy, 
which, unfortunately, the Senate at least at this point in time has not 
supported.
  But I say to my friend that in light of the fact that the Senate has 
not yet passed the supplemental, I am not sure what's going to be in 
it. But I would say to the gentleman, once again, as he knows, it is my 
intention to ensure that the money for the troops is, in fact, passed 
before we leave here.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, that was going to be my question: When faced 
with the reality that the Senate will send us back the version that it 
did so 2 months ago, if faced with that, will the House be taking that 
bill up and then funding our troops before we adjourn for the recess in 
August?
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.
  I am going to give him the same answer: I am not going to anticipate. 
I find it not a very productive endeavor to anticipate what the United 
States Senate will do. I have been so disappointed so often on that 
speculation that I am not going to enter into such speculation today.
  However, I will tell the gentleman, as I have said some weeks running 
now, that it is my intention that we will have a bill pass this House 
and pass the Senate, for that matter, that funds the troops prior to 
our leaving for our August break.
  Mr. CANTOR. I am reminded by my counsel, Mr. Speaker, that, as the 
gentleman would probably agree, the Senate is nothing but predictable.
  Mr. Speaker, as we are discussing the schedule for next week, I would 
like to announce the ninth YouCut vote which will take place on the 
House floor next week. Over 1.4 million votes have been cast to date at 
the Republican youcut.house.gov site.
  I would say to the gentleman, four of your Members announced a series 
of proposed cuts this week. While the gentleman did not mention them in 
his schedule for next week, I would note that we have included one of 
their proposals in our five YouCut options for next week. The proposal 
offered by the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Adler, would terminate 
the Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit, saving $1.1 billion.
  The additional options for the public to vote on this week under the 
YouCut program include the elimination of duplicative Federal PE 
programs, saving $790 million; the refocusing of the National Park 
Service on administering Federal parks, saving $238 million of taxpayer 
money; the termination of funding for the DOD Innovative Readiness 
Training program at a $200 million savings; and the prohibition of the 
use of taxpayer funds for political campaigns in foreign countries, 
savings of $23 million.
  And so with that, Mr. Speaker, I would urge the gentleman's 
consideration, perhaps if not at our suggestion, the suggestion of his 
colleagues on his side of the aisle, that perhaps maybe we should 
endeavor to have a vote on the floor about actually cutting spending.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Without getting into a long colloquy, and I appreciate the 
gentleman's trying to truncate this, let me simply say that I think the 
suggestions of how we can save money, how we can bring the deficit down 
from whatever source they come should be welcomed by all of us. Whether 
they come from your side of the aisle, my side of the aisle, from the 
public at large, Republicans, Democrats, independents, or totally 
nonpartisan sources whatsoever, we ought to consider them.
  We have a very significant deficit problem confronting us. I won't go 
into the reasons of why I think we have those deficit problems, but we 
have them and we have been try to go dig out of a deep economic 
recession, as all of us know. So I simply wanted to say that, as you 
know, this week we did vote in a very substantial reduction, the 
Surface Transportation Savings Act, which passed 402-0. We cut $107 
million.
  Next week I expect that we are going to have at least one vote, maybe 
others, to cut substantial dollars. Betsy Markey has an idea that she 
has introduced that would save $703-plus million. We hope to consider 
that. But I want to reiterate, which is all I want to say, that we 
welcome ideas on how to bring the deficit down.
  I mentioned, of course, earlier that Mr. Kyl indicated that paying 
for things were not necessary if they were in the tax field. But 
cutting other things, the problem is, that was $678 billion that he 
suggested in borrowed money. And so we are going to have to look, as I 
said in a speech not too long ago, at all items of expenditure, 
wherever they may be found, to make sure that we are returned to the 
fiscal posture, frankly, that we were in when we had a $5.6 trillion 
surplus in January of 2000.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I would note that we are making some progress here if we 
are going to avoid pointing fingers and casting blame as to why we are 
where we are, in the spirit of trying to move forward together and 
addressing the real challenges that our constituents and the people of 
this country are facing.
  I welcome the gentleman's desire to look for ways to cut spending. I 
would

[[Page H5961]]

just reiterate that there are four individuals on his side of the 
aisle, Mr. Adler of New Jersey being one, having proposed a savings of 
$1.1 billion that will be part of the YouCut activities over the Web 
this week. Mr. Speaker, if that is the winning proposal, then the 
gentleman will have an opportunity to join us in putting that measure 
to a vote. So I look forward to that next week, Mr. Speaker.
  Again, I thank the gentleman for his time.

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