[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 172 (Tuesday, December 21, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H8892-H8893]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)

[[Page H8893]]

  Mr. HOYER. Ladies and gentlemen, I know the consternation that exists 
with respect to our schedule and when we are going to leave. I want to 
announce what I believe to be the balance of the schedule tonight. I 
would hope that it would include, but cannot assert at this point in 
time because I don't know--and I don't believe it's the case--that 9/11 
will be ready for us. They are still talking about it in the Senate. I 
just talked to Senator Reid.
  We will go to a suspension bill, the child sex trafficking bill. We 
will then go to the rule for the continuing resolution. We will then do 
the continuing resolution. That would, unless we get 9/11, conclude the 
business for today.
  It is, as Senator Reid indicates to me, a high likelihood that they 
will complete 9/11 sometime tomorrow. Now ``sometime tomorrow'' is, he 
says, no later than 4, as early as 2.
  Ladies and gentlemen, I know we would all like to say that, well, 
let's go home. As you know, the 9/11 bill does, in fact, impact 
literally tens of thousands of people who participated subsequent to 9/
11 in going into that building and initially looking for those who 
might still be surviving, and to look for those who did not survive and 
bring them out. So this is not a matter that does not have serious 
consequences for people who volunteered and, as a result of the 
atmosphere which confronted them as they went in, they became ill.
  So I think all of us understand the seriousness of this bill and the 
consequences of not doing it. So I would ask you to bear with us. We 
will have these votes, and we will be in constant touch with Senator 
Reid, the majority leader.
  But my expectation is that there is a high likelihood of a vote on 9/
11 sometime tomorrow. As a result, I would be asking all of you to stay 
tonight and be here tomorrow so that we can convene and do this very, 
very important business, which is not just important to the New 
Yorkers; this is important to our country. At any time we may have a 
catastrophe in which people would volunteer and show heroic effort to 
save lives and to rescue people.
  That is the schedule for the balance of the day. If 9/11 moves over 
here at any point and, frankly, what is happening now, I tell my 
friends, is that they're seeing whether or not, during the course of 
the START debate, which is going on now, whether they can get a time 
agreement and bring START to a close and a vote. If they can do that 
and then go to 9/11 and have a debate which is relatively brief, 
they've obviously had a long-term debate on that, and bring this bill 
to us tonight, I know that all of you would want and I would want and 
we will do it tonight. But I cannot assert that I think the Senate is 
going to move it in that time frame.
  That is our schedule. And, hopefully, our business will be concluded 
tomorrow on the passage of 9/11.

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