[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23958-23959]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the 
majority leader the schedule for the coming week.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to make all the Members aware that the 
House has completed voting for the day and the week. We will take any 
votes called on the three pending motions to instruct, we will take 
votes on those next week.
  Regarding next week's schedule, the House will convene on Tuesday at 
12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. At 
that time we expect to consider several measures under suspension of 
the rules, and any votes called on those measures will be called at 
6:30 p.m. on that day.
  On Wednesday, the House will meet for legislative business at 10 a.m. 
In addition to potentially considering additional legislation under 
suspension of the rules, Members should be aware that we may be 
considering a number of conference reports. These include, but are not 
limited to, H.R. 1474, Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act; the 
Fiscal Year 2004 Military Construction Appropriations bill; the Fiscal 
Year 2004 Department of the Interior Appropriations bill; the Energy 
and Water Appropriations bill; and potentially the Labor-HHS and 
Education Appropriations bill.
  Finally, I would like to remind all Members that we do not plan to 
have votes next Thursday, October 9, or Friday, October 10. I thank the 
gentleman for yielding, and I would be happy to answer any questions he 
may have.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the majority 
leader. I appreciate the information the gentleman has given us. 
Essentially, we will be meeting Tuesday night and Wednesday next week.
  The gentleman did not mention the Iraq supplemental, I do not 
believe. I would like to know because, obviously, that is a matter of 
great concern to every Member of this body and to the American people, 
when the gentleman expects to consider that supplemental appropriation 
on the floor. And additionally, can the gentleman assure Members that 
we are going to have a full consideration and fair process to consider 
this bill on the floor, a process that will allow a full debate so that 
Members will have the ability to address all of their concerns? They 
may well want to support it, but I think the Congress and the American 
people want to know exactly what we are doing.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. The 
gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) of the Committee on 
Appropriations has informed me that he plans to proceed with regular 
order. He also plans under that regular order to circulate the 
supplemental appropriations bill with committee members on Monday. Then 
he plans to hold a markup next Thursday and, assuming things go 
according to plan, the bill will lay over the requisite number of days, 
and we should be able to bring it to the floor the following week, the 
week of October 13, I believe.

                              {time}  1445

  Mr. HOYER. Is it the gentleman's expectation now that the bill as 
reported from the Committee on Rules to the floor will be subject to 
amendment?
  Mr. DeLAY. I anticipate that the bill will come to the floor as most 
appropriations bills do, and there would be pretty much an open rule. 
Yes, I would suspect so.
  Mr. HOYER. Further conference reports from the Committee on 
Appropriations. The Majority leader mentioned several conference 
reports that would come up next week or may come up next week. I would 
note that neither the Medicare prescription drug legislation nor the 
child tax credit legislation is on that list, but could Members be told 
which of those that were listed are most likely to come to the floor? I 
know we have had them on the list a number of times. Does the gentleman 
have any greater feel for which bills would be most likely to come to 
the floor?
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, of those that I listed, the Check Clearing 
for the 21st Century Act has already been filed, so we know that we 
will be voting on those. And we have every reason to expect that we 
have a good possibility of having the military construction and 
Department of Interior appropriations bills come to the floor. It may 
be a little more difficult to get Labor HHS to the floor.
  As far as Medicare and its conference, the conferees have had formal 
meetings, meetings with the President, informal meetings in small 
groups. The conference chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Thomas), is working nonstop to try to reach a final agreement before 
the end of the first session, which I hope we can conclude by the end 
of October.
  Progress has been made, very good discussions have been held, and the 
future looks good for actually bringing a conference report on Medicare 
to the floor.
  As far as the child tax credit bill, we are still having problems 
with the Senate accepting the fact that child tax credits should be a 
permanent thing and we should not raise taxes on families after a 
certain period of time. So, until the Senate agrees to that, I think 
that conference is going to have a very hard time.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I understand from those 
last comments, then, the position still is, if we cannot do it 
permanently we will not do it temporarily.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield. The 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is correct. Temporarily means that 
you cut taxes for a family and then raise them a year or 2 later, and 
we think that is incredibly unfair. We think people should not be 
charged for having children by the government, and it ought to be made 
a permanent thing.
  Child tax credits are something that the American family enjoys. They 
like having more of their hard-earned money to pay for their children 
rather than for government, and we are standing with the American 
family.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, I understand what the gentleman is 
saying about standing with the American families, but the American 
families, at least the 6 and a half million and 12 million children 
that we talked about and the 200,000 military families, are not getting 
relief because, as I understand it, they cannot get permanent relief.
  I would suggest to the Majority Leader that we passed a major tax 
bill that expires in 2010. So by its definition, therefore, it was 
temporary in nature, and, notwithstanding that fact, we passed it. I 
would urge the majority to apply the same logic to the child tax 
credit, to those families making less than $26,000 in our society, most 
in need of help, very frankly, as opposed to those of us who are doing 
much better and some, of course, doing much, much better than we are 
doing but we are doing well. So I would urge the gentleman to look at 
that.
  With respect to the Medicare conference, we have heard some 
information on this side that the President and some of the majority 
conferees have reached an agreement that there is going to be an effort 
to reach agreement by October 17 in the conference. Is that information 
accurate?
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the information is accurate in the fact that 
it is a goal that both the House, the Senate and the President have 
placed on wrapping up the conference on Medicare. Obviously, this is 
probably the most complicated issue that we have had to deal with in 
many a year; and there are many different positions by many different 
Members, both in the House and Senate. So it is a very complicated 
issue; it is very difficult. People are working very, very hard to meet 
that goal. And if God is on our side, maybe we will meet the goal.

[[Page 23959]]


  Mr. HOYER. I do not want to speculate on which side God is on the 
Medicare prescription drug bill. I have my own perspective, however, I 
will tell my colleagues.
  The gentleman indicated that there are a number of meetings going on 
of conferees discussing this. And lamentably I want to tell the leader 
that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Rangel), and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) are not 
aware of any meetings that have occurred involving, at least, them; and 
they are conferees. If we are going to be able to pass this 
legislation, in my opinion, it will be necessary for us to proceed in a 
bipartisan way.
  Could the gentleman comment on the fact that the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Rangel) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the 
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) have not been in any of these 
meetings to which he has referred?
  Mr. DeLAY. Just any formal meeting of the conference that has been 
held, the gentlemen he has listed have been invited to those meetings. 
The other meetings, the informal meetings and group meetings that have 
been held around the Capitol, the gentleman knows are being held with 
people that actually want to get a bill.
  We are working with those, both Democrats and Republicans, who 
actually want to get a bill and are serious about negotiating that 
bill. And it is such a complicated bill. Different parts are being 
negotiated by different people. The gentleman knows how a conference 
can work and how difficult it is to hold it together. So to the extent 
that people want to actually get a bill to the President's desk, they 
are having great and strong input in the negotiations that are going 
on.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, very seriously I want to tell the 
gentleman that any implication that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Dingell), who has fought for Medicare and health care legislation 
longer, harder, than any member on this floor from either party, and 
whose father preceded him in that fight, is somehow not interested in 
passing a bill is inaccurate, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman made a mistake 
if that is his premise. I want to advise him, respectfully, that he is 
wrong.
  I also believe that Mr. Berry and Mr. Rangel are extraordinarily 
interested in passing a bill. Now, their perspective may be different. 
As far as we know, there have been no conference meetings in the sense 
of the conferees getting together and discussing differences and trying 
to iron those differences out in the last 2 months.
  Mr. DeLAY. There have been formal conference meetings, and the 
gentlemen that have been outlined have been invited to those meetings.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, rather than go back and forth on it at this 
point in time, I will be glad to ask Mr. Dingell and Mr. Rangel when 
the last meeting was that they were invited to.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I was at the last meeting; and it was last 
week with the President of the United States.
  Mr. HOYER. That was a meeting with the President. I agree with the 
gentleman. It was not a conference meeting, however. It may have been a 
meeting with the President.
  We hope that we will proceed.
  The FAA conference report, we were told that that was going to be on 
the floor last week and this week. We understood that we would consider 
it this week. The rule was not brought up. Can the gentleman illuminate 
for the Members where that bill stands? I know the previous week we 
could not find the papers, as I recall. This week we understand the 
papers have been found, but we did not move ahead on that. Can the 
Majority Leader tell us why we have not proceeded on that and what he 
perceives to be the future of the FAA reauthorization bill?
  Mr. DeLAY. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
  As the gentleman knows, and people should take notice, that FAA 
activities are currently operating under the short-term continuing 
resolution that we passed last week. In the meantime, Chairman Young 
and Chairman Mica are working with their Senate counterparts and the 
committee members on their conference committees to reach the necessary 
accommodations so that we can have the reauthorization signed into law 
before this current C.R. expires. So, work is ongoing. As soon as the 
agreements are made between the House and the Senate, I think we can 
proceed.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information because I know 
we need to move ahead on that authorization. If the gentleman could 
answer the question, however, we understand there seems to be a 
disagreement. However, the House passed a provision that directed that 
there be no privatization of the air traffic controllers. The Senate 
passed a provision providing that there should be no privatization of 
air traffic controllers. But we understand there is a difference in the 
conference on this issue. Can you explain to me, Mr. Leader, when the 
House took a position on behalf of insuring on the continued public 
nature of the air traffic controllers and the Senate took the same 
position, why there might be a difference on that issue?
  Mr. DeLAY. Well, I have to admit to the gentleman that I am not privy 
to the intricate negotiations that are going on in this bill. We are 
leaving that up to the chairmen that are presiding over the conference 
committees. So I cannot answer the question because I do not know the 
machinations that have been going on in detail, and I certainly do not 
want to mislead the House.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his candor on that. Each of us 
finds ourselves in that position from time to time. I would urge the 
gentleman, however, because both Houses have taken the same position on 
that very critical issue, in my opinion, to the security of our Nation, 
if you might urge the conferees at least to take that item on which 
apparently the House and Senate both acted in concert off the table, it 
might facilitate the movement of the conference.
  Mr. DeLAY. I will certainly advise Chairman Young and Chairman Mica 
of the gentleman's concern.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Majority Leader for the 
information.

                          ____________________