[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 18876]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. DeLAY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, for the sake of communicating to the Members 
the situation we are in, I want to first say that I greatly appreciate 
the cooperation of all colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I 
appreciate the cooperation and work of the gentleman from Minnesota 
(Mr. Oberstar) and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri). We greatly appreciate the 
institution standing together and trying to make corrections that need 
to be made in this bill. I appreciate the hour and everybody coming 
together and working together for the purpose of fixing this bill.
  We will not be able to fix the bill tonight. We hope to come back at 
9 a.m. in the morning and continue work on this very important highway 
bill. We hope to finish it as early as we can tomorrow. My message to 
the Members is go home, get a good night's sleep, and we will be back 
in the morning to finish the work of the House.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DeLAY. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation for the 
kind words of the majority leader and to assure Members the issue 
before us is not a matter of division within the committee or between 
the parties of the House, but a difference or interpretation of a 
provision in the conference report in language that was included by a 
Member of the other body.
  Our expectation is we will be able to resolve that matter of a 
limited scope and pass the broader bill which is of great importance to 
the whole Nation. I appreciate the support, cooperation, and 
participation of the majority leader, and the support of the 
Parliamentarian's Office in helping us bring this to a resolution.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's words.

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