[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12026-12028]
[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 take this time for the purpose of inquiring 
of the majority whip the schedule for the week to come.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding and also for 
the cooperation of those on the appropriations bills this week as we 
move to an early conclusion of this week's work.
  Next Monday, the House will convene at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour 
and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several measures 
under suspension of the rules. A final list of those bills will be sent 
to Members' office by the end of this week. Any votes called on those 
measures that Members are given notice of will be rolled until 6:30 
p.m. on Monday.
  On Tuesday and the balance of the week, the House will consider 
several bills under a rule. First of all, the Science and Departments 
of Commerce, State and Justice Appropriation Act for fiscal year 2006. 
Following that, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal 
year 2006; and then, finally, H.R. 2745, the United Nations Reform Act.
  I yield back to my friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.
  First, if the distinguished whip knows, my presumption is, based upon

[[Page 12027]]

the schedule that has been submitted, that the probability is we will 
not have votes on Friday next. Is that a reasonable assumption, do you 
think, for our Members to make?
  Mr. BLUNT. Certainly based on the experience we have had for the last 
three Fridays, the cooperation of both the ranking member and the 
leadership of the chairman and the subcommittee chairmen on the 
appropriations committee, we have been seeing this work go a little 
faster than we had anticipated. That could happen again next Friday.
  The experience again of the last three Fridays would lead one to 
believe that, but next week we will adopt the same approach. We will 
get this work done early if we can but would advise Members to plan to 
be here on Friday because we will want to complete the entire agenda 
that we have laid out for next week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, can the gentleman tell us, with respect to 
the appropriations bills, which day of the week, Tuesday and 
thereafter, you might expect each of the individual bills to come up in 
particular?
  Of course, the defense appropriations bill is of great interest to 
our Members.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I believe we will do those in the order that 
they appeared starting on Tuesday. So I would expect Tuesday's work to 
include the Science, Commerce, State, Justice Appropriations Act, and 
then move on to defense appropriations on Wednesday if we are completed 
with the previous bill, and then to bring the bill to the floor on 
United Nations reform after that.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information.
  I note, Mr. Whip, that the intelligence authorization bill, which was 
schedule to be on the floor today, which had been pulled, is not on the 
schedule for next week.
  That obviously is a very important bill. And it is, I would say to my 
friend, as I understand it, a bill which has the agreement between the 
chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the ranking Democrat on the 
Intelligence Committee. So it would seem to be a bipartisan agreement 
on the substance of the bill. Can the whip tell us when we might see 
that bill back?
  I am sure you agree it is a very important bill, providing for the 
work of the national intelligence director and providing to make sure 
that we can keep this country safe from terrorists, and I know that 
both sides are hopeful that it will come forward pretty quickly.
  Can the gentleman tell us when that might be on the floor?
  Mr. BLUNT. I would say, in response, that, interestingly, the 
discussion on that bill, it is an important discussion, is largely 
between the new Director of National Intelligence and the Armed 
Services chairman because of some commitments that seemed to have been 
made and I think were made during the adoption of the 9/11 bill of 
things that would be included in this bill.
  That discussion is going on. We are going to work hard to do 
everything we can to facilitate a final and complete understanding 
between the administration and the House on the issues that they are 
discussing right now. It involves military intelligence and some 
commitments and discussions that were conducted last year before we 
moved forward with what was called at that time the 9/11 bill that 
created the National Intelligence Director's job and did a number of 
other things to achieve those goals that the whip just mentioned in 
terms of securing our country in every way that we can.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the whip for the information.
  It may be helpful to know that I believe on our side of the aisle, we 
believe that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman's) agreement was appropriate in 
the sense that the flexibility be given to the National Intelligence 
Director to provide for the best possible personnel assignment with 
reference to maintaining our security and intelligence apparatus in the 
most effective mode would be correct, if that is of any help to the 
whip as he considers the support that that proposition may have on the 
floor.
  I realize there are those on his side of the aisle who have some 
concerns about it. I understand that the Secretary of Defense may have 
some concern about it. But I think, frankly, I would hope that a very 
substantial majority of the House would agree both with the Republican 
chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the Democratic ranking 
member of the Intelligence Committee.
  The gentleman does not have to comment on that, but I thought that it 
might be useful information for him.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, if I could comment, I would say that we are 
eager to reach a final understanding on this. But, also, we are eager 
to be sure that whatever commitments were made and were reached between 
the administration and the chairman of a significant committee in the 
House are fully understood and fully complied with. You know, there can 
be misunderstandings in these kind of discussions, certainly, but we 
want to be sure that any commitments made by the administration to the 
Congress and the chairman of its significant committees are fulfilled 
and, if there are misunderstandings, to be sure that those 
misunderstandings are worked out before we move forward.
  I assure the gentleman that we will be encouraging in that discussion 
and facilitating it in every way that we can so that it moves forward 
at the quickest possible time.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information.
  I will ask one more question on the intelligence issue. Does the 
gentleman know whether the administration is supportive of the position 
taken by the chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the ranking 
Democrat on the Intelligence Committee or not? Has the administration 
taken a position on that?

                              {time}  1330

  Mr. BLUNT. I do not know what their position on that is. Again, I am 
most concerned that we be sure that we understood our positions when 
commitments were made when that bill was passed that created the 
National Intelligence Director's position.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman.
  Lastly, we just had a vote on the privileged resolution that was 
offered by the Democratic leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Pelosi). That resolution, as you know, sought to try to move the ethics 
process forward so the Ethics Committee could do its work. Hopefully, 
all of us believe that it is very important that the Ethics Committee 
be able to undertake its work.
  I would hope that the majority would take steps to perhaps discuss in 
a bipartisan way the implementation of the existing rules which we 
believe, as you know, require a majority vote for the hiring of a staff 
director. That is the way it has always been. From our perspective, 
that is the way it was intended to be. So it would be a bipartisan or, 
better yet, nonpartisan handling of the responsibility of the Ethics 
Committee.
  I would hope that in the near term, next week and the days 
thereafter, that we would work together to try to get this moving 
forward. Because I think it is important to both sides of the aisle, it 
is important to the integrity of the House, and I think it is important 
to the American people.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would say it would be hard to be more disappointed than 
I am that this committee has only met once because of continuing 
concerns. From the point of view of the majority, I am sure it is our 
view that we removed what we thought were the obstacles of this 
committee moving forward with its work, only to find that there is 
another obstacle. And we do need this committee to work, but all sides 
need to be looking for ways to make the committee work, not to just 
find the reasons that the committee does not work, which is my view of 
this. And we clearly want this committee to work, need this committee 
to work, and I think the majority has made substantial efforts both 
publicly and privately to create an opportunity where this committee 
could do its job.

[[Page 12028]]


  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman, and I have no 
doubt about his sincerity in that desire. I would simply observe that 
had we had the opportunity to debate the privileged resolution, which 
really seeks to redress the House's positions, that perhaps we could 
have explored more broadly the differences that exist as they relate to 
the staffing of the committee. Both sides apparently believe that they 
are correct in their interpretation, but hopefully both sides want a 
bipartisan and not a partisan staff to proceed with its work.
  Unless the gentleman wanted to say something, I would yield back the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate what the whip has said and would only say 
that we could vote on this and solve it that way, but I assume that 
would not present the right solution as well.
  Mr. HOYER. I think the gentleman is probably correct, and of course 
the resolution offered did not resolve the question. We understand 
that. But I think the gentleman is correct, it would not resolve it any 
more than the vote on the rules in January resolved the changing of the 
rules and the feeling that they were not appropriate to provide the 
context in which we could proceed.
  I know that the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) very honestly and 
sincerely, as I do, wants to see this matter resolved and see the 
committee move forward so it could become a matter of history and not a 
matter of current debate so we can focus on the important issues 
confronting this country.
  I appreciate the gentleman's comments.

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