[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 7032-7033]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1445
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I take this time to inquire of the majority 
leader the schedule for the week to come. I yield to my friend, Mr. 
Boehner.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague for yielding.
  Next week, Mr. Speaker, the House will convene on Tuesday at 12:30 
for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will have 
several measures under suspension of the rules, a list of which will be 
sent to Members'

[[Page 7033]]

offices by the end of the week. Any votes on those measures on Tuesday 
will be rolled until 6:30 p.m.
  On Wednesday and the balance of the week, the House will likely 
consider H.R. 5122, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 
year 2007 from the Armed Services Committee. As Mr. Dreier just 
mentioned, the committee reported the bill yesterday, and I expect this 
to be considered on Wednesday and Thursday.
  Now, there will be no votes next Friday, but Members should be aware 
that Thursday we could go well into the evening. And so while Friday is 
already scheduled for a day in session, I think we can complete our 
work on Thursday, and that will be our goal.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the majority leader for that information for our 
Members.
  Mr. Leader, do you expect any energy bills on the floor next week 
dealing with any facet of the crisis that confronts our citizens?
  Mr. BOEHNER. We expect that H.R. 5143, the hydrogen relief bill, 
which was reported by the Committee on Science, could be up next week. 
And we can expect additional energy votes in the coming weeks.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.
  Let me ask you further, Mr. Leader, do you expect the telecom bill to 
be ready for floor consideration next week?
  Mr. BOEHNER. I would have hoped it would have been up this week, but 
there is a jurisdictional dispute that is being sorted out; and until 
it is, we are unable to schedule it for floor action.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.
  With respect to the budget, the fiscal year 2007 budget, we are now 3 
weeks beyond the point when we should have had a conference report 
adopted under the rules. Yet we have not had the House version of the 
budget on the floor yet. Do you expect the budget to be on the floor 
anytime in the near future?
  Mr. BOEHNER. I hope so.
  Mr. HOYER. I know you hope so. But my question was, do you expect so?
  Mr. BOEHNER. I hope so. We are continuing to work with our Members, 
some of whom want to spend more money, some of whom want to spend less 
money. And until we come to some resolution of those talks, I cannot 
give you any further information on when the budget resolution will be 
up.
  Mr. HOYER. We hope that you can come to some agreement in the near 
term.
  Mr. BOEHNER. I do too.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Leader, the tax reconciliation conference and the 
pension conference, we have heard something about the tax 
reconciliation conference perhaps having reached agreement.
  Can you tell me the status of those two conferences and when we might 
expect to consider the tax reconciliation conference and/or the pension 
conference?
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, there is a tentative agreement on the tax 
reconciliation bill between the House and the Senate, tentative to an 
agreement on a second bill that would consider the extender items, 
issues that clearly would not fit within the tax reconciliation bill. 
There is no agreement on that second bill, and so all of this is still 
under discussion.
  There was a meeting of the principals, both Democrat and Republican, 
members of the conference on pensions last night. We are continuing to 
work on that, and it is my hope in the next several weeks that both of 
those issues will be ready for floor action.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. I am glad. I did not know that the 
principals had met. I know you and I had had a discussion previously 
about the conference meeting with all of the conferees present, or at 
least both sides present, both the Democratic side and the Republican 
side, the majority side present as well. We hope that occurs. The 
leader said that would occur. We appreciate that.
  Clearly you and I in particular, and I know you in particular, are 
very concerned about the pension conference. You have spent a lot of 
time working on that piece of legislation, know it well. Clearly many, 
many people in America, many businesses, many individuals are very 
focused on that, are very concerned about the status of their pensions.
  So we are hopeful that particular bill can move in a positive way in 
the near term.
  Mr. BOEHNER. I think the gentleman realizes that I have spent about 6 
years trying to bring real pension reform to protect American working 
men and women's pensions. And the House and Senate have acted. There 
have been several months of conversations that have yielded, frankly, 
little results.
  Now, I remain very optimistic that there will be a bill, but some of 
the principals involved are also involved in the tax reconciliation and 
the tax extenders conference which is complicating a lot of the 
discussions on the pension bill.
  But I do expect, over the next couple of weeks, a lot of this to be 
sorted out.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the leader. I know that all of us hope that the 
leader's optimism is justified by results. I thank the gentlemen.
  Mr. BOEHNER. The glass is always half full.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for not singing today.

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