[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 11617-11618]
[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 and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purposes of inquiring of the 
majority leader the calendar.
  I yield to my friend Mr. Boehner, the majority leader.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the whip for yielding.
  Next week we will convene on Monday at 12:30 for morning hour and 2 
o'clock for legislative business. We will consider several measures 
under suspension of the rules. A list of those will be sent out by the 
end of today. Any votes called on these will be rolled until 5 p.m. on 
Monday. I want to repeat that: 5 p.m. we will vote on Monday.
  For the balance of the week, the House will consider on Tuesday, the 
Department of Defense appropriation bill; Wednesday, the Voting Rights 
Act, the reauthorization and several amendments; and on Thursday, we 
will do the legislative line item veto.
  I will remind Members there are no votes next Friday.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the leader for his information.
  The leader and I had a brief conversation, as you recall, with 
reference to the time when we would vote on Monday. I know that you 
have considered that, but I would again reiterate, as you know, one of 
the problems is in order for a Member on the west coast to get here, 
they need at least until 5:30 to be assured of being available for a 
vote. I know you must have considered this.
  Mr. BOEHNER. If the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to my friend.
  Mr. BOEHNER. We have discussed it. It is somewhat problematic, but I 
think what I would say to my colleague is let me keep working with you 
to see if we can't come to some agreement. I think 6 o'clock would be 
too late but 5:30 may work. We will continue to work with you on that.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. I look forward to working with him 
on this to accommodate those Members on the west coast in particular.
  There is a change in the announced schedule with regard to first 
votes, as we have discussed, and I appreciate your responding to that.
  With respect to the Labor-Health bill, it was our expectation that 
the Labor-Health-Education appropriations bill, which was reported out 
of committee this week, would be on the floor this coming week. As you 
know, that included within it a bipartisan-approved increase in the 
minimum wage, by $2.10, to $7.25 over the next 30 months. I notice that 
that bill is not on the schedule for next week. Can you tell me the 
status of the Health and Human Services appropriations bill?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. BOEHNER. We are continuing to work with the appropriators, trying 
to resolve some issues in order to find a way to bring it to the floor, 
but we do not expect to consider it next week.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.
  If I might follow it up, we would very much hope that the amendment 
that was adopted, and we believe is supported by over 80 percent of the 
American public, would be protected under the rule. We obviously 
understand that it is legislation on an appropriation bill and would 
require a waiver, as many have been given in the past. I would 
respectfully request that you look at that and, in light of the fact of 
the bipartisan support in the committee, seriously consider and 
hopefully give a waiver so that that matter may be considered on the 
floor with a vote by the membership.
  If you have any comment, I would be glad to yield.
  Mr. BOEHNER. I understand your interest.
  Mr. HOYER. It will be continuing. I thank you.
  We understood next week was supposed to be health care week. Yet no 
health care legislation is listed. For example, the Health IT or the 
bill authored by Mr. Shadegg are not on your announcement. When do you 
anticipate we may see either of these pieces of legislation on the 
floor?
  Mr. BOEHNER. We were hoping to do that Health IT bill next week. We 
have got some scoring issues and some what

[[Page 11618]]

we believe are problems with CBO that we are trying to iron out. So I 
would expect hopefully those will be ironed out next week and possibly 
bring that bill up for the following week.
  Mr. HOYER. Thank you.
  The last question I would ask you, Mr. Leader, you and I have had a 
discussion. You have been in the leadership of the consideration of the 
pension reform legislation. Obviously, we all know it is critical to 
employees, critical to companies. It has been now pending in conference 
for many, many months. I am wondering whether or not you might give us 
some thought as to its status and its prospects.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. BOEHNER. As the gentleman knows, I do several media events every 
week where members of the press routinely ask me every Tuesday and 
every Thursday the same question, and as you know, this is a very 
difficult issue. Protecting Americans' pensions and the commitments 
that have been made to them by their employers is very important, and 
trying to strengthen the funding rules over these plans is critically 
important.
  I can tell you that there are some issues that we are hung up on. We 
have had a lot of conversations. We are continuing to have 
conversations. I am a little more optimistic today than I was 
yesterday, but we are not there yet. There are Democrat Members who 
have been involved in at least informal conversations on both sides of 
the Capitol with regard to how we would proceed, but no timeline yet.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for those comments.
  As you recall when we discussed this matter, it is still my 
understanding that the Democratic conferees have yet to be really 
engaged in the conference proceedings. You and I had a discussion on 
that, and I would hope that that might happen.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to my friend.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Most of the Republican conferees have yet to sit down at 
the table as well. The principals have been involved and the leadership 
on both sides have been involved, and as I said, there have been a lot 
of informal conversations with Democrat Members on both sides of the 
Capitol.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, you indicate that the leadership on 
both sides of the aisle have been involved.
  Mr. BOEHNER. I said Democrat Members have been involved on both sides 
of the Capitol.
  Mr. HOYER. I mean the leadership of the committees is what I was 
talking about.
  Mr. BOEHNER. The leadership on the Senate side and the House side 
have been engaged in this as well.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the comments and would hope that is the case, 
and we will talk to our leaders on that so that we can both, working 
together, move this bill forward.

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