[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12333-12334]
[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, at this time I yield to my friend, Mr. 
Boehner, the majority leader, for the purposes of inquiring about the 
schedule for the week to come.
  Mr. BOEHNER. I thank my colleague for yielding.
  Next week, Mr. Speaker, the House will convene on Monday at 12:30 
p.m. for morning hour, and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will 
have some suspensions on the floor on Monday. A final list of those 
bills will be distributed by the end of the week.
  For the balance of the week, the House will consider, on Tuesday, the 
flood insurance reform program. We are hopeful that the State, Science, 
Justice and Commerce appropriations bill could come up as early as 
Tuesday evening.
  The rest of the week, H.R. 4761, the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act, 
and any possible conference reports that might be available.
  I don't want anyone to misinterpret what I am going to say about next 
week's schedule. I am trying my best to make sure that we are finished 
by next Thursday evening. I think the congressional baseball game is 
next Thursday evening. I would like for us to complete our work before 
then.
  Now, I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not committing 
myself to that. We have work that we need to get finished next week, 
but I am hopeful that our work leading into the July 4 District Work 
Period will be completed by then.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. Reclaiming my time, you did not 
mention the time at which we will have votes on Monday night, but I 
presume it is 6:30. Is that accurate?
  Mr. BOEHNER. That is correct.
  Mr. HOYER. Okay. And you have just answered my question on Friday.
  Let me ask you, we are talking about Fridays, after the July 4 work 
period, the schedule tentatively has on there working Monday through 
Friday on the 3 weeks in July. We have been pretty efficient in getting 
the appropriations bills through. We have two left. I will ask you 
about a couple of those.
  But is it still your expectation, given that the appropriations bills 
will probably, hopefully, all be done by that time, that we would still 
schedule 5-day weeks?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. BOEHNER. I thank my colleague for yielding.
  I can announce to the House that we do not expect to have votes on 
Friday, July 14. We will have votes on that Monday preceding that, but 
I expect that we will have no votes on the 14th.
  It is also my expectation that by the close of business next Thursday 
we will have a firmed-up schedule for July. The schedule that we are 
operating under was developed last December, and I think it is 
incumbent upon us to review that. And so by the end of next week, we 
will have a revised schedule. If there are any other times available, 
we will have that out to Members by the end of next week.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. And I know the Members will 
appreciate a more definite schedule when you are able to give that.
  Mr. Leader, we had expected that the Voting Rights Act would be on 
the floor this week. I think you had expected that as well.
  Mr. BOEHNER. I sure did.
  Mr. HOYER. This is obviously, from our perspective, I think from your 
perspective, a very important bill and we thought we had bipartisan 
agreement on the bill. It came out of committee, as you know, in an 
overwhelming bipartisan vote. Do you have an expectation of when we 
might see that bill on the floor?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. BOEHNER. The Voting Rights Act is a very important piece of 
legislation. It is a very important piece of the legislation done in 
the 1960s. It is an important part of our civil rights protections. As 
we reauthorize this bill, I think we need to remember it is not due to 
expire until July of next year. And we have Members who have different 
interpretations of what some of the words say in the bill that came out 
of committee. There has been some concerns raised. We are trying to 
clarify some issues for Members.

                              {time}  1815

  When we get it resolved, we will bring it to the floor.
  I would just say, having been my open and honest self so many times 
here on time frames and then to have them come back and bite me, I am a 
bit reluctant to suggest to you when this will occur, but as soon as we 
clarify these issues to the satisfaction of Members, we will bring it 
up.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gentleman's comments. Obviously we share 
the view that this is an important bill. We understand that the act has 
some time before reauthorization needs to be done, but in light of the 
fact that it came out of committee with very bipartisan support, and 
Mr. Sensenbrenner, Mr. Watt, and others worked very hard on this bill, 
we are hopeful it can move as soon as possible so the Senate can itself 
consider it.
  The next bill that we had thought was going to be on the calendar 
last week, the Labor-Health bill, is not listed for this coming week. I 
have noted some of your comments in the papers, but obviously this 
bill, as you know, includes an increase in the minimum wage, which was 
voted out of committee on a bipartisan vote, and we believe that if it 
is brought to the floor, it will be approved on a bipartisan vote.
  But can the gentleman tell me what the expectations are for the 
Labor-Health bill?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. BOEHNER. It is not on the schedule next week.
  Mr. HOYER. You have no expectations, then?

[[Page 12334]]


  Mr. BOEHNER. I didn't say that. It is just not on the schedule next 
week.
  Mr. HOYER. Clearly the appropriation bills have been bills which I 
know the majority wanted to move, and I would hope, notwithstanding the 
fact that there is a provision that the committee approved, that we 
would not subject that to a majority vote on the floor.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I will be glad to yield.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Yes. The bill came out of committee, but typically the 
rules of the House don't allow Members to legislate on an appropriation 
bill, and I think there are a lot of people who believe that is 
legislation on an appropriation bill. So there are some concerns about 
it. And let me be fair. There are other issues with the bill beyond the 
provision that was authored by my friend from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, that was my assumption as well, that 
there are other issues. But in terms of the gentleman's observation 
regarding the rules, just as typically it has been our observation that 
if the majority wanted something on the floor, they simply waived the 
rules, and they have done so on a very frequent basis. We are just 
hopeful that you would see your way clear to doing that just one more 
time.
  Mr. BOEHNER. I will take that into consideration.
  Mr. HOYER. I thought you would.
  Mr. Leader, the Health IT bill and other health care-related bills, I 
know this was supposed to be Health Care Week. I may have missed it, 
but in any event, if it went by me, it is Health Care Week.
  Can you tell me whether or not the IT bill might come at some point 
in time?
  I yield to my friend
  Mr. BOEHNER. Do these questions get any easier?
  The Health IT bill has shared jurisdiction between the Ways and Means 
Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee. There are some issues. 
They are trying to resolve those issues. The chairman of the Ways and 
Means Committee, as you are probably aware, was preoccupied with two 
other projects this week, and I do not believe that the issues have 
been resolved. I do expect it will be up early in July, but I am not 
sure that we are going to be able to resolve those differences by next 
week.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.
  Lastly, Mr. Leader, there has been a lot of talk on it, and we have 
voted on it numerous times, the so-called pledge protection bill. Do 
you know whether that might be on the floor next week?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. BOEHNER. If it does come up, it will be under suspension of the 
rules. I would like to see it on the floor next week, and we are 
discussing that with Chairman Sensenbrenner. I would hope that it is up 
next week.
  If I could continue, the gentleman was kind enough not to ask me the 
question that he has asked me for the last 3 months, and that is the 
status of the pension bill, so I thought I would just do it on my own.
  We have made a lot of progress this week, and I have talked to 
Democrat Members here in the House and in the Senate, as well as my 
Republican colleagues. We are very close, I believe, to an agreement 
that will receive the kind of broad bipartisan support we saw of the 
pension bill when it left the House and the Senate last year. So I am 
not sure that the conference report will be ready for the floor next 
week, but it is possible.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information. He and I share 
the view that the pension bill is a very important bill for employees 
and for employers. I know the gentleman has been working hard on it.
  But in light of the fact you did bring it up, last week we talked 
about the inclusion of both parties in the deliberations. After our 
conversation, I had the opportunity to check with Mr. Rangel, and I 
don't think he has been included. I do believe that Senator Kennedy and 
Senator Baucus have been included, and there was a lot of discussion, 
but I will tell my friend that the information I have, which may be 
incorrect, is that at least in terms of this House, the ranking member 
has not been included in the deliberations. I think that would really 
be helpful when it comes back out so that our Members would be able to 
have the information from our ranking member as to his insights into 
what has been done, and I would hope that could occur.

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