[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17094-17095]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield to my friend the majority leader 
for the purpose of inquiring about the schedule for next week.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  On Monday the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour business 
and at 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes rolled until 6 p.m.
  I want to reiterate that, as we did the other day. It will be 6 p.m. 
I would hope that the offices that are covering the floor, that they 
remind their Members 6 p.m. on Monday will be the votes. The 
congressional baseball game is at 7:30, and we want to give Members 
time to get to the game. It is a fun event and a collegial event, and 
we are going to accommodate that by accelerating by half an hour the 
votes on Monday at 6 p.m.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A 
complete list of those bills will be announced later today.
  On Tuesday the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning hour business 
and 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday, the 
House will meet at 10 a.m., and on Friday the House will meet at 9 a.m. 
We will consider the following fiscal year 2008 appropriations bills: 
Interior and Environment; Financial Services.
  I will say to my friends that those two bills will be considered, and 
we will obviously, consistent, hopefully, with our agreement, try to 
enter into unanimous consent agreements in terms of the amendments and 
the timing of those amendments. And we will see how the balance of the 
schedule goes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for that information.
  And from the fact that you said we will see how the week goes 
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I think that anticipates that at 
least there is a chance that with the State-Justice-Commerce bill's not 
being next week, we may be able to be done on Thursday, and the Members 
can start their work period on Friday. Would that be one of the options 
that would be a possibility at least?
  And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  The answer to that is yes. Again, we are going to complete those two 
bills at least. There may be some other legislative business. We don't 
know whether there will be conference reports. As you know, there is a 
conference on the 9/11 bill and some other conference reports on other 
items that may come forward. But the answer to your question, I think, 
is essentially yes. If we can complete the work that we have before us 
prior to Friday, there may not be a need to meet on Friday.
  Mr. BLUNT. Reclaiming my time, a couple of other thoughts. I thank 
you for that information.
  On the conference reports that are upcoming, the 9/11 conference 
report is there.
  Mr. HOYER. Lobbying disclosure is the other.
  Mr. BLUNT. I was going to ask about lobbying reform, if you thought 
there was a chance for that. Water Resources or the competitive science 
bills, do you have a report on where those might be?
  Mr. HOYER. I really don't. But because I don't have a report, my 
speculation is that there is not anticipation that those conferences 
will be completed in time to consider conference reports next week. We 
don't have any report on that.
  I am looking at the person who knows so much on my staff, Mr. 
Cogorno, to make sure that I am making a correct representation, but 
that is accurate.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would also ask, I believe we announced last week, Madam 
Speaker, we thought that we were going to have the Science-State-
Justice-Commerce bill up next week, and now we are not. Is there any 
particular reason for that that you can share with me on that?
  I yield for a response.
  Mr. HOYER. Yes, there is. We had a lot of discussion about this. As 
Mr. Obey has represented, because of the reforms that have been adopted 
and the transparency that we want to effect, but also the certification 
that is necessary for the legitimacy of projects, the time frame 
necessary to do the State-Justice-Commerce was more than could be 
accomplished within the time frame that the staff had available. As you 
know, they had to deal with the Interior and the Financial Services as 
well. Science-State-Justice-Commerce was such that they simply could 
not get it done in time. Regrettably, therefore, it, too, as the other 
four bills, one of which was already scheduled for July, the defense 
appropriations bill, had to be moved to July.
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for that. And I do 
believe that the protracted discussion we had and the agreement we made 
on transparency on these bills is a good thing.
  Next week's being a week where we will be leaving for a district work 
period, we won't have a chance for this colloquy, and I am wondering if 
you have any sense yet of where we will be the week we come back after 
the Independence Day break. Should we anticipate any appropriations 
bills that week or do you have other work that we might get to that 
week?
  And I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding, Madam Speaker.
  It is our expectation that the first week back, which will be the 
week of July 9, I believe, Tuesday, the 10th, at 6:30 p.m., we will not 
have appropriation bills that week. There will be legislation that 
week, and we will give notice of that next week so that one can 
anticipate it for the week that we come back from the July break. But 
we do not expect appropriation bills to start until the following week, 
the week of July 16.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that. And I appreciate also that generally 
that is the way that it usually works out on a week where we are coming 
back from being in our districts the week before.
  Last week you said that we should anticipate an announcement on an 
omnibus energy bill by the Fourth of July recess. I am wondering if you 
have any more information on that.
  And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Yes. What I said was 
it is my expectation that at the end of next week, there will be an 
announcement. The Speaker has made it very clear that this is a 
priority, energy independence, and addressing the issue of global 
warming is a priority item for our caucus and, therefore, for the 
Congress, and that we will be addressing what we intend to do in July 
prior to leaving here for the July break.
  Mr. BLUNT. And would that also include a sense of when that bill 
would actually be on the floor when we make that announcement prior to 
the Fourth of July break?
  And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I don't know that it will be specific, but certainly it is 
our hope and belief that it will be the month of July.
  Mr. BLUNT. And what I believe would be my last question is on the 
related Ways and Means energy tax bill that I believe in that committee 
has about $16 billion of tax increases in it as part of the energy 
package. Would that come up earlier than the rest of the energy 
package, or do you expect that to be on the floor at essentially the 
same time?
  And I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. That decision has not been made, but my thought would be 
it would come up in close proximity, whether before, just after, but it 
would be considered in very close time frame to the consideration of 
the other pieces of the energy legislation.
  Mr. BLUNT. And I believe the gentleman said that you really don't 
have

[[Page 17095]]

a sense whether these bills would be on the floor in July or not, and 
if they are not on the floor in July, then we would look at sometime 
later in the year; is that correct?
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. No. As I said, it is my expectation that we will have 
these bills on the floor in July.
  And if I can, it has been somewhat complicated, as you can 
understand, by the fact that we now have four appropriation bills that 
we anticipated in June now scheduled for July. So to that degree, I 
want to be somewhat careful about what I represent, because we are 
still in the process of determining the scheduling of all of those 
bills.
  Mr. BLUNT. That was not a question designed to go back and try to in 
any way create a problem. I think I did not hear what you said properly 
the first time.
  Mr. HOYER. July is the expectation.
  Mr. BLUNT. That is helpful to me, and I appreciate the information.

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