[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19840-19841]
[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. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend the majority leader 
for the purpose of inquiring about next week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  On Monday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning business and 
noon for legislative business, with votes rolled until 6:30 p.m. In 
addition to several bills under suspension of the rules, and a list of 
these bills, of course, will be announced by the end of the week, we 
expect to begin consideration of the fiscal year 2008 Transportation-
HUD appropriations bill.
  Let me reiterate that because that will require a vote on the rule, 
there will be a substantive, and perhaps more substantive, votes on 
Monday. So Members cannot be assured that there will not be 
controversies on the floor on Monday night. Usually we do only 
suspension bills.
  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. On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. In 
addition to completing consideration of the Transportation-HUD bill, we 
have one additional fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill, the Commerce-
Justice-Science, as well as the farm program reauthorization.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information.
  I notice there is no listing at this point of an Iraq bill on next 
week's schedule. I also notice that FISA modernization has not been 
scheduled. I wonder if the gentleman has any information about the 
potential for either of those two issues to be on the schedule for next 
week.
  Mr. HOYER. FISA legislation, as the gentleman knows, is being worked 
on by the Intelligence Committee now. I don't have a specific answer 
for you. I am hopeful that we will perhaps be able to address some very 
important issues before we leave here.
  On the other, I think it is possible that we will have some 
legislation dealing with Iraq, but that decision has not been made. 
Obviously, there is still ongoing discussion both in the Senate and in 
this body on that subject. But whether there will be legislation next 
week is still in discussion.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that and, of course, just to ask 
when that decision is made, the quicker we could be told what that 
decision is and get a sense of the schedule on that issue, the better.
  Also, I have one question the gentleman might have information on. In 
the conference on the 9/11 bill earlier this week, it appeared that the 
protection that the House had added for liability in what was called 
the John Doe action, where if you suggest someone you think is pursuing 
a dangerous course of action, you turn them in, then you are personally 
held liable, we had some protections added to our bill on that. I am 
told that the chairman of the conference, a member of the other body, 
has now said that he believes those protections would be germane, and 
if they are germane, we would hope that we would continue to see an 
argument in favor of that. But I wonder if the leader has any 
information on that.
  Mr. HOYER. I tell my friend that I do not have any immediate 
information on that particular issue. I know the issue, but where it 
is, I am not sure. So I don't have specific information on that.
  Mr. BLUNT. Let me ask one other question about conferences, and that 
would be unless this proceeds into 
another area.
  Mr. HOYER. I can say with respect to conferences, we have every 
intent of doing the 9/11 conference, as the gentleman knows, and 
passing that before we leave for the August break.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would ask on conferences, in a press report this week 
there was a suggestion, as a matter of fact, I think it was today, that 
the ethics bill might come to the House under an extraordinary 
procedure that didn't actually involve a conference. I think the House 
changed its rules this year to be much more stringent on requiring a 
conference, and I am wondering if that report has any merit to it that 
the gentleman would be aware of.

[[Page 19841]]


  Mr. HOYER. I understand press reports, but there is no decision that 
has been made on that.
  Mr. BLUNT. I just would suggest to the gentleman that we have changed 
the rules in a way that, while that particular messaging between the 
two Houses has seldom been used, I think it is even harder to do in 
light of the House rules changes, and we would hope that these bills 
are done in conference and, of course, hope they are done in conference 
in accordance with the rules that this Congress has proposed for 
conferences.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will my friend yield?
  Mr. BLUNT. I would.
  Mr. HOYER. We are very, very hopeful that the lobbying disclosure 
conference can proceed. As the gentleman knows, we have not gotten 
clearance on the other side to do so, so we are very concerned about 
that. This House passed the lobbying disclosure bill overwhelmingly. 
Our view is it will pass overwhelmingly in the Senate when that 
happens. But, unfortunately, it has not yet gone to conference.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for his comments. And I also 
understand frustrations with the Senate process as he does and hope 
that we can work that out in a way that we go through the regular 
process.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.

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