[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 25788-25789]
[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 the representative of the majority 
leader, the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), for the 
purpose of inquiring about next week's schedule.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, on Monday the House will meet at 
12:30 p.m. for morning-hour business and 2 p.m. for legislative 
business, with votes rolled until 6:30 p.m.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A list 
of these bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow.
  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. for 
legislative business.
  On Friday there will be no votes in the House.
  We expect to consider H.R. 2470, legislation dealing with contractors 
who commit crimes overseas; H.R. 928, the Improving Government 
Accountability Act; and a bill to provide tax relief for mortgage debt 
forgiveness in the event of foreclosures.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank you for that information. It does look like to me 
that the schedule for next week is incredibly light for 3 days of work. 
Last week, when Mr. Hoyer and I were talking about the problems of 
bringing the SCHIP bill to the floor without a conference, without any 
real opportunity for those of us on this side to see the bill, he said 
last week one of the reasons for that was the Senate was not able to go 
to conference. And I'm hoping on the four bills that the Senate has 
already passed, and we could go to conference on, that we see some 
action on those bills.
  I think, particularly, the bill where the new benefits for military 
families and veterans that could be available as early as next Tuesday, 
October 1, aren't going to be available because we're not naming 
conferees. And I wonder if my friend has any sense of when we might be 
able to have one of those bills, or any appropriation bill, on the 
House floor now that the fiscal year is essentially, this is the last 
legislative working day in the fiscal year.
  Four bills have been ready, one of them, the military quality of life 
and veterans bill, for some time now, with no apparent interest in 
going to conference and getting that bill done. And I know we notified 
the majority before that I'd be asking that question, and so I'm 
wondering if you have any sense of when any or all of those bills might 
actually be scheduled, particularly looking at the incredibly light 
workweek scheduled for next week.
  And I yield to my friend.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you very much. I thank the gentleman for 
yielding.
  The gentleman will note that we did a lot of incredibly good work 
this week, passing the SCHIP bill, the Children's Health Insurance 
bill, passing the flood insurance bill off the floor this afternoon, 
passing the CR just yesterday. So there has been an incredible amount 
of good work done this week. And as far as the bills that you 
referenced, we will be planning to conference with the Senate as soon 
as they signify that they are ready to do that, and will be working 
diligently with them to bring those bills to the floor when the 
conference is complete and ready.
  Mr. BLUNT. If I could reclaim my time here, I'd just point out that 
the Senate actually has requested not only

[[Page 25789]]

a conference, but named conferees on all four of those bills. And I'd 
yield to you for anything you want to say about that. I mean, they're 
ready to go to conference, and I'm just asking why we're not so we can 
get some of this work done. And I'd yield.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I'd be happy to answer the gentleman's 
question. We are reviewing all of those bills and want to make sure 
that, obviously, the House is on equal footing with the Senate. And 
when we are ready to go to conference, we will certainly join them and 
make sure those bills are brought to the floor in as timely a fashion 
as possible.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, before we go to one other topic, I'd just say that 
for bills where we could have started, particularly for military 
families, the quality of life issues there and for veterans, I think 
it's a shame that we're not starting those on Tuesday, when they could 
have started.
  The other thing that just happened, the President just sent the Peru 
Free Trade Agreement to the House. The Ways and Means Committee held 
its markup on the Peru Free Trade Agreement this week, and I've read, 
at least, that there's an intention, before we go to that trade 
agreement, to go to a trade adjustment bill that has not yet been 
written. That trade adjustment bill, when it has passed in the past, 
has passed with trade promotion authority. With no new trade promotion 
authority, there's less reason than there might have otherwise been for 
new trade adjustment authority. And more importantly, it seems, we 
might run the risk here of slowing the Peru agreement, the clock of 
which just started, if we wait for a bill that's not yet been written.
  And I guess my two questions would be, do we plan to do trade 
adjustment assistance with TPA? And does the gentlelady have any sense 
of why it's necessary to do that before we do a trade agreement that 
we've already held the markup on and the President just sent down?
  And I'd yield.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. As far as the gentleman's reference 
to the military quality of life bill at the beginning of your remarks, 
I will remind the gentleman that we did pass, in the military health 
care and veterans bill, the largest single increase in health care in 
the 77-year history of the Veterans Administration. So we are certainly 
doing everything we can to expand access to health care and improve the 
quality of life of our military veterans.
  Referring to the gentleman's question about the trade adjustment act 
and Peru, I'll remind the gentleman that the Ways and Means Committee 
did conduct a markup this very week. We are fully engaged in working on 
the Peru trade agreement and will be working on the trade adjustment 
act simultaneously to the free trade agreement with Peru.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentlelady.
  Mr. Speaker, I'd just say that, one, as we have started that clock, I 
think it's very important that we keep on schedule, particularly since 
this will be really the first bill that the majority has done under the 
TPA standards, and we want to work closely with the majority on that.
  And I'd also point out that it's obvious we have not done everything 
we could have done for military families and veterans, or we'd have a 
bill that goes into effect next Tuesday instead of some time later this 
year.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back.

                          ____________________