[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3586-3588]
[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 rise for the purpose of inquiring about 
next week's schedule, and I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from 
Maryland, the majority leader, Mr. Hoyer.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Republican whip for yielding.
  On Monday the House will meet at 12:30 for morning hour and 2 p.m. 
for legislative business. We will consider several bills under 
suspension of the rules. There will be no votes before 6:30 p.m. as is 
our practice.
  On Tuesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning hour, and at 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.
  In addition to further suspension bills, a complete list of those 
bills for the week will be announced later this week, we will consider 
a small business tax relief bill, and a resolution regarding the war in 
Iraq.
  Because we intend to make sure that every Member who wishes to speak 
to that matter will have the opportunity to do so, Members should be 
advised that we will have long days next week, meaning perhaps as late 
as midnight, and Friday could be a full day in order to complete our 
work for the week.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for that information. I 
would like to yield again to him to ask when on our side we might be 
able to see the resolution in its completed form, or in any form for 
that matter.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we have told our Members that by Monday 
morning at 10 a.m. we ought to have that resolution available.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I would also ask, will we see that resolution 
go through the Armed Services Committee and be marked up there? Or what 
will be the process for the resolution? I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. There 
have been, I would tell the gentleman, some 22 hearings on Iraq by the 
Government Reform Committee, by the Armed Services Committee, by the 
International Relations Committee, by the Appropriations subcommittee 
and by

[[Page 3587]]

the Committee on Intelligence. There have been extensive hearings on 
this bill. This is a resolution. It is being done in conjunction with 
the Armed Service Committee and the International Relations Committee. 
I do not anticipate that there will be a markup of the resolution.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the information. 
This resolution I guess we have never had a hearing on. But the 
resolution is going to be put before the body by the leaders. Is that 
what you anticipate happening, Mr. Leader?
  Mr. HOYER. That is what I anticipate, the leaders being Mr. Skelton, 
Mr. Lantos, and others. We expect there to be Members on both sides of 
the aisle.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, another question: What about the Republican 
leaders and Members? Will we have a chance to have amendments to this 
bill? Will we get a chance to have a substitute? Will there be more 
than one substitute? What kinds of things are you thinking about in 
terms of the structure of the debate?
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we believe that the issue of the President's 
policy, which was announced some weeks ago, is an extraordinarily 
serious question confronting the country and the Congress. We expect 
the resolution to be very straightforward and very simple.
  We expect the resolution to deal only with the proposal the President 
has made for escalation. We believe we should present that to the House 
of Representatives as an issue on which they can make their advice to 
the President of the United States and to the Executive Department.
  So the answer to the gentleman's question is that we do not believe, 
as you have not in the past on similar resolutions, I remember your so-
called Murtha resolution, we believe that there will be a direct 
question propounded to the House which every Member can speak to for 3 
to 4 days, and then give their advice on.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, would we have at least the opportunity for a 
recommittal with instructions? At one time I thought you had announced 
the likelihood that we would have a substitute on Tuesday of this week 
or sometime earlier this week. Am I hearing now you do not any longer 
believe we will have that, and will we at least have the recommittal 
opportunity?
  Mr. HOYER. We are grappling with this, I will tell my friend. We 
believe the American public, the American people, have the right to 
know where their representatives stand on the central and sole issue 
that the resolution will raise.
  There may be other issues that you might want to raise at some point 
in time. And there are going to be at least three pieces of 
legislation, as you know, that will be coming down the pike on this 
issue: the supplemental, the authorization bill, and the appropriation 
bill for 2008.
  We expect all of those bills to be relatively broad in their 
treatment of various different aspects. But I will tell the gentleman, 
frankly, because we feel this is such a critically important question 
and that the clarity of the question and the clarity of the response is 
so important that we are trying to carefully consider how we can assure 
that there is no confusion as to the answer that this House gives.
  Mr. BLUNT. Of course, I hope that as you grapple with this, you will 
grapple toward the determination of input into this important debate. I 
believe, as you do, it is a critically important debate. This is an 
important issue. You and I have been together to Iraq twice. We both 
have taken this issue very seriously. We watched and the American 
people have watched the debate on the other side of this building this 
week, where the whole process has come to a halt because of the 
unwillingness of that body to move forward without having options on 
the table; and even in that debate, the majority offered at least one 
alternative opportunity to the minority.
  And that was not acceptable to that minority on that side of the 
building. I would hope on this side of the building that at least we 
would get the offer that if you are working on the other side of the 
building, you walked away from, which would be one opportunity to 
express another view.
  We are going to have 3 full days of debate. The gentleman said some 
of them could very well last as long as midnight.

                              {time}  1745

  That is enough time to consider more than one point of view and have 
at least two points of view heard. And I heard the gentleman early in 
the week; I heard him say today, you are still grappling with that. And 
I would just encourage you to do your best to try to create the 
opportunity for this issue to be debated in the fullest possible way at 
this moment and move on with that.
  I would also like to ask, with February 15 being the last day for the 
current continuing resolution to be in effect, it seems to me possible 
at least that the Senate is not going to deal with the bill by the end 
of the week. Do we have any plans as to how to deal with that issue? Or 
do you have any information that I don't have that would suggest that 
it is likely that the Senate will have agreed to a bill that we can 
agree to?
  One option, obviously, would be agree to the bill that the House sent 
over. But I am interested in what happens on Friday, and between now 
and Friday that might settle that also, that important issue as well.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  The gentleman is correct. On February 15, of course, the existing CR 
expires in terms of authorization for the funding of the departments 
that were unfunded in the budget cycle, in the appropriation cycle, so 
that we need to take action to keep the government operating for all 
agencies other than Homeland Security and the Defense Department.
  We are trying to plan on the contingencies. Obviously, one of the 
alternatives you mentioned is one that we would hope might be followed, 
and that is the adoption of the House-passed CR, which we think is one 
that obviously a broad number of this House supported in a bipartisan 
fashion. We would hope that the other body would.
  But if they do not move ahead, we are discussing the possibility of 
some short-term CR. But those discussions have not moved beyond the 
contemplation that they may be necessary. They have not come to any 
decision as to how long it would be.
  Clearly, one of the problems, as the gentleman knows, is we are 
leaving for a week for the Presidents' Day District Work Period, so 
that we would not be here at least for the following week. One of the 
reasons obviously Friday may be a very long day will be because the CR 
will have expired if we don't pass something, and we may have to deal 
with it that day, as well as ending the debate that we referred to 
previously.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that information.
  I would assume that fairly early in the week, it is likely, it is 
possible, at least, that having to deal with that CR question will 
appear to be likely rather than not. I will be glad to join with you in 
watching that closely early in the week. We look forward to the debate.
  Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield?
  Mr. BLUNT. I would.
  Mr. HOYER. I don't want to get into a long debate, but I do want to 
make an observation.
  Mr. Dreier was critical that we put today's bill on the floor, and he 
indicated he thought it would take just a few minutes to pass and that 
everybody would be for it. The Members were hoping that would be the 
case. But you never can tell.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate those comments. And, of course, after the 6 
weeks that we have had of no opportunity to express our views, we were 
eager to express those, and we were grateful for the open rule. And, 
frankly, we were able to, I think, bring some good debate to the floor.
  The re-voting issue surprised me because when we re-voted those 
amendments that had been passed in the House, on one amendment, 57 
people changed their mind between the vote and the re-vote. And on 
another one, 25

[[Page 3588]]

people changed their mind. I had always assumed there was more 
consistency in the voting than that, but I guess 30 minutes can make a 
big difference in how that goes.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I think the expression you saw was not on the merits of 
the amendments.
  Mr. BLUNT. That very well could be. I am sure that those Members will 
be able to explain that fully in that way.
  I thank the gentleman for the information.

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