[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11202-11203]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1515
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Hoyer), the majority leader, for the purpose of inquiring about next 
week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding, and respond to him that on 
Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour business and 
2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several bills under 
suspension of the rules, and we expect to appoint conferees on the 
fiscal year 2008 budget resolution.
  Again, Monday night, we intend to have a motion to go to conference 
and appoint conferees, so that Members know it will be in addition to 
suspension bills.
  On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour 
business and noon for legislative business. We will consider additional 
bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of those bills 
will be distributed by the end of business tomorrow.
  On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. On Friday, 
the House will meet at 9 a.m. We expect to consider the fiscal year 
2008 intelligence authorization bill; the fiscal year 2008 Homeland 
Security Department authorization bill; H.R. 1873, a bill regarding 
small business contracting; H.R. 1294, the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian 
Tribes of Virginia Recognition Act; and a bill to reauthorize the COPS 
program.
  We are still determining which rules and bills will be considered on 
which days.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that. I am wondering based on 
the discussion we had and the meeting we had yesterday, does the 
gentleman have any sense when we may expect to see some action on the 
war supplemental?
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. As you know, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid in our meeting 
at the White House indicated that it was their intent and their 
objective to have to the President's desk before the Memorial Day break 
another bill to fund our troops, and for such other purposes as the 
bill may include.
  In that context, I am hopeful that we will move a bill through this 
House no later than the 15th or 16th of May. In other words, not next 
week but the week after. If we can do it next week, we would maybe do 
it; but it is our intention to move it before the middle of the second 
week.
  Mr. BLUNT. Right. And I think to meet the objective, which I think is 
an objective we should do our best to meet, of moving that bill before 
the Memorial Day break and sending it to the President's desk, we 
almost have to have a bill through the House by the time the gentleman 
has mentioned.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I think we agree on that, and that is certainly our 
objective.
  Mr. BLUNT. I hope we can do that. I believe the quicker we can get 
House action, the better off we will be.
  On the budget resolution, I would ask my friend, I understand there 
is a technical reason that budget resolution may have to come before 
the House again, and maybe the Rules Committee is even meeting on that 
right now. Would you explain that to me?
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield, I am not sure I am accurate 
because when you say come before the House again, what we will do is 
take the Senate bill from the desk, substitute the House language, ask 
for a conference, move to go to conference, and then you will have in 
order your motion to instruct conferees. To that extent, the bill will 
come before us, but only to that extent. In other words, the budget 
that was passed by the House, we will take the Senate bill from the 
floor, substitute the House language.
  The reason we need a rule, frankly, is we asked unanimous consent to 
do that procedure, a unanimous consent which we had given to you in 
2003 and 2005. For whatever reasons, it was not your personal 
determination, but it was the determination of your side not to give 
unanimous consent for that purpose. Therefore, in order to effect that 
objective, we need to pass a rule to allow us to do that which is what 
we will do Monday night.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would say to the gentleman, there may be a technicality 
that neither of us understand; I am sure I don't. But I thought there 
was a technical problem with the budget passed that made it a different 
situation than the budgets we had passed in the past, and that the 
clearest way to take care of that procedural mistake was actually to 
deal with the bill on the floor.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would.
  Mr. HOYER. That is not my understanding. Now the gentleman may have 
more information than I have, but if that is the fact, I don't have 
that information. At this point in time, I was not aware of any such 
problem.
  The only problem I was aware of, as I informed the gentleman, we can 
either do this by asking for unanimous consent to effect the process of 
taking the Senate bill, substituting the House bill, and then 
requesting the conference and appointing conferees by unanimous 
consent. Or, failing to get unanimous consent, we have to do that by 
rule. We did not get unanimous consent. The Rules Committee met today. 
We will consider that rule and the bill itself on Monday late 
afternoon, early evening.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would also ask the gentleman, and then we go to 
conference on the budget after taking what will be a separate vote on 
the budget?
  Mr. HOYER. Yes.
  Mr. BLUNT. And all of that would happen on Monday?
  Mr. HOYER. Yes, sir.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for clarifying that for me.

[[Page 11203]]

  On one other topic that may be coming up soon, the whole question of 
lobbying reform, I have heard that may also be coming up in the near 
future. Do you have a sense when a lobbying reform bill might be 
scheduled for the floor?
  Mr. HOYER. It will not be this coming week. That is being worked on. 
We want to make sure that it is a bill which accurately reflects reform 
and is workable. That is what we are trying to achieve.
  Mr. BLUNT. Is it the gentleman's view that bill will go through a 
committee process or will it be coming directly to the floor?
  Mr. HOYER. It is my view it will go through a committee process. The 
Judiciary Committee is considering it. Mr. Conyers' committee is 
considering it.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that.
  My only other topic, Members, of course get very sentimental about 
their mothers near Mother's Day, and their wives near Mother's Day. 
Next Friday, I am hoping we will have an effort to ensure that Members 
are home for that weekend, and they are, too. We intend to vote Friday. 
Does the gentleman have a sense yet what the actual Friday schedule 
might look like in terms of a time away from here on Friday?
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield, if we have the full 
cooperation of all those people who have mothers or had mothers, we can 
accomplish that objective.
  Having said that, as you know, I announced we have Friday scheduled 
as a day for us to do our business. Now if we were extraordinarily 
fortunate and got our business done by Thursday, or frankly could 
conclude it late Thursday night, perhaps we would be able to do that. 
But I do not anticipate that. I know as many Members on my side of the 
aisle, I want to assure the gentleman, have talked to me, as I am sure 
Members on your side of the aisle have talked to you about that, and if 
we can accommodate them, we will. But you heard the schedule. It is a 
pretty full schedule with a lot of substantive legislation. We have the 
intelligence authorization and other bills. It is my expectation that 
we will be in on Friday. But it is also my intent to make every effort 
to make Friday as short a day as we possibly can. As you know, our 
objective is no later than 2 p.m.; but if we could do earlier, 12:30, 
before 1, to accommodate Members and their flights, we certainly would 
like to do that. I would certainly welcome your help in accomplishing 
that objective.
  Mr. BLUNT. That would be good for our Members to get that done.
  One other thing that I would like to bring up, and I know how 
difficult it is to schedule the floor. Believe me, I know the concerns 
and criticisms that come from that.
  When we were visiting a week ago, I expressed a specific request that 
as soon as we had an idea when the votes were going to be on Tuesday, 
we would have more general knowledge of that. At that time, my good 
friend thought we would vote early afternoon on Tuesday. As it turned 
out, we didn't actually start the session until noon on Tuesday.
  Mr. HOYER. Right.
  Mr. BLUNT. That information to our Members a little earlier would 
have prevented travel on Monday for people that could have easily 
gotten here by the time of the Tuesday vote. It is still early in this 
Congress. I am really not saying that in a way that is critical at all, 
but at the time, we did ask for whatever knowledge the majority had as 
soon as possible so we wouldn't run into exactly the situation we did, 
people getting here thinking there could be votes at 12, only to find 
out we didn't start any of the work of the House until 12. Whatever it 
takes to work more closely on that, I am more than happy to try to do 
so we can get information out. But we can't get it out unless we have 
it.
  I was disappointed we didn't get a little more notice on the time we 
were going to start work on Tuesday, which would have made it clear we 
would not be having votes at the time we started.
  Mr. HOYER. Let me say, I agree with the gentleman. I was not pleased 
myself that we did not give more notice to Members. As you pointed out, 
we had votes very late in the day.
  I take full responsibility because I think we may have been able to 
get, certainly early Tuesday at the latest, information to Members. We 
probably should have done that.
  As you know, the issue was the veto, when it was going to go down 
there and when it was going to come back. That was not decided until 
late.
  But I think the gentleman's criticism is a constructive criticism, 
and I take responsibility. We should have done that, in my opinion. I 
was not pleased, frankly, with myself or with the notice our office 
gave because we do want to give Members as accurate information as we 
possibly can. And, frankly, we want to give them as timely information 
as we can so they can accomplish what you have said, make their 
schedules comport with what we are actually doing. To the extent that 
did not happen this time, I will try to prevent it from happening a 
second time.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, I thank my friend for the spirit of your response. 
If there is any way we can help you in getting that information to 
Members more quickly, please call on us to do that.

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