Legislative Program

Floor Speech

LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM -- (House of Representatives - June 07, 2007)

(Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I take this time for the purpose of inquiring about next week's schedule.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland for an update on next week's schedule.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding and appreciate his question.

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.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning hour business and 10 a.m. for legislative business. We will consider additional bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of those bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow.

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 appropriation bills: Homeland Security, Military Construction-Veterans' Affairs, Energy and Water Development, and Interior and Environment.

Members should be advised that the official photo of the 110th Congress will be taken on Tuesday.

In concluding my comments, the appropriation bills that I read, Homeland Security, Military Construction-Veterans' Affairs, Energy and Water Development, and Interior and Environment, will be completed next week.

Let me reiterate that. They will be completed next week. I am hopeful we can complete them by the close of business on Friday, but they will be completed next week.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for the time and his response. Just in response to that, I do know that the Appropriations chairman today said that Members would expect to be here on Saturday if those four bills are not done prior to Saturday. Is that the leader's view as well?

Mr. HOYER. What the chairman and I have discussed is that we are going to complete these four bills next week. As the gentleman knows, as a result of the supplemental taking up a substantial amount of time of the committee and of the committee's chairman and the committee staff, we are behind in our schedule. It is our intention, as the gentleman knows from my previous statements privately and publicly to him and in the colloquy, that we will complete 11 of the 12 appropriation bills prior to June 29 when we are scheduled to take the July 4 work period break. The Defense bill has been decided to be done mid-July. Other than that, these bills will be done.

In order to accomplish that objective, our schedule will be directed not so much at time as work. And we will complete the work. So I say to my friend, Saturday is a possibility. The chairman has said Saturday is a possibility. I am hopeful that will not be necessary. I am hopeful that the subcommittee chairs and the ranking members will be able to work together, as was done last year in terms of schedule and time, so that we can complete our work by Friday at a relatively early hour. I am hopeful we can do that.

Mr. BLUNT. Is it the gentleman's view, I guess I am repeating what you are saying, I want to be sure I have this right, that you still intend to have 11 bills done by 3 weeks from tomorrow?

Mr. HOYER. Yes, sir.

Mr. BLUNT. June 29. And however many days it takes to get that done, that is your intention?

Mr. HOYER. That obviously is an average of a little less than four bills per week the 3 weeks that are available to us. We have four bills scheduled next week. We will not have the Defense bill scheduled. Labor and Health may be the biggest bill thereafter that we will consider prior to June 30.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that. The calendar is one thing. I hope that the calendar doesn't suggest that we are rushing through these bills in any way. Of course, for the time I have been in the House, and I believe the time my good friend from Maryland has been in the House, the appropriations bills have come to the floor under an open rule. The general exception for that has been, again, under both sides of the leadership, the Legislative Branch bill, which, for its own reasons, often has a structured rule.

Does the gentleman anticipate that we will still have the open rules that have been the tradition of the House on these bills?

Mr. HOYER. I do anticipate that, and I would look forward to having discussions with the gentleman at the end of next week, Thursday or Friday. Hopefully that is feasible. We hope it will be feasible.

As you know, last year, as I reiterated, there were time agreements between the chairman and the ranking member that allowed us to effect reasonably efficient consideration under the open rules that were then in place.

We anticipate that, and I hope that is the case.

But I want to reiterate what is self-evident. Our commitment has been to pass 11 bills by the end of this month. That gives us three full weeks to do that. We think that is doable.

Again, the defense bill is not in that mix. The defense bill arguably could have taken substantial time, and that will be done in July.

I say to my friend that I contemplate proceeding as we have done in the past and look forward to discussing that with him as we proceed.

Mr. BLUNT. The open rule we have used in the past has been truly an open rule where Members would come to the floor and, as long as they were, under the appropriations process, finding a way to pay for their proposal, would offer that proposal on the floor. There was no pre-printing requirement. I hope that continues to be the same.

I yield to the majority leader.

Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding. It gives me an opportunity to respond to two things.

First of all to his specific question, and that is what I contemplate at this point in time. I have not fully discussed it with the chairman, but that is what we contemplate. As far as I know, that is what the rules will provide for next week.

When I said it gave me an opportunity to comment on the general, I know there has been some consternation on your side of the aisle, Mr. Whip, with the pre-printing requirement.

As you know, one of the things we were concerned about was that matters would come to the floor with little notice. My view is an open rule allows somebody to present whatever amendment they choose to present. But requiring that it be preprinted so it gives notice to Members it seems to me not to be contrary to the concept of an open rule. It simply means within the concept of an open rule Members will have notice as to what amendments people intend to offer.

We think that is not undermining of anybody's right to offer any amendment they choose to, while at the same time giving the body notice of what they can contemplate and consider what they might want to do.

Mr. BLUNT. I would say to my friend that I am sure we do think that undermines a right, and that would be a major problem as we look at this. Let me give you an example why it undermines a right.

First of all, this has been the procedure of the House for a long time. In the 12 years of the leadership by my side, we allowed this process to happen for 12 years on virtually all of the bills. One reason you want to do that is in this process where, first of all, the Member is obligated to present a way to, within the structure of that appropriation bill, shift money around, if that Member is successful, you don't know that in advance.

I am pausing here because I think it is a very important point. You don't know that in advance.

And on the floor under the rules we have used for well over a decade, probably into two decades, another Member could then stand up and say, the cut just made, the adjustment just made, I would like to propose that we restore part of that by taking money from somewhere else previously unmentioned in that debate. And you don't know that as part of a pre-printing requirement. It is a substantial limiting of the minority or the majority, and I suspect that a number of these amendments will come from both sides of the aisle. It is a substantial limiting of the Members' ability to react to what happens during the response to these amendments.

I am sure that we want to talk about this in more detail and in more length. Because I believe the Members on our side of the aisle and, frankly, I think the Members on your side of the aisle who have used this process in the past, some with the same amendment every single year, some with the same positive result every single year, will see this as a substantial change if that pre-printing requirement was a requirement.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. HOYER. I would reiterate, as I told my friend, my contemplation is we will proceed in the regular order next week. We hope that will go in the regular order.

I further said to my friend that we will discuss that as we go forward during the latter part of the week. We hope, as occurred last year, there was cooperation between both sides to accomplish the work of the Appropriations Committee.

We know we have had a problem. Nine of the appropriations bills, as you know, weren't passed last year. They were passed this year, and they were passed after the fiscal year not only had started but after the Congress in which they were supposed to be passed expired and the new Congress was under way.

But I want to assure the gentleman, as I have said, we contemplate the regular order. What I was referring to in the second part of my response was the issue that has been raised not with respect to appropriations bills over the last 3 or 4 months but with respect to bills that we perceive to be open rules but with a pre-printing requirement. We do not think, and we will be glad to discuss that, that giving Members notice of amendments they may have to be prepared for and to contemplate and to have information about and find out what people might think about that undermines the open-rule concept. The open-rule concept, from my perspective, is that any Member who wants to offer an amendment that is germane can do so. And that requiring them to tell people ahead of time what that amendment is is not undermining of that right.

However, as I said, I understand the gentleman's position with respect to an appropriation bill where moneys may be cut. There may be opportunities to add back in other places or to shift from one object to another. I think you are correct. It may be a more fluid situation that the Members confront at that point in time, and they may not be able to have the ability to pre-print an amendment which they can themselves not contemplate.

I want to explain that I was referring more to the questions that you have raised, not you specifically, but that have been raised with reference to the differences that we have on the fact that we believe we have provided a number of open rules, notwithstanding the pre-printing requirement.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for his views on that.

We do see the pre-printing requirement as not as open as the open rule that we used to describe and use with some frequency, but I am pleased also that the gentleman appears to see my point in terms of the appropriations bill itself. It is a much more fluid process. It involves proposing that money be taken from one place to place in another place, and so if a pre-printing requirement is on a document that you have no idea, frankly, what it looks like, even by the time the amendment you had in mind might be offered, that amendment may no longer be appropriate or valid.

If, for instance, all of the money you were hoping to use for your so-called ``paid for'' is gone, your pre-printing requirement meant nothing because your source on how to pay for your better idea is gone.

I think we are hearing each other. I hope we continue to discuss this.

I would also suggest to my friend who often, and I understand how hard it is to resist this, has pointed out last year's work wasn't done and all that stuff. I will tell my friend that last year the House, under our leadership, passed 11 bills by the 4th of July.

Now if at the end of this process, if our friends on the other side of this building, you are as challenged as we were to get it all done, I hope you are prepared to hear for months and months and months how the work was not done. We met the standard that you are setting for yourself.

The previous year of that Congress, the first half of that Congress, we passed all 12 bills by the 4th of July. I assume your sensitivity on this issue will only grow if you run into a similar situation, and I am sure we will be glad to remind you of it. But the work of the House was done.

Let me tell you one other thing that we did last year that we are developing great concern about and that is on this topic of where the Member-directed projects, the so-called earmarks, go into the process.

Our process, more often than not, included that work being done in the bill with, obviously, a lack of control over the final negotiation with our friends on the other side of the building. But, last year, we had a point of order against a list that wasn't complete. Maybe there is some problem if there is no list, your list doesn't have to be complete, but a bigger problem is this idea that we are at least starting with the first four bills, if it is appropriate for them to have these projects, that the project could not possibly occur until you go to conference.

I would say to my good friend that I believe our Members and some of yours share real concern that this removes almost all of the transparency from the process, and I hope we can work together to find a better solution than to put all of these earmarks in at the last possible minute so they can't possibly be looked at to any extent.

You want a pre-printing requirement for every amendment and would expect the highly volatile topic of earmarks to be handled in a conference that the Members possibly barely have time to look at and the media has even less time to look at it. It is a huge problem, and I hope we can continue to talk about it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).

Mr. DREIER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I appreciate what the distinguished Republican whip was raising on this whole issue of the pre-printing requirement. I heard the gentleman from Maryland talk about consternation on our side about the so-called pre-printing requirement, and I heard him just say from his perspective he believes that if an amendment is printed in the Record that in no way undermines the right of a Member to offer an amendment. The gentleman is correct, if there is in fact a pre-printing requirement and a Member is entitled to offer that amendment. But the gentleman has just said in his statement that, from his perspective, this does not alter that right.

But I think the distinguished Republican whip was right on target when he pointed to the fact that the legislative process, through a long history which extends not just decades, I would say to my whip, but the 200-year history of this institution, is one that says that an open rule is one that allows any Member through that process to stand up. If an idea comes to that Member that should be addressed, that Member has the right to do that. This new definition of what an open rule is is something that to me is beyond the pale and is undermining the deliberative nature of this institution.

I would say to both of my friends, the majority leader and the distinguished Republican whip, that here we are in a position where we have tried our doggonedness to make sure that we have a more open body. That was the argument that was propounded by the Speaker on December 6, 2006, in her great statement; and we have in fact taken a retrograde step on that by preventing Members from being able to have the chance as the legislative process proceeds to do that.

And the notion that we would, as we begin the very important appropriations process, in any way impinge on the rights of Members to participate in this process is to me absolutely abhorrent.

And I will say also on this issue which the distinguished Republican whip has just raised of earmarks, we in our reform package which we passed last October made sure that every Democrat and every Republican would have a right to stand up and bring to light any earmark that has been included in a bill, and it allows either through that bill and if not through the bill through the rule to do so. We today have had two votes in this House, two votes in this House; and, unfortunately, most Members on the majority side chose to cast votes that prevented us from being able to get back to just the standard that we provided in the 109th Congress for this supposedly new and open 110th Congress.

I would like to say to my friends that I am very troubled with the discussion that I am hearing as the ranking member on the Rules Committee; and as we proceed with consideration of these appropriations bills, I will assure you, Mr. Speaker, I plan to do everything that I possibly can to ensure that we have a complete, open amendment process which, as the distinguished Republican whip has said, with the exception of one and on occasion two appropriations bills has been provided as a right to both Democrats and Republicans.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman. I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Maryland, if he wants to respond in any way.

Mr. HOYER. Well, I don't know that the response is necessary. I will say to my friend, I heard him speak a lot in 1991 and 1992 and 1993 about open rules, about openness, and I'm speaking now of Mr. Dreier, and he subsequently became the chair of the Rules Committee. And his response was, when I raised one of his quotes, was, look, we're in authority now and we've found out that we can't get done the work that we need to get done without, in effect, shutting down the rules.

It is very difficult now to hear him tell me that he's going to do everything possible to make sure that the rules are open. He had an opportunity as chairman of the Rules Committee, of course, to do that, and from our perspective, as he well knows, he didn't do that.

As I have said before, we are going to proceed with these four bills in the regular order, and my friend the distinguished whip and I will discuss, along with Mr. Boehner and I, will discuss trying to get our work done within the time frame allotted to us and that is available to us.

He made the observation correctly that 11 of the 12 appropriation bills last year were passed through this House, in the previous year the 12 out of 12. Or 11 out of 11. I guess 10 out of 11 the last year. We've added an appropriations committee. They were passed. However, I would remind and say once again, with the cooperation of Mr. Obey and with time constraints so that they could be done in a timely fashion. I am hopeful that we proceed that way again, and we will look forward to discussing it.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that response, and I would also say, as I recall how that process has always worked, it's usually negotiated between both sides at some point during that open-rule process, when both sides feel that there's been adequate time given for Members' views to be heard. I think that was the appropriate way to handle that then. I believe it's the appropriate way to handle that now. I hope we're able to continue on that unanimous-consent view of this where both sides are able to achieve a sense that their Members have been heard.

Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield?

Mr. BLUNT. I would.

Mr. HOYER. I am confident that you and I can do that.

Mr. BLUNT. I hear my friend, and we look forward to this process next week.

I would ask, also, it has occurred to me that we've only got four of these bills, I believe, through the markup process. We're going to be asking the appropriators to mark up bills on the other topics while we've got appropriations bills on the floor?

Mr. HOYER. As someone who served on the Appropriations Committee for a quarter of a century, I can tell you this has been done on a regular basis in the last Congress, the Congress before that and every Congress in which I've served. In every Congress in which I've served.

Mr. BLUNT. I would tell my friend that I believe in the last five Congresses, the only Congresses I really have that kind of sense of, it was seldom done, if ever, and both in scheduling the floor and trying to do the job of the whip for the floor, both of which I did some of, that our appropriators were almost totally unwilling to have an appropriations bill on the floor while the Appropriations Committee members were tied up dealing with difficult and complicated bills, which all of these bills are.

I don't think that's regular at all, though you were on the Appropriations Committee. I just suggest to my friend, maybe your memory of that is stronger from the previous decade than the last decade, because our appropriators were very resistant to doing that, and I'm sure our appropriators still will be resistant, though they don't call the meeting or schedule the markup.

I would yield for whatever information my friend has on that.

Mr. HOYER. It's my understanding, staff has just told me, that we have an agreement, I presume Mr. Obey and Mr. Lewis and other leadership have agreed, to coordinate the floor and committee work so as to not have conflicts. So that apparently has been contemplated.

I want to agree with you that, generally speaking, you are absolutely correct. The Appropriations Committee does not like to be marking up bills when appropriation bills are on the floor. I agree with that 100 percent. Mr. Obey in particular does not like that because Mr. Obey, either as the ranking member or now the chairman, was very engaged, as we all know, in the floor debates. So he was particularly not happy with that process, and as an appropriator, I can tell you that no appropriator likes to have that happen.

Again, we understand that there has been some work on this so that we can try to accommodate both doing the work on the floor and doing the work in the committee.

Mr. BLUNT. I am glad to have that information.

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