Providing for Further Consideration of H.R. 3161, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations ..

Floor Speech

PROVIDING FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3161, AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - August 02, 2007)

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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this highly unorthodox rule and the unnecessary limiting process that is being proposed and that was even talked about here on the House floor today.

Mr. Speaker, today, for the first time since my service in Congress, the House is considering a rule for the Agriculture appropriations bill that is something other than an open rule. It is also the first time since I began my service that the Rules Committee reported out a limited rule for an appropriations bill that self-executes amendments and revisions to the base text of the bill that may not have withstood the scrutiny of this Congress.

One of the self-executing amendments of particular concern that was inserted late last night in the Rules Committee is included in part A of this rule. It is described as adding a limitation, and I quote, to effectively eliminate three West Virginia earmarks from the committee report accompanying the bill.

Upon further review, it turns out that these three earmarks total more than $1.5 million and were requested by Congressman ALAN MOLLOHAN and would benefit the Canaan Valley Institute, a nonprofit established by Congressman Mollohan.

This highly irregular inclusion of this self-executing provision of the rule is particularly troubling, because the Canaan Valley Institute is currently under investigation by the FBI. In March, when he requested this funding, Congressman Mollohan certified that he had no financial interest in any of the earmarks and affirmed the worthiness of each project.

I strongly believe that this late-night maneuver was not properly vetted through the regular order processes. As a result of that, several serious questions have arisen.

I would like to engage the Democrat Member of the Rules Committee, my friend from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), on a few questions about this process.

The first question that I would yield to the gentleman on is, who asked the Rules Committee to take this highly unusual action and what explanation did they provide to justify the removal of Representative Mollohan's earmarks?

Mr. McGOVERN. If the gentleman will yield, the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who is on the floor here today, Mr. Obey, did. If you would like to ask him questions, you may.

Mr. SESSIONS. I am going to continue asking you questions, and I will continue yielding to you. I appreciate the gentleman.

Did anyone on the Rules Committee inquire as to whether Mr. Mollohan's certification of no financial interest had been proven in any way deficient or inaccurate?

Mr. OBEY. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield to the chairman.

Mr. OBEY. Let me simply say the reason these amendments are in the self-executing rule is that we agree with you that under the circumstances they should not be in the bill.

As I warned the House when we first started bringing appropriation bills to the floor, our committee did not have enough time to adequately get all of these amendments that were coming at us, and so we asked for a process which would allow us during the month of August to review all of them.

In the end the House decided they did not want to do that. One of the major reasons is because Members of your party wanted to make certain that we had an opportunity to deal with them on the floor now. I warned at the time that meant that mistakes would be made. They were. When we caught the mistake, I went to the Rules Committee and Mr. Mollohan agreed that under the circumstances they ought to come out.

We ought to be congratulated for it, rather than being questioned about it.

Mr. SESSIONS. Reclaiming my time and continuing my dialogue with the gentleman, in other words, you had figured out that they were inappropriately inserted?

Mr. OBEY. No, we had determined that because they were in controversy, for the good of the House they should not be considered at this time.

Mr. SESSIONS. Continuing my dialogue with either gentleman, in as much as the Mollohan earmarks were approved by the entire Appropriations Committee, does the gentleman know whether the appropriation Members on both sides of the aisle have been advised about the reasons for canceling funding for the projects which they have overwhelmingly approved with the knowledge that it was appropriate at the time?

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

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. McGOVERN. Let me simply say to the gentleman that I very much regret the tone that the gentleman is taking here today.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's time has expired.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to yield the gentleman from Dallas an additional minute.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, another question which I wish to ask is whether the Rules Committee could advise Members seeking to remove Member-supported earmarks from other pieces of legislation, whether they might take advantage of the precedent we are setting here today and whether they might expect the Rules Committee to look favorably on similar requests for self-executing provisions in the future?

Mr. Speaker, the reason why we ask these questions is because the self-executing provisions of this rule are highly unusual and I believe raise lots of questions. We look forward to asking these questions and hope we get forthright answers.

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