Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. We are both lamenting that fact.

On Monday, Madam Speaker, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning- hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning- hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. On Thursday and Friday, no votes are expected in the House.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by close of business tomorrow.

Madam Speaker, the House will also consider H.R. 1644, Save the Internet Act of 2019. This bill will reverse the administration's repeal of critical net neutrality protections, which will empower the FCC to prohibit unjust, unreasonable, and discriminatory practices and ensure consumers can make informed decisions when shopping for internet plans. This bill also enacts authorities to support expanding broadband to rural communities and struggling Americans.

In addition, Madam Speaker, it is possible the House will take action to set the budget levels for discretionary spending for the next 2 fiscal years.

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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, as I said, I agree with the gentleman's objective and position with respect to BDS. The committee has legislation before it and is considering it.

As you know, Mr. Schneider and Mr. Nadler, I think, are the cosponsors of that legislation. I expect the committee to consider it, and then, at that point in time, we will make a decision how to move forward.

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Mr. HOYER. Well, of course, as the gentleman well knows, we have, Madam Speaker, passed many substantive pieces of legislation. We have sent to the Senate H.R. 1, a very broad-reaching reform bill trying to ensure voting rights and access for everybody, trying to ensure fair redistricting throughout the country, trying to make sure that dark money does not control our elections, and making sure that we are operating both in the executive and the legislative agency with ethical conduct.

That passed unanimously on our side. I forget exactly how many.

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Mr. HOYER. Today's vote, obviously, we had two very substantive pieces of legislation, one of which is going now to the President, and the other of which--the Violence Against Women Act--had a signature bipartisan vote, as the gentleman knows, passed the House.

We have done the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which had been pending for some period of time in making that a permanent piece of legislation.

We made sure that women--in 1963, we passed the Equal Pay Act. John Kennedy signed it. Unfortunately, we are still struggling to make sure that that promise is realized and that women are, in fact, paid based upon what they do, not based upon what their gender is.

So I would say to my friend, we have passed a lot of legislation we had pending, and we are doing a lot of hearings. We are dealing with infrastructure. We are dealing with drug prices. We made it a big issue in the campaign. We are moving ahead to make sure the Affordable Care Act works in a way that it was designed to work.

So I would say to my friend that we have pursued, both on the floor and in committee, the substantive legislation that we have talked to the American people about.

I also feel very strongly that we want to avoid what happened to us at the end of the last Congress, when you were in the majority. We shut down the government.

I am going to be working hard, hopefully on both sides of the aisle. I don't think anybody wants to see that as an objective, so I am hopeful that we can work together.

I am working with your ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, Kay Granger, with whom I have served for some period of time, and Mrs. Lowey to make sure that we get the appropriation bills done in a timely fashion and send them to the Senate.

I am hopeful that that will occur, and I am hopeful that we can fund the government in a rational way and not shut down government, which was so irrational and so harmful to our country and so costly to our taxpayers.

So those are some of the things that we have done, are doing, and will do; and, hopefully, we can, to some degree, work on this in as bipartisan a fashion as possible.

In particular, the President has said he wants to bring the cost of prescription drugs down. We share that view. I am hopeful that we can work together.

The President said he wants a substantial infrastructure piece of legislation. We share that view. We hope we can work together on that.

So we have been pursuing, on a weekly basis; and this was, from our perspective, a pretty good week. I know we disagree on the net neutrality bill, but we do agree that it is a major piece of legislation, and I expect to pass that next week as well.

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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comment.

Of course, there was no budget last year until very, very late in the year.

What was done was what we will certainly make sure we do very early on, which is to try to establish the numbers, which, of course, a caps deal would do. And our objective will be to show our values in the appropriation bills as they come to the floor--hopefully, in a timely fashion--and our main objective would be not to shut down the government but to do our work on time.

I am confident that, working together, we can reach that objective.

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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, as the gentleman may know, the Speaker invited Mr. Lighthizer to address members of the Democratic Caucus on where we stood.

As you know, that agreement has not been submitted. The Speaker said the other day that, in order to consider that in a positive way, the Mexicans, whom the President has been somewhat critical of through the years, take certain actions which make sure that our workers and their workers are treated fairly so we are competing on an even keel.

But we certainly are in discussions. There are a number of items of concern, which have historically been of concern, regarding the environment, regarding workers' rights, regarding the availability of prescription drugs for people, as well as enforcement, dispute resolution.

So those are being discussed. The conversations are ongoing, and I believe that the administration will make a determination when they believe it is timely to submit that document to us. As the gentleman knows, once they do so, there is a timeframe in which the House and Senate must act. The committees must act within, essentially, a 3-month period of time.

So we are in discussions. We are waiting on the administration's judgment as to when to submit. And I am sure they are discussing with us as to when we think that is timely as well, but there are still substantive matters that are being discussed.

I would presume some of those are on your side as well.

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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his question.

As the gentleman knows, Madam Speaker, the House voted on this bill during the last two Congresses. The most recent time it was brought to the floor, the gentleman and his party were in control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. That bill was not brought up in the Senate.

The gentleman mentioned, earlier, H.R. 1 and that Mr. McConnell has said that wouldn't be brought up. In fact, when it passed this House, it went to the Senate, and it was not brought up by Senator McConnell. So there are no plans at this point in time for us to bring this up.

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