Legislative Program

Floor Speech

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The two appropriations bills are two of the 12 appropriation bills that it is my intention to see us send to the Senate by the end of next month. Obviously, as the gentleman knows, the fiscal year ends on September 30; therefore, in order for us to get these bills completed and do them individually rather than bundled in an omnibus, which I think is a far preferable process, it's necessary for us to move these bills in a timely fashion. The rules, therefore, will try to accommodate both the Members and the time frame and the time constraints that we confront.

I would say to the gentleman that we tried to reach, over the last 2 1/2 months, some agreement on time constraints. Indeed, I offered to have a choice of amendments by your side after we reached a time agreement. We were, as the gentleman knows, unable to reach such agreement. In fact, I was told by your leadership that no such agreement was possible.

In 2004, on the bill that we did yesterday, when the majority was then your side of the aisle there were 16 amendments in total offered to the bill we did yesterday, 10 by Republicans--of course it was your bill and you were in charge--and six amendments offered by Democrats. We asked for preprinting of amendments so we would have some idea of what amendments would be pending, and your side filed 102 amendments. That is more amendments total than were filed by either party in 2004, 2005 and 2006, so it was clear that if we had had a rule that provided for the 5-minute rule, with 434 Members having the right to 5 minutes on each amendment, that it would have been impossible to finish that bill, much less 12 bills, by the end of July, very frankly, so that ultimately we had to do a structured rule to accommodate doing the people's business in a timely fashion.

I'm sorry that we couldn't reach agreement. There have been no further discussions, although I did talk to Mr. Cantor, who is not here today--or at least not here this afternoon--I did talk to him on a number of occasions about this as recently as the night that we went to the Rules Committee to get the structured rule. I have not heard from him or from Mr. Boehner with respect to any option available to us for time constraints.

In fact, Mr. Obey, as you know, had a colloquy with Mr. Lewis on the floor on the rule that was essentially an open rule. And the colloquy essentially asked by Mr. Obey, Can we reach time agreements? And Mr. Lewis responded, I'm afraid my conference might very well have a revolution on its hands and you might have a new ranking member, in which he indicated that time constraints were not possible. Therefore, I say to my friend from California that we are considering a rule which, as I said, will allow us to consider amendments on substance, but allow us to do so in a time frame that may well be shorter than has been the case in the past.

Let me say to you that when we last considered the Commerce-Justice-Science bill in 2006 when your side was in charge, you got a unanimous agreement from Mr. Obey on time constraints. Those time constraints provided for consideration of approximately 17 hours on the bill.

In 2007, we got--not time constraints, but about the same amount of time. Now, unfortunately, after we thought in 2007 we were going to have agreement to do about the same time that we gave to you when you were in the majority, notwithstanding that, we went 50 hours over. Now, 50 hours, in terms of legislative time, is at least 2 weeks of time, unless of course you have a day like yesterday. But in terms of a normal day, that's 2 weeks. We simply cannot complete and do our business in that context.

So I tell my friend that we are considering a structured rule because we believe that if we are going to get our work done, that's necessary. We believe it has been amply shown--amply shown--in 2007, and because we were unable to reach, over 2 1/2 months, an agreement on time constraints, that the only way you are going to allow us to get our work done is if we limit the time frame in which we can act.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank my friend for expressing the desire to get the work done in this House, and I will tell you from this side of the aisle, that is our desire as well.

Knowing when we talk about time, we believe we can get our work done on time as well. But having only been in this House 2 1/2 years and seeing bills come to the floor and knowing, even when we brought the stimulus, the whole idea about time, that soon we found out, because somebody rushed the bill to the floor, that there were AIG bonuses in the bill at the time. I always think the American people believe it's okay to have some checks and balances; it's okay to have debate on the floor; it's okay to have some amendments asked upon the bill process.

And I ask my good friend who brought up the number of amendments, the thing that I would recall, though, this is in a world of preprinting, and when you deal with preprinting of amendments, that you have to submit them earlier, there are numerous ones you submit but they will not come to the floor. Much like when we started the debate this week, we did not enter the first Republican one until six of them had already been denied. So even though a quote will be named of a hundred and some amendments, that's not the number that we'll take up.

And when we talked about the ability of having an agreement on time, that came to pass after the bill had started. And I would think in the idea of making sure that the best products come out of this floor that a time idea would not be until you start the bill. Look to where the process is, and how would it be wrong to have a debate?

When I just watched the legislative branch today, we only had one amendment that we all agreed to. We had one chance of a motion to recommit, which we were able to save the taxpayers $100,000, where 374 people came together and said, yes, we could do better, that we don't have to settle for good; we could settle for great. But how much more money could we have saved had we had that opportunity to offer it?

And one thing I would say to the gentleman is if we did have an open rule, as it was before, and we talked about maybe taking away the preprinting, maybe we could be a little faster in the process. And I think looking at the history of what happened this week, we could have gotten it through faster in an open rule.

So I ask the gentleman, as he talks about having a closed structure in the process, is there any assurance that we know you're going to agree to that plan or maybe even have an open rule as we progress?

Mr. HOYER. I'm sorry. Would you repeat the question.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. You had said earlier that you were looking to----

Mr. HOYER. I know what I talked about, but at the end you asked a question, and I'm not sure I got exactly what the question was.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. Well, the assurance, will you stay with that, or is there any ability to open it up, to have an open rule?

Mr. HOYER. Let me respond to the gentleman's observation with respect to starting the bill without agreements on time. We did that in 2007. We went 50 hours over what we agreed to in time constraints the year before when you were in the majority. My belief is, and I tell my friend this very sincerely, and I think my friend knows my reputation about working across the aisle and working in an honest, open fashion, is that the agreement was that we would do exactly, not to the minute, but within the framework of the agreement that we gave to you to consider the bills that you brought to the floor in 2006. We expected the same consideration. Notwithstanding that, notwithstanding that, we went 50 hours over what I thought the agreement was.

Now, 50 hours, as I told the gentleman, is 2 weeks. And 2 weeks is a long time in terms of the weeks we have available to do our bills. In fact, at this current time, we have approximately 7 weeks left to complete the appropriations process, House, Senate, and sending it to the President, if we do it in a timely fashion. Now, usually we do not do that, and I think that's unfortunate. Both sides don't do that. But I'm very hopeful that we will do it.

Let me make one additional comment. You mentioned the AIG bonuses. Clearly, the AIG bonuses weren't in that bill to which you referred. That bill, of course, came from the administration of your party and the Secretary of the Treasury from your party. And as you know, when they originally submitted the bill, it was a 3-page bill for $700 billion.

Now, the gentleman is correct that we didn't have appropriate constraints in there to preclude AIG's doing that, but they certainly weren't in the bill. And to represent that as the case, I'm sure the gentleman did not mean to imply that they were in the bill. They clearly were not.

So I say to my friend we've had experience on this. It's not as if you would like to believe or represent that we have a clean slate, that we're coming at this just brand new, clean, and everybody wants to be fair and balanced. The fact of the matter is that did not occur in the last year. Unfortunately, we didn't do the appropriations process very well last year. Both parties point the finger at each other for the blame. Irrespective of whom was to blame last year, we didn't do it. I don't like that. I want to see the regular process pursued, and I intend to provide for timeframes in which to do that. And as I say, for 2 1/2 months I pursued an effort to see if we could reach time agreements, as we gave to you in 2006. We have been unable to do that. I think that's unfortunate. But having failed to do that, I, frankly, want to tell the gentleman that I will not advise Mr. Obey nor the Rules Committee nor the Speaker to proceed for an hour or 2 hours or 5 hours or 10 hours before we get an agreement on time constraints, which was the practice, frankly, in 2007, and I don't intend to go down that road again.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. Just to clarify to my good friend that on the other side of the aisle in the other house, they had passed an amendment to deny the right for those AIG bonuses. And if I recall when I was sitting on this floor, those lights were all green saying ``yes'' to the resolution, that they would have 48 hours, the American people, to see that bill. But in the short timeframe, within the next day, that was not to be true. That was not the agreement that transpired on this floor that, yes, it was handed out after midnight and, yes, we voted on it the next day.

Mr. HOYER. Would my friend yield on that point?

Mr. McCARTHY of California. I will gladly yield to my friend.

Mr. HOYER. For what purpose was the 48 hours asked for?

Mr. McCARTHY of California. It was the motion to instruct. And one thing I would say----

Mr. HOYER. For what purpose was the 48 hours asked for?

Mr. McCARTHY of California. If I may just finish, the one thing I was asking for was really for the American people to be able to see it, be able to read it and be able to understand it.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield again?

Mr. McCARTHY of California. Gladly, to my friend.

Mr. HOYER. Isn't that what preprinting of

amendments attempts to do? I yield back.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman.

One thing I would say as we continue forward, if I could just finish with this discussion, if it is your intention to close down and continue to have a preprinting, is there a number in the gentleman's mind that he could tell this side of the aisle that the Republicans would be able to have a number of amendments just to have a check and balance for the American people when we talk about the billions of dollars that will be spent in these appropriation bills, even though we're being denied the amount of time that we can debate it?

I yield to my friend.

Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding because that's a good question. That's exactly what I offered your leadership.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. Do you have a number in mind?

Mr. HOYER. No. I offered it to your leadership. I didn't mention a particular number, but I offered that to your leadership for over 2 1/2 months. Your leadership concluded that they could not make or would not make such an agreement. I tell my friend that it's difficult to put a number on the amendments because, as the gentleman says and as I told you, we asked for six amendments. We offered six amendments in 2004 to that bill that was considered yesterday, six. Now you may say you would have winnowed 102 down to a lesser number. I don't know what the lesser number would have been, whether it would have been 70 or whether it would have been 50 or whether it would have been 40. But as you know, without a structured rule, with 5 minutes for each Member of the House to speak, you can do the math. Five times 400, obviously, is 2,000 minutes. Divide that by 60, you have a lot of days to consider that bill.

I think the gentleman is probably correct, it would not have been 102 amendments, but I don't know what number there would have been, and it's impossible to put a number on it unless we know how many amendments are requested. If as was the case in 2004 and we only asked for six, giving us 10 would not have seemed to make much sense. On the other hand, if we asked for 20, maybe a higher number certainly would be in order.

So I say to my friend, we will have to see how many amendments are sought, but we are not going to go down the road we went down in 2007. And I say to the gentleman, in my opinion, the problem with his party is they're hoisted on the petard of their performance in 2007 in trying to argue that somehow we don't have reason to be concerned by filibuster by debate. Yesterday was filibuster by vote, and we wasted a lot of time yesterday, unfortunately. Many hearings were cancelled on health, on safety, on statutory PAYGO and other matters that we couldn't have hearings on because we were voting four times on an issue with essentially the same result each time.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. I do appreciate the decades of service you have provided, and, again, I say I have only been here 2 1/2 years. But as I always studied and watched Congress and understood the idea of a filibuster, never did I think a filibuster was 20 minutes. Never did I think when you came to the floor, on the very first amendment a Republican took up, that in 20 minutes somehow it got called a filibuster.

And from one perspective on this side of the aisle, please understand, you set the rules. Nowhere did we not abide by the rules. You asked for preprinting; we provided our amendments preprinted. You said to go along with the debate; we got into the debate. We were into 20 minutes. And I think the American people like the idea of debating on this floor.

But if I may move on, there is just one final question on this. The reason I asked you about the number of amendments on the Republican side, you've got to understand the questioning of why I would. We just took up a legislative branch, and you said you weren't sure about how many Republican amendments there could be in the future, but to my good friend, there were none. There wasn't one Republican amendment. So our ability within the rules as they're constructed, we have one motion to recommit, and you know what happened? 374 people in this Chamber joined hands together. That doesn't come around very often to save the taxpayers $100,000.

So think for one moment what the American people would save in a time of crisis, and you look in my district where it's 15.9 percent unemployment, if they see a few more dollars saved, it helps them a great deal.

But if I may move on, to my good friend from Maryland, I would like to ask him about cap-and-trade. The Speaker has announced and I have read a lot of what she has said about if you don't finish this bill in Agriculture and Ways and Means by a certain date, you lose the right of authority. And the Speaker had a goal of considering the cap-and-trade bill on the floor prior to the July 4th process. Does my friend believe that time will still be the case, that we will see the bill before July the 4th?

Mr. HOYER. The energy independence and climate bill to which the gentleman refers, as you know, was marked up in committee and passed out of committee prior to the May break. Since that time, there have been a lot of discussions, and the Speaker did, in fact, say that committees with concurrent jurisdiction ought to act by the 19th, today, to try to bring this matter to conclusion. As the gentleman knows, I did not announce that bill for next week. I don't want to say it's not possible, but I have, for the last 3 months, been telling people, particularly the press that asked me the schedule, that I thought the energy independence and climate bill would be on the floor either the last week in June or the first week we get back in July. So that was the timeframe from my expectations. At this point in time, I have no reason to believe that it's going to be on the floor next week, but I want to make it clear to the Members that work is being done as we speak on this bill. The Agriculture Committee and Ways and Means in particular are working on this bill. We believe this is a very critical and important bill. This is one of the President's priorities. So I say to the gentleman that I have not announced it on the schedule. My present expectation is that it will not be on for next week, but if agreement was reached today or tomorrow and it was possible to move forward, it is possible. And if we have the time to do that, it is possible that we would consider it next week.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. If I just may follow up on that, should I believe what I read in the paper, that even though this bill has three different committees of jurisdiction with the Agriculture and the Ways and Means bill, if it was not taken up by a certain date, would they lose the jurisdiction right to take up the bill before it came to the floor, or will we expect it to come out of those committees before the floor?

Mr. HOYER. I think that, obviously, is going to be up to the Speaker and committee Chairs as they discuss this. But I think, again, we deal with time constraints, and we want to do things right. But we know that if you simply do not set targets to get things done, the legislative process, which I have been at for over 40 years, sometimes can delay, and you don't get things done. So you set target dates to get things done, and this is what she has done. I don't think it's so much a question of losing jurisdiction as it is a sense of trying to get something done by a date so that you can then move on to final passage on the floor of the House.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman.

And if I may move on to another subject. During the debate of the war supplemental, one major issue was dropped from the bill. The bipartisan provision to prevent release of detainee photos was removed from the final version, knowing the release of these photos could create greater tension in the very region that our troops are now fighting. As the gentleman knows, the Senate unanimously passed the Lieberman bill yesterday, preventing the release of detainee photos. I am just wondering why the bill didn't come to the floor today to protect our troops.

Would you consider that to be brought up next week?

Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gentleman's question. I think many of us share the view that the present action was well advised as it relates to the safety and security of our troops. On June 11, as the gentleman may know, just a few days ago, the President wrote to the Chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and said as follows:

``I deeply appreciate all you have done to help in the efforts to secure funding for the troops. I assure you that I will continue to take every legal and administrative remedy available to me to ensure that DOD and detainee photographs are not released.''

In light of that--and of course, the court has put a stay on the release, as I'm sure the gentleman knows. So there is no present intention by the administration to release these photos. So while the Senate acted yesterday, obviously there's no need for us to act immediately on this. I am sure that the committee will consider it in due course.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman. And knowing that and with the Senators knowing that as well, they still passed it yesterday unanimously.

Do you believe we could take it up next week?

Mr. HOYER. I think we could do a lot of things next week.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. I look forward to that. I appreciate that.

Mr. HOYER. Well, I didn't say that we would do that next week. You asked me, could we. We could.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. Well, I would never bet against you. I appreciate the opportunity to bring that up.

And to my good friend from Maryland, knowing that this is the last colloquy before the Fourth of July break, as we look forward to when we come back, there are a lot of big topics coming before this House. I will tell you from a personal level, it was a little disturbing on some of the items I'm reading about. Because in this House on this side of the aisle, I participated really for the first time coming back this year of inviting our President to our conference, inviting President Obama to the conference because we wanted to work in a bipartisan manner. We worked on the idea of the stimulus bill where we got together and we created ideas that he asked for, and we gave it to him. We could create twice as many jobs with half as much money, scored by his own administration. And when I look forward, one thing that we did early on was, this leadership on this side of the House signed a letter to the President, talking about, we want to work together on health care. We want to find common ground. We want to make sure that all Americans have access to health care. We want to make sure that we solve this problem. And in doing that, we even put together our own working group. We set out our principles, and we continue to put them forward. And one of the concerns I had when I tried to find information from the other side of the aisle--I would go to the President's Web page. First there were eight items; and as we got closer, it would get down to three items. They were actually taking things off the Web site. But then when I read in the newspaper Politico where people are being directed on your side of the aisle not to talk to Republicans on the health care issue--I don't know if you read that quote, but I can provide it to you. And then when I hear of other people that are outside of these Chambers working on it, being told not to talk to Republicans or they would not be put in the room, I'm just wondering if there's a chance that that behavior will change and that we will have the opportunity to work together, that we will have the opportunity for our ideas to be presented. That is something the American people would want, that we could work in a bipartisan--much like earlier when a Republican produced the motion to recommit, and 374 people came together to save the taxpayers $100,000.

I yield to my friend from Maryland.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I'm not sure what quote and who was instructed not to speak to Republicans because I have had a number of discussions with my good friend ROY BLUNT. So I didn't follow that direction, I haven't give that direction, and I want to make it clear that from the Speaker's perspective and mine, anybody on our side of the aisle who wants to sit down with anybody on your side of the aisle at any time to discuss health care issues, either in committee or in subcommittee, they are more than free to do so; and I would encourage them to do so. In fact, as I think the gentleman may know, all of the three committee Chairs of Energy and Commerce, Education and Labor and Ways and Means have been sitting down with their ranking members.

Now there was a change in ranking members, as you know, on the Education and Labor Committee. Frankly, I'm not sure that you've made the change on Education and Labor. Maybe you have.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. Yes, we have.

Mr. HOYER. In any event, so I'm not exactly sure about Mr. Miller. But I know that Mr. Rangel has had discussions with Mr. Camp; and I know that Mr. Waxman has sought and indicates to me--and I wasn't there--but he's had discussions with his ranking member as well, Mr. Barton.

So let me assure the gentleman that we welcome bipartisan participation. I told that to Mr. Blunt. Mr. Blunt and I, I think as you know, have a history of working together successfully on behalf of legislation in this body, and I have great respect for him. He heads up your health task force. We have had discussions; and I've asked him to provide me with any suggestions that his task force has that he believes would be useful for us to discuss further; and I'm very hopeful that he will do so. As you know, we put a discussion draft on the table today for discussion. Our side has put some principles out as well. I'm hopeful. I know the President's hopeful that we can discuss those. We did have an unfortunate experience, as the gentleman recalls, when the President said he wanted to sit down and talk about the stimulus, and he was coming down to meet with

your caucus, and a half-hour before he got there, your leadership instructed all of your Members to vote ``no'' on the bill before talking to the President. I thought that was unfortunate. But notwithstanding that, it's our intention to continue to try to seek bipartisan input and agreement where that can be possible.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. Well, I thank the gentleman. The only thing I would say, having been in that caucus, the President came to the caucus that we had invited him to prior to our retreat because we wanted to speak to this President before. And I will tell you, knowing that these are closed-door sessions, but this is probably one of the best caucuses I had been to. I thought it was very honest, open, talked about the issue, discussed the issue. There were times when the President disagreed with us. He said, I philosophically disagree. But other times he said, You know what, that's a good idea. Let's work on that. But as the President left that caucus, the other side introduced the bill, so in essence in part we felt crushed with the opportunity to even work in a bipartisan manner. But we continued along the trail where we put the working group together, and we didn't go out and score the bill our way. We took the President's scoring, which will tell you how many jobs and how much money it would cost; and our focus was on small business and job creation. It created twice as many jobs with half the amount of money. Our whip, Mr. ERIC CANTOR, personally handed it to the President; and the President said, This isn't crazy at all.

So we, on this side of the aisle, really look forward to working in a bipartisan manner and especially after seeing the scoring on the latest health care bill from the Democratic side, where it would only help 15 million of those uninsured but costs more than $1 trillion, knowing that that does not solve the problem, but continues to cost taxpayers tremendous amounts of money. I appreciate your assurance that maybe the attitude has changed, that the quote from Congressman JIM COOPER to the Politico where he was told not to work with Republicans, that that will change. I appreciate your work on that and the words you have said today.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McCARTHY of California. Gladly.

Mr. HOYER. Because I know the gentleman doesn't want to mischaracterize my remarks.

I have never said we have changed our opinion. That has been our opinion expressed by our President, expressed by me and expressed by others, that we desire to work in a bipartisan mode. But the gentleman surely understands that there were, I can tell you, people on your side of the aisle who indicated to me that they wanted to vote for a number of the pieces of legislation that dealt with the stimulus; but the party pressure was so great to vote ``no'' that they didn't feel comfortable doing it. I may in private give you those names so you can check on the veracity of my representation.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. Well, I appreciate the gentleman because when I was sitting here on the floor, and I saw 17 of your Members join with everyone voting ``no,'' the bipartisan support, that there was a better way, that there was an opportunity. That kind of goes back to the whole debate about amendments. I always thought, coming to this floor, that maybe the power of the idea should win, and no one should be afraid of an idea or an amendment, that we would actually be better. But I think the opportunity to spend time with the gentleman--and I appreciate it if some Members on your side thought differently in the past, that we can get the message out. I appreciate the work that you have done.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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