Legislative Program

LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM -- (House of Representatives - September 15, 2004)

(Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the distinguished minority whip the schedule for the week to come.

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

Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, next week the House will convene on Tuesday at 12:30 for morning hour debates and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several matters under the suspension of the rules. A final list of those bills will be sent to Members' offices by the end of this week. Any votes we have on Tuesday will be after 6:30 p.m. We also expect to complete consideration of H.R. 5025, the Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill, on Tuesday afternoon.

In addition, next week we expect to consider H.R. 2028, the Pledge Protection Act; and finally, as we approach the end of this Congress, it is important to take note that we have a number of conference reports that we are working through. Members should expect votes on those at any time.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those comments.

Apparently we are going to do some suspension bills on Tuesday, and then we will go back to the Transportation-Treasury appropriation bill?

Mr. BLUNT. Yes, that is the schedule at this time.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, my question is in light of the fact that general debate and most of the bill has been objected to or much it has been objected to, there are still pending amendments. At what time do we need to advise Members who have amendments that are pending that they must be here? Obviously we are starting at 2. There are suspension bills, but can we give them some perhaps target time that they should be here to protect themselves in the offering of those amendments?

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's question, and I would say while we do have some suspension bills scheduled, sometimes they can go quicker than at other times. I know Members with amendments would not want to see an opportunity to offer those amendments pass by. If I had an amendment, I would be here not much after 2. I know at one time today the chairman had to ask Members to come to the floor because the bill had moved much quicker than expected.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I will so advise Members.

Mr. Whip, you indicated some of the legislation we are going to consider, and you did not specifically mention Friday. Can the gentleman advise us at this time what the intention is for Friday of next week?

Mr. BLUNT. At this point we are still scheduled to work on Friday because of the number of conference committee reports that are out there that we hope to see come to some conclusion, maybe some next week, and we would be working Friday. If that does not appear to be the case, we will try to give as much notice as possible and Friday would be a day that will be dependent on some of the conference committees coming to a conclusion.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, assuming on Tuesday or Wednesday we pass the Transportation-Treasury bill, that will leave only the VA-HUD bill pending from the Committee on Appropriations from the House perspective. Can the gentleman advise us whether or not the VA-HUD bill may be coming to the floor next week? It was not mentioned for next week, but the week following?

Mr. BLUNT. We are still working through that and at this point the leader has not scheduled that bill for the floor.

Mr. HOYER. Are you pretty confident it will not be on the floor next week?

Mr. BLUNT. I think it is unlikely that bill would be ready for the floor by next week, but we are still working on it, and hope to get it and the rest of the appropriations work done.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Whip, we are approximately 15 days from the end of the fiscal year. The only appropriation bill signed by the President is the defense bill, leaving 12 appropriation bills still pending. Presumably we are either going to do something that would be extraordinary, passing those bills within the time frame left to us, which I guess is 6 or 7 legislative days at most, or passing some type of CR or omnibus. Can the gentleman advise the House as to what the leadership's current thinking is on how we are going to proceed as we approach the end of the fiscal year on September 30?

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I would say at this point we do not expect to consider a CR next week. We would very much like to get our work done during the time between now and the time we take a break. Before we go to a CR, which we obviously have to deal with some time in that 15-day period, we would like to have a clearer picture of exactly where the process is. We are continuing to do everything we can to encourage that process to reach conclusion in every possible area and perhaps even in all possible areas, but we would like a little clearer picture than what we will have next week before we deal with a CR.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman, if a CR is needed and the appropriation bill does not move forward or some omnibus does not move forward, can the leadership inform us as to how long a period of time they may be contemplating a CR would cover?

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, again, I think we need to wait and see where the process is, how close it is to completion before we decide what period of time to recommend that CR would go. We are working hard to complete the entire process in the shortest possible time.

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, we are all enthusiastic about that objective. We are now 9 ½ months into pursuing that objective and it has not happened yet, but perhaps it will.

But let me ask the gentleman more pointedly, I suppose, as it relates to the length of the CR, it is my understanding that there was some expression from the highest junctures of leadership in his party that a lame duck session was not particularly favored by the leadership but we hear rumors about possibly having a lame duck, that possibly being sometime in mid-November when his organization and probably ours will be scheduled. Can the gentleman shed any light on his current thinking, in light of the fact we have 15 days left to go in the fiscal year and about, I suppose, another 20 or 25 days left before we presumably will recess or adjourn prior to the elections, as to whether or not there is a substantial probability or possibility of a lame duck session?

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think it would be fair to say that in our discussions we are doing everything we can to get our work done before we take the break for the elections. It is certainly possible we might have to come back, and I believe the time the gentleman suggested for our reorganization is the time that we are intending to schedule that. If there is anything that has to be done, it would clearly be the best thing to do if we are in agreement on the time to come back, to do all those things or start all those things at least at one time. But we have been very focused across the board this week in trying to get to that goal of having this year's work done by the time we leave here sometime in October.

Mr. HOYER. A couple of other questions, if I might, Mr. Speaker.

The transportation bill is one of those conferences that the gentleman referred to that is pending that possibly will come back. If it does not come back next week, does the gentleman contemplate having an additional extension? The present extension, as the gentleman knows, expires very shortly in terms of the continuation of the previous authorization of the highway bill. Does the gentleman contemplate having another extension? And, if so, has there been discussion about how long a period of time that might be for?

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, we are again hopeful and working hard to get the transportation bill completed. We think it is better to work toward that completion right now than to extend the deadline. The pressure of the deadline may help in that process. It certainly does not work against the process of getting the bill. I believe both our chairman on this side of the building and the ranking member are working hard, working together, as others are, and we will not be addressing the question of extension until we move a little further along and hopefully are able to bring not an extension to the floor but an agreed-to transportation bill.

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, I appreciate that objective and I want to tell the whip, as I have, I think privately, that this side of the aisle will be very supportive of, I think, any figure that the majority can agree among itself, the White House, the Senate and the House, between the House-passed bill which passed overwhelmingly in a bipartisan fashion and in fact, of course, as the gentleman knows, Democrats, Chairman Young and all of the Republican members and Democratic members of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure believe we ought to have a substantially higher number to meet the needs of the Nation than was passed here or passed in the Senate. My representation to the gentleman from Missouri would be that I think that the votes will be there on our side for, I hear a figure of very close to $300 billion being mentioned. I think on this side of the aisle in talking to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), we will be obviously substantially influenced by what the gentleman from Minnesota recommends as our ranking member but we would be very, I think, supportive and we could forge a significant majority to send that bill down to the President and have the President consider it.

As the gentleman knows, every $1 billion that we have in that bill creates 42,000 jobs here in America. We believe that bill is very important. We would have hoped it would have passed last year, but I want to tell my friend that he and I have the similar responsibilities of trying to count votes and I think we will have the overwhelming majority of our people for a bill. If we just split the difference between the Senate and the House, which is essentially what is being talked about, I think we would support it on this side of the aisle. I hope the gentleman's Members would support it on his side of the aisle, we send it to the President and obviously the executive, a coequal but separate branch of government, would have to make its determination as to what it wanted to do. I do not know if that is a possibility but I think we could work together in a bipartisan fashion to get that done.

I yield to my friend if he wants to make a comment.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for yielding, and I share the gentleman's sense that an overwhelming number of Members of the House would like to get this work done, get this bill done this year. Of course this would not be the place for the gentleman and I to try to negotiate a number, but I think the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) and the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) are both working hard to achieve a result that gets that work going and allows the States and others affected by this to begin the contracting process and even begin some of the work. I am very hopeful at this point that we will get that number agreed to, get our friends on the other side of this building moving forward with us and get agreement from the White House as they need to ultimately sign whatever bill we pass.

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, I think the gentleman has put his finger on the impasse, and that is the White House. I think frankly the Congress can reach agreement on this and I think we ought to. I urge the majority reaching consensus in the Congress and, as a separate and coequal branch of government, sending our judgment down to the White House. Obviously the White House then has its full prerogatives to exercise its judgment. But we have waited far too long on that, I believe.

The last question or the last inquiry I would make of the whip is there has been a lot of talk, of course, about the middle-class tax cuts. I think both sides of the aisle feel very strongly that we want to make sure the middle-class tax cuts continue. In particular, we have focused on the child tax credit, as the gentleman knows. There has been a lot of discussion back and forth. That has been held up for a very long period of time, particularly extension to those families making up to $26,000. There are some 200,000 service families, as the gentleman knows, that are not qualifying for the child tax credit at this point in time.

Can the gentleman tell us whether or not he has any optimism about that conference report coming back to us anytime soon?

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I would say in response to that previous comment that I am not sure that our friends on the other side of this building are as united yet as perhaps our Members are who represent the House side on the transportation number. We want to move forward there.

Chairman Thomas tells me that he sees good work happening on the family tax package that the gentleman mentioned, the marriage penalty relief, the $1,000 child credit, the 10 percent tax bracket, that new tax bracket we put in place. We think it is very likely that we could have that extension on the floor next week.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.