Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Okay. That's very helpful. I know our planned adjournment day was tomorrow, and we've known for some time we wouldn't make that; but I believe your information here is very helpful, that Members, if we are working in December, those first two weeks, would anticipate that Monday and Friday of those two weeks would not likely be scheduled work days, and they could schedule other things in their districts.

Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that. On the calendar generally, I actually received a document this week that one of your chairmen had sent around town that suggested, actually it didn't suggest, it said here's going to be the schedule for December. I wonder if that's accurate, or if the gentleman could share his plans for December, if we are in, this would be assuming, my friend, that we haven't finished our work yet on November 16, we'll be working in December. Are we to the point yet, as this chairman suggested we were, that there is a rough Members' outline of how you could schedule other activities if we're still working in December?

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that. Again, I'd suggest on the Military Quality of Life bill, I think the President said he's ready to sign that bill, even though it exceeds his request. And of course it would drive the average up dramatically of the passage of the other bill, since every Member of the House voted for it. But the other bills did get bipartisan support at some level. I do understand that. I also understand that I think all the other bills, but one, probably had enough people voting against them to sustain a veto. But as the actions today would have been evidence of, the very fact the President says he's going to veto is not the ultimate impediment to us getting our work done and challenging him with that. One of the announcements you made today was on the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act. I wonder, could we begin to expect a vote then on the Peru Free Trade Agreement after Trade Adjustment Assistance is on the floor next week?

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for the information. Two bills we thought we might deal with this week I notice are still not on the schedule: the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I wonder if my friend has any information about either of those bills?

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Maryland, the majority leader, for information about the schedule next week.

Mr. BLUNT. I am pretty familiar with that equation, where the House passes its bills and then we don't have the bills done. I don't recall ever getting a lot of credit for that, but I will suggest I appreciate the gentleman's position, and I appreciate the fact the House got its bills done. It still has been 20 years since we failed to get any bills done by October 25. Of these bills that are ready, I do hope we can figure out a way to move them, again, particularly on the Military Quality of Life bill for veterans and for the families of people serving today, and for military retirees, I think it's about $18.5 million a day of additional benefits that could have been going as of October 1, and I know I brought this up before, I don't mean to be offensive about it, but I really strongly feel that this is a bill that we could get on the President's desk and get started quickly.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank you for that. On the question I have asked now for the last few weeks about conferences on appropriations bills, I believe 1987 was the last year that the Congress hadn't passed a single appropriations bill by this time in October 1987, particularly on the Military Quality of Life bill that has been ready for some time. I am wondering if there is any chance that we could go to conference on that bill or any other appropriations bill in the near future.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, here we are again. It seems to be just the same act in the same play, the same time. Why are we having this vote today? I really don't know. Many of our Members believe it's because the TV ads, the radio ads have already been bought in their districts, and if they didn't have this vote today somehow that money might be wasted. I don't know that I believe that. Many of our Members believe we're having the vote on a day when seven Republicans from California can't be here to make our ``no'' votes on this bill appear to be less than they really are. In fact, I asked that this bill not be voted on today for that reason. What I wonder is why we weren't allowed to see the bill. If this bill is such a great bill, if this bill solved these problems, what would have been the harm of seeing the bill? In fact, a lot of the debate today would have been a different debate if the bill would have been laid down last night and we'd have had the vote next Wednesday or next Thursday. This idea that somehow we have to get it done before November 16 because that's the day that this extension ends doesn't make any sense to anybody. We're going to be here well beyond that. Once again we go through this process where we're told we've checked the boxes, but then when you look at where the boxes have been checked, they really don't do the job. We ought to get to poor kids first. When we get to kids at 300 percent of the level of poverty, that's 54 percent of all the families in America would have their kids have insurance through the government. I've talked to several people in my district that say, I don't mind helping poor kids, but I'm really offended when I'm helping kids whose families make more than I do. I'm really offended as someone who has raised their family when I'm paying taxes to provide insurance for families who make $20,000 more than I do. And the Congressional Budget Office believes that the verification standards aren't right yet. I think this is a step in that direction. Let's get this bill right. Let's see the bill. Let's vote ``no'' today and get to work on a serious proposal.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from South Carolina, for the purpose of inquiring about next week's schedule.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that information. We are very interested in that bill. On the bill that we just voted on, a vote that would have been pretty easy to predict, I believe, 2 weeks ago, I noticed just this week that the Governor of New York said that he would be willing to accept new language in that bill that would eliminate his State's ability to cover families at over 400 percent of the poverty level. I would suggest that that is one of the compromises that would really be helpful, if we could eliminate that level that appears to only initially apply to the State of New York. Last week, when Mr. Hoyer and I discussed this, he suggested that if the veto was sustained, that his view was that we should have an opportunity to work together on a bill that could come to the House floor. And I am wondering if the gentleman has any information on how the majority intends to move forward now on that bill. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that information. There are really a couple of bills I wanted to ask about that I wonder when and if they are going to be coming back. As the gentleman knows, we only have a few more weeks of legislation outside of what we might have to do on the appropriations bills. Yesterday, I spoke on the floor, and others did, in opposition to the FISA bill, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill, that was on the floor yesterday. We quit in the middle of that debate. I am wondering if the gentleman has any information on when that bill may come back to the floor or if you have any information that it wouldn't be coming back. I would yield.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that. I would say that we would be interested in trying to continue to work to get a bill on the floor on this important issue that a broad base of Members of the House on both sides could support. And as we were able to talk about earlier today, I would hope that we would have a chance maybe to look at that bill one more time. The other bill that got a lot of attention this week was the bill that was reported out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Armenian genocide, and I wonder if my friend has any sense of the status of that bill. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. BLUNT. Well, I appreciate the gentleman's view on that. I am hopeful. I think we've got a handful of bills that have been approved now by both the House and the Senate, bills reported over to the House from the Senate; and my view is that we're beyond the time when we should have been reaching some conclusions on these bills, and urge the majority to work with the minority and find a way to get these bills done. I think in the Mil Qual Veterans area there was a substantial increase. There's been an increase every year for the last dozen years. But a substantial increase to the tune of like $18.5 million a day in benefits to veterans and military families; and every day we let that go by just complicates the delivery of those services. And I hope we can move forward. Mr. Speaker, I yield back my time.

Mr. BLUNT. I would particularly think that that would be the topic I just raised, where families of four could make up to $83,000 a year and still have their children insured by taxpayers, would be one of the areas that, if we could deal with that issue, that would be a significant step on the bill, maybe not the only step necessary. But if we could now get in a situation where we could do what the vast majority of the House said they wanted to do just a few weeks ago when we definitely went on record saying we don't want this State Child Insurance Program to go out of existence but we want to do what we can to be sure that it is meeting the real goals of the program. That would be helpful. And any efforts that we can collectively make to where we work together on this would be, I think, helpful in reaching a conclusion. And I think this too: unfortunately, I don't think many minds were changed in the last 2 weeks, and we lost 2 weeks that we could have been talking. But that's behind us now, and I'm hoping we move forward. The other major topic that I wanted to ask a question about today to my friend was on appropriations. I've been asking every week since we started the new fiscal year, or approached the new fiscal year, when we were going to have some bills on the floor or to go to conference, rather, on bills. On the Military Quality of Life bill, the Senate Democrats have been named to the conference. The Senate Republicans have been named to the conference. The House Republicans have been named to the conference. And I'm wondering if the gentleman has any sense of when we might actually see something now begin to happen on these appropriations bills. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the law in place today, the law that we brought up to today's technical standards in August, is essentially the law that the Congress passed in 1978, a Congress that had a majority of Democrats in it. Jimmy Carter, President Carter, signed that bill, and it has worked for 30 years now. The way this bill is drafted, the administration would be forced to seek warrants, as Mr. Smith just said, for foreign targets in case they might call the United States. If Osama bin Laden calls the United States, we should know it. If Osama bin Laden calls and it turns out to be a call that didn't matter, there are ways to minimize that. In all likelihood, if Osama bin Laden called, it shouldn't be a matter that we shouldn't know about. If he calls to order a pizza and says ``deliver the pizza to cave 56 in Bora Bora,'' that is something we ought to know at that minute. We should not have to go to court to monitor these calls, just in case they call somebody in the United States. Granting what in essence is de facto fourth amendment constitutional rights to noncitizens who are not in this country makes no sense at all. It is not the right direction. We need a permanent fix. This bill does not contain, as my good friend Mr. Conyers said, retroactive liability. We need to have liability for those companies that stepped up after 9/11 and immediately helped the country begin to monitor the things we needed to monitor. We still don't clarify in this bill what our intelligence agencies do. This does not solve any problems. It creates problems. When you have a system that has worked in one way, and effectively, for 30 years, there is no reason to change that system. This bill makes needless, dangerous changes. I hope we vote ``no'' on this bill today, and get down, as we did in late July, to the reality of what we have to do to defend the country.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to also thank my good friends, Mr. Pence and Mr. Boucher, for working so hard on this legislation. I think it was first introduced 3 years ago. I was a cosponsor of it at the time and I am a cosponsor today. And I want to mention the hard work that Mr. Conyers has done to get this legislation to this point today after a long effort, and also to suggest that the hard work of my good friend, Mr. Smith, is deeply appreciated. I'm always hesitant when I rise on the House floor with any position that's different than his, but this is a place where I really do think that it's important to draw a line, and important, a bright line, between the information that people have access to and how they get it. I certainly can't say that I agree with everything I read in a newspaper article or that I see on the evening news or that I hear on a local radio program, but I can say that the public is best served by maintaining the free flow of information on matters of public interest. As James Madison said in the report of 1800, arguing against the Sedition Act, ``To the press alone, checkered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs that have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.'' Madison, Jefferson and our history lead to the conclusion that a free press is essential for a free people. In the past few years, there have been too many instances where the pendulum has swung against the free flow of information and in favor of the government. I was troubled by the instances I've seen where reporters have been jailed or threatened with jail for simply protecting their sources. Journalists should be the last resort, not the first stop, for civil litigants and for prosecutors attempting to obtain the identity of confidential sources. In my view, continuing to compel reporters to reveal the identity of their confidential sources will result in a chilling effect on the free flow of information and be detrimental to the public interest. Nevertheless, the privileges that reporters have should not be unlimited, they should not be absolute, and this bill defines those exceptions in an important way. This bill says that in cases where it's necessary to reveal a source to prevent an act of terrorism, to prevent other significant harm to national security, to prevent imminent death or significant bodily harm, the reporter can be compelled. It also includes an exception in cases where a properly classified national security secret along with financial information, a trade secret or personal medical information has been improperly leaked, where that reporter can face a penalty. Finally, it excludes from protection terrorists and their media arms. Yes, there are times when confidentiality must be breached, and I believe this bill strikes that balance. Forty-nine States and the District of Columbia have legislation similar to this, but this establishes a national standard. Again, I thank my colleagues for the hard work to bring this to the floor. I look forward to the vote today, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I would hope so.

Mr. BLUNT. I understand that. And, of course, I also understand that up until now, we have always done these trade bills in sequence based on the time they were negotiated, at least under the TPA regimen we have when the House has been involved in trade bills. And Colombia, Panama, South Korea are all out there. I hope we can figure out a way to have the kind of debate those bills deserve. I would also like to say to my friend I appreciate the accommodation of the House schedule this week based on the loss of our colleague from the First District of Virginia, Jo Ann Davis. She cared about the things this Congress does. She was a great Member of Congress. I think it's fair to say she was particularly focused on the armed services and on Federal employees, both of which she had a real opportunity to impact. And I would say that I remember her seat over here where she almost always sat, that last week she was able to be here with us, just looking, and it was obvious the great health challenge she was facing and the incredible effort she was making to be here to cast the last week of votes she was able to cast. And for your quick accommodation of the schedule so that we could participate in her memorial service tomorrow and also, frankly, recognize her service by the House not being in session tomorrow, I am grateful to you for that. I would yield for any comments you might want to make.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for those observations. Of course, Mr. Speaker, I have been in the job he is doing now and in the whip's job on the majority side, and I do know that waiting for the Senate to pass their bills and taking blame, as we did and as others will in the future, for not getting our work done is a frustrating thing. But if we can move some of these along, I believe it's better. I also, in response to the gentleman's comments about having the President sign the bills, hope that we are dealing with the reality that the President actually does have to sign those bills, and if he is not willing to sign the bill, we can go through the efforts of a veto and sustaining or overriding and all those sorts of things, but before we can get next year's business started, we actually have to have the President sign a bill. And I hope we are developing a strategy to do that. On FTA, the Peru FTA has been through the markup phase in the Ways and Means Committee, and I'm wondering when the gentleman expects that, the first of four pending trade agreements, to come to the House floor. And I yield.

Mr. BLUNT. I will yield.

Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that. I appreciate my friend's comments. And as many Members, most Members of the House know, we are good friends. On the bill that the House voted on, as you know, I don't think House Republicans had the opportunity to have input there. I believe Senate Republicans may have. House Republicans did not. And I would like to see us work together to be sure that the priorities and the program are all exactly what the American people think we're talking about and what we hope to be talking about. As we near that November 16 day, my other concern would be the fact that we apparently are not meeting yet on any appropriations bills. I believe on the four bills that have been sent over from the Senate, that our side is ready to join the Senate, who has already named conferees, and name conferees at any moment, and hope to see that happen. I wonder, do we have any sense of any effort to get some of these appropriations bills before the House and on the President's desk in the month of October? Or even before November 16? And if we have a plan there, can you give me an idea of what that might be? We've had four bills now. Some of them we've had for over a month. One, the Homeland Security bill, it is obviously important we continue those efforts; the Military Quality of Life bill. We have had conferees named by the Senate for over a month now. We're ready to name our conferees, I believe, and I wonder if there is any way we can go ahead and at least start a conference to have a chance to get some of these bills signed into law. And I yield.

Mr. BLUNT. I would.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that information and for his attitude about this. We were concerned this week, many of our Members were concerned, including the Members who had voted with the majority, when the leader on the other side of the building suggested that if this bill wasn't approved there would be no bill. We're not for that. We're for including the children that are covered now. I think that does mean that you have to go beyond the President's proposal, though in fairness to the President's proposal, his proposal would not have taken people off this program without intervening Congresses and intervening budgets, in my view. But that's not the purpose of the debate here. The purpose of the debate is to try to have a program that works for children. I'm hopeful that we can arrive at a bill that I vote for, that the President signs, that keeps this program going. I'm very pleased that the gentleman doesn't take the, if it doesn't work out to override the veto, as I believe it won't, that we still need to work together for a program that works well for children. And I appreciate the gentleman's comments on that. And if we do sustain the veto, I pledge that I'll work hard with you to try to make this program work in the way that the majority of House Members, the majority of House Republicans, feel that it should to continue the current program.

Mr. BLUNT. On Thursday, the 18th. I really have two questions about that. One is, what time during the day do we expect that to happen? After the 18th, we will have 5 more weeks before the extension expires, and I'm wondering if we can anticipate any effort to include the minority, if in fact the President's veto is sustained. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that information. On the President's veto on the SCHIP bill, we expect that vote to come, I believe the gentleman said, on Thursday.