Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the resolution.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. I thank my friend for the tone of his remarks, the focus of the substance of those remarks in terms of ensuring that the House runs in a fashion that Members certainly are given full consideration in terms of casting of their votes, and I will certainly look forward to discussing with the gentleman that issue. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman and I have had an opportunity to discuss various issues in a way that I think was positive. I think the remarks hopefully that both of us are making indicate that we have the ability to continue to do that and want to do that. I would say to my friend that I, when we complete this action, would look forward to visiting with him in his office or he in mine to discuss that. My suggestion would be that we perhaps unanimously adopt this resolution so that the Ethics Committee can look at it, but not exclusively, as the gentleman indicates and proceed.

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

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for that comment, and I share his view. Mr. Speaker, we have not yet had a meeting of the Rules Committee. I expect the Rules Committee will be meeting as soon as we leave here. I am not sure the exact time that it is scheduled. But we will be providing for rules. We intend to do a number of pieces of legislation. The gentleman has mentioned the Department of Defense bill. Rules is not yet scheduled, but I presume it will be scheduled shortly. The Department of Defense appropriation bill is a critical bill. We intend to consider that today. We also intend to consider Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation to enhance the ability of the Director of National Intelligence and those with whom he works to pursue those who might harm our country. We also intend, Mr. Leader, to have on the floor a bill which is an emergency bill to respond to the bridge falling in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We also intend to consider an energy bill. As I said on Tuesday, if we can complete that legislation today, we will do so. If not, we will complete it tomorrow. If we cannot complete it tomorrow, we will complete it on Monday. That is the order of business that we have contemplated.

Mr. HOYER. As I said on Tuesday night, the legislation that I just mentioned, and there may be some other suspension bills, we intend to finish that business. I would hope it would not take us until Monday. We are going to have a discussion, and perhaps we can pursue that.

Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield, we will have this discussion as soon as we leave the floor. But there are a number of Members who wanted to do 1-minutes. I suggest we proceed with those at this time, if that is agreeable.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I want to take the leader up on his offer, and I don't want to argue the facts more than we have done. Mr. Blunt knows I disagree with the conclusions he has just expressed. We discussed our disagreements in my office just a few hours ago. I want to take the leader up on his offer. And pursuant to that, I would ask unanimous consent that the Chair be permitted to divide the question of agreeing to House Resolution 611 between agreeing to the resolution and agreeing to the preambles.

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, we had a conversation on the floor of the House today with reference to this matter. I introduced a resolution to investigate this matter. The minority leader asked me to withdraw that resolution. I withdrew it. The minority leader then asked me to have a meeting with himself and Mr. Blunt, and Mr. Clyburn attended that meeting. We discussed the incident of last night, we discussed proceeding to do the people's business, and what would be the conduct today. The minority leader suggested that I have a member of my staff contact a member of his staff to discuss the creation of this select committee. That was just a few hours ago. Those discussions have not begun obviously and may not begin. The minority leader talks about patterns. I think this is a pattern. I'm deeply disappointed, not by the resolution itself; although, we think the facts that are stated in the resolution are incorrect. I want to tell every Member of this House that I do not believe that there was any wrongdoing by any party yesterday. I do believe that there was a mistake made. I said that this morning. I repeat that this afternoon, and I regret it. I regret it because that mistake, understandably, angered those who perceived themselves disadvantaged by that mistake. I have a disagreement with the conclusion in here that has been again stated by the minority leader that I think would be disproved by any investigation that occurs. There was never a call of the vote prevailing at 215-213 with a Republican motion to recommit prevailing. There was never a call by the Chair of that vote, period. I observed, to the minority leader, that for 2 hours and 45 minutes I sat on this floor, actually, I'm not good at sitting on this floor. I walked around and talked to a lot of Members. For 2 hours and 45 minutes, my side was prevailing; not for 5 minutes, not for 2 minutes, not for 1 minute, as was the case last night. For 2 hours and 45 minutes, my side was prevailing, and the vote lasted another 10 minutes. It was referred to on ``60 Minutes'' last Sunday. Now, historically, in the last 12 years, let me tell you what my friends' actions would have been on this motion. Immediately you would have moved to table. I do not do that. I do not accept the premises in your resolution, but I welcome the investigation. I applaud coming to the bottom of what happened because I know what happened. Now, I wasn't looking behind me; I was looking at the Chair. But I've been informed of what happened, and what happened is eight people changed their votes. Three were Republicans, five were Democrats. There were 428 people who voted last night during that series of three votes. Every time the vote was called, 428 people voted. And the Chair called the vote at 214-214, which as all of you know adds up to 428. So every Member of the House had voted. No one was excluded. But some changed their vote on your side, and then some changed their vote on my side. And so the vote ended up and was finally called at 212-216, and we prevailed. Now, as I said this morning, I understand the anger that existed and the sense of unfairness that was felt because, on the board electronically, when one of the changes came forward switching from one of the 214 to one of the 215 and reducing the 214 to 213, that was immediately reflected on the electronic board as the Speaker was announcing the vote, and so you were angry. I don't blame you. For 2 hours and 45 minutes as we sat on the prevailing side, the winning side, having more votes than your side, the vote was not closed. So I empathize with the sense of anger and frustration that you have. And so what did I do? I didn't do what one of your former leaders did, just shrugged my shoulders and said, well, that's the way it goes, folks. I went to that rostrum, and I said we ought to vacate this vote and we ought to give everybody a fair shot at making sure the result is what those 428 votes want to do, because I understood that you had a sense of being wronged, and I wanted, to the extent I could, to try to right that wrong. So I asked unanimous consent that that vote be vacated. There were many objections on your side of the aisle. I'm not sure why. You thought the vote was improperly cast. I know my friend, and everybody knows he's my friend, but we have a deep disagreement on this conclusion. Mr. Blunt believes that you won 215-213. We were ahead for 2 hours and 45 minutes. We didn't prevail. Why? Because the Speaker did not call the vote, and the Speaker didn't call the vote at the 215-213 margin. He called it at 214-214; you're absolutely right. But then he said, no, I was premature because there were changing votes, and so that vote was not finalized. You're absolutely right. The vote that was finalized was the accurate vote, 212 for your resolution and 216 against your resolution. Now, one of those 216, of course, was the minority leader. He switched so he could make the motion, I presume, to reconsider, but it was not necessary for him to do that. I wanted, as I said, to try to make this right because, as I said on Tuesday night, and I repeated this morning, I want to try to have a civil relationship. I work with a lot of you in this House on that side of the aisle. I like a lot of you on that side of the aisle. Some of you I do not know as well as I know others. More importantly than that, this is about my 40th year in legislative office, and I believe that it is important that we say hi to one another, respect one another and have trust in one another. After you objected to the vacation of the vote, I moved to reconsider the vote, by which we prevailed on your motion to recommit. I don't know why you didn't vote on that. It passed. We all voted for it on this side. All the Members on this side voted for it to give you a second chance because you felt the first go- around wasn't fair. I think it was fair but not appearing so because of the 215-213. Now, this investigation will look into that. As I said, we welcome it. We will not move, therefore, to table. I have been asked to ask for a unanimous consent to drop all the ``whereas'' clauses but accept the result. I am not going to do that. Let me tell you why I am not going to do it. I do not accept those ``whereases.'' I think they are factually inaccurate. They were not reviewed by me, and there has been no meeting of our staffs, I say to my friend, the minority leader, which we discussed at approximately 11:30 this morning. I withdrew my resolution. My expectation was that the minority leader and I would sit down and our staffs would sit down and discuss this matter and determine how best to investigate this. That's what we discussed. There was no discussion about this resolution coming forward. There was no notice to me that this discussion was going forward; and there was a request to me, which I honored, to withdraw my own resolution offered this morning. I am disappointed. I am not going to oppose this resolution, and we will have an investigation. We will appoint three on our side, and we will appoint three on your side. We will appoint three fair-minded Members who care about this institution. I hope you will do the same. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. For all of us who think that dastardly things are going on, I guess we're all trying to figure out who's doing the dastardly things. In any event, in answer to your question, it would be my intention to rise while the machines are being fixed because we cannot proceed, nor should we proceed, without having Members know how much time they have left to vote. I want you to be very nice to that gentleman. He represents my daughter and my son-in-law. So be careful and very gentle with him.

Mr. HOYER. I asked the gentleman a question because I think it is pertinent to whether or not the computers to which the Speaker has referred are working throughout the floor.

Mr. HOYER. I have been handed a printout. Now, I don't know where the printout comes from, so I am not going to read it, other than I can tell you that I don't know whether you have it on your computer. May I ask the gentleman whether the computer over there has the totals?

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote by which the previous motion to recommit failed.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to vacate the vote that we have just taken.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote by which the previous vote was taken.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. My friend from Arizona is having a good time. I don't blame him, but this is something that is good for the country. It is good for literally millions of people who have grown tobacco. Let me say to my friend from Arizona: A, I don't smoke; B, I have never smoked. And when redistricting occurred and I got most of the tobacco-growing areas of Maryland, I went down and met with the Farm Bureau. I said, Look, I'm new to you. You don't know me. Actually, they did know me because I had been in office for some time. But I said, I want to tell you something right out front; I think smoking is bad for people's health, and I am not for it. About eight of the 10 to 15 tobacco farmers that were there said to me after the meeting, they came up to me and said, You know what, we don't smoke and we don't want our kids to smoke. That aside, Maryland has had one of the most successful tobacco buyout programs in America. In my district, the tobacco-growing area of Maryland, 90-plus percent, almost 95 percent of the farmers have taken the buyout, which means they can no longer ever on the property they own have tobacco grown for the purposes of smoking tobacco. There were literally, as you can imagine, hundreds, and across the country there are thousands and thousands of farmers so situated, families who have been involved in this process for most of their lives and who produce a product, used alternatively, can have extraordinary value. But the problem is the research has not been done on it. Why has it not been done on it? Because the tobacco product was a very valuable product for a bad purpose; that is, smoking. Harmful to health and a destroyer of life. Very frankly, some of the Farm Bureau came to me and said, Do you think we can find an alternative use, because we have a lot of expertise in growing this product, and we have facilities to do so. We think it can have some beneficial effect. My good friend said he thought that was the case. He is correct. There are a lot of good things in life that can happen, and his proposition is why this money, why here? Well, because I represent my district. But I also believe this has national implications that if we can get a product from tobacco that is useful, and I want to discuss some of them, that will be good for our country, good for our economy, good for jobs, and good for people who have been displaced from the very lucrative but harmful vocation and who are now put to perhaps not having nearly the livelihood they expected to have. The amendment seeks to eliminate funding for an important research project being undertaken at the University of Maryland. One of America's extraordinary research institutions, a land grant college established in the mid part of the 19th century, it seeks to develop safe and beneficial nonsmoking uses for tobacco. The Alternative Uses of Tobacco Project has several very important objectives. First, we are seeking to take advantage of the many beneficial nonsmoking uses of tobacco. Most people would not think of the tobacco plant as having a use beyond smoking. They would be wrong. I didn't know that either, frankly. Tobacco naturally produces high-nutrition proteins, one of the highest of any product, industrial raw materials and large amounts of biomass which can be used for renewable energy. Think of it. We talk about corn, we talk about other things, and we want to talk about cellulosic to produce energy. We just passed a farm bill seeking to do that. Think if all of the tobacco farms in America could be turned into energy producers, an extraordinarily positive contribution to the economy of our country. Secondly, we're trying to revitalize tobacco-producing communities across the southeastern United States by shifting their focus away from the traditional use of the crop and generating new markets and new industries for beneficial new nonsmoking purposes. Unlike Maryland, the Federal buyout, as you know, didn't eliminate the growing of tobacco; and in many States that have buyout programs they didn't eliminate the use of tobacco for smoking purposes. Maryland did. So that if we could give alternative uses for a product and get it out of the sale of use for smoking products, what a health benefit that would be for America. So I suggest that this $400,000 is an extraordinarily good investment in health care, in the economy for our people. Third, we are attempting to develop new technologies for producing leaf proteins. Leaf proteins are as nutritious as milk protein, but, unlike other protein sources, they are generally nonallergenic. Tobacco may be the largest producer of leaf proteins of any agricultural crop, but its historically inadequate processing technologies have limited their development. Now, let me tell you something. The tobacco companies do not grow tobacco. They sell cigarettes. So they do not have an incentive to do this. The people who have an incentive to do it are the tobacco farmers, but, guess what, the tobacco farmers don't have a lot of money. It's the tobacco companies that have a lot of money. So the tobacco companies rely on, I'm sure in your State as they do in mine, land grant institutions who have focused on agricultural research, as does the University of Maryland, as does the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. So I have some other things to say, but I think you get the point. Mr. Flake is a friend of mine. I have great respect for Mr. Flake. Not only that, I think he offers his amendments in a very positive way. I've never seen him get mad at anybody. I've never seen him criticize anybody. I've never seen him say a cross word to anybody. He sets forth what is a correct proposition, that, look, we could save a lot of money by not having any of these earmarks and we wouldn't do this research or maybe the State could do it or maybe somehow the farmers could get together in a cooperative and do it. But they haven't done it and the Federal Government has historically invested in long-term progress. Now, very frankly, the best example is the space program. The space program has made an extraordinary contribution in the creation of jobs outside of the space program, and agricultural research colleges have done the same for farming and feeding the world. We honored with a gold medal a university professor who fed the world, billions. So I ask my friends, this is $400,000. We will spend $400,000 in Baghdad in the next hour or so. I don't know what the Citizens Against Government Waste think of that, and I frankly don't think they think of this particular item. I understand that. They think generally we ought to stop wasting government money. I agree absolutely. And if you think research in a product to turn it to pharmaceutical use, if you think that research in a product to turn it to better energy production, if you think research in a product that may be available to give us better protein production, then I think, my friends, Mr. Obey has said, we get the point. So I say this, and I'm laughing, this is a serious investment in good things for all people. I hope that, notwithstanding the fact that he is my friend, that you will reject the gentleman's amendment, and I thank you for the time.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. As the former chairman of the Rules Committee, you know that. Mr. Speaker, in fact, in my opinion, although we allowed it, there were an extraordinary number of redundant amendments, 1.25 percent, 1 percent, .75 percent. I understand that. They were message amendments. I understand making messages. That is part of what we are about. This rule that the gentleman is very concerned about is a precedent. Frankly, we argued for following the precedent of last year. That was not done. We are now trying to get the business of the people done, while at the same time giving a fair number of amendments, as we do on almost every other bill, but not every amendment. We think that we have done that. We think that we are fair in terms of the amendments that are included in the self-execution, because they are not just Democratic amendments. There are a balanced, equal number of amendments, and one other significant amendment I think will be unanimously supported, I hope and believe, and will facilitate the consideration of this bill and substantively move ahead the work of our country and our people.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his observations, and I reclaim my time. Mr. Speaker, very frankly, as I have said, we have spent almost 80 hours more on the first 10 bills than we spent last year under the unanimous consents we granted to you under Mr. Obey's leadership. Given that fact, we considered a lot of amendments. From my perspective, frankly, in a group of 435, the reason you have a Rules Committee is because you can't possibly accommodate all 435 Members if they want to offer one.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, we have proceeded for 10 appropriation bills with an open rule with an agreement we would reach a unanimous consent agreement on those rules within the framework of the time that we spent last year. I said on the floor that we spent approximately 52 hours longer on the first 10 bills than we had last year under unanimous consents that Mr. Obey agreed to. I am informed by Mr. Obey that our staff has recomputed the time, and when one includes the Agriculture bill, it is closer to 80-plus hours longer under open rules. That was certainly not shutting anybody down or out. That was not our intent. In fact, it was not our practice. As I pointed out then, we complied, we think, with the letter of that to which we agreed. We now find ourselves in the context of trying to move forward on very important legislation. This bill was open, of course, for debate and amendment for an extended period of time. The debate was not used for amendments or debate about the substance of the bill before us. In fact, it is my understanding the Rules Committee talked to those who wanted to offer amendments in this rule. It is not shutting out all amendments. In fact, what it is doing is including a number of amendments on both sides of the aisle. It includes in the self- executing, to which the gentleman refers, a balanced group of amendments, all of which, we think, will be agreed to. Mr. Flake is going to offer some amendments, one I have a particular interest in. He was given the choice of what amendments that he wanted to offer. Yes, we have limited amendments, because we have limited time and we want to complete this bill. When we complete the debate on this bill, it will be just a little shorter than the bill that was considered last year. Just a little. We think it is fair. But we are here because we did not pursue the agreement that we thought we had with the open-rule process. Now, we still have one additional bill to go, the Defense bill. We are discussing that. We are hopeful that perhaps we can proceed as we have proceeded in the past, with an open rule on that bill. But we are trying to facilitate the doing of the people's business. We said we would do that. That is what we are doing. We believe that Members have been treated fairly. Yesterday, on SCHIP, there was a request of me to include an additional hour of debate. That was agreed to. I think that was a good and full debate. We had very significant differences on that bill. The bill was approved by the House. I think this bill will be approved by the House and moved. That will leave us just one appropriation bill. I think by the end of this week, we will have passed all of our appropriation bills.

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

Mr. HOYER. I will try to show the gentleman the appropriate respect, given that seniority.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I will repeat: We are hopeful that we will be able to move forward in the future, next year, as we do the appropriation process, consistent with what we did on the first 10 bills and what we may do on the twelfth bill, in a manner that honors and respects one another's ability to make their point but also to do the business of the people. That is what they expect us to do. That is what we are going to do.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my extraordinarily generous friend from Michigan, for whom I have not only great respect but great affection as well. I want to thank him for his more than half a century of leadership on issues of health care in America, on extending health care and insurance to every American, to ensuring that in this great country of ours every American has the opportunity to receive the extraordinary quality health care that we have available in this great country. I also want to thank my good friend, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel, who has for so many years fought the good fight. As he said on this floor, this is an opportunity for us to extend to children the benefits of health care. I want to mention the President's intent as well. I want to thank my friend from California, Pete Stark, who has been the Chair of this subcommittee and who has been so faithful. And I want to thank Mr. McCrery and the ranking member of this subcommittee. I understand we may have a difference of view, but we are working together now, as the American people expect us to do. I said on this floor last night that we would have a robust debate on this important legislation, the Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act. I think we have had that robust debate. While we may disagree on elements of this bill, I believe that virtually all of us agree that it is unacceptable and, indeed, immoral that millions of children in the wealthiest Nation on the face of the Earth do not have health insurance. That is unlike every industrialized nation in the world, other than ourselves. This historic legislation addresses this national challenge, building upon the successes of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which received strong bipartisan support in the Republican-led Congress in 1997 and which was signed into law by a Democratic President, President Clinton. Under this bill, 11 million American children, six million who currently are covered under SCHIP and an additional five million children who currently lack health insurance, will have access to quality, affordable health insurance. It seems to me that is why so many of us serve in this body, to ensure that our people have that access. Let us be clear. Contrary to the claims of some, including, sadly, at this point in time, President Bush, this legislation does not expand the SCHIP program. Let me repeat that. This legislation does not expand the SCHIP program. Instead, this legislation provides the resources needed to enroll children who are eligible under existing law but who are currently not enrolled. Let me reiterate. The CHAMP Act maintains current law regarding eligibility for SCHIP. Furthermore, this legislation ensures seniors access to the doctors of their choice by stopping a scheduled 10 percent payment cut to doctors. It phases out overpayments to private plans. My friends on the other side, of course, want to make sure that the government is very careful in its expenditure of funds, and it urges us to adopt the practices of the private sector, which are driven by competition on price. However, in this case, we have mandated by law that the competitors receive 100 percent reimbursement while the competitors that are favored receive 111 to 130-plus percent. That is a little bit like the prescription drug bill where we can't negotiate for price. This bill maintains competition and access, and in so doing, the bill would extend Medicare solvency by 3 years, while protecting seniors and people from disabilities from having to pay higher monthly premiums. In addition, my friends, this bill improves Medicare by, among other things, providing new preventive benefits. I must note, Mr. Speaker, that nearly 3 years ago, in the middle of a presidential campaign, President Bush said the following, and I quote. And this, by the way, was at the 2004 Republican national convention when President Bush was seeking the votes of Americans throughout this country to be reelected President. This is what he said: ``America's children must have a healthy start in life,'' to which clearly all of us as we watched the television said, Amen. ``In a new term,'' he said, ``we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions of poor children who are eligible but not signed up for government health insurance programs.'' Mr. President, that is what we are doing this afternoon. But now, unfortunately, a mere 36 months later, the President is threatening to veto legislation that does precisely what he said he wanted to do in 2004 as he was running for President and seeking the votes in that convention. Mr. Speaker, contrary to the claims of the President and other opponents of this bill, it does not constitute a government takeover of health care. That is a straw man. That is a shibboleth. That is not accurate. In fact, three-fourths of the children in the SCHIP program receive care today through private insurance plans that contract with the States. Nor is the bill fiscally irresponsible. A curious claim, I would say, coming from the President and congressional Republicans whose policies added more than $3 trillion to the debt. I got a letter just a few days ago, maybe you got it as well, Mr. McCrery, from Secretary Paulson. He said, ``you know, we are running up against the debt limit.'' Does anybody here know in the 4 years preceding this Bush administration's policies how many times we raised the debt? Not once. But we have raised it five times in the last 6 years, if we raise it again. So when we talk about fiscal responsibility, it is fiscally responsible to invest in the health care of our children, because they will be healthier citizens, more productive citizens, and we will have a better, more economically viable country. In fact, the Democratic majority has taken pains to pay for this legislation and abide by pay- as-you-go budget rules which provided for 4 years of surplus immediately preceding this administration. Mr. Speaker, in the final analysis, the question before the Members of this body really is this: Do you support reauthorizing this critical program and providing health insurance to eligible children, eligible children, eligible children, or not? I urge my colleagues, vote to provide health care for our children. Vote to improve and protect Medicare. Vote for the CHAMP Act.