Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I have, for at least 3 weeks now, been indicating what I thought the schedule was going to be in November. As you know, a little earlier this week I modified that. As I caveated when I announced that we would be meeting the first and third weeks of November, and not the second week of November--because Veterans Day, which all of our Members want to be home with those memorializing those we have lost in the defense of freedom and celebrating those who have served in defending freedom and democracy. Our Members want to be with their fellow citizens at home accomplishing that objective, including myself and, I'm sure, yourself. The fact is, however, I also caveated that with, if we could pass health care we may use a portion of that week. Therefore, let me make it very clear officially, if you will, that I do not expect and do not plan that we'll be here Thanksgiving week. I expect us to be here the first and third weeks, from Monday through Friday of November. On the second week of November, which starts with the 9th of November, I want Members to make available and ask their schedulers now for Saturday the 7th, Monday the 9th and Tuesday the 10th as possible dates, possible on which we would meet. The contingency will be whether or not we can move the health care bill, which we believe is the most important piece of legislation that we'll consider, and probably both sides believe that, whatever their view of what they're going to do on that legislation, that we will consider. And if, in fact, it's possible to pass it prior to Tuesday the 10th, then we will possibly be in on Saturday the 7th, Monday the 9th and Tuesday the 10th. On Tuesday the 10th we would meet no later than 3 p.m. In December--I've had discussions with the majority leader in the Senate. We are of the opinion that we certainly ought to make every effort and will make every effort to be out of this session, the first session of this Congress, by Friday the 18th of December. The following week is Christmas week and we certainly, my view is, want to have people home on Christmas week. And I have no intention of meeting the following week either. We are in discussions about the first, the month of January, not just the first 2 weeks, but the month of January. I'm hopeful that fairly soon I'll be able to announce what we want to do on that. As a matter of fact, I would be glad to have discussions with the gentleman from Virginia on that issue.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for the question. As I have said, Mr. Berman expected to mark up the bill, as is my expectation, and Mr. Berman will be marking up the bill. As the gentleman probably knows, that bill is subject to joint jurisdiction or co-jurisdiction by three other committees, the Oversight Committee, the Financial Services Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, so they will have to do their work on that bill as well. But I do look forward to moving that bill, as the gentleman, as I've indicated in the past, and not only that, I want to say to the gentleman, I look forward to discussing it with him in the next couple of days.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I'm not sure that we're going to have it next week, but I can assure the gentleman that we do intend to address the issue so that doctors do not confront a 21 percent cut in their Medicare reimbursements for Medicare patients, yes.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. As you know, when the former administration was in office, we regularly passed the doc fix which, as you know, wasn't paid for. We think that's not appropriate. But we agree with you that now is not the time to raise taxes. However, we also understand that if we do not address the sustainable growth rate for doctors, that Medicare recipients won't have doctors to go to. We want to ensure that Medicare recipients do in fact have providers who can meet their medical needs. As a result, Senator Reid, as you know, tried to pass the sustainable growth rate modification so there wouldn't be a 21 percent cut in January to doctors. Unfortunately, all of your party voted against that and 13 of my party voted against that, so it lost 47-53. But we believe that that's going to be addressed one way or another so that we assure and we intend to do that, to assure our Medicare recipients that they will not lose the services of their doctors.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. On Monday, the House will not be in session. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business, and on Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspension bills, as is the custom, will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. In addition, we will consider H.R. 3585, the Solar Technology and Roadmap Act of 2010, sponsored by Gabrielle Giffords, and H.R. 3619, the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010. In addition, we may consider Senate amendments to the House unemployment extension legislation, assuming that is passed by the Senate.

Mr. HOYER. I certainly think it's the case not to expect it before the last week in October. As I've indicated in the past, we intend to give 72 hours' notice of having the bill posted for the public and for Members prior to bringing it to the floor. We are still working to bring that bill to a point where CBO can give us a final score. We believe CBO is going to take probably a week to maybe a little longer than a week. So it certainly would not be before the last week in October, and it may well be the first week in November.

Mr. HOYER. We will wait 72 hours until after the bill is posted. Now, I don't think I said that that necessarily will be after the scoring. But essentially, we don't think we're going to post the bill until the scoring. If, however, for some reason there was somewhat of a delay in scoring but we had the majority of it and posted the bill, the 72 hours will run from the posting of the bill. In addition, Mr. McCarthy, what I indicated last week, and we still will hold to, if there is a manager's amendment, as there may well be, we will also assure that there is 72 hours from the posting of the manager's amendment. Now, if the manager's amendment and the bill are posted at the same time, obviously that would be the same 72 hours. If, on the other hand, the manager's amendment is posted a day or so later, then the 72 hours would run from the posting of the manager's amendment. It is our intent to make sure that everybody has 72 hours to review whatever legislation and/or amendments will be considered on the floor.

Mr. HOYER. We're not going to do 72 business hours. We're going to do 72 hours. We're going to have the full 3 days if people want to read the bill. If they want to read it at night, they can do that. If they want to read it on Saturday or Sunday, they can do that. But it was a good try.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. I appreciate what the gentleman has said; however, the gentleman, I am sure understands, the overwhelming majority of this bill will have been on the Web site since July. The overwhelming majority of this bill, it's going to be a new bill and will have a new number, but this has been probably the most transparent, reviewed bill in the 29 years that I have been in the House of Representatives, I will tell my friend. As you know, we've been working between the House and the Senate. I've had discussions with Mr. Cantor and others on your side. We haven't reached any agreement, as the gentleman knows. I'm sorry about that. But I want to say in all honesty, I can't remember a bill in my 29 years in the House of Representatives that has had more review, more discussion, more people involved in town meetings around this country, more discussion in the media, and has been longer on the Internet for review from beginning to end than this particular piece of legislation. So I think when we talk about transparency, this bill has probably been the most transparently considered bill that I have been involved in in my tenure here. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. HOYER. I want to be accurate, and I want to characterize it as I did characterize it. Clearly, many of the proposals that came out of the Ways and Means Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Education and Labor Committee will be very much alike, or similar to, what will be in the bill that is put together from those three committees. I think that would not come as a surprise to anybody. Will there be, as we put these together, some changes perhaps from what was in the original three bills? There may be. My point was, and I think it is valid, is that the overwhelming majority of the proposals that will ultimately end up either in the Senate or the House bill have been available to the public for a long period of time, either in the HELP bill out of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee of the Senate, or in the Senate Finance Committee, of course, has been a shorter time because they have just completed their work. But it is certainly not going to be H.R. 3200; it will be an amalgam, and it will have incorporated many of the additional thoughts and comments that we've received from the public during the month of August, September and frankly since July. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. HOYER. I can't tell you when it will come to the floor. As you know, the Senate just passed it recently, the latter part of last week or the beginning of this week, I think, and we have not appointed conferees. So I can't give you the answer, really, to either question, because we don't have conferees appointed as it relates to the D.C. bill, as you know. We have talked about the Defense bill. We have an Armed Forces. The Armed Forces is dedicated to the defense of freedom and the preservation of democracy. We have lost over 4,500 troops in Iraq. The people of Baghdad can elect members of their parliament today because our young men and women, and some not so young, fought, and too many died so that the people of Baghdad could elect a voting member of their parliament. It is somewhat ironic that in the symbol of democracy around the world, that our fellow citizens, some 600,000 of them, don't have a voting representative in their parliament, the House of Representatives, the people's House. I think that's an egregious undermining of the principles for which our men and women fight, for which we stand and to which we have pledged support of our Constitution. Now whether or not that will be included in the Defense bill, it is about democracy. It is about participation. It is about respect. I will tell my friend, I don't know whether that's going to be. I've heard some discussion about that myself. But whether it is or not, I will tell my friend that I will continue to fight as hard as I can to try to figure out how I can bring that bill to the floor, get it to a vote, and give the people of the District of Columbia, our fellow citizens, the right to vote as the citizens in Baghdad can do, the citizens in Moscow can do, the citizens in every free country in the world except the United States of America, can do. I think that's a blot on our democracy. I would hope that we would erase that blot as soon as we can in any way that we can. I yield back to the gentleman and thank him for yielding.

Mr. HOYER. Most things are possible.

Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield?

Mr. HOYER. I appreciate that representation. I pose a question to my friend. Would he help me bring the District of Columbia bill to the floor as a clean bill on the question of whether the citizens of the District of Columbia's representative ought to be able to vote as every one of us can on this floor?

Mr. HOYER. That was not an answer to my question, I respectfully suggest to you. It was a serious question. The reason the hate crime bill was on the armed services bill, which it shouldn't have been, it was because we couldn't get 60 votes to bring it up on the floor, notwithstanding the fact that the majority of the Senate and the majority of the House supported that bill. The gentleman talks, very persuasively in my view, about bringing up bills in the proper order. The problem is, very frankly, we don't have the Interior bill this week and we don't have some other bills because frankly we can't get 60 votes to consider them on the floor of the United States Senate. I think that is lamentable. It's also unfortunate.

Mr. HOYER. Again, if you will yield, what I was responding to is your observation about a clean bill. My response was, would the gentleman work with me to perhaps get both of our sides to vote on a rule that provides for a clean consideration of whether or not the representative of 600,000 of our fellow citizens who live in the capital of the United States of America, the symbol of democracy throughout the world, but who do not have a voting representative, would my friend help me do that? Because I haven't been able to do it. With all that power you think I have and with the gavel that you think we have, we haven't been able to that. Would you help me do that?

Mr. HOYER. Do you know who helped build this dome? Slaves. We thought that was wrong.

Mr. HOYER. My comment is a very simple question, and you wanted to have an open rule.

Mr. HOYER. I'm talking about the Defense bill and your concern about D.C. vote being added to the Defense bill. My retort to you, because you wanted the Defense bill clean to deal just with the subject matter of defense. That's as I took your question. My response to you was, I think that's a good point. Would you help me, then, do the same for the D.C. bill, which also stands for democracy, clean, not obstructed by issues which are obviously very controversial, which are not consistent with considering simply the very simple, straightforward question, do the 600,000 citizens of the District of Columbia, American citizens, our neighbors, have the right as our citizens have, of having us have a vote that counts on the floor of the House of Representatives? That's all I was responding to.

Mr. HOYER. I expect to consider it. The chairman has announced that he expects to consider that, not next week but the week after. I have told the chairman, as I told Mr. Cantor last week, that I expect to bring it to the floor shortly after it's passed out of committee.

Mr. HOYER. He says not next week but the week after. And whenever he passes it, I will bring it out shortly thereafter. So it could either be the last of October or the very first few days of November. So in 2 or 3 weeks at the outside.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Ladies and gentlemen, we had hoped to do an additional appropriation bill, but the subcommittee has not yet reached agreement. As a result, I wanted to let Members know that when we finish the business that is scheduled for today, which includes the water bill that we will be considering later today after the Homeland Security bill, we will then not plan to be here on Friday. I know that disappoints all of you. It does disappoint me because I'm very focused, and we are working very hard with the Senate to try to get the appropriations bills done individually. I'm not a fan of omnibuses. I don't think anybody here is either. But as a result of being unable to move the Interior appropriation bill, my view was that originally we had scheduled the water bill for tomorrow, but it is our belief that we can consider both of them today which would then not require Members to be here on Friday. You can lodge your complaints to me later. Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore