Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 4 p.m. on Monday next, and further, when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 22, 2009, for morning-hour debate.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Well, I hope sometime soon, but not next week. That is certainly the case. We will be moving the health care bill as soon as it is ready to be moved. Obviously, as you say, the Senate put a bill on the table. It will be marking that up next week. But our committees are working on bringing three bills that have passed out of committees together. As soon as they are ready to go, and I can't predict when that will be, we will bring the bill to the floor. But I reiterate, it is not going to be next week.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. No, the House will be, as I said, moving the bill to the floor when the House is ready to do so. We don't know what the Senate schedule will be so we are going to proceed on our own schedule. And then obviously at some point in time the bills will have to be conferenced and reconciled.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the Republican whip for yielding. Mr. Speaker, on Monday the House will meet at 4 p.m. for pro forma session. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. 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 will be announced by the close of business tomorrow, as is the custom. In addition, Mr. Speaker, we will consider H.R. 3548, the Unemployment Compensation Act of 2009; H.R. 324, the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area Act; and a resolution which will make continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2010, and for other purposes. I yield back.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Now to this concept, I don't want anybody to be confused. I am not sure exactly what the gentleman is saying, I heard him talking about it, the administration position, as far as I know, has not changed with respect to the concept of which the gentleman speaks. A nuclear-armed Iran, I believe the administration and I believe this Congress, believes is an unacceptable undermining both of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, but also of the stability of a very unstable region of the world. I want to reiterate that I think that remains the position of the administration. It is certainly my position, and I believe it is the position of the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and I think of this Congress.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. As the gentleman correctly pointed out, I believe that a nuclear- armed Iran is dangerous and unacceptable, not only to Israel but to the region which I think will be greatly destabilized and which will start a nuclear arms race in the region. In addition, as the gentleman knows, there are a quarter of a million Americans right now today as we speak within range of Iranian missiles. So I believe a nuclear-armed Iran, personally I believe it is in fact a danger to the region and to the international community and to the interests of the United States of America. It is the policy of the United States, expressed by our President, that a nuclear-armed Iran was not an acceptable situation to exist. The administration, as you know, is pursuing attempts to negotiate to an end that there is an abandonment which is verified of Iran's nuclear efforts. With respect to the bills, there are two bills as the gentleman knows. Chairman Frank has a bill in his committee, an Iran sanctions enabling act, and Chairman Berman has a bill in his committee on the Iran refined petroleum sanctions act. I will tell the gentleman that I am meeting with Mr. Berman and Mr. Frank early next week to discuss the bringing of those bills and the order we ought to bring them to have maximum impact, and I expect to do that in the near future. When I say ``near future,'' I mean within a matter of weeks. It will not be next week, but whether it is the week after or the week after that. But my expectation is, after talking with Mr. Frank and Mr. Berman, we will be bringing those two sanctions bills to the floor in the near future.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am not sure exactly what he is referring to other than the perception of how quickly the Iranians may convert to nuclear capability their present capacity, whether there is a longer time than that. But I have not had direct communication with the administration on that issue. I don't want to speak for the administration, but I think what I have already said to this point does in fact reflect certainly all of the communications I have had with the administration to date.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of the privileges of the House.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker and ladies and gentlemen of the House, none of us, none of us is happy to be here considering this resolution. I know I am not. At the same time, my colleagues, what is at issue here is of importance to this House and to our country, and that issue is whether we are able to proceed with a degree of civility and decorum that our rules and our democracy contemplate and require. The House Code of Official Conduct requires that each Member, every one of us, each and every one of us ``conduct himself,'' and I'm quoting from the rule, ``at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives.'' There seems to be little or no disagreement that Mr. Wilson did not so conduct himself on the evening of September 9. Senator John McCain was quoted as saying that Mr. Wilson's behavior was ``totally disrespectful.'' He went on to say, ``There is no place for it in that setting, or any other, and he should apologize for it immediately.'' Mr. Wilson did, in fact, apologize to the President through Mr. Emanuel, the President's Chief of Staff. However, it was the House itself whose rules were offended. And as Mr. Inglis, Mr. Wilson's colleague, a Republican colleague from South Carolina, observed, and again I quote, ``He should apologize to the House,'' to the House, ``for the rule violation.'' Mr. Inglis went on to add, ``That would end the matter.'' I had made a similar representation to the Republican leader, and I believe that would have ended the matter. I know that is what the Republican leaders of the House thought would be appropriate and what the Republican leader talked to Mr. Wilson about doing. He said so to the press. Indeed, last Thursday, based upon what a Republican leader told me, not Mr. Boehner, that morning, it was what I expected Mr. Wilson to do. As a result, I held open the time between the next-to-the-last vote and the very last vote to give Mr. Wilson an opportunity to express an apology to the House. As all of us know, many Members have done that in the past, reflecting upon conduct they thought was not appropriate; and as a result, they came to this floor. That has happened on both sides of the aisle where Members have done things that they thought brought discredit to the House and they came to this floor, to that rostrum and to this, to say, I apologize. Mr. Inglis is correct: that would have ended the matter. However, for whatever reason, Mr. Wilson has decided not to take any further action. In light of that, this resolution simply states the House's disapproval of Mr. Wilson's words and actions. As Republican Whip Cantor is quoted as saying, ``Obviously the President of the United States is always welcome on Capitol Hill and he deserves respect and decorum.'' Surely all of us believe that's correct. Surely all of us, hopefully all of us, believe that when we invite a President of either party to come to this House and address a joint session of Congress that he ought to expect and we ought to expect that we will accord to him the decorum and courtesy of which Mr. Cantor spoke. The Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, added, ``I think we ought to treat the President with respect, and anything other than that is not appropriate.'' That's what this resolution is about. It's a resolution of disapproval. This resolution is not about the substance of an issue, but about the conduct we expect of one another in the course of doing our business. Senator John Cornyn, the chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, stated this: ``There's a time and a place for everything, and that was not the time or the place for that kind of comment.'' In the absence of Mr. Wilson's expressing his regret for acting in a manner that almost all agree, every Republican that I have talked to as well as every Democrat that I have talked to, was inappropriate and contrary to the spirit of the rules of the House and the common courtesy that we should extend to all, and particularly to the President of the United States of America, our President, we have brought forward this resolution. I expected to extend that same courtesy with every President with whom I have served, be they Republican or Democrat. We consider this resolution as a result of Mr. Wilson's failure to follow the advice of his leadership and a number of his Republican and Democratic colleagues who have told me that they have talked to him. I want to say personally that I know Mr. Wilson. We've had a good relationship. I expect to continue to have a good relationship. I found him a man of measured conduct. I was surprised. I think he was probably surprised as well. A simple apology to this House would have ended the matter. But this House ought not to stand silent in the face of conduct that almost universally, and by Mr. Wilson himself, was felt to be inappropriate. It is an expression of the people's House that neither Presidents nor any of us ought to expect to be subjected to such conduct in the course of our business in this, the people's House. The resolution says simply what hopefully all of us feel, that we disapprove of the conduct cited and let others know that such conduct is neither welcome nor approved by the House of Representatives. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), and I ask unanimous consent that he control the balance of that time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. On Monday, 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 Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 12 o'clock for legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, no votes are expected in the House. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. In addition, we will consider H.R. 3246, the Advanced Vehicle Technology Act of 2009, and H.R. 3221, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009. I yield back.

Mr. HOYER. But I want to reiterate, we do expect next week to at least take a number in the relatively near term--and that means September--so that Members will have prior notice.

Mr. HOYER. We have not. What I indicated is that I hope to be working on that, and I hope next week to have at least made a preliminary decision on some of the Mondays and/or Fridays. It may not be all of the ones that we will be able to have Members have an opportunity to work at home. And again, it's a little difficult to do that because it's a little difficult to predict the workflow schedule.

Mr. HOYER. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. My expectation is that it is quite possible that we would take off either a Monday that is now scheduled--or two, or three--or a Friday, one or the other. Given the flow of work, we did a lot of work, worked very hard, and we passed a lot of legislation, but obviously to complete that we need it to come back from the Senate, need to complete conference reports. So to some degree, the flow of work will dictate that schedule; but on the other hand, we want to give all the Members on both sides appropriate notice so they can utilize the time at home to be discussing with their constituents pending legislation, and particularly the health care bill.

Mr. HOYER. Let me say that I believe that every week scheduled in October we will be meeting. However, in November, as the gentleman probably knows, Veterans Day falls exactly in the middle of the week on a Wednesday. We are now talking about what that means in terms of schedule because obviously all the Members want to be home with their various organizations, municipalities, counties and communities to honor our veterans on that day and honor the service of those who have kept this country free. As a result, we are trying to figure out whether or not it makes any sense to either schedule a Monday and Tuesday or a Thursday and Friday and have Members come back and forth for that. We have not made that decision, but it is, in terms of the weeks that we are looking at over the next 10 weeks, a week that may not be one in which we will meet. We will try to make that determination very soon, within the next couple of weeks, part of which will be dictated by the schedule, what is moving, how much time we need available. In addition to that, we will not be meeting Thanksgiving week. I say that pretty definitively. Obviously, if we could finish the Monday or Tuesday of Thanksgiving work, finish in terms of adjournment sine die for this session, then I think that might change that. But other than that, my expectation is we would not be meeting Thanksgiving week if we need to meet longer than Thanksgiving week.

Mr. HOYER. I think the honest answer to that is yes. Obviously, that was a target date, not knowing exactly how quickly we would proceed. Clearly, health care, among other issues, is taking, as we understand it needed to, a longer time. And so consideration of that and the appropriation bills and other authorization bills that are going between the two Houses will, I think, clearly take us beyond October 30.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. First of all, of course, as you know, the House has passed all 12 of our appropriation bills, so we're ready to go to conference on all 12 of those bills. The Senate has passed four of their bills and is working on the balance. We hope to conference and have on the floor a number of those bills before the end of September, before the beginning of the fiscal year. There obviously will be, given the Senate's schedule, a requirement for a continuing resolution for some period of time, perhaps in a 30-day period time frame. So we will be considering those bills, those conference reports. In addition, as you heard, the student loan reform bill will be on the floor next week, we believe. Defense authorization is in conference, and we expect that conference report. Health care reform, obviously we expect to do that this fall. Regulatory reform is expected to be an item on our agenda in the House this fall. Additionally, we will be waiting on the Senate on a number of items that we have sent to them, including climate change and food safety, which, as you know, the House passed. So those will be some of the items. That is not an exhaustive list, but is, I think, a good list of what we expect to be considering during the coming weeks.

Mr. HOYER. I think health care will come to the floor in the House when it is ready to come, and what I mean by that is when we have a consensus on exactly how the bill ought to be fashioned. We believe on this side that the committees are some 85 percent in agreement, as you know, the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Education and Labor Committee, and the Ways and Means Committee. As you also know, there are differences between those bills, and we are working on that at this point in time to see how we can make those compatible. The President's comments last night will obviously also be taken into consideration. So we will bring to the floor a bill that we believe reflects the President's view, our view, and hopefully we would hope the views in part at least of some of the Members on your side of the aisle.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. First of all, let me say I don't know where he gets 2 weeks. The Ways and Means Committee was in discussion. You may mean formal hearings on the bill. But we have had 80 hearings in the committees over the last 24 months on health care reform, so it was an extensive part of the debate of every candidate for President over the course of 2008, and, frankly, prior to 2008. This bill and many of its facets have been considered extensively, many of which were in plans presented by Presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican. And clearly the President of the United States talked extensively about his ideas and where he wanted to go on health reform, and much of what he said and proposed was included in the bills that have been acted upon and I think reflect his views as well as the views of many people not only in this body but throughout the country. So, from that standpoint, we believe this has gotten very extensive consideration. I think it is unprecedented. We had over 1,000 town meetings on our side. I know you had a number of town meetings on your side. I am not sure of the number. But literally I think thousands and thousands of Americans had an opportunity to participate and are continuing to participate in the discussion of the specifics of this bill. So we think it has gotten very widespread and very thorough consideration. Given that consideration, there are still differences that we are working on.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield, because I want to clarify that. H.R. 3200 was a base bill that was put together by the committee Chairs, the committee staff, with input from others, as a mark. My expectation is that there will be a compendium that will be put together and we will probably have a new number on it. So I don't think H.R. 3200, which was a base mark, but you understand this was a bill, and, as you well know, in three committees, so there may well be a bill fashioned from the product of the three committees.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. There has been unprecedented, I reiterate, I don't think you can remember, and I have been here 29 years and I can't remember a bill that has been more widely vetted than this bill in terms of the American public. Maybe the Social Security proposal the President some years ago had, that was pretty widely vetted, but I don't think as widely vetted as this proposal. So I say to the gentleman, you go and you vet the bill, you discuss alternatives, you then come back after having listened to those alternatives and fashion a bill. You don't have new committee hearings, whether it is a health care bill or any other bill. You amend it and you perfect it pursuant to hearings, and then you bring it to the floor. I don't expect we will treat this bill any differently.

Mr. HOYER. Well, if the gentleman will yield, I want to say clearly, as you know, the base bill, the mark bill from which the three committees worked, as you know, was put online before the August break, so that it has been online for a very long period of time. Now, there will be changes. There will be amendments. There have already been amendments in the three committees and those have been online. So, I think the gentleman's concern is correct. We share it. We want to make sure the public has the opportunity to know what is being done, that we transparently have the specifics for the American public to know what we are doing and for the Members to have that knowledge, and we intend to do that. Now, whether or not we are going to have a timeframe in which somebody can have a townhall meeting, which may take a month to notice and get together, I think you would be shocked if I responded to you that, oh, sure, we will just wait around until you have your town meetings. So I am not going to say that. But I do appreciate the gentleman's point, which is we want to make sure the public does in fact have notice.

Mr. HOYER. You heard the President's comments last night. I agree strongly with the President and with the Speaker, and I think, frankly, there is no difference in the three of us. We all believe that a public option is an important option, A, to save money and, B, to give consumers options that they might not otherwise have and bring prices down for consumers as well as for government. So there is no difference there on the importance of the public option. I am for a public option, as you probably heard me. I don't know whether you watched my town meeting, but that question was asked and I responded I am for the public option. What I have said is essentially what the President said last night, that there is much in this bill that I think advantages consumers, businesses, individuals and families, and I think the public option is important, but there are other things in the bill which are important. But I expect that we are going to bring a bill to the floor. I am certainly hopeful that it has a public option in it. We think that is the best alternative. The President has indicated he thinks that is the best alternative. He did, however, say, and I share his view, if there are other ways people think we can do it, provide that competitive model to bring prices down and to make sure consumers get the best product available, if there are other ways to do that, then we are certainly open to hearing them.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend, Chairman Grijalva, for yielding, and I thank Mr. Sarbanes for his leadership on this bill. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my strong support for H.R. 965, legislation introduced by Representative John Sarbanes, whose father established this program some years ago and who was one of my closest friends, and still is, and with whom I worked very closely on this particular piece of legislation and so many other items directed at the environment in general and the Chesapeake Bay in particular. This bill permanently reauthorizes the National Park Service's Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network Program. Those of us fortunate enough to live in the region have been blessed with a multitude of magnificent national resources, not the least of which is the Nation's largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay, a body of water that has played such an important role in shaping the cultural, economic, political and social history of our region. Unfortunately, the Chesapeake Bay of 2009 is not the pristine body that Captain John Smith first chartered on his expedition some 400 years ago. Indeed, earlier this year, the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program released the Chesapeake Bay's 2008 Health and Restoration Assessment which found the overall health of the bay remained degraded and that the Bay Program is still far short of most restoration goals. Shortly thereafter, the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science issued a report card grading the bay's health as a C-minus for the second year in a row. That obviously is not good news, nor is it acceptable. Over the years, I have joined with many of my colleagues in supporting a number of legislative initiatives and securing millions of dollars focused on the restoration effort. While some progress has been made, clearly, as those reports indicate, much remains to be done. I am heartened, Mr. Speaker, by the commitment of President Obama and his administration to the Chesapeake Bay. On May 12, President Obama issued an Executive order declaring that the restoration of the Bay requires a renewed commitment to controlling pollution, protecting habitat, conserving land, and improving management of natural resources. I have the privilege of living on one of the tributaries that flows into the Chesapeake Bay, the Patuxent River, and I know how critical it is. We have the Anacostia River here and the Potomac River here in our city. The President declared that the Federal Government should lead this effort and established a Federal Leadership Committee for the Chesapeake Bay consisting of relevant agencies which would be chaired by the EPA administrator. The agencies were directed to draft and submit reports to the committee making specific recommendations for protecting the Chesapeake Bay. The initial reports are slated to be made public today, which makes this effort very timely. H.R. 965, the legislation we are now considering, takes another important step forward in our efforts by permanently authorizing a program that has already done so much to raise awareness of the fragile health of the bay and directly engage our region's citizens and visitors to take an active role in fulfilling our shared goal of restoring the Chesapeake. The Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, which includes more than 150 museums, State parks, wildlife refuges, and other sites in six States and the District of Columbia was established, Mr. Speaker, to link together these wonderful places in the hopes of enabling visitors to better understand and appreciate the role they can play in the bay's survival. Unfortunately and tragically, much of the bay's stress is man-made. The program enables sites to compete for grant funding which must be fully matched for projects that will help conserve, restore, and interpret their roles in the bay's natural, cultural, and social history. The Gateways Program is a critical component to fostering a commitment among our citizens to restore the bay, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation. In closing, let me thank Mr. Grijalva for his leadership in bringing this to the floor and Mr. Sarbanes for his sponsorship and continuing the extraordinary legacy that his father over 30 years in the United States Senate and 6 years in the House of Representatives contributed to this country and to the Chesapeake Bay and our environment in particular.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the distinguished chairman and gentleman from New York. I thank Mr. Pence for his remarks. On many days, this floor is a place for heated debate, and that is, of course, as it should be. That is what our Founders intended. But at this moment, as Mr. Pence, the chairman of the Republican Conference pointed out, and as I will point out as the majority leader on the Democratic side, there are no Democrats or Republicans on this floor because we join to remember and mourn the attack on America, not on Democrats or Republicans, but on America and on its values and on what it stands for throughout the world: freedom and justice. September 11, 2001, was a day of grief and of shock, of fear and of anger. But today it can and must be something more: a day to rededicate ourselves with memory and with service to the ideals that make our Nation great, as I said earlier, freedom, pluralism, equality, the rule of law, and justice. Those, no less than our buildings and our citizens, were the targets of the 9/11 terrorists. Though buildings crumbled and the dead are lost to us, it is in our power to see our ideals remain strong and unscathed. So on this eighth anniversary, along with the Republican leader, Mr. Boehner, I am proud to introduce this resolution marking September 11 not only as a day of remembrance, but also a day of resolve. So many conflicting emotions marked this indelible day: grief for nearly 3,000 men, women and children murdered; heartfelt sympathy for those who loved and lost them; and an unspeakable pride in the first responders, firemen, policemen and medical personnel who served and, indeed, sacrificed on that day. Among the 3,000 are numbered 343 firefighters, 37 port authority officers and 23 police officers who died serving their fellow citizens as they ran into danger's jaws, not away from. Alongside them in honor stand the passengers of the United Flight 93, ordinary Americans, who discovered their extraordinary heroism at a moment of crisis and who quite possibly saved this building, this Chamber, and the Capitol dome from ruin. It is my own view that that was the target of this third plane, to strike down that dome which here in America and throughout the world is a symbol of freedom, pluralism, justice and, yes, democracy. We also remember the sacrifices of our troops, not only those who lost their lives under our flag, but those who make the everyday sacrifice of separation from family and home. Not all of us are called to serve as heroically, but in hundreds of small acts of dedication to our communities, we can emulate their service in ways both large and small. That is our resolve today. And along with it, we resolve to take the lesson of our vulnerability to heart. We commit ourselves to defending America from whatever threats may confront it, with all of our military force, all of our diplomatic skill, and all the power of our moral example. Our lives are limited, but we have in our keeping the ideals and truths that have animated our Nation since its founding, and that, we trust, will outlive us, outlive all of us, to light the lives of our children and grandchildren, and as a great-grandfather, let me say for generations to come. They have lived through war, through economic crisis, and through the gravest attacks. Now, while they are in our keeping, let us defend them, serve them, live for them, and pass them down unharmed and undamaged. All that, my fellow colleagues, on behalf of the 300 million people who have sent 435 of us here to represent their views and their aspirations, their courage and their commitment. Let us again resolve today, may we hold it for tomorrow and every day thereafter.