Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I am proud to introduce this bill supporting Best Buddies, an organization dedicated to the social integration of children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Founded in 1989 by Anthony Kennedy Shriver, Best Buddies is the first social and recreational program of its kind in the United States; it has already reached hundreds of thousands of Americans, both with and without disabilities, a total that is set to reach half a million by 2010. Best Buddies fosters and supports friendships and mentorships between participants from kindergarteners to adult professionals, sponsoring more than one thousand volunteer-led chapters at schools and workplaces. Not only do volunteers gain valuable leadership training-- they learn first-hand about the important contributions made by their fellow-citizens with intellectual disabilities. And participants with disabilities learn that they are valuable members of our communities, capable of forming a wide range of real and lasting friendships. This legislation authorizes a total of $10 million for grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements to be distributed to Best Buddies by the Department of Education in Fiscal Year 2010, along with such sums as may be necessary for each of the four succeeding fiscal years. These funds will enable this important organization to reach hundreds of thousands more potential volunteers and participants, promoting the crucial values of shared participation in community and social equality. I want to thank Congressman Blunt for co-sponsoring this bill, and I urge my colleagues to pass it as soon as possible.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, in 1966, I was elected to the Maryland State Senate. I was a few months out of Georgetown Law School. And elected at the same time was an extraordinary representative of our State. He was elected to the House of Delegates. In 1970, he was elected to the Congress of the United States and served in the Congress until 1976. In 1976, the citizens of our State elected him to the United States Senate. Paul Sarbanes retired 2 years ago as the longest-serving member of the United States Senate in the history of our State. His partner in all of those efforts was an extraordinary woman. Her name was Christine. She was born in England. She was an extraordinary individual. Paul Sarbanes was a great intellect. Christine matched his intellect. Paul Sarbanes was a person of extraordinary integrity, and his partner, Christine, matched that integrity. Paul Sarbanes was a person of great depth and great compassion, mirrored by his wife, Christine. Christine Sarbanes, the mother of our colleague, John Sarbanes, who represents the district that his father once represented. Christine Sarbanes passed away this weekend. Christine was a loving friend and partner to her husband for nearly half a century, and those of us who were active with her husband in the public sphere and got to know her well and got to be her friend were blessed by that relationship. She took the partnership with Paul very seriously. From the days when she and Paul knocked on hundreds of doors each afternoon to get him elected to the House of Delegates to the days when she acted as Senator Sarbanes's most trusted adviser. Like her husband, Christine possessed, as I have said, tremendous political savvy, deep intelligence and a love of learning. In fact, she once said that she and Paul bought their house because it was within walking distance of a library. No one was surprised at that criteria for purchasing a home. Christine passed that love of learning to generations of students as a teacher of Latin, Greek, and French. Her son reflects that deep intellect as he serves the constituents of the Third Congressional District of Maryland. As a tireless worker for UNICEF, Christine served the international community. Among the many other charities she served, Christine took up the fight for children around the world. So today, Mr. Speaker, we mourn the loss of an honored teacher, wise counselor, passionate advocate, and her family mourns the loss of an irreplaceable mother and wife. I lost my wife Judy 12 years ago. So I know something of the pain that Senator Sarbanes is experiencing. He's one of my closest friends. We've been involved in politics for over four decades together, but I also know that love outlasts grief. As Oscar Wilde said, ``Where there is sorrow, there is sacred ground.'' As long as her loved ones live--her grandchildren will survive for a long period of time--their memories of the wife, their mother, their grandmother, will be sacred to them. Something of her will live on, on the sacred ground of memory, as long as those memories last. I know that all the Members of this House in which Paul Sarbanes and Christine, although not elected, served so ably for 6 years, and the colleagues of his in the United States Senate who grew to know Christine as well as they knew Paul and respected her and loved her as they loved Paul, I know they share in his grief, in John Sarbanes's grief, in his brother's grief, and their grandchildren's grief. So, Mr. Speaker, I know that the House joins me in expressing our deep regrets and that our prayers and sympathy are with the Sarbanes family, a family of immigrants, that came to this country and have made it better, like so many others. Paul Sarbanes still lives, still serves. Christine is gone, but her memory is not. We honor her this evening.

Mr. HOYER

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

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. As the gentleman, I'm sure, knows, many, many of the provisions, I don't know that I have the specific count, are Republican-sponsored bills in this, what the Senate packaged, as you know, so that a large percentage, I don't know exactly what the percentage is, whether it is 30 percent or 35 percent, are Republican- sponsored pieces of legislation.

Mr. HOYER. The bill comes back, of course, it is a House bill being returned with amendments as the gentleman, I'm sure, knows, and under those circumstances, of course, we consider that there is not a motion to recommit on that kind of a procedure. So the answer there would be it would not be a motion to recommit. As the gentleman also knows, this bill came two votes short of a two-thirds majority with very significant Republican and Democratic support of the bill. This bill has been hanging around for a long period of time. It is composed largely, although not exclusively, of bills that have passed the House largely on suspension. So the answer to the gentleman's question is we believe there has been demonstrated overwhelming support for the substance of this bill. It has been hanging around a long time. We want to see it get passed. And the answer is probably not.

Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield on that point?

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. First of all, the gentleman indicated that ``we have been told by the White House.'' I had some comments on how the Republican majority responded, from my perspective, without fail to the Bush administration. We have discussions with our White House. We don't tell them. They don't tell us. We have discussions, positive discussions, on how we, together, can move this country forward. Those discussions clearly have had reconciliation as a subject of discussions. But I will tell the gentleman that those decisions by the Budget Committee have not been made, nor have they been made by the chairman of the Budget Committee. But they clearly are part of the discussion. Reconciliation, as the gentleman knows, has been in our rules for a very long period of time. When the Republicans were in power, reconciliation was something that they used. They are in the process to facilitate the adoption of the budget and policies consistent with the budget; i.e., to reconcile the budget with the authorization and the policy with the budget that has been adopted. So I say to the gentleman that that is certainly under consideration, but no decision on that has been made.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. My presumption is that you have now come up with a new phrase on your side of the aisle. I do know about cap-and-trade. It is talked about regularly. But maybe that is not as politically salient as ``cap-and- tax.'' It seems innovative. But if the gentleman, as I presume he is, is referring to what is commonly known by everybody else as ``cap-and- trade,'' let me say this: The Budget Committee obviously will mark up on the 25th, that is next Wednesday, we expect to bring the budget bill to the floor the following week, the last week before the Easter break. My expectation is there will be provisions in there for energy and global warming consideration. But my further expectation is it will not adopt a premise of one alternative over another, that that will be subject to the legislative process, and that one will not be chosen in the budget itself, so that voting on the budget would not be giving precedent to one alternative over another. I yield back.

Mr. HOYER. I don't want to anticipate what the Budget Committee will do. The gentleman is referring to the placeholder that the administration suggested in the budget. They did so because they wanted to present a budget that did, in fact, anticipate possible costs. To that extent, it was probably one of the most honest budgets that we received, honest in the sense that it included the prospective costs. As you know, we have been somewhat critical in the past of costs that we knew were coming down the pike but which were not included. So the administration did that. Now whether or not the Budget Committee itself decides to include those costs, I don't know. But I do know this, that there has been no decision on an additional TARP appropriation or authorization. Clearly, we are hopeful that we will stabilize the economy. We have moved forward in many respects on a bipartisan basis on this, certainly not in every respect. We have done some tough things because we thought the crisis that confronted our country demanded action. We have all been very disappointed with some of the manifestations of that. And I think we are going to continue to look at this very carefully. The Financial Services Committee is marking up a bill this coming week, which I expect to have on the floor the following week, dealing with constraints on those who receive funds from the Federal Government, from the taxpayer, to shore up our economy, not to shore up those businesses, but to shore up the businesses as they relate to the impact their failure would have on the economy. I think that the gentleman and I share a view that we certainly need to have knowledge, and we will have knowledge if the administration believes that it needs additional resources and that Congress will have that to consider. I would say that the environment for such a piece of legislation right now is not particularly good.

Mr. HOYER. I think that is accurate.

Mr. HOYER. That is my expectation, yes.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his question. As you point out, on this side of the aisle we certainly have great concern for small businesses. Although I don't want to be argumentative, the situation we find ourselves in was inherited. It was inherited from a previous administration that believed in a number of things, particularly the policies that you have offered to once again pursue, which we didn't think would work and, we think, frankly, have in some respects been a cause of the crisis that confronts this country. Furthermore, we think that the administration's focus on deregulation and taking the regulators out of circulation was a significant cause. We also think that the failure of the Federal Reserve to enforce the 1994 law that was passed by the Congress and which was enforced by Chairman Bernanke in 2007 when he took office, which allowed the Federal Reserve the authority to oversee the subprime market, and the theory that Mr. Greenspan had that the market would regulate itself. In point of fact, we see from AIG that the market did not regulate itself. It went on a binge of irresponsibility and greed. So I want to make it clear that while we are very concerned about small businesses, it is huge businesses that have put them in the trick bag. It was huge businesses that weren't overseen properly by the previous administration and need to be properly overseen by this administration. Furthermore, let me say to my friend that the budget that the President has proposed eliminates the capital gains tax for individuals on the sale of certain small business stocks. It makes the research and experimentation tax credit permanent. Ninety-seven percent of small businesses will receive no tax increase in 2010. There is $28 billion in loan guarantees to expand credit availability for small businesses, and support for $1.1 billion in direct disaster loans for businesses, homeowners and renters. Furthermore, the administration has, which you just saw them take action on, a small business lending initiative, not to the big banks, not to the huge organizations, but to small businesses. It is focused on unlocking credit for small businesses. You and I have absolute agreement on that. We need to do that. You talk to your small businesses; all of us do. I had a meeting with my Chamber of Commerce, and we probably had a hundred small businesses in the auditorium at that point in time. You are absolutely right, they are having real trouble getting credit. I talked to a county commissioner who has a small business in Calvert County. Normally he could go into his bank and get a loan on a handshake for $30,000 or $40,000 to expand his business. This time he was looking for $40,000. He has dealt with this bank for 35 years, and they said, I don't know whether they said Mr. Clark or Mr. Commissioner, but they said, yes, but fill out the form. And it took him 30 days. Now he got it, but he has done business with that small bank for that period of time. So we share that view. By the end of the month, the Treasury Department will start making direct purchases of up to $15 billion in securities backed by SBA loans to get the credit market for small businesses moving again. In addition, in the Recovery Act, we eliminated, as I am sure the gentleman knows, all SBA-backed fees on SBA-backed loans, again to try to facilitate small businesses getting credit. And it raises from 85 to 90 percent the proportion of loans that the Small Business Administration will guarantee. Lastly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has endorsed these steps to unlock the credit markets for small businesses. So we are very pleased at the definitive action that we have taken to further the interest you and I share of making sure that small businesses can make it in this extraordinarily bad time which we believe previous policies have caused and which we have inherited.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, before the gentleman yields back, I just want to make an observation. I understand what the gentleman said, but the gentleman will recall, of course, that your party had a substitute that it offered that lost on a bipartisan vote, as you recall. So the gentleman did have the opportunity, his party had the opportunity, to offer a substitute which a significant number in his party did not agree with and certainly an overwhelming majority of our party did not agree with, in part because we perceived it as creating far fewer jobs. There is a difference of opinion on that, I understand that, but our perception was that it created about a third of the jobs or saved about a third of the jobs that our bill did. But that aside, putting aside that disagreement on the figures, the fact is there is no disagreement that you had a substitute. You offered it, and it was defeated.

Mr. HOYER. It is possible. I wouldn't send out an expectation. It is being worked on. There is a strong feeling by the sponsors of the legislation, as you know, that passed in the last Congress through this House, handily, that I think in agreement with the administration that, in addition to the administration's Executive Order, legislation is necessary to give certainty to what can and cannot be done by researchers. And we obviously want to make sure that researchers understand what the law is, what the opportunities are, and what the prohibitions are so that legislation is possible. But I want to tell my friend that I did not announce it for next week. I don't expect legislation next week. I think it is possible for the week following, but I don't want to go beyond that. We will certainly let the gentleman know as soon as I know.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the minority whip for yielding. On Monday the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business. On Tuesday the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 12 p.m. legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday no votes are expected. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of suspensions, as is the tradition, will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. In addition, we will consider Senate amendments to H.R. 146, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 and H.R. 1404, the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the chairman for yielding. I thank Mr. Platts for his leadership on this bill, and I thank Buck McKeon, the ranking Republican who leads this committee for his party. I want to say this is a perfect example of when we can work in a bipartisan way, we do work in a bipartisan way. Mr. Chairman, in my view what has angered so many people about this recession is the perception that its causes are not simply material, not simply financial, but in many ways moral. Ask most Americans what got us to this point, and I doubt the first words they will reach for will be ``credit default swaps'' or ``troubled assets'' or ``overleveraging.'' They will turn, I think, to older ideas--greed, recklessness, self-dealing and profit-taking. In sum, they will think there is a moral deficiency. It follows that our economy and our recovery will not be whole if it only encompasses renewed balance sheets or consumer demand. What is also required is a renewed public spirit. Government cannot create that spirit. We would be fools to think it could. But it can recognize it, applaud it and give avenues for its manifestation. We can coordinate it and give it productive outlets. That is exactly what this bill does. I want to congratulate the President of the United States, Barack Obama, for his leadership, and Michelle Obama for working so avidly on behalf of public service and a renewed spirit of giving to our country. Our President has not just talked about that, he has lived a life of service. I said with Chairman Miller at a press conference just a few hours ago that Barack Obama graduated from one of the best law schools in this country. He was editor of the Law Review. He had one of the keenest minds in his class, indeed in the country. He could have made literally millions of dollars practicing law representing the most powerful interests of our country. He choose not to do that. He went to Chicago, his hometown, and he spent his time reaching out to those who needed help, those who didn't have power and those who did not have economic might, to assist them in making their lives better and their communities better. That is what this bill does. So the principal spokesperson for this bill, President Obama, has lived it, not just talked it. We are blessed with a young generation remarkably committed to public service. This bill gives them the outlets and the opportunities to contribute to our recovery. Mr. Chairman, I would also say there are a whole lot of seniors who have retired from their careers but don't want to retire from life, don't want to retire from their communities and don't want to retire from continuing to give service to their fellow men and women. This bill strengthens the bond between service and education by helping volunteers pay for college. It focuses volunteer efforts on our most pressing needs, including rebuilding our infrastructure and retooling our economy for clean energy and expands opportunity for volunteers of all ages, from middle schoolers to baby boomers. In sum, this bill represents the greatest expansion in national service since the days of John F. Kennedy. He asked us to not ask what the country could do for us, but what we could do for our country. In fact, that is what our faiths ask us as well, for all of our faiths have a central theme: love God and love God's children as well. And we love God's children by giving them a hand up and helping to serve with them in making their lives better. These new ranks of volunteers will be making tangible contributions that benefit all of us. According to House testimony from Time Magazines's managing editor, Richard Stengel, and I quote, 61 million Americans volunteered in their communities in 2007, giving more than 8 billion hours--that is billion--8 billion hours of community service worth more than $158 billion to America's communities. In my community, we have volunteer fire companies in the southern part of my district. The cost of providing fire service in St. Mary's, Calvert and Charles Counties would be a lot higher if it weren't for the literally tens of thousands of hours volunteered by citizens who care about their communities and care about keeping us safe when fire occurs. He continued: ``A cost-benefit analysis of AmeriCorps programs has concluded that every $1 that we invest in AmeriCorps results in $1.50 to $3.90 of direct measurable benefits to the community.'' Wouldn't it be wonderful if all of our businesses had been as successful? We wouldn't be in the pickle we are in. Those are the material rewards of this bill. But, Mr. Chairman, I think we all know that the rewards we can't measure are far greater. They are the virtues of community and self-sacrifice, of responsibility and teamwork, of a better country and a better community. John Lewis talks about the beloved community. This bill seeks to serve the beloved community. I urge its adoption. I thank Mr. Miller for his leadership, I thank the Speaker for her pressing us to consider this early, and I thank Mr. Platts and Mr. McKeon for their leadership and work on this bill as well.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Rev. Joseph C. Martin, a son of Maryland who devoted his life to helping tens of thousands of alcoholics overcome their addiction--an addiction he overcame himself. Father Martin drank heavily for more than a decade until, with the help of a treatment center for the clergy, he recovered his sobriety. Drawing on his personal struggle, Father Martin developed his famous ``Chalk Talk on Alcohol,'' a common-sense lecture on addiction that remains in heavy use to this day, from the U.S. Armed Forces to substance-abuse programs around the world. Along with his hard-won lessons on sobriety, his most lasting legacy is Father Martin's Ashley, a treatment center overlooking the Chesapeake Bay in Harford County, Maryland. Father Martin's Ashley has kept its doors open for more than three decades and, with the guidance and leadership of its co-founder, has served more than 30,000 people. A giving, loving man who exemplified the best tenets of his faith and of the sobriety movement, Father Martin never turned away a potential patient who was short on funds. His example and his wise counsel enabled recovering alcoholics around the world to reclaim control of their lives. Michael Deaver, who served as chief of staff to President Reagan and received treatment at Father Martin's Ashley, said: ``I had been with presidents, kings, popes, and prime ministers, but Father Martin was the most powerful person I had ever met. You see, Father has the power to change people, to make them better, to make them whole again.'' Though Father Martin is gone, I am sure that his legacy, his teaching, and his example will have that same power for years to come.

Mr. HOYER

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

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. We think the public lands bill that failed just by two votes yesterday is a very good bill. Overwhelming support. Essentially two-thirds of this House supported it. Two-thirds of the Senate supported it. Actually, I think it was probably even more than that. In any event, we believe that bill is a very, very good bill. We are hopeful that a number of your members will conclude that maybe they should have voted for it. We will see on that. So the answer to your question is that we may bring it up either by rule or by suspension, but we want to see this bill pass. Having said that, let me say that Leader Reid, the senior leader of the Senate, has indicated that he is going to file for cloture on that bill in the Senate tomorrow. So they may well move on it as well. There are a number of options for us to pursue. As you will not be surprised, we are going to pursue the one we think is most successful.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. First of all, let me respond. We don't know that. Somebody reported that. We don't know that at all and, very frankly, we don't accept that figure. We don't accept the figure that we will, in fact, lose jobs. We on this side of the aisle feel very strongly that the working men and women in this country have the right under law to organize and to bargain collectively for wages and benefits and working conditions. We think that is inherent in the rights, in the free market. Very frankly, I would tell my friend that I have traveled, as he has, in many parts of the world, and rarely have I seen a successful democracy that didn't have a free trade union movement. So we feel very strongly about that. We feel very strongly about the right to organize, and that means that it is the employee's choice of how to organize. Now, having said all that, let me also say that we have observed that there has been, in many ways, a relationship between the decline in union membership and a decline in the buying power of the American worker. And the greatest disparity between what average workers make and what the bosses make now exist in our country to a greater extent than any other place in the world. We think that's a problem. Consumerism is what drives this economy. Consumerism is down, incomes have been frozen, and you see, in my opinion, some of that result. I don't, by any stretch of the imagination, want to say that the reason that we are in the decline that we are in today, and facing the challenge that we are today, is a direct result of the fact that union membership is down. But, certainly, I believe that one of the results is the reduction in the buying power of average Americans in this country. Now, having said that, we passed this bill. We passed it pretty handily. We passed it in the last Congress, and it's our expectation that the Senate is going to be dealing with this legislation. They have not yet considered it; and it is my belief that we want to see whether they can pass it. We believe they can. We are going to be interested in what action they take.

Mr. HOYER. Let me say that, as I said before, we don't believe it's a job-killer, number one. But, number two, the gentleman and I have a disagreement factually as to what the bill does. We don't believe this kills the right of the employees to have a free election at all. Period. We believe in fact the employee has that choice. The employee has the absolute right to respond, ``No, I don't want to sign your card. Let's have an election. And I will sign it for that purpose, and that purpose only, to give you the 30 percent you need to get the election.'' I think I'm right on 30 percent. But, in any event, we believe this is the employees' choice of how they want to organize, not the employer's choice. So we are not and did not by passage of this legislation take away from the employees the right to have an election if they so choose.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. First, in a very short response to your question, I do not expect the legislation dealing with stem cells to be coming to the floor next week. I do, however, respond to the gentleman that we are considering bringing to the floor legislation, similar, in terms of specifics, very similar, if not the same, as the bill that passed this House on a bipartisan vote in the last Congress. We believe that that will be consistent with the President's action this week dealing with the executive order on stem-cell research. We believe this research provides real hope for some of mankind's most difficult diseases and afflictions and challenges. We think the research is promising. On the other hand, we want to make sure that it does, in fact, do what we say we want to do. As you know, when we passed legislation like that before, we made it very clear that human cloning was not something that the Congress supported and that we were specifically prohibiting that. So in answer to your question, I would think the legislation would be very much along those same lines. But we do not expect it to be here this week. I want to tell the gentleman it may be, however, on the floor prior to our leaving for the recess.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. I thank the minority whip for yielding. On Monday the House will meet at 12:20 p.m. for morning hour and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. On Tuesday the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour and 12 p.m. 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, which is a change from the previously announced schedule. We will consider several bills under suspension of rules. A 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. 1388, the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, also known as the national service legislation.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. In fact, we are going to continue, as we have been doing for every week that we have been in session in this Congress, to focus on jobs, focus on job creation. In fact, I would say to the gentleman, the three bills you mentioned, other than the Pi Day bill, were focused on jobs, focused on investing in our economy, in clean water, in education, in the safety of our public streets, keeping cops on the beat. So I say to my friend, the answer to your question is, we are going to continue to focus on jobs during the next 3 weeks as well. We think we have been doing that. We have had some disagreements on whether that was the way to do it, I understand that, but there is no doubt that we are going to continue to focus on jobs. One of those will be at some point in time before we leave for the Easter break. As the gentleman knows, it's our intention to bring up the budget as well.