Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding. The gentleman is correct. On February 15, of course, the existing CR expires in terms of authorization for the funding of the departments that were unfunded in the budget cycle, in the appropriation cycle, so that we need to take action to keep the government operating for all agencies other than Homeland Security and the Defense Department. We are trying to plan on the contingencies. Obviously, one of the alternatives you mentioned is one that we would hope might be followed, and that is the adoption of the House-passed CR, which we think is one that obviously a broad number of this House supported in a bipartisan fashion. We would hope that the other body would. But if they do not move ahead, we are discussing the possibility of some short-term CR. But those discussions have not moved beyond the contemplation that they may be necessary. They have not come to any decision as to how long it would be. Clearly, one of the problems, as the gentleman knows, is we are leaving for a week for the Presidents' Day District Work Period, so that we would not be here at least for the following week. One of the reasons obviously Friday may be a very long day will be because the CR will have expired if we don't pass something, and we may have to deal with it that day, as well as ending the debate that we referred to previously.

Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield?

Mr. HOYER. I don't want to get into a long debate, but I do want to make an observation. Mr. Dreier was critical that we put today's bill on the floor, and he indicated he thought it would take just a few minutes to pass and that everybody would be for it. The Members were hoping that would be the case. But you never can tell.

Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield.

Mr. HOYER. I think the expression you saw was not on the merits of the amendments.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 2 p.m. tomorrow; that when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning hour debate; that when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, February 13, 2007, for morning hour debate as though after May 14, 2007, thereafter to resume its session at 10 a.m.; and further, when the House adjourns on Thursday, February 15, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. on Friday, February 16.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we will not take, certainly, the hour that is allotted; but I first of all want to say something about the two individuals who have just resigned their appointments as Clerk and as Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to serve from 1987 to 2000 on the House Administration Committee and worked with my friend, Mr. Ehlers, Mr. Thomas, and others. I was a member of the House Administration Committee on which Vic Fazio, our former colleague from California, was the ranking member. He and Mr. Thomas came together and selected Jay Eagen to be the Chief Administrative Officer. I think it would be inappropriate if I did not rise and congratulate Mr. Eagen on the job that he has done. I believe that Jay Eagen has brought a degree of professional management to this House of Representatives, which has been a credit to the institution and a credit to all of the Members, and a credit, I might say, to my colleagues on the Republican side, to the Republican leadership on this issue, and I congratulate them for that. Mr. Eagen is someone who has worked on this Hill for many years. He will be leaving the Hill and leaving this city and moving his family to the west, and we wish him the very, very best. Mr. Speaker, Karen Haas, who has been the Clerk and who submitted her resignation is, as well, someone who has worked for this institution, cares deeply about the House, and has comported herself, although for a relatively short period of time as the Clerk of our House, in a way that brought honor to the Office of Clerk and brought credit to the House of Representatives. I know from my perspective personally and from Speaker Pelosi, and I both want to, on behalf of our caucus, extend to them our deepest thanks and gratitude for the service that they have rendered to the House of Representatives and to our country. Both of them, I know, have very exciting things to come. They are both young, they both have much to offer, and we wish them the very best. Mr. Speaker, I will reserve the balance of my comments on Ms. Miller and Mr. Beard and would certainly yield now to Mr. Ehlers, who may also want to say something.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to have an opportunity to speak on the resolution before its immediate adoption.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I offer a privileged resolution (H. Res. 129) and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I appreciate the comments. I appreciated my comments when I made them. I still want you to know that I appreciate them, and I think that is a good practice. I had the opportunity of sitting down with Mr. Beard just a few days ago, essentially, almost verbatim, in terms of how I believe he ought to operate his office in the sense that this is a business office, this is not a partisan office. Hopefully, he will respond to doing what is in the best business management practice, best practices as well as his own judgment without respect to party or partisanship. I would hope that that would happen. I expect it to happen. But I appreciate the comments that have been made. I want to say that, also, I am strongly in support of Lorraine Miller. This is a historic appointment, first African American to serve as an officer of the House, not just as Clerk of the House but as an officer of the House. Lorraine Miller has served for three Speakers now. She served President Clinton in the White House. She is president of the NAACP in Washington, D.C. She is an extraordinarily knowledgeable, able individual; and she will be a tremendous asset to this institution and I think will send a very strong and powerful message to all of America about inclusion, as the election of our Speaker did. Mr. Beard, as some of you know, has more than three decades of experience in policy and executive management, including senior positions in the House of Representatives, the United States Senate, the White House and the Interior Department, as well as the Library of Congress. Obviously, he has a long, distinguished career in management and, as such, is a professional appointment. Again, I appreciate the comments that have been made. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the nomination of both, because I believe both will serve this institution in a professional manner that brings credit on their offices and on this institution. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Clyburn be able to manage the balance of time available to me.

Mr. HOYER. I will tell my friend, I don't have any other speakers on this side. Do you have a speaker?

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Or other select committees, if the House chose to do that through whatever mechanism it chose to do that. Yes. The answer to your question is a portion of that money would be available for that objective.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Certainly, those dollars which are allocated in contemplation of the administrative officer having an ability after a change, obviously, in management, if you will, to some degree, to have some flexibility, and as they plan, we will have a better idea of how they are going to spend that money, which will obviously have to be approved in the funding resolution out of House Administration, brought to this floor and voted upon by the Members. But certainly, parts of that fund would be available if the House decided to create a committee. You refer to the Select Committee on, I am sure, Energy.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from California. Of course, the gentleman to which he refers, as he knows, voted for the rule. In addition, as the gentleman knows, we gave your side the opportunity to have unanimous consent to amend the rule. You chose not to ask for that. We would not have objected to it. It gives us both good talking points, I suppose, but I think the point of this whole discussion is we want to get beyond talking points. I say to my friend, and everybody in this House knows that Roy Blunt and Steny Hoyer are good friends who spend time together and respect one another, like one another. It is very difficult, I know, having been in your position for 4 years, not to take the opportunity to express grievances about what you believe is not being done that is fair to particularly the minority side. I understand that. I simply want to say that we intend, as we have said, and one of the reasons we are not meeting Friday is because we have told committees we want them to do the regular order, have hearings, have votes in committee, bring bills to the Rules Committee, allow amendments, and as a result, they have said that is going to take us a little more time. So we do not have work to do. And we are not going to hold Members here, as Roy Blunt and I have discussed, if we don't have work to do. But we are going to try to get to substance. I will say, for instance, on today's bill, we were very pleased that 57 Members on your side of the aisle voted with us on this. It was not a bipartisan two or three or four or five or six Members. A quarter of your caucus, indeed over a quarter of your caucus, voted for this bill. It was a bill that we needed to get through on substance. We think that speaks well for the substance, and that is what we are really talking about. We want to get to substance in a fair way. And we want to work with you, Mr. Dreier. Certainly, I want to work with my good friend, the Republican whip, who is, I think, very sincere in his desire to make sure that we have legislation move through this body in a way that all the participants can feel they got a fair shot, whether they win or lose. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. HOYER. I will say to my friend this is such a difficult process on this side of the aisle. We considered last week a piece of legislation, and one of your Members went to the Rules Committee and asked for an amendment. We gave him an amendment, and then he wrote, apparently, and it caused a great deal of controversy, that we allowed the amendment and he really didn't want the amendment. So then we came to the floor with the amendment still allowed. Of course, he didn't have to offer it. Nobody was forcing him to offer it. But there was great consternation that we had allowed the amendment and, indeed, a substitute, which you apparently didn't want either. So it is very difficult for us. Now we bring a bill that has an open rule and it is so lacking in controversy that it ought to be perhaps a closed rule or a suspension. We will try to figure out what you really want, and when we do, we will try to do something that pleases you. We are having difficulty so far.

Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several bills under suspension. There will be no votes, however, until 6:30. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 for morning hour business and noon for legislative business. We will consider additional bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of the suspension bills for the week will be announced later this week. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10. In addition to suspension bills, we will consider H.R. 547, the Advanced Fuels Infrastructure Research and Development Act. Now, because we have come to a point where, as you know, the committees have just recently been fully organized, they are starting to have hearings but because we have not produced as much legislation, we have been dealing with a lot of work so far, I know the gentleman will be upset and my colleagues will be upset that they will have to work at home on Friday. I want to reiterate that. When Members are home, they are working. They are listening to their constituents. They are having town meetings. They are attending meetings. They are attending the chamber of commerce or the Lion's Club or the Rotary or the PTA. So that, although we will not be here on Friday, I want to assure the public that I know, I know that Mr. Blunt knows and every Member here knows that when they are not here, they are in their home, they are working on behalf of their constituents. So we will not be here on Friday as scheduled because the flow of work will not be ready for Friday that we can go through the regular order. As I have told the gentleman and his colleagues, we really do want to get to the regular order so that there are opportunities to consider bills in committees, report them through the Rules Committee, amend them on the floor and proceed as both sides, I think, would like.

Mr. HOYER. I don't want to prolong this, but I do want to say that the gentleman is correct in terms of, that is why I answered glibly and quickly. So I think the gentleman may be correct. I don't want to pledge that, but he may be correct because of the factors that he has pointed out. I would say, in closing, that I know there has been some, joviality is a kind word, about what Mr. Dreier mentioned in the schedule getting out at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. But I will say with all due respect to my friend, notwithstanding that joviality, we believe that the last 3 weeks in terms of what this House has done in terms of its ethical standards, in terms of dealing with the safety of Americans in the 9/11 bill, in terms of dealing with the minimum wage, energy, dealing with college costs, dealing with prescription drugs and dealing with stem cell research, dealing with passing a CR that has funding for work that sat on the tarmac, if you will, and never got off the ground to the President for approximately 14 months or 13 months. We believe that we have provided a schedule in which we have done very substantial work. We hope the American people are pleased with that, and we continue to try to do that.

Mr. HOYER. Yes.

Mr. HOYER. Let me retract that because I don't want to make a rule on that.

Mr. HOYER. I want to have Members be very clear. If we are able to do our work within the time frame of Thursday, it may well be a late Thursday. When I say late, 5, 6, 7 o'clock Thursday, as opposed to 1 or 2 o'clock. So I maybe answered too quickly on the Friday schedule. Because on Friday we very definitely will be trying to get out, as I have said, no later than 2 o'clock and as close to 1 as we can. That gives us 4 hours. As you know, we have agreed that we will go in at 9. So that gives us 4 hours of legislative time to work on Fridays. Committees, as I might tell my friend, you might be interested, the Government Operations Committee will be having hearings on Friday of next week, notwithstanding the fact that we are not here. So not only are they working at home, but there also will be people working here in Washington, notwithstanding the fact that we are not on the floor.

Mr. HOYER. I don't know that that refers to all the money. That probably would not be accurate. And if I go further than I have already gone, I may be incorrect, and I don't want to misinform either you or the body because I have not talked to either House Administration or to Mr. Obey about the specific allocation of these funds. Obviously, if the CR passes, they are appropriated to this fund for the CAO under the language that you read subject to the Appropriations Committee's approval. However, in terms of the select committee or committee, my expectation would be that that specific item, not necessarily other items, would be subject to the funding resolution out of House Administration and come to this body.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comments, but I want to say, first of all, when he talks about $463 billion, I read in the newspaper today where OMB was very pleased that we stayed within the caps imposed by the Republican-passed budget. We took the Republican-passed budget, we took those numbers, we stayed within those caps. That is exactly what you did, Mr. Lewis, when you were chairman of the committee because that was the direction from the Budget Committee. I am understanding that the White House even said that they were pleased with the fact that we stayed within the numbers when you talk about spending. Secondly, let me say that you and I both served on the Appropriations Committee for a long period of time. In recent years, of course, we have not passed all the appropriation bills in the calendar year, much less the fiscal year, and we would pass omnibus appropriation bills with hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars larger than this bill. One was passed January 31, the other was passed February 5. They were passed as conference reports with 1 hour of debate and no amendments, in which substantial legislative language had been added in conference and not vetted on this floor or in committee. I understand the gentleman's representations, but he and I have been here a long time and we have a long history of knowing what has transpired in the past. This is a process that was required by the failure of the last Congress to do its work. It has been done in a way that tries to get it done so that we can get on to do exactly what the gentleman wants for the 2008 bills, give them a full airing, full hearings. And I predict to my distinguished and very close friend, Mr. Lewis, we are going to have a lot more hearings as we did when we were in charge, we had more hearings than we have had. We are going to have oversight, and we are going to have careful scrutiny of the taxpayers' dollars. And I look forward to joining my friend in that process in the regular order. We are doing this so that we can get on to that process to do exactly what the gentleman suggests because it is the right thing to do. And I look forward to working with him on that process.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate Mr. Obey, who was the ranking member in the last Congress, and who worked with Mr. Lewis to try to pass our appropriation bills and, in fact, we passed all but one of the appropriation bills. Unfortunately, we reported the Labor Health bill, which is the largest bill, other than the Defense bill, in June, and it failed to ever get to the floor of this House because it included minimum wage, and that was not favored by the majority. Now that we are in the majority, we are left with unfinished business. The gentlelady from Virginia mentions cutting something. We haven't cut anything. As a matter of fact, we have added $1 billion. If you had passed your appropriation bills, you may have been able to fund at appropriate levels. But you did not pass your appropriation bills. Yet, we hear on the floor today constant complaining from the other side of the aisle that they don't like the way we fixed their failures. Well, very frankly, I think the American public will. First of all, the American public will be pleased that we are acting, that we are moving on this legislation, which is, essentially, the funding of 9 appropriation bills that failed to move through the House of Representatives and the Senate and to the President as they should have. Mr. Obey has worked very hard with Senator Byrd. I know Mr. Lewis' staff has been very engaged in this as well. I know the Senate staff has been engaged in it. And I am hopeful that this bill will not only pass this House with a very handy vote. There are many people in this House, on the Republican side of the aisle who asked to achieve exactly what Mr. Obey has achieved in this bill. He has taken care of the veterans. He has taken care of veterans health. He has taken care of, for the first time in 4 years, trying to get college students Pell Grants that will give them some additional help to fund their college costs. When we had that vote on the floor of this House, we had 124 Republicans join us in that vote. This is one additional step in trying to get college students a more affordable education. Mr. Obey has moved in a number of areas to make our investments more productive and a better return for the American people. And this bill will provide for getting last year's business done that was left undone, so that we can move on to have what Mr. Wamp wants, and I want, and Mr. Obey wants and Mr. Lewis wants. That is, full and open discussion of the bills in subcommittee, in the full committee and on this floor. I think that is what we will have. But ladies and gentlemen of this House, we need to complete last year's undone business. It wasn't our fault that it was not done. But whoever's fault it was, it is not useful to say that it is your fault or my fault or somebody else's fault. It is useful to say we need to move forward. We need to fund government services. We need to fund the priorities of the American people. That is what this continuing resolution does. I congratulate Mr. Obey, and I urge all of our colleagues to support this bill so we can finally, one-third of the way into the fiscal year, finally do what we should have done by September 30 of 2006.