Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comment, particularly in terms of the willingness to work in a bipartisan fashion.

As the majority leader knows, there is, on his side of the aisle and on our side of the aisle, a great concern that the 302 allocations to the Appropriations Committee are insufficient to meet their responsibilities. Mr. Rogers, as you know, your chairman of the Appropriations Committee, a Member of your side of the aisle from Kentucky, has characterized the sequestration numbers as unrealistic and ill-advised.

The Senate has not passed any appropriations bills, as the gentleman knows. It is my hope, and I would like to ask the majority leader whether he contemplates any bipartisan discussions with reference to how we might come to an agreement so that appropriations bills could, in fact, be enacted, sent to the President, and signed by the President.

The President, as you know, sent down a budget which was paid for, which had Defense numbers at the numbers that your side of the aisle used by utilizing Overseas Contingency Operation funds to bridge the gap between the sequester number and the President's number.

My question to you is: Is there any contemplation, either before we break or shortly after we come back--because October 1 will be on us very, very quickly--to have bipartisan discussions, a la Ryan-Murray, to get to a number that we can agree on and that we can pass appropriations bills, have conferences, and send them to the President and be signed, hopefully, before October 1, but if not before October 1, certainly before December 18?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.

The majority leader, Mr. Speaker, regularly brings up that sequester started in the White House. He knows I very severely disagree with that. And he voted for a Cut, Cap, and Balance Act which had in that bill--which no Democrat, I think, voted for--sequester. And it was passed 5 days before our Republican friends, Mr. Speaker, alleged that Mr. Lew suggested that to Mr. Reid as a way we could get by the House's refusal, up to that point in time, to extend the debt limit, which meant we couldn't pay our bills. But I don't think that is very useful in discussing how we get by this loggerhead that we have met on the appropriations process.

I served on the Appropriations Committee for 23 years before I became a leader, and we did pass bills--not always on time, but we had an ability, Republicans and Democrats working on the Appropriations Committee, working in the Congress, to get our bills done.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether you recall. I presume you will recall that when we got to a similar impasse, Mr. Ryan, the then-chairman of the Budget Committee, Ms. Murray, the then-chairwoman of the Budget Committee in the Senate, got together and came up with some figures that we could agree on on a bipartisan basis. Until that time, we had the same kind of scenario that we are now confronted with.

Mr. Speaker, it is my view that, unless we have such a meeting of the minds, we are going to put this country in another crisis of our own making.

We, Democrats, are prepared to enter into some sort of an agreement, consistent with Hal Rogers' belief, that we can get to a realistic and advised compromise, not this unrealistic and ill-advised--Mr. Rogers' words, Republican chair of the Appropriations Committee, not mine.

And if we don't do so, when we get to September 30, or we get to December 18, let's not wring our hands and say, How did this happen? We will know exactly how it happened, and it will have happened because we refused to sit down, as the majority leader just said a few minutes ago, in a bipartisan way to do the people's business in a responsible, collegial way in which we can get to an agreement so the bills can be passed.

I think this argument about who is responsible for sequestration--clearly, we have a different point of view--and a bill that passed before the suggestion was made by Jack Lew so we could get by the impasse and America pay its bills is really not very useful.

Mr. Leader, let me go to another subject. The gentleman moved, on two occasions, to refer to the House Administration Committee legislation which related to the use of the Confederate battle flag. Both of those issues are now pending in the House Administration Committee. One of them has been there for some 3 weeks now.

Can the gentleman tell me whether there is any suggested action by the committee, whether there have been any hearings scheduled, and whether or not we may see that legislation brought to the floor at any time in the foreseeable future?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the fact that we might be bringing something to the floor so that we can express the opinion of this House. As the house and senate in South Carolina expressed its opinion, it surely is appropriate for this House of Representatives, representing the values of our country, sworn to uphold our Constitution that stands for equality of all, that we can express ourselves and take appropriate action. I appreciate the gentleman's view.

I have great respect for Mr. Woodward. Mr. Woodward, shortly after that book came out, I called him. He came into my office. We had a discussion about that representation. I will tell the gentleman that I believe Mr. Woodward was incorrect. He did not have information I gave him. I don't mean that he necessarily says he is incorrect.

But there is no doubt, when you want to talk about history, you passed a bill 5 days before the suggestion was made by Jack Lew, which was, presumably, coming out of the White House, to Mr. Reid, the majority leader. Five days before that, you passed, on this floor, a bill which was called Cut, Cap, and Balance, which had sequester as your fallback policy.

So you are right. You can't change history. That is history. I have said that a number of times. The gentleman has not corrected me. I presume that, therefore, he believes that I am accurate in that representation of the timing.

But very frankly, that history is irrelevant. What is relevant, as the gentleman and I, I think, both agree, if we don't get to an agreement on a number that is as we did in Ryan-Murray--we have done this before. We have done this before. Now, my view is we did it because you didn't want to have your Members vote on legislation that had numbers that were draconian before the election, but that may be only my personal perspective.

But the fact of the matter is the American people expect us to get their work done. Getting their work done, at minimum, means funding the government at appropriate levels. And, again, I would say that Mr. Rogers does not believe the sequester--I agree with you. It is the law of the land. I think it is wrong. I think it is a bad law. It was not a law that was intended to go into effect. It went into effect simply because the supercommittee that was established in that same legislation couldn't come out with a solution.

In 13 months, the Congress couldn't come out with a solution, and, therefore, on January 1, 2014, we were confronted with these draconian, ill-conceived numbers, according to Mr. Rogers. Let's not be confronted with those numbers 60 days from now on October 1 where we are unable to do our business. So I would urge my friend, and I would be glad to work with him toward that end.

We just passed a bill, Mr. Leader, which I voted for. We passed it on a bipartisan basis--the majority of my Members voted for it; the majority of your Members voted for it--a highway bill. It was, however, I know on our side, and I know that in discussions with you, your feeling as well, that it is not what we ought to be doing.

What we ought to be doing is passing a long-term, at least 6-year reauthorization bill for the highway program so that Governors, mayors, county executives, local officials, contractors, and construction workers would all have some confidence that there would be a revenue stream to fix our roads, repair our bridges, and build roads where they are needed.

Can the gentleman tell me whether he believes that there is a plan to get to the--and I know he and I have discussed it--but a plan to get to, before the December 18 date that the present bill calls for, a long-term highway reauthorization?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I hope we do that.

In the short term, however, we have done another item which we have not reauthorized, and that is the Export-Import Bank.

Senator McConnell believes that that has the votes in the Senate, and he believes that the highway bill that we have just sent them is a vehicle to add that Export-Import Bank proposal to. And my presumption is it will be in that bill when it comes back to us.

Hopefully, it will come back within the next few days because, of course, the highway authorization ends at the end of this month, in which case there will be no authorization to spend money on the highway program.

Can the gentleman tell me whether or not, if that comes back, it will be on the floor? I have heard some discussion about the fact that the Speaker says it will be on the floor, but the Export-Import Bank would be open to amendment.

Would the gentleman tell me whether or not there are any plans along those lines.

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I understand that that is the gentleman's desire. I know he is opposed to the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization.

As you know, we passed it in a bipartisan fashion when the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor) was the majority leader, and the gentleman voted for it. He has changed his mind. Certainly many of us do that from time to time.

But my question to him is: If they don't do what the gentleman suggests--i.e., a clean highway bill--and they send it back, as, apparently, Leader McConnell thought that they would do, consistent with his representation to the Senator from Washington State and others--if they add the Ex-Im Bank to that bill and it comes back--I know the gentleman is reluctant to speculate. But we have a very, very short period of time left in this session before the August break.

Does the gentleman believe that, if it comes back and is in the highway bill, that we would make the Export-Import Bank portion of that bill at least open to amendment?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, the problem with the suggestion the majority leader makes is the Export-Import Bank will be out of business. If that happens, Speaker Boehner has said it is going to adversely affect jobs in America. It will adversely affect the ability of small, medium, and large businesses to sell our goods overseas by people working here in America.

The Export-Import Bank is about jobs, and to simply let it twist in the wind and let it be unauthorized simply because of inattention, when it has the majority of votes on this floor? Mr. Speaker, I have said that over and over again and have not been contradicted.

There are 60 Republicans who have sponsored the Export-Import Bank's reauthorization. There are 188 Democrats--or at least 185 Democrats who will vote for it. That is 249 votes. All you need is 218. There is no doubt that the Export-Import Bank has the votes to pass this House and the Senate, and, yet, we fiddle while jobs are being burned.

Mr. Speaker, that is not good policy for our country. It is not good policy for our workers. It is not good policy for our businesses, for our exporters. It makes us uncompetitive with the rest of the world. Sixty countries have a similar facility. I know in a perfect world perhaps that wouldn't exist. But 60 of our competitors around the world have such a facility that make their goods cheaper than we will be making ours.

That is not good sense. It is not good policy. It is not the expectation, I think, of the American people. And it is not the will of this House.

I regret that we have not addressed this already. But I certainly hope when the Senate--as I expect them to do--adds it to the House highway bill--and I am not sure whether it will be our bill or their bill or our bill amended--we may have to go to conference or we may have to get to an agreement.

But one way or the other, we ought to adopt the will of this House and reauthorize the Export-Import Bank so that we will protect jobs.

It was Speaker Boehner who said that it was shortly after we took the action we took on June 30 and allowed the Export-Import Bank to expire that we would lose jobs. In fact, that is happening. So I would hope that that would not be the case.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the majority leader this: I get a lot of rumors on my side. I know you get a lot of rumors on your side. And I sort of smile at them and I say, ``I think not.''

But I have had 20 Members today ask me, Mr. Speaker, are we not going to be here the last week of July that is presently scheduled. And I would like to clear that up.

I yield to my friend for a definitive answer on the schedule for--this is a scheduling question, by the way, as to whether or not, in fact, we are going to be here the last week of July.

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