Legislative Program

Floor Speech

LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM -- (House of Representatives - May 07, 2009)

(Mr. CANTOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland, the majority leader, for the purpose of announcing next week's schedule.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

On Monday, the House will meet in pro forma session at 2 p.m. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30. 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. A complete list of those bills will be provided by the end of business tomorrow.

In addition, we will consider H.R. 2187, the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public Schools Facilities Act; H.R. 2101, the Weapons Acquisition Systems Reform Through Enhancing Technical Knowledge and Oversight Act; and the fiscal 2009 war supplemental appropriations bill.

Mr. CANTOR. I would ask the gentleman what days he would think that the measures he discussed would come to the floor next week.

Mr. HOYER. I think that the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public Schools Facility Act will probably be on the floor on Wednesday. The weapons acquisition system and supplemental, I would expect the supplemental on Thursday or Friday, depending upon how our business proceeds.

Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman has discussed next week's schedule, I would like to ask the gentleman if he could give the House and the public a sense of what to expect for the following week as well.

Mr. HOYER. Well, we have a number of pieces of legislation. We have done a lot over this work period. We did the National Water Research Development and Initiative Act, credit card legislation, hate crimes, budget conference report, Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act, which we passed, and the Fight Fraud Act, which we passed yesterday, and we did the predatory lending.

In addition to the items that I already mentioned for next week, we will be keeping, obviously, in touch with the Senate as to what they are passing. We get a number of these items at conference before we have a break on Memorial Day. We hope that will happen as well.

But we have a number of items that will be pending.

I hope to be able to move the D.C. vote bill, we are working on that, before the Memorial Day break, and we will see what the committees are able to report out in the coming week that we can put on the floor the last week.

Mr. CANTOR. I would ask the gentleman to follow up on the prospect of a vote on the D.C. bill and ask whether he could assure the Members on, frankly, both sides of the aisle who are concerned about the Second Amendment, whether there will be the necessary protections for the Second Amendment rights in that measure.

Mr. HOYER. I think all of us are concerned about the Second Amendment. I hope all of us are also concerned about 600,000 citizens in the United States of America who have a Representative in this House who can't vote. Unfortunately, too many people, in my view, voted against that bill.

So what we have now done is undermine the home rule rights of the District of Columbia, as well as preventing them from voting on this floor. I think that is very unfortunate.

As the gentleman is well aware, there are, obviously, significant differences on the amendment that was offered in the Senate. We are going to be considering how we can try to get this bill through. Because the reality is, neither position might enjoy a majority in the final analysis, either in the Senate or perhaps here.

So I am trying to figure out how we can give 600,000 of our citizens--an awful lot of us get up on this floor and we talked about how important it is, in the 1980s, behind the Iron Curtain, to get people free. We talk about, in Cuba, how it's important to get people free. We talk about how it's important, in some Middle East states, to give people a vote.

But here, in the Nation's capital, the center of freedom and democracy, we do not have a representative. Unlike any other capital of any other democratic nation in the world, their representative cannot vote in this parliament.

I think that's a tragedy. I think it's a diminishment of our democracy. And I will tell the gentleman that I would hope that this House would rise up as one voice saying this is not right, and we will pass the D.C. voting rights. We can deal with other issues that are very important, but it certainly seems to me that we ought to deal with that issue directly.

Unfortunately, as you know, when Mr. Davis introduced that bill, a majority of your party, an overwhelming majority of your party, Mr. Davis being of your party, a leader in your party, did not support that bill.

There is no doubt that the amendment that was added in the Senate complicates its consideration here, which is why it hasn't come to the floor a long time ago. But we are trying to figure it out.

Mr. CANTOR. My question was not to get into the substance of the D.C. bill, but just to make sure that those of us who are ardent supporters of the Second Amendment rights would see that actually the citizens of the District of Columbia could enjoy those rights as well.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman about the omission of the cap-and-trade bill in his discussion for the schedule for the next several weeks. The reports have indicated that Chairman Waxman has now committed to bringing that bill that has been debated, at least, in subcommittee, forward, or at least beyond that subcommittee, to the full committee instead of the discussion in the subcommittee.

It has given some of our Members some cause for alarm because, you know, this is a significant shift in policy. Some of us are very opposed to what this bill would do and have the consequences in mind of what this bill would do.

If we look, Mr. Speaker, at Members on our side of the aisle who are on that subcommittee who would like to have a say in the crafting of any legislation, especially in the area of energy, somebody like John Shimkus who has a district that is very rich with coal, very, very concerning to him in terms of the economy and jobs. People like, on your side of the aisle, the gentleman from Louisiana, Charlie Melancon on that subcommittee, very interested in industry; Baron Hill of Indiana, who also has big concerns on the coal issue; Rick Boucher, from my own State of Virginia. Southwest Virginia is abundant with coal and natural resources. It would devastate that region if such a bill were to go forward.

All of these Members, Mr. Speaker, do have a desire, I am sure, to be a part of the debate.

I would ask, is it the leader's intention that this is a good move? He is the leader. And his chairmen, one of them has decided to move the bill beyond the subcommittee. Is that something he supports?

And then is it the intention, I would ask of the leader, to bring the bill directly to the floor once, I assume, it passes the full committee?

Mr. HOYER. First of all, I want to say to the gentleman, the reason it's not on the calendar for the next 2 weeks, it was never intended to be on the calendar over the next 2 weeks. The intention, as I have articulated all along, and the chairman's intention, was to have a target of marking up the bill in committee prior to the Memorial Day break. So there was never any intention that a bill would be on the floor prior to the Memorial Day break.

Secondly, I would tell the gentleman, I don't know that the chairman has made a decision on whether to mark it up in subcommittee or mark it up in full committee.

I do know that it's going to be marked up in committee and open to an amendment in committee, open to debate and open to a vote. Now, whether it's in subcommittee or full committee, that determination, as I understand it, has not been made. But it will be, certainly, marked up in committee and subject to full debate.

Mr. CANTOR. Returning to next week's agenda, Mr. Speaker, for a moment, he mentions that the war supplemental will be coming to the floor, and it provides us with a chance, I know he agrees, to accomplish one of the most important things that we have to do here as a Member of Congress, which is to provide for the national defense of our country.

And as the gentleman knows, many of us, most of us, if not all Republicans, stand with this President in support of his strategy in Afghanistan and the general region, and Pakistan, Iraq, and we stand with the President in his support of our troops there.

I know that there have been, Mr. Speaker, some agreements on the gentleman's side of the aisle as far as the issues having to do with timetables, the issues of having to do with cutting off funding, of transfer of detainees from the Guantanamo Bay detention center facility.

So I assume, and maybe it's an improper assumption, Mr. Speaker, and I would ask the gentleman if he could comment, if he believes that he will need the help and bipartisan support to pass this bill that we are interested on this side in helping pass for our troops, is it his intention that we will have an opportunity to address some of these concerns on the floor, specifically if he could tell us whether an amendment such as that proposed by Mr. Tiahrt from Kansas and the Appropriations Committee banning any further appropriations being allowed in the area of transferring detainees from the Guantanamo Bay facility?

Mr. HOYER. The markup was just concluded. I have not reviewed the Tiahrt amendment, nor have I had discussions with the chairman regarding the rule and what amendments would be asked for or what amendments would be made in order.

Very frankly, I will tell my friend, it's not the majority that needs your help in passing this bill; our troops need your help in passing this bill, our country needs your help. And I appreciate your comments that you support the President in his efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

We are confronted with an extraordinarily difficult situation, destabilizing situation, dangerous situation, and this supplemental obviously is directed at making sure that our troops have the resources they need to pursue the objectives that we and the President have given to them. We look forward to having that bill passed with bipartisan support.

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