Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.

I know he has this expectation also, but I hope that we would pass the appropriations bills individually in the manner that we have considered the previous bills on this floor.

I note that the Labor-Health bill has not been marked up in subcommittee, and I would simply ask him, in light of the fact that has not moved through subcommittee yet, if that would be one of the bills that he would anticipate bringing to the floor before September 30.

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.

That, of course, from our perspective--and I am sure his--is a very, very important piece of legislation.

The highway bill that is coming to the floor, we know that that is critically important. It passed out of committee I think on a voice vote, although, as the gentleman knows, there was substantial disagreement on the length, the term of that. We are disappointed that we haven't either done a short-term or a long-term bill, giving confidence to contractors and jurisdictions around the country. We find ourselves in a situation now where more than 100,000 transportation projects could be delayed.

We look forward to working to not only move this process forward in the short term, but we would like to urge, notwithstanding the fact it appears it is going to be a longer term--until May of next year--that we continue to focus on a long-term, confidence-building, economy-growing effort at a longer term reauthorization of the highway program.
The gentleman doesn't need to comment on that. I just wanted to make that comment to him, unless he wanted to say something on that.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.

We passed, as the gentleman knows, the tax credit for investment in equipment, or the depreciation allowance. We passed that today. That was a $287 billion cost.

I would call to the gentleman's attention, as I have with Mr. Cantor, that we are still concerned on this side of the aisle--and I know the gentleman knows this--that the unemployment insurance bill that lapsed in December of 2013 has still not been funded. There are some 3 million people who have fallen off that.

As part of your new responsibilities, you will be focused on scheduling legislation, and I would urge the majority leader to consider very seriously bringing that unemployment bill to the floor for a vote.

We believe that it does have the votes on this House floor. That is 3 million--and it is growing by thousands per month--who have run out of unemployment insurance, which is slowing our economy, but it is also, from their perspective, giving them no support to support themselves and to help support their families.

So I would urge the gentleman to look again at the unemployment insurance status originally proposed to be done retroactively. Even if we look prospectively, we would hope the majority leader would look at moving forward on the House floor.

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I appreciate you not only keeping us posted, but focusing on that to see whether we might do that.

The gentleman has announced that TRIA is going to be under consideration. We believe this is a very important piece of legislation. However, it passed out of committee on a party-line vote, as the gentleman knows, and there are still concerns that need to be addressed. I would hope that we could work on those before it comes to the floor.

Does the gentleman know whether that will come under a rule and whether or not that rule will provide for an open amendatory process?

I yield to my friend.

Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank you for yielding and for bringing up this issue.

As I mentioned the schedule announcement for next week, Members should be prepared for possible consideration of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. Once the timing is finalized, the Rules Committee will announce a hearing on the measure to determine the process by which the bill will be brought before the floor.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.

As the gentleman knows, we only have 12 days remaining of legislative days that we will be in session before the August break and only 22 days before the end of the scheduled session prior to the election. The scheduled date is October 2 for us to adjourn.

We believe this legislation is critical--again, for the economy and for confidence in the marketplace--to be passed. And so we would hope that to facilitate that we could pass it through this body in a bipartisan way, which would make it easier for the Senate to facilitate passage and to get that bill to the President because we think it is very important.

So I look forward to working with the gentleman to see whether or not we might overcome the partisan vote that came out and replace that with a bipartisan vote and make some accommodations on both sides to accomplish that objective. I appreciate his being willing to work on that.

Next to last, the Export-Import Bank. I know there is work being done on the Export-Import Bank. I know the gentleman indicated that he thought that this was not ready, at least for passage, but we know that this expires at the end of the year. We are very concerned about the adverse impact it will have.

Will the gentleman give me any information on where he thinks the consideration of that bill may be at this point in time.

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Mr. HOYER. Again, I do understand that it is not coming up next week, but the reason I mention time is we have so few legislative days left, that we are going to need to plan to address some of these issues that, I think, are going to be very important to our economic growth.

I know the gentleman is very concerned about that. We are very concerned about it on our side, and his Members are very concerned about that. We believe that the Export-Import Bank is an economic growth and an economic confidence-building measure, and we would hope we could address that.

There are also, as the gentleman knows, 41 House Republicans who have signed a letter urging that that be passed and indicating their support of it. We believe every Democrat on this side will vote for that. That is almost 200 people, and with the 41, it clearly makes a majority of this House.

We think it could be passed on this floor, and we think it would have a very positive effect on the economy, so we would urge the gentleman to consider very carefully with his colleagues whether or not we could move forward on that.

Lastly, I would say to the gentleman that we are very concerned about the children who are coming to the border. We are concerned about the process of making sure that this humanitarian crisis is dealt with in a constructive, positive way for the children, but also in a way that gives clear notice that America cannot have borders which are simply open, but must be able to authorize people to come into this country and not have them come in, in an unauthorized fashion.

In that respect, I don't know whether the gentleman had an opportunity to see The Wall Street Journal editorial today, but they made it very clear that one of the problems is that, because the system is broken and because we have not passed comprehensive immigration reform--and the gentleman, of course, based upon where he lives, obviously will probably be one of our more knowledgeable Members on this issue--that people cannot come across the border and then return in a fashion which will provide for work here by them and also for their not only coming here, but then leaving without an expectation they will ever be able to visit or work again--either family members or for the purposes of work.

We continue to believe that the passage of comprehensive immigration reform would be a solution and ameliorate the present crisis that we see at our borders, and we continue to hope that comprehensive immigration reform will also be an item on the agenda.

Although we have 22 days left between now and our October 2 projected adjournment, the expectation, I think, of all of ours is that we will come back in a postelection session--a so-called lame duck session. Either before that, in the next 22 days or in the session after the election, we believe it is critically important to address the immigration issue.

The gentleman and I have had some opportunity to discuss this over the
last number of months, and I know he is very knowledgeable about this issue and sensitive to this issue, and I would hope that we could work together to see whether or not we could put a bipartisan bill on the floor sooner, rather than later.
I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that response, and I would hope that the supplemental--because it deals with a humanitarian crisis--would not be a partisan issue. We obviously need to deal with the immediate problem.

I was talking, of course, about the longer-term problem, but I appreciate the gentleman's observation with reference to the supplemental. I am a supporter of that supplemental.

Obviously, the Appropriations Committee needs to review it with respect to the proper levels of funding, but there is no doubt that we, right now, have inadequate resources to deal with the humanitarian crisis that confronts us immediately, and those funds are necessary.

I am pleased that the gentleman brought it up, and I look forward to working with him on it.

Unless the gentleman wants to make further comment, I yield back the balance of my time.

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