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“LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H489-H491 on Jan. 12, 2007.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM
(Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, for a discussion of next week's schedule.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
On Monday, Mr. Speaker, the House will not be in session so that Members can join with their communities in observance of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour debate and at 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. You will be getting notice of those, hopefully, by the end of the day. We will consider several bills under suspension. There will be no votes before 6:30 p.m., as has been our practice.
On Wednesday and the balance of the week, the House will meet at 10 a.m., although let me say to my friend that I may well be requesting again, as I did for today, unanimous consent that we meet at 9 on Friday. It has historically been the practice to wait until about May, the middle of May, when we get into heavy legislative business, to meet at 10 on Fridays if we were in on Fridays. My view is, however, and I want to say to all the Members, that it will be my intent to make every effort possible to have us adjourn on Fridays prior to or no later than 2 p.m. in consideration of Members' need to get back to their districts where they have events that are going on where they need to be. I want to tell my friend that we will, therefore, quite possibly ask for unanimous consent to come in at 9 rather than 10 next Friday.
In addition to other Suspension Calendar business, and all suspension bills, as I said, will be announced later today, the House will consider H.R. 5, a bill to cut in half the interest rates on student loans; and H.R. 6, a renewable energy bill.
In addition to that, I want to give notice to the House, and I have discussed this with Mr. Blunt and have discussed it with the leader, Mr. Boehner, that Nancy Boyda of Kansas is introducing a bill which will provide that Members who commit felonies while Members of Congress and in the course of their duties will be precluded from receiving pensions.
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If they are receiving pensions, they will have those pensions discontinued.
That is obviously legislation which I think is appropriate. We have passed similar legislation that the majority proposed in the past. I believe this will pass with bipartisan support.
Mr. Boehner and I and Mr. Blunt all agree we need to look at this carefully, even though it has already passed, and so we have talked to Ms. Slaughter from the Rules Committee, and we will speak to Mr. Dreier and give him notice. I have not personally spoken with Mr. Dreier. But they will be considering this legislation on Wednesday, and we expect to have this bill on the floor next Friday.
In addition, it is quite possible again the House Administration Committee, and I am perhaps anticipating Mr. Blunt's question, has jurisdiction over the Page Board, we will also have, we hope, on the floor on Friday legislation that will deal with the Page Board, oversight of the page system, and the various procedures we can put in place to make sure that our pages are protected and treated with the respect and care that they deserve and that their parents expect.
I tell my friend, that is the anticipated schedule for next week. As I said, we will make every effort and it will be my very strong commitment to the Members that every effort will be made to adjourn on Friday no later than 2 p.m.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for the information he has provided. It does raise a number of questions, and I will try to keep them in mind as you answer them a few at a time.
One, I think it is only fair to say that while we did discuss these two issues, the last two bills you mentioned, it was only in moments before the colloquy, and I think our leader only received notice these things were coming up within a few minutes of coming to the floor.
So more notice, as the former minority whip would know, more notice is always a good thing. Particularly, my good friend, on these issues, issues that affect Members and their families, notice, appropriate hearings, and we did pass similar legislation on the issue of the access to pensions for people who had committed a felony, we passed that in the last session. It did go to committee. It had a chance to be amended. We debated it on the floor, but this is a new Congress with many Members who were not part of that process.
In the case of the last Congress, I believe that issue went to both House Administration and the Rules Committee and possibly the Committee on Government Reform before it came to the floor. I think you are telling me next week you anticipate only the Rules Committee would see and have a chance to look at this legislation before the floor, and even the Rules Committee ranking Republican is getting that notice as we are talking right now, that that important issue is coming up next week?
Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield, it is an important issue; you are correct. I believe a number of committees have already considered this legislation carefully. The issue is not new. What we want to ensure, Mr. Whip, is that the legislation is properly drawn and drafted because obviously it is an important piece of legislation with serious consequences, and we want to make sure that it is done properly.
The Rules Committee, in answer to your second question, we do believe that the Rules Committee can consider this and will consider the work that has been done by other committees because again this subject matter is something we have already considered. We believe it is important to move this matter early in the session so the public has confidence that there are consequences. There are not only consequences in terms of criminal convictions which we have seen, but also consequences in terms of the pensions that are earned during the performance of your duties, and that the American taxpayer is not happy with pensions being paid to those who have abused their oath of office and their responsibilities to the American public.
But the gentleman is correct, we have just given notice; but we do have Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday we will consider that, and then you will have another 48 hours or thereabouts before it comes to the floor.
I am hopeful that we will work together on this. I think we share the view that this is not a partisan issue. This is an issue about making sure that Members comport themselves properly; and if they do not, that there are consequences. And I think then we can assure the taxpayer that they will not be subsidizing, through pensions, wrongdoers who fail to meet their duties under the Constitution.
Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that information. I share your sense this is an important issue. We dealt with it on our side of the building in what I expect will be a highly similar way in the last Congress. I say that not to defend the idea that it is not going through committees this time but to suggest it is not a new idea. It is something that we have dealt with. I expect there to be a significantly bipartisan debate here, depending on what the legislation says.
I would say, however, to my friend that while we haven't been really passive about these first six bills that haven't had a chance to have amendments, haven't had a chance to have debate in committee, they were six things, some of which we had dealt with, but the six things that the majority talked about in the last election, and at some point the suggesting that this is such an important issue that we need to move forward without the regular progress begins to wear pretty thin on our side of the building and I think on the public generally. I would hope that we don't have many more of those instances.
Apparently the House Administration Committee will not have a chance in this Congress to look at the intricacies of the pension issue.
I know this week we brought a bill to the floor dealing with minimum wage and then find out that while this is supposed to be an expansive minimum wage proposal that includes everybody, whether they were ever included before or not, that American Samoa is somehow left out. I have a feeling that if that would have gone to committee, there is a great chance that would have been pointed out. I don't know if the majority intends to go back and put American Samoa in the minimum wage package or not.
My friend who has been here longer than I have loves this institution and knows better than anybody the benefit of regular order. I hope we are nearing the end of us being asked to accept the fact that we can't do regular order on this issue for some extraordinary reason. Both the Page Board issue and any misconduct by Members are critically important issues, but so is the opportunity for every Member of the 110th Congress to be involved at their committee level and every other level.
I might ask about that American Samoa question. Do we expect to see that oversight taken care of in upcoming legislation?
Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman would yield, let me say with respect to the specific question on American Samoa, as the gentleman undoubtedly knows, the minimum wage in American Samoa, unlike the Marianas or Guam, is set by the Department of Labor and Industry Committee so that it is determined in a different way than the others, including our States.
So it was not an oversight to that extent; it has historically been not treated. Having said that, I can tell the gentleman, I have talked to Mr. Miller, the chairman of the committee that dealt with the minimum wage bill, and he is going to look at that to make sure that American Samoa is consistent with, and that does not mean exactly the same wage scale, but consistent with our concerns that were incorporated in the minimum wage bill, which received, as you know, 82 votes on your side and all of the votes on our side; a very bipartisan bill.
But American Samoa has been treated in a way different in the past. So it was not an oversight. But the question has been raised by people on your side and our side, and so Mr. Miller and the people on his committee will be looking at that. So the answer to your question is, yes.
Mr. BLUNT. Reclaiming my time, I just make the point that if the committees had looked at this in advance, that oversight might have been eliminated. There is a reason for the committee process, which leads to my other question which is, what time does the majority believe that we will be organizing the committees in a way that the work of the committees of the Congress can get started?
Mr. HOYER. Many of the committees are already organized, as the gentleman probably knows. I don't have a list which committees have completed their organizational structuring, but many have and are ready to do their business.
I am confident that all committees will be organized, and they may not have every member because there are still some Members that have not been finally assigned to committees, but by the middle of next week, we are confident that all committees will be organized to do business.
I would like to comment on the second part of your question. I want you to know that although we believe that the two bills that I have discussed that may well be on the floor on Friday, I want Members to have notice of that, are dealing with ethics and the safety of our pages, both issues are of substantial concern, and I would suggest immediacy. While they will be considered, I want you to know on both sides of the aisle, there is a desire for and a commitment to regular order. The points the gentleman makes with respect to considered judgment being given are well taken, and I agree with him, and we hope to proceed in that manner.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that commitment to begin to move forward as quickly as possible. I look forward to the time when there is actually legislation on the floor that has gone through a committee and had a chance to be amended and discussed before it got here.
I believe fewer than a handful of committees are actually organized at this point. None of the committees that had work on the floor this week have yet been organized to the point they have had a meeting. I would like to point that out.
The other thing, in waiving points of order, another issue of the regular order of the House, on every bill that came to the floor this week, the majority waived points of order on anything that was in the bill but maintained points of order on the one chance we had to say anything at all about the bill in an official way which was the motion to recommit.
Again, I hope we are getting to the point where the things that the majority has talked so much about, and PAYGO would be an example of that, won't continue to be waived in every rule waiving points of order on the bills that do come to the floor.
I yield to my friend to respond.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comment.
Let me say that none of the bills that we adopted this week violated the PAYGO rule, as I think the gentleman is aware. The 9/11 bill was an authorization subject to appropriation. Those programs will be paid for within the budget, we believe. We are committed to doing that.
The student loan bill will comply with the PAYGO rule. And the energy bill will raise revenues. That clearly complies with the PAYGO rule.
But the gentleman's point that they did not go to committee is accurate. When we adopted the rule, that was debated fully. The rule was adopted. We had a commitment as you know on our side to do those. We had a commitment to do those in the first 100 hours. That is what we are doing. We believe that they are overwhelmingly supported by the American public, and we are very pleased there was substantial bipartisan support for these bills as well.
Mr. BLUNT. I would say on the significant portions of those bills that we voted on in the last Congress and passed, virtually every Member of the majority then, the minority now, voted for 39 of the 41 9/11 provisions. We voted for increasing the minimum wage, though we thought with a more helpful balance, and we hope to continue to work for that balance so that the wage producer is not affected, the job creator, doesn't stop creating these important entry level jobs into the workforce.
I would also say, on the PAYGO issue, I believe in the 9/11 bill and perhaps in the other bills, but in the 9/11 bill, I think the authorization was more often than not such sums as necessary. I don't know how that doesn't trigger some thought about cost in the future. I do know we were told it would be at least 3 weeks before we could get a score on what the bill would cost. So whether it violated a PAYGO provision or not, we are 2 weeks and 5 days from knowing the answer to that question.
But I am expressing some of my concerns as we move forward. I do sympathize with the leader's job of having a schedule that works for Members, not only their events at home but their families at home.
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As the year progresses, I suspect the challenge of that will progress.
I yield to the gentleman to make a response.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me one additional time.
I am constrained to say with all the charity in my heart that, of course, you didn't violate the PAYGO rule, you eliminated the PAYGO rule. So it was not an issue on your side.
We have reinstated the PAYGO rule, which was adopted, as the gentleman knows, in a bipartisan way, and supported again in 1997, overwhelmingly adopted by the bipartisan Republicans and Democrats in this House and in the Senate. We hope that the PAYGO rule will lead us back from the abyss of what we believe to be a fiscally dire situation to a point that we were in 2001, where we had the President of the United States, President Bush, projecting a $5.6 trillion surplus. We are now, for various reasons, in part because we did not comply with and didn't have a PAYGO rule, confronted by a deficit in excess of $3 trillion.
So I say to my friend, I share his view that we need to comply with the PAYGO rule. We adopted a PAYGO rule, we intend to comply with it, and we intend to move towards restoring the fiscal discipline that we had. I think, working together, we can do that.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for the information he has provided. I would just again say this is not the place, I suppose, to have the debate on PAYGO for taxes or the PAYGO for spending or all the PAYGOs, but you do have the PAYGO rule.
Maybe I was inarticulate suggesting not to debate the merits of the rule, but if you are going to have the rule, my view is you should apply the rule. Waiving the points of order on that rule as a routine of rules for the last week hopefully does not become any kind of routine item in this Congress. I am sure that is not the gentleman's intention; particularly, though, when the rules are waived, the points of order are waived for the majority, but on the one small attempt that the minority has to improve a piece of legislation, we have every point of order still against us. The balance of that seems even more out of balance.
If you want to have PAYGO that is in our rules now, we need to have PAYGO, we need to have enough time to know what we are paying for, so we can really have that debate on the floor.
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