H368 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE January 15, 2009 

LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM 

(Mr. CANTOR asked and was given 

permission to address the House for 1 

minute.) 

Mr. CANTOR. Madam Speaker, I 

yield to the gentleman from Maryland, 

the majority leader, for the purpose of 

announcing next week’s schedule. 

Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend, the 

Republican whip, for yielding. 

On Monday, the House is not in session. Monday is the Federal holiday to 

celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. I might observe, as I am 

sure all the Members know, that today 

is in fact Martin Luther King’s birthday, January 15. Extraordinary life. 

His bust is in the Rotunda. It is a real 

honor to be able to honor his birth and 

his message and his vision on Monday. 

This is a particularly auspicious recognition of the life of Martin Luther 

King, Jr. How proud he would be to 

know that the day after we recognize 

his birth and his message and his contribution to our country, we will inaugurate the 44th President of the United 

States of America, an African American; a statement that the dream, although not clearly still fully recognized, nevertheless is a dream shared 

by all of America. 

On Wednesday, Madam Speaker, the 

House will meet at 12 p.m. for legislative business with votes no earlier than 

3 p.m. Let me reiterate that. We will be 

meeting on Wednesday at 12 p.m., with 

votes not expected before 3 p.m. Obviously, with the inaugural day, we don’t 

want to have people have to come in 

too early, not necessarily because of 

anything they may be doing the night 

before, but because of scheduling they 

may or may not be here the night before. 

On Thursday, the House will meet at 

10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, no votes are expected. 

We will consider several bills under 

suspension of the rules. A complete list 

of suspension bills will be announced 

by the close of business tomorrow. 

In addition, Madam Speaker, we will 

complete consideration of H.R. 384, the 

bill we were just considering, the 

TARP Reform and Accountability Act, 

we expect to complete. We also expect 

to consider a privileged resolution relating to the disapproval of the obligations under the Emergency Economic 

Stabilization Act of 2008. 

Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman, 

Madam Speaker. 

And I would like to bring the gentleman back to a conversation that we 

had last week regarding the SCHIP 

bill. Because, frankly, Madam Speaker, 

I’m a little bit concerned that the 

Democrat majority is not fulfilling 

President-elect Obama’s calls for bipartisanship. Because I would say to the 

gentleman, last week you told the 

House that you were working towards 

having the SCHIP bill available to us 

for a full 48 hours before bringing it to 

the floor; and as the gentleman knows, 

that did not happen. 

And I know the American people are 

not concerned about the process here 

in this House, but I do know that the 

public wants their Congress to function 

openly. This truly is about bipartisanship and transparency, and I believe 

that the American people deserve both. 

And as we discussed, Madam Speaker, last week, there are 55 new Members of this House. Those 55 new Members had less than 24 hours to review a 

285-page bill that spent $72 billion in 

American taxpayer dollars, and none of 

these Members were even allowed to 

offer an amendment. 

So I would like to ask the majority 

leader if he would commit to allowing 

at least 48 hours for Members and the 

American public to review bills prior 

to a vote in the House. 

Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will 

yield? 

Mr. CANTOR. I yield. 

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman 

for yielding and I appreciate his observation. 

I did say we were going to try to give 

48 hours. I may have said we were 

going to give 48 hours, but we did not 

give 48 hours, the gentleman is correct. 

The gentleman probably knows the 

reason we didn’t give 48 hours is because we hadn’t gotten a CBO scoring, 

so we were unable to finalize the bill 

until we got that scoring. We did give 

approximately 24 hours. 

But I say to the gentleman, with all 

due respect, yes, it was a lengthy bill, 

but of course the bill had been passed 

almost in exactly the same form either 

in the CHAMP bill or in the SCHIP bill 

itself, so that clearly the overwhelming 

majority of the text of the bill and the 

provisions of the bill have been available essentially for over a year. 

But having said that, I want you to 

know and I want to reiterate my intention to give the maximum amount of 

notice; 48 hours I think is clearly a target that we want to set. I don’t want to 

make a commitment that we will not 

bring a bill without 48 hours notice. 

The gentleman, if you would confer 

with your predecessor—his predecessors, I would say—sometimes it’s 

very difficult to do that. 

But the gentleman is absolutely correct, not only new Members, but all 

Members are certainly entitled to have 

the respect for their view and their opportunity to represent their constituents, to have appropriate notice, and 

we will certainly strive for that. I’ve 

reiterated to the committee Chairs and 

to our leadership that I want to follow 

regular order to the extent possible. 

And when I say the extent possible, 

we’re in extraordinary times. This did 

not necessarily relate to the SCHIP 

bill, other than we had clearly considered that twice, had it voted upon numerous times in this House, and the 

overwhelming majority, I don’t know 

the percentage, but I would say 95 percent of the bill was exactly as we had 

passed it in either the CHAMP bill or 

the SCHIP bill. But I am aware of the 

gentleman’s concerns, and I want to 

tell him I share his concerns, and we 

will be working toward the end that he 

seeks to achieve. 

Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman 

for that. 

Madam Speaker, I would also ask the 

gentleman if he would commit to allowing both Republicans and Democrats the ability to offer amendments 

on a regular basis, especially as, in this 

instance, when a bill comes to the floor 

without committee consideration. 

Mr. HOYER. I understand the gentleman’s concern. As you know, we are 

now considering a bill which has both 

Republican and Democratic amendments, very important bill, conditions 

for accountability and transparency 

and dealing with mortgage failures in 

the present bill that’s on the floor. And 

certainly that will be my objective. 

b 1415 

Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. 

Madam Speaker, I would like to further inquire of the gentleman, along 

those lines, I know that we now are 

looking at next week, as you suggest, 

beginning the legislative process on the 

consideration of a stimulus bill. And I 

would note that two of the gentleman’s 

chairmen, the gentleman from New 

York (Mr. RANGEL) and Mr. OBEY from 

the Appropriations Committee, have 

released summaries of the House 

Democratic economic recovery package. However, both gentlemen have not 

publicly released legislative texts. And 

I would say to the gentleman it is one 

thing for us to have a summary of the 

bill; it is another when we are contemplating spending $825 billion of the taxpayers’ money as to when the text of a 

reported stimulus bill could be made 

publicly available. 

Mr. HOYER. I would hope and expect 

the text to be available by the end of 

business tomorrow. I’m very hopeful 

that that will be the case. 

Again, you understand the practical 

problems as they are now drafting all 

of the agreement. But we want it available, and hopefully the text will be 

available by the end of the week. 

Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. 

Madam Speaker, I further say that 

the Appropriations Committee on the 

Republican side of the aisle are extremely concerned, and they should be, 

that they will not be given the customary 3 days to review the text prior 

to any markup, and this is, after all, 

the committee rule. Our members are 

being told that today, Friday, and next 

Tuesday will count as the 3 days required under the committee rules; however, as we all know, on Tuesday almost no one will be allowed in the 

building due to the inauguration. 

So, Madam Speaker, I ask the gentleman from Maryland, the majority 

leader, in his capacity as the leader 

and a former appropriator, can he ensure us and ensure the members of the 

Appropriations Committee that their 

markup will not begin before next 

Thursday? 

Mr. HOYER. I cannot give the gentleman that assurance given the time 

frame that Mr. OBEY is on. Obviously, 

as you know, the President and I think 


rfrederick on PROD1PC67 with HOUSE
January 15, 2009 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H369 

in a bipartisan way this administration, without reference to the specific 

stimulus package or recovery and reinvestment package that we’re talking 

about, believes that we need to act 

with dispatch. We need to act carefully. We need to act correctly. But we 

also need to act with dispatch. 

I have just been told, by the way, 

that the text of the bill is online as we 

speak. So what I was going to say is 

that we need to act with dispatch, and 

as you can see, we’re apparently doing 

that. 

We have a crisis that confronts us. 

We have lost over 2.5 million jobs. We 

lost a million jobs in the last 2 months. 

People are hurting. We have and I 

know of you have a sense of urgency. 

We have worked with this administration to try to respond to the economic 

crisis that confronts us. Very frankly, 

Democrats worked in a very bipartisan 

way and a very supportive way with 

this President and the Secretary of 

Treasury in trying to respond to this 

crisis. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that Democrats were more responsive to the President’s request and Secretary Paulson’s request than some 

Members of his own party. 

But that aside, we believe we need to 

act, as I said, with dispatch. We are 

doing that. I’m glad that this is online 

because now the committee will have 

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 

Monday, and Tuesday. Clearly while 

one may not be able to get into the 

Capitol, although I would be surprised 

if the Appropriations staff could not 

get in the Capitol, and I don’t want to 

adopt that premise because I don’t 

know that to be the case, but in any 

event, the text will be obviously available to anybody all over the country to 

look at, to comment on, and to be prepared to act on at the appropriate 

time. In addition to that, every Member now will have at least 11⁄2 weeks to 

review the text of this before it comes 

to the floor. 

Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman 

for his remarks. I know that it’s not 

customary for us to count holidays and 

weekends in those 3 days, but I do 

thank the gentleman for the intent of 

his remarks. 

I would like to turn, Madam Speaker, 

to the issue of committee ratios. And I 

do know that there has been some 

progress made on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Essentially, Madam 

Speaker, my question to the gentleman 

is the ratio on the floor of the House is 

59/41. And I am, as a member of the 

Ways and Means Committee, particularly puzzled how there is any justification for a ratio particularly on that 

committee where it is 63/37. And if he 

could allow me some insight as to how 

a ratio could be that different and what 

the reason for that would be. 

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman 

yield? 

Mr. CANTOR. Yes, I yield. 

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman 

for yielding. I didn’t know you were 

going to ask that question; so I don’t 

have the specific facts in front of me. 

But it is my belief that the Ways and 

Means Committee has historically had 

a ratio, when your side of the aisle was 

in charge and my side of the aisle has 

been in charge, that did not reflect the 

exact ratio of the House. That’s also 

true on a couple of other committees 

as well. 

Generally speaking, however, in the 

discussions between Speaker PELOSI

and Leader BOEHNER, the ratios were 

within a point or 2, I think, of the existing ratio. I know that we recently 

accommodated a request from the leader, from your leader, on the Energy and 

Commerce Committee, which I thought 

was appropriate for us to do. But I 

think, generally speaking, it reflects 

pretty closely the ratios between the 

parties in the House. But I think if you 

will look historically, and again I regret that I did not look it up, but I 

think historically the Ways and Means 

Committee has generally reflected a 

greater majority membership than the 

specific ratio of the parties on the floor 

of the House. 

Mr. CANTOR. And I do say to the 

gentleman we appreciate the gesture 

on the part of the Speaker working 

with our leader to accommodate this 

disparity in the ratio on the Energy 

and Commerce Committee and hopefully in that spirit can continue to 

work together to try to slim down that 

disparity on the other committees in 

which it does exist. 

Lastly, Madam Speaker, I would like 

to clarify what action the House will 

be taking next week on the bailout 

funds. As the majority leader has stated, he expects the House to vote on a 

resolution of disapproval. More plainly, 

for all the people of this country, this 

is a bill to block the remaining $350 billion in bailout funds from being spent. 

So to clarify again, Madam Speaker, 

I yield to the gentleman to respond to 

the statement that voting ‘‘yes’’ would 

block the bailout funds and voting 

‘‘no’’ would allow the bailout funds to 

continue to be spent; is that correct? 

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman 

yield? 

Mr. CANTOR. I yield. 

Mr. HOYER. The gentleman is correct. In the legislation which was 

passed pursuant to the request of 

President Bush and Secretary Paulson 

authorizing the TARP, they had asked 

for, as you know, $700 billion in one 

lump sum. We believe, the majority on 

both sides of the aisle believe, that 

that ought to be at least in two 

tranches, two segments of $350 billion. 

The legislation provided that for the 

second tranche to go forward, the 

President would have to ask for it. 

President Bush has now asked for that 

$350 billion, and that the Congress 

would have immediately before it within 3 days the introduction of a resolution of disapproval of the request and 

that that would have to be considered. 

Any Member 6 days thereafter could 

ask that that resolution be brought to 

the floor. Now, in this case 6 days 

thereafter would have been Sunday; so 

that would have been not appropriate 

or practical; so we put, as you know, in 

the rule the ability of the majority 

leader to call it up next week. 

The legislation does not provide for 

the issue becoming moot. Now, what I 

mean by that is I don’t know whether 

the Senate has voted—they may vote 

tomorrow. They obviously began procedurally on their resolution of disapproval today. If that resolution is 

not passed, then our action would be 

essentially without meaning but not 

necessarily without importance to the 

Members who want to vote on it, so 

that sometime next week, Wednesday 

or Thursday, my expectation is that we 

have Members who will want to vote on 

it. I will be discussing it with your 

side. I will discuss it with you and discuss it with our side bringing that to a 

vote, notwithstanding the fact that the 

Senate may make such a vote not a 

meaningful act in that President 

Bush’s request would have already been 

sanctioned because both Houses need 

to disapprove and if the Senate didn’t 

disapprove, our action will not effect a 

disapproval. 

Mr. CANTOR. So I ask a follow-up, 

Madam Speaker, to the gentleman that 

the process for consideration of that 

resolution is yet to be determined? 

Mr. HOYER. My expectation is we’re 

going to have it on the floor next week. 

Members on both sides want to vote on 

it, but as I said, it will not have any 

legal effect if the Senate defeats the 

resolution of disapproval. 

Mr. CANTOR. Madam Speaker, I 

thank the gentleman from Maryland, 

the majority leader. 

f 

HOUR OF MEETING ON TOMORROW 

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I ask 

unanimous consent that when the 

House adjourns today, it adjourn to 

meet at 4 p.m. tomorrow; and further, 

that when the House adjourns on that 

day, it adjourn to meet at 10 a.m. on 

Tuesday, January 20. 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there 

objection to the request of the gentleman from Maryland? 

There was no objection. 

f 

TARP—AIG 

(Mr. CROWLEY asked and was given 

permission to address the House for 1 

minute and to revise and extend his remarks.) 

Mr. CROWLEY. Madam Speaker, 

today, the House began consideration 

of legislation to strengthen the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Implementation of this legislation is urgently 

needed, and here’s why: 

Just last week AIG pulled back on a 

plan that would have cost taxpayers 

$93 million. What prompted AIG to cancel its proposal? Three phone calls, 

none of which came from the Bush administration. They came from myself 

and Congressman PAUL KANJORSKI of 

Pennsylvania. AIG is just one example. 


rfrederick on PROD1PC67 with HOUSE