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[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 4 (Friday, January 9, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H140-H141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. CANTOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. CANTOR. Madam Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from 
Maryland, I'd like to thank him for extending the gratitude he has this 
week to me. I'm very grateful for that, for his spirit of 
bipartisanship and his pledge to me to work with us on this side of the 
aisle. I look forward to building a constructive working relationship 
with the gentleman. This is our first colloquy together. I look forward 
to the successive colloquies. And at this time, I yield to my friend 
from Maryland, the majority leader, for purposes of announcing next 
week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and before getting 
into the schedule let me follow up on his remarks.
  As all of the Members of this House know, Mr. Cantor's predecessor, 
Mr. Blunt, and I are very good friends and worked closely together. We 
often disagree on policy, but we have had a long-term ability to work 
together closely on behalf of the institution, on behalf of the House. 
The relationship I think was one that was to the benefit of the House 
of Representatives and to our Members.
  I want to thank Mr. Cantor for visiting with me and talking about how 
we go forward working together on behalf of the American people and on 
behalf of this institution. We know that we'll disagree, perhaps more 
times than not, on major issues, but we also know that the objective 
that he has and the objective I have and the Members of this House on 
both sides of the aisle have is a stronger country, with greater 
opportunity for our people.

                              {time}  1345

  I want to congratulate him on his selection as the Republican whip 
and reiterate his comment that I look forward to working with him in a 
constructive and positive way.
  Madam Speaker, on Monday the House is not in session. On Tuesday the 
House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for 
legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday 
and 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. The 
complete list of suspensions, as is the practice, will be announced by 
the close of business today.
  We will also consider a bill to expand the State Children's Health 
Insurance Program. We will also consider a House resolution requiring 
committees to hold hearings upon receipt of certain reports from an 
inspector general or the Comptroller General of the United States. The 
President-elect has made it very clear he wants to look at programs and 
ensure that the money is being spent effectively and that the programs 
the money supports are effective.
  In addition, we will consider the TARP Reform and Accountability Act, 
which we hope will set parameters, accountability, transparency and 
expectations for help with the mortgages for any legislation that might 
be submitted either by the Bush administration or the Obama 
administration as it relates to the second phase, the second $350 
billion previously authorized in the Troubled Asset Recovery Program.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. I will say to the gentleman that 
you have announced a bill, again, limiting the uses of the TARP funds. 
I know the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, the gentleman 
from Massachusetts, has also announced a broad outline for his bill and 
scheduled a hearing. I would ask the gentleman from Maryland, the 
majority leader, will the bill be marked up prior to coming to the 
floor and what sort of rule can we expect?
  Mr. HOYER. I believe we will have a rule that will certainly allow 
amendments. As you know, that's Mr. Frank's practice. We believe, I 
believe, it's a good practice.
  Whether or not he will have a markup will depend upon the timeframe. 
The problem is, as the gentleman probably knows, the American public 
and the Congress on both sides of the aisle are very concerned that if 
we have to consider within a constricted timeframe the request, either 
of the Bush administration during the latter days of its term, or the 
beginning of the Obama administration, we get to have a second request 
for the second phase of the TARP funding. We want to have in place 
conditions for the expenditure of that money similar to what we have 
imposed or the administration imposed, but we also legislatively 
imposed, it didn't pass, on the automobile companies for the receipt of 
money.
  So the answer to your question is we may not have the time to do the 
markup, because we are not sure when that second request is coming 
down. I don't expect it to come down before we consider this 
legislation, but it may come down shortly thereafter.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. I would like to ask specifically, 
would anything in Chairman Frank's bill prevent our Members from having 
a vote to stop the additional $350 billion in bailout funds from being 
spent?
  Mr. HOYER. No, it will not. Obviously the legislation provides for a 
resolution of disapproval, provides a tight timeframe in which that 
resolution should be considered, and nothing in this bill will impact 
on that.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for that.
  I would ask the gentleman, Madam Speaker, regarding the SCHIP bill, 
does the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Ways and Means Committee 
plan on holding a hearing or markup on that bill?
  Mr. HOYER. The answer to that is I think not. The bill, however, will 
be very, very much like, perhaps not exactly, because some of the costs 
have changed and some of the numbers may need to be adjusted, but very 
much like the bill that we passed, in a bipartisan way, with very 
substantial votes, I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 270 votes 
through this House, just some 6, 7 months ago. We believe the 
President-elect is very concerned that, particularly as the economic 
times confront us, we saw another 525,000 jobs lost this past month. 
That's more than 1 million jobs lost over the last 60 days.
  Obviously we all know that one of the aspects of losing a job is, in 
many instances, losing your health insurance as well. We are very 
concerned that we will have a lot of children vulnerable in America.

[[Page H141]]

  I think there is certainly a majority opinion. Indeed, President Bush 
expressed his own thoughts on that as to wanting to include children. 
So we think this is another matter that we need to move very quickly. 
But it will be almost exactly like, not exactly like, but very, very 
much like, very, from a substantive standpoint, very little different 
than the bill that we passed overwhelmingly in the House. And, of 
course, two-thirds of the Senate voted for it as well.
  Mr. CANTOR. I would ask, Madam Speaker, along those lines, if nothing 
else, the budget window has changed, as the gentleman recognized, and 
the costs will likely be more substantial. We do have, obviously, 55 
new Members of this Congress that have not had a chance to vote on this 
bill or even be a part of the discussion, may not have any experience 
on this issue.
  While we have very little time to review a multibillion dollar 
authorization, I would ask the gentleman if the bill is coming to the 
floor in the form of a suspension. He noted, Madam Speaker, that it was 
a bipartisan vote. It was maybe 40 Members on our side.
  I think the majority of those Members on our side support the 
extension of the existing SCHIP program. I was wondering, again, if the 
bill is coming to the floor as a suspension, or will we have an 
opportunity to offer our amendments and suggestions under a rule?
  Mr. HOYER. The bill will come under a rule. That rule, I haven't 
talked to the committee Chair, I haven't talked to Mr. Waxman, nor have 
I talked to Ms. Slaughter about the rule, so I don't want to represent 
what form the rule will be in. But it will not be a suspension bill.
  Furthermore, I think the gentleman's observation is a valid 
observation. We have many new Members who did not consider it. We are 
hopeful and working towards having that bill online available on Monday 
for a full 48 hours before we would bring it forward on the floor for 
Members to see and the public to see and all the Members of the House 
to see.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for that.
  The Republicans under the leadership of our leader, John Boehner, 
will be sending a letter later today outlining our ideas for improving 
the SCHIP program. I am hopeful that under the rule that we will have 
the ability to have those ideas considered on the House floor, just as 
President-elect Obama has advised us to proceed when the gentleman and 
I and several others met with him earlier this week.
  Madam Speaker, I would now like just to make one additional inquiry 
to the gentleman that three suspensions were considered on Wednesday. I 
would say to the gentleman votes were over by 1 p.m.
  Yesterday we counted electoral ballots for the historical election of 
Barack Obama. We were finished by 2 p.m.
  Since no legislative business was conducted and no votes were taken 
after that, can we expect this to be the manner in which the floor will 
be scheduled each week?
  Mr. HOYER. It's hard to predict what every week will look like, as 
the gentleman will soon find out. If you talk to your leaders and the 
majority, they will tell you it is more daunting than it first appears.
  Having said that, obviously, the schedule has been submitted to all 
the Members, all the Members know what we have scheduled in terms of 
days to be in session. Hopefully they have notice of that, they are 
cognizant of that, particularly their schedulers are cognizant of that.
  We have provided, we believe, sufficient days in which to do the work 
that the American public expects us to get done and that we expect that 
needs to be done. If there are more days, we will add days.
  Having said that, we are in, obviously, the first weeks of the 
session. A lot has been going on, which is not on the floor, simply in 
getting organized, the committees getting organized, getting committee 
members appointed by both the Republican and the Democratic sides so 
that much has been going on, notwithstanding the fact there have been 
long days on the floor. But in the early days of the session, 
obviously, much is going on to get ready for future floor action.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. I would also like to just point 
out and make a comment and suggestion that we do promote the efficient 
operation of this House, because we have new Members who have inquired 
as to why we would be finishing up so early each day and not working 
more so that maybe we could return to our districts and be with our 
constituents on a day that perhaps we could save by working more on 
others.
  There are 5 legislative weeks scheduled between now and President's 
Day. I would ask the gentleman if he could lay out the calendar, the 
legislative calendar for those 5 weeks.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his question. As you know, the 
President-elect was here this week to discuss and has discussed, gave a 
speech regarding the recovery package. Obviously that is an important 
item that we will be considering.
  You have heard the agenda for next week. We also need to do the 
omnibus at some point in time in the near term. We will hopefully do 
that before the President's break.
  We will have other legislation, but they will be the two major items 
that we will be focused on, the recovery package and the omnibus 
appropriation bill. Clearly, as you know, there are nine appropriation 
bills which were not completed last year that need to be completed so 
that agencies will have the funding they need to accomplish the 
objectives we have given them.
  Mr. CANTOR. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, the majority 
leader. I look forward to continuing this dialogue with him on a weekly 
basis, and I yield back my time.

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