[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10] [House] [Pages 13756-13757] [From the U.S. 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, 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 at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed until 6 p.m. on Monday. The House, on Tuesday, will meet at 9 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 10 a.m. for legislative business. 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 suspension bills, as is the practice, will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. In addition, we will consider the Transportation and HUD appropriations bill and the Military Construction and VA appropriations bill of 2011. We're also expected to consider items from the Senate, including Senate amendments to H.R. 4899, the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010. There are obviously other possibilities of bills coming from the Senate, and we will consider those as time permits. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for that and would ask him if he could respond to some reports about several measures, perhaps, and the possibility of these measures coming to the floor next week, if he could give the House an update. One would be the oil spill response legislation that's coming out of the Resources Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee, and the Ways and Means Committee; the small business taxpayer fund bill in the Senate; the FAA authorization bill from the Senate; the 9/11 compensation bill; and the Education and Labor OSHA bill relating to mining, if the gentleman could give us an update on those measures. I yield. Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. Rather than going into each one of them individually, I will say to the gentleman that each of those bills is under consideration. With respect to oil spills, there are significant discussions going on among the committees of jurisdiction, and we will, if we have a product to move forward, be prepared to do so. We believe responding to the oil spill is critical. We've done so, as you know, with two bills this week, passed unanimously through the House, and so that we will be proceeding to look at the oil spill issue to try to ensure, to the extent we can, A, it doesn't happen again, and B, if it does happen, that we are prepared to respond to it and the industry is prepared to respond to it. With respect to the other pieces of legislation, they are under discussion, some in this House and some in the Senate, as you know. Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman, and, Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman if the Members should be prepared for a possible Saturday session next week. I yield. Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding. Possibly. I say to my friend that, because next week is our last week and we will be recessing for the August break at that point in time, I would put Members on notice that there will be certain matters that we must complete and that we will complete and, as a result, Members ought to make sure that they have flexibility for next Saturday. Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, the majority leader announced two appropriations bills for floor consideration next week. I'd note, Mr. Speaker, that the fiscal year ends just over 2 months from now, and yet we're only now just beginning consideration of the first of 12 appropriations bills that fund the entire Federal discretionary budget. But I would ask the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, if he could tell us whether to expect those bills coming up for consideration on the floor under an open rule. I yield. Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I will be talking to Mr. Obey tomorrow and/or Monday to get his views on consideration of those bills, and at that point in time, I will be able to give you a clearer view on how those bills will be considered. Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman whether he could commit to the House that he would continue to advocate for an open rule. I know the gentleman has always been and joins me in wanting full and open debate in the House, whether it will be his position that these appropriations bills would come to the floor on an open rule. I yield. Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. As the gentleman knows full well, because he and I have been involved in discussions, I have consistently been for considering the appropriations bills in a timely manner with agreement between the majority and the minority, as occurred in 2006 when Mr. Obey and Mr. Lewis reached agreement on the consideration of those bills. The gentleman is accurate when he says that that is my preferred option on the consideration of appropriations bills. But, as I say, I have not talked to the chairman, and I will be talking to him to get his view on how these bills can most effectively be considered. Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. Turning to the issue of the troop funding bill, Mr. Speaker, the Senate sent the House the troop funding bill supplemental about 2 months ago, and it appears that that body will be sending us back the exact same version of the bill next week. I would ask the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, is that his understanding of the bill, and is it his understanding that that is the bill that we can expect the House to be voting on? I yield. Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. The Senate, as you know, has not completed its consideration of the supplemental and are debating other [[Page 13757]] issues, some of which we sent to them, and as a matter of fact, I think some of those have the majority's support. The small business lending bill, in particular, I would hope they would bring to us. {time} 1620 We included a number of things, not the least of which is trying to ensure that 140,000 teachers around the country remain on the job for our children and for our schools. I don't know whether the Senate will include that or not. We also included money for border security, which was not in the Senate bill. FEMA and Haiti, and oil spill money, I believe, were in the Senate bill initially. We have also included that. There are other items that we have included to try to grow jobs and expand the economy, which, unfortunately, the Senate at least at this point in time has not supported. But I say to my friend that in light of the fact that the Senate has not yet passed the supplemental, I am not sure what's going to be in it. But I would say to the gentleman, once again, as he knows, it is my intention to ensure that the money for the troops is, in fact, passed before we leave here. Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, that was going to be my question: When faced with the reality that the Senate will send us back the version that it did so 2 months ago, if faced with that, will the House be taking that bill up and then funding our troops before we adjourn for the recess in August? I yield. Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. I am going to give him the same answer: I am not going to anticipate. I find it not a very productive endeavor to anticipate what the United States Senate will do. I have been so disappointed so often on that speculation that I am not going to enter into such speculation today. However, I will tell the gentleman, as I have said some weeks running now, that it is my intention that we will have a bill pass this House and pass the Senate, for that matter, that funds the troops prior to our leaving for our August break. Mr. CANTOR. I am reminded by my counsel, Mr. Speaker, that, as the gentleman would probably agree, the Senate is nothing but predictable. Mr. Speaker, as we are discussing the schedule for next week, I would like to announce the ninth YouCut vote which will take place on the House floor next week. Over 1.4 million votes have been cast to date at the Republican youcut.house.gov site. I would say to the gentleman, four of your Members announced a series of proposed cuts this week. While the gentleman did not mention them in his schedule for next week, I would note that we have included one of their proposals in our five YouCut options for next week. The proposal offered by the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Adler, would terminate the Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit, saving $1.1 billion. The additional options for the public to vote on this week under the YouCut program include the elimination of duplicative Federal PE programs, saving $790 million; the refocusing of the National Park Service on administering Federal parks, saving $238 million of taxpayer money; the termination of funding for the DOD Innovative Readiness Training program at a $200 million savings; and the prohibition of the use of taxpayer funds for political campaigns in foreign countries, savings of $23 million. And so with that, Mr. Speaker, I would urge the gentleman's consideration, perhaps if not at our suggestion, the suggestion of his colleagues on his side of the aisle, that perhaps maybe we should endeavor to have a vote on the floor about actually cutting spending. Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield? Mr. CANTOR. I yield to the gentleman. Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Without getting into a long colloquy, and I appreciate the gentleman's trying to truncate this, let me simply say that I think the suggestions of how we can save money, how we can bring the deficit down from whatever source they come should be welcomed by all of us. Whether they come from your side of the aisle, my side of the aisle, from the public at large, Republicans, Democrats, independents, or totally nonpartisan sources whatsoever, we ought to consider them. We have a very significant deficit problem confronting us. I won't go into the reasons of why I think we have those deficit problems, but we have them and we have been try to go dig out of a deep economic recession, as all of us know. So I simply wanted to say that, as you know, this week we did vote in a very substantial reduction, the Surface Transportation Savings Act, which passed 402-0. We cut $107 million. Next week I expect that we are going to have at least one vote, maybe others, to cut substantial dollars. Betsy Markey has an idea that she has introduced that would save $703-plus million. We hope to consider that. But I want to reiterate, which is all I want to say, that we welcome ideas on how to bring the deficit down. I mentioned, of course, earlier that Mr. Kyl indicated that paying for things were not necessary if they were in the tax field. But cutting other things, the problem is, that was $678 billion that he suggested in borrowed money. And so we are going to have to look, as I said in a speech not too long ago, at all items of expenditure, wherever they may be found, to make sure that we are returned to the fiscal posture, frankly, that we were in when we had a $5.6 trillion surplus in January of 2000. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I would note that we are making some progress here if we are going to avoid pointing fingers and casting blame as to why we are where we are, in the spirit of trying to move forward together and addressing the real challenges that our constituents and the people of this country are facing. I welcome the gentleman's desire to look for ways to cut spending. I would just reiterate that there are four individuals on his side of the aisle, Mr. Adler of New Jersey being one, having proposed a savings of $1.1 billion that will be part of the YouCut activities over the Web this week. Mr. Speaker, if that is the winning proposal, then the gentleman will have an opportunity to join us in putting that measure to a vote. So I look forward to that next week, Mr. Speaker. Again, I thank the gentleman for his time. ____________________