Making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2007, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for us to understand where we stand at this point. At this point, we have completed the Defense bill and the Homeland Security bill, but we still at this point have not seen the Congress complete action on a single domestic appropriation bill.

So what we are facing is the need within the next 2 weeks, in my view, to try to finish our work, and I think we have a responsibility to do so. The Congress left town for almost 6 weeks for the election. Now because of that long period of time, we face the fact that we still have a huge amount of appropriations work to do.

The House produced final action on every single one of the appropriation bills except the Labor-HHS, and the Senate is in the process, I hope, of moving those bills forward. The Senate passed the Military Construction bill yesterday. It is my understanding that they are taking up the Agriculture bill this week and will also perhaps take up the Energy and Water bill. I hope that is the case. I agree with the gentleman that I would much prefer to see these bills handled in regular order, one by one, on a separate basis.

Having said that, my primary purpose is to see to it that they move, and I care less about how they move than whether they move, and I think most American citizens feel the same way. I think we have a duty to finish action on all of these bills, and I think it would be sad, indeed, if we were to adjourn this Congress with local units of government, local school boards, local program managers and State program managers not having any idea what the final resolution of these bills will be.

So while I certainly agree with the gentleman that it is preferable to move individual bills, I am open to any suggestion procedurally in order to finish that work. We have cooperated on the minority side of the aisle.

We have cooperated procedurally with the majority on every single appropriation bill, even though we have not agreed with the contents on some of those bills. I am willing to entertain procedural compromises. I am willing to entertain substantive compromises. But we need to try to move all of these bills by whatever method makes it possible to do so.

I would simply note, there is one bill that remains in the House for us to act on, and I am perfectly willing to try to work out additional compromises on that bill if that will help the bill to move. I don't like the idea that the Senate might wind up moving first on that bill, but even then, I think our primary obligation is to get this work done.

So I would urge the leadership and I would urge the gentleman and anyone else interested to please recognize that it would be irresponsible for this Congress not to finish its work. I would like to see a more productive closing to this session of Congress than has often been the case, and I am perfectly willing to work with anybody on any day in any way in order to get that done.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 100) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2007, and for other purposes.

I appreciate the recognition, Mr. Speaker. I don't anticipate I will use the entire 20 minutes, but we will see how we proceed here.

Mr. Speaker, I bring before the House a continuing resolution for fiscal year 2007. This CR runs through December 8. It is clean without exception. This CR will fund the agencies and the nine remaining bills awaiting conference at the lower rate of the House-passed, Senate- passed or current fiscal year 2006 level.

When we passed the last CR, my hope was that it would provide a strong motivation for Congress to complete its work in regular order. I remain hopeful that our colleagues in the Senate will complete their work on the floor so that we can move the remaining individual conference reports before the end of our legislative session.

I want the body to know that the Committee on Appropriations has been strongly committed to bringing to this floor individual conference reports for each and every bill.

This committee does not support an omnibus in any form and has done everything in its power to ensure that that does not happen. The Appropriations Committee passed each bill of the 11 subcommittee bills out of the full committee by June 30, and with the exception of the Labor-HHS bill, all of those bills were off the floor by the Fourth of July break.

The Appropriations Committee has remained committed to moving these bills individually and within the framework of the budget resolution. My colleagues, the Appropriations Committee has kept its word. I am convinced that moving bills individually is the only way for us to get back to regular order.

Lacking regular order, there is a tendency for the remaining bills to become Christmas trees and for spending to grow out of control. In my view, that is simply not acceptable.

I urge my colleagues to support this CR, and would like to close my remarks by wishing all of my friends, as we go out of town, a happy Thanksgiving.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.J. Res. 100, which was received from the House.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the joint resolution be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the joint resolution be printed in the Record.