In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Democratic Whip:
TOMORROW’S OUTLOOK
On Thursday, the House will meet at 10:00 a.m. for Morning Hour debate and 12:00 p.m. for legislative business.
First/Last votes are expected between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m.
"One Minutes" (15 per side)
H.Res. 79 - Rule providing for consideration of H.R. 514, To extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 relating to access to business records, individual terrorists as agents of foreign powers, and roving wiretaps until December 8, 2011 (Rep. Dreier – Rules)
Begin Consideration of H.Res. 72 - Directing certain standing committees to inventory and review existing, pending, and proposed regulations and orders from agencies of the Federal Government, particularly with respect to their effect on jobs and economic growth (9 ½ Hours of Debate) (Rep. Sessions – Rules) (Subject to a Rule)
In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:
Convenes: 4:00pm
Following any Leader remarks, there will be a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.
We hope to clear the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) legislation on Thursday.
Senators should expect the next votes to begin around 5:30pm on Monday, February 14. Those votes could be on a judicial nomination and amendments to the FAA Authorization bill.
So we're still on the USA PATRIOT Act renewal bill in the House, on account of the Republicans having screwed it up on Tuesday. As expected, having the bill fail under suspension of the rules has just meant that it had to come back to the floor under a rule, and here it is. And as predicted, it's here with just an hour for debate, and no amendments allowed. Which tells us that part of the reason they tried to go the suspension route in the first place was that they didn't want to allow Democrats to have any opportunity to offer amendments (which isn't allowed under suspension of the rules), but they also didn't want to use a closed rule (which has the same effect) so soon after swearing that they weren't ever, never, never gonna do that.
But it looks like it's just the rule being considered tomorrow, not the actual bill. And once that's taken care of, the schedule says they'll be moving on to 9 1/2 hours of debate on a resolution directing a bunch of committees to review regulations and hate on them. Why 9 1/2 hours? It's not actually about repealing any crappy regulations. This is just a resolution telling committees that they should look for crappy regulations to repeal. Hell, the resolution's only about three pages long, and one whole page is just a list of the committees that should do the looking.
And guess what? I'm pretty sure that most House committees don't really need any invitations to start looking for crappy regulations to repeal. The 9 1/2 hours, I suspect, is so that any Republican who wants to can come to the floor and talk about crappy regulations they want to repeal, and how angry those regulations make them. And maybe, if the room feels right, make some metaphorical reference to shooting them or the bureaucrats who promulgate them. Shh! Don't tell!
Oh, and there's also the Senate. No, seriously, they're still there! They'll be doing nothing. No votes, and the trade adjustment assistance bill they were hoping to take care of? That got pulled from the House floor on Tuesday, after the Republicans screwed that one up, too.
Today's committee schedule appears below. That oughta pick you up!
UPDATE: From today's Daily Whip:
H.Res. 73 – Rule providing for consideration of H. Res. 72 - Directing certain standing committees to inventory and review existing, pending, and proposed regulations and orders from agencies of the Federal Government, particularly with respect to their effect on jobs and economic growth (Rep. Sessions – Rules) (1 hour of debate) The Rules Committee has recommended a closed Rule, allowing for no amendments to the resolution and one motion to recommit, with instructions. The Rule would also provide for 9½ hours of general debate. The Rule provides for the following committees to have debate time: Small Business (30 minutes), Energy and Commerce (1 hour), Transportation and Infrastructure (1 hour), Financial Services (1 hour), Natural Resources (1 hour), Ways and Means (1 hour), Judiciary (1 hour), Education and Workforce (30 minutes), Agriculture (1 hour), Oversight and Government Reform (1 hour). The Rule also provides for 30 minutes of Leadership time equally divided between the Majority and Minority Leaders.
The Rules Committee did not make in order an amendment offered by Mr. Hastings (FL), which would have added a section to the resolution instructing committees to make the creation of jobs their highest priority.
H.Res. 79 – Rule providing for consideration of H.R. 514 - To extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 relating to access to business records, individual terrorists as agents of foreign powers, and roving wiretaps until December 8, 2011 (Rep. Sensenbrenner - Judiciary) (1 hour of debate) The Rules Committee has recommended a closed Rule, allowing for no amendments to the legislation and one motion to recommit, with instructions. The resolution provides for 40 minutes of debate for the Judiciary Committee and 20 minutes of debate for the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The Rule would provide for consideration of H.R. 514, which is the exact same legislation that failed to pass under suspension of the Rules on February 8.
H.Res. 72 - Directing certain standing committees to inventory and review existing, pending, and proposed regulations and orders from agencies of the Federal Government, particularly with respect to their effect on jobs and economic growth (Rep. Sessions – Rules) (9½ hours of debate) H.Res. 72 directs 10 House committees to review regulations issued by federal agencies and examine their effects on the economy, which is already within the rights and jurisdiction of each of these committees.
Some nice pushback from Hoyer's office in these bill descriptions, making a lot of the same points we've already discussed, too, which is also nice!