that denies the fact that abdul hakim mohammed flew to yemen on 9/11, 2007. 365 days a year, why would he pick that day? he was arrested on november 14, 2008. in his possession is god on making materials. he is god inspired stuff, how lucky tapes. he is god a fake somali past were. why would he have a fake somali passport? he was going to somalia. when i met with cf vi in september 2009, i asked him that question. they said they couldn't answer it. i said it's rhetorical. inquire of the lia.

majority leader the schedule. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman may proceed. -- may proceed. mr. hoyer: thank you. before yielding to the majority leader, let me say i join the gentleman from virginia and i know certainly mr. cantor, who also represents virginia, but the entire country, we don't know the facts yet, don't know

exactly what's happened but the information i have is that two people may well have lost their lives at this point in time and we certainly want to send our deepest sympathies to virginia tech, to the families that are affected by this incident, and hope sincerely that there are -- that there is no further loss of life and on that issue, let me yield to the majority leader who i know will want to say something as well. mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman for yielding -- the gentleman from maryland, the democratic whip, for yielding. i want to join in expressing our sorrow and extending our thoughts and prayers to those in the hokie nation and blacksburg who unfortunately have endured more pain today and reminiscent of the pain that so many have felt in that

fine university in the past. hopefully things can look up and i know that there are reports in which law enforcement was involved and we also want to extend our thanks to law enforcement in that community as well as everywhere else in this country, certainly in this capitol, for what individuals and capitol police and other police forces do for us every single day. again, we express our sorrow to those who are mourning the loss of life and extend our thoughts to president steger at virginia tech and to that community. i do thank the gentleman from maryland for yielding. mr. speaker, on monday, the house will meet at noon for morning hour and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. votes will be post-toned until 6:30 p.m. at this point, the house is scheduled to be in session for the remainder of the week with

a weekend session possible. per our usual weekly schedule, i expect morning hour to begin at 10:00 a.m. and legislative business to start by noon. however, because this will likely be our last week in session prior to the end of the year, the daily convening times may fluctuate to accommodate our business. i can assure members we do not expect votes on tuesday, december 13, prior to 1:00 p.m. that is as far as tuesday, december 13 is concerned. mr. speaker, our legislative business next week will include a number of suspensions, a complete list of which will be announced by close of business tomorrow. in addition, we expect to consider a conference report on the remaining appropriations bills for f.y. 2012 as well as the conference report for the national defense authorization act. i want to thank both chairman hal rogers and chairman buck mckeon for their hard work throughout the year. finally, we anticipate a vote on the year-end package of

expiring laws that include the payroll tax holiday, unemployment benefits and the physician reimbursement issue. before i yield back my time, i want to take a minute to highlight a bipartisan event that took place here in the capitol this week. yesterday, the democratic whip and i hosted the first ever facebook hack-a-thon, to allow software developers to get together to talk about utilizing social media to make congress more accessible to the country. 200 people participated and shared their ideas. i thank the gentleman for joining me for his help in facilitating this cause and i look forward to working with him to make congress a more transparent and accessible institution for people who have sent us here. i yield back my time. mr. hoyer: i thank the

gentleman for yielding and i thank him for his comments and leadership on the hack-a-thon event that occurred yesterday, he and i both had the opportunity to address a large number, other 250, i think, individuals who were there, who will in fact bring their expertise, their technical knowledge to bear on what the gentleman referenced as making our institution more accessible and transparent to our citizens. we all believe, i think, that doing that will make the products that we produce better and make citizens better able to make judgments on the work that we do. i want to thank the gentleman and his staff for their leadership on this effort. we were glad to join in that. mr. speaker, i understand that unemployment insurance, the payroll tax issue which will

continue to give the middle class tax cuts to those who need it most, the unemployment which will keep millions of people from losing their unemployment, as well as the physician adjustment are scheduled next week. it's my understanding that bill has not been filed yet. can the gentleman tell me when he believes that bill will be filed? mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i respond to the gentleman by saying we are still in discussion about that bill and in drafting and we do spend to abide by our necessary three-day notice period so that all sides and all members as well as the public can enjoy their right to know what will be in that legislation. but the gentleman is correct, we do expect that bill on the floor next week. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for that comment. i have had discussions with the gentleman and with mr. mccarthy in particular and also briefly with the speaker that we are certainly prepared to

participate in discussions leading toward a successful passage of those three pieces of legislation, particularly the unemployment insurance and the payroll tax extension which we believe are critical before we end this year. we are pleased to see that legislation moving forward but i will tell my friend that i would be pleased to participate in discussions with him so we can assure that that bill will in fact pass and hopefully pass in a bipartisan fashion. i want to tell the gentleman that i'm a little bit concerned and i want to ask him whether this principle will be followed. i think i used this quote last week but it bears repeating. speaker boehner said we will end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with must-pass legislation to circumvent the will of the american people. instead we'll advance major legislation one issue at a time.

that was in the republican pledge as well. the speaker has reiterated that at the beginning of this session. now i'm concerned because republican study committee chairman jim jordan of ohio is quoted in "the washington post" as saying the following, quote, the fact the president doesn't like it, the it referring to the keystone pipeline provision which we understand is under discussion, i'm glad to hear those discussions have not concluded, but again, he quoted, the fact that the president doesn't like it makes me like it even more, said the g.o.p. leadership proposal as he left thursday morning's closed door meeting. i will say to my friend that we are at the end of the session, we are hopeful, as i have said, and as we have demonstrated, on the two c.r.'s, the debt extension and the min enee bus appropriations bill we passed that we are prepared to respond

in a bipartisan fashion to assist in passing must-pass legislation. and would hope very much that we don't put controversial items in that. the president has clearly enunciated that he will veto a bill that has the keystone pipeline and i will say as my friend clearly knows there is bipartisan concern, as a matter of fact, the governor of nebraska, a republican,ened the republican legislature, whichall though nominally nonpartisan, as the gentleman knows is 2/3 republican, one-third democrat have voted to delay this project because of their concern about thing a fer and the impact of the keystone pipeline as currently platted will have in reference to the aquifer so that there is bipartisan concern, as the gentleman knows, as a result of nebraska's passing legislation which said they wanted to do a study on the aquifer and

alternative siting of the keystone pipeline course, that that study would take them five to six to seven months. as a result the president indicated they would, in giving time to the nebraska governor and the nebraska legislature, again, republican organs to look at that, has given them additional time and he said he won't act until the beginning of 2013. i ask the gentleman, does he believe that provision? i understand what mr. jordap says, it may be a nice political gesture but i would hope that that would not be the kind of provision included in the legislation whether it's individually bills or a comprehensive bills, including those three items hopefully we can pass in a bipartisan fashion. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman and i understand the point he's trying to make.

mr. hoyer: would the gentleman yield back? i thought i made the point. mr. cantor: you may have made the point, what i'm trying to say is i disagree with the gentleman that if the provisions dealing with the keystone pipeline are in the measure that makes it to the floor that we shouldn't join together and to what was done in the past and that is demonstrate a strong, bipartisan vote in support of that project. as the gentleman knows, organized labor in this country is very supportive of that bill, of that provision, it means immediate jobs nevment continues to say he is for creating jobs, doing all we cap to get america back to work, this is a provision that allows for that. we also have seen, mr. speaker, in response to the gentleman's concerns about nebraska and the issues raised by its govepbor as well as its state legislature, i believe and am told that that there have been in discussions in which an

alternative route has been determined and there's agreement on that to allow for a proceeding of the construction of the pipeline. again, knowing there is strong bipartisan support for the project, knowing that labor is in support of it, knowing that it puts people back to work immediately, it would seem to me that this is a consistent provision to go along with making sure that we deal with the unemployment situation in this country, through an extension of the u.i. provisions, with hopefully some reforms as well as the extension of the payroll tax holiday. as you know, the gentleman knows, our side is concerned. we don't want taxes to go up on anybody. especially in an economy like this. but again, i hope the gentleman can consider joining us in terms of helping promote an environment for job creation. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for his comment. i will say this, though.

it seems inconsistent when the president of the united states yesterday said he would veto such a provision that we would include it in legislation that is must-pass. by the way, the unemployment insurance, economists tell us, will provide for 100 times as many jobs so therefore we're for that, some 500,000 jobs may be affected by extending the unemployment insurance, in addition to that, i tell my friend, the president has offered a jobs bill, i know that you're concerned about jobs. the pipeline bill, in and of itself is about 5,000 to 6,000 job over the lifetime of the pipeline. the jobs bill, economists tell us, is a million jobs or 200 times as many jobs, notwithstanding that, very frankly, that has been languishing since september and not brought to this floor. so it seems to me that if we

are really interested, and i think you are, in extending unemployment insurance and providing for continued tax cut for middle income americans, and for providing for the payment of docs who are serving medicare patients, that we not include in that bill an item that is apparently popular on your side just because the president doesn't like it, according to mr. jordan. i think that's not the way we ought to be operating. the last seven days of the session, or five days, six days, seven, assuming we went through sunday, we shouldn't be doing that, i suggest respectfully to my friend the majority leader, because it will simply put us back into the situation the american public doesn't want us in. that's confronting up with another. playing chicken with one another.

bringing us to the precipice of defeat and lack of success. public doesn't want us there, we shopt want us there, and i would urge the gentleman not to include items as i have urged you with respect to the appropriations bills that must be passed, that's not in this list but you did mention it in the announcement, with mr. rogers and mr. dicks have been working hard and others have been working hard to get our appropriations bys done. we have urged that we not put controversial items in that and we showed our good faith on that representation when we passed the mini bus, 165 democrats joined 135 republicans to pass that legislation. so again i would urge the gentleman to -- if he feels strongly about that, and i know that he feels -- he said labor is for that bill. labor is for that bill.

i think i'm for that bill. i want the gentleman to know. so this does not come from my particular opposition to this bill. i am concerned about the alignment and the aquifer. that's a legitimate concern. but i think that that oil is gb -- is going to be drilled no matter what we do. it seems to me it's better for us to have it than for others to have that and have that availability. but having said that, gratuitously putting it into a bill that the president has already said, i don't agree with that, is simply playinging chicken on -- playing chicken on legislation that's very important. if the gentleman wants to comment on that i'd be glad to yield to him. mr. cantor: i just say to the gentleman, i've already responded to the notion of issues arising in nebraska that i'm told have been resolved. so the issue that he is concerned about has apparently been resolved. i would say to the gentleman, there are 47 members on his side of the aisle, including five

ranking members of committees, that have supported the measure allowing for the construction and proceeding on the keystone pipeline. there's no gratuitous move here. it's an attempt to try and bring the two sides together on the most important issue which is creating jobs. this is a provision that i believe has been demonstrated, has support on both sides of the aisle. and again, mr. speaker, i would hope the gentleman could refrain from trying to say and impede motives here. we're trying to work in a fashion, open, transparent, together so that we don't come to any kind of end that doesn't produce a result for the people. that's it. so, again, i appreciate the gentleman's sentiments. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. i was quoting, not imputing. mr. jordan's comments seemed to be pretty clear. i know the gentleman has -- will

conclude, but before we conclude , the stock act, there was a bill that was ready for markup in the committee. we understand that was pulled. as you know, that bill has 220 co-sponsors and is a bipartisan sponsorship. it simply says that members should not use inside information to trade with information the general public may not have about legislation that may or may not be reported or passed to the floor. i understand that was pulled. i think that was unfortunate. can the gentleman tell me what the status of that piece of legislation is? mr. cantor: sure. absolutely, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman. first of all, the issue of insider trading is something that we abhor as well. do not tolerate and believe that all members of congress should fall under the same laws that apply to anyone.

and want to make sure that is the case, if it is not. and, you know, transparency is the key because the public needs to know what their members are doing and we intend to take this issue, make sure that concerns that had been raised -- been raised by members on both sides of the aisle are being vetted. this is an issue of extreme import for the confidence of the public towards this institution. we intend to do so in a deliberate manner. there are issues raised again by members on both sides of the aisle about this bill not being brought up in a vetted way. there are many other chairmen who have jurisdiction in this matter, who need to be involved in this, with the full vetting, and we intend to do that. and i do hope the gentleman will work with us in doing so and i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for his comments and as he knows, the congressman has been

working hard on this and i know that he will be very inclined to work with you and with the committees of jurisdiction and i will certainly be able to work with you as well on this issue. because, as i say, congressman walz has worked very hard on this. i think all of us agree, as you just indicated, that no member of congress ought to be using insider information to trade in the stock market to disadvantage, obviously, others who are trading in the stock market. so i thank the gentleman for his comment and look forward to working with you and -- with him and in closing i hope we can reach bipartisan agreement on so many pieces of major legislation that we need to pass prior to leaving. i will tell the gentleman, and i hope his side agrees, my side will not want to adjourn, nor will it support adjournment until such time as we act on the unemployment insurance and the middle class tax cuts and i