mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman from maryland, the democratic whip, for yielding. mr. speaker, on monday the house is not in session. on tuesday the house will meet at noon for morning hour and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m. on wednesday and thursday the house will meet at 10:00 a.m. for morning hour and noon for legislative business. on friday the house will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business. last votes of the week are expected no later than 3:00 p.m. mr. speaker, the house will consider a number of bills under suspension of the rules. a complete list of bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. among next week's suspensions will be h.r. 365, the national

alert act sponsored by congressman michael grimm which will c could he inside with national police week. in addition, the house will consider two important rules under a rule. the first is h.r. 4970, the violence against women's act re-authorization, sponsored by congresswoman sandy adams, herself a former sheriff. on the second -- our second rule bill, which will take up the remainder of the week, is h.r. 4310, the national defense authorization act, sponsored by chairman buck mckeon. this bipartisan bill provides for the funding of our armed services prior to the memorial day as is the house is appropriately accustomed. with that i thank the gentleman and i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for his information and if i can on the violence against women's act, a very important piece of legislation, which we have re-authorized in

the past in a bipartisan fashion, can the gentleman tell me, it's under a rule, does the gentleman know whether it will be an open rule or whether there will be perhaps a modified open rule with amendments being printed, can the gentleman tell us? i have a lot of folks on my side of the aisle who are very interested in dealing with certain portions of that bill and they be interested to know whether or not it will be able to offer amendments and i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: i just tell the gentleman, as he knows, the rules committee is the one to decide the process by which bills come to the floor and the rules of those bills and the rules committee will be meeting on tuesday. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for yielding. i would tell the majority leader for purposes of his planning and anticipation, as he may well know, the bill that's been purported out of the judiciary committee is controversial. there was a bill that passed

through the other chamber, that passed overwhelmingly. almost more than 2-1 and is not like this bill and there are members that would like to incorporate the senate's provisions in the house bill and i know we would appreciate it if we'd be given that opportunity to offer that on the floor as an alternative and if the gentleman would take that into consideration, perhaps talk to mr. dreier about making such amendments in order, we would very much appreciate that. of course, we would also appreciate perhaps if you wanted to take up the senate bill as a substitute, we think we would have overwhelming votes for that on this side of the aisle. and in light of the fact that you and i have been working in such a bipartisan fashion lately, perhaps that would be a good way to continue that process. i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. it has been a certainly improved sense of cooperation and i

appreciate that on the gentleman's part in trying to deliver results and trying to make sure we get america back to work. i would say to the gentleman, as he rightly noted, that this bill has traditionally been re-authorized and what the approach we took tried to focus on was to do what it is that the gentleman and i have been trying to do the last couple of weeks, and that is to separate out things that divide us, and try and unite us around the central focus of a particular piece of legislation. it is a program that calls for the commitment of taxpayer dollars to fund the appropriate services for abused women. this is a bill that is much-needed and it is one that i think deserves a bipartisan support and we tried to stay away from issues that divide us, we tried to listen to the g.a.o. in terms of its recommendations under this program, to make sure

that taxpayer dollars are spent at their most efficient level, so that we can get more out of the dollars being spent. and that is the spirit with which we will bring this bill to the floor and again i know it's an important bill, we care, all of us care deeply about making sure that abused women receive the necessary services that they need. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for his observations and clearly he and agree on the importance of this legislation. certainly concerned about violence perpetrated against women and i would simply say, and i'm sure he shares this, of all women who happen to be in this country and subject to violence acts by others -- violent acts by others, so we want to make sure we can in fact protect all women who are subject to abuse. and hopefully we can pursue that

objective. mr. leader, appropriation bills, we've just passed an appropriation bill, is a squha -- somewhat more controversial than i hoped it would have been. in part because of the riders that were adopted to that bill which were strongly opposed by many on this side of the aisle. and in part because we do not believe it complied with the agreement that we reached with reference to funding levels. there are now 11 more appropriation bills to go. can the gentleman tell me the next appropriation bill that he expects to have on the floor? mr. cantor: i would say to the gentleman that we are looking to accommodate the needs of the committee as they move forward and with their bills and their agenda, it is our intention to continue with the kind of debate that we had on the c.j.s. bill this week.

as you know, it's been some time since which this house was able to see an appropriations process work, in a very open fashion that we had this week. and we intend to continue to do that with the bill. it's the speaker's commitment that this be an open process and that members have a right to air their views and that those issues, amendments can come to a vote. so i'd say to the gentleman, we look forward to working with him and looking to the committee to bring forward the bill that they think is ready next to be brought to the floor. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for that information. as i said, one concern we had on our side of the aisle was the riders. many of which we thought were inappropriate. they were adopted but we did not favor them. the second was, of course, the level of funding, the appropriations committee

articulated that they thought the moneys available to them under the ryan constrictions on 302-a were too low to meet some of the commitments that they had. does the gentleman know, first of all, pursuant to what he says the speaker wants to do and he wants to do and i think we ought to do, we didn't always get that done lamentably. does the gentleman believe that we're going to have the time to bring each one of the appropriation bills to the floor between now and let's say the august break so, that the senate might consider them and we might consider them individually as opposed to in some omnibus piece of legislation? i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: mr. speaker, all i would say to the gentleman is certainly our intention and the commitment that we have to bring these bills forward for open and fair debate. i know the gentleman has expressed now twiles the fact that his side didn't like some

of the votes that occurred on the specific provisions of some bills. this is a democratic process, as he knows. 23 members on his side of the aisle ended up supporting the c.j.s. bill. and again this is the house's will at work and we hope to be able to work with him in this very new environment in which we're operating on appropriations bills. the commitment that we have is still that we want to, you know, bring these bills forward under a very challenging fiscal time in our country and do so without earmarks. this does represent a new construct within which we are operating and so again we look forward to the gentleman's participation toward that end and a successful -- in a successful way. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i want to make it clear that clearly i understand the democratic process and riders are offered and the house does its will and there it is. and the gentleman's absolutely

correct. that's the process. but i want to emphasize that we still have great concerns about the agreement that we reached not being carried out pursuant to what we believe the adepreement was in terms of funding -- agreement was in terms of funding levels in the allocation. that's the general allocation to the appropriation committee. i know the gentleman knows that we have that concern. i know the gentleman has also made the observation that that was a cap, not an agreed number. i will tell my friend again, i think i said this a couple of weeks ago, that undermines our willingness to make agreements if what we make agreement on is the most that you'll do, but then come in at levels substantially below that which we think we 'greed to and in fact -- agreed to and in fact is in the law. i want to make it clear, that was my major concern, continues to be my major concern. i understand as alof