Rob Bishop: “At this time, I am limited in the kinds of responses I have here. Once again, I appreciate the gentleman from…”

“At this time, I am limited in the kinds of responses I have here. Once again, I appreciate the gentleman from Connecticut bringing this issue up. It is a significant issue. We have a great deal of empathy for this particular issue, and I'm sure that as we go along through the process of this bill, this issue and some others may be able to be worked out in other venues. At this stage of the game, though, there are certain restrictions procedurally on what we can and cannot do with this particular issue. This issue, as I said, has had the statement by Chairman McKeon as to the amendments. His statement was simply as follows: The amendments to be offered by Representative McKeon to H.R. 4310, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, does not contain any congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits, or limited tariff benefits as defined in clause 9 under rule XXI. So with that, there are certain restrictions which we have to do procedurally to go forward with this particular piece of legislation, realizing there are other discussions that will take place before we come to a final conclusion. So in order to allow the House to continue its scheduled business for the day, I would urge Members to vote ``yes'' on the question of consideration of this resolution so that we can continue on with the 141 amendments that were made in order and then talk about procedurally how to do some others that may be coming down at some other time.…”