Rob Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. This is very similar--it is not exactly the same, but it is similar to a resolution we presented a few weeks ago. It is presented again for one simple reason. The reason that this is before here is still that there is no cloture on this particular issue. In ``A Man for All Seasons,'' Sir Thomas More may have used silence as his legal argument that silence denotes consent; but in a political setting as we are here, silence is not a solution. In an era in which perception is the same thing as reality, silence does not solve the problem, and indeed, harms are still there. If an agency of government intentionally misleads Congress--and the CIA has denied they did that. If they intentionally mislead Congress or a Member, an important or a significant Member of Congress, it creates a problem for the integrity of the House as a whole. If the data we are to receive is in question, then the solutions and the arguments we derive are equally in question, and that becomes an untenable decision. All of our decisions, therefore, become suspect. There is only one solution to this, and it is the same solution that we have said before: If we don't want this issue to simply be subject to political maneuverings, establish a bipartisan committee--two Republicans, two Democrats. Make that committee a subset of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, so they understand the verbiage, so they understand the questions, so they don't have to have a lot of time to be brought up to speed. If you have that kind of committee, their report will, by the very nature of the makeup of that committee, not be subject to political spin, and we may be able to move on. That's the important part. It is the integrity of the House that is in question here, and that needs to be answered so decisions of this House will be considered without any other kind of question or implication. Now, as we are starting the appropriations process, it becomes an ideal time in which any kind of solution we may wish to impose on this particular situation should be before the House and should be done. Mr. Speaker, I do this as a former speaker in Utah where several times you had to stand up to defend the integrity of the institution. This is about the integrity of the institution, to make sure we were not intentionally misled by an agency of government. I yield back.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of rule IX, I hereby notify the House of my intention to offer a resolution as a question of the privileges of the House. The form of the resolution is as follows: H. Res. -- Whereas the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, a Representative from California, served from 1997 to 2002 as Ranking Democratic Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Whereas Representative Pelosi currently serves as Speaker of the House, a position of considerable power and influence within the Congress; Whereas title 3 of the United States Code designates the Speaker of the House as third in line of succession to the Presidency; Whereas Speaker Pelosi has publicly challenged the truthfulness of what she and other congressional leaders were told by Central Intelligence Agency officials about the agency's use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists; Whereas in an MSNBC interview on February 25, 2009, Speaker Pelosi stated, ``I can say flat-out, they never told us that these enhanced interrogation techniques were being used''; Whereas, Speaker Pelosi's public statements allege a sustained pattern of deception by government intelligence officers charged by law with informing Congress about the agency's activities; Whereas when asked at a press conference on May 15, 2009 widely reported by the news media, ``Madam Speaker, just to be clear, you're accusing the CIA of lying to you in September?'' Speaker Pelosi stated, ``Yes''; Whereas during the same press conference the Speaker subsequently stated, ``So yes, I'm saying they are misleading, the CIA was misleading the Congress'' and further, ``they mislead us all the time'' and ``they misrepresented every step of the way''; Whereas in a memorandum to CIA employees released publicly on May 15, 2009, Leon Panetta, the CIA Director, stated, ``It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing the enhanced interrogation techniques that had been employed''; Whereas when asked in a press conference held June 4, 2009, ``Madam Speaker, are you still receiving intelligence briefings?'' Speaker Pelosi responded by saying, ``Yes, I am; yes, I am.''; Whereas a June 5, 2009 article on Human Events.com entitled, ``Pelosi Still Receives CIA Briefings, But Won't Say If They're Truthful'' stated, ``She refused to answer when asked whether or not she believes intelligence professionals are still lying to her.''; Whereas national and international media reports on this controversy have damaged the reputation of the House by raising questions about whether the effectiveness of congressional oversight may have been undermined through false or misleading statements by intelligence officials; and Whereas in order to safeguard the reputation of the House it is imperative to reconcile as soon as possible the aforementioned contradictory statements by Speaker Pelosi and CIA Director Panetta: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That-- (1) a Select Subcommittee of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence shall be established to review and verify the accuracy of the Speaker's aforementioned public statements; (2) the Select Subcommittee shall be comprised of four members of the full committee, two appointed by the chairman of the committee and two by its ranking minority member; (3) The subcommittee shall have the same powers to obtain testimony and documents pursuant to subpoena authorized under clause 2(m) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House; and, (4) the Select Subcommittee report its findings and recommendations to the House not later than sixty calendar days after adoption of this resolution. Mr. Speaker, that is the resolution.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I therefore offer the resolution. I assume it has to be read, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2847, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 2847 Account: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Legal name and address of requesting entity: Ogden City School District, located at 1950 Monroe Blvd., Ogden, Utah 84401. Description of project: $375,000 to the Ogden City School District for the Ogden Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Initiative, to collaborate with the district juvenile court and Morgan-Weber Mental Health Department to create a comprehensive delinquency, gang, and violence prevention program. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 2847 Account: Edward Byrne Discretionary Grants Legal name and address of requesting entity: Clearfield City, Utah, located at 55 South State Street, Clearfield, Utah 84015. Description of project: $425,000 to Clearfield City for the Digital Technology for Drug Enforcement Initiative, to purchase digital law enforcement equipment to help combat drug and gang-related problems in Clearfield. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 2847 Account: COPS Meth account Legal name and address of requesting entity: American Detoxification Foundation, located at 3090 S. Main Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84118. Description of project: $200,000 to the Utah Meth Cops Program, to treat law enforcement officers that are experiencing detrimental health effects from their exposure, during the course of duty, to chemicals involved with the production of methamphetamine.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have all the cosponsors on H.R. 2300 withdrawn. The names of the cosponsors are as follows: Mr. Akin Mr. Alexander Mrs. Bachmann Mr. Bonner Mr. Boozman Mr. Boustany Mr. Brady of Texas Mr. Broun of Georgia Mr. Brown of South Carolina Mr. Burton Mr. Carter Mr. Cassidy Mr. Chaffetz Mr. Coffman Mr. Conaway Mr. Culberson Mrs. Fallin Mr. Fleming Mrs. Foxx Mr. Franks Mr. Gallegly Mr. Gingrey Mr. Goodlatte Mr. Harper Mr. Heller Mr. Hensarling Mr. Herger Mr. Hoekstra Mr. Hunter Mrs. Jenkins Mr. Sam Johnson of Texas Mr. Jordan Mr. Lamborn Mr. Latta Mr. Lee of New York Mr. Linder Mr. Lucas Mrs. Lummis Mr. Manzullo Mr. Marchant Mr. McCaul Mr. McCotter Mr. McHenry Mr. McKeon Mrs. Myrick Mr. Neugebauer Mr. Pence Mr. Pitts Mr. Poe Mr. Price of Georgia Mr. Radanovich Mr. Rehberg Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin Mr. Scalise Mr. Sessions Mr. Simpson Mr. Smith of Texas Mr. Souder Mr. Sullivan Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania Mr. Thornberry Mr. Wamp Mr. Westmoreland Mr. Young of Alaska

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank my good friend from Michigan for yielding time. It has been an enjoyable time being a part of the Page Board as part of the page process. To the pages who are here and the ones who are not here because you still have to do work in the morning, we are very grateful for your having joined us here, some for a semester, some of you for a year, but for your time and your dedication in helping to serve the House of Representatives. I think, if nothing else, you have written many eloquent words about what you have seen and what you have not seen and what you have experienced here. But, if nothing else, I hope that it instilled within you this idea the United States had of self-government still does work, that you put together people who are not experts, not trained to be parliamentarians, put us all together and give us the information and still, in a very cumbersome process, we can come up with the right answers and with solutions. Man can govern himself. Through all the years that I have stayed involved in politics, first in the State legislative system and then here in Congress, I still come back to that one belief: The system of self-government does work. People can govern themselves. And that is the positive element that I hope you take with you back home as you return from this experience here in Washington, D.C. So the pages who are here, the pages who are still part of the program and not here this evening, we are thankful for you. We are grateful for you. We hope you have had a wonderful experience, and we hope you take back some kind of thrill of the idea of participating in government with you as you go back to your homes and continue on with your education.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Texas. It is one of those things that we live in a new iPod generation in which in all our lives we are given options and choices. In this particular area, it is not the time for the government to now establish who wins, who loses, what is our only path. We still have to provide our people with options so that they can live and expand their lives the way they deem best. That's the important part here. I want to emphasize there are options out there on the table that the Republican Party is presenting. Those options need to be heard and explored because they lead us to a proper goal and an easier pattern. With that, we yield back the balance of whatever time is left.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate very much the gentleman from Louisiana joining us and talking about other kinds of options that are out there for the American people. The reality has always been that reliable and affordable energy has been the great liberator of mankind. It has improved our lifestyle. It has allowed those who are poor to escape that kind of poverty. One of the things we cannot do is allow us to restrain ourselves so that that does not happen. As we said before, if you're rich, all this stuff could be an annoyance. If you're poor, it's a life-and-death decision, and as one wag simply said, never underestimate the ability of Congress to offer nonsolutions to problems that may or may not exist. We may be looking at that right now, but I appreciate especially the fact that there are other options out there that need to be explored because this is not the only answer and the only solution. With that, I'd like to yield to our good friend from Indiana who has spoken often on these particular topics and these issues, in fact, is organizing an effort to explore other options that America needs and recently took those conversations on the road to actually hear from Americans. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence). (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Indiana giving us what I think is not necessarily bright news, but good news to realize that the cap-and-tax approach or the cap-and-trade policy is not the only one that's out there. There are other options. The gentleman from Louisiana and I have joined with Senator Vitter on what is called the No Cost Stimulus Bill that solves this problem in a different approach. The Republican Study Committee and the Western Caucus have joined with H.R. 2300, which solves this problem with an alternative approach that provides American energy and American jobs without the harmful side effects. I just went this afternoon to the National Center for Policy Analysis. They presented 10--they call it 10 cool global warming policies--but 10 specific ideas or concepts, many of them that we have incorporated in some of those other bills that would help our situation without having to impose a tax that hurts the poorest of our people. Now I am pleased to yield to my good friend from Texas, someone who is, I think, the most fascinating speaker I have a chance to listen to, the last few minutes that we have on this particular issue at this time tonight to try and summarize once again that where we're going, hopefully we can avoid the pitfalls, and there are other options than what we have simply seen placed before us so far. I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio for talking about some of the realities that happen to be there. I hate to say this, but sometimes we need to make a reality check on this entire issue of what the goal is. When we are told the goal is to have an 80 percent reduction in CO2 by the year 2050, what does that really mean for us? In my own State of Utah, we have a yearly output of approximately 66 million tons of CO2 per year and a population of 2.6 million. Now, if you simply do the math, to reach that goal that everyone says we have to reach, we would have to go down to 2.2-tons of CO2 emitted every year in the State of Utah. The last time that happened, I hate to admit this, but Brigham Young hadn't even arrived. If you want to do the kind of math that it takes to reach that goal in the United States, the Pilgrims weren't here yet on Plymouth Rock. One of the things that we have to reconcile is that, look, there are 6.2 billion people in the world. Two billion of those people have never flipped on a switch because they have never had electricity. To reach the kind of goals that we're talking about here, we have to insist that those 2 billion people never have to experience things like lights and flat screen TVs and computers that we all take for granted and live with; that they don't have to have adequate food free of bugs because, I'm sorry, the fertilizer is fossil fuels; and they don't have to have clothes which are made of fossil fuels. My pen is a fossil fuel. Everything in the emergency room except for the steel is a fossil fuel. We make composites for aircraft to make them lighter and more efficient right now. You get on plane; you are riding on gas. All those things are there, and we have this schizophrenic idea that we want to get rid of fossil fuels, at the same time it is our lifestyle, without recognizing what it is. Back in the 1970s, we had a specific term in there and that's when we came up with the idea that these are alternative fuels. What we really should be saying is they are supplemental fuels, because I hate to say this, but one-sixth of one percent of the energy we use today comes from wind and solar. If you try to do a PowerPoint presentation of a pie chart, all you get is a little thin line because it can't get smaller than that little thin line. And after 30 years and $20 billion of the United States Government trying to expand wind and solar, we are still at one-sixth of one percent. The President wants to double that, which I applaud him for. Actually, the last 3 years of the Bush administration, we doubled the amount of wind and solar power we were using, but all that does is take us from one-sixth of 1 percent down to one-third of 1 percent. So that line is only a little bit wider. Now, if you have a coal or a gas-fired power plant that puts out 1,000 megawatts of power, it takes about 40 acres of ground to do that, 40 acres. To accomplish that same power output with wind, you would take 500 windmills that would require 30,000 acres to accomplish that. The Denver Post had this wonderful article about this great solar plant in an area in Denver that was putting out 8.2 million megawatts. To accomplish what that one coal-fired plant would put out, you would have to have 250 of those miracle plants covering 20,000 acres. In my home State we have a new geotherm plant, which is great, puts out 14 million megawatts of power. We take 10- to 20,000 every year just to keep up with the grid. So what we have to do as we're talking about all these issues is come up with some kind of realism that the bottom line is the wind does not always blow and the sun doesn't always shine, and we have yet to come up with a way of capturing wind and solar power, let alone the capacity for moving those. We have a reality check before we go marching down this path of where we're going. I want the gentleman from Louisiana who is here, who has been involved in these issues, has signed one of the early bills that deals with one of the potential solutions to this, especially to talk about some other options out there because what we, once again, need to do is we have to be able to give the American people choices and options, not have the Federal Government telling them what to do. So I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Georgia as well. I want to concur in the last part of what he did say very clearly that this is going to be a tax, it's going to be a windfall for money for the government, not necessarily to go back into this issue but for the government. The Washington Post simply said that the proposals will require a wholesale transformation in the Nation's economy and society. One of our former colleagues who is now in the Senate, he said, cap-and-trade is the most significant proposal of our time. Friends of the Earth published way back in 2007, The concept of a climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources. Alan Greenspan said cap-and-trade systems, or carbon taxes, are likely to be popular only until real people lose real jobs as their consequence. There is no effective way to meaningfully reduce emissions without negatively impacting a large part of our economy. Now, there's a couple of reality checks that I want to deal with today. And I'm joined by two of my good colleagues, one, the gentleman from Ohio, and also the gentleman from Louisiana, who are going to talk about some of the problems that we presently have; and especially the gentleman from Ohio because his area is going to be hit perhaps as hard as anyone in this unfair distribution of income. It's going to be a byproduct of this approach. With that, Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio who can tell us what's going to be happening in his backyard.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Sure, be happy to.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Well, I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia being able to join us in the middle of his committee markup, and I appreciate him being here and talking about simply some of the major problems that would take place with this overall system that may be here. It's one of the reality checks that we have to deal with is why, indeed, are we going to do this kind of an approach. I happen to think that one of the reasons why we're marching down this path right now, so rapidly marching down this path, is simply because the government promised to do something, and the something that they decided to do is a cap-and-trade or cap-and-tax policy, which simply means to put government pressure on the business community to try and lower their amount of CO2 emissions by putting, insisting they put economic pressure on them so that right now, to try and get those caps exceeded, they have to buy some kind of credit, and then put the economic pressure on them to change over to a new way of doing business. Both of those costs, both the cost of buying the cap-and-trade process right now as well as the change, will be passed on to the consumer. So the consumer basically gets hit both ways, two times, once going and once coming in this process at the same time; because the consumer basically has, all of our life is surrounded in some way by a fossil fuel economy, and the consumer, therefore, has to have a life change at the same time the business is having a life change. Now, I don't care how you want to try and spin this, as a new way of living or whatever it is, this is going to be the opportunity to change lifestyles based on bureaucratic decisions. And it will be, as the gentleman from Georgia just said, a concept of a tax on people. For the rich amongst us, this new tax is going to be an annoyance. For poor people, where 50 percent of their income has to go to energy choices, this tax is going to be the difference between being able to have a luxury like Hamburger Helper that night. This is not going to be fairly distributed throughout society. In fact, you'll notice, I think the gentleman from Ohio is here to talk to us in just a moment, and his area is going to be even more severely hit than some of the other parts of this country. And what it will be, though, is a windfall profit tax for the government. As the gentleman from Georgia said, this 400-plus billion dollars we're talking about does not go into improving our lifestyle or does not go into coming up with alternative energy sources. It goes to the government, pure and simple.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that opportunity and the opportunity of being here. As somebody who is old, I remember the good old days when we still had vinyl albums. If I wanted to buy a song, I had to buy the entire stupid record. Today, my kids tell me they have these neat things called ``iPods'' in which, if they want a song, all they have to do is download a song. They get to pick exactly what they want to. I'm in one of those situations where I go in a supermarket and I realize I can stand in that aisle and I have literally hundreds of cereals from which to choose. Or if I want to watch a movie, Netflix has thousands of options for me to choose from. There are millions of songs I could download. There are even 34 types of Eggo waffles. Our entire life is run with options and choices by American people. In fact, the only segment of our life in which the concept of options seems to have dissipated is with the government, because the government is still here to pick winners and losers and decide how I will or will not live my lifestyle. The government is still here to try to go back to those halcyon days of the Carter administration where the government told you where to put your thermostat, how fast to drive and on which days you could or could not get gasoline for your car. It is a lifestyle that happens to be there. We are dealing with a situation which may be, in essence, one of the biggest lifestyle changers we have ever had in this world with cap-and- trade, because we are talking about carbon policy. As was written in 2007, controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you can control carbon, you can control life. One of the fears I have right now is that we are moving into an area in which, instead of giving Americans options on how to live and how to produce and how to go forward with their lives, we are starting to tell them how to live their lives, because the government is the one that is going to be picking winners and losers. We are going to be talking about energy. We are going to be talking about cap-and-trade tonight, the implications of cap-and-trade and the tax policies of cap-and-trade, with the idea that what we should be trying to do, as a government, is giving people choices and options to let them choose how they live rather than having the government be the one to pick out who is going to win, who is going to lose and how we will proceed. I've been joined by several of my friends here tonight. I appreciate their service to this Nation as a Member of Congress. I'd like to turn some time over to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun) who is on the floor right now, even though his committee is still meeting in a markup. But I'd like him to have the opportunity of taking as much time as he wishes to consume so he can get back to his other work, which is trying to keep the Science Committee on the right track in their particular markup. Mr. Broun.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. That is exactly the point there. If people are going to actually put out that kind of money, they should know what they're going to get and they should know what the goal of all of this is. The goal has been stated that we'll have an 80 percent reduction by 2050. Sounds wonderful. In my particular State of Utah, we have a carbon footprint of roughly 66 million tons of CO2 per year and a population of 2.6 million. If you simply do the math, 80 percent by 2050 means we will be producing in 2050 2.2 tons of CO2. Sounds like a lot. Except the last time in the history of the State of Utah we had a carbon output that was that low, I'm sorry, Brigham Young wasn't there. If you tried to do something for this Nation, the Pilgrims hadn't landed before you do that. So the question is how do we actually do that? How do we reconcile a lifestyle with these elements, especially when there are 6.2 billion on the Earth, 2 billion who have never switched on a light?

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. It's the only way it works as long as you can keep the other 2 billion people in the world who don't have electricity today from ever getting electricity. We can keep our lights, our flat-screen TVs, our computers, our cell phones, everything that uses electricity now, our low-cost food without bugs because fertilizer is fossil fuels. We can keep the clothes and the plastics. You go into an emergency room, everything except steel is part of fossil fuels. Composites made for airplanes now that make them lighter weight and more efficient is all gas. You fly here back and forth on gas. The problem we have with this entire concept is basically we're saying we're going to get rid of fossil fuels at the same time we live with fossil fuels, and that is simply nothing short of schizophrenia on our part. Here's a problem. I had a great friend that gave a speech at one point. And one of the things we need to be looking at is the fact that all of these, what we classify as alternative fuel sources, really are supplemental fuel sources. If you add everything we do from solar and wind power together, it's one-sixth of 1 percent of our energy consumption. You try to make one of those pie charts with that and it's a thin line. You can't get anything more than that. That's the best a PowerPoint--which also uses electricity--would ever produce. And we get that with 20 years or 30 years of the government having spent $20 billion to try to increase wind and solar power. President Obama said we want to double that figure. Actually, in the last 3 years of the Bush administration, we doubled that figure. Admittedly, it's a higher base now. It would be harder to do at the next doubling. But if you double it, you go from one-sixth to one-third of 1 percent. And that's on the assumption that no economy grows anywhere else. Everything remains flat.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I am glad you feel excited right now, because one of the things that we are talking about in Congress is alternatives and other ideas. And as we have gone through this, we have shown that the cap-and-trade policy is nothing more then a tax. There are lots of negatives that go around with it. It's idealism, because the alternatives we have are not able to replace fossil fuels yet unless we want to totally change our lives. And there are easier ways than government mandates to get it done: allowing the markets to work--which I hate to say, especially from a ``just say no'' party, but if you include the no cost stimulus bill that many of us here have sponsored, H.R. 2300, which is from the Republican Study Committee in the Western Caucus--I think all of us here sponsored--those are viable options that make life better by having a reliable and sufficient energy to drive down the costs to help us find a bridge to come up with supplemental, not alternative, but supplemental energy and to do it in an orderly and efficient manner where people get to choose. The government doesn't pick the winners. People get to pick the winners. There aren't those options out there. And what you got excited about is exactly what many of us here are trying to do. It is another voice. It is another option. Let the American people know it is out there and available.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I, unfortunately, don't have the wonderful accent that my good friend from Georgia has, but I will try and slur some words together to see if I can emulate that in some small way. The problem that I think all of us here in Congress are facing, as well as the people out there are facing, is that the government has promised they're going to do something. Not market forces. The government is going to do something. And this cap-and-tax policy is an effort of the government to try to ratchet down carbon emissions into the atmosphere by changing the way industry works in an effort to have them changing the way they produce things. That change passes on to the consumer. Everything we use, as the gentleman said, has some kind of carbon footprint. The essence is that not only industries but individuals will change their lifestyles. I don't care how you went to spin it. It is still a tax on people--we are looking at estimates around $400 billion--a tax on people that doesn't go to changing the amount of energy we have or changing the way we live our lives to better the people's lives. It's an amount of money that goes simply to the government. It is a windfall to the government.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate that opportunity, sir.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Pursuant to clause 2(a)1 of rule IX, I hereby notify the House of my intention to offer a resolution as a question of privilege of the House. The form of the resolution is at the desk and is as follows: H. Res. -- Whereas the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, a Representative from California, served from 1997 to 2002 as Ranking Democratic Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Whereas Representative Pelosi currently serves as Speaker of the House, a position of considerable power and influence within the Congress; Whereas title 3 of the United States Code designates the Speaker of the House as third in line of succession to the Presidency; Whereas Speaker Pelosi has publicly challenged the truthfulness of what she and other congressional leaders were told by Central Intelligence Agency officials about the agency's use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists; Whereas in an MSNBC interview on February 25, 2009, Speaker Pelosi stated, ``I can say flat-out, they never told us that these enhanced interrogation techniques were being used''; Whereas, Speaker Pelosi's public statements allege a sustained pattern of deception by government intelligence officers charged by law with informing Congress about the agency's activities; Whereas when asked at a press conference on May 15, 2009 widely reported by the news media, ``Madame Speaker, just to be clear, you're accusing the CIA of lying to you in September?'' Speaker Pelosi stated, ``Yes''; Whereas during the same press conference the Speaker subsequently stated, ``So yes, I'm saying they are misleading, the CIA was misleading the Congress'' and further, ``they mislead us all the time'' and ``they misrepresented every step of the way''; Whereas in a memorandum to CIA employees released publicly on May 15, 2009, Leon Panetta, the CIA Director, stated, ``It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing the enhanced interrogation techniques that had been employed''; Whereas national and international media reports on this controversy have damaged the reputation of the House by raising questions about whether the effectiveness of congressional oversight may have been undermined through false or misleading statements by intelligence officials; Whereas in order to safeguard the reputation of the House it is imperative to reconcile as soon as possible the aforementioned contradictory statements by Speaker Pelosi and CIA Director Panetta: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That-- (1) a Select Subcommittee of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence shall be established to review and verify the accuracy of the Speaker's aforementioned public statements; (2) the Select Subcommittee shall be comprised of four members of the full committee, two appointed by the chairman of the committee and two by its ranking minority member; (3) The subcommittee shall have the same powers to obtain testimony and documents pursuant to subpoena authorized under clause 2(m) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House; and, (4) the Select Subcommittee report its findings and recommendations to the House not later than sixty calendar days after adoption of this resolution:

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of the privileges of the House and offer the resolution previously noticed.