John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the question, Does this not contain carve-outs for horse racing?

Mr. CONYERS. And lottery?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am deeply impressed by the passion that my comments have raised. But remember that the old bill that he killed did not contain a lottery exemption that Abramoff wanted, and this one does. CQ may have gotten it wrong, ladies and gentlemen, I doubt it. Republicans are touting Internet gambling legislation the House will likely pass as evidence that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's influence is gone, even though the measure would protect many of the gambling interests he once represented.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. Mr. Speaker, I want to just let me dear friend from Massachusetts know that this bill requires no age verification for minors to place horse racing bets. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. I just want to tell my friend, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), that if he thinks we have fixed the Abramoff problem of this House by passing this legislation, I am sure that Jack is somewhere saying, Fooled again. Now, I oppose this bill for the same reasons that the Traditional Values Coalition opposes the bill, namely, that we are not doing the complete job; and if we were, I would be here as an advocate. But this legislation only bans certain forms of online gambling, while expanding legal authorization for certain favored special interests, including betting on the lotteries and interstate horse racing. This latter exception, the one reserved especially for the horse racing industry, is a great concern because in the last few months the horse racing industry has made it clear that they intend to use the carve-out to go after who, children, in order to encourage them to engage in online gambling. This is a big problem for me. But could we not have figured this out without going to the Baltimore Sun or listening to the chief executive officer of the Maryland Jockey Club tell us about the decades-long slump in attendance and wagering at the track and the ability of the Internet to turn that around? In response, Mr. DeFrancis declared, ``Over the 25 years I've been in this industry, not one day has gone by when I haven't heard people complaining that our customer base is getting older and we can't attract young people. And this gives us an opportunity to expand into the youth market unlike any we've ever had before.'' Do you not get it? With this carve-out, we are starting something that is a slippery slope, and it has been thankfully remarked on by a number of people here. So, regardless of one's position with respect to whether or not Internet gambling should be banned, we can all, and should, agree that innocent children should not be taken advantage of when they go online. As is the case when it comes to protecting kids from pornography and other forms of online predators, children should be equally protected from those who make it their mission to encourage underage gambling. So, for that reason, the bill goes in the wrong direction and threatens to make an increasing problem even worse. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), an esteemed member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, no one has worked harder on this bill than the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley), and I yield her 4 minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Speaker and ladies and gentlemen, H.R. 4411 is Abramoff's revenge. If he were still lobbying and not on the way to imprisonment, he and his former client would have no reason to panic about H.R. 4411, because that bill contains the loophole for State lotteries that he was hired to secure in 2000, which is why he opposed the bill then. And now that he has got it, he would be in support of the bill. The supporters often note the defeat of his bill in 2000, and his role in that defeat, as the reason to enact this year's bill. Wrong. However, the supporters conspicuously fail to note that Abramoff's goal was to preserve the ability of his then clients to bring State lotteries onto the Internet. He only worked to defeat the Goodlatte bill when it was clear that State lotteries would not be exempt from the ban. He would be able and is able to rest easy today because we contain in this measure an amendment to the Wire Act that would allow States to sell lottery tickets online so long as certain minimal conditions are met, that is, that the State must specifically authorize online ticket sales. Please, let's be real. Let's be candid. Let's be honest with the American people about what they were doing. If we didn't have this loophole as big as a barn door, this bill would be a lot better off. And so H.R. 4411 is Abramoff's revenge. It is a bill that he could have supported in 2000. And though the passage of this bill is rationalized as a way to exorcise the demons of 2000 from the House, the reality is this bill serves his clients' interests. Please oppose this measure unless there are some changes made about it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentlewoman for her amendment and for yielding to me, because the same Internet gambling legislation Abramoff fought so hard to defeat on behalf of a client that helped States conduct lotteries over the Internet now includes an exemption to protect those lotteries; and she speaks to this point in this amendment that she and I and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Wexler) now present. If you are really for doing what you say you want to do, then what is wrong with this amendment? If we want to prohibit Internet gambling, let's do it completely. Let's not try to continue to fool the public. The Hill article that I quoted went on to point out that ``in addition to exemption for lotteries, the measure also included language to protect interstate pari-mutuel betting on horse races.'' The existence of these latter carve-outs have also been confirmed by members of the horse racing industry themselves. The amendment that my colleagues and I join together to offer today merely seeks to prove, once and for all, that State lotteries and the horse racing industry are no better than any other form of Internet gambling. And so I am proud to strongly urge my colleagues to support our amendment. Please support the amendment and an across-the-board ban for all forms of online gambling.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me yet again, but I have something that I will ask unanimous consent to put into the Record. ``Horse racing is betting on Internet wagering. Maryland industry chief DeFrancis says it could attract youth.'' Now, maybe they don't understand their business as well as some of you here do, who think that they are mistaken when they think they have an exemption. ``Horse racing's problem is obvious: A decade's-long slump in attendance and wagering at the track. Horse racing's solution might be less obvious: Get people to stay home and bet.'' Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the article be included in the Record.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. CONYERS. Yes, sir, I am in its present form.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, the motion I offer today is a simple and straightforward one. It makes sure that underage kids cannot gamble on the Internet, whether it is connection to interstate or intrastate betting. This is something that I hope that all Members can agree on on a bipartisan basis for, to me, protecting children from being taken advantage of on the Internet is one of the most important things we can do as Members of the Congress. They should not be taken advantage of whether it is with regard to gambling, pornography or any other respect. Children should be off limits to predators of any form on the Internet. The problem is, as currently drafted, the bill has a loophole. Intrastate bets have protections in general, but interstate bets are excluded. My concerns are not hypothetical. Two months ago, the Baltimore Sun ran an article where the horse racing industry admitted that they hoped to prosper by reaching out to underage children. I have made this article a part of the Record, and I hope that you will examine it. To me, that is not right, and we ought to make sure that this legislation, which is purportedly designed to limit Internet gambling, does not actually encourage it, especially for children. Now, I would expect that the other side may argue, for example, that my amendment will gut the bill. But that is not true. The amendment merely serves to protect against underage gambling over the Internet. Some might also argue that there are already protections in the bill for underage gambling. But those requirements apply only intrastate. They left out the more important interstate requirements. Finally, some may argue that the amendment is a poison bill that will kill the bill because it is opposed by powerful interests, or powerful legislators. To that I say that if protecting children from gambling is a poison pill, than maybe this bill deserves to die. The last thing we should be doing as Members of Congress in the 109th session is putting children at risk on the Internet. My motion would eliminate the loophole in the bill for interstate bets by children. I ask my colleagues to join me on both sides of the aisle in supporting this commonsense motion to recommit. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, as Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, which had been closed to the public, a citizen asked: ``What kind of Government have you given us, Mr. Franklin?'' Franklin replied, ``A Republic, Madam, if you can keep it.'' In last week's New York Review of Books, Elizabeth Drew, one of our most distinguished political analysts, discusses President Bush's ``Power Grab.'' She forcefully reminds us that, to paraphrase Franklin, the Constitution gives Congress power co-equal with the President, but only if Congress can keep it. Drew illustrates in painful but accurate detail how Congress repreatedly has stood by and allowed Bush to erode our constitutional powers, one bit at a time. Drew's particular focus is on President Bush's drastically expanded use of so-called ``signing statements,'' in which he asserts a statute's version he plans to follow, his own version. President Bush tries to claim the power to ``make all laws,'' as well as his constitutionally assigned role to ensure the ``laws be faithfully executed.'' He did not originate the practice, but his use of it is unprecedented in frequency, scope, and defiance of clear legislative intent. This is not a partisan issue. When President Bush reluctantly signed the recent statute banning torture, but then insisted that he would authorize non-existent exceptions, members of both parties disputed the practice. As Drew explains, Bush's claim of ``inherent authority'' to ignore the law knows no bounds, no time frame or limiting principle. The genius of our system of government is its separation of powers and its structure of checks and balances. That structure is at risk today. I urge my colleagues to ponder Elizabeth Drew's timely warning. [From the New York Review of Books, June 22, 2006] Power Grab (By Elizabeth Drew) During the presidency of George W. Bush, the White House has made an unprecedented reach for power. It has systematically attempted to defy, control, or threaten the institutions that could challenge it: Congress, the courts, and the press. It has attempted to upset the balance of power among the three branches of government provided for in the Constitution; but its most aggressive and consistent assaults have been against the legislative branch: Bush has time and again said that he feels free to carry out a law as he sees fit, not as Congress wrote it. Through secrecy and contemptuous treatment of Congress, the Bush White House has made the executive branch less accountable than at any time in modem American history. And because of the complaisance of Congress, it has largely succeeded in its efforts. This power grab has received little attention because it has been carried out largely in obscurity. The press took little notice until Bush, on January 5 of this year, after signing a bill containing the McCain amendment, which placed prohibitions on torture, quietly filed a separate pronouncement, a ``signing statement,'' that he would interpret the bill as he wished. In fact Bush had been issuing such signing statements since the outset of his administration. The Constitution distinguishes between the power of the Congress and that of the president by stating that Congress shall ``make all laws'' and the president shall ``take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'' Bush claims the power to execute the laws as he interprets them, ignoring congressional intent. Grover Norquist, a principal organizer of the conservative movement who is close to the Bush White House and usually supports its policies, says, ``If you interpret the Constitution's saying that the president is commander in chief to mean that the president can do anything he wants and can ignore the laws you don't have a constitution: you have a king.'' He adds, ``They're not trying to change the law; they're saying that they're above the law and in the case of the NSA wiretaps they break it.'' A few members of Congress recognize the implications of what Bush is doing and are willing to speak openly about it. Dianne Feinstein, Democratic senator from California, talks of a ``very broad effort'' being made ``to increase the power of the executive.'' Chuck Hagel, Republican senator from Nebraska, says: ``There's a very clear pattern of aggressively asserting executive power, and the Congress has essentially been complicit in letting him do it. The key is that Bush has a Republican Congress; of course if it was a Clinton presidency we'd be holding hearings.'' The public scenes of the President surrounded by smiling legislators whom he praises for their wonderful work as he hands out the pens he has used to sign the bill are often utterly misleading. The elected officials aren't informed at that time of the President's real intentions concerning the law. After they leave, the President's signing statements-- which he does not issue verbally at the time of signing--are placed in the Federal Register, a compendium of U.S. laws, which members of Congress rarely read. And they are often so technical, referring as they do to this subsection and that statute, that they are difficult to understand. For five years, Bush has been issuing a series of signing statements which amount to a systematic attempt to take power from the legislative branch. Though Ronald Reagan started issuing signing statements to set forth his own position on a piece of legislation, he did it essentially to guide possible court rulings, and he only occasionally objected to a particular provision of a bill. Though subsequent presidents also issued such statements, they came nowhere near to making the extraordinary claims that Bush has; nor did they make such statements nearly so often. According to an article in The Boston Globe, Bush has claimed the right to ignore more than 750 laws enacted since he became president. He has unilaterally overruled Congress on a broad range of matters, refusing, for example, to accept a requirement for more diversity in awarding government science scholarships. He has overruled numerous provisions of congressional appropriations bills that he felt impinged on his executive power. He has also overruled Congress's requirement that he report back to it on how he has implemented a number of laws. Moreover, he has refused to enforce laws protecting whistle-blowers and providing safeguards against political interference in federally funded research. Bush has also used signing statements to place severe limits on the inspectors general created by Congress to oversee federal activities, including two officials who were supposed to inspect and report to Congress on the US occupation of Iraq. The President could of course veto a bill he doesn't like and publicly argue his objections to it. He would then run the risk that Congress would override his veto. Instead, Bush has chosen a method that is largely hidden and is difficult to challenge. As of this writing, Bush has never vetoed a bill (though he has threatened to do so in the case of a spending bill now pending in Congress). Some of the bills Bush has decided to sign and then ignore or subvert were passed over his objections; others were the result of compromises between Congress and the White House. Arlen Specter, the Republican senator from Pennsylvania and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told me, ``Under the Constitution if the president doesn't like a bill he vetoes it. You don't cherry-pick the legislation.'' Bush has cited two grounds for flouting the will of Congress, or of unilaterally expanding presidential powers. One is the claim of the ``inherent'' power of the commander in chief. Second is a heretofore obscure doctrine called the unitary executive, which gives the president power over Congress and the courts. The concept of a unitary executive holds that the executive branch can overrule the courts and Congress on the basis of the president's own interpretations of the Constitution, in effect overturning Marbury v. Madison (1803), which established the principle of judicial review, and the constitutional concept of checks and balances. The term ``unitary government'' has two different meanings: one simply refers to the president's control of the executive branch, including the supposedly independent regulatory agencies such as the SEC and the FDA. The other, much broader concept, which is used by Bush, gives the executive power superior to that of Congress and the courts. Previous presidents have asserted the right not to carry out parts of a bill, arguing that it impinged on their constitutional authority; but they were specific both in their objections and in the ways they proposed to execute the law. Clinton, for example, objected to provisions in a bill establishing a semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which set out the reasons for removing the director. Clinton objected that that impinged on his presidential prerogatives. Bush asserts broad powers without being specific in his objections or saying how he plans to implement the law. His interpretations of the law, as in his ``signing statement'' on the McCain amendment, often construe the bill to mean something different from--and at times almost the opposite of--what everyone knows it means. The concept of the unitary executive, which has been put forward in conservative circles for several years, has been advocated mainly by the Federalist Society, a group of conservative lawyers who also campaign for the nomination of conservative judges. The idea was seriously considered in the Reagan administration's Justice Department. One of its major supporters was Samuel Alito, then a lawyer in the Justice Department. In his confirmation hearing, Alito said that the memorandum he wrote saying that the president's interpretation of a bill ``should be just as important as that of Congress'' was ``theoretical.'' But no president until Bush explicitly claimed that the concept of a unitary executive was a basis for overruling a bill. The theory was formulated by John Yoo, a mid-level but highly influential attorney in the Justice Department between 2001 and 2003, who took the view that the president had the power to do pretty much whatever he wanted to do. (He also wrote the infamous memorandum defending what amounted to torture.) As White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, now attorney general, also publicly supported the theory of the unitary executive. The theory rests on the Oath of Office, in which, according to the Constitution, the newly elected president promises to ``faithfully execute the office of President,'' and also on the section of Article II that states that the president ``shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'' The administration has put forward unprecedented interpretations of both clauses, claiming that they give the president independent authority, unchecked by the other branches of government, to decide what the law means. This theory overlooks the fact that the framers were particularly wary of executive power. A number of constitutional scholars I have spoken with describe the administration's theory of the unitary executive as no more than a convenient fig leaf for enlarging presidential power. Bush's claims of extraordinary power as commander in chief have been mainly invoked since September 11, 2001. He was able to exploit the anxieties the attacks had stirred, causing people to look to the President to defend them. Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, recalled that everyone ``looked to the presidency, not to the 535 senators and congressmen, to protect them from a further crippling attack and suspended their mistrust of government. So they [the administration] took great power, which has to be handled wisely, but they didn't.'' It is under the authority of his powers as commander in chief that Bush asserted the right to keep nearly five hundred ``enemy combatants'' in detention in Guantanamo, of whom only ten were charged with a crime. Most were handed over by Afghan bounty hunters who were paid by the U.S. to turn in Arabs. Bush has also asserted the same authority in dealing with numerous bills passed by Congress, most spectacularly in his treatment of the McCain amendment banning ``cruel, inhuman or degraded treatment'' of POWs. In his signing statement, Bush said: ``The executive branch shall construe [the torture provision] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judiciary * * *'' This general formula had by then become a standard part of Bush's signing statements, though few noticed. What Bush said about the torture bill was particularly egregious since Vice President Cheney, Bush's liaison with Congress, had tried to negotiate with the Senate a provision watering down McCain's amendment, and failed. The Senate passed it by a vote of 90 to 9, and the House endorsed it by a vote of 308 to 122. It had been an open, well-publicized fight and the President lost. In late February, shortly after Bush's signing statement on the McCain amendment, the Constitution Project, a bipartisan, nonprofit organization in Washington, issued a protest signed by former government officials of both parties, prominent conservatives, and scholars, saying that they ``are deeply concerned about the risk of permanent and unchecked presidential power, and the accompanying failure of Congress to exercise its responsibility as a separate and independent branch of government.'' They objected to Bush's assertions that he ``may not be bound'' by statutes enacted by Congress, such as the McCain amendment, and that he can ignore ``long- standing treaty commitments and statutes that prohibit the torture of prisoners.'' It concluded that ``we agree that we face a constitutional crisis.'' Another egregious use of the signing statements occurred when Bush said in March that, in interpreting the bill reauthorizing the Patriot Act, he would ignore the requirement that the president report to Congress on the steps taken to implement the law, thus denying that the executive should be accountable to Congress. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued an angry protest calling Bush's use of signing statements ``nothing short of a radical effort to re-shape the constitutional separation of powers and evade accountability and responsibility for following the law.'' Leahy added, ``The President's signing statements are not the law, and we [the Congress] should not allow them to become the last word.'' Bush went still further in his extraordinary claim of supreme power on December 17, 2005, when he acknowledged that, as revealed in The New York Times the day before, the government was conducting warrantless wiretapping of domestic calls. He claimed that he had the power to order such taps ``to save lives,'' regardless of what the existing law said. His claim rested on two contradictory arguments. First, he said that warrantless wiretaps were authorized in the resolution enacted three days after September 11, which said that the president could ``use all necessary and appropriate force'' to combat al-Qaeda. But the administration also argued that it didn't need authorization because of the inherent powers of the commander in chief. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle wrote that the administration had asked for a much broader resolution on the use of force than the one Congress approved. At the last minute the White House sought to have the resolution also include actions ``in the United States'' but was turned down. One problem with the President's claims of extraordinary powers as commander in chief is that the ``war on terror'' is by definition an open-ended one, with no time limit on the president's powers, as Bush interprets them, to do virtually whatever he wants in order to conduct that war. There are undefined limits on how far the legislature can go in instructing the president on how to conduct a war; clearly it cannot tell him how to deploy combat troops. But during the Vietnam War, Congress used the power of the purse, voting to cut off funds. The Nixon administration didn't argue that Congress had no power to do so. There is no way of knowing how many other laws already on the books are being reinterpreted by Bush, as he's done in the case of the NSA wiretapping program. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, passed in 1978 after the Supreme Court had unanimously rejected as illegal Richard Nixon's domestic wiretapping, set forth what it said were the ``exclusive means'' by which an administration could conduct surveillance on Americans. The FISA law set up a special, secret court that could grant the government permission to wiretap American citizens after a showing of probable cause. One of the administration's justifications for initiating a wiretapping program outside the FISA law is that taps on potential terrorists must be initiated speedily; but the FISA law gives the executive three days to conduct a warrantless tap in an emergency and fifteen days if there's been a declaration of war. Gonzales complains that the law is too burdensome, since the attorney general still has to sign off on emergency taps and that they have to meet FISA standards. (A Republican senator, upon being told these complaints, said, ``So what's the problem?'') But the FISA law has been amended twice since it was enacted and the administration has never specifically and clearly asked Congress to revise the law to take account of changed circumstances. The administration's wiretapping program appears to violate the Fourth Amendment's guarantee that ``the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause. . . .'' The original impetus for the Bush program reportedly came from General Michael V. Hayden, then head of the National Security Agency, which collects information in the name of national security, and Bush's nominee to head the CIA. Hayden told a receptive White House that the NSA counsel had said the program was legal. The government claims that if a member of al-Qaeda, or of a group ``supportive of'' al-Qaeda, calls or e-mails someone in the United States, or if someone in the U.S. initiates the conversation, the government, which could already tap the suspected terrorist, can now tap the U.S. resident as well. This raised the question whether that U.S. citizen's other calls would be tapped. In a press briefing given at the White House by Gonzales and Hayden on January 19 this year, Gonzales emphasized that ``one party to the communication has to be outside the United States'' and insisted there has to be ``a reasonable basis'' for concluding that one party to the communication is affiliated with or ``supportive of'' al-Qaeda, an extremely vague standard. And the administration is now making that decision, not the FISA court. Gonzales, moreover, has told congressional committees that he couldn't rule out that the President has the authority to wiretap purely domestic calls. Asked why the administration didn't go to Congress for authorization to wiretap domestic calls in terrorism cases without seeking a warrant, Gonzales replied: ``We have had discussions with Congress in the past--certain members of Congress--as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible.'' In other words, having been told that Congress was unlikely to authorize the warrantless wiretaps of domestic calls, the administration went ahead and did the tapping. The Bush administration's reaction to the revelations about the wiretapping program has been to attack the leaks. In his statement acknowledging the wiretapping program, Bush said, ``The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy.'' In an attempt to limit congressional oversight, the administration tried to restrict the number of members of Congress it would brief on such matters.According to a presidential directive issued quietly after September 11, officials were to discuss highly classified information with only the Republican chairman and the ranking Democrat on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees--committees that were established to conduct oversight on intelligence activities following the CIA scandals in the mid-Seventies-- as well as the Republican and Democratic leaders of each chamber (a total of eight people) and not with the full intelligence committees. Under the new rules, the members of this small group of people weren't permitted to discuss the program with other members of the intelligence committees, or with their own staffs. It was for the administration to decide which intelligence matters were too sensitive to discuss with the entire intelligence committees. One problem with this White House-imposed arrangement was that just as members of other congressional committees become cozy with the government agencies they are supposed to oversee, the intelligence committee heads--with the notable exception of Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, of West Virginia--are known to be close to the intelligence agencies. In July 2003, Rockefeller sent Cheney a handwritten letter saying that the restrictions on briefings ``raise profound oversight issues.'' Rockefeller also wrote that the wiretapping program recalled the highly intrusive Pentagon Total Information Awareness program headed by John Poindexter, which Congress voted to abolish. The resemblance, he wrote, ``exacerbat[ed] my concern regarding the direction the administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveillance.'' (Rockefeller released the statement following the Times's disclosure.) Earlier this year, Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine, threatened to vote with the Democrats for an investigation of the wiretapping program unless the full committee was briefed on it. In early March, on the eve of a scheduled vote on the matter, Cheney was called to a meeting with some committee Republicans in S207, the committee's highly secured room in the Capitol. The Republicans, including Snowe, sharply criticized Cheney for the administration's attempts to prevent other committee members from being briefed about the program. Cheney had to report to the White House that its plan to shut out all but the top committee members was no longer feasible. But, working with Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the administration was able to limit the additional committee members to be briefed to four Republicans and three Democrats, still leaving most of the intelligence committee members, not to mention other elected officials, in the dark. On the eve of Hayden's confirmation hearings, Roberts, facing a public revolt by committee members of both parties, agreed that all of the committee members should be briefed on the surveillance programs. This was also a way of preventing committee members who hadn't been briefed from asking awkward questions in public. (This led to the tepid questioning of Hayden in his public confirmation hearings.) Despite the briefing, in the public hearing Snowe said, ``the Congress was really never really consulted or informed in the manner that we could truly perform our oversight role as co-equal branches of government, not to mention--I happen to believe--required by law.'' In March, after the Senate Intelligence Committee declined to hold hearings on the matter, Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, convened four days of hearings before the Judiciary Committee. But Specter concluded that Gonzales's testimony was too vague to be informative. In late April he threatened to cut off NSA funds for the wiretapping program if the administration didn't reveal more about it. Asked by a reporter why he didn't call Gonzales back to appear before his committee, Specter replied, ``Because he won't tell us anything.'' The administration, apparently on the orders of the White House, shut down a Justice Department investigation into the wiretapping program. Bush's nomination of Hayden to be the next CIA director set off an undoubtedly greater clamor than the White House expected over his role in the wiretapping program and his strenuous public defense of it, but the White House claimed it welcomed the fight. And then another clamor was set off by the revelation by USA Today that the NSA was collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans from major telephone companies. In a statement to the press, Bush said the NSA wasn't listening to the calls but was only tracing the pattern of contacts they revealed. But it would be easy for the NSA or another agency to correlate the numbers with the names of the callers. In any event, the program is quite possibly illegal. (Specter is to hold hearings.) These disclosures led some lawmakers to wonder what else they hadn't been told that the administration was doing in the name of national security. A big congressional fight over the wiretapping program would fit neatly into Karl Rove's strategy, declared earlier this year to a meeting of the Republican National Committee, of cynically making the issue of national security central to the 2006 election, as he did in 2002. ``Republicans,'' he said, ``have a post-9/11 worldview and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview.'' With its penchant for propagandistic titles (the ``Patriot Act''), the administration calls the warrantless wiretapping program the ``terrorist surveillance'' program, and it imputes to its opponents the view that terrorists should not be wiretapped. But of course that is not the issue: most of the critics on Capitol Hill are simply arguing that wiretapping programs should be subject to the law. Hagel says, ``You cannot have one branch of government make the decision on whose rights would be violated. That's the very basis of having three co-equal branches of government.'' As for the judicial branch, the Bush administration, like previous administrations, has tried to appoint judges compatible with the President's views. But Bush has been strikingly successful at putting extreme conservatives on the bench, and probably now has four votes on the Supreme Court for his ``unitary executive'' rationale for executive authority over what the other branches do. His administration has several times told the Supreme Court that it should not hear the cases of detainees. Also by his appointments and by exerting pressure Bush has bent the supposedly independent regulatory agencies (the EPA, SEC, FDA, etc.) closer to his political views--in his case, pro-deregulation--than any president before him. The explicit rationale for these agencies is that they were to be independent of both the executive and Congress. There have already been two federal court rulings charging the EPA with defying federal environmental law. As for the press, Justice Department officials have threatened to prosecute not only officials who leak classified information, but also anyone else who simply receives classified information, whether they disclose it or not. Gonzales has suggested that journalists might be prosecuted for disclosing classified information (for example, The New York Times reporters for revealing the warrantless wiretapping program). On May 16, ABC News reported on its Web site that the FBI had stepped up government efforts to seek reporters' phone records in investigations of leaks. Many reporters and editors find it ominous that the administration prosecuted two lobbyists for AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, for receiving such information (as well as passing it on to Israel), and that, in early March, the FBI demanded the papers of the late investigative reporter Jack Anderson. Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington, formerly his counsel, are understood by most informed observers to be mainly responsible for the expansive interpretations of the president's powers, as well as the unprecedented secrecy with which the administration conducts public affairs. According to The New York Times, after September 11 Cheney and Addington pushed for the wiretapping of domestic calls. A Republican lobbyist I talked to told me that the administration's attitude on various issues is simple: ``It's we just want it our way and we don't want to be bothered by talking to other people about it.'' Some Republican observers suggest that Cheney is living in a time warp, reacting to what he saw as congressional encroachment (including FISA) on the president's powers during the time that he served in the Ford White House and as a minority member of a Democratic Congress. Despite rumors of a decline in his standing with Bush, Cheney remains the most powerful vice-president in American history, with an octopus-like reach into many parts of the government. He has placed his own people in each of the national security agencies--the Departments of Defense and State as well as the CIA and the National Security Council. (Until she recently took a maternity leave, his daughter Elizabeth was principal deputy assistant secretary of state for the Near East, a position that does not require Senate confirmation and from which people on Capitol Hill saw her as effectively in charge of the State Department's Middle East bureau.) Cheney installed Porter Goss in the CIA, with orders to root out people who leaked information inconvenient to the administration. It's difficult, however, to know much about what Cheney is doing because his office operates in such secrecy that a reporter friend of mine refers to it as a ``black hole.'' In Bush, Cheney has had a very receptive listener. Bush's own overweening attitude toward the presidency is clear from his behavior. He bristles at being challenged. He told Bob Woodward, ``I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel I owe anybody an explanation.'' His comment, ``I'm the decider,'' about not firing Rumsfeld, is in fact a phrase he has used often. Why have the members of Congress been so timorous in the face of the steady encroachment on their constitutional power by the executive branch? Conversations with many people in or close to Congress produced several reasons. Most members of Congress don't think in broad constitutional terms; their chief preoccupations are raising money and getting reelected. Their conversations with their constituents are about the more practical issues on voters' minds: the prices of gasoline, prescription drugs, and college tuition. Or about voters' increasing discontent with the Iraq war. Republicans know that the President's deepening unpopularity might hurt them in the autumn elections; but, they point out, he's still a good fund-raiser and they need his help. Moreover, the Republicans are more hierarchical than the Democrats, more reverential toward their own party's president; it's unimaginable that Republicans would be as openly critical of Bush as the Democrats were of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Republicans are more disciplined about delivering their party's ``talking points'' to the public. Republican fund-raising is done more from the top than is the case with Democrats, and there's always the implicit threat that if a Republican isn't loyal to the president, the flow of money to their campaigns might be cut off. A Republican opponent can challenge an incumbent in a primary, in which not many people vote. Here Arlen Specter has shown unusual courage. He barely survived a conservative challenge in the primary election in 2004 (though Bush supported him), and then had to beat back a conservative attempt to remove him as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee because of his views in favor of abortion rights. He survived by promising not to let his pro-choice views hold up the judicial nominations before the committee. Specter told me, ``What I worry about most is the restrictions of Congress's constitutional authority, which the Congress doesn't resist.'' Bush's declining popularity can occasionally impel Republicans to try to seem independent of him--as, say, on the issue of Dubai being awarded a contract to administer U.S. ports; after all the administration's talk about security, this arrangement sounded outrageous in the American heartland, and members of Congress rushed to kill it. But the Republican legislators have also become convinced, in the words of one Republican senator, ``We've got to hang with the president because if you start splitting with him or say the president has been abusing power we'll all go down.'' Karl Rove has recently been arguing along these lines to congressional Republicans. In the end, a Republican lobbyist told me, Republican politicians feel that Bush is ``still their guy.'' The fierce partisanship on Capitol Hill also blocks serious discussion of the issue of unlimited executive power: many Republicans have concluded that the Democrats are exploiting such issues for partisan purposes and have dug in against them. On May 11, at a regular weekly luncheon of about twenty conservative senators, Senator Roberts denounced criticism of Bush's surveillance and data-collecting programs as ``dangerous'' and ``insulting'' to the President and charged the Democrats with treating national security as a political issue. Members of Congress who are protective of their institution and capable of looking beyond their parochial concerns--and who might have objected to Bush's encroachments on the legislative branch--are largely gone. From the time of the vote on the Iraq war, many Democrats have been reluctant to be caught on the ``wrong side'' of ``national security'' issues, even those blatantly cooked up by the White House. It usually requires a strong public reaction, as there was on the subject of torture, for Congress to make a move against the President's actions. A Republican senator told me, ``There's a feeling on the Hill that the public doesn't care about it, that it's willing to give up liberties in order to defeat the terrorists.'' Some of the proposals offered on Capitol Hill for regulating the NSA wiretaps amount to little regulation at all. At the center of the current conflict over the Constitution is a president who surrounds himself with proven loyalists, who is not interested in complexities, and who is averse to debate and intolerant of dissenters within his administration and elsewhere. (A prominent Washington Republican who had raised a lot of money for Bush was dropped from the Christmas party list after he said something mildly critical of the President.) A Republican lobbyist close to the White House described to me what he called the Cult of Bush: ``This group is all about loyalty and the definition of loyalty extends to policy-making, politics, and to the execution of policy--and to the regulatory agencies.'' The result, this man said, is that the people in the agencies, including the regulatory agencies, ``become robotrons and just do what they're told. There's no dialogue.'' The President's recent political weakness hasn't caused the White House to back away from its claims of extraordinary presidential power. The Republican lobbyist Vin Weber says, ``I think they're keenly aware of the fact that they're politically weakened, but that's not the same thing as the institution of the presidency being damaged.'' People with very disparate political views, such as Grover Norquist and Dianne Feinstein, worry about the long-term implications of Bush's power grab. Norquist said, ``These are all the powers that you don't want Hillary Clinton to have.'' Feinstein says, ``I think it's very dangerous because other presidents will come along and this sets a precedent for them.'' Therefore, she says, ``it's very important that Congress grapple with and make decisions about what our policies should be on torture, rendition, detainees, and wiretapping lest Bush's claimed right to set the policies, or his policies themselves, become a precedent for future presidents.'' James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper No. 47: ``The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.'' That extraordinary powers have, under Bush, been accumulated in the ``same hands'' is now undeniable. For the first time in more than thirty years, and to a greater extent than even then, our constitutional form of government is in jeopardy.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 4761. Once again, Congress wants to give a handout to Big Oil and jeopardize the environment instead of working for an energy policy that would benefit all Americans. The oil companies and their Republican partners in Congress are seeking to exploit our concern over high oil prices to force through a controversial, destructive, ill-conceived measure. This legislation will allow big oil and gas companies to profit by bribing coastal states to lift their drilling bans with the promise of quick cash in the form of royalties. H.R. 4761 would make these monies available by shifting off-shore drilling royalties from the federal government to the states. The Bush Administration's own Minerals and Management Service (MMS) has estimated that this bill could cost the federal government $600 billion in lost royalty revenues over the next sixty years. The only reason we're even able to consider this bill is because the Republicans waived the rules that normally protect the taxpayers from deficit spending and new entitlements. Of course, states that choose not to open their coasts to drilling would receive no royalties. But, Mr. Chairman, oil spills do not respect political boundaries. An offshore spill from one state could easily cripple the coastal economies of its neighbors. Those states that choose to protect their sensitive shorelines from drilling would still have to face the consequences of their neighboring state's decision to allow the oil companies in. The sponsors of this bill claim that their proposal poses no threat to the environment. Yet, the bill drops the requirement for oil and gas companies to prepare an environmental impact statement in order to get a lease for drilling. Not only would H.R. 4761 expose more of our coastline to environmental destruction, it would free oil and gas companies from existing requirements to clean up their operations and restore the drilling site when they are finished with it. Unbelievably, it would allow the oil companies to dump their abandoned oil rigs in the ocean. Make no mistake about it: this bill is a blank check to Big Oil, and the price will be paid by ordinary Americans. Mr. Chairman, this bill is no way to solve America's energy crisis. Congress has set and sustained a precedent for wise stewardship of our sensitive coastlines for the last 25 years, knowing that one offshore oil spill would cripple our pristine beaches, fisheries and coastal economies. Let's not permanently terminate this time-honored tradition by giving away America's coasts to the highest bidder. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this ill-conceived, destructive legislation.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by commending the gentleman from Massachusetts for the resolution he can't bring to the floor. I am proud to be a sponsor. And it starts off supporting intelligence and law enforcement programs to track terrorists and terrorist finances conducted consistent with Federal law and with appropriate congressional consultation. What's wrong with that? What makes the Republican majority not want to hear the discussion on this amendment? Well, there may be some motive political about this selective crying out about information. The SWIFT story bears no resemblance to security breaches, disclosure of troop locations, or anything that would compromise the security of individuals. As a matter of fact, I will insert into the Record the New York Times editorial of June 28, 2006. Mr. Speaker, I want to point out further, where were these screams when the Los Angeles Times gave out information on this subject matter? Other newspapers, the Wall Street Journal came out. Nothing was said there. But now we are really worked up. But why weren't we worked up when the information was published when Judith Miller published her so-called scoops on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Or the leaking of the identity of an undercover CIA agent? By the way, that is already a felony, as it already exists. I cannot support the Oxley resolution. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' also. It is clear this resolution is rebuking the New York Times for publishing information on the Government's access to banking records. In the myriad ``leaks'' that have been published in the press since 9/ 11, why is the House acting now, on this issue? Because it is politically convenient to do so. When Judith Miller published her so called ``scoops'' on Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, where was the majority then? Where was the call for investigation? How about leaking the identity of an undercover CIA agent in an attempt to discredit her husband who was critical of the administration? I believe this House refused to take a stand on that issue numerous times, despite clear evidence that the Vice President personally leaked information. It is clear that the majority would like to pick and choose which national security information can be reported on by the press. I'd like to remind them that under the First Amendment, that is not their prerogative. That is the consequence of a free press--it will sometimes print stories that the Government disapproves of. There are already laws on the books criminalizing the leaking of classified information. This resolution is absolutely useless in the fair and thorough application of those laws to recent leaks. In fact, the only purpose of this resolution is to chill freedom of the press, and put reporters and their papers on notice that the Republican majority will come for anyone who doesn't clear their stories with the administration first. We all took an oath to uphold the Constitution. Therefore I cannot support legislation that on the one hand wholesale approves of a secret surveillance program none of us know about, and takes a jab at the First Amendment on the other. [From the New York Times, June 28, 2006] Patriotism and the Press (By Eric M. Tamarkin, Esq.) Over the last year, The New York Times has twice published reports about secret antiterrorism programs being run by the Bush administration. Both times, critics have claimed that the paper was being unpatriotic or even aiding the terrorists. Some have even suggested that it should be indicted under the Espionage Act. There have been a handful of times in American history when the government has indeed tried to prosecute journalists for publishing things it preferred to keep quiet. None of them turned out well--from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the time when the government tried to enjoin The Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers. As most of our readers know, there is a large wall between the news and opinion operations of this paper, and we were not part of the news side's debates about whether to publish the latest story under contention--a report about how the government tracks international financial transfers through a banking consortium known as Swift in an effort to pinpoint terrorists. Bill Keller, the executive editor, spoke for the newsroom very clearly. Our own judgments about the uproar that has ensued would be no different if the other papers that published the story, including The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, had acted alone. The Swift story bears no resemblance to security breaches, like disclosure of troop locations, that would clearly compromise the immediate safety of specific individuals. Terrorist groups would have had to be fairly credulous not to suspect that they would be subject to scrutiny if they moved money around through international wire transfers. In fact, a United Nations group set up to monitor Al Qaeda and the Taliban after Sept. 11 recommended in 2002 that other countries should follow the United States' lead in monitoring suspicious transactions handled by Swift. The report is public and available on the United Nations Web site. But any argument by the government that a story is too dangerous to publish has to be taken seriously. There have been times in this paper's history when editors have decided not to print something they knew. In some cases, like the Kennedy administration's plans for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, it seems in hindsight that the editors were over- cautious. (Certainly President Kennedy thought so.) Most recently, The Times held its reporting about the government's secret antiterror wiretapping program for more than a year while it weighed administration objections. Our news colleagues work under the assumption that they should let the people know anything important that the reporters learn, unless there is some grave and overriding reason for withholding the information. They try hard not to base those decisions on political calculations, like whether a story would help or hurt the administration. It is certainly unlikely that anyone who wanted to hurt the Bush administration politically would try to do so by writing about the government's extensive efforts to make it difficult for terrorists to wire large sums of money. From our side of the news-opinion wall, the Swift story looks like part of an alarming pattern. Ever since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has taken the necessity of heightened vigilance against terrorism and turned it into a rationale for an extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances of our system of government. It has created powerful new tools of surveillance and refused, almost as a matter of principle, to use normal procedures that would acknowledge that either Congress or the courts have an oversight role. The Swift program, like the wiretapping program, has been under way for years with no restrictions except those that the executive branch chooses to impose on itself--or, in the case of Swift, that the banks themselves are able to demand. This seems to us very much the sort of thing the other branches of government, and the public, should be nervously aware of. We would have been very happy if Congressman Peter King, the Long Island Republican who has been so vocal in citing the Espionage Act, had been as aggressive in encouraging his colleagues to do the oversight job they were elected to do. The United States will soon be marking the fifth anniversary of the war on terror. The country is in this for the long haul, and the fight has to be coupled with a commitment to individual liberties that define America's side in the battle. A half-century ago, the country endured a long period of amorphous, global vigilance against an enemy who was suspected of boring from within, and history suggests that under those conditions, it is easy to err on the side of security and secrecy. The free press has a central place in the Constitution because it can provide information the public needs to make things right again. Even if it runs the risk of being labeled unpatriotic in the process.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives is known as the ``People's House.'' Instead of taking up legislation that will improve the lives of a wide range of people, we are debating a tax break that will benefit a measly 7,500 Americans, or in other words, only the super-rich. This bill would increase the estate tax exemption to $5 million for an individual and $10 million for a couple. What is the cost of such a policy change? $823 billion over 9 years. It is shocking that the Congress refuses to give poor working Americans a 70 cent increase in the minimum wage, but have no hesitation in rewarding the very wealthy a $823 billion windfall. Today, I received a letter from the UAW, who plainly argues that if we pass this legislation, it will exacerbate our enormous federal deficits and place additional burdens on future generations. With a federal debt of over $8 trillion, a tax break for the wealthy is no way to bring our budget back into balance or to reduce the enormous deficit this Administration has presided over. I also received a letter from the National Education Association that persuasively argues how this legislation would seriously jeopardize the ability to invest in our children and public education in the future. By draining federal coffers of much-needed revenue, we will be forced to cut much more than education. Funding for health care, veterans benefits, environmental protections, affordable housing, student loans, and homeland security are all at risk if we pass this irresponsible legislation. With so many important issues facing our country--41.2 million Americans without health insurance, no minimum wage increases since 1997, and billions of dollars squandered in Iraq, it is a shame that the People's House has been hijacked by the narrow interests of the super-rich. Today's vote is another in a long list of votes to benefit the special interests of a few. The time is long overdue for the Congress to deal with the myriad of critical issues facing Americans today.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise to recognize the life and accomplishments of an extraordinary artist and activist, Katherine Dunham. Ms. Dunham, whom recently passed away on May 21, 2006, spent her life using dance and theater to fight for civil rights. Now, I ask all of my colleagues to join me in celebrating the life of this influential woman. Ms. Dunham, born June 22, 1909 in Joliet, IL, began her study of dance by taking ballet lessons in high school. She attended the University of Chicago and fell in love with the study of anthropology which led her to receive a Ph.B. degree in social anthropology in 1936. While attending the University of Chicago, she received a fellowship that allowed her to perform an anthropological study of traditional and ritual dances of the Caribbean. This study sparked her lifelong passion for the country of Haiti. She once said that she felt an unusually strong connection with the people and the land. Throughout the rest of her life, she was devoted to the liberation and protection of the people of Haiti and used her influence as an artist to shed light on the issues Haitians were dealing with. She owned a home in Haiti, called the Habiticon Le Clerc, which was also a resort. Her studies in the Caribbean also allowed her to create her own style of dance, taking pieces of Caribbean native dances and blending them with modem Western movements. With her unique style and technique, Ms. Dunham was a true pioneer in America and opened doors for Blacks in the field of dance performance. She started the first all African-American ballet company entitled ``Ballet Negre'' and was also the first African-American to be a choreographer for the Metropolitan Opera. Ms. Dunham's unique performances captivated audiences of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. This allowed Ms. Dunham to use dance and theater to transcend racial lines and bring light to the important civil rights issues to all who saw her perform. One of her most famous and well-loved performances, entitled ``Southland,'' portrayed the horror of lynchings in the South. Ms. Dunham also refused to perform to segregated audiences, further pushing the race envelope. Ms. Dunham gave back to the community through opening dance schools in low-income areas. The first school was opened in her home State of Illinois. The purpose of these schools was not only to teach the discipline of dance but to also give youth a productive activity that would help prepare them for success. Ms. Dunham's fame and influence extended beyond the Americas as she also performed in France, Mexico, Argentina, and Italy. While traveling and performing, she made sure to express her activist message of human rights for people all over the world. The world recognized and appreciated Ms. Dunham, making her the recipient of many awards, including the Albert Schweitzer Music Awards in 1979, the Haitian Government highest award in 1983 and a Kennedy Center honoree for lifetime achievement in the arts in the same year. She also received the National Medal of Arts in 1989. Her husband of 49 years, theater designer John Pratt, died in 1986. They are survived by their daughter, Marie-Christine Dunham-Pratt, whom they adopted from Martinique. Mr. Speaker, I would once again like to pay tribute to this international icon. Through her creative and unique talents, she was able to break down barriers and shed light on important issues. I hope that we will all remember and continue her legacy. I encourage my colleagues to join me in recognizing and celebrating the life of Katherine Dunham.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, GEN Anthony Zinni and other retired generals have been outspoken in their opposition to the planning and execution of our occupation of Iraq. The administration rejected their sound recommendations, which predicted exactly what would happen if we didn't plan for the occupation. These generals explain that our forces were not provided enough resources to do the job, that we alienated allies that could have helped in rebuilding Iraq, and that the Defense Department ignored planning for the post-war occupation, unaware of the growing Insurgency. I have heard from too many military families whose children have been wounded or killed in duty. Their grief is so much harder to bear knowing that we did not adequately equip their sons and daughters in battle. I have met many times with Lila Lipscomb, a proud mother from Flint, Michigan, who lost her son Michael in Iraq. Initially, Lila supported the war on the assumption that the government knew best. A week after finding out her son had died, Lila received a letter from her son in which he forcefully argued that we should not be in Iraq because there was no connection between Iraq and Osama bin Laden. Cindy Sheehan lost her son Casey in Iraq and became a voice for mothers of soldiers who oppose the war. Cindy's loss motivated her to unite with other grieving mothers in opposition to the war. Her willingness to speak truth to power has drawn attention to the misconduct of the war and the terrible price that servicemen and women and their families have paid. We have endured strategic missteps and now find ourselves with insufficient troop levels to provide adequate safety in Iraq. Insurgent bombings, ethnic battles, and mass abductions by rival Sunni and Shiite militias are clear indications that our occupation has not provided for the conditions that Iraqis need to form an effectively functioning government. United States reconstruction and infrastructure investment has had little impact in 3 years. Despite the billions of noncompetitive, cost- plus contracts given to businesses friendly to this administration, 54 percent of Iraqi households still lack access to clean water and 85 percent lack reliable electricity. The administration's emphasis on unilateral action in this conflict has left America bearing too much of a military and financial burden. If Iraq is going to be stabilized and move toward a democracy, it will need a commitment and a will far greater than what America itself can provide on its own. Why haven't we learned from the first gulf war? In the 1991 gulf war, our coalition partners shouldered over 75 percent of the cost of the war. We had over 100,000 Muslim troops fighting alongside a broad coalition of forces. We need to encourage our friends and allies around the globe to help with Iraqi reconstruction and peacekeeping. We just don't have sufficient resources to manage this work on our own. If we can bring the international community into Iraq to help establish a democracy, protect its citizens, and rebuild its infrastructure, it will free American forces and resources to the real problem we face: terrorism. Let's heed the advice of our colleague John Murtha and redeploy our troops to find Osama bin Laden and fight terrorists. If we can shatter the myth that occupying Iraq is the same thing as fighting terrorism, then these 10 hours of debate will have been worth something after all.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Ladies and gentlemen, General Anthony Zinni and other retired generals have been outspoken in their opposition to the planning and execution of our occupation of Iraq. But our administration rejected their sound recommendations which predicted exactly what would happen if we didn't plan for the occupation. These generals explained that our forces were not provided enough resources to do the job; that we alienated allies that could have helped in rebuilding Iraq; and that the Defense Department ignored planning for the postwar occupation, unaware of the growing insurgency there. I have heard from too many military families, those children of theirs who have been wounded or killed in duty. Their grief is so much harder to bear knowing that often we did not adequately equip their sons and daughters in battle. Back home I have met many times with Lila Lipscomb, a proud mother from Flint, Michigan, who lost her son Michael in Iraq. Initially, Mrs. Lipscomb supported the war, on the assumption that the government knew best. A week after finding out her son had died, she received a letter from her son in which he forcefully argued that we should not be in Iraq because there was no connection between Iraq and Osama bin Laden. Cindy Sheehan lost her son Casey in Iraq and became a voice for mothers of soldiers who oppose the war. Cindy's loss motivated her to unite with other grieving mothers in opposition to the war. And her willingness to speak truth to power has drawn attention to the misconduct of the war and the terrible price that service men and women and their families have paid. Let me tell you this: We need to encourage our friends and allies around the globe to help with Iraqi reconstruction and peacekeeping. We just don't have sufficient resources to manage this work on our own. We haven't learned from the first gulf war. If we can bring the international community into Iraq to help establish a democracy, protect its citizens, and rebuild its infrastructure, it will free American forces and resources to address the real problem we face: Terrorism. Let's heed the advice of our colleague, Mr. Murtha, and redeploy our troops to find Osama bin Laden and fight terrorists. If we can shatter the myth that occupying Iraq is the same thing as fighting terrorism, then these 10 hours of debate tonight will have been worth something after all.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise against this legislation for several reasons. I fully support the concept of bringing competition to video, but the bill before us today contains some serious flaws and omissions that negate the positive intentions. First, the bill does not contain meaningful net neutrality protections. All it does is reference the FCC's policy statement, which does not clearly delineate what a network provider can and cannot do. It provides the FCC with ``exclusive'' authority to define and adjudicate discriminatory broadband practices but also deprives the FCC of the authority to adopt rules on net neutrality. It only allows for case-by-case adjudication of complaints so that there will never be an order of general applicability. Chairman Sensenbrenner and I hoped that our net neutrality legislation, which passed the Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support, would be debated on the House floor today. Qur amendment would have required that broadband service providers interconnect with the facilities of other network providers on a reasonable and nondiscriminatory basis. It also would have required them to operate their network in a reasonable and nondiscriminatory manner so that all content, applications and services are treated the same and have an equal opportunity to reach consumers. To the detriment of the COPE Act, the Rules Committee did not make our amendment in order. The Committee did make in order an amendment offered by Representative Smith, which purports to preserve the antitrust laws for net neutrality but is actually nothing but a fig leaf. It changes nothing and does nothing to protect net neutrality. Of course the antitrust laws apply, but the Smith amendment does nothing to clarify how they apply and whether they apply to protect non- discrimination. The failure to provide strong net neutrality rules is not the only flaw of the COPE Act. Again, while I support the goal of furthering competition in video, I could only endorse this approach with certain protections to ensure that the service is distributed equitably and fairly. The COPE Act does not include these important safeguards. The COPE Act removes guarantees that all cable customers must be treated equally, regardless of race, color, nationality or sex because it permits providers to designate their franchise areas. As a result, a provider will be able to ``cherry pick'' those areas it wants to serve and totally bypass other parts of the community. And it allows national franchise holders to offer service in one area of a community at a higher rate in order to subsidize the provision of service to residents in a more competitive area of the community. These are serious problems that detract from the ultimate goal of furthering competition in the provision of video services. As a result, I oppose this legislation and urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment of the gentleman from Texas on the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Smith. I am opposed to the amendment.