John Culberson

Mr. CULBERSON

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chair, I want to point out also that the amendment before us would cut 1 percent from eliminating the backlog of rape kits that are piling up in local police departments all over the country. We increased funding to eliminate that backlog of rape kits. We increased funding to help forensic labs at the local level. We increased funding to make sure that programs to prevent violence against women are fully funded. This amendment would cut those funding increases for violence against women. It is not the annual appropriations bill that is the biggest part of the problem. All of us need to recognize that we have got to look at the entire Federal budget. The annual appropriations bill only represents one-third of the problem. The other two-thirds of the problem are the automatic mandatory problems: the looming bankruptcy of Medicare, the looming bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicaid, the incredible burden that ObamaCare has placed on individual Americans--it threatens to bankrupt the entire healthcare system--the national debt, and the interest on the national debt. The American taxpayers are, indeed, taxed too much, but the biggest part of the spending problem is on these automatic programs that are consuming two-thirds of the Nation's resources. In fact, if you pay off all those existing--just paying for these existing programs, the mandatory programs, which you have to think of as America's mortgage and interest payments, once you pay Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt, veterans benefits, you are only left with $689 billion to run the entire Federal Government, which is enough money to run the government through July 27. ``National credit card day'' is what I call it. July 27 is the day when we run out of existing revenue, and we are living on borrowed money to be paid off by our kids. A far better way to deal with this problem is to deal with the looming bankruptcy of Medicare, Social Security, and to deal with the national debt and deficit, the two-thirds of the problem out there, and not look at some 1 percent cut on the one-third of the budget that we have already prioritized and cut everywhere we possibly can while protecting law enforcement. We are protecting our investment in the sciences and space exploration. I urge the Members to reject this amendment, and I would urge the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) to work with us throughout the year as we develop these appropriations bills and help us find cuts in programs and prioritization of funding, rather than bringing the amendment to the floor at the last minute. I urge Members to vote against this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman. I want to express my strong support for my neighbor and good friend Judge Poe's amendment because, again, our most important right as Americans is to be left alone. In fact, the data, and I agree with my ranking member that this data is important, but it can be included as a part of the Census itself. Any really essential questions the Department of Commerce can include within the core questions of the Census. They don't have to send this long intrusive and detailed and very invasive survey out to every American and subject Americans to the threat of a $10,000 fine if they don't comply. I support the gentleman's amendment as a further reflection of our commitment on this subcommittee and in this Congress to protect America's right to privacy and to be left alone by their government, as Mr. Mason and Mr. Jefferson intended. I urge Members to support Mr. Poe's amendment. And remember, if the government needs this data, they can just put it in the basic Census itself.

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chair, this program is designed to ensure that academic institutions and industry can develop science and engineering capabilities that are outside of traditional research hubs. The partnerships support areas of strategic importance in such disciplines as aerospace and aerospace-related research. I do urge a ``no'' vote on the gentleman's amendment. I now yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chair, I would ask Members to vote ``no.'' I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CULBERSON. I join the chairman in urging my colleagues to oppose this amendment on many grounds. It is a technical issue that should be dealt with by the authorizing committees. This is not an appropriate place to handle it. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming), who has personal experience and knowledge in this area as a physician, and who can speak to this in opposition as well.

Mr. CULBERSON. I do want to express my strong support for the gentleman's amendment. It is an appropriate and necessary additional protection for Americans' Second Amendment rights. Judge Carter is exactly right. This is the right place for the bill. This is the right place for this amendment. He has drafted it very narrowly and very carefully, and I urge Members to join us in supporting this very important Second Amendment amendment before the House.

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chair, I strongly agree with the gentleman's amendment and intend to work with him as we move through conference to address this problem in the way he suggests and make sure the law is complied with. I understand the amendment may be withdrawn. Before the amendment is withdrawn, if I could address the merits of your amendment, I think you are exactly right. We plussed up funding for rape kits. We want to make sure that this backlog is taken care of as rapidly as possible. I know my friend from Philadelphia and the members of this committee share your concern. We want to make sure the backlog rape kits are cleared out as rapidly as possible and these criminals are taken off the street as rapidly as they can be. We want to make sure the Federal law is complied with, so I will work with you to make sure that through the oversight authority we have got on this subcommittee that the Department is enforcing the law as written by Congress and doing so aggressively.

Mr. CULBERSON. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chairman, I share the gentleman's concerns, but I think his amendment is written so broadly that it is going to have an impact far beyond anything he actually intended. For example, if a very large company like Boeing ever failed to pay somebody overtime on one occasion, the way his amendment is drafted, this would bar Boeing from ever doing any business with the Federal Government. It would bar Lockheed, which is responsible for building the Orion spacecraft for NASA, and they are doing an extraordinarily good job in doing so. It is almost inevitable. None of us are perfect. Everybody, somewhere or somehow, is going to make a mistake. It is just inevitable. In the way the gentleman's amendment is drafted, the Federal Government could not hire any company that was ever dealt with in a proceeding that included the term ``Fair Labor Standards Act.'' It essentially blackballs any contractor who has ever had any violation of any kind, anywhere, anytime. It is too broad. This is not the right place for it. You are going to do great damage to a lot of very good companies that have had very minor, one-time violations a number of years ago. I know that is not the gentleman's intent, but the language before the House that he has drafted is very broad and has implications far beyond what I know he has laid out here tonight. The bill, as written, would actually, I think, wind up with a lot of very good companies being unable to do business with the Federal Government, so I would ask Members to oppose the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chairman, I want to reiterate, the way the gentleman's amendment is drafted, any violation anywhere, anytime in the history of the company would bar them from ever doing business with the Federal Government. It is if they ever made a mistake anywhere in the past. The amendment is far too broad and far too sweeping, and I urge Members to oppose the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CULBERSON. Madam Chair, which amendment is the gentleman offering?

Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Chairman, I will assert my point of order against the amendment, depending on what the gentleman intends to do. Does the gentleman intend to withdraw the amendment?

Mr. CULBERSON. The amendment is subject to a point of order on the basis that it proposes to increase an appropriation not authorized by law, Mr. Chairman, and, therefore, is in violation of clause 2(a) of rule XXI. Although the original account funding for the Office of Juvenile Justice contains a number of programs that are unauthorized, it was permitted to remain in the bill pursuant to the provisions of the rule that provided for the consideration of this bill. When an unauthorized appropriation is permitted to remain in a general appropriations bill, an amendment merely changing the amount is in order, but the rules of the House apply a ``merely perfecting standard'' to the items permitted to remain, and do not allow the insertion of a new paragraph that was not part of the original text permitted to remain to increase a figure that was permitted to remain. This amendment proposes to add funding as a reach-back to an unauthorized program, and the amendment, therefore, cannot be construed as merely perfecting. And therefore, Mr. Chairman, I ask that the Chair rule the amendment out of order.

Mr. CULBERSON. I want to express my very strong support for the gentleman's amendment. The gentleman's amendment is necessary because the ATF did come out with a very broad legal framework within which they were attempting to ban not only 223 ammunition, but potentially whole other categories of ammunition, and that is just not what the statute was intended to prevent. The statute was intended to prevent specific types of armor-piercing bullets from being used in pistols. The ATF was taking that far beyond the statute. It was necessary for--as new committee subcommittee chairman, I was able to step in and persuade the ATF to drop their ammo ban. Mr. Hudson's amendment is necessary to make sure it doesn't happen again in the future, and I urge Members to support his amendment in the strongest possible terms to defend our Second Amendment rights.

Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Chairman, I support the gentleman's amendment, and I withdraw the point of order.

Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment.

Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Florida I know has worked in the past as an attorney and represented clients and undoubtedly has settled cases before. And those settlement agreements, those negotiations, when you were designing those agreements, Mr. Grayson, I know were not something that you wanted to disclose. You wanted to negotiate those settlements in private with your client confidentially, because had the world seen what you were working out, that would have damaged your client's ability to negotiate a fair settlement with the other party in the case. As here, with trade promotion authority, the countries with which the Trade Representative is negotiating, Japan, for example, I doubt the Japanese want the Australians to see what the Japanese are agreeing to. That is just common sense. I doubt that the Koreans want the Japanese to see what the Koreans are attempting to agree to. So it is perfectly understandable that the agreement itself would be confidential until it is finalized. Members of Congress can go see the agreement, but the Korean-American Trade Agreement is going to be confidential until it is finally settled because Korea doesn't want Japan or Australia or Vietnam to see what they are negotiating, in the same way you did not want your clients, the agreement you were attempting to negotiate on behalf of your client, you didn't want to do that in the open sunshine. Sunshine is a good thing, but there are times when a negotiation like this on a trade agreement is just common sense. You are not going to want the other countries that you are competing against to see what kind of a deal you are fixing to work out with the United States. The Members of Congress can see it, of course, as we should, and the agreement itself must be available to the public to view 90 days before the President can even sign the agreement, and the Congress is going to have this debate. In fact, I understand that this trade promotion authority agreement that is under discussion, the new law that Congress is proposing, would for the first time give either House of Congress a veto over the agreement with a majority vote. So the House could decide on our own to veto a particular trade agreement by majority vote; the Senate could veto a trade agreement by majority vote. The only part of the deal so far that is confidential is the ongoing negotiation, which is exactly the way you handled and protected your client's best interest as an attorney. I am quite confident as an attorney you handled your client's litigation in a way that was professional and confidential, and I imagine you never disclosed a pending settlement agreement that was being negotiated, you never released that publicly, did you ever, Mr. Grayson?

Mr. CULBERSON. Did you ever release a negotiated settlement agreement to the public before it was finalized?

Mr. CULBERSON. No. Answer my question, yes or no.

Mr. CULBERSON. That is why I am asking a question. I am asking you, did you ever release the terms of a settlement agreement you were negotiating before it was final?

Mr. CULBERSON. Yes. And I am asking a question. I was an attorney myself. I defended businesses in civil litigation, and any settlement agreement that we worked on was done confidentially. And I would ask Mr. Grayson, did you ever disclose a confidential settlement negotiation publicly when you were negotiating on behalf of your client?