John Carter

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. All right, let's go back to it.

Mr. CARTER. You will need to have a water truck in front of you to get to your house.

Mr. CARTER. Recapturing a little bit of my time here, talking about the Portland cement issue, when I started looking into this, and first off to make this very clear, we are not talking about company called Portland Cement, we are talking about a process for making cement. It is kind of interesting. Cement is the second most consumed product globally in the world. The first is water. So honestly, just about everything that is constructed, buildings and roadways, has something to do with cement. And the projections on what this is going to do to the Portland cement industry, the people who make the concrete that we depend on, you know probably 90 percent of the skyscrapers of the world use some form of pre-stressed concrete to build a skyscraper. It is a major building material for a thriving economy. What they are telling us now is that construction spending amounts to about a trillion dollars annually, and that is about a fourth of the gross domestic product. The cement industry has declined in relation to the national economic downturn, and so has the construction industry. If they do this, this could cost us around 153,000 jobs nationwide. That is lost jobs. We are trying to figure out a way to create jobs in this Congress; that is lost jobs. The cement industry generates $7.5 billion annually in wages and benefits. According to the Minnesota Plan, about $27.5 billion of America's economic activity, gross output, occurred in the cement manufacturing industry, and almost $931 million in indirect tax revenues were generated for State and local governments. The economic footprint for the cement industry is a trillion dollars. It is very important. Now what can happen. According to a study done by SMU, which happens to be in the great State of Texas, they have looked at what this regulation that is being proposed by the regulators, and when we say regulators, remember, nobody elected these people to this job. Most of them work under the civil service idea that once they are here, unless they commit armed robbery, you can't get them out of their job. So they are employees for life. They sit around in little offices and come up with all of these new ideas, and they expand upon the thoughts that Congress had when we created these agencies. And I would argue that EPA has expanded beyond anybody's imagination the things that they can do. And they don't think about the fact, like blowing when you are crop dusting or spraying your roses in your yard if the wind is blowing, you're in violation of the EPA regulation they are proposing. They don't realize what the impact is on human beings. What will happen to us on the Portland cement industry is right now our major competition is overseas anyway. I mean, China and Japan are importing, mainly China now, are importing tons of concrete into the United States every year. If we put our manufacturers out of business because of this extremely expensive regulation that would cause them to be noncompetitive in the world market. Even if they tried to compete, their increased costs would be such that they would be put out of business from a market standpoint. Other people would just have a better price. Even with shipping costs, they would have a better price. But more so, you lose all of the jobs that are created around here for the cement industry if you pass these regulations. These are the kinds of things that Congress ought to be looking at because we are responsible to the people of the United States. This House is called the People's House because every 2 years we have to look our neighbors in the face and answer those questions that your neighbors ask you about why in the world did you guys do this? Well, we're getting blamed for it anyway. We ought to at least look into it, and if we can do something about it, we ought to do something about it. I see Congressman Davis is back. I'm glad to see you. We're talking about what this Portland Cement case is going to do to the cement industry. Quite honestly, it's disastrous.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time for a minute, it is very clear from the cameras that this is basically a TSA employee doing a leg search of a nun. Go ahead.

Mr. CARTER. That is how frustrating regulations can be. I yield to my friend, Mr. Davis.

Mr. CARTER. That is right.

Mr. CARTER. I'm glad you're here with me, and I hope you'll join me again because we're going to be talking about this a lot this year because it's something that matters to the American people. I encourage them to contact us if there are regulations that are of their lives that are driving them crazy because we want to talk about these things. And we need to get to work getting the teeth put in the previous act so we can actually get this accomplished and start fleecing out these, I would say, intrusive regulations that are costing us jobs when our job here today and every day until this country is back on its feet is to create jobs, not cost jobs. I think it's time for me to call it a night tonight. So we're going to rein this thing in. And I thank you for joining me tonight, Mr. Davis, and we will visit some more. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. I thank my friend for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of House Concurrent Resolution 319 commemorating the 1-year anniversary of the terrible shooting at Ft. Hood, Texas. On November 5, 2009, a gunman entered the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Ft. Hood, Texas, and mercilessly opened fire on military and civilian personnel who were preparing for deployment or who had recently returned from being overseas in a deployment. Thirteen people were killed in this attack, including 12 soldiers, one of whom was an expecting mother and one former soldier. Thirty-one people were wounded. Some of the wounded, like Staff Sergeant Patrick Zeigler, have required months of care and rehabilitation, and that is an ongoing situation. But wonderful stories come out of this. One story that I heard, as a young soldier saw his sergeant get shot the third time, he jumped between his sergeant and the shooter and took the rest of the rounds into his body because he just was afraid his sergeant wouldn't be able to survive any more. At the time there was a graduation ceremony going on at Ft. Hood from college, and a bunch of young soldiers were graduating from college right next door. When the call went out for medics, multiple members of that group threw off their cap and gown before they graduated and took off next door to the processing center to work with the wounded. Without regard to their own safety, civilian and military law enforcement personnel, including Sergeants Munley and Todd, acted swiftly and courageously to neutralize the threat, using the active shooter training program they had recently completed. Army medics immediately reverted to their combat-honed training and began treating the wounded, greatly reducing the loss of more life. Fellow soldiers from everywhere descended upon this area and, while the shooting was going on, risked their lives to evacuate their brethren safely to Darnall Army Hospital. Fort Hood regional communities, the State of Texas, military service organizations, and countless Americans united in support of Fort Hood victims and their families, collecting millions of dollars in charitable donations. My office has worked hard to ensure that the Fort Hood victims receive all the benefits to which they are entitled as combat victims. Additionally, we are working with the Department of Defense to overcome regulatory obstacles that have prevented the victims and their families from receiving charitable donations. I am hopeful our Senate colleagues will agree to these legislative adjustments included in this year's defense authorization bill to ensure that Fort Hood victims and their families receive every benefit to which they are rightly entitled. I want to thank the House Armed Services Committee and the House leadership for working with my office to swiftly bring this resolution to the floor. I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the Fort Hood victims and their families by passing this House Concurrent Resolution 319. Mr. Speaker, I intentionally did not discuss the accused shooter in an effort to protect his right to a fair and impartial trial when that trial occurs.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize Mr. Edmund G. Schmidt of Hutto Texas. ``Mr. Hutto'', is what they call him. Mr. Edmund G. Schmidt has served the Hutto community in countless ways for decades. First being elected to city council in 1961, Ed served the city for 29 consecutive years, 9 as city councilman and 20 as mayor of Hutto. A World War II Veteran, and small business owner for over 50 years, Schmidt has also continued serving with several groups, including the Hutto Lions Club, where he is in his 54th year of perfect attendance as a charter member, and Hutto Lutheran Church where he has served for more than six decades. Schmidt served as the first President of the Hutto Economic Corporation. Schmidt grew up on a farm outside of Taylor. ``God's country,'' he calls it. Looking for a way to a way to provide for his young family after returning from the war, some friends convinced him to open his own grocery store in Hutto. Signing a 5-year lease for $25 a month, Schmidt transformed a big, open building on East Street into his own grocery store, Red & White, with his wife Julia. They opened their doors on Friday, July 13, 1951, with three other groceries in the area to compete with. Ed proved himself to the community of Hutto and 2 years later, in 1953, he bought and expanded into the space next door. When his lease expired he purchased his first building. He owned and operated his grocery store with Julia on East Street until 1990. With the store closed, Schmidt had the opportunity to get in the insurance business with his son Dennis, so he sold some of his building space and kept enough for an office where he still works with his son. As an established resident, small business and property owner in Hutto, in 1961 Schmidt learned of a place on the council through a good friend from church who was also council member. When an opening came up mid-term, Schmidt filled it and then kept getting re-elected, never spending a cent on a campaign. ``I never thought, and no one on council, thought of ourselves as politicians,'' he said. ``We were serving the community. We just had to pitch in.'' At this time, the city assessed and collected its own taxes; it had one elected marshal who was replaced with a one-person police department, a distant thought from the Hutto we see today, with a full police force, and new neighborhoods and schools being built to keep up with the rapid growth. On Friday, October 20, 2007, the city honored Schmidt, renaming County Road 119 after him, for his contribution to Hutto's growth. Ed Schmidt Boulevard links Hutto to Pflugerville's FM 685. Though he continues to work hard every day without any sign of slowing down, Ed cherishes his time spent with Julia. Married 68 years, the Schmidt's have raised four children and now take great pride and joy in their 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren who all live between Austin and Rockdale.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be here tonight. I guess everybody is just really pleased to be back in Washington, DC and having to leave those wonderful districts we live in and come up to this place. But you know I am blessed. I live in Texas and I am glad to be here tonight so we can talk about something, again, about a subject I have been talking about in various degrees for about 19 months now and that is we do have a rule of law that is the underpinning of our society. We started, when we decided to create this great Republic, we started, decided that we would codify that rule of law and one of the best written documents on the face of the Earth, I happen to have a little copy of it right here, in pocket size form, the Constitution of the United States. In this Constitution of the United States, we not only set out how the newly formed union of the States would operate with a newly formed national government, but it set out how this body would operate, how the executive branch would operate, how the judiciary would operate. In my lifetime, I have been blessed by my neighbors because we elect our judges as well as our Representatives. In Texas, I have been blessed by my neighbors to serve in two branches of our government, because with the basic Constitution of the United States establishing a legislative branch, an executive branch and a judicial branch, all the States basically follow that same general guideline and now, around the world, democracies that have sprung up from this longest lived democratic process called the United States Government, the Republic that we created for the United States. Others have, using various forms of democracy, have followed the general pattern. When we talk to a young kid like a, let's say, an elementary school, kindergarten, up to sixth-grade student, talk about the three branches of government, you talk about the legislative branch that writes the laws, the executive branch that enforces the laws that the legislature wrote and the judicial branch, which enforces the law and interprets the law. Now that's basically what we talk about here. It's very simple, and it's very real, and that's really what we are supposed to have here. One of our jobs, as guardians of this document called the Constitution, and this system we call the United States of America, and its Federal Government, one of the things we have a responsibility to do is we have a responsibility to stay in check and balance on the other part of the three branches of the government. The judiciary has got checks and balances on both the executive and the legislative. The legislative has checks and balances on the judiciary and the executive. The executive adds checks and balances to the appointment process on the judiciary and the legislative. So our Founding Fathers said not only are we going to have these three branches of government, but it's the responsibility of those branches to make sure other branches aren't going haywire, because they come from the place of government where the branch of government went haywire all the time and they were fed up with autocratic kings and the royalty of the various nations that they had come from to come across the oceans of the United States, and they wanted to make sure that nobody dominated, stepped on each other's toes. I have been talking about the fact that all of this falls under that great category that we sort of envisioned, now the world needs and adopts, and that is the rule of law. A civil society cannot operate without rules, not only that police the society, but that the society can count on as they move through commerce or through interaction with other human beings to be the rules that you play by. Just like Americans love our games, baseball, basketball, football, not necessarily in that order, and other games, we love our games, and we want to make sure, and we are the first ones to jump up and scream, they are breaking the rules, because you can't play the game without rules. This body here has a real responsibility to create those rules. We write laws which are the Big Brothers, the rules, and we give rulemaking authority to people, but authority comes from this Congress. So having that glue the whole society, now you ask me well, yes, that may sound good for America but not everybody needs that. Well, let me ask you something, if you are going to go make a deal with your neighbor over the boundary line between your property in some country in Central America, and you are trying to make, to determine where this boundary line is and you find out you don't have any rules about titles to property, so nobody really knows where the boundaries are, how do you solve that problem? Well, you could solve it by whoever had the biggest stick and go beat each other's brains out and whoever won will get to decide where the property line is. But that's not the rule of law. That's the rule of terrorism or the rule of violence. Now it's that one simple thing of a way to register property in a country gives people a place to go to discuss where something simple like is that tree in my yard or is that tree in your yard, between neighbors, and they don't have to bash each other's brains out over the issue. Now that may be simplistic, but that's about as easy as I can make it. Yet, believe me, people bash each other's brains out if they don't have a place to go to resolve something simple like that. All you have got to do is be a municipal court judge in a city in Texas and you might find out a little bit about that. So my point is the reason we have these rules is so that our society can function in a civil manner, and the reason we have responsibility to police up the other branches of government is to settle these debates. And we have had these fights for a long time. They are part of our constitutional law of the United States. We have a poster here just on the Cherokee issue, and, whether or not to the right or wrong of the Cherokee issue, this came down to a dispute between the Supreme Court and the Executive, the President. In this particular situation, Chief Justice Marshall, John Marshall, one of the most famous, if not the most famous Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, had ruled in a way that Andrew Jackson, the President of the United States, didn't like. And the big issue was Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it. Now why is that something we ought to start talking about? Because this is the reverse situation of what I'm going to talk about tonight. The President of the United States is basically saying, ``I am not going to enforce the law. The courts have determined what the law is and what the law means, but I'm not going to enforce it. I'm going to do it my way.'' And basically, Worcester v. Georgia settled that issue. The President of the United States has the obligation, from his oath of office, to enforce the law. Andrew Jackson was famously stubborn, and it was a big problem in its time. Now, one of the things I want to talk about today that I think worries me a lot about the rule of law is that various Congresses over various years have written a whole body of law concerning the immigration and naturalization laws of the United States of America. These days, our media, in an attempt to give their own definition to people's intents, the minute you want to start talking about issues like this, there is going to be somebody that is going to try to call you a racist or a bigot or whatever. I'm talking about the facts. We have a set of laws about immigration. And I'm not talking about immigration from any particular country. I'm talking about immigration from all countries. And we have a way to become a naturalized American citizen and have the rights of an American citizen imposed upon you; and those laws are set out in statutes, and they tell you there are things that are against the law. And one of the things they tell you is it's against the law to enter the United States without permission. Now, in an attempt to get away from my heritage, where I come from, I'm from Texas. We have the largest amount of border of any State in the Union with the country of Mexico. We have a long and sometimes rocky history as a State. And prior to being a State, as a Republic of Texas and, prior to that, as a colony of Mexico, we have a long and sometimes rocky history with the country of Mexico. But today, in today's present 21st century, most Texans, either born or those who have moved there, consider the northern parts of Mexico like home. I mean we have a very, very solid, strong relationship with the people of Mexico. This is not about Mexicans, or it's not about Hispanics, or it's not about the Irish. There were people up here that wanted to free the Irish. It's about the law. We have written laws that say if you come into our country illegally or if you overstay a visa that got you here legally but when it expired you then had to leave and you didn't leave, if you did those things, then you have broken our laws. Now, some people think that is too strict; other people think it is not strict enough. But the bottom line is it has broken the law. The President of the United States, Barack Obama, in the very recent past, by Executive order, basically decided to tell the courts and the judicial system established to enforce the immigration laws, the immigration judiciary system, that they were to ignore or dismiss, and they are dismissing approximately 17,000 cases that the administration has determined they shouldn't go forward on. Now, what does this do? A good friend of mine has joined me today, Mr. Bilirakis from Florida, and he is one of the people who stood up when all this happened and said what I have been saying on a lot of issues in this House: Wait a minute. What is going on? What about the written rules? What about the immigration naturalization laws? I believe Mr. Bilirakis is on the committee that is responsible for looking into those things. So I'm going to recognize my friend from Florida to make at least a small comment on how he views this issue, starting off with the issue of the President's announcing certain people, they would no longer enforce the law against those people.

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, and I reclaim my time. The point is legislation is the proper way for us to deal with this problem. This Congress is the place where we make decisions on how we change our immigration laws. They are written by this Congress, and they should be changed, if they need to be changed, by this Congress. I don't understand why the President of the United States thinks he must arbitrarily grant what turns out to be a de facto amnesty because his party controls this House and will until the end of this year control this House. We still have weeks left on this session of Congress, and there is a possibility we can come back after the elections and have another session of Congress before the end of this year. If this immigration issue needs to be taken up, it should have been taken up by the Congress. But there seems to be this idea that the President of the United States has the type of powers that he can, with the stroke of a pen, set aside contracts; and with the stroke of a pen set aside the laws of this country; and with the stroke of a pen ignore orders of our court system. I just don't think the world or our laws allow the executive branch to be able to do that. It is not like this thing wasn't telegraphed before. Recently, we had one of the worst oil spill disasters in the history of our country. And the President of the United States declared at one time a gulf-wide moratorium on drilling in the gulf. At that time, there were hundreds of drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico operating. And at that time, both shallow water and deep water, they shut it down by the President declaring a moratorium. Now how do we learn how we do things in this country? We either read them in our laws, we are instructed in the precedents that are set by the courts, and we ought to look at the history of how we operated in the past. That would make common sense. So before we look at whether the President overstepped his individual authority by declaring a moratorium, the question would come, has anybody that was President of the United States ever declared a moratorium on drilling before? And the answer is, yes. His name was Richard Nixon, a Republican. Now let's look at how Richard Nixon went about getting a moratorium to stop drilling off the coast of California. Did he make an individual dictate from his own pen and say, I hereby declare you can no longer drill? No. What did he do? He went to the Congress of the United States and said to the Congress, we need to have a ban or moratorium on drilling off the coast of California. And this deliberative body held hearings, I assume. I haven't delved into it that much, but I do know that the Congress and the President issued a moratorium on drilling off the coast of California. And to my knowledge, that moratorium is still in place. And whether or not it was tested in the court systems, I have no idea. But I would assume it was, because if there was anybody drilling at the time, they probably felt like their contract rights were stepped on. And I am sure the court ruled on it. And the court must have ruled in favor of the Congress and the President because the moratorium is still in place. So what does that tell us about the right way to declare a moratorium? Well, the right way is to go to the Congress, and with the Congress put forth the Congress declaring a moratorium and the President enforcing that moratorium. That is the way it is supposed to operate. If you read this little book, the Constitution of the United States, that is what it says. This is not what we did. The President of the United States unilaterally said we are declaring a moratorium. He was joined by his Secretary of Energy, I believe, but it was taken to court and a Federal judge overturned the Obama administration's initial 6 months of moratorium and rejected the government's bid to have the court challenge thrown out. The government lawyers argued that the lawsuit filed by several offshore service companies on the May 28 moratorium was moot because the Interior Department imposed a new drilling moratorium. What is the Interior Department? Is it a creation, is it a department of the Congress? Nope. It is a department of the executive branch of the Federal Government. Who appoints the Interior Secretary? The President of the United States appoints with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is how we get the head of the Interior Department. Now I can't speak for the Interior czar because the Interior czar doesn't have to go through that vetting process; he must answer only to the President of the United States, but we have now approaching 40 czars, and I don't know what they do except draw a paycheck. But they answer to the President. But U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman rejected that argument, saying the second moratorium arguably fashions no substantial changes from the first. Now, when a judge grants an injunction and says, one side over the other, this side is right to seek relief from the court in the form of an injunctive process, and you are enjoined, you are stopped from doing the behavior you were doing. And that is basically what this court said to the President of the United States. It said you can't do this. But they did it anyway. Where that is in the court system, I don't know. But it is blatantly standing forward. Not only is it bypassing the legislative process, which is the normal way by precedent to get a moratorium on drilling in America, because that is the way it has been done in the past, but then when the court says hey, you can't do it, they did it anyway. And now by playing regulatory games and giving favors to some and maybe not favors to others, and I don't know anything about that part of the game playing; I know that some people seem to be getting permits and some people seem to be not getting permits, and whether or not there is a moratorium in shallow water depends on who you talk to. But I can tell you, the deepwater folks seem to still be shut down. Now, there is a reason we ought to go to the Congress. One of the reasons is that every seat that you see in this House of Representatives is filled with a person who represents at this time 652,000 Americans. So that person speaks for and votes for 652,000 Americans. If a choice is going to be made to shut down the production of approximately 20 percent of the oil and gas production a year in the United States, which is what the gulf produces, approximately 20 percent, then the American people probably would think this could have an effect on jobs, that it could have an effect on the cost of fuel and that it could have an effect on their standard of living. It may be they would like their Members of Congress to be able to have something to say about shutting down 20 percent of the production of petroleum and natural gas in the United States. Especially in light of a recession, I would think they would want their individual Members of Congress to be very vocal about how their Representatives have represented them and would ask, What's this going to do to my job? What's this going to do to this economy? How much is this going to hurt us? How much more dependent is it going to put us on foreign oil? With these questions, that's why Nixon went to Congress for a moratorium, because the people in Congress spoke for the people of the United States. That's the way it's set up. The House of Representatives represents the people. We didn't go through that process for this moratorium. We had the White House and President Barack Obama basically declare a moratorium. You will do what I say. You will not drill in the gulf. The court said, You can't do that, partner. So then he had the Interior Department saying, You can't drill in the gulf. I assume the concept behind the Interior Department is that the leases that they were drilling on were Interior leases. That's the way I understand it. Then wait a minute. If you paid for that lease and if part of the contract you made with the government was, if you paid them money for their lease--sometimes millions of dollars for a lease--and then you went out there and drilled on that lease and you didn't find any oil, the Interior Department would kind of say, Well, better luck next time. Thanks for your million bucks. If you find oil, then the Interior Department is supposed to say, Well, congratulations. Although, there are those in this body who would say, Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Now, if you've found oil, you've got to give us more money; but the laws of contracts have something to do with that--once again, the rule of law. So we were talking about this problem with drilling offshore. We had sort of a one-man show of a moratorium, and the courts have disputed it. Now the President of the United States is taking off, and the Justice Department is going after one of our States by taking it to U.N. Human Rights Council and arguing that a law in the State of Arizona should be taken before some body that should have no authority over this country, and they'll ask them to call us human rights violators and call the State of Arizona human rights violators. They have also taken the State of Arizona to court for a law that they wrote, which tracks almost identically a Federal law that the Department of Homeland Security is supposed to be enforcing but is not. Therefore, Arizona got tired of the invasion of their State and said, if the Feds aren't going to enforce this law, then we'll write it just like the Federal law, and we'll ask our folks to enforce it because somebody has got to stand up for the people of Arizona. I'm not here to debate that. I'm here just to point out that all of this type of thinking comes down to the concept that the executive branch of the government can do what it wants to. It doesn't have to consult with Congress. Sure, Congress wrote laws which state it's illegal to come into this country without permission, but we think that there are at least 17,000 first-time cases. There may be more. Though, starting with around 17,000 people, we're just going to decide to dismiss the cases against them. Now let's think about that. There is a judicial process where the folks who come into this country illegally get caught. There is a judicial process that can determine whether or not they should be deported from this country. It's very similar to the judicial process you're all familiar with in this House and all over the country about what goes on in the courtroom. You have a trier of fact who determines what the facts are in the case, and you have law that is written and precedents that are established which tell you what the remedies are to resolve the issue. Then there is a trier of fact, the trier of the law, who comes up with a resolution of the issue. Whether it be an immigration judge or whether it be a Federal district judge, there is an issue that is resolved. True, true, the prosecution can dismiss a case, but to have the executive branch of the government direct the Justice Department, which is supposedly our lawyer, to randomly dismiss cases and then make the statement ``we're only going after criminal aliens,'' well, let me tell you something about criminal aliens so you've got a really clear picture of this. I have tried to talk with the Homeland Security Department about this because I happen to serve on the Appropriations Committee for Homeland Security. If your definition of a ``criminal alien'' is someone who is a felon, then you can't under the Constitution of the United States declare someone to be a felon until that person has been convicted of a crime by a court. Otherwise, there is something called the ``presumption of innocence,'' and until a court declares you guilty, you are innocent. So, even though somebody walks in here and shoots everybody in this room on national television, that person is still innocent until a court says he's guilty. So you're saying we're going to go after criminal aliens. If you're going to call them ``criminal aliens,'' they have to be convicted by a court. Now, if they are convicted by a court, it's a pretty good chance they're in prison. Now, let me ask you--and you don't have to be a legal scholar; you don't have to be a former judge; you don't even have to have ever served on a jury. By just using the good old American commonsense, if all of the criminal aliens--or let's just say 95 percent of those convicted of a crime as criminal aliens are in jail or are in prison, how hard are they to find? I mean is it really a task to find out where they are? I come from Williamson County in Texas. We have a great big jail in Williamson County. I promise you that you can pick up the phone and call our great sheriff and ask, Sheriff, how many convicted illegal aliens have you got in your jail? He'll say, I can give you a list of people I think are illegal, but I haven't asked them. So let's just assume that the sheriff's wise ideas are even inaccurate a little bit. You're still going to pick up a number of them. How hard is it to catch them? Go to the jail; go to their cells; unlock the doors and take them. That's how hard it is to catch them. They're in custody. They've dedicated the entire program of ICE to one proposition--deporting illegal aliens who are criminals. They don't have to go out and chase anybody. They've got them all incarcerated. It's not that hard, but that's what the target is for this year. And it sounds great on television, but the truth is, I think anybody that is a normal American wouldn't even consider releasing somebody that has been to prison for some serious crime. Of course if you have the chance to deport them, you want to deport them; but here's something that's kind of interesting: there is a sector of the border--and the Homeland folks and the border patrol divide the areas up by sectors, and this is called the Del Rio sector. And in the Del Rio sector, we started a thing called Operation Streamline with the cooperation of the judges and the courts and the prosecutors. And let me tell you, this isn't easy, it's hard work, and these people are to be commended for what they do. But they set up a process that those people caught coming across our border in the Del Rio section of the border would go before a judge and have a hearing, every one of them. Now, you say why is that a big deal? Well, because the President of the United States and the Homeland Security Department just declared 17,000 people will never go before a judge, not on that issue. Unless they re-file the cases--which is done with prejudice so they can come back and re-file the cases--but unless they re-file the cases, these people will never answer to a court. But why would you want them to answer to a court, courts are so crowded? Sure, but some judges who are willing to work hard to do what's right by the law in the Del Rio sector have made the Del Rio sector the least border-crossed area on the border. Why? Because there is something about looking a judge straight in the eye and they tell you, Sir, or madam, you have violated the laws of the United States by coming across our border, that makes those people say I'm not going to see that judge again, I'm going to cross someplace else. Now, maybe we should be setting up a system like that to cover our whole border, maybe that would help a whole lot, and we should provide the resources to do it. But the real point comes back to at least 17,000 people will never look that judge in the eye based upon the actions of the Obama administration. And some of those people may have gone back across and applied to come in legally. We are the only country in the world that brings in 1 million foreigners a year into our country illegally. There isn't anybody who can match us; nobody can even come close in the entire world. The United States opens our doors to 1 million people that follow the rules and come into this country, yet you can call it compassion, but it is random compassion. Who said these people, determined by the White House, are more deserving of compassion than these people over here because we've got, according to most of the estimates, between 12 and 20 million of these people in our country? So who decides we pick 17,000? And are we starting a policy that everybody that is awaiting a hearing in an immigration court will just be excused. Is that the new policy? So 17 is just a start? Well, I don't know, we don't have an answer to that. But the real question we have to be concerned about is, who made the executive branch so independent to operate that they can shut down things like drilling in the gulf and turn loose people who have pending court cases on their say so without any consultation or action by the legislative branch of the government or any declaration for enforcement by the judicial branch of the government? I think that's a rule-of-law question that we in this House ought to be talking about. I don't think, when we wrote this Constitution of the United States, we ever envisioned giving that kind of power to any individual person or even to any branch of the government. And I think we have reason to show real concern when we read something like this in the Houston Chronicle: ``Culling the immigration court system dockets of noncriminals started in earnest in Houston about a month ago and has stunned local immigration attorneys.'' I'm sure it stunned them because they are no longer going to get a fee. But in addition to that, they got benefits they never even sought because they weren't seeking dismissals. They were seeking probably things like--well, I won't go into that--other remedies in the court. They got the cases dismissed without even knowing they were going to be dismissed, and they are as confused as everybody else is. Now, I'm not saying it wasn't done for the right reason. I don't know why it was done. I don't know who makes the random pick of 17,000 people out of 20 million. Who makes that choice? Is that the choice that one individual we need to have make? It is the immigration czar that decides who gets that and who doesn't? Or is it the Secretary of Homeland Security? Or is it the President of the United States? And under what authority do they have the right to do this? And is it the kind of world you want to live in where one person has the ability to make a decision that basically sidesteps the judicial system in the country because they like you? Or whatever they do; we don't know why they did it. Do we want the President of the United States coming into the judicial system of the country and saying, you know what? We've got so many criminal cases pending, they are just too crowded, the docket, we're going to dismiss all but the murder cases because we really think the only thing that is really serious is murder. So wipe out the rest. I mean, that seems ridiculous--and it is ridiculous--but at what point does that authority, not granted by any other source to one man, what curtails it unless we ask about it and we ask what law allows this to happen? Who gets to make these decisions to circumvent the written law of the United States and why do they get that decision-making process? There may be a good answer; I haven't heard one. And those who have questioned it in the press and those who have questioned it with letters, such as Mr. Bilirakis and Marsha Blackburn--another great Member of Congress--have asked that question and it's my understanding have not received any answers. By what authority is this done? And I may be the only voice talking here tonight, but every country ought to have somebody and every State ought to have somebody standing up and asking these questions because the only supreme authority other than God Almighty is this Constitution of the United States. In this document and the offshoots of this document lies the power of the people who serve up here in Washington, DC and around the country. So this is serious stuff we are talking about, the rule of law, and it's stuff we ought to worry about. Finally, I want to say that the really sad thing that is being reported in some of these newspaper articles is that this is deferred action, which really concerns me for those of us who have been trying to actually come up with real solutions to be fair and yet be just to all Americans, and just have possibly one of the tools that could have been used by this Congress established by the written document called the law, possibly taken away from us because of the bad taste it's going to leave in the American public's mouth. I'm very concerned about that because, quite honestly, it was one of the possible solutions we could deal with. But I'm not going to go into that other than to say I hope that when we do finally sit down and do a compassionate solution to the immigration problem that takes into consideration not only the invading immigrants, but takes into consideration the rest of the country that it has invaded to come up with a solution to this problem, that we haven't in some way, by the actions of the White House, tainted one method that might have been used to start to correct some portion of the problem. Finally let me say, the reason there's passion in my State on this issue is because more people died in the war run by the cartels across the border. Right across the border, a hundred yards from American citizens who live among the border, there have been, I think it's something like 25,000 people murdered, which is way more than the casualty rate for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Police officers and police officials, mayors, anyone who stands up and says, ``We ought to enforce the law over here,'' is killed, maimed, butchered, beheaded. And anarchy reigns--not because of the good intention of the Mexican Government; because of the evil that permeates the lawlessness on the Mexican-U.S. border. And we have to be concerned about what's happening on our borders. All of us in this country have to be concerned, because that evil is there, and it's just, in Texas, a swim across the river away; in Arizona or New Mexico, it's one footstep away from being in one of our States and then across the country. And some of these drug gangs now have agents in every major and minor city in this country. MS-13 and other gangs like that, the study shows they have spread across the Nation. So when we're talking about, yes, we've got lots of issues that have to do with good folks who live good lives and they're here illegally, we need to work on that. But don't ever forget, if you give up a portion of the law, you could lose it all. And when you lose it all, who's going to stand between you and the bad guys? And that's why we've got to keep talking about the rule of law is the glue that holds our society together. And if we give it up, whether it is for what is viewed today as a compassionate, goodwill reason or not, if we give up the strength of the law that keeps our society together, we weaken our society. And then ultimately those people who would do you harm through violence and terror will be able to control the world we live in. That's why our soldiers go to war to fight across the ocean to prevent that from happening in our country and to help countries where it is happening to establish rule of law so they can prevent the destruction of their society. That's why great American soldiers go fight those wars. That's why we have the police force and the fire department and all of these other departments that protect us. But if you take away the tools by some group deciding we can just, by the stroke of a pen, eliminate a certain bunch of rules we don't like, where does it stop? This is a serious issue of the rule of law. I raise it for discussion among the Members of this House and among the people of this country. Is this the way we make it better for our lives? I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I request that my name be removed as a cosponsor on H.R. 5081.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Madam Speaker, Nancy Pelosi became the first elected female Speaker of the House in the history of the United States. On November 16, 2006 she stated, ``This leadership team will create the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.'' She still serves as our Speaker and she also sits in the position in line to, in case of some horrible disaster, she is actually third in line to the Presidency. The President of the United States said, ``I campaigned on changing Washington and bottom-up politics. I don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for powerful people and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.'' President Barack Obama said this to CNN on February 3, 2009. So that was the stage that was set for the Democratic administration in this House and for the Democrat administration in the White House. I've been on the floor of this House now for about 18 or 19 months talking about lots of things, about how we have rules for a reason, and we believe, as Americans, in the rule of law. It is as sacred as anything that there is of a secular nature in this country, that we believe that law and fairness is so important to us that we have laws, and that each person is treated fairly under those laws. And there are no exceptions. And as the President said, we want a world that we live in that says everybody in this country is not only created equal but is going to be treated equal under the law. And we've had lots of examples where that didn't happen, and that's part of the turmoil that has moved around this Nation for over 200 years. But the average American citizen down deep in his soul, in his heart, he wants that world, she wants that world, the American citizen wants the world that says the law treats everybody equally and fairly. And when we go to our court systems under the rules that we operate under, we expect others to follow those rules the same way, and we expect that those who are in a position of enforcing those rules are seeing that that conduct is policed up when those rules are broken. We expect them to treat everybody equally and accordingly. We've got a volume of rules for this House of Representatives that's about that thick, and it is written in such fine print that you have to have reading glasses to read it, even when you're young--and when you're my age, you certainly need bifocals and trifocals just to read the fine print. But we also have people that have served in this Congress for decades and dealt with these rules. And they understand them, they know these rules, the Speaker being one of them. And when we make a promise to this House that we will have the most honest, open, and ethical Congress in the history of the Congress, that kind of promise is important to the American people because that's exactly what they were looking for from this Democratic administration. Many times I stand here all by myself on the floor of the House talking about these things, occasionally somebody comes forward and joins me. But I think the Members of this House in their souls expect that. I think every American citizen expects that. And we are now at a point where after I've been talking for 18 or 19 months almost every week about the former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Charles Rangel, and the issues that he had, we have finally, finally reached a point where the Ethics Committee has moved off high center and launched forward in this case. But just so we get an idea of why I've been standing up here, why my colleagues come and join me and stand up here, let's just go through the timeline that we're dealing with and how long it's been going on. September 24, 2008: The House Ethics Committee votes to open an investigation into soliciting funds for the Charlie Rangel Center for Public Service, occupying rent-stabilized apartments, soliciting donations on congressional letterhead, and not disclosing or paying changes on rental income from a Dominican villa. September 24, 2008. November 6-9, 2008: Mr. Rangel leads the Citigroup-funded congressional junket to the Caribbean. December 9, 2008: The Ethics Committee expands the investigation to include Rangel's efforts to preserve tax breaks to a donor to the Rangel Center. January 28, 2009: Representative Carter, Republican from Texas, introduces the Rangel rule, a bill to eliminate all IRS penalties and interests for paying taxes past due, the reason for that rule being that's the way the IRS treated the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and I took the position that that was only fair. August 12, 2009: Rangel amends his financial disclosure forms for 2002 to 2006, effectively doubling his wealth that he now acknowledges to the country. October 6, 2009: Representative Carter introduces a resolution demanding that Rangel step down as the Ways and Means chairman. October 8, 2009: The Ethics Committee expands the Rangel investigation to all 2009 financial statements. February 26, 2010: The Ethics Committee admonishes Rangel for accepting the Caribbean trip. March 3, 2010: Rangel steps down as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee after Representative Carter prepares to introduce another privileged resolution. July 22, 2010: The Ethics Committee announces that its subcommittee investigating Rangel alleges House rules violations and that they will be made public on July 29. So from September 24, 2008 to July 29, 2010, this House dealt with the issues concerning Mr. Rangel. What's not on this board and should be is that on the floor of this very House--and really what launched us into realizing this was going on--was Mr. Rangel stepped before the House and told us every one of these things, every one of them, and said he had turned himself in to the Ethics Committee. Well, I'd like to explain that those of us that deal with the law have a saying, ``justice delayed is justice denied.'' And that's one of the reasons why we have speedy trial acts in many of the jurisdictions in this country because justice delayed is justice denied. Now, when we're talking about justice, we're not talking just about justice for the individual defendant, we're talking about justice for everyone involved. If it's a criminal case, we're talking about the kind of justice where the State, representing the people of a State or of this country, is desiring justice on behalf of the people, and the defendant is desiring justice on behalf of the defendant. It doesn't really matter who it is or who is being denied this justice, whether it be the people as represented by the State or the government or whether it be the individual who may be the defendant who is looking for individual justice. Any undue delay in dealing with a problem like this is justice denied. So we are in July. We are just 1 month and 20-some-odd or 30-some-odd days--let's just be honest and call it 2 months--we are just 2 months away from 2 years of dealing with the situation with Mr. Rangel. He stood right there at that microphone and told us about it for over an hour on the floor of this House. Now, having seen some very unusual releases by the Ethics Committee about the scope of their investigation, I will say they have done a very comprehensive and a very effective investigation of this case. I want to say that from the outset because I am certainly not in any way demeaning the work ethic of that committee. But when we have the leader saying that we have to deal with this, you have to ask: How does this compare with other cases? How does this compare with the kind of justice we were seeking at other times? There was a time in the not-too-distant past when one whole half of this House, the half that was in the majority at that time, was accused by the minority--and this was every one of us on the Republican side-- of being involved in a culture of corruption because of certain issues that very validly were dealt with both by the Justice Department, with some people ending up in prison, and by our Ethics Committee. It is the duty and the responsibility of the leadership that leads this House of Representatives--and that leadership is headed by Nancy Pelosi--to make sure that we are going forward, that we are going forward in a very effective way and that we are getting to the root of the problem as quickly as possible. I would argue that after this 2 years, less 2 months, that we have been dealing with the Rangel case, it is still not resolved; and now there is at least some speculation that there will be no resolution of this issue until after the November elections or at least until after the New York primary elections. You know, the primary voters ought to know the resolution of this problem. They ought to know what is going to happen as they go to vote in the New York primary, but it doesn't look like we are going to resolve it even by the time the voters have had a chance to express their opinions one way or the other against any of the candidates that are involved. I think that is justice denied. We're moving forward. I'm not rushing. I've had people ask me questions about resolutions and so forth. I believe in the system, and I am hoping this system is now off high center and is moving forward with haste, but sometimes it takes somebody like me just down here, talking and talking and talking, to remind folks we have a duty to everybody in this House, to everybody in this country and to the individuals who are accused to resolve the issues. This issue has been on the forefront for a long time; but if we don't get through this, just look at what has happened in this period of time. Mr. Rangel was in charge of the committee. There have been major pieces of legislation that he has ushered through this House. Maybe it's appropriate. Maybe it's not. We don't know. We haven't resolved this issue. We don't know whether any of these allegations have been actually addressed. We don't know what the outcome is going to be, and we are probably not going to know before the people of New York have a chance to go vote in their primary. I don't think that's the right way that ought to be. I don't think the average American thinks that's the right way it ought to be either. Here is a fairly recent statement. I don't have a date on it. I apologize for that. It is from the Congressional Daily: ``Massa Case still hangs over Dems,'' meaning Democrats. ``For House Democrats, how soon will the other ethics shoe drop--and how hard?'' ``A House Ethics subcommittee's finding last week that Representative Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, violated congressional ethics rules comes at a politically awkward time in these months before the November 2 midterm elections.'' So I guess this is very current. ``Little word has emerged from another Ethics panel reviewing whether Speaker Pelosi and other House leaders or their aides mishandled initial complaints of sexual harassment against former Representative Eric Massa, Democrat from New York, by male staffers.'' So here we have another issue that's hanging out there, and you ask: Well, what's the big hurry on this? When did this happen? What is the timeline? Well, let's compare this timeline to a timeline we know, because we had another event in this House where there were allegations of sexual misconduct, and so we are going to talk about both of them and compare them and see where we are. The Mark Foley case. This is back when the Republicans were in charge of the House of Representatives: On September 29, 2006, Representative Foley resigned after allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior with House pages. On October 5, 2006, which was in a week and a half, the Ethics Committee launches the investigation. On December 8, 2006, the Ethics Committee concludes the investigation. Foley's resignation and the investigation totals 70 days. The accusations were: What did the House Republican leadership know ahead of time about Mark Foley and about the allegations against him? We have the Eric Massa case: What are the allegations? What did the Democrat House staff know about the allegations against Mr. Massa? At what time did they know it? How far before it was actually reported? On March 8, 2010, Representative Massa resigns. On April 21, 2010, the Ethics Committee launches the investigation. The Massa investigation today is 141 days and counting. It is not resolved. Let's have a comparison. By our little example right here, it takes twice as long under the Democrats as the Republicans--and still counting. Heck, if you look at the Rangel case, it may be 2 years before it's resolved, and maybe it will be next week. I don't know when it's going to be; but the point is that, already, we are 141 days into exactly the same kind of allegations. What did the Speaker and the majority leader know? In the case that involved the Republican-led Congress, it was resolved in 70 days. In the case under the Democrat- led Congress, we are at 141 days and counting. So there is a responsibility here when you are in the leadership of this House of Representatives. The committee has to move, and it has to move at a pace. Believe me, even though the committee has exactly the same number of people--of Democrats and Republicans on the Ethics Committee--it still has a chairman and a ranking member. The chairman is in charge of the majority, and the ranking member is in charge of the minority; but the chairman leads the committee, and the chairman is appointed by the Speaker. So here we are. Let's compare the two Ethics Committees: one Republican-appointed chairman and one Democrat-appointed chairman. I have nothing against the chairman. In fact, I happen to like the lady a lot--I really do--but the facts are they're not moving at the speed they need to move to get justice done. There may be absolutely nothing to this. There may be a slight mishandling. It was resolved in 70 days under the Republicans. We are at 141 days and counting right now. I think that's something we need to think about. I think it's our obligation as Members of this House to point this out to people, point this out to the Members of this Congress, point this out to the American people. Because why should we do it? Maybe we wouldn't have such an obligation if the Speaker of the House hadn't told us that this was going to be the most honest, open, and most ethical Congress in history. In 200-plus years, it's going to be the most honest, open, and ethical Congress. With that kind of declaration by the leadership here, that kind of promise to the American people, then that promise ought to be kept. People are tired. They're tired, and that's why nobody likes this. I told somebody today, I said, You know, when your congressional approval is 11 percent, you've got to worry if folks at church and folks in your own family even like you. That's not the way it's supposed to be. This is supposed to be an honorable group. And I think it is. I honestly think it is. But it's this kind of justice delayed, this kind of not letting us know what's going on that is not open and it's not honest, and I think I could almost argue it's not ethical. So if you're going to promise those things, you've got to deliver. And if you need to go down to the committee and say, I'm here to tell you what I know, step up and do it. Don't wait to be subpoenaed. Resolve the issue. It's fair to all involved, both the American people and the individual involved. That's what I have been saying for 18 months on the floor of the House. There are those who think that I am a hatchet man against Charlie Rangel. I am not. I have said it every time I have spoken. He is owed the right to have this matter resolved, just as much as the American people are owed the right. Now, the extent of the investigation was complex. The alleged occurrences against Mr. Rangel were more difficult than the average stuff, because a lot of it dealt with stuff you have to deal with taxes and tax lawyers and CPAs and who else, no telling what else. But still, we've got to break this cycle of accusations that die or go to sleep in the Ethics Committee. Somebody shouldn't believe, if they turn themselves in, the thing will go into a bottomless pit, a dark hole, and disappear in the slow, snail's pace movement of the Ethics Committee. And every member of that Ethics Committee, both sides of the aisle, are honorable people, so do not misunderstand that I am in any way defaming any of those people. I am not. But we have had lots of other things come up in this Congress that really haven't been addressed. Now, I'm not saying that every time somebody puts something in the newspaper that that makes it automatically something that ought to go directly to an accusatory situation, but these are just some of the headlines that have happened in the last couple of years: New York Daily News, ``The FBI joins Massa probe of sexual harassment, hush money, and coverups.'' ``Norm Dicks is about to go from Mr. Boeing to Mr. Spending,'' The Washington Post. I am not sure that should be in there. CQ says, ``Representative Waters calls TARP meeting for her husband's bank.'' Has that been looked into? I don't know. Landmark Legal Foundation files House ethics complaint against Conyers. Has anything been done about that? Roll Call, Mollohan charity got a rental deal. Allegations that Mr. Mollohan made some special realty deal to his charity. And the voters took care of that problem. Weekly Standard, ``GOP proposes earmark moratorium in wake of the PMA scandal.'' The PMA scandal was a scandal that involved--let's see, who was that? Please forgive me. I am a little under the weather tonight. ``Congressman Pete Visclosky has less than half the cash on hand for reelection bid than he did this time 2 years ago, but his legal bills keep growing.'' This is from the Associated Press in 2010, July 19. It points out that he has spent $100,000 on legal fees since April. The Times of Munster reported Saturday that the new amount brings to more than 400,000 the total Visclosky has spent on expenses related to the Federal investigation of the PMA Group. PMA is suspected of making straw donations to lawmakers that concealed the true source of the money. PMA represented defense clients, including several Visclosky donors who received Federal earmarks. So that's what that's all about. The Republicans decided to have a moratorium on earmarks in light of the PMA scandal because, I guess, the way we Republicans looked at it was enough's enough. ``Geithner tax woes examined.'' Now, this is an old story. But the Secretary of the Treasury, who we saw on the talk shows this weekend talking to us about the economy and how we should believe that things are getting better and how we should trust that things are getting better, he received an extra payment with the taxes included in a separate check, the way I understand it, to pay his taxes, and he didn't pay his taxes. And when he got appointed to the Treasury, to be the Secretary of the Treasury, it came out that he hadn't paid these taxes. So he paid the taxes, and he may have even paid the interest, but I don't think he paid a penalty. So he's about half the Rangel rule. Rangel didn't pay penalty or interest. You have a taxpayer who pays both penalty and interest. And, you know, here's the problem with all this stuff about whether you paid penalty and interest, whether you paid your taxes on time. Were you treated differently than the average guy? There is a lady, and I am not going to mention her name, but she's at our grocery store where we shop back home in Texas, and her son failed to pay some taxes, and he was just a guy. He did the best he could to try to explain why he didn't pay the taxes. The taxes were not as sizable, anywhere near as sizable as the ones either involved in Geithner or Rangel's case, and that young man spent 3 years in the Bastrop Federal Penitentiary in Bastrop, Texas. And his mother told us this at the HEB grocery store in Round Rock, Texas. A lot of people come to judges, former judges like me, and tell them stories about problems that their family's having, I guess because we used to be in the business and we maybe could give them some compassion, I suppose. But the point is I'm not saying anybody deserves to go to the penitentiary in these cases. That's up to the Justice Department. If the Justice Department fairly and equitably does its job, which seems to be in some question right now, then they will deal with it. And I still have faith in the justice system of the United States, and I still want to have faith in the Justice Department. But going back to where we started, most importantly of anything, Americans want to be treated equitably by those who enforce the rules; and, arguably, Mr. Geithner and Mr. Rangel got special treatment. So at some time later on this week, we're going to have the beginning of a resolution of Mr. Rangel's case. The White House, which certainly this Congress's Ethics Committee doesn't have anything to say about the workings of the Secretary of the Treasury, there doesn't seem to be anything being dealt with at all by the White House on Mr. Geithner. There's other accusations about the White House, Mr. Rahm Emanuel served on the board of Freddie Mac while these so-called fraudulent lending practices were going on, and he just says he didn't notice them, I guess. It doesn't seem to interfere with what he's doing at the White House, even though he came to this Congress with $25,000 worth of Freddie Mac donations, and the White House is now giving $200 billion to Freddie Mac. And in the meanwhile, Mr. Emanuel was living rent free in the home of one of the basement's of one of our other Members of this Congress. These things have been raised but they've disappeared because he's no longer under the House Committee. And so I guess it's up to the administration to give us justice on those issues or even look into it. Now, we're leaving out the Senate money trial of former Illinois Governor Blagojevich and possible involvement of House Members, and allegations against Mr. Conyers of Michigan, the fact there was a conviction of former Congressman William Jefferson, the sex payroll scandal of former Congressman Tim Mahoney. And we can review these cases for a long time, but there is no reason to go into those things. But all of these things have to be brought up because we are not the most open, ethical Congress in the history of this United States. It was promised, and that promise has not been delivered upon. And I think that we have a duty, as Members of this House, to examine that and wonder why the leadership of this House has not delivered on that promise. I don't expect the Speaker to know or be in charge of every private life of every Member here. God forbid. Nobody wants that. That's way beyond the pale. But there are duties and responsibilities that leaders have. And I would argue that we saw what happened when other leaders had accusations against them because in the Republican Congress they went there, gave their side of the story, got it resolved in 70 days. We're still waiting to resolve an almost identical case. The question was what did the Speaker of the House, Hastert, know about the Mark Foley case. The question here is what did the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, know about the Massa case? Why 70 days versus 141 days? That's a question we ought to be asking ourselves. I don't have the answer. I have the question. I can make some presumptions. The answer is maybe failure to cooperate. Maybe not. Maybe I'm too busy to talk to you today. Maybe not. Who knows what the reason is. But there's 70 more days in one investigation than the other. The other's resolved. The one that's 71 days older is not resolved. Justice delayed for anybody is justice denied. A reasonable amount of time to prepare your case, of course. Making a proper investigation, of course. I cannot fault any of those things. But especially when it involves those who are in leadership of the House, it would seem to me they should give an extraordinary effort to go do what they can do to move the investigation along to a conclusion. If it means volunteering to go before the committee at the very soonest possible time and setting aside other things like fundraisers in San Francisco or trips to Chicago and going before the Ethics Committee and resolving the issue, it seems to me that's the way it ought to be done. That's what the American people would expect. I want to commend the Ethics Committee for coming forward with the Rangel case. I take the position at this time that the process is moot now going forward after over close to a 2-year investigation. I for one, still believing in the system, believe that the system will do the right thing and move with haste to conclude this issue that is still hanging over Mr. Rangel's head and still hanging over the House of Representatives' head, still hanging over the American people's head. This is the people's House. Everybody in here was elected by people. There was nobody in here appointed, ever, to this position. Everyone who ever served in this Congress served because they were elected by people. You can't say that about the Senate. But you can say it about this House. So when I say the House deserves an answer, the American people deserve an answer, it's because they do. They deserve an answer. And I hope this thing will be resolved. And it would be very appropriate if we resolve at least some of the issues, if possible, before the people of New York are asked to cast a vote in a primary later on in the next few weeks. I'm not sure that's possible because we're about to go into recess. But it's a shame that we're not giving the information to the people of New York that they should have. I want to thank the Speaker for allowing me to come in here in as many weeks and do this talk, and I will probably be talking about other things in the future. But we have so many things that we, as people, can disagree on, which is fine. That's what democracy is all about. But overwhelmingly Americans agree that they want a justice system that works, and they want folks to follow the rules, and they want everybody to be treated or given at least the equal opportunity to be treated fairly. And as long as I feel like there's people not being treated fairly or others being treated more special than others, I think it's my job and the job of every Member in this House to step up here and say, That's not America.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I love these debates about Social Security and this conversation about Social Security. But if you don't have a job, who's going to pay the Social Security? So it's really about jobs. I had an interview today with some radio folks back in my district, and they asked a question, Have we created any jobs but government jobs? And how come we are creating government jobs that get paid more than the private-sector jobs? When did we get confused about that? They wanted me to answer the question, Where are the jobs for the folks in Texas? Where are the jobs for the folks in the other States? Why are all the jobs just in Washington, DC, growing the government? This administration has destroyed thousands of private-sector jobs by taking over and Federalizing the student loan program and making loans harder to get and taking longer to be processed. Now President Obama and this administration have unilaterally killed tens of thousands of jobs in the gulf, in direct violation of a Federal court order. Now, is this a way we create jobs for America? The question they want to know, Where are the jobs, so, with a job, we can pay our share of Social Security?

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Madam Speaker, while these young folks are setting this up for me, I want to start off tonight by talking about what we've been talking about in this hour now for close to a year, and that is that the United States is a Nation of laws, not of men. It was designed by our Founding Fathers to be such. It is something we are proud to be a part of. It's something we are proud to step up to the plate and say we defend because we believe that the rule of law is more fair than having individuals set their own rules as kings and dictators do. And so, the rule of law is a sacred part of our institution. We say that the people will elect representatives to represent them in this Congress and in State legislatures across the country and other legislative or quasi-legislative bodies to speak on their behalf, to vote on their behalf, and to set up laws and rules which establish what a civil society will be and what we will consider right and wrong in our world. This is a simple concept, arguably, a biblical concept going back for centuries and centuries, in fact, thousands of years. There have been sets of rules in every society, every culture, and every religious background, sets of rules that are established that allows society to function. The rule of law is important to America. In fact, it is the underpinning that allows me and other folks like me who are blessed to be able to serve in this Congress, allows us to do this job because we stand on that rock, that the law in this country is something that we enforce. In fact, we take an oath to preserve and protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And we take that oath freely because we're saying, the basis of our legal structure, the ground rock of the rule of law, is the Constitution of the United States, which was adopted by this country and formed our Nation as we presently know it. So we've been talking about that Members of Congress, administration people, and others need to be dealt with in the light of the rule of law, and when there are questions that should be raised, they should be raised publicly. And so tonight, as I've done on many occasions in the past, I'm going to talk about some things that are concerning me, concerning others who care about the rule of law. I hope to be joined by some of my colleagues here tonight. But to start off with, I'm really concerned about what's being reported by the Obama administration, with the political backing of the Democrats in this House. We are arguably seeing one of the most lawless political crusades in American history. Blatantly, this administration has violated both the spirit and the letter of the law in advancing a theory of European- style socialism on State governments and on the unwilling people. The administration's ignored two Federal court orders that have just come out, and have ignored both of them now, saying that the drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico is arbitrary and capricious and wrong, and ordering the United States and the Secretary to withdraw and lift that drilling ban. And yet the minute these two courts, both a Federal district court and a United States court of appeals, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, told this administration, this President and this Secretary, that they were to lift the drilling ban and save the between 140,000 and 250,000 jobs that are connected with that industry along the entire stretch of the Gulf of Mexico, that it was arbitrary and capricious to ban all drilling and it should not be done, they immediately amend and reissue another drilling ban in the face of that court. The administration blocks Louisiana's efforts to proceed to fight their own environmental fight by trying to throw up a little small rock barrier and a sand barrier to maybe keep the oil from getting into the marsh. It's bad enough when this oil stacks up on the beach because it makes tar balls, and it makes nastiness on that beach. It makes that beach very ugly. But you know what, it just gets on your feet and gets your feet dirty, and it just picks up. But when it goes in the marsh, when this oil goes in the Louisiana marsh, it affects an entire ecosystem that has to do with our shrimping industry, our oyster industry, our fishing industry. It has to do with the ecosystem of the entire State and the Gulf of Mexico because there is a lot that flows in and out of that marsh that has to do with the ecosystem of the gulf. And when oil gets in amongst those grasses and amongst those habitats, it kills. On the beach it probably causes some terrible environmental impact, but nothing like going into those marshes. So Governor Jindal says let's do something about it, and our administration blocks it. And international companies call out and say we have material to help clean up, and the administration refuses to allow them to come. The administration refused to allow the United States Senate to conduct a single hearing over the appointment of Dr. Berwick to head Medicare at the same time that this Congress and the President plan cutting Medicare by $50 billion, and putting a man in charge of Medicare that there is a lot of questions that should have been asked by the Senate. But using a recess appointment, which is legal, it's legal, but in the face of what's facing Medicare and in the face of the conversation we just had earlier with Mr. Upton about the massive burdens that are going to be created by this ObamaCare bill that has now been signed into law, and just the burdens on industry and business that are going to be put on there for really no good understandable reason, you've got to ask the question why you put a guy in there who says the things that Mr. Berwick has said and then don't allow the Senate to ask questions about that. I think that's something we ought to be concerned about. We have a Supreme Court opinion, a recent Supreme Court opinion, that protected certain First Amendment rights of free speech, and this Congress and this administration immediately brought to this floor and shoved through on a partisan vote a bill called the DISCLOSE Act, which gives special free speech rights to some and bars other groups from having the same rights, which is in the face of a Supreme Court opinion that's taken place this summer. And so you have to say what is it about ``no'' that you don't understand? But you know, this is the way we are operating. This administration has filed a lawsuit against the State of Arizona to try to block them from enforcing their laws and Federal laws with specific provisions against discrimination in any form or fashion, and profiling in any form or fashion, but to just try to save their State from the invasion that happens nightly and from the slaughter of American citizens that has happened over the last couple years, and the multiple slaughters across the border. The administration's refused to defend the Republic against the most egregious violations of voting rights since the Civil Rights Act was passed. And we all saw them on television. It's kind of like we used to wonder how you were going to get the guy that shot Lee Harvey Oswald, ever get him a fair trial when the whole world saw the shooting on television. Well, the whole world saw these two guys, one with a club, standing out in front of a polling place, intimidating voters. And yet this administration says that they don't see any harm in that, and they are not going to enforce it. So we are going to go through some of these things tonight and talk about them. And the first one I just brought up: the voting rights violations are ignored. Attorney General Eric Holder, who is right now very proud to be out suing the State of Arizona, dropped the case that, hey, I will ask you, if you can see this clearly, if you will look right there, you will see a club or a shillelagh or a baton, but it is, if you go down to the gun store you can buy that weapon. So it's clearly a weapon. Then if you would watch the film, you would hear the intimidating language that's going on there, and yet this is dropped. And it's a blatant voting rights violation. Refused to sentence the Black Panthers to default judgment. These guys were sued and didn't even show up. And it was a default judgment got against them, and then they dropped it. They didn't even have to work to get something against these guys. These guys lost. I mean, a fresh-out-of-law-school, brand-new lawyer can handle a default judgment and get recourse against these people. But the Justice Department chose, after these guys defaulted in the lawsuit, to drop the suit. I think this is a blatant disregard of something. Civil rights is an issue that when we say the term ``civil rights'' of course we remember what developed in the sixties, of course we know where it came from. Of course we know it had to do with the treatment of African Americans in this country initially. But it was not written just for African Americans. It was written for Americans, every kind of American. And then an off-shoot of civil rights is the Voting Rights Act, which protects every American's right to freely vote. Now, if two guys dressed in paramilitary uniforms, carrying clubs, are standing in front of a polling place and intimidating people and making them afraid to go up to that polling place, why in the world wouldn't it be the duty of our Attorney General, the man who is sworn to represent us in this type of law and to represent us being the American people and the Federal Government, why wouldn't they pursue this? And that's why I say this is blatantly avoiding, ignoring, of not doing your job and doing your duty to this country to preserve the laws. So if one man, Eric Holder, makes the determination--and maybe a couple other lawyers in the office, I don't know. There are a whole bunch of them over there. But if he made the decision not to enforce this law, is that a rule of law or is that a rule of men? Now, you'll hear prosecutors say every prosecutor determines what's a good case. That's true. But they have a civil suit already that they already won, okay. I mean, they didn't have to do anything but take it to judgment, and they didn't do it--much less go prosecute the other violations under the Civil Rights Act. So you have to ask yourself: Is this the rule of law or the rule of Eric Holder? And if it's the rule of Eric Holder, then it's not what this country is designed to be. It's not designed to be the rule of Eric Holder. It's not designed to be the rule of Barack Obama. It's not to designed to be the rule of George Bush or any other President or leader of this country. It's designed to be the rule of law. And this body has an awful lot to do with what is in that body of law that's called a rule of law. And if we are going to arbitrarily and capriciously make changes or choose how we're going to enforce the law, I would argue that we're going down a slippery slope, and that slippery slope could lead to real disaster for this country, because if Eric Holder made this decision based on some personal decision that he has, what's to prevent the next Attorney General to have a different personal opinion and avoid some other law that's important to the rights of the American people? I don't know. So it's the Office of Attorney General we need to be talking about. And what's their job? And I would argue their job is to enforce the law. And if there is any question as to whether or not this is intimidation--and I would almost guarantee you there is--that's for a jury or a judge to decide in a court of law; not for a group of lawyers sitting around a back room someplace deciding which group you want to protect. That's not the way it's supposed to work. I would hope that the Attorney General will be taking another look at this. And if he thinks there is any way anybody could think this guy with a club is intimidating somebody under the Civil Rights Act, then let a trier of fact make that decision and do your job and present your case in court like a good lawyer should, and let's find out just what the courts that we trust with these decisions have to say about it. I'll accept that. I think that's right. That's the way it's supposed to operate. So there's one blatant avoidance of the law. Now, let me start off--because I like to be straight as I can be. To do a recess appointment--it's been done in the past. I can certainly tell you the last administration did it. Other administrations have done it. Using that method is not what I have a concern about because the President absolutely has the right to do it. Now, he picked sort of a brief recess but, hey, that's okay. It's been done on brief recesses in the past. So that's all right. I'm not complaining about that. But one of the things we've got to ask ourselves is, when the President of the United States told the American people what was in that 2,500-page bill that Nancy Pelosi said we were going to have to pass so we'll find out what's in it because she didn't know and neither did anybody else in this House, now we're getting to know what's in that bill. But the promises that were made by the administration were a lie. And one of those promises was there are no death committees. There's nobody going to be deciding your life or death. Nothing in this bill is going to create or have someone in charge that's operating this bill that believes that rationing your health care and making decisions about whether or not you get treated--that's what we were promised. The President of the United States himself told us that on multiple occasions. And not only the President, but almost everybody that represented what was in this bill said, We're not in the business of rationing health care. This bill's not going to ration health care. That's what they said. That's what they all told us. Now, who's this guy Donald Berwick who's now been put in charge of Medicare and Medicaid? He's a proponent of the British health care system and believes in rationing your health care and redistributing wealth. What he said, and if you watch--I know it's on FOX; I hope it's on all of the channels, his statement about how he viewed health care. He basically said health care, by its very nature, requires you to have some form of rationing and a redistribution of wealth from the more prosperous to the least prosperous. It's the very nature of the beast, he said. He told us rationing health care is inevitable. Now, wait a minute. We were promised by the President of the United States that we were not talking about rationing health care. Why would the first guy put in charge of this be a guy who publicly endorses rationing health care? You know, I was talking about rationing health care back home, and I was surprised to learn that people didn't get the whole concept. So let me give you an example, okay, and I've given this example before. My wife was born and raised in the Netherlands, in Holland, where they have socialized medicine and have had socialized medicine since the Second World War. My mother-in-law, who lived a long time--into her nineties--she lived under a system of socialized medicine. And she was healthy enough and so desirous of seeing her grandchildren that, even when she was really struggling with a lot of health issues, she still flew to the United States to be with her grandchildren and to be with her daughters. She's got a daughter here and a daughter in Florida. My wife's one of her daughters. My mother-in-law, back when she was in her mid to late eighties, was suffering from anal polyps--not a pleasant thing to talk about--and she was having a lot of bleeding issues, and she went to the health care people in the Netherlands. And when she came to the United States, she was still--she'd been treated with a drug that they gave her for almost a year, and it had not changed her situation at all. Very embarrassing for a very nice woman to have this situation. So we took her to a Dutch doctor that we knew that worked in Austin, Texas, and spoke Dutch, and we had gotten to be friends with him. And he went in and talked to my mother-in-law about it, what it was, and when he came out he said, You know, he said, this is a shame. They're treating your mother--he's talking to my wife--with sulfa drugs. Now, we haven't treated people with sulfa drugs since the Second World War because we have antibiotics. And sulfa drugs were our drugs of choice in pre- antibiotic days, but at a time when you're 88 years old and it costs the system a lot of money for antibiotics to fight this bug, just treat the old person with sulfa drugs because, quite frankly, she's not worth the investment. That's rationing. So being in the United States of America, the doctor immediately prescribed two antibiotics. Two weeks later, my mother-in-law was cured after a year of suffering with this situation. That's rationing. That's a governmental agency making a decision what drug you get for your illness. And we've got a guy that we just put in charge of the health care for our elderly and the health care for our poor, Medicaid. So our needy and our elderly are now under the charge of a man who says a health care system, by its very nature, has to have rationing in order to be fiscally able to function; in other words, in order to pay the bills. And we have been promised that this wouldn't happen. So what rule am I saying this is a violation of? It's not a rule that--they followed the rules. But it's the spirit of the thing, that the Senate should have been able to at least ask a few questions about these statements which were promised weren't going to happen. And I think the American people deserve to have those questions answered, so that's something else. We have had one of the worst, if not the worst, environmental disaster in the history of the United States on British Petroleum's poor management and poor operation of their offshore drilling resulting in an oil spill that is catastrophic. We are in like the 95th day of that oil spill right now. We have a new procedure being worked on as we speak and we're hopeful it will help. But it doesn't matter. We have poured millions of barrels, not gallons but barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico; and the consequences, we are beyond thinking about. But one of the problems is the action of the Obama administration because of this one leaking oil well. Now, it is kind of interesting that the United States has drilled, according to what they are reporting today, 42,000 plus oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico, and the United States, the United States drilling area, has had one drilling mishap, and that's the one we're dealing with today. One in 42,000 is what the record is, right now. So the question is, what should we do about it? Well, I would argue, and this is not hard stuff, plug the well, which has got to be done a certain way and I think they're ultimately going to do it. I'm not pleased with their performance. And secondly, under the Oil Spill Act, the Federal Government took control of oil spills. We have a written law, the Oil Spill Act, and it puts one person in charge of making sure that all the resources of America, and anywhere else we can get, I would argue, are to be put in to clean up that mess. And under the Federal Oil Spill Act, the President of the United States is in charge of that. It's his jobs. BP's got to stop the oil drilling and they've got to pay damages, but the United States has got the duty under the Oil Spill Act to clean up the mess. And they have a way to try to collect on who will pay the damages. I'm not talking about a damage issue. I'm talking about who says to clean up boat number 5, go out there and clean. How about you number 10, go clean. Number 100, go clean. Number 1,000, go clean. Who says that? The Federal Government does that. Okay. We are close to 100 days into this oil spill and the responsibility for the cleanup belongs to the Federal Government. Now what is the solution that our administration, the Obama administration, has come up with? We're going to put an oil drilling moratorium and shut down all oil drilling in the gulf. Later they tried to amend it to make it deep water only. But what happens when you do that, when you say the power of this government says stop drilling, what do the people who are in the gulf do? Stop drilling. Now I can't tell you the number of drilling rigs we've got in the gulf, but it's a lot. Deep water, we have in the twenties or thirties or forties out there, in deep water. Those are the big expensive drilling rigs. But all of them cost a lot of money, even the shallow water rigs. We shut down drilling in the gulf, started making accommodations for the shallow water people, but interestingly enough, since that occurred, nobody, not one person, has been issued a permit to drill out there. So they may have told them they could drill but they haven't issued them a permit to let them drill, so, quite honestly, nobody's drilling. Now what this means to the economy of the Gulf of Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, possibly portions of Florida, is that a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. The public number that they're giving out is 140,000, but that I believe is the number that was determined in Louisiana alone. I asked the question of a person very knowledgeable at the Chamber of Commerce in Houston, Texas, what they thought this--what could ultimately end up as a permanent ban out there, or at least a long-term ban--will do to Houston, and they said 250,000 jobs. Now is this what you do in a time of recession? At a time when unemployment is at record numbers? I don't think so. But they did. They issued a moratorium. And they were taken to court. And the Federal district court said, No, lift that moratorium, this is arbitrary and capricious, and it is the wrong thing to do. Lift it. Well, of course, not being willing to take no for an answer, they took it to the appellate court, Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans. Lo and behold, the Fifth Circuit said, No. The trial court is right. It's arbitrary and capricious. Lift that drilling ban. You're doing harm by having that drilling ban. And Secretary Salazar steps up, makes a few adjustments to zero in on some deep water rigs, floating deep water rigs, and issues another moratorium. Now first, I think there are probably a bunch of judges both on the Fifth Circuit and in the district court that ought to be asking Mr. Salazar, ``Secretary Salazar, excuse me, sir, but what is it about no that you don't understand?'' I have asked that of lawyers who argued in my court from time to time, and I think that question ought to be asked: What is it about no that you don't understand? We've told you this is an arbitrary and capricious and way beyond the scope of what you should be doing here and you're doing it anyway. Why don't you understand the word ``no'' when people you are supposed to be answering to are telling you no? I think that's a question that's valid, and I think that's a question that we as people who defend the rule of law, we ought to be asking that question. I don't think we have an answer, but I do know what they did. They issued another moratorium. Now those who would defend the moratorium would say, yeah, but they've lightened it each time. The issue is at some point in time until the playing field is cleared, the people who operate those rigs don't know if they're in trouble or not in trouble if they start to drill. They don't know. Because this keeps in the court system. See, one of the real crimes that happens in this country and happens in every part of the country now, even including politics, is we use our courts as a weapon, sometimes when we really have no real position in law that would allow us to do so. We used to have a saying back where I come from that any idiot can file a lawsuit. All he's got to do is have the price of the filing fees and directions to the courthouse. That doesn't mean it's a good lawsuit, but defending that bad lawsuit can be so economically depressing to whoever's getting sued that ultimately that becomes a weapon, and even though they would have won if they had contested, the cost of contesting it becomes a weapon. Well, now in this case, they've gone to court. They've been told by the court it's arbitrary and capricious. They've been told by the appellate court it's arbitrary and capricious. They've done it a third time. Now if you're a driller sitting on a drilling rig that costs somewhere between a half a million and a million dollars a day just sitting there and not operating, if you are that owner operator of that drilling rig, do you know if you can drill the day after the district court ruled? No. Because you've got the appellate court. Do you know you can drill after the appellate court ruled? No, because they've issued another moratorium. Now eventually that guy that's running that rig says, you know what, this is costing me somewhere around a million bucks every 2 days. I can pick this thing up and I can go over as I believe was announced by a group, Diamond or something like that, Diamond drilling rig, Diamond offshore drilling pulled their rig out today and moved it off the coast of Egypt. Well, why wouldn't you? Is it good business to lose half a million dollars a day? Because people are clouding the waters so much or clouding the environment so much that you don't know whether if you start drilling, they're going to come drag you off and throw you in jail for violating a moratorium. I mean, that's why the drilling rigs aren't drilling. That's why they're pulling out and moving to other places. So at least Diamond is going off the shore of Egypt. Others will move off the shore of Australia. Others will move off the shore of Europe, into north Africa. Others will move off the shore of Libya; off the shore of Brazil. Now, what is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with this picture? We all attach to the same oceans. The rest of the world is drilling. And we have had two courts of jurisdiction say, no, you can't have a moratorium. Why do we have a moratorium? Because I would argue that Secretary Salazar is ignoring the courts and ignoring the rule of law, and we ought to be concerned about that. It has nothing to do with defending British Petroleum. They ought to get hammered every way they can get hammered, because they actually did some very bad business practices, it is going to prove out, I think. But we will have to see the proof. But still they have to pay for the damages they have done, which they have agreed to do, by the way. Let's talk about another issue that in Texas at least is on our minds 24/7, and that is the issue of what is going on at our borders. President Barack Obama made a speech about 10 days ago that specifically raised this issue of immigration. He talked about we needed to do a comprehensive immigration plan and that we were defending our borders better than we have ever defended them, ever; that we have improved the situation greatly. In the interest of fairness, I would argue that maybe he should have mentioned that the day before he made this announcement that there had never been a better defense of our borders, automatic weapon fire hit the city hall of El Paso, Texas, fired from across the border at city hall. I think at least in the order of fairness, we should have known that, well, except for maybe the fact that for the first time since 1919, the City of El Paso has been fired upon from across the border. By the way, in 1919 when they did fire across the border, the American troops went across the border and cleaned out Juarez, in fact chased Pancho Villa, and they all came from right there at Fort Bliss, and we are sitting with 24,000 experienced combat soldiers at Fort Bliss right now. I am not saying he should have called them out. I am just saying let's paint the picture accurately. Even if it is true that we have got more resources on the border than ever, and I think there is something to that, we have also had a massive escalation of what is going on across the border from our southern border States. The cartels that promote and sell various sorts of drugs, and being an old judge I have tried more drug cases than 10 times the number of seats there are in this room, but I can tell you that when the cartels moved to the Mexican border, especially that strip of border between El Paso and Brownsville, we have got two, arguably three cartels fighting for who will control that area. Each of the two major cartels formed hit squads, separate organizations like Murder, Incorporated, when they used to talk about the Italian Mafia, and these groups became the murder squads, going out and killing not only other cartel members from the opposite cartel, but also killing Mexican police officers and Mexican army military people, Mexican civilians, kidnapping Americans, et cetera. Now those hit squads are thinking about becoming cartels themselves, so we have a real Wild West shootout going on across the border from where we live. Now, I didn't mean that to be humorous. But the week before the firing on the El Paso city hall, 21 people were killed in one day in Juarez, Mexico, in gun battles. I am sorry, but if you will check Afghanistan and Iraq, the number of days that 21 people were killed, there were very few, in one day. So arguably we have got a situation in a city of almost 2 million people directly across the Rio Grande River from the State of Texas that is frightening. It is frightening. Senator John Kyl says that President Obama told him, the problem is, if we secure the border, then you all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform. The White House denies that. Senator Kyl sticks with his story. I don't know. But the issue that we really need to be talking about is defending our border, and I would say we are refusing to defend our border. Arizona enacted a law to actually enforce the immigration laws the Federal Government has failed to enforce. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration have filed a lawsuit against Arizona saying it has no right to enforce that law. This is going to be a question that is going to be settled by the courts. How many times have I said on this floor I respect the decisions of the court? So we will certainly see how it comes out. But why did the Arizona legislature and the Arizona Governor put this law forward? And why, by the way, did they take this law and track, according to multiple experts, word-for-word the enforcement provisions set out in the Federal law as far as the actions of Federal agents and what they can and cannot ask someone? Why does it track word-for-word the Federal law? Why did they pass this with specific provisions saying that we will not do any kind of profiling of any sort, racial or otherwise, and it can only be done as a result of a lawful stop on other matters, can you ask a question about the immigration status of the person you are talking to, or what country they come from. So, you say, why did the legislature pass this? Why is the Governor stepping up and doing it? Because they have been begging in Arizona, please, come help us. You guys are not stopping this flow of people. We had a rancher brutally murdered in his own living room for standing up to these drug lord caravans coming across the border bringing people and drugs into the United States. And the guy, all he did, he was out on his landing, he told these people, you are not supposed to be here. And they killed the guy. In Texas, we have a river between us. They have a barbed wire fence between them and Mexico, and we have got a river between us. I have friends, I talked to a good friend of mine, a former county commissioner in my home county, who told me that at his place at Carrizo Springs down close to the border, that he leaves food and water out for people because he doesn't want them tearing the place up. He leaves the place unlocked because there used to be mostly economic people looking for a job coming through there and all they wanted was something to eat and something to drink. But now these thugs are coming across the border stealing everything not nailed down and tearing the place to shreds, these lawless people that come across our border. Now, maybe that's why the State of Arizona has said, You know what? You guys in the Federal Government are not doing your job. We're going to help. And I haven't heard anybody say that if they ask someone, Are you an American citizen, and they say, No, I'm from Guatemala, or whatever, and they say, Well, we're going to call the Border Patrol. At that point, that's where their participation stops, the way I understand it. Whether the Border Patrol is going to do their job, well, that's going to be a whole different issue. But it's going to be decided by the courts. But I just think really and truly the real solution to the Arizona problem is for the Federal Government to enforce the laws that are on the books. The laws are on the books right now. And I was thinking about this coming over here tonight. I will make a slight presumption, but it's not much of a presumption, that possession of cocaine in Arizona is against the law--especially large amounts. I would make the presumption that possession of marijuana in Arizona is against the law. I think there's a good presumption by an old judge from Texas that possession of heroin in that State of Arizona is against the law. I do think under those circumstances, if those are written into the code, which I presume they are, they are probably felony cases of a serious nature. I think that carrying automatic weapons, fully automatic weapons, is both against the Federal and the State law in Arizona. I'm pretty sure. I know they are in Texas. Now, if people are coming across our border armed with AK-47 weapons, backpacks full of drugs, marching in caravans, in many cases dressed in uniforms--paramilitary uniforms--marching into the public lands of Arizona and I guess turning over to some motorized operation they want to that takes it and spreads that filth all over the country, the State of Arizona has the right to enforce, if nothing else, the drug laws of Arizona. And I would argue if they don't have the resources to stop this epidemic of violence and drugs and prostitution and smuggling of individuals from every part of the world into our country, if there's not enough law enforcement personnel to put on the ground to enforce those laws, which they have absolutely the right to enforce, they ought to be able to call out the Guard to do it, as long as they abide by the posse comitatus laws. So this is just after you have caught the drug dealer with a pack full of heroin and an AK-47 on his shoulder. How bad is it to ask, Oh, by the way, are you an American citizen? I don't know. First off, you don't have to call the Border Patrol. Throw them in jail and prosecute them for violation of State law. So this thing is kind of out of whack a little bit, by my way of thinking. But the real shame to me is suing Arizona. Finally, we spent almost a year and a half talking about, dealing with, and behind closed doors, writing of the majority party's bill for health care reform. And in that bill we basically mandate that the government will tell people what product they will buy and who they can buy it from. As a result, the individual mandate extends the commerce clause power beyond the economic activity to economic inactivity. That is unprecedented. In other words, what they're saying is, If you don't buy this product for your employees, you're going to be punished with a $2,000 fine. And the question becomes: Is this commerce as the commerce clause of the United States is written? Basically, we have expanded the Federal Government probably farther under the commerce clause than any other single clause in the Constitution. And now, using the commerce clause as an argument, the argument in here is that you can make an employer buy a product sold by a company or your choice of companies, or if they don't buy it, they get fined. And the question is, Where does that stop? If that's the law, why can't we make everybody buy a Chevrolet? I don't know. Why can't we? If we can make them buy Blue Cross or some other company's policy or be fined $2,000, why can't we say everybody that buys a car in America next year has to buy a Chevrolet or a Buick or a Ford? Let's not get in trouble with the auto manufacturers. Or, I don't care what. You have to buy one or they pay a $2,000 fine. If they can do it on health care, they ought to be able to do it on automobiles, shouldn't they? Where does it stop? That's the kind of issue we've got to ask ourselves as we look at this. Never before has the Congress used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engage in an economic transaction with a private company. Regulating the auto industry or paying cash for clunkers is one thing; making everyone buy a Chevy is quite another. This is in The Washington Post. But the real question we have to ask ourselves is: How are we marching over human rights in this country, individual rights--the real thing that sets us apart from the rest of the world? How are we stepping all over people as a government. And shouldn't we be concerned about stepping all over people? And I've lost count, but I know it's in the teens of people who have filed lawsuits against the Federal Government in at least two jurisdictions, and maybe three, saying this is unconstitutional; you can't do this. Shouldn't we be thinking about all this? Shouldn't we wonder if the rule of law prevailed in other parts of that 2,500-page document we call the ObamaCare or health care bill? Because when we wrote that bill, we created some of those laws that are the rule of law. And the rule of law has to comply with and be supported by the United States Constitution, because that's the rock we build our laws upon. So as we finish up talking today about the rule of law, I bring these issues up so that this House and others can ponder them and say, As we continue to march down a corridor which steps all over the rule of law, where does it stop? And where do we stand up and say, Wait a minute, that's not right. Wait a minute. When a court tells you something and orders you to do something and then you appeal it and the appeals court tells you the same thing, then what is it about ``no'' that you don't understand? When Governors are trying to save their environment, why are you getting in the middle of their business and not letting them build a berm. Why aren't you helping them? We've got issues we've got to talk about as far as the overreaching of this Federal Government, and I think we will. I think we will be discussing them this fall in a pretty serious manner. Madam Speaker, my time is almost done. I thank you for the time you've yielded me tonight. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize and honor the life of Jose Antonio ``Anthony'' Roche, Jr. who was born in Chicago, IL, on November 11, 1976. In 1995, at the age of 17, Anthony joined the U.S. Army. As a Specialist (SPC) he served as a fuel and electrical systems repairer. He performed direct support and general support maintenance on fuel and electrical systems of wheel and track vehicles, brake system components, and on internal combustion engines associated with power generation equipment or material handling equipment. Anthony received the National Defense Service Medal/ARMY service ribbon. After leaving the service, he was gainfully employed and hardworking his entire life. He worked for Cuttler Hammer of Puerto Rico. His most recent job was with Palau/Raytheon. On April 29, 2010, he returned home after serving one year in Q West, Iraq. He was working with many aircraft in distress and he assisted pilots as he grew in his knowledge of aircraft and skills. Anthony had a passion for fast cars and motorcycles. On May 1, 2010, he was found dead at his residence garage. Jose is survived by his beloved father Jose, his mother Victoria, his sister Vickie, his brothers Jose, Edgardo and Alexander and his two English Bull Terrier dogs, Rocco and Maximo, better known as his ``kids.'' I offer my prayers and sympathy to the Roche family for the loss of Anthony and appreciate his service to the United States Army.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being recognized for this hour. I am real pleased to be joined by several of my colleagues. I want to raise an issue that is of real concern to the people of the State of Texas, the State of Alabama, the State of Florida, those who have, for now, generations almost, been invested in and proud of that great American accomplishment of our space program. We are an exceptional people, and there is an awful lot of people these days that seem to be ashamed of our exceptionalism. But one of the things that we have been exceptional in since its inception is our space program. I can remember, as a young teenager, when the Russians put Sputnik bleeping over the top of my house in Houston, Texas. And we all stood out in the backyard and watched that thing with its little flashing light going across and thought, Oh, my Lord, the Russians are in space and we are not there. What are we going to do? But being the exceptional people that Americans are, we put our nose to the grindstone and our brains to work, and in a very short time we met the pledge that President Kennedy made that we would put a man on the Moon in the next decade. So we went from behind the eight ball and watching the Russians have the first satellite in space to manned spaceflight and a trip to the Moon on multiple occasions. In fact, we have had a movie about one of the Moon trips that almost ended in disaster. We've been open and obvious that we have taken the greatest minds that we could put together in our space program. And at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, we all in Houston, Texas, and in the State of Texas have been proud of the fact of our space shuttles, of our space station that we, along with the new free enterprise Russians, have put together in outer space. Amazingly enough, we have just finally completed the space station the way it was conceived as it was started. It's all been done in small portions, putting it together. Now it's finished. And now we have a new administration who has decided that they are no longer interested in manned space travel. And they have basically started to say we are going to do away with manned space travel and the Constellation program, which was the next phase of manned space travel, and we are going to let some friends of ours start some new businesses and try to go and let private industry go out there and do the shuttle service and launch our satellites. And basically, they have turned over the funds that would go to NASA for the manned space program and they have plans to turn it over to a few private individuals, amazingly enough, most of whom have been fairly large campaign donors of the Democrats and the Obama administration. In fact, I think I can make an argument--we talk about earmarks in this Congress and all these terrible earmarks that people make--this has the potential, over the next few years, to be around 6 billion, with a B, dollars that the White House is going to earmark for certain individual companies, all of whom seem to have been involved in the success of that administration. Not that there is anything in a payoff in the way. Who knows? Just a coincidence, I suppose, but we are canning manned space under our NASA program. We are going to lay off thousands of NASA workers and those contractors that work with NASA, and we are taking a new position that we are going to let new start-up companies start over and build a space program. I'm a privatization guy. I believe in privatization in everything we do, but this smacks of some strangeness, and I think that strangeness is what we are going to talk about here tonight. I am joined by my friend Mr. Hall from Texas. I am joined by Judge Poe, and I am joined by my good friend Rob Bishop, who really informed me a lot about the immigration issue the last time we were together, and I am sure he has great insight. So I will first recognize Judge Poe for such time as he may wish to consume.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, so we're just basically saying, Obama just said I want to change this program from one free enterprise group to my guys that are on my side; and, unfortunately, they're a little behind, but we'll beef them up and we'll try to get them there by spending the American taxpayers' money. It is stimulus for a new group of private companies. It's amazing. But who else is going to be competing? This is interesting. Taxpayers have already invested $9 billion in the Constellation, which will be lost. This is sort of a comedy piece that my staff put together. Everyone there is Oriental, but it has to do with the recent announcement--you know, we had promised that with the new Constellation program, we were going to go back to the Moon just to do some additional research there. The Chinese had announced in February of 2004 that they've started their Moon exploration program. Phase I involves orbiting a satellite around the Moon. Phase II involves sending a lander to the Moon. Phase III involves collecting lunar soil samples. China plans to complete its space station and a manned mission to the Moon by 2020. So not only are we giving up the fact that we're exceptional, but those people who are trying to show how exceptional they are--and quite honestly, the Chinese have done pretty much a turnaround since they learned that capitalism really works, and now they're doing the Moon explorations. Now, I'm sure there are one world order folks that say it doesn't really matter as long as we all sing Kumbaya and go to the Moon. But the reality is, remember what technology and the defense world came out of, the technology that we developed in our space program; and that's something we can never forget. We can never forget to make sure that American exceptionalism allows us to stay on top of those things that keep us breathing free air in this country. If we ever concede that to those who maybe wouldn't like us as much as we might think they do--they may like our money but they maybe don't like us and our system of human beings having rights and freedoms and protections under our Constitution, and maybe those same people who don't feel so good about that part of American exceptionalism would like to impose their will on us someday. Are we going to give up our jaunts into space and our learning from that? We're all walking around with cell phones in our pockets, some of us two or three of them up here in this crazy place we're in. All that technology developed out of the technology that started off with the space program. Simple things like Teflon and there's a million things out there in the world we don't even know about that came out of the space program, and yet industries have come out of the production of those products. I can't even remember them all, but I remember at one time we loved to talk about it when we talked about our space program. We've stopped talking about that. But the point is, we're taking people that have dedicated their lives to the exceptional job of exploring that great wondrous thing called space, and we've told those people, we're laying you off to the tune of 20,000 to 30,000 of you in Texas and Alabama and Florida and other places so that we can start over with a bunch of our buddies in their backyards coming up with a new space program. I've got real issues with that. But not only is China looking at a space program; the Russians are planning a manned Moon mission by 2025 to 2030, a manned Mars mission by 2035 to 2040. My Lord, everybody else sees those frontiers that we used to see. Remember when President Kennedy talked about the new frontier, space? We watched programs on television as kids about that frontier of space that we were going at, and we did it. You know, recently we had hearings in this House where we heard from some of those pioneers, and we heard from the first man who walked on the Moon. Neil Armstrong, a man who basically stays out of the world of politics and lives a relatively quiet life for being such a national American hero, came up here and said we cannot afford to lose NASA. It will be a serious blow to the United States of America to lose NASA. In a minute, I'm going to ask my friend Ralph Hall who was at some of those hearings or heard some of these things that were said to tell us a little bit about that. Mr. Hall, would you like to talk to us about what some of these great American heroes talked about in the NASA program?

Mr. CARTER. In reclaiming my time, that is ironic because one of the things you hear from parents is, When am I going to be able to get my kids to have their own imaginations and to not play somebody else's video games? To me, it sounds like this is somebody else's video game. You know, you'll remember when we diverted satellites from protecting our troops in Iraq to over the poles to check on global warming. From what I'm hearing from this administration, their plans for NASA are that we're going to have low-orbit satellite programs to check on global warming. Oh, I forgot. We don't call it ``global warming'' anymore. It's called ``climate change.'' I apologize. It turns out we may not be warming. Well, that's just a whole other debate. Yet it seems like all of the resources seem to be going towards desperately trying to confirm that debate. I want to thank the gentleman for coming down, my distinguished friend from Utah, Rob Bishop, who is one of the smartest guys in Congress, who is a good friend of mine, and who is a classmate of mine. We came into this august body together. We share an awful lot of concerns about the future of what we are doing. I'm really happy to have Rob Bishop looking at the scientific side of our world, because he has got great insight into it. I want to thank him for sharing that insight with us tonight. I want to thank the Speaker for allowing us to take this time to talk about something that we are very proud of. We in Texas have a lot to be proud of. One of the things we point out that we are proud of is the manned space center in Houston, Texas. When you look on the Texas map, which tells you all the great things to come see in Texas, we highly recommend that people visit the manned space center, because we know great things were done by great men and women at that place, and great things continue to be done there. To drive a stake in the heart of the manned space program is a tragedy, not only for the State of Texas but for the whole United States and, I think I can effectively argue, the world. Let's not outsource another of our industries. Let's not give up on American exceptionalism. Let's go back and reconsider the Obama administration's desire to trash this program. Let's go back to putting us on a path with a plan, as Mr. Bishop pointed out, to go out and explore those new frontiers we have left to explore. With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CARTER. Perfect statement, ``forfeiting the game.'' We were leading the game, we were winning the game until this administration came into the White House, and we just stepped up and decided to forfeit the game. Here's an article from Labor Magazine. It was published on April 15, 2010: ``Obama is pushing the privatization of NASA and the turnover of the government agency to his financial supporters Elon Musk and Google owners Page and Brin. ``A full bore campaign is now being waged by the Obama administration to shut down the U.S. unionized space program and turn it over to `new age' speculators who want to build a new space program in a `regulation-free' zone in Florida.'' And the plan is by billionaire and former owner of PayPal, Elon Musk. Musk has a company called Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, and the question is, `` `Should the United States hire Elon Musk, at a cost of a few billion dollars, to run a taxi service for American astronauts?' ``In fact, the SpaceX operation like much that Musk and his backers from Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin want the U.S. to give him $6 billion in the next 5 years to build'' this operation. Now, that's a very interesting thing. We take a program, we put $9 billion into it, it's cost us $2.5 billion to shut it down, we shut it down, and we come up with $6 billion more over the next 5 years that we're going to give to some good friends to come up with a brand new program and they are, as Judge Poe points out, way behind in developing the rocket to get them to anywhere we want to go in space. I yield back to my friend.

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Ralph. Mr. Hall is the dean of the Texas delegation. We are awfully proud to have him. He has been working long and hard for many, many years to make sure that every time we shoot a human being into outer space we plan to bring them back. It's easy to develop a space program where you can say, well, if the guy we shoot out there, if we lose him, it's no big deal, we at least have the technology to learn how it works. There are some that have developed space programs this way, but we've never developed it that way. Some people would say we're a great dinosaur, this NASA. This great dinosaur comes from the basic premise, a part of what makes Americans great, that every human life is important. Therefore, you test and retest and retest again, and you take another path and you find a new direction until you are assured of one thing: That that precious human life you put upon that exploding bomb called a rocket, you're capable of putting that human life out into space and bringing that human being back alive. I would argue that we're the only space program where that has been a priority. What makes us so much more exceptional than others is because we've had accidents, but they were accidents. But our planned program didn't plan in expendability. We didn't plan for people to be expendable until we learned how to do it. We did it, we got through it, and we made it work. It's a shame to have that kind of history of a program that has dedicated itself to exploring space and still caring about that one small, little glimmer of spark called a human life, and we do it. We have no assurance that this new direction is even going to come close to having that same basic spirit that created NASA. We are threatening a great human institution. I want to yield some more time to my friend, Mr. Bishop.

Mr. CARTER. Recapturing my time, as the gentleman was pointing out something, it just popped into my head, the old civics course that everybody in this country at least used to take in high school about the three branches of government that were created by our Founders and what they did. The laws were written by the Congress, the legislative branch, administered and enforced by the executive branch--which is the White House--and interpreted and held to the standards of the Constitution by the judicial branch. And as the gentleman pointed out, this Congress has never taken the position that we were going to trash the Constellation. In fact, we wrote specific language that said the Constellation shall remain until Congress acts. Now, the President, without a law or a direction by this Congress, has decided to use magic tricks that have never been used before to delay to the point of disaster and to destroy the Constellation. We just heard today, when Judge Poe got up here and talked, that at least a court of this land has pointed out that the closing down of the gulf to offshore drilling was arbitrary and capricious, and it has granted the extraordinary relief that is very seldom done in the court system by granting an injunction against the President of the United States and the White House to prevent them, by one of the whims that they came up with, from closing down drilling in the gulf. This court has said, Sorry, boys. You can't do that. Well, now we've got a Constitution, and we've got a Congress that has got a provision and a law that has been passed as the law of this land to be enforced by the executive branch of this government that says that we will not destroy the Constellation program until the Congress decides to do so, but the President, who, I guess, didn't take civics in high school, has decided it doesn't really matter whether Congress acts or not. He is going to destroy the program. I don't think that's the way it works. I don't think that's the way it's supposed to work. We like to say this, and we recite this in a lot of places: We are a country of laws, not of men. It is not what man runs the White House or what man runs some position in this country. It is what the law is. The law is passed by this Congress and by other legislative bodies around the 50 States in this Union. Our executive branch is to enforce those laws and to uphold them. Our judiciary is to remind them when they don't, and they have done so as recently as yesterday. What is kind of strange is that the Carter administration decided to cede the Panama Canal. America would no longer manage the Panama Canal. It was going to save us money to get rid of the Panama Canal. Now, it's kind of funny. There is a Chinese flag imposed on this picture because now the Chinese manage the Panama Canal. That's kind of outsourcing American exceptionalism. We built that canal. Now we're outsourcing the Moon, potentially, to the Chinese under the Obama administration, and we are outsourcing the space program and the missiles that go along with that space program, and we're outsourcing the rocketry, which makes us exceptional. You know, this administration has been very critical about the outsourcing of jobs outside the country. It has been pointing fingers at lots of people, saying they're destroying American jobs by outsourcing. What in the world do you think you're doing with these 20,000 to 30,000 high-paying, technical jobs--the great brain trust of America? You're outsourcing them to the Chinese, to the Indians, to the Russians--and maybe to the Japanese. Why shouldn't we be concerned about this, Mr. President? I think that's a question we've got to ask ourselves. I think we've got to start asking, With how much are we willing to say we're no longer exceptional and that we're just going to outsource everything to everyone else? I really believe the American people want to say to us here in Congress, Hey, wake up. Give us jobs like you've always given us jobs, and we as Americans will do those jobs, and we'll do them better than anybody else in the world. We always have and we always will. I'm not ready to give up on us, and I don't think my colleagues are ready to give up on us or on the American people. We are still the exceptional people who put a man on the Moon in a decade like the President of the United States John F. Kennedy said. We are still the people who created the first, basically, aircraft that you could fly out into outer space--the shuttle program--a phenomenon that we used, and we landed them there on the runway just like an ordinary airplane rather than parachuting them into the ocean like the first programs we did. We have done wonders with NASA. I hope and I pray--and I think everybody else hopes and prays--that the President will reconsider and will allow Congress to discuss this and will allow Congress to make decisions as to whether or not we're going to make these kinds of radical changes to the future of man's exploration of space and whether, when we do, if we change, we are protecting the sanctity of human life. All of these things are important. All of these things are things we ought to be concerned about. Right now, we've just got to be concerned about why this administration is giving up on American exceptionalism and why it is outsourcing our space program to foreign countries. I'll yield whatever time Mr. Bishop would like so he can make a comment on that.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, the administration proposes a $1 billion cut in NASA's manned program. And at the same time, they are pushing $115 billion in new spending for ObamaCare after $700 billion in stimulus spending, which we are still looking for the stimulus. The taxpayers have already invested $9 billion in the Constellation program, which was supposed to be the next step in the space program. It will cost $2.5 billion to shut down the Constellation program. So we are talking about $11.5 billion is going to be spent just to trash the program that we've already spent $9 billion on. And, you know, space has always been a very glorious position for us to take. And we rose above the international bickering. We shared the space station with other nations. Recently, within the last couple of years, the Japanese on one of our shuttles took a major pod containment system up there, and they've got a piece of it. The Russians have some of it. Others have put technology on the space station to where now it is what we envisioned with all the various technologies and abilities to study long distances in space. And we've taken all that, and now, as my good friend from Texas says, to get to our space station that we put together, we're going to have to hitchhike with the Russians. Now, we all know, as we developed the space station, we also developed the rocket power and the use of rocketry, which became a great part of our national arsenal. And, in fact, we are concerned about the ability of the people in Iran who are trying to develop a nuclear weapon to get a midrange missile to deliver it in their promised attacks on Israel. The rockets that defend our Nation came from the rockets that propelled us into outer space on our great jaunt and exploration of outer space. So when you start hitting us in our technology, as I would argue the Obama administration is doing, and wasting $11.5 billion to shut down a program and putting us behind in the future development of these vehicles, where does this make sense? Are we just ceding the fact that now that the Obama administration is in charge of the country and they believe that American exceptionalism is a myth, they are going to prove it by taking away the things we are exceptional in? I have real issues with that. I think all of us do. I'd like to recognize my good friend Rob Bishop from Utah to talk to us a little bit about--he is on several committees that have looked into this. He's got a good insight into what's going on. So whatever time you wish to consume, my friend.