David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, we all know where the eyes of the American people are focused right now, and it is not here on the House of Representatives. They are focused down across the street from the White House at the Blair House, where the health care summit is taking place. I have no idea how it is going. We have been managing this debate on an issue that is of paramount importance. The five most important words in the middle of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution I regularly say are ``provide for the common defense.'' We need to recognize that this is priority number one, our Nation's intelligence. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Najibullah Zazi, David Headley, these are names that have come to the forefront because these individuals pose a threat to the United States of America. There is no issue that is more important for us to be focusing on. Mr. Lungren said earlier rather than having a 6-hour summit on the issue of health care, which we all acknowledge is important and needs to be addressed, the attention should be focused on national security. And unfortunately, it is not only not being focused on, but what we are doing here today is taking a flawed bill from July of last year, 8 months old, that was maligned and criticized by the statement of administration policy from President Obama, and what is it we have done? We have denied amendment after amendment. Mr. Schock's very thoughtful amendment to deal with the issue of should we give enhanced rights to these people who have perpetrated terrible acts against us? Bring them onto U.S. soil, which would make that happen? We think we should have a chance to debate that issue. Should we take the 21 amendments that our Democratic colleagues have offered, including my friend, Mr. McDermott, who has an amendment that dramatically enhances the power of those individuals who have either tried or have perpetrated terrible acts against us and provides them new defense? Again I mentioned Scott Brown earlier. And what resonated from his acceptance speech when he won the election was that we shouldn't be expending our taxpayer dollars on defending these terrorists. We should be expending our taxpayer dollars to fight to make sure they never, ever pose a threat against us. This is a terrible rule. It is a terrible rule because it denies the opportunity for debate. And the bill itself needs to be reworked by the Select Committee on Intelligence. Mr. Speaker, we can do better. I urge my colleagues to reject it. Let's do the right thing.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. DREIER. Let me say to my friend that I anxiously look forward to his spellbinding closing remarks that I'm sure we'll all be able to benefit from, but I have one other speaker and then I'll close and look forward to sitting patiently and listening to my friend. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to a hardworking member of the Intelligence Committee, a veteran of the FBI, the gentleman from Brighton, Michigan (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to a very thoughtful new Member who has expended a great deal of time and energy trying to ensure that we can at least have a debate on the issue of bringing terrorists onto U.S. soil, my friend from Peoria, Mr. Schock.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to my friend from Illinois.

Mr. DREIER. May I inquire of the Chair how much time is remaining on both sides before I yield to my friend from Gold River?

Mr. DREIER. I yield an additional 1 minute to my friend from Gold River, California.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am very, very happy to yield 4 minutes to the very hardworking and diligent and thoughtful ranking member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, our friend from Clarendon, Texas (Mr. Thornberry).

Mr. DREIER. I am happy to yield to my friend an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me just say that my friend from Gold River, California, has been attempting to engage in a colloquy with my friend. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Gold River, California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren), and I am sure that he will yield to the gentleman from Fort Lauderdale if he would like to respond in any way.

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding. And Mr. Speaker, let me just say that I totally concur with absolutely everything my friend just said.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield for just 1 second?

Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding. Mr. Speaker, let me say that I completely concur with my colleague about this notion of our recognizing that day after day--and I had that in my opening remarks--day after day we are seeing the prevention of the kinds of attacks that we are all concerned about, and we congratulate and herald the intelligence community for that. I think that what we need to focus on is the Abdulmutallab situation, the Fort Hood shootings, and the Najibullah Zazi and David Headley arrests. These things have taken place since this bill had any kind of committee consideration last year. And all we are arguing is, yes, it's great that some amendments have been made in order--unfortunately, it's a very partisan item to have 21 amendments included in the manager's amendment--but we believe very strongly that the committee--and you know very well, having worked so hard on that committee, that a lot of work takes place in secrecy, understandably, that in dealing with these situations, that should happen before bringing a measure of this magnitude to the floor that even the President and so many others have acknowledged is flawed. I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume. I would first say in response to my good friend from Colorado, Mr. Lungren has just reminded me that the moment one of these individuals is on American soil, they have enhanced rights that they would not otherwise have. I would like to engage in a colloquy with the very distinguished ranking member of the Select Committee on Intelligence to discuss one of the amendments that unfortunately will not see the light of day, that we will not have the opportunity to debate other than in the context of the overall manager's amendment, which included 21 amendments from our Democratic colleagues, including the McDermott amendment. Now, the McDermott amendment, which was discussed by my friend from Clarendon, is an amendment that provides basically carte blanche, an opportunity for any individual, one of these barbarians, to claim for religious reasons that they are being mistreated. The moment I heard the word ``Big Mac'' come forward from my friend Mac Thornberry, I have to say who's my Big Mac, but I thought, my gosh, someone could actually claim that being denied a Big Mac would be cruel and unusual punishment? And I've got to say as I look at the litany of items on here, including exploiting phobias of the individual, I just don't understand it. And I wonder if my friend might further enlighten us on this. I'm happy to yield.

Mr. DREIER. All I want to do is agree with you. So thank you very much.

Mr. DREIER. I yield myself such time as I might consume. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for his contribution. He just reminded me that the speech that everyone heard, what was described as the ``Scott heard 'round the world'' when we saw Scott Brown elected to the United States Senate seat in Massachusetts, the line that came to the forefront was, I want to make sure that my tax dollars are expended on fighting against these terrorists rather than expending our tax dollars defending these terrorists. And the McDermott amendment takes and expends more time and effort and energy in defending them. And, unfortunately, the only discussion that we will have on this, Mr. Speaker, is during consideration of the rule because we're not going to have a chance to vote on this amendment other than its being included in the overall manager's amendment with 20 other amendments being included. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me first express my appreciation to my friend from Fort Lauderdale, a member of both the Rules Committee and a distinguished member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Mr. Speaker, last Christmas Day, as we all know, when a passenger boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 headed for the Detroit Metro Airport, the issue of national security once again came to the forefront, to the top of the agenda for everyone in our country. This is, of course, never, never far from our minds. But in recent months, as several high-profile terrorist plots have been thwarted, the tragic shooting at Fort Hood had taken place and our troops continue to fight two wars, we know that the threat of attacks on Americans remains a very real threat to us. What was so shocking and revealing about the attempted attack on Christmas Day was not that al Qaeda remains a threat. This much we all know. What was most troubling to the American people was the revelation that key information was available that could have prevented Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from ever boarding that plane in the first place. Last month, December 25, as everyone, including the President has acknowledged, the system failed us. If not for the perpetrator's failure to properly detonate the device and the heroic acts of his fellow passengers, this attempted attack would have become a horrible, horrible tragedy. It was not careful intelligence gathering, analysis, and coordination that saved the people on that plane; it was luck and the quick thinking on the part of those very courageous passengers. Mr. Speaker, the American people rightly began, immediately after Christmas, on Christmas Day and thereafter, to ask questions about what is being done to address this failure that allowed Abdulmutallab to board that plane. What exactly what wrong? How can we fix the system? What can we do to ensure that this kind of failure never, ever happens again. Now, in light of these questions, it would seem appropriate that today we would be considering our annual intelligence authorization bill. Now is the time to compile the lessons learned from the attempted attack on Flight 253, the Fort Hood shooting, the numerous arrests of would-be terrorists like Najibullah Zazi and David Headley and the continued items that obviously we don't hear about out there. Now is the time to take, Mr. Speaker, these new insights and reform our intelligence agencies and policies to better protect our homeland and the American people, and that has to remain the top priority. That is where all of the attention should be focused. And yet, inexplicably, we are considering a bill today that is nearly 8 months old. This legislation was reported out of committee in June of last year. It was written before any of these recent attacks and attempted attacks took place, before any of these new revelations of flaws in our system and before any analysis was conducted on how to fix them. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Democratic majority's decision to bring up this hopelessly outdated bill is made all the more inexplicable by the fact that it was known to be a seriously flawed bill even back in June when it was being finalized. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the Obama administration released a scathing criticism of this legislation and even issued a veto threat. According to the Statement of Administration Policy from July 8 of last year: ``The administration has serious concerns with a number of provisions that would impede the smooth and efficient functioning of the intelligence community and that would raise a number of policy, management, legal and constitutional concerns.'' That is the Statement of Administration Policy. The statement went on to elaborate on the bill's flaws: the serious risk of compromising highly sensitive data, the new layers of bureaucracy, the impediments to building an intelligence workforce for the 21st century, the wasted resources. These were not the accusations, Mr. Speaker of political adversaries; these were the serious criticisms of President Obama. And they were leveled nearly 8 months ago before a whole host of new challenges made themselves apparent to us. If this was a flawed bill last July, as the President clearly defined it as being, it is now a flat-out dangerous bill. I believe that the American people will be stunned to learn that the Democratic majority has chosen, with this legislation, to simply ignore the grave new concerns that have been raised in recent months. No lessons have been learned and no new solutions have been contemplated. The Democratic majority's bold approach is to take up an 8-month-old bill that wasn't even a good idea at the time and, as I said, was criticized harshly by President Obama. The manner in which they are bringing this bill to the floor is just as troubling, Mr. Speaker. The Democratic majority will likely claim that a bipartisan amendment process has been allowed: five Democratic amendments were made in order, four Republican amendments, and three bipartisan amendments. But what these numbers mask is the fact that 21 Democratic amendments were included in the manager's amendments. This not only skews the process in a very partisan way, but it denies the Members of this body representing all Americans, representing Democrats and Republicans alike, the opportunity to vote on these 21 amendments individually based on their merits. We are denied the opportunity for transparency and scrutiny. What's worse, Mr. Speaker, is that this rule has implications for legislation far beyond the intelligence bill at hand. This rule provides a blank check for the Democratic leadership to bring up any bill at any time today or tomorrow without a shred of transparency or even one moment of public scrutiny. This rule gives them carte blanche to take whatever legislative action they choose, entirely absent of any accountability. And I've got to say, I was thinking about this last night when we were in the Rules Committee, to impose this kind of structure this early in a Congress--the second month of the second session of the 111th Congress--is beyond the pale. When such drastic and draconian measures are taken to shield their actions from all scrutiny, we can only ask ourselves, what exactly are they plotting? What exactly are they trying to hide from the American people? Mr. Speaker, for the sake of the security of our homeland and for the sake of a return to the often-promised accountability and transparency, I urge my colleagues to reject this rule. What we need to do is we need to take a hard look at the intelligence failures that have taken place. Let's ask the hows and the whys and make the necessary reforms that will ensure that we never again have to rely on blind luck to protect the American people. Mr. Speaker, perhaps most important of all, we must reject this attempt to shield the Democratic majority's actions from public view. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, we all know that most of the political eyes and other eyes are focused down at the Blair House right now as the health care summit has just gotten underway, and my friend from Fort Lauderdale and I are going to begin the floor management of the very, very important intelligence authorization bill focused on our Nation's security. But we can't forget what issue is in the forefront of the minds of most Americans, and that is getting our economy back on track, focusing on job creation and economic growth. And we've just gotten the news this morning that there has been an unfortunate 12 percent increase in the jobless claims, and we continue to have mixed reports on where we are with the economy. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that it's absolutely imperative for us to work in a bipartisan way to put into place true private sector job creation incentives, and by that I mean utilizing the bipartisan effort that was, in the last half century, utilized by John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. And I believe that if we were to implement those kind of policies, Mr. Speaker, we would see the kind of job creation that the American people are seeking.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend. I think the point is very clear. We have the author of a bipartisan amendment who enjoyed the support of the committee chairman and others, which was focused on small insurance companies. Small insurance companies. The big guys aren't going to be affected by this, Mr. Speaker. The idea here is to ensure that we don't see an increase in premiums or, as Mr. Lungren said in testimony before the Rules Committee yesterday, potentially these small insurance companies going out of existence. Now we heard Democrats and Republicans alike in the Rules Committee argue on behalf of the free market process, and we believe that we should do everything that we can to ensure that there is a wider range of competition, greater competition. And so what is happening is that when this rule passes, it prevents an opportunity to have any chance to discuss this bipartisan amendment. It's a very, very sad day that we continue with a process that is so closed. Last year, we set a record. For the first time in the 220-, almost 221-year history of the Republic, we went through a year without a single rule that allowed for an open debate. In fact, since my California colleague, Ms. Pelosi, has been Speaker of the House, we've gone through now a 3-year period. In that 3-year period of time, save the appropriations process, we have had a grand total of one bill considered under an open rule. Again, this is not a partisan issue. This is to do with the American people having their voices heard in this institution. And so while we are supportive of the underlying legislation, this change is absolutely outrageous. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule so that we can bring back some kind of positive recognition of what the Framers of our Constitution wanted, and that is, a viable committee structure. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. DREIER. If I could reclaim my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. DREIER. When I saw you get to your feet, I suspected you might.