Bob Goodlatte

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Let's pass this legislation in honor of Congressman and former Judge Ted Poe, who has been a champion in the battle against human trafficking. I urge my colleagues to support the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5422) to ensure funding for the National Human Trafficking Hotline, and for other purposes.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 5422, currently under consideration.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today we consider on suspension H.R. 5422. This bill corrects an inadvertent change made in the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 that caused grant funding for the National Human Trafficking Hotline to be processed through the Department of Justice rather than through the Department of Health and Human Services, as it had been historically. The National Human Trafficking Hotline is a toll-free hotline, available to answer calls from anywhere in the United States, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in more than 200 languages. The hotline's mission is to connect trafficking victims and survivors to critical support services and to equip the antitrafficking community with the tools to effectively combat all forms of human trafficking. This bill was introduced on June 9, 2015, by Congressman Ted Poe, a tireless advocate for the prevention of human trafficking and for trafficking victims, and the bill passed out of the Judiciary Committee on November 16 by a voice vote. While Congressman Poe is undergoing treatment for leukemia and is unable to be here, I want to once again let him know that he is in our prayers. We are confident in his recovery and continue to appreciate all his work on these important human trafficking matters. I thank Congressman Poe for sponsoring this legislation that corrects an inadvertent drafting oversight, and I urge my colleagues to support the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) for his hard work and his leadership on this issue, and I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa) as well. This is a very good bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote for the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2016. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on S. 2577, currently under consideration.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. On October 30, 2004, President George W. Bush signed into law the Justice for All Act of 2004. The law contains four very important sections related to victims of crime and improving the criminal justice process. The law protects the rights of crime victims and eliminates the substantial backlog of DNA samples collected from both crime scenes and convicted offenders. It also improves and expands the DNA testing capacity of Federal, State, and local crime laboratories. Finally, it establishes the rights of crime victims in Federal criminal proceedings and provides mechanisms for enforcing these rights. The bill before us today, S. 2577, the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2016, is a bipartisan and bicameral bill that builds on the 2004 Justice for All Act. It further improves the criminal justice system and ensures public confidence in it. It strengthens crime victims' rights and programs by increasing access to restitution for Federal crime victims. The act also further reduces the rape kit backlog and provides resources for forensic labs while protecting the innocent by improving access to post-conviction DNA testing. The Justice for All Act works to improve the administration of criminal justice programs by increasing accountability for Federal funds and requiring the Justice Department to assist State and local governments to improve their indigent defense systems. Additionally, it ensures the implementation of the Prison Rape Elimination Act. I commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) for his hard work on this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 2577) to protect crime victims' rights, to eliminate the substantial backlog of DNA and other forensic evidence samples to improve and expand the forensic science testing capacity of Federal, State, and local crime laboratories, to increase research and development of new testing technologies, to develop new training programs regarding the collection and use of forensic evidence, to provide post-conviction testing of DNA evidence to exonerate the innocent, to support accreditation efforts of forensic science laboratories and medical examiner offices, to address training and equipment needs, to improve the performance of counsel in State capital cases, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a good friend and former colleague, Steve LaTourette, who sadly passed away earlier this year after battling pancreatic cancer. I first met Steve after he was elected to serve the 19th Congressional District of Ohio in 1994. One of the longtime leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Steve worked diligently on improving the infrastructure needs of not just his district and Ohio, but the nation. He played an important role in crafting highway authorization legislation, and in his last few years in the House, served as a member of the Appropriations Committee's Transportation Subcommittee as well. Steve was also someone who sought out consensus and results in the legislative process. As one of the heads of Republican Main Street Partnership, a moderate Republican organization, Steve looked for ways to advance policy ideas that would benefit the American people and bring as many folks together as possible on common ground. While Steve is no longer with us today, his sense of humor, leadership, and intelligence are not forgotten. I know that folks in Ohio and across the nation will remember his good works in Congress on behalf of his constituents and the American people. True public servants like Steve LaTourette are missed when they leave the House, and mourned when they pass away too soon. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Steve's wife, children, and his entire family. He will be missed.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Yes, I am prepared to close as well.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. On election day, the American people delivered a resounding message to Washington: do not continue the Obama administration's policies; stop the regulatory Big Government onslaught that has been killing our jobs, strangling recovery, and suffocating our futures. Passage of this bill is the way to say immediately: We have heard you loud and clear. The American people have said ``no'' to the continuance of the Obama administration's policies. This bill guarantees that Congress can prevent any and all last-minute defiance of the people's will by midnight regulations that stubbornly seek to entrench the last pieces of the administration's partisan agenda. Those regulations come from a host of agencies. They include everything from overtime rules to greenhouse gas emission standards for heavy-duty engines and vehicles and scores of other regulations in between, and they threaten to impose on our economy over $100 billion in new annual costs. It is not Obama administration bureaucrats who should tell the people what they must do in these areas, rushing costly political preferences out the door before the stroke of midnight. It is the incoming administration, working with Congress, that should determine the rules to govern the future and the regulatory rollbacks that will let freedom ring and Americans prosper. I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), the chairman of the Small Business Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As the Obama administration comes to a close, Americans' freedom and prosperity is once again threatened by one of the most abusive features of modern bureaucracy: midnight regulation. Midnight regulation is one of the most vexing problems in Washington's overreaching regulatory system. Administration after administration, there is a spike in rulemaking activity during the last year of a President's term--particularly between election day and Inauguration Day, but even in the months before then. These successive waves of midnight regulation present deeply troubling issues. First and foremost, because outgoing administrations are no longer accountable to the voters, they are much more prone to issue midnight regulations that fly in the face of the electoral mandate the voters just gave the new, incoming administration. Waves of midnight rules can also be very hard for Congress or a new administration to check adequately. As a new Congress and President begin their terms, both, understandably, must be focused on implementing the new priorities within the mandates the voters have given them. That doesn't always leave time to focus on cleaning up all of the last acts of the departing administration. In addition, the Congressional Review Act currently allows Congress to disapprove of regulations--including midnight regulations--only one at a time. A wave of midnight regulations can easily overwhelm Congress' ability to use one-rule-at-a-time resolutions as an effective check. Finally, it is well-documented that the rush by outgoing administrations to impose midnight rules before the clock strikes 12 leads to more poorly analyzed rules with lower quality and lower benefits. The Obama administration has imposed more runaway regulation than any other in memory, and its midnight rulemaking period is no exception. This administration has issued or plans to issue at least 180 midnight rules within the scope of this bill, including multiple billion-dollar rules and more than 20 major rules imposing $100 million or more in costs per year. It has been estimated that as many as $113 billion in new regulatory costs can be attributed to the final months of the Obama administration's rulemaking activity. But this is not a partisan issue. Administrations of both parties have issued midnight rules in the past. The Judiciary Committee has been searching for that solution for some time, and I applaud our colleague, Mr. Issa, for introducing the Midnight Rules Relief Act to respond to the need. This bill offers, at last, a simple and powerful means to stop the problem of abusive midnight rules--allowing Congress to disapprove of any and all midnight regulations in one fell swoop by one en bloc disapproval resolution under the Congressional Review Act. Any outgoing administration, understanding that it has this sword of Damocles hanging over its head for the next Congress' use, will surely hesitate much more before abusing midnight rules. Further, once enabled to dispose of all improper midnight rules with one simple resolution, Congress and succeeding administrations would be free to focus more of their energies on the voters' new priorities rather than the mess left by midnight rules. The relief offered by the bill, moreover, is highly flexible. No set number of regulations would have to be covered by a resolution. No categories of regulation would have to be included in or excluded from a resolution. On the contrary, any midnight rule disapproval resolution could be sweeping or narrow, depending on how many rules merited inclusion. Finally, the Midnight Rules Relief Act offers a solution that is not intrusive upon legitimate executive branch authority. An outgoing administration remains free to conduct necessary rulemaking activity up to the stroke of midnight on Inauguration Day. It then falls to Congress to respond swiftly and surgically to the results, to accept the good and excise the bad. This is truly a better way to govern. That is why the reform embodied in this bill is featured in Speaker Ryan's Better Way agenda. I thank Mr. Issa for his work on this important legislation, and I urge all my colleagues to support the bill. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 5982.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chair, the Midnight Rules Relief Act leaves to each Congress, making use of its maximum flexibility, to fashion a midnight rule disapproval resolution. No one category of regulation is in; no one category of regulation is out. The question, instead, is: Which are the midnight rules, from whatever category, that fly in the face of the voters' mandate or are otherwise abusive or infirm? No carve-outs of any kind are needed, including for health, safety, and other emergency rules, because nothing is categorically carved in. Indeed, by carving out emergency rules, the amendment would only impede the ability of Congress to both respond swiftly and efficiently to abusive midnight rules and clear the path for the incoming administration to issue appropriate new rules to meet emergencies. I urge all of my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.