Bob Goodlatte

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 295) supporting local law enforcement agencies in their continued work to serve our communities, and supporting their use of body worn cameras to promote transparency to protect both citizens and officers alike.

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. Res. 295, currently under consideration.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver) for their hard work on this, for coming to see me and others on our side of the aisle about this important issue, and for working with us on getting the language straight in this resolution in order to make sure that we are properly encouraging this exploration while also taking into account the issues that arise with the use of body cameras. I want to thank the ranking member and the former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers, and the ranking member of the subcommittee, Ms. Jackson Lee, for their work on this as well. I also want to thank all of the staff involved. This is an important issue, and it will help to inform us as we move ahead on a number of issues related to criminal justice reform. I urge my colleagues to support the resolution. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I have no speakers remaining, and I am prepared to yield back. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. The last thing the American people need is another tax bill at their door come October. If the ban lapses, State telecommunications taxes could take effect, and those rates are already too high. Basic economics teaches that, as price rises, demand falls. Former White House Chief Economist Austan Goolsbee estimated that a tax that increased the price of Internet access by 1 percent would reduce demand for Internet access by 2.75 percent. This bill ensures that access to the Internet--this unparalleled engine of social mobility--remains tax-free. That is why this bill is so overwhelmingly popular. Nevertheless, I believe it is proper to counter the criticisms of the small pockets of resistance that remain. The opponents' chief argument is that the bill would cost the States $6.5 billion annually. This argument confuses an out-of-pocket loss with prevention of a gain. States cannot currently tax Internet access, so they will suffer no actual revenue loss. The only out-of-pocket loss would be to taxpayers in 44 States who will owe an additional $6.5 billion annually should it expire. They will have to pay taxes that they don't have to pay now. Nevertheless, some of our colleagues would prefer to extend the moratorium temporarily rather than permanently. That is simply inefficient. The moratorium has been periodically renewed by enormous bipartisan margins in both Houses for 16 years. No serious expectations are being upset by codifying what everyone knows is the case: the moratorium is not going away. The grandfathers will be eliminated, but that only affects six States that have had more than enough time to transition to other sources of revenue, which was the original intent of the grandfather clauses. If those States still need more time, I am open to working with the Senate on a final phaseout. Opponents also argue that PITFA creates unequal treatment of similar services. The example given is landline phone service, which is taxable, versus Skype which, under PITFA, is accessible tax-free. But this happens because Skype's basic service is free; Skype's paid service is taxable. Indeed, PITFA specifically provides that Internet phone service is taxable. More importantly, this neutrality argument conflates a service with the access to it. The toll road on the way to the shopping mall is not the same as the sales tax paid at the mall. PITFA is neutral because Skype's paid service remains taxable, just like landline service. True, there is no tax on Skype's basic service because it is free, but that is the function of Skype's revenue model, not a different tax treatment of the same service. This legislation has enormous bipartisan support precisely because Members on both sides of the aisle already understand the flaws in these objections. I catalog them here merely to complete the record. This is a great issue for the Congress to move forward on in a bipartisan fashion that will help to create jobs and economic growth and foster continued greater access to the unparalleled opportunities that Internet access provides. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I have only one speaker remaining. I believe I have the right to close, so if the gentlewoman has additional speakers, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 235) to permanently extend the Internet Tax Freedom Act.

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. 235, currently under consideration.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The clock is ticking down on a key law that protects Internet freedom. On October 1, 2015, a temporary moratorium on State taxation of Internet access will expire. In 1998, Congress temporarily banned State and local governments from newly taxing Internet access or placing multiple or discriminatory taxes on Internet commerce. With minor modifications, this ban was extended five times, with enormous bipartisan support. The most recent extension passed in 2014. If the moratorium is not renewed, the potential tax burden on consumers will be substantial. The average tax rate on communications services in 2007 was 13.5 percent, more than twice the average rate on all other goods and services. The FCC's recent reclassification of the Internet as a telecom service emboldens States to apply these telecom taxes to Internet access immediately, should ITFA lapse. To make matters worse, this tax is regressive. Low-income households pay 10 times as much in communications taxes as high-income households as a share of income. The Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act converts the moratorium into a permanent ban--on which consumers, innovators, and investors can permanently rely--by simply striking the 2015 end date. This legislation prevents a surprise tax hike on Americans' critical services this fall. It also maintains unfettered access to one of the most unique gateways to knowledge and engines of self-improvement in all of human history. This is not an exaggeration. During the 2007 renewal of the moratorium, the Judiciary Committee heard testimony that more than 75 percent of the remarkable productivity growth that increased jobs and income between 1995 and 2007 was due to investment in telecommunications networks technology and the information transported across them. Everyone in Silicon Valley knows Max Levchin's story. He came to America from the Soviet Union at age 16. He had $300 in his pocket, and he learned English by watching an old TV set he hauled out of a dumpster and repaired. Ten years later, he sold PayPal, a well-known Internet payments platform he cofounded, for $1.5 billion. That is the greatness of the Internet. It is a liberating technology that is a vast meritocracy. It does not care how you look or where you come from. It offers opportunity to anyone willing to invest time and effort. That is precisely why Congress has worked assiduously for 16 years to keep Internet access tax-free. Now we must act again, once and for all. The Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act has 188 cosponsors. Identical legislation passed last year on suspension by a voice vote. Nevertheless, small pockets of resistance remain. They argue that the Internet is no longer a fledgling technology in need of protection. But it is precisely the ubiquity of the Internet that counsels for a permanent extension. It has become an indispensable gateway to scientific, educational, and economic opportunities. It is the platform that turned Max Levchin from an impoverished immigrant into a billionaire. The case for permanent Internet tax-free access to this gateway technology is stronger today than it ever has been. It is important to note that PITFA does not address the issue of State taxes on remote sales made over the Internet. It merely prevents Internet access taxes and unfair multiple or discriminatory taxes on e- commerce, whether inside the taxing State or without. That said, the committee is also eager to proceed with legislation that levels the playing field between traditional and online retailers without letting States tax and regulate beyond their borders. Productive discussions continue. I would like to specifically thank Ms. Eshoo, Mr. Chabot, Subcommittee Chairman Marino, and Subcommittee Ranking Member Cohen for their work on and support of this legislation. This bipartisan legislation is about giving every American unfettered access to the Internet, which is the modern gateway to the American Dream. I urge all of my colleagues to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), a member of the Judiciary Committee and chairman of the Small Business Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 889) to amend chapter 97 of title 28, United States Code, to clarify the exception to foreign sovereign immunity set forth in section 1605(a)(3) of such title.

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. 889, currently under consideration.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) for introducing this legislation and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) for their support as well. The Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act strengthens the ability of U.S. museums and educational institutions to borrow foreign-government-owned artwork and cultural artifacts for temporary exhibition or display in the United States. The United States has long recognized the importance of encouraging the cultural exchange of ideas through exhibitions of artworks and other artifacts loaned from other countries. These exchanges expose Americans to other cultures and foster understanding between people of different nationalities, languages, religions, and races. Unfortunately, the future success of cultural exchanges is severely threatened by a disconnect between the Immunity from Seizure Act and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Loans of artwork and cultural objects depend on foreign lenders having confidence that the items they loan will be returned and that the loan will not open them up to lawsuits in U.S. courts. For 40 years, the Immunity from Seizure Act provided foreign government lenders with this confidence. However, rulings in several recent Federal cases have undermined the protection provided by this law. In these decisions, the Federal courts have held that the Immunity from Seizure Act does not preempt the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The effect has been to open foreign governments up to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts simply because they loaned artwork or cultural objects to an American museum or educational institution. This has significantly impeded the ability of U.S. institutions to borrow foreign-government-owned items. It has also resulted in cultural exchanges being curtailed as foreign governments have become hesitant to permit their cultural property to travel to the United States. This bill addresses this situation. It provides that if the State Department grants immunity to a loan of artwork or cultural objects from the Immunity from Seizure Act, then the loan cannot subject a foreign government to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. This is very narrow legislation. It only applies to one of many grounds for jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and it requires the State Department to grant the artwork immunity before its provisions apply. Moreover, in order to preserve the claims of the victims of the Nazi government and its allies during World War II, the bill has an exception for claims brought by these victims. If we want to encourage foreign governments to continue to lend artwork and other artifacts, we must enact this legislation. Without the protections this bill provides, foreign governments will avoid the risk of lending their cultural items to American museums and educational institutions, and the American public will lose the opportunity to view and appreciate these cultural objects from abroad. Last Congress, this legislation passed the House with broad bipartisan support by a vote of 388-4. I, once again, urge my colleagues to support this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), who is the chief sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Conaway for yielding me this time and thank him for his leadership on this important legislation. I rise today to support H.R. 2289, the Commodity End-User Relief Act, a bill to reauthorize the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As we have heard today, the CFTC's mission is to foster a transparent, balanced, and functional marketplace. However, uncertainty and delays in the marketplace mean higher prices for families and small businesses across America. As the committee charged with ensuring the oversight of our commodity markets, it is our duty to ensure that those markets are functioning properly. For the last several years, the Agriculture Committee, through the strong leadership of former Chairman Frank Lucas and current Chairman Mike Conaway, has done an excellent job of educating Congress and the American public about the importance of our commodity markets and the need for a strong reauthorization of the CFTC. I was also pleased to work closely with the Subcommittee on Commodity Exchanges, Energy, and Credit's Chairman Austin Scott on this legislation. He and his staff have been leading an open and transparent process that involved all stakeholder groups and took input from across the country. In an effort to help the CFTC achieve its mission, I worked with the committee and the CFTC to craft an amendment which was adopted in committee to address the issue of manufacturers being able to take timely delivery of aluminum for production at a fair price. These manufacturers support a broad set of industries from common drink cans to airplane parts. The persistence of long, disruptive market queues for the delivery of aluminum at warehouses in the United States, licensed overseas, has attracted considerable concern for end users and the consumers of products which many Americans utilize on a daily basis. My provision will prevent the unreasonable delay of delivery of such commodities stored in warehouses, which can cost end-user companies increased storage fees, potentially higher prices due to supply and demand implications from improper exchange contract design, and result in uneconomic commodity prices. Specifically, the amendment directs the CFTC to report to Congress regarding the ongoing review of foreign board of trade applications of metal exchanges and the status of its negotiations with foreign regulators regarding aluminum warehousing. Such status reports shall inform the CFTC in determining foreign boards of trade status for metals exchange applications, and such determination shall be made no later than September 30, 2016. In closing, I would like to again applaud Chairman Conaway and subcommittee Chairman Scott for their hard work to get this bill to the floor today. This bipartisan bill takes steps to improve consumer protections for farmers and ranchers, as well as implementing reforms, to ensure a more balanced regulatory approach that will help our markets thrive.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time. As someone who has worked very hard to ensure that this CFTC reauthorization process is transparent for commodity purchasers, users, and the markets that facility these transactions, I was pleased to work with Mrs. Walorski on her amendment to bring further transparency and openness to the issue of aluminum warehousing. Her amendment would clarify that the bill's required report on the status of any application of metal exchange to register as a foreign board of trade should also include the status of consultations with all U.S. market participants, including major producers and consumers. I applaud her for offering this targeted amendment to improve the underlying legislation and help everyone in the aluminum market have the best information possible to strengthen aluminum supplies and bring the best cost for consumers, helping to create jobs and grow our economy. I support her amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My amendment prevents the Department of Justice from requiring mandatory donations as part of settlement agreements. The Department of Justice is systematically subverting Congress' budget authority by using settlements to funnel money to third-party groups. An investigation by the House Judiciary and Financial Services Committees reveals that, in just the last 10 months, the Department of Justice has used mandatory donations to direct as much as half a billion dollars to activist groups. These payments occur entirely outside of the congressional appropriations and oversight process. In some cases, the Department of Justice is using mandatory donations to restore funding that Congress specifically cut. This is money that could otherwise be going directly to victims. The Department of Justice continues to resist document requests, but what little has been provided confirms that activist groups which stood to gain from mandatory donation provisions were involved in placing those provisions in the settlements. The committees raised concerns with the Department of Justice in 2014, but instead of suspending the practice, the Department of Justice has doubled down. It recently entered into an over $50 million settlement relating to robo-signing; $7.5 million of that did not make it to victims. Instead, it went to a third party. Incredibly, the settlement specifically provided that there would be no oversight of the money. The situation is even more egregious when one considers that the required donation will nearly double the net assets of the DOJ- specified recipient. It is deeply troubling for that to happen at the unilateral discretion of the executive branch. This amendment takes no money away from any organization. It is purely prospective. It ensures that settlement money goes either directly to victims or to the Treasury for elected representatives to decide how it is to be spent. It is critical that we act. The Department of Justice is ignoring Congress' concerns, increasing the use of third-party payments, even as we object. The purpose of enforcement actions is punishment and redress to actual victims. Carrying that concept to communities at large or activist community groups, however worthy, is a matter for the legislative branch and is not to be conducted at the unilateral discretion of the executive. This is fundamentally a bipartisan institutional issue. There was abuse of third-party payments in the Bush administration. This amendment is about preserving Congress' appropriations authority. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time just to say this is an important principle, not only to address the abuse that has taken place in the executive branch, but to protect the prerogatives of the Congress on both sides of the aisle. These are funds that, if they are not expended for the specific purpose of providing compensation to victims, relief to victims in these lawsuits, those funds should go back to the General Treasury of the United States, and they should be appropriated by the Congress--in fact, by this very subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations--to make sure that the people's will is exercised with regard to the expenditure of these funds. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I want to thank the chairman of the subcommittee for joining me in opposition to this amendment. Shield laws for reporters are not a bad concept at all, but this is hardly the way to go about doing it. No State has a law like this language here, where it is so vague that virtually anyone in the United States claiming to be a journalist or reporter--and, by the way, nowadays, when lots of people maintain blogs or posts on the Internet, they could easily claim to be a journalist or reporter--would be covered by this. So no one intends to have that broad an exception that would allow anyone to evade the requirements that they respond to a legitimate subpoena for investigation by law enforcement, a violation of the law. This is far too broad. It is something that clearly should be handled by the authorizing committee, the Judiciary Committee, which worked on this for a long period of time and has struggled with that very definition of journalist or reporter that the gentleman from Florida simply glosses over in this. And then, to give further exception to simply say that that individual who first claims they are a journalist or reporter and then says, Oh, yeah, that is confidential, that would breed criminal misconduct because criminals would be before the court claiming that they were reporters and that they regarded their information as confidential and, therefore, do not have to respond to a subpoena. This is a very harmful, very bad way to go about providing protection to legitimate journalists and reporters and should be defeated. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against it.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, the supporters of this amendment claim that this is a states' rights issue. However, it is not that simple, not hardly. Drug manufacture and use is inherently an interstate problem. For example, we need look no further than at one of the two States where marijuana has been legalized. The Colorado Department of Revenue has reported that 45 percent of marijuana sales in the State were to out-of-State ID holders. Indeed, earlier this year, Colorado Governor Hickenlooper said, ``If I could've waved a wand the day after the election, I would have reversed the election and said, `This was a bad idea.' '' In fact, Colorado is now being sued by Nebraska and Oklahoma, which claim Colorado has created a ``dangerous gap'' in the control of marijuana and that marijuana is flowing from Colorado to neighboring States. However, Mr. Chairman, of far greater concern to me is the increased availability of marijuana to children, which will inevitably result from a loosening of restrictions on this dangerous drug. Though my colleagues may not like it, marijuana remains a schedule I narcotic because it has a high potential for abuse and no legitimate medical use. In fact, Mr. Chairman, statistics show that 78 percent of the 2.4 million people who began using marijuana last year were aged 12 to 20. There is little doubt that this drug poses a significant danger to our children, and I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the chairman of the committee for yielding, and I rise to join him in opposition to this amendment. Madam Chair, this amendment would undermine diversion control and thereby potentially increase drug abuse by creating a significant loophole in the system of controls established by the Controlled Substances Act. The amendment would cause this highly problematic result by effectively exempting DEA registrants who dispense drugs for addiction treatment from being subject to administrative oversight under the CSA. At present, buprenorphine is the only schedule III-V controlled substance contained in a drug that has been approved by the FDA for drug addiction treatment. While it is also true that the amendment would not preclude DOJ/DEA from obtaining a criminal search warrant to obtain the foregoing types of records, this does not come close to being an adequate substitute for the administrative inspection authority. Obtaining a criminal search warrant must be predicated on evidence sufficient to establish probable cause that the registrant has committed a criminal violation of the Controlled Substances Act. The very point of the administrative inspection authority that Congress provided under the CSA 45 years ago was to have a robust system of administrative oversight that would help to prevent regulatory violations before they occurred, and even more so, before criminal violations occurred. This is because Congress recognized that controlled substances, when abused, can have dangerous and sometimes deadly consequences, and thus that the widespread problem of drug abuse in the United States cannot be solved exclusively through criminal provisions of the Controlled Substances Act. It also bears mentioning that this drug is highly subject to diversion, as it is a narcotic drug that is much sought after by many persons who are addicted to opiates and/or who seek to abuse opiates for nonmedical purposes. Indeed, the heightened risk of diversion associated with dispensing of this drug to a drug-addicted patient population actually warrants greater scrutiny, not less scrutiny, than with many other categories of prescribed controlled substances. So I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.