Porter Goss

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on National Security. (Mr. SPENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter], a former member of the committee, a very valuable member of the House Committee on International Relations and the chairman of the North Atlantic Assembly Delegation of this body. (Mr. BEREUTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member himself, the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks].

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 minutes to the distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks].

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment assumes that the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence just simply plussed up the program funding without regard to the merits of the program, without due deliberation, and simply because we wanted to increase the numbers. That is not true. If we cut 0.7 percent, we do not get the President's budget. We added, we cut, we changed programs, we did all kinds of things. We are not at the President's budget. We are not at the President's program. There may be a number that is similar but we do not have a program that is similar. We have a program that provides more security for Americans, American interests, whether they are here or abroad, than the President's program does because this House and our Founding Fathers in their divine wisdom created balance of power, oversight, and our opportunity to check and balance with each other. We have a better product as a result of this. I am proud of our product and I think it is better than what I believe is not thoughtless, a well-intentioned, but an amendment that does come out without sufficient thought to what happens, because a disproportionate share of the gentleman's amendment will fall to important parts of the program; because we have to spend a very large part for architecture, which everybody knows. And 0.7 percent of architecture means one thing, and 0.7 percent of something else which is very small but vital means something else. I do not want to get in that position. I think we have been extremely thoughtful, and I think that as the gentleman understands the classified documents that we have worked with, as well as the nonclassified, and goes through them all, he would have to come to the same conclusion. Mr. Chairman, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence looked at all the programs we went into. I tried to explain that across-the- board cuts like this do not get into the kind of cost-benefit assessment we did on a program-by-program basis, which is what we do and what we certainly did, and the record will show. I think to be totally honest, when we go across the board in a cut like this, basically, to be honest, I think an approach that goes to a 0.7-percent reduction gets us to a lack of critical examination and intellectual rigor. It just simply is a number, like 10 percent, 5 percent, 50 percent, or any other percent, it is a number. It is not an intellectual cost-benefit program by program, which is what we have done. I think that the gentleman's amendment puts the authorization at the level of the President's request but it does not get the President's program, as I said. I want to congratulate the President because I think he made a pretty good effort. But I think we have done a value- added approach, which is what our job is, value-added, next branch of government. We did it. Mr. Chairman, the other thing I have to say is that unanimously on the committee every Republican and every Democrat saw areas where funding was clearly inadequate for intelligence needs. We are short on some programs that I worry about. I think the ranking member would say the same. We could have done much more. We would love to have done much more. The gentleman mentioned a 13-percent reduction. Boy, I would hate to be one of the casualties in that 13-percent area that I had to go to the parents and say, gee, we just picked a number and we reduced it, and unfortunately you were in the target zone; oh, gee, that is too bad. The fact of the matter is we could have done better. The fact of the matter is we did do better. Where we did better was in our bill. Mr. Chairman, I think that it is fair to say that for the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] and myself, that we have made painful decisions to forego funding for some very important intelligence activities, but we both agree that we do not have all that we would like to have. I think we are down at the point now where my conscience says, any more and we are in deep trouble. I have talked about the disproportionate problem because we do have fixed infrastructure, fixed overhead, as the gentleman well knows. We cannot accept reductions in our efforts to detect weapons proliferators, I am sure the gentleman would agree, locate terrorists, I am sure the gentleman would agree, determine nefarious activities from rogue states, and on and on. We just cannot give up anymore.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment.

Mr. GOSS. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Chairman, I want to be clear which amendment we are on, Mr. Chairman. I do not have the same numbering system. There are two amendments.

Mr. GOSS. The subject of this amendment is chemical weapons, chemical weapons in the Gulf?

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Bass] a member of the committee.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I think Members who are watching well understand that we have a very rich and diverse committee that has worked very hard with the other appropriate committees, the Committee on National Security and the Committee on Appropriations. We take our job very seriously. Everybody has something thoughtful to say and to add. The cold war is over but the danger is not gone. We are doing our best to make sure every intelligence dollar is spent well. Obviously that is a never-ending task. Quite seriously, those who read the newspaper are not getting the full story, and those who wish to speak, I would hope, would go and read the classified annex so they are dealing with the same support level of fact that we are on the committee. And, finally, I would simply say I agree with my distinguished colleague, the ranking member, and the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Harman], who spoke about the need for balance, the proper balance between collection, technology, and all of that. We strive for that proper balance. It is a moving target, it is a moving world, and we will be doing this in a moving way for many years to come. I hope we have it right for now. If we do not, we have a conference ahead of us where we will have a chance to do things again. I urge full support of this bill, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I will reserve a point of order, if this is the amendment I think it is, that the gentleman's amendment is not germane.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Ohio for yielding. I think the issue is a very important issue and it has been well outlined by the gentleman from Ohio, and I think with the assurance of my colleague from Florida to proceed and the assurance that I have personally given the gentleman to look into the matter in terms of why those payments have not been made, which again I cannot usurp appropriations matters, this is not my area, but we want to make sure that the gentleman's fairness issues are well regarded. I would point out it was, as the gentleman knows, the U.S. Congress, not the intelligence community, that made the decision for the relief. I think that is entirely appropriate. I think when we go back and look at the Totten decision, and I think it probably is time to look at that, again not my area of jurisdiction, I think we have to ask ourselves questions about the appropriate oversight. I think that is entirely relevant and entirely timely.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to accept the amendment, of course, because I understand it was inadvertently left out, and it is not a new issue; it is one that I have supported before. I just want to make sure the gentleman is entirely clear that occasionally, because of the uniqueness of the intelligence business, it is necessary to buy something that is not American made or to acquire something that is not American made, and I want the gentleman to fully understand that that is not a violation of the spirit.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant].

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I congratulate my colleague, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], for what I think is a very important addition to the work of the committee. Events have obviously transpired in a very clear way, in a very public and visible way on the subject of China in recent days, and I think this amendment to H.R. 1775 is a very valuable addition. I would also like to thank the gentleman for his initiative on the issue. The intelligence activities of China that are directed against United States interests is a subject that has caught us all up. It certainly is of central importance to the committee, and it is of concern to the people of the Nation as well. Anybody who has been watching television, whether it is CNN or any others that are covering events of the world, will know that there is a lot happening. The People's Republic of China has deployed an intelligence service worldwide that is acquiring assets and technology illegally and against the interests of the United States and its businesses and subsidiaries here and overseas. The gentleman's statement outlines, as well as can be done in this forum, the threat presented by China's Ministry of State, Security and Military Intelligence Department, the People's Liberation Army. The old days of the threat of China goes only so far as its Army can walk are clearly behind us. The amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] directs that the two agencies in the best position to gather intelligence on the threat, the FBI and CIA, report annually to Congress on the specifics of Chinese intelligence activities and acquisitions that affect United States interests. What this amendment does is to recognize and to regularize reporting on the threat to America and Americans that we in the committee have received from excellent but ad hoc briefings from these two agencies and others as well, frankly, in the community. I welcome the gentleman's initiative, as I said, and commend it and look forward to a more structured version of the excellent classified information on this matter that we have received to date from the community. The classified information we have received to date, and I can say this, justifies entirely the initiative presented to us today, in my view. I referred earlier to a report on proliferation, which is unclassified, which I referred to all Members. I also applaud the gentleman's requirement that the FBI and CIA produce an unclassified version of their annual reports for public dissemination. As I have said, Americans and American businesses and subsidiaries here and overseas should be concerned about this threat from Chinese intelligence activities in the United States and elsewhere. The committee will, in that regard, promote the dissemination of any and all possible warning information as appropriate. At the same time, Mr. Chairman, it will come as no surprise to anyone at all familiar with intelligence that there will be limits on what the intelligence community will be able to provide the public without damage to the national security or to the sources and methods at risk in the collection. This is a very important target, and it is going to be a more important target, I think, in the next century. Very clearly, we have to be careful about our capabilities to deal with the target. Acknowledging this constraint, upon which lives as well as intelligence depend, I repeat my wholehearted support to the amendment of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] and look forward to the badly needed process that it does create, in which I serve and which I think will serve oversight extremely well. I am going to support the amendment.

Mr. GOSS. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from California, vice chairman of the Committee on Rules, acting chairman today in the absence of the chairman, for yielding me this time. I rise in support of what I think is a very fair rule for a very important subject that I think in some ways is a bellwether to be used again and again and again as a model in this controversy we have between private property rights and the preservation of our natural resources, which we generally speak of in terms of our environmental legislation. Obviously we are never going to entirely have a winner on one side or the other of that debate. We are always going to have protection of our natural resources because our quality of life demands it, and we are always going to have private property rights because they are guaranteed, as they should be, in the Constitution of the United States. Finding ways to work out solutions when they come in conflict is what this bill is about in one narrow specific area of the United States. I believe that the rule we have crafted works out quite well. It is a modified closed rule. It ensures that the minority opposed to some aspects of this bill, which I understand was reported out of the committee nearly unanimously; that nevertheless there was a minority and that that minority has the opportunity to improve the bill in their view through a single amendment and, of course, through the traditional motion to recommit. I am told, frankly, that this legislation is a result of 4 years of discussion by the interested party, the Quincy Library Group, which is a coalition of the environmental leaders, timber industry officials, local citizens and other interested parties in the area who would be immediately affected. It would be unfortunate, I think, to allow the diligent work they have done to be compromised by misunderstanding here by those of us who were not there or, frankly, to be derailed by mischief making in Washington which, strangely enough, happens every now and then. This rule does not shut off the amendment process but it does provide for expedited consideration of this long-awaited bill and is supported by local groups representing all ranges of the ideological spectrum. The Quincy Library Group, in my view, should be commended. They have been the conflict resolution forum for a compromise that has been tailored and shaped to resolve a longstanding specific controversy in their area. In effect, H.R. 858 implements a locally conceived management plan for three national forests in northern California. It establishes a 5- year pilot program designed to conserve forest resources, protect wildlife habitat, and provide economic stability for the region; jobs and quality of life together. Most importantly, it represents a step away from the Washington knows best mentality that has plagued our environmental policy over the years. This bill presents a long overdue cooperative, locally driven approach to protect our precious resources and our jobs and well-being. It is a fresh approach to land management. I applaud it. It is one that empowers local folks to make decisions and find solutions that work for them. I urge my colleagues to support this rule, which I think preserves the package, allows for the amendment if the minority wishes to make it, and allows us to get on to reflect our own views on how we will vote on the final bill, which I also urge support for. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for being so generous with his time.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 179 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost], pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for purposes of debate only on this issue. (Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to extend his remarks and include extraneous matter.)

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 1775, the Clerk be authorized to make such technical and conforming changes as may be necessary to correct such things as spelling, punctuation, cross-referencing and section numbering.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. 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 material on H.R. 1775, the bill just considered and passed.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. I am sure the Speaker is correct on that.