Alan Grayson

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is identical to an amendment offered last year that passed the House by voice vote. The amendment seeks to prohibit the intelligence community from subverting or interfering with the integrity of any cryptographic standard that is proposed, developed, or adopted by NIST. I urge continued support for this amendment by both sides of the aisle. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, let me see if I can try to allay some of the concerns that have been expressed. My amendment seeks to address a serious problem. A year-and-a-half ago it was revealed that the National Security Agency deliberately subverted American cryptographic standards. Cryptographic standards for the national security community and the commercial software industry are developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, known as NIST. These standards are intended to protect Americans from foreign intelligence agencies, from cyber criminals, from industrial espionage, and from privacy violations by those who wish us harm. They are embedded in software products which are used and sold widely--in fact, almost universally--in this country and elsewhere. Unfortunately, media reports have confirmed that the National Security Agency successfully and deliberately weakened encryption standards promulgated by NIST to further NSA surveillance goals at the cost of privacy of ordinary U.S. citizens. This is extremely dangerous. It leaves users of those standards vulnerable to anybody who is familiar with those weaknesses, friend or foe. As World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee put it: It is naive to imagine that, if you deliberately introduce a weakness into a system, you will be the only one to use it. My amendment would seek to address this issue and resolve it once and for all by prohibiting the intelligence community from subverting or interfering with the integrity of any cryptographic standard that is proposed, developed, or adopted by NIST. To be clear about it, the intelligence community can continue to provide advice. What the intelligence community cannot do is deliberately set out to weaken cryptographic standards because whatever it does in that regard will certainly be understood and exploited by our enemies, as we saw just last week when we witnessed the decryption of information regarding classified information and U.S. employees. It is only common sense that we should not want taxpayers' dollars that are appropriated to one agency to be used to deliberately and actively subvert the work of another agency. Therefore, I respectfully request support for this amendment on both sides of the aisle, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is identical to an amendment offered last year that passed this body by a voice vote. Veterans of the first gulf war suffered from persistent symptoms, including chronic headaches, widespread pain, cognitive difficulties, debilitating fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, respiratory symptoms, and other abnormalities that are not explained by traditional medicine or by psychiatric diagnoses. Research shows that, as veterans from the first gulf war age, they are twice as likely to develop Lou Gehrig's disease as are their nondeployed peers. There also may be connections to multiple sclerosis and to Parkinson's disease. Sadly, there are no known treatments for this lifelong pain and affliction that these veterans must endure through this disease. For decades, the Veterans Health Administration has downplayed any neurological basis for the disease, but recent research has shown unequivocally that this disease is biological in nature. The time has come for us to right the wrong that our servicemen and -women have had to live with now for over 20 years. In this Department of Defense Appropriations bill, we allocate more money for breast cancer, orthopaedic, and prostate cancer research than we do for finding a cure for Gulf War Illness. Equivalent funds are appropriated for ovarian cancer research. I think if we are going to spend money on medical research within the Department of Defense, which I am in favor of, the Department must adequately fund research on those diseases that originate in war and wholly affect our servicemen and -women. Over a quarter of a million veterans display symptoms of this disease, and the time has come to find and to fund a cure for it. The offset for my amendment today comes from the $30 billion operation and maintenance, defensewide account. Congress has a responsibility to ensure that the gulf war veterans, who put it all on the line and are paying for that with a lifetime of pain, are not left behind. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and help find a cure for the Gulf War Illness. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chair, my amendment would increase funding for prostate cancer research by $10 million under the Defense Health Program. Prostate cancer is the second-most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and is the second-most common cause of a man's death. In 2015, approximately 220,800 men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and an estimated 27,540 will die from it. The Prostate Cancer Research Program is a unique research program in that it prioritizes research that will lead to the elimination of death from prostate cancer while enhancing the well-being of men who are experiencing the impact of that disease. To date, the Prostate Cancer Research Program has resulted in a total appropriation of over $1.3 billion, including $80 million last year. This unique partnership among the military, prostate cancer survivors, clinicians, and scientists has changed the landscape of biomedical study, energizing the research community in conducting high-risk investigations that are more collaborative, innovative, and impactful on prostate cancer. This increase would result in a total funding level of $90 million, which is still $10 million below what this account was funded at in 2001, more than a decade ago. The offset for my amendment comes from the $30 billion operation and maintenance, defensewide account. This amendment passed the House by a voice vote last year and as part of an en bloc amendment the year before. I hope that we will all agree on its passage again this year.

Mr. GRAYSON. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. GRAYSON. I reclaim my time. I want to thank the chairman for his kind and insightful words, and I want to thank the chairman for his leadership in making sure that the healthcare needs of those who serve are met. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment seeks to increase the housing for the elderly account in this bill by $2.5 million and decrease the policy development and research account within the Department of Housing and Urban Development by an equal amount. I hope my good friend from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) across the aisle agrees with me on this one. I urge all of my colleagues to join me in support of this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON. I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, this is a good government amendment the House passed by voice vote last year. It simply states that bonus payments should not be paid to contractors whose projects are behind schedule or over budget. I urge support for this amendment that combats waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chair, this amendment seeks to raise the cap on funding for the Limited English Proficiency Initiative under the Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity section of the bill by 50 percent. I want to highlight that we are not taking away anything from other programs. We are simply lifting the cap on this particular initiative. This amendment has passed by voice vote for the last 2 years, and it is my hope that it will do so again. There are more than 40 million Americans who do not speak English as their first language. This tiny, but vital program demonstrates to the American people that we have equal protection under the law, regardless of what language we speak. I hope to once again have the support of my friend from Florida and from the House as a whole. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chair, this amendment is identical to other amendments that have been inserted by voice vote into every appropriations bill considered under an open rule during the 113th and 114th Congresses. My amendment would expand the list of parties with whom the Federal Government is prohibited from contracting due to serious misconduct on the part of that contractor. It is my hope that this amendment will be noncontroversial, as it always has been, and again passed unanimously by the House. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON

Mr. GRAYSON. I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAYSON. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is akin to an amendment that was considered just a few moments ago offered by Mr. Meadows. This amendment is meant to address a problem that has arisen with trade agreements that has become visible to all of us as Members of this august body. What has happened is that the Trade Representative, for no apparent legal reason, with no apparent legal authority, has taken it upon himself to negotiate trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership in secret--not entirely in secret, just in secret from us and from members of the American public. The corresponding provision, the TTIP provision, has been posted by the European Union, which is our negotiating partner in this on the Internet. The Trans-Pacific Partnership itself has been negotiated in secret, but that has been posted by WikiLeaks, to the embarrassment of our government in an unnecessary manner. What we have seen over the past several years is that the Trade Representative has turned a deaf ear to our concerns as Members of Congress who must perform our oversight functions whenever we ask for information about what the Trade Representative is doing on behalf of the American people. Three years ago, we had the strange circumstance come up that over 100 Members of Congress, 100 Members of this body, wrote a letter to the Trade Representative saying: We hear you are negotiating something called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Would you please give us a copy? And the answer came back: No. We are not going to give you a copy. For the past 5 years, the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been negotiated in secret. Only in the last few months, Members of Congress have been able to see it under the most extreme conditions imaginable. I was actually the first person to be able to see it, and the Trade Representative came to my office with his staff and offered to show it to me, but I couldn't take any notes. I couldn't discuss it with my own staff. I couldn't even discuss it with other Members of this body. And of course I couldn't make copies or otherwise help myself to record what I had seen, much less speak to my constituents about it, much less speak to the media about it, much less speak to the public about it. Respectfully, secret laws are un-American laws; secret agreements are un-American agreements. There is no such thing recognized under our Constitution as a ``secret statute'' or a ``secret treaty.'' But that is, in effect, what we have been experiencing without any legal authority whatsoever on behalf of the Trade Representative. Now, I am not saying the Trade Representative needs to stop negotiating these agreements; not at all. What I am suggesting is that we lift the veil of secrecy that has been dropped over these negotiations so that we can't see them, the American people can't see them, but foreign governments can see them. Why is it that we have confidentiality? Why is it that we have a classified information system? Generally speaking, it is not to keep Americans from seeing this information; it is to keep foreigners from seeing this information. And here the world has been turned upside down, and we have a situation where foreigners get to see it, but even the highest members of our own government--our Senators, our Congressmen--we don't get to see it. That is absolutely unacceptable; it is un-American. The only way to come up with agreements that satisfy the needs of this country is through an open, fair, transparent process. That is what this simple amendment will accomplish. It says: None of the funds made available in this act, which includes funds made to the Trade Representative, may be used to negotiate or enter into a trade agreement whose negotiating texts are confidential. It is time for a little sunlight. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. It is time for the Members of this body to take control of our constitutional responsibilities, not to let the Trade Representative or any member of the executive branch tell us to stuff it when we need to find out things in order to be able to do our jobs properly. Wouldn't it be a better system if we were able to tell a trade representative what we think, what our constituents think, what the members of the American public think about these documents before they are simply dropped on us? This is a simple commonsense amendment. There is no existing legal authority that allows the Trade Representative to do what he has been doing. I say the time is up and we should insist that these agreements, which will determine the course of economic history in America for the next 20 or 30 years, are agreements that are negotiated in public with our approval and with our input. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment has nothing to do with medical marijuana. It was passed last year by a vote of this body of 225-183; in other words, it passed by a majority of 42 votes. The purpose of this amendment is to raise the possibility of a Federal shield law that corresponds to protections already in place in 49 States but not at the level of the Federal Government. Again, to be clear about this, 49 States have a Federal shield law. The Federal Government does not--at least up to this point. A shield law is designed to protect a reporter's privilege: the right of news reporters to refuse to testify on information and sources of information obtained during the news gathering and dissemination process. In short, a reporter should not be forced to reveal his or her sources under penalty of imprisonment. This issue has come up in court cases at the Federal level and the Supreme Court level, beginning with the 1972 case of Branzburg v. Hayes. In that case, a reporter wished to inform his readers about the nature of the drug hashish, and he realized that the only way to go about that was to actually find and interview people who had actually used the drug hashish, so he did that. After he published his article, relying upon two confidential sources, he was subpoenaed by the police to provide his sources so that they could be arrested, compromising their identity and compromising his journalistic integrity. So he was forced to choose whether he would conceal his sources and go to prison or he would reveal his sources and have them go to prison, simply because he wanted to inform the public about this matter of concern. Some of us may remember the case of Valerie Plame, who was publicly identified as a covert operative. Reporters were continually asked to name the sources used in their reporting, and one reporter was jailed for 85 days for refusing to disclose sources in that government probe. At this point, under current law, journalists are in a quandary--an unnecessary and unhealthy quandary. They realize that they need to protect their sources, but that right is codified only at the State level and not yet at the Federal level. So what I am seeking to do, as I did last year with the assistance of this House, is to offer the journalists the protection they should have in order to do their jobs properly. Freedom of the press is not just an important principle, but it is part of the foundation of American law. The Constitution and the First Amendment provide for freedom of speech and of the press. It is completely incongruous to say that we have freedom of the press, but the Federal Government could nevertheless subpoena sources and put reporters in prison if they don't comply. I think that we should have settled this issue years if not decades ago. We did settle it last year successfully in this body, but we are here today to try to address it once more. Respectfully, I submit this amendment as a much-needed and long delayed clarification that the Federal Government treats the issue of freedom of the press just as respectfully and just as importantly as the great majority of our States do--49 out of 50. I ask for support of this amendment from my esteemed colleague, the gentleman from the Seventh District of Texas, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.