Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Judge Wesley J. Nykamp upon his retirement from the 20th Circuit Court of Michigan. The Honorable Wesley J. Nykamp is worthy of recognition for his many years of dedicated public service to the people of Ottawa County as a judge and county prosecutor. Judge Nykamp was awarded the Scholarship Key of the Delta Theta Phi Law Fraternity for Excellence in Scholarship in 1967 while attaining his law degree from Wayne State University Law School. He joined the Ottawa County Prosecutor's Office as Chief Assistant Prosecutor on January 1, 1975, and was elected to serve as judge in 1990. He oversaw the remodeling of the circuit court and the establishment of the Family Court during his tenure, and as Chief Judge of the Circuit Court he designated himself to serve as one of the Family Court judges. Judge Nykamp is well-respected and held in the highest regard among those in the Michigan court system. His interest in the people of Ottawa County and in upholding justice in the legal system is a trait to be admired. He will be missed in the courtroom. Mr. Speaker, please let it be known that on this 16th day of March in 2006, that the U.S. House of Representatives acknowledges the contributions and achievements of Judge Nykamp and wishes him well upon his retirement.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Richard M. DeVos, Sr. upon the occasion of his 80th birthday on March 4, 2006. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Richard DeVos and his wife, Helen, have been a blessing not only to the Grand Rapids area, but to communities throughout the United States. He has positively impacted West Michigan through numerous civic and philanthropic contributions since cofounding the Amway Corporation in 1959 with lifelong friend and business partner, the late Jay Van Andel. He has helped to create the DeVos Children's Hospital, the Cook-DeVos Center for Health Services, the DeVos Communications Center at Calvin College, the DeVos Campus of Grand Valley State University, the DeVos Place convention center and the Richard and Helen DeVos Fieldhouse at Hope College. Mr. DeVos has enhanced the quality of life in Grand Rapids through such generous support for educational, health and cultural initiatives. Mr. DeVos's contributions are not limited to West Michigan, Mr. Speaker. He has contributed to numerous organizations in Central Florida as well, including the DeVos Sport Business Management Foundation Program at the University of Central Florida and the Orlando Magic Youth Foundation. He has also touched hundreds of thousands of lives through his inspirational speeches and three books, ``Believe!,'' ``Compassionate Capitalism'' and ``Hope from My Heart.'' Mr. Speaker, perhaps most importantly, Mr. DeVos has achieved so much in his life based upon a strong work ethic and an unyielding devotion to faith and family, ideals that we hold in the highest regard in our West Michigan community. I wish Mr. DeVos all the best as he celebrates such a significant milestone with family and friends. Mr. Speaker, please let it be known that on this 28th day of February in 2006, that the U.S. House of Representatives acknowledges the contributions and achievements of Mr. DeVos, and may God continue to bless him in the years ahead as he has so benefited the lives of those around him.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the Detroit News columnist George Weeks upon his retirement. George Weeks, who with the support of his wife, Mollie, covered Michigan politics for the Detroit News since 1984 with depth, integrity and fairness. George Weeks is a rare professional who during his career was able to seamlessly transition from reporting on politics to serving in government to returning to his original craft. After initially serving his country in the U.S. Army, George Weeks launched his career in journalism by working for United Press International in Lansing and Detroit. He would later become UPI's diplomatic correspondent and Washington foreign editor, positions that took him to regions spanning the globe. He began his service in government as the press secretary to Michigan Governor William G. Milliken in 1969, and later rose to become the governor's executive secretary. In 1984, he returned to the fourth estate when he became a columnist for the Detroit News with a much broader perspective and insight into politics and government. George Weeks is respected by his readers and his peers alike for his unique perspective on state, national and international affairs, and was recognized for his work when he was inducted into the ranks of the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame nearly a decade ago. Mr. Speaker, please let it be known that on this 8th day of February in 2006, that the U.S. House of Representatives acknowledges the contributions and achievements of George Weeks as he writes the next chapter of his life.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor The Detroit News Senior Washington Correspondent, Richard A. Ryan upon his retirement. Dick Ryan is a dedicated professional who devoted his career to journalism, beginning with the Muskegon Chronicle, a daily newspaper located in Michigan's Second Congressional District. Dick Ryan went on to acquire nearly four decades of experience with The Detroit News, including serving 37 years in the Washington bureau as a correspondent. His reporting on public policy and politics includes covering Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, multiple foreign assignments and seven Presidencies beginning with President Richard Nixon. He witnessed firsthand President Ronald Reagan's speech in 1987 at Brandenberg Gate that two years later led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well as Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat's historic journey to Jerusalem in 1977 to initiate a peace process. Dick Ryan's peers have recognized his accomplishments and dedication by appointing him to such positions as president of the National Press Club and president of the legendary Gridiron Club. Mr. Speaker, please let it be known on this eighth day of February in 2006, that the U.S. House of Representatives acknowledges the contributions and achievements of Dick Ryan and wishes him well upon his retirement.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report, although I am concerned about provisions of the bill that have the potential to create a chilling effect that would harm the ability of the intelligence community to gather vital information to protect our country. I want to first thank Chairman Hunter for his outstanding personal efforts to safeguard our Nation's intelligence capabilities and our intelligence personnel. I appreciate his close coordination with me and with the Intelligence Committee during the negotiations on this bill. Let me be crystal clear: The United States does not engage in torture, and the United States abides by its treaty obligations with respect to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. The principles of the conference report relating to cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment should not be controversial or even remarkable. As the President said earlier this week, we should make it clear to the world that we do not engage in torture. But I want to record my substantial discomfort that this bill could be read more broadly than intended and have a detrimental effect on our national security. After the 9/11 attacks, we learned the hard way that excessive restrictions on our intelligence agencies such as the Deutch Doctrine and the ``wall'' between intelligence and law enforcement often had a chilling effect on operations that was far broader than intended and significantly hurt our intelligence gathering capabilities. I want to reinforce Chairman Hunter's efforts to make very clear that this conference report does not create new criminal liabilities and does not create any private right of action with respect to interrogation practices. It also does not modify the substantive definition of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that applies to the United States under its existing treaty obligations. Despite those concerns I fully support this agreement because of the provisions of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I believe that Chairman Hunter's efforts has significantly improved this legislation, clarified its intent; so I will vote for the conference report and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I am pointing out why it is, from my perspective, inappropriate under the Defense Authorization Bill to instruct the Intelligence Committee what we need to be doing. As I was indicating, it was last year at roughly this time, when my colleagues and I on the Defense Committee and the Intelligence Committee were shaping the new director of National Intelligence, responding to the concerns of the 9/11 Commission. And as we acknowledged through that process, we had a tremendous amount to learn from our colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee about how they used intelligence. They had, I think, a shared view that they had much to learn from the Intelligence Committee about how others in the intelligence community and policymakers might use intelligence. But one of the things that we really focused on was that we could learn from each other, that we would each stay in our lanes of the road. They are the experts on defense, we attempt to be the experts on intelligence, and we respect these roles. One of the other things that came out of the 9/11 Commission report, besides giving us some guidance in terms of how to restructure the intelligence community, was the emphasis that the 9/11 Commission said there has been inadequate oversight by the Intelligence Committees of what is going on in the intelligence communities, and it is important for the Congress to respond to that. The Intelligence Committee has responded to that. As we went forward this year, one of the first things we did with committee funding is, on a bipartisan basis, this Congress supported an increase of 25 percent of the staff for the Intelligence Committee. That staff is focused on primarily one new subcommittee in the Intelligence Committee. It is our Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. We have taken seriously the directive or the instructions or the suggestions, whatever you want to call them, from the 9/11 Commission saying, strengthen oversight, and we have been able to do that in a very, very positive and a very, very constructive and in a very bipartisan way. So we are monitoring what is going on in the intelligence community. We are monitoring the implementation and the standup of the new DNI organization on a bipartisan basis. We are going to be putting in place metrics so that we can measure the performance of the DNI against benchmarks that we have established that will talk about the progress that we are making. Oversight is alive and well within the intelligence community. It is a key priority. It is a key focus, and it is a key bipartisan focus to make sure that we do our job well. The last thing that we need to be doing as we are at war with radical Islam, in the middle of the war, is to begin instructing the Director of National Intelligence on what they should or should not be doing or what they should be preparing for Congress based on press reports in the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the New York Times or any other outlet. That is a very interesting way to direct a Federal bureaucracy. The work that needs to be done is being done on a bipartisan basis. The DNI and other elements of the intelligence community understand their responsibility to be accountable to Congress for what they are doing, how they are doing it, and to make sure that they are acting within the confines of the laws and the framework that we have established. Oversight is working. It is demonstrated in the work we do every day in the committee. It is demonstrated in the intelligence authorization bill that went through this Congress earlier this year, and when we come back with a conference report in February, you will continue to see the progress that we have made on a number of these issues. It is being done in a professional way. It is not being done in an ad hoc way of reading a newspaper and saying, wow, that is an interesting allegation or theory that is out there. Yeah, we ought to put it into a bill that does not have anything to do with the intelligence community and say, we ought to instruct the intelligence community to go do this. Let us do this in a professional way, in a bipartisan way. Let us defeat this motion to instruct conferees and let us move forward and let the DNI focus on doing the job that they are doing, which is the tip of the spear in winning the war on terrorism.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from the House Armed Services Committee for yielding me this time and for acknowledging that the item under discussion tonight is an item that falls under the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Committee. And as much as my colleague and I wrestled last year at almost exactly the same time, as we arm wrestled together to work out the responsibilities and the shape of the new director of National Intelligence, we worked through that process.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the conference report. Today, our country is at war. We are at war against a global enemy, the global enemy of terrorism. Beginning long before the 9/11 attacks, our citizens have faced potential threats to our safety and security at home within the United States for the first time since Pearl Harbor. We are reminded on a daily basis around the world that those threats are real, serious, and continuing. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I want to take this opportunity to remind my colleagues that the central purpose of this bill is to provide enhanced intelligence authorities to combat spies and terrorists within the United States. We have many national intelligence capabilities, but the authorities that are enhanced by the PATRIOT Act are among the most crucial because they protect the American people from terrorist threats here at home. They are a crucial part of our efforts to build a strong domestic national security capability within the FBI. I want to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner for his leadership in this conference and on this important legislation. The conference report under consideration today will make 14 of 16 provisions of the PATRIOT Act permanent while also including sensible clarifications and improvements in many areas where there should be broad, bipartisan agreement. By the Justice Department's count, the bill adds 30 new safeguards to protect privacy and civil liberties. These include a clearer standard for obtaining certain business records, clarification that that authority may be subject to judicial review, and much more specific standards with respect to the use of national security letters and roving wire taps. In addition, the Congress will continue its close and continued oversight with the Intelligence Committee paying particular attention to the specific manner in which these authorities are used. Madam Speaker, this bill needs to be approved. I encourage my colleagues to support this conference report and work to keep America safe.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the more than 4.5 million Americans with Dutch roots who today, Dutch-American Day, reflect upon their heritage and the contributions of the Netherlands to the United States. In 1609, the industrious and seafaring Dutch settled the colony of New Netherlands and named their capital New Amsterdam. However, the influence of the early colonists was not limited to the shores of Manhattan, Breukelyn or even Lang Eylandt, Long Island as we know it today. Indeed, the colony ranged across the middle Atlantic region to cover parts of five States, including my own State of Michigan. Holland, Michigan may be a long way from my birthplace of Groningen in the Netherlands, but I still identify with my homeland. The ties between the Netherlands and the United States are significant and long-standing. Centuries before the U.S. Declaration of Independence, William of Orange--the Dutch version of George Washington--set forth his grievances with the ruling Spanish government. The grievances grew out of the Spanish government's tax policies and religious intolerance. Many years later, a similar scenario played out in the U.S., and Thomas Jefferson used the Dutch ``Proclamation of Abjuration'' as a model for the Declaration of Independence. The common bonds of freedom, human rights and democracy inspire my pride in my heritage. But the Netherlands is also a humble and gentle country filled with canals, windmills, and tulips. It is a very forward-looking, modern country with unparalleled innovations in electronics, medicine, logistics, agriculture, and technology. Today, the Dutch embassy will host a reception in the Rayburn foyer to honor Dutch-American Heritage Day. I encourage my colleagues and members of their staffs to join me at the event to celebrate the historical ties with the Netherlands.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, we must have both had our eyes drawn to the same article in USA Today that ran where it talks about the debate brews. Has oil production peaked? As my colleague has pointed out, there are those that would advocate that say we have not reached the peak yet, that I think one of the authors or one of the people quoted in here says we have run out of oil five times since 1890 and we always find additional sources. But it also goes on to say that the only debate should be over when we peak, not whether we will or will not peak. It is going to happen. And as we have seen over the last 12 months, especially the last 6 months, all of the indications are that we are going to continue to feel significant stresses with oil prices and the demand for oil. With gasoline at one time having been close to $3 a gallon, now being back in the $2 and a half range, you know, we can see that perhaps at least for the short term some of the problems have been alleviated. But that only provides us what I believe is a short window, a very small window of opportunity for Congress and the United States to address this issue. We know that our demand is going to continue increasing. We know that global demand is going to continue increasing, especially for two significant countries like China and India coming on-stream, their demand for fossil fuels is going to increase dramatically. With increased demand, probably static production, we know that we are going to continue seeing increases in the pressure for the prices of fossil fuels. You know I chair the Intelligence Committee. One of the things that I look at this as, I think this is a national security issue. We are extremely vulnerable. Today we import about 60 percent of our fossil fuels. Who do we import from? Well, we import from our southern and our northern neighbors. We get 16 percent of our imports from Canada. We get almost exactly that same amount from Mexico. And after that, we have got to be really careful in terms of how we describe these countries, but the next three countries, Saudi Arabia, roughly 15 percent. Venezuela, Hugo Chavez who has shown himself to be not a great friend of the United States, we get about 13 percent from Venezuela, and we get about 11 percent from Nigeria, and then you know a much lesser extent from a whole long list of countries. But it becomes a national security issue, because at any particular given time, if these countries believe, or their leaders believe that they want to hold us hostage, they have the potential to perhaps do that. So it is a national security issue. It is an economic issue. I agree with my colleagues and the comments made by my friend, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), earlier that we ought to establish a goal, with a firm implementation date of when we will be energy independent. We ought to define exactly what that means and then we ought to develop those strategies to get there. You know, he talked about ethanol. My friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) has talked about various conservation methods. There is probably no single magic bullet to solving this crisis, but if we push a whole range of efforts forward at the same time, there is no reason why by 2010 we could not be using 10 percent of our gasoline, or that all of our gasoline would be a 90/10 mix, 90 percent gasoline, 10 percent ethanol. We just need to have a will to make it happen. Ford and GM, you talked about the SUVs, the interesting thing today about the automobiles that are being produced, I believe that every automobile being produced today can burn a mix of 90 percent gas, 10 percent ethanol. It is not a technology problem for the automotive companies. As a matter of fact, everybody who is driving a relatively new car, something that has been produced in the last 5 to 7 years, can burn a 90/10 mix. The other interesting thing is all of the SUVs, the bigger vehicles with the bigger engines, because of some quirk in technology that my colleague from Maryland or my colleague from Michigan can maybe explain to me exactly how it works, but all of the larger engines today can burn a mix of 85/15, and that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. So the industry has come a long way. They have come a long way in moving forward on hybrids. And as much as I am against mandates, this may be an area, because I do not believe the oil companies, as I have talked to folks in my district who produce biodiesel, who produce the ethanol and these type of things, and I am asking if these are things are more economical to produce than fossil fuels why do not we see a richer mix of these fuels available at the pump? And the answer is very clear. It is not a priority for the oil companies. They do not want to make it happen. They like selling fossil fuels and making significant profits. Maybe it is time for us to mandate that some of these products move forward so that we can facilitate the type of change that we really need. Technology has moved forward. You know, we need alternatives. It is a national security issue. It is only going to become a larger national security issue in the future. I thank my colleagues for allowing me to participate. I thank my colleague for his deep in-depth knowledge on these issues, and for bringing it forward. When I take a look at the mix of Members that we have here, we have got a great cross-section of the Republican Conference, I am optimistic that we actually can come together with a legislative fix to address this issue and hopefully do it in this Congress.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, today we have an historic choice to make. It is a choice to unite America and our partners in Central America and the Caribbean in the continued march for progress and democracy, or a choice that pushes them into the arms of Bolivarian socialism, the clutches of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro. Mr. Speaker, if we fail to pass DR-CAFTA, then we will potentially undermine the stability of our regional democratic allies across Central America and the Caribbean Basin. Worse, we will open the door for the Venezualan-Cuban alliance to fill the vacuum created by our failure to construct an economic security partnership with Central America and Caribbean democracies. This weekend I had 300 pages translated for me to see what the people or the governments in Venezuela and Cuba were saying about this agreement. Castro and Chavez want to defeat CAFTA. I encourage my colleagues to go to the Web page, read the agreement between the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the President of the Council of the State of Cuba for the implementation of the Bolivarian alternative for the Americas. They have an alternative vision for Central and South America and the Caribbean, and it does not include the United States. Read this agreement and see where they are headed. Read their documents. Venezuela, politics of oil and energy. The sixteenth World Youth and Students Festival is going to meet in Caracas, Venezuela, August 7 to August 15. Here is what they have to say: Venezuela has the potential to become a center of resistance to imperialist intervention in Latin America. Holding the festival there will be a strong answer of the progressive youth of the world to U.S. imperialism designs to pacify working people in Latin America. Where has the youth conference been held before? In 1947 it was in Prague, 1949 in Budapest. Now is the time to stand with our allies in Central America. In the war on terror, they have been there with us. Four of these countries have sent troops to Iraq. All six of these countries are part of the coalition to defeat terrorism. Build the relationships with these countries who have stood with us. This is a good agreement. Let us move forward, and let us vote ``yes'' on CAFTA.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, as I indicated earlier, the Berman amendment would potentially undermine the intelligence community's ability in the current form to collect information on terrorists by tipping the terrorists off to our sources and methods. The amendment would require disclosure of data mining sources and methods used to collect information on terrorists and contains no exemption for national security purposes. The House has worked to increase the use of open source and other information against foreign terrorists and others who seek to harm the United States. The amendment applies onerous reporting requirements that could dramatically restrict the use of such technologies to use such resources to discover and respond to terrorist activities. Finally, it would divert scarce government resources away from the most critical fight that we have today, the fight against terror. Join me, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the gentleman from (Mr. Oxley), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) in opposing this amendment; not the direction the amendment wants to go, but in the way this amendment is crafted at this time and in this bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Earlier this afternoon my colleague and I talked about potential ways to fix this amendment, and I think that we reached a consensus as to perhaps how we could address the issues that we were concerned about from an intelligence standpoint. But with the lack of the unanimous consent request being accepted and also as we went through the process this afternoon, we found out that a number of other chairmen also had concerns about this amendment and how it might impact the various government agencies that they had responsibilities for. Those include the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) from the Committee on Armed Services, the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Oxley) from the Committee on Financial Services, the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Tom Davis) from the Committee on Government Reform, and the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde) from the Committee on International Relations. But specifically what happens here, the amendment in its base form, I think, provides a potential to tip off terrorists to our intelligence activities. It undermines terrorism investigations and perhaps will disclose our intelligence sources and methods. The amendment requires every federal department or agency publicly to report about its information gathering. It requires exhaustive and detailed reporting on how information is collected from public and certain government databases and what kind of information is collected and how it will be used. In many contexts this report will be a reasonable effort to protect privacy interests. In the intelligence and terrorism context, however, this amendment threatens to seriously undermine our national security interests. I have a great degree of confidence that, as we move forward, we will be able to reach accommodation. We just could not do it this afternoon with the number of other committees that also had expressed concerns with this amendment. I look forward to working with my colleague, to working with our other chairmen to put this amendment in a proper context. Right now it would be foolish to potentially tip off al Qaeda, other terrorist groups by providing them with any information, with providing them a detailed roadmap of the sources and methods we are using to find them and follow their activities. At this time in this format, this amendment is unwise, potentially harmful to our national security, and I reluctantly urge our Members to oppose it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I rise, reluctantly, to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), another member of the committee.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. The greatest responsibility of the intelligence community is to protect our country from attack. Today's debate should flow from this simple premise which should not be controversial, contentious, or partisan. The 9/11 attacks have led us to war, to war with an unconventional enemy that hides literally around the globe. The full energies of the intelligence community are directed to finding and monitoring that enemy abroad, but our most pressing and immediate concern is with those foreign terrorists who may be even closer to home, those within the borders of the United States. The USA PATRIOT Act has provided basic and fundamental tools to investigators to help them find foreign spies and terrorists who may seek to harm our Nation. The continued acts of alleged terrorism in London today should continue to highlight the urgency of these efforts and the critical nature of the PATRIOT Act authorities. Within days of the first London bombings, British authorities were able to rapidly identify the bombers and follow their trail to other terrorists. The PATRIOT Act would be essential to do the same in the United States to investigate or prevent an attack. By now, you have all seen the chilling photograph of the very first group of London bombers to gather in a rail station. In the United States the authorities of the PATRIOT Act likely would have been used to obtain that photograph. In the London investigation, there has been extensive cooperation between the London Metropolitan Police and the British intelligence agencies. In the United States, that cooperation would not be possible without the PATRIOT Act. British investigators then obtained leads from a terrorist phone to tie them to the coconspirators of the first group of bombers. In the United States, the authorities of the PATRIOT Act likely would have been used to obtain those records. Mr. Chairman, our counterterrorism investigators in the intelligence community can do truly remarkable work to find terrorists and to piece together the puzzle of their networks, but to do that they need modern legal authorities to deal with modern threats. Behind all the rhetoric, the PATRIOT Act is simple, sensible, reasonable and necessary. I urge all Members to support the intelligence community in its effort to fight terrorism. Support this bill and keep America safe.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers), the only former FBI member on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, as we close general debate on the U.S. PATRIOT Act, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the author of the bill, chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.

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