Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. I want to thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, one of our most senior Members and a gentleman who is deeply committed to civil liberties and the protections being accorded that our Constitution guarantees to every citizen. I also want to thank Mr. Reyes, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, an individual who has been involved in law enforcement all of his life before coming to the Congress of the United States, who understands the necessity for constraints on those in power. We all understand as well the threat that confronts us from terrorism. And every Member of this body, without exception, wants to assure the safety and security of our homeland and of our people. Every Member of this body wants to assure that we have given to those in charge of protecting this country the tools necessary to accomplish that objective. Our Founding Fathers were convinced that if we worked hard at it and cooperatively, that we could accomplish both of those objectives. I want to congratulate Mr. Reyes and Mr. Conyers for working hard at this. I participated myself, as I have said the other day when we passed another bill, to accomplish what I believed was much better as far as both objectives. I believe that every Member in this House wants to protect America. Each of us will exercise our judgment when this vote comes on whether or not this bill is supportable given what I think is the failure to pay attention, as it should have, to the constitutional protections while focusing on the protections against terrorism and against those who would harm and undermine the interests of our country. I regret that. I spent time talking to Admiral McConnell. Roy Blunt, my friend, and I spent time talking to Admiral McConnell. We spent time reviewing the legislation. I believe that we could reach agreement. I will tell my friends here that I think if we had been dealing with Admiral McConnell, that we would have reached agreement. It became evident, however, that that was not the case. I say that candidly and disappointedly. It became obvious that we were dealing with the administration. There are many of us in this House who believe the administration has focused on the security interests, unfortunately to the exclusion too often of the constitutional requirements. I will be voting against this legislation, not because I don't want to give the tools to our security apparatus that I think they need, that I want them to have, that I think the American people expect us to make sure they have, but because I believe we have not reached the balance that our Founding Fathers expected. Now, there would be some on my side and many on the other side who will vote for this legislation. From my perspective, however, we have much work that remains to be done. Mr. Reyes, Mr. Conyers, and Mr. Hoekstra will be working very hard during the coming days to fashion permanent legislation. This legislation is for 6 months. And my plea to each one of us on this floor and to the administration is to work together to ensure that we protect both the American public from terrorists and, as our Founding Fathers expected our Constitution to do and as conservatives have always focused attention on, protecting our people from the excesses and abuse of those to whom we give power in this country. Because we have done that through the decades and centuries, our country is unique and respected for that protection of liberty and freedom. So I urge my colleagues, whatever the outcome on this floor tonight, as we proceed over the next few months, let us work together as Americans committed to both of those objectives.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend Kacie Rader, a neighbor of mine in Mechanicsville, Maryland, a constituent from the Fifth District, and a World-Champion Soap Box Racer. This is the second time I have come to the Floor this year to sing Kacie's praises. On the first occasion, I commended her win in the National Championship. And today, I rise to celebrate her win in the National Derby Rally Championships--held in the great State of Indiana on Friday July 27--where she won her world title. Earning the title ``world champion'' is no small feat. It takes hard work, determination, intelligence and athletic ability--all of which were on display when Kacie achieved her ultimate goal and became the best in the world at her chosen pursuit. Madam Speaker, I had the pleasure of meeting Kacie this morning, and I can tell you that she is an incredibly well-rounded young woman from whom we expect even greater things in the future. Today, I want Kacie and her family to know that her district, State and Nation are proud of her accomplishment and wish her nothing but the best in whatever the future may hold.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I understand that. But I just got it, and we just got it on the desk as to what you were going to add. Ladies and gentlemen of the House, the distinguished ranking member has outlined what's in this bill. It is emblematic of the problem we have seen for 12 years where we have ignored conservation, where we have ignored alternative energy sources, where we have ignored reaching out with the understanding that petroleum is going to run out from wherever we seek it and that we therefore need to move in a new direction and adopt a new policy and to adopt a policy on the future, not on the present, adopt a policy that looks to our children and grandchildren's future as well as the future of ourselves. Ladies and gentlemen, this motion puts together a complete substitute with three key differences from our bill. It includes refinery streamlining, provisions that were rejected, rejected in the 2005 Energy Conference Committee, rejected. We were not in charge. That's in this bill. These provisions override environmental law, reduce public participation, and do so for no real benefit. The provisions in the 2005 law have never been used, and the provisions in this substitute is a solution in search of a problem. The substitute also includes Arctic refuge drilling, as the gentleman has made clear. We repeatedly rejected that proposition. It could have been offered in a separate amendment. It was not, but it's not hidden in this bill, and we ought to know that. It does not produce oil for more than a decade, while conservation has immediate opportunities. Finally, the substitute also includes alternative fuel standards; H.R. 3221 does not. We decided to let the committee of jurisdiction work that matter. It is in the Senate bill. I have said repeatedly over the months that standard will be in a bill that we send to the President of the United States. But the Energy Committee is going to be working on that, the Senate has worked on that, and we will work our will. Ladies and gentlemen, this is an extraordinary bill. We said when we ran for office that we would provide a new direction for energy independence for America, for security reasons, for security reasons, for economic reasons, and for environmental reasons. We are meeting our promise today. Reject this substitute, which you have not possibly had the time to read, and enact one of the most far-reaching, new-direction, future- oriented energy bills that this House will have ever passed. Reject the substitute. Vote for this bill. Let us move so the American public can have confidence in a better America.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I understand the gentleman's proposition.

Mr. HOYER. My question to him is, because I don't know because I am not over there, whether or not your computer, where you are standing, is reflecting for you a vote total.

Mr. HOYER. I'm sorry, I was getting some technical information about where we are. The computer printout----

Mr. HOYER. Under those circumstances, under those circumstances, the reason I made the offer to vacate, the request for the unanimous consent to vacate, is because you can't verify it, and I have a list here in front of me. It may or may not be accurate. The machines are obviously not functioning as we would want them to do, so my suggestion is the way to fix that is to vacate the vote. The machines have to be taken down.

Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. The gentleman read the rule correctly. It said ``may.'' The simpler way to do it and the confidence-building way to do that seems to me, because we want to use these machines, is to allow the technicians the opportunity to fix the machines. That is our desire. Now, we understand that if you don't want to proceed with the business of the House, either the DOD appropriation bill, the FISA bill or the bill trying to give emergency relief to those in Minneapolis, the bridge, we may not want to proceed.

Mr. HOYER. Ladies and gentlemen, if the gentleman will yield, we need to calm down. We have a heavy responsibility. We have great differences. I understand that everybody's sensibilities are taut. I predicted that last Tuesday, that that would be the case. I regret it. I regret what happened last night which has generated this. But we do have business to do. All I am saying is I don't want to have a question about this vote, because we cannot assure ourselves, as the gentleman said, that the list I have in front of me or the screen that you have projected to you is projecting the accurate information. Therefore, I suggest, given that, that we give the technicians an opportunity to facilitate fixing it. I think that's a reasonable request. I would hope that everybody in the House would think it's a reasonable request.

Mr. HOYER. I am trying to make a decision collegially with 435 by unanimous consent.

Mr. HOYER. In either event, whether we shut the machine down now and allow them time to fix this by rising or going to the suggestion of the gentleman from Texas as to the rules, in either event you have to vacate this vote. Frankly, the Speaker can call this vote. I presume, I don't know, because I haven't asked, that the result I have in front of me is the same the Speaker has. I have no problem with doing that vote, frankly. But I think it would raise in the minds of every Member here, is that the accurate count? I think in light of that, I would prefer not to do that. So I am trying to accommodate the confidence of the Members by vacating this vote.

Mr. HOYER. In consultation with the technical people that we have, who are responsible for ensuring the proper operations of our computer system, which advises all of us on time and computes the votes, that they have to take the system down for approximately a half an hour, maybe slightly longer, for the purpose of fixing the machine. I think the machine needs to be fixed. So in order to accommodate that objective, I am suggesting that we vacate this vote, allow them to do that, come back and then revote this particular vote and then move on to wherever we are going to move on.

Mr. HOYER. I will tell my friend, my first order of business, as I propounded in my unanimous consent request, will be this vote. This is the matter of business before the House, the motion to adjourn. We cannot resolve it with, I think, the full confidence of the Members. So that would be the first order of the business. We will then proceed with the business as we had been doing.

Mr. HOYER. We are going to consider both of those matters.

Mr. HOYER. The order we will consider those is we will consider Minnesota first. We believe that is the least contentious of the items, and we think, therefore, it would be good to get the least contentious item out of the way first. Everybody in this body has great empathy for the State of Minnesota, but, more particularly, the people who lost their lives in that tragic collapse of the bridge. We will go to that first. Of course, we have the rules to complete, but we will then, in terms of business, go to FISA, as we have expressed.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Barton, I have been waiting at least 15 minutes for you to be here.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, it's obvious we have a technical problem. I know that comes as a great shock and surprise to you. I've talked to the gentleman who's in charge of fixing mechanical problems. He tells me that we need to take the system down for a period of time in order to fix it. He has said he needs approximately 30 minutes to do that with no votes. We are in the process of a vote. What the Speaker pro tempore has said, I don't know what the vote is. I don't know whether it's coming up on the computers. I do know in my office there was no time coming up on the computer. So Members do not know how much time they have left. Permission to Vacate Vote on Motion to Adjourn Mr. HOYER (during the vote). Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that we vacate this vote, and as soon as the machine is fixed, that we return to cast this vote and then proceed with the proceedings.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I move to table the resolution. Point of Order

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. The preambles are your conclusions. I would therefore, with the question divided, I would hope, very frankly, Mr. Leader, as my resolution did, it did not make conclusions. It simply asserted that we ought to look into the matter. Your resolve clause says that. We will support that, but we will not support the conclusions. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. As has been stated on this floor, this is an extraordinary and important development and even more important issue. I want to comment first on the involvement of Mr. Reyes, Mr. Conyers, myself, the Speaker, and others. I have met on at least three occasions with my friend, Mr. Blunt. Every time we made a draft, I took it to him and discussed it with him. This was not something that I thought ought to be done on a partisan basis. I talked to the Director of National Intelligence on at least five different occasions individually and then in a conference call with Senator Rockefeller and Senator Levin, Mr. Reyes, Mr. Reid, the Speaker and myself. We talked over a number of hours. The conversation did not last hours. From time to time, we hung up and the DNI went to contact people. Mr. Speaker, we have spent a substantial amount of time trying to reach what our Founding Fathers wanted us to reach, and that was a balance of power, a balance of making sure that our country was secure and making sure that our individuals were secure. That's what our Founding Fathers were all about. They didn't want King George knocking on the door and coming in just because he wanted to come in. They thought that King George needed to be restrained. So they set up a separation of powers, they set up a judiciary and they set up a Constitution, and 10 amendments thereafter. Mr. Speaker, our highest duty, as Members of this body, is to defend our Nation, protect our people and uphold the Constitution of the United States, as we've talked about. And one has to be thoughtful in doing that because, at times, it would appear that those three duties may be in conflict with one another. It is our job to harmonize those to accomplish all three objectives. That is, we have a duty to keep this Nation safe from those who seek to harm us. And let there be no doubt, there are terrorists who seek to harm us. They have harmed us. They are people that we need to stop. They are people that we need to identify. They are people whom we need to act against. And, yes, a duty to ensure that our government abides by the principles upon which it was founded. In 1978, as has been said, this Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in an effort to balance these critical interests. It is with these principles in mind that we bring this bill to the floor to immediately fill the intelligence gap described to Congress by the Director of National Intelligence. Among other things, this legislation clarifies that no court order is required, as has been said over and over and over again, to intercept and conduct surveillance on foreign-to-foreign communications that pass through the United States. That's a new technological reality, because that switch is here and so we needed to accommodate that. The Director of National Intelligence discussed that with us. We made a change in the legislation that was proposed to accommodate that, and he was positive with respect to that change. I do not say he supported that change; I say he was positive. It reiterates that individual warrants based on probable cause are required when surveillance is directed at people within the United States, not incidental contacts but directed at people in the United States. It provides for an initial 15-day emergency authority so that international surveillance may begin immediately, so that we can empower the DNI to act now, and it allows for up to two 15-day extensions while the court considers the approval of surveillance procedures. No one should be surprised that this majority is concerned about the actions of the administration after the last 4 years. The courts have been concerned. And the courts have acted because they did not believe that the administration was acting consistently with the duty to uphold and protect the laws and Constitution of this country. That ought to be a serious concern. Frankly, it ought to be a very serious concern for those who label themselves conservatives, who have historically been the most outspoken in their fear of Government exercise of power and their concern for the constraint on the use of that power. Our legislation also compels the cooperation of communications carriers during emergency periods, while it extends liability protection to those who assist in this intelligence-gathering effort. This was a very important provision. We understood that. It is controversial. But we thought it was important. The legislation also requires the Inspector General of the Department of Justice to conduct an audit every 60 days of communications involving Americans that are intercepted under ``basket warrants,'' because we know those basket warrants are going to be just that, broad- reaching, because we wanted to give the DNI the authority to reach broadly and not be slowed down bureaucratically by individual requests. But we also thought that we needed to protect those individuals with an aftercheck, if you will, by the Inspector General. We think that is fair. We think conservatives ought to be for that. We think liberals ought to be for that. We think the American people are for that. Finally, the legislation provides that these provisions sunset in 120 days, because it is imperative that we consider issues of this magnitude in a thoughtful manner. We have been working hard. I said how often I have talked to the DNI, how often I have been in meetings, and how recently I was in meetings with the DNI. It is imperative that we consider these issues consistent with the magnitude that they present, not only for the safety of our people, but for the integrity of our Constitution and laws. Now, some will say this bill doesn't go far enough. That may be so. And we ought to thoughtfully consider that in the months ahead as the committee, the ranking member, Republicans and Democrats, consider the permanent laws that may be put in place. Many of them support the administration's proposal, which would permanently authorize warrantless surveillance and searches of American's telephone calls, e-mails, homes, offices and personal records for at least 3 months and for however long an appeal to the Court of Review in the Supreme Court takes, as long as the search is, and I quote, ``concerning a person abroad.'' In fact, the administration's proposal practically eliminates the role of the FISA court. That, of course, is the administration's intent. We understand that. The administration, in fact, undertook the TSP program, the Terrorist Surveillance Program, outside the ambit of the check and balance that we contemplated when we adopted the legislation. Madam Speaker, we have spent hours with the Director of National Intelligence and worked hard to give him the tools that were requested. The DNI asked that we expand the language in the bill from ``relating to terrorism'' to the much broader ``relating to all foreign intelligence.'' I support that change. I want to make sure that the DNI has a broad reach and view. So that is in this bill. The DNI asked that we eliminate the requirement that the FISA court adjudicate how recurring communications into the United States from foreign targets would be handled, and we agreed to that change. Madam Speaker, in closing, let me tell the Members that yesterday in that conference call I asked the Director of National Intelligence, Admiral McConnell, this question: Does this legislation improve or not the situation you find yourself in? I quote you his answer to me just about 24 hours ago. This legislation, which has been so harshly analyzed, I quote the Director of National Intelligence: ``It significantly enhances America's security.'' That is a quote. It is a direct quote. I do not imply that he said he supported it. And we have a very harsh statement from him that we just got a few hours ago. I will tell you, it doesn't sound like the Admiral McConnell with whom I have talked over the past few weeks. Madam Speaker, the administration truly seeks a temporary fix to the FISA statute. This legislation provides one. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for this important legislation. There are some on my side who believe it goes too far. There are some on your side that believe it goes not far enough. But it is, I suggest to you, a compromise that we can make that, as in the words of the Director of National Intelligence, significantly enhances our national security. Madam Speaker, I urge the support of this legislation.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I have a resolution at the desk.

Mr. HOYER. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday night I said this was going to be an unhappy week for all of us. I did not expect what happened last night, however; and I regret what happened last night. Mr. McNulty is going to speak as well. The vote was called. During the course of that vote, eight Members changed their votes after the vote was called 214-214, but the board, as everybody knows, at that point in time had reflected one of the Members who had changed their vote. There were at all times 428 Members voting. The vote went from 214-214, and then 215-213, and then 212-216. Obviously, the 214-214 would have had the motion fail. The 215-213 would have had it to prevail. And then the 212-216 would have had the motion fail. The minority, having been in that place, was understandably angry. I won't use the word ``upset'', understandably angry. If that happened to us, we would have been angry; I would have been angry. At that point in time, I clearly believe that what had happened gave the impression that clearly, correctly would have been my impression that this was unfair; and, as a result, as the Members will recall, I asked to vacate the vote. That was objected to. So I then moved to reconsider the vote by which the motion to recommit offered by Mr. Lewis had failed. I thought it appropriate that that vote be retaken because of the confusion that occurred during the course of that vote and having three separate tallies indicated. I thought that was appropriate. In fact, that motion prevailed. We did reconsider that vote, and the vote passed, at that point in time, by voice vote, and then final passage of the bill. And the bill passed, the Agriculture appropriation bill. But, clearly, people were angry. Words were said on this floor, unfortunately, that were not, I think, designed, as I said on Tuesday night, to maintain civility. But I don't blame the minority for being angry at what clearly appeared to them, which would have been the impression that I would have had, that they were being treated in a way that they thought was not fair. It does no good to this discussion to repeat what has happened over the last 12 years, where we felt aggrieved. But when you feel aggrieved, it is justifiable aggrievement. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, in the interest of having this matter reviewed by the Ethics Committee to ensure that nothing was done that should not have been done, this motion simply refers this matter to the Ethics Committee. This is no aspersion, I want to say, on the presiding officer. When he called the vote, that was the vote on the board, but it changed almost instantaneously at that time and clearly would have been something that correctly was interpreted as what's going on here. We need to know what's going on here. My view is, because eight people change their votes, during the course of that, three Republicans changed their vote, five Democrats changed their vote. There have been a lot of questions about changing votes in the past, so we think it is appropriate that this matter be reviewed. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. McNulty), someone who has served in this body long and honorably and whose integrity, I think, is unquestioned by Members who have served with him on the Ways and Means Committee and in this House.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we don't want to do that. If the gentleman is indicating that he would prefer not to offer any resolutions at this time, I would certainly, at this point in time, if that is our understanding, be prepared to withdraw this resolution.