Darrell Issa

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. When all speakers have said all that needs to be said and there is only one speaker left, he can't say anything original, so I will simply thank the Congressmen and the Senators for recognizing one of the first Republicans and one of the first Republican principles, one that is no longer owned by any party but in fact owned by all Americans. I move for passage. I urge support of S. 885, introduced by Senator Sanders of Vermont which would designate the postal facility located at 35 Park Street in Danville, Vermont, as the ``Thaddeus Stevens Post Office''. Thaddeus Stevens was born in Danville, Vermont on April 4, 1792. He attended nearby Peacham Academy and went on to study at the University of Vermont and Dartmouth College. After graduating from Dartmouth, Stevens moved to Pennsylvania to study law. He practiced law in Gettysburg, and spent four years as a member of the Pennsylvania State Legislature. Thaddeus Stevens served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1849 to 1853 and from 1859 until his death in 1868. He is best remembered for being a fierce opponent of slavery and discrimination against African-Americans. He was instrumental in the passage of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and fought for African-American rights during Reconstruction. I ask my colleagues to honor the courageous actions and momentous contributions of this great American by voting in favor of S. 885. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Army Sergeant Mracek was killed on January 27, 2004, while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He died of wounds sustained during yet another roadside bomb attack in Iraq. He was only 26 years old, and he had been in Iraq for just 8 days. Mr. Speaker, loved ones remember Sergeant Mracek as a man who loved Army life and was proud to serve his country. His bravery and his selflessness have inspired us all, and the naming of this post office in his memory is clearly appropriate. It is my honor to ask the body to honor Sergeant Mracek's service and sacrifice by voting in favor of this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA. 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 the bill under consideration.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 5142, which was introduced by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield). The bill would designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 113 West Jackson Street in Rich Square, North Carolina, as the Chief Joseph E. White, Jr. Post Office Building. Rich Square Police Chief White served in law enforcement for over 30 years. Tragically, Chief White was shot and killed with his own .45- caliber service revolver on July 16, 2000, while investigating a possible gas drive-off or gas station runaway at a local gas station. He was shot after he stopped the vehicle which was wanted in connection with the incident. He is survived by his wife and several of his grown children and grandchildren. Mr. Speaker, Chief White made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. We owe a large debt of gratitude for his many years of service. The community and the entire North Carolina delegation support this naming. I support and recommend passage of H.R. 5142. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, this bill, authored by Congresswoman Ann Wagner of Missouri, recognizes the last full measure of support for Lieutenant Daniel P. Riordan, and I can add nothing more than the author will add, so I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner).

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5331) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 73839 Gorgonio Drive in Twentynine Palms, California, as the ``Colonel M.J. `Mac' Dube, USMC Post Office Building''.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 1233) to amend chapter 22 of title 44, United States Code, popularly known as the Presidential Records Act, to establish procedures for the consideration of claims of constitutionally based privilege against disclosure of Presidential records, and for other purposes.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we are here today to consider the Senate amendment to H.R. 1233, the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014. This bill was introduced by the ranking member, who I see is here today, and was first passed by the House on January 14 of this year. It was passed by a vote of 420-0. Let not a unanimous vote belie the fact that the ranking member worked hard to find consensus within the House and to make sure that this was a well-reasoned and, in fact, tailored piece of legislation. The Senate, as it often does, did make some changes, but ultimately this bill, H.R. 1233, which would codify existing executive order and allows former Presidents to appeal to incumbent Presidents to keep certain Presidential documents privileged under the Presidential Records Act, is the good work of Mr. Cummings. This bill would lock into statute a process established by President Reagan in 1989. In 2009, President Obama restored this by executive order. However, like anything that the Congress has observed for a long time that is being done by executive order, the question is: Should it be on the whim of the next President, or should it, in fact, be something which statutorily is part of the Presidential Records Act, which was a statute created by Congress? I think particularly important is the fact that Mr. Cummings recognizes that past Presidents, including President Clinton and, of course, President George W. Bush, do, in fact, have a number of things that occurred on their watch which remain sensitive today. Allowing the standing of these individuals and the oversight of the current President is a good middle ground, and it is one that balances the needs of the public, something that Mr. Cummings and I feel strongly about, that transparency and freedom of information and access is important. At the same time, we recognize that there are times when a secret must remain a secret, an action must remain an action. It doesn't change the fact that Congress may have an interest or the American people might prevail. This bill does, rightfully so and on a unanimous basis now in the House and the Senate, codify historic Federal recordkeeping. We believe it is good. I want to take a moment to thank Mr. Cummings personally for his hard work. He not only championed the bill, but he worked well in the Senate to make sure it came back to us today. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA. 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 the bill under consideration.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. In closing, I just want to hit two points that I think are noteworthy. Historically, agencies kept their records for 30 years, the presumption they would keep them for 30 years before turning them over to the National Archives. With the ranking member's assistance, this piece of legislation also eliminates that presumption. We, as a committee, felt very strongly that the sooner an agency turns over its records to the Archivist, the sooner they are broadly available and the better off it is. In an electronic era, where it is a push of one button to transfer data, this piece of legislation not only eliminates that presumption, but highly encourages data be transferred, rather than mountains of paper or what is called a PDF, a print to file, if you will. This is a significant improvement and something that minority and majority were able to work on together, along with the Archivist who was personally involved in this. Lastly, I owe a debt of gratitude to the ranking member. In this bill, the amendment he mentioned is included, but the ranking member also signed on to a letter asking that H.R. 5170 be taken up by the Senate, a more explicit attempt to change the recordkeeping outside of official use within the government. This has been an area in which multiple different Cabinet positions under multiple Presidents have found themselves with some very embarrassing failure to store and maintain the data. At the end of the day, I am confident that our committee, under the ranking member and under the chairman that will likely replace me, will continue this effort, make sure that the American people know that if a covered individual is required to keep a record of his or her transactions and emails, that it will, in fact, be in the record and available, not just for Congress, but eventually for the American people to see. We believe that this is an important part of government transparency. Again, I want to thank the ranking member who personally signed on and will continue, on behalf of the committee, to make sure that the American people get the full benefit of all records that are, in fact, created under any administration. Mr. Speaker, with that, I urge support for this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, once again, I urge support for the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA. 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 the bill under consideration.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge my colleagues to support the Senate amendment to H.R. 4194, the Government Reports Elimination Act of 2014. H.R. 4194 passed the House by voice vote on April 28, 2014, and an amended version passed the Senate under unanimous consent on September 16. I would like to personally take a moment to thank Senators Carper and Coburn, as well as the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee staff, for diligently working on getting this bill passed through the Senate. I would also like to personally thank Senators Warner and Ayotte, who introduced a companion bill in the Senate, for working with the OGR and the House Armed Services Committee, and others, to get a bill that is so broadly accepted and does so much to eliminate unnecessary and duplicative agency reports. The Government Reports Elimination Act is part of the committee's effort to reduce waste and duplication in the Federal Government. We have spent more than a year working with each House committee vetting each section to ensure that useful agency reports are maintained. The Senate amendment reduces to 48 the number of unnecessary agency reports to Congress and eliminates or streamlines an additional five. Mr. Speaker, it is a good start. We started with a much larger report list. We believe that the progress under this bill sets the tone for an annual elimination of reports that have become outdated or unnecessary. It is very clear that each time the Congress passes a new piece of legislation--or even a new appropriation--there are questions that need to be answered and which the executive branch is staffed and funded to answer. However, most reports requested have no termination date. A single report is harmless and generally is accurate to the time of the passing, while one that goes on in perpetuity inevitably becomes outdated and, in fact, unnecessary. In the future, we not only want to continue doing this for those reports that have an in-perpetuity annual or periodic report, we also want to make sure, as a committee, that new report requirements written into any piece of legislation have a reauthorization or elimination date. We believe that is the only way we can cease the continuation of excess reports. Lastly, I would like to thank the GAO, the Congress' government accountability organization. In 2013, they identified mandates that appeared to be both burdensome and unnecessary, and they came to the Oversight Committee and to our counterpart in the Senate with them. If not for them, we would not have this bill here today. Again, very often, the American people see Senators on one side and House Members on another taking credit for a vote they are about to make or have just made. Not often enough do we realize that it is not only our personal and committee staffs but also the staffs that work for Congress on a nonpartisan basis who are the ones, in fact, who generate most of the good things that ultimately come to this floor. Lastly, I would like to thank this administration. This is one area in which they concurred with us and helped all along the way to try to include as many reports as they could in this piece of legislation. With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 4194) to provide for the elimination or modification of Federal reporting requirements.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill. It is worth the time we have put into discussing it. I thank Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy for his support on this bill, and I think this is a special opportunity to thank Congressmen Woodall and Connolly for their support as original cosponsors on this bill. It is amazing to me that you can have dozens and dozens of reports senselessly coming back from the administration that are not being read, not needed, are obsolete, and when you point it out, there is no objection whatsoever to eliminating them. I think that is exactly the situation we have here. I look forward to working with the majority and minority leaders' offices to make sure that this is an annual event until we reach a point where there are zero pieces of reports coming to the Congress that are unread, unused, or unnecessary. With that, I urge passage of this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize Mary Beth Walker who is leaving the House to take a position with the Office of the Solicitor of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Ms. Walker served in the House's Office of General Counsel for two and one half years as an Assistant Counsel. We will miss her. Ms. Walker provided frequent and invaluable legal advice and representation to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, as well as to Members, officers, and other committees of the House more generally. Our staff came to rely on her expertise and guidance in connection with many of their investigative and oversight activities, as well as in connection with the Committee's interactions with the other branches of the federal government. Over the years, Ms. Walker played a significant role in safeguarding the legal and institutional interests of the House of Representatives. Ms. Walker served the House with great distinction, and we know she will serve the Patent and Trademark Office with that same level of distinction. We thank her for her service to the House and extend to her our very best wishes for her continued success.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Then I will close. Mr. Speaker, the Federal Register Modernization Act does exactly what the title suggests--it modernizes the Federal Register Act. When you look at a well-intended bill that hasn't been addressed since the 1930s, it comes to mind how easy it is to ask something to go on and to have a Federal bureaucracy actually do a good job. The National Archives and many of the institutions here in Washington do work, but from time to time, you ask the question: At what cost? The Modernization Act seeks to do two things: one, simply lower the cost for printing, which is no longer necessary in a digital age, and, in fact, to open the door for what I believe is the modernization that goes beyond that. Since 1994, when the Office of the Federal Register first published its electronic edition of the Federal Register, we have, in fact, had an opening for our government to go digital beyond just any minor amount. Today, many people ask the question--and I am going to ask the question here today--if the IRS has 50 years' worth of your tax returns, why wouldn't we capture the workings of government digitally, hold them and, at the appropriate time, make them available for our children and our grandchildren for whatever purpose they may have in studying the history of what we do here today? This small modernization is about cost savings, but it is also a recognition that, in this day and age, we can capture everything digitally, that we can store vast amounts of it and that we can make it searchable and valuable to the next generation. For that reason, this is a small recognition that it is time to get off paper, to save money and to have the Federal Register accessible online to offices, homes, and public libraries, and not simply to print paper because, in the 1930s, that is what we said to do. I believe, when we look at the last decade, in which the annual page count exceeded 75,000 pages, we recognize that those pages were made possible by the same computers--the same automation--that allow us to no longer print paper. I ask the Conference and the Congress to vote for H.R. 4195 in order to remove these outdated statutory requirements. I urge its passage.

Mr. ISSA. I would inquire if the ranking member is yielding back so that I can close.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of Chairman Crenshaw and this bill. This bill is a first step toward holding the IRS accountable for its targeting of conservative tax-exempt applicants for their political beliefs. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee is conducting a thorough investigation of the IRS targeting. This investigation is ongoing. But from what we know so far, it is clear that the IRS is in serious need of reform. We have found an agency that worked in fall 2010 to target conservative tax-exempt groups in wake of the President's campaign against the Supreme Court case, Citizens United. We have found an agency that called these conservative groups ``very dangerous'' and put them through an unprecedented ``multi-tier'' review. We have found an agency that coordinated with the Justice Department in October 2010 about the prosecution of tax-exempt groups for their political speech activities. We have found an agency that sent a 1.1 million-page registry, including confidential taxpayer information, to the FBI. We have found an agency that has been politicized by its excessive role in a highly partisan law, ObamaCare. We have found an agency that mysteriously lost two years of e-mail records and an agency that cautions its employees about what they say in e-mail for fear of congressional oversight. In short, we have found an agency that has become a arm of the Obama Administration rather than an independent administrator of federal tax law. This bill takes the first steps toward making the IRS work for the American people. This bill will ensure that the IRS will never again target tax-exempt applicants for their political beliefs. This bill will prevent the IRS from finalizing a proposed rule that would make permanent in federal regulations its targeting of conservatives. This bill will also cut back on the misuse of taxpayer dollars for inappropriate conferences and employee bonuses. Most importantly, Mr. Chair, this bill will begin the long road toward restoring public trust and accountability in the Obama IRS. I applaud Chairman Crenshaw for his leadership and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman and Ranking Member Cummings. Mr. Speaker, the most important function that the Oversight Committee does is, in fact, to expose waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal bureaucracy. To that end, FOIA and whistleblowers are the two most important tools we have. Ultimately, whistleblowers coming forward to let us know something and the Freedom of Information Act, in addition to congressional powers, are the only way that we can wrench the truth out of a bureaucracy that often tends to be closed and, in fact, protecting of mistakes and outright failures, including fraud. The ranking member, rightfully so and very kindly, mentioned a bipartisan effort that is underway here in the Congress to deal with the crisis in our veterans' hospitals. Only last week, whistleblowers testified under oath of the retaliation that they had seen when they came forward to explain the problems they had. Doctors, health care professionals, and administrators found that even in a caring organization like the Veterans Administration, as their hospital systems should be, if you simply talk about secret lists or failure to provide care, you might very well experience retaliation. And they did. So I think this is a particularly appropriate time for our committee, under the leadership of our ranking member and this bill, H.R. 4197, to bring this bill to the floor to let people know that we intend on opening up further the protections for whistleblowers, because they are and have been critical to the American people's right to know, both through their Congress and through the public. Mr. Speaker, I support the legislation, and I want to thank Mr. Cummings for his work on it.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Chairman. Again, thank you, Ranking Member Cummings. Mr. Speaker, we are the board of directors for the Government of the United States. Our committee oversees the equivalent of an IRA or a 401(k) in the private sector, known as the TSP. It sounds like a lot of initials, perhaps, to people who are hearing this, or it is even, in some cases, confusing to the Federal workforce, but it is really quite simple. We have through oversight discovered with the Thrift Investment Board that, in fact, we have done a disservice to the Federal workers by putting them into an absolutely, positively safe investment that does not keep up with inflation. Effectively, the dollars they contribute, and matching dollars from the government as an employer, are shrinking every year in constant dollars. Their investments are, in fact, smaller if they stay in that fund. Now, near the end of people's careers--in those last couple of years--they may want to lock in with absolute certainty the size of their retirement funds to use in some way after they leave government, but in the first days, it is clear that, in the long run, the only way for an investment to grow greater than inflation is to make the kinds of investments that are possible in the other offerings under TSP, which, again, is the equivalent of a 401(k) in the private sector. This recognition was well thought out by the Board, was well researched, and brought to our committee. It is one of those simple things that should have been done sooner, so I appreciate that the committee marked it up quickly and that we are bringing it to the floor only a short time later. I hope the Senate will hold it at the desk and will quickly allow the President to make it law because, once it is law, Federal workers will, for the first time, have a default that keeps up with or exceeds inflation. The decision to make it quick is not because we are in a hurry. It is because, every day, Federal workers, by default and through no fault of their own, unwittingly, are finding themselves in inappropriate savings plans in their 401(k)s, known in government as the TSP. I know it is always one of those things where people say: Why are you in a hurry? In this case, we are in a hurry because we realize we should have gotten it right sooner, and we certainly are glad that we got it done now. On behalf of the committee that oversees the Federal workforce, we hope that they will appreciate that they have, if you will, a bit of an apology that we didn't act on this even quicker. It is important to make sure that the Federal workforce has a good pay and benefits package, and in this case, they have a good retirement package through TSP that was underperforming for many of our Federal workforce. I believe, today, the default will make it perform better while taking away none of their inherent choices, including if they want to remain in the G Fund.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the military service of Colonel (Col) David Terando on the occasion of his retirement from the United States Marine Corps. I commend Col Terando's career and offer my sincerest thanks for his more than 30 years of dedicated service in protecting our nation. In 1984, Col Terando was commissioned via the NROTC program at the Illinois Institute of Technology and he began his time in the Marine Corps as a communications officer with Base Communications Center, Camp Pendleton. He has supported our great nation by deploying multiple times throughout his career where he has directly supported both humanitarian and combat operations. He was involved with Operation Restore Hope in Somalia and deployed three separate times in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as the Liaison Officer to the Kuwait Army, and in critical staff billets for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. Three decades later, Col Terando has come full circle and is retiring from his post as Chief of Staff of the combined Marine Corps Installations West (MCIWEST)-Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton (MCB CAMPEN). In 2012 Col Terando focused on the merger of MCIWEST and MCB CAMPEN. Successfully creating a new Command structure is a massive undertaking that requires leading thousands of individuals, detailed analysis, decisive action and countless Operational Planning Teams. This culminated on 5 April 2012 with the activation of MCIWEST-MCB CAMPEN, where Col Terando assumed his duties as Chief of Staff. In his role as the Chief of Staff, Col Terando successfully transformed the organization from concept to operational. Col Terando developed regional policies, directives and practices that led to the interaction of five bases and stations occupying over 160,000 acres throughout California, Nevada and Arizona. Col Terando has been the epitome of what a Marine Corps leader should be. His performance throughout his career was exemplary. I offer Col Terando my warmest congratulations and hope that he enjoys a rich and rewarding retirement with his wife Janet. Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues please join me in recognizing the career of Col Terando.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 608) condemning the senseless rampage and mass shooting that took place in Isla Vista, California, on Friday, May 23, 2014, as amended.