Darrell Issa

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. I thank the gentleman. In the same vein, I yield such time as he may consume to the author of the bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Gallegly).

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

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to reclaim previous time yielded.

Mr. ISSA. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Cubic Corporation, a San Diego-based company celebrating 50 years as a publicly traded entity. In fact, on March 5, 2009, executives from Cubic were invited to the New York Stock Exchange to ring the opening bell to mark the occasion. Since its founding in 1951 and subsequent status as a publicly traded company in 1959, Walter J. Zable, Chairman and CEO, has been at the helm. I've known Walt for many years and this celebration not only marks a 50-year milestone for Cubic, but serves as a remarkable testament to the wisdom and good business sense of Mr. Zable. While Cubic has experienced its share of business challenges, Mr. Zable has kept adhering to commonsense business tenets that steady the ship and allow Cubic steady, sustainable growth. Cubic has followed a strong and responsible business philosophy, allowing it to achieve solid growth over many years along with the ability to weather several economic downturns--including the one the country currently faces. While there are other companies that have had more spectacular growth than Cubic, many have suffered equally spectacular downturns as well. Cubic, under the leadership of Mr. Zable, has maintained a considered commonsense approach to its businesses thus returning stable, sustainable growth. From its humble beginnings almost 60 years ago, Cubic is now an enterprise with $881 million in 2008 sales and an employer of more than 7,000 people worldwide. The markets that it works in--Defense and Transportation--are much needed in this tumultuous world and Cubic holds a strong position in these markets. Today the company now operates in more than 45 countries with the largest foreign customer being the United Kingdom. Indeed, in these difficult economic times, Cubic stands as a true American success story.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I have been in the House for 8 years, and I have been a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, although on leave of absence, for 6. But before I came here, for two decades I was in the electronics industry, was part of the annual consideration of over a million dollars of private funding to help move digital television. We did so not just to sell televisions or to improve people's pictures, but in fact because of the efficiency of spectrum and what it would do. I have been a supporter of digital transition. Today, I am here as the ranking member of Government Reform, sounding an alarm that I hope will be heard by my colleagues. President Obama did only one thing before he became President. Only once did he violate his ``one President at a time'' statement, and that was in fact on asking for a delay in the digital transition. I believe he did so because in fact he was misled. It is clear that there is doubt as to whether a gentleman named Gerard Salemme, who is in fact a highly compensated $300,000-plus a year individual with a company which is behind today--behind in their technology rollout for using this new spectrum--was on his transition team, although he is still the executive vice president of a company called Clearwire. To me, it appears as though the process behind closed doors in the transition team that led to the decision to delay digital television was clearly tainted by someone who, as an opportunist, may have been trying to gain those extra 4 months to make their technology competitive with those that are already rolled out. That, to me, is the first of many tragedies. You have heard many others. Additionally, having been in the consumer electronics industry for over 20 years, I'm well aware that the cost of these digital boxes are about $40. So even if you claim that you have 6 million people who haven't received them, you do $40 times 6 million and pretty soon you figure out that it's $200 million-some that we would have to authorize with this delay in order to fully fund getting people their boxes. No money is attached to this bill. As a result, this will simply cause a delay, giving certain companies an opportunity perhaps to catch up in technology, advancing one company over another, something we said we wouldn't do when we set a hard deadline. More importantly, we are not solving the basic problem here. It only takes $240 million or less dollars to fix this problem where $18 billion worth of spectrum is being held ransom. This is bad business. It's bad for American technologies that are emerging, it's bad for all the services that will be granted. I came from high tech. I know what we are doing is forcing us to stay in horse and buggy for months longer. R. Gerard Salemme's Interests in Clearwire and ICO Clearwire (Data current through most recent Definitive Proxy, Oct. 9, 2008) Executive Vice President of Strategy, Policy and External Affairs Annual Compensation: $336,812 Stock Options: 1.15 million Total Value of Options: $6.468 million

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. I thank the gentleman. Hearing what I have just heard, I would like to thank the chairman of the full committee. It is clear that we will for months, years to come, be looking at the failures of TARP; the failures to properly consider the allocation of these funds before they were delivered and to lock down appropriately the ways in which it could be spent. Notwithstanding failures in our hurried legislation, it is also very clear that the effectiveness, or lack thereof; the honesty, or lack thereof, of the expenditure of these funds, is critical if we are going to regain confidence by the American people that in a future emergency situation we will be able to quickly allocate resources to a problem and then have those resources used properly. So I thank the gentleman for offering this amendment. I thank the chairman for his willingness to accept this amendment that will allow the IG to report to the committees of jurisdiction so that we can in fact look for the waste, fraud, and abuse in this legislation and its carrying out. Thank you.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, almost every day the Government Accountability Office and Inspector Generals issue a report identifying waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement. The Federal Government is large, and we can use all the help we can get. Unfortunately, these important reports often go unread. They fall, without testimony, on deaf ears, and Congress does little or nothing about it. I welcome the fact, Mr. Speaker, today that we are setting a baseline, a starting point for oversight by the authorization committees. I'm pleased to serve on the committee that has broad jurisdiction, and by agreement with the Rules Committee, and with the leadership of Chairman Towns, we have secured the fact that nothing in this rules change would limit the unlimited jurisdiction of the Committee on Oversight and Reform to, in fact, look at these same reports and to hold hearings on any one or any 13,000 of these various remaining claims as the Bush administration leaves. Mr. Speaker, I want to speak particularly to Mr. Tanner's statement which, I think, was appropriate, and should be dealt with. During the Bush administration, 98,000 such findings came out of the GAO and the IGs. 13,000 were not dealt with during that administration, roughly a 14 percent leftover. I look forward to the fact that the Government Oversight and Reform Committee will have the help of all the authorization committees to look into those, and I look forward to working on a bipartisan basis, both within the committee of primary oversight and with each the committees of jurisdiction, because I think it's important that as we allow a new administration to set goals, we deal with all of the leftovers, the 13,000 that perhaps would have been taken care of in the ordinary course, but now need to be quickly looked at so the new administration can get on to its agendas. And of course, as time goes on, I suspect that we will be looking at failures that occur on the new President's watch. I look forward to working with the gentleman from California on a bipartisan basis, to deal with the remaining roughly 14 percent of those that occurred on President Bush's watch. I look forward to this legislation. I once again commend Chairman Towns for his work to make sure that the committee of primary oversight is not limited by this resolution. We've been assured that it isn't.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The new chairman and I both are assuming these positions after a long period of time of serving in lesser positions on Government Reform, and we come to it, I think, equally with the same vigor, with a vigor to make this committee a bipartisan committee, a committee that works openly between the majority and minority for the purpose of making sure that government works openly for the people who we serve. I want to thank the chairman today because as we bring three votes from our committee, each of these was shared with the other in consultation, each of them was agreed were necessary and could be moved in a timely fashion today. Each of them will be presented to our conferences as noncontroversial, and in fact, ones that should pass unanimously or near unanimously. This is a great start. I'm particularly pleased with the chairman and myself to be able to offer the first pieces of legislation of the 111th Congress because I expect that this committee will be the most productive committee of the Congress. It is the committee that has the greatest responsibility, as President-elect Obama has said, to make government accountable. We are that committee. I look forward to it. As the chairman said, this piece of legislation does restore a balance. It is not a balance that's without controversy, but it is a balance that I believe is appropriate. Additionally, to what is in the language of the bill, which the chairman did a good job of explaining, there is, in fact, a final holdback which is any President asserting some Presidential secret or particular current damage to the government would be able to overcome this legislation, but it will be the burden of the current President, and as the chairman said, the burden of the previous President to make a case for why records should not be made public rather than the other way around. I look forward to a floor vote on this on a bipartisan basis and urge passage of this bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I have no other speakers and would yield back.

Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I am strongly in support of this resolution as necessary and appropriate. It is sort of interesting to have to bring a vote to give somebody less money and save the taxpayers money, but I'm pleased to do it at any time, and hopefully we will find larger savings as the year goes on. But I would like to comment on one thing. This is obviously something that we've agreed on beforehand and we look forward to quick passage, but I am committed here today, and would say on the floor with the chairman, to going back to committee to drafting a broader bill, one we would bring before the House within a few days that would cover Congresswoman Hilda Solis, former Congressman Ray LaHood, and other Members who are going to be in the same situation of having voted for the tax bill or been present for it and are going to be, in all likelihood, in the President's Cabinet. I believe that we should bring a piece of legislation that, on a blanket basis, says if you want to accept the job, you will accept the lower pay. So, although I was pleased to be on the floor and participate in the UC, I am pleased to do this. I would hope that for judicial expedience that we would bring a single bill in the next coming weeks that would cover anyone who chooses in the first 2 years to be in the Obama administration, and I look forward to the savings that will come from those appointments. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume simply to say that I look forward to working with the chairman on any perfecting language here or in the Senate necessary to make this an even more acceptable bill to all Members because I believe that, as Mr. Duncan said, this is a bill whose time has come. We have been more than 6 years attempting to have this happen. I think one thing that is very clear is that we could talk about library A, library B, library C, but as President Bush leaves office and that library is going to be built in Dallas, I think the American people will want to know every bit as much as with any previous President that that money was given by people who appreciated the legacy of that President and not by people who appreciated specific actions of that President in real-time. And so I join with the majority and Mr. Duncan, as the original author of some time ago, in asking for quick passage of a bill, perfected as necessary in the work that I expect we will do together. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I join with the chairman in recommending swift passage through the House for at least the third time. This bill has passed under multiple authors, both Republican and Democrat. It is, by nature, one in which we believe we are appropriately asserting a daylight requirement on past and future Presidents and would certainly hope that we would view this bill as noncontroversial in most areas. Madam Speaker, our Nation's Presidential libraries attract millions of visitors each year. They have become elaborate institutions, and the cost of building and maintaining these facilities has grown dramatically. Under current law, Presidential libraries are built with private funds, then turned over to the Archivist for operation. Amendments to the Presidential Libraries Act mandated the establishment of an endowment to cover some of the costs of operating the library, which are usually met through the establishment of a charitable organization. Funding for construction and the endowment comes from private sources. But under current law, no duty to disclose the source of those contributions exists. On both sides of the aisle, there is strong support for increasing disclosure. Earlier, under Mr. Duncan's leadership, the House passed solid bipartisan legislation to require the disclosure of contributions to organizations that raise funds for Presidential libraries and related facilities. And a bill identical to the bill before us passed the House last year by a wide margin. We recognize the perception of impropriety that contributions to a Presidential library can raise, given the huge sums that must be amassed, and the attraction this avenue may hold for those seeking favors or influence. This legislation will provide a needed degree of transparency to that process. If I may, I am going to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for a particular portion of the bill that he feels, before it becomes law, should ultimately be looked at.

Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, it's my pleasure now to yield up to 10 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan), the author of the original bill substantially similar to the one today and a constant advocate for this type of transparency.

Mr. ISSA. We have no further speakers at this time. If the gentleman's prepared to close, I will be brief.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object. If I could inquire of the gentleman: Would this bill, in fact, proactively cover the Secretary of State if it is Senator Hillary Clinton?

Mr. ISSA. So it would be limited to the Secretary of State. Regardless of where they came from, they would be frozen at this year's pay as a result of this bill?

Mr. ISSA. A last inquiry: If I understand correctly then, in every way possible, this piece of legislation passed in this Congress would, by definition, by freezing the pay, actually be, though relatively small, a savings to the taxpayers?

Mr. ISSA. With that, I withdraw my reservation.

Mr. ISSA. So who would it be limited to?

Mr. ISSA. A further inquiry: Would this cover anyone in the House or in the Senate who had voted on a pay package in the House or in the Senate so that they could then become the Secretary of State?

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. I am resolute in my opposition, not because it was easy to vote against your President, but our President and his administration are wrong. And if we vote here today for this bill, it is truly the end of the Reagan era. It's the end of the Reagan era because, in fact, under Ronald Reagan's time, we dealt with similar problems, a huge financial problem, and we worked our way out of it without unnecessarily buying assets. We closed institutions but we also saved institutions. Madam Speaker, my Governor often says, ``I'll be back.'' Madam Speaker, I have no doubt I'll be back, and I have no doubt that we will be trying to fix the problems next year that we don't fix here today. The mark-to-market problem, which Secretary Paulson has refused to deal with, in fact, in his own bill is very clearly being denounced. He is raising the price of the assets we buy above mark-to-market while refusing to have the other assets allowed to be flowed to their true value. By definition today we are picking winners and losers in assets rather than going to creditworthy companies and helping them get the capital they need so they can make loans to men and women and companies and entrepreneurs out there who desperately need it to grow our economy. Madam Speaker, we are deleveraging the very capital and the very enterprises we need to date. GE Capital has said they are openly deleveraging. Why? Because that's the signal we're sending. We are collapsing this country into, in fact, a recession at a time in which the Ronald Reagan policy would be to expand opportunity, to find ways to give people who have great ideas an opportunity to reinvent America. So today we are ending the Reagan era if we vote for this, and if we can't come back and fix it next year, we will have permanently put a coffin on top of the coffin of Ronald Reagan.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, the deal that is being presented to us is not the best deal that can be had. I know this because of 20-plus years in business, borrowing from banks. There is a better deal. We are not getting it. As the gentlelady from Ohio said, there are other advisers, including Bill Isaac and others, who are weighing in and who are trying to get us to see reason. A plan that I have put forward has been endorsed, not only by Peter Tanous but by Art Laffer, certainly no liberal. The fact is we can bail out these entities without giving away. We can, in fact, loan to them against their substantial assets and not simply buy the bad assets and leave them free to take their good assets and our taxpayers' hard- earned money and walk off into the sunset to do what they want to do, which in this case is unlikely to be to extend a home loan to someone who needs it or a business loan to an innovator. Mr. Speaker, I expect to vote against this bill. From what I've seen of it, not yet fully drafted, it does not do what the American people are asking it to do, which is to protect their tax dollars. That is the fundamental thing we're supposed to do. That's what we are charged to do. That is what we are being told not to worry about because this is an emergency. If a drowning man asks you for a lifeline, you give him a lifeline, but you don't give him your boat and let it sail away. That's what we're being asked to do today.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6146, a bill to stifle the practice of libel tourism. The right to free speech in the United States is of fundamental importance. It is arguably the cornerstone of our democracy and the hammer that keeps our government and its officials in check. We must not take our right to free speech for granted, for our level of freedom is not honored in many countries around the world. China is an easy example of government-controlled speech, as demonstrated recently by the restrictions placed on the international press during the Olympic Games. But other countries are more of a surprise. Our friend and ally, Great Britain, takes a much more liberal position on libel laws than the United States. They allow judgments against defendants that would not pass muster in our domestic courts, and for this reason many plaintiffs in libel suits involving American defendants seek redress in British courts. For example, the book, ``Alms for Jihad'', written by a former State Department analyst and a University of California Santa Barbara professor, looked into the network of global finances aiding international terrorism. The book mentioned a Saudi billionaire as being involved at some level, a claim not without controversy, but also not without legitimate research by the authors. The threat of lawsuit by the billionaire in the British courts alone caused Cambridge University Press to shred all unsold copies of ``Alms for Jihad'' in addition to asking libraries the world over to pull the book. We cannot allow libel laws in other countries to censor the writings of American authors when laws within the United States find the writings legitimate. Doing so will erode our right to free speech in the United States, an outcome I believe we all find abhorrent. I cosponsored H.R. 6146 with Congressman Steve Cohen to help eliminate this threat. The bill instructs courts within the United States not to enforce libel judgments of foreign courts unless the domestic court finds the judgment is consistent with the First Amendment. This is a fairly simple mechanism, but one that we expect to help control the threat of censorship arising from libel tourism. Without the fear of foreign judgments against legitimate writings, American authors should feel safe continue to promote national and international discourse and debate.

Mr. ISSA

Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, today I rise to speak in support of H.R. 6897, the ``Filipino Veterans Equity Act of 2008.'' Recently Congress honored the 67th anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt's military order conscripting the Philippine military forces into the service of the United States Armed Forces. On July 26, 1941, President Roosevelt said, ``In this great struggle of the Pacific the loyal Americans of the Philippine Island are called upon to play a crucial role . . . I count on every Philippine man, woman, and child to do his duty. We will do ours.'' H.R. 6897 recognizes the service of these veterans to our Nation and commitment of President Roosevelt. In World War II, approximately 200,000 Filipinos served under the command of General MacArthur in the Far East, in guerrilla units, and the Philippine Scouts. Their service to our country was a critical component to the allied success in the Pacific. Approximately 13,000 survivors of the total estimated 200,000 Filipino World War II veterans now reside in the United States and in the Philippines, many of which are not receiving benefits they earned as servicemen for the U.S. military. Since coming to Congress and as co-chairman of the U.S.-Philippines Friendship Caucus I have urged my House colleagues to support legislation providing equity to World War II Filipino veterans. While not perfect, H.R. 6897 would make payments to those that have yet to receive recognition for their service to the United States. With each passing year, there are fewer surviving Filipino veterans. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 6897 to give these veterans their long overdue recognition.