Tom Marino

Mr. MARINO

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I am pleased to call up the Kingpin Designation Improvement Act, which was favorably reported this week by the Judiciary Committee on which I also sit. This bipartisan bill, introduced by the gentleman and gentlewoman from New York, Mr. Katko and Miss Rice, helps to ensure that classified information used in the designation of foreign drug kingpins may be protected from public disclosure so that it cannot be used by drug lords and terrorists. Under current law, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, otherwise known as OFAC, is able to designate international drug traffickers as kingpins. These designations are published in the Federal Register, and the individuals are added to the list of specially designated nationals, which effectively blocks any U.S.-based asset and their access to the U.S. financial system. This is a potent weapon against international drug traffickers. Since the enactment of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act 16 years ago, OFAC has designated more than 1,800 individuals, all of them non-U.S. persons. These include not only high-profile drug traffickers, but also individuals who are using drug proceeds to support international terrorism. Now, listed persons can seek removal of those sanctions by challenging them in Federal court. The tricky part arises when OFAC designations are based on classified information. We do not want to hand drug lords and terrorists the sources and methods we have for uncovering their nefarious activities. We also do not want OFAC to be deterred from making the designations our national security requires because they are worried that such classified info may be publicly disclosed. For these reasons, other key OFAC sanctions laws, like the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, provide protections for classified information. Under that statute, OFAC can submit such information ex parte and in camera directly to the judge outside of public view. H.R. 4985 just incorporates that same protection in the Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. Also, it is worth remembering that these designations are not something done secretly in the dead of night. They result from the coordination of five Federal agencies. They are published publicly, and they are reported to 10 congressional committees, 5 in the House and 5 in the Senate, some of which receive the classified background on the designated persons. I want to thank Foreign Affairs Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, Judiciary Chairman Goodlatte, and Ranking Member Conyers for moving this bipartisan bill promptly to the floor. H.R. 4985 is an important tool in our fight against high-level narcotics traffickers and deserves our unanimous support. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may to consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Katko), the author of this bill.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Speaker, I just want to echo what my good friend from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) has stated. As a former prosecutor, and Mr. Katko, who was a former prosecutor, and my good friend from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline), who was a mayor and had jurisdiction over law enforcement agencies, we all know what the importance of this legislation is. I want to thank the authors of this. I want to thank the staff members who worked on this. This is going to improve the lives of not only Americans, but people around the world. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARINO

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding and for his leadership in committee and today on this important bipartisan piece of legislation. I also would like to thank my colleague, Congressman Pierluisi, for his stalwart support and work on this bipartisan bill. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee is correct in recognizing that Federal law often fails to keep up with lawbreakers. As a former U.S. attorney, I am acutely aware of the ways criminal organizations adapt their practices to skirt Federal law and harm American citizens. This bill directly responds to one scenario that has played out time and again in our Federal courts. I would like to start by making a key point about the purpose of this bill and the type of organizations it targets. Our focus through this bill is the leaders of sophisticated, often multinational drug- trafficking organizations with expansive networks of distribution internationally. This includes source nation manufacturers primarily in South and Central America. They are a significant source, if not the largest source, of deadly drugs on the streets and in homes across America. It also includes the leaders of large ``middleman'' wholesale trafficking and distribution organizations. I want to stress that the bill does not target petty dealers or low- level smugglers in the final chain to the narcotics' final destination. Instead, the focus is on higher levels of the drug-trafficking chain beyond our borders. These are the decisionmakers who have twisted our law for their own profit. Federal law requires prosecutors to prove that defendant manufacturers and traffickers knew the narcotics were destined for the U.S. Under their direction, drugs are manufactured and packaged for illegal wholesale distribution in these countries outside of the U.S. In many instances, the final destination is the United States. But these individuals can hide their knowledge or insert additional middlemen to potentially evade prosecution. One recent case in the D.C. Federal district court perfectly depicts this problem. On trial were two Guatemalan nationals, leaders of an organization that received tons of cocaine over 13 years from manufacturers in Colombia and Venezuela. They built runways and warehouses to store and receive such massive quantities of narcotics. They then distributed the drugs to additional middlemen in Mexico. It was known that these drugs reached the U.S. But the defendants claimed that, once they passed them on, they had no knowledge of its ultimate destination. At trial, this was their only defense. Currently, the law allows them to claim ignorance and simply put the blame on those who do their bidding. My district and many of my colleagues' districts face a growing heroin epidemic. Our efforts this week to counter this crisis are crucial to stopping it. My final point. This bill is about dismantling international drug- trafficking organizations. It is about bringing to justice the source nation manufacturers and middlemen wholesalers behind the flow of deadly narcotics across our borders, nothing else. I urge my colleagues to support the bill so we can make that happen today.

Mr. MARINO

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of my constituent Merle Lewis, recognizing the celebration of his 90th birthday on April 8th. An upstanding resident of Pennsylvania, Merle resides in Glenburn Township with his wife Hilda. Merle and Hilda have been happily married for over 50 years. Merle has led a successful life as a dairy farmer and is a committed advocate for the agriculture community. Merle serves as a Director of the Wyoming-Lackawanna Farm Bureau as well as a SafeMark dealer for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. He is the former Director of the Lackawanna County Dairy Herd Improvement Association. Along with his many responsibilities to the Farm Bureau, Merle is a member of the Oriental Grange in Lake Winola and a past member of the Green Grove Grange in Scott Township. I want to wish Merle a very happy 90th birthday and thank him for his service to all of the farmers in Pennsylvania.

Mr. MARINO

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to rare diseases as we recognize ``Rare Disease Week.'' A ``rare disease,'' also referred to as an orphan disease, is any disease that affects a small percentage of the population. The National Institute of Health defines a rare disease as one that affects less than 200,000 people in the United States. The impact of rare diseases is certainly not small; there are over 7,000 rare diseases that affect 30 million people, or 10% of the United States population. As the father of someone who suffers from Cystic Fibrosis, a rare disease affecting only 30,000 people in the United States, I know the difficulty of living with a rare disease and the financial burdens of care and treatment for families. Cystic Fibrosis requires specialized care that can cost upwards of $15,000 a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a lifetime. I have done everything I can to make sure that my daughter receives the highest quality care as she continues her fight against Cystic Fibrosis. Thanks to advancements in medicine, the average life expectancy of someone who suffers from Cystic Fibrosis is now 37. This is much different than 50 years ago when a child diagnosed with the disease would be lucky to live to their teens. Every year we recognize rare disease week as a way to raise awareness and to stress the importance of funding rare disease research. It is my hope one day we can make rare, incurable diseases a thing of the past.

Mr. MARINO

Mr. MARINO. I thank Chairman Goodlatte for bringing this legislation to the floor, and I thank Mr. Conyers for supporting this as well. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Eric Williams Correctional Officer Protection Act. I was not fortunate enough to know Eric Williams while he lived, but, as I have met and worked with his parents, his coworkers and friends, I have come to grasp the depth of his loss to them all. As the chairman stated before me, on the night he was brutally murdered, Eric was alone and outnumbered, over 100 to 1, in a high- security Federal penitentiary. USP Canaan, where Eric was murdered, is one of three such high- security institutions in my congressional district. And I might add that Congressman Goodlatte and I toured the facilities at Lewisburg and at Allenwood several months ago and saw firsthand what takes place there. In each of them, corrections officers and other prison staff are constantly outnumbered while they work among the most violent criminals in the Federal prison system. Until the BOP implemented its OC spray pilot program, each of these correctional officers was also completely unarmed. Inmates, on the other hand, constantly find ingenious ways to fabricate weapons for use against BOP employees and other inmates. But, as I have visited and met with corrections officers at USP Canaan, FCC Allenwood, and USP Lewisburg, I have heard firsthand accounts why OC spray is a necessary tool for their job. It is a sign of why this proven pilot program must be permanently authorized. I want to thank Chairman Goodlatte for his support and assistance on this critical piece of legislation, and my colleagues sitting with me here today and on the other side of the aisle. Over many months now, he and the staff have worked with mine to ensure that we bring this to the floor. I also want to thank my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey, for his efforts to push the bill through the Senate. While straightforward and short, the bill means life and/or death for corrections officers and BOP employees across the Nation. The loss of Eric Williams and two other Federal corrections officers in recent years is tragic and absolutely preventable. Tomorrow, February 25, marks 3 years since Eric's death. To honor his service and his memory, I urge my colleagues to do right for those who protect us and support this bill.

Mr. MARINO

Mr. MARINO. I thank the chairman. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my bill to reauthorize commercial traffic along Route 209 through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. For nearly 5 months now, uncertainty has reigned over this 21-mile stretch of road that is running through my district. Over 30 years ago, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania--as the chairman so eloquently stated--transferred Route 209, then a State road, to the National Park Service. As commercial thru traffic is banned on roads within our national parks, it would also be so on this stretch of Route 209; but, at that time, a 10-year exemption was made to support the local freight transportation industry and because acceptable alternative routes were unavailable. After multiple extensions, the most recent commercial vehicle authorization expired at the end of September of 2015. To address the problem, county and township officials from the surrounding areas met with the National Park Service and my staff to negotiate a new plan. They recognized the continued need to allow some commercial vehicle access, and they settled on the carefully crafted language we are considering today. The work to produce this extension acknowledges the continued need of employers, businesses, and homeowners I represent in Pike and Monroe Counties. The expiration in September cast a cloud on the local business community and put countless jobs in jeopardy. Passing this bill so that it can be swiftly considered by the Senate is imperative as the weather warms and business activity increases through the region. I thank Chairman Bishop for his support and assistance in bringing this bill to the floor as quickly as possible. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. MARINO

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the FACT Act. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, I have examined this piece of legislation for over the past year. We held hearings on the bill and solicited views from experts and victims alike. I heard many of the same concerns that we are hearing this morning. However, my own conclusion is that the FACT Act is a sound and necessary bill. By preventing fraudulent claims, the FACT Act protects asbestos victims and ensures the viability of the asbestos bankruptcy trust for the unknown victims yet to come. Claims that the bill hurts the victims are false. To the contrary, it would be a disservice to the victims themselves to permit certain bad actors to raid the trust funds and line their pockets in the process. As companies that used asbestos filed bankruptcy, the trust funds were created in recognition that victims must be compensated. Any measure that preserves these funds is clearly pro-victim. Some critics contend that the bill violates victim privacy by requiring the disclosure of certain information. We examined this specific issue during our hearings, and it could not be farther from the truth. This bill provides protections that are absent in State tort cases where court dockets and the personal information of plaintiffs are part of the public record. Section 2 of the FACT Act simply requires the claimant's name and a description of their exposure history. It then explicitly states that any disclosure does not include any confidential medical records or the claimant's Social Security number. It is important to note what might be missed here. The FACT Act amends the Bankruptcy Code. By doing this, it incorporates the existing privacy protections therein that permit the bankruptcy judge to issue protective orders when disclosure of information would create ``an undue risk of identity theft or other unlawful injury.'' This is a sound and pertinent piece of legislation. I would like to thank Chairman Goodlatte and my colleague from Texas (Mr. Farenthold) for bringing it to the floor. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. MARINO

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I have some information I would like to bring to the attention of the Members. It is a document from Investor's Business Daily. It is a very simple statement, but it is a very large fact: If we had a Reagan-paced job recovery, we would today have at least 12 million more Americans working. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, on multiple occasions before, I have discussed the overwhelming burden of the regulatory state on American workers and employers. For the past year, it has been my primary objective, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, to bring to light these burdens and their true costs on the lives of all Americans. The burden of Federal regulations already amounts to 21 percent of the average company's payroll. How can employers plan for the future when the specter of new regulations, meaning additional costs, hangs over their planning? The regulatory process itself and some current government practices make this more difficult. These bills are critical as we work to improve the regulatory process and to prevent misguided and damaging regulatory overreach. These pieces of legislation grant clarity and transparency to the regulatory process. I spent the first part of my life working my way up the chain in manufacturing. I worked in a factory. When I became a manager, I saw the complex considerations that went into hiring, expansion, and whether we could keep the lights on. We did not have a crystal ball to help us there. We had to look at our revenues and at our costs and make assumptions for the future. And, yes, current and future regulations played a role there, too. That was over 30 years ago. Now the regulatory state and the burdens on business operators and on those who try to go into business have grown by frightening magnitudes. This bill's sue and settle legislation will ensure that regulators and outside groups can no longer conspire to change or to implement regulations in secret or through judicial decree. The transparency provisions of the ALERT Act reinforce these measures by mandating more frequent and detailed disclosures that will allow businesses to anticipate the hurdles they will face down the road. To those Members who introduced these pieces of legislation, I thank them for their attention and effort in lessening the regulatory burdens on all Americans. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. MARINO. I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), a member of the Judiciary Committee and chairman of the Small Business Subcommittee.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I rise as the designee of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), and I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), a member of the Judiciary Committee

Mr. MARINO. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim that this bill will make it too hard for Washington bureaucrats to regulate and too cumbersome for Washington agencies to tell the American people what the agencies are up to. You might say they are claiming that this bill creates so much sunshine on our new regulations that Washington's regulators will get sunburned if the bill is enacted. In the Obama administration's pen and phone era of encroaching on Americans' liberties, that much new sunshine is a good thing. In the Obama administration's era of regulatory dictates that crush new jobs and prevent higher wages, the new sunshine is desperately needed. A central reason why the Obama administration has failed to deliver prosperity and security to our Nation is the administration's unprecedented avalanche of new and costly regulations. This regulatory onslaught is the big reason why we have just concluded 8 years of zero real wage growth for America's workers and families. It is a critical reason why 94 million Americans above the age of 16 are out of the workforce. It is an unmistakable reason why we are still missing the almost 6 million more new jobs Americans would have had if the so- called Obama recovery had just been as strong as the average recovery since World War II. This bill combats the Obama administration's regulatory assault on jobs and wages with commonsense measures we all should support. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this bill to help deliver new jobs and better wages to America's workers and families. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I offer this amendment with my colleague, Chairman Chaffetz, as a manager's amendment to the bill. The amendment makes a small number of revisions in the nature of technical and conforming changes to clarify revisions that state deadlines, reformat section nomenclature and headings, and improve typography or grammar. The amendment constitutes an agreement reached between the Committee on the Judiciary and the other committee of jurisdiction, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I share the gentleman's concerns about the impact of regulations on jobs, but I submit that the right way to address that concern is to join me in supporting the bill. The bill includes transparency requirements sure to increase public pressure on agencies to make sure that contemplated new regulations do not have unnecessary, adverse impacts on job creation. To exempt regulations from that pressure would make our regulatory system less protective of jobs, not more. Indeed, the gentleman's amendment would give the executive branch a powerful incentive to manipulate its jobs impact and cost-benefit analyses to give false impressions that avoid the requirements of the bill. The amendment also puts the cart before the horse. It offers carve- outs from the bill based on factors that cannot be determined adequately before important analytical requirements in existing statutes and executive orders governing the rulemaking process are applied in the first place. Specific provisions in the bill--for example, judicial review provisions in title I for proposed consent decrees and settlement agreements--are designed to protect the proper application of those analytical requirements. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, the arguments on both sides have been creative, at the very least, but I would like to bring to everyone's attention an article by the National Association of Manufacturers, which is in very simple figures. This is a survey of manufacturers: ``What would you do with funds currently allocated to Federal regulatory compliance?'' Sixty-three percent said they would invest. 22 percent said they would invest in employee initiatives, creating jobs. I ask my colleagues to oppose the gentleman's amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. MARINO. Mr. Chairman, as Federal regulatory agencies attempt to pile more and more regulatory burdens on America's struggling workers, families, and small businesses, the least we can ask is that they be transparent about it. What could be more transparent than requiring them on a monthly basis, online, to update the public with realtime information about what new regulations are coming and how much they will cost? Once they have that information, affected individuals and job creators will be able to plan and budget meaningfully for new costs they may have to absorb. If they are denied that information, they will only be blindsided. That is not fair. Title II of the bill makes sure this information is provided to the public. To provide a strong incentive to agencies to honor its requirements, title II prohibits new regulations from becoming effective unless agencies provide transparent information online for 6 months preceding the regulation's issuance. The amendment seeks to eliminate that incentive. Without an incentive like that in existing law, what have we seen from the Obama administration? Repeated failures to make disclosures required by statute and executive order, including the administration's year-long hiding of the ball on new regulations during the 2012 election cycle. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARINO. I welcome the gentleman's belief that new regulations can actually create benefits. I also share the gentleman's interest in ensuring that the public ultimately knows what those benefits are. The bill, however, does nothing to restrict or prevent the publication of information about the benefits of new rules. It is intended to address what has been lacking in administration publications about new rules: accurate, real-time information about the true nature, timing, and cost of new rules. That information is essential to those who must bear the burden of the rules so that they can plan, hire, and budget consistent with impending new legal requirements. Furthermore, the gentleman's amendment would needlessly expose new regulations to the bill's enforcement provisions, delaying promulgation of beneficial rules simply because pre-promulgation statements and expected benefits were lacking. Mr. Chairman, I constantly spend time in my district in factories because I came from manufacturing, talking to small-business people, and the number one issue concerning their livelihoods and others is overregulation crushing jobs for middle class Americans. As a result, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.