Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4348, the second Surface Transportation Extension Act that we have considered this year. It has become eminently clear that the Republicans in the House cannot get consensus among themselves on a long-term transportation bill. They can't get consensus on a short-term transportation bill. They can barely pass this 90-day extension. The only way to get it through is to yet again add the Keystone pipeline and other anti- environmental measures. The Republican leadership keeps playing the same cards over and over, but nobody is playing this game anymore. The Senate has moved on. The Senate passed a bipartisan bill. We should do the same. The purpose of this extension is to serve as a vehicle to formally go to conference with the Senate. I must confess that I might be inclined to vote for it on that basis. If it passes, the House position in conference will essentially be an extension of current law, putting the policy reforms in the Senate bill on a stronger footing; but I fear that this is really just a delaying tactic and a smokescreen. For a year and a half, the House Republicans have stubbornly refused to work with Democrats to develop a bipartisan bill, completely upending the historical traditions of our committee. This is despite the fact that there are plenty of individual Republican Members who are willing to work with us on certain issues. When H.R. 7, the original Republican long-term reauthorization bill, was introduced, several Republican Members joined me on an amendment to preserve the transit funding that would have been gutted in H.R. 7. That was probably one of the reasons that H.R. 7 was ultimately pulled before it could get to the floor. So there are clearly Members on the other side of the aisle who would work with us to develop a bipartisan bill, but the Republican leadership stubbornly refuses to let that happen. Why should we expect anything different in conference? The Republican leadership could also just bring up the Senate bill, but they won't even allow a vote. Why? What are they afraid of? Because they know it would pass. And what would be wrong with that? The Senate bill isn't perfect, but it's a bipartisan compromise measure that would put people to work right away and provide more certainty to the transportation agencies than a stream of short-term extensions. We could resolve this situation right now, but they continue to block legislation that would likely pass both Chambers, on a bipartisan basis, and be signed into law by the President. I hope that my concerns about the intent of the other side turn out to be unwarranted. I hope that if this extension passes, that it will ultimately move the process along in a positive manner and that we will have a meaningful conference that produces a good, bipartisan bill. Passing an extension is certainly better than passing H.R. 7, but given what has transpired so far, and given the addition of the Keystone pipeline and other anti-environmental measures, I must reluctantly vote ``no.'' The Keystone pipeline would cut through the United States to allow Canada to deliver up to 900,000 barrels per day of tar sand oil to gulf coast refineries. Tar sand oil extraction is destructive and dangerous. Producing one barrel of tar sand oil releases at least three times more global warming pollutants than conventional oil. If we allow this expansion to occur, it will be virtually impossible to reduce global warming. That's why the Keystone pipeline has rightfully been called a ``game-changer.'' And there is no guarantee that any of the oil extracted would be delivered to U.S. consumers. We cannot allow such a gigantic and irreversible step backward in the fight against global warming. But these objections are not the administration's. The administration simply wants to be able to complete the normal environmental review of the Keystone pipeline provided by law to decide whether to approve it or not. But this legislation mandates approval regardless of the law. It supersedes the normal process. This makes it impossible to vote for this legislation.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the Republican budget. Once again, the Republicans move a slash-and-burn budget that would turn Medicare into a private voucher system and force seniors to spend more than $6,000 out of pocket every additional year. It would gut Medicaid, education programs, medical research, and transportation among other things. You name it, they devastate it. First, the Republican budget calls for a staggering $10 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations over 10 years. It would pay for it by closing unspecified tax loopholes, but this is a fraud. For loophole closing of this magnitude, the Republicans would have to get rid of all the tax breaks the middle class depends on, loopholes like the mortgage interest deduction, the tax exclusion for employer- sponsored health insurance, and charitable donations. This won't happen, which is why the Republicans won't name any of their loophole closings. The Republican budget then proposes $5.3 trillion in non-defense discretionary spending cuts, beyond what was agreed to in last year's debt ceiling, $1.2 trillion beyond. It would slash $860 billion from Medicare and all to pay for tax cuts because it wouldn't balance the budget until 2040, because these cuts are to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthy. For shame. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to the Republican budget for FY13 as offered by Mr. Ryan. Last year, the Republicans moved a slash-and-burn budget proposal that would have eliminated Medicare and substituted for it a private voucher system, and would have implemented devastating cuts to Medicaid, education programs, medical research, and transportation, among other things You name it, they wanted to devastate it. Now we turn to this year's Republican budget proposal and, as one famous New Yorker would say: It's deja vu all over again. First, the Republican budget calls for a staggering $10 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations over ten years. They claim to pay for this giveaway by closing unspecified tax loopholes. But this is a fraud. For loophole closing of this magnitude, the Republicans would have to get rid of all the tax breaks the middle class depends on--``loopholes'' like the mortgage interest deduction, tax exclusions for employer-sponsored health insurance, and charitable donations. This won't happen--which is why the Republicans won't name any of their ``loophole-closings.'' So this would make the budget deficit $10 trillion larger--which is why they do not anticipate balancing the budget until 2040. But they make devastating spending cuts--not to balance the budget, but to pay for their tax cuts for the wealthy. What priorities! The Republican budget seeks even deeper spending cuts than last year's proposal. It proposes $5.3 trillion in non-defense discretionary spending cuts--$1.2 trillion (22 percent) beyond the cuts agreed to in last year's Debt Ceiling deal. More than 60 percent of these cuts would come on the backs of middle- and low-income families. For example, the Republican budget would slash $860 billion (34 percent) from the Medicaid program while turning it into an unguaranteed block grant. These severe cuts would shift the cost burden to the states, who would have to decide between investing even more of their own money, cutting benefits, shifting the cost onto beneficiaries, doctors, and hospitals, throwing people out of the program, or all of these. The Urban Institute estimated that the Republican plan would result in between 14 and 27 million people being dropped from Medicaid by 2021. Additionally, the Ryan budget would reduce food stamps by $134 billion, knocking 8 to 10 million people from the program and leaving them to go hungry. WIC, which provides nutritional assistance to women and children, would also be cut, taking food out of the mouths of 700,000 pregnant women, new moms and their kids. Over the next decade, nearly two million women and children would be left without access to critical food. What kind of cruel and heartless country do the Republicans want us to live in? Seniors on Medicare don't fare much better. First, Republicans would raise the eligibility age to 67, leaving seniors aged 65 and 66 out in the cold. They would force seniors to go it alone in negotiating with private insurance companies for coverage. Seniors would receive vouchers to offset the cost of private insurance--vouchers whose value would increase much more slowly than the cost of buying medical insurance. CB0 estimates that within ten years seniors would have to pay $6,000 more out of pocket for medical care annually. All this, mind you, while promising to do away with all of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act, like medical ratio requirements, which actually help to stem the cost of private insurance. Don't look to the Republican plan for investments in infrastructure, medical research, or education--primary or collegiate, for students or for teachers--because they are not there. And the Republican budget would greatly increase unemployment. According to the Economic Policy Institute, Republican spending cuts would result in the loss of 1.3 million jobs next year and an additional 2.8 million jobs the year after that. That's 4.1 million jobs lost in just two years, thereby eviscerating all the jobs added to the economy in the last 23 months and then some. Mr. Chair, the sheer gravity of the cuts proposed by the Republican budget is staggering and disastrous. While no budget is perfect, any of the Democratic proposals under consideration today is head and shoulders better for America, and for Americans, than the Ryan Budget Against America: Part Two. While we may disagree on how to continue to support and grow our economy, let's stop using the working poor, the middle-class, women, kids, and seniors as pawns. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Ryan budget.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Motion to Concur with the Senate Amendment to H.R. 3606, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups, JOBS, Act. Many of us agree with the general principle that we should modernize the financial system to help small businesses raise capital, attract investors, and contribute to our economic recovery. However, this must be done in a balanced way that also protects those investors and the public interest. I had hoped that the Senate would have an opportunity to bolster the bill with key consumer- and investor-rights provisions-- provisions that had no chance of passage in this House. While the Senate certainly strengthened the proposal, the Senate Amendment to H.R. 3606 does not go far enough to ensure that investors will be protected from unscrupulous actors. Since the bill was introduced, numerous experts and organizations, including the current and former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Americans for Financial Reform, AARP, and the Consumer Federation of America, have raised significant concerns about this legislation. According to the New York Times, many fear the bill will allow companies to raise money without having to follow rules on disclosure, accounting, auditing and other regulatory mainstays. The deregulation measures in this bill could actually raise the cost of capital by harming investors and impairing markets, making it harder for legitimate companies to thrive. In addition, the bill will allow certain companies to ignore, for the first five years that they are public, certain regulations, such as the requirement to hire an independent outside auditor to attest to a company's internal financial controls. Also, recent experience clearly shows that arguments that the market will have sufficient incentive to police itself have led to disaster in the recent past and cannot be relied upon in the future. We should have all learned a lesson when it comes to hasty deregulation of financial markets. Even if there is a short term gain to be had, the long term consequences can be quite costly. In light of the fact that the Senate has not been able to add adequate consumer and investor protections, and the growing information about the potential long-term harm of these provisions, I must vote ``No.''

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in opposition to this deeply flawed and deceptively named legislation. Contrary to the bill's title, this bill will not promote access to better health care nor will it make health care more affordable. If the wishes of many of the proponents of this legislation come true and the Affordable Care Act is repealed and Medicare and Medicaid as we know them are curtailed or eliminated, then decent, affordable health care will remain out of reach for millions of Americans, including many who now have access to health care services. I urge all Members to keep one fact in mind as we debate the medical malpractice aspects of this bill. These provisions would apply only to people who had meritorious claims of malpractice against them. You don't have to limit people's recoveries or attorneys fees for people without meritorious claims. So whatever we're doing here today will be done only to those who have been injured, whose injuries have been inflicted by someone else's wrongdoing, and who need and should be entitled to compensation. The argument we hear, which is not a new one, is that if we allow the players in the health care industry, including Big Pharma, the manufacturers of defective medical devices, and even big insurance companies and HMOs that routinely pay for health care services, to escape the consequences of the harm they inflict, then somehow we'll all be better off. This is not true, has never been true, and, despite the extravagant claims of the proponents of this bill and the industries lobbying for it, that will not be true if this multibillion dollar gift to bad actors in the health care industry were to become law. Just how pricey a gift to industry are we talking about here? According to the Congressional Budget Office, $45.5 billion over the next decade. Now, anyone who believes that those savings will be passed along directly to consumers, health care providers, and victims of medical malpractice is living in a dream world. Some of us will remember the debates we had in this House for the 8 years preceding enactment of the 2005 Bankruptcy Code rewrite. We will no doubt remember the argument that abuse of the bankruptcy system was a hidden tax of $400 a year for every American and that tightening the rules would be of interest to all consumers. Well, we passed that huge giveaway to the big banks. Consumers have not seen a nickel of that $400. The banks pocketed all the money. If you think that this bill will lower costs for consumers, that the big insurance companies will not simply pocket the money, there's a famous bridge in my district that I might be willing to sell to you. So keep in mind just who will be bearing the burden of this legislation: people who are subject to limitations on damages and on their ability to obtain competent counsel--something not imposed on insurance companies, drug companies, or HMOs. That may be good for the insurance companies, for the manufacturers of defective drugs and medical devices and all the other wrongdoers walking these Halls with open checkbooks, but it will come at the expense of their victims. Nowhere does CBO, or their sponsors, explain why their belief that insurance companies, Big Pharma and medical device manufacturers will pass any savings along, nor do they account for the cost of the care needed by people who have been injured and who will be unable to receive adequate compensation. This bill is not limited to suits against individual health care service providers, doctors and other licensed health care professionals. It would provide protection against malpractice claims for large corporations, insurance companies, health maintenance organizations, and pharmaceutical giants when they deal in defective products or when someone else's health is destroyed because an insurance company refused to pay for necessary care. Mr. Chairman, we heard the gentleman from California refer to the California legislation that is the model for this legislation passed in 1976, 36 years ago. That legislation enacted a limit and said for noneconomic damages you can only get a recovery of $250,000 because you lost a leg when they removed the wrong leg. They felt in 1976 that $250,000 was an appropriate amount to limit it to. In today's dollars, that's $38,000. But there's no inflator in that legislation, and there's no inflator in this legislation. That $250,000 in 1976 today is $1.4 million. So if we were modeling this on that, we should say the limit is $1.4 million, but we're not doing that. We're saying 250, and we're not putting an inflation adjustment in here, so it will be $250,000 this year, and 5 years from now it will be the equivalent of $100,000, and 10 years from now $35,000 and eventually zero. I submit that it is very wrong. It may be that if malpractice causes a woman to lose her fertility, causes her to lose the ability to bear children, the medical costs to her may be minor, the lost wages, the economic damages may be minor. But the inability to bear a child should be limited to $250,000 and eventually to almost nothing because there's no inflation in this? If someone is put in a wheelchair for life, the pain and suffering is worth almost nothing? That's what is wrong with this legislation, and that's what's immoral about this legislation. That's why we ought to vote against this legislation.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I thank her for her excellent exposition as to the law and the constitutionality, with which I am in full agreement. As we all know, the administration recently announced that a popular and critically important component of the health care reform law would guarantee that most women have access to contraceptives paid for by their health insurance. This decision was based on the sound science of the impartial and independent Institute of Medicine, which recognized that contraceptives are an essential health service fundamental to improving the lives of women and their families. This decision is a major victory for women. Eighty-nine percent of American women, including a similar percentage of Catholic women, use contraceptives at some point in their lives. Particularly at this time of economic uncertainty, women will have one less cost to worry about that can be a substantial cost. Make no mistake about it, freeing up $600 or $800 a year will have significant effects on working families. The decision also recognizes and supports religious freedom by providing certain limited exemptions for places of worship, as well as for those organization that hire and predominantly care for those who share the same religious beliefs. They were protected against being required to violate their religious teachings. I am proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with President Obama and his administration for helping to strike this important balance between religious rights and the rights of women to protect their health. Yet to hear some people talk about this decision, you'd have no idea that the religious organizations and the religiously devout have their liberties protected. Amid all the hyperbole, the truth is that the administration's decision, while significant and important, is hardly new. This measured approach that balances religious rights on the one hand and the rights of women on the other is already the standard in 28 States, including my home State of New York. Because it is not just employers and corporations that have rights at stake, hardworking people and their families also have rights. Under the approach adopted by the administration, universities and hospitals which serve and employ people from a multitude of faiths and cultures are not exempt from the requirement that health insurance provide coverage for contraceptives, nor should they be. Women should not be denied a basic health service merely because they work or study at a university or hospital affiliated with a religious organization. The difference here is that churches are and should be protected in their religious role, protected against having to violate their religious views, but they must not be protected in their role as employers. We permit a church, for example, to discriminate in religious practice. No one asks the Catholic Church how come you do not permit women priests? That's their business. But we do not permit them to discriminate as employers. We do not permit a church-affiliated hospital or university to say we will not permit the hiring of female doctors or female professors or black doctors or nurses because that would impinge on liberty. If a church has a doctrine against hiring female priests, that's fine. But hiring female professors in the university, unless it was a solely ecclesiastical university, only for religious purposes, if it is a regular university, then they cannot be permitted to have that kind of discrimination. We protect religious liberty, but we cannot permit a church to impose its views on others who may not share those views. The church can preach its views, it can seek to persuade people, but it cannot coerce people who may work for a church-affiliated university or hospital that they cannot use contraceptives if they want to. The liberty here is the liberty of the employee that must be protected. The liberty of the church must be protected in its churchly function and in its function as a religious institution. In its function as an employer, the liberty belongs to the employees. And that is the distinction that is made here. It is the proper distinction. Imagine if some other church that thinks that it is wrong to give transfusions to people, blood transfusions, ran a hospital. We would not permit them to let people die in that hospital for lack of transfusions because it's not up to them to decide medical practice by their religious doctrine. If the person wants to refuse treatment because his religious doctrine says, I don't want a transfusion, that's his liberty. But we must not confuse the religious liberty of the church to propagate its views and to conduct its religious affairs as it sees fit with the liberty of employees in a secular institution affiliated with the church to have the normal protections against discrimination and the normal rights that we afford all people. That is why the administration's decision to say that contraceptives are scientifically a necessary health care service which must be provided by health insurance is right, and any attempt by a religious institution to say that they should be exempt from having employees allowed to get contraceptives paid for is wrong, and I applaud the administration for making the proper distinction to protect the liberty of the employees and the religious liberty of the church both. I yield to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill to repeal the CLASS Act. Last year, we watched as Republicans implemented a slash-and-burn offensive against almost every and any Federal program that helps people. No matter that the program helps women or children or seniors or sick people; let's get rid of it. Apparently, this year is no different. With this bill, Republicans have set their eyes on the CLASS Act, which when implemented, will help provide some relief to aging Americans as well as to those who love and care for them. The CLASS program was designed to combat the rapidly increasing cost of long-term care, costs that currently account for nearly half of all health care spending in this country, by helping enrollees in this program to afford a variety of long-term care services, such as home modifications, assistive technology, accessible transportation, respite care, home health care aids and nursing support. Currently, long-term care facilities cost on average $70,000 per year, and home health care aides can cost $25 per hour in some areas. How many middle class families can afford that? I understand the concerns that my Republican colleagues have voiced. As currently structured, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the program will not be solvent beyond about 2029, about 20 years from now. But what is the Republicans' knee-jerk solution to all budget issues? To trash a program, a necessary program, that will provide much-needed support for seniors today and in the future. This is completely wrong-headed. We should not destroy this program and ignore the problem. People will still grow older, hopefully, and they will need assisted living, they will need home health care, and they will need accessible transportation. At some point, we are going to have to face this issue. The current situation, where Medicaid will pay for this but only after the family has impoverished itself and eliminated all their assets, it's not a long-term solution, it's not a tolerable solution. Why should middle class families who have worked all their lives have to impoverish themselves if an elderly relative needs home health care or assisted living or a nursing home? Our job here is to make people's lives better, to identify problems and to find solutions. We have certainly identified a problem. There is simply no denying that only the wealthiest among us can possibly afford to pay $70,000 a year for a nursing home. So let's do our jobs. Let's roll up our sleeves and work to make this program better. Let's work to make it solvent, not simply eliminate it. Let's not simply abandon middle class Americans who are scared to death that after working their entire lives and playing by the rules, they will have to bankrupt their children and grandchildren just to have any sense of dignity as they grow older. This is not the American Dream. We don't want to tell our old people, get lost, get out of sight, go into the poorhouses and the almshouses we had before Social Security. We don't want to tell our seniors, you can't have the health care, the home assisted living, the home health care aides that you need. We don't want to tell our families that you must impoverish yourselves, sell off all your assets because your mother or your grandmother is sick or can no longer live independently. This is why we have government, to solve problems for all of us that we cannot solve for ourselves individually. That is the reason for government, to provide for the common welfare, as the Constitution says. We know we have this problem. We know as the population ages the problem is going to get worse and more intense, not better. We know the problem is not going to go away. So let's deal with it. After many, many years, Congress in the Affordable Care Act finally passed the CLASS Act program to start dealing with this. There are problems with it. Yes, the financing that was brought into that program is only sufficient for about 20 years. That gives us only 20 years to fix the program. Now, the sooner we fix it, the sooner we amend the financing, the easier it will be to do it. The longer we wait, the harder. So what do the Republicans want to do? Kill the whole program, put our heads in the sand, ignore the problem, and to heck with the senior citizens and to heck with their children who worry about how they're going to have their parents live their last years in dignity. That is not the American Dream. It is not right. I urge my Republican colleagues to rethink this. Withdraw this bill. This program is not being implemented immediately. Figure out how to finance it better. Figure out how to deal with this problem. Don't simply say let's ignore the problem and to hell with our senior citizens. That is not the American Dream. We simply must do better. We've made a start. Let us continue that start. Let us build on it. Let us not destroy the beginnings that we have made. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I will reserve until it is time to close.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, we are told, and this seems to be one of the principle issues in the debate today, that this bill, with reference to the detention and security provisions, merely codifies existing law. Some of us say no, it doesn't codify existing law; it codifies claims of power by the last two administrations that have not been confirmed by the courts--by some courts, but not by the Supreme Court. Rather terrifying claims of power, claims of the right to put Americans in jail indefinitely without a trial even in the United States. Now, I can cite specifics here. The text, for example, says very specifically that Congress affirms the authority of the President, includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons pending disposition under the law of war, and then expands the definition of covered persons to people not implicated or supporting or harboring people implicated in 9/11 for the first time. And then we have a provision that says nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the authorization for use of military force. Well, that directly contradicts what I just read, which is a very specific provision. And since the rules of statutory construction always say that the specific controls the general, this provision, frankly, insofar as it contradicts the first, is meaningless. It provides no protection whatsoever. The same is true of the Feinstein amendment, for similar reasons. Now, we have disagreement we heard on the floor today, but that reflects the disagreement in the country at large. We have many law enforcement people, many legal scholars disagree on what this language means. The President's chief counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan, said that the bill mandates military custody for a certain class of terrorism suspects, and since it would apply to individuals inside the U.S.--which we have heard denied on the floor but the President's counterterrorism advisor thinks it does--it would be inconsistent with the fundamental principle that our military does not patrol our streets. And we have many generals, including a former Commandant of the Marine Corps, saying that this is a terrible expansion and change of existing law. Now the fact of whether it simply codifies existing law or further restricts our liberties in unprecedented ways is unclear. That my friends here can say it only codifies existing law, and I can say and all of these other people--experts, legal experts, military people, counterterrorism experts--can say it goes way beyond existing law, shows why it is dangerous to have this kind of provision affecting fundamental rights and civil liberties in a defense authorization bill which is admirable in many other ways. The Armed Services Committee is not the proper place to consider questions of civil liberties and legal rights, and certainly not a conference report. All these questions should have been considered in hearings. The Judiciary Committee in both Houses, frankly, should have held hearings. We should have called in the counterterrorism experts, we should have called in the legal scholars, we should have called in the statutory scholars and asked: What does this provision mean? How should it be changed? Does this provision contradict that provision, and what does it really mean? Does it go beyond existing law, and, if so, how can we change that? In legislation like this, there should be hearings and testimony and proper debate and consideration. Now, we can still fix this. If we defeat this bill now, we can then take this provision out of the bill, and pass the bill without this provision in a couple of days. We are going to be here. There is no reason we shouldn't do that. And then next year--which is only a couple of weeks away--give proper consideration to these detention provisions if people feel a need to pass them. We should not do such fundamental changes on the fly in a conference report with one hour of debate, no proper committee consideration, no public hearings, and considerable disagreement among scholars and judges and counterterrorism experts and military experts as to what this language means and what it does. The true answer is that nobody on this floor can be 100 percent certain what this does. And when you are dealing with our fundamental liberties, that should say don't pass it. So I urge my colleagues to defeat the bill. We can then take this out of the bill, take the bill up on the floor again in a couple of days, and that's the safe way to safeguard our liberties and to do what we have to do for our military security. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman from Washington opposed to the conference report?

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the conference report.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. It's been a decade since the attacks of September 11, 2001. We are in danger of losing our most precious heritage, not because a band of thugs threatens our freedom, but because we are at risk of forgetting who we are and what makes the United States a truly great nation. In the last 10 years, we have begun to let go of our freedoms, bit by bit, with each new executive order, court decision and, yes, act of Congress. The changes in this bill to the laws of detention have major implications for our fundamental rights. We should not be considering this as a rider to the Defense authorization bill. This should have been the subject of close scrutiny by the Judiciary Committee. The complex legal and constitutional issues should have been properly analyzed and the implications for our values carefully considered. You will hear that this bill merely recodifies existing law; but many legal scholars tell us that it goes a great deal further than what the law now allows, that it codifies claims of executive power against our liberties that the courts have never confirmed. You will hear that it really won't affect U.S. citizens, although, again, there is credible legal authority that tells us just the opposite. You will hear that it doesn't really turn the military into a domestic police force, but that clearly isn't the case. Most of all, you will hear that we must do this to be safe, when the opposite is true. We can never be safe without our liberties, and this bill continues the decade-long campaign to destroy those liberties. This bill goes far beyond the authorization for the use of military force. That resolution authorized ``all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.'' This bill is not limited to those responsible for the September 11 attacks and those who aided or harbored them. It includes anyone who ``substantially supported'' al Qaeda and the Taliban or ``associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.'' It is not clear what is meant by ``substantially supported'' or what it takes to be ``associated'' with someone who ``substantially supported'' them. It refers to any ``belligerent act'' or someone who has ``directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.'' It doesn't, as does our criminal law, say ``material support,'' so we really don't know whether that support could be merely a speech, or an article, or something else. So let's not pretend that this is just the same as the AUMF. If it were, there would be no need to pass this law; we have it already. Courts, in reading legislation, operate on the very sensible assumption that Congress doesn't write surplus language, that it must have intended to do something. Here it is pretty clear that we are expanding the reach of the AUMF beyond the 9/11 perpetrators and those who aided and harbored them. Whoever it reaches--and we don't know--but whoever it reaches, the government would have the authority to lock them up without trial until ``the end of hostilities,'' which, given how broadly the AUMF has been used to justify actions far from Afghanistan, might mean forever. And who will be taken out of the civilian justice system and imprisoned forever without a trial? The bill says anyone who ``is determined'' to be covered by the statute. It doesn't say determined by whom or what protections there are to ensure that an innocent person doesn't disappear into a military prison. That's not America. We also need to be clear that the so-called ``Feinstein amendment'' does not really provide the protection its sponsor intended to provide. The Feinstein amendment says that ``nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.'' So what are ``existing law and authorities''? As former FBI Director William Sessions has recently written: ``The provision does not limit such detention authority to people captured on the battlefield. The reality is that current law on the scope of such executive authority is unsettled.'' Director Sessions goes on to point out that the two cases where the Supreme Court might have decided the question of detaining a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident, the U.S. claimed that the President had the authority--the administration claimed that the President had the authority to detain a suspected terrorist captured within the United States indefinitely without charge or trial. In both these cases, Padilla and al-Mari, the government changed course and decided to try them in civilian courts in order to avoid a Supreme Court ruling on that question, and that question remains undetermined. So when the Feinstein amendment references ``existing law,'' you should not assume that means that current law clearly deprives the President of this dangerous power. I hope it does, but it is still, legally, an open question. We should ensure that our liberty is protected and not leave that question to some future court, and we should certainly not enact a law codifying--and that's what this law does, it codifies, it puts into law terrifying claims of power made by Presidents but never approved by the courts or, until now, by the Congress. And that's the fundamental reason we should reject this bill. We must take great care. Our liberties are too precious to be cast aside in times of peril and fear. We have the tools to deal with those who would attack us.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. NADLER. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. We do not need to do this. We should not do this. And because of this momentous challenge to one of the founding principles of the United States--that no person may be deprived of his liberty without due process of law--this bill must be rejected. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from Guam (Ms. Bordallo).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be in Washington DC from December 5-8, 2011. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 892; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 893; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 894; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 895; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 896; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 897; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 898; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 899; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 900, the motion to recommit H.R. 10; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 901, final passage of the Regulations in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act (H.R. 10); ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 902; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 903, the rule providing for consideration of the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011 (H.R. 1633); ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 904, the Synthetic Drug Control Act; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 906; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 907; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 908; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 909; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 910; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 911, the motion to recommit H.R. 1633; and ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 912, final passage of the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act (H.R. 1633).

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, the argument for this amendment is very simple. This bill would make it almost impossible--by putting 60 new requirements in the way of agencies to make new rules, would make it almost impossible for rulemaking and, in fact, especially for emergency or safety rulemaking in the event that we perceive the necessity for such a thing. At least for nuclear power plants, the potential for disaster, the potential for killing mass numbers of people, we have seen. We've seen it at Chernobyl. We've seen it at Three Mile Island. We've seen it at Fukushima. At least for that situation, allow the government rulemaking agency to continue to have the power to protect our people. A vote for this amendment is a vote to continue to have the government have the power to protect our people. A vote against this amendment and for this bill is a vote to put the lives of all our people at risk and to prevent the government from protecting the lives of our people, and it would be almost an immoral vote. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. My amendment would exempt rules proposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the new impediments to the regulations in this bill. Mr. Chairman, there they go again. The right-wing Republican House majority is practicing more voodoo economics. This time it's the belief that overregulation is the cause of our slow economic growth and high unemployment rate. There is no evidence to support this position--none. In actuality, according to the Economic Policy Institute, ``economy- wide studies do not find a significant decline in employment from regulatory policies.'' And some regulations actually create jobs due to regulatory compliance. More broadly, findings from the Office of Management and Budget in both Republican and Democratic administrations show the benefits of regulations far outweigh their costs. Most recently, OMB found that the benefits from major rules issued between 2001 and 2010 yielded benefits ranging from $136 billion to $651 billion and imposed costs of between $44 billion and $62 billion. Despite these facts, the right-wing Republican House leadership presses ahead with what it calls regulatory reform. Today's bill, H.R. 3010, in the name of so-called reform, adds over 60 new procedural and analytical hoops agencies and departments must jump through before a regulation can be issued. The result is to impede, obstruct, and delay the attempt of government to accomplish one of its most basics functions--protecting the health and welfare of our people. Not surprisingly, groups who care about protecting public safety, health, and the environment, such as the Natural Resource Defense Council, Public Citizen, Defenders of Wildlife, and U.S. PIRG, oppose this bill. According to the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, which represents a coalition of many such groups, this bill ``will grind to a halt the rulemaking process'' and ``is nothing less than an attempt to roll back critical public safeguards and promote industry interests ahead of protecting American citizens.'' Americans should rightfully be scared that this bill will put their health and safety at risk. One example that highlights this is the subject of this amendment--nuclear power. The risks and dangers of nuclear power were made all the more clear this year. In Japan, we all watched in horror when that country was devastated by a meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. We are now told that over 10 percent of the land of that country will be unusable for decades. Later, Virginia was struck by a relatively rare but strong earthquake felt up and down the eastern seaboard. It caused a nuclear power plant near the epicenter to have to go offline. Because of the catastrophes that can result from disasters, be they natural or manmade, at nuclear power plants, prevention of meltdowns is the key. That's why I'm a cosponsor of H.R. 1242, the Nuclear Power Plant Safety Act of 2011, sponsored by Representative Markey, which is designed to help do that. Among other changes, it would require the NRC to impose rules requiring plants to upgrade to withstand severe events, like earthquakes, and to have enough backup power so as to avoid a meltdown for a significant length of time. The NRC must have the ability and flexibility to impose new regulations quickly to safeguard the health and well-being of Americans. Impeding the Nuclear Regulatory Agency's ability to regulate will not save one job, but it might cost millions of lives in the event of a disaster. Sadly, this bill makes the ability to regulate nuclear power plants all but impossible. For me, this concern hits close to home. A nuclear power plant at Indian Point about which many people, including myself, have had concerns for years lies less than 40 miles from the center of New York City, in my district. There are 20 million people living within a 50- mile radius around the plant, the same radius used by the NRC as the basis for the evacuation recommended after the Fukushima disaster. Indian Point sits near two earthquake fault lines and according to NRC is the most likely nuclear power plant in the country to experience more damage due to an earthquake. To keep my constituents and, indeed, all Americans safe, I'm offering this amendment today. It would exempt the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the onerous new requirements for rulemaking imposed by this bill. With this amendment, the NRC would have the ability to safeguard public health and safety as it should. We must pass this amendment so that rulemaking for nuclear disaster is not impeded. I urge the passage of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.