Bobby Scott

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Senate amendment to H.R. 2076. The House originally passed this bill in September of 2001 by an overwhelming vote. H.R. 2076 gives the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security the specific statutory authority to respond to requests from State and local law enforcement agencies for assistance in investigation of violent acts and shootings occurring in public places and in investigations of mass killings and attempted mass killings. The House-passed version of the bill only applied to the FBI providing assistance. The Senate amended the bill to include all DOJ and Department of Homeland Security law enforcement agencies. Therefore, under the version of the bill before the House today, the Department of Justice's agencies, such as the FBI, DEA, Marshal Service and ATF, would be able to provide assistance, as would the Department of Homeland Security's law enforcement agencies, such as Secret Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, if requested by local and State law enforcement agencies. These Federal agencies do not currently have the specific statutory authority to assist in the investigations of mass killings or attempted mass killings occurring in venues such as schools, colleges, universities, non-Federal office buildings, malls and/or other public places. In particular, while the FBI continues to receive requests for such assistance from State and local law enforcement, and the FBI often does assist in such circumstances, there is presently technically no Federal statute that directly provides jurisdiction to the FBI to respond to such requests. Legislation granting the proposed investigative authority would allow these Federal agencies to provide State and local law enforcement with the assistance, if requested, even when the violent act does not technically violate a Federal law. Unfortunately, due to the tragic shooting and killing of 20 students and six teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, the consideration of this bill is timely. Of course, we should pass the bill today so that the President may sign it into law. But, Madam Speaker, while we must take steps to assist in the investigation of such incidents, it is even more critical that we prevent them from occurring in the first place. Proposals to do that include not only legislation involving gun safety, but also legislation such as the Youth Promise Act, which would provide funding for comprehensive juvenile justice initiatives, or additional funding for the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant, or the Campus Safety Act, which are all pending, as well as increased funding for mental health services and school counselors. We simply must do all we can to protect our citizens, and these proposals must be enacted as soon as possible. But with respect to H.R. 2076, the bill before us today, I want to commend the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Gowdy) for his leadership on this bill and urge my colleagues to support the Senate amendment to H.R. 2076. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Thank you. And I apologize, I was not aware that I had additional speakers. I yield such time as he may consume to the former chair of the Judiciary Committee, the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of the Senate amendment to H.R. 6621 because the measure improves the America Invents Act--the most significant reform to the Patent Act since 1952--that was signed into law by President Obama last year. Earlier this month, the House passed H.R. 6621 by a vote of 308-89. The Senate subsequently passed the legislation with an amendment by unanimous consent. Now that the America Invents Act is law, our focus should be on how it can be improved, which is why I support H.R. 6621, because it accomplishes that very goal in several respects. To begin with, H.R. 6621 clarifies and improves the provisions to help implement the America Invents Act. The bill clarifies provisions dealing with patent term adjustments, derivation proceedings, inventor's oath, and the terms of the Patent Public Advisory Committee. The Senate amendment to this bill makes one change to the House- passed bill by removing the provision requiring the Patent Office to prepare a report on pre-GATT patent applications that have now been pending before the Patent Office for over 18 years. Although this provision has been removed, we must continue to study ways to improve the patent system and make sure that there are not delays to receiving patent protection. The bill clarifies the act's advice of counsel section as it applies to civil actions commenced on or after the date of this legislation's enactment. This is important because the original bill created a new section 298 of title XXXV that prevents the use of evidence of an accused infringer's failure to obtain advice of counsel, or his failure to waive privilege and introduce such opinion, to prove either willfulness or intent to induce infringement. The provision, however, failed to specify when the new authority would go into effect, and it would be unfair to apply the new rule retroactively to pending cases which anticipate using such evidence. In addition, H.R. 6621 makes a series of other technical clarifications to the act. In some, the bill makes necessary constructive technical corrections to the America Invents Act and avoids including any substantive revisions to the act. It is my hope that the Judiciary Committee will continue its oversight of the act into the next Congress and consider ways in which it can be further improved. I urge my colleagues to support the bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Senate amendment to H.R. 6029, the Foreign and Economic Espionage Penalty Enhancement Act of 2012. The House passed this legislation by voice vote in August, and the Senate recently passed a bill with amendment by unanimous consent. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6029 will increase the maximum fines that may be imposed for engaging in the Federal offense of economic espionage. The crime of economic espionage consists of knowingly misappropriating trade secrets with the intent or knowledge that the offense will benefit a foreign government. As reported by the U.S. intellectual property enforcement coordinator, economic espionage is a serious threat to American businesses by foreign governments. Economic espionage represents a significant cost to victim companies and threatens the economic security of the United States. This crime inflicts costs on companies, such as the loss of unique intellectual property, the loss of expenditures related to research and development, and the loss of future revenues and profits. Many companies are unaware when their sensitive data is pilfered, and those that find out are often reluctant to report the losses, fearing potential damage to their reputations with investors, customers, and employees. The pace of the foreign collection of economic information and industrial espionage activities against major United States corporations is accelerating. For example, in fiscal year 2011, the Justice Department and the FBI saw an increase of 29 percent in economic espionage and trade secret theft investigations compared to those in fiscal year 2010. Details related to recent Federal investigations and prosecutions suggest that economic espionage and trade secret theft on behalf of companies located in China is an emerging trend. For example, at least 34 companies were reportedly victimized by a set of attacks originating in China in 2010. In the attacks, computer viruses were spread via emails to corporate employees, allowing the attackers to have access to emails and sensitive documents. Foreign hackers constantly target U.S. companies in such ways in order to get every piece of competitive intelligence information they can. We simply cannot allow this to continue to happen. In response to this growing threat, in her 2011 annual report, the U.S. Intellectual Property Coordinator called upon Congress to increase the penalties for economic espionage, and this bill is consistent with that recommendation. I would like to commend Members on both sides of the aisle for their work on this bill, particularly the gentleman from Texas, the chair of the committee, Mr. Smith; the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers); the incoming chair of the Judiciary Committee, my colleague from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte); and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), who all worked very diligently on this bill. I also want to recognize the leadership of Senator Leahy. I urge my colleagues to support the Senate amendment to H.R. 6029, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to a member of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2012, or Katie's Law, has laudable goals of helping to prevent violent crime, exonerating the innocent, giving our police access to cutting-edge forensic techniques, reducing the cost of criminal investigations, and giving victims of violent crime and their families the answers and closure they deserve. All of this can result from the enhanced DNA collection provided for in this bill. I voted for Katie's Law last Congress, and the goals of Katie's Law are goals that I wholeheartedly support, but unfortunately, right now is not the time to pass the law. This bill would enable the Attorney General to provide grant money to States if they implement a process for DNA testing upon arrest and preservation of the DNA profile. The last time I voted for the bill, or one similar to it, I viewed the collection of arrestee DNA as essentially the same from a constitutional point of view as the collection of fingerprints, which are collected and preserved in a database for arrestees, whether there is a conviction or not. Since then, however, serious questions have been raised about the constitutionality of arrestee DNA collection and the preservation of that information in a database where there has been no subsequent conviction. These constitutional questions are currently before the Supreme Court in Maryland v. King. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in that case in November, and we're taking this bill up now before the Supreme Court has had a chance to hear the case and issue its decision. In just a couple of months, the Supreme Court will have decided the King case, and we'll know whether or not it's constitutional to preserve this data and how the States can collect it from people upon arrest and what to do with that information. With the decision at hand, we can then craft a program that encourages States to implement DNA collecting and testing systems that fully comply with whatever the Supreme Court rules in the King case. Whereas I believe that the Supreme Court will find this proposed bill constitutional, it just makes sense that we wait until the decision is rendered before we pass the bill. For that reason, I will oppose the bill. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the author of the bill, a former prosecutor and valued member of the House Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I think the chairman has the right to close, and I would yield him time if he has any concluding comments. He apparently doesn't have any further comments. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, S. 3642, the Theft of Trade Secrets Clarification Act, will help ensure that American businesses can effectively protect their trade secrets. This legislation passed the Senate by unanimous consent last month, and we are proud to be passing it today. S. 3642 responds to a recent Federal court decision that exposed a gap in Federal law. In April of this year, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Federal statute prohibiting the theft of trade secrets does not apply to computer source code in some circumstances. In the Aleynikov case, the defendant, a computer programmer who worked for Goldman Sachs, electronically copied and remotely stored thousands of lines of source code from the company's internal, high- frequency trading system and then downloaded that code to his new employer's server after leaving Goldman Sachs. The transfer of the source code would potentially save up to $10 million and 2 years of programmers' time for the new employer and would eliminate some of the competitive advantage Goldman Sachs achieved by developing their own trading program. Federal law prohibits the conversion of any trade secret that is related to or included in a product that is produced or placed in interstate or foreign commerce. Because the code that was stolen is a component of an internal computer system, the court found that it is not covered by the statute because it was not produced for, or placed in, a product in interstate or foreign commerce. This bill will close the gap exposed in that case by clarifying that the statute applies to both products and services which are used in or intended for use in interstate or foreign commerce. Congress needs to act quickly to enhance the ability of American businesses to safeguard the proprietary information they develop to gain a competitive advantage. This is particularly important as our country's economy is increasingly knowledge- and service-based. We must ensure that our statutes designed to prohibit the theft of trade secrets appropriately cover the range of intellectual property generated and used by our businesses. This bill is an important step to accomplish this goal, and I commend the senior Senator from Vermont, the chair of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate, Mr. Leahy, for his leadership on the bill; and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation so it can be sent directly to the President's desk to be signed into law. I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, S. 3642, the ``Theft of Trade Secrets Clarification Act, will help ensure that American businesses can effectively protect their trade secrets. This legislation passed the Senate by unanimous consent last month and I am proud to support it today. S. 3642 responds to a recent federal court decision that exposed a gap in federal law. In April of this year, the SeCond Circuit Court of Appeals held that the federal statute prohibiting the theft of trade secrets does not apply to computer source code in some circumstances. In the Aleynikov case, the defendant, a computer programmer who worked for Goldman Sachs, electronically copied and remotely stored thousands of lines of source code for the company's internal, high- frequency trading system and then downloaded that code to his new employer's server after leaving Goldman Sachs. The transfer of the source code would potentially save $10 million and two years of programmers' time for the new employer and would eliminate some of the competitive advantage Goldman achieved by developing their own trading program. Federal law prohibits the conversion of any trade secret that is related to or included in a product that is produced or placed in interstate or foreign commerce. Because the code that Mr. Aleynikov stole is a component of an internal computer system, the court found that it is not covered by the statute because it is not produced for, or placed in, a product in interstate or foreign commerce. S. 3642 would close the gap exposed in the Aleynikov case by clarifying that the statute applies to both products and services which are used in or intended for use in interstate or foreign commerce. Congress needs to act quickly to enhance the ability of American businesses to safeguard the proprietary information they develop to gain competitive advantage. This is particularly important as our country's economy is increasingly knowledge and service-based. We must ensure that our statutes designed to prohibit the theft of trade secrets appropriately cover the range of intellectual property generated and used by our businesses. This bill is an important step to accomplish this goal, and I commend the gentleman from Vermont, Senator Leahy. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation today so that it can be sent to the President's desk to be signed into law.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 3486 because it will decrease the barriers that U.S. innovators and businesses confront when they pursue patent protection in foreign countries. Specifically, the legislation will standardize the application procedures of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and will make them consistent with The Hague Agreement concerning the international registration of industrial designs known as The Hague Treaty and the Patent Law Treaty. The bill implements The Hague Treaty and Patent Law Treaty, which were ratified by the Senate unanimously on December 7, 2007. Unfortunately, neither of these treaties have yet to take effect in the United States because we have not passed implementing legislation. This bill addresses this problem in the following respects. To begin with, the bill standardizes the application procedures so they're consistent with the procedures in other countries that are signatories to the treaties. Under current law, U.S. designers must file separate applications in each jurisdiction where they want to receive rights. This procedure is burdensome, complicated, and often involves several languages. Under this measure, the U.S. creators of industrial designs will be able to use a simplified application system by filing a single English language international design application with the Patent and Trademark Office. This modification will not affect the standard for attaining a design patent, but it will aid small companies in seeking to expand their businesses overseas by streamlining the application process. Additionally, the bill will extend the term of the design patent from 14 years to 15 years, which will benefit U.S. patent holders. Second, the bill implements provisions under the Patent Law Treaty that revive applications which have been unintentionally abandoned. Finally, by implementing the Patent Law Treaty, several hurdles which disadvantage American businesses will be removed. Implementing the Patent Law Treaty will amend patent application procedures for filing dates, fees, surcharges for fees, as well as for oaths, declarations, and claims submitted after the filing date. These modifications should save innovators precious resources. In conclusion, the bill would benefit our Nation's economy by helping American innovators and businesses better protect their inventions overseas. I urge my colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this bill eliminates outdated references in the U.S. Code that stigmatize individuals with mental illness issues. This legislation easily passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support. The bill eliminates the word ``lunatic'' from several sections of the United States Code in order for our Code to reflect meanings which are much more appropriate and up to date in the 21st century. In the past, Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have worked together to address similar terms in the Code which negatively describe individuals with mental health issues. For example, in 2010, Rosa's Law passed in Congress with bipartisan support and was later signed into law. The law replaced parts of the Code containing the phrase ``having mental retardation'' with the phrase ``having intellectual disabilities.'' The term ``lunatic'' holds a place in antiquity and should no longer have a prominent place in our U.S. Code. Although the bill does not replace the word with another term, it follows the precedence of Congress to study semantics and continuously improves the status and appropriateness of our Nation's laws by addressing pejorative terms. I applaud the bipartisan group of Senators--Senators Conrad, Crapo, and Johanns--for their work on this legislation. In addition, the bill shares strong support among our Nation's leading mental health advocates. I urge my colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6223, a bill that would expand upon a small, but important provision in our immigration laws and alleviate one barrier often faced by certain persons applying for naturalization. Under our immigration laws, a lawful permanent resident who is applying to become a U.S. citizen generally must reside continuously in the United States for 5 years. Persons who are naturalizing by virtue of their marriage to a U.S. citizen or battered spouses or children may naturalize after a 3-year period of residence. A person must also be physically present in the United States for at least one-half of that time. In 2007, Congress enacted a law to ensure that when a person works as an interpreter or translator in Iraq or Afghanistan for the U.S. chief of mission or the Armed Forces--either directly or by contract--that time should count toward the ``continuous residence'' requirement for naturalization. This makes sense. Why should we penalize a lawful permanent resident for choosing to provide critical translation or interpretative services in Iraq or Afghanistan by saying that the person failed to reside continuously in the United States? Today's bill builds on that commonsense provision in law in three ways: First, it eliminates the geographical restriction in current law and says that time spent providing qualifying services to the U.S. chief of mission or Armed Forces anywhere in the world should be considered for naturalization purposes. Lawful permanent residents provide important services to our government all around the world, and it makes little sense to limit the provision only to service in those two countries. Second, the current law applies only to the work of translators or interpreters, but lawful permanent residents assist our chiefs of mission and Armed Forces in a variety of important ways. To the current list of qualifying jobs, this bill adds certain high-level security- related work. Finally, although the provision in current law only allows the time abroad not to count as a break in the ``continuous residence'' requirement for naturalization, this bill would allow the time also to count toward the ``physical presence'' requirement. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his work on the bill. I urge my colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Well, the Medicare Advantage gives you slightly enhanced benefits under Medicare, and it was provided by Medicare. And what the private sector says is: we could provide those same services for a lower cost; and if you let us get in at 95 percent of what you're paying, everybody wins, because we're saving money. That's a phantom saving, but that was the original deal. By the time--in the prescriptive drug benefit, we're paying about 115 percent more than the average. And all we're doing is saying, well, let's just pay the average. The insurance companies do have an advantage in their costs because there are ways of attracting a healthier clientele, so their costs would be lower, not because of efficiency, but because they skewed a better, healthier clientele and that's how they save money. But what we did was reduced their profit margin to the point where they have to be at least as efficient as Medicare, not getting a bonus, which didn't help anybody.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. About $500 a month more for health care than they're paying now. That was the plan.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Well, one of the things that ObamaCare did was to provide, for those on Medicare, you get your annual checkups with no copay and cancer screening, no copays and deductibles. We're closing the doughnut hole. Under the Romney plan, because they're paying providers more, your copay part of that provider fee is more, so your copays and deductible would be more. That's for people over 55. People already on Medicare would pay more under the alternative than they're paying today. If you're under 55, you're at your $500 a month, every month, trying to make your health care, because the thing is that if Medicare is saving money, and the health care costs do not go down, then somebody's got to pay the difference. Adding insult to injury to that, you have corporate profits, dividends and commissions and everything else being siphoned off. So you not only have to pay the health care costs; you have to pay enough to cover the corporate profits. And so that's where senior citizens would be paying $500 a month, $6,000 a year more.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. There's a provision in the prescriptive drug benefit that passed about a decade ago that prohibits HHS from negotiating drug prices with pharmaceuticals. Now, the VA can negotiate prices; Medicaid can negotiate prices. But somehow, somebody, I don't know who, nobody's taking credit for it, it just kind of ended up in there, prohibits HHS from negotiating drug prices. So when a company says this is what we want, it is illegal for HHS to point out that you're charging everybody less, you charge in Canada less--how about giving us a little savings--that's illegal. Whatever they want, that's what they get.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. You're exactly right. It probably would not result in any change in the withholding because of that little bit of money, and they would have all of the tax cuts up to the first $250,000, and they would pay a slightly additional tax on the additional $2,000. One of the things that we need to point out is that with the stagnant economy, most workers haven't gotten a cost-of-living increase in a long time. If we can improve the economy, if we had a little more money and could create jobs and improve the economy such that employers think that people might actually walk off the job and go get another job, they are more likely to get a cost-of-living increase. That cost-of- living increase is more than the additional taxes that we're talking about in most cases.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. People talk about increasing the age of Social Security or the cost-of-living increase. The first question is whether or not you're going to cut Social Security. And then if you decide to cut Social Security, there are different ways of doing it, some more painful than others. But the first question is: Are you cutting Social Security? And part of that question is why. If none of the tax cuts get extended, at this point you've got too much money. You've got more money than you need on the table. So the only reason you're even discussing a cut in Social Security is because you want to extend the tax cuts. Now, I think most people when they're faced with the choice, do you want Social Security to be a piggy bank, every time we're running short in the budget you're going to cut a little Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, are you going to make that a little piggy bank every time you have a budget problem, and if you're going to extend tax cuts, are you going to pay for them out of Social Security, I think most people would want us to leave Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid alone. Leave it alone. And if you've got enough money for the tax cuts, fine. But do not extend tax cuts and think you're going to pay for it and people are going to like you paying for it out of Social Security and Medicare. And that's really the choice we have, because the entire discussion about Medicare is only necessitated by the fact that people are trying to extend these tax cuts. And if you extend the tax cuts, then you have to pay for it. And we're talking arithmetic. If you extend trillions of dollars in tax cuts, the only place you can reasonably get it, Social Security and Medicare, unless you're going to raise some other taxes to offset it. The Congressional Black Caucus has taken the position that we don't want any tax cuts that are paid for if you have to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the social safety net, or investments in our future like education and research and infrastructure. We don't need tax cuts that badly. We need those investments more than we need tax cuts. So when you start talking about the different ways of cutting Social Security, we need to make sure that it's in the context, that we're talking about cutting Social Security in order to preserve the tax cuts.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. They would get a tax cut on their income up to $250,000. Their income over $250,000, they would not enjoy the Bush-era tax cuts. They would be paying the same taxes they were paying when the stock market was--during the Clinton administration, when the stock market almost quadrupled. The Dow Jones Industrial Average almost quadrupled. Under the lower tax rates under the Bush administration, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was incredibly worse at the end of his 8 years than it was in the beginning. Quadrupling under Clinton; worse under Bush than it was in the beginning. Of course, job creation, record under the Clinton administration when you had the higher rate; under the Bush administration, the only measure you're looking at it, is it or is it not the worst since the Great Depression. Obviously, those who are paying the high rate actually have more of a financial interest in the stock market, because the little bit of tax increase we're talking about, they will more than offset that by the stock market going up like it did under the Clinton administration. If you look at the taxes they saved under Bush, if they could have gotten the returns in the stock market like they did under Clinton, they would have gotten 10 to 20 times more returns in the stock market than they paid in little taxes.