F. Sensenbrenner

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1877) to amend title 18, United States Code, to provide that certain sexual crimes against children are predicate crimes for the interception of communications, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, through the following statement, I am making my financial net worth as of March 31, 2002, a matter of public record. I have filed similar statements for each of the twenty-three preceding years I have served in the Congress. Property Assets Single family residence at 609 Ft. Williams Parkway, City of Alexandria, Virginia, at assessed valuation. (Assessed at 785,000). Ratio of assessed to market value: 100% (Encumbered)......$785,000.00 Condominium at N76 W14726 North Point Drive, Village of Menomonee Falls, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, at assessors estimated market value. (Unencumbered)......................................111,800.00 Undivided 25/44ths interest in single family residence at N52 W32654 Maple Lane, Village of Chenequa, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, at 25/ 44ths of assessor's estimated market value of $807,800.....458,977.27

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendments to the bill (H.R. 3525) to enhance the border security of the United States, and for other purposes.

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. Madam Speaker, I would like to respond to two of the points that have come up during this debate, first with respect to the comments on section 245(i) made by the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). The House of Representatives has passed 245(i) legislation twice, once in May of last year and once in March of this year. The second passage of the 245(i) legislation was coupled with the same visa security and Border Patrol legislation that we are discussing here today. The Senate, however, chose to pick this bill without 245(i), without the other bill which had 245(i) in it. That is why we are debating a 245(i)-less bill today. So the decision to hold up 245(i) this time does not rest with the House of Representatives, but, unfortunately, with the other body. Secondly, with respect to the comments on student visa tracking made by the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas), he is absolutely right on that, but I would like to amplify the point that he made with one other fact. Much was said about the fact that Mohammed Atta and one of the other September 11 hijackers had their student visas approved by the INS 6 months after they died flying planes into the Twin Towers in New York City. But the really shocking statistic was not that, it was the fact that the student visas were approved 13 months after these two terrorists graduated from flight school. The purpose for which the student visas were applied for had been fulfilled, and they should have left the country promptly after their course of study was concluded. They did not, and the rest is history, and over 3,000 people died as a result of that. What this legislation does is that it provides a student visa tracking system so if someone enters the United States on a student visa and either does not show up at school, drops out of school, gets kicked out of school, or graduates from school, then the INS will know about it and take the appropriate action to make sure that those students return to their home countries. Had this type of a system proposed by this bill been up and functional on September 11, Mr. Atta and his conspirator would not have been in the United States to go to an American airport to hijack two American planes and to kill thousands of people. That is why it is important that this bill be passed, so that future Attas who wish to exploit the weaknesses in our visa system and to abuse the hospitality that is extended to them by the American people at American institutions will no longer be able to do so. I urge the House to concur in the Senate amendments.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, since September 11, we have learned how deeply vulnerable our immigration system is to exploitation by aliens who wish to harm Americans. H.R. 3525 makes needed changes to our immigration laws to fight terrorism and to prevent such exploitation. I wish to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, for his invaluable assistance in crafting this legislation. This is the third time that the House has considered the main provisions of this bill. We first passed H.R. 3525 last December, and then we incorporated the provisions of the bill into H.R. 1885, which passed in March. Now that we have the other body's cooperation, I can safely say that the third time is a charm and that President Bush will sign this bill into law shortly after we vote on it today. I will briefly mention two of the bill's most significant provisions. Most importantly, it requires the Attorney General and the Secretary of State to issue machine readable, tamper proof visas that use standardized biometric identifiers. H.R. 3525 extends the same biometric identifier requirements to passports from visa waiver program countries. While I preferred the House language requiring such enhanced visas to be issued as of October 2003, the amended Senate date of October 2004 is acceptable. Second, building upon the enhanced data-sharing requirement of the USA PATRIOT Act, the bill directs our law enforcement agencies and intelligence community to share information with the State Department and the INS relevant to the admissibility and deportability of aliens. This information will be made available in an electronic database. Madam Speaker, this is important and long overdue legislation, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 3525, the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella).

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the motion to instruct conferees offered by the gentlewoman from Colorado would instruct conferees on H.R. 2215 to agree to title 4 of the Senate amendment but insist on adding the new section 2003 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as added by section 402 of the House bill. I will not oppose the motion to instruct offered by the gentlewoman from Colorado, but there are a few things that I think she ought to think about before the conferees actually meet on this subject. The motion will basically instruct conferees to create a separate and independent Violence Against Women's Office in the Department of Justice headed by a director appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. I supported such an amendment in the House Committee on the Judiciary, but in response to concerns about this proposal, it was amended to permit the attorney general the discretion to put the office in the Office of Justice Programs so that the grant-making function of both offices could coordinate. The Department of Justice has testified it prefers the House provision, and is concerned about balkanizing the various grant making offices that currently exist in OJP. Most would agree that the current organizational structure at OJP is in need of reform, and this administration is undertaking steps to streamline and improve the organization and administration of OJP. As a result of various authorizing statutes and funding mandates by Congress, and organizational decisions made by past attorneys general, OJP consists of five bureaus, six program offices, and seven administrative offices. Each of the five bureaus is headed by a presidential appointee by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. This structure does not include the Office of Community Oriented Policing. Some argue persuasively that mandating that there be a separate VAWA office will further complicate the current structure at DOJ and make it more dysfunctional. Furthermore, a completely separate office would require additional resources to support the administrative functions of the office. I have heard that a completely separate office would require $10- to $15 million in funding, which I presume would come out of VAWA program funds. I want to repeat that because the consequence of establishing this office precisely as the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette) is advocating might mean $10- to $15 million more in administrative expenses, and $10- to $15 million less in program, depending upon the decisions being made by the appropriators. I advise the gentlewoman that is a potential consequence of this motion. I have discussed this matter with a number of Members and my constituents. The staff of the Committee on the Judiciary has met with Senator Biden's staff, the Senate Judiciary Committee staff, and various groups who support the creation of a separate office. As the conference proceeds, all of these viewpoints have and will continue to be heard, about I am confident a compromise can be reached. The gentlewoman's motion says nothing about the coordination of grant-making functions of the new VAWA office with OJP. I can only assume that she would like to create a completely separate grant-making structure that does not have to coordinate with OJP, thereby siphoning program funds to pay for administrative infrastructure. A bigger bureaucracy is not necessarily better. Many would prefer to spend precious Federal dollars on combating violence against women instead of creating a new bureaucracy to implement the Violence Against Women Act. Also, while the motion instructs conferees to include the provision of the House bill relating to the duties and functions of the director of the VAWA office, the motion says nothing about a similar provision found in section 403 of the Senate bill. I can only assume the gentlewoman wants it dropped. To those who say that a separate office is needed to raise the profile of the director in these issues, I would direct them to the very language of the House bill which the motion would direct conferees to include. Under that language, the director of the VAWA office would serve as special counsel to the attorney general on the subject of violence against women. The director would work with the judicial branches of Federal and State governments on these issues. The director would serve at the request of the attorney general as the representative of the Department of Justice on task forces, committees and commissions addressing violence against women issues. The director would serve at the request of the President as the U.S. representative on these issues before international bodies. The list goes on. I do not know what could be more high profile than designated in the statute that the director will be the point person in the Federal Government on issues relating to violence against women. Mr. Speaker, I support the motion because it generally captures that which has already been agreed to and will allow the conferees to continue to work on these and other very important administrative and organizational issues. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 169 now under consideration.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendments to the bill (H.R. 169) to require that Federal agencies be accountable for violations of antidiscrimination and whistleblower protection laws; to require that each Federal agency post quarterly on its public Web site, certain statistical data relating to Federal sector equal employment opportunity complaints filed with such agency; and for other purposes.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, this bill is now reaching its final legislative consideration, and when the Senate amendments are concurred in, it will go to the White House for the President's signature. This shows that our system of representative government works. All too often we hear complaints that elected officials never listen, or, ``My speaking out does not make any difference.'' I think this bill shows that elected officials do listen, and a few people speaking out when they have right on their side can bring about a change in the laws of the United States of America, which I hope will have a far-reaching impact in preventing discrimination and retaliation within the Federal workforce. If it were not for the work of Dr. Marsha Coleman-Abebayo and the NAACP Federal Workforce Task Force, I do not think that the Congress could ever have known about how bad the situation was in the EPA. But they did speak out, they did present a convincing case. They convinced both the Committee on Science in the last Congress and the Committee on the Judiciary in this Congress, as well as this House and the other body, that we needed to change the law to try to clean up some of these abusive practices. I hope that this legislation will go a long way to doing this by making the agency financially accountable for settlements and judgments caused by the misdeeds of their supervisors. The system does work, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government must be the role model for civil rights, not for civil rights violations. For far too long there has been little accountability which Federal agencies discriminate and retaliate against their employees. I am happy to say that this is about to change with the enactment of the No FEAR bill, a bill that I introduced, together with the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), and the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella), after a year-long investigation. That investigation, as well as several General Accounting Office investigations, indicated a serious problem in the Federal Government. The congressional investigation found evidence that a Federal agency was allowing discrimination and retaliation against its employees. This evidence was supported by the GAO reports that investigated discrimination in the Federal workforce during the 1990s and found that complaints of discrimination by Federal agencies grew tremendously. In fact, by 1999, the number of such complaints to the EEOC increased by almost 130 percent over the number of complaints in 1991. The GAO reported that complaints alleging retaliation against employees who had participated in the complaint process also increased. The problem in the Federal workforce is threefold. First, because of inadequate notification requirements, many employees are not aware of their rights and many managers are not aware of their responsibilities. Second, Federal agencies and Congress cannot assess the extent of the problem due to inadequate reporting. Third, Federal agencies are not accountable for the misdeeds of their employees, because they simply tap the general Treasury to pay for court judgments and settlements in discrimination cases. The No FEAR Act targets these 3 problems. The bill will require agencies to pay for all court settlements and judgments for discrimination and retaliation cases, instead of allowing the agency to use a government-wide slush fund. This will make agencies more accountable. The bill has a notification requirement aimed at improving workforce relations by increasing managers' and employees' knowledge of their respective rights and responsibilities. The Act also has reporting requirements that will help determine if a pattern of misconduct exists within an agency and whether that agency is taking appropriate action to address the problem. The GAO testified on May 9 that such tracking of complaints, cases, and costs are not occurring, but that it is critical to understanding whether a problem exists. As the National Taxpayers Union stated in urging Congress to enact the legislation, ``The No FEAR Act promotes the virtues of fiscal responsibility and accountability in government.'' And, as Jack White of Time Magazine stated, the No FEAR bill is the ``first new civil rights law of the 21st century.'' The No FEAR Act passed the House back in October of 2001 with a 420 to zero vote. The Senate, after 6 months, finally passed the bill and sent it back here with a few minor changes to the reporting requirements and 2 new GAO studies. In closing, Mr. Speaker, this bill never would have happened without the hard work of Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, the Federal whistleblower who brought this issue to the forefront; Mr. Leroy Warren of the NAACP, and Steven Kohn of the National Whistle Blowers Center. Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government should be a model of the best practices for a fair and open work environment. That was not the case in the 1990s, but must be the case in the 21st century. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte). (Mr. GOODLATTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I oppose this amendment. The INS has had a difficulty for a long time in developing and fielding information systems to support its programs operation, but this is not the reason to deviate from the rules that this Congress has put in place to govern full and open competition in the government procurement process. Given the difficulties the INS has had in effectively managing and using information technology in the past, the Associate Attorney General for Immigration Affairs should be required to follow all pertinent procurement requirements until such time as he has shown the capability to manage the plan and ongoing information technology investments effectively. Only in this way can we ensure that the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be spent on IT by the new INS and its successors will be spent wisely. That is why we have procurement regulations. They are designed to ensure that the government, and thus the taxpayers, get the best possible product, while the taxpayer is charged the lowest possible price. They are designed to avoid the potential for contracts being steered to friends or relatives. We do not need sole-source bidding, and this is what the Lofgren amendment opens the door for, but open and fair competition in the awarding of contracts. Mr. Chairman, Members should know that the administration strongly opposes this amendment because of the detrimental impact on policies and procedures on procurement. I am also informed that both the Republican and Democratic leadership of the Committee on Government Reform, that has got principal jurisdiction over this topic, have got significant concerns about the Lofgren amendment. I will be happy to continue working on this issue before conference on this bill with the drafters of the amendment, the Committee on Government Reform, and the administration, but I would urge Members to oppose the amendment at this time. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).