Pete Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the amendment, which I will offer to the rule if the previous question is defeated, and extraneous material be printed just prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, it's my understanding the gentlewoman from Florida is indicating she has no additional speakers and that she would choose to close?

Mr. SESSIONS. Welcome to the new Democrat-run House of Representatives: No debate added time. No regular order hearings. Closed rules. Welcome.

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. SESSIONS. Do not want to talk further on this bill from the new Democrat majority. Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Brighton, Michigan (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, at this time, I ask unanimous consent that, as a result of the large number of Members who are coming down to speak, as a courtesy to these Members, that we would add 10 minutes to each side for debate.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, if I could inquire upon the time remaining on both sides, please.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, these debates are great. It gives everybody on both sides, including the Democrats who ran on an agenda of having socialized medicine, Washington, D.C.-run health care, they can come down to the floor of the House and talk about this is their model of a great bill. We disagree. Madam Speaker, I yield 5\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pasco, Washington (Mr. Hastings).

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I would like to inquire how much time remains.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, we believe that the earmarks which have been presented, which the way this bill has come to the floor, is not properly done. It did not follow regular order. It is without the transparency that the new Democrat majority has touted and talks about every single day. It is without the smell test of ethics to know, straight up, what somebody is going to spend money on, the people's money. And because of that, we are opposing and asking that this bill go back and be properly done to where everyone can understand. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella). (Mr. FOSSELLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I make a point of order against consideration of H. Res. 594 because the first section of the rule waives all points of order against H.R. 3162 and its consideration, except clauses 9 and 10 of rule XXI. This waiver includes points of order under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble).

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this completely closed rule and to the underlying big government legislation to use eminent domain to strip property owners of their rights that the Democrat majority is bringing to the House floor today. This is the first of two closed rules being brought to the floor today courtesy of the Democrat majority from the graveyard of democracy and good ideas in the House of Representatives, the Rules Committee. It represents yet another example of the procedural gimmickry being blatantly exploited by the Democrats as they continue to completely ignore their campaign to run the most honest, open Congress in history. Mr. Speaker, as any 5-year-old could tell you, the opposite of open is closed, and that's precisely what the American people are getting from the Democrats once again, another closed rule. In fact, as compared with last Congress, through the same date, as of July 30, the Democrats have brought exactly twice as many closed rules to the floor as Republicans did when we held the Speaker's gavel. Mr. Speaker, I will insert in the Record a document prepared by the Republican staff of the Rules Committee comparing the Democrats' awful record of reporting out closed rules in the 110th with last year's record of those controlled by the Republican Congress.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. I appreciate the gentlewoman's inquiring about our intent. We have at least two speakers who would wish to speak on this issue at this time.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, the bill that is being brought forward today, I believe, is yet another example of the Democrat majority's attack on what I would refer to as constitutional balanced authority in this country. By virtue of bringing this bill forward, it means that what we will be doing is not allowing what I think is a fair process for people dealing with their own private land. And I'm sure that you'll have lots of people who are my friends who are Democrats say, well, this is so important that we've got to have this land for the interest of all of the people, so we can have this pristine land. But, Mr. Speaker, we're talking about private property. And private property rights are those things under which this country, one of the things that this country is founded under that makes us entirely different than other countries. Other countries, many of them, all around the world, do not extend to their citizens the right for private property. And so today, once again, what we're seeing is an assault, an attack, using Congress to come and use the powers of the Federal Government against private landowners. I'm sure if their story were being presented today, these private landowners may tell the story about how, for many, many years, I don't know the stories, but how many, many years, being from Texas we could tell the same story, in Connecticut it might be even longer, how people have passed these pieces of property down through generations. But the fact of the matter is that any time that private property is being taken as a result of a force or a threat, in this case, to make a scenic wilderness area pristine and to preserve that as opposed to a single property owner keeping what they had, making those choices within the law and looking up and seeing the Federal Government staring down at them with all the resources of the Federal Government, knowing that the United States Congress brought this action on them, is regrettable. It's regrettable that it had to happen this way. It's regrettable that we could not at least, through the Rules Committee, make a simple amendment in order that would say, why don't we clarify that we're not going to force this issue, that we'll hope that some compromise happens, but that we're not going to allow this condemnation. Not at all. Can't have that kind of debate here. And this Congress had claimed that we were going to be open and honest, and it would be the most open and honest Congress in the history of the United States Congress. So that's what's regrettable. That's what's regrettable that here we find ourselves on a Monday at the end of July trying to help the big Federal Government to grab the land from private landowners. And I think that's wrong. I think it's wrong. I think it's wrong for this House to do that without being on record of saying we're not going to sick the Federal Government on these people who might be private landowners. Mr. Speaker, I will be asking for a recorded vote for the previous question for this rule. And if the previous question fails, I will ask the House to amend the rule to provide for the separate consideration of H.R. 3138, which would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to update the definition of electronic surveillance. Our country is facing a very serious problem, and I said this on the floor of the House twice last week, that must be addressed before the House adjourns in August. That means last week we had two weeks to get it done; this week we have one week to get it done. The majority Democrats continue to shirk their responsibilities to keep Americans safe by ignoring the seriousness of this threat. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 11 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico, the ``Land of Enchantment'' (Mrs. Wilson).

Mr. SESSIONS. By prior agreement, I will close at this time, and I thank the gentlewoman. Mr. Speaker, if the Rules Committee wants to spend special time on the House floor debating these closed rules, I believe that we can do better than the Eightmile Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. However, for some reason this Democrat leadership cannot seem to find time to schedule consideration of legislation that was just spoken about by the gentlewoman from New Mexico and the gentleman from California that clarifies one very specific thing, and that is that the United States Government will no longer be required to get a warrant to listen to foreign terrorists who are not even located in the United States of America. Once again, Mr. Speaker, we have got time to pick on private landowners and to take their land by the use and force of the Federal Government, but we don't have time to schedule legislation to come and protect this country. Utterly incredible. The Director of the National Intelligence, Michael McConnell and the Director of the CIA, Michael Hayden, have testified to this Congress that under current law their hands are tied. They are giving this body notice: we cannot do this under the law. And as Director McConnell testified, FISA is outdated and has been made obsolete by technology. Today, once again, the Republicans are asking for us to support the intelligence community because they are forced to obtain warrants to listen to terrorists outside of our Nation, and as a result, and this is a quote, ``We are actually missing a significant portion of what we should be getting,'' directly from the Director of Central Intelligence. This Congress has known about it for months. Republicans were on the floor last week. We are on the floor again this week. We are saying we are getting ready to go on break, we need to protect this country, we need to pass the law. We are asking the Democrat leadership once again if you have got time for this bill that is about a river, you certainly should have time to protect this country when our intelligence people are saying we need it. We have been saying for months we need it. The Republicans are on the floor today again to say there are 5 days left and then we will be on vacation. Are they going to say to the American people and to the intelligence community, ``Too bad, we didn't have time to do that?'' If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are serious about facing down this threat, Mr. Speaker, they should come and join us. They should join us in defeating the previous question so that the House will be able to then address this issue since the Democrat leadership won't. Don't hide behind something that deals with Republican or Democrat, and do the right thing for the country. This is a very real and a very serious threat. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include my amendment and extraneous material in the Congressional Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, as I was preparing to come down here just a minute ago, I was met by one of my colleagues, the gentleman from Florida who said: Another closed rule? My gosh, I thought they said this was going to be an open Congress. I thought they said we are going to have closed rules only to get their political agenda, 6 in '06 done, and then we will quit that. Well, to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), another closed rule. However, this closed rule is just another manifestation of the new Democratic majority's philosophy. Just another one. And that is, if you can't support the bill in its current form, you shouldn't be given an amendment. That is the new philosophy at the Rules Committee. Democrats on the Rules Committee said at least twice last week that Members who are not willing to vote for the bill should not be allowed to offer amendments. I would like to quote one of my colleagues. This took place this last week, and it says, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), ``I will argue for a closed rule. It makes no sense to have the minority presenting anything they might improve, that they might have agreed upon, and at the end not vote for the bill.'' Hello? What's the Rules Committee for? The Rules Committee is there to perfect bills, to make them better, to listen to input from Members of Congress. Yes, that does include the minority in my opinion, but that is only upon 9 years of service to the Rules Committee, where the Rules Committee, for the 9 years prior to this, we were very careful to make sure that minority members had a say, could come before the Rules Committee. This is yet another example of the circular logic used by the majority. And it is only when you support a bill should you have the opportunity to amend it. You know, this is tortured logic and it makes no sense, and it prevents good ideas from being considered by the House. But this is the way they are going to run the House, it seems like. New logic, move the goalposts. And make sure, if you are in the minority and if you don't completely agree with the Democrat majority, you have no need to come to the Rules Committee. We don't care, and you are not going to have a chance to even be heard or understood. It's a sad day.

Mr. SESSIONS

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