Henry Waxman

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Representative Tom Davis and I introduced H.R. 6576, the Reducing Information Control Designations Act to address the growing number of information controlled designations used by the Federal Government. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has held numerous hearings on this issue. Committee investigations have found that there has been a proliferation of pseudo-classification designation such as ``sensitive but unclassified'' or ``for official use only.'' These often vague and undefined markings can be used to prevent or delay information sharing with interested stakeholders or public release of information. The National Archives and Records Administration reports that currently there are more than 100 information controlled designations applied across the Federal Government. New categories of information controlled designations are being created by the agencies, yet these designations lack a statutory basis, and there is no Federal entity monitoring their use. This bill addresses all types of information use across the government. Its goal is to promote open government by reducing the number and use of restrictive designations used on government information. Specifically, this bill calls on the archivists to promulgate regulations to reduce and minimize the use of information controlled designations and to maximize public access to information. The bill allows individuals to challenge designations, requires that agencies' inspectors general conduct random audits to determine whether information controls are being used properly, and requires personal identifiers to be placed on information with an information designation control so agencies identify the individual who made the designation. This bill also clarifies that agencies may not use information controlled designations in considering whether to release information under the Freedom of Information Act. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Ranking Member Davis for working with us to improve this bill and to move it quickly to the House floor. The legislation before us includes changes that have been made since the bill passed out of full committee. These changes were made to address concerns raised by the administration and several interested Members of the Congress. These changes include ensuring that the Archivist's training responds to lessons learned about improper application of control designations and deleting language requiring the regulations to address the duration of a control designation. Secret government is rarely good government. This bill is an important step in restoring openness to the executive branch. Mr. Speaker, Representative Tom Davis and I introduced H.R. 6576, the Reducing Information Control Designations Act, to address the growing number of information control designations used by the Federal Government. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has held numerous hearings on this issue. Committee investigations have found that there has been a proliferation of pseudoclassification designations such as ``sensitive but unclassified'' or ``for official use only.'' These often vague and undefined markings can be used to prevent or delay information sharing with interested stakeholders or public release of information. The National Archives and Records Administration reports that currently there are more than 100 information control designations applied across the Federal Government. New categories of information control designations are being created by agencies yet these designations lack a statutory basis, and there is no Federal entity monitoring their use. This bill addresses all types of information uses across the Government. Its goal is to promote open government by reducing the number and use of restrictive designations used on Government information. Specifically, this bill calls on the Archivist to promulgate regulations to reduce and minimize the use of information control designations and to maximize public access to information. The bill allows individuals to challenge designations, requires that agency inspectors general conduct random audits to determine whether information controls are being used properly, and requires personal identifiers to be placed on information with an information designation control so agencies can identify the individual who made the designation. This bill also clarifies that agencies may not use information control designations in considering whether to release information under the Freedom of Information Act. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Ranking Member Davis for working with me to move this bill quickly to the House floor. The legislation before us includes changes that have been made since the bill passed out of full Committee. These changes were made to address concerns raised by the Administration and several interested members of Congress. These changes include: ensuring that the Archivist's training responds to lessons learned about improper application of control designations and deleting language requiring the regulations to address the duration of a control designation. Secret government is rarely good government. This bill is an important step in restoring openness to the executive branch. I am submitting for the Record the cost estimate for H.R. 6576 from the Congressional Budget Office. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. July 29, 2008. Hon. Henry A. Waxman, Chairman, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has prepared the enclosed cost estimate for H.R. 6576, the Reducing Information Control Designations Act. If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Matthew Pickford. Sincerely, Peter R. Orszag. Enclosure. H.R. 6576--Reducing Information Control Designations Act Summary: H.R. 6576 would amend federal law concerning the security classification of government documents. The legislation would require the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence and other affected federal agencies, to develop regulations that minimize and reduce the government's use of information-control designations on information that is not classified. The bill also would require training for employees and contractors on using classifications and random audits by inspectors general on the proper use of information-control designations. CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 6576 would have a discretionary cost of $15 million in 2009 and $45 million over the 2009-2013 period to implement the new regulations, provide training, and conduct audits that would be required under the bill. Although the legislation could affect agencies not funded through annual appropriations (such as the Tennessee Valley Authority or the U. S. Postal Service), CBO estimates that any net increase in spending by those agencies would not be significant. As a result, enacting the bill would have no significant impact on direct spending or revenues. H.R.6576 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) and would not affect the budgets of state, local, or tribal governments. Estimated cost to the Federal Government: The estimated budgetary impact of H.R. 6576 is shown in the following table. The costs of this legislation fall within most budget functions that contain salaries and expenses. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By fiscal year in millions of dollars--

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, as one of the original cosponsors of the House version of this bill, I am happy to see that it is about to become law. This reauthorization affirms to our partners around the world that we are with them for the long haul in the fight against HIV, TB, and malaria. The bill retains many of the important provisions of the House version. It authorizes strengthening of local health systems and health care workforces. It supports fiscal responsibility by directing the purchase of safe drugs at the lowest available prices. And it encourages operational research and the translation of lessons learned into effective programming. The bill incorporates Congresswoman Barbara Lee's legislation to eliminate the HIV travel ban. This is an important policy step. And it is an important message that we reject this relic of a time when fear and stigma drove much of the nation's' response to AIDS. But unfortunately, fear and stigma around HIV are still very real, particularly when we talk about prevention. This bill notes the importance of supporting healthy behavior change, and encourages the expansion of male circumcision as an effective prevention method. But I think there are parts of this bill where Congress could have spoken more directly to the need for honest, evidence-based prevention programming. Injection drug users around the world are among the most vulnerable to HIV prevention. This bill makes only brief mention of the need for prevention strategy and other programs for this population. Our implementers should understand how crucial this focus is to fighting the epidemic, not only in countries with HIV driven mainly by drug use, but also in countries with emerging, concentrated drug-related epidemics. The same applies to men who have sex with men. Due to stigma and denial, the HIV prevention, treatment, and care needs of sexual minorities are often unmet. This bill makes only passing reference to men who have sex with men, but the program should be implemented in a way that truly recognizes the needs of this population. People involved in sex work are also very vulnerable to HIV infection, along with many other health and social risks. I'm disappointed that we haven't eliminated the current requirement that recipients sign an ``anti-prostitution pledge.'' The requirement has reportedly had the unintended consequence of scaring grantees away from doing effective outreach programs for sex workers. But U.S. officials, and all of our partners, should know that Congress wants this law implemented in a way that best respects the public health needs of this severely marginalized group. Finally, I have concerns about integration of activities. I am particularly disappointed that the bill does not explicitly encourage the close integration of HIV programs with family planning and other reproductive health services. What's more, language added to the bill's ``conscience clause'' could hinder effective integration, when we should be doing everything we can to encourage referrals to important health services. All of these concerns do not outweigh my deep respect for what the global AIDS program has accomplished, and my strong support of its reauthorization. They do underscore the need for ongoing oversight of how the program is designed and implemented, particularly in efforts to reduce HIV transmission. The first 5 years of PEPFAR showed that a remarkable scale-up of effective treatment was possible in the developing world. It's time to use all of the public health knowledge and resources we have to do the same for prevention.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5811, the Electronic Message Preservation Act of 2008, and I want to thank Representatives Clay and Hodes for their commitment to oversight and accountability and for their hard work on this bill. The Electronic Message Preservation Act amends both the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act to ensure the preservation of e-mail records. In recent years, e-mail has become an essential form of communication and a key source of information about Federal decision-making. Despite the importance of these records, serious deficiencies exist in the way e-mails are preserved both by the White House and Federal agencies. The preservation of these records must be improved if historians are to have access to a complete record of government decision-making and if Congress is to perform needed oversight. Under President Bush, the White House has allowed senior officials to use nongovernmental e-mail accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee for official business. An investigation by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that many of these e-mails have been destroyed. Other e-mails have been lost because the White House relied for 5 years on an e-mail archiving system described as ``primitive'' by a former White House information technology officer. While the problems have been particularly acute under the Bush administration, other administrations, including President Clinton, have also encountered problems preserving e-mail records. To ensure that these Presidential records are appropriately preserved, H.R. 5811 directs the Archivist to establish standards for the capture, maintenance and preservation of e-mail records and to certify that the White House is meeting these standards. Committee investigations have also revealed that Federal agencies are inconsistent in the management of e-mail records. Most agencies still rely on an unreliable ``print and file'' process to preserve e-mail records rather than preserving them electronically. GAO, in a report released yesterday, found that senior agency officials are not compliant with key e-mail preservation requirements. GAO reviewed the practices of senior agency officials and determined that the e-mails were not retained in adequate record keeping systems, making the e-mail records easier to lose or delete and harder to find and use. This bill would modernize agency record keeping. The bill directs the Archivist to issue regulations mandating that within 4 years of the enactment of this legislation, all Federal agencies manage and preserve their e-mail records electronically. Mr. Speaker, some have said that this bill is about preserving history. And it is. But it also is about our constitutional responsibility for oversight and for holding this and any administration accountable. Access to Presidential and Federal records helps us do our job. I urge all Members to support this bill.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much for yielding. The issue of energy is very much related to this question of e-mails and the preservation of the records. Now, why do we have our energy problems in this country? Suddenly Republicans are saying, notwithstanding the fact that they have run this government for 7\1/2\ years, the Democrats, the Democrats are at fault. Well, let me point out that as soon as President Bush came into office, he asked Vice President Cheney to chair an energy task force, and they operated in secrecy. We don't know exactly who they heard from or what they were asked to do, but we know that the legislation that the administration requested from the Congress was for billions of dollars to be given to the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries, industries that are making record profits. Now, at that same time, those of us from California were having a very difficult situation because energy wholesalers, including Enron, were holding back supplies in order to drive up the price, and we all met with Vice President Cheney. And you know what he said to us, The reason you're having high prices of electricity is because of environmental laws. And we said, No, it's because we're being taken to the cleaners by Enron and other energy wholesalers. And he said, No, it's not true. Well, when we did our investigations on Enron, we found out it was exactly what was happening. Now, the point I want to make is we don't know what went on with this administration's deliberations for energy policy. We know that they've all failed. We wouldn't have the high price of gas today if they had done their job of getting us off our reliance on oil because we're so dependent now on bringing in oil from overseas. Even if we drill every possibility in the United States, we'd still be importing oil from places that are very vulnerable and are very hostile to us. But this energy task force, and this administration, proposed benefits for the oil companies and no policies to help us get out of that dependence on foreign oil and domestic oil, to look for alternatives, to look for conservation, to do something other than drill, drill, drill, and make the oil companies more profitable. And when we tried to find out what went on, we couldn't get the e- mails. We couldn't look at the e-mails. And why? Well, do you know why? Because they weren't using e-mails from the government of the United States while they were doing government business. They were using the e-mails of the Republican National Committee. Are they doing Party business or are they doing government business? That's one of the reasons we need this bill, and we need to get away from this partisanship on the question of high oil prices.

Mr. WAXMAN. I object.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak on the motion to recommit.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to point out to everyone who is listening to this debate that fundamentally this bill is about accountability and preventing cover-up. On the Oversight Committee, we have seen firsthand how destruction of e-mails frustrates accountability and allows officials to hide wrongdoing. We investigated Jack Abramoff's contacts with the White House. We saw that Abramoff told his colleagues that he used the Republican National Committee e-mail accounts when he was dealing with White House officials so that his communications would remain secret. This bill shuts down that loophole. It says Jack Abramoff can't send secret e- mails to White House officials. We tried to investigate the false intelligence that led to the war in Iraq, but this investigation did not have access to Karl Rove's e-mails because they were destroyed. This bill says that Karl Rove's e-mails have to be preserved and not destroyed. We tried to investigate the Cheney Energy Task Force, which gave us the energy policy this Nation has followed under President Bush for the last 7\1/2\ years, which I believe has led to these incredible high prices for energy. But once again we needed access to the e-mails to understand what deals were cut with the special interests, including at that time Enron, which played a very active role on Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force. A vote for this bill will make sure that the White House cannot hide its abuses. What we need is for this bill to pass so we can have honest and open and accountable government. That's why this legislation is before us today. Of course, we don't know what the motion to recommit is until the very last minute; so we have to prepare for whatever may come. This is not a motion to recommit that would destroy the bill, and I appreciate that fact. It's a motion to recommit that, by and large, I think makes sense, and why it wasn't offered as an amendment leaves me perplexed. I do have some minor concerns about the motion to recommit, but that can be worked out in conference. This should have been brought up as an amendment to the bill. But, in effect, a motion to recommit is a motion to amend the bill. And since I do not oppose, in effect, the amendment that's being offered, I will join in support of this motion to recommit because this bill is too important. I know it was minimized a lot in the debate where people said why are we talking about e-mail preservation when we should be talking about drilling in Alaska and off the coast of the United States? Well, they are related because had we been able to have the Energy Task Force, chaired by Cheney, Vice President Cheney, we could have found out how we had this policy decided, and now that we're saddled with it, we could have done something about it 7\1/2\ years ago. I will join in support of this motion to recommit, and I will urge my colleagues to vote for it so we can get the bill passed with this amendment that's being offered to it. I urge a vote for the motion. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, today I am joining with 18 other committee chairs to introduce legislation to strengthen the authority of the Government Accountability Office. GAO assists Congress in identifying waste, fraud, and abuse in federal programs and recommending ways to make government work better. Because of its vital role, GAO needs unfettered access to federal agencies. Efforts by executive branch officials to withhold information from GAO impedes Congress' ability to legislate effectively. One key provision in the bill clarifies that Congress authorizes GAO to pursue civil actions if federal agencies or the White House improperly withhold federal records. In litigation arising from GAO's efforts to obtain information about the operations of the Cheney energy task force, a federal district court held that the Comptroller General lacked standing to enforce GAO's right to information. This case, called Walker v. Cheney, was wrongly decided and misconstrued congressional intent regarding the role of the Comptroller General. The decision was also an improper invasion into Congress' constitutional prerogatives to determine how best to carry out its investigative responsibilities. While I am confident that another court considering this issue would reach a different decision, passing new legislation to clarify GAO's authority is the most expedient way to restore the authority of the Comptroller General. For this reason, this bill contains express authorization from Congress to the Comptroller General to pursue litigation if documents are improperly withheld from GAO. In effect, this provision represents a legislative repudiation of the court's decision in Walker v. Cheney. Other provisions of this important bill give GAO the express authority to interview federal employees when conducting evaluations and investigations and expand GAO's authority to administer oaths. The bill further enhances GAO authorities by clarifying its right to important records to which it has been denied access. These include records at the Federal Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Federal Trade Commission. Finally, the bill creates a reporting mechanism so that Congress will be more fully informed when federal agencies do not cooperate with GAO. These reports will be important tools to improve GAO's oversight capability. GAO provides invaluable assistance to Congress by helping Congress understand how federal agencies are performing their duties. This legislation helps ensure that GAO has the authorities it needs to carry out these crucial responsibilities.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5687, the Federal Advisory Committee Act Amendments of 2008, makes needed improvements to one of our core open government laws. I want to thank Chairman Clay for introducing this bill and for his continued leadership in support of open government. Advisory committees play a critical role in giving the President and agencies advice on complex issues. The Federal Advisory Committee Act, FACA, is intended to make the advisory committee process open and accountable to protect the independence and integrity of these committees. But in recent years, FACA has been undermined by the practices of the Bush administration. This bill is our response to these abuses: One of my concerns over the last 8 years has been the growth of secrecy. This bill says that White House task forces can no longer operate in total secrecy. They must disclose whom they meet with and what recommendations they receive from special interests. After President Bush was elected, he put Vice President Cheney in charge of a task force to develop the administration's energy policy. Vice President Cheney and his staff met secretly with oil, gas, nuclear, and coal executives. They developed a policy that has enriched the energy companies and their executives at the expense of American consumers, our energy security, and our environment. This bill says that task forces like the Vice President's energy task force must come out from the shadows. Another issue the bill addresses is the growing politicization of science. As documented in a Committee staff report in August 2003, the administration manipulated scientific advisory committees by employing political litmus tests and filling advisory committees with members with conflicts of interest. H.R. 5687 says that advisory panels must be independent and requires agencies to obtain conflict of interest disclosures from all prospective committee members. The bill prohibits an agency from appointing an individual with a relevant conflict of interest unless the head of the agency determines that the need for the individual's services outweighs the potential impacts of the conflict. The bill requires agencies to publicly disclose the conflicts of advisory committee members on their Web sites. H.R. 5687 also prohibits using political loyalty as a basis for making appointments to advisory committees. H.R. 5687 addresses other loopholes that have emerged in FACA over the years. It says that FACA panels cannot avoid public disclosure by operating through subcommittees. This was the tactic used by the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. The legislation also closes the ``de facto member'' loophole by clarifying that agencies cannot avoid FACA by giving Federal employees the right to vote on an advisory committee but then having private sector individuals participate in the committee as if they were members. A number of improvements have been made to the bill based on comments from the Office of Government Ethics, OGE, and others. For example, the amendment clarifies that nothing in the bill is intended to weaken existing ethics requirements for special government employees. Under the amendment, a committee member appointed as a special government employee will be required to disclose any conflict of interest, as OGE defines that term, beyond what is disclosed in the member's financial disclosure report. This is intended to prevent special government employees from having to disclose the same conflict twice if they would already be required to disclose it through a financial disclosure report. The bill leaves it to OGE to determine what disclosures are required beyond what has to be reported in a financial disclosure report. OGE should consider what interests a committee member may have that would not be uncovered in a financial disclosure report but that still may compromise the member's objectivity. For example, a committee member who held a position 2 years ago with an entity that would be affected by a decision of the committee could be considered to have a conflict even though the member's previous position would not be reported in a financial disclosure report. Last year, we enacted reforms to another important open government law, the Freedom of Information Act. I hope this year we will continue our efforts to improve the transparency and accountability of government by enacting this bill. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5687. I submit the following letters for the Record: House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, Washington, DC, June 24, 2008. Hon. Henry Waxman, Chairman, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman: The Committee on Ways and Means applauds your efforts to foster greater federal advisory committee transparency and accountability. However, the Committee has concerns about some potential unintended effects that your bill, H.R. 5687, the Federal Advisory Committee Act Amendments of 2008, might have on the advisory committee system established under the Trade Act of 1974, as amended. While the Committee is still reviewing H.R. 5687, of particular serious concern are sections 2 and 4 of the bill. The Committee will forgo action on this bill and will not oppose its consideration on the suspension calendar based on our understanding that changes will be made to H.R. 5687 as it moves through the legislative process. These changes will ensure that application of the Federal Advisory Committee Act on the trade advisory committees under the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, is consistent with and does not extend beyond requirements set forth in current law. This request is made with the understanding that it does not in any way prejudice the Committee with respect to the appointment of conferees or the full exercise of its jurisdictional prerogatives on this bill or similar legislation in the future. The Committee intends to look for opportunities to improve the transparency and accountability of the federal advisory committees established under the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, in ways consistent with their purpose and aim. We look forward to soliciting your suggestions for reform. Sincerely, Charles B. Rangel, Chairman.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5781, the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, gives dedicated civil servants a long-overdue benefit: parental leave on the birth or adoption of a child. Under this bill, Federal employees will, for the first time, be offered 4 weeks of paid parental leave on the birth or adoption of a child. If needed, employees will also be allowed to use their accrued sick leave for additional paid leave. I was taken aback by the arguments from my colleague from California (Mr. Issa) that we run the risk of people becoming foster parents each year presumably to get this extra 4 weeks of paid leave. I think that foster parents do an enormous good in providing a home to children who otherwise would not have a place to live. And they, by the way, under existing Federal law, can have paid Federal leave under their sick pay. But if a parent has a natural-born child, they may not use their sick leave nor do they get paid leave for that period of time to bond with the newborn. Federal employees are entitled to those 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the existing Family and Medical Leave Act. What this bill does is say for the first 4 weeks, this leave will be paid. The Federal Government is a model employer in many areas. Federal health benefits are often lauded as a model for the rest of the country. Many people say all Americans ought to have the same health care benefits as Federal employees. We have the Federal Thrift Savings Plan which is often cited as a model of what a 401(k) plan ought to be. But one area where the Federal Government has lagged behind for years is in providing parental leave to its employees. If this becomes law, and I sure hope it will be, we will be able to attract and retain the best employees for the Federal workforce. It means when a Federal agency recruits new employees, they won't have to have one hand tied behind their back because they can't offer leave for the birth of a child, as many private sector companies do. I think this is a pro-family measure, and I was pleased to hear that our colleague, Congressman Hyde, had always supported this family leave to be paid for Federal employees. When you look at the civilian workforce for the Department of Defense, they don't get this ability to be at home with the child for the first 4 weeks and have it paid for, but a military family will be allowed under existing law to stay home under paid leave for maternity or adoption. It is unfair to have in one case an employee working next to another employee, both for the same government, and one is allowed to take the leave and have it paid for, and the other has to take the leave and not have it paid for. The loss of income is important to many of these families and they don't want to have that loss of income. We shouldn't put them in that kind of position where we force them to perhaps cut it short and get back to work. I want to commend Representatives Danny Davis and Carolyn Maloney for their efforts on this bill, the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2008. Without their leadership it wouldn't be on the floor today. I also want to thank Ranking Member Tom Davis for his support for this legislation and his constructive work in offering an amendment that we agreed to in committee to reduce the cost to the taxpayer. He has been a steadfast champion of the rights of Federal employees, especially those that support families. I urge my colleagues, support this bill. We don't know yet what the motion to recommit will be, but if it is one of these motions to kill the bill or to come in with something that is not sustainable, I would hope that my colleagues would vote against it and vote for final passage of this legislation.

Mr. WAXMAN. If we are going to pay in a straightforward way, let's provide parental leave and not require people to take it out of their sick leave which they cannot do now, and have that leave paid for. This ought to be for newborn and adopted children and their parents, and we ought to provide this. I can imagine there might have been a time when people would have said, ``Why should we allow people to be able to take off 2 weeks of vacation a year? Some employers do it, others don't. This is just too radical.'' Well, now no one thinks it is radical to have 2 weeks of vacation a year at least, and I don't think it is radical, I think it is pro- family, in fact, to allow parents to bond with their children and be able to have 4 weeks paid. That is straightforward; 4 weeks paid leave for maternity or paternity and not to hide it in the sick leave, which they may need at some future time if they have an illness. Having a baby is not an illness.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, there they go again, coming up with a gimmick because they don't want the underlying bill. If they don't want the underlying bill, let them vote no. But what they have offered instead is a motion to recommit promptly, which kills the bill. So I would urge all of my colleagues who believe that parents ought to be able to bond with their children and have a paid family leave on the birth of a child or the adoption of a newborn, that they vote against this motion to recommit. Federal law is very clear. If you are behind in your child support payments, you can get your wages garnished. That means there is an automatic reduction in your paycheck to pay for the support of your children. The fact is that no one who is behind in childcare can get paid parental leave. The reason is their wages will already be garnished. That is why this amendment is a gimmick. No amendment like this was offered in our committee. This was never brought up in our deliberations. In fact, the gentleman was very clear in his arguments for the motion to recommit. He is against the bill. He was against the bill in committee, and he is against the bill now. Now, I think we ought to understand that if this were a serious amendment, it would have been a ``forthwith'' motion. But it is not. It is a ``promptly'' motion to kill the bill. There are 400,000 civilian DOD employees around the Nation. They have been working overtime to protect our Nation, often serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. But what this motion says to them, and to all other hard- working Federal employees, is you won't get any paid leave, and if you are sick and have used up your leave, you can't take the time to bond with your family. It is wrong, it is anti-family, and I believe this motion to recommit should be defeated. It is like so many other motions to recommit that we have seen on this floor. When it is designed ``promptly,'' it sends the bill back to the committee, and those who didn't like it in committee will fight it some more. But if you are for this bill, vote against the motion to recommit and vote ``yes'' on final passage. I would like to yield the balance of the time to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our majority leader.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. I urge my colleagues to oppose this motion to recommit. For the last 8 years, our Nation's energy policies have been a fiasco. Gasoline prices are skyrocketing, our dependence on foreign oil is growing, and we are fueling dangerous global warming. Yet when the Democrats passed even modest reforms that say we need to invest in cleaner fuels, not dirtier ones, the Republican leadership brings forth a motion to repeal them. This motion would repeal a provision in the energy bill, the Energy Independence and Security Act, that Congress passed last year. In that bill we included a provision that said tax dollars should not be used to purchase new types of fuels that would cause more global warming than conventional gasoline and diesel fuels. This provision was not controversial. It had broad support, and it would be foolhardy to invest our tax dollars in new fuels that would make us face a greater global warming problem. Now there have been misconceptions about all of this, and that is why I was pleased the House just adopted overwhelmingly the Lampson amendment. Some of the misconceptions about section 526 say that it would affect the oil companies. But, in fact, the oil companies and other energy companies can do what they want with their own money. If they want to invest in dirtier fuels, they can. This just says the taxpayers are not going to be used to subsidize them. Some people say section 526 would prevent NASA and other agencies from buying generally available fuel that contains small amount of fuel from tar sands. Well that's not accurate, and the Lampson amendment makes it clear that we could continue to import fuel from Canada. And in all of the acres that are not being drilled on now throughout the west, they can be drilled and this section is not keeping them from drilling. They could be drilled if the oil companies wanted to do it. Section 526 does not prohibit investments in coal-based fuels so long as the fuels would be as clean as conventional gasoline and diesel fuel. Global warming is real and it is dangerous and threatens our health, our environment, our economy and our national security. We have to stop making things worse before they will get better. That is a philosophy that makes no sense. And what's worse is this motion to recommit would be a motion that says ``promptly'' and that means that it would kill the legislation by sending the bill back to committee. The bill gives NASA the resources it needs to ensure that those investments are effective. It will enhance NASA's work, and we should not vote for this motion to recommit that would kill the legislation. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the contributions of Richard M. Knapp, Ph.D., who is retiring as Executive Vice President of the Association of American Medical Colleges, AAMC, after 40 years of service to the Nation on behalf of medical schools and teaching hospitals. As the senior policy advisor to the AAMC, Dr. Knapp has provided leadership on a wide range of health policy matters, particularly regarding the delivery of hospital and medical services where medical education simultaneously occurs and research brings advances. Dr. Knapp joined the AAMC in 1968 after earning a bachelor of arts degree from Marietta College, in Marietta, Ohio, and a Ph.D. in hospital and health administration from the University of Iowa. He has consistently been a fair and thoughtful advocate for the Nation's teaching hospitals and medical schools, and his knowledge and integrity are widely recognized and appreciated. Dr. Knapp's service to the health community includes his tenure on the Board of Trustees of the Inova Health System in Fairfax County, Virginia, from 1983-2005, where he served as chair from 1999-2003. He is a past chairman of the National Association for Biomedical Research and has held the offices of secretary and treasurer in the Federation of Associations of Schools of the Health Professions. He also served on the Advisory Board for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellowships. Before becoming executive vice president of the AAMC, Dr. Knapp served the organization as senior vice president, director of the Department of Teaching Hospitals, director of the Division of Teaching Hospitals, and director of a teaching hospital project. His contributions to health care policy have been recognized by his election to the Institute of Medicine. I ask my colleagues to join me in wishing Dr. Knapp and his family every success and happiness in the next phase of his life.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to congratulate UCLA history professor Saul Friedlander, who was recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize in General Non-Fiction for his work, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945. Professor Friedlander was born to German-speaking Jewish parents in Prague in 1932 and raised in France during the Nazi occupation. Not until 1946 did he discover that his parents perished at Auschwitz. After immigrating to Israel at the time of its birth as a nation, he was able to pursue his passion for knowledge. After studying in Israel and Paris, he received his Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. In 1983, Saul Friedlander served as a visiting professor at my alma mater, the University of California, Los Angeles. Four years later he was invited to join the faculty full time, receiving the 1939 Club Chair in Holocaust Studies. He later founded the influential journal, History and Memory and has established himself as one of the world's premier Holocaust historians. Professor Friedlander has authored multiple titles on the Holocaust, including Nazi Germany and the Jews, The Years of Persecution: 1933- 1939, which is considered to be the definitive work on the period. It led to a MacArthur Foundation Award, which he used to research and write his Pulitzer-winning volume. That work vividly depicts Jewish life throughout all of Europe and provides a modern understanding of the enactment of anti-Semitic policies in the World War II era. Professor Friedlander's work is not limited to the academic, however; he has also served on commissions working to shed light on the Holocaust-era activities of corporations and governments. I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the ongoing work of Saul Friedlander and his dedication to educating students and the global community, researching the Holocaust, and putting the indescribable into words.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, this Congress, the House and Senate, have passed important Federal contracting reforms, but neither body has assembled them into a comprehensive package. My ``clean contracting'' amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act consolidates these provisions into a single reform measure. I want to particularly thank Chairman Skelton for working with me to help bring this amendment before the House today. He has been a tremendous partner in the fight to root out waste, fraud and abuse. The clean contracting amendment would require agencies to enhance competition in contracting, limit the use of abuse-prone contracts, rebuild the Federal acquisition workforce, strengthen antifraud measures, and increase transparency in Federal contracting. The provisions of the amendment are based on provisions that have already passed the House or Senate, or are government-wide versions of Defense provisions that passed in last year's DOD authorization. They respond to procurement abuses that the Oversight Committee, the Armed Services Committees, and other committees have identified in hearings and investigative reports. The egregious procurement practices that have occurred in Iraq and in response to Hurricane Katrina and at the Department of Homeland Security need to be halted. They may enrich companies like Halliburton and Blackwater, but have squandered billions of dollars that belong to the taxpayer. This amendment says that Congress is serious about stopping waste, fraud and abuse. One important provision deals directly with no-bid contracts and requires agencies to develop plans to promote competition. This provision is needed because the value of contracts awarded without full and open competition has more than tripled since 2000, rising from $67 billion in 2000 to almost $207 billion in 2006. Full and open competition provides the government with its best guarantee that tax dollars are being spent economically and efficiently. Another important measure would limit the length of no-bid contracts awarded in emergencies to 9 months. This provision would end the abuses that occurred after Hurricane Katrina when many ``emergency'' contracts were allowed to continue for years. The amendment would also curb the use of cost-plus contracts, which provide contractors with little incentive to control costs. Spending under this kind of contract grew over 75 percent between 2000 and 2005. Another important provision would prohibit contractors from charging excessive mark-up charges for work done by subcontractors. This would prevent the infamous ``blue roof'' scandal following Hurricane Katrina where taxpayers paid almost $2,500 for something that actually cost $300. Other vital provisions of this amendment would provide whistleblower protections to civilian contractor employees, fund increases in the acquisition workforce, and prevent the abuse of interagency contracts, as was the case at Abu Ghraib, where interrogators were hired using an Interior Department contract for information technology. The amendment also includes three provisions which have recently passed the House under suspension of the rules. One, authored by Representative Welch, requires mandatory reporting of fraud by contractors. Another, based on the bill by Representative Murphy, requires the disclosure of CEO salaries if a company makes most of its money from government funds. The third, based on a bill authored by Representative Maloney, requires the development of a database of suspension and debarment information. I want to commend these Members for their hard work on these issues. I also want to particularly thank Chairwoman Velazquez of the Small Business Committee for working with us to perfect some of the language in this bill. I urge Members to support the Clean Contracting amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I do want to express my appreciation to Ranking Member Davis for the hard work and contribution; he helped us in fashioning so much of this legislation. At this point, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut, who is an author of an important provision in this bill and is a very valued member of our committee.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, this amendment, which consolidates a number of other provisions, has within it a provision that the House also passed on the suspension calendar authored by the gentleman from Vermont, Congressman Welch. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to him at this point.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a very valuable member of our Oversight Committee who has been a watchdog to make sure that we are not wasting taxpayers' dollars, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to my very good friend and respected leader, the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services (Mr. Skelton).

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5787, the Federal Real Property Disposal Enhancement Act. This is a bipartisan solution to address some on the deficiencies that exist in Federal real property management. I want to commend Representatives Moore and Duncan for introducing this bill, and Ranking Member Davis for working with me over many years on property issues. As GAO has indicated by placing Federal real property on its ``high risk'' list, problems abound. One such problem is that unneeded buildings are in the Federal inventory. The magnitude of the problem with excess Federal real property means that agencies are spending billions of dollars maintaining properties no longer relevant to agencies' missions. The Federal Real Property Disposal Enhancement Act seeks to address some of the hurdles that agencies are facing regarding disposal of their unneeded property. One key provision allows the General Services Administration to use its funds to prepare properties to be declared excess by other agencies. Agencies and GAO have testified that the cost of preparing a property for transfer or sale serves as a disincentive to disposal because, in the short term, it can be more beneficial economically to maintain a property that is not being used than to dispose of it. Basically, it is cheaper to pay to mow the grass and have a security guard than to do appraisals, surveys, and environmental studies. Another key provision allows all agencies to retain 100 percent of the proceeds from sale. Most large landholding agencies already have this benefit. However, smaller ones, such as the Federal Communications Commission, which owns vacant towers, do not. After GSA obtained the authority to retain proceeds in 2005, its disposals increased. In addition, the bill clarifies that when a piece of property has been given to a nonprofit or State or local government for a public purpose and that public purpose ceases to exist, the federal government must revert the property and dispose of it. The bill also calls on GSA to issue guidance on disposing of excess properties and requires agencies to develop and implement plans to dispose of their excess property. This is a commonsense measure and I am hopeful all members will be able to support it.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Chairman. It is with some reservation that I rise in favor of H.R. 5819, a bill to reauthorize the SBIR and STTR program. I strongly support these programs which give seed money to help small businesses advance innovative research ideas. They are engines of job growth and entrepreneurship that have produced dynamic inventions with a broad array of commercial applications. I am pleased that this measure adds energy, climate change, and rare diseases as eligible topics for projects funded through SBIR awards. These additions demonstrate the broad horizon of challenges that dynamic small businesses around the country can help tackle. I do have concerns, however, about a change made by this bill to allow small businesses that are majority-owned by venture capital investors to participate in the program. While I recognize the value in expanding the number and quality of applicants to the SBIR and STTR grant programs, I would not want to see these changes have the unintended result of skewing the grant programs toward companies with venture capital support. There are many companies that do valuable R&D work, but have not been attractive to or interested in venture capitalist investment. In fact, it is often these companies that are a particularly good fit for the SBIR and STTR programs, which provide grants in the early conceptual stages to help small businesses get their products off the ground. Although the increased funding authorized for the programs will hopefully see more projects funded overall, it would be troubling to see favoritism for projects because they have a venture capital ``stamp of approval''. It is important that this bill only authorizes the program for 2 years so that Congress will be able to closely examine how these changes are implemented. If necessary, we will have the opportunity to make further adjustments to prevent deserving applicants without venture capital funding from being marginalized in the SBIR and STTR application process.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, each year on April 24, Armenian communities around the world commemorate the start of the Armenian genocide. This year marks the 93rd anniversary of this ominous date in history when Ottoman authorities began rounding up leaders of the Armenian community. The arrests were followed by eight years of massacres, death marches, and forced deportations to rid the Ottoman Empire of its Armenian population. At the time, American diplomats, under the leadership of U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr., recorded and reported information about these atrocities. While the calls for international action were soon eclipsed by the tumult of World War I, the State Department's historical records of these accounts are a remarkable example of the important role our diplomatic corps play as human rights observers around the world. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of H. Res. 106, a resolution affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide, which calls for our foreign policy to reflect the U.S. record relating to this painful chapter of history. As we mourn the victims of the Armenian genocide and pay tribute to the survivors, let us look forward to the opportunity for the House to consider H. Res. 106 and stand up to those who seek to deny the genocide that took place.