[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 138 (Tuesday, December 7, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H10993-H10994]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   WAIVING A REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO 
  CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS REPORTED FROM THE COMMITTEE ON 
                                 RULES

  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 868 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 868

       Resolved, That the requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII 
     for a two-thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee 
     on Rules on the same day it is presented to the House is 
     waived with respect to any resolution reported on the 
     legislative day of December 7, 2004, providing for 
     consideration or disposition of a conference report to 
     accompany the bill (S. 2845) to reform the intelligence 
     community and the intelligence and intelligence-related 
     activities of the United States Government, and for other 
     purposes.

                              {time}  1500

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The gentleman from Georgia 
(Mr. Linder) is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), 
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During 
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose 
of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 868 is a rule that waives clause 6(a) of rule 
XIII with respect to the same day consideration against certain 
resolutions reported from the Committee on Rules. Specifically, this 
rule waives a requirement for a two-thirds majority vote by the House 
to consider a rule on the same day that it has been reported by the 
Committee on Rules.
  This rule's waiver applies to any special rule reported on the 
legislative day of December 7, 2004, providing for the consideration or 
disposition of a conference report to accompany the bill S. 2845 to 
reform the intelligence community and the intelligence and 
intelligence-related activities of the U.S. Government and for other 
purposes.
  I urge my colleagues in the House to join me in approving H. Res. 
868. We are close to completing the 108th Congress, and the passage of 
this rule will help expedite the consideration of sweeping reform of 
our security and intelligence operations to keep America safe. 
Representatives from multiple committees have been working tirelessly 
to negotiate the best possible legislation, and they have completed 
their work on this legislation today. By approving this same-day rule, 
the House will ensure that we can move forward expeditiously in making 
the substantive changes that will inevitably help better protect the 
citizens of this country.
  Mr. Speaker, this same-day waiver rule provides for prompt 
consideration of important legislation before the adjournment of this 
Congress. The Committee on Rules approved this rule late yesterday 
afternoon. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting its passage.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
her remarks.)
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, we are here to consider a package of 
reforms that, despite garnering broad bipartisan support throughout the 
Nation, was not cleared for the floor until today.
  The House received this blueprint for making America safer in the 
form of the September 11 report in July, well over 5 months ago; and 
upon release of the report, and ever since, the commissioners have been 
appealing to the House to respond to its recommendations with a great 
sense of urgency.
  To its credit, throughout the summer recess the House undertook an 
ambitious schedule of hearings on the 9/11 report; and as a member of 
the Select Committee on Homeland Security, I heard the impassioned 
testimony from both Governor Kean and Representative Hamilton as they 
presented a compelling case for why structural reforms were essential 
to enhancing the security of the American people from the threat of 
terrorism.
  At the time, I believed we would get this intelligence reform package 
cleared by both Houses of Congress well before the third anniversary of 
the 9/11 attacks; but as we all know, despite broad bipartisan support 
in both bodies, it simply did not happen. Instead, it was left in sort 
of suspended animation for months while the House leadership secured 
support from the majority of the majority in the House.
  Mr. Speaker, in my 18 years in the House of Representatives, I have 
never heard of such a standard. Whether it is the product of an 
arrogant belief that the views of the minority in the House are now 
somehow subordinate or it is the manifestation of leadership drunk with 
power, I truly do not know; but if this is any indication of how the 
House leadership intends to do business in the 109th Congress, be 
warned that the American people will not like it.
  It is not just the red States that are populated with patriotic, 
moral Americans who serve courageously in our Armed Forces or as first 
responders. Patriotic, moral Americans live in blue States and every 
State of this Union. We are all Americans. We are all equal under the 
law, and we all have an important role to play in the life of this 
Nation.
  I would also caution the majority to bear in mind the words of the 
18th century philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau who said, ``It is 
unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be 
organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.'' I think 
we saw that well-demonstrated today.
  Satisfied that it has secured support from a majority of the 
majority, the House leadership is now rushing this bill to the floor, 
denying Members adequate time to review each and every critical 
provision.
  Have we learned nothing from the debacle surrounding the omnibus 
spending bill? The privacy rights of millions of American taxpayers 
were put at risk by one small provision inserted into that 3,000-page 
bill. Under the regular order of the House, we should have had 3 days 
to review the report; but with a martial-law rule, we do not even get 
one.
  In the 108th Congress, the Committee on Rules has reported 29 martial 
rules and 17 in the second session alone. At the rate we are going, the 
regular order of business is becoming the irregular order of business.

[[Page H10994]]

  Mr. Speaker, the majority has delayed this bill long enough. I would 
have preferred this bill, so crucial to defending our country, be 
considered by unanimous consent; but I know there are many people who 
would be happy if this legislation never saw the light of day.
  Before I close, I want to reiterate my support for the intelligence 
reform package. Despite my opposition to the way it has come to the 
floor, I intend fully to vote for it later.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of our time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member on the 
Committee on Appropriations.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the House voted to repeal a 
controversial provision in the omnibus appropriations bill that no 
Member knew was in the bill when the bill was filed. Yet today, having 
learned little, the House will rush to vote on the intelligence bill 
about which Members know probably just as little, and they will do so 
without having the language available.
  I would like to be able to vote for this bill because it will 
probably improve the sharing of intelligence, and there are a number of 
other good provisions in it. But Mr. Speaker, we need to recognize that 
there have been two intelligence failures in the last 5 years. First 
was the failure to prevent the 9/11 attack. Second was the use of 
faulty intelligence to suck us into a dumb war in Iraq. The new layer 
of bureaucracy created by this bill may or may not help us on the first 
front, but it is likely to make it harder to correct the second. That 
is why I am going to vote against the bill and against this motion to 
speed up its consideration.
  One of the bill's most glaring shortcomings is that it does not 
guarantee that dissenting or alternative views will ever be clearly 
stated to the President. That was a major problem in the decision to go 
to war in Iraq. To correct that problem, Senator Roberts included a 
provision in the Senate bill establishing an office and a process to 
provide these alternative points of view at every stage. That provision 
is, sadly, hugely watered down now in this bill. The bill simply leaves 
it up to the National Intelligence Director to decide how different 
points of view are factored into decisions. That is a terribly weak 
substitute.
  Second, in emerging domestic and foreign surveillance operations, the 
bill does not sufficiently protect ordinary Americans from the mistakes 
of Big Government. The bill does contain a Presidential board to look 
at government-wide privacy issues, but that will do little to protect 
innocent Americans or to address specific grievances that may arise. 
That will come back to haunt us, just as certain aspects of the PATRIOT 
Act have.
  Finally, the bill purports to increase the number of border and 
Customs agents; but in fact, the bill does nothing of the kind. That 
language is meaningless without the dollars to back it up, and this 
House has rejected providing those dollars, (ill-advisedly so in my 
view they voted that way;) the House has rejected providing those 
dollars four times in the past year, and this bill does absolutely 
nothing to change that. On that score, this bill is simply an empty 
institutional press release.
  When this bill is corrected on those three fronts, and on others, I 
will be happy to vote for it, but not until.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and 
I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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