[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 33 (Thursday, February 28, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H1168-H1169]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Maryland, the 
majority leader, for information about the schedule for next week.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the Republican Whip.
  On Monday, the House will meet in pro forma session at 2 p.m. On 
Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. 
for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On 
Wednesday and Thursday the House will meet at 10 a.m. On Friday there 
will be no votes in the House.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A list 
of those bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. We 
will consider H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction 
Equity Act of 2007. In addition, we hope to consider legislation 
regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. There may well be 
other legislation as well.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the leader for that information.
  On the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, I'm certainly hopeful 
we can do whatever is necessary to get that bill to the floor. I know 
that a majority of Members of the House, at least I believe a majority 
of the Members of the House, based on what I believe to be the case on 
this side and on the letter sent to the Speaker by Members from your 
side, a majority would be ready to pass a bill that met the standards 
of the Senate, in fact, the Senate bill.
  I'm wondering if the gentleman has any idea if we would have that 
legislation or previous House-passed legislation, or what kind of 
product you think we may be moving toward as it relates to the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act.
  I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. As the gentleman 
knows, this bill was passed in the Senate a little over 2 weeks ago. 
Since that time we have had an extensive number of meetings, 
discussions. I'm hopeful, as you know, to have discussions with the 
whip, with the distinguished Republican whip, my friend, on this issue 
as well. I think both of us are going to be here tomorrow. We'll take 
that time perhaps to do that.

                              {time}  1200

  As I said, and I've said repeatedly, I think every Member of this 
House wants to pass legislation which will facilitate the interception 
of particularly foreign-to-foreign communications which may pose a 
danger to this country.
  All of us are aware of the fact that technological changes have 
resulted in some questions being raised because of the fact that we 
have many of the communications coming through the United States. I 
frankly think, as the gentleman knows, there is really not a great deal 
of controversy or difference between the two Houses or between our two 
sides of the aisle on this issue. There's some differences, but they're 
not major differences. I think they can be addressed.
  There are major differences with respect to the second title of the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill which comes from the Senate 
which deals with retroactive immunity, which has nothing about 
prospective security but is obviously important for us to consider. 
We're also working on that as well, but I will tell the gentleman that 
we don't have agreement. But, as I said, I'm very hopeful that we will 
have legislation on the floor next week. I do not expect it to be, as 
the gentleman asked, the same bill that passed the House.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, I would thank the gentleman for that. I hope we can 
work to resolve this. I do think the foreign individuals making calls 
in a foreign country, for that to work the way it needs to work, 
voluntary compliance is extremely important; and that's why working out 
this liability issue is, in my view, critical to that foreign-to-
foreign, the only area where we say a foreign person in a foreign 
country, the only area where we don't believe a warrant would be 
required but that to not

[[Page H1169]]

have a warrant you have to have voluntary compliance. And the liability 
issue, I think, continues to endanger future voluntary compliance, and 
I hope we can work together in that regard to move forward.
  I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  As the gentleman knows, both the RESTORE Act, which passed this 
House, and the Senate bill both are similar in giving prospective 
immunity to telecoms that voluntarily or pursuant to order cooperate 
with us in accomplishing that objective. We believe, of course, that 
FISA was established so that a court review on process would be 
appropriate to ensure, in fact, that the collection of information is 
on foreign-to-foreign.
  We well understand that, as the DNI has indicated, prospectively you 
may not know so you need authorization. Our bill provides for that. The 
Senate bill provides for that. I really don't believe that is a major 
contention of the bill. That's prospectively.
  A major contention is, which we believe has nothing to do with 
security, on what has been done, and, frankly, I'm not sure we know 
exactly what has been done. As you know, I've taken the opportunity to 
be up in the intelligence room, in the secure room, and go through the 
papers that have been provided. My own view is they're not dispositive 
of the issue; but irrespective of that, we're working on title II as 
well, and I look forward to having discussions on that with you as 
well.
  Mr. BLUNT. I do, too. I do think this liability issue is important. 
We want to continue to have voluntary compliance. We also don't want to 
put these companies that have voluntarily complied in a situation where 
the only way to prove that what they did was appropriate is to produce 
documents that are at this point, we believe, in the national security 
of the country not producible; but maybe we can work through this.
  I hope to see this bill on the floor next week. I think we've had 2 
weeks that I and others feel that each day the process gets more 
cumbersome than the day before because of the way this process builds 
up, and I look forward to working with you on that.
  Mr. HOYER. If I might comment on that, as you know, from our 
perspective, this is one of the problems. This is a very serious, 
important bill. It's critical to the defense of our country. I want to 
see that facilitated. I think every Member on both sides of the aisle 
wants to see that facilitated, but there are serious issues. There are 
serious constitutional issues involved here.
  That's why FISA was passed in 1978, very frankly, as a result of an 
administration that intercepted communications here domestically. You 
will recall that, I know, and a great concern about that. FISA was 
adopted by the Congress and signed by the President in an attempt to 
try to ensure that those kinds of things that happened in the early 
1970s were not repeated by the intelligence community.
  So these are serious issues. Unfortunately, the Senate which had our 
bill for 2\1/2\ months and had spent a lot of time considering a bill 
long before we passed our bill did not send us a bill until, as I said, 
about 14 days ago, and we have since that time, notwithstanding the 
fact we were on break, staff and Members have been working on that. As 
you know, we have invited the other side of the aisle, ranking members, 
to participate in that. Some have chosen not to, but we are hopeful 
that we can move ahead on this, and we hope there is room for positive 
resolution.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that. I do know that Senator 
Rockefeller in the other body has said that our intelligence is being 
downgraded and has made the case that the people that voluntarily 
complied don't get paid for it. He said, in fact: ``What do they get 
for this? They get $40 billion worth of suits, grief, trashing, but 
they do it.'' Then he went on to say: ``They don't have to do it, 
because they do have shareholders to respond to, to answer to.''
  I believe there is a way to address this issue. We need to find it, 
and I hope we can.
  Last night, we had the Andean trade bill on the floor. This is a bill 
that allows access to our markets by Andean countries, including the 
country that we currently have a negotiated agreement with; and that 
country has changed dramatically since we put the first Andean bill in 
place 17 years ago. I'm wondering if the gentleman has any sense of 
where we might be on that outstanding agreement with Colombia. 
Certainly with the vote we took today they can continue to have the 
same kind of access to our markets that they've had for the last 17 
years.
  A trade agreement would give us substantially new access to their 
markets, and I'd like to hear any sense of when we may get to that bill 
and have a situation where the President would be encouraged to send a 
bill up to us so we could get to it.
  I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  I've had discussions recently with Secretary Gutierrez, with 
Ambassador Schwab and others, and Secretary Paulson, who have also 
discussed this issue with me and I know with you and with many others. 
This is an issue of importance. We think the discussions are ongoing. 
Hopefully, they will result in some fruitful resolution. That has not 
been the case at this point in time.
  We did have, as you well know, a very significant interface with the 
administration last year in which I think a very positive result in 
terms of workers' rights and environmental concerns were addressed by 
us and by the administration. Unfortunately, we have not moved forward 
from that point on the other three agreements that were pending at that 
time, but I think that we will continue to have those discussions, 
hopefully positive and hopefully have some result.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman. I do think since those discussions 
began the Colombian Government has made changes in the agreement in 
those areas, all of which have now been passed by the Colombian 
legislature, and I look forward to moving forward with that.

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