[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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