[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 121 (Tuesday, September 11, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H5780-H5785]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1300
     PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5544, MINNESOTA EDUCATION 
INVESTMENT AND EMPLOYMENT ACT, AND PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 
         5949, FISA AMENDMENTS ACT REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2012

  Mr. NUGENT. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 773 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 773

       Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this 
     resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule 
     XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the 
     Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of 
     the bill (H.R. 5544) to authorize and expedite a land 
     exchange involving National Forest System land in the 
     Laurentian District of the Superior National Forest and 
     certain other National Forest System land in the State of 
     Minnesota that has limited recreational and conservation 
     resources and lands owned by the State of Minnesota in trust 
     for the public school system that are largely scattered in 
     checkerboard fashion within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area 
     Wilderness and have important recreational, scenic, and 
     conservation resources, and for other purposes. The first 
     reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of 
     order against consideration of the bill are waived. General 
     debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one 
     hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking 
     minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources. After 
     general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment 
     under the five-minute rule. In lieu of the amendment in the 
     nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on 
     Natural Resources now printed in the bill, an amendment in 
     the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of Rules 
     Committee Print 112-30, modified by the amendment printed in 
     part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying 
     this resolution, shall be considered as adopted in the House 
     and in the Committee of the Whole. The bill, as amended, 
     shall be considered as the original bill for the purpose of 
     further amendment under the five-minute rule and shall be 
     considered as read. All points of order against provisions in 
     the bill, as amended, are waived. No further amendment to the 
     bill, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in 
     part B of the report of the Committee on Rules. Each such 
     further amendment may be offered only in the order printed in 
     the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the 
     report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 
     the time specified in the report equally divided and 
     controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be 
     subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand 
     for division of the question in the House or in the Committee 
     of the Whole. All points of order against such further 
     amendments are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of 
     the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report 
     the bill, as amended, to the House with such further 
     amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question 
     shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and 
     on any further amendment thereto to final passage without 
     intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or 
     without instructions.
       Sec. 2.  Upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 5949) to 
     extend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 for five years. All 
     points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. 
     The amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by 
     the Committee on the Judiciary now printed in the bill shall 
     be considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be 
     considered as read. All points of order against provisions in 
     the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous question shall 
     be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and on any 
     amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion 
     except: (1) one hour of debate, with 40 minutes equally 
     divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority 
     member of the Committee on the Judiciary and 20 minutes 
     equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking 
     minority member of the Permanent Select Committee on 
     Intelligence; and (2) one motion to recommit with or without 
     instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida is recognized for 
1 hour.
  Mr. NUGENT. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis) 
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.


                             General Leave

  Mr. NUGENT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. NUGENT. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule, 
which provides for consideration of two different pieces of 
legislation.
  The first of these bills transfers lands within the State of 
Minnesota to the benefit of the State's public school system. The rule 
provides for consideration of each and every amendment offered by 
Members to the Rules Committee by the amendment deadline.
  The next measure this rule allows for consideration of is H.R. 5949, 
the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012. Also called the 
FAA Reauthorization, this legislation would reauthorize programs that 
are critically important to our national security.
  First passed in 2008, FAA has enjoyed a history of strong bipartisan 
support. Now, President Obama and his administration have made it clear 
that a clean, long-term extension of FAA is their number one 
intelligence priority. That's exactly what H.R. 5949 does.
  Recognizing that our Nation's security cannot and should not wait 
until an emergency, the 11th hour, or rushed reauthorization, the 
Select Intelligence and Judiciary Committees have had hearings on the 
FAA's reauthorization, they've marked up the bill, and they've sent it 
to us months ahead of the expiration deadline. I congratulate both of 
these committees on their timely and dedicated work for the sake of our 
own safety.
  It is with the tools that the FAA provides to our intelligence 
community that we're able to monitor our Nation's enemies overseas. 
Without this authority, the ability to track those individuals who 
aren't American citizens and want to do harm to this country would 
return to the state it was in before September 11 of 2001.
  I really want to stress that the FISA Amendments Act applies to 
targeting non-U.S. citizens living outside of the United States.
  The FAA also enhances civil liberty protections for Americans. The 
government cannot target an American overseas without first obtaining 
an individualized court order from the FISA Court. Prior to FAA, the 
government was not required to obtain an individualized court order to 
target U.S. persons outside of the United States. This is an expansion 
of the civil liberties made possible by the FISA Amendments Act.
  As a former law enforcement officer, I know how important it is to 
get the information that we need to work on a case. Without good, 
reliable information, you can't do your job and protect the citizens, 
but the information must be obtained in the right way.

                              {time}  1310

  FAA is a critical tool at our international community's disposal in 
our war against terrorism.

[[Page H5781]]

  I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting our national 
security by voting for the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 
minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying 
bills--H.R. 5544, the Minnesota Education Investment and Employment 
Act, and H.R. 5949, the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act. There 
are significant problems in both pieces of legislation. However, both 
bills are, nevertheless, being brought forward under a restrictive 
process, despite the efforts of my colleague, Mr. McGovern, to amend 
the rule to allow for an open rule on amendments on both debates. 
Unfortunately, that motion failed in the Rules Committee. Instead, this 
rule is a restrictive process that limits debate and discussion that 
can improve this legislation.
  Let me briefly address the lands law before getting to the FISA bill, 
which is of great concern to our civil liberties.
  We have before us a bill that allows for the exchange of 86,000 acres 
of Minnesota's school trust lands within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area 
Wilderness for unidentified Forest Service lands. The wilderness is a 
critical asset for northeastern Minnesota's tourism and recreation 
industry, as well as the most popular wilderness area in our Nation's 
wilderness system. But since the bill doesn't even give details about 
what public land would be lost, we can't even say how bad a deal this 
is for the American people. It is simply bad policy to push through a 
controversial land swap bill without adequate public involvement and 
participation.
  I strike that in contrast to a bill that I recently introduced, H.R. 
6370, the Conveyance of the Forest Service Lake Hill Administrative 
Site. This bill does have accompanying maps that will be made available 
to the committee so that people can see where the land in question is. 
It is land that no longer fits the characteristics of forest land, 
having been deforested near the highway, about 40 acres, and it should 
not be a controversial bill.
  In direct contrast to this bill, the bill I introduced today has 
support from the counties, towns, and local environmental community, 
and no local opposition to that bill. On the other hand, Mr. Cravaack's 
bill doesn't even identify what Forest Service parcels would be sold by 
the Federal Government and acquired by Minnesota. This kind of 
ambiguity in a land exchange bill is unprecedented for a land exchange 
bill and is not providing the adequate information to the Members of 
this body to make an informed decision on the underlying bill.
  Now, let me address FISA--I take issue with a number of elements of 
FISA--which extends the sweeping electronic surveillance network 
established under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 for 5 years. I did 
not support the bill when it came before the House Judiciary Committee 
on which I serve, and I do not support this bill now.
  Now, of course everybody in our country understands the serious 
threat our Nation faces from terrorist organizations and foreign 
nations, but we can't give up what makes it special for us to be 
Americans in the name of defending our country. Our privacy rights 
should not be eviscerated in the name of national security.
  Many of these concerns are addressable, but unfortunately the bill 
fails to strike an appropriate balance between protecting our liberties 
and security. Some of its many shortcomings include giving the U.S. 
Government the ability to intercept U.S. residents' international phone 
calls and email communications without having to even name the people 
or groups it's monitoring or show its targets who are suspected of 
wrongdoing or terrorism. The target could even be a human rights 
activist, a media organization, a country, a region, an ethnicity. 
Nothing requires the government to identify its surveillance targets at 
all, nor are there sufficient parameters around making sure that they 
are narrowly tailored to our national security needs.
  In addition, this bill unfortunately allows the U.S. to intercept 
communications without having to identify the location, the phone 
lines, the email addresses to be monitored. In essence, the government 
can use this new law to collect all phone calls between the U.S. and 
abroad simply by saying to the FISA court that it was targeting someone 
abroad and that a purpose of the new surveillance program is to collect 
foreign intelligence information.
  The lack of judicial oversight is also startling. While the FISA 
courts have a limited role, it's limited to overseeing the government 
surveillance activities rather than reviewing individualized 
surveillance applications, including whether they are sufficiently 
broad or not.
  Yesterday, the chair of our committee, Mr. Dreier, also mentioned 
that Congress itself has an oversight role in making sure that the 
broad powers given to the Federal Government under FISA are not abused. 
However, this Congress--and myself, personally--have not had any 
briefing with regard to the use of FISA.
  Now, yesterday, representatives of the Intelligence Committee offered 
to make those briefings available, but I think the proper order to go 
about things, if Members of Congress are to make an informed decision 
about whether these vast powers given to the Federal Government are 
being used appropriately, would be to have the classified briefing 
first before bringing a 5-year extension bill to the floor so that 
Members of Congress, in a classified setting, have access to the 
information that we need--the information that I need, the information 
my colleagues need--to make an informed decision about whether the 
proper controls are in place and the extent of the use and/or abuse of 
the vast powers given under FISA.
  In addition, there are no real limits on how the government uses, 
keeps, or disseminates the information it collects. The law doesn't say 
what government can keep and has to get rid of. Potentially, this could 
lead to the archiving of material over decades. It fails to place real 
limits on how and to whom information can be disseminated. Whether it's 
our U.S. intelligence partners in other countries, whether it's 
contractors to our own government, we need to have the right controls 
around where private information is shared.

  Finally, I want to address another element of the bill in my initial 
remarks, and that is the indemnity that is given to companies that 
violate their own terms of service and allow the government to trample 
the privacy rights of thousands of Americans.
  Effectively, telecom companies and others that provide the government 
with enormous amounts of information are effectively completely 
indemnified, so there is no way to hold any of these companies 
accountable for their activities in violation of their own user 
agreement signed by two parties, themselves and their customer. There 
remains no way to enforce the violation of that user agreement because 
there is complete indemnity for those organizations.
  I think there needs to be a way, through the regular court system, to 
hold companies accountable for their activities. Letting them off the 
hook entirely only invites widespread abuse and disregard of their own 
customer agreements. Why bother even having to post or have a privacy 
policy if, at the whim of the company--not the government, the whim of 
the company--it can be completely shared with the government in 
disregard to their own privacy policy because that is the most 
effective way for the company to receive a blanket indemnification to 
any civil liability that might arise from violating privacy laws and/or 
its own terms of use.
  Again, national security is a critical imperative. We need to make 
sure that our agencies charged with keeping us safe have the right 
tools at their disposal to do so. But in the process of making sure 
that Americans are safe, we need to make sure we don't give up what 
makes it special to be an American.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUGENT. Madam Speaker, a number of issues that my good friend 
from Colorado brought up cover both bills, actually. One, obviously, is 
the Minnesota bill as relates to public education. That was passed by 
the Minnesota State Legislature in a bipartisan way, and it was also 
signed by the

[[Page H5782]]

Democratic Governor of Minnesota in regards to this particular issue on 
this particular bill as it relates to Minnesota.
  With that, I'm going to yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Cravaack).
  Mr. CRAVAACK. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying 
bill, H.R. 5544, the Minnesota Education Investment and Employment Act. 
This bill will support the teachers and schoolchildren in the State of 
Minnesota, create well-paying jobs in northern Minnesota, and make the 
Boundary Waters Canoe Area, for the first time in its existence, whole.
  We have to have a bit of context here.
  When Minnesota became a State in 1858, sections 16 and 36 of every 
township in Minnesota were set aside in trust for the benefit of 
schools. The State could use, lease, or sell the land to raise money 
for education.
  In the beginning, the State leaders decided to sell the more valuable 
parcels of the school trust lands, but around the turn of the century 
they realized they needed a more sustainable plan and began putting the 
school trust lands to productive use for timber and mining. This has 
been the goal of the State for over 100 years, and it has produced 
dividends for generations for our school kids.
  As DFL State Representative Denise Dittrich has so ably educated me 
on, these lands are not so much owned by the State as held in trust by 
the State and owned by the schoolchildren of Minnesota. It is the 
responsibility of the school trust fund trustees to maximize the return 
on these lands for the benefit of this fund. This is a critical point. 
This is part of the Minnesota Constitution.
  But in the 1970s, the Federal Government created the Boundary Waters 
Canoe Area Wilderness. These lands within the Boundary Waters cannot be 
logged, leased, or mined in order to preserve the unique wilderness 
character of this pristine land. Thousands of visitors from around the 
country come to enjoy this beautiful area. But as a result of its 
creation, Minnesota and its students have been faced with an 86,000-
acre problem for over 30 years.

                              {time}  1320

  Eighty-six thousand acres of State-owned school trust lands have been 
locked within the borders of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, unable to 
produce critical funding for Minnesota public education. It is 
imperative we resolve this longstanding problem. Our goal is to 
preserve and protect the Boundary Waters and allow State-owned school 
trust lands to raise revenue for Minnesota education.
  Unfortunately, Minnesota school kids have been cheated out of public 
education funding for over 34 years now. In the past, there have been a 
number of working groups, studies, and resolutions. Finally, after 
years of inaction, stalling and dilatory tactics by special interest 
groups, Republicans and Democrats together in Minnesota said enough is 
enough.
  It's been referred to as Mr. Cravaack's bill. That is not, in fact, 
the case. This is Minnesota's bill.
  On March 22 of this year, an overwhelming majority of Democrats and 
Republicans from the State senate passed senate file 1750 on a vote of 
53-11. On April 3, the house followed suit, passing a bipartisan bill 
90-41. On April 27, our Democratic Governor, Governor Mark Dayton, 
signed the bill into law.
  H.R. 5544 executes a bipartisan State plan that Governor Dayton 
signed into law earlier this year. H.R. 5544 would exchange State-owned 
school trust lands trapped in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness 
to the Federal Government in exchange for Federal Government-owned land 
outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
  This bill includes important provisions that would ensure Minnesotans 
can maintain their existing hunting and fishing rights within the 
Boundary Waters. In addition, the bill exempts the land exchange 
process from NEPA.
  The land exchange itself would have no environmental impact on any 
future development and would still be subject to strict State and 
Federal regulations.
  Intuitively, a land swap is merely a redrawing of maps and has no 
environmental impact in and of itself. The mentioned activities, mining 
and logging, do, in fact, have environmental impact and would be 
subject to the full Federal and State review. Not one environmental 
protection is lost in the execution of this bill.
  I want to be very transparent here. One of the hopes of my 
constituents is to have a bill to create good-paying jobs in the timber 
and mining industries. The lands listed in S.F. 1750 are rich in 
natural resources. Many of them lie in portions of the Superior 
National Forest that are already being successfully mined for iron ore 
and harvested for timber. It's a working and managed forest.
  These activities employ thousands of workers and support tens of 
thousands of other ancillary jobs in the region. Northern Minnesotans 
want these and need these opportunities, and every American benefits 
from the steel and lumber that goes into our cars and into our homes.
  While I generally support the aims of NEPA, the State of Minnesota 
has some of the strictest environmental standards in the country and a 
track record of successful regulation of mining and logging.
  On the other hand, obstructionist special interest groups have a 
track record of abusing the NEPA process to sue and delay. I do not 
want these groups to continue to delay this land exchange, preventing 
Minnesota schools from receiving the funding that they need and, quite 
frankly, they deserve.
  The State of Minnesota cannot afford to be sued by environmental 
groups for years. Some of those arguing for NEPA are, in fact, arguing 
that defending lawsuits is an appropriate use of the taxpayer dollars 
and that it's okay to transfer wealth from State coffers to special 
interest groups. Interesting to note, many of these special groups 
aren't even from Minnesota.

  Make no mistake. This will be passed and a bipartisan land exchange 
is going to get done. I will not allow special interest groups, acting 
in bad faith, to abuse the NEPA process and use frivolous lawsuits to 
block and derail a land exchange. If I could trust special interest 
groups to act in good faith and if I could trust the Federal 
bureaucracy to act promptly, I would include NEPA in this legislation.
  The teachers and schoolkids in Minnesota can't wait years, if not 
decades. Currently, some of the schools in Minnesota have classrooms 
with over 40 kids, and some school districts, like mine in North 
Branch, have been reduced to a 4-day school week. I ask, is that 
progress?
  This legislation will generate a lot of funding for our schools and 
create good-paying jobs. Importantly, the Minnesota Education 
Investment Employment Act will not eliminate a single acre of Boundary 
Waters land. In fact, it would include wilderness acres to the existing 
Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness boundaries while giving 
Minnesota's children land that rightfully and constitutionally belongs 
to them.
  I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying bill.
  Mr. POLIS. Remarkably, the underlying bill produced by Mr. Cravaack 
actually uncovered a permanent earmark that the CBO found provides $6 
million a year to three Minnesota counties. I think that in a Congress 
that is supposed to move past earmarks it's not a good precedent to 
include that earmark in the transition.
  I'd also like to clarify that Governor Dayton, while, of course, 
asking for the land to be exchanged--and there doesn't seem to be 
disagreement about that--did not ask for NEPA to be short-circuited, 
nor do they ask to bypass the normal appraisal process.
  With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Scott), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on 
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I oppose this rule because it 
does not allow consideration of amendments to the FISA bill that would 
strengthen the underlying bill by providing for greater accountability 
to the public of an otherwise wholly secretive process.
  Operations of the government must be held accountable to the people. 
The problem with holding operations under

[[Page H5783]]

the existing FISA law is that most of the activities under it are 
conducted in secrecy. The fact that I or other Members of Congress have 
access to classified information regarding those secret activities is 
not sufficient for public accountability.
  Even if I were satisfied by my access to classified information, that 
only reasonable and constitutionally justified actions are being taken 
by officials in secret, I would still feel the need to give greater 
assurances to the public other than simply, trust me, I'm satisfied, so 
should you. Curiously, if I'm not satisfied, there's nothing I could 
say because it's classified information.
  The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed in 1978 to curb 
abuses in collection and use of intelligence information, foreign and 
domestic. Under the original provisions of FISA, procedures for 
collection of foreign intelligence required the government to show not 
only that there was probable cause to believe that the target of the 
intelligence surveillance is an agent of a foreign power, but also that 
foreign intelligence-gathering is the primary purpose of the 
collection.
  Under the USA PATRIOT Act of 2002 and beyond, the government now only 
needs to show the probable cause of the target is an agent of the 
Federal government, and that the foreign intelligence-gathering is 
merely a significant purpose of that collection. When foreign 
intelligence collection is not the primary purpose for the collection 
of information, we are left to wonder what the primary purpose of that 
action might be.
  The FISA Act of 2008 went a step further, authorizing the collection 
of massive amounts of information about foreign persons reasonably 
believed to be outside of the United States without a warrant. With 
such massive amounts of information being collected, invariably 
information involving U.S. persons in the United States whose 
information may not be the target is also being collected.
  The FAA of 2008 requires the executive branch to design targeting 
procedures which limit the scope of the collection before the 
government acts and minimization procedures which limit the use of 
information before the government collects it, and the FISA court 
reviews these procedures for legal sufficiency. However, with nearly 
all of this oversight being conducted in secret, the public has no 
choice but to take the government at its word.
  We can do better. My amendment would simply require the executive 
branch to provide at least some documentation that it uses this 
authority narrowly, responsibly, and exclusively for foreign 
intelligence-gathering purposes, while protecting the material that 
would be classified. So we should reject this rule in favor of one that 
allows amendments to strengthen public accountability over the 
surveillance of Americans.
  Mr. NUGENT. Madam Speaker, I certainly do appreciate the gentleman's 
comments because, as a former law enforcement officer, I want to make 
sure that we protect Americans. But I'm not so sure I want to protect 
those in foreign countries that are not Americans, those in foreign 
countries that would do harm to America, like they did on this day 11 
years ago.
  You know, FISA--our good friend mentioned about 2008, but prior to 
2008, Americans could be entrapped within the FISA context.

                              {time}  1330

  In 2008, that changed. What it said is that, if Americans become 
involved in a FISA investigation in which their names come up, the 
information comes up, it has to be minimized. Then they have to go to a 
Federal judge and to the FISA court to get an authorization to do what 
they need to do as it relates to a warrant in order to receive and 
recover that information. That's what 2008 did. What the President has 
asked is that we just continue to do what we did since 2008. The 
protections that were put in place for American citizens that were not 
there prior to 2008 are to be extended. That's the intent of the 
reauthorization act of the FAA.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, Congress will soon leave town again for a long 
district work period. We believe it is essential that before we go home 
we must extend tax cuts for the middle class. If we defeat the previous 
question here today, we will amend the rule to say that Congress needs 
to stay here to vote on the Middle Class Tax Cut Act and not go home 
until we've made sure the middle class tax cut extension becomes law 
and that tax rates do not increase for millions of American families.
  To speak about the previous question, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).
  Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman.
  There is agreement in this Congress that we've got to create jobs in 
this economy. There is 100 percent agreement that we should extend tax 
cuts for 98 percent of the American people. If there is 100 percent 
agreement among the 435 Members of Congress to provide a continuing 
benefit to 98 percent of the people, why don't we do it? That's pretty 
good. The election will allow each side to make its argument about the 
tax cuts for the 2 percent. Incidentally, that 2 percent would be 
included. They'd get their tax cuts on the first $250,000 of income. So 
what we really have is 100 percent agreement that 100 percent of the 
people will get a tax cut, and we have a disagreement about whether 2 
percent of the people will have their tax cuts stopped at $250,000.
  We know that extending those Clinton-era tax rates is very important 
in order to maintain what is a fragile recovery. If we can step back 
from our political posturing and acknowledge that, in fact, we do agree 
that it is essential to the economy to extend those Clinton-era tax 
rates, why not do it sooner rather than later? Number one, there is no 
guarantee after the election that it will be easier to do then than it 
will be now. It's a roll of the dice on both sides.
  It would be one thing if the only thing at stake were our political 
futures, our political careers. That's not a big deal. Yet what's at 
stake is the American economy. It's about whether people have jobs, 
whether they have security, whether they can depend on what they need 
to raise their families. Some of those provisions are really important 
to students--a tax credit if you have a kid in college. Some of those 
are important as to whether you're going to be able to continue to 
itemize your deductions if you're a middle class family. Some of those 
are about the rates of tax that you pay.
  We agree on all of this, but it is solely within the power of the 
majority to decide whether to bring this bill to the floor for a vote. 
We are asking that it be done on behalf of the American people.
  Mr. NUGENT. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot, particularly as it relates to 
FISA. I want to clarify and make sure everyone understands that the FAA 
authorizes the targeting of non-U.S. citizens who are overseas. They 
are not citizens of the United States. Thus, they don't have the 
protections under the United States Constitution--nor should they.
  If an American becomes a target during the investigation, just as in 
a criminal investigation when I was sheriff and someone became a target 
during a wiretap, we then have to identify that person. If we want to 
go after him, if we want to eavesdrop on his conversations, we have to 
get a separate order to allow us to do that. Back in 1978, when this 
was first put in place--guess what?--if an American were picked up in 
one of these wiretap operations, there was no requirement to go back 
and get a separate authorization to go after that American citizen. But 
2008 changed that. 2008 put in a particular protection for American 
citizens who may get caught up in a FISA investigation in regards to 
the collection of data or voice transmissions. That's the difference.
  So, when people start talking about it as it relates to civil 
liberties, if you live in a foreign country, you don't have civil 
liberties with us if you're plotting against the United States. That's 
the whole identification reference to this: that it's a foreign country 
and a non-U.S. citizen.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. I would like to inquire of the gentleman from Florida how 
many speakers he has remaining.
  Mr. NUGENT. I have none.
  Mr. POLIS. Then I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the 
balance of my time.

[[Page H5784]]

  Madam Speaker, at a time when millions of Americans continue to 
struggle to find work, our Federal deficit continues to mount. Here we 
are in Congress after a 5-week recess--doing what?--considering, one, a 
faulty land swap deal that is a bad deal for the general public, that 
contains a hidden earmark and is controversial among local communities 
in Minnesota, and, two, a major reauthorization bill under a closed 
process that significantly curtails our liberties as Americans without 
there being any opportunities for Members of either party to offer 
suggestions about how to reconcile liberty with security.
  Look, Congress' ``to do'' list remains long, and it's steadily 
growing. The American public is upset that Congress isn't tackling the 
deficit or the debt. Congress isn't tackling jobs, infrastructure, 
moving forward and investing in our future economic growth. Among 
Congress' unfinished business is a tax increase that will hit the 
middle class unless Congress acts.

  If we defeat the previous question, we will make sure that Congress 
does not go home before making sure that middle class taxes do not go 
up. In fact, according to the House Clerk's Office, only 61 bills have 
become law in 2012. That's the fewest number of bills in 60 years. We 
only have 7 days that this House of Representatives is working here in 
Washington in September, yet this Congress continues to refuse to make 
the hard choices needed to get our economy moving.
  It's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work in making sure that 
we have the ability to protect Americans from threats. Let's do so in 
an open way that encourages ideas from both sides and that has a 
classified briefing at which Members of Congress can receive the 
information we need to suggest how or if FISA needs to be changed 
before it's authorized for a carte blanche 5 additional years.
  It is important to reject both of these underlying rules and these 
underlying bills. It is time to focus on job creation, deficit 
reduction, and tax reform, not on trying to rush to the floor an 
earmark land swap with no map for Minnesota, for what can only be taken 
to be purely political reasons, as well as there being under a closed 
process a bill about which many of us have grave concerns and that 
undermines our right to privacy as Americans.
  I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and the two flawed underlying bills, 
and I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record the text of my 
amendment to the rule, along with extraneous material, immediately 
prior to the vote on the previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Colorado?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to cast a thoughtful 
vote and to vote ``no'' on the rule and the bills and to defeat the 
previous question.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUGENT. I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Speaker, I've heard my good friend from Colorado. Maybe he 
wasn't serving on the Judiciary Committee this summer, but prior to 
this being vetted within the Judiciary Committee, all the members there 
were offered a classified briefing as it relates to FISA. Every member 
had the opportunity to attend that. As I said, I'm not sure if Mr. 
Polis was a member of that Judiciary Committee at the time it was 
offered to all. As a matter of fact, yesterday, at the Rules Committee, 
the ranking Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee, Mr. 
Ruppersberger, pointed out to the Rules Committee that, at any time, 
any Member of this House can request a classified briefing--any Member.

                              {time}  1340

  He wanted to make sure that this didn't become a political football. 
He admonished all of us not to make this a political statement, but to 
do what's right for this country.
  I hear time and time again from my good friend as this relates to 
civil liberties of Americans. If you look back to 2008, that was 
rectified. Prior to that I would tell you that the civil liberties of 
Americans were in jeopardy, but in 2008, that was corrected, and it's 
continued on in this reauthorization of 2012.
  Once again, the FISA court is comprised of U.S. District Federal 
judges, and they also have a right to appeal to a court of review made 
up of Federal judges. The information, as Mr. Ruppersberger said, is if 
you want a briefing requested, if you want additional information in a 
classified setting requested, every Member has that opportunity. As a 
matter of fact, in the Intelligence Committee, there wasn't one 
opposing vote. Democrats and Republicans alike came together and said 
this is what's important to keep America safe. They don't want to have 
another 9/11 on their watch. At the same time, we want to protect all 
Americans.
  When people start throwing this around and saying this is an assault 
on American civil liberties, that's just not right, it's not correct, 
and it's wrong because this bill does everything to protect Americans 
from intrusion into their private lives. It forces the Federal 
Government to go back to court if it uncovers through these 
surveillance techniques activities by an American citizen who's doing 
something wrong as it relates to terrorism against this country. It 
gives them a process to do it because, prior to 2008, they could do it 
without abandon. They could wind up collecting any information on U.S. 
citizens. In 2008, that changed and rightfully so. There should be 
constraints on the Federal Government.
  I heard also there's no checks and balances. That's just not true. 
Every 60 days there's a report done in reference to FISA in regards to 
the intercepts. Twice a year, there's an automatic report that has to 
be generated that goes to Congress. And at any time, the Judiciary 
Committee and the Intelligence Committee can hold hearings--and they 
do--as it relates to classified information, as it relates to FISA. 
That's oversight. That's what we're supposed to do.
  And the reason they say this is secret--well, guess what, it's not 
secret, but it's kept under wraps because of this: if we tell our 
techniques to our enemies, then guess what? They'll figure out a way to 
circumvent so they can get the information, pass the information, and 
conspire against this country. That's the reason in law enforcement we 
don't give up our techniques because the bad guys will figure it out. 
They're pretty smart folks. They have time on their hands. What we 
don't want to do is give them time on their hands to assault the United 
States of America, kill our citizens, kill and injure those first 
responders, and then put our military at risk.
  This is directed to those that live outside of this country, those 
that are not American citizens. Let me make this perfectly clear. 
Besides all the rhetoric of those who would love to inflame different 
people as it relates to this, this has nothing do with American 
citizens, except if they do get caught up in a conversation with 
someone who is a foreign national that it does have to go back to court 
to get that specific authorization to record or transmit that 
information as it relates to them.
  Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
to support this rule and bring these two very important pieces of 
legislation to the House floor for a vote. If there's one duty that is 
inherently part of our Federal Government's core mission, it's to 
provide for our national security. None is more important than making 
sure that this Republic survives.
  The FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization is a key tool in keeping our 
Nation safe. We heard it from both sides of the aisle who testified in 
front of the Rules Committee yesterday. As we continue to fight 
terrorists around the world who want nothing more than to harm our 
Nation, the FAA gives our intelligence community the tools they need to 
track these enemies overseas. That's the important word, ``overseas.'' 
We can't give up that fight, which is why we need to keep using the 
information we have access to. The FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization 
balances this need for security with civil liberty protections for 
Americans living abroad. It keeps us safe at home while protecting 
Americans living around the world.
  I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to continue the 
bipartisan tradition of supporting the FAA and to vote for this bill.
  The material previously referred to by Mr. Polis is as follows:


[[Page H5785]]



      An Amendment to H. Res. 773 Offered by Mr. Polis of Colorado

       At the end of the resolution, add the following new 
     sections:
       Sec. 3. Upon completion of consideration of House 
     Resolution 746 the Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of 
     rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of 
     the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration 
     of the bill (H.R. 15) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 
     1986 to provide tax relief to middle-class families. All 
     points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. 
     General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not 
     exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair 
     and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and 
     Means. After general debate the bill shall be considered for 
     amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order 
     against provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion 
     of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee 
     shall rise and report the bill to the House with such 
     amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question 
     shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments 
     thereto to final passage without intervening motion except 
     one motion to recommit with or without instructions. If the 
     Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to 
     no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day 
     the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of 
     business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the 
     Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.
       Sec. 4. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the 
     consideration of the bill specified in section 3 of this 
     resolution.
       Sec. 5. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the 
     House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the 
     resolution (H. Res. 746) prohibiting the consideration of a 
     concurrent resolution providing for adjournment or 
     adjournment sine die unless a law is enacted to provide for 
     the extension of certain expired or expiring tax provisions 
     that apply to middle-income taxpayers if called up by 
     Representative Slaughter of New York or her designee. All 
     points of order against the resolution and against its 
     consideration are waived.
       (The information contained herein was provided by the 
     Republican Minority on multiple occasions throughout the 
     110th and 111th Congresses.)

        The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

       This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous 
     question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. 
     A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote 
     against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow 
     the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an 
     alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be 
     debating.
       Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of 
     Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the 
     previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or 
     control the consideration of the subject before the House 
     being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous 
     question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the 
     subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling 
     of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the 
     House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes 
     the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to 
     offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the 
     majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated 
     the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to 
     a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to 
     recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: 
     ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman 
     from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to 
     yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first 
     recognition.''
       Because the vote today may look bad for the Republican 
     majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is 
     simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on 
     adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive 
     legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is 
     not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican 
     Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United 
     States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135). 
     Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question 
     vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally not 
     possible to amend the rule because the majority Member 
     controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of 
     offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by 
     voting down the previous question on the rule . . . When the 
     motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the 
     time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering 
     the previous question. That Member, because he then controls 
     the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for 
     the purpose of amendment.''
       In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of 
     Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special 
     Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on 
     such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on 
     Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further 
     debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: 
     ``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a 
     resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control 
     shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous 
     question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who 
     controls the time for debate thereon.''
       Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does 
     have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only 
     available tools for those who oppose the Republican 
     majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the 
     opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

  Mr. NUGENT. With that, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________