[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 41 (Wednesday, March 12, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H2310]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SEPARATION OF POWERS

  (Mr. MORAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to address the issue of 
separation of powers. I do think that the administration is entirely in 
the right when it implements, through the Environmental Protection 
Agency, the authority given to it by the Clean Water Act and the Clean 
Air Act.
  I do have some concern, though, that the legislative branch 
continually seems to cede the power of the purse granted to it by the 
Constitution; in other words, the appropriations process to the 
executive branch, which obviously would like to fund its spending 
priorities, many of which I don't disagree with.
  What I am most concerned with in regard to this separation of powers 
was cited in a New York Times editorial today, and that is the fact 
that two successive Presidents have now absolved the Central 
Intelligence Agency for its conduct with regard to illegal detention, 
rendition, torture, and fruitless harsh interrogation of terrorism 
suspects. I don't care about Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's pain, frankly, 
but that is not the point. The point is that we have a responsibility 
in the legislative branch to oversee the conduct of our Intelligence 
Committees.
  When the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence in the 
Senate says that the CIA improperly searched computers that were her 
committee staff members' computers, that is wrong. The entire 
legislative branch should stand behind her in upholding our 
responsibilities as the legislative branch, an equal branch under the 
Constitution.

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