[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 25200-25231]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE--IN THE MATTER OF REFUSALS TO COMPLY WITH 
               SUBPOENAS ISSUED BY COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of the 
privileges of the House and, by direction of the Committee on 
Resources, I call up a privileged report (Rept. No. 106-801).
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will read the report.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                          CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS

                                 ______
                                 

Report on the Refusals To Comply With subpeonas Issued by the Committee 
                              on Resources

[[Page 25201]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.001



[[Page 25202]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.002



[[Page 25203]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.003



[[Page 25204]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.004



[[Page 25205]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.005



[[Page 25206]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.006



[[Page 25207]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.007



[[Page 25208]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.008



[[Page 25209]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.009



[[Page 25210]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.010



[[Page 25211]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.011



[[Page 25212]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.012



[[Page 25213]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.013



[[Page 25214]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.014



[[Page 25215]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.015



[[Page 25216]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH27OC00.016



[[Page 25217]]

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask 
unanimous consent that the report be considered as read and printed in 
the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Alaska?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on 
Resources, I offer a privileged resolution (H. Res. 657) and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 657

       Resolved, That pursuant to sections 102 and 104 of the 
     Revised Statutes of the United States (2 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 192 
     and 194), the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall 
     certify to the United States Attorney for the District of 
     Columbia the report of the Committee on Resources detailing 
     (1) the refusal of Mr. Henry M. Banta; Mr. Keith Rutter; and 
     Ms. Danielle Brian Stockton to produce papers subpoenaed by 
     the Committee on Resources and the refusal of each to answer 
     questions while appearing under subpoena before the 
     Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources; (2) the refusal 
     of the Project on Government Oversight, a corporation 
     organized in the District of Columbia, to produce papers 
     subpoenaed by the Committee on Resources; and (3) the refusal 
     of Mr. Robert A. Berman to answer questions while appearing 
     under subpoena before the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral 
     Resources, to the end that Mr. Henry M. Banta; Mr. Robert A. 
     Berman; Mr. Keith Rutter; Ms. Danielle Brian Stockton; and 
     the Project on Government Oversight be proceeded against in 
     the manner and form provided by law.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The resolution constitutes a question of 
privilege under rule IX. The gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I 
yield 30 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).


 Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute Offered by Mr. Young of Alaska

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment in the nature 
of a substitute.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the amendment in the 
nature of a substitute.
  The Clerk read as follows:
  Amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by Mr. Young of 
Alaska:

       Strike all after the resolving clause and insert the 
     following:

     SECTION 1. CERTIFICATION OF REPORT REQUIRED.

       Pursuant to sections 102 and 104 of the Revised Statutes of 
     the United States (2 U.S.C. 192 and 194), the Speaker of the 
     House of Representatives shall certify the report of the 
     Committee on Resources (House Report No. 106-801) detailing 
     the refusals described in section 2 to the United States 
     Attorney for the District of Columbia, to the end that each 
     individual referred to in section 2 be proceeded against in 
     the manner and form provided by law.

     SEC. 2. REFUSALS DESCRIBED.

       The refusals referred to in section 1 are the following:
       (1) The refusal of Mr. Robert A. Berman to answer questions 
     while appearing under subpoena before the Subcommittee on 
     Energy and Mineral Resources of the Committee on Resources.
       (2) The refusal by Mr. Henry M. Banta to answer questions 
     while appearing under subpoena before the Subcommittee on 
     Energy and Mineral Resources of the Committee on Resources.
       (3) The refusal by Ms. Danielle Brian Stockton to answer 
     questions while appearing under subpoena before the 
     Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources of the Committee 
     on Resources.

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask 
unanimous consent that the amendment in the nature of a substitute be 
considered as read and printed in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Alaska?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, in the event that the amendment is 
agreed to, I ask that the question on adoption of the resolution be 
divided within section 2 so that refusal of each of the three named 
individuals will be voted on separately.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would advise the gentleman that if 
the amendment to the resolution is adopted, the question on adoption of 
the resolution, as amended, under the precedents, is grammatically and 
substantively divisible among the three paragraphs of section 2. There 
would then be an opportunity for a separate vote on the certification 
of each individual. The question will be so divided at the appropriate 
time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I filed a supplemental report yesterday. It changes only 
a technical error on the cover page of Report 106-801 filed by me on 
July 27, 2000.
  Digressing from my statement. My colleagues in this body, this is a 
very serious time, and I hope that Members will take the time to listen 
to both sides of this argument and make a decision by voting favorably 
on this resolution.
  The resolution now before the House reports the refusal of three 
subpoenaed witnesses to answer questions at hearings of the 
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources of the Committee on 
Resources, chaired by the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin). The 
questions were critical to the committee's oversight.
  Every Member of this House, Democrat, Republican and Independent, 
should support this resolution. If not, we undercut the future 
capability of this Congress and future Congresses to get information we 
will need to do our job required by Article One of the Constitution.
  The resolution is about whether the authority of a subpoena from a 
House committee means anything or whether it can be ignored. If Members 
think a subpoena means something, then they will vote for this 
substitute resolution. If they think committees, in their oversight 
roles, not the witnesses, should define the questions at a hearing, 
then they will vote in favor of reporting the facts relating to the 
refusal of Ms. Brian, Mr. Berman, and Mr. Banta to answer questions 
posed by the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin) and her 
subcommittee.
  On institutional grounds alone, every Member, Democrat, Independent, 
Republican, should support this contempt resolution. Every Member 
should also support the report on the merits as well.
  Mr. Speaker, this all started 18 months ago, when the gentlewoman 
from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin) and I read alarming press reports. These 
reports detailed government employees within the departments we oversee 
being paid and using proceeds from a whistleblower lawsuit called 
Johnson and Shell.
  That successful whistleblower suit is now basically settled. It 
returned over $400 million to the U.S. Treasury. But serious questions 
about the payments to Federal employees from the whistleblower share of 
the Johnson and Shell settlements forced us to launch an oversight 
review in the process. We issued document requests and, as we learned 
more about the payments, we scheduled hearings.
  In those hearings, the gentlewoman from Wyoming exposed details of a 
secret plan hatched years earlier by a group called POGO, the Project 
on Government Oversight. The plan was to pay two government oil royalty 
experts huge, and I mean huge, sums of money from the Johnson and Shell 
settlement.
  POGO used the Federal employees to learn information about the court-
sealed Johnson and Shell lawsuit. I repeat, the court-sealed Johnson 
and Shell lawsuit. And then POGO filed its own suit making the same 
allegation on top of the Johnson and Shell lawsuit.

                              {time}  1030

  Settlement proceeds from POGO's share were then funneled to the 
government insiders.
  The gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin) and her subcommittee 
discovered how POGO had already split nearly a million dollars from 
Federal employees. She discovered their written agreements. She 
discovered their plans to take $7 million in total from the 
whistleblowers' lawful reward. She discovered their plan split the 
bounty with the Federal Government employees. She discovered how the 
Department of Justice told POGO not to make the payments. May I stress 
that again. She discovered how the Department of Justice told POGO not 
to make those payments.

[[Page 25218]]

  The Committee experienced major, major stonewalling from those cited 
in this resolution while inquiring about the scheme. The culprits say 
that they, not Congress, determine what the American people will know 
about the largest payoffs ever accepted by Federal employees. That 
stonewalling probably constitutes a Federal misdemeanor known as 
contempt of Congress. A vote by the House is required to begin 
enforcement and condemn the payoffs, which is why we consider the 
report and resolution today.
  That oversight review included examining whether the two federal 
insiders, Robert A. Berman of Interior or Robert A. Speir of Energy, 
sold Government secrets or exercised influence to favor those who paid 
them.
  The Committee on Resources, under its rules, authorized me to issue 
subpoenas on this manner. After it became clear that the key players 
would not provide good-faith cooperation to the subcommittee of the 
gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin), I issued subpoenas for important 
documents. Later, the participants refused requests for voluntary 
interviews. So I issued subpoenas for witnesses to appear before the 
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources chaired by the gentlewoman 
from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin).
  Those subpoenas did not mean much to the key players in this scandal. 
They were denied. The gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin) and the 
subcommittee were very fair. Her subcommittee's oversight, as far as it 
could go, was an excellent example, I believe, of responsible 
Government.
  Under the statute, if the House adopts this report, the Speaker is 
authorized to present the facts to the United States Attorney for the 
District of Columbia.
  Consistent with the constitutional separation of powers, we do not 
weigh the evidence of refusal to comply with subpoenas against the 
reasonable doubt standard of proof.
  Our obligation is to report the facts as we know them. To fail to 
make this report will surrender authority over oversight to witnesses 
rather than reserving it to the House as placed by the Constitution.
  To put it simply, these parties have left no choice for the Congress. 
They refuse to comply.
  May I remind Members on both sides of the aisle, if they do not adopt 
this resolution, if they do not adopt this report, if they do not adopt 
what I am asking today, future Congresses will be thumbed at and told 
to forget their role as oversight.
  These people offered and accepted the largest payoffs ever made by 
Federal bureaucrats. But they claim the arrogant, self-serving 
privilege to tell the United States that they may not ask certain 
questions about their agreement, what they knew, and how they knew it.
  They say to us, we will not tell you how we used Government insiders 
to learn information. We will not tell you how we used Government 
employees to leach settlements from the true whistleblowers in the 
Johnson suit. They say, we will not tell you about our secret 
agreements to make payments to Federal oil policy insiders who helped 
them.
  To protect our mandate as Members of the House, our mandate to gather 
information and facts needed by the people to legislate and oversee 
Federal agencies, as I have said before, we, as a Congress, must adopt 
this resolution. We must stand up for the people's right to know what 
happened in this payoff.
  The substitute resolution I have offered will authorize the Speaker 
to certify to the U.S. Attorney only the refusal of Henry M. Banta, 
Robert A. Berman, and Danielle Brian Stockton to answer questions while 
appearing under subpoena before the Committee. This is done in light of 
new evidence suggesting that POGO and Banta paid Berman for influencing 
regulations. And that documentation is in the report. This is a very 
serious felony.
  There is no longer an interest in grouping Mr. Rutter and the other 
officers or directors of the corporation known as POGO with serious 
felons. Nor does the Committee on Resources wish to needlessly compound 
the charges by having Banta and Stockton face two misdemeanor counts 
each along with the serious charges which now seem certain.
  My colleagues will hear that this is all about big oil, it is about a 
so-called whistleblower. This is nothing to do with the whistleblower. 
In fact, the whistleblower testified before our committee that the suit 
was filed on top of his so they could gather the money to be paid to 
these Federal employees.
  It is probably one the most corrupt actions by Federal employees 
under a sealed document where they issued information that was 
confidential to, in fact, receive reimbursement.
  This is about this Congress and the next Congress and the Congresses 
in the future. If we do not adopt this resolution, then we have said to 
ourselves that this Congress no longer counts in seeking the truth.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such 
time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, this matter this morning is a serious matter because 
potentially for three citizens of the United States criminal liability 
may attach. But as serious as this matter is for those three 
individuals, this matter is not about what the chairman of my committee 
just said it is about.
  This is about three or four individuals that blew the whistle on a 
plan by 15 oil companies to deny the American taxpayers of the revenues 
that they were entitled to through the royalty program for oil taken 
off of the public lands that are owned by the people of the United 
States.
  Since that whistle has been blown and that program was discovered and 
the intentions were made known, this committee served not a single 
subpoena on those oil companies, this committee sent not a single 
letter to those oil companies asking them how they could defraud the 
Government of the United States.
  Instead, this committee rounded up four individuals and started 
badgering them in a hearing that had no definition, no parameters, and 
changed direction numerous times.
  But the core finding is clear and convincing. Fifteen oil companies 
settled for almost half a billion dollars, settled. How much more of 
American taxpayer has been denied we will not know because of that 
settlement. This is about what happens to an American citizen when the 
full force and effect of the Federal Government and the Congress of the 
United States comes down on their head because this was not a situation 
where these citizens have been charged with anything, indicted of 
anything, tried for anything, or convicted of anything. There is a 
notion in the majority's head that these people somehow are involved in 
criminal activity. So far, the only showing of any of that will be if 
the suggestion is that some criminal liability attaches for failing to 
answer the question.
  But, mind you, the Supreme Court of the United States is very, very 
cognizant of the force and the effect of the United States Government 
when it comes down on a private citizen; and it says that, when it asks 
a citizen a question in a hearing like this, it must do something that 
is very important, it must show that citizen, because that citizen must 
make a snap decision because liability attaches as to whether or not 
they are going to ask that question over and over, the Supreme Court 
has told this Congress of the United States that it must show them that 
that question is pertinent to the investigation.
  Now, the questions that they asked these individuals were questions 
where they were wandering around in side-bar litigation that had 
nothing to do with the writing of the regulations. And these witnesses, 
while they provided thousands and thousands of documents, while they 
have answered hundreds and hundreds of hours of questions in 
depositions and elsewhere, where the committee, in fact, had the 
evidence that they were seeking in the depositions in the other case, 
they have now decided that they are going to make victims of these four 
people.
  The victims here are the taxpayers of the United States who were 
defrauded

[[Page 25219]]

of half a billion dollars or more by 15 oil companies.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield 8 minutes to the good 
gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin), the chairman of the subcommittee 
that conducted most of the hearings.
  Mrs. CUBIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because I have a solemn duty to 
inform the House of the investigation which I, as the chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals, was assigned to lead.
  I am very saddened by the remarks of the previous speaker because he 
knows very well that is not what this case is about.
  I rise today to uphold this body's constitutional right to conduct 
lawful and thorough investigative oversight hearings on issues that are 
important to the American people. This is not something that we choose 
to do. This is something that we swear we will do when we raise our 
hand and take the oath that we will support the Constitution and the 
laws of this body.
  This issue actually stems from the filing of a False Claims Act 
lawsuit in a Federal courthouse in Texas by two whistleblowers who 
uncovered royalty underpayments by major oil companies to States, local 
governments, and to the Federal Government.
  The fact is these two whistleblowers are named Benjamin Johnson and 
John Martinek. These are the good guys. These are the private citizens 
who exposed the major oil companies' underpayment of royalties. They 
are responsible for getting an additional $400 million for Federal, 
State, and local governments, in other words for American citizens.
  Johnson and Martinek should be commended for their efforts in 
stopping this illegal practice. There is no question in anyone's mind 
that the oil companies should pay every single penny that they owe in 
royalties. That is in everyone's best interest. It is the law and it 
must be done.
  But the problem in this case is that the whistleblowers case was 
sealed in the Eastern District of Texas, and what that means is no 
details of the suit could be released outside the courthouse but the 
very existence of the suit could not be established either. The 
existence had to be kept secret.
  However, somebody leaked the details of that secret lawsuit to the 
Project on Government Oversight (POGO). That insider information 
allowed POGO to file a nearly identical lawsuit in the same court in 
Eastern Texas.
  Now, could that be a coincidence? No, when we consider there are 91 
Federal courts in the United States.
  The Committee on Resources investigation focused on two Federal 
employees, Robert Speir and Robert Berman. Mr. Spear is with the 
Department of Energy. Mr. Berman is currently an employee with the 
Department of Interior. They are suspected of leaking the details of 
that lawsuit to POGO.
  Again, the whistleblowers are the ones who filed the original suit. 
Well, POGO had been lobbying looking for a lawsuit to file, and they 
also had been lobbying for changing oil valuation rules. These two 
employees' rewards for doing what they did, for releasing the 
information and for assisting in changing oil valuation rules, were 
rewarded $383,000 each already. They had a signed agreement that they 
would be awarded that amount of money and, if the agreement had been 
adhered to, they would have received another $4 million between them.
  Just a few days ago, the Committee obtained from the Department of 
Justice the smoking gun, which establishes that at the very time POGO 
and the two Federal employees were conducting this arrangement, that 
Robert Berman, the Interior employee, was actively engaged in drafting 
a new regulation dealing with the collection of oil royalties.
  These regulations were being sought by POGO. The regulations 
indirectly benefit POGO chairman and directly benefit his clients, who 
are in the business of collecting oil royalties.
  The key players in the investigation were issued subpoenas, as was 
stated by the chairman of the Committee on Resources, but they refused 
to answer questions. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources 
asked Danielle Brian Stockton, the executive director of POGO; Henry 
Banta, the chairman of the POGO board; and Bob Berman questions.
  Let me tell my colleagues the question that they were asked, direct 
questions about how POGO and the Federal employees learned about this 
sealed lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas.
  This is a quote from the Record.
  Mr. Banta: ``I believe that issue is not pertinent to the inquiry of 
this Committee.''

                              {time}  1045

  Ms. Brian: ``I will not answer that question because of my 
pertinence.''
  Mr. Berman stated another answer to another question: ``I will not 
answer this subcommittee's questions.''
  In other words, these people were saying they would determine what 
were pertinent questions for them to be asked in our investigation. 
They were saying they would decide what questions could be asked and be 
made pertinent.
  Ask yourself, how well would the American people have been served if 
the tobacco company executives refused to answer the questions that 
they were asked?
  Ask yourself, will Firestone and Ford Motor Company executives have 
to answer questions put to them by committees when the committees are 
trying to protect the safety and the very lives of American people?
  The Constitution and the rules of the House of Representatives are 
clear on this point. The House must conduct oversight hearings, and the 
House and only the House is the judge of what answers they need to 
questions in a thorough oversight review.
  I have to remind you, we are not here today to vote on the guilt or 
the innocence of the three people who are cited in this resolution. 
That is up to the Department of Justice, which at this very time is 
conducting an investigation into all of the activities having to do 
with the payments and the proceeds of the lawsuit. Our job is to vote 
on the resolution to adopt this report, saying that the Speaker is 
authorized to present the facts of this report to the United States 
Attorney for the District of Columbia. The United States Attorney will 
then place the matter before a grand jury. The grand jury, not the 
House, will decide whether any or all of these parties will be found 
with contempt. The people cited in this report have defied this body's 
constitutional right to ask the why and the how about the largest 
payoffs ever accepted by Federal employees. The American people have a 
right to know. That is the nature of today's resolution.
  I hope that everyone will vote in support of the authority of the 
Congress of the House of Representatives.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the esteemed chairman said earlier this is 
a question about whether Congress no longer counts in seeking the 
truth. The question is bigger than that. The question is does Congress 
count in seeking the whole truth? This is a scandal of huge 
proportions. A smaller scandal during the Harding administration, 
Teapot Dome, rocked Washington and the country, brought down powerful 
figures.
  The American people were defrauded of $438 million, at least, by Big 
Oil. And who is our committee pursuing? A few individuals and a 
nonprofit. The chairman talked about the huge payments these folks got. 
Guess what? There may have been some improprieties. It is being 
investigated. But their huge payments are less than one-tenth of 1 
percent of the money of the fraud that was committed by the largest oil 
companies in the world against the American people, the American public 
and the Americans' resources. I would be willing to pay one-tenth of 1 
percent to uncover these sorts of corruption and underpayment. These 
are the same companies, of course, that today are ripping off the 
American consumers. Their earnings have doubled. Number one, of course 
in doubling of earnings is

[[Page 25220]]

Exxon Mobil, $58.8 billion. Not bad. They were number three here in 
defrauding the American public.
  Now, how much time has the committee spent subpoenaing the very well-
paid CEOs and highly paid executives of these companies? None. Zero. 
None. Not one second has been spent by the majority in investigating 
what Big Oil did to defraud the American public and whether that fraud 
is still going on today, because these huge profits are coming from 
somewhere. We know they are coming from the American taxpayers' 
pockets. Is it also coming from our precious natural resources? Are 
they still underpaying? We do not know. Because the committee has no 
time for that. But it can relentlessly pursue a couple of low-ranking 
government officials who uncovered this fraud.
  This is a fraud on the American people. This whole process is a fraud 
on the American people.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman 
from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), a member of the committee that really 
sat in on this program.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this request of 
the body.
  Mr. Speaker, because of the activities of some other committees in 
this Congress, the investigation power, the oversight responsibilities 
of the Congress and its committees has come into some disrepute. There 
is no question about that. And anytime you do oversight and 
investigation, you are bound to have the kinds of emotional responses 
such as we just heard, because there are very real issues involved, 
fraud, deception, misrepresentation, et cetera.
  I am sorry to say that the character and the tenor of some of the 
investigation activities has resulted in, I will not say contempt for 
but certainly suspicion of any activities by any congressional 
committee with respect to its investigation and oversight 
responsibilities. This goes all the way back to the time of the un-
American activities and un-American activities committees, all their 
notorious investigations which had as their object I think by general 
conclusion of history at least the humiliation of other people and the 
pursuit of partisan purposes which had very little to do with the 
ostensible investigatory objectives which were announced when these 
investigations and inquiries began.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I have concluded that this particular investigation 
and the manner in which it has been conducted, regardless of whether it 
should have been broader or should have been deeper, gone into other 
things, those are legitimate questions that could be raised and the 
chairman can answer it or not answer it as he will. But with respect to 
the activities that are cited in this resolution, I think we have to 
uphold not only the right but the obligation of the committee to pursue 
it. There is enough information here to convince me that a serious 
breach of public trust may have occurred. The grand jury must be given 
the tools it needs follow this investigation wherever it leads, and 
this report is one of those tools. Congress has an oversight 
responsibility, no matter which party is in the majority. If I refuse 
to support this report, this resolution, I believe I am undermining the 
authority of future Congresses, including ones with Democratic 
majorities, to exercise their oversight responsibilities.
  I cannot answer for other people's motives. If you want to insist 
that the Republicans are doing something for partisan reasons or the 
Democrats are responding for partisan reasons, you can do it. I cannot 
be responsible for those kinds of things. I can only answer for my own. 
I have seven pages of bills that I have been associated with, including 
committee responsibility in the area of minerals and oil and royalties 
where I think I can stand on my record.
  So I want to refer then to what I think are the compelling reasons 
here. The power of future Congresses to exercise oversight of Federal 
agencies and to uncover waste, fraud and abuse by using its 
constitutional authority to compel testimony and evidence will be 
severely harmed if the report is not adopted. This Congress must pursue 
this matter and seek sanctions for the refusal to answer questions 
about it. And, finally, the U.S. Attorney may not act unless the House 
passes this resolution. That action cannot be deferred because the 
underlying subpoenas expire with the 106th Congress, so a Federal grand 
jury impaneled in the District of Columbia needs to receive it. Voting 
for the report does not constitute a verdict or an indictment. The 
report if passed will allow the grand jury to do its work.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to 
the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this 
resolution in the strongest possible terms. This highly-partisan, 
misguided resolution has absolutely no business being on the floor of 
the House today in the final hours of this session.
  As many of my colleagues know, I have been involved for years working 
on issues related to Federal oil royalties and I have worked tirelessly 
in a bipartisan way along with the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) 
of the Committee on Government Reform. What we looked into, put simply, 
is that we discovered that the oil industry is required, of course, to 
pay royalties to the Federal Government based on the value of the oil 
taken out of the Federal land that is owned by the people of this 
country. But what we found is that they were paying prices to the 
government that was much lower than the price that they were paying 
themselves. They were keeping two sets of books, one for themselves and 
one for the people of America. And guess who was making the record 
profits? The oil companies.
  The gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) and I issued several 
reports; and as a result of our hearings and investigations by GAO that 
documented the underpayment, there has been a change in the way that 
the oil companies now pay the Federal Government. They now pay market 
price. That is what is fair. When you look at these settlements, POGO 
has been part of lawsuits that have resulted in $438 million coming 
back into the Federal Treasury. That is a lot of teachers, that is a 
lot of roads, that is a lot of police officers. They did good work in 
uncovering fraud and abuse. $438 million. And because of the change in 
the formula now, OMB projects there will be 66 additional million 
dollars coming into the Federal Treasury because the oil companies will 
be paying market price.
  Yet instead of looking at the systemic underpayment, and they 
uncovered seven different ways that they underpaid the government, yet 
this committee did not have one hearing on the systemic underpayment by 
the oil companies. And here they are. Why do we not have some hearings 
on this? As my colleague pointed out, there is an article today in the 
Washington Post and it reports that the highest energy prices since the 
1990 Persian Gulf crisis have produced a financial bonanza for the 
Nation's three largest oil companies which yesterday reported quarterly 
profits totaling a record $7 billion, double last year's earnings.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record other editorials that have 
appeared around this country.

             [From the Casper Star-Tribune, July 28, 2000]

            Cubin Goes Astray With Attack on Whistleblowers

       Wyoming's lone representative in Congress, Barbara Cubin, 
     seems to have lost her way. Cubin has been using her House 
     Energy subcommittee to launch an attack on the nonprofit 
     watchdog group, Project on Government Oversight (POGO). POGO 
     investigates whistleblower allegations that certain mineral 
     industries are cheating the American public by not paying 
     royalty payments when taking mineral resources found on 
     federal land--as required by law.
       Recently, a number of oil companies settled a lawsuit filed 
     by POGO that alleged that they systematically underpaid 
     royalties on oil produced. POGO gave a portion of that 
     settlement as public service awards to two federal employees 
     who helped POGO make its case against the oil companies.
       Under Cubin's direction, her subcommittee is investigating 
     those service awards, instead of those companies accused of 
     cheating the American taxpayers by underpaying on federal 
     royalties.

[[Page 25221]]

       We take no position on whether POGO broke the law by 
     offering the awards or whether the federal employees did by 
     accepting them. However, fairness demands that if two 
     employees working to uncover royalty fraud should be victims 
     of a politically motivated investigation, then surely the 
     subcommittee's attention should be directed at the oil 
     companies that have settled lawsuits alleging that they 
     cheated the public out of vast amounts of money over the 
     years.
       One doesn't fix the system by attacking those who are 
     trying to ferret out fraud. Cubin should turn her attention 
     to the problem of royalty underpayment, which would be a more 
     legitimate exercise of the power of her subcommittee.
       The direction Cubin has taken with her subcommittee makes 
     one wonder whether her loyalties lie with the American 
     taxpayer or with the extractive industries that contribute so 
     much to her campaign fund.
                                  ____


             [From the Anchorage Daily News, May 16, 2000]

               Young Forgets Whistle-blowers' Value, Risk

           (By Stan Stephens, Walter Parker and Billie Garde)

       Recently, a subcommittee of Chairman Don Young's House 
     Resources Committee began to hold hearings on the activities 
     of a watchdog group, the Project On Government Oversight. 
     Those activities included a lawsuit filed by POGO that 
     alleged that oil companies were shortchanging the government 
     on royalty payments for oil leases on federal land. POGO 
     filed the lawsuit under the False Claims Act, which allows a 
     group or individual to sue a private company they believe is 
     defrauding the government. The act also grants them a 
     percentage of any fine levied as a result.
       Young took umbrage with the fact that POGO, upon being 
     awarded a $1.1 million settlement in the case, paid two 
     whistle-blowers $380,000 each for their decadelong work in 
     bringing these abuses to light.
       Never mind that the oil industry settled the case for more 
     than $300 million, all but admitting that it indeed had been 
     stealing from the federal government for years. That 
     apparently didn't phase Young in the slightest. By the way, 
     it should be mentioned that the two whistle-blowers are 
     federal employees, one of whom works for the Interior 
     Department--certainly not Young's favorite agency.
       It is unfortunate that Young has paid attention solely to 
     the issue of the payments made to the whistle-blowers. 
     Ignored in this entire affair is the fact that two whistle-
     blowers saved the American people hundreds of millions of 
     dollars. Now they are being retaliated against in the most 
     draconian manner by Young.
       Unfortunately, this conforms to the pattern that so many 
     whistle-blowers have seen before. Instead of having their 
     allegations investigated, they find themselves the target of 
     investigations and in most cases outright harassment and 
     intimidation.
       Last February, Young issued subpoenas to POGO asking for, 
     among other things, copies of the executive director's home 
     telephone records. It is remarkably odd that Alaska's 
     congressman, who prides himself on his patriotism and strict 
     adherence to the Bill of Rights, would so invade the privacy 
     of a U.S. citizen.
       Would that the Interior Department issue a subpoena asking 
     for Don Young's home telephone records! The resulting outcry 
     from the ``congressman for all Alaska'' would resound from 
     Washington, D.C., to Fort Yukon and back again. Twice.
       The recent actions of the House Resources Committee bring 
     to mind an incident in the early 1990s that many Alaskans are 
     sure to remember. After the Exxon Valdez spill, Alyeska 
     Pipeline Service Co. enlisted its security firm, the 
     Wackenhut Corp., to investigate a number of environmental 
     activists hoping to ferret out a whistle-blower. Wackenhut 
     proceeded to place taps on telephone lines, sift through 
     trash bins and even set up a phony environmental law firm 
     hoping to gain the trust of key individuals.
       When these actions were exposed, a congressional inquiry 
     was held with committee hearings that included Young. 
     Congress rigorously denounced the actions of both Wackenhut 
     and Alyeska.
       Young agreed, though some people would say with little 
     enthusiasm, that whistle-blowers who risk their careers and 
     in some cases their personal safety should not suffer 
     retaliation, harassment or intimidation but should instead 
     have their allegations properly investigated. One must wonder 
     if Young has forgotten those events of only a few years ago 
     now that his actions so closely resemble the very whistle-
     blower retaliation he admonished.
       Further inquiry into the POGO matter reveals that indeed 
     Young's allegations are baseless. He condemns the payments to 
     the whistle-blowers yet ignores that POGO sought professional 
     legal and accounting advice on how to report the payments to 
     the IRS. He also ignores the fact that POGO informed the 
     Justice Department of its intention to make the payments 
     before it did so.
       Whistle-blowers are a unique and integral part of exposing 
     fraud, deceit and malfeasance in industry and government. 
     Very often, they are risking ostracism from their colleagues, 
     unjust firings or transfers, and other forms of reprisal.
       They deserve our support in their efforts to make 
     workplaces safer, the environment cleaner and both industry 
     and government less riddled with graft and corruption. It 
     seems that our congressman needs once again to be reminded of 
     that.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Oct. 27, 2000]

                   House Mulls Rare Contempt Citation

       Washington (AP).--Despite the rush toward adjournment, the 
     House is pressing ahead on criminal contempt charges against 
     a small, private watchdog group called POGO--the first such 
     proceeding in nearly two decades.
       Capitol Hill supporters of the group, the Project on 
     Government Oversight, maintain the contempt citation was 
     retribution by some lawmakers for POGO's campaign against 
     major oil companies that have been accused of shortchanging 
     the government of millions of dollars in royalty payments.
       The contempt case has been pursued most vigorously by two 
     oil-state lawmakers--Republican Reps. Don Young of Alaska and 
     Billy Tauzin of Louisiana.
       They denied any retribution and said POGO's executive 
     director and a board member were being charged with contempt 
     of Congress because they refused to answer several questions 
     at a hearing earlier this year on the group's involvement in 
     the oil royalty cases.
       If found in contempt, the two officials--Danielle Brian and 
     Henry Banta--could face up to a year in prison and a stiff 
     fine, although the decision would be subject to appeal in the 
     courts.
       Some Democrats accused Young of pursuing the case as a 
     favor to the oil companies stung by POGO's successful pursuit 
     of the royalty underpayments.
       Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said Thursday that while 
     Young has aggressively pursued POGO, the House Resources 
     Committee has held no hearings on the oil royalty abuses 
     themselves.
       Instead, Miller, the committee's senior Democrat, said 
     Republicans were seeking to ``punish a small nonprofit 
     organization for exposing illegal actions.''
       ``It's revenge on this government watchdog that had the 
     nerve to stand up and make Big Oil pay,'' said Rep. Carolyn 
     Maloney, D-N.Y., who has been among the most vocal critics of 
     the federal royalty payment system.
       Republican House leaders decided Thursday to bring the 
     contempt resolution up for a floor vote Friday on what could 
     well be the last day of the 106th Congress.
       The last criminal contempt resolution to be brought to the 
     House floor occurred in 1983. Its target was Rita Lavelle, 
     then head of the Superfund program at the Environmental 
     Protection Agency, who had refused to appear before a House 
     committee.
       In 1997, POGO joined a Texas lawsuit against nearly a dozen 
     major oil companies accused of underpaying the government on 
     royalties. The case has produced nearly $500 million in 
     settlements. POGO did not benefit from most of those 
     settlements, but was awarded $1.2 million from one of the 
     earlier cases.
       When the group decided to share $700,000 of the money with 
     two government workers who had been trying to correct the 
     royalty abuses it caught the attention of Republican 
     lawmakers. The House Resources Committee that Young chairs 
     began an investigation into whether there was an improper 
     payoff.
       No evidence of such has surfaced, although the Justice 
     Department continues to investigate.
       In an interview, Brian said she and Banta had answered 
     questions about the settlement but that the committee sought 
     details about the litigation still under way in Texas against 
     the oil companies.
       ``They started asking questions that had nothing to do with 
     our decision to turn money over to the whistleblowers,'' she 
     said Thursday.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, May 24, 2000]

                     See Don Jump, Jump, Don, Jump

       Any public servant should be glad to see a vast taxpayer 
     rip-off exposed and set right.
       Not representative Don Young, chairman of the House 
     Committee on Resources. He's harassing independent watchdogs 
     at the Project on Government oversight.
       POGO's offense? Pursuing investigations and lawsuits that 
     helped the Treasury recovery some $300 million . . . from 
     Young's generous political patron, the oil industry.
       Mobil, Chevron, Texaco and other settled out of court, all 
     but admitting that they cheated U.S. citizens out of money 
     owed for oil pumped from public lands. Exxon, Unocal, Shell 
     and other face a trial in September on the same charge.
       Federal law allowed POGO and other watchdogs to share a 
     fraction of the recovered money as a reward. POGO divided its 
     share with two whistleblowers who risked their government 
     jobs to expose the rip-off.
       This generosity gave Don Young a pretext, and last year he 
     launched an investigation of POGO, with recent hearings in 
     Washington.
       The only thing revealed so far--Young's willingness to 
     abuse his power. His subpoenas are over-reaching. Committee 
     members and staff have badgered and berated witnesses, who 
     are barred from making opening statements on their own 
     behalf.

[[Page 25222]]

       ``This is not a committee in search of the truth, this is a 
     committee meant to punish,'' says POGO Director Danielle 
     Brian.
       ``This committee has been used time and again on behalf of 
     special interests who find themselves on the wrong side of 
     the law,'' says Representative George Miller. He calls the 
     hearings ``a witch hunt,'' noting Young has never held 
     hearings on the oil companies' malfeasance.
       See how money in politics works? It can lead ``public'' 
     servants to jump to the aid of their cash constituents, the 
     public interest be damned.
       See Don jump, Jump, Don, Jump.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 15, 2000]

     U.S. Announces a New Royalty System for Oil From Federal Land

                            (By Dan Morgan)

       After a four-year battle with the oil industry and its 
     supporters in Congress, the Clinton administration announced 
     yesterday a new system for collecting an additional $67.3 
     million a year in royalties on crude oil pumped from federal 
     land and leased off-shore tracts.
       The new pricing system, which will take effect June 1, was 
     a victory for state governments, public interest groups and 
     members of Congress who have long contended that the 
     royalties were leased on an artificially low valuation for 
     the oil.
       In the future, prices will be pegged closer to the spot, or 
     fair market prices, instead of to an arbitrary value at the 
     wellhead.
       Oil industry officials were sharply critical and said they 
     were keeping open the option of asking the courts to review 
     the new federal rule, pending a closer study of the complex 
     provisions unveiled by the Interior Department's Minerals 
     Management Service.
       ``We're disappointed. The agency missed an opportunity to 
     take a complex system and make it less complicated and 
     fairer,'' said Ken Leonard, a senior manager at the American 
     Petroleum Institute. He predicted that disputes over pricing 
     would continue, with more litigation and costs to taxpayers.
       But Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), who had pressed for 
     the change, hailed yesterday's announcement as one that would 
     ``bring to an end the decades-old scam that has permitted big 
     oil companies to rip off the American taxpayer.''
       Exxon Corp., Chevron Corp. and Shell Oil Co. are among the 
     companies affected by the new pricing mechanism.
       Companies have paid about $300 million to settle claims of 
     past royalty underpayments. But industry allies, led by Sen. 
     Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), stalled a new pricing 
     mechanism until last fall, when Republicans and the 
     administration finally reached a deal.
       Under the new system, nine states will receive about $2.4 
     million in new revenue annually out of the larger royalty 
     payments to the federal government. The amounts involved are 
     small compared with the $1.2 billion that the federal 
     government was paid in 1998 for oil produced on public land 
     and off-shore tracts.
       A government watchdog group, the Project on Government 
     Oversight, has been pressing for a revamping of the royalty 
     system since 1993 and took credit yesterday for focusing 
     public attention on the issue.
       But its activism has itself draw fire from Republicans in 
     Congress. On Feb. 17, the House Resources Committee issued a 
     subpoena for the organization's phone records, as part of an 
     investigation of its payments by whistle-blowers who revealed 
     royalty underpayments for oil pumped from federal land.
       Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union told the 
     House panel in a letter that the subpoena threatens freedom 
     of speech and could chill efforts by citizens groups to root 
     out waste, fraud and abuse.

  I would like to read one part of the editorial in the Anchorage Daily 
News:
  ``Ignored in this entire affair is the fact that the two 
whistleblowers saved the American people hundreds of millions of 
dollars. Now they are being retaliated against in the most Draconian 
manner.''
  We should stand up for whistleblowers, not abuse them. Rather than 
protecting the public, the Republicans on this committee once again are 
protecting the powerful. Rather than working toward a national energy 
policy, the Republicans on this committee are working for the giant oil 
companies. Why are they not having some hearings on how they worked to 
abuse the American people by underpaying what is due them? POGO did not 
rip off the taxpayers. The oil companies ripped off the taxpayers, and 
they admitted it by paying over $400 million in underpayments. Would 
they be paying it if they were innocent?
  Mr. Speaker, I feel this is terribly misguided. Why are we not 
looking at energy policy? Why are we not investigating the 
underpayments of oil to this country? Why are we abusing whistleblowers 
who have come forward to help us learn how we can better make 
government work for the people of this country and close abusive 
loopholes like the one that existed for years where the big oil 
companies kept two sets of books, one for themselves, one for the 
American public and the American public lost billions and billions of 
dollars?
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose this resolution in the strongest 
possible terms. This highly partisan, misguided resolution has 
absolutely no business being on the floor of the House today in the 
final hours of this session.
  As many of my colleagues know, I have been involved in issues 
relating to Federal oil royalties for a number of years, and I have 
worked tirelessly in a bipartisan fashion on these issues.
  Put simply, in return for taking oil from federal lands, the oil 
industry is required to pay royalties to the Federal government based 
on the value of the oil they take.
  In 1996, after learning that numerous major oil companies were paying 
royalties based on prices that were far lower than the market value of 
the oil they were buying and selling, Mr. Horn and I held a hearing 
before the Government Management, Information and Technology 
Subcommittee to look into this issue.
  At one of those hearings, whistleblowers and oil industry experts 
Robert Berman and Robert Speir testified despite considerable 
resistance from their departments. Project on Government Oversight 
Executive Director Danielle Brian also submitted written testimony 
about Federal royalty underpayments.
  These hearings and subsequent investigations by the GAO led us to 
conclude that numerous major oil companies were paying royalties based 
on prices that were far lower than the market value of the oil they 
were buying and selling.
  Our hearings showed that many of these companies were underpaying 
royalties, costing the American taxpayer nearly $100 million a year. 
Many companies were sued by the Federal government for deliberate 
underpayment of royalties.
  Most have elected to settle and, to date, over $300 million has been 
collected. States and private royalty owners have collected almost $3 
billion more including $17.5 million for the state of Texas and $350 
million for California.
  I know that these settlements are not technically admissions of 
guilt, but they are the closest thing to them that you'll ever get out 
of companies like Mobil, BP Amoco, and Chevron.
  Finally, the Interior Department's new oil-valuation rule, which was 
announced earlier this year, will save the taxpayers at least $67 
million each year. Approximately $2.4 million of this revenue will be 
shared with states.
  This revenue will put additional teachers in the classroom and 
preserve our natural resources.
  I want every Member in this body to understand this history in order 
to understand the context of this ill-conceived resolution.
  Now, we have finally succeeded in changing the regulations to ensure 
that the Federal government is fairly compensated for oil taken from 
Federal lands. We have finally made this change that will return $66 
million a year to the Treasury.
  Now, this Congress wants to turn around and persecute and harass the 
Project on Government Oversight (POGO) a small, nonprofit, government 
watchdog organization, dedicated to exposing fraud and corruption. Why? 
Because POGO went after major oil companies and exposed their fraud 
against the taxpayer--a fraud that was costing us hundreds of millions 
of dollars in unpaid oil royalties.
  And now the oil companies are getting their revenge. They are out to 
punish POGO and its director, Danielle Brian, for the organization's 
successful efforts on behalf of the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, this is completely unfair and makes absolutely no sense.
  Some of my colleagues may remember the last time Congress attempted 
to hold someone in contempt--it was in 1983, the case of Rita Lavelle, 
the Director of the Superfund Program under EPA. Ms. Lavelle, a high 
ranking government official, flat out refused to even appear before the 
committee investigating her actions.
  What we are doing here today in the last moments of the Congress, is 
attacking a small, nonprofit organization who dared to stand up to the 
big oil companies. Why didn't they answer some of the committee's 
questions? Because they had absolutely nothing to do with the 
committee's supposed investigation.
  What really disappoints me about this entire process is that the 
Resources Committee and the majority have refused to focus on the

[[Page 25223]]

issues that really matter--they have refused to investigate royalty 
underpayments, and they have refused to look at legitimate ways to 
alleviate high energy prices.
  So here we are on the floor in the final hours of the 106th Congress, 
and instead of talking about prescription drugs or smaller class sizes, 
we are engaging in a partisan witch hunt against a small government 
watchdog because they stood up to the big oil companies.
  Here we are just days before one of the most important elections of 
our generation.
  You would think the majority would be rushing to prove to their 
constituents that they care about prescription drugs, a patient's bill 
of rights, small class sizes--but no. Tonight we are engaged in a 
pathetic act of revenge--revenge on behalf of the oil industry.
  So I would say this to my friends on the other side of the aisle, if 
you represent a marginal district, and you want to go on record in 
support of big oil, vote for this resolution.
  If you want to go on record opposed to an organization whose sole 
purpose is to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, vote for this 
resolution.
  If you want to follow the lead of Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney 
and do whatever the oil companies want, vote for this resolution.
  But if you care about fairness, if you care about good government, 
oppose this resolution, stand up to big oil, and let's get on with a 
debate on issues that matter to the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, furthermore, I would like to say, at a time of record 
high oil and gas prices, as well as record profit-taking by Big Oil, 
Republicans in this House have chosen, as their only course of action, 
to punish a nonprofit organization for exposing illegal actions by 
giant oil companies who ripped off the American taxpayer for hundreds 
of millions of dollars.
  Rather than protecting the public, the Republicans, once again, are 
protecting the powerful.
  Rather than working toward a rational energy policy, the Republicans 
are working for the giant oil companies.
  POGO did not rip off the taxpayer. The oil companies ripped off the 
taxpayer. That has been proven in case after case where the companies 
themselves have settled this issue to the tune of $438 million.
  This case involves systematic, multibillion dollar underpayments of 
oil and gas royalties owed to the taxpayers who own these resources. 
Under prosecution by the Department of Justice, all of these oil 
companies have settled their outstanding debts by agreeing to pay $438 
million.
  But the Resources Committee has failed to investigate those 
systematic underpayments or the system that permitted them; instead, 
the committee has run to the defense of the oil industry by 
investigating those who exposed the underpayments while the real 
perpetrators, their strong political supporters, get away free.
  Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that ``The highest energy 
prices since the 1990 Persian Gulf crisis have produced a financial 
bonanza for the nation's three largest oil companies, which yesterday 
reported quarterly profits totaling a record $7 billion, double last 
year's earnings.''
  The majority asserts that this Contempt Resolution is necessary to 
protect the right of the House to define the target and scope of 
oversight.
  However, this Resolution would not be necessary IF the Majority had 
adequately and properly defined the target and scope of oversight.
  This has not been the case in this investigation. Witnesses were not 
allowed to make opening statements. The necessary quorum was not 
present at the time the committee charged the cited individuals with 
contempt. They prevented Members from asking questions of witnesses. 
They prevented witnesses from making opening statements or defending 
themselves.
  All but one of the Democrats present at the committee meeting voted 
against the Resolution because ``the Republican Majority's unilateral 
conduct of the investigation . . . has been biased, procedurally flawed 
and abusive of the rights of witnesses and Members.'' We also noted 
that the Majority's case was incredibly weak and ``will not survive 
balanced judicial review.''
  We do not dispute the right of the committee to investigate the POGO 
payments.
  We do not dispute the essential facts surrounding the POGO payments.
  In November 1998, POGO got about $1.2 million, or 2 percent, from the 
settlement and it paid Mr. Berman and Mr. Speir $383,600 apiece out of 
its share.
  The Majority suspects but has not proved foul play in POGO's decision 
to make those payments.
  POGO characterizes the payments as ``awards'' for the two men's 
``decade-long public-spirited work to expose and stop the oil 
companies' underpayment of royalties for the production of crude oil on 
federal and Indian lands.''
  Since December 1998, the matter has been under investigation by the 
Inspector General of the Department of the Interior and the Public 
Integrity Section of the Department of Justice--as it should be.
  The appearance of impropriety created by the payments warrants 
investigation, but by the proper authorities and we supported the 
Majority's motion adopted by the Committee on Resources to release to 
them relevant committee records.
  It is for the appropriate law enforcement agencies and, ultimately, 
the courts, to decide if any laws were broken.
  This is particularly the case where, as here, the targets of the 
Resources Committee's investigation are not senior policy officials, 
but private citizens or low-ranking civil servants, and where, as here, 
the committee has shown a strong bias against the targets of its probe.
  This contempt resolution is a weak case to present to the House, 
which last sought to invoke statutory contempt powers in 1983. And even 
if adopted by the House over our objections, any attempts at 
prosecution based on this Resolution will not survive balanced judicial 
review.
  That is because the Majority's wrath, primarily directed at POGO, a 
nonprofit government ``watchdog'' group--has skewed their objectivity.
  The Majority has conducted this investigation in a manner that serves 
the interests of lawyers for oil and gas companies involved in pending 
royalty underpayment litigation as well as those who are currently 
challenging in federal court royalty valuation regulations recently 
issued by the Department of the Interior to curb royalty payment 
abuses.
  The Majority is confusing the DOJ criminal investigation (i.e., 
whether there were illegalities in POGO's arrangement to share the 
proceeds of the False Claims Act settlement with the two employees) 
with the Contempt of Congress issues. The issue that should be before 
the House in the contempt resolution is whether the committee's 
investigation was properly conducted under the Rules and the questions 
at issue asked with adequate foundation to be deemed ``pertinent'' 
under the contempt statute, as strictly construed by the judiciary, all 
the elements must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, as is the case 
with any criminal statute. We argue in the dissenting views that they 
abused the rules and rights of witnesses and failed to establish, as 
required by the Supreme Court, that the questions were ``pertinent'' at 
the time they were asked.

                              {time}  1100

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not about the whistleblowers. These were people 
that divulged information; they were not the whistleblowers, and this 
constant smoke screen actually disturbs me, because nobody read the 
report.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Brady), who also sat on the committee that had these oversight 
hearings.
  Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain the section of the 
report dealing with one of our government employees, Mr. Robert Berman, 
and how he failed to comply with the subpoena for testimony before the 
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources on July 11 of this year.
  Let me tell you though why we are not here today. We are not here, 
even though, as I see it, evidence shows that a special interest group 
paid two of our government officials, who illegally and unethically 
used their insider information gained from their position of public 
trust to line their pockets and that of a special interest group. That 
is corruption, and it is wrong. But that is not for Congress to decide; 
that is for the courts to decide.
  We are here for something even more important than that. It is to 
ensure that when Congress seeks the truth for the American public, when 
we ask a fair question on a serious matter, that we receive an honest, 
timely answer. It is the authority Congress needed to get to the truth 
behind Watergate. It is the authority Congress has needed to question 
industries who deny that they sell their products to young minors. It 
is the authority we require to expose the IRS when they break their own 
rules to

[[Page 25224]]

harass taxpayers. It is the authority we require to hold companies 
accountable when they sell unsafe products; when the government reaches 
agreements to sell nuclear weapons to rogue nations. It is the 
authority of Congress to seek the truth, and while we may not like 
doing it, it is our obligation.
  Let me tell you, in each of those cases, you heard the same 
compliant: it is a witch hunt; we are being manipulated; this is Big 
Oil; this is Big Something; we are the good guys. But the fact of the 
matter is, with these two government insiders and this special interest 
group, they are not the good guys. We are simply seeking the truth.
  First, for the record, let me tell you, Mr. Berman is an employee of 
the U.S. Department of Interior who received a large amount of money in 
return for access and information. He was responsible for analyzing 
developing oil royalty policy for the Interior Department.
  All the available evidence, even POGO, the special interest group's 
own statements, suggest Mr. Berman was paid as a government insider 
because he agreed with these groups and had the access and information 
to provide them. That is against the law. He knows it was wrong. He 
knows that Congress has every right to ask him about that.
  Think about this: if someone comes to you at your job and says, 
``Look, do not tell your boss this, but you are working on a key 
project for us. We would like to make you part of a lawsuit so that 
when we receive dollars in settlement from this, we can pay you for 
that information. Now, do not tell your boss, do not remove yourself 
from that project, because this is how the agreement works.'' You would 
know something was wrong.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue, because it gets worse than 
this.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn).
  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, the Subcommittee on Government Management of 
the then Committee on Reform and Oversight dealt with the Minerals 
Management Service for a number of months. Let me read you our 
conclusion. It is titled ``Crude Oil Undervaluation, the Ineffective 
Response of the Minerals Management Service.'' This was approved by the 
full committee.
  ``The Minerals Management Service needs to review its operations to 
ensure that the amounts which are owed to the Federal Government are 
collected in a timely fashion. For years, oil companies were able to 
use complex transactions to disguise premia the whole formulas on the 
crude oil from the Federal regulators. Now that the Federal Government 
has determined that there are hundreds of millions of dollars of 
additional payments owed, Minerals Management must aggressively pursue 
this problem to protect Federal financial interests. The Minerals 
Management Service has failed to do so. There is still time to 
accomplish this task. Until that happens, the crude oil undervaluation 
issue is a serious hole in the Federal budget deficit that amounts to 
perhaps $2 billion nationwide for crude oil leasing. This is a problem 
that is preventable and requires the attention of senior management in 
the administration.''
  This is, frankly, one of the most fouled-up bureaucracies I have seen 
in 6 years of oversight within the executive branch.
  Now, I can see how some of my colleagues on other committees might be 
bothered by anybody that is trying to lie before you. But the question 
is, should Congress do it, or should the United States Attorney do it?
  Personally, I think some of this has to do with POGO. Now, I wish we 
had a few more POGOs around here that were watchdogs on the 
bureaucracy, and perhaps the money that they gave is what bothers a lot 
of my colleagues.
  But the fact is, if that is the way we get information, fine. The 
POGO operations, I do not know how they run their business, and I 
really do not care. What I do care about is that we get whistleblowers 
to tell us the truth.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote against this contempt citation. I 
think it is wrong; it should not be in this House. It should be with 
the United States Attorney, and it should go before a Federal grand 
jury, if that is a problem. If the lawyer gave one of the witnesses 
advice and it is bad advice, such as saying take the fifth, or whatever 
it is, that is another issue.
  I do not think we should be cutting off whistleblowers.
  There is a lot of fraud, misuse, in the amount of billions of dollars 
in the executive branch.
  We should encourage whistleblowers.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, again, the gentleman from California misstates. These 
were not whistleblowers; these were Federal employees divulging 
confidential information. The whistleblower himself says that they did 
the wrong thing. That is not a whistleblower.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. 
Tauzin).
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, this matter involves two things: the first 
is the facts, so let us get the facts straight. We are talking about a 
whistleblower lawsuit on royalty valuations that amounted to about a 
$400 million claim.
  It was not brought by POGO. This whistleblower lawsuit was brought by 
a whistleblower by the name of Johnson. Johnson filed suit against 
Shell. Johnson was entitled, under the whistleblower statute, to 17 to 
20 percent of the winnings if this whistleblower suit won.
  Now, we have these things in Louisiana a lot. The oil companies fight 
with our State over oil royalty and gas royalty valuations all the 
time. Some are legitimate disputes; some are not so legitimate.
  Johnson brought a suit claiming illegitimate royalty valuations, and 
Johnson the whistleblower suddenly finds out that POGO gets in its 
lawsuit and wants a share of the take. POGO in fact weasels its way 
into that lawsuit and gets about a $7 million share of the take.
  How did POGO get in the lawsuit? POGO got in the lawsuit, we are 
told, our investigators tell us, because two Federal employees 
apparently knew about this sealed lawsuit, called their friends at 
POGO, got them into the lawsuit, and cut a deal to get one-third of the 
take.
  Two Federal employees cut a deal, apparently, with POGO, to each take 
one-third of $7 million, to get POGO a share of Mr. Johnson's 
whistleblower lawsuit. That is what the allegations are.
  Now, the second thing we are talking about is whether this Congress, 
as the watchdog of America over Federal agencies and Federal employees 
who might do criminal and wrong things, has a right to get straight 
answers from witnesses we call.
  Now, when the two witnesses from POGO and when the Federal official 
involved here come before our committee and refuse to answer the 
questions that we ask them about this elicit deal, they do not take the 
fifth amendment, which they could have done. They simply say, ``Hum, 
Congress, we are not going to talk to you, and you can't do anything 
about it.'' They are telling the American people that the eyes and ears 
of their Congress, elected by the American public to watchdog Federal 
agencies, have no power, have no authority. They take that power away 
from us when they can snub us and say they will not answer legitimate 
questions in a Federal inquiry.
  I want to congratulate the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie). 
He said it right. Whether the Democrats control this House, or whether 
the Republicans control this House, this is the people's House. We are 
not just here voting for Americans; we are their eyes and ears too over 
the Federal bureaucracies.
  It is our job to make sure Federal employees deal with Americans 
honestly, and when two Federal employees cut a deal to get one-third of 
a whistleblower lawsuit and refuse to come and answer questions about 
it before a committee of this Congress, every Member, Democrat and 
Republican, ought to rise up and say, the American public, this House, 
will not be shunned

[[Page 25225]]

this way. We will not be, in the vernacular of the young, ``dissed'' in 
this fashion.
  The product of this investigation is critical. The product of this 
investigation is to uncover criminal wrongdoing, and we ought to 
proceed with this vote today.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch).
  Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, this House has many things to be proud of, 
but this is not one of the investigations that we have to be proud of.
  My colleagues on the other side have invoked the tobacco 
investigations on several occasions. I do not need to remind my 
colleagues who was the majority party at that point in time. I think if 
these are the priorities of this Congress, the people who are watching 
in America need to know why we need to change Congress.
  Let me talk on a little bit of a personal note. I happen to know one 
of the people who this indictment, this contempt citation, is about, 
Hank Banta. Hank Banta was my first boss when I worked in Washington in 
1981, 19 years ago. I know him well; I consider him a friend. He was a 
counsel for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. That was where I 
worked as an intern and extern for 2 years.
  He knows the rules of this House well, and I would tell my 
colleagues, the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin) and the gentleman 
from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), one of the reasons that he did not answer 
is because our rules provide that if they are not pertinent questions 
to an investigation, the witness has legal right not to answer those 
questions, not to answer those questions, and he enjoyed that right.
  I would just question the criminal nature of this.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, that is not true.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Washington (Mr. Inslee).
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, it has been said that this institution is to 
be a watchdog. In fact, this resolution asks the people's House to 
become an attack dog, an attack dog for the oil and gas industry.
  This is the people's House, and it is a sad day when we turn on the 
people who expose the fraud to the American people and seek to punish 
them.
  The Watergate investigation has been inveighed as a proud moment of 
Congress. If this party had been running the Watergate investigation, 
you would not have subpoenaed Halderman and Ehrlichman and gone after 
them. You would have investigated Frank Wills, the guy who discovered 
the burglary.
  You are barking up the wrong tree, and it is a sad day. I am proud of 
the House of Representatives, and I want to warn Members against this 
resolution for two reasons: number one, if this passes, and if this 
goes to the criminal justice system, this House will be embarrassed.
  I am going to tell you why: unlike many of the speakers today, I was 
in these hearings, and I saw, time after time after time, the majority 
party ignore the rules of the House of Representatives. When the 
judicial system sees this, they will call foul; and our House will be 
embarrassed by this travesty. If you want to know why these people did 
not answer some of these questions, it is because they violated the 
rules of the House.
  I want to bring up another issue. As a person who believes privacy is 
important in this Chamber, I believe in this country we should not have 
certain conversations forced to be made public by the U.S. Government. 
The U.S. Government should not force your discussions with your priest 
to be public, the U.S. Government should not force your conversations 
with your doctor to be public, and the U.S. Government should not force 
your conversations with your attorney to be public.
  The majority party seeks to violate those privileges, and we brought 
this to their attention. These folks did not want to answer questions 
about their conversations with their attorney. Those who believe that 
the priest's penitent privilege and the attorney-client privileges are 
sacred rights of Americans, will vote against this resolution. If you 
believe in privacy and standing up and crying ``foul,'' vote against 
this resolution.

                              {time}  1115

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Doolittle).
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker. This issue is about big payoffs, not big 
oil. In fact, it is about the biggest payoffs ever made and accepted by 
Federal bureaucrats, indeed, over $750,000 already. This resolution is 
about our ability as Members of Congress to ask questions of and to get 
answers from those who made the big payoffs, and those who accepted 
them.
  It is that simple. Members should know that there was a written 
agreement to funnel $4 million to two Federal employees. Make no 
mistake, those who oppose this resolution are sanctioning the ability 
of people to hide the facts about what goes on in big government 
agencies from the people and from congressional committees.
  This resolution is about holding those who made and accepted these 
big payoffs to the same standard we would hold any corporation if it 
made huge payments to Federal workers.
  So do not fall for the smoke screen. Big payments to Federal 
Government workers are wrong. Support the resolution.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me 
the time.
  As a relative newcomer to this Chamber, I have been following this to 
understand how the House works, how we can pick out one item for the 
first time in 17 years to proceed forward with a recommendation for 
criminal activity.
  The U.S. Attorney is already following up on potential misconduct; so 
that is not the issue here. The issue is, the dealing with the House of 
Representatives.
  Seventeen years ago, Rita Lavelle stonewalled Congress completely, 
would not answer the phone, would not come forward, would not produce 
documents.
  These are people who did come forward, produced thousands of pages of 
documents. This has already been deleted by the amendment of the 
gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young).
  We are looking at something here that looks to me like a pretty broad 
sweep that is calculated not to get at the problem of misuse of oil 
royalties. It is not whether or not these people are going to have 
their behavior investigated. It is, it seems to me, rather a chilling 
effort in terms of people who come forward and for the first time in 17 
years. I think this is indeed a stretch.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Guam (Mr. Underwood).
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  As ranking member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral 
Resources, I sat through hours and hours of an exercise which we are 
led to believe involves an illegal and inappropriate activity, a 
whistleblowing exercise based on insider knowledge.
  We are led to believe that these individuals involved were 
uncooperative and demonstrated a contempt of Congress so egregious that 
it requires this very special resolution, this very heavy-handed 
sanction.
  What I saw instead was a conscience and deliberate attempt to 
characterize these whistleblowers as criminals. What I saw was the 
securing of thousands of pages of information and extensive testimony, 
which provided the committee with all of the information they needed to 
conclude that while some questionable activity may have occurred, which 
should be and is being investigated by the Department of Justice, but 
that there was also some serious underpayments by the oil companies, 
but the committee did not pursue the question of the underpayments.

[[Page 25226]]

  We were not satisfied with this information, the entire picture about 
the underpayments and the whistleblowers, but instead we focused and 
continued to pursue this line of questioning and inquiry.
  I sat through hours and hours of an exercise which we are led to 
believe involves an illegal and inappropriate activity--a 
whistleblowing exercise based on inside knowledge.
  We are led to believe that the three individuals involved were 
uncooperative and demonstrated a contempt of Congress so egregious that 
it requires this very special resolution--this heavy handed sanction.
  What I saw was a conscious and deliberate attempt to characterize the 
3 whistleblowers as criminals. What I saw was the securing of thousands 
of pages of information and extensive testimony which provided the 
Committee with all of the information they needed to conclude that some 
questionable activity may have occured--which should be and is being 
investigated by DOJ and that there were underpayments by the oil 
companies. But we didn't pursue the question of the underpayments. But 
we weren't satisfied with this information, the entire picture about 
the underpayments and the whistleblowers--No--we wanted to continue to 
pursue this line of questioning and inquiry--focusing on the 
whistleblowers which has the net effect of shifting the attention from 
the serious policy issue of underpayment of the oil companies and to 
the activities of the whistleblowers. It is inevitable that we must ask 
the question is the intent of the investigation to mitigate the 
attention to the underpayments; was the intent of the mitigate to 
derail attention--from the real problems of the underpayments? I have 
to conclude that this was the case.
  The prerogatives of Congress are not at stake, and today we should be 
focusing on the oil companies and the fact that they endeavored to deny 
revenues to the American public.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes 
to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, when there is a tobacco scandal, who do we bring in 
before Congress? The tobacco company executives.
  When Ford and Firestone are implicated in the death of 138 Americans 
and hundreds of others, who do we bring in to testify? The CEO of Ford, 
the CEO of Firestone.
  When the oil companies, however, are found ripping off the American 
taxpayer to the tune of $438 million, with potentially billions of 
additional dollars still unaccounted for, who does the Committee on 
Resources bring in? They bring in the oil company executives? No. The 
whistleblower. Let us investigate the whistleblowers.
  Mr. Speaker, if the public is looking at this and they are wondering 
what Congress is doing in the final 2 weeks, they just have to look on 
the Republican side. The President deploys the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve. The Republicans hold hearings, both the Senate and House 
energy committees last week. What is the scandal that they are 
investigating?
  The price of oil was nearing $40 a barrel when the President deployed 
it. It is now down to $32 a barrel. The scandal? The price of oil has 
dropped. The consumers have benefitted. Gasoline prices are down. Home 
heating oil prices are down. Let us have hearings on the House and 
Senate side.
  Now, on the final day of Congress, again, the oil industry and the 
cross hairs of the American public wondering what Congress is doing 
about it. Are we bringing in the executives to ask beyond that $438 
billion in oil, how about natural gas? How about the other oil 
companies?
  Are there billions of other dollars that we could be using for 
prescription drugs, that we can be using to ensure that we rebuild 
schools in this country that the oil companies are not paying in taxes? 
No, we do not have that hearing. The Republican majority would have us 
believe that POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, is the problem, 
POGO. What Walter Kelly, the old cartoonist who used to draw the Pogo 
strip, he once remarked, ``We have met the enemy, and it is us.''
  The enemy is the Republican Congress. They refuse to have hearings on 
the issues of what the role is of the oil industry and driving up oil 
prices and denying the American people the taxes, the royalties, which 
they rightly deserve in order to ensure that our government programs 
help the poorest people in our society. Vote no on this resolution.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Traficant).
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, I support the resolution. Congress has 
become background music in a doctor's office. Witnesses come before 
Congress and lie every day, and Congress does nothing about it 
depending upon the partisanship of the issue.
  If you are a chairman and you determine there is something and you 
subpoena a witness, that witness should be there; and if they are not, 
the Congress should put its foot down. In America, the people govern; 
and, quite frankly, we do not any more.
  Congress does not govern anything. You have turned it over to the 
White House, and the White House does not govern. They have turned it 
over to the bureaucrats.
  When our committee subpoenas somebody, they should be there; and if 
they are not, they should be held in contempt. I support the gentleman 
from Alaska (Chairman Young). He is doing what is best for America. Let 
us take this government back to the people.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, we have immense power in this body. We have the power to 
do things that other people only dream about. We can do some wonderful 
things. We can fight for a cure of cancer. We can feed hungry children. 
We can defend this country by making the resources available to do all 
of those things. But every now and then in the history of this 
Congress, we also have the ability to run off the tracks and to bring 
down the power of this institution on an individual or an organization 
or a couple of individuals and put them in such jeopardy and deny them 
such rights that it is a nightmare to the average citizen of what they 
would do in that situation. That is why there are rules.
  There are rules to protect the American citizen against its 
government. In court, in grand jury proceedings, in the Congress of the 
United States, when you ask a question to a witness, the witness, 
according to the Supreme Court and to our Constitution, they have a 
right to know why you are asking that question and is that question 
pertinent to this investigation.
  Let me tell my colleagues, in the circus we were running in this 
committee at that time, the members did not know what was going on in 
that investigation. The members did not know why the questions were 
being asked. The members did not know why information was being 
subpoenaed, but the fact of the matter was these three witnesses came 
before our committee. They answered numerous questions. They submitted 
to depositions. They provided thousands of pages of testimony, and 
today none of them have been charged with anything, other than in the 
allegations of speeches by Members of Congress besmirching their 
reputations.
  Mr. Speaker, I happen to think, as I said at the outset of these 
hearings, I think there some real bad judgment has been made and maybe 
some wrongdoings that have been had, but that is not what these Members 
are in liability for. These Members are in liability now because we 
shifted from that hearing in the middle to questioning about whether or 
not something was wrong in a lawsuit in Texas, and we were going to 
adjudicate whether it was. We do not adjudicate.
  We do not adjudicate. So they refused to testify, because the 
committee already had the information, but it was once suggested that 
maybe they could be caught for perjury. So they did not testify. They 
said you have the information from another source, some of which was 
sealed or not sealed.
  This committee never laid out for them the pertinency of those 
questions to that investigation at that time. As the Supreme Court has 
recognized, when you put a person in that kind of jeopardy, the average 
American, the average American who is sitting there

[[Page 25227]]

in front of a big committee of Congress, they have rights. They need 
protection, because the government is not always right; that is why we 
changed the law with respect to the Internal Revenue Service, because 
they made decisions about people's guilt, about people's liabilities, 
hounded them and badgered them and intimidated them with the power of 
the Government. They threatened people with jail.
  Mr. Speaker, that is where these three people sit today. After being 
badgered and hounded, being called common thieves by members of the 
committee, in spite of no evidence that that was the case, whether or 
not they were involved in the regulations, the best evidence we have 
today is the sworn testimony of the people from the Department of 
Interior that had no impact, little involvement in those regulations.
  The best evidence we have today of their involvement in the court 
case in Texas was the evidence that the oil companies took from this 
hearing and ran over to that court case. The judge said get out of 
here. Today, they are put before this Congress with the full force and 
effect.
  But who is not here? As many of my colleagues pointed out, the oil 
companies are not here. After admitting and settling to underpaying 
plight terms, it is like we do not admit any liability, admit or deny, 
you know, how you do when you settle a lawsuit. We cannot tell you 
whether we are guilty or not. We are just going to put this $450 
million out there out on the table because we want this to go away.
  What these oil companies did to the taxpayers of the United States, 
they lied to them. They cheated to them. They wrongfully withheld 
payments that were entitled to each and every taxpayer of this country. 
Now they settled for half a billion dollars, $438 million. It is 
estimated, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) said in his 
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, that 
it could be as high as $2 billion to the Federal taxpayer.

                              {time}  1130

  Many of these same oil companies settled with the State of 
California. When they took the money from the State of California, they 
took it from the schoolchildren, because the money was destined for the 
schoolchildren of California. They settled there for, I think, almost 
$2 billion in underpayments, maybe more. I do not have the exact 
figure, but it runs to the billions.
  So those companies who cheated and lied did not receive a single 
question from this committee. Did not receive a letter. Did not receive 
a subpoena. Did not receive a letter of inquiry. Were not asked to 
testify about cheating the Federal Government. But the organization, 
the people who blew the whistle and said the government is not doing 
its job, and they came under a Civil War statute was to protect the 
government from being ripped off by the merchants during the Civil War 
by supplying us phony goods or overcharging us. They came under that 
Civil War statute and they said, ``Hey, you guys are not doing your 
job, they are cheating you.''
  Yes, they were. And they were entitled to recovery. They may have 
shared that recovery in a wrongful fashion, but to date nobody has been 
charged with doing that, and the Justice Department has had this for a 
year and a half, almost 2 years.
  Why the imbalance? Why are we going after these people and 
attributing criminal liability? This is not about our subpoena power. 
These people answered the subpoenas. They came to the committee. They 
turned over the documents. But when they were asked these questions, 
knowing their rights under the Supreme Court decisions that have thrown 
out contempt citations from this, said time and again this citizen has 
not been protected from the powers of this Congress; they said that 
question is not pertinent. I do not believe it is pertinent. And as the 
Supreme Court says, the citizen has to sit in the chair and is 
compelled to make a choice immediately.
  So on advice of their counsel, they quickly said, ``I do not believe 
that question is pertinent,'' and we have a right to go forward with 
this process if we believe it was.
  I have to say to my colleagues, nobody laid the foundation for these 
citizens so they could determine what we were talking about in this 
hearing, because this hearing was from hell to breakfast on subject 
matter. It was all over the room. We changed the direction of this 
hearing numerous times. And I do not think that we ought to attach 
criminal liability to these citizens that did such an incredible 
service for the taxpayers and the citizens of this country. We 
certainly should not do it in the name of oversight, because if we do 
it in the name of this oversight, we are doing it in the name of one-
sided oversight.
  Mr. Speaker, if we are going to call POGO, if we are going to call 
these three citizens, we should have called the oil companies. I am 
sure we will call the trial attorneys and the tire companies in the 
Firestone investigation. I am sure we will call the victims and the 
tobacco companies. But here we only called one.
  Do not do this to the citizens of the United States. They may end up 
being tried or charged by the Justice Department under the active 
investigation, but do not use and misuse the powers of this institution 
against these three citizens who did the right thing and were badgered 
and hounded and called names, not allowed to testify, not allowed to 
give opening statements, and then placed in that kind of jeopardy. It 
simply is not fair.

      Contempt of Congress Resolution and Report Dissenting Views

       We strongly oppose the Resolution and Report to cite four 
     individuals and the Projects on Government Oversight (POGO) 
     for Contempt of Congress, a federal statutory crime 
     punishable by up to one year in jail. From the outset, the 
     Republican Majority's unilateral conduct of the investigation 
     into this matter has been biased, procedurally flawed and 
     abusive of the rights of witnesses and Members. It is a weak 
     case to present to the House, which last sought to invoke 
     statutory contempt powers in 1983. And even if adopted by the 
     House over our objections, any attempt at prosecution based 
     on this Resolution will not survive balanced judicial review.
       The Majority's wrath is primarily directed at POGO a 
     nonprofit government ``watchdog'' group that--among many 
     efforts to curb waste, fraud and abuse--has been active since 
     1993 in pursuing oil and gas companies that have underpaid by 
     hundreds of millions of dollars royalties owed to the U.S. 
     Treasury for operating on public lands. In November 1998, 
     after receiving $1.2 million of a $45 million settlement by 
     Mobil Oil in False Claims Act litigation for royalty 
     underpayments, POGO shared two-thirds ($383,600 each) with 
     two individuals: a Department of the Interior employee, 
     Robert Berman, and a former Department of Energy employee, 
     Robert Speir.
       POGO and the Department of Justice dispute whether an 
     Assistant U.S. Attorney involved in the Mobil litigation 
     approved POGO's payments to Berman and Speir. In December 
     1998, the Civil Division of the Department of Justice 
     referred the POGO matter to the Public Integrity Section of 
     the Criminal Division for a review, in cooperation with the 
     Inspector General for the Department of the Interior, which 
     is ongoing. These are the proper authorities and the 
     appropriate forum for fairly investigating whether any 
     misconduct or illegalities occurred in making or receiving 
     the payments and we supported the motion adopted by the 
     Committee on Resources to release to them relevant committee 
     records. By contrast, all but one of the Democrats present 
     voted against the Majority's Contempt of Congress Resolution, 
     which was adopted by a 27 to 16 vote on July 19, 2000.
       We oppose this Resolution because in the course of this 
     lengthy investigation, the Majority has stepped beyond the 
     bounds of legitimate inquiry. In an abusive manner, the 
     Majority has used the powers of subpoena and the sanction of 
     contempt to pursue subjects tangential to the Committee on 
     Resources' jurisdiction. The Majority has conducted this 
     investigation in a manner that serves the interests of 
     lawyers for oil and gas companies involved in pending royalty 
     underpayment litigation as well as those who are currently 
     challenging in federal court royalty valuation regulations 
     recently issued by the Department of the Interior to curb 
     royalty payment abuses.
       It is noteworthy that the Majority has spent well over a 
     year investigating those who helped expose royalty cheating 
     and whose efforts contributed to the recovery to date by the 
     Untied States of $300 million from litigation settlements. 
     But they have done nothing to investigate whether companies 
     extracting oil and gas from federal lands

[[Page 25228]]

     are systematically underpaying royalties, a subject clearly 
     within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Resources and 
     with significant fiscal implications to taxpayers.
       The Majority unilaterally drafted the lengthy Resolution 
     and Report and first made it available to Democratic Members 
     of the Committee less than 24 hours prior to the Committee on 
     Resources' markup on July 19th. This rush to judgment on 
     Contempt of Congress, a federal crime, is typical of the 
     strictly partisan investigation, which has been prejudiced 
     from the beginning with assumptions of guilt and 
     illegalities. Indicating all with a broad brush, the 
     Resolution deems each individual cited as equally guilty no 
     matter how trivial the alleged transgression. Moreover, by 
     citing the ``Project on Government Oversight,'' with 
     contempt, the Resolution cavalierly casts a cloud of criminal 
     jeopardy on the officers and the entire board of directors, 
     even though one such individual testified that he had been 
     recused from any involvement in the royalty underpayment 
     matters and another did not join the board until 1999.
       At the July 19th Committee markup of this Resolution, the 
     Majority failed to provide Members with the language of the 
     contempt statutes. They cited no judicial standards or 
     precedents of the House for applying those criminal statutes 
     in a contempt proceeding. They did not adequately explain or 
     refute the legal rationale that the subpoenaed parties, based 
     on advice from counsel, had asserted when they declined to 
     answer specific questions or provide specific documents 
     precisely as sought by the Majority. And they neglected to 
     explain to Medicare that witnesses had appeared at hearings 
     and produced thousands of pages of documents in compliance 
     with multiple subpoenas (Attachment (A).


 LEGAL STANDARDS FOR CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS: ALL ELEMENTS OF THE OFFENSE 
               SHOULD BE PROVEN BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT

       The refusal to answer a question or provide a document 
     demanded by a committee does not per se constitute contempt 
     of Congress under the statutes. William Holmes Brown, who 
     served as House Parliamentarian for twenty years, provides 
     guidance for Members regarding contempt powers and procedure 
     in House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and 
     Procedures of the House (1996): ``The statute which penalizes 
     the refusal to answer in response to a congressional subpoena 
     provides that the question must be `pertinent to the question 
     under inquiry.' 2 U.S.C. 192. That is, the answered requested 
     must 91) relate to a legislative purpose which Congress may 
     constitutionally entertain, and (2) fall within the grant of 
     authority actually made by Congress to the Committee. Desher, 
     Ch 15 Sec. 6. In a prosecution for contempt of Congress, it 
     must be established that the committee or subcommittee was 
     duly authorized and that its investigation was within the 
     scope of delegated authority. U.S. v. Seeger, C.A.N.Y. 303 
     F.2d 478 (1962). A clear chain of authority from the House to 
     its committee is an essential element of the offense. Gojack 
     v. U.S., 384 U.S. 702 (1996).'' House Practice at pages 427-
     428.
       Brown further observes that the requirement that a 
     committee question be pertinent is an essential factor in 
     prosecuting the witness for contempt, that the committee has 
     the burden of establishing that a question is ``pertinent,'' 
     and that the committee's determination is ultimately subject 
     to a strict standard of judicial review: ``In contempt 
     proceedings brought under the statute, constitutional claims 
     and other objections to House investigatory procedures may be 
     raised as a defense. U.S. v. House of Representatives, 556 F 
     Supp. 150 (1983). The courts must accord the defendant every 
     right `guaranteed to defendants in all other criminal cases.' 
     Watkins v. United States, 354 US 178 (1957). All elements of 
     the offense, including willfulness, must be proven beyond a 
     reasonable doubt. Flaxer v. United States, 358 US 147 
     (1958).'' House Practice at page 428. [Emphasis added]
       Accordingly, because a contempt charge must meet strict 
     judicial review standards, it is our recommendation that 
     Members of the House consider themselves as if jurors in a 
     criminal trial and apply the ``beyond a reasonable doubt'' 
     standard in evaluating the conduct of those charged with 
     contempt under 2 U.S.C. 192. The definition of ``beyond a 
     reasonable doubt'' is as follows: ``The doubt that prevents 
     one from being firmly convinced of a defendant's guilt, or 
     the belief that there is a real possibility that a defendant 
     is not guilty. `Beyond a reasonable doubt' is the standard 
     used by a jury to determine whether a criminal defendant is 
     guilty. In deciding whether guilt has been proved beyond a 
     reasonable doubt, the jury must begin with the presumption 
     that the defendant is innocent.'' Black's Law Dictionary 
     (Seventh Edition, 1999) at page 1272. [Emphasis added]
     The majority has failed to meet its burdens of proving the 
         statutory elements necessary for contempt prosecution
       In construing the contempt statute, the Supreme Court has 
     closely scrutinized a committee's stated purpose of the 
     investigation to determine whether a demand is pertinent to 
     the question under inquiry. If the committee's own 
     descriptions are inconsistent with its actions or have 
     changed over time, such confusion ``might well have inspired 
     doubts as to the legal validity of the committee's 
     purposes.'' Gojack v. United States, 384 U.S. 702, 709 
     (1966).
       On June 9, 1999, the Committee on Resources on a party line 
     vote approved a Resolution to authorize Chairman Don Young to 
     issue subpoenas in connection with: ``(1) policies and 
     practices of the Department of the Interior and Department of 
     Energy regarding payment of employees and former employees 
     from sources outside of these Departments that may be related 
     to the employee's past or present work within the Department, 
     and (2) payments from the Project on Government Oversight, 
     POGO, to Mr. Robert Berman, an employee of the Department of 
     the Interior, and Mr. Robert Speir, a former employee of the 
     Department of Energy . . .''.
       During the debate on the June 9, 1999 resolution, Energy 
     Subcommittee Chairman Barbara Cubin responded to Delegate 
     Carlos Romero-Barcelo's concerns about the Committee acting 
     to intervene in a pending Department of Justice criminal 
     investigation by explaining that the focus would be on oil 
     royalty valuation legislation and regulation: ``It isn't the 
     intent of the committee to intervene in this procedure at 
     all, but we do need to know what is going on and what has 
     gone on because we have things in front of us as oil 
     valuation is concerned that are directly the purview of this 
     committee. We have legislation in front of us that tries to 
     determine a valuation method for oil. Right now, the 
     administration and the Minerals Management Service has some 
     regulation or proposed regulation that should not go into 
     effect about the valuation of oil because we don't know 
     whether this action and this payment of money has anything to 
     do with those new regulations. We just need to know whether 
     the two people involved had any influence on the MMS.''
       Notwithstanding this rationale for the investigation, at 
     the time the Committee approved the contempt Resolution on 
     July 19, 2000 the Majority had sought no testimony related to 
     oil valuation regulations, policies, or legislation. No 
     witness had been called to establish a foundation for the 
     relevant ``policies and practices'' of the Departments of 
     Interior and Energy. By stark contrast, Democratic Members 
     were admonished by the Majority at the May 4, 2000, 
     Subcommittee hearing that the purpose of the investigation 
     did not include inquires on oil royalty valuation policies or 
     fraudulent oil company practices.
       Simply stated, the Majority has not articulated a purpose 
     for obtaining the information sought by the contempt 
     Resolution that is within the scope of the Resources 
     Committee's authority as delegated by the House. The Supreme 
     Court has held that a clear line of authority for the 
     committee and the ``connective reasoning'' to the questions 
     is necessary to prove pertinency in statutory contempt. 
     Gojack v. United States, 384 U.S. 702 (1966) Instead, the 
     Majority has constantly shifted their explanations of what 
     they are investigating and why. For example, on March 6, 
     2000, Chairman Young wrote to POGO's attorney to explain that 
     broad subpoenas were necessary to ``to begin weighing the 
     merits of those conflicting statements'' made in civil 
     litigation.
       The purpose and scope of the Majority's inquiries are still 
     not clear to Democratic Members. An investigation of oil 
     royalty matters in furtherance of a legislative purpose could 
     properly be crafted within the Committee on Resources' 
     jurisdiction, but the Majority has failed to do so. The 
     Majority established no ``connective reasoning'' or 
     foundation based on the committee's jurisdiction for the 
     pertinence of the questions asked and the documents demanded 
     of the witnesses at the time they were asked and demanded. 
     Additional hearings or ex post facto rationale cannot 
     reestablish a foundation for pertinency that did not exist at 
     time that a witness was at peril of being charged with 
     contempt.
       The Supreme Court has held the conduct of Congress to 
     strict scrutiny when applying the contempt statutes: ``It is 
     obvious that a person compelled to make this choice [of 
     whether to answer] is entitled to have knowledge of the 
     subject to which the interrogation is deemed pertinent. That 
     knowledge must be available with the same degree of 
     explicitness and clarity that the due process clause requires 
     in the expression of any element of a criminal offense. the 
     `vice of vagueness' must be avoided here as in all other 
     crimes.'' Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178 (1957).
       In summary, the Majority has not met the substantial burden 
     of proving the elements of statutory contempt beyond a 
     reasonable doubt. The House cannot responsibly send to the 
     U.S. Attorney--who already has plenty of work to do combating 
     serious crimes--a contempt Resolution that is so flawed that 
     prosecution will be futile.
     The majority's investigation is procedurally flawed and 
         failed to comply with committee and House rules
       In applying the contempt statute, the courts have required 
     that a committee strictly follow its own rules and those of 
     the House. Yellin v. United States, 374 U.S. 109 (1962). The 
     conduct of the investigation related to this Contempt of 
     Congress Resolution is so egregious that any attempt at

[[Page 25229]]

     prosecution will not survive judicial review. Among the 
     procedural deficiencies are the following:
       (1) Failure to follow House Rule XI, Clause 2(k) applicable 
     to investigative hearing procedures. On June 9, 1999, by a 
     party line vote, the Committee on Resources authorized 
     Chairman Young to issue subpoenas related to an ``oversight 
     review'' of the ``policies and practices of the Department of 
     Interior and Energy'' and ``payments from the Project on 
     Government Oversight'' to Robert Berman, an employee of the 
     Department of the Interior, and Robert Speir, a former 
     employee of the Department of Energy. It was not until June 
     27, 2000, however, that Chairman Young authorized 
     Subcommittee Chairman Cubin to ``begin an investigation to 
     complement the oversight inquiry underway.'' This is a 
     meaningless effort to draw a distinction between 
     ``investigation'' and ``oversight'' when no such distinction 
     exists for purposes of House Rule XI, Clause 2. Accordingly, 
     over the protests of Democratic Members, the Majority failed 
     to follow House Rules applicable to the rights of witnesses 
     in Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources hearings held 
     May 4 and May 18, 2000. These flaws range from the failure to 
     provide witnesses with the Committee on Resources and House 
     Rules prior to their testimony, to the failure to go into 
     executive session.
       (2) Failure to allow Members to question witnesses under 
     House Rule XI, Clause 2(j). On multiple occasions, the 
     Subcommittee Chair prevented Democratic Members from 
     exercising their rights to question witnesses, either under 
     the five-minute rule or time allocated to the Minority under 
     clause 2(j)(B).
       (3) Failure to have a proper quorum under Committee on 
     Resources Rule 3(d). The Committee rules require a quorum of 
     members, yet no such quorum was present during the hearings 
     at the times of votes on sustaining the Subcommittee 
     Chairman's rulings on whether questions were ``pertinent.''
       (4) Failure to allow witnesses to make an opening statement 
     under Committee on Resources Rule 4(b). This rule states, 
     ``Each witness shall limit his or her oral presentation to a 
     five-minute summary of the written statement, unless the 
     Chairman, in consultation with the Ranking Minority Member, 
     extends this time period.'' In contravention of this rule and 
     longstanding committee practice, the Chair refused to grant 
     hearing witnesses the opportunity to make opening statements. 
     Democrats objected that this was prejudicial to subpoenaed 
     witnesses in what amounted to adversarial proceedings but 
     were overruled by the Subcommittee Chair.
       (5) Failure to hold a hearing on the contempt of Congress 
     issues. It is fundamentally unfair not to allow the parties 
     charged with contempt an opportunity to fully and fairly 
     detail their legal arguments for declining to answer 
     questions or supply specific documents in contention. The 
     Chair repeatedly refused the efforts of Democratic Members to 
     recognize legal counsel to address the Subcommittee on these 
     issues. The failure to provide due process in a hearing to 
     those accused of violating a criminal statute further weakens 
     the Majority's case.
     The majority's investigation improperly attempts to use the 
         power of Congress to provide discovery for oil and gas 
         companies in royalty litigation against the United States
       We strongly protest the Majority's transparent attempt to 
     use the powers of the Committee on Resources--and of the 
     House--to assist favored parties in pending litigation with 
     hundreds of millions of dollars of royalty payments at stake. 
     The Majority's difficulties in describing a legitimate 
     purpose for their investigation are compounded because they 
     appear to be seeking information which would damage interests 
     of the United States both in royalty underpayment litigation 
     and in industry challenges to recently revised oil and gas 
     royalty regulations. Their interest in the pending litigation 
     matters has been made clear, for example, by a March 6, 2000, 
     letter from Don Young to POGO's attorney which states in 
     part: ``On November 29, 1999, an adversary of your clients' 
     interests in the proceedings of Johnson v. Shell litigation 
     provided sworn testimony in a federal court hearing which 
     appears to directly contradict sworn statements made by your 
     client, Danielle Brian. To begin weighing the merits of those 
     conflicting statements, Committee counsel telephoned you and 
     explained that I intended to subpoena records of telephone 
     calls between POGO or Danielle Brian and that witness.''
       Given the Majority's keen interest in this pending civil 
     lawsuit, it is not accidental that lawyers for the companies 
     involved in those proceedings have been closely monitoring 
     the Committee on Resources' investigation. Because the Chair 
     has ruled that the investigation is not restricted by 
     attorney-client or other privileges, the Majority has freely 
     sought to obtain documents and probe on matters which would 
     otherwise be off-limits in court.
       On July 10, 2000, the law firm of Fulbright and Jaworski 
     filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern 
     District of Texas in ``Opposition of Defendant Shell Oil 
     Company to Project on Government Oversight and Henry M. 
     Banta's Motion for Protective Order'' (Attachment B). In that 
     motion, Shell Oil's lawyers argued that new evidence 
     developed by the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources 
     required that the court reexamine the relevance of the 
     payments to Berman and Speir, asserting that ``subsequent 
     testimony by Mr. Banta and Ms. Brian in recent Congressional 
     oversight hearings demonstrate that POGO did not accurately 
     advise the court in its pleadings . . .''. As evidence, the 
     Shell lawyers cite various statements and documents used at 
     the Subcommittee on Energy & Mineral Resources' hearings on 
     May 4 and May 18, 2000.
       POGO had previously argued to the court that this subject 
     matter was irrelevant to the issues of royalty underpayments: 
     ``it is the law of case that the Berman/Speir matter is 
     unrelated to the merits of the case.'' On July 14, 2000, the 
     federal judge agreed and ruled the Shell's lawyers were not 
     allowed to ask any questions of Henry M. Banta regarding 
     POGO's sharing of settlement proceeds with Robert Berman and 
     Robert Speir. (Attachment C)
       In effect, the federal judge's July 14, 2000, ruling 
     affirms his prior decision that how POGO distributed its 
     portion of the Mobile settlement is irrelevant to the central 
     question in the pending Johnson v. Shell litigation: did 
     Shell underpay royalties owed to federal government for oil 
     and gas obtained from public lands?
       The oil and gas industry's attempt to distract attention 
     away from this core issue has failed thus far in the courts 
     and it should meet a similar fate in the Congress. Seeking to 
     obtain and disclose information to assist participants in 
     litigation is not a legitimate purpose of a committee 
     investigation. Having provided no adequate jurisdictional 
     foundation for the relevance of the Majority's questions and 
     document demands at issue in this Resolution, there is 
     accordingly no basis for the House to hold in contempt the 
     individuals cited or POGO.
     Analysis of each citation for contempt in the resolution
       A. Mr. Henry M. Banta
       February 17, 2000, Subpoena Duces Tecum
       (1) Redacting Records: Mr. Banta is cited for providing a 
     record of the February 5, 1998, POGO Board Meeting minutes 
     ``redacted so severely as to have no meaning.'' In response 
     to the Chairman's June 26, 2000, letter, Mr. Banta's attorney 
     supplied a less redacted copy of the same record. Thus, the 
     charge is without merit.
       Moreover, Mr. Banta, as a private attorney and in his role 
     as Chairman and Member of the Board of Directors of POGO, was 
     not the individual responsible for maintaining POGO's Board 
     Meeting minutes. POGO's attorney supplied the Board Meeting 
     minutes, including subsequent revisions to accommodate the 
     requirements of the subpoenas issued to POGO. Thus, Mr. Banta 
     should not be held in contempt for not producing such 
     documents.
       (2) Refusing to Comply with Orders to Produce: The 
     Resolution cites Mr. Banta with contempt of Congress for not 
     providing certain documents. Mr. Banta, on advice of counsel, 
     has not produced such records that relate to his work as 
     counsel to the State of California, citing 30 U.S.C. 1733 
     which restricts the disclosure by states of confidential 
     business information provided by the Department of the 
     Interior in the administration of oil royalty programs. Mr. 
     Banta, in the course of his representation of the State of 
     California's Auditor, is required to keep certain information 
     confidential. It is not within Mr. Banta's authority to 
     release or produce these records for the Committee on 
     Resources. Mr. Banta should not be held in contempt for not 
     producing that which he is not authorized to release.
       April 10, 2000, Subpoena Duces Tecum
       (1) Failure to Comply: The Resolution charges Mr. Banta 
     with contempt for not producing a log of responsive records 
     withheld under a claim of privilege. However, Mr. Banta, 
     through his attorneys, did produce a record of responsive 
     records withheld under a claim of privilege and identified 
     the privilege. A log is not specifically required under the 
     subpoena. The subpoena required Mr. Banta to ``specify and 
     characterize the record so withheld and specify the objection 
     or constitutional privilege under which the record is 
     withheld.'' Consequently, when Mr. Banta's attorneys provided 
     additional correspondence in response to the Chairman's 
     rejection of the previously supplied log, and explained the 
     constitutional privilege under which a document was being 
     withheld; they complied with the terms of the subpoena. Mr. 
     Banta should not be held in contempt for not producing a log 
     that (a) he was not specifically required to produce and that 
     (b) he provided in material fact in correspondence.
       (2) Refusal to Produce: The Resolution cites Mr. Banta with 
     contempt because he ``possesses but did not produce an 
     unredacted agenda for the February 17, 1998, POGO Board 
     Meeting and unredacted minutes of the October 27, 1998 POGO 
     Board Meeting and unredacted minutes of the October 27, 1998 
     POGO Board Meeting.'' To the contrary, Mr. Banta does not 
     possess these documents, nor was he responsible for 
     maintaining such documents. POGO, through its attorney, has 
     supplied redacted versions of these documents, including 
     revisions, in response to the subpoenas issued to the 
     corporate entity. The House should not find Mr. Banta in 
     contempt on these facts.

[[Page 25230]]


       Subpoena to Appear on May 18, 2000
       Refusal to Answer: On this count, the Resolution cites Mr. 
     Banta with contempt of Congress because during the May 18 
     hearing, when asked if he knew about the Johnson v. Shell 
     lawsuit while it was under seal, Mr. Banta, on advice of 
     counsel, refused to answer the question on the grounds that 
     it was not pertinent to the investigation. The Majority 
     failed to provide a proper foundation or ``connective 
     reasoning'' for the question to be pertinent to the 
     jurisdiction of the Committee on Resources. Moreover, as 
     discussed above, seeking to obtain and disclose information 
     to assist parties in pending litigation is not a legitimate 
     purpose for a congressional investigation. Moreover, at the 
     time the Chair ruled the question ``pertinent'' and polled 
     the Members on the question, the Subcommittee did not have a 
     quorum for conducting business as required under the 
     Committee on Resources' rules.
       B. Mr. Robert A. Berman
       Subpoenas to Appear on May 18 and July 11, 2000
       Refusal to Answer: On May 18, 2000, when Mr. Berman 
     appeared under subpoena before the Subcommittee, he objected 
     to testifying at a public hearing on the grounds that Members 
     of the Majority had defamed him during the hearing held May 
     4, 2000. For example, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas had called 
     him a ``common thief'' during the prior hearing. On advice of 
     counsel, he declined to answer questions unless Members 
     waived their immunities from lawsuits. Mr. Berman also 
     demanded that the Subcommittee convene in executive session 
     as required under House Rule XI, Clause 2(k). Despite 
     objections by democratic Members, the Chair refused to apply 
     the House Rules on investigative hearing procedures.
       After confirming that they had in fact failed to follow the 
     House Rules governing investigative hearings, the Majority 
     attempted to cure the error by subpoenaing Mr. Berman to 
     reappear at a second hearing on July 11, 2000. Mr. Berman, on 
     the advice of counsel, refused to answer certain questions in 
     executive session. Only after voting on a factually incorrect 
     motion to report Mr. Berman's responses to the Committee did 
     the Majority allow Mr. Berman to make a statement to the 
     Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. The Majority's 
     failure to follow the Committee and House Rules that protect 
     the rights of witnesses, their failure to establish a clear 
     purpose within the Committee on Resources' jurisdiction for 
     the investigation, and their failure to provide a proper 
     foundation or connective reasoning for their questions, 
     collectively add up to a failure to prove the elements of 
     criminal contempt beyond a reasonable doubt. Under these 
     circumstances, Mr. Berman's conduct does not justify a 
     citation for contempt by the House.
       C. Mr. Keith Rutter
       April 10, 2000 Subpoena Duces Tecum
       (1) Withholding Records: The Resolution cites Mr. Rutter 
     with contempt for withholding certain tax documents. Under 
     the subpoena, Mr. Rutter, the POGO employee in charge of 
     general administrative matters, was directed to produce 
     copies of POGO's annual IRS Form 990 and Form 1023 (relating 
     to tax-exempt status). The subpoena also demanded production 
     of POGO's original application for tax-exempt status and 
     subsequent correspondence with the Internal Revenue Service. 
     In June 1999, POGO provided the requested documents for tax 
     year 1998, which included revenue from the oil royalty 
     litigation, as well as reporting the public service awards to 
     Berman and Speir. On July 11, 2000, POGO, through its 
     attorneys, provided the Committee with an amended tax return 
     for 1998. In a letter dated April 21, 2000, POGO's attorney 
     notified the Committee that they would not produce the 
     additional tax documents on the grounds that the Chair's 
     demand for the other tax documents unrelated to the payments 
     to Berman and Speir were not pertinent to the stated purpose 
     of the Committee's investigation and, additionally, further 
     inquiry into POGO's tax status was outside the Committee's 
     jurisdiction. Ironically, POGO's tax returns, including those 
     subpoenaed by the Majority, are publicly available. The House 
     should not find Mr. Rutter in contempt for not producing 
     material which is not pertinent and which the Majority could 
     have accessed through widely available means.
       (2) Failure to Produce: The Resolution cites Mr. Rutter 
     with contempt for failure to produce a log of the responsive 
     records withheld by him under a claim of privilege. A log is 
     not specifically required under the subpoena. The subpoena 
     required Mr. Rutter to ``specify and characterize the record 
     so withheld and specify the objection or constitutional 
     privilege under which the record is withheld.'' As is 
     evidenced by the Majority's own exhibit, this requirement has 
     been met. Therefore, the House should not find Mr. Rutter in 
     contempt on these grounds.
       D. Ms. Danielle Brian Stockton
       June 18, 1999 Subpoena Duces Tecum
       (1) Redacting Records: The Resolution cites Ms. Brian with 
     contempt for withholding minutes of two POGO Board Meetings. 
     Ms. Brian has asserted that she does not hold or possess 
     these or any other documents not previously supplied to the 
     Committee under her subpoena. She was not responsible for 
     maintaining these documents. In addition, POGO, through its 
     attorney, has supplied redacted versions of these documents, 
     including revisions, in response to the subpoena issued to 
     the corporate entity. The House should not find Ms. Brian in 
     contempt for not producing records that which she does not 
     possess.
       (2) Withholding Records: Under this citation, the 
     Resolution charges Ms. Brian with contempt for not producing 
     agendas and minutes from POGO Board Meetings that occurred on 
     January 5, 1995; December 9, 1996; April 26, 1999; and 
     September 9, 1999. POGO produced these records, through its 
     attorney as required by the subpoena issued to POGO. Ms. 
     Brian has asserted that she does not possess these documents 
     and was not responsible for maintaining the documents. As Ms. 
     Brian does not have such records within her possession, she 
     could not produce them. Instead, the documents were provided 
     to the Committee by POGO's attorney in response to the 
     subpoena of POGO. The House should not hold Ms. Brian in 
     contempt for not producing documents that she does not have 
     in her possession and which have been provided to the 
     Committee under the proper subpoena.
       February 17, 2000 Subpoena Duces Tecum
       (1) Failure to Comply: The Resolution cites Danielle Brian 
     with contempt for not producing unredacted telephone records 
     from her office and personal residence for a period covering 
     eighteen months. Ms. Brian offered to provide a redacted 
     version of the phone records under this subpoena. However, 
     the Majority insisted that they be allowed to review all 
     phone records--personal and professional--from the 18-month 
     period and then decide which ones to copy for their files. 
     POGO is an organization that works extensively with 
     whistleblowers from a wide array of areas, including defense 
     contractor and health care fraud and they have asserted a 
     First Amendment privilege against allowing unfettered access 
     to these. Since Ms. Brian was willing to provide redacted 
     versions of these records, and the Majority refused to 
     negotiate a reasonable alternative, the House should not find 
     Ms. Brian in contempt on this charge.
       Subpoena to Appear on May 18, 2000
       Failure to Reply: The Resolution charges Ms. Brian with 
     contempt for her refusal to answer a question relating to the 
     extent, if any, of her knowledge of Johnson v. Shell 
     litigation while it was under seal. As discussed above, Ms. 
     Brian should not be held in contempt for declining to answer 
     a question related to the Johnson v. Shell litigation. The 
     Majority has failed to provide either the connective 
     reasoning or build a foundation to justify this question as 
     pertinent to the investigation. Gojack v. United States, 384 
     U.S. 702 (1966). As stated above, it is not a legitimate 
     purpose for a congressional investigation to seek to obtain 
     and disclose information to assist parities in pending. 
     Moreover, at the time the Subcommittee Chair ruled the 
     question ``pertinent'' during the hearing and polled the 
     Members on the question, there was no quorum present as 
     required under the Committee on Resources' rules. 
     Accordingly, the House should not cite Ms. Brian for contempt 
     in this instance.
       E. Project on Government Oversight
       February 17, 2000 Subpoena Duces Tecum
       (1) Refusal to Produce Records: The Resolution cites POGO, 
     a nonprofit corporate entity, with contempt for not producing 
     records showing the names and office addresses of POGO 
     Directors responsible for POGO's oil royalty effort from its 
     inception in 1993 through the present. In correspondence 
     dated February 28, 2000, POGO's attorneys stated that POGO 
     had not withheld records with current Board Members' names 
     and addresses. They gave these records to the Committee in 
     1999 when POGO provided its 1998 nonprofit 501(c) corporate 
     tax forms, which included that information. On pertinency 
     grounds, POGO has declined to provide the names and addresses 
     of those Board Members (if any) that were on the Board in 
     1994 and have left since that time. They have provided the 
     name and address of one Board Member who joined in 1999.
       Secondly, the Resolution cites POGO for contempt for not 
     producing records concerning payments to Messrs. Berman and 
     Speir discussed by POGO since January 1, 1999. To the 
     contrary, POGO, through its attorneys, has provided the 
     documents to the Committee. Accordingly, the House should not 
     find POGO in contempt on these grounds. Moreover, even if the 
     House was to find POGO in contempt, it is unclear who the 
     U.S. Attorney would be compelled to prosecute as the Majority 
     has not specified which of the officers of board of directors 
     would be the responsible parties. At least one of the board 
     members, Chuck Hamel, testified that he had been recused from 
     all matters dealing with the royalty underpayment litigation.
       (2) Refusing to Comply: The Resolution cites POGO for 
     refusing to provide a log of responsive records withheld from 
     production under this subpoena. POGO, through its attorneys, 
     has asserted that they have produced all responsive records. 
     In those instances where they have declined to provide a 
     document, they have, as required under the subpoena,

[[Page 25231]]

     provided a written explanation. A log is not specifically 
     required under the subpoena. The subpoena required POGO to 
     ``specify and characterize the record so withheld and specify 
     the objection or constitutional privilege under which the 
     record is withheld.'' This requirement has been met. 
     Therefore, the House should not find POGO in contempt. Again, 
     even if the House were to find this nonprofit corporate 
     entity in contempt, it is unclear who the U.S. Attorney would 
     be compelled to prosecute, as the Resolution does not specify 
     which of the officers or board of directors are to be 
     prosecuted.

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Brady).
  Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, we asked. To the attorney for the 
special interest group we asked, ``Did you have knowledge of this 
lawsuit that was under seal, that was held confidential by the Court?'' 
All he had to do was answer, ``No, of course not. I am a private 
citizen. Why would I know of a sealed document?''
  Of the two government employees, we wanted to ask, ``What service did 
you provide to receive three-quarters of a million dollars?'' Because 
one does not get something for nothing in this world.
  We could never get these basic pertinent questions answered. That is 
the truth we were seeking.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot today, and I would just like to 
clarify some of the things that were said. The rules of this House, the 
Supreme Court say the committee can judge what is pertinent, not the 
witness. That is the rules and that is the Supreme Court. We told all 
three of these parties that was the case, and they still declined to 
answer.
  Let us make it perfectly clear that POGO is not the whistleblower. 
Neither are the gentlemen or ladies that are involved in these contempt 
citations the whistleblowers. The whistleblower, Johnson, was filed on 
top of for money. POGO now is under criminal investigation as I stand 
here and speak.
  Mr. Speaker, I know that this is such a serious debate, that we have 
to have more debate. So I ask unanimous consent, pursuant to clause 2 
of rule XVI, to withdraw the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Pursuant to clause 2 of rule 
XVI, and the precedent of the House of April 8, 1964, the gentleman 
does not require unanimous consent. The gentleman may by right withdraw 
the resolution at this point.
  The resolution was withdrawn.

                          ____________________