[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1770-1772]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of inquiring about next 
week's schedule, I yield to my friend, the majority leader from 
Maryland, to give us that information.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the Republican whip.
  On Monday, the House will not be in session. On Tuesday, the House 
will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative 
business with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday, Thursday, 
and Friday the House will meet at 10 a.m.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A list 
of those bills will be announced by close of business this week.
  We will consider H.R. 3521, the Public Housing Asset Management 
Improvement Act of 2007. In addition, we will consider legislation 
regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as we expect the 
Senate to act on the bill the House sent, hopefully, early next week.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that information. Regarding 
FISA, regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, I hope that 
we are moving toward a long-term resolution of that. I know the Senate, 
we believe, will pass a long-term bill possibly as early as tomorrow.
  On the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as we hopefully move 
toward a longer-term bill, we had a 6-month extension the first of 
August. We did a 2-week extension last week.
  I think the Senate will send over a bill that has a longer term and 
includes things like liability protection for companies that cooperate 
with the government under the law. I also understand that at least 21 
Members of the majority have sent a letter saying they would like to 
see a long-term solution dealt with next week. I wonder if my friend 
has any sense of how that may go next week and, again, I am hoping that 
we encourage a longer-term solution before this short-term extension 
runs out.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gentleman's confidence that the Senate is 
going to send us a bill, short-term, medium-term or long-term duration. 
We have been waiting for that for some time, obviously.
  It is my understanding the Senate is going to address this bill on 
Tuesday. Now, if they send it to us on Tuesday, we will see what they 
have in the bill. There obviously will be little, if any, time for a 
conference. My expectation is there will be a difference between the 
House bill which passed here 2\1/2\ months ago and the Senate bill.
  As I said on the floor, when we passed the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act bill on November 15 or 16, I said at that time I was 
hopeful that we would pass it, that the Senate would pass it, and that 
we could have a conference in which the very important specifics of the 
bill might be discussed and differences ironed out. That has not yet 
occurred, unfortunately.
  In addition, as I told my friend last week, we had still not gotten 
access to the documents that we had asked to see to indicate what, in 
fact, immunity was being asked for. Those documents, my friend and I 
had an opportunity to discuss that, I don't know whether he had any 
role in that, but they will now be made available as of today. As a 
matter of fact, I intend to take the opportunity tomorrow, much of the 
morning, perhaps even into the afternoon, to review those documents. 
Some few Members have had that opportunity already, but very few. So we 
have been very late and compressed in the schedule of dealing fully 
with what is the thorniest issue on the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act bill, and that is the granting of immunity.
  I will tell my friend that, as I said, when we extended it for 15 
days, when we had an agreement to do that, to give the Senate time to 
act, I was hopeful they could act within that time. The problem we now 
find ourselves in, if they act on Tuesday, and they send the bill to us 
on Wednesday or late Tuesday night, I don't know how long their 
consideration is going to take.
  As you know, there is substantial controversy, as is evident by the 
difficulty they have had in passing it, so I don't know exactly how 
quickly they will be able to pass that bill. But as I have said on 
numerous occasions, we believe, I believe, there are serious issues on 
which there are obviously honest differences of opinion.
  I agree with my friend, we would like to resolve this. We would like 
to have it resolved so that we don't visit it monthly or every 3 months 
or every 6 months. We believe, as I said before, that the current bill, 
the current FISA law, if it is reverted to, will provide for all of the 
intelligence surveillance that is needed by the administration.
  It would require, of course, getting FISA approval, the court's 
approval, which was, of course, contemplated in 1978 when it was 
adopted so that with or without an extension or new legislation, we 
believe the administration can pursue, as all of us want to, there is 
nobody on this floor who doesn't want to make sure that we facilitate 
the protection of the American public and America through the 
interception of communications which may be by terrorists planning to 
attack us.
  But having said that, I am sure my friend appreciates, as I have said 
all along, this is a serious issue, a difficult issue for many. I think 
we are all agreeing on the enforcement and interception part. It is the 
immunity issue that gives many concerns, and they want to look at that 
carefully, and I think that's fair to do. Whether or not we will be 
able to do that next week, frankly, I tell my friend, I am not sure.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, I appreciate that; I hope we can. I do think that 
there is the likelihood that a very quick problem develops if you don't 
have the ongoing ability that we currently have to try to intercept 
communications. There is some argument even about the short-term of 
that, and I think almost any expert will say that the long-term 
challenge there actually becomes a short-term problem pretty quickly.
  We saw how encumbered the FISA Court became when this law was not in 
existence and how difficult it was. I hope that the Senate can act 
quickly. We saw them act quickly today, certainly.
  In fact, today is a good example of what we can do working together. 
The House worked together. We sent a bill to the Senate, the House 
stood firm in defense of that bill, and at the end of the day the 
Senate sent a bill back pretty quickly with improved changes that the 
House could agree to.

[[Page 1771]]

  I would like to see us respond to a bipartisan Senate bill, and I 
anticipate that would be the case with a bipartisan House vote. Even 
though we had sent a bill initially over a long time, this issue has 
been out there a long time. I think the documents that the leader was 
talking about were available at the White House at an earlier time, but 
I am glad those documents are now available in a way more easily 
accessed over the next few days for our Members.
  Hopefully, that resolves what the leader has just described as the 
last significant outstanding issue, and that we get this done. A 
significant amount of what we know about our enemies in the world is 
found out today through the structure of the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act, and we want to continue that.
  Mr. HOYER. I agree with my friend, and that is correct, and I think 
that is why all of us want to facilitate and ensure that the work of 
the NSA and others can go forward. I don't know whether the gentleman 
had an opportunity to either see or hear this; but I just wanted to 
bring to your attention, because we do share that concern, that in 
testimony this morning before the Intelligence Committee, the Director 
of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, whom we work with, said that 
all current surveillance activity under the Protect America Act would 
continue even after the law expires.
  He went on to say, after being asked about the backlog of 
surveillance, because, as you recall when we were back in August or 
July of last year, there was a concern about the backlog and therefore 
it couldn't get approval as quickly as might be needed. Director 
McConnell informed the House Intelligence Committee that the backlog 
that existed has been eliminated, saying we are caught up on everything 
at this point in time.
  I think we can have a confidence level. I agree with you, we want to 
get this done as quickly as possible. Because I am concerned that we 
not have a gap, we are trying to assure ourselves, and believe we are 
assured that there will not be a down time for our intelligence service 
should we not be able to reach agreement either with the Senate or with 
ourselves in the time frame of next Friday.
  I am hopeful that we can do that, and we will work toward that end.
  Mr. BLUNT. I am hopeful of that, too. I appreciate that.
  In an article from the New York Times, January 23, 2008, that the 
leader was able to share a part of with me on that date, Kenneth 
Wainstein, who is the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, 
said in an interview, according to the Times, ``that if the August bill 
was allowed to expire in 10 days,'' that was 10 days before the 
expiration date, ``intelligence officials would still be able to 
continue'' the word he used was ``eavesdropping on already approved 
targets for another year under the law.''
  I think that essentially verifies my friend's comments on that and 
possibly, as you have explained it to me, the admiral's comments this 
morning. But Mr. Wainstein went on to say but ``there is a risk'' that 
the officials would not be able to use their broadened authority to 
identify and focus on new suspects and would have to revert to the more 
restrictive pre-August standards if we wanted to eavesdrop on someone.
  I think we want to not revert to that if we don't have to. I believe 
that the 2\1/2\ months we have waited for the Senate and now the 2 
weeks that we have had in addition to that time hopefully will turn out 
to be appropriate; and certainly as we have worked together this week 
to get the stimulus package off the floor, this is a critical item that 
I hope we can all work together next week to try to find a permanent 
solution on.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate your bringing to my attention, and we 
discussed the second sentence, which you just read regarding the more 
restrictive. When he refers to the more restrictive, he simply refers 
to the fact that they would have to go to the FISA Court for approval 
of such intercept as they want, and that would be within the, of 
course, authority within 72 hours to act and then get approval after 
the fact, which is why I indicated that Admiral McConnell had said that 
the backlog had been eliminated.
  You recall previous testimony, or comments, that one of the officials 
who dealt with these in the administration indicated that, and the 
court could, frankly, within minutes, give approval in many situations, 
and now that the backlog has been eliminated, it is correct, it would 
be more restrictive, it would have to go to the court, but that, of 
course, is what was contemplated in 1978. We do not believe that that 
would in any substantial way slow down the process and, therefore, not 
in any way put us at risk.
  Having said all of that, we still agree with you that if we can get 
this done in a timely fashion that would be good.
  I want to tell my friend, though, very candidly, I think there is 
some sentiment that if we don't get it done that that is going to put 
this side of the aisle that wants to look at this bill, after the 
Senate passes it back to us, with whatever provisions they include in 
it, carefully, we understand that we are going to be portrayed as 
somehow undermining the security of America. We think that argument is 
bogus, but we do think it may well be made.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, if I determine to make that argument, I will tell my 
friend, I will make it in good faith, and we do have a difference of 
opinion on this. Hopefully, the Senate will get its work done in a way 
that we will have a maximum amount of time in the relatively short time 
available here to look at this, and we won't have to have the argument 
about how critical that change is.
  I personally believe that the 1978 law was written in a way where it 
was not anticipated that we would have to go to the FISA Court to 
listen to people in a foreign country who were making calls or 
communicating, and because of the way the law was written, it had come 
to mean that by now.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. HOYER. I do want to make the point that I don't think we have 
much difference on that issue because we agree that technology has 
changed. As we all know, there is a switch here in the United States 
now that the 1978 law did not anticipate. Frankly, I don't think there 
is a great deal of contention. I think in a bipartisan fashion we 
believe that needs to be addressed. We addressed it in our bill and the 
Senate addressed it in their bill. Frankly, I don't think that is one 
of the items in contention.
  In fact, I would suggest to my friend we could deal with the immunity 
issue, which looks back not at present capacity nor future capacity, 
and resolve that issue in a separate bill if that was the concern about 
going forward. I think that could be done relatively quickly.
  My only point to the gentleman is I agree with you, technology has 
changed. I think there is bipartisan agreement we need to address that 
and facilitate the foreign-to-foreign intercept with a blanket approval 
simply related to process, and I think we could do that relatively 
easily because I don't think that is particularly contentious between 
us.
  Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that, and we will see where we are next week, 
and I look forward to the review that you and I will both have a chance 
to make of those documents.
  You didn't mention it, but I heard there is a possibility we may take 
up an energy-related tax bill next week, something similar to the 
energy-related tax provisions that we had in the first year of this 
Congress in December of last year. I wonder if there is any information 
you can give me on that topic.
  Mr. HOYER. There is a possibility we will be considering an energy 
bill much like some of the provisions that were included in H.R. 6 in 
the 6 for '06 package that we passed in the first 100 hours, and other 
portions of which were included in the energy bill that did not make it 
through.
  I don't have specifics on that at this point in time, but that is 
being discussed and that is a possibility and he is correct.

[[Page 1772]]


  Mr. BLUNT. So the schedule for next week is Tuesday through Friday, 
and we are looking at the items we discussed plus the possibility of 
other work that might come from the Senate.
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Obviously Friday is on the schedule. I expect we will be here on 
Friday. We have some other legislation on the suspension calendar. I 
don't know how extensive that will be.
  Clearly we have been talking about FISA. FISA authorization ends on 
Friday. Again, we have a difference in perception of the consequences 
of that; but nevertheless, we have scheduled Friday so we are available 
depending on what the Senate does and depending on whether we can get 
to some agreement to ensure our presence to act on that, if possible.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that information.

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