Legislative Program
Floor Speech
Legislative Program
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the Republican Whip.
On Monday, the House will meet in pro forma session at 2 p.m. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday and Thursday the House will meet at 10 a.m. On Friday there will be no votes in the House.
We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A list of those bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. We will consider H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007. In addition, we hope to consider legislation regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. There may well be other legislation as well.
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. As the gentleman knows, this bill was passed in the Senate a little over 2 weeks ago. Since that time we have had an extensive number of meetings, discussions. I'm hopeful, as you know, to have discussions with the whip, with the distinguished Republican whip, my friend, on this issue as well. I think both of us are going to be here tomorrow. We'll take that time perhaps to do that.
As I said, and I've said repeatedly, I think every Member of this House wants to pass legislation which will facilitate the interception of particularly foreign-to-foreign communications which may pose a danger to this country.
All of us are aware of the fact that technological changes have resulted in some questions being raised because of the fact that we have many of the communications coming through the United States. I frankly think, as the gentleman knows, there is really not a great deal of controversy or difference between the two Houses or between our two sides of the aisle on this issue. There's some differences, but they're not major differences. I think they can be addressed.
There are major differences with respect to the second title of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill which comes from the Senate which deals with retroactive immunity, which has nothing about prospective security but is obviously important for us to consider. We're also working on that as well, but I will tell the gentleman that we don't have agreement. But, as I said, I'm very hopeful that we will have legislation on the floor next week. I do not expect it to be, as the gentleman asked, the same bill that passed the House.
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Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
As the gentleman knows, both the RESTORE Act, which passed this House, and the Senate bill both are similar in giving prospective immunity to telecoms that voluntarily or pursuant to order cooperate with us in accomplishing that objective. We believe, of course, that FISA was established so that a court review on process would be appropriate to ensure, in fact, that the collection of information is on foreign-to-foreign.
We well understand that, as the DNI has indicated, prospectively you may not know so you need authorization. Our bill provides for that. The Senate bill provides for that. I really don't believe that is a major contention of the bill. That's prospectively.
A major contention is, which we believe has nothing to do with security, on what has been done, and, frankly, I'm not sure we know exactly what has been done. As you know, I've taken the opportunity to be up in the intelligence room, in the secure room, and go through the papers that have been provided. My own view is they're not dispositive of the issue; but irrespective of that, we're working on title II as well, and I look forward to having discussions on that with you as well.
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Mr. HOYER. If I might comment on that, as you know, from our perspective, this is one of the problems. This is a very serious, important bill. It's critical to the defense of our country. I want to see that facilitated. I think every Member on both sides of the aisle wants to see that facilitated, but there are serious issues. There are serious constitutional issues involved here.
That's why FISA was passed in 1978, very frankly, as a result of an administration that intercepted communications here domestically. You will recall that, I know, and a great concern about that. FISA was adopted by the Congress and signed by the President in an attempt to try to ensure that those kinds of things that happened in the early 1970s were not repeated by the intelligence community.
So these are serious issues. Unfortunately, the Senate which had our bill for 2 1/2 months and had spent a lot of time considering a bill long before we passed our bill did not send us a bill until, as I said, about 14 days ago, and we have since that time, notwithstanding the fact we were on break, staff and Members have been working on that. As you know, we have invited the other side of the aisle, ranking members, to participate in that. Some have chosen not to, but we are hopeful that we can move ahead on this, and we hope there is room for positive resolution.
I thank the gentleman for yielding.
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Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
I've had discussions recently with Secretary Gutierrez, with Ambassador Schwab and others, and Secretary Paulson, who have also discussed this issue with me and I know with you and with many others. This is an issue of importance. We think the discussions are ongoing. Hopefully, they will result in some fruitful resolution. That has not been the case at this point in time.
We did have, as you well know, a very significant interface with the administration last year in which I think a very positive result in terms of workers' rights and environmental concerns were addressed by us and by the administration. Unfortunately, we have not moved forward from that point on the other three agreements that were pending at that time, but I think that we will continue to have those discussions, hopefully positive and hopefully have some result.
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