Congressional Review Act Improvement Act

Madam Speaker, pursuant to H. Res. 1493, as chair of the Committee on the Judiciary, I submit the following highlights of ``changes in law'' enacted in the 111th Congress within the jurisdiction of the Committee that ``help achieve deficit reduction by reducing waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, promoting efficiency and reform of government, and controlling spending within Government programs.'' These enacted changes in law include:

(1) Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act (Public Law 111-21). This law clarifies and strengthens the criminal penalties for various forms of fraud, including fraud in connection with the Troubled Asset Relief Program and other federal assistance programs, including economic stimulus funds. It also strengthens incentives and protections under the False Claims Act for private citizens to help root out fraud against the federal government and help bring the perpetrators to justice. See 111 Cong. Rec. H5260-67 (May 6, 2009).

(2) Antitrust Criminal Penalty Enhancement and Reform Extension Act (Public Law 111-30). This law extends and strengthens a temporary program that promotes more effective and efficient detection and prosecution of illegal price-fixing cartels, by giving secondary participants in the cartel legal protection for blowing the whistle on the cartel and cooperating in the investigation and prosecution. This program has been demonstrated to substantially enhance the reach of the Justice Department's cartel enforcement resources. See 111 Cong. Rec. H3716-7 (May 24, 2010).

(3) Human Rights Enforcement Act (Public Law 111-122). This law consolidates Justice Department jurisdiction over serious human rights crimes into one section within the Department's Criminal Division. This will enable the Department to employ its enforcement resources with greater efficiency and effectiveness to vigorously prosecute perpetrators of serious human rights crimes. See 111 Cong. Rec. H14892- 4 (December 15, 2009).

(4) Foreign Evidence Request Efficiency Act (Public Law 111-79). This law promotes greater efficiency and cooperation in international law enforcement by streamlining the process by which the federal government responds to requests for evidence by foreign governments in their investigations. Instead of having to file and process a request separately in every federal judicial district where the evidence or witnesses might be found, which could require involvement by a dozen or more different U.S. Attorneys on a single request, the request can now be handled centrally by one or two U.S. Attorneys. See 111 Cong. Rec. H10092-4 (Sept. 30, 2009).

In addition, other proposed legislation within the jurisdiction of the Committee has been approved by the House and would reduce waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, promote efficiency and reform of government, and control spending within Government programs. This legislation includes:

(5) H.R. 2247, the Congressional Review Act Improvement Act, which would provide for federal agencies to more efficiently promulgate final rules, while ensuring effective Congressional review;

(6) H.R. 3632, the Federal Judiciary Administrative Improvements Act of 2009, which would improve the efficiency of the federal court system, including by improving the control and protection of confidential information and the reporting of criminal wiretapping orders; and

(7) H.R. 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2009, which would improve the efficiency of federal and state courts by requiring them to recognize documents lawfully notarized in any state where interstate commerce is involved.

In addition to the legislative activity described above, the Committee has conducted extensive oversight aimed at reducing waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement and improving federal government efficiency. A primary focus of the Committee's oversight efforts is the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its component divisions and agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Both the Committee and the DOJ Inspector General have devoted considerable attention to the FBI, DOJ, and other agencies, with several Committee hearings held relating to the Bureau and other agencies this year, including:

(8) Committee Oversight Focusing on FBI-ATF Problems. The Committee's Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee held a hearing on February 24, 2010, focusing on three recent Inspector General reports raising concerns about long-standing problems in FBI and other DOJ operations. These include wasteful and potentially dangerous overlap and rivalry between the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) on explosives investigations, backlog and related problems concerning the FBI's foreign language translation work, and coordination and related problems concerning DOJ and FBI anti-gang activities. The hearing and related oversight of the FBI and DOJ have revealed significant progress in addressing these difficulties, and DOJ indicated at the hearing that it was moving forward vigorously to complete its efforts to resolve the decade-long FBI-ATF problems. In fact, in early August, 2010, the acting Deputy Attorney General issued a memorandum and protocol specifying the division of responsibility between FBI and ATF on explosives-related matters, including the conduct of investigations and the maintenance of a single national explosives database.

(9) Other Committee Oversight Concerning the FBI. On March 24, 2010, the Committee held a hearing including representatives of the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, as well as the National Counterterrorism Center and the Departments of Homeland Security and State, which focused on efforts to improve the sharing and analyzing of information to prevent terrorism. On May 20, 2010, the Committee's Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee held a hearing at which an FBI representative provided an update concerning national efforts to eliminate the DNA backlog in forensic casework and the Combined DNA Index System that supports the national DNA database. A staff briefing on FBI efforts to remedy the backlog is scheduled for September 20, 2010.

(10) Committee Oversight on the Department of Justice and its Divisions. Other Committee oversight hearings have focused on DOJ and its divisions. On May 13, 2010, the Committee held a DOJ oversight hearing at which Attorney General Eric Holder testified and answered a full range of questions from Committee members about many aspects of DOJ operations. The Committee has submitted followup written questions, including questions focusing on efforts to improve DOJ efficiency with respect to financial and grant funds management. On March 4, 2010, the Committee's Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee held a hearing on efforts to enforce criminal laws against medicaid fraud, which included testimony from the Department's Criminal Division. Overall, the Committee has held 12 oversight hearings during this year alone focusing on DOJ, including testimony from officials from the Antitrust, Civil, Criminal, and Civil Rights Divisions, the FBI, and the Executive Office of Immigration Review.

(11) Committee Oversight on Other Federal Agencies. The Committee has also held a number of oversight hearings focusing on agencies within its jurisdiction that are outside DOJ. For example, focusing on hearings during this session, on March 23, 2010, the Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law held an oversight hearing on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which included testimony from the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office on efforts to improve information technology, fees, and other aspects of USCIS management. On May 5, 2010, the Committee held an oversight hearing on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), which led to the PTO-related legislation discussed above. On May 20, 2010, the Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law held a hearing on the recently revived Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), which featured testimony by the Chairman of ACUS and Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia. On June 29, 2010, the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security held an oversight hearing featuring testimony from the Secret Service. And on July 27, 2010, the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee held a hearing on Federal Rulemaking and the Regulatory Process, which included testimony from Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the federal Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of rule IX, I hereby notify the House of my intention to offer a resolution as a question of the privileges of the House. The form of the resolution is as follows:

H. Res. --

Whereas the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, a Representative from

California, served from 1997 to 2002 as Ranking Democratic

Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on

Intelligence;

Whereas Representative Pelosi currently serves as Speaker

of the House, a position of considerable power and influence

within the Congress;

Whereas title 3 of the United States Code designates the

Speaker of the House as third in line of succession to the

Presidency;

Whereas Speaker Pelosi has publicly challenged the

truthfulness of what she and other congressional leaders were

told by Central Intelligence Agency officials about the

agency's use of enhanced interrogation techniques on

suspected terrorists;

Whereas in an MSNBC interview on February 25, 2009, Speaker

Pelosi stated, ``I can say flat-out, they never told us that

these enhanced interrogation techniques were being used'';

Whereas, Speaker Pelosi's public statements allege a

sustained pattern of deception by government intelligence

officers charged by law with informing Congress about the

agency's activities;

Whereas when asked at a press conference on May 15, 2009

widely reported by the news media, ``Madam Speaker, just to

be clear, you're accusing the CIA of lying to you in

September?'' Speaker Pelosi stated, ``Yes'';

Whereas during the same press conference the Speaker

subsequently stated, ``So yes, I'm saying they are

misleading, the CIA was misleading the Congress'' and

further, ``they mislead us all the time'' and ``they

misrepresented every step of the way'';

Whereas in a memorandum to CIA employees released publicly

on May 15, 2009, Leon Panetta, the CIA Director, stated, ``It

is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is

against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated

previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our

contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA

officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu

Zubaydah, describing the enhanced interrogation techniques

that had been employed'';

Whereas when asked in a press conference held June 4, 2009,

``Madam Speaker, are you still receiving intelligence

briefings?'' Speaker Pelosi responded by saying, ``Yes, I am;

yes, I am.'';

Whereas a June 5, 2009 article on Human Events.com

entitled, ``Pelosi Still Receives CIA Briefings, But Won't

Say If They're Truthful'' stated, ``She refused to answer

when asked whether or not she believes intelligence

professionals are still lying to her.'';

Whereas national and international media reports on this

controversy have damaged the reputation of the House by

raising questions about whether the effectiveness of

congressional oversight may have been undermined through

false or misleading statements by intelligence officials; and

Whereas in order to safeguard the reputation of the House

it is imperative to reconcile as soon as possible the

aforementioned contradictory statements by Speaker Pelosi and

CIA Director Panetta: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That--

(1) a Select Subcommittee of the Permanent Select Committee

on Intelligence shall be established to review and verify the

accuracy of the Speaker's aforementioned public statements;

(2) the Select Subcommittee shall be comprised of four

members of the full committee, two appointed by the chairman

of the committee and two by its ranking minority member;

(3) The subcommittee shall have the same powers to obtain

testimony and documents pursuant to subpoena authorized under

clause 2(m) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House; and,

(4) the Select Subcommittee report its findings and

recommendations to the House not later than sixty calendar

days after adoption of this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, that is the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I therefore offer the resolution. I assume it has to be read, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is very similar--it is not exactly the same, but it is similar to a resolution we presented a few weeks ago. It is presented again for one simple reason. The reason that this is before here is still that there is no cloture on this particular issue.

In ``A Man for All Seasons,'' Sir Thomas More may have used silence as his legal argument that silence denotes consent; but in a political setting as we are here, silence is not a solution. In an era in which perception is the same thing as reality, silence does not solve the problem, and indeed, harms are still there.

If an agency of government intentionally misleads Congress--and the CIA has denied they did that. If they intentionally mislead Congress or a Member, an important or a significant Member of Congress, it creates a problem for the integrity of the House as a whole.

If the data we are to receive is in question, then the solutions and the arguments we derive are equally in question, and that becomes an untenable decision. All of our decisions, therefore, become suspect. There is only one solution to this, and it is the same solution that we have said before:

If we don't want this issue to simply be subject to political maneuverings, establish a bipartisan committee--two Republicans, two Democrats. Make that committee a subset of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, so they understand the verbiage, so they understand the questions, so they don't have to have a lot of time to be brought up to speed.

If you have that kind of committee, their report will, by the very nature of the makeup of that committee, not be subject to political spin, and we may be able to move on. That's the important part. It is the integrity of the House that is in question here, and that needs to be answered so decisions of this House will be considered without any other kind of question or implication.

Now, as we are starting the appropriations process, it becomes an ideal time in which any kind of solution we may wish to impose on this particular situation should be before the House and should be done.

Mr. Speaker, I do this as a former speaker in Utah where several times you had to stand up to defend the integrity of the institution. This is about the integrity of the institution, to make sure we were not intentionally misled by an agency of government.

I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2247) to amend title 5, United States Code, to make technical amendments to certain provisions of title 5, United States Code, enacted by the Congressional Review Act, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to extend and revise their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 2247, the Congressional Review Act Improvement Act, would cut governmental waste by reducing duplicative paperwork and relieving some of the administrative burdens currently mandated by the Congressional Review Act.

The Congressional Review Act is the congressional mechanism for reviewing agency rules. It currently requires that when an agency promulgates a rule, it must submit documents to both Houses of Congress and to the Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office.

The agency must submit a report that contains a copy of the rule, a concise general statement describing it, and its proposed effective date. Thus, under current law, the same material is submitted to, housed in, and printed by four different government entities.

This approach creates unnecessary burdens. For example, the House Parliamentarian has testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law in three separate Congresses about the ever-increasing volume of executive branch communications under the Congressional Review Act and its overwhelming impact on the operations of the Parliamentarian's office.

This bill eliminates the requirement that agencies submit copies of rules with accompanying reports to each House of Congress. Instead, the House and Senate will receive a weekly list of all rules from the Comptroller General. The House and Senate would then have the list printed in the Congressional Record with a statement of referral for each rule.

Under the bill, the House and Senate retain the option to directly obtain reports on major rules. Importantly, the bill makes no changes to the authority of Congress under the Congressional Review Act to disapprove agency rules. What it basically does is it cuts out some unnecessary paperwork and saves forests.

I thank Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Ranking Member Lamar Smith, and Trent Franks, ranking member of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, for being original cosponsors of this bill with me.

This is a commonsense bill that rightfully has strong bipartisan support. I urge my colleagues to support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I too would yield the balance of my time and ask for a favorable vote on the proposition before us, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2247, the ``Congressional Review Act Improvement Act.'' I would like to thank my colleague, Congressman Steve Cohen, for introducing this bill, and for providing leadership on this important issue.

I support this bill. It eliminates waste by requiring that federal agencies must submit specified information about a rule to both Houses of Congress before such rule can take effect; (thus requiring that the information be submitted to only the Comptroller General). Moreover, it requires the Comptroller General to submit to each House a weekly report containing a list of the rules received, including a notation identifying each major rule.

These reductions and minimization of waste standards provided by this bill should result in a substantial cost savings to the federal government. In times like we are in now, it is important that the government cut costs. I support this bill.

H.R. 2247 amends the current law. The primary purpose of the legislation is to have the Comptroller general replace congress. H.R. 2247 eliminates the requirement that agencies submit paper copies of their rules that are printed in the Federal Register to each House while continuing a referral of all rules printed in the Federal Register and the periodic indication of those referrals in the Congressional Record. Instead, the Comptroller General will send out the weekly list of rules to both the House and the Senate from the GAO, and then the Comptroller General would put that list in the Congressional Record.

This bill eliminates the excessive duplication and printing of rules. This bill adds a commonsense approach to rulemaking, the printing, publication and dissemination of those rules. It is simple and the reforms that it brings should yield a substantial cost savings to the U.S. Treasury.

I am proud to support this bill because it eliminates duplicative and needless paperwork and should provide a cost savings. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers. I yield back the balance of my time and urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I join my colleague in support of H.R. 2247, the Congressional Review Act Improvement Act.

The Congressional Review Act provides Congress with a vital but underused tool to oversee how agencies exercise the legislative authority Congress delegates to them. This bipartisan reform, the Congressional Review Act Improvement Act, is an important first step towards improving the act's efficiency and effectiveness. It is a measure first proposed in the 106th Congress by the late Henry Hyde. It had bipartisan support then, just as it does today.

This legislation will streamline the House Parliamentarian's role under the Congressional Review Act, shifting some of the Parliamentarian's paperwork responsibilities to the Comptroller General.

The day-to-day volume of paperwork that the small staff of the Parliamentarian's office confronts under the act is large. By reducing this burden on the Parliamentarian, this bill will improve the efficiency of House operations while at the same time not hampering oversight of agency rules.

We obtained this measure's passage in the last Congress, but the Senate, unfortunately, did not act upon it. I urge the House to pass it again this term, and I am hopeful the Senate will pass it as well. The goal is to provide assistance to the overworked Parliamentarian's office.

I have remained grateful to the Parliamentarian's office ever since the first time in my first term here I went up to be Speaker pro tem and was advised by the Parliamentarian to be careful when I leaned back because the chair didn't have much back support, therefore averting me from on-camera falling back and flailing my arms, as I would have without the Parliamentarian's assistance.