Email Privacy Act

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment.

As for myself, I believe that America and our ideals, the notion that someone could have their liberty taken, be held with secret evidence, be denied an opportunity to appear before a court of law, be denied counsel or outside contact, is something that our country would never engage in.

The problem with this theory is that we are engaged in it. The problem is that, under President Bush, Sr., he would say about China: You all are arresting people with no charges, no public evidence, no tribunal of any sort, and that this is not part of the civilized world.

I remember questioning the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. We had a talk right after 9/11. He was talking, and I said: Well, if we are a Nation of laws, how are we going to reconcile that in this new circumstance? He said: It is going to be very difficult. And here we are. It is very difficult.

We are spending $3 million per prisoner to house people in a foreign land under charges that we are not prepared to make public, no offering of a trial, most of whom were turned over for bounty or for ransom paid out by our government. I don't know how it is that we suggest that we want to project to the rest of the world what a Nation of laws actually looks like, but as for me and my district, I am going to cast a vote in favor of this amendment because the Constitution of the United States was drafted and written and signed in Philadelphia, and somehow I believe that the notion that our country would ever come to this moment is the voice from the source of those who wrote that document at that time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I want to make a couple of points.

One is that this requirement is in place now and has been in place, and it has not disrupted life. It has saved lives, however.

This requirement does not actually apply to normal shotguns or to hunting rifles. I think it is important for the House to understand that it applies to semiautomatics that are greater than a .22 caliber and that can hold a detachable magazine. All this says is, if somebody shows up and buys 1,000 of these, the Federal firearms license dealer needs to report that multiple sale. It is a reasonable thing.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlelady from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the ranking member on Appropriations.

In reclaiming my time, I would now like to yield to the gentlelady from Connecticut (Ms. Esty).

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, this is an attempt to authorize on an appropriations bill. These buffer zones that have been put in place under the expertise of NOAA have been part and parcel to making sure that the salmon in the hatchery system work properly. I think for us to delve into this at this point is difficult, and the wording is challenging.

Rather than deal with it here, I would ask if we could talk about it and see what we could do in conference, and that would be a good thing. I would hate for us, after having invested tens of millions of dollars in the salmon, to be taking a rash action here on the floor.

I yield to the gentleman, and I would like to work with you on this.

In reclaiming my time, it is true that I represent an urban area, yes. I would be glad to continue to yield.

Reclaiming my time, the United States taxpayers have invested a lot of money for the help of salmon in your neck of the woods. I am all for it. I like to make sure that whatever we are doing is correct. We have got treaty obligations. We have got hatcheries. We have got all kinds of stuff going on with both the Native Americans and the commercial fishermen operations there.

All I am saying is I don't want to come to the end of the night, after we have been debating this bill for 2 days, and rush something forward that may not be the way to go.

It is interestingly worded. I know that you have good intentions. I would like to work with you and the majority staff and see where we are. I just can't support this, given the complexities of the issues and the limitations of me being from an urban area. I want to make sure I have a complete grasp on the issue.

I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, a lot of us would love to go out to dinner tonight and have salmon.

The issue for the science of this is that you can't make a mistake. This is a multiyear process. You have got a lot going on here. And if you blow it, you are going to blow it for a big industry that is important for America.

So I would like to work with you and make sure that we get it right. And the expertise of NOAA, I think, could be helpful in that process.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I want to thank my colleagues from Pennsylvania.

And yes, the case that was referenced centered in Pennsylvania, and it is a case that is pending before our courts. I won't have much to say about it other than under our system, an indictment is merely a charge. We have to go through the process.

But the one thing that we do know--having nothing to do with the instant case--is Chairman Wolf has worked on this for a number of years. He has exposed all of us to information about this and arranged briefings from our highest levels of law enforcement officials in our country.

And clearly, there is a great deal of cyber snooping going on. It emanates from a number of different places, China included: Ukraine, Nigeria--we can go through the laundry list. But we have to do more to protect ourselves.

I want to thank the gentlemen from Pennsylvania, Mr. Doyle and Mr. Murphy, for bringing this amendment forward. As the chairman indicated, we will work with them in a way to make this as concrete as possible as we go forward.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this amendment forward. It is so very important that our country move aggressively in this area.

As you travel around the world, you see other countries doing so much more in terms of renewable energy and utilizing cleaner energy sources.

In Ireland, it is wind energy. In France, it is nuclear. In Israel, you have solar along the Dead Sea. Morocco has got one of the largest solar operations.

One of the things that our government can do to save money, as was mentioned in the last discussion about the need to save money, is that we could be moving to a different type of fuel, and we also could be improving the circumstances under which the air that our grandchildren will breathe will be healthier.

I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this forward. There are vehicles that are coming forward that are going to be solar-powered and powered by other types of alternative fuel. Our military has been investing very significantly in this regard, in terms of aviation fuel.

There is work for us to do. We can actually do it together, Democrats and Republicans; and therefore, I rise in support of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Let me say a couple of things. One is I am opposed to this amendment.

Now, generally, I am opposed to us building new prisons. I think we would be much better off building new schools. But there are circumstances in which people have to be incarcerated to protect society from them.

I want to talk about one young man who lost his life, and I think it is important relative to this amendment. His name was Eric Williams. It was February of 2013. He worked for us. He worked for the Federal Government. He worked in a Federal prison in Pennsylvania, and he lost his life because of the overcrowding there.

So one of the things is that, if we are going to imprison more people than any other nation on the face of the Earth, then we have to do it. And we can't do it on the cheap. We have to have facilities that are well staffed so that our guards and the people who work for us are not put in unsafe circumstances.

Now, this political nonsense, this is a new theme of some of my colleagues on the other side. We can't pass immigration reform because the President might not do something or might do something. We can't do this prison that we have already invested money in because the President might do something or not do something. So it is kind of like this hyperconcern about what the President may do.

We should do our job, and our job is that, if we want to take the prison census from 20,000 to 220,000, then we have to have the facilities. We can't stand on the floor and vote for prison sentences that go out years and decades, have people tried through the DOJ that we are funding, and then have no place to incarcerate them. It doesn't work that way.

So this amendment makes no sense, that you would have a facility that the taxpayers have paid for, you have a system that is overcrowded, you have people like Eric Williams who have lost their lives trying to do a job on behalf of the American public, and then we have politics intrude. This is not about criminal justice management. This is about politics. This is about, well, you know, Obama and this and that.

There is no place in America in which we can have a circumstance in which we incarcerate someone and make sure--we don't have any breakouts from Federal maximum security prisons. If you did, the Congress would be excited about it. It hasn't happened. So the idea that we can't incarcerate people safely is defied by the facts. What we can't do is safeguard our prison staff if we put them in a situation where overcrowding exists.

So I would hope that we would reject this amendment.

I would be glad to yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Reclaiming my time, when I was back in school, I read a paper called ``Metaphysical Madness,'' and the essence of it was that in politics the question was: How do you get ambitious, vindictive people to agree on something? That is how you make progress. Well, I don't know that we want to be vindictive. But the point here is that we still have to, in some way, come to a shared agreement about how this country is going to go forward.

If you think the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, who is from Illinois, is going to have this bill moved forward with this language in it, it is not going to happen. We are just asking for a bottleneck. So we should stop wasting time and find a way to go forward.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis) as a courtesy to my colleague to speak on the question of hemp.

Reclaiming my time, in the hope that perhaps whatever the circumstances that might emerge from these couple of amendments, maybe it might bring greater harmony in our country.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

There may be some confusion. The entire comments of the gentleman who just spoke, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was on an amendment offered by the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie). That is not the amendment that was being debated and is being offered by my colleague from Kentucky, and we were trying to clarify that because the House could be confused.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

It won't take long to make this point. All of us grew up during a time in which part of the ability to attract people to Federal service, particularly to law enforcement, were

shows that highlighted the FBI and its prowess, but think about it today, in order to recruit people, in order to have job fairs and career fairs and to communicate information about the agency.

For instance, it is trying to recruit now people who can help in cyber crimes, and they have had a problem getting people who can get past some of the screening, so they have to do even more public relations in order to attract people who are capable of helping to build the cases like some of the ones which were discussed here earlier on the floor in which American companies were being cyber hacked and they were stealing essentially American jobs and wealth in that process.

I think, in this effort to separate the FBI from Hollywood, we might be separating the agency from its ability to promote itself. There is no Member of Congress that doesn't understand and appreciate the fact that there are times in which you need to be able to communicate with the public, and so it is the case with a Federal agency.

I think that the amendment--and I understand the impulse, and I am sure there is waste, and I can show you waste in the FBI and in any of these other agencies, but I don't believe that communicating with the American public is something that we should consider as wasteful. I, therefore, oppose the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Reclaiming my time, I yield to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus).

I yield to the gentlewoman from Oakland, California, Congresswoman Lee.

Reclaiming my time, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the prison system that the Federal Government is operating, which has been growing exponentially over the last decade, will have gobbled up-- by the time we pass this bill--about a fourth of the DOJ's budget. This is like the Pac-Man arcade game that keeps eating money.

Now, there are very interesting things going on in the land. There are Democrats and Republicans. There are the most conservative people in our country and the most liberal who are saying things that are fascinating, like we need to stop incarcerating so many people, that America really should not be the leading nation in the world in the percentage of people that we put in jail and that maybe we need to rethink part of what we are doing.

We have the problem of having very violent criminals we don't seem to have enough prison space for because we are locking up nonviolent people for things that we should probably find some way to have diversions for.

We have had multiple amendments today for diversion programs. You might not want to call them that, but that is what they are--drug courts, veterans courts. These are vehicles by which to divert people from the prison system because we know something about the prison system.

We know that, if you put people in there, the most likely circumstance is that they are going to go back again and again and again and that they are going to go back for increasingly more serious and more violent activities because the one thing that is happening in the prisons is that they are becoming involved in a vocation that is essentially antisocial.

I am not dealing with the amendment itself because the chairman is right, in that we need to know what it says, and we need to act in a responsible way, but we should not be, in any way, under some illusion that we are going to continue, as a country, to just put more and more people away.

It doesn't make sense, and as politicians who are supposed to be leading the most powerful nation in the world, we need to start to make some sense on this point.

I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

In reclaiming my time, I can tell you that those are States that the chairman and the former ranking member, Mollohan--and now myself--have been investing in, in the Justice reinvestment programs, that help States think through how to do just that and operate a more safe environment for their people.

Mr. Chairman, I hope that the gentleman will withdraw his amendment and work with the chairman and me, and we will see to what degree we might be able to meet his concerns.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this is impractical. If there were a resignation in the office and if you needed to have a temporary detailee, it would be prohibited from this amendment. The last thing we would want is the President using such extraordinary power without the benefit of proper staff and due diligence.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to address this important issue, and it is an important one. I can assure him that we will work with him on this as we move forward in the appropriations process.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I want to thank the gentleman. We visited Guantanamo Bay together. I think any Member who has not been down there, you should go down and see what is there. These are important provisions that have been put in appropriation bills for the last several years. They represent a strong and enduring consensus in Congress.

Striking these provisions would have unknown consequences for U.S. communities. Imagine bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who beheaded Daniel Pearl, and who was the mastermind of the 9/11 attack. About 170 people from my district died in the attack on the Pentagon. Can you imagine, they were initially going to bring him to New York City, and Mayor Bloomberg and Senator Schumer all opposed it because they knew what the impact was going to be and the security requirements. So this would have an unbelievable impact on communities.

Putting detainees in U.S. prisons, as the administration originally proposed, would be disruptive and, I think, disastrous. Former FBI Director Mueller stated: ``To transfer detainees to local jails could affect or infect other prisoners or have the capability of affecting events outside the prison system.''

One of the things I think Members have to understand is this. There was a pirate, if you saw the movie ``Captain Phillips.'' He was arrested. He was arrested and tried. And they said that he would be convicted, and there would be no way that he would ever be released.

You ought to go see ``Captain Phillips.'' It is a fascinating movie.

He was tried and he was acquitted, and now he is seeking asylum. He is in Virginia. He is seeking asylum maybe in Virginia.

There was another case, if you recall, Attorney General Holder said there is no way that this guy will ever get off, and he was only convicted on one count; and had that count not been a conviction, he would have been released.

Lastly, there were Uighurs that were arrested in Tora Bora in a training camp run by Osama bin Laden. They were there to learn how to kill Americans, but also to kill Chinese, if you follow the concerns of the Uighur issue in China. The administration had reserved apartments. They were in Guantanamo Bay. They reserved apartments in northern Virginia at Seven Corners for them to live here.

I know the gentleman is well meaning, but I think to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees here, people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, people like that, and then what if they ever were tried here and were acquitted, and then can you imagine they then apply for asylum, because we are now going to see a case where one pirate acquitted is applying for asylum and now is living in Virginia and may very well want to stay in Virginia.

I urge defeat of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, Politico talks about this case and said:

The failed prosecution of an alleged Somali pirate--and the

fact that that failure could leave him living freely, and

permanently, inside U.S. borders--is highlighting anew the

risks of trying terror suspects in American courts.

Just a few weeks ago, Ali Mohamed Ali was facing the

possibility of a mandatory life sentence in a 2008

shipjacking off the coast of Yemen--an incident much like the

one dramatized in the film `Captain Phillips.' Now, the

Somali native is in immigration detention in Virginia and

seeking permanent asylum in the United States.

One current Federal terrorism prosecutor said the Ali case

and the potential for his eventual release is another reason

why foreign al Qaeda suspects picked up overseas should not

be brought to the United States but should instead be

detained at Guantanamo or some other facility.

I personally would think the very thought of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or some of the people when you go down to Guantanamo Bay and see them, walking the streets here in the United States should they be acquitted--they ought not to be brought to the United States.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.

Will the gentleman yield?

This is one of the better amendments offered today. Frankly, I will do everything I can to make sure this is in the bill when it comes to the conference report.

If the Members would take the time to go out and look at the place whereby you can see all the companies that are being hit, the Chinese are stealing jobs.

And so I thank Mr. Doyle and Mr. Murphy for offering this. I will do everything I can. I think the staff knows how strongly I feel. Mr. Fattah has been a great help on these issues.

So if the amendment is ruled out of order, we will make sure that we try to put it in the bill, and I thank both of you for offering it.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly rise in opposition to the amendment. I understand what the gentlelady is saying, and I think she makes a powerful case, but I think, to bring it back to this bill, the allocation for the bill already represents a cut of $398 million below the FY14 level. Thirty-three individual programs have been terminated in the bill.

Moreover, and I will end with this, since the beginning of the 112th Congress, the allocation for Commerce-Justice-Science appropriation has been cut by $13.1 billion, or over 20 percent, so you have had a 20 percent cut since the 112th.

As a result of that, I would ask for a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the amendment.

There are other priorities within the Bureau of Prisons, including bringing online two other recently constructed facilities and maintaining sufficient staffing levels at existing facilities to ensure safety.

I am also concerned--and I think what the problem is, if I could just maybe speak to the gentlelady from Illinois. I think if the administration were saying that there will never be any Guantanamo detainees transferred, but the problem is we see the veto threat on the DOD bill. No one is trying to hurt your community, and I commend you for fighting for it; but every time you begin to kind of say, okay, we will go that way, you then begin to see the veto threats. The administration has not set a veto threat to this bill but has expressed concern with regard to our Guantanamo Bay language.

And my sense is, if honestly, ethically, morally we were all convinced no Guantanamo Bay transfers--and, quite frankly, I don't think you want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to come to your local community either. So I think you would probably agree with me as much as anything. But if there was convincing evidence that they were never going to be brought there, then I wouldn't have any problem.

But I think the gentlelady from Tennessee raises a very, very good, good point. And every time you come back to that, it always comes back to, we are going to veto that.

So I think it is a good amendment. I guess the challenge would be: How could we remove this so that this does not become a problem? Eventually, I can understand. I think you make a legitimate case. But the hurdle is Members up here on both sides of the aisle believe that the administration ultimately will take people from Guantanamo to Thomson, and that becomes a problem.

If you could remove that risk whereby nobody will ever come back to it, then I think this problem would go away. Until that time, I think it is going to be a battle constantly, constantly, constantly. And I know that Senator Durbin has made a strong effort, but there are some of us on this side who believe that it becomes a big political issue, too.

So if you can somehow make it whereby there is some convincing and not run the risk of, in 2 or 3 years from now, say, ``Ah-hah, we have got you; we are going to take them there,'' then I think this problem would probably go away. But until that time, I support the gentlelady's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

It boils down to the issue of trust.

I was specifically told by the Justice Department that the Uighurs from Guantanamo Bay would not be released. We had a meeting in my office. The White House was there. They were all there. They said they will not be released.

We got a call from somebody in the administration who called us to say that the helicopters are getting ready and leaving Guantanamo. And, by the way, they have leased an apartment at Seven Corners. These were three people who had been picked up at Tora Bora in a camp.

I understand. I mean, if we could work this thing out, I would be happy.

So when you see the veto message, as the gentlelady from Tennessee said, the concern is that they will just blink and come and go. But they looked me directly in the eye and said: We will not release these inmates.

And then had I not gotten that telephone call--and, quite frankly, I think this person who stopped them from being released was the current mayor of Chicago, to his credit.

And so that is the concern we have. There needs to be a basic trust that if somebody says something, there is absolutely no question that that is the word and it will never happen.

But I thank the gentleman for his comments.

The amendment seeks to fix a problem that does not exist. There is no restriction on use and transfer of domestically produced or traded industrial hemp products or seed. They never sought a license. They have every right to do this had they got a license. And the DEA had a responsibility, as the Customs and Border Patrol does, to ensure that imports are legal and safe, including the imports of agriculture products. The responsibility falls to those who seek to import these products to secure necessary import licenses in a timely way to ensure Federal law enforcement can do its job and confirm that the commodity imported is legal.

There is no reason to restrict the exercise of this important law enforcement mission. So they never sought a license, and that is what the problem was.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

I accept the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself 1 minute.

The following national medical organizations are currently opposed to medical marijuana: American Medical Association, American Cancer Society, American Glaucoma Society, Glaucoma Research Foundation, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and American Psychiatric Association.

Also, recent research has demonstrated that marijuana use during teen years decreases IQ rates by an average of eight points.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris).

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Louisiana, Dr. Fleming.

Mr. Chair, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I yield to the gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Harris.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Louisiana (Dr. Fleming).

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am concerned what this means for the Bureau of Prisons. I am inclined to maybe take the amendment. I think that is one of the concerns, somebody comes in without knowing.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Well, we may be, and I think that is probably not a bad idea.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), the chairman of the full Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am going to rise in opposition to the amendment. There are just so many questions. I think Chairman Goodlatte raises them.

We are open to work with you as we go through it. It is quarter after 9. Nobody is there at the Bureau of Prisons. We are not going to get a constructive answer, and we don't want to do something that causes damage.

One, I am going to oppose the amendment. Mr. Goodlatte was so convincing.

And secondly, we will be willing to work with you though to see. Because I understand what you are trying to do, and I am sort of sympathetic to it. But for now with the way it is drafted I will oppose the amendment and ask for a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I want to begin first by thanking Chairman Wolf for his patience. Every single year, as he has shepherded this appropriations bill, I have come to this floor and offered an amendment that would include a 1 percent across-the-board spending cut. He has been very gracious and very kind, even though he opposes. And even though I appreciate the good work that the committees have done to reduce spending and to get these levels down, I believe that we can do more--and that we should be doing more.

I think it is admirable that the committee is showing us a 0.8 percent reduction. But if we would pass my amendment, we would save another $400 million. And that is a step that we need to take.

I think it is important to realize that this amendment exempts the $8.5 billion budget that is for the FBI. We think it is important that they get that for their vital mission that they conduct every single day in protecting American citizens at home and abroad and in conducting the activities that do help to keep the homeland and our people safe.

My amendment will not affect the efforts that are combating terrorism, cyber crime, human trafficking or violent gangs. It is a targeted spending cut that will result in a savings to the taxpayers of over $400 million.

Given the $51 billion price tag of this bill, I do not feel that it is asking too much to cut a little bit more.

I think it is important to note also that across-the-board spending cuts have worked at the State level. There is no reason not to utilize them here in Washington.

We have heard from so many of our Governors and our mayors that have trumpeted the use of across-the-board spending cuts. We have heard Chris Christie, a 9 percent across-the-board spending cut; Rick Perry in Texas, a 5 percent savings.

We have Governor Cuomo, who was looking at reducing 10 percent across the board; Schweitzer in Montana, 5 percent across the board.

They work, and there is a reason they do--because it is an equitable cut.

Mr. Chairman, we are $17 trillion in debt. This is something we can do for our children and our grandchildren and begin to responsibly roll back the amount that the Federal Government spends.

At this point in time, we are spending the money that our children have not made for programs that they do not want and will never, ever use. What we need to do is be wise stewards of the taxpayer dollar, now and in the future.

I also think this is an idea that the American people are beginning to support. I noted a recent poll--Washington Post-ABC News poll. This was March 6, 2013. Sixty-one percent of the American public actually supports not a 1 percent or a 2 percent, but a 5 percent across-the- board cut in all Federal spending.

It is time for us to do a little more to save a little more, to make a few more spending reductions, and to think about what the addition of debt--piling on more debt does to our children and our grandchildren and to their futures.

It is, indeed, capping and trading our children's futures to the people that hold our publicly-traded debt.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I do rise in support of my amendment to shut down the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois. The amendment would prohibit any funds being made available for operations, renovation, or construction at Thomson Correctional.

Section 529 of our CJS bill prohibits funds to construct, acquire, or modify a facility in the U.S. to house detainees. However, my amendment goes further, by not allowing any funds for operations at Thomson.

In addition, I recognize that CJS also prohibits the use of funds to transfer Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. However, the administration has proven resourceful at finding pots of money to achieve their goals.

Thomson Correctional Center is ground zero in this debate. As long as it remains operational, we run the risk of seeing Guantanamo Bay detainees on American soil.

One of the President's first acts in office was signing Executive Order 13492 on January 22, 2009, to close Guantanamo Bay detention center. The administration has attempted to purchase the facility since 2009 to hold these detainees.

We have the letter from December 15 to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, which was signed by several administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, stating the following:

As the President has made clear, we need to continue to

detain some individuals currently held at the Guantanamo Bay

detention facility. To securely house these detainees,

Federal agencies plan to work with me and other State

officials to acquire the nearly vacant maximum security

facility in Thomson, Illinois.

It later adds:

The Defense Department will operate part of the facility to

house a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo.

Congress passed language in subsequent bills to prevent the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo prisons to the U.S. However, the administration, once again, went behind the intent of Congress and purchased the Thomson facility in 2012 for $165 million, using money from various DOJ accounts. Supposedly, that was to combat prison overcrowding.

Mr. Chairman, today, the prison is still empty.

President Obama also requested $43.7 million in his fiscal year 2014 budget to begin activating Thomson. I think that we all know that this administration intends to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. When it is shut down, those detainees are going to go somewhere.

The handwriting is on the wall. President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other Democrats have clearly stated their intent to bring those detainees to American soil.

I think that it is imperative that we accept this amendment and make certain that there is no money for operational funds for the Thomson facility.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to remind my colleagues of a couple of things. Number one, going back to the letter dated December 15, 2009, it says in the letter: ``The Defense Department will operate part of the facility to house a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay.''

Now, I have to ask my colleagues: Who do you think is going to be there? This is a prison that is empty. It is empty right now. We know what is going to happen. This is going to be used to receive Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The 9/11 families support this amendment. It is supported by these families. They do not want to see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees here

on American soil. They do not want them to have access to our civilian court system. And passing this amendment will save us millions of taxpayer dollars that could end up being used not only to house, not only to give access to the courts, but to pay for lawyers to defend enemies who have taken up arms against our brave men and women in uniform.

It was clear from 2009 what the intent was. It said it in the letter: ``The Defense Department will operate part of the facility to house a limited number of detainees.''

I encourage support, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I join him in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, the purpose of this amendment ostensibly is to make it easier to import seeds for the purpose of research with regard to growing or cultivating industrial hemp, and for that reason the amendment is unnecessary and inappropriate. Current law imposes no impediment to legitimate research on industrial hemp being carried out in accordance with section 7606 of the Agricultural Act of 2014.

Under current law, institutions of higher education and State Departments of Agriculture may import the seeds needed to conduct research authorized by section 7606 of the Agricultural Act.

Parliamentary Inquiries

I do not. I don't have enough time, I don't believe, to finish my remarks.

Such institutions of higher education or State departments of agriculture simply need to first become registered with the DEA as an importer or as a researcher and, second, obtain an import permit authorizing the shipment of seeds.

The process is not burdensome. Within the last 10 days, the DEA registered two State departments of agriculture in Colorado and Kentucky to import industrial hemp seeds and issued an import permit to the Kentucky department of agriculture.

I do not yield, Mr. Chairman.

This amendment would require the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to choose between ignoring existing law or barring all imports of seeds. Removing DEA from the registration and permit process without changing existing law would eliminate the only lawful means of importing Cannabis seeds for industrial hemp cultivation pursuant to section 7606.

To protect our Nation from the importation of potentially dangerous materials, our customs laws have always required the importer to demonstrate before the materials enter this country that the materials may lawfully be imported. In carrying out this function, the CBP consults with the appropriate government agencies, including the Department of Justice and the DEA. By cutting the DOJ and DEA out of this process, the amendment creates uncertainty and could potentially be construed to require CBP to allow any shipment by anyone to enter the U.S. as long as the shipper claims the goods are industrial hemp seeds. Since there is no way to tell just from looking at a bag of seeds whether they will actually yield Cannabis plants that fall within the TAT limits of section 7606, CPB, DOJ, and DEA consultation is important.

Requiring CBP to accept bare representations from anyone claiming to be a legitimate importer exposes the possibility of others importing any item under the guise of industrial hemp. The existing permit and registration process provides some protection against that risk. For that reason, I would join in opposing the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Chairman, I have reservations about this that are very significant. I would oppose this amendment very strongly in its current form.

All private prison contracts provide for a guaranteed population. Without this, the contractors would operate at a significant risk which could only be addressed by significantly raising their annual operating cost, and also such language would adversely impact competition. Would contractors be willing to propose a 1,000 bed facility without

guaranteed minimums for private prison services? Lack of competition would likely result in higher costs.

But here is the thing. The Federal Bureau of Prisons has both prisons operated by the government and prisons that they privately contract for. So there is never an instance where they are going to house somebody just for the purpose of meeting the obligations here. If the prison population declines and they have a contractual obligation to house them in the private prison, they will reduce the population in the government-operated facility.

The Bureau of Prisons certainly wants to retain the ability to strategically prepare and issue solicitations which allow for guaranteed population minimums.

Also, with regard to children, there are so few children in the Federal prison population because we don't want to put them in a Federal-operated prison with adults, we usually contract out for the incarceration of juveniles. To pass this amendment would make that increasingly more difficult.

First of all, let me say that it would not achieve the purpose of having a competitive bid process for the operation of prisons. Because if you would accept that premise you would have the Federal Government offering contracts; then if they are not utilizing those contracts the taxpayers are going to suffer the loss as a result of that.

As long as the Federal Government, which operates a very large prison system, has both publicly-run facilities and privately contracts you are not going to have the problem that the gentleman's amendment is concerned about addressing, and that is somehow people being incarcerated simply for the purpose of meeting the contractual obligations.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman. That is why, last year, we launched an overcriminalization of Federal law task force. We are looking at prison overpopulation and who is getting sentenced and what kind of alternative sentencing should be looked at and what kind of attention should be given to prisoners when they are in prison, so that we reduce the recidivism rate, which also can reduce the prison population.

As to one of the things I think we should do, there are a number of States that are seeing declining populations in their prisons, and they are not getting high recidivism rates. We should be looking at those States and finding out what they are doing.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, no one denies the constitutional power of the President to grant clemency. The question here is whether this power is being used by the President of the United States as a way around the enforcement of the law as passed by the Congress when you invite mass representations of defense attorneys that thousands of their clients are entitled to have clemency granted to them. That is not a proper use of this power, and the Congress should not fund that office for that purpose.

I think the gentleman's amendment is well-advised, and I strongly support it, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the Holding amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

For the past 15 years, a large part of the success of the salmon recovery in the Northwest and in other States has been through locally driven solutions funded through the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, and I continue to support this program.

This amendment will ensure, however, that these funds continue to benefit salmon through on-the-ground projects, but without questionable buffer guidelines imposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, as a condition of their use.

Agriculture is the background of my central Washington district, and it is estimated that these and other similarly imposed land set-aside guidelines by NOAA could restrict the use of vital crop protection tools on as much as 50 acres of farmland per mile. I am not alone in my concern about NOAA's use of unverifiable salmon buffer requirements in other instances.

Last year, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found similar NOAA salmon buffer requirements in a biological opinion that were based on scientific standards that ``did not always appear to be logical, obvious, or even rational.''

In my home State of Washington, over two dozen agricultural associations strongly oppose NOAA's recommendation of large buffers on agricultural lands, and one local recovery board group that has successfully used these funds to improve salmon survival in the upper Columbia River opposes mandatory buffers tied to these important salmon grant funds.

Let me be very clear. This amendment won't cut Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery funds, nor will it prohibit riparian buffers where they are appropriate, but it will ensure that NOAA does not make them a prerequisite for these funds to be awarded for on-the-ground projects, respecting unique geographical priorities of agricultural areas and locally driven solutions to salmon recovery.

So, Mr. Chairman, I ask that this amendment be approved, so that the Federal Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery funds, which have been proven effective over the years for farmers and local projects, will not be used as a backdoor way for NOAA to implement other controversial guidelines for these buffers.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I respect that, but let me clarify what is going on here because the gentleman, with due respect, represents an urban area, and I represent a rural area. That is self-evident. That is not criticism. I am just pointing out the obvious.

I thank the gentleman for that clarification.

I just want to make this point. These are suggested guidelines, and we have gone through this before. In fact, the EPA is working on this precisely.

I oppose what the EPA is doing, as a matter of fact, and most people on the ground.

I am just simply saying that through the funding mechanism, NOAA should not be able to impose these guidelines that have a great deal of controversy in the Pacific Northwest.

I know this is the start of this process. I know NOAA had some problems with the initial language. We changed that language now. They can't say they oppose this because this only affects particularly these guidelines that are being proposed.

So I think the amendment is something that needs to be passed, frankly, to send a message.

By the time we go through this process, if they want to have some other adjustments, when they make their adjustments, I would be more than willing to talk. But I think this amendment should be passed so we can send a message to NOAA.

I appreciate that. I simply want to say that these are issues that I know are unique to mainly the Western part of the United States.

But in many respects, the gentleman made a statement that really supports my amendment. Because he said the American taxpayers are spending billions of dollars on salmon recovery. That is true. So are the ratepayers in the Bonneville power system. They are paying billions of dollars for salmon recovery.

The good news is the fish runs in the last 5 years have come back in record numbers.

To be very honest with you, these guidelines haven't been imposed, and the salmon are coming back. So why

would you want to impose these buffer zones when it probably wouldn't add anything, and when a Federal court has said it is questionable science anyway.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

I yield myself the balance of my time.

I appreciate, again, the ranking member working with me. But I think this is sufficiently important that we should adopt this amendment.

Again, I will point out the American taxpayers, as have the ratepayers, spent billions of dollars recovering salmon.

The good news in the Pacific Northwest, as I mentioned, some of the salmon runs are coming back in record numbers in the last 4 or 5 years.

So if there is something that is before the final part of this bill becomes a law, and there needs to be some adjustment, I would be more than happy to talk about it. But I think it is sufficiently important to send a message right now to NOAA to not impose these guidelines when the evidence is contrary to what they are trying to do.

So I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.