H.Res. 715

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

There are two issues important to this piece of legislation. The first that the chairman mentioned is the legality of this. However, he is wrong in the idea in saying that this is clear on its face and there is no debate. There is actually considerable debate as to whether or not the President's actions were legal.

The President and the Secretary of Defense have stated unequivocally that they believe they acted within the law, and this is actually an issue that comes up repeatedly between the legislative and the executive branch. It has been coming up for a couple hundred years now.

The administration's position is that they acted in accordance with their article II Commander in Chief authority in the interest of national security and in bringing one of our soldiers home, and it is their position that article II of the Constitution, which is a law, supersedes the piece of legislation that was referenced about 30 days' notice that was passed, and therefore, their actions were legal.

The first thing to really understand about this is that this is in no way unprecedented. I am sure if we went back and examined the history, just about every President at one time or another did something contrary to a piece of legislation or a law because they felt article II required them to do so. They felt article II--the Constitution, which is a law--superseded the legislation in question.

In fact, we don't have to go back very far. President George W. Bush repeatedly took actions that were in violation of the clear law post-9/ 11. He basically authorized warrantless wiretapping. He authorized indefinite detention.

Both of those issues were clearly contrary to statutory law, but President Bush asserted his article II authority and said that, therefore, it was legal to do that.

Go back to Abraham Lincoln, who suspended habeas corpus in the same way. This is a long-running debate between the legislative and the executive branch, and never before has the legislative branch stepped out with legislation like this to censure the President.

So, number one, the President did not violate the law. He followed what he felt was article II of the Constitution, perfectly consistent with what George W. Bush and a whole lot of other folks did, so I think it is wrong to call him out and say that he violated the law when this is simply part of a long-running debate between the legislative and the executive branch.

Now, let me say I feel that the President should have given us 30 days' notice. I do believe that. Now, the reason that they didn't is because they were concerned that the information would be leaked.

This was a very sensitive negotiation, and they were told that if the information was leaked, it would kill the deal, and they were deeply concerned about Sergeant Bergdahl's health and that if any further delay happened, that he might not survive his current incarceration with the Taliban, so that was their reason for doing it.

While I have said and will continue to say that I think he should have given us that 30 days' notice, that I think Congress has proven repeatedly that we can, in fact, keep a secret--we have been told about a number of very sensitive things and have not revealed that information.

I think it is worth noting that the President isn't completely without reason for that. In fact, Senator Saxby Chambliss, after this was revealed, was asked, ``Well, if you had known about this, what would you have done?''

He initially said, ``Well, I would have let people know, absolutely, because I didn't think it was a good idea, and I would have done everything I could to stop it.''

Now, after having been explained that that is exactly why the President was reluctant to tell Congress, the Senator walked himself back from those remarks and said that he wouldn't, but his initial reaction sort of shows that the President and the administration were not completely out of bounds in thinking that their ability to bring Sergeant Bergdahl home might have been jeopardized by allowing Congress to know that.

Be that as it may, I think they should have. I think we have proven ourselves capable of keeping secrets, and they should have given us 30 days' notice, but on the legality question, this is perfectly consistent with what a large number of Presidents have done in the past.

So to call this President out specifically, I think, is wrong, which brings us to the second issue, and that is the partisan nature of this body. Now, it is not unique to this body. Regrettably, if you go back and you look at instances where the President is of one party and the Congress is of another, that is when investigations are off the charts.

Somehow, when both the President and the Congress are in the same party, we don't have anywhere near the condemnation, anywhere near the investigation for actions, on and on and on; and that regrettably reflects the deepening partisan rift in Washington, D.C.

That ultimately is what I think this legislation reflects. It is simply an opportunity for a Republican Congress to take a shot at a Democratic President. If it was more than that, then back 10 years ago, when President George W. Bush was violating all manner of different statutory law under his articulated article II powers, then we would have had something out of this Congress that said, ``Hey, don't do that.'' We didn't. All we had was silence.

Now, unfortunately, what that leads the public to believe is that this is a partisan exercise, and we need fewer partisan exercises, not more. I think it is perfectly appropriate for many Members, as I did and others, to say the President should have given us notice. He should have given us 30 days.

For this to be the first--or I guess the second issue, since we had the

water bill just before this--that we take up when we come back from recess, when you think of all the economic and national security challenges and everything that is going on out there, I think once again makes the public just shake their head and say, ``Here we go again, another partisan exercise.''

Unfortunately, I think this piece of legislation is unnecessary, and I think it further poisons the well between Congress and the President. Again, I do not feel that the President violated the law. He had a different interpretation of it, as many Presidents before him have.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes just to respond quickly.

First of all, the GAO study specifically said they didn't address the constitutional issue; they didn't address article II. They simply said on the plain reading of the statute, 30 days' notice was required and 30 days' notice wasn't given, which, by the way, didn't take a GAO study to figure out. That is very plain.

The statute itself is really not in question nor that the President didn't give the notice required. The question is one that we have had repeatedly as to when the President has the authority under his article II authority to go in a different direction of the statute. As was mentioned, that happened many times, most recently with George W. Bush, a warrant with wire tapping and indefinite detention and a number of other issues. That's number 1. The GAO did not comment on that specific issue.

The second thing I would say is we are not really arguing that two wrongs make a right. We are arguing about whether or not it was wrong in the first place. All right? I still haven't heard anyone stand up on the other side who supports this issue and say: Gosh, we missed an opportunity. President George W. Bush was absolutely wrong to have taken those actions that he did and contrary to statute and did something that was illegal, and we are very mad about that. As long as we are talking about it, we should mention the fact that--so I haven't heard anyone say that, because I think the implication is, on that side, they didn't think it was wrong.

And that is the issue: Is it wrong for the President to do something that he believes is in the national security interest of the country under his article II authority? I think most people would say: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It is a debatable issue. It is not a matter of saying two wrongs make a right. It is a matter of arguing whether or not it was wrong in the first place. And consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, as the saying goes, but there certainly is enough inconsistency on this issue to make people believe this is more partisan motivated than it is purely policy and conscience motivated.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

I would again note that it is not a matter of speeding. It would be as if someone were stopped for speeding and said that there is no posted speed limit, how are you saying that I was speeding? That is the argument. It is the argument a number of Presidents have made, that their article II authority for national security purposes gives them the legal right to do this.

I would also note that in a couple hundred years of history, no court has ever said otherwise, has ever reversed one of these decisions by the President.

So this notion that the President knew he was breaking the law and just did it, and comparing it to two wrongs don't make a right or people speeding, it is the President's opinion--and, by the way, not just this President, but every President that I am aware of, including, again, George W. Bush, that this is not a violation of the law, this is not speeding, because of his article II authority. So it is not a matter of simply saying, well, he broke the law but if someone else did it, it is okay. It is arguing that none of those people actually broke the law. That is the argument in the debate.

As far as the bill itself, yes, the President was very much aware of it, that it was in that bill when he signed the bill, and it was part of a much larger bill. It was part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

When he signed that bill, he noted: ``I disagree with this portion. I think it has the potential to violate my article II authority.'' So he absolutely noticed that it was in there and gave us notice that he did not feel that it would legally bind him in certain circumstances.

Again, it is a debatable point. All I know is that in a couple hundred years of history, the Presidents, all of them, have won that debate. And now here we stand today saying that this one President somehow uniquely should be condemned for doing what all before him have done and what all courts have said is perfectly okay.

So, again, I find this to be more partisan than substantive.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

The issue here of negotiating with terrorists misses the fact that this happened on the battlefield. The five Taliban commanders were captured on the battlefield, as was Bowe Bergdahl. This was a prisoner exchange, as has happened in every war that we have fought.

Now, it is a slightly different situation because it is the Taliban who are now out of power. We are not actually fighting a government at this point. We are fighting a group of insurgents, but nonetheless, Bowe Bergdahl was captured on the field of battle, as were the five Taliban commanders, and this was a prisoner exchange.

To equate this with negotiating with terrorists I think totally misses the point of that aspect of it, that we were exchanging prisoners, not dealing with a straight terrorist situation. I don't think it sets that precedent at all, and I think we need to be aware that that was what the President was facing.

Was the exchange a good deal? That is highly debatable. I am glad I wasn't the Commander in Chief having to make that call, facing the deteriorating health of Bowe Bergdahl and wondering if five Taliban prisoners were worth saving his life, but these sorts of decisions are made all the time.

I would remind you that Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, no shrinking violet when it comes to terrorism, once exchanged over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for two Israel soldiers because that was a prisoner exchange. That was bringing home the people that Israel wanted brought home, and it was not easy.

So this is not simply a matter of negotiating with terrorists or giving away prisoners. It is the difficult choice of what you do to bring your own soldier home, a difficult choice that every President or Prime Minister whose country is engaged in warfare has to face. I don't think we should diminish the difficulty or the importance of that decision.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I have to ask: What is personalities toward the President, just for a point of clarification? Personal attacks, perhaps?

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

On the last point about the people who were noticed how long this was going on for, yes, the negotiations were going on for around 3 years, but the timeliness came in when they actually had a deal. The President's concern was once they got to the point where they had the deal, if the details of it had been leaked, it would have nixed the deal. And they were deeply concerned about Sergeant Bergdahl's health.

As I have said, this is an extraordinarily difficult call. I don't know if I would have done this deal or not. It is hard. The Commander in Chief has that responsibility. As I have mentioned, other leaders through the world have done it, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who gave up over a thousand prisoners in exchange for two Israeli soldiers. Those choices are difficult, and I am certain that those thousand Palestinians that were released posed some risk to Israel, but that is the decision they made. And that is the decision the President made.

This resolution is not primarily about whether or not the deal should have been done; it is about whether or not we should condemn the President for a clear violation of the law. And I will simply come back to the fact that this President has only done what every other President before him did in exercising his article II authority--under his interpretation and every previous Executive's--that this was legal.

It has been implied throughout this resolution that the President looked at the law and said: I'm just not going to follow it. That is not what he did. He did what every President before him has done. He said that he believed it was within his legal authority to make this decision.

So to put forward a resolution that said he intentionally broke the law, I think, is wrong on its face. This President made a determination about his article II authorities and went forward with it. He did not knowingly violate the law. Secretary Hagel has explained that repeatedly.

Again, I said it a little while ago that President Bush did the exact same thing. He violated any number of different laws and said that article II is the reason. We have been told: Well, that was years ago. I don't know what we would have done then.

I have offered up the opportunity for anybody on the other side to as roundly criticize and condemn President Bush for those actions now that we are here. I haven't heard it. It hasn't been said. All of which leads us to the inescapable conclusion that this is more partisan than principled. This President is the one who is being condemned by a Republican Congress. All the other Presidents have done it and it is just: Oh, we are just not going to do anything about that. That leads to the belief that this is a partisan action.

I think Congress should comment on this. We had great hearings on this. We should have had a hearing on this. We brought in Secretary Hagel. He explained himself. We criticized some of those decisions. That is appropriate.

This resolution is unprecedented and I think once again shows that this body has become more partisan than principled.

I urge everyone to reject the resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I thank my friend, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop), for yielding me the customary 30 minutes for debate.

We are back here, and this is our first legislation after a lengthy recess, and the fact of the matter is that, after next week, we will be on yet another lengthy recess headed into the November 4 election.

When we began this session, the 113th Congress, the Speaker of the House commented--and I won't bother to quote him, I will just summarize briefly what he said--that this would be the most open legislative period that we have seen.

Ironically, today, dealing with these two pieces of legislation in this particular rule, we are seeing one portion of it structured, and for the 74th time--count them, 74 times--we are dealing with a closed rule.

What that means, America, is that your Representatives here in the House of Representatives, on the subject of legislation dealing with House Resolution 644, having released Taliban prisoners in exchange for Sergeant Bergdahl, your Representatives will not be able to amend that legislation, and the general debate period will be the only time that a limited number of Members, in 1 hour, will have an opportunity to speak to the issue.

I think that is wrong, as I think that most of the closed rules previous to this 74th have been wrong. Let me hasten to add, when Democrats were in the majority--and I remember being here in 1993 and hearing on the radio that Democrats were doing closed rules, I had not come to Congress, I didn't understand that dynamic, and Democrats did closed rules as well.

I don't think that is right. I think this body should operate openly. Even if it takes time for us to have Members who choose to come down and debate legislation, I think they should have that opportunity.

Madam Speaker, there is a lot that we could be doing this September. Americans need good-paying jobs. The working poor who are making the minimum wage deserve to make a living wage. We have recently seen demonstrations in 100 cities where people working at $7.35 or $8 an hour are demonstrating, saying, ``Give me a chance.''

While the economy may be, as my good friend from Utah says, in a Carter-like malaise, Wall Street is in a mushroom boom, and somehow or other, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is slipping into the lower class.

Something is wrong with that picture, and we can do better as a society. I defy anybody to tell me that if you are a mother or father and you have one child and you work 8 hours a week at $7.35 an hour anywhere in the United States of America, how do you provide adequate child care, how do you provide the necessary food for your child, and how do you provide the necessary medical services?

I don't believe that anybody believes that that can be done with such a limited amount of resources for a family.

Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own-- companies moving all over the world to avoid paying taxes in the United States of America--I believe that those people need help keeping food on the table.

We find students in our country, young people that work here on Capitol Hill, and their brothers and sisters who are graduating from elite institutions, online institutions, for-profit institutions, and State universities throughout this country are faced with crushing debt that keeps them from entering the housing market, keeps them from starting a family, or opening a small business.

I know everybody agrees that women deserve equal pay for equal work, but are we doing any of those things here? No. We are discussing a waterways issue that isn't going to go anywhere fast, and everybody here knows that.

We are discussing the condemnation of the President's administration about a measure that I believe most of us would have done pretty much the same thing, about whether or not there was going to be a 30-day notice to the House of Representatives.

No, we are not dealing with the family situations that exist in this country as it pertains to poverty, we are not dealing at all with equal pay for equal work for women, while the resolution, I repeat, condemns President Obama's administration for action to ensure the safe return of an American soldier, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl; yet I know my friends on the other side of the aisle celebrate Sergeant Bergdahl's return because this resolution even says it right there in the text.

Here is the quote:

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the House of

Representatives expresses relief that Sergeant Bergdahl has

returned safely to the United States.

I have been taught and all of us here believe, when our military is in harm's way, we have had for years--and more recently, we have made ourselves gender perfect, but for years, we say we leave no man behind, we leave no soldier behind.

I have been on missions with Republicans and Democrats in this particular body in places far away from here, in Korea, where we were looking for the remains of American soldiers to bring them home.

Now, I don't know Bowe Bergdahl, and I certainly don't know his family, but as a citizen of this country, I do know this: five old men in Guantanamo that were exchanged--and yes, indeed, they were former members of organizations that would do us harm, but they are not likely to return to the battlefield at their age.

If so, then old people like me need to be in the war, and probably, we wouldn't have so many in the first place. Are their minds going to be utilized? That may very well be the case, but I don't think all five of them put together were worth as much as one American soldier, Bowe Bergdahl.

Toward that end, I defy anybody to tell me that the Bergdahl family and those of us who believe that we should leave no soldier behind are not pleased. We send our soldiers into harm's way under the American flag, we assure them that they will not be left behind, and President Obama and Defense Secretary Hagel made good on that promise.

Now, I am sorry that you object to how we secured the safe return of one of our soldiers, but you don't get to have it both ways. Instead of bringing bills to the floor that would help our students, that would help those struggling to find jobs, that would help women get the pay they deserve, or help small business owners, we get this resolution which allows that you can have it both ways. We are glad he is home, but we are not glad about how you brought him here.

Let me say, hurriedly, too that I think President Obama should have given the 30 days' notice. I for one know that this matter in the intelligence community was debated previously, but I don't think anybody believes that we should have left young Mr. Bergdahl behind, and what would we be doing if we were standing here talking about he died in captivity and we had that slight window of opportunity to bring him home.

Madam Speaker, the plan for the next 2 weeks is to stoke up the base. These are message measures. That is all they are. It is just saying something so you can go home to your base and argue: Look what we did. We condemned the Obama administration. We repealed health care 52 times.

You aren't passing laws and you aren't doing anything in a cooperative way, institutionally, to allow both sides to have input to measures that are needed in this country in order for us to go forward.

Thursday we will pass a continuing resolution and then we will hear a whole lot of sound and fury signifying exactly nothing but nonsense.

Welcome back, my friends, to Congress.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I am glad to know that I am personality enough to be recognized.

I understand the passion of my young friend. I also understand an awful lot about the waterways in Georgia and Florida and other areas of the United States of America, and I appreciate his concern.

The message bill that I get from these measures allows that, when we know something is not going to pass the United States Senate and reach a President's desk, then what we are doing in the final analysis is just addressing measures so that we can go to the electorate and claim that we did something when, in fact, we did not. And it is just that simple.

Many of the measures that we have dealt with over the course of the 113th Congress have been just that--measures that were designed to reach the base of the party. And that is a prerogative, but it is not good legislating, and I will stand by that throughout the remainder of this debate and any others that I participate in.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), my good friend.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I would advise my colleague from Utah that I have no additional speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, does my friend have additional speakers?

With that, I am prepared to close, and the only one he has to hear from is I, so we will speak to each other right about now.

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

Madam Speaker, I would have thought--and I was at home over the past month--that when we came back here that we would be most immediately discussing matters pertaining to Iraq and the threat from ISIL and Ukraine and the ongoing matters.

I guess I could twist myself into understanding how the particular measure in dealing with the release of prisoners from Guantanamo in exchange for the life of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl could have some relationship to terrorism at large, but this morning, while I normally do not look at television in the early hours, as I am not a fan of listening to the talking heads, I have to come here and listen to their heads talk.

Toward that end, I did hear this morning the Speaker of the House of Representatives in his daily briefing on the subject of ISIL. All of us anticipate tomorrow that President Obama will speak to the issue and will give us greater clarity as needed, with reference to the administration's approach to dealing with this particular subject.

I raise it for the reason that I may not get an opportunity to speak further on the floor today or the subject may not be at hand in the continuing resolution, although it may be, since funding is going to be an issue.

I was distressed to hear when the Speaker was asked--you could not hear the queries from four media representatives, but in each instance, his statement was that they were waiting for a strategy from the administration. I don't think we need to wait for a strategy from the administration.

What I get a little bit tired of is hearing people say that the administration needs a strategy--and they do--without having a strategy of their own. It would be similar to health care. We went through all of that business in trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and we didn't have a measure come forward from my friends in the majority offering what their plan is.

It is easy enough for us here on the House of Representatives' floor and in our respective offices in air-conditioned conditions to talk about very complicated matters around the world and then talk about somebody else's needing a strategy when, in fact, we don't have one. The Speaker said it--and I heard it eight times--that the President needed to have a strategy, but he refused to say that he has a strategy.

We have a responsibility. Senator Kaine, I, and several others did request that we be called back into session, so that we could discuss this particular matter and give forth the necessary dialogue for authorization to be followed.

Madam Speaker, we are here for 2 weeks, essentially, to finish a continuing resolution. The rest of the time, we will spend dealing with--and I repeat--messaging bills that won't go anywhere. That is what I mean when I say a messaging bill: you know it isn't going to pass, and when you know it isn't going to pass, all you are doing, whether you consider it significant or not, is offering up a message for your base. You are entitled, but let's not kid anybody about what we are doing.

We need to stop calling this Congress the least productive ever because that implies that the Congress did something, in some kind of way or another, but not enough.

In reality, this Congress--and this House specifically--far from being unproductive, has actively been destructive and obstructive and detrimental to the interests of hardworking Americans, repeatedly trying to undo the fixes to our broken health care system, quite frankly, and offering none; defunding programs that help Americans who have fallen on hard times, not even passing measures to extend unemployment insurance; refusing to move on immigration reform and then casting aspersions when all of us know that our immigration system is broken.

Yet we here in the House of Representatives in this instance--not in the Senate, which did pass a bipartisan measure--will not even put an immigration measure on the floor. No matter who said that they would do something when, I am saying that all you have to do is put it on the floor, and I promise you that we could pass immigration reform.

Yet we refuse to address climate change, and all of the naysayers--I spoke to a group that produced energy, along with one of my Republican colleagues and one of my Democratic colleagues, during the break. During that period of time, I said, ``Do you know something? Something is happening here. You can call it science, or you can call it anything you want, but something is happening here.''

Madam Speaker, the gentlewoman was not here earlier, and I am in closing, but I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), if there is something she wishes to add.

Continuing, Madam Speaker, my friends in the majority shut the government down. I didn't think that was helpful. The matter of not dealing with immigration reform and climate change, I don't think, makes our country better. Their attempts to mold a conservative utopia can never work outside the pages of novels.

This is a House whose leadership judges success not by how it has improved the lives of families in this country, but how successful it was to thwart the President of the United States. This is a body that would rather be trapped in gridlock than to go about the business of the country.

So we will live through these next 2 weeks, and then we will return to our districts. What will we tell our constituents that we accomplished in the House of Representatives in the 113th Congress? We will tell them that we condemned the President for refusing to leave an American prisoner of war behind.

How far are we going to follow an extreme fringe minority down this path into poverty? We have got 2 weeks. Once again, House Republicans are proving that they would rather put partisan politics and petty intrigue first and discredit the President than to govern responsibly and address the many challenges facing our Nation.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 715 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During the consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which they may revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, this resolution provides for a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 5078, the Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protection Act of 2014, and makes in order three amendments, all from Democrats, for floor consideration.

It provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

In addition, this resolution provides for a closed rule for consideration of House Resolution 644, which condemns the administration's clear failure to follow the law requiring 30 days' advance congressional notification if any terrorist detainees at Guantanamo are to be released and condemning this administration's policy of selectively negotiating with terrorists to secure the release of an Army staff sergeant.

The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee.

While these are separate issues, the two separate pieces of legislation covered under this rule, unfortunately, share one common theme: the practice of this administration to stretch the law.

As Bill Veeck used to say when he was running his baseball team, he doesn't break the rules, he just tests their elasticity. This administration has tested the elasticity from some of these rules and laws to the point where they have broken, and it is an overreach of the authority under the law.

Madam Speaker, let me talk for just a second about H.R. 5078 that deals with the Clean Water Act. This is a bipartisan bill. It was passed in the committee by a voice vote supported by many State and local governments and has largely been ignored by this administration as the administration seeks to go around Congress and attempt to revise administrative rules asserting a Federal stranglehold on private enterprise and job creation.

One may want to know why the U.S. economy is still in a Jimmy Carter- like malaise situation after 6 years with this administration. Just taking a look at the underlying issue of this bill finds an answer: the administration wants more rulemaking authority, more regulations, and a stronger Federal stranglehold on what you and I can and can't do, what business owners can and can't do, and what farmers can or can't do with their own property.

Clearly, when the Clean Water Act was passed, it specified that the primary responsibility for water issues were to lay with the States. It is very clear when they came up with the concept of navigable waters of the United States, the Federal Government had a jurisdictional interest in interstate water regulations, but not intrastate.

Twice the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled against the agencies that have been managing the Clean Water Act and saying simply that they overstretched their authority, they stretched their limits, and they stretched what is the power given to them under this particular act.

Now, unfortunately, we see an administration that is trying to move around that. Two Congresses--the 110th and the 111th--had legislation that was introduced to try and change these provisions of the Clean Water Act. Both times they were met with strong bipartisan opposition which didn't go anywhere.

Now, the administration, with much of their work done in closed-door session without local input, are trying to draft a proposed administrative rule that takes the Supreme Court decisions--it misconstrues their decisions and manipulates their decisions, so that, in effect, it turns the cases that we are attempting to put limitations on what the Clean Water Act authorized the government to do and use that as a justification for the Agency to broaden its jurisdiction and increase the controls it has over waters of the United States and individuals. In so doing, it actually harms people.

Overregulation seems to be one of this administration's hallmark. This

bill, in a bipartisan manner, will address the proper way to go about modifying the Clean Water Act and its relation to Federal power, such that it will not further stifle jobs, economic growth, or hurt people, while it still protects the environment.

The rule before us is still a good bill. It deals with two vitally important pieces of legislation. I urge their adoption, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I agree with my friend from Florida that significant issues need to be addressed on this floor. Nothing is more significant than the future of our water rights, which does impact the economy, especially for areas of interest where that is significant, like agriculture. Because of that, I am glad to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins).

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments that were made by the gentleman from Florida just recently, except that I would take exception to the idea that anything that we should bring to this floor has to be generated and has to be passed by the Senate.

I reject the idea that we have to get permission from that body to discuss things here on the floor, and if they allow it to go forward, then, and only then, would we bring something to the floor, because this rule will bring a significant piece of legislation that has to be addressed dealing with a potential rule and regulation that deals with the waters of the United States that could have enormous consequences-- enormous consequences not only for the economy of this country, but also for individuals who use the water and live with that water.

We have the potential of actually doing something positive by stopping a bad rule from going into effect by changing its direction and saying that only Congress should be the one that would change those concepts. Unfortunately, if we don't do that, we end up hurting people. And that is why I want this rule to go forward and I want the underlying bill to go forward on water, because we have to stop hurting people.

Let me give you a story of an old farmer in northern Utah I met when I was first elected. He was a very kindly gentleman because, in his entire ordeal with the Federal Government, I never heard him say an unkind word. I, on the other hand, will spend quite a few years in purgatory about what I was saying about this situation not only verbally but inside my head.

This gentleman had a problem because he was renting a farm that had been a family farm since the 1800s. He was a sugar beet farmer, which, parenthetically, I have to note for the record, is a root crop that cannot be grown in a wetlands.

Nonetheless, his farm was watered by irrigation that came from a valid right that came from a creek that was diverted by a ditch. Around 1905, the creek was diverted to a higher level on the farm so that it would run there, and the old waterbed became vacant. It became part of his sugar beet farm. The water then went through a ditch that irrigated that particular area.

Well, as the farmer for over 80 years, his family was growing sugar beets on this creekbed. As the gentleman's siblings left the farm and his kids didn't want to take it over, this land became his inheritance that would provide for his retirement and an inheritance for his kids to pass on.

It came to the point where it was rezoned by the local community for commercial property, and the company gave him a very decent offer to try and

buy his old farm. This was back in 1993. But what it would require is to actually fill up the old riverbed and run a pipe underneath the property so the water would go from the original point over to the neighbors.

Everything was great until the Army Corps of Engineers came by and one Army regulator saw them irrigating the land, which was now used to grow hay and not sugar beets, and declared that, since water was now pooled in this land, it was a wetland. His recognition was that it was a wetland. Now, the fact that no water reached that land if the ditch was shut off didn't stop him from saying: This now is a wetland, and I get to regulate it under the Clean Water Act as waters of the United States.

So the soil and conservation service came in and conducted tests. They drilled 22 holes 8 feet or longer to find out that under the topsoil is a level of clay, so no water would ever percolate up onto this land. The only way you got water there is if you opened the ditch to let water come back. Nonetheless, the Army Corps regulator still said: I declare this to be a wetland, and I have jurisdiction over it under the Clean Water Act regulations that we have.

The guy tried to prove his point by putting in a pipe that shows that if you actually ran the water past this area, nothing actually pooled on this land, to which he was threatened with jail time if he did not take the pipe that he owned off the land that he owned from the water right that he owned, actually take that away.

We said: Look, no water actually appears there normally. You go out there and you can break a shovel trying to dig up this wetland. How long will it take before you recognize the fact that this is not a generating wetland?

The regulator said: Well, you know, we are in a drought cycle. So maybe in 7 to 15 years, if no water appears on that land, we will actually not declare this a wetland and allow the owner of the land to actually sell his property for his retirement and his inheritance.

My predecessor started this case. I met the man as I was early elected. Finally, after 10 years of haggling with the regulators of the United States over what is or is not waters of the United States, he simply got tired of doing it. He sold his land at one-quarter of the value that a neighboring piece of property got for the same size but had not been declared as wetlands by a single regulator in the United States.

Now, why is this bill so significant? Because this bill, if not put in some kind of parameters and checks, allows the Federal Government to hurt people. It gives them the power and authority to hurt people. Indeed, the direction that this proposed rule is going would not limit the control the agencies have over people's lives. It would significantly expand it. That is why it is so significant.

It is important for Congress to simply say: No, we will no longer make rules in this country simply by agencies deciding to expand their own control where they have a terrible track record and they actually hurt people. We will say: If you are going to expand it, it has got to be done by Congress--specifically by Congress--and not by rulemaking authority of some agency of the Federal Government.

That is the significance of this piece of legislation. That is why this legislation has to come to the floor. That is why we are not wasting time.

This is not a message issue. This is something where people are being harmed by the agencies of the Federal Government, and Congress must exert its rightful role in trying to rein in these agencies and trying to write the laws so these agencies will not simply abuse people because they have the power to abuse people.

I am sorry, Madam Speaker, but I consider that to be significant. I consider that to be our responsibility. If the Senate doesn't want to take up that responsibility, if the Senate wants to still abuse people, then that can be their prerogative, but it should not limit what we do here in the House in speaking out for our constituents.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I appreciate my friend from Virginia's effort to try and save my mortal soul. You failed.

Whether it is one person or multiple people being abused, abuse is wrong and, unfortunately, we have two Supreme Court decisions that have said the same thing: the agencies abuse their authority. It is time for Congress to step in.

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield 3 minutes to my good friend from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp) to talk about this significant issue.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden).

Madam Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert) because if anyone can be considered an expert on water issues in the United States, it is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Interior Appropriations, as well as a former member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers).

The only one to hear from now is I.

Madam Speaker, in closing, historically, the wise use of water has made the desert bloom, but much of my time and some of the most egregious problems that I face deal with the overreach of executive agencies when it comes to water. To claim that their tactics are arbitrary and capricious would be overly generous.

The bottom line is the Supreme Court has twice said that the executive branch agencies have overreached their authority. Twice there was legislation to try to expand that authority, which failed miserably, and now what the Supreme Court said they could not do and what Congress would not grant them to do, the agencies are trying to accomplish by creating a rule to give them powers that they ought not to have.

That--I am sorry, Madam Speaker--is simply wrong. The reason it is wrong is that it hurts people. People trying to live their lives find themselves frustrated by executive agency overreach.

That is why Congress must indeed pass not only this resolution and rule, but also the underlying bill, and it must move forward to make sure that Congress controls these issues in the future, not an executive branch agency. I have to reiterate that this rule is fair, and the underlying legislation is appropriate.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend and our ranking member from West Virginia for yielding and for his leadership on the T&I Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 5078. Last session, the Republican majority pushed through a rider to the Energy and Water Appropriations bill to block this administration from using Agency guidance to clarify how they would interpret two confusing decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court that called into question the protections of the Clean Water Act over our Nation's waters.

At that time, the Republican majority claimed that this use of administration guidance was unprecedented and in violation of the law, notwithstanding the fact that the previous administration followed the exact same process in issuing two guidance documents which, coincidentally, remain in force today. In fact, it is these two Bush- era guidance documents that have compounded the confusion, uncertainty, and increased compliance costs faced by our constituents today.

But don't take my word on this. Let me quote from some of the comments made in opposition to the Bush-era guidance. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation and others:

With no clear regulatory definitions to guide their

determinations, what has emerged is a hodgepodge of ad hoc

and inconsistent jurisdictional theories.

Again, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation and others:

The Bush administration guidance is causing confusion and

added delays in an already burdened and strained permit

decisionmaking process, which ultimately will result, and is

resulting, in increased delays and costs to the public at

large.

Finally, according to the Waters Advocacy Coalition:

Until a comprehensive set of rules regarding which water

bodies the agencies will regulate is promulgated, the public

and Agency field staff will be beleaguered by partial

answers, confusing standards, and ad hoc, overbroad, and

arbitrary decisions pertaining to the scope of Federal

jurisdiction.

In April of 2011, over 150 Members of this House wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency and to the Corps requesting that a proposed guidance document of the Obama administration be reconsidered. In that letter, these Members suggested:

If the administration seeks to make regulatory changes to

the Clean Water Act, a notice-and-comment rulemaking is

required.

In the intervening months, this is exactly what the administration has done. In 2012, the administration chose to withdraw the proposed 2011 guidance document and instead pursued a notice-and-comment rulemaking to address much of the confusion, uncertainty, and increased costs surrounding the scope of the Clean Water Act protections.

However, many of these same Members who asked for a formal rulemaking are now vehemently opposed to this rulemaking going forward. I have to ask why? Are these Members opposed to providing greater clarity on the scope of Federal Clean Water Act protections? Are they opposed to trying to reduce the confusion and uncertainty facing our regulated communities while at the same time trying to ensure that our network of waters and wetlands are protected from pollution or destruction?

Opponents of this rulemaking are trying to portray this as a Federal attempt to regulate birdbaths, puddles, and driveways, but both common sense and the testimony of representatives of the EPA and the Corps before our committee would confirm that these were never subject to Clean Water Act jurisdiction, nor would they be subject to the act under the administration's proposed rule.

In short, this is not a debate about the Federal Government trying to regulate someone's backyard birdbath, but it is about ensuring that those waters and wetlands that provide hundreds of millions of Americans with their drinking water, provide vital protection to our towns and communities, and provide valuable habitat to our native fish and wildlife are protected.

Mr. Chairman, to be fair, several of my own constituents have expressed concern with the substance of the proposed rule. I have listened to their concerns, and I have pressed the Agency witnesses who have appeared before our subcommittee on several critical areas. I have questioned the agencies to ensure that the scope of the proposed rule lives solely within the confines of the two Supreme Court decisions on this matter; otherwise, such changes would require an act of Congress.

Mr. Chairman, I have asked for Agency assurance that this proposed rule does not expand the scope of the Clean Water Act jurisdiction over what was covered by prior rulings of the Supreme Court. Again, I have been assured that this is the case.

I have asked the Agency staff to clarify that these proposed rules do not eliminate any existing statutory or regulatory exemptions for agriculture, including activities on prior converted cropland. Again, we have been assured by the Agency that all of the existing exemptions for farming, silviculture, and ranching in the current Clean Water Act and regulations remain in place.

In my view, this is not a perfect proposed rule--few are--but it does establish a reasonable process for providing additional clarity on Clean Water Act protections that we desire. To suggest that the solution is to simply throw out this proposed rule and to forever leave the regulated community with the current regulatory morass simply makes no sense.

Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote on H.R. 5078. I thank the ranking member for his indulgence.

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment gets to the heart of the debate on this proposed rule.

For months, opponents of the proposed rule have made numerous claims about its impacts. Yet, despite numerous efforts by representatives of the administration's to answer these claims and to point out how many of these claims are simply false, we seem to go around and around, again and again, on these allegations. My amendment simply addresses these concerns and claims, saying that, if any of them prove to be true, then the Secretary and the Administrator are prohibited from issuing any final rule that would bring about these occurrences.

For example, opponents of the proposed rule have claimed that this rule expands the scope of the Clean Water Act authority. When asked this direct question during our subcommittee hearing, the administration's witness stated clearly that the proposed rule ``would not assert jurisdiction over any type of waters not previously protected over the past 40 years.'' Under my

amendment, if the administration is proven incorrect, the final rule could not be implemented.

Similarly, opponents have suggested that the rule is inconsistent with the rulings and jurisdictional tests outlined by the Supreme Court. The administration's witness has testified that this rule is consistent with the tests outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court. If my amendment is adopted and if the administration is wrong about this assertion, then the final rule could not be implemented.

Opponents of the proposed rule have claimed that the proposed rule increases the regulation of ditches. The administration has testified that, in fact, it would reduce the scope of jurisdictional ditches that are covered by the Bush administration guidance. If my amendment is adopted and if the administration is incorrect in this assertion, the rule cannot be implemented.

Opponents contend that, under this rule, individuals would be required to have Federal Clean Water Act permits for draining farm ponds or for activities in the water on your driveways or your birdbaths or puddles in your backyard. The administration has asserted, obviously, that these types of waters have never been subject to the Clean Water Act, nor would they be under this rulemaking. If somehow the administration is wrong about this, under my amendment, the final rule could not be implemented.

Lastly, opponents contend that the rule would eliminate existing statutory and regulatory exemptions for agriculture or increase the regulation of groundwater or require Federal Clean Water Act permits for land-use activities. Yet the administration has time and time again testified that these assertions are simply inaccurate. Again, if my amendment is adopted and if the administration is incorrect, the final rule cannot go forward.

In my view, this administration has put forward a good faith effort to provide additional clarity on the scope of Clean Water Act protections for our Nation's waters that are consistent with current scientific information as well as the precedent of the Supreme Court. While it is not perfect, this rule is far better than the current regulatory process that has led to numerous delays, significant increases in compliance costs, and greater difficulty in protecting our Nation's water resources.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield whatever time I have remaining to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would address one of the fundamental flaws I see in this legislation. The enactment of H.R. 5078 would almost certainly block current and future efforts to clarify the scope of the Clean Water Act.

Unfortunately, this would lock in place the interpretive guidance of the Bush administration, which took the narrowest and most cumbersome and confusing interpretation of the two recent Supreme Court decisions, and it has been uniformly criticized by the stakeholder community as well as by the conservation and environmental community.

I think it is important to remember that, under the current Bush administration's guidance, traditional Clean Water Act protections over a significant percentage of waters has been called into question or have simply been lost. These are Clean Water Act protections that existed for over 30 years prior to the issuance of the first Bush-era guidance in 2003 and are now all but lost, making it harder and more costly for individual States to protect their own waters should their upstream neighbors be unwilling or unable to fill in the gap in protecting water quality.

As we all know, if pollution is allowed to increase due to the competing financial and political interests of States, that pollution needs to go somewhere, and since pollution does not respect State boundaries when it travels downstream, it will have an adverse impact on the quality of life and the quality of the environment of those downstream States. As highlighted in my amendment, the end result of this will be that downstream States will become responsible for treating the pollution of their upstream neighbors, which, at a minimum, will increase the compliance costs of downstream States and, at a maximum, may destroy the ecological or economic health of these States.

As I have noted before, my district in New York is separated from Connecticut by the Long Island Sound. Over time, the number of polluters in the area has increased exponentially, killing fish, lobsters, and imperiling the $5 billion of economic output that the region depends upon. Fortunately, the State has decided that the Sound was impaired, and it proposed a more restrictive water quality standard for nitrogen. A $5 billion crisis has been averted. However, under the current Bush-era guidance, questions have arisen as to whether the Clean Water Act protection continues to apply to the upper reaches of watersheds, streams, and wetlands which feed the rivers that eventually flow into the Sound.

Under H.R. 5078, the EPA would be prohibited from ensuring that polluters in Connecticut continue to reduce excessive amounts of nitrogen in the Sound, leaving my constituents in the State of New York without any recourse under the Clean Water Act to stop them.

If this bill were to pass, individual States would decide that collective efforts to address the water quality impairments of the Chesapeake Bay, the Puget Sound, the Great Lakes, or the Gulf of Mexico were unnecessarily restrictive or burdensome, and they would refuse to participate in a meaningful way towards the restoration of these regional water bodies. This go-it-alone approach flies in the face of science, of common sense, and of decades of experience in implementing the Clean Water Act.

My amendment would limit the impact of this legislation if the administration determines that this bill were likely to, one, increase the interstate movement of pollutants through surface waters; two, increase the costs incurred by a downstream State to maintain or achieve approved water quality standards for that State; or three, to cause or contribute to the impairment of the surface or coastal waters of another State.

The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure created the Clean Water Act over 40 years ago as a response to burning rivers, to Great Lakes that were pronounced dead, and to an understanding that a State- by-State approach to protecting water simply didn't work.

Let's not repeat the sins of the past but commit to moving forward in our efforts to protect the Nation's waters. Support my amendment, and allow the Agency to put back in place reasonable, comprehensive protections of our Nation's waters.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 715, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 644) condemning and disapproving of the Obama administration's failure to comply with the lawful statutory requirement to notify Congress before releasing individuals detained at United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and expressing national security concerns over the release of five Taliban leaders and the repercussions of negotiating with terrorists, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H. Res. 644.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 644, a resolution offered by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Rigell), condemning the Obama administration's failure to comply with the requirement to notify Congress before transferring individual detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

I would like to thank Mr. Rigell for his leadership on this deeply troubling issue. He worked across the aisle to author a bipartisan resolution, sponsored by 94 Members of the House, including myself, focused on the Obama administration's clear violation of statute passed by the legislative branch and enacted into law by the President.

I would also like to thank Ranking Member Smith. Though he did not support this resolution in its entirety, I

appreciate his candor and his commitment to fostering a thoughtful debate within our committee.

The administration violated the law, and House Resolution 644 articulates this simple message. It passed out of the Armed Services Committee with a bipartisan vote.

Section 1035 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 requires the Secretary of Defense to notify the appropriate committees of Congress at least 30 days before the transfer or release of any individual detained at GTMO. There are no waivers to this clause--no exceptions, period; yet, on May 31, at the request of the Taliban and in exchange for Sergeant Bergdahl, who was held by the Haqqani Network, the administration sent five senior Taliban leaders from GTMO to Qatar.

The administration took this action without notifying Congress. This is an obvious violation of the law. There can be no confusion on this point. In fact, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office recently determined that the administration violated the law by failing to notify Congress, but also by expending funds to carry out the transfers without an appropriation for that purpose.

The statutory provision of the NDAA was written and approved by a bipartisan majority in Congress because of genuine concerns that dangerous terrorists were leaving GTMO and returning to fight against the U.S. or its allies.

By requiring the Secretary of Defense to convey detailed information to Congress, the provision is intended to allow Members to have a complete understanding of the risks of sending GTMO detainees elsewhere and how those risks might be mitigated.

In transferring the Taliban Five without lawfully notifying Congress, the administration deprived Congress of the opportunity to consider the national security risks that such a transfer could pose or the repercussions of negotiating with terrorists.

If Congress does not speak strongly now to condemn such blatant disregard for the law, any future administration may come to believe that obedience to statute is not a requirement for the executive branch. This is intolerable, and for this reason, I support this resolution and will ask my colleagues in the House to adopt it.

Again, I thank Mr. Rigell, Mr. Barrow, Mr. Rahall, and Mr. Ribble for introducing this important bipartisan resolution, and I urge my colleagues to adopt it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I must respond to just a couple of points made by my good friend from Washington.

We agree on more than we disagree on. This item we disagree on, but it seems to me that his main argument is that because other Presidents have done it, it is okay for this President to do it. In other words, two wrongs make a right. I don't think that is the point. I think at some point, you have to draw the line, and that is what we are doing right now.

Secondly, he said that the President said that he really believed he wasn't breaking the law. You know, prisons are full of people that say they don't think they broke the law, but some judge thinks they did, and in this instance, until you take the matter to the court, it is the law. Even though he is the President of the United States, he did break the law.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Rigell), my friend and colleague who is a member of the Armed Services Committee, is the lead cosponsor, and is the one who has from day one provided the leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I pointed out to the gentleman recently that neither of us were in these jobs when President Bush was in office, so we don't know what we would have done at that time. I would hope that, if he went against the law, we would take similar action. I think that we would have done that.

I yield at this time 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wittman), my friend and colleague, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness.

Mr. Speaker, just a little reality check here. I offered the points that went into the National Defense Authorization Act. One of the reasons I did it was because we specifically did not want any detainees to be taken from Guantanamo without alerting the Congress, because they had tried it before and it had pushback from the Congress and we felt like we should have a part in that protection of our people.

There are 80 people, detainees, in Guantanamo that have been vetted and that are approved for possible transfer to a suitable location. None of these five were on that list. All were considered too dangerous to be on that list. There were several months of negotiations. There was plenty of time to give us the 30 days' notice. They talked to 80 to 90 people in four different executive branches: the State Department, the Defense Department, the White House, and Homeland Security, but not one Member of Congress, in compliance with the law. They didn't talk to Senator Reid, they didn't talk to Senator Feinstein, and they didn't talk to the Speaker. Nobody. And that was not accidental. That was a firm decision to avoid the law and to avoid going to the Congress, which was required.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ribble), my friend and colleague, a member of the Budget Committee, and cosponsor of the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I respect my friend. We came to Congress together, and I appreciate his remarks on a lot of things. But we should get back to the subject at hand. This has nothing to do with Sergeant Bergdahl. This has to do with the action that the President took. We are all happy that Sergeant Bergdahl is home, and we are glad that he is here, and his case will be taken care of separately.

Mr. Speaker, there is a call to do something for the President. The President hasn't asked us to do anything yet. He is not even speaking until tomorrow. Then we will see what he has to say, and then we will see how we move forward.

I am not an attorney. My good friend from Washington is a great attorney. And I recall when we had Secretary Hagel, and Secretary Hagel made the comment that he thought what they did was within the law. And my good friend responded that here is the way it works: The President signed the bill and said that he disagreed with it, but that does not change it. It is still the law until it is challenged in the courts. That is our system.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barrow), my good friend from the other side of the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), my friend and colleague, and a member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Walorski), my friend and colleague and a member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. DeSantis), my friend and colleague and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schock).

Mr. Speaker, might I inquire as to how much time is left?

We have just one more speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the inference has been that this happened on the spur of the moment and they didn't have time to tell Congress. These negotiations on this transfer went on for months. They have admitted they told 80 to 90 people in four of the departments of the executive branch but not one Member of Congress, in compliance with the law.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am leaving Congress at the end of this year, but I am sure at home I will still be able to hear blame on President Bush for at least the next 2 years.

One thing we can't escape is the fact that this went on for months. Even

though they had to make a critical last-minute decision, they still had time to notify 80 to 90 people in the executive branch and not one Member of the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate, in accordance with the law.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry) to give the concluding remarks on this debate. He is the vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.

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

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