Providing for further consideration of the bill (H.R. 1628) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2017.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 275 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on House Resolution 275, currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to bring forward this rule on behalf of the Rules Committee. The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 1695, the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act of 2017.

The rule provides for 1 hour of debate, equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. The rule also provides for a motion to recommit and makes in order amendments by Representatives Deutch and Chu.

Yesterday, the Rules Committee had the opportunity to hear from Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Ranking Member John Conyers. Their testimony reflected the strong bipartisan support for this legislation and the work both Members have invested in moving it forward.

I personally thank Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers, and the Judiciary Committee staff on both the majority and minority side for their work on this legislation.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I had the opportunity to participate in the committee markup where we debated numerous amendments and enjoyed a thorough discussion of this bill. The Judiciary Committee ultimately adopted an amendment by my colleague from Texas, Congresswoman Jackson Lee, to strengthen the bill. H.R. 1695 passed the Judiciary Committee in a show of overwhelming bipartisan support by a vote of 27-1.

The Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act is supported by numerous outside groups, including the American Conservative Union, SAG-AFTRA, the AFL-CIO, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, CreativeFuture, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Gospel Music Association, the American Chemical Society, the Church Music Publishers Association, Oracle, and many, many others. These groups represent only a sampling of the broad support behind this bill.

Mr. Speaker, as you can tell, H.R. 1695 has brought together many groups of people who don't traditionally have similar interests. From creators to labor organizations to conservative groups, the diversity of support behind this legislation speaks to its significance in the copyright industry and to our economy as a whole.

H.R. 1695 also enjoys the public support of our two former Registers of Copyright, individuals who filled the very position this bill seeks to address. Former Registers Marybeth Peters and Ralph Oman have both made clear their belief in the importance of an ``independent copyright advice straight and true from the expert agency'' to Congress.

These former Registers correctly point out that this bill addresses a ``structural, not personal or political'' issue between the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office. Despite what some may say, this is what the bill simply does.

H.R. 1695 is a necessary first step toward any larger efforts toward modernizing the Copyright Office. It helps ensure that the Register can implement policy and advise Congress effectively, and this legislation will ultimately help strengthen our copyright system. This is particularly relevant today, as today is World Intellectual Property Day.

As I discussed earlier today in this Chamber, the importance of strong IP protections, including a strong copyright system, is clearer than ever. In fact, the copyright system in our country is so critical that our Nation's Founders sought to recognize it in the Constitution. Article I, section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power ``to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.''

While robust intellectual property protections have always been a foundational principle of our Nation, today such protections are also a major economic driver creating and fueling the American Dream. In fact, core copyright industries in the United States are now responsible for $1.2 trillion in GDP, representing nearly 7 percent of our economy and employing more than 5.5 million people. In my home State of Georgia alone, more than 19,000 copyrights are registered annually to State residents.

Yet the head of the Copyright Office, which oversees such a massive sector of our economy, is unilaterally selected by the Librarian of Congress. This is the case, despite the fact that the Copyright Office is statutorily designed as Congress' adviser and the massive role that copyright plays in our economy and our society.

I want to be clear. I think the role of the Library is a critical one, and the Librarian performs many important duties. Historically, however, the Librarian has not been an expert in copyright and isn't expected to be, Mr. Speaker.

Does it make sense, then, to make the Librarian--any Librarian--to be solely responsible for the selection of the person responsible for overseeing the Nation's copyright policy? I don't think it does. In fact, the current selection is more an accident of history than an example of carefully conceived policy.

By way of historical background, in 1870, the Library of Congress believed it would make sense for copyrighted works to be placed in the Library as a means to grow the collection. While this made sense at that point in history and while the collections are still an important function of the Library, this provision neither requires nor justifies the role of the Register of Copyrights to be subordinate to the Librarian.

Today, with the major role that the Copyright Office plays in our culture and our economy, we can no longer justify the head of the Copyright Office--and Congress' designated expert adviser--being hired under the umbrella of the Library of Congress. Currently, the Register is hired according to the same unilateral process as much more junior positions are filled. Under today's system, the Register can serve for an unlimited duration without review or removal, despite the importance of this position.

And finally, the Register is not Presidentially appointed, and there have been questions in the courts regarding the authority of the Copyright Office to conduct rulemaking.

We need a copyright system for the 21st century. We need a system that will take us into the future by protecting and promoting innovation. Copyright is the foundation of innovation, and innovation is the force that drives our economy. A strong copyright system allows the millions of kids and young adults throughout our 50 States to make their dreams a reality, to build a career out of what they produce in their minds and imaginations. Today's rule provides for an underlying bill that will help ensure that our copyright system is equipped to rise to the challenges of the future and to support Americans as they strive to make their hopes, dreams, and ambitions into reality.

The underlying bill promotes American innovation by recognizing the importance of the Register of Copyrights position. This bill would create a selection committee composed by bipartisan, bicameral congressional leadership and the Librarian of Congress to recommend candidates to the President for nomination. The bill would establish a Senate confirmation process for the position and establish a 10-year term for the Register of Copyrights position.

This legislation represents the product of more than 4 years of bipartisan collaboration. It reflects the consensus view that the Copyright Office is better positioned to serve the public if the Register is no longer treated like a subordinate official within the Library, but as the seat of expertise and property protection that it is, regardless of

who the Librarian or who the President may be.

To reiterate, this issue has been under discussion since before anyone knew the former Librarian would be leaving or a new Librarian would be taking over.

When these discussions began, there was a Democrat in the White House, and it was clear that our next President would be, possibly, a Democrat as well. Yet both Republicans and Democrats have supported the reality that undergirds this bill, and we have supported what is good for American innovation and our creators and our dreamers, rather than worry about what specific President may make the next appointment to this Office.

The legislation is the first step in the Judiciary Committee's work to modernize the Copyright Office, which is now needed more than ever. As the vice-chair of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee, I will continue to push that effort forward, to look at ways to promote better infrastructure and technology at the Copyright Office, and to work to update our music licensing laws.

H.R. 1695 is the beginning, rather than the end, and our commitment to copyright modernization and the support of these ideas underpinning it continue to receive broad support.

The rule provides for a bill that is, simply put, good policy. The opportunity before us is not about one individual but establishing the right process for selecting the Copyright Register and future Registers. The bill would increase accountability within the Copyright Office and take the first steps toward making sure our Copyright Office works for this century.

Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that I thank the chairman of the full Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte, and the ranking member, John Conyers, for their hard work on this; and also a special commendation to Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who sponsored an amendment that actually strengthened this bill and provided a process moving forward that will help and, I think, bring all parties some semblance of structure and form as we move forward in this process, a beginning, as I said, the first step in a modernization of our Copyright Office.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will have more time to discuss especially the IG report and what it may say here in just a moment. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), another strong advocate in our protections of copyright and others in this intellectual property debate.

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

Mr. Speaker, again, this is about policy. This is about moving forward in the modernization process. I believe that Ms. Hayden is fully qualified to be Librarian of Congress. I think the issue comes in the Copyright Register's Office, not the Librarian herself.

There are some issues also. It has been interesting because I have been involved in this now my whole time in Congress, and this issue of copyright protection and intellectual property, I have to say Electronic Frontier Foundation are good folks, but we disagree, many of us in the content community and also the intellectual property, with the views of a more open or less inhibited copyright protection, which we believe is the very heartbeat of the innovative system. It is protecting the copyright as we go forward.

So just simply to have somebody saying that they are looking out for the big guy, I am looking out for the single songwriter. I'm looking out for the person right now in their home pecking out their first novel, working on their first articles. These are the kinds of things that need protecting. This is the little guy we are talking about. This is making this modernization happen, and we are going to continue to move forward.

We have differences of opinion. That is fine. But I think in looking at this

big picture, we are talking about a Register's Office that has so much work in our economy as a whole, we are just simply looking toward the first step of modernization.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, thank goodness, hopefully, we will get this rule passed and we will get to this bill so the gentleman can be in support of it, that is as we move forward.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Again, regardless of the last discussion, there are things about this bill that I have talked about when we first started, and doing this actually brings us into a position of modernizing the Copyright Office, which has been discussed a long time.

I do want to address, just briefly, that there has been some discussion about an IG report. There has been discussion about, especially, the former Register of Copyrights.

As I made clear in the conference, this has nothing to do with that being brought up. Implying things that were out of this IG report was basically attempting a character assassination of the former Register of Copyrights.

I think in doing so, it has to be understood that, even in that IG report that is discussed, one of the Library's own responses back to the concerns of the IG report was that, in 2015, the inspector general found that the Copyright Office was compliant with all library methodology. With respect to its primary software applications, the Electronic Copyright Office and Copyright Imaging System, which support registration and recordation functions and are managed by the CTO, were all in compliance. I think that is really interesting as we look at this.

But also what this IG report actually did say was that there were a lot of other problems. In fact, the GAO report in 2015 said the Library does not have the leadership to address IT management. That is why the Copyright Office was having to look at this because, also, in August 2015, of the Library's poor response and modernization, which are things that we are looking toward and how much this affects our economy. Because of the Library's problems, the electronic licensing system went down; and for 10 days, no one could register a copyright.

In fairness, you may not like this bill, you may not like the current structure, and that is fine; but when we discuss the Library, there are a lot of issues that I am sure will be addressed in the relevant committees in their oversight on this IG report. That is what they are designed to do.

What we are designed to do here is also not take and pick and choose and cherry-pick what parts of the report we want to talk about because we are trying to justify the current Librarian's decision last fall. When we understand this, we will begin to move forward on the Copyright Modernization Act.

Let's get back to the real functionality of what this is, not who we appoint or how they are appointed, but the fact that this matters to millions of people and also accounts for trillions of dollars in our industries across the world.

The Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act is an important and bipartisan step. I repeat again, it came out with a vote of 27-1 in the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Speaker, I serve on that committee. That is not a usual vote on legislation that is making a positive, large, lasting impact that we are seeing on this. It is the first step rather than the last step in modernization.

As we look forward to this, I will simply say this is a good bill. It has been perfected by both Republicans and Democrats. As I have said before, Sheila Jackson Lee, the Congresswoman from Texas, was very helpful putting this package together, along with the chairman and ranking member on both sides of the aisle, as we come forward with this.

It is sort of a shame that, when we come to this bill, we diverge into rabbit trails away from the real issue. The real issue is let's help those folks who depend on the Copyright Office. Let's make modernize it. Let's make it the tool it is supposed to be, and that is the adviser of the expert in these issues for Congress. When we do so, at that point in time our economy continues to flourish, we get aside from the theatrics, and we get back to the real importance of the bill.

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

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

I want to begin by wishing my colleague from Georgia a happy International Copyright Day, right up there with Thanksgiving and Christmas as great American holidays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill. Look, first of all, 60 hours; we have less than 60 hours before the Federal Government of the United States will shut down, and here we are filling time with a bill. Of course, the concept deserves to be debated and fleshed out, but is it really what we should be talking about when we are 60 hours away from the shutdown of our Federal Government?

Now, it feels like we have been here before. Now, sometimes it is because, unfortunately, we have been brought to the brink of economic disaster, just as Republicans seem to do every time government funding or the debt ceiling is about to expire. We know it has happened before. We know it will happen again.

Maybe it is time for a short-term CR; maybe it is an omnibus, but, look, that is what we should be doing right now. There will be plenty of time, plenty of time to figure out the intricacies of copyright and the oversight of the Office after we make sure that the basic functions of government are able to continue after 60 hours.

And even if we do keep the government open, all we are doing is kicking the can down the road and not allowing American businesses or individuals to plan for the future.

Can you imagine if your family didn't know if you would have a job or what salary it would be at every few months?

Now, look, congressional salaries, they are exempt from government shutdowns, of course. If they weren't, perhaps we would be discussing the government shutdown with 60 hours to go until other Federal workers are prevented from coming to work.

Even at this moment, we don't have a full-year appropriations bill. We have a continuing resolution that expires midnight on Friday. Those are the priority issues that the American people want us to focus on. When we deal with what is urgent, that will allow us the time and the space for thoughtful consideration of Copyright Office oversight.

We need to get past this bitter partisanship and this brinksmanship. Even the rule we are considering today is problematic and partisan, which is why I am in staunch opposition. It doesn't allow all the amendments to come to the floor, including one from my colleague, Ms. Lofgren, that I tried to amend the rule to allow, and it was turned down in Rules Committee by a partisan vote.

We don't have an open rule, as Speaker Ryan promised to provide as we got back to what was called regular order, allowing our Democratic and Republican colleagues to improve and enhance bills, offer their ideas up for consideration. If a majority adopt them, they can be included in the overall bill.

Instead, we are considering a rule that effectively stops debate on important amendments that were omitted and brings forward a politically motivated bill about the head of the Copyright Office.

Simply put, this bill would take the authority of hiring and firing the Copyright Register, who is the head of the Copyright Office, from the Librarian of Congress, and give it to the President, with Senate approval. It effectively politicizes the Office of the head of the Copyright Office.

Now, it sounds innocuous, but what it means is that special interests will be involved with picking the person to make decisions over who receives a copyright. Yet, again, through this bill, Congress is choosing the big, powerful interests over the consumers, over innovation, and over the little guy.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation said: this bill is ``designed to . . . allow powerful incumbent interests to use their lobbying power to control this increasingly politicized Office. And while the Librarian of Congress still oversees the Copyright Office, the Librarian of Congress would not be able to remove the Register no matter how poorly they perform their job.''

Under this bill, the position of Register of Copyrights will be yet another political position and will, frankly, stall one of the great projects they are embarking on, the modernization effort that is desperately needed at the Copyright Office. The last thing we need is political cronyism in the Copyright Office.

Let's talk a little bit about the history of the position of the head of the Copyright Office. Most of the first century of America, U.S. District Court clerks processed copyright applications themselves. Now, that was obviously inefficient to foist on the judicial branch, and, in 1870, Congress centralized the power of copyrights at the Library of Congress. Seven years later, the Copyright Office was created as a separate department within the Library, and the Register of Copyrights was established as the head of that Office.

Why depart from history so radically now? Why give in to increasing executive authority in a time when many of us are concerned about the growing powers of the Presidency? Frankly, some of this seems to be about the personal dislike of the Librarian, Dr. Carla Hayden, or the general situation with the most recent Register who departed last October, Maria Pallante.

It appears that some believe that Dr. Hayden should not have reassigned Ms. Pallante, so there is a micromanaging of particular personnel issues, but an inspector general's report stated that Ms. Pallante was clearly deficient in her duties, especially around those of modernization of the Office.

As just one example, the inspector general discovered that the Copyright Office wasted 6 years and nearly $12 million attempting to implement an Electronic Licensing System. Based on the IG report, it would seem that the Librarian had a valid reason to reassign the Copyright Register last October, and she definitely had every right to do so, as the head of the Library. The last thing we want is politically motivated decisionmaking in a personnel process around performance at the Library of Congress.

Since the Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, was appointed in 2015, she has been pulling the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office into the 21st century. And if we move the appointment into the hands of the President, we are taking away the ability for the Librarian to supervise the Office of Copyright and continue to do this work. We are going to stop progress dead in its tracks.

With hundreds of Presidential appointees who haven't even been nominated, no less approved, and the glacial pace of Congress, it could be years before a Librarian is confirmed under this new scheme.

Look, we all understand and agree that there are problems that we need to work on together with regard to the copyright process to bring it into the 21st century. Again, with 60 hours away from a government shutdown, now might be a time to focus on keeping government open and perhaps having a more thoughtful debate, removing the passions around the personnel involved after we continue to keep government open.

This bill, unfortunately, does not solve the problems with copyrights. It makes the situation worse because it slows down a desperately needed modernization indefinitely and would hurt the public and consumers.

The last thing we need is a more autonomous Copyright Office. After the obscene wasting of taxpayer dollars, do we really want to provide for more politically motivated decisionmaking within the Office of the Copyright? I think the answer is no; that is why I oppose the rule. I oppose the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), the distinguished ranking member on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.

I yield the gentlewoman from California an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. DelBene.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), who is the ranking member on the Subcommittee of Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet on the Judiciary Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, today President Trump plans to unveil a tax cut proposal that would vastly reduce the business tax rate for international corporations and even for his own real estate empire. We have no way of knowing how many millions he personally might save through this so- called Trump loophole--no idea--unless he releases his tax returns. Democrats have been calling on the President to release his tax returns for this reason and so many others. We cannot allow the White House to be used as a tool to enrich the President and his family.

Up until now, every President since Gerald Ford has disclosed his tax return information. These returns have provided a basic level of transparency to help to ensure the public's interest is placed first. The American people deserve the same level of disclosure from this administration. If they continue to refuse to provide it, then we, as the people's elected Representatives, should hold the executive branch accountable.

If not us, who?

Mr. Speaker, when we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Eshoo's bill, which would require Presidents and major party nominees for the Presidency to simply release their tax returns.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, to discuss our excellent proposal, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

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

What I really think this bill is about is President Trump wanting to put a Big Business friend in charge of an office that can do personal favors for him and his family. We know that the President and his family have, or are seeking, dozens of copyrights. Here is a great one--here is a copyright on his book, ``Trump: The Best Golf Advice I Ever Received.'' Now, don't get me wrong, he probably deserved a copyright. I am sure a ghostwriter wrote it for him and he had a strong contract with that ghostwriter. Since it seems that all the President spends his weekends and our taxpayer dollars doing is golf, the last thing we want is want him to put one of his golfing buddies in charge of the Copyright Office.

Who is to say the next copyright application from Donald Trump won't be disputed?

Placing his friends, business associates, and, yes, golfing partners in high places could help tip the scales in his favor, providing profits for him and his family at the expense of the American people.

I would like to take a moment to speak to a few of the defenses I have heard about the need for this bill. There is the one stating the President would pick the Register from a list of experts provided by a group, including the Librarian.

But guess what?

That list is nonbinding, so the President can easily ignore the recommendations and do whatever he wants, which is what this President usually does anyway.

I have also heard the argument that the Register will be more accountable and somehow transparent as a Presidential appointee. Hogwash. That is the opposite of the truth. There is as much transparency for a non-Presidential appointee once in their position; and it is much less likely that a President is going to demand the resignation of the Register than the Librarian is going to reassign them, as the Librarian did last year when the Register was failing, as confirmed by the inspector general report.

Finally, there seems to be the argument that there were a large number of hearings in the committee on this issue and that somehow this is the work product of those hearings. Well, if you look at the record, there was not one hearing on this bill. There were hearings about general copyright reform. There was no hearing on how this bill might have a devastating impact on the need to modernize the Copyright Office, creating huge delays for important efforts. There was no hearing on whether this bill could profit the President and his family at the expense of the American people.

This is a problematic bill under a problematic rule that doesn't allow good ideas to come forward and be debated. We aren't even able to debate helpful amendments.

I know of at least one important amendment that isn't being allowed to be debated on the floor, which is Representative Lofgren's amendment that would allow the current Librarian to fill the existing vacancy at the Copyright Office, and when that Register leaves, the new process would then apply. It seems like a commonsense transition process. Why can't we get a simple vote on that amendment?

I say again, this bill is a solution in search of a problem. Frankly, this bill makes the problem worse by giving the President the chance to put his business associate and golf buddies in charge of his own copyrights.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the President's personality is perfectly charming. I certainly wouldn't disparage his personality. What I am talking about is him putting a golf buddy or a business associate in charge of an office that he receives a direct profit from. That is called conflict of interest. That is what we are debating here today. It is not about the President's personality. Obviously, he is perfectly charming in person. I would be happy to have dinner with him. I am still waiting for the invitation.

The Copyright Office has an important function. In order to fulfill that function of registering copyrights, it needs to be a neutral arbiter. By making the head of the Copyright Office a political advocate, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, it will increasingly politicize copyrights, the basic protection Americans

rely on regarding the tradeoff between payoffs for innovation and the right of consumers for dissemination. There is no chance a political appointee will be neutral, by nature of them being a political appointee.

A political appointee will likely be the puppet of big corporations and the administration in their decisions around registration of copyrights. That doesn't help the budding author, it doesn't help the budding musician in a dispute, and it certainly doesn't help anyone trying to navigate an outdated and archaic system that needs to be modernized. This bill will indefinitely delay the modernization process.

I strongly encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and ``no'' on the bill. The last thing we need is President Trump's golf buddies to be in charge of his own copyrights to further profit the President and the First Family, who have pleasant personalities.

Do we really want to give more power to the administration so they can do favors for themselves and their own business interests? I hope not. Let's vote ``no.''

We should be considering a funding bill to keep the government open instead of waiting until the absolute last second, hurting businesses and Americans with the huge amount of uncertainty created.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule, ``no'' on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Colorado for his leadership and for yielding me time.

Here I am again. I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill, and I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that my bipartisan--this is both Republicans and Democrats--this bipartisan legislation, the Presidential Tax Transparency Act, can be made in order for debate and a vote.

The Presidential Tax Transparency Act is very simple. It would require this President, all future Presidents,

and Presidential nominees from both major parties to publicly disclose their tax returns. Until recently, most Americans thought this disclosure was required by law, but it actually has been a tradition. It has been a voluntary disclosure by every President of both parties since Watergate.

This long disclosure tradition exists because, A, the American people demand a baseline level of transparency from the highest officeholder in the land, and each one of the Presidents wanted the American people to know that their first and top priority was the American people's interest and not their own financial interests. This last Saturday, April 15, thousands of Americans in 125 cities across the country participated in tax marches calling for the President to release his tax returns.

Now, why did they do this on holy Saturday?

Because they care and they are deeply concerned about the President's conflicts of interests and his foreign business entanglements.

The President's refusal to release his tax returns is just one example of his administration's historic lack of transparency as we near the 100-day mark of the administration. As questions about his associates' ties to Russia continue to swirl, yesterday, the White House refused to provide information about General Flynn's Russia contacts to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Just before the Easter holiday, the White House also announced that it will break with precedent and will not make its visitor logs public. This is added to the fact that the President's meetings and golf outings at his properties in Florida, New Jersey, and elsewhere--where he has so far spent one-third of his Presidency, according to The Washington Post-- are also off the books.

Who is the President meeting with? Who does he listen to? Do his personal financial interests come first, or do the interests of the country come first?

The President's business empire makes him more susceptible to conflicts of interest than any President in our history, yet he has done less to address these conflicts than any President in modern history. Since 1978, every President has placed their assets in a real blind trust. Instead of following this tradition, the President has turned his business over to his sons in an arrangement that the nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics called ``meaningless from a conflict of interest perspective.'' It was later revealed that the President can draw profits from this trust at any time, and his son acknowledged that he will provide his father with periodic reports about the state of his family's businesses.

This is not right. This simply does not pass muster for anyone in the country. This is not Republican or Democratic. This is not partisan. The President should release his tax returns.

Now, as the gentleman said previously, this is, again, critically important because it is reported that the President is going to come out with a tax plan today and reportedly cut the tax rate on pass- through entities.

For all of these reasons, Mr. Speaker, and all of these conflicts of interest, it is why the President needs to reveal his tax returns, it is why we have bipartisan legislation.

We should defeat the previous question and sign on to the discharge petition so that this bipartisan legislation can come before the full House to ensure that the President provides transparency to the American people now and in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the underlying legislation, which I view as a great step forward.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard about the misdeeds alleged of the prior Register of Copyrights, and we have heard what a wonderful Librarian Carla Hayden is; and I agree, she is a wonderful Librarian. But this bill is not about individuals. It is not about whether the last Register was a good or bad Register. It is not about whether she knew what she was doing on modernization or not. This bill is an institutional bill. This bill is against politicizing. This bill is for strengthening and enhancing the stature of the Office of Register of Copyrights.

The committee held 4 years of hearings on the Copyright Act. There are many contentious issues that we will be bringing to the floor over the next couple of years on that. This was not one of them. This issue had broad support.

Everybody agrees that the Office of Copyright must be modernized. What this bill does is to take it and give it a little more independence from the Library of Congress. The Librarian of Congress is an interested stakeholder. There are many stakeholders in Copyright. Librarians are stakeholders, tech people are stakeholders, content creators, movie studios, authors, and editors--there are lots of different stakeholders. No stakeholder should be in a controlling position.

The Librarian of Congress is in a controlling position, and there is a consensus that that ought to be reduced. I, personally, and a lot of other people think the Register's Office should be taken out of the Library entirely. But this bill is a compromise. It doesn't do that. It simply enhances the stature of the Copyright Office by making this a Presidentially appointed office for a 10-year term.

You talk about politicizing? Right now, President Trump could, if he wished, fire the Librarian tomorrow. The Librarian serves at his pleasure, and the Register of Copyrights serves at her pleasure. So the President totally controls the Librarian of Congress and the Register at any time.

This bill would say that the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, would appoint the Register who would have a 10-year term. That gives her or him more independence, obviously, and it enables them to undertake the proper modernization.

One of the problems we saw was that the modernization requirements of the Library of Congress are very different from the modernization requirements of the Copyright Office, and one seemed to take precedence over the other, which is not surprising when one is subject to the other and part of it.

So this bill would increase the stature of the Copyright Office. It would make it less political by giving the incumbent a 10-year tenure during good behavior. There are powerful interests who have an interest, and they would be one step further removed because of the 10- year tenure.

This is a bill that has broad bipartisan support. Almost every interest group that deals with the Copyright Office is in favor of this, from the authors to the directors, to the songwriters, to the motion picture people, you name it.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill, but I am opposed to the rule.

Mr. Speaker, this is a bill that should be opposed, and I agree with Mr. Polis that it is unfortunate it is being rushed because this may be one of the more significant votes we will take about our economy in this Congress.

I have heard a lot of rhetoric that this isn't about the Librarian. I am sorry, it is about the Librarian. Dr. Carla Hayden is probably the most qualified Librarian of Congress who has ever served. She has done more in the last 6 months to advance modernization in the Library and the Copyright Office than her predecessor did in the prior 2 decades. If we prevent her from appointing a new Register, that effort will be stalled, and I think that would be tragic.

It has been mentioned that somehow, by making this a political position, it would be more accountable. I beg to differ. Mr. Polis has mentioned the view of the Electronic Frontier Foundation that this would enhance special interests. What they have actually said, and I think it is very pertinent, is that the bill would allow powerful incumbent interests to use their lobbying power to control this increasingly politicized Office.

No President is going to select an appointee who will be shot down by the special interests. That is quite different than the Librarian who removed the prior Register because of, I believe, the inspector general's scathing report about the failure to computerize that office, essentially wasting $12 million, while misrepresenting that fact to the Librarian and to Congress.

The national library groups, including the national Copyright Alliance, the American Library Association, and the like, say this:

It's difficult to understand how the public or Congress

itself would benefit from politicization of the Register of

Copyrights' position by making it subject to Presidential

appointment and Senate confirmation as this legislation

proposes. Such politicization of the position necessarily

would result in a Register more actively engaged in policy

development than in competent management and modernization.

That is what we want out of a Register. We don't want a partisan for one side of the issue. We want somebody who can run, in an efficient way, the Copyright Office.

Now, a word about the amendment that has been bandied about as somehow giving Congress a greater say. I value the friendship of my colleague, Sheila Jackson Lee, who I have served with for so long, but I fear her amendment does not accomplish what she said because the President's power to appoint is limited only by Senate confirmation.

It is limited only by Senate confirmation. It cannot be limited by a list prepared by Congress.

I would just say, finally, that if there is a conflict of interest, as has been suggested, the Librarian cares only about the public interests. It is Donald Trump who has the 30 copyrights, and I don't think we should ask President Trump to take this position with that conflict of interest, something that all of us have been concerned about.