Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Jack Rountree, a veteran of the United States Army, a builder, and an all-around great American.

Jack has been a builder from a young age. He was born into a middle- class family who owned a thriving trucking business. The Great Depression was a difficult period for their household as it was for so many across our country. It was at that time that Jack completed his first construction project: an overhang for the shed so he would not have to milk cows in the rain. He was thirteen when he completed that project.

After graduating from High School Jack enlisted in the United States Army where he was assigned to the Army's Special Guard Military Police stationed at the Los Alamos Project in New Mexico. There he guarded the atomic bomb testing site at White Sands. There were a number of hazards associated with this position not least of which was regular exposure to dangerous radiation. Jack rose through the ranks quickly and was honorably discharged in 1948 as a sergeant.

Following his service Jack returned home to Oregon to tend to his sick mother. After training to become a diesel mechanic he quickly realized his true passion was building. He began his construction career in 1952. Over the years he has received numerous awards for his work including the 1988 Craftsmanship Award of the Southwestern Oregon Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Though he retired from his business Jack is still a builder at age 90 with the same spirit and drive he had as a teenager. Jack recently built a 28-foot-high prototype border wall on his property in Roseburg. His continued dedication to his craft and his country are commendable. I wish him all the best and trust the whole House will join me in thanking him for his service to our country.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow for morning-hour debate and 11 a.m. for legislative business.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 4463) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 6 Doyers Street in New York, New York, as the ``Mabel Lee Memorial Post Office'', and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (S. 2040) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 621 Kansas Avenue in Atchison, Kansas, as the ``Amelia Earhart Post Office Building'', and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3996) to amend title 28, United States Code, to permit other courts to transfer certain cases to United States Tax Court.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 3996, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, American taxpayers fighting the Internal Revenue Service deserve their day in court. Not every taxpayer who thinks the IRS is wrong is right, but not every time the IRS brings a case are they right.

The Tax Court is a unique creation of Congress. It is, in fact, an article 1 court specifically created and dedicated to tax issues.

The Tax Court has the expertise necessary to hear complex or, in some cases, simple tax cases. Any situation in which a taxpayer is unable to contest an IRS action, therefore, would be simply unacceptable.

Unfortunately, the problem today is that, due to an oversight in the Federal law, you can find yourself in a situation, by filing in good faith, not to be able to use a Tax Court. Unlike the IRS, not all taxpayers know about the requirement to file tax disputes in the Tax Court. Some taxpayers, in good faith, file in their local district court, which is wrong, and by the time it is discovered, their opportunity to file in Tax Court has expired.

Today, when a Federal Tax Court judge recognizes the improper venue, under current law he is prevented from simply transferring the case to Tax Court, where it rightfully belongs. By the time this happens, the taxpayer usually has lost their day in court since they only have a short time in which to ask for the Tax Court.

Because of this oversight in the Federal law, I, along with the ranking member of the full Judiciary Committee, introduced the Protecting Access to the Courts for Taxpayers Act. The legislation, quite simply, fixes this error that impacts dozens and dozens of Americans repeatedly every year. It is supported by advocates in the Judicial Conference and the Tax Courts.

It just makes sense, Mr. Speaker, that, in fact, getting your day in court should not be nullified by an actual petition to a court erroneously not recognized in time. In any other case in which you file in Federal court, if the court determines it is not an appropriate venue, the case is transferred. This is a lone exception.

I want to thank my colleague from Georgia for his support in this legislation and for his help in making sure it was drafted accurately.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am with my friend, and would like to associate all of my further comments with his. So, again, I urge support for this bipartisan legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 506) to amend title 18, United States Code, to provide an additional tool to prevent certain frauds against veterans, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 506, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Preventing Crimes Against Veterans Act of 2017 closes a small but significant loophole in Federal law and, in so doing, gives Federal prosecutors an additional mechanism to protect veterans from criminals who seek to defraud them.

In recent years, we have heard distressing and infuriating stories about particularly elderly veterans being swindled out of their veterans' benefits. Some of these veterans, including those in low- income housing, have been deceived by fraudsters who, in fact, have preyed on their age and infirmity.

Helping veterans in this case certainly should be a priority in this Congress.

This is particularly insidious in that, in some cases, the criminal will claim to get a veteran's benefits approved in record time, will charge outrageous fees to file, and, ultimately, will provide the veteran with little or no assistance. They will just pocket the money that rightfully belongs to the elderly veteran.

Mr. Speaker, this change in the law is critical. I want to thank Mr. Tom Rooney, the author of the bill. I want to urge that we consider it quickly, close this loophole, and provide prosecutors with the kind of ability to protect our aging veterans in a way that is currently not available.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Thomas J. Rooney), who is the author of the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, our Nation's veterans have sacrificed. They have given us so much. They have protected us.

In his second inaugural address, President Lincoln reminded us of our solemn duty ``to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.''

By doing this today, we keep that promise of so long ago: the promise to give back, as appropriate, and to protect that by giving back to the widows, the orphans, and the veterans themselves, because our values don't just say we write a check. We also protect to make sure that check gets to the true beneficiary. This enforcement will do just that.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to, on a bipartisan basis, which this bill has been from day one, support it and to move it to the Senate.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3249) to authorize the Project Safe Neighborhoods Grant Program, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3249, currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Comstock), the author of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from Texas is quite right. This bill's pay-for comes through consolidation of similar programs, and I think it is important to briefly go over that.

Working with the Attorney General's Office, the author, Mrs. Comstock, went to great lengths to find programs that are essentially doing much the same thing in which, by consolidating, you pick up efficiencies. I particularly note that item two in the bill, the pay- for, the Edward Byrne Memorial criminal justice innovation program, is but a small part of the overall so-called Byrne program.

Many of the things the gentlewoman from Texas cited are good and are not being consolidated but, rather, a small amount. This targeted approach with our limited funds allows those funds to go further; and particularly as we look at community outreach, these funds, by being consolidated, are part of a community outreach and will be used in similar ways to the programs that they are taking from, but taking from it, in this case, in a consolidated way.

So I want to thank a former staff member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the committee that deals with efficiency in government, for looking through the details of these appropriated funds and finding a way to bring them together to give both flexibility and efficiency that I believe this will adhere to. It is the reason that this is a bipartisan bill.

The reason that it is so widely accepted is that it has been narrowly targeted. And although I share with the gentlewoman from Texas, my friend from Houston, that in a perfect world we would be plussing-up funds, if we are not able to do that at this time, I would support and work with the gentlewoman any time to try to do something similar for some of the areas of her concern.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Mike Love, a founding member of The Beach Boys, one of the most popular rock groups in history. Love has spent an extraordinary fifty-five years and counting as the group's lead singer and one of its principal lyricists, with thirteen Gold albums, fifty-five Top 100 singles, and four number-one hits. He has received an Ella Award for his songwriting and, as a member of The Beach Boys, is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the California Hall of Fame, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and he has received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Beach Boys, from their California roots to their international fame, are a unique American story, one of overnight success, age- defying longevity, musical genius and spirituality. Mike Love is the only band member to be part of it each and every step of the way. It's an American story of how a sheet metal apprentice became the quintessential front man for one of America's most successful rock bands, singing in more than 5,600 concerts in twenty-six countries.

Love wrote the lyrics for pop classics such as ``Good Vibrations,'' ``California Girls,'' ``Surfin' USA,'' and ``Kokomo.'' Mike's partnership with his cousin Brian Wilson has few equals in American pop music, though Mike has carved out a legacy of his own. He co-wrote the lyrics to eleven of the twelve original Beach Boys songs that were Top 10 hits while providing the lead vocals on ten of them. The band's unprecedented durability also provides a glimpse into America's changing cultural mores over the past half century.

Mike's latest solo album, ``Unleash the Love,'' was released in November 2017 with his hope that ``if we all can unleash whatever love inside of us, we can collectively make this world better.'' His memoir, Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy, released in 2016 and is a New York Times bestseller.

A husband, a father, and an avid environmentalist, Love's life is as rich and layered as The Beach Boys' harmonies themselves. Love has been married to his wife, Jacquelyne Piesen, since 1994 and has eight children: Brian Love, Ambha Love, Michael Love, Jr., Melinda Love, Summer Love, Christian Love, Teresa Love and Hayleigh Love.

Madam Speaker, I come to the House floor today to speak about a husband, a father, an avid environmentalist with over 55 years' experience in just one profession. Madam Speaker, I come here to speak about and to honor the life of Mike Love, a founding member of The Beach Boys, one of the most popular music groups of all time, a group that has entertained us on The Mall of the Capitol more than any other band in history, a patriotic group that speaks in lyrics that are timeless.

Love has spent an extraordinary 55 years and counting as the group's lead singer and one of its principal lyricists, with 13 gold albums, 55 Top 100 hits, and 4 singles alone. He, himself, wrote the lyrics to the great pop classics ``Good Vibrations,'' ``California Girls,'' ``Surfin' USA,'' and ``Kokomo,'' for the father.

The Beach Boys, from their California roots, have, in fact, been a global ambassador for California and for America. But more importantly, at a time in which words are sometimes vulgar or unintelligible, that is never the case with The Beach Boys. They sing of the greatness of our country, of our lands, and particularly of California.

So, with the unprecedented success and continuation of this band under Mike Love's leadership, I ask that we honor him again as a father, a husband, an environmentalist, and, yes, a man who has given us the most beautiful, layered music of American modern history as it continues 55 years on.

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

At this time, I would like to include in the Record a number of exhibits:

Exhibit A, in which under oath we had testimony that said the Department of Justice did not want to be in the business of picking or choosing organizations that may or may not receive any funding under an agreement.

Yet, exhibit B, in which the number three at Department of Justice under President Obama said, ``Can you explain to Tony the best way to allocate money toward organizations of our choosing,'' in a $9 billion settlement.

And in exhibit C, in which they specifically said they had concerns, including not allowing Citibank to pick a statewide intermediary like Pacific Legal Foundation that does conservative causes.

exhibit a

Chairman GOODLATTE. Well, let me just add that this

committee will not stand silent, nor will, I am sure, the

Financial Service Committee, and you can expect that this

will escalate if you do not provide the documentation that we

requested over 2 months ago.

Secondly, did anyone at the Department of Justice ever

consider the serious appearance of impropriety in requiring

banks to make available to activist organizations the lion's

share of funding that Congress has previously cut off to

them? That is one of the reasons why we want to see the

communications. We want to know what considerations went into

making this decision to take this action.

Mr. GRABER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, understand the

concern. And I can tell you that one of the reasons that the

Department wanted to use a preexisting list, the one that I

believe you are referring to, the HUD approved counseling

agency list, is because that list is preexisting. The

Department did not want to be in the business of picking and

choosing which organization may or may not receive any

funding under the agreement.

Chairman GOODLATTE. No, but it is the Congress'

responsibility to appropriate funds, and the Congress'

responsibility to be picking and choosing who gets

appropriations for expenditures. And we want to know what

connection there is between the fact that cuts were made and

. . .

exhibit b

From: Taylor, Elizabeth G. (OAAG)

Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 10:58 AM

To (OLC); Seitz, Virginia A (OLC)

Cc: Martinez, Brian (OAAG); Graber, Geoffrey (OAAG) (OLC)

Subject: back again with questions

I'm sorry to be a pest. We keep tinkering with the

settlement agreement and I want to make sure that we are

doing it right. I also am not sure that I am a good messenger

between you and Tony because he asks me follow up questions

that I'm not sure I can answer. Do you have a few minutes

today to meet with Tony and let him ask you questions

directly?

Here are our current issues:

Can you explain to Tony the best way to allocate some money

toward an organization of our choosing? We have been

discussing having the agreement provide that JPM agreed to

pay $9 billion but that, if, by the time we sign the

settlement agreement, JPM has given $60 million to x

organization, they will only have to pay $8.04 billion. I

think that's ok. We understand that we would have no control

over what x organization does with the money.

Thanks

exhibit c part i

From: Frimpong, Maame Ewusi-Mensah (OAAG)

Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2014 1:07 PM

To: (A2J)

Subject: RE: new language

Thanks! We made the proposal. They had one question

whenever you have a moment.

From: (A2J)

Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2014 9:47 AM

To: Frimpong, Maame Ewusi Mensah (OAAG)

Subject: RE: new language

You go girl. The prospective settlement was on NPR this

morning, in case you didn't have your radio on . . .

Acting Senior Counselor for Access to Justice

U.S. Department of Justice

From: Frimpong, Maame Ewusi Mensah (OAAG)

Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2014 9:42 AM

To: (A2J)

Subject: RE: new language

Cool. I will keep you posted.

From (A2J)

Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2014 9:34 AM

To: Frimpong, Maame Ewusi Mensah (OAAG)

Cc (A2J)

Subject: RE: new language

Importance: High

Got it. Ok, this will hopefully address the concerns we'd

like to avert:

Donations to state-based Interest on Lawyers' Trust Account

(IOLTA) organizations (or other statewide bar-association

affiliated intermediaries) that provide funds to legal aid

organizations, to be used for foreclosure prevention legal

assistance and community redevelopment legal assistance.

Concerns include: a) not allowing Citi to pick a statewide

intermediary like the Pacific Legal Foundation (does

conservative property-rights free legal services) or a

statewide pro bono entity (will conflict out of most

meaningful foreclosure legal aid) we are more likely to get

the right result from a state bar association affiliated

entity; b) making

exhibit c part II

sure that it's legal assistance provided, not a scenario

where the bank can direct IOLTA or other intermediary to give

to even a legal aid organization but to do only housing

counseling, for example, under the umbrella ``foreclosure

prevention assistance.''

This get you closer?

Acting Senior Counselor for Access to Justice

U.S. Department of Justice

From: Frimpong, Maame Ewusi Mensah (OAAG)

Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2014 6:10 PM

To (A2J)

Subject: new language

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

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

If the minority has not gone through the discovery that we have, that we placed in the Record, I will be glad to give Mr. Cicilline or anyone else a copy.

I am just going to repeat, though, after receiving testimony that they didn't pick winners and losers, what we are marking as exhibit B and exhibit C make it clear they were, and specifically choosing, to exclude a ``conservative group.''

I think the important things here, though, Mr. Chairman, are if they want to have money in a settlement, such as the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, they certainly could, as long as it directly provides aid to the victims; which, of course, cleanup did. But when we look at these others, one of the great things is if they want to put it into a victim's fund as part of it, a government-controlled fund, they can if they want.

If the Department of Justice wants specific authority the way they do, for example, in water settlements, particularly related to Native American Tribes, they offer a deal, they put one together, and, Mr. Chairman, they come to Congress. This Congress, in the last Congress, settled multiple longstanding disputes with Tribes. What is interesting is they made sure the money went to those who had been harmed when they came to Congress and said: Please codify this agreement.

But in the many agreements that seems to go on in the Obama administration--and we now have the smoking gun of that--they made political decisions. Making political decisions is why you have to put this back in the light of day and with real congressional oversight.

What is amazing is, during the markup of this bill, there were a number of Members of the other party who specifically talked about not trusting the current occupant of the White House and the current Attorney General. It baffles me that they would not want to take back this authority knowing that the Department of Justice could bring to us a request for a bill that would authorize a specific settlement that could have outside groups or grant authority on a case-by-case basis.

The reality is the slush fund system has to stop. That is why Chairman Goodlatte's bringing this bill today was so critical.

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

It is majority. Yes, you have copies of it.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman asks for a colloquy.

Although I don't have them, I am sure they prove the same point: that the light of day, the cleanliness of sunlight, and congressional oversight and appropriation would have protected against the abuses the gentleman is probably describing.

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

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's points are good. I am afraid his conclusion may be the part I have to differ slightly with, Mr. Chairman.

The gentleman from Tennessee is right to note past and other indiscretions. That is why we have this bill before you today. In fact, it is why passage is so important.

We don't want to have anybody of either party--the current occupant of the White House is from my party, a Republican. The current Attorney General is from my party, a Republican and former Republican Senator. The fact is that now is the time not to necessarily disparage any past activity but to stop it.

We are not a body that is supposed to trust as much as we are a body to have some trust and to verify. When we find wrongdoing, it is our job to make sure it doesn't happen again. This bill, including the comments of the gentleman from Tennessee, seeks to do that. I am convinced that it is good for that reason, and it is even good for the example that Mr. Cohen suggests.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I would like to make sure I provide a little clarity. We are not talking about leftwing, rightwing, or other groups who get it. What we are talking about is a basic question of fungibility of money.

If something has been done wrong and a judge or the Department of Justice has X amount of determination of wrongdoing, the first question is: How much of that money can get to the victims? In a perfect world, the victims are made 100 percent whole. In a perfect world, 100 percent of the money passes from the perpetrator to the victim.

The Department of Justice making a decision not to a left- or rightwing group, but a political decision to give $1 million to the Coast Guard, to their charitable foundation, was a decision that clearly was not part of the mitigation but, rather, a general charitable decision. That was $1 million that did not go to the victim, did not go to the general Treasury, but it went to the whims of a bureaucrat.

We seek to make sure that, if that is an appropriate action, they come to Congress with that and not decide that charity begins with some unelected individual in the Department of Justice.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute in short response.

Mr. Chairman, sometimes the obvious is missed in the debate. The gentleman from Georgia talks about locking down power. Quite frankly, Republicans do have a majority in the House and a slim majority in the Senate, and the current occupant of the White House is from my party. So when we are trying to reduce potential misconduct by the executive branch, we are not doing it to take any money away.

As a matter of fact, this law would clearly cause more money to flow from the same amount of initial payment, more money to flow to the victims. So we are trying to flow more money to the victims. We are in no way reducing any aspect of settlements other than, if the current occupant of the White House, the President, and the Attorney General want to give to the charity of their choice, they can either do it with their own money or they can come to Congress for authority.

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

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to take a moment to agree with the gentleman from New Jersey. The idea that you can pay a fine to get out from underneath criminal prosecution is one that I would like to see either eclipsed to where it is almost invisible and rarely used or done away with altogether. I would certainly agree to join with the gentleman in finding further prohibitions to that practice.

It has been too often that a corporation able to pay large amounts of money not only escapes its actions, but, of course, it escapes the prosecution of key individuals who may, in some cases, be responsible for the loss of life and/or health.

So I want to join with the gentleman from New Jersey. That is not what this bill is about. It doesn't deal with it, nor does it fail to deal with it. It is not the subject of the bill.

I urge the gentleman, who does agree with a portion of what we have to say, to work with me. I will be happy to be his cosponsor on a piece of legislation to try to curtail that practice.

Today, we are trying to curtail a practice in which we have examples of both Republicans and Democrats in the Office of the Attorney General, their justice departments, from making settlements that seem to have political bias. And that is what we are here to stop.

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

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

The gentlewoman spoke quickly, and I know she had a lot of important information there. Some of it simply was wrong.

One of them is that she touched on environmental cleanup. Very clearly, nothing in this legislation would limit the cleanup related to the wrongdoing or the damage. Not so. A third party could be hired to do the cleanup.

Additionally, nothing stops a settlement from requiring a company to have counseling or other mitigation. It simply stops the Department of Justice from picking a charity of its choosing to go do it.

Now what I would really like the gentlewoman--who may not be on the floor any longer--to understand is that the Department of Justice has grant authority and does multiple grants every single month of the year to some of the very same groups under its authority that these settlements are going toward. Congress has allowed it a certain amount of money to provide grants for general harm.

Additionally, every year, Congress allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to some of the very same groups and efforts the gentlewoman knows that we are talking about.

So, although her speech was quick, the thing that she said that may have misled some people here in the Chamber I think needs to be corrected. Direct harm will be mitigated. It can be done by anyone. A company can agree and be forced under supervision to mitigate and to hire people to help in that effort.

Very clearly, many of the groups being talked about here today already receive money through the grant process or through direct appropriation by Congress. That is the right way to do it. It is the reason this is a bipartisan bill and this is an effort by our Congress to make sure that we hold the reins of authority where they should be under the Constitution.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I am putting this sign up not for the people in the Chamber, because people in the Chamber on the other side have continued to read the same talking points from their leadership that says there is no evidence.

This is in the record. This is a bigger part of it. So for the people in their offices who will come down to vote, if there is not a motion to recommit, they are not going to get an opportunity to see this.

So I hope that they will look just now and realize this is one of those things you don't normally get. As Chairman Goodlatte said, this is a smoking gun. This is a clear statement that an ideological bent against a nonprofit was very specifically there, while other emails in the same chain of emails shows that they were picking who they wanted.

That is the politics that was going on. It is the politics we are trying to prevent. As I said in my previous statement, the Department of Justice is given a number of dollars for grant programs, and we may not always agree with how those grant programs are run, but we give them that.

Additionally, the Congress appropriates a tremendous amount of money, much of it going to the same groups. A little over 1\1/2\ years ago, 2 years ago, this body came together on the reauthorization on Violence Against Women, which has and will continue to do very good work in exactly the area that people are talking about.

This is the reason we have legislation before us today. We have had political activity that has been going on, according to the Democrats, by Republican Attorneys General; according to this document, by the last Attorneys General. The fact is, we need the legislation. We have to have it.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, in closing, I don't believe there is any question at all but that the minority has missed the point. In no way, shape, or form are we changing. We intend to make sure the Department of Justice prosecutes wrongdoing, both criminal and civil.

The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) rightfully said we shouldn't have money paid in lieu of criminal prosecution; it should be both. I agree with him.

What we are dealing with here is a recognition that, under Republican and Democratic administrations, we have had mandatory donations that, in fact, went to charities, if you will, or organizations of the choice of those political entities. The fact is what we are doing is reining in--reining in--wrongdoing that is actual and has been observed, nothing more.

One of the challenges we face every day and one of the reasons I am imploring both sides to come together on this vote, one of the challenges we face is how much of our obligation we have ceded to the executive branch, often then only to be horrified when, behind closed doors, unelected, unaccountable people make decisions that would never be made on the House floor or the Senate floor, and this is one of them.

We are scrutinized when we pick nonprofits to provide funding to on the left, on the right, or, if there is such a thing left in America, in the middle. We are scrutinized. But when we scrutinize the Department of Justice's action, according to my colleagues, under Republicans, there has been clear wrongdoing. According to the documents that we put in the Record today and showed on the floor, in the last administration, there was clear partisan politics.

We are simply saying, if they want to make that kind of a settlement, bring it to Congress; otherwise, it is very clear that they must--and I repeat, must--stop the action of taking money that would otherwise go to the victims and moving it to nondescript third parties of their choosing, no matter how benevolent they might be, including the Coast Guard Foundation. It can't continue to happen. We have to have the money that is in settlements flow to the victims or flow to the Treasury.

Mr. Chairman, I urge passage of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4010) to amend the Revised Statutes of the United States and title 28, United States Code, to enhance compliance with requests for information pursuant to legislative power under Article I of the Constitution, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4010, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill comes to you, having been unanimously voted on a recorded vote out of committee, but it has been a long time in coming and it has a long history of its need. Both under Chairman Conyers, during the last years of the Bush administration, and under my chairmanship on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, we discovered a flaw in Congress' subpoena power.

Congress has, and has always had, and has been supported all the way by the Supreme Court, the need to do oversight. With that, we issued subpoenas. The enforcement of those subpoenas has come into conflict over the last several years, both during Mr. Conyers' chairmanship when he subpoenaed Harriet Miers to appear, and during my time when I subpoenaed records by the Department of Justice. In both cases, the administrations decided that it was appropriate to question the standing and to delay.

Those delays were unfair to the body and unfair to the American people because it denied them in any reasonable period of time the effect of factfinding. This is not a partisan issue. It is, in fact, an issue that has already been decided for the American people. Under the Freedom of Information Act, if you do not receive documents within a reasonable period of time, you have the right to go to court. You have standing as a private citizen or an interest group, and the court will decide what documents are appropriate for you to receive.

Yet this very question that was not once, but twice, defended by two different administrations of two different parties calls into question the ability in a timely fashion for Congress, the House or the Senate, to receive the information or the appearance of a witness it needs. We do not seek any new power under this legislation. We only seek an expeditious review by a Federal judge of a claim, either for the appearance of an individual or for documents appropriate to our oversight.

For that reason, I am pleased that both Republicans and Democrats within the committee saw fit to unanimously support this legislation. We believe that it is measured and it is also time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to further echo the gentleman from New York's comments. Mr. Nadler is right. We will often, almost unanimously, find a way to disagree on what to look into at various times as a body. But whether it is a Democratic chairman or Republican chairman looking into something, whether it is a Republican administration or a Democratic administration, it is clear that we must, in fact, if a subpoena is issued, be able to enforce it in a timely fashion.

Under this legislation, it has a number of safeguards, but the most important one is the three-judge panel that will review these, followed by an expedited process at the U.S. Supreme Court.

I might note, the interesting history of the two cases Mr. Nadler and I are talking about is one in which a Democratic chairman enforced a subpoena, but had to go to a recently appointed Republican judge, who, in a fairly reasonable period of time, reached the conclusion that: one, the committee had standing, and the House had standing and; two, that it was really without merit for the administration--then the Bush administration--to claim this immunity, this newfound immunity.

Similarly, in a slightly longer period of time, but coincidentally, a Republican chairman went before a freshly minted appointee of the very President who was refusing to comply, and she reached the decision that the documents were unfairly withheld and ordered them released.

So I think the interesting thing to all of us is the independence of the judiciary has worked not once but twice. We only want to codify it in a way that would cause the judiciary to have that opportunity in a timely fashion, and for the people's right to know to be recognized in that same expeditious fashion.

As Mr. Nadler said, the Senate has, for a long time, had a portion of what we are doing here today. It is an oddity that two coequals have not had the same ability during those many years since the late 1970s.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I, too, urge the House to pass this bill, move it to the Senate in a timely fashion, and create an equal standing between the House and the Senate as to enforcement of its subpoenas.

I join with my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Swalwell), in the frustration that individuals often feel that they have privileges in a vague sense that are not to be asserted, but simply not to occur.

In the last administration, we have even had individuals claim that they basically lied as little as they needed to, to protect some question of a classified nature. These kinds of claims, in addition to the law enforcement sensitive, confidential, and other security clearance claims, which are not codified in statute, yet often are the reason for delay or outright refusal to deliver documents, flies in the face of the ability--sometimes behind closed doors, sometimes in public--for Congress' ability to conduct oversight. I look forward to this legislation becoming law, and I think I will close with just one more item.

Mr. Nadler and I have served together as chairman and ranking member for a number of years. We share something which is the many years that we have been here in Congress, we have seen the frustration of both parties trying to do their job against another branch that often takes advantage of the natural rivalry between two different parties.

This legislation is designed to reduce that, to reduce the ability for the executive branch or other outside groups to, if you will, take advantage of the natural division between the two of us. After so many years of being here, the one thing I have learned is that to diminish the House's and the Senate's ability to represent the American people is to diminish our Republic.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to Breast Cancer including one of the rarest, but most lethal forms, Inflammatory Breast Cancer, or IBC.

One in eight women in the United States are diagnosed with Breast Cancer every year, and too many women die because of late diagnosis. Any opportunity to raise awareness is an opportunity to save lives.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Although IBC is not the most common form of breast cancer, it is one of the most aggressive. It is critical that we recognize the severity of IBC and the importance of education and prevention efforts.

IBC is not commonly known as it accounts for only 1 to 5 percent of all breast cancer cases. However, it is one of the most aggressive and deadliest forms of the disease. This form of cancer does not display the early symptoms ordinarily looked for by medical professionals. Since it is one of the rarest forms of Breast Cancer, many nursing and medical programs do not train students on IBC screening, leading to misdiagnosis and increased fatalities. The patients who start to show symptoms of this disease tend to be correctly diagnosed at stage 3, leaving little to no time to seek treatment.

The courage of women battling Breast Cancer and IBC should not go unnoticed and they deserve our continued support for continued research efforts to seek for prevention and treatment for this deadly disease.

Mr. Speaker, no one has ever had a better partner on a piece of

legislation than I have had. The best way I can describe Mr. Connolly is, like anyone else who came to a realization of something, he came to it with a great deal of zeal. This partnership, which began before the passage in 2014, to modernize a 1996 initiative that had fallen short, has been his passion and mine.

Normally, when you are chairman, people talk about what divides the committee. But nothing united us more than recognizing that over $80 billion was being spent--and much of it needlessly. We don't achieve what we want to because there is never enough. Part of it is how we procure.

Prior to the passage of this legislation, it certainly was possible to have major pieces of procurement have somebody in charge who could not, in fact, change or drop the expenditure and who could not simply say: This isn't working. On top of that, often the people who did have the authority lacked the expertise. This has been true in all sorts of areas. There is much more work to be done.

Unlike Clinger-Cohen, which went on for 18 years before being updated, we were just 3 years past the implementation of this bill. With Congressman Connolly's effort, we are coming back and making real changes--ones that can continue the process and speed it up.

Obviously, there are some areas like the IT dashboard and others that simply need to be continued to be renewed. This bill does it.

When I first talked to Mr. Connolly, he was the best known for absolutely wanting to consolidate processing centers; consolidate these server farms that had proliferated. The number he had at the time turned out to be, although exorbitant, less than a quarter of the number we found. So there is more work to be done.

Procurement has to be done smart and is often consolidated. With the help of my colleague and Senator Warner, the passage of the DATA Act allowed us to find, with greater detail, redundancy of expenditure.

So as we reauthorize FITARA, we also have the information to consolidate purchasing across vast numbers of agencies, eliminate redundancy, and, in fact, buy better. More needs to be done.

As Mr. Connolly said so accurately, more money is spent on legacy systems than is spent on new systems that will actually save money and provide better services both to government workers and to the public.

So as we reauthorize the bill, I look forward to the oversight that the Oversight Committee has done and is able to do, and I look forward to continuing to work with my partner from Virginia, Mr. Connolly.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3229) to protect the safety of judges by extending the authority of the Judicial Conference to redact sensitive information contained in their financial disclosure reports, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3229, currently under consideration.

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

As chairman of the Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Subcommittee, I recognize the importance of judicial security needs.

Federal judges hear cases involving hardened criminals on a regular basis. Although not everyone threatens a Federal judge and not everyone is a gang member, many are. Federal judges and their families should not be at risk for simply doing their jobs.

Congress provides funding for a variety of judicial security needs by building secure court houses, staffing metal detectors at entrances, and so on, but there is a simple way to address security needs without extending taxpayer dollars. One method is to redact specific information from judicial financial disclosure reports done by the judges and other key employees. If they are to be targeted, we cannot have a judge's home address or other information that allows tracking by a criminal to, in fact, be a source of their demise.

The redaction authority has been in place since Congress began, in 1998, to allow for this, and it has been extended and expanded, in a number of cases, to include family members. The redaction process requires input and agreement from the U.S. Marshals Service.

The legislation that my colleague from New York (Mr. Jeffries) and I introduced would extend the redaction authority for an additional 10 years, until December 31, 2027. There is no financial impact from this, and it serves to put judges and their families in a position they have historically been in since 1998: less at risk by this information being disclosed.

I not only urge the House to support this legislation, but after careful consideration and research, we find that this authority has not been abused, it has been properly used, and the Federal judges have earned the absolute right to this limited redaction.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I, too, would close by urging my colleagues to support this well-thought-out, well authored, and in regular hearings by the committee, universally accepted as necessary and reasonable for a 10-year extension.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, today, the House of Representatives rightfully took action to respond to the impact of Hurricane Harvey, by approving disaster relief through a supplemental appropriations resolution. Unfortunately, I was unable to be present during the earlier vote. Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of H. Res. 502. I am pleased to see the measure passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support and look forward to the Senate taking similar action to bring much-needed aid to the victims that continue to face the devastating effects of this momentous storm.