Floor Statements

Article III, section 1:

``The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.''

Mr. Speaker, I remained in New York yesterday to attend the funeral of former Governor Mario Cuomo. Had I been present, I would have voted for The Honorable Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this bill authorizes training and equipping Syrians and Iraqis to fight ISIS, authorizes $63 billion for warfighting, and it does all this without a debate or a vote by Congress to authorize the use of military force in this conflict; instead, we are still relying on the obsolete 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.

This is an evasion of Congress' solemn constitutional responsibility to the American people to decide on the question of war and peace and not to leave that to the President alone.

We were told that we would debate these issues after the election. Now, once again, we sidestep these questions. In the meantime, the President has begun a bombing campaign of Syria. I don't recall this Congress ever authorizing a bombing campaign in Syria.

Again, these are questions for Congress, and we must assert our constitutional power to authorize or reject the use of force in Syria after a real debate. I, therefore, cannot acquiesce by voting for these funds.

In addition, this bill continues the shameful prohibition on closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay or transferring its inmates to prisons in the United States. It is beyond shameful that we are holding prisoners, some of whom are alleged terrorists, for 13 years so far, without any charges or trial or prospect of trial. This violates every principle of human rights and

every principle of American liberty. These prisoners should be charged and tried and convicted or else released. The bill prohibits this elementary justice.

I am astonished, frankly, that I would hear on the floor of the United States Congress, as I did last time we discussed this, someone say that these people might be acquitted if they were tried; therefore, they should be held in jail forever because maybe the evidence doesn't exist that they are, in fact, terrorists, and because someone in the government--in the all-powerful, all-mighty, all-knowing bureaucracy-- says that an individual is a terrorist, that person must be held in jail indefinitely because, after all, we don't have the proof. That is not America.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the President is not changing the law, he is exercising Presidential prosecutorial choice. The very fact that only 400,000 people a year can be deported when there are admittedly 11 million undocumented people in this country says you have to make choices.

I didn't see anyone on that side of the aisle demand that President Bush--or President Obama, for that matter--deport all 11 million people and propose the appropriation to enable that to be done. Failing that, there must be choices. The President must choose.

I will not repeat all of the legal arguments that we have heard over the last hour that the President has it well within his power to make these choices. Discretion happens--400,000 against 11 million-- discretion happens.

Making that discretion systematic and sensible, prioritizing it, doesn't change the law. The Republicans admit the law is broken, but they haven't brought any bills to this floor in 4 years, and they have ignored the bipartisan Senate bill, so the President must act and that he acts within his power is good.

Finally, I must comment on the remarks of Mr. Barletta who says--and I have heard other people say it--that the undocumented aliens--or the documented aliens, for that matter--pose a threat to American jobs.

The fact is they do jobs that other people don't want, and more to the point, what poses a threat to American living standards is the fact that they can't enforce standards. The fact that an undocumented alien can't complain to an enforcement agency when he is paid below minimum wage or when he is exploited, that reduces wage levels for everyone.

If you want to help wage levels for American workers, let the undocumented people who are here and who are going to stay here, let them come out of the shadows, pass a comprehensive bill, let them work legally, and enforce the minimum wage law. It will benefit all American workers.

Mr. Speaker, I had to return to New York to attend a funeral, and as a result, I missed three votes on November 20, 2014. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on roll call vote no. 529, ageeing to the amendment offered by Mr. Waxman, ``aye'' on roll call vote no. 530, the motion to recommit, and ``no'' on roll call vote no. 531, final passage of HR 4795, the ``Promoting New Manufacturing Act.''

Mr. Speaker, with the unanimous passage today of H. Res. 707, we send a clear, strong, and bipartisan message condemning the rising tide of anti-Semitism around the world.

In 2014 alone, we have seen an increasing number of murders at Jewish sites, of violent attacks, and death threats against Jews. There has been a disturbing increase of anti-Semitism throughout Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, including in Hungary, Turkey, Greece, Britain, France, and Germany.

We must ensure that the world views such actions for what they are-- the vile and hate-fueled persecution of an entire people--rather than an acceptable expression of frustration with political events in the Middle East or anywhere else.

Tragically, 70 years after 6 million Jewish men, women, and children were murdered simply for being Jews, many Jews in Europe again face violent anti-Semitism and must live in constant fear.

Anti-Semitic imagery and comparisons of Jews and Israel to Nazis have been on display at demonstrations against Israel throughout the United States and the world. Make no mistake, this is a new face on a very old hatred. Disagreeing with Israeli policy is no excuse for anti-Semitism.

I want to thank my colleagues, but I want to thank especially Peter Roskam, Nita Lowey, and Kay Granger for leading this effort with me; and I want to thank Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Kevin McCarthy, Ed Royce, and Eliot Engel who helped bring this important bipartisan piece of legislation to the floor.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know the scourge of violent Islamic terrorism all too well. I represent the World Trade Center area in New York that was attacked on September 11, 2001. So I agree with the President that we must work together to combat ISIL.

Today, however, ISIL cannot project military power beyond the Middle East. ISIL is a direct military threat to our allies and to our interests in the Middle East. Perhaps we should help bolster the defenses of our allies, such as Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates.

The current threat to the United States is from Europeans and Americans who may train with ISIL in the Middle East and then return to the United States to do us harm. This threat cannot be fought by military means in Iraq and Syria but by counterintelligence, appropriate surveillance, and border control here and abroad.

When it comes to ISIL operations in the Middle East, those very same operations that threaten our allies, we must ask why we do not see these threatened countries offering troops on the ground. Why are we more interested in their defense than they are?

These are some of the questions we in Congress should debate before we vote to go to war. Make no mistake; the offensive campaign of air attacks against ISIL that President Obama recently announced clearly constitutes a war within the meaning of the Constitution.

The Constitution very deliberately places the decision to go to war with the American people acting through Congress, not with the President. The decision to go to war against ISIL and to expand our efforts into countries like Syria requires congressional authorization.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 cannot be relied upon for congressional authority for acts of war in circumstances completely unforeseen then against an enemy that did not exist then. Identification of ISIL with al Qaeda with the planning of the attacks on September 11, 2001, is specious. The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 was, similarly, not about ISIL.

Congress must assert its constitutional power to authorize or reject the use of force in Iraq and Syria. We are not being asked today to authorize a new conflict with ISIL, even if that is implied by our vote today, and therein lies the danger. This vote without a vote on the wider Authorization for Use of Military Force will be taken by the public, the media, and perhaps even the courts as a de facto authorization of military force in Syria. This would undermine our ability to seriously debate the very real questions before us.

How deadly is the threat we are facing, and what is the best way to eliminate that threat?

What will happen when American fliers are shot down over Syria and perhaps beheaded on television by ISIL? Will the demand for revenge be overwhelming?

Just how steep is the slippery slope we are embarking upon?

How long will the conflict last?

Is there an exit strategy?

What does victory look like?

How much will it cost?

How many U.S. lives will be lost?

Whom will we be arming in Syria?

Do they share our long-term interests?

What are the odds those arms will be turned against us or allies?

It is precisely these types of questions that should be asked when Congress debates the Authorization for Use of Military Force. Until we have that debate in Congress and answer these questions and make a decision on an AUMF, we should not step foot on the slippery slope to another long war. Approving this amendment would be a big step onto that slippery slope, and so I must vote ``no.''

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, 13 years ago, Osama bin Laden orchestrated the deadliest terrorist attack in American history, killing almost 3,000 people immediately and wounding thousands more. The attacks also created an environmental nightmare. Hundreds of tons of contaminants poured onto the streets and canyons of Manhattan and Brooklyn and other areas, northern New Jersey, covering responders and survivors in toxic dust.

In the days following the attack, the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States Government, contrary to ample evidence, insisted that the air in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn was safe to breathe. Thousands of responders remained on the site for search, rescue, and cleanup efforts; and thousands of survivors returned to their homes, but the air was not safe to breathe. The EPA was not telling the truth.

Now, I don't get angry at the government for the first few days, maybe even a week or two, encouraging people to help with the rescue operation when we still thought it might be a rescue operation, but after that 2 weeks, when people were working at the site for weeks and months without proper respiratory protection because the Federal Government was telling them that no protection was necessary because the air was safe to breathe, that was no longer a rescue operation. It was a cleanup operation. There was no one alive to be saved at that point, and people whose lives and health were put in danger at that point were put in danger in vain because the air was not safe to breathe, despite the assurances of the EPA.

Today, more than 30,000 first responders and survivors are sick and in need of special care because of that. It was for those tens of thousands of brave, selfless, and innocent responders and survivors that Congress came together in 2010, after many years of struggle and negotiation, to pass the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act in order to fulfill a moral obligation to, as Lincoln said, ``care for him who shall have borne the battle.''

Today, the programs are working. Residents of all 50 States and 431 of the 435 congressional districts receive health care through the 9/11 health program. More than 7,800 individuals have been found eligible for compensation from the victim compensation fund. More than $490 million has so far been awarded, and new applications are processed every day.

But the Federal Government's duty to support those who have become ill in the aftermath of 9/11 and those whose illnesses have yet to manifest themselves--because we know that many of the illnesses and many of the cancers take years to show themselves, that duty is not done, even as the programs we authorized in 2010 are set to expire.

We must continue to provide health care coverage to the tens of thousands currently enrolled in the 9/11 health program and ensure that no eligible individuals are denied access to the victims compensation fund. Our obligation will carry us far into the future.

Thousands of individuals exposed to the toxic air on 9/11 and in the weeks and days following that--even those who are healthy today we know will face major health issues in the years to come, as latent cancers and other illnesses emerge. For that reason, I am proud to work with Representatives Maloney and King and Senators Gillibrand and Schumer to try to reauthorize these critical programs.

I urge all of our colleagues to work with us in support of a reauthorization and to move this bill through Congress and onto the President's desk as soon as possible.

Just as we stood together, as a Nation, in the days following September 11, 2001, just as we stood strong together in 2010 to create these vital programs, we must join forces again to ensure that the heroes of 9/11 are not abandoned when they need us most. We must pass a new reauthorization to sustain these programs. We must protect the heroes and survivors of 9/11.

There are really two separate moral imperatives here that we must meet. The first is that we must show that the United States takes care of its own. We take care of those who fall in our battles, who are wounded in our struggles. And the attack on 9/11 was not an attack on New York City. It was not an attack on the World Trade Center. It was not against the Port Authority of New York. It was an attack on America, an attack on the United States. The particular victims happened to be located in New York. And we must show that we do not leave people behind on the battlefield, that we take care of those who are wounded on our behalf.

The second moral imperative is that much of the injuries that continue to be felt, much of the illnesses with which people suffer, much of the illnesses which we don't know about but which people will suffer from in the years to come are the direct fault of the Federal Government because of its assurances, contrary to known facts at the time, that the air was safe to breathe, that people should go back to work, stay working on the pile, and go back to school. We knew better. Many of us said, don't believe the EPA. Don't go back to work. Don't go back to school. This is poison. And it was clear.

And at first, when the EPA was saying this, there was no data to support their safety assurances, and they kept saying it when there was plenty of data to say that the air was not safe to breathe. So because of the false assurances by the Federal Government, many thousands of people relying on those assurances worked without the proper respiratory protection to clean up the site, worked in the area, and helped revive the economy at the expense of their health. And we must, to the extent possible, make them whole today. That is a second moral imperative.

And finally, it must never be said that the United States remembers its heroes and honors its wounded for 13 years and then forgets about them. It has been 13 years. In 2 years, the 9/11 health bill will expire. Let it not be said that we remember for 13 years and take care of people for 15, and that is it. That would be a heck of an epitaph on a moral country.

As we are involved in a war--which it is, unfortunately--against many terrorists across the world, and the President is going to address us on some aspects of that tonight, let us not abandon those who fell, who gave up their health, who continue to suffer on our behalf. It would be wrong. It would be immoral. It would not be worthy of the United States. This is a great and moral Nation. This Congress must show it by reauthorizing the 9/11 bill in a timely fashion.

It is one of the things we must do in response to 9/11. There are many other things we must do, many other things that we have done. But taking care of our own wounded is one of them and one of the attributes of a civilized today.

Mr. Speaker, the Speaker does not have a good record when it comes to wasting taxpayer dollars on frivolous lawsuits. When the Justice Department concluded that the Defense of Marriage Act could not be defended in court, the House wasted $2.3 million trying to defend the indefensible and lost in the Supreme Court.

Now, the Speaker wants to waste more of the taxpayers' money on a meritless lawsuit against the President for not ``taking care that the law be faithfully executed.''

What did the President do? In implementing the Affordable Care Act, which the Republican-led House has voted to repeal 50 times, he postponed implementation of one provision by a year, a provision the Republicans and the House opposed.

Now, they want to waste money to go to court to say the President had no power to postpone this provision for a year, although no one opposed President Bush when he postponed implementation of a provision of the Medicare drug act for a year.

It is well-settled that it is within the discretion of Presidents in implementing a law to postpone implementation of part of it in order to get it done right, but this leads to another absurdity of the case. Let's assume the Republicans get the House to go into court and somehow overcome the standing question--which they will not. What is the remedy they will seek?

By the time it got to court, the provision in question will have already been implemented, so the Republicans want to waste $5 million or $6 million in taxpayers' money to go into court and say, Judge, please order the President to implement what he has already implemented. Totally ridiculous.

So what have we got? We have a Congress that has passed no highway bill, no minimum wage bill, no unemployment extension bill, no pay equity for women bill, no action on campaign finance reform, no action to reduce the burdens of student loans, no action to make sure that women continue to have access to contraceptive services despite the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, no action on all the emergencies that face the American people, but we are going to waste money and time on a meritless lawsuit that will go nowhere, but will simply serve the single function of diverting attention from all the real problems the House Republicans want to continue to ignore.

This is not a proper use of the taxpayers' money. More wasted money for political purposes. For shame.

Mr. Speaker, 6 years ago, President Obama and the Democratic Congress took office. When they took office in January of 2009, the economy was in free fall, and we were losing 800,000 jobs a month--losing 800,000 jobs a month, but the Congress went to work, and under the guidance of President Obama, we passed the American Recovery Act, we saved the American automobile industry, and within 14 months, we were gaining 250,000 jobs a month. We turned around over 1 million jobs a month, from losing 800,000 to gaining 250,000 in 14 months.

The President knew that that wasn't sufficient to continue the progress, so he proposed the American Jobs Act, and he proposed a major investment in American infrastructure. But the newly-elected Republican Congress--the obstructionist Republican Congress--stopped the American Jobs Act, wouldn't pass the infrastructure bill, and stopped every job initiative the President and Democrats proposed, and we have had a slow recovery from that recession.

We are gaining about 200,000 to 250,000 jobs a month. It is up a little, and that is good, but our economy is about $2 trillion below its productive capacity, below what it should be because every proposal from the President has been stopped by the Republican Congress, which shouldn't have time for it, but they had time for other things.

We had plenty of time to take 50 votes on repealing the Affordable Care Act at a cost to the taxpayers of about $79 million to repeat that vote 50 times. We had time for the Republicans to shut down the government. That cost the economy about $24 billion.

We had time when the administration knew that the Defense of Marriage Act could not be defended in court, the House of Representatives wasted $3.5 million trying to defend the indefensible in court and lost in front of the Supreme Court. We have had, in that time, no minimum wage increase, no extended unemployment insurance, and no pay equity for women because it costs too much money. This House has passed $850 billion in unpaid-for tax loopholes for large corporations--unpaid for.

Now, they want to waste more money. The Speaker wants to waste more money on a meritless lawsuit against the President for not taking care that the law be faithfully executed.

What did he do? In implementing the Affordable Care Act--which the Republicans have tried to repeal 50 times--he postponed implementation of one provision by a year--a provision the Republicans opposed, so they now want to waste money to go into court and sue the President to say he had no power to postpone this for a year, even though no one opposed President Bush when he postponed for a year a provision of the Medicare drug act when he was President.

It is well within the discretion of Presidents, in implementing a law, to postpone parts of it in order to get it done right. That has been very clear, and it becomes another question. Let's assume the Republicans went into court and overturned the standing question that Mr. Butterfield talked about--which they will not--what is the remedy they seek?

By the time it got to court, that provision will have been implemented, so the Republicans want to waste $5 million or $6 million of taxpayers' money to go into court and say, Judge, order the President to implement what has been already implemented--totally ridiculous.

So what have we got? We have got a Congress with no highway bill, no minimum wage bill, no unemployment extension bill, no pay equity for women bill, no action on campaign finance reform, no action to reduce the burdens of student loans, no action to make sure that women continue to have access to contraceptive services--despite the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decisions--no action on all the emergencies that face the American people, but we are going to waste money on a meritless lawsuit that will go nowhere, but simply will serve the single function of diverting attention from all the real problems the House Republicans want to continue to ignore.

That is not a proper use of the taxpayers' money, more wasted money for political purposes--for shame.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4572, the STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014, as amended, which renews for another 5 years the statutory license that allows satellite providers to retransmit distance signals into a local broadcast area in certain circumstances.

The satellite distant-into-local license contained in section 119 of the Copyright Act is set to expire on December 31 of this year. Among other things, that license allows satellite carriers to provide an out- of-market station to customers who are not served by local television broadcasts.

Enacted in 1988 when the satellite industry was in its infancy, the section 119 license was intended to foster competition with the cable industry and also to increase service to unserved households, those subscribers who cannot receive an over-the-air signal of a local network. In 2010, as was the case on three prior occasions, Congress extended the section 119 license for another 5 years.

In granting cable and satellite providers the statutory right to retransmit copyrighted content at a government-regulated rate, Congress created an exception to the general rule that creators have exclusive rights to their works, including the right to determine when and how to distribute them.

This licensing system replaces the free market, something that we are generally reluctant to do. When we did so for cable and satellite providers, these industries were just starting up and the licenses were intended to encourage growth, foster competition, and enhance consumer access.

On these fronts, the system has been a tremendous success. It is estimated that nearly 90 percent of American households now subscribe to a pay-TV service provided by multichannel video programming distributors, in most cases, cable or satellite operators. Nearly all households have a choice of at least three different providers.

Nonetheless, the dramatic recent changes in marketplace dynamics, as well as technological advantages that revolutionize ways of distributing video content, raise legitimate questions about whether the statutory licensing system in the Copyright Act is still needed or should be changed.

I support this 5-year reauthorization of the section 119 distant- into-local satellite license. We still need answers as to how many households would actually lose one or more of the four major network channels if section 119 were not renewed. I, nonetheless, support this 5-year reauthorization because it will ensure that consumers who are receiving service by virtue of the section 119 license retain that service when the agreements providing for that service expire at the end of the year.

I hope we use the time afforded by this renewal to make the modifications to see if we have to keep the statutory license and keep away from the free market or modify the statutory license in the future. For the time being, we ought to extend it and renew this license now.

I, therefore, urge my colleagues to join me in voting for H.R. 4572.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question in order to bring the Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act to the floor.

In 1993, I was a leader in passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA. If you had told me then that RFRA would one day be used to allow employers to dictate to employees what preventive health care they can or cannot use, if you had told me then that I would stand on the House floor in 2014 fighting to ensure that women have the ability to make their own most basic health care decisions regardless of their boss' religious beliefs, I would never have believed it.

We wrote that bill to be a shield to protect an individual's personal exercise of religious beliefs, not a sword to enable employers to impose their religious beliefs on their employees.

No matter how sincerely held a religious belief might be, for-profit employers, like Hobby Lobby or Conestoga Wood, must not be allowed to impose their beliefs or that belief on their employees as a means of denying their employees access to critical preventive health care services.

I was proud to work with the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette) and the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) to introduce this simple legislation to ensure that, notwithstanding the Supreme Court's mangling of RFRA, employers cannot deny their employees access to federally mandated health services.

Every woman must have the right to follow her own beliefs and guidance when making health care choices. This bill simply guarantees that the boss' beliefs cannot supersede that right.

I was disappointed to see that none of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted earlier this week to bring this bill to the floor. I urge them to stand with us today or else, when they go home this weekend, to tell the men and women of their districts that their health care decisions are now going to be made for them by their bosses, regardless of their own choices, regardless of their own religious beliefs or the doctor's recommendations; and tell them that you believe that their boss' religious beliefs must be imposed on them, notwithstanding their own religious beliefs, which don't count; and tell them you did nothing to stop this.

This country will not stand for that. We have fought for too long to preserve the right of all Americans to make their own health care choices and, I must add, to make their own religious decisions to refuse to act now.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question, allow this bill to come to the floor, and send a strong message that health care choices are not your boss' business and that your religious beliefs trump your boss' religious beliefs.

Your boss has a right to his beliefs. You have a right to your beliefs. Government must not allow him to impose his beliefs on you.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cotton says that by this amendment, Congress recognizes the danger presented by these detainees. But legislative bodies have no right to make such judgments about individuals. Ever since Magna Carta, we have denied the government the power to imprison or punish people on mere accusations. Just because the government or Congress labels someone a terrorist doesn't make him one. The government must be required to prove the accusation in court. That has always been a bedrock American principle until we opened Guantanamo. Now we imprison people indefinitely without trial. By what claim of right do we do this?

How can we be sure we are punishing actual terrorists and not innocent people when we hold no trials? Guantanamo should be closed and its inmates either tried or released. It is beyond time to close Guantanamo to end this shame on American justice.

Madam Chair, we are holding 154 people at Guantanamo, 77 of whom have been cleared for release. That is to say they have been found guilty of nothing, are thought to be guilty of nothing, and have been judged not to pose any danger, but nonetheless, they are not released.

There is no reason and no right for us to hold them further. The others should be brought to the United States and tried in a secure facility, tried for their offenses.

Madam Chair, I wonder which of our colleagues doesn't believe in the American system of justice. I wonder which of us does not trust our own American courts. I wonder who among us does not believe in the Bill of Rights, who does not believe in the right to counsel or that people should have an opportunity to have their guilt or innocence established in court.

What we have at Guantanamo is a system that is an affront to those beliefs and to the United States. In the last decade, we have begun to let go of our freedoms bit by bit, with each new executive order, each new court decision, and each new act of Congress.

We have begun giving away our right to privacy, our right to our day in court when the government harms us, and with this legislation, we are continuing down the path of destroying the right to be free from imprisonment without due process of law.

The language in this bill, without this amendment, prohibits moving any detainees into the United States or releasing any at all and guarantees that we will continue holding people indefinitely, people who may not be terrorists, who may not be enemy combatants, some of whom we may suspect to be terrorists, none of whom have been proven to be terrorists, none of whom have had a day in court.

We will continue to hold them indefinitely without charge, contrary to every tradition this country stands for, contrary to any notion of due process.

Mr. Cotton says that this Congress has judged that these people are dangerous people. This Congress has no right, under the Constitution, to make such a judgment. That is called the bill of attainder and is specifically prohibited.

People to be found guilty must be found guilty in a court, not by a legislative body. Because of this momentous challenge to the founding principles of the United States that no person may be deprived of liberty without due process of law and certainly may not be deprived of liberty indefinitely without due process of law, we must close the detention facility at Guantanamo now, in order to restore our national honor.

This will afford the detainees no additional constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has already ruled that detainees at Guantanamo have the same constitutional rights at Guantanamo as they would if they were brought here.

They should be brought here. They should be tried in a Federal court,

where they can be convicted if guilty and acquitted if innocent and not wait for years for military tribunals which have succeeded in convicting nobody at trial at all.

We must restore the honor of the United States and eliminate this exception to our traditions and to our rule of law and to our rule of justice.

Just because we think or somebody in the government thinks that somebody is terrorist does not mean that that person is a terrorist--he may or may not be--and it does not mean that he does not have the right to his day in court.

Mr. Chair, I am proud to be a leading co-sponsor of the Sensenbrenner/Lofgren/Massie amendment and I urge my colleagues to support it.

The NSA must stop conducting illegal `backdoor searches' into the communications of U.S. citizens. Congress must adopt the Sensenbrenner/ Lofgren/Massie amendment and make sure that this loophole is closed in the law. For too long, the NSA has misused authority granted under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, which was meant only to authorize spying on foreigners. However, the NSA has misused this authority to search emails, pictures, videos, and other internet

traffic of innocent Americans. This practice is clearly unconstitutional and violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure, and normally requires a court- issued warrant. Clearly, this is not how Congress intended the law to be applied.

After the passage of the USA Freedom Act, this amendment is the logical next step to prevent improper surveillance. I will continue to work to improve our nation's privacy laws and to ensure that this Administration, and all those that follow it, respect the constitutional rights of all Americans.

As I said at the time, the USA Freedom Act certainly did not give us everything we wanted or needed. It was far from perfect, but it was an important step forward. We must not leave in place a framework that leads to the dragnet surveillance of our citizens.

During the last several months, I have worked with my colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee to pass the USA Freedom Act. While that bill contains some significant reforms, such as ending NSA's bulk collection of metadata from Americans, more reforms are still needed. And this amendment is an important step in the right direction.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike a legislative rider that was put in the bill to prevent the Department of Defense from decommissioning nuclear missile silos.

As you know, the Defense Appropriations bill requires the administration to keep 50 soon-to-be-empty silos--silos with no missiles--on warm standby. The missiles in these silos will be eliminated under the New START arms control agreement, and the administration was hoping to be able to destroy

the silos eventually and save some money, but this bill will keep them in warm standby forever.

This is not without costs. Under New START, those extra empty silos will have to be counted against our launcher totals, meaning we will have fewer permissible bombers or submarine-based missiles because we have, instead, empty ICBM silos. These silos have been precisely targeted by the Russians for decades. While it is important that we have an appropriate, flexible, and survivable nuclear deterrent, these land-based missiles are the least survivable leg of our deterrent, and, of course, empty silos deter no one. What this rider says is that we should have 50 empty silos and 50 fewer submarine-launched ballistic missiles or bombers.

While it is true that, as an offer of support to Senators whose States have missile bases, the administration proposed to keep these silos warm temporarily, there is absolutely no reason to do so forever. This provision is not about security but about pork and political favoritism. Is it any wonder that the most ardent defenders of this provision are from the States of Montana, Colorado, North Dakota, and Wyoming and is not the chairman of the Armed Forces Committee? is not the ranking member of the Armed Forces Committee? In fact, they had worked out a sunset at one point.

Mr. Chairman, micromanaging our Nation's nuclear defenses is really not in the best interest of our country. Remember, we have some 450 Minuteman III missile silos. My amendment would change the status of 50 empty silos and only if our national security experts determined they wanted to do so. It would not affect any silos with actual missiles in them, and, therefore, it would not affect our deterrent.

I would encourage my colleagues to support this amendment, which would allow the President to remove those silos from warm standby at a time of his choosing, when the military tells him it is appropriate to do so and to avoid the cost of keeping open empty silos without any function or usefulness to the national defense.

But I want to make a broader point about our broader nuclear strategy. I want to call attention to the obsolescence of the concept of the nuclear triad. Something that has been accepted as gospel for many years no longer makes sense. Our nuclear arsenal is designed to serve as a deterrent to prevent anyone from even considering attacking the United States. In order to deter an attack, any potential adversary needs to know that we have enough nuclear weapons that will survive an initial assault and will retaliate with overwhelming force.

As part of the triad, we have ICBMs, which are very vulnerable to an enemy strike; we have bombers, which can be made less vulnerable; and we have submarine-launched missiles, which are not vulnerable. The ICBMs, because they are fixed targets and are vulnerable to attack, need to be launched immediately and are, therefore, at the greatest risk of being launched by mistake or by accident. There is almost no time to verify that a radar contact is actually a flock of incoming missiles and not a flock of seagulls or a sounding rocket.

So why do we even need the ICBMs, which are not only vulnerable but dangerous because you have to use them or lose them, especially when we have the subs and the bombers?

That debate is for another day. Today, all we are saying is that our generals should have the discretion to spend money on nuclear weapons that best protect the interests of the United States. They should not be forced to waste taxpayer dollars to keep empty missile silos warm when they have limited real utility and are not in our strategic best interests. They should not be used to keep these empty silos warm when it means, under the treaty, we can have 50 fewer submarine-launched missiles--real missiles--as opposed to empty silos. It simply makes no sense.

I urge my colleagues to adopt the amendment, which would restore to the President and to the military the flexibility to determine whether we want to keep empty silos or real missiles.

I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

In reclaiming my time, I am not suggesting what we should do other than that we should leave the administration and the military with the discretion. They may decide they would rather have more submarine-based missiles rather than empty silos or they may not decide that, but that should be a decision for them. Personally, I think I would rather have more missiles than empty silos or maybe save money, but that is my personal preference. We should leave the decision to the administration.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to join the people of New York's tenth congressional district in saying a fond farewell to President and CEO of the William F. Ryan Community Health Center, Barbra Minch, as she enters her retirement.

After 35 years of service to the community, Barbra leaves behind an incomparable legacy and has been an immeasurable asset to the community as a whole. The Ryan Center's wonderful contributions would not have been possible without her dedicated service.

Barbra E. Minch has lived and worked in the Upper West Side community for over 42 years. As a single parent raising two children, Ms. Minch has been an advocate for affordable housing and quality public schools, a teacher, and an educational administrator. In 1979, Ms. Minch joined the William F. Ryan Community Health Center as an Administrator, and was soon promoted to Deputy Director. In 1995, she was appointed Executive Director by the Board of Directors, and was then appointed President & CEO in 2001. In this role, Ms. Minch provided leadership to 17 sites throughout Manhattan and has represented the Ryan Center in the Community Health Center movement on a federal and statewide scale, contributing unmatchable leadership and philanthropy.

Over the years, I have worked with Barbra on many issues regarding health care on the Upper West Side, in Chelsea and Clinton, and in Lower Manhattan. I have always found her to be irrepressible, creative, energetic, and singularly focused on improving access to quality health care at minimal cost to the low-income people among us. Our community has been blessed by Barbra's energy and dedication for many years, and despite her having trained and put in place a dedicated team to continue her work, we shall sorely miss her continuing contributions.

Ms. Minch has served on the Board of Directors of the Community Health Care Association of New York State (CHCANYS) as First Vice Chair and chaired its Legislative Committee for several years. She is a member of several committees of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), including the Legislative Committee, Credentials Committee, Ethics and Grievance Committee, and Membership and Rules Committees. She is also a member of the Health Care Executive Forum, which advances health care leadership and management. Ms. Minch was the first and only Community Health Center representative on the Board of Trustees of the Job Security Fund of the 1199/SEIU Employment Training and Job Security Program. In 1998, Ms. Minch played an integral role in helping to establish the Coalition to Preserve Access to Community-Based Health Care Providers, which set the stage for direct funding to Community Health Centers from New York State.

Ms. Minch has won many awards in recognition of her excellent work and dedication including: The Jeffrey T. Latman Award from CHCANYS; the Palma Award as Health Administrator of the Year from the Latino Coalition for Fair Media; and the distinguished John Gilbert Community Healthcare Award of Excellence from NACHC. Most recently, Ms. Minch was inducted into the NACHC Hall of Fame, one of a small group of community health advocates throughout the nation, and the first New Yorker to receive this prestigious award.

Barbra is undoubtedly deserving of all of her commendations, and I hope to offer her another one by wishing her the most sincere congratulations on behalf of myself and my constituents as she finishes a singular career of public service. I wish her the best of luck in everything the future holds for her. I know she will find many more ways to contribute to the lives of residents throughout New York City and beyond. I ask my colleagues to please join me in recognizing Barbra's efforts.