Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chairperson, I rise in reluctant support of this bill, the Innovation Act.

The bill addresses the issue of patent trolls suing large companies, small businesses, and retailers over vague patents and using the cost of litigation as a weapon of extortion to secure settlement fees. The bill is real; the problem is real; and addressing it is important.

The bill proposes to address the problem by providing end user defendants the ability to switch the suit to the manufacturer when confronted with patent trolls; it increases the transparency of patents and of the companies that own them; and it asks the judicial conference to review and amend certain discovery rules. These are reasonable changes to the current law which will help reduce the burden of patent trolls on our economy.

Unfortunately, the bill does not deal with the problem of the diversion of user fees from the Patent Office. Unfortunately also, the authors of the bill have grafted the Republican agenda of so-called ``tort reform'' onto the bill. These provisions may severely limit the ability of real inventors and of those with meritorious patent claims to obtain justice in our courts. They are deeply troubling and ought to be addressed by amendments to the bill now and improvements to the bill when it is taken up by the Senate.

The most troubling provision is the ``loser pays'' provision. I oppose ``loser pays'' provisions in general and in this context as well. The reason is one of fairness. I don't believe that only large corporations or the wealthiest members of society should have access to justice. Already, the threat of the enormous cost of litigation may act to prevent individuals from pursuing even the most meritorious civil liability claims. For most individuals and small businesses, the financial risk of having to pay the other side's costs and legal fees as well is one too great to bear no matter how valid the claim.

It is simply not fair to unnecessarily punish individuals with serious and meritorious claims for seeking justice. Keep in mind, a person or a business can have a legally legitimate dispute regarding fact and law and, yet, can still ultimately lose the case. They shouldn't be unduly punished for trying to protect their interests in court. Furthermore, we don't want to create a situation in which experienced corporate defendants with enormous resources and expert legal talent can bully injured plaintiffs into unfair settlements due to the risks associated with losing a potentially successful case.

Thank you.

I have other concerns as well when it comes to some of the bill's modifications to the pleadings standards, but we must deal with the real problem of patent trolls exploiting the current legal system for illegitimate purposes. We must disrupt the business model of the patent troll. We must prevent the extortion of small businesses across America.

I will support the bill today, but I want to encourage our friends in the Senate to do a better job in balancing the competing interests. I urge them, in particular, to insist on their version of the bill and to not allow the House's ``loser pays'' provision into the final bill that we vote on in the conference report.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise to support the Conyers-Watt substitute. Unlike the underlying bill, the substitute takes effective steps to address the patent troll problem without including the unnecessary endangered so-called ``tort reform'' provisions.

The substitute, like the bill, includes provisions providing customer stay exceptions, raising awareness in the small business community as to their rights when confronted with patent trolls, and increasing transparency of patents in the companies that own them.

The substitute takes additional steps to address the problem. It includes a study of how to address bad-faith demand letters, which are scaring retailers and others into settling claims based on convenience as opposed to merit.

And very importantly, the substitute does not include the loser-pays provisions of the underlying bill. Loser-pays laws have a chilling effect on justice. They would deter legitimate patent owners with meritorious claims from pursuing justice.

In this country, the general rule is that each side in a legal proceeding pays its own attorney fees and costs. Most of the statutory exceptions that Congress has enacted have been geared towards encouraging private litigation to implement good public policy.

Awards of attorneys' fees are often designed to help to equalize disputes between private individual plaintiffs and corporate or government defendants. Thus, attorneys' fees provisions are most often found in civil rights, environmental protection, and consumer protection statutes.

The provision in this bill differs from other congressional exceptions in that it would require anyone who loses a patent claim to pay the attorneys' fees of even large corporate defendants. This is a giant deterrent to genuine inventors from filing good-faith suits to defend their valid patent claims.

Therefore, I urge the adoption of the Conyers-Watt substitute which would drop the loser-pays provisions from the underlying bill while still including the key reforms that are present in the underlying bill and in the Senate bill drafted by Senator Leahy.

I urge adoption of the substitute.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 2655, the so-called Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act. Unfortunately, rather than reduce abusive litigation, this bill will have just the opposite effect.

We don't need to speculate about the disastrous effect of this legislation because we know from experience just what a fiasco it will be. The rule this legislation would restore was in effect from 1983 until 1993. It was a disaster.

After a decade with this rule, the Judicial Conference, the rulemaking body for the Federal judiciary, rightly rejected it in favor of the rule we have today. In fact, this legislation goes even beyond the text of the 1983 rule, broadening the flawed mandatory sanctions even further.

Worse still, the Judiciary Committee has not made even the pretense of considering this very radical change in civil procedure with any care. In fact, no hearings have been held on this legislation in this Congress.

The process, or lack of it, demonstrates the wisdom of the Rules Enabling Act, in which Congress gave the Judicial Conference the responsibility for reviewing court rules and proposing changes. They have done this job admirably, expending years of careful study to existing rules, how they are functioning, and the implications of any proposed changes.

While the sponsor has expressed the desire to limit unnecessary litigation, the experience with the old rule 11, which this bill would restore, was the exact opposite. Rule 11 litigation became a routine part of civil litigation, infecting one-third of all cases. Rather than serving as a disincentive, the old rule 11 actually made the system even more litigious and more costly.

In the decade following the 1983 amendments, which this bill would restore, there were almost 7,000 reported rule 11 cases, becoming part of approximately one-third of all Federal lawsuits. Many civil cases, one-third, became two cases: one case on the merits and the other on dueling rule 11 complaints.

Madam Speaker, it is rare in life that you get a controlled scientific experiment, but we had one here from 1983 to 1993. We saw the results, and they were disastrous, and only incautious people try to repeat disastrous scientific experiments.

The drain on the courts' and the parties' resources caused the Judicial Conference to revisit the rule and to adopt the changes that this bill would undo. In a July 23, 2013, letter to Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers, Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and chair of the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure and Judge David Campbell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona and chair of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules said:

Experience, research, and thoughtful deliberation have

shown that there is no need to reinstate the 1983 version of

rule 11 that proved contentious and costly to litigants and

diverted so much time and energy of the bar and bench. Doing

so would add to, not improve, the problems of costs and delay

that we are working to address. We urge you on behalf of the

Rules Committee to not adopt the proposed legislation

amending rule 11.

I might add that, in committee, the majority quoted a survey of judges from 1993 saying that we shouldn't change the rules then. Today, the judges very much are very glad we changed the rule because they have lived under both systems.

Madam Speaker, in addition to all these considerations of costs, the bill would hinder the evolution of the common law. One way the common law evolves is by people making claims in court, especially in civil rights cases. Civil rights cases often involve an argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law or the establishment of a new law, and often they have relied upon novel legal theories that are particularly susceptible to someone claiming that they are abusive or frivolous. Had the provisions of this bill been in place at the time, they could have discouraged a number of landmark civil right cases, including BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION of Topeka, and they could prevent new cases from ever being considered. Perhaps that is why all the civil rights groups, all the consumer rights groups oppose this bill.

Madam Speaker, the courts have ample authority to sanction conduct that undermines the integrity of our legal system, but this legislation is the wrong solution in search of a problem. By taking us back to a time when rule 11 actually promoted routine, costly, and unnecessary litigation, this bill is a cure worse than the disease. We know what this rule does, and the courts rightly rejected it 20 years ago. We should benefit from that experience, not repeat the scientific experiment, and reject this legislation.

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

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

This amendment would ensure that the transparency the bill's supporters demand from the victims of the asbestos industry will also be applied to the corporations that have inflicted so much damage and so much suffering over the years.

The amendment would require that a defendant seeking the information required by the bill must himself provide information about threats to the public safety or health. This information must be provided to any other person or to any Federal or State entity that has the authority to enforce the law regulating activity relating to such information.

This would go a long way to addressing the longstanding efforts by these corporations to conceal the facts surrounding their actions from the public, from their victims, and from government agencies charged with enforcing health and safety laws.

Too often, cases are settled specifically in order to prevent evidence of wrongdoing from becoming public. More importantly, because of the secrecy of these settlements, other people who have been injured have no way of gaining important information about their exposure, their illnesses, or the settled liability of the companies that made them sick.

Information about the concealment of wrongdoing never becomes public, and the people who have suffered have no way of knowing about the wrongdoing that caused their suffering or its extent. Governmental agencies that are charged with protecting the public health, whether in the workplace or the home, are deprived of the information they need to enforce the laws we have enacted.

If the sponsors of this legislation really mean what they say about the need for transparency and accountability, they will support this amendment. There has been too long a record over too many decades of concealment, disassembly, and lawlessness, and too many lives destroyed because of that illegal conduct for us to tolerate the continued coverup. This amendment will go a long way toward remedying that situation and toward correcting the unjust imbalance in the current system.

Without this amendment and the openness and clarity it would provide, this bill would favor only those who inflicted the harm and would give them yet another advantage over the victims. We should stand with the people whose lives have been destroyed, not with the corporations whose illegal and immoral conduct destroyed those lives.

This amendment would prevent a situation where as part of a settlement compensating a victim it is agreed to keep key information relevant to the public health and safety secret so that more people will not be victimized.

When such terms of the settlement are kept secret, other people will not learn that a given product contains asbestos or that a given product leaked asbestos and, therefore, will not know that they potentially were harmed, and government agencies may not learn facts necessary to exercise their responsibility to protect the public.

At the very least, we should be evenhanded and demand of the wrongdoers the same transparency that this bill demands of their victims, a transparency which will enable other victims to understand their remedies and will enable government agencies to better enforce the law. Unless you want to assist tortfeasors and wrongdoers in concealing the effects of their wrongdoing, you should support this amendment.

I urge my colleagues to vote for the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

In reply to the gentleman from Virginia, the amendment refers to ``such party agrees to make available information.'' Such party is asbestos trusts, not a small business. So I don't know what he is talking about with small business requirements being imposed by this amendment, and the amendment deals with information that the trust must make available. It does not deal with the underlying burdens that the bill places on victims, which is what the gentleman was referring to. This has nothing to do with small business.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the distinguished ranking member of the committee.

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

The underlying bill imposes burdens on victims of asbestos poisoning because of an unsubstantiated allegation that the trusts, set up by the tortfeasors, by the giant corporations that caused the problem, may be suffering some fraud, although there is no specific about that.

The amendment simply says that if we are going to request information of the victims, we should request minimally that the representatives of the tortfeasors, the trusts, tell us the information that will prevent further people from being harmed.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, this bill is far from perfect, but it is a good step forward. I have concerns about the environmental streamlining sections. There are commonsense things we could do to advance projects more efficiently, but limiting public input is not one of them. The best way to expedite projects is to ensure there is agreement among stakeholders and to identify potential problems early, which is one of the main benefits of the NEPA process. The real obstacle is lack of adequate funding.

I am pleased the bill increases the amount that can be spent out of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and expands the eligibility for use of these funds.

The bill also requires the Corps to make specific project recommendations as part of the study funded in the Sandy supplemental appropriations bill on reducing the risk of flood and storm damage along the North Atlantic coast. This is an important provision, but we should do much more.

We are still not doing enough to prepare for climate change, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events. Whether or not you believe these events are linked to global warming, the fact is that extreme weather events are happening more often, and we would be fools not to respond to that fact. It has been 7 years since Congress last passed a WRDA bill. We are long overdue in reauthorizing these critical infrastructure projects.

This bill is a bipartisan compromise, and I will support it with the hope that we can improve it as it moves through the process.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we are debating a continuing resolution, a budget. A budget deals with amounts that we appropriate. This budget represents great compromise--$250 billion less than the President first proposed.

But we are told we cannot pass this continuing resolution, we cannot keep the government open unless we repeal or delay the Affordable Care Act, an act which was fought over in the last Presidential election, which was passed by both Houses of Congress, signed by the President. The President campaigned for reelection saying he would implement it; the Republicans said don't. The President and the Democratic Senate were reelected.

We think the Affordable Care Act will help more Americans get affordable health insurance. Republicans don't agree. So they should campaign on it in the next election. If they can get the votes, elect enough Senators, et cetera, repeal it. But that's not what they're doing. They are blackmailing the country. They are saying they will shut down the government, or worse--they will destroy the full faith and credit of the United States in a few weeks if we don't repeal or delay ObamaCare.

This is antidemocratic. It's like a 1930s gangster film--that's a nice government you got there, that's a nice economy you got there; pity if it should happen to blow up if you don't pay us off by giving us what we want.

What if the Democratic majority in the Senate said: we won't approve a continuing resolution; we will shut down the government unless both Houses pass a strong gun control bill, or an immigration bill with a fast track to citizenship? The Republicans would be greatly outraged, would be rightly outraged at that blackmail. But that's what they are doing here today. The minority is blackmailing the majority of the country.

This is subversive to democratic government. Government by blackmail cannot be allowed to destroy the American form of government, which is what this attempt represents. If we give into this, then the minority can rule against the majority. If you want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, elect a President, elect a majority in both Houses, and go do it. But we must not give into this threat to democratic government and transform it into a different type of government. That's why we must pass the continuing resolution without these subversive amendments.

Thank you to my colleague from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for bringing this important issue to the floor today and for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2600, a commonsense clarification to the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act, ILSA, to preserve consumer protections while keeping our economic recovery on track.

More than 40 years ago, Congress passed ILSA to prevent real estate developers from bilking unsuspecting buyers out of their life savings by selling them parcels of land in the middle of a swamp or of a desert. ILSA requires sellers to disclose critical information about the land being sold, including automobile access to the property, the availability of water on a lot, and access for emergency personnel. These disclosure requirements are

clearly necessary and appropriate for individuals who are buying land sight unseen.

They do not make sense, however, when you try to apply them to purchases of condominiums in urban high-rise developments. Clearly, a condo in downtown Manhattan or in downtown Dallas will have access to water and emergency services, and purchasers do not need to know about the risk of soil erosion or about the presence of mobile homes within their units on the 15th floor.

Although common sense would dictate otherwise, courts have interpreted the vague statutory and regulatory language of ILSA to apply to condo purchases. While that interpretation has been disputed and discussed over the years, ILSA was rarely an issue in private condo sales until the economy collapsed in 2008; and as mentioned by Mrs. Maloney, in facing tough financial times and underwater mortgages, many condo and co-op buyers began to use a developer's failure to comply with ILSA to void otherwise valid contracts for condo purchases and receive full refunds of their pre-cash down payments. These suits slowed the housing recovery and left many large developments in New York, Florida, and in other States unfinished or unoccupied.

We can all agree that ILSA provides vital consumer protections for land purchasers, but the law should not be used to void valid contracts because of buyer's remorse. The bill before us today provides a simple clarification to explicitly exempt condominium sales from the law's disclosure requirements. To ensure that ILSA continues to provide the highest level of consumer protection, condominium developers will still be required to comply with the law's antifraud provisions. Developers will also be required to continue complying with all State and local disclosure requirements for condominiums.

This bill, Mr. Speaker, is an easy fix to ensure that developers continue to comply with strict reporting requirements, that purchasers have the information they need to make informed decisions, and that our economic recovery remains on track.

I congratulate Mrs. Maloney for bringing this bill to the floor, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to HR 3102, the majority's extreme legislation to cut 4 million seniors, working families, and individuals with disabilities from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

SNAP is an effective, short-term anti-poverty program designed to help families stay on their feet when they face tough times and to ensure seniors and individuals with disabilities have access to the food they need.

On average, SNAP recipients receive about $4.80 a day for food. How many on the floor of this chamber spent more than that on their cup of coffee this morning? I imagine very few of my colleagues can honestly say they can feed themselves, let alone their families, every day for that amount of money.

Despite these facts, the bill we debate today will gut SNAP. These $40 billion in cuts will eliminate benefits for nearly 4 million Americans this year and further cut 3 million people off the program every year for the next decade. These cuts are designed to reduce SNAP enrollment and spending but ignore the link between SNAP and our economy. When the economy collapsed in 2008, SNAP enrollment increased as more families struggled to make ends meet amid record high unemployment. That is how the program is supposed to work, and as our economy continues to recover and more Americans go back to work, SNAP enrollment and spending has gone down and will continue to decrease. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that if we do nothing and let the economy improve, SNAP spending will return to its low 1995 levels as a percent of GDP in the next six years.

The majority claims this bill will increase incentives for SNAP recipients to work. That claim belies the fact that millions of Americans

who do work still rely on SNAP to meet their needs. Further, in New York State, the bill would actually have the opposite effect. The state receives nearly $170 million in federal funding, and leverages nearly $140 million in local funding, for job training and placement efforts to get SNAP recipients back in the workforce and transition them away from government assistance. Yet this bill would eliminate or severely cut funding for those programs, making it harder for individuals to find work and get back on their feet.

Rather than rewarding states for helping unemployed individuals, in a perverse twist, the only actual incentive this bill contains is one for states to kick SNAP recipients out of the program if they cannot find a job or job training. That approach will only serve to push more families on to government programs instead of lifting them out of poverty.

If we really want to reduce the number of people who use SNAP, we should focus on job creation legislation to assist the millions of Americans looking for work and on passing a budget that supports instead of undermines our economic recovery. Putting people back to work and rebuilding our economy is the only responsible way to ensure seniors and working families have the food and the resources they need.

But instead, we are voting to slash this vital safety net program and telling millions of Americans: good luck. Good luck putting food on your table tonight and ensuring your children succeed in school without the food they need. Good luck affording your prescription medication and making your mortgage payment this month.

Mr. Speaker, I will not turn my back on those millions of Americans who rely on SNAP to feed their families and get back on their feet. I urge my colleagues to vote no on these extreme cuts.

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would exempt the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the bill so that the NRC can continue to protect Americans from nuclear disasters under current law, rather than the bill's proposed system.

Today's bill, H.R. 367, in the name of so-called reform, adds over 60 new procedural and analytical hoops agencies and departments must go through before a regulation can be issued. The result is simply to impede, obstruct, and delay the attempt of government to accomplish one of it's most basic functions: protecting the health and welfare of its citizens.

Not surprisingly, groups who care about protecting public health, safety, and the environment, such as the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, Public Citizens, Defenders of Wildlife, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group, oppose this bill. According, to the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, which represents a coalition of many such groups, this bill ``will grind to a halt the rulemaking process'' and ``is nothing less than an attempt to roll back our critical public safeguards and promote industry interests instead of protecting American citizens.''

Americans should rightfully be scared that this bill will put their health and safety at risk. One example that highlights this fact is the subject of this amendment--nuclear power.

The risks and dangers of nuclear power were made all the more real by the nuclear disaster in Japan at Fukushima 2 years ago. We all watched in horror when that country was devastated by the earthquake and resulting tsunami. That disaster then caused its own disaster--the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. That led to the release of radioactive isotopes, the creation of a 20- kilometer exclusion zone around the power plant, and displacement of 156,000 people. Inside the evacuation zone all farming has been abandoned.

In 2011, Virginia itself was struck by a relatively rare but strong earthquake felt up and down the eastern seaboard. It caused a nuclear power plant near the epicenter to have to go offline. For me, this concern hits close to home. A nuclear power plant, Indian Point, about which many people, myself included, have had concerns for years, lies just less than 40 miles away from my New York City district on an earthquake fault. There are 20 million people living within a 50-mile radius around the plant, the same radius used by the NRC as the basis for the evacuation zone recommended after the Fukushima disaster. Indian Point also sits near two fault lines and, according to the NRC, is the most likely nuclear power plant in the country to experience core damage due to an earthquake.

To keep my constituents, and indeed all Americans, safe, I am offering this amendment today. Because of the catastrophes that can result in disasters--be they natural or manmade--at nuclear power plants, prevention of meltdowns is the key. Since Fukushima, the NRC has issued new rules designed to upgrade plants to withstand severe events like earthquakes and to have enough backup power so as to avoid a meltdown for a significant period of time.

The NRC must have the ability and flexibility to issue new regulations to safeguard the health and well-being of all Americans and to prevent nuclear disasters. However, this bill is intentionally designed so new and vital regulations will likely never be put into place. We cannot permit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to never be able to create new regulations ever again should the need arise.

Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to exempt the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the onerous new requirements for rulemaking imposed by this bill. In that way, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would continue to have the ability to safeguard public health and safety, as it should.

We should not risk the lives of millions and millions of people. If a danger becomes evident and the experts in charge of protecting against that--the Nuclear Regulatory Commission--deem some new protection necessary, this bill would prevent those protections from going into effect. So my amendment would exempt the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with respect to safety regulations for nuclear power plants.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, under current law, Congress can disapprove any proposed rule and regulation under the Congressional Review Act. Under this bill, no regulation could go into effect until Congress affirmatively approved the regulation. If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were to approve some rule that reduces nuclear safety, Congress, under current law, could block that rule.

What this bill says, and what my amendment seeks to exempt the NRC from, is that no safety regulation can go into effect until Congress gets around to approving it. The Republican leadership took the appropriations bill for the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Departments off the floor yesterday allegedly because they have no time to consider it. We've passed all of 12 bills this year for the President's signature, and we would have hundreds or thousands of regulations by all the different agencies that we would have to consider. Most would never be approved simply because we would not have time to consider them.

All this amendment says is, for regulations regarding nuclear disasters, to prevent nuclear disasters, let Congress veto them if necessary, but not kill them by not having the time to get to them.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the FY14 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill.

This bill is the perfect illustration of the majority's cruel and misguided priorities. We hear a lot from the other side about how we need to cut the budget, reduce the deficit and rein in spending, but, clearly, that's just rhetoric. Last week, the majority put a bill on the floor that increased defense spending substantially, including extra funding for programs the administration and the military didn't want and have no intention of using. The reality is that the majority in this House is perfectly willing to increase spending for things they care about, like military contracts, but not for ensuring adequate housing, investing in economic and community development or even in transportation infrastructure.

The bill before us today is so bad that it's hard to imagine how it can be fixed. The House bill is fully $10 billion less than the Senate bill, and it's virtually impossible to find offsets for amendments to improve the bill, but

it's important for us to highlight some of the egregious cuts, such as the drastic cuts to the Amtrak capital and operating budget. Just a few years ago, Congress passed the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, PRIIA, which authorized a total of $9.8 billion for Amtrak for the fiscal years 2009 through 2013, but the actual appropriations for Amtrak over this time period was $2.5 billion below the authorized amount.

There is no question we need to invest more in our railroads. A working group for the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission reported that the total capital cost estimate of establishing a national intercity passenger rail network between now and 2050 would be about $357 billion, or a little over $8 billion annually. We are nowhere near that, and the bill before us today takes us in exactly the wrong direction. This bill slashes Amtrak's capital program by 37 percent and Amtrak's operations by 25 percent from last year's enacted level.

These funding levels would have a drastic impact on Amtrak's ability to maintain service. Once you take into account Amtrak's financial obligations, such as contract payments and federally mandated safety work, Amtrak would have only $100 million to cover the investment needs of the entire system. The Northeast corridor alone requires about $780 million per year to address longstanding state of good repair needs, and Amtrak will have to defer maintenance, which will cause service delays and interruptions, and increased costs in the long run.

This is idiotic. I know some people are Amtrak haters no matter the facts, but here are a few more facts that are noteworthy.

Commuter lines on the Northeast corridor carry 235 million passengers every year. These are mostly business travelers who rely on the reliability of Amtrak's rail in order for them to get to work and foster economic growth. If Amtrak cannot maintain the rails adequately, all of these commuter rail systems around all of our major cities will stop being efficient, will stop being able to transport their people.

Amtrak employs nearly 20,000 people in 46 States. Amtrak employees paid more than $64 million in State and local taxes last year. Amtrak did business for suppliers equaling about $1.3 billion last year. Cutting funding for Amtrak jeopardizes all of this economic activity and all of the good-paying jobs associated with it. It will ultimately cost taxpayers a lot of money in the long run.

Amtrak provides a vital service for communities all around the country. We should be increasing investments in Amtrak and developing intercity and high-speed rail. This bill includes no funds whatsoever for the TIGER grant program. In fact, it rescinds $237 million in previous TIGER funds. The bill also includes no funding for the Projects of National and Regional Significance account, which is authorized under the MAP-21 bill that we passed last year but that is now subject to general fund appropriations. The New Starts program will fund some new transit programs, but that account is cut as well, and there is only enough funding to maintain commitments to projects currently in the pipeline. So there are, essentially, no programs to fund any new construction of major transportation projects.

The majority has offered no solutions for how to invest in future economic growth, to facilitate interstate commerce and to maintain our global competitiveness. I urge my colleagues to reject these disastrous cuts to Amtrak, these disastrous cuts to TIGER and to general infrastructure, and to support moving us back toward an intelligent transportation policy. I have to urge a ``no'' vote on the FY14 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill.

Later in this debate, I will discuss the equally disastrous cuts in Community Development Block Grants. It's just another example of how this bill is dismantling the United States.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to express my strong opposition to the draconian cuts to the Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG, program in this legislation.

The CDBG program has a proven record of success in stabilizing and revitalizing communities across the country by directly providing funds to local communities and giving them the flexibility to decide where the funding will have the greatest impact. In the last 7 years, CDBG has assisted over a million low- and moderate-income homeowners to rehabilitate their homes, keeping neighborhoods and communities safe and stable.

More than 30 million people have benefited from CDBG-funded public improvement programs, including senior and child care centers, homes for persons with disabilities, safe streets, and shelters for victims of domestic violence. Funds have also been used to provide public services to millions of low- and moderate-income households, including employment training, meals to seniors, and services for abused children.

But the real impact of CDBG is not seen on the national scale. It is seen on the streets and in the neighborhoods of

the communities that receive these funds. In my district, CDBG funds have established adult literacy programs, legal support for immigrant victims of domestic violence, and youth summer employment opportunities. It has preserved public housing and addressed vacant housing and lots in at-risk neighborhoods, providing support and guidance for small, locally owned businesses.

Because of the flexibility CDBG provides, the city government has been able to identify the most pressing needs and the most at-risk communities and allocate funds as they are needed. When we invest CDBG funds in our cities, we see an immediate impact in the neighborhoods as nonprofit and private entities follow, bringing new development and opportunities for residents.

Mr. Chairman, CDBG was a change from the old way in which specific programs were specifically funded. People in this House--mostly Republicans, I must say--said, Give more flexibility to local governments; instead of giving to 20 categorical-specific programs, fund them into one or two Community Development Block Grants so they can be used more efficiently. We have done that. We have combined a lot of categorical programs into CDBG, and now we want to tear it to pieces.

Despite the success that CDBG has had, the bill we are debating on the floor today would cut funding to $1.6 billion, which is a 50 percent cut from this year, and the lowest funding level in the 40-year history of the program--lower than when President Ford supported it, even without inflation adjustments.

In New York, CDBG funding would fall from $164 million to $82 million. These funding levels will leave hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and millions of Americans without access to the vital services and support that CDBG provides.

How did we get here? Why are we voting to gut this proven, efficient, flexible program? Why are we voting for a 50 percent cut in an already much too small allotment? The answer is simple: the slash-and-burn Republican budget. The same budget that provides tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations and unneeded increases in defense spending while slashing funding for Medicaid, food stamps, and WIC has left appropriators with such small funding allocations that this bill was unworkable and unrealistic from the start.

So here we are, slashing programs that serve and protect the most vulnerable among us--programs that are proven to save us money in the long run and programs that support flexibility and accountability in our communities.

We may disagree, Mr. Chairman, on how to keep our economy strong, but we should all agree that we must stop piling these cuts on the backs of seniors and the working poor, women, kids, and the middle class. Stop these cuts to our communities. We should reject this bill unless it's grossly increased in the aggregate, which it won't be, as we know. So we should reject this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment to increase transit funding for Capital Investment Grants, also known as the New Starts program, by $127 million, which would bring it to the same level as the bill currently being considered in the Senate.

Earlier this year, almost 100 Members joined me in sending a letter to the Appropriations Committee requesting funding for transit, at a minimum, at the levels authorized in MAP-21 and in the President's request. In one of the few bright spots in this bill, transit formula grants are funded at the MAP-21 authorized level, in large part because the formula grants are funded out of the mass transit account of the highway trust fund. Unfortunately, the New Starts and Small Starts program, which comes out of general revenue and funds the construction of new fixed guideway systems, such as new subway lines, bus rapid transit, and light rail is cut 7 percent below the enacted level and 8 percent below the President's request. This shows how important it is that the provision in last year's Republican bill that would have cut regular mass transit funds out of the highway trust fund and subject it to appropriations was defeated because otherwise we would have a drastic cut there, too.

This bill is out of step with the demands of the American people. According to the American Public Transportation Association, a record 10.5 billion trips were taken last year, the second highest annual ridership since 1957. This increase in ridership is occurring all over the country, in places like Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Arizona, and Utah, to name just a few. Despite the increase in ridership, Federal transportation funding is not keeping up with demand. Public transportation agencies all across the country are facing possible job cuts, maintenance backlogs, service reductions, and fare hikes.

The funding levels in this bill provide barely enough to meet our existing commitments to projects currently under construction, and there is a small amount of money for only a few new Small Starts. The funding level is too low to adequately finance planning and development of additional transit projects. The policy framework in this bill is one of attrition and contraction:

to provide just enough money to close out the old projects, with no plans to invest in major new transit systems in any meaningful way in the future. We are not adequately investing in building new capacity and expanding transit service around this country, but I suppose that is the point--to slowly starve these programs to the point that they cease to be effective and then argue that they are not necessary.

But I am optimistic that we will ultimately provide greater funding for transit. This is an issue that historically has had bipartisan support. Many of my Republican friends joined me in protecting the transit funding guarantees during consideration of surface transportation legislation last year and in defeating the leadership's attempt to eliminate it. The business community and the real estate industry support funding for public transportation, along with a wide range of labor, civil rights, environmental, and civic organizations. Public transportation has broad support all over the country because people understand that investing in transit is one of the smartest things we can do to create jobs right here in America, reduce congestion and dependence on foreign oil, and spur economic growth.

My amendment would increase the New Starts program by $127 million, which is a modest amount considering how much we should be investing in our infrastructure, but at least it would put the House bill on equal footing with the Senate. Unfortunately, there is no account to use as an offset that wouldn't cause significant harm to other important programs, and, therefore, I have offered none. I understand the chairman may insist upon raising a point of order, and this just shows the limitations under which we are working in this impossible bill in which there is grossly inadequate funding all around so that you can't responsibly ask for an offset without destroying mass transit or something else that is of great import in order to support adequate expenditures.

I urge my colleagues to support increasing transit funding in whatever final product for FY14 appropriations becomes law.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairman, much of the debate today on this bill has focused on tough choices--accepting cuts to one program to make sure another program stays afloat. But the reality is that these so-called tough choices are nothing compared to the choices this bill would force on hundreds of thousands of low-income families: whether to buy food for their children, to fill their necessary prescriptions, or to pay their rent.

Today, the Housing Choice Voucher program, commonly known as section 8, ensures that many fewer families have to make such choices by providing rental assistance to 2.2 million households with incomes well below the poverty line. Half of these households are headed by seniors or people with disabilities, and the rest are typically families with children. Study after study by HUD, GAO, and independent researchers have demonstrated that the section 8 voucher program is a cost- effective means of providing very low-income families secure housing and preventing homelessness.

Typically, Congress has provided State and local housing agencies the funds necessary to renew every housing voucher used in the previous fiscal year, thereby ensuring that families have stable housing, kids stay in school, and parents stay in the workforce. This year, however, for only the third time in the program's 40-year history, this bill would fail to provide sufficient, or even close to sufficient, funding to renew all existing housing vouchers.

Because of sequestration, nearly 100,000 fewer families, and maybe as many as 150,000 fewer families, will receive housing assistance this year. I have already heard from housing agencies across New York State who are turning away families on waiting lists and pulling back issued vouchers for families who have not yet signed a lease agreement. If the bill becomes law as written, thousands of low-income families will lose their existing vouchers, will be evicted from their homes, and will end up living on the streets.

Despite the risks for these families, the bill before us today provides only $17 billion for housing choice voucher renewals, locking in sequestration cuts, and cutting off 100,000 families from housing assistance. To protect these families, I am offering this amendment to increase funding for section 8 voucher renewals by $1 billion.

These additional funds will ensure that housing agencies can renew existing eligible vouchers this year and that no additional families will have to face the choice between putting food on the table and paying their rent, between filling their prescriptions and living on the street. I say no additional families will have to face this choice because the current allocation of section 8 is far too meager and there are hundreds of thousands of families on the waiting list. But at least with this amendment, no additional families will be thrown out on the street because we will renew existing vouchers.

Under the bill as written, upwards of 100,000 or so families will not have their vouchers renewed and will be forced to be evicted. This amendment will ensure not additional section 8 vouchers but simply that existing vouchers will be maintained for people who are living on section 8 vouchers now.

Madam Chairperson, our first objective must be to prevent further hardship to the poorest among us and to prevent the evictions of people currently receiving section 8 vouchers.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Madam Chairwoman, I think we can all agree the amendment is necessary. We are talking about evicting 100,000 to 150,000 families from an efficient, cost-effective program that keeps families together and that lowers our costs over the long term. Without this amendment, you will see a spike in homelessness, a spike in medical costs and a spike in hungry kids.

I understand the chairman's point of order, and I understand that the rules demand an offset for any funding increase in the bill. However, when funding levels are as restrictive across the board as they are in this bill and when the rules require that a majority in the House cannot increase the total funds allocated by the Appropriations Committee to this bill, it is impossible to----

I am very much on the point.

When the rules require that a majority in the House cannot increase the total funds allocated by the Appropriations Committee to this bill, it is impossible to remedy such a drastic cut without hurting other people in need. I hope, as we go forward, that we can find a way to provide these funds so that hundreds of thousands of very low-income working families and seniors are not put out on the street. I hope we will recognize that the Senate bill is less brutal than the bill now before us.

Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairman, since 1992, the Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS, or HOPWA, has provided a vital housing safety net for people battling HIV-AIDS. Nearly 1.2 million Americans are living with HIV-AIDS. More than 145,000 currently lack stable housing, and 500,000 will need some form of housing assistance during the course of their illnesses. Research consistently shows that a lack of stable housing is a major barrier to effective treatment for people living with AIDS and puts them at significant risk of premature death from poor nutrition, exposure to other diseases and a lack of medical care.

HOPWA fills this gap by providing secure housing through one of the most effective programs in HUD's portfolio, and it is the only one that addresses the intersection of housing and health. Within 1 year, 96 percent of HOPWA participants achieve disease stabilization and reduced viral loads. Because housing stability plays a key role in preventing the spread of the virus, HOPWA contributes to better individual and community health outcomes. Further, for every $1 of HOPWA funding spent, $3.35 is leveraged from other Federal, State and local programs, and every $1 million in HOPWA

funding provides housing and support for 171 families. For that reason, HOPWA has enjoyed broad, bipartisan support since its first authorization more than 20 years ago.

Despite HOPWA's proven track record in improving health and housing outcomes for communities, this year's Transportation-HUD appropriations bill would cut $29 million in HOPWA funding. The committee's recommendation of $303 million brings the allocation for HOPWA back to FY 2008 funding levels despite the fact that there are 100,000 individuals more who are infected with HIV-AIDS than in 2008.

I recognize that $29 million may sound small by Federal budgeting standards, but to the individuals and families who rely on HOPWA for stable housing and access to support services, these cuts are anything but small. If this funding level becomes law, nearly 5,000 families and individuals will lose access to HOPWA housing and all the health benefits that go with it. For those families, this cut is a matter of life and death.

For that reason, I am offering this amendment to restore the $29 million cut from HOPWA this year and return it to the same funding level it has received for the last 2 fiscal years. This amendment would ensure that those 5,000 families and individuals who rely on HOPWA for secure, stable housing will not suddenly find themselves back on the street with no access to life-saving medical treatment.

To protect those 5,000 households and stay within the House rules, I would have to cut $29 million from another account, but at the funding levels included in this bill, any offset would fundamentally undermine HUD's ability to provide services to hundreds of millions of families every day.

HOPWA provides life-saving, efficient services to thousands of families and individuals impacted by HIV-AIDS. Will you work in conference to reach a workable funding level that ensures families and individuals currently served by HOPWA do not lose access to their housing?

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Thank you.

Madam Chairman, I appreciate the chairman's willingness to work on this issue in conference and to find a funding level that maintains this highly effective life-saving program, and I am, therefore, looking forward to those efforts.

At this time, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairman, I listened carefully to the gentleman from Georgia, who talks about the fiscal crisis--that this country is broke and that we have to cut spending drastically. This country is not broke. This country is the wealthiest country in the world, but we are breaking ourselves, and we are breaking ourselves by cutting too much and by following a silly economic policy.

When President Obama took office, this country had a deficit in the first fiscal year of $1.6 trillion. That was the last Bush budget, because, in the first year of any President, he is living under the former budget. The budget passed just before he took office.

We had a $1.6 trillion budget deficit, and we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. The President and the Democratic Congress decided that to reduce the deficit and to reduce unemployment, we had to spend some money to stimulate the economy. We had to put money into infrastructure, into jobs; and we did it. Congress passed it. It didn't do enough. But the fact is, within a year, we were gaining 250,000 jobs a month instead of losing 800,000 a month. We turned the economy around by a million jobs a month, and the deficit started falling.

The deficit has fallen like a rock. It's been reduced by 60 percent since the 2009 fiscal year. We've had the fastest deficit reduction in the last 3 years since the demobilization after World War II; and, frankly, it's going too fast. Any economist will tell you that the too- rapid reduction in Federal spending is hindering the economy and hurting jobs.

The sequester has probably cut about one point off the gross domestic product. We have done what we have to do on the deficit for now. We have to do more in the long term. For now, it's still dropping like a rock. It's been cut by 60 percent. And now we ought to pivot and create jobs, even if that means spending money, but certainly not by cutting so much more. When we create jobs, that creates tax revenues; it reduces expenditures on things like unemployment and food stamps and reduces the deficit.

If you want to see exactly what happened--it's rare in life that you get a controlled experiment. The economies in the United States and Europe tracked. They collapsed in 2007 until 2009. In 2009, they started going up slowly, and they kept going up until 2010. In 2010, the U.S. economy kept going up slowly, and the European economies went into a double-dip recession and tanked and unemployment went way up. Why? Because in Europe in 2010, they did what the American voters wisely refused to do, they elected conservative governments which cut spending much more and which endorsed austerity policies. What did they get? Higher unemployment and higher deficits.

When I hear this rhetoric, it's just backwards. We've done enough on the deficit for now. We have more to do later, but for now we ought to create jobs. That will reduce the deficit by increasing employment, by increasing tax revenues from people who are employed, and by decreasing expenditures that go up when there's unemployment, mainly food stamps and unemployment insurance.

I just had to say that this rhetoric is just wrong. The policies that we keep hearing about from that side of the aisle are driving us more and more into debt and more and more into unemployment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment prohibits funds from being used to detain cleared individuals held at Guantanamo. Of the 166 people currently being held there, 86 have been cleared for release; that is, they have not been charged with any offense. They have been found guilty of nothing, and they have been judged by our military to pose no threat to the United States if released. We should release them now. Holding these 86 people who have been cleared for release is against everything we claim to stand for.

In response to this very situation, President Obama asked: Is this who we are?

I hope today we will answer: No, we are better than that.

I hope we support this amendment and move expeditiously to support the release of these detainees. It is truly astonishing that in 2013 the United States continues to hold people indefinitely who have not been charged, let alone convicted of any crime, who admittedly do not pose any threat to the United States. They should be released.

Guantanamo is an affront to America and to the founding principle of the United States that no person should be deprived of liberty without due process of law. Our continuing to hold prisoners indefinitely, without charge and without trial, is a rebuke to our professed support of liberty.

If they've been judged not to pose a threat and we hold them anyway, what kind of message are we sending? By what claim of right do we hold people in jail who have been charged with nothing, whom we're not bringing to trial, and who we have decided pose no threat to us? What are we saying about the United States and our values? We must change course and we ought to support this amendment.

Now, I know some will say these are dangerous terrorists. No, they're not. They're people who were captured in some way who have been judged by our military not to pose a threat to the United States, who have not been charged as terrorists, who have not been judged as terrorists. Some of them may be simply victims to the fact that we paid bounties to people in Afghanistan to turn in people who they said were terrorists. The Hatfields turned in the McCoys because--why not?--we were giving them a couple of thousand dollars.

So anyone who has not been charged with a crime, who has not been convicted, and who we have already decided poses no threat ought to be released. And, therefore, this amendment says no funds may be used to continue their confinement. I urge its adoption.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have left? How much time does the gentleman have left?

I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Chairman, it would serve a purpose if people actually read the amendment. The amendment says none of the funds made available may be used to detain an individual who has been approved for release or transfer to a foreign country.

We hear from the gentleman from Florida, these people are there for a reason. Yes, when we arrest somebody, a murder is committed, a rape is committed, we arrest somebody. But then, the grand jury says, no, we're not going to indict this person; there's not enough evidence.

Do we hold them in jail indefinitely, forever, even though there's no charge, even though the District Attorney says we made a mistake; it's somebody else; they didn't do it? No.

Because maybe they'll commit a crime? That's antithetical to every notion of what the United States is about. These are 86 people who are not charged as terrorists, who we have no evidence are terrorists, and who have been judged by the military and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the intelligence community to pose no threat to us.

By what claim of right do we hold them in jail? The United States, at this point, is no better than a kidnapper if it holds in jail people whom it charges with no crime and judges safe for release.

Approve the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit any funds in the bill from being used to construct or expand detention facilities at Guantanamo.

The bill contains $249 million to convert temporary detention facilities into more permanent structures. But the administration wants to close Guantanamo and to release or transfer the detainees. So why waste $429 million to construct facilities that will not be used? Because many in Congress want to keep the detainees in Guantanamo forever.

Now, we have, we know, 166 detainees in Guantanamo; 86 should be released immediately. The gentleman from Florida says that they're bad people; they are terrorists; they're there for a reason. No, they're not. They're there for different reasons. Some because they were handed over for bounties by rival militias or rival clans. Some because a mistake was made. Some because they're terrorists. But we make distinctions.

The gentleman says we shouldn't release them until a careful assessment has been made. Well, a careful assessment has been made: 86 of them, half of those in Guantanamo, have been cleared for release. That is to say, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the intelligence agencies have determined that these 86 people were not terrorists and were not likely to pose a threat to the United States if released. So they're guilty of nothing. They have been tried for nothing. We don't say that people are bad people, we ought to hold them in jail indefinitely without a trial normally, except here. So we ought to release the 86 who have been cleared for release immediately, and the others we ought to try, put on trial.

There's a separate dispute whether that should be an Article III court or a military tribunal. I prefer an Article III court, but either way, put them on trial in front of a court or in front of a military tribunal and let them be tried. Perhaps most of them will be guilty and put them in jail for long periods of time. Maybe some will be innocent. That's what the justice system is about.

Are we really going to say that Guantanamo is separate? Anyone who is unlucky enough to be sent there because at one time we thought maybe they were dangerous should stay there indefinitely until they die without a trial?

The assessment has been made for 86 of them. They have been judged not to be guilty, not to be a terrorist, and not to be a threat. That assessment has been made according to law, and these people ought to be released. The other 80 ought to be tried and, if convicted, ought to be put in prison in the United States. We have hundreds of terrorists in maximum security prisons in the United States. There's no reason a few more couldn't be put there, and we could save $249 million.

Guantanamo was originally set up because it was thought by the Bush administration that if we held people in Guantanamo they could be tried or handled without having the constitutional rights of someone in the United States, but the Supreme Court said no. The people in Guantanamo have the same rights as if they were held in the United States. So it doesn't change what will happen to them, whether they're kept in prison in the United States or in Guantanamo.

So let's release the 86 who ought to be released because they've been adjudged that they should be released by the Joint Chiefs and by the intelligence agencies. Let's try the others, and let's keep them in jail if they're adjudged guilty. Let's proceed with American justice notions and do ourselves proud, and let's stops wasting billions of dollars on Guantanamo.

So this amendment says don't permanentize what should be and will be temporary, however temporary it is. Don't waste $249 million on making these facilities permanent.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have left?

I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the $249 million in the budget is for expansion and making permanent detention facilities. I have

no objection to construction of other military facilities at Guantanamo Bay. I don't know whether that makes sense or not. But the $249 million we're talking about here is for more detention facilities. That's a pure waste of money. And I'll be happy to clarify, if this amendment passes, that it should apply only to detention facilities.

So if you're opposed to wasting $249 million more on detention facilities so we can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year per prisoner instead of $34,000 per year per prisoner in the United States, if you think that's a good idea to waste all this money, then vote against this amendment. I hope rational people who don't want to waste a quarter of a billion dollars for permanent detention facilities will vote for this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment has been described and offered as an alternative to the Amash-Conyers amendment that we will consider next. It is not.

This amendment restates the existing ban on the intentional targeting of United States persons under section 702. It also places into law for the next fiscal year the Obama administration's current ban on collecting the contents of the communications of U.S. persons under section 215. I agree with these prohibitions. But they have nothing to do with the current misuse of section 215 to engage in the suspicionless, bulk collection of Americans' telephone records.

The dragnet collection under section 215 telephone metadata program reveals call information--including all numbers dialed, all incoming phone numbers and call duration--but not the content of communications. Therefore, this amendment would have no impact whatsoever on this misuse of section 215. Metadata reveals highly personal and sensitive information, including, for example, when and how often one calls the doctor, a journalist, or the local Tea Party or ACLU affiliate. By tracing the pattern of calls, the government can paint a detailed picture of anyone's personal, professional, and political associations and activities.

Congress never authorized this type of unchecked, sweeping surveillance of our citizens. It is this problem--the indiscriminate, bulk collection of metadata under section 215--that we need to fix right now.

The Amash-Conyers amendment does so by restoring the required reasonable relationship between the collection of records and specific persons being investigated under section 215. The Amash-Conyers amendment ensures that this standard is not ignored by the administration or by the FISA Court, as is happening now.

This amendment does not fix the problem with 215. The Amash-Conyers amendment does. However you vote on this amendment, and I intend to vote in favor of it, it is imperative that we also vote in favor of the Amash-Conyers amendment because this amendment, although doing no harm, does not solve the problems that Congress and Mr. Sensenbrenner and many others have articulated with respect to the misuse of section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.

Madam Chairperson, this amendment stops the government from misusing section 215, to engage in the dragnet collection of all of our personal telephone records. Congress did not grant the executive the authority to collect everything it wants so long as it limits any subsequent search of that data.

This amendment restores the requirement that records sought are relevant to an authorized foreign intelligence or terrorist investigation. It restores the minimal relevant standard required by Congress but ignored by successive administrations.

No administration should be permitted to operate above or beyond the law as they have done in this respect. I therefore urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of the Amash-Conyers amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I urge my colleagues to support the Nadler-Garamendi-Polis amendment to eliminate additional funding for a new, costly, unproven, and unnecessary missile defense site. Our amendment would cut $70 million that was added by the Appropriations Committee for an east coast missile defense system that the Pentagon says it does not want or need.

In a June 10 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, Vice Admiral James Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency and Lieutenant General Richard Formica, Commander, Joint Functional Command for Integrated Missile Defense, unequivocally stated:

There is no validated military requirement to deploy an

east coast missile defense site.

Admiral Syring told the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year that he would not be able to use additional funds for an east coast site this year because the Pentagon has only begun to study the concept. And the Pentagon already has the funding it needs for this study in FY 2014.

Furthermore, the technology is still unproven at this time. There have been no successful intercept tests for the past 5 years of the system that might be deployed on the east coast. The recent test failure of the ground-based mid-course system that would be deployed on the east coast is another reason not to rush forward with deployment.

In a time of budget deficits and looming sequester of funds, we cannot afford to spend money on a program that the military says it does not yet need and does not yet work. The Pentagon says the current system, based in Alaska and California, is sufficient to defend the entire continental United States against a limited attack from North Korea and Iran.

The CBO says an east coast base would cost approximately $3.5 billion over the next 5 years. Admiral Syring and General Formica said there are currently more cost-effective and less expensive alternatives to improving the defense of the U.S. homeland than an east coast missile site. It is a pure waste of money to deploy a missile defense site on the east coast before a need for such a site is identified and before the interceptors can be proved effective and suitable in operationally realistic tests. So we should not have this funding now.

I reserve the balance of my time.

U.S. Senate,

Committee on Armed Services,

Washington, DC, June 6, 2013.

Vice Admiral James D. Syring, USN,

Director, Missile Defense Agency, Department of Defense, Ft.

Belvoir, VA.

Lieutenant General Richard P. Formica, USA,

Commander, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command,

Huntsville, AL.

Dear Vice Admiral Syring and Lieutenant General Formica:

Following the briefing you provided earlier this week, I am

writing to request. your responses to the following questions

regarding possible future options for homeland ballistic

missile defense:

1. Is there currently a validated military requirement to

deploy an East Coast missile defense site?

2. Do you favor Congress mandating the deployment of an

East Coast site before the completion of the pending

Environmental Impact Statement required by section 227 of the

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal-Year 2013

(Public Law 112-239)?

3. At this time do you believe there is a more effective

and less expensive alternative to an East Coast missile

defense site that is also available sooner than deployment of

an East Coast missile defense site?

I would appreciate your responses to these questions no

later than June 10, 2013, so that we may consider them for

our upcoming markup of the National Defense Authorization Act

for Fiscal Year 2014. I have written the questions in a way

that will hopefully facilitate a prompt and unclassified

response.

Sincerely,

Carl Levin,

Chairman.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

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

Mr. Chairman, the question is, will we waste the money? We are told by the director of the Missile Defense Agency and the general commanding the Joint Functional Command that they cannot use the money. There is no validated military requirement to deploy an east coast missile defense site, and he would not be able to use additional funds for an east coast site this year because they have only begun to study the concept.

It may be that in the future we may want an east coast site. But to appropriate this money now is a pure waste of money because now they are simply studying the concept. They can't spend it; they probably won't spend it. Why waste the money? I urge people to vote for this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment which would remove the existing limitations on transferring detainees out of Guantanamo.

Our Federal courts have a proven record of prosecuting terrorists, and our Federal prison system is already imprisoning hundreds of convicted terrorists in facilities here in the United States.

It makes no sense to have an external facility, especially one in Cuba, of all places. Guantanamo is a continuing stain on our national honor. It should be closed now. Of the 166 detainees at Guantanamo, 86 have been cleared for release; that is to say, they have been found guilty of nothing and judged to pose no danger. There is no reason and no right for us to hold them further.

The detainees will gain no additional rights by being held in the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that detainees have the same constitutional rights at Guantanamo as they do here. We cannot hold people indefinitely. People may not be terrorists and may be guilty of nothing. We must restore who we are and vote for this amendment.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, we're back again considering cruel and unconstitutional legislation that would curtail women's reproductive rights. This bill contains a nearly total ban on abortions prior to viability, which the Supreme Court says violates women's rights under the Constitution.

Just recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit struck down a nearly identical Arizona statute, saying:

Since Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case law concerning

the constitutional protection accorded women with respect to

the decision whether to undergo an abortion has been

unalterably clear regarding one basic point . . . a woman has

a constitutional right to choose to terminate her pregnancy

before the fetus is viable. A prohibition on the exercise of

that right is per se unconstitutional.

Perhaps most cruelly, this bill fails even to provide any exception to protect a woman's health. The exception for a woman's life is so narrowly written and so convoluted that even a physician wanting to comply with the law in good faith would have trouble determining when the woman is sufficiently in extremis that her condition qualifies. So the morally arrogant authors of this bill would tell a woman who faces permanent injury or disability that she must bear that calamity by carrying her pregnancy to term.

Recently added language is supposed to take the heat off the recent uproar over the absence of a rape and incest exception in this bill, but the bill would provide an exception for rape or incest only if the victim first reported it to the authorities. In the best of all possible worlds, every assault would be reported and every rapist prosecuted. But we all know that there are many reasons why rapes and incest often don't get reported--the toll our criminal justice system takes on rape victims: the humiliation, the harassment, the psychological trauma.

Why force women to be victimized twice? The only reason we have been given by the supporters of this bill is that women lie about having been raped. So the sponsors are telling us not only that women are not competent to make this very personal decision for themselves and that we here are more competent--we should substitute our judgments for theirs--but women are also too dishonest to be believed when they say they were raped.

This bill would use the trauma of the assault to erect another unnecessary and cruel barrier to a raped woman. Congress should not side with her abuser to force her to carry that abuser's child to term.

The incest exception applies only if the victim was a minor when the incidents occurred. Why? Do my colleagues believe that this was nice, consensual sex? That if a young woman is abused by her father from age 8 and he gets her pregnant at 18, it doesn't count? Or that she asked for it and deserves it?

These restrictions are new. The rape and incest exceptions in the previous legislation passed by this House have no such conditions or restrictions. Even the Hyde amendment, embodied

in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill, says:

The limitations established in the preceding section shall

not apply to abortion if the pregnancy is the result of an

act of rape or incest.

No conditions, no restrictions, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Some Members want to redefine rape and incest to satisfy an extremist base that wants to outlaw all abortions, even for victims of rape and incest. I hope that we can agree that no woman should ever be forced to carry her abuser's child.

I urge my colleagues to reject this cruel and unconstitutional legislation.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Smith-Moran-Nadler amendment, which provides a six-part plan for closing Gitmo.

The amendment will remove the existing limitations on transfers, strike the current requests for construction at Gitmo, and end funding for the facility on December 31, 2014.

The time to close Guantanamo is now. It is a stain on our national honor. We are holding 166 people at Gitmo, 86 of whom have been cleared for release, that is to say they have been found guilty of nothing and judged not to pose any danger. There is no reason and no right for us to hold them further.

Mr. Chairman, I wonder which of our colleagues doesn't believe in the American system of justice. I wonder which one of us does not trust our own American court. 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 be presumed innocent until proven guilty. What we have at Gitmo is a system that is an affront to those beliefs and to America.

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, yes, each new act of Congress. We have begun giving away our rights to privacy, a 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.

I want to commend the gentleman from Washington and the gentleman from Virginia for fighting to close the detention facility at Guantanamo.

The language in this bill without our amendment prohibits moving any detainees into the United States and guarantees that we will continue holding people indefinitely, people who are not necessarily terrorists and who we only suspect to be terrorists and have not had a day in court to prove they are or are not terrorists. We will continue to hold them indefinitely without charge, contrary to every tradition this country stands for, contrary to due process and civil rights.

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 not indefinitely without due process of law--we must close the detention facilitate at Gitmo now in order to restore our national honor.

They will have no additional constitutional rights. The Supreme Court ruled that they have the same constitutional rights at Guantanamo as they do here.

We must close this facility and restore our national honor. Support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. Mr. Goodlatte and Chairman Smith and I are in agreement, I think, on the goal, though I think the three of us mutually disagree on elements of this amendment.

The amendment, while intended to enhance protections for U.S. citizens, in fact does the opposite. Right now, Americans on U.S. soil cannot be detained indefinitely without charge or trial. Rather than affirming this fundamental principle, the amendment implicitly authorizes the military to detain Americans on U.S. soil indefinitely by premising its protection on the mistaken assertion that the AUMF, the Authorization for Military Force, allows such detention--which I disagree with Chairman Smith, it does not. No such authority exists.

The AUMF does not grant this authority, and we should do nothing to suggest otherwise. In fact, we should be taking clear and immediate steps to ban indefinite military detention altogether. The Smith-Gibson amendment, which I support, takes a good first step in doing this by prohibiting the detention without charge of any person arrested or detained in the United States.

We should also pass my No Detention Without Charge Act, which would cure the problem altogether by preventing indefinite detention without charge or trial for all persons in U.S. custody, at home or overseas.

Secondly, this amendment would create greater uncertainty in habeas corpus cases and raises significant constitutional concerns. The amendment seeks to raise the burden on the U.S. Government to prove that a U.S. citizen is an unprivileged enemy belligerent. But that is not the same as requiring proof that the person is being lawfully detained, which is what habeas corpus is designed to do.

The creation of a two-tiered habeas system with one set of standards for U.S. citizens and different, lesser standards for noncitizens raises very troubling constitutional concerns. Our Constitution simply does not permit us to permit greater basic due process rights based solely on citizenship.

Although the chairman, Mr. Goodlatte, is right in citing the case that he cited, he talked about connection with the United States. Someone who is in the United States--physically in the United States-- and is arrested there has the same constitutional Fourth Amendment protections as an American citizen.

Any changes to habeas protections should be studied carefully through regular order, not through rushed attachments to the defense authorization act. Passing this amendment would be a serious and dangerous mistake. I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in strong support of the Smith-Gibson amendment.

When we considered the fiscal year 2012 version of this bill, I argued in opposition to sections 1021 and 1022. I argued then--and I still believe now--that these provisions go far beyond the AUMF to suggest that the President has the authority to detain even U.S. citizens without charge indefinitely. The AUMF gives the President no such authority.

Clearly, we must roll back these provisions. The Smith-Gibson amendment prohibits the detention without charge of any person arrested or detained in the United States, and it is the first step towards restoring the due process of law. It is a good first step, but the scope is limited to U.S. soil and to the present AUMF. We should do more.

That's why I've introduced the No Detention Without Charge Act, which would apply to all persons in U.S. custody--at home and overseas--and to all Authorizations to Use Military Force--present and future. It not only prohibits detention without charge of people arrested in the United States, but it also prohibits the detention of any person anywhere, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution and the law of war, and it restores a meaningful right of action for detainees to challenge the legality of the detentions.

The notion that the United States ought to conduct itself according to the Constitution and the law of war should not be controversial. Smith-Gibson takes the first step, and I have proposed the next, which is towards affirming our values and securing our liberty. This clarifies that the AUMF does not give any President the authority to detain people without the due process of law and to detain them indefinitely.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and to sign on as cosponsors of my bill but to, right now, support the Smith-Gibson amendment.