Floor Statements

Thank you, Mr. Pitts, and thank you for your leadership on the committee to allow this bill to come to the floor today. Good news, Mr. Speaker: this bill is bipartisan, it's fiscally responsible, and it will make a positive impact on our Nation's national security.

It's been more than 10 years since 9/11 and the anthrax attacks that followed. And while we haven't had a successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil, our enemies are still working every day to kill innocent Americans. Today the threat of bioterrorism remains very real.

Earlier this year, the bipartisan Graham-Talent Commission warned that the United States it is still ``vulnerable to a large-scale biological attack.''

Thankfully, we have spent the last decade preparing for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats by developing and stockpiling numerous medical countermeasures to protect American citizens in case of such an attack. Because of these efforts, we now have numerous vaccines and treatments in the Strategic National Stockpile that will save lives, and thousands of lives, in the event of such an attack.

But we have more work to do to be prepared. H.R. 2405 is a bipartisan, fiscally responsible bill that will reauthorize successful biodefense programs at the Department of Health and Human Services while also making some key changes to our Nation's biodefense strategy.

In 2004 Congress passed Project BioShield, which created a market guarantee that prompted the private sector to develop countermeasures for the Federal Government. Because the government is the only purchaser of these countermeasures, it was important to show the private sector we were committed to developing and eventually purchasing these products for stockpile.

Project BioShield Special Reserve Fund has been a critical tool to protect our country against an attack, and this legislation will reauthorize the fund for 5 additional years to continue the Federal Government's commitment to procurement of medical countermeasures. Importantly, this legislation reaffirms that the Special Reserve Fund should only be used for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear countermeasure procurement. This is a national security priority, and these funds should never be diverted for other purposes.

In 2006, Congress created a Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, called BARDA, which helped bridge what many termed the ``valley of death'' that had prevented many countermeasure developers from being successful. BARDA was created because we recognize that most of the CBRN countermeasures do not yet exist and medical development countermeasure is a risky, expensive and lengthy process.

BARDA bridges the funding gap between early-stage research and the ultimate procurement of products from the SRF fund from the national stockpile. H.R. 2405 reauthorizes BARDA for 5 years.

In 2006, we also created a unique set of public health programs to assist hospitals, local public health departments, and first responders in their preparedness efforts. Under H.R. 2405, these programs have been reauthorized for an additional 5 years so that we can continue to strengthen our preparedness infrastructure so critical for prevention and dealing with any possible attack.

H.R. 2405 also strengthens the role of the HHS Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response. We need to have one leader at HHS that coordinates countermeasure development and stockpiling across all agencies. This bill does that.

Finally, this bill includes important reforms to the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA. The bill strengthens FDA's role in reviewing medical products for national security priorities.

I believe that we've identified biological threats and spent millions in taxpayers' funds to develop countermeasures. The FDA must take a lead role in getting these countermeasures approved.

While we can use many of these products without FDA approval through an emergency-use authorization, the FDA licensure is hugely important and sends an important signal to developers of these new hopeful technologies and immunizations working on next-generation medical countermeasures.

Simply put, medical countermeasures for national security priorities cannot continue to be treated the same way as the next Viagra or Lipitor. FDA must accelerate their review and approval.

It's important for Members to know that this legislation, again, is fiscally responsible. H.R. 2405 does not create any new Federal programs or increase spending in any existing programs. I am pleased CBO has confirmed this in their score. H.R. 2405 creates a 5-year reauthorization of the biodefense programs we know are working while making critical policy changes at HHS to strengthen countermeasure development and public health preparedness.

I would like to thank my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee for their hard work on this bipartisan legislation. Mr. Upton, Mr. Pitts, Mr. Waxman, Mr. Pallone, and their staffs have spent several months helping us develop a bipartisan bill that can be signed into law. I want to especially thank my friends, Gene Green, Sue Myrick, and Anna Eshoo for their work to advance this legislation; and I appreciate your work and counsel along the way, Mr. Green.

I hope we never have to use these countermeasures, Mr. Speaker; but they are critical to the assurance that the public will be protected from an attack, and we must continue to speed development and strengthen our national stockpile. Simply put, we must always be prepared.

I would urge the strong support of H.R. 2405.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this time to commend Jon. D. Spalding, an outstanding citizen and business leader from Perry, Michigan. I want to recognize him today as he completes his service as a national officer of the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents. Mr. Spalding also served with distinction a term as President of the association.

Mr. Spalding has distinguished himself throughout his career as a professional insurance agent and he has exhibited only the highest standards of honesty, integrity and professionalism, serving as the President of the Professional Insurance Agents of Michigan.

Jon D. Spalding's tenure as president of PIA National marks the first time in the history of the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents that a father, and then his son, has served as President of the organization. Jon D. Spalding was President of PIA National in 2009-2010; his father, Robert M. Spalding, Sr. served as President of PIA National in 1995-96.

With his years of hard work and dedication Jon D. Spalding has earned the respect and admiration of his many colleagues throughout the insurance industry.

He has embodied the motto of his insurance association, ``Local Agents Serving Main Street America.'' Therefore, I would like to congratulate and commend Jon D. Spalding of Perry, Michigan upon the successful completion of his service as a national officer and as President of the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative

days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1892.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, I first wish to announce that, subsequent to ordering the bill reported, the committee has modified the classified schedule of authorizations to the bill with respect to the level of funding of certain programs, with bipartisan agreement between myself and my ranking member, Mr. Ruppersberger.

The classified annex containing the schedule of authorizations is available for review by all Members of the House, subject to the rules of the House and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, under the procedures described in my announcement to the House on Wednesday. The modified schedule of authorizations is and has been available for review to Members for the period of time required by the rules of the House.

Madam Chair, I think this is an important day for the community, certainly rolling into the weekend of the 10th anniversary of that tragic event on 9/11. It is important, it is crucial, that we continue to monitor, to improve, to provide support for our intelligence services who so bravely around the world and here at home serve to protect the United States of America.

The bill before us today is a vital tool for our oversight of the intelligence community's classified activities and is critical to ensuring our intelligence agencies have the resources and authorities they need to do their important work. Passing an annual intelligence bill is vital to keeping the laws governing our intelligence operations up to date. The FY12 bill sustains today's intelligence operations and provides for future capabilities while achieving significant savings.

The U.S. intelligence community plays a critical role in the war on terrorism and securing the country from many other threats that we face. This bill funds all U.S. intelligence agencies, spanning 17 separate agencies, totaling roughly $80 billion. The bill's comprehensive classified annex provides detailed guidance on intelligence spending, including adjustments to costly programs. It provides oversight and authorization for critical intelligence activities, including but not limited to the global counterterrorism operations such as the one that took out Osama bin Laden; tactical intelligence support to combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places; cyber defense by the National Security Agency; detecting and countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the R&D, research and development, of new technology to maintain our intelligence agencies' technological edge, including work on code breaking and spy satellites.

The bill also reflects our tough economic times as well, Madam Chair. After passage of the Budget Control Act, the committee revamped the bill it reported out of committee in May to double its budget savings. The bill is significantly below the President's FY12 budget request and further still below the FY11 authorized and appropriated levels. We accomplished this without impacting the mission. The savings were achieved through a whole series of joint work and effort by many to merge services and find savings that would bring efficiencies, as I said, again, Madam Chair, without impacting the mission of the intelligence services.

The bill curbs unnecessary personnel growth. The cost of additional personnel would squeeze funding for high-tech investments, which is our competitive advantage in intelligence. While the bill denies most of the administration's requested personnel increases, it adds some key positions in high priority areas such as cyber defense. The bill also promotes major operating efficiencies in a number of areas, including data processing, IT, and office leases, finding over $100 million in savings.

This bill also makes only ``best value'' investments and shaves $1 billion from a handful of very large-ticket hardware items and programs that the intelligence community is involved in. The bill protects investments in cutting-edge R&D and redirects $500 million of savings to invest in some game-changing technologies.

The bottom line is this bipartisan bill preserves and advances national security, and it is also fiscally responsible. Secrecy is a necessary part of our country's intelligence work, so the intelligence committees must conduct strong and effective oversight on behalf of the American people. That oversight is impossible, however, without an annual Intelligence authorization bill. Madam Chair, that's why we stand before you today with a bill that I think this body can be proud of, America can be proud of, and our intelligence community can take to the bank that we're investing in their mission success.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Foreign Affairs,

Washington, DC, September 2, 2011.

Hon. Mike Rogers,

Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,

House of Representatives, The Capitol, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Rogers: I write to confirm our mutual

understanding regarding provisions in the Intelligence

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 within the

jurisdiction of the Foreign Affairs Committee, specifically

the preparation of Nuclear Proliferation Assessment

Statements and a requirement that the Department of State

provide information concerning individuals detained at Naval

Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. We appreciate your agreeing to

include the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate

Foreign Relations Committee in the list of committees to

which this information will be submitted.

In order to expedite Floor consideration of this

legislation, the Committee will not object to the inclusion

of these two provisions and will not mark up the bill. The

Committee takes this action with the mutual understanding

that the Committee's jurisdiction over this, and similar

legislation, is in no way diminished or altered.

The Committee reserves the right to seek appointment to any

House-Senate conference on this legislation, and requests

your support if such a request is made. I would appreciate

your including this letter in the Congressional Record during

consideration of the legislation on the House Floor.

Sincerely,

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,

Chairman.

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

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, I have a lot of respect for the gentleman from Ohio. I think on this, unfortunately, his facts were just not correct. It's interesting in the business of intelligence because so much of it is classified that the rhetoric is easy to throw around and the condemnation is easy to heap on the very brave men and women who are following the law that we give them overseas. And I think that's one of the reasons that this administration came to power and said, all of the kinds of things and all the rhetoric around the political campaign just wasn't true. They found that they were following the law. They were comporting with the missions and guidelines and objectives in accordance with the law of the United States. So they are, in fact following the law.

There was no, absolutely no role for the CIA to overthrow the Qadhafi regime. That is just false. So I think we need to be careful about making these assertions that are pretty damning, if you will, that are completely inaccurate. We may believe that happened. I can tell you, on the Intelligence Committee, and my friend, Dutch Ruppersberger, we watch this closely.

One of the reasons I hope he will change his mind on the bill, Madam Chair, is that we need the ability to have oversight of these 17 agencies. This bill allows us to do it. By having no bill for 6 years, no authorization bill of any meaning was passed in this House. That's when problems start.

This gets us back to regular order. It gets us back into the business of conducting proper oversight and setting the guidelines in the classified annex, which I would urge the gentleman to come down and review in the House Intelligence Committee, which every Member has the privilege and, I argue, responsibility to do that if that's what they desire to do. It lays out very clear guidelines on spending and objectives and policies.

So I would argue that the gentleman's position is misstated. I understand his frustration. But, again, this gets us back to regular order, and I praise the administration for continuing the programs that we know were put in place under the last administration that are keeping Americans safer today.

With that, Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Again, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I too have concerns about weapons systems in Libya. But one of the problems was you can't be against the intelligence services being places to collect information, and then wonder why they're not in a place to get the information that we might need. And that's part of the problem here.

There was no CIA involvement in the regime change, none. That did not happen. I don't know where that got started. That is inaccurate information, and I would be careful about throwing out that the agency was involved in some regime changes. They were not.

We have pressed the agency and the administration to be more aggressive on accounting for and rendering safe weapons systems that are scattered all around Libya. We saw this in Iraq. When the regime uses these weapons caches, not to protect the citizens of its own state but to protect its regime, it becomes much more difficult to get a handle on it. We ought to be celebrating the agency's work in trying to determine where these systems are and how we render them safe and account for them, and one way we can do that is passing this bill that gives them the resources to do exactly that.

I would hope the gentleman would have a change of heart.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

I respect the gentleman from Ohio's position as well and hope that we can work out those differences as we move forward.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time to close.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I want to thank the gentleman from Maryland, who is not only a colleague but a friend, in working so diligently over the course of the summer and really at the beginning of this year to reestablish the Intelligence Committee as a force for oversight over the 17 agencies. It is a tremendous amount of money, and it is a tremendous amount of responsibility because most of what we do happens behind closed doors and is classified.

I think working together we have come to one of the best products certainly I have seen since on the committee of the most thorough review from line by line by line of both the National Intelligence Program spending as well as the Military Intelligence Program spending, and we've had very good cooperation because we've cooperated together from the agencies themselves.

There really was a unity of effort here that I think Americans can and should be proud of in an effort to make sure that our men and women who are risking their lives today to protect the United States of America have the resources they need and the commitment on behalf of this Congress and the American people to be successful in their particular mission.

I want to thank the staffs on both committees. For the first time we had joint briefings with both Republican and Democrat staff on the very difficult budget issues that worked sometimes through the process of the Intelligence authorization bill. They briefed

at the same table at the same time, which sounds a little--something that should happen more often but it did not and we have reestablished that. We have reestablished the quarterly reviews on all of the programs so that we have regular and consistent oversight on what happens in the intelligence community. That all wouldn't really have happened without the leadership of Mr. Ruppersberger and his team and my team as well.

There are too many to name who spent countless hours on this particular bill, the leadership team here and all the folks on the Intelligence staff. Honorable mention to Brian Smith, our budget director, who gave a lot of his heart and soul to go through every line and find every penny for us. I know on Mr. Ruppersberger's staff they have sat beside him the entire time to make that happen.

Without further ado, Madam Chair, we'll get to the amendments; but, again, I do think this is a product that reflects the best of what Congress can do when we work together, and the best of the most amazing people in our intelligence community and what they have to offer in the protection of the United States of America.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent to modify the manager's amendment to include a clarification at the request of the ranking member. The modification is at the desk.

Madam Chair, this is the manager's amendment to the bill. These are the last few details that we were able to work out in a bipartisan way to bring the bill to the floor.

The manager's amendment is primarily intended to remove three provisions that have been the subject of a veto threat by the administration. In addition, it makes a number of largely technical clarifications and adds a provision on authority to fill vacancies, a provision that was inadvertently omitted from the Rules Committee's print of the bill.

Madam Chair, as I explained during the general debate, moving this bill forward is critical to ensure comprehensive legislative oversight of our intelligence activities and, just as importantly, intelligence budgeting and spending. While I regret that our efforts to reach accommodation on these provisions, which were originally included in the Senate Intelligence Committee's bill, it is important that we remove these contentious provisions now so that the detailed spending and oversight recommendations in the classified annex can go forward.

The first contentious provision would have required Senate confirmation of the National Security Administration's Director. The other two contentious provisions subject to veto would have required the production of certain State Department cables related to detainee negotiations. While I support the production of these materials, the committees seeking them have other tools at their disposal to obtain them, and the bill should not be held up over that document dispute.

In addition, the manager's amendment includes a clarification to clarify section 310 on mitigating risks in the supply chain to ensure that those authorities cannot be delegated below the level of a service acquisition executive. The change is important to ensure the appropriate level of management is involved in such important decisions. This change reflects the committee's understanding that these acquisition authorities will not be used lightly and that all decisions under this provision will be carried out by responsible senior officials within the intelligence community and coordinated and overseen by the Director of National Intelligence.

Finally, the manager's amendment contains a modification requested by the ranking member to a provision concerning narcotics trafficking on public lands. The modification is needed to clarify the intended scope of the provision to ensure it is not read too broadly.

With that, Madam Chair, I ask Members to support the manager's amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate the gentleman for working with us. It is an important issue, and you have our commitment from myself and, I believe, the ranking member to coordinate this particular report.

I appreciate the gentleman's consideration, because it will allow the community to prioritize it. It may take 3 weeks or longer, or 3 weeks shorter than an amendment might call for, but it allows them to adjust according to the demands at the particular time on the intelligence community. For that, I want to thank the gentleman, and I look forward to working with him on the issue.

I thank the gentleman from California.

This is an important amendment. These are issues we have been working on in committee; and I can tell you, we have been a tad bit frustrated at that lack of coordination. I think it is unfortunate it took this amendment as a part of the Intelligence bill to continue to put pressure on the administration to get their act together on this particular issue. It is an issue we absolutely must solve, not only for the safety and security of the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces in Afghanistan, but also for the greater impact on the war on terror. I strongly urge support of the Hunter amendment.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Again, I appreciate the gentleman's concern for rail security. It is an incredibly important issue. I continue to believe, as I did the last go-round, this is not the right place for this. I have agreed not to officially oppose his amendment.

I just want to again remind individuals that this is 17 agencies across the whole spectrum of intelligence work. And for Congress to step in and say rail priority, even if their agency might be satellite oriented, just does not make a lot of sense to me; and I know it won't make a lot of sense to them as well.

Again, I agree that rail security is incredibly important. We have segments of the intelligence community, and I want to re-emphasize segments, and here in our homeland security, that worry about rail security, and I argue that would be a better place for this amendment. As I said, I will not officially oppose it. I have made no official recommendation. Again, I appreciate the gentleman's position. I will be voting ``no,'' but I would tell the rest of the Members to do what they see fit.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I claim time in opposition.

Again, I appreciate the gentleman's interest here. I don't know any organization that we established not to operate under the rules and construct of the Constitution of the United States. It is a little bit redundant, in my perspective; and also we deal with these issues through IGs, we do this through congressional oversight, and we deal with this in the classified annex. I would encourage the gentleman to take a look at the classified annex. A lot of the work that we do is to make sure that these organizations are functioning according to rules, regulation, and constitutional law.

I am not going to oppose his amendment. I have no recommendation. I do think, however, it's probably not well placed in this particular piece of legislation.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, this goes to the fundamental heart of why some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--and I think their intentions are good--but fundamentally do not understand the role and function of the intelligence community to protect the United States of America.

Just as the gentlelady stated, the newspaper reported a very credible threat to the security of the United States and to the violence of the citizens and maybe two prominent cities here on our homeland. So every day somebody gets up around the world with the sole intention of killing innocent Americans in this country through an act of terrorism.

In addition to that, people are trying to penetrate our cybernetworks all over this country, not only for intellectual property, but to cause harm and damage. We have nuclear treaties and nuclear proliferation that we ask and push and nudge our intelligence services to be on top of and not to make a mistake. Don't make a mistake that would result in a catastrophic event anywhere in the world, let alone here in the United States of America.

I know some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't want to deal with the hard issues of the border. But taking it from an open, aggressive, build a fence, put more resources on the border, getting serious about policing our southern border to take it into the classified, nobody can see it, see, aren't we doing something, is the wrong thing to do for this country.

We need to stand up for these men and women who we ask every day to protect this country. When you try to divert resources to gang violence from our intelligence services, that sends a very clear signal to America: you don't get it.

I want terrorists caught. I want a great raid on somebody like Osama bin Laden. I want all of the resources of the intelligence community geared to keeping us safe.

We have a Border Patrol; we have National Guard. We have lots of other ways to secure our border. Let's not waste the resources. Let's not give a slap in the face to every member of our intelligence community who is risking their life today to get a piece of information, to take an action that keeps us safe here in the homeland.

I strongly urge the rejection of this misguided amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 1892, the Clerk be authorized to make such technical and conforming changes as necessary to reflect the actions of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to announce to all Members of the House that the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has ordered the bill, H.R. 1892, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal

Year 2012, reported favorably to the House with an amendment, and last week filed its report on the bill in the House. The bill is currently expected to be considered in the House this coming Friday.

Mr. Speaker, the classified Schedule of Authorizations and the classified Annex accompanying the bill are available for review by Members at the offices of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in room HVC-304 of the Capitol Visitors Center. The committee office will open during regular business hours for the convenience of any Member who wishes to review this material prior to its consideration by the House.

I recommend that Members wishing to review the classified Annex contact the committee's director of security to arrange a time and date for that viewing. This will ensure the availability of committee staff to assist Members who desire assistance during their review of these classified materials.

I urge interested Members to review these materials in order to better understand the committee's recommendations. The classified Annex to the committee's report contains the committee's recommendations on the intelligence budget for fiscal year 2012 and related classified information that cannot be disclosed publicly.

It is important that Members keep in mind the requirements of clause 13 of House rule XXIII, which only permits access to classified information by those Members of the House who have signed the oath provided for in the rule.

If a Member has not yet signed that oath but wishes to review the classified Annex and Schedule of Authorizations, the committee staff can administer the oath and see to it that the executed form is sent to the Clerk's Office. In addition, the committee's rules require that Members agree in writing to a nondisclosure agreement. The agreement indicates that the Member has been granted access to the classified Annex and that they are familiar with the rules of the House and the committee with respect to the classified nature of that information and the limitations on the disclosure of that information.

I thank the Speaker.

I agree with the gentleman from New York, and our political philosophies may be different. I think it's a powerful and passionate speech. What frustrates me, I think, the most, and the fact that we are even having this debate in this way is because the President has not led on this particular issue. He should have come before Congress. I think that's clear.

I don't think anyone really objects to the fact that he should have come here anytime when we put our troops in harm's way, absolutely. I think he's done not a great job talking about what our national security interests are in Libya and what role we're playing in Libya. Bad marks all the way around.

But the Kucinich resolution is dangerous. I do believe we have national security interests at stake here. Even though the President has gone about it in all the wrong way, they're our national security interests. And to stand up today and say we're frustrated with the President, we're going to stomp our feet and we're going to bring them home, leaving our allies holding the bag, is unconscionable-- unconscionable.

Here's what happens if the Kucinich resolution passes: the naval blockade becomes at risk, Qadhafi gets stronger, our ability to refuel aircraft--NATO aircraft who are doing strikes, not the United States who are doing strikes mind you, our British, our Italian and our French allies who are doing combat strikes--goes away.

The fact that we cannot get in and do particular efforts on making it very difficult for them to see through radar and actually target planes happens by the United States, that goes away. Who

would do that to friends and allies in the middle of a fight?

And here's our national security interests. They have thousands and thousands of pounds of chemical weapons. This isn't a guess. We're not reading some analytical sheet. Many of you have seen it. I have personally seen it. We know it's there. It's declared. What happens to those chemical weapons in a place where al Qaeda in the Magreb is growing stronger, not weaker? There's only one country in the world that has the unique capability to keep an eye on it and take care of it when the opportunity arises. That's the United States of America. That is in our national interest. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft weapons that keep me awake at night.

We have the unique capability in the United States to make sure that those weapons systems don't fall into the hands of those who would do us harm--the terrorists who proliferate in northern Africa right now. Those are in our national security interests.

So, yes, let's have the debate. I think the Speaker's approach is absolutely appropriate. It's sad that we had to come to that point where we had to inform this administration, ``Sir, you have not made your case. You need to come and make your case.'' And I argue when he does that, when he makes his case, I think the American people will be with him. But he has to make the case, and he needs Congress' consult and advice on this particular issue. And I argue he needs our approval to continue to move forward.

I hope that we don't get really small in our politics and we're so angry at this President for not making his case on something as sensitive as this that we would ruin our national interests as we move forward. They are important allies, our French and our British. Now we've been frustrated at them, and I'm sure they're frustrated at us. But they've spilled their blood and their treasure in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and they currently help us fight terrorism where we find it in the world.

Do you poke your friend in the eye because you're mad? No. This is an important issue that has to be bigger than our political parochial beliefs. It has to be bigger than our congressional districts. This is about America, our future, our allies, and, yes, our national security.

Who better to make sure that those shoulder-fired weapons don't go someplace than us? Who better to make sure that those chemical weapons don't fall in the hands of terrorists who seek to kill innocent men, women and children? Qadhafi has been proven to be a state sponsor of terror. The Pan Am bombing, he killed hundreds. He killed U.S. soldiers in Germany in the eighties, our U.S. soldiers, through an act of terrorism. We know he still has terrorism hit squads. We know it. We can't prove that he's engaged them yet, but we know they exist. Why would we walk away from that threat when we know he's under siege and feeling desperate?

This is the time we should stand with our allies, Madam Speaker. This is the time that we should say, yes, our national security interests are at heart. And, yes, Mr. President, come down and meet your constitutional obligation and show this Congress why we're there, what role we're playing and what it means to our national security.

I would urge a strong rejection of cutting and running in the Kucinich amendment and a strong support of the Speaker of the House's right approach to bring the President to Congress, as he needs to be.

Thank you very much.

And I congratulate Mr. Reed on the amendment. I think it is wholly appropriate that we commend all of the intelligence services and our elite Special Forces who participated in bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. And it really wasn't a victory over one person or one leader, but a blow to the entire network, to the belief system of those that believe violence, killing innocent men, women and children of all religions, is a way to promote your political gains.

If you think about the incredible accomplishment that happened after, and started really after 9/11, we had to make up for huge gaps in humint intelligence. And through the help of this body and this Congress and President Bush and then on to President Obama, we began to reassemble the abilities and capabilities of our intelligence community. Through interrogations, information was developed about how al Qaeda works and we understood its logistics, how it finances and recruits and moves people, how it recruits people to do suicide bombings, how it plans operations. All of that came in the early days.

Then 5 years ago through an integration, there was a little piece of information, a nickname applied to an alias with someone who was hanging around other folks who were probably using nicknames applied to an alias who may be a courier for Osama bin Laden. And through all of our collection agencies, signals intelligence, satellite intelligence, other forms of intelligence, a case was slowly and surely developed that finally allowed, with a few lucky breaks and some great determination from our intelligence community, the ability to locate the place where they believed Osama bin Laden was hiding out. Once that was determined, they brought in our Special Forces community, who did an exceptional and superb job in bringing him to justice in what was a difficult situation.

So I want to compliment Mr. Reed and Mr. Grimm for bringing this amendment forward to give a small sense of recognition to all of the work on behalf of the entire intelligence and Special Forces community, and the soldiers too who risked their lives in holding ground in places like Afghanistan to reestablish security there so that al Qaeda won't find safe haven there when they leave. All of those

things and all of those capabilities are incredibly important. All of that service and all of that sacrifice led to last Sunday's successful event.

Let us not forget, al Qaeda may be hurt, they have lost their operational and inspirational leader; but they are not down. This is not the time to back off. This is not the time to say that we should do other things or maybe we shouldn't be places at all. This is the time to step on the gas and break the back of al Qaeda as a threat to the world as we move forward.

Again, I want to congratulate Mr. Reed and Mr. Grimm, and I wholeheartedly support this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, it's laudable that they would commend the men and women of the intelligence community. We certainly thank them for that. We just did that a few minutes ago. That would certainly qualify for the department of redundancy as we would move forward.

The one that I find mystifying, we came so close, so close, to finally making this a bipartisan product. So the

first part was great. You said thank you very much to the folks and hid behind the great work of the men and women of the intelligence community. But then you blow up the entire intelligence bill by prioritizing of funding.

Two things that does. One, it blows up the work, the framework. There's a priority framework in the intelligence community that sets these standards and tells the intelligence community, here are your priorities, given place, given region, given resources. That happens already. So you basically say, well, we don't believe that you ought to be doing that. We should be doing that. Wrong answer.

The second part of it is we have a classified annex and it talks about very important investments that we in a bipartisan way have worked to get to--code breaking, cybersecurity. What you are saying is cybersecurity isn't as important. You think this is more important. That is not for us to determine.

We just went through months and months of work to tell the intelligence community to put the classified annex together to say, here are the intelligence priorities as we go forward. This bill is intended to gut the work of the last few months that we have just done in a bipartisan way.

I tell you, it's a little frustrating knowing that we came that close, Mr. Speaker, to getting a bipartisan product that represents the values of the intelligence community, the resources that they need, and, yes, says thank you to the men and women who will never be known for the work they do to keep America safe.

I recommend a strong rejection of this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 754, the Clerk be authorized to make such technical and conforming changes as necessary to reflect the actions of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 754.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. All time yielded is for the purposes of debate only.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to announce that subsequent to reporting the bill, the committee has modified the classified annex to the bill with respect to the authorized level of funding for certain programs, with bipartisan agreement between myself and the ranking member, Mr. Ruppersberger. The classified annex containing the modified schedule of authorizations is available for review by all Members of the House, subject to the rules of the House and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, under which procedures were described in my announcement to the House on May 3, 2011. The modified schedule of authorizations is and has been available for review by Members and the period of time required by the rules of the House.

Mr. Chairman, the annual intelligence authorization bill, I do believe, is one of the most important bills that will pass in the House each year. I want to thank my ranking member, Mr. Ruppersberger. We sat down at the beginning of January and decided that matters of national security were too important for infectious partisan debate and rhetoric and we decided that we would work out through every cause, as congenially as possible, and agree where we could, on every matter that we had a difference on, moving forward on, again, matters of intelligence and matters of national security.

I think the product we see on the floor today reflects that commitment and that working relationship, and I want to commend Mr. Ruppersberger and the entire House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for their work, their cooperation, and their commitment to our national security to the United States.

We recently saw the successful mission against Osama bin Laden. Our intelligence professionals remain on the front lines in America's defense against our enemies. For the last 6 years, Congress has failed to pass a bona fide intelligence authorization bill with funding authority. Instead, yearly appropriation bills have simply deemed intelligence funding to be authorized.

We must, and I think we agree in a bipartisan way, stop that trend and stop it this year. The continued success of our intelligence community requires effective and aggressive congressional oversight. Such oversight can only be achieved if we get back in the habit of meeting our responsibility of passing an intelligence authorization bill every year.

Mr. Chairman, we have men and women scattered all across this globe who are engaged daily in sometimes often very dangerous work of collecting information to provide our policymakers and our warfighters the information they need to defeat our enemy. From trying to catch spies here in the United States by our FBI to recruiting people who want to cooperate and help the United States on tough issues like nuclear proliferation or terrorism efforts targeted against us or our allies, these folks log countless hours, risk their lives, spend time away from their families, and deserve our praise and our commitment that we will work with them to give them the tools that they need to be successful.

I can't think of a more important time in our history where I have seen intelligence play such an important

role in our world affairs. The world is changing before our eyes, and our intelligence community is providing us the information we need, not just to be safe, but to make good decisions on what that world looks like and what our national interests are country by country, region by region.

I am particularly pleased that this bill has such strong bipartisan support. The legislative provisions are intentionally limited to focus our attention on providing necessary resources to the men and women of the intelligence community as provided in the classified annex. The secrecy that is a necessary part of our country's intelligence work requires that the congressional Intelligence Committees conduct strong and effective oversight on behalf of the American people, and that strong and effective oversight is possible. But without that annual intelligence authorization bill, the bill that we will pass today--we must get back in the habit of passing that bill every year.

We make important commitments in this bill, Mr. Chairman, for the priorities of the intelligence community. Technology has fused in the intelligence collection like I have never seen it, and its increase is exponential over the past 10 years.

We make important investment in the new technologies that allow our intelligence officials and professionals to do the work they need to do. It makes them more effective, and it also makes the investment in the people who oversee that technology even more important. We make that important investment in this FY 2011 intelligence authorization bill as well.

Nothing brings that home like the broad scope of what we saw participate in the Osama bin Laden event of last Sunday. Every single intelligence agency, and I do mean every single one, played a part in that operation, from collecting small bits of information, from putting that piece together, signals intelligence, satellite intelligence, MASINT intelligence, all of those things came together over the course of 10 years.

I credit George Bush and his administration for assembling this new intelligence community that really started after 9/11 and President Obama for making the authorization and the continued policies that allowed us to have that information to go after Osama bin Laden. It was really quite an impressive thing. Both administrations deserve credit for that, and I would hope that today the people of the House of Representatives would celebrate that victory and all the work of the unsung heroes who work in the shadows by passing this FY 2011 so they can get about the business of protecting the United States.

I appreciate, again, this bipartisan consensus.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished member of the Intelligence Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to gentlewoman from the great State of North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick), a distinguished member of the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas and a member of the Intelligence Committee, Mr. Conaway.

I yield 2 minutes to the appropriator member of the House Intelligence Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, also a member of the committee, Mr. Westmoreland.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Will the gentleman yield?

We plan to bring a bill for 2012, and I will work with you on the NDIC. I couldn't agree more: it's important that we continue to have the government effort focus on illicit drugs; however, the National Drug Intelligence Center has done very little to address this national priority, and I look forward to working with the Member.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Intelligence Committee, the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Heck).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to another distinguished gentleman from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Rooney).

Mr. Chairman, I want to commend Mr. Ruppersberger for the last remarks. Cybersecurity is a real and growing threat for the United States. We make serious commitments in this FY 11 bill, and we have pledged to work together on separate pieces of legislation to put the United States in a better position to defend itself against cybersecurity. Something that started out so long ago as somebody in their mother's basement hacking into the local school to change their grades has become whole nation-states using the Internet and all of cyberspace to not only steal intellectual property from private enterprise, attempt to hack and steal information from the United States, but also use it for offensive purposes where we have seen the Russians who when they went into Georgia use aggressively cyber to prep the battlefield for their invasion, something that we all need to worry about.

I want to, again, pledge to work with the ranking member on this very, very important issue so that we can get on better footing as we move forward.

Also, on the space, it is one of the things that has given the United States a technological advantage in the world, something that we need to continue to make those investments into the overhead architecture of the United States from communication satellites to all of the things that we do from space. And it is a serious investment on this country, but when you look at the success of something like the Osama bin Laden raid, you realize all of it, from space, to cyber, to signals intelligence, to human intelligence, is something that was invested in in this money; and I'm glad that the ranking member used this opportunity to talk about those very important issues and the commitment in this bill to start to put us on better footing for that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Nunes), a distinguished member of the House Intelligence Committee.

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 2 minutes to a former Army captain, the great new Member from Kansas (Mr. Pompeo).

Mr. Chairman, I will just take this opportunity to thank both the Democrat and Republican staff members who helped us prepare this bill. For the first time since I have served on the committee, we had both Democrat and Republican staff briefed in a bipartisan way at the same table, all Members in the room. And we think that that improved the value of this product tremendously, something we are hoping to continue.

So my hat is off to all of the staff. We hire professionals from the community, from all walks of life as well to provide us the expertise that we need to provide the proper oversight for the intelligence community. And I do believe, in this great spirit of bipartisanship with Mr. Ruppersberger, that this will give the tools to those 17 agencies who work in secrecy on behalf of the United States the things that they need to accomplish their mission and to keep this great country safe.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, this is a manager's amendment to the bill that contains two provisions.

The first provision would simply clarify that section 411 of the bill, which relates to certain Defense Intelligence Agency expenditures, applies only to the National Intelligence Program funds. This clarification was requested by the Committee on Armed Services and is largely technical in nature.

The second provision would strike section 412 of the reported bill, which provides for the creation of certain accounts for intelligence funds. While this provision is an important one, intended to promote auditability of intelligence funds, some technical issues have arisen; and I believe it was prudent to hold this over until the FY12 bill. It is something that I support and hope to return to the bill in FY12. I do not believe that either of these changes are controversial and urge Members to support the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank the ranking member. I look forward to working with him on this particular issue.

As I think the ranking member understands, Mr. Chairman, we've brought in auditors on the committee. This is something we're very committed to in a bipartisan way, to actually have funds that can be audited. It's a bit shocking, I think, to both of us that they have had these funds for such a long time that have not been able to be audited, and we hope to do that on behalf of the taxpayers of the United States.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, while I do not oppose the amendment, I would ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

While I support the intent behind the amendment, I believe it is also important to note for the record--and I appreciate the gentleman's work on this--that the Intelligence Committee has already a number of existing programs and initiatives in this area. I think this will, in fact, enhance that effort.

The proposed amendment has the goal of assisting Historically Black Colleges and Universities in creating and maintaining academic curricula that help the intelligence community meet its workforce diversity and critical language goals. I am happy to say that the community already understands well that a diverse workforce enhances its mission performance. For example, Director Panetta has launched his own initiative at CIA to enhance the diversity of that agency's workforce.

Additionally, there are other initiatives under way to increase the employment and retention of the diverse candidates throughout the intelligence community. And I won't go on, other than to compliment the gentleman for his interest in exposing the number of people who would have the skills to apply and diversify our workforce at the CIA.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, while I do not oppose this amendment, I ask unanimous consent to claim time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I support efforts to create a diverse workforce within the intelligence community. A diverse workforce is instrumental to effectively respond to the complex global threats faced by the United States.

I do have so many concerns that this amendment is duplicative with many efforts which are already under way within the intelligence community to address this issue.

For example, section 338 of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2010, passed after the fiscal year last year, requires the DNI to coordinate with each element of the IC to provide a report of plans to increase the employment and retention of diverse candidates. Moreover, the DNI has already created a strategic plan on equal employment opportunity and issued Community Directive 110, the Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Program.

It is my hope that the inspector general will consider all of these existing initiatives in the report and use the substantial body of work that has already been done on these issues in completing it.

Nonetheless, I will support the amendment and its laudable goals.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I must unfortunately oppose this amendment.

I certainly can sympathize with the gentleman's intention to try to bring some closure for families in this particularly difficult issue in Argentina, and it may certainly result in some information to those who are conducting maybe historical research and analysis and certainly to mend the wounds that have been created in this particular situation.

It would also do something, I think, equally damaging to today's effort in the war on terror. It would divert the intelligence community from its mission of protecting the United States and our interests from current threats. When you think about how difficult it was to take a small piece of information and stretch a nickname, an Arabic nickname applied to someone who is using an alias, who is likely associating with individuals who had Arabic nicknames associated to aliases, and from that little scrap of information, the entire intelligence apparatus spent years trying to develop the right lead to lead us to last Sunday's event to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.

This year, the intelligence community came forward and said, We need more analysts. We need more human resources in order to accomplish this mission. There are too many threats in too many places for our people to handle it. And what this amendment does, although it is very well intended, it takes resources away to apply it to a problem that is 20 to 30 years old. I am sorry, we just don't have that luxury today.

We are concerned, the intelligence community is concerned that the next few months, the next 6 months are crucial when al Qaeda is trying to get its act back together after losing its operational and inspirational leader and how they reach out or lash out in some kind of an attack. It is imperative that every minute of every day be spent targeting those who are seeking to kill Americans or our allies overseas now.

I hope that we find some other alternative to what the gentleman proposes in maybe another way. But redirecting the valuable assets in the fight on terror today I just think is a misuse of our resources and may, in fact, be a dangerous one at that. This is not the time to be disrupting our counterterrorism analysts, our case officers, or anybody in the CIA or other intelligence agencies away from disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations for the activities of the Government of Argentina nearly 25 years ago.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, again, with deep respect to the Member from New York, and I appreciate your passion on this, I can tell you as a former FBI agent, when you take 1 minute away from your case to cull information, it does take somebody who is operational in some sense, either an analyst or an operator or even on the IT front, to gather, collect, sort that information, to go through it, to put it in the proper form and to get it in the right place.

Really, every minute of every day is so precious to these individuals who are trying to focus on al Qaeda and the current threat. My argument is that this is something that can wait. It has waited 25 years. Probably the next few years won't make a difference, but the next few years in the fight against al Qaeda can mean the life and death of U.S. citizens.

So, again, I hope the gentleman doesn't think it is any condemnation of his effort. I think the time and the place and the resources that would be lost are just not meeting the national security priorities as we look out across what the threat stream is today.

So, unfortunately, I will continue to oppose it. I would like to work with the gentleman on something in the future.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

While I agree with the need for strong security in the railway sector, I just don't believe this amendment is best suited for the Intelligence authorization bill, as it seems to address the policy issues that are not authorized or otherwise addressed in the FY11 Intelligence authorization bill. The intelligence community does not have transportation security plans or transportation security budgets, nor do individual intelligence community agencies. In order to meet the requirement of this, they would have to restructure themselves to bring in the right people to do the plans for security for the railway. I don't think that's what the gentleman intends, but that's clearly what the gentleman's amendment would do.

I would argue that this amendment would be better focused on the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA. That agency, however, falls under the jurisdiction of the Homeland Security Committee and not the Intelligence Committee. The intelligence community does not develop transportation security plans. Rather, the intelligence community, through DHS, provides threat information to the transportation sector to better enable it to develop security plans.

Additionally, I note that this amendment simply expresses the sense of the Congress on the issue. It does not actually compel any action. I would question the real improvement to security on the railway sector from its adoption because, again, it appears that the amendment would not have a real impact. This is really out of the scope of the intelligence community.

I would urge the gentleman to reconsider and contemplate maybe addressing it in the TSA. If the gentleman would like any help and assistance in doing that, I would be eager to try to help the gentleman do that.

Again, given the time pressures on our intelligence community to stop real-time threats and pass that information on to people in the TSA and others, I would argue that this is an amendment that we should all oppose and look for a better opportunity.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Again, I appreciate both of the gentlemen's perspectives on this, but this is about the right tool for the right job. The intelligence community is the one that's supposed to develop the intelligence, the threat stream, the lead, and pass it to somebody who is in charge--the TSA in this case--of protecting the transportation sector.

Again, I make the argument it is important, but I just think this is misplaced. The intelligence community would have to try to create this expertise, which they do not have today in the entirety of the intelligence community, to make security plans. This is not what they do. It's not what they're equipped to do. They are not, in most cases, with the exception of the FBI and DEA, they're not domestic agencies. They're agencies that are designed to collect overseas. So it is just not a good fit.

Again, I appreciate the gentleman's position. I just think the community would have to spend a lot of time and resources diverting from its real intention and mission to keep us safe.

Just quickly and just for the record--I think it's important--the information that the gentleman referenced was aspirational. We saw a lot of press reports that I think misrepresented the information that was provided. It was something that Osama bin Laden thought about. It is not something that the intelligence community believes was operational, which means you have to be vigilant all the time on all these issues.

So I commend the gentleman in his effort on trying to bring better security to our railways. Again, just the right tool for the right job. This is not the right place. Unfortunately, I will oppose it but would like to work with the gentleman on the right place to get the job done.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to announce to all Members of the House that the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has ordered the bill, H.R. 754, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, reported favorably to the House with an amendment. The committee's report will be filed today.

Mr. Speaker, the classified Schedule of Authorizations and the classified Annex accompanying the bill will be available for review by Members at the offices of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in room HVC-304 of the Capitol Visitors Center beginning any time after this report is filed. The committee office will be open during regular business hours for the convenience of any Member who wishes to review this material prior to its consideration by the House. I anticipate that H.R. 754 will be considered in the House in the near future, perhaps as early as next week.

I recommend that Members wishing to review the classified Annex contact the committee's director of security to arrange a time and date for that viewing. This will assure the availability of committee staff to assist Members who desire assistance during their review of these classified materials.

I urge interested Members to review these materials in order to better understand the committee's recommendations. The classified Annex to the committee's report contains the committee's recommendations on the intelligence budget for fiscal year 2011 and related classified information that cannot be disclosed publicly.

It is important that Members keep in mind the requirements of clause 13 of House rule XXIII, which only permits access to classified information by those Members of the House who have signed the oath provided for in the rule.

If a Member has not yet signed that oath but wishes to review the classified Annex and Schedule of Authorizations, the committee staff can administer the oath and see that the executed form is sent to the Clerk's office. In addition, the committee's rules require that Members agree in writing to a nondisclosure agreement. The agreement indicates that the Member has been granted access to the classified Annex and that they are familiar with the rules of the House and the committee with respect to the classified nature of the information and the limitations on the disclosure of that information.

I thank the Speaker.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I can't think of anything more disconnected from national security than this amendment.

To speak on that, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray).

Madam Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I appreciate the gentleman's passion for the issue, but I think when amendments like this hit the floor, it does a huge disservice to even the basis of their argument. You know, getting ready for World War II, we had a truck company in Ypsilanti, Michigan, that went from building pickup trucks with several thousand parts--in about 8 weeks, they converted it to building bomber airplanes with over a million parts. Only in America could that have happened to win the war. The great industrial arsenal of democracy happened in the great State of Michigan.

If you want to talk about national security issues, when you try to do this on cap and trade, what you are doing is wholesale departing manufacturing jobs and our ability to produce things in this country to places like China and India, who have laughed at cap and trade and said, we welcome those jobs.

We lost a million manufacturing jobs in our State alone. A million. Cap and trade. What you seek to do will lose 1.4 million more jobs.

Admiral Mullen said the greatest threat to our national security is our debt. When people aren't working, when America can't produce things, I am telling you, we will do more to harm our national security than anything I can think of.

We are going to lose just in Michigan over 100,000 jobs in the next 25 years. So guess what? You want to talk about national security, someone who is unemployed and not paying taxes to help solve the debt problem is a national security threat, when you want to make unreasonable expectations.

I want clean water, and I want clean air. I don't want the EPA shutting down factories that produce and actually produced the largest middle class in the history of the world. Why we would attack that and label that as a national security interest defies even the greatest of imaginations, Madam Chair.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman for making our point for us. When you shut down production of oil and natural gas into the United States, we have to import more because we are still driving more. We have absolutely put ourselves at the mercy of a whole region of the world that is inflamed in trying to figure out who they are. And it has raised our prices. It went from $1.83 2 years ago to $4 a gallon.

If you want to be serious about getting this right, let the EPA do what it does best--clean air, clean water--and let the national security folks keep us safe and increase production so that for goodness sake, somebody can afford to drive to work.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of power and emotion in this debate today, and I'm glad for that. There should be.

I recall the first time I had the chance to get to Afghanistan in late 2003. I met a woman there who had been trained as a doctor in the United States. She went to practice medicine in her home country of Afghanistan. When the Taliban took over, they stripped her of her medical duties. They sent her home. She was imprisoned in her own home for 6 years. I met her at a children's hospital, and in the days of the first conflict, she stripped off her burka, she walked 10 miles to the town to show up to provide medical care for the first time to these children as a woman in Afghanistan. With tears in her eyes she said, Thank you. These children have no chance. Afghanistan has no future.

And we saw the soccer field where they took people down and summarily executed them for violations that they deemed to be executable offenses under no law of their own, the burned buses where the modern conveniences were burned to get them out of the system when the Taliban took over to apply sharia law. And none of that would matter from the pain and the loss if you've attended one of these fine soldier's funerals; it is an emotional thing, and there is pain, and hurt, and sorrow, and something lost in all of us.

So none of those other things would be alone a reason to send our soldiers to risk their lives in defense of this country, but because of the things I talked about, because they have imprisoned women in Afghanistan, because of the things that they've done to the people there, it created hate and ignorance and brutality, and al Qaeda saw an advantage, and they took it. They established there a safe haven where they recruited, where they financed, where they planned, where they armed themselves, where they recruited people around the world from other countries to come to train, and they sent some of them to the United States of America to slaughter 3,000 people.

And if you want to talk about money, the trillion-plus dollars that 9/11 has cost us just in economic loss, that's why we're there. We should not forget the mission today and why they risk their lives. If you want to talk about the State Department policies, I'm all in. I'd love to have that debate. If you want to talk about rules of engagement, I'm in, that's a place, let's do it, let's have that debate.

But if you want to tell the enemy today--and by the way, for the first time, we've got information that their commanders are saying we don't want to go fight. The spring offensive is being planned now, right now. Our soldiers are preparing for battle right now. This may be that last great battle in Afghanistan on behalf of our soldiers to eliminate the major components of the Taliban taking over their country.

So if that woman doctor who trained here, taking care of kids, who cried for help and support doesn't move you, and maybe it shouldn't; for the pain of that funeral, that loss, that soldier who gave it all for this country doesn't move; then what ought to move you is the fact that these folks are gearing up and hoping and praying that we give up and we pull these troops out before the mission is done.

We all want them home. We want them home with no safe haven and a way that we can continue to put pressure on al Qaeda and its supporting affiliates.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Senate amendment, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

We've already had a lengthy debate on this legislation. There is bipartisan consensus that these important tools for our Intelligence Community cannot be allowed to lapse. The Senate amendment, which was also supported by a wide bipartisan margin in the other body, will keep these three needed priorities in place for the next 90 days, till May 27.

While I have strong concerns about the short-term extension and how that will compress the time needed to have a full and complete debate over the longer-term reauthorization, I will support the Senate amendment in order to make sure that these tools remain available.

As I said earlier this week in this debate, it makes very little sense to me why we would not have the tools like roving wiretap authority and authority to obtain business records in terrorism and spy cases when the same tools are readily available in criminal cases, often with fewer protections for civil liberties.

Mr. Speaker, I have said before I think this is one of the most misrepresented and misunderstood pieces of legislation I think I've ever seen. The things that exist in the ability for an FBI agent to conduct in criminal activities, including business records, including roving wiretaps, are just being extended to the FISA court, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, to go against terrorism and espionage. That's the only difference here. It has been an important tool to keep America safe the last 10 years.

I look forward to a thoughtful debate outside of the political rhetoric about what people believe this act to do and what it really does do to keep Americans safe. And if you believe that an FBI agent should be able to get a subpoena for business records to solve a crime, then clearly you believe that the same FBI agent should go to a FISA court to get a court order, which is a higher standard, for business records to prevent a terrorist attack. That's the only difference in these two, I think, misunderstood provisions.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 79, I call up the bill (H.R. 514) to extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 relating to access to business records, individual terrorists as agents of foreign powers, and roving wiretaps until December 8, 2011, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 514.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished military veteran, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger).

I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland), member of the Intelligence Committee.

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

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

I appreciate the way the ranking member has approached this issue. There are people who have differences of opinion, strong, passionate opinions on this. I am shocked and a bit amazed at the misinformation that is in and about the Patriot Act.

If you believe that roving wiretaps through a court order is bad, then we should stop investigating today organized criminals and drug dealers and child pornographers and kidnappers.

If you believe today that going in and trying to get someone's business records to prove that they were at a place, with a subpoena from a grand jury, is a bad idea, then we should stop doing it. Today you can do it. You can go to the library and get someone's records.

As a matter of fact, during the first part of this debate someone talked about how they went in and got all this information on whoever checked out a book on Osama bin Laden and what a horrible thing it was. That wasn't even a FISA warrant. It was a criminal warrant. That happened under the criminal code. That can happen tomorrow. And when this expires at the end of this month, they will still continue to be able to do that. But you will not be able to go to a FISA court and get a roving wiretap or a court order, by the way, to get records that will help in an ongoing terrorism investigation. It really is mind-boggling.

Let me give you what I think is the greatest example, the Times Square bomber. If we would have known early in that particular arrangement, they could have gone and figured out, listen, we need a court order. We go to the FISA court. There are two courts here: a criminal court and a FISA court. We go to the FISA court, because we don't know how big this is; we don't know who all is involved. We don't necessarily want to arrest him; we want to arrest everybody that is involved.

So let's go to the judge and prove to the judge that if we can figure out that he bought materials from a hardware store to build a bomb, that we might be able to prevent this thing in the future. So they go and get a court order. This is hypothetical. They get a court order, which is a pretty high standard in any investigation.

Or the other option is the bomb goes off, it kills hundreds if not thousands of people, and that very same FBI agent takes it with a criminal warrant and gets the very same information after the bomb has gone off. That is what we are talking about. That is the difference.

This notion that somehow you don't have to go to a court to get an order is wrong. Trust me, you are not going to be able to go through somebody's underwear drawer because you want to. It is not going to happen.

If you believe in the process that we have in our criminal courts, to have to go and get an order by a third-party adjudicator, then you should also believe that this is a really good idea to be able to do it in these broad, hard-to-do investigations into terrorism and spying. It is difficult.

Remember the Russian spy ring that was just broken up recently. They had a FISA court order warrant for a very long time because they needed to figure out everything that was going on before they brought this thing to a head.

The same with a terrorism investigation. Think about how global it is now. They planned the attacks in Afghanistan to attack New York and it went through Pakistan and other places, Saudi Arabia, and they had multiple states involved when they brought this plot together. It is big. It is complicated.

To take away, at the end of this month, our ability to get a roving wiretap that, by the way, on the very next day after you stop our ability to go to a FISA court to get one, you can still get one in a criminal case against organized crime or a drug dealer here in the United States, why, why would we do that to ourselves, Mr. Speaker? It makes no sense.

The work that goes into putting these things together for the brief, to go to the court, is significant. I will tell you right now there are very brave Americans who are working cases right now hoping to get their brief done so they can walk into a judge and get an order that might pertain to business records, or it might be a roving wiretap to keep America safe. If it expires, they won't be able to do it. There is no difference. As a matter of fact, the standard in the FISA court is higher.

Mr. Speaker, I would strongly urge this body's support of what we know is working and has kept America safe since its inception.

I yield back the balance of my time.