Providing For Consideration Of Senate Amendments To H.R. 3961, Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the bill that is with us today. The safety of this Nation, protecting America from terrorists, is of high and vital concern not only to this Member, but I think every single Member, as we have been reminded time after time that we cannot take our eye off the ball, that the security of this country is a job that must be done all day, every day, by a group of savvy professionals that I believe we presently have in this country. It is a combined effort of not only law enforcement and intelligence, but also it involves bright minds from this body also.

Today what we are here to do is to consider reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act. This act was done 9 years ago, 9 years ago when our Nation was struck. It was crafted in such a way that there were provisions, ideas, thoughts that we did at the time where we said we need to make sure they are reauthorized, that these ideas are looked at, where we go through the processes and see what happens not only with our own effectiveness with the law, but also how our intelligence agencies are nimble enough to adapt themselves to make these changes.

At the same time I say I am for this, it is unfortunate that my friends on the Rules Committee, my Democratic colleagues, continue to deny the minority due process by not allowing us to offer a motion to recommit. Time and time again Republicans are shut out of the amendment process, forcing us to simply accept what comes forward.

I encourage my friends on the other side of the aisle to stop restricting this process in the House.

Almost 9 years ago, as I stated, Congress passed this PATRIOT Act, bipartisan support, at a time that was very difficult not only for us to see that enemy that was at us, but also for us to understand more clearly how we should respond, and this Nation did respond. We responded with a PATRIOT Act that was specific in nature that allowed intelligence agencies to stand a chance to fight those against us.

This legislation was and still is vital to our intelligence capacity and our desire to show the enemy that we're willing to fight, that we're willing to stand up and protect this country, that we're willing to go to the lengths that are expected of anybody who wants to protect their own homeland.

Earlier this week, Ranking Member Lamar Smith of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from San Antonio, Texas, urged Democrat leaders, as we did not know whether this bill would come forward, to extend those expiring provisions, stating: ``Congress has a duty to protect the American people. Failing to reauthorize our national security laws in a time of heightened threat is reckless.''

These were the types of public comments that Republicans are making about the need to make sure that we press this body to get done its job with those processes.

Yesterday, up in the Rules Committee, the gentleman, Mac Thornberry, also from Clarendon, Texas, testified in the Rules Committee about the importance of extending the expiring PATRIOT Act provisions at the time we were debating the Intelligence bill. I thought that Mr. Thornberry was well on point, was thoughtful, was articulate about the significance of providing the necessary debate on important issues and amendments.

I think we just had a debate here on the floor where we went through how these issues need to be talked about in this body and every single Member needs to understand them as a result of their constitutional duty to protect and defend, not just our Constitution, but this country. And I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment when he said we need to provide the intelligence community with the appropriate tools to protect this Nation.

Yesterday, the Senate passed this legislation by voice vote; confirming the importance of acting immediately. Look, I'm just for getting it done. I'm just for getting it done. If the Senate wants to do it by voice vote, that's fine.

Today we are here on the floor to talk about the three provisions that were set to expire. They were set to expire because the previous Congresses have said we needed to have an active debate on these issues, like to talk about them, allowing the government to seek court orders for roving wiretaps on terrorism suspects who shift their modes of communication.

Mr. Speaker, if there's one thing we learned, the enemy is smart and nimble and quick. They adapt themselves to the way we do business. We need to give our intelligence agencies the ability to be nimble, quick and to adapt themselves also. Glad this is being redone just in time.

To allow investigators to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court order to procure certain records in national security investigations, you've heard this said for a long time. The people who are trying to protect this country are few in number, and the cases against them are very large. The number of people who are seeking to turn our country into another war zone where civilians are killed, where planes are blown up out of the sky, where we have inundation of our national security efforts, as well as cybersecurity, are numerous. We need to make sure our investigators have a clear understanding about the rules and are able to receive information in a legal process.

Lastly, to allow the government to apply special court surveillance orders involving suspected terrorists that are called ``lone wolf'' terrorists who do not necessarily have ties to larger organizations.

I think the gentleman, Mr. Rogers, made a point here from the Intelligence Committee that our ability to be able to see this for what it is, whether it's a part of a larger terrorist group or whether it's a lone wolf acting on his own, that we need to be able to make sure that we can fully vet these individuals before shutting them down and allowing them just to be treated as a person who's committed a crime. We need to be able to see that which is aimed at this country and to fully vet them.

When people who are overseas terrorists come into this country by lying to us about why they would be coming and their intents, we need to be smart enough and nimble enough to pick these up.

Each of these provisions are used by law enforcement officials and intelligence agents to prevent terrorist attacks. By reauthorizing these provisions today, which my party, the Republican Party, fully supports, we believe, for an additional year, will provide the appropriate defense and intelligence measures to protect Americans from another event like 9/11.

If I offered some comments, Republicans would have been in favor of making these permanent in law. Of course, we need to make sure that we're re-evaluating these, but these should be made permanent law so that our law enforcement agencies set themselves in a position to be nimble enough to see the attack against us.

I think 9 years' worth of effort has told us we need to give our law enforcement every single tool that we believe is reasonable. I think we've done it today. I wish we'd done it for more than a year, because here we are, we will be here a year from now, perhaps struggling with the same issue.

Let's make these permanent additions to the Homeland Security PATRIOT Act. This country is under a constant threat of violence and terrorism, and that's why it's necessary to make sure that all of our intelligence and law enforcement have the appropriate tools to defeat those who would wish to do us harm.

We don't need to look back very far to Christmas Day; but I would say to us that after that, we still had warnings that came from our intelligence community that said, and expect more, and expect more; which is the reason why we should be making these issues that we talked about today, not extending them for one more year, but to make them permanent to give our guys, our team, our men and women who are engaged in the professional aspect of protecting this country, the tools which they need to protect this country.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, I am in agreement with my friend from Texas that this rule ought to be passed and we ought to move forward right now. So I don't have any other speakers. I'm going to reserve the balance of my time.

I'd ask my friend from Texas how many people he expects to have speaking on his side.

Mr. SESSIONS. I would appreciate that. And in a colloquy, if the gentleman would allow me the time since he has indicated he has no further speakers, I will go ahead and consume my time with the knowledge that he would then be ending very quickly. And I thank the gentleman very, very much.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to go ahead and proceed using up all my time at this time with the knowledge that he will be through.

Mr. Speaker, at this time we have the gentleman from Gold River, California, a gentleman, Mr. Lungren, who has served as not only a Member of this body, then went back to California, served as the Attorney General from the State of California. He's a very thoughtful Member. He sees very clearly the laws of this country and the Constitution of this country, but he also sees the need for us to be nimble enough to see the attack that's against us, to be able to respond and to give our men and women who are on the front line all the assets and resources only that are necessary, but the laws and the underpinning of being able to make sure that we can fully protect this country.

And I will yield to the gentleman 6 minutes at this time.

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

Mr. Speaker, we're talking about something that is real important today. We've been talking about something that is real important, and I think the point that's made today is that the Republican Party supports the extension of the PATRIOT Act that we're doing here today. These three provisions are very important.

We're questioning why we have to move these on a piecemeal basis. We should move them. They should become permanent law. We believe that the enemy that is at our doorstep, that is all around this world, that is attacking our allies, our friends, people who love freedom, that that is not going to go away. We need to give our intelligence officials the ability to know that they are going to hard-code this in their books and their training and what they do instead of exceptions to, well, we might not want to do this in the future. Mr. Speaker, we need to give our team that's protecting us all of the tools that are available.

We're going to vote for this today because we think it's the right thing, but we think it ought to be made permanent. We think it ought to be a provision that all of our law enforcement, all of our intelligence officials understand why we're doing this, and we want to send them a strong signal: Protecting this country is not something that should be taken lightly from a perspective of what might expire. We want to give them all of the tools that are necessary. We want to make it permanent. Let's put it in their permanent training manual, not in an exception rule that they have to follow up and retrain people about what the law is.

Protecting this country should not be something that is related to whether we have an expiring provision or not. Let's make it permanent. Let's get that done. It would be my hope that the Intelligence Committee of this House would move to get that done as soon as we've passed this today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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