trump was ahead in independents by 20 points. anyway, i just want to hear what her, it is on that. host: we will show you the cnn poll that just came across. 45%, hillaryat clinton, 43%. guest: >> you can watch of the rest of the conversation online. let's take you live to the floor of the house gaveling in after a seven-week recess. order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. september 6, 2016. i hereby appoint the honorable jeff denham to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, paul d. ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy.

chaplain conroy: let us pray. we give you thanks o god, for iffing us another day. in the wake of a great american holiday, we ask your special blessing on american workers. those fortunate to have jobs during these difficult economic times, and those desiring work. may they know and be confident of the nobility and sacredness of their labor. as the members of the people's house return to the capitol, call them as well with your gentling voice of collegiality. when the sense of alienation shadows all our souls, we find our differences difficult to bear, we move away from each other. insofar as this spirit of alienation has descended upon his house, help each member to

overcome unnecessary divisions that hamper productive work on behalf of our nation. bring them to a deeper level of awareness of your spirit and make us one nation. give the members listening hearts, ready and willing to respond to your spirit living in each one. and may all that is done be for your greater honor and glory amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentlewoman from north carolina, ms. foxx. ms. foxx: please join in the ledge to our wonderful flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker. house of representatives, sir. pursuant to our phone conversation i write to officially notify you of my intent to resign as congressman of the first district of kentucky effective tuesday, september 6, 2016, at 6:00 p.m. i have enjoyed the opportunity of serving with you and my colleagues and wish you the very best as you carry out the great responsibilities of the speaker of the house. i have attached a copy of my letter of resignation addressed to the governor of kentucky, dated august 29, 2016. thank you very much. signed, sincerely, ed whitfield, member of congress. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from north carolina seek recognition? ms. foxx: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentlelady is recognized for one minute.

ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. rise to recognize hanes brands, a company headquartered in winston-salem, north carolina, with a long history of innovation, product excellence, and brand recognition. today hanes brands is celebrating its 10th anniversary as an independent publicly traded company which is the largest basic apparel company in the world. it sells high volume, high quality apparel and can credit its success to anticipating what the consumer wants and working to meet those needs in value, fit, comfort, and customer service. hanes brands has been named by forbes magazine as one of america's best large employers and honored for workplace practices, community contributions, environmental achievement, and business ethics. a valued corporate partner in the local community, the company and its employees have volunteered countless hours and made contributions of more than

$35 million to charities over the past decade. it's a pleasure to have this outstanding company in north carolina's fifth district. congratulations, hanes brands. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. takano: a leader in the riverside community, a fitness bug, an award winning baker, and a winner of the presidential award of excellence, a remarkable educator and person, who died too young just a few weeks ago. in her 40 years in the classroom, pam clute inspired thousands of students, many young women, to pursue careers in math and science. she founded the alpha center at u.c. riverside to get students

on track to pursue stem fields in college. at the same time, pam organized local partnerships, created a fitness class, and shared her infectious energy with everyone around her. in short, she took every opportunity imaginable to support our community. my thoughts are with her husband, steve, and the rest of her family. pam was truly an exemplary woman. she will be missed. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from arkansas seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i seek unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to honor the life and service of don soloquist, my neighbor and friend, and one of northwest arkansas' most influential leaders who died july 21, at the age of 82. mr. womack: he was the former

chief operating officer and vice chairman of wal-mart stores incorporated. and he teamed with wal-mart founder sam walton to establish one of the world's leading companies. aside from his many achievements in retailing, he ask also remembered for his philanthropic indevers anti-standards of ethical leadership that guide his life as a businessman and became his passion after retirement. this legacy will live on at the leadership center at john brown university in arkansas which don helped establish in 1998. it wasn't long ago, mr. speaker, that i had the privilege of inviting him to this chamber to hear his long time friend, benjamin netanyahu, address a joint session of congress. i'll always remember the warm embrace the prime minister gave don when they met just off the house floor. i join don's wife and his children, the 11 grandchildren,

and one great grandchild in celebrating his wonderful life. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i seek unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. kildee: thank you, mr. speaker. as my colleagues and i return to washington this week, i make a simple request for this body to take up the public health crises that are facing this nation. i'm here in washington, i'm sometimes asked by well-meaning people here on capitol hill if the flint water crisis, in my hometown, is still going on. back in flint, there is no doubt. bottled water, filters, blood tests still going on all the time. this tragedy in flint continues. the people i represent back home still can't go to their tap and get water that is safe to drink. a city of 100,000 people.

they are not just people who live in michigan. they are not just michiganders, they are americans, too. they have a right to have the federal government act at their moment of greatest need at this moment of crisis. just like aid to flint, this body needs to act on other crises that are still taking place. the zika virus, the epidemic of gun violence. people across america have a right to see their congress act when facing these sorts of challenges. i call on my colleagues to please let's do our job and take up aid to these important crises. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina eek recognition? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. wilson: mr. speaker, last month the augusta chronicle august 4 exposed, quote, the obama administration has now apparently been caught chipping $400 million in foreign curnstoy to at this rain.

coincidentally at the same time the mullahs released four americans held hostage. wouldn't you tend to call that ransom, end of quote? the "wall street journal" reports, quote, the obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to iran that coincided with the january release of four americans detained in tehran. wooden pallettes filled with currencies were flown into iran on an unmarked cargo plane. iranian press reports have quoted iranian defense officials describing the cache as a ransom payment, end of quote. iran still chants, death to america. death to israel with new financing. in conclusion, god bless our troops and may the president by his actions never forget seven september 11 and the global war on terrorism. our sympathy to the family of fillies schafly, and american patriot who made a difference for limited government and

expanded freedom. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentlelady from tennessee seek recognition? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. speaker. it's so exciting to have time to be in our district every day and work, listening to our constituents. and hearing what is on their mind. i heard a lot about the lack of expansion in rural america and like wise i heard a lot about and many questions arose about what in the world is it that the administration is doing trying to give away the internet? people couldn't believe that. of course we have heard the administration's plan to cede control of this for ican to move away from the commerce department and they have assured us, trust, they have said. it's all going to be fine. but now we know they are contemplating and involving u.n. control contrary to what had been reported and planned

and promised. the "wall street journal" in a recent column, august 28, said this, and i'm quoting from this article, the nint net -- internet give away to the u.n. quoting, authoritarian regimes have already proposed i can become part of the u.n. to make it easier for them to censor the internet globally. the column also notes, quoting, an independent review within ican called the organization simply not credible in its handling of domain name applications. think about this. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mrs. blackburn: we cannot allow control for russia or china over u.s. free speech. yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to reflect on the life and legacy of that relentless patriot, fillies schafley who died yesterday at the age of 92.

we have lost and heaven has dwained a woman of faith, and family. she was dedicated first and foremost to god and her family. she loved this country and fought for the principles and policies she believed we needed. mr. rothfus: it was these three loves, love of god, family, and country that fueled her life's work. organization eagle forum now has around 80,000 members. though she had many followers devoted to the principles that made america strong, she faced incredible odds and strong opposition in her many political fights. this did not frighten her and she simply kept moving forward. it was not lost on anyone that this pioneer, this lawyer, this mother of six was a strong and independent woman. she dedicate -- her dedication to the unborn is an inspiration to pro-life women and men everywhere. may she rest in peace. and may god be with her family and friend as they mourn her loss. thank you i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition? >> ask unanimous consent to address the house for one

minute. revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to recognize mr. gene sawers of savannah, georgia, professional golfer, major champion, and survivor of steven johnson syndrome. he began golfing at nine, turned pro 13 years later, and immediately won the bank of boston classic on the pga tour. mr. carter: beginning his professional career. however, he received devastating news in 2005 when he was diagnosed with a rare disease known as stevens johnson syndrome. his condition got worse. he stopped playing golf and his chance of survival reduced to 25%. miraculously he fought for survival and picked up his clubs seven years later. last month gene won his first major championship by winning the u.s. senior open as the country club in ohio. i want to congratulate him on his major championship vicktry. his story is one of faith,

courage, and of strength. we're so very proud of him in an have aa, georgia. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? . without objection, the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: mr. speaker, here are the most recent discoveries in the f.b.i. notes from interviewing hillary clinton. she tried to wipe clean her private email archive only a few weeks after "the new york times" disclosed the existence of her private server. clinton says she did not know it meant classified information and did not pay attention to different classification levels. yet, she had signed a binding classified information nondisclosure agreement. there were 17,000, 447 work related emails that they did not turn over to the state department inspector general

depete claiming she had -- despite claiming she had done so. she warned them against using personal email addresses. she never sought approval to conduct state department business on her own private mail server. despite being personally aware of the risk of cybersecurity threats, she continued to use her own unsecured server, endangering national security. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, this is to notify you formally pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the house of representatives that i have been served with a subpoena for documents issued by the circuit court for howard county, maryland. after consultation with the office of general counsel, i have determined that compliance with the subpoena is consistent with the privileges and rights of the house. signed sincerely, phil kitko,

chief administrative officer. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, this is to notify you formally pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives that i have been served with a subpoena for documents issued by the united states district court for the middle district of florida. after consultation of the office of general counsel, i have determined that compliance with the subpoena is consistent with the privileges and rights of the house. signed sincerely, karen l. haas, clerk. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until approximately 4:00 p.m. today. >> criminal cases for victims

of sexual assaults. and tomorrow work on a measure that condement democrats north korea's nuclear tests and missile launches and another bill that prohibits the justice department from directing settlement funds to thirty party groups. you can follow the house live here on c-span as soon as they gavel back in. as lawmakers return to capitol hill today, diedra walsh of cnn tweeted about house speaker paul ryan's announcement that the republican vice presidential candidate, mike pence, will address house republicans next tuesday. calling the former indiana governor a great friend and a true conservative. and earlier, "politico" reported that the house speaker's been criticizing the f.b.i. for releasing documents from its probe of hillary clinton's email server last friday right before the labor day weekend. speaker ryan making those comments during a wisconsin radio show. and during a briefing with journalists at the capitol, house minority whip, steny hoyer, told reporters he thinks house democrats will pick up a significant amount of seats in

the november election. maybe even enough, he says, to gain the majority. and that tweet from patricia of reuters. later today, more from the campaign trail. and donald trumpp c-span's road to the white house coverage, we'll follow him to a rally in north carolina nfpblgt he'll be speaking with voters and supporters in greenville. you can watch his remarks live, 7:00 eastern time over on c-span2. we'll take you there live when the senate gavels out. >> for campaign 2016, c-span continues on the road to the white house. >> i will be a president for democrats, republicans, and independents. >> we're going to win with education. we're going to win with the second amendment. we're going to win. >> ahead, live coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates on c-span. the c-span radio app and c-span.org. monday, september 26, is the first presidential debate. live from hofstra university, in hampstead, new york.

on tuesday, october 4, vice presidential candidates, governor mike pence and senator tim kaine debate at longwood university in farmville, virginia. and on sunday, october 9, washington university in st. louis hosts a second presidential debate. leading up to the third and final debate between hillary clinton and donald trumpp. taking place at the university nevada las vegas on october 19. live coverage of the debates on c-span. listen live on the free c-span radio app or watch live or any ime on demand at c-span.org. >> earlier today we heard from the brookings institution holding a discussion about the taliban in afghanistan anti-security situation there. retired marine corps general john allen was one of the panelists. he served as afghanistan war commander. talked about u.s. interests in the region and the importance of the poppy industry to afghanistan's future success.

>> good morning, everyone. lcome to brookings, i'm mike o'hanion here 25eud to discuss afghanistan. in one sense it's still a hopeful time of the year. the redskins haven't lost a name anti-nationals are still in first place. so we're all hopeful. orned, 15 years into the afghanistan mission and 15 years after 9/11 we know that there is an ongoing, very difficult struggle throughout the broader middle east and certainly not least within afghanistan itself. and we're glad you came to join us in this discussion. i know there are a couple of words of introduction i want to say before introducing the panelists. by the way the basic approach we'll take here is to have a broad question framed by me to each of them and then get a few basic ideas on the table. we'll talk amid ourselves for a bit and halfway through we'll go to you. first i know we all not just on the pabble but -- panel but in the room want to commemorate and mourn the victims of 9/11,

the families, the soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors, and everyone else in the intelligence community, elsewhere who have worked so hard, often at great sacrifice, sometimes being hurt along wait, their families, communities, just day and moment to reflect and honor them since we're again approaching 9/11 and i know this is on all our minds. second in the same vain of commemorating a big event, i want to thank my colleague who has been our communications director in the foreign policy program for almost a decade is leaving brookings after today. we collected a few of the little statistics that give some small indication to the extent you can ever use metrics whether in counter insurgency or think tankdom to address progress. in her time at brookings on her watch, the monthly web hits for the foreign policy program have more than tripled. she has organized -- helped organize some 1,500 events like this one.

and she has supervised and orchestrated some 5,000 television or radio spots by her various scholars over that period of time. and she's going off to work on the important issue of refugees in the future. we greatly respect her commitment to public policy and to her fellow human being and what she's done for all of us. he want to thank her and her team that have worked with her closely over the years. thank you for giving me a chance to mention that. [applause] michael: as you know we have outstanding panel. i want to say a brief word about each of my colleagues. it's a treat to not only honor gail but recognize who we have up here. one of the most diligent and intrepid and brilliant field researchers that i have ever met. and been going to afghanistan for i think over a decade now

going back to her dissertation days wrote a book called "shooting up" which talked about afghanistan and one of her main case studies the nexus between counter insurgency and counter narcotic strategies which remains a big issue there. continues to travel often to afghanistan and wrote one of the best books on the subject, aspiration and the ambivalence, which i recommend to anyone who hasn't yet read it. gets at a lot of the difficult period of the last 15 years in the u.s.-led mission there. and speaking of that mission, next to her is general john allen, who, as you know, is a brookings senior fellow. he was the commander of the international security assistance force in afghanistan from the summer of 2011 until the winter of 2013. a 19-mont stretch which was crucial -- month stretch which was crucial. before i say a few words about that tenure, i want to let you know this is a lifelong marine who did a lot of other things

in the marine corps beginning with helping create the fabled infantry officer corps at quantico, which is the signature event for training officers in infantry in the u.s. marine corps which did not exist in the current form prior to his role in that as major back in the 1990's. and then we know the ma reason is impressive. the real impressive thing is the navy entrusted him and gave him, admittedly he was a graduate of annapolis himself, but they gave him the job of commandant of the midshipman at the u.s. naval akdmi. the first time a marine was asked to be responsible for sailors in that institution and capacity. that tells you something about how much the navy like all of us had high regard for general allen. he then spent his one star appoint or period of time working on east asia issues at the pentagon in the early 2000s before deploying with the marines to anbar province and being one of our two or three key marines in the surge.

from that point many other jobs in the central command theater, including being david petraeus' deputy at central command. being active commander there. and ultimately stepping down from government last fall in the civilian role as the coordinator for the president and secretary kerry in the campaign against isis. so in afghanistan as many of you know, let me say one word to situate in the debate, in afghanistan he was there during the initial downsizing. he commented once or twice to his friend by comparison petraeus had it easy because he was there when the forces came up, as soon as they peaked, he left and general allen was asked to start implementing the drawdown. but the good news for today's discussion for all of us is that that meant that general allen was involved in transferring responsibility to the afghan security forces, which of course is in many ways the main issue for security today because that's the main fighting force at a time when the united states has downsized by 90% and we're down to

roughly 10,000 u.s. military personnel in contry. bruce riedel was asked by president obama to coordinate the initial 2009 policy review on afghanistan-pakistan. role he played along with richard holbrooke and michelle floor now and they produced the initial obama thinking on what to do about the entire region. and that was after a number of years he had spent already at brookings where he is also a senior fellow today. he was a 30-year veteran of the c.i.a. also comment numerous times on the national security council where he played a key role in things such as defusing indo pakistani crises in the late 1990's among other roles. also very involved in the middle east process which allen was as well. and bruce in his time here has written at least two very well received books related to the pakistan question. one of them called deadly embrace and the other avoiding

armageddon. that sets him up extremely well to help us understand pakistan's role in the ongoing afghanistan theater. thank you for your indulgence. i wanted to do proper justice to framing the issue to thanking colleagues and setting the stage. so now i'm finally going to pose a question. we start with general allen and go to vanda and bruce. what i want to ask general allen is for his overall take on the security situation before i give him the baton, also let you know in a minute here i'm going to ask our newly arrived army colonel -- we have very good fortune of having military intelligence coast guard fellows here each year, active duty officers who -- analysts who are going back to their agency but are spending a year with us. colonel j.b. was the senior american mentoring and advising 203rd an 201st and corps in the eastern part of the country until last fall and he stayed in close touch with those corps red tearts since

that ty. he can give us -- headquarters since that time. he can give us an update. and i'll call on him to share his thoughts. first we'll get started. general allen, again, thank you for your service and what you did in afghanistan. i wondered now looking back three years later, but i know you're tracking it carefully on a day when there had been numerous acts of violence and explosions in afghanistan, just today, how you see the situation, the good and bad and ugly, how do you feel about the prognostication of the past going forward as well? general allen: it's great to be back on the panel here with you, mike. this is a very important subject, obviously, coming up on the 15th anniversary. i was the deputy commandant of the naval academy. then became the commandant the day we were attacked on 9/11 so i remember it well. i remember being with those midshipmen that day as they were trying to figure out where

life was going to take them. i knew where it was going to take then and i knew where it was going to take me, 10 years later i would be commanding the war effort in afghanistan. i have said before if you can depart passing but you can never leave it. from that moment where i took command in july of 2011 to today, it's been a very special place to me. as we come up on the 15th anniversary here in a couple days, i'll take a moment and recall all of our ruppersberger dferdfer-r are -- troops and allied troops and importantly to recall the sacrifices of the afghan forces. enormous sacrifices of the afghan forces and sacrifice of the afghan civilians as well in this conflict. we said before on this stage and many other places that the success, the long-term success of afghanistan, whether it's a political success or economic success or whether conjoined incredible ways the community

of nations is going to be a function of the security environment and the capacity of the afghan national security forces to provide that security offer a long time. we can go back and do the forensics and postmortem, etc., on all the recommendation that is had been made on numbers and how those numbers ultimately were implemented and where they are. i will finish my remarks about where we're today with the numbers because numbers don't really tell the story. but we have in the aftermath of the departure of isaf and closing down of that mission and establishment of the resolute support, we have had about 13,000 nato forces in theater, 95 or so -- 9,500 or so have been u.s. at this point for some period of time. of that number about 2,800 or so are special operators anti-rest are trainers and advisors. situation on the ground in afghanistan has changed from time to time. and today there are a lot of

debate about how you would articulate the situation on the ground. i would definitely use the term challenging. the situation has, in fact, become more challenging. perhaps even worrisome. in the last several months over the last year. it's not something which i think will be beyond the capacity of the afghan forces to hold over time. and to deal with over time. very close to those forces for the better part of a year and a half. having seen afghan troops in combat, having seen many of their leaders lead their troops credibly, not just at the small unit level but increasingly at the larger unit level, brigade size, operations, regular brigade size operations, i do and i still have confidence that the afghan national security forces can pull this out over time. that said, we have seen the

taliban resurgence be problematic in the last year or so. the taliban in the north have become a challenge. near that brief moment humiliation for the national security forces, but ultimately ey were able to take it back but not insignificant human price. we had the disaster of the friendly fire on the hospital there for which we all still are -- regret those casualties. we have also seen a resurgence in afghan taliban activity in the helmund province as well. a loss of a number of the districts which has forced both the american commander in conjunction with the afghan leadership to put additional american forces on the ground in the helmund province to at oost hold the district capital . i do believe we'll see that negative trend reversed. largely because, in fact, the

leadership in the 215th corps, the corps that sits upon that particular area, helmund, just west of kandahar, had been replaced and i think we're going to see some improvement in relatively near future. the previous commander was largely incompetent. i think the challenge we face going ahead will be the stabilizing of our numbers for the long period of time to continue to affect the kind of relationship we need to have with the afghans not just in a training role but in an advisory role to include now providing additional air support to the afghan national security forces, in tict afghan army, in ways we were unable to do before. that i think is going to be of a lot of assistance to us to secure the environment, maintain control of the population centers, not to give up any more of the districts. at this point the number of districts have gone into the hands of the taliban more than

we would certainly want. but i do believe that over time they'll be able to take them back. let me talk briefly about the u.s. decisionmaking. the numbers that we had originally recommended and ultimately were put on the ground buried by -- to come section tent, as i said it's history, we went in with 9,500 or so, and another 3,000 or so non-u.s. nato troops, that number was both probably too small and too short a period of time in terms of the initial obligation to those forces. as late as june of this year, -- of the former afghan former american commanders in afghanistan and all the former american ambassadors to afghanistan wrote an open letter to the president asking that we cease all drawdown of american forces in afghanistan until such time as the new

president after this election can have the time to study the situation to determine whether additional drawdown requirements should be met. whether we should stabilize for some period of time. whether we should even go up in numbers. my conversations which continue with our allied partners, many our allied partners still on the ground, about 40 u.s. and other partners on the ground today in resolute support, whether we need to go up in numbers over time. the bottom line for us was in june of this year we asked that we stop the drawdown to permit the next president, whoever that's going to be, who will own the outcome in afghanistan, the opportunity to thoroughly study the relationship between the security environment, the political environment, and the economic environment. because they are all linked. study the relationship between the three of those to determine whether the nato commitment is satisfactory both in numbers

and in capabilities and in timeline to support the continued training and operational capabilities of the afghan national security forces over an extended period. we'll see papers coming out of brookings that continue to be a result of the combined efforts of the generals and the ambassadors and scholars who are attentive to this. so the security environment is essential as a platform. we're going forward both politically and economically. that security platform is definitely challenged today. i don't believe the afghan national security forces are losing, but i do believe that a resurgent taliban believing that we were going down to a number which could permit them to effect a tipping point with the afghans i believe that we have foiled that plan. by staying at the number we're today, which would be somewhere around 8,400. even with the president president conceivably going up in the number or changing our cape i-s mix or increasing our

firepower in support of the afghan security forces i believe we'll hold what we got, change the momentum, and i'm as i always am, i am pragmatic. i'm not optimistic or or pessimistic. i'm pragmatic. if the afghans are sufficiently discriminating in who they permit to lead the various corps and i think colonel, where are you, good to see you, 201st 203rd corps have always been strong. they are in the east and northeast. that's where the biggest fight s that's a big outfit. the 20 corps has had a strong commander. the 215 corps, the helmund aira, the heart and soul of the tally band, that has always been problematic. always been a tough fight. they have fired more than 70 general officers from the afghan forces and the police.

that's a good start, but we have a lot more to do. and until leadership and command in afghanistan truly is determined on meritocracy and not patron nadge, we're going to have this challenge. it's not that uncommon for that part of the world to have that challenge and we need to recognize t we recognize it by stabilizing our numbers, appearance, ensuring our capabilities are the best suited for the needs of the afghan national security sources. and i think we'll be ok. thanks. mike: thank you. vanda, i wanted to ask you about politics and economics and will i in a second, because the security situation is so paramount and on our minds today with the recent attacks, i want to give you a second o-to-commend on how you see -- second to comment on how you see things there. vanda: good morning. i would underscore general allen's comment that the security is challenging. i might add very challenging.

probably most challenging that it has been any time since 2002. certainly challenging from the perspective of the afghan people, but also from the perspective of international civilians who are in the country and very much enable or assist in delivering governance as well as economic growth. afghanistan has become very permissive in a difficult environment with few people who live in kabul being able to travel out of kabul. it is not just the internationals. it is also afghans. traveling between cities is a has risk going up north, become unpermissible for many afghans. so what we see today is a government that is in deep ways, a corps community cut out, or cut off from large

parts of the country. the level of civilian casualties is the greatest that it has ever been. it of this means that cannot be reversed, but nonetheless the security situation deeply impinges and at this point undermines many elements of economic development and many elements of governance. a state es very much of security mentality in the country. i have been communicating were friends in kabul for the past 24 hours and it's been quite disturbing to see their reactions to the series of attacks. my thoughts are very much with them. just the level of going back everyday issues that have been

at the core of challenges and problems for after gansz, many who aided us, is becoming a major issue for people in cities. of course those security situations it's not just about -- it's also very much about criminality and politics. indeed a very significant element of security hampering daily life and something that the taliban can exploit is the level of kidnappings that's going on in the country by many criminal networks, some deeply connected to powerful politicians. those targets international very much target also afghan businessmen.

what we're probably seeing is something at one point happened in colombia at the height of the crisis when the numbers of people who were targeted for kidnapping or the type of people targeted for kidnapping was going down from simply very rich businessmen to white middle class people would be vulnerable. and again compounded the deep sense of insecurity and paralysis of everyday life. so it's very important and very imperative that the government takes on these kidnapping networks. takes on the pervasive criminality that is both an end or the taliban but debilitating everyday life. i started saying this is all linked to politics. we're at the moment of interesting and challenging situation in afghanistan. the initial configuration of

he current afghan government with the president for the last two years, and then there were -- was to be a reconciliation of that arrangement. at various points and various the president said it would be elementary and district elections helped and perhaps more longer term resolutions of the relationship. that has not happened. there have not been parliamentaryry elections. and electoral reform has been stuck for over a year. the government should come to an end, that there is no longer a space for abdula in his role. his view was that by now he would be appointed prime

minister and the system would be changed through parliamentary systems. that was not necessarily something that the president bought into. very different initial understanding of what would happen in the two years to start with. they are now being compounded by many voices outside the government. with former president karzai - ving repeatedly called for -to give a new message to the government. that would be unconstitutional and would not be helpful to the political process. so we're in this state of watching for the next few weeks w this agreement will be resolved and whether the government will stay in this current configuration or there will be changes. certainly there cannot be a constitutional election held and there will not be elections

probably for at least half a year likely more than that. meanwhile, there are other politics in kabul and outside of kabul. relations between president beganny anti-government and several -- gahni and the government and several governors. others on whose loyalties he and that some of these tension gave way on friday to actual firefight one group porters of over another. although it had no lasting impact op the stability of the government or ---i pact on the stability of the government or -- impact on the stability of

the government or security in afghanistan, but at the same me the firefight again simulated in afghanistan a sense that this might be a preview of much deeper disintegration and much deeper political unraveling of the contry. greatest fears and memories of the 1990's. i believe that there is an opportunity and difficult element for the afghan government. in fact for afghan politicians and afghan people. for too long there was a sense among many afghan politician that is they can conduct governance by working the ship of state as much as possible to milk greater political appointments and other forms of pay offs. plils politics can be about constant brinksmanship and crisis make being. afghanistan cannot afford that anymore. politics has to be about

governance. about governance that secures people and governance that improves their lives. so very long time afghan politicians would say it can never disintegrate into the 1990's. it can never go back to the civil war. maybe the firefight is a wake up call that their mode of politics needs to fundamentally change. and that once the government gets out of the current crisis, whether this is later this month or in october or even later than that, there is a new government, that this new government has an opportunity to work with others on political -- with other politicians to actually start delivering governance in a moreau bust way and less corrupt way that has been the case so far. michael: thank you, i'm half tempted to ask if you think the state of afghan politics is better or worse than ours but i'll leave that one -- i'll come back to you in a little bit on some of the specific questions on my mind about afghan politics anti-economy. i'll get bruce here engaged as

well and just ask, bruce, your take especially on the pakistan angle. anything you want to talk about, of course. i know that when you did your policy review for president obama 7 1/2 years ago, you had certain understanding of pakistan, a loft history dealing with it. probably certain assumptions about how things would evolve. i would be curious if things have gone as you expected. how does that changele calculus here? how much does the pakistani role in this conflict the central determinant as some would allege how much is it more of a secondary factor? bruce: thank you for organizing this. pleasure to be here with john and vanda and all of you. i'm going to come to the specifics you mentioned. let me start with a piece of good news which is going to be rare today. when president obama announced his strategy in march of 2009, he was very clear about what the top goal and priority of the american policy in

afghanistan and pakistan was. in a was what we called the 3-d's, to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al qaeda in afghanistan and pakistan. in 2009 that meant primarily in pakistan. 2001 american intervention in afghanistan essentially moved al qaeda from one side of the line to the other line. by twitetwathe, 2009, the al qaeda core in pakistan was robust fully recovered from the stwun 2001 intervention, and engaged in a global terrorist operation. remember in 2003, we had the madrid attack, the deadliest terrorist attack in western europe since the beginning of the 9/11a. we had the -- 9/11 era. we had the london attack in 2005. we foiled an attack in 2006 to simultaneously blow up seven jumbo jets blowing up the

atlantic coming out of heathrow. imagine what that would have done to the economy in 2006. we now know in 2009 al qaeda was planning a massive attack on the new york city subway system which was foiled largely due to the national security agentcy. al qaeda in short was the proper goal of the united states in 2009. 7 1/2 years later al qaeda in pakistan is not destroyed. but it has been substantially degraded and substantially put on the back foot. it requires continued monitoring. it requires continued surveillance. but the situation today is much improved over what it was in 2008-2009 when president obama campaigned and came into office. i think there are significant lessons learned, to be learned from that episode. one of them is that the united states has to be offensive as ll as defensive and how it

solves problems in afghanistan and pakistan. i would characterize our strategic as largely defensive. we have been trying to shore up the afghan government. to shore up the after gantt national security forces. that's difficult to do when you basically cede to the opposition, to the afghan taliban, that they will have an open and permanent sanctuary next door in afghanistan -- pakistan. the afghan taliban for at least 14 of the last 15 years has been able to operate not with impunity in pakistan but the patronship of the pakistani army. this goes beyond simply providing a sanctuary and safe haven for the leadership of the afghan taliban and their families. this goes to ackive patronage and support. we know that the pakistani army, particularly pakistani intelligence services, actively engaged in training the afghan taliban, helping them fund their operations, and in planning attacks, including

attacks inside gull. -- kabul. i think we have to learn lessons about this as the next president starts thinking about where we go forward. in may of this year, president obama authorized what is so far been a one off. a drawn operation against the afghan taliban leadership, particularly in this case the head of the taliban. we never had a drone operation before. at least a drone operation with he actual use of a missile there before. that mission is very controversial. you'll hear people on different sides say it killed the peace process. you'll hear people on the other side say there was no peace process to kill. there was a terrorist leader to go after. i think it should become a model. i think the next president ought to consider this and look back an how we have progressed against al qaeda in thinking about how we progress against afghanistan, afghan tal bye

ban. by -- taliban. by that i think we awed to think about carrying out operations in other parts of pakistan in the few tumplete we do not need to have the tempo of operations that we had against al qaeda in pack stafpblet we're not going to destroy the afghan taliban through drone operations, nor should we try to, but we should try to disrupt and seriously dismantle the sanctuaries and safe haven. in essence we ought to take the safety out of the safe haven. i think that's one recommendation i would make to the next president. the second would also be an offensive operation. mullah monsour's passport was conif i stated. it was provided to him by the pakistani arm, a false name. inside it showed he had made 18 trips from karachi to dubai

over the course of the last five years and several other trips to bahrain and probably to other gulf states. what was the purpose of 18 trips to dubai? afghan tal bye ban told us. fundraising. -- taliban told us. fundraising. . so fundraising is in drug smuggling. the biggest part of the fundraising is in raising funds from sympathetic audiences in the gulf state. i think we need to target that as well. i think we need an aggressive move by the department of treasury working with our gulf state partners to prevent that kind of fundraising from continuing in the future. again, we're not going to stop at 100%. we're not going to detroit afghan taliban through that. we should bring about a situation in which afghan taliban fundraising is as difficult to do today as al qaeda fundraising is difficult to do in gulf states. we had significant progress over 15 years in persuading the

saudis, u.a.e., and others to get out of the business of letting their private individuals support al qaeda. we need to do the same thing with the afghan taliban. we have other objectives and goals in pakistan as well. one of the most important is to support the entrenchment of pakistani democratcy. in here i think i also would say there is good news. seven years after, 15 years after september 11. pakistan today has a thriving free press. it's not always a responsible free press but it's certainly a thriving free press. i am reminded of your question about whether their free press is as responsible as ours, mike. we'll leave that question for others to think about. we have also seen the transition from one democratically elected government to another. that is a milestone in the history of pakistan democracy

that shouldn't be overlooked. we have also seen pakistan seriously address the problem of its own taliban and go after it in way which we have never seen before. pakistan today is a unique country. it is a country that is a vicktism terrorism. -- victim of terrorism. there are horrendous acts of terrorism carried out nearly every day. unfortunately as the pakistani army continues to be a patron of terrorism in other parts of the world and particularly patron of the afghan taliban. that calculation was going to be difficult to do but i think that's one of the priorities that the next president has to focus on when he or she thinks about what to do with the afghan-pakistan situation. michael: thank you. i'm going to put and have a question for each of you. i think i will go to the colonel. let me go by way of asking him two or three minutes what he saw with the afghan forces. for those of you who don't study this full-time, let me

remind you of the different numbers we're talking about. people can correct me if i get one wrong. basically the afghan army is organized into six main core. these each have a geographic zofpblete you can imagine doing a clockwise sirk until your head. starting in the northeast along the pakistan border, in the very mountainous zone, kunar region is the 201st core. southward to the 203rd. over in kandahar, 205th. helmund was added later so it got it's out of sequence numbering of 215. then there's 207 and 209 coming back around. and so colonel was the lead u.s. mentor in a team of several hundred americans deployed to at that lally bad if i have it right. he'll correct what i get wrong. through last fall. these were the largest formations the united states still had deployed in the field. most of the other formations

were these counterterrorism teams that would be available on demand or central training teams in kabul or intelligence and other kind of institution building mentors in the capital city and other major cities. he was essentially in the most forward of the kind of units the united states still has in afghanistan today. that's what makes up this 10,000 strong force that general allen was mentioning which is a total of close to 15,000 if you add the rest of our nato partners and other countries as well. with that as quick background, i want to see if the colonel would like to add to his discussion with both the security situation in the east and also the progress of the afghan army. stand up if you'd like. whatever is convenient. >> i'll sit down. i don't want to obstruct the views for people of the panel. as mike mentioned i am and an infantry officer, for 25 years in the army. i'll give you an perspective having been in three combat deployments in afghanistan for the past 12 years. from some of the earl will i

days to the middle, during the surge, until i left the country in october of last year, all different missions. . this is my first day at brookings. >> welcome aboard. colonel vowell: afghanistan is hard and hard all the time. for all the things the panel mentioned, the human terrain, the physical geography, issues of social change, corruption, illicit trade, etc., etc., it seems to be more than just the graveyard of empires. it's that crossroad of conquest. for things that has to change over very long periods of time. so evolutionary change is my perspective in the last 12 years.

i'll keep the comments focused n when i was an infantry during the surge. in 2010, we were there to partner with the afghan security forces in a counterinsurgency to help the government reach and extend its reach to the people at the provential and district level. and also to help provide efficient and effective fighting forces in the field with our effort as a model on missions and operations throughout the country. a lot of experiences during that surge. very kinetic, very heavy. our additional main effort to work with district and local governance were the main effort, the people that contacted their government took a lot of effort. it's not three cups of tea in that country. it's three gallons of tea, and that discussion and dialogue was very important. i learned a couple of lessons that year. some of which i'll describe here. one, there's no better

instrument for counterinsurgency in that country than their own afghan national security forces. in the meetings with governors, political officials, the military officials, they could lead that in a supportive role. a lot of problem solving that happens happens between the security forces and their government. without coalition intervention. that was pretty good. however, during that year i noticed the particularly troubling problem that without coalition involvement, without coalition partnership, without coalition enabling capabilities, afghan national security forces were very troubled, were very hard to get in the field and fight. so i left that combat deployment in 2011 with kind of a you can't want it more than they do. they have to have the leadership. they have to have the systems. they have to have the support, but there's going to be a requirement for security forces to plan, prepare, execute,

assess their operations, recover from those and transition to their next campaign. i left thinking that would never happen. we spent a long time in western europe, long time in the far east after world war ii helping develop and build those countries. if any model like that had to exist we were not on that path in afghanistan. so in january of last year, i deployed with about a third of my brigade combat team. 103rd brigade into the east again. so the perspective is three combat tours. i had been at bagram and a brigade leader in the east. i did not think the security forces would be able to take the lead, take responsibility for their battle space, the terrain and the people and the problem sets on their own with just us advising from behind in the offices. last year we didn't go in the field with them very often. we stayed at the core level. as mike articulated with the six corps, there are is about 4,000 to 6,000 in each corps.

that's about on par with the height of the surge forces the coalition had in the country in the first place. so now they own the problem and then this happens. these district centers start getting overrun. there's a resurgent taliban effort. at we saw on our watch, isil and the corsan province which is a good thing because they're competing in open field warfare village-to-village for the same population. the people that picked up on that was the afghan forces. they saids, that's the best thing that could happen to us. they realized how bad both groups are and we could sit back and watch. in 2011, these forces from the afghan national security apparatus had a problem holding checkpoints hrks a problem holding district centers without u.s. or coalition efforts. after the setbacks with

hellemond, signal support from the nugani government and national security apparatus they were able to go back in and resiege these objectives in places that were taken with difficulty. but i looked around in the east where we were and kunar, in nagahar, pakia where the terrain is contentious, the population has been comprinet and you are on the duran line with the border sanctuary that the doctor spoke about. very contentious area. why weren't the checkpoints being overrun? why weren't the districts being overrun and taken? why wasn't large swaths of terrain being taken by the taliban and held in perpetuity? well, i got to go talk to one of the brigade commanders in kunar summer of last year and after putting for some assets from the coalition, particularly airpower, which they're still trying to generate that capability, he

said, we can do without you. we have too much ownership of this. this is our country. regardless what happens, we're not going to leave. so between 2011 when general allen came onboard and 2015, all the afghan national security forces by presidential decree occupied all of the coalition bases and outposts. all of them. in our particular case, the two or third corps in gardez, they doubled down on that, they made more. for example, pesh river valley in kunar, very contentious. we came out of that for the most part in 2011. when the afghan security forces saw a different strategy and light in thrnd a they built more roads. they built more combat outposts north into the water port to connect the two provinces together so the government could have start having security where they never had that before. they wanted that. we told them not to do that

from our experience. they had the initiative. they wanted that to happen. east, corps the yesterday paid and what they're for to so synchronize combined security forces to key terrain. the communication, the population centers, towns and villages and people from having absolute chaos going on. the corpses were afforded an opportunity to plan, campaign throughout the country last year starting with hellemond, going to konduz and they rooked at the general on v.t.c., yes, we have them doing v.t.c.'s every week on security planning and said what would you like to do and he said i want to clear terrain and want to make sure it's safe from the taliban coming up from the southwest because jalalabad had several car bombs and several pressures on the population.

the united states did not plan this. coalition did not plan this. this was their effort. we advised them a little bit on some operations but they did it. they went forward with a tactical command and control element, the corps commander and a small staff forward, set up a base and had three brigades maneuver into battle space that was attacked and contested by both isil, k.p. and the taliban. their first operation in 48 hours, they cleared 167 i.e.d.'s by themselves with no fatalities. >> this is in the spring or summer of 2015? colonel vowell: summer of last year. so from the perspective of leaving in may of 2011 when they needed us to go on every mission and operation just about to afghan security forces leading a combined arms tactical effort in the field without much coalition assistance, they were using their own d-30 how witser, their own aviation, and ground maneuver to include engineers, infantry, etc., in concert to

succeed exceeding key train objectives from the enemy with police to follow on the end. and governance at the district level to reach out to the people. that is counterinsurgency their way. and so i kind of left october of last year with, wow, we've gotten a lot further along than i would have thought possible. to echo general allen's comment, maybe pragmatic but i would term it rationally optimistic. it will take enduring effort. it will take international support. it's going to take commitment to keep this effort going at about these levels and i think we'll be surprised what the outcome is. michael: and it will take the president and chief to find, if they can, commanders of comparable ability and put them in position to another corps. we'll do a final quick round and go to you and i want to ask one question and starting with bruce. just following up on what you said about going after the safe

areas, as we all know the safe areas are not just north and south waziristan and this remote rugged terrain. it's queta and favorite spring break city, karachi. this is where people think taliban leadership is located as well. is there any way for them to go after them there? bruce: it is. it's difficult. it's not easy by any means. the may operation demonstrated that you can operate in bluke tan, the attack was -- balukistan, the attack was for the obama administration to make it easier for them to respond. now, drone operations are not going to be a feasible alternative in a major urban area like karachi. but the good news from the standpoint of thinking about how these safe havens and sanctuaries work, you can't run

them efficiently if the leadership shall are,the top leadership is all the time iding in a safe house in kietev or karachi. they have to go out in the field and visit their commanders. they have to go out and see their troops and that's when there's a level of vulnerability. let me reiterate one point i made. we don't need the tempo of operations of that c.i.a. drones were using against al qaeda in 2009, 2010, 2011. that would be an unnecessary effort. what we need is periodic, maybe once a quarter, maybe three, four times a year operations against senior afghan, taliban leadership operating in the safe havens and sanctuaries to make it more difficult for them to do business as usual. if we allow them to operate and do business as usual as they have for the last 14, 15 years, i don't see how this operation is ever going to tilt in the direction that we want it to tilt.

interests' another reason for doing this as well. general allen mentioned the peace process and the afghan-taliban assessment to the peace process. i think he got it absolutely right. the afghan-taliban said, why should we engage in the peace process? . the enemy is leaving. sooner or later the americans are all going to be gone and when they're all gone, time is going to be on our side. we have to change that calculation. i think the president's decision to leave the number of troops in was the right decision. i think the safe havens and sanctuaries are not as safe as it has been also tips that calculation. it also tips the balance of power within the pakistani system. pakistan is an unusual country in a lot of ways. it has the civil military balance which is not imbalance. the military runs the afghan war. elected civilian leadership does not run the afghan war. we saw that in the peace

process. the prime minister, i believe, was the sincere supporter of the afghan peace process. it is pretty clear that the general was not a sincere supporter of that. and in the end, his vote mattered more than the prime minister's. if we changed the balance of the safe haven and sanctuaries i think we're also going to in the long run help the prime minister and the civilian government in making the case. we can't go on this way. we are not going to secure victory through a military solution. we need to find some kind of military process. michael: general allen, i want you to pick up on the pakistan angle and let us know your assessment as to whether we can be successful in the absence of some fairly big shift, either in pakistani behavior or in our ability to reach out and influence events maybe through greater use of drone or even afghan commander forces in pakistan, what have you? and secondly, because you

worked with the doctors, i'd be curious for your sense as to whether they're likely to make this thing work. we've seen the discussion, and vanda added the long-standing challenge of this particular government structure that's been created to paper over the differences and uncertaintied of the 2014 -- uncertainties of the 2014 election. do you think these two gentlemen will make it work or do you got a sense they're falling apart? so if you're willing. general allen: well, pakistan and afghanistan is really complex. when i was the commander, i thought i had a pretty good relationship with the chief of the army staff. and i remember well the day i spent with him alone in his office over the maps looking at the border with the intent that while i still had tens of thousands of maneuver troops to include this great battalion

commander at the time in kunar we had options still to run joint operations along the border in a hammer and anvil manner to achieve effect that hadn't been achieved in previous opportunities. i woke up the next morning, roughly the 21st of november, 2011, and one of my special operations units had devastated two pakistani border posts. that did two things. it shut down the relationship with pakistan for the commander. it also shut down -- >> we are going to break away from this program record earlierier. take you live to north carolina for remarks by democratic vice presidentle nominee tim kaine. senator kaine: provided great service to our men and women in uniform and especially to our families an friends. i want to thank the general for

his kind introduction but more especially for his service and for the service of all in this room who are connected with our nation's military. general castle and i were chatting backstage and indicated in the 36-year marine career he and his family, his wife and son moved 25 times. so forget about just the challenges out there when confronting an enemy. just being in the military and being a military family is about sacrifice and challenge and i honor that and him. i honor that in lieutenant current rhodes who led us off with the pledge of allegiance. we heard from mayor pro tempore haynes and i met with the mayor of wilmington. state representative suzy hamilton and candidate for state treasurer and for all of you coming. i'm so glad we could be here today in wilmington, a city that means a lot to me. i am here to talk about national security, which is the

most serious obligation of any president. this is a topic that i immersed myself in for many, many years. when hillary clinton asked if i would serve as her runningmate, she told me that a clinton-kaine administration would be measured by real differences we make in somebody's home or neighborhood or school or workplace. she told me that my governing experience as a city councilman and mayor, as a lieutenant governor and governor and as a senator would help make sure that we measured our progress by tangible differences in people's lives. she also told me that my expertise in national security would help her make sure as the commander in chief that america continues to lead the world in this most challenging century. as a mayor and governor, i was responsible for the safety of my citizens. for respecting our service members and military families,

for supporting our virginia guard, which was deployed in two wars during my time as governor, and for taking care of our troops when they came home. virginia's pretty similar to north carolina. one out of every 10 virginians is a veteran. not one out of every virginia adults. one out of every 10 virginians from birth to death is a veteran. in the senate i serve on both the armed services and foreign relations committees. i represent a state that has deep ties to our military, diplomatic, humanitarian and intelligence efforts. i lived overseas in honduras at a pivotal time in my life and saw from abroad the role that american leadership can play and our obligation to get it right. and now my oldest son, a proud marine who's based nearby at camp will he journal, is deployed overseas for the

second time. so when it comes to american national security, i take this personally. being president is the hardest job in the world. every president needs a solid partner because no challenge that makes its way to the oval office is easy to solve. harry truman, a proud veteran, said it best, "the buck stops here." every day a president deals with late-breaking challenges in a world of incomplete data and conflicting advice. we trust the president with the command of our armed forces and even with the codes to our nuclear weapons. the president has to assemble the right team, ask the right questions, process enormous quantity its of information and then make quick and resolute decisions. that's why it takes a very special person to sit behind that desk. somebody with a steady demeanor, solid judgment, and it helps to have really thick

skin. [laughter] now, let's be honest. this election has been pretty unusual. we're used to republicans and democrats arguing about policies and priorities. that's the way it ought to be. but within certain boundaries. i did not vote for john mccain but i admired and still admire his service, his sacrifice and his example. he's my committee chair on the armed services committee. i didn't vote for mitt romney, but i have deep respect for his seriousness, his entrepreneurial energy and his faith. the choice we face this year, especially on national security, is very different. on the one hand, we have the clear and consistent vision of hillary clinton, a proven leader with an even temperament and the qualifications equal to any candidate in our nation's history who has not only served on the armed services committee but has been the nation's chief

diplomat. over the course of this campaign, hillary clinton has laid out her core belief that the united states is an exemplary nation. she recognizes that we're not just a superpower because of our economic wealth or our military might. no, we're exemplary because of the example we set. for decades, america has championed values like liberty, decency and compassion. we're not perfect and we'll never be perfect, but there's a reason why people all over the world look to the united states , ask for our help in time of trouble and follow our lead. on the other hand, we have divisive and dangerous rhetoric of an untested candidate, donald trump. now, i don't need to twist or spin donald trump's words at all. [laughter] senator kaine: because once americans hear those words just as he said them -- just as he

said them, they'll reach the same conclusions that republicans, democrats and independents reached, donald trump is unqualified and temperamentally fit to serve as president of the united states and america's commander in chief. [applause] senator kaine: those who sacrificed for it including john mccain, an american hero and p.o.w. he picked a fight with a virginia gold star family whose son died saving his fellow soldiers. he has a bizarre fascination with strong men and authoritarian leaders in countries that are no allies of the united states. and with respect to our allies, he would toss alliances aside and says he wants to, quote, take everything back from the world that we've given to them.

trump has offered empty promises and divisive rhetoric. under his leadership, we would be unrecognizable to the rest of the world and we would be far less safe. i want to compare hillary clinton's views to donald trump by looking at three areas of the world. let's start by looking at the middle east. hillary clinton understands that our security depends on finding ways to address a rising tide of extremism across this wide arc of instability. working with allies to defeat isis, countering iran's continued aggression and defending the state of israel. in a region that's fraught with challenges, there's no substitute, no substitute for building strong relationships. that's why i've helped lead congressional delegations to turkey, kuwait, jordan, lebanon, egypt, iraq, the u.a.e., qatar, saudi arabia and

israel. during three trips to turkey, i've met with government officials, u.s. troops, civil society and religious groups to talk about the threats posed by isis. we visited a city not far from the syrian border, isil controlled territory and met with syrian refugees and over the course of five trips to israel, i discussed everything from missile defense to human rights to economic cooperation. now, meetings and experiences like these on the ground and in the room give you essential knowledge about the people and places that impact the safety of america. hillary has that. she's been sitting across those tables for years, and hillary's on a first-name basis with virtually every head of state in the region. that's one reason she was able to facilitate a cease-fire in gaza between israel and hamas and twist enough arms to put

sanctions in place on iran leading then to a diplomatic break through. and it's how she's put forward the sear yause plans to defeat -- serious plans to defeat isis, ensure that israel's future as a democratic and jewish state is secure. donald trump doesn't have credible plans for these challenges. apparently he doesn't have a lot of use for real world experiences or he says most of his knowledge comes from reality tv . he says he quotes gets his insight from, quote, the shows on cable news. he may claim to know it all but on middle east policy he's been all over the map. there's only one thing that's consistent, how dangerous his ideas and rhetoric really are. look at iraq. in trump's first campaign speech, he claimed he had the

foresight to say, quote, don't hit iraq because you're going to completely destabilize the middle east. that's what he said, he said back in 2001, 2002. it's one of the main rationales for his can daysy and it's -- candidacy and it's completely made up. donald trump was clearly in favor of the war in iraq. before the invasion he said, quote, if we decide against a strike against iraq is necessary, it's madness not to carry its mission to its conclusion. in 2002, trump told national security expert howard stern that he was in -- [laughter] that he was still in favor of going into iraq. in 2003 he said the war looked like a, quote, tremendous success. and in 2004, given the information that president bush had, he might have made the same decision to inveighed. now -- invade. now, these days he rails against the decisions to pull troops out of iraq, a decision set in motion by the bush

administration claiming that that decision led to the creation of isis. but, folks, here's the problem. in 2006, trump said we weren't pulling our troops out of iraq fast enough. he said we should, quote, get out of iraq as quickly as possible. there's no escaping these facts. donald trump has misled the american people over and over about his position on iraq. he was for evading iraq and then he decided he wasn't. he was for leaving iraq, and then he decided he wasn't. he says whatever he feels like at any given time because you can do that when you're a tv star. but you can't do that when you're the president of the united states. [applause] senator kaine: he's doing -- he's doing the same thing with libya. nowadays trump says he was never in favor of taking there. at a g.o.p. debate, he made the

incredible claim he had never even discussed the subject in public. trump is misleading us here too. back in 2011 when the u.s. was weighing whether to intervene in libya, trump said because of its leader, muammar gaddafi, was killing millions of his own people, america had to act. he went on nbc and said if he ere president, he would create zone. ary no-fly now, if that's the policies that president obama and secretary clinton supported, it's because that's the policy that president obama and secretary clinton supported. instead of playing on the today show, hillary was part of the g-8, with the arab league and with representatives of the libya transitional government to put that nfls in place. it led to a u.n. resolution, a

coalition air campaign that saw zero loss of american lives and that ended gaddafi's slaughter of innocent people. it sounds like trump should have been pretty pleased with that outcome, right? nope. donald trump now thinks that, "we would be so much better off," if gaddafi from still in charge of libya. -- were still in charge of libya. gaddafi was a man who "knocked a pan am airplane out of the sky. this is not a good man this is t a sane man," but gaddafi was a man who donald did business with. not to put too fine a point on this. two years before 2011, when muammar gaddafi was set to visit the united nations and no one would let him stay in new york, trump allowed gaddafi to tent in his borate

westchester estate. when gaddafi was looking for a place in america and because of his human rights track record and the pan am bombings, others were turning him away. he found one guy, one guy who was willing to host him. donald j. trump. you were saying something about judgment, donald? [laughter] senator kaine: let's look at iron. thanks in part to global sanctions, a global sanctions coalition that hillary clinton assembled, president obama ultimately achieved a historic agreement that put a lid on iran's nuclear program without firing a single shot. i worked hard on this in congress. out of a belief we have to exhaust diplomacy. we have to before we contemplate other alternatives. i worked across the aisle with the republican chairman of the foreign relations committee, republican senator bob corker, to craft a bill that set up a constructive process for

congressional review of an iran deal. that process ultimately improved the deal by strengthening our hands in negotiations instead of undercutting it through partisan politics. but we have no idea how donald trump would handle iran and frankly neither does he. to try to figure out what his plan would be about iran, conservative talk show hosts asked him how he would deal with the quds force, which is the aggressive iranian military units that actively undermine our interests in iraq and syria. trump replied that the kurds have been horribly mistreated. he talked about the kurds because he had no idea what the quds force was and the kurds and the quds force could not be more different. in the same interview, trump couldn't tell the difference between hezbollah and hamas either but don't worry, he said, eventually i will know

more about it than you do and believe me, it won't take long. [laughter] senator kaine: i wonder how much comfort our israeli ally would find in that promise or in other ideas he's had like donald's desire to be a, quote, neutral guy when it comes to the peace process. as if you could be neutral about the desire for peace. or to make israel pay for the defense aid we provided. israel is our strongest partner in the region facing renewed wave of terror attacks and in an area where both isis and iran pose daily threats and trump's plan was to pat them on the back and tell them good luck. that's no way to treat an ally. that's no way to treat a friend. when it comes to isis, hillary and i have a smart and credible plan. we'll intensify our strikes on their strong holds in iraq and syria. that is already shrinking the real estate that isis controls in the region. and hillary and i both believe that congress should timely do its job and take a vote on

whether the american military should be using force for now over two years against isis. we will keep pursuing diplomacy to end the conflicts that are fueling isis' expansion. we'll launch an intelligence surge and ensure that we're coordinating with our allies how to dismantle ice's global networks and we'll -- isis' global networks and we'll harden our defenses at home. trump doesn't think our military is up for the task or america is up for the task of stopping isis. he has literally said, quote, we can't beat them. he has more than once called our armed forces, quote, a disaster. he says that the armed forces of the united states are, quote, in shamples, that they're quote, -- shambles, that they're quote, going to hell. i don't know how anybody who's met with our men and women in uniform could think that much less say it. as a military father, donald trump's disrespect for our

military absolutely infuriates me. and when i -- [applause] senator kaine: and when i hear him say, i'll be the, quote, the best with the vets, i have to wonder how a guy who sifts veterans charities and brags openly about avoiding paying taxes, i have to wonder how that guy will ever be somebody who will stand up for vets. he says he knows, quote, more than the generals do. knows more than the generals do. though, i bet most of the generals knew that isis is led by alba daddy in more than one interview, donald wasn't up to speed on that fact. groups like isis are kind of rooting for trump. a recent article in "foreign affairs" interviewed a number

of jihadists and many of them are hoping for trump to succeed in the campaign. they've even put out recruitment videos featuring him. since donald trump's talk of this un-american panning of all muslims plays right into their hands for propaganda purposes. [applause] senator kaine: now, donald trump has famously said his plan to defeat isis is secret, but it's a secret he's glad to talk about frequently. he has said, for example, it's simple. just bomb the oil fields and take the oil. bomb the oiled fields and take the oil. well, let's play that out. if we bomb oil fields it will create massive fires. ok. so then we would have to do something to put out fires. that would involve sending in an awful lot of contractors and others to put out fires. and since there's a civil war going on, if we put in contractors and others to put out fires, we'd have to put in a lot of troops to protect them in putting out the fires.

and that doesn't even take into account the pipelines and refineries that we'd have to either build or take over or the other problems concerning every aspect of his plan after the first day. that just doesn't interest him. now, other times trump talks about disengaging and letting syria become a, quote, free zone for isis, and sometimes he talks about dramatically increasing the use of america's ground troops in syria and iraq d sometimes he's even used nuclear weapons against isis which would cause massive civilian casualties. you know this. the power to authorize the use of nuclear weapons requires a profound understanding of our long-standing posture of deterrence. for decades, the nuclear triads of substance, icbm's has formed a three-part structure of our defense and our readiness.

when trump was asked about the nuclear triad, it was clear he had never heard of it. but he made sure to say he loves nuclear weapons because, quote, the power, the devastation is very important to me. and for some reason, he thinks we should let more countries obtain nuclear weapons. when trump was asked about his loose talk about using nuclear weapons he asked, quote, then why are we making them, closed quote. if this were the only blunder he'd made in the campaign it would be disqualifying on its own. hillary clinton doesn't need a crash course in nukes 101. she not only understands nuclear weapons, she helped cement an agreement with russia that made the world safer from nuclear weapons. as president, she has a plan to protect us from nuclear terrorism, to further reduce the chance that these weapons will fall into wrong hands. second part of the world, let's talk about russia and europe.

hillary oversaw hard-nosed negotiations with the russians for a new start treaty to greatly reduce our country's nuclear stockpiles. the treey proved it was still possible for our nation -- the treaty proved it was still possible for our nations to have common ground on certain points. there have been others. the destruction of the syrian chemical weapons stockpile, for example. but that can't blind us to the fact that in so many areas russia continues to be a very challenging adversary. hillary has gone toe-to-toe with putin. she worked to strengthen our cooperation with nato and eastern europe. putin accused hillary clinton of helping democratic opposition movements within russia, and now hillary has a plan to support our allies, to weaken the kremlin and to advance america's long-standing commitment to a europe that is ree, whole and at peace.

because a strong european partner is always an american interest. we have hundreds of thousands of americans who live in europe. hundreds of thousands or millions who visit europe, and tens of thousands of american troops who are deployed to europe. a strong europe is in america's interest. that's not what donald trump wants. so maybe it's no surprise why russia seems to be backing trump in this election, but the better question is why trump seems to support russian interests at the icks spence of american ones. here's -- at the expense of american ones. here's what we know. just the evidence. one of donald trump's sons said, quote, russians make up a pretty disproportionate part of the trump assets and, quote, we see a lot of money pouring in from russia, closed quote. recent investigations revealed that trump's been pursuing deals with russian officials, developers with deep ties to russia since the late 1980's.

a putin associate paid him millions to bring the miss universe pageant to moscow. as long as donald trump keeps hiding his tax returns, we have a idea how he might to stand profit from these interests or what they might be holding over him. but something strange is clearly going on. trump's longtime advisor and campaign chairman, paul man fort, resigned recently. after allegations of corruption, illegal payments and financial ties to kremlin supported officials and organizations in both russia and the ukraine. his longtime advisor and campaign chairperson. his go-to defense advisor, general michael frin, appears regularly on russia's government funded propaganda channel. donald trump has publicly encouraged russia to hack america and give him information that will help him win the election. no wonder the former acting i.a. director, michael

morrell believes he's an unwitting agent, closed quote, of the russian federation. now, this isn't a partisan issue. there's widespread alarm on both sides of the aisle, foreign policy experts, including many republicans, wrote an open letter denouncing trump's views on russia and nato and it's why more than 50 prominent republican foreign policy experts have said they cannot vote for donald trump under any circumstances. [applause] senator kaine: these experts know that vladimir putin's long-standing goal is to break the post-war international order that's kept peace in europe. that has kept peace in europe for decades. so they don't understand why trump is calling nato obsolete and talking about apandonk our allies or why -- abandoning our allies or why his campaign weakened the republican party

platform to defending ukraine or why he claimed russia would never go into ukraine two years after putin had already inveigheded the country and then -- invaded the country and then annexed the crimea peninsula or why he's celebrating the united kingdom's vote to leave the e.u. even though it embolden's russia and could leave to a more -- lead to a more fractured europe or why he's openly encouraged russia to commit espionage against his own country. each one of these positions stands in stark opposition to decades of american national security goals, but they match up perfectly with vladimir putin's wish list. it has to make you wonder. hillary clinton has proven she can work with putin if it's in america's interests, but she's ready to stand up to him too when he's taking steps that are against our interests. and she'll make sure our allies across europe and around the world never have to wonder

about whether america will honor our long-standing commitments whean she's president -- when she's president. we will have their backs because we'll need them to have ours. [applause] senator kaine: in the nato treaty, there's an obligation to do collective self-defense. if one nato ally is attacked, others comes to the defense and donald says that may be or kayic and he wants to dispose -- archaic and he wants to dispose of it. the only time that's been triggered was after the united states was attacked on 9/11. and our european nato allies came to our aid. so what does it say to nato allies that a presidential candidate is saying, well, now it may be time for us to tear up that defense obligation? finally, let's take a look at a third part of the world, latin america. as hillary says, we look east and west but too often we

forget to look south even though our hemisphere is so critical to our security and prosperity. a clinton-kaine administration would flourish in latin america. we have to work with our neighbors to address issues like drug trafficking, crime and poverty. we need strong principled american leadership, because if we don't step up, others will. and if we do step up, our partnerships in this hemisphere can be a powerful advantage to us at home and in the world, not only in national security but economically as well. i have a special connection to latin america. i worked with jesuit missionaries in honduras 35 years ago. i learned spanish and then taught kids car pen tree and welding. i didn't teach spanish. my spanish wasn't good enough but i taught car pen tree and welding and i got an upclose look at a dictatorship, a military dictatorship where few had the power and everybody else was left behind. that experience in honduras and

the friendships i formed there inspired me to devote my life to expanding opportunity for everyone. last year i returned to the region. this time as u.s. senator. i worked with leaders and lawmakers to strengthen the economic and security ties between our nations. in colombia i met with president santos to includes the colombia fark peace talks which recently -- farc peace talks which recently resulted in a negotiation in the last month and met with president hernandez on how to combat gang violence so young people don't need to flee their country to come to the united states just to be safe. now, these weren't quick drop-bies or photo ops. these were real, substantive working meetings with heads of state. when we had disagreements, we weren't afraid to err them. no friendship or alliance is tested until you have a disagreement and you air the disagreement and you see what you can work out. compare that to trump's

embarrassing stunt last week. the centerpiece of donald trump's campaign is building a wall and making mexico pay for it. that's the centerpiece of the campaign. 's even a chant at his rallies. when donald trump decided to do his first visit with a foreign leader and he finally had a chance to look at the mexican president in the eye he said the subject never came up. in other words, on the central issue of his campaign, when he had the chance to bring it up, he choked. turns out donald trump isn't such a great negotiator after all. and then he was too embarrassed to admit it. after the meeting donald trump said, well, they didn't discuss payment for the ball but he tweeted, the first thing i told trump was that mexico's not paying for any wall. [laughter] senator kaine: so -- so just

hours after his first international foray into foreign relations, trump was on an online feed with the second largest trading partner. man, if you're going to get into a feud with an ally, how about dealing with an adversary? i guess we should be glad it was a twitter war because in a few months donald trump could have control of the armed forces. hillary's described donald is somebody you could bake with a tweet. guess what, it was reported that trump saw what president pena nieto said and trump said, quote, i can't let that tweet go unanswered. and so he rewrote his immigration speech that he was giving later that night in phoenix to be even harder. baited with a tweet in that same evening donald trump detailed his plans to deport 16 million people, 11 million who are here without documents and

five million people who are american citizens who he says wants to strip their birth rights because they were born to those that were not citizens. the opening paragraph of his speech, they'll all be gone. they'll all be gone. and he repeated the same litany of offensive stereotypes about immigrants. stereotypes that were perpetrated about irish immigrants, italian immigrants, jewish immigrants from central and eastern europe. you could have taken that speech and plugged in different nationalities and run it pretty much anytime in our history and it would be sadly familiar. immigrants who he treats as a convenient scapegoat for problems he doesn't know how to solve. well, hillary and i have a plan for a comprehensive immigration reform, a reform that expects -- that respects our status as a country -- nation of

immigrants and a nation of law. it would include a challenging path to citizenship, helping employers figure out the bona fides of their employees, border security, protection for dreamers, a comprehensive immigration reform proposal that is supported by the american public and has already drawn bipartisan support for its major pillars in the senate. in our first 100 days in office, we're not going to be about becoming a deportation nation. we're going to be sending a proposal to congress that will keep families together and that will let america be what it's always been, a place where people from all over the world can bring their talents, energy, start new businesses, pursue their dreams and make our country stronger. [applause] senator kaine: so these are

just a few of the differences in the middle east, russia and europe, latin america. differences between donald trump and hillary clinton. we know issues can arise anywhere. some of the issues we're talking about today may turn out not to be the ones we'll be talking about a year from now. and so maybe the most important thing to know, the most important thing to understand about hillary clinton and donald trump is how they make decisions. hillary is a strategic thinker who pulls together a top-notch team, challenges them with tough questions and then makes a firm at the significance. i know this because i've seen her do it. my colleagues on the senate armed services committee, even republicans, talk about what a great teammate hillary was as a member. what a great colleague doing the home work, mastering the details, getting into the weeds to get it right. working hard for military families to increase survivor

benefits, to make sure that tricare was available. that's hillary clinton. and i think we can agree that on the toughest issues the quality of the team you put together is one of the most important guarantors of the decisions that you make. donald trump is different. he doesn't just think he knows more than the generals, he thinks he knows more than everyone. he's told the american public, quote, i alone can fix it. -- his even had the principled advisor is himself. so here's my conclusion. like every one of the families of the two million men and women who serve in our military, whether active duty, guard or reserve, i want a president and commander in chief who knows the world, knows its leaders, knows the

strength of our military, knows how to conduct diplomacy and knows how to make a decision to keep america safe. [applause] senator kaine: i trust military clinton to make these decisions with full knowledge that the life of my son and his friends may be riding on the outcome. [applause] senator kaine: and the prospect of the emotionally volatile, facts challenged, self-obsessed and inexperience donald trump as commander in chief scares me o death.

[applause] senator kaine: if you want to read more about our plans in this area, the important rule of national security, there's a new book that's out today. called "stronger together," which lays out the clinton-kaine vision for american foreign policy called significant detail. we are stronger together. we are stronger together. you know this in wilmington. the military knows it better than anybody. i've often said about my son that if you had told me he would change as a result of his military service and ask me to predict what the change would be, i would have gotten it wrong. i would have gotten it wrong. i don't know what i would have said. but it turns out the change has been going from free agent to team player. that's what the military, that's what the marines has taught us. has taught him and it's prove of that proposition.

we're stronger together. donald trump doesn't understand that. and at this point in his life, we'd be unrealistic to think he would. and that's why i'm proud to be on this ticket with hillary clinton. she will be a commander in chief with a cool head a steady hand, an open mind. i trust hillary to put together an a-plus team, to ask tough questions and make the right decisions under pressure. i trust hillary to lead with the consistent principles that have always been our nation's trademark. i trust hirlt with the lives of our men and women in uniform. with hillary clinton in the white house, the rest of the orld will never forget why they've always looked up to the united states of america. thanks so much for coming together and thanks so much for all you do for north carolina and for this nation. appreciate it. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. isit ncicap.org]

>> and later today, more from the campaign trail and donald trump, c-span's road to the white house coverage, will follow him to a valley in north carolina. he'll be speaking with voters and supporters in greenville. you can watch his remarks live 7:00 eastern time. over on c-span2, as long as the senate has gaveled out over there. and we'll get back to the floor of the house live in about five minutes. working on 13 bills under suspension of the rules today, including one that allows the library of congress to collect video and audio recordings of bigraphically histories of gold star families. they'll debate legislation that establishes certain rights in federal criminal cases for victims of sexual assaults. you can watch the house live here on c-span. before that, though, white house press secretary josh earnest, he held a briefing

this morning as he traveled with the president through laos. we'll take a look at that briefing before the house gavels in. josh: i hear you. good evening, everybody. it's nice to see you all. obviously, this will be one of the briefings we'll do on the trip. i don't think we have anything at the top so i think we'll go straight to your questions to the sake of efficiency. who wants to get it started? not everybody at once. josh, do you want to go first? reporter: i wanted to ask about the cancellation with the meeting with the secretary of state. the president said yesterday this wasn't going to affect our long-term relationship with the philippines but how is that the case as the president and the head -- our ally, our essentially a war of words with

each other and the office of the philippine leader said the decision to cancel the meeting was mutual. was that the case or did the u.s. say that was basically not happening? >> well, first of all, the nature of our alliance with the philippines has been and remains rock solid. we have incredibly close relationships related to disaster response, maritime security, diplomatic coordination on issues related to the south china sea, economic, commercial and people-to-people ties. so i think people should certainly expect that our very close working relationship with the philippines is going to be we ring and in fact continue to work closely on a

variety of levels. and chairman dunford has been in the philippines recently if not today for a chiefs of defense meeting. with respect to the bilateral meeting, i think it was our judgment that given the focus of attention on the president's comments, leading into the meetings here, we felt that did not create a constructive environment for a bilateral meeting. all of the attention, frankly, was on those comments and herefore not on the very substantive agenda we have with the philippines. so, again, given that focus we felt it wasn't the right time to have bilateral meeting between the two presidents, and that's something we discussed with officials from the government of the philippines last night. again, going forward i would

expect our close comment to continue. and, you know, where we also have differences, we'll continue to speak to those and as president obama said, for any country until the world, not just the philippines, we'll certainly support very robust counternarcotic efforts but we also want to make sure that they're consistent with the rule of law and due process and that, too, will be a message we'll continue to carry forward. josh: go ahead, michelle. inaudible] reporter: especially a no-fly zone since there's been progress. do you feel the same way about a no-fry zone? ben: so, again, as it relates to a potential of a seas fire, that continues to be a subject

of discussion with the russian government. after the discussion between president putin and president obama yesterday, we feel like we have now identified the remaining gaps in what have been very extensive and technical discussions over a number of weeks now. secretary kerry is staying in touch with him and they plan to meet in the coming days so if they can conclude an agreement having now identified the remaining issues. our objectives for that agreement would include ensuring this is a cessation of hostilities that allows for humanitarian assistance to get to people who are in need. we need to make sure there's space for the moderate opposition. and we also, again, are open to working with russia to focus on the threat from al qaeda in syria, as well as isil.

however, again, in order to achieve that cooperation, we do want to make sure there is this period of calm. that there's this humanitarian access. so we'll be, again, following up in discussions between secretary kerry and the prime minister and i think we made a lot of progress. again, we won't take a deal that doesn't meet our basic objectives and i think we'll know very quickly whether or not we can close those remaining gaps. nd your other question, with the president, i think we very much welcomed the progress that's been made in terms of clearing isil out from along the turkish border. that's something we've been focused in for a long time now in discussions with turkey. our own operations in support of opposition forces on the ound helped to clear a key transit for isil fighters into turkey and turkey's operations and further clearing operations

on the border have made -- >> and watch the rest of this online, c-span video library, as we head to the u.s. house of representatives live. te on whic and nays are ordered. or which the vote incurs objection under clause 6 of rule 20. recorded votes on postponed questions will be taken later. for what purpose does the gentleman from mississippi seek recognition? >> i move the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4511 the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 515, a bill to amend the veterans oral history projects act to allow audio recordings of family history by members of the armed forces who died as a result of their service during a period of war. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from miss, mr. harper and the gentlewoman from connecticut, ms. esty will each

control 20 minutes. mr. harper: i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous matter under consideration of the bill. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. harper: i yield myself such time as i may consume. i rise in support of h.r. 4511 the gold star families voices act. it expands the library congress veterans' history project that was created by congress in the year of 2000. the veterans history project carries out the mission to collect, preserve and mack accessible war accounts of events that occurred during our nation's military conflicts. these records are publicly available so we may all benefit from their sbens as well as offer future generation a tool

to learn and better ups the realities of war. over the years, the veterans' history project has collected and recorded interviews as well as memoirs and official and original photographs, letters, maps and other documents noting the historical events from conflicts dating back to world war i to recent conflicts in iraq and afghanistan. and in february of this year, the project collected their 100,000th veteran account. currently, veterans history projects are limited to firsthand veteran accounts and the project does not collect accounts in history of service members who did not return from action. championed by representative chris smith of new jersey's 4th district, this bill will make an update allowing the family members who decide as a result of their wartime service to provide stories on behalf of

their relatives. the measure before us was reported unanimously out of the committee of house administration and has received the support of american gold star mothers, a group of mothers who have lost a son or daughter who was lost. the families displayed the flag with a blue star to display the member who was serving in the armed forces. those who died while serving in the war replaced those blue star with a gold star to honor the sacrifices while they were defending our nation and the cause of freedom. following world war i, a group of mothers banded together in their grief and formed the american gold star mothers in 1928. their organization has expanded nationally and other groups have formed to support gold star families and gold star spouses. our armed forces and nation as a

whole recognizes the men and woman who donned the uniform, but together, we also honor the families of those brave men and women who have given so much of themselves to our nation of the it is fitting that the house consider passage of this bill honoring the memory of those fallen during the month of september. while we keep those that serve and have served as well as their families in our hearts each and every day, our nation annually observes the last sunday of september as gold star mothers and gold star families' day. honoring their sacrifice is one reason why it is important to update the project to include the voices of those fallen through our gold star families. our gold star families will be able to tell our nation about their family members' individual paths that led them to the call of service.

these family members will be able to tell us the stories that their loved ones sent home through a letter or phone call describing their experiences and daily life while serving. so many brave men and women have stood up each time our nation called. preserving the legacies who have contributed to our nation defense is the cornstone of what it means to be an american. as a country, we are continually strengthened because of the legacies our service members left behind for future generations. this important addition will only enhance the project, the library congress' overall mission and the countless and current individuals who will benefit from access to these memories as well our servicemen and women sobering accounts discussing the price of war. i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentlewoman from connecticut, ms. esty is

recognized. ms. esty: i yield myself such time as i may consume. i rise today in support of h.r. 4511, gold star families voices act. and i would like to thank my friend, congressman chris smith, for his leadership on many veterans' issues and in support of military families and for congressman harper to ensure we pass this important bill to recognize gold star families. i went to a memorial day breakfast in connecticut, home of many veterans and they have a gold star families' breakfast. at the breakfast, i met a number of families. some who lost loved ones 50 years ago and still who carry in their hearts every day the pain of that loss. one of the people i met was joe nolan. he served in vietnam and his son , in 1999, with a college

graduate, snuck off to a recruiting station in philadelphia to serve. he felt that call like his father had and he served and tragically, bravely, he lost his life in the battle of fallujah in 2004 defending this country. and joe came to me and he said, he ayes beth, we have a wonderful program for gold star mothers, but i'm a dad and i miss my son every day and i join with colleagues in this chamber and introduced the gold star fathers act to recognize that fathers and mothers of sons and aughters cry when he their children are lost. we have the opportunity to recognize some of those families. one of those is mary kite, also from water bury, connecticut is

the proud head of the organization in connecticut. her son michael was a helicopter pilot and flew in vietnam and she was devastated when he died and particularly hurt because it was such a difficult time in the war and felt like her son's sacrifice met nothing. and what we are doing today to recognize her son, give her the opportunity to tell her story is so important. she's come to embrace the gold star families organization and it has helped her and helped others to celebrate the lives of their loved ones and actually last year, she went up in a howy, much as she does not like to fly, but she thought about her son michael and said i felt closer to him. he died while trying to evacuate wounded sold years on the battlefield in vietnam.

steven, another helicopter pilot, lost his life in 2005. he was attempting to extract a field team and died in afghanistan. these are only three families of the tens of thousands in this country. and their sack cry ties is as much or more than anyone else deserve to be recorded in the library of congress to remind us of the price of freedom, to remind us that we owe them a debt of gratitude. i'm sure my friend, congressman harper, like i, have conducted some of these veteran project interviews. they are really meaningful and really important. the history of this country is not only about presidents and generals and admirals, it's written in the blood of the men and women who serve this country and especially those who never returned. i'm delighted today to join with colleagues and urge all my

colleagues to join in supporting, not only supporting this legislation, but to make a commitment to go out and find the gold star families, find them in your district and make sure they have the opportunity to tell their loved one's story as part of this country's great history. thank you. and i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from mississippi. mr. harper: i yield four minute to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. smith. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey is recognized for four minutes. mr. smith: i want to thank my ood friend, mr. harper and ms. esty. ms. esty is one of the co-sponsors of the bill. and i thank chairwoman miller for her work and ranking member brady for his support of the initiative and i appreciate the work of the committee staff, including brad and bob and my legislative director, kate and majority leader mccarthy and

kelly dixon for posting the bill for consideration this afternoon. i rise in strong support and i urge my colleagues to support the gold star families voices act, to ensure that immediate family members of service members who died as a result of their service participate in the history ongress' veteran project. they collect stories of american war veterans. we did this in 2000 to help preserve their memories so that current and future generations may hear and better appreciate the realities of war and the sacrifices borne by those who served in uniform. the project is designed to turn their memories into our history to memberalize the lives of heroes whose selfless sacrifice has contributed and continue to contribute to or freedom and liberty and collective

understanding of who we are as a thation. and it has been a great success. in fact, earlier this year, the library said they announced a milestone with 100,000 stories. there are more than 100,000 testimonies of veterans who served in military engagements since world war i in our permanent record. however, missing from the rich project history are the veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice. currently, which this bill will correct, the project accepts only firsthand accounts of living veterans unintentionally leaving out the men and women who did not return from the battlefield and did can no longer speak for themselves. this issue was brought to my attention by a vietnam veteran and a new jersey gold star mothers organization. its president, the proud mother of petty officer david clapper,

a navy seal, who was killed in afghanistan on august 20, 2003, recently told me, never in history has there been a forum to replace our heroes' silent voices. enactment of this bill will ensure that. it will remember the lives and sacrifices of all who have served by providing family members the opportunity to create the lasting narrative and living record of their fallen loved ones. this bill is endorsed by the national organization known as the american gold star mothers, exoss second vice president said the legislation gives our family and children a voice that they no longer have. the gold star families voices act will ensure that the lives of all veterans putting our sons and daughters who fought and died for our country are remembered, honored and preserved. mr. speaker, during my

mr. speaker, on the house veterans' affairs committee and when we crafted this bill, i had the great privilege of working with the gold star mothers. they are incredibly inspiring, dedicated group of women who worked tirelessly and successfully to bring about meaningful change, to better the lives of service members, veterans and their families. so i urge my colleagues to pass this bill and honor the men and women who gave the last full measure of devotion in the service of our nation by allowing their family members to tell their stories so that all americans can hear, appreciate, remember and honor these patriots. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from mississippi eserves. >> i am prepared to close if the gentlelady does not has further speakers? ms. esty: i don't believe i have closing remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from mississippi is recognized.

the gentleman from mississippi reserves. the gentlelady from connecticut is recognized. ms. esty: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i ask my colleagues, urge them to pass this bill. it is important that we understand the realities of war. this past weekend, many of us participated in parades, earlier this year in the memorial day parade, later this year in the veterans day parade, but war is about sacrifice and the gold star families know that more than anyone else. and this bill gives us the opportunity to let joe nolan speak for his son, joe, to let mary kipe, speak for her son, michael, to let ray and sue reich speak for their son steven and for tens of thousands of americans to speak for their sons and daughters to do what everyone in combat asks us when they come home or if they do not -- don't forget us.

please remember. and this bill is a way of honoring that request of everyone who wears the uniform. make sure that we remember them and that we honor them and i'm proud to co-sponsor this bill and i'm very grateful for my colleagues for their support. thank you and i yield back. the gentlewoman from connecticut yields back. the gentleman from mississippi is recognized. mr. harper: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. harper: mr. speaker, it is indeed an honor to stand here today and support this legislation. the inclusion of these accounts from the loved ones who have given their lives in service to our nation will only enrich the library's veterans history project and our nation's narrative, memorializing those who have served. the veterans history project has provided a wonderful opportunity to pay tribute to our nation's veterans, ensuring their actions and legacies lives on for many generations to come. i yield back the balance of my

time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the remainder of his time. the question have the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 4511. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 5578, the survivors' bill of rights act. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 546, h.r. 5578, a bill to establish certain rights for sexual assault survivors and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from virginia, mr. goodlatte, and the gentlewoman from california, ms. lofgren, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia. mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and and their remarks include extraneous materials on h.r. 5578 currently under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may

consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. goodlatte: this summer, the harrowing account of the stanford rape victim sparked outrage across the united states and around the globe. the survivor's letter documented in graphic and painstaking detail the complicated, emotional and overwhelming process facing victims of sexual assault. in her letter, the victim writes -- the next thing i remember, i was in a gurney in a hallway. i had dried blood and bandages on the backs of my hands and elbow. i thought maybe i had fallen and was in an administrative office on campus. then, i felt pine needles scratching the back of my neck and started pulling them out of my hair. i thought, maybe the pine needles had fallen from a tree onto my head. my brain was talking, my gut into not collapsing because my gut was saying, help me, help me. i shuffled from room to room with a blanket wrapped around me, pine needles trailing behind me.

i left a little pile in every room i sat in. i was asked to sign papers that said, rape victim, and i thought something has really happened. my clothes were confiscated and i stood naked while the nurses held a ruler to various abrasions on my body and photographed them. the three of us worked to comb the pine needles out of my hair. the letter goes on to describe the rest of the forensic exam, her feelings about what happened to her and her day in court, her vivid and breathtaking account captured the national spotlight. unfortunately, she is but one of many who have to go through this ordeal, but what is abundantly clear from this account is the trauma and difficulty sexual assault victims face from the moment they are assaulted. the survivors' bill of rights act of 2016 makes much-needed additions to federal law to give victims of sexual assault additional rights in seeking justice and recovering from

their experiences. these additional rights include the right to not be prevented from accessing a medical forensic exam, the right not to be charged for that exam and the right to know about the results of that exam. furthermore, the bill requires that the medical exam be preserved throughout the length of the statute of limitations. additionally, the bill requires that the government provide notice to the victim when it intends to dispose of the collection kit. i continue to be deeply troubled by the number of untested rape kits that remain in this country despite the judiciary committee's work to increase funding for rape kit testing to reduce this backlog. nevertheless, these additional rights related to medical exams will ensure that forensic medical kits will at the very least be preserved for the length of the statute of limitations and victims will have notice so they can contest the destruction of those kits.

this bill also clarifies under the existing law the justice department may make grants from the crime victims fund to states to use those grants to notify victims of existing rights under state law. while this bill does much to address the rights of sexual assault victims under federal law, states have different sets of applicable victims' rights that are particular to the state. this provision will ensure that victims will know what rights they have in their particular states. i want to thank congresswoman waters from california and congresswoman lofgren from california for their leadership on this very -- congresswoman walters from california and congresswoman lofgren from california for their leadership on this very important piece of legislation. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia reserves. the gentlewoman from california, ms. lofgren, is recognized. ms. lofgren: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. lofgren: mr. speaker, passing the survivors' bill of

rights is an important step in enacting protections and ensuring access to justice for many americans who are survivors of sexual assault. in may, this last may, i found myself meeting with amanda wynn, lara mccloud and marissa and their friends in my office as part of the assault awareness month. they had asked to meet with me as the senior woman on the judiciary committee, and then they told me i was the first actual member of congress who they'd been able to meet with. when i did listen to them, this is what i heard. amanda told me about her rape, that every six months she was faced with a choice of reliving her past trauma or having the state of massachusetts destroy essential evidence that would assist in the prosecution of her rapist. her medical forensic examination or rape kit. when amanda sought information on how to prevent her rape kit from being destroyed, police provided conflicting

information. she was even told at one point that the kit would be stored indefinitely, which was not correct. she then had to go back and forth between police and state lab teches trying to locate her kit. and even when she found it and got the extension on storing it, the technicians moved her kit without telling her and she now has to file an extension every six months just to preserve the evidence. i listened to marissa tell me that she thought her rape would be the most traumatic experience of her life but that what she found out was even more traumatic, according to her, was the way she was further victimized by the system after being raped. when marissa went to the hospital to seek medical treatment and requested a forensic exam, she was prevented from doing so until after she spoke to a detective. she asked if the interview could wait until the volunteer from the rape crisis center arrived but was told she had to be interviewed then if she wanted to press charges.

alone and confused, marissa underwent nearly hours of questioning by a detective who tried to discourage her from filing a report and blamed her, according to marissa, for her own rape. marissa is unfortunately not alone in being misinformed about her rights and being interrogated instead of being allowed the opportunity to undergo a rape kit procedure in an expedient manner and to ensure the maximum effectiveness that the evidence has been collected. marissa endured six weeks of repeated questioning by the detective about her behavior on the night of the rape. at times she said she felt like she was the one under investigation. initially, her case was closed without the rape kit being tested. it was only after she filed a formal complaint that the case was reopened, more than a year later, and the rape kit was tested. many survivors would have given up on a system that had failed them as much as the system failed her and would not have

pursued reopening their closed case. lara mccloud suffered through further victimization after sexual assault. she reports that at 19 years of age, she was raped by her sister's fiance but she did not want to report the crime. instead, her family who told her about sexual assault informed the police and she was told to go to the station for a formal interview. after a cursory investigation, she reports that the police accused her of lying about the rape and arrested her. her sister was charged with obstructing justice for aiding lara's alleged defeat. the false charge against lara and her sister were eventually expunged but not after damage to her reputation and her sister's savings being spent after dismissing the charges, and worse yet, her sister being denied full custody of her infant son which resulted in this son dying while in the custody of lara's rapist. i mention these terrifying

stories because that is what this bill is all about. it's also about the power of individuals to change the law. after i heard their stories, within two hours, i talked to judiciary committee chairman goodlatte on the house floor and told him about these stories. to his credit, chairman goodlatte immediately contacted his staff to make sure we could work together on this bill. only two short months later, the judiciary committee anonymously approved this -- unanimously approved this legislation. the house version includes a small improvement on the text passed by the senate, and it's my hope that after passage in the house the senate will also approve this version so it can be sent to president obama for his signature. i want to thank all the members of the judiciary committee for their action, but even more, i want to thank the courageous victims of rape who formed the group rise, who did rise and who exerted their power, take control of this situation, who

would not accept being victimized but instead decided to take their trauma and change the law so that other victims will have more power than they had. the congratulations goes to them, and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from california reserves. the gentleman from virginia is recognized. . mr. goodlatte: i yield four minutes to the the gentlewoman from california, ms. walt i.r.s., the chief sponsor of this legislation and a member of the judiciary committee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. walters: basic rights that protect victims of sexual assault vary greatly between each state and federal statute. the patch work of laws across the country and lack of rights for sexual assault survivors prevent them from having full access to the judicial system.

they have experienced unspeakable trauma. these brave survivors deserve commonsense legal protection and clear procedures that ensure access to justice. this bipartisan legislation will ensure that sexual assault survivors in federal criminal cases have a right to sexual assault collection kits and a right to be notified in writing before a kit is destroyed and request preservation of the kit and the right to be informed of important results from forensic examination. this legislation is so important because it is ensures these rights in the federal criminal justice system and furthermore, it will set an example for states to adopt similar procedures and practices. additionally, this legislation will establish a joint working group formed by the attorney general and the department of health and human services on best practices regarding the

care and treatment of sexual assault survivors and the preservation of forensic evidence. it will also make the victims of crimes act grant funding available for states to disseminate written notice of survivors' rights. the senate has passed these reforms and now we must do our part to ensure that sexual assault survivors have a fair chance at justice. this legislation, which i have introduced with mrs. love green, has been been endorsed by the rape abuse and national incest network and the national alliance to end sexual violence and the national center for victims of crime, among other groups. i thank these groups, chairman goodlatte, mrs. love green and all other co-sponsors working to enact this bill. survivors of sexual assault can

secure justice and i advocate for victims of sexual assault and enact sensible reforms. i encourage my colleagues to support this bill and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from california yields back. the gentleman from virginia reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. ms. lofgren: does the gentleman from virginia have additional speakers? mr. goodlatte: i do not. ms. lofgren: i will make a few additional remarks before yielding back. i want toll celebrate our action today. i know that laura mcleod and melissa ferry are watching on this c-span. i just want to say to them, you are not weak victims but strong and powerful actors who turned tragedy into a triumph and i commend you and honor you for your work. i thank you and i urge all members to vote for this bill

and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the the gentlewoman from california yields back. the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. goodlatte: i yield myself such time as i may consume and i thank the the gentlewoman from california for her hard work and the women who have spoken out about their own personal experiences with regard to sexual assaults, because without their speaking out, we would not make the kind of progress that we have made in bringing this legislation this far to the floor of the house. i urge my colleagues to support it. it's important legislation to protect women. it is important legislation to protect our judicial process. and it is important legislation to be sure that people are treated with respect and dignity as they go through that process. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia yields back the remainder of his time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the

bill h.r. 5578. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. mr. goodlatte: i ask for a recorded vote. i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8, rule 20, further proceedings on this uestion will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 2830, to make technical amendments to update statutory references to certain provisions classified in title 2, united states code. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill.

the clerk: a bill to make technical amendments to update statutory references to certain provisions classified in title 2, united states code. pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from virginia, mr. goodlatte, and the gentlewoman from california, mrs. love green, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia. goodlatte gat i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on h.r. 2830 curntly under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. goodlatte: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. goodlatte: i rise today to bring before the house h.r. 2830, a bill to make technical amendments to update statutory references to certain provisions classified to title 2, united states code. the office of the law revision council has an ongoing responsibility under section 285-b of title 2 of the united states code to maintain the

united states code and assist the house judiciary committee in the revision and codification of federal statutes. in order to maintain and improve the united states code, the office of the law revision council must occasionally undertake editorial reclassification projects to reorganize areas of the law that have outgrown their original boundries which eliminate organizational units which are no longer efficient. the decision to transfer provisions in the united states code is not undertaken lightly. after careful sfud, the council identified certain organizational deficiencies in the code that needed to be corrected and accordingly undertook the necessary changes. the purpose of this bill is to update statutory references to laws classified to title 2 of the united states code, h.r. 2830, will amend these crytations to accurately reflect the new location of the corresponding provisions of the u.s. code in light of the recent

editorial reclassification of title 2. i want to thank ranking member conyers for sponsoring this bill along with me today. title 2 of the u.s. code includes all of the laws governing congress and the legislative branch. the reorganization of title 2 for the purposes of the online version of the code took place on february 1, 2014. because chapters 3 and 4 of title 2 far outgrew their original boundaries, the office of law revision council reorganized these chapters into 11 new chapters in order to set forth more clearly. no statutory text was altered by the reorganization of the the provisions were merely transferred from one place to another. as a result of the reclassification, title 2 exhibits the laws governing congressional pay and benefits, ethics, leadership and

administration, just to name a few. the short-term inconvenience to adjusting to new code crytations is loutwaggetel weighed by the organizational structure in the united states code. to eliminate any confusion, the office provides a comprehensive guide to the old and new code citations on its website, u.s. .gov. ouse sections altered will be updated to reflect the changes made to title 2. for the foregoing reasons, i urge my colleagues to support this important bill and i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. ms. lofgren: i yeed myself such time as i may consume. mr. speaker as the chairman has indicated, this bill makes technical amendments to title 2 of the u.s. code to updated

statutory references and crafted by the law revision council which is charged with developing and keeping current the united states code. this is an enormous task. on average, congress passes into law more than 6,900 pages of public law each year and as that happens, some areas of the law get jammed into the code and become difficult to navigate and so this bill along with the two that follow, just make it easier to read. it doesn't make any substantive changes whatsoever. and i support this legislation. i want to thank chairman goodlatte and ranking member conyers for the work they put in to accomplish this fix. and unless you have additional speakers, i would yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from california yields back. the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. goodlatte: i urge my

colleagues to support this legislation and i yield back. i thank the gentlewoman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia yields back. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 2830. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid n the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? goodlatte demrat i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 2831, to make technical amendments to update statutory references to provisions classified in chapters 44, 45, 46 and 47 of title 50, united states code, as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: a bill to make chnical amendments to make

references to provisions class tied. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia, mr. goodlatte and the gentlewoman from california, mrs. love reen, each will. mr. goodlatte: i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to extend and revise their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. i yield myself such time as i may consume. i rise today to bring before the house h.r. 2831, a bill to make technical amendments to update to provisions classified to chapters 44-47 of title 50, united states code. as i previously stated, the office of law revision counsel must undertake editorial reclassification projects to reorganize areas of law that have outgrown their boundries or

eliminate units that are no longer efficient. h.r. 2831 reflects yet another of the office's editorial reclassification efforts and i thank ranking member con years for co-sponsoring this bill. it will update statutory provisions to title 50. the office has prepared this bill and submitted it to the committee as part of the office's ongoing responsibility to maintain the code and assist the committee in the revision and cod figs of federal sfauts. may of 2015, title 50 was reorganized to set forth more clearly the provisions of the national security act of 1947. the central intelligence agency act of 1949, the national security agency act of 1959 and certain other related stause. no statutory text was altered in the reorganization.

the provisions were merely transferred from one place to another in title 50. the change was necessary to improve the organizational structure of the material in the united states code. the technical amendments made by h.r. 2831 update united states code crytations to reflect the new code citations and further to eliminate any confusion, the council provides a comprehensive guide to the old and new code citations for this title on its website uscode tchoth house.gov. this bill ensures that our laws are up to date and accurately reflect the location of statutory text in the united states code. and for these reasons, i urge my colleagues to support this important bill and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. ms. lofgren: i yield myself such time as i may consume. as with the preceding bill, this

was drafted by the office of law revision council and as the chairman has said is intended to make the statutes clearer. it doesn't make any change in substantive law but creates a new chapter 44 entitled national security, which consists primarily of the national security act of 1947, new community entitled authorities consisting primarily of related provisions from 16 different statutes and new chapter 46 entitled the central intelligence agency primarily made up of the central intelligence act of 1949 and new chapter 47 entitled the national security agency, which consists of the national security agency act of 1959. it makes technical amendments but makes no substantive change whatsoever. it will make it easier for the

public, for lawyers, for researchers to know what the law is and i urge its passage and i would yield back the balance of my time. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. goodlatte: i thank the gentlewoman and i ask my colleagues to vote for this and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: yield back the balance of my time. the question is will the house h.r. d the rules and pass 2831, as amended. those in favor say aye, those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 2832, to make technical amendments to update statutory references to certain provisions classified in title 52, united states code, as amended.

the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 2832, a bill to make technical amendments to update statutory references to certain provisions classified to title 52, united states ode, as amended. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from virginia, mr. goodlatte, and the gentlewoman from california, ms. lofgren, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia. mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and and their remarks include extraneous materials on h.r. 2832, current he under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i rise today to bring before the house h.r. 2832, a bill to make technical amendments to update statutory references to provisions classified to title 52, united states code. h.r. 2832 is yet another bill addressing a reclassification of the united states code by the office of revision counsel,

and i am pleased to be joined in co-sponsoring this notable bill by ranking member conyers. it is only fitting he co-espnor the bill, recognizing the creation of a new title of the united states code deindicated exclusively to voting and election laws. in 1926 when the organizational structure of the united states code was established no separate title for voting in elections was created. at that time, only two federal statutory provisions relating to voting and elections existed. since 1960, an extensive body of federal statutory law relating to voting and elections has been enacted including title 3 of the civil rights act of 1960, the voting rights act of 1965, the federal election campaign act of 1971, the voting accessibility for the elderly and handicapped act, the uniformed and overseas citizens absentee voting act, the national voter registration act of 1993, and the help

america vote act of 2002. upon enactment, each of these laws was incorporated into the existing structure of the code in the most logical manner possible. however, as this body of law grew and evolved, it became increasingly apparent to the office of law revision counsel that a separate title was needed. , september 1, 2014, title 52 voting and elections was established. this new title provide a well-organized coherent structure for this important body of law. h.r. 2832 will update citationes that refer to provisions altered by the reclassification. these are necessary to conform the citations to the current codification of the text. in addition, to eliminate any confusion, the office of law revision counsel provides a comprehensive guide to the old and new code citations for these provisions on its

website, uscode.house.gov. as with the case with reclassification process, no statutory text was altered in this reorganization. the provisions were merely transferred from one place to another in the united states code. h.r. 2832 is an important bill because it helps ensure that ur laws are up to date and accurately reflect the statutory text in the united states code. for these reasons i urge my colleagues to support this bill and reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia reserves. the gentlewoman from california is recognized. ms. lofgren: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. lofgren: as with the prior bills, the office of law revision counsel has drafted this. the chairman has certainly explained what it does. it makes no change to the law but it does do this. it highlights the value of voting rights laws by creating a title 52. i think that's going to make it

easier for the public to understand what the rules are. it's an important measure even though it doesn't change existing law by making the law more accessible. i'm going to diverge a little bit from the substance of this, because when my plane landed from california this afternoon, i was saddened to find on my email the news that allen a. parker, who was general counsel for the judiciary committee and general counsel for the civil rights subcommittee when my predecessor, don edwards, had chaired the civil rights subcommittee, had passed away last friday after a very long illness. alan parker was -- served in world war ii in the south pacific. he went to santa clara law school answered loved the congress and he loved the

judiciary committee and he had a distinguished career teaching law but he would be actually i think pleased to be remembered on the occasion of reorganizing these civil rights measures that he cared so much about and that he worked for when he was here in the house. so i urge my colleagues to vote for this bill today and to join me in mourning the passage of alan a. parker, the former general counsel of the committee of the judiciary. and with that i would yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from california yields back. the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. first, i thank the gentlewoman for her important part in this legislation and for remembering mr. parker, not only his commitment to the judiciary but to the entire congress and our country. so her words are well taken. and i think her for them. and i urge my colleagues to

support the bill and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia yields back the balance of his time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 2832, as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are sprened, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> -- mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3881, as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 550, h.r. 3881, a bill to amend the mineral leasing act to repeal provisions relating only to the allegheny national forest. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson, and the gentleman from colorado, mr. polis, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and tend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i very much appreciate the opportunity to bring my legislation, the cooperative management of mineral rights act of 2016, to the floor today. the speaker's task force on reducing regulatory burdens

cited many examples from across the country of how our nation's regulatory system is constricting both job growth and economic development. this legislation solves one such example in my district where gross regulatory overreach by the u.s. forest service in partnership with environmental groups sought to halt american energy production in the commonwealth of pennsylvania. this energy production has occurred for generations in the region through conventional methods and remains a stable industry throughout many communities in the region. more recently, responsible energy development in the marcellus shale has occurred in my district, which has pushed the united states to lead the world in energy production. just a few years ago, american families were forced to pay absurd energy prices and look to foreign countries to meet our energy needs. today, pennsylvanian energy is reducing prices and meeting our nation's demands while also

employing thousands of american workers. for years, the forest service had worked cooperatively on a balanced approach to ensure responsible energy development could occur in the allegany national forest. this balanced approach was tossed aside when the forest service sought to put crippling new regulations into place on privately held mineral rights in my district. after years of litigation, the courts decisively ruled against the forest service's authority to implement such regulation. my legislation -- this legislation simple fee codifies what the -- simply codifies what the court has ruled, restoring a balanced approach to the allegany national forest. it has advanced notice before commencing operations, which they have done for decades. while nothing in my bill circumvents this requirement, i was pleased to work across the aisle with the energy and minerals resources subcommittee

ranking member alan lowenthal to accept this amendment to make this point crystal clear. today, the house ends one example of federal regulatory overreach that's put the well-being of families in my district in jeopardy. it's the hope the house will continue to roll back the red tape to generate greater american prosperity. i urge the adoption of the measure and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania reserves. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. polis: thank you, mr. speaker. would repeal certain parts of the u.s. code of the mineral rights of the allegany national forest. it so to ensure the owners of the mineral rights are able to exercise them and drill within the boundaries as legal. while those rights are valid and respected, the u.s. forest service has rights that's been confirmed by the courts, for instance, the right to receive 60 days advanced notice before any drilling begins.

the introduced draft of this legislation initially raised the possibility that it could have inadvertently overturned the court cases and pres denses guaranteeing that advanced notice and other rights of the u.s. forest service. thankfully in markup, the sponsor of the legislation and the majority on the natural resources committee agreed to accept an amendment by my colleague from california, mr. lowenthal, which made it completely clear this bill does not affect the right of the forest service to get advanced notice or any other valid right of the forest service, nor does it negatively impact any other rights the forest service has to oversee activities in national forest and to protect forest resources pursuant to the law. this bill is amended, simply repeals language that some have interpreted as potentially infringing on private property rights. passing the bill would not have an impact on how oil and gas operations are conducted in the allegany national forest or any national forest nationally. i want to thank the sponsors of this bill for working with the

democrats on this committee to craft a workable response which hopefully will pass by unanimous consent. i ask my colleagues to support the bill and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from colorado reserves. the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i have no additional speakers so i'll continue to reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. polis: i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from colorado yields back the remainder of his time. the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i just urge passage of this bill, and i thank the gentleman who -- for support of this piece of legislation. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania yields back the remainder of his time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 3881. those in favor say aye. as amended. the chair wants to correct the reading. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3881, as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the

affirmative -- mr. thompson: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. mr. thompson: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. thompson: on that i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise will rise and remain standing until counted -- will rise and remain standing until counted. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this question are postponed. . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? mr. thompson: i move to suspend he rules and pass h.r. 5510 as amended. the clerk: h.r. 5510 a bill to ensure access to existing bolts ditch access in eagle county, colorado and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman from colorado. mr. polis: the h.r. designation of the bill is different. t should be h.r. 4510. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i ask -- i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4510 as amended and ask members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration and i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: jarninged. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, since mid turn own of colorado has used to fill bolts lake and an important source of water for the surrounding community. when congress passed the wilderness act, 450 feet of the

bolts ditch was included in the area leading question about the town's ability to access this important infrastructure. after discussion among stakeholders, the town agreed to seek a legislative solution to address this access issue. this bipartisan allows the forest service to allow a ecial use project to allow motorized access in the holy cross wilderness. it ensures the town will vr basic maintenance needs. h.r. 4510 that was developed in consultation with the community and forest service and enjoys support from the region. i urge adoption of the measure. and i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. polis: mr. speaker, i want to thank chairman bishop for bringing h.r. 4510 the bolts

ditch access and use act to the floor today. i introduced this important piece legislation at the request of the local communities because it improves public land, water and communities in my district. this bill has bipartisan support from the com delegation. i thank mr. tipton and mr. lamborn for partnering with me. in the senate, senator gardner and senator bennett. i thank the conservation community and water utilities for working together for a commonsense solution. this is an example of how we can solve a problem. the need for this legislation is to solve a vital local problem for the people of mid turn, colorado, 1,000 people in eagle county. the problem it fixes results from a mistake in the 1980 wilderness act which left bolts ditch off of the list of existing water facilities which

should have been inclooded. this would allow special use and the segment of the bolts ditch within the wilderness area to use its existing water rights. residents who brought this bill to me as well as the people of colorado have long relied on water infrastructure to access clean and affordable drinking water. this will ensure that the town ill utilize a crucial resource without compromising the surrounding areas. i reserve. mr. thompson: i have no additional speakers. i continue toll reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from colorado. mr. polis: i thank the staff and the committee for working with us on this bill. very important to the bill of mid turn and our central region in colorado. i urge passage and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman from colorado yields back. the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. thompson: i thank the ntleman for colorado for sponsoring this bill. and with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania yields back. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 4510 as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3480 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 543, a bill to extend the

boundry of fort frederica national monument boundry and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from pennsylvania and the gentleman from virginia will each control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. thompson: i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. tom tomorrow yield myself such time as i may consume. mr. speaker, fort frederica national monument located on st. simon island, georgia preserves fort established in 1736. the fort was constructed to protect attacks from the spanish. they fended off a spanish attack in 1742 and confirmed georgia as a british territory.

h.r. 3480 introduced by congressman carter, expands the fort by 21 acres. the st. simon island land trust ns the land trust. this bipartisan bill is co-sponsored by the entire georgia delegation and he worked with colleagues. i urge adoption of the measure and i urge adoption. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from virginia, mr. beyer. mr. beyer: i yield myself such time as i may consume. as the chairman has said, this expands the national monument and included a 0-acre property known as the north marsh. the national park service evaluated the property in a 2014 study and determined its acquisition would provide and

protect resources. fort frederica was built by james ogelthorpe to protect the colony of georgia. it has been managed by the national park service when president roosevelt designated the site as a national monument. climbed main's highest mountain and i was in maine to celebrate president obama's use to accept a gift of 87,000 acres to create the monument, some of the most beautiful country i have ever seen. this is an important reminder of how to protect our heritage resonates. 80 years after president roosevelt established a national monument, we are looking to expand it. by using money from the land and

water conservation fund, a federal program that wasn't around in f.d.r.'s time, we can continue this important legacy. i thank the majority and my friend from georgia, mr. carter, for advancing this bill. i look forward to working with them designed to expand our public land. i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia reserves. the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. thompson: i yield four minutes to the gentleman from georgia, the author of this bill, mr. carter. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for four minutes. mr. carter: thank you, mr. speaker. the 1st congressional district of georgia is home to a lot of national treasures. fort frederica was built on st. simon's island by james ogelthorpe to protect the colony from the spanish. it ensured a decisive victory in

1742 at the battle of bloody marsh which ended farther spanish attempts to claim georgia as their own. fort frederica is a popular destination housing a fort and museum. it would authorize the national park service to obtain adjacent land that contains artifacts from historic settlements adding more history to this site. i thank the chairman for supporting this co-sponsoring this legislation. i would like to thank the natural resources committee staff for their work and dedication to this bill. thank you, mr. chairman. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from reserves. the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. beyer: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized.

mr. beyer: i yield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia yields back. mr. thompson: i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania yields back the remainder of his time. the question is will the house the d the rules and pass bill h.r. 3480. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the rules are suspended and the bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? mr. thompson: i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4202 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the --rk will report of the tile report the title of the bill. the clerk: conduct a special study of fort ontario in the state of new york. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson and the gentleman from

virginia, mr. beyer each will control 20 minutes. mr. thompson: i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: i yield myself such time as i may consume. fort ontario is a military installation located on the the of the oswego river, fort has a rich history of active military use and was destroyed and rebuilt on three separate occasions. at various points in history, it served as a training post, hospital camp and emergency refugee shelter. special authorizes a resource study to evaluate fort ontario's national significance and determine the suit built and feasibility of designating it as a unit of the national park

service. i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. beyer: i yield myself such time as i may consume. this bill authorizes the national park service to conduct a study of fort ontario. it was a military installation used during the french and indian wars and used to house refugees fleeing the holocaust and they were allowed into the united states as guests as president roosevelt. events like the invasion of normandy or -- which have been memorialized in stone. but the story of fort ontario is a component of our important legacy. says as much about our national character as the bravery and sacrifice of millions of americans deployed overseas. it has been managed as a

historic site since 1949 and listed on the national historic register of places. looking to the best available options for the continued preservation and management of fort ontario including the possibility of turning it into a unit. fort ontario had many uses and has had a particularly relevant place in the story of jewish americans. fort ontario and its unique story will be a fitting addition and i thank representative katko for bringing the story of fort ontario to our attention. i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. thompson: i yield three minutes to the gentleman from new york, the author of this legislation, mr. katko. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. katko: i thank the gentleman for yielding as well.

fort ontario has stood on the shores since 1755. for the past 63 years, the fort has been preserved by the new york historic site and serving as a historic landmark. i'm proud to support this legislation which would take the step ensuring this site receives the national recognition it deserves. the act would commission a special reserve stdy to evaluate the historical significance and designation as a part of the national park system. the history is truly unique and within our nation as a whole. the fort has been involved in every major american war to orld war ii. from 1944 to 1946 it served as the nation's only emergency

refugee catch in the entire nation, providing shelter to ver 9,000 refugees flow neghol case. it now hosts a holocaust refugee museum which preserves the stories of these refugees and the eventual freedom and safety they gained here in america. it draws visitors from across the state, the country, and indeed the world. designating this as a national park would help to preserve the fort. i'm happy to sponsor this legislation. i thank the people who have worked hard to preserve this site. including the board of the refugee holocaust museum, and the many volunteers that give their time to this cause. i want to thank fellow new york

representatives congressman hannah and congresswoman slauther who worked with me in the house to support this effort, as well as the chairman of the committee for moving this prnt legislation. i ask my colleagues to support this legislation and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman -- >> i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia. >> i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. thompson: i thank mr. katko for his work on this legislation and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 4202 as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid n the table.

for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? mr. thompson: i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 4245 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 4245 a bill to exempt importation and exhortation of sea urchins and sea cucumbers from licensing requirements under the endangered species act of 1973. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson, and the gentleman from virginia, mr. beyer, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. thompson: i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. thompson mr. speaker mr. speaker, h.r. 4245, introduced

by our colleagues chellie pingree and bruce collins make amendments to the federal law to avoid duplication. it protects fishermen, small businesses and their fresh, domestically harvested seafood destined for export from the duplicative inspections and permits. during a legislative hearing on h.r. 4245, both sides of the aisle expressed concerns over these inspections, especially on sea urchins. in fact, one of our minority colleagues said it best when he called the inspections dramatic overkill. in addition, one witness discussed how federal inspection delays have spoiled shipments that cost businesses thousands of dollars. this bill removes that federal delay. i comment our colleagues for working on a bipartisan basis to address this matter. i would like to insert in the record an exchange of letters

from the chairman of the house ways and means and foreign affairs committee regarding this bill. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: we thank them for helping expedite of this bill today. i urge adoption of the measure and reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from virginia. mr. beyer: i yield to the gentlelady from maine. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is reck -- the gentlelady is recognized. ms. pingree: thank you to mr. beyer for yielding time and thank you to the gentleman from pennsylvania for supporting this as well. i rise in support of h.r. 4245, inspectionswill end for sea cu coupler, sea urchins and cuttlefish. i want to thank chairman bishop, subcommittee chairman fleming, ranking member grijalva and my good friend ranking member huffman for their support and

help for getting this bill through the committee and to the house floor today. i want to recognize my friend and colleague from maine, mr. poliquin who has been an original co-sponsor of this bill and tireless supporter of this effort. to better understand the bill i'd like to tell you about the sea urchin industry in maine a critical part of our marine economy. second only to kale, the sea urchin industry in maine brings over 5.4 -- brings other $5.4 million to our state every year and supports 600 jobs, which includes harvesters up and down our beautiful coast. companies in maine also process urchins that are harvested here as well as those from canada and chile before being exported overseas. in japan and other parts of asia, urchins are a valuable delicacy, known in sushi restaurants as ooni. they're also a delicacy here in the united states and very highly regarded. urchins imported to maine from other countries are inspected by

the u.s. fish and wildlife service upon entering the country. relatively recently, the fish and wildlife service has begun inspecting the products once again before leaving the country. the policy change ended a longtime exemption urchins had received, an exemption that lobster and other shellfish continue to receive. over 18 months ago, i started hearing from urchin process quors in maine who reported problems with this change. sometimes the urchins sat in a hot warehouse in new york, usually at j.f.k. airport, for days waiting for inspection. possibly resulting in the loss of a very valuable and highly perishable product. since these are such a perishable product, despite the harvesters' and processors' speedy work to get them ready for shipment, once they reach the inspection point in new york they often came to a halt. i immediately started working with fish and wildlife service to try and find a solution. even though we haven't always seen eye to eye with fish and

wildlife, they have been very willing to hear our concern, work with us on particular problem, and try to make things easier on our harvesters and processors. we had a very recent example. last friday afternoon, my office received a call from an urchin processor who had $50,000 worth of product soon to be sitting at the j.f.k. airport. the fish and wildlife service closed this friday, meaning the urchins would be left over a three-day weekend. we were able to get it cleared but it was a very close call. stories like this make it clear that the only real solution is to get rid of this due flicktive inspection and this is what this bill would do. after working with fish and wildlife service, talking to urchin harvesters and visiting processing plants in my district, efirmly believe extra inspections are unnecessary there is no reason why sea urchins should be treated differently than shellfish. these burdensome inspections recite a great deal of risk for

valuable exports and too much uncertainty for a job creating industry. as communities on the atlantic and pacific coast deal with challenges through commercial fishing and working water front, it's critical that congress do everything it can to support successful industries like sea urchins in maine or squid and cuttlefish in california, rhode island, and other states. i am very proud to have introduced this bipartisan legislation and i encourage my colleagues to support this bill and yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from virginia reserves. the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i have no additional speakers on this particular bill, so i will reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. beyer: i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia yields back. the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i just urge passage of this piece of legislation. i yield back the balance of my time the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the remainder of his time. the question is, will the house

suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 4245 as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended this bill is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. without objection the title is amended. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania siege recognition? mr. -- seek recognition? mr. thompson: i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4789. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 534, h.r. 4789, a bill to authorize the secretary of the interior to establish a structure for visitor services on the arlington ridge tract in the area of the u.s. marine corps war memorial and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson, and the gentleman from virginia, mr. beyer, each will

control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. thompson: i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous thornlse bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. thompson: the united states marine corps war memorial in arlington, virginia, hon norse many members of the marine corps who have given their lives fighting for our country. this is one of the most popular memorials in the area, attracting over one million visitors annually and hosting several popular events sthachese summer sunset parades and the marine corps marathon. despite the popularity, the site only has portable toilets and no permanent bathroom facilities for visitors this bipartisan bill, straightforward bill, introduced by congressman beyer, authorizes the construction of the visitor service center that includes permanent restroom facilities.

due to a generous donation from billionaire philanthropist rube instein this will come at no cost to the taxpayer. this new facility represents a more respectful and permanent solution to improve visitor experiences at this important site. i urge the adoption of the measure and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. beyer: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. beyer: h.r. 47 9 is an uncontroversial measure authorizing construction of a small restroom facility on the grounds of the marine corps memorial, also known as the iwo jima memorial. 5 million was donated to the park service to improve the memorial and surrounding grounds. examine the e to

memorial and see what could be improved. with visitors expanding because of improvement, there's a need to address this deficiency. this is especially concerns ecause this is a popular destination for veterans, many not able bodied. the current construction ban dates to 2002. it was part of the debate over the location of the air force memorial. the air force memorial was ultimately located somewhere else but we still need this legislation to authorize construction of restroom facilities. the provision has been passed by the senate and i'm pleased by its consideration in the house. the national park service has long wanted to build a small structure with water and restrooms at the marine corps memorial because there's no such facilities within several miles. this is in keeping with the broader spoifl improving accessibility of all the memorials on and around the national mall.

i'm particularly thankful for mr. cook's support in putting this together. mr. thompson's leadership. for the chairman's support. i urge all members to support this bipartisan bill and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yield back. the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. thompson: i urge passage -- passage of this bill and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the remainder of his time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 4789. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid n the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? mr. thompson: i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 5577 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 552, h.r. 5577 a bill to amend the outer continental shelf

lands act to authorize the secretary of the interior to conduct offshore oil and gas lease sales through internet based live lease sales and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson, and the gentleman from virginia, mr. beyer, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia, excuse me, from pennsylvania. mr. thompson: thank you, mr. speaker. ask unanimous consent the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. thompson: h.r. 5577 flusted by congressman graves will invees transparency and efficiency regarding the federal government's current process while conducting lease sails and . at this point, i yield such time as he may consume to the author of the bill, the gentleman from

louisiana, mr. graves. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from louisiana is recognized. mr. graves: i want to thank the gentleman for yielding. is speaker, my homework online and we grew up on a website and pull down homework and ninth grader can check out books and download it to his kindle and our sixth grader sends text messages to her aunts and uncles. everything now is evolving to online. everything is. mr. speaker, the reality is that there is this reputation that the federal government has that we are inefficient and behind the times and unfortunately that reality is well earned. everything is going on online now. and go on different web sites and have things delivered to our home. nd order things online and

order and go to stores and pick them up. this bill addresses offshore lease sales. what are offshore lease sales? that is the second largest revenue stream for the united states treasury after taxes. its is a huge revenue stream and exceeded $200 billion. what this bill is designed to do is to bring us into the 21st century and allow bidders to broaden access to allow for the taxpayers' resource, the american public's resource to have morbiders, to have more competition to make sure that the full value of that resource is realized by taxpayers. i very much appreciate my good friend from california, mr. lowenthal being the lead co-spobs sore showing this is a bipartisan bill and we have

diverse eyed lolings across the country. this puts it online and allows for better access for information and this is an access that belongs to the american public and worth billions and billions of dollars and should have transparency and the amount that bidders put forth and bid. i think it's very important. and lastly, mr. speaker, i want to make note of this. what this does, this whole transparency and openness and improved value and competition, come pleaments the public process. after the last lease sale, there were 18 opportunities for public participation, public comment, public meetings. 18 separate opportunities due to the development of the lease sale and the development of the five-year plan.

so this complements all of that transparency and folks who could only afford it to buy a plane ticket but that everyone can participate and it allows for the public access to this last stage in the process that complements this open and transparent process that takes place prior to. so, mr. speaker, i want to urge support for h.r. 5577. i think this is in the best interest of taxpayers and transparency and certainly the public. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from pennsylvania reserves. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. beyer: i yield myself such time as i may consume. h.r. 5577 is a bipartisan bill introduced by two of my colleagues, congressman graves from louisiana, congressman lowenthal from california and would bring the leasing system

into the 21st century. the department of interior took one stop in that direction by streaming bids live on the web. however, companies submitted their bids by sticking them in an envelope and mailing them. process move this online to provide much more transparency by ensuring that the public has the data to these sales in downloadable process online format. h.r. 5577 will ensure that people across the country can follow the sales in real-time. i commend the sponsors of this bill to improve government operations and i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia reserves. mr. thompson: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania reserves. mr. beyer: i yield back. mr. thompson: i just urge the passage of this measure. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania yields back. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r.

5577 as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-1 of rule 1, the cha

see that tonight at 7:00 eastern on c-span2, if the senate is out for the night. >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. and coming up wednesday morning, veterans affairs secretary robert mcdonald on current issues facing veterans, including v.a. reform, the commission on care report, and access to health care for veterans. and then vet cran -- veterans affairs committee remember congressman phil roe will talk about wednesday's committee

meeting on the care the v.a. are provides, criticism of v.a. secretary mcdonald and a possible subpoena regarding art purchases by the v.a. nationwide in 2010. also joining us, andrew stuttiford of the "national review" who will discuss his review of automation in america. join the discussion. >> for campaign 2016, c-span continues on the "road to the white house." >> i will be a president for democrats, republicans, and independents. >> we're going to win with education, we're going to win with the second amendment. we're going to win. >> ahead, live coverage of the presidential and vice-presidential debates on c-span. the c-span radio app, and c-span.org. monday, september 26 is the first presidential debate. live from hoffs rah university

in new york. -- from hofstra university in new york. then vice-presidential candidates debate. on sunday, october 9, washington university in st. louis hosts the second presidential debate. leading up to the third and final debate between hillary clinton and donald trump. taking place at the university of nevada-las vegas on october 19. live coverage of the presidential and vice-presidential debates on c-span. listen live on the free c-span radio app or watch live any time on demand at c-span.org. >> we're going to talk about what they're going to do. congren they return. niels lesniewski. also joining me is kelsey snell. thank you for coming on. today,e a story returning congress has one

maintain, -- main aim. no shutdown. guest: there is some argument at this point about how long that continuing resolution will last. there is a group of conservatives who would like to see a continuing resolution that goes into next year, denying the obama administration any last-minute victories. they would like to renegotiate in november -- december. there are plenty of republicans who would like to make sure that if the obama administration does something with regulations or something that happens after the election, there is one last chance. host: would you agree as far as what she said? guest: absolutely. you have retiring lawmakers and retiring members of the

appropriations committee, barbara mikulski of the senate, hal rogers in the house who is term limited out of the house appropriations committee. a republican from the eastern part of kentucky. you have these numbers who have parties that they want to get done before the end of the year. if you are a conservative activist or someone associated with the freedom caucus, these are exactly the people you do not like making law. you do not like that these old bulls are deciding how money is spent. they want to spend more money than you do. that paul, tension the speaker of the house, mitch mcconnell, the majority leader in the senate, will have to deal with.

host: what will keep this from happening? guest: there are several things that the conservatives in the freedom caucus wants in return for this continuing resolution. been ablean has not to figure out the right negotiating tactics with this group. they are largely unpredictable. shifted whenely they do negotiations like this in the past. they want to vote on impeachment of the irs commissioner. that could be a trade-off they make. what: a question will be bargaining chips there are. the irs commissioner impeachment resolution seems like it would be a logical one, which tells you something about how this works. something that is that unrelated to money spent by the federal government is a bargaining chip.

what will come into play here is how much there is an appetite for dealing with supplemental funding in this continuing resolution. who might not be as amiliar with this process, straightforward continuing resolution what flatline government spending until sometime next year or whatever it may be. we should be reminded that we have not seen a draft of the emergency funding to address the nih andus and cdc and other agencies say they need more money to do that. that would need to be added on. just to throw something else out there, there is also a question of now we have had storms

hitting lately. there may be emergency supplemental money that may be needed for this storm that is off the east coast or for the flooding in louisiana. all of that would have to get added in. senate democrats have tipped their hands in that they are thinking about this already. i think it was senator reed or senator schumer that they would have to expand to include some of these things that they need to take care. that is the kind of thing the freedom caucus is worried about. they have not been successful in keeping the democrats from adding additional spending to spending bills. as soon as a senate democrat mentions spending, they get very numerous --nervous. host: that is what we're going

to talk about. you can ask questions of our guests by calling (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. independents. for talk about strategy. will the process start this week? how does that work as far as playing the clock out? guest: it seems too early to have this conversation right outcome which seems crazy. these are procrastinators. members of congress at their most basic level push things off until the last second. sometimes that is a strategy on the part of leadership to convince members that they need to go along with something.

what we will probably see our meetings and caucus meetings this week. the senate will have their normal lunches tomorrow. there will be house conference meetings as well. real discussion will probably kick off towards the end of next week and the beginning of the week after that. the other thing i wanted to throw in before i forget, part of the reason that the conservatives in the house once a continuing resolution into calendar year 2070 is to try to 2017 is to avoid a lame-duck session. between the election and the swearing in of the new congress, there are also exempt lame-duck priorities -- all sorts of

lame-duck parties that could be enacted. trade is one of them. the other piece in play is whether or not there is any way someone like paul ryan can say, ok, we are not going to do the transpacific partnership. make a list of things they will not do in the lame-duck. that is a possibility. guest: i would say it is very difficult for the senate where you have a large number of senate republicans who are up for reelection. that is a message they would like to avoid. i think we will see a lot of this agenda setting happen tomorrow afternoon. the senate will have lunch, their weekly lunches, they will have some meetings in the and the largest group of conservatives and the house will be meeting for lunch, wednesday.

we will see these negotiating markers out on wednesday. host: september 30, that of you see the reality of a shutdown happening. guest: i think worse than saying we are not going to come back after an election in saying we are going to shut down the government and then come back after an election. if you are mitch mcconnell and you want to have a chance of holding on to the senate, i think that that chance leaves town, if the government shuts down. host: let's go to some calls. both is -- first call is from tennessee, democrat line. caller: thank you. i am so glad, finally, congress, mitch mcconnell's congress at

the last minute will try to get something done, because they are up for election, there under so much pressure. right here, at the end of president obama's term. america, this is sad. eight years, we have the opportunity to put russia and its place. eight years, think about it. a house and them getting ready to sell a house within eight years. with mcconnell's congress delay after delay. now they want to get up there within the last two months and try to get something done and blame it on obama. i will tell you something. i am a dissatisfied, disabled veteran in my dissatisfaction

comes with the congress. that is the sort of dissatisfaction you hear a lot of people say. there is a reason why congress polls so low and the approval rating is terrible. part of what we have seen and this is no surprise and nothing novel but part of this is tied to the fact that the first two years of the obama administration, the democratic control the house and the senate, and they got through as much as they could, they got that massive overhaul of the health care system through the narrowest of margins in the senate and since then, there has been a lot of back-and-forth that has not led anywhere. guest: people are dissatisfied with congress as a whole, but if

you ask them about how they feel about an individual member of congress, they are pretty happy all stop it is difficult to see if this will bear out in the upcoming election, i think that in the house where the lines are drawn in such a way that it is difficult for electorate to write someone out of congress. host: the caller mentioned russia and cyber security. does this become an agenda item at any point? guest: there has been discussion about cyber security legislation for some time. if we are being honest, we are in session at most eight more weeks before the end of this year. time, they will have the past two continuing resolutions, handle the zika virus. they may have a few more last-minute regulation issues and i don't think that is on the list. host: we go to will in north carolina, republican. caller: americans are tired of

the whole political process of wilkins and democrats -- of republicans and democrats trying to put bipartisan issues onto nonpartisan bills. the zika virus bill is a good example. the democrats wanting to put planned parenthood, which is so divisive in this country and in congress. why would they slow down something that is so urgent and is immediately needed in florida and the rest of the country? by putting something that is so partisan like planned parenthood. also, the previous caller was talking about being dissatisfied with congress because they were

not working with obama. --ma has frequently flagrantly disowned the constitution. i can see why he is upset, but we are all upset. limits inld be term congress. guest: what happened was there was a bipartisan negotiation happening in july, and senate democrats were participating and they were working on trying to do something about $1.9 billion in funding. it was not crumbled, a surprise and the response was that republicans in the house and senate put together their own separate $1.1 billion funding bill and they added in a provision that barred money from being spent by planned parenthood clinics.

that is one thing democrats objected to and why they won't vote for it. they also objected to -- about pesticides that would potentially kill mosquitoes, but also a big risk to other types of beneficial insects. guest: out that what our caller said at the end where he mentioned term limits for members of congress, that has been a recurring topic of conversation over many years. i know in the presidential race, donald trump has to do to make some noise about term limits. if you talk to old-school members of congress, their response and the reason why it would never happen is because you would need to amend the constitution to do it is that they will say we have term limits, they are called elections. if you don't like us, vote us

out. the point kelsey made about favorability of your own member of congress versus congress at large, there is a whole lot of incumbents who have been around a long time your going to continue to be around for a long time and that makes it really sell the limit that they should be voting themselves out of a job. host: up next, spring hill, florida. caller: i have a question for congress. are they treating chelsea turing like their own private piggy bank? billion last50 month from social security. guest: social security is one of the difficult cases where it is difficult for lawmakers to potentially think about --

tangibly about spending money in the future when they have trouble keeping things funded in the current. when you see changes made to programs and the way they are undated and an effort to handle the issue while it is happening, and sometimes lawmakers find it easier to make changes to programs than to raise taxes or cut programs. i don't think they like doing it, but that is the way it ends up going. guest: we had a caller from , a breakfast that i attended with senator bob corker , which was a christian scientist monitor breakfast which i think c-span aired. -- he isrgely saying one of those folks who has been trying to push entitlement reform and overhaul for a long time, and he sort of, for lack

of a better term, went off on the fact that nobody can come to an agreement that everyone is too scared to come to the table to be able to figure out what needs to be done, whether that is raising the retirement age, whether it is adjusting a level that which you no longer have to pay social security taxes, or whether -- what changes need to be made in terms of the cost of living adjustments or what have you, and that is just what popped into my head, that there are few people up there who have an appetite to actually handle any of it. guest: making hard choices like that is very difficult. it is hard to make a program like social security. host: we didn't cover that event and you can see it on the c-span archives. you can see senator corker.

let's go to south carolina, democrats line. guest: good morning -- caller: good morning. past,rstand that in the tacking on unrelated legislation to bills was kind of a tool used as a method of compromise within the congress and the senate, but those days are over. the nature of the senate and the congress is so polarized, and the news media going hollywood except for c-span, thank god, has changed the ,ature of that fundamental tool and it has become exactly what the guy from north carolina that i don't agree with -- but he was right about poison bills cannot is what it has become. -- and that is what it has

become. there should be a rule that says you can no longer because it is kind of useless as a tool of compromise, attach unrelated legislation to bills and let the bills and the vote stand on its own, allowing the public to judge the true nature of their representatives. i hope you guys have a good day, thank you very much. host: let's talk about the process. my response and maybe this is a funny one is that there actually is a rule against air dropping extraneous provisions into congress reports. these are the formal agreements between the house and senate, it was material that was neither in the house version of the bill nor the senate version of the bill, the rule actually says that is not allowed to be there.

as a reality, what happens is sometimes they bypassed the conference rosses altogether and they do what we call legislative lm where they send one built back and forth until they get a deal, or the house rules committee can do anything it wants, and terms of what actually gets into bills, so even if you airdrop a provision, the committee says they will allow that. guest: that is what i was going to say. congress has a lot of rules to prevent itself from doing things,, but they have as many rules that allow them to get out of those rules, so i think that creating more rules has not been a thing that has helped congress do its job that are. what helps them do their job better, that is a good question.

there are different things that congress could be doing to make themselves function better. host: the reality of passage -- passing clean bills. does that take place? guest: hardly. even when you watch the floor of the senate, where things are passing by in his consent, and seems to be innocuous, oftentimes they are, there was some deal that was hatched out, to get something through and somebody made some sort of a trade-off in order -- in order to get something else done, so even when things seem to be clean, even if a bill is clean, as it has happened earlier this year or last year, there is a case where an ambassador got confirmed in exchange for a bill passing. case: as often as it is a that adding something on is a takesm, sometimes it

creating a big piece of legislation that is a snowball effect, things that absolutely need to get -- needs to get done so all the stakeholders are racked in together and that has been in the past few years, one of the most effective ways to get anything past. host: our guests joining us to talk about the congressional agenda in the weeks ahead. bob from texas, republican, thanks for waiting. caller: good morning. one of the things -- i have learned that watching c-span, you can really learn something. the last three callers have been touching on the same topic, but when i would like to ask is, in his legislative sausage making, something it never heard is democrats actually have pushed the agenda on the zika virus of having planned parenthood in the bill, because every major media source always talks about what the problem is the republicans

are blocking the bill because they want the planned parenthood taken out, and i never thought about the fact that somehow, planned parenthood got introduced and that is probably a funding mechanism that planned parenthood just get funds the matter what, so the media does not tell us that, that the democrats have gotten that in, the only tell us the republicans are pulling it out. what do you feel about the way the communication is laid out? aest: we may have an -- and -- we may have a misunderstanding on how that information is out. as it stands, we have the gop it says planned parenthood cannot specifically get any zika funds. it is not that planned parenthood is not always getting something money, it is because of the reproductive issue and most of their clinics are

legally allowed to get funding to handle these issues or are certified in specific ways that makes them a provider of choice or a provider of availability in the area, it would normally get money and the zika bill as it stands does not include planned parenthood. guest: the callers point is interesting, particularly in that this conversation might be very different if there were a republican president. a at the base level, as standard part of appropriation, there were further restrictions on how groups like planned parenthood could get money, generally, we might be having a different conversation. as it stands, the way this sort of seems to have been settled for the last -- i can't tell you

how many years -- has been the height amendment, which has been specific language barring the use of federal funds to provide abortions, but for other purposes that planned parenthood operates health clinics, they are able to get money for reproductive health and the thing that people don't entirely understand is that in addition to being transmitted by mosquitoes, sica is a sexually -- zika is a sexually transmitted disease. the reason groups like plan parenthood would be eligible to be funding. guest: they also provide a section of care for the federal government is helping subsidize -- i can understand why the caller would be confused about the way that is being handled,

particularly because both sides have a political reason to try to obscure the facts or change their own narrative. host: independent line from new york, scott. caller: good morning. to get on topic, these people do -- all they are doing is hurting our country by trying to get back. i heard that money is the root of all evil, so maintaining all these people in the senate and house, maybe give them a dollar more than minimum wage and put them in public housing. you will not have to worry about

term limits. when i was a boy, i was told that anybody could become president. however, today, i think it cost billion toround $1 be like hillary clinton or donald trump. host: let me take his point about the accomplishment because especially in the election season, you would want to be a congress that accomplishes something. guest: it is a bit of a double-edged sword, because being accomplished also means being on record for things you , everymay not want single vote they take in the building are there becomes an attack ad in an election year. guest: if you look at what the republicans in the senate are doing, they are trying to focus

-- those who are up for reelection, are trying to focus on accomplishments that are bipartisan in nature, that are significant, but not the largest things ever, so you will see if you go to a place like ohio or new hampshire, there are lot -- there was lots of talk about congress's efforts to fight opioid abuse, which is an important problem that is a really serious problem in large parts of the country, but it's also a relative drop in the bucket in terms of what congress does overall, and yet you fully see more positive tv ads about fighting opioid abuse than just about anything else. host: lisa up next, and kentucky on the democrats line. caller: hello.

my point is what congress gets done. wasn't it 113 days? how can you get anything done in 113 days of work out of the year? in, gett to rush back all these breaks, try to pass something and it is ridiculous. would more of congress donate their salary to charity. congressman jorma -- john yarmouth, every cent of his salary goes to charity. we wonder sometimes how the schedule gets anything done as well. i understand completely why voters don't understand what exactly congress is doing.

i don't know what the final tally will be and part of this is they may or may not use them. recall that giving time back, which is this strange term with a decide to leave early, and so it is entirely possible that even the workload that we are expecting to see in september will be shortened or what they can do like to do is they will start taking more and more mondays off so that people can stay at home and campaign or fund raise. a lot of it is fundraising to get to the point of the caller on how much of it in costs. the exact time will be in flux, but it is not a lot. off, fridays,ys too? guest: the house schedule will go in for three weeks and that

out in the district working for one and on that first week, they will come in on tuesday and stay through friday and every other week they will be monday through thursday and the last one is usually monday through thursday. host: so they are in for september, how long are they away before they come back? guest: right after the election or the week after. guest: they usually come back about the tuesday after the election, so literally a week after the election is when things usually amp up and then they will take a week off for thanksgiving. host: then they come back in for a few weeks. they will then stay through december 16. host: our two guests talking about congress's return. dan in maryland, next. ander: my question is this,

i call it the elephant in the room, the lies of the republican party, and i think it started with the tea party which were not really republicans, and then as a result of the demise of the publican party, you ended up with donald trump. party ise democratic that asfar behind from far as being that the people want something else, that the two-party system is passe -- it does not work. people talked about third parties for a long time. i heard an interesting party that if you had -- an interesting point that if you have three parties, the malik even to sections. -- the immediately cleave intersections. part of that will be seeing what

happens with this debate station -- debate stage. guest: as it pertains to life on capitol hill, the whole system internally in congress is built for two parties. there are two groups of leadership, and whether you call the democrats and republicans or they become liberals and conservatives or whatever, it seems to me, and this is complete theory and a shot in the dark, but we have seen from the scares members of the independents that we have had in congress, that they always end up aligning with one of the two parties, so bernie sanders as an independent member of congress would always be in the democratic caucus. when we have people flip around, we had a couple of occasions like jim jeffords from vermont

who left the republican party and then immediately aligned with democrats and became a committee chairman, and that sort of situation plays out in a way that they always tend to align themselves, even if they are independent, so i don't know how much of a wave you would need of independents to offset the operating structure. guest: we have seen some coalitions in the house were they are more powerful than the leadership and there are factions of parties. there is a possibility that there could be informal coalitions holding in that way. host: where are republicans on donald trump? guest: we have been trying to get the answer on that are sometime. a lot of people are reticent to have an opinion.

with out in new hampshire a senator who said she will vote for him, but she will not campaign for him. eventence came to do his in new hampshire and i was with the senator baby 15 minutes away from where he was in there was a decision that she would not participate. for a lot of people in congress, it is a difficult position to be in. guest: that has been my experience as well. when you talk to people or go back to the home states, they are running their own campaigns. i was with john mccain in arizona, literally at the grand canyon during the republican national convention. guest: and you had some great photos. guest: the photos are excellent. democrats, fair,

have a coalesced around hillary clinton or are there fractures there, as well? them aree majority of supporters of hillary clinton, even those who were bernie sanders supporters are pretty quick to say they would rather vote for hillary clinton. thatis one thing politicians who have spent time at the capital are good at, it is cultivating and keeping those relationships. guest: there are a lot of former congressional staffers to, for hillary clinton's campaign. a roster ofat people involved in the transition project and the communications office and a policy -- and policy advisors, there are old hands of capitol hill, in a way that is with, a few exceptions, certainly not the case for donald trump. host: jean from texas, republican line.

caller: am i on? thank you. my question was, saturday, they had the today show on, and they had missed nancy pelosi, and they asked her some questions about hillary and the deal, and this may not have a lot to do with your staff there, but maybe they can answer my question, they asked her straight up, what the people thought about hillary she went off on a rampage, talking about hillary doing this and doing that for the government and she was the greatest whatever and i said -- i sat there and listened but my

actuallyis, do they conceive in their minds that all liesngress -- they tell and nobody calls them on it. they are afraid to say i don't think that is true and i think that is what congress needs to do. many just step up, be americans, nothing to do with democrats or republicans, get the work done and i think our country would be in a much better condition than what it is, now. that one of the things we will be dealing with and it goes back to a pager was trump earlier with donald , the same will be true with democrats with all sorts of questions that they will be peppered with by people like

kelsey and i over the next few weeks, about various clinton foundation issues and the e-mail servers and everything else. none of that goes away and we will all be doing with all of that over the coming weeks, and it is interesting, the extent to which democrats are at least willing to engage on questions , rightly orlinton wrongly or whatever your take is, versus the republicans who just sort of will walk up to the microphone as mitch mcconnell has done and said i'm not taking any questions about donald trump . guest: democrats feel more comfortable clinton because they know her and because they know her on the issues of things like benghazi and the e-mails, it is something they feel has been

already been litigated within congress and they feel they have done their job of doing investigations and they feel confident in whatever findings they may have, and it makes it easier for them and when they may not give a clean answer like a losey may not have done or i did not -- or not, i did not --ediately see the interview i understand why that would be hard for americans to understand. host: joe in cleveland, republican line. caller: i would like to give a different perspective and bring up two points. all the shenanigans in the dancing around in congress and all the political things. this country is sinking deeper in debt due to interest.

there is no national debt, that is phony and what brings it on is an older local word in if you look it up, look up usery and you will find out we have a financial problem at the intention of globalization to control all countries through the banking system. this is a segway point about the absurdity that we are living in. if i were to come up with an and that all kittens puppies should be aborted because we have too many dogs and cats that he too much food, there would be an uproar, but killing babies in the womb is ok for planned parenthood and i thank you so much for your time. guest: i come from a background where i focused on budget and fiscal tax policy. there continues to be a debate over whether something that --

of whether or not debt is something that is necessary for the economy to grow. it is a serious debate that goes on not only in congress, but within there is economic circles and people are thinking about it but there is not an easy answer at this point. guest: one of the things that would, if we go back to the beginning of this conversation, one of the things that would come up is next year, we will have to deal with the debt limit be,n and the question would if we had a continuing resolution that kept the government from going and pushed it off sometime, next year, we may find ourselves in one of the situations where we are dealing with a debt limit and the budgetary sort of running the government stuff at the same time. that point, and this is probably a critique of the system, but the time at which we worry about interest rates and

that surface is when the debt limit is about to be breached, and that is probably, frankly, i conversation for next year. guest: if that does happen, then we restart the nagging conversation about tax reform. you cannot get into debt limit conversations without someone saying -- asking for another .onversation about tax reform david from colorado, democrat line. caller: good morning. about hownation planned parenthood -- how the issue got mixed in with the zika bill was crystal clear.

explanationsclear about how it happened that planned parenthood got into the bill and why the senate democrats project -- objective in the first explanation you gave, you even talked about how hard the senate works to come up with a bipartisan measure that was changed by house conservatives but yet, you had two republican callers almost back to back and want to blame this on the democrats. propagandized by what they are hearing on fox news that they cannot listen? secondly, what is the hard on of these people have about planned parenthood? they can't fund abortions.

it helps with reproductive is an, there clearly intersection between zika and what planned parenthood does. it is something that i cannot understand host: if there is some other angle to put on it? guest: billy thing i would say is that part of the problem is sensitive issue that people have really passionate feelings about, and that often times of people have passionate feelings about have ang, it is hard to withdrawn conversation and it is hard to deal with just numbers and money which could be part of the problem. , ist: kelsey's explanation was not timing yet, but it took a while, and that is something that we have the luxury of doing on this program, that frankly whether it is fox news or msnbc or cnn, the segments are usually

too short to ever get that full explanation out on air before there was a commercial break, anyway. host: a couple of thoughts from both of you then on harry reid, what will his legacy be in the senate and what will he do before he leaves? guest: i defer to neil because they have a close relationship. guest: one might say that. we were both at harry reid's news conference at the democratic national convention, seems likeo and it he is getting looser and looser with his rhetoric as his final weeks tick down in the senate. his number one priority, clearly is to bash the republicans in any way possible that he thinks

will help ensure that chuck schumer who will be his successor as democratic leader is the majority leader, next year and if you are on his fundraising list, he is raising money constantly for democrats in the senate. -- these, his own seat former attorney general, trying to get elected, but that is sort of where reads priorities seem to be and it seems to be a lot of politics all the time and i think the question we are going to have a newbie kelsey will have lots on this, the question we will have is, how much of the actual negotiating over the next is done byonths harry reid versus how much done by chuck schumer? guest: i think chuck schumer will be the heavy on that.

i think he is proud to say that he was an amateur boxer and he has carried that kind of swagger about him around on capitol hill and that is kind of how he approaches negotiations. a will be thought of as bashing, brawling, get it done kind of guy and also remembered with those people in nevada who care about the disposal of nuclear waste. host: will he stay in washington? guest: he and his wife are planning on some split time, they have moved a couple of years now, they moved out of his hometown, searchlight, which is in the middle of nowhere, to henderson which is a las vegas suburb and they will probably spend a lot of time there. i would not be surprised if they can't the condominium that they have in d.c., which was always

for campaign as because it is literally at the ritz-carlton. host: does he have any other jobs lined up? guest: not that i know of. guest: i don't think he will take any formal positions, he is a bit older. host: from maryland, joe on the room -- republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. in regards to paul ryan and zika or anyegarding other bill, and the various levels of poison pills of varying legality, it was my understanding that paul ryan was going to be running in regular order, is that the proper term, could you educate me on what that is because i thought and i hope i'm right, i thought this

was going to be a regular order which was supposed to prevent this tacking on of things. you are not wrong, that was the intent. i think the political will of that [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] .> leaving here taking you live to the u.s. house. >> i offer a privileged reare -- resolution and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 841, resolved that the house has heard with profound sorrow of the death of the honorable mark takai, representative from the state of hawaii. resolved that the clerk communicate these resolutions to the senate and transmit a copy

thereof to the family of the deceased. resolved, that when the house adjourns today, it adjourn as a further mark of respect to the memory of the deceased. the speaker pro tempore: without objection the resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. pursuant to to clause 8 of rule 20, proceedings will resume on motions to suspend the rules previously postponed. votes will be taken in the following order. h.r. 5578 by the yeas and nays. h.r. 3881 by the yeas and nays. the first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. remaining electronic votes will be conducted as a five-minute vote. the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from virginia, mr. goodlatte, to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 5578 on which the yeas and nays are ordered.

the clerk will report the title of the bill. carlos: union calendar number 546, h.r. 5578, a bill to establish certain rights for sexual assault survivors and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 399, the nays

are zero. 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the house -- the speaker: the house will be in order. for what purpose does the gentlelady from hawaii seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for one minute. the speaker: the gentlelady is recognized. >> mr. speaker, over the past few weeks, the past few -- the people of hawaii and our colleagues have celebrated the life and service of our friend and colleague congressman mark takai in a series of memorials, religious services and community events. ms. gabbard: leader pelosi led a delegation of members to hawaii where we visited with his wife and his children, as well as his parents and siblings, sharing with them the memories we made with mark and the impact that he had on our country during his service here in the u.s. congress.

i want to thank mark's family on behalf of all of us for opening your hortes to us and sharing -- your hearts to us and sharing mark with us. he touched the lives of so many people throughout his life of service. as a pearl city high school athlete, and president of the associated students at the university of hawaii, representing hawaii's 23rd house district for 20 years in the state legislature, his 17 years of service as a soldier in the hawaii army national guard and most recently serving hawaii's first congressional district. i have the good fortune of serving with mark over the years in the state legislature, in the national guard, and here in congress and like all of you, when i think of mark, i will always remember his ready smile, his deep laugh, and most of all, his heart of aloha. no matter where he was, or in what capacity, mark always kept

his service to hawaii's people at the forefront of all that he did. while he served just 18 months here in congress, the impact that he made and the aloha spirit he embodied will live on in hawaii and these halls forever. as we remember our friend, our colleague, may we carry this aloha spirit in our hearts as we gathering -- gather together to do the people's work. mr. speaker, i ask for a moment of silence to honor the life and service of congressman mark takai. the speaker: the house will observe a moment of silence. the speaker: without objection, five-minute voting will continue. the unfinished business is on

the vote of the motion of the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson, to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3881 as amended on which the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: unocal dan -- calendar number 550, h.r. 3881, repealing provisions relating to the algony national forest. the speaker: the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill as amended. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]