worrisome signs which would call attention to the genuine and imminent threat looming over the middle east to peace and security which are increasingly called into question. the international community should -- >> watch the security council meeting in its entirety at c-span.org. we leave it now as the house is returning for legislative work. live coverage. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] eake house will be in order. our the -- the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. chaplain conroy: let us pray. dear god, we give you thanks for giving us another day. we ask your special blessing upon the members of this people's house. they face difficult decisions and difficult times, with many forces and interests demanledsing their attention -- demanding their attention. give them generosity to enter into their work.

may they serve you in the work they do as you deserve. give of themselves and not count the cost. fight for what is best for our nation and not count the political wounds. toil until their work is done and not seek to rest. and labor without seeking any reward other than knowing that you are doing -- they are doing your will and serving the people of this great nation. bless them, o god, and be with them and with us all this day and every day to come. 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 gentleman from california, mr. costa. mr. costa: i ask the gallery to

join with us. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it ands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana seek recognition? without objection, so ordered. >> thank you, mr. speaker. each of us as americans has a god-given right to defend ourselves. those rights should apply to all people everywhere, including israel. mr. messer: i visited israel last year and saw firsthand the life and death reality ordinary

israelis face every day. prime minister netanyahu impressed upon us the very real possibility that israel could cease to exist if it failed to respond forcefully to violence and threats from those that seek its destruction. that's why i rise today to share my support for israel's efforts, o defend itself from the exiss tension threat it faces from hamas. history has houn shah -- has shown that israel has been america's most steadfast ally in a very dangerous part of the world. let's pray for peace and for the innocent lives lost on both sides of this conflict. but let's never waiver from supporting our friend and ally, israel, in its fight for freedom. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman

is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, it is with heavy heart that i rise today to pay tribute to the life of eli, a captain in the american army air corps during world war ii, a journalist and a friend to so many of us. eli was an unsung american hero. a veteran of america's great estrogen ration. eli hardly ever discussed, nor did he brag about, his world war ii experiences like many of those who served at that time. mr. costa: however he flew 142, 142 combat missions in p-49's during the war. eli's amazing courage and heroism was recognized with two distinguished flying cross awards. when the war ended, like most american veterans of that era, eli returned to his hometown to begin his career in this case sanger, california. for 41 years eli worked for the

fresno bee, a major paper in the west. first as a reporter and then a columnist. his insightfulness and biting humor always made the point. eli was a mentor to many young writers and a friend to all who knew him. he will be greatly missed by his wife, yvonne, and daughter, amy, and his two grandchildren. it is with great respect that i ask my colleagues of the united states house of representatives to honor the life of eli, a true american hero and a distinguished journalist. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i rise and 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. burgess: breaking news, mr. speaker. this morning the united states court of appeals for the d.c. circuit upheld a challenge to the obamacare health insurance subsidies being granted in federal exchanges.

so what does this mean? the affordable care act was writ son the tax subsidies for insurance -- wrissen so the tax subsidies for insurance -- written so the untax subsidies r insurance premiums had state-based exchanges. others are in federal fallback exchanges. these states are getting subsidies illegally. this means that 7 1/2 million people could potentially owe the federal government thousandses of dollars that they would have to pay back. mr. speaker, this law was a disaster from the start, it was a rough draft written in a senate committee, came over here, was rubber stamped by the house, and then it went to rulemaking at the federal agencies. so is it really any surprise that it's being dialed back by the courts? between this and the hobby lobby decision two weeks ago, it's clear that the drafting was all wrong and 7 1/2 million people are now paying the consequences. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. 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, so ordered. the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. today's d.c. court of appeals decision in hallucinate big vs. burwell held that the test of obamacare clearly, quote, makes tax credits available for a form of sbsdy to individuals who purchase health insurance through exchanges by the state, end quote. since 36 states have declined to establish exchanges and many policies offered in the federal exchange are untenable without subsidies, this ruling creates more problems for the already catastrophic implementation of obamacare. the poorly reasoned and partisan drafting of this law was led to massive hardship, disruption and waste. i wish my colleagues across the aisle had worked with republicans on sensible health care reforms that we could have pass -- passed, amended and implemented on a bipartisan basis, but they chose not to do that and today's rule something

yet more bitter fruit of that choice. obamacare as implemented is dramatically at odds with obamacare as written. and is thus at odds with the rule of law. i commend the court for recognizing this. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. for what purpose does the gentleman from alabama seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent for one minute to address the house. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today with sadness to remember an outstanding public servant and a model citizen and a good personal friend of mine, orange beach city councilman, al bradley. downman -- counselman bradley, or al, as he always asked to be called, passed away at a hospital in foley, alabama, on july 17 due to health complications. he was 64 years old. young. a native of texas but a huge university of alabama football fan, al and his family and his wife linda owned a house in orange beach, alabama, since

1993. he was a certified public accountant and often described as a financial rock of orange beach. mr. bryne: serving as the chairman of the city's finance committee for six years. but al had a true servant's heart. i saw it myself. and he put in more time and effort on things for orange beach than just about anyone i know. and he never sought any recognition in return. so to his wife, linda, his three children, his grandchildren who i know he loved very much, i want you to know that you are in the thoughts and prayers of thousands of people in southwest alabama. we will miss al very much. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. gohmert: address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. in israel right now there is a battle for peace in israel.

they're being embattled by a group who teach their children in the educational materials we help pay for to hate jews, to hate israelis. they teach the people to hate israelis as well. they name streets and holidays after people who kill innocent people. it's time to cut off every dime of american money going to anyone who has any kind of relationship with hamas or those killing in the middle east and especially in israel. it's time to bomb iran's nuclear capabilities, it's time for the united states -- if we're not going stop iran's nukes, then let israel do it. a friend will not put another friend in this kind of jeopardy. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina,

mr. holding, seek recognition? mr. holding: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. holding: mr. speaker, this week house republicans are introducing tax bills that can change the lives for thousands of american families. the child tax credit improvement act of 2014 and the student and family tax act will directly impact american families. helping families pay for everyday costs is essential if we want to build a stronger america. this is how we do it. not through a mandated health care or required taxes but by cutting costs for those who need it most. this is another example, another way that house republicans are working for americans, americans are looking for us to change and bring change to them and bring hope to them and this is how we can make it happen. thank you, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until approximately 3:00 p.m. today.

>> earlier today israel's ambassador to the u.s. spoke about the israeli-pan panian conflict, and addressed the -- israeli-palestinian conflict, and addressed the deaths. this event is an hour. we'll show you as much as we can until the house gavels back in at 3:00 eastern. >> not to reconcur gaza. that was never set as the objective. and we hope to achieve this objective of this sustained peace to restore sustained peace and quiet, militarily or

diplomatically. it's always preferable to achieve that directive diplomatically. the prime minister, if you will , all, we are now 14 or 15 before the conflict began, so about 2 1/2 weeks ago, the prime minister said that quiet will be met with quiet. that was not an incredibly popular position to take in israel at the time because at the time we had a few dozen rockets flying at israel every day. we didn't even want to launch the operation to begin with. ven the air operation we had embarked on. and unfortunately that -- those statements by the prime minister were met with over 100 rockets, which started the air operation. now, before the ground operation began, there was another opportunity to end the military operations on both sides, and that operation game -- that opportunity came from the

egyptian cease-fire proposal that was put forward by egypt. i think now it's about seven days ago or eight days ago. this cease-fire proposal was backed by the international community, was backed by the arab league. and the egyptians have put it forward. again, he was not a very popular position in israel. i want you to understand that. i think -- i only saw one survey of it. it was 2-1 against in the israeli public. the reason why they were not so favorable towards the idea of a cease-fire is you have to put yourself in their situation. if you -- 2/3 of a country's in bomb shelters, they are firing rockets. this is the third round. we had pillar of defense. now we are in the third operation. and they just want to make sure that this quiet is going to be real, sustained. you're not going to have three operations in five years, and then four operations in six years. that's where the opposition came. not because they want to just continue it to continue it. it also was politically

contentious at the time. there were israeli ministers in our security cabinet who were publicly opposed to the cease-fire. and opposed it in the security cabinet, but the prime minister, who did not want to escalate the conflict in any way, actually backs it and pushed it through our security cabinet. it was supposed to take into effect 9:00 in the morning, according to the egyptians. this is about a week ago. and israel passed it. as i said not without some contention, but it was done. and that would have avoided any of the ground action you saw subsequently. what happened, unfortunately, was in the six subsequent hours when israel was holding its fire and were ceasing its offensive military action on the gaza strip, hamas fired dozens and dozens and dozens of rockets over that six-hour period. that's how that fell apart. then we had a couple of brief periods of cease-fires.

one from the up un, which was five hours. -- from the u.n., which was five hours. one from the red cross, which was four hours. we have been trying the best way we can to avoid having to go further, to avoid having to intensify or expand military operations. -- so we have tried to not expand the operation. unfortunately we have had to continue. the actual trigger for the ground operation was something very specific that happened. some people may have forgotten. that is the attempt to infiltrate through these tunnels and perpetrate a really mass attack on a kibbutz in israel

and also to kill israeli civilians and to kidnap israeli civilians. we found equipment that was clear they were trying to also kidnap people, both on -- i don't want to get into specifically what they have, there's been public things about tranquilizer devices. they were trying to kill and kidnap people. we had a case of 13 coming out of the ground. going through gaza. tunneling through gaza. coming up on the other side through this subterrainian mazes that they have underground. which is pretty remarkable. i referred to it the other day, the catacombs of terror you have. this vast network, many tunnel networks. they popped up on the israeli side. 13 of them. we were very fortunate one of our soldiers saw it. it becomes very difficult because they also in many cases will dress up as israeli soldiers. you have to tell whether it's friend or foe. a lot of times that means that the action that you'll take is

somewhat delayed. in that case we had to wait to make sure who they were, but we did see them and we hit them. we weren't able to get to all of the terrorists because a lot of them went back into the tunlts, but it just made clear the problem that we had of this tunnel network where they were infiltrating -- remind you, the tunnels between gaza and egypt, those are largely weapons and goods smuggling tunnels. the tunnels i'm talking about now are tunnel network between gaza and israel where you have a fence on the border and they are tunneling underneath the fence in order to perpetrate terrorist acts. it's not weapons smuggling tunnels. it's to get people on the other side. we have had now i think four different attacks at this point. four different attacks where people have tried to infiltrate and we have suffered casualties as a result. the ground operation that was announced was a limited

operation designed to root out these tunnels. and take some time, i'm not a military expert, you apparently have to blow up the tunnels in a certain way so that you're not blowing up an opening they can rebuild. that's the process israel is in now. trying to deal with the tunnel network. anywhere we find missile batteries, we are trying to deal with that. we are in an area where there is a great deal of warfare from our ground forces. we have lost 27 people total, israelis, 25 soldiers. about 65 have been wounded. we have destroyed up until now about 20 tunnels and about 40 different openings of these tunnels. the tunnel is not just one tunnel. a lot of times it's an underground maze. you have to find where all these points are. and destroy them. the second thing that i wanted to discuss quickly was just --

it's the nature of the warfare on both sides. i think one critical element on the israeli side has been iron dome. iron dome was not present in first and past. there was no iron dome. that led to a faster ground operation precisely because all these rockets are landing, you had to move quicker into it to get to the missile launchers. with pillar definance we did have iron dome. we ended up not having a ground operation because after eight days we'll be able to achieve a cease-fire. similar to the goals of the 2012 operation that didn't end in a round invasion or incursion. after eight days, and very relatively long period of quiet in gaza. in 2013, there were, i believe, 74 rockets and mortars. about half rockets, half mortars, over the course of the

year. in 2013. which was the quietest year in decade. it's what's happened in the past it sort of goes down the number of attacks for a while then it starts kicking up again. then you had pillar of defense again. again, it went down and started to erode. and now you're having this other operation now. unfortunately we were not able to achieve this cease-fire, egyptian proposal, which would have avoided have ground action. we have this dome system taking the rockets out of the sky. it does not fire at every incoming rocket. you have about 2,000 rockets that have been fired. it won't engage every rocket. if a rocket is heading towards an area that we deem to be a very low likelihood of having a civilian population, because it can be in an open area, the ire dome system will not engage. it's only when we have a rocket that's coming specifically into a built up area that we use the

iron dome missile defense system to knock it out. the final numbers will come in probably after the operation ends and we can research each instance, but i will say that it looks like the percentage of rockets that we are knocking down is higher than it was the last time around. the last time around it was 84%. so it's higher. the you only have 16%. significantly higher right now. we'll only know the final numbers when they come in. and the other thing that i want to stress and people don't -- >> we have done about 10 opening statement. they pay me to be rude. >> you have done 10. a i'll end with this. and then -- >> i'll end with this. that's fine. i come from israel. let me explain something to you. when we had -- remember a few years ago had you a congressman, joe wilson, who said to the president you lie, and people were outraged?

in the congress, so we were sitting in the israeli prime minister's office, and when we heard that news report come in, we said to ourselves, wow. if we could get our prime minister into and out of the knesset with only one person calling him a liar, they would give him the israel prize. rude is relative. rude is relative. the final point i'll make, and i'll skip the third point because i'm sure it will come up in your questions. is what people don't realize is that iron dome also saves palestinian lives. i will explain why. if you're forced into a situation or if you don't have the iron dome, and all of these missiles and rockets, hundreds of them, that are being knocked out of the sky are actually landing in your cities, then the cost of your restraint goes way, way up. you have many more civilians who are killed, much more damage, many more wounded, and therefore the pressures to take very fast action to get to all those places where the rocket launchers are would be greater.

what the iron dome has done is not only protected our civilians, but it's given the israeli leadership sort of the time and space that it needs to make more careful, calibrated decisions not rush into something which is not only could be costly for israel in terms of lives of our soldiers, but it will certainly be costly for palestinians. i leave it at that. i guess open it up to questions. >> i'm going to do one or two and go to george and brad and john. i was struck this morning reading a "new york times" report from gaza talking about an attack that killed 25 members of four families, including 19 children. and the "times" quoted one of the survivors saying, quote, i will marry again four times, and will i have 10 sons with each wife, and they will all be in the resinceance. i wanted to ask you sort -- resistance. i wanted to ask you the sort of question about the tension between grake military power and success -- great military power

and success, breeding a longer term problem for the state of israel. >> there's a lot of different elements to your question. first of all, let me make clear. we don't -- israel doesn't target civilians. we don't. i see myself personally -- the last time around in the civil defense, i i saw how many operations are called off. operations that are important in terms of what they -- the military gain, but they are called off because you see civilians are coming in harm's way. i think we have to understand first of all what the rules of war are. because people don't know them. they throw around words like disproportionate without any understanding what that actually means. disproportionate response from what i can gather from the interviews i go through from the questions i'm asked, disproportionate is believed to be what is the body count on both sides? so therefore if there's 600-something palestinians killed and 25 israelis were killed, or a few days ago it was 200 palestinians and the one

israeli, that is deemed to be a disproportionate response. that's how most people deal with it. do you think -- do you think the actions you're taking is disproportionate. that's what's asked all the time. it's hard to understand what proportionality is in terms of war and we'll get to the question you're asking. there are two basic principleles. -- principles you have to answer. one is distinction. you have to make the distinction . deliberating targeting our -- operational failure and the more civilians were killed the greater the operational failure. and obviously a tragedy in and of itself. for hamas they celebrate the more they kill. the greater the number of civilian casualties, the greater

the success of their operation. that's a basic distinction. then you have the issue of proportionality. what that says is ok, let's say there is a legitimate target. because when a school, house, hospital, mosque is turned into a military command send -- certainty or weapons depot or place where you fire rockets, it becomes by the rules of war a legitimate target. you cannot turn a hospital into a military command center. can you not do that according to the rules of war. you can't turn a school into a weapons depot. that's a war crime. you cannot use a mosque as a missile manufacturing facility. it becomes a legitimate target. then the question is, ok, but can you target it in the specific instance? then you get into the question of proportionality. meaning, just because it's a legitimate target doesn't necessarily give you the right to hit it because for that -- for you to be able to do that you have to show that the gain you will get from the military action you take is worth the

potential loss of lives. that you might even foresee ahead of time. so i don't want to get into theoretical examples, but if you had one rocket that is fitting in a school somewhere, and there's 50 kids in a classroom, then you cannot actually target to get to that rocket. that would be disproportionate because the gain you have by hitting that one rocket would not justify killing 50 children in a school. by the same token, if you have 200 rockets in a place and you had one civilian by the rulings of war, -- rules of war, you could target that place. even if you knew aheffed time a civilian would be hurt. there is all sorts of judgment calls that happen. another issue, can you target that same target tomorrow or in an hour or three hours? israel always makes these calculations. i was amazed being in the war room how much the legal officials of our military play a role in the real time decisionmaking. i'll give you an example, we had

in the last round, pillar of defense, you are our intelligence knew where a great number of their long-range rockets were. in the first hour of the operation one of the assignments of the military, first two hours, was to take out as much of the long range capability as possible. and i think we had -- it was 18 rockets if memory serves the number that we had pinpointed. 17 were destroyed. one was not destroyed. the reason why because we had that u.a.v. system and we saw a kid coming into the frame. they made a decision at the time to not attack it and to move on. they'll come back to t they didn't come back to that rocket because that rocket was fired at israel. that's the risk that you always take in trying to make these decisions. we don't target. as for your specific question about defense. first of all i have to know each specific case. sometimes it takes time for us to investigate what exactly happened in each case. for instance, with the first day of the war, we know would happen, where we had -- seven

members, five members of the same family? six members of the same family n that case, israel tried to get -- it was a legitimate target in the way i described t tried to get the family out of the house. i think maybe it was with phone calls, text messages, whatever. they apparently had left the house. then we fired what's called a dumbing bomb, which basically hits the top of the house, doesn't cause structural damage, but the last signal to get out of the way, to get out of the building. apparently the family believed that was the real bomb. and between the time where the second -- the real bomb was launched. they ran into the house. ran back into the house. that's why they were caught. >> with regard to the specific and go to other people. without regard to the specifics, the more general problem is large civilian casualties strengthening long-term resistance and emnity towards

the state you love. >> i get that. what does that do? first of all the reason why you have large civilian casualties is because hamas is, i think, an unprecedented day use human shields as part of their defense strategy. part of their attack strategy. i don't know what the national security strategy of hamas is, but i think it would use human shields in a way that is probably unprecedented. there are many cases in warfare you have the use of human shields and a tactical way somebody hiding up in somebody's house. somebody using a woman or child and hiding behind him. here, have people ask them to stafpblet they are placing their missile batteries in a strategy way in their -- strategic way to use human shields, and the tunnels. the whole structure how they fight israel is put their civilians in harm's way. here we do dropping leaflets and making phone calls and sending text messages and we have hamas officials -- if you haven't seen the videos, we'll provide it to

you, hamas officials are telling palestinian civilians to go into harm's way. to use themselves as human shields. they are saying it's part of their operation. and they are saying it on television. it's not something -- we have all the videos, clips on palestinian television with them going out and saying, don't listen to the israelis, ignore the warnings, get in harm's way. recently you had this one case where we went in with our ground force noose this one area where there were a lot of casualties. in this case we think a majority of them are actually the fighters of hamas. in this case none of those people should have been there. 48 hours before we told everybody to get out of those areas and go -- they have places where to go. we told them exactly where they should go to get out of the way of the fighting. some i think were forced to stay. you have palestinians forced into a situation where they are forced to stay. then we have the rocket attacks against us or our soldiers are

moving through the center of town all of a sudden you'll have from an anti-tank rocket that will be fired add them right from a house n that house there are -- fired at them from a house, and in that house there are five or six firing back. the civilians were killed and you see the pictures on television. what do you do long-term when you have people -- i think it's difficult. it's very difficult to overcome but understand the hatred for israel has been deeply embedded for a long time. it's not just the specific instance or this or that family. hamas controls the gaza strip. they are committed to israel's disruption. their charter is committed to the genocide of the jewish people, literal. that's what they are committed to. israel left every square inch of gaza. we removed our military forces. we did what the international community said we should do to advance peace. we go back to the 1967 lines. about 10,000 people from their homes. we gave the keys to the

palestinian authority. the head of the world bank, he mobilized a group of people, many of them who were jewish philanthropists, to buy agricultural facilities, greenhouses, i think it was around $50 million, to leave it behind so that the gazans could have a better future, prosperity, hope that this could trigger a peace process. that this could trigger some better solution between israelis and palestine. instead the greenhouses were destroyed. how much money does it take for them to build that tunnel network? in that network you have massive amounts of concrete. it's not just soft soil of gaza. massive amounts of concrete. all this money that's going in to gaza is being used basically to fuel the war against israel. and that's what's creating a generation. an incitement is creating a generation of people. the decisions of the palestinian

leadership to fight against this war. do i think -- somebody whose family was killed, and even i can say the most just action that you could take, it doesn't diminish the fact that that's a tragedy when innocents are killed. how does it affect that family? i agree. that's a real issue. how do you deal with it? we have to look at the alternative that israel has. we are in a situation where we have to defend our people and doing it in ways that other countries have not done and would not do. that's what i say as somebody who was born and raised in this country, if 200 million americans were sitting in bomb shelters, day after day, the u.s. military, u.s. government would take -- would not take action that's less forceful than israel. i'm being diplomatic. i think that's true of any country in the world. we are very careful. we are not perfect. even if 99% of the time we get it right. if you have 2,000 operations in a heavily dense populated area, 20 of them go wrong, you have a

lot of civilian casualties. and it's a tragedy. we don't want it. and as i said, we do everything to avoid it. for us, the more civilans, the greater the failure. the greater the failure of any operation. that's the difference. >> woor going to -- we are going to go to john, howard, owe livera -- olivia, and peter. >> you talk about the nature and frequency of the consultation between the president and the prime minister at this time? and the relationship itself. it certainly started out rather difficult, those early meetings when president obama came in were pretty painful to watch. the prime minister lecturing him and so on. i know as a diplomat you're required to say the relationship is wonderful. can you talk about how it's evolved from what it was then to now? >> focuses all the time on the

differences that exist, the press. you don't write stories saying it was a normal day. eight dinner with the kids, put them into bed, story at 11:00. that doesn't work that day. you know you're going to always focus on attention. and there have been times where we have not seen eye to eye with the administration on different issues. obviously the peace process has been one. the second has been iran. on the security cooperation you're talking about unprecedented security and cooperation. support for missile defense is at record levels and we are very appreciative of the fact we were able to have this iron dome system working so well as i'm talking. intelligence is very good. for me, the rubber meets the road for me in the relationship between the u.s. and israel, the rubber meets the road when israel is forced to defend itself. then the question becomes, where is the president of the united states? and i will tell you now this is

the second time, pillar of defense being the first, where the president has been backing israel's right to defend itself in the strongest possible terms. and i was with the prime minister as i said in pillar of defense for eight days, then they spoke four times. i don't think that support could have been any better than it was. here now i'm in washington in touch basically every day with either the white house or state department, a lot of times both, i think the prime minister has spoken to the president three, maybe four times. poken to kerry more than that. and we feel that there is very broad support for israel's right to defend itself. there's always concern with civilian casualties. we are concerned about civilian casualties. but i think that the support is there because i think they recognize what would they do if they were faced with a similar

situation? i think in terms of the relationship where the rubber meets the road, it's been very good, if not excellent. if not excellent on the things that matter most. and i expect that will continue as israel continues to move forward. >> mr. clapper. >> i wanted to ask you about the news of the day which is secretary of state john kerry in cairo. if he's able to tweet the deal enough -- tweak the deal enough to get whoever the -- to convince hamas to sign on to a cease-fire, could israel accept that? is now the mission as you stated to destroy the tunnels and sustain and protect israel? does that override that at this point? >> the mission is, this sustained peace and quiet. what i was saying with the issue of the tunnels, triggered the ground operation, was the issue of the tunnels. we are working now as we speak, the israeli military is working

to destroy those tunnels. israel supports the egyptian cease-fire proposal. we hope it will be supported and pressure will be brought to bear on hamas to support those terms. not going to get into a negotiation over those terms. we have a proposal. the prime minister put it through the cabinet once. don't forget, that's a decision that has to go through israel's cabinet. the last time he had a fight to put it through the cabinet. but i'm sure that if the prime minister believes -- believed that the goals i said to you, sustained peace and quiet for israel, can be achieved, that he will bring that to the cabinet. >> narrow my question further. would israel accept a cease-fire at this point even if the job of destroying the tunnels is incomplete? >> as i said, militarily or diplomatically, if we can achieve a sustained peace and quiet for israel, then that's what we are looking to do. it's not clear to me that there may be -- there's a lot of military objectives that you can have in gaza.

this is one objective of dealing with the tunnels that are really proximate to the border. but there's other things there. an argument can always be made, well, do a little bit more and do a little bit -- something else and something else and something else. but remember, again, i don't want to belabor the point. it would have been no ground operation had hamas accepted the cease-fire proposal. that should answer the question you are a given. we knew there was a tunnel network there. that's different knowing about it than going and working and destroying them. but israel didn't say, you know what, we need to go in and destroy all the tunnel work, so we are going to reject the cease-fire proposal. it didn't happen then, so i would think that would be guiding the decisionmakers in he future as well. ng a saw last night you maki speech which you compared the palestinian rocket fire on

israel with the german v-1 and v-2 attacks on london. i'm wond -- wondering if those reports are accurate and if so, i'm wondering if you can talk about in your mind you can compare the attacks on london which killed an estimated 9,000 people and wounded up to 20,000, with what's going on in gaza? >> first of all i did say that. the speech is available. what i was talking about is how countries respond to the threat of missile attacks. what actions they take in response to those missile attacks. you're right, the civilian casualties within britain were much greater than they are in israel. that's not because hamas is not trying to do that. that's because the iron dome system is working better. as i said before, the reason why i think irish dough -- iron dome protects palestinian civilians gets to the point you're making now. you don't have mass casualties

on the israeli side. if you did, then israel would be probably forced into a much more forceful response than would otherwise be the case. what i'm saying is, my issue is, criticism of israel for the way that people will perceive that it's fighting. you may disagree with the statement that i made that if it were the united states or britain, that they would take as least a forceful action. you may disagree. i haven't met a single person who told me they disagree. if you had an attack from a contiguous territory of 2,000 rockets and 2/3 americans in bomb shelters they would take less forceful action because it's not serious. what i'm saying is the attacks on israel if israel not acting with restraint when in similar situations not a perfectly similar situation, because of the casualties as you mentioned, but you have hamas, a party that wants to destroy israel. they call for the genocide of

joo -- of the jewish people worldwide in their charter. can you read it. it's not this they don't have the will, they don't have the capability. i think it's very important, i guess this is the central point, i don't believe israel should be judged by standard of perfection. as i said before, we are not perfect. we make mistakes. a missile can hit the wrong place. you can have intelligence failure. but we don't target civilians. i think given the fact that we have got our people in bomb shelters, i think israel should earn the admiration of the international community for the restraint that it is showing in the face of these threats. we have our soldiers right now, our soldiers are dying so that innocent balance balancians can live. that is what's happening. because -- palestinians can live. that is what's happening. i remember it happened in 2002. by the way israel was accused of massacres, genocide.

also wild statements made when our troops went into jeannine in 2002. that was the place where more suicide bombers came out than any other palestinian area in the west bank. israel could have decided we'll drop leaflets, we'll tell people you have 48 hours to leave the area and bombed it from the air. and soldiers went in to those areas and died. but it's to protect their incense. what's happening now is we have our soldiers fighting. you have people standing in the house using civilians as human shields firing. we have a suicide bombing situation going on in the areas where our soldiers are fighting. with r it's laden donkeys explosives, cars, a woman. you'll see as all that information comes out that they are now once again using suicide bombers. and hamas is an organization that's used about 80 blow up our cafes and pizza shops and buses. the general point that i make is israel should not be judged by a standard of perfection.

there is a place to do that, call the israeli knesset, we'll continue to insist we uphold the highest values. you have to ask yourself the simple question, the wwad question, what would americans do. you can call it wwbd question. what would the british do you? ask yourself how another country faced with a similar threat would respond. i have not heard somebody seriously suggest to me that any of those countries would respond with less force. as i said last night, we are not talking about a war by remote control thousands of miles away. we are talking about the decisionmaking happening when the country, 2/3 of the country's in bomb shelters, and when a prime minister is secretary of state said the other day on television, he himself is forced to go into a bomb shelter. imagine that situation and imagine it happened time after ime. i said that we were accused -- if i'm not mistaken, you have to

check it, i said we killed 500 people and somebody else said it was 5,000 people. there was also the statement of genocide, which is always thrown out there. the second israel defense itself, somebody is killed, everything is a genocide. rwanda in three months you had 900,000 people killed? and sudan you had a half million people in darfur. you're going to accuse israel, the jewish people of genocide? we are a people who experienced it, six million wiped out. in may, 1944, we had 10,000 people exterminated every day in auschwitz. and people and international leaders are going to accuse israel of genocide when we are doing everything to make sure civilian casualties that -- that their civilians are not hurt? go look at the u.n. report that was done. when all the dust settled, the libel against israel remained. and it stay there is for years, but when all the dust settled the u.n. did a report, there were 54 people killed, and 51

were armed. according to a u.n. report. check the facts. so let's wait until everything ends before people rush to judgment about israel's actions. you will see exactly what i said yesterday, that no military has done as much as israel has to avoid civilian casualties on the other side. >> about 20 minutes left. lots of people with questions. howard. dome, wondering what's the state of the stockpiles after this operation? and are you engaged with the administration on replenishment funding on that? secondly, human rights watch came -- you mentioned rules of war. human rights watch came out with a report yesterday detailing eight cases where israel violated the rules of war, including the boys killed on the beach around the waterfront. >> they know that.

why? how did they make that investigation? because they have concluded. now we are going to look for evidence. >> what's your response? >> i'll respond to a few things. the first question you asked me about what was it again? iron dome, so, look, obviously very sensitive information that we don't talk about publicly. i can only tell you that israel is quite capable of defending its pop 350u lation -- population. the second thing, we are constantly in touch with the administration about the issue of iron dome. as i said we appreciate very much the support that we have from them, we have from congress. there was some additional moneys that congress has already passed a week ago or 10 days ago, which had to do with moving part of the assembly line for iron dome into the united states. some of the manufacturing of iron dome will happen here. that was supposed to balance that out. look, as for the issue of the

human rights, i think -- i'll get to human rights watch specifically in a second, but let's understand something. one of the reasons why hamas is using human shields in this systematic way is because -- not just because of the nature of the regime, nature of the people, which is to -- if you're going -- if you yourself are going to have scores of suicide bombers, you're not going to care that much about the palestinian civilian population. that's what hamas is. beyond that, one of the reasons they do this is because it works. it's a strategic that seems to work. because what -- strategy that seems to work. because what happens is even the most careful action by israel will lead to civilian casualties, and if those civilian casualties, you then have pictures, you then have video, it's heartwrenching. anybody's affected by it. when i see a picture, i'm affected by it as well. i understand the context and why israel has to do the actions that it's taking.

that's not to say you're not moved by the fact that an innocent is killed. it doesn't matter who it is. what they rely on is that pictures to lead to pressure on israel. and that's normally what happens. you push one button which is first button is put the palestinian civilians in harm's way. that's what hamas does. by placing their missile batteries where they place them. by firing from the areas where they fire. that's the first step. the second step is to have israel respond and even the most careful way have palestinian civilians who are killed. but the third step requires that those deaths be blamed on israel. lead to pressure on israel. and if they succeed in doing that, and this becomes an effective strategy, then they continue to do it again and again, which gets to something of the point that you said. after gine -- after 2009, you had a the goldstone report which tried to accuse israel of all these war crimes. goldstone report leads to a situation where hamas feels that it's in their interest to continue to place their missile

batteries and command centers next to hospital schools and mosques. that's why they do it. because they can get away with it. and the question, i asked this question last night in a speech i gave, you're welcome to see it, will the world actually take a stand against the use of human shields. now, i saw that barbara boxer, senator boxer, sent a very strongly worded letter to the head of the u.n. human rights commission or council, who had made a statement i think 10 days, week before nothing about human shields. why are are you not taking a stand with human shields? i saw senator durbin, the question is where's the unsnun where are the human rights organizations? when human rights should be doing is they should be condemning hamas not just one or two sentences in a 10-page indictment of israel, but focus on this question of human shields. it's a war crime. this can lead to change. if they get no international

legitimacy for using this illegitimate tact-i of war, the chances of them using it goes down. you asked me about specific cases of human rights watch. how can they make that calculation? they don't know the evidence. they don't know israel's decisionmaking at the time. they don't know what people saw or didn't see because to accuse somebody of war crime is a deliberate act. i know we didn't target the innocent. i don't know what led in each specific case to civilians being killed. and until you get all the facts, you cannot make the judgment. so what human rights watch is doing by making this case is basically serving as some sort of kangaroo court which then afterwards will go and try to find the facts. first learn all the facts. just like happened in jeannine when all of those organizations, look at the statements they made about what israel was doing there. it was false. wait until all the facts are in and then you will see that what i told you is true. that we do not target the

civilians. and we will look case by case and we have a boddy, we have an investigative arm that checks into every single case. anyone who would deliberately target the innocent is held accountable in israel. it is not the policy of israel's government. from what i have seen having been in the war room, it is remarkable how much, as i said, the legal decisionmakers who know all those laws -- rules of war, how much they are involved in the day fo day -- day-to-day, hour-to-hour decisionmaking of israel. virtually every single strike is something that the appropriate legal officials in our military would have to authorize. >> rate last year president obama famously put the odds of reaching a comprehensive nuclear agreement with iran, no better than 50-50 n light of the slatest developments in the talks, including the extension, where would you put the odds?

would israel consider itself bound by an international agreement that tolerates some kind of civilian nuclear program in iran? >> look, i don't know what the odds are. i haven't seen any evidence that iran -- that any force in iran is actually serious about significantly dismantling their nuclear weapons capability. it that's the case, then would lead to one outcome, not having deerblings assuming the international community holds firm and say they would have to significantly diminish their nuclear weapons capability. israel's position is iran doesn't need any capability what soveings not just significantly dismantling it. it doesn't need the nuclear weapons capability. this has been a difference between us and the international community, because they say they shouldn't have a weapon, we say they shouldn't have a nuclear

weapons capability. but a peaceful civilian nuclear program, israel has accepted to be in iran. what people don't understand is you do not need centrifuges, enriched uranium, an underground bunker in the side of a mountain, and heavy water facility to have a peaceful nuclear program. our position is, they don't need any of that stuff. that's why they shouldn't have t. and there are 17 countries around the world, including your northern and southern neighbors, who have peaceful nuclear energy but they don't domestically enrich uranium. we have made clear from our point of view there is no reason why iran should have any of those capabilities. forget about not simply significantly dismantling it, they don't need niff those nuclear weapons capability to have a peaceful program. of course iran is not interested in a peaceful nuclear program. that's why they invested tens of billions of dollars in their

nuclear program. that's why they have absorbed well over $160 billion in sanctions. if you had -- add those together, you talk about a $200 billion price tack. icbm's don't serve any purpose other than to carry nuclear payloads. if they don't have a nuclear weapons program why are they continuing to build icbms? their missiles can already hit israel. those icbms are for you. they are for the united states. they already can reach about half of europe. they are continuing their ballistic missile program and those icbms take care of nuclear payloads, they -- it's obvious they want a nefment israel's position is the world should stand very firm and ensure that iran has to dismantle, fully dismabtle -- dismantle its nuclear weapons capability.

a lot of people, the reason a lot of people say that's not the polcy, they say we agree with you and that would be great in a perfect world, we can't get an agreement that way. so what i would suggest to everyone here is imagine if we were meeting exactly one year ago today. and i would tell you that i believe that it's possible that with the right mix of pressures, military, diplomatic, economic, that syria would dismantle its chemical weapons capability. everyone would have thought there peace no chance of that happening. but that's what happened. there was a right mix of measures, military. a credible threat of military force and diplomatic deal that basically forced syria to dismantle everything that it had declared, let's say, of it's chemical weapons arsenal, for israel strategically, is very important these weapons have been removed and i think it's something president obama does not get credit for having

chieved a very significant objective, because the nightmare scenario a year ago was the collapse of syria, chemical weapons sites in a dozen places, and then all sorts of parties will get their hands on these chemical weapons. imagine isis running through iraq right now with chemical weapons. i think this diplomatic deal we have done, every deal has certain constellation of forces that lead it to being accepted, and there's always consequences to agree with one path and not the other, it's true it hasn't solved the humanitarian situation in syria. it hasn't prevented the killing inside syria or the spillover of that now. that's all true, from our point of view, the syrian deal is a good deal. if that would be replicated in iran with the right amounts of pressures, whether it's military, whether it's tough sanctions, diplomacy, understand, we were never opposed to talking with iran.

even when the interim agreement occurred, we weren't opposed to talking. we just say don't reduce the pressures. keep the pressures up on iran because the best situation from our point of view would be to fully dismantle iran's nuclear weapons capability without having to take military action. that from us is the best point of view. as for your last appoint -- israel always reserves the right to defend itself. we have a regime that's openly calling and working for our disruption. they are supporting terrorism all over the world. they perpetrated attacks on five continents in 25 countries in the last four years. iran. they are the patron of hezbollah, which is their main proxy right now in syria helping assad's regime kill a lot of syrians. hamas has had a different relationship with iran that has changed over time. particularly because of what happened in syria and hamas

having been booted out of syria. but they also not only have they armed and financed and helped train hamas for many, many years, but now palestinian islamic jihad that has a significant weapons arsenal, something that is not report add lot because hamas is always out front, but palestinian islamic jihad has a significant arsenal within gaza. that's a wholly owned subsidiary of iran. they represent a great threat to my contry. and obviously israel always reserves the right to defend itself. >> last question, peter from "the times." >> two questions. . >> i wonder if you could respond to what seems to be a fair degree of exass peration by secretary kerry when he was caught on the open mike on sunday, referring to what he called the pinpoint operation, he said it sarcastically. and then secondly, you sort of alluded to this. i wonder how you put what's happening right now in gaza in

the context of the broader regional, interlocking crises. the iran talks, obviously, but you mention syria, there's iraq. there's egypt's own internal tumult over the last couple of years. how do these things interconnect, do you think? >> the first question, i saw that clip. it wasn't clear to me what he was actually looking at. i can only tell you i've spoken to the secretary personally. and the prime minister has a number of times. you heard his very strong public statement supporting israel's right to defend itself. , how derstanding that war did he put it? war is -- i can't remember exactly the language that he used, but as somebody who has fought in wars, he understands that you can have civilian casualties, that that's the nature also of warfare. so i don't know what he was looking at and why, but i can only tell you, we've gotten very strong backing, both, you know, in public and behind the scenes for our right to defend

itself from both president obama and from secretary kerry. as for the larger regional rces, i think the question raises some -- you know, you can look at, why is hamas doing what hamas is doing? other than the fact that they're committed to israel's destruction and they want to kill as many jews as possible. ok, that's a constant with hamas. but why now? hamas feels that they're under enormous pressure. and it's because they have very few friends in the arab world. we have a situation where the egyptians' ceasefire proposal is backed by the arab league and the international community. hamas is pretty much the only people who are opposing it. and the change in egypt has fundamentally changed hamas' strategic environment. because the government of egypt has cracked down in a very serious way against the tunnels. now, those tunnels i'm talking about is the weapons and good smuggling tunnels between egypt and gaza. but there were hundreds, i mean, over 1,000 tunnels.

and in gaza, the underground economy was literally an underground economy. and that's how hamas was getting a lot of its revenues and must be -- money. the money that we collect from the palestinian authority, because we have the customs envelopes,ed a gooze comes in, we collect and then we traffer it every month to the palestinian authority. that money goes to the palestinian authority, not to hamas. hamas' source of cash was coming a lot from that underground economy that the government, the egyptian government, led by -- has really cracked down and cracked down on terror activity also within sinai. i think the egyptian government not only -- [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> watch this in its entirety at c-span.org. we leave it now as the house has returned to debate 14 suspension bills. live coverage on c-span. accomp h.res. 4 -- excuse me -- h.res.

646 for filing under the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: report to accompany house resolution 646, resolution directing the attorney general to transmit to the house of representatives, copies of any emails in the possession of the department of justice that were transmitted to or from the email accounts of former internal revenue service exempt organizations division director lois lerner between january, 2009, and april, 2011. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the house calendar and ordered printed. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote or the yeas and nays are ordered or on which the vote incurs objection under clause 6 of rule 20. record votes on postponed questions will be taken later. .

for what purpose does the gentleman from oregon seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i move that the house suspend the rules and as the bill, h.r. 4572, amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will rorpt title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 4572, a bill to amend the communications act of 1934, to extend expiring provisions related to the retransmission of signals of television broadcast stations and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from oregon, mr. walden, and the gentleman from vermont, mr. welch, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon. mr. walden: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials in the record on the bill. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. walden: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. walden: thank you, mr. speaker. you know, today we're offering a bill that will ensure that 1 1/2 million subscribers in hard-to-reach areas, including

many in my home state of oregon, will continue to receive vital news and information through television. the stela re-authorization act extends the copy wright and retransmission -- copyright and retransmission signals by satellite providers for five years. our committee has worked hard on this bill. we've engaged members of industry and consumer groups, week of talked about the difficult -- we've talked about the difficult policy mats that are affect all consumers where it comes to video programming. every member of our committee, on both sides of the aisle, is engaged with industry and consumers to figure out the right policy and to get the right outcome, which we bring to you today. our bill not only re-authorizes the compulsory copyright and retransmission exemption for five years, but it also targets and in some areas gives much -needed reforms to our communications law.

specifically, this bill repeals the f.c.c.'s integration ban on cable lease set top boxes. that clears the way for innovation and investment by lifting an unnecessary regulatory burden that has cost the cable industry and its consumers who pay the bill $1 billion, $1 billion, mr. speaker, since 2007. i especially want to thank my friend, the extraordinary, terrific vice chair of the telecommunications subcommittee, mr. latta of ohio, and my democratic colleague from texas, gene green, who brought this issue to our attention and helped us in this bipartisan lift, to get rid of the interration ban. our bill also evens the playing field for cable operators and broadcasters during sweeps week, by removing a government restriction on cable's ability to drop broadcast signals during the sweeps. additionally, the broadcast stations in a single market will no longer be able to negotiate jointly with paid tv providers. paid tv subscribers will no longer have to worry about losing more than one signal should a programming distributer be unable to reach its retransmission consent agreement with a broadcast station.

these can be very contention matters, mr. speaker -- contentious matters, mr. speaker. i'm proud to say that this act is yet another example of working together through true bipartisan with support from all sectors of the communications industry. this type of collaboration has long been the hallmark of our subcommittee and full committee and i'm pleased to see this legislative result. i can only urge the senate, the senate, to act swiftly, and pass this bill into law before the end of the year. thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back the balance of my time. or i -- yes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from vermont is recognized. mr. welch: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman from oregon, my friend, mr. walden, and today, mr. speaker, i rise in support of h.r. 4572, the stela re-authorization act, a bill that allows satellite providers to continue to offer broadcast television programing to their -- programming to their subscribers. americans across the country will benefit from re-authorizing the expiring

communications and copyright statute that allows satellite customers to have access to broadcast content. but it particularly benefits rural communities, a concern of many of us in this body. folks from vermont are going to benefit by this. they rely heavily on satellite for access to video programming. the stela re-authorization act is the work product of two committees, the energy and commerce committee, and the judiciary committee. because of the bill's complexity, both substantively and procedurally, the communications and technology subcommittee, under -- held a series of hearing held early last year to discuss the various issues facing our nation's ever-evolving video marketplace. as a result, h.r. 4572 includes several targeted provisions designed to improve regulatory parity in the video marketplace. two the bill prohibits

commonly unknown broadcasters negotiating for retransmission consent with satellite companies. two, the bill also includes a compromise on the deadline for broadcasters to unwind certain joint sales agreements in an attempt to keep in tact the f.c.c.'s local broadcast ownership rules. the final provision we are voting on today strengthens the waiver process both for the broadcasters seeking to maintain their joint sales agreements, as well as for the f.c.c. looking to streamline waiver applications. in addition, the bill eliminates the f.c.c.'s integration ban for cable set top boxes, a rule that was designed to help promote a retail market for cable set top boxes that regrettably is not working as intended. to to allow independent manufacturers of set top boxes a chance to compete, the f.c.c. requires both cable companies

and third party set top box manufacturers to rely on the same piece of technology to decrypt their signals, called the cable card. not only is this regime not resulted in the kind of competition congress envisioned, any energy experts told us that the cable card actually creates significant energy inefficiencies. so our bill takes this rule off the books, but does not place any forward-looking restrictions on the f.c.c.'s authority to continue to promote retail competition for set top boxes. but these narrow changes only begin to scratch the surface of the broken video marketplace. my view, congress should revisit the entire video regime and update the corresponding laws to better represent 21st century marketplace, to drive competition in most -- and most importantly to provide more benefits to consumers. the various stakeholders, from distributors to programmers to

broadcasters and content providers, have all been able to reap financial rewards, as they should in this video marketplace, but my concern and the concern of many of us is that the consumer has been left out of the equation. they've paid on average twice the rate of inflation annually for cable over the past 20 years. i understand there are a lot of costs that go into the overall rate to consumers. but it is time for the consumer concerns to be heard and responded to. so i want to thank chairman upton and chairman walden for working with ranking members waxman and herb oo and the -- eshoo, thank you, gentlemen, on the bipartisan compromise on this bill, and i urning my colleagues to support -- urge my colleagues to support the passage of this bill today. but do i hope that this is only the beginning and we can work together on a more comprehensive bill to address the broken aspects of the video

marketplace. and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from oregon seek recognition? mr. walden: mr. chairman, i ask unanimous consent to reclaim my time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. walden: thank you, mr. chairman. with that i would recognize the leader of our energy and commerce committee, the distinguished gentleman from michigan, mr. upton. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized. mr. upton: thank you, mr. speaker. this stela re-authorization act is a very important piece of must-passed legislation that ensures that millions of satellite tv subscribers continue to receive broadcast tv programming from their chosen satellite provider. the bill represents the best of what our committee does, works together to produce bipartisan bills that does indeed strengthen our economy and streamline our laws for the innovation age. in addition to extending the laws that permit satellite providers to bring broadcast signals to hard-to-reach customers, the bill also makes targeted reforms to our nation's woefully outdated communication laws. as our committee prepares for

an updated communications act, these reforms are small examples of some of the deregulatory changes that we can make to spur investment and communications -- in communications networks and promote competition. the bill eliminates the costly cable card integration ban that has increased the cost of cable leased set top boxes and made them less energy efficient. it evens the playing field for cable and satellite providers when it comes to protecting broadcast signals during sweeps. it brings fairness to retransmission consent negotiations, by barring broadcast stations from negotiating with distributors and it ensures that broadcasters who have had their les upended by recent f.c.c. actions indeed havea adequate time to make the changes necessary to comply with the new rules. the bill is good policy and we hope that the senate will take quick action to enact this must-passed law for the

millions depending on satellite tv. i want to particularly thank subcommittee on communications and tech chair mr. walden from oregon, ranking members henry waxman, anna eshoo, and our representative staffs for their bipartisan work from the start on this very important legislation. i am proud of this product and as we work towards the update to modernize our nation's communications laws for the innovation era, continue to cooperate -- continued cooperation will be critical, very critical to our success. so i would urge my colleagues to support this bill, i yield back the balance of my time. to the gentleman from oregon, the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from vermont is recognized. mr. welch: i yield three minutes to the ranking member of the judiciary, mr. conyers. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for three minutes. mr. conyers: thank you. i thank the floor leader for his generosity. i, like my colleague from new york, mr. nadler, rise in

support of this bipartisan legislation for several reasons. to begin with, section 119 of the copy write act expires -- copyright act expires on december 31. it's particularly important for unserved households, namely customers who can't receive an over-the-air signal of a local network. thus, if congress fails to act, millions of americans stand to lose access to their broadcast television service. h.r. 4572 responds to this problem in pertinent part by extending for five years the section 119 license authorization. thereby ensuring continued service to millions of americans. the other reason that i support this bill is that it's a good

example of how congress can work on a bipartisan basis and produce legislation offering effective solutions. there are many issues regarding the relationship between broadcast television stations and distributors that would benefit from similar efforts by stakeholders working together to see if consensus can be obtained. particular, i have long argued that content creators should be compensated for their work. negotiations in the free market can often best ensure that artists and content creators are fairly compensated. in some cases we've seen consumers pulled into the middle of such negotiations. no one wants this to happen, and it's not good for consumers nor is it good for the parties involved.

finally, this legislation exports with two important guiding principles. consumers should be protected and competition should be safeguarded. all of us consumers benefit from increased competition because it typically facilitates lower prices while also generating more innovation, variety and options. consumers want the flexibility to watch programming on their choice of television set, phones and tablets no matter where they are. we should also recognize that consumers very much value local news and sports programming and need the local channels to deliver community service and emergency information. thus, we should continue to consider ways to increase programming options for subscribers to cable or

satellite television. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for an additional 30 seconds. mr. conyers: thank you. accordingly, i ask my colleagues to support the bill and with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from oregon is recognized. mr. walden: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm honored to recognize the gentleman from virginia, the chairman of the house judiciary committee, mr. goodlatte. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. goodlatte: thank you, mr. speaker. this afternoon the house is considering joint judiciary and energy and commerce committee legislation to ensure that our rural constituents continue to have access to network channels on america's two satellite carriers. title 2 of the legislation extends the expiring section 119 copyright license for another five years as this committee has done on previous occasions, most recently in 2010. this license ensures that when our constituents do not have access to a full compliment of local network television

stations, they can have access through satellite television carriers to distant network television stations. this helps ensure that consumers in rural areas, like my congressional district, have the same access to news and entertainment options that consumers in urban areas enjoy. without enactment of this legislation, many of our constituents would potentially lose access to certain networks altogether on december 31 when the current license expires. i'd like to point out that although numerous stakeholders interested in video issues have contacted the judiciary committee on a variety of issues, they all agree that this license should not expire at the end of this year. other issues of interest in this area will be the subject of further discussions as the judiciary committee continues its ongoing review of our nation's copyright laws. i want to express my appreciation to the chairman of the energy and commerce committee, mr. upton, and the

chairman of the telecommunications subcommittee for their efforts, mr. walden, for their efforts on this re-authorization as well, and i look forward to continue to work with them on this important issue, important to all of our constituents. and i yield back. mr. walden: i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from vermont is recognized. mr. welch: i thank you, mr. speaker. i yield three minutes to a member of the judiciary committee, the member from new york, mr. nadler. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized for three minutes. mr. nadler: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise in support of h.r. 4572, the stela re-authorization act of 2014, which renews for another five years the statutory license that allows satellite providers to retransmit distant signals into a local broadcast area in certain circumstances. the satellite distance contained in section 119 of the copyright act is set to expire on december 31 of this year. among other things, that

license allows satellite carriers to provide an out-of-market station to customers who are not served by local television broadcast. enacted in 1988 when the satellite industry was in its infancy, the section 119 license was intended to foster competition with the cable industry and also to increase service to unserved households. those subscribers who cannot receive an over-the-air signal of a local network. in 2010, as was the case on three prior occasions, congress extended the section 119 license for another five years. in granting cable and satellite providers the statutory right to retransmit copyrighted content at a government regulated rate, congress has created an exception to the general rule that creators have exclusive rights to their works, including the right to determine when and how to distribute them. this licensing system replaces the free market, something we are generally reluctant to do. when we did so for cable and satellite providers, these industries were just starting up and the licenses were intended to encourage growth,

foster competition and enhance consumer access. on these fronts, the system has been a tremendous success. it's estimated that nearly 90% of american households now subscribe to a paid tv service provided by multichannel video programming distributors. in most cases cable or satellite operators. and nearly all households have a choice of at least three different providers. nonetheless, the dramatic recent changes in marketplace dynamics as well as technological advances that continue to revolutionize ways of distributing video programming content raise legitimate questions of whether the statutory licensing system in the copyright act is still needed or changed. i support this five-year re-authorization of the section 119 distant into local satellite license. we still need answers as to how many households would actually lose one of more of the four channels if section 119 would not be renewed. i support this re-authorization because it would ensure that services that are receiving

service virtue of the section 119 would retain that service. i hope we use the time afforded by this renewal to make the modifications to see if we have to keep -- keep the statutory license and keep away from the free market or modify the statutory license in the future. for the time being we ought to extend it and renew this license. now, i therefore urge my colleagues to join me in voting for h.r. 4572, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from oregon is recognized. mr. walden: i thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman for his comments. i now recognize the distinguished gentleman from ohio, the vice chair of the subcommittee on communications and technology, mr. latta. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. latta: i thank the chairman for yielding. mr. speaker, i rise today in support of h.r. 4572, the stela re-authorization act. for the last several months, members of congress have been earnesty engaged in the collaborative discussions and a great deal of work regarding

the re-authorization of the satellite television extension localism act. this must-pass legislation is key to ensuring that over 1.5 million consumers of satellite television service do not lose access to programming they rely on when the current measure is set to expire at the end of this year. through chairman upton and walden's thoughtful leadership, the stela re-authorization act also includes a huge narrow reform of law regarding the video market place. these reforms represent a critical step forward in modernizing our communication laws to reflect the rapidly involving dynamic and competitive communications marketplace we have today. i'm especially pleased that a provision from my bipartisan bill, h.r. 3196, with congressman gene green, was included in this measure to eliminate the current set-top box integration ban. repealing this outmoded technological mandate will foster greater investment and innovation in the set-top box

market and help decrease the cost to the delivery to services. since we've seen the ban, we've seen a tremendous amount of progress in the video marketplace, organically developed all absent government regulation. now, given the myriad of devices and means through which consumers can access video content, the integration ban is simply an unnecessary regulation that does not reflect the state of competition, technological advancements or consumer demands of today. the elimination of the integration ban, along with a few other targeted reforms, included in stela underscores the bipartisan commitment to ensuring that our communication laws maximize the potential for investment, innovation and consumer choice and i once again commend chairman upton and walden for their leadership in this effort. our priority to re-authorize stela will ensure ar continuity of service for satellite of subscribers and today's vote

fulfills that responsibility. i urge my colleagues to vote yes and support this bipartisan legislation, and once again thank the chairman for yielding. mr. speaker, i yield back. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from vermont is recognized. mr. welch: we have no more speakers. one final word. i congratulate mr. latta and mr. green for their very good work making a good bill better. i want to thank working close partnership with mr. waxman and ms. eshoo. we have no more speakers. i urge a yes vote on this bill and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from oregon is recognized. mr. walden: i thank the gentleman from vermont for his kind works and work on -- kind words and work on this legislation. i mr. waxman and ms. eshoo have worked tirelessly on this bill. their staff, shawn, david, who worked hard on this.

and my senior policy advisor, all of whom spent time working this through. it's interesting we get to this point and it kind of goes naturally. a lot of work went in to getting to this point. i thank our staffs and our members who really worked with us in a very good-spirited way. with that, mr. chairman, i'd -- mr. speaker, i'd urge the house approve this bill, without objection, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 4572, 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. without objection, the title is mended.

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas, mr. shigget, seek recognition? -- smith, seek recognition? mr. smith: i hove to -- missouri -- move to suspend -- i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 1022, a bill to develop an energy-critical

elements program, to amend the national materials and minerals policy, research and development act of 1980, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from texas and the gentleman from california will each control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on h.r. 1022 the bill now under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: mr. speaker, h.r. 1022, the securing energy critical elements and american jobs active 2014, addresses slight of energy-critical elements in the united states. i want to thank the gentleman from california, the ranking member of the energy subcommittee, mr. swalwell, for his diligent work on this legislation. i also want to thank mr. hultgren who introduced his own critical elements bill in the last congress for his initiative on this subject. energy-critical elements are

important to energy-related technologies, communications technologies and to america's weapons systems. these technologies range from cells and floor etent lighting to fiber optics, turbines and electric vehicles. energy-critical elements encompass a broad set elements including rare earth elements and growth and demand for rare earth is volatile. china currently produce morse than 90% of the global supply of rare earths. this is a result of a deliberate and decades' long strategy to develop its geological reserves, undercut market prices and drive out competition. testimony before the science, space and technology committee indicated that china manipulated markets in recent years. this has caused wild price swings, market instability and supply uncertainty.

this behavior is a potential threat to the united states' ability to acquire many rare earths that both our energy sector and military rely upon. while a responsive market will continue to move toward solutions, there are reasonable and proper steps that the federal government can and should pursue in this area. these are reflected in this bipartisan bill. this bill establishes a program under the department of energy that supports activities to improve the methods of extraction, use and recycling of energy-critical elements. it improves the understanding of performance, processing and adaptability to engineering of these elements and identifies and tests materials that can replace energy-critical elements. however, the legislation stipulates that the program shall only focus on areas where the private sector is unlikely to undertake these activities because of technical or financial uncertainty. it also authorizes the secretary of energy to establish a critical materials energy innovation hub that

maintains a critical materials information center. this center collects doors and disseminating information on energy-critical elements for scientists and researchers. in carrying out this program, the secretary is directed to ensure that the activities are coordinated and do not duplicate other programs within the federal government. finally, the legislation requires the president through the national science and technology council to coordinate the actions of involved federal agencies. the administration also will identify and monitor the supply of energy-critical elements, encourage private-sector development and promote the recycling of these elements. this bill helps ensure that the united states remains globally and economically competitive and that our energy sector and military have the critical elements that they need. once again, i want to thank the gentleman from california, mr. swalwell, and mr. hultgren, for their efforts on this legislation. i encourage my colleagues to support this bill and i'll reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance

of his time. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. swalwell: thank you, mr. speaker. and i yield myself as much time as i may consume. and i rise in support of h.r. 1022, the securing energy critical elements and american jobs act of 2014. and i want to thank chairman smith for working with me on this bill for over a year. we introduced this in march of 2013 and we've talked a number of times about this bill and i also appreciate the attention that the majority staff has shown to get this bill to the floor. i appreciate the work of our ranking member, johnson, on the minority side, as well as congressman hultgren, as well as ms. lummis, the chair of the energy subcommittee. we have truly worked in a bipartisan manner to move this bill to the floor. did you know, mr. tchare, -- mr. chair, that energy-critical elements are critical and crucial to powering our cell phone, to powering our airplanes and to producing renewable energy?

they include elements, many of which i never learned about in my chemistry class in high school, like cobalt, and helium. these emments are critical to the innovation economy and our national defense. but here's the problem. today many of them, almost entirely all of them, are imported from other countries like china. it's time to get america into the game. i introduced this bill to help ensure that the united states continues to have access to materials that are essential to technologies we rely upon every day. these materials are also crucial to developing new technologies that will help make us leaders in the clean energy economy of the future, helping to create good jobs here in america. i also want to note an important distinction from this bill and a bill that passed in the house in the 111th congress in 2010. three big differences. one, this bill does not have any loan guarantees. two, this bill does not spend a

single new dollar and, three, this bill does not create a new program. those are important distinctions from the bill that passed in the 111th congress. many americans may not realize just how dependent we are upon energy-critical elements. one of these elements, number three on the periodic table and represented here on this poster, is legitimateum. cell phones, laptops and other mobile devices of which we all greatly rely upon and use, not to mention the energy power storage systems for many commercial aircraft all require lithium to function effectively. to make these product here's in america and not cede leadership across the world, we need to have access to lithium. we also can't lose sight of how important these elements are in enabling a new area of energy production and use. from advanced solar energy technologies to natural gas and wind, nuclear reactors and state of the rtd batteries for electric -- state of the art batteries for electrical and hybrid vehicles, we need to

ensure continued access to them even as we work to develop substitute materials wherever possible. it's not just about commercial products and explicit energy roduction. this is used to make parts for jet engines. including the jets that provide america's air superiority for our air force and navy. having access to this metal thus has an important national security component. a subset of these elements are what are considered rare earth elements. now, incidentally threashes nothing rare about these elements in the sense that they are only found in one or two places in the world, but rather that in many instances they aren't found in sufficient quantities to make them mineble and where they are doing so would be cost-prohibitive in a very long-term endeve. i have a poster here

representing turbium, number 65 on the periodic table. most people probably have never heard of this. but it's used in high-efficiency lighting and is exemplified on this poster in wind turbines, among many other energy uses. one country, china, has recognized the importance of these rare earth elements and has put vast amounts of resource into becoming the world's leading supplier of them. as a result, china today is currently responsible for the mining and distribution of 97% of rare earth elms. predictably, it hasn't been shy, china, about using its monopoly as leverage against its international competitors. in fact, just a few years ago china temporarily cut off rare earth supplies to japan, the european union and the united states. further highlighting the potential consequences of relying so heavily upon a single nation for rare earth production and driving up the costs for american

manufacturers. the bipartisan version that we are discussing here today, h.r. 1022, provides a strong and sustainable path forward for helping ensure the united states maintains a sufficient, reliable supply of energy-critical elements. it explicitly authorizes in law the critical materials energy innovation hub, a collaboration among national laboratories, universities, research institutes and private companies that has been up and running since early last year and subjects this hub to a rigorous merit-review process prior to renewal for an additional five years. essentially, there are tight controls in place to make sure we always have oversight of this hub. let me emphasize this point, as there seems to be some confusion. there are tight controls that will be in place authorizing this hub. again, i want to remind the chair that no new programs, no loan guarantees, not a new dollar spent. my bill requires the department of energy to develop and regularly update a strategic plan in this area and

authorizes the hub to maintain a critical materials information center to aid in the collection and dissemination of data to ensure that all of our nations' researchers in the public and private sectors have access to the most up to date information. this ensures appropriate interagency coordination of research activities. and with that, mr. chair, i would like to yield five minutes to the gentlelady from texas and the ranking member of the science, space and technology committee, ms. johnson. i ask to reserve my time and yield to the gentlelady from texas. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves and the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. smith: mr. speaker, at this time there are no other individuals on this side who wish to speak on this bill and i'll reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas is recognized for -- the gentlelady from texas is recognized for five minutes.

ms. johnson: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i rise in support of h.r. 1022 and two other science, space and technology bills being considered today. earlier this year all of my democratic committee colleagues joined me in introducing h.r. 4159, the america competes re-authorization act of 2014. two of the bills being considered today are similar or identical to provisions we included in our competes bill and the third bill similarly reflects a longstanding bipartisan effort. i will speak briefly about each of the three bills now. first, i'd like to also speak in support of h.r. 1022. a bill that would authorize research and development program to explore ways to sustain our supply of materials that are critical to a wide range of advanced energy technologies.

according to a recent study by the american physical society and the materials research society, the u.s. is currently dependent on other countries for more than 90% of most of these types of materials. and we're particularly dependent on china, which has demonstrated a willingness to at least temporarily cut off our supply. of these energy-critical elements in the recent past. so this bill is a timely contribution to our national economic and energy security and i'd like to thank my colleagues and friend, mr. swalwell, for introducing this important piece of legislation, as well as chairman smith and his staff for working diligently with us to bring it to the floor today. next i want to thank mr. bouchard for introducing h.r. 5035, a bill to re-authorize the national institutes of standards and technology.

nist is our nation's oldest science agency. plays a very important role in innovation and competitiveness, to advancing measurement science and providing unique measurement facilities to industry. while we don't often think about measurement science, it is critically important. any time a technology is developed, measurement science is needed to ensure that technology is working as intended and is compatible with existing systems. nist has nist has taken leadership roles in cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing. h.r. 3055 authorizes -- re-authorizes and makes important updates to the program at nist, including the

manufacturing extension partnership program which helps small and medium-sized manufacturing companies create and retain american jobs. y one concern with h.r. 5035 is the low authorization level. i hope that when this bill goes to conference with the senate we can agree to give nist an authorization level that allows to fully realize the american competitiveness. in the meantime, because the policy changes in this bill are good and important, i support it. finally, i'd like to thank mr. killer in for introducing h.r. 5120, a bill to provide important new tools to accelerate commercialization of new technologies developed by d.o.e. laboratories and programs and partnership with the private sector. this bill closely mirrors several critical provisions in the american competes

re-authorization act of 2014 as well as the senate bipartisan america innovates act, sponsored by senators coon and rubio. it reflects -- senator coon and senator rubio. rubio. ors koon and three groups that you don't often find in the same line of authors. i want to thank chairman smith and many other colleagues on both sides of the aisle as well as the other side of the capitol for working with us to produce a strong bill that we can support. all three of these bills are products of strong bipartisan efforts, and i urge my colleagues to support them. i thank you and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the entlelady yields back.

the gentleman from california. >> i'd reserve my time, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from texas has yielded back. sorry. the gentleman from texas. mr. smith: mr. speaker, before thank back i'd like to the gentlelady from texas, ms. eddie bernice johnson. i reserve the balance of my time but i am prepared to yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i'd like to include an article from "the wall street journal" in the record. mr. swalwell: this is a cember 5, 2013, "wall street journal" article tiled china still -- the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. swalwell: this reflects what our constituents at home want to see from us here in washington. a bill that was introduced in

march of 2013, a bill that revisions were made, compromised were plead, a loan guarantee part of the bill was taken out at the request of the majority staff so we can bring this bill to the floor in a bipartisan way. i'm proud i can go home and tell my constituents i was able to work with my colleagues on a bill that will advance american innovation, american energy security and national security. and so, mr. speaker, i urge my colleagues to support this bill. if you want to go home and tell your constituents that you were part of a bipartisan bill that protects american innovation, manufacturing, energy security and national security, vote for this bill. if you want to go home and tell your constituents that you're a part of seeing jobs go over to china and ceding leadership and energy, critical elements, then you should vote against this bill. i think this congress wants to take back leadership when it comes to where we get our energy. that's why i'm supporting this bill. that's why i'm grateful that the chairman brought this bill

to the floor, and i urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan h.r. 1022. and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i'll yield back as well. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. all time having expired, the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 1022, 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 gentleman from south carolina. >> i ask 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 of rule 20, further proceedings on this motion will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition?

for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 5035, the nist re-authorization act of 2014. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: a bill to re-authorize the national institute of standards and technology and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from indiana, mr. bucshon, and the gentleman from california, mr. swalwell, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from indiana. mr. bucshon: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on h.r. 5035, the bill now under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. bucshon: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. bucshon: i'd like to thank the full committee chairman, mr. smith, the full committee

ranking member, ms. johnson, and the subcommittee ranking member, mr. lipinski, for their bipartisan work on this bill. this bill re-authorizes the national institute of standards and technology, also known as nist. whether contributing to the technology of the smoke detector or developing x-ray standards for memory owe grams, nist -- mammograms, nist has had an impact on our science and technological impacts and economy for over 100 years. h.r. 5035 authorizes $850 million for nist in the fiscal year 2014 and $855.8 million for fiscal year 2015. this bill implements changes and updates to ensure responsible use of taxpayer funds during tight fiscal times while still maintaining a competitive edge in the united states. h.r. 5035 adds language to emphasize nist's role in advancing our nation's technological competitiveness and innovative -- innovation

ability and enables more information sharing related to technological standards. additionally, this legislation codifies nist outreach and education efforts. another critical program in this legislation is the hallings manufacturing partnership,. this provides assistance to small u.s. companies to help identify and develop new technologies and manufacturing techniques. this bill answers a need expressed by the manufacturing community and changes the existing cost share structure within the program so that a 1-1 ratio of federal and matching funds are held throughout the set life of the center. the bill also includes language to make sure that centers are re-evaluated and face a new competition every 10 years. purdue te of indiana, university serves as the mep as our region. a small business i visited in

the eighth district of indiana is a prime example of the important impact they have on our economy. this manufacturer of baking powder, baking soda and cornstarch has helped the purdue university technical assistance program which has trained over 26,000 employees since 1986. i urge my colleagues to support this legislation as nist is an agency critical to the advancement of the united states technology and scientific industries. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. swalwell: thank you, mr. speaker. and i i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. support ell: i rise in of h.r. 5035. nist, founded in 1901, is a nonregulatory federal agency within the department of commerce. its mission is to promote u.s.

innovation and competitiveness by advancing measurement science. h.r. 5035 makes important changes and updates the nist programs, including the manufacturing extension partnership, or m.e.p. program. m.e.p. centers work with small and medium sized manufacturers and help them create and retain jobs, increase profits and save money. in my district, the 15th congressional district of california, the california m.e.p. center helped plasticon, a company that provides service to medical, automotive and electronics industry revisit its business model after one of its largest customers shut down. the m.e.p. center supported market research, strategic planning for plasticon. it increased the company sales by 20%. . the m.e.p. has been a successful public-private

partnership. for every $1 of investment, the m.e.p. program generates almost $19 in new sales and $21 in new client investment. this totals more than $2 billion in new sales every year. h.r. 5035 helps ensure that the m.e.p. program will continue partnering with the full range of small and medium sized manufacturing companies. them to innovate and create jobs here in america. i was pleased that when this bill was considered as a section of the first act in the house science, space and technology committee, we worked in a bipartisan manner to make improvements to it. that section, as improved, is what we're considering today as stand-alone bill. i appreciate the majority working with us in this new way. although i support the important policy provisions contained in this bill, i'm also a little disappointed by the low authorization levels. nist is one of our nation's most important yet least known agencies. because of its unrivaled expertise in measurement science, its unique research

facilities and its strong industry partnerships, nist has been asked by congress and by one administration after another to take on leadership roles in a number of cross-cutting federal efforts. from cybersecurity to advanced manufacturing. to adequately support their mission and work in these critical areas, the authorization level for nist should be closer to the president's fiscal year 2015 budget request and the senate commerce, justice, science appropriations fiscal year 2015 bill. my hope is that when this bill goes to conference with the senate, that we can work on a higher authorization level for nist. that said, h.r. 5035 is an important bill that contains sound policy provisions that were developed, again, on a bipartisan basis and that will help ensure nist's ability to promote u.s. innovation and competitiveness. i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bill and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. >> mr. speaker, i have no

further speakers on this bill and i'm prepared to yield back. i reserve. mr. swalwell: i yield back the balance of my time. >> mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from indiana yields back. all time having expired, the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill, h.r. 5035. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting 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 illinois seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 5120, the department of energy laboratory modernization and technology transfer act of 2014. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. -- clerk:

the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman call up the bill as amended? mr. hultgren: yes. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 5120, a bill to improve imaginement at the national laboratories, enhance technology commercialization, facilitate public-private partnerships and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from illinois, mr. hultgren, and the gentleman from washington, mr. kilmer, each will control 20 minutes. mr. hultgren: i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on h.r. 5120, the bill now under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. hultgren: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. hultgren: h.r. 5120, the department of energy mods earnization and technology transfer act, ensures that the department of energy has the tools it needs to allow new startups, small businesses, universities and the general public at large to do what they do best, react to market signals and innovate. the federal government and the

national labs fill a vital role doing the basic research needed to maintain america's role as an innovative nation. far too often, however, the discoveries made in our labs get stuck in our labs. this is due to a number of reasons and this bill seeks to break down many of those purely bureaucratic barriers. by extending the pilot for act agreements within d.o.e., the labs are given the ability to negotiate more flexible contracts with nonfederal entities that would like to take the lab's research and turn it into a viable product. this legislation would also grant to the directors of the national labs the signature authority for many agreements with nonfederal entities. currently the secretary of energy must make these decisions. so decisions a lab director can make over a phone call must weave their way through unnecessary bureaucracy before they land on the secretary's desk. this bill would streamline that process. h.r. 5120 also