chambliss: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. chambliss: mr. president dish the presiding officer: let's have order in the senate. the senate will come to order. mr. chambliss: i would like to call up chambliss amendment 2348, please. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator georgia, mr. chambliss, proposes amendment numbered 2438. mr. chambliss: mr. president, this amendment will require those that receive crop insurance protection from the federal government to now file a conservation compliance -- follow conservation compliance laws. it was enacted as part of the 1985 farm bill and has contributed almost singlehandedly to almost three decades of progress in limiting erosion, cleaning up waterways and protecting wetlands. and for those of us who love and fish -- who love to fish and hunt, that has been of critical importance. no other program has done more for protecting our farmland and topsoil and conservation compliance. in 1996, cong

senator chambliss and i worked very closely together. and we have expanded that group now to will you the four of us. we will be working together to try to produce changes in the senate authorization bill which has not been completed. the house is complete -- has completed their bill but we have not. and so we will work with the house membership on language that can be acceptable to both sides, to codify a certain process which we hope will be more efficient in the retar den leaking and also being able to stop it and also being able to evolve more tools to control and where it cannot be controlled, to be able to take additional actions. this -- obviously, because of the timing, we will have -- it will have to be done in the next month or so i would think. so we will be working together in that direction. so i now would like to ask senator chambliss, my distinguished -- distinguished vice chairman to make some comments. >> thanks. let me just say that thanks to the leadership of chairman feinstein as well as chairman rogers. the four of u

so i now would like to ask senator chambliss, my distinguish distinguished vice chairman, to make some comments. >> well, thanks, chairman feinstein. let me just say that thanks no the leadership of chairman feinstein as well as chairman rogers, ranking member berger, the four of us have worked closely on any number of issues. there is no more important issue that we have to work on than this issue. i think it goes without saying that all of us are extremely upset about the fact that not only have leaks occurred, but there's been just a cascade of leaks coming out of the intelligence community over the last several weeks and months, and it's our clear intention to put a stop to this in the best way that we can. leaks are part of the nature of this town. we understand that, but the fact of the matter is when you have the kind of leaks that have been coming out in the last few weeks, it puts lives in danger, and it infringes upon the ability of the intelligence community to do their job. suffice it to say in our meeting with general clapper, we knew before we engaged him this morning tha

the answer saxby chambliss said was we don't know what will come out of the investigation. they don't know what the motivation was. one thing i want to give you a little bit of an update on what i thought was the most stunning things that was said which we took live is when the house intelligence chairman mike rogers talked about the fact that agencies were directed to expand giving access to classified information to the press and that media even sat in on classified briefings. i just talked to a source here to try to get a sense of what he was talking about, and the answer was apparently all about this documentary or film actually that is being done on the capture of osama bin laden which, of course, has been quite controversial. apparently that is what he is talking about, that in order to help make that film, that apparently according to the chairman members of the press or the media or maybe even filmmakers, it's probably the better way to put it, were included, which is quite extraordinary and that is clearly what is angering them in a bipartisan way. >> this is only

chambliss: getting back to the matter at hand... i want to thank my friend from arizona for his very direct comments on this very sensitive issues, and as vice chairman of the senate select committee on intelligence, i can say without a doubt that these ongoing leaks of classified information are extraordinarily harmful to our intelligence operations. every day we ask our intelligence officers and agents to be out there on the front lines, putting their lines in harm's way, gathering information, meeting sources and using a variety of highly sensitive collection techniques. depending on where these officers are around the world, the operating environment can be both dangerous and downright hostile. this means that they have to be as much or more on guard to ensure that operations don't get blown and their own lives and the lives of our sources are not jeopardized. but each time classified information shows up in the media, the intelligence community's ability to do these dangerous assignments becomes that much more difficult. not on

chambliss wants an investigation. are you glad about that? >> i am. the individual who had it happen in new jersey and in los angeles, their police have met dead ends because it's clearly somebody doing it over a voiceover i.p. system. the local police don't have the resources to track it. >> i'm being serious here. not because we can't always be partisan and some of us call it political hacks, right? when something like this happens, is this a call for people to understand that politics can sometimes, depending on the rhetoric and civility can be life or death situations when it shouldn't be. just because i disagree with you politically doesn't mean i should call police. should we tone down the rhetoric and become more civil? should there be more civility and realize hey, listen, it's just politics at the end of the day. nobody died. stop it. >> yes and no. political rhetoric is always going to be heat popped. >> there's difference between heated political rhetoric and putting someone's life on the line. >> it shouldn't happen here. >> we should be a

saxby chambliss and lindsey graham, and coburn's running for the senate, and others. so you know, there's other careers, too. c-span: tom coburn did this show once, and it was -- i think i can say without exaggerating, it was a -- the book was a real criticism of the house in this town. did you read the book? >> guest: i read excerpts from the book. c-span: if you were going to criticize your own institution over there, after you've now been there for -- how many years? >> guest: this is my 18th year that i've been in the congress. c-span: what would you tell those kids out there in civics class? >> guest: well, you know, i always said -- you know, i taught government for 16 years. and when i first went to the illinois general assembly, i said, you know, the real difference here is the difference between theory and practice, that this place is a people business. it's how you treat people. it's how you deal with people is really how you get things done, not necessarily if you're a great orator or if you're a great attorney or, you know, a great writer. it's how you can

so i'd now like to ask senator chambliss, my distinguished vice chairman, to make some comments. >> well, thanks, chairman feinstein, and let me just say thanks to the leadership of chairman feinstein as well as chairman rogers, ranking member rue pus berger, the four of us have worked very closely on any number of issues. there is no more important issue that we have to work on than this issue. i think it goes without saying that all of us are extremely upset about the fact that a not only have leaks occurred, but there's been just a cascade of leaks coming out of the intelligence community over the last several weeks and month bees. and it's our clear intention to put a stop to this in the best way we can. leaks are part of the nature of this town, we understand that. but the fact of the matter is, when you have the kind of leaks that have been coming out in the last few, few weeks, it puts lives in danger, and it infringes upon the ability of the intelligence community to do their job. suffice it to say that in our meeting with general clapper, we knew before we engaged in this mornin

senator chambliss. >> i've been involved in excess of ten years. i dealt with intelligence leaders who are partners of the united states, and virtually every part of the world. and i can just tell you there are partners that are very concerned about what is happening in washington right now with respect to these leads and the reaction of the administration. whether this town is known for the leaks from time to time we've never seen the number of leaks coming out of the intelligence community, nor have we seen the level of the leaks that are now being reported in virtually every paper in the country. it seems like almost on a daily basis even though we may not be, but for the president of the united states to come out and say that it is offensive to him to think that his white house was intentionally leaked frankly it offends me to no end with the president ought to be saying is that this is very damaging to the country and we are going to do everything we can to get to the bottom of it what it involves my white house or wherever in the intelligence

chambliss. and you'll see an amendment around food stamps. i think that's probably the most likely active people you'll see. >> what in particular is it about food stamps that will get their attention in the debate on this bill? >> well, one of the things that i think is often forgotten about the farm bill is that it really is a good bill. it covers more than just people growing fruits and vegetables and commodity crops, it covers the snap program. it cuts about $4 billion from that program. there are cuts all over the board, but there's about $4 billion in cuts to s.n.a.p. the majority of the cuts are going to come by administrative costs and waste fraud abuse. but it is being used more and more during the reception, food stamps are. and some say any cut to the program could be a big loss for people at the moment. >> we're reading in the "national journal" and elsewhere that this debate is going to take several weeks. why is that? >> because it's a huge bill. it's enormous. about $969 billion. and it is a great opportunity for amendments. an

staffers while some have come from defense and intelligence fields others are inexperienced saxby chambliss is intelligence committee staffer whose background is in agriculture one senior staffer even told the times i can watch a video all day long i'm not an imagery analyst i can only look to see if the description reasonably concurs with what my own trained eyes are seeing and it's comments like those that leave more questions than answers is the incentive for dianne feinstein and the rest of the intelligence committees want the public to know that they're looking into these contentious drone strikes the only information we can get comes from anonymous staffers because of course the drone program is classified that congressional officials claim that having more sets of eyes reviewing these strikes will make the cia more careful i'm not so sure nobody has proven that this review process will hold our intelligence officials more accountable and savva that even pointed out that their hands are usually tied when trying to challenge these cia decisions so what's really going to be accomplished

social security, and medicaid, which is what the gang of six plan endorsed by tom coburn, saxby chambliss, lamar alexander and mike crepo and others have, you'll have a hard time backing away from that and that's a different marker other than republicans like john boehner have laid down. as soon as they got to the diamond issues eric cantor backed out and made it clear there wouldn't be any negotiations over that sort. we're now dealing with a world in which there will be some increases overall because we have a population that's aging, and living longer. that, however you want to deal with t we are going to have some increases in entitlements, although we can curb that rate of growth but when you've got taxes that are at the lowest level of gdp since the 1950s, the idea that cutting them further will enable you to deal with deficits and debt i find just bizarre. >> okay, the next question, there are members of -- i get this question all the time when i give speeches. this is one of the classic questions of any speaker. we have members of the media here so this is a terrific opportunity t

two republican senators, senator mccain as well as saxby chambliss are calling for special council towolf. the white house has made a big deal on clamping down in the past on somely, but at least on these they're silent in terms of talking about how they'll cooperate with an investigation on these hearings. >> some of these details are almost breathtaking when i've been reading them in some books coming out. very impressive reporting and it really detailed classified information. brianna, thanks very much for that report. let's dig deeper on intelligence. the democratic senator from california, dianne feinstein. senator, thanks very much for coming in. are you can senator mccain when it comes the president to issue a special council to investigate these leaks? >> well, we're going to take our own action. the intelligence committee is meeting tomorrow morning with general clapper and this is the appointment of a special council. i am waiting for some information that i've asked for before i make a decision. >> so you're not ready to go as far as senator mccain and senator saxby chambli

senator chambliss and i work closely together and we have expanded that group now to include the four of us. we will be working together to try to produce some changes in the senate authorization bill, which has not been completed. the house has completed their build, but we have not. so, we will work with the house membership on language that can be acceptable to both sides to codify a certain process which we hope will be more efficient in retarding leaking and also being able to stop it. and also being able to evolve more tools to control it. and where it cannot be controlled, to be able to take additional actions. this, obviously because of the timing, we will have to be done in the next month or so i would think. so we will be working together in that direction. i would like to ask senator chambliss, my distinguished vice chairmen to make some comments. >> thank you. let me just say thank you to the leadership. the four of us have worked closely on any number of issues. there is no more important issues that we have to work on it than this issue. i think it goes without saying th

just hours before senators mccain and senators chambliss called for a special prosecutor -- or in the parlance of the statute now, a special counsel -- holder's deputy attorney general jim cole told me he didn't think an independent investigation was warranted because the leaks didn't come from the white house or this administration. amazingly, he hadn't apparently done an investigation before he reached that con collusion. -- conclusion. attorney general holder apparently takes the same view. he has already decided who is -- who is not to blame, and he's excluded the administration and the white house and the reported sources of the information, although not named, they were named by category. he's already written them off and suggested that they could not possibly be the source of any of these leaks. well, i looked into the special counsel law which says that a special prosecutor is called for when an investigation would present a conflict of interest for the justice department. now, i can see the attorney general has a very tough job. he's a member of the president's cabinet but he

think this requires an outside investigator, a moment ago we played a little bit of what senator chambliss was saying. what do you think? >> well, you know, we have to ask some hard questions here and i know i've had discussions with senator dianne feinstein about maybe the possibility of a special council, something i think -- >> she thinks no. as i'm sure you're well aware. she says no. >> i don't think it is as definitive of that. part of the reason is you can't have somebody who may have leaked it in the chain of command investigating themselves. that's the one thing we have to come to a conclusion and it should be a bipartisan conclusion if we get there. but the part of the national security team at the department of justice had to recuse itself on one portion of the investigation, not because they were guilty of anything, but because they had access to information. the fbi had some access at very senior levels. the nfc had access at very senior levels. very compartmented programs. it starts to get murky quickly. we need to make sure it is a fair investigation. it is complete, meaning

joining me now is the georgia senator, chambliss, top republican and vice chairman on the senate of intelligence. thank you for being here. >> good to be here. >> bret: you met with the national intelligence director james clapper. what is the talk about this? how serious the administration is taking it about these leaks? >> i hope the administration is taking it just as serious as we are. i know where general clapper is. he is furious, outraged. what has happened here is something i have never seen in my now 18 years in public office. we are careful about the information we put out there. careful not to expose sources and meths. what we have done here and seen here with the articles that have come out in the press is that sources, lives are put in danger. if we gather intelligence in a way purported that we are, the iran yas know what we're doing. al-qaeda knows what we're doing. >> bret: is this about politics to make the president look better? >> i hope not. but when you have specific operations and quotes from the individuals who are members of the administration, you have unnamed sources wh

and this is the issue raised to the level to get all four of us, the saxby chambliss, ranking member, the democrat. all of us saying hey, this has risen to a level that has been unprecedented dangerous to the national security of the united states. things that could be done. thinking of new legislative measures. expanding the people inside of government very complex but tough policy graph tests; is that right? expanding people and intelligence pole graph. >> two things we have to do we decided today prospective problems. we need to be able to shut this off. give tools to the intelligence community to be very tough with individuals that they even suspect may be leaking. >> that means ongoing pole graphs. every three months, four months, five months? >> or if we need to give them the authority if they want to poll someone and give them a pole graph. >> laura: at any point in time. >> remember these clearances don't belong though those individuals. they belong to the people of the united states. and we should let them understand that you don't have to have a clearance if you can't keep y

we will talk live with the vice chairman of the senate intelligence committee chambliss of georgia. purr surpase president for fundraising. we have new poll numbers to be released at 6:00 prime minister eastern. ben bernanke says he can only do so much to help the ailing economy. congress can do a lot and should. "special report" starts at 6:00 eastern. now back to new york and my colleagues with "the five." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> dana: all right. thank you for staying with us. we want to talk today about something that is really important. yesterday, 18-year-old aaron devoe found guilty of causing a fatal car crash texting while driving. 17 at the time. the first massachusetts driver to face the charges. last year he was texting and crashed head on to donald bolly truck, who was a father of three. he survived for 18 days and unfortunately died in boston hospital. he received the maximum sentence two years in prison, loss of his license for 15 years. do you think this is justified? >> greg: i don't know. i, if it were my family, i would say this guy should go away. i also hate people who text w

, dianne feinstein of the senate intelligence committee together with the head republican, saxby chamblisstogether with the leadership, the democrat and republican leadership of the house, getting together and saying this is a huge problem. national security is at risk. the lives of people, of u.s. agents, the lives of people serving our country is at risk. our relationships with our allies are at risk. we must address this. when you see republicans and democrats get together, not only in the senate but with their colleagues in the house, you know that this is serious and must be addressed. >> lz, i was actually here anchoring live when they held that press conference after the meeting in washington, and i said to our dana bash, dana bash asked a question about politicizing this in an election year, and it's hard to say that it is being politicized if you have people on both sides of the aisle saying, hey, this is a serious problem that needs to be investigated. do you think that the president has taken responsibility for this or has handled this properly? >> absolutely, and i -- i don't s

the pilots 48-year-old todd tompkins and 40-year-old donny chambliss both from boise, idaho were killed it impacted all of the emergency and service workers, the firefighters to the law enforcement, everybody. it was tough. >> reporter: the tanker, like this one, crashed shortly after dropping retardant on the 8,000-acre fire on the nevada/utah border, a fire ignited by a lightning strike friday. >> a right wing tip had hit the ground and caused the plane sto start into a cart wheel type crash. >> the ntsb has been called in to figure out what caused the crash and will likely look at the video of another p2 tanker making a belly landing an hour later at an airport near reno. the pilots walked away from this one. while in new mexico the battle continues against the largest wildfire in that state's history it, too, was sparked by lightning back in mid may and so far has devoured 380 square miles. >> the steepness of the terrain. we have extremely steep terrain where some of the canyons are 500 to 600 feet deep with vertical drop offs. so just trying to deal with terrain like that makes it

senator saxby chambliss of georgia and texas senator kenny marchand, they're calling for an investigationthis. are you glad about that? >> i am. the individual who had it happen in new jersey and the other in los angeles, their police have met dead ends because it's clearly someone doing it over a voiceover i.p. system, so the local police don't have the system to track it. with it being the same voice, you'd got to imagine there's some interstate issues involved. >> just because i disagree with you politically does not mean i should call police -- people take this stuff seriously. should we tone down the rhetoric? should there be more civility? should we realize hey, listen, it's just politics, at the end of the day, nobody died. stop it. >> yes and no. political rhetoric is always going to be heated. it was much more heated in the 1800s than it is today. >> there's a difference between heated political rhetoric and putting someone's life on the line. >> this happens in third world and bannan that republics. this is the united states. it shouldn't happen here. >> we should be a bit more

plan in the senate, and this shows it's not about conservatism, those is tomorrow coburp, saxby chamblissconservatives supported a plan that included revenues, when he said that a top aide to the republican lead in the senate wrote to politico and said, well that kills it, if he's for it we're against it. the health care plan was the republican alternative to the clinton plan in 1993. and endorsed by orrin hatch and chuck grassley. they spent seven months while the administration stood by work on a compromise in the senate and grassley said leaders have told me i can't compromise unless 70% of republicans in the senate are for it. the notion that obama was not willing to compromise is nonsense. >> we can agree there has not been enough compromise, there has not been enough of the stuff. stephen moore, it may take two to tango. why can't republicans step up and say, we need to change this country, this isn't working the way it's working. you elect us, we're all about compromise. that's not the message they're giving. >> divisions between the country should go, that's why this is a an impor

there is no comment on that or at this point reaction to these calls from senator mccain and senator chambliss calling for special counsel. >> a bit more on the substance. when they hear people like who have access to this information on capitol hill, they are worried and dianne feinstein says she knows of examples where lives are at risk, do they agree with that? >> certainly, that is a concern. that's why the senior officials said this bothers us very much as well. when you look at the politics of this, the president has a pretty good record on certain things that are sort of indisputable, osama bin laden taking out some of al qaeda's leadership. these are things that serve him well in an election. difficult for mitt romney to compete with. that's an experience president obama has. republicans want to do anything they can to tarnish that. at the same time, when you hear democrats joining republicans with these grave concerns, we heard from dianne feinstein. she said it seems at the very least that information is not being sufficiently held close. that, politics aside, is a very serious charg

i'll leave that to chairman feinstein and ranking member chambliss on terms of laying out the time linean tell you this much, there was a virtual unanimity amongst all member there's yesterday. we were outraged by the leaks. we're looking at legislative solutions and do this in in a bipartisan way and make sure that we're going to pursue whoever was basically putting our security at risk, puttinging live at risk and if we can identify that individual, prosecute them? we'll watch this dangerous and developing situation in syria for you. this violence escalating between military. u.n. observers getting this firsthand look at the most recent massacre site. plus, ranking all of the living ex-presidents and ranking them by popularity. who's at the top and bottom? last season was the gulf's best tourism season in years. in florida we had more suntans... in alabama we had more beautiful blooms... in mississippi we had more good times... in louisiana we had more fun on the water. last season we broke all kinds of records on the gulf. this year we are out to do even better... and now is a great

the end and if narrow down the congressional concern over this issue from senator john mccain and chambliss asked for more. the "new york times" reporter did leave things. and so that basically is where the concern comes from. and what the white house is really trying to say is this is not a coordinated effort to boost the president's stat temperature. >> to make sure our viewers and listeners understand john mccain and saxby chambliss have accused the leak to make the president look tough. as if taking care of osama bin lauden he has to prove he is tough on national security? >> in terms of optics, if there is one area where the police department shouldn't have to prove himself right now, it's probably national security. >> right. so my question is, so and now eric holter has launched a point -- appointed two attorneys. >> right. >> to look into who leaks the -- to investigate the source of the leaks. >> right. >> we have seen those efforts before. are they success? can then? i don't know if they are successful. they take a very long time. i think this issue kind of receipts from the natio

senator from georgia, chambliss, ranking member of the senate intelligence committee.or in there and not these u.s. attorneys? >> actually made none. we've been stone called by the administration. obviously the attorney general appointed two who i'm sure are good lawyers to do the investigation, but the fact of the matter is, number one, they're political appointees. they were appointed by this administration to their positions. they are answerable to the attorney general. what we need is somebody that's independent, that's outside the realm of this administration because when you read these articles and you see what leaks took place, everything goes back towards the white house. when you have obama quoted from the situation room, you have axelrod inside the situation room, somebody has got to be able to be independent enough to investigate thoroughly the white house's involvement. >> brian: i never heard of two attorneys. they're going to get in each other's way. you need a leader to lead this and they have huge staffs for that reason. >> that's another obvious proble