grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: mr. president, before i speak, is there a time limit in morning business? the presiding officer: ten minutes, sir. mr. grassley: i would ask unanimous consent that i could speak for 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: mr. president, usually on a friday, by this time of a friday or even a little earlier, i always have the pleasure of going back to iowa every weekend, and i'd much rather be doing that. but obviously we've got problems that have to be worked out here and there's reason for staying around this weekend, particularly for those of us that don't miss votes and we don't want to miss a vote hopefully to keep government functioning. but there is one advantage of not being on the airplane going back to iowa and on a friday when you don't have committee meetings and constitu

well, i am chuck grassley korea -- . but the passion that he and his father into politics are a very, very important. as i say, he has a clear idea of the path that james madison set us on i served with him all long time ago. [laughter] he said our government is by consent of the governed. [cheers and applause] and the second been that i hope president obama remembers is that he talked about the american exceptionalism. in the first paper of the federalist papers, and it was a frenchman who came over here who talked about that, and his name was de tocqueville we have a senator guest with us this evening, and if you could give him a great iowa welcome to rand paul. ♪ >> my song -- my son robert was playing. that was really exciting. the one thing you will know within five minutes of senator grassley is that he cares about iowa, and there is nothing false or disingenuous about senator grassley. you are very lucky. and the other senator, are you about to say anything about him? there is sort of a debate, and i try to say, "

well i mean this is what happened is the senator grassley who's kind of you're wrong or conservative so what you can do now is a softball question a director mueller any problems that he's not a problem that's actually your service was the response so. this is like the first night of the make these permanent some little bit of a tea party revolt they were due to expire it's twenty seven feet instead you got a temporary extension until the end of may as you said i think it would be a little dangerous making news permanent that the entire piece was rushed and a lot fortunes were kicking around the clinton administration for years and was sort of glum together and then without even members of congress having the chance to read it so many of her going to think it's better to reach out and start over i mean he also had to think that this was like he said it was rushed through congress because this was supposed to be an emergency situation post nine eleven and apparently we're just continuously going to be living now in this post nine eleven world where everything we do you know we can be

thank you, senator grassley. those were kind words.t least half of what he said might have been true. the one thing you will know within five minutes of meeting senator grassley is that he cares about iowa and he cares about the people of iowa and there is nothing disingenuous about senator grassley. you are very lucky. [applause] i met your father senator. am i allowed to say anything about him? [laughter] i am a nice person, we have had cordray relations. we had a few words on the floor of a house during a debate. i said, we could build a lot more schools and airports if we did not have to pay chicago union scale wages in iowa or kentucky. he informed me that you cannot have any kind of quality products made, unless they were made by union workers. i scratched my head and said, nothing? 95% of the things you buy in the gross restore every day are not made by the union. you need to send them back. i do not think i got anywhere. when i got to iowa, i met with your governor. he invited me to the capital. spectacular. you know where i am

thank you, senator grassley. those were very kind words.alf of what he said about me was true. one thing you will know within five minutes of meeting senator grassley is that he cares about the people of ottawa. there is nothing false or disingenuous about senator grassley. he cares about the people of iowa. you are very lucky to have him. [applause] am i allowed to say anything about your other senator? i have met him a couple of times. i am a nice person. we have had cordial relations. i met him on the floor. we had a few words in the debate. i tried to explain to him that we could build more schools and airports if we did not have to pay chicago union scale wages in iowa or ky. -- kentucky. he informed me that you cannot have quality products made by union workers. i said that 95% of what you buy it is not made by union and we need to send them back. i do not think i got anywhere. he invited me over to the list is spectacular. i am in a double wide trailer in a court yard in washington. i thought i could give the governor to run against

chairman. >> thank you very much, senator grassley. we will begin with mary lou leary, who is no stranger to this committee. she's the principal deputy assistant to the department of justice. has held that position since september of 2009. prior to rejoining the department in may of 2009, she served as executive in terms of the national center for victims of crime and we talked to her that time too. she's also previously held a number of positions with the department of justice, serving as united states attorney for the district of colombia. we have one other united states -- former united states attorney on this committee, with senator whitehouse. deputy associate attorney general, earned her bachelor's at syracuse university, master's at ohio state, her law degree at northeastern university school of law. mr. leery, good to have you here? >> it's a pleasure, senator leahy. chairman leahy and distinguished members of this committee, thank you so much for inviting me here today. i'm leapleased to talk about wh we do in order to fulfill

for that, senator grassley. i think you and i agree on this. i don't know if i need to speak or not but every senator wants to save himself, right? i have time reserved on the floor of the senate so i will be absent a little while. thank you for this hearing. thank you to the witnesses as well. crime victims deserve better than they've been getting. crime victims received compensation and assistance as we know from this crime victims' fund. it's not dependent on the tax revenue. it's for the purpose of helping crime victims and it comes from fines and penalties from those convicted. for more than a decade now there is in a cap on the amount of funding each year to be distributed to victims. the chairman and i recently wrote a letter to the budget committee on which we asked the cap be raised more than 30% from the current levels. that is a much larger increase in its proposed by the administration. the cap illustrates the problems which so many federal grant programs and get creative and sometimes duplicate existing programs they do not fully f

grassley: i'm sorry. i misunderstood you, madam president. thank you. we're in a situation where people are talking about increasing taxes on higher-income people because supposedly they can afford it, and probably they can afford it. but what i get sick and tired about in this jargon that goes on here in washington is the demagoguery of taxing higher-income people when this group of people are already paying 4 3% of all the income coming into the federal government and 47% of the people in this country don't pay any income tax whatsoever. how high do taxes have to go generally to satisfy the appetite of people in this congress to spend money? and particularly, how high do they have to go on marginal tax rates to satisfy the people that the wealthiest in this country are paying enough money? i often quote instead of this 5% figure, i think it's 1% of the wealthiest people, 27% of the income pay 40% of the income tax. now, if it be 41% or 42%, maybe we'd look at it. but i never get the opinion from anybody that's proposing these higher marginal tax rates

chairman, so finally we felt we had no choice but to start getting to the bottom of what senator grassley led and now my committee is also following, which is -- it's not just a scandal. it's clearly a crime and clearly, there are u.s. agents that are dead and reportedly many, many, many more mexicans who are dead as a result of these weapons , jon: we have touched on this story many times before and i think our viewers know it, but the allegation is that the alcohol, tobacco and firearms department allowed these guns to be smuggled across the border into mexico, hoping to be able to track them, trace them, follow them to the drug cartels and make larger busts, but the accusation is that the weapons were then used in crimes that resulted in the deaths of americans, among others. >> well, and you know, there are some undeniable facts here. first of all the serial numbers show they did come out of u.s. gunshots and the ballistics show that one agent for sure was killed with one of these weapons. the guns shops said the alcohol, tobacco and firearms let us do it, at least 1atf whistleblower

senator grassley may or may not have been on the report. we never processed his response pursuant to foia. >> i apologize. i yield back. it is clear that you take care of politicians differently in the one case. >> if a member of congress -- that is inaccurate. >> we are supposed to indicate which is that democrat or republican. >> ? >> that is the way that you are addressed. i do not know what it -- why it was a recommendation of my career staff. the standards from 2006 were modified slightly based on your recommendations. >> my time has expired. >> we now recognize the distinguished gentleman from illinois. >> mr. connolly. >> i thought the report found that there was a lot more transparency at dhs than in the previous administration. is that true? >> i believe that is one of the conclusions by the inspector general. one of the things my office established in august 2009 is a policy of proactive disclosure to attempt to put up the frequently requested documents and elements that may -- people may want to seek. the chairman saw foia logs f

. >> senator grassley, you're up. >> i explained to the chairman -- [inaudible] >> ms. garvin, can you tell me about the fact that crime victims fund has had on the victims to whom you provide services? >> the services they provide are funded through two streams. the federal crime victims rights act has an operation for appropriations in it, and someone has come currently through appropriations to fund some of our work. although that is not happen since 2008. other funds have come to grant programs including office of victims of crime. and the cap i would say, what's happening to our services and services nationally. is there's not enough money making its way out to the field. we know that victims have more need than it being funded. we know that the legal clinics that we oversee are going to shut down this year. and that victims including victims in the tucson shooting will not have an attorney with them as of july of this year that clinic will not have funding to continue and to provide representation. so the cap is putting restrictions on the services that are availa

[applause] senator grassley mentioned about america being exceptional. i agree. but i do not think we are inherently exceptional. there is nothing about the color of our skin or our dna or anything like that. but we are exceptional because of our constitutional. because we embraced individual liberty and capitalism. we have to remember to obey these things. we have to remember to obey the constitution. james madison said the constitution's opposes what history demonstrates, that the executive is the branch most interested in war and most prone to war. therefore the constitution has with studied care given that power to the congress. it was a division of power. it was checks and balances, very important to our founding fathers. we need to have a debate over that. i hope to force just such a debate when we go back. as we move forward into the next cycle, i think there is every chance that we can have great success. we had great success in 2010. i think we can do it in 2012. what i ask by what is help us find the right person. thank you very much. [applause] >> now,

senator grassley. >> thank you. mr. chairman, oversight of the fbi is probably one of the most important oversight hearings that you have, and so i thank youment -- i thank you. i would take a moment to publicly thank you you, director mueller, for your service to america. and i do that just in case this might be the last time as director of the fbi you're before this committee. but i'll bet you after you're in private life you'll be asked to testify on various things before congress in that capacity. because of your experience. while we have had our share of disagreements, director mueller, i've always appreciated your candor and your willingness to work with us to get answers even if we don't always agree with what those answers are. for instance, i know there's a lot of agreement between you and me on the need to extend the patriot act provisions that are set to expire in may. the three expiring provisions of the patriot act are very important tools used by law enforcement and the intelligence community to protect us

grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: the senate will confirm two more of the president's judicial nominees. both of these nominees are for seats that are termed judicial emergencies. my republican colleagues and i continue to demonstrate our cooperation. we've worked with the democratic majority in moving consensus nominees through the committee and on to the senate floor. with today's votes, we will have confirmed 17 judicial nominees in just 39 short days the senate has been in session this congress. 12 of these confirmations were, again for those positions that are termed judicial emergencies. we have reported out of committee a total of 32 judicial nominees. that's 51% of the total nominees that have been submitted to the senate by the president of the united states. to date we've held five nomination hearings with 21 judicial and executive nominees giving their testimony. we have another hearing scheduled for tomorrow with four judicial nominees and one executi

grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: today our body, the senate, is going to vote to confirm the 15th judicial nominee for this year. now if it seems to my colleagues and to the faubel we've been vote -- that we've been voting on a nominee every week, well we have been. both on the committee and on the floor, judicial nominees have regularly appeared on the senate's agenda. we've taken positive action on 34 of the 61 judicial nominees submitted to this congress by president obama. we continue to hold hearings every two weeks to examine the nominee's record and to receive testimony. the committee meets every week to report nominees to the floor. so far the committee has reported 27 nominees, which is ahead of the 23 reported by this same time in the 108th congress. this demonstrates my commitment, the commitment of republicans on the judiciary committee to cooperate with the chairman to move forward on consensus nominees. even as we do so we continue to thoroughly ex

grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. grassley: i suppose i and a lot of my colleagues had a chance to hear the president speak this afternoon it's very nice that the president is being engaged for the first time in the budget debate and the long-term fiscal problems of this country and the deficit problems of this country. it's good that he is following on with some of the recommendations of his own deficit reduction commission. you have to remember a little less than a year ago he appointed a deficit reduction commission. they reported on december the 5th. it seems that they had broad bipartisan support because the four senators that were on there, two democrats and two republicans and probably very different political philosophies of the two of the four, they have endorsed it. and then all of a sudden since december 5th until today there's just been a lot of quiet on the part of the president of the united states about whether or not he likes what his deficit re

regarding senator grassley. he gave a speech.id that there was $84 billion going to the oil companies as subsidies. in pennsylvania we are engaging in the debate on the shale. we are finding out now that these companies, these gas companies are selling these oil leases to foreign countries, and the gas will be shipped overseas. i think one of the alphabet in there is chesapeake from oklahoma. -- i think one of the out fits in there is chesapeake from oklahoma. could you comment on that? guest: what senator grassley likes to call subsidies is the way oil and natural gas has been treated in the tax code since about 1913. it is like other industries, tailored to that industry the risks of the long-term costs. i think they are exactly appropriate. i think to at this point raise taxes on energy manufacturing is the wrong thing to do. two, this is not a good debate about oil shale and the role it plays in the government. it has and is being done safely. we make mistakes as a nation if we try to in effect strangle that opportunity in it

grassley: how much time do i have left? the presiding officer: the senator has four minutes remaining. mr. grassley: thank you. i want to take just part of that four minutes for another issue. i'd like to talk about immigration, and a part of the immigration issue that concerns me -- and by golly, it's got something to do with government oversight as well. last august, some lawyers at the u.s. citizenship and the immigration service drafted internal memos outlining ways that the administration could get around congress and grant undocumented aliens in the u.s. with legal status. these amnesty memos outlined ways that the executive branch could use discretionary authority to make sure that thousands -- or who knows, maybe even millions of people here illegally could stay here without a vote of congress. a number of republicans sent a letter to president obama urging him to abandon any such plan. we sent several letters to homeland security secretary napolitano asking for statistics and briefing on these memos. we asked for a

senator grassley may or may not have been on the report.his response pursuant to foia. >> i apologize. i yield back. it is clear that you take care of politicians differently in the one case. >> if a member of congress -- that is inaccurate. >> we are supposed to indicate which is that democrat or republican. >> ? >> that is the way that you are addressed. i do not know what it -- why it was a recommendation of my career staff. the standards from 2006 were modified slightly based on your recommendations. >> my time has expired. >> we now recognize the distinguished gentleman from illinois. date yesterday i deeply appreciate this and thank you both for being here today. i am not quite sure frankly why we're here today because, mr. fong form is callahan, but the effect to her general's report found actually there was a lot more transparency at dhs and this administration than in the previous administration.is is that true? >> i believe that is one of ther conclusions by the inspector hineral. t when it thinks things my officee established in

>> i believe it was senator grassley when he was asking for a request. we modified it and answered it three different process. members of congress did not often file foia requests, so it is a relatively moot point. >> we now recognize the former chairman of the full committee, mr. towns, for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. at the meagan, -- let me begin, first, ms. callahan, think fee- for-service. -- thank you for your service. you have asked many questions about the laser responding to foia. can you please explain to this committee what circumstances, with situations might delay you in responding to foia? >> yes, sir. as you know, we take our responsibility seriously. at the same time, there are several steps that i detailed in my written testimony that describe the process that every foia -- of the 130,000 we received last year, each foia must go through the steps to identify the federal records, the parties who may have information, that we have applied the appropriate exemptions, we have looked at legal issues, and the process ha

. >> senator grassley. >> i appreciate our guests for being here to testify and i want to associate myself with the opening remarks of senator udall regarding his concerns for the people of japan, incredible challenges and loss. and all of us have great concerns for the people in japan. the tsunami and earthquake occurred in japan, not in the united states and the emergency that preceded the earthquake and tsunami occurred in japan sm the emergency response is occurring in japan with the help of the united states. the -- some people want americans to believe that the disaster occurred here, and that's not the case. as ranking member inhofe has pointed out, the current chairman of the nuclear regulatory commission is operating under his emergency powers since the disaster occurred. the reason these emergency powers are in effect and the implications that has for the future doesn't have implications for the united states -- does have implications to the united states nuclear safety response. this is one of the reasons i believe the hearing today is so important. somewhat to want to use this

. >> when i grew of a man plainfield chuck grassley what is the state assembly back then there were good decent people many of whom are farmers who recognized many of whom were deacons of my father's church who recognized when the time for talks you have to make tough decisions particularly when the times were tough and the finances of the church and that is exactly what we are doing. we are talking about -- you may not want to talk about that and i will answer your question -- >> i'd be interested in your answer because people of wisconsin want to hear today. >> i'm glad you're interested in the people of wisconsin because that person was five levels before me and when that position was brought to my attention i had my staff go back and have that person taken out of that position and i acknowledge the fact there were more qualified people and i asked what else would be put into that so that is the answer to the question. >> i reclaiming my time. >> we've written an article about this and noted that to of the highly qualified candidates for that administrative or oscar, former state cabi

. >> when i grew of a man plainfield chuck grassley what is the state assembly back then there were good decent people many of whom are farmers who recognized many of whom were deacons of my father's church who recognized when the time for talks you have to make tough decisions particularly when the times were tough and the finances of the church and that is exactly what we are doing. we are talking about -- you may not want to talk about that and i will answer your question -- >> i'd be interested in your answer because people of wisconsin want to hear today. >> i'm glad you're interested in the people of wisconsin because that person was five levels before me and when that position was brought to my attention i had my staff go back and have that person taken out of that position and i acknowledge the fact there were more qualified people and i asked what else would be put into that so that is the answer to the question. >> i reclaiming my time. >> we've written an article about this and noted that to of the highly qualified candidates for that administrative or oscar, former state cabi

. >> you spoke with both iowa senator, tom harkin and charles grassley. what did you learn from those interviews? >> those were need experiences. among other things, the most surprising thing for me and my partners was that we did not feel the one me pose the question, what is the role of the federal government, we did not receive the same answer. necessarily. both senators at different approaches to that question. and this we saw throughout all of our research. >> what should people come away with having watched this documentary? >> i hope they come away with a understanding of the issue both in terms of its significance and its complexity. i hope that they can understand how important this is to students and our country. but also understand the complexity of the issue and may be why there are not so many supple, specific, immediate solutions. >> thank you so much for joining us today. >> thank you. >> year is a brief portion of the documentary. >> i want to be a skeleton. >> i want to be a president. >> i want to be a football player. >> i want to be an

. >> when i grew of a man plainfield chuck grassley what is the state assembly back then there were good decent people many of whom are farmers who recognized many of whom were deacons of my father's church who recognized when the time for talks you have to make tough decisions particularly when the times were tough and the finances of the church and that is exactly what we are doing. we are talking about -- you may not want to talk about that and i will answer your question -- >> i'd be interested in your answer because people of wisconsin want to hear today. >> i'm glad you're interested in the people of wisconsin because that person was five levels before me and when that position was brought to my attention i had my staff go back and have that person taken out of that position and i acknowledge the fact there were more qualified people and i asked what else would be put into that so that is the answer to the question. >> i reclaiming my time. >> we've written an article about this and noted that to of the highly qualified candidates for that administrative or oscar, former state cabi