lungren. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california has five minutes. mr. lungren: i thank the chairman, the ranking member, and i thank the speaker for the time. let me say at the outset, i do not believe that health insurance companies should be exempt from our nation's anti-trust laws. as one of those -- as one of those who believes and hopes those applauding would join me in supporting the idea of buying health insurance across state lines, when we reach that accomplishment i think it is appropriate for us not to have a federal anti-trust exemption. when health care has been primarily in a very real sense exclusively the province of the real states, under their jurisdiction, the attorney generals of the states have retained the ability to enforce the anti-trust laws of those states. and so we're entering a new era, i would hope, where we would be able to purchase, if in fact this one republican idea finds its way into legislative enactment, finding an opportunity to extend the

lungren.am not going to -- i will not give you all the answers i am you a sure you are looking for. i'm sure when this bill is debated there will be questions raised by members of the committee who sat through the debate. i sat there while this conversation was going on. i am not an expert in this particular area. i am very pleased, and i want to talk a little bit about how pleased i am that we are taking on this exemption of the insurance companies. but i did hear people say, and the reason that i voted the way i did yesterday is because i heard that the lungren safe harbor amendment was a loophole in the mccarran appeal. i heard from some that this is anti-consumer. this does not prohibit information sharing. and on the other hand, putting a safe harbor statute would immunize the insurance companies, not have a case-by-case review by the companies. mr. lungren: will the gentleman yield? ms. pingree: no, i will not yield. honestly, i am not in a position to argue this amendment, but i know it

lungren. mr. lungren: i come over and respond to what was just said, when he said the previously administration, everything goes. read the memo that came out of the justice department, looking at the actions of the justice department, it suggests that anything did not go. to say that now is to besmerch the reputation of good men and women who were both career and political to save us from the threat of terrorists since 9/11. and to come here and say anything goes is a continuation of besmerching the reputation of good men and women and it ought not to stand. look at the facts, look at those that reviewed the analysis. you'll see that's not the case. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. the gentleman from, mr. cardoza. mr. cardoza: i yield to the chairman such time as he may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. reyes: to respond to my friend from california's comment. i'll give you just one example. the issue of waterboarding has been char

lungren: mr. speaker, this is a very simple bill. it returns the authority of managing our place to the members of congress. we are the legislative branch. the capitol is our house. it is not the purview or within the province of the president of the united states. it seems strange to say the least that we have a process by which we do not direct who it is we establish as the person. it's really the official caretaker of the capitol. the architect suggests that you sit in a room declining architectural designs for the purpose of new additions or new buildings, and the architect would be responsible for that under his distribution, but he really takes care of this place. he is the top appointed official to make sure that the house of representatives, the united states senate and the entire capitol complex runs. somehow we have set up a situation in which there's input by the house, input by the senate. and the tiebreaker is the president of the united states essentially. that doesn't really make sense. we don't choose who the chief us

lungren's, comments. mr.re have been three people that have been convicted in military commissions and two of them are already free. during that same period of time under president bush's administration and in president obama's administration, more than 300 people have been convicted in our civilian courts. you are correct, i was using the people in the supermax to make the point no matter who they were, whether they were zacharias moussaoui, who certainly -- and others that we can hold them and can't escape. the fear of some would think is they think they'd escape. i'd yield one minute to my friend on the rules committee, mr. perlmutter. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. perlmutter: i'd say to my friend from california, colorado, we were asked to take over the trial of timothy mcveigh who had blown up an office building in oklahoma. didn't do it in colorado. but we said, ok, we're part of this country, we're part of america, we have a responsibility. we don't know what

, passed by republicans and democrats voting for the lungren amendment. the bill passed out of the judiciary committee and on its way to the rules committee, it became a different bill without the lungren amendment language in the bill. that's what we voted on the motion to recommit today. so that is a farce and the rules committee and the debate farce, three agrogeous things that need to change. and i will stand to change all of those. mr. kingston: about that bill, despite that strange route that it went to the strange product that wasn't passed by the committee, we still had a decent debate on it and passed the bill. the importance of that is, if you want open debate on health care, we now have an example that shows, hey, you know what? it works. this was a health-insurance-related piece of legislation. we had open debate on it. it didn't have special bills on it or price tag on it, it had some republicans against it, some for it. and the thing passed. hey, what about doing that on everything else on health care? wouldn't that be an interesting experim

lungren: the administration made a tragic mistake when it decided to try khalid chic mohammed and his mohammed and his confederates in a courtroom. they don't know where they're going to go next. if you didn't have guantanamo bay, you'd have to build it. that's the place he should remain, this is the place he should be tried. we should resume the military try brunals where he and his confederates indicated they wanted to plead guilty. we should forget the nonsense about bringing them to civilian courts in the united states. if it's too dangerous from new york, if it doesn't make sense for new york, it doesn't make sense for anywhere in the sovereign territory of the united states. guantanamo is the perfect plates for them to remain, do not close guantanamo, keep them there, try them there, give them their meeting with justice there as well. mr. speaker, they're not attacking us because of guantanamo bay. they're attacking us because of the statue of liberty. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. are there further requests for one minutes? hearing none, the chair l

lungren. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. lungren: mr. speaker, probably the highest honor in my life is to serve in this house. and as a part of that, to serve on the judiciary committee. and i have great respect for the members of that committee and the work that we do. but in some ways i would echo the comments of the gentleman from new york, although i would not agree with his conclusions, of the disappointment that this primary obligation of the judiciary committee, that is to deal with legislation that goes to the common defense of this nation would be viewed in the legislative agenda as an after thought. i'm the author of the sunset provision from the 2005 extension of the patriot act. i put those sunset provisions in or i offered them and got the support from members on both sides of the aisle precisely because i understood there was some controversy about those three and there was a need for us to take a serious look at it. unfortunately, while we have established other priorities in this congress in this house, it does not appea

lungren and mr. thornberry and mr.bly this was best put when the special election took place in massachusetts and we saw our new colleague, scott brown, elected to the united states senate. and he gave an entertaining and rather lengthy victory speech that night. but the message came through that was loud and clear was that when he got to washington, he was going to do everything within his power to make sure that we expend our hard-earned taxpayer dollars ensuring that we defeat the terrorists and not defend them. and the language that was included not allowed for on debate on the house floor but actually included among 20 other amendments, all by democrats, in the manager's amendment, the manager's amendment is usually a relatively noncontroversial measure, mr. speaker, that comes to the floor and there's often a very brief 10-minute debate and it sails through with bipartisan support, but the manager's amendment included this mcdermott amendment and it provided a circumstance which could have seriously jeopardized o

lungren: thank you very much, mr. speaker. mr.ict here a couple days ago after hearing from my constituents at several town hall meetings. one of the things they made absolutely crystal clear was they wanted us to start over on health care. they weren't arguing for the status quo, they were arguing for a new start. what do we have on thursday? the president inviting members from both houses, both democrat and republican, for what? for what? a session in which it appears that the ground rules are going to be we are going to start with the house and senate bills. i don't know, but i'm proud to be in this house in part because of my love of the constitution. i look at the constitution and it says we have three different branches of government and we are responsible for legislation. i don't see where there's a monarchy where you are supposed to go and have an audience with the monarch surrounded by his court jess terse. -- jesters. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from minn