mr. scalise. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. scalise: thank you, mr. speaker. really want to thank the gentlelady from south dakota for her leadership in bringing this bill forward. because, mr. speaker, this bill is about restoring trust. this bill is about holding the i.r.s. accountable. here we are in a week where americans had to file their tax returns. so often just the words, the letters, i.r.s., send a chilling effect through people when they hear those letters. and yet when you look at the arrogance over at the i.r.s., just the attitude they have and the disdain they have towards the very people that pay their bills, the taxpayers, here you have a case where people who have been fired by the i.r.s. for abusing their positions are actually being rehired back to the i.r.s. again, this is the kind of disdain that disgusts people as they fear the i.r.s. the i.r.s. ought to have the same fear towards the people that pay their salaries as people get when they get that letter from the i.r.s. we have had inspector general reports

mr. scalise, i recognize for a minute. the chair: the gentleman from louisiana is recognized. mr. scalise: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to chairman walden and i want to thank my colleague, congressman kinzinger for his leadership on bringing this bill. we want to continue the great innovation we've seen from the technology industry. it's not because government sat there and regulated every aspect of what they do. it's because government frankly hasn't figured out how to regulate because the industry moves so fast and i think that's been a good thing and it's shown if you allow an industry to go out there and invest private money and create great new technologies, great new projects, you look at the development deployment of broadband, it's literally changing people's lives for the good. it's allowed america to be a great technological leader. when you see the threat of the f.c.c. setting rates, regulating broadband, it will send a chilling effect that will not only kill that investment, slow down the ability and the growth that we've seen that have been so evolutionary in thi

mr. scalise. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from louisiana is recognized. mr. scalise: thank you, mr. speaker. i want to thank chairman goodlatte for moving this bill through his committee, and especially thank congressman yoder of kansas, for bringing this bill forward. and for being bold enough to say let's modernize a law that's so outdated it goes back to 1986, governing email communication. when you didn't even have email and text messaging. why do we want to do this? we want to do it because federal agencies are abusing this law to invade the privacy of hardworking law-abiding citizens across this contry. mr. speaker, this is a document from the internal revenue service, titled search warrant handbook. in this document by the i.r.s. their protocol says in general, the fourth amendment does not protect communications held in electronic storage. such as email messages stored on a server because internal users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications. the i.r.s. has made it clear that they don't believe that american citizens hav

mr. scalise, i recognize for a minute. the chair: the gentleman from louisiana is recognized. mr. scalise: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to chairman walden and i want to thank my colleague, congressman kinzinger for his leadership on bringing this bill. we want to continue the great innovation we've seen from the technology industry. it's not because government sat there and regulated every aspect of what they do. it's because government frankly hasn't figured out how to regulate because the industry moves so fast and i think that's been a good thing and it's shown if you allow an industry to go out there and invest private money and create great new technologies, great new projects, you look at the development deployment of broadband, it's literally changing people's lives for the good. it's allowed america to be a great technological leader. when you see the threat of the f.c.c. setting rates, regulating broadband, it will send a chilling effect that will not only kill that investment, slow down the ability and the growth that we've seen that have been so evolutionary in thi

mr. scalise: thank you, mr. speaker. i want to thank my friend from tennessee for bringing this legislation forward. and mr. speaker, what we're trying to do here is help people and encourage more savings. 401-k plans were so good at making it easy for people to save money for their retirement. frankly, we should be doing as much as we can here in washington to make it even easier, to encourage more people to save for their retirement. but here comes the department of labor and literally with this massive document to define one word, what the term fiduciary means, is going to make it dramatically harder for americans to save money for their retirement. anybody who thinks this massive document defining the ability for people to save money is going to make it easier or make it less costly to save money doesn't understand just how many teams of lawyers will be employed to go and try to figure out what this means and what it will mean, mr. speaker, is that the cost for hardworking taxpayers to go and put more money in their

mr. scalise: it's been not only documented but it's come out in hearings. the i.r.s. was actually targeting people, american citizens based on their political views. the i.r.s. was. you can expect maybe in a third-world country where the government would actually be attacking people based on their political views but here in america thirst was doing just that and we exposed it. you're seeing what the bill that congressman smith is bringing forward that i.r.s. has created in essence a slush fund, using user fees for things that weren't even intended, that aren't even in the purview of congress. what are they afraid of? why are they afraid of having some real transparency where we can actually hold the i.r.s. ccountable for these user fees ? hundreds of millions of dollars of user fees, by the way, that are paid by hardworking families out there that are struggling to get by. when someone calls the i.r.s. hotline right now, estimates are less than 40% of americans who call the i.r.s. hotline to get help are able to get help. so the i.r.s. is not helping people that they

mr. scalise. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. scalise: thank you, mr. speaker. really want to thank the gentlelady from south dakota for her leadership in bringing this bill forward. because, mr. speaker, this bill is about restoring trust. this bill is about holding the i.r.s. accountable. here we are in a week where americans had to file their tax returns. so often just the words, the letters, i.r.s., send a chilling effect through people when they hear those letters. and yet when you look at the arrogance over at the i.r.s., just the attitude they have and the disdain they have towards the very people that pay their bills, the taxpayers, here you have a case where people who have been fired by the i.r.s. for abusing their positions are actually being rehired back to the i.r.s. again, this is the kind of disdain that disgusts people as they fear the i.r.s. the i.r.s. ought to have the same fear towards the people that pay their salaries as people get when they get that letter from the i.r.s. we have had inspector general reports