mr. terry: i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 10 printed in house report 112-540 offered by mr. terry of nebraska. the chair: the gentleman from nebraska, mr. terry and a member opposed, each will control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from nebraska for five minutes. mr. terry: thank you, mr. chairman. and my amendment is a rather simple one and i hope all of my colleagues can support it. many of us can remember the devastation brought on by the hurricanes, katrina and rita but folks remember the rise in gas prices and the threat of having no gas at all. when supplies are interrupted, it is critical to restore fuel for consumers as soon as possible. we continue to operate within a environment where the requirements set by the e.p.a. in another market, the fuel in chicago may be different from the fuel in st. louis, especially in the summertime. the supplies of fuel are disrupted, whether from a nation

mr. terry's parents want to know what happened. and they have a right to know that. if it were your son or daughter killed in a government screwup, you would want to know all the details as well. again, mr. and mrs. terry have a right to know the entire story as to how their son was killed. but the obama administration doesn't want to explain the situation. that's how simple the story really is terry's want to know. the president doesn't want to tell them. that's it. and so we now have a huge controversy. accelerating that is nancy pelosi who says that eric holder is being persecuted because he wants fairness for minority voters. >> contempt of congress. contempt of congress to frivolously use that really important vehicle to undermine the person who is assigned to stop the voter suppression in our country, i'm telling you, this is connected. it is no accident. it is a decision and it is as clear as can be. it's not only to monday monopole his time, it's to undermine his name. >> i could not believe it when i heard her saying that. is that all you have to come back w

with that, i yield the balance of my time to the vice chair of the committee, mr. terry. >> thank you, mr. chairman. a lot has changed in the video marketplace over the last 20 years. content, distribution and consumers' preferences have all evolved. we are a society that wants what we want, when we want it, wherever we want it, and because of this, communications sector has spent billions over the last two decades in order to meet that consumer appetite. as we engage in discussions about the current state of video marketplace, and get bogged down in the details of disputes and issues, it is important that we always keep one thing in mind. the consumer is and will always remain the most important component of the discussion. it's appropriate to ask questions about whether the regulations of decades past are, in fact, still appropriate today. do they inhibit competition or spur it. do they create regulatory parity or uneven playing fields. most importantly, do we still work to the betterment of the consumer. or are consumers now caught in the middle. consumers need to ben

mrs. terry, first to you, your reaction? eric holder obviously mentioned brian, said he was, you know, bravely trying to defend this country and our interest but then went on to say, look, i did what i could. i shut this down. i saw that it was wrong. stopped this policy. and corrected what was obviously a botched situation. your reaction? >> well, i think maybe he should have made that statement 18 months ago when brian was killed. and i think what happened today was very good and i was happy about it it i think it's a step forward to get justice for my son. >> the criminal contempt vote. 17 democrats ended up voting with the republicans but we had a number walk out, many democrats left without casting a vote for criminal contempt or against criminal contempt. bill o'reilly said they walked out on your son's memory. what's your reaction to those who walked out without voting? >> i was totally shocked but, you know what? i think it was a disgrace to them and not to my son. >> laura: let's go to bob. mr. hare, your cousin was

mr. terry's death if you didn't do that how do you respond to that. >> and eric hold certificate first attorneyeral to make a mistake or do something slightly outside of the law. in this cubs ry we have never had an attorney general do anything illegal or immorallal. where is john ashcroft, i would like to talk to him about that. >> john: exactly. the project gun runner which is umbrella this began under you know who has president. i want to turn to the campaign trail. i have been dieing to ask you about the governor, please listen to how mitt romney described the president's health care reform today. >> i will repeal obama care. i can't afford another 2 trillion-dollar entitle: everybody likes free stuff there is no free stuff when government has to pay and tax american people or when it borrows from future generations. and obama care is depressing job growth. >> john: that is funny for so many reasons. the cb on. said it would help the deficit. it hasn't been implemented yet. corporations want to hire young people because under obama care they are covered under their parent's insurance until

. >> thank you, mr. terry. i first want to take a little victory lap this morning. the college presidents announced yesterday we're going to have a non-bcs football playoff in college football, and i can take a little bit of credit because back when i was chairman of this committee we had hearings on that and we got the ball rolling and announced a four-team playoff so i want to commend them and also take credit for this committee highlighting that issue several years ago. i don't think the four-team playoff is the ultimate but it is a start in the right direction. when they get to eight or 16, i think they will have it. my first question is to the audience. i want somebody in the audience to tell me the original analog televisions how many channels were on them. anybody that is my age ought to know. i see one handout there. how many? somebody. not how many you got, but how many were on the dial. there were 13. >> 12. >> there were 13, 2 to 13, but there are no number one. i never understood why there was no number 1. there were 13. you could go up to 13. as mr. pow

but with all due respect, mr. terry would have been dead with or without "fast and furious" guns.can people you are talk about -- these guys don't show up to the fights with knives. they show up with guns. >> eric: i have to ask, how would brian terry have been killed had we not walked guns over to -- >> bob: because they would have had guns anyway. >> eric: we don't know that. you can't say brian terry would be dead -- >> bob: you think drug runners don't go around with guns? you got to be kidding me. >> dana: say that's true, bob. say that's true. if the shoe were on the other foot, if the republican administration and the democrats are pressing for it, the position would be the opposite. that's not fair to anybody. >> bob: how do you know my position with the opposite, number one? >> dana: because of experience. >> bob: i would argue that the opinion would be opposite if this was republican instead of democratic president. >> dana: give an example. when president obama is running for president, he called this unpatriotic abuse of power and un-american. now we are supposed to be

. >> mr. terry, your reaction to that? >> i don't think my son should have went before me, you know. it's very hard. >> josephine? >> to me i was just flabbergasted because i think that all of this was useless. it should have never happened. >> what do you think -- i understand there was a moment when the attorney general was confronted on whether or not he had contacted you, both of you, about the less of your son, guns provided by our government, and before you even got the apology, i understand it, it was leaked to the press. he was kind of embarrassed in that congressional hearing because nobody, as i understood it, up to that point had contacted you? is that true. >> that's true. >> it's true. >> so how did you find out about the attorney general finally apologized after congress kind of embarrassed them into it? >> a letter. >> a letter. >> after it was made public in the media. >> has president obama ever reached out to you? >> no. >> at the funeral he called us. >> he did call? >> at the funeral home. at the funera

what saddens me is a family has lost a loved one, mr. terry that we should be focused like eagle eyes on getting the truth. do you realize that this committee would not call ken kneel von the former head of the atf who indicated privately that no senior official in the department of justice was ever told abouthis because he didn't know about it. not many people know this originated out of the phoenix office. if you know the structure of government there are heads of office, regional offices that do have their own home programs and might have intended it to go well and did not. this is a foolish episode because many people don't know that the general offered everything that chairman issa wanted. the private documents or the documents that he could and could not, to list the documents that senator grassley wanted. company not provide. a briefing, a private briefing and a continuing dialogue to answer questions that he not been able to answer before because it is an ongoing criminal investigation and we want to solve this in the name of the famil

mr. terry. mr. terry: thank you for allowing me to express my concerns with proposals that would allow department of homeland security to impose cybersecurity regulations on private infrastructure that it deemed critical, quote, unquote. the administration wants to expand d.h.s.'s role for the purpose of subbing them to regulation but yet to take care of its own business on networks. i commend chairman aderholt for including language in this bill that requires executive branch agencies to get their act together and formulate expenditure plans to protect their own networks yet they can't even secure federal networks why in the world would we want to give them authority to regulate private-sector networks? i understand that d.h.s. currently works with the private sector on a voluntary basis, but that should be the extent of their involvement with critical infrastructure. as a member of the speaker's task force on cybersecurity as well as the co-chairman of the energy and commerce working group on

mr. issa: i ask the statement by the terry family be placed in the record at this ti. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, it will be placed in the record. mr. issa: i'm sure the gentlelady from new york recognizes the right of a minority hearing has not been exercised and that would have been answered the questions a they are well aware of bringing kenneth melson before the committee. they did not exercise their right. with that i yield a minute to the gentleman from florida, the senior member of the committee, mr. mica. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida is recognized for one minute. mr. mica: thank you for yielding. when the founding fathers created our government and established the committees in congress, that authorizing committees -- they had authorizing committees, they had appropriating committees. the predecessor of this committee was established for a fundamental reason and that's to make certain that programs and funding were properly executed and used by agencies created by congress. congress created the law that created the departme

mr. quayle: for months my colleagues and i worked to investigate the killing of brian terry. efforts to bring accountability to those responsible for met with derision by attorney general holder. at hearings when we questioned mr. holder, he evaded. when we requested documents, he obfuscated. when i questioned him on june , he looked me in the eye and stated plainly there was nothing whatsoever in the wiretap applications that suggested the existence of a gun walking program yet all i had to do was review the same applications to see that what the attorney general said to me, my colleagues and to the american people was nothing but a boldfaced lie. mr. speaker, i will repeat that again. it was a boldfaced law. today, let congress' vote be a signal to mr. holder that dishonesty on the part of the administration officials will never be tolerated, today, let this vote be a signal to president obama that the security of the american people must always come before his own job security and the job security of his cabinet officials. let this vote be a reminder to mr. holder and to pr

mr. brian terry, a killed border agent. greg? >> greg: here is the thing. this is the left's comfy sweater. whenever you're in a corner, you trot out racism, and the great, the brilliant thing about the argument is it's a subtle factor. that means i'm not racist. because it's subtle. so you can't even see it. which means that you can project that back to him. you can say by the way i think your response is racist. because it's subtle. that is the point of the argument. it can never be proven. why not bounce it back to them? after all, hundreds of mexicans died. they don't care. that is racism. >> dana: well, it never occurred to me when i was press secretary to say that the actions being taken against alberto gonzalez, the attorney general at the time. i should have said that that was racist, because then i would haven't been asked more questions about it. they would have walked away and it would have gone away. darn it! next time! >> eric: andrea, we should stay on it, though. it isn't about race. it isn't about politics. it's about at least one dead borde

how are we supposed to give brian terry's family any sense of closure, mr. speaker? this is why we have no choice but to be here today. the refusal of the attorney general to provide answers to brian terry's death, leaves us no choice but to be here today. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts. mr. mcgovern: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. mcgovern: mr. speaker, the last time congress dealt with a contempt resolution was in the case of john bolton and harriet myers. the period of time between when the committee voted out the resolution and before there was floor action was six months. the reason why there was time taken was to make sure that we got it right. this is less than a week. and i'm going to say to my friends on the other side of the aisle that the minority staff has compiled a list of 100 inaccuracies, 100 inaccuracies in the report that was the basis for this contempt resolution, 100. they rush it to the floor. don't tell me this is not about pol

and mrs. terry have a right to know the entire story as to how their son was killed.it. >> stephanie: oh boy. >> so we now have a huge controversy. >> a huge controversy. >> if you wanted the whole story, the thing was started during the bush administration under mick acie. >> there's something called the inspector general who is now overseeing a very large investigation over the fast and furious and the white house is given the inspector general complete access to everything they need. what's going on in congress has nothing to do with finding out what happened -- with the terry family. that is a specific investigation that is being overseen and the white house completely cooperating. the nonsense in terms of holder, in fast and furious on capitol hill has nothing to do with that. that is just a game of gotcha because they're chasing this crazy conspiracy theory that obama's running guns to mexico in order to take away your guns in america. >> stephanie: by the way i thought -- one analysis of that, o'reilly was talking about border patrol agent terry was murdered af

terry is all that counts here. my difficulty with the failure to call mr. melson so that we could haerl from him publicly, with the failure to call the attorney general, is that if we are interested in getting to the bottom of why brian terry was murdered, we cannot allow only a partial story to come forward, we cannot start at the -- in the middle when there was a new justice department, this is not about they did it too, it's about how did we get into this so we continue get into it again. there is no possibility of under standing how, why brian terry was killed, if we're only look at the back half or part of the story, the story when this attorney general entered the picture, but not the story when the first justice department entered the picture, there was a beginning to this story. not just where we are now, beginning, or near the end. we won't never get to the bottom of it by pretending that this is about fast and furious and not about it's former name wide receiver. and how the decision was made in the first place. >> would the gentle woman yield. >>

did he know about it prior to the death of mr. terry., this doesn't say what it appears to say. >> steve: you got the committee, though, the republicans on the committee feel that the attorney general and the doj are stone walling because revealed yesterday that they've got something like 140,000 documents relating to fast and furious and holder's justice department turned over 7,000. >> but is that even relevant anymore when you have a situation, you have eric cantor and john boehner both resisting this call to have a contempt citation? so you have a division within the republican ranks that diminishes profoundly the clout of the committee. the committee looks more and more radical compared to their own republican leadership. >> steve: do you think had is a political witch hunt? >> i think much more relevant if you step back is why isn't john boehner, why isn't eric cantor, why isn't the republican leadership embracing the efforts of the committee to strong arm eric holder into cooperating? you have to say that they've made a calculatio

. >> thank you, mr. terry. allow to take a little victory lap this morning. -- i want to take a little victory lap this morning. the college presidents announced we will have a football playoff in college football. i take a little bit of credit, because back when i was chairman of this committee, we had some hearings on that and got the ball rolling. and they announced the playoffs. i want to commend them, but also take credit for this committee highlighting that issue several years ago ago. i do not think the four-team playoff is the ultimate, but it is a step in the right direction. when they get to eight or 16, they will have it. my first question is to the audience. i want somebody in the audience to tell me the original analog television -- how many channels were on them? anybody that is my age ought to know? i see one hand. how many? somebody. not how many you got, but how many were on the dial. there were 13. two to 13, but there were no no. -- there was no number one. you could go up to 13. as mr. call

and mrs. terry. they want to know what happened to brian terry. he was a war hero in iraq, comes home and then shot down like a dirty dog in the desert. >> host: how does the agent relate to trayvon martin? >> caller: because they would like to know the facts. isn't it funny the attorney general can scream about trayvon martin, but they don't want to be involved with brian terry? i think the american people, the media hasn't talked hardly anything about brian terry. >> host: okay. we'll get a response from our guest. let me show you also marcus' wing, and it has a different perspective to the comment you made about fast and furious not being so regulated or overseen as -- at all, he says the guns were monitored by tracking devices, but it was not "uncontrolled." >> guest: well, he's got different information than what i had. there were not devices, monitoring devices on 2,000 guns. if he's got different information, i'd like to see it. we've had hearings about it, i've looked at classified documents and unclassified documents, and maybe marcus has

mr. issa: i ask the statement by the terry family be placed in the record at this time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, it will be placed in the record. mr. issa: i'm sure the gentlelady from new york recognizes the right oa minority hearing has not been exercised and that would have been answered the questions as they are well aware of bringing kenneth melson before the committee. they did not exercise their right. with that i yield a minute to the gentleman from florida, the senior member of the committee, mr. mica. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida is recognized for one minute. mr. mica: thank you for yielding. when the founding fathers created our government and established the committees in congress, that authorizing committees -- they had authorizing committees, they had appropriating committees. the predecessor of this committee was established for a fundamental reason and that's to make certain that programs and funding were properly executed and used by agencies created by congress. congress created the law that created the departmen

mr. terry was a public servant who deserved to be -- to live his life. and it is a horrible shame that he was killed in a gun fight in arizona, december, 2010. we all agree that the gun walking policy which was a policy started in the bush administration and that allowed thousands of guns to be bought by weapons traffickers should be investigated. this program has no signs of merit that i can see and it's too bad. but here's the thing. this is why it's unfair to hold attorney general holder in contempt. as soon as he learned of the tactic, this gun walking thing, attorney general holder condemned the tactic and order the inspector general to investigate. and since then he's testified before congress seven times and provided more than 6,000 pages of documentation as asked for. at this point the government reform and oversight committee was demanding a document and the executive, as is the tradition in every expect -- and every executive said, documents that are basically conversations between a client and a lawyer, and basically are deliberative documents

mr. chairman, they actively discussed the tactic of gun walking well in advance of special agent brian terry's murder and well in advance of a demonstrably false letter being written to a member of congress that was calculated to deceive and mislead and here's the proof. here, mr. chairman, is the proof that the department of justice in washington, not arizona, in washington, knew about the tactic of gun walking well before brian terry was murder. so we have a fundamentally flawed investigation. we have a dead border patrol agent, hundreds of dead mexican citizens, hundreds of weapons with americans' finger prints on both sides of the border unaccounted for and a false letter being written to a committee of congress and yet we're being asked for more time. please wait. give it more time. it's been over a year, mr. chairman. if congress has time to look into major league baseball, the bcs and invite stephen colbert to come to a committee hearing, surely to goodness we have time to get answers on a fundamentally flawed, lethal investigation like fast and furious. and thus, we have, mr. chairman,

terry. >> we now recognize the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. lynch, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, this investigation and these hearings started in response to the loss of agent brian terry, and i think all of us continue to offer our condolences to his family and to all of his colleagues in uniform who protect our borders in all of our agencies and that really was the impetus for these investigations, and i certainly could have been one of the 31 democrats who signed that letter who asked the department of justice to cooperate with this investigation to be forthcoming with any evidence that helped us get to the truth, but unfortunately over the course of these hearings and this investigation, that focus, that seriousness of purpose regarding the loss of agent terry has been lost. it has now morphed into a more selective, a more partisan, a more media-seeking process. what we're talking about now is in this last iteration of the contempt citation we claim or at least the majority now claims that we are seeking documents

mr. chairman. we've just received a statement from brian terry's family. i think as we debate these amendments and we talk about holding the attorney general in contempt of congress i think it's very important that we continue to put a face on the life that was lost and i think it's very fitting we hear from his family during -- >> i would ask unanimous consent that the statement be placed in the record. >> without objection so ordered. >> the statement came from the terry family attorney general, he released the following statement. attorney general eric holder's refusal to fully disclose the documents and president obama's assertion of executive privilege, serves to compound this tragedy. it denies the terry family and the american people the truth. our son, border patrol agent brian terry, was killed by members of a mexican drug cartel armed with weapons from this failed justice department gun trafficking investigation. for more than 18 months, we have been asking our federal government for justice and accountability. the documents sought by the house o

mr. chairman. attorney general, december 14th, 2010, brian terry was gunned down and we began knowing more about fast and furious shortly thereafter. but you've said people representing you have said repeatedly you didn't know about it before then. i've sent you a number of letters. senator grassley sent you a number of letters. you mentioned in your opening statement the speaker's letter. speaker did not limit the scope of the subpoenas you're under an obligation to respond to. he simply asked you for response to two key areas. he did not revoke any subpoenas. however, you implied that we were working together when, in fact, since may 18th nothing, nothing has come from your department. not one shred of paper. i want to ask you first of all today have you and your attorneys produced internally the materials responsive to the subpoenas? >> we believe that we have responded to the subpoenas. >> no, mr. attorney general, you're not a good witness. a good witness answers the question asked. so let's go back again. have you and your attorneys produced internally the materials responsive? in other words h

terry family. that is a congressman, mr. cummings saying they'll get to the bottom of it. >> they obviously do. is is that justice for brian terry will not necessarily come through holding attorney general holder in contempt. that justice for the terry family will come by the allowing the inspector generals and both justice and homeland security to do their job, complete their investigations and file a report. megyn: do you think that race is in any way behind the motivation of the republicans who are still pursuing this? >> i think it's like politics is like thunder, and race may be like lightning. and i tell you why. it's clear that there is a great deal of push back from people on the right to attorney general holder's efforts to stand up for immigrants, to stand up for the voting rights act of citizens in states all across the nation, and perhaps it's anxiety about his efforts to stand up for those folks, many of whom are african-american, many of whom are latino, not exclusively and not completely. and so i think that we have to recognize in this country that race is many times an element w

. >>> i'm terry mcsweeney let's turn to mr. sunshine with mr. mike nicco. >> mr.sonality is what you are trying to say? good morning. doppler showing red flag warning in the sierra towards nevada. higher fire danger headed that way. drizzle along the coast higher elevations otherwise the big story clouds and cooler weather. only half moon bay three degrees warmer los gatos the same as yesterday santa rosa one degree warmer than 24 hours ago everybody else 1 to 10° cooler not even as impressive as it will be this afternoon when we are 15 to 23° cooler than yesterday from 57 along the coast, mid 60s around the bay, low to mid 70s inland. here's sue with traffic. >>> good morning. kind of a sad commute on the peninsula, southbound 101 holly debris cleared out of lanes traffic a little slow past the scene. southbound 101 before poplar overturn blocking left lane slow from 101 to 92, 20 minutes left lane continues to be blocked. problems westbound 580 past north livermore accident in the median slow traffic as you head out of the central valley up and over the altamont