Date: 2000-10-27
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

while they have answered hundreds and Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time hundreds of hours of questions in depoas I may consume. sitions and elsewhere. where the comMr. Speaker. this matter this morn- mittee. in fact. had the evidence that ing is a serious matter because poten- they were seeking in the depositions in tially for three citizens of the United the other case. they have now decided States criminal liability may attach. that they are going to make victims of But as serious as this matter is for these four people. those three individuals. this matter is The victims here are the taxpayers of not about what the chairman of my the United States who were defrauded committee just said it is about. of half a billion dollars or more by 15 This is about three or four individ- oil companies. uals that blew the whistle on a plan by Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of 15 oil companies to deny the American my time. taxpayers of the revenues that they Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker. I were entitled to through the royalty yield 8 minutes to the good gentleprogram for oil taken off of the public woman from Wyoming . lands that are owned by the people of the chairman of the subcommittee that the United States. conducted most of the hearings. Since that whistle has been blown Mrs. CUBIN. Mr. Speaker. I rise and that program was discovered and today because I have a solemn duty to inform the House of the investigation which I. as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals. was assigned to lead. . I am very saddened by the remarks of the previous speaker because he knows very well that is not what this case is about. I rise today to uphold this bodys constitutional right to conduct lawful and thorough investigative oversight hearings on issues that are important to the American people. This is not something that we choose to do. This is something that we swear we will do when we raise our hand and take the oath that we will support the Constitution and the laws of this body. This issue actually stems from the filing of a False Claims Act lawsuit in a Federal courthouse in Texas by two whistleblowers who uncovered royalty underpayments by major oil companies to States. local governments. and to the Federal Government. The fact is these two whistleblowers are named Benjamin Johnson and John Martinek. These are the good guys. These are the private citizens who exposed the major oil companies underpayment of royalties. They are responsible for getting an additional $400 million for Federal. State. and local governments. in other words for American citizens. Johnson and Martinek should be commended for their efforts in stopping this illegal practice. There is no question in anyones mind that the oil companies should pay every single penny that they owe in royalties. That is in everyones best interest. It is the law and it must be done. But the problem in this case is that the whistleblowers case was sealed in the Eastern District of Texas. and what that means is no details of the suit could be released outside the courthouse but the very existence of the suit could not be established either. The existence had to be kept secret. However. somebody leaked the details of that secret lawsuit to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO). That insider information allowed POGO to file a nearly identical lawsuit in the same court in Eastern Texas. Now. could that be a coincidence? No. when we consider there are 91 Federal courts in the United States. The Committee on Resources investigation focused on two Federal employees. Robert Speir and Robert Berman. Mr. Spear is with the Department of Energy. Mr. Berman is currently an employee with the Department of Interior. They are suspected of leaking the details of that lawsuit to POGO. Again. the whistleblowers are the ones who filed the original suit. Well. POGO had been lobbying looking for a lawsuit to file. and they also had been lobbying for changing oil valuation rules. These two employees rewards for doing what they did. for releasing the information and for assisting in changing oil valuation rules. were rewarded $383.000 each already. They had a signed agreement that they would be awarded that amount of money and. if the agreement had been adhered to. they would have received another $4 million between them. Just a few days ago. the Committee obtained from the Department of Justice the smoking gun. which establishes that at the very time POGO and the two Federal employees were conducting this arrangement. that Robert Berman. the Interior employee. was actively engaged in drafting a new regulation dealing with the collection of oil royalties. These regulations were being sought by POGO. The regulations indirectly benefit POGO chairman and directly benefit his clients. who are in the business of collecting oil royalties. The key players in the investigation were issued subpoenas. as was stated by the chairman of the Committee on Resources. but they refused to answer questions. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources asked Danielle Brian Stockton. the executive director of POGO. Henry Banta. the chairman of the POGO board. and Bob Berman questions. Let me tell my colleagues the question that they were asked. direct questions about how POGO and the Federal employees learned about this sealed lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas. This is a quote from the Record. Mr. Banta: "I believe that issue is not pertinent to the inquiry of this Committee." Ms. Brian: "I will not answer that question because of my pertinence." Mr. Berman stated another answer to another question: "I will not answer this subcommittees questions." In other words. these people were saying. they would determine what were pertinent questions for them to be asked in our investigation. They were saying they would decide what questions could be asked and be made pertinent. Ask yourself. how well would the American people have been served if the tobacco company executives refused to answer the questions that they were asked? Ask yourself. will Firestone and Ford Motor Company executives have to answer questions put to them by committees when the committees are trying to protect the safety and the very lives of American people? The Constitution and the rules of the House of Representatives are clear on this point. The House must conduct oversight hearings. and the House and only the House is the judge of what answers they need to questions in a thorough oversight review. I have to remind you. we are not here today to vote on the guilt or the innocence of the three people who are cited in this resolution. That is up to the Department of Justice. which at this very time is conducting an investigation into all of the activities having to do with the payments and the proceeds of the lawsuit. Our job is to vote on the resolution to adopt this report. saying that the Speaker is authorized to present the facts of this report to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. The United States Attorney will then place the matter before a grand jury. The grand jury. not the House. will decide whether any or all of these parties will be found with contempt. The people cited in this report have defied this bodys constitutional right to ask the why and the how about the largest payoffs ever accepted by Federal employees. The American people have a right to know. That is the nature of todays resolution. I hope that everyone will vote in support of the authority of the Congress of the House of Representatives.