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

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself the balance of my time. *Mr. Speaker. we have immense power in this body. We have the power to do things that other people only dream about. We can do some wonderful things. We can fight for a cure of cancer. We can feed hungry children. We can" defend this country by making the resources available to do all of those things. But every now and then in the history of this Congress. we also have the ability to run off the tracks and to bring down the power of this institution on an individual or an organization or a couple of individuals and put them in such jeopardy and deny them such rights that it is a nightmare to the average citizen of what they would do in that situation. That is why there are rules. There are rules to protect the American citizen against its government. In court. in grand jury proceedings. in the Congress of the United States. when you ask a question to a witness. the witness. according- to the Supreme Court and to our* Constitution. they have a right to.know why you are asking that question and is that question pertinent to this investigation. Let me tell my colleagues. in the circus we were running in this committee at that time. the members did not know what was going on in that investigation. The members did not know why the questions were being asked. The members did not know why information was being subpoenaed. but the fact of the matter was these three witnesses came before our committee. They answered numerous questions. They submitted to depositions. They provided thousands of pages of testimony. and today none of them have been charged with anything. other than in the allegations of speeches by Members of Congress besmirching their reputations. Mr. Speaker. I happen to think. as I said at the outset of these hearings. I think there some real bad judgment has been maae and maybe some wrongdoings that have been had. but that is not what these Members are in liability for. These Members are in liability now because we shifted from that hearing in the middle to questioning about whether or not something was wrong in a lawsuit in Texas. and we were going to adjudicate whether it was. We do not adjudicate. We do not adjudicate. So they refused to testify. because the committee already had the information. but it was once suggested that maybe they could be caught for perjury. So they did not testify. They said you have the information from another source. some of which was sealed or not sealed. This committee never laid out for them the pertinency of those questions to that investigation at that time. As the Supreme Court has recognized. when gou put a person in that kind of jeopardy. the average American. the average American who is sitting there in front of a big committee of Congress. they have rights. They need protection. because the government is not always right. that is why we changed the law with respect to the Internal Revenue Service. because they made decisions about peoples guilt. about. peoples liabilities. hounded them and badgered them and intimidated them with the power of the Government. They threatened people with jail. Mr. Speaker. that is where these three people sit today. After being badgered and hounded. being called common thieves by members of the committee. in spite of no evidence that that was the case. whether or not they were involved in the regulations. thebest evidence we have today is the sworn testimony of the people from the Department of Interior that had no impact. little involvement in those regulations. The best evidence we have today of their involvement in the court case in Texas was the evidence that the oil companies took from this hearing and ran over to .that court case. The judge said get out of here. Today. they are put before this Congress with the full force and effect. But who is not here? As many of my colleagues pointed out. the oil companies are not here. After admitting and settling to underpaying plight terms. it is like we do not admit any liability. admit or deny. you.know. how you do when you settle a lawsuit. We cannot tell you whether we are guilty or not. We are just going to put this $450 million out there out on the table because we want this to go away. What these oil companies did to the taxpayers of the United States. they lied to them. They cheated to them. They wrongfully withheld payments that were entitled to each and every taxpayer of this country. Now they settled for half a billion dollars. $438 million. It is estimated. as the gentleman from California said in his Subcommittee on Government Management. Information and Technology. that it could be as high as $2 billion to the Federal taxpayer. Many of these same oil companies settled with the State of California. When they took the money from the State of California. they took it from the schoolchildren. because the money was destined for the schoolchildren of California. They settled there for. I think. almost $2 billion in underpayments. maybe more. I do not have the exact figure. but it runs to the billions. So those companies who cheated and lied did not receive a single question from this committee. Did not receive a letter. Did not receive a subpoena. Did not receive a letter of inquiry. Were not asked to testify about cheating the Federal Government. But the organization. the people who blew the whistle and said the government is not doing its job. and they came under a Civil War statute was to protect the government from being ripped off by the merchants during the Civil War by supplying us phony goods or overcharging us. They came under that Civil War statute and they said. "Hey. you guys are not doing your job. they are cheating you." Yes. they were. And they were entitled to recovery. They may have shared that recovery in a wrongful fashion. but to date nobody has been charged with doing- that. and the Justice Department has had this for a gear and a half. almost 2 years. Why the imbalance? Why are we going after these people and attributing criminal liability? This is not about our subpoena power. These people answered the subpoenas. They came to the committee. They turned over the documents. But when they were asked these questions. knowing their rights under the Supreme Court decisions that have thrown out contempt citations from this. said time and again this citizen has not been protected from the powers of this Congress. they said that question is not pertinent. I do not believe it is pertinent. And as the Supreme Court says. the citizen has to sit in the chair and is compelled to make a choice immediately. So on advice of their counsel. they quickly said. "I do not believe that question is pertinent." and we have a right to go forward with this process if we believe it was. I have to say to my colleagues. nobody laid the foundation for these citizens so they could determine what we were talking about in this hearing. because this. hearing was from hell to -breakfast on subject matter. It was all over the room. We changed the direction of this hearing numerous times. And I do not think that we ought to attach criminal liability to these citizens that did such an incredible service for the taxpayers and the citizens of this country. We certainly should not do it in the name ofoversight. because if we do it in the. name of this oversight. we are doing it in the name of onesided oversight. Mr. Speaker. if we are going to call POGO. if we are going to call these three citizens. we should have called the oil companies. I am sure we will call the trial attorneys and the tire companies in the Firestone investigation. I am sure we will call the victims and the tobacco companies. But here we only called one. Do not do this to the citizens of the United States. They may end up being tried or charged by the Justice Department under the active investigation. but do not use and misuse the powers of this institution against these three citizens who did the right thing and were badgered and hounded and called names. not allowed to testify. not allowed to give opening statements. and then placed in that kind of jeopardy. It simply is not fair.