• 7 months ago
Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) leads a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing to examine Congressional oversight of emergency powers.

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Transcript
00:00:00 Committee will come to order.
00:00:03 When a crisis unfolds, our government needs to be able to respond quickly.
00:00:09 Whether it's a pandemic, extreme weather, or a foreign attack,
00:00:14 we must be ready to protect the safety and the security of our citizens.
00:00:18 In order to act quickly when disasters strike,
00:00:21 Congress has given the President broad emergency powers.
00:00:25 Most emergency powers have never been used,
00:00:28 but they could potentially bring sweeping changes to our government,
00:00:33 to our economy, and society.
00:00:35 These powers could allow the government to take over communication channels,
00:00:39 control transportation systems, halt trade with other countries, and more.
00:00:45 Without an appropriate check from Congress,
00:00:47 there is a risk that these powers could be misused or abused.
00:00:53 And that's why Congress passed the National Emergencies Act in 1976.
00:00:58 This legislation gave Congress the power to conduct oversight over these powers,
00:01:02 including a mechanism to quickly end a national emergency.
00:01:06 But after a 1983 Supreme Court decision,
00:01:09 the National Emergencies Act had to be amended,
00:01:12 and the mechanism for Congress to end a national emergency was weakened.
00:01:17 It now requires a veto-proof two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress.
00:01:24 In other words, there is an imbalance of power.
00:01:27 It is easy for a president to declare a national emergency,
00:01:31 but very hard for Congress to end one.
00:01:34 We've seen presidents of both parties increasingly use emergency powers.
00:01:40 In cases like the COVID-19 pandemic,
00:01:42 this was necessary to protect our economy and public health.
00:01:47 In other cases, recent presidents have used emergency powers
00:01:50 to attempt to advance their policy goals,
00:01:53 often in areas where Congress should be providing input as well as oversight.
00:01:58 Reforming the National Emergencies Act is not about
00:02:01 thwarting the policy goals of either party.
00:02:04 It's about strengthening our democracy
00:02:07 and ensuring Congress maintains the responsibility to oversee executive power.
00:02:13 We have had bipartisan support for this reform in the past,
00:02:17 and I'm hopeful that we can build on that progress,
00:02:20 and I'm looking forward to considering legislative options
00:02:23 that can advance this in committee this Congress.
00:02:27 We must examine how we use our current national emergency power authorities
00:02:31 and ensure that Congress can effectively oversee emergencies.
00:02:36 Today's hearing and our panel of expert witnesses will help us do that,
00:02:41 and I look forward to the discussion.
00:02:43 Now, I recognize Ranking Member Paul for his opening remarks.
00:02:47 In 1867, a journalist named Walter Bage
00:02:51 explained that in Britain,
00:02:53 the monarchy and the House of Lords no longer exercise true governing authority,
00:02:57 that the real work, the real power of government,
00:03:00 was done by the House of Commons and the Prime Minister.
00:03:03 In contrast, the United States has allowed the majority
00:03:07 of governing power to remain in the executive branch.
00:03:10 In some ways, the United States of America is a monarchy in disguise.
00:03:14 The United States maintains the veneer of a constitutional republic,
00:03:17 but often operates as an elected monarchy
00:03:21 in which the president exercises awesome and unchecked power by decree.
00:03:26 Today, the president can unilaterally determine when and how to unlock
00:03:30 and exercise extraordinary powers not permitted during normal operations.
00:03:35 Once the president simply declares an emergency,
00:03:38 emergencies are rarely terminated.
00:03:40 The national emergency declared in reaction to the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis
00:03:45 is still in effect to this day.
00:03:48 Some powers are so inimical to the concept of constitutional republic
00:03:52 that they could never have been granted to the president,
00:03:55 or should have never been granted to the president in the first place.
00:03:58 One such emergency power, pursuant to the Communications Act of 1934,
00:04:03 gives the president nearly unchallenged authority
00:04:06 to restrict access to the internet,
00:04:08 conduct email surveillance, and control computer systems,
00:04:11 television and radio broadcasts, and cell phones.
00:04:14 President Woodrow Wilson actually used a similar power three times during World War I.
00:04:20 These laws were written for a different time,
00:04:22 but this power, which some refer to as the internet kill switch,
00:04:26 threatens the rights protected by the First and Fourth Amendments,
00:04:30 as well as property rights, simply by declaring an emergency.
00:04:33 This dangerous imbalance of constitutional separations of powers
00:04:37 is not simply aggrandizement by the executive branch.
00:04:41 Congress has been complicit and made itself a feckless branch of the federal government
00:04:45 by granting the president so many emergency powers
00:04:48 and refusing to regularly vote on termination of national emergencies
00:04:52 as required by current law.
00:04:54 We do not have to accept as inevitability
00:04:58 the degeneration of a republic into a rule by an all-powerful executive.
00:05:02 We do not have to be a monarchy disguised as a republic.
00:05:05 It's time for Congress to restore itself
00:05:08 as the first among equals of the branches of government as envisioned in the Constitution.
00:05:12 I hope this hearing marks only the beginning of a serious and sustained effort
00:05:17 to restore the Constitution, reclaim the authority of Congress,
00:05:21 and protect the liberties of the people by paring back
00:05:23 the vast emergency powers delegated to the president.
00:05:26 - It's the practice of this committee to swear in witnesses,
00:05:33 so if each of you will please stand and raise your right hand.
00:05:37 Do you swear the testimony that you will give before this committee
00:05:41 will be the truth, the whole truth, the nothing but the truth, so help you God.
00:05:45 Thank you. You may be seated.
00:05:48 Our first witness is Elizabeth Goytin,
00:05:53 and she is the senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program
00:05:57 at the Brennan Center for Justice.
00:05:59 Prior to that role, she served as counsel to Senator Russ Feingold
00:06:03 and as a trial attorney in the federal programs branch
00:06:06 of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice.
00:06:09 Ms. Goytin is a nationally recognized expert on presidential emergency powers,
00:06:14 government surveillance, and government secrecy.
00:06:18 Ms. Goytin, thank you for being before us here today.
00:06:21 You are recognized for your opening comments.
00:06:23 - Thank you.
00:06:24 Chairman Peters, Ranking Member Paul, and members of the committee,
00:06:26 thank you for this opportunity to testify.
00:06:29 The legal framework for emergency powers in this country is an urgent need of reform.
00:06:34 It grants the president sweeping powers,
00:06:36 some of which seem like the stuff of autocratic regimes,
00:06:39 with few safeguards against abuse.
00:06:41 Fortunately, there is a ready way for Congress to build a meaningful check into this system.
00:06:47 Emergency powers have existed in countries around the world for hundreds of years.
00:06:52 The theory behind them is simple.
00:06:54 Because emergencies are, by definition, unforeseen and unforeseeable,
00:06:59 the powers conferred on the government by existing laws might be insufficient to address them.
00:07:04 But amending the law to provide greater powers might take too long
00:07:08 and might do damage to principles that are held sacrosanct in ordinary times.
00:07:12 Emergency powers thus authorize a limited departure from the legal norm.
00:07:18 Their purpose is to give the head of state a temporary boost in power
00:07:22 until the emergency passes or until there's time to change the law
00:07:26 through the normal political process.
00:07:28 Many countries have emergency powers written into their constitutions.
00:07:32 The U.S. Constitution is an outlier.
00:07:35 It grants no explicit emergency powers to the president.
00:07:38 So presidents have, for the most part, relied on Congress to provide them.
00:07:43 About a century ago, a system evolved where presidents would declare a national emergency
00:07:49 and that declaration would trigger special powers contained in a whole range of statutes,
00:07:55 all of which said something like, "In a national emergency, the president can do X."
00:07:59 But there was no overarching statute governing this system.
00:08:03 The president didn't have to identify the powers he was invoking.
00:08:07 He didn't have to report to Congress.
00:08:09 And there was no limit on how long emergency declarations could remain in place.
00:08:13 Congress passed the National Emergencies Act in 1976 to rein in presidential power.
00:08:20 It attempted to do that in three main ways.
00:08:23 First, it provided that emergency declarations would expire after a year
00:08:28 unless the president renewed them.
00:08:29 Second, it allowed Congress to terminate emergency declarations using a legislative veto,
00:08:35 a law that goes into effect without the president's signature.
00:08:38 And third, it required Congress to meet every six months
00:08:42 while an emergency declaration was in effect to consider a vote on termination.
00:08:46 By any measure, the National Emergencies Act has failed to achieve its purpose.
00:08:52 Expiration of emergency declarations after one year,
00:08:55 which was supposed to be the default, has become the rare exception.
00:08:59 There are 43 emergency declarations in place today,
00:09:03 most of which have been in effect for over a decade.
00:09:06 In 1983, the Supreme Court held that legislative vetoes are unconstitutional.
00:09:11 So now Congress effectively needs a supermajority
00:09:15 to terminate a declaration over the president's likely veto.
00:09:19 And for more than 40 years, Congress simply ignored
00:09:22 the requirement to periodically review existing emergencies.
00:09:26 Why should this worry us?
00:09:28 Because an emergency declaration unlocks powers
00:09:32 contained in more than 130 statutory provisions,
00:09:36 and some of these carry enormous potential for abuse.
00:09:40 There is a law that allows the president to take over and shut down
00:09:45 wire or radio communications facilities.
00:09:49 It was last invoked during World War II,
00:09:51 when wire communications meant telephone calls or telegrams,
00:09:55 and most American households didn't even own a telephone.
00:09:58 Today, it could arguably be used to exert control over US-based internet traffic.
00:10:03 Other laws allow the president to freeze Americans' assets
00:10:07 without any judicial process, to control domestic transportation,
00:10:12 and even to suspend the prohibition on government testing
00:10:16 of chemical and biological agents on unwitting human subjects.
00:10:21 Given how potent these powers are,
00:10:25 it's remarkable that there hasn't been more abuse.
00:10:28 We've been lucky.
00:10:30 But it would be irresponsible to continue to rely on luck
00:10:35 or presidential self-restraint.
00:10:36 Congress should pass legislation to restore its role as a check on these powers.
00:10:43 There are several bills pending before Congress right now,
00:10:46 broadly supported by Democrats and Republicans,
00:10:49 that would require emergency declarations to terminate after 30 days
00:10:54 unless approved by Congress using expedited procedures.
00:10:58 This simple, common-sense change would give presidents flexibility
00:11:03 when it's most needed in the immediate aftermath of a crisis,
00:11:07 while still allowing Congress to step in
00:11:09 and serve as a backdrop against executive overreach or abuse.
00:11:13 Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
00:11:16 Well, thank you.
00:11:17 Our second witness is Satya Thalam.
00:11:20 He is a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation.
00:11:24 Mr. Thalam is a policy expert and an advisor on administrative law,
00:11:28 regulatory policy, and emergency powers.
00:11:31 Previously, he was a senior policy official
00:11:33 at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President Trump.
00:11:37 He also served as the chief economist on the
00:11:39 Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
00:11:42 I'm familiar with that committee, serving under Chairman Johnson.
00:11:47 Welcome back to HSGAC.
00:11:49 You may proceed with your opening comments, Mr. Thalam.
00:11:54 Thank you, Chairman Peters, Ranking Member Paul, and members of the committee.
00:11:57 Thanks for your invitation to testify and return to a place I consider a second home.
00:12:01 My name is Satya Thalam.
00:12:02 You have my bio, but as was mentioned, I think it's most pertinent.
00:12:05 I was for five years a senior staffer at this very committee, where the final bill that I
00:12:10 managed was a proposed reform to the National Emergencies Act.
00:12:13 I did that before I left, which was alluded to in your opening statement,
00:12:18 was reported favorably by voice vote at the time.
00:12:21 I'll forego restating much of what has been and will be said by my esteemed colleagues,
00:12:26 especially since I could probably just copy and paste the chair and ranking
00:12:29 members' opening statements and just enter that into the record,
00:12:32 because I agree with all of it, but I'll remark on a couple comments.
00:12:35 First, the National Emergencies Act is a thoughtful solution to a problem of Congress's own making.
00:12:41 Like many things in both executive and congressional practice,
00:12:44 sometimes one-time circumstances prompted one-time responses.
00:12:48 But over time, those policy responses build up without any systemic consideration of their
00:12:53 total effect.
00:12:54 Indeed, powers meant to be exercised only in the case of an emergency have been
00:12:59 observed since before the country's founding.
00:13:01 The Federalist Paper speaks of powers needed to address "national exigencies."
00:13:06 In 1776, General Washington observed, "Desperate diseases require desperate remedies,"
00:13:11 when the Continental Congress, needing to flee Philadelphia,
00:13:14 empowered him with "full power to order and direct all things relative to operations of the war."
00:13:20 Of course, the word "emergency" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution,
00:13:24 and yet Congress, as the sole lawmaking branch, has deemed it necessary to grant emergency powers
00:13:29 across hundreds of duly enacted statutes.
00:13:31 The conceit being that the executive, in execution of the law in the public interest,
00:13:36 will need to respond to uniquely emergency situations,
00:13:39 though that delegation should be cabined by congressional say-so.
00:13:43 So I would note, although the NEA is definitely in need of an update,
00:13:48 owing to an unforeseen judicial decision, its basic structure is sound and is appropriate
00:13:54 for Congress to reexamine it to better assert its Article I prerogative.
00:13:58 Second, a conceptual note, if you'll bear a slightly tortured metaphor.
00:14:01 Think of the National Emergency Act not as the direct grant of emergency power itself,
00:14:06 but as a key which unlocks a vault in which is enclosed the actual instruments of emergency response.
00:14:11 That is, Congress, when it authorizes through other statutes, emergency powers,
00:14:16 adds to the tools in the vault.
00:14:17 The problem is that there's no timer on this vault, nor easy, plausible way to take back the key.
00:14:26 Another central conceit, emergencies are by definition unpredictable,
00:14:30 but they should also by definition be time limited and self-evident.
00:14:34 Therefore, Congress doesn't need to run down the impossible task of prescribing
00:14:39 every possible emergency, but rather ensure it has the means to have its say with respect
00:14:44 to emergency declarations and the attendant emergency powers based on those generalized aspects.
00:14:49 However, the committee decides to proceed, the sweet spot for any reform is one that is on its
00:14:56 face policy neutral and designed to service only the interests of Congress's lawmaking role vis-a-vis
00:15:02 the president rather than any particular political agenda. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
00:15:08 Thank you. Our third witness is Gene Healy. He is the senior vice president for policy at the
00:15:17 Cato Institute. His research interests include executive power and the role of the presidency,
00:15:22 as well as federalism and over criminalization. Mr. Healy, welcome to the committee. You may
00:15:27 proceed with your opening remarks. Thank you. Chairman Peters, Ranking Member Paul,
00:15:35 distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
00:15:39 As my fellow witness, Ms. Goitein, mentioned, upon assuming office, the president now enjoys access
00:15:48 to over 230 statutory powers that he can activate in a self-declared national emergency.
00:15:55 Most of them can be triggered simply by saying the magic words and putting a signature on an
00:16:01 emergency declaration. My other co-panelist, Mr. Thalam, suggests that we think of these powers
00:16:10 as tools contained in a vault, and I like that metaphor, but for in some cases for tools I'd
00:16:17 substitute weapons. The original National Emergency Act was an attempt to safeguard that vault and
00:16:26 time limit the president's access to the weapons that it holds. But when the NEA framework collapsed
00:16:34 in the mid-1980s, the vault door swung open, and since then the only thing keeping presidents
00:16:40 from raiding the arsenal is their sense of self-restraint. So in that light, it actually
00:16:48 really is remarkable that we've seen, we haven't seen far greater abuses. Despite the lack of
00:16:56 meaningful legal checks on these powers, up until now, according to the Brennan Center's research,
00:17:03 nearly 70 percent of these powers have never been triggered, at least not yet.
00:17:08 But over the last two administrations, we've seen that whatever norms once restricted the use of
00:17:16 presidential emergency power have eroded. For instance, in decades past, no president seems to
00:17:25 have imagined that you could tap into that arsenal to do an end run around Congress in a budget fight.
00:17:33 But that's precisely what President Trump did in February 2019 when he declared a national
00:17:39 emergency in order to build the wall on the southern border. Nor does it seem that any
00:17:44 prior president imagined he could invoke emergency powers to permanently cancel hundreds of billions
00:17:51 of dollars in student loan debt without authorization from Congress. But that's what
00:17:58 President Biden attempted with another emergency proclamation in August of '22.
00:18:03 As my colleagues have suggested, the way to re-secure the emergency powers vault is pretty
00:18:11 straightforward. It involves amending the National Emergencies Act to impose an approve or expire
00:18:19 framework, sunsetting presidential emergency declarations after a matter of weeks and
00:18:26 requiring actual authorization from Congress to extend them further. Those process reforms
00:18:33 are essential, but I'd like to suggest that the committee considers substantive reforms as well,
00:18:40 in addition to thinking about how to safeguard the vault, taking a look at the arsenal that's
00:18:46 within it. If there are weapons in that vault that the president doesn't need, weapons that
00:18:53 are especially susceptible to abuse, consider taking them off the shelves. For instance,
00:19:00 any comprehensive effort at emergency powers reform will ultimately have to deal with the
00:19:08 International Emergency Economics Economic Powers Act, or IEPA, at some point. That 1977 law has
00:19:17 been the source of nearly 90 percent of emergency declarations historically and over 90 percent of
00:19:24 the ones still in effect today. And while most of these have been fairly uncontroversial,
00:19:31 they're not actually emergencies, the vast powers that IEPA grants are particularly susceptible to
00:19:38 abuse. For instance, in the months after he declared the border wall emergency,
00:19:45 President Trump twice threatened to weaponize the statute against major U.S. trading partners,
00:19:51 first against Mexico with a series of across-the-board tariffs that would go into
00:19:56 effect unless they crack down on cross-border migration. And shortly after that, the president
00:20:02 cited the statute as authority for hereby ordering American companies to get out of China.
00:20:10 Thankfully, the president didn't follow through on those threats, but if a future president does,
00:20:15 it's not at all clear that the courts will stop that action. Even more concerning,
00:20:23 nothing in the statute prevents it from being turned against American citizens.
00:20:28 Such uses have been rare, but they're potentially available. Substantive reforms in these areas
00:20:34 could include barring IEPA's use as a trade war weapon, restricting its use to directly target
00:20:40 Americans, as well as shoring up due process protections for any U.S. person caught up in
00:20:46 the statute sweep. In conclusion, any of these reforms would provide a better check on abuse of
00:20:53 power than depending on presidential self-restraint. It should be clear by now that that's far too weak
00:21:00 a check. I thank the committee for its attention to this important issue, and I look forward to
00:21:06 your questions. Well, thank you. Mr. Fallon, most reform efforts to the National Emergency Act
00:21:16 propose that Congress affirmatively approve each national emergency. So my question for you is,
00:21:24 what is the value of having Congress approve rather than disapprove each emergency? Mr. Healey,
00:21:31 I want you to weigh in on this too, please. Mr. Fallon. Well, I think I would slightly modify
00:21:37 that in the first instance, most of the proposals do not require Congress to approve, but for a
00:21:43 certain time limit. So after a certain period, so 30, 60 days, Congress, it would require Congress
00:21:50 to approve any extension of that, and in the failure of Congress to decide to extend it,
00:21:56 it would be ended by default. So I think, again, the original NEA had a disapproval mechanism that
00:22:05 got around the presidential veto, but of course, they didn't, I don't believe the authors anticipated
00:22:11 a court decision that would invalidate that structure. I think the original authors of
00:22:18 National Emergencies Act, if they were right, if they were addressing this issue now, would do what
00:22:23 was, is in many of the recent proposals, which is by default, Congress has to assert its approval
00:22:30 or the emergency ends by default. I think disapproving is just a much higher barrier,
00:22:36 and that we've, it's what we result in now. Mr. Goyer, I'm going to want you to weigh in too,
00:22:41 but Mr. Healy. Yes, I think that's right. I think the frameworks for emergency powers reform that
00:22:49 we see now reflect the Chadha decision, getting rid of the legislative veto, and, you know, all
00:22:58 of them, the Protecting Our Democracy Act, Article I Act, the other bills that have been proposed,
00:23:05 are based on an approve or expire framework in which the president will have 30 days in the
00:23:14 case of a genuine national emergency to unlock these powers, but if these power, if the emergency
00:23:22 persists and these powers are thought to be necessary, that this weapon is supposed to
00:23:31 remain available, then Congress has to vote. So, I think they all are, the shape of the statutes
00:23:40 we see are a reflection of what the Supreme Court did in Chadha, and a way to, given that decision,
00:23:48 to reassert Congress's authority over these matters, rather than what has happened
00:23:59 since 1985 with the removal of the legislative veto, we're really in an upside down constitutional
00:24:06 situation where the president proposes and essentially the president disposes, and it
00:24:13 takes a veto proof super majority for Congress to reassert its authority, and these are designed to
00:24:20 turn the Constitution, to turn the emergency powers practice right side up. Very good. Mr. Goyer.
00:24:28 I agree with what's been said. It's important to remember also that a national emergency
00:24:33 declaration gives the president access to truly extraordinary powers and to a degree of flexibility
00:24:40 and discretion that would not be appropriate during ordinary times, and that Congress hasn't
00:24:44 chosen to give the president during ordinary times, and for that reason, Congress wanted to
00:24:49 make it easy to exercise some restraint on the president if the president abused those extraordinary
00:24:56 powers, and that's why Congress chose the legislative veto mechanism. Now that that's
00:25:01 off the table, the existing mechanisms for disapproval require such a high bar that they stack
00:25:10 the deck very much in favor of the president and against Congress. It throws the balance of power
00:25:15 out of whack. The closest way to approximate the balance of power in the original National
00:25:22 Emergencies Act is the mechanism that's been proposed in these reform bills, which is an
00:25:29 expiration, an automatic expiration period of approximately 30 days. I think in some cases
00:25:34 it's 20 depending on the bill, unless Congress votes using expedited procedures, which means
00:25:40 that it would be a simple majority vote where any member could force a vote. This would prevent
00:25:45 obstructionism. Congress would be voting, and a simple majority would carry the day, but it would
00:25:50 put Congress back in the position of being able to exercise a check on these extraordinary powers.
00:25:56 Very good. It's important for these reforms to be nonpartisan, to understand that we're talking
00:26:05 about executive power regardless of who is in that office and what party they may be from.
00:26:09 We have three experts, three of you here before us here today, and I would just like to get a
00:26:16 sense, and all of this is up to you, to all of you, so anyone who wants to chime in. Do you believe
00:26:21 that there's a bipartisan consensus among experts, among policy experts, as to how we reform the
00:26:28 National Emergency Act, and how would you characterize that right now? Whoever wants to go
00:26:33 first. I mean, this is self-selecting among the experts I've spoken to. There's widespread
00:26:39 agreement. I think the folks who have written and studied this issue agree with this central
00:26:46 conclusion that the NEA, as structurally intended, was fairly thoughtful, but for an unforeseen
00:26:54 judicial decision, it rendered it fairly inert. And so, the best way to address that is with a
00:27:02 reform that creates this, that inverts the structure. I'd also note, it's helpful to think of
00:27:11 these reforms as not just purely oppositional, the Congress versus the executive, but it provides,
00:27:18 and in fact forces, Congress to take a stand on emergency declarations. If it truly is an emergency
00:27:25 that's self-evident, that's maybe existential in nature, then it should be possible for the
00:27:33 president to gather the political support to extend that emergency and that response. So, it actually
00:27:38 provides an Article I imprimatur on any emergency declaration. And regardless of how Congress
00:27:44 disposes, it forces Congress to have to step up and say, "I'm taking a stand on this," whether it's
00:27:49 yes or no to continue it. Anyone like to add to that? Ms. Goytien? I would agree with that. And
00:27:55 of all the issues I've worked on in, you know, I guess almost 20 years at this point of doing this
00:28:00 type of work, this issue probably has the broadest and deepest bipartisan support, not just among
00:28:09 policy experts, but among members of Congress who I've spoken with. And there is a fundamental
00:28:16 understanding that this is not a partisan issue, but an issue of separation of powers, and that
00:28:22 the separation of powers is not an optional feature of the Constitution that can be switched on or off
00:28:27 depending on who is in the White House. It is a vital protection for our democracy. And emergency
00:28:34 powers can be abused and have been abused by presidents of both parties. So, this is fundamentally
00:28:40 not a partisan issue. It's an issue of safeguarding individual liberties, of safeguarding our
00:28:45 democracy. And I think that's well understood. We're over time, but Mr. Ealy, you have a quick response?
00:28:53 I don't have much to add to what my co-panelists have said. Yes, I think this is a
00:28:58 both within the policy community such as it is, and on Capitol Hill, this is an issue that gets
00:29:08 a lot of bipartisan support because it really, you know, we should take a longer time horizon
00:29:17 and recognize that at any given point, somebody may like what a president does with a vast
00:29:26 delegation of unilateral powers. But, you know, this over time, it erodes separation of powers
00:29:34 and the rule of law. And I think we've seen that in the last two administrations, and we've seen
00:29:40 bipartisan support for reforming it. Right, thank you. Ranking Member Paul, you're recognized for
00:29:45 your questions. I don't think it has to be partisan at all. Example that somebody who once worked for
00:29:52 Russ Feingold is in complete agreement with somebody who is from the other party and an
00:29:57 opposite wing of the other party, that there's definitely overlap. I think there's overlap
00:30:01 between the chairman and I on this issue. I think when you watch this unfold, you tend to see
00:30:06 Republicans louder when Biden abuses of power and Democrats louder when Trump abuses of power.
00:30:14 But I can say that when Trump moved the money around using emergency powers for the wall,
00:30:18 I was one of the 12 Republicans who voted to rein in that power and that it wasn't
00:30:21 appropriate use. It was abuse of power. I think as far as an adversary relationship,
00:30:27 there needs to be some. It needs to be the legislature against the executive,
00:30:30 like the good old days when we could combine Republicans and Democrats to always say,
00:30:35 we are going to do as Madison said, pit our ambition against their ambition. And those
00:30:40 checks and power would be the way the Republic would remain protected. We don't do that enough.
00:30:45 I can't remember when. It's been decades since the legislature rose up and said enough's enough.
00:30:50 We did a little bit in the 1970s. The church commission was a reaction to too much executive
00:30:56 power and too much power within the intelligence agencies. But I can tell you how bad it is right
00:31:00 now. I'm trying to get the classified church commission report from the 70s and can't get it.
00:31:06 So the administration, the executive, but how is the only way I can get it?
00:31:10 Somebody on appropriations would have to call up the current administration and say,
00:31:13 give it to them or we're not giving you any more money. That's the way it would work.
00:31:17 And it shouldn't matter which party we're in. But I can't get the classified church commission
00:31:21 report from the 1970s, which I think came out of this committee or what committee?
00:31:26 It was a special committee, but I mean, it's like it was a Senate product and I can't get it.
00:31:32 So I mean, it's just kind of crazy, the resistance of the executive branch.
00:31:36 I think everybody here understands how things got turned over topsy turvy by Chada, but I think it's
00:31:41 important explaining to the public what we mean by that. The legislative veto would mean you could
00:31:47 just come back in and the legislature could veto an emergency power or end it. And then the president
00:31:52 didn't have to sign it. The court came back and said, no, you can't have any laws. And there's
00:31:56 some logic to this. You can't have a law unless the president signs it. So the only way we gain
00:32:01 our power is we have to let things expire. So the emergency powers have to expire. And this is
00:32:07 getting to my question. Most of the emergency powers, I think, as researched by Brennan Center
00:32:13 and as mentioned by Mr. Healy as well, are under IEPA. So previously we tried to do this and then
00:32:19 we say, well, oh gosh, but we love sanctions. Everybody loves sanctions. We don't want to do
00:32:24 anything to have sanctions expire. But if you exclude IEPA, you exclude like 90% of the emergency
00:32:30 powers. And so the real question shouldn't be do you love sanctions or do you have doubts about
00:32:35 sanctions? Do you think sanctions should be forever and Congress should never weigh in?
00:32:39 Maybe if you love sanctions, we should still vote on them and they should expire and come back here
00:32:44 in six months or a year and we vote on them. And if you love them, I think the majority of people,
00:32:48 probably, I'm in the minority, the majority will probably still vote for sanctions on everybody
00:32:52 all the time everywhere. But there would at least be a debate and we put our imprimatur on it.
00:32:57 And then by putting our imprimatur on it, if you love sanctions, actually the sanctions may
00:33:01 be stronger because they're not actually approved by Congress. But right now we have no say in it
00:33:06 and they go on and on. And most of the emergency powers, there's really dangerous ones, internet
00:33:10 kill switch and things, but there's also ones that are used all the time, which are sanctions,
00:33:14 increasingly used on private individuals in other countries, sometimes used in Americans
00:33:18 and other in other countries. So I guess my question to all three of you, and we'll start
00:33:22 with Mr. Healey, is do you think the reform that time limits emergency decrees and has to,
00:33:29 says they have to be affirmatively voted on by Congress should apply to IEPA emergencies?
00:33:34 I think ultimately it should be under an approve or expire framework. Now I think there's
00:33:42 reasonable debate that can be had about time limits and particular provisions or whether it
00:33:53 should all be part of the same bill. But I think if you were looking down a list of extraordinary
00:34:04 emergency powers, such as the Brennan Center is produced, if you first came out in 2018 before
00:34:11 the last two controversial uses of emergency powers, if you were looking down that list,
00:34:17 you wouldn't have singled out the Military Construction Codification Act that was the
00:34:22 basis of the border wall emergency or the HEROES Act that was the basis of the student loan debt
00:34:28 cancellation. I don't think they'd be anywhere near the top of your list of broad, crazy delegations
00:34:35 of power. I think looking behind a veil of ignorance, looking at that list, you would identify
00:34:42 IEPA as something that could be turned against U.S. persons and something that can essentially
00:34:49 make people financial untouchables, and you'd be concerned about that. I think you're right,
00:34:55 and I just wanted to interject that during the middle of COVID, they took a CDC statute from the
00:35:00 1930s that said you can quarantine people for measles and like 10 other diseases and whatever
00:35:06 other measures are necessary, and through that, the Trump administration canceled mortgages and
00:35:11 said you don't have to pay your mortgages. Then the Biden administration did the same thing. So
00:35:15 both parties were guilty of this, but they took a statute that had nothing to do with mortgages,
00:35:19 and no sane person could think that a quarantine on measles has anything to do with paying your
00:35:23 mortgage, and they abused that power. But that should be whether you like people paying their
00:35:28 mortgages or not or like the rule of law. Everybody should say that's illegal and
00:35:32 unconstitutional. We shouldn't let executives do that, but we don't. We tend to base it on
00:35:36 the policy. Do we like the policy? We don't like the policy. Instead of should the president be
00:35:41 able to do this unilaterally on a statute that never gave him this? Ms. Goitins on including IEPA?
00:35:46 I think IEPA raises unique considerations and should be addressed separately. I think the
00:35:51 National Emergencies Act for foreign bills that are currently pending both go too far and not
00:35:56 far enough in certain ways. I think that requiring Congress to vote 40 times every year on sanctions
00:36:05 regimes, which is what would happen if you apply the NEA reform bills to IEPA declarations,
00:36:12 would be impracticable and possibly unnecessary. And so I think a modified-
00:36:20 They possibly could be grouped as well. I mean, if you have an emergency against Russia and there
00:36:24 are 40 different sanctions against Russia, I don't think there's anything that says that we
00:36:29 couldn't come forward and vote on the emergency that inclouds 40 different sanctions, not each
00:36:33 individual sanction. I think you would need to structure a system where there could be a vote
00:36:37 with expedited procedures on a package of sanctions once every year with amendments in
00:36:44 order to strip individual sanctions regimes. I think that's probably- But once again,
00:36:47 only works if they expire. That's correct, but that's a slightly different framework than what's
00:36:52 in the bills that are currently pending before Congress. And I would add that this approval
00:36:58 requirement would not solve some of the other problems with IEPA, such as the absence of due
00:37:03 process protections for Americans who are swept up in its crosshairs, such as the humanitarian
00:37:10 impacts on innocent foreign populations overseas. I agree with all that. The only problem with
00:37:16 separating it is Congress is, as I said in my opening, often feckless, if not most of the time.
00:37:22 So if we ever do anything on NEA, it'll be a miracle if we actually pass it through and get it
00:37:27 completely done. But I would say that if we leave out IEPA, we're leaving out an opportunity when
00:37:32 what we're talking about is emergencies. And people would say, "Oh, you got rid of four
00:37:36 emergencies out of 79 or something." We're going to get rid of the minority of- We're going to fix
00:37:40 a minority of the problem. So if anything, I'd argue for doing it all at one time. Mr. Thowell?
00:37:48 I mean, so to answer your question, should it be addressed? Yes. And I agree that I think there are
00:37:53 two concerns there, not with the intent. One is structurally how those emergency powers tend to
00:38:00 work in practice. The second is prudential. Putting on my staffer hat, I remember negotiating
00:38:05 about how much to include of IEPA and whether or not to. Look, as a principal, I think you're right.
00:38:11 I just caution the committee that you have a reform or a version of reform that is within grasp
00:38:18 and that could pass Congress and could get to the president's desk. Wholesale, including IEPA,
00:38:25 just increases the complexity, which doesn't mean don't go for it, but it just becomes that much
00:38:30 more slippery. And it's like trying to pick up antimatter with chopsticks or something.
00:38:34 The number of committees that get involved and the Treasury Department, it just becomes-
00:38:41 don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good is my only thing I would add,
00:38:45 even though I agree with the intent. Could I add one thing to that just briefly?
00:38:49 I think you're only going to get one bite at the IEPA apple. Take the time to do it right.
00:38:55 Don't throw some provisions about IEPA into the national emergencies reform bills that exist right
00:39:01 now. Those bills are ready to go. Get them signed and take the time to do an IEPA reform bill.
00:39:08 The Bridenstine Center has a proposal for legislative reform of IEPA. I would be happy
00:39:12 to work with anyone on this committee who would like to examine that as a path forward.
00:39:17 But move forward with national emergencies act reform and then take the time to get IEPA right.
00:39:24 Senator Rossoff, you're recognized for your questions.
00:39:27 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And this conversation has focused, I think, on what's practical
00:39:33 legislatively. I want to ask each of you what's most pressing. So putting aside the question of
00:39:38 what can practically be moved through this Congress, which-for each of you, please,
00:39:43 beginning with you, Ms. Coyteen, which single statutory reform, one in brief, do you believe
00:39:49 is most pressing with respect to presidential emergency authorities?
00:39:52 I think it is the congressional approval requirement for national emergency declarations.
00:39:58 And the reason that I think that is not only because it can be done immediately,
00:40:02 but it has the biggest bang for the buck because it significantly curtails the potential for abuse
00:40:08 of more than 130 different emergency powers. And it does so by restoring the balance of power
00:40:14 between the president and Congress in a way that's just good constitutional hygiene.
00:40:17 So I agree with something Mr. Hurley said earlier, which is that Congress should also
00:40:22 examine the individual tools in the toolbox. Some of these are powers that arguably no president
00:40:27 should ever have, such as suspending the prohibition on government testing of chemical
00:40:31 and biological agents on unwitting human subjects. However, I think for the biggest bang for your
00:40:37 buck, start with National Emergencies Act reform with a congressional approval requirement.
00:40:43 Thank you. Mr. Talam?
00:40:44 I-yeah, second that. Think of this as a-as a meta law. And probably the ideal situation
00:40:51 would be to reform and address and maybe repeal all of those emergency statutes.
00:40:56 I-I just don't know how you'd go about triaging that. I think the single most important element,
00:41:01 though, of reform is time limiting. A emergency is impossible to define in all its characteristics,
00:41:07 but by definition it should be time limited. Otherwise, it's not an emergency. So there
00:41:11 should be some mechanism that by default ends emergency declarations unless Congress says,
00:41:17 "You know what? You're right. This is a continued problem. We're going to take a stand and we're
00:41:21 going to extend it." Mr. Gidley?
00:41:23 I hate to be boring here, but I agree with my co-panelists. I-despite what I said about
00:41:30 addressing substantive powers, I do think that this-that a-sunsetting emergency declarations
00:41:38 and requiring affirmative approval by Congress to extend them further is the most valuable
00:41:48 reform that can be made if you have to pick one. And I think in-in particular it's valuable
00:41:56 because, as I said a moment ago, you wouldn't have predicted presidents-recent presidents
00:42:02 seizing on these two statutes, the Military Construction Codification Act and the HEROES Act,
00:42:09 you know. But we've seen that when presidential restraint in these areas starts to erode,
00:42:16 there's a lot of creative lawyering and statutes that you might not have thought
00:42:21 were bottomless wells of unilateral power can be turned to that purpose. And by require-by-by-by
00:42:30 sunsetting declarations and requiring affirmative approval, I think that
00:42:35 tackles a large part of that problem. Mr. Healy, and then we'll go back down the line this way,
00:42:40 which emergency power do you believe is most broadly or urgently threatening to
00:42:49 civil liberties and due process rights? Well, I-the provisions of the 1934 Communications Act
00:42:57 that are-that were mentioned earlier I think are pretty sweeping and staggering,
00:43:04 not something that a president needs even in a genuine national emergency.
00:43:08 I think the app-the potential application of IEPA to-to U.S. citizens to directly target them and
00:43:21 the lack of meaningful due process in that area is also a concern. But again, you know, I-I think
00:43:28 looking down the list of those 130 powers, we should expect that there's any number of them
00:43:34 that will be put to uses that we couldn't-we couldn't predict in advance. Thank you. Mr.
00:43:42 Tholum, same question. The single power you believe most threatening to civil liberties
00:43:46 and due process? I-I second the '34 Communications Law, especially in the context of-of creative
00:43:52 lawyering and what communications means today versus what was envisioned in-in that law.
00:43:58 Thank you. Ms. Goytien? I agree. The Communications Act and IEPA are probably the ones of most
00:44:03 concern. I'm going to flag a third one since those two were already discussed, and that is a
00:44:07 provision that allows the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration during a
00:44:13 national emergency to exercise such powers over transportation as the Secretary of Homeland
00:44:19 Security shall describe-shall prescribe, which appears to be a completely open-ended delegation
00:44:26 of authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to control domestic transportation
00:44:31 with-with no limits or specifications. And of course, the ability to move around freely
00:44:39 is critical to many of the other individual liberties that we all enjoy. So that- Can I just
00:44:44 add one quick thing? I think that-that the-the power you should be worried about is the one you
00:44:48 haven't thought about. It's-it's the creative going through the archives and finding some obscure
00:44:54 provision that no one's thought about in years and imagining an administration 10, 15, 20 years from
00:45:00 now pulling it out of the archives and saying, "I think-I think this authorizes a pretty
00:45:05 unprecedented exercise of power." Ms. Goytien, how could a administration use emergency powers
00:45:16 to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power from one elected executive to the next?
00:45:23 I wrote about this a little bit in an article that I published in The Atlantic in 2019.
00:45:28 To be honest, I'm reluctant to go into too much detail about how emergency powers could be
00:45:34 abused in this way. I think that's with respect what you're here to testify on.
00:45:38 Right. I think we need to be very cautious in having these discussions. One emergency power
00:45:45 that actually falls outside the National Emergencies Act framework that I'm worried about
00:45:50 is the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act is a law that allows the president to deploy
00:45:55 federal military troops to quell civil unrest or to execute the law in a crisis. And there's a lot
00:46:03 more to say about it, but it gives the president extremely broad and judicially unreviewable
00:46:09 discretion to deploy troops in ways that could certainly be abused and that could be abused in
00:46:20 ways that could throw a wrench into the works in terms of a peaceful transfer of power.
00:46:27 Brief comment on the Insurrection Act from each of you. I'm over time now. If you could sort of-
00:46:30 Mr. Healy, I'd like your perspective.
00:46:34 Yeah, I think it falls into the category of powers that can certainly be abused. I mean,
00:46:41 it hasn't been invoked since the LA riots, I believe, in '92. But if you look at the
00:46:50 discretion the president has under that act, it's certainly something that
00:46:57 would be prudent to tighten up.
00:47:00 Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:47:03 Thank you. Senator Hessen, you're recognized for your questions.
00:47:06 Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Paul for holding this hearing. And to all of our
00:47:11 witnesses, thanks for being here and for sharing your thoughts about how Congress can reform
00:47:16 presidential emergency powers and strengthen congressional oversight of those powers.
00:47:21 I want to shift the conversation just a little bit because of my role as chair of this committee's
00:47:27 subcommittee on spending oversight, which is tasked with combating waste, fraud, and abuse
00:47:33 in federal programs. I am concerned that bad actors take advantage of national emergencies
00:47:38 to access funding intended for victims, such as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic. So,
00:47:43 Ms. Goytin, does current law adequately safeguard taxpayer dollars from waste, fraud, and abuse
00:47:50 during presidentially declared emergencies? And what additional safeguards or oversight mechanisms
00:47:56 do we need to strengthen protections against waste, fraud, and abuse during a national emergency?
00:48:02 That's a great question. And it goes to this question of congressional oversight. Congress
00:48:08 should be able to oversee exactly how emergency powers are being used, including how funds are
00:48:14 being spent. There is a requirement in the National Emergencies Act that presidents report to Congress
00:48:21 every six months on the expenditures incurred as a direct or directly attributable to the exercise
00:48:27 of emergency powers. Now, that requirement is not sufficiently detailed. It should require more of
00:48:33 a breakdown. It should also require the president to specify the particular actions that were taken.
00:48:38 But even this minimal requirement of reporting expenditures has been honored in the breach.
00:48:43 When it comes to declarations that rely solely or primarily on IEPA, the responsibility for
00:48:51 reporting has been delegated to the Secretary of Treasury, and the Secretary has, in fact,
00:48:55 submitted those reports. You can find the notations of the submission in the congressional record.
00:49:00 When it comes to all other emergency declarations, it appears that the executive branch has not been
00:49:06 submitting these expenditure reports for more than 20 years. There are no notices in the
00:49:12 congressional records. Congressional committees that should have received these reports have been
00:49:16 unable to find them. Reporters who have submitted FOIA requests have been told that there are no
00:49:21 responsive documents. By all appearances, the executive branch has simply stopped complying
00:49:27 more than 20 years ago with a statutory reporting requirement, and that's indefensible,
00:49:33 and it prevents Congress from doing the kind of oversight you're talking about.
00:49:36 So does the reform legislation that you all have been talking about address this? I mean,
00:49:42 if the executive branch is just not doing it, do we just need to keep that portion of the
00:49:50 Emergency Act as is and just figure out how to enforce? The reform legislation does include
00:49:56 enhanced reporting requirements, but it doesn't directly take on this issue of noncompliance,
00:50:00 and I think Congress might need to start thinking about actions that it can take. I would remind all
00:50:06 of you that Congress has the power of the purse. Congress can provide, and it has done this in the
00:50:11 past, that certain amounts appropriated in funding bills will be withheld or reduced by 10 percent,
00:50:19 25 percent if required reports are not submitted. Well, thank you for that. I now do want to go back
00:50:25 to the broader topic because a president's ability to declare a national emergency can play an
00:50:31 important role in accelerating the delivery of resources to areas that need them. So there are
00:50:37 times when it's the really appropriate thing to do, and we've all acknowledged that here,
00:50:41 but Congress obviously needs to provide oversight and a check on these emergency powers.
00:50:47 Under current law, national emergency declarations can continue on for long periods of time.
00:50:52 Ms. Goyden, how many national emergencies remain open for long periods of time,
00:50:57 and how long are emergency declarations typically held open? Right now, there are 43
00:51:06 emergency declarations in effect. Most have been in effect for longer than a decade.
00:51:12 Forty-three is a majority of the emergency declarations that have been declared since
00:51:18 the National Emergencies Act was passed. So there have been 79 emergency declarations, 43 of them,
00:51:24 most of them are still in place. The longest-running emergency declaration dates back to the Iran
00:51:30 hostage crisis in 1979, and we have calculated that the average period of time for these emergency
00:51:38 declarations is approximately 10 years. So you all have talked about this some,
00:51:44 but I'm just going to give you an opportunity. What does it mean for the scope of executive
00:51:48 authority if national emergencies can be left open for long periods of time, and what changes,
00:51:54 again, you've talked about some of it, but we'll just go down the panel. I'd like you all just,
00:51:58 what changes would you recommend? But start with just the, what does it mean for the scope
00:52:04 of executive authority? So what has happened is that this country is being governed in a state
00:52:08 of perpetual emergency. We have these semi-permanent emergencies that displace the normal operation of
00:52:15 law, and that is the status quo. That is extremely unhealthy for a democracy. More concretely,
00:52:21 any time the president declares a national emergency, he or she has access to almost all
00:52:27 of the 130 powers, 137 powers actually, most of which don't include any particular requirement
00:52:38 that anything other than an emergency declaration be in place. So even if the national emergency
00:52:44 declaration relates to one specific area of governance, dozens of emergency powers in
00:52:51 multiple other areas of governance become available to the president. And so the temptation
00:52:57 is to leave these declarations in place indefinitely because it gives the president
00:53:01 access to such a deep well of powers. Mr. Thelm. I mean, so think of it this way,
00:53:08 in all those other emergency power statutes, right, those are supposed to be delegations
00:53:15 of authority in particular circumstances, time and place. And there is a robust argument about
00:53:21 what is the scope of delegable authorities and so on. We'll kind of put that aside.
00:53:26 But the point is Congress meant for those to only exist in certain circumstances. I would say at a
00:53:32 very minimum time limited circumstances. And what they've effectively become is now just writ large
00:53:38 authorities that have just been wholesale granted to the executive. That's what you get. You get
00:53:43 Congress trying to be judicious in saying, okay, we acknowledge that sometimes things happen you
00:53:50 can't foresee and it would take too long and in execution of the law, the president should be
00:53:54 able to do this thing. But now that's just in all time and all places and all circumstances.
00:53:58 So it really is, it self defeats the Congress's article one prerogative to decide when and where
00:54:06 the executive is supposed to have certain authorities. And just briefly, if I could,
00:54:11 Mr. Chair for Mr. Healy. Sure. You know, if you look down the list of 43 emergencies, you know,
00:54:18 you will see very few that are considered genuine emergencies. Titles like referring to the
00:54:27 situation in Burundi or something like that. And so I think there is a problem with long standing
00:54:34 declarations dating back to 1979, even where they're relatively uncontroversial in the sense
00:54:43 that, you know, we've defined emergency down and as someone put it, we were sort of cheapening the
00:54:50 currency of national emergencies. The national emergency should be something, you know, akin to
00:54:56 a war, an unforeseen circumstances, a pandemic, an asteroid strike, and the effect of a long list of
00:55:06 long standing national emergency declarations, most of which do not seem to be genuine emergencies,
00:55:13 I think, undermines the seriousness of the concept. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
00:55:18 Thank you. Ms. Gladen, your research shows that presidents have only recently
00:55:26 begun to really push the bounds of the emergency powers in their policy priorities. So my question
00:55:34 for you is, why do you think that's the case? Why are we really now seeing this recently,
00:55:38 where we didn't see it before? And the other two witnesses, feel free to chime in as well.
00:55:42 To be clear, there have been abuses of emergency powers in the past, but the most egregious abuses
00:55:52 that we've seen in the last hundred years in this country have been based on claims of inherent
00:55:57 constitutional authority, not statutory emergency powers. So that was the case for the internment
00:56:02 of Japanese Americans during World War II, for example. That was also the case with the torture
00:56:07 of detainees after 9/11. When it comes to the powers available under the National Emergencies
00:56:12 Act, there has been remarkably little abuse or misuse, other than IEPA, which really has to be
00:56:19 considered separately for some of the reasons that we've talked about. When presidents have
00:56:24 declared national emergencies, it's been few and far between, and it has generally been in response
00:56:29 to a sudden, unexpected crisis that required immediate action. And the reason for this,
00:56:38 and this is really more of a description than an explanation, I think, has been a norm of
00:56:46 self-restraint on the part of presidents who have access to these powers. And the problem with that
00:56:52 is that once these norms are shattered, they are extremely difficult to put back together.
00:56:58 President Trump opened the door to abusing statutory emergency powers when he declared
00:57:08 a national emergency to secure funding for the border wall after Congress had refused to provide
00:57:14 that funding. President Biden nudged the door open a little bit more when he relied on emergency
00:57:19 powers to forgive student loan debt, again, after Congress had considered legislation to forgive
00:57:25 debt and had not passed that legislation. So, you know, I think we have had a norm that has protected
00:57:34 us, and now that that norm has been set aside, I'm concerned that we could see more of these
00:57:41 misuses of emergency powers in the future. >> I don't think I can draw a conclusion about
00:57:48 the long sweep of history and the increased use of emergency, but I'll say that in our time working
00:57:53 on this issue at the committee, it was different emergencies that motivated both Democrats and
00:57:58 Republicans on the committee. I think if I could -- I'm in the weird position of speaking for people
00:58:03 who are sitting on this very dais, which I think constitutes hearsay, but some of the Democrats on
00:58:09 the committee were motivated, were interested in this topic by that border wall emergency, right?
00:58:15 It crystallized this notion of creative uses of emergency power that seemed beyond what was
00:58:21 delegated by Congress. Later on, COVID, the student loan emergencies drew interest, especially from
00:58:28 more the Republican side of the committee or in Congress. I think the point is, if you create a
00:58:36 policy neutral mechanism that's kind of a meta law, you don't have to -- well, I don't say you
00:58:40 don't have to worry. I think what you do is you don't address a specific emergency. You're
00:58:45 addressing the whole notion of emergency powers. And that's one thing that I was proud to have
00:58:51 been able to work on, even though different members of the committee were kind of drawn to
00:58:55 the legislation for different reasons or in response to different reasons, it arrived at the
00:59:00 same answer. And I would note, during that time, nobody on the committee that I spoke to raised an
00:59:06 objection with the thrust of the legislation. There were disagreements about whether IEPA should
00:59:11 be included and so on, but nobody disagreed that this was something that wasn't worthy of the
00:59:16 committee's time. >> Senator Rosen, you're recognized for your questions. >> Well, thank you,
00:59:24 Chair Peters, Ranking Member Paul. This is a really important hearing, and I appreciate the
00:59:28 witnesses being here today. And of course, the National Emergencies Act, NEA, provides the
00:59:34 president with 135 statutory powers when they declare a national emergency. The powers cover
00:59:41 a wide range of variety of critical areas. We've all talked about them, ranging communications,
00:59:46 transportation, public health, military power, so on. And while these powers, of course, can be
00:59:52 helpful in the face of true emergencies, as we've heard in our testimony today and your testimony
00:59:57 today, they're also subject to potential abuse. It's therefore critical that we address the
01:00:02 potentials for reform, and we prioritize executive accountability and preventing abuse of power.
01:00:08 So, Ms. Goyten, during your testimony in the House last year, you mentioned that there's no
01:00:14 existing requirements that powers invoked by the NEA have to actually relate to the emergency
01:00:21 declared. They do not have to actually relate to the emergency declared. So, while considering
01:00:26 potential reform options for the NEA, how should Congress ensure that presidents don't abuse
01:00:32 unrelated powers that could become available during emergency? I found this pretty interesting.
01:00:38 The congressional approval requirement after a period of 30 days serves as a kind of meta-check
01:00:44 on all forms of abuse, including using certain powers that don't even relate to the nature of
01:00:49 the emergency, a protectural emergency in order to gain access to other powers, as it were.
01:00:56 But there are also versions of National Emergencies Act reform that explicitly require
01:01:04 that the powers invoked must relate to the nature of and be used only to address the specific
01:01:11 emergency that serves as the basis for the declaration. So, that's another way to go about
01:01:16 it more directly. Thank you. I appreciate that. And when we think about whether something's germane
01:01:22 and how we have accountability, we think about reporting requirements as well. And so, executive
01:01:27 accountability for the use of these emergency powers, it must be a priority. But current law
01:01:32 and practices make oversight and accountability nearly impossible. And as you were just saying
01:01:40 earlier, although there are existing reporting requirements for the NEA reports, they can be
01:01:46 difficult to obtain and if they're available at all. And so, these reports are essential to having
01:01:51 congressional insight, oversight into NEA declarations and terminations. So, Mr. Thalum,
01:01:57 building on what Ms. Goynton was saying, based on your experience in the executive branch,
01:02:03 how can Congress strengthen the NEA reporting requirements to ensure that powers are being used
01:02:09 appropriately and transparently? We need to see these things. I mean, absolutely. That's
01:02:16 absolutely correct. I mean, as Liza mentioned, in some of the reforms talking about, there is a
01:02:23 more explicit requirement for the declaration to be tied to the powers being invoked. And also,
01:02:30 reporting on those powers and how they're being used and presumably how funds may be invoked or
01:02:38 be changed in response to that. I think it's important to keep in mind also, it's not that
01:02:42 a lot of damage can't be done in 30 days, if that were the default time limit. But it's not
01:02:48 an unending amount of time if you add an automatic sunset. So, it doesn't devalue Congress's role to
01:02:58 do that oversight, which they're entitled to, but it makes it much less of a concern of years and
01:03:05 years go by and the administrator of that office that was in charge has now left and the new people
01:03:12 come in and say, "Well, I'll get back to you when I get caught up." And that sort of hand-waving
01:03:17 that happens. It makes the issue that's being invoked, the emergency that's being responded
01:03:23 to salient and momentary in the long scheme of things, which also forces Congress to make a say,
01:03:34 right? To take a stand. And that forces all of Congress to say, "Wait, what do we know about this?
01:03:39 Or what do we need to know about it?" As opposed to a member of a committee that's looking at an
01:03:44 emergency from 10 years ago and is trying to catch up. You know that getting everyone kind of in the
01:03:49 same room metaphorically makes it much easier to force the executive branch. It makes it harder
01:03:54 for them to ignore. Right. Well, that builds exactly on my next question, is reevaluating
01:04:01 existing emergencies. And of course, emergencies are happening every day. Just watch the Weather
01:04:06 Channel and you see some tragic weather events happening. But as you all have noted here today,
01:04:12 there are currently over 40 ongoing national emergencies still in effect, dating back to the
01:04:18 1970s. Many of these emergencies remain necessary for U.S. national security. I get that. But as I
01:04:25 understand it, there's little in current law forcing presidents to reevaluate emergencies that
01:04:31 have been on the books for decades. Something from the 1970s perhaps should be reevaluated.
01:04:37 So to each of the witnesses, in addition to reasserting congressional oversight of the use
01:04:41 of NEA, what can Congress -- what do you think we can really do to incentivize future administrations
01:04:47 to assess the value of existing emergencies? And what can we do -- if they've gone on this long,
01:04:54 maybe there's some other legislation we need if it's in our national security interest, for
01:04:58 example. Let's begin with Ms. McGoyton, and then we'll just go down the line.
01:05:03 >> Sure. So under all of the National Emergencies Act reform proposals that are currently pending
01:05:08 before Congress, not only would emergency declarations terminate after 30 days unless
01:05:15 approved by Congress, but every year after that, if the president wanted to renew the emergency
01:05:21 for another year, he would again have to get congressional approval using expedited procedures.
01:05:27 That does two things. First of all, it enables Congress to act as a check. That's the most
01:05:32 important thing. But it also forces the president to examine the powers that the president has been
01:05:39 using to examine the success of those powers or the failure of those powers, to examine whether
01:05:44 the conditions leading to the original emergency declaration aren't still in place, whether they've
01:05:49 changed, to do that analysis to determine whether continuation of emergency powers is really
01:05:55 necessary or whether what's needed instead or whether the emergency declaration can simply be
01:06:02 withdrawn or whether what's needed is new legislation, a new permanent authority to deal
01:06:09 with a circumstance that may have become a new normal. So I think that particular reform is not
01:06:18 only a check that Congress can apply. It also forces some discipline on the part of the executive
01:06:26 branch. Thank you. Mr. Thalum. I think what you see over time has been a lot of seeding of foreign
01:06:34 policy to the executive branch. And I think generally most folks think that is kind of a
01:06:40 purview and area that the president has. But for instance, our posture towards Iran, this is of
01:06:47 national interest, and it probably shouldn't be subject to an ongoing emergency, quote, emergency
01:06:55 policy. This is a thing, I guess I don't have a good answer of how to force the president to
01:06:59 table any president, but that should be a matter for congressional deliberation and consideration.
01:07:05 And if it should be a permanent policy, but for a change in regime, for instance, I'm not a foreign
01:07:10 policy person, that should be a deliberation that happens between the executive branch. We can't
01:07:15 have a 40-year emergency. That's just not how. And so if that should be a permanent policy, then
01:07:21 we've gone from emergency response to just good old-fashioned policymaking. And that's supposed
01:07:26 to be an Article I prerogative. So I guess I'm kind of hand-waving a little bit. I don't know
01:07:32 how to force that discussion, but like Congress should be asserting that and saying, we may even
01:07:36 agree with you, Mr. President, but we need to have a say and we need to go through the process to
01:07:41 approve it and make it explicit. Thank you. Mr. Healy. Yeah, I think, you know, what you tend to
01:07:49 see is emergency, with the exception of the COVID-19 emergency that was actually repealed
01:07:59 legislatively, you have most of the time it's the president proposes and the president disposes and
01:08:06 maybe gets rid of some longstanding emergency declarations when international conditions have
01:08:14 changed. Again, I think that has the effect of devaluing the currency and seriousness of
01:08:24 emergency. You know, if you have a list of 43 emergencies and a normal person would only
01:08:32 recognize two or three of them as emergencies, I think that's a problem. And I think at some
01:08:40 stage, whether, you know, it should be done as part of the same package or not, but at some stage,
01:08:48 since the bulk of these are IEPA-related emergencies, I do think as putting them under
01:08:59 a time limit and an approval requirement would force vote, would force some scrutiny from the
01:09:07 legislative branch and the executive branch as well about whether to re-approve some
01:09:13 long-standing emergencies. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
01:09:17 Ranking Member Paul, recognized for your questions. I'd like to have a stab at answering
01:09:22 your question about, you know, when did the emergencies arise? And I would probably put
01:09:27 it together, when did the emergence of a strong central executive arise? And at some point all
01:09:35 the way back to the Civil War, many would say the 20th century, many would say the Great Depression,
01:09:41 but without question, the executive has grown in power and Congress has diminished in power over
01:09:46 the last hundred years. Part of that's emergency power and part of that's many other things.
01:09:50 Most of the questions I get about a regulation of this business or that business, we never voted on,
01:09:56 and this has been a big question now between the Supreme Court on Chevron deference, whether or not
01:10:01 we write the regulations or we just give broad frameworks and regulatory agencies write all the
01:10:05 regulations. But I'd say it's a long-term trend and emergency powers is part of that.
01:10:09 Now, the argument has been made that, this is a common argument around here, and I disagree with
01:10:15 it, that, well, the only thing that's popular is reforming just the NEA, leave IEPA out,
01:10:20 leave everything else out because this is popular, we can get it done, it's possible.
01:10:25 There are other really important things, maybe more important, but they just can't pass.
01:10:29 I would argue that sometimes something is so popular that other issues that are related can
01:10:33 be discussed and may well be accepted. All three of you said that the internet kill switch is
01:10:38 probably the most important and possibly abused power hasn't been used, but that could be so
01:10:44 devastating that someone could become dictator, basically. You control all the communications
01:10:49 in the country, you could become dictator in a day, in a moment, in one executive order.
01:10:54 And we have that in our bill for reform, we have it in there. You all seem to agree. I think there's
01:10:58 a lot of agreement up here on getting rid of the internet kill switch. So why sell short? Let's
01:11:03 don't just say, oh, we're only going to do this one thing. Yes, the most important thing is changing
01:11:07 from where we have to override a veto to kill an emergency, we have to have a two-third vote,
01:11:12 that is way too high a burden. We need to get it back to it, that it expires and then we can then
01:11:18 vote. But let's don't sell our short, sell ourselves short, let's have a real robust discussion,
01:11:22 let's just don't say, oh, I'm against internet kill switch, but it just isn't the time, and so
01:11:27 I'm going to vote no because we'll do it some other time. Some other time never comes. So now
01:11:31 is the time. And the general category, they all fit, are emergencies. I would argue, and I agree
01:11:37 with Ms. Goyden, the Insurrection Act is a thousand times more potent and has the potential for
01:11:45 turning the place into a, you know, military rule overnight, that it's more important than any of
01:11:51 the four emergencies that we'd fix with changing this. I'm for fixing it so it, all these emergencies
01:11:57 expire and that we have to reaffirm them. That's a great reform, but the Insurrection Act is probably
01:12:03 more deadly and more powerful than anything we're discussing today. So we actually have that in my
01:12:07 reform bill. I know I'm not going to get everything I want, but let's talk about it now. We're talking
01:12:11 about emergencies. My Insurrection Act reform would simply say, President can't send the military
01:12:17 anywhere without the approval of Congress. I'm really not for sending the military domestically.
01:12:21 I really don't think the military should ever be used domestically. If we're talking about handing
01:12:25 out water or, you know, preventing a foreign invasion in a time of a hurricane, maybe. But
01:12:31 our soldiers are great, but they're not trained to obey the Fourth Amendment. Our police are,
01:12:37 and even that's imperfect, but our police know about the Fourth Amendment. They know they have
01:12:40 to get warrants. Armies don't get warrants. It is a potential for a huge disaster. So we should have
01:12:47 a debate over the Insurrection Act. Maybe we can do it in a separate hearing, in a separate bill,
01:12:52 but we're going to at least bring it up on this, and if I get a chance, you know, that's one thing
01:12:56 that I will want us to vote on. Take a stand. Do you think the President should be allowed to send
01:13:00 the military into our cities? I think no. The approval of the governor is not enough. I can
01:13:04 imagine a governor that makes a bad decision too, and that's two people have made the decision to
01:13:08 have military rule in an area. And then if it doesn't expire, it could go on forever, you know.
01:13:14 So the Insurrection Act should also expire too, so Congress would have to, I think from the very
01:13:19 outset, troops shouldn't go in without our approval, but even if that happens, it should
01:13:22 expire in a short period of time. The problem with giving 30 days for the Insurrection Act and
01:13:27 patterning on the emergency is 30 days is a long time to have troops in your cities. So I would
01:13:32 say it's none. I would never, I would not allow troops to go in at all without an affirmative
01:13:37 vote at that time of Congress to allow troops to go in, and I would almost assuredly vote no on that
01:13:42 for anybody. We have police. The police are very well armed. The police, you know, deal with riots
01:13:48 in our cities, and that's what we should do with it, because it is a tough job to figure out due
01:13:54 process for people and figure out the difference between protest and riot and between violence and
01:13:58 how we deal with it. And so I would just argue let's be more open-minded to talking about the
01:14:03 Insurrection Act, and I would say that the internet kill switch, I think we can get some bipartisan
01:14:09 support for just getting rid of that. Most people are horrified. You tell any of your constituents
01:14:13 that the president could shut it down, and it works both ways. The left may go home and say,
01:14:17 "Trump's going to do this," and the right goes home and says, "Biden's going to do this." I don't want
01:14:21 anybody to do this, and no one should have ever been given the power to shut down all transmissions.
01:14:26 Now, I have heard from some people who say, "Oh, well, you know, what about sending out emergency
01:14:31 broadcast or something?" That's not what this is, and I don't think we need to have this power to
01:14:36 send out emergency broadcasts that there's a hurricane coming or something. But anyway, I would
01:14:41 just argue for being more inclusive and not limiting ourselves to only one thing, even if the others
01:14:47 can't pass. I may not get my way on AIPA, but if we only do four emergencies and we leave all the
01:14:51 other AIPA out there, I see no reason why if we're not for it. I'm skeptical that sanctions work, but
01:14:57 those who like sanctions, vote on it. They're stronger if you actually vote on it. Let them
01:15:01 expire in six months. President doesn't. Let them expire. We don't have to do each one. Bulk them
01:15:05 into the emergencies. Do all Russia's together, all China's together. But then if you think
01:15:10 sanctions work, they're stronger having been voted on by Congress. So, open response to anybody who
01:15:16 wants to argue with me that we should limit this to only one thing. I would never.
01:15:21 But I would know, you know, we speak of the 2019 reform that we worked on this committee that you
01:15:32 both voted on and participated in. It's kind of shorthanded. We speak about it as having carved
01:15:39 out AIPA. And I think in one sense that's true, but it actually did pull in and remove the authority,
01:15:45 not just as a sunset, but remove the authority pursuant to AIPA for the president to unilaterally
01:15:52 impose tariffs and rate quotas. So, that's a small piece. That's not everything you're talking about.
01:15:57 Senator Carper's piece was included in that. I think it was an individual bill on that.
01:16:02 I believe it was Senator Portman and yeah, maybe Senator Carper. It was, and so it was offered as
01:16:10 amendment and then I think was wrapped into the base tax. Now that's not all of AIPA. That does
01:16:15 not address what you're talking about. But I think you can, it showed that you can at least pull in
01:16:21 some of the authorities that you're concerned about. And I don't want to, I just don't want
01:16:26 my testimony here today to be thought of as just don't touch AIPA, just go forward. I'm saying you
01:16:34 can. I just want a caution just based on my experience as a, here as a witness to say that's
01:16:39 what I experienced. And I know, I am almost certain that if we had tried not to carve out any part of
01:16:46 AIPA, the bill would have languished. Now, to me, it didn't pass anyway. Just realize the frustration
01:16:52 on our side. I get this all the time. I'll have people on the floor and we'll get to an amendment,
01:16:56 file it on the floor and say, well, we've agreed to have no amendments. I'm going to vote against,
01:16:59 yours is a perfectly good amendment, young man. And we would, in any normal time would be for you,
01:17:04 but this time we're against you because we made a deal. No, you know what I mean? So we just need
01:17:08 to be more open-minded and not limit ourselves. I won't get everything I want. I won't get all of
01:17:13 these things reformed, but let's don't preemptively say we can't. So I appreciate your comments.
01:17:17 Anybody else? Yeah, I want to be very clear. I am not saying, let's do this one thing because
01:17:22 it's here, we can get it done and forget about the rest. The Brennan Center is actively advocating
01:17:28 for reform of the Insurrection Act. We have a detailed legislative reform proposal. We are
01:17:32 actively advocating for reform of AIPA. We have a detailed legislative reform proposal. We're
01:17:38 looking at the Communications Act. I'm not entirely sure that full repeal is the right solution there.
01:17:44 It might be. I think it's going to be important to look at whether some very dramatically narrowed
01:17:51 version of that power might be needed in cases of, say, cybersecurity attacks or something like that.
01:17:58 Again, this is something we're looking into right now. We might ultimately support repeal,
01:18:03 but anyway, these are issues that I consider to be incredibly important top priorities,
01:18:08 but I do think that on the substance of what needs to be done with these authorities, they have to be
01:18:14 dealt with differently and separately. Now, I suppose you could say, well, let's just write the
01:18:19 reforms for each of those and tack it on to National Emergencies Act reform legislation,
01:18:24 but that work has to be done and it hasn't been done yet. The work of gathering the coalition,
01:18:31 the consensus, the markup that was held on National Emergencies Act reform, the tire kicking
01:18:36 that's happened over these past few years, I don't want to hold National Emergencies Act
01:18:41 reform hostage to any of these other reforms, which I think are absolutely and equally critical.
01:18:46 I don't think it will be, but I would suggest trying to come to a conclusion on the internet
01:18:50 kill switch. This is a chance. It might be five years, it might be 10 years, it might be never.
01:18:54 When you have a chance, go for it, and all it takes is, you've all said it was the most important
01:19:01 power you would actually remove, so come to a conclusion on it. If you want to carve out for
01:19:05 putting out PSAs on there's a hurricane coming, I don't think you need that. I think that's probably
01:19:10 done through other legislation. It's actually mostly voluntary. Believe it or not, people will
01:19:14 do things voluntarily in a crisis. Most people don't even get it from government anymore. Your
01:19:21 warnings are really mostly outside of government for emergencies. Anyway, come to a conclusion on
01:19:27 this because if we want to bring this up in a month, we just don't want your center, which is
01:19:32 on our side on this, to be against including killing the internet, the internet kill switch.
01:19:37 Just be open-minded, and if you can come to a conclusion, try to come to a conclusion.
01:19:43 On the Insurrection Act, it's unlikely to be, but I'm a believer in having votes on stuff.
01:19:48 I will have a vote on the Insurrection Act, and I think it is different. It won't be the same
01:19:53 reform as the NEA. It has to be more strict than the NEA because you're talking about putting
01:19:57 troops in our cities, and so I think troops in our cities should be a vote of Congress,
01:20:01 no matter how good the cause is. There are so many other ways to deal with emergencies
01:20:05 beyond having the army in our cities. If I could say one last quick thing. You refer to the four
01:20:11 emergency declarations. I think it's actually three right now. One was terminated, so there's
01:20:14 three emergency declarations that do not relate to IEPA that are currently in place. I just want
01:20:20 to be clear. Those three emergency declarations are not the ones I'm worried about. It's the ones
01:20:24 that haven't been declared yet, so I don't think we should downplay the significance of passing
01:20:30 National Emergencies Act reform, even if it doesn't address IEPA because there are untold
01:20:37 declarations that could happen in the future, as Mr. Tholum says. It's the powers you haven't
01:20:42 thought about yet. That is what we are preventing through this legislation. Mr. Healy, can you close
01:20:48 this out? Yeah, I don't think anyone wants my advice on the politics of it, and it's not worth
01:20:58 much, frankly. But I do see the merit in taking a broad approach to this and to deal with at least
01:21:10 a few of the biggest substantive concerns and, again, discounting my political advice for what
01:21:17 it's worth. That's not what I'm here to testify on. But I think we all agreed that the 1934
01:21:24 Communications Act provisions are a huge concern, and I think at this moment, when there is
01:21:31 bipartisan interest in emergency power reforms, that some of the more dangerous-it's
01:21:41 about what, as Satya said, the ones we're not thinking about are important, but some of the
01:21:52 ones that you would pick out if there's an opportunity to tackle them and reform those powers
01:21:58 are also worth addressing. One final question for you, Mr. Tholum, and others can have their
01:22:08 opinion as well. The reform proposals that are right now before us allow Congress to approve an
01:22:13 emergency for a set period of time, and at the end of that period, then Congress can renew the
01:22:18 emergency with another vote. So my question is, what do you think is an appropriate amount of
01:22:23 time for a national emergency to last before it needs to be renewed by Congress? Anyone else would
01:22:30 like to? This was subject to some deliberation also in the committee when we were considering
01:22:34 these. This is a prudential question, and this is exactly the kind of thing that Congress is
01:22:42 supposed to figure out. On some level, look, it's arbitrary because you are setting a time limit
01:22:49 that is not correlated to the actual emergency in that time, but I think anything more than 60 days
01:22:57 is-you're going to a quarter of a year, 90 days, that's not an emergency. And again, I guess the
01:23:05 point is less about what is the appropriate specific time limit and more about Congress
01:23:12 should have to weigh in and continue to weigh in if it's extended, and that's a policymaking muscle
01:23:18 that Congress has not exercised in a long time. And so I think somewhere between 30 and 60 days
01:23:27 is appropriate, but the specifics we have to leave to you. Other thoughts?
01:23:31 I think 30 days, which is the amount of time in most of these reform proposals,
01:23:40 is a sensible amount of time. It gives the president enough time to
01:23:45 implement at least the first wave of whatever actions the president's going to take in response
01:23:52 to the emergency. It gives Congress time to see how the president is addressing the emergency,
01:23:56 how the emergency is unfolding, and then Congress can weigh in. If Congress extends the emergency,
01:24:03 then it would go back to the usual yearly renewal, but instead of the president being the one to
01:24:08 renew the declaration unilaterally, Congress would again have to approve it. Now, some versions of
01:24:14 National Emergencies Act reform also include a five-year cap on the total amount of time that an
01:24:20 emergency declaration could be periodically renewed by Congress. And the idea behind that is to prevent
01:24:28 this phenomenon of permanent emergencies. Five years into an emergency, it's not an emergency.
01:24:35 It's a new normal, and arguably it should be addressed through permanent authorities. If
01:24:42 existing non-emergency authorities aren't sufficient, then Congress should be passing
01:24:46 new ones. So that's another feature of some of these reform proposals that's worth consideration.
01:24:51 Well, very good. I'd like to thank Ranking Member Paul for holding this hearing with me here today,
01:24:58 and I'd also like to thank each of our witnesses for joining us and sharing your insights. I think
01:25:04 it was a very fruitful discussion. Certainly expanding congressional oversight over national
01:25:09 emergencies is absolutely critical to ensuring a healthy balance of powers as envisioned by our
01:25:16 country's founders. And as we heard today, presidents have very broad authorities that
01:25:22 could be misused. At the same time, the federal government also must be able to rapidly and
01:25:27 effectively respond to various types of emergencies. But as I believe our three witnesses
01:25:33 explained today, there are some common-sense reforms that would strengthen Congress's role
01:25:38 in exercising oversight of these emergency powers. And I certainly look forward to working
01:25:43 with Ranking Member Paul and other members of the committee to advance legislation that incorporates
01:25:49 the bipartisan reforms that we have heard about today. And I'd say non-partisan reforms is
01:25:54 probably a better way to characterize it. And we will be working diligently to make that happen
01:26:00 in the coming months. The record for this hearing will remain open for 15 days until 5 p.m. on June
01:26:07 6th of 2024 for the submission of statements and questions for the record. This hearing is now
01:26:13 adjourned.

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‘SBA Has Failed To Substantially Produce Documents’: Beth Van Duyne Presses Offical On Delay
Forbes Breaking News