Mr. Speaker, first, I want to make mention to the fine ranking member of the committee that we did reach out, certainly, to as many staff on the Democrat side as we possibly could. Perhaps we could have done a little bit better job of…

It's a systematic fault of all the people involved in that process.

I want you to report back to this committee within 30 days the action plan that you're going to have to address that.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the service of a great public servant on his retirement--Captain William B.J. Fore. B.J., as I call him, a great friend from Caldwell County, North Carolina, has served in the Caldwell County…

You're making a lot of difficult decisions that will make a lot of people angry.

What we're willing to do is if you'll make the tough decisions, we'll ask the tough questions and hold people accountable.

FTA's lack of authority has been a contributor, yes.

How many more people have to die before we get you to act in the appropriate manner?

I need you to come back to this body within 30 days. I'm going to give you the same time.

Congress needs to be held accountable for the way the agencies operate.

That gets us half the way there with fees, fines, and settlement, doesn't it?

I believe that a friendly amendment that would protect our whistleblowers would be in order.

We would ask each of you to report to this committee, if you can, three recommendations on what you would like to see.

This is something we need to pursue. We need to make sure this bill gets done, gets passed, becomes law.

I can assure you that whistleblowers are a vital part of what we do, from an oversight standpoint.

I think at some point, if we want to be anything more than a debating society, we're going to have to start reclawing some of this authority.

H.R. 5499 would hold the agencies accountable, but more fundamentally, it would make Congress accountable to the people.

We're talking about $600 billion.