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Statement of Subcommittee Chairman Vic Snyder Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Hearing on the Impact of the Presidential Signing Statement on Implementation of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008

March 11, 2008

"The hearing will come to order. Good afternoon and welcome. Our hearing topic today is 'The Impact of the Presidential Signing Statement on Implementation of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2008.'

"The intent for this hearing was for the subcommittee to have an opportunity to hear from the Department of Defense regarding how they intend to implement the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008. As many of you are aware, when the President signed the act into law on January 28th of this year, he included a signing statement in which he asserted that certain provisions of the act - four of them in particular - could inhibit his ability to carry out his constitutional obligations, and that the executive branch would 'construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President.'

"Given the reservations expressed in that statement, Chairman Skelton requested that this subcommittee hold a hearing to ask a simple question of the Department of Defense: DOD, are you implementing or planning to implement the law as Congress wrote it?

"Unfortunately, DOD declined to provide a witness for today's hearing. We also invited the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, but they declined as well because they do not testify about specific provisions of law.

"We have and will continue to seek a direct answer to our question, because the underlying issue here is such an important one. In fact, in conversations with DOD legislative affairs, we have informally been assured that DOD does intend to fully implement the Defense Authorization Act as written.

"For purposes of today's hearing, without administration witnesses, our conversation will obviously be more general than was our original intent. But this panel brings before us a tremendous range of experience and expertise with respect to signing statements. I expect that today's hearing will allow us to address how signing statements typically affect an administration's implementation of the law, how the most recent signing statement to the NDAA for FY08 might affect how it is carried out, and how Congress should react to signing statements in an effort to ensure that Presidents obey the law as written.

"On our panel today we are joined by:

• T.J. Halstead, Legislative Attorney, American Law Division, Congressional Research Service
• Gary L. Kepplinger, General Counsel, U.S. Government Accountability Office
• Bruce Fein, Constitutional Attorney, Bruce Fein & Associates, Member, American Bar Association Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements
• Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

"Welcome to all of you and thank you for being here. After opening remarks from our ranking member, Todd Akin, you will each have an opportunity to make a brief statement before we go to questions. Your prepared statements will be made part of the record.

"I would also like to note that I have a statement for the record provided to me by Representatives John Tierney and Tom Allen with respect to implementation of the Wartime Contracting Commission, which was one of the provisions singled out in the recent signing statement. I would like to ask for unanimous consent to enter this statement into today's record as well.

"I'll remind our members that we will use our customary five-minute rule today for questioning, proceeding by seniority and arrival time.

"With that, let me turn it over to Mr. Akin for his opening statement."