Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, the distinguished chairman talks about section 102 of the bill, which gives the Secretary of Homeland Security the ability to waive all laws that might get in the way of building the fence; and he talks about environmental laws, and he talks about endangered species. Well, that is all well and good, but the radicalism and the irresponsibility of the majority is shown by how this is drafted.
This does not refer to environmental laws. This does not refer to endangered species. This says the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive all laws in his sole discretion that he determines necessary.
The Secretary of Homeland Security can tell the contractors, if anybody gets in your way, shoot them. Shoot them. The laws against men are waived. Laws against anything are waived. It makes him a total dictator. Then to make sure that the Secretary can be a total dictator in contravention of the Constitution, in contravention of all our laws, it then says, no court shall have jurisdiction to hear any clause or claim arising from any decision the Secretary takes or to order any compensatory declarative injunctive, equitable or any other relief for damages alleged to have been suffered.
So someone can be shot because the Secretary says shoot anybody that gets in the way by accident or deliberately and the courts cannot review whether the Secretary had the authority, whether this is constitutional.
Last year we had certain court-stripping legislation before us to say that the court shall have no jurisdiction to hear a claim against the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.
One other thing, I got up on this floor and I said, this is going to become boiler plate language in bills, and here it is. It did not even mention it. Boiler plate language.
``No court shall review any action the Secretary may take.''
I thought the Republican Party stood for limited government. This says the Secretary is absolute dictator, as absolute as Stalin. What kind of language is this?
Regardless of the merits of this bill, regardless of the merits of this provision in general, this is disgraceful.