Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Motion to Recommit with Amendment No. 2421

Mr. BOND. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BOND. I thank Senator Cochran for his comments and agree that PHMSA should produce a report as soon as possible on this topic. We need to ensure that pipeline safety programs are adequately funded and that Congress and the regulated industries that support these programs understand how they are funded.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I join with my colleague in thanking all Members and urging an aye vote.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I join with my colleague, the Senator from Washington, in saying please let's get on with it. This will fill out a full week now. This will be Thursday through Wednesday we have been on the floor. We want to bring these amendments forward. I understand we may not need 40 minutes, and we certainly would like to get these votes started so we can wrap them up before we break for the scheduled lunches. Again, if the Senators could be ready for a vote, we hope as early as 11:30, no later than 11:40, and we will have a series of votes. We look forward to dealing with these amendments and moving on to others. I thank our colleagues for their attention and let's get on with it. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2370 Withdrawn

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I would urge all Members to stay around and vote and we can get on with the business and anybody who wants to have lunch can have lunch.

Mr. BOND. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BOND. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I join with my colleague in urging a defeat of the amendment.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, while we have an opportunity, there are some important comments I want to make about this bill. We have heard from some people who are concerned about the deficit and the national debt. They are tremendous concerns. Any discussion of our overall economy must take into consideration the debt we are running up that will be on the backs of our children and our grandchildren. I have opposed many spending packages that have come through and many of the things that have gone on. But when we are looking at priorities--which are funding ongoing programs which are within the budget of our committees--then we need to focus on spending that will prove beneficial for the American people and the economy. The bill before us, the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill, funds infrastructure development for everything from roads, to bridges, to airports, which is critical to attracting businesses, creating jobs and economic growth in our communities. The bill also provides funding to help the Nation's most vulnerable populations: the homeless, low-income families and seniors, housing for the disabled, and housing for our returning veterans who have served overseas. This bill provides increased investment in the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA gets money for 200 additional safety inspectors. I have spoken on this floor about the need for safety inspectors because we have airlines flying with very subpar qualifications, and too often they get away with sending out people who are not qualified, should not be pilots, have not been properly trained. For all of us who fly and all of our constituents, that is a major concern. But we need to accelerate programs as well related to reducing congestion and increasing safety. That means getting us to the next generation air traffic system. Nobody will claim this is a perfect bill, but it is one that provides needed funds for programs that not only make a difference in the lives of everyday Americans but also enables job creation, economic growth, and the kind of treatment we wish to provide for those in need, especially in the housing area. I have asked my colleagues, and will continue to ask them, to support this bill. There have also been attacks--and there will be some more before we get out of here--on earmarks. Every year we have a debate about whether Congress should have a role in setting priorities or simply pass the buck to those in the executive branch of government. Within my State are State and local experts I turn to, as well as people whose lives are inextricably linked to housing, transportation, and economic development. Most of these people know a great deal about these issues. They know a lot more about these issues and how they affect the people of Missouri than most folks sitting in a bureaucracy in Washington, DC, who may never have been there, do not know what the challenges are, do not know where the local people are putting their priorities, do not know what their plans are, do not know how they see their communities grow, their State grow. I think a lot of these people know more about housing, transportation, and economic development than people at OMB and those who ultimately produce budget submissions from their distant Washington offices. We have heard a lot of talk about bad earmarks. I am opposed to bad earmarks, and people who abuse the system, who do so criminally, should be punished and put in jail, as they have been. There is no debate there. The debate is not what is written about, but it is who should earmark because every dollar that is spent by the government is directed by somebody. Who is making the decisions? Some argue it should be a mix where Congress earmarks roughly 2 percent of discretionary funds, with the balance, roughly 98 percent, being earmarked by agency employees of the executive branch. I think you could make a good argument that it should be even higher. However, under this scenario, with full disclosure, elected officials have a role in listening to and speaking for the people of their State, the leaders of their communities, the leaders of the institutions. We can make those recommendations, and the full Congress can look at them and the President can ratify them. This is reflected in the bills before us this session. Others argue Congress should have no role; executive branch officials, elected by no one, should have 100 percent monopoly power over spending. Their position is people unaccountable to the voters should have this monopoly power. Congress can, however, and does set criteria, but the more criteria we set, the more it becomes a congressional earmark. The less criteria we set, the more it remains an executive branch earmark. In executive agencies, people have their own agendas and political leanings. Their own political bosses--in either the Bush administration or the Obama administration--have their own agenda. I do not like monopoly power of the Obama administration on spending and I did not support it during the Clinton or either Bush administration as well. I have to admit I find it puzzling to hear some of my self-professed conservative friends suggesting that the way to reform spending is to turn it all over to the Obama administration to earmark. I am not arguing they should have no role. I am arguing today that Congress should have a role. The Constitution, in article I, section 9, says very clearly that it gives the Congress the power of the purse. It states: No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of Appropriations made by law. Guess what. That is what we are supposed to do, as stated in article I, section 9. I think it would be extreme, probably excessive, to suggest that Congress should earmark all money, just as I believe it would be extreme and wrongheaded to suggest that the Obama administration should earmark all money. A bad earmark is a bad earmark, no matter who does it. Frankly, when I left the governorship of my State, one of the reasons I believed it was important to run for the Senate was to be able to exercise the voice and the views of Missourians in the spending process because I had seen too many instances where bureaucrats in Washington made very bad decisions. They made bad decisions that absolutely turned the priorities around. They told us we had to spend all of our money for cleaning up wastewater, putting tertiary treatment on major metropolitan sewer systems, which would then have to put cleaner water into the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers than was already there. The State's priority was to clean up many of the pristine streams in our State which had, in too many instances, raw sewage flowing into them--streams which were vital parts of our scenic rivers, our scenic waterways, places for hunters and fishermen, where people would like to swim and boat but could not. But we have seen even more instances of bad earmarks. I thought it was a horrible Pentagon earmark to award an Air Force tanker project worth billions of dollars to a European company--a process which, under pressure, has since been subjected to review and will cost thousands of Missouri jobs if undertaken. Fundamentally, I see this as a role of Congress and one that should be transparent, self-limiting, and subject to scrutiny. We get that scrutiny. I accept it. I am happy to argue with anybody who disagrees with my views, but at least we do so out in the open. When earmarks are made in the executive branch, nobody knows who did them. If you don't like a decision, you don't even know whom to yell at because it is somebody who is not appointed, not accountable, not obvious to the people we are supposed to serve. A lot of people criticize me for putting out statements, news releases, when I get some funds for the State, which is another way of saying I was too transparent. I use this process to help empower local people who have local ideas on how best to improve their local communities after having set their own local priorities. If a Senator doesn't want to request an earmark, that is fine. Some people request earmarks and then vote to strip them out. I think that is a little bit self-contradictory, but I will leave that to the Senators who choose to request them and then move to strike them. If a Senator thinks it is inappropriate or does not trust himself or his local leaders to establish priorities and petition Congress for funding, that is his or her business. But I do trust local officials who answer to their voters and neighbors, as I do, who invest their money and the tax money at the local level, and who understand their own conditions better than anyone else, over the geniuses at OMB who may or may not have had the privilege of traveling to Missouri, to Washington State, to Pennsylvania, to Minnesota, to wherever the Senator comes from. In short, someone earmarks discretionary money, and I am glad that a small fraction of that earmarking is reserved for those who can be questioned and disparaged and voted out of office if people disagree. I disagree that earmarking and making all spending decisions should be a responsibility exclusive to the typically anonymous executive branch people. I ask my colleagues to ensure that bureaucrats and politicians in the executive branch are not the sole source of power when it comes to setting spending priorities. In this case, local citizens outside of Washington who live with the project purposes and who are not agency officials should have a stronger voice in setting local priorities, not a weaker voice. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and to oppose efforts to take away from Congress not only our constitutional power and authority over the purse but what I view as a high responsibility of someone who holds an office and carries out the duties of a U.S. Senator. Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, for too many years, Congress has failed to pass an intelligence authorization bill that could be signed into law. We came close once, only to have our efforts derailed by a problematic interrogation provision. We have solved that problem this year, and now I believe we finally have a product that we can move forward with the hope that it will soon be signed into law. The intelligence authorization bill before us will give the intelligence community the flexibility and authorities it needs to function effectively and will ensure appropriate intelligence oversight by this committee. Over the past several months, we have worked closely with the administration and other committees to address their concerns over various provisions. Of course, some concerns were easier to resolve than others. But we are now at a point that I believe we can pass this bill through the Senate. I have often said that in creating the Director of National Intelligence, we gave him an awful lot of responsibility without all the authority he needed. Well, our bill attempts to address that problem by giving the DNI clearer authority and greater flexibility in overseeing the intelligence community. There are also a number of provisions in this bill that I believe are essential for promoting good government. Too often, we have seen programs or acquisitions of major systems balloon in cost and decrease in performance. That is unacceptable. We are in difficult economic times and the taxpayers are spending substantial sums of money to ensure that the intelligence community has the tools it needs to keep us safe. If we don't demand accountability for how these tools are operated or created, then we are failing the taxpayers, and we are failing the intelligence community. So, for the past several years, I have sponsored amendments that require the intelligence community to perform vulnerability assessments of major systems and to keep track of excessive cost growth of major systems. This latter provision is modeled on the Nunn-McCurdy provision which has guided Defense Department acquisitions for years. I am happy to say that these provisions are part of this year's bill too. I believe that these, and other good-government provisions, will encourage earlier identification and solving of problems relating to the acquisition of major systems. Too often, such problems have not been identified until exorbitant sums of money have been spent--and, unfortunately, at that point, there is often reluctance to cancel the project. Similarly, the intelligence community must get a handle on its personnel levels. Now, I do not share the belief that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is too large; in fact, I think we need to make sure that our National Counterterrorism Center and National Counterproliferation Center have more resources, not less. However, I am concerned about the number of contractors used by the intelligence community to perform functions better left to government employees. There are some jobs that demand the use of contractors--for example, certain technical jobs or short-term functions--but too often, the quick fix is just to hire contractors, not long-term support. So, our bill includes a provision calling for annual personnel level assessments for the intelligence community. These assessments will ensure that, before more people are brought in, there are adequate resources to support them and enough work to keep them busy. Finally, the CIA's interrogation program has been a hot topic over the past few months. This spring, the administration declassified several Office of Legal Counsel opinions pertaining to the program but redacted much of the information concerning its effectiveness. I am generally opposed to releasing information about some of our most sensitive intelligence sources and methods, but in this case, I believe the record needed to be set straight. So I sponsored an amendment, that was accepted by the committee, requiring the Director of the CIA to release an unclassified summary of several memos that discuss the effectiveness of the interrogation program. The American people may decide for themselves whether or not the CIA's program was effective in preventing terrorist attacks on our nation and our allies. These are just a few of the provisions in this bill that I believe are important for the success of our intelligence collection efforts and equally important for ensuring sound oversight by the Intelligence Committee. I commend Senator Feinstein for her leadership in shepherding this bill through the committee and the Senate. I appreciated her willingness to work through the many issues raised throughout this process. I ask my colleagues to support this bill so that we can get back on track with performing effective intelligence oversight. Clarifying Responsibilities of Committees

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, today is an opportunity to honor an unassuming and too often unsung hero, a humanitarian credited with feeding 1 billion people and saving the lives of hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. There are few who have walked the Earth who have had the impact Norman Borlaug had; not only in his own country but in the areas of the Earth he referred to as the ``forgotten world.'' As an Iowa farm boy, Dr. Borlaug recognized there are no miracles in agricultural production, there is science. Norman Borlaug is the father of the green revolution. He warned that fear-mongering by environmental extremists against pesticides, fertilizers, and genetically improved foods would again put millions at risk of starvation while damaging the very biodiversity those extremists claimed to protect. In fact, Dr. Borlaug's green movement does not provoke a war of man versus plant, it strengthens that relationship by using science to supplement the Earth's natural resources and provide a stable food source for a stronger and healthier world. Biotechnology has breathtaking possibilities for improving human health, the environment, and enhancing agricultural production around the world. Already, hundreds of millions of people worldwide have been helped by biotechnology drugs and vaccines. There are many more drugs and vaccines currently being tested which will eventually help us wipe out other diseases as well. For thousands of years, farmers have fought countless pests and diseases that have destroyed crops and limited production. Biotechnology is bringing hope to those in the developing world by providing crops that are more tolerant of drought and more resistant to insects and weeds and more nutritious. Biotechnology is also increasing the nutritional value of foods produced by increasing the vitamin and mineral content of crops grown and reducing fat. Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis, is a natural insecticide in the soil. It is being transplanted into corn, potatoes, cotton, and rice, allowing farmers to produce more food with far fewer chemicals. In the United States, use of transgenic seeds has reduced pesticide application on our fields by tens of millions of pounds annually. Dr. Borlaug's work focused on the principle that wealthy nations have many problems, hungry nations have only one. He stated that: ``Without food, many can live at most but a few weak; without it, all other components of social justice are meaningless.'' Today, in the United States and in this Congress, we have the luxury of being concerned with so many other issues because our bellies are full. In an excerpt from Dr. Borlaug's epilogue from his biography, ``The Mild Mannered Maverick Who Fed a Billion People,'' he underscored that ``Helping struggling subsistence farmers produce a food surplus is the way to rid the world of much poverty and misery.'' Dr. Borlaug's work will be remembered as the catalyst in solving world hunger and we, as world citizens, are forever indebted to his humanitarianism and a reminder of what science can do and why it should be defended and promoted. Today, let's all give thanks for the life and honor the memory of one of the foremost humanitarians of our age, Dr. Norman Borlaug. His passing earlier this week is a cause for the celebration of his life and a dedication to continuing his work as the best tribute we can provide to this truly great humanitarian. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Arizona for bringing this amendment to the floor. I was hoping to have the chance to discuss some points with him. But first, let me share some clarifications with my colleagues. If I remember correctly, cash for clunkers was an executive branch decision, using money they had at their discretion. When you talk about money at discretion, huge amounts of money are going to bureaucrats in the administration, and when you look at some of the spending, I think many of us have wondered why it is being spent in that way. Regrettably, I think Congress has given the previous administration and this administration far too much money without any congressional guidelines. If one should look at article I, sections 8 and 9 of the Constitution, you would see that we in the Congress have a responsibility to make sure taxpayer money is spent in ways that are most productive. It is our responsibility. When we make a mistake, we can be held responsible. But who has ever held a bureaucrat responsible for wasting billions and billions of dollars? If my colleague from Arizona doesn't like cash for clunkers, maybe he ought to go after the people in the administration who made that decision. He mentions a couple of instances of abuse of the earmark process. As he pointed out, those were punished criminally with criminal sanctions against the people who committed criminal activities. That is the way it should be. We need to be able to have open and free discussions on the floor about how money is spent. That is why I welcome this opportunity to discuss the points raised by my colleague from Arizona. He has rightfully pointed out the importance of NextGen, the new aviation traffic safety scheme and administration for the FAA. Well, we have been supporting that--the chair, Senator Murray, and I--for years. We put as much money into that program as can reasonably be spent this year. That is why it is such a shock to see that he would propose to throw a billion-plus dollars more into that program when it cannot be properly spent. It will then be subject to use as the administration, in its unfettered discretion, wants to use it. We believe we must continue to monitor the NextGen progress, and when we have major programs like this, they require not only oversight by the administration but by the Congress. That is our job. We are proud to do it, and we will continue to do it. We will ask the tough questions that, apparently, too infrequently are asked by people in the executive branch. I assure you, we have been, we are, and we will continue to be supportive of all reasonable progress and all the work that can be done on NextGen. Let's just take one small example of what the Senator's language would eliminate. The chair and I added money for flight safety officers--people who examine airlines to make sure that those who are flying are flying safely. Everybody heard about it and everybody still remembers, if you think about it, last winter's tragic air crash in northern New York State. There were so many things wrong. It was unbelievable: the black marks on the pilot's record, the failure to have a properly trained and disciplined copilot. The list of mistakes was unbelievable. I had the pleasure, as I stated earlier, of going to a civic club luncheon in my home State in Mexico, MO, and a regional official for the FAA was talking about those problems. My colleagues in the civic club were astounded, and they said: Aren't you supposed to be regulating that? Isn't the FAA supposed to be regulating that? He said: Yes, we are, but the problem is that there are not enough FDSOs--safety officers--to inspect the airplanes. So we added money for that because all of us who fly want to see NextGen work. We know we need it. But in the meantime, while they are doing everything they can to get NextGen working, we need to have flight safety officers now because almost everyone in this Chamber and a huge number of the people we serve back in our States depend upon the FAA to ensure flight safety. Why do we want to have oversight of NextGen? Unfortunately, the FAA has a horrendous record of program management. In fact, the FAA's air traffic modernization effort has been on the GAO's high-risk list since 1995--high risk. Our Government Accountability Office says it is high risk. Fortunately, though, through strict budgetary controls and increased congressional oversight, this program graduated from the list in 2009. This is not the time to give the FAA hundreds of millions, or billions, of dollars with no oversight or strings attached. NextGen is a complex effort to modernize the air traffic system. Like many big issues and challenges facing the government, simply providing bundles of funding--more than they can use--is not the answer. The FAA has literally wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on similar efforts in the past. I would like to hear my colleagues who object to congressional oversight explain what they are doing to ensure that those in the administration who handle these dollars do the job better. Some billions of dollars have been wasted and some efforts, such as LORAN-C, did not even produce a usable product after millions and millions of taxpayer dollars were spent. Currently, 6 of the 18 major FAA modernization programs have experienced unacceptable cost growth and schedule delays. To reduce delays, increase safety, and reduce congestion, the FAA needs further oversight, not resources. I ask my colleagues to join us in exercising, in those committees where there is jurisdiction, proper oversight of the FAA. Madam President, I will have much more to say about the importance of congressional responsibility for the dollars we spend in this body. Far too much money now is being spent without congressional oversight. Later on, I will cite an example. When I asked a high-ranking administration official when we would have a chance to oversee a program spending billions and billions of dollars in the stimulus program, I was told: You gave us this money; it is none of your business; we are going to make those decisions. That is a recipe for disaster. We have to exercise our responsibility thoughtfully and take responsibility for what we do. With that, I yield to the chairman.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I join with my colleague in thanking the Senator from Oklahoma for offering these amendments. We are looking at these amendments. I think they are good amendments, and I hope they can be accepted. We have some of our staff looking at the details of some of the amendments to see what impact they have. We have to determine whether there would be any untoward consequences from one of the amendments, which I think probably comes within the jurisdiction of the Environment and Public Works Committee, so I would invite them to come down and look at it. But I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for offering his amendments and for bringing them up for discussion, and I join with my colleague from Washington, the chair of the subcommittee, in urging that we move forward with a vote. We have lots of work to do. We were on this on Thursday and Friday and Monday. Now it is Tuesday, and we have a short day, and then there is Wednesday and there is Thursday. This bill needs to be passed, so moving the amendments forward, getting votes on them, having the discussions is very important. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I echo what the chairman of our subcommittee, the Senator from Washington, has said. We have had it out now. We have had this bill out. It has been on the floor since Thursday. We had Friday and the weekend to look at it. A number of my colleagues, many on this side of the aisle, have talked about offering amendments. I hope they will be ready to bring those amendments down. I think one or two are going to be offered this afternoon so we can have votes scheduled at 5:30, as the majority leader has suggested. It is not only the majority leader, it is the Senator from Washington and I who are urging people to come down. This is a very important bill. Everybody has transportation needs, concerns, and issues. Housing is such a significant challenge right now, given the situation in the financial markets and the situation with housing. We have many people who are dependent upon federally supported housing. We need to make sure we have the funds made available to take care of their needs. We have special needs projects such as the VASH program for veterans with assisted housing that the Chair and I have entered into. That is very important for bringing our service men and women home and giving them the right kind of accommodation. All of these things are in the context of significant financial problems in the Federal Housing Administration. FHA, if you read the papers, is at a crisis point. I have described it as a ticking timebomb. Regrettably, I think that is still an accurate calculation. We have funds to provide to HUD and to the Secretary of HUD, to the IG and others, to deal with problems before they become more serious. So we need to get this bill passed. I hope our colleagues would bring their amendments forward. We will only be able to vote until 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. We would appreciate them bringing as many amendments as they can forward before then, this afternoon and tomorrow, so we can go about the business of conferencing with the House, getting a measure that will get to the President so he can sign it and put these critically important funds to work. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Johanns amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

Mr. BOND. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I rise today to support the amendment offered by my colleague from Nebraska, Senator Johanns. He has proposed an amendment to end taxpayer funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. We cannot allow taxpayer funds to support groups engaged in repeated voter registration fraud activities, and now their repeated assistance for housing, tax, and mortgage fraud. I recognize--and let's be clear about it--that ACORN has helped counsel homeowners through the recent mortgage meltdown. Doubtless, they have helped good people find affordable housing solutions. But that cannot outweigh the numerous and repeated abuses of taxpayer dollars allowed to occur in their name. In my home State of Missouri, several ACORN workers in Kansas City admitted to voter registration fraud. There have been other investigations throughout the State. Unfortunately, ACORN vote fraud in Missouri is not isolated. ACORN workers in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Nevada have all been associated with fraudulent voter registration activities. This long list shows this is not a problem of a handful of rogue employees but, regrettably, an endemic systemwide culture of fraud and abuse. Now we have disgusting and unacceptable video footage of ACORN housing workers counseling on how prostitutes might circumvent mortgage applications, tax law, and child endangerment laws. Again, this despicable behavior is not isolated to one rogue employee but has occurred repeatedly in Washington, Baltimore, and New York. For those who say that minority and low-income advocates are being picked upon, I say the causes of expanding housing and voting opportunities and wise counseling and assistance to those who need help are too important to be allowed to be sullied by such a morally fraudulent organization. The tireless volunteers and underpaid staffers toiling to help the impoverished and disenfranchised do not deserve to have their reputation pulled down by the organization they work for which cannot put an end to these abuses. All taxpayers deserve to know their hard-earned tax dollars are not going toward voter, housing, mortgage, or tax fraud assistance. Congress has the opportunity to end this relationship now. I am hoping we will be able to vote this afternoon, and I urge my colleagues to support the Johanns amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, excuse me. I thought I would have time at 10:30.

Mr. BOND. The Senator said 2 minutes?

Mr. BOND. May I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended? I need 15 minutes. I ask that morning business be extended for an additional 10 minutes to accommodate my colleague from Ohio.