Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, it really strikes me strange, when we are talking about protecting money from States that already have full treatment programs, and people are dying across this country because there is inequity in the funding for those States. If that is the basis for an objection, that is an obscene objection. We are talking about people dying who have no access to medicines, who have no access to treatment, while we have--let me get to the specifics--while we have in New York alone, last year--the city of New York spent $9 million on hotel rooms averaging $329 a night to house people. They spent money, $2.2 million, on people who were dead, paying for rented rooms they weren't even in. And we are talking about objecting to fair treatment and access to care for people who have none now because we don't want to see the fluff associated with other programs decline. The President has asked us to pass this bill. On October 1, lots of changes take place. They are going to impact lots of people in lots of States. I find it unconscionable that somebody would have somebody object for them rather than to come down and defend their objection. If you object to making sure African-American women across this country have access to lifesaving drugs, you ought to come to the floor and say you object to that because that is what an objection means for this bill starting October 1. There is already a lack. There are people dying in three States right now because they have waiting lists for drugs for HIV for people who have no other resources to take care of themselves. Last year I offered an amendment on this floor, fully paid for and offset, for $60 million for additional ADAP funds that would have taken care of the very people who are going to suffer from this bill, and the very same Senators who are blocking this bill voted against those funds for those people who have no treatment today. There is something very wrong in the Senate when the leaders of the charge for this bill, with the exception of Senator Kennedy who has done miraculous work with Senator Enzi--the leaders in the charge for getting this bill and making sure everybody has equal access to care for HIV in this country are four conservative Senators. We ought to ask a question about that. Why are we down here fighting for this? We believe in equal treatment. We believe in equal access. Where are the people who claim all the time to defend that? Why aren't they here on the floor of the Senate? I want to make a couple of other points. The Labor-HHS bill that we are going to be voting on this fall has $1 billion in earmarks in it; $1 billion in earmarks. Most of it has zero, in comparison to saving somebody's life, like ADAP drugs and access to treatment if you are infected with HIV and you don't have any access to care whatsoever. We don't see anybody volunteering to give up their earmarks. Here is a stack of earmarks for New York State alone, last year in excess of $1.5 billion--over 600 earmarks. Nobody volunteered to give up the earmarks, the special projects that politicians get benefits from that sometimes do good and sometimes don't do good--nobody offered to give those up to pay for this loss. We want to continue to do what we are doing, having the privileges and prerogatives of a Senator or a Congressman to grease the skids of our own reelection with an earmark, but we will not give some of that up to make sure somebody in a State that is not having access, who is going to die in the next 3 months, has access to lifesaving drugs. That is an incrimination on this process. It is an incrimination on this body. Shame on us if we allow this to continue to be held up. New York State carried over $27 million. The Department of HHS--here is another. This past weekend, HHS spent $400,000 sending people--78 employees--to Hollywood, FL, of which 2 out of the 3 days didn't have anything to do with the conference. It was a party. As a matter of fact, as a quote from the New York Times states, at the last AIDS conference in Toronto, 78 HHS employees went, and as the New York Times said, this was a star-studied rock concert, a circus-like atmosphere that made it seem more like a convention and social gathering than a scientific meeting. For these and other reasons a number of leading scientists have stopped attending and some supporters claimed the quality of the presentations have declined at recent conferences. We can find more money. We can find money from earmarks. We can find money from conferences. We can find money from waste, fraud, and abuse. What we cannot find is the integrity to treat everybody equally in this country because we want to protect the parochial interests of our city or our State. That is wrong. It is wrong that they are not down here defending that immoral position. I challenge them to come down and defend it. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, by objecting to moving this bill, we need to look at the real lives that are getting ready to be harmed. Not only is the funding for the program going to be cut to the poorest of the poor by the formula in the preexisting Ryan White Act, but also the money for New York and California is going to be cut. The New York delegation, for example, argues that updating the formulas is devastating their State's infrastructure. A closer look reveals that the impact on New York, like other States with large urban areas, is not so great. The national average funding per AIDS case in 2006 was $1,613. New York's average was $2,122--33 percent more than the national average. Under the corrected funding formulas, the national average in 2007 would be $1,793; New York's would still be higher at $2,107, just 5 percent less than the State currently has, so people who are getting no treatment now, especially minority women where this disease has ravaged and is growing at a larger proportion, do not have access to any care. What we are really saying is to avoid a 5-percent cut, we are going to eliminate access for large numbers of minority women in this country who are infected with this virus and have no access to drugs, have no access to treatment today because the dollars have not followed the epidemic. The political response to this, even though it might be parochial, is wrong for this country. It is wrong for those who have no benefit today to continue to be denied benefits because some group might lose a small percentage when, in fact, a very large number of people are going to be benefited by the new Ryan White fund. We need to be very careful. The last Ryan White law was very specific in what is getting ready to happen. The number of people waiting for drugs is going to shoot through the ceiling if we do not pass the bill because of the funding formula that was in there to force us to pass a bill. What we have said is we are going to object on parochial interests, a 4- or 5-percent cut, but the reason we are going to object, we do not care that other people are going to have no care, no treatment, no drugs, no access, so what we are really doing is we are not taking away any significant care, but we are markedly reducing an opportunity for life for those who are the least able to care for themselves. Just a couple of other examples. The New York Times noted that out of this $2,107, we have dog-walking paid for through AIDS funds, we have candlelight dinners paid for for AIDS recipients--this at the same time an African-American woman in Atlanta, in Greensboro, or in Tulsa cannot get the lifesaving drugs she needs for tomorrow, the drugs that will save her life, allowing her to continue to be a mother. There have been a lot of people who have worked very hard to get Ryan White reauthorized. I thank them personally for that. It diminishes the Senate when we think of the parochial and not the whole. The long-term former funding for Ryan White was based on AIDS cases. The new funding is based on HIV and AIDS cases. This new funding in this new bill says that 75 percent of the money has to go to treatment--we have never had that before--to really make a difference in people's lives. I am disappointed that we are not going to be able to do this bill, but my disappointment is nothing compared to the people who aren't going to get care, who aren't going to have a future, who aren't going to have a life if this is not changed. I thank the chairman for his hard work. I thank the Senator from North Carolina for his work and Senator Jeff Sessions, as well. This is a disease which is moving hard and heavy to minority communities, to the South. If we do not recognize that they ought to have equal rights for treatment and care, there is something wrong with us. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I thank the Senator from Illinois. I share his understanding of this legislation and also his expectation that the Web site will include information about the use of competitive procedures.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, Senators Barack Obama, Tom Carper, John McCain, and I earlier this year introduced S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, to bring increased transparency to the way the Federal Government spends taxpayer money. Transparency means allowing citizens to access accurate information on Federal spending decisions in a timely fashion for the purpose of keeping their elected officials accountable. Outside of protecting national security and individual privacy, there is no reason why the operations of all Federal agencies should not be widely known by as many as would like to know. It is because this belief is widely shared by the American people as well as many in this body that S. 2590 has gained the cosponsorship of dozens of Senators. I believe, though, that transparency in Government decisionmaking should not be limited simply to spending, but should also be extended to the decisions Congress makes about the Tax Code. The Tax Code is currently tens of thousands of pages in length and far too confusing for even IRS customer service agents to understand, let alone the average citizen with far less expertise. Because I believe that transparency is one of the best tools we have to curb wasteful behavior, I look forward working with Senator Frank Lautenberg to develop bipartisan legislation like S. 2590 that will bring increased transparency to the Tax Code by allowing the American public to understand the real world effects of the Tax Code. Tax Code matters are extremely complex and the American public has a right to know how the Tax Code affects them. American taxpayers also deserve to know if they are paying higher taxes in order to offset the loss of revenue due to special treatment for special interest groups. This is a complex issue that will require careful study. It is my intention to address this issue in a future hearing of the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security. I believe that a hearing addressing this issue will help us all to better understand the ultimate effects of targeted tax expenditures. Further study will also help to inform us on how to fully address the issue of greater transparency. I thank Senator Lautenberg for his attention to this issue and I look forward to working with him and Senator Obama to promote increased Government transparency. As Thomas Jefferson wrote back in 1802, ``We might hope to see the finances of the Union as clear and intelligible as a merchant's books, so that every member of Congress and every man of any mind in the Union should be able to comprehend them, to investigate abuses, and consequently to control them.''

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Would the chairman yield for a question?

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, this is a fairly straightforward amendment. One of the things we do know is happening is that we are borrowing a lot of money every year from our kids and our grandkids. What we have done in my Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management is we have noted that we spend, at minimum, a half a billion dollars a year on conferences. The Defense Department spends more on conferences than anybody. These conferences are sometimes very needed--which I will not object to--but also many are not needed. One of the things I think we need to look at is, can we do it better? Can we become more efficient? The chairman and ranking member on the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, as well as Chairman Warner on the Defense authorization committee, understand the things we need to do to fund our military, such as the Senator just talked about: the timeliness of this bill. But the fact is, the Pentagon, last year, spent $77 million on conferences. Madam President, 36,000 military and civilian employees went to 6,600 conferences worldwide last year, at an average cost of $2,200 per person. Of interest is that of those 6,600 conferences, 663 were held in Florida in the middle of the winter, 224 were held in Las Vegas, and 98 in Hawaii. The cost of those conferences and the per cost of those travels for individuals far exceeded the average. DOD spent more on conferences than the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, and EPA combined. The question is, Are there not some benefits? There are some benefits to some of these conferences. But half the conferences could have been conducted under what we call now digital video conferencing. So we have the technology to save money. We are in a war. We are having trouble funding the war. We are borrowing the money to fund that war from our kids. We are at $8.6 trillion debt. We have unending debts facing us in the future, secondary to Medicare and Social Security. It is time we prioritize. All this amendment does is it sets a ceiling for the Department of Defense. It does not tell them where they can go, who can go, or anything else. It just says they will not spend more than $70 million-- $70 million. That still will be more than all those agencies combined. And all it takes is a little thoughtful planning to say: Maybe this is one we should not go to. Maybe we should not be traveling to Florida in the middle of the winter for a conference. Maybe we can do it on video conferencing. The fact is, there are hard choices before us. Should we limit how much money we spend on conferences? And can we use that money to take care of our troops, to upgrade a humvee, to pay for the things we are having trouble paying for today? I think this is a commonsense amendment. It was added to the HUD bill by this body. I plan on adding it to almost every appropriations bill that comes through. It is something I think we ought to consider. For example, for $159,000, we can up-armor an M1151. For $152,000, we can up-armor an M1152. For $189,000, we can up-armor an M1152 ambulance. There are a lot of things we can do if we limit the amount of money spent on travel and conferences in the Department of Defense. So all this says is: Can't you do it better? Won't you do it better? Won't you use the technology that is available to us today? And won't you put $70 million, this next year, into our troops instead of conferencing? I have tried to work with the chairman on getting this accepted and held in conference. I understand he cannot guarantee that. Therefore, I am going to be asking for a vote so that the Senate is on record that we think we ought to be trimming some of the other expenses so we can put the money where our troops need it. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, in concurrence with the other amendment being set aside, I ask that amendment No. 4784 be considered.

Mr. COBURN. This amendment is all about common sense, about saving money. I do wish to make a couple of corrections with regard to the last amendment. The expenses related to the military meeting with Members of Congress are not in the $79 million that was spent last year. It is not included in that figure. This is domestic conferencing. It doesn't have anything to do with international travel. The fact is, we have to do better when it comes to the things we can control in terms of variable expenses. In the Defense appropriations bill, 20 reports are required by the Defense Department. Many of those are needed. What this amendment does is require public disclosure of all reports delivered to the Appropriations Committee. I am willing to amend that to apply to the authorization committee as well, if the chairman would so desire, including the justification of the presence of annual budget requests by the Department of Defense, unless those reports contain information that would comprise national security. Anything that would comprise national security is exempted from the amendment. But if they are reporting to the Appropriations Committee or the authorization committee, then they ought to be reporting to the American public. The American public ought to see what those reports say, provided there is no risk to national security within them. DOD provides the Appropriations Committee with annual justifications for the administration's budget proposals, which OMB has agreed to put online next year, with the same exception regarding the compromise of national security. The reason this issue came up is that this year with the President's budget request, only members of the Appropriations Committee could see the justifications. Other Members of the Senate could not see the justifications, the reasoning behind the requests. Even though we are going to be required to vote on them, we could never see the President's reasoning for why he was asking for what he was asking for. So that is going to be changed at OMB next year. They have committed to do that. Those justifications will be made public. But of the reports this committee is going to ask of the Congress, if they don't compromise national security--Senator Obama and I are offering this amendment--they ought to be placed online. The Defense Department has the capability of doing that. The rest of America ought to see what the justifications are. Sunshine is the best thing we have to hold us accountable to do what is in the best interest of our country. Not only should the American public know it, the media should have availability to it so that information can be spread. Every Department annually provides budget justifications to the Appropriations Committee. That is not in question. The question is, Do they provide justifications to the American public? That is the question. That is a question the American public is asking now. We are going to spend, as Senator Gregg said yesterday, $553 billion on defense this year, including the war, upgrading defense, and there is no question, as the chairman said, we are the lone superpower. There is great responsibility that comes with that. But in fact, as the Secretary of Defense said on September 10, 2001, every penny counts. It ought to be tracked, checked, and open for scrutiny. This amendment says that a communication to Congress, if in fact it puts no risk, no security-sensitive information out there, the American public ought to see it. The only reason, a logical person could assume, other than a national security issue, that we would not want the American public to see these reports is that we have something we don't want them to know. I believe collectively the American public is as wise or wiser than the collection of their representatives in Washington. Their judgment is important in what we do and how we do it. If we truly have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, then routine operations of the Government must no longer be concealed or hidden from the people of this country. What this amendment does is assure greater transparency and accountability of taxpayer funds. It lets the American people know what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how. This amendment is endorsed by over 50 organizations. Here is what they say: As advocates from diverse political perspectives, both on the far right and far left and in the middle, we concur that government transparency is vital to the health of our political system. Regardless of our views on the appropriate role of the federal government, we believe government policy must disclose its spending decisions and the rationale behind them. Such disclosure will help encourage a more active, engaged citizenry and a more effective and efficient government. American taxpayers should not be kept in the dark about any decision, unless it is for national security, and yet there are obstacles for this information at every turn. It is important, with the revelations of what has happened in Defense contracting, that the American public have their confidence reestablished that what we are doing is correct, right, and straightforward. This is straightforward. We have from the committee the list of reports that are directed to be prepared: Reserve component budget structure, legal assistance, personnel reductions, National Guard procurement, alternative diesel fuel, MTF efficiency wedge, impact of nursing shortage on military health care delivery system, postdoctoral education, alcoholism research, Commander's Emergency Response Program, to name a few. Where it does not compromise national security, the American public ought to know it. This says that if they have it, the Department of Defense puts it on the Web site with the proviso that anything that is of national security be extracted or withheld. It is a reasonable amendment. It ought to be there. The Senate ought to vote on it to say that they want sunshine, that they want the American people to know what they are going to do. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, we spent some time last evening with the Parliamentarian on it. We believe we have a defense of germaneness based on what the content of the House bill is and that we would stand by the idea that this is already relating to and attached to requirements from the House bill. We do not believe it violates rule XVI. I ask for a ruling from the chair.

Mr. COBURN. I raise the point of germaneness.

Mr. COBURN. That's correct.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, this is a straightforward amendment. Everybody knows we are having problems in the Department of Defense in terms of management and accounting and control. There is a law called the Improper Payments Act. Quite frankly, the law is not being followed by the Department of Defense. This amendment is very narrow in its focus. What it does is directs the DOD to improve the methodology for estimating improper payments related to travel and to provide risk assessments that determine whether travel payments at DOD are at a significant risk of making improper payments. We know of a minimum of $30 million in airline tickets that were not used, but we didn't get our money back for last year. We know of another $30 million that was at least bought inappropriately, and this is done outside of the Defense Department, not within. The Defense Department is not assessing that. All this amendment does is say you ought to figure out and look at what you are making improper payments for. What we do know, from our subcommittee hearings, is that there is in the neighborhood of $20 billion to $30 billion of improper payments made by the Defense Department every year on a $553 billion budget. Those problems cannot be solved overnight. We are working hard. As a matter of fact, we are having a hearing today on the management techniques and information systems that the DOD is using. They are starting to make the corrections to be better stewards of our money. This is a simple amendment that says they ought to follow the Improper Payments Act for this one segment, for the purpose of finding and eliminating payments that should not have been made, or were made for incorrect amounts by the Defense Department. We have had three hearings in our subcommittee on improper payments. The minimum in this Government, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense, is around $100 billion a year in wrong payments made by the Federal Government. There is over $30 billion in Medicaid and $36 billion in Medicare. This large quantity in the Defense Department--plus many of the other agencies--is not even being reported or looked at. There is $1.6 billion in food stamps. I could go on and on. The fact is, when we are running a deficit such as we are and we are borrowing the money from our grandkids, we ought to do every small thing we can to improve the stewardship of that money. The DOD is reporting improper payment information for only three programs--the military retirement fund, military health benefits and, for the first time this year, military pay. There are significant other improper payments within the Pentagon. We know it and we are going after it and we are going to try to solve it. The Improper Payments Act doesn't exempt this agency from its requirements. No agency is exempt. What it says is: Perform a risk assessment, develop a statistically valid assessment of improper payments, develop corrective action, and report the results. If you are not doing any of that, you are not going to know what we are wasting, and you are not going to be able to develop a plan or figure out how to correct the problem. So all this amendment does is take one small area of it and say do the improper payments on it. It is one area where they can do it fairly simply and they can accomplish it. It is asking them to do it. It requires them to provide the congressional defense committees and the Governmental Affairs Committee the risk assessments for fiscal year 2005 that determine whether travel payments at DOD are at a significant risk of making improper payments. We already know that because that is what the Defense Travel System debate is all about. It requires DOD to use a statistically valid estimate for determining whether travel payments are at risk or making significant improper payments. Finally, it requires DOD to provide a justification for the methodology and making sure it is statistically valid and accurate, representing the full universe of travel payments by DOD. This isn't a small amount of money. They spend a ton on travel, and they ought to spend it wisely. They shouldn't waste a penny because anything we are wasting can't be used in a way to support our troops and do what we need to do. We have cleared this with the Parliamentarian in terms of it being germane, and we hope the Senate will concur with this amendment. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, let me describe the recent assessment by the Department of Defense: For payments made within the Department of Defense for travel--for travel--as required under section 2 of the Improper Payments Information Act.

Mr. COBURN. That is what this says.

Mr. COBURN. Will the chairman yield for a question?

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, if the chairman would yield, I did apply this to the Defense authorization bill and it is in conference--it is going to conference, and the chairman of that committee accepted it.

Mr. COBURN. I would be happy to add an amendment or a caveat that says ``under this act.'' Would that satisfy the chairman?

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COBURN. I do.

Mr. COBURN. I do.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask that the pending amendment be set aside, and I call up amendment No. 4848.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. COBURN. Is there a reason, even if the money was spent from NSA or Defense Intelligence, that you wouldn't want an improper payments evaluation for that money?

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, this is an amendment which we know is needed. We have seen it through the conviction of a Member of Congress. What this does is require an analysis of the total cost of earmarks and the effectiveness of each in meeting the goals of the Department of Defense. Earmarks are consuming a growing proportion of the Defense funding. The number of earmarks in the appropriation laws has grown from 587 in the Department of Defense in 1994 to 2,847 in 2006. The amount of money earmarked has increased over the same period from $4.2 billion to $9.4 billion. The amount earmarked as a percentage of the total Defense budget has risen to 2.4 percent in 2006. It is my belief that earmarks are siphoning away funds from other national security priorities. Last year, the White House Office of Management and Budget wrote to the House Appropriations Committee warning that the hundreds of millions of dollars set aside for congressional pork projects would be slashed from a Pentagon program designed to fill some military desk jobs with civilians and would thereby limit one of the Defense Department's most productive initiatives for reducing the strain on our Armed Forces and free up critically needed troops for the global war on terror. OMB's letter said the committee's additions to the Navy's shipbuilding program and budget, and numerous other smaller funding increases, preempts the Department's ability to invest cost-effectively in 21st century capabilities and that the administration is concerned that these reductions could damage the readiness of the U.S. forces and their preparedness. Earmarks or projects directed by Members could be used to offset much of the cost of the emergency supplemental bills that have been used to finance the various front lines in the war against terrorism. The emergency supplemental bill passed by Congress and signed by the President this last month provided $65.8 billion to support Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. The total amount spent on earmarks in Defense appropriations spent over the past 3 years was $27 billion--about 47 percent of the amount needed to pay for the continued military operations in these battlefronts in the war against terrorism. What we have done instead is relied on emergency spending, which is not offset; it is directly added to the debt of our kids, undermining their future standard of living. All this amendment does is say: Let's do an analysis. Let's see if the things that are being earmarked by individual Members of Congress actually support the defense of the country versus the defense of some special interest back home. Interestingly, the chairman objected to Senator Durbin's amendment to do brain trauma research at the University of Chicago, and rightly so. We have had 1,700 brain-injured troops from traumatic brain injuries. There is research going on across this country on traumatic brain injury. The reason is that we have 1,700 a year from 4-wheelers and another 1,700 from motorcycles. So the point is, do we put the money in our troops or do we put the money in investing in projects back home that make us look good but aren't a priority with the troops? Let's talk about this supplemental which we just passed this past year: $80 billion. Ten million dollars went to expand wastewater facilities in Pennsylvania. The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center got $3 million; Dosoto County, MS, got $35 million; the Fire Sciences Academy in Elk, NV, got $4 million. We know the problems with earmarking in terms of the recent congressional corruption and ethics probes. What this amendment does is adds transparency and accountability to the earmark process. If it is good, then the Defense Department study will say: Yes, it is something we should have done. If it will waste, then we will say: It is wasted. The fact is we are loading to the tune of billions of dollars a year projects Members of Congress want but the Defense Department doesn't want that interfere with their mission rather than help their mission. An analysis of the usefulness of each earmark in advancing the goals of the Department of Defense is the purpose of this amendment. This will provide Members of Congress a more complete view of the cost- effectiveness of the earmarks and whether they continue to warrant additional funding. The annual earmark report will ensure that policymakers and the public are fully aware of the impact of unnecessary earmarks on the budget of the Department of Defense and siphon away from military preparedness and our national defense. The grading system will likewise provide needed information to the appropriators about projects that are inserted in the bills that have not had proper oversight, debate, or discussion. This added transparency will ensure that every Member of Congress can cast a truly informed vote and ensure greater accountability for how Federal funds are allocated and spent. This is at the heart of the confidence of the American people with Congress. Do we earmark something because it is the best thing for the country to do, is it the best long-term choice, or do we earmark something because it helps us individually? I would say there isn't one State in this country that can be healthy if this country isn't healthy. There can't be one community that can end up healthy if the country isn't healthy economically. None of us can be free unless we are all free. So the idea is not to eliminate earmarks; it is just saying after they have happened, then let's look at them and see if they really accomplished something worthwhile for the defense of this country and should we have spent the money in doing that. There are multiple examples I can put into the Record, and I will submit to the Record with unanimous consent a list of the ongoing probes that are there in terms of earmarks and the Defense Department. But I think it is incumbent upon us to reestablish the confidence of the American public that when we earmark, what we are doing is accurate, it is needed, and it is something that will, in fact, inure to the defense of this country and the defense of our children's financial health. With that, I yield the floor.