Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, there is much we don't know about the health care legislation being developed behind closed doors somewhere here in the Capitol. But this much we do know: the promises being made that this legislation won't add a dime to the deficit just don't hold water. Any characterization of this legislation as being deficit neutral is based on an assumption that we will obtain significant savings from Medicare, that we will somehow over the next 10 years summon up the courage to tell seniors that the benefits they currently are receiving are too lavish, and that they will need to sacrifice some of their current coverage to pay for those who don't currently have coverage. Mr. Speaker, this type of courage doesn't reside with this Congress. We recently passed legislation to shield high-income seniors from a slight increase in Medicare part B premiums. If we have to shield seniors who make more than $170,000 annually from paying another $20 monthly, how are we going to find $500 billion in savings from Medicare over the next 10 years? It simply doesn't add up.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 8.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is identical. It simply deals with a separate grant program established by the underlying bill. This one would refer to the Fishing Safety Grant, the fishing Safety Research Grant program, whereas the last one was the Fishing Safety Training Grants program. So I believe the same arguments apply here. And with that, if the gentleman will agree to accept the amendment again, then I'll be prepared to yield back the balance of my time. But for now, I'll reserve.

Mr. FLAKE. I have an amendment at the desk designated No. 7.

Mr. FLAKE. This amendment is straightforward and, I believe, noncontroversial. It should be familiar to those of us here. The underlying bill establishes a new competitive grant program called the Fishing Safety Training Grants program. This amendment would simply prevent the new grant program from being a vehicle for earmarking. I try to offer this amendment as often as I can when new grant programs are established. The reason I do this is because, unfortunately, we have a history now of these grant programs being established and, even if the underlying legislation says that they are to be awarded on the basis of merit or on a competitive basis, then, oftentimes, a little down the road, many of these grant programs are earmarked, some of them, we have learned through sad experience, almost completely earmarked. Competitive grant programs earmarked by Members of this body, we simply can't have that. Now, I question why the Federal Government is using taxpayer dollars to fund training for individuals who operate commercial fishing vessels. I think that that's something that commercial fishing organizations ought to do themselves. However, if we are going to do this, then we should at least ensure that these grants are awarded on a competitive basis and aren't earmarked. And so I hope that this can be adopted. I should note that in the 110th Congress, this similar amendment was adopted to H.R. 2357, the Beach Protection Act. It was approved by a roll call vote of 263-117. And in the 111th Congress, this amendment was accepted on three separate occasions, each time by voice vote. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Chair, and I thank the chairmen of the committee and subcommittee for their vigilance here to make sure that these awards, these grants, are awarded out on a competitive basis. That's what we're seeking here. I'm glad that's going to happen. For the record, I found no earmarks on Jabonwod, the island that I stayed on. It was an incredible experience. Thanks for mentioning it. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo).

Mr. FLAKE. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I do not plan to support the rule or the underlying legislation. I have some of the concerns that were raised earlier about adding items that don't belong in a Defense bill. We simply shouldn't do that. But I do rise in support of a provision contained in the Defense authorization conference report that will hopefully shed some light on the process by which earmarks are competitively awarded by the Department of Defense. Section 1062 of the report represents a compromise between language in the Senate's version of the bill and an amendment dealing with earmarks that I was able to successfully offer in the House bill. The practice of earmarking, as we all know, has come under significant scrutiny in the media with the advent of the PMA Group scandal when it was revealed earlier this year. Yet, since that time, Congress has taken very little action to actually deal with the root cause of this problem. The Defense authorization bill, the Defense appropriation bill each contain hundreds of--in one case more than a thousand--individual earmarks, many of which--in fact, in the Defense appropriation bill, more than half of the earmarks are going to for-profit entities. We simply cannot continue to do that. No Member of Congress should have the ability to provide a sole- source or no-bid contract to their campaign contractors. Until we address the root of that problem, we're going to have problems like this. A while ago, I worked with the Department of Defense--or, in fact, I've been working with them for several months now--to try to see where these earmarks are going and to see what process they have by which they are competitively bid. I should note that I'm skeptical that this language will do very much good because the Department of Defense tells us now that they follow a process by which earmarks are competitively bid; yet, I provided the Department with a subset of roughly 160 earmarks in the FY 2008 legislation and asked for information regarding the competitive practices used to award these earmarks.

Mr. FLAKE. After an initial review, though apparently consistent with competitive requirements, it was found that, with uncanny alignment, these earmarks actually went to their intended recipients. So we have much more work here to do, and I hope in the coming months we can fix this problem completely. Members of Congress shouldn't have the ability to award no-bid contracts to their campaign contributors.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. The gentleman from Minnesota mentioned or decried the lack of bipartisanship here now. The problem with the highway bill has never been a lack of bipartisanship. The problem has been a lack of fiscal responsibility. When we did SAFETEA-LU 5 years ago, or 4 years ago, it passed by a margin, I think there were only eight dissenting votes here in the House and only three in the Senate. Yet it was a bill that was far too big for the Highway Trust Fund. We didn't have sufficient money there. The other gentleman from Oregon mentioned that we were able to fund out of the Highway Trust Fund without borrowing any money. If that is the case, why have we transferred twice this year $8 billion in one tranche, $7 billion in another tranche, money that would backfill for the money we simply don't have in this legislation? Let me point out another thing that is troubling here. In the bill there are extensions of certain projects and not of others. I'm glad that a lot of the projects, including most of the 6,300 earmarks that were in SAFETEA-LU, are now finished and completed, and we won't be extending those projects beyond. But there are exemptions here, projects that had a specific line item in the legislation: Three-quarters of a million dollars for America's Byways Resource Center in Duluth, Minnesota. More than $11 million for the magnetic levitation train system in Nevada. These are projects that will continue to receive funding because they have a line item in the bill. Now there is an uncanny alignment, I think anyone would see, between some of these projects and those who are working on this legislation. So you can say what you want about earmarks or whatever else, but this is an example, if nothing else, of the spoils system alive and well. We shouldn't extend for 3 months what we ought to take up now. If somebody says we need to increase taxes, that's a debate we ought to have, but we shouldn't continue to spend money that we don't have in the Highway Trust Fund because we will simply have to transfer it later.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chair, this amendment, I believe, is noncontroversial. It simply ensures that the funds within the new grant programs created in this bill are not earmarked but, rather, that they are awarded on a competitive or on a formula basis. It is important that we add prohibitive language here. There is prohibitive language in one of the sections of the bill, but it does not apply to the entire bill, so we need to ensure that the entire bill with these new grant programs isn't earmarked. As we have seen in the past, unfortunately, even when Congress says we have no intention of earmarking these accounts or this bill, we do. The best example, perhaps, is the Homeland Security bill. When the Homeland Security legislation came through first and we created the department, we were told that we wouldn't be earmarking these funds. Well, it just took us a few years, and now there are literally hundreds of earmarks in the Homeland Security bill. Many of the accounts that should be awarded on a competitive basis-- disaster mitigation and other things--are now earmarked, so when communities and organizations apply for this funding, it's already earmarked, and they can't even compete. We don't want this to happen in other areas as well, so it's important that this amendment is accepted. I believe that it will be. It is consistent with legislation that I've offered before to the BEACH Act a couple of years ago. That was voted on with a roll call vote and was approved. Later, when the Paycheck Fairness Act passed last year, this amendment was accepted by a voice vote. Most recently, it was accepted by voice vote on H.R. 1262, the Water Quality Investment Act, and on H.R. 2200, the TSA authorization bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman. I wish the gentleman would make that statement, but I don't expect that here, certainly, and I am pleased that this amendment will be accepted. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I won't take 2 minutes. I just want to say, I thought I'd heard it all until I came to the floor today. Somebody said earlier, this bill's a success. Ford Motor Company loves it. I think that that's self-evident. But I think that there are taxpayers around the country who are wondering why we're taking $2 billion more from them to decide which industry here is going to get a break. We decided to give out free money, and now we're surprised when people take advantage of it and love the program. I mean, that's the nature of human nature. If you're given free money, you like it and you want more. And that's what this program is. Why are we deciding to aid this sector and not another? If you're Mr. or Mrs. Businessman across the country, you've got to be wondering if we have lost our minds here by saying that we're going to continue to give out more money just for this industry but not help the others. I don't understand this process and how we can bring this up this quickly. But an Appropriation Committee that can bring a Defense bill to the floor in 18 minutes for a markup that has more than 1,100 earmarks, I guess, has no problem doing this.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 432 in part B.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I want to respond a little to what the chairman of the Defense Subcommittee said. He mentioned some of the horrible things that are happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have attended funerals myself of members who were killed by an IED or some other measure out there that they need greater protection from. But that is not what we are talking about here. The reason we are here and the reason I offered the last amendment is it is going to a firm that, according to press reports, doesn't have the expertise to do what they intend to do and in the past have not delivered on the promises that were made before. We see stories again and again and again on that same theme, that earmarks go to such companies. In fact, there is a trial going on, I believe, right now in Florida where an earmark recipient has pled guilty, I believe, to distributing earmark money to contractors who had no intention of following through and delivering on the contract. That is why we are here. So we can talk all we want about the needs of our troops in the field, and that is why I am offering these, because this money should be going to our troops in the field. Instead, it is being bled off, in some cases, according to press reports, to companies who don't know enough about what they are doing to receive the earmark. But they are getting an earmark and getting around competition despite the language in this year's bill which claims that these will be subject to free and open competition. This particular amendment, Mr. Chairman, would remove $3 million from funding for a Gulf Range Mobile Instrumentation Capability project. Again, I am here not knowing the specifics of the technology here, but I would submit that there are people in the Defense Department that perhaps might know better than some Members. And in this case, I would think that the chairman of the Defense Subcommittee would concede that we shouldn't be giving money to companies that have been implicated, at least it has been alleged, that they are under investigation. The Wall Street Journal reviewed real estate records and reported that many of the facilities that ProLogic, the recipient of this earmark, uses are partly owned by the family of the CEO, and ProLogic pays the CEO monthly rent that is higher than prevailing local rates. ProLogic was also subpoenaed in a broader Federal investigation into earmarks going to West Virginia, where ProLogic is headquartered. The Wall Street Journal also noted that four of ProLogic's six facilities were located in the congressional districts of senior members of the House Appropriations Committee. CBS News reported that ProLogic has spent more than $880,000 lobbying and contributed more than $400,000 to congressional campaigns. I should note this company has denied allegations of wrongdoing and the status of the investigation is currently unknown. But here we have a company that press reports say is either under investigation or cooperating with an investigation, and we are still giving it an earmark, a no-bid contract. Despite what is said about this will be open to free and open competition, we are giving them an earmark and saying this company at this address should get this money. I just don't see where this connects with the speech about the needs of our men and women in the military. Again, I will stipulate, we need to make sure that our men and women are armed, that they have force protection, that they have the arms and everything else they need. And that is why I am so against this process that we have here, because we bleed off money that should be going to our military into companies, through no-bid contracts, who in too many cases simply aren't doing the work that they were contracted to do. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I would disagree with the gentleman. I think we're in total agreement on this amendment. CBS News reported ProLogics businesses are getting a lot of attention, a lot of it from the FBI, which is investigating whether it diverted public money for its own private profit. This company is reported to be under investigation. And so should we be giving it an earmark? The gentleman mentioned that he doesn't know the company. But this we do know; that this company, it's reported by CBS and by others, that it is under investigation, and we're giving an earmark. So when the gentleman says that he thinks that we are in agreement that we shouldn't give earmarks to companies that it's alleged that there's some impropriety going on, I would submit that that's what we have here, according to the press. And unless we know completely that they're clean and doing good work, then we shouldn't give them an earmark. We should instead say to the Department of Defense: you decide. The gentleman mentioned that he doesn't know the company. Does he know if this company is the only company that can provide these services outlined?

Mr. FLAKE. I yield back.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 389 in part B.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, an editorial in The New York Times, entitled ``Political Animal 101,'' referred to the ``relationship between campaign dollars and the customized appropriations they are fed by grateful lawmakers'' as ``the ultimate in symbiotic survival and cynical influence trading.'' That is The New York Times. There have been editorials in the Washington Post. They have been in Roll Call and The Hill and just about everywhere. The mainstream media has done a great job investigating this and showing that this process leaves a lot to be desired. Again, it doesn't have to be illegal to be something that Members of this body should stand up and say, you know, our House should have a higher standard here. We ought to have a higher standard than whether we can survive an investigation going on by the Justice Department right now, that we ought to leave some confidence with the public that we are doing things right here. And I would submit when you have more than 1,000 earmarks, more than 500 of which represent no-bid contracts to private companies like this one, then we have got a problem. I urge support of the amendment.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, let me just finish the thought I had before. President Bush a couple of years ago said that earmarks that end up in the report language and not in the bill itself, like these earmarks, that he would instruct the Federal agencies to ignore them and to simply openly compete contracts out there. This Appropriations Committee inserted language after the President did that and said that the President or the Federal agencies should have to follow the language in the report even though it wasn't legislative language. So if we're all keen on competition here, why in the world, until the public started to focus on it, did we instruct the Federal agencies and say you have to take the language that's in the report as if it were law? Anyway, let's get to this amendment. This amendment would remove $2.2 million in funding for KDH Defense, for a Body Armor Improved Ballistic Protection. I have not come here to debate the merits of the earmark. Again, I'm not an expert in improved ballistic protection defense. But I should say again I think people in our military are and the Pentagon is and that they should probably make this decision rather than a single Member of Congress. As reported by Roll Call earlier this week, KDH Defense has received millions in earmarks to produce an underwater swimmer detection sonar system for the Navy to be used to protect its docks and ships. KDH's expertise lies in sewing bulletproof vests, but reportedly this earmark project was the first product to be delivered by KDH Electronic Systems, a startup company affiliated with KDH. After several years and a series of botched agreements with subcontractors, KDH has yet to deliver this product. Based on the statements made by the president of KDH, it doesn't appear as though they ever will. And yet we are here today again ready to provide KDH with millions more in taxpayer dollars. I would ask why are we doing this when we already have information that some of the individuals or companies that will be associated with this earmark haven't exactly done well in the past, haven't produced what they said they would, in some cases have little expertise in the area that they say they do in order to get the earmark? Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Just in reference to the last amendment, let me finish my thought there. Here we have, and the ranking minority member on the subcommittee concedes that we shouldn't be giving an earmark to a company if there's allegations out there that they're not doing the job that they're supposed to do, or that there's some cloud hanging over, I would assume. And yet that's what this earmark is for. And so I seem to hear that, yeah, that we shouldn't do that and that my amendment would be agreed to. But all I heard were noes when my amendment was offered. So I would hope that when it comes time to vote, that Members will say, you know, regardless of everything else, perhaps if it's reported that a company is under investigation, perhaps we shouldn't be giving it an earmark until that's cleared up. And so I would hope that that's remembered when it comes time to vote later this day. This amendment would strike $1.5 million from the Ultra Low Profile EARS Gunshot Localization System. According to the sponsor's Web site, funding for this localization will produce a completely covert detection system which will enhance situational awareness and survivability of our military. Mr. Chairman, this sounds like a worthwhile project. Even though the military did not request it, it may be something that we will ultimately benefit from. But why are we earmarking funds again here for a private, for-profit company that will not have to compete, regardless of the language that's in the House bill--that will likely not survive the Senate anyway, but which complies with regulations that the Defense Department says they already have about competition? According to the sponsor's Web site, Planning Systems, Incorporated, will be the recipient of these funds. What's not included is justification for use of taxpayer dollars to an entity that the receiving entity of these funds was a client of now-defunct PMA Group. We're all familiar, all too familiar with the PMA Group. The PMA Group, and the companies it represented, donated more than $270,000 to the sponsor of this earmark in the 2008 cycle alone. Collectively, employees of the PMA Group and its clients have contributed nearly $1 million to the sponsor since 1998. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, this earmark sponsor was the third-highest recipient of contributions from PMA since 1998. And that's not all. The recipient of this earmark, Planning Systems, Incorporated, has contributed more than $35,000 to the campaign of the sponsor of this earmark, again, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Again, there is nothing in our House rules that prohibit this. I'm not alleging that there are. But I'm saying that we have to stop this process of circular fund-raising. It just looks too bad outside of this body when we have a process where Members of Congress will earmark spending to an earmark recipient, and that earmark recipient, through its employees, through a PAC, through its lobbyists or through its executives, will contribute very handsomely back to the Member of Congress' campaign committee. There is no other way to look at this outside of this body, I would say, than to say we shouldn't be doing that, particularly in a process where we're told that there are more than 1,000 earmarks in the bill, just days before the bill comes to the floor, and we know that 552 of those earmarks are no-bid contracts to private companies like this one. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, again, here we have the same pattern of circular fund-raising. Again, I am not alleging any illegal activity here. This is legal. It is unfortunate, but it is legal for Members to sign a certification that they have no financial interest in the earmark. But our same Ethics Committee issues guidance to the Members saying campaign contributions do not necessarily reflect or constitute financial interest. That, I would submit, Mr. Chairman, is the wrong approach, and we are going to continue to see story after story where earmark recipients simply don't have the capability or the inclination to deliver on the product that they said they would deliver on, and yet they still continue, even in this environment with investigations swirling around all over, to receive these same earmarks. By now, my colleagues are familiar with the PMA scandal that has plagued this body for months. There is an investigation, at least they are looking into it, we are told, by our own Ethics Committee here. I am unconvinced that the PMA scandal will be the last scandal we see in this body. I am convinced that there will be earmarks that we approve today that later investigation will determine were not aboveboard, that these companies receiving these earmarks simply weren't delivering, because we have seen that again and again and again, and yet we go through this same process as if nothing were amiss. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.