Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Chair. Before I start with this amendment, I want to say that I support the part of the manager's amendment that the gentleman from Pennsylvania offered with regard to the F-22 program. I'm glad that we're doing what we're doing there, and I commend the committee for sticking with what the President wanted there. I think we've done the right thing. This amendment would remove $160 million in funding for the U.S.-made first responder radios for use by Mexico's police force. This request is not classified as an earmark but is programmatic funding, and it came to my attention last week when it was featured in a story by the Washington Post. According to the article, 12 Members of Congress requested this funding which is to be used for radios with certain specifications. The article goes on to say that while no specific company is named in the bill, Motorola, which makes radios that fit the parameters set forth in the bill and which is based in Illinois, home to seven of the requesting Members, appeared to be the intended beneficiary of this funding. At the same time, the article points out that because this request is not considered to be an earmark, the Members who requested it are not required to publicly report it. Typically they have to sign a certification saying they have no financial interest in the earmark, and that was not the case here. Mr. Chairman, if it looks like an earmark, sounds like an earmark, I think it's an earmark. It ought to be disclosed under House rules, and it isn't here. Even if we accept that funding directed to a nameless company based on a certain set of requirements that only one company could provide is not an earmark, then we're met with an inconvenient problem: Why bother to make the earmark process more open and transparent when it would be just as easy to request the funding--in this case, funding that is several times more expensive than the average earmark--by calling the beneficiary a program and tailoring its description to suit the needs of one company? It's bad enough that this bill includes over 500 earmarks directed at private companies. The sponsors of those earmarks are all required to disclose their requests on their Web sites; and they even certify, as I mentioned, that they have no financial interest. But that is not the case here. They write letters, but it doesn't show up as an earmark. The Post article quotes Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, as saying, ``It kind of makes a mockery of the disclosure requirements we have. They will disclose the little things, the $1 million projects; but when you have big-ticket items, you don't have Members willing to take responsibility for those.'' I agree with Mr. Allison's assessment. If we truly want to drain the swamp and make the earmark process more transparent, we can't continue to allow private companies to be funded outside the current House rules. I urge support for my amendment and reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 1 in part B.

Mr. FLAKE. I yield.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an en bloc amendment made in order under the rule.

Mr. FLAKE. This amendment would prohibit nearly $200 million for more than 70 earmarks for former clients of the PMA Group that would be funded in this bill. We are now all familiar with the PMA scandal that I think is in the beginning stages and certainly not the end. PMA Group was a prominent lobbying firm that specialized in obtaining defense earmarks for its clients, whose offices were recently raided by the FBI, according to The Hill, as part of a Federal investigation into politically corrupt-- potentially corrupt political contributions. The lobbying firm has ceased operations and shuttered its political action committee, but not before, according to The New York Times, leaving a detailed blueprint of how the political money churn works in Congress. PMA is emblematic of the troubling circular fund-raising that's become entrenched in the current earmarking process. CQ Today noted that the firm has charged $107 million in lobbying fees from 2000 to 2008. Safe to say, the PMA Group was associated with showering Members of Congress with campaign cash. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, since 1998, the firm and its clients have given $40.3 million total to the candidate committees and leadership PACs of 514 lawmakers, nearly every Member of the current Congress. The Center also reported that members of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee have collected nearly $1 million in campaign cash since 1998 from PMA employees and the firm's PAC. If you include contributions from employees and PACs of the parent companies and subsidiaries of PMA clients, the total jumps to nearly $8 million over the last decade. In review of the 2008 PMA earmarks, the Sunlight Foundation noted that 40 organizations whose sole lobbyist was PMA had an average return on their lobbying fee investment of more than 2,700 percent. Clients of the firm received at least $300 million worth of earmarks in fiscal year 2009 appropriations legislation, including several that were approved even after news that the FBI raided the firm's office and the justice investigation into the firm was well known. That was earlier this year. The omnibus spending bill that we approved in January, had money for PMA clients in there just weeks after it was revealed that the PMA's offices had been raided, and we still didn't scrub them out. I would submit if we're not going to do it then, when would we do it? I believe there are 70 earmarks in this bill for former clients of PMA. And we have had several privileged resolutions, of which I think at one count 29 members of the majority party, and nearly all members of the majority party, agreed that we should have the ethics committee look into the relationship between PMA and campaign dollars that have come to this Congress. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. May I inquire as to the time remaining?

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, let me note before I start this amendment, again I ask the chairman that if the Senate nullified the language requiring free and open competition, that the House would say, Okay, we will remove these no-bid contracts. I didn't hear an answer to that. I would suggest that we know full well the Senate will remove that language. I think we put too much stock in the language anyway, but the Senate will surely remove it, because not to remove it might force some Senators to think they might not be able to secure funding for their earmark, and we know that's not going to happen. So, if we were serious about this language, if we were serious about free and open competition, we wouldn't be earmarking in this fashion. Full stock. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that this amendment be modified in the form I placed at the desk.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for trying to clarify that. But I would submit that that is the process that the Defense Department says that they follow now. So they will take this language and say that's what we do already, except when we don't. And when they don't subject it to full competition, they simply issue what's called a J&A. And the J&A is the justification for why that earmark was not subject to competition. I have asked for months and months and months, and I'm still waiting for some of those J&As. But we know with uncanny precision these earmarks end up with the intended recipient and simply putting in language in here, which my guess is will be taken out in the Senate anyway, though it doesn't mean much in the first place, it will not likely survive the Senate; but if it does, the Defense Department will say we do that anyway. If it's subject to full competition, the gentleman mentioned with Concurrent Technologies that they had won in open competition for another pot of money. Well, great. If they're so good, why do we have to earmark money for them? Why don't we say compete on your own like everybody else? That is the purpose of these earmarks, to get around competition. That is the purpose of it. So to say, well, we inserted language in it and that will solve it all, it simply doesn't because the Defense Department knows who butters their bread. They know that they need to follow with uncanny precision the intended recipient.

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. I would yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 596 in part A.

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit $2.5 million from being directed to Alliant Tech Systems, or ATK, for AARGM Counter Air Defense Future Capabilities. According to ATK's Web site, AARGM is a supersonic, medium-range, air-launched tactical missile used by the U.S. and by allied forces. The sponsor's Web site and certification letter state that the funds directed to this project in the bill would enable ATK to continue to demonstrate improvements to AARGM, particularly at longer ranges. Now, here again, I am not going to argue the merits of the problem; neither are most of us here. It's possible that ATK's missile system is the best one out there, but we don't know that. I would suggest that nobody in this body knows that, not even the sponsor of the earmark. We don't know that because there is no way the Appropriations Committee thoroughly vetted each of the 1,102 earmarked projects in this bill during its 18-minute markup. We don't know that because Members of Congress, in general, don't have the kind of expertise required to make that determination. In cases like these, when we're determining the kind of missiles that best work for our Armed Forces, it seems to me that the decision is best made by experts at the Department of Defense. Once that determination is made, just like with any other procurement, the contract to make these missiles ought to be competitively bid through the DOD. But as is the case with nearly 550 of these earmarks, we have a handpicked private company being handed Federal funds for a project based solely on the discretion of one Member of Congress. This is a no- bid contract. This alone should be troubling enough, but there is an additional facet. I mentioned the problem with circular fundraising that has been detailed by so many media organizations out there. It's getting tiring reading these stories every day. The Associated Press reported that an ongoing FBI investigation is ``highlighting the close ties between special interest spending provisions, known as earmarks, and the raising of campaign cash.'' As I mentioned, in every one of the individual earmarks that we're discussing today, there are examples of funding going to the earmark recipient, and then the executives from the company, their lobbyists and the PACs are contributing large amounts of campaign dollars back to the sponsors of the earmark. That simply doesn't look right. It may be legal. It is. Our Ethics Committee has said that you can get campaign contributions in close proximity to earmarks; but Members of this body, I would think, would want to have a higher standard here. We ought to say, you know, maybe we don't know exactly the kind of missile systems that ought to be used. We ought to leave that to those with a little more expertise instead of giving a no-bid contract to a private company which happens to be in the district or doesn't but which is simply willing to provide a lot of campaign contributions. So I would say, Mr. Chairman, we have to stop this process. We have to say we can no longer afford to award no-bid contracts to private companies, as we have done in the past, regardless of the language that is inserted which says that all of these have to be subject to competition. We know how it works in the Defense Department because they say now, over the past several years, these have to be subject to competition. Yet, time and time again, when you look, there is an uncanny alignment between the earmark recipient designated by the sponsor of the earmark and the company that eventually gets the dollars. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit $8 million from being directed to Argon ST, which is a private systems engineering and development company headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. The sponsor's Web site and certification letters say that the funding from this earmark would be used to upgrade current naval torpedo defense capabilities that would enhance ship survivability against the modern threat of a torpedo attack. This isn't the first time that this company has received Federal funding for a project. This project, itself, received two earmarks, totaling $8.7 million in 2007, and $7.5 million was also allocated to such a system in 2006. The FEC records indicate that, since 2006, employees of the earmark recipient, Argon ST, have donated more than $47,000 in campaign contributions to the sponsor of the earmark. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Argonne PAC made $23,000 in donations to the sponsor's campaign and to his leadership PAC in the 2008 election cycle. According to the FEC, this represented more than a third of all donations of Argon's PAC made during the election cycle. In addition, during the 2008 cycle, Argon ST was reported to be the second highest contributor to the earmark sponsor's PAC. The funding for this earmark may very well be vital to national defense or it may not be. We just don't know here, I would suggest. But the earmarking system is so opaque that the purposes and justifications for more than 1,100 earmarks in this bill are a mystery to just about everyone. Again, the committee took a whole 18 minutes to accept this bill on to the floor with a unanimous vote. Had this earmark been closely examined, it would have been revealed that this earmark recipient acquired Coherent Systems in 2007. Coherent Systems' former president and CEO now faces Federal charges for soliciting kickbacks from a defense contractor. Argon ST is cooperating with Federal authorities in the investigation and is not facing any charges. But in the wake of the Abramoff scandal and the burgeoning PMA scandals, I would simply ask whether Congress should be providing no-bid contracts to private companies involved in Federal investigations. I would submit that it should not. There is more than $2.7 billion in earmark spending in this bill. We've had less than 2 weeks to go over 1,100 earmarks that comprise this spending. We simply can't continue to do this. I know the Member will stand up and say these have to be competed out. And I will again ask the Member, and I will actually yield him the rest of my time, if he will stand and say that if the Senate removes this language that requires open competition, if then we will then remove these no-bid contracts. And I will yield to the gentleman for that. He doesn't have to take my time. He can take his own. Again, what I am asking is if the Senate removes the language that Members put, I think, too much stock in because the Defense Department says they already subject these contracts to full and open competition, but if the Senate should remove that language, will the Members of this body remove the no-bid contracts, 552 of them, I believe, from the bill. And I would yield for an answer. I yield back my time.

Mr. FLAKE. May I inquire as to the time remaining?

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, again, I would say we can no longer continue to give no-bid contracts to private companies. I would say, as I mentioned, that for those who say we have language now in the bill--and I would certainly yield time to the gentleman, to the chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense--I would hope that he would agree, if they really believe in this language and that if the Senate knocks the language out, that we will not agree to a conference report that has these no-bid contracts in it. If that is the case, if we are so willing to believe that this language actually has any force--and I don't believe it does because the Defense Department already says that they subject these earmarks to full competition--for those who are placing so much stock in this language, I would assume that they agree so strongly and that they will say these are going to be subject to competition. If the Senate strikes that language out, I would like to hear from those here that the House will also nullify those no-bid contracts, because we have designated who those recipients should be. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I would simply ask, and maybe when he has his time back, to explain why, if it was open to competition in the last 3 years, why we had to earmark it this year. The gentleman made the point that's been made again, that these have to be subject to fair and open competition. Let me say again, the Defense Department has said that all along. For years they've said the same thing. We subject these earmarks to full and open competition, but that doesn't stop Members of Congress. As soon as this bill is passed today, there will be a flurry of press releases, I guarantee it, where Members will say, I was successful in securing funding for this particular program. And if it's open to competition, how do you know that you've secured funding? Let me just read from a couple of the press releases in the past: I was pleased to secure funding to assist these small businesses in Prince George's County working on projects that will benefit our Nation's military and the safety of our troops. That was somebody who knows the process pretty well. It's the majority leader. He put out a press release as soon as legislation was passed, not waiting for the competition that supposedly comes when the project gets to the Defense Department. And like I said, tomorrow you'll see a round of those same press releases: I was able to secure funds, because Members know, with uncanny precision, the Defense Department will follow these earmarks. I would say, again, with this particular earmark it sounds like a great program. The sponsor of the earmark indicated that this was open to competition in the last couple of years. That's great. Why do we have to earmark it this year? I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, before I get to the substance of the amendment, if people out there want to know why members of the Appropriations Committee, and particularly the Defense Subcommittee, are loathe to talk about these earmarks and to talk about this process and why the markup in the full committee took a full 18 minutes, this might explain it. If you look here to the left of this chart, 33 percent of the dollar value of the earmarks in the Defense Appropriations bill go to just under 4 percent of the Members of this body. One-twenty-fifth of the Members in this body take home 33 percent of the earmarked dollars in this appropriations bill. So I don't blame them for wanting to get through this quickly, for having an 18-minute markup where nobody really talks about anything; you just shove it on through and it's a unanimous vote. If you want to know why, here it is. But this Congress, the rest of the body, the rank-and-file Members who aren't on that committee ought to be concerned, particularly when over and over again there are press stories that are unflattering about what happens when earmarks go in this fashion. The Washington Post's top story above the fold today is another one, talking about how Members are loathe to get rid of these pork projects in the bill or these earmarks. So I would submit that if anybody out there is wondering why this process goes so quickly and Members are so disinclined to debate, why not? If you can do it, do it. If 4 percent of the Members in this body can take home 24 percent of the earmarks, that's a pretty good gig. But the rest of us ought to be concerned, and I think the country is concerned, certainly the press is reporting that there is an issue there. This amendment would remove $5 million for funding for the Reduced Manning Situational Awareness program. According to the sponsor of this program, it's a command and control system with smart sensors, 3-D visualization, video analytics, and bandwidth management. I'm not here to argue the merits of the program. I frankly don't have much knowledge in that area. But what we see here again is an earmark going to a private company. Sometimes Members will say, I'm just working for my district; I'm just getting earmarks for economic development in my district. In this case the company is not even located in the sponsor's district. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. I have an amendment at the desk designated number 553 in part B.