Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentlelady. I have to say, when we debated the Homeland Security bill just a few days ago, I challenged an earmark for a for-profit company, Global Solar. I was told, no. Even though in the report language it says that the money is to go to Global Solar and there was a certification letter filled out by the Member saying the money is to go to Global Solar at this address, we were told there, well, no, it's going to be competitively bid, so don't worry about that language. It really doesn't mean anything. So I just don't know what to believe here, if we are told that, well, this isn't like a hard earmark in other bills, and that's what I am being told now, but then I was told on the other bills, well, this isn't really a hard earmark either, but we did have the disclosure requirements there and we don't have them here. So I think it behooves us, until we can figure that out, until we can figure out are these hard earmarks or are they soft earmarks? Are they to be treated differently? Certainly the Members who requested them who actually listed them on their Web site as appropriation requests, they see them as earmarks. So I would think that we need to be careful here. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. The gentlelady mentioned FY 2008, mentioned there were some 36 listed. Only 24 of those 36 were actually eligible for funding. Half of those that were eligible for funding did receive the funding, which took over half of the funding that was eligible to be dispersed. And so there is quite an uncanny alignment between what is put out there and what is actually then awarded. And my question is, with the rest of our appropriations this year, if, as we are told, simply giving the agencies a list of recommendations or a ``look see,'' why is it that the so-called ``hard earmarks'' in other bills require a certification letter, require transparency, and other things, and these soft earmarks here, which act pretty much the same way, require no such disclosure or no such transparency? That's my concern here. And it's long been the concern of many with these soft earmarks. The agencies have told us that their hands are sometimes too much tied by the soft earmarks. They have programs, and then Members of Congress will say, Oh, yes, we're appropriating money, but it needs to be spent here, here and here. And we all know that the agency knows who butters their bread, who appropriates their money. And they're inclined, particularly when it's the case of a powerful Member, to go along with the recommendations made. So that's the question I have. It is more of transparency here; why are these earmarks treated differently than earmarks in other legislation? Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, on page 128 of the report accompanying this legislation it states, Neither the bill nor this report contain any congressional earmarks. I would have to disagree. The legislation will provide $8 million for the ``one-time special educational, professional, and cultural exchange grant program'' begun in fiscal year 2008. These one-time grants can go for up to a half-million dollars, and the Department of State is to award these proposals on a competitive basis. Now, I have been a long supporter of cultural exchange programs, both having Americans go overseas and foreigners to come here. I am also supportive of these grants being awarded on a competitive basis. The problem here is the fact that the report also says, The Secretary is encouraged to consider the following proposals for this competitive program, and then it lists several specific exchange programs. The recommendations of funding for these 12 specific programs certainly look like earmarks to me and certainly look like earmarks to a handful of Members who requested them, so much so that they actually listed the earmark requests on their Web sites--a number of them did. So to them it looked like an earmark; they're putting it in the report. This year, the Appropriations Committee is telling us that earmarks aren't really earmarks; they're just suggestions to the agencies who are under no obligation to fund them. So my question would be, what is the difference here? And why, if in other bills there are disclosure requirements--certification letters, put your name next to the earmark, other things that we have to do, if those are mere suggestions to the agencies--a ``look see'' we are told by the Appropriations Committee-- what is the difference here where we list several programs that the Secretary should consider? Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time and hope to be illuminated on this question.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 3 in part B.

Mr. FLAKE

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

Mr. FLAKE. I urge support of the amendment.

Mr. FLAKE. I don't understand. I am sorry. If the return on investment, if the potato industry gets a return on an investment of $39 for every dollar returned, then it does reap some of the benefits. Yes, that potato is a public good, but it's also a private profit, unless we have socialized potato farming here, and I don't think we have.

Mr. FLAKE. You bet, sure.

Mr. FLAKE. I find it a curious assumption that the free market will not invest in research when one of the sponsors' Web sites, as I mentioned, states that every dollar invested in potato research results in a $39 return. Now, any, any hedge fund, any investor of any type.

Mr. FLAKE. My issue is with overall spending, one; two, is with the need to earmark. If this funding is receiving earmarks, basically, about a million dollars a year, when clearly you have an industry that is capable of funding its own research, now, I agree with the gentleman's point about this isn't one of the program crops; it's not wheat not corn. It's not a crop that gets massive subsidies under the farm bill. We shouldn't be doing those subsidies. But two wrongs don't make a right. We shouldn't say, well, hey, we are subsidizing those, so we ought to bring some subsidy over here as well. The truth is we can't afford either of them now. We have a deficit of nearly $2 trillion this year. When I came to this institution just 8 years ago, our entire Federal budget was just around $2 trillion. Now we are going to have a deficit that equals that amount. Can't we in this year at least say, you know, maybe we ought to cut back on potato research just a little. Maybe we ought to cut back on other earmarks in this bill because we are simply adding to the debt, adding to the deficit more than we can take. So it's not just that I have an issue with agricultural research spending, but I do have an issue with the way it's allocated. Because, as I have already demonstrated, this is awarded based on a spoils system. When just 14 percent of the Members in this body, those who are represented on the Appropriations Committee, direct more than half of the earmark spending in this bill, you have got a spoils system. I don't know what else to call it. And that's one issue with this bill and why I am offering these amendments. And, two, if we don't like the way the Federal agencies are doing it, then we should direct them to do it differently. We should set parameters, but we shouldn't set up a parallel system and say, you award it that way, but we are going to direct ours this way. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. This amendment would remove slightly more than $1 million for potato research in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and it would reduce the overall cost of the bill by a consistent amount. Now, if you like earmarks, then this spud's for you, I guess. But if you don't, and if you think that we need to save some money somewhere, then I would urge support for this amendment. According to one of the sponsors of the earmark, the potato industry generates about $3.4 billion throughout the State of Washington. In Idaho, the potato industry contributes nearly half a billion dollars in wages. Potato sales equal about $7 billion annually. According to the USDA, last year potato farmers received nearly $3.9 billion for their crop. Now, how is it that this industry that receives billions of dollars a year isn't expected to invest in its own research? I know that it does some, but why are the taxpayers year after year ponying up more money to a $7 billion industry? This is a drop in the bucket to the industry, but a million dollars is a lot of money to the average American family. According to one of the sponsors' Web sites, every dollar invested in potato research yields a $39 return. I would submit that for those of us who believe in the free market, that any dollar invested that yields a $39 return, then private industry will do well investing in its own research. We don't have to ask the taxpayer to pile on. Potatoes were first introduced in the United States in the 1600s. They are now the fourth largest food crop in the world. They have sustained nations in time of famine due to their ability to survive in many climates, and they are inexpensive to harvest. Seventy-nine percent of U.S. households consume potatoes at least 1.8 times a week. I am included in that number. I just don't know why we are asking, again, the taxpayer, to fund research over and over and over again for an industry that can clearly support itself here. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I have an amendment at the desk designated as part D No. 12.

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

Mr. FLAKE. I am glad to hear the gentleman is introducing an amendment later that will save $400 million. I will gladly vote for the gentleman's amendment. I hope we will vote for mine. We need to not only save $400 million; we need to save another million here. Why not, if it will reduce the cost of the bill by a commensurate amount, why wouldn't we take every opportunity to lower the deficit that we have and to pay down the debt? We are in an awful fix here, and we are digging deeper and deeper with a bill like this that increases the overall spending by, I think, 12 percent from last year to this. Why not take every opportunity to cut the spending. This is an opportunity. I plan to vote for every amendment that will cut any funding from this bill. But, please, if we have an opportunity here to cut $1 million, I would hope that we would do so. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. According to the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Georgia currently has over $2 billion worth of active renewable energy-related products and is a leader in the bioenergy revolution. I have no doubt that that is true. And because that is true and because if this Agriculture Energy Innovation Center truly has merit, then they should be able to compete for these grants with other land grant colleges, with other universities, and with other organizations that are doing this same research. My question is why, if you have such a deserving, respectable program like this, why do we need to earmark these dollars at all? Surely they can compete for it and do well. But why do we circumvent the process of competition simply because we are on the committee or we are a powerful chairman or a ranking minority member or somebody who can get this funding and earmark it so that nobody else can compete for it? That simply doesn't make sense. If we don't like the way that the agencies are disbursing this money, then, by golly, we ought to address it. That is our job as Members of Congress. We have the power of the purse. But, instead, to say we don't like how that faceless bureaucrat is going to direct the spending so we are going to create a parallel process in Congress where we can just circumvent the process and earmark that money for our own university, that is simply not right, and it has gotten out of hand in this Congress. Some people will point out that this year earmarks are down in this bill. That is a great thing, but they are not down far enough. We need a process that is competitive, that is based on merit and not based on the spoils system. Again, I repeat, in this bill, 24 percent of the Members of this body will control more than two-thirds of the money that is directed through earmarks. Now, that is not because there is more merit in those programs. It is because we have powerful Members in those positions. And you can't make the argument that, oh, this is a land grant college or this is a deserving institution. If they were, they could compete for those dollars. But instead, we are circumventing that process of competition and awarding by earmark through the political process. Particularly when we have the kind of deficit that we have today, this legislation would strike this funding and reduce the cost of the bill by a commensurate amount. How can any fiscal conservative say that we don't want to do that in this year when we are running a deficit that could reach $2 trillion? I would say it is time. And if we can't do it here, where will we do it? With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would remove $1 million from the University of Georgia's Agricultural Energy Innovation Center, located in Tifton, Georgia, and reduce the overall cost of the legislation by a commensurate amount. According to the sponsor's Web site, this funding would be used to advance farm efficiencies by coupling advanced information communication and control technologies with improved plant materials, byproducts use and energy capture and conversion techniques. That sounds pretty impressive. I'm sure a lot of that is going on. The sponsor states this earmark is a good use of taxpayer dollars because the research and the demonstration project will facilitate the rapid advancement of new tools to increase the net production of energy from agriculture. There is a lot of this going on around the country. We have appropriated a lot of money in a lot of bills to do this kind of thing, and it just strikes me as folly to, in a bill like this, just to be able to direct money for a Member to say, All right, the university in my district is going to get this research money. They won't have to compete for it on merit. They won't have to compete for it because I'm going to earmark it, and they are going to get it when maybe a university elsewhere, the University of Nebraska, the University of Minnesota or University of Arizona, might want to compete for that project but they can't because the money is earmarked and it goes specifically to this university. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. I agree with the gentlelady when she says there is more transparency in the system now. That is true. That is a good thing. But we haven't drained the swamp. We simply know how deep the mud we are now in is. That is the problem. And the problem is when we trust the Federal agencies to carry out an earmark like this but we don't trust them to direct it. We should set parameters. We should tell the Federal agencies, Here is how you should distribute the money, instead of saying, All right, I'm a powerful member of the Appropriations Committee or of leadership and I'm going to direct that money to my district. I urge support of the amendment, and I yield back.

Mr. FLAKE. The gentlelady mentioned that these are Federal employees in a Federal institution and a Federal facility that would be receiving these earmarks and has great trust that they will do the right thing in executing this earmark. I just find that curious that the main reason that we have earmarks, supposedly--we continually are told--is because we're not going to let these faceless bureaucrats at Federal agencies decide where to spend our money. Yet we're saying that they can't make those decisions but they can carry out the earmark. I can tell you why it's done and why you will have both the minority and the majority in this House today on the Appropriations Committee oppose this amendment. It's because if you look in the ag amendments this year, 64 percent of the money, of the share of earmarks, 67 percent of the dollar value are going to either appropriators or powerful Members, either chairmen or ranking minority members of committees. This is fairly consistent across all the appropriations bills we will do this year. It is a spoils system. That may be a pejorative way to say it, but I don't know how else to say it when 64 percent of the earmarks in this legislation will go to about 24 percent of the Members in this body. We continually say, like I said, that these faceless bureaucrats shouldn't be deciding where our money goes. If you are a rank-and-file Member in this House, I would take my chances with a faceless bureaucrat because you would probably fare better than you would before the Appropriations Committee. And this is how it is year after year after year. Gratefully, we know it now because we have enough transparency where we know who is requesting the earmark. But this isn't right, and there are other worthy projects that might deserve this funding, but because a powerful Member is able to request it, then it goes there. And this is, I think, the fourth time that money has been appropriated for this project, which, according to the Web site of the requesting Member, the project has been completed. So I'm not sure exactly where the money is going if the project has been already completed. I guess it is starting again. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Chair. Mr. Chairman, I know that it's a custom to address the Chair. I see the Speaker of the House is in the Chamber. If I could address her directly, what I would implore her to do is to--when we have the defense bill on the floor later this month, please make an open rule. Allow us the opportunity to challenge earmarks in the defense bill and then not limit us to just one or two or three. That defense bill will include literally hundreds and hundreds of earmarks that are no-bid contracts to private companies. And unless we have the ability to challenge them, they will go virtually unvetted because we know from sad experience they have not been vetted by the Appropriations Committee in the past. I will just draw your attention to a headline in today's Roll Call, ``Justice Department this week filed criminal charges against a defense contractor who has received millions of dollars worth of earmarks.'' There will be another headline tomorrow and likely again the following day. We have investigations swirling outside. We have to be able to challenge these earmarks and to point out why it's wrong for this body to allow Members to earmark to their campaign contributors. So while the Speaker is in the Chamber, I would just implore her--if I could speak to her directly--to allow an open rule, allow more debate on this subject. But to the merits of the challenge to this earmark, this amendment would remove $638,000 in funding for the Beltsville, Maryland, Agricultural Research Center and reduce the overall cost of the bill by a commensurate amount. According to the report accompanying this bill, this earmark is described as the, quote, Foundry Sand By-Products Utilization in Beltsville, Maryland.'' But if you look at the table that is in the report for this bill, it says that that research project that is going to the Foundry Sand By-Product Utilization is actually completed. So it's a bit confusing as to what this earmark is actually for. There is a little different language in the certification letter and in the table that accompanies this bill. So I would ask the sponsor of this earmark to explain why we're earmarking funds seemingly for a project that has already been completed. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.