Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this bailout not because I don't believe we face financial crisis in this country. I rise in opposition to this bailout because I know we are in a financial crisis, one that will be prolonged with this legislation. The premise of this unprecedented government intervention is that the free market has failed and that government must come to its rescue. In reality, the crisis we now face is a result of government intervention in the market. We are in this predicament largely because implicit, and eventually explicit, Federal guarantees in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shielded the financial services sector from market discipline. Madam Speaker, those who believe that they can control and direct the market's invisible hand will eventually be slapped by it. That is the painful and embarrassing situation we find ourselves in today. We don't have enough money in the Federal Treasury, nor can we responsibly borrow enough money, to keep the market from finding its natural bottom. Now is the time to act on the free market principles we profess to believe in. Let's vote down this bill and instead pass legislation that is consistent with those principles.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. That is simply not right, and neither is this legislation. You can keep going. $50 million for the cost of State administrative expenses associated with carrying an increase in food stamp benefits. How is that going to stimulate the economy? Let's be honest. It is meant to stimulate the electoral prospects of a couple of hundred Members here. That is what this legislation is about. Gratefully, it is not going to go anywhere, because the Senate vehicle went down.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman. And if somebody can call a $61 billion bill ``slim,'' then let them try. But this one, you can try to call it ``stimulus.'' But stimulus to me, and I didn't like the last stimulus bill we passed here in Congress. And I didn't vote for it. But to call this ``stimulus'' is a real stretch. People at home want to keep more of their own money and not send it to Washington and then to have Washington turn around and say, well, I think that what we really need and what we needed to take your money for in the first place was so we can spend another $500 million in Amtrak for Amtrak projects, or another billion for transit and energy assistance grants, or $3 billion for green school improvements. I don't think anybody sitting at home thinks that that is very stimulating at all. I think they would be much more stimulated if you let them keep the money they have. Let's be honest here. What this is is a stimulus bill. And it's meant to stimulate the electoral prospects of a couple of hundred Members here. That is what it's about, so Members can come to the floor or send out a press release saying, do you know what I got? I got $1 billion for capital management activities for public housing agencies. It's nothing more than that. That is what this is about. But I think the danger in this is with a 9 percent approval rating, I think we could go into more historic lows here when people say they aren't really serious, a bill that isn't going anywhere, and they stand up and just say all right, this is if we could spend this money, here is where we would spend it. We have to keep in mind that earlier this week, we did something that in my 8 years we have never done. Now I wasn't kind to my own party on earmarks. I thought that we let it go out of control. And the new majority came in and put in some decent rules which we have now broken just about every month. And what we did earlier this week was pass a CR where we brought to the floor a bill that had not even gone through the Appropriations Committee. And then we added 1,200, or there were 1,200 earmarks that were put in this bill that were not known to the Members of this body until a day before it came to the floor. Now we've done that kind of thing before. But what we have never done before that we did earlier this week is not give Members of this body the ability to even challenge those 1,200 earmarks. Nobody could stand and say, why are we spending $1 million for the Presidio Trust or the Presidio Heritage Center in California? What is that about? Who is actually getting the money? Why are we doing this? Nobody had that chance, because we had a secretive process where earmarks were added into the bill with no ability to amend it out.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am glad he brought up the bridge. I didn't bring up any bridge, but since he has, the last transportation bill that we passed when we were in the majority, that all but eight Members of this body voted for, I believe including the gentleman, had the infamous Bridge to Nowhere and a few others. Included in that were 6,300 earmarks. If you want to know why we aren't spending on those projects, those bridges that are broken down that really need repair, is we are spending it all on earmarks, and we shouldn't be doing that. But I thank the gentleman for bringing that up.

Mr. FLAKE. I would for 15 seconds.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. This has been quite a week, Mr. Speaker. I would venture to say that this is the most expensive week in the history of the Republic. I don't think anything ever will even come close to this in a number of years. We are talking about a $700 billion bailout. We had CRs that passed. And then we have this that comes to the floor. And if those at home are wondering why there are so few here in attendance, it's probably because they know that this isn't going anywhere. Gratefully, this stimulus package isn't going anywhere. The Senate already tried to pass something and failed. And so this as a vehicle is not going anywhere. And people around the country should be very grateful for that. We call it a stimulus bill.

Mr. FLAKE

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, the reason I'm standing today is to question this bill in terms of the unfunded mandate point of order. I can tell you honestly, I have no idea if this bill contains unfunded mandates, and I would suggest that most people here are in that position because we only got this bill last night. We haven't been able to read its contents. We know very little of it except that we know very little of it. This is a massive bill. Let me just take one part of it, and this part has concerned me about a lot of the legislation that's come forward before this body in recent years. We were told earlier this year that we were going to have a transparent process in terms of earmarks. And, frankly, some good language was passed--earlier this Congress, I should say--to provide transparency and to ensure that when earmarks are passed, they receive a thorough vetting, at least that we know who introduced them and have a chance to actually challenge those earmarks on the floor of the House. We have not had that opportunity here. This legislation is coming to us with more than 1,200 earmarks that were attached to it in the subcommittee. Now, these earmarks were known only to my office because we managed to get a copy from the Appropriations Committee--that we could not get officially, we had to get unofficially. I would venture that very few other Members have even seen the list of earmarks. Keep in mind that this bill, this Defense Appropriations bill that is included in this CR, has not even been marked up by the full committee. So the full committee has not even seen these earmarks. There are more than 1,200 in the House version; I think there are more than 800 in the Senate version. So, more than 2,000 earmarks that have been added that very few outside of the committee--and outside of the subcommittee that actually dealt with it--have even seen. Now, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee was asked about this secretive process earlier today, and Bloomberg said, and I quote, ``He was asked if the process has been secretive, and he said, ``It has; because if it's done in the public, it will never get done.'' The chairman of the Appropriations Committee said he wanted to avoid his colleagues pontificating on the content of the legislation, saying that's what politicians do when this stuff is done in full view of the press. He said, ``We've done this the old fashioned way by brokering agreements in order to get things done, and I make no apology for it.'' Now, think of that statement. We've passed rules in this House saying that we would have a thorough vetting, yet we're bringing more than 1,200 House earmarks to the floor that have not even been vetted by the committee. We're supposed to have that list long before and to be able to vet them, we haven't done that. And we don't even have a chance here. I don't have the opportunity to stand and question any of these earmarks, and neither do any of my colleagues. Let me just read a few of them that are in here. The Presidio Heritage Center, one of the Speaker's Office's earmarks, $1.7 million. What is it? We really have no idea. We only got the disclosure letter last night or this morning, and that doesn't tell you all that much. Why is the Presidio Heritage Center in the Defense bill? Yet we won't be able to challenge that here; we won't be able to have a vote on that because it was slipped in, not even vetted by the committee, and certainly not vetted by the full House. There is a $3 million earmark for a Cold Weather Layering System. What is that? Is that a coat? We don't know. All I know is this is likely an earmark that's going to a private firm. This is a sole-source contract that everybody has been, rightly, up in arms about when the Federal Government gives out single-source contracts. Here we are doing it without even vetting it in the committee; we're not even vetting it on the House floor. It's passed and done, and we don't even know who it's for or what it's about. Yet, we're doing it. Why? What is the rush to do something like this? I understand that this all may seem a little trivial in a week that we may approve $700 billion, but I think it speaks to why people across the country are fed up with us as a Congress for not even vetting these kind of things and for letting 1,200 earmarks come into a bill that we haven't even seen and won't be able to vote on. We have an up-or-down vote. This is not even a conference report. There aren't even motions to recommit. This is up or down, take it or leave it, 1,200 earmarks that you have never seen. How does that square with the promises that were made earlier this Congress? Now, I make no bones about it; I don't think our party on the Republican side did well with earmarks. We let far too much go. And some of us stood up and tried to stop it. The majority party came into Congress, won the elections in 2006, took over the majority on promises that they would do something. And I have to say that this is proof, once again, that it hasn't been done. How in the world can anyone stand up today and say we have kept our promise in terms of transparency? With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order against H. Res. 1488 because the resolution violates section 426(a) of the Congressional Budget Act. The resolution contains a waiver on all points of order against consideration of the motion to concur, which includes a waiver of section 425 of the Congressional Budget Act, which also causes a violation of section 426(a).

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I recognize that I'm here on an unfunded mandates point of order. It's the only chance I've got. They don't allow anybody to stand up and challenge any earmarks. That's not allowed under the rule. So this is the only chance anybody has to stand up and say anything about this bill, and it's a crying shame. And I don't blame the gentleman from the Rules Committee for not wanting to address the point at hand here; I don't blame him at all. I wouldn't want to either. I wouldn't want to say that I'm a member of a Rules Committee that would violate the very rules that we ourselves adopted earlier this year so blatantly to simply say we're just not going to discuss it, we're going to bring 1,200 earmarks to the floor and not discuss them at all. Let me suggest why it happens this way. I mentioned this was done behind closed doors without rank-and-file Members knowing anything about these earmarks at all. There is good reason for that. If you look at these earmarks, a total of 1,200 worth about $5 billion, 60 percent of the earmarks in this bill go to members of the Appropriations Committee. I'm sorry. The Appropriations Committee are getting 37 percent of all earmarks. When you add to the appropriators those in leadership, those who are committee Chairs, those who are ranking members, so the leadership and the powerful here, 60 percent of the earmarks in this bill are going to that group, which makes up, I think, just under 25 percent of this body. Now, if anybody's wondering why this is done behind closed doors and in secret and not with rank-and-file Members able to even see this, that's one of the reasons. Because not only are earmarks bad and it's a misallocation of resources, it can lead to things that we have seen in this House, but it's a spoil system, it's a spoil system. When leadership and those who are on the right committees get these earmarks, it shows what a sham the argument is that we have to do this because we as Members of Congress know our districts better than those bureaucrats and we have to earmark those dollars. Well, does somebody who happens to be a chairman or a ranking minority member happen to know his district a lot better than anybody else? Because that's what we're seeing here, we're seeing a spoil system. And it's simply not right. It is not right that we are approving here, with one fell swoop, 1,200 earmarks from the House--800 from the Senate, but that's their business, our business is here--over 1,200 earmarks that nobody in this body has really seen, unless you happen to serve on the subcommittee of Appropriations because the full Committee on Appropriations never vetted these earmarks either. That is simply not right. I don't know when we stand up and say we've had enough, because people all over the country certainly have. I don't know why we haven't realized it. I'm sure it's reflected in the 9 percent approval ratings that we have. But in a week where we're approving $700 billion--or likely to approve $700 billion--to bail out other institutions, this might seem trivial to some to be approving $5 billion in earmarks. But I think why people across the country are upset is they say, you know you have control of this. You made promises years ago that you would clean up this process and you aren't, because nobody with a straight face can say that we have cleaned up this process when you bring to the floor, under this bill, more than 1,200 earmarks that have received no vetting whatsoever and will receive no vetting whatsoever because we can't even challenge those on the floor today. I have no time remaining. Let me just say, let's hold back. Let's slow this legislation down--whichever we can, whether it's procedurally or otherwise--because we cannot continue to do business this way. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. We're often accused of, when a rule comes up, of bringing up something that doesn't relate to the rule at all or speaking on something completely different. I'm here because something has been added to this rule that shouldn't be in this rule at all that bears no relation to this rule. In this rule, for a bill on credit cards, there was an attachment which would allow the chairman of the Armed Services Committee to insert a joint explanatory statement for the defense authorization act, that he would be allowed to file that at any time between now and the end of the 110th Congress. That's important because in the joint explanatory statement is when you learn sometimes about what earmarks have been added to the bill, and you're supposed to get that report and that explanation and statement before you consider the bill on the floor. We will be considering the bill on the floor later today or tomorrow, I guess, under a suspension of the rules with no ability to amend or to question anything in the defense authorization bill. That bill, when it came to the House floor earlier this year, contained more than 500 earmarks. This is the defense authorization bill that we learned of just a day before it came to the floor. It came to the floor under a closed rule-- or under a rule which allowed me to offer just one amendment--more than 500 earmarks, one amendment. There were a lot of Democratic earmarks; there were a lot of Republican earmarks. The majority saw fit to only allow me to question one Republican earmark. No coincidence there. And yet even worse--at least then we knew when the bill came to the floor we really couldn't do anything about it, but we knew which earmarks were in the bill. Now there's a possibility that there could be dozens, hundreds, maybe 10, we don't know. We don't know how many earmarks have been air-dropped into this legislation, or if any have, and we likely won't know--we just don't know because this rule on a credit card bill allows the chairman of the Armed Services Committee to file at any time between now and the end of the 110th Congress which earmarks were in the bill. Theoretically, the President could even sign this legislation in a couple of weeks or a couple of months, and we would only learn after that what earmarks were in the bill or those earmarks, theoretically, could even be added after the President signs the bill into law. I don't know how that could be stopped under this rule. I just wonder how the majority--and I would love to yield time to the Rules Committee to explain how we are doing this, how this squares with the statements earlier this year or earlier this Congress that, according to the majority, according to the Speaker of the House, we will bring transparency and openness to the budget process into the use of earmarks. I would be glad to yield 30 seconds to the Rules Committee to explain why this provision was added to the rule.

Mr. FLAKE. Here, like I said, we're being asked to give authority to actually not explain which earmarks have been added until after the bill has passed. I just can't see how that represents good government in any sense, how in the world we can say that we are having an open and transparent process when we have bills that come like this. Now with prior bills, we had a defense authorization bill that came to the floor a while ago that we only got the list of earmarks that were added after the deadline passed to file amendments to actually strike those earmarks. So we have had a number of these cases throughout this Congress. But I can tell you nothing compares to this. Nothing compares to having an unrelated provision added to a credit card rule, a rule to a bill to allow the authorizing Committee of Armed Services to, up to the end of this Congress, to wait a couple of months after the bill passes--after a bill that was passed under suspension of rules, I might add--to add an explanation as to which earmarks are in the bill. So I just want to register my objection there, and I would hope that Members would vote down this rule. We can't do business like this, particularly at a time when we have a financial meltdown, we have legislation on the floor this week to spend $700 billion. If that's not bad enough, here we have a situation where we're simply hiding--I don't know how else to say it--but hiding what we have done in the committees and on the floor and not letting Members of this body actually exercise the responsibility that we have here. With that, I register my objection. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman. We're being asked to take--it is our understanding that this will happen. We're probably to understand that, yeah, they'll file something before we do a suspension bill that we couldn't amend or question even if we didn't like what was in there. Again, Mr. Speaker and Members here, this just doesn't square with the commitments that we have made on both sides of the aisle to have an open and transparent process. Like I said, it's bad enough to just learn before bills come to the floor that you've had a couple hundred earmarks added. But in this case, we're giving the authority to the authorizing committee to let us know about which air-dropped earmarks have been added after we pass the bill, after it's too late; theoretically, after the President even signs the legislation.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I rise this morning just to shed a little light on the defense bill we may or may not be considering this year in the next week or so. There's a rumor going around that the defense bill might even be brought to the floor without going through a full Appropriations Committee markup. Now that is troubling in itself, but what is more troubling is that there are some 1,200 earmarks in this defense appropriation bill that very few Members of this body have actually even seen. That list has been passed around to Appropriations Committee members. A few members of the press have seen it. Our office managed to see a copy of the report. But virtually nobody else has seen it. That is 1,200 earmarks. For all the talk about transparency and a new process and where these earmarks will be vetted, we see very little of that here. I have been troubled for a long time at the number of earmarks that go through this body. A lot of people have been troubled. The whole country is troubled by the number of earmarks that go through this body without really even being seen and without anybody knowing what they are about. It's not just the money that is spent. We all know that earmarks leverage higher spending everywhere else. Because once you get an earmark in an appropriation bill, then you're really obligated, almost obligated, to vote for that entire bill, no matter how bloated that bill becomes. So you see higher spending everywhere else. Also, earmarks are put in unrelated bills in order to garner votes for other bills. But let me just talk about the defense bill here just a minute. Members of Congress, those who defend the secretive earmarks, often say that Members of Congress know their districts far better than these faceless bureaucrats in the administration, and that somehow, having Members of Congress sneak a secretive earmark into a conference report, is somehow better than having the administration decide where that money is spent. Now I am not here to defend bureaucrats or to defend the spending of money, but I can tell you it's not a good process when Members of Congress can put an item in a bill and have so little scrutiny, and what tends to happen is those who are up on the food chain in Congress, those on the Appropriations Committee, those who are in leadership positions, committee chairs, tend to get a disproportionate number of earmarks. So the argument that earmarks go to places because Members of Congress know their districts better than faceless bureaucrats really means that whoever has the power in this body gets the earmarks. Let me demonstrate a little here. Of the 1,200 earmarks tucked into the full committee report of this bill, it's worth about $2.8 billion. Of these earmarks, more than 400 go directly to Members who sit on the Appropriations Committee. An additional 111 are associated with appropriators. These are earmarks that were requested by that appropriator, as well as a few other Members. I would remind my colleagues that appropriators make up 15 percent of the Members in this body. Yet, in this bill, appropriators alone are taking 44 percent of the earmarks. Again, just 15 percent of the Members of the body, and 44 percent of the earmarks. When you translate that into actual dollar amounts, appropriators are taking $1.6 billion taxpayer dollars back to their district. This represents 48 percent of the total dollars earmarked in this massive appropriations bill. So what we have here, Madam Speaker, is a spoils system. It's not any high-minded, I know my district better than some faceless bureaucrat. It's, If I am an appropriator, or I am in a leadership position, I'm in a good position to get these earmarks. Let me just run through a couple of the earmarks in the bill. This is a defense bill. The purpose of this appropriation bill is to fund our troops and to fund our defense. Yet, we have, for example, something called the Presidio Heritage Center in California. It may be a worthy project. It may be something a local government or local people want to fund, but why in the world the Congress is funding it in the defense bill, I just don't know. But if this bill comes to the floor without being marked up in committee, nobody will be able to challenge it in committee. Nobody will be able to see it. If it comes to the floor under any other auspices than an open rule, then no Members of this body, the body as a whole, will be able to even question it. There's also something called a Cold Weather Layering System. That is usually a highfalutin word for a coat. Sometimes gloves are put in here under big names about hand-warming systems, or whatever else, when it shouldn't be funded in the defense bill at all. Another one, University Strategic Partnerships, Renewable Carbon Fuel from Algae. These may be good projects, but they shouldn't be in the defense bill.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I guess that some on the majority side think that they can cover up just by yelling or by raising the volume here of debate. The bottom line here is, and the reason for this point of order, is that the majority party thought that, all right, we can have a bill here, or we can sneak something in. Let's sneak a limited tax benefit for New York. You can call it an earmark, that's the proper definition when you have a limited tax benefit. You can call it a banana. You can call it anything you want to. The bottom line is the majority tried to sneak something into a broader bill that's supposed to be about energy, and that's what this is about. So nobody is trying to distract anybody, other than those who are trying to slip a provision in that doesn't have to do with any comprehensive energy plan. It has to do with New York. You can raise your voice, and you can yell all you want. The bottom line is somebody tried to sneak a limited tax benefit into this legislation. That's why I support the point of order.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. You know, a lot of us who spent time at home hoping that we would come back here and vote on a serious piece of legislation are disappointed here. This is not a serious piece of legislation. This is a piece of legislation that seems to be geared simply to give some people some cover for the upcoming elections. If we had a serious piece of legislation that would provide for allowing us to exploit our own resources, it would allow States to share in the revenue generated by offshore drilling. Without allowing that, you simply guarantee that no State will opt in. So there is a lot of bait and switch here going on. It seems that the only recycling in this is a familiar pattern of loading the bill up with a lot of items so you can get votes from here and there. For example, one of the spending programs is a National Consumer Awareness Program to educate the public on the environmental and energy benefits of public transportation. That's not a serious bill about our energy crisis. This seems to be a San Francisco bill with New York sensibilities. And speaking of New York, there is a big fat item in for New York, about a $2 billion item which allows for the so-called Liberty Zone. This provision would allow New York City to keep $2 billion worth of the employers' share of payroll taxes to invest in transportation projects. That's a specific limited tax benefit for one entity here. That's an earmark by all definitions. And yet nobody has been able to explain--and we sought this morning, we sought all day to have somebody explain what that has to do with our energy future. Instead, it was just put in the bill to try to get a vote from here and there. Again, this is not a serious piece of legislation. It is meant to provide political cover. It should be rejected. And, hopefully, as the moratorium goes off, we will get to really addressing our energy future.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, as we commemorate the seventh anniversary of 9/11; we should know that there is a humanitarian disaster unfolding in the Caribbean, in particular, in the country of Cuba hit twice now, one by Gustav and then by Ike. The island is in dire straits, and the people there need our help. The problem is, currently the restrictions on travel and sending gift parcels are so extreme that Americans and family members of people in Cuba cannot help them. I will be introducing legislation today to lift temporarily the restriction on gift parcels. Currently, gift parcels sent by family members to other family members in Cuba cannot even contain clothing, hygiene kits, or medical supplies, and that is simply wrong. We shouldn't have that restriction. It should be lifted, if not completely, at least temporarily. Also, certain humanitarian licenses can be obtained now, but it takes a long time generally for that to happen. I would call on the Bush administration to expedite licensing of humanitarian groups, churches, and others who want to help the good people of Cuba.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. We didn't have to be here today. We could have acted more responsibly in 2005, when we reauthorized the highway bill. At that time, I heard a number of people, appropriators and others, stand up and say: We are authorizing more than we will have money for. We knew it at the time. Anybody who really looked at this knew that we were authorizing more than the highway trust fund contained for projects. To make matters worse, and part of the reason we had far more than we could fund is we had over 6,300 earmarks in the highway bill. That is why this thing was so big. That accounted for about $24 billion of the highway bill. Now, some of those projects, I grant you, would have been funded anyway in the highway bill. There were projects that a Member wanted that would have been funded out of that State's formula anyway. But there are a lot of projects that would not. We all know about the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. That was part of this bill. But some of the lesser known things that are in this bill that have far too little to do with transportation, I would submit: $16 million for the Bremerton Pedestrian Transportation Center in Washington State; $3 million for a parking garage in suburban Chicago; $3.5 million for pedestrian walkways and streetscaping in the village of Western Springs, Illinois; $3.5 million to improve the Pennsylvania Executive Mansion exhibit; $1.5 for the American Tobacco Trail in North Carolina; $800,000 for a transportation and heritage museum in Tennessee; $4 million for bike trails and park space in California; $1 million for the Please Touch Me Museum in Philadelphia; $1 million for the Blue Ridge Mountain Center in Virginia. These are earmarks that are funded in this bill, part of the reason we are having to steal money from the general fund and fund back the highway trust fund, because we just went hog wild back in 2005. Just a few examples of some others: $2.75 million for renovations to the National Packard Museum in Ohio; $2.4 for the National Infantry Museum. Might be a good museum; probably shouldn't be funded out of the highway trust fund. Yet, instead of going in and saying we are going to rescind these earmarks if they haven't been funded yet, some have, some haven't, we are saying we are going to take from the general fund. When you start doing that, you set a horrible precedent in this place, because we know the amount of logrolling that goes on in a highway bill. And if you don't have the natural ceiling that exists with the highway trust fund, where you say we can spend that much and no more; if you can say, well, when we run out, we will just go out and take from the general fund, then ``Katie bar the door,'' this place is going to be out of money sooner than you think. Because when you have this amount of money and you pass around the projects and you have so much buy-in, then very few will vote against that bill because their own projects are in it, and soon we are taking more and more money from the general fund. We cannot start that process with this bill, and that is what this bill is doing. That is what this amendment is doing today. We have got to act more fiscally responsible. Let me just go through a few more. $1.2 million for the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. Now, might be a good museum, probably shouldn't be funded with your highway dollars. $500,000 for the Railroad Museum in Georgia; $200,000 for the Brooklyn Children's Museum. If you are catching a theme here, there are a lot of museums funded in this bill, again, money that is coming out of the highway trust fund that we overburdened the highway trust fund with that we now have to get money from the general fund for. One of the previous speakers said that there is a national consensus or that the Nation is united on this topic that we need to take from the general fund. I would say, where the Nation is united is that we have got to stop this earmarking process. And if we get to it next week, hopefully we will, the appropriation bill for the Department of Defense, you will see more of it, because that bill contains 1,200 earmarks. The bill that has been marked up in the subcommittee of appropriations for defense, 1,200 earmarks. I took a look at it just to see. It is very difficult to see where the money is and where it is going, but one thing we could see is what we see in every bill that contains a lot of earmarks: A disproportionate number of the earmarks are going to those who chair committees, those in leadership positions, or those who are on the Appropriations Committee. In fact, 1,200 earmarks, as I mentioned. Of these 1,200, more than 560 are associated with appropriators and members of leadership. That is a staggering 45 percent of the earmarks included in the committee print. That is not uncommon; that is what called the spoil system, and that is why it is unlikely that we will be able to stop this amendment today. Please, let's be fiscally responsible.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, we'll actually hear about this bill for just a minute at least before I talk about energy. But, no, I do have a serious amendment here that simply clarifies that nothing in this bill is meant to authorize appropriations for the new unit of the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The bill before us today authorizes a study to determine if the Missisquoi and Trout Rivers in Vermont are eligible to be designated wild and scenic rivers. Now, rivers designated as wild and scenic are managed by a number of Department of the Interior agencies, including the National Park Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service. However, if you ask CRS about this, these four agencies have a combined maintenance backlog of between 14 and $22 billion. That is between 14 and $22 billion. And so we are going to be doing a study of another river, a study that often precedes designation. I think that is the purpose of this study, that will then put this river under the Park Service's jurisdiction or the Interior Department, and these agencies will have to manage it. We're adding to a backlog of between 14 and $22 billion. We shouldn't continue to do this. We can't continue to do this. We have parks in my State and everywhere else that have maintenance needs, that have staffing needs, that have needs that are going unmet, and we're going about just adding more to it, without seeking a funding source or anything else. We're simply adding more obligations to the Park Service, and we can't do that. This amendment simply says that nothing in this authorization implies this appropriation will follow. Again, if an appropriation does follow, we are taking from the existing wild and scenic rivers or other designations that our Interior Department has to manage. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for accepting the amendment, and I thank the Chair. Now, let me say a few words about energy, since everybody else has. I didn't plan to when I came down here, but I have to say that Republicans will charge, with some justification, that the Democrats have been in charge for the last 2 years and have failed to pass significant substantial energy legislation. Democrats will charge, with some justification, that the Republicans have been in charge for a number of years and failed to do so. We blamed the Senate. We didn't have 60 votes in the Senate. The Democrats can do the same at this point. But here we are today, and we can't continue to look back and say we should have done something before, because we are here today and people are asking, why aren't you passing something? With justification, I might add. Now, one of the speakers mentioned that what the Republicans were proposing was more like a Fred Flintstone bill of some type. And I would have to ask that same speaker how she plans to get home tonight. Unless she has a Flintstone mobile, she's probably riding in something that is powered by gas, maybe a hybrid, unlikely that it's electricity. In fact, less than 1 percent of our current energy needs in this country are produced by solar, which she talked about. Less than 1 percent is produced by wind. Now, in our plan it has plans for increased solar and wind. But if you doubled, if you tripled, if you quadrupled, quintupled, do whatever you want, to solar and wind for a number of years, we are going to rely on our traditional energy sources. And so it makes sense that, while we are searching for the next big thing, while we wait for a hydrogen economy, or while we wait for wind and solar to really come on-line, or something else that we may not even know of, we have to use the resources that we have. So nobody on this side is really saying drill and drill only. We're saying it has to be part of the mix and it has to be all of the above. So there's plenty of blame to go around. I myself have not voted for one energy bill since I've been here in the past 8 years because I thought that some of them were too subsidy-laden. I didn't think that they really, really allowed us, in a free market way, to go out and use our resources. But going forward, this is what we've got to look at; what are we going to do going forward. It doesn't do anybody any good to say well, the Democrats didn't do anything, or the Republicans didn't. We're here today, and it's time to do something on this. Again, I thank the chairman of the subcommittee and appreciate him accepting this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. This week, the Senate is expected to approve an $8 billion bailout of the highway trust fund. We already passed that in the House here in July, and at that time, myself and 36 other Members opposed it. At the time, we were backed by both the administration and by the Secretary of Transportation. For years, Congress has known that the highway trust fund was losing its purchasing power. The Federal law gas tax of 18.4 cents has not been increased since 1993, and high fuel efficiency standards have meant fewer fill-ups. Then, of course, earlier this summer, fewer vacations were taken; fewer miles were driven. That means less money for the highway trust fund, but this concern has gone back for years. In fact, when we did the 2005 highway bill, there were many who stood up and who said we're authorizing more projects, more funding than we will have in the highway trust fund, but what did we do? We didn't take any action to solve the problem. Instead, we more than tripled the number of earmarks in SAFETEA-LU, which was the last highway authorization program that we did in 2005 for the 5-year period that we're now in. So here we are 3\1/2\ years later, just a year before our next reauthorization, and we're out of money to cover the projects that we've authorized, but contrary to the example we've seen throughout this Congress, a bailout shouldn't be the answer to every shortfall. No effort, for example, has been made to rescind any of the 6,300 earmarks that were in the highway trust fund, of course, the most famous of which was the bridge to nowhere. That money was rescinded or at least the authorization to spend on that project was taken away by the Congress, but we've made no effort on any of the other 6,300 earmarks in the bill. We need to do so. The Secretary of Transportation had indicated earlier this summer that, if we were to take funding from the earmarks that have not yet been funded in the bill, it could relieve the pressure that we now have on the highway trust fund, but we haven't done it. Instead, we're simply saying go ahead and fund all of those transportation museums and all of those projects that have very little or nothing to do with moving people. We're saying go ahead and fund them. We'll just take the money from the Treasury now instead of from the highway trust fund. That is a very, very dangerous precedent to set. Whenever you load up a bill with 6,300 earmarks, the process of logrolling takes effect. That's why you only had, I believe, eight votes against the highway bill back in 2005 and, I think, only three votes against it in the Senate. It's because, if you lard it up enough and if you have enough buy-in, very few people will vote against it or will oppose it. If you start taking money from the general fund and if you don't have any kind of ceiling that was provided at least by the highway trust fund, then Katy Bar the door when it comes to spending. There's no ceiling. There's no discipline. We can not get in this position where we're robbing from the general fund to fund highway projects delineated by Members of Congress but earmarked by Members of Congress, because there will simply be no discipline on the process. So I would urge the President to take the position that we shouldn't take money from the general fund, to veto this legislation when it comes, and I would urge the House as we prepare to reauthorize the highway bill just a year from now to take a different approach--to look at public-private partnerships and other methods--so we simply don't get in the position where we have thousands and thousands and thousands of earmarks that mean we have a bill that we can't fund and where we will again be robbing from the general fund to fund these projects.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I am so glad he mentioned that. That may be the case. I'm not sure. That may well be.

Mr. FLAKE. My largest complaint with the earmark process is not what we spent in the waste in some bills, maybe not in this one, maybe in others, a lot in others. My biggest complaint has always been with the earmark process; that we, as Members of Congress, give up our authority under article I because we ignore, with our zeal to earmark 2 percent or 1 percent of the Federal budget, we have basically called a truce with the administration saying we will ignore your willy-nilly spending if you ignore ours. So we let bills like the Department of Homeland Security bill, $32 billion, very little of it earmarked, but so much of it wasted because we are so intent on earmarking our little portion that we just don't do the oversight that we're supposed to do under article I, and you can look at empirically, anecdotally, any way you look at it. I commissioned the GAO awhile ago to look at the Appropriations Committee, since 1994, since the contemporary practice of earmarking really got started, under Republicans. I concede that. And if you look at the number of witnesses called, the number of hearings held, any way you slice it or dice it, we aren't doing the oversight that we once did, since the contemporary practice of earmarking started. And I would submit that that's true across the board. But if you look specifically at this bill, there is no way that you can say that this isn't a spoils system. When facilities residing in appropriators' districts get about seven times as much. Maybe it's six. Maybe it's five. Maybe it's eight. But with that kind of average, something is wrong. And that's what we are saying here. We have got to fix this system. We should fix it before we move on. I appreciate the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) for the work that he has done and for cosponsoring this amendment and for those who have spoken on it. And I would just say again this is our only chance. This looks like this is it for the year to actually have a voice on earmarks and to say enough is enough, it's time to change the process. So I urge my colleagues to accept the amendment, and I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.