Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. There has been a lot of rhetoric today and a lot of talk about polling and how Americans everywhere support this, Governors support this, people at the local level support it. We have in this country something called representative government. We are sent here and we are given access to figures and numbers that perhaps others don't have. What figures and numbers I am talking about tell us that we cannot sustain the trend that we are on, particularly ramping up a program like this and spending more than we have in the past. We simply can't sustain it, particularly when gimmicks are used in the outyears to pay for it. We know that. Perhaps those who are responding to the polls do not. George Washington once said: If to please the people we do what we ourselves disapprove, how will we afterwards defend our work? That is what we are here for, to do what we know is right. When I am told you have got to do what your conscience says, my conscience says that we can't afford this. If we have to use gimmicks in the outyears to pay for it, we simply can't afford to expand this program.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I introduced legislation last week with the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran) that would put a moratorium on earmarks until we have a process in place where we can fully vet all earmarks. Earlier this year, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee said it was simply impossible, that we don't have the resources to investigate every earmark request. I agree. However, rather than approving thousands of earmarks, anyway, the prudent course would be to take a break and reevaluate the system. Without the resources to vet over 11,000 earmarks in the House and Senate this year, bad earmarks are sure to slip through the cracks. Not only do these earmarks bring embarrassment to Members, they bring shame to the institution. Our constituents expect better of us. They should get it. Mr. Speaker, the House has traditionally had a process of authorization, appropriation and oversight, a process that we have abandoned in recent years. Until we can get back to that system, we need to take a break from earmarks.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, new earmark reforms required that Members' names be attached to their earmarks. Unfortunately, transparency alone has done little but air our dirty laundry without cleaning it. Transparency is not a substitute for oversight. Earmarks have names next to them now, but little else has changed. The House has approved thousands and thousands and thousands of earmarks so far this year, and more are likely to be added in the conference committees. However, we know full well that not all of these earmarks were given the scrutiny that Federal expenditures deserve. Every week, I highlight an earmark by making an admittedly lame joke about it, but we need a process that inspires confidence, not jokes or humor. And, unfortunately, transparency alone has not gotten us there. Until this body has a process that can trusted, Mr. Speaker, I believe the taxpayers would be best served by a moratorium on earmarks, and I will soon introduce legislation to impose such a moratorium.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, it's no secret that earmarks are not fairly distributed. But with the new disclosure rules in place this year, for the first time it's been documented. In an analysis of House-passed appropriation bills, CQ Weekly and Taxpayers for Common Sense found that a disproportionate share of earmarks went to relatively few Members of Congress. Now, obviously Federal priorities are not concentrated in the districts of appropriators and leadership. Those Members are simply in a better position to steer Federal money home. That's hardly a defensible way of spending taxpayer money. I've often said that we had higher aspirations when we were elected than to grovel for crumbs that fall from the appropriators' table. But given the lopsided share of earmarks that appropriators got this year, here's hoping that enough Members will finally say, why bother, and we can finally end this practice.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, among the many downsides of earmarking and one that we rarely talk about on the House floor is the practice of circular fundraising. Campaign donations are given to Members, Members secure earmarks benefiting their contributors, and contributors in turn are able to give Members more donations. This cycle is repeated over and over and over. Unfortunately, this is a bipartisan practice. The media has reported on many such arrangements for Members on both sides of the aisle. Legal issues aside, circular fundraising does not pass the smell test. Whether it is fair or not, the crimes of a few of our former colleagues have cast suspicion over us all. Continued rampant fundraising is simply not worth the trust it costs us with our constituents. I think that most of us had higher aspirations when we came here than groveling for crumbs that fall from the appropriators' table. I hope that we as Members of Congress will finally decide that enough is enough.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, after we Republicans lost the majority in last year's elections, the new majority promised that they would ``drain the swamp.'' The new majority seemed to recognize that the political cost of earmarks far outweighed the benefits, and modest reforms were instituted to make the process more transparent. However, it soon became clear that the earmark reform rhetoric was not matched by reality. The old majority seems just as mired in the mud as the old. Still, it was with some excitement that I recently discovered in the House-passed Interior appropriations bill a $750,000 earmark for the Great Swamp National Wildlife Preserve in New Jersey. Predictably, this earmark was not to drain the swamp, but to preserve it. This begs the question: If we can't stop passing earmarks to preserve swamps, how will we ever drain the earmark swamp? Mr. Speaker, our constituents and this institution deserve far better. Let's follow up on our promises for earmark reform with actual reform.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to once again make the case that earmarking is out of control in these bills. This Defense bill that we are discussing tonight has more than 1,300 earmarks. The notion that this was adequately vetted and scrubbed, that these earmarks had proper review is simply not reasonable. There is no way they could have in this short amount of time. When you read through this bill, you have to chuckle at the creative way that some of these projects have been cast in order to appear that there is some defense application. Just to highlight a couple, there is one earmark in here for a cold weather hand protection system. What could that be? That is a glove to you and me, sold at any outdoor outfitters store. But in here, it is a cold weather hand protection system, and we are going to be giving an earmark to a private company to sell gloves. There are more. There is another earmark for a light-weight foam sleep pad project. What is that? It sounds like nothing more than a mattress. It is one that self-inflates that scouts have been using for years and years and years. And yet we are giving an earmark to a private company to provide it to the Defense Department. Why are we doing that? There are 1,300 earmarks in this bill, many of them like this. Let me get to the first one I am challenging tonight. This amendment would prohibit $2.5 million from being used to restore the parade ground in the center of the Presidio's Main Post, and reduce funding for the overall bill by a consistent amount. This is just one of a long parade of earmarks in the bill. The Presidio is located in San Francisco, one of the oldest continuously used military posts in the Nation. In 1996, Congress turned the bulk of the Presidio, including the large Main Post area, over to a congressionally chartered nonprofit organization called The Presidio Trust to be managed with the National Park Service. In a unique arrangement, the main objective is to achieve financial self-sufficiency by the year 2013 largely by renting out housing and leasing land to businesses. It has been quite successful in this. The San Francisco Chronicle noted last year the Presidio was becoming a scenic enclave where only the well-healed need apply with some houses being rented for more than $4,000 a month. That is high, even by California standards. This earmark raises a number of troubling questions, not the least of which is why an earmark for a park managed in partnership with the National Park Service is receiving an earmark in the Defense Appropriations bill. The Defense Appropriations bill, I think we all agree, is for the troops. Yet here we are bleeding off funds to spend money on an earmark that has been funded in prior bills for a project managed with the National Park Service. I am sure taxpayers would like to hear a good explanation for this. Why are we doing it in the Defense bill? Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, may I ask the gentleman who is the sponsor of the earmark?

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike $1.5 million in funding in the bill for the Doyle Center for Manufacturing Technology. The Doyle Center, which is a monument to its sponsor, is an earmark incubator, much like Concurrent Technologies, a center created out of earmarks for the sole objective for obtaining more Federal contracts or earmarks. The center is a sister organization to a number of earmarks incubators like Concurrent Technologies, which is an entity, as mentioned before, receiving $11 million in earmark funds in the bill. How do we know that there is a symbiotic relationship between Concurrent Technologies and the Doyle Center? For one thing, the chairman of the board of the Doyle Center is the senior vice president and chief financial officer of Concurrent Technologies. We also know that the Doyle Center and Concurrent Technologies work closely together on projects funded through earmarks. It is no surprise that they share the same leadership. According to a recent article in The Hill, the creation of the Doyle Center is adding another layer to three nonprofit organizations devoted to a similar mission of helping spur economic development in the area, the Pennsylvania Technology Council, Pittsburgh Technology Council, and the Catalyst Connection. The article in The Hill stated that all four groups share the same address and many of the same officers. In addition, the Doyle Center handed over a large portion of its earmark money in 2004 to the Catalyst Connection for research. These funds came from a portion of a larger $1.36 million earmark that make up the center's entire budget for that year. Just think of that. We are giving an earmark to a center that is funded completely with taxpayer dollars with the goal of receiving more taxpayer dollars. A certification letter for the project says that $1.5 million in earmark money will go toward the Doyle Center. But with all these groups sharing the same address, the same money, the same officers, do we really know where the money is going? So my answer to the sponsor to the earmark is as follows: Is the money going to the Doyle Center, the Pittsburgh Technology Council, the Catalyst Content, Connect, or the Concurrent Technologies? I urge the adoption of the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Let me just finish. Nobody is trying to deny anybody any water, certainly not somebody from Arizona. But the question remains, was this a program of memorandum? Is it on any unfunded requirement list? Does any operator in the field say that we need this particular program or technology from this particular company? I would be glad to yield.

Mr. FLAKE. Do you want a response?

Mr. FLAKE. I have nothing to add to that. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time and urge adoption of the amendment.

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

Mr. FLAKE. I would yield to the gentleman if he would tell us who the sponsor of the earmark is. Well, I guess I will since he won't. The sponsor is the Speaker of the House, and I would hope that the sponsor of the earmark would come and defend this. Why are we earmarking defense dollars for a project managed in cooperation with the National Park Service, a project that is receiving millions and millions of dollars from the outside in a very high-rent district in San Francisco. That doesn't seem right, yet we are doing it. And this is indicative of a lot of the earmarks that are going into this bill. It is perhaps not surprising that there isn't much of a defense for this. But I would think even if it is nearly 11 on the last day of the session that the taxpayers deserve a little better than this. I have a few more earmarks and we will talk a little more about this. But it just seems wrong when you come up with high-sounding words to make the earmarks sound like they are more important. I started thinking that if this podium right here were described in the defense bill, it would be referred to as a multipurpose, ad hoc self-generating, voice-projection platform. Or this pen might be a stenographic multi-functional polymer language communication system. If you name things like this, you might get funding in this defense bill. And people might laugh, but we do it year after year after year, and it grows. People will point out that there are fewer earmarks in this bill than there were in the past couple of years. That is true, and it is a good thing. But it is still too much. How can we exercise proper oversight when we are spending money like this?

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

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Chair. That last discussion was remarkable, just remarkable. I would gladly yield time to anybody who agrees with the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee that, one, that these earmarks are competitively bid. Anybody in agreement here; or, two, that the U.S. taxpayer, after paying for these earmarks, has rights to the technology that developed these earmarks. Any takers there? I didn't think so. I think that is simply wrong. That is simply wrong. An earmark, by very definition, is a sole source contract. It is circumventing the competitive bidding process. Maybe you don't like what the bureaucrats over in the Defense Department do, but to say that this is a competitively bid contract is simply wrong. To say that the U.S. taxpayer has rights to the technology developed with the companies that are getting these earmarks, is simply wrong as well. If anybody can contradict, please take time. But let's not defend these earmarks on that basis when that's simply wrong. Any way, let's get to this one. This earmark, I am sorry, this amendment would eliminate $1 million for the Marine Desalination Systems, Inc., in St. Petersburg, Florida, for atmospheric water harvesting and reduce the cost of the bill by a corresponding amount. The earmark described in the certification letter submitted to the committee by the sponsor informs us that this earmark would be used to fund lightweight, low power expeditionary water production. According to the Web site of the entity, Marine Desalination Systems is a corporation that develops new technologies to create inexpensive, potable water, to bring to market. Again, I have the same issue that the last gentleman to offer amendments did, the gentleman from California. Why are we singling out this one company for this project or this earmark? I would ask similar questions to the ones he asked, but these, I think, are more in the defense speak that goes with the language in this bill. Was this project palmed, which means, is it a program of memorandum? I would ask the sponsor that. Is it on any unfunded requirement list? Number 3, does any operator in the field say that we need this particular program or technology from this particular company? I would love to hear the answer to any of those questions from the sponsor of the earmark. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman. The question here is, why aren't we competitively bidding these projects? We have had hearing after hearing after hearing in this Congress, more so than we had in the last Congress. To our great shame, I think as Republicans we didn't have enough oversight hearings. And we bring up Halliburton constantly, with no bid contracts.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike all funding in the bill for Concurrent Technologies Corporation. As you may recall, I offered an amendment last month during consideration of the Energy and Water appropriations bill to cut funding for something called the Center for Instrumental Critical Infrastructure in Pennsylvania. We did not know whether the center existed. I had a colloquy with the chairman of the subcommittee in that time. But we learned that the money is actually going to Concurrent Technologies Corporation based in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Concurrent Technologies has been a leading earmark recipient in multiple appropriations bills over the years. In the Energy and Water bill, Concurrent received $1 million in earmarked funds. In this bill, Concurrent is due to receive $11 million in the form of four earmarks. Concurrent Technologies was the focus of an October 2, 2006, story in the New York Times titled, ``Trading Boats for Pork Across the House Aisle.'' According to the article, Concurrent Technologies Corporation was created by an earmark in 1988. Back then, the corporation was called the Center for Excellence in Metalworking. The New York Times stated that the military and other Federal agencies have paid Concurrent nearly $1 billion in grants and contracts since 1999. That is $1 billion in taxpayer funds to an entity created with an earmark. That does not include the $12 million Concurrent is receiving in earmarks this year alone. Concurrent Technologies Corporation is an earmark incubator. It was created by an earmark to get more earmarks. Without earmarks, this corporation, I think it is safe to say, would not exist. The president of the corporation, Mr. DeVos, was quoted in the local paper saying that the sponsor has ``impressed upon the area's defense industries leaders the need to wean themselves from this aid.'' Mr. DeVos and the sponsor of the earmark have a funny way of weaning Concurrent off of Federal earmarks. The sponsor has secured $11 million more for Concurrent in this bill alone. In addition, The Washington Post reported that Mr. DeVos and his company have spent $820,000 in fees to a lobby firm seeking more Federal aid. I would ask the sponsor of this earmark to confirm what has been reported. With regard to the defense industry's needing to wean themselves off this aid, when is that weaning going to occur? Can we assure Members of this body that there will be no more earmarks to Concurrent Technologies? Can Concurrent Technologies survive without Federal Member-sponsored earmarks? I look forward to receiving answers to these questions. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman. I don't remember mentioning the RSC, but I appreciate the illumination. But let me just ask the Member, he has talked about the process by which these grants are given. Let me just note, he mentioned earlier that every one of these was scrubbed by the Appropriations Committee. We had a manager's amendment that actually removed some and then put the money back somewhere else. One in particular that I had planned to actually challenge here was called the Advanced Robotic Vehicle Command and Control. I had an earlier version apparently of what came, and it was removed in a manager's amendment in committee. But then the money was taken, that same money, and given to the same Member for another earmark sponsored by that Member entitled Big Foot Airborne Receiver. So the money went from that one just to another earmark sponsored by that same Member to plus that one up. What kind of process does the committee go through? Is it that every Member is allotted a certain amount, or is it what they think the Defense Department needs? I would be glad to yield to the Member.

Mr. FLAKE. Does the gentleman presume to know more about this specific subject and know of a reason why this should remain in effect when the administration is saying that it should be shut down because it is duplicative and wasteful?

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, there is a story in the paper yesterday that mentioned how much of the funding is in this bill, and the gentleman mentioned that sometimes it is not completely accurate because the Defense Department will ask for things that are then listed as an earmark to the Member. I understand that it is not a perfect count. But still senior members of the Appropriations Committee were given up to $150 million in earmarks when other rank-and-file Members got maybe a million or 2. Are there more needs in certain districts? Is it spread out? How does that process go? What confidence should we have as Members voting to fund these earmarks that it is on some kind of basis that bears any relationship to what the Defense Department needs rather than political calculation? I would be glad to yield to the gentleman. All right. I guess I will accept that as an answer. But let me just say, with regard to the Doyle Center, I would have hoped that the sponsor of the earmark would come and talk about it. But here is another example, as I mentioned, of an earmark incubator where an earmark creates an organization, in this case, named after one of our own, and the same one who it is named after gets more earmarks year after year for the same center to get more earmarks and more Federal contracts. We simply can't sustain that. The notion that that is what the Defense Department needs simply doesn't hold water. With that, I urge adoption of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I rise in perhaps reluctant support of the measure tonight. I rise reluctantly because I supported a lot of the Democrat proposal yesterday, save one piece. I didn't believe that FISA should be inserted where it hasn't been inserted already, but I do believe FISA should govern foreign surveillance when it comes in contact with an American. I am troubled that this legislation does not have language which would allow the Inspector General to actually report to Congress. That's how we learned that there were abuses going on in the national security letter division or department. But I am convinced by the testimony that I have heard, the briefings that I have gone to, that we do need to move forward. I see this as an interim measure and hope to come back in 180 days and put in additional protections. But in the meantime, feel that we do need to move forward and we need the make sure that we are catching the intelligence that we need to.