Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a little different from the others. The others would strike funding from the bill. This would simply redirect funding to the same account from which it was drawn. This amendment would redirect $3 million from the Lewis Center for Educational Research to the Family Advocacy Programs in the Operations and Maintenance account. Mr. Chairman, it seems that we are debating the Labor-HHS bill rather than the Defense appropriations bill. Why is there a $3 million earmark in the bill for an organization with a stated goal of providing ``an opportunity for students to experience real science; to learn that science is an ongoing process, not just memorizing facts?'' I am referring, of course, to this earmark for the Lewis Center for Educational Research. This is becoming somewhat of an annual earmark. In fact, according to the Citizens Against Government Waste database, this educational center has received earmarks in past Defense appropriation bills ranging from $2.5 million to $3.5 million in every fiscal year since 2003. According to the certification letter submitted by the sponsor, ``the funding would be used to develop on-line educational curriculum.'' The Lewis Center for Educational research is an ``educational facility designed to improve educational effectiveness and scientific literacy among American schoolchildren.'' According to its Web site, since opening in 1990, the Lewis Center has provided hands-on instructional programs for elementary, middle, and high school students throughout local communities and across the Nation. I would ask the same questions here. Why are we providing an earmark that is to a school that is sponsored by groups like Target, Wal-Mart, Verizon, Boeing, State Farm Insurance, Southern California Edison, Lucent Technologies, and others? This is to a school; this is a defense bill. I simply would ask why is it here in the defense bill? How does it serve our national defense? What essential Federal purpose does it serve? Should it receive any earmark funding at all? And certainly not, I would say, in a defense bill. And then the notion that this is actually taken out of an account for Family Advocacy Programs in the Operations and Maintenance account. I would think that, given the needs that the families of our troops have, that that money would be better left in that account for that purpose than to go to what I think is a charter school for other purposes. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I would simply reiterate what we are talking about here. This is a charter school that, although it has been spoken of as serving military families, it has no more of a mission to serve military families, I would suggest, than the school that my kids go to. There are military families there. But I would not presume to give an earmark to that school simply because military families might attend that school. There is nothing in the literature that we have been able to find anywhere in this school that has any specific purpose to serve military families.

Mr. FLAKE. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. FLAKE. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, again, I would say that this is a charter school receiving money in the defense bill that has no more military application than any school that any of your kids or grandkids go to, and yet we are doing it. Does that have a military application? I would suggest not. And the notion that we can talk about this earmark that turned into something good or that one, but for every one of those, I would suggest that there is a company out there that would love to bid on one of these contracts that isn't given the opportunity, a company that might have technology that might turn into something good, but they can't compete because an earmark is given as a sole-source contract to another company. There are hundreds of them in this bill. Again, an earmark is not a competitively bid project. It is a sole- source contract. I urge adoption of the amendment.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would eliminate $39 million in Federal taxpayer dollars for the National Drug Intelligence Center, a project that U.S. News and World Report called ``a boondoggle.'' This amendment would also reduce the cost of the bill by a commensurate amount. There are a number of reasons to support this amendment; primary among these is the fact that we should not spend our scarce intelligence dollars on wasteful and duplicative programs like the National Drug Intelligence Center. This earmark has been part of a growing list of intelligence, or so- called ``black earmarks.'' I think a lot of us have long been skeptical of the practice of earmarking Intelligence accounts, and several of us have repeatedly called for the abolition of this practice. We really didn't start earmarking the Intelligence bill until, I think, around the late - nineties. And it has not gone well for us, as we know with the case of Mr. Cunningham, now serving time. It is important to note that the practice of earmarking only began really in this case in the Intelligence bill in the 1990s. Let me repeat, we shouldn't be earmarking the Intelligence bill this way. This was authorized in the Intelligence bill. There was an amendment offered at the time to strike it. Many of us have been troubled, as I mentioned, with this kind of earmarking. Many of us have asked to see the unclassified version of the report that was commissioned by the Intelligence Committee about Mr. Cunningham and his ability to get Intelligence earmarks. I have not been able to get that report, an unclassified report. I, as a Member of Congress, have been denied that report, and so have all of you. That is simply not right. The Los Angeles Times reported a couple of weeks ago, as did the Associated Press, that they had received a copy of that report, but Members of Congress have not. Yet, we still continue with the practice of earmarking Intelligence bills. When we did the authorization bill, we didn't receive the list of earmarks in that bill until it was past time to offer amendments to the Rules Committee to strike those earmarks. So we haven't had that opportunity. Let me say that we cannot continue to go down this road, particularly with earmarks that have been called ``duplicative and wasteful.'' The administration has tried for years to get rid of this National Drug Center. In fact, they offered $16 million in one of these bills to shut that center down; yet, still, it keeps coming back and back and back. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I would just ask the gentleman, while he's still standing, I would yield to the gentleman to simply ask, has the Bush administration requested that this be shut down?

Mr. FLAKE. The gentleman correctly stated that Concurrent has been given some Federal contracts. Then, why in the world did they need this earmark? If they are getting Federal contracts through some kind of bidding process, then why do they need continued earmarks? Which, as I mentioned, are by their very definition sole-source contracts, no-bid contracts, where we are specifying an individual firm, a business in this case, that hires a lobbyist, $820,000 paid to a lobbyist to get more Federal funds. Where does it end? Is this any kind of process or system that we can be proud of, with these earmark incubators that survive just by getting more earmarks? I mean, how can we do that? If every district in this country had those kinds of earmark incubators, every account in the U.S. Federal Government would be earmarked, I would venture to say. So I would say we simply have to stop this somewhere. I urge support for the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I have great respect for the gentleman from Maryland, and I appreciate the tone which this debate has been conducted in. I heard some new things here that I didn't know before. This was a Maryland-initiated buyout for the tobacco industry, a buyout which limited the uses of tobacco afterwards. That's great. It should probably be the State of Maryland that funds this kind of research then, instead of the Federal Government. Another thing I heard that I hadn't heard before is I guess we are moving toward tobacco-based ethanol or something of some such. My old car smokes enough, thank you. I'm not sure that's the way to go, but, in any event, there are limits to what you can do. The truth is you can make ethanol out of an old boot if you expend enough energy doing it, but it doesn't mean that we ought to fund research again and again, over and over and over. There are limits to what the taxpayer ought to do. And let me just say, given that, I mean, we imposed another tax on tobacco just a day ago, and I think there are plenty of incentives there within the industry, be it the growing side or be it on the marketing side or whatever, to find alternative uses for tobacco. I think it ought to be left with them and not the Federal taxpayer. Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit $400,000 in Federal funds from being used for alternative uses for tobacco in Maryland and reduces the cost of the bill by a consistent amount. I would suggest to my colleagues that we can find some better alternative uses for the taxpayers' money, like paying down the national debt, for example. In fact, just yesterday, Treasury Secretary Paulson predicted that the Treasury will reach the nearly $9 trillion statutory debt limit in early October. I would argue that this is a sign that we need to spend less on appropriation bills just like this one. The certification letter submitted to the Appropriations Committee stated that the funding will go to the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources for the Alternative Uses of Tobacco Research Project. The funding for this earmark is through the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service Special Research Grants account, which are congressionally directed and noncompetitive research earmarks. The Alternative Uses of Tobacco Research Project is focused on finding new, nonsmoking uses for tobacco, such as pharmaceutical or biotechnology applications. I am not denying that there aren't potential benefits for this research for the tobacco industry, for pharmaceutical industry, or for other biotechnology industries, but how long is the taxpayer going to be expected to fund specific research for the benefit of these industries? This is not a new earmark. In fact, the project has received earmarks of between $320,000 and $400,000 each year since fiscal year 2002. Including this earmark, the University of Maryland will have received over $2 million in Federal earmarks for their alternative use project. Why are we singling out this program and this school and earmarking funds for it year after year after year? What makes this program at the University of Maryland more deserving than Federal funds at other schools or organizations in Virginia, Tennessee, Arizona, California or elsewhere around the country? There are many other earmark projects that we are funding at the University of Maryland as well. According to research done by Citizens Against Government Waste, from 2001 to 2006, the University of Maryland received just under $17 million in Federal earmarks. I think it is interesting to note in 2006 the University of Maryland paid lobbying firms more than $200,000 for various lobbying activities. Are these lobbyists lobbying Congress for additional earmarks? When do we say enough is enough? When the smoke clears, the taxpayers are still being asked to fund tobacco research. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. I urge adoption of the amendment. We simply cannot afford everything. Let's give the taxpayer a break.

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

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. I yield 15 seconds to the gentlewoman.

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

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

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in opposition to this rule as well. I don't think it's a good precedent to set to move away from open rules on appropriations. I'm one that's often accused of dilatory tactics on these bills, having so many amendments on earmarks. These aren't dilatory at all. I should note that on the bill that we had a couple of weeks ago, the Energy and Water bill, I believe I offered seven or eight. With that, one Member came to the floor before I offered and withdrew or asked for an amendment which he received to strike his own earmark. We're seeing the same here, three earmarks stricken from the bill in the Rules Committee because an amendment was going to be offered to strike them on the floor. My understanding is with the Defense bill tomorrow that there will be another amendment, self-executing rule to strike another earmark that was going to be challenged on the floor. So this is not dilatory at all to come to the floor and say, hey, there are earmarks here that might be questionable. There are a lot of earmarks that would go to private companies. These are, in essence, sole source contracts. I sympathize with the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Obey, who said many times that we simply don't have the staff to police this many earmarks. I don't think you could have policed the 15,000 we had a couple of years ago. If this Congress is successful in cutting that down by half, we can't come close to policing that number either. We have former Members in jail because of earmarks that we approved in this body. We simply can't go on like this, and if we shut down this process in a manner where we're only allowed to question a certain number of earmarks, I wanted to question 10 on this bill. There are 410 in the bill. Ten is not an unreasonable number. I was only allowed five. Who knows on the bill that we do tomorrow if we have a closed rule. If we aren't able to question these, where are we able to do it?