Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Chairman, may I inquire as to the time remaining?

Mr. FLAKE. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Chairman, may I ask the time remaining?

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Chairman, may I inquire as to the time remaining?

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Chairman, let me just say that the direct payments were never intended as a safety net. They were meant to wean farmers off of the dole. If our parents worked as hard as this committee in weaning their children, we would all still be living in our parents' basement. It doesn't work to continue and continue and continue on with this. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Reichert).

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Chairman, let me just say before yielding to the gentleman from Wisconsin, the drop in 40 percent that is claimed by the committee is actually taking credit for high prices of corn and other commodities. There's no cut at all. So this is not reform. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. In 2005, while on the House Judiciary Committee, I, along with some others, offered a series of reforms to the process of issuing national security letters. These reforms came about during the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. These reforms didn't go as far as I would have liked, but we took the administration at their word when they said that civil liberties would not be violated. During the reauthorization process, I and others were told by administration officials that the reforms we sought were not needed, that the Department of Justice and FBI would never do the hypothetical worst-case scenario that some of my colleagues and I worried about. After a long investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, I can regrettably say many of the worst-case scenarios actually came about and that our hypotheticals were not so farfetched. The FBI has abused its power both in terms of National Security Letters and exigent letters. In the case of exigent letters, it appears the FBI repeatedly asserted exigent circumstances where none existed in order to obtain telephone records. The Inspector General's probe also concluded that there sometimes was no open nor pending national security investigation tied to the request. This directly contradicts the requirements of U.S. law. Letters went out stating that a grand jury subpoena was forthcoming when none was forthcoming. The Inspector General's report was just a small sampling of the use of these letters, and we have not been given a larger picture yet. I want to commend the gentleman from Florida for bringing this forward. He has worked hard on this issue, and we are not speaking anymore in hypotheticals. We have seen abuses. They have been documented. This is very important, and I commend him for bringing this forward, and I join him in his effort.

Mr. FLAKE

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief here. This amendment would simply strike $250,000 for the East Coast Shellfish Research Institute. We just debated an earmark a few minutes ago with regard to the textile industry, and we were told that we needed this earmark because the textile industry is in such dire straits and has been affected by international competition and incomes are down and jobs have been lost. With regard to the shellfish industry, you have the opposite; you have an industry that is actually doing quite well. According to the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, this is the administrative organization that would receive the earmark, there are 1,300 members of the association with a combined revenue of approximately $80 million this last year. This revenue averages more than $60,000 per shellfish farmer, far more than the median household income in the country. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income is around $44,000. So we have $60,000 in this industry as opposed to $44,000 nationwide. It brings up the question, if we fund earmarks to study industries or to help industries that are in dire straits and we fund earmarks to fund industries that are doing quite well, why not everything in between? What is to stop us from going ahead and funding every private industry and their associations that are represented here or elsewhere? It simply doesn't make sense to me. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Federal agency that manages the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere, the U.S. seafood harvest has produced increasingly higher yields since 2000. This is in addition to increased consumer demand for seafood based on new dietary guidelines. I grew up on a cattle ranch on a farm, and I don't want anybody to accuse me of favoring beef over seafood or shellfish. I don't. I like both. But in this case, it seems to me the Congress is again picking winners and losers here. We're saying we're favoring one particular industry, be it textiles, be it shellfish, and the only way to not do that is to give earmarks to every industry out there. And I just don't think that we can. We simply can't afford that. The taxpayer needs a break here. So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I'll be very brief. One of the gentlemen mentioned that we in Congress simply shouldn't let the Federal Government spend this money. The last time I checked, we are the Federal Government. We're one branch of it, and it's our job to appropriate money to another; that is, to actually spend that money. We don't spend that money here. We don't write the checks. That's done by the Federal agencies. Our role is to provide oversight and to authorize the programs. And so I'm not advocating at all that we step back. I'm advocating that we actually go to the time-honored practice of authorization, appropriation, and oversight. And that allows us to actually go into these Federal agencies and really provide good oversight. But I can tell you, it's very difficult to provide oversight for example for the Defense bill. Last year or the year before, I believe, we provided an earmark in the Defense bill for a museum in New York, in the Defense bill. How can you provide good oversight with any straight face, go to the Defense Department and say, we think that you should have spent more money on body armor for our troops in Iraq. Oh, but by the way, we directed you to spend $2 million on a museum in New York. It just doesn't seem right to me. And so I think, frankly, we cheapen our role when we, the contemporary practice of earmarking, I think, has cheapened the role of Congress and moved us away from authorization, appropriation, and oversight. So that will be my response, and I would urge support for the amendment.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike funding for the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine. We will be debating later today subsidies for corn, cotton, rice and sugar. This is about subsidizing lobsters. I frankly think we subsidize corn, cotton and sugar far too much, but lobster subsidies seem to be out of line as well. I think taxpayers are already feeling the pinch, if you will, with high gas prices and huge deficits, and all of the other things that they are asked to pay for. But providing hard-earned taxpayer dollars to the lobster industry should make Members of this body a little red in the face. According to the bill, the New England lobster industry will be receiving $200,000 in Federal taxpayer dollars. The certification letter does not offer much in explanation of what it would be used for except to provide resources for the New England lobster industry. What kind of resources, I think we are justified in asking. This is a private industry that makes millions and millions of dollars annually. What possible support should the Federal taxpayer be offering to this particular industry? Again, this is one area where Congress, through earmarking, is circumventing the regular process that we typically go through. It is a process that I don't like very much. I don't think we ought to be providing funding to the Federal agencies to give subsidies this way either. But there are programs at the Federal agencies, programs that are usually open to competitive bidding where people will submit grant proposals. But through earmarking like this, we circumvent that process and we say we know better what we're going to give what amounts to. It seems like a no-bid contract to a particular industry or business or group of industries. So I would think that this simply isn't the way to go. I would submit that no amount of drawn butter can make this kind of subsidy taste any better. We simply shouldn't be doing this kind of thing. We need to get rid of these kinds of earmarks, again, when we know so very little about what it will go to. We are just told it will provide resources for the New England lobster industry. This is an industry, like some of the others we will be discussing later today, that do quite well on their own. They make millions and millions of dollars. What possible justification can we have for using Federal taxpayer dollars to subsidize or to support an industry like this? Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this is a rather large earmark, $720,000. It's for Federal funding for meteorological equipment at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana. Growing up, I was told the best way to tell the weather was to stick your arm out the window of the vehicle as we were going down a farm road. This seems to me to be Congress's way of sticking their arm into taxpayers' back pocket and getting their wallet. The earmark description in the certification letter submitted said the earmark would fund the equipment as a teaching tool for the university's meteorology department and provide weather information to entities in northwestern Indiana and surrounding areas. This university is a coed, 4-year, private university located, as I said, in northwestern Indiana. It's ranked by the U.S. News and World Report as one of the top universities in the Midwest. Its endowment is in excess of $143 million. Again, why do we fund earmarks for institutions that are as flush as this one? Why do we dole out any Federal money to any private institution such as this, with a generous endowment already there? When we approve earmarks like this, we as an institution are bypassing the competitive grant process that already exists for funding educational and research institutions. In 1950, the National Science Foundation, an independent Federal agency, was created by legislation with the intent of promoting the progress of science and advancing national health and welfare by supporting research and education in all fields of science and engineering. In the past, the Federal Government has awarded more than $400 billion in the form of competitive grants; $400 billion has been given out by the NSF over the years. This agency was created with a specific purpose of giving out grants like this. Over the course of this year, the Division of Atmospheric Sciences, an office within NSF, has awarded more than $2 million to fund research for meteorological experiments. Federal funding exists for the sponsor's earmark. This grant process should be respected. Again, we are going outside of the process. There's a process that we have established, that we have caused to be established in the Federal agencies to give out money in this regard, and here we're saying, well, we're not going to go through that. Perhaps this university, I don't know, perhaps it applied for a grant and didn't get it. Perhaps it has received other grants, I just don't know, but what I do know is we are giving what amounts to a no-bid contract where one member of the Appropriations Committee is going to say, I'm going to designate or earmark money for this institution and bypass the process that we have set in place. And I just don't think that's right. If we don't like the process that's been established, let's change it. Let's tell the Federal agencies, you need to have a broader pool, you need to give more grants out to small colleges, you need to do this, you need to do that, but let's establish a process and then follow it rather than circumvent it. And this, I see, is circumventing the process. This bill, the underlying bill today, funds the National Science Foundation at a level of more than $6 billion. What is the purpose of funding an agency like this and telling that agency to give out grants on a competitive basis if we're going to go around it and give out our own grants from Congress? It just doesn't seem right. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit funding for the National Textile Center. The earmark description in the various certification letters submitted to the committee by various sponsors, and this is one that is sponsored by a number of Members, I understand, says that the earmark will fund the development of a National Textile Center; specifically, the funds will be used to conduct research and development and improve technologies. The Web site for the National Textile Center states that it is a consortium of eight universities, Auburn, Clemson, Cornell, Georgia Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, University of California Davis, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Philadelphia University, that share human resources, equipment and facilities. This consortium serves the U.S. fiber-textile-retail complex industries. It's not at all clear what amount this program is to be funded. The committee report language says funding for two textile-related programs, but the proposed funding amount is nowhere to be found in the text of the bill or the committee report. The manager's amendment recommended that the U.S. foreign and commercial service account be increased by $5 million to $245,720,000 in order to fund ``two textile-related programs.'' We can only infer that this increase will fund this program and another program, but there is no way for us to be certain. Inquiries made to the relevant subcommittee failed to clarify the matter. Members of Congress as stewards of the taxpayer's dollars, as stewards, need and deserve more information to make informed decisions. Beyond the transparency issues here, I simply don't agree here, again, with this picking winners and losers here. I understand the textile industry has undergone great transformation with jobs, a lot of jobs going overseas. There is great difficulty there. I don't minimize that. That is true with a lot of industries. In my district and elsewhere, a lot of people would like to receive funding to help their industries transition. We simply can't do it everywhere. Some Internet searching on the National Textile Center indicated the center already exists and has received generous funding in the past. A press release from the center touted that more than $9 million in Federal funds were received in 2001. That, again, is a little confusing when we are told that this will fund the development of a national textile center that seems to already exist. But anyway, again, here, this is an example of a program we have over the Department of Commerce that we have used that funds programs like this. I simply don't see the need to earmark additional funds to supplant or to replace or to augment funds that have already been appropriated and for which there is a process that has been established for competitive grants to be given. Mr. Chairman, 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 demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FLAKE. Here again, let me simply say there are a lot of zoos around the country, a lot of zoos that every one of which would like to receive Federal funding. Where do we say enough is enough? Where do we say this zoo is worthy, they have two tigers; this one only has one lion? The tigers get it? I mean, where do we have some kind of equitable process rather than Members just being able to designate funding of this type? We simply cannot continue to go on in this fashion. Again, somebody will probably point out Arizona has a lot of defense contractors and gets a lot of Federal money. Again, I fail to see the relevance of that argument here. Let's throw the taxpayers a bone here, if you will, and let's finally say we are going to stop funding for one of these earmarks and actually return to fiscal sanity. We are running between a $200 billion and $300 billion deficit this year. Remember, money comes into Washington, we don't have enough to fund the programs, and so we are borrowing money to actually pay for programs like this. We can't continue to do that. I urge support for the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Chairman. This amendment would prohibit $300,000 in Federal funds from being used by the Houston Zoo in Houston, Texas, for an educational broadcast program and would reduce the cost of the bill by a consistent amount. According to the earmark description in this certification letter, this funding would be used to develop an educational broadcast program to provide interactive distance learning, first to the neighboring institutions at the Texas Medical Center, and ultimately expanding the program to regional school districts. According to the sponsor's letter, this program would enable children and students to ask questions of and converse with zoo experts in real time, replicating an in-classroom dynamic, but in an exciting and unique manner. I should say the Houston Zoo is the permanent home of 4,500 animals; the zoo attracts more than 1.5 million visitors a year; general admission is $10 for an adult, $5 for a child. In fact, according to the City Navigator, annual revenue for the Houston Zoo in 2006 totaled $39 billion. In 2006 alone, the Houston Zoo had over $43 million in net assets and nearly $20 million in excess revenue. It has a membership base of over 28,000 households. Corporate sponsors include Continental Airlines, Shell Oil, JPMorgan, BMC Software, Conoco-Phillips, FedEx. The list goes on and on. Again, here, if we are going to start to fund programs at zoos like this, where does it end? Virtually every Member has a zoo or some type of wildlife preserve in their district. Where do we say enough is enough? Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of the time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I have one final earmark at the desk.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, let me just close. Let me say, again, I fail to see the relevance of the number of defense contractors that Arizona has or the amount of Federal money that goes there by contract, by competitive bid or otherwise. How is that relevant to this process? The truth is, there is something wrong with the process when we have thousands and thousands and thousands of earmarks, when we have 1,500 and just a couple of days to review them before we come here to the floor. There is something wrong with that process. As I have said before, we can try all we want to conjure up some justification for the contemporary practice of earmarking. But if we think the taxpayers across the country are buying it, we are drinking our own bath water. We are believing our own press releases if we think that's the case, because they're not. They're not believing it, and they shouldn't. There is no noble pedigree to this kind of earmarking. There really isn't. So to appropriate money in this fashion is simply not becoming of this Congress. We are better than that. We should have more respect for the institution than that. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, the amendment would prevent $200,000 from being used to fund the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama, and would reduce the cost of the bill by a corresponding amount. Mr. Chairman, there are, I think, 480 earmarks funded in the Economic Development Initiative account, at least 11 proposed to fund museums. There stands about a million dollars total for museums. This doesn't take into account projects described as cultural centers and other various exhibits. The spending initiatives do not illustrate any sort of restraint on our part on the Federal level. In the past, we have funded Faulkner museums, teapot museums. This year we are funding museums about mules and hunting and fishing museums. The Huntsville Museum of Art was named as one of the State of Alabama's top destinations by the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel. They bring as many as 23,000 visitors for a single exhibit. Mr. Chairman, all of us have museums in our districts. All of those museums, I'm sure, if given the opportunity, would take Federal money to defray some of their costs. We simply can't fund all of them. I don't know why we have the account in the agency. Like I said, we should go after that one, but here we have to show some restraint. And every once in a while, I think the taxpayer would appreciate if we actually stopped funding for some of these earmarks. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.