Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this earmark is a greenhouse nurseries earmark, $726,000 for greenhouse nurseries in Ohio, an increase of $5,000 over last year. This was described as intended to develop marketing plans to showcase this industry that has branded itself as the Maumee Valley Growers. Mr. Chairman, let me just make the point again. I do not know what else to do here. I have been screaming for 5 years that earmarks are out of control. Yet in that same 5 years, we have doubled, probably quadrupled the number of earmarks that this body has in the appropriations bills every year. I do not know what else will work, what other avenue do rank-and-file Members who are not on the Appropriations Committee have to point out the absurdity of funding some of these items, only to be told, well, do not take this opportunity, challenge it another way. I would like to see, where? Where do we have the opportunity? Why should we not have the opportunity to stand in this body and challenge the earmarks that Members get? Why should any Member have the opportunity to earmark a certain amount of money for his or her district, or for a particular company or non-profit organization or group of individuals, without being challenged on it? Where is that right or so-called right that we have to do so? I simply do not see it. And I have looked, believe me, for years for opportunities to say, we are out of control. The gentleman from Wisconsin mentioned, I thank him for doing it. He says we are out of control. There is no way we can police the number of earmarks. There is no way that we can actually have real oversight here. But if I cannot stand up and challenge these earmarks, what am I to do? What are other rank-and-file Members to do? Where is the forum if not here on the floor of the House? Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, at no time have I tried to associate anyone here with the actions of the former Member. At no time have I done so. And I apologies if that inference was gained. But we have a process here that is bad, that there are too few controls. That particular Member was able to get his earmarks through the entire process without being challenged, without one person being able to stand up and say, you know, are those earmarks going for the right purpose, or are they going off for some other purpose? That is what this earmark battle is about. And I agree with virtually every word said by the gentleman from Wisconsin, and I want to work with him on systemic reform. We got some of that in the lobby reform bill that we passed a few weeks ago. We need far more of it. We need far more than just transparency. Mr. Chairman, you have got to have accountability as well. This is one part. Being able to challenge earmarks. No Member ought to assume that they can get a project for their district and not ever be challenged on it, to explain what it is about. That is what this debate is about.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time there is remaining?

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman. It makes the point why we have over the past decade increased the number of earmarks by, I believe it is, 872 percent. That is not something as a Republican that I am proud of at all. We had just under 15,000 earmarks in all appropriation bills last year. Who knows where it will go, unless we get a handle on this process. It simply is wrong for Members of Congress to be able to take an amount of money and designate it for one particular group with no real oversight. As I mentioned, too few of these earmarks can even be challenged like we are challenging these today because you might be ruled out of order because the Federal agency has no record or no idea what the earmark is actually doing. We have a process that is out of control. Let me mention, as well, we haven't mentioned the other side of earmarks. We have one of our former Members in jail right now for basically selling earmarks. Jack Abramoff reportedly referred to the Appropriations Committee as an ``earmark favor factory.'' Those are his words, not mine. We have a process that is out of control, nearly 15,000 earmarks. When you have that many, with very little oversight, it is ripe for abuse; and we simply have to change the direction we are going. That is the larger point. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, should we not have similar programs for other industries, perhaps have other earmarks to help us analyze the cost of computers?

Mr. FLAKE. Has there been a marked improvement in the way we have studied these issues? Didn't we get along just fine before this program existed?

Mr. FLAKE. Approximately is fine.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to ask the gentlewoman if she would engage in a colloquy on this. May I ask how long this program has been in existence?

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment for the Food Marketing Policy Center is a Connecticut earmark. The committee has provided $579,000 for a center that analyzes strategies and public policies that impact the marketing of food as well as food safety marketing. I would ask again, what business is it of the Federal Government, with far higher priorities, to fund an earmark like this? I would say again to those who say, well, if you strike funding for this, the funding will simply go to the agencies and they will spend it on their own, we can instruct the Budget Committee, again, to say please lower the allocations. Let's spend less on earmarks and spend more on body armor or something else. We have the power to make those priorities, yet we are not. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, in this 30 seconds, let me explain that the Appropriations Committee, all they have to do is tell the Budget Committee we would like a lower 302(b) allocation. The Budget Committee, believe me, will be glad to do that. I am offering 11 amendments today. The FY 07 agriculture appropriations bill has more than 450 amendments; 450. That is nearly identical to the 10-year average, according to CRS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. It strikes me as odd that the Appropriations Committee claims that this is money that is going to be spent anyway. We have no control. This is money, if we knock it out of here, it will just be spent elsewhere. What are we here for? Are we potted plants, just here to watch money go out the door? We are here to prioritize. We are here to say, this ought to be funded, that should not be funded. Last Friday, we had a great discussion about the Military Quality of Life bill, where there was funding in there that was put in emergency category. Surely the Appropriations Committee or the House as a whole can say this $500 million that we are doing in earmarks here in the agriculture bill perhaps could go to Military Quality of Life. Why can we not do that? This notion that we have no control and we cannot move money from one account to another is simply absurd. We can. We are Members of Congress. That is what we are here to do, to prioritize. So I completely reject the notion that we cannot do this. Also, on the subject of earmarks versus entitlements, I think my colleague in the Senate said it well: Earmarks are the gateway drug to spending addiction. Once you get earmarks, then it is much easier to get other spending as well. A lot of the entitlement programs that we have expanded, the prescription drug benefit, for example, was made possible because of so many earmarks on other bills. Earmarks are a problem. It does add up to real money. I believe the transportation bill last year was some $27 billion in earmarks. That is not chump change. And I think that Americans all over are concerned about this and rightly so. Also, when you have a process here where there are no names attached to the earmarks, we do not know how to find out about these programs. We simply don't know. We contact the Federal agencies. Half the time they don't know about the programs. Where are we to provide oversight? That is one of our responsibilities, and we are not doing it here.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The committee has provided $350,000 for providing analysis of the impacts of trade, environmental, monetary, and other policies on the Nation's fruit and vegetable industry to stakeholders. This research is to be carried out by Arizona State University and the University of Missouri. I should note that Arizona State University has a campus in my district. The original goal of the research was to respond in a timely manner to requests for policy-relevant information from congressional Members and their staffs on a wide variety of topics that impact the fruit and vegetable industry and consumers. The project also develops 10-year baseline projections on production, prices, consumption and trade for the fruit and vegetable sector. The funding is through the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service's Special Research grants, which are congressionally directed and noncompetitive research earmarks awarded to universities. Again, these are noncompetitive research earmarks awarded to universities. The agriculture appropriations for fiscal year 2007 includes more than $100 million in these earmarks, many that have persisted for years and can only be terminated by Congress. The Fruit and Vegetable Market Analysis has been receiving Federal funds since 2002 and has received more than $1.3 million in appropriations. This earmark, again, was not included in the President's request and this project has no formal evaluation. There is no expected completion date with this analysis, and it is expected to be ongoing. Here is another example: There are so few opportunities for oversight here. When you contact the Federal agencies, it is difficult to even determine if they know that these projects exist. Who is supposed to be providing oversight here? In Congress, we are not, certainly. I mean, a lot of these programs, some of the earmarks that we will discuss today were expected to be 2-year programs. They have gone on for over a decade. When do we say, enough is enough? Where is the oversight? If the Federal agency is not providing the oversight, if they do not even know of the program, and Congress is not providing the oversight, how do we know that we are getting our bang for the buck? These are pork barrel projects. We should not be funding them. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. The only reason we limit it to dairy education in Iowa is to ensure that our amendment was made in order. Believe me, if there were dairy education for Arizona, I would strike that as well. We simply shouldn't have programs like this. Let me just say, according to the Iowa State Dairy Association, the Iowa State dairy industry contributes more than $1.5 billion to the economy and provides more than 26,000 jobs. I would submit that spending $229,000 isn't going to do much to change that trend one way or another. It is simply something we shouldn't do.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Before addressing this particular earmark, let me make a few general comments about what we are going to do today. Today we will engage in a debate that has been a long time in coming. I plan to offer several amendments to this bill to block funding for a series of Member earmarks that are contained in the committee report that accompanies the bill. Let me point out that the House has already voted in the lobby reform bill a few weeks ago to require that Members attach their names to their earmarks; yet this committee report has come to the floor with more than 400 earmarks and not one name. They are not required to do so until the bill passes both Chambers, but it would be nice to have the names attached. Let me state from the outset I am under no illusion that I can block funding for any of these earmarks we will discuss. I am well acquainted with the process of log rolling where one Member agrees to support another Member's earmarks if that Member will agree to do the same. I suspect that log rolling will prevail here today. But it is about time that we provide a little window into the process. Is it the Federal Government's responsibility to recruit dairy farmers from other regions to move to northeast Iowa, as one of the earmarks we will discuss today purports to do? Is the need so great this year to fund the National Grape and Wine Initiative that we should add $100,000 in debt owed by future generations? Since our responsibility as Members of Congress is to prioritize limited resources, do we really want to tell taxpayers that we believe that spending $180,000 on hydroponic tomato production is more pressing than other issues? I expect that a few of the amendments I will offer today will be successfully blocked because of a point of order. The reason: because we have no documentation that a Federal agency that will fund the project knows anything about the project that is to be funded. To successfully challenge the earmark requires an assumption that the agency is familiar with the project. Otherwise, we might be legislating on an appropriation bill, a violation of our rules. The incentive, therefore, for Members looking to protect their earmarks, is to be either vague or silent about the project's goals and its oversight. Let us think about that for a minute. How are we supposed to exercise oversight for these earmarked projects? Who is to be held accountable? Not the government agency. By upholding the point of order, we are stipulating that the agency might as well not even know that the project exists. In the end, since rank-and-file Members can't even challenge those earmarks without being subject to a point of order and the agencies don't know anything about them and since we don't even know who requested the earmark in the first place, the only individuals who have any oversight function are selected members of the Appropriations Committee or their staff. Mr. Chairman, it does not speak well for us as legislators when the first and last documentation of these earmarks is found in Members' press releases. I would like to think that we can do better than that. I think that all of us were elected to this august body with higher aspirations than to grovel for crumbs that might fall from appropriators' tables. We need to reform the process. We need to get back to the process of authorization, appropriation and oversight. That is what this branch of government is supposed to do. We diminish ourselves at our office when we stray from that course. This particular earmark or this particular amendment seeks to strike funding for an earmark to provide $229,000 to retain and grow the business of existing dairies and recruit dairy farmers from other regions to northeast Iowa. What business is it of the Federal Government to recruit dairy farmers to move from other regions to northeast Iowa? This work is to be carried out primarily at the Northeast Iowa Community College Dairy Center, and it is funded through the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Services Extension Activities. The agricultural appropriation bill for fiscal year 2007 includes more than $750 million for extension activities, which is more than $5 million last year and $26 million over the President's request. I should point out, funding for this program was not included in the President's request. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me just talk about some of the groups outside that are supporting this amendment. This is the Consumer Federation of America: ``American consumers pay almost $1 billion per year for sugar and products containing sugar than they would if the U.S. market for sugar were fully competitive.'' The National Taxpayers Union: ``Sugar interests like to make the claim that the Federal sugar program is run at no cost to the taxpayer, yet they conveniently ignore the cost of staffing and operating the bureaucracy necessary to run this monstrous program.'' Also, we talked about the cost to the consumer that is borne, about $1 billion dollars a year. Consumers for World Trade: ``The U.S. sugar program is an outdated entitlement program that props up uncompetitive farmers at the expense of American consumers.'' The sugar program is making it increasingly difficult to have real free trade agreements because it is impacting on the Doha round, and any other round we have on trade negotiations it makes it more difficult because of trade distorting practices like our sugar program. The Competitive Enterprise Institute said: ``How can a domestic program that raises a family's cost, harms the environment, and hurts poor farmers in developing countries be justified?''

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership on this issue. I would like to respond to Mr. Frank of Massachusetts about whether or not Republicans are free market oriented or not. I would like to respond, but I cannot. I honestly have no response to that. I honestly cannot understand how we, as Republicans, can pretend to be in favor of free market economics and still support this kind of program. I do not know how long we can do it and still say that we are free market oriented. I think it was said best by former Senator Phil Gramm a while ago when he was asked about farm policy and these types of subsidies. He said our farm policy would make a Russian commissar puke. I do not know how to improve on that. You just look at these programs and say, how can we do this year after year after year? It is said that this does not cost anything, that this is a no-cost program. Well, the sugar program and its price supports, its import quotas and production allotments is not no-cost. According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, monetary transfers to producers from consumers and taxpayers as a result of government policy amounted to over half their gross receipts in 2002-2004. Half of the gross receipts from these sugar producers came from either consumers or taxpayers because of government policy regulating the price. In the year 2000, a GAO study estimated the cost to consumers in 1998 was $1.9 billion. No cost? It is nearly $2 billion of cost. It is a benefit to producers of about $1 billion and a net loss to the U.S. economy of $900 million. The sugar program is a classic example of the principle of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs. Nobody is going come here and lobby to Congress because a candy bar costs a cent more or two cents or five cents more, but sugar producers are sure going to lobby when they reap huge benefits.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Let me just go on. That is $508 million we set aside as a down payment on the supplemental, the war supplement coming up. We are simply taking from that, and that will be money that will not be spent in the supplemental later on or should be designated for the supplemental later on, but we have designated it saying it is emergency when there is really no difference between the categories here. I would submit that if you really want to fund, as we are adding here $16.5 million for a rotary wing hangar in Qatar, then perhaps you ought to cut out $2 million for a child care center which is funded here in the bill that is not being challenged here in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, or you could take out $9.8 million for an educational center complex in Little Rock, Arkansas, if you truly need to spend money, as we say we do, for Predator various facilities at Indian Springs, Nevada. Now let me just give one more example: $9.7 million for an indoor wash rack in Washington. Perhaps you could take money from that and spend it, if we really do need it, on $3.1 million for shoot houses in Korea. What I am saying is there ought to be integrity in the budget process. We did pass a budget. The ink is not even dry and here we are using a means to evade it, to actually get some head room up here so we can spend money on other priorities and earmarks. I do not think it is lost on anyone that the earmark total in the bill is nearly $500 million, almost the same total here that was added as head room, so that we can spend these other dollars. So I hope that the point of order on all of these is sustained. Let us bring some integrity back to the budget process.

Mr. FLAKE. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I rise in support of the gentleman from Texas' (Mr. Hensarling) point of order. If you look at the description of the bill here, you have a couple of pages. The first page has to do with what is being termed ``emergency spending.'' Let me simply note that these are items that the President has requested. Now, I have often and all of us have been critical of the White House at times for designating emergency spending when it really is not an emergency. They did not designate one of these items. There are 20 spending items here, mostly facilities and barracks. Not one of them was listed by the White House as emergency. Yet they have been listed here as an emergency and I would submit simply to make room for other projects. If you look at some other projects that are being funded that are not emergency, tell me if you can see a difference. Number one, there is an item that is an emergency, $18.1 million for bachelor-enlisted quarters at Camp Pendleton. All right. That is one that is an emergency. Here is one that is not an emergency, $6.7 million for a special weapons assessment facility in Crane, Illinois. How can you designate one as an emergency and not another? Here is another example: $3.5 million for a block and brace facility at Blue Grass Depot, Kentucky. That is an emergency apparently. Second, $8.7 million for replacing a troop facility training facility in Savannah, Georgia, that is not an emergency. Tell me where the difference is. Let me go on: $102 million for a brigade complex in Fort Lewis, Washington. That is an emergency. There is another $18 million for a maintenance hangar in Fort Hood, Texas. That is not an emergency.