Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I have never met with Castro, and I have no desire to.

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter).

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I find it interesting, the gentleman mentioned that our constituents send these packages. If that is true, why would they if they are all opened and money is taken off the top? That may well be the case, but they make that choice. They ought to make that choice. My constituents ought to have that choice. That is what America is about, allowing people to have the freedom to make that choice. This amendment will allow them that freedom. The current policy restricts their freedom to make that choice. They are told they cannot send these items. Again, it is back to toothpaste and toilet paper. That is what we are talking about here.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, may I ask what the time is remaining and who has the right to close?

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This amendment, Mr. Chairman, simply seeks to prohibit the use of funds from enforcing a particularly onerous rule with regard to Cuba. There is a section of the code in the U.S. Federal regulation that governs the sending of gift parcels to countries for which there are otherwise strict limits of what can be sent. Under the heading of ``Eligible Commodities,'' it reads: ``For Cuba, the only eligible commodities are food, medicines, medical supplies, radio equipment and battery for such equipment.'' Any reasonable person would agree that we should be permitted to send such items to ordinary Cubans. In reading the next paragraph, however, we are told what cannot be sent in gift parcels to Cubans, and these restrictions apply only to Cuba: clothing, personal hygiene items, seeds, veterinary medicines and supplies, fishing equipment and supplies, and soap-making equipment, as well as any other items normally sent as gifts. In other words, the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations does not permit the sending of gift parcels to Cuba containing clothes, personal hygiene items, seeds and other very basic goods, goods that would modestly improve the lot of ordinary Cubans. It just seems silly to me, Mr. Chairman, that ordinary Americans cannot send to ordinary Cubans items like toothpaste and toilet paper. That is what this amendment is all about. When the opponents rise and take their time, they will talk about obviously the awful dictator that Fidel Castro is, and he is. That is precisely why we need to reverse this. The Cuban people have enough burdens placed upon them living under Fidel Castro. Why impose additional burdens on them by denying their relatives the ability to send personal hygiene items to them? What will denying toothpaste and toilet paper do to the regime in Cuba? I would submit that we are not going to prop up the regime in Cuba by sending toilet paper and toothpaste. President Reagan once said, We must be careful in reacting to actions of the Soviet government not to take out our indignations on those not responsible. That is exactly what this amendment is seeking to reverse. We are taking out our indignations on Fidel Castro by imposing restrictions on what family members and relatives can send to ordinary Cubans. It is simply wrong. America is a better country than that. We ought to stand taller than that. That is what we are trying to do here. Keep in mind, if a Boy Scout from Mesa, Arizona, or somewhere in Virginia or Indiana or any State of the Union does a good turn for the day and sends soap or soup or tomato seeds to someone in Cuba, that would be a violation of the U.S. Code. If a Girl Scout in Michigan or Kansas happens to have a cousin in Cuba with a broken leg, the regulations would not allow her to send crutches to her Cuban cousin. Again, that is forbidden by our regulation. What has our policy come to? Whatever happened to the proverb that says if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime? Yet we prohibit sending a fishing line and hooks so ordinary Cubans can have a better meal. The Government of Cuba is making it difficult for Cubans to feed themselves. So why can Americans not send fishing poles and hooks to them? Who really believes a small service project by a Boy or Girl Scout would actually be propping up the brutal Castro regime, which has unfortunately served 45 years on its own? I am not trying to trivialize the serious nature of the issues we are dealing with in Cuba. It simply is wrong to deny ordinary Americans the ability to send gift items like this to ordinary Cubans. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to indicate that I will be offering an amendment later to the State Department appropriation bill that will prohibit funds from being used to enforce new restrictions, new as of a year ago, that limit gift parcels to Cuba. This amendment is called the toothpaste and toilet paper amendment because we prohibit those personal hygiene items from being shipped from a family member in the United States to a family member in Cuba. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that that is not what this country is all about. That is not what we should be doing. When these new rules were promulgated, the Department of Commerce and the Department of State said we will come out and change those because of public input. Guess what? Over 1 year later, they have not. Those provisions remain in effect. Family members here in the United States are prohibited from sending toothpaste and toilet paper and other personal hygiene items to family members in Cuba. The people of Cuba have enough to deal with just living daily life there under a dictatorship. We need not burden them any further.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I thank the gentlemen for bringing this forward, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier). This is very important. That is why in Arizona we will find overwhelming support for this Republican and Democrat amendment. We simply in Arizona are dealing with a porous border, and we are dealing with costs that we can do nothing about in Arizona. It is the Federal Government's responsibility to secure the border. The Federal Government has not secured the border. Hospitals are incurring costs. Education is incurring costs. Law enforcement, specifically for this, is incurring great cost, and if the Federal Government is failing to secure the border, it is the Federal Government's responsibility to pony up. This represents still just pennies on the dollar of what are spent in Arizona, California, and other border States in particular, but at least it is something. At least it is something. President Bush, himself a former border Governor, said in 1995, ``If the Federal Government cannot do its job enforcing the borders, then it owes the States monies to pay for its failure.'' That is what we are asking for here. SCAAP just reimburses States and localities for incurred costs for incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens. That is what we are asking for here, simply a little fairness. We need broader reform. Myself and my colleagues have offered broader, meaningful immigration reform that will deal with this in the long term, but, in the short term, we need to do something for the border States in particular. I commend my colleagues for bringing this forward, and I urge support for this amendment.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker I rise today to encourage this body the take up meaningful, comprehensive immigration reform. As conservatives, we believe in the rule of law. We believe that we ought to enforce the law, but before we can enforce the law, we need a law that we can enforce. That is what meaningful, comprehensive reform is all about. We cannot simply focus on the border alone. We have to deal with the 10- to 15 million illegals who are here at present and have a program for them to go into. We have to have a law we can enforce, and as we do, it will make the border situation better. When we create a legal framework for individuals to come and work and return home, we will have a much better chance of actually securing the border, which we desperately need.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, and also the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), who worked with me yesterday to attach an amendment to the State Department authorization bill to allow some of the funding that we provide to the State Department to be spent on scholarships and other programs for Cubans. For years, we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars at the State Department on public diplomacy programs that have helped individuals in countries transitioning to a democracy. Yet Cuba has been excluded from this. If there is any country that needs this help and a people that need this help, it is the country of Cuba. So now the State Department has been directed to spend at least $5 million in Fulbright scholarships, Ben Gilman scholarships, Truman scholarships and others to bring worthy Cubans here to the United States to study and help reverse the tide recently of less contact with the Cuban people, to actually have more contact. This is significant. Again, I pay tribute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for working with me on this.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I thank the gentleman for bringing this amendment forward. Mr. Chairman, this represents a bipartisan step in the right direction. There are much needed reforms in this area. These agriculture subsidy programs are out of control, not just in the area of sugar but sugar is right on top. It is amazing that you could have something as sweet as sugar that leaves such a bitter, sour taste in consumers' mouths when you realize that we pay more than $1 billion a year extra just from the inflated cost of sugar to support this program. Supporters of the sugar program like to say this does not cost taxpayers any money, but they ignore the fact that it costs to store the sugar. It costs to implement the program. And when you levy a tax on consumers by inflating the cost, it is just like a tax. It is just like a tax. So we are paying. Every time you bite into a candy bar, that is a couple of cents that you are paying extra. It is the principle of diffuse costs/concentrated benefits. No one is going to come to Washington to lobby to get 4 cents off their candy bar price, but the top 1 percent of those who are getting this subsidy are sure going to come here to lobby and they do and they are. That is why it is so difficult to get rid of these subsidies. Let me just remind my colleagues some of the organizations that are for this amendment. The National Taxpayers Union, a statement from them says, Sugar interests like to make the claim that the sugar program is at no cost to taxpayers. As I said, they conveniently ignore that this monstrous program costs staffing and operating the bureaucracy necessary to support it. Another statement from Citizens Against Government Waste: It is bad enough that the archaic sugar program forces American consumers to pay two or three times the world price for sugar and sugar-containing products. Even worse is the fact that more than any other farm program, this is an obstacle to advancing freer international trade for all agricultural products. We saw in our free trade agreement with Australia, for example, this was a stumbling block. It is a stumbling block right now to CAFTA. So it comes up again and again and again. We have got to stand for free trade. I do not know how in the world you can support this program and truly stand for the principles of free trade. The Free Enterprise Fund said, In 2004 government price controls through quotas and loan guarantees priced U.S. sugar at more than 20 cents a pound, more than double the world price of 8.6 cents. So it is inflating the cost all over. Also, for those conservatives out here, the Club For Growth has come out against this subsidy program and for the Blumenauer/Flake amendment. The Club For Growth will be scoring this amendment. For those who feel that fiscal responsibility is important, vote for the Blumenauer/Flake amendment.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I think that the best way is to include it in the bill. If we are proud enough of our earmark, then we ought to come in and defend it on the House floor. Otherwise, we cannot simply refer and force the Federal agencies to spend the money without giving individual Members the opportunity to challenge an earmark on the floor of the House.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I intended to offer a couple of amendments tonight before the unanimous consent request was entered into. I have complained for a long time around here that we are funding too many earmarks, the Republicans and Democrats. In this bill there are a couple hundred million worth of earmarks, Member projects that Members, we always complain that the President does not have line item veto authority. I would be satisfied if Congress had it. Under an open rule, I cannot come to the floor and target individual earmarks because they are in the committee report. For the first time in this bill we have actually referenced a committee report and instructed Federal agencies to spend the money, yet individual Members cannot go in and strike earmarks from the bill. That is simply wrong. We are going the exact opposite direction of where we ought to go. Members projects ought to be put into the bill. If we are proud enough to request money, you know, $500,000 for the St. Croix River in Wisconsin to relocate endangered mussels, then we ought to be proud enough to come to the floor and defend that earmark; otherwise, we are not good stewards of the taxpayers' money. So I would just rise to say we need to change this process. We are going in the wrong direction. Either we are going to instruct the Federal agencies to spend it and come to the floor and defend it, or we are not. We cannot have it both ways. And I would yield back to the chairman to ask which direction we are going here.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, let me just read this statement. It seems the Washington Post has some sympathy for this: ``The Federal Government is the largest landowner in Washington. Since the land cannot be taxed, the Federal Government is the principal contributor to the district's chronic fiscal imbalance.'' Now, if the Federal Government owns a lot of land in the District of Columbia, believe me, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Colorado, we ought to really be hurting, because the incidence of Federal land is so much higher there. The President had initially more than $200 million for Federal land acquisition. It has been cut by the chairman down to $43 million. It is still too much, and particularly when PILT is underfunded.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman. There will be an amendment coming up, the Cubin amendment, which will seek to restore a better balance to Federal land acquisition as opposed to PILT funding. Let me just point on this map again, people point to the red State/ blue State issue. The red in this case indicates the percentage of Federal land ownership, or the incidence of Federal land ownership. As my colleagues can see, there is a lot of red out there. We do not need as much red. The more red you have, the more red ink that local governments have. We need to restore this imbalance.

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I had planned to offer an amendment on this subject, but I will settle for a colloquy with the chairman of the subcommittee. Before I start, let me just note for the record, I am glad to state to my constituents, I would have voted to cut the National Endowment for the Arts funding and, believe me, want that part of the record. Madam Chairman, the problem we have in the West is in terms of Federal land. Looking at my own State of Arizona, 48.1 percent Federal ownership. The State of Nevada, 84.5 percent. Utah, 57.4 percent. It is going up. The problem is, it is going up. You try to run a school system in a county where the Federal Government owns 80, sometimes 90 percent, of the land in that county, it is tough to have enough taxable land to do so. The Federal Government has tried to make up for that by what is called PILT, or payment in lieu of taxes, where they compensate counties with a high incidence of Federal land, but there is less of that than there is Federal land certainly. I would argue here and have argued throughout this appropriation process that we need to cut Federal land acquisition funding. We have successfully done that. The chairman of the subcommittee has been cooperative. We have seen a cut there. The problem is as soon as we get to the Senate, it is negotiated upward once again, so that PILT funding is not nearly what was authorized, and Federal land acquisition, we always get more than what we ask for. I would just respectfully ask the chairman if he will work within the conference to keep the number for Federal land acquisition as low as possible. I understand that the $43.1 million, I believe, in the bill now is for land sales that are already in the works. That is understandable. But if we could please insist that that not go up any higher. As we go up and acquire more Federal land, we simply make the problem worse. We exacerbate the problem of PILT funding that is too low and Federal land acquisition, which is too high.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I voted ``Yes'' on H.R. 366, the Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act. My ``Yes'' vote was entirely the result of an error on my part. For the record, I intended to cast a ``No'' vote against H.R. 366. I do not believe that vocational and technical educational grants falls within the proper scope of the federal government. Unfortunately, I did not realize that I had voted incorrectly until after the vote was concluded.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I respectfully request the opportunity to record my position on rollcall votes 149 and 150. I was regrettably absent from the chamber today during rollcall votes 149, and 150. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall 149, and ``yea'' on rollcall 150.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam 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. Madam Speaker, I rise in support and commend the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) and others for raising H. Con. Res. 81 to mark the 2-year anniversary on the latest crackdown on human rights in Cuba. This is simply the latest crackdown. These have been occurring for more than 45 years now. I also commend those who have come to this city to encourage more travel to Cuba and allow more travel to Cuba. Recently, Fidel Castro's government issued an edict to all state employees, which is by definition everyone on the island, saying they should have minimal travel with tourists and travelers because it is, for one thing, promoting individualism. I would submit that is a very good thing, and we ought to want more of it. I would encourage this body to again, as we have done year after year after year, allow Americans the freedom to travel wherever they please.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, a couple of weeks ago, the House Appropriations Committee floated a trial balloon in some of the newspapers that cover Congress. They indicated that they might allow earmarks into this year's appropriation bill for the Department of Homeland Security. Not surprisingly, the announcement has elicited little reaction outside the Beltway where Americans pay little attention to the arcane ins and outs of congressional appropriation bills. The same cannot be said for K Street where lobbyists can barely contain their glee at the prospect of another appropriations bill to fill with earmarks. By opening up the door to earmarks in the homeland security appropriations bill, we are opening a Pandora's box of government waste, pork-barrel spending, and weakened homeland security. In the 2 years since its inception, the Homeland Security appropriations bill has been free of earmarks. House leaders have recognized that something as important as the bill funding national security agencies ought to be absent of earmarks. I am puzzled as to why we now suddenly believe that earmarking homeland security funds is an acceptable practice. There are a number of reasons why earmarks would corrupt the homeland security appropriations process, but unquestionably the most serious is that it would jeopardize our national security. A few months ago defense analysts complained, the news that earmarks in the defense appropriations bill had put the lives of our troops at risk. They argue that congressional earmarks had drained the pot of available money for supplies like body armor or Humvee armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can be sure that earmarking homeland security funds will have the same effect. The Congress created the Department of Homeland Security to assess domestic threats to our country and address them. Now, after only 2 years of funding the department, Congress believes it knows how best to allocate these funds. Congressional oversight of this department is vital and that is why congressional earmarking is so dangerous. Homeland security earmarks are also sure to slip down the pork barrel slope so many other appropriations bills have gone down. It will not be long before Members are inserting earmarks for projects with only a modest relevance to homeland security. A first responders hall of fame project, for example, or a port security museum. The possibilities are as endless as appropriators' imaginations. Anyone who believes that such a scenario is a stretch needs only to give a cursory look at the more than 4,000 earmarks in this year's transportation bill. Members will be hard pressed to vote against a bill intended to protect our national security even if it is over budget or stuffed with pork. For that reason, lobbyists will view it as a must-pass vehicle for earmarks. Adding earmarks to the homeland security appropriations bill is clearly bad policy, but I also believe that for Republicans it is bad politics as well. The earmarking process was abused by the Democrats, but I am sad to say that during Republican control of Congress we have made it much worse. It is no wonder that the Republican Party, the party of fiscal constraint since the New Deal, has seen public trust in its ability to balance the books evaporate. For the most part, Americans no longer believe that Republicans are more fiscally prudent than Democrats. I cannot say that I blame them. Every Republican who values serving in the majority should be troubled by this trend. Further, I worry that by opening up the homeland security bill to earmarks, we would let public distrust of our handling of fiscal issues spill over into national security. While it may be hard to tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats on spending, there is still a very real difference when it comes to national security. It would be a shame to let our growing appetite for earmarks jeopardize our ability to lead on national security. Just how far Republicans have strayed for limited government orthodoxy was apparent recently when a current Member of this body ran for reelection a decade after he had first been in this body. He told of being approached by legions of lobbyists and local officials, each wanting to know how he would proceed to help them get earmarks for local projects. But I am a Republican, was his response. We know, was their retort. What a sad commentary this is on our party. I was elected to Congress with aspirations higher than groveling from crumbs that fall from appropriators' tables. I suspect that this is the case with each of my colleagues. Yet, we are quickly approaching a point where that would simply be an apt description of our jobs. Madam Speaker, it is time to reverse course. To do so, we need to shoot down this trial balloon. The last thing we need to do is open up the $32 billion fund, the Homeland Security bill to pork barrel spending.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I enjoy it when the gentleman brings macadamia nuts into the committee; we enjoy those a lot. But I would not propose that we make ethanol out of it. It simply makes no sense at all to try to turn sugar, or for that matter corn, into gasoline. Additionally, those of us who oppose ethanol need to stand up today to oppose this amendment because what may seem like a small program now, once sugar States discover what corn States have discovered, it will become much, much bigger and spending will become more and more and more. 10 million will become 20 and then 30 and then soon it is hundreds of millions of dollars. This comes at the detriment of taxpayers who will pay more at the pump. Again, let me say that the purpose of this bill, the stated purpose, is during an energy crisis to bring down the cost of energy. And here we are employing programs that will simply make you pay, one, more at the pump, and, two, more in taxes because you are supporting this kind of subsidy. I thought it was kind of strange, when I was a kid the worse prank you could play, it was hardly a prank, it was property damage, but was to put sugar in someone's tank. That was the worst thing you could do. And here you are going to ask the taxpayers to pay for it. It just seems wrong to me. With all deference to my good friend from Hawaii, I just do not think that I can support this amendment. I am under no illusion, given the committee's support, the Republican's support for the amendment that I can beat it. But someone needs to stand up and say what this really is. It is another taxpayer subsidy that is going to raise the cost of energy. For that reason I oppose it. Let us keep sugar out of your gas tank. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today in opposition to the sugar cane ethanol pilot program. This proposal, the problem with it is that it combines two programs, and both waste taxpayer money. First, the sugar subsidy artificially raises the price of sugar that you buy every day. Whenever you eat a candy bar or drink a can of 7-Up, you are paying more because the government artificially raises the price of sugar. Now, if you want to raise the cost of gas by forcing taxpayers to put fuel mixed with processed subsided sugar in your tank, it just seems strange in this bill, because I thought the purpose of this bill was actually to lower the cost of energy. Second, ethanol is simply another taxpayer subsidy that could only find support in Congress, certainly not in the marketplace. Study after study demonstrates that it actually uses more energy to produce than it actually yields at the end. And ethanol subsidies came about decades ago. It was just to jump- start the industry. And soon it will be on it own; the market will take over. Well, guess what, decades later we are still subsidizing ethanol. Well, why in the world should we do this and turn this to sugar now? When grain-producing States have long found a way to keep ethanol alive, now sugar-producing States want into the act. My district has a great supply of prickly pear. Now, some people will eat it; it is sold at the airports. I would submit that is just as good a source of sugar for ethanol. If you use enough energy, you can turn anything into ethanol. But should we do it on the taxpayer's dime? I would say, no, we should not.