Cliff Stearns

Mr. STEARNS

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, let me ask the other side, would they agree to a unanimous consent agreement of 10 minutes on each side? The gentleman and I have been through this many times and I have great respect for the other side and I can remember most of the arguments very vividly. They are very clear. I think we could limit this. Many Members want to leave at 6:00.

Mr. STEARNS. Yes.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw that, and I think the Chair has the correct amendment, which is the same thing. It is basically a 2 percent cut in the National Endowment for the Arts and the rest goes into the wildland fire management. I believe I gave it to the folks correctly.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I heard the amendment read and I need, I believe, to withdraw and clarify because I think the Clerk read it incorrectly.

Mr. STEARNS. How about 10? All right. 7\1/2\ minutes is fine.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt). (Mr. TIAHRT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I just point out to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) that, if he wants the list of projects they have supported since 1980, they have a 20-year record here, from the Sorano, Mapplethorpe, I mean, to the one that the gentleman from North Carolina just mentioned. I mean, it goes on and on and on. So the fact that the gentleman from North Carolina got $1,000, the rest is going to six major cities. Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have remaining?

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, my amendment takes a very small step in reducing questionable spending and shifts it to a much more needed important area. I believe our money would be better spent protecting Americans than being used to promote art that is many times antireligious and, recently last month, anti-Catholic. We hear repeatedly that the NEA has changed. It simply has not. The New York Times reported that 70 percent of its grants go to the same recipients every year, while fires are ravaging our country. The people who believe in giving it to just six major cities are subsidizing them, and I think it is an amendment between public safety and environment. Mr. Chairman, I urge support of the Stearns amendment.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I think this is an amendment that has come up annually. Basically for my colleagues, we are taking a 2 percent reduction in the National Endowment for the Arts and we are putting this money into the wildland fire management. Let me just read where it is going to go. For necessary expenses for forest fire pre-suppression activities in the national forest system lands, and for emergency fire suppression and/or adjacent to such lands or other lands under fire protection agreement. Of course, this would affect my home State of Florida, as well as Los Alamos in New Mexico, as well as Denver, Colorado, recently where the fires came up to this wonderful city. My home State of Florida is facing severe drought conditions after having the second driest May in history in this State of ours. As a result, of course, Florida is battling another season of wildfires. Since January, Florida has had 3,422 fires that have burned 121,000 acres. This is a staggering amount of land. Were it not for the tireless efforts of the Department of Forestry, fire departments, and countless, countless volunteers, these numbers would be probably even higher, perhaps twice as much. My amendment is, I think, very important. It is significant in many ways. It obviously is taking a very small amount from the National Endowment for the Arts budget and allocating it to fire fighting. I think we can talk about getting serious about government spending. A part of this money, obviously, in the way the outlays go would go to retire the debt. So it has an added benefit. I think many of us agree that the NEA does not shield us from any invasion or protect us from crime or other economic hardship, so basically I am here to talk about the NEA, as a program, as one of many programs that support the arts. Lots of times on the House floor we talk about the NEA as if it is the sole body that is protecting the arts, but last year there were 200 programs for the arts and humanities in this country. Last year Federal funding for the arts exceeded $800 million. Interesting enough, before the program was created, President Kennedy stated, quote, I do not believe Federal funds should support symphonies, orchestras, or other opera companies. So I think when we consider the funding for the arts, it has been reduced. I know that. I will hear that from the other side, but there is so much out there in terms of private support for the arts. In fact, it is over $10 billion in private funds go for the arts. So I think just taking $2 million to help fire fighting personnel in this country is worthwhile for us to do. So we take a small step, reducing questionable spending that many of us feel on this side and perhaps a few on that side feel, so I believe our money would be better spent to help the fire fighters retire the debt. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STEARNS

Mr. STEARNS. I thank the chairman. I appreciate his commitment to providing more money for adoption. I strongly support the positive steps Congress has taken in this area and believe we should do even more. That is why I am here this morning. President Clinton supports increasing funding for this program. Adoption is also a positive alternative to abortion, and I hope the gentleman is successful in finding additional money in funding for the Adoption Incentives Program. Amendment No. 189 Offered by Mr. Stearns

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for his comments. Dr. Harold Varmus was the former NIH director, and he sort of confirmed what my amendment intends. He recommended steps to make the agency more welcoming to the public and available and transparent, including what he called a Council of Public Representatives, COPR. There were 20 members that he selected, put this together; and he had a meeting in April 1999.

Mr. STEARNS. I know, Mr. Chairman, but part of the thinking he had was the council was there to make this agency more transparent. So I urge the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) and the committee to continue this peer review and the process of making this more transparent. Point of Order

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. STEARNS. I am going to offer an amendment. Also, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to have a colloquy with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter).

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I intend to offer an amendment to move $10 million into the Adoption Incentives Program. I decided not to offer that amendment today, but I would like to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) regarding the importance of funding this program. Mr. Chairman, the Adoption Incentives Program has helped to dramatically increase a number of children adopted out of foster care. I certainly appreciate all the good work he has done in the Labor, Health, and Human Services appropriations bill, including the $2 million increase for the Adoption Incentives Program. I would like to ask the gentleman to continue his hard work in conference and build on this program by further increasing funding for this program.

Mr. STEARNS. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

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

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is a sensitive subject. I have a Congressional Research Report here, which I worked with in doing this amendment. My amendment has three components to it. The first identifies and asks NIH to identify amounts that are distributed, given to individuals and corporations seeking funds from the Institute to conduct research. We have had constituents who have applied to NIH and who have been unable to find out, after great frustration, why they did not get the money. They could not find out who the individual was who got the money, or corporations, and they did not know or find out how much it was. So my amendment, first of all, asks NIH to identify the monies that are given to individuals and also then the amendment asks that they identify the individuals so that we see the money expended, the individuals who received it and then we would like to see some justification for why the NIH gave this money. Now I have a report from the Congressional Research Service that sort of confirms what my amendment is talking about. It concludes, and I would just like to read the conclusion from this Congressional Research Report, that there is no question that NIH is an esteemed institution that subsidizes biomedical research and is a value to the people the world over, but that does not remove it from its vast agenda and continuing controversy over how the agency should allocate its ever- increasing appropriations. As a public agency, supported through tax revenues, NIH will, in all likelihood, face even greater scrutiny in the future. That is what my amendment does. It attempts to bring NIH into the next millennium with more transparency. I have been a long-time advocate of NIH. In fact, I have supported the idea of doubling its funding over the next 5 years. A lot of universities in Florida, particularly the University of Florida and Florida State, have benefited from NIH research grant money. So I am a great supporter of NIH, but we are talking about Federal tax dollars here, and I am concerned we are not making public the information from grants that NIH has given the individuals, the amount of money provided, and how they made their decisions on these grants. So I hear in my congressional district in Central Florida from doctors that they have not been able to succeed in getting NIH funding and they do not know why and they have to apply 5, 6, 7 times with no answers. There is just sort of a huge Federal bureaucracy. They say we just need to have much more transparency there. Let me share what I have learned about the research grants and how these decisions are made. In reviewing steps that could or should be taken by NIH, I discovered that NIH is starting, just starting, to move in the right direction with a peer review process. There are several areas that Congress must look at when assessing NIH approaches and decisions that are made by them and how research dollars are to be spent. First of all, how effective is its peer review system and the agency's ability to identify proposals with the greatest potential? Another issue is why the agency has not installed an electronically- based grant application award system. This is pretty basic today. So I urge them to do so. This would be exceedingly beneficial to everybody. Supporters of NIH, and there are many, including myself, would like to see a greater accountability of the NIH director and to make its planning and budgeting reporting process more open. In 1998, Mr. Chairman, a report was issued by the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences entitled Scientific Opportunities and Public Needs. This report highlighted several issues that needed to be addressed by NIH, including its peer review process. So we have on the books documentation that shows that NIH needs to be more scrupulous in how they award grants and make the information known. I think NIH's policies and reviews and procedures should be expedited and this amendment simply is saying to NIH, let us have some more transparency and make the number of people, their names available, who the research grants are given to, how much money they were given and in the end what was the process that was used. If this was done, Mr. Chairman, I think this would move this Agency towards this transparency concept I envision. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk. My amendment would require a report to: (1) identify amounts disbursed to enhance competitiveness of entities seeking funds from the Institutes to conduct biomedical and behavioral research; (2) to identify the entities receiving funding, including a separate statement on expenditures for individuals who have not previously served as principal researchers of projects supported by the Institutes; and (3) to provide an explanation for such funding decisions made by the National Institutes of Health to entities seeking funds to conduct biomedical and behavioral research. Money is available under Section 403 (42 U.S.C. 283) of the Public Health Service Act for the purposes of carrying out such a report. First, I want to say that I am a long-time supporter of NIH because I know how valuable the research being conducted by this illustrious body has been to our nation in finding the causes and cures of diseases. The NIH has and will continue to greatly benefit our nation. In fact, I am a cosponsor of the resolution to double the NIH budget over a five year period. We are currently in our third year in that effort. There are many fine universities in the State of Florida that benefit from NIH research grant money, including the University of Florida, which I once had the privilege of representing. That being said, however, I have heard from numerous individuals about the difficulties involved in securing research grants through NIH. These are federal tax dollars we are talking about! I am concerned that we are not making these grants available to new graduates who need this important seed money to continue their biomedical and behavioral research in their chosen fields. We all know that universities and colleges across the country are not having students enter the hard sciences as they once did--we must ensure that those that do are not discouraged from putting their talents to work in research efforts being conducted by the federal government. There is a positive note to all this. Let me share with you what I learned about the research project grants and how these decisions are made. In reviewing steps that could or should be taken by NIH, I discovered that NIH is moving in the right direction in its peer review process. There are several areas that Congress must look at when assessing NIH's approach to decisions that are made by them in how research dollars are to be spent. First, how effective is its peer- review system and the agency's ability to identify proposals with the greatest potential. Another issue is why the agency hasn't installed an electronically-based grant application and award system. This would certainly be beneficial. Supporters of NIH, and there are many, including myself would like to see a greater accountability of the NIH Director, and to make its planning, budgeting and reporting process more open. In 1998 a report was issued by the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences entitled, Scientific Opportunities and Public Needs: Improving Priority Setting and Public Input at the National Institutes of Health. This report highlighted several issues that needed to be addressed by NIH, including its peer review process. As a result, the NIH Council of Public Representatives (COPR) was created by former NIH Director Dr. Harold Varmus. The IOM committee recommended steps to make the agency more welcoming to public input, including the establishment of COPR. There were 20 public members selected to COPR and the first meeting was in April 1999. The committee members have participated in the NIH budget retreats, the NIH Government Performance and Results Act (GRPA), hearings on patient protections, health research related to diverse populations, health disparities, performance reviews of Institute Directors in addition to the regular COPR meetings and conference calls. The council has taken a life of its own and taken its role very seriously reviewing NIH's policies and procedures, research priorities, research funding, public input, and input to the public. The Council sets the agenda and directs the discussion items. During these meetings we have learned the difficulties involved in the budget process and with the uncertainty of each year's appropriations bills, and the difficulty in making multi-year research commitments. Most directors have played it conservatively to make sure they will have the funds to continue projects. In addition the need to increase young researchers has been a priority at NIH. The research training program and mentorship program has been increased to meet this important crisis. My amendment would require a report to identify and provide an explanation for funding decisions made by the NIH to entities seeking research grants. I would urge the NIH to continue in its efforts to ensure that our nation's best and brightest receive the dollars necessary to conduct important life saving research. While it is good to know that some steps have been taken, I believe it is incumbent upon Congress to continue to serve as a watch dog since taxpayer dollars are involved. I believe that we have benefited by finding out more about this newly formed Council, but I would remind my colleagues that this did not come about until the IOM and the National Academy of Sciences brought these issues to light.

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

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

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

Mr. STEARNS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleagues, and I conclude by saying that we should support our military tonight. My amendment helps them to gain access so that they have the opportunity to get future soldiers.

Mr. STEARNS. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.