To reduce waste and abuse at the Department of Commerce.

COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT,
2010

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of H.R. 2847, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (H.R. 2847) making appropriations for the
Departments of Commerce and Justice, and Science, and Related
Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and
for other purposes.

Pending:

Vitter-Bennett amendment No. 2644, to provide that none of
the funds made available in this Act may be used for
collection of census data that does not include a question
regarding status of U.S. citizenship.
Johanns amendment No. 2393, prohibiting the use of funds to
fund the Association of Community Organizations for Reform
Now (ACORN).
Levin-Coburn amendment No. 2627, to ensure adequate
resources for resolving thousands of offshore tax cases
involving hidden accounts at offshore financial institutions.
Durbin modified amendment No. 2647, to require the
Comptroller General to review and audit Federal funds
received by ACORN.
Begich-Murkowski amendment No. 2646, to allow tribes
located inside certain boroughs in Alaska to receive Federal
funds for their activities.
Ensign modified amendment No. 2648, to provide additional
funds for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program by
reducing corporate welfare programs.
Shelby-Feinstein amendment No. 2625, to provide danger pay
to Federal agents stationed in dangerous foreign field
offices.
Leahy amendment No. 2642, to include nonprofit and
volunteer ground and air ambulance crew members and first
responders for certain benefits.
Graham amendment No. 2669, to prohibit the use of funds for
the prosecution in Article III courts of the United States of
individuals involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.

Energy and Water Appropriations

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I plan on spending some time on the CJS
appropriations bill, but I want to delay a moment. We are going to have
a cloture vote, whether that is today or tomorrow or sometime, on the
Energy and Water Conference Report. I was the one who objected to
bringing that to the floor and for some very serious reasons.
Unanimously, the Senate body agreed to an amendment that would create
transparency in that appropriations bill. There were no objections; it
was a unanimous vote. What we attempted to do was to bring to light, to
the American people, not just the 30 Senators who were going to get the
reports--70 percent of the Senate cannot see the reports--to the rest
of the Senators and to the rest of the American people, the reports
that are requested by Congress on the operation of this appropriation
authority.
We put in there a very specific exclusion for anything that would
affect security so those items would not be exposed.
There were no significant efforts to hold this in conference. So I
wanted to explain for a few minutes to the American people and to my
colleagues why it is important. What we have here are the following
reports. The question you have to ask is, why does the Appropriations
Committee not want the American people to see this information? What in
the world could be a good reason for American citizens and 70 Senators
to not be able to see this? There is not any good reason.
I will go through and list what some of the reports are in this bill.
Then I will raise the question: Why are we not letting the American
people see it? Why are we not letting 70 of our colleagues see it?
An annual report on the Department of Energy, on their financial
balances, is important information to me. It should be to every Member
of this body. But it also should be important to every citizen out
there who is paying for the $1.6 trillion deficit we have this year.
Actually, they are not paying, their kids are.
A report by Chief of Engineers on Water Resources, but the way it is
phrased, it is on a ``water resource matter.'' In other words, someone
very specifically tied that so they would have information others do
not have. This is government in the dark; this is not transparent
government.
A report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission identifying barriers to
and its recommendations for streamlining construction of new nuclear
reactors. If we want to get to clean energy, that is one way to do it.
Yet the barriers for that construction, we are not going to know what
they are. The American people are not going to find out and 70 Senators
are not going to find out. We are not going to have that made available
to us.
Two reports to report on the transfer of funds within the Department
of Army, and a report on the transfer of funds within the Bureau of
Reclamation for oversight activities--in other words, a report on the
funds that are transferring for oversight, only appropriators get to
see that. The American people do not get to see it. I do not get to see
it. The President pro tempore right now does not get to see it. Only
the appropriators. Why would we not want to share that with the
American people? Is there some reason?
A report by the administration on detailed accounting of receipts
into and obligations and expenditures from the inland waterways trust
fund. Well, what most people do not realize is when we put out a number
that is our budget deficit every year, that number does not recognize
what we have stolen from multitudes of trust funds, including the
inland waterway trust fund, which is very important to all of the
things that go on along the Mississippi River, the McClellan-Kerr
Navigation System, the Upper Mississippi River, the Great Lakes. All of
those are funded by the inland waterways trust fund--except we steal
all of the money out of it so there is no money in it. Here is the
report on it, and they do not want the American people to see it. Why
would you not want the American people to see that we are stealing from
the funds we have set up that were supposed to be dedicated to do
certain things? Because you really do not want a transparent Congress
so the American people can see what is going on.
A report on remediation efforts by the Corps of Engineers through the
formerly utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. Most of us do not even
know what that is. But the fact is, if we have former sites that
required remedial action, why should'nt we all get to see that? Why
should we not be able to make a value judgment on whether the Corps did
a good job and what they are doing with the money? But yet we cannot.
A report detailing the implementation and progress of the measurement
plans for each funded energy innovation hub. We have these hubs out
there to create alternative and renewable energy, except we are not
going to see what they are doing. It is not going to be available to
us. It is not going to be available to the American people, and they
are paying for it. What happens if there is an idea and somebody reads
about it and it gives them another idea?
A report by the Secretary of Energy to the Committee on
Appropriations of the House and the Senate on the state of defined
benefit pension liabilities in the Department for the preceding year.
That is something we should all be aware of, not just a couple of staff
members on the Appropriations Committee. The American people should
know that, in fact, they do not have the money in the bank to fund
their pension liabilities. Yet we are going to suppress that
information. We are going to keep it from the sunshine. We are going to
keep it from the light of day so the American people cannot see how
miserably the government runs its own business. We do not want that
out. We do not want you to see it.
I could go on and on. I have three pages of reports. Notably, some of
them are security related and should

[[Page S10340]]

not be released to the American public, which this amendment protected.
What this means is that 88 percent of the Members of the House and 70
percent of the Members of the Senate do not have available to them the
tools with which to make decisions. But, more importantly than that,
the American people do not have transparency in their government. They
are never going to be made available for taxpayers to read. They are
never going to see how sloppily the money is spent, how we borrow money
from funds that are supposed to be dedicated and spend them on things
that are pet political projects. We do not want them to see that. This
is not controversial. The only place it is controversial is to those
who are working in the dark. And the very fact that this did not come
out of conference with transparency--every other appropriations bill we
have passed so far has had this transparency for report language. So
why would we bring it to the floor? We should be very concerned that
was excluded from this conference report, for a republic cannot
function, it cannot survive unless it is truly transparent to the
people it represents.
Our President was elected on the promise of bringing greater
transparency to Washington, not only just to the workings of the
Federal Government but to our daily workings as we tend to government.
Congress should have supported this effort.
I serve notice on the Senate that any conference report that does not
have transparency, which I will offer and have offered to every bill,
that comes back from a conference, I will do everything I can to block
it until that is put back in it. The American people deserve no less
than that. It is, in fact, their government, not 30 appropriators'
government. It is not just the 30 appropriators who get to govern this
country. The fact that this piece of good government, of transparency,
of putting out for everybody to see what we are doing has been
precluded sends exactly the wrong message to the American people. So it
will be that I will come here again, and I will not give up until such
time as the American people truly get to see a transparent government.
The President and I passed a bill called the Transparency and
Accountability Act. You can go to usgovernmentspending.gov and you can
see where we are spending money. Sometime this spring you are going to
see it all of the way down to the subcontractor, subgrantees level. You
are going to be able to go online and see where every penny, except for
national security purposes, is spent and who got the money. That is
real open government. That is real democracy. That is real freedom.
That is real liberty.
Without that, based on the demonstration that we make here today by
bringing up a bill that keeps us cloaked in secrecy, that keeps the
American people in the dark, what we will have and continue to have is
less and less confidence of the American people as we try to lead this
country back to the greatness it once had.

CJS Appropriations

I am now going to spend a few minutes, if I may, talking about the
Commerce-Justice appropriations bill. This is another in a long line of
bills that has a double-digit increase in the size of the government,
on the back of a double-digit increase last year, and on the back of a
$16.2 billion shot in the arm from the stimulus.
We were at $60 billion, essentially, last year, and we are going to
increase it by $7.59 billion. That is a 12.6-percent, 12.7-percent
increase. I brought a chart out here last week. I will bring it back
again today as we debate the amendments I have. But not counting the
stimulus, if we keep passing appropriations bills at the rate at which
this body has passed this year, the size of the Federal Government will
double in 3.5 years.
I think that is probably just exactly the opposite mood of the
American people today. Yet we turn a deaf ear to the fact that 43 cents
out of this $67 billion that we are going to spend--43 percent of it we
are going to directly borrow from our kids.
We do not have the money in the bank to pay for this. We are going to
finance it through a lower standard of living for our children. There
is no question a portion of this increase is related to the census. The
Census Bureau is in a mess. We have a good new Director. It was
completely mismanaged by the Bush administration, there is no question
about it, by the Secretary of Commerce, and also the Director of the
Census.
We had a great caretaker who replaced the previous Census Director,
and he did what he could. Now we have a new, very experienced Director
of the Census by the name of Dr. Groves, who is handling a very
difficult problem.
But it is going to come out that it is going to take $60 a person--
hear this--to count the people in the United States.
Please give me that contract for 10 cents a person. Please let me do
it for 10 cents a person. We are going to spend 60 cents a person--
pardon me, $60 a person, $60 a person to count the people in the United
States.
Go figure. Let's outline what happened to the Census. The Census
routinely uses no-bid, cost-plus contracts. Whatever it costs, do it.
Well, it just so happens their plan went awry. They paid bonuses to a
company that failed to deliver what was ordered. The Census failed to
be clear about what they wanted in terms of the electronic devices. So
we have $750 million worth of junk we cannot use. Somebody ought to be
held accountable for that.
Do you know who that is? That is us. How dare we waste almost $1
billion on one contract, because it was a cost-plus, was not overseen.
We did not know what we were asking for, and yet the people who
supplied it did not lose a thing. That is a very profitable contract.
That is why we have problems in the Federal Government. That is why
we have $50 billion worth of waste a year in the Pentagon: because we
do not know what we want, and there is no capital at risk for the
people who are bidding these contracts. So, consequently, they just do
whatever because it is cost-plus. They just send a bill at the end of
the month, and we pay it. So we are going to have an $18 billion census
that has a high likelihood of being the least accurate census we have
ever had. There are probably going to be numerous lawsuits over this
census.
My hope is that Director Groves can, in fact, salvage the census. But
when we get it, it is not going to be accurate. It is going to displace
six House seats because it is going to count illegal aliens who should
not be counted in terms of the apportionment for the seats in Congress.
There are 561 earmarks in this bill. Two-thirds of them--hear me
clearly--go to members of the Appropriations Committee. Is that not a
coincidence? One-third goes to the other 70 Members of the body, but
two-thirds goes to the 30 members sitting on the Appropriations
Committee.
The President proposed that two programs be absolutely terminated
because they have zero worth, value, and contribution to the Federal
Government. They are both funded in the bill. The bill is one of many
we will pass that will have double-digit increases. I wonder how many
families right now are seeing a double-digit increase in their income.
That is a rarity today in our economy. Yet we put on the floor almost a
13-percent increase which is about the average of everything else we
have been putting out here, in spite of the fact we just spent $800
billion of our kids' money on a stimulus package, and this agency
received a significant portion of that.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The clerk will call
the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I want the American people to know where
we stand financially. The war on terror will not defeat us. We will
defeat ourselves. Every known republic to the world collapsed through
fiscal mismanagement. We can read the history, Alexander Tyler on the
Athenian empire, several other scholarly works throughout the last two
to three centuries.
What we are really talking about is our kids. They are not my kids.
My kids are grown. They are all in their

[[Page S10341]]

30s. We are talking about youngsters this age. She makes a great point.
She is already $38,375 in debt, and all she owns is a dollhouse. The
sad thing is, she totally underestimates, because her obligation for
things we have promised ourselves for which she will have to pay above
and beyond income tax rates we have today, Social Security taxes and
Medicare taxes, is just a mere $400,000. So by the time she becomes 20,
she will owe $800,000, if we count the interest which is coming. It is
not long before we will be spending a trillion dollars a year on
interest. And this number, by that time, will be $118,000. So now we
will have her at $918,000 that she is going to have to pay off for us.
Think about that as a moral question. Should we in fact cut the legs
off our grandchildren so that politicians and political leaders today
can spin things and avoid making the most difficult choices that we now
need to make? If one follows the news, especially the financial news,
the problem the United States faces today is the fact that the world is
losing confidence in the dollar. There is a reason for that. What is
the reason? The world is starting to sense that as we continue to
borrow more and more billions and trillions of dollars that we will not
be able to pay it back. Therefore, the world's valuation of our
currency becomes less confident. Therefore, the cost to borrow in the
future becomes higher. The figure I just quoted, the $918,000 per child
who is born over the next 30 years, is based on today's interest rates
of 3.4 percent on a 10-year note that the Government offers. What
happens when the interest rates are 10 or 11 percent? We are talking
about a fiscal collapse that has never before been seen in the history
of the world. Yet we continue to put spending bills on the floor and
laud the fact that we are only borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar
we spend this year.
There will come a time when we can't borrow 43 cents out of every
dollar we spend. What will we do then? What will happen then? What will
happen is the following: We will either see a totally debased currency
which means everything we worked for our entire life will be markedly
decreased in value or we will see 15, 20, 30 percent inflation. There
is no other exit for this other than for us to do the following: We
have to start making the hard choices now.
This bill doesn't do it. From 2008 to 2009, the fiscal year ended
September 30, we increased CJS by 15.5 percent. This bill comes back
and increases it another 12.6 percent. Compound that out and we find,
without the stimulus money they also got, that we will double the size
of this agency in less than 4 years. I am not sure that is what we
want.
Here is what we have done so far. If we look at the bottom corner,
inflation is expected to be less than 1.6 percent. Yet we see the
following percentage increases: 5.7; 7.2; Energy and Water, 1.4--the
only reason it was 1.4 is because they got $45 billion from the
stimulus--Agriculture, 12.6; Treasury-HUD, 22.5; Interior, 16.2; and
now CJS, 12.6.
Most families--and I know almost every business--are making hard
choices right now about what they spend money on and what they do not.
They are in tough times. Somehow that hasn't reverberated to this body.
If it has, it has not reverberated to the appropriations committees of
the House or Senate. That will be an amendment to freeze spending at
last year's level, which could easily be done, but we don't have the
courage to do that. There will be several other amendments offered.
They are working on an agreement at this time.
I will be offering three amendments. I will wait until the Senator
from Maryland comes before offering them. I understand they don't want
me to call them up at this time. So I will not. One of the amendments
limits funding to the National Science Foundation. It has created quite
an uproar with political scientists that we would dare decrease the
amount of money we spend on figuring out why politicians are vague or
why certain people vote a certain way or the other way. What happens
when we spend money on obvious answers is that money for the National
Science Foundation doesn't go to cure a disease. It doesn't go to make
an absolute impact on some child who is suffering from a chronic
disease that unless the research dollars are there, they will never
have a normal life or lifestyle. In fact, everybody screams when some
of their money gets attacked.
So the political scientists in the country, those who get this money,
$91.3 million over the last 10 years that we have doled out to
political scientists, that $91 million could have gone to the study of
biology or chemistry or pharmaceutical science or fields of endeavor
such as micronutrients or cellular metabolism or genetic manipulation
so we can cure a disease. Instead, where do they spend the money?
Campaigns and elections, electoral choice systems, political change,
domestic conflict, party activism, political psychology, and political
tolerance.
What are some of the good things NSF does? NSF scientists have
developed new computer-generated robotics to help people with severe
disabilities. They can do what we can do, those of us who don't have a
physical disability, except they can now do it with a robot. They
become independent again and get their life back. NSF supported
engineers that created a bone substitute that blends in tendon tissues
which mimics natural bone and provides better integration so that
people with lost movement in their joints have it returned. NSF created
technology with their grants to engineer the next generation of
biofuels. We are seeing the science. They created a new type of fiber
reinforced concrete that bends without cracking. It is 300 to 500 times
more resistant to cracking and 40 percent lighter in weight which means
we can build bridges that will never fall down. We won't have a
Minnesota tragedy again. That is the real science from the National
Science Foundation.
Let me give a little hint of what the National Science Foundation
projects for political science have been.
There is $188,206 to ask the question: Why do political candidates
make vague statements, and what are the consequences? We all know the
answer to that. They make vague statements because they want to get
reelected. They do not want to get pinned down. It is not hard to
figure out, but we blew a lot of money on it.
How about a grant for political discussion in the workplace? That has
to be an important priority for the country now that we are running a
$1.6 trillion deficit.
Here is one: television news and the visual framing of war. I am
certain that is an important research topic that we should sacrifice
our children's future for, and I know it must be a priority for her,
this little girl, whose daddy or mama was smart enough to recognize
what the real consequences of our behavior are.
Or how about another study: Why people are for or against military
conflicts? Nobody is for military conflicts. They are for the defense
of our country. But to spend money to study why people are for or
against? Tell me what that contributes to her future?
I am accused of being a flatlander. I do come from Oklahoma. I was
born in Wyoming. But there is one difference with us flatlanders: we
actually have worked in our lives, we understand common sense, and we
have had to make hard choices before.
How about this study, the impact of Medicare reform on senior
citizens' political views. I can tell you what it is. We take away a
benefit, they are not going to like it; we add a benefit, they are
going to like it. Send me the check. I will do it for free. It is
plain, old common sense. It may be nice to have the statistics behind
that, but we all know the answer to those questions.
Here is another one: evaluate whip counts. Let me tell you what a
whip count is. Every party has a whip so they can count the votes
before they happen so they think they know what is going to happen on
the vote, so they know what votes to bring up and what votes not to. We
are going to have a study by Congress: How do whip counts impact party
leaders in the legislative process? Who cares. Nobody should care about
that. What we should care about is her future. We have our priorities
totally upside down and turned on their ear.
How about a conference on the effect of YouTube on the 2008 election.
Now, the people who are interested in that are politicians because
``how do we use YouTube to get reelected?'' Should we

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be paying for that with your tax dollars? ``How do we keep incumbents
incumbents?'' I would think a better study of political science is, how
do you throw us all out. That is a better use of the funds. How do you
get rid of us since we are doing such a terrible job managing the
finances of this country?
Or how about the ``NewsHour'' with Jim Lehrer--to pay for complete,
live, prime-time gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Democratic and GOP
National Conventions. Guess what. They were covered by three other
networks free. We did not pay them a penny. Yet we pay this.
We are going to increase NSF's budget in this bill 8 percent, the
National Science Foundation. It is the one we ought to be increasing 12
or 15 percent, but it ought to be on real science, on pure science, on
science that has an outcome we can measure that is not related to the
observation of common fact but is new research that will derive great
benefits for the people of this country.
So I will be offering an amendment to limit the amount of money. We
are going to hear all sorts of claims. What we have heard already on
the blogs is that National Science Foundation political science
research contributes to our understanding of democracy. I think we have
pretty well figured what democracy is. ``Our ability to have a free and
open democratic process would be significantly harmed without this
research.''
You know what is being harmed is her generation, as we foolishly
spend dollar after dollar on things that are not a priority--hundreds
of millions of dollars on program after program after program that 90
percent of Americans could say: That might be fine if we were in a
cash-rich position, but at a time when the Federal Government is about
to double every 4 years and the debt is about to double every 5 years,
wouldn't it be smart to not spend money we don't have on things we
don't need? So that is what this amendment is.
There is another claim: The loss of National Science Foundation
funding will significantly harm political science research in this
country. Let me give you a few facts about that. The University of
Michigan--they are the receiver of the largest grant under the NSF--has
a $7.5 billion endowment. That is just one of the universities--$7.5
billion--and we are supposed to keep sending, every 10 years, $100
million for political science research.
Here is the political science--here it is: The heritage of this
Nation is that one generation creates opportunity for the next by
sacrificing, making the hard choices they need to make to make sure
what has worked in the past will provide them opportunities in the
future. This does not do any of that. What it says is, the ones who are
on the ins, the people who are well connected now, the people who are
dependent on millions of dollars of funding--when they are sitting with
billions of dollars in their endowments--are worth more than she is.
That is exactly the problem.
Until we figure out we are going to have to make some tough
sacrifices, her future is at risk. Unless we do this fairly soon, we
could very well be on an irreversible course. Two or three more years
of spending the way we are spending and borrowing the way we are
borrowing will doom her to a standard of living 40 percent below what
we see today. Those are not my words, the economists agree. The
governments are going to end up consuming 45 or 50 percent of our total
GDP. We are at 10 percent this year--the highest in our history with
the exception of being in the midst of World War II. Never have we been
in such shape as we are in today.
I think we have a lot of things wrong. But the No. 1 thing we have
wrong is we have forgotten that service is about sacrifice. Service is
about giving up something of you so somebody else gets ahead. We cannot
expect the American people to model that behavior if we are not willing
to do it. If everything we do is about protecting our own vested
political interests and protecting our campaign contributors and
protecting the well connected and not excluding and divorcing ourselves
from all of that and making great commonsense judgments, we are history
as a nation.
I wonder when it started. I wonder when it started that we decided we
were more important than the country. I wonder when it started when we
decided we would push our hand and say: Stop the heritage of this
country. When did it start that we decided we were worth more than the
generations that follow us? When did it start that we decided we were
not brave enough to take the hits to make the hard choices so the
Republic can be preserved? When did it start? When did that cowardice
start because it is ever present now as we go through the
appropriations process.
I ran a business for 9 years, and I learned a lot doing that. I
learned a lot about people. But I also learned a lot about making tough
choices. We, in fact, can make tough choices and preserve what is good
and best and brightest in all of us. As a matter of fact, hope comes
from that, when people make those tough decisions that, in fact,
consider the very personal nature of how individuals are affected and
they are at work for the common good for the long run.
You see, there is not a business out there today that is surviving
just thinking only in the short run. If they are, they will not be here
2 years from now. They are all thinking in the long run. They are all
positioning, planning, managing, developing. The same with families.
They are doing that right now at the dinner table--positioning,
planning, developing what is going to come next: How we are going to
get where we want to go. We are in a rough period now. What do we cut
back? What is the thing that we sacrifice today to secure the future
for our family tomorrow?
Ashamedly, not much of that exists in Washington. What does exist is
a willingness to say yes to everybody, and then wink and nod and try to
have it both ways. I am not a both ways kind of guy, and neither is
America. The great sheet is about to be lifted over the, I would use,
imbecilic methods of Washington. When transparency gets its full view,
America is going to make some major changes, and I am not talking
Republican-Democrat. I am talking both.
This is a problem of elitism. This is a problem of short-term
thinking by the political leaders of this country on: How do I manage
my political career and to heck with the rest of the country. Nobody in
their right mind would bring appropriations bills to the floor that
have these types of increases at a time when we are stealing $1.4
trillion from our grandkids. How do we justify it? How do we justify
growing the Federal Government at a time when families are struggling
like they have never struggled except during World War II and the Great
Depression? How do we justify that?
We do not justify it. We cannot justify it. What we can do, and what
will happen in the debate on the amendments I bring forward--they will
be ignored. They just will not debate it. It will go away. That is what
happens when we bring critical amendments to the floor and question the
wisdom of growing the Federal Government larger and larger without
developing a way to pay for it and without taking a critical look at
all of those programs out there.
There is $350 billion worth of waste, fraud, and duplication in the
Federal Government right now. The American people ought to be clamoring
that we freeze spending everywhere until we have done a review of every
government program that is out there--just like they are doing with
their own families, just like they are doing with their own businesses,
just like every organization in America today is having to do, except
governments.
How is it this can happen? How is it we can go down the sewer drain
just like other republics, knowing what history says will happen to us
if, in fact, we abandon fiscal sanity? That is what this appropriations
bill does, and all the rest of them we have passed because, in fact, we
will double the size of the Federal Government in the next 4 years,
based on 2008, 2009, not counting the stimulus.
If we are running a $1.4 trillion deficit--actually $1.8 trillion
when we count everything we have stolen from Social Security and
everything we have stolen from, for example, the inland waterways trust
fund and the other trust funds; and we have not funded any Federal
pensions; and, by the way, we have not funded anything else we have an
obligation for, such as

[[Page S10343]]

VA health care or military retirement--none of those things are
funded--what happens when we get in the crunch?
What happens when nobody loans to us anymore? Wouldn't it be prudent
to prepare for that? Wouldn't it be prudent for us to dig in as a
nation--Democrats and Republicans and Independents--and say: Time out.
Let's look where we are. Let's quit wasting $350 billion a year. Let's
eliminate the duplication. There are 800 programs outside the
Department of Education that are run by the Federal Government for
education--outside the Department of Education. How about eliminating
them or at least putting them in the Department of Education and
consolidating them. And oh, by the way, education has done a wonderful
job at the Federal Government level. As soon as the Federal Government
got into our educational system, our scores started declining, our
graduation rates started declining, and our college graduation rates
started declining. That is the record of the Federal Government's
involvement in education in this country.
There is a lot we can fix, not just my ideas. The question I am
asking is, Why aren't we asking the question? Why aren't the American
people challenging their elected Members to the Senate and the House?
Where are your priorities? Does she not matter? Does their future not
matter? Answer the question: With $918,000 worth of unfunded liability
and debt for which at 20 years of age she will be paying--we will be
paying the interest, which means the taxes for that interest will come
back to her eventually--how will she get a college education? How will
she own a home besides a dollhouse? How will it happen? Will Tinker
Bell just come down and give it to her? That isn't going to happen. So
as we think outyears, we ought to be thinking about what our actions
today are going to cost. Yet we don't.
These are disturbing times. These are not just disturbing times
because we face a war on terror, and they are not disturbing times
because we have an economic downturn. What is disturbing is that we
absolutely have avoided leadership in bringing this country back to its
commonsense basics of spending money we have for things that are an
ultimate priority, not spending money we don't have on things we don't
need. A large portion of these appropriations bills spends money we
don't have on things we don't need. We may want them. There is no
question that politicians want them. There is no question that the
National Science Foundation political science grantees want them. Do we
need them? That is the question. And we have no leadership that will
discern, at a crucial juncture in our history, a path that will bring
us to not only a recovery from this recession but a recovery for an
opportunity for every child her age.
It is deeply personal with me. I have five grandchildren. I look in
their eyes, and I see the potential of their lives and all of these
other children who are out there. There is tremendous potential in
them. You know what, we are going to waterboard them. That is what we
are going to do. We are going to waterboard them. We are going to flood
them with debt. We are going to shackle their opportunities. We are
going to limit their possibilities because we don't have the courage to
make the difference for their future.
Mr. President, I will yield the floor, and I will come back and offer
my amendments when the Senator from Maryland arrives.
With that, I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 2631.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. In my capacity as a Senator from Nebraska, I
object.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 2631

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up
amendment No. 2631.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendment is
set aside.
Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending
amendment and to call up amendment No. 2631.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will report.
The assistant bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] proposes an
amendment numbered 2631.

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment
be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To redirect funding of the National Science Foundation toward
practical scientific research)

At the appropriate place in title III, insert the
following:
Sec. __.  None of the funds appropriated under this Act may
be used to carry out the functions of the Political Science
Program in the Division of Social and Economic Sciences of
the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
of the National Science Foundation.

Amendment No. 2632

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the
pending amendment and call up amendment No. 2632.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The assistant bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] proposes an
amendment numbered 2632.

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment
be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To require public disclosure of certain reports)

At the appropriate place, insert the following:
Sec. ___. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of this
Act and except as provided in subsection (b), any report
required to be submitted by a Federal agency or department to
the Committee on Appropriations of either the Senate or the
House of Representatives in this Act shall be posted on the
public website of that agency upon receipt by the committee.
(b) Subsection (a) shall not apply to a report if--
(1) the public posting of the report compromises national
security; or
(2) the report contains proprietary information.

Amendment No. 2667

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside that
amendment in order to call up amendment No. 2667.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will report.
The assistant bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] proposes an
amendment numbered 2667.

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment
be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To reduce waste and abuse at the Department of Commerce)

At the appropriate place, insert the following:
Sec. ___. (a) Additional Amount for Office of Inspector
General.--The amount appropriated by title I under the
heading ``office of inspector general'' under the heading
``Departmental Management'' under the heading ``DEPARTMENT OF
COMMERCE'' is increased by $4,499,000.
(b) Offset.--The amount appropriated by title I under the
heading ``herbert c. hoover building renovation and
modernization'' under the heading ``Departmental Management''
under the heading ``DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE'' is decreased by
$5,000,000.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I wish to talk about amendment No. 2667.
This is a fairly straightforward amendment.
The House has $5 million for renovation of the Hoover Building. There
is

[[Page S10344]]

no question that we need to have a continuing ongoing project of
renovating that. However, in the Senate, we have $17.5 million.
If we look at the Commerce Department and what is going wrong, what
we see is that because we are limited by funds, we don't have an active
enough oversight of what is going on inside; otherwise, we could never
account for the billions of dollars of waste on the census.
This is a straightforward amendment. It just says: Of that $17.5
million, we are going to take $5 million, which still puts us at 2\1/2\
times what the House has, and direct it toward the Inspector General's
Office of the Commerce Department. What that does is it enhances
oversight, enhances transparency, and enhances communication back to
the Commerce Department so we can see what is going on with an agency
that is obviously troubled.
The inspector general's department, and agency-wide, is fielded by
tough, great people who probably would pretty much agree with
everything I spent the last hour talking about. The fact is, they are
limited in what they can do. They are limited by the funds we give
them. So we now come down again to priorities. Do we build bicycle
racks out in front of the Herbert C. Hoover Building or do we spend
money making sure the inspectors general and the auditors can actually
see what is going on in this agency?
It is very straightforward. It is going to be a fun vote. I
understand how amendments go on the Senate floor when we are in the
mood to spend money and not act responsibly. But do we really want
transparency, do we really want to know what is going on, do we really
want to discover the reason we are in such big trouble, and do we
really want to fund the inspector general at a level that will give us
the information upon which we can make better decisions? That leaves
alone the question of whether we will make better decisions. I have a
lack of confidence on that, but at least with the right information, we
will be able to, in fact, see what is going on.
We continue not to prioritize funds. The Department of Commerce is
going to get a 52-percent increase in funding in our version of this
bill. It receives $7.9 billion in additional stimulus funds. That was
85 percent of what they received entirely in 2009, which means in a
matter of 2 years we will have given them on average three times what
they receive normally in a year. So we are talking about taking a small
portion--$5 million--and directing it to the Inspector General's Office
so they can do what is needed to be done in terms of carrying out their
responsibilities.
There is no question in my mind that the Department of Commerce is
suffering from mismanagement. I am not directing this to the present
Secretary; I am directing this backwards through the Bush
administration. Here are some statements that were made in the Senate
report accompanying this bill:

The committee is extremely concerned about the persistent
pattern of cost overruns and schedule slippages on major
projects and missions carried out by the agencies in this
bill.
The committee remains apprehensive about the management of
the census.
Reports have exposed a culture within many agencies that
exhibits a lack of accountability in oversight of grant
funding.
The committee is concerned that the Census Bureau has
failed to implement three recommendations by the IG.
NOAA's satellite programs have undergone extensive
independent reviews after experiencing cost overruns, delays,
and setbacks.
The National Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental
Satellite system has struggled for years with cost overruns
and schedule delays and a high risk of gaps occurring to the
Nation's weather and climate satellites.
The committee remains concerned by the lack of progress in
reducing patent pendency and the overall patent backlog.

I note the committee routinely takes money away from patent fees to
use on other funds. As such, the committee has provided bill language
to transfer funding to the Office of the Inspector General for the
express purpose of conducting all audit engagements in the oversight of
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Despite these concerns--and I didn't list them all--with the Commerce
Department, and a 52-percent increase in spending in the bill, if you
were concerned, why would you increase spending that much? That is No.
1. The account for the inspector general is increased only by 4.4
percent. So this is a measly little $5 million out of a $17.5 million
increase. The House only has $5 million for the Herbert C. Hoover
Building. So we put 2\1/2\ times what the House does in the building,
and we actually give the IG the money he needs to do his job. There
isn't an agency that needs more oversight and more work by an inspector
general than the Commerce Department.
I will limit my comments on this at the present time, and I will
defer to the chairman, if she wishes to speak; Otherwise, I will
discuss one of the other amendments.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, first, we acknowledge the need for the
Commerce Department to clean up its act in terms of its spending. The
Senator from Oklahoma has indeed identified the very programs that give
me heartburn as well: the NOAA satellite program, which continually has
cost overruns; the decennial census, until we intervened with Secretary
Gutierrez, had become a techno boondoggle; the backlog at the Patent
and Trademark Office is well known.
However, he proposes to increase funds for the IG, even though the
bill already meets the request for this office. This amendment is
unnecessary because we provide $27 million for the Commerce inspector
general. This matches what President Obama said he wanted to put in the
Federal budget, and he thought it would do the job. In fiscal year
2009, the IG of Commerce received 25.8. So we puffed it up 1.2 million
already. In addition to the stimulus package, just to be sure that
money was going in the right direction, we in the subcommittee, working
on a bipartisan basis with Senator Shelby, put in an additional $6
million to make sure we did have oversight and accountability. We have
not received any indication from the IG that that IG needs more money.
Unnecessary funding will not make those problems go away. What we want
to do is be able to push them, advocate them, and stand sentry.
The building restoration which this amendment proposes to do will
only add to the Commerce Department's problems. It is called the
Herbert C. Hoover Building. The building is in substandard condition.
It really is in substandard condition. It is the only building over
there that has not been upgraded in several years. Funding in this bill
would begin to modernize it, particularly in much needed health and
safety codes--heating, air conditioning, electricity, and plumbing.
Funding in this covers the long partnership with GSA. I want the
Senator from Oklahoma to know I agree that we have to stand sentry on
Commerce. If you go over the bill, I have added some tough provisions
with Senator Shelby on oversight--particularly on this NOAA satellite
program. But taking from much needed repairs at Commerce to fund the
much needed repairs in oversight I don't think cuts it. I will oppose
the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma, though I think he and I are
on the same broadband about necessary stewardship.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. COBURN. We have communication from the GSA that says this
amendment will not inhibit any of the plans, upgrades, or improvements
to the Herbert C. Hoover Building. No. 2, we all admit there are
problems at the Commerce Department. We have a 12.6-percent increase in
spending but we increase the IG by 4.4 percent. We are going to
increase spending three times faster than the ability to track it and
oversee it. We did increase it 4.4 percent, but we increased the agency
12.6 percent. We have our priorities backward. We should be increasing
the IG by 12.6 percent and the agency 4 percent, or 1.6 percent to
match inflation.
This amendment will not, in any way, according to GSA, impede their
ability to make the corrections that they need to make in terms of
health and safety at the Herbert C. Hoover Building.
I thank the chairman for her recognition of the problems at this
agency. The answer to solve it is to let the dogs run. Let them find
it. Let them go after it. Let them bring to light transparency, and let
them bring the reports that we need so we can make the changes we need.

[[Page S10345]]

Amendment No. 2632

I want to spend a few moments on my next amendment, No. 2632. This is
a very similar amendment. I spoke about it earlier. This amendment says
that whatever reports we ask for, whatever answers we want from these
agencies, in fact, unless it has to do with national security or
defense, should be reported to every Senator, not just the Senators on
the Appropriations Committee. And more importantly, it should be
reported to everybody in America. This is a great open government
amendment which says we will be transparent.
We are requesting numerous reports in this bill. Why should the
American people not get to see what those reports show? Why should we
not get to see how we are spending our money, why we are spending our
money, and whether the effect of spending the money is having the
desired outcome? H.R. 2847 requires reports, audits, and evaluates all
decision documents and expenditures by the Bureau of the Census. We all
know that has been a problem. And I dispute that Secretary Gutierrez
did anything about the problem, other than talk the former leader of
the census into leaving. Secretary Gutierrez should have been following
the census to know before it ever got in that kind of shape. We have a
wonderful leader there now, and I fully support him. I supported his
nomination, and I supported his approval by the Senate.
This would also require a quarterly report by the Attorney General
regarding the costs and contracting procedures related to each
conference held by the Department of Justice. Why should not everybody
get to see that? Why should not Americans, who are actually paying for
that, and their grandkids, such as this young lady in the photo, get to
see it? Why should she not get to see that? This is straightforward. We
will have a vote on this amendment. I have learned my lesson on not
getting them accepted. When they go to conference, we still hide it
from the American people. So we will have a vote on this amendment and
see whether people want to hide what we are doing or want it exposed
fully to the American people. It is a good government amendment.
We also have a request for a report that the Secretary, within 120
days of enactment of this act, shall report to the Committee on
Appropriations that audits and evaluates all decision documents and
expenditures by the Bureau of Census as it relates to the 2010 census.
Why just the Senators on the Appropriations Committee? Why not the
American people? Why should they not see that?
The other thing it will do is allow us to conduct better oversight.
The committee chairman--I have great regard for the Senator from
Maryland, because I think she does care about oversight. I cannot say
that about all of our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee. We
would have done a lot of oversight on the Census Bureau in the
Government Affairs Subcommittee. I can tell you that we have great
employees there. We have had terrible leadership until now. At $60 a
person to count people in the United States, people ought to ask why.
How did we allow this to happen?
This amendment is one that the vast majority of Americans concur with
and the vast majority of my colleagues, I hope, will concur with.
I yield to the chairman of the committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland is recognized.
Ms. MIKULSKI. I want to make a comment about the status of the
Commerce Department building. I will be very clear that the
subcommittee, on a bipartisan basis, supports vigorous oversight. The
Commerce Building has not been renovated in more than 20 years.
Let me quote to you from the Washington Post in an article called
``NOAA's Ark.'' It says:

When the Marine ecologist Jane Lubchenko was finally
confirmed in March as the Under Secretary of Commerce in
charge of NOAA, she went to check into her new digs on the
fifth floor at the Commerce Department. It was a fine corner
on 15th and Constitution, nothing fancy, but it overlooked
the Washington Monument. But when she opened the door and she
went to powder her nose, she found a massive Norwegian rat.
The critter had come in through the derelict plumbing that
was in her office. Now, she, with her typical good humor,
laughed it off and said, as an ecologist, she found it
biologically fascinating that sewer rats were able to come
into the Commerce Department.

We told her she couldn't have a grant to study it, but we wanted to
do something about the renovation. That is what we are--we want the
best and the brightest to work in our government agencies, and to come
up with new ideas such as in NOAA, to save the planet, to do the
necessary scientific research to save fisheries. In that case, it would
have influenced the economy of my State tremendously. We cannot
minimize the need to refurbish that building. Air pockets have been
developing in the plumbing at the Department of Commerce, and in order
to get rid of the rats, you have to have regular flushes. This is not a
laughing matter. It sounds like a laughing matter, but I want to be
able to go forward to modernize the Commerce Department, working with
the Secretary, and continue our vigorous oversight. Let's modernize the
building. I hope we can defeat that amendment.
There is an amendment that the Senator from Oklahoma has offered that
requires more transparency in our reports to Congress. I think that is
a good idea. Again, discussing this with my colleague, Senator Shelby,
we both think it is a good idea. If the Senator from Oklahoma will
concur--because I am for transparency and I believe we cannot have
enough of it so that the American people can see things and make up
their own minds--in the interest of time, I would accept the amendment.
If the Senator would be willing to do a voice vote, I would be more
than willing to accommodate that. I think the amendment is excellent
and I believe it improves the bill. I am happy to accept it, or have it
voice voted, or have a recorded vote, whatever the Senator wants.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman for her words on this
amendment. I have learned a very critical lesson. We have an Energy and
Water Appropriations bill that we did the same thing on. For some
reason, it didn't come out of conference. Transparency didn't come out.
I don't doubt the veracity of the senior Senator from Maryland, but I
would just as soon have a recorded vote, if she would not mind.
I also want to answer the story of the rat, which is a great example
of the mismanagement at the Department of Commerce. It does not relate
to the present Secretary at all. If, in fact, you have plumbing
problems in the building, the management is supposed to raise that
issue. In fact, the Department of Commerce received a large sum of
money with the stimulus. The House has only $5 million for the Herbert
C. Hoover Building. GSA says this amendment will not limit at all their
ability to accomplish what they want to accomplish there.

So if, in fact, $17.5 million is enough to get it done, why would we
object to having more than that--if GSA says it is only going to pay
$17.5 million, why are we putting $22.5 million in it in the first
place?
The example proves my point: Management is lacking. With vigorous
leadership and a vigorous, strong inspector general force that is
funded at the same level of increase that we fund the government, as
far as percentage of increases, we could hope to accomplish that.

Amendment No. 2631

I will move to my other amendment No. 2631. I spent a lot of time
talking about this amendment before the chairman came to the floor. I
will not repeat everything I said, but I will discuss the question of
priorities.
I have a great respect for a lot of what the National Science
Foundation does. I have very little respect for their grants for
political science as a science. Part of that is because I think it is
low on the priority of where they should be spending money when we can
create things through NSF to save lives and also because of some of the
grants that have been spent and put out there.
I will review a few of those over a short period of time and then
will yield the floor to my colleague, the chairman of this
subcommittee.
How do you back up the fact that the National Science Foundation
gives a

[[Page S10346]]

grant for political science--here is the question asked: Why do
political candidates make vague statements and what are the
consequences? In the realm of science, being a physician, being trained
in the sciences, first of all, it is a question to which we already
know the answer. We know why politicians make vague statements. Because
they don't want to get pinned down. But most important, they want to
get reelected or elected. For us to send money to study something that
stupid, that low on priorities is beyond me.
Or why are people for or against military conflicts? Do we need that
science to tell us so that the next time we are in a military conflict
we go out and manipulate the American people or do we have military
conflicts based on the national defense and security interests of this
country, even when there are political consequences to it?
The real world would never fund such stupidness. They would never
allow millions and millions of dollars every year to be spent on silly
things to help politicians understand why they spin or why they do not
answer questions or why people might be for or against war. It is
pretty easy to figure out.
Or studying how Medicare reform affects seniors' political views.
That is pretty easy: If it hurts me, I am ``agin'' it; if it helps me,
I am for it. Yet we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars paying for
grants, through the National Science Foundation, to universities that
have billions and billions of dollars in endowments. As a matter of
fact, Tufts University has billions in endowments. They charge their
students $40,000 a year in tuition alone. They are the recipients of
some of this grant work, and they are the ones squawking the loudest.
So here we have an entitled class of professors in political science
who now don't want their gravy train taken away when I say right now
there is no way this can be a priority for this country with the debt
we have and the economic situation we have. It cannot be as important
as a multitude of other things for this young lady. It cannot be.
I do not have any illusions about what is going to happen to this
amendment. I know the appropriators reign supreme. What I am hoping is
that the American people ultimately reign supreme. So as we vote to
vote down this amendment or they vote to table this amendment so they
do not have to directly vote on the amendment, one has to walk back and
say: What is going on in Washington that you will not clean up the
excesses in a time of great national distress? We will not and we
haven't, and that is why we have a giant increase from last year and
this year. We entered the recession in 2007, remember? That is why we
borrowed 43 cents out of every $1 we spent this year because we will
not make these hard, tough choices about why politicians are vague,
while we continue to spend millions and millions of dollars so somebody
can sit in an office and pontificate and you can see the same answer--
all you have to do is look at the news shows and you get the same
answers.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. COBURN. I make an inquiry of the Chair. Do we have a limit on
time for debate?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. is evenly
divided.
Mr. COBURN. I understand. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, for a point of clarification, the time
of the Senator from Oklahoma has expired and how much time do I have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 22\1/2\ minutes.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I would like to speak on these
amendments for as much time as I may consume, and then if there is some
remaining time, perhaps we could, in the interest of comity, share some
time. As I understand it, there is a vote scheduled at 5:30.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, before the Senator leaves, I wish to
give him two punch lines. First of all, I know he doesn't think much of
political science. He made that clear. But I wish to bring to his
attention that Dr. Elinor Ostrom, who just won the Nobel Prize for
Economics, is a political scientist. She received most of her funding
through the National Science Foundation--28 grant awards since 1974.
Those grants helped her lay the groundwork for winning the Nobel Prize.
She is a political scientist, but she used that talent to win the
prize. I will elaborate on that. I am a big fan of her work.
The other point I wish to bring to the Senator's attention is that
the National Science Foundation has an $8 million agreement with DOD in
their Social Science Department on the social science dimensions of
national security, conflicts, and cooperation. DOD, under its Minerva
initiative, has joined with the National Science Foundation because
they want academic researchers involved in studying authoritarian
regimes, the strategic impact of religious and cultural change,
terrorist organizations, and other new dimensions in social security. I
will describe those grants in detail.
Mr. COBURN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Ms. MIKULSKI. In a minute. What I wish to make clear is that the
National Science Foundation has helped fund the work that laid the
groundwork for a talented person to win not only the Nobel Prize but to
come up with the kind of ideas where maybe we could win markets and
jobs. The Department of Defense thought enough of the National Science
Foundation's Social Science Department to come up with an $8 million--
and it is not a lot of money--but an $8 million agreement to fund 17
projects, where they are going to be studying things such as
authoritarian regimes, terrorist organizations, the impact on religious
and cultural change, and how maybe they could avoid us being blown up.
If one of those studies helps one policymaker make one decision to save
one marine, I think it is worth the 8 million bucks, and I am willing
to put it in the Federal budget.
I will be happy to yield for a question.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, will the Senator agree that the Defense
Department funds all sorts of research in all sorts of scientific
areas, and they don't necessarily do that on the predicate--they do it
on the basis of what their need is. There is a very big difference,
does the Senator agree, between the social sciences and political
science?
Ms. MIKULSKI. Will the Senator from Oklahoma agree that political
science is one of the branches of social science?
Mr. COBURN. Sure, and I am only targeting with my amendment political
science, not social sciences, if the Senator reads my amendment.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Within these DOD grants, I am not sure which ones are
sociology, anthropology or political science because it is in that one
directorate.
Mr. COBURN. I thank the chairman for allowing me to ask a question.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I oppose, as you can see, the amendment
of the Senator from Oklahoma. He wants to eliminate $9 million from the
political science program at the National Science Foundation. I don't
like targeting an individual science area. Today it might be political
science. Another Senator might target biology. Remember how we stifled
science under the gag rules and gag guidelines of stem cell research?
Also, I don't like trivializing academic research and academics, that
somehow or another there is worthwhile science and then there are
others that can be minimized or trivialized.
First, I remind everyone about the work of the National Science
Foundation. The NSF has received bipartisan support, and in rising
above the gathering storm, the National Academy of Sciences pointed out
that the National Science Foundation is one of our lead agencies in
promoting innovation through its research and its education programs.
This bill also supports the funding for the Directorate for Social,
Behavior and Economic Science. That is the one, which I talked about
with the Senator from Oklahoma, which oversees the political science
office. This directorate's mission is to use basic research to
understand human and institutional behavior vital to rebuilding our
national infrastructure and understanding how we operate as a society.
This program began in 1962, and over the years, it has also included
an open,

[[Page S10347]]

transparent relationship with the Department of Defense. This is not
black-box research. This is out-of-the-box research so maybe we could
figure out our world better and deal with conflict resolution or when
we are in a conflict, how we can work with other people around the
world and build democratic societies and democratic institutions.
In recent news, we also were awakened with great pride that two
American women won the Nobel Prize. One is Dr. Greider, in my home
State of Maryland at Johns Hopkins. I talked with Dr. Greider the other
day. Wow, what a great American scientist. She answered her own phone.
She was going to join her daughter at a soccer game right after she had
gotten the call from Stockholm. As we talked about her groundbreaking
research in microbiology, she said she was able to do her work because
of the grants she had received through the National Institutes of
Health. They had helped her get her education, and they had helped her
do her research. They helped her to win the Nobel Prize. But for
herself, she thought the prize would be a tribute to what her work was
in microbiology that could lead to saving lives.

We also had another woman win the Nobel Prize--Dr. Elinor Ostrom. Her
training is in political science. She won the Nobel Prize for
economics. She is the first woman ever to win the prize for economics--
an American woman. Although not in the Congress, she has received
several political science grants from NSF because political science
also looks at institutions which also have an impact on our economy.
Since 1974, Dr. Ostrom has received over 20 grants, and these grants
helped her do her fieldwork all over the world in relationship to the
economic activity of people and communities. The Royal Swedish Academy
of Sciences thought enough of her work to award her the Nobel Prize.
But long before they heard of her in Stockholm, the National Science
Foundation had heard of her and helped her with her award-winning
research.
We have to keep this going. Our National Science Foundation and our
other scientific institutions must go where no thought has gone before.
That is the point of discovery. Discovery has led to innovation.
Innovation leads to the new ideas that lead to the new jobs in our
society. A society that doesn't innovate stagnates. And innovation
comes not only in engineering, though much needed; it doesn't only come
in physics, though much desired; it doesn't come only in medicine, in
the biological research, though much revered; a lot of this is the
basic social sciences.
As I said to the Senator from Oklahoma, for the last 8 years there
has been a relationship between DOD and the National Science
Foundation--again, in open, transparent research. And here, I am
quoting from the ``Federal Technology Watch,'' October 6, 2009.
``Federal Technology Watch'' is a weekly report on Federal technology,
science, and policy areas.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the article from which I am going to quote.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From the Federal Technology Watch, Oct. 9, 2009]

NSF finds declining federal support of academic r&d

US universities reported science and engineering r&d
expenditures of $51.9-billion in FY08, according to a new
National Science Foundation (NSF) report released Oct. 2.
However, the preliminary findings of NSF's Survey of Research
and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges are
that federal funding decreased as a share of the academic r&d
total, from 64% in FY05 to 60% in FY08. Despite this drop,
the federal government retains its traditional role as the
largest source of academic r&d funding.
The FY08 survey data showed an increase in federally funded
expenditures of 2.5% in current dollars, reaching $31.2-
billion. After adjusting for inflation, this is a 0.2%
increase from FY07 and follows two years of real declines
since FY05.
Other statistical notes from the NSF report include:
--Combined sources of non-federal funding grew 8.3% during
FY08;
--State and local government funding of r&d expenditures
grew in FY08 8.8%, increasing to $3.4-billion from $3.1-
billion in FY07;
--Industry funding of academic r&d grew 7.1% to $2.9-
billion in FY08;
--Funding from academic institutions increased 7% to $10.4-
billion in FY08.
Also, r&d funds for joint projects that were passed through
primary university recipients to other university sub-
recipients almost doubled from FY00 to FY08, growing from
$700-million to $1.4-billion in constant 2000 dollars. The
current dollar amount of $1.7-billion represents 3.3% of
total academic r&d expenditures in FY08, compared with 2.3%
of the total in FY00.
InfoBrief 09-318, written by NSF analyst Ronda Britt of the
r&d statistics program, is available at: <<a href='http://www.nsf.gov/
statistics/infbrief/nsf09318/nsf09318.pdf'>www.nsf.gov/
statistics/infbrief/nsf09318/nsf09318.pdf</a>>

Electric vehicle forum

The first-ever US-China Electric Vehicle Forum was held
last week in Beijing, China.
Attended by over 140 US and Chinese officials from
government, industry, academia and advocacy groups, the forum
discussed progress made in the electric vehicle industry and
opportunities for future collaboration.
The event, co-hosted by Department of Energy (DOE)
assistant secretary for policy and international affairs
David Sandalow and Chinese Science & Technology Minister Wan
Gang, highlighted the rapidly growing electric vehicle
industry in both countries.
``The US and China share a strong common interest in
putting millions of electric vehicles on the road soon, which
will lessen our dependence on foreign oil and help address
the global climate challenge,'' Sandalow said Sept. 29.
``Working together, we can accomplish more than acting
alone.''
America and China are the two largest auto markets and
energy consumers, and together emit over 40% of the world's
greenhouse gases. The forum offered a venue for experts to
exchange views on recent electric vehicle developments and
identify promising opportunities for technical and policy
collaboration.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the US-China Science &
Technology Agreement, which represented the first agreement
between the two countries following normalization of
relations in the 1970s.
``By working together, the US and China can leverage
technological breakthroughs, increase consumer acceptance and
grow market penetration of clean vehicles,'' said White House
counselor for energy and climate change Jody Freeman, who was
a speaker at the forum.

NSF-DOD projects funded

$8-million has been awarded to 17 projects by the National
Science Foundation (NSF) under a joint NSF/Department of
Defense (DOD) solicitation.
The competition, Social and Behavioral Dimensions of
National Security, Conflict and Cooperation, is focused on
basic social and behavioral science of strategic importance
to US national security policy, as part of the DOD's Minerva
Initiative launched in 2008.
Four topic areas that address the needs of national
security policymakers and the ideals of open academic basic
research were determined jointly by DOD and NSF for the
solicitation. They are: authoritarian regimes, the strategic
impact of religious and cultural change, terrorist
organizations and ideologies, and new dimensions in national
security.
These proposals were funded under the 2009 competition:
--Status, manipulating group threats, and conflict within
and between groups: Patrick Barclay (Univ. of Guelph) &
Stephen Bernard (Indiana Univ.);
--Behavioral insights into national security issues: Rachel
Croson (UT Dallas) & Charles Holt (Univ. of Virginia);
--Experimental analysis of alternative models of conflict
bargaining: Wiilliam Reed (William Marsh Rice Univ.), Charles
Holt (Univ. of Virginia), Timothy Nordstrom (Univ. of
Mississippi), and David Clark (State Univ. of New York--
Binghamton);
--Terror, conflict processes, organizations, and
ideologies: Completing the picture: Stephen Shellman (College
of William & Mary), Remco Chang (Univ. of North Carolina--
Charlotte), Michael Covington (Univ. of Georgia), Joseph
Young (Southern Illinois Univ.--Carbondale), & Michael
Findley (Brigham Young Univ.);
--How politics inside dictatorships affects regime
stability and international conflict: Barbara Geddes (UCLA) &
Joseph Wright (Pennsylvania State Univ.);
--Mapping terrorist organizations: Martha Crenshaw
(Stanford Univ.);
--People, power, and conflict in the Eurasian migration
system: Cynthia Buckley (UT Austin);
--Strategies of violence, tools of peace, and changes in
war termination: Virginia Fortna (Columbia Univ.);
--Avoiding water wars: Environmental security through river
treaty institutionalization: Jaroslav Tir (Univ. of Georgia);
--Predicting the nature of conflict--an evolutionary
analysis of the tactical choice: Laura Razzolini (Virginia
Commonwealth Univ.) & Atin Basuchoudhary (Virginia Military
Institute);
--Fighting and bargaining over political power in weak
states: Robert Powell (UC Berkeley);
--Political economy of terrorism and insurgency (workshop):
Eli Berman (UC San Diego);
--Substantive expertise, strategic analysis and behavioral
foundations of terrorism (workshop): Rachel Croson (UT
Dallas);
--New armies from old: Merging competing military forces
after civil wars (workshop): Roy Licklider (Rutgers Univ.);
--Engaging intensely adversarial states: The strategic
limits and potential of public

[[Page S10348]]

diplomacy in US national security policy: Geoffrey Wiseman
(Univ. of Southern California);
--Deciphering civil conflict in the Middle East: J. Craig
Jenkins (Ohio State Univ.); and
--Modeling discourse and social dynamics in authoritarian
regimes: Jeff Hancock (Cornell Univ.), Arthur Graesser (Univ.
of Memphis) & David Beaver (UT Austin).
DOD partnered with NSF to reach the broadest range of
academic, social and behavioral science, and this
collaboration combines the insights of DOD with the peer
review expertise of NSF in support of the agencies' desire to
promote basic social and behavioral scientific research in
areas that will benefit the US.

EPA's nanotech strategy

A new research strategy to understand better how
manufactured nanomaterials may harm human health and the
environment was outlined by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) on Sept. 29.
The strategy describes what research EPA will support over
the next several years to generate information about safe use
of nanotechnology and products that contain nano-scale
materials. It also includes research into ways nanotechnology
can be used to clean up toxic chemicals in the environment.
Nanomaterials are between one and 100 nanometers and used
in hundreds of consumer products, including sunscreen,
cosmetics and sports equipment. The unusual light-absorbing
properties of zinc or titanium nanoparticles make high-SPF
nano sunscreens clear rather than white and studies have
shown that they provide superior protection against UV
radiation.
Part of EPA's role among federal agencies is to determine
the potential hazards of nanotechnology and develop
approaches to reduce or minimize any risks identified. As
part of the strategy, EPA researchers are investigating
widely-used nanomaterials, such as the carbon nanotubes used
in vehicles, sports equipment and electronics, and titanium
dioxide used in paints, cosmetics and sunscreens.
The research, being conducted in EPA's own laboratories and
by grant recipients as part of a collaborative effort with
other federal agencies and the international community, uses
a multi-disciplinary approach that examines all aspects of
nanomaterials in the environment, from their manufacture and
use to their disposal or recycling.
EPA's new nanotech web site offers details about the
research: <
www.epa.gov/nanoscience
>

President extends PCAST

On Sept. 29, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order
(E.O.) 13511, which extended terms of several federal
advisory committees including the President's Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), E.O. 13226, as
amended (Office of S&T Policy), until Sept. 30 2011.
Other committees whose terms are extended include the
following: Committee for the Preservation of the White House,
E.O. 11145, as amended (Interior Dept.); National
Infrastructure Advisory Council; E.O. 13231, as amended
(Department of Homeland Security); Federal Advisory Council
on Occupational Safety and Health, E.O. 12196, as amended
(Labor Dept.), President's Board of Advisors on Historically
Black Colleges and Universities, E.O. 13256 (Education
Dept.), President's Board of Advisors on Tribal Colleges and
Universities, E.O. 13270 (Education Dept.), President's
Commission on White House Fellowships, E.O. 11183, as amended
(Office of Personnel Management), President's Committee on
the National Medal of Science, E.O. 11287, as amended
(National Science Foundation), President's Export Council,
E.O. 12131, as amended (Commerce Dept.), President's National
Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, E.O. 12382,
as amended (Department of Homeland Security), and the Trade
and Environment Policy Advisory Committee, E.O. 12905 (Office
of the US Trade Representative).
E.O. 13511 took effect Sept. 30 2009.

US-Russian nuclear talks

Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman and Russia's State
Atomic Energy Corporation's (Rosatom) director general Sergei
Kiriyenko held the first meetings of the joint US-Russian
Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Security Working Group last
week.
The Sept. 28-29 meetings opened with a session hosted by
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who met with director general
Kiriyenko and deputy secretary Poneman to discuss a number of
issues, including the two countries' mutual work securing
vulnerable nuclear materials, efforts to increase cooperation
on civil nuclear technologies, and cooperation on other
nuclear security issues.
``The US and Russia have a long and successful track record
of cooperation in the area of nuclear security,'' said
Poneman. ``These meetings and our visits to Oak Ridge
National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex
demonstrate how seriously our countries take our shared
responsibility to promote peaceful uses of nuclear energy
while combating nuclear dangers. I look forward to continuing
this record by expanding our cooperation in fulfillment of
our presidents' joint statement.''
The meetings, which ended with a plenary session co-chaired
by Poneman and Kiriyenko, were the first since the working
group was established under the US-Russia Bilateral
Presidential Commission during the July 2009 Presidential
Summit. The Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Security Working Group
is co-chaired by Poneman and Kiriyenko. In addition to talks
in Washington DC, the meetings included a visit by director
general Kiriyenko and Poneman to the National Nuclear
Security Administration's Y-12 National Security Complex and
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
``This visit is devoted to an in-depth discussion of the
issues of nuclear energy and nuclear security as stipulated
by the mandate from the presidents of the Russian Federation
and the US,'' said Kiriyenko. ``We're looking forward to the
expansion of our bilateral cooperation on these issues.''
After their meeting with Secretary Chu, Poneman and
Kiriyenko flew to Tennessee to visit ORNL and Y-12, where
they watched a joint nuclear security training exercise. At
Y-12, Poneman and Kiriyenko discussed nuclear materials
management issues and toured the recently completed Highly
Enriched Uranium Materials Facility. During their ORNL visit,
Kiriyenko and Poneman received a briefing at the
Radiochemical Engineering Development Center and the
Spallation Neutron Source.
As a result of the meeting, a joint action plan was
formulated by the working group and will be forwarded to
President Obama and President Medvedev through Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov. Secretary Clinton and Foreign Minister Lavrov serve
as the Bilateral Commission Coordinators.

DHS cyber hires authority

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has received new
authority to recruit and hire cybersecurity professionals
over the next three years to help the agency meet its broad
mission to protect the nation's cyber infrastructure, systems
and networks.
``Effective cybersecurity requires all partners--
individuals, communities, government entities and the private
sector--to work together to protect our networks and
strengthen our cyber resiliency,'' Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano said Oct.1 at the launch of
National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. ``This new hiring
authority will enable [us] to recruit the best cyber
analysts, developers and engineers in the world to serve
their country by leading the nation's defenses against cyber
threats.''
A collaboration between DHS, the Office of Personnel
Management (OPM) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB),
the new authority allows DHS to fill up to 1,000 critical
cybersecurity staff positions over three years across all of
its components. These roles include cyber risk & strategic
analysis, cyber incident response, vulnerability detection &
assessment, intelligence & investigation, and network &
systems engineering. But DHS doesn't anticipate needing to
fill all the posts.
The announcement was made by Secretary Napolitano at a
National Cybersecurity Awareness Month ceremony with Deputy
Defense Secretary William Lynn III and White House national
security staff acting senior director for cybersecurity Chris
Painter.
For National Cybersecurity Awareness Month details, visit:
<
www.staysafeonline.org
>

sba awards prime grants

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced Oct. 2
that 58 non-profit organizations from 32 states and the
District of Columbia are to receive grant funding under the
Program for Investment in Microentrepreneurs Act (PRIME) to
assist low-income and very low-income entrepreneurs with
training and technical assistance to start, operate, and grow
their businesses.
``SBA remains committed to helping small businesses start,
grow and succeed, and PRIME is one of our many tools for
doing this,'' SBA administrator Karen Mills said last week.
``Thanks to larger funding this year, we were able to provide
grant dollars to more recipients across more states. These
grant recipients are on the front line of helping
entrepreneurs in particularly underserved communities with
critical tools to help them maximize the potential of their
businesses, create jobs and help strengthen the local
economy.''
The competition for PRIME grants was open to applicants in
all 50 states and the US territories, and SBA received over
400 applications. SBA last year funded 35 grants in 12 states
on a non-competitive basis.
SBA's PRIME grant funding is intended to establish
management and technical assistance, access to capital and
other forms of financial assistance, and business training
and counseling through qualified organizations to small
businesses with five or fewer employees who are economically
disadvantaged, and businesses owned by low-income
individuals, including those on Indian reservations and
tribal lands.
The grant funding received will be used to provide training
and technical assistance to disadvantaged microentrepreneurs,
supply capacity building services to organizations that
assist with microenterprise training and services, and aid in
researching and developing best practices in the field of
microenterprise development and technical assistance programs
for disadvantaged micro-entrepreneurs.
This year's total program funding amounts to $5 million
with grants ranging in size up to $250,000 with a 50% match
required of the recipient. PRIME grants are open to
microentrepreneur training and technical assistance providers
in all 50 states and US territories. They have a one-year
performance period, with four 12-month options.

[[Page S10349]]

2009 PRIME grant recipients are at: <<a href='http://www.sba.gov/services/
financialassistance/sbapartners/prime/index.html'>www.sba.gov/services/
financialassistance/sbapartners/prime/index.html</a>>

US-Italy nuclear r&d pact

Two important nuclear energy agreements that could lead to
construction of new nuclear power plants and improved
cooperation on advanced nuclear energy systems and fuel cycle
technologies in both countries were signed by Energy
Secretary Steven Chu and Italian Minister for Economic
Development Claudio Scajola on Sept. 30.
The US-Italy Joint Declaration Concerning Industrial and
Commercial Cooperation in the Nuclear Energy Sector, which
was signed on behalf of the US by Energy Secretary Chu and
Commerce Deputy Secretary Dennis Hightower, affirms the
strong interest of the US and Italy to encourage their
respective nuclear industries to seek opportunities for
construction of new nuclear power plants.
``The agreements reached today reflect our vision for
strong partnerships with nations around the world to help
address our shared climate and energy challenges,'' said
Secretary Chu. ``Nuclear power will play a key role in the
production of low-carbon energy in the years and decades
to come, and we look forward to working with Italy and the
US private sector to advance these important
technologies.''
``Clean and efficient energy technologies, including
nuclear power, will be a cornerstone of a vibrant and
prosperous 21st century economy,'' added deputy secretary
Hightower. ``American companies can offer Italy world-class
nuclear energy solutions while strengthening our own domestic
industry.''
A bilateral Agreement on Cooperation in Civilian Nuclear
Energy Research and Development was also signed by Energy
Secretary Chu and Minister Scajola, which will facilitate
cooperation between DOE and Italy's Ministry for Economic
Development in advanced nuclear energy systems and associated
fuel cycle technologies. Both nations will collaborate in r&d
of advanced technologies to improve the cost, safety, and
proliferation-resistance of nuclear power.
The agreement will also expand efforts to promote and
maintain nuclear science and engineering infrastructure and
expertise in each country.
Italy will be a key partner in building international
consensus and momentum on shared nuclear energy and
nonproliferation agenda, and US energy officials look forward
to working with their Italian counterparts at the Nuclear
Security Summit in April 2010.

ARS food waste project

Food scraps are collected every weekday from the Maryland
Food Distribution Authority in Jessup, Md., and from small
local food service and marketing establishments and trucked
to the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Henry Wallace
Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Beltsville,
Md.
Items not containing metal, glass, or plastic are then are
mixed with woodchips, leaves and other organic residuals, and
several months later some of the finished compost is
delivered to the National Mall in Washington DC to be used in
gardens at the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Jamie
Whitten Federal Building.
This unusual operation is part of research by ARS
microbiologist Patricia Millner with the BARC Environmental
Microbial and Food Safety Lab on ways to reduce the release
of methane from landfills by diverting food residuals and
other organic materials to composting. She conducts this
research with microbiologist Walter Mulbry of BARC's
Environmental Management and Byproduct Utilization Lab.
This year they are also supplying compost to the inaugural
People's Garden, part of a new program for creating a
community garden at each USDA facility, as well as for
landscaping at the US Botanic Garden and the Capitol.
Millner also makes compost available for other federal
`green' projects, including roof gardens, rain gardens and
other landscaping designs, to retain water and reduce runoff
at federal sites in the Washington DC metropolitan area.
As part of her efforts to help the federal government model
ways to compost food scraps, Millner has a cooperative r&d
agreement (CRADA) with RCM LLC of Maryland to capture ammonia
in the final compost to boost its nitrogen content for
fertilizer use. She is now comparing several types of
insulated composting containers for greenhouse gas emission
reduction and other cost-benefit characteristics.
About half of the carbon and nitrogen in composting
materials is lost to the air, rather than being captured in
the compost.

NIH 115 high-risk awards

A total of 115 awards for $348-million to encourage
investigators to explore bold ideas with potential to
catapult fields forward and accelerate the translation of
research into improved health were announced by the National
Institutes of Health (NIH).
``The appeal of the Pioneer, New Innovator, and now the T-
R01 programs, is that investigators are encouraged to
challenge the status quo with innovative ideas, while being
given the necessary resources to test them,'' NIH director Dr
Francis Collins said Sept. 24. ``The fact that we continue to
receive such strong proposals for funding through the
programs reflects the wealth of creative ideas in science
today.''
The NIH High-Risk Research awards are granted under three
research programs supported by its Common Fund Roadmap for
Medical Research: the NIH director's Transformative RO1 (T-
R01) awards, Pioneer awards, and New Innovator awards.
Enacted by Congress through the 2006 NIH Reform Act, the
Common Fund supports cross-cutting, trans-NIH programs with a
special emphasis on innovation and risk taking. Part of the
New Innovator Awards ($23-million) is supported by American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding.
NIH this year is granting 42 T-R01 awards, 18 Pioneer
awards, and 55 New Innovator awards for early-stage
investigators, and expects to make competing awards of $30-
million to T-R01 awardees, $13.5-million to Pioneer awardees,
and about $131-million to New Innovators in FY09. Total
funding provided to this effort over a five-year period is
estimated at $348-million.
More details on the T-R01 award are at: <<a href='http://
nihroadmap.nih.gov/T-R01'>http://
nihroadmap.nih.gov/T-R01</a>>
Details of the Pioneer award are at: <<a href='http://
nihroadmap.nih.gov/pioneer'>http://
nihroadmap.nih.gov/pioneer</a>>
Information on the New Innovator award is at: <<a href='http://
nihroadmap.nih.gov/newinnovator'>http://
nihroadmap.nih.gov/newinnovator</a>>

NHGRI, NIMH grants

Grants expected to total $45-million were announced last
week by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)
and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to establish
new Centers of Excellence in Genomic Science in Wisconsin and
North Carolina, as well as to continue support of existing
centers in Maryland and California.
``Our aim is to foster the formation of innovative research
teams that will develop genomic tools and technologies that
help to advance human health,'' NHGRI acting director Dr Alan
Guttmacher said Sept. 28. ``Each of these centers is in a
position to tackle some of the most challenging questions
facing biology today.''
``NIMH is pleased to partner with NHGRI and to be able to
support this innovative study with funding through the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,'' said NIMH director
Dr Thomas Insel. ``These sophisticated genetic models will
provide new opportunities to accelerate the pace of
scientific discovery and to make progress toward
understanding how genes shape behavior.''
NHGRI and NIMH are both part of the National Institutes of
Health (NIH). Launched in 2001 by NHGRI, the Centers of
Excellence in Genomic Science program assembles
interdisciplinary teams dedicated to making critical advances
in genomic research.
The new center, to be co-led by Medical College of
Wisconsin and Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison will receive about
$8-million over three years. The new center at Univ. of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill will receive about $8.6-million over
five years. The existing center at Univ. of Southern
California, Los Angeles will receive about $12-million over
five years and the existing center at Johns Hopkins Univ. in
Baltimore will get about $16.8-million over five years.
Funding to all four centers will be provided by NHGRI. The
first two years of the Univ. of North Carolina center will be
funded by NIMH, which will contribute about $6-million
through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). In
addition, NIMH will provide about $1.7-million, in non-ARRA
funds, of the total funding awarded to the Johns Hopkins
center.
More information about the program is at: <<a href='http://www.genome.gov/
'>www.genome.gov/
</a> 14514219>

NSF plans CPATH survey

The National Science Foundation (NSF) plans a one-year data
collection for its Revitalizing Computing Pathways (CPATH) in
Undergraduate Education Program Evaluation.
Established by NSF's Computer & Information Science &
Engineering (CISE) directorate, CPATH is aimed toward
preparing a US workforce with computing competencies and
skills imperative to the nation's health, security, and
prosperity in the 21st century. This workforce includes a
cadre of computing professionals prepared to contribute to
sustained US leadership in computing in a wide range of
application domains and career fields, and a broader
professional workforce with knowledge and understanding of
critical computing concepts, methodologies, and techniques.
To achieve this vision, CPATH calls for colleges and
universities to work together and with other stakeholders
(industry, professional societies, and others) to formulate
and implement plans to revitalize undergraduate computing
education in the US. Full engagement of faculty and other
individuals in CISE disciplines will be critical to success.
Successful CPATH projects will be systemic in nature,
address a broad range of issues, and have significant
potential to contribute to the transformation and
revitalization of undergraduate computing education on a
national-scale. Qualitative data collection of this program
evaluation will document CPATH program strategies used in
infusing computational thinking across different contexts and
disciplines, examine development of communities of
practitioners and dissemination of best practices around
computational thinking, and analyze preliminary evidence for
how the CPATH program is preparing students for career
options in the STEM workforce.
Five major questions will guide this program evaluation:
How is CPATH infusing computational thinking in a range of
disciplines serving undergraduate education? What evidence is
there that university and

[[Page S10350]]

community college departments and faculty are integrating
computational thinking into their courses? How are
undergraduate students benefitting from their participation
in CPATH projects? What evidence is there that CPATH is
developing communities of practitioners that share best
practices regularly across different contexts and
disciplinary boundaries? How is CPATH promoting sustainable
multi-sector partnerships that represent a broad range of
stakeholders (e.g., industry, higher education, K12) and
contribute to workforce development supporting continued US
leadership in innovation?
NSF will seek answers to these questions through use of
mixed evaluation methods including document analyses, site
visit interviews, and telephone interviews with selected
CPATH grant participants including principal investigators,
staff, faculty, administrators, students, and external
partners. Participation in program evaluations is mandatory
for all CPATH awardees.
After considering public continent, NSF will request that
OMB approve clearance of this one-time collection [OMB No.
3145-NEW] for no longer than one year.
NSF estimates about 200 respondents (individuals) will take
part in the survey and take an average of 1 \1/2\-hours per
response.
For more details, contact Suzanne Plimpton at (703) 292-
7556;
[email protected]
.

CDC awards center grants

Award of $4.37-million in competitive grants to enhance
health care information management and improve detection and
response to emerging public health threats was announced
Sept. 25 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC).
The CDC grants will fund four new Centers of Excellence in
Public Health Informatics at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care,
Indiana Univ., Univ. of Pittsburgh, and Univ. of Utah.
``These centers will advance the study and practice of
public health informatics through collaborative efforts among
academic public health experts, local and state public health
departments, developing regional health information
organizations, and other health and informatics
professionals,'' said CDC's National Center for Public Health
Informatics acting director Dr Stephen Thacker.
The overall purpose of the center of excellence initiative
is to find strategies and tools that increase the ability of
health departments, physicians and other health care
providers to promote health and prevent diseases, injuries or
disabilities. A common emphasis will be translation of
results into measurable public health impacts.
Each center of excellence will conduct two new projects
that support national priorities in informatics; and support
real-time biosurveillance for potential health threats
through immediate access to data from hospitals and health
care systems in major metropolitan areas across the US.
The principal investigators, projects, and overall goals of
the centers are:
--Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, Mass. (Dr Richard
Platt & Dr Kenneth Mandl): Personally-controlled health
records and social networks; and electronic support for
public health: Diabetes Mellitus;
--Indiana Univ., Indianapolis (Dr Shaun Grannis): Bringing
public health to the point of care: Overcoming digital
barriers; and enhancing basic infrastructure capabilities
that support public health practice;
--Univ. of Pittsburgh (Dr Michael Wagner): Automatic case
detection using clinical data; and Bayesian outbreak
detection and characterization;
--Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City (Dr Matthew Samore): Visual
analytics & decision support for core public health missions;
and just-in-time delivery of dynamically maintained public
health knowledge.
Five previously-funded centers have become national leaders
in public health informatics. According to CDC officials,
their academic productivity has been impressive, generating
over 85 peer reviewed publications, 153 presentations at
national meetings, and more than 100 posters and abstracts.
They have also made contributions to strategic national
activities.

state r&d activity survey

The US Census Bureau plans to continue to conduct the
Survey of State Research and Development Expenditures in
order to measure r&d supported and performed by state
governments in the US.
This survey, a joint effort between Census Bureau and the
National Science Foundation (NSF), is sponsored by NSF, which
has a statutory charge to provide a central clearinghouse for
the collection, interpretation, and analysis of data on s&e
resources, and to provide a source of information for policy
formulation by other federal agencies.
Under this legislative mandate, NSF has sponsored surveys
of r&d since 1953, including the Survey of Industrial
Research and Development and the Survey of State Research and
Development Expenditures.
The survey form includes items on r&d expenditures by
source of funding, by performer (internal and external to
state agencies), and by character (basic, applied, or
developmental), and the final results produced by NSF contain
state and national estimates useful for a variety of data
users interested in r&d and development performance. These
include the National Science Board, the Office of Management
& Budget, and the Office of S&T Policy, as well as other
science policy makers, institutional researchers and private
organizations.
All data are collected electronically via a web-based form,
and the 500 or so state government agencies surveyed will be
assisted during the collection period by central state
coordinators.
An estimated 52 state coordinators and 500 state agencies
are expected to respond to the voluntary survey, with the
time per response being four hours for every state
coordinator and 1\1/2\ hours for every state agency.
Comments on the proposed data collection [Form No. SRD-1]
must be submitted by Nov. 20 to Diana Hynek at
dH
[email protected]
.
For more information, contact Pamela Medwid at

[email protected]
.

army's top 10 inventions

The US Army's Top Ten Greatest Inventions of 2008 were
recognized during a Sept. 21 awards ceremony, attended by top
Army s&t officials including Army Materiel Command (AMC)
Commander Gen. Ann Dunwoody and Army Research, Development &
Engineering Command (ARDEC) Commander Maj. Gen. Paul Izzo, in
Arlington, Va.
The annual awards program, which gets nominations from
across the Army's s&t community, aims to recognize the best
technology solutions for soldiers. This year's awards
recognized the following inventions fielded by the Army
during 2008:
--1. XM153 Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS)
[Army Armament Research, Development & Engineering Center
(AARDEC)]: Able to be mounted on a variety of vehicles, this
system offers the ability to aim and fire remotely a suite of
crew-served weapons from a stationary platform or while
moving;
--2. Projectile Detection Cueing (PDCue)--CROWS Lightning
[AARDEC]: This low-cost acoustic gunfire detection system is
able to detect and locate the origin of incoming gunfire;
--3. Light machine gun & medium machine gun cradle
[AARDEC]: This cradle provides a more stable and accurate
firing platform and reliable, twist-free ammunition feeding
regardless of weapon orientation;
--4. Overhead cover for objective gunner protection kit
[AARDEC]: An integrated armor/ballistic glass system mounted
onto the objective gunner protection kit of tactical and
armored vehicles, it provides an enhanced 360 degree
ballistic protection for gunners while retaining visibility
for situational awareness;
--5. Enhanced mobile rapid aerostat initial deployment
vehicle [Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development &
Engineering Center]: This system combines multiple
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities
onto a single, integrated platform;
--6. Whisper [Army Communications--Electronics Research,
Development & Engineering Center]: The system's passive
detection capability can be used to detect enemy radio-
controlled improvised explosive device (IED) threats;
--7. Combat gauze for treating hemorrhage in injured
soldiers [Army Institute of Surgical Research]: Hemorrhages
account for 50% of deaths among combat casualties and many of
these deaths are potentially preventable with prompt and
effective treatment. This large-sized flexible roll of non-
woven medical gauze, impregnated with kaolin, a clotting
agent, can be used to treat severe external bleeding,
especially where a tourniquet can't be applied. It has also
been proposed to treat deep bleeding at the end of a long
wound tract;
--8. Mine-resistant ambush-protected armor weight reduction
spiral program [Army Research Lab]: This program enabled Army
to meet MRAP program protection requirements for a high
priority, anti-armor, IED threat, and its goal was to
introduce lightweight composites, new materials, and enhanced
ballistic mechanisms to reduce the added weight of final
armor packages.
--9. Mine-resistant ambush-protected expedient armor
program add-on-armor kit [Army Tank Automotive Research,
Development & Engineering Center (TARDEC)]: Developed to
safeguard soldiers against lethal threats of IEDs and
explosively formed penetrators, the armor uses armor physics,
as opposed to armor mass, to defeat the threat. It has led to
a 50% cut in weight, while increasing the armor protection on
all MRAP vehicles without sacrificing vehicle performance or
payload;
--10. One system remote video terminal A-kit [TARDEC]: An
innovative modular video and data system enabling soldiers to
receive remotely near-real-time surveillance image and
geospatial data direct from tactical unmanned aerial vehicles
and manned platforms.
AMC is the Army's premier provider of materiel readiness in
the form of technology, acquisition support, materiel
development, logistics, power projection and sustainment . .
.

Ms. MIKULSKI. The quote is as follows:

$8 million has been awarded to 17 projects by the NSF under
a joint NSF/Department of Defense solicitation. The
competition, Social and Behavioral Dimensions of National
Security, Conflict and Cooperation, is focused on basic
social and behavioral science of strategic importance to US
national security policy.

So again, the competition is in the social science directorate. And
the four topic areas the DOD thought it was important to contract out,
through the

[[Page S10351]]

NSF, are in the following areas, according to this article:

Authoritarian regimes, the strategic impact of religious
and cultural change, terrorist organizations and idealogies,
and new dimensions in national security.

They awarded these 17 grants, and let me read what some of them are.
One is experimental analysis of alternative models of conflict
bargaining. Now, you might say: Ho-hum. But you know what, maybe some
idea out of that will help us crack how we can bring peace to the
Middle East. Another is mapping terrorist organizations. Well, that is
a pretty good idea. Maybe some of that research will help us get out of
Afghanistan. How about predicting the nature of conflict? Well, we kind
of know what that is, but do we really? Because if we understand the
nature of conflict, maybe we can learn to defang conflict.
Let's look at another issue which I am very concerned about because
of my worry about the planet--avoiding water wars: environmental
security. These may be new threats to the United States.
I could read every one of these, but what I want to say is that DOD
has partnered with NSF--to quote from this article--``to reach the
broadest range of academic, social and behavioral science, and this
collaboration combines the insights of DOD with the peer review
expertise of NSF in support of the agencies' desire to promote basic
social and behavioral research in areas that will benefit the United
States.''
``Federal Technology Watch'' said it best. To take out $9 million is
really penny-wise and pound-foolish. I am going to oppose the amendment
of the Senator on that issue. I will oppose the amendment of the
Senator on taking money from much-needed Commerce Department
renovations and putting it in IG because we do fund the President's
request in IG.
I do, however, like the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma on
more transparency in government reports that are coming into the
Commerce Department. I believe we could have passed that one by voice
vote. I am sorry we have to go through the mechanics of a recorded
vote. He is worried I would drop it in conference, but I could give him
my word that we would maintain that amendment as best we could. But so
be it, the Senator is entitled to that.
So, Mr. President, as we conclude our conversation this afternoon, I
want to be very clear. We oppose two of the Coburn amendments. I accept
one that you will see down at the desk where I stand.
I had hoped we could avoid a cloture vote. Senator Shelby and I have
worked hard on a bipartisan bill, and I once again acknowledge the
Senator from Alabama, my Republican colleague. We have an excellent
bill that funds not only the Commerce Department but the Justice
Department, and now we are facing the threat of a filibuster by
amendment after amendment. I had hoped we could have reached some kind
of agreement on a limited number of amendments, but since we can't, it
looks as if we are going to have to go to cloture.
I think we have had a good discussion, and I want to reiterate the
three goals of the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee. No. 1, we
want to promote the security of the American people. We want to do it
over there and we want to do it here. That is why we fund the Justice
Department. We also want to promote innovation, and we have vigorous
funding for our science agencies and innovation from the government
that will also be on the side of those innovators. No. 3, where we do
agree with the Senator from Oklahoma is on increased oversight,
accountability, stewardship, and transparency.
Mr. President, I know we are about 5 minutes from the vote, so I will
now reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lautenberg). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Cloture Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, pursuant to rule XXII,
the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the
clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the committee-
reported substitute amendment to H.R. 2847, the Departments
of Commerce, Justice and Science and Related Agencies
Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2010.
Harry Reid, Barbara A. Mikulski, Barbara Boxer, Robert
Menendez, Charles E. Schumer, Patty Murray, Tom Harkin,
Patrick J. Leahy, Roland W. Burris, Mark Begich, Ben
Nelson, Daniel K. Inouye, Debbie Stabenow, Bernard
Sanders, Dianne Feinstein, John F. Kerry, Edward E.
Kaufman.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call is waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
committee-reported substitute to H.R. 2847, the Departments of
Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of
2010, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the
Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr.
Inouye) are necessarily absent.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Texas (Mrs.
Hutchison), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 56, nays 38, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 320 Leg.]

YEAS--56

Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Bennet
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown
Burris
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Conrad
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Johnson
Kaufman
Kerry
Kirk
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden

NAYS--38

Alexander
Barrasso
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Kyl
LeMieux
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Reid
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich

NOT VOTING--6

Begich
Burr
Byrd
Hutchison
Inouye
Wicker
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 56, the nays are 38.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider the vote by which
cloture was not invoked is considered entered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, in years past, appropriations bills were
finished in a reasonably short period of time. There was cooperation
between both sides. That, of course, has ended. We are now in an era
where the President of the United States goes to a foreign country
trying to bring the Olympics to the United States. And when the
Olympics do not go to Chicago, our Republican colleagues cheer. If you
can imagine that, that is what happened.
When the President is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, only the third
time in the history of the country that a sitting President is awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize, we get the same dissatisfaction of this
tremendous honor given to our country from our Republican colleagues.
As was written in the New York Times 1 week ago: The Republicans are
legislating out of spite. Anything that slows things down, confuses,
diverts from the business at hand, they are

[[Page S10352]]

happy to do that. There were 100 filibusters last year. And the
American people should understand filibusters are more than just a
word. It takes days and weeks of the Senate's time to work through that
process.
We are going to get this bill passed, and we will complete the work
on this appropriations bill--not because the Republicans deserve it,
with their many earmarks in the bill. We are going to go ahead and do
it anyway. We are going to do it because it is the right thing for the
country.
There are many amendments that are germane. There are a number of
amendments that were not germane postcloture. They would be considered.
I told everyone that.
This is a game Republican Senators are playing. I think it is a very
unfair game for the American people. I do hope the American people are
watching, and they are. All you have to do is look at the LA Times. In
Los Angeles this weekend, there was a front-page story indicating that
the Republican Party, as a result of what is going on in the Senate, is
at the lowest point in the history of the country for a political
party. Why wouldn't they be?
We do have one brave soul who voted to get the bill out of the
Finance Committee, and I appreciate her work. No cooperation on one of
the most important issues facing the country in generations, health
care reform. Do they have a plan? Of course not. It is the party of no,
as indicated in this vote tonight.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on the vote just cast, as my friend
well knows, we had worked on an amendment list not only last week but
earlier today. We were down to what I thought was a manageable list.
There is no one on this side of whom I am aware trying to prevent the
Commerce-Justice-State bill from passing. So far this year we have had
a very good amendment process. Members have been able to offer their
amendments and get votes. I thought until about 5:15 this afternoon we
were going to be able to get an amendment list. It broke down somehow
in the discussions. So I wouldn't make more out of this than it is. We
were very close to being able to finish this bill.
I suggest we continue to work on the amendment list, which was quite
reasonable, and wrap up the bill in the very near future.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I appreciate the suggestion of my
Republican counterpart. But we are going to get cloture on this bill,
and we will handle the germane amendments. We have legislated on this
bill for 5 days. That should be enough. The list they think is
reasonable, someone should take a look at it and see how unreasonable
it is. We will go ahead. We will do the regular order. We will get
cloture on this bill, and we will handle the germane amendments--maybe.
We don't have to handle the germane amendments. We don't have to deal
with those. We might do that; we might not do it.
I think what has happened in the Senate is outrageous. I want to make
sure the record is clear. I appreciate very much John McCain saying
nice things about President Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize.
Another person who says he is running for President also said nice
things about President Obama getting that. That was Governor Pawlenty.
Obviously, Governor Pawlenty knows the American people think it is
wrong for someone who receives this high honor, for people not to pat
him on the back.
What has gone on in the Senate is as indicated in the New York Times
last month: they are legislating out of spite. We are going to continue
to work for the betterment of this country and move forward on the
agenda this country needs to work on. We have had a successful year
legislating. It has been extremely difficult. We have had a lot of
hurdles to go over.
I appreciate the legislation we have passed. We only recently got 60
votes. We have had 58, so we have always needed a couple Republicans.
And we have been able to get those but just barely. I appreciate the
scowls from the other side as they vote with us.
We have a lot of important things to do. We are going to continue
working on them. Health care has taken a lot longer than we had
anticipated, but we will take that over the finish line. It will be
hard, but we are going to do that. I hope we can do it with some
support from the Republicans. It appears at this stage that we are not
going to get any, other than maybe a couple of courageous souls. Maybe
we will get three if we are lucky.
We have to do something about energy, an important issue. We are
going to deal with that. We have to do something about regulation
reform.
It would be a lot better for the American people if Republican
Senators worked with us. Take, for example, the health care bill from
the HELP Committee. You would think, after having accepted scores and
scores of Republican amendments, that some Republican would say a nice
thing about that HELP bill. Not a word. Every single member of the
Republican Party who is a member of the HELP Committee voted against
the bill.
It is pretty clear what is happening around here. As I indicated--for
the third time--Republicans are legislating out of spite, and that is
not good for this country.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. With all due respect to my good friend, the majority
leader, I don't know what the vote we just had had to do with the
President winning a Nobel Peace Prize. I congratulate him for that. I
think all Members are proud that he was able to achieve that. I don't
know what it had to do with health care. What it had to do with is the
Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill.
We had agreed to all of the amendments on a list but one. We said to
the majority that we would eliminate the one. So I don't know why they
can't take yes for an answer. We basically had an agreement on our
amendment list but for one amendment which they objected to, and we
said we would take it off the list. It strikes me rather than having a
spirited debate about health care and other matters, we ought to agree
to the amendment list and finish the bill.
Mr. REID. Madam President, Thursday we waited virtually all day--all
day--for them to come up with a list. It was never quite right. Never
quite right. I was here late Thursday night, very late Thursday night.
Everyone else had gone home. But the Republicans refused to OK a list.
So I had no alternative but to file a motion to invoke cloture. The
agreement is in their minds only. We have been very generous in
allowing amendments that have nothing to do with bills this whole year.
We were still willing to do that with this piece of legislation. This
is part of a stall that we have had all year long, the stall all day
Thursday. We had problems on Wednesday trying to come up with a list,
and Thursday. Just never quite right.
Suddenly, today, we have a list. We are willing to drop an amendment.
I don't know what amendment they are talking about dropping.
I have made my statement very clear. We have a pattern in the Senate
by the Republicans that is abusive to the system. It is preventing the
American people from getting work done. An example is this very
important bill dealing with law enforcement--Commerce-Justice-State--
FBI agents. Senator Mikulski has worked very hard. She is proud of this
legislation. We are going to go ahead and get it done without the
Republicans. We are going to go ahead and do it. Their earmarks are
included. We are not going to take away any of their earmarks because
we believe in fairness.

____________________