Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of rule IX, I hereby notify the House of my intention to offer a resolution as a question of the privileges of the House.

The form of my resolution is as follows:

Whereas Roll Call reported on February 9, 2008, that the offices of a prominent lobbying firm had been raided by the FBI in November;

Whereas The New York Times reported on February 10, 2009, that ``Federal prosecutors are looking into the

possibility that a prominent lobbyist may have funneled bogus campaign contributions'' to Members of Congress;

Whereas the Washington Post reported on February 14, 2009, that they ``examined contributions that were reported as being made by the firm's employees and consultants, and found several people who were not registered lobbyists and did not work for the lobbying firm'';

Whereas Roll Call reported on February 11, 2009, that ``the defense- appropriations-focused lobbying shop that the FBI raided this November'' had in recent years ``spread millions of campaign contributions to lawmakers'';

Whereas The Hill reported on February 10, 2009, that the raided firm ``earned more than $14 million in lobbying revenue'' and ``specializes in obtaining earmarks in the defense budget for a long list of clients'';

Whereas The Hill reported on February 10, 2009, that the 2008 clients of this firm had ``received $299 million worth of earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense'';

Whereas CQ Today reported on February 19, 2009, that ``104 House Members got earmarks for projects sought by clients of the firm in the 2008 defense appropriations bills,'' and that 87 percent of this bipartisan group of Members received campaign contributions from the raided firm;

Whereas CQ Today also reported that ``Members who took responsibility for the firm's earmarks in that spending bill have, since 2001, accepted a cumulative $1,815,138 in campaign contributions from the firm's political action committee and employees'';

Whereas Roll Call reported on February 19, 2009, that a bipartisan group of four Members have made plans to divest themselves of campaign contributions received from the raided firm;

Whereas Politico reported on February 12, 2009, that ``several sources said FBI agents have spent months laying the groundwork for their current investigation, including conducting research on earmarks and campaign contributions'';

Whereas numerous press reports and editorials have alleged several cases of influence peddling between Members of Congress and outside interests seeking Federal funding;

Whereas such reports and editorials reflect public distrust and have raised inquiries and criticism about the integrity of congressional proceedings and the dignity of the institution; and

Whereas the House of Representatives should respond to such claims and demonstrate integrity in its proceedings:

Now, therefore, be it resolved that:

(a) The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, or a subcommittee of the committee designated by the committee and its members appointed by the chairman and ranking member, is instructed to investigate the relationship between earmark requests already made by Members and the source and timing of past campaign contributions.

(b) The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct shall submit a report of its findings to the House of Representatives within 2 months after the date of adoption of this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, over the past several weeks, the political world has been rocked by a scandal that led to the impeachment of the Governor of Illinois. At issue was the specter of pay-to-play, more specifically the possibility that political favors were either promised or exchanged, exchanged for campaign contributions.

The vote to remove Governor Blagojevich by the Illinois Senate was unanimous. Condemnation from Capitol Hill was equally swift and unequivocal. Pay-to-play politics should have no place.

Fast forward just a few weeks.

We now know that the Department of Justice is conducting an investigation into the propriety of campaign contributions made by individuals associated with the powerhouse lobbying firm the PMA Group, individuals who have contributed nearly 3.3 million to the campaigns and political action committees of many Members in this body. Within days of the announcement of the FBI investigation, the PMA Group, which had revenues of more than 15 million just last year, imploded.

So what would cause those associated with the PMA Group to contribute millions of dollars to Members of Congress? Here's what the public sees; press reports that nearly nine in 10 Members who made earmark requests in the fiscal year 2008 Defense Appropriation bill for clients of the PMA Group also received campaign contributions from those associated with the PMA Group. Those earmark requests resulted in nearly $300 million in earmark money for PMA clients.

Mr. Speaker, much has been made of the rule changes in the 110th Congress that add transparency to the process of earmarking. As one who had sought these changes for years, I was the first to applaud when these new rules were adopted. Sunlight always illuminates, but it doesn't always disinfect. We now see what scurries around our feet, but we seem unwilling to grab a broom and clean house.

Let me illustrate. Less than 6 months ago, we approved the Defense Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2009 as part of a so-called ``minibus.'' Some 48 hours before the bill was to be considered on the House floor, we learned that it contained more than 2,000 House earmarks, none of which had been considered by the full House Appropriations Committee. The minibus was considered as an amendment to the Senate bill, and therefore not a single earmark challenge was allowed. We now know, of course, that multiple earmarks in the minibus were secured for clients of the PMA Group. In addition, several earmarks in the minibus went to Kuchera Industries, a PMA client that is also being investigated by the Department of Justice.

So here we are today, Mr. Speaker, about to consider an omnibus appropriations bill that contains more than 8,000 earmarks. It should be noted that we received the earmark list just hours ago. Of course, it's impossible to dig through 8,000 earmarks before the bill comes to the floor on Wednesday. But this much we know: In the list of earmarks we received are several earmarks worth millions of dollars for clients of the PMA Group.

What else is in this bill? What other embarrassing details are just waiting for concerned citizens, enterprising reporters or curious Justice Department officials to discover?

A short while ago, I noticed a privileged resolution on this situation. This is not a partisan resolution because this is not a partisan issue. I would implore my colleagues not to treat it as such. The ``whereas'' clauses mention no party or Member. The ``resolve'' clauses simply ask the Ethics Committee to investigate the relationship between earmarks and campaign contributions so that we can determine if the rules that we have in the House are adequate to maintain the dignity of the House.

We see enduring examples of Members on both sides of the aisle taking their responsibility as stewards of taxpayer money very seriously. But when we are seen to be earmarking funds to campaign donors, we give unnecessary fodder to those who would question our motives.

Some may argue that the absence of a visible quid pro quo with regard to earmarks and campaign contributions absolves us from our responsibility to take action on this resolution. After all, investigations are moving ahead; shouldn't they just take their course? This is certainly an option, but consider the cost to the reputation of this body. Should Department of Justice investigations, indictments and convictions be the standard for taking action to uphold the dignity of the House?

Mr. Speaker, we owe far more to this institution than we are giving it. Let's pass this resolution and give this institution the respect and dignity it deserves.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

A lot has been said about the process here, and it needs to be said. To receive a bill that's over 1,000 pages at 11 o'clock last night and expect to vote on it with any knowledge of really what's in it today is simply absurd. So the process is wrong, but we need not lose sight of the broader picture here. We know enough about this legislation to know that it is bad legislation. First and foremost, the process is bad, but it's bad legislation.

Now, some will say, well, you're just not a Keynesian, you don't believe in Keynesian economics. Keynes would be embarrassed by this legislation. If you believe in Keynesian economics, then certainly you would spend money in a way that stimulates the economy. I doubt that John Maynard Keynes would believe that $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts would be stimulative. All that it stimulates is more spending later.

And the problem here is we're creating hundreds of new Federal programs that will continue in perpetuity, that will become a drag on the economy, not bolster it.

Vote against this legislation.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I'm glad that this stimulus, and I think all of us are glad, most of us are glad, that this stimulus contains no earmarks from Congress. There's a lot of pork in it certainly, but not earmarks from Congress.

What most people don't realize, however, is that next week we're slated to consider a huge omnibus bill to pass spending bills that didn't get passed in last year's session. That bill, that massive, massive, massive bill, is going to come to the floor with at least, and we have no idea how many, but at least 4,000 earmarks, 4,000 earmarks that have not been vetted by the whole House. Most of them have not even been vetted by the full Appropriations Committee. Some were passed by the subcommittees, but few of them, like the Labor-HHS bill with about, I think, 1,200 earmarks, wasn't even vetted by the full committee; yet it's going to be considered on the floor without the ability to challenge these individual earmarks. Nobody can stand and challenge individuals earmarks. There may be questions about campaign contributions that coincide with earmarks being put out. We can't challenge that. We can't do it because it simply wasn't allowed.

Now, the other side will likely blame our side, well, you guys held up appropriations. We have not been in charge of this body for 2 years; yet we're going to be asked to consider legislation with thousands of earmarks that have not been vetted by the full House and where there is no ability by anyone in this Chamber to actually strike an individual earmark or to question spending.

Now, the reason I bring it up now, this rule, section 2 reads: ``The Chair of the Committee on Appropriations shall insert in the Congressional Record not later than February 4, 2009, such material as he may deem explanatory of appropriations measures for the fiscal year 2009.''

What that is to do is to finally get the report of actually what earmarks will be in the bill. Well, guess what.

February 4 is the same day we will actually be considering this bill on the floor.

I would yield to the chairman of the Rules Committee to see if she would consider amending the rule to allow the report to be filed on February 2. That is what our own rules say we should have, that space of time, at least 2 days for people to actually consider these earmarks.

I yield to the gentlewoman of the Rules Committee.

I thank the gentleman.

I yield to the gentlewoman.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Keep in mind, Madam Speaker, that unless the date is changed, we are likely to get a report on the same day that we vote. More than 4,000 earmarks stuffed into an omnibus bill that we've had no ability to see.

Will the gentleman yield?

I see no reason to put the taxpayers on the hook to fund our campaigns. We shouldn't----

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, every year, we have a debate, it seems, in the appropriations process about whether or not we should continue to subsidize Amtrak. We've been having this debate for 40 years. In 40 years, Amtrak has not turned a profit, and the Federal Government has had to subsidize it. Forty years. Yet here, after appropriating I think it was $1.3 billion in subsidy last year to keep Amtrak running, we're talking about providing another $800 million to Amtrak in this stimulus package.

Now I would argue that this is a mistake for two reasons. First, how can we continue to provide this kind of subsidy for a program that continually does not work? Every time a passenger steps aboard an Amtrak train, the Federal taxpayer spends an average of $210 in subsidy for that passenger. Not every year, not every month, but every time a passenger steps on the train, he or she receives a subsidy on the average of $210 from the Federal Government. Yet here we say Amtrak needs more. We haven't done enough.

We are not preparing it for privatization, or we haven't said, you have to bring your load factor up from less than 50 percent. I think it was some 47 percent last year. The airlines have a load factor around 80 percent. But no, we say, let's just give you more subsidy. Let's keep you going as you are

so you don't have to reform. Some reforms supposedly have been put in place, but not reforms that have actually increased the load factor or made Amtrak run any better, but rather it simply put it in need of more subsidies. That is the first reason we ought to oppose it. We're simply continuing and making it longer, stretching the time from which we will see a profitable system.

Second, regardless of the public good argument that you can make or not make in regard to this legislation for Amtrak, you ought to make the argument, or you should make, that this is not stimulus. How in the world is providing another $800 million to a program that continues to fail to turn a profit, a program that we have to continue to subsidize to the tune of $210 per passenger on the average, how can we even argue at all that this is stimulus, that this is somehow good for the economy, that this is the best use for this money, that it's better than letting the taxpayers actually keep it and spend it as they wish, it's better than any other purpose, that we should provide it to a system that is failing, and that is going to stimulate the economy.

I would argue that if you're providing it to a program that continues to run deficits, requiring subsidies of over $1 billion a year, that should tell us, man, we ought to change something here. Maybe we ought to provide stimulus in some other way, some way that would actually stimulate the economy.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Oh, good. I thought I was going to be thrown under the train again. It's nice to have some agreement. But yes. This is simply that if you want to look at it in terms of is this a good idea to continue to subsidize like this? No. Is it stimulus? Certainly not. Certainly not.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I would simply state, I was just told that I'm going to strike all the funding for Amtrak. It makes it sound like we're taking all the funding for Amtrak. I should point out this takes none of the funding from Amtrak that we've approved in the regular appropriation cycle. I wish it did strike it. But it doesn't. As I mentioned, I think we have already provided in the last appropriation bill $1.3 billion in subsidy. This is, yes, $1.3 billion in subsidy. This is another $800 million in addition to that in the stimulus bill that is supposedly supposed to stimulate the economy.

Let me say something else. Some may argue that we have to have Amtrak because so many people rely on it and that it's their only form of transportation. The actual statistics are that less than one-half of 1 percent of intercity travelers rely on Amtrak for travel, less than one-half of 1 percent. So this is not something that we have to say, oh, we've got to subsidize it again in the form of stimulus because so many people rely on it for transportation.

I would say please adopt the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

At a typical track meet you see the sprint, the 100-yard dash, or the 100-meter dash now, and then you see the victor take a victory lap. In this case, with the TARP, you see the reverse. We saw people claiming credit. We saw the victory lap back when they passed it the first time, and now we have those who are involved with this passage doing the 100- meter sprint out of the stadium as far away from this as possible.

It was the last administration, they say. We had no role in it. I have never seen Congress so willing to give up its authority that I have seen here. Usually, we jealously guard our congressional, our constitutional prerogatives, the power of the purse.

Yet with the TARP, we appropriated money, or authorized money, and said spend it on this, the Troubled Assets Relief Program. And then the administration took it and did something completely different, completely different, and then went on further and said we even have authority to bail out the auto industry with it. And we sit back in Congress and say, well, that seems to be okay with us.

I mean, we are not potted plants here. We never have been and we shouldn't be, but in this case we have given away authority that should rest here with the Congress and simply going ahead and giving the other $350 billion seems to me folly.

Right now with the stimulus bill nearing $1 trillion coming up, all of this money, all of this spending is somewhat fungible. We know that it is because the administration seems to be able to do whatever they want to with it, and Congress doesn't raise a peep.

So we ought to look at this as $350 billion in spending, plus at least $825 billion to come, and say where does it end. At what point do we recognize that every dime we spend here is borrowed? At what point do we say there are better uses for money here?

Wouldn't it be better to allow people to keep the money that they have earned, rather than send it to Washington, only to have some of it come back in a way that picks winners and losers in the economy.

I thank the gentlelady.

Just to respond, it seems to me that what we have done is not to basically say we didn't like what the last administration did with the funding, therefore, we are going to take this authority back. But we basically said, we saw what you did with it, that seems to be okay. We aren't taking back authority to bail out the auto industry, or we aren't taking back authority to go into the banking sector, as we did. We basically are saying, well, you did this, we didn't authorize it, but we are letting you off with a warning here, I guess, until the new administration comes in.

It seems to me that we ought to jealously guard our prerogatives here, the power of the purse. And when we authorize funding, we ought to ensure that the administration, whether it be the last Republican administration or the Democratic administration to come, adheres to those strictures.

I thank the gentleman for his response, and I am glad to see some more controls put on here. There was an amendment accepted yesterday that I had offered, and I appreciate the fact that it was adopted. But I still think that we ought to approve the resolution.

I have an amendment at the desk.

This amendment is pretty straightforward. It simply allows

the special inspector general for TARP to review any action tied to the distribution of TARP funds. The position of the special inspector general for the TARP Programs was created by section 121 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, which was signed into law in October.

This legislation initially provided enough authority for the special inspector general, but because the purview for TARP, the scope expanded so significantly, this special Inspector General really didn't have the authority to look at these other items as well. It now includes, for example, TARP. The scope of TARP includes propping up a number of banks, bailing out AIG and Citicorp and providing assistance to U.S. automakers.

Under the initial act, it wasn't clear that the special inspector general had the authority to look over these issues as well. This amendment will ensure that it does.

In a November article in the Washington Post, the Treasury's Inspector General described the oversight of the current situation of TARP ``a mess.'' We need to make sure that the inspector general has sufficient authority to look over these other areas where TARP has gone.

With that, I will reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

I reserve the balance of my time.

I just plan to close.

I thank the gentleman. My understanding is the Senate has already acted on language identical to this in a free-standing piece of legislation. This, I think, is certainly a priority of theirs as well, to make sure that the special IG has the authority to look over all disbursements of the TARP funds.

I think it's incumbent on us in Congress to take better care here. I have been simply amazed at how jealous we guard our spending prerogatives here in the House, rightly so, but then when it came to TARP, we simply let them run with whatever they wanted to spend it on. We clearly did not contemplate here, those of us who are considering this in the House, that this money would be used for a bailout of the auto industry, for example.

So I just want to make sure that the tools are there to make sure that proper accounting is done and proper review is made of the expenditure of funds. I am grateful the chairman has agreed to support the amendment.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, every so often a community is blessed with a giant of a man, a man whose imprint and influence will be felt for generations to come. Such is the case with Dennis Barney, who passed away this week at the far too young age of 62.

Countless organizations like the United Way, the Boy Scouts, the Boys and Girls Club, the United Food Bank and the Arizona Interfaith Movement have profited from his generosity. Thousands of students, families and individuals have benefited from his kindness, his example and his inspired counsel.

Still, it was within the walls of his own home that his most important work was accomplished. Along with his wife, Ann, he raised a remarkable family of 10 children who will surely carry on his great legacy.

May every community in every State across this great land be so blessed as to know such a giant of a man as Dennis Barney.

Mr. Speaker, nobody here in this institution wants to see the auto industry go belly up. Some of us simply believe that the best way to ensure the long-term viability of the auto industry is to allow them to go into bankruptcy where they can reorganize in a way that will make them viable in the long term.

This legislation simply represents the fatal conceit, the notion that we in this institution can outguess the millions of decisions by independent actors in the marketplace. We simply

can't. We know that. Yet think about it. This legislation appoints a car czar. That sounds like the guy in East Germany in the 1970s who came up with the infamous Trabant, or Trabbie, which is the European version of the Edsel. How in the world can anybody in this institution or elsewhere in government outguess the marketplace? We simply can't.

Mr. Speaker, let's allow this industry to go into bankruptcy and to reorganize in a way that they will be viable in the long term.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this bailout not because I don't believe we face financial crisis in this country. I rise in opposition to this bailout because I know we are in a financial crisis, one that will be prolonged with this legislation.

The premise of this unprecedented government intervention is that the free market has failed and that government must come to its rescue.

In reality, the crisis we now face is a result of government intervention in the market. We are in this predicament largely because implicit, and eventually explicit, Federal guarantees in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shielded the financial services sector from market discipline.

Madam Speaker, those who believe that they can control and direct the market's invisible hand will eventually be slapped by it. That is the painful and embarrassing situation we find ourselves in today. We don't have enough money in the Federal Treasury, nor can we responsibly borrow enough money, to keep the market from finding its natural bottom.

Now is the time to act on the free market principles we profess to believe in. Let's vote down this bill and instead pass legislation that is consistent with those principles.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

This has been quite a week, Mr. Speaker. I would venture to say that this is the most expensive week in the history of the Republic. I don't think anything ever will even come close to this in a number of years. We are talking about a $700 billion bailout. We had CRs that passed. And then we have this that comes to the floor. And if those at home are wondering why there are so few here in attendance, it's probably because they know that this isn't going anywhere. Gratefully, this stimulus package isn't going anywhere.

The Senate already tried to pass something and failed. And so this as a vehicle is not going anywhere. And people around the country should be very grateful for that. We call it a stimulus bill.

I would for 15 seconds.

I thank the gentleman. And if somebody can call a $61 billion bill ``slim,'' then let them try. But this one, you can try to call it ``stimulus.'' But stimulus to me, and I didn't like the last stimulus bill we passed here in Congress. And I didn't vote for it. But to call this ``stimulus'' is a real stretch. People at home want to keep more of their own money and not send it to Washington and then to have Washington turn around and say, well, I think that what we really need and what we needed to take your money for in the first place was so we can spend another $500 million in Amtrak for Amtrak projects, or another billion for transit and energy assistance grants, or $3 billion for green school improvements. I don't think anybody sitting at home thinks that that is very stimulating at all. I think they would be much more stimulated if you let them keep the money they have.

Let's be honest here. What this is is a stimulus bill. And it's meant to stimulate the electoral prospects of a couple of hundred Members here. That is what it's about, so Members can come to the floor or send out a press release saying, do you know what I got? I got $1 billion for capital management activities for public housing agencies. It's nothing more than that. That is what this is about.

But I think the danger in this is with a 9 percent approval rating, I think we could go into more historic lows here when people say they aren't really serious, a bill that isn't going anywhere, and they stand up and just say all right, this is if we could spend this money, here is where we would spend it.

We have to keep in mind that earlier this week, we did something that in my 8 years we have never done. Now I wasn't kind to my own party on earmarks. I thought that we let it go out of control. And the new majority came in and put in some decent rules which we have now broken just about every month. And what we did earlier this week was pass a CR where we brought to the floor a bill that had not even gone through the Appropriations Committee. And then we added 1,200, or there were 1,200 earmarks that were put in this bill that were not known to the Members of this body until a day before it came to the floor. Now we've done that kind of thing before. But what we have never done before that we did earlier this week is not give Members of this body the ability to even challenge those 1,200 earmarks.

Nobody could stand and say, why are we spending $1 million for the Presidio Trust or the Presidio Heritage Center in California? What is that about? Who is actually getting the money? Why are we doing this? Nobody had that chance, because we had a secretive process where earmarks were added into the bill with no ability to amend it out.

That is simply not right, and neither is this legislation.

You can keep going. $50 million for the cost of State administrative expenses associated with carrying an increase in food stamp benefits. How is that going to stimulate the economy? Let's be honest. It is meant to stimulate the electoral prospects of a couple of hundred Members here. That is what this legislation is about. Gratefully, it is not going to go anywhere, because the Senate vehicle went down.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I am glad he brought up the bridge. I didn't bring up any bridge, but since he has, the last transportation bill that we passed when we were in the majority, that all but eight Members of this body voted for, I believe including the gentleman, had the infamous Bridge to Nowhere and a few others. Included in that were 6,300 earmarks.

If you want to know why we aren't spending on those projects, those bridges that are broken down that really need repair, is we are spending it all on earmarks, and we shouldn't be doing that. But I thank the gentleman for bringing that up.

Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order against H. Res. 1488 because the resolution violates section 426(a) of the Congressional Budget Act. The resolution contains a waiver on all points of order against consideration of the motion to concur, which includes a waiver of section 425 of the Congressional Budget Act, which also causes a violation of section 426(a).

Mr. Speaker, the reason I'm standing today is to question this bill in terms of the unfunded mandate point of order. I can tell you honestly, I have no idea if this bill contains unfunded mandates, and I would suggest that most people here are in that position because we only got this bill last night. We haven't been able to read its contents. We know very little of it except that we know very little of it.

This is a massive bill. Let me just take one part of it, and this part has concerned me about a lot of the legislation that's come forward before this body in recent years. We were told earlier this year that we were going to have a transparent process in terms of earmarks. And, frankly, some good language was passed--earlier this Congress, I should say--to provide transparency and to ensure that when earmarks are passed, they receive a thorough vetting, at least that we know who introduced them and have a chance to actually challenge those earmarks on the floor of the House. We have not had that opportunity here.

This legislation is coming to us with more than 1,200 earmarks that were attached to it in the subcommittee. Now, these earmarks were known only to my office because we managed to get a copy from the Appropriations Committee--that we could not get officially, we had to get unofficially. I would venture that very few other Members have even seen the list of earmarks. Keep in mind that this bill, this Defense Appropriations bill that is included in this CR, has not even been marked up by the full committee. So the full committee has not even seen these earmarks. There are more than 1,200 in the House version; I think there are more than 800 in the Senate version. So, more than 2,000 earmarks that have been added that very few outside of the committee--and outside of the subcommittee that actually dealt with it--have even seen.

Now, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee was asked about this secretive process earlier today, and Bloomberg said, and I quote, ``He was asked if the process has been secretive, and he said, ``It has; because if it's done in the public, it will never get done.'' The chairman of the Appropriations Committee said he wanted to avoid his colleagues pontificating on the content of the legislation, saying that's what politicians do when this stuff is done in full view of the press. He said, ``We've done this the old fashioned way by brokering agreements in order to get things done, and I make no apology for it.''

Now, think of that statement. We've passed rules in this House saying that we would have a thorough vetting, yet we're bringing more than 1,200 House earmarks to the floor that have not even been vetted by the committee. We're supposed to have that list long before and to be able to vet them, we haven't done that. And we don't even have a chance here. I don't have the opportunity to stand and question any of these earmarks, and neither do any of my colleagues.

Let me just read a few of them that are in here. The Presidio Heritage Center, one of the Speaker's Office's earmarks, $1.7 million. What is it? We really have no idea. We only got the disclosure letter last night or this morning, and that doesn't tell you all that much. Why is the Presidio Heritage Center in the Defense bill? Yet we won't be able to challenge that here; we won't be able to have a vote on that because it was slipped in, not even vetted by the committee, and certainly not vetted by the full House.

There is a $3 million earmark for a Cold Weather Layering System. What is that? Is that a coat? We don't know. All I know is this is likely an earmark that's going to a private firm. This is a sole-source contract that everybody has been, rightly, up in arms about when the Federal Government gives out single-source contracts. Here we are doing it without even vetting it in the committee; we're not even vetting it on the House floor. It's passed and done, and we don't even know who it's for or what it's about. Yet, we're doing it. Why? What is the rush to do something like this?

I understand that this all may seem a little trivial in a week that we may approve $700 billion, but I think it speaks to why people across the country are

fed up with us as a Congress for not even vetting these kind of things and for letting 1,200 earmarks come into a bill that we haven't even seen and won't be able to vote on.

We have an up-or-down vote. This is not even a conference report. There aren't even motions to recommit. This is up or down, take it or leave it, 1,200 earmarks that you have never seen. How does that square with the promises that were made earlier this Congress?

Now, I make no bones about it; I don't think our party on the Republican side did well with earmarks. We let far too much go. And some of us stood up and tried to stop it. The majority party came into Congress, won the elections in 2006, took over the majority on promises that they would do something. And I have to say that this is proof, once again, that it hasn't been done. How in the world can anyone stand up today and say we have kept our promise in terms of transparency?

With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire as to the time remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that I'm here on an unfunded mandates point of order. It's the only chance I've got. They don't allow anybody to stand up and challenge any earmarks. That's not allowed under the rule. So this is the only chance anybody has to stand up and say anything about this bill, and it's a crying shame.

And I don't blame the gentleman from the Rules Committee for not wanting to address the point at hand here; I don't blame him at all. I wouldn't want to either. I wouldn't want to say that I'm a member of a Rules Committee that would violate the very rules that we ourselves adopted earlier this year so blatantly to simply say we're just not going to discuss it, we're going to bring 1,200 earmarks to the floor and not discuss them at all.

Let me suggest why it happens this way. I mentioned this was done behind closed doors without rank-and-file Members knowing anything about these earmarks at all. There is good reason for that. If you look at these earmarks, a total of 1,200 worth about $5 billion, 60 percent of the earmarks in this bill go to members of the Appropriations Committee. I'm sorry. The Appropriations Committee are getting 37 percent of all earmarks. When you add to the appropriators those in leadership, those who are committee Chairs, those who are ranking members, so the leadership and the powerful here, 60 percent of the earmarks in this bill are going to that group, which makes up, I think, just under 25 percent of this body.

Now, if anybody's wondering why this is done behind closed doors and in secret and not with rank-and-file Members able to even see this, that's one of the reasons. Because not only are earmarks bad and it's a misallocation of resources, it can lead to things that we have seen in this House, but it's a spoil system, it's a spoil system. When leadership and those who are on the right committees get these earmarks, it shows what a sham the argument is that we have to do this because we as Members of Congress know our districts better than those bureaucrats and we have to earmark those dollars. Well, does somebody who happens to be a chairman or a ranking minority member happen to know his district a lot better than anybody else? Because that's what we're seeing here, we're seeing a spoil system.

And it's simply not right. It is not right that we are approving here, with one fell swoop, 1,200 earmarks from the House--800 from the Senate, but that's their business, our business is here--over 1,200 earmarks that nobody in this body has really seen, unless you happen to serve on the subcommittee of Appropriations because the full Committee on Appropriations never vetted these earmarks either. That is simply not right.

I don't know when we stand up and say we've had enough, because people all over the country certainly have. I don't know why we haven't realized it. I'm sure it's reflected in the 9 percent approval ratings that we have. But in a week where we're approving $700 billion--or likely to approve $700 billion--to bail out other institutions, this might seem trivial to some to be approving $5 billion in earmarks.

But I think why people across the country are upset is they say, you know you have control of this. You made promises years ago that you would clean up this process and you aren't, because nobody with a straight face can say that we have cleaned up this process when you bring to the floor, under this bill, more than 1,200 earmarks that have received no vetting whatsoever and will receive no vetting whatsoever because we can't even challenge those on the floor today.

I have no time remaining. Let me just say, let's hold back. Let's slow this legislation down--whichever we can, whether it's procedurally or otherwise--because we cannot continue to do business this way.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. We're often accused of, when a rule comes up, of bringing up something that doesn't relate to the rule at all or speaking on something completely different. I'm here because something has been added to this rule that shouldn't be in this rule at all that bears no relation to this rule.

In this rule, for a bill on credit cards, there was an attachment which would allow the chairman of the Armed Services Committee to insert a joint explanatory statement for the defense authorization act, that he would be allowed to file that at any time between now and the end of the 110th Congress. That's important because in the joint explanatory statement is when you learn sometimes about what earmarks have been added to the bill, and you're supposed to get that report and that explanation and statement before you consider the bill on the floor.

We will be considering the bill on the floor later today or tomorrow, I guess, under a suspension of the rules with no ability to amend or to question anything in the defense authorization bill. That bill, when it came to the House floor earlier this year, contained more than 500 earmarks.

This is the defense authorization bill that we learned of just a day before it came to the floor. It came to the floor under a closed rule-- or under a rule which allowed me to offer just one amendment--more than 500 earmarks, one amendment. There were a lot of Democratic earmarks; there were a lot of Republican earmarks. The majority saw fit to only allow me to question one Republican earmark. No coincidence there.

And yet even worse--at least then we knew when the bill came to the floor we really couldn't do anything about it, but we knew which earmarks were in the bill. Now there's a possibility that there could be dozens, hundreds, maybe 10, we don't know. We don't know how many earmarks have been air-dropped into this legislation, or if any have, and we likely won't know--we just don't know because this rule on a credit card bill allows the chairman of the Armed Services Committee to file at any time between now and the end of the 110th Congress which earmarks were in the bill.

Theoretically, the President could even sign this legislation in a couple of weeks or a couple of months, and we would only learn after that what earmarks were in the bill or those earmarks, theoretically, could even be added after the President signs the bill into law. I don't know how that could be stopped under this rule.

I just wonder how the majority--and I would love to yield time to the Rules Committee to explain how we are doing this, how this squares with the statements earlier this year or earlier this Congress that, according to the majority, according to the Speaker of the House, we will bring transparency and openness to the budget process into the use of earmarks.

I would be glad to yield 30 seconds to the Rules Committee to explain why this provision was added to the rule.

I thank the gentleman.

We're being asked to take--it is our understanding that this will happen. We're probably to understand that, yeah, they'll file something before we do a suspension bill that we couldn't amend or question even if we didn't like what was in there.

Again, Mr. Speaker and Members here, this just doesn't square with the commitments that we have made on both sides of the aisle to have an open and transparent process. Like I said, it's bad enough to just learn before bills come to the floor that you've had a couple hundred earmarks added. But in this case, we're giving the authority to the authorizing committee to let us know about which air-dropped earmarks have been added after we pass the bill, after it's too late; theoretically, after the President even signs the legislation.

Here, like I said, we're being asked to give authority to actually not explain which earmarks have been added until after the bill has passed. I just can't see how that represents good government in any sense, how in the world we can say that we are having an open and transparent process when we have bills that come like this.

Now with prior bills, we had a defense authorization bill that came to the floor a while ago that we only got the list of earmarks that were added after the deadline passed to file amendments to actually strike those earmarks.

So we have had a number of these cases throughout this Congress. But I can tell you nothing compares to this. Nothing compares to having an unrelated provision added to a credit card rule, a rule to a bill to allow the authorizing Committee of Armed Services to, up to the end of this Congress, to wait a couple of months after the bill passes--after a bill that was passed under suspension of rules, I might add--to add an explanation as to which earmarks are in the bill.

So I just want to register my objection there, and I would hope that Members would vote down this rule. We can't do business like this, particularly at a time when we have a financial meltdown, we have legislation on the floor this week to spend $700 billion. If that's not bad enough, here we have a situation where we're simply hiding--I don't know how else to say it--but hiding what we have done in the committees and on the floor and not letting Members of this body actually exercise the responsibility that we have here.

With that, I register my objection. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.

Madam Speaker, I rise this morning just to shed a little light on the defense bill we may or may not be considering this year in the next week or so. There's a rumor going around that the defense bill might even be brought to the floor without going through a full Appropriations Committee markup.

Now that is troubling in itself, but what is more troubling is that there are some 1,200 earmarks in this defense appropriation bill that very few Members of this body have actually even seen. That list has been passed around to Appropriations Committee members. A few members of the press have seen it. Our office managed to see a copy of the report. But virtually nobody else has seen it. That is 1,200 earmarks. For all the talk about transparency and a new process and where these earmarks will be vetted, we see very little of that here.

I have been troubled for a long time at the number of earmarks that go through this body. A lot of people have been troubled. The whole country is troubled by the number of earmarks that go through this body without really even being seen and without anybody knowing what they are about.

It's not just the money that is spent. We all know that earmarks leverage higher spending everywhere else. Because once you get an earmark in an appropriation bill, then you're really obligated, almost obligated, to vote for that entire bill, no matter how bloated that bill becomes. So you see higher spending everywhere else. Also, earmarks are put in unrelated bills in order to garner votes for other bills. But let me just talk about the defense bill here just a minute.

Members of Congress, those who defend the secretive earmarks, often say that Members of Congress know their districts far better than these faceless bureaucrats in the administration, and that somehow, having Members of Congress sneak a secretive earmark into a conference report, is somehow better than having the administration decide where that money is spent.

Now I am not here to defend bureaucrats or to defend the spending of money, but I can tell you it's not a good process when Members of Congress can put an item in a bill and have so little scrutiny, and what tends to happen is those who are up on the food chain in Congress, those on the Appropriations Committee, those who are in leadership positions, committee chairs, tend to get a disproportionate number of earmarks.

So the argument that earmarks go to places because Members of Congress know their districts better than faceless bureaucrats really means that whoever has the power in this body gets the earmarks.

Let me demonstrate a little here. Of the 1,200 earmarks tucked into the full committee report of this bill, it's worth about $2.8 billion. Of these earmarks, more than 400 go directly to Members who sit on the Appropriations Committee. An additional 111 are associated with appropriators. These are earmarks that were requested by that appropriator, as well as a few other Members.

I would remind my colleagues that appropriators make up 15 percent of the Members in this body. Yet, in this bill, appropriators alone are taking 44 percent of the earmarks. Again, just 15 percent of the Members of the body, and 44 percent of the earmarks.

When you translate that into actual dollar amounts, appropriators are taking $1.6 billion taxpayer dollars back to their district. This represents 48 percent of the total dollars earmarked in this massive appropriations bill.

So what we have here, Madam Speaker, is a spoils system. It's not any high-minded, I know my district better than some faceless bureaucrat. It's, If I am an appropriator, or I am in a leadership position, I'm in a good position to get these earmarks.

Let me just run through a couple of the earmarks in the bill. This is a defense bill. The purpose of this appropriation bill is to fund our troops and to fund our defense. Yet, we have, for example, something called the Presidio Heritage Center in California. It may be a worthy project. It may be something a local government or local people want to fund, but why in the world the Congress is funding it in the defense bill, I just don't know.

But if this bill comes to the floor without being marked up in committee, nobody will be able to challenge it in committee. Nobody will be able to see it. If it comes to the floor under any other auspices than an open rule, then no Members of this body, the body as a whole, will be able to even question it.

There's also something called a Cold Weather Layering System. That is usually a highfalutin word for a coat. Sometimes gloves are put in here under big names about hand-warming systems, or whatever else, when it shouldn't be funded in the defense bill at all.

Another one, University Strategic Partnerships, Renewable Carbon Fuel from Algae. These may be good projects, but they shouldn't be in the defense bill.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I guess that some on the majority side think that they can cover up just by yelling or by raising the volume here of debate.

The bottom line here is, and the reason for this point of order, is that the majority party thought that, all right, we can have a bill here, or we can sneak something in. Let's sneak a limited tax benefit for New York.

You can call it an earmark, that's the proper definition when you have a limited tax benefit. You can call it a banana. You can call it anything you want to. The bottom line is the majority tried to sneak something into a broader bill that's supposed to be about energy, and that's what this is about.

So nobody is trying to distract anybody, other than those who are trying to slip a provision in that doesn't have to do with any comprehensive energy plan. It has to do with New York.

You can raise your voice, and you can yell all you want. The bottom line is somebody tried to sneak a limited tax benefit into this legislation. That's why I support the point of order.