Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, in a couple of weeks, it is likely that we will be addressing the Labor-HHS bill. We have passed the bill in the House. I believe they have passed the bill in the Senate, but conferees have not been named. We will be asked to approve a large bill that I believe is over the President's budget. But, more significantly, this is the first test of actually doing a conference under the new earmark rules.

We had new earmark rules passed at the beginning of the year that provide a little more transparency than we have had before, and that is a good thing; but it hasn't done much to cut down the number or dollar value of earmarks, because we haven't gotten through the process now.

Some people have said in the House we have fewer earmarks, the dollar value is down, and that is a good thing. Certainly it is a good thing. But we are only halfway through the process. Typically, when you get to the conference process, that is where a lot of the mischief happens, where earmarks are added in the middle of the night and you aren't given a chance to vote on them. You simply vote on the bill, either up or down.

Just to give you a flavor of what is in this Labor-HHS bill, the House bill included about 1,342 earmarks. These earmarks were added in the conference report of the bill that came to the House. They were added just days before the bill came to the house. We had very little opportunity to actually look at the earmarks to find out which Member had offered them and to offer amendments to strike those earmarks. A few amendments were offered here on the floor, but that is hardly a process that can pass for due diligence to actually see what is in these earmarks.

Now, I hasten to add that this is not a partisan issue. There are both Republican and Democrat earmarks in this bill. When Republicans were in charge of this body, typically Republicans got about 60 percent of the earmarks, the Democrats got about 40 percent. Now that has switched.

But, really, I wish it were a partisan issue. I wish, as one of my side of the aisle, that Republicans were right on and Democrats were wrong on. But we haven't seen that. We have seen both parties continue to earmark in this fashion.

There are 1,342 earmarks in the House bill. Let me just read through a few to give people a flavor of what is there.

I wish we didn't have to do this. I wish there was another way. But as I mentioned, when these bills come to the floor, the committee report will accompany the bill. It will only come a few days before the bill passes, and we aren't given a real opportunity to vet these earmarks and look at them.

Let me read a few of them. For example, $300,000 goes to the American Air Power Museum in Farmingdale, New York, for exhibits and educational programs. This may be a great museum, but why the Federal taxpayer should be on the hook to fund it, I don't know.

And $200,000 in this bill goes to the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, for exhibits and education programs. It may be a great museum, but why is the Federal taxpayer paying for?

$200,000 for the American West Heritage Center in Wellsville, Utah, for a lifelong learning initiative.

$125,000 for the Children's Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana, for exhibits and equipment.

$200,000 for a Children's Museum in Los Angeles for exhibits and educational programs.

$150,000, College Park Aviation Museum in College Park, Maryland.

If you are recognizing a theme here, the Federal Government is funding a lot of museums. Why is this the case? Why, when we are running massive deficits, when we have a big debt and other obligations that are crying out to pay down the debt, to lower the deficit, why are we funding programs like this? Why are we on the hook for these programs yet again? You have to remember, whenever you are funding a museum, because we have a deficit, we are borrowing money to do that.

$250,000 for the Discovery Center in Idaho. This is in Boise, for a science center.

$350,000 for an aerospace museum in McClellan, California, for exhibits.

$350,000 for the George and Eleanor McGovern Library in Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota.

$75,000, Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California.

Here is another theme. We fund a lot of aquariums. There are great aquariums that educate a lot of people, but why we are doing it at the Federal level, I don't know.

$350,000 for the Museum of Aviation Foundation in Warner Robins, Georgia, for educational programs.

Let's pay attention to the Labor-HHS bill as it comes along.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

There has been a lot of rhetoric today and a lot of talk about polling and how Americans everywhere support this, Governors support this, people at the local level support it.

We have in this country something called representative government. We are sent here and we are given access to figures and numbers that perhaps others don't have. What figures and numbers I am talking about tell us that we cannot sustain the trend that we are on, particularly ramping up a program like this and spending more than we have in the past. We simply can't sustain it, particularly when gimmicks are used in the outyears to pay for it. We know that. Perhaps those who are responding to the polls do not.

George Washington once said: If to please the people we do what we ourselves disapprove, how will we afterwards defend our work?

That is what we are here for, to do what we know is right. When I am told you have got to do what your conscience says, my conscience says that we can't afford this. If we have to use gimmicks in the outyears to pay for it, we simply can't afford to expand this program.

Mr. Speaker, I introduced legislation last week with the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran) that would put a moratorium on earmarks until we have a process in place where we can fully vet all earmarks. Earlier this year, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee said it was simply impossible, that we don't have the resources to investigate every earmark request. I agree. However, rather than approving thousands of earmarks, anyway, the prudent course would be to take a break and reevaluate the system.

Without the resources to vet over 11,000 earmarks in the House and Senate this year, bad earmarks are sure to slip through the cracks. Not only do these earmarks bring embarrassment to Members, they bring shame to the institution. Our constituents expect better of us. They should get it.

Mr. Speaker, the House has traditionally had a process of authorization, appropriation and oversight, a process that we have abandoned in recent years. Until we can get back to that system, we need to take a break from earmarks.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, new earmark reforms required that Members' names be attached to their earmarks. Unfortunately, transparency alone has done little but air our dirty laundry without cleaning it. Transparency is not a substitute for oversight. Earmarks have names next to them now, but little else has changed. The House has approved thousands and thousands and thousands of earmarks so far this year, and more are likely to be added in the conference committees. However, we know full well that not all of these earmarks were given the scrutiny that Federal expenditures deserve.

Every week, I highlight an earmark by making an admittedly lame joke about it, but we need a process that inspires confidence, not jokes or humor. And, unfortunately, transparency alone has not gotten us there.

Until this body has a process that can trusted, Mr. Speaker, I believe the taxpayers would be best served by a moratorium on earmarks, and I will soon introduce legislation to impose such a moratorium.

Mr. Speaker, it's no secret that earmarks are not fairly distributed. But with the new disclosure rules in place this year, for the first time it's been documented. In an analysis of House-passed appropriation bills, CQ Weekly and Taxpayers for

Common Sense found that a disproportionate share of earmarks went to relatively few Members of Congress.

Now, obviously Federal priorities are not concentrated in the districts of appropriators and leadership. Those Members are simply in a better position to steer Federal money home. That's hardly a defensible way of spending taxpayer money.

I've often said that we had higher aspirations when we were elected than to grovel for crumbs that fall from the appropriators' table. But given the lopsided share of earmarks that appropriators got this year, here's hoping that enough Members will finally say, why bother, and we can finally end this practice.

Mr. Speaker, among the many downsides of earmarking and one that we rarely talk about on the House floor is the practice of circular fundraising. Campaign donations are given to Members, Members secure earmarks benefiting their contributors, and contributors in turn are able to give Members more donations. This cycle is repeated over and over and over.

Unfortunately, this is a bipartisan practice. The media has reported on many such arrangements for Members on both sides of the aisle. Legal issues aside, circular fundraising does not pass the smell test.

Whether it is fair or not, the crimes of a few of our former colleagues have cast suspicion over us all. Continued rampant fundraising is simply not worth the trust it costs us with our constituents. I think that most of us had higher aspirations when we came here than groveling for crumbs that fall from the appropriators' table. I hope that we as Members of Congress will finally decide that enough is enough.

Mr. Speaker, after we Republicans lost the majority in last year's elections, the new majority promised that they would ``drain the swamp.'' The new majority seemed to recognize that the political cost of earmarks far outweighed the benefits, and modest reforms were instituted to make the process more transparent.

However, it soon became clear that the earmark reform rhetoric was not matched by reality. The old majority seems just as mired in the mud as the old.

Still, it was with some excitement that I recently discovered in the House-passed Interior appropriations bill a $750,000 earmark for the Great Swamp National Wildlife Preserve in New Jersey. Predictably, this earmark was not to drain the swamp, but to preserve it.

This begs the question: If we can't stop passing earmarks to preserve swamps, how will we ever drain the earmark swamp?

Mr. Speaker, our constituents and this institution deserve far better. Let's follow up on our promises for earmark reform with actual reform.

I rise in perhaps reluctant support of the measure tonight. I rise reluctantly because I supported a lot of the Democrat proposal yesterday, save one piece. I didn't believe that FISA should be inserted where it hasn't been inserted already, but I do believe FISA should govern foreign surveillance when it comes in contact with an American.

I am troubled that this legislation does not have language which would allow the Inspector General to actually report to Congress. That's how we learned that there were abuses going on in the national security letter division or department. But I am convinced by the testimony that I have heard, the briefings that I have gone to, that we do need to move forward.

I see this as an interim measure and hope to come back in 180 days and put in additional protections. But in the meantime, feel that we do need to move forward and we need the make sure that we are catching the intelligence that we need to.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to once again make the case that earmarking is out of control in these bills.

This Defense bill that we are discussing tonight has more than 1,300 earmarks. The notion that this was adequately vetted and scrubbed, that these earmarks had proper review is simply not reasonable. There is no way they could have in this short amount of time.

When you read through this bill, you have to chuckle at the creative way that some of these projects have been cast in order to appear that there is some defense application.

Just to highlight a couple, there is one earmark in here for a cold weather hand protection system. What could that be? That is a glove to you and me, sold at any outdoor outfitters store. But in here, it is a cold weather hand protection system, and we are going to be giving an earmark to a private company to sell gloves.

There are more. There is another earmark for a light-weight foam sleep pad project. What is that? It sounds like nothing more than a mattress. It is one that self-inflates that scouts have been using for years and years and years. And yet we are giving an earmark to a private company to provide it to the Defense Department. Why are we doing that? There are 1,300 earmarks in this bill, many of them like this.

Let me get to the first one I am challenging tonight.

This amendment would prohibit $2.5 million from being used to restore the parade ground in the center of the Presidio's Main Post, and reduce funding for the overall bill by a consistent amount. This is just one of a long parade of earmarks in the bill.

The Presidio is located in San Francisco, one of the oldest continuously used military posts in the Nation. In 1996, Congress turned the bulk of the Presidio, including the large Main Post area, over to a congressionally chartered nonprofit organization called The Presidio Trust to be managed with the National Park Service.

In a unique arrangement, the main objective is to achieve financial self-sufficiency by the year 2013 largely by renting out housing and leasing land to businesses. It has been quite successful in this. The San Francisco Chronicle noted last year the Presidio was becoming a scenic enclave where only the well-healed need apply with some houses being rented for more than $4,000 a month. That is high, even by California standards.

This earmark raises a number of troubling questions, not the least of which is why an earmark for a park managed in partnership with the National Park Service is receiving an earmark in the Defense Appropriations bill. The Defense Appropriations bill, I think we all agree, is for the troops. Yet here we are bleeding off funds to spend money on an earmark that has been funded in prior bills for a project managed with the National Park Service. I am sure taxpayers would like to hear a good explanation for this. Why are we doing it in the Defense bill?

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

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the gentleman who is the sponsor of the earmark?

I would yield to the gentleman if he would tell us who the sponsor of the earmark is.

Well, I guess I will since he won't. The sponsor is the Speaker of the House, and I would hope that the sponsor of the earmark would come and defend this. Why are we earmarking defense dollars for a project managed in cooperation with the National Park Service, a project that is receiving millions and millions of dollars from the outside in a very high-rent district in San Francisco. That doesn't seem right, yet we are doing it.

And this is indicative of a lot of the earmarks that are going into this bill. It is perhaps not surprising that there isn't much of a defense for this. But I would think even if it is nearly 11 on the last day of the session that the taxpayers deserve a little better than this.

I have a few more earmarks and we will talk a little more about this. But it just seems wrong when you come up with high-sounding words to make the earmarks sound like they are more important.

I started thinking that if this podium right here were described in the defense bill, it would be referred to as a multipurpose, ad hoc self-generating, voice-projection platform. Or this pen might be a stenographic multi-functional polymer language communication system.

If you name things like this, you might get funding in this defense bill. And people might laugh, but we do it year after year after year, and it grows. People will point out that there are fewer earmarks in this bill than there were in the past couple of years. That is true, and it is a good thing. But it is still too much.

How can we exercise proper oversight when we are spending money like this?

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I thank the Chair. That last discussion was remarkable, just remarkable.

I would gladly yield time to anybody who agrees with the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee that, one, that these earmarks are competitively bid. Anybody in agreement here; or, two, that the U.S. taxpayer, after paying for these earmarks, has rights to the technology that developed these earmarks.

Any takers there? I didn't think so.

I think that is simply wrong. That is simply wrong.

An earmark, by very definition, is a sole source contract. It is circumventing the competitive bidding process.

Maybe you don't like what the bureaucrats over in the Defense Department do, but to say that this is a competitively bid contract is simply wrong. To say that the U.S. taxpayer has rights to the technology developed with the companies that are getting these earmarks, is simply wrong as well.

If anybody can contradict, please take time. But let's not defend these earmarks on that basis when that's simply wrong.

Any way, let's get to this one.

This earmark, I am sorry, this amendment would eliminate $1 million for the Marine Desalination Systems, Inc., in St. Petersburg, Florida, for atmospheric water harvesting and reduce the cost of the bill by a corresponding amount.

The earmark described in the certification letter submitted to the committee by the sponsor informs us that this earmark would be used to fund lightweight, low power expeditionary water production.

According to the Web site of the entity, Marine Desalination Systems is a corporation that develops new technologies to create inexpensive, potable water, to bring to market.

Again, I have the same issue that the last gentleman to offer amendments did, the gentleman from California. Why are we singling out this one company for this project or this earmark?

I would ask similar questions to the ones he asked, but these, I think, are more in the defense speak that goes with the language in this bill.

Was this project palmed, which means, is it a program of memorandum? I would ask the sponsor that.

Is it on any unfunded requirement list? Number 3, does any operator in the field say that we need this particular program or technology from this particular company? I would love to hear the answer to any of those questions from the sponsor of the earmark.

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

Let me just finish. Nobody is trying to deny anybody any water, certainly not somebody from Arizona. But the question remains, was this a program of memorandum? Is it on any unfunded requirement list? Does any operator in the field say that we need this particular program or technology from this particular company?

I would be glad to yield.

I thank the gentleman. The question here is, why aren't we competitively bidding these projects? We have had hearing after hearing after hearing in this Congress, more so than we had in the last Congress. To our great shame, I think as Republicans we didn't have enough oversight hearings. And we bring up Halliburton constantly, with no bid contracts.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike all funding in the bill for Concurrent Technologies Corporation.

As you may recall, I offered an amendment last month during consideration of the Energy and Water appropriations bill to cut funding for something called the Center for Instrumental Critical Infrastructure in Pennsylvania. We did not know whether the center existed. I had a colloquy with the chairman of the subcommittee in that time. But we learned that the money is actually going to Concurrent Technologies Corporation based in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Concurrent Technologies has been a leading earmark recipient in multiple appropriations bills over the years.

In the Energy and Water bill, Concurrent received $1 million in earmarked funds. In this bill, Concurrent is due to receive $11 million in the form of four earmarks.

Concurrent Technologies was the focus of an October 2, 2006, story in the New York Times titled, ``Trading Boats for Pork Across the House Aisle.'' According to the article, Concurrent Technologies Corporation was created by an earmark in 1988. Back then, the corporation was called the Center for Excellence in Metalworking.

The New York Times stated that the military and other Federal agencies have paid Concurrent nearly $1 billion in grants and contracts since 1999. That is $1 billion in taxpayer funds to an entity created with an earmark. That does not include the $12 million Concurrent is receiving in earmarks this year alone.

Concurrent Technologies Corporation is an earmark incubator. It was created by an earmark to get more earmarks. Without earmarks, this corporation, I think it is safe to say, would not exist.

The president of the corporation, Mr. DeVos, was quoted in the local paper saying that the sponsor has ``impressed upon the area's defense industries leaders the need to wean themselves from this aid.''

Mr. DeVos and the sponsor of the earmark have a funny way of weaning Concurrent off of Federal earmarks. The sponsor has secured $11 million more for Concurrent in this bill alone. In addition, The Washington Post reported that Mr. DeVos and his company have spent $820,000 in fees to a lobby firm seeking more Federal aid.

I would ask the sponsor of this earmark to confirm what has been reported. With regard to the defense industry's needing to wean themselves off this aid, when is that weaning going to occur? Can we assure Members of this body that there will be no more earmarks to Concurrent Technologies? Can Concurrent Technologies survive without Federal Member-sponsored earmarks?

I look forward to receiving answers to these questions.

I reserve the balance of my time.

The gentleman correctly stated that Concurrent has been given some Federal contracts. Then, why in the world did they need this earmark? If they are getting Federal contracts through some kind of bidding process, then why do they need continued earmarks? Which, as I mentioned, are by their very definition sole-source contracts, no-bid contracts, where we are specifying an individual firm, a business in this case, that hires a lobbyist, $820,000 paid to a lobbyist to get more Federal funds.

Where does it end? Is this any kind of process or system that we can be proud of, with these earmark incubators that survive just by getting more earmarks? I mean, how can we do that? If every district in this country had those kinds of earmark incubators, every account in the U.S. Federal Government would be earmarked, I would venture to say.

So I would say we simply have to stop this somewhere. I urge support for the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike $1.5 million in funding in the bill for the Doyle Center for Manufacturing Technology. The Doyle Center, which is a monument to its sponsor, is an earmark incubator, much like Concurrent Technologies, a center created out of earmarks for the sole objective for obtaining more Federal contracts or earmarks.

The center is a sister organization to a number of earmarks incubators like Concurrent Technologies, which is an entity, as mentioned before, receiving $11 million in earmark funds in the bill.

How do we know that there is a symbiotic relationship between Concurrent Technologies and the Doyle Center? For one thing, the chairman of the board of the Doyle Center is the senior vice president and chief financial officer of Concurrent Technologies. We also know that the Doyle Center and Concurrent Technologies work closely together on projects funded through earmarks. It is no surprise that they share the same leadership.

According to a recent article in The Hill, the creation of the Doyle Center is adding another layer to three nonprofit organizations devoted to a similar mission of helping spur economic development in the area, the Pennsylvania Technology Council, Pittsburgh

Technology Council, and the Catalyst Connection. The article in The Hill stated that all four groups share the same address and many of the same officers.

In addition, the Doyle Center handed over a large portion of its earmark money in 2004 to the Catalyst Connection for research. These funds came from a portion of a larger $1.36 million earmark that make up the center's entire budget for that year.

Just think of that. We are giving an earmark to a center that is funded completely with taxpayer dollars with the goal of receiving more taxpayer dollars.

A certification letter for the project says that $1.5 million in earmark money will go toward the Doyle Center. But with all these groups sharing the same address, the same money, the same officers, do we really know where the money is going?

So my answer to the sponsor to the earmark is as follows: Is the money going to the Doyle Center, the Pittsburgh Technology Council, the Catalyst Content, Connect, or the Concurrent Technologies?

I urge the adoption of the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Do you want a response?

I thank the gentleman. I don't remember mentioning the RSC, but I appreciate the illumination. But let me just ask the Member, he has talked about the process by which these grants are given.

Let me just note, he mentioned earlier that every one of these was scrubbed by the Appropriations Committee. We had a manager's amendment that actually removed some and then put the money back somewhere else. One in particular that I had planned to actually challenge here was called the Advanced Robotic Vehicle Command and Control. I had an earlier version apparently of what came, and it was removed in a manager's amendment in committee. But then the money was taken, that same money, and given to the same Member for another earmark sponsored by that Member entitled Big Foot Airborne Receiver.

So the money went from that one just to another earmark sponsored by that same Member to plus that one up.

What kind of process does the committee go through? Is it that every Member is allotted a certain amount, or is it what they think the Defense Department needs?

I would be glad to yield to the Member.

Mr. Chairman, there is a story in the paper yesterday that mentioned how much of the funding is in this bill, and the gentleman mentioned that sometimes it is not completely accurate because the Defense Department will ask for things that are then listed as an earmark to the Member. I understand that it is not a perfect count. But still senior members of the Appropriations Committee were given up to $150 million in earmarks when other rank-and-file Members got maybe a million or 2.

Are there more needs in certain districts? Is it spread out? How does that process go? What confidence should we have as Members voting to fund these earmarks that it is on some kind of basis that bears any relationship to what the Defense Department needs rather than political calculation?

I would be glad to yield to the gentleman.

All right. I guess I will accept that as an answer. But let me just say, with regard to the Doyle Center, I would have hoped that the sponsor of the earmark would come and talk about it. But here is another example, as I mentioned, of an earmark incubator where an earmark creates an organization, in this case, named after one of our own, and the same one who it is named after gets more earmarks year after year for the same center to get more earmarks and more Federal contracts.

We simply can't sustain that. The notion that that is what the Defense Department needs simply doesn't hold water. With that, I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a little different from the others. The others would strike funding from the bill. This would simply redirect funding to the same account from which it was drawn.

This amendment would redirect $3 million from the Lewis Center for Educational Research to the Family Advocacy Programs in the Operations and Maintenance account.

Mr. Chairman, it seems that we are debating the Labor-HHS bill rather than the Defense appropriations bill.

Why is there a $3 million earmark in the bill for an organization with a stated goal of providing ``an opportunity for students to experience real science; to learn that science is an ongoing process, not just memorizing facts?'' I am referring, of course, to this earmark for the Lewis Center for Educational Research.

This is becoming somewhat of an annual earmark. In fact, according to the Citizens Against Government Waste database, this educational center has received earmarks in past Defense appropriation bills ranging from $2.5 million to $3.5 million in every fiscal year since 2003. According to the certification letter submitted by the sponsor, ``the funding would be used to develop on-line educational curriculum.'' The Lewis Center for Educational research is an ``educational facility designed to improve educational effectiveness and scientific literacy among American schoolchildren.'' According to its Web site, since opening in 1990, the Lewis Center has provided hands-on instructional programs for elementary, middle, and high school students throughout local communities and across the Nation.

I would ask the same questions here. Why are we providing an earmark that is to a school that is sponsored by groups like Target, Wal-Mart, Verizon, Boeing, State Farm Insurance, Southern California Edison, Lucent Technologies, and others?

This is to a school; this is a defense bill. I simply would ask why is it here in the defense bill? How does it serve our national defense? What essential Federal purpose does it serve? Should it receive any earmark funding at all? And certainly not, I would say, in a defense bill.

And then the notion that this is actually taken out of an account for Family Advocacy Programs in the Operations and Maintenance account. I would think that, given the needs that the families of our troops have, that that money would be better left in that account for that purpose than to go to what I think is a charter school for other purposes.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would simply reiterate what we are talking about here. This is a charter school that, although it has been spoken of as serving military families, it has no more of a mission to serve military families, I would suggest, than the school that my kids go to. There are military families there. But I would not presume to give an earmark to that school simply because military families might attend that school. There is nothing in the literature that we have been able to find anywhere in this school that has any specific purpose to serve military families.

I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, again, I would say that this is a charter school receiving money in the defense bill that has no more military application than any school that any of your kids or grandkids go to, and yet we are doing it. Does that have a military application? I would suggest not. And the notion that we can talk about this earmark that turned into something good or that one, but for every one of those, I would suggest that there is a company out there that would love to bid on one of these contracts that isn't given the opportunity, a company that might have technology that might turn into something good, but they can't compete because an earmark is given as a sole-source contract to another company. There are hundreds of them in this bill.

Again, an earmark is not a competitively bid project. It is a sole- source contract.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would eliminate $39 million in Federal taxpayer dollars for the National Drug Intelligence Center, a project that U.S. News and World Report called ``a boondoggle.'' This amendment would also reduce the cost of the bill by a commensurate amount.

There are a number of reasons to support this amendment; primary among these is the fact that we should not spend our scarce intelligence dollars on wasteful and duplicative programs like the National Drug Intelligence Center.

This earmark has been part of a growing list of intelligence, or so- called ``black earmarks.'' I think a lot of us have long been skeptical of the practice of earmarking Intelligence accounts, and several of us have repeatedly called for the abolition of this practice. We really didn't start earmarking the Intelligence bill until, I think, around the late - nineties. And it has not gone well for us, as we know with the case of Mr. Cunningham, now serving time.

It is important to note that the practice of earmarking only began really in this case in the Intelligence bill in the 1990s.

Let me repeat, we shouldn't be earmarking the Intelligence bill this way. This was authorized in the Intelligence bill. There was an amendment offered at the time to strike it.

Many of us have been troubled, as I mentioned, with this kind of earmarking. Many of us have asked to see the unclassified version of the report that was commissioned by the Intelligence Committee about Mr. Cunningham and his ability to get Intelligence earmarks. I have not been able to get that report, an unclassified report. I, as a Member of Congress, have been denied that report, and so have all of you. That is simply not right.

The Los Angeles Times reported a couple of weeks ago, as did the Associated Press, that they had received a copy of that report, but Members of Congress have not. Yet, we still continue with the practice of earmarking Intelligence bills.

When we did the authorization bill, we didn't receive the list of earmarks in that bill until it was past time to offer amendments to the Rules Committee to strike those earmarks. So we haven't had that opportunity.

Let me say that we cannot continue to go down this road, particularly with earmarks that have been called ``duplicative and wasteful.'' The administration has tried for years to get rid of this National Drug Center. In fact, they offered $16 million in one of these bills to shut that center down; yet, still, it keeps coming back and back and back.

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

I would just ask the gentleman, while he's still standing, I would yield to the gentleman to simply ask, has the Bush administration requested that this be shut down?

Does the gentleman presume to know more about this specific subject and know of a reason why this should remain in effect when the administration is saying that it should be shut down because it is duplicative and wasteful?

I have nothing to add to that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time and urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in opposition to this rule as well. I don't think it's a good precedent to set to move away from open rules on appropriations. I'm one that's often accused of dilatory tactics on these bills, having so many amendments on earmarks. These aren't dilatory at all.

I should note that on the bill that we had a couple of weeks ago, the Energy and Water bill, I believe I offered seven or eight. With that, one Member came to the floor before I offered and withdrew or asked for an amendment which he received to strike his own earmark.

We're seeing the same here, three earmarks stricken from the bill in the Rules Committee because an amendment was going to be offered to strike them on the floor.

My understanding is with the Defense bill tomorrow that there will be another amendment, self-executing rule to strike another earmark that was going to be challenged on the floor.

So this is not dilatory at all to come to the floor and say, hey, there are earmarks here that might be questionable. There are a lot of earmarks that would go to private companies. These are, in essence, sole source contracts.

I sympathize with the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Obey, who said many times that we simply don't have the staff to police this many earmarks. I don't think you could have policed the 15,000 we had a couple of years ago. If this Congress is successful in cutting that down by half, we can't come close to policing that number either.

We have former Members in jail because of earmarks that we approved in this body. We simply can't go on like this, and if we shut down this process in a manner where we're only allowed to question a certain number of earmarks, I wanted to question 10 on this bill. There are 410 in the bill. Ten is not an unreasonable number. I was only allowed five.

Who knows on the bill that we do tomorrow if we have a closed rule. If we aren't able to question these, where are we able to do it?

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, it's my intent to offer a number of earmark limitation amendments to the FY 2008 Agriculture appropriation bill.

In offering these earmark limitation amendments, I hope that my colleagues will join me in finally grabbing the reins on runaway earmark spending, and if you will pardon the pun, plant the seed of fiscal discipline in the appropriation process.

In its present form, this bill is under veto threat because it jumps the rails of the President's plan to have a balanced budget by 2012 by close to $1 billion. Part of the $1 billion increase in spending over last year's levels is caused by over 400 earmarks in the bill worth over $300 million that direct taxpayer dollars to congressionally selected projects.

As my colleagues have heard me say a few too many times, I am sure, passing appropriation bills that contain hundreds of earmarks worth millions of dollars that are simply noted by phrases in the committee report shortchanges the legislative process of authorization, appropriation and oversight. The earmarking process is fraught with a lack of transparency, fiscal responsibility and equity for taxpayers, all too often rewarding the districts of powerful Members of Congress in the Appropriations Committee at the expense of the rest of the body.

Let me just note that, according to a review of the bill in a report by Taxpayers for Common Sense, members of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee and party leadership, who make up 5 percent of the House, will take home one-third of the dollar value of agricultural earmarks, nearly $100 million.

If you assume that earmarks with multiple sponsors are shared equally, members of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee and party leadership will send an average of about 4 million earmarked dollars back to their districts.

In contrast, if you look at the remaining earmarked funds and distribute them evenly over the remaining 400-plus House districts, at best they would value slightly less than $500,000. As I have said repeatedly, we are creating winners and losers here.

I'm usually referring to industries that are refunded by the earmarks. But it is true also here in Congress, if you are a seasoned Member in a position of influence, you typically get a lot more. It is simply not right for all the high-minded purpose we give to the contemporary practice of earmarks, talking about Article 1 of the Constitution and the authority it gives us, to then turn around and the leadership and the members of the Appropriations Subcommittee that control the bill get so much more than anyone else. It hardly seems fair. It hardly seems right.

In particular, this amendment would prohibit $878,046 in Federal funds from being used for catfish genome research in Auburn, Alabama, and would reduce the cost of the bill by a commensurate amount. I think that this is definitely one earmark that the taxpayers would love to throw back.

According to the earmark description in the certification letter, the funding would go to Auburn University ``to help continue important research into the genomic behavior of catfish in order to resist and cope with virulent disease strains.'' It appears to me that the earmark is intended to make a genetic map of catfish.

Mr. Chairman, there are so many earmarks in this bill related to genetic research, I feel I am on some kind of farm-based CSI episode. Unfortunately, this isn't a creative drama. This spending is far too real. This seems to be a perennial earmark. It has received over

$1 million in the last 3 fiscal years alone.

Where is the Federal nexus here? Why are we funding catfish research and not trout research? What about sunfish out there? Don't they deserve something? How do we choose here? How do we choose which university gets the funding? It is simply an arbitrary process based on your position on a committee or in the Congress.

Mr. Chairman, that seems wrong to me.

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

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

May I inquire as to the time remaining.

Let me just say there is over at the Department of Agriculture something called the Agricultural Research Service, or ARS, account, and it is being funded at over $1 billion for fiscal year 2008. Now, we may not like the programs they choose to fund. If we don't like it and we don't think they have a good process, we should exercise the oversight that we are supposed to exercise and change it. But to circumvent that process and say because you may not have given us a grant in one particular year then we are simply going to go around you and earmark, that simply seems wrong.

We are getting away from the authorization, appropriation, oversight program and process that has been the hallmark of this Congress forever. With earmarking, the contemporary process of earmarking, we are circumventing that and we do very little oversight of the Federal agencies, because we are seeking to compete with them.

We set up a program over there and we say you have a merit-based program, a competitive grant program, and then, when they don't choose what we want to, we circumvent it.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would eliminate $628,843 for the Grape Genetics Program at Cornell University and reduce the cost of the bill by a corresponding amount.

Mr. Chairman, it would seem that Congress is a one-stop shop for the wine industry. There is in this bill here $628,843 earmarked for the Grape Genetics Program, as mentioned, in addition to a $2.6 million earmark to actually construct the Center for Grape Genetics.

The earmark description in the certification letter submitted to the committee by the sponsor of the earmark informs us that this earmark would fund a full-time grape geneticist at the Grape Genetics Research Unit and support the viability of the grape and wine industry.

Now, according to some, the wine industry faces a growing demand for new technologies and varieties in order to be a player in the global marketplace. I don't doubt that at all. I don't deny that research and development is important to the wine and grape industry. I simply question why the Federal Government is expected to foot the bill for a private industry.

According to recent reports, direct sales of wine to consumers are up 30 percent this year. Let me repeat that. Direct sales of wine to consumers are up 30 percent this year.

According to a study unveiled by the Congressional Wine Caucus earlier this year, the U.S. wine, grape and grape products industry contributes more than $160 billion annually to the U.S. economy, $160 billion annually.

This study indicated that the industry supports more than 1 million full-time equivalent positions and that there are more than 900,000 grape-bearing acres in the U.S. In addition, according to the 2006 report by the USDA, New York has 239 wineries currently, as opposed to 17 in 1976. I would submit that this looks like an industry that is thriving.

If the Federal Government is going to support genetic research for one industry, why doesn't the Federal Government provide support for all of them? What mechanism is there to stop Congress from funding mold research on gourmet cheese, or soil research for truffle farming? Where does it stop? Where is the Federal nexus here? Why do we continue to fund these profitable industries?

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

Mr. Chairman, let me just say, nobody questions the validity or the importance of research. Every industry needs to do it, and do a lot of it. But we have a lot of high-tech industries that are vital to this country. Why aren't we funding a company like Intel, for example, for issues related to testing of circuit boards? That is important. They face international competition.

Why do we say all right here, only we are going to fund grape research? Also, when we have a program over at the Department of Agriculture that we fund to the tune of a billion dollars this year to actually provide grants in this area, and still it is not enough. Still we say we have to earmark funds to go around that process. It seems like overkill, and I think the taxpayer deserves a break here at some point.

Mr. Chairman, let me just say to close, again, research is important in every industry, but there are industries all over the country in agriculture, in high tech, in storage, in transportation, you name it. It is going on all over, and not everyone is looking to the Federal Government to pay their research costs.

Why here? Why do we have an organization that gets earmarks virtually every year for the same thing over and over and over again? When does the taxpayer get a break? When is this industry weaned?

We just had a farm bill pass last week with subsidies going on and on and on. Here are more agricultural subsidies. I don't know where it stops, particularly with the deficit we have, the ongoing debt that we carry. It is time to give the taxpayers a break. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit $400,000 in Federal funds from being used for alternative uses for tobacco in Maryland and reduces the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

I would suggest to my colleagues that we can find some better alternative uses for the taxpayers' money, like paying down the national debt, for example.

In fact, just yesterday, Treasury Secretary Paulson predicted that the Treasury will reach the nearly $9 trillion statutory debt limit in early October. I would argue that this is a sign that we need to spend less on appropriation bills just like this one.

The certification letter submitted to the Appropriations Committee stated that the funding will go to the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources for the Alternative Uses of Tobacco Research Project.

The funding for this earmark is through the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service Special Research Grants account, which are congressionally directed and noncompetitive research earmarks.

The Alternative Uses of Tobacco Research Project is focused on finding new, nonsmoking uses for tobacco, such as pharmaceutical or biotechnology applications.

I am not denying that there aren't potential benefits for this research for the tobacco industry, for pharmaceutical industry, or for other biotechnology industries, but how long is the taxpayer going to be expected to fund specific research for the benefit of these industries?

This is not a new earmark. In fact, the project has received earmarks of between $320,000 and $400,000 each year since fiscal year 2002. Including this earmark, the University of Maryland will have received over $2 million in Federal earmarks for their alternative use project.

Why are we singling out this program and this school and earmarking funds for it year after year after year? What makes this program at the University of Maryland more deserving than Federal funds at other schools or organizations in Virginia, Tennessee, Arizona, California or elsewhere around the country? There are many other earmark projects that we are funding at the University of Maryland as well.

According to research done by Citizens Against Government Waste, from 2001 to 2006, the University of Maryland received just under $17 million in Federal earmarks. I think it is interesting to note in 2006 the University of Maryland paid lobbying firms more than $200,000 for various lobbying activities. Are these lobbyists lobbying Congress for additional earmarks?

When do we say enough is enough? When the smoke clears, the taxpayers are still being asked to fund tobacco research.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have great respect for the gentleman from Maryland, and I appreciate the tone which this debate has been conducted in.

I heard some new things here that I didn't know before. This was a Maryland-initiated buyout for the tobacco industry, a buyout which limited the uses of tobacco afterwards. That's great. It should probably be the State of Maryland that funds this kind of research then, instead of the Federal Government.

Another thing I heard that I hadn't heard before is I guess we are moving toward tobacco-based ethanol or something of some such. My old car smokes enough, thank you. I'm not sure that's the way to go, but, in any event, there are limits to what you can do. The truth is you can make ethanol out of an old boot if you expend enough energy doing it, but it doesn't mean that we ought to fund research again and again, over and over and over. There are limits to what the taxpayer ought to do.

And let me just say, given that, I mean, we imposed another tax on tobacco just a day ago, and I think there are plenty of incentives there within the industry, be it the growing side or be it on the marketing side or whatever, to find alternative uses for tobacco. I think it ought to be left with them and not the Federal taxpayer.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to prohibit funding for an earmark for the Ruminant Nutrition Consortium. This earmark would provide $489,000 for ruminant livestock production research, rangeland integration and other livestock resources.

A press release issued from this earmark in a previous year described it as an effort in the northern plains to further develop beef, dairy and sheep finish-feeding, which may lead to more jobs and more value- added agriculture.

Mr. Chairman, I know a little about cattle nutrition. I spent a lot of years on a ranch and a farm; and, in fact, I spent years on what we call bloat watch, where we'd sit at the edge of a field and have to watch while cattle, being the type of ruminant digestive system that they have, might bloat. And you'd have to run and stab the left side and hopefully relieve the suffering and relieve the certain death that comes.

I think this is an effort to relieve a little bloat that is here in this Agricultural appropriation bill and certainly in this budget.

There is simply no reason we should continue to fund research like this when we have, as mentioned already many times tonight, we have an account over at the Department of Agriculture that is for this purpose to dispense research dollars based on competition, where there are groups that are out there will compete for grants. We've told the Department of Agriculture to set up that program, and here we're saying it's not good enough. We're going to have that program; and then, in addition, we're going to give what essentially is a sole-source contract, single bidder. One university or one entity will get this earmark grant.

So it's simply not right.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me just say that the gentlewoman mentioned that this is not a single-source contract or single-bid contract. I have the certification letter. It says I'm requesting funding for South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota, to conduct research into production of environmental aspects of ruminant livestock production, et cetera, et cetera.

What used to be a competitive grant process is no longer with this earmark. We do have a competitive grant process at the Department of Agriculture. Now, this school may choose to have a competitive grant process beyond that, but we're using Federal dollars to give to one university to perhaps disburse among other universities.

If we don't like the process over at the Department of Agriculture, we should end it. We should say we're not going to fund that account anymore, that billion dollars we're giving you is not being disbursed equitably nor wisely. If we believe that, we should tell them. We'd save a lot of money and instead contract with others at the local level and just give it out.

But what we're doing here is we're funding both. We're having a process over there where a billion dollars is handed out competitively with some kind of process, merit-based process, and we're going around that and earmarking funds for specific institutions.

It simply seems wrong.

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

Mr. Chairman, well, I should say I haven't been very successful here. I have noted before I have been beaten like a rented mule here quite a bit. But I must say the majority of Democrats did join me in actually striking an earmark a couple of weeks ago, one Member, and I had the occasion just today of one earmark that I had planned to strike was stricken by the Member himself before I could strike it.

So there are occasions when the Appropriations Committee, for whatever reason, I sympathize with them. They simply don't have the time to vet all of these. I would suggest, when you have 410 earmarks in one bill like this, you simply don't have a lot of time to vet them.

I know a little bit about cattle ranching. As I mentioned, I grew up on a cattle ranch. The gentleman mentioned the process of moving cattle from one cell to another. Actually, we started doing that on the F-Bar some 30 years ago and are still doing it to some extent.

The gentlelady mentioned this is a consortium, four universities, I believe, getting these research dollars, but it's earmarked for that consortium. That consortium could apply to the Department of Agriculture for universities like this. I suppose, cattle have four stomachs, four universities, only makes sense, but they can apply directly to the Department of Agriculture. They don't have to get earmark dollars.

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

Is the gentlelady out of time?

I yield 15 seconds to the gentlewoman.

I urge adoption of the amendment. We simply cannot afford everything. Let's give the taxpayer a break.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit $6,371,000 and reduce the cost of the bill by a commensurate amount from being used to research wood utilization.

This is the second year in a row I have stood to address this earmark. It seems that not much has changed in the past year of wood utilization research. The committee provided precisely the same amount of funding last year, $6,371,000, for a variety of projects around the country that frankly seem designed to provide a solution in search of a problem.

This is another example of an earmark that has persisted for years that can only be terminated by Congress. The wood utilization program has received Federal funds since 1985 and has received more than $90 million in appropriations.

The United States is the world's largest producer of lumber and wood products used in residential construction and in commercial wood products such as furniture and containers.

The United States is also a leader in the pulp and paper business, producing about 34 percent of the world's pulp and 29 percent of the world's output in paper and paper board. About 1.3 million people are directly employed in the planning, growing, managing, and harvesting of trees and the production of wood and paper products in all 50 States.

The forest industry ranks among the top 10 manufacturing employers in about 42 States with an annual payroll of about $60 billion. This is an industry that dates back hundreds of years and has shown itself remarkably capable to adapt to change. It obviously continues to thrive today.

I sincerely question why the Federal Government needs to involve itself in a program that educates students about the utility of wood as a renewable resource.

What happened to the free market? What happened to common sense? I think we have had it out there for a while. After 1985, we have been doing this same earmark or this same program for the past several years, or it has been earmarked for the past several years. I would say it's time to reconsider the project.

I think the taxpayers may want to take us to the woodshed themselves for continuing to fund at a price of $6,371,000 this same earmark year after year after year.

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

Mr. Chairman, nobody here is questioning the need for research. Every industry does it. Every industry has to do it to survive because of competition.

What I question here is why the taxpayer is spending $6 million every year on this same earmark for a $60 billion industry. This money goes to universities all over the country, so does research money from paper companies that are in the department next door.

There is research being funded. This is a pittance compared to the other research dollars that are being spent.

Thank goodness, private industry knows that they have to do it. But why does a taxpayer have to be on the hook again and again and again year after year after year for this same earmark for wood utilization?

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time and urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Yesterday, we passed lobby reform legislation that deals with earmarks, gives Members certain notice. You have to put your name next to it. There is certain transparency and accountability, some of which is good.

I should note, with this legislation, in the middle of the night last night we did the equivalent of earmarking on an authorization bill. We, in the middle of the night, designated some 25 hospitals, giving them a different designation, which will save those hospitals millions and millions of dollars. That's the equivalent of appropriation earmarks in an authorization bill, done without debate, without notice. We're getting it now.

And there is a process within the executive branch to deal with this. We have circumvented that process and said we're going to do it legislatively. That is simply not right and certainly not in keeping with the spirit of legislation that was passed just yesterday.

Offered By: Mr. Flake

Amendment No. 46: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Flake of Arizona

Amendment No. 47: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Flake

Amendment No. 48: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following: