Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. Flake

Amendment No. 49: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Flake

Amendment No. 50: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Flake

Amendment No. 51: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Flake

Amendment No. 52: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Flake

Amendment No. 53: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Flake

Amendment No. 54: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Flake

Amendment No. 55: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As the gentleman from Oregon said, this is simply a commonsense amendment. In the days after Katrina, people were able to lock in artificially low prices and make billions, billions of dollars at the expense of the taxpayer when they then sold at the higher price. So it was simply a way to game the system. That's all it was. There's no other explanation for it.

And to say that the agricultural community rejects it doesn't say anything about its worthiness as a commonsense reform measure. This needs to be done. It's common sense. There's no justifiable explanation to allow people to game the system.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike funding for the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine. We will be debating later today subsidies for corn, cotton, rice and sugar. This is about subsidizing lobsters. I frankly think we subsidize corn, cotton and sugar far too much, but lobster subsidies seem to be out of line as well.

I think taxpayers are already feeling the pinch, if you will, with high gas prices and huge deficits, and all of the other things that they are asked to pay for. But providing hard-earned taxpayer dollars to the lobster industry should make Members of this body a little red in the face.

According to the bill, the New England lobster industry will be receiving $200,000 in Federal taxpayer dollars. The certification letter does not offer much in explanation of what it would be used for except to provide resources for the New England lobster industry. What kind of resources, I think we are justified in asking. This is a private industry that makes millions and millions of dollars annually. What possible support should the Federal taxpayer be offering to this particular industry?

Again, this is one area where Congress, through earmarking, is circumventing the regular process that we typically go through. It is a process that I don't like very much. I don't think we ought to be providing funding to the Federal agencies to give subsidies this way either. But there are programs at the Federal agencies, programs that are usually open to competitive bidding where people will submit grant proposals. But through earmarking like this, we circumvent that process and we say we know better what we're going to give what amounts to. It seems like a no-bid contract to a particular industry or business or group of industries.

So I would think that this simply isn't the way to go. I would submit that no amount of drawn butter can make this kind of subsidy taste any better. We simply shouldn't be doing this kind of thing. We need to get rid of these kinds of earmarks, again, when we know so very little about what it will go to. We are just told it will provide resources for the New England lobster industry. This is an industry, like some of the others we will be discussing later today, that do quite well on their own. They make millions and millions of dollars. What possible justification can we have for using Federal taxpayer dollars to subsidize or to support an industry like this?

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 is a rather large earmark, $720,000. It's for Federal funding for meteorological equipment at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana.

Growing up, I was told the best way to tell the weather was to stick your arm out the window of the vehicle as we were going down a farm road. This seems to me to be Congress's way of sticking their arm into taxpayers' back pocket and getting their wallet.

The earmark description in the certification letter submitted said the earmark would fund the equipment as a teaching tool for the university's meteorology department and provide weather information to entities in northwestern Indiana and surrounding areas.

This university is a coed, 4-year, private university located, as I said, in northwestern Indiana. It's ranked by the U.S. News and World Report as one of the top universities in the Midwest. Its endowment is in excess of $143 million.

Again, why do we fund earmarks for institutions that are as flush as this one? Why do we dole out any Federal money to any private institution such as this, with a generous endowment already there?

When we approve earmarks like this, we as an institution are bypassing the competitive grant process that already exists for funding educational and research institutions.

In 1950, the National Science Foundation, an independent Federal agency, was created by legislation with the intent of promoting the progress of science and advancing national health and welfare by supporting research and education in all fields of science and engineering.

In the past, the Federal Government has awarded more than $400 billion in the form of competitive grants; $400 billion has been given out by the NSF over the years. This agency was created with a specific purpose of giving out grants like this.

Over the course of this year, the Division of Atmospheric Sciences, an office within NSF, has awarded more than $2 million to fund research for meteorological experiments. Federal funding exists for the sponsor's earmark. This grant process should be respected.

Again, we are going outside of the process. There's a process that we have established, that we have caused to be established in the Federal agencies to give out money in this regard, and here we're saying, well, we're not going to go through that. Perhaps this university, I don't know, perhaps it applied for a grant and didn't get it. Perhaps it has received other grants, I just don't know, but what I do know is we are giving what amounts to a no-bid contract where one member of the Appropriations Committee is going to say, I'm going to designate or earmark money for this institution and bypass the process that we have set in place. And I just don't think that's right.

If we don't like the process that's been established, let's change it. Let's tell the Federal agencies, you need to have a broader pool, you need to give more grants out to small colleges, you need to do this, you need to do that, but let's establish a process and then follow it rather than circumvent it. And this, I see, is circumventing the process.

This bill, the underlying bill today, funds the National Science Foundation at a level of more than $6 billion. What is the purpose of funding an agency like this and telling that agency to

give out grants on a competitive basis if we're going to go around it and give out our own grants from Congress? It just doesn't seem right.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

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

Let me simply say that it's often said through earmarking we are simply asserting our right and the responsibility we have as Members of Congress under article 1. Under article 1, we certainly have the power of the purse.

The problem is, I think the contemporary practice of earmarking, when you bring a bill to the floor that has over 1,500 earmarks, you diminish that responsibility that you have, because we go around or circumvent the careful process of authorization, appropriation, and oversight that is a time-honored practice and hallmark of this institution. When we earmark, we get away from that and not enhance it. That's the reason for bringing these amendments forward.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit funding for the National Textile Center. The earmark description in the various certification letters submitted to the committee by various sponsors, and this is one that is sponsored by a number of Members, I understand, says that the earmark will fund the development of a National Textile Center; specifically, the funds will be used to conduct research and development and improve technologies.

The Web site for the National Textile Center states that it is a consortium of eight universities, Auburn, Clemson, Cornell, Georgia Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, University of California Davis, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Philadelphia University, that share human resources, equipment and facilities. This consortium serves the U.S. fiber-textile-retail complex industries.

It's not at all clear what amount this program is to be funded. The committee report language says funding for two textile-related programs, but the proposed funding amount is nowhere to be found in the text of the bill or the committee report.

The manager's amendment recommended that the U.S. foreign and commercial service account be increased by $5 million to $245,720,000 in order to fund ``two textile-related programs.'' We can only infer that this increase will fund this program and another program, but there is no way for us to be certain. Inquiries made to the relevant subcommittee failed to clarify the matter.

Members of Congress as stewards of the taxpayer's dollars, as stewards, need and deserve more information to make informed decisions.

Beyond the transparency issues here, I simply don't agree here, again, with this picking winners and losers here. I understand the textile industry has undergone great transformation with jobs, a lot of jobs going overseas. There is great difficulty there. I don't minimize that. That is true with a lot of industries.

In my district and elsewhere, a lot of people would like to receive funding to help their industries transition. We simply can't do it everywhere.

Some Internet searching on the National Textile Center indicated the center already exists and has received generous funding in the past. A press release from the center touted that more than $9 million in Federal funds were received in 2001. That, again, is a little confusing when we are told that this will fund the development of a national textile center that seems to already exist.

But anyway, again, here, this is an example of a program we have over the Department of Commerce that we have used that funds programs like this. I simply don't see the need to earmark additional funds to supplant or to replace or to augment funds that have already been appropriated and for which there is a process that has been established for competitive grants to be given.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I'll be very brief.

One of the gentlemen mentioned that we in Congress simply shouldn't let the Federal Government spend this money. The last time I checked, we are the Federal Government. We're one branch of it, and it's our job to appropriate money to another; that is, to actually spend that money. We don't spend that money here. We don't write the checks. That's done by the Federal agencies. Our role is to provide oversight and to authorize the programs.

And so I'm not advocating at all that we step back. I'm advocating that we actually go to the time-honored practice of authorization, appropriation, and oversight. And that allows us to actually go into these Federal agencies and really provide good oversight.

But I can tell you, it's very difficult to provide oversight for example for the Defense bill. Last year or the year before, I believe, we provided an earmark in the Defense bill for a museum in New York, in the Defense bill.

How can you provide good oversight with any straight face, go to the Defense Department and say, we think that you should have spent more money on body armor for our troops in Iraq. Oh, but by the way, we directed you to spend $2 million on a museum in New York. It just doesn't seem right to me. And so I think, frankly, we cheapen our role when we, the contemporary practice of earmarking, I think, has cheapened the role of Congress and moved us away from authorization, appropriation, and oversight. So that will be my response, and I would urge support for the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief here.

This amendment would simply strike $250,000 for the East Coast Shellfish Research Institute.

We just debated an earmark a few minutes ago with regard to the textile industry, and we were told that we needed this earmark because the textile industry is in such dire straits and has been affected by international competition and incomes are down and jobs have been lost.

With regard to the shellfish industry, you have the opposite; you have an industry that is actually doing quite well. According to the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, this is the administrative organization that would receive the earmark, there are 1,300 members of the association with a combined revenue of approximately $80 million this last year. This revenue averages more than $60,000 per shellfish farmer, far more than the median household income in the country. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income is around $44,000. So we have $60,000 in this industry as opposed to $44,000 nationwide.

It brings up the question, if we fund earmarks to study industries or to help industries that are in dire straits and we fund earmarks to fund industries that are doing quite well, why not everything in between? What is to stop us from going ahead and funding every private industry and their associations that are represented here or elsewhere? It simply doesn't make sense to me.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Federal agency that manages the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere, the U.S. seafood harvest has produced increasingly higher yields since 2000. This is in addition to increased consumer demand for seafood based on new dietary guidelines.

I grew up on a cattle ranch on a farm, and I don't want anybody to accuse me of favoring beef over seafood or shellfish. I don't. I like both. But in this case, it seems to me the Congress is again picking winners and losers here. We're saying we're favoring one particular industry, be it textiles, be it shellfish, and the only way to not do that is to give earmarks to every industry out there. And I just don't think that we can. We simply can't afford that. The taxpayer needs a break here.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

In 2005, while on the House Judiciary Committee, I, along with some others, offered a series of reforms to the process of issuing national security letters. These reforms came about during the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. These reforms didn't go as far as I would have liked, but we took the administration at their word when they said that civil liberties would not be violated.

During the reauthorization process, I and others were told by administration officials that the reforms we sought were not needed, that the Department of Justice and FBI would never do the hypothetical worst-case scenario that some of my colleagues and I worried about.

After a long investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, I can regrettably say many of the worst-case scenarios actually came about and that our hypotheticals were not so farfetched.

The FBI has abused its power both in terms of National Security Letters and exigent letters. In the case of exigent letters, it appears the FBI repeatedly asserted exigent circumstances where none existed in order to obtain telephone records. The Inspector General's probe also concluded that there sometimes was no open nor pending national security investigation tied to the request. This directly contradicts the requirements of U.S. law. Letters went out stating that a grand jury subpoena was forthcoming when none was forthcoming.

The Inspector General's report was just a small sampling of the use of these letters, and we have not been given a larger picture yet. I want to commend the gentleman from Florida for bringing this forward. He has worked hard on this issue, and we are not speaking anymore in hypotheticals. We have seen abuses. They have been documented. This is very important, and I commend him for bringing this forward, and I join him in his effort.

Madam Chairman, let me just say before yielding to the gentleman from Wisconsin, the drop in 40 percent that is claimed by the committee is actually taking credit for high prices of corn and other commodities. There's no cut at all. So this is not reform.

Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).

Madam Chairman, let me just say that the direct payments were never intended as a safety net. They were meant to wean farmers off of the dole. If our parents worked as hard as this committee in weaning their children, we would all still be living in our parents' basement. It doesn't work to continue and continue and continue on with this.

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Reichert).

Madam Chairman, may I inquire as to the time remaining?

Madam Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Madam Chairman, may I inquire as to the time remaining?

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Madam Chairman, may I ask the time remaining?

Let me just pay tribute first to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) for the hard work in bringing this amendment and being the lead sponsor to the floor.

It strikes me that the committee in this case, as the saying goes, is traipsing down a flower-strewn path unpricked by the thorns of reason.

We are running headlong, whether we like it or not, into international trade agreements that will not coexist with the status quo bill. We cannot move forward and maintain the access we have to world markets or increase access to other world markets with this bill. We simply can't. Nor can we maintain the fiscal burden carrying this forward.

We need a real reform bill, a reform bill that really looks out for family farms, as opposed to protecting those who are gobbling up family farms. That is what this reform bill is all about.

Members of this body have wanted an opportunity to vote for a bill that doesn't increase taxes, that has real reform. This is that chance. This is the amendment. This is the chance to actually do that.

We need real reform, reform that allows us to go forward, that allows the American farmer to actually become independent and independently competitive globally. The status quo bill, the committee bill, just doesn't do that. It doesn't cut direct payments. As much as we have heard that tonight, it doesn't. High prices have done that. There is no cut in direct payments at all here. Only prices have done that.

I urge support of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the committee for their indulgence here. I just wanted to make sure that Members who have earmarks that are being challenged here have the ability to come to the floor and are able to defend them.

This amendment, Mr. Chairman, would strike $300,000 from funding for the Belmont Complex in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania.

The Belmont Complex is a local recreational center. It offers an Olympic-size swimming pool with a 150-foot water slide and an indoor skating rink and arena. The center has an adult hockey team and also offers indoor soccer.

To generate money, the center sells advertising space on the ice. A dashboard ad costs about $800. The center also charges $5 a day for admission to the pool. Individual pool memberships for the summer season are also available, and they can run up to $77.

But, apparently, despite all the available revenue streams, the Federal taxpayers are being asked to pay $300,000 for this recreational center to rebuild or renovate the center.

The bad news is I don't think any of us are given a free pass. We aren't given a season pass. That is something that is just for the locals. I think the entire project should be for the locals.

Reading through this, it struck me that virtually every Member here in this body has probably a dozen or so of these recreational centers in their district that we could, with the same justification here, come to the Congress and say we need a Federal taxpayer subsidy for this. We are not charging enough for people to come in, where our local funds are low, so we are going to give the Federal taxpayer the chance to pay for it.

We simply can't do that, obviously. We can't fund all the recreational centers across the country. So why do we choose this one? Why do we pick winners and losers here? Is it just because there is a particularly powerful Member who is behind it who can say, hey, I am going to get funds for my district for this recreational center? What happens to all the other ones? What do you tell the recreational center down the street just across the district line? You're out of luck? You have to charge more for your season passes?

It just doesn't seem fair to me. This isn't the road we should go down. And if we have turned over a new leaf, and we are doing something different in terms of earmarks, then let's do something different instead of the same old same old.

We are told that we are going to have a process that vets these a little better. There are, I believe, about 1,500 earmarks in this bill. We just got word of what they were just a couple of days ago. And so it just doesn't seem that the process is changing all that much. It looks too much now like it did when Republicans were in charge.

So I think that we ought to change it, and that is why I am offering this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me just say if you can justify this earmark for a recreational center to help them basically defray cost of memberships or to rebuild or renovate, you could do that for any recreational center in the country. There is nothing that I can see, and I wish the sponsor of the amendment would have come to the floor to actually defend it or shed some light on what makes this special, why there is a Federal nexus here that doesn't exist with other recreational centers across the country. I wish we

could have had that debate or not. So we have to assume that this is no different than any recreational center anywhere in the country. So if you can justify this one, you can justify any of them. And we simply can't afford that, and we shouldn't continue just to say, well, we have cut the number of earmarks or dollar value in half. I mean, we are trying to get back to fiscal sobriety here after a binge that took place for years, and I admitted that that binge was my party. But if we are trying to get back to sobriety, it doesn't count to say, all right, we are only going to drink half as much this year as we did before. That's just not acceptable.

This process is out of control. It remains out of control. And this earmark is a great example of that. If we can approve earmarks for this kind of thing, anything goes. Katy bar the door.

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

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chairman, let me just respond.

The truth is we went from about, as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee often points out, from zero earmarks in Labor- HHS to some 1,400 last week. Much of that was under my party.

I think Democrats are as much to blame probably as Republicans are. The difference is as Republicans, we pretend to stand for limited government. We should be saying this isn't what we should be doing. If the agencies are out of control, we need to rein them in through the oversight process rather than to try to compete with them in terms of wasteful spending.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Let me just say, in response to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, this isn't the best process. I appreciate having a couple of days and being able to come to the floor. The problem is, under what was proposed by the chairman, we would have had more time, yes, but we wouldn't have had the ability to challenge individual earmarks. So that was a trade-off that we were unwilling to make. And I still maintain that we made the best decision here. But I think it would be nice to have more than a couple of days to actually look at these, but I appreciate that the Appropriations Committee is doing so.

This amendment would prohibit $250,000 in Federal funds from going to the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center in Prosser, Washington, and reduce the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

I'm sure people like to be wined and dined, but I think this earmark goes a little too far. I think that this is another example of, if we can justify economic development here, then we can justify just about anything.

We often complain that the Federal Government, the agencies spend willy-nilly, they're wasting money here, they're wasting money there. They are, certainly. One amendment that I wanted to bring today but got it too late would be one to simply cut the account that provides economic development earmarks because I think the Federal agencies do waste money in this regard. But instead of reining that account in and saying you shouldn't be doing that, we're kind of competing with them and saying we're going to do our own economic development earmarks. I just fail to see a Federal nexus that exists here that wouldn't exist with other organizations.

You can justify anything in terms of economic development. The act of spending money by itself inherently means there is economic development. But where do we choose? Do we just choose this one or that one? It just doesn't seem to be a very good process, particularly without a real Federal nexus here.

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

Mr. Chairman, Washington wine industry revenues are estimated at about $3 billion a year. The industry employs, I believe, about 11,000 people. Over 2 million people visit Washington wineries every year. That's just the point I was making. This is an industry that does pretty well. And I just wonder why the Federal taxpayer has to be involved here.

Public/private partnerships, there is nothing bad about that on its face; but not every public/private partnership is justified, particularly when that partner is the Federal Government. I just still fail to see a nexus.

And, again, we should actually be providing more oversight of the Federal agencies that expend these economic development grants because a lot of it is wasted. I'm sure a lot of it is wasted in my own district. But we shouldn't be trying to compete with that account by earmarking our own funds.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, as mentioned, this amendment would strike $400,000 in the bill from the North Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

According to the certification letter submitted by the sponsor, the commission will receive Federal funding to establish the Technology Revolving Loan Fund.

According to the Web site, the commission is a public agency dedicated to providing professional services to local governments. These services include economic development, geographic information systems, intergovernmental cooperation, land use planning, and transportation. The commission's funding comes from Federal grants and State and local money.

This earmark brings up a lot of questions. First and foremost, why is this fund being created in one particular part of Wisconsin? I'm sure every Member of Congress would love to establish a revolving loan fund to help their local businesses. If it is deserving of Federal aid, why aren't others? Again, why do we pick and choose here?

Can the sponsor of this earmark assure us that once this is done, that once these monies are loaned out, that more monies won't be sought? Is this an earmark that will beget more earmarks? It seems that these are questions that should be answered. It's a dangerous slippery slope, I think, if we use Federal taxpayer dollars for parochial revolving loan funds.

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

Mr. Chairman, here is just another example, and maybe the sponsor of the earmark can enlighten us, but as to what makes this different, what makes this deserving of Federal funds? Why are we helping to set up a local revolving loan fund for local businesses? What is to stop every Member of Congress from wanting that in their own district? Isn't this a slippery slope if we just allow taxpayer money to be used in this fashion? If you can use it for economic development, if that is the criterion, any spending is justified.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I thank the Chair.

Let me first respond. I had yielded back my time when the gentleman from Wisconsin talked about Arizona, the Central Arizona Project as an earmark.

Perhaps in the debate at the time it was called an earmark, but it doesn't fit the contemporary definition of earmark. There was no project over the history of this body probably that wasn't debated through authorization, appropriation, followed up by oversight, than a project like that. I would have no complaint if some of the projects that we are challenging here today went through that process of authorization, appropriation and oversight, but that isn't what this is about.

The contemporary practice of earmarking that we have fallen into, under Republicans and Democrats, has been to circumvent the careful process of authorization, appropriation and oversight. So that is the complaint here. So bringing up the Central Arizona Project whenever an amendment is offered to take funding away from an economic development in a local community is a specious argument, I would add.

This amendment would prohibit $50,000 in Federal funds from being used by the National Forest Recreation Association for the National Mule and Packer Museum and would reduce the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

According to the earmark description and certification letter submitted to the Appropriations Committee, the funding would be used for the construction of a museum to memorialize and help to preserve the role of mule teams and mule packers in opening and developing the West.

The funding, however, will go to the National Forest Recreation Association. Obviously, you cannot build much for $50,000. I assume there is a partnership with local entities.

There is much that we don't know about this. Does the location exist? Will it be owned by the National Forest Recreation Association? Are there corporate sponsors? How much is the total cost of the museum? Will the Federal taxpayer be asked to pay more later on?

It seems there is a 20-mule team museum in Boren, California. This is at least the second mule and packer museum we know of. Does that one receive Federal funding?

I would simply say it is time for the American taxpayer to say ``whoa'' and

stand up for fiscal sanity and actually stop the practice of earmarking like we are doing.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am glad the gentleman brought up Ronald Reagan. I think it was Reagan, when he was presented with the highway bill back in 1987, that had, I believe, around 150 earmarks as opposed to the highway bill we did later, in 2005, with 6,300. He said at that time, ``I haven't seen this much lard since I gave away ribbons at the county fair.'' So Ronald Reagan certainly recognized that Congress, at least at that stage, before we even got into the contemporary practice of earmarking, was out of control.

I would also like to make the point, and I am glad that the gentleman mentioned, there is no such thing as Federal money. It is money given by the taxpayer to the Federal Government. Some of it funds the core functions of government. Some of it is spent on things that I don't think are the core function of government, and I don't think most taxpayers around the country do either, when you say this money is being returned, but it is not. As long as we are running a deficit, which is now 2, $300 billion, then the money is borrowed to pay for projects like this.

I simply don't think that we are giving the taxpayer a fair shake. I think we should stubbornly refuse to fund this 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, the amendment would prevent $200,000 from being used to fund the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama, and would reduce the cost of the bill by a corresponding amount.

Mr. Chairman, there are, I think, 480 earmarks funded in the Economic Development Initiative account, at least 11 proposed to fund museums. There stands about a million dollars total for museums. This doesn't take into account projects described as cultural centers and other various exhibits.

The spending initiatives do not illustrate any sort of restraint on our part on the Federal level. In the past, we have funded Faulkner museums, teapot museums. This year we are funding museums about mules and hunting and fishing museums. The Huntsville Museum of Art was named as one of the State of Alabama's top destinations by the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel. They bring as many as 23,000 visitors for a single exhibit.

Mr. Chairman, all of us have museums in our districts. All of those museums, I'm sure, if given the opportunity, would take Federal money to defray some of their costs. We simply can't fund all of them.

I don't know why we have the account in the agency. Like I said, we should go after that one, but here we have to show some restraint. And every once in a while, I think the taxpayer would appreciate if we actually stopped funding for some of these earmarks.

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

Mr. Chairman, I just will close on this one, saying again this is one of many museums that we are funding here. We simply can't fund them all. At some point it would be nice to give the taxpayers a gift and actually say we're not going to fund a particular earmark. We did it a couple of weeks ago.

This is not an idle process. We've had one occasion already where I've come to offer an earmark, and the sponsor of the earmark beat me to the floor and offered an amendment to revoke his own earmark. So obviously there needed to be more vetting of that earmark. I would assume that there are others like it.

So this is a process we should go through. I would urge support of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I have no clue.

If the gentleman would further yield for a minute, perhaps the gentleman wasn't on the floor last week. I actually challenged an earmark that was going largely to my own district.

Arizona is just like other States in this regard. I don't object to projects that go through the process. I assume that the Central Arizona Project had a hearing or two. It was authorized and went through the process. What I object to is the contemporary practice of earmarks.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, just once I would love to hear the other side say, we have no objection to that amendment and will accept it, but I suppose I won't be so lucky today.

This amendment would prevent $100,000 in funding for the Hunting and Fishing Museum in Pennsylvania and reduce the cost of the bill by a corresponding amount.

Mr. Chairman, my staff and I have never had a hard time fishing for earmarks that seem to be fiscally irresponsible, but this one seemed to be a particularly easy catch. It seems that there is no museum that we will not fund. We have funded teapot museums. We've funded mule museums. We have funded rock and roll halls of fame. Now, we're being asked to fund a museum honoring the time-honored hobbies of hunting and fishing.

According to the earmark description, the earmark would fund the development and creation of interactive, educational and historical exhibits. According to the Web site for the Hunting and Fishing Museum, the museum came as a result of its location in a forest area of Pennsylvania where hunting and fishing are already big industries.

I enjoy fishing and hunting as much as the next person, but I'm not convinced that the Federal Government has a role here. I'd like to have explained what the Federal nexus is.

According to the National Association for Sporting Goods, the hunting industry did $2.8 billion in business sales in 2004. For fiscal year 2003, the fishing industry's retail sales totaled over $40 billion. With these kind of profits, why are these industries relying on the Federal Government to fund a museum honoring their pastimes? Are we not picking winners and losers when we select only a handful of museums to fund? Is this a fair and equitable process?

More than that, more than being equitable, some say if everybody is given the chance and there's an account to do this, that it's okay, that it's justified, everybody's getting theirs, let me get mine. But I think, particularly for us on this side of the aisle who say that we believe in limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility, it seems a particularly hard sell.

I'm not making fun of the hobbies of hunting and fishing. As I mentioned, I do a fair amount of both myself. But here I just fail to see a Federal nexus and a Federal role.

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

Mr. Chairman, nobody is suggesting that it is a crime to support this kind of earmark, nor would it be a crime to actually deny funding for it. That's what the process is about.

My complaint, and nobody has suggested either, that there's this pure process at the Federal agency level. It's dysfunctional. We haven't provided the type of oversight that we need to.

The fact that there is an account over there to actually fund economic development projects suggests to me that it's out of control, that that's what we are about, what we should be about. We control the Federal purse strings. It should be in our interest actually to rein in spending over there rather than trying to compete with it and say if they do effect spending on this project or that, whomever has the district, that we shouldn't compete with that here and say, well, we can do one, one-up them with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If they had funded another hall of fame, we should say, is it the Federal Government's role to fund these? That's what I am questioning here.

If we can fund teapot museums and mule museums and hunting and fishing museums, what is off limits? What would come here that we could say we are not going to fund that? We could fund a mule museum. How about a donkey museum. Is that out of line? Where do we say enough is enough, and where do we say let's give the taxpayer a break?

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would take $300,000 from the Friends of the Cheat Rails-to-Trails program. The Cheat Trail is one small part of the 13,600 miles of trails built by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. The program's mission is to create a nationwide network of trails for former rail lines.

The program is a nationwide effort, yet this earmark is aimed directly at one trail in West Virginia. This is not the first time Friends of Cheat have bypassed the Rails-to-Trails program for funding. The House approved a $300,000 earmark for the Cheat trail just last year. If the trail is in such need of funding, isn't it coming from the funding and the many grants allocated in the Rails-to-Trails program?

This is another problem I have with the contemporary practice of earmarking. If we set up processes at the Federal agency level, and we set up accounts, often when people apply to that account, and apply for a grant and don't get it, then we in Congress will go and give them that project anyway through an earmark.

So if we are telling the Federal agencies, here is a process that you should go through that is merit based, that is competition based, and then fund those who don't get a contract, what are we saying? If we have a problem with a Federal agency's process or program, then we should amend them.

We should change them. We should call the agency heads before us and say explain why are you doing this, why are you giving money to this organization and not that one, but not to circumvent the process and basically add to it.

The Rails-to-Trails program has over 100,000 members, receives Federal, State and private funding. It was created over 20 years ago. I think that if this organization was to apply to the program, they are quite capable of finding funding. There is funding there.

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

Might I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. Chairman, let me just close. Let me say, again, I fail to see the relevance of the number of defense contractors that Arizona has or the amount of Federal money that goes there by contract, by competitive bid or otherwise. How is that relevant to this process?

The truth is, there is something wrong with the process when we have thousands and thousands and thousands of earmarks, when we have 1,500 and just a couple of days to review them before we come here to the floor. There is something wrong with that process.

As I have said before, we can try all we want to conjure up some justification for the contemporary practice of earmarking. But if we think the taxpayers across the country are buying it, we are drinking our own bath water.

We are believing our own press releases if we think that's the case, because they're not. They're not believing it, and they shouldn't. There is no noble pedigree to this kind of earmarking. There really isn't.

So to appropriate money in this fashion is simply not becoming of this Congress. We are better than that. We should have more respect for the institution than that.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have one final earmark at the desk.

I thank the Chairman.

This amendment would prohibit $300,000 in Federal funds from being used by the Houston Zoo in Houston, Texas, for an educational broadcast program and would reduce the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

According to the earmark description in this certification letter, this funding would be used to develop an educational broadcast program to provide interactive distance learning, first to the neighboring institutions at the Texas Medical Center, and ultimately expanding the program to regional school districts.

According to the sponsor's letter, this program would enable children and students to ask questions of and converse with zoo experts in real time, replicating an in-classroom dynamic, but in an exciting and unique manner.

I should say the Houston Zoo is the permanent home of 4,500 animals; the zoo attracts more than 1.5 million visitors a year; general admission is $10 for an adult, $5 for a child. In fact, according to the City Navigator, annual revenue for the Houston Zoo in 2006 totaled $39 billion. In 2006 alone, the Houston Zoo had over $43 million in net assets and nearly $20 million in excess revenue. It has a membership base of over 28,000 households. Corporate sponsors include Continental Airlines, Shell Oil, JPMorgan, BMC Software, Conoco-Phillips, FedEx. The list goes on and on.

Again, here, if we are going to start to fund programs at zoos like this, where does it end? Virtually every Member has a zoo or some type of wildlife preserve in their district. Where do we say enough is enough?

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

Here again, let me simply say there are a lot of zoos around the country, a lot of zoos that every one of which would like to receive Federal funding. Where do we say enough is enough? Where do we say this zoo is worthy, they have two tigers; this one only has one lion? The tigers get it? I mean, where do we have some kind of equitable process rather than Members just being able to designate funding of this type? We simply cannot continue to go on in this fashion.

Again, somebody will probably point out Arizona has a lot of defense contractors and gets a lot of Federal money. Again, I fail to see the relevance of that argument here. Let's throw the taxpayers a bone here, if you will, and let's finally say we are going to stop funding for one of these earmarks and actually return to fiscal sanity. We are running between a $200 billion and $300 billion deficit this year. Remember, money comes into Washington, we don't have enough to fund the programs, and so we are borrowing money to actually pay for programs like this. We can't continue to do that. I urge support for the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, this amendment would eliminate funding for the operating subsidy grants to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, or Amtrak, and save the taxpayer $475 million.

The FY 2007 funding level was $490 million. The President requested to eliminate funding for this grant program in the FY 2008 budget.

According to the committee report, operating subsidy grants allow the Department of Transportation to make quarterly grants to Amtrak after receiving and reviewing a grant request for each train route. This would be accompanied by a detailed financial analysis, revenue projection and capital expenditure projection. Receipt of these grants also requires Amtrak to achieve savings through operating efficiencies, yet Amtrak has been plagued by inefficiencies and debt since its inception.

Amtrak's model for providing intercity rail service has been a failure since it began in 1971. Historically Amtrak has carried has less than 1 percent of the traveling public. It is it has required annual Federal subsidies to cover operating losses and capital costs in every year since its existence, some $29 billion in taxpayer resources to date.

It lacks adequate cost controls. It has deferred capitalized repair projects, and it confronts increasing debt-service costs.

Now, we were told 30 years ago that Amtrak started from the ruins of what was then passenger rail service. Whatever its origins, the market has simply apparently vanished for passenger rail service of this kind. The Heritage Foundation reported that even if Amtrak increases its passenger load, for every passenger that is increased, the taxpayer pays more in subsidies. So, it's like the retail shop owner saying that I am losing money with every sale, but I am going to make up for it in volume. The taxpayers are making up for it in volume every time.

There has been a slight increase in passenger service in terms of passengers served over the past couple of years, or at least there was from 2001 to 2004, and still it bleeds red ink all over.

Now, contrast this with some cargo service provided by rail. It's largely free of subsidy. It's done by the private sector. There are huge profit margins there. In many routes they do very well. But Amtrak, passenger rail service, simply can't get there. There simply isn't a market for it.

Now, those providing cargo service wouldn't want to provide passenger service, because there is no market. But we continue to let the taxpayer subsidize it. As the last speaker mentioned, some routes the subsidy is between $400 and $500 per ticket. The Federal taxpayer could buy each person on a long-distance Amtrak service on some of the routes a plane ticket for what it costs to subsidize their Amtrak

travel. That's after they have paid a lot more than a plane ticket would cost in the first place.

There simply isn't a market for it. How long will we go on not recognizing it, not recognizing that we need some competition from the private sector to allow it to take it over? If there isn't a market at some point, the taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize it any longer.

Let me just finish. We will hear that we need passenger rail service. We will need to catch up to countries like Germany and Japan who are doing it. Apparently they are doing a better job than we are.

Who among us here thinks that with the current model of government subsidizing a private corporation like this is going to get us where Germany is or Japan is? As has already been noted, people who study this issue note that with every new passenger added, every net increase in passengers, it's actually more subsidies. So under the current model, unless they change or reform somehow, if they increase ridership, we actually have to pay more in subsidies.

That simply doesn't work. It wouldn't work in the private sector. No private businessman would stand it. But the taxpayers are simply on the hook for about $1.2 billion a year. It continues year after year after year. I have been here 6 years. I have heard it every year. I suppose if we go the next 25 years, we will hear it again. It will just be an increase in subsidies, like we are doing this year.

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

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, this amendment would reduce funding in the bill by $500 million for capital grants to Amtrak, reducing the funding level to the President's fiscal year 2008 request from $925 million to $500 million.

Here the same arguments really apply that were made in the last amendment debate, so I won't go over them all again, but let me respond a little to what was said before.

It was mentioned that these amendments are just designated to kill Amtrak. If these accounts were funded at the levels that we're talking about here, certainly there would be a restructuring somewhere. There has to be. It is likely that in some of the corridors, some of the corridors there is only a per-passenger subsidy of around $3 per ticket. In some corridors it's up to $466. I suppose that what would happen is that in those corridors, there are a lot of assets sitting with Amtrak now. If it wasn't shielded from private competition, others would come in and be able to run that service effectively and without subsidy in some of the corridors. Perhaps there'd be a smaller subsidy on some of the corridors.

But I can tell you on the corridors where we're having a subsidy of $466, in addition to the per-passenger ticket price of, in some cases, $900, I don't think that that would run at all, nor should it in any reasonable place where you believe in free markets or even limited subsidies.

There is no more call for passenger rail service to some places in this country than there is for stagecoach service. At some point you've got to say, how much can we subsidize? Four hundred sixty-six dollars per ticket probably is above that threshold somewhere.

So, under any reasonable system, yes, this would cause significant restructuring with Amtrak for that system, and that's what we're calling for. That's what we should be calling for. We can't continue to go down this road, because, as mentioned, even if you increase the number of passengers per train, if you increase ridership, it simply means more subsidy.

In any reasonable system that wouldn't be the case, but we have a system here that doesn't respond to market forces. Part of the problem with Amtrak, and we can't just blame the system there, but it's the requirements that we've placed on it. You have politicians in this small town here or this small town here designating routes that Amtrak has to follow, routes that can't even come close to being economical.

As mentioned, not many passenger rail or public transit systems anywhere in the world go unsubsidized. It's one thing to subsidize public transit; it's another to be paying $466 per ticket when the passenger is already paying $900. That simply doesn't pass any test of reasonableness. And unless we come in and really strike funding here and force change, it's simply not going to happen.

Who here in this body or who listening tonight thinks that Amtrak is suddenly going to become better and provide better service, more efficient service, given the numbers that we've given them here?

Some will call it a starvation diet. They've been on a starvation diet, but we've increased funding significantly many times. It hasn't improved. It's because we're shielding them from market forces, in some cases, and subsidizing routes that have no business running in others.

So I would offer this amendment to strike funding, or to actually bring it down to the President's level, what he has requested.

I've heard the chairman of the Appropriations Committee say many times and point out that the administration is wasting money here and there and everywhere. They are. Here's one case where we should say, there's too much money being wasted by the agencies. Let's direct them, let's exercise the oversight that this body is supposed to exercise and actually say, let's pull some funding back, let's force Amtrak to go through the restructuring that they're going to have to go through at some point. We're simply delaying the inevitable and forcing the taxpayer to subsidize at higher levels than they should until that time is reached.

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

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I just want to commend the Democrats. We always said that names should be placed next to the earmarks. This earmark is going beyond the spirit of the law. The name is on the earmark.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I thank the Chair.

Before talking about this amendment, there wasn't time for me to speak on the last one, I just want to say that I don't think it is the road that we want to go down to start naming facilities or programs after ourselves. I think that the rules may be a bit vague, but they seem clear enough that we shouldn't do that. The dialogue that I heard was, Are you worthy to have something named after you if you have just been here a few years? Does it take 38 years? What does it take?

Frankly, I think it would take a lot more than $2 million to get any college or university in my district to name something the ``Flake Center,'' for a myriad of reasons. But, having said that, I just don't think it is a road that we should go down. So that is why I supported the gentleman's amendment. I hope others as they come to the floor will, as well.

This amendment would prohibit $200,000 in Federal funds from being used for the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, for exhibits, education programs, and for an archival project. It reduces the cost of the bill by a consistent amount. I couldn't think of any jazzy line here, but I will just say that earmarks like this probably give taxpayers all over the blues.

This earmark would come out of the Institute of Museum and Library Services account, or the IMLS. The IMLS administers a competitive grant program for museums, libraries and zoos. This committee has recommended this program be funded with nearly $18 million.

Here is part of the problem, I think, with earmarks, particularly in this bill. We are often earmarking funds that are in programs at the agencies that are already designated to be awarded on a competitively bid process. This jazz museum, I am sure, has submitted applications. Perhaps they have won grants over the years. But maybe this year they didn't. So what earmarks typically do are circumvent the process that we have mandated to be established with these agencies.

We often complain about Federal agencies not listening to us and going out and spending willy-nilly. That is often the case, certainly. It is our job, then, to call them in and say, we want to change your program. We want to have you competitively bid projects.

I should point out that much of what we criticize the agencies for we are doing here in spades. Earmarks are, by their very definition, no- bid contracts. We are saying to people out there, if you can't get your grant through the competitively bid process, come to us anyway, and we will earmark those funds for you. So there is no concept, no discussion of merit.

Try as they might, I am sure the Appropriations Committee is not in a position to adequately scrub and vet all of these earmark requests. That is simply not their role and shouldn't be their role. We shouldn't put that burden on the Appropriations Committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have a great deal of respect for the gentleman whose earmark this is. I believe he knows that. I commend him for earlier than just about anybody putting his earmarks on his Web site. Certainly, this has been a good reform. I have been complimentary, and I remain so, of the majority party's willingness in January to go down this road and actually require this much. It follows some of what we did in the fall as Republicans. Frankly, in some areas, I think it did better than we did.

This isn't a case of something looks untoward in this earmark, or somebody is trying to get some private gain. It doesn't seem to me to be that at all. It is simply a question of, is this a proper priority? Should Members of Congress be able to designate money like this, particularly in this case, when we have a Federal agency with a program to award grants and an account with $16 million that we appropriate every year to award grants under this program? That is my question here.

I think that certainly, as mentioned, jazz is uniquely American. I can't imagine them submitting a proposal that would not be granted. It seems like a great place. It seems to be appropriate. What is at question here is,

should the Congress be doing this? That is where I am.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

It was brought up before that we're not talking about what the Federal agencies do. We talk a lot about what Congress does with earmarking, but there's an area of complaint I've heard about what the Federal agencies are doing. Well, this is the time to have that discussion. Right now.

We're looking to reduce the amount spent, the amount that we appropriate to the Federal agencies. Yes, they waste money, a tremendous amount of money. They waste money in my own district. This is the time that we say, hey, hold back a little, reprioritize, don't spend as much, and yet we're not doing it.

Instead, we say, well, you're misspending money and so we're going to misspend some money with earmarking. We don't like the way you have prioritized, so we're not going to actually go in and provide oversight and say, all right, stop spending money this way or that way. We're just going to add to it with our own priorities.

Let me just give an example. It's often said we don't ever give examples of specific programs. I'll give you one. I believe it was last year or maybe the year before GAO came out with a study saying that the DARE program was a waste of money, basically, or we weren't getting the bang for the buck that we should. What did we do? We increased funding for it. Instead of saying, you know, maybe it's not run as it should be, maybe we should scale back on it, force them to change it or scrap it altogether, but instead we increased funding for it.

That goes on across the board. GAO studies that we often commission are always followed by, well, they must need more money. Not the money's being misspent. They just need more of it.

That's what this amendment is all about to say, hey, Federal agencies you're misspending money; you're spending too much; it's time to scale back, and by the way, we can scale back on our own as far as earmarking as well.

So we never hear about the Federal agencies misspending. Here's one saying they do. They do in your district; they do in my district. This is the opportunity to say enough is enough. Let's cut back. Let's have some fiscal responsibility here.

So I commend the gentleman for his amendment, and I urge everyone to support it.

Madam Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

I'll claim time in opposition, but I have a feeling that I'm being talked into this rather quickly. By the end of this, I'll be very much in support. In fact, this is one of the best amendments already I think I've ever heard.

The distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee mentioned that when he left the committee over a decade ago there were no earmarks in this bill. That's commendable. That's wonderful. We should go back to that.

A Member just a few minutes ago talked about how critical this program was that somebody sought to cut funding for. Critical. Has to be there. I think we need a reminder that there were no House earmarks in this bill last year. No Labor-HHS earmarks. The world didn't come crashing to a halt. The year before that there were no earmarks in Labor-HHS because of political problems with it. The planets, as far as I know, stayed in orbit.

We don't need these earmarks. I mean, when you look at the list that they'll soon be offering here for an

exploratorium in San Francisco, corporation for Jefferson's poplar forest, for expansion of exhibits and research, money for the Burpee Museum in Rockford, Illinois, or the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, or for the American Jazz Museum or American Ballet Theater, are these things that the Federal Government has to be funding, or are they things that could be funded at the local level or by private entities?

Are we simply supplanting the free market or private funding with more Federal funding here?

The gentleman, distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee, makes a great point that it is our prerogative. We have the power of the purse. And we do. The problem with earmarking, in its contemporary form, is that we are circumventing the process here. We are telling the Federal agencies, we don't like what you're doing and so we'll one-up you. We'll make appropriations equally suspect to what you're doing, instead of saying, you know, that was a bad way to spend money, we're going to cut your funding. We're going to call you into hearings and ask you to explain why you're spending money irresponsibly. That is perfectly proper. We should be doing that.

But, instead, what we're doing is saying, you think you can spend money willy-nilly; we'll show you. We're going to put 15,000 earmarks in this year, as we did a couple of years ago.

I make no excuses for the Republican Party here. Earmarks have grown and became out of control on our watch. As the gentleman pointed out, there were some 1,400 earmarks in all appropriation bills in 1994. In 2005 or 2006, I believe there were over 15,000. That's inexcusable. That's part of the reason we Republicans are here squarely in the minority today. That doesn't excuse us for saying, all right, we're still going to put 1,300 earmarks in this bill.

The distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee wisely said weeks ago, we simply cannot police this process. We don't have enough staff on the Appropriations Committee. And he offered an alternative suggestion that we wait and find out what the earmarks were. None of us liked that alternative suggestion, but the premise was correct. We can't police these things.

Just yesterday I came with an amendment to the Energy and Water bill, and we found out that the center for which the earmark was intended doesn't even exist. We've gone from the bridge to nowhere to the center that's nowhere. And still we funded it. We got only 98 votes opposed because of log-rolling that takes place here.

So I certainly sympathize with what's going on here, and I appreciate the gentleman for what he's doing. We have a time-honored practice here in Congress of authorization, appropriation and oversight. Earmarking, in its contemporary form, circumvents that process, where we kick out authorization, we kick out oversight and we just appropriate. We do far too little of the authorizing and oversight, and we just appropriate. Whenever you do 1,300 earmarks in a bill, that's what you're doing. And I would submit that these haven't been scrubbed.

Another earmark that I was to propose yesterday, the authors of the earmark came just before and withdrew, actually offered their own amendment to strip the earmark I was going to seek to limit funds for because it hadn't been adequately scrubbed, and they probably knew that it couldn't withstand the scrutiny that came on the House floor.

But here we are, there's no way we can offer amendments for 1,300 earmarks. We'd test the patience of the Members and this whole body. We can't do that. But neither can we, or should we go forward and simply approve these as if every Member who has an earmark has a right to it.

So I would urge adoption of the amendment.

Madam Chairman, I won't take 4 minutes, but I just want to commend the gentleman for bringing this forward and having such a thoughtful approach to earmarks.

I should mention what we will hear today, I am sure many, many times, is that Members will come to the floor and say, It is my district, I know it best; and other Members will say, Let's defer to that Member because that Member knows his district better than anybody else, and, therefore, we should defer all spending decisions to that Member.

Let me remind us all, though, that just a couple of weeks ago more than 100 Members from this side of the aisle and 149 Members from that side of the aisle voted to strike an earmark from a Member's district. So I hope that we don't hear that because that is not always the case.

We make policy for the entire country, and we spend the taxpayers' money, and it is not always the case that any Member should have his or her way in their district.

So I think that this is a thoughtful process and I would support this. It looks like that there are conflicting amendments that are similar, and I hope that one of them passes to strike all earmarks from the bill.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, this amendment would prevent $300,000 from funding the Exploratorium, a science museum in San Francisco, California, and reduces the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

Madam Chairman, when I came across this earmark, I decided that I would explore why a successful museum like this would request money from the Federal Government. According to the earmark description in the certification letter submitted to committee, the earmark would fund an initiative to promote professional development for science education teachers. But when my staff and I did research on this earmark, we found that a teacher development program already exists at the museum.

According to the museum's Web site, the Teacher Institute trains teachers during the summer sessions, while they participate in a mix of learning experiences designed to help teachers with hands-on activities, inquiry, and strong science content.

The institute was founded by numerous corporate sponsors and foundations, including the Noyce Foundation and the Bank of America. All of the teachers who attend the Teacher Institute do so with private support. Again, why is the Federal Government funding an initiative that corporations can and do already fund?

The Exploratorium is a science museum that consists of 400 exhibits of art, science and the human perspective. It had over 600,000 visitors just last year. Cost of admission is $14 for adults, $9 for children. Income from government sources, both local and Federal, is almost $12 million. Nearly $9 million was contributed from individuals, corporations and foundations. It hardly seems that this museum is in some kind of financial straits, especially to the point that taxpayers around the country should be asked to help fund a program that would benefit only teachers from one small area of the country.

I don't disagree with the sponsor's desire for qualified science teachers in the classroom. Qualified teachers are necessary. But I do take issue with the increase in spending. This bill represents an increase of over $10 billion above the President's request and more than $2 billion over the Senate bill.

Spending has got to stop somewhere. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Again, we are simply stopping $300,000 for a museum that has a budget of some $12 million.

With that, Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I would have hoped that the sponsor of the amendment, which I believe is the Speaker of the House, would have come here to defend it or talk more about it.

That was a nice description, but again, the point isn't whether this is a worthy program or not or whether or not we need science teachers. I've had some rather dull ones as well, and I would rather have ones that are taught well and can teach well. But this museum has $12 million in revenue. This is 300,000 additional dollars given by the Federal Government. Why are we doing this? It's not because it's needed. It's because somebody can.

I would submit that when we are running a deficit like we are in this country and we have the debt like we do, why in the world are we doing this? What possible nexus is there for the Federal Government to come in and supplant private dollars with taxpayer dollars?

With that, I would urge adoption of the amendment.

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

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, this amendment would strike $150,000 for the Burpee Museum in Rockford, Illinois, for educational programming and exhibits and, as mentioned, reduces the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

Now, I don't want to take a lot of time on these amendments. I know a lot of people want to move pretty quickly.

Let me just say that I know the name, the Burpee Museum, lends itself to a lot of nice jokes about having dry heaves as a taxpayer and paying this or whatever else.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

I apologize.

None was intended. I was just hoping to shorten the conversation here.

But this museum began as a Works Progress Administration project in 1942. It's an old New Deal program. It's still around, and one might question why the museum is still receiving Federal funds, even though the Depression era has come and gone, and the WPA has long since closed up shop.

I spoke to the author of this amendment. I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Manzullo, and he explained some of the things I had a question about. One was a question about where the funding actually goes, was it to the Burpee Museum or was it to Northern Illinois University that has a paleontology department, and as I understand it, is lending staff to the museum. He clarified that, and I think I understand how that goes now.

My question is, and the gentleman points out as well and I'm sure he will in defense of this earmark, that this is an economically distressed area. There are many around the country, in every district in the country. If the entire district is not economically depressed,

certain areas of it are, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to try to discern by Members of Congress where funding should go and where it should not.

And I simply believe that it's not our place here to do this. In many cases, the accounts that we're earmarking are accounts that there is a competitive process at the Federal agency for the funds to be given out. By earmarking, we circumvent that process and we say, well, we know best so that we can decide who gets this funding.

I don't believe that that's right, and I believe that we should stop the funding for this earmark.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I'd simply repeat what I said. Virtually every district in the country can accurately say that certain parts of their district are economically depressed. We simply don't have enough money in the Federal Treasury to address all those needs.

So our decision is how do we adequately and equitably distribute funds to the Federal Government. If we make the decision that Federal agencies should fund these projects, then we should stick to the process that we have in place, and that process usually involves competitive bidding, for example. We don't want to give up no-bid contracts, but that's what earmarks by definition typically do.

So I don't think that that is proper here, and with that, I would urge an affirmative vote on the amendment.

Madam Chairman, I yield back my time.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, this amendment would prohibit $200,000 in Federal funds from being used for the Rhode Island College for development of a Portuguese and Lusophone Studies program and reduces the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

Let me just make a comment on the last comment that was made. It was said that we aren't saving money with these earmarks if we were to strike funding for them.

The way these earmarks are structured, we reduce the cost in the bill by a consistent amount. So whether we save money depends on the Appropriations Committee.

In any case, that's always what we are told, we will never save any money by striking funds for earmarks. That's simply not the case ever, because the Appropriations Committee could simply request less money the following year or the prior year, knowing that earmarks were going to be struck down.

Let me just say, with regard to this earmark, perhaps something was lost in translation. But my understanding is that this program has already been developed. Are we developing a program here that has already been developed, or is this a redevelopment?

According to the Web site, the Rhode Island College officially launched its Institute on Portuguese and Lusophone World Studies in October of 2006. The Web site states that the Institute of Portuguese and Lusophone World Studies is designed to be a nucleus of instruction and interaction for the benefit of its students and the larger Portuguese-speaking community of Rhode Island.

The certification letter submitted to the Appropriations Committee says that the money would be used for the Rhode Island College Lusophone Studies program. But since we don't have any further information, I guess we can assume, and I see that the sponsor of the amendment is here, and can clarify this, that the Lusophone World Studies is the intended recipient of the funds.

Supporters of the earmark will no doubt note that approximately 10 percent of Rhode Island's population is of

Portuguese descent. Through foundation donations and private contributions, over $620,000 has been raised to support the new program at Rhode Island College. In fact, Meredith Vieira, a well-known cohost of NBC's Today Show, and a Rhode Island native, serves as the national honorary chairperson of the Community Campaign for Portuguese Studies Endowment Fund. Here is another case where there is a lot of money coming in.

Why in the world do we need to spend more Federal money on it? Why do we need an earmark to divert more funds from our Treasury to programs that seem to exist and subsist fine on their own? In many cases we supplant private or local funds that could be used for this purpose.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Again, I think something has been lost in translation here. I have no idea what this amendment has to do with Enron. This amendment is simply saying that the Federal Government need not spend money on this program.

This Rhode Island College is a State university, it's my understanding. If the taxpayers in Rhode Island want to decide through their State representatives that it should receive more funding, then by all means it should.

My question is why are we coming here to the Federal Government with all the choices out there. The university that I went to, private university, teaches dozens and dozens of languages. I am sure they would like more funding, but it wouldn't be my place to come in and say, all right, let's have a big earmark for the Afrikaans program or the Chinese program or something else. I just don't think that would be proper. We can't do that.

Last time I checked, we are running a deficit here, and we have a big debt. To try to fund all of these programs simply is not prudent. It has nothing to do with Enron. It has nothing to do with misplaced priorities elsewhere.

It has to do with whether or not the Federal Government should in this case fund an earmark that is circumventing the regular process of authorization and appropriation. There are programs out there through the Department of Education that award grants to universities that have language programs. This is circumventing that process.

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

My time is yielded back, but I would love to take some time to answer that.

If I could make the point, tax cuts going out the door. Tax cuts never come in the door. That's the difference between tax cuts and spending. You leave it with the taxpayer, or you give it back.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, this amendment would prohibit $150,000 in Federal funds from being used for the American Ballet Theater in New York for educational activities, and it would reduce the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

I should point out that it has been said that if we don't spend this money, those faceless bureaucrats will just spend it. This actually reduces it. So it is up to the Appropriations Committee how that money is spent, not the agency itself. But I think that we could be facing the music if taxpayers learn that we are dancing away with their hard- earned money here.

The American Ballet Theater has been home to some of the world's best dancers since 1939. I believe that it holds assets of more than $15 million, $15 million in net assets. Yet, we are being asked to fund $150,000, I believe, to expand outreach by completing in-depth residencies in small and medium-sized communities across the country.

I have an obvious love for the ballet. I am not sure if it is that obvious, but I do like culture, and I think it is good for everyone. But telling taxpayers across the country that they should pony up $150,000 for the American Ballet Theater, an organization that has over $150 million in net assets I think is just a bridge too far.

There are many corporate sponsors involved in the American Ballet Theater, including American Airlines, Saks Fifth Avenue, Superfund Investing, Countrywide Financial. There are many well-known names on the board who contribute themselves. There is a Kennedy who is an honorary chairman; there is a Trump on the board as well.

There is a lot of support out there for this organization. I just fail to see why the Federal taxpayers should be put on the hook for this as well.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I find it curious when it's often said that the gentleman or somebody does not support the arts, does not support education. What would be said if there was a local individual, a philanthropist who gave $10 million to a local university, but did not believe that it was the Federal Government's place to do so? Would that person support education or not? If this is the standard by which people are judged, perhaps not.

But I would submit that it's not a very good standard. Just because you don't believe that it's the Federal Government's place, in this case, to favor what is perhaps the best known ballet company in the country, with net assets of more than $15 million, over perhaps local ballet companies that could maybe use more support. How do we make that choice here? It just doesn't seem right to me.

We have over 1,300 earmarks in this appropriation bill. I just don't know when Congress is going to draw the line.

For the average American taxpayer, I would argue that this $150,000 to the American Ballet Company is too much, or in this case, maybe too, too much.

Madam Chairman, I yield back.

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, this amendment prevents $150,000 from going toward programs at the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston, South Carolina, and reduces the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

Madam Chairman, when I saw this amendment, or saw this earmark, I thought I was experiencing deja vu here. In the past we've seen earmarks for other aquariums in other appropriations bills. Last year, the Mystic Aquarium received $1 million in the bill allocating funding for the Defense Department. And now we see the South Carolina Aquarium is a beneficiary in the spending bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.

This earmark may have found a more appropriate home in this spending bill rather than the Defense bill; but if I were a betting man, I would not bet against seeing other aquarium earmarks in other appropriations bills. It seems to be a trend here that the Federal Government seems to be funding more aquariums across the country, without, I would submit, much of a Federal purpose.

The Web site for the South Carolina Aquarium states that the purpose is to inspire conservation of the natural world by exhibiting and caring for animals, excelling in education and research, and providing an exceptional visitor experience.

This aquarium sells tickets for $16 for adults, $14 for seniors, $8 for children. It also has a sea turtle hospital, sustainable food initiative, which includes sustainable seafood recipe contests and a variety of exhibits.

But I would ask, why do not all aquariums across the country receive similar funding? What is the criteria for picking winners and losers?

This aquarium seems to get favorable treatment over aquariums in Massachusetts, Colorado, Arizona, Kansas, as well as just about every other State. Is this a fair and equitable process?

In addition, here, the case again is that the aquarium has a number of business partners and sponsors. The list reads like a who's who of Fortune 500 companies: BP, Whole Foods, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

Why are the taxpayers being asked to be on the hook? Why are we asked to sponsor this aquarium as well?

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, this amendment would prohibit $100,000 from being used to fund educational and outreach programs at the Kansas Regional Prison Museum at Lansing, Kansas. I've often joked that the way we splurge taxpayer funds on thousands of earmarks is a crime. But this earmark gives that sentiment a little new relevance.

It appears that Leavenworth County in Kansas uniquely hosts Federal, State, military and private prisons, and a regional prison museum is proposed to honor that heritage. This prison museum building would be in addition to the existing Lansing Historical Museum, complete with a gallows chamber, replicated cells and a 12- to 14-foot stone wall around the complex.

All told, it appears this prison museum addition would significantly increase the overall display area of the Lansing Historical Museum from roughly 1,500 square feet to nearly 8,000 square feet of display area. Here, I think it is a pretty clear case. It may have some local relevance, but asking taxpayers across the country to pay for a prison museum is probably not a wise use of funds here.

The Kansas director of Americans for Prosperity, a grass-roots organization that focuses on taxpayer issues, called earmarking Federal funds for this project ``wasteful Federal spending'' and suggested that ``if there is truly a market for a prison museum, people who find it interesting should pay for it, not the 99.9 percent of taxpayers who will never visit it.''

AFP, or Americans for Prosperity, also suggested that nontaxpayer sources of revenue could be found if there was adequate local support to build an economically viable prison museum in Lansing.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, again, I don't want to diminish the need that the locals feel to have this museum. People around the country have varying needs and wants for museums, whether it is a teapot museum in North Carolina or a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio. Local needs are such and people visit and tourists find that interesting.

But why should the Federal taxpayer be on the hook? When do we say, is there a time at which we say enough is enough, we can't handle any more? Thirteen hundred earmarks. Yes, it is down from the heyday of 2005, and I make no excuses for my own party for doing that. But is it right? When should we say enough is enough and simply say we shouldn't be using Federal taxpayer dollars for these kinds of projects?

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

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, this amendment would eliminate $150,000 in Federal funds for the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois, for exhibits and community outreach.

Shedding some light on earmarks like this should be one of Congress' top initiatives, and I am glad that we have this opportunity to do it.

The certification letter I submitted to the Appropriations Committee by the Member sponsoring the project stated ``the funding would highlight the Great Lakes aquatic ecosystem and incorporate community outreach, team mentor and stewardships program.''

This is the second largest indoor aquarium in the world containing 8,000 animals, 650 species. An ``all access pass'' for admission is $23 for adults and $16 for children, and this aquarium gets 2 million visitors annually. According to the Charity Navigator, annual revenue for the Shedd Aquarium in 2004 totaled over $50 million. This is revenue in 2004 totaling $50 million.

In 2004 alone the Shedd Aquarium had over $215 million in net assets and nearly $13 million in excess revenue. Let me read that again. In 2004 alone the Shedd Aquarium had over $215 million in net assets and nearly $13 million in excess revenue.

Why in the world, please tell me, are we giving 150,000 hard-earned Federal tax dollars to a local aquarium that has $13 million in excess revenue in 1 single year? It simply doesn't seem right to me.

The Shedd Aquarium has applied for and has received at least four competitive IMLS grants in the past, but this earmark skirts that process.

Again, we often talk about how we know more about our districts than some faceless bureaucrat in some agency. Well, those faceless bureaucrats in some agency awarded four grants to this institution. But that wasn't enough. They were back for another earmark, where apparently maybe they didn't get the grant this year; so we are going to earmark funds for the organization. Why do we set up a competitive grant program in a Federal agency and then say we are going to go around it by issuing an earmark?

Oftentimes we give earmarks to organizations that fail to get a grant, that fail the competitive process that we have ordered the Federal agency to establish. The oversight process dictates that we actually call in Federal agencies if we don't like the processes that they have set up and tell them to set up a new process or we deny them funding. And for those of us who say that they won't talk to us or those Federal agencies are nonresponsive, cut their funding for a while and see how responsive they become. That is our role, not to compete with the Federal agencies in how we can spend taxpayer dollars without competitive bids or without a process in place.

And I see that those who sponsored the amendment are here.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

I think the gentlelady may want to check the Record with regard to an energy bill. I'm not familiar with any that I voted for because they are hugely corporate subsidies.

And let me just say one thing. Charlie brought up, well, you're from Arizona. The Central Arizona Project, the big Federal project, or the Glen Canyon Dam in the 1950s was built largely with Federal funds, as if these were some earmark slipped into a conference report 3 days before the bill came to the floor. Not at all. I mean, no projects were debated more. Nothing went through more authorization, appropriation and now oversight than those projects. I may have voted differently if I were around in the 1950s, but I wasn't.

What we're debating here is whether we should spend $150,000 in Federal funds for a local aquarium in Chicago that in 2004 had $215 million in net assets, $50 million in total revenue, and $13 million in excess revenue. That is the question before us. We can talk about Enron. We can talk about the war. We can talk about anything, but this is what's relevant here, whether the taxpayer should be spending $150,000 for an aquarium, a local aquarium that had $50 million in revenue in 1 year alone. It simply doesn't seem right.

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

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, this amendment would prohibit $200,000, and reduce the cost of the bill by a consistent amount, from being used to expand the exhibits and outreach at Jefferson's Poplar Forest in Forest, Virginia.

Now, I'm sure that Thomas Jefferson himself would appreciate the sentiment about this, but I'm not sure the earmark is consistent with the Jeffersonian philosophy of ``limited government,'' particularly limited Federal intrusion. He talked about a wise and frugal government in his 1801 inaugural address. I'm not sure that this sits well with that philosophy, spending Federal money, $200,000 in this case.

Poplar Forest is an octagonal house, an acreage that was inherited by Jefferson's family. They used it as a retreat in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Now, I won't take too much time on it, but suffice it to say there is a lot of local support for something like this. It sounds like a great house.

I enjoy going to Monticello and visiting the sites of Thomas Jefferson. I'm sure that this is a fitting reminder of his life work and historical importance, along with a lot of other things that we have. But here again, there is an infinite need around the country for money for projects like this. If you simply ask the sponsoring Members, if you say that it's needed for economic development or tourism, what earmark would ever fail with that kind of criteria? We simply have to have a higher standard here. Does it have a Federal nexus? Can we afford it? Is it consistent with limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility? That's what we should be asking ourselves here.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, to end this debate tonight on these earmarks, I would just say that there has not been one earmark that has been challenged here tonight that isn't going to a valuable organization as far as I'm concerned. The question is not is there value in that organization or is there value in what this aquarium or what this historic site is doing. The question is should we be paying for it at the Federal level. And I think that's what taxpayers have a hard time with, and I think they should, particularly given the fiscal problems that we're having at the Federal level.

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

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.