Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to the bill. I would like to claim time in opposition to the bill.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire, how much time do I have?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I didn't learn about this, nor do I believe most of my colleagues did, until just minutes ago, if not an hour or so ago. This is not the way to conduct business.

It is one thing to have a policy, a long-term policy on severance packages, but to spring it in the middle of night on the last day of session is simply the wrong way to do business.

My understanding is that this would apply to leadership staff and committee staff, but not regular personal offices. Could somebody please tell me how that is fair?

If you are just talking about fairness, how is it fair to say to somebody from a personal office, your boss lost, you haven't got a severance? But, oh, if you happened to work for a committee or if you are lucky enough to work for leadership staff, you have a package. How is that fair?

We are often accused in Congress of having a package that members of the general public don't have. In doing this, we are offering a package that some people in Congress have and some people in Congress don't have, let alone the rest of the population. How is that fair? Why are we doing business this way in the middle of the night on the last day of session?

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

Mr. Speaker, before yielding to my next speaker, I was just informed that we don't even know what this will cost. We still don't have a cost estimate. If somebody has one, that would be great if we can have it.

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

(Mr. ISSA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, before yielding to the gentleman from Arizona, let me point out that there were some 30 offices, and with retirements even more than that, personal staff who will be out on the street with no severance package at all. Again, we are picking winners and losers. Winners are those who work in leadership offices or on committee staff. If you are in a personal office, tough luck.

This is just not well thought out in the middle of the night to be doing this, and with no cost estimate.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I should say that we need to remember whose generosity we are relying on here, and it is the taxpayer.

And also to make a point of fairness, again, the chairman that spoke earlier, the gentleman from Texas, mentioned that there are some 600 staffers that are affected here. I would submit that there are more than 600 staffers in the personal offices who are affected here. And rather than the average salary of $60,000 to $80,000 or whatever that is, the average salary in a personal office is much, much lower. Are they not worthy? Is it a fault of their own that their bosses were not re-elected? Why are we choosing here between them? Why are we saying if you work in a leadership office, you are worthy of this; if you work in a personal office, you are not? That is what happens in the middle of the night when decisions like this are made. That is why we shouldn't do decisions like that when we are given notice minutes before it comes up on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).

(Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to yield to anyone who can tell me that a committee staffer has a longer contract than somebody who works in a personal office. It is simply not the case. So the notion that a committee staffer should be treated differently is simply wrong. The gentleman from Indiana, I think, said it best. Nobody is here arguing that we shouldn't be generous. It is that when you come here in the middle of the night the last day of session, you rarely think things out very well and this isn't thought out very well. How can you say some people, we're just going to target who gets this benefit and who doesn't? This isn't how the public expects us to conduct our business.

As I mentioned before, we are already accused of having different rules for Congress than exist out there in the general public.

Does the gentleman have an answer to the question I asked?

Yes, I would yield.

I reclaim my time.

No one has berated anyone. I have worked with very, very able committee staff. Very, very able leadership staff. Also very able personal staff. That is not the point here. The point is if we want small government and we want it to work, let's not conduct it in the middle of the night on the last day of session. Let's actually come here in January and say, should we have a different severance package? Should it be different for committee staff? Should it be different for personal staff? But let's do it in the light of day. Let's do it with some kind of deliberation. That is all we are asking. No one is berating anyone's staff. No one is. That is the last thing on my mind or anyone who has spoken here.

So let's just step back. Please withdraw this resolution. Let's have a little more thought to this. I think the American people want us to deliberate. They want us to do it in the light of day, not at 11:40 at night, or 11:20 at night. We shouldn't be doing business this way.

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

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the speed with which this was brought to the floor. This is something the State Department and the administration has asked for. It will allow ratification of a Third Geneva Protocol and protect, as has been said, the Red Crescent as well as the Red Crystal.

This is important, as has been explained, so that those wearing the emblem can be protected in dangerous situations and battlefields, and we can encourage other countries to do the same and offer the same recognition. Again, I thank those who have on a bipartisan basis supported this legislation.

I will not repeat what this does. It has been aptly explained by the chairman and the ranking minority member. I just wish to thank those who have brought this to the floor for doing so and urge its adoption.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for giving me time on this bill.

I am not rising today to debate the merits of trying to prevent underage drinking. What I am here to do is challenge the Federal Government's role in authorizing what amounts, in this bill, to $40 million for two new grant programs, $24 million for a new research initiative, $4 million to establish a new Federal committee, and another $4 million for a public service announcement. This is a total of $72 million over 4 years. And here's the real kicker: There already exist Federal programs that do exactly what this suspension bill intends to do.

My staff and I visited www.thecoolspot.gov this morning. The Cool Spot was created for young teens by the lead U.S. agency supporting research into the causes, prevention and treatment of alcohol programs. It is an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency that is estimated to receive over $430 million in fiscal year 2007 and to do exactly what this suspension bill intends to do.

The acting director of this agency justified in House and Senate Appropriations Committee hearings a budget increase of over $2 million for fiscal year 2005 to 2006 by claiming the agency would expand its research into youth alcohol abuse.

But if you think that there needs to be more money, you can visit www.alcoholfreechildren.org, another underage drinking program that receives Federal funding from the Federal Government. Or there's www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov, or www.alcoholpolicy.gov. Why are we spending $72 million on Federal research and grants to establish duplicative programs? And why are we doing this exactly 1 week after the voters told us that they were tired of wasteful spending?

Mr. Speaker, we simply cannot afford to keep adding new authorizations, new Federal programs when we know that we are running deficits and we have a massive debt. Where does it end? Where do we say, you know, having seven or eight or a dozen programs that already do virtually the exact same thing are enough?

Why are we simply adding another? We can't continue to do this. So I would rise in opposition to this legislation and urge my colleagues to vote against it.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I am pleased to rise in support of H.R. 4772. I am pleased to be an original cosponsor and want to commend Mr. Chabot and Mr. Sensenbrenner for shepherding this legislation through.

In Arizona, between State, Federal and Indian reservation, private property extends to less than 20 percent in the State, and so we take private property very seriously there because we

cannot afford to lose too much more of it.

So, when we have had the recent Kelo decision and other decisions that have eroded private property rights over the past couple of years, we feel that we need to respond in this way, and if the Federal Government has provisions which erode those private property rights then somebody ought to have a remedy through the Federal courts. And that's what this legislation is about.

I commend the sponsors for pushing it through, and I would encourage support for it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and the gentleman for yielding.

I just think there ought to be somebody who stands and says that research like this is going on in the private sector, continually, as it should be. That is where it ought to be. I hope that we can reach more energy independence. But when we look at the situation that we have now with a massive deficit and a huge debt, I think it is too much to ask, particularly given the oil prices where they are and the fact that there are huge profits being made by oil companies who have plenty of room to actually fund a lot of this research on their own, and it is a little too much to ask taxpayers, in my view, to come in. And I have heard the price tag to be somewhere around $400 million. That would seem to me to be a bit steep.

So I for one do not support the legislation. I know that it has overwhelming broad bipartisan support, and I am not hopeful that my views will prevail. But I just want to add that I think that this, for the taxpayers at this time, is not a wise move.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate the gentleman from California and the opportunity to work with him on the substitute.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 5825. In 1978, Congress passed a seminal piece of legislation called FISA. This act recognized that while the President has inherent authority to protect American citizens, Congress has clear authority to regulate that surveillance.

There have been many technological changes over the past 28 years, and FISA has been amended many times to adapt to those changes. But, now, we here in Congress are confronted with the knowledge that the executive branch has chosen to conduct surveillance outside of the strictures of FISA. We must now choose whether to allow warrantless surveillance to continue or whether we should bring the terrorist surveillance program and any other programs that might be in operation under FISA's authority. If we do not, we will essentially have two categories of surveillance programs: one on the books and one that is off the books.

Now, perhaps the existence of FISA has made us all complacent. We have not been confronted for the past three decades with reports of executive branch abuse. But prior to FISA's passage, such abuses were legion. The Church Commission of the mid-1970s identified instances of abuse of the executive branch surveillance power that were so egregious that they thought it necessary to bring in FISA.

Do we want to return to the pre-FISA era? I would submit that we should not. Yet the bill we will vote on tonight will ensure that surveillance will continue to be gathered outside of FISA, effectively returning us to that era.

As I have said before, the acid test for Republicans should be as follows: Would I more jealously guard the congressional prerogative to regulate the President's inherent authority to conduct warrantless surveillance if the current occupant of the White House did not share my party affiliation? If the answer is yes, then it is our obligation to vote against the underlying bill and to vote instead for the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I am not comfortable in this position, standing up to argue in favor of a Democrat motion to recommit. Just a year ago, I stood at that very podium and argued on behalf of the majority in favor of reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act and against the Democrat motion to recommit that was favored by many of my colleagues.

But during that process, we had more than a dozen hearings, a long markup, a spirited debate on the floor under a rule that allowed for a series of amendments, including four of my own. We did not have that process this time.

This was a closed rule that did not allow for a vote, a clean vote, on a bipartisan substitute except as a Democrat motion to recommit. I wish that this were not the case because, as I said, I try not to make a habit of voting for Democrat motions to recommit.

But for those of us who believe we should exercise our congressional prerogative to regulate the President's authority to conduct surveillance, this is our only option. For those of us who believe that FISA should be the exclusive vehicle for conducting surveillance related to foreign intelligence, this is our only option. And for those of us who believe that we should give the administration all the tools they need to conduct surveillance but retain the ability to regulate and provide oversight for such surveillance, this is our only option.

If the underlying bill is enacted into law, we will have two surveillance programs, one under FISA and on the books, and one outside of FISA and off the books. If we do this, we will not give due deference to our congressional responsibility.

Make no mistake, if we vote for the underlying bill and against the motion to recommit, we will walk out of these doors a lot less relevant than when we walked in this morning.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge a vote for the Democrat motion to recommit and against the underlying bill.

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

We passed recently the earmark reform rule that applies simply to House rules. I had a concern that it might not apply to suspension bills, bills which are brought under suspension of the rules which would include suspending the earmark rule that we adopted.

I find in the report specific language referring to the Great Lakes Maritime Research Institute and specific moneys that are allocated in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. That would seem to fit the definition of an earmark for the purposes of the rule that we passed, and the rule that we passed requires that a Member who requested that earmark identify their names with that earmark.

I would ask the gentleman if that is the earmark you requested?

If the gentleman would continue to yield, I am reading now from I believe it is a press release of December 2005.

``Congressman David Obey, D-Wisconsin, announced December 12 that the Great Lakes Maritime Institute, the joint effort of the University of Wisconsin-Superior and the University of Minnesota-Duluth, will receive $2 million in Federal funding.'' I believe that that is now the identified home of the Institute and, therefore, receiving money year after year would, I believe, be defined as an earmark for that purpose.

I thank the gentleman. We do not legislate by press release. Unfortunately, for those of us who are trying to bring some accountability or transparency, sometimes the only way we can find out who requested an earmark or specific funding is to go to press releases because the agency won't tell us and the committees won't tell us.

I thank the gentleman. My concern is that when we did the earmark reform rule we didn't specifically cover suspension bills, and we want to make sure that all avenues are covered, whether it is authorizing on suspension bills or whatever else we do. So I appreciate the gentleman's explaining this particular source of funding and how it is arrived at.

The chairman of the Rules Committee said during the debate on that earmark rule, he said, ``By adopting this new rule, we as a body are not only making the commitment to live under its provision, but every Member must make a commitment to adhere to the spirit of this new rule. It is more than just adding a new rule. It is making a commitment to change the culture of the institution.''

And what I want to make sure is that under rules of suspension that we don't bring to the floor any earmarks that have not been identified according to the rule.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I also thank the leadership for their continued commitment

to work and to ensure that suspension bills are covered under the new earmark rule.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the United States Congress is a wonderful and storied institution. It is with great reverence and pride that each of us who is elected comes into this body. But with earmarking, we have departed from the practices and traditions of the People's House.

When working properly, the House of Representatives follows the time- honored practice of authorization, appropriation and oversight. Earmarking short circuits this process. Today, we do far too little authorizing, far too much appropriating and far too little oversight.

When I was first elected, I had visions of participating in the great debates of our time. It is not that these policy debates haven't occurred. They have and they do. But I believe it is safe to say that they are diminishing.

In Congress, policies and priorities are established when money is attached to them. When the carefully designed process of authorization, appropriation and oversight is adhered to, these policies and priorities are given a thorough vetting. But when earmarks are inserted into bills at the last minute behind closed doors, there is no debate, deliberation or scrutiny.

When appropriation bills reach the House floor, passage by a lopsided margin is virtually assured because Members with earmarks are obligated to

vote for the entire bill. The scope of debate is substantially narrowed when even partisan disagreements that would otherwise occur are hushed as Republicans and Democrats find common cause in protecting their earmarks.

I am under no illusion that this legislation, which deals only with the issue of transparency, will solve the problem of earmarking. Too many in this body have been convinced that they have both the right and the obligation to personally direct funding to their district. But this bill does represent an important first step.

Mr. Speaker, we owe this institution more than we are giving it. Let's pass this bill and give it more of the respect it deserves.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Chairman, today I voted against the Pledge Protection Act--H.R. 2389. I believe in the constitutionality of the Pledge and believe that the Pledge should contain the words ``under God.''

Unfortunately, this bill does more to hurt the Pledge than help it. The bill strips Federal courts of jurisdiction over Federal constitutional claims, leaving the States to each decide issues regarding the Pledge. Some States may strike down the Pledge; others may modify it. The end result would be lasting damage to the Pledge. This is clearly a Federal, constitutional issue.

I realize that, in 2002, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reached a disturbing result by declaring that it was an unconstitutional establishment of religion to have students to recite the words ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the ninth circuit on procedural grounds in 2004. Unfortunately, there was no clear opinion overruling the ninth circuit on substantive grounds.

The ninth circuit's ruling has created confusion as to whether the decision must be followed within the boundaries of the circuit. At least one Federal district court in California has since ruled that it must. That case is on appeal now to the ninth circuit, and hopefully it will make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court for a reversal.

Mr. Speaker, last year's highway authorization bill, better known as SAFETEA-LU, which brought us the bridge to nowhere, seems to be a gift that keeps on giving. It has now cleared the path for a program that may set a standard for fiscal mismanagement and favoritism by the Federal Government.

Thanks to changes made to the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing, or RRIF, program in SAFETEA-LU, the administration is considering awarding one of the largest loans to a private company in the history of the United States. This would be a $2.5 billion loan to the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroads, or DM&E, a loan larger than the Chrysler bail-out.

SAFETEA-LU expanded the loan authority of the RRIF program from $3.5 billion to $35 billion and removed any prohibition on the size of any single loan, paving the way for the DM&E loan application.

If drastically expanding the program's loan authority opened the door for DM&E, a handful of other changes to the program all but drive the loan application home.

Mr. Speaker, the RRIF program is on the verge of being used to provide a competitive advantage. It is inappropriate for the taxpayers to finance it.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, yesterday we had quite a discussion on this bill. There were efforts to move money from paying for the census, for example, to other areas of the bill or other priorities. There was a lot of talk about limited resources and the limited amount of money in this bill and the need to take money from one area to put into another.

I would submit that one area that we can take some money from that is overfunded, grossly overfunded, in this bill is in some of these earmarks. Now, I will maybe highlight 10 of them today, but there are literally hundreds in the bill that we could take the money from to fund our constitutional obligation, for example, to conduct the census every 10 years.

But I will start today with 250,000 for the Rochester, New York, Tooling and Machining Association for a workforce development program; that is an earmark. This amendment would strip that funding. The Rochester Tool and Machining Association is one chapter of a larger international tooling and machining association, which is the national representative of the custom precision manufacturing industry in the United States.

They maintain a legislative alert center on their Web site so their members can lobby Congress on issues that matter to them. They also retain a lobbying firm to advance their interests with the Federal Government. It would seem that they are doing yeoman's work for their members, as is their Rochester chapter. Their Rochester chapter offers technical training and education to its members.

They assert on their Web site that manufacturing job opportunities are not declining and that manufacturing accounts for 24 percent of the private sector jobs in New York State. They go on to claim that the size of the workforce is declining and that there are insufficient skilled workers to fill these available jobs, which I can only assume is what this earmark is for.

What we have here is simple supply and demand, not enough skilled workers for too many jobs, an equation that is normally balanced by the free market, until this earmark. For those who buy into the idea that it is the Federal Government's responsibility to plan and shape the supply and demands of our workforce, my objection to this earmark will not resonate with you.

But for those who have witnessed the profound failures of central planning in countries around the world during the 1970s and the 1980s, I hope that you will understand that this earmark is a mini-economic boost by a Federal, centralized government, to increase the supply of one industry's workers over another industry.

I would submit that if there is such a demand for skilled manufacturers, as the association claims, then wages will increase, and the workforce will adapt, and they will learn ways and skills necessary to earn those wages. Let the market decide which industries succeed or fail, not politicians in Washington.

I would like to hear the justification for the Federal function in this case, but then I ask, why are we picking winners and losers through the earmarking process? Why is this industry, this sector, these workers, more deserving than others? I don't think Congress should be picking favorites like this.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would simply say, again, we all say it is our job to represent our constituents, and it certainly is. But we are in a deficit situation. We have a massive deficit and a massive Federal debt.

What if every Member of Congress said, I am going to represent my constituents by getting every Federal dollar that I can back into my district, regardless of the deficit, regardless of the debt.

That is pretty much where we are at right now. When you had, I think last year was $27 billion in earmarks, where does it end? When do we say enough is enough? When do we say, I am not going to pick this industry over that one?

That workforce may be worthy of this kind of help, but what makes it more worthy than another one? Why do we just continue with the spoils system where if you happen to get with this group and they happen to be lucky enough to get your earmark, they get funded, but nobody else does? We simply can't continue this.

I urge support of the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I am a big fan of Italian food. My district is home to a great Italian restaurant, Anzio's Landing. You can order many of your favorite dishes, good Italian bread, and there are many former New Yorkers in my district, and they know it well. But if the owner of this restaurant, whom I know well, if he approached me to get a Federal earmark to modernize his restaurant, I would have to tell him ``fuhgetaboudit.''

Today I am bringing this amendment to learn whether the rest of the House will agree with me on that premise. The bill before us today asks us to spend $150,000 in Federal taxpayer dollars to the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, an Italian grocery market in a neighborhood labeled Bronx's Little Italy. Over a dozen merchants currently reside in the market, including Joe Liberatore's Garden of Plenty, Peter's Meat Market and Mike's Deli, a two-generation family-owned business that sells antipasti, breads, meats, pasta, and imported cheeses. The market is also home to the La Casa Grande Tobacco Company, which offers hand- rolled cigars.

In 2004, the market received $300,000 in earmarked Federal dollars for renovations. The market received another $400,000 in Federal transportation appropriation dollars for a new parking facility in 2005. We are back.

In 1940, Mayor LaGuardia built an indoor Arthur Avenue Market to take street vendors out of the cold. This is where this originated.

In the 1980s, the merchants of the market formed a co-op and paid for renovations to that market. Now, there are long lines at the market on weekends to get great Italian bread, cheese and salami.

I would ask the sponsor of this amendment why close to $700,000 has been spent on this Italian grocery market and why another $150,000 in taxpayer funds is needed.

There is a lot of Federal prosciutto to bring back to the District, or that is, a lot of Federal prosciutto to bring back to the District for a private Italian grocery market. I think we need to slice off some of this appropriations bill. If there is a place to slice, this is certainly it.

What possible Federal purpose does this earmark serve? Does the taxpayer even get a free Italian cookie assortment? If we allow our tax money to go to this grocery market, what benefit is there for the Federal taxpayer? There are certainly plenty of private benefits, but what Federal benefit? How do we justify this?

I would argue that this is one cannoli the taxpayer doesn't want to take a bite out of.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for the invitation. I likely will take him up on it. Maybe I will learn to say ``prosciutto'' properly.

But we simply get back to the point, where does it end? Where do we stop favoring one group, one industry over another? It is mentioned that this is a city-owned facility. Those who are residing there, who have their markets there, already received that kind of subsidy apparently from the city.

Now we are going in addition and giving them further subsidy. $400,000 last year for a parking garage, $300,000 in 2004 for similar upgrades, $150,000 more today. My guess is that there are Italian eateries or restaurants or markets elsewhere in the city that are getting no subsidy at all. How is it fair to them? How is it fair to them to favor one?

And I would say the same if it were in my district. It is not fair to subsidize one and not the other, and that is where we are with this earmarking process.

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 earmark limitation amendment would prohibit $200,000 in Federal funds from being provided to the Oil Region Alliance of Business, Industry and Tourism.

Now, the mission of the Oil Region Alliance of Business, Industry and Tourism is to ``increase the prosperity and population of the Oil Region'' of Pennsylvania. The point of the alliance is to ``entice people to live, work, learn and play in the valley that changed the world.''

I am certain this is an important organization to the oil region. These folks are working to ensure that the region's future is important as was its past. I have no problem with that. I don't think anyone does. Being the site of the world's first successful oil well in 1859, this area has played a crucial role in the country's history.

My only question is, why should the Federal Government pay to develop this area's business and tourism? Why this area and not other areas?

In April of this year, Governor Rendell congratulated the Pennsylvania tourism industry for having a record-breaking year last year.

The $25 billion tourism industry sold more hotel rooms than ever before and attracted more than 130 million visitors in 2005, making Pennsylvania the fifth most visited State in the Nation. Statewide, tourism accounts for more than 400,000 jobs and is the Commonwealth's second largest industry.

I have said it before, and I will continue to say it: when the Federal Government hands out earmarks like this, we are picking winners and losers. We are encouraging people to visit and to provide tourism to this area. They have to come from somewhere else. Why aren't we subsidizing those whom they choose not to go to? Where does it end? Where do we stop? Why do we simply have a spoils system where one Member of Congress can say, I am going to benefit them but not others?

In this case, the oil region of Pennsylvania receives funding to attract businesses to locate in the region, to try to get families to move there and to stay, and to try to attract tourist dollars.

As I mentioned, there are businesses and families and tourist dollars that won't be heading to other areas of Pennsylvania or surrounding States or anywhere else in the country. Many other localities throughout the country would like to receive as many tourism dollars as possible, but we are favoring one with this earmark.

Simply put, we shouldn't be doing this. The Federal Government shouldn't be picking winners and losers like this.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would simply submit that every Member of Congress in 435 districts around the country can point to at least pockets in his or her district that need help, where there is high jobless rates or where there is high crime.

But where does it end? Where do we say, all right, we simply can't pass out earmarks like this and circumvent the normal authorization, appropriation, and oversight process? When does it become our job to say, all right, we are not going to go through that process and authorize these programs, appropriate and then have oversight. Instead, we are just going to slip an earmark in that we don't even know who sponsored until we offer it on the floor today. And if nobody was standing up here, we still wouldn't know.

There are hundreds and hundreds of earmarks in this bill that we wouldn't even know who is offering them or what they are for because the descriptions are often so vague as to what the earmark is supposed to fund.

So where does it end? Why can't every Member stand up and say, I have pockets in my district, if not my entire district, that need workforce development, that need facilities?

He mentioned my district has grown 40 percent in the past couple of years. It has. It has tremendous infrastructure needs. But if I were to come and say we need all the lists that he rattled off there, then the Treasury simply couldn't handle it.

We are put in this position to make decisions and to have priorities; and I would submit that when you have an earmarking process like that, we aren't going through it properly.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prevent any funding from going to the Fairplex Trade and Conference Center.

Fairplex is home to the Los Angeles County Fair, the largest county fair in the world. The fair is a great asset to California, contributing a major portion of the $11.6 million in State sales tax revenue generated by Fairplex and $176 million in spending.

The L.A. County Fair Association describes itself as self-supporting and boasts that it does not fall under the auspices of any county or State governmental body.

Surplus revenues that are generated by the fair and other activities are reinvested into the maintenance and development of the facility.

The association also states that Fairplex receives no government funding for the operation or maintenance of its facilities. However, Fairplex received $1 million in Federal funding for fiscal year 2006. If the money is not used for the operation or maintenance of this thriving independent facility, what is it used for?

Maybe the funding is intended for some other activities at the Fairplex, such as the Wally Parks NHRA Motor Sports Museum or the Frank Hawley Drag Racing School. Maybe these funds are for Fairplex Park, a major horse racing facility with a grandstand and air-conditioned clubhouse for satellite gambling.

There is no question that Fairplex delivers major economic benefits for L.A. County and the rest of California. But I do question, however, why the Federal Government is throwing money at an independent facility that generates over $334 million in economic activity nationwide. Fairplex does so well, in fact, that it donates more than $400,000 in cash and in kind to local organizations each year.

So why are we giving this earmark? That is the question.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have great respect for the gentlewoman and for the gentleman who spoke, and I appreciate their efforts on behalf of this initiative. But, again, I have to say, where does it end? Where does it end when we say, this group, this organization, this facility is worthy of Federal dollars, and another is not? It simply isn't fair to continue to give earmarks like this in this manner.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would ask Members of this body, how would you define irony?

I define it as providing a Federal earmark money to the Bronx Council on the Arts, which is an entity that is advertising an event on its Web site called, Pay to Play.

Pay to Play, according to the Bronx Council's Web site is ``a multimedia exhibition ala Abramoff, Scanlon, Cunningham, Halliburton and on and on and on.'' The Web site states that ``artists are asked to offer a bribe to participate in the show that will be on display alongside selected work. Please note that special consideration will be given to work that addresses corruption, greed, scandal, cover-ups, failures of democracy, the transparent veneer of public interest that masks rampant self-interest, and such other things.''

I am not saying the earmark for Bronx Council of the Arts fits any of these categories, but I am saying that it is sadly ironic that we are funding artistic parodies of congressional earmarking with earmarks.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would strike funding for the Bronx Council for marketing local arts initiatives. My staff and I were befuddled as to what the Bronx Council originally was. It appears that a Bronx Council got money last year in the same section of the bill, but the earmark was called, ``$150,000 for the Bronx Council for the Arts for its Arts Cultural Corridor Project to promote local arts initiatives.''

So we went from Bronx Council on the Arts to just the Bronx Council. We dropped the ``Arts Cultural Corridor Project,'' and we are no longer promoting local arts, but we are marketing them. I call this the Earmark Protection Program, changing the names of earmarks to make them so vague that no one can recognize them and no amendment can be drafted to strike them.

We often have trouble when we are offering these earmarks. We are told by the Parliamentarian that it has to refer to a specific facility or a specific initiative, and these earmarks this year, many of the names have been changed to be more vague, and it is difficult to know what they actually fund. As mentioned a few weeks ago, we had earmarks to simply fund a facility without reference to what that facility was. It is difficult to have amendments that are actually ruled in order to challenge them because, as the Parliamentarians will tell you, to successfully challenge an earmark, it requires an assumption that the agency that funds the earmark is familiar with the project. Otherwise, we might be legislating on an appropriation bill, which is a violation of our rules. The incentive, therefore, for Members looking to protect earmarks is to become more vague or silent about the project's goals and the project's oversight.

I would submit that we should get used to more earmarks entering this protection program in the near future to prevent them from being stripped from appropriation bills. I would welcome an explanation as to what this earmark actually does.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume for a question, and I would like to yield to the gentleman to answer.

Is this the same council that received the earmark last year, just for my clarification?

I will do that. I thank the gentleman.

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, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

In last year's conference report on the SSJC appropriations bill, there was a $250,000 earmark for the JARI, which stands for Johnstown Area Regional Industries, Workforce Development Program. There was a separate $250,000 earmark for the JARI Small Business Technology Center. This year, there is a $500,000 earmark for the JARI Workforce Development Program and the Small Business Technology Center. We also found a separate $800,000 earmark for JARI for a Regional Business Incubator.

Aside from all other arguments that can be made against this kind of earmarking, I want to point out what appears to be a trend toward obfuscation in the language of earmarks. In drafting a limitation amendment to prevent funding to the JARI Regional Business Incubator, we used the earmark language exactly as it appears in the bill.

We then asked the Parliamentarians to review it to make sure it would be in order. We were informed that the ``region business incubator'' verbiage was too vague to be considered in order. So in drafting this amendment, we had no choice but to limit funding to JARI, period. The effect of this amendment would be to prohibit any funding from the bill going to the organization, whereas our initial intention was to limit the funding to the business incubator.

That is part of the problem we have here. All we have is the language in a report that is so vague or confusing that it is even difficult to draft an amendment to cover it.

Now I have no problem limiting any funding to the organization, let me tell you, but I also want to be clear that I have nothing against JARI. I wish the organization well in its efforts. I do, however, have a problem with the increasingly opaque process by which Congress hands out earmarks.

For the first half of this year, we debated ways to bring transparency to what we do here. When it comes to the earmarking process, Members have proposed a longer notice period before consideration of bills, making bills and reports more accessible, attaching Members' names to earmarks, compiling earmarks in tables, including earmarks in the text of legislation, and on and on and on. I think all these ideas are fine, and I have introduced my own proposal.

After a good deal of compromise, this House approved the Lobbying Accountability and Transparency Act last month. Yet here we are, just a few weeks later, and there has been no apparent effort to comply with the proposals that we made in the House and the entire House approved.

How can we explain this to our constituents? Was the lobbying and transparency legislation just for show? I certainly don't think it was, but it is starting to look that way to most Americans.

We need to demonstrate how serious we are about establishing transparency in Congress. We have made a strong effort, and there is nothing preventing us from making good on what we said. Waiting until this bill becomes law before we act would appear as though we are under compulsion to comply with the public demand for transparency. I think we need transparency now.

A small handful of our colleagues contend that we should not change the process until the other Chamber changes its process, that if we enact unilateral reforms in the House, we would shortchange ourselves.

Who is this about? Are we here to serve our country, the best interests of our country, or simply to look out for the interests of the House?

What are we waiting for? We are almost done with the appropriation process for the year, yet nothing has changed. Where are the names next to earmarks? Where is the transparency that we say that we want?

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I simply would like to point out that unless the gentleman who defended the earmark is the author of the earmark, and I don't believe that he is, this is an earmark in Pennsylvania. We still don't know who authored the earmark. There is nothing in the conference report that tells us, and we still don't know. Here we are about to vote on it, and we still don't know and we haven't had a defense of that earmark from the author of it, from the Member who authored it. There is something wrong with the process when this is what we are reduced to.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the committee report for this bill contains an earmark for the Wisconsin Procurement Initiative, and my amendment would limit funding for this item.

The committee report for last year's SSJC appropriations bill did not contain a similar earmark, but the conference report on this bill did include an earmark for the Wisconsin Procurement Institute for the same amount.

Though it is impossible to know by reading the report, it appears that this earmark is destined for the same institution. Again, we simply don't know. We have insufficient information, yet we are going to provide the funding without even knowing, without anybody even asking the question, is it the same thing to give money to the initiative or the institute?

It appears that this is one of several earmarks that have been funded in multiple years with similar but increasingly vague verbiage in the committee report.

The Wisconsin Procurement Institute was founded in 1987 by Les Aspin, a former Congressman and Secretary of Defense. The institute says its purpose is to ``bridge the gap for Wisconsin companies interested in supplying their products and services to Federal, State and local agencies and prime contractors.'' The institute ``guides, trains and provides hands-on assistance to firms in developing government business and improving process and technical capabilities to access and compete in the government workplace.''

When I saw this earmark, it reminded me of the late-night commercials that you see from a fellow by the name of Matthew Lesko. He will stand up and run to the camera, and he has a suit with question marks all over it, and he has a car decorated the same way, and he will wave a book and say, ``There is millions and millions of government dollars just for you, and if you pay me $19.95, I will tell you how can get these contracts, how you can get this money, how you can get these scholarships, how you can get these grants, how you can get these loans.''

This seems to be a process similar to Matthew Lesko. You have an organization here whose job it is to secure projects from the Federal Government, and we are paying money to that organization to help them procure contracts from us. It just seems like a little double-dipping in that way. We are funding an organization whose purpose it is to help other organizations obtain Federal assistance, grants, contracts, et cetera.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the 2003 budget for the Wisconsin Procurement Institute was $340,000. This year's and last year's earmarks were for $400,000 each. It seems that we have doubled their budget, or their entire budget comes from the Federal Government. I am not sure which.

I am sure the Wisconsin Procurement Institute's budget is higher now than it was 3 years ago, but a significant portion must be funded by this earmark.

I certainly support the outsourcing of Federal functions that can be better performed by private companies, but there is something inherently wrong with funding an organization whose purpose it is to help others secure government funding. Just thinking about it makes your head spin.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, we have done it again. We have come here to talk about an earmark that I am sure will be approved by voice vote and then probably by roll call, and we still don't even know who sponsored it. We don't know if the institute is the same as the initiative. We don't know why the organization claims on its own Web site to have a budget of $340,000, yet has received earmarks in each of the past 2 years for $400,000 each.

It simply doesn't make sense. Are we exercising the proper oversight that we ought to? We said before, both sides

have said, the gentleman and ranking minority member have said we simply don't have the staff to police the kind of earmarking we are doing here. I readily agree. Yet we are continuing to do this. I don't know where we stop. I simply don't.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit $900,000 in Federal funds from being used by Fairmont State University in West Virginia for a small business initiative.

Fairmont State University is located in Fairmont, the county seat of Marion County, which has a population of 20,000 and is located in north central West Virginia. Similar to other earmarks I have challenged in this appropriations season, this earmark is vague in its description, offering no more than a general sketch of the purpose of the funding and making true oversight nearly impossible.

In addition, this is not the first earmark to benefit the school. In recent years, Fairmont State University and its partners have regularly benefited from earmarks in this appropriation bill.

For example, the 2005 Justice Department budget included a grant for nearly half a million dollars for the Fairmont State partner program looking at decoding criminal digital documents. Similarly, the 2006 SSJC appropriation bill included over $2 million in earmarks assisting the school's aviation program and aerospace curriculum.

And I guess the third time is the charm. We are likely to continue this trend in 2007 with an earmark for $900,000 for a small business development initiative.

In fact, according to some estimates, northern West Virginia has received more than $480 million in earmarks in various appropriation bills over the last 10 years.

This earmark illustrates the problem with earmarks. Year after year, we approve these vaguely described projects by the thousands. Not only do taxpayers not know how the money is being spent, the current earmark process makes those types of patterns, the same area benefiting time and time again at the taxpayers' expense, difficult if not impossible to detect.

My question is, where does it end? Where does Congress start to say enough is enough and add accountability and transparency to this runaway train that earmarks have become? If not with earmarks like this, then I do not know when.

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

Mr. Chairman, all of the descriptions of Arizona make it sound like Shangri-La, that everything is going so well in Arizona that we have no need for any help with the economy or any sector of the economy. That is simply not the case. We are experiencing rapid growth. There are a lot of infrastructure needs that come with that. We are experiencing transition.

I grew up in northeastern Arizona. There are tremendous problems there with drought and other issues.

But I would defy any Member of Congress to say that his district is not in need of something. But if we all said, all right, we are just going to get it all, get it all for our districts, circumvent the authorization appropriation oversight function that Congress has always had and simply say we are going to earmark it and use kind of a spoil system as to who gets the earmarks, then it is simply going to drain the Treasury, and it is not fair to anyone.

I have universities in my district. Many of them compete for educational grants, for research grants, for other grants that are typically available in this appropriation bill and others that are being depleted. Those accounts for research funds are being depleted by earmarks.

Later today I believe we will be voting on an amendment or some clarification of the TEA-LU bill to replenish a research account or some kind of research account on roads whose account was depleted because of earmarks. So people in Arizona or elsewhere are not going to receive the funding that would come by formula back to them, because of the gas taxes they paid in, because of all of the earmarking that is going on.

So this is a problem. It is not a fair system. It is not a transparent system. If it were a transparent system, we would have names next to the earmarks when they come to the floor. We would have the ability to challenge it at any step. You would have language that is such that a limitation amendment could not be ruled out of order.

This is not a fair process. We need to change it.

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, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit funds in the bill from being used for the Southern and Eastern Kentucky Tourism Development Association, which receives a $1 million earmark in this bill.

The Southern and Eastern Kentucky Tourism Development Association was created in 1987 to promote, expand, develop and market the existing and potential tourism industry in southern and eastern Kentucky.

According to our research, since 1987, the Southern and Eastern Kentucky Tourism Development Association has received more than $18 million in Federal grants, loans, and earmarks. In fact, last year, in the fiscal year 2006 Science, State, Justice and Commerce appropriation bill, the Southern and Eastern Kentucky Development Association received a $3 million earmark.

Now I love traveling, as everyone here does; and I am all for seeing Kentucky tourism continue to grow. But again, here, how do we justify favoring this tourism association and not others?

We have one in Arizona. Virtually every State has one. Many regions in our State have their own tourism associations. How do we decide that one is worthy of earmarks and another one is not?

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me simply make the point, I was not around when the central Arizona project or other water projects in Arizona were approved, but I do know this: Nobody slipped funding for the central Arizona project in an appropriations bill at the last minute in a conference report. These programs were authorized. There were appropriations. There has been oversight. It is the antithesis of what we are doing here in this bill and in this process this year.

We need to get back to the process of authorization and appropriation and oversight. We seem to have abandoned the outer two bookends, and all we are doing is appropriating, as I would submit, when you have descriptions this vague and you have situations where Members do not even come to the floor to defend it, and we still do not know on one of these that I offered today who the author is. On what I offered last week on two of the earmarks, we still do not know who offered them, but yet we pretend we are offering good oversight? We are really not. We can do a lot better than this.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this process of challenge earmarks on the floor is often described at tilting at windmills, so I suppose it is only proper that we start today with an earmark for the wind demonstration project.

This amendment seeks to prohibit $6.3 million from being used to fund this project. It appears that this is the second year in a row that this project has received multiple millions of dollars in Federal funding. Last year's defense appropriations included $4.25 million for this same earmark. It appears the funding was not requested by the administration.

While little information is made available in this year's report, last year's conference report indicated that the funding is for a ``wind demonstration project on a U.S. Air Force installation using domestically manufactured turbines that are new to the U.S. market to test the security and reliability of wind generation on base.''

So I ask when this country is at war and seeing unprecedented increases in the Federal debt, why are we spending more than $10 million on windmills for military bases? How is it in the list of extensive and costly priorities for the United States military that testing newly introduced turbines rises to the list above research and development that could save lives? How is it possible in addition that taxpayers could be asked to spend more than $10 million on an earmark that doesn't even include such basic information as where this will be sited or what companies will directly benefit from the funding?

How can we honestly say to Members that Members have a real oversight, that we have real accountability here when we are spending millions of dollars?

I would submit that spending like this doesn't just waste precious defense dollars, but it leaves taxpayers hanging in the wind.

Let me simply conclude by saying that this applies to many amendments that I will address today. They may be worthy projects, yes, but how can we justify them? How can we justify using the money in the defense bill?

Here we have a technology, wind generation. Let me just say in March 2005 at the request of Congress, the Department of Defense issued a renewable energy assessment that stated that currently 2.5 percent of the energy used on military installations is already from renewable sources. This level of renewable energy use meets a Federal goal already set by the Department of Energy.

In addition the report indicated the best way to increase the level of renewable energy being used by military installations would be through purchasing commercially developed renewable energy, not by spending earmarked money, millions of dollars, to put windmills there.

We know that wind energy is the most unreliable there is, and how we are supposed to pursue renewable projects to increase energy security at military installations by installing windmills simply strains reason.

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, the main sponsor of this amendment, and I am pleased to be a cosponsor of it.

I would love for the President to have this authority, as he should have it. I would love to give him this authority, but I think unless he is going to go under FISA, he ought to come ask for it. I think that he needs it, I think it is proper.

But when we are told, as we have been on the Judiciary Committee by the Attorney General, that he feels that any domestic surveillance could be okay, he wouldn't rule it out, what isn't allowed? Why does the President need FISA at all if he can simply go around it? What purpose does FISA serve? Why did we go through what we went through for months and months with the initial PATRIOT Act and then for a year to reauthorize it?

In the end, we had to ask ourselves, after hearing the testimony of the Attorney General, why did we do this? Why are we so specific and so careful about the powers that we give to the executive when they can simply ignore it and go on their own? It simply begs the question if you are not going to use FISA, why not just run amuck?

I submit that the acid test for Republicans on this has to be, would we be comfortable if a Democrat were in the White House using this authority? I have to say I wouldn't be. But nor am I comfortable with a member of my own party having it.

There is a separation of powers argument here. We are a coequal branch of government, and I think it is our constitutional obligation to say if you are not going to use FISA, tell us why. Tell us what we need to do to make it more applicable.

We have offered that numerous times in the Judiciary Committee, yet we are told, no, you don't need to change it. Of course we don't need to change it if they can simply go around it. So I think the gentleman's amendment is perfectly proper.

Believe me, if this amendment passes, and the administration feels compelled, they will come directly to Congress and ask for the authority, but they will do it right, and I think the Congress will be glad to give it to them. But there has to be bounds here.

We are the elected representatives. It struck me when one of the Members in opposition to this amendment said a lot of people in the executive branch know about this program. That ought to be disturbing to a lot of us, that far more people in the executive branch know about this program than the elected representatives of the people. Does that not disturb anybody around here that many people over in the executive know about it and we don't?

We are told in the National Security Act that the President is supposed to inform the committees of jurisdiction. It doesn't say a few members of those committees, the committees of jurisdiction.

I think we simply ought to follow this. This is a reasonable amendment. I would urge those in my party and the other party to support it.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, when I saw this earmark, which is $1 million for research at the environmental center at Mystic Aquarium, Connecticut, I thought I was experiencing deja vu. We had a similar amendment in the Energy and Water bill just last week, or 2 weeks ago. Now we are looking at the defense bill, and the only difference is the amount of the earmark. I believe it was $400,000 then; this defense bill earmark is for $1 million. My amendment would remove this earmark from the bill.

Now, during our debate a few weeks ago on this subject, we learned that the aquarium has been in operation for over 20 years, that it is an educational and research institution with expertise in ocean environmental studies and in deep sea exploration. We learned that it provides activities and learning for boys and girls clubs. All of these are worthy activities, certainly.

We learned that the world's foremost deep sea explorer collocates his operation at the aquarium. That is Dr. Robert Ballard, I believe.

What we didn't learn was why this aquarium gets favorable treatment over aquariums in Arizona or Massachusetts or Kansas. We didn't learn what enumerated Federal function the aquarium fills. We certainly did not learn, and we haven't learned yet today, and I hope to learn in the next 5 minutes, how the aquarium contributes to the most basic and critical function of defending our country.

We just heard a great discussion about how we need to free up more funding for helmets for our military. I would suggest this is a great place to start. It is often said you can't vote for the Flake amendments because the money will simply be spent anyway by the agency. In this case the agency is the Department of Defense, and I think it would be hard to believe that they could make a case for a program less wise than this on their own, that they have something that fitters away more dollars than spending on an aquarium.

I like the Boys and Girls Club, but they aren't fighting for us and defending our country. Maybe they have programs that benefit them at this aquarium, but I would submit that it is no way to spend our defense dollars.

By voting against this amendment, you are saying that we place more value in the defense bill for funding aquariums than we do in funding defense.

Now we were trying to find out when we were researching this amendment, and we were not told much by the Appropriations Committee, so we tried to find out what this is, if it really is Connecticut, and I was told today, no, I think it is in Ohio on Lake Erie. I don't know what the aquarium does. I am anxious to learn what it does and how it contributes to defense.

In this process without a unanimous consent agreement on this bill, I am unable to ask questions and then speak later. I hope whoever is sponsoring this legislation or supporting this will please tell us how it is more vital to fund aquariums in the defense bill than funding helmets for our troops, for example, or anything else the Defense Department can do.

I would ask, please, for the sponsor of the amendment or whoever is defending it to tell us why we should be funding aquariums in the defense bill.

Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman mentioned school districts in my State that would benefit. I would say again, this is the exact point we are making. This is not the Labor-HHS bill. This is the defense bill, for crying out loud. We are trying to fund our defense, and we are bleeding off dollars to aquariums. This is the wrong place to have this debate. It should be on Labor-HHS.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I put this next one after the last one because they kind of are similar. Again, the argument has to be why aren't we debating this in the Labor-HHS bill? If we are debating it at all, it should be debated in the Labor-HHS.

This earmark that we are seeking to strike is $1 million for the JASON Education Foundation in Ashburn, Virginia. Again, it seems like something that ought to be in the Labor-HHS bill. The mission of the JASON Foundation, and this is from their own Website, is to ``inspire in students a lifelong passion for learning in science, math and technology through hands-on, real-world scientific discovery.'' That is a wonderful mission. I am glad kids are getting the opportunity, but we shouldn't be funding it in the defense bill.

Dr. Robert Ballard has already been referenced here. He is the world's foremost ocean archeologist, and is its founder. They have good leadership. This is the same Dr. Ballard who collocates his ocean exploration operations out of the Mystic Aquarium, the recipient of $1.4 million in earmarks so far this year.

With corporate sponsorship and support from the likes of Oracle, Sun Microsystems, EDS, Shell, and Texas Instruments, the JASON Foundation has very good backing. However, this earmark raises questions that apply to too many other earmarks: Why is it in the defense bill? Should it receive any earmark funding at all? Who requested it? We don't know. I to this moment do not know who requested this earmark. I am hoping the author will come and say. Has there been a hearing on the subject? What essential Federal purpose does this serve; and doubly, what defense purpose does this earmark serve?

I think the mission of the JASON Foundation is noble, but the fact that we are funding it this way with this vehicle without real transparency is very disconcerting. This is not the Labor-HHS-Education bill. And frankly, given a lack of transparency and many problems that the current earmarking process presents, I don't think that it belongs in that bill either when we have a situation where I still to this moment have no idea who authored this earmark or what else it is supposed to do. All I know is what I have read, and yet we are being asked to approve a million dollars for it.

This is the only oversight this earmark will likely ever get. There is virtually no oversight after this. The agencies don't know about these earmarks. Most of the time they can't tell us what the earmark is for. And if we don't ask these questions here on the House floor, they simply don't get asked. I am anxious to hear answers to the questions that have been asked: Why is it in the defense bill? Who requested it? Has there been a hearing on the subject? Is there a Federal purpose? And is there a purpose for it in the defense bill? I can't ask that question too many times: Why are we funding this in the defense bill?

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, before addressing this amendment, let me simply speak to the problem with this process of earmarking. We have the last amendment with regard to the Jason Foundation. All we know is that it was, I believe, requested for Ashburn, Virginia.

We still do not know, after having voted for it, after 332 Members voted for it, after people came to defend other earmarks, nobody came to defend this one. We still do not know. What we do know is that the administration never requested it, that no hearings were ever held, no markup was ever held. We still do not know why it is in the defense bill.

As I mentioned, we do not know who requested it. There is no oversight mentioned, no, no process or structure for oversight, nothing, yet we just appropriated $1 million for the Jason Foundation in Ashburn, Virginia. That is all we know, and that is all we will probably ever know.

What kind of process is that? It is simply wrong. We should have a process that is more transparent where there is real accountability.

Let us go on to this amendment. This is an amendment to strike $4 million for the Center for Rotorcraft Innovation in Media, Pennsylvania. This amendment would prohibit funds in the bill from being used for the Center for Rotorcraft Innovation.

According to the center's Web site, their goal is to enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. rotorcraft industry in the world marketplace.

I should say nobody is more supportive of a strong, viable rotorcraft industry than I am. Just about 2 miles from my house is the Boeing facility that makes the Apache. About a mile and a half from my home is where MD Helicopter has made for Special Forces the Little Bird helicopter. So this is important for my district and every other district that does have a strong, viable rotorcraft industry.

But what we should not be doing is picking winners and losers and saying the Federal Government, in the defense bill, is going to prop up one industry or another. We simply should not be doing that.

The helicopter companies that are principal members of the center are world-class and competitive because they make a great product needed by our military and militaries around the world.

I have toured a number of times the Apache facility. I have heard the accounts of soldiers who have been to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Apache has performed wonderfully. I have also toured MD Helicopter. It is a great product. I am sure Sikorsky and others who manufacture helicopters do as well.

The question becomes, why are we using the defense bill as a mechanism to fund a center like this when these businesses are fully capable of marketing their own products?

The rotorcraft industry wants $4 million of Federal defense dollars to subsidize their marketing efforts around the globe. They are doing pretty well. I hope they continue to do well. They are competitive because they make a good product, not because the Federal Government is subsidizing them.

Many of them compete for government contracts. That is great. We rely on them, but we shouldn't be saying, all right, we are going to pick you and we are going to lavish you with Federal dollars to help market your product.

Those of us who oppose corporate subsidies for cotton and sugar and tobacco and the airline industry, I think that we also ought to say, if we are going to oppose those subsidies, why don't we oppose subsidies for the rotorcraft industry as well?

At this time of war, we need to send money to help our troops and not subsidize private industry. Again, it is not the role of the Federal Government, and certainly not in a defense bill, to be picking winners and losers in industry, saying you are going to get a subsidy but you are not.

This argument will come up as we offer additional amendments in the next few minutes, but I would ask support for this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I simply want to respond to the allegation that I did not know that some of the beneficiaries were in my district. I stated that in my statement. I know they are. I live less than 2 miles from them. I spoke with the Boeing representative this morning, and I knew full well that it would impact them.

Well, thank you, and I simply want to reiterate if I were to stand here and offer amendments that had no impact on my district at all, if I ignored those that had an impact, then I could be accused of hypocrisy and doing things that simply have no impact on me.

I have tried to make a point to offer amendments that do have an impact, and I have offered them in other bills as well, those that have an impact on both my district and on my State. I simply think that this process is out of control and we have to start on it.

And I appreciate the gentleman from Hawaii. That was a very good explanation. I appreciate that hearings have been held on this, certainly more thoroughly than some of the other earmarks. But the case I would make is that simply I have made my case.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would prohibit funds in this bill from being used for the Illinois Technology Transition Center, which receives $2.5 million in this legislation.

The Illinois Technology Transition Center's objective is to stimulate enterprise growth by helping technology companies realize their commercial potential. The center offers entrepreneurial services, technology transition support, and commercialization support.

Again, this is a defense bill, yet we are offering this funding.

I support the technology center. I encourage growth in it. I think all of us do. It is a great source of entrepreneurship and innovation.

The United States has the largest and most technologically powerful

economy in the world. Technological progress is responsible for one- half of the growth of the U.S. economy.

Competition is a driving force in this innovation. We all know that free markets flourish when there is less government involvement.

I am all for seeing the technology sector in Illinois grow, just as I do hope that it grows in Arizona or any other State.

However, in this defense bill the American taxpayers are being asked to pay for support services for the private sector. I don't think that that is appropriate in a defense bill.

Our troops are fighting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. We ought to be spending money in the defense bill on equipment, on helmets, on body armor, on other things, rather than subsidizing the technological center in one particular State.

I should note I believe the Illinois Technology Transition Center was established by a contract with the Department of the Navy, the Office of Naval Research, in 2005. But it is also my understanding that the Office of Naval Research did not request this earmark for $2.5 million in funding.

With that, I request support for the amendment.

You bet.

I was told by a reporter this morning who it might be. That was the first time I learned it after I had already agreed to offer it.

I was told that it was the Speaker who offered it.

Well, seeing that I had already agreed to offer it, I thought that had I agreed to pull back now, I would be looked to favoring one particularly powerful Member of my party.

I would not like to withdraw the amendment. I would simply say, and I thank the gentleman for yielding, this is the private sector. I would submit that companies in Phoenix and in St. Louis and in a number of cities and centers around the country are facing difficulties and are having drawdowns, or technology is shifting. The world economy is shifting.

But we can't simply at any time like this say, all right, we are going to give an earmark to that industry or to that region. If we do that, there is simply not enough money in the Federal budget. There is not enough money in the Federal budget to do what we are doing. We are in a deficit.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit funds in the bill from being used for the Northwest Manufacturing Initiative, which receives $2.5 million in this defense bill.

What is the Northwest Manufacturing Initiative? Where is the money going? To the northwest of what? Of the United States? Of Arizona? Of Washington, DC.?

There is no description of this project in the committee report. It strikes me again, why can't Members get more information on these projects beforehand? We made calls to the Department of Defense, which funds this earmark. They knew nothing. They didn't get back to us with anything. Calls were unanswered. We asked the Appropriations Committee as well, and we couldn't get anything from the Appropriations Committee before we filed the amendment to be offered here. It was only after the amendment was filed that those who are sponsoring the earmark called to tell us what the amendment is about.

It is the Northwest portion of the United States, I come to understand, and it is a manufacturing initiative, but we don't know much else about it.

A few of the Members have been kind enough to share with me today what they are seeking to do. My understanding is that businesses in the Northwest, particularly those that contract with the United States Government, the Department of Defense and others, some are having difficulty, as they are in many parts of the country.

My question is, why in the defense bill are we offering help to manufacturing companies in the Northwest? What about the Southeast or the Southwest? What about companies in Arizona or California or Colorado? Why don't they get similar treatment? How does the Federal Government decide, all right, we are going to help manufacturing companies there, but not here? Again, we are picking winners and losers here. It is not the job and should not be the job of the Federal Government.

I appreciate the fact there are Members here willing to defend this amendment. My good friend Mr. Blumenauer is here to do so and others, and I appreciate that. In this way we can actually have a dialogue.

Again, sometimes this is the only oversight, the only explanation. This is it. This is all we get on some of these earmarks. I feel it is important when we are spending taxpayer dollars, particularly $2.5 million in the defense bill, that it is important to know what it is going for. So I am glad the authors of the amendment are here, and I look forward to the explanation.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prevent any funding from going to the Lewis Center for Educational Research in Apple Valley, California.

Mr. Chairman, the Lewis Center has hosted more than 100,000 students, teachers, and parents participating in educational activities. The center's Web site contains a wish list for funding for three log cabins for third graders, an amphitheater, a schoolhouse shed, a large water wheel for panning gold during the gold rush educational fourth grade outreach program, and similar activities to that.

Mr. Chairman, these are undoubtedly worthy educational tools. My question is this: Why are Federal tax dollars intended for our national defense being used to fund this type of institution? It seems that corporate sponsors of the center abound, including corporations like JPL, Allied Signal, Boeing, Verizon, Lucent Technologies, Lomac Information System, Mitsubishi, RFG, Rockwell Rocketdyne Aerospace. Surely these donations can keep the center in good stead.

The center has already received $3 million in earmarked funds in fiscal year 2004 and an additional $2.5 million in 2005. It looks as if the center is back for more in this bill to the tune of $4 million.

The description of the earmark in this bill provides no detail on how the $4 million is to be spent on the Lewis Center. If there is a defense angle for this earmark, I am simply not seeing it. Again, it seems as if we are debating the Labor-HHS bill at this point or some other education bill and not the defense bill. These may well be worthy programs, but should we be funding them with defense dollars?

I would like to hear justification for the Federal defense function in this case. Again, why are we doing this in the defense bill? These are clearly educational functions. Why should we be taking money that could be spent for the troops and for the operations in the military for things like this?

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prevent funding from going to the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Program, or ALERRT program, at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

The ALERRT program, as it is called, provides training for first responders and police officer. It would appear that this is not the first earmark appropriated to Texas State University for the ALERRT program. Evidently, the program has received $300,000 in the past; now it needs another $1 million.

I am all for the training of our police officers, although it is primarily a function of State and local governments. However, I understand the Federal Departments of Justice and Homeland Security grants go toward law enforcement agencies. In the defense appropriations bill why is this a vehicle for funding for law enforcement training? Are we not adequately training our military troops at our Defense Department facilities? Do we now need to send them to this law enforcement training center? If this is the case, I would submit that we ought to hold some hearings on the subject. I should note that the President did not request this money.

I would submit that it is time for Congress to be a little more attentive to how we are spending and earmarking valuable defense dollars. Again, we have other appropriations bills, and homeland security certainly comes up here. This is a function of training local police officers or others for a local police function. We have scarce defense dollars, and we shouldn't be spending them in this way. I hope that we will vote for this amendment and keep the funding for defense in defense.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, before I address this amendment, let me simply say that I spoke earlier today with Representative Cuellar. He would have liked to be here to offer a defense of the last earmark, the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training program. He offered a spirited defense to me today. I still don't happen to agree with him about the amendment, but I know he would have liked to be here to offer that. And I have enjoyed the opportunity to hear about these amendments and to hear them defended today as Members have known that they are going to be challenged on the floor, and that is what this process is all about.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit any funds from the Leonard Wood Institute at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. As many of you know, Major General Wood led the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American war. The Leonard Wood Institute develops, promotes, and manages worldwide collaborations that are related to the Department of Defense.

I am all for seeing the Missouri business sector grow as I would other States' business sectors as well, particularly Arizona. But it seems to me that American taxpayers are being

asked to spend Federal defense dollars on promoting Missouri businesses rather than on the war on terror. Again, we are picking winners and losers here. I know that there are institutions in Arizona, business sectors everywhere else, that would like to get this kind of funding, $20 million, in the defense bill.

So why are we choosing one State? Why are we picking the businesses of that one State as the winners here?

I would ask the chairman of the subcommittee or the sponsor of the amendment to explain to the taxpayers and every other State outside of Missouri why we should support this earmark. Frankly, dollars in the defense bill should go to the war on terror. They ought to go to the troops. They ought to go for body armor. They ought to go for vehicles, for ammunition, for everything else we spend on defense. I do not believe they ought to go to support businesses that are simply looking for defense contracts or looking to promote business in one particular State.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, regardless of where any of us stand on the debate over the broader issue of travel to Cuba, I hope you will agree that there should be an exemption to the restrictions when it comes to travelers who wish to travel for a religious purpose.

In fact, there is a current exemption for religious travelers. The Flake-McGovern-Emerson-Lee amendment would do nothing to weaken or lift restrictions of any kind of travel, religious or otherwise. In fact, my amendment would simply prevent any changes from being made to the exemption as it now exists.

You might wonder, if religious travel is currently permitted by law, why are we proposing this amendment? Well, let me explain.

In 1999, Congress established by law categories of permissible travel, including travel for religious exchanges. But over the past couple of years the Office of Foreign Assets Control, on instruction from the State Department, has published guidelines to accompany these regulations and they have in fact imposed new restrictions on religious travel to Cuba. They have resulted in the denial of travel licenses to many individuals and churches and synagogues, other religions who until recently had longstanding licenses.

This type of regulation runs counter to the spirit of the 1999 law and current administration policy. For example, a woman from Indiana went with her church group to distribute Bibles and participate in religious meetings and events. Soon after her arrival home she was served with a notice of a several thousand dollar fine because she had been to a beach while she was in Cuba. I spoke to this woman. She had been to a beach once to a baptism. This is how ridiculous these restrictions have become.

As a broader example, groups from the Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal, United Church of Christ and many other faiths have been denied license to travel to Cuba although they have traveled there legally for years. I am afraid we are getting dangerously close to curbing the free exercise of religion in this context and having government impose a religious test. Are you truly religious enough to travel to Cuba? Is this a real religion that you are representing? That is not the business that this government ought to be in.

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

Before yielding 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts, let me simply state I have been to Cuba, as have a number of us. We have met with those who have been in prison for their activities and others. There is no one group that represents the pro- democracy movement in Cuba. Many people have encouraged us to do exactly what we are doing.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson).

Mr. Chairman, let me simply say, if we are afraid that the Baptists, the Methodist, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, United Church of Christ, and

other faiths that are going to Cuba are somehow propping up the Cuban regime, then our worries are misplaced. That regime has been there for 47 years, and to deny missionaries and others the opportunity to go there and convert people to the faith and to work is simply wrong.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer a series of amendments on earmark limitations to the Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development 2007 appropriation.

While the Appropriations Committee is touting a two-thirds reduction in earmark spending, the sad news is that even with that decrease, the bill still contains more than $930 million in pork-barrel spending. With more than 1,500 earmarks, this bill contains more earmarks than all of the appropriation bills passed in each of the years 1995, 1996, or 1997.

This bill provides for new zoo docks, opera houses, bike paths, hiking trails, and 1,500 other congressional priorities, all paid for at the expense of the taxpayer.

The most disturbing part of this bill is that these earmarks are paid for with ``funny money,'' with fictitious offsets that would have never left the Treasury to begin with. So while you will hear during this debate many times you are not saving money by getting rid of these earmarks, all the Appropriations Committee would have to do is to simply say we are not going to fund earmarks this year. We will take a lower 302(b) allocation or we will apply it elsewhere instead of funding these earmarks. So that argument that you will hear again and again is simply wrong.

We were unable to identify whose earmarks are in this bill many times, who requested them, or how they were chosen, because we were simply given the manager's amendment last Wednesday, I believe, with these 1,500 earmarks. It is very difficult, and you will see with some of these, they are very vague as to what they are actually funding. So I would submit that oversight is tremendously difficult when you do not even know what the earmark is really for.

If it is to fund a facility, a facility could mean a lot of things. We do not even know anything more than that from the manager's amendment. We are left with these limitation amendments as the only means of shining daylight on the process, on these projects and programs and on this spending, and there is plenty to shine in light of this transportation bill. I hope that we will take the time today to actually look at what we are doing.

This first amendment would limit the University of Mississippi in Oxford from spending $1 million on the new William Faulkner Museum. This $1 million is part of nearly $12 million that the State of Mississippi has provided in earmarks in this bill, including nearly $2 million in HUD grant earmarks.

Currently, the University of Mississippi already owns Rowan Oak, which was a family home of the Faulkners for more than 40 years. Currently, Rowan Oak nonstudent visitors pay $5 for the tour. According to the University's Web site, this earmark will go toward building a new wing in the University museums featuring a biographical timeline exhibition dedicated to the author who once wrote ``I don't care much for facts, am not much interested in them . . . ''

I would say that if we are interested in the facts here, we are spending too much money. We are often told there are criteria when these earmarks come before the committee, strict criteria that these earmarks have to pass or they are not funded. I would ask, please, someone explain what criteria we are using to take money from taxpayers in California or Arizona or elsewhere to pay for the William Faulkner Museum in the State of Mississippi. If you can justify this kind of spending, I would submit you can justify just about anything. If you can just identify it on economic development grounds, what cannot be justified on economic development grounds?

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

Mr. Chairman, all I can do in response to that is quote William Faulkner. Anyone who believes that we cannot save money by eliminating earmarks does not care much for the facts and is not much interested in them. The notion that this budget is set and now all we can do is spend up to the top of it belies the fact that last week we could have offered a lesser bill, a smaller bill. Earlier in the process when we established the budget, we could have simply said we are not going to fund this year.

Therefore we are going to save billions and billions of dollars. But, no, we passed a bigger budget and then we come here today and say, darn, I wish we could have saved money; we just cannot, it is too late.

Mr. Chairman, I would submit that people are getting tired of hearing that argument. And we simply cannot continue to spend money this way. So with that, I would urge that we accept this amendment, and at least start, at least send some signal that we are going to be better stewards of the taxpayers' money.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would bar Fairfax County

from using $50,000 in Federal taxpayer dollars for field improvements in Annandale, Virginia.

When I first saw this earmark, I had trouble understanding why the Federal Government was giving $50,000 to the Fairfax County Park Authority in Virginia for field improvements. Fairfax County is the 11th wealthiest county in the United States. I used to live there. It is a wonderful county. Has a wonderful park system and a big budget.

Why the Federal Government is funding this, I just do not know. The county's 2007 available funds will total around $3.38 billion, total county funds. In 2004, the median household income in Fairfax County was $88,133, double the national average of $44,684.

The Fairfax County Park Authority in Virginia received over $100 million in revenue in 2005, and spent under $70 million. Again, this is the park authority that we are funding here, adding over 30 million in net assets in one year alone.

In 2005, the assets of the Virginia Park Authority exceeded its liabilities by more than $419 million. Along with parks, recreation centers and trails, the Fairfax County Park Authority manages seven golf courses.

How should we explain this earmark to the taxpayers in Arizona or Colorado or New Mexico or anywhere else; or Mississippi, for that matter? My amendment would simply prevent funding for this purpose. In this bill, Virginia is expecting more than $24 million in earmarking, with more than $3 million in HUD grants alone.

This is compared to States like Wyoming and Vermont which receive less than $1 million in total earmark funds in this bill. Why is the Federal Government adding to the wealth of the Fairfax County Park Authority by giving it $50,000 for field improvements? How does this earmark relate to the central purpose of HUD programs, which I thought was to help house people?

Mr. Chairman, I welcome the justification for Federal funds in this case.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, let me simply state again, Fairfax County's available budget funds for 2007 are around $3.38 billion. The Fairfax County Park Authority received over $100 million in revenue in 2005 and spent under $70 million, adding over $30 million in net assets in 1 year alone.

I would submit that it is the county's responsibility to decide what the priorities are, and if they decide that the priorities are not to spend $50,000 where we want to spend it here, then perhaps it ought to be taken up with the county, but not come to the Federal taxpayer again and again and again for these dollars when the local officials have turned them down for whatever reason.

I can go in my own State and say, the city I live in, they will not appropriate money for the Little League field close to my home. I would like there to be funds for that. So, go to the Federal taxpayer. I could do that apparently. It would meet the criteria, but it is wrong. We should not do that.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this earmark limitation amendment would prevent $500,000 from being spent on renovations to the Banning, California, city-owned pool.

This $500,000 is part of nearly $12 million provided to the State of California in HUD earmarks. Now, I live in the Southwest. I know the desert can get awful hot, and there is nothing better than taking a swim. But I do not know why we ought to give the Federal taxpayer a bath every time somebody wants a swimming pool.

That being said, again here, I wonder what criteria we use when these earmarks come forward. If we can say that swimming pools, city-owned swimming pools are eligible for Federal funding, then what is not eligible for Federal funding? Do the criteria mean anything in that regard? Is anything open? Why not earmark the entire bill.

If we accept the premise, which we seem to accept in this House, that we know better than the Federal bureaucrats on how to spend this money, why not earmark the whole thing? I might hear agreement there.

That is what we seem to be doing. We keep going more and more and more. In 1994, I think there were a total of fewer than 2,000 earmarks on all appropriation bills. Last year there were over 10,000. The dollar value keeps increasing.

So we simply have to go the other way. In 2006 the transportation appropriation bill included $250,000 for the city of Banning, California for city pool improvements. Similarly, the 2005 transportation bill included $250,000 for the city of Banning, California for construction and renovation of the city pool.

So this is $500,000 tacked onto $250,000, tacked onto $250,000 for a pool, that to my understanding, has not even been built yet.

They are waiting for more funds to come from the Federal Government apparently before they even build this pool. How does this happen? How does the community pool receive a revenue stream out of the Federal Treasury?

I think this is simply the wrong way to do business. We have got to stop. What better place to stop than right here on this amendment and say we are going to send a signal to the taxpayers that we are going to do business differently?

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

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the comments. When the gentleman says that this money will go back into the pool, I hope we are not talking about another swimming pool here.

Let us remind ourselves what we are talking about here. Whether this funding is being spent by a Federal bureaucrat, I would submit that if they are saying that we ought to be spending money to offset the spending of some swimming pool in Gilbert, Arizona in my district, that would be wrong. A Federal bureaucrat, we ought to have oversight and say you shouldn't do that. But that doesn't mean that we ought to do it ourselves. I mean, it is tough for us to make a credible case for oversight of the Federal agencies when we are spending money like this. This is a swimming pool.

The notion that the criteria now has a 40 percent match that we have to get the local folks to kick in money as well, boy, who wouldn't? Who would not offset their budget? What local municipality would not jump at the chance to pay only 80 cents on the dollar or 50 cents on the dollar for a new project that they have, swimming pool or otherwise? Where did this end? Where does this end? It is no better if it is a Federal bureaucrat. But, boy, we look horrible if we say, hey, we spend money better than Federal bureaucrats. We are going to spend it on a swimming pool in Banning, California. Simply wrong.

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, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I won't speak for long on this. This is an amendment that seeks to limit Monroe County in New York from spending $1 million on Xerox Area Road improvements. This is one of 111 earmarks New York received in this bill worth more than $46 million, the fourth highest total of all States.

These earmarks include more than $1.6 million in transportation earmarks in this appropriations bill.

Xerox is a Fortune 500 Company. It is a $15.7 billion global enterprise and a valued employer to Monroe County, New York. The Xerox area they are speaking of is made up of 47 major buildings, 5.5 million square feet. I simply don't know why the Federal Government, Federal taxpayers, are being asked to essentially pave their driveway.

Monroe County has already offered many incentives to Xerox, including a $500,000 loan for new equipment, $100,000 training grant from Empire State Development and incentives through the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency.

Let me just say how pernicious this becomes when the Federal Government weighs in on behalf of local governments who are seeking to incentivize private companies to locate their facility there. You are inevitably picking winners and losers.

If Xerox is not going to locate their new facilities or more facilities or more employees in Monroe County, they are going to do it elsewhere, in another part of the country, and it is likely that we may have to fund job training or other in that other area where it is moving from.

At what point do we say this is not our business? The Federal Government's business is not to weigh in and aid one local government at the expense of another. That is essentially what we are doing here.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The gentleman mentions that he does not begrudge those in Arizona seeking water subsidies, for example. I do. I hope the gentleman will join me in voting against the extension of the next farm bill, which gives massive subsidies to cotton farmers in Arizona. They should not have those subsidies. They should not have them anywhere.

So I simply think we have got to start somewhere, and when we say we are going to incentivize and we are going to join with local governments in incentivizing businesses to come, again I have to ask the question. I would love some guidance from the chairman of the committee on what would happen if the city of Newark, New Jersey, for example, said we are trying to lure Xerox to come here and we would like you to help. How does the committee make the decision? Do you look at seniority of the Member who is asking? Do you look at something else? What criteria are then used? When does the Federal Government stop weighing in and picking winners and losers?

Again, if they are relocating facilities, they are relocating from somewhere else. How do we jump in and say we are going to do it here and not elsewhere?

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This amendment would limit the city of Weirton, West Virginia from spending $100,000 on a facility. Now, I am not being deliberately vague here. This is all we know. This is all we know about this earmark. Again, city of Weirton, West Virginia, we are spending $100,000 on a facility. I would ask for guidance from the committee as to what that facility is, or the author of the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Again, I would ask again, we do not know, is it a facility? Is it not a facility? I guess it is planning for perhaps a facility, maybe not. Are we simply subsidizing the city of Weirton, West Virginia? Are we in the practice of subsidizing all cities who are having trouble with their budget? Where do we pick and choose?

Again, we are tasked with providing oversight. How do we provide oversight if we do not even know if we are funding a facility or not?

Let me just give a couple of other examples in this bill, ones that I am not highlighting today. Other examples of vague earmarks, $250,000 to the Salvation Army Family Enrichment Center in Anchorage, Alaska, for the construction of a ``blank.'' The sentence was not completed; $250,000 to the city of Marathon, Florida for the construction of a facility. Again, is it a facility? It may or may not be. We do not know. How can we offer oversight in that case?

This is what it says: $400,000 to the South Valley Community Dental in Albuquerque for the construction of a new, again, ``blank.'' The sentence was not completed; $200,000 in transportation funds for Cedar Bluff, Alabama, no further description; $550,000 to Ed Roberts Campus, Berkeley, California. No other description. What is the money for? We have no idea.

We are, in the Congress, tasked with oversight. This is all we are given from the committee; $750,000 to the city of Temple, Texas for the acquisition and renovation of a facility. There is that dreaded ``facility'' again. Keeps popping up. We do not know what kind of facility. Yet we are asked to fund it.

My staff went so far as to send an e-mail to the committee staff requesting help in determining the intended use of appropriated funds in some of the particularly cryptic line items. We did not receive anything back. I can understand that. There was a lot going on this past weekend. There were 1,500 earmarks added Wednesday of last week. It is tough to get around to deciding what they are, but I would submit that if we cannot, we should not bring them to the floor and ask Members to vote on them, just to vote on appropriating money for ``facility'' when it may or may not be a facility.

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

Mr. Chairman, I think I am the best intentioned multiple- amendment loser in the House these days, I guess. I keep being told I am well intentioned, but these aren't going anywhere.

Let me just say again. As I mentioned last week or a couple of weeks ago, this is the only opportunity we have. This is it. If we are going to offer any oversight, this is it. And when we get amendments that say for a facility, and let me just say that my staff e-mailed the committee last Friday and said, please, can you give us further explanations so that the authors of these amendments can come to the floor and better defend them? Please let us know what this is. We didn't get anything back from the committee. Nothing. That was 4 or 5 days ago.

Now, I understand it is a difficult thing, but maybe the committee ought to think that maybe 1,500 earmarks in

the manager's amendment might give rise to a little suspicion that we can't police this very well; that when we are spending money on swimming pools and facilities that we don't even know whether it is a real facility or not, that we have overstepped our bounds.

I am not going to apologize for standing up and offering 12 amendments, 12 out of 1,500 that we could choose. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, we ought to be doing it more often. So I would ask for the indulgence of the Members. This process, this is the only opportunity we have. We found out about the amendments last Wednesday. We go to the committee and attempt to look at them. We are told we can only look in the committee at one binder, right there. We can't even take it back to our office to study these amendments. Not until Friday did we get a copy. As soon as we did, we sent an e-mail back saying please give further explanation on these amendments. We heard nothing back.

What else are we to do? I am asking. What else are we to do?

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment seeks to limit the City of Yucaipa, California, and I think it was misspelled in the manager's amendment that this is from, from spending $500,000 on an athletic facility at Crafton Hills College. Funding for a California community college project should be under the jurisdiction of the State, not for Congress.

This $500,000 is part of nearly $12 million provided to the State of California in HUD earmarks, which is part of $87 million in total earmark funds included. This is the highest amount of any State in the bill.

You would expect that. California is a big State. But, still, when we are spending HUD monies on athletic facilities at community colleges, I would submit something is wrong. We should not be doing this.

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

Mr. Chairman, again, I do not know what else to say on this one. I think we have spent enough time on it. This is money for an athletic facility, a HUD grant for an athletic facility in Yucaipa, California. Simply, why we are spending money on that I don't know.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would limit the Strand Theater Arts Center from spending $250,000 for conversion of a theater in Plattsburgh, New York, into a performing arts center.

I simply have trouble again understanding why the Federal Government should pay $250,000 to renovate a theater in Plattsburgh, New York. This is not the only frivolous earmark included in the HUD grants in this bill. Others include $100,000 for the Village of Jamestown, Ohio, for building renovations to the Jamestown Opera House.

I apologize. We will send down the one we intend to do.

I do.

I thank the Chair and the Members for their indulgence, and I apologize to the Member from New York.

As I mentioned here, this is funding for the Strand Theater Arts Center, $250,000 for the conversion of the theater in Plattsburgh, New York, to a performing arts center. There are other earmarks in the bill of this type: $100,000 for the Village of Jamestown, Ohio, for building renovations to the Jamestown Opera House; $100,000 to the Metropolitan Theatre Foundation in Morgantown, West Virginia, for the construction, renovation, and buildout of facilities; $100,000 to the Houston Zoo in Houston, Texas, for the construction of the Outdoor Life Science Learning Center.

It goes on and on and on and on. Again, you have to say, where do we stop? Where do we say this is not the role of the Federal Government? Where do we say local government knows best.

We say that we know better than Federal officials and bureaucrats over in the Department of Transportation or elsewhere where to spend money, then it stands to reason that those at the local level know a lot better than we do about what to spend money on. Sometimes in these cases these are facilities that they have decided specifically not to fund, yet we are going to go ahead and fund them.

That may or may not be the case in this case. But when we are saying we know best, we are going to decide

where these monies are going, whether or not it is leveraging local funds, we simply can't justify it to the Federal taxpayer.

We need to remind people again and again we have a deficit this year of somewhere between $300 billion and $500 billion, depending on how you count and what you count. We have a Federal debt approaching $8 trillion, and yet we are spending money to renovate theaters in small towns across the country.

Where do we say we have done enough? This ought to be done at the local level or it shouldn't be done at all. But how can we justify using taxpayer money at the Federal level for projects like this?

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate this debate. As I have said before, this is the only forum we have to try to exercise a little fiscal discipline over this process.

A few speakers prior mentioned it is the definition of insanity to stand up, do the same thing, and expect you are going to get a different result. I don't know that I will ever get a different result here. I understand this process. I understand log rolling. I understand what this is about. But somebody has to stand up at some time.

I think the definition of insanity is assuming that the taxpayers are buying this, that they believe this is a good use of Federal taxpayer dollars. I think they see it for what it is. I simply think you have to stand up at some point and say enough is enough. That is what we are doing here.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.