[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 199 (Thursday, December 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14905-H14906]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 THE MATERIAL GIRL OF THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION: SECRETARY OF ENERGY 
                                O'LEARY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Tiahrt] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I am understanding that the House has ceased 
its activities here. However, the rest of Congress is working in their 
offices, answering constituent relations and working on active 
legislation. If the gentleman cares to take the afternoon off, it is 
fine with me, but the rest of the House is working.
  That is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the 
Clinton administration's material girl. Secretary O'Leary has leased, 
at taxpayers' expense, for overseas travel the same luxury jet that 
Madonna uses. Now Clinton's material girl has been overseas 16 times in 
the last 3 years. She has been out of the country 50 percent more days 
than Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Secretary of State Warren 
Christopher's responsibilities include foreign policy and foreign 
relations. When he gets off an airplane overseas, when you see his face 
and him stepping off an airplane, he is doing his job. But the material 
girl, the Secretary of the Department of Energy, is responsible for 
civilian nuclear waste, Department of Defense stockpile and safety, 
Department of Defense nuclear waste, the national energy labs, 

[[Page H14906]]
all inside the United States, power marketing administrations, 
strategic oil reserves, all of which are within the United States of 
America, but the material girl's overseas trips are also expensive. 
They are as high as $720,000 each. Several of these trips have expenses 
that are unaccounted for, some as high as $150,000. One of these trips, 
the same luxury jet that Madonna uses, Secretary O'Leary took 51 
staffers and 68 guests. It cost the taxpayers $560,000. There is only 
about $70,000 that is currently unaccounted for.
  That is why the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] and myself have 
requested the Government Accounting Office to do an audit, so we hope 
it will be done early next year. I think it is time that we stop this 
misuse of taxpayers' money and account for the expenses that we cannot 
account for at this point.
  Mr. Speaker, this excessiveness, this mismanagement, this 
extravagance, is just the tip of the iceberg. It started off with GAO 
report that highlighted problems about management at the Department of 
Energy. They lacked focus, they had an admission a minute.
  Then there was Vice President Gore's National Performance Review, who 
said within the Department of Energy the environmental management group 
was 40 percent inefficient and it was going to cost taxpayers $70 
billion over the next 30 years if something is not done. Then we found 
out there were 529 public relations employees at the Department of 
Energy, one personal media consultant for the Secretary of Energy 
herself; and then there was the private investigative firm, which she 
paid $56,500 to find out who the unfavorable were in the press and in 
Congress. I was number four on the list. Then there was her personal 
friend that she hired at $95,166 year plus $12,000 living expenses for 
the department conflict resolution officer.
  We have a lot of redundancy in Government, and we need to eliminate 
that out of the Department of Energy too. Two-thirds of the budget 
comes through the Department of Defense. There is duplication of effort 
within the labs. There is the nationalized oil fields at Elk Hills, CA. 
We have private companies that extract oil from the earth. There are 
the Power Marketing Administrations that also are duplicative of the 
private sector.

  That is why I am leading the task force to eliminate the Department 
of Energy as a Cabinet-level agency, to remove the waste, consolidate 
the duplication, transfer to the private sector that which they do 
best, and eliminate the parts of Government that are unnecessary. Each 
time the material girl, Secretary O'Leary's mismanagement comes to the 
press, this effort gains support. It highlights the fact that something 
must be done.
  This process of verifying has uncovered something else, though, that 
is probably worse than anything you have heard so far. That is that the 
material girl has transferred from the Department of the Interior 
$500,000 to the government of India to prepare the Taj Mahal for her 
arrival. Five hundred thousand dollars. What is so upsetting to me 
about this is that I can only think of the deficit we are running this 
year. I can only think of the budget we are dealing with. To spend 
$500,000 to prepare the Taj Mahal for her arrival is taking away from 
our children's future. It is borrowed money that they are going to have 
to pay back. It is wrong. It is time to stop this wasteful spending.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time to eliminate the Department of Energy as a 
Cabinet-level agency. The only way we can do that is to continue with 
this effort and this legislation. It is needed to balance the budget 
and it will stop the unnecessary spending.

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