[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 122 (Wednesday, October 4, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9869-S9873]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT,
2001--CONFERENCE REPORT--Continued
Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, at this time I would like to return to
our discussion of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, which is a
project in the Interior conference committee report that we have been
discussing from time to time throughout the day.
[[Page S9870]]
I spoke earlier, for several hours, about concerns I have had with
the language in the conference committee report. The language
authorizes $50 million in Federal expenditures for the library in
Springfield. It says that the purpose of those expenditures would be
for the construction of the library, for planning, design, acquiring,
and constructing the library. But it is interesting; the actual
language in the authorization does not say who is getting the money. It
says that the $50 million would be going to an entity that would be
selected later.
So the Senate and the House have a conference committee report before
us with a $50 million authorization for the library in Springfield, IL,
but we do not know to whom we are going to give the money.
When I saw this language earlier on, when the authorizing bill came
from the House to my Senate committee, I saw that as a problem. I saw
it also as a problem that there was no requirement that the
construction project be competitively bid.
I thought, what if this money falls into the hands of a private
entity? The entity in the bill could apparently be private or public.
There is no restriction in the bill that it can only go to a public
entity. There is no suggestion in the bill that the money has to go to
the State of Illinois.
I thought, we have to take care to make sure that we have protections
in there for the taxpayer, so that this money cannot be spent
improperly.
Senator Durbin came in and spoke earlier. He said that he supports a
bidding process with integrity, as do I. I appreciate Senator Durbin's
support and the support I have had from all of my 99 colleagues in the
Senate, where we have gone on record by passing legislation over to the
House that says the Senate thinks it is a good idea that this $50
million authorization for the Lincoln Library in Springfield, IL,
requires that the project be competitively bid in accordance with the
comprehensive Federal competitive bid guidelines. I thank all my
colleagues in the Senate for their support on that proposition.
I talked to many of my colleagues in the last couple weeks about this
issue, and every single one of them agreed: Isn't it a good idea that
we restrict that money so it cannot be misused? After all, it is not
even clear where the money is going.
It is possible that the money would go to the State of Illinois. If
it does go to the State of Illinois, I think that would be preferable
to it being given to an individual or to a private corporation.
I described earlier in the day how there is a private not-for-profit
organization out there that has recently been organized known as the
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, and that I do not
think it would be a good idea to give the taxpayer's money to a private
not-for-profit organization in which case it would be up to the board
of directors of that corporation as to how the money would be handled.
We would not have safeguards for the public.
But I also pointed out that if the money went to the State of
Illinois, and the State of Illinois directed the money to its Capital
Development Board, there was a real problem.
The State of Illinois has a procurement code that was amended a few
years ago. It does, in general, seek to ensure competitive bidding. It
is an improvement over old laws that the State of Illinois used to
have.
When I was in the State senate in Springfield, in 1997, I voted for
the current State procurement law. But we pointed out that there is a
loophole in there, and I regret that I missed that loophole. The
loophole is that the Capital Development Board has a way to opt out of
competitively bidding projects. It is a highly unusual and irregular
loophole.
A letter from the Capital Development Board to Senator Durbin stated
that the project would have to be competitively bid because they would
require it. They said they couldn't do things that were not
competitively bid. That is nice they put that in their letter, but
their letter is flatly contradicted by their statute. The statute that
governs the Capital Development Board has a clear opt-out so that the
State can just opt out of competitively biding this project. Fifty
million dollars in taxpayer money is a lot of money.
The one issue Senator Durbin mentioned concerned the attachment of
Federal competitive bid guidelines to this project in Springfield, to
make sure it was properly applied and that we didn't have political
influence in the awarding of the many contracts that would be given
out. There is, after all, $120 million of taxpayer money, when you
include the State of Illinois money, the Federal money, the city of
Springfield money, and any private money that is contributed to the
project. That is a lot of money. You would think you would want careful
safeguards in that law. It is hard for me to think of any reason
anybody would oppose the strictest possible exceptions on how we spend
taxpayer money to ensure that there is competitive bidding.
Senator Durbin wondered how would it work if Federal requirements
would apply; the State of Illinois wouldn't know how to handle it if
Federal guidelines were applied. I don't think that is correct. As I
pointed out to Senator Durbin, it is very clear the State contemplates
that Federal guidelines will frequently be attached when the Federal
Government gives money to the State of Illinois. If you get Federal
money from somewhere or you get money from somebody, it is not unusual
that strings are attached.
Article 20 of the Illinois procurement code, source selection and
contract formation, at 500/20-85, contemplates the attachment of
Federal strings. Section 20-85, Federal requirements: A State agency
receiving Federal aid funds, grants, or loans shall have authority to
adopt its procedures, rules, project statements, drawings, maps,
surveys, plans, specifications, contract terms, estimates, bid forms,
bond forms, and other documents or practices, to comply with the
regulations, policies, and procedures of the designated authority,
administration, or department of the United States in order to remain
eligible for such Federal aid funds, grants, or loans.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print this statute in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
West's Smith-Hurd Illinois Compiled Statutes Annotated Chapter 30.
Finance Bonds and Debt Act 500. Illinois Procurement Code Article 20.
Source Selection and Contract Formation
Sec. 20-85. Federal requirements. A State agency receiving
federal-aid funds, grants, or loans shall have authority to
adopt its procedures, rules, project statements, drawings,
maps, surveys, plans, specifications, contract terms,
estimates, bid forms, bond forms, and other documents or
practices to comply with the regulations, policies, and
procedures of the designated authority, administration, or
department of the United States, in order to remain eligible
for such federal-aid funds, grants, or loans.
historical and statutory notes
Section 99-5 of P.A. 90-572, Article 99, approved Feb. 6,
1998, provides:
``Effective date and transition. This Article, Sections 1-
15 through 1-15.115 of Article 1, and Article 50 take effect
upon becoming law. Articles 1 through 45 and 53 through 95
take effect January 1, 1998, solely for the purpose of
allowing the promulgation of rules to implement the Illinois
Procurement Code. The Procurement Policy Board established in
Article 5 may be appointed as of January 1, 1998, and until
July 1, 1998, shall act only to review proposed purchasing
rules. Articles 1 through 45 and 53 through 95 for all other
purposes take effect on July 1, 1998.''
For applicable effective date of laws provisions in
Illinois governing Sec. 99-5 of P.A. 90-572, Art. 99, see 5
ILCS 75/0.01 et seq.
Mr. FITZGERALD. Clearly, the State of Illinois contemplates that for
many grants from the Federal Government, they will have to comply with
the Federal Government's requirements. That is not unusual. The Federal
Government has requirements for education money, for Medicaid money,
and the like. For this project, I think it is reasonable.
We don't want to unduly hamper it. But Federal competitive bidding,
who would oppose that? I don't think Democrats would oppose it. I don't
think Republicans would oppose it. Certainly no Democrat, no Republican
in the Senate wished to go on record opposing it. It is a simple, safe
precaution for the taxpayers.
Again, this statute, which we have talked about on and off all day,
conclusively demolishes the letters that are
[[Page S9871]]
being put out by the Capital Development Board saying they must use
competitive bidding and that there is no way competitive bidding won't
be used.
Let me reflect on that argument again. They are saying that clearly
competitive bidding will be used. This project now is the focus of a
lot of attention around the State of Illinois, and many people have
said it will definitely be competitively bid.
If that is the case, why such stiff opposition to attaching the
Federal competitive bid guidelines? If they are going to bid it
according to the book and there won't be any problems with the
contracts, then why is anybody opposed? Why is it? I don't know.
Clearly, the Office of the Governor of Illinois believed strongly
enough that these guidelines, these restrictions, not be attached.
Instead, they chose to go around the Senate and try to get the language
snuck into a conference committee report, stripped of the competitive
bidding language, and in a way so that it would be rolled into an $18
billion appropriations bill that is a must-pass bill. That conference
committee report cannot be amended or recommitted. They went to a lot
of trouble. In fact, they were practically doing anything and stopping
at nothing to avoid the competitive bid guidelines which they are
essentially saying they are going to do anyway. That doesn't make a lot
of sense to me. Why the objection? Why the fierce fight over requiring
Federal procurement laws be followed?
Now, throughout the day, I have set the context in which this debate
has been occurring. I believed it necessary because for those who
aren't from the wonderful land of Lincoln, the great State of Illinois,
they may not be fully familiar with the politics.
Sometimes our politics have become famous. Chicago has famous
political traditions. The State government probably hasn't been as well
known as the city of Chicago's government. But I believed I needed to
set the table, to lay the foundation and give the Senators from other
States the context in which I was concerned that this money would be
provided in a way that would permit unfettered discretion on the part
of whoever might get this $50 million authorized appropriation.
I read a number of articles into the Record this morning that talked
about problems that have occurred in State government in Illinois, not
just under Republican administrations but under both Republican and
Democratic administrations, where, because of a lack of competitive
bidding, because of lax, weak procurement laws that left too much to
the subjective preferences of State officials on awarding contracts, we
have had of a sad history of procurement problems in the State of
Illinois. Hopefully, the State's new procurement law will cut down on
future problems such as that. But as I have pointed out, it has a few
loopholes that I hope will get cleaned up.
We have talked about leases of buildings. We have talked about
construction projects. We have highlighted a number of instances in
which those leases at that time were not competitively bid, where there
were a lot of questions about the amounts taxpayers were paying for the
State to lease buildings. And certainly the people involved in leasing
the properties to the State seem to be very involved in the political
process, which raises a lot of questions in one's mind.
I also talked about the hotel loan, which involved a loan to a
politically connected developer to build the Springfield Renaissance
Hotel. It was a $15 million loan from the State of Illinois. It
appeared also, as we read some of those articles, that Federal money
was involved in that, too, and that that loan was never repaid to the
State of Illinois. Some payments were made. I don't know what the
unpaid balance is today, but I think it is quite substantial. That
developer still has that hotel, too. This hotel is very close, about a
block and a half, maybe two blocks away, as we saw, from the proposed
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
If the library is built and it becomes the wonderful attraction we
hope it will be for citizens from all over the country to come and
enjoy and learn about Abraham Lincoln in the hometown of Abraham
Lincoln, certainly it will generate a lot of tourist revenue for the
city of Springfield. I imagine the Springfield Renaissance Hotel would
benefit from the projections of increased tourism. I hope that would be
the case. I hope that perhaps at that time the hotel, the partnership
that runs it, would think about whether they couldn't make more
payments to the State on that $15 million taxpayer loan that goes back
to the early 1980s.
I know that State officials released personal guarantees and waived
the State's right to foreclose on that hotel loan. It is clear there
probably isn't much of a legally enforceable note anymore. You would
have to wonder if those people would think about whether it wouldn't be
a good idea for them, the right thing for them to do, to try to make
payments when they could. They probably would argue that the notes are
worthless now and that the State's rights as lender were waived while
the loan was in default. It is kind of unusual. In fact, I have never
really heard of a lender, when they have a bad loan, waive all their
rights. It seems kind of odd to me.
In any case, there is another episode in our State's recent history
that I was very vocal on when I was in the State senate. That was on
how riverboat licenses were given out.
Back in about 1990, the State created 10 riverboat licenses. The
first six of them were fairly site specific in their statute on where
the river boat licenses had to go.
That always raised questions because there were questions of whether
in drawing up the statute the State was actually attempting to steer
these riverboat licenses to certain individuals. It just so happened
that an investor in the first riverboat license awarded under the
Illinois gaming law was the very same individual, Mr. William Cellini,
about whom we have read some articles, who got the hotel loan, didn't
have to pay it back, had the leases of the State buildings, and has
been involved in politics in Illinois for a long time.
I would, if I could, like to continue on in an examination of what
happened when the State didn't competitively bid the riverboat
licenses, and I always believed they should have been competitively
bid. You had licenses that turned out to be phenomenally lucrative. In
some cases, very small investments made many people very rich, very
quickly. There was always a question as to how the State determined who
got the licenses. The people who wound up getting the first six
licenses, which were fairly site-specific, tended to be people who were
very much involved in State politics in Illinois. They were what I
would call ``insiders'' in the State capitol. Of course, they always
encouraged the perception that it was just a coincidence that these
very lucrative licenses fell into their hands. And they got real rich,
real quick.
In fact, a riverboat was put up in Joliet, IL. I remember when I was
in the State senate, that boat was called the Joliet Empress. We could
not find out the financial results of these boats. It was an exception
to the freedom of information laws in Springfield, and even though
these boats got a license from the State, they didn't have to give out
financial information to the public. But the Joliet Empress decided to
do a public bond offering, as I recall. In order to do that public
offering of its debt securities, it had to file a registration
statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the process
of filing that statement, they disclosed their investors and disclosed
some of the financial results of the riverboat.
I am going to suggest that the original investment was somewhere in
the neighborhood of $20 million. In the first 18 months, as I recall,
the nine people who owned the riverboat took in something like $87
million in cash dividends. It kind of makes the Internet firms that we
are reading about in the soaring NASDAQ index seem like nothing. This
was really a bonanza for the people who wound up with these riverboat
licenses.
When I read on the floor of the Illinois State Senate how lucrative
these licenses were, I thought it was wrong that the State wasn't
competitively bidding those licenses. They were setting up a process by
which people who wanted these licenses could go through the politicians
who could give it to them on a no-bid basis. And in so doing, the State
was leaving an awful lot of money on the table. In fact, they were
literally lighting a match to millions of dollars they could have
reaped
[[Page S9872]]
had they auctioned off those licenses and created some kind of bidding
process and not allowed political favoritism to ever be a question in
the awarding of those licenses.
In fact, there was a lot of opposition to ever competitively bidding
those licenses. Certainly, the people who wound up owning or wanting
the licenses never wanted those competitively bid. Instead, what
happened, in order to raise revenue in the early 1990s, on a few
occasions the State raised income taxes on everybody else.
Mr. President, let me go, if I may, to a couple of articles that
describe how the State gave out the no-bid riverboat licenses. Again,
this is all in the context of examining what happens when State,
Federal, or local government--any government at all--don't put
restrictions on money they are giving out for contracts, or on benefits
that they are giving out, when they don't make sure there is a
competitive bidding process involved. Questions always arise as to
whether there is political favoritism.
This article is from the Chicago Sun-Times of February 26, 1993. The
byline is by Ray Long. The headline is, ``Developer Hits Riverboat
Jackpot; Stock Sale Windfall Steams Treasurer.''
I ask unanimous consent that this article from the Chicago Sun-Times
be printed in the Record at this point.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 26, 1993]
Developer Hits Riverboat Jackpot; Stock Sale Windfall ``Steams''
Treasurer
(By Ray Long)
Politically powerful Springfield developer William Cellini
has sold $5.3 million in riverboat casino stock as part of a
deal that prompted the state treasurer to call for a windfall
tax on such transactions.
Argosy Gaming Co., owner of the Alton Belle riverboat,
reported that Cellini sold 277,778 shares, netting him $4.9
million after fees, in last week's first public offering of
Illinois riverboat stock.
Argosy sold a total of $76.6 million in stock, and the
original shareholders collected $29.5 million, the company
said.
Cellini remains the largest single shareholder, and his
remaining shares could be worth more than $50 million, based
on the value of the public shares.
Argosy plans to use money from the sale to pay start-up
debts, fund a new riverboat and develop gambling in Louisiana
and Missouri.
State Treasurer Patrick Quinn, a Democrat, said, ``I've got
steam coming out of my ears'' from anger over the Argosy
deal. ``It's downright obscene.''
A probable gubernatorial candidate in 1994, Quinn said
Cellini should have been denied his piece of the Alton
riverboat license because of questions about his role in a
state loan to build the Springfield Ramada Renaissance hotel.
``I don't think if you take the taxpayers to the cleaners
once, you should get a second chance to put more money in
your own pocket,'' Quinn said while taping ``The Reporters,''
to be aired at 9 p.m. Sunday on WMAQ-AM (670).
The state should impose a windfall tax on investors in
riverboat gambling ventures that start private and later go
public, Quinn said.
In a separate interview, Cellini, a top Republican fund-
raiser and friend of Gov. Edgar's, said the Springfield hotel
arrangement was proper.
As for the riverboat transaction, he said he had been
``obligated at one time for an amount approaching a million''
dollars. He said federal regulations about new public
offerings prevented him from discussing details about the
company or stock sale.
The Ramada Renaissance received a 1982 state loan for $15.5
million at 12\1/4\ percent interest. After recurring payment
disputes, the loan was restructured in 1991 for $18.6 million
at 6 percent.
Cellini said he was one of 80 partners in the hotel. ``I
have never taken out or realized one penny from the hotel,''
he said.
Quinn's staff said the lenders defaulted in 1987 under
former state Treasurer Jerry Cosentino and former Gov. James
R. Thompson, a Republican and friend of Cellini's.
But Cellini disputed this account. ``During the time of the
loan,'' he said, ``I don't believe we were ever declared in
default--except in order to refinance and restructure, there
may have been needed language implying such.''
Quinn said: ``A lot of folks, I think, are pretty upset
about getting taxed to the limit and then seeing government
operate . . . as a personal piggy bank for insiders. This is
wrong.''
Mike Lawrence, spokesman for Edgar, said the Gaming Board's
initial approval of the Alton riverboat project was granted
before the governor took office. The final license approval
came in 1991 after Edgar took office.
William Kunkle, Gaming Board chairman, said Cellini passed
the agency's background check.
Meanwhile, Thursday, the Gaming Board met in Chicago and
failed to reach agreement on how to implement a legal limit
of 1,200 gambling customers per riverboat.
Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, there are a number of other articles
that have been written over the years about how the State gave out the
riverboat gambling licenses in Illinois. The record is replete with
problems that the State had, or questions that were raised about how
the licenses were awarded. They just happened to be awarded to people
who seemed to be involved in the political process.
That was something I was concerned about at the time. I was in the
State senate at that time; this goes back to 1994. There is an article
in the Chicago Sun-Times that discusses how I was seeking competitive
bidding on those State riverboat licenses.
This is an article from April 10, 1994, entitled, ``Riverboat Deal is
Plum For Insiders,'' by Dennis Byrne of the Chicago Sun-Times:
The agreement between Mayor Daley and Gov. Edgar to bring
riverboat gambling to Chicago should make a lot of people
happy: Chicago taxpayers and schoolchildren, who will benefit
from the additional revenues, and the thousands of casino/
entertainment center employees.
But the folks who should be the happiest are the well-
connected insiders who are already raking it in from the
state's 10 suburban and Downstate riverboats and who stand to
make hundreds of millions more from the Chicago riverboats.
That would be thanks to a little-noticed part of the
agreement changing the law that bans owners of one riverboat
license from having more than a 10 percent interest in a
second. If approved by the Legislature, they could own a
second license and up to a 10 percent interest in a third.
So folks such as Eugene Heytow, chairman of the politically
connected Amalgamated Trust & Savings Bank, where William
Daley, the mayor's brother, once was president, could keep
his stake in a riverboat in Galena while buying a chunk of
one in Chicago. And William Cellini, a powerful friend of
Edgar and former Gov. James R. Thompson, could buy into
Chicago big-time while keeping his lucrative interest in the
Alton Belle. So could Gayle Franzen, the Republican candidate
for DuPage County Board chairman. And so on.
You could argue that they should get a piece of the Chicago
action because the state is changing the rules of the game,
that when they invested in the suburban and Downstate boats
they believed they wouldn't face any competitive risk from
Chicago.
However, it's not a very convincing argument in the face of
the obscene profits that they have already harvested from
their state-protected monopolies. State Sen. Peter G.
Fitzgerald (R-Inverness), a banker, has calculated that the
profits have been great enough to cover initial investments
in only a matter of months--the kind of return that might
make Hillary Rodham Clinton envious. In the case of the Alton
Belle, a $20 million or so capital investment (and a paltry
$85,000 for a state licensing fee) seeded a company that now
has an estimated market value approaching a half billion
dollars.
Let me read that again.
This is from Dennis Byrne, ``Riverboat Deal is Plum for Insiders.''
In the case of the Alton Belle, a $20 million or so capital
investment--and a paltry $85,000 for a State licensing fee.
The guys who got the riverboats gave the State $85,000. The State
gave them a license and ceded a company that now has an estimated
market value approaching $.5 billion.
Not a bad deal if you are giving the $85,000 and they are giving you
the license. It is worth, at that time they say, $.5 billion. What did
the taxpayers get out of this with no competitive bidding? They had
their income taxes raised during that time.
For an initial outlay of just a couple hundred grand 2\1/2\
years ago, investors now would own tens of millions of
dollars worth of stock. Cellini himself plucked $4.9 million
when he sold some of his stock when the company went public,
but still retains some $60 million worth of stock.
And if they invest in Chicago boats? Using the city's
figures, Fitzgerald calculates that annual net income on each
boat could approach $50 million, and that the market value of
each boat (at five times earnings) could exceed a quarter of
a billion dollars.
Thankfully, though, they'd have to sink more into the
Chicago boats, because, unlike the license for suburban and
Downstate boats, the city licenses would be competitively
bid. Who gets the license will depend, in part, on how much
the bidder is willing to give to the city in admission,
franchise and other fees. Unfortunately, though, the state's
20 percent gaming tax on gross receipts will not be raised,
for the Chicago or Downstate boats. Nor do we know if other
municipalities that are granted new boats will be able to
demand competitive bidding.
Fitzgerald believes that even if the 20 percent state tax
were raised significantly, to as high as 60 percent, the
owners still would make a nice profit. So if we truly believe
[[Page S9873]]
that the boats are a public good, maybe we should allow the
public to rake off at least as much as some politically
connected pals.
Mr. President, I understand that the Presiding Officer has an
obligation, so I will try to focus my remarks and enable the Presiding
Officer to meet that obligation.
We have introduced a number of articles on this point all during the
day to lay the context in which my concerns were raised about this very
large project in Springfield.
I guess now we are down to the point where we have to ask the big
question: Is the proposed Abraham Lincoln Library in Springfield, IL,
another insider deal? I certainly hope it doesn't become one. This may
or may not be now. We will not know until it is done. But we should do
our very best to prevent it from becoming one.
We have said if we don't have careful controls, the money could wind
up in private hands. It wouldn't have to be competitively bid under the
language in the conference report. If the money winds up in State
hands, then under the language that passed out of the House in the
conference report, and which the Senate has basically said they don't
like because it doesn't have Federal competitive bidding in it, if the
money went to a private entity and went to the State--we have seen the
State without competitive bidding. I would hate to see the monument to
``Honest Abe'' discussed in one of these many articles that have been
written by investigative reporters. Competitive bidding could be opted
out if it were the Capital Development Board that were doing the
project.
As I pointed out, it is not unusual for the State to have to live
within Federal competitive bid guidelines. This is not an unusual
request. Then there is the State code. The State procurement code
specifically contemplates the application of Federal guidelines such as
these Federal competitive guidelines.
Are there red flags on this project? I want to sum those up again. We
talked earlier in the day about some of the red flags.
We had the cost of the project increasing as the project has been
talked about over the last few years. It started out as a proposed $40
million project in February of 1998. It went to a $60 million project
13 months later, in March of 1999. When I first came to the Senate, it
was a $60 million project. Then one month after that, the next report
said it was a $148 million project--up from the most recent $60 million
estimate on advice from ``designers and fiscal advisers.'' That raised
the red flag in my mind. I thought we had to bird-dog this project.
After all, that is a big expenditure in any city, and it is certainly a
big expenditure in the city of Springfield, our State capital.
The estimated cost, adjusted for inflation, of our State capitol is
only $70 million compared to the $148 million that we saw referred to
there, and now the $120 million that they are talking about for this
library.
The cost of other buildings in Springfield: the Willard Ice Building
is a $70 million building; the Prairie Capital Convention Center is a
$60 million building.
We are really talking about a very visible project in Springfield. We
discussed the location as well of this library. We noted its proximity
to the Springfield Ramada Renaissance Hotel. We talked at length about
the history of the Springfield Renaissance Hotel. We noted that this
project is intended to and will stimulate tourism, if it is done right,
in the city of Springfield. That hotel stands to benefit from that. It
would be nice if we could get some payments on that $15 million State
loan from back in 1982 to build that.
We have not yet noted, and I think we need to note, that Mr. Cellini,
whom we have discussed, has been active in seeking to raise money for
the private foundation that is connected to the library. Let me see if
I can focus on that for one second and find a citation for you, Mr.
President. There are newspaper articles, I believe, that suggest he has
been out actively trying to raise money for the library. I would like
to find that citation.
Incidentally, I should also mention that the Ronald Reagan
Presidential Library cost $65 million.
It is a State Journal Register article from September 5, 1999, a
little over a year ago:
William Cellini reported to be heading private fundraising
drive for the project.
So we are beginning to connect this all back into some of the
projects we have read about throughout the course of the day. These are
connecting threads, and set against the backdrop of procurement history
and controversy in Illinois, I think there is good reason for Congress
to be careful with this project. I think it is reasonable to look at
all these red flags and say, this $50 million in Federal money, we
better make sure it is buttoned down; better be careful, we don't want
to happen to this money what has sometimes happened in the past. We
don't want this project ever to be the subject of one of these
investigative reports in one of our State's fine newspapers.
In light of the time restraints we are running up against tonight,
the hour is late and I recognize that, I thank my colleagues again for
all their support, for going on record in favor of competitive bidding
in accordance with the Federal competitive bidding guidelines. I
certainly hope the House will reconsider the position that has come out
of the House in opposition for buttoning down this money and having
tighter controls on it, to make sure that none of it winds up being
involved in an insider deal, and that Springfield gets $120 million
worth of value out of the $120 million that is intended to be spent on
this monument for Abraham Lincoln.
Some may wonder why I have sought to filibuster the Interior
appropriations bill over this matter. They would note $50 million is a
substantial amount, but as a percentage of the entire appropriations
bill, it is relatively small in comparison. There are literally
countless projects throughout the country that are contained in that
bill. I believed it was important to come to the floor and to lay out
this case because it goes to the very heart of the appropriations
process in Washington.
I understand those who oppose the competitive bidding will eventually
have a good opportunity to move their bill and make sure the
competitive bidding isn't in there. But I hope we are going to have
illumination here. I think the people of Illinois can know who their
government is and what it is about. I think that the people of this
country may see, through the prism of Illinois, how serious and
consequential the ethical foundations of their government can and must
be.
This issue of whether we make sure this money is competitively bid
goes to the very heart of the appropriations process. We ought to take
great care of the people's money. The people's money represents
precious hours of hard work, sweat, and time away from family. The
American people are fundamentally generous, and they will permit
reasonable expenditures for the good of their country, their
communities, and their State. However, Mr. President, don't abuse them.
Do your best to make sure that there are sufficient safeguards so the
people can know that their taxpayer dollars will not simply be trampled
on by political insiders. That is what bothers me personally, eats at
me--the people who oppose provisions such as this act, as though $50
million in taxpayer money is a quarter. How can we ever put too many
controls on taxpayer money? Why would anyone not welcome even more
stringent competitive bid rules? Why would anybody oppose that? I can't
think of a good reason.
The backdrop of problems we have had in the State of Illinois for a
long time, which I illuminated today, and the legacy of insider dealing
make me very reluctant to turn over this particular $120 million
without doing everything I can to protect it.
I thank all of those who have stayed with me tonight, and I yield the
floor.
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