[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 111 (Thursday, July 12, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9072-S9074]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             EARMARK REFORM

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I first thank my colleague from Oklahoma 
for bringing to the floor this important issue of free speech in 
America, and the bill that would help to keep the FCC from imposing gag 
rules on talk radio and other media. But that is not the purpose of my 
trip to the floor today.
  Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the ongoing effort in the 
Senate to block earmark reform. It has now been 175 days--over 6 
months--since we passed our earmark transparency rules. Yet they still 
have not been enacted.
  As my colleagues know, we passed two important earmark transparency 
rules back in January that, first, require public disclosure of 
earmarks and, second, prohibit Congress from adding secret earmarks 
behind closed doors in conference committees where they cannot be 
openly debated or voted on. Both of these rules were unanimously 
supported by the Senate. But now--over 6 months later--Democrats are 
insisting that we change or drop these rules behind closed doors.
  I asked the majority leader before July 4 if we could agree to 
protect these earmark reforms in conference, but he said no. I am not 
asking for an ironclad agreement. He said they would change in 
conference. I asked him what changes he wanted to make to these 
important earmark rules that had passed unanimously, but so far we do 
not have a response.
  In fact, in CongressDailyAM, they put it quite clearly when they 
said:

       [Democrats] could not guarantee that DeMint's earmark 
     language would survive negotiations with the House.

  I would only correct one thing about that quote. This was actually 
Nancy Pelosi's language, modified slightly by Senator Durbin, and voted 
on unanimously in the Senate. They are hardly my earmark requirements.
  Well, there you have it. After stalling and blocking the enactment of 
these important ethics reforms for over 6 months, and after coming up 
with every excuse in the book to put them off, the Democrat leadership 
is now beginning to admit they plan to kill earmark reform.
  It is now day 175 of business as usual in the Senate, and the party 
that said it would clean up the culture of corruption in Washington is 
already embracing it.
  The majority leader and the majority whip made several statements on 
this issue on the Senate floor the other night, and I want to address 
them.
  First, the majority leader said that my efforts to protect earmark 
reform were a ``ploy,'' a ``diversion,'' and a ``smokescreen'' to stop 
the ethics bill.
  This accusation is completely false, and these two Senators are 
probably the only two people in America who believe it. I voted for the 
lobbying and ethics bill, and I even supported going to conference. In 
fact, I came to the floor on Monday and asked for consent to adopt the 
earmark transparency rules and to go to conference with the House on 
the ethics bill. But the other side objected because they only want to 
move forward on the ethics bill if they can gut the earmark reforms in 
secret.
  The truth is, the only thing stopping the lobbying and ethics bill 
from moving forward is the Democratic leadership and their desire to 
kill meaningful earmark reform behind closed doors. They may want to 
hide their opposition to transparency by accusing me of having a secret 
plan to kill the bill, but Americans know the truth. They know folks in 
Congress love earmarks and will do anything to keep this process secret 
and easy for Members to designate money to their pet projects. It is 
clear, the only thing stopping this bill is obstruction to earmark 
reform.
  Next, the majority leader said it was a ``fantasy'' for anyone to 
think they would kill earmark reform behind closed doors. Again, I am 
not sure how these things can be said with a straight face. Several 
Senators on the other side, including the majority leader himself, have 
publicly said they intend to change these rules behind closed doors, 
but they won't say how they are going to change them. If this is all a 
fantasy, then why won't they tell us what they plan to do with these 
reforms? This is supposed to be a bill about transparency, but the 
other side wants to rewrite it in secret.

  But setting aside for a moment the fact that they have publicly 
admitted they plan to change these rules, we need to realize it is 
earmark reform we are talking about here. The culture of earmarking 
runs very deep in this town, and it is no fantasy that there are many 
in this body on both sides of the aisle who want to preserve that 
culture.
  Next, the majority leader said Democrats are already complying with 
the rule and therefore we should trust them. The truth is the earmark 
disclosure the Democrats have given us is spotty at best. In fact, the 
Congressional Research Service says only 4 committees out of 18 have 
implemented even an informal disclosure rule. Even worse, it says these 
four informal rules cannot be enforced on the floor of the Senate.
  The Defense bill we are debating right now is a perfect example. The 
committee put out a partial list of the earmark sponsors, but it has 
failed to make public the letters from these earmark sponsors 
certifying that they have no financial interest in the projects they 
have requested. This is a recipe for more Duke Cunninghams. It is a 
recipe for corruption.
  Congressional Quarterly put it quite clearly when it stated:

       The earmarks--listed in the defense bill for the first time 
     ever--would not have been

[[Page S9073]]

     published at all had most Democrats on the Senate Armed 
     Services Committee gotten their way.

  But the Democratic leadership wants us to trust them anyway. They 
want us to trust the people writing the earmarks to follow the rules 
without any accountability. It won't work, and the Defense bill is a 
perfect example.
  It is also important to note that the Democrats have done nothing to 
address the practice of adding secret earmarks in closed door 
conference committees. As my colleagues know, one of our earmark 
transparency rules prohibits this awful practice. The Democrats in the 
House have been trying to get away with adding their earmarks in secret 
without any oversight, and now Senate Democrats are blocking a rule to 
stop it on our side.
  Everyone knows the game around here. Everyone knows if you want a 
questionable earmark, you wait until the bill gets to conference and 
then you slip it in where it cannot be seen, where it cannot be 
debated, and where it cannot be stopped. Nothing has been done to stop 
this practice. The majority leader may believe Democrats have been 
transparent enough, but it is clear they have not. That is why we need 
a rule that will hold us all accountable.
  Next, the majority leader said I am preventing the Congress from 
``restoring the faith'' of the American people in their Government. 
Congress will never restore faith with the American people until it 
addresses earmarks. As long as Members of Congress can direct Federal 
tax dollars to the special interest of their choosing with little or no 
accountability, we will see more bribes, more indictments, more prison 
sentences, and more Duke Cunninghams. Ethics reform is not complete 
without earmark reform. Americans know what I am talking about. That is 
why we need to get this right.
  Next, Senator Durbin said if I would only look at the bills, I would 
see the Democrats have fully complied with the proposed rules. The 
truth is if Senator Durbin would look at the earmark disclosure rule--
which he wrote--he would know it requires Senators to certify they have 
no conflict of interest in the earmark, and that these certifications 
will be made public on the committee Web site. If he would do some 
checking and go to the Armed Services Committee Web site, he would see 
there are no letters there for all the earmarks that were added to the 
Defense authorization bill we are currently debating. That is one 
example of how the majority is skirting the rules and it is one example 
of why they don't want a formal rule that would stop them from pulling 
these tricks.
  But setting aside their failures to be fully transparent, if Senator 
Durbin believes they are in full compliance with the earmark rules, 
then why is he so opposed to enacting them? What is he afraid of? If 
they are already complying with these rules, why not formalize them so 
they can be actually enforced?
  The truth is they are not fully complying with the rules and they 
have no plan to. They have been earmarking at will for years and they 
don't want anything that would make them more open or transparent.
  The majority leader also said my desire to protect earmark reform is 
a ``guise'' to kill the ethics bill. Again, this is completely false. 
For me, this is about reforming the way we spend American tax dollars. 
That is my motive. I am one who believes that the culture of earmarks 
is what drives the culture of corruption, and I know many others agree. 
The only ``guise'' here is the guise the Democrats are putting up to 
hide their opposition to earmark reform. They keep saying they want to 
go to conference on the ethics bill, but they refuse to tell us what 
they plan to do with the earmark reform once they get there. Instead, 
they say ``trust us.''

  Democrats keep saying they want an ethics bill, but the truth is they 
don't want earmark reform. They have called it a ``petty issue'' and a 
``trifle.'' It is all a guise. We all know what this debate is about--
it is about earmarks and whether we are going to have business as usual 
in the Senate.
  The other side wants us to change the way people outside of Congress 
behave--such as the lobbyists who bring their issues to us--but they 
completely oppose changing anything on earmarks, because this limits 
their own ability and it forces them to be accountable. That is the 
real guise here.
  The majority leader appears to be so opposed to meaningful earmark 
reform that he is willing to cancel the August break in order to 
pressure me to allow them to gut these reforms in secret. From my 
perspective, cancelling the August break to debate earmark reform would 
not be a bad thing. We need to debate this, because there are many here 
in the Senate who still don't get it. They still don't understand that 
Americans are sick and tired of business as usual in Washington.
  The majority leader also said the other night that he may try to 
force this down our throats, as he tried to force the immigration bill 
down our throats by filing a number of cloture motions. The other side 
says what I am doing to force them to protect earmark reform has never 
been done before and would set a bad precedent. They actually think 
people will believe that nobody has ever objected to going to 
conference, that no one has ever objected to sending a bill to a back 
room where it can be changed at will.
  What I am doing is exactly what Senator Reid did for years when he 
was in the minority. According to the Congressional Research Service, 
the Senator who has blocked the most attempts to go to conference over 
the past three Congresses is Senator Harry Reid. On several occasions 
he has demanded specific guarantees or concessions in exchange for 
allowing a bill to go to conference.
  Senator Reid knew then what he seems to have forgotten now: that a 
conference committee is not an entitlement. A bill is not entitled to 
go to conference where it can be changed behind closed doors. It is a 
luxury the majority leadership has used, but he is not entitled to it. 
There are a number of ways we can reconcile the differences between the 
two bills. The Senator from Nevada knew this before, but now that he is 
the majority leader, he seems to have forgotten.
  All of this can be easily solved in a bipartisan way. All my friends 
on the other side need to do is accept these rules which were 
unanimously supported by the Senate back in January. And if for some 
reason they believe these rules need technical changes, then they 
should tell us what they are going to do to change them so we can work 
it out in the open instead of behind closed doors.
  I hope my friends on the other side will change their minds. These 
are Senate rules that I am talking about, and there is no reason why we 
need to be negotiating with the House on them. All my friends on the 
other side have to do is stop blocking earmark reform and stop trying 
to change the rules in secret, and we can move on.
  Americans have seen the ethical problems associated with earmarks. 
They have watched what happened to Duke Cunningham and they have seen a 
number of Members of Congress forfeit their seats on appropriations 
committees due to conflicts of interest. Americans understand that 
lobbying and ethics reform will not be complete if we don't do anything 
to shine the light on the process.
  Mr. President, could I ask how much time I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Florida). The Senator has 1 
minute 10 seconds remaining.
  Mr. DeMINT. I am more long-winded than I thought here.
  Let me conclude, although we will need to continue this debate.
  My goal is to get the lobby and ethics reform bill to conference. But 
a key part of that bill has always been earmark reform. The House has 
passed earmark reform as a House rule. We have passed the rule on the 
Senate side, but we have not adopted it. There is no reason to send a 
Senate rule that governs how we do business to a conference with the 
House. I wish to see this body accept this as a rule that has been 
unanimously voted on so we can move on to conference with lobby and 
ethics reform.
  I am not holding up ethics reform or lobbying reform; I am asking 
this body to do what we have already voted on, and that is to accept 
the rule that we will be transparent about earmarks and how we spend 
American tax dollars.

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I believe I have 15 minutes to speak 
in morning business; is that correct?

[[Page S9074]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that time, plus the additional 
time granted to the Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Chair.

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