[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 153 (Thursday, September 25, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S9469]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

  Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I wish to expand a minute on the 
purposes of this.
  The American people should know we have a law called the improper 
payments law where every agency is supposed to report to Congress every 
year the amount of improper payments, both over and under, and how that 
affects their budgets and their goals. Less than 50 percent of the 
agencies file that report with Congress. The reason they don't is 
because we don't make them. We don't say: Your funding is contingent 
upon you following the law. So, regrettably, I objected to what Senator 
Kohl--I actually agree with the things we are doing in the bill, but we 
won't accomplish what we want to accomplish if we don't make the 
Justice Department report to us and have metrics to see that the money 
we are going to spend--not ours; actually, it is going to be the money 
of the next generation--is spent wisely and is effective in doing what 
we want to get done.
  It is my hope before we leave here that we can work out a compromise. 
I have spoken with Senator Specter. I have not had a chance to visit 
with Senator Leahy. I intend to do that today. We have given in a lot 
of areas on this bill, especially the spending amounts.
  I also note the Justice Department ended last year with $1.72 billion 
in unobligated balances. They are the only agency that gets to keep 
their money, and they get to decide--not us--what they are going to do 
with that $1.72 billion. So there is plenty of money in the Justice 
Department right now to do this program.
  We have to decide whether we are going to put teeth in what we tell 
agencies to do. My hope is we will start doing that.
  I was going to spend some time now talking about the continuing 
resolution. I am going to reserve that and try to come back at a 
different time and try to reach Senator Specter and Senator Leahy on 
this IP bill in the hopes we can get something worked out.
  With that, I yield the floor and note that we would obviously be in 
recess.

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