[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 115 (Tuesday, July 28, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H8877]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 EARMARKS IN DEFENSE APPROPRIATION BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Flake) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, later today, the Rules Committee will be 
promulgating a rule for the Defense appropriation bill that I believe 
we'll consider tomorrow. This is, in my view, quite remarkable that we 
will be considering the Defense bill that spends hundreds of billions 
of dollars, we will be spending less than a day debating that 
legislation.
  What is remarkable about it as well is that there are 1,087 earmarks 
in the bill, more than 1,000 earmarks in the Defense bill that was 
considered by the full Appropriations Committee for a total of 18 
minutes, not 18 minutes per earmark or per section of the bill or 
anything else, but the full Appropriations Committee considered that 
bill for 18 minutes, passed, done, markup finished, and now we've got 
that bill on the floor tomorrow.
  And unfortunately, as is the case or as has been the case with the 
rest of the appropriation bills this season, it will come to the floor 
under a structured or closed rule where the Rules Committee, the 
majority party, will determine which amendments the minority party and 
members of the majority party get to offer. Breaking from tradition 
that has held for decades and decades and perhaps centuries in this 
institution where appropriation bills have come to the floor under an 
open rule, this will come to the floor under a rule that only allows 
amendments to be offered that the majority party wants to see, not 
those that the minority party necessarily wants to offer.
  There are 548, at our count, earmarks in this bill that will go to 
private companies. These will be no-bid contracts for private 
companies. The majority party will say, well, we're inserting language 
saying that these earmarks have to be bid out. The purpose of an 
earmark is to ensure that that contract is not bid out. Otherwise, why 
earmark it? Why not just let the Defense Department decide where to 
spend its money?
  So these are earmarks. These are no-bid contracts. They're going to 
private companies. In many cases, those private companies will turn 
around, and the executives from those companies will make sizeable 
campaign contributions to the Members who secured the earmarks. That 
has been the pattern in this place for years, not just with the 
majority party in power but when the minority power was in power as 
well. It's simply gotten worse over time.
  Our Ethics Committee forces Members--and it's a good thing--to sign a 
certification letter saying that they have no financial stake in the 
earmark that they are securing, that a family member doesn't work for 
the firm receiving it, for example. But there's also guidance issued 
from the Ethics Committee that says that campaign contributions do not 
necessarily constitute financial interest. And so Members of this body 
are given a green light to basically earmark for campaign dollars. It's 
the so-called circular fund-raising that has become the norm around 
here.
  And if this wasn't bad enough, there are investigations swirling 
outside of this body. Members' offices have been subpoenaed. Some 
people on the outside have already pled guilty and are working with 
authorities involving earmarks and campaign contributions. There are 
allegations of straw men contributions that have been set up where 
individuals reimburse for contributions they make to Members who secure 
earmarks. There are all these investigations swirling outside. Yet 
we're moving through this appropriation process as if nothing were 
wrong, and we'll consider a bill in one day and limit the number of 
amendments that Members can bring forward.
  Now, this isn't the perfect way to scrutinize or to vet a bill, I 
recognize, on the House floor. But it's all we've got when the full 
committee Appropriations Committee takes a full 18 minutes to approve a 
bill that spends hundreds of millions of dollars and contains over 
1,000 earmarks, 548 of which are no-bid contracts to private companies.
  We do that all in a day and then tell Members, oh, but we're only 
going to allow the amendments that we want to see, not necessarily the 
ones that you want to offer.
  In this legislation that we will consider tomorrow, there's an 
earmark going to a company called ProLogic, and it is reported that 
this company is under investigation by the FBI. The status of the 
investigation is unknown. Reports are simply out there that there are 
investigations. This company, the executives and lobbyists and those 
associated with it, have contributed more than $400,000 to 
congressional campaign committees. Yet we're still allowing this bill 
to go forward.
  Let's have a new rule for the bill.

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