[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 87 (Thursday, June 10, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S4844]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REQUEST FOR CONSULTATION
Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that my letter to Senator
McConnell dated June 9, 2010, be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, June 9, 2010.
Hon. Mitch McConnell,
Senate Minority Leader,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator McConnell: I am requesting that I be consulted
before the Senate enters into any unanimous-consent
agreements or time limitations regarding S. 3019/H.R. 3695,
Billy's Law.
I support the goals of this legislation and believe that
information regarding missing persons and unidentified
remains should be accurate and properly maintained. However,
I believe that we can and must do so in a fiscally
responsible manner. My concerns are included in, but not
limited to, those outlined in this letter.
While this bill is well-intentioned, it costs the American
people over $64 million. This legislation has received no
process in the Senate Judiciary Committee, as it was only
recently introduced on February 23, 2010. As a member of the
Judiciary Committee, I believe, prior to floor consideration,
legislation under the committee's jurisdiction should be
processed in regular order. Appropriate hearings and debate
in committee markup are essential to all legislation,
especially legislation like Billy's Law, which spends
significant federal dollars, authorizes new programs and
requires the sharing of personally identifiable information
between government databases.
Although additional resources may be necessary, we should
act responsibly by reviewing current operations, evaluating
their effectiveness, and then determining the best strategy
for addressing the areas with the most need. That cannot be
accomplished with constant use of the hotline process. The
Congressional Research Service estimates that 94% of all
measures passed by the Senate do not receive a roll call
vote. The hotline process is even more detrimental to
transparency and oversight when legislation, like Billy's
Law, is hotlined without going through regular committee
order.
Moreover, it is irresponsible for Congress to jeopardize
the future standard of living of our children by borrowing
from future generations. The U.S. national debt is now $13
trillion. That means over $42,000 in debt for each man, woman
and child in the United States. A year ago, the national debt
was $11.2 trillion. Despite pledges to control spending,
Washington adds $4.6 billion to the national debt every
single day--that is $3.2 million every single minute.
In addition to the above, there are several specific
problems with this legislation. First, Billy's Law seeks to
authorize the National Missing and Unidentified Persons
System (NamUs), an online repository for information about
missing persons and unidentified remains. However, this
database has been in operation, without Congressional
authorization, since 2007. Before we seek to condone an
existing program by providing a Congressional authorization,
we should perform rigorous oversight of NamUs to determine
whether there is existing waste, fraud and abuse or ways to
increase its efficiency. Without the opportunity to conduct
hearings and committee markup, it is impossible to
effectively examine and evaluate the current operation of
NamUs.
Second, merely to maintain NamUs, Billy's Law authorizes
$2.4 million per year for fiscal years 2011 through 2016,
totaling $14.4 million, without corresponding offsets. This
authorization exceeds the yearly sum of $1.3 million the
Department of Justice indicates is necessary to maintain the
database. Furthermore, according to the Congressional
Research Service, Congress already provides funding for NamUs
via the National Institute of Justice and the Community
Oriented Policing Service. I am concerned that this bill will
enable NamUs to double dip into multiple sources of funding
for the same purposes.
Third, the bill requires the National Crime Information
Center (NCIC) database and NamUs to share information on
missing persons and unidentified remains. While the bill
requires the Attorney General and Director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to establish rules on
confidentiality of this information, I remain concerned about
the protection of this personally identifiable information.
NamUs is accessible not only by law enforcement, but also
the public. NamUs is comprised of two smaller databases--the
Missing Persons Database and the Unidentified Remains
Database. While the Unidentified Remains Database does not
allow the public to enter information and restricts certain
information from being accessed by the public, the Missing
Persons Database allows both the public and law enforcement
to submit information about missing persons. There is no way
to guarantee the consistency and accuracy of publicly entered
information. The ability of NamUs and NCIC to share
information via this legislation magnifies these concerns.
Fourth, the bill also establishes an Incentive Grants
Program to provide law enforcement, coroners, medical
examiners and other authorized agencies with grants to
facilitate reporting information to both NCIC and NamUs.
These grants can be used for very broad purposes, including
hiring, contracting and ``other purposes consistent with the
goals of this section.'' I believe that state and local law
enforcement and other state or locally-run agencies should
bear the burden of reporting state and local information. If
these databases are, in fact, effective and further the
investigations carried out by state and local law
enforcement, they should be willing to prioritize funding in
their own budgets to utilize the databases accordingly.
Furthermore, the task of investigating missing person and
unidentified remains cases often falls primarily on state and
local law enforcement. As a result, the federal government
should not bear the entire cost for either the Incentive
Grants Program or the operation of the NamUs database. For
the Incentive Grants Program, the bill authorizes $10 million
per year for fiscal years 2011 through 2015, totaling $50
million that is not offset by reductions in real spending
elsewhere in the federal budget. In addition, there is no
limit on the amount that the Attorney General may award for
each grant. Rather, the Attorney General has the discretion
to determine how much each grantee receives.
In addition to offsets for federal spending on these
programs, I believe all funding in this legislation should be
borne at least equally between the states and the federal
government. It is clear that state and local law enforcement
will be utilizing NamUs often. In fact, the Incentive Grants
Program authorized in this bill is specifically to help state
and local entities ``facilitate the process of reporting
information regarding missing persons and unidentified
remains to the NCIC database and NamUs databases. . . .''
While there is no question that law enforcement should
endeavor to quickly locate missing persons and return them to
their families, the federal government is already making
efforts to facilitate this process. Congress should, like
many American individuals and companies do with their own
resources, evaluate current programs, determine any needs
that may exist and prioritize those needs for funding by
cutting from the federal budget programs fraught with waste,
fraud, abuse and duplication.
Sincerely,
Tom A. Coburn, M.D.,
United States Senator.
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