[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19279-19280]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          EARMARK TRANSPARENCY

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I would like to speak now about the 
ongoing efforts in the Senate to block the earmark transparency rules.
  It has now been 180 days since they were unanimously adopted by the 
Senate. Yet they still have not been formally enacted. Even worse, the 
majority wants to take them behind closed doors, where a conference 
committee can kill them in secret. They tried to kill these reforms on 
the Senate floor but failed. Now they are falling back to their plan B, 
which is to gut them in conference.
  That is not how we should write a bill about openness, honesty, and 
transparency. I hope my friends on the other side will change their 
minds. These are Senate rules I am talking about, and there is no 
reason why we need to negotiate with the House. The House already has 
their earmark transparency rules. My friends on the other side should 
stop blocking earmark reform and stop trying to change these rules in 
secret so 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--in fact, it would be 
meaningless--if we don't do something to shine the light on earmarks. 
Let me repeat this because I think it is very important. Americans do 
understand that ethics reform is not complete without meaningful 
earmark reform.
  Many of the reforms in the ethics bill address what people outside of 
Congress can do, but earmark reform addresses what we here in Congress 
can do. That is the difference. Americans want, more than anything 
else, Congress to be restrained and open about what we do. They want us 
to reform the way we spend their money and shut down the secret 
congressional favor factory. Nothing would do more to restore America's 
faith in their Government than enacting reforms that ensure their 
elected officials are not going to use their ability to spend Federal 
dollars to enrich their friends and supporters.
  Mr. President, I wish to draw the Senate's attention to an article 
that ran this morning in The Hill newspaper about earmarks--earmarks 
that have not been properly disclosed. The majority likes to say they 
are complying with the rules, but that doesn't appear to be the case. 
This story says:

       As a proposal to require full disclosure of all Senate 
     earmarks languishes, Senators have not claimed responsibility 
     for at least $7.5 billion worth of projects approved by the 
     Appropriations Committee, according to an analysis by a 
     budget watchdog group.

  Obviously, the piecemeal approach being used by the Democrats is not 
working. We cannot allow appropriators and other committees to police 
themselves. They are not doing it now, and they never will. We need a 
single enforcement rule for the whole Senate that doesn't keep 
loopholes for secret earmarking. Let me repeat: $7.5 billion in 
earmarks already this year are undisclosed. This is business as usual 
in the Senate.
  I wish to point out that the Defense authorization bill we are 
debating now violates the rules. It discloses the earmark sponsors, but 
the committee failed to post on the Internet the letters from these 
sponsors certifying that they do not have a financial interest in the 
earmark they have requested.
  Before I conclude, I want to update the Senate on some progress we 
are making on earmark reform.
  First, we have added several cosponsors to S. Res. 123, which is the 
earmark disclosure rule. They are Senators Ensign, Enzi, Martinez, 
Coburn, McCaskill, and Cornyn. I thank them for their support. Some of 
these Senators request earmarks, while others do not. But they all 
support earmark disclosure, and they all support this rule as it is 
written right now.
  We have also added a couple cosponsors to S. Res. 260, the rule that 
would stop the adding of earmarks in secret conference committees. They 
are Senators Allard and Cornyn. I thank them for their support. A 
select few Members of Congress and their staffs should not be adding 
hidden earmarks to bills in the middle of the night when no one has the 
opportunity to review them and debate their merits. That is very bad 
practice, and it must end.
  There was also an important editorial last Tuesday in the Roll Call 
newspaper that supports our efforts to protect earmark reform. I will 
read a couple of excerpts:

       Senate Democratic leaders are resisting [Senator DeMint's] 
     move and are insisting on going to conference on the ethics 
     bill, although they have yet to explain why already agreed-
     upon earmark rules can't be adopted immediately.
       We don't oppose earmarks in principle. . . . But as events 
     last year amply demonstrated, earmarks can be a source of 
     rotten corruption. Full disclosure is crucial, and the Senate 
     ought to institute it forthwith.

[[Page 19280]]

       We think that on the merits Senate leaders should accede to 
     DeMint so disclosure of spending requests is not delayed 
     until President Bush signs an ethics reform measure that 
     still has not even gone to a House-Senate conference.

  Mr. President, the blogging community is watching what we are doing 
here. Countless bloggers, including The Corner on National Review 
Online, Instapundit.com, MichelleMalkin.com, the Sunlight Foundation, 
Porkbusters.com, RedState.com, and many others, have weighed in on the 
need for the Senate to implement these earmark transparency rules now. 
I thank them for paying attention to this debate and working to hold us 
all accountable.
  Finally, we have received letters of support from several important 
taxpayer watchdog groups, including Americans for Prosperity and 
Citizens Against Government Waste. These groups know how important 
earmark reform is, and they believe it should be implemented 
immediately.
  These rules need to be adopted immediately. They should not be 
allowed to go to conference with the House where they can be changed at 
will. They need to be enacted now before a single appropriations bill 
comes to the Senate floor.
  It has been 180 days since they were unanimously adopted by the 
Senate. I have asked consent to enact these rules four times, but the 
other side has blocked them each and every time. Today needs to be the 
day that this obstruction stops. Today needs to be the day we end the 
earmark business as usual in the Senate.

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