[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18195-18208]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              FDA FOOD SAFETY MODERNIZATION ACT--Continued

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, in about 35 minutes we are going to be 
voting on cloture on the food safety modernization bill, a bill that 
brings us forward almost 70 years. Seven decades it has been since we 
have modernized or changed our food inspection and safety system in 
America. So we are taking that step tonight. Hopefully, we will have a 
final vote on it by tomorrow.
  I just want to take a few minutes now before that vote to again lay 
out why this bill is so important and why we need to invoke cloture 
tonight so we can have a final vote on this bill tomorrow.
  First of all, the statistics are that Americans are getting sick and 
they are dying because of foodborne illnesses. You would think in this 
day with modernization and such we would not have this.
  Madam President, 325,000 Americans every year are hospitalized and 
over 5,000 die. Many of these are kids. I have met them with a group 
called Safe Tables Our Priority. I have met some of these kids. They 
will be damaged for life, I say to my friend from Illinois, Senator 
Durbin, who has been such a leader on this bill. In fact, I daresay we 
would not be here were it not for Senator Durbin's leadership in 
getting this bill started, how many years ago I do not know.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question.
  Mr. HARKIN. I would be glad to yield.
  Mr. DURBIN. First, I thank the Senator from Iowa for his leadership 
on this issue. The fact is, it was almost 18 years ago when I received 
a letter from a woman in Chicago--written to me as a Congressman--named 
Nancy Donley. Nancy had a personal tragedy. Her 6-year-old son Alex 
died from E. Coli from food Nancy literally prepared for him in their 
home. She wrote to me a handwritten letter, to me as a Congressman from 
Springfield, IL, 200 miles away, saying we have to do something about 
food safety.
  Nancy lost her son, but she never lost her passion for this issue. As 
the Senator said, she formed the organization Safe Tables Our Priority, 
which has been an effective voice for so many others to bring us to 
this moment.
  But, for the record, I have worked on this issue for a long time, and 
we would not be on the Senate floor tonight with this historic vote 
were it not for the Senator from Iowa who has lead the effort. Senator 
Tom Harkin has, with the help of Senator Mike Enzi and a number on the 
other side of the aisle who have stepped up to make this bipartisan. 
This is a reasonable approach to

[[Page 18196]]

making our food safer in America. I thank the Senator from Iowa for all 
of his leadership on this issue and so many others.
  Mr. HARKIN. Well, I thank my friend from Illinois, but he is being 
way too generous. Again, I recognize the instigators of this, the ones 
who started this ball rolling, and Senator Durbin is the one who got us 
started many years ago. And it has taken us many years to put this 
together. But that is why we have such a good bipartisan bill. We have 
worked on this. We reported this out of our committee a year ago 
without one dissenting vote, Republican or Democrat. Since that time, 
we have been working to get other people, not on the committee, 
obviously, onboard to get the way paved so we could have a bill that 
would be broadly supported.
  This bill is very broadly supported, both by the industry and by the 
consumers. It is one of the few bills where, as a matter of fact, we 
have a wide range of consumer and industry support, everything from the 
Snack Food Association, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, 
Consumers Union, Center for Science in the Public Interest, the U.S. 
Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Anytime you 
get the Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group 
on the same bill, you know you have a bill that has broad support. This 
bill does.
  Again, I thank my colleague, Senator Enzi from Wyoming, our ranking 
member on our committee, for all of his help in getting this bill 
through and working on it diligently over the past year.
  I would be remiss if I did not also thank Senator Gregg and Senator 
Burr for being heavily involved in this bill and working through all of 
the compromises a bill like this entails.
  The Food Safety Modernization Act enhances our food safety system in 
three critical ways. It improves the prevention of food safety 
problems. I always think this is key. We have to get in front of this, 
not to just sort of catch the food once it is contaminated and try to 
get it done, but to try to prevent it in the beginning. We had success 
in the meat and poultry industry some years ago with a preventive plan 
to look at where pathogens could enter the food supply and stop it 
there. We have applied the lessons we have learned from those last 20, 
almost 25 years now of that to this, so now we are going to be able to 
look to have a better system of preventing food safety problems and 
foodborne pathogens.
  It improves the detection or response to foodborne illness 
outbreaks--detect it earlier, stop it earlier, and have a better 
response to what is happening. In other words, for example, in the bill 
we provide that retailers have to in some way notify customers if a 
food has been recalled. That could be a grocery store putting a sign on 
the shelf, for example, saying: This food has been recalled, maybe 
putting out a notice in their supplements that they put out in order to 
advise consumers they may have purchased a food that has been recalled.
  Third, it enhances our Nation's food defense capabilities. Right now, 
how many people know that less than 2 percent--about 1.5 percent--of 
all of the food imported into America is ever inspected? That is 1.5 
percent. Well, this is going to increase those inspections. It is also 
going to increase the defense capabilities in case we have a problem. 
For example, we have stronger trace-back authority so we can get to the 
source of where this happened in a better way than we ever have been 
able to do in the past.
  As I mentioned earlier, it provides the FDA with mandatory recall 
authority. A lot of people are surprised to know--consumers are 
surprised to find out that if there is a foodborne illness or outbreak, 
the Food and Drug Administration has no authority to even recall the 
food. One may say: Well, the companies have the authority to recall 
it--and they do because, frankly, they don't want to get sued, 
obviously. So why have a mandatory recall? Well, you might have bad 
actors. You might have a company that is located offshore. Maybe they 
have imported some bad food into this country, and maybe they think 
they can just take a few bucks and run. The FDA would not have 
mandatory recall authority. Now they would have that to protect our 
consumers. As I said, it also requires the retailer to notify consumers 
if they sold food that has been contaminated.
  Now, again, the opponents of this bill have put a lot of rumors out 
there. Since I have lived with this bill for so long, I am surprised 
people would be saying things like this. One myth I read is that this 
bill would outlaw home gardens--you couldn't even have a home garden. I 
think that comes from Glenn Beck, if I am not mistaken, but it is 
factually incorrect. It said it would do away with family farms. In 
fact, the bill states explicitly that the produce standards ``shall not 
apply to produce that is produced by an individual for personal 
consumption.'' There is also an exemption for small farmers, small 
facilities, as they sell their products at roadside stands, farmers 
markets, places such as those.
  Then there is another rumor that anyone who grows any food will now 
come under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security. I 
heard this myth that Homeland Security agents now will be tromping 
through your farms and your pastures and your tomato plants--again, 
absolutely, totally, factually wrong.
  I am proud to say this legislation comprehensively modernizes our 
food safety system and does so without injury to farms and small 
processors; otherwise, we wouldn't have all of the industry groups on 
board if we were adding undue hardship on our processors and farmers. 
Our food safety system will continue to fail Americans unless we 
modernize our food safety laws and regulations. We should give the FDA 
the authority it needs to cope with the growing, varied risks that 
threaten today's more abundant food supply. We need to act, and we need 
to act now. We need to invoke cloture on this bill in just a little 
over half an hour.
  How much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight minutes 10 seconds.
  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I know my friend, Senator Coburn, was on 
the floor earlier talking about this bill. He has a substitute he is 
going to offer. I have worked with Senator Coburn over the months. I 
know we have a basic philosophical difference about the role of 
government in this area. Be that as it may, we have worked hard, as I 
said, on bill compromises between people who do have differences of 
opinion. Again, as with any bill, there may be some things in here that 
I don't particularly like that I think we ought to do differently, but 
in the spirit of compromise, we don't get our way all the time around 
here; we have to give and take to get something done. That is what this 
bill is.
  So I say to my friend, Senator Coburn, I know he has some problems 
with it, but, quite frankly, his substitute--and I wish to say this 
very forthrightly--his substitute kills our bill in its entirety. It 
kills it in its entirety. In its place, what my friend from Oklahoma 
would offer would be a few studies to help improve collaboration 
between FDA and USDA. There is weaker language on preventive 
contamination, which I think is so important--to prevent in the first 
place. The substitute will eliminate all of our prevention control 
provisions. It would eliminate the provisions that enhance coordination 
between State and Federal laboratories.
  My friend from Oklahoma--and maybe later on we will get into this and 
debate it a little bit--my friend has always been saying we need better 
coordination. He is right. I said that earlier. He is absolutely right. 
We need better coordination between the FDA and USDA and other 
agencies, and that is being done. It is being done in this bill. But at 
the same time, his substitute would eliminate the provisions in our 
bill that enhance the coordination between State and Federal 
laboratories, which is exactly what we need to do--have State and 
Federal coordination. His substitute would eliminate the trace-back 
provisions that are so important to find out where the foodborne 
pathogen might be originating from. It would eliminate the

[[Page 18197]]

important foreign supplier verification provisions we put in this 
bill--that if you are importing food from a foreign country, you have 
to verify that the food has met the same kinds of inspection standards 
we have in our own country. The substitute of my friend from Oklahoma 
would eliminate that provision. It would eliminate the requirement that 
we increase our inspection frequencies in this country, and it would 
eliminate the FDA's ability to recall food--the mandatory recall 
provision we have--even when life-threatening contamination is 
detected.
  So for all of those reasons, I hope the substitute will not be 
adopted. As I said, I know my friend has some feelings about this bill. 
I understand that. But many of the things Senator Coburn brought up 
earlier and in good faith I worked with him and his staff on--some of 
his ideas, we appropriated in this bill. Senator Coburn--I say this as 
a friend--has a keen eye a lot of times for things that are duplicative 
or things that maybe sound good but don't do what you think they are 
going to do. He has a keen eye. I give him credit for that. So a lot of 
those things we have looked at that in the past he suggested, and we 
have adopted those things and put them in the bill.
  Lastly, one of Senator Coburn's objections is that the bill is not 
paid for. Again, I think that is misguided. He knows my feelings on 
this issue. This is an authorization bill. Any funding that would come 
for this would have to be appropriated in the future. There would be 
absolutely no deficit increase at all.
  This is from the Congressional Budget Office. From our bill, we asked 
them what would it do to increase the deficit. As my colleagues can 
see, from 2010 to 2020, there is a zero increase in the deficit because 
of our bill.
  So, again, while I understand Senator Coburn has problems with the 
bill, I think his substitute really wipes out everything we have done 
on a bipartisan basis. Senator Enzi has worked hard, as well as Senator 
Gregg, Senator Burr, and others. We have worked with industry and 
consumer groups for over a year now to make sure we had a good bill, a 
comprehensive bill--one that was a true compromise between competing 
interests but one that gets the job done. And what is the job? To help 
reduce the number of foodborne illnesses in this country.
  I say in closing, is this bill going to stop everybody from getting 
sick while eating food? No, no. It will not be 100 percent. Will it be 
better than what we have? You bet. It is going to prevent a lot of 
foodborne illnesses that otherwise would happen in this country under 
the present system.
  Just think about this: We are operating under a food inspection 
safety system in this country that was adopted 70 years ago. Think of 
how our food supply--the growing, the processing, and the shipping--
have all changed in that 70 years. We go to the grocery store in the 
wintertime and we buy fresh raspberries from Chile or blueberries from 
Argentina. We go to the store in the summertime and we buy produce made 
in this country from all over, commingled and shipped together. A lot 
of times, you don't know where it is coming from. There are so many 
different things that have happened over the last 70 years. Yet our 
inspection system has not kept up with how our food is produced, how it 
is processed, how it is shipped and stored, and we have not updated 
what we should do with imported foods. We are getting more and more 
imported foods into this country.
  So for all of those reasons, I hope we will have a good, strong vote, 
a good bipartisan vote on the cloture issue and that the other measures 
that are coming up--we have an amendment on taxes--if either the 
Johanns amendment or the Baucus amendment is adopted, it will kill this 
bill. It will kill the bill.
  I happen to be one of those who think we have to change the 1099 
provisions for small businesses but not on this bill. We will do that 
before the end of the year, but if it is adopted on this bill, it will 
kill our food safety bill because the House will blue-slip it because 
the Constitution says bills of revenue have to originate in the House, 
not in the Senate; likewise, the earmark provision Senator Coburn will 
be offering--we will have a good debate on that too--again, if that is 
adopted, it will kill the bill. There is just no doubt about it.
  So we worked hard for many years to get to this point. We have a good 
bipartisan bill. We have a bill we believe the House will pass and send 
on to the President to keep our people more safe. So I hope this body 
will reject any extraneous amendments.
  Madam President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, I rise to talk about an amendment we 
will be voting on tomorrow concerning earmarks. Since coming to the 
Senate, I have decided I am not going to participate in what I think is 
a very flawed process. I don't think it is the right way to spend 
public money. I am not going to quarrel that some of the projects that 
have been funded are not meritorious; they are. In my State, some of 
the projects that have received earmarked funds are wonderful 
expenditures of public money. But it is the way in which the money is 
expended that is a problem; the way to decide it is the problem. It is 
the process.
  There have been a number of defenses of earmarking. I am going to 
spend a couple minutes debunking the defenses of earmarking. I will 
tell you my favorite one: We are somehow abdicating the power of the 
purse that is delineated in the Constitution. Give me a break. We 
decide every dime of Federal money. Congress makes the decision on 
appropriations for every Federal program. How is giving up a secretive 
process, where nobody is sure how it is decided who gets how much 
money--how is getting rid of that somehow removing our constitutional 
authority to make spending decisions? It is like they want the American 
people to believe that if we quit earmarking, the appropriations 
process is going to go away, that we will no longer pass judgment on 
the President's budget, that we will not have oversight over Federal 
money. It is silly and absurd. In some ways, it is almost insulting.
  The constitutional powers to decide how Federal money is spent will 
remain with the Congress long after this bad habit has been broken. 
Make no mistake about it, it may not be this year, it may not be next 
year, but the American people are on to us. They now know and 
understand that earmarking is about who you are. It is about what 
committee you sit on. It is about whom you know.
  If this is such a fair process, if this is something we should be 
proud of, then I want someone to come to the floor and explain to me 
how they decide who gets the money. I ask it at home all the time, and 
I say: If you know, will you tell me because I am a Member of the 
Senate and I don't know.
  In some committees, the ranking member and the chairman of the 
subcommittee get more money than everybody else. In other committees, 
they don't. Where is that decided? In what room? Is there a hearing? 
Can I go and watch? When the money is split, who is in the room? Who is 
on the phone? If we are brutally honest with the American people, we 
will tell them that is a process we don't want them to see. Yes, we are 
better because we reformed. I am proud my party led the reforms on 
earmarking right after I came to the Senate. Now your name is on your 
earmark.
  I will tell you what is not public. Do you know what people at home 
actually believe? They believe the Senators don't pick the winners and 
losers. They actually think there is some mysterious process, but what 
we don't know is what are all the earmarks that Senators say no to. 
Senators say no to these earmarks. It is not a committee that says no 
to these. It is not a chairman. Each individual Senator decides winners 
and losers. I don't think the

[[Page 18198]]

losers know that. I think the losers think that Senator had nothing to 
do with them being a loser. If we can make all that public, this would 
be a much less popular activity because all of a sudden the people who 
wanted the bridge in this part of the State would realize that the 
Senator thought the bridge on the other side of the State was more 
important. So we take credit for the earmarks we get, but we are not 
willing to own the fact that we have chosen winners and losers.
  Finally, this notion that somehow the bureaucrats are going to 
decide--most of the money taken for earmarks comes out of programs that 
are grant programs and formula programs and are decided by population 
or by local people. It is not Washington bureaucrats. They are 
supplanting the judgment of one person for the local planning process 
and the State planning process. That is not the way.
  I hope people vote for the Coburn-McCaskill amendment. This is the 
wrong way to spend public money. Whether it happens tomorrow or 2 or 3 
years from now, make no mistake about it, the American people are tired 
of it.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the following 
cloture motion, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the Harkin 
     substitute amendment No. 4715 to Calendar No. 247, S. 510, 
     the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.
         Harry Reid, Patrick J. Leahy, Claire McCaskill, Tom 
           Harkin, Carl Levin, Daniel K. Inouye, Richard J. 
           Durbin, Byron L. Dorgan, Jack Reed, Jeff Bingaman, Mark 
           Begich, Blanche L. Lincoln, Robert Menendez, Daniel K. 
           Akaka, Sherrod Brown, Sheldon Whitehouse, Patty Murray, 
           Debbie Stabenow, Barbara Boxer.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent the mandatory quorum call 
has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on 
amendment No. 4715 to S. 510, a bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug, 
and Cosmetic Act with respect to the safety of the food supply shall be 
brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. 
Lieberman), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Pryor), and the Senator from 
Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. 
Burr).
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 69, nays 26, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 252 Leg.]

                                YEAS--69

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coons
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johanns
     Johnson
     Kerry
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     LeMieux
     Levin
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--26

     Barrasso
     Bennett
     Bond
     Bunning
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Graham
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     McCain
     McConnell
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Brownback
     Burr
     Lieberman
     Pryor
     Tester
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 69, the nays are 
26. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. Madam President, I come to the floor 
today to talk about a provision that was included in the Federal health 
care reform bill. It is a provision that adversely impacts small 
businesses and entrepreneurs, both an engine of job growth in 
Massachusetts and across the country.
  I support Mr. Johanns' efforts and leadership to repeal this 
provision of the law. I am proud to be a cosponsor of his efforts to do 
just this.
  The provision that I am referring to--section 9006 of the Federal 
health care reform bill--requires that every business, charity, and 
local and State government entity submit a 1099 form for every business 
transaction totaling $600 or more in a given year. It has been 
estimated that this mandate would affect approximately 40 million 
entities across the country.
  Under the law, businesses will be required to report purchases of 
items such as office equipment, food and bottled water, gasoline, 
lumber, and plumbing supplies if payments to any vendor in the course 
of a year total at least $600. They will, in many cases, also have to 
report payments for things such as travel and telephone and Internet 
service. To comply with the mandate, businesses--especially small 
businesses--would have to institute new, complex record-keeping data 
collection and reporting requirements that track every purchase by 
vendor and payment method. The provision will increase accounting 
costs, expose businesses to costly and unjustified audits by the IRS, 
and subject more small businesses to the challenges of electronic 
filing.
  So what does all of this really mean? And why does this provision 
need to be repealed? Well, what it means is that small businesses and 
entrepreneurs will be busy completing paperwork, filling out forms, and 
complying with government mandates.
  The provision needs to be repealed because when small businesses are 
focused on keeping the government at bay, they aren't creating jobs or 
making investments that spur economic growth.
  This is a policy we can all agree on--from both sides of the aisle. 
It is a policy that I have supported from the very start and that I 
will continue to support and fight for.
  Passing this amendment is the right thing to do--for small business 
owners, for entrepreneurs, and for every business that is eager to hire 
workers, expand its business, and grow.
  I commend my colleague's leadership on this issue. My colleague, Mr. 
Johanns has been leading this effort since the Federal health care 
reform passed earlier this year, and I support him fully. And I urge my 
fellow Senators to repeal this job-and investment-killing mandate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Nebraska will be recognized to offer a motion to suspend the rules.


                           Motion to Suspend

  Mr. JOHANNS. Madam President, I move to suspend the rule XXII, 
including any germaneness requirements, for the purposes of proposing 
and considering amendment No. 4702, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to 
be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.


                           Motion to Suspend

  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, pursuant to the previous order, I move 
to suspend the rules for the consideration of my amendment, which is at 
the desk, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the vote will first 
occur on the motion of the Senator from Nebraska.

[[Page 18199]]

  The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I understand, under the order, each side 
gets to speak for 1 minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Madam President, if I might take my minute to explain 
what is happening tonight, the first amendment we will vote on is the 
Johanns' amendment. It repeals the 1099 requirement in the health care 
law. This came before us in September. Many colleagues came to me and 
said: I do not like the pay-fors coming out of the health care law. 
This is paid for. It is paid for out of unobligated funds in the 
Federal system, if you will.
  The second amendment, the Baucus amendment, simply is not paid for. 
So you will be adding to the Federal deficit if you support the Baucus 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. The Senator from Nebraska and I both seek to repeal the 
provisions in the health care reform act referring to 1099. They are 
identical in that respect, but actually we go further and give more 
relief to small business than does the Senator from Nebraska.
  The Johanns amendment would also give the unelected Director of the 
Office of Management and Budget the power to slash $33 billion in 
appropriated spending entirely at his own discretion, taking away the 
responsibility of the Congress. I do not think that is a good idea.
  The Johanns amendment, thus, puts at particular risk slower spending 
accounts that fund vital purposes. The Johanns amendment puts at risk 
international narcotics control, law enforcement funding, $39 billion 
worth of funding solely in the discretion of the OMB Director, taking 
that power away from the Congress. I think that is a bad idea. I urge 
my colleagues to oppose the Johanns amendment.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Madam President, do I have any time remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 24 seconds remaining.
  Mr. JOHANNS. In reference to the argument of the Senator from 
Montana, Congress has allowed the administration to make similar 
decisions on rescinding funds in 1999, 2004, and twice in 2008, while 
our friends on the other side of the aisle were in control of Congress. 
That argument simply does not hold water.
  I urge my colleagues to support the paid-for amendment, the Johanns 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired. The question is on 
agreeing to the motion of the Senator from Nebraska.
  The yeas and nays are ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. 
Lieberman) and the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Pryor) are necessarily 
absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. 
Burr).
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 61, nays 35, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 253 Leg.]

                                YEAS--61

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bayh
     Bennet
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Brown (MA)
     Bunning
     Cantwell
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagan
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Wicker

                                NAYS--35

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kerry
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Brownback
     Burr
     Lieberman
     Pryor
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). On this vote, the yeas are 61, 
the nays are 35. Two-thirds of the Senators voting not having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  The Senator from Montana.


                           Motion to Suspend

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, this next vote is very simple. It repeals 
the 1099 provisions that we all said to small businesses that we are 
going to repeal. Purely and simply, it repeals 1099. I urge Members to 
vote to repeal, get this over with so we can move on to other business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, this adds $19 billion to the Federal 
deficit.
  I yield the remainder of my time to Senator Judd Gregg.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, this is not the proper way to address this 
issue, to add $19 billion to our deficit. That has to be paid too by 
our children and by small businesses being affected by this 1099 
proposal. Let's do this the right way. Let's do it the way the Senator 
from Nebraska has suggested--pay for it. It should be corrected that 
way, not by adding $19 billion to our debt.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion offered by the Senator from 
Montana.
  The yeas and nays having been ordered, the clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. 
Lieberman) is necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. 
Burr).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 44, nays 53, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 254 Leg.]

                                YEAS--44

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Begich
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Casey
     Coons
     Dorgan
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kerry
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--53

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Bunning
     Carper
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dodd
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kohl
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Brownback
     Burr
     Lieberman
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 44, the nays are 
53. Two-thirds of the Senators voting not having voted in the 
affirmative, the motion is rejected.


                           vote explanations

  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, unfortunately, I was not able to be 
present to cast an important vote this evening due to a delayed flight. 
The vote was for cloture on the substitute food safety bill, which 
includes my amendment. After widespread foodborne illnesses have 
sickened millions of Americans throughout the country, including in 
Montana, this bill will help restore Americans' confidence in our food 
supply. With my amendment, it will also recognize that family-scale 
producers that have immediate relationships

[[Page 18200]]

with their customers at a local level have not been at the root of our 
food safety problems, so they should not and cannot bear the same 
regulatory burden.
  Had I been present, on vote No. 252, cloture on substitute amendment 
No. 4175 to S. 510, Food Safety Modernization Act, 60 vote threshold, I 
would have voted in the affirmative.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, due to my airline flight delay traveling 
back from Arkansas, I inadvertently missed the vote on Senator Johanns' 
motion to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing and 
considering his amendment No. 4702 to repeal the 1099 information 
reporting requirement. I would have voted for Senator Johanns' motion 
had I been present.
  (At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to 
be printed in the Record.)
 Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I regret having missed votes to 
suspend the rules and consider two amendments to the FDA Food Safety 
Modernization Act. I was unable to be present for these votes due to a 
family wedding.
  Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of the motion to 
suspend the rules to consider Senator Baucus's amendment to repeal the 
form 1099 reporting requirement. This provision imposes an onerous 
compliance requirement on businesses of all sizes, and Congress should 
act quickly to remove that burden and allow businesses to direct their 
time, energy, and resources to growing their businesses and creating 
new jobs.
  I would have voted against the motion to suspend the rules to 
consider the Johanns amendment because it would have delegated 
Congress's constitutionally delegated responsibility to make spending 
decisions to the executive branch, also shifting accountability for 
making difficult and unpopular spending cuts from Congress to the 
President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, we have just invoked cloture on the food 
safety bill, and I think it is important for the American people to 
know what that means. That means we are going to spend another $1.4 
billion of their money. No. 2, we are going to raise the cost of food 
over the next year, and therefore we are at about $200 million to $300 
million. We set $141 billion per year in unfunded mandates on the 
States if we pass this bill, and we didn't fix the real problem with 
food safety in this country, according to the Government Accountability 
Office.
  The other point I wish to make is that we went through this process 
over the last week and a half with no amendments being allowed--no 
amendments being allowed--which really violates the spirit of the 
Senate. We could have finished this bill probably the week before 
Thanksgiving had amendments been allowed.
  The thing Washington gets wrong--it is not their intent, it is not 
their well-meaning desire to fix problems that are in front of the 
country--what Washington gets wrong is they think spending more money 
and setting up a ton more regulations will fix problems, and it 
doesn't. What it does is it raises costs. So we are going to see a lot 
of small food manufacturers no longer making food. We are going to 
raise the cost of our food and, by the way, see significant increases--
if I could have my charts on the floor, I would appreciate it--this 
year in food, and we are going to see that extended, but we are not 
going to fix the real issue.
  Food safety is on the minds of everybody in this country because of 
the recent 500 billion egg recall in this country. It is important to 
know what went on there. It is important to note that the head of the 
FDA, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, said had their rule been in existence, we 
wouldn't have had that problem of salmonella with eggs. They 
promulgated the finished rule around the time of the salmonella 
infection and contamination on the eggs.
  The problem with that is it took 10 years to develop that rule. 
Nobody has asked why it took 10 years. Nobody had a hearing before we 
passed this rule to say: How did we allow this to happen? But we took 
10 years.
  Senator Harkin has the right idea on food safety. He didn't get it 
proper, that bill, because he couldn't get it through, but his idea is 
that we need one food safety organization, not three, and we now have 
three, and we are going to exacerbate that problem with the bill on 
which we just deemed cloture.
  The intent of my colleagues is great, but, as somebody trained in the 
art of medicine, what I see in this bill is different from what you see 
in this bill. You see, I see the problem is not lacking regulatory 
authority; the problem is not holding the regulators in their expertise 
and carrying out the authority they have. How do I know that for sure? 
Because it wasn't a week after the recall on the eggs on the salmonella 
scare that we had two FDA inspectors cross-contaminating farms in Iowa, 
not even following their own regulations. This doesn't do anything for 
that because the only thing that is going to fix the real problems with 
food safety in this country is us holding the regulators accountable, 
not giving them a whole bunch more regulations, and we haven't done 
that. We have failed to do that.
  It is not just in food safety. The reason we have a $1.3 trillion 
deficit is because we don't hold agencies accountable. We are going to 
have a debate in a minute on earmarks, and we are going to hear it put 
forward that the only way we can control it is to direct money 
ourselves. That is just absolutely an untruth. The way you can direct 
where money gets spent in this country is having oversight on the 
agencies and them knowing you are going to look every time on how they 
are spending the money and make them justify it. But the fact is, we 
are not looking because we have decided we will take ours and we will 
put our $16 billion over here, and you, administration, can take your 
money and put your money where you want to put it. That is the real 
debate on earmarks. There is nothing in our oath that says anything 
about our obligation to our State to bring money back to it. And the 
hidden little secret on earmarks is that they are used as much as a 
political tool as they are to claim ``I am doing something good for my 
State.''


                           Motions to Suspend

  I ask unanimous consent to move to suspend the rules for the 
consideration of amendment No. 4696 and amendment No. 4697.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I wish to 
ask the Senator from Oklahoma if he could explain the nature of his 
unanimous consent request. I may not object, but I just didn't 
understand it.
  Mr. COBURN. To the Senator from Illinois, I am just bringing these 
up. I have to bring them up either in the morning or this evening for 
votes in the morning, so I am just bringing them up to be available for 
consideration under a suspension of the rules.
  Mr. DURBIN. So it is my understanding the votes will still be 
tomorrow on the two issues the Senator has pending?
  Mr. COBURN. Yes, they will.
  Mr. DURBIN. I do not object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motions to suspend are pending rather than 
the amendments themselves. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Oklahoma has the floor.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I just want to show my colleagues the 
difference. One of the motions we will vote on on suspending the rules 
tomorrow is, here is S. 510, 280 pages of new rules and new 
regulations. Here is the alternative, which is one-sixth of that. This 
one costs $1.4 billion in direct costs, $400 billion in food increased 
costs, and $141 million in mandatory new spending, mandates to the 
States. This one does none of that.
  What does this bill do? This bill uses common sense to say what 
really controls our food safety. Our food safety is controlled by 
market forces more than anything. And if you look at our history on 
foodborne contamination, we are by far the safest in the world, and our 
rates have been coming down since 1996. Over the last 14 years, our 
rates

[[Page 18201]]

have come down in terms of foodborne illnesses.
  I am not fighting against food safety; I am fighting for common 
sense. What we see in the bill we are going to vote on versus the 
alternative which I am going to offer is one builds and grows the 
government, one raises the cost of government, and ultimately we will 
be taxed to pay for that. One raises the price of food and one puts 
unfunded mandates on the States.
  I am saying that we can accomplish exactly the same goal as my 
chairman, the Senator from Iowa, would like to accomplish without 280 
pages of new rules and regulations. So what do we do? We require the 
FDA and the USDA to immediately establish a comprehensive plan to share 
their data. They have agreements to share data, but they don't share 
the data, so we force them to do that. We require a strategic plan for 
updating their health information technology systems, which the 
Government Accountability Office for the last 5 years has been saying 
is their No. 1 problem. We require the FDA to submit a plan to 
expeditiously approve new food safety technologies and more effectively 
communicate those technologies to the industry and consumers. We 
leverage the free market existing food safety activities by allowing 
the FDA to accredit third-party inspectors, and we provide unlimited 
new authority without imposing new costs or additional regulatory 
burdens. These new authorities intend to better leverage the free 
markets and focus resources on preventing foodborne illness and 
contamination. They include emergency access to records, clarifying the 
HACCP authority relating to high-risk foods, and allowing the FDA to 
develop strategic international relationships.
  What will this bill do? It will fix the real problem: ineffective 
government, ineffective bureaucracies. What we are going to do when we 
pass the food safety bill that is on the floor is we are going to grow 
the government. We are going to create more barriers. We are going to 
raise the cost, and we are still going to have foodborne illnesses.
  So I will end with that and move over to earmarks. I know I have 
several colleagues who wish to speak about it. I am not going to spend 
a long time on it. We have debated it and debated it. The fact is that 
this country did just fine for the first 200 years without the first 
earmark. And when anybody in the Senate in the first 200 years in this 
country tried the earmark, they got shouted down in this body because 
they were told their responsibility was to the country as a whole, not 
to the privileged, well-connected, well-knowing few who helped them 
come up here.
  We have a problem, and the problem isn't earmarks; the problem is the 
confidence of the American people. They see the conflicts of interest 
associated with earmarks. It is not wrong to want to help your State. 
It is not wrong to go through an authorizing process where your 
colleagues can actually see it. It is wrong to hide something in a bill 
that benefits you and the well-heeled few without it being shown in 
light to the American people.
  If we are to solve the major problems that are in front of this 
country over the next 2 or 3 years--and they are the largest we have 
ever seen, they are the biggest problems we have ever seen in this 
country--we have to restore the confidence of the American people.
  Utilization of an earmark is not our prerogative; it is our pleasure. 
We claim a power that we have in fact created. We do direct where the 
money goes. But we should never do it with a conflict of interest that 
benefits just those we represent from our States or just those who help 
us become Senators. All we have to do is look at campaign contributions 
and earmarks, and there is a stinky little secret associated with that: 
the correlation is close to one. That is not something this body should 
embrace, tolerate, or stand for.
  The American people expect us to be transparent, aboveboard, doing 
the best, right thing for the country as a whole. The real process is 
that the Appropriations Committee ignores authorizing committees; $380 
billion a year in discretionary funds are appropriated every year that 
are unauthorized. With that rebuff of the authorizing committees, they 
also put in any earmarks they want or that any other Member wants. It 
is time that stops. It is time we re-earn the trust of the American 
people.
  With that, I yield to my colleague, the Senator from Arizona.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Coburn. I also express my 
appreciation to Senator McCaskill and Senator Udall for joining in this 
very important amendment. As the Senator from Oklahoma mentioned, this 
issue has been debated many times on the floor of the Senate. There 
have been efforts to repeal certain most egregious earmarks. A ``bridge 
to nowhere'' in Alaska was one of those that became more famous than 
others.
  I have to say to my colleagues that I have seen with my own eyes--and 
I say this with great regret--the influence of money and contributions 
in the shaping of legislation. I have seen that come in the form of 
earmarks. One of the individuals I admired a great deal, a former 
Member of the House of Representatives, now resides in Federal prison 
because of earmarking. Another Member of Congress recently got out of 
prison. It was earmarking. We just saw that the former majority leader 
of the U.S. House of Representatives was convicted in court in Texas, 
and earmarking played a major role. The system of rewards for campaign 
contributions was an important factor in that conviction.
  So for many years I have been coming to this floor to express my 
frustration with this corrupt practice. It has been a lonely fight and 
hasn't won me many friends in this body. I understand that. But I also 
want to point out that my criticisms have not been directed just from 
the other side of the aisle. Earmarking is a bipartisan disease, and it 
requires a bipartisan cure. After so many years in the trenches to 
eliminate this practice, I am pleased the American people are demanding 
that they stop this practice.
  As my colleagues know, earlier this month the Senate Republican 
caucus unanimously adopted a nonbinding resolution to put into place a 
2-year earmark moratorium. I applaud my fellow Republicans in the 
Senate for joining our Republican colleagues in the House in sending a 
message to the American people that we heard them loud and clear in the 
election on November 2 that we will get spending under control and we 
will start by eliminating the corrupt practice of earmarking.
  Mr. President, I have had a lot of communications and relations with 
and even attended tea party rallies across my State. There is very 
little doubt that a real revolt is going on out there. I can't call it 
a revolution because I don't know how long it is going to last. I don't 
know how it is going to be channeled. I don't know exactly where this 
movement will go. But I do know it involved millions of Americans who 
had never been involved in the political process before because of 
their anger and frustration over our practices here, and they believe 
earmarking is a corrupt practice. They believe their tax dollars should 
not be earmarked in the middle of the night, without any authorization, 
without hearings.
  The Senator from Oklahoma just pointed out $380 billion in earmarks. 
Some of those earmarks are worthy. If they are worthy, then they should 
be authorized. So what has happened? What we have seen in the last 30 
years or so is an incredible shift from the hands of many to the 
decisions of a few. We don't do authorization bills anymore. We don't 
do an authorization bill for foreign operations. We don't do an 
authorization bill for all of these other functions of government for 
which there are requirements because, what do we do? We stuff them all 
into the appropriations bills. Then the members of the Appropriations 
Committee make decisions that are far-reaching in their consequences, 
with incredibly billions of dollars, without the authorizing committees 
carrying out their proper role of examination, scrutiny, and approval.
  The way the system is supposed to work--and did for a couple hundred 
years--is that projects, programs,

[[Page 18202]]

whatever they are, are authorized, and then the appropriators 
appropriate the certain dollars they feel necessary to make this 
authorization most effective and efficient. So we don't authorize 
anymore. We only appropriate. That is wrong. That really puts so much 
power in the hands of a very few Members of this body and, inevitably, 
it leads to corruption--inevitably.
  The Heritage Foundation wrote a report I urge my colleagues to read. 
It is entitled ``Why Earmarks Matter.'' The first point they make is 
this:

       They invite corruption. Congress does have a proper role in 
     determining the rules, eligibility and benefit criteria for 
     federal grant programs. However, allowing lawmakers to select 
     exactly who receives government grants invites corruption. 
     Instead of entering a competitive application process within 
     a federal agency, grant-seekers now often have to hire a 
     lobbyist to win the earmark auction. Encouraged by lobbyists 
     who saw a growth industry in the making, local governments 
     have become hooked on the earmark process for funding 
     improvement projects.

  There are small towns in my State that feel obligated to hire a 
lobbyist to get an earmark here through the Appropriations Committee. 
They should not have to do that. They should not be spending thousands 
and thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for a lobbyist to come 
here to get an earmark. They should have their desires and their needs 
and their requirements considered on an equal basis with everybody 
else's, not only in their State but in this country. But now they 
believe the only way they will get their pork or their project done is 
through the hiring of a lobbyist.
  The Heritage Foundation goes on:

       They encourage spending. While there may not be a causal 
     relationship between the two, the number of earmarks approved 
     each year tracks closely with growth in federal spending.

  Then the Heritage Foundation says:

       They distort priorities. Many earmarks do not add new 
     spending by themselves, but instead redirect funds already 
     slated to be spent through competitive grant programs or by 
     states into specific projects favored by an individual 
     member. So, for example, if a member of the Nevada delegation 
     succeeded in getting a $2 million earmark to build a bicycle 
     trail in Elko in 2005, then that $2 million would be taken 
     out of the $254 million allocated to the Nevada Department of 
     Transportation for that year. So if Nevada had wanted to 
     spend that money fixing a highway in rapidly expanding Las 
     Vegas, thanks to the earmark, they would now be out of luck.

  So what we do is deprive the Governors and the legislators from 
setting the priorities they feel are the priorities for their States. 
And all too often, the earmark is not what the State or the local 
citizenry or town or county needs as their priorities because they are 
decided with the influence of lobbyists in Washington. I say, with all 
due respect to the appropriators, they don't know the needs of my State 
like I know the needs of my State, and not nearly as much as the mayor, 
the city council, the Governor, and the legislature. Let them make the 
decision where these moneys should be spent, and not on a bike path 
instead of improving a highway.
  Mr. President, I could go on and on. I come down here year after year 
and look at the porkbarrel projects and earmarks, and we discuss the 
ones that are the most egregious and then I am amused and entertained 
by Members who come down and defend many of these absolutely unneeded 
and unnecessary projects. I will not go into many of my favorites at 
this time. I know my colleagues are waiting to speak.
  I ask my colleagues to understand the voice of the people of this 
country. I just read today that more seats were gained by the 
Republican Party than in any election since 1938. Since 1938, there has 
not been such a political upheaval in this country. That is not because 
our constituents have now fallen in love with Republicans. That is not 
the case. The message is that all of our constituents are tired of the 
way both Republicans and Democrats conduct their business in 
Washington, frivolously and outrageously spending their hard-earned tax 
dollars. They believe we are not doing right by them, that we are not 
careful stewards of their tax dollars, that we are engaging in 
practices that need to stop which has disconnected us from the American 
people. We need to connect again with the American people.
  I am going to hear the arguments that it is only a few dollars, not 
much money, and we don't trust the Federal Government to do it. I have 
heard all of those arguments year after year. I have watched year after 
year the earmarks go up and up. I have seen the corruption. Senator 
Dorgan and I had hearings in the Indian Affairs Committee about a guy 
named Jack Abramoff. We saw firsthand the effects of unscrupulous 
lobbyists and the millions and millions of dollars they got in earmarks 
as a result of their corrupt influence. There are many Jack Abramoffs 
in this town; they just haven't gotten famous.
  Mr. President, again, I thank Senators Coburn, Udall, McCaskill, and 
others who support this amendment. As I said 20-some years ago, we will 
keep coming back and back and back to the floor of this body until we 
clean up this practice and restore the confidence and faith of the 
American people--the people who send us here to do their work, not our 
work.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I rise this evening----
  Mr. COBURN. Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?
  Mr. INOUYE. I yield.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after the 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee speaks we alternate back and 
forth. We are planning to turn in a bunch of our time--to yield back a 
bunch of our time--and I would suggest that Senator Udall be given 8 
minutes after the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and 
following him Senator LeMieux, with an intervening statement from the 
other side, followed by Senator McCaskill for 10 and Senator Inhofe for 
15 minutes, alternating back and forth.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. I thank the chairman for yielding.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I rise this evening to speak against the 
Coburn amendment which imposes a moratorium on congressional 
initiatives for the next 3 years.
  Mr. President, our Founding Fathers bestowed upon the Congress the 
authority to ensure that the people's representatives would make the 
final decision upon spending, not the executive branch. They had lived 
under a monarchy in which the power of the purse resided with the 
Executive, and they had no desire to repeat that experience. In short, 
our Founding Fathers did not want another King, they wanted a President 
but a President whose power would be held firmly in check by a coequal 
Congress.
  None of us should be surprised that President Obama is expressing his 
opposition to earmarks. A ban on earmarks would serve to strengthen the 
executive branch of government by empowering the President to make 
decisions that the Constitution wisely places in the hands of Congress. 
This is the exact same reason Presidents Clinton and Bush sought the 
line-item veto during their Presidencies.
  As I have said many times before, the people of Hawaii did not elect 
me to serve as a rubberstamp for any administration. Handing over the 
power of the purse to the executive branch would turn the Constitution 
on its head.
  So I must admit, Mr. President, I find it puzzling that some 
Republicans would want to grant all authority over spending to any 
President but especially a Democratic President. Make no mistake, that 
is exactly what this amendment will do.
  We have heard numerous misleading arguments from opponents of 
earmarks, but several in particular seem to be repeated again and 
again. I cannot allow the misinformation or misrepresentation to go 
unanswered.
  First and foremost, opponents falsely claim that earmarks contribute 
to the deficit. Perhaps the strongest proponent of this argument is the 
junior Senator from South Carolina who stated the following in a 
fundraising letter he sent out in October:


[[Page 18203]]

       I am not willing to bankrupt my country for earmarks.

  It is a fine statement. This is but one example of the many times 
over the past year in which so-called deficit hawks have falsely 
asserted that earmarks are the root cause of our Nation's fiscal 
problems. This is especially galling when you consider that many of 
these same individuals supported the policies that led directly to the 
current budget crisis.
  In the interest of setting the record straight, and as chairman of 
the Senate Appropriations Committee, I feel compelled to point out to 
my colleagues that eliminating earmarks would do virtually nothing to 
balance the Federal budget. This is a cynical attempt to distract the 
American people from the serious challenges before us and nothing more.
  The numbers clearly demonstrate just how misleading the arguments of 
earmark opponents are. According to the most recent Congressional 
Budget Office estimate, Federal spending for fiscal year 2010 totals 
about $3.5 trillion, and revenues for that year total about $2.2 
trillion, resulting in a deficit of $1.3 trillion. Congressional 
initiatives make up less than \1/2\ of 1 percent of the total Federal 
spending. If we accept this proposal to eliminate all earmarks and take 
the second necessary step of actually applying the savings to deficit 
reduction, the total deficit for the United States would still be $1.3 
trillion.
  If opponents were serious about eliminating the deficit and paying 
down the national debt, they would offer a specific plan for cutting 
the $1.2 trillion in spending or for increasing revenues. Instead, they 
choose to mislead the American people by implying that we can balance 
the budget by cutting a tiny fraction of Federal spending.
  Calling for the elimination of congressional earmarks is a legitimate 
philosophical position to take, although not one with which I agree. 
However, to suggest that earmarks are the cause of our deficit of $1.3 
trillion is irresponsible.
  Adding to this misleading rhetoric are allegations that 
congressionally directed spending is an inherently corrupt practice 
that is hidden from the public eye. That allegation is simply false. We 
all recognize that the practices of the previous majorities led to 
significant abuses of the system. However, since we recaptured the 
Congress in 2006, Democrats have instituted a series of major reforms 
that now hold Members accountable and have made earmarking more 
transparent than ever. That is the law.
  I would ask any of my colleagues: Can anyone name another part of the 
Federal budget--and let me remind my colleagues we are talking about 
less than \1/2\ of 1 percent of the budget--that is subject to more 
scrutiny than earmarks?
  The Appropriations Committee requires every Member to post his or her 
request 30 days prior to the committee's consideration of the relevant 
appropriations bill. The committee requires every Member to submit a 
letter that he or she does not have a pecuniary interest in the 
projects for which the funding is being requested. The committee's Web 
site provides a link to every single Member's request. These are all 
reforms that were implemented when the Democrats took control of the 
Senate and the House.
  To pretend and suggest that earmarks are being doled out in a 
business-as-usual manner reflective of previous Congresses is flatout 
misleading. Reforms have been made that allow great projects that 
provide benefits to the Nation and to individual States and districts 
to be funded while ensuring that the abuses of the early and mid-2000s 
are a thing of the past. There can be no doubt that we have entered an 
age of real transparency when it comes to earmarks.
  Moreover, each and every earmark that comes before the Senate today 
is listed in the committee report so that all Members are able to 
identify them and know exactly what they are voting on. Of course, the 
Internet makes all earmark requests available to the press and to the 
public. The Internet also makes all campaign contributions over $200 
equally accessible. So where is the so-called corruption? Where are the 
secret deals? I would like to know about them.
  Further, I remind my colleagues that in 2010, funding for earmarks is 
less than half of the $32 billion in earmarks provided in 2006.
  I have spent considerable time refuting the misinformation being 
spread by those who are opposed to congressionally directed spending 
initiatives. If I may, I would like to highlight a few examples of why 
the practice of earmarking is indeed necessary.
  As chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, I have 
witnessed the benefits of earmarks firsthand over many years. I have 
previously discussed the benefits to our troops and our Nation of the 
Predator drone--the pilotless drone that is able to pick up enemy sites 
without endangering our troops. I have pointed to the new bandages that 
quickly stop bleeding in serious wounds that have saved countless lives 
of our soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. President, these 
are earmarks.
  Let me now turn to other areas of the Federal budget. I will start by 
reminding my colleagues that one of the most successful programs for 
low-income women and infants started out as an earmark. In the 1969 
Agriculture appropriations bill, Congress earmarked funds for a new 
program called WIC to provide critical nutrition to low-income women, 
infants, and children.
  Over the past 41 years, this program has provided nutritional 
assistance to over 150 million women, infants, and children, making a 
critical contribution to the health of the Nation. This vital program 
has provided much needed assistance to millions, and it came into 
existence as an earmark.
  In 1969 and 1970, Congress earmarked $25 million for a children's 
hospital in Washington, DC, despite the objections to and the veto by 
the President. That funding resulted in what we know today as the 
Children's National Medical Center. Children's Hospital has become a 
national and international leader in neonatal and pediatric care, 
providing health care to over 5 million children since its doors 
opened. Again, I note this was an idea--an earmark--directed by 
Congress and vetoed by the President.
  In 1987, Congress earmarked funds at the request of Senator Domenici 
for mapping the human gene. This project became known as the human 
genome project. This research has led to completely new strategies for 
disease prevention and treatment, including the discoveries of dramatic 
new methods of identifying and treating breast, ovarian, and colon 
cancers. No one disputes that these advances will save many lives, and 
it all began with an earmark. This was a project that was not supported 
by unelected agency bureaucrats in the executive branch, and thus would 
never have made it into the budget without congressional intervention.
  In the early 1990s, I pursued, along with my dear friend, the Senator 
from Alaska, the late Ted Stevens, an earmark through NOAA to fund a 
tsunami warning system. This earmark came under attack in the late 
1990s and early 2000 by a few Members as wasteful spending. Of course, 
in this particular case, as in many others, time and events would prove 
this to be a wise investment of tax dollars.
  We all remember that on December 26, 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami 
occurred, killing over 200,000 people in 14 countries. Two years later, 
the Republican Congress passed and the Bush administration signed into 
law the Tsunami Warning and Education Act. This legislation was based 
on the foundation established by the 14 years of earmarking for the 
Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program.
  A congressional initiative that began in 1998 at the behest of 
Senator Gregg would lead to the creation of the National Domestic 
Preparedness Consortium, which is now the principal vehicle through 
which FEMA identifies, develops, tests, and delivers training to State 
and local emergency responders. The program began as a series of 
earmarks for several nationally recognized organizations which focused 
on

[[Page 18204]]

counterterrorism preparedness and response needs of the Nation's 
Federal, State, and local emergency first responders and emergency 
management agencies. As a result of the training and expertise 
providing by NDPC members, thousands of New York City first responders 
had been through counterterrorism preparedness and response training at 
the centers prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
  There are thousands of other earmarks just like these that, over the 
years, have made a difference in the lives of Americans, projects the 
bureaucrats in downtown Washington never hear about because they do not 
communicate with constituents on a regular basis, programs such as the 
Predator and the Human Genome Project that are so innovative that an 
unelected, unaccountable government official is reluctant to include 
them in the budget out of fear that he or she will be accused of 
wasting taxpayer funds on an unproven technology.
  Other Members will be speaking against this amendment and will have 
examples of why simply stopping all earmarking is wrong and detrimental 
for government and our citizens. The Founding Fathers bestowed upon 
Congress the responsibility to determine how our taxes should be spent, 
rather than leaving those decisions to unelected bureaucrats in the 
administration, and obviously with good reason. Certainly we can all 
agree that Members of Congress who return home nearly every weekend to 
meet with constituents have a much better understanding of what is 
needed in our cities and towns across rural America than do the 
bureaucrats sitting in Washington.
  For all these reasons, I will continue to defend the right of 
Congress to direct spending to worthy projects as long as I am 
privileged to serve in the Senate and call attention to those who 
distort the facts of the subject.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against the Coburn amendment. We have 
already taken significant and forceful steps to ensure the abuses of 
the past are not repeated. This amendment ignores those steps while at 
the same time deprives the Congress of essential constitutional 
prerogatives. It does nothing to decrease the debt and is designed to 
give political cover to those who lack a serious commitment to deficit 
reduction.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. UDALL OF Colorado. Mr. President, I will take a few minutes, if I 
can, to speak in favor of the bipartisan earmark moratorium amendment 
before us. This is the amendment that Senator Coburn, Senator 
McCaskill, Senator McCain, and I have introduced.
  I wish to specifically start by talking about what I have heard in 
Colorado. There is an old saying--I know it is widespread; you hear it 
all over our great country--that if you are in a hole, you stop 
digging. That sums up what I have heard from many Coloradans who are 
justifiably worried about our Federal deficit. I believe we cannot 
climb out of that hole we have dug for ourselves unless each one of us 
here in the Senate--and, frankly, across the Rotunda in the U.S. House 
of Representatives--takes ownership of this problem and agrees to pitch 
in to solve it.
  I have long pushed for the President to have line-item veto 
authority, and we ought to restate pay-as-you-go spending which served 
us so well in the 1990s, among other measures. But we can't just 
continue to talk about these reforms; we need to take action. That is 
why I have joined a chorus, a growing chorus of legislators on both 
sides of the aisle to end the practice known as earmarking.
  I know many people will argue that earmarking does not significantly 
contribute to the budget deficit. But, with all due respect, I disagree 
with that argument, and I believe it misses the point. It is true that 
earmarks are a tiny fraction of money we spend each year--less than 1 
percent of the Federal budget or $16 billion last year, according to 
numerous watchdogs. It is also true that some earmarks may be 
worthwhile, even necessary projects. But because earmarks are inserted 
in spending bills by lawmakers, thereby circumventing the budget 
process, they are both a symptom and a source of the spending problem 
in Congress and are emblematic of how poor our budgeting habits have 
become. Members of Congress have become so focused on protecting their 
pet projects that they feel pressure to not speak up about Congress's 
spending habits. In fact, I suggest that earmarks lure Members into 
habitually voting for increased spending so as not to jeopardize their 
own earmarks.
  In addition, from a practical standpoint, I believe Congress spends 
its limited time and resources shuffling earmarks when we could be 
conducting much needed oversight, making our Federal Government leaner 
and more responsive to the people. This diversion means earmarks are 
partly to blame for the lack of oversight necessary to ensure that the 
remaining 99 percent of the Federal budget is well spent. If we had 
extra money to spend, that would be one thing, but we are truly in a 
deep fiscal hole, and we need to stop digging. Earmarks are only a 
small part of why we are in that spending hole, but banning them now, 
in my view, will be a small but important step toward fiscal 
discipline.
  Ultimately, I believe that all Colorado families, and Americans, are 
the ones who will be hurt if we do not begin to reform spending and 
control our debt. We will have many more opportunities to address our 
crushing deficits in the coming months and years, but banning earmarks 
is the right place to begin down this path of fiscal responsibility.
  I urge my colleagues to support this important small step to fiscal 
responsibility. It is a bipartisan amendment. I look forward to the 
vote tomorrow, and I know many of my colleagues are going to join me 
and this bipartisan group of Senators who believe it is now time to 
reform this earmarking projects.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa. Just a moment.
  The understanding was to alternate between those who are opposed and 
those who are supporting.
  The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask if I could have 15 minutes.
  Mr. INOUYE. I yield 15 minutes.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Hawaii for 
yielding me 15 minutes of our time.
  I challenge anyone--even my friend from Colorado who just spoke, a 
new Member of this body--I challenge anyone to identify any other part 
of the Federal budget that is more transparent, more open, more subject 
to scrutiny, more accessible to the media and the public than 
congressionally directed funding or earmarks. Every Member who requests 
an earmark in an appropriations bill must post his or her request 
online at least 30 days before the Appropriations Committee considers 
the bill. Every Member who requests an earmark must certify that he or 
she does not have a pecuniary interest in those requests. Each and 
every earmark that comes before the Senate is listed in the committee 
report for all to see, and if you log on to the committee Web site, you 
can find a link to every single request any Member has made. It is all 
out there in the open.
  I remind people of this because one of the misleading arguments 
against congressionally directed earmarks is that they are supposedly 
done in secret, hidden from the public eye. At one time, that may have 
been true to some extent but today, thanks to reforms that were 
implemented by Democrats, by a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate 
in 2007, there is more sunshine on congressionally directed spending 
than on any other spending decisions in the entire Federal Government.
  There is more sunshine on congressionally directed funding than on 
any other Federal spending in the entire Federal Government. Why do I 
emphasize that? Let's consider how the executive branch--the 
President--directs spending to States and local communities. Make no 
mistake about it, the executive branch earmarks funding, but there is 
very little sunshine when it comes to those decisions. They are very 
hidden.

[[Page 18205]]

  When a Federal agency announces that a facility should be built in 
Nebraska rather than Texas or Alabama or whether a defense contract 
should go to a company in Colorado or Arizona rather than Rhode Island 
or Ohio, there may be no accountability to voters for those decisions. 
The employees of Federal agencies are civil servants. They are good 
people, but they are not elected. They do not meet with constituents. 
They cannot possibly understand the needs of local communities as well 
as those who stand for election.
  Most important, no one knows when those civil servants get a phone 
call from their bosses, higher up, telling them, for example, to 
jiggle, to rig a grant competition for political reasons. Does anyone 
doubt that is done? Every single year it is done.
  Frankly, Senators and Congressmen do it. What Senator worth his or 
her salt or any Member of the House fighting for their constituency 
doesn't call up the Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Housing 
and Urban Development, Secretary of Defense? We all do it. We all do it 
to protect our own constituents. And if you happen to be on the right 
committee--for public works, maybe, or for education or for the myriad 
of things the Federal Government does--those Secretaries tend to pay 
attention, and they especially pay attention if they are in the same 
party you are or they may pay attention if they want your vote for 
something else.
  An example: A few years ago during the Bush administration, I asked 
the inspector general to examine a program in the Employment and 
Training Administration called High-Growth Jobs Initiative. It sounds 
great, doesn't it--High-Growth Jobs Initiative. This was an executive 
branch program. The IG reported that, of the 157 grants awarded under 
the program, 134 had been awarded without any competition.
  Noncompetitive awards accounted for 87 percent of the total funding, 
and the inspector general found many serious lapses in the award 
process. For example, a failure to explain why there was no 
competition; the lack of any documentation regarding potential 
conflicts of interest.
  So was it any surprise when we found out that some of these 
noncompetitive grants went to organizations that supported President 
Bush's reelection campaign or was this just a coincidence? Let's not be 
naive. This happens. I may have pointed out President Bush because it 
happened to be an investigation I asked for. It happens under 
Democratic Presidents too.
  If this amendment passes, if the Coburn amendment passes, there will 
still be earmarks. There will be earmarks, but only the executive 
branch will be able to do it. They will have the power to designate 
where those earmarks go, and that flies in the face of the clear intent 
of the Constitution. Article 1 of the Constitution expressly gives the 
power of the purse to the Congress. We are all familiar with the 
principle of checks and balances.
  One way the Constitution puts a check on the executive branch is by 
giving this branch, the legislative branch, the final say on spending. 
I have said so many times that the President of the United States 
cannot spend one dime that we do not authorize him to, and we can take 
it all back if we want. Oh, they have set up an executive branch but 
only because Congress gives that power to the President.
  The Constitution gives Congress the final say on spending. I realize 
the Constitution may seem like ancient history to some people. I am 
sorry to say it may seem like ancient history to some Members of this 
body. So let me paint a picture of a world where only the executive 
branch can decide to direct Federal spending. Let me paint this 
picture. Let's imagine the Coburn amendment passes and a future 
President wants Congress to pass a bill. It can be a Democratic 
President or it can be a Republican President. It does not matter.
  The vote on the bill is going to be close. The President calls 
Senator Jones and says: Senator, I would like your support on this 
bill. Senator Jones says: I am sorry, Mr. President, I have thought 
hard about it. I am not going to be able to support that bill.
  Oh, there is probably a little pause on the phone, and the President 
says: You know, Senator, I know that replacing that bridge in your 
capital city is real important to you. It would be a real shame if your 
State missed out when the executive branch is setting its priorities 
for next year. Now, Senator Jones, would you like to reconsider how you 
are going to vote on that bill?
  That is executive branch earmarking. Again, as I said, it makes no 
difference whether the President is a Republican or Democrat. It is a 
matter of respecting the Constitution and preserving the constitutional 
prerogatives of the legislative branch. Some people say: Well, Harkin, 
why do you fight so hard for these earmarks? As Senator Udall says, it 
is \1/2\ percent of total Federal spending. I fight so hard because the 
Constitution gives that power to the legislative branch. We should 
protect the constitutional prerogatives of the legislative branch, not 
just willy-nilly give them to any President of the United States, which 
is what the Coburn amendment does.
  Read the amendment carefully. See how it defines ``earmarks.'' It 
applies only to ``a provision or report language included primarily at 
the request of a Senator or Member of the House of Representatives.''
  There is nothing in the Coburn amendment to prohibit any earmarks by 
the President. They can earmark anything, and they will because they 
always do. They will earmark, and guess what. Senators--Senators--will 
start going to the President and saying: Mr. President, can you, 
please, I need that bridge. I need that flood control project. We just 
had a disaster, Mr. President.
  Well, Senator, I will think about it when we set our priorities next 
year. Well, now, Senator, how are you going to vote on my priorities?
  Do you want to be in that position? I do not want to be in that 
position. I want to be in the position where Congress fulfills its 
Constitutional prerogative. So under the Coburn amendment, if Congress 
requests, it is an earmark; if the President requests, it is not an 
earmark. How does that make sense? How does that make sense?
  Well, here is an example again of the double standard. The fiscal 
year 2011 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education appropriations 
bill that the Senate will probably vote on in December includes funding 
for national education groups such as Teach for America, Reading is 
Fundamental, Reach Out and Read, the National Writing Project, and many 
others. These are successful, proven programs with significant 
bipartisan support.
  But under the definition of the Coburn amendment, all are earmarks 
and none would be funded. They would all be eliminated. But under the 
terms of the Coburn amendment, if the President wanted to fund those 
programs, no problem. They would not be considered earmarks at all and 
they could receive funding, as long as the President wanted to do it. 
Again, I ask, what sense does that make?
  My State of Iowa had terrible floods in 2008--a lot of damage. 
Louisiana and Texas have had destructive hurricanes on a regular basis. 
In the wake of these disasters, typically the Corps of Engineers comes 
up with a plan to mitigate the damage from future possible disasters. 
For example, the Corps is now working to improve a flood prevention 
program in Cedar Rapids, IA, which was devastated by the worst flood in 
the history of Iowa in 2008.
  If the Coburn amendment passes, whatever the Corps plan comes up with 
will be final, even if local officials strongly disagree with that. 
Under the terms of the Coburn amendment, a strong case may be made that 
any legislative action by Members of Congress to modify the Corps plan 
would be an earmark--an earmark. Representing my constituents, it would 
take an extraordinary two-thirds vote in the Senate to change the Corps 
of Engineers plan--not a majority, not 60 percent but two-thirds of the 
Senate. Again, I again ask you, what sense does that make? How are we 
fighting for our constituents when the President decides it; we cannot.

[[Page 18206]]

  We have local constituents who say: We have better ideas and plans on 
what to do. The Corps says no. Well, that is the end of it, unless the 
President tells the Corps what to do. I do not want to lose my ability 
to intervene effectively for local or State officials when this kind of 
issue arises, and I do not think Senators from Texas, Louisiana or any 
other State want to lose their ability to stand for the best interests 
of their State. I cannot imagine any Senator who would forfeit this 
important constitutional prerogative, give up, give up your 
constitutional prerogative to the President, so you would not be able 
to fight for your State and your constituents. Is that what you are 
going to tell them?
  Proponents of this amendment say: Forget about article 1 of the 
Constitution. We have to do whatever it takes to cut the deficit. The 
only way to do that is to ban earmarks.
  This is grossly misleading. Yes, we do need to cut the deficit. 
Banning earmarks will not do anything to help.
  Congressionally funded mandates, as I said, are less than one-half of 
1 percent of total Federal spending. As one observer noted: The best 
way to lose weight is to shave. My friend, Senator Udall, said reforms 
circumvent the budget process. No, it does not. Nothing we do on 
appropriations at all circumvents the budget process.
  He said: When you are in a hole, stop digging. Well, sure, we can 
stop digging. We can stop the earmarks here. We are just going to shift 
them to the President. That is all. That is all that is going to 
happen.
  Lastly, I had to laugh when I read this quote from Representative 
Michele Bachmann in the House. This was in Congressional Quarterly 
Today. She is founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, one of several 
lawmakers who have pledged not to seek earmarks. But she told the 
Minneapolis Star Tribune she thinks the word ``earmark'' should not 
apply to infrastructure projects. ``I don't believe that building roads 
and bridges and interchanges should be considered an earmark.''
  Oh, so she gets to decide what is an earmark. She wants no earmarks 
except for what she wants as an earmark. That is it. Congressman Mica 
of Florida said: ``There are some bills that require some legislative 
language to direct the funds, otherwise you're just writing a blank 
check to the administration.'' That is a Republican Congressman from 
Florida.
  Congressionally directed spending is congressionally directed 
spending whether it is a highway or a hospital, whether it is in 
Wyoming or Tennessee. I, for one, am proud of the directed funding that 
I have been able to secure on behalf of my State and for other States 
that I have worked hard for or other entities such as Teach for 
America. It does not necessarily help Iowa but it helps a lot of 
States.
  These fundings have created jobs, trained nurses, built roads, and, 
as the distinguished chairman said, one time I remember when Pete 
Domenici put that money in there for the Human Genome Project, it led 
to the establishment of the Human Genome Institute and a complete 
mapping and sequencing of the human gene. Had that money not been 
directed, it never would have happened, I say to my chairman.
  So a lot of times Congressmen, Senators have good ideas on what to do 
to direct some of this funding. I think we ought to be proud of that. 
As long as the sunshine is on it, it is out in the open, everybody 
knows where it goes, everybody knows who has requested it, to me, this 
is the constitutional prerogative of the Senate and the House, and we 
should not--should not--give it up to any President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent, to get an order so we know what 
we are doing after we hear from the Senator from Florida, Mr. LeMieux, 
and then the words from the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Lautenberg, 
that I then would get my 15 minutes from this side to run consecutively 
from the 15 minutes I would get from the distinguished Senator from 
Hawaii.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. LeMIEUX. Before I start my remarks, I ask unanimous consent to be 
added as a cosponsor to Senator Coburn's amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, it occurs to me that when I address this 
august Chamber tonight--and I follow my colleagues who have served here 
for a very long time and with distinction; I am new to this Chamber--I 
have a different perspective.
  But my comments tonight are not meant without respect because I have 
a great deal of respect for those who have spoken in opposition to this 
amendment, but I have a differing view. I am new to the Senate, as you 
know. I came here last year, in 2009. I did not have a specific 
position on earmarks before I got here. I knew that there was a problem 
with Federal spending. But I had not yet made a decision as to whether 
I would support earmarks.
  When you hear about a project for your home State, whether it be for 
a hospital or for a road or for a bridge or for a sewage treatment 
plant--and for the folks who are at home who are watching this, if they 
have not yet found Monday Night Football on their television and may 
have stumbled across C-SPAN, these projects all sound very good, and a 
lot of them are very good.
  I hear from a lot of people in my State wanting me to support a 
particular project via an earmark. An earmark is a Member-driven 
appropriation, where a Member of Congress says: I want this specific 
spending for my home State or for an issue or project that I think is 
important.
  They come to me and they say: We need this project. We need this 
funding. We need this research. It all sounds good. I think in a world 
where our financial house was more in order, there could be a role for 
those earmarks, if transparent.
  But I cannot support them in the situation we are in. The chairman of 
the Appropriations Committee, just a few moments ago in his speech, 
raised the point that this Congress in last year's budget was $1.3 
trillion in deficit.
  It is our constitutional responsibility to appropriate. That is what 
article 1 says. The power of the purse lies in the Congress. Congress 
has not been doing a very good job--$1.3 trillion in debt, in deficit, 
in just 1 year. It took 200 years for this country to go $1 trillion in 
debt. We just incurred a $1.3 trillion deficit.
  Those who are in favor of continuing earmarks and who are against 
this prohibition say: Look, it is just a small percentage; it is $16 
billion. In light of a $1.3 trillion deficit, what is a mere $16 
billion? Frankly, that argument doesn't ring true with the people of 
Florida. When one talks to a Floridian and says there is $16 billion in 
spending, that is still a lot of money to regular people.
  But it is more than that. When I came here and started to vote on 
appropriations bills, in the first few months of 2009, I noticed those 
appropriations bills were 5, 10, 15, 20 percent more than the last 
year's appropriations bills. No wonder the country is so far in debt, 
nearly $14 trillion. It is estimated that by the end of the decade, it 
will be 26. We spend $200 billion a year on interest now, the debt 
service on programs we couldn't afford in the past. It will be $900 
billion by the end of the decade because the appropriations bills go up 
and up and up.
  I believe, sitting here, with all due respect, and listening to my 
colleagues, part of the reason those appropriations bills get support 
is because there are Member projects in them. You can't vote against 
the bill once your hometown project is in it. It is the engine that 
drives the train. So it is not losing weight by shaving, as my 
distinguished colleague analogized. It is, as Senator McCain said, the 
gateway drug. It enables the spending we can't afford.
  We have to solve these spending problems. The future is in jeopardy. 
We can't afford $900 billion in interest payments. What will this 
Congress do when the interest payment alone is $900 billion? This is 
not 20 years from now. This is not 40 years from now.

[[Page 18207]]

This is 10 years--really 9 years from now. I contend this government 
will not function with a $900 billion interest payment.
  Maybe this is emblematic, but I believe it is more than that. If we 
can't do the easy things, how is this Congress going to do the hard 
things? How is it going to cap spending? How is it going to cut 
spending?
  The President announced today a moratorium on pay increases for 
Federal employees. That is a good start. But there are 270,000 new 
Federal employees since this administration took over, according to the 
Cato Institute, 270,000 new employees with average salaries of about 
$70,000 a year. We can't nibble around the edges, not with a $1.3 
trillion deficit this year alone, and not with $26 trillion staring us 
in the face by the end of the decade.
  The future of the country is at stake. Our Founding Fathers gave this 
Congress the power of the purse, but with that power comes a 
responsibility not to run the country into the ground with deficit 
spending.
  This is an important step. It is a first step. It needs to be done. 
What needs to be tackled next is much more difficult--the across-the-
board spending cuts that will have to come, tackling Social Security, 
tackling Medicare and making sure those programs are there for our 
seniors now but are reformed in a way that will save them for the 
future and not run this country into a financial hole it can't get out 
of. My friend from Colorado, who was courageous to talk on this issue 
tonight, said: When you are in a hole, stop digging. This is the first 
step. If we can't take this easy step, I don't know how in the world 
Congress is going to take the harder steps that must happen if we are 
going to save this country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, it is my understanding that I have 15 
minutes to make my presentation. I thank Senator Inouye for enabling 
that.
  I oppose the Coburn motion to place a 3-year moratorium on earmarks. 
I thank Chairman Inouye for his leadership on this issue. It seems, as 
has been said over the years, that we have heard this song before. If 
Members really believe these programs are responsible for our terrible 
fiscal condition, they are wrong. It is make believe. The deficit we 
are wrestling with had its biggest boost during the Bush years when 8 
years of tax cuts for the wealthiest among us brought a $2 trillion 
increase in the national debt. But we never hear about that.
  Earmarks are a vital investment for our communities. They help build 
levees, dams that protect coastal towns from flooding. Look at the 
water shortages across the country. A lot of these are helped by 
earmarks, by congressionally designated programs. We earmark funds for 
waste and drinking water problems, very serious problems. These are not 
frivolous ideas. They help police departments, first responders, 
hospital upgrades, and the purchase of new equipment. Look at 
transportation. It is falling apart. These earmarks, congressionally 
designated, build roads, bridges, and rail stations that strengthen our 
transportation infrastructure. One wouldn't know any of this by 
listening to the critics of designated funding from those sent here by 
our States to represent them with a special knowledge of their needs 
and requirements. These critics have dismissed earmarks as an example 
of wasteful, runaway government spending. We hear them called dirty 
programs, et cetera, mocking them.
  To these critics I say: I would like you to see what happened in 
Jersey City, NJ, where an earmark enabled the Metropolitan Family 
Health Clinic to now screen women for breast cancer for the first time, 
thanks to new equipment funded by an earmark. Or tell it to the 
millions of people whose livelihoods are connected to the ports of New 
York and New Jersey. Earmarks permit us to deepen the harbor at our 
port so ever larger vessels can bring the cargo to our ports and help 
stimulate the economy. That means 230,000 jobs and is a critical 
component of our region's economy. Local communities rely upon this 
kind of funding in times like these when so many State and community 
budgets are stretched thin and revenues shrink and even philanthropy is 
drying up all over the country.
  The fact is, hundreds of communities and nonprofit organizations 
across the country are expecting to receive congressionally earmarked 
funds for the unfinished fiscal 2011 appropriations bills. The Coburn 
amendment would pull the rug from underneath these communities, 
snatching away the Federal support they are counting on us to deliver.
  One has only to see the reception of an organization such as Campus 
Kitchen, a nonprofit project that recently launched in Atlantic City to 
feed needy families who flock there over Thanksgiving and at the same 
time help unemployed workers upgrade their job skills. Campus Kitchen 
is counting on $100,000 worth of congressionally directed funds. If 
this amendment passes, they will close their doors, and those who need 
the food and can only get it there will go hungry.
  What about the resources needed to protect our residents from 
terrorism. Hudson County sits just across the river from New York City, 
right in the heart of one of the most vulnerable areas in the country 
for terrorism.
  This year's Homeland Security appropriations bill includes funding 
for an emergency operations center so that the county can prepare and 
respond to emergencies and potential terrorist threats. One of the most 
serious problems we saw on 9/11, when 3,000 people perished that day, 
was because the police departments could not talk to one another, 
because first responders could not talk to one another, because firemen 
could not talk to their leadership and died that day. Thousands more 
are now sick from the dust and the atmosphere that was created as a 
result of the demolition resulting from the attack. This amendment 
would eliminate funding for this vital program. Yet those who criticize 
these projects are the very same ones who were all too happy to provide 
earmarks when they were in charge.
  I don't want to fool the public. Let them understand what is going on 
here. We are seeing raw politics at work. Earmarks make up just one-
half of 1 percent of the Homeland Security bill for fiscal year 2011 
that was passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee. I was proud to 
author that bill as the chairman of the subcommittee, building on the 
work begun by our recently departed Senator Byrd.
  Compare this to the fiscal year 2006 bill which was written when our 
colleagues on the other side controlled the Congress. Under Republican 
control, earmarks in the Homeland Security appropriations bill were 60 
percent higher than the fiscal year 2011 bill.
  In addition to funding emergency operations centers, the Homeland 
Security bill funds important research that helps our Nation discover 
new ways to prevent potential terrorist attacks and respond when they 
happen. Earmarks also help to strengthen the Coast Guard whose mission 
and value continually increase. It is not wasteful spending. Over the 
years many people have recognized the value of these programs. 
Democrats and Republicans alike proudly included earmarks for 
worthwhile projects in their States. In fact, earmarks flourished when 
the Republicans controlled the Senate. In fiscal year 2006, total 
funding for earmarks was twice the amount included in last year's bills 
when Democrats were in charge, and it was Democrats who implemented the 
ethics reforms and earmark transparency that has significantly improved 
congressionally designated programs.
  Since becoming Appropriations Committee chairman, Senator Inouye has 
been a great leader in this office. He has instituted important changes 
that have made the earmarking process stronger and more transparent. It 
was an essential factor in our review. At Chairman Inouye's request, 
Senators are now required to post their earmark requests on the 
Internet in advance so the public can see them. He has brought this 
entire process further into the light of day, allowing constituents,

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the news media, and outside watchdog organizations to track how 
taxpayer dollars are spent.
  But a funny thing has occurred. Some of our Republican friends who 
have used earmarks to serve their constituents for years suddenly have 
had a change of heart and jumped on the anti-earmark bandwagon. In 
fact, the Republican leader, who in the past brought home hundreds of 
millions of dollars to his State of Kentucky, has done an about-face in 
calling for an earmark ban.
  The hypocrisy of these new earmark critics is outrageous. Here is 
what the critics never mention: Earmarks do not add one cent to the 
deficit, not a single cent. We heard that from our leader here, from 
Senator Inouye.
  When Congress includes an earmark in an agency's budget, it is not 
increasing that budget. It is specifying how a portion of the funding 
should be spent based on their understanding of their State's needs. 
After hearing many requests all of us do, they can evaluate which ones 
they see as the most important. It is a voice of reason and 
understanding.
  The fact is the Founding Fathers gave Congress the power of the purse 
when they wrote the Constitution. Directing funding to specific 
projects is one way Congress exercises this power.
  If we eliminate earmarks, we will transfer our funding powers to the 
President, and that is not the way the Constitution is structured. It 
undermines the authority the Founders placed on us two centuries ago.
  The people who work in the Federal agencies here in Washington 
include some of America's best and brightest, but they simply do not 
necessarily know the needs of our States as well as we do. This debate 
over earmarks is nothing more than a distraction from the pressing 
issues on which we should be focused.
  I call on my colleagues to consider the facts and not the rhetoric. 
Do not be misled. Do not allow the truth to be mangled, misconstrued, 
and misrepresented. Earmarks help create jobs and help millions of 
Americans through their lives, especially now in this stressful period 
where we have people who are afraid they are going to lose their jobs 
after many years of loyal support or, still, lose their homes because 
they cannot afford the mortgages they were sold.
  So I urge my colleagues to oppose the Coburn amendment because it 
will not solve a single problem we face. I hope we will use our time 
for more constructive debate. I would suggest that everybody who talks 
in opposition to earmarks, congressionally designated programs, say now 
on this floor--take an oath that you will in your own State announce 
the fact you are opposing the earmarks that were proposed for it. Tell 
the people back home that you are going to deny their right to accept 
these things because it is dirty, because it is unclean, and they say 
that it goes only to those who contribute large sums of money.
  If you want to look at those who contribute large sums of money, look 
at that side of the aisle. They dwarf what we do in our debate about 
where funding goes and where funding stops.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. INHOFE. Let me ask if I could extend my time by 5 minutes. Is 
there objection?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

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