[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 153 (Monday, November 29, 2010)] [Senate] [Pages S8212-S8213] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] CONGRESSIONALLY DESIGNATED PROJECTS Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about my opposition to an amendment that is going to be offered by the Senator from Oklahoma to eliminate congressionally designated projects. For me, the job has always been about the people, and the best ideas do come from the people. As I have traveled around the State of Maryland, whether to worksites or roundtables or unfettered, uncensored conversations in diners, I listen to the people. What they tell me is that they are mad at Washington because when all is said and done, more gets said than gets done. Families are stretched and stressed, and they want a government that is on their side. They want a strong economy, a safer country, and a government that is as frugal and thrifty as they are. People want us to focus on a constitutionally based government. I support the people because I feel the same way. I do think we have to [[Page S8213]] focus on building a strong economy. We do have to focus on being a more frugal government. However, I say to my colleagues, getting rid of congressionally designated projects is really a false journey to be on. If we eliminate every congressionally designated project--otherwise known as earmarks--we won't do anything to reduce the deficit because congressionally designated projects are less than one-half of 1 percent of total Federal spending. What it will do, however, is make it harder to meet compelling human and community needs many of us hear about from our constituents. Without these congressionally designated projects, often their needs will be cast aside by a big government or a big bureaucracy. I believe we need to fight for real deficit reduction, and the way we do it is to look at the recommendations of the various commissions that are being put forward, whether it is Simpson-Bowles or Domenici-Rivlin or others. What I do think is that we also should maintain our constitutional prerogatives of fighting for our constituents and fighting by being able to put special projects into the Federal checkbook. I have been clearly on the side of reform. We have had many requests for earmarks in my Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science. I got $3 billion worth of requests, including $580 million for police officer technology. Another $980 million came for fighting crime, drugs, and gangs through enforcement, prevention, and intervention. Also, we got $220 million worth of requests in science and in education. We cannot fund those at those levels. In fact, we severely reduced them and stayed within what we think are acceptable limits. So we need the local communities to keep our communities safe, to educate our children in science and technology, and make sure we keep our police officers safe with earmarks of $3 billion. There have been abuses of congressionally designated projects. That is why I support reform, and the leadership is focused on reform. In 2007, new Senate rules began to require full disclosure of these projects. In 2009, Senator Inouye insisted on more significant reforms: Every project must be posted by Senators on their Web site. Every project must be less than 1 percent of the discretionary budget. Today, congressionally designated projects--otherwise known as earmarks--are 50 percent below what they were when the Republicans controlled the Congress. Mr. President, I emphasize that under Democratic leadership, we reduced earmarks by 50 percent below what they were in 2006, and we made the process open and transparent. I think this is very important. In the Commerce-Justice bill, I instituted my own reforms. I even went a step further. I established criteria that met community needs and must be supported by a viable organization, and it must have matching funds. I have also fought and led the subcommittee in a more aggressive reform effort. I provided robust funding to inspectors general to be the watchdogs of the agencies. I am the first Senator on an appropriations subcommittee to insist that the inspector general testify at every one of my subcommittee hearings of an agency on issues relating to waste and abuse. I established an early warning system on cost overruns, and then I reduced overhead by 10 percent by getting rid of lavish banquets and conferences and also cutting the amount that could be spent on tchotchke giveaways at the conferences they did have. That might sound like a small thing, but, my gosh, getting an inspector general there, we found all kinds of things under every rock where another couple million were hidden and we worked to get rid of that. We also got rid of things such as the $4 meatball or $66 for bagels for one person at a Department of Justice breakfast. So we said: Let's get rid of the folly, let's get rid of the fraud, let's into get into a more frugal atmosphere, and we were able to do this. I would hope we could institutionalize these reforms. There are reforms we could put in place that are common sense, but it would enable colleagues to exercise their constitutional prerogative of not letting big bureaucracies and big government determine the destiny of our communities. I am always going to fight for Maryland. I am not here to defend earmarks, but I am here to defend my ability to help Maryland. So I oppose Coburn. Coburn would have a moratorium for 3 years on appropriations bills, authorizing bills and tax bills. I oppose it because I do not think, first of all, it will reduce the Federal deficit; secondly, it takes away my constitutional power--the power of the purse that was given to Congress--to be able to help my constituents; and lastly but most of all, I wish to have every tool at my disposal to make sure big bureaucracies don't forget the little people who pay the taxes. So I hope we defeat Coburn. At the same time, what I want to be able to do is stand on the side of reform. I can assure my colleagues, if Coburn is defeated, I will do everything in the institution to follow the leadership already established by Senator Inouye--a real reformer--to further reform our process. Let's get rid of abuse, but let's not give away our ability to stand and fight for our constituents. Let me close by giving a couple examples. The Port of Baltimore provides over 1,000 jobs. I want to be ready when those big ships come through the Panama Canal, so I have a dredging earmark in that makes my port fit for duty for the 21st century. I also have another earmark in for Ocean City beach replenishment, which we have already done. It protects millions of dollars of real estate along Maryland's coast, where we generate over $10 billion in tourism. I have also funded small projects but big in the hearts of my constituents, such as helping with the building of a children's hospice. Imagine having a child so sick they require hospice care. The least America can do and the least the Senate can do is to partner with families, the local government, and people at great institutions, such as hospice, to make sure children at the end stage of life have a place to be. So do I fight for congressional projects? You bet I do. Has it made a difference in the lives and economy of Maryland? You bet it does. So we can have this moratorium, but I will predict we will be back 15 months from now to reinstate it. I say: Let's keep it, let's reform it, let's have a stronger economy, safer communities, and a more frugal government. I yield the floor. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota. Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I wish to first acknowledge the Senator from Maryland and to say I appreciate her work in reforming the system of congressionally initiated projects. I also wished to mention, before I get to my main topic today, which is the expiration of the volumetric ethanol excise tax, the important vote we are having this evening on food safety. As the Chair knows, coming from the State of Minnesota, we had three people who died during the last foodborne illness tragedy--the salmonella in peanut butter episode. One of those individuals included Shirley Ulmer, mother of Jeff Ulmer, who has worked so hard to get this bill passed, and we are hopeful we have finally gotten the votes to improve our food safety system, which hasn't been improved since the 1930s. Clearly, we have seen a lot of changes to our food supply since then, and so this is long overdue. ____________________