Read Dr. Coburn's floor statement.
Coburn To Revive Defense Earmarks Proposal In November
From Congress Daily:
In a deal that appeased a self-styled watchdog against government waste and allowed a final vote on the FY07 defense authorization bill before lawmakers left town for a six-week recess, House and Senate leaders have agreed to consider in November legislation intended to boost oversight of military-related earmarks. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., threatened late Friday to object to a unanimous consent request to approve the final defense authorization bill over his concerns that an amendment he authored to the bill did not survive in the final conference report. The Coburn language, which the Senate approved on both the defense authorization and appropriations bills, would have authorized the Pentagon to review and report on military-related earmarks and grade them on whether they are necessary or useful. The report also would include a description of each earmark, including the congressional district benefited by the add-on. The Senate initially passed the language on a voice vote during debate on the authorization measure in June. Senators later approved similar language, 96-1, during floor debate on the Defense spending bill in August. Neither of the final conference reports on both bills contain the Coburn amendment.
In a deal that appeased a self-styled watchdog against government waste and allowed a final vote on the FY07 defense authorization bill before lawmakers left town for a six-week recess, House and Senate leaders have agreed to consider in November legislation intended to boost oversight of military-related earmarks.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., threatened late Friday to object to a unanimous consent request to approve the final defense authorization bill over his concerns that an amendment he authored to the bill did not survive in the final conference report. The Coburn language, which the Senate approved on both the defense authorization and appropriations bills, would have authorized the Pentagon to review and report on military-related earmarks and grade them on whether they are necessary or useful. The report also would include a description of each earmark, including the congressional district benefited by the add-on.
The Senate initially passed the language on a voice vote during debate on the authorization measure in June. Senators later approved similar language, 96-1, during floor debate on the Defense spending bill in August. Neither of the final conference reports on both bills contain the Coburn amendment.
The U.S. federal government spends more than $21 billion on HIV/AIDS annually, yet up to 59 percent of Americans with HIV are not in regular care and more than a quarter of those who are infected do not know it. The Ryan White CARE Act is the nation’s largest HIV/AIDS specific support program (Total budget for fiscal year 2006 is $2.065 billion). The authorization for the CARE Act expired a year ago. President Bush has repeatedly called on Congress to re-authorize this program and Senators Enzi and Kennedy have devised a balanced compromise with their House counterparts to renew and update this program that so many Americans with HIV/AIDS rely upon. Reauthorization, however, is being held up by a few who have placed parochial political interests above the goal of ensuring fair and equitable funding and access to treatment for all Americans living with HIV.
For more background, click here.
President Bush today signed into law the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590). The bill creates an easy-to-use Web site that will allow citizens to track the recipients of all federal funds. Most commonly, federal funding takes the form of grants and contracts, which are often awarded with very little transparency. This new tool will provide for accountability and transparency at all levels of government. Following the bill signing, Dr. Coburn and Senator Obama released the following statement:
“This legislation marks a small but important step in the effort to change the culture in Washington, D.C. American taxpayers soon will be equipped with a significant tool that will make it much easier to hold elected officials accountable for the way taxpayer money is spent. The army of bloggers, editorialists and concerned citizens who worked diligently to see this bill pass deserve all the credit and praise today,” the senators said. President Bush said this today in his remarks on the legislation: "This bill is going to create a website that will list the federal government's grants and contracts. It's going to be a website that the average citizen can access and use. It will allow Americans to log onto the Internet just to see how your money is being spent. This bill will increase accountability and reduce incentives for wasteful spending. I am proud to sign it into law and I am proud to be with members of both political parties who worked hard to get this bill to my desk." Read the rest of the President's comments here.
The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590), introduced by Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK), Barack Obama (D-IL), Thomas Carper (D-DE) and John McCain (R-AZ), creates an online public database that itemizes federal funding.
The bill ensures that the taxpayers will now know how their money is being spent. Every citizen in this country, after all, should have the right to know what organizations and activities are being funded with their hard-earned tax dollars.
Read Dr. Coburn's floor statement on the bill.
Click here to read a letter to members of the Senate from organizations supporting this bill.
The Senate Subcommitee on Federal Financial Management, chaired by Dr. Coburn, held a hearing on the merits of S. 2590. Click hear to read the findings of the hearing.
Department of Defense Appropriations Amendments
Click here to read more about the Coburn amendments.
Click here to read the Coburn DoD Amendment 4848.
Click here to read the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) letter of support for the Coburn DoD amendments. CAGW sent the letter to all 99 senators.
MAJOR POINTS Embryonic Stem Cell Research Has Failed to Produce Any Cures or Treatments Ethical Alternatives to Embryonic Stem Cells Exist Stem Cells from Ethical Sources Are Now Treating Over 70 Diseases and Afflictions Ethical Alternatives Should Be Pursued Rather Than Seeking to Save Life By Destroying Life Embryonic Stem Cell Research Diverts Funding Away From More Promising Research Embryonic Stem Cells Have Dangerous Side Effects That May Require Other Unethical Practices to Remedy Adult Stem Cells Have Consistently Outperformed Embryonic Stem Cells for Therapeutic Purposes Very Few “Surplus” Embryos Are Available for Research Patients Need Cures Not False Hopes Major Points For Ethical Stem Cell Research and Against Embryonic Stem Cell Research Embryonic Stem Cell Research Has Failed to Produce Any Cures or Treatments After nearly a decade of research on human embryonic stems cells, three decades of research on animal stem cells, and over $100 million in federal funding, embryonic stem cell research has yet to deliver any cures or treatments. There are zero human clinical trials or proven therapies using embryonic stem cells. Ethical Alternatives to Embryonic Stem Cells Exist Embryos are not the only source of stem cells. Every one holds an unknown amount of stem cells that can be derived without harm or injury. These “adult” stem cells are capable of transforming into countless cell and tissues types have been located throughout the human body, including in the brain, muscles, blood, placentas and even in fat. Recently germ?line stem cells from testes have been successfully reprogrammed into “pluripotent” adult stem cells with the same potential of embryonic stem cells. Furthermore, scientists are relatively close to developing a procedure called Altered Nuclear Transfer (ANT) that would create a cell that is not an embryo but possesses many of the same genetic qualities and provide ethical alternatives to destroying living human embryos. Stem Cells from Ethical Sources Are Now Treating Over 70 Diseases and Afflictions Every useful stem-cell therapy developed to date has not required the destruction of human embryos. According to a June 2004 report prepared by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), adult stem cells and stem cells from cord blood are currently being utilized to treat over 70 diseases and the NIH is funding another 330 human clinical trials using these cells. Adult stem cell research has revealed potential treatment and cures for afflictions such as Buerger’s disease, bladder disease, lupus, heart failure, stroke, liver failure, nerve regeneration, genetic metabolic disease, and respiratory conditions such as emphysema and pulmonary fibrosis. Other studies have shown that adult stem cells hold great potential to treat Parkinson’s and diabetes. When asked at a June 2006 Senate hearing about the best avenues of research that could be pursued, Dr. James Battey, the director of the NIH Stem Cell Task Force responded, “to me, the very most interesting thing is… this frontier area of nuclear reprogramming, where you take a mature adult cell type and you effectively de-differentiate it back to the a pluripotent state.” Ethical Alternatives Should Be Pursued Rather Than Seeking to Save Life By Destroying Life We all desperately want to find cures for the diseases that afflict our friends, families and neighbors. Yet in our quest to find these cures, we must not ignore or rationalize the tremendous moral questions posed by destroying living embryos, which is undeniably human life in its earliest stages. We are fortunate that ethical alternatives to destructive embryonic stem cell research exist and it is imperative that we first pursue these ethical alternatives before even considering investing in research that requires destroying life to save life. Embryonic Stem Cell Research Diverts Funding Away From More Promising Research Over the past five years, Congress has increased funding for ESCR every year and increased annual funding almost four-fold, despite zero results. This bill seeks to increase federal ESCR funding even more, despite the lack of results and the existence of ethical alternatives that has a multitude of proven results and offers countless benefits from future research. Every dollar spent on research that does not yield results is one less dollar that could have been invested in research on ethical alternatives that are already yielding cures. Embryonic Stem Cells Have Dangerous Side Effects That May Require Other Unethical Practices to Remedy In experiment after experiment, embryonic stem cells have demonstrated that they may be too carcinogenic for therapeutic purposes. It is not uncommon in experiments on mammals for the animals to be killed by cancerous tumors. Uncontrollable growth of cells is one of the main reasons embryonic stem cells can not be tested in human subjects. As a consequence, cloning embryos and then destroying them to extract their stem cells or allowing embryos to develop into fetuses so that their organs can be cultivated may be the next step, but both techniques pose additional scientific and ethical dilemmas. Adult Stem Cells Have Consistently Outperformed Embryonic Stem Cells for Therapeutic Purposes Virtually every breakthrough announced using embryonic stem cells in animal models has been preceded by a similar feat with often greater results using adult stem cells. Very Few “Surplus” Embryos Are Available for Research Proponents of destructive embryonic stem cell research claim that surplus embryos “are going to be discarded anyway.” A RAND study has found that to the contrary, very few embryos are expected to be discarded. The vast majority—88.2% are designated for family building and another 2.3% are being donated to other families for adoption. According to the RAND study, embryos available for research do not have high development potential and very embryonic stem cell lines could be created from the embryos available for research. This means that embryos would have to be created specifically for destruction is additional stem cell lines were to be created for research. Patients Need Cures Not False Hopes Leading proponents of research on embryonic stem cells are themselves lowering expectations that dramatic cures to diseases such as Alzheimer’s. The Guardian newspaper recently reported that Lord Winston, the most prominent embryonic-stem-cell researcher in the United Kingdom, said that hopes for cures had been distorted by arrogance and spin. “I view the current wave of optimism about embryonic stem cells with growing suspicion,” Winston told the British Association for the Advancement of Science. A leading embryonic stem cell researcher in South Korea who hailed some of the most promising advances in the field has admitted to falsifying his research. Exaggerated predications and expectations used to promote embryonic stem cell research exploit patients and families desperately seeking cures.
On Monday, the Senate will being debate on three bills related to stem cell research. Below is a brief description of each bill.
Fetus Farming Prohibition Act of 2006 (S.3504) - This bill amends the current fetal tissue code to prohibit the solicitation or acceptance of tissue from fetuses gestated for research purposes. It would prevent persons or entities engaged in interstate commerce from acquiring tissue resulting from the deliberate implantation of a human embryo into a woman’s uterus or an animal uterus in order to grow the embryo or fetus to a later stage of development before destroying the fetus for research purposes. Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act (S.2754) - This bill amends the Public Health Service Act to require the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct and support basic and applied research to develop techniques for the isolation, derivation, production, or testing of stem cells that have pluripotent qualities. Specifically, this refers to stem cells that have the capability of producing all or most of the cell types of the developing body and that may result in improved understanding of or treatments for diseases and other adverse health conditions. This bill intends to intensify such research into alternative ways of deriving pluripotent stem cell. This bill seeks to promote the derivation of pluripotent stem cell lines from alternative sources that do not require the creation of human embryos for research purposes or discarding, destroying, or knowingly harming a human embryo or fetus. Taxpayer Funding for Human Embryo Experimentation (H.R.810) - This bill would violate a decades-long policy against forcing taxpayers to support the destruction of early human life. Federal funds would promote research using “new” embryonic stem cell lines, encouraging researchers to destroy countless human embryos to provide more cell lines and qualify for federal grants.
Click here to read frequently asked questions about stem cells.
Click here to read a report on stem cells and cloning.
Visit the Web site, StemCellResearch.org.
Amendment 4561 – Requires public disclosure of all reports delivered to the Appropriations Committee, including the justifications of the President’s annual budget request, by the Department of Homeland Security unless such reports contain information that would compromise national security. Few of these reports contain sensitive information involving national security but do contain information that may be of interest to the public, the media or lawmakers who are not members of the Appropriations Committee. In the interest of transparency and accountability, this information should be available.
Amendment 4562 - Requires that any limitation, directive, or earmarking be included in the bill’s conference report.
This amendment will ensure every earmark or directive must be included in the final Homeland Security Appropriations bill and approved by both Chambers of Congress. This will enable further transparency and debate on all spending in this appropriations bill and provide the American taxpayer an additional safeguard that their money is not wasted on unnecessary projects that jeopardize the nation’s fiscal health and the living standard of their children and grandchildren.
Amendment 4585 – None of the amounts made available to Coast Guard shall be used for the continuation of operations at LORAN stations nationwide.
The Coast Guard requested terminating the operations of the LORAN program in the President’s budget and instead asked for $11.8 million to LORAN signal termination and personnel reduction. LORAN was once a very useful navigational system but since the full development of GPS in the mid 1990s, LORAN is no longer needed for as a primary or secondary navigational system.
Amendment 4590 – Increases funding to the DHS Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) by $1 million to be used for the purposes of complying with the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002. The offset is taken from funds set aside for the Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) which is on the President’s termination list.
Click here to read more background about all the Coburn amendments.
Below is a quick summary of the Coburn amendments to the Defense authorization bill. To the entire background of each amendment, as well as supporting materials, click here.
Amendment to prohibit continued funding of Defense Travel System
The Defense Travel System (DTS) is an end-to-end electronic travel system intended to integrate all travel functions, from authorization through ticket purchase to accounting for the Department of Defense. The system was initiated in 1998 and it was supposed to be fully deployed by 2002. DTS is currently in the final phase of a six-year contract that expires September 30, 2006. In its entire history, the system has never met a deadline, never stayed within cost estimates, and never performed adequately.
To date, DTS has cost the taxpayers $474 million – more than $200 million more than it was originally projected to cost. It is still not fully deployed. It is grossly underutilized. And tests have repeatedly shown that it does not consistently find the lowest applicable airfare – so even where it is deployed and used, it does not really achieve the savings proposed.
This amendment prohibits continued funding of DTS and instead requires DOD to shift to a fixed price per transaction e-travel system used by government agencies in the civilian sector, as set up under General Services Administration (GSA) contracts.
Amendment to require Defense Department to report and "grade" earmarks in appropriations bills
This amendment would require the Department of Defense to report annually:
The term “earmark” in the amendment means a provision of law or a directive contained within a joint explanatory statement or report accompanying a bill that specifies the identity of an entity, program, project or service, including a defense system, to receive assistance not requested by the President and the amount of the assistance.
Amendment regarding performance bonuses on Defense Department contracts
Defense Department contracting authority allows for certain award fees and incentive fees to be attached to the “base” amount of a contract. The premise is that the possibility of being awarded these fees will motivate contractors to deliver on-time, on-budget, with excellent customer service.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found the Department of Defense has been improperly paying awards and incentives attached to contracts. These are supposed to only be paid out for outstanding performances on contracts but are routinely paid out without regard to performance.
If a contractor does not live up to the agreed upon contract – they shouldn’t receive an award bonus (if one is agreed upon in the contract). No private business would possibly agree to a contract that would pay MULTIPLE award bonuses when a contractor failed to meet the basic requirements of the contract.
“ensure that no award fee may be paid for contractor performance that is judged to be poor;”
“below-satisfactory performance or performance that does not meet the basic requirements of the contract;”
Coburn amendment regarding reporting requirements on improper payments at the Department of Defense for travel payments made at DOD in fiscal year 2005
The Improper Payment Information Act was enacted in November 2002 for the purpose of finding and eliminating payments that should not have been made, or were made for incorrect amounts, by government agencies. The Department of Defense is reporting improper payment information for only three programs: Military Retirement Fund, Military Heath Benefits, and for the first time this year, DoD began reporting improper payments for Military Pay. However, it is very likely that many other activities and programs with large outlays at the Department are at risk of making “significant” improper payments.
The Coburn amendment would hold the Department of Defense accountable for payments they made in the area of travel for fiscal year 2005 and require the department to fix their methodology this year.
Specifically, it does three things: