Senator Tom Coburn's activity on the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security

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February 15, 2007

Dr. Coburn pushes Senate panel for greater transparency, better financial controls and minimum performance standards for homeland security programs

Details on the votes and the Coburn amendments at the 2/15/07 Homeland Security Governmental Affairs Senate Committee Business Meeting considering the "9/11 Commission" bill


Results of Business Meeting on February 15, 2007
 
 
A "markup" or "business meeting" is the process whereby bills move through Committees in Congress.  They are debated and amended in Committee and then reported to the Senate for final consideration on the floor by the whole Senate.  The so-called "9/11 Commission" bill was recently marked up and Dr. Coburn participated in the debate.  This "markup" in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was a victory for increased transparency, proper auditing, financial management and program accountability.  Dr. Coburn’s amendments focused on bringing more openness, auditing, and minimum performance standards to DHS grants.  Most of them were successful.
 
 
  • 22 non-controversial amendments that had been previously filed were adopted en bloc (all together) by Voice Vote: Akaka 2; Coleman 2; Coburn 17,43, 49-51, 147, 153; Domenici 1, 2 (modified), 3 (modified); Levin 2 (modified); Pryor 2 (modified); Sununu 1; Stevens 2 (modified), 3; Tester 1; Voinovich 3 (modified), 9 (modified); Warner 1 (modified) 
 
This package of unanimously accepted amendments included 7 Coburn amendments:
#17 – requires reports from States on use of interoperability grants on FEMA web site
43 – requires Secretary of DHS to report to Congress on the effectiveness of the Border Interoperability demo project
49-51 – requires DHS grantees to 3 different programs) to re-apply annually for renewed grant funds (to prove they still need the money, and they have achieved what they said they would with previous funding).
147 – requires open-ended “such sums” authorization for state fusion centers (coordination programs for local law enforcement and emergency planners) to be a definite authorization amount of $10M/yr.
153 – requires full transparency of funds spent under Title XII (international cooperation program involving conferences, symposia, etc).
 
 
  • Levin 1 adopted by Voice Vote
  • Lieberman 1 (TSA) adopted by party-line Roll Call vote:
There have been no hearings on Transportation Security Administration (TSA) unionization in Committee and unionization was not a 9/11 Commission recommendation.  There are also numerous policy problems with turning a national security force that needs to be flexible, responsive and performance-based into another government employees union. 
  • Voinovich Visa Waiver Program (adopted 2nd degree amendment) adopted by Voice Vote.
  • Carper 2 adopted by Voice Vote.
  • Coburn 1 {1-10, 25-38, 124-127} (adopted 2nd degree amendment) adopted by voice vote.  
 This amendment was 1 of 32 amendments aimed at prohibiting specific questionable activities that have been identified in the press, as recently as last week, with respect to grant funds administered by DHS.  This includes puppet shows, parks, gardens, dance classes, yoga, and others.  Dr. Coburn called up the first one, and Ranking Member Collins offered a catch-all substitute that would generally prohibit all DHS grant funds from being spent on “recreational or social activities.”  The proposal was accepted unanimously.
 
 
  • Pryor 1 adopted by Voice Vote.
  • Voinovich 2 adopted by Voice Vote.
  • Pryor 4 adopted by Voice Vote.
  • Coburn 106 adopted by Voice Vote.
 
Coburn 106 requires that the Secretary set minimum performance standards on grantees – in order to guarantee a standard amount of preparedness for the 9.3 billion we’re spending.  Then, grantees are required to test that readiness through real disasters, table-top exercises or drills, at least twice a year.  Based on the results of those tests, grantees’ plans for how they use money shall be re-programmed, as necessary,  to ensure that those minimum performance standards are met. 
 
  • Voinovich 4 adopted by Voice Vote.
  • Coburn 157 (2nd degree amendment) adopted by Voice Vote.
 This amendment requires that State grants get audited within 2 years of receiving a grant, and that these audits are posted online.  It pays for this extra scrutiny and work by requiring that 1% of all grants get directed to the IG for these audits. 
 
  • Obama 1 (risk allocation) not adopted by Roll Call:
Y:  Levin, Landrieu, Obama, McCaskill, Voinovich, Coburn, Warner (7)
N:  Akaka, Carper, Pryor, Tester, Collins, Stevens, Coleman, Domenici, Sununu, Lieberman (10)
 
This amendment offered by Obama attempted to make DHS grants more risk-based rather than sending formula grants to EVERY state.  Sen. Coburn vigorously defended this amendment (he was a co-sponsor) as a means of ensuring as much money as possible is based on risk and vulnerability rather than entitlement money for states, regardless of need and risk. 
 
  •  Voinovich 5 (modified) adopted by Voice Vote.
  • Coburn 155 was NOT adopted by Roll Call (Senators Coburn and Obama voting yes):
 
This amendment provided a sunset to the whole bill after 5 years.  While Congress *can* reauthorize a program any time, Congress rarely does the hard work of reauthorizing programs unless authorities are actually forced to expire through a hard "sunset" provision.  Providing a hard sunset makes it harder to appropriate to the expired program and therefore pushes Congress to have to reauthorize, reform, restructure programs.  Dr. Coburn suggested that Congress can't predict what type of program will be needed in 5 years and should be required to take another look then.   This provision is similar to the sunset that Congress insisted be placed in the Patriot Act - as a means of forcing the Congress to re-engage after a certain period of time. 
  • Voinovich 8 was not adopted.
  • Voinovich 6 (modified) was adopted by Voice Vote
  • Coburn 136 was adopted by Voice Vote.
 
This amendment requires that every grant over $1M must undergo a recovery audit.  Recovery audits are conducted for the purpose of identifying and recouping money lost to fraud, waste or abuse.  Recovery audits more than pay for themselves, bringing in exponentially more money than they cost.  They also place little burden on the agency because they are outsourced to private accounting firms.   
 
  • Coburn 94 was NOT adopted by Roll Call (only Senator Coburn voted yes):
     
This amendment would have struck the Office for the Prevention of Terrorism.  The purpose of the Office was to solve a problem DHS was having coordinating effectively with local law enforcement and intelligence officials.  However,  Dr. Coburn suggested that rearranging the org chart at agencies rarely brings real reform or solutions to agency performance failure.   Rather than setting up new offices and layers of bureaucracy, the real solution is bringing true accountability in the form of rigorous Congressional oversight.

On final bill passage, Dr. Coburn abstained from the vote, suggesting that his support for the bill on the floor would be dependent on changes that occurred between now and then. 


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Senator Tom Coburn's activity on the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security

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