Liberated Text -> Congressional Record -> Nine Senators of Shame
The Presiding Officer: The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. Kerry: Mr. President, let me begin by paying my respect to the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, who has for several years now on the subject of Iraq been perhaps the most forceful and eloquent and prescient Member of the Senate with respect to the events there. He has been consistent. He has been strong. All Members in the Senate are enormously respectful of his voice and his leadership on this issue.
I know for the Senator from West Virginia, the years I have been here, there has been no more stalwart, dedicated, reliable defender of America's interests anywhere in the world. There has been no one who has stood up more for our young men and women in uniform. I know this journey he has taken with respect to his feelings about the war were not easy, and they were contrary in some ways to that long record on the surface. But it is when you get below the surface and look at some of the continuity of his thinking about the Constitution, about our obligations as Senators, and about the fundamental reasons why you send young men and women to fight anywhere that you see that, indeed, what he is fighting for now is as consistent with what he has fought for throughout his record and career in the Senate. I thank him for that and pay my respect to him.
Mr. Byrd: Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts for his observations, for his loyalty to his country, for his service to his country, and for the costs to his human self. For that great service, I thank him. And I thank him for the statement he has just made.
Mr. Kerry: I thank the Senator.
Amendment No. 2033
Mr. Kerry: Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we set aside the pending amendment, and I call up amendment numbered 2033.
The Presiding Officer: Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry], for himself, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Reed, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Jeffords, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Corzine, Mr. Kohl, Mr. Bayh, Mr. Durbin, Ms. Cantwell, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Baucus, Mr. Reid, and Mr. Schumer, proposes an amendment numbered 2033.
Mr. Kerry: Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The Presiding Officer: Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To provide for appropriations for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program)
At the end of title VII, insert the following:
Administration for Children and Families Low Income Home Energy Assistance
For making payments under title XXVI of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 (42 U.S.C. 8621 et seq.), $3,100,000,000, for the unanticipated home energy assistance needs of 1 or more States, as authorized by section 2604(e) of the Act (42 U.S.C. 8623(e)), which amount shall be made available for obligation in fiscal year 2006 and which amount is designated as an emergency requirement pursuant to section 402 of H. Con. Res. 95 (109th Congress), the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2006.
Sec. __. Congress finds the following:
(1) An imminent emergency is confronting millions of low- income individuals in the United States who are unable to afford the cost of rising energy prices.
(2) Prior to the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf Coast region of the United States, individuals in the United States were facing record prices for oil, natural gas, and propane. Hurricane Katrina damaged platforms and ports and curtailed production at refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, the source of almost \1/3\ of United States oil output, further raising energy prices.
(3) The Short Term Energy Outlook report of the Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy states that the ranges for expected heating fuel expenditure increases for the winter heating season of 2005-2006 are--
(A) 69 percent to 77 percent for natural gas in the Midwest;
(B) 17 percent to 18 percent for electricity in the South;
(C) 29 percent to 33 percent for heating oil in the Northeast; and
(D) 39 percent to 43 percent for propane in the Midwest.
(4) According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, heating costs for the average family using heating oil are projected to hit $1,666 for the 2005-2006 winter heating season. Those costs would represent an increase of $403 over those costs for the 2004-2005 winter heating season, and an increase of $714 over those costs for the 2003-2004 winter heating season. For families using natural gas, prices are projected to hit $1,568 for the 2005- 2006 winter heating season, representing an increase of $611 over those costs for the 2004-2005 winter heating season, and an increase of $643 over those costs for the 2003-2004 winter heating season. States need additional funding immediately to help low-income families and seniors to ensure that they can afford to heat their homes.
(5) The Mortgage Bankers Association expects that steep energy costs could increase the number of missed mortgage payments and lost homes beginning later this year.
Mr. Kerry: Mr. President, this amendment is cosponsored by Senators Kennedy, Jack Reed, Dorgan, Jeffords, Mikulski, Lautenberg, Corzine, Kohl, Bayh, Durbin, Cantwell, Clinton, Schumer, Baucus, Harry Reid, Dayton, Stabenow, Harkin, Coleman, Snowe, Dodd, Levin, and Bingaman. I ask unanimous consent that all of their names be added to the amendment as cosponsors.
The Presiding Officer: Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. Kerry: Mr. President, I know there is a reluctance, and I understand it, by the managers of the bill to have an amendment on a subject that does not fit neatly and squarely and automatically under the bill. As they know, the number of legislative opportunities here are very few now, and we are on the appropriations track. This amendment has been authorized already, so it is authorized. The question is what we are going to do to effect it.
This is an amendment to deliver $3.1 billion of emergency funding--I emphasize "emergency" funding--to the Low-Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program.
The tight natural gas market and the devastating impact of the recent hurricanes have resulted in what everyone knows and feels in their pocketbooks are unusually high fuel prices and very high fuel price forecasts for the foreseeable future. According to the Energy Information Agency, families are going to pay about 77 percent more for natural gas in the Midwest, 18 percent more for electricity in the South, and 33 percent more for heating oil in the Northeast. Heating oil costs for the average family using heating oil are expected to hit about $1,066 during the upcoming winter. That is $403 more than last winter, and it is $714 more than the winter heating season of 2003- 2004.
Rapidly rising energy costs have an incredibly negative impact on the ability of low- and even middle-income but fixed-income individuals to be able to meet their demands. High prices are forcing working families to choose warmth over other basic necessities, or in the South, in certain seasons, obviously, cool. Those are tough choices to make. The National Energy Assistance Directors' Association found that 32 percent of families sacrificed medical care last year in order to be able to meet those prices, 24 percent failed to make rent or meet mortgage payments, and 20 percent went without food for at least a day. We have a whole bunch of people in America who are giving up food or rent or medical care in order to be able to pay for the home heating oil.
Hurricane Katrina is a stark reminder of precisely what happens when the Government does not prepare ahead of time for disaster. We have an opportunity now to prepare ahead of time. If we do not act now, families are going to be forced to choose between medical care and heat during the winter. That is just around the corner. In November, it begins to get cold in a lot of States. The fact is, having to choose between a warm house or a full stomach for your children is not a choice anyone in America, the wealthiest nation on the face of the planet, wealthiest industrial nation, ought to welcome.
The number of households receiving what is known as the LIHEAP assistance has increased from about 4.2 million in fiscal year 2002 to more than 5 million this year, which is the highest in 10 years. LIHEAP applications are expected to increase very significantly this winter. Yet the funding levels for LIHEAP are not keeping pace. LIHEAP's buying power is significantly less than when it was established. According to the Government's Consumer Price Index, what cost $100 in 1982 cost just shy of $200 in 2004. Using the CPI calculation for inflation, that means that a $1.8 billion appropriation for LIHEAP in 1982 should have been a $3.7 billion appropriation in 2004. LIHEAP currently serves less than 15 percent of those people who are eligible in the country.
I understand this amendment can be blocked procedurally. I know that.
I hope that will not happen. It is a bipartisan amendment. It is not my preference to attach it to this bill, but it is our only option with the recess coming up in a few days. After the comments of the Secretary of Energy this week that the administration has no plans of asking Congress for more money, we have no choice but to say this is on the congressional agenda, this is on our radar.
I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan amendment to add $3.1 billion for LIHEAP in the fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill. It is emergency funding. It does not require an offset as a result. It is an emergency. It is the amount we have authorized. It represents the amount we need. It is critical funding to avoid a looming but absolutely preventable crisis for millions of American families who have been hard hit by the additional costs of fuel oil and the diminishing affordability of home heating oil as the winter approaches.
I yield the floor.
Mr. Inouye: 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. Coburn: Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The Presiding Officer: Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 2005
(Purpose: To curtail waste under the Department of Defense web-based travel system)
Mr. Coburn: Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside and call up Coburn amendment No. 2005.
The Presiding Officer: Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] proposes an amendment numbered 2005.
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
Sec. __. None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be obligated or expended for the further development, deployment, or operation of any web-based, end-to-end travel management system, or services under any contract for such travel services that provides for payment by the Department of Defense to the service provider above, or in addition to, a fixed price transaction fee for eTravel services under the General Services Administration eTravel contract.
Mr. Coburn: Mr. President, this is an issue that came to my attention not long after I was sworn in as a Senator. I hope the American public pays attention to the system I am getting ready to describe because way too many things in the Federal Government are bought this way.
The goal of the Defense Travel System was a worthy goal. It said: We travel so much, we ought to have a system that gets us the best fare and can do that on a routine basis so we can save money when Defense Department employees travel. They contracted with a firm to develop that system. It was not necessarily a competitive bid contract either.
What this amendment does is prohibit money from being spent on operations and further development of the system because, quite frankly, it does not work. It works less well than any private travel system that is out there now. It works less well than the GSA's travel system.
We are now close to $500 million being spent with one contractor to develop a system that does not work. The system did not work at the first development stage, which cost $47.3 million, and the Defense Department bailed them out. It did not work. It has never met the requirements or the efficiency or the savings that it was supposed to meet.
It is kind of similar to one of those things you get into and you keep hoping it will work, keep hoping it will work, and then it does not work. Well, the American taxpayers are now on the hook for almost $500 million.
The Defense Department does not even own this program. That was recently changed so the contracting law could be avoided, in terms of going after this contractor on it, because it was not competitively bid, because it was not managed properly.
When you review the DTS system, in 2002, the DOD Inspector General said it should be shut down unless a cost-benefit analysis was prepared that showed the worthiness of its continuation. No analysis has ever been conducted. That was in 2002, and we had only spent about $100 million on it. We are now at $500 million. There is no cost-benefit analysis that has been done. Every Defense Department employee can travel cheaper following some other system than this system. We do not own it. We keep paying for it. We keep paying for the development of it.
The American taxpayers are getting hooked, and yet when we are finished with it, we are still not going to have a system that is as good as what is in the private sector. It is a boondoggle, at best.
Program Assessment and Evaluation testified they were unable to complete an analysis because the DTS office had not even kept enough documentation of their own expenditures to make a reliable assessment.
We have big contracting problems in the Defense Department, and this is the best example I know of that ought to be eliminated tomorrow. At the end of the seventh year of an 8-year contract, a cumulative total of 370,000 travelers had utilized DTS out of 5.6 million annual DOD travelers. So for $500 million, over the 7 years, we have had 370,000 travelers. It has cost us $1,500 per ticket, not counting the price of the air fare.
There is not anybody in America who would look at this, with any common sense, and say we ought to continue this boondoggle.
The utilization rate for the current calendar year under the Defense Travel System is at 15 percent. That means only one in eight employees of DOD uses this system to buy a ticket. And then they do not always get the best price.
In order to break even with the costs of DTS annualized--in other words, its annual cost--90 percent of DOD employees would have to use it. They are not using it. DTS costs $40 to $50 million per year in operations and maintenance. Orbitz does not come close to it. The GSA accounting system does not come close to it. None of them come close to it. Yet we are continuing to spend $50 million of the American people's taxpayer dollars before we get the first ticket. So it is a system that does not work. It is broken. The contracting mechanism is broken. Yet we still have people who are going to come to the floor to defend a system that is broken.
Travel executive Robert Langsfeld testified at the hearing that DTS performed less effectively than any--any--civilian e-travel system. We have $500 million in it, and it is unending on what we are going to have, and it still works worse than any private e-travel system. We have spent half a billion dollars.
The Federal Government has also spent this money on a system that is not even reliable. It might work one day and does not work the next. It might get you the best fare, it might not.
Unlike DTS, GSA e-travel contracts do not pay operations and maintenance for the programs. They only pay a per-transaction fee.
So for what was a good idea that turned sour, we continue to pour unspoiled milk on soured milk, and it becomes soured milk. So we continue to spend money on it.
The Government still does not own DTS, as I said. It is an intellectual property--computer software and source codes. Last year, Judge George Miller of the Federal Court of Claims decided he would not even look into allegations of violations of the Competition in Contracting Act because the software and source codes are owned by the contractor. So if the contract were opened for bidding and another bidder was awarded the contract, the Government would have nothing left but a $500 million loss.
But last week, before the hearing, the contractor promised to transfer ownership of this intellectual property to the Defense Department at the end of the contract period, if requested. The reason for this, obviously, is to maintain the fiction that the open bidding on the contract in 2006 is on the level. It is not. There is no open bidding. It violates the very laws that were put on the books to try to maintain competition in contracting. Ownership of DTS bounces around to wherever it is most convenient for avoiding serious scrutiny.
One of the secret changes in the contract that was alleged to have violated the Competition in Contracting Act was the shift from a fee per transaction, as we do with all the civilian e-travel systems, to a cost plus guaranteed profit for the contractor. That has proven they are inept at developing a system. So now we have even changed the contract. Now that we spent $500 million on it, we are now going to change it. We are not going to hold them accountable. We are going to guarantee them a profit for incompetency and inefficiency. It is fair to have Defense contractors reimbursed on the same terms as civilian contractors and agency contractors who are doing the same thing. My amendment will permit that, and only that, a cost per service.
Another secret contract change was an agreement by the Government to pay $43.7 million that had been spent in development costs by the original contractor. We got absolutely nothing for that money. It just covered the losses suffered by the contractor in trying to do something they were not capable of doing, and they are still not capable of doing, rather than to go into the private sector and buy one that was already developed.
This is money the Government was not obliged to pay under the original contract, but we paid it anyway. We paid it anyway--$47 million. We are trying to pay for Katrina now. We are trying to fund the war in Iraq. We have a $500 million boondoggle that does not work, and we will have people defend that on the Senate floor. The fact is, they can't compete. That is what the testimony of the GAO is. That is what the testimony of everybody is. They do not even compete. And now they are only at a 15-percent utilization rate.
Failure carries no negative consequences when we contract this way. When we contract this way, we violate our oaths as the defender of the taxpayers of this country to spend their money wisely. I know I am up against a powerful defense contractor as I attack this process. I want to support our defense contractors. I want to make sure they are there to help us fight and win and defend our freedoms, both here and abroad. But this is the kind of garbage that needs to come out of the contracting system. It is the kind of thing that we need to put on the floor and say: Defend this. Defend it. You cannot defend it. It is indefensible that we would spend a half a billion dollars trying to get an e-travel system, when they are out there working nine times better than anything this program has developed.
I am hopeful the Members of this body, and the American public, more importantly, will call this body, will secure this body's attention on issues just like that. If we are going to not steal from our grandchildren, then we have to be about cleaning up the contracting process in the Pentagon. This is a good first step in doing that.
With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The Presiding Officer: The absence of a quorum has been suggested. Does the Senator withhold?
Mr. Coburn: I withdraw my request.