Brown Likens Appropriations Process to Game of Musical Chairs

“It is difficult to claim that we engage in informed legislative deliberation when we move legislation before Members have even had a chance to see its contents.” --Rep. George Brown

In remarks appearing in the November 10 Congressional Record, Rep. George Brown (D-California) spoke out against earmarks in the Defense Department appropriations report for fiscal year 1994, and the haste with which appropriators pushed the final legislation through on the floor. As chairman of the House science committee (an authorizing committee), Brown has fought a public battle against earmarking, which he feels gives appropriators undue influence over what programs are funded. Earmarking, also known as “pork-barrel,” is the practice by which influential Members direct funding to favored projects in their home state or district. Most pork is found not in an appropriations bill itself, but in the accompanying report which, while not carrying the force of law, is interpreted as the will of Congress regarding how the funds should be spent. Brown argued that earmarking “is unfair, it denies nine-tenths of the Members of this body any role in participation, and it leads to a misallocation of our scarce resources based on the directives of a handful of Members of Congress.” This year, it appeared that the publicity Brown focused on the practice had proved a deterrent: he announced at a September 15 hearing that his committee’s efforts “have had some impact. For example, some of our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee have stated they will not include academic earmarks in their fiscal year 1994 legislation or report language.” His staff reported later that earmarks for academic projects in the VA/HUD bill were down 87 percent from last year, while earmarks in the energy and water bill had decreased 78 percent.

However, appropriators saw to it that the defense bill slipped through on November 10 before opposition could be rallied. The bill, Brown said, “went through the House in approximately a quarter of an hour. If you had blinked, you would have missed it.” He noted that his staff “received a call at 4:52 indicating that the Defense conference report had been received [and] we were welcome to come over and scan a copy” before the report went to the Rules Committee - at 5 p.m. The all-important Rules Committee determines how a bill will be considered on the House floor. It decided that all points of order against the bill would be waived, preventing Members from blocking any element of the legislation.

“The important point to note,” Brown said, “is that the bill moved before the amendments and statement of managers were made widely available to Members or staff.” Further portions of Brown’s statement are highlighted below:

“Fourteen out of 435 Members of Congress - just three percent of us - played a role in the conference. We all know the game of musical chairs. Well, the way the appropriators play it, one out of every 31 of us gets to sit when the music stops playing and it comes time to earmark money. The rest of us are left to stand around, watching the bill sail past. I do not want to see that process change so that more of us get to sit at the table; what I want to see is a process whereby sitting at the table does not allow someone the ability to earmark huge sums of tax dollars for the benefit of their district without consideration for the Nation’s needs and interests.”

“And what was done when the music stopped and the appropriators sat down, behind closed doors, to divvy up the Defense Department? That is the real outrage because it appears that several billion dollars in earmarks were made -- we can find approximately $2 billion in the research, development, testing and evaluation [RDT&E] section alone.”

One issue Brown was particularly adamant about was pork in the Technology Reinvestment Program (TRP) awards -- grants to help defense companies develop dual-use technologies. Brown had previously succeeded in getting the House bill amended, he reported, so that “all technology reinvestment program funds will be competitively awarded and require matching funds by the recipients. That language was also adopted in the Senate and will be included in the [final] bill.” However, appropriators then turned to earmarking the conference report language. “At least $103.8 million” of the total $474 million for dual use programs, Brown claimed, “has been earmarked.”

“I want all of my colleagues to note the creative wizardry involved in this maneuver,” he remarked. “The Defense Appropriations Subcommittees have sponsored a bill here today that will require competitive awards and matching dollars as the law of the land. At the same time, they have attached to that bill report language that instructs DOD to spend almost $104 million on specific projects the Appropriations Committee members desire to see funded. ...This is an intellectually dishonest act. How can Members of this, the highest law-making institution in the Nation, explain that it is their recommendation that DOD break the laws passed by that body? How can we expect the citizens we represent to respect the laws we pass when before the ink is even dry some of our own Members are encouraging executive agencies to violate those laws?”

Brown concluded, “I continue to be disappointed in the level of report-language earmarks included with the bill. I am also disappointed with the process by which this bill was brought to the floor -- there was nothing deliberative or particularly public about it. I know we can do better and I ask my colleagues to join me in working for reforms to our own rules as well as calling on the White House to issue an Executive order that would help get report-language earmarks under control.”

Still, Brown’s staff reports that academic pork in the defense bill was down by 30 percent from last year, and they estimate that overall academic earmarks for fiscal year 1994 were $288 million lower than 1993. Appropriators can be assured that Brown and his committee will continue publicizing the problem in the coming year, in the hope of reducing the total even further in 1995.