Brown Strikes Another Blow Against Earmarking
On September 15, George Brown (D-California), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, held his second hearing on academic earmarking. The hearing, postponed from August, looked at institutions which have actively solicited earmarks, and the agencies which were directed to provide the earmarked funds.
Academic earmarking refers to the practice by which Members of Congress, in the appropriations bill for an agency, specify funds for a particular research program or facility (usually in their own state or district). George Brown has been an active opponent of this process, both because he thinks it bypasses the normal competitive, peer-review process by which agencies determine their research funding priorities and because, as chairman of an authorizing committee (which can set priorities and approve programs but not provide funds), he sees his committee’s role being usurped by appropriators. As Brown stated in his opening remarks, “Earmarking circumvents the system we have in place which allocates funding based on national needs and competitive merit review. . . . Earmarked projects often steer agencies away from their stated mission.”
Witnesses from three academic institutions that have solicited and obtained earmarks testified to the quality of their earmarked facilities, and their importance to the local and state economies. For example, William Polf stated that Columbia University’s Center for Disease Prevention is part of an urban redevelopment project that would help an economically depressed area, providing jobs and worker training. The witnesses were doubtful, however, that any of the relevant funding agencies had been consulted before an earmark was proposed to their Members of Congress. In the case of the University of Alabama-Birmingham’s Biomedical Research Building, which was funded by the Department of Energy, Brown pointed out that DOE has no authority in its enacting legislation to build medical centers.
Polf and David Gute of Tufts University admitted to hiring lobbyists, for up to millions of dollars annually; the University of Alabama-Birmingham did not hire lobbyists. Alabama’s Charles McCallum said that his university’s needs were explained directly to Alabama’s congressional delegation, which was supportive. (Rep. Tom Bevill (D-Alabama) is the chairman of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee.) Alabama had competed successfully for biomedical facility funds in the 1960s and 1970s when a congressional set-aside program existed for such funds, but, McCallum said, that program has been eliminated. Recognizing the problems institutions have in getting facilities funding, Brown admitted that “the problem is not yours, the problems is ours in Congress, and we’re going to try to correct that.” He praised Senator Barbara Mikulski’s (D-Maryland) efforts to include an expanded facilities funding program at NSF in the VA/HUD appropriations bill.
None of the witnesses wanted to see all federal R&D funding determined by earmarking, and they agreed that they would be glad to participate in a competitive facilities-funding program if one were established.
The second panel of witnesses were representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency, DOE and NASA. They agreed unanimously that their agencies did not solicit or want earmarks. Robert Brown of NASA stated that “we prefer that our research priorities . . . be implemented through the normal budget and grant process.” Alvin Pesachowitz of EPA added that “in the recent past, we have been forced to fund congressional earmarks at the expense of some of our higher priority projects.”
In examining ways to solve the problem, Brown and Robert Walker (R-Pennsylvania) questioned the agency representatives about disregarding earmarks that are not in the text of a bill, but only in the accompanying report, which does not have the force of law. The witnesses responded that it was important to keep a good relationship with Congress, especially with the appropriations committees which provided their funding. Asked by Walker if they would give the same emphasis to an earmark if it was contained in an authorizing committee’s report, Pesachowitz commented that if a project was authorized, “but we don’t have the funds, it would be particularly difficult to carry out.”
The witnesses were asked about the usefulness of an executive order to federal agencies to ignore earmarks in report language. Elizabeth Smedley of DOE warned that if agencies began disregarding report earmarks, appropriators would simply put all earmarks in the bill itself, leaving the agencies less flexibility to deal with the projects. Although Walker pointed out that earmarks in bill language could be stricken on the floor, Smedly reminded him that that did not often happen.
