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HHS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: EXAMINING

THE POLITICIZATION OF GRANTS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 1, 2011

Serial No. 112–124

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov

http://www.house.gov/reform
(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

CONNIE MACK, Florida

TIM WALBERG, Michigan

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee

JOE WALSH, Illinois

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking

Minority Member

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

PETER WELCH, Vermont

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JACKIE SPEIER, California

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director

ROBERT BORDEN, General Counsel

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on December 1, 2011 ........................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Sheldon, George, Acting Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children

and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and

Eskinder Negash, Director, Office for Refugee Resettlement, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services ............................................................................................ 42

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Connolly, Hon. Gerald E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 103

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland:

Commercial Sexual Exploitation Report ................................................. 37

Letter dated December 1, 2011 ................................................................ 39

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 30

Stolen Smiles Report ................................................................................. 35

Trafficking in Persons Report June 2011 ................................................ 33

Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the State of

California:

Attorney General’s Annual Report ........................................................... 76

Memo dated September 9, 2011 ............................................................... 6

Sheldon, George, Acting Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children

and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 45

Smith, Hon. Christopher H., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New Jersey, prepared statement of ......................................................... 2

(1)

HHS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH:

EXAMINING THE POLITICIZATION OF GRANTS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2011

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:40 a.m. in Room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Issa, Burton, Platts, McHenry, Jordan,

Chaffetz, Walberg, Lankford, Amash, Buerkle, Labrador,

DesJarlais, Gowdy, Ross, Guinta, Farenthold, Kelly, Cummings,

Towns, Maloney, Norton, Kucinich, Tierney, Connolly, Quigley,

Davis, Welch, and Speier.

Also present: Representative Smith of New Jersey.

Staff present: Richard A. Beutel, senior counsel; Robert Borden,

general counsel; Molly Boyl, parliamentarian; Gwen D’Luzansky,

assistant clerk; Adam P. Fromm, director of Member services and

committee operations; Linda Good, chief clerk; Frederick Hill, director of communications and senior policy advisor; Christopher

Hixon, deputy chief counsel, oversight; Sery E. Kim, counsel; Mark

D. Marin, director of oversight; Christine Martin, counsel; Laura L.

Rush, deputy chief clerk; Jeff Solsby, senior communications advisor; Rebecca Watkins, press secretary; Peter Warren, legislative

policy director; Kevin Corbin, minority deputy clerk; Ashley

Etienne, minority director of communications; Jennifer Hoffman,

minority press secretary; Carla Hultberg, minority chief clerk; Lucinda Lessley, minority policy director; Dave Rapallo, minority staff

director; Mark Stephenson, minority senior policy advisor/legislative director; and Cecelia Thomas and Ellen Zeng, minority counsels.

Chairman ISSA. This hearing will come to order.

The first order of business is that I ask unanimous consent that

Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey be able to join us from

the dais and ask questions of the witnesses and that his written

statement be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Before I begin today, I want to also include in

the record four documents the committee has received, not from

Health and Human Services pursuant to the committee’s request

for documents, but from whistleblowers, as I want to make sure

that the committee’s majority and minority both have them. We

had not released these documents, but these documents became

available to the press and had hoped to have full and complete documents from HHS beforehand. I will put the rest in, but ask unanimous consent they be placed in the record and distributed to all

Members at this time.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I don’t want to object, but I

haven’t seen the documents. Can we see them before we let them

in?

Chairman ISSA. Of course. The gentleman reserves. The documents will be distributed to all the Members.

For clarity, these are internal documents, as far as we can tell

authenticated, that have been printed out, and Politico has them,

the Washington Post has them. We don’t know how many other

newspapers have them. Again, the nature of the beast were these

were pursuant to our investigation. They were not delivered to us

by HHS, which is a separate matter of investigation since they

were fully due and should have been presented to us, were withheld, and I would only say that as the ranking member evaluates

them and the other members of the committee, these are documents in the opinion of the chair that are a failure to deliver pursuant to our request and as such are subject to additional inquiry

by the committee.

The committee takes seriously that documents should not be released by whistleblowers who are afraid that basically these documents may have been deliberately withheld.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, so these are HHS documents that

would have come in if HHS had adhered to the subpoena?

Chairman ISSA. That is our opinion of the documents, having

looked at them. Again, HHS will have an opportunity to say why

they withheld these documents. I am releasing them at this time

to the committee because I don’t believe that we should go forward

with this hearing without having as many documents as are available. If they are available to the press, even though they haven’t

been formally published, certainly they are likely to be seen by the

public. I don’t want any Member here to go through a hearing and

then find out he didn’t know what he didn’t know.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just wanted to be clear, we are just reserving

for just a few minutes so we can have time to review them.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. I would also ask the committee staff to

make them available to HHS staff so if there is any question of authenticity, we would like to have that resolved early on in the process. I don’t think these are the most determinative documents in

the world, but it is the nature of our committee. We are an investigative committee and professionalism, at least on our part, is essential.
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Mr. CUMMINGS. And just in fairness to HHS, and I know that

they will have an opportunity to respond, is the time up for them

to submit documents?

Chairman ISSA. Yes, it is.

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. Thank you.

[The information referred to follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Although, we will be happy to have supplemental discovery at any time.

With that, the Oversight Committee exists for two purposes: We

secure the fundamental principles, first, that Americans have a

right to know that the money Washington takes from them is well

spent; and, second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them. Our duty on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to protect these rights.

Our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to

taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get

from their government. We will work tirelessly in partnership with

citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the American people and

bring genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy. This is the mission of the Government Oversight Committee.

Two weeks ago, this committee approved a bill, authored by subcommittee chairman, Mr. Lankford, to require transparency in the

grant making process. Today we are presented with an example of

why this bill is so important, to ensure that agencies are held accountable and responsible stewards of the taxpayers’ funds, and in

this case the taxpayers’ funds and the taxpayers’ execution of these

funds, to the greatest benefit of the beneficiaries they are intended

to, as we attempt to understand the decisionmaking process used

to award these grants, a process that from the outside observer’s

perspective appears to be inexcusably politically altered.

The grant went to four organizations—I have a mistake in the

written statement. It went to three out of four that applied. The

committee has learned many disturbing facts about the process.

The most experienced and top-rated national applicant was not selected for this award. Other organizations, including ones that submitted much lower rated proposals, were somehow funded.

The process was delayed for months while the agencies struggled

to find ways, in our opinion, to inject a new criteria to alter the

funding process. That criteria was not in fact, as has been reported

by HHS, a stipulation or requirement. Just the opposite. Although

the new statement was part of the process, it was clearly understood that applicants who would not meet that ‘‘new stipulation’’

were still eligible to apply; meaning there was an expectation that

if they were the most qualified or among the most qualified, they

would still be awarded.

Notwithstanding that, a political appointee, unconfirmed, effectively a czar, interjected themselves and made a decision that

changed the outcome of this grant from the decision that otherwise

would have been made by career civil service employees. This undermines the integrity of the process and violates the spirit, if not

the letter of the Federal law and regulations that prohibits discrimination on the basis, in this case, of deep religious beliefs that

were well-known before the applicant applied.

If we are going to have a litmus test that ‘‘Catholics need not

apply,’’ if to administer—and I repeat, administer a procedure, we

need to say so, we need to codify it in the law and we need to stand

the scrutiny of the Supreme Court. It is clear to this Member, you

cannot stand the scrutiny of the Supreme Court to simply make an

organization that has a religious-based belief completely ineligible
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without a review by the Court. The Court would not side with

Health and Human Services in this case.

Now, many will couch this as this is a somewhat more complicated issue. This Member does not believe that it is complicated,

but I do believe that this committee has a responsibility that goes

far beyond the religious-related question that may be brought up

on both sides of the dais. Just the opposite. This committee has a

responsibility to see that the process is predictable at the end,

based on the applicant’s expectations at the beginning. Whether it

is in fact the award of tanker contracts by the Air Force, whether

it is green energy proposals, whether in fact it is an underwriting

of a purchase of a steel mill somehow deemed to be green, this committee has an obligation to look at grants and awards and make

sure that they are predictable in a nonpartisan, non-ideological

way.

This committee chairman is not of that conclusion. Perhaps today

we will get some answers that will help us see the nuances, but

as of this point, it is the chair’s view that in fact the system is

more of an earmark, in the case of this award, a Presidential appointee earmark, than in fact a competitive grant. Congress has,

both majority and minority, stopped the practice of earmarks. We

must ensure that the grant process can never be called an earmark

process with preferences based on ideology or political employees’

whims.

With that, I recognize the ranking member for his opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]
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Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to take a moment to remind everyone of our ultimate goal here today, to help victims of human trafficking, forced

prostitution and sex slavery to escape their conditions and put

their lives back together. These victims have survived horrifying

abuses that few people in this room can even imagine. These atrocities are simply despicable, almost unspeakable. But we cannot shy

away from them. We must address them directly and give these

victims a voice.

To conduct a responsible review of the process used to award

these grants we need to understand who these victims are, what

they have gone through and why they need reproductive health

services.

This is an extremely uncomfortable issue. We are talking about

young women who have been raped, sometimes repeatedly, and

often have contracted sexually transmitted diseases. In addition,

many of them are coping with severe psychological trauma.

If I may, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the

record these studies on this issue. First is a State Department 2011

report on trafficking in persons which says this: The United States

is a source transit-and-destination country for men, women and

children subjected to forced labor, debt bondage, document servitude and sex trafficking.

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Second is a study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine which finds that 90 percent of trafficking victims reports ‘‘having been physically forced or intimidated into sex or doing something sexual.’’

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. CUMMINGS. Third is a study by researchers at the University

of Pennsylvania which reports that ‘‘between 244,000 and 325,000

American children and youth are at risk each year of becoming victims of sexual exploitation, including as victims of commercial sexual exploitation.’’

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

To address these problems, HHS stated in its grant announcement that these funds are intended to provide comprehensive case

management, services that include referrals of family planning

services. To be clear, this is not about using Federal funds for abortion. This is about providing referrals for a full range of contraception, family planning and other reproductive health services. Applicants who are willing and able to provide these referrals got preference over those who were not.

Mr. Chairman, after you announced this hearing, I sent to you

a letter requesting additional witnesses. They are individuals who

work for organizations that help these victims on a daily basis and

advocate on their behalf. It would have taken the committee very

little time to hear from them today and they would have provided

a compelling case for why these services are so critical for these

victims.

Ultimately you rejected my request. In your response letter you

said this type of testimony was not the subject of today’s hearing.

I strongly disagree. If our goal is to analyze these grants in a responsible manner, we cannot ignore the voices of these human trafficking victims, many of whom are very young women who have

been exploited and raped by their persecutors.

For these reasons, today I am invoking my right as the ranking

member to request a minority day of hearings under House Rule

11. I am submitting for the record the required letter with the appropriate number of signatures.

[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, you have scheduled no full committee business for the entire week of next week. We have no full

committee hearings and no markups. Since our schedule is wide

open and since the witnesses are willing to appear, I respectfully

request that you schedule a hearing for then.

I thank you.

With that, I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, of course.

Chairman ISSA. Although you have a right under rule 11, I would

strongly suggest that you wait until the conclusion of the hearing

to assert that it is the decision of the chair to limit the scope of

this hearing. Having said that, as I have already announced to the

witnesses, I have a strong expectation that during the process of

a more narrow hearing that was and is on the question of whether

or not merit-based procedures were used, this committee is very

likely to have a rather wide-ranging discussion along with our witnesses on some of the particulars of the trafficking in human

beings, people being used as sex slaves, a great many issues that,

although not the subject of this hearing, may very well be the subject of a followup hearing.

For that reason I would hope that everyone would reserve judgment until we have gone through this. And if the committee at the

conclusion of a more narrow hearing wants to explore this other

issue, which is inseparable in many ways from what these gentlemen work on every day around the country, then I certainly would

entertain scheduling an investigation and a hearing and other committee work related to that issue.

If the gentleman doesn’t know, I have worked on the question of

trafficking in human beings all the way back in the Bush administration, and I agree with the gentleman that that is an area that

there is never enough attention by Congress.

So, if the gentleman will reserve that motion until the conclusion, I certainly will entertain the motion.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I will reserve. First of all, I appreciate what you just said. When I read some of the testimony

and looked at the decision—and I am glad you have been involved

in it—I was horrified. And I just want to make sure, as I know you

do, and part of this hearing is about this, making sure that HHS

is doing its part to help these young victims address their particular needs. So the request for the hearing was in that vein, the

ultimate goal of trying to help people who are in big trouble. And

many of them, of course, are our own fellow citizens.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I reserve until the end of the hearing.

Chairman ISSA. Great. The gentleman yields back.

All Members will have 5 days to submit opening statements.

With that, today’s hearing, we will hear from two witnesses from

the Department of Health and Human Services. First of all, George

Sheldon is the acting assistant secretary of the Administration for

Children and Families, and Mr. Eskinder Negash is the director of

the Office of Refugee Settlement.

Gentleman, pursuant to the rules of this committee, all witnesses

who testify are to be sworn. Would you please rise to take the oath.

Raise your right hands.
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[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman ISSA. Let the record reflect affirmative answers by

both. Please be seated.

Now, Mr. Sheldon, I know you have testified once before, Mr.

Negash, perhaps not. But you have all seen this on C–SPAN. Your

prepared statements in their entirety will be placed in the record.

Knowing that you are administration witnesses, it is often pushed

that you stay to your script, and we understand that. But if you

abbreviate your script or want to include any individual statements, as long as you remain within the 5 minutes, we are delighted. If you finish sooner, we will get to questions sooner. If you

run slightly over, as long as you are not totally reading a statement

that was simply too long when written, we will allow you to complete it.

With that, Mr. Sheldon, you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE SHELDON, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY, ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES,

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES; AND

ESKINDER NEGASH, DIRECTOR, OFFICE FOR REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT, ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Mr. SHELDON. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Cummings,

members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify

about international trafficking and the role of the Department of

Health and Human Services.

The organization I lead, the Administration for Children and

Families, is responsible for certifying foreign persons as trafficking

victims and assisting them with the services that they need to rebuild their lives. One of the ways we do this is through the Trafficking Victims Assistance Program.

I came to my current position with direct experience with trafficking. As secretary of the Florida Department of Children and

Families, I co-chaired with the Commissioner of Law Enforcement,

the State’s human trafficking task force. I helped lead the State’s

efforts to develop policies that protect and support victims and punish their traffickers. I heard directly from victims about abuse and

degradation. As I make decisions about human trafficking policy,

I continue to think about these victims and what they need to regain control of their lives.

Foreign national trafficking victims are drawn from countries

throughout the world often through the use of force, coercion, and

fraud. They are generally poor, young, and extraordinarily vulnerable. Many victims, as indicated, have been raped and beaten into

terrified submission. Victims face numerous health risks, including

physical injuries such as broken bones, burns, sexually transmitted

diseases and other diseases.

Victims often find themselves physically and psychologically

afraid to reach out to law enforcement officers. Traffickers often

control victims by limiting their access to basic information that all

of us take for granted, such as the name of the city where they live

or whether law enforcement officers will arrest them.

Victims need access to all available information to help decide

what is the best path for them. Since 2001, we have certified more
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than 3,000 victims of trafficking. Forty-one percent of the minors

were victims of sex trafficking or a combination of sex and labor

trafficking. The purpose of the Victim Assistance Program is to provide short-term comprehensive management services. It also may

include emergency assistance on a limited basis, such as food and

clothing and shelter.

Our experience in operating this program for 10 years drove

home to us the particular health risks posed by victims of human

trafficking. As a result, we specified in the funding announcement

that we would give a strong preference to applicants that are willing to offer all the services and referrals delineated in the program

objectives, including offering victims referral to medical providers

that can provide or refer to a full range of services they need. But

ultimately it is up to the victim to choose the services.

The HHS grantee does not directly provide services, but enters

into subgrant contracts with local organizations. But I want to

point out that organizations that do not provide information referral for family planning services can still receive Federal money.

They can choose to subcontract with subgrantees to provide services that they cannot or do not wish to perform.

In 2011 we received applications from several organizations that

had the strong capacity to provide comprehensive case management. In making the decision, we needed to ask a basic questions:

Which organizations were best able to serve all the needs of the

victims? We selected grantees that are able to provide a full set of

health-related referrals.

The three organizations selected will enable trafficking victims to

retake control of their lives by making informed health care decisions based on their own circumstances, their own values, and

their own faith. The three entities that were awarded the grants

have still entered into subgrant arrangements with many faithbased organizations, including entities affiliated with the Catholic

Church. We value our partnership with numerous faith-based organizations, including the Conference of Bishops.

Over the last 3 years, we have awarded some $650 million to

Catholic-affiliated organizations. For instance, we partner with

Catholic Charities of Los Angeles to provide shelter to runaway

and homeless youth; with Catholic Charities of Hartford to help fathers become better parents and provide for their children; with

the Catholic Missions Board to provide care and treatment for HIV

patients in South Africa, South Sudan, and Haiti.

Recently, I visited a home in Chicago. I had conversations with

eight young women ranging in age from 12 to 21. They recounted

their stories, horrific, about being enslaved for 1 to 3 years. Their

stories were horrific, but what was even more unsettling was the

aftermath: the young women, broken down physically, morally,

spiritually, wondering who they could trust and how they would

survive.

But these women opened up. They explained how a safe place

and advice from people they trust had altered the trajectory of

their lives. And I was heartened. They are struggling to restore

their hope and their dignity, and I believe that we need to provide

them the the full array of services so that they have a fighting

chance.
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In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I am confident that the three

grantees will help to ensure that the victims of human trafficking

will receive high-quality case management services. We are fully

respectful of this committee’s jurisdiction, its responsibility, and we

have provided to date approximately 3,500 pages of documents. We

are still in the process of working with staff. We will continue to

do that. As one who is from Florida, which has a totally transparent open records law, I believe that is important for your oversight, but I also believe it is important to get the total picture of

how this grant was awarded.

Thank you.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sheldon follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. I understand, Mr. Negash, you do not have any

opening statement, prepared or unprepared.

Mr. NEGASH. Mr. Chairman, I don’t have any additional statement.

Chairman ISSA. Would you like to make any statement?

Mr. NEGASH. No, sir.

Chairman ISSA. With that, we will go to the first round of questioning and I will recognize myself for 5 minutes.

Mr. Sheldon, as I said earlier, I want to focus this committee on

the question of predictability of grants based on merit. So let me

start with a question. There were three awards out of four applicants. The number one award went to somebody with a 90, the

Catholic Charities had an 89, and then you get down into the seventies, substantially lower for the other two awardees.

If you were an applicant or potential applicant, knowing that

grant making takes time and money, applications, and you were

told that there were factors but that those factors would not eliminate you, and then you saw that you were dramatically higher than

two of the applicants who received it, wouldn’t you legitimately

question how you make that cost-benefit question ever again?

Again, it is not a question of what the issue was that may have

decided this, but it was not a requirement. In your opening statement, Mr. Sheldon, you said that you believe that full range of

services. If you believe it, why is it that HHS didn’t say you either

provide them or you are ineligible—which wasn’t said—but, rather,

go ahead and make the applications, it is not going to eliminate

you, it is a factor.

Well, it is a factor apparently that goes from 89 to 74. I mean,

it is a huge factor, and it was never scored and no one could understand how much better they would have to be, how much dramatically better they would have to be to prevent being eliminated.

Could you answer that narrow question?

Mr. SHELDON. I appreciate the question, Mr. Chairman. Let me

articulate that it was very clear in the funding announcement that

HHS had a preference for those who would provide the full array

of services. And the way the process, the way the grant process

works——

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Sheldon, I have very limited time. The narrow question is, 74 to 89 is a chasm. If you can’t explain the chasm,

then what I see here is they were dead on arrival in their application, period. The bottom line is everybody who applied got it except

the incumbent, and they were at the top of the rating and dramatically higher than the two much less qualified. And that qualification number is an array of service administration and priorities

and capabilities.

So the narrow question is, if you are out there applying for

grants because you want to help people—and the ranking member

said it very well. This is about helping people. This is purely about

compassionate people wanting to help people and administering

over sending them for the various services. No services would be

provided by these recipients. These were referrals.

How do I explain that in narrow terms, you know 20 points? How

do I explain it?
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Mr. SHELDON. If you will give me a minute, we provided a funding announcement. That is reviewed by——

Chairman ISSA. No, I am sorry, you are not answering the question, and I only have a minute and 45. You did not tell them that

they could be just a lot better and still not get the award. That has

a chilling effect. Everyone on this dais on both sides understands

numbers.

Now, back to the question, and I apologize for the language. But

this is such a great difference in the numbers, not between 89 and

90, the top two. If it had only gone to the top one, I would say,

well, it was a photo finish and this preference made a difference.

But the two that were unqualified, less qualified by your own scoring system by career professional civil servants, as we go on today

you are going to be asked again and again, so not on my time, but

on additional time, please be prepared to answer why those numbers so dramatically allowed for this. I have seen this in decisionmaking on refuelers, I have seen it on decisionmaking on green energy. I want to have it explained today.

Having said that, I want to go on to the core question here for

a moment. Isn’t it true that Catholic Charities refers, and all of the

administrators, refer people to physicians, and that those physicians are completely free to provide the full range of benefits, to advise people on the full range of benefits. In other words, the referral to the compassionate person providing a service, including medical and psychological, those people are not nuns or Catholic

priests. They are not definable by any of this criteria that you used

for the parent administrator. And even in your opening statement

you made it clear that the recipients, the actual doer of the good,

might in fact still be some of these same faith-based organizations.

So the question is, the referral to people to make these decisions,

including STDs which you mentioned, obviously the need for treatment and the possible additional procedures, including abortion, including referral for contraceptives and so on, was there any prohibition on those doctors and those professionals?

Mr. SHELDON. To your first comment, to your first question, the

reviewers identified strengths and weaknesses in all the applicants

and they also indicated in their reviewers’ notes that there was not

sufficient detail with all of the applicants in order to evaluate several components. Those were components in terms of monitoring

their subgrantees, training, the full array of services. Those were

weaknesses that were identified in every single one of them, including the Bishops.

Chairman ISSA. I guess that is the reason why nobody got a 110

rating.

Mr. SHELDON. And the scoring was based on those reviewers’

comments. Based on the information we had from reviewers which

indicated that there was not sufficient detail on several of the

issues, we went back. And that was my decision: Let’s go back to

all of the applicants to provide the answers to the questions that

the reviewers identified. In looking at that, in looking at the scoring, it was my opinion that all of the applicants were qualified to

administer the grant, which brought us to the decision of whether

to apply the preference or not.
55

I made a determination that was the appropriate thing to do, because even the reviewers’ comments indicated two or three reviewers indicated that the unwillingness of the Bishops to agree to provide the full array of services raised questions as to whether they

could meet the six objectives of the funding announcement.

Chairman ISSA. As I recognize the ranking member, I think I

heard that a 90, an 89, a 74 and a 69 rating under this nonpartisan decisionmaking process were made to be equal.

Mr. SHELDON. Those scorings were made prior to the answers

being submitted which the reviewers had indicated needed to be

answered.

Chairman ISSA. With that, I recognize the ranking member.

Without objection, I would ask that the ranking member have 7

minutes. I apologize. Our time ran over.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Sheldon, let me ask you some basic questions. In the announcement for these grants HHS stated explicitly that the central

purpose of this funding is to provide, ‘‘comprehensive case management services’’ to victims of human trafficking. Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. In the same announcement, HHS also stated

that these services include ‘‘family planning services and a full

range of legally permissible gynecological and obstetric care.’’ Is

that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. That is correct.

Mr. CUMMINGS. The three organizations that received grants

from HHS were all able to make these referrals or have their subgrantees make them; is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate.

Mr. CUMMINGS. But the Bishops, and this is important, but the

Bishops stated explicitly in their application that if they received

this grant, they would not, ‘‘provide or refer for abortion, sterilization, or artificial contraceptives,’’ is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate.

Mr. CUMMINGS. It seems pretty simple. The Bishops would not

provide the referral described in the grant announcement and they

didn’t get the grant. In other words, you were contracting for something and they said they couldn’t do it. Is that right?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, in their application, the Bishops offered to

consider ‘‘alternative ways to perform these referrals under the

grant.’’ Is that right?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate. And I went a step further——

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you followed up on that.

Mr. SHELDON [continuing]. And followed up on that, and asked

them to explain in detail what that alternative would be, because

we were interested in that.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. So you were trying to do everything you

could to make sure that you were being fair to them; is that right?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And did they ever provide you with that alternative information?

Mr. SHELDON. The information that they came back with as an

alternative was a restatement of their original position.
56

Mr. CUMMINGS. So in other words, they didn’t bring anything

new to you?

Mr. SHELDON. That is correct.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Did you then follow up on that and say well,

wait a minute now. I thought you said you were going to bring me

something new, and it looks like we are rehashing the same thing.

Mr. SHELDON. We did the one follow-up.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And that was it. In fact, you documented all of

this in your decision memo which has been made available to every

member of the committee. The memo explains that HHS asked the

Bishops if they had any specific proposals for alternative ways to

provide these referral services, but the Bishops ‘‘did not offer any

proposals.’’ Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, as I said in my opening, I think we would

all benefit from hearing a more detailed explanation of why victims

of human trafficking and sexual exploitation often need exactly

these kinds of referral services. Mr. Sheldon, can you explain generally these victims’ age, background and experience?

Mr. SHELDON. Approximately 70 percent of these victims are

women. Approximately 80 percent of the females who are victims

are victims of sex trafficking. These are individuals who have experienced the most horrific conditions, and their freedom, for all practical purposes, has been taken away from them. What we are desirous of doing is restoring the freedom that has been stolen from

them. It frankly is not much more complicated than that.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And can you explain why it is so important for

these victims to have access to referrals for the full range of family

planning services? Obviously they didn’t get the grant, and according to what you are saying, it is because there were certain services

that they said they couldn’t do. Am I right?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, this goes to the basic points in this hearing. What was it that they needed that you were trying to get for

them that the Bishops were not able to provide? You put out a contract and basically you are saying this is what we need. They said,

we cannot do certain services, so they didn’t get it. But the question becomes: Why did they need what you were contracting for, do

you follow me, and why was that so significant?

Mr. SHELDON. Well, even the reviewers pointed out that the unwillingness of that applicant to provide the full array of options

raised questions as to whether they could provide a response to the

six objectives outlined in the contract.

But let me point out, I think that the chairman, frankly, has put

his finger on it. The restriction was not that they were unwilling

to refer to a physician, but restricting what that physician could do.

And that is a concern that I have. Ultimately if you are referring

for case management, if you are referring out to a medical provider, a decision ought to be between that medical provider and the

victim.

Mr. CUMMINGS. In reviewing some of the various data, there was

a 17-year-old victim from Chicago, and the name is Angela. Angela

believed that the older boy who offered her a ride to school really

liked her. Angela never thought he would sell her on Craigslist,
57

force her to have sex 10 times a night in hotel rooms in six cities

across the United States, and beat her with belts and chains when

she didn’t earn him enough money.

Mr. Sheldon, how frequent is it that captives will move from city

to city like this?

Mr. SHELDON. I have heard that story time and time again.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you hear that a lot?

Mr. SHELDON. I do. And you will hear that same response from

law enforcement.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, Angela reportedly escaped her trafficker

and was helped by a group that found her immediate shelter, provided her food, and assisted her in finding long-term medical and

legal support.

Next is a story of a young lady who was trafficked by a man who

pretended to be her boyfriend. He held her inside hotels for a period of 8 months, where she was forced to have sex with 10 to 15

men a night, and had to give every penny she earned to the trafficker.

Through a police raid, Clara and another young female victim

were rescued. Clara was extremely distraught to discover that she

was pregnant, because she knew that the baby would belong to any

of the hundreds of men who raped her or even perhaps to the trafficker himself.

How often do you hear stories like that?

Mr. SHELDON. I have heard stories in Florida when I was

chairing the task force there from victims themselves. I currently

serve on the special operating group at the Federal level where I

have heard those stories from Federal law enforcement agencies as

well.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. I see my time is up.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. We now go to the gentleman from

Utah, Mr. Chaffetz, for 5 minutes.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding

this hearing.

Our colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, has

done exceptional work on this, has spent a lot of time and effort,

and I appreciate that. I would like to yield my time to him.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I thank my good friend for yielding

and I want to thank Chairman Issa for including me on this panel

and for calling for this extraordinarily important hearing.

Mr. Chairman, a little over a decade ago, I authored the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the landmark law that created America’s comprehensive policy to combat modern-day slavery. Among its many mutually enforcing provisions designed to prevent trafficking, protect victims and prosecute those who reduce

people to commodities for sale, the three P’s, my legislation established the Health and Human Services Grants Program under review today.

For over a decade, we have achieved an amazing left-right, religious-secular, bicameral, bipartisan consensus unified in combating

sex and labor trafficking at home and worldwide without promoting

abortion—until today.
58

In what can only be described as an unconscionable abuse of

power, the Obama administration has engaged in what amounts to

bid-rigging, denying taxpayer funds to a demonstrably superior organization, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, with an exemplary 10-year track record of performance, that scored significantly

higher in independent HHS reviews than two of the three NGO’s

that got the grant.

The Obamaadministration’s discriminatory practice of funding

NGO’s that provide or refer for abortions, even when they fail to

win a competitive process, is not only unjust, unethical and in violation of conscience laws, but will severely undermine public and

congressional confidence and support for what is otherwise a laudable program.

If you are a Catholic or other faith-based NGO or a secular organization of conscience, there is now clear proof that your grant application will not be considered—and Darrell Issa, the chairman,

got to this in his question—under a fair, impartial and totally

transparent process by the Obama administration.

The Obama administration’s bias against Catholics is an affront

to religious freedom and a threat to all people. Let’s not forget that

the independent HHS reviewers found that the USCCB, the Catholic Bishops’ proposal and their group to be one of the most experienced experts on human trafficking, a comprehensive system in

place that has assisted thousands of victims, demonstrated strong

partnerships by engaging with both faith-based and non-faithbased organizations. And yet the Catholic organization was discriminated against solely because it fundamentally respects the innate value and dignity and preciousness of an unborn child and refuses to be complicit in procuring his or her violent death by abortion.

Even though HHS reviewers gave the USCCB a score of 89, compared to 74 for Tapestry and 69 for the U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants, USCRI, the latter two got the contracts. Although HHS has thus far prevailed in all of the relevant documents, we do know that the USCRI’s proposal lacked detail on key

program areas.

Here is what the reviewers said: The overall level of detail in the

proposal is insufficient to ensure that the project will be established and run in an effective level and that the management plan

is credible and comprehensive. There is a complete lack of information on specific activities and a timeline is vague, inhibiting evaluation of their reasonableness.

That is not me talking. That is the reviewers. They had real serious problems about the competency of that proposal.

Why go through, and, again, Chairman Issa referred to this, the

charade of determining whether or not a grant application is meritorious, when preferential treatment is afforded only to those in

sync with President Obama’s abortion-promoting agenda?

The bottom line is this: Pro-abortion favoritism embedded in this

egregiously flawed process does a grave disservice to the victims of

trafficking. Victims deserve better. The women and children who

have been exploited by modern-day slavery need our help, and that

is why I wrote the law in the first place.
59

I have a number of questions when we get to the second round,

Mr. Chairman, but I would like to ask—and maybe Mr. Sheldon

will get to this—did Secretary Sebelius or any other high official

at HHS convey in any way, including by memo, email, letter, messenger or the spoken word, that the USCCB should not get the

grant; and, if so, how was that conveyed? Exactly why was the

USCCB not funded, given that they scored so much higher by the

HHS reviewers?

And then on the performance of the grant, I am out of time and

maybe you will get to this, I will ask on the second round, how are

the others doing? Has there been a gap in service? We are concerned about these victims. I deal with the victims all the time.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman from Utah’s time has expired. If

you would like to answer as to how the awardees are doing, you

certainly are within your right.

Mr. SHELDON. I appreciate that. The awardees, the grantees in

this case, are ahead of where the Bishops were 5 years ago in

terms of bringing on subgrantees. Frankly, I want to compliment

the Conference of Catholic Bishops, because they have been extremely cooperative in this transition. I have met with them and

with their director of social services who indicated that their chief

responsibility were these victims, and that is ours.

If I might, Mr. Chairman, I would like to speak to strengths and

weaknesses. The weaknesses that you identified are an accurate reflection of what reviewers commented. But the reviewers made

comments on strengths and weaknesses in all of the applicants.

For instance, in USCRI they said they had considerable experience managing large refugee and trafficking projects. In the

USCCB they indicated weaknesses because the proposal lacked detail on shelter models, residential facilities, community-based services, community outreach programs.

So the point I am making is that if you have to take the reviewers’ comments in the totality of what they said, and also in the

comments on all of the applicants, including the U.S. Conference

of Catholic Bishops, that the applications lacked sufficient detail,

that is the very reason we went back and asked——

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. With respect to——

Chairman ISSA. No, the gentleman’s time has expired.

The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cummings, is recognized for

5 minutes.

Oh, I am sorry, I forgot you. I would give you a second one, but

I would have to take it from the former chairman of the full committee, Mr. Towns.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. At least we

cannot say at the moment that you are not fair.

Chairman ISSA. Hopefully you will never have to say that I am

not fair.

Mr. TOWNS. First of all, I chair the Social Work Caucus, so I am

very interested in this. And I agree with those who believe that in

order to analyze these grants in a responsible manner, we should

not ignore the voice of trafficking survivors. That is why I hope we

will have another hearing and bring in victims.

So I would like to use my time mostly to read an account from

one survivor. We received this account from an advocate working
60

for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking. She has asked

us to keep her name confidential, and that I will do. This is what

she said:

‘‘At the age of 13, I was kidnapped by a pimp, drugged and held

in a room for 5 days while a seemingly never-ending stream of men

entered the room, raped me and left the room again. None of them

wore a condom. None of them were carrying papers from a clinic

proving they were disease free.

‘‘I had no idea what was happening to me. I had just turned 13

and was from a small town in Illinois. I am not even sure I quite

knew what a pimp was. I just knew that there was a big guy who

seemed to be in charge of everything, and when I tried to leave the

man, the pimp became violent and forced me back into the bedroom, and then the parade of men would start all over again.

‘‘But I was lucky, far luckier than most girls who come under

control of a trafficker. Against the odds, I escaped within a week.

But the impact on my body and mind lasted much longer. I received no reproductive or gynecological medical care after experiencing those many days and nights of serial rape by unknown men.

As a result, I became gravely ill.

‘‘At 15, I took myself to an emergency room. I just could no

longer stand the pain. I was admitted, tested, and told that my kidneys were shutting down, and with a lot of rest and IV antibiotics,

I got better for a while.’’

My question is simply this, Mr. Sheldon: How important is it

when we are reviewing these grants to hear the voices of the victims? How important is it?

Mr. SHELDON. I think it is critically important if we are going to

responsibly deal with this issue.

Mr. TOWNS. Do you really put a lot of time and weight on this?

Mr. SHELDON. You cannot go to a home, as I went to in Chicago

for those eight young girls, and hear the stories of what they have

gone through and not have an extreme amount of passion and compassion. And it will be—you know, in talking—it will be a huge

battle for them to overcome the psychological, the physical, and the

emotional trauma that they have experienced. And that is the reason that we have tried to seek out grantees that will allow these

individuals to regain their decisionmaking power.

Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Chairman, I really look forward to another hearing where we can bring in the victims and to hear from them, because I think we need to really get to the bottom of it.

I noticed in terms of Mr. Smith has done some work, but Mr.

Smith, let us not get into the blame game. This is too serious to

blame. We need to work together to make certain that we put an

end to these young people being destroyed.

So I want to thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. TOWNS. I would be delighted to yield to the chairman.

Chairman ISSA. I will assure you that our committee staff are

working right now on what might be a hearing that is much more

focused on the issues that I have worked on in the past under Judiciary, that Mr. Smith has worked on, that you are expressing here

today, the trafficking in human beings and whether or not on a

broad basis, because as you know as former chairman, our com-
61

mittee has—generally we work on the bigger issues, not the issues

that belong to one committee. So whether it is through the State

Department, Health and Human Services, even military personnel,

the question is are we doing enough and are we dealing with it in

a comprehensive way as one that I believe is within the committee’s clear jurisdiction because it falls between the cracks of many

different programs, not just the one we are looking at here today.

So that is being worked out right now between the committee

staff, and it is something that I know Mr. Smith will be back again,

I have no doubt, that when it comes to this issue he is very passionate, and I believe it will meet your satisfaction.

I yield back.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. That is very,

very encouraging.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TOWNS. I would be delighted to yield.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I thank my good friend for yielding.

I just want the record to show that since the late nineties I have

chaired well over two dozen hearings on trafficking issues, not just

on the legislation. But we heard from witness after witness, domestic and international, and it does make one really sharpen the

focus on ensuring that we do all things possible to help those victims.

Chairman ISSA. I thank all the gentlemen. The gentleman’s time

has expired.

We now go to the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg, for 5

minutes.

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and I thank the panel

for being here. I thank you for the work that you have been given

to do and you attempt to do. It is a worthy work.

I grew up on the south side of Chicago. I pastored churches and

in fact dealt with women victims in situations like this myself. My

daughter deals with victims in similar situations in Kampala,

Uganda, in a Third World country, with victims all around.

I find it very discouraging, frustrating, and saddening to sit here

in a First World country, a Nation that vested itself with the responsibility of leading the world in freedom and democracy and

safety and security and rights for all men, women, children, a Nation built on Judeo-Christian values. Whether we like it or not,

that was what we were built on, and this country succeeded in

such great ways as a result of those values, values that indeed saw

victimization as wrong, absolutely wrong and unacceptable—but a

Nation, up until just recent years, saw the full aspect of victimization to include every part of that process, including the most innocent victim, the victim that had no choice, a victim that has become

a product of victimization, and that is the unborn child as well.

You have an amazing responsibility, but a responsibility I think

that at present is neglecting to consider the further victimization

that goes on. And there will be arguments about that, but there are

huge tomes of evidence showing that further victimization of a

woman, in this case in human trafficking, to have a child victimized as well, adds to that victimization in the future.

So when I hear that apparently one supplier of assistance to

these victims of human trafficking is left out, is cut out of the mix
62

and opportunity to provide ministry to the soul, the body, to every

component part of that victim, the woman, the young girl who is

put in this heinous situation, and yet we forget about further victimization of her and the victimization of a little unborn, that is

a concern to me as well.

There are five pieces of information that must be documented as

I understand it in approving funding: one, position of the grant application ranking; two, reasons for any changes in the order of

ranking; three, if there is no rank, then a statement for why funds

were given; four, documentation as to the reason in the change of

rank; and, five, any conditions associated with the grant.

I just wanted to follow up on the second of five mandatory

documentations that you are required to give. If the application’s

position in the list of applications approved for funding is different

from its position in the ranking list, a statement of the reasons for

the difference that influenced this judgment of the approving official must be included. This should include justification for funding

of a particular application.

First of all, was the Catholic Council of Bishops’ position on the

list of ranking approved for funding different than its position in

the ranking?

Mr. SHELDON. First of all, let me thank you for the passion.

Mr. WALBERG. There is passion there, but let me get your answer

there, because I am running out of time.

Mr. SHELDON. And it is one we share. I believe yes, we clearly

met the requirements of number two that you have identified as

the reasons why we exercised the preference.

Mr. WALBERG. Let me go further then and go back to the question by Congressman Smith. Was this statement of reason reviewed by anyone outside of ACF? For instance, did anyone on the

sixth floor of HHS review this decision, and more specifically, did

Secretary Sebelius, a strong opponent of life and a supporter of

abortion on demand, did she review this?

Mr. SHELDON. This was a collaborative effort. I consulted with

other policymakers within the agency, our Office of General Counsel. I did not consult with Secretary Sebelius. I did meet with her

and inform her of the decision that I had made.

Mr. WALBERG. Was Sharon Pratt, the counselor of Human Services, is she the one you referred to?

Mr. SHELDON. Yes. She was involved, as part of many people involved, in looking at this policy decision.

Mr. WALBERG. My time has expired. I thank the chairman.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

We now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts for 5 minutes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

I mean, clearly, this seems to be a discussion about whether or

not our policy is going to allow the doctor and the victim to make

a determination of what services are best needed for medical care

as opposed to having the government limit those choices on that.

And there was an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, ‘‘When

Faith is a Barrier to Care,’’ and I just want to read a couple of excerpts from that.
63

‘‘The Roman Catholic Church and its affiliated nonprofit organizations have every right to hold true to their religious convictions

while doing good works. But when a nonprofit, religious or not, is

carrying out the government’s work with government money, it

must do so on the government’s terms.

‘‘It should go without saying that the victims of sex crimes must

be offered all possible services related to reproductive health. And

there is nothing discriminatory about requiring all applicants to

meet the agency’s specifications. It is the government’s job to determine which services will or will not be offered under public programs.

‘‘Clients of government-sponsored services should not receive significantly different levels of service depending on which organization they happen to be assigned to. Faith-based groups that want

a share of government grants and contracts must be willing to do

all the work the government outlines, not just that that conforms

to their religious doctrines.’’

I think that is a pretty fair statement.

Mr. Chairman, in your opening statement, I was concerned when

you suggested that Health and Human Services has some sort of

a litmus test and you said that Catholics need not apply. I was

brought up as a Catholic, and I would be seriously offended if I

thought that what you said was true. I think——

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. We should all be concerned. In my

opinion, that is a very unfortunate statement for you to have made,

a very unhelpful characterization. And I don’t think it is supported

at all by the evidence in this situation. And I want to talk to Mr.

Sheldon about that.

Some characterization was made that the decision not to award

the bishops this particular grant is somehow discriminating

against the entire Catholic Church. In fact, the title of today’s

hearing frames Health and Human Services as being in conflict

with the Catholic Church. So I want to give you an opportunity to

address that directly.

Earlier this year, press accounts reported that Health and

Human Services awarded the bishops a $19 million grant to help

foreign refugees in America. Now, I think that roughly would be

seven times the amount that they requested in the grant we are

talking about today. Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. That is correct. As a matter of fact, that award

was made 4 days after the decision was made on this particular

grant.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

And in fiscal year 2011, the bishops received a total of $32 million in grants from Health and Human Services alone. Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate.

Mr. TIERNEY. And in your testimony today, you said, over the

last 3 years, Health and Human Services has provided more than

$650 million to Catholic organizations. Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. That is correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. A lot of people would probably like to be discriminated against like that.
64

That includes numerous grants to the bishops, to various Catholic charities, and to other Catholic organizations across the country.

Is that right?

Mr. SHELDON. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. So, Mr. Sheldon, has Health and Human Services

awarded Catholic organizations more or less money in the last 3

years than in the previous 3-year period under the Bush administration?

Mr. SHELDON. I can’t speak with absolute certainty, but I believe

we have actually expended more.

Mr. TIERNEY. And do you view the U.S. Conference of Catholic

Bishops as a continuing partner in the fight against trafficking?

Mr. SHELDON. There is no question about it.

Mr. TIERNEY. So, Mr. Chairman, I think, you know, based on this

information, that the grant funding to Catholic organizations and

entities has greatly increased under the current administration.

That would contradict the whole underlying premise of this hearing, that somehow this administration is politically predisposed

against working with Catholic organizations.

And I think it brings us back full cycle to this is really an issue

about whether or not victims will get a full range of health-care

services or we will try to somehow limit that. And so I——

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. Don’t think your contention has been

accurate here. And I think the administration is doing more with

Catholic groups, not less.

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. TIERNEY. Certainly.

Chairman ISSA. Hopefully to make the record complete, the question was more narrow than you may have—or nuanced than you

thought, and this hearing’s question is more nuanced.

What we are looking at is the question of, should—if this was an

edict, if this was a requirement, that the full range of reproductive

services was a mandate in order to be awarded this contract, we

wouldn’t be having this hearing, because it would have been clear

within the spec that, as you said, what should be, in your view, a

requirement was not a requirement. And that is the reason we are

having the question——

Mr. TIERNEY. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, that is certainly the ostensible purpose of this hearing but not what I perceive to be the actual purpose of this hearing. Because I think the

evidence is more than clear that this was done in a process that

was open, where applicants were made perfectly aware that this

preference existed, and where the process was done in the right

manner. But I think the underlying argument, again, is whether

or not a victim is going to have their health-care services limited

or not.

I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman for his comments, although the prerogative of the chair is not to state one reason and

have another. This hearing is narrow, and it is based on exactly

what I said it was. And I hope the gentleman did not mean to

imply that the chair is being either disingenuous or outright lying

as to the purpose of this committee hearing.
65

And we now go to the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lankford,

for 5 minutes.

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Sheldon, as well, for being here.

Mr. Negash, thank you for being here.

Have the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops received a low

ranking from the previous years of service?

Mr. SHELDON. They provided a strong performance under the requirements of the contract that they had.

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay. So they had not received, you know, bad

marks, bad rankings, complaints from victims coming in saying

that we didn’t get the proper care?

Mr. SHELDON. No.

Mr. LANKFORD. I noticed as I went through the documents here

from some of the reviewers that there were frequent comments

about how they covered all six areas and how they were able to

provide a national focus on that.

Had abortion been a criteria before, in the provision of abortion

or the recommendation of abortion? Was that a previous—in the

2006 release of all the grants, was there a statement there to say

you need to provide abortion and contraceptives?

Mr. SHELDON. The issue of providing referral to the full range of

gynecological services was not included.

Mr. LANKFORD. No, it is not just full range of gynecological services, because Medicaid has 200 different areas. So is there something in that 200 areas for Medicaid or the full range of gynecological services that you would look at and say, this, this, and this?

Are there 50 of those that they don’t provide? Are there 10 of

those? Or is this just abortion?

Mr. SHELDON. Well, I think the question was what was in the

previous contract.

Mr. LANKFORD. Correct.

Mr. SHELDON. And the previous contract did not refer to the

issue of gynecological——

Mr. LANKFORD. Right. But I hear you using that term, the ‘‘full

range of care,’’ but it is really not full range of care, because there

is a provision for full range of care with the exception of abortion.

And even with the abortion provision, you know, there are issues

even within that. Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. The Catholic Bishops also indicated an unwillingness to provide family planning services. And since you were

quoting reviewers’ comments, the reviewers indicated that USCCB

states it does not intend to provide any family planning services,

which is important to sex trafficking. As such, USCCB may not be

able to sufficiently accomplish all six objectives of the program.

Mr. LANKFORD. Right. And then they ended the document with

this statement: ‘‘I recommend approving the grantee for $2.5 million.’’ To lower grantees, their grantees end with this statement:

‘‘Application not recommended for funding.’’

Mr. SHELDON. The document that you are referring to I have

never seen. I have heard about it in the last couple days——

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay. Well, we had obviously requested these

documents. We had not seen it either until just last night. Going

through these documents, I know you mentioned there are
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strengths and weaknesses listed on all of them, but the others don’t

end with the statement, ‘‘Application not recommended for funding.’’

It is especially interesting to me in this process, because I look

through there, there is a preference, obviously, for the different regions, nationwide. Catholic Conference, they are nationwide. The

only other nationwide was the USCRI, who received a score of 69.

They were funded.

Now, I have to tell you, that is a gutsy score, considering sitting

next to you is the director of ORR that is involved in this, who previously was the COO of USCRI. So they knew this was going to go

up to his desk, who, obviously—you are going to recuse yourself

from the decision process. But someone involved in the process—

I mean, that is just a gutsy thing to do, is to say, ‘‘I recommend

this group over this group’’ when they know their boss used to

work for the other group and obviously has a priority for that. So

somebody that has 20 points lower in a grant scoring gets the

award than someone who had it 20 points higher.

There are just a million issues in the middle of all this. To say—

if the clear issue is, if you can provide great care in every area for

human trafficking except abortion, we don’t accept you. If you care

in all six areas, you have great expertise, you have great skills, but

if you don’t do abortions, we won’t do this.

Now, the considerations are frequent. You know very well from

working with victims of human trafficking, they often fall right

back into it again. They are identified, then there are repeats, and

they steal them off to other cities, and you have all kinds of issues

and care for them. So, at times, you are taking a victim of human

trafficking who is now pregnant, get them an abortion, they can

immediately be snatched back up, taken to another city, and you

have just put them right back in that situation again.

So, to say if a person is raped in a human trafficking situation,

the best thing we can do is get them to an abortion, and so the possibility of them getting right back on the street, and if you don’t

do that, we won’t let you help in any of these areas and walk

alongside you in this, to me is a very strange mark. You can help

in all six of the comprehensive areas, but if you don’t do abortions—specifically not just allow them, but promote them—if you

don’t promote abortions, then we won’t let you help. That is the

concern here.

Eighty-nine to 69 is a pretty wide spread. ‘‘Did not recommend

for funding’’ is a pretty strong statement to then reverse that and

say, no, you are going to get the preference.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman may respond if he would like to.

Mr. SHELDON. Two observations. One is that that document was

never brought to my attention.

Second, when I understand that document was written, that was

prior to the responses which we requested from the applicants,

which had been in direct response to reviewers’ comments that

there was not sufficient detail in all of the applications.

Chairman ISSA. For the record, they were written on the same

day, September 9th. So you may want to check the timeline, but

it appears that that occurred.
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Additionally, for the gentleman, just to clear the record, Mr.

Negash is the former head of that organization, and the person

that was previously Mr. Negash’s individual predecessor is now the

head. So it is a close relationship, that basically the two switched

places between that agency and the government and the government and that agency. But Mr. Negash did recuse himself.

With that, we recognize the gentleman from Virginia for 5 minutes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for

having this hearing.

I must say that listening to some opine on this subject, not here

of course, one is a little alarmed that some would become a latterday Torquemada, willingly reinstating the Inquisition, only this

time against the secular state.

No member of this committee or of the body, the Congress, can

purport to speak for the Catholic Church or for all Catholics. And

I say that respectfully to my colleagues as a Catholic. We may actually, in a pluralistic society, as Catholics, have different points of

view. And I would hope that difference in a pluralistic republic

would be respected.

We can disagree, but the idea that dissent and disagreement are

to be somehow suppressed is not America, nor is it the American

Catholic Church in America as I understood it growing up as a

Roman Catholic who went for many years, through college, in

Catholic education. So nobody speaks for me as an American

Catholic and especially in a pluralistic society where we are trying

to grapple with serious issues.

Now, I hope this hearing is the narrow scope the chairman has

said, but I am alarmed that the minority was denied witnesses; I

am alarmed that new documents at the last minute are entered in

the record, not shared with the minority but in the possession, apparently, of the majority for some time; I am alarmed when people

use hyperbolic rhetoric which might suggest to some, certainly not

to me, that actually the purpose of the hearing, as Mr. Tierney suggested, is to try to smear the Obama administration with a label

that, if true, would be very disturbing. And as a Catholic, I would

like to believe it is not true. In fact, there is plenty of prima facie

evidence that it is not.

I reiterate the question, Mr. Sheldon: Did you say that, in fact,

in the last several years, $650 million has gone through your agency alone to Catholic entities in America? Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. In the last 3 years.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And, Mr. Negash, you are in the refugee business. I assume Catholic Relief Services is the recipient of Federal

money for refugee resettlement and care.

Mr. NEGASH. That is correct.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Would you speak up? We can’t hear you, sir.

Mr. NEGASH. That is correct.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Any idea about the amounts?

Mr. NEGASH. I believe that within the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the Catholic Bishops received more money than any other

grantee.

Mr. CONNOLLY. More money than any other grantee.

Mr. NEGASH. I believe so.
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Mr. CONNOLLY. And would it also be true that CRS would be—

which is a wonderful organization; I have worked with it in my

past—is also the recipient of AID dollars and PL–480, Food for

Peace, dollars and commodities?

Mr. NEGASH. I am not sure what type——

Mr. CONNOLLY. Take a guess.

Mr. NEGASH [continuing]. Of funding they have.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yeah, I think the answer is a big ‘‘yes.’’

So the idea that there is some systematic attempt to—a bias implemented against the Catholic Church or Catholic entities is a

libel and not true.

In fact, is it not true, Mr. Sheldon, just from your agency alone

and I think maybe a few others that the Obama administration has

provided $100 million more to Catholic entities than the Bush administration? Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. From what I have seen, it is. But I can’t speak

with——

Mr. CONNOLLY. And did you testify to Mr. Tierney that, as a

matter of fact, your agency, after making the decision about this

grant, actually awarded subsequent grants to the Catholic Bishops?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate—$19 million 4 days later.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. So we have pretty much put to rest whether there is a Catholic bias in this administration. There isn’t.

But the second concern I have is, what is the mission here of this

grant award? It is to service victims of sexual exploitation against

their will. Is that not correct?

Mr. SHELDON. A substantial portion of those individuals who are

victims of trafficking——

Mr. CONNOLLY. And is it true that the average victim is first victimized somewhere between the age of 10 and 14?

Mr. SHELDON. The numbers I have seen indicate—personally, I

know of victims as young as 12.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And did you indicate that one of the needs they

have is family planning services, the wide array, including contraception, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases

that, obviously, unfortunately, tragically, come with the sexual exploitation? Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And did you indicate that, in this particular case,

the Catholic Bishops indicated they would not provide such services?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Irrespective of the mission of the grant.

Mr. SHELDON. The issue of family planning services they indicated they would not——

Mr. CONNOLLY. And is that the reason why ultimately, despite

their ranking, the decision was made not to give them the grant

in this one case because of the mission involved?

Mr. SHELDON. A determination was made that there were three

other applicants who were equally qualified who were willing to

provide family planning and the full array of gynecological services.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank you. My time is up.

Mr. GOWDY [presiding]. Mr. Sheldon, did the Catholic Bishops receive previous grants?
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Mr. SHELDON. Yes.

Mr. GOWDY. And when was that?

Mr. SHELDON. Catholic Bishops have been receiving grants from

the Department of HHS for a long period of time.

Mr. GOWDY. I mean specifically with respect to human trafficking.

Mr. SHELDON. Yes, they——

Mr. GOWDY. Did they receive a 5-year contract immediately preceding this?

Mr. SHELDON. They received a contract I believe in the year

2006.

Mr. GOWDY. Ending in 2011.

Mr. SHELDON. That is correct.

Mr. GOWDY. All right. Was reproductive health not an issue

then?

Mr. SHELDON. I was not here then, nor was this administration

here then.

Mr. GOWDY. You didn’t take the grant from them in 2010 because of a failure to provide certain reproductive health services,

did you?

Mr. SHELDON. We extended the contract, as I recall.

Mr. GOWDY. Right. And you have no issues with the performance

of their contract.

Mr. SHELDON. They had a strong performance under the requirements of that contract.

Mr. GOWDY. In fact, and I will use quotes from your entity, they

properly provided case management; high level of program competence; responsive to the needs of subcontractors, clients, and

other entities; able to successfully provide trafficking-specific services to clients.

So if they had scored a 92 but still kept to their faith beliefs,

would they have gotten the contract?

Mr. SHELDON. They can still be true to their faith beliefs. As a

matter of fact, sub-grantees of the current vendors have Catholic

affiliations, and they can remain true to their Catholic teaching.

Mr. GOWDY. Well, you said that there were equally qualified subcontractors. Why do you have a point system if you are going to

ignore it?

Mr. SHELDON. As I indicated in previous questions, the points

were applied before we received responses as to the additional detail which the reviewers indicated they——

Mr. GOWDY. Who is Jay Womack?

Mr. SHELDON. Jay Womack is director of the——

Mr. NEGASH. He is the deputy director of the program.

Mr. GOWDY. Did he recommend giving the grant to the Catholic

Bishops?

Mr. SHELDON. I don’t know that he made a recommendation, but

I can’t——

Mr. GOWDY. But there was a recommendation made to give them

the contract.

Mr. SHELDON. As I indicated in the previous question, that document I never saw. I have heard it was around. But that would have

been a recommendation, and that would have been a recommendation that would be made to policymakers, not career staff.
70

Mr. GOWDY. There are 200-some-odd gynecological services that

are included. Did you ask the Catholic Bishops what percentage of

those 200 they were willing to perform?

Mr. SHELDON. No. We asked them if they were willing to refer—

not perform, refer—to entities that would provide the full range of

gynecological services.

Mr. GOWDY. All right. And, of the 200, how many were they willing to refer?

Mr. SHELDON. They did not indicate in their application or in my

request back to them for clarification.

Mr. GOWDY. Did you ask the victims of human trafficking whether or not they were satisfied with the performance of the Catholic

Bishops?

Mr. SHELDON. Well, I was not around to talk to each of the individual victims that were served under this contract at the time. I

have talked to other victims, as well as experts in this field, who

have indicated that referral for the full range of gynecological services is an appropriate requirement for these individuals who have

been victimized, forced into prostitution.

Mr. GOWDY. So, you agree with me that it is dispositive. It is not

just a strong preference, this is not just a preference, it is dispositive. Because, the truth be told, if the Catholic Bishops had scored

a 100, you still wouldn’t have picked them.

Mr. SHELDON. That is not necessarily accurate.

Mr. GOWDY. Well, would you have? If they had scored a 100—

is an 89 not enough?

Mr. SHELDON. Well, I was dealing with the facts in front of me,

not——

Mr. GOWDY. Okay, well, assume this fact then. If they had scored

a 95, would that have been high enough?

Mr. SHELDON. I cannot—without looking at the facts, the other

applicants, I cannot respond to a hypothetical.

Mr. GOWDY. Well, you can’t tell me what percentage of the 200

services they were willing to provide or refer. You can’t tell me

what score would have been good enough to get a contract that

they performed successfully on for 5 years. And that leaves me

with the conclusion to draw, based on the evidence, that it is dispositive whether or not you will refer for abortion services. And you

deny that?

Mr. SHELDON. I do not think that is a good conclusion.

Mr. GOWDY. Okay. Well, then, tell me what they should have

done to get the contract. Other than score the second-highest score,

be recommended by your own people, and perform well previously,

what else should they have done?

Mr. SHELDON. Mr. Chairman, I went back to the Catholic

Bishops and asked them what their alternative was. They did not

provide an alternative.

Mr. GOWDY. Well, let me suggest an alternative, because during

the litany of things that you say you have given grants to the

Catholic Church for, it was also to improve the parenting skills of

men. Did you consider giving them a human trafficking grant for

only male victims?

Mr. SHELDON. I did not.
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Mr. GOWDY. Did you consider giving them a human trafficking

grant for only labor trafficking victims where there was not sexual

abuse?

Mr. SHELDON. We did not.

Mr. GOWDY. The gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Welch.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

In 2006, ABC News—you, I am sure, remember this—

‘‘Primetime’’ premiered a story of a 15-year-old girl called Debbie

from suburban Phoenix. She had been tricked by a casual friend

into getting into a car with two older men. She was kidnapped

from her own driveway. One of the assailants put a gun to her

head and threatened to shoot her if she made any noise. And she

was taken to an apartment. She was repeatedly gang-raped by four

men. Debbie’s captors then put advertisements on Craigslist and

were earning hundreds of dollars a night forcing her into prostitution.

She was forced literally to sleep in a dog crate. Remained captive

for more than 40 days. She was threatened by her captors that

they would hurt her family and throw battery acid in her face and

on her 19-month-old niece if she tried to escape. Eventually, the police found her tied up in a drawer under the bed.

Mr. Negash, I mean, I am asking kind of an obvious question.

What psychological and physical traumas are experienced by girls

who have lived through ordeals like this? And, unfortunately,

Debbie is not the only one.

Mr. NEGASH. This issue for me has been very, very difficult, simply because I spent almost 30 years of my life providing service to

victims. I think whether the victims were trafficked or refugees,

you know, it is a life-changing experience.

But in this discussion I think we need to keep in mind that ultimately what we are trying to achieve is to provide the best possible

services to the victims. If there is one thing that the victim actually

always desire, it is to have the freedom to choose, the freedom to

live independently. I believe the trauma of being a victim and the

trauma of being a refugee and going through a process of being tortured and raped and humiliated is a trauma—it is a lifelong trauma. It is a scar that the client will always have.

Mr. WELCH. You know, there was a University of Pennsylvania

study that said the average age of girls in the United States that

were forced into commercial sexual exploitation was between 12

and 14.

Mr. Sheldon, does the fact that the victims are so young when

they are sexually exploited impact the kind of services they need

and how you deliver them? And I would like you to elaborate on

that, if you would.

Mr. SHELDON. There is no question. As I indicated earlier, the

eight young women that I visited in Chicago have had such huge

psychological scars. It is a lot like domestic violence. You are afraid

of your perpetrator, but you are also afraid of the unknown. Can

I survive outside of this?

Mr. WELCH. Right.

Mr. SHELDON. And their hope for the future, their whole self-respect, their self-image has been entirely destroyed. And that is the
72

reason that I think we feel, as an agency, that providing the kind

of effective case management——

Mr. WELCH. Uh-huh.

Mr. SHELDON [continuing]. So that these individuals are given

back the freedom that has been taken away from them.

Mr. WELCH. And that full range of case management services,

how does ensuring that girls like Debbie get referrals for the full

range of family planning services that can help them rebuild their

lives?

Mr. SHELDON. Well, I think that that is the reason we have case

management agencies, to provide to them the array of options that

are out there. Ultimately, it is that victim that we are trying to empower, it is the victim that will decide what services they will avail

themselves of or what services they will deny.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the witnesses, and

I want to thank the chairman for the hearing, and yield back.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WELCH. I will yield to Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to follow up on one of Mr. Gowdy’s questions.

If the other organizations, if they said to you, ‘‘We will not provide these services,’’ or gave similar language to what the Catholic

Bishops did, I am just wondering, would they have suffered, perhaps, the same fate? Are you following my question?

Mr. SHELDON. I am following your question. It would depend on

what the other applicants—what the range of options were for the

Department. And, in this particular case, we had three other applicants who were competent and the reviewers’ comments indicate

had the experience, with USCRI, 100 years of experience, in dealing with refugees and trafficking victims. So it would depend on

what our other alternatives were. In this case, we had three qualified alternatives.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. GOWDY. The gentlelady from New York, Ms. Buerkle.

Ms. BUERKLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you to our panelists for being here this morning and

for testifying here.

I am co-chair of the Human Trafficking Committee for the Women’s Caucus. So this is an issue that is very near and dear to me.

And I understand the issue and the scope of the issue, and I understand—I have spoken on the topic. I am also a health care professional and spent many years in the domestic violence arena. So

what we are talking about here today really, for me, is about the

dignity of the woman and the victim.

And I have to say, Mr. Sheldon, that—and I understand the

scope of the hearing, and the chairman has laid it out and continued to emphasize the point about what we are here to talk about.

But I think what concerns me most are your opening comments

and some of the things you said with regards to this issue.

Now, we have agreed on both sides of the aisle and you have testified that a lot of these young women and these victims are ages

12, 14. And so one of the things I hear is that we are now going

to ask them to make decisions that are going to compound, and my

colleague mentioned, compound the trauma—life-changing deci-
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sions. And you are putting them before people who only will think

one way.

And you talked about, and I will quote you, getting advice from

people they trust. So, in my mind, what you are saying is those

who don’t offer abortion services they can’t trust. What is it about

the Catholic Conference that they couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t

be allowed to be in and to get that grant? So that concerns me.

I think the biggest concern is the age of these kids, and you are

putting them in situations—they have no idea. They have been

traumatized, they are young, they are not competent to make those

kinds of decisions. And yet you are only offering them, given what

has happened here and who has gotten these grants, you are only

offering them one round of choices, and that is that abortion is

probably the best choice to deal with your problem. And that is not

fair to that woman, because we don’t know, and I would say you

don’t know, the trauma of abortion. And my colleague mentioned

it already, it may only add to the victimization of what she has

gone through.

You talked about this—you specified a strong preference for

those who provide this full range of services. And the chairman

talked about that. What is the strong preference? I mean, even

with factoring in in the one section about full range of services, the

Catholic Conference of Bishops, they achieved that 89 percent

score. How do you define a strong preference?

Mr. SHELDON. I think I have been talking about that.

But let me articulate that nondirective counseling does not mean

that you provide counseling which supports abortion. The question

is whether you are willing to lay out for that individual what options they have available. In the case of the Catholic Bishops, there

was an unwillingness to provide this option. And I recognize the

sensitivity of this.

I also believe that when you are dealing with case management

agencies, particularly in the arena of human trafficking, there is a

recognition of what is age-appropriate counseling. There is a recognition of the age of that individual and the difficulty that a child,

as you have indicated, who has been enslaved for in cases a year

to 3 years, the difficulty that child has in comprehending what is

happening in their lives.

Ms. BUERKLE. My time is clicking down here, and I want to

make sure—I just want to get—because one of the other things you

said is you want to make sure we offer those young victims, those

victims, any victims, the best possible choices and the freedom to

choose. And isn’t having the Catholic Conference of Bishops and

someone with a proven track record and someone who has given

the whole range of services—food, clothing, shelter, legal help—

they were recommended to get the grant, and you have excluded

them. And so, therefore, I don’t think that you have given these

victims a full range of choices and the right to choose the services

that they so deserve and they so need.

With that, I will yield back my time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GOWDY. The chair thanks the gentlelady from New York and

would now recognize the gentlelady from the District of Columbia,

Ms. Holmes Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
74

I couldn’t disagree more with the gentlelady, who judges the

issue by the exclusion of some services from victims.

This is a rare, if not unprecedented, hearing. And I just want to

say for the record, this is a hearing about public money. No one is

entitled to a grant in the United States, faith-based or otherwise.

There is no preference for any group to receive a grant. And each

funding cycle is a new cycle.

Public money in our country comes from people with many different backgrounds and many different views. They come

particularly——

Ms. BUERKLE. Would the gentlelady——

Ms. NORTON. No, I am going to continue.

They come particularly from people with many different religious

views.

So there is only one issue here. And that issue, it seems to me,

is whether HHS followed or failed to follow the objective procedures

for awarding a grant to victims, whoever is the organization. I

don’t see how Congress can be concerned with any but two issues:

Were the procedures followed, and are we paying attention, first

and foremost, to the victims, as opposed to the organizations, who,

after all, in our system are in competition with one another.

Now, so let me go through the processes to see whether any of

the procedures were violated. Because the majority has suggested

that HHS failed to follow its procedures. And I can’t find it, but I

want to cross-examine you on that view.

The only thing I find in the act is the prohibition on organizations that support the legalization of prostitution, and no one has

raised that as an issue here. And so I don’t think the statute, as

such, can be said to have been violated.

So if we look, then, at the internal grant guidelines—and that is

all we are entitled to do—there is a policy statement that says, ‘‘an

advisory review of discretionary grant applications conducted by a

minimum of three unbiased reviewers with expertise in the programmatic area for which applications are submitted.’’ The objective reviewer scoring is, and here I am quoting again, ‘‘intended to

provide advice to individuals responsible for making award decisions.’’

Now, Mr. Sheldon, the independent panel had to score the applications, but the scores were advisory and not dispositive. Is that

the case?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate.

Ms. NORTON. The panel scored the applications, provided its advice, and so I can’t see that the internal policies were violated.

So let’s look at the funding announcement. Because the bishops

applied even given what the announcement said. We don’t have to

conform the announcement with the organization. We are supposed

to conform the announcement with what the victims may need.

‘‘May’’ is the operative word there.

The funding announcement stated four separate times that—in

four different places that HHS would give strong preference to

grantees that would refer victims to family planning services.

Now, the document—and this is what I want to question you

about—also said that scores would be one element in the decisionmaking process and that they would not include a reduction in
75

points for those applicants who were not able to provide a full

range of referrals. I would like you to explain that.

And after explaining that, my question, of course, is, do you

think all of the procedures were followed?

Mr. SHELDON. Yes. And let me articulate, as I have before, I

think the reviewers did a very good job. And they indicated

strengths and weaknesses in all of the applications and indicated

that all of the applicants did not provide sufficient detail in several

areas. Then they scored. Based on their requests for additional detail, we went back to all the applicants and requested additional

information.

The answer to your second question is, yes, I believe that we

complied with all of the grant requirements——

Ms. NORTON. You did not reduce the points?

Mr. SHELDON. Pardon me?

Ms. NORTON. You did not reduce points for applicants who were

not able to provide a full range of referrals?

Mr. SHELDON. We did not.

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

I would now ask unanimous consent that the ‘‘Attorney General’s

Annual Report to Congress and Assessment of U.S. Government

Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons (Fiscal Year 2009),’’

published 2010, be admitted into the record.

Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]
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77

Chairman ISSA. We now recognize the gentleman from Texas,

Mr. Farenthold, for 5 minutes.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, Mr. Sheldon, Mr. Negash, thank you for being here.

Let’s, kind of, get the cards on the table here. Just from having

listened to the questions on, in light of the scope of this hearing,

the full range of permissible gynecological and obstetric care services kind of boils down to abortions or contraception. Would that

be a fair statement?

Mr. SHELDON. There is a range, but in the discussion here it appears that that is what the questioning is on.

Chairman ISSA. If the gentleman would yield, for the record,

there are three. There is also sterilization. Those are the only three

for which the Catholic Bishops had an objection to providing, out

of 200.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I think in your discussion with Mr. Gowdy, Mr. Sheldon, the

question basically came down to, was the unwillingness of the

Catholic Bishops to provide these three services dispositive of their

application? I mean——

Mr. SHELDON. These funding announcements, we looked at the

totality and determined that all four applicants had the competence

to administer the grant. Ultimately, it came down to exercising the

preference.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And so you couldn’t imagine any scenario in

which the Catholic Bishops or any other group who refused to refer

these three type of services would be awarded this grant?

Mr. SHELDON. That is not accurate, respectfully, that it would

have been—because a lot of the sub-grantees of the current grantees have the same religious faith, the same religious belief. But

they have—basically, those organizations have worked with those

individuals so that they would not have to violate their Catholic

teachings.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Well, I mean, it seems to me there are two

separate Federal laws, the Weldon amendment and the CoatsSnowe amendment, that specifically prohibit HHS from discriminating against health-care providers that do not perform or refer

to abortion. Why do you think those aren’t applicable here?

Mr. SHELDON. I checked with general counsel on this, but let me

point out that, as I indicated, that sub-grantees are faith-based organizations who share the religious belief of the Catholic Bishops,

are still providing services under this contract. But victims who require the additional services outlined are not served by that individual sub-grantee.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. I am not sure that answered my

question, but just because I have already used up more than half

of my time, I do want to follow up with a couple of questions with

respect to what you just said about the victims’ desire or need for

these services.

Have any of your organizations ever conducted an evaluation of

human trafficking victims to ask them how important they consider

these services to be?

Mr. SHELDON. Yes. There is research in that arena that we will

be happy to provide the committee.
78

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I would like to see this, because, again, I think

we run into a situation where, as, again, Mr. Gowdy pointed out,

of the 2,271 victims that the USCCB helped, almost—well, 988

were men and 1,283 were females. Does this sound correct to you?

Mr. SHELDON. I am not sure I can speak to personal knowledge.

Mr. NEGASH. I don’t have the figures with me, but we can get

back to you with that.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. But a good percentage of them were

men. That would be a fair statement? I mean——

Mr. NEGASH. Again, you know, I will have to get that information.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And so, guys don’t require OB/GYN services,

right?

Mr. NEGASH. That is correct.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And so, USCCB could continue to service men

without any problem related to this. Would that be correct?

Mr. NEGASH. That is correct.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And what about the females who were currently in the process with USCCB? What happens to these women?

Mr. SHELDON. As I indicated earlier, the USCCB has been very

cooperative to assure that victims that are currently being served

continue to be served. And I would have to compliment them on the

smoothness by which we have made this transition.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And, finally, again, I think Mr. Gowdy pointed

out and I would like to reiterate again, not all victims of human

trafficking are involved in the sex trade. There is slavery for labor

and other purposes.

Mr. SHELDON. Yes. I think the numbers who were actually

served under the contract who were victims of sex trafficking was

approximately 19 percent. The broader numbers that we have seen

indicate a much higher percentage of not only sex trafficking but

a combination of sex and labor trafficking.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. You know, I just remain troubled that the U.S.

Catholic Bishops were discriminated here for their faith-based belief and unwillingness to provide abortions. And I just want to be

on the record that I and I think many members on this panel are

troubled by this. Whether it actually violates the letter of the law,

as I referred to earlier, I think it clearly violates the spirit of those

laws. And I am extremely disappointed at the way this is handled.

I will yield back.

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Certainly.

Chairman ISSA. I would just like to, since you brought this point

up, to clarify for the record.

So the figures you have been giving all day of these higher numbers, much higher numbers, are not the numbers within this program but numbers that are not supported either by the Attorney

General’s annual report to Congress or by the actual numbers reported by the previous oversight for 5 years of these activities

under your jurisdiction. Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. They are not a reflection, but I would be happy

to provide the committee with the research that we have seen in

this arena.
79

Chairman ISSA. Well, any independent research we would appreciate having.

I would ask that the clerks annotate anyplace the witnesses answered to higher numbers or agreed to higher numbers, that they

annotate the actual numbers that are in the record from Health

and Human Services and, appropriately, the Attorney General’s Office. Because we want to make sure that the misstatements that

you made earlier in agreeing to much higher numbers are corrected

for the actual numbers that occurred.

With that, we recognize—with that, we have concluded on that

side, so we would now go to Mr. Kelly of Pennsylvania.

Mr. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you both, Mr. Sheldon and Mr. Negash, for being

here.

And I have been looking through this, and I know the question

really today was, was the Catholic Church discriminated against?

And so I go back in and I am looking and I am seeing that there

is language that I am wondering about, regarding the development

of the language giving preference to applicants that provide all reproductive services. And I read through and it says, for the first

time—this is the first time ever—this grant, ‘‘The director will give

strong preference to applicants that are willing to offer all the services and referrals delineated under the project objectives. Applicants that are unwilling to provide the full range of services and

referrals under the project objectives must indicate this in their

narrative.’’

Now, what I am trying to understand, was there any discussion

at all when they developed this language about the conscience

clause?

Mr. SHELDON. This language was developed—I have only been

the Assistant Secretary for 6 months. This language was developed

before I came to the agency.

Mr. KELLY. And I think—so you don’t know. Does anybody know

how the language was developed?

Mr. NEGASH. The——

Mr. KELLY. Because this is the first time this has ever happened.

And, obviously, the Council of Catholic Bishops have a pretty good

track record because I am hearing how much money they have gotten in the past, and they were granted this money before, they

have had it for 3 years, and they have done a pretty good job with

it. But it comes down to this one issue.

Mr. NEGASH. The drafting of the funding announcement is a very

collaborative process. In that process, the policy experts, the Office

of General Counsel, and career employees were involved. So I believe that through the process of developing the funding announcement, throughout the process we have been consulting the Office

of General Counsel to make sure that the statement, and especially

the services to be provided, is consistent with existing statutes and

law.

Mr. KELLY. Okay. But there is existing language out there under

a conscience clause. So I am asking, was there any draft that included anywhere in there the conscience clause?
80

Mr. NEGASH. Again, throughout the process of developing this

announcement, we had consulted the Office of General Counsel to

make sure——

Mr. KELLY. And I understand you consulted the Office of General

Counsel. And, you know, in my lifetime, I know that there is a

huge difference between what is legal and what is right. And I

know we debate this all the time.

But you could structure the language of this grant that would

eliminate the conscience clause. And this is what bothers us. And

I think when I look at your scoring and I see how high the Council

of Catholic Bishops have scored and I know their track record—and

I think this is where the question comes in: Why? Why now? Why

do we go away from the way we used to look at things? Why do

we have a score and then disregard the score and say, ‘‘These folks

came in pretty high, but you know what? Not high enough, because

they didn’t agree to provide all?’’

And I am asking, where is the conscience clause involved in it

all? And I would like to know if you have any documents, including

emails or any language or anything at all that is applicable, that

you could supply it to this committee. Because I have to tell you,

just coming from a private background, I look at this and I say, you

know what? We got gamed on this. We structured this so tightly,

we put language in there that would preclude the Catholic Bishops

participating, even though they have a great track record, even

though they score so high, even though they outscore other people.

And it comes down to, so why was that language put in there? And

why the disregard of the conscience clause? Why?

And while it may be legal, and maybe that is the fulcrum that

it turned on or the point that it turned on, I have to tell you, it

is very disappointing for me, not just as a Member of Congress, as

a citizen of the United States, to look and say, so you know what?

They didn’t do what you wanted them to do, so we structured language to keep them out of the hall. We fixed it, we gamed it so they

couldn’t participate.

All the good work they have done, everything indicated in their

past history was negated by the language. That is not right, gentlemen. It is not right. It doesn’t make sense to me. It is not American. And, to me, this is absolutely pathetic that we have to have

a hearing to discuss this. This is so obvious to me a way of eliminating faith-based people from being able to participate by structuring language that would leave them out.

And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. KELLY. Yes, I will.

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Sheldon, you did deliver, HHS delivered us

a conference call memo from August 11, 2011. Are you familiar

with the document?

Mr. SHELDON. No.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. Well, I am now familiar with it, and it

very much goes to Mr. Kelly’s statement.

When reading the document in ordinary English, it becomes obvious that every single part of what is entitled the ‘‘National Human

Trafficking Victims Assistance Program Review Panel Conference

Call of August 11’’—and I could even give you the passcode, but I
81

suspect it doesn’t work anymore—what it shows me is that you put

a number on everything except the preference that Mr. Gowdy,

when sitting here in the chair, made clear was so great that 20

points was weighted for it.

How do you answer today that you put over 20 points on this

strong preference? Because you put a number on it; the number

was the difference between 69 and 89 or greater. How do you tell

us today that you would have in a legitimate way weighted 20

points or more on this?

Mr. SHELDON. As I indicated earlier, we took the reviewers’ comments, the scores, the responses to our questions back to applicants

which the reviewers had indicated had a lack of detail in all of the

applicants’ scores, all of that into consideration in making a final

decision. I believe that——

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Sheldon, please answer the question—the

time has expired—if you can, briefly.

Mr. SHELDON. No, that is——

Chairman ISSA. Okay. Then we will get it in a follow-up.

Mr. Labrador is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. LABRADOR. I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman yields back to me, so now we

have 5 minutes.

Mr. SHELDON. Okay.

Chairman ISSA. Let’s go over this again. The numbers are the

numbers: 20 points, which is roughly—you know, it is more than

25 percent difference. When you are looking at the delta between

89 and 69, you realize, forget about the 110 hypothetical, this is a

huge difference.

You said you take responsibility for it, even though the committee sees the hands of other political appointees very much involved in this. And they did make trips to the sixth floor, and they

did have consultation with the Secretary directly. And we believe

that that is part of our overall investigation.

But the question for you, with the gentleman from Idaho’s time:

You didn’t put a weighting, an analytical weighting—at the end of

it all, the recommendation by civil servants, by career personnel,

before political appointees with a pro-abortion bent in mind, before

they weighed in, you had a career professional consensus that the

Council of Catholic Bishops organization should have been included

for all or part of this. So it was deemed not acceptable over a single

issue. The issue, the code issue, is these health services, which is

basically abortion, contraceptive, and sterilization—3 out of 200.

Now, I ask you today, is there any way this committee can legitimately not believe that the preference, the strong preference, represented at least 20 points or more than 25 percent difference, thus

making it virtually impossible for an organization that was not

going to essentially administer and pay for abortions to have this

preference? Was there any way that I can reach another conclusion?

Mr. SHELDON. As I indicated, we looked at the reviewers’ comments, we looked at the scores, and we looked at the answers to

the questions that the reviewers indicated had not been provided

in sufficient detail in making a policy——
82

Chairman ISSA. No, no, no, you are going back to your talking

points. We are not worried about the absence of detail. The fact is,

you gave a second bite and a third bite at the apple to groups you

wanted to qualify, or that HHS wanted to qualify.

Now, one of the considerations this committee has to look at

broadly is, the damage is done. This complaint did not come from

the Catholic Bishops; this complaint came from our recognition

that if you can use this kind of political-appointee judgment based

on whether or not somebody will provide abortions, then can’t HHS

start having a strong preference to avoid doctors who will not do

referrals for abortions, nurses who will not work in abortion clinics,

Catholic hospitals that will not, in fact, perform abortions?

Is there any reason that I shouldn’t see that this strong preference in the Obama administration is going to be worked in and

that the conclusion we can reach today, based on the actual analytics we have, is that you have to win by more than 25 percent,

statistically impossible, or you don’t win at all?

The fact is, a bidder who was in a statistical tie with the top bidder was eliminated based on one item for which there was a 20-

point difference. The bottom line is you eliminated them based on

a single issue. And this document, which is in the record, from August 11th makes one thing very clear, which is, everything else is

scored in numbers, and you made a decision to score no number on

something that had a 20-point preference or greater.

Isn’t it fair to say that this committee must in the future write

into law a requirement that if you are scoring by numbers you

score everything by numbers, and that you never again be allowed

to have a subjective earmark-type preference that simply says, we

put numbers on everything and then we don’t put numbers on

something that is effectively a 100, a yes/no, you either do it to our

satisfaction or you don’t get the contract?

Mr. SHELDON. Mr. Chairman, this department will consistently

follow the law. And if the law is changed, then we will do that.

Chairman ISSA. The law very clearly says that this was not

elimination. There was no question about that. Because the law allowed for the Catholic Bishops organization to have this contract

and perform satisfactorily for 5 years or more.

Let me just conclude on the gentleman’s time with one question.

If you are saying you followed the law and you followed procedures,

then you are saying it is within the law to say, if you don’t provide

contraceptive services, abortion, and sterilization, that, in fact, it is

within the law for you to deny the award of the contract?

Mr. SHELDON. It is within the law to respond to the needs of this

population, yes, I——

Chairman ISSA. That wasn’t the question to be answered. You

denied this grant award based on these three procedures the

Catholic Bishops were not willing to do. And in your own testimony, before you answer, you said you renegotiated with the

Catholic Bishops. You tried to get them to cave in some acceptable

way on these narrow three issues. And when you found that they

didn’t, you eliminated them from the grant process.

Mr. SHELDON. We asked for a response to their suggestion in

their application that they were willing to explore alternative

mechanisms by which ORR could carry out this particular function.
83

Chairman ISSA. Isn’t it true—or, actually, no, the time has expired. I don’t want to exceed. I thank the gentleman for the time

and yield back.

We now recognize, having all Members had time, the gentleman

from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, who has waited patiently to be the

last questioner on the first round.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. First of all, let me say, Mr. Sheldon,

you know, the art of misdirection is alive and well in Washington.

We have heard a rattling off of amounts that Catholic organizations have received in other programs, which only, I would suggest

respectfully, underscores the competence and the effectiveness of

the mission of those Catholic organizations.

But why we are here today and why we are so concerned—again,

I authored this legislation that established the program we are discussing—is that there is a new abortion referral policy which is

new policy. It is brand new policy. It is radical, it is new. It wasn’t

there before, but it is there now. So that is why we are here. So

saying look how much we gave over here or there, that is the art

of misdirection. And members of this committee, and certainly you

I think, have engaged in that, and I say that sadly.

Let me also say you can’t have it both ways. First you compliment the USCCB and their extensive network of subcontractors

by saying that the three awardees are entering into contracts with

them, a case of benign cherry-picking, I would suggest.

But then you say that—and I think you said this very critically—

that those three NGO’s are ahead of where the USCCB was 5 years

ago when they got the contract. That is because they had to establish that whole network. So, please, don’t offer up that very false

comparison, because it is very, very misleading.

Let me ask: In what other programs has ACF approved applications that received scores that were 20 points below that which the

NGO that didn’t get the award? Are there examples?

Mr. SHELDON. I am sure there are.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Can you provide them for the record?

Mr. SHELDON. I can only speak to my personal experience.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Have you ever been a part of that?

Mr. SHELDON. I have only been here 6 months.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. But you have approved a number of

awards thus far. Have you taken those who had inferior scores and

jumped them to the head of the line in order to get——

Mr. SHELDON. There are several grants that we signed off on

where we have done, for instance, geographic skipping in order to

make sure that various——

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Where there have been scores done

by very competent reviewers who suggest 89, 74 for Tapestry, 69

for USCRI; 89, like I said, for the U.S. Catholic Conference of

Bishops. As the chairman has said repeatedly, a 20-point spread.

Are there examples?

Mr. SHELDON. As indicated previously, the scores are advisory,

but they were also prior to requests for additional information from

the applicants.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. So you moved the goalposts after it

was all over. So the reviewers are out of it now, and now you are

going to make your own decision?
84

Mr. SHELDON. No, we were specifically responding to the comments that the reviewers had made in their comments.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Let me ask you this: Are you familiar

with Executive Order 13279?

Mr. SHELDON. Not by number.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. How about the President’s executive

order entitled ‘‘Fundamental Principles and Policymaking Criteria

for Partnerships with Faith-Based and Other Neighborhood Organizations?’’

Mr. SHELDON. Yes, in general.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. In that EO, which prohibits social

grant making agencies from discriminating against prospective

grantees on the basis of religion or religious beliefs, as well as the

interference of political appointees in the decisionmaking process,

do you concur with that? Do you think that is important?

Mr. SHELDON. I do.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Now, the President said decisions

about awards of Federal assistance, financial assistance, must be

free from political interference or even the appearance of such interference and must be made on the basis of merit, not on the basis

of the religious affiliation of the recipient or organization or lack

thereof.

Do you agree with that statement?

Mr. SHELDON. I do.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Then why did you break it? Why did

you supersede it and do something precisely contrary to that when

you had a proven NGO, competent in the field, that had gotten

high marks from your agency previously, from HHS. Even on the

medical issue, they were scored on that and found to be completely

competent and doing an exemplary job.

Mr. SHELDON. I don’t believe we broke it.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Okay. Let me ask you this. How far

down in the rankings by expert reviewers were you prepared to

reach before you would have considered making an award to the

USCCB? I mean, had USCRI been 65 rather than 69, 50. Because

you did say before, and I hope you will correct this because I

thought it was a misstatement, you said they were equally qualified. Not according to the reviewers. All four of those NGO’s were

not equally qualified. But is that just your opinion, or what is it

based on?

Mr. SHELDON. I think if you will look back at the reviewers’ comments, it will indicate that each of the applicants either had a

strong capacity to lead the project, had considerable experience in

managing large refugee trafficking projects, language similar to

that.

Chairman ISSA. I would ask unanimous consent that the gentleman have an additional 3 minutes. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would be happy to.

Chairman ISSA. Isn’t it true that ‘‘not qualified’’ for one of them

was clearly there? You say that they were all qualified, but your

reviewers had a recommendation that one of the applicants was not

qualified.

Mr. SHELDON. I believe if you read the totality of the reviewers’

comments, Tapestry, which may be the one you are referring to, in-
85

dicated they had developed a strong organizational plan. They had

staff experience and qualified. They had confirmed that the staff

were qualified.

Chairman ISSA. In the State of Georgia. In one State.

Mr. SHELDON. In the——

Chairman ISSA. Okay, I just want to understand. You fully qualified somebody with a low score and one State experience, and then

they are all fully qualified.

I yield back to the gentleman. Thank you for yielding.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Do you want to correct your testimony?

Mr. SHELDON. No, I do not want to correct my testimony.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. You say they are equally qualified.

Mr. SHELDON. I indicated that we believed that these individuals

were equally qualified to administer the contracts——

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Even though the HHS review panel

stated ‘‘Regarding USCRI, the overall level of detail in the proposal

is insufficient to ensure that the project will be established and run

to an effective level and that the management plan is credible and

comprehensive. There is a complete lack of information on specific

activities and the timeline is vague, inhibiting evaluation of their

reasonableness.’’

That is not my words. That is your reviewers.

Mr. SHELDON. And if you read the reviewers’ comments on all

the applicants, for instance, USCCB, ‘‘The proposal lacks detail on

shelter models.’’

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. So you pick out one, shelter models.

This was a comprehensive, very negative assessment by the reviewers. You pick out shelters. We are still in the infancy of shelters.

I know, because I am working the shelters issues at home and

abroad. So don’t pick out one and somehow juxtapose it as somehow they are equally weighted.

Let me ask you this: In terms of the Snowe-Coats or CoatsSnowe and the Weldon conscience clause, are they applicable here?

Mr. SHELDON. We checked with our general counsel’s office

through the process and believe we are in line with all statutes.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. So are you saying that those statutes

apply to this grant?

Mr. SHELDON. I am saying that we checked with the general

counsel’s office, as I would in any occasion.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. But you are saying you checked. You

are not telling me what they said. Do those two laws, conscience

clause laws, have application to this grant or these grants that had

been let?

Mr. SHELDON. I would be happy to respond to you in writing as

to what the general counsel’s office position has been.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. So you don’t know?

Mr. SHELDON. I do know that we were told we were consistent

with all applicable statutes.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. That is just broad. There are two

very important conscience clause protections. A conscience clause is

obviously in the news every day of the week now. There are 12

nurses at the UMDNJ in New Jersey who are being compelled to

be complicit in abortions, who are now in a Federal suit that will
86

be up in about a week, simply because they have been told, You

do this or you are demoted or you are reassigned or you are fired.

So conscience clauses are very much in the cross-hairs of the abortion lobby. We know it.

Are those two laws applicable to these grants? You are the head

of it. I would like to know.

Mr. SHELDON. I believe they would be applicable. I believe we

have not violated them.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. How many victims of trafficking and

their family members who were being served at the end of the contract with the USCCB experienced a break in services and how

many others are still not receiving services?

Mr. SHELDON. Again, I would compliment the Bishops on

their——

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I am not looking for compliments for

them or anyone else. How many are not getting services?

Mr. SHELDON. I am not aware of any numbers.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. You are not aware of anyone who

has not gotten services.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired. Do you want

to finish up?

Mr. SHELDON. To my personal knowledge, no.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey.

We now go to the—this is the second round—we go to the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg, for 5 minutes.

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for the

second round as well, because, frankly, it is an opportunity to really get the fullness of what has gone on here. This is really, as I

understand it being a Protestant, not an attack on the Catholic

Church or even one of its entities. They just happen to be a solid,

positive, caring organization that is seeking to reach and meet

needs. I wish we would be dealing with Samaritan’s Purse here or

Compassion International or any others that would be offering

these same services, but the Catholic organization was the one that

is in question here. So it is really not an issue of saying this is an

attack on them.

It also doesn’t seem to be an attack on the money, as some of

my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seemingly want to point

out that the Catholic Bishops received dollars for their programs

in nutrition, in shelter, in medical assistance, and I am sure there

are others as well. I forget some that were mentioned. But, yes,

they received support to do those things.

They received support to do those things apparently as long as

it did not come anywhere near the issue of one specific issue, and

that is abortion services and that is family planning. That goes directly against the principles of many of us here who believe in the

foundational principles of this country. That is the concern that I

see that is going on.

When we talk about equally qualified, they have gone beyond

being equally qualified, meaning criteria that was put in place and

evaluated by a hearing panel.

This hearing really is about the concern that we have about arbitrary social engineering and its dangers. It is a concern that we

would have that would say that the victim—and indeed there is
87

tremendous victimization that we are talking about here that goes

on—but an unwillingness to accept the fact that has been accepted

before that there are policies and principles of organizations that

go beyond the one victim and goes to the fuller victimization that

includes even the unborn child. That is my concern.

And the fact that we have law in place, Weldon-Snowe, that your

counsel has indicated isn’t being superseded or violated, and yet

the concern about the direction even of the Secretary of HHS on

this particular issue, that would seem to indicate that, yes, it will

be perceived as not being violated in order to carry out the social

engineering that goes on.

Mr. Chairman, I applaud you for holding this hearing, and I

think that to assume anything other than the fact that this is not

about religion or a specific religion, that this is not about the

money that is given to that same entity for other issues, but the

fact this is about showing that we have broached something that

we never countenanced here in the past in this great country,

where on the basis of strongly held religious moral belief, you will

be discriminated against. I think that is what we are looking at.

I would be glad to yield my time to the gentleman from New Jersey or the chairman again for further questioning.

Chairman ISSA. If the gentleman wouldn’t mind yielding to me,

and I will try to make it up to the gentleman from New Jersey.

There is a question that has been just driving me crazy, Mr.

Sheldon. You have within Health and Human Services all kinds of

questions about abortion, contraception, sterilization, and this isn’t

the only time it pops up within the broad Cabinet position. If you

have a mandate under Executive Order 13279 clearly saying you

cannot preclude someone based on religious beliefs, if the Catholic

Bishops made it clear that this problem was the result of their religious beliefs—and they clearly did that with you, I don’t have to

call them to find that out—didn’t you have an obligation to square

the difference between 13279, which said you couldn’t basically

give a strong preference against a religious belief, which you did,

because the two were inseparable? Didn’t you have an obligation

not ask the Catholic Bishops for a workaround, but to produce proposed workarounds that were acceptable to HHS?

Did that ever cross your mind, that that was really your obligation, your obligation to square an executive order that said you

couldn’t have this strong preference against their religious beliefs,

when in fact you clearly had a strong preference against the result

of their religious beliefs?

Mr. SHELDON. I do not believe that is the case.

Chairman ISSA. Well, you can choose not to believe something,

but this is not a deniable fact here. These three problems which

were determinative in whether they got this grant were the result

of their religious beliefs, and they articulated that to you, and you

preferred others because of the result of their religious beliefs,

didn’t you?

Mr. SHELDON. We made a decision to——

Chairman ISSA. Please just answer the question. The time has

expired and it is easy enough. You did make an award around

what they told you was their religious beliefs preventing those

three procedures, didn’t you?
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Mr. SHELDON. I do not believe we did.

Chairman ISSA. Then how the heck in the world can you say—

you know what, I will take additional time when it is my own. I

don’t want to run over.

With that, we recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.

Connolly, for his 5 minutes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, if you wanted to finish your

thought, I gladly yield to you such time as you may require.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. I do want to try to get

this out.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, I just plead that I get my 5 minutes when you are finished.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s plea has been heard.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chairman.

Chairman ISSA. I think this is important to make the record. I

want to be fair. I don’t want this to be one side or the other on

this. You were told by the Council of Bishops in this consultation,

I believe, that these were religious beliefs that prevented them

from providing these procedures, at least in the way you originally

envisioned them, correct?

Mr. SHELDON. I never had any conversations with the Bishops.

But I——

Chairman ISSA. Or is it your understanding that this preclusion

is because of their religious beliefs?

Mr. SHELDON. I understand their religious beliefs. The contract

was about the delivery of services and our decision was based on

the merit of people who could provide those services.

Chairman ISSA. No, I understand that. But, if I am an Orthodox

Jew and I tell you I cannot—I cannot drive a car on Friday night,

and you have a contract that says I need a driver 7 days a week,

and you know I can’t do it on Friday night, don’t you have a clear

prohibition by an Orthodox Jew that he cannot or she cannot perform that duty? And then aren’t you dealing with the executive

order that you have? You are asking someone to do something

which cannot be done under their religious belief, and you either

have to say, I am sorry but I am precluding you because of your

limitations under your religious belief, or not? Isn’t that the real

question here?

Mr. SHELDON. I believe if I have a requirement for certain kinds

of services, those individuals who are willing——

Chairman ISSA. So your answer is if I am an Orthodox Jew and

it is Friday night and I tell you that I can’t drive you, that in fact

you are only dealing with a service, you are not dealing with a religious belief?

Mr. SHELDON. And if I said to you, please come back with an alternative as to how I can get the service I need on Friday night

and you came back with an alternative as to how that could be

done, I think that would be a different story.

Chairman ISSA. Well, they don’t have the responsibility under

the executive order. You do. And that is the point I am trying to

make. You had the ability to modify the contract. You had the ability, within the contract provisions, you could have said okay, we

are going to have separate administration, a separate procedure.

We are going to recognize that a limited amount of people will go
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to their doctor—because they sent people to doctors, that wasn’t

the question—to go to their doctor. And these other procedures in

the case of rape, which is allowed under Federal law—we are not

dealing with all abortions, we are only dealing with rape-based

abortions for Federal funding—that Medicaid can do it.

In the case of sterilization, in the case of contraception, you had

it at HHS, the ability to prescribe an alternative so that you could

meet both your perceived contract needs, which you wrote, and the

executive order that is still in place, didn’t you?

Mr. SHELDON. And that is the very reason we went back to the

Bishops and asked them to provide the details of the alternative

that they said they would be willing to do.

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate that, Mr. Sheldon, and I know we

are not at odds, other than my point to you—and I appreciate the

gentleman from Virginia, who is going to get his full 5 minutes—

was you had the obligation of the executive order and you had the

obligation to meet what had been written as a perceived list of

services. And we are not arguing today specifically about whether

those services are right or wrong, abortion, any of that, or even,

you know, the contraception question or any of those. We are arguing over who had the responsibility. And you seem to think repeatedly in every answer, the Bishops had the responsibility. And I am

going to say that, at least from this position in the chair, that we

the government have the responsibility to square executive orders

and the law and our request for proposals and grant writing. It is

not for the religious-based person who says, ‘‘I can’t drive on Friday

night through Saturday at dusk because of my religion. And, yes,

there is somebody else who can’t do it on Sunday.’’ Let’s reconcile

that. It is our obligation as government, at least that is my view.

I thank the gentleman from Virginia. He is very kind. He is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chair.

I actually want to follow up on I think where the chairman is

trying to get at, because I actually have the same set of concerns

in terms of how the decision was arrived at. But I want to clear

away some debris, since I have been gone to another hearing.

I think if there were suspicions that this had something to do

with a bias about a particular denomination, I think the evidence

is overwhelming that that is not true. So I think our fears about

that, if they existed before this hearing, can now be allayed.

With respect to abortion, Mr. Sheldon, is there a single penny in

this grant award that funds abortion directly?

Mr. SHELDON. No. This award does not provide funding for any

direct services other than emergency services such as food, shelter,

clothing, emergency medical services.

Mr. CONNOLLY. So it is presumably not about abortion. We were

talking earlier, and my time ran out at that time, about the fact

that the grant application talked about the need for the provision

of family planning services. I assumed by that, that meant contraception. Is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. Contraception would be included in that.

Mr. CONNOLLY. What else would be included in that?

Mr. SHELDON. Sterilization, abortion, the full range of the 200

services that we have been previously talking about.
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Mr. CONNOLLY. And heretofore the Catholic Bishops had been

the recipient of this grant money; is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. That is accurate. Contract money.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And it was to provide contract services to treat

the victims of human trafficking; is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. To provide case management services.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Case management. And, again, I was out of the

room, but if I understood a previous exchange, under that contract

19 percent of the clients served were victims of sexual trafficking;

is that correct?

Mr. SHELDON. No, I think—and I would like to supplement this

later—but I believe the actual number was about 19 percent.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. That is what I said.

Mr. SHELDON. I am sorry. I thought you said 90.

Mr. CONNOLLY. But are you familiar with the CRS study that

says actually 79 percent of all trafficking victims are also victims

of sex trafficking?

Mr. SHELDON. I am not familiar with that specific study, but I

am familiar generally with studies which indicate a higher percentage of individuals who are victims of sex trafficking or a combination of sex and labor trafficking.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, most of the victims, sadly, tragically, of

human trafficking are female; is that not correct?

Mr. SHELDON. That is correct.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And most of those victims, female victims, tragically are also victims of sexual trafficking; is that not correct?

Mr. SHELDON. I believe that is accurate.

Mr. CONNOLLY. So was it the concern of the Department that

given that data, that we had to shift the focus of the grant award

to provide more aggressively family planning services, among others, to deal with sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies or the prevention of unwanted pregnancies?

Mr. SHELDON. Over the course of the last decade, we have

learned more and more about human trafficking, and it was based

on that that the Department made the determination included in

this report.

Mr. CONNOLLY. All right. Here is what is bothering a lot of us,

I think. The Catholic Bishops ranked number one, as I understand

it, in the initial ranking?

Mr. SHELDON. Number two.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Number two. But higher than others.

Mr. SHELDON. Yes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. So why would we then, knowing that, actually

deny them the award when they came in number two?

Mr. SHELDON. The reviewers made several—and these are not

talking points, this is a fact. The reviewers made several comments

about a lack of detail in all of the applicants, but we went back to

request additional information. The grant process also indicates

that the scores are advisory in nature, that the ultimate decision

to award or not award rests with the assistant secretary.

Mr. CONNOLLY. All right. I only have 35 seconds. In your opinion,

Mr. Sheldon, having reviewed this case, and obviously preparing

for this hearing today, did you find any evidence—do you believe
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there was any evidence of religious bias, of political bias, in favor

or against the ultimate recipients of this grant money?

Mr. SHELDON. I can state unequivocally there was not.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I am sorry, I didn’t hear you.

Mr. SHELDON. I can state unequivocally there was not.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And that is your testimony under oath?

Mr. SHELDON. Under oath.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank you, Mr. Sheldon.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. We now go to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Kelly, for a second round.

Mr. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, thanks for

holding the hearing. Mr. Sheldon, Mr. Negash, thank you.

Now, Mr. Sheldon, you have been on the job 6 months.

Mr. SHELDON. That is correct.

Mr. KELLY. I have only been on 10 months, so I know how you

are feeling. I am getting blamed for a lot of things that happened

before I got here, too. Anyways, because this is a very serious matter—but I want to go back to an earlier question. I would like all

the documents, including emails, about the preferential language

and any discussion regarding the conscience matter, because I

think that is really crucial to what we are doing right now.

Mr. SHELDON. Our staff will continue to work with your staff on

producing those documents.

Mr. KELLY. Okay, and I would sure appreciate that. The purpose

of these hearings really, I cannot tell you, the way I look at it, to

me there is such a bias. And, again, we got gamed on this one. We

changed the language to eliminate some of the people that would

have been normally included. So I think that is pretty clear to me

and to any commonsense, thinking person.

Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield back my

time. I have to run to another hearing.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I will

just continue on something.

In 2009, isn’t it true—this is before you came in, but this was

during the Obama administration—the Council of Bishops in execution of this contract, this grant award, was rated outstanding,

weren’t they?

Mr. SHELDON. I can’t testify from my personal knowledge, but I

believe that to be the case.

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Negash, how about your personal knowledge? Our indication is that they were awarded greater sums, they

were listed as outstanding. Everybody at HHS was extremely satisfied with their performance year after year after year for 5 years

under both Democratic and Republican Presidencies.

Mr. NEGASH. I am not aware of any performance evaluation that

they were graded.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So here is the question we have been waiting all day to ask in a strange way, because I have listened to both

majority and minority. The majority has asked questions about

these numbers and the grant process. The minority has told us

heart-wrenching stories about women who have been persecuted

and dealt with in the worst possible way and raped. But these are

the people that this organization that was summarily eliminated

was dealing with successfully for half a decade, weren’t they?
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Mr. NEGASH. It is my understanding, Mr. Chairman, this grant

is not about providing direct services. My understanding is the national agency was having a relationship with subgrantees around

the country.

Chairman ISSA. Yes, I understand that. But this organization for

5 years administered and provided excellent service in finding—

finding, including your former organization—finding various people

all over the country, including Georgia and other places. They

found the people to provide the necessary services on a case-by-case

basis to 1,000-plus women a year.

The fact is this is an organization that was compassionate and

successful. It wasn’t about the money. They don’t apply for this for

reasons of money. They apply because they want to provide this

service. They administered it successfully for 5 years. For 5 years,

the women who had been raped, the women who had been tortured, the women who had real needs, including STDs to be taken

care of, they were taken care of through this process.

So my question to you, Mr. Sheldon, today is: In your consideration of how important this 20-plus point delta that had to be overcome to deny them any part of this grant, you did so of an organization that in the past had succeeded in spite of that, didn’t you?

Mr. SHELDON. They have succeeded, and they are continuing to

succeed with human trafficking victims.

Chairman ISSA. I understand. But they succeeded on this contract effectively, this grant. This grant, these people. These people

had succeeded in the past, and yet they were denied because of

their religious beliefs preventing these three procedures, correct—

or two procedures plus prescriptions?

Mr. SHELDON. They have provided, as I indicated, a strong performance under the terms of the contract.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. That is a good point, and I thank you for

that. The terms of the contract changed. Now, you keep going back

to you asked the Bishops and you went back to them. I have become familiar during the intervening minutes with the Council of

Bishops’ response, and I read it differently than you do. I read

their response in, if you will, this second round, which often when

we find contract irregularities, when we find misconduct by bureaucrats or political appointees, what we find are the second or

third rounds are usually used to game the system from the first

round because they didn’t like the outcome. But the Bishops said

they were willing to consider alternative ways. As far as I read it,

this was an outreach for you to find an alternative way, not for

them to propose an acceptable alternative way, something that is

acceptable to you.

Do you see that somebody like myself could in common English

find that interpretation?

Mr. SHELDON. I felt by reaching back out to the Bishops and asking for alternatives that they would be willing to provide them.

Chairman ISSA. But can you see how I could find that reading?

Mr. SHELDON. I understand where you’re coming from.

Chairman ISSA. We’ll take that as a yes.

We now recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lankford,

for 5 minutes.

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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This new language that was added in, it is different than the

previous contract that for 5 years they had. Obviously, they have

done a good job on it in the past. That is well established. There

was some decision made at some point, I assume based on data. Is

there data out there somewhere saying there was a portion of individuals that were interested in these other abortions and contraceptives and such that didn’t get it and had complained back, or

was there some study that was done determining that this was not

being provided and this was a problem?

Mr. SHELDON. There is research indicating the needs of this population, and based on that research—and we would be happy to

provide that——

Mr. LANKFORD. I am just wondering. In the specific fulfillment

of the contract, there was data that was provided, saying that these

things are needed and they are not being provided, and the Catholic Bishops are prohibiting this. Because obviously the Catholic

Bishops are not providing the health care, so they are sending

them to clinics, and then the HIPAA laws kick in, and they don’t

know what is happening at that point. They are the caseworkers

that are connecting them with the clinic, and then health care is

provided there. So I would assume there is some data saying ‘‘and

they were prevented from getting these services.’’

Mr. SHELDON. What I can indicate and we will provide you is the

provisions that they provided in their subcontracts to subgrantees

restricting the options that those——

Mr. LANKFORD. Restricting payment for that, correct? It is not

saying you can’t do it, but saying don’t ask us for repayment for

these services.

Mr. SHELDON. We will provide the specific information to you.

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay, that will be great. Because my understanding was they’re not saying you can’t do that, you are prohibited; we are going to reach into your doctor’s office and tell you

what to do and what not to do. They are just saying if this is performed, don’t bill us for it because we don’t reimburse for that.

Mr. SHELDON. Well, under the terms of the the original contract

as well as the terms of this grant, none of the dollars in this grant

are for the actual delivery of services.

Mr. LANKFORD. That is what I am saying. That relationship, they

aren’t prohibiting it, they’re basically saying you won’t be reimbursed through us, or that is not something we encourage.

Mr. SHELDON. I would be happy to provide the specifics, but——

Chairman ISSA. If the gentleman would yield for a second, stop

the clock. For the record, when I opened and mentioned the documents that we had obtained that had not been provided by HHS

that the press have, which I understand have now been accepted

and hopefully the reservation is now withdrawn—it is withdrawn.

Additionally, the documents which the gentleman is saying he will

provide were requested and have not yet been delivered.

So although I appreciate your saying you will deliver them, we

will expect full supplemental responses in writing or we will bring

you all back, because this is part of our problem is that these documents which we suspect say what Mr. Lankford is saying, we won’t

know for sure.
94

So if you can, to the greatest extent possible, make assumptions

of what you believe they say, it will prevent coming back, because

we are all pretty sure that Mr. Lankford is correct as to his assertions.

Mr. SHELDON. We will do that. But I also would be happy to

come back.

Chairman ISSA. You are a first. With that, the gentleman may

resume.

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Then with this shift

in what happened to the previous contract, there had to be a decision made at some point that based on data or based on decisions

saying this was a problem, they did great in all these six areas, except they didn’t encourage people to have abortions or encourage

contraceptives. Because, obviously, as you mentioned before, they

are not providing, they are just encouraging and sending that message out. So because they are not encouraging contraceptives or

they are not encouraging abortions, we are going to put language

in there to make sure they do next time.

Who made that decision and when was that decision made?

Mr. SHELDON. Well, that decision was made, again, prior to my

getting here. But it’s my understanding, it was made based on research in terms of the needs of this particular population.

Mr. LANKFORD. And the fact that it wasn’t fulfilled in the previous contract; or just other research, separate from that?

Mr. SHELDON. Other research, separate.

Mr. LANKFORD. If there is a change in the language on that, who

made that decision then? When was that decision made?

Mr. SHELDON. I believe that was a collaborative decision in the

establishment of the FOA.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Negash, can you help us out, because obviously you were there at that time?

Mr. NEGASH. I believe that the process of developing the FOA,

the Office of General Counsel, the policy expert within SCF and

HHS, including the leadership, made a point to include that language.

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay. So can you list names that you say there?

You listed titles. Can you list names of the people involved?

Mr. NEGASH. Well, I believe the Office of the Assistant Secretary

at that time, not Mr. Sheldon; the Office of General Counsel. I can

give you the list of who those people are. And, I believe, the Office

of the Secretary.

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay. So Kathleen Sebelius was involved in that

as far as making that decision to have that language involved?

Mr. NEGASH. I don’t have any contact with the Secretary.

Mr. LANKFORD. Right. But it came in from that office.

Mr. NEGASH. I believe the Office of the Secretary was reviewing

this.

Mr. LANKFORD. The issue is—and this is something we have

talked about in contract writing and in grant writing, and the reason I bring all this up is because at times grants and contracts are

written in such a way to deliberately exclude people, and to say I

am going to write this in such a way to make sure only a certain

group would be eligible for this.
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And if this language is written in such a way, there are a couple

problems here. One is the clarity of the exclusion. To say that there

is a priority or we are looking at it or this is important to us is

one thing. But to say, unless you encourage abortions and contraceptives, you need not apply, that certainly definitely is not in

there. But the way the language is written it establishes a process

that, hey, anyone who has this belief should not apply unless you

are willing to give up your beliefs. Unless you are willing to encourage abortions, don’t come. So the language is written in such a way

to exclude a group that had currently done it for quite a significant

time and had done a good job.

What I am interested in, is there data that is connected to that

saying: This was a problem in the previous 5 years. Based on this

data, we found this data from doing this, and so we need to make

this shift to purposely exclude the group that had done it in the

past that had high marks.

So that is the struggle here. And it goes into the whole essence

of how we write grants and how we write the proposal. If the administration has determined in these areas you have to promote

abortions or we don’t give you U.S. funds, say it. Just come out and

say it. Don’t go through the whole dog-and-pony show. Make it

clear at the very beginning to keep that priority.

So with that, I will yield back.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

We now recognize the ranking member for 5 minutes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Sheldon, if the Catholic Bishops had come

back after they told you they had some alternatives and said these

are the alternatives, what would have happened? I am not saying—

I mean, what would have been the process then? In other words,

they come back here, these are our alternatives. What would have

been the process then? Would there be a possible—I know it depends on what they would say. But would there have been a possible rescoring? What would happen? What would be the process?

I am not asking you for the results. The process.

Mr. SHELDON. No. We would have analyzed that in addition to

the reviewers’ comments, in addition to the responses of the other

entities. And we had indicated in the funding announcement that

we intended to have multiple grantees, as opposed to just one

grantee.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And, Mr. Sheldon, according to the grant announcement, the scores do not take into account the preference for

applicants who can provide a full range of services. The funding announcement states ‘‘Applicants applying to provide less than the

full set of services and referrals described under ‘case management’

will not receive a reduction in points in this section unless the limitations are likely to impede a victim’s ability to become certified

and meet their food, clothing, shelter and emergency health care

needs.’’

Why did the scores not take into account the strong preference

for a full set of services and referrals?

Mr. SHELDON. Because it was a preference as opposed to a requirement of the contract.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so I would like to better understand just by

walking you through the review process. After applications were re-
96

ceived, reviewers gave out scores but they did not give a recommendation as to which groups they thought should get the

grants.

Mr. SHELDON. That is correct.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Is that right?

Mr. SHELDON. That is correct.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So they gave out scores, but they didn’t say who

should get them. After the scores were given, there were followup

questions for some applicants. Were the answers to these questions

taken into account in awarding the grants?

Mr. SHELDON. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Did other applicants have questions—in other

words, was there some follow-up with the other applicants also?

Mr. SHELDON. There were questions, and we can provide those.

There were questions to all of the applicants patterned after the reviewers’ comments as to what weaknesses existed in each of those

individual applications.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, do you ever change the scores based on this

type of additional information that might come in?

Mr. SHELDON. You would change the decision. You wouldn’t go

back retroactively and change the scores.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. You might change the decision. So what

decision are you talking about? I thought you hadn’t made the decision yet.

Mr. SHELDON. We hadn’t made the decision yet.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am sorry?

Mr. SHELDON. We had not made the decision at that point.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So in other words, you may have been contemplating a decision?

Mr. SHELDON. We were—I wanted to wait until we got the responses to the questions that we had asked all the applicants.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. Now, were the Catholic Bishops the only

ones that did not, you know, give responses other than saying they

had alternatives?

Mr. SHELDON. No, they provided a response. Because it wasn’t

just on this issue. We also asked them for clarification on their cost

per client. But we can provide that, because it wasn’t just targeted

to that one issue.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. And after the grants were awarded, were

the applicants informed as to why they were rejected, and if not,

why not? In other words, did you inform them as to why——

Mr. SHELDON. I believe we—Ms. Kinder, can you help me with

that? I think that they were indicated as to what the decision was.

I did personally meet with representatives of the U.S. Conference

of Catholic Bishops at their request, after the decision had been

made, to kind of lay out the rationale for the decision.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And did they complain that they had been discriminated against?

Mr. SHELDON. They did not complain that they had been discriminated against. They did indicate that they would look at their

full range of options as to——

Mr. CUMMINGS. They said they would do what?

Mr. SHELDON. Well, I can’t—I am paraphrasing what they said.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, paraphrase as best you can.
97

Mr. SHELDON. That they would look at the full range of options

that they might have. And I took that to mean a potential challenge to the award.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And did they challenge it yet?

Mr. SHELDON. They did not.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Sheldon, I understand that you are a political appointee and that you made this award decision which has

been sufficient for some to claim that the grant decision was politicized. Was it appropriate for you to make the decision?

Mr. SHELDON. All assistant secretaries, to my knowledge, historically are given the authority to make decisions on grants. As a

matter of fact, in the Administration for Children and Families, I

approve all grant awards.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And did you or anyone else at HHS give any of

the applicants an unfair advantage during the process?

Mr. SHELDON. No.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what was your primary purpose and goal

when you made your decision about the grants?

Mr. SHELDON. My primary purpose and goal, as I indicated in my

opening statement, is what was in the best interest of these victims.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Finally, and thank you for your indulgence, Mr.

Chairman—so it was not a decision based on promoting a political

party or a decision based on your dislike of the principles of the

Catholic Bishops; is that right?

Mr. SHELDON. That is correct.

Mr. CUMMINGS. As I said in the beginning of the hearing, the ultimate goal here today is to help the victims. We would all benefit

from hearing the voices of the human trafficking victims and their

advocates on why reproductive health services are so critical, and

I am sure we will in the future.

Mr. Sheldon and Mr. Negash, I want to thank both of you very

much.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

In order to preserve the normal member going last, what I am

going to do is skip this round and recognize the gentleman from

New Jersey, and then I will wrap up with just a few questions.

The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Sheldon, the FOA says that preference will be given to grantees under FOA that will offer all victims referral to a medical provider who can provide or refer for the

treatment of—and, of course, the gynecological services in question

here is abortion. Given this language, how are grantees able to use

any pro-life providers, even pro bono health providers who are prolife?

Mr. SHELDON. There are several subgrantees to the current

grantees who are faith-based pro-life.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. But they are not bound—I am talking about the referral to the victims, who they refer to in terms of

health care, the actual health care. This reads, plain reading of the

language, that we are talking that all victims’ referral to medical

providers who can provide or refer for provision of treatment for

abortion.
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So does this direct these individuals now to Planned Parenthood?

We know that at least one of the applicants who got the award is

looking to contract and set up an alliance with Planned Parenthood. I mean, it precludes—it would seem on the face of it that prolife OB-GYNs, for example, are out of the mix. Is that true?

Mr. SHELDON. I don’t believe that is the case. As a matter of

fact——

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Would you clarify that for the

record?

Mr. SHELDON. As I indicated, there are several subgrantees of

the new grantees——

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Again, I am talking specifically about

referral for medical care, that they be providers of abortion. That

is what it reads.

Mr. SHELDON. The decision as to what the outcome of that would

be, as it has historically been in this country, has been between the

medical provider and the woman, and there is no difference in

this——

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. The USCCB did that, as you know.

They were out of it, as the chairman mentioned earlier, under

HIPAA.

Mr. SHELDON. I think if you will look at the language of the

USCCB, you will find it was much more restrictive than that.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Okay, you can clarify the original

question for the record in written form.

Let me ask you, is the strong preference language for abortion

in any way related to the ACLU lawsuit? Did anyone from or associated with the ACLU encourage the change in the contract? Was

it anyone within the Obama administration? Again, getting back to

origins, whose idea was this, and did this language in any way emanate or was it supported by or perhaps posed by any pro-abortion

NGO? First question.

Second, on capacity: Tapestry in its application said it had $400,000 annually, which means that this grant alone that it got

will triple what it has at its disposal to use. ORR said it would give

priority to those organizations whether established nationwide or

geographically in structure. We are talking about a group that may

not be able to meet this huge burden that has been put on them,

again, the tripling.

Let me ask Mr. Negash, did HHS make changes to the funding

opportunity announcement specifically to evade the conscience protections currently in law?

Mr. NEGASH. Throughout the development of the funding announcement, we actually worked with the Office of General Counsel to make sure that the language in the funding announcement

was consistent with existing laws.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. So it wasn’t in any way, shape, or

form to evade the conscience clause by writing the specs in a way

that Catholic USCCB need not apply?

Mr. SHELDON. I believe that the funding announcement was written not to include or exclude anybody.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Could I get, could we get, the committee get, a copy of the general counsel’s written statement, advice, guidance, whatever it is they conveyed to you to make these
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decisions at the time that these decisions were being made? Not

now. We want to know what was contemporaneous with the decisionmaking process. Could you do that?

Mr. NEGASH. I believe so.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Let me—again, with the ACLU case,

if you could speak to this, Mr. Sheldon. Was it ever discussed? Was

the ACLU in contact? Please respond.

Mr. SHELDON. I was aware of the ACLU lawsuit, but it was not

discussed in conjunction with the decisionmaking process.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. At all?

Mr. SHELDON. At all. Or to my knowledge, was ACLU contacted.

They were not contacting me. I do not believe they were contacting

anybody in the Administration for Children and Families.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Are each of the grantees as of December 1st, as of today, performing exactly as prescribed in the

FOA?

Mr. SHELDON. I believe that they are—in response to that, yes,

I believe they are.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Could you provide a detailed analysis, a snapshot as of today, whether or not there has been a diminution of service as the baton has been handed over from the

USCCB to the three NGO’s?

Mr. SHELDON. Yes.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. And finally with regard to training,

FOA was very clear about training. As a matter of fact, the language of the legislation was——

Chairman ISSA. If the gentleman would make this his last question, please.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I am out of time. Okay. Do I have

time for the question?

Chairman ISSA. We will be indulgent for a last question, but we

are going to wrap up very soon. We have technically gone over our

limit.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

From the information provided to the company, it appears only

one of the successful applicants, Heartland, included something approaching the required certification on training. If this is correct,

does HHS think it is appropriate for the well-being and recovery

of trafficking victims for the persons providing services to have

completed training in connection with trafficking persons? Why and

how was this overlooked?

Mr. SHELDON. I believe with all of the grantees, that we ultimately made the decision are qualified to provide these services.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Training.

Mr. SHELDON. Yes.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. So you say they are adequate and

they are ready to go right now.

Mr. SHELDON. I believe so.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Could you back that up as well for

the written record with precision?

Mr. SHELDON. Yes.

Chairman ISSA. I thank you for your participation here today.

I recognize myself. I am going to try to close up on a number of

issues.
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Following up with Mr. Smith, on Tapestry, an organization with

only a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue, a CFO who is not

qualified by your own statements, I would appreciate your coming

back and making for the record some documentation of why they

were not at a minimum high risk for people already at high risk.

I think it is one of the areas that hasn’t been focused on enough.

But clearly we are going to follow up, because from our evaluation,

notwithstanding that you could have awarded to only one organization or only two—and you only had one other national organization—to pick an organization that had almost no revenues, the

CFO, one of the most critical people in this kind of activity, having

no qualifications in this area, does beg the question of competence

that we are seriously concerned about. Because we think that numbers were in some ways not even as positive of the difference in

these organizations.

Again, I would have respected a single award not to the Catholic

Bishops perhaps more than the award the way we saw it.

But let me go through the question that has occupied most of the

time today. Under the executive order, I am going to read a portion

of it to make sure we get it officially in the record, but additionally

the executive order will be placed in the record, without objection.

But what I read in G, for faith-based organizations in this executive order, it says, ‘‘Accordingly, the faith-based organization that

applies for or participates in a social service program supported

with Federal financial assistance,’’ and this sort of broadly qualifies

in that definition, obviously, ‘‘may retain its independence and may

continue to carry out its mission, including the definition, development, practice and expression of its religious beliefs,’’ and this is

the limitation, I want to make sure it gets in here too, ‘‘provided

that it does not use direct Federal financial assistance that it receives for that purpose.’’

Now, that is the operative language that we found and believe

applies. In the response that goes back to this that we have been

talking about, their response that you were not satisfied with, it

says ‘‘USCCB/MRS is committed to acting in accordance with

Catholic teachings in administering the program, including the determination of allowable and unallowable costs.’’

Now for my question: If the Catholic Bishops, and I am an

Antiochian Catholic so it is not my denomination but I am very familiar with it—if the Catholic Bishops had told you how to work

around getting an abortion or birth control, wouldn’t you agree,

since you are familiar at least somewhat with it, that they would

be violating their requirements? In other words, we would all be

appalled if a Catholic priest, or a bishop in this case, told you how

to get an abortion for a girl around them. Wouldn’t that be wrong

under their teachings, very clearly?

Mr. SHELDON. Yes. And in effect, what other faith-based organizations have done is not taken responsibility for that particular victim.

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. And that certainly would have been

a potential workaround. But they couldn’t—they under their faith,

as I read it, could not be persecuted for not having an answer that

would cause them to tell you how to basically do an abortion

around them. So their canons of ethics, their vows, prohibited them
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from answering the question that you say you went to them to get,

which is how do we work around your problem on providing abortions and birth control and sterilization.

They gave you an answer that they were willing to work with

your workarounds, but they couldn’t, they clearly under their religious protected faith-based executive order and supportive, they

couldn’t tell you how to work around it.

Now, you just gave me the answer I have been waiting for all

day. It is clear you could have said we need to have a provision

that you don’t take cases of pregnant refugees; that when a refugee

is determined to be pregnant, that in fact you not take them. Additionally, you could have said, for example—and I am not trying to

run your Department, I woefully would be inadequate to do any

one part of government. You could have said that certain sub-vendors had to be picked, and that they had to be allowed to communicate pursuant to your needs to other organizations. And in most

cases the clinics would have already done this anyway. You could

have proposed those, couldn’t you?

Mr. SHELDON. We got a response from another applicant which

basically indicated how they would treat people of faith, people of

Catholic teaching, and they volunteered that they would not refer

victims to that particular entity.

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So the system could have recognized, if

you use my example, because I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood,

of the Orthodox Jew unable to drive you on Friday night. You could

have suggested an effective workaround. They might have rejected

it, might have accepted it, might have said, ‘‘We can’t answer it,

but we will perform to the best of our duty under the rules that

you give us,’’ which probably would have been their answer, which

is, ‘‘We can’t condone your decision, we can’t predict the outcome,

but we will do what we can do.’’

And, by the way, the fact that they didn’t complain, my understanding is Christ didn’t complain on the cross either. Ultimately,

some organizations do not complain as a matter of their faith.

So, back to the real question that I want to close with, in this

and dozens or hundreds or thousands of other examples that could

occur in government when trying to deal with the Executive order,

isn’t it within your authority under current law and, at least in my

opinion, within your responsibility to try to find ways to move

these two together?

And in the future—because this one is in our taillights—in the

future, wouldn’t it be prudent for Health and Human Services and

other government agencies to say, look, we have to look at effective

ways to get around the rabbi who can’t drive to work after sundown on Friday, so to speak, and/or the Catholics who cannot perform abortions? Isn’t that something, that if, in fact, Congress has

said, in the case of rape of a woman, an abortion is legal, to be paid

for by government—that is the current law, as I understand it—

if that is the case and somebody can’t participate in it, isn’t, under

the Executive order, it prudent that you develop the ability to reconcile to that limited extent rather than only promoting organizations who, from some of our Members, believe would promote abortion rather than the litmus test of could they participate in legal

events?
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Mr. SHELDON. And that is exactly what I was trying do by going

back to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. We may disagree

about where the primary responsibility——

Chairman ISSA. But you don’t disagree that a Catholic bishop

who tells you how to get a girl an abortion would be going outside

his beliefs. I mean, you already answered, yes, you got that, that

he couldn’t—he or—in this case, only ‘‘he’s—couldn’t tell you how

to do it. So why, in a way, did you expect to get an answer from

the Catholic Bishops of how to work around getting a girl an abortion? Isn’t that fundamentally, perhaps in hindsight, a mistake,

where there should have been an initiative by HHS not asking people of faith to do and say and help you do what they cannot?

Mr. SHELDON. I was basically taking the U.S. Conference of

Catholic Bishops at their word when they basically said, we would

be willing to work on an alternative.

Chairman ISSA. Right, they would work with an alternative.

They could not give you that alternative. They could not tell you

how to provide an abortion to somebody, because it is outside their

faith.

I have gone way over my time. You have all been very indulgent.

We do look forward to getting the rest of the materials for the

record.

Again, the ranking member has a motion at this time. If he

would like to bring it up and discuss it, I certainly would be willing

to.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I, too, want to thank you all, first of all, for your

testimony.

Mr. Chairman, I had said at the beginning that we wanted to

give more voice to the victims. And we ask for a day of hearings

because we did not have those voices here today. And so, I think

we need to do both. I think we need to have additional hearings

as our committee, and I am asking for the minority to have hearings, and we would love to have them next week. And so I renew

my motion, or request.

Chairman ISSA. The letter has been received, and we will advise

you.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

Chairman ISSA. And, with that, the hearing is concluded and adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:39 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Gerald E. Connolly and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]
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