Date: 2009-03-31
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of House Resolution 279. It does provide funding for committees for the 111th Congress so that we might do the work that were constitutionally required to do. Id like to begin by thanking Chairman BRADY and his staff for truly engaging in a collaborative process as we work towards our common goal of providing adequate and appropriate funding for committees. It is my belief the legislation before us today does allow the Congressthe Houseto carry out both its legislative and oversight functions while balancing those needs with the responsibility placed on us by the American people to spend their tax dollars wisely. During these difficult economic times we have a shared interest in making sure were frugal and wise stewards of the taxpayers dollars. However. this commitment to tighten our collective fiscal belts cannot come at the expense of our constitutionally mandated role of providing oversight over the Federal coffers. Theres one complaint Ive had about the Congress when I served here beforesome two decades agoand while I was gone and when I first returned. was that I think there was not the commitment to oversight that was necessary on both sides of the Congress and both sides of the aisle. I think there are many that have done a good job. but we can always do better. As we have seen recently with the reports of questionable uses of TARP funds. the potential for waste. fraud. and abuse is real. requiring us to be ever vigilant in performing effective oversight and making sure that thats done in a timely fashion. Just as these committees have a responsibility to conduct effective oversight over the matters under their jurisdiction. the House Administration Committee must ensure that expenses of the House are being used in a manner that prevents waste. fraud. and abuse as well. So I was extremely pleased that our committees majority adopted our proposed amendment to have the chairs and ranking members of all committees appear before our committee after the first session to provide an update regarding the funding requests and operations of each respective committee. One of the things that we should understand is that the rules that weve adopted for the operation of the House in this Congress require that all authorizing committees take the responsibility to provide the vital oversight for those operations of the executive branch that are under their jurisdiction. I believe that we have made progress on that. The majority has worked with us to move towards the goal of making monthly committee reports available online. These reports are already required. but we will get them in a timely fashion. We will establish a template so that those committees will report and then we will move to make those available online so that we can in fact in the House of Representatives move further to transparency. as we are requiring transparency in the executive branch. The public can take a look at our work. Its all out there for them to see. They can see the work that were doing. They can see the oversight that were providing. They can see. most importantly. how their dollars are being spent in this. their House of Representatives. In addition to determining appropriate funding levels and ensuring that transparency in committee operations. one of my chief concerns during the committee funding process was that the precedent of allocating onethird of each committees resources to the minority party was upheld. When Republicans assumed the majority in 1995. we started what has been an ongoing tradition of ensuring the minority party receives at least onethird of the committees resources. an amount I believe necessary to carry out the minoritys responsibilities as the party of "loyal opposition." Im therefore pleased. Mr. Speaker. that Chairman BRADY has not only honored this commitment. but has made very strong statements in the committee. on the RECORD. that he will be diligent to address any complaints raised by ranking minority members in this regard. For that. I thank him. I think this sets an excellent precedent for the future for all of us. I believe that both sides have worked well to improve this committee funding process. As the chairman has said. there were just a couple of exceptions where we did not grant the request made by the chairmen and ranking members for the increases as they came forward. We did give increases. but not in the numbers they talked about. When I look over the numbers. it looks tb me like we cut in half the requests for increases that were asked for. I happen to think that that is a good thing here. We can go through the committees onebyone. Luckily. my staff has printed it large enough so that I can read it now. When I was here 25 years ago. I did not need this large print. I was able to use smaller notes. That just shows the progress that we have made. Mr. Speaker. I would thank the chairman for working with me to advance this funding process. I would say that we brought this forward in as expeditious a fashion as we were able to. I reserve the balance of my time.