Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

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Mr. WYDEN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to yield to my friend from Oregon.

Mr. WYDEN. I appreciate my colleague yielding to me and particularly highlighting the need for some real accountability and protection for the taxpayers at this time. We are seeing expenses for the Government--the war in Iraq, the various disasters that have hit--exploding to the point where people are saying, well, let us hold off on giving senior citizens some help with their prescription drugs.

I think what the Senator is saying is, before one takes those kinds of steps, put the brakes on the opportunity for ripping off taxpayers.

I want to ask the Senator a question that really stunned me. There are now about 392,000 Federal employees who have these credit cards across the country. We have been trying to figure out how many folks have them on the gulf coast and how many of the folks have this $250,000 authority. The two of us feel very strongly that there are a lot of dedicated people down there who are working very hard and nobody is suggesting otherwise, but what possible argument would there be for not having something along the lines of some guardrails to try to make sure that people did not abuse these credit cards?

That strikes me as a pretty modest step, just have some guardrails rather than saying, look, go out and take $250,000 worth of authority and we will see what happens.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, in answer to the Senator's request, he is asking that of perhaps 390,000 credit cards that exist in the possession of Federal workers, do we know how many have this $250,000 limit? We do not have the foggiest idea.

The Senator indicated we want to help people who are dealing with the hurricane. Our interest is not in pulling the rug out from under people who are working and trying to respond to the devastation of these hurricanes, but I am not interested in paving the way for additional waste, fraud, and abuse with the misuse of Federal credit cards.

Yes, there are thousands of dedicated public servants who will use these responsibly, but increasing the limit from $2,500 to $250,000, in my judgment, is fundamentally irresponsible, and we aim to take it back with this amendment and aim to offer this amendment to the next supplemental that deals with this hurricane.

I will yield the floor so my colleague from Oregon can have the floor, and I would like to propound a question at some point later when he finishes his statement.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, it seems to me that the bottom line is we want Federal workers in the hurricane zone to have all the tools they need to get the job done. But a month after the hurricane hit, we do not need $250,000 worth of authority on a credit card. One needs permission to spend that kind of money. The fact is, under the current rules one can have it when they need it, just not on a credit card where they do not even have to ask. This is a commonsense step.

Senator Dorgan indicated if somebody needs to spend more than $15,000 a shot, there are already streamlined, simplified acquisition procedures in place to let them do that. Those procedures at least have some oversight. The two of us supported the Katrina bills that came through the Congress. We support the rule that was already in place that increases the spending power of these cards by a reasonable amount in an emergency from $2,500 to $15,000. What the two of us feel strongly about and what we do not support is how can one support excessive spending without any safeguards at all?

We heard from a Dr. Yukins at George Washington that there is extraordinary potential for abuse here. Dr. Yukins said it was staggering.

In looking at Government waste at a variety of agencies, Senator Dorgan and I have come to the conclusion that when one is talking about the Department of Homeland Security, when one is talking about the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and when one is talking about the Department of Defense, what one needs is more accountability and more oversight rather than less.

In Homeland Security, we have seen massive outlays for ineffective programs to hire the TSA screeners. At FEMA, it is hard to know where to start there, but folks may have heard on public radio yesterday that a Government Accountability Office audit more than a year ago said that only one in several dozen FEMA employees could prove that they had done the proper paperwork for procurement authority.

When it comes to Iraq, all one needs to do there is talk about Iraqi contracts. Senator Dorgan and I have tried to put in place some oversight and some accountability there, and we will continue on that as well. So this is not the only avenue for abuse of taxpayer dollars. If one wants to come to the floor and talk about no-bid contracts and the like, there is plenty to dig into in terms of more oversight and more accountability for our taxpayers. This is a commonsense step that the Senate can take.

I have listened to Senator Collins on this issue, as well as Senator Grassley. A number of colleagues on both sides of the aisle have expressed concern about this in effect blank check to use credit cards, and use them on some pretty high ticket items.

I am going to yield the floor back to Senator Dorgan, but given the fact that there is a catalog of abuses--this happened outside the hurricane zone before anybody knew about Katrina--let us now deal with an emergency, let us recognize that there are different spending needs given that emergency, but let us also make sure that there are some safeguards in place to make sure the taxpayers' interests at a critical time when costs in Government are exploding, let us make sure there are some safeguards in place to protect the public.

I yield the floor.

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