Jeff Flake: “I rise today a bit disappointed but unfortunately not surprised. On December 4, just a week ago, the House of…”

“I rise today a bit disappointed but unfortunately not surprised. On December 4, just a week ago, the House of Representatives passed a motion to instruct conferees to remove the earmarks from this authorization. That vote passed by a margin of 249-160. Now, I have a little bit of experience with amendments trying to strike earmarks, and I don't think I've ever come close to 249. That's a significant number of votes. That was a bipartisan total, in that 60 Democrats joined Republicans to oppose these earmarks; yet these earmarks remain in the conference report. Every House earmark that was added remain in the conference report. Simply put, if controversial earmarks like these can remain in a report and aren't eliminated, what earmark will ever be eliminated? When will we ever get around to eliminating these? Let me just remind you that procedural irregularities surrounded the consideration of this bill when it came to the House. The earmark list required by the House rules was not submitted with the House report. The amendment review procedure was flawed. Members didn't have the critical time necessary to review these earmarks. In fact, the earmark list, when we finally got it, was submitted after the deadline to go to the Rules Committee to offer the amendments that would be considered. So we got the list of earmarks after the deadline to oppose them.”