Jeff Flake: “when I saw this earmark, which is $1 million for research at the environmental center at Mystic Aquarium, Connecticut, I…”

“when I saw this earmark, which is $1 million for research at the environmental center at Mystic Aquarium, Connecticut, I thought I was experiencing deja vu. We had a similar amendment in the Energy and Water bill just last week, or 2 weeks ago. Now we are looking at the defense bill, and the only difference is the amount of the earmark. I believe it was $400,000 then; this defense bill earmark is for $1 million. My amendment would remove this earmark from the bill. Now, during our debate a few weeks ago on this subject, we learned that the aquarium has been in operation for over 20 years, that it is an educational and research institution with expertise in ocean environmental studies and in deep sea exploration. We learned that it provides activities and learning for boys and girls clubs. All of these are worthy activities, certainly. We learned that the world's foremost deep sea explorer collocates his operation at the aquarium. That is Dr. Robert Ballard, I believe. {time} 1745 What we didn't learn was why this aquarium gets favorable treatment over aquariums in Arizona or Massachusetts or Kansas. We didn't learn what enumerated Federal function the aquarium fills. We certainly did not learn, and we haven't learned yet today, and I hope to learn in the next 5 minutes, how the aquarium contributes to the most basic and critical function of defending our country.…”