Jeff Flake: “I too want to commend those who worked to get the earmarks out of the bill. But I just wanted to point out that not all…”

“I too want to commend those who worked to get the earmarks out of the bill. But I just wanted to point out that not all the earmarks are out of the bill. In the bill, we have $1.25 million for the Center For Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law at the University of Hawaii, $1.2 million for the Hawaiian Department of Education for school construction, $2 million to the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians for cultural and education funding, $5 million for America's Promise. Now these may well be good programs, but they should not be funded in this bill that says that all the earmarks are gone. We also violated a House rule where we were naming two Federal facilities after sitting Members of Congress. The Center for Disease Control headquarters is being renamed the Arlen Specter Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center. We are renaming the communication center at the CFDC the Thomas R. Harkin Global Communications Center. We should not be doing this. If we are getting rid of the earmarks, we ought to get rid of all of them.”