Jeff Flake: “this process of challenge earmarks on the floor is often described at tilting at windmills, so I suppose it is only…”

“this process of challenge earmarks on the floor is often described at tilting at windmills, so I suppose it is only proper that we start today with an earmark for the wind demonstration project. This amendment seeks to prohibit $6.3 million from being used to fund this project. It appears that this is the second year in a row that this project has received multiple millions of dollars in Federal funding. Last year's defense appropriations included $4.25 million for this same earmark. It appears the funding was not requested by the administration. While little information is made available in this year's report, last year's conference report indicated that the funding is for a ``wind demonstration project on a U.S. Air Force installation using domestically manufactured turbines that are new to the U.S. market to test the security and reliability of wind generation on base.'' So I ask when this country is at war and seeing unprecedented increases in the Federal debt, why are we spending more than $10 million on windmills for military bases? How is it in the list of extensive and costly priorities for the United States military that testing newly introduced turbines rises to the list above research and development that could save lives?…”