Martin Hoke: “I think that you are aware that as the Chairman of the Committee on the Budget Working Group on National Security, I…”

“I think that you are aware that as the Chairman of the Committee on the Budget Working Group on National Security, I have spent a great deal of time with respect to the Department of Energy and examining the needs and missions of the Department of Energy and making a full investigation into what is going on there. As a result of that, it has been called to my attention, and I have found out a great deal about certain travel habits of the Secretary of Energy from the perspective of the monies that have been transferred from the accounts in the programs that safeguard nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, away from those programs and into the travel accounts. I wanted, today, to talk about a different problem that has been brought to my attention with respect to the travel. The Secretary has justified these trips, among other reasons, for the benefit that they have brought to American companies that have been able to generate a great deal of commercial transactions as a result. In fact, the Secretary has made claims of about $20 billion with respect to the amount of transactions that have been entered into as a result of her travels. In fact, it has not been brought to my attention that there have been any more than about $400,000 or $500,000 of actual committed contracts; and what I wanted to talk about today was the cancellation of the Enron contract, which I believe can be tried directly to the Secretary's involvement.”