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COPYRIGHT 2005 Congressional Quarterly, Inc.
Original Source: Political Transcript Wire
REPRESENTATIVES PELOSI AND WAXMAN HOLD A NEWS CONFERENCE ON LEGISLATION TO CREATE AN ANTI-FRAUD COMMISSION
SEPTEMBER 20, 2005
SPEAKERS: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HENRY WAXMAN (D-CA)
[*] PELOSI: Good afternoon. I'm pleased to be here with our really exceptional colleague. I say "our" because I know I speak for every member of the House, our exceptional colleague, Congressman Henry Waxman, our government spending watchdog.
In the week since Hurricane Katrina ravaged our Gulf Coast, Democrats have been calling for accountability. We have asked the Republican leadership to give the American people and independent and truly bipartisan inquiry as to what went wrong in the response to Hurricane Katrina.
Today, we are introducing an anti-fraud commission to prevent fraud and abuse in federal contracts related to Hurricane Katrina. We must have honesty in contracting.
Accountability has been undermined as the Republican Congress has abandoned its oversight responsibility. When President Clinton was in the White House, it was oversight, oversight, oversight, and that is Congress' appropriate role.
When President Bush became president, they abandoned, abdicated their responsibility in that regard.
Corruption has been invited as federal contracts have turned over to private companies with blatant conflicts of interest. Under the Bush administration and the Republican-led Congress, federal contracts have been mismanaged at great expense to the taxpayer.
The FBI has spent $170 million on a Virtual Case File system that does not work. I know this full well as a member of the Intelligence Committee for so long.
And the Department of Homeland Security has spent $200 million on a border monitoring system of cameras and sensors that do not work.
In Iraq, the contracting strategy of the Bush administration has suppressed competition so that companies such as Halliburton have received hugely lucrative monopoly contracts.
The danger signs are already evident.
PELOSI: Just yesterday, the White House top procurement official, David Safavian, was arrested for lying and obstructing a criminal investigation.
Until his resignation, Mr. Safavian had been developing contract policies for the multi-billion dollar relief effort after Hurricane Katrina. He is now under arrest.
As reported in today's Wall Street Journal, a company under investigation for defrauding Medicaid has now received a government contract to provide ambulances to the Gulf Coast at the expense to the taxpayer of $40,000 a day.
While the administration is giving no-bid, cost-plus contracts to their friends, cutting red tape for them, they have not removed the red tape for many small businesses who would like to participate in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast.
Halliburton has repeatedly overcharged the taxpayer in Iraq, has received contracts for repair work at three naval facilities in Mississippi.
Just as an aside, the Pentagon auditor has said that, of the contracts with Halliburton, $1 billion -- this is in Iraq -- $1 billion of it are in question and $400 million worth of it have no supporting evidence as to why they should have been paid that.
One of their managers was indicted for charging $5.3 billion for work that really should have been $685 million.
This is what's going on here. They did it in Iraq; now they want to do it in the Gulf Coast. They're making it a bonanza for their friends at the expense of small businesses in the area and at tremendous expense to the American taxpayer.
This is a low ethical standard. In some cases, it is corrupt.
The expected cost of rebuilding after Katrina is growing to hundreds of billions of dollars. We cannot allow what has happened in Iraq to happen here at home.
Companies such as Halliburton, which have been accused of taking advantage of the taxpayers in Iraq, should not be getting rebuilding contracts in the wake of Katrina.
We cannot allow the victims of Katrina to be victimized again with waste, fraud and abuse in federal contracting.
Today, we are introducing legislation designed to prevent fraud in federal contracting relating to Hurricane Katrina.
Congressman Waxman will go into more detail about the specific legislation. But in yielding the floor to him, may I commend him for his tremendous leadership, for being an outstanding and relentless advocate on behalf of the U.S. taxpayer.
Congressman Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the Government Reform Committee.
WAXMAN: Thank you very much, Leader Pelosi.
We are introducing legislation today to make sure that the money that's going to be spent to help the people who have suffered so much from this hurricane don't suffer more as the money that we are spending in any way gets misused.
WAXMAN: And already we've committed $62 billion in taxpayers' dollars for relief and reconstruction in the Gulf Coast region, and the ultimate price tag is going to be much higher. Some people have talked about $200 billion.
But equally important to trying to rebuild the area is our responsibility to make sure this money is well spent. We can't allow greed, mismanagement and cronyism to squander billions of taxpayers' dollars, as has happened too often over the last five years.
And that's why I'm pleased to join the Democratic leader and a number of other members to introduce legislation that would ensure that the Bush administration is accountable for hurricane relief and reconstruction spending.
The Bush administration has a disastrous track record when it comes to managing large federal contracts. Over the last five years, spending on no-bid contracts has skyrocketed, oversight of federal...
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