E PL UR UM IB N U U S Congressional Record United States th of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 116 CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION Vol. 165 WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 2019 No. 81 Senate The Senate met at 10 a.m. and was EXECUTIVE SESSION truth,’’ I stuck my neck out during the called to order by the President pro Reagan administration. That is when I tempore (Mr. GRASSLEY). learned about the Pentagon’s little EXECUTIVE CALENDAR shop of price horrors. f The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under Of course, ripping off the taxpayers the previous order, the Senate will pro- started during the Revolutionary War, PRAYER ceed to executive session to resume when contractors sold rotten meat to The Chaplain, Dr. Barry C. Black, of- consideration of the following nomina- the Continental Army, and it contin- fered the following prayer: tion, which the clerk will report. ued during the Civil War, when profit- Let us pray. The senior assistant legislative clerk eers sold ammunition filled with saw- Eternal Spirit, our shelter in the read the nomination of Kenneth Kiyul dust and shoddy shoes and horses to time of storm, when our hearts grow Lee, of California, to be United States the Union Army. It looks like it con- faint and weary, renew our strength Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit. tinues to this day. and enable us to soar above our chal- The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen- Back in 1985, Americans will recall, lenges. ator from Iowa. the Defense Department was shelling Today, fill our lawmakers with the PENTAGON OVERSIGHT out vast amounts of taxpayer dollars spirit of wisdom. May their different Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I for spare parts. Remember back then approaches to problem-solving for our come to the floor today to shed light the $450 hammers and the $640 toilet Nation and world contribute to more on yet another really dark cloud that seats? That sounds like a real bargain effective solutions for freedom in the is hanging over our Department of De- compared to the more recent wasteful years to come. Lord, deliver our Sen- fense. In fact, for decades, a dark cloud spending at the Pentagon, such as the ators from the spirit of pessimism, and of fiscal mismanagement has loomed $1,280 coffee mug and the $14,000 toilet bless them as they seek to honor You. large over the Pentagon. During my seat lid. Obviously, the cost of waste is In their thoughts, words, and deeds, very first term here in the Senate, I getting a whole lot more expensive for may they passionately strive to glorify began my quest to bring fiscal account- our taxpayers. You, ever seeking Your divine ap- ability to the Pentagon. Four decades Back in the 1980s, I fought to win a proval. later, I am still keeping tabs on the spending freeze on unchecked spending We pray in Your Holy Name. Amen. money trail. That money trail is some- sprees. Misspending and overspending times difficult to follow. Back then, it were riddling the defense budget at the f was a bit like David taking on Goliath. expense of the American taxpayer. We all know that the United States Military readiness drives the spend- PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE of America has the strongest and ing decisions that Members of Congress The President pro tempore led the mightiest military in the world. I am make when we cast our votes on the Pledge of Allegiance, as follows: thankful for that because a strong defense budget. Our constituents ex- I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the military is not meant to fight a war; it pect their elected representatives to United States of America, and to the Repub- is meant to maintain the peace. We make sure that the moms and dads, lic for which it stands, one nation under God, haven’t had a world war III since we sons and daughters, brothers and sis- indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. have had a strong military. ters who are serving our country in Our brave men and women who serve uniform are well equipped with the f in the U.S. Armed Forces protect our best resources money can buy. But shores at home and abroad to keep us they also expect their elected rep- RESERVATION OF LEADER TIME safe and to protect the blessings of lib- resentatives to make sure their hard- The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. erty for our children and grand- earned dollars that are withheld from CRAMER). Under the previous order, the children. That is exactly why it is so every paycheck—their tax dollars— leadership time is reserved. very important to keep check on the aren’t being ripped off by greedy cor- Pentagon’s ledgers, to help make sure porations, like TransDigm Group, Inc., f that every tax dollar assigned to the which I will speak about in a moment. Nation’s defense is actually spent ef- That is why I conduct robust over- CONCLUSION OF MORNING fectively and not squandered on waste, sight of defense spending. As a tax- BUSINESS fraud, and abuse. payer watchdog—and all of us are sup- The PRESIDING OFFICER. Morning With the help of brave whistleblowers posed to be watchdogs, and all of us business is closed. who stuck their necks out to ‘‘commit would claim to be watchdogs—it is our ∑ This ‘‘bullet’’ symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by a Member of the Senate on the floor. S2845 . VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:01 May 16, 2019 Jkt 089060 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 0624 Sfmt 0634 E:\CR\FM\A15MY6.000 S15MYPT1 S2846 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 15, 2019 responsibility and my responsibility to with the response from the internal watchdog for fiscal integrity and com- make sure every defense dollar is spent watchdogs at the DOD IG office. Their pliance at the Department of Defense, as effectively and as efficiently as pos- team wrote the report, and yet the in- is effectively saying something like sible. Every dollar lost to waste, fraud, spector general leadership team this: No one person at the Department and abuse harms military readiness, seemed to show no urgency whatsoever of Defense can be held accountable for and it also lines the pockets of some- to fix the problem they described. waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayers’ body else at taxpayers’ expense. This tells me I also need to keep a money. Obviously, to the taxpayers lis- Trimming the fat in a bloated bu- tight leash on the internal watchdogs tening or anybody else, this illustrates reaucracy won’t happen in the shad- leading the Department of Defense in- a cavalier attitude toward taxpayer ows. There is no magic wand to wave spector general’s office. Their February money that former Secretary of De- either. If there is one thing I have report exposes a galactic price gouging, fense James Mattis sought to extin- learned in my years of oversight, trans- colossal ripple, and out-of-this-world guish. By the way, I wrote him a note, parency matters. Transparency brings waste. It reads like a sequel to the complimenting him on some state- accountability. same financial shenanigans that have ments he made about taking care of Every time I come to the floor to turned the Pentagon into a taxpayer some of these problems. talk about the fiscal mess at the Pen- money pit. Change out the name of the The decades-long odyssey of tagon, I get a bit of deja vu. Earlier, I contractor, inflate the charges, submit misspending at the Pentagon keeps said my fraud-fighting efforts in the the invoice and voila—the American going around and around and around. 1980s could be compared to David v. Go- taxpayer is on the hook for another That is why—the way I see it—the De- liath. Now let’s fast-forward to this fixed-price, sole source contract. partment of Defense has a fundamental year, 2019. I am still here working as For this report, the inspector general responsibility to uphold fiscal integ- hard as ever to do away with wrong- examined one contractor, TransDigm rity. After reviewing the IG report and doing and extract fiscal accountability Group. In total, the inspector general meeting with its auditing team and the at the Pentagon. Today, some might analyzed 113 contracts between Janu- Department of Defense pricing czar, I say that job is like the one performed ary 2015 and January 2017. They re- have reached three conclusions. No. 1, by the famous character in Greek my- viewed 47 spare parts the Department fiscal control at the Department of De- thology who was destined to roll that of Defense purchased from this con- fense is AWOL. The Pentagon will heavy stone up the hill and to do it tractor. In just those 2 years, the in- never clean up its books if it cannot from then until eternity. spector general found TransDigm over- properly track the money trail and Congressional oversight can be ex- charged the Pentagon by $16–1/10th mil- connect the dots. tremely tedious, and it can be time- lion out of a total of $29–7/10th million Consider why the Department of De- consuming, but, as I like to remind in contracts. fense contracting officers were unable each of the other 534 Members of Con- The reasonable profit threshold is to even certify if a profit was ‘‘fair and gress, it is essential to our country considered by the Department of De- reasonable.’’ Do you know why? It was that we exercise this system of checks fense to be 15 percent or below.