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Senate

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 2069 (Executive Calendar)

2026-08-05 Issue 128 Showing 1–3 of 3

Official Congressional Record ↗

Joni Ernst

Republican

“I want to stop secret government spending. I found many examples of government waste. We sent money to China and Russia for useless things. We have a website that shows government spending. But bureaucrats are hiding billions of dollars. The Pentagon spent a lot of money on secret contracts. We don't know what they are doing with the money. Many departments are doing this. We need to stop fraud. The Senate passed my bill to stop secret spending. The House passed a similar bill. We need to pass this bill now. If you don't support this bill, you have something to hide.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, during my 12 years in the Senate, I have exposed many outlandish examples of government waste. For example, I uncovered that Washington sent nearly $500 million to China to pay for everything from poetry projects to dangerous research on bats. Another $870 million of U.S. taxpayer money went to Russia. This includes more than $770,000 from the National Institutes of Health sent to a state-run lab in Russia to put cats on treadmills. How did I uncover these crazy trails of money to our foreign adversary? It is quite simple. For 20 years now, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act has required unclassified government spending to be put online in a searchable public website, usspending.gov. This allows taxpayers to see for themselves how the money they are sending to Washington is spent. Bureaucrats, however, have been hiding tens of billions of dollars distributed through secret spending arrangements known as other transaction agreements, or OTAs, by not publicly disclosing these expenditures on USAspending.gov. The Pentagon alone has obligated $77.7 billion for thousands of OTAs over just the past 5 years through over 30,000 hard-to-track contracts. The lack of transparency with OTAs is having a real impact. According to the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon ``cannot assess the extent to which OTAs are delivering capabilities to the warfighter.'' The Office of the Inspector General also found the Pentagon doesn't even have an accurate count of OTAs or their dollar values. OTAs are also being used by the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Transportation, Energy, as well as NASA. We recently learned that NIH's new ARPA-H biomedical research contracts are being processed as OTAs through the Interior Department. This means if you want to know the details behind NIH's biomedical research contracts, you practically have to be a data wizard and know where to look deep in the Department of--where did I say?--Department of the Interior's databases. I know, it makes no sense. As we witnessed last week, we can't get answers from Dr. Fauci about what NIH has been funding because he is hiding behind the Fifth Amendment. Taxpayers deserve to know how their dollars are being spent in Washington, and we have an obligation here to show them. In June, the Senate unanimously passed my bipartisan Stop Secret Spending Act to require OTAs to be publicly disclosed on USAspending.gov just like all other government spending. I very much appreciate Senators Peters and Hassan, whose support was critical for making this happen. I was also delighted last month when the House approved the bipartisan companion bill introduced by Representatives Moore and Panetta, which is now at the desk here in the Senate. We all know Congress can't agree on very much these days, so it makes a very powerful statement when folks on both sides of the aisle and from both Chambers come together by passing this transparency bill to hold Washington accountable for how Americans' tax dollars are being spent. With fraudsters stealing $1.4 billion every single day, we need this information now so we can account for who is taking tax dollars and why they are taking them. Earlier today, I attended the meeting of the Vice President's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud at the White House, and the success of this effort depends on being able to track how dollars are being spent. Unfortunately, some Governors are impeding anti-fraud efforts by blocking access to spending information about how tax dollars from Washington are being spent in their own States. We can't stop what we can't see, but we can do our part by passing the Stop Secret Spending Act today. This bill will end the secrecy about how tens of billions of dollars are being spent every single year. There are no excuses for delaying sending this bill to the President today to become law. In fact, the only reason to oppose the Stop Secret Spending Act is if you have something to hide. As if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2069, which was received from the House. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Ted Cruz

Republican

“I like Joni Ernst's bill. I voted for it. But I won't let it pass yet. The other side needs to pass my bill first. I put a hold on their bills to make them pass mine. I'm negotiating now. I think I will win. Then I will let Joni's bill pass too.”

Official Congressional Record

Reserving the right to object, I understand that my colleague from Iowa is deeply interested in getting this legislation passed, and I appreciate the diligence and effort she has devoted to this legislation. This is a good bill. I support her bill. Indeed, I voted for her bill, as did every other Member of this body. But the Senate also has a great many other bills that we are working on, that we have passed, and that have run into a roadblock in the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives currently is refusing to take up Senate-passed bills and, rather, is passing almost exclusively House bills. This is an unreasonable position for the House to take. Indeed, it is not a theoretical position; it is what the House has done on this very bill. On this bill, Senator Ernst introduced it, the Senate passed it unanimously, it was sent to the House, and what did the House do? They did not pass the Senate-passed bill; instead, they passed essentially the identical bill but as a House measure. Now, mind you, that was not because they had any substantive objections to Senator Ernst's bill but, rather, it was because they were refusing to do their job as another Chamber in this Congress. Among the bills that the Senate has passed that are sitting, languishing at the House right now is a bill that I have worked very hard to pass called Trey's Law. Trey's Law is named for Trey Carlock, a beloved citizen of Dallas who tragically, as a young boy, was a victim of sexual assault at a summer camp. Litigation ensued, and Trey ended up signing an NDA where he was blocked by law from sharing the details of the horrific sexual abuse he endured. That silence weighed on Trey powerfully, and he ultimately took his own life at age 28. Trey's Law is an initiative that has been championed by Trey's sister Elizabeth. Numerous States, including my home State of Texas and including, Mr. President, your home State of Missouri, have passed Trey's Law. In the Senate, I introduced Trey's Law as bipartisan legislation, and the Senate passed it 100 to none, and it is sitting at the House languishing--not because anyone objects to it but simply because the House has decided not to process Senate bills. So, as my friend Senator Ernst knows, I have placed a hold on House bills until the House starts taking up and passing Senate bills. I have been actively in negotiation with House leadership, and I am confident this issue will get resolved. The House is going to take up and do their job and pass Senate bills, and the Senate will likewise take up and pass House bills. And I am confident in particular that Senator Ernst will succeed in passing this bill into law this year--with my enthusiastic support. But often in Congress, the only way to get a change of action is to exercise leverage. That is what I am doing now to get the House to take up and pass important bills, so therefore, at this time at least, I object.

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Joni Ernst

Republican

“I'm sad that my bill won't pass yet. It is a good bill. It does not have my name. But that's okay. I want these bills to pass. The other side should work with us. We should not fight. It is bad when we fight. It is bad for the people.”

Official Congressional Record

I can appreciate the dilemma that many of us are in as we debate these very important bills, and they are very important bills. So what I have in front of me here at my desk is a list of 59 House bills that have been passed this Congress. They are H.R. bills. They are H.J. Res. 140; H.R. 7147--59 House bills that have already passed through the Senate in this Congress. Now, I understand that we all have ways that we have to use leverage. I completely understand that. As a matter of fact, the bill that I had passed through this Chamber, you know, I would love to have it as an S. bill, a Senate bill, and I would love to see my name at the top of the bill rather than a House bill. The companion bill was passed by the House. So, again, I would love to see my name at the top of the bill and it listed as a Senate bill. I discussed it with my staff. I am in the last 6 months of my final term in the U.S. Senate. I would love to have more of my legacy items with my name on them, but I told my staff that it is more important that we get these bills done. I don't care if it is a House bill. I don't care if this has my name all over it. The important thing is that when we have good pieces of legislation put in front of us and that we worked hard in a bipartisan manner, in a bicameral manner, and it is good for the American people, that we move forward with those bills. So I am disappointed today that my piece of legislation under the title of a House bill will not be moving, and I know that many of our constituencies will be greatly disappointed. I do hope in the future that, between the Senate Republican leadership and the House Republican leadership, we can come together on these issues because it is not good for the American people when we have this infighting on good, solid pieces of legislation. We can do better.

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