Secretive DARPA clone created to administer new venture capitalist firm within central government. Graft and corruption reformed to incentives and partnerships.
Any legislation passed in the waning moments of a lame duck session of Congress warrants suspicion by the public. Senator Richard Burr's Bio-defense / BARDA bill, co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, is no exception.
Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina was successful in passing legislation to create the Biomedical Research and Development Authority (BARDA). BARDA's mission is to use the power of central government cash and facilitation to speed the development and distribution of vaccines and other critical products bureaucrats claim are required to effectively counter both natural disasters and potential bio-terrorist attacks.
As Senator Burr described it on page 11236 of the Senate Congressional Record for December 5th, "Modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s [DARPA] successes in defense research, BARDA will bring innovation to a process that is simply too slow to combat terrorist activities or Mother Nature." (As an improvement on the DARPA model, the original draft of the BARDA bill contained an extra bonus -- the first ever (known) central government agency with a blanket exemption from the Freedom of Information Act. In the final bill, the blanket FOIA exemption was replaced by a provision prohibiting disclosure of "technical data or scientific information.")
While some question the successes of the DARPA model, a more detailed listing of BARDA's advertised benefits can be read in the press release issued by Senator Burr's office on December 5th of last year. (Democrat loyalists can read the more ponderous Kennedy press release.) Near the end of the Burr release is the money quote: "The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) will be an aggressive venture capitalist partnering with universities, research institutions and industry on the advanced development of promising drugs and vaccines."
A discussion on the wisdom of having our central government act as a venture capitalist will have to be set aside for another day. However, if partnerships with universities, research institutions and industry sounds suspiciously like big wheeler David Murdock's proposed $1 billion dollar biotech park for Kannapolis in Senator Burr's home state of North Carolina, you might just be a conspiracy theorist. Here's how you can tell for sure: A real conspiracy theorist would note that David Murdock unveiled his plan to invest $1 billion dollars in a biotech park in Kannapolis on September 13th, 2005. Then, he would cast a wary eye on the fact that freshman Senator Richard Burr introduced the original version of his $1 billion dollar BARDA bill a month later on October 17th. Finally, he would go back a couple of months to the midnight passage of CAFTA trade bill in July of 2005. That was the midnight where North Carolina Congressman Robin Hayes was offered by the visibly shaken Speaker Hastert whatever he wanted to reverse the NO vote he had already cast against CAFTA. Hayes did reverse his vote and the hardest fought trade agreement in several decades passed 217-215.
Of course, our model conspiracy theorist can never know for sure what deal Congressman Hayes negotiated in exchange for selling out his vote. He said he got a good deal for the people in his district. Our conspiracy theorist would counter by noting that Kannapolis is in Congressman Hayes's district and that the Murdock biotech project is being built upon the remains of the Cannon-Pillotex textile mill complex -- the Hayes-Cannon family business purchased by Murdock and eventually liquidated.
That's how a bona fide conspiracy theorist would spin his web. Back in the real world of professional journalism tough we would have to simply keep track of latest developments such as Mr. Murdock's recent private meeting with local county commissioners and city council members to ask for a doubling of taxpayer investment in his project. (Taxpayers will have no say in the decision to take on this additional $84 million of debt to fund Mr. Murdock's scheme because it is being done under North Carolina's new tax increment financing system, which was passed as an unconstitutional amendment to North Carolina's state constitution in 2004.)
Adding the $25 million or so Mr. Murdock has already negotiated away from the State of North Carolina on an ongoing yearly basis to what he is undoubtedly arranging to receive through BARDA grants, it would appear that the appetite Mr. Murdock has for taxpayer money is nearly insatiable...it's enough anyway to at least cover the $1 billion dollars of private investment that is supposed to be creating a biotech paradise in a shuttered up textile mill town. (It's reported that one of the firms Murdock has coming to his corporate park is from Israel. No problem. BARDA contains a clause for handing out US taxpayer money to foreign companies as well.)
BARDA is of course more than just a private slush fund for Mr. Murdock and his accomplices. It's a slush fund for just about anybody who is plugged into our central government headquartered in Washington, DC. Are we being harsh? A quick recap of how BARDA and its allowances for graft made it through our Congress is in order. This concluding research comes courtesy of a registered conspiracy specialist, Robert Cressionnie host of the local TV show, America in Danger in Rocky Mount, NC and a volunteer chapter leader of the venerable and increasingly vindicated John Birch Society:
On October 17, 2005, Senator Burr introduced the initial BARDA bill as Senate bill 1873. The five co-sponsors included Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina. (Senator Dole and her husband are no relation to the Dole Fruit Company controlled by Mr. Murdock.)
The initial Burr bill was met with disdain by Democrats and members of the research community. Even in the Republican controlled Senate, prospects for the beleaguered bill tendered by the freshman Senator from North Carolina remained technically in doubt. Any weakness however was feigned. Like an accomplished virus, the BARDA bill mutated and was reborn on July 17th, 2006 as Senate bill 3678. The new bill arrived with a total of twelve co-sponsors. Senator Dole was absent but new sponsors included long time health issue paragons Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.
The imprimaturs of Senators Kennedy and Clinton silenced Democratic opposition. Though the slightly re-crafted bill still created a new central government agency with sweeping exemptions from its own laws it attracted little critical attention in major media outlets.
The new bill was dormant until the final week of the 109th session. On December 5th, Senator Burr introduced his BARDA amendment on S. 3678 to the floor and like previous readings called for its passage on unanimous consent -- that is, passage without a roll call vote that can be traced by constituents. As the last major piece of business of the long evening, unanimous consent was granted and S. 3678 passed as amended on its required third reading.
Three days later on December 8th, the last day of the lame duck 109th Congress, Representative Joe Barton of Texas called for the Burr bill to be taken from the Speakers table and brought to the floor. Congressman Barton also called for passage on unanimous consent as had been done in previous House readings. There being no objections (or debate) the bill was read and passed.
As chairman of Energy and Commerce committee, Barton's participation was critical in the creation of the BARDA biomedical research agency (a.k.a. government venture capitalist.) Barton inserted into the Congressional Record the letters he and Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia had exchanged during their last day of work for the year. (Congress can work fast when motivated.) As chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, Davis agreed to speed the BARDA bill along in the waning hours of the 109th Congress by waiving the requirement that it be considered by his committee in sequential order with other bills pending before it. Davis further agreed to meet Barton's request to have the Government Reform Committee waive consideration of the bill altogether -- BARDA being deemed so inherently beneficial to the American people. So much for Government Reform.
Had the Committee on Government Reform been allowed to conduct its work, several contestable areas of the BARDA bill might have found their way into a discussion in the public record. Topics would have included the exemptions given to BARDA to award grants on non-competitive bids, make payments without services or products being received, being able to conduct the spending of $1 billion dollars and more per year without being subject to Government Accounting Office (GAO) audits and maintaining the power to determine when its activities are exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests.
Looking at the key actors involved and the processes which they employed to create this secretive biomedical DARPA clone within the central government, it would appear there is enough smoke to warrant suspicion over the new BARDA apparatus.
In simpler days of journalism when the owner, publisher and editor of newspapers were often the same person, the dealings of Senator Burr, Congressman Hayes and tycoons like Mr. Murdock most often were described in print as graft and corruption. Unfortunately, in today's corporate newsletters that masquerade as newspapers, the preference is to use the more marketable and libel free terminology of incentives and partnerships.
Our nation is sick and our nominally elected representatives have concocted a cure for the wrong disease.
(Sidebar: As for Senator Burr's bill also allowing for, in cases of emergency, the forced inoculation of the public with untested vaccines -- and no legal recourse in the event of negative outcomes -- that's another story.)
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