[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

HHS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: EXAMINING THE POLITICIZATION OF GRANTS

=======================================================================

HEARING

before the

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

__________

DECEMBER 1, 2011

__________

Serial No. 112-124

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Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://www.house.gov/reform

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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
JOHN L. MICA, Florida Ranking Minority Member
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JIM JORDAN, Ohio Columbia
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TIM WALBERG, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee PETER WELCH, Vermont
JOE WALSH, Illinois JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida JACKIE SPEIER, California
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania

Lawrence J. Brady, Staff Director
John D. Cuaderes, Deputy Staff Director
Robert Borden, General Counsel
Linda A. Good, Chief Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director

C O N T E N T S

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Page
Hearing held on December 1, 2011................................. 1
Statement of:
Sheldon, George, Acting Assistant Secretary, Administration
for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services; and Eskinder Negash, Director, Office for
Refugee Resettlement, Administration for Children and
Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services..... 42
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Connolly, Hon. Gerald E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Virginia, prepared statement of............... 103
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland:
Commercial Sexual Exploitation Report.................... 37
Letter dated December 1, 2011............................ 39
Prepared statement of.................................... 30
Stolen Smiles Report..................................... 35
Trafficking in Persons Report June 2011.................. 33
Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California:
Attorney General's Annual Report......................... 76
Memo dated September 9, 2011............................. 6
Sheldon, George, Acting Assistant Secretary, Administration
for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, prepared statement of...................... 45
Smith, Hon. Christopher H., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New Jersey, prepared statement of............. 2

HHS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: EXAMINING THE POLITICIZATION OF GRANTS

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2011

House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:40 a.m. in Room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Issa, Burton, Platts, McHenry,
Jordan, Chaffetz, Walberg, Lankford, Amash, Buerkle, Labrador,
DesJarlais, Gowdy, Ross, Guinta, Farenthold, Kelly, Cummings,
Towns, Maloney, Norton, Kucinich, Tierney, Connolly, Quigley,
Davis, Welch, and Speier.
Also present: Representative Smith of New Jersey.
Staff present: Richard A. Beutel, senior counsel; Robert
Borden, general counsel; Molly Boyl, parliamentarian; Gwen
D'Luzansky, assistant clerk; Adam P. Fromm, director of Member
services and committee operations; Linda Good, chief clerk;
Frederick Hill, director of communications and senior policy
advisor; Christopher Hixon, deputy chief counsel, oversight;
Sery E. Kim, counsel; Mark D. Marin, director of oversight;
Christine Martin, counsel; Laura L. Rush, deputy chief clerk;
Jeff Solsby, senior communications advisor; Rebecca Watkins,
press secretary; Peter Warren, legislative policy director;
Kevin Corbin, minority deputy clerk; Ashley Etienne, minority
director of communications; Jennifer Hoffman, minority press
secretary; Carla Hultberg, minority chief clerk; Lucinda
Lessley, minority policy director; Dave Rapallo, minority staff
director; Mark Stephenson, minority senior policy advisor/
legislative director; and Cecelia Thomas and Ellen Zeng,
minority counsels.
Chairman Issa. This hearing will come to order.
The first order of business is that I ask unanimous consent
that Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey be able to join
us from the dais and ask questions of the witnesses and that
his written statement be included in the record. Without
objection, so ordered.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith
follows:]

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Chairman Issa. Before I begin today, I want to also include
in the record four documents the committee has received, not
from Health and Human Services pursuant to the committee's
request for documents, but from whistleblowers, as I want to
make sure that the committee's majority and minority both have
them. We had not released these documents, but these documents
became available to the press and had hoped to have full and
complete documents from HHS beforehand. I will put the rest in,
but ask unanimous consent they be placed in the record and
distributed to all Members at this time.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to object, but I
haven't seen the documents. Can we see them before we let them
in?
Chairman Issa. Of course. The gentleman reserves. The
documents will be distributed to all the Members.
For clarity, these are internal documents, as far as we can
tell authenticated, that have been printed out, and Politico
has them, the Washington Post has them. We don't know how many
other newspapers have them. Again, the nature of the beast were
these were pursuant to our investigation. They were not
delivered to us by HHS, which is a separate matter of
investigation since they were fully due and should have been
presented to us, were withheld, and I would only say that as
the ranking member evaluates them and the other members of the
committee, these are documents in the opinion of the chair that
are a failure to deliver pursuant to our request and as such
are subject to additional inquiry by the committee.
The committee takes seriously that documents should not be
released by whistleblowers who are afraid that basically these
documents may have been deliberately withheld.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, so these are HHS documents that
would have come in if HHS had adhered to the subpoena?
Chairman Issa. That is our opinion of the documents, having
looked at them. Again, HHS will have an opportunity to say why
they withheld these documents. I am releasing them at this time
to the committee because I don't believe that we should go
forward with this hearing without having as many documents as
are available. If they are available to the press, even though
they haven't been formally published, certainly they are likely
to be seen by the public. I don't want any Member here to go
through a hearing and then find out he didn't know what he
didn't know.
Mr. Cummings. I just wanted to be clear, we are just
reserving for just a few minutes so we can have time to review
them.
Chairman Issa. Okay. I would also ask the committee staff
to make them available to HHS staff so if there is any question
of authenticity, we would like to have that resolved early on
in the process. I don't think these are the most determinative
documents in the world, but it is the nature of our committee.
We are an investigative committee and professionalism, at least
on our part, is essential.
Mr. Cummings. And just in fairness to HHS, and I know that
they will have an opportunity to respond, is the time up for
them to submit documents?
Chairman Issa. Yes, it is.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Thank you.
[The information referred to follows:]

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Chairman Issa. Although, we will be happy to have
supplemental discovery at any time.
With that, the Oversight Committee exists for two purposes:
We secure the fundamental principles, first, that Americans
have a right to know that the money Washington takes from them
is well spent; and, second, Americans deserve an efficient,
effective government that works for them. Our duty on the
Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to protect these
rights.
Our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable
to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they
get from their government. We will work tirelessly in
partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the
American people and bring genuine reform to the Federal
bureaucracy. This is the mission of the Government Oversight
Committee.
Two weeks ago, this committee approved a bill, authored by
subcommittee chairman, Mr. Lankford, to require transparency in
the grant making process. Today we are presented with an
example of why this bill is so important, to ensure that
agencies are held accountable and responsible stewards of the
taxpayers' funds, and in this case the taxpayers' funds and the
taxpayers' execution of these funds, to the greatest benefit of
the beneficiaries they are intended to, as we attempt to
understand the decisionmaking process used to award these
grants, a process that from the outside observer's perspective
appears to be inexcusably politically altered.
The grant went to four organizations--I have a mistake in
the written statement. It went to three out of four that
applied. The committee has learned many disturbing facts about
the process. The most experienced and top-rated national
applicant was not selected for this award. Other organizations,
including ones that submitted much lower rated proposals, were
somehow funded.
The process was delayed for months while the agencies
struggled to find ways, in our opinion, to inject a new
criteria to alter the funding process. That criteria was not in
fact, as has been reported by HHS, a stipulation or
requirement. Just the opposite. Although the new statement was
part of the process, it was clearly understood that applicants
who would not meet that ``new stipulation'' were still eligible
to apply; meaning there was an expectation that if they were
the most qualified or among the most qualified, they would
still be awarded.
Notwithstanding that, a political appointee, unconfirmed,
effectively a czar, interjected themselves and made a decision
that changed the outcome of this grant from the decision that
otherwise would have been made by career civil service
employees. This undermines the integrity of the process and
violates the spirit, if not the letter of the Federal law and
regulations that prohibits discrimination on the basis, in this
case, of deep religious beliefs that were well-known before the
applicant applied.
If we are going to have a litmus test that ``Catholics need
not apply,'' if to administer--and I repeat, administer a
procedure, we need to say so, we need to codify it in the law
and we need to stand the scrutiny of the Supreme Court. It is
clear to this Member, you cannot stand the scrutiny of the
Supreme Court to simply make an organization that has a
religious-based belief completely ineligible without a review
by the Court. The Court would not side with Health and Human
Services in this case.
Now, many will couch this as this is a somewhat more
complicated issue. This Member does not believe that it is
complicated, but I do believe that this committee has a
responsibility that goes far beyond the religious-related
question that may be brought up on both sides of the dais. Just
the opposite. This committee has a responsibility to see that
the process is predictable at the end, based on the applicant's
expectations at the beginning. Whether it is in fact the award
of tanker contracts by the Air Force, whether it is green
energy proposals, whether in fact it is an underwriting of a
purchase of a steel mill somehow deemed to be green, this
committee has an obligation to look at grants and awards and
make sure that they are predictable in a nonpartisan, non-
ideological way.
This committee chairman is not of that conclusion. Perhaps
today we will get some answers that will help us see the
nuances, but as of this point, it is the chair's view that in
fact the system is more of an earmark, in the case of this
award, a Presidential appointee earmark, than in fact a
competitive grant. Congress has, both majority and minority,
stopped the practice of earmarks. We must ensure that the grant
process can never be called an earmark process with preferences
based on ideology or political employees' whims.
With that, I recognize the ranking member for his opening
statement.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]

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Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to take a moment to remind everyone of our
ultimate goal here today, to help victims of human trafficking,
forced prostitution and sex slavery to escape their conditions
and put their lives back together. These victims have survived
horrifying abuses that few people in this room can even
imagine. These atrocities are simply despicable, almost
unspeakable. But we cannot shy away from them. We must address
them directly and give these victims a voice.
To conduct a responsible review of the process used to
award these grants we need to understand who these victims are,
what they have gone through and why they need reproductive
health services.
This is an extremely uncomfortable issue. We are talking
about young women who have been raped, sometimes repeatedly,
and often have contracted sexually transmitted diseases. In
addition, many of them are coping with severe psychological
trauma.
If I may, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter
into the record these studies on this issue. First is a State
Department 2011 report on trafficking in persons which says
this: The United States is a source transit-and-destination
country for men, women and children subjected to forced labor,
debt bondage, document servitude and sex trafficking.
Chairman Issa. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3939.027

Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Second is a study by researchers at the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine which finds that 90 percent of
trafficking victims reports ``having been physically forced or
intimidated into sex or doing something sexual.''
Chairman Issa. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3939.028

Mr. Cummings. Third is a study by researchers at the
University of Pennsylvania which reports that ``between 244,000
and 325,000 American children and youth are at risk each year
of becoming victims of sexual exploitation, including as
victims of commercial sexual exploitation.''
Chairman Issa. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
To address these problems, HHS stated in its grant
announcement that these funds are intended to provide
comprehensive case management, services that include referrals
of family planning services. To be clear, this is not about
using Federal funds for abortion. This is about providing
referrals for a full range of contraception, family planning
and other reproductive health services. Applicants who are
willing and able to provide these referrals got preference over
those who were not.
Mr. Chairman, after you announced this hearing, I sent to
you a letter requesting additional witnesses. They are
individuals who work for organizations that help these victims
on a daily basis and advocate on their behalf. It would have
taken the committee very little time to hear from them today
and they would have provided a compelling case for why these
services are so critical for these victims.
Ultimately you rejected my request. In your response letter
you said this type of testimony was not the subject of today's
hearing. I strongly disagree. If our goal is to analyze these
grants in a responsible manner, we cannot ignore the voices of
these human trafficking victims, many of whom are very young
women who have been exploited and raped by their persecutors.
For these reasons, today I am invoking my right as the
ranking member to request a minority day of hearings under
House Rule 11. I am submitting for the record the required
letter with the appropriate number of signatures.
[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, you have scheduled no full
committee business for the entire week of next week. We have no
full committee hearings and no markups. Since our schedule is
wide open and since the witnesses are willing to appear, I
respectfully request that you schedule a hearing for then.
I thank you.
With that, I yield back.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Cummings. Yes, of course.
Chairman Issa. Although you have a right under rule 11, I
would strongly suggest that you wait until the conclusion of
the hearing to assert that it is the decision of the chair to
limit the scope of this hearing. Having said that, as I have
already announced to the witnesses, I have a strong expectation
that during the process of a more narrow hearing that was and
is on the question of whether or not merit-based procedures
were used, this committee is very likely to have a rather wide-
ranging discussion along with our witnesses on some of the
particulars of the trafficking in human beings, people being
used as sex slaves, a great many issues that, although not the
subject of this hearing, may very well be the subject of a
followup hearing.
For that reason I would hope that everyone would reserve
judgment until we have gone through this. And if the committee
at the conclusion of a more narrow hearing wants to explore
this other issue, which is inseparable in many ways from what
these gentlemen work on every day around the country, then I
certainly would entertain scheduling an investigation and a
hearing and other committee work related to that issue.
If the gentleman doesn't know, I have worked on the
question of trafficking in human beings all the way back in the
Bush administration, and I agree with the gentleman that that
is an area that there is never enough attention by Congress.
So, if the gentleman will reserve that motion until the
conclusion, I certainly will entertain the motion.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I will reserve. First of all, I
appreciate what you just said. When I read some of the
testimony and looked at the decision--and I am glad you have
been involved in it--I was horrified. And I just want to make
sure, as I know you do, and part of this hearing is about this,
making sure that HHS is doing its part to help these young
victims address their particular needs. So the request for the
hearing was in that vein, the ultimate goal of trying to help
people who are in big trouble. And many of them, of course, are
our own fellow citizens.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I reserve until the end of the
hearing.
Chairman Issa. Great. The gentleman yields back.
All Members will have 5 days to submit opening statements.
With that, today's hearing, we will hear from two witnesses
from the Department of Health and Human Services. First of all,
George Sheldon is the acting assistant secretary of the
Administration for Children and Families, and Mr. Eskinder
Negash is the director of the Office of Refugee Settlement.
Gentleman, pursuant to the rules of this committee, all
witnesses who testify are to be sworn. Would you please rise to
take the oath.
Raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Issa. Let the record reflect affirmative answers
by both. Please be seated.
Now, Mr. Sheldon, I know you have testified once before,
Mr. Negash, perhaps not. But you have all seen this on C-SPAN.
Your prepared statements in their entirety will be placed in
the record. Knowing that you are administration witnesses, it
is often pushed that you stay to your script, and we understand
that. But if you abbreviate your script or want to include any
individual statements, as long as you remain within the 5
minutes, we are delighted. If you finish sooner, we will get to
questions sooner. If you run slightly over, as long as you are
not totally reading a statement that was simply too long when
written, we will allow you to complete it.
With that, Mr. Sheldon, you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE SHELDON, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES; AND ESKINDER NEGASH, DIRECTOR,
OFFICE FOR REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT, ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN
AND FAMILIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Mr. Sheldon. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Cummings, members
of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify
about international trafficking and the role of the Department
of Health and Human Services.
The organization I lead, the Administration for Children
and Families, is responsible for certifying foreign persons as
trafficking victims and assisting them with the services that
they need to rebuild their lives. One of the ways we do this is
through the Trafficking Victims Assistance Program.
I came to my current position with direct experience with
trafficking. As secretary of the Florida Department of Children
and Families, I co-chaired with the Commissioner of Law
Enforcement, the State's human trafficking task force. I helped
lead the State's efforts to develop policies that protect and
support victims and punish their traffickers. I heard directly
from victims about abuse and degradation. As I make decisions
about human trafficking policy, I continue to think about these
victims and what they need to regain control of their lives.
Foreign national trafficking victims are drawn from
countries throughout the world often through the use of force,
coercion, and fraud. They are generally poor, young, and
extraordinarily vulnerable. Many victims, as indicated, have
been raped and beaten into terrified submission. Victims face
numerous health risks, including physical injuries such as
broken bones, burns, sexually transmitted diseases and other
diseases.
Victims often find themselves physically and
psychologically afraid to reach out to law enforcement
officers. Traffickers often control victims by limiting their
access to basic information that all of us take for granted,
such as the name of the city where they live or whether law
enforcement officers will arrest them.
Victims need access to all available information to help
decide what is the best path for them. Since 2001, we have
certified more than 3,000 victims of trafficking. Forty-one
percent of the minors were victims of sex trafficking or a
combination of sex and labor trafficking. The purpose of the
Victim Assistance Program is to provide short-term
comprehensive management services. It also may include
emergency assistance on a limited basis, such as food and
clothing and shelter.
Our experience in operating this program for 10 years drove
home to us the particular health risks posed by victims of
human trafficking. As a result, we specified in the funding
announcement that we would give a strong preference to
applicants that are willing to offer all the services and
referrals delineated in the program objectives, including
offering victims referral to medical providers that can provide
or refer to a full range of services they need. But ultimately
it is up to the victim to choose the services.
The HHS grantee does not directly provide services, but
enters into subgrant contracts with local organizations. But I
want to point out that organizations that do not provide
information referral for family planning services can still
receive Federal money. They can choose to subcontract with
subgrantees to provide services that they cannot or do not wish
to perform.
In 2011 we received applications from several organizations
that had the strong capacity to provide comprehensive case
management. In making the decision, we needed to ask a basic
questions: Which organizations were best able to serve all the
needs of the victims? We selected grantees that are able to
provide a full set of health-related referrals.
The three organizations selected will enable trafficking
victims to retake control of their lives by making informed
health care decisions based on their own circumstances, their
own values, and their own faith. The three entities that were
awarded the grants have still entered into subgrant
arrangements with many faith-based organizations, including
entities affiliated with the Catholic Church. We value our
partnership with numerous faith-based organizations, including
the Conference of Bishops.
Over the last 3 years, we have awarded some $650 million to
Catholic-affiliated organizations. For instance, we partner
with Catholic Charities of Los Angeles to provide shelter to
runaway and homeless youth; with Catholic Charities of Hartford
to help fathers become better parents and provide for their
children; with the Catholic Missions Board to provide care and
treatment for HIV patients in South Africa, South Sudan, and
Haiti.
Recently, I visited a home in Chicago. I had conversations
with eight young women ranging in age from 12 to 21. They
recounted their stories, horrific, about being enslaved for 1
to 3 years. Their stories were horrific, but what was even more
unsettling was the aftermath: the young women, broken down
physically, morally, spiritually, wondering who they could
trust and how they would survive.
But these women opened up. They explained how a safe place
and advice from people they trust had altered the trajectory of
their lives. And I was heartened. They are struggling to
restore their hope and their dignity, and I believe that we
need to provide them the the full array of services so that
they have a fighting chance.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I am confident that the three
grantees will help to ensure that the victims of human
trafficking will receive high-quality case management services.
We are fully respectful of this committee's jurisdiction, its
responsibility, and we have provided to date approximately
3,500 pages of documents. We are still in the process of
working with staff. We will continue to do that. As one who is
from Florida, which has a totally transparent open records law,
I believe that is important for your oversight, but I also
believe it is important to get the total picture of how this
grant was awarded.
Thank you.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sheldon follows:]

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Chairman Issa. I understand, Mr. Negash, you do not have
any opening statement, prepared or unprepared.
Mr. Negash. Mr. Chairman, I don't have any additional
statement.
Chairman Issa. Would you like to make any statement?
Mr. Negash. No, sir.
Chairman Issa. With that, we will go to the first round of
questioning and I will recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sheldon, as I said earlier, I want to focus this
committee on the question of predictability of grants based on
merit. So let me start with a question. There were three awards
out of four applicants. The number one award went to somebody
with a 90, the Catholic Charities had an 89, and then you get
down into the seventies, substantially lower for the other two
awardees.
If you were an applicant or potential applicant, knowing
that grant making takes time and money, applications, and you
were told that there were factors but that those factors would
not eliminate you, and then you saw that you were dramatically
higher than two of the applicants who received it, wouldn't you
legitimately question how you make that cost-benefit question
ever again?
Again, it is not a question of what the issue was that may
have decided this, but it was not a requirement. In your
opening statement, Mr. Sheldon, you said that you believe that
full range of services. If you believe it, why is it that HHS
didn't say you either provide them or you are ineligible--which
wasn't said--but, rather, go ahead and make the applications,
it is not going to eliminate you, it is a factor.
Well, it is a factor apparently that goes from 89 to 74. I
mean, it is a huge factor, and it was never scored and no one
could understand how much better they would have to be, how
much dramatically better they would have to be to prevent being
eliminated.
Could you answer that narrow question?
Mr. Sheldon. I appreciate the question, Mr. Chairman. Let
me articulate that it was very clear in the funding
announcement that HHS had a preference for those who would
provide the full array of services. And the way the process,
the way the grant process works----
Chairman Issa. Mr. Sheldon, I have very limited time. The
narrow question is, 74 to 89 is a chasm. If you can't explain
the chasm, then what I see here is they were dead on arrival in
their application, period. The bottom line is everybody who
applied got it except the incumbent, and they were at the top
of the rating and dramatically higher than the two much less
qualified. And that qualification number is an array of service
administration and priorities and capabilities.
So the narrow question is, if you are out there applying
for grants because you want to help people--and the ranking
member said it very well. This is about helping people. This is
purely about compassionate people wanting to help people and
administering over sending them for the various services. No
services would be provided by these recipients. These were
referrals.
How do I explain that in narrow terms, you know 20 points?
How do I explain it?
Mr. Sheldon. If you will give me a minute, we provided a
funding announcement. That is reviewed by----
Chairman Issa. No, I am sorry, you are not answering the
question, and I only have a minute and 45. You did not tell
them that they could be just a lot better and still not get the
award. That has a chilling effect. Everyone on this dais on
both sides understands numbers.
Now, back to the question, and I apologize for the
language. But this is such a great difference in the numbers,
not between 89 and 90, the top two. If it had only gone to the
top one, I would say, well, it was a photo finish and this
preference made a difference. But the two that were
unqualified, less qualified by your own scoring system by
career professional civil servants, as we go on today you are
going to be asked again and again, so not on my time, but on
additional time, please be prepared to answer why those numbers
so dramatically allowed for this. I have seen this in
decisionmaking on refuelers, I have seen it on decisionmaking
on green energy. I want to have it explained today.
Having said that, I want to go on to the core question here
for a moment. Isn't it true that Catholic Charities refers, and
all of the administrators, refer people to physicians, and that
those physicians are completely free to provide the full range
of benefits, to advise people on the full range of benefits. In
other words, the referral to the compassionate person providing
a service, including medical and psychological, those people
are not nuns or Catholic priests. They are not definable by any
of this criteria that you used for the parent administrator.
And even in your opening statement you made it clear that the
recipients, the actual doer of the good, might in fact still be
some of these same faith-based organizations.
So the question is, the referral to people to make these
decisions, including STDs which you mentioned, obviously the
need for treatment and the possible additional procedures,
including abortion, including referral for contraceptives and
so on, was there any prohibition on those doctors and those
professionals?
Mr. Sheldon. To your first comment, to your first question,
the reviewers identified strengths and weaknesses in all the
applicants and they also indicated in their reviewers' notes
that there was not sufficient detail with all of the applicants
in order to evaluate several components. Those were components
in terms of monitoring their subgrantees, training, the full
array of services. Those were weaknesses that were identified
in every single one of them, including the Bishops.
Chairman Issa. I guess that is the reason why nobody got a
110 rating.
Mr. Sheldon. And the scoring was based on those reviewers'
comments. Based on the information we had from reviewers which
indicated that there was not sufficient detail on several of
the issues, we went back. And that was my decision: Let's go
back to all of the applicants to provide the answers to the
questions that the reviewers identified. In looking at that, in
looking at the scoring, it was my opinion that all of the
applicants were qualified to administer the grant, which
brought us to the decision of whether to apply the preference
or not.
I made a determination that was the appropriate thing to
do, because even the reviewers' comments indicated two or three
reviewers indicated that the unwillingness of the Bishops to
agree to provide the full array of services raised questions as
to whether they could meet the six objectives of the funding
announcement.
Chairman Issa. As I recognize the ranking member, I think I
heard that a 90, an 89, a 74 and a 69 rating under this
nonpartisan decisionmaking process were made to be equal.
Mr. Sheldon. Those scorings were made prior to the answers
being submitted which the reviewers had indicated needed to be
answered.
Chairman Issa. With that, I recognize the ranking member.
Without objection, I would ask that the ranking member have 7
minutes. I apologize. Our time ran over.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sheldon, let me ask you some basic questions. In the
announcement for these grants HHS stated explicitly that the
central purpose of this funding is to provide, ``comprehensive
case management services'' to victims of human trafficking. Is
that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. In the same announcement, HHS also stated
that these services include ``family planning services and a
full range of legally permissible gynecological and obstetric
care.'' Is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. That is correct.
Mr. Cummings. The three organizations that received grants
from HHS were all able to make these referrals or have their
subgrantees make them; is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate.
Mr. Cummings. But the Bishops, and this is important, but
the Bishops stated explicitly in their application that if they
received this grant, they would not, ``provide or refer for
abortion, sterilization, or artificial contraceptives,'' is
that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate.
Mr. Cummings. It seems pretty simple. The Bishops would not
provide the referral described in the grant announcement and
they didn't get the grant. In other words, you were contracting
for something and they said they couldn't do it. Is that right?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate.
Mr. Cummings. Now, in their application, the Bishops
offered to consider ``alternative ways to perform these
referrals under the grant.'' Is that right?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate. And I went a step further--
--
Mr. Cummings. So you followed up on that.
Mr. Sheldon [continuing]. And followed up on that, and
asked them to explain in detail what that alternative would be,
because we were interested in that.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. So you were trying to do everything you
could to make sure that you were being fair to them; is that
right?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate.
Mr. Cummings. And did they ever provide you with that
alternative information?
Mr. Sheldon. The information that they came back with as an
alternative was a restatement of their original position.
Mr. Cummings. So in other words, they didn't bring anything
new to you?
Mr. Sheldon. That is correct.
Mr. Cummings. Did you then follow up on that and say well,
wait a minute now. I thought you said you were going to bring
me something new, and it looks like we are rehashing the same
thing.
Mr. Sheldon. We did the one follow-up.
Mr. Cummings. And that was it. In fact, you documented all
of this in your decision memo which has been made available to
every member of the committee. The memo explains that HHS asked
the Bishops if they had any specific proposals for alternative
ways to provide these referral services, but the Bishops ``did
not offer any proposals.'' Is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate.
Mr. Cummings. Now, as I said in my opening, I think we
would all benefit from hearing a more detailed explanation of
why victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation often
need exactly these kinds of referral services. Mr. Sheldon, can
you explain generally these victims' age, background and
experience?
Mr. Sheldon. Approximately 70 percent of these victims are
women. Approximately 80 percent of the females who are victims
are victims of sex trafficking. These are individuals who have
experienced the most horrific conditions, and their freedom,
for all practical purposes, has been taken away from them. What
we are desirous of doing is restoring the freedom that has been
stolen from them. It frankly is not much more complicated than
that.
Mr. Cummings. And can you explain why it is so important
for these victims to have access to referrals for the full
range of family planning services? Obviously they didn't get
the grant, and according to what you are saying, it is because
there were certain services that they said they couldn't do. Am
I right?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate.
Mr. Cummings. Now, this goes to the basic points in this
hearing. What was it that they needed that you were trying to
get for them that the Bishops were not able to provide? You put
out a contract and basically you are saying this is what we
need. They said, we cannot do certain services, so they didn't
get it. But the question becomes: Why did they need what you
were contracting for, do you follow me, and why was that so
significant?
Mr. Sheldon. Well, even the reviewers pointed out that the
unwillingness of that applicant to provide the full array of
options raised questions as to whether they could provide a
response to the six objectives outlined in the contract.
But let me point out, I think that the chairman, frankly,
has put his finger on it. The restriction was not that they
were unwilling to refer to a physician, but restricting what
that physician could do. And that is a concern that I have.
Ultimately if you are referring for case management, if you are
referring out to a medical provider, a decision ought to be
between that medical provider and the victim.
Mr. Cummings. In reviewing some of the various data, there
was a 17-year-old victim from Chicago, and the name is Angela.
Angela believed that the older boy who offered her a ride to
school really liked her. Angela never thought he would sell her
on Craigslist, force her to have sex 10 times a night in hotel
rooms in six cities across the United States, and beat her with
belts and chains when she didn't earn him enough money.
Mr. Sheldon, how frequent is it that captives will move
from city to city like this?
Mr. Sheldon. I have heard that story time and time again.
Mr. Cummings. So you hear that a lot?
Mr. Sheldon. I do. And you will hear that same response
from law enforcement.
Mr. Cummings. Now, Angela reportedly escaped her trafficker
and was helped by a group that found her immediate shelter,
provided her food, and assisted her in finding long-term
medical and legal support.
Next is a story of a young lady who was trafficked by a man
who pretended to be her boyfriend. He held her inside hotels
for a period of 8 months, where she was forced to have sex with
10 to 15 men a night, and had to give every penny she earned to
the trafficker.
Through a police raid, Clara and another young female
victim were rescued. Clara was extremely distraught to discover
that she was pregnant, because she knew that the baby would
belong to any of the hundreds of men who raped her or even
perhaps to the trafficker himself.
How often do you hear stories like that?
Mr. Sheldon. I have heard stories in Florida when I was
chairing the task force there from victims themselves. I
currently serve on the special operating group at the Federal
level where I have heard those stories from Federal law
enforcement agencies as well.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. I see my time is up.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Issa. Thank you. We now go to the gentleman from
Utah, Mr. Chaffetz, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this hearing.
Our colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith,
has done exceptional work on this, has spent a lot of time and
effort, and I appreciate that. I would like to yield my time to
him.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. I thank my good friend for
yielding and I want to thank Chairman Issa for including me on
this panel and for calling for this extraordinarily important
hearing.
Mr. Chairman, a little over a decade ago, I authored the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the landmark law
that created America's comprehensive policy to combat modern-
day slavery. Among its many mutually enforcing provisions
designed to prevent trafficking, protect victims and prosecute
those who reduce people to commodities for sale, the three P's,
my legislation established the Health and Human Services Grants
Program under review today.
For over a decade, we have achieved an amazing left-right,
religious-secular, bicameral, bipartisan consensus unified in
combating sex and labor trafficking at home and worldwide
without promoting abortion--until today.
In what can only be described as an unconscionable abuse of
power, the Obama administration has engaged in what amounts to
bid-rigging, denying taxpayer funds to a demonstrably superior
organization, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, with an
exemplary 10-year track record of performance, that scored
significantly higher in independent HHS reviews than two of the
three NGO's that got the grant.
The Obamaadministration's discriminatory practice of
funding NGO's that provide or refer for abortions, even when
they fail to win a competitive process, is not only unjust,
unethical and in violation of conscience laws, but will
severely undermine public and congressional confidence and
support for what is otherwise a laudable program.
If you are a Catholic or other faith-based NGO or a secular
organization of conscience, there is now clear proof that your
grant application will not be considered--and Darrell Issa, the
chairman, got to this in his question--under a fair, impartial
and totally transparent process by the Obama administration.
The Obama administration's bias against Catholics is an
affront to religious freedom and a threat to all people. Let's
not forget that the independent HHS reviewers found that the
USCCB, the Catholic Bishops' proposal and their group to be one
of the most experienced experts on human trafficking, a
comprehensive system in place that has assisted thousands of
victims, demonstrated strong partnerships by engaging with both
faith-based and non-faith-based organizations. And yet the
Catholic organization was discriminated against solely because
it fundamentally respects the innate value and dignity and
preciousness of an unborn child and refuses to be complicit in
procuring his or her violent death by abortion.
Even though HHS reviewers gave the USCCB a score of 89,
compared to 74 for Tapestry and 69 for the U.S. Committee on
Refugees and Immigrants, USCRI, the latter two got the
contracts. Although HHS has thus far prevailed in all of the
relevant documents, we do know that the USCRI's proposal lacked
detail on key program areas.
Here is what the reviewers said: The overall level of
detail in the proposal is insufficient to ensure that the
project will be established and run in an effective level and
that the management plan is credible and comprehensive. There
is a complete lack of information on specific activities and a
timeline is vague, inhibiting evaluation of their
reasonableness.
That is not me talking. That is the reviewers. They had
real serious problems about the competency of that proposal.
Why go through, and, again, Chairman Issa referred to this,
the charade of determining whether or not a grant application
is meritorious, when preferential treatment is afforded only to
those in sync with President Obama's abortion-promoting agenda?
The bottom line is this: Pro-abortion favoritism embedded
in this egregiously flawed process does a grave disservice to
the victims of trafficking. Victims deserve better. The women
and children who have been exploited by modern-day slavery need
our help, and that is why I wrote the law in the first place.
I have a number of questions when we get to the second
round, Mr. Chairman, but I would like to ask--and maybe Mr.
Sheldon will get to this--did Secretary Sebelius or any other
high official at HHS convey in any way, including by memo,
email, letter, messenger or the spoken word, that the USCCB
should not get the grant; and, if so, how was that conveyed?
Exactly why was the USCCB not funded, given that they scored so
much higher by the HHS reviewers?
And then on the performance of the grant, I am out of time
and maybe you will get to this, I will ask on the second round,
how are the others doing? Has there been a gap in service? We
are concerned about these victims. I deal with the victims all
the time.
Chairman Issa. The gentleman from Utah's time has expired.
If you would like to answer as to how the awardees are doing,
you certainly are within your right.
Mr. Sheldon. I appreciate that. The awardees, the grantees
in this case, are ahead of where the Bishops were 5 years ago
in terms of bringing on subgrantees. Frankly, I want to
compliment the Conference of Catholic Bishops, because they
have been extremely cooperative in this transition. I have met
with them and with their director of social services who
indicated that their chief responsibility were these victims,
and that is ours.
If I might, Mr. Chairman, I would like to speak to
strengths and weaknesses. The weaknesses that you identified
are an accurate reflection of what reviewers commented. But the
reviewers made comments on strengths and weaknesses in all of
the applicants.
For instance, in USCRI they said they had considerable
experience managing large refugee and trafficking projects. In
the USCCB they indicated weaknesses because the proposal lacked
detail on shelter models, residential facilities, community-
based services, community outreach programs.
So the point I am making is that if you have to take the
reviewers' comments in the totality of what they said, and also
in the comments on all of the applicants, including the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops, that the applications lacked
sufficient detail, that is the very reason we went back and
asked----
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. With respect to----
Chairman Issa. No, the gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cummings, is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Oh, I am sorry, I forgot you. I would give you a second
one, but I would have to take it from the former chairman of
the full committee, Mr. Towns.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. At least we
cannot say at the moment that you are not fair.
Chairman Issa. Hopefully you will never have to say that I
am not fair.
Mr. Towns. First of all, I chair the Social Work Caucus, so
I am very interested in this. And I agree with those who
believe that in order to analyze these grants in a responsible
manner, we should not ignore the voice of trafficking
survivors. That is why I hope we will have another hearing and
bring in victims.
So I would like to use my time mostly to read an account
from one survivor. We received this account from an advocate
working for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking.
She has asked us to keep her name confidential, and that I will
do. This is what she said:
``At the age of 13, I was kidnapped by a pimp, drugged and
held in a room for 5 days while a seemingly never-ending stream
of men entered the room, raped me and left the room again. None
of them wore a condom. None of them were carrying papers from a
clinic proving they were disease free.
``I had no idea what was happening to me. I had just turned
13 and was from a small town in Illinois. I am not even sure I
quite knew what a pimp was. I just knew that there was a big
guy who seemed to be in charge of everything, and when I tried
to leave the man, the pimp became violent and forced me back
into the bedroom, and then the parade of men would start all
over again.
``But I was lucky, far luckier than most girls who come
under control of a trafficker. Against the odds, I escaped
within a week. But the impact on my body and mind lasted much
longer. I received no reproductive or gynecological medical
care after experiencing those many days and nights of serial
rape by unknown men. As a result, I became gravely ill.
``At 15, I took myself to an emergency room. I just could
no longer stand the pain. I was admitted, tested, and told that
my kidneys were shutting down, and with a lot of rest and IV
antibiotics, I got better for a while.''
My question is simply this, Mr. Sheldon: How important is
it when we are reviewing these grants to hear the voices of the
victims? How important is it?
Mr. Sheldon. I think it is critically important if we are
going to responsibly deal with this issue.
Mr. Towns. Do you really put a lot of time and weight on
this?
Mr. Sheldon. You cannot go to a home, as I went to in
Chicago for those eight young girls, and hear the stories of
what they have gone through and not have an extreme amount of
passion and compassion. And it will be--you know, in talking--
it will be a huge battle for them to overcome the
psychological, the physical, and the emotional trauma that they
have experienced. And that is the reason that we have tried to
seek out grantees that will allow these individuals to regain
their decisionmaking power.
Mr. Towns. Mr. Chairman, I really look forward to another
hearing where we can bring in the victims and to hear from
them, because I think we need to really get to the bottom of
it.
I noticed in terms of Mr. Smith has done some work, but Mr.
Smith, let us not get into the blame game. This is too serious
to blame. We need to work together to make certain that we put
an end to these young people being destroyed.
So I want to thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I yield
back.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Towns. I would be delighted to yield to the chairman.
Chairman Issa. I will assure you that our committee staff
are working right now on what might be a hearing that is much
more focused on the issues that I have worked on in the past
under Judiciary, that Mr. Smith has worked on, that you are
expressing here today, the trafficking in human beings and
whether or not on a broad basis, because as you know as former
chairman, our committee has--generally we work on the bigger
issues, not the issues that belong to one committee. So whether
it is through the State Department, Health and Human Services,
even military personnel, the question is are we doing enough
and are we dealing with it in a comprehensive way as one that I
believe is within the committee's clear jurisdiction because it
falls between the cracks of many different programs, not just
the one we are looking at here today.
So that is being worked out right now between the committee
staff, and it is something that I know Mr. Smith will be back
again, I have no doubt, that when it comes to this issue he is
very passionate, and I believe it will meet your satisfaction.
I yield back.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. That is very,
very encouraging.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Towns. I would be delighted to yield.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. I thank my good friend for
yielding.
I just want the record to show that since the late nineties
I have chaired well over two dozen hearings on trafficking
issues, not just on the legislation. But we heard from witness
after witness, domestic and international, and it does make one
really sharpen the focus on ensuring that we do all things
possible to help those victims.
Chairman Issa. I thank all the gentlemen. The gentleman's
time has expired.
We now go to the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg, for
5 minutes.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and I thank the panel
for being here. I thank you for the work that you have been
given to do and you attempt to do. It is a worthy work.
I grew up on the south side of Chicago. I pastored churches
and in fact dealt with women victims in situations like this
myself. My daughter deals with victims in similar situations in
Kampala, Uganda, in a Third World country, with victims all
around.
I find it very discouraging, frustrating, and saddening to
sit here in a First World country, a Nation that vested itself
with the responsibility of leading the world in freedom and
democracy and safety and security and rights for all men,
women, children, a Nation built on Judeo-Christian values.
Whether we like it or not, that was what we were built on, and
this country succeeded in such great ways as a result of those
values, values that indeed saw victimization as wrong,
absolutely wrong and unacceptable--but a Nation, up until just
recent years, saw the full aspect of victimization to include
every part of that process, including the most innocent victim,
the victim that had no choice, a victim that has become a
product of victimization, and that is the unborn child as well.
You have an amazing responsibility, but a responsibility I
think that at present is neglecting to consider the further
victimization that goes on. And there will be arguments about
that, but there are huge tomes of evidence showing that further
victimization of a woman, in this case in human trafficking, to
have a child victimized as well, adds to that victimization in
the future.
So when I hear that apparently one supplier of assistance
to these victims of human trafficking is left out, is cut out
of the mix and opportunity to provide ministry to the soul, the
body, to every component part of that victim, the woman, the
young girl who is put in this heinous situation, and yet we
forget about further victimization of her and the victimization
of a little unborn, that is a concern to me as well.
There are five pieces of information that must be
documented as I understand it in approving funding: one,
position of the grant application ranking; two, reasons for any
changes in the order of ranking; three, if there is no rank,
then a statement for why funds were given; four, documentation
as to the reason in the change of rank; and, five, any
conditions associated with the grant.
I just wanted to follow up on the second of five mandatory
documentations that you are required to give. If the
application's position in the list of applications approved for
funding is different from its position in the ranking list, a
statement of the reasons for the difference that influenced
this judgment of the approving official must be included. This
should include justification for funding of a particular
application.
First of all, was the Catholic Council of Bishops' position
on the list of ranking approved for funding different than its
position in the ranking?
Mr. Sheldon. First of all, let me thank you for the
passion.
Mr. Walberg. There is passion there, but let me get your
answer there, because I am running out of time.
Mr. Sheldon. And it is one we share. I believe yes, we
clearly met the requirements of number two that you have
identified as the reasons why we exercised the preference.
Mr. Walberg. Let me go further then and go back to the
question by Congressman Smith. Was this statement of reason
reviewed by anyone outside of ACF? For instance, did anyone on
the sixth floor of HHS review this decision, and more
specifically, did Secretary Sebelius, a strong opponent of life
and a supporter of abortion on demand, did she review this?
Mr. Sheldon. This was a collaborative effort. I consulted
with other policymakers within the agency, our Office of
General Counsel. I did not consult with Secretary Sebelius. I
did meet with her and inform her of the decision that I had
made.
Mr. Walberg. Was Sharon Pratt, the counselor of Human
Services, is she the one you referred to?
Mr. Sheldon. Yes. She was involved, as part of many people
involved, in looking at this policy decision.
Mr. Walberg. My time has expired. I thank the chairman.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
We now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts for 5
minutes.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
I mean, clearly, this seems to be a discussion about
whether or not our policy is going to allow the doctor and the
victim to make a determination of what services are best needed
for medical care as opposed to having the government limit
those choices on that.
And there was an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, ``When
Faith is a Barrier to Care,'' and I just want to read a couple
of excerpts from that.
``The Roman Catholic Church and its affiliated nonprofit
organizations have every right to hold true to their religious
convictions while doing good works. But when a nonprofit,
religious or not, is carrying out the government's work with
government money, it must do so on the government's terms.
``It should go without saying that the victims of sex
crimes must be offered all possible services related to
reproductive health. And there is nothing discriminatory about
requiring all applicants to meet the agency's specifications.
It is the government's job to determine which services will or
will not be offered under public programs.
``Clients of government-sponsored services should not
receive significantly different levels of service depending on
which organization they happen to be assigned to. Faith-based
groups that want a share of government grants and contracts
must be willing to do all the work the government outlines, not
just that that conforms to their religious doctrines.''
I think that is a pretty fair statement.
Mr. Chairman, in your opening statement, I was concerned
when you suggested that Health and Human Services has some sort
of a litmus test and you said that Catholics need not apply. I
was brought up as a Catholic, and I would be seriously offended
if I thought that what you said was true. I think----
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. We should all be concerned. In my
opinion, that is a very unfortunate statement for you to have
made, a very unhelpful characterization. And I don't think it
is supported at all by the evidence in this situation. And I
want to talk to Mr. Sheldon about that.
Some characterization was made that the decision not to
award the bishops this particular grant is somehow
discriminating against the entire Catholic Church. In fact, the
title of today's hearing frames Health and Human Services as
being in conflict with the Catholic Church. So I want to give
you an opportunity to address that directly.
Earlier this year, press accounts reported that Health and
Human Services awarded the bishops a $19 million grant to help
foreign refugees in America. Now, I think that roughly would be
seven times the amount that they requested in the grant we are
talking about today. Is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. That is correct. As a matter of fact, that
award was made 4 days after the decision was made on this
particular grant.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
And in fiscal year 2011, the bishops received a total of
$32 million in grants from Health and Human Services alone. Is
that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate.
Mr. Tierney. And in your testimony today, you said, over
the last 3 years, Health and Human Services has provided more
than $650 million to Catholic organizations. Is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. That is correct.
Mr. Tierney. A lot of people would probably like to be
discriminated against like that.
That includes numerous grants to the bishops, to various
Catholic charities, and to other Catholic organizations across
the country. Is that right?
Mr. Sheldon. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. So, Mr. Sheldon, has Health and Human Services
awarded Catholic organizations more or less money in the last 3
years than in the previous 3-year period under the Bush
administration?
Mr. Sheldon. I can't speak with absolute certainty, but I
believe we have actually expended more.
Mr. Tierney. And do you view the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops as a continuing partner in the fight against
trafficking?
Mr. Sheldon. There is no question about it.
Mr. Tierney. So, Mr. Chairman, I think, you know, based on
this information, that the grant funding to Catholic
organizations and entities has greatly increased under the
current administration. That would contradict the whole
underlying premise of this hearing, that somehow this
administration is politically predisposed against working with
Catholic organizations.
And I think it brings us back full cycle to this is really
an issue about whether or not victims will get a full range of
health-care services or we will try to somehow limit that. And
so I----
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. Don't think your contention has
been accurate here. And I think the administration is doing
more with Catholic groups, not less.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Tierney. Certainly.
Chairman Issa. Hopefully to make the record complete, the
question was more narrow than you may have--or nuanced than you
thought, and this hearing's question is more nuanced.
What we are looking at is the question of, should--if this
was an edict, if this was a requirement, that the full range of
reproductive services was a mandate in order to be awarded this
contract, we wouldn't be having this hearing, because it would
have been clear within the spec that, as you said, what should
be, in your view, a requirement was not a requirement. And that
is the reason we are having the question----
Mr. Tierney. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, that is
certainly the ostensible purpose of this hearing but not what I
perceive to be the actual purpose of this hearing. Because I
think the evidence is more than clear that this was done in a
process that was open, where applicants were made perfectly
aware that this preference existed, and where the process was
done in the right manner. But I think the underlying argument,
again, is whether or not a victim is going to have their
health-care services limited or not.
I yield back.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman for his comments,
although the prerogative of the chair is not to state one
reason and have another. This hearing is narrow, and it is
based on exactly what I said it was. And I hope the gentleman
did not mean to imply that the chair is being either
disingenuous or outright lying as to the purpose of this
committee hearing.
And we now go to the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lankford,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lankford. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Sheldon, as well, for being here.
Mr. Negash, thank you for being here.
Have the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops received a low
ranking from the previous years of service?
Mr. Sheldon. They provided a strong performance under the
requirements of the contract that they had.
Mr. Lankford. Okay. So they had not received, you know, bad
marks, bad rankings, complaints from victims coming in saying
that we didn't get the proper care?
Mr. Sheldon. No.
Mr. Lankford. I noticed as I went through the documents
here from some of the reviewers that there were frequent
comments about how they covered all six areas and how they were
able to provide a national focus on that.
Had abortion been a criteria before, in the provision of
abortion or the recommendation of abortion? Was that a
previous--in the 2006 release of all the grants, was there a
statement there to say you need to provide abortion and
contraceptives?
Mr. Sheldon. The issue of providing referral to the full
range of gynecological services was not included.
Mr. Lankford. No, it is not just full range of
gynecological services, because Medicaid has 200 different
areas. So is there something in that 200 areas for Medicaid or
the full range of gynecological services that you would look at
and say, this, this, and this? Are there 50 of those that they
don't provide? Are there 10 of those? Or is this just abortion?
Mr. Sheldon. Well, I think the question was what was in the
previous contract.
Mr. Lankford. Correct.
Mr. Sheldon. And the previous contract did not refer to the
issue of gynecological----
Mr. Lankford. Right. But I hear you using that term, the
``full range of care,'' but it is really not full range of
care, because there is a provision for full range of care with
the exception of abortion. And even with the abortion
provision, you know, there are issues even within that. Is that
correct?
Mr. Sheldon. The Catholic Bishops also indicated an
unwillingness to provide family planning services. And since
you were quoting reviewers' comments, the reviewers indicated
that USCCB states it does not intend to provide any family
planning services, which is important to sex trafficking. As
such, USCCB may not be able to sufficiently accomplish all six
objectives of the program.
Mr. Lankford. Right. And then they ended the document with
this statement: ``I recommend approving the grantee for $2.5
million.'' To lower grantees, their grantees end with this
statement: ``Application not recommended for funding.''
Mr. Sheldon. The document that you are referring to I have
never seen. I have heard about it in the last couple days----
Mr. Lankford. Okay. Well, we had obviously requested these
documents. We had not seen it either until just last night.
Going through these documents, I know you mentioned there are
strengths and weaknesses listed on all of them, but the others
don't end with the statement, ``Application not recommended for
funding.''
It is especially interesting to me in this process, because
I look through there, there is a preference, obviously, for the
different regions, nationwide. Catholic Conference, they are
nationwide. The only other nationwide was the USCRI, who
received a score of 69. They were funded.
Now, I have to tell you, that is a gutsy score, considering
sitting next to you is the director of ORR that is involved in
this, who previously was the COO of USCRI. So they knew this
was going to go up to his desk, who, obviously--you are going
to recuse yourself from the decision process. But someone
involved in the process--I mean, that is just a gutsy thing to
do, is to say, ``I recommend this group over this group'' when
they know their boss used to work for the other group and
obviously has a priority for that. So somebody that has 20
points lower in a grant scoring gets the award than someone who
had it 20 points higher.
There are just a million issues in the middle of all this.
To say--if the clear issue is, if you can provide great care in
every area for human trafficking except abortion, we don't
accept you. If you care in all six areas, you have great
expertise, you have great skills, but if you don't do
abortions, we won't do this.
Now, the considerations are frequent. You know very well
from working with victims of human trafficking, they often fall
right back into it again. They are identified, then there are
repeats, and they steal them off to other cities, and you have
all kinds of issues and care for them. So, at times, you are
taking a victim of human trafficking who is now pregnant, get
them an abortion, they can immediately be snatched back up,
taken to another city, and you have just put them right back in
that situation again.
So, to say if a person is raped in a human trafficking
situation, the best thing we can do is get them to an abortion,
and so the possibility of them getting right back on the
street, and if you don't do that, we won't let you help in any
of these areas and walk alongside you in this, to me is a very
strange mark. You can help in all six of the comprehensive
areas, but if you don't do abortions--specifically not just
allow them, but promote them--if you don't promote abortions,
then we won't let you help. That is the concern here.
Eighty-nine to 69 is a pretty wide spread. ``Did not
recommend for funding'' is a pretty strong statement to then
reverse that and say, no, you are going to get the preference.
Chairman Issa. The gentleman may respond if he would like
to.
Mr. Sheldon. Two observations. One is that that document
was never brought to my attention.
Second, when I understand that document was written, that
was prior to the responses which we requested from the
applicants, which had been in direct response to reviewers'
comments that there was not sufficient detail in all of the
applications.
Chairman Issa. For the record, they were written on the
same day, September 9th. So you may want to check the timeline,
but it appears that that occurred.
Additionally, for the gentleman, just to clear the record,
Mr. Negash is the former head of that organization, and the
person that was previously Mr. Negash's individual predecessor
is now the head. So it is a close relationship, that basically
the two switched places between that agency and the government
and the government and that agency. But Mr. Negash did recuse
himself.
With that, we recognize the gentleman from Virginia for 5
minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
having this hearing.
I must say that listening to some opine on this subject,
not here of course, one is a little alarmed that some would
become a latter-day Torquemada, willingly reinstating the
Inquisition, only this time against the secular state.
No member of this committee or of the body, the Congress,
can purport to speak for the Catholic Church or for all
Catholics. And I say that respectfully to my colleagues as a
Catholic. We may actually, in a pluralistic society, as
Catholics, have different points of view. And I would hope that
difference in a pluralistic republic would be respected.
We can disagree, but the idea that dissent and disagreement
are to be somehow suppressed is not America, nor is it the
American Catholic Church in America as I understood it growing
up as a Roman Catholic who went for many years, through
college, in Catholic education. So nobody speaks for me as an
American Catholic and especially in a pluralistic society where
we are trying to grapple with serious issues.
Now, I hope this hearing is the narrow scope the chairman
has said, but I am alarmed that the minority was denied
witnesses; I am alarmed that new documents at the last minute
are entered in the record, not shared with the minority but in
the possession, apparently, of the majority for some time; I am
alarmed when people use hyperbolic rhetoric which might suggest
to some, certainly not to me, that actually the purpose of the
hearing, as Mr. Tierney suggested, is to try to smear the Obama
administration with a label that, if true, would be very
disturbing. And as a Catholic, I would like to believe it is
not true. In fact, there is plenty of prima facie evidence that
it is not.
I reiterate the question, Mr. Sheldon: Did you say that, in
fact, in the last several years, $650 million has gone through
your agency alone to Catholic entities in America? Is that
correct?
Mr. Sheldon. In the last 3 years.
Mr. Connolly. And, Mr. Negash, you are in the refugee
business. I assume Catholic Relief Services is the recipient of
Federal money for refugee resettlement and care.
Mr. Negash. That is correct.
Mr. Connolly. Would you speak up? We can't hear you, sir.
Mr. Negash. That is correct.
Mr. Connolly. Any idea about the amounts?
Mr. Negash. I believe that within the Office of Refugee
Resettlement, the Catholic Bishops received more money than any
other grantee.
Mr. Connolly. More money than any other grantee.
Mr. Negash. I believe so.
Mr. Connolly. And would it also be true that CRS would be--
which is a wonderful organization; I have worked with it in my
past--is also the recipient of AID dollars and PL-480, Food for
Peace, dollars and commodities?
Mr. Negash. I am not sure what type----
Mr. Connolly. Take a guess.
Mr. Negash [continuing]. Of funding they have.
Mr. Connolly. Yeah, I think the answer is a big ``yes.''
So the idea that there is some systematic attempt to--a
bias implemented against the Catholic Church or Catholic
entities is a libel and not true.
In fact, is it not true, Mr. Sheldon, just from your agency
alone and I think maybe a few others that the Obama
administration has provided $100 million more to Catholic
entities than the Bush administration? Is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. From what I have seen, it is. But I can't
speak with----
Mr. Connolly. And did you testify to Mr. Tierney that, as a
matter of fact, your agency, after making the decision about
this grant, actually awarded subsequent grants to the Catholic
Bishops?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate--$19 million 4 days later.
Mr. Connolly. Okay. So we have pretty much put to rest
whether there is a Catholic bias in this administration. There
isn't.
But the second concern I have is, what is the mission here
of this grant award? It is to service victims of sexual
exploitation against their will. Is that not correct?
Mr. Sheldon. A substantial portion of those individuals who
are victims of trafficking----
Mr. Connolly. And is it true that the average victim is
first victimized somewhere between the age of 10 and 14?
Mr. Sheldon. The numbers I have seen indicate--personally,
I know of victims as young as 12.
Mr. Connolly. And did you indicate that one of the needs
they have is family planning services, the wide array,
including contraception, prevention and treatment of sexually
transmitted diseases that, obviously, unfortunately,
tragically, come with the sexual exploitation? Is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate.
Mr. Connolly. And did you indicate that, in this particular
case, the Catholic Bishops indicated they would not provide
such services?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate.
Mr. Connolly. Irrespective of the mission of the grant.
Mr. Sheldon. The issue of family planning services they
indicated they would not----
Mr. Connolly. And is that the reason why ultimately,
despite their ranking, the decision was made not to give them
the grant in this one case because of the mission involved?
Mr. Sheldon. A determination was made that there were three
other applicants who were equally qualified who were willing to
provide family planning and the full array of gynecological
services.
Mr. Connolly. I thank you. My time is up.
Mr. Gowdy [presiding]. Mr. Sheldon, did the Catholic
Bishops receive previous grants?
Mr. Sheldon. Yes.
Mr. Gowdy. And when was that?
Mr. Sheldon. Catholic Bishops have been receiving grants
from the Department of HHS for a long period of time.
Mr. Gowdy. I mean specifically with respect to human
trafficking.
Mr. Sheldon. Yes, they----
Mr. Gowdy. Did they receive a 5-year contract immediately
preceding this?
Mr. Sheldon. They received a contract I believe in the year
2006.
Mr. Gowdy. Ending in 2011.
Mr. Sheldon. That is correct.
Mr. Gowdy. All right. Was reproductive health not an issue
then?
Mr. Sheldon. I was not here then, nor was this
administration here then.
Mr. Gowdy. You didn't take the grant from them in 2010
because of a failure to provide certain reproductive health
services, did you?
Mr. Sheldon. We extended the contract, as I recall.
Mr. Gowdy. Right. And you have no issues with the
performance of their contract.
Mr. Sheldon. They had a strong performance under the
requirements of that contract.
Mr. Gowdy. In fact, and I will use quotes from your entity,
they properly provided case management; high level of program
competence; responsive to the needs of subcontractors, clients,
and other entities; able to successfully provide trafficking-
specific services to clients.
So if they had scored a 92 but still kept to their faith
beliefs, would they have gotten the contract?
Mr. Sheldon. They can still be true to their faith beliefs.
As a matter of fact, sub-grantees of the current vendors have
Catholic affiliations, and they can remain true to their
Catholic teaching.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, you said that there were equally qualified
subcontractors. Why do you have a point system if you are going
to ignore it?
Mr. Sheldon. As I indicated in previous questions, the
points were applied before we received responses as to the
additional detail which the reviewers indicated they----
Mr. Gowdy. Who is Jay Womack?
Mr. Sheldon. Jay Womack is director of the----
Mr. Negash. He is the deputy director of the program.
Mr. Gowdy. Did he recommend giving the grant to the
Catholic Bishops?
Mr. Sheldon. I don't know that he made a recommendation,
but I can't----
Mr. Gowdy. But there was a recommendation made to give them
the contract.
Mr. Sheldon. As I indicated in the previous question, that
document I never saw. I have heard it was around. But that
would have been a recommendation, and that would have been a
recommendation that would be made to policymakers, not career
staff.
Mr. Gowdy. There are 200-some-odd gynecological services
that are included. Did you ask the Catholic Bishops what
percentage of those 200 they were willing to perform?
Mr. Sheldon. No. We asked them if they were willing to
refer--not perform, refer--to entities that would provide the
full range of gynecological services.
Mr. Gowdy. All right. And, of the 200, how many were they
willing to refer?
Mr. Sheldon. They did not indicate in their application or
in my request back to them for clarification.
Mr. Gowdy. Did you ask the victims of human trafficking
whether or not they were satisfied with the performance of the
Catholic Bishops?
Mr. Sheldon. Well, I was not around to talk to each of the
individual victims that were served under this contract at the
time. I have talked to other victims, as well as experts in
this field, who have indicated that referral for the full range
of gynecological services is an appropriate requirement for
these individuals who have been victimized, forced into
prostitution.
Mr. Gowdy. So, you agree with me that it is dispositive. It
is not just a strong preference, this is not just a preference,
it is dispositive. Because, the truth be told, if the Catholic
Bishops had scored a 100, you still wouldn't have picked them.
Mr. Sheldon. That is not necessarily accurate.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, would you have? If they had scored a 100--
is an 89 not enough?
Mr. Sheldon. Well, I was dealing with the facts in front of
me, not----
Mr. Gowdy. Okay, well, assume this fact then. If they had
scored a 95, would that have been high enough?
Mr. Sheldon. I cannot--without looking at the facts, the
other applicants, I cannot respond to a hypothetical.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, you can't tell me what percentage of the
200 services they were willing to provide or refer. You can't
tell me what score would have been good enough to get a
contract that they performed successfully on for 5 years. And
that leaves me with the conclusion to draw, based on the
evidence, that it is dispositive whether or not you will refer
for abortion services. And you deny that?
Mr. Sheldon. I do not think that is a good conclusion.
Mr. Gowdy. Okay. Well, then, tell me what they should have
done to get the contract. Other than score the second-highest
score, be recommended by your own people, and perform well
previously, what else should they have done?
Mr. Sheldon. Mr. Chairman, I went back to the Catholic
Bishops and asked them what their alternative was. They did not
provide an alternative.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, let me suggest an alternative, because
during the litany of things that you say you have given grants
to the Catholic Church for, it was also to improve the
parenting skills of men. Did you consider giving them a human
trafficking grant for only male victims?
Mr. Sheldon. I did not.
Mr. Gowdy. Did you consider giving them a human trafficking
grant for only labor trafficking victims where there was not
sexual abuse?
Mr. Sheldon. We did not.
Mr. Gowdy. The gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Welch.
Mr. Welch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
In 2006, ABC News--you, I am sure, remember this--
``Primetime'' premiered a story of a 15-year-old girl called
Debbie from suburban Phoenix. She had been tricked by a casual
friend into getting into a car with two older men. She was
kidnapped from her own driveway. One of the assailants put a
gun to her head and threatened to shoot her if she made any
noise. And she was taken to an apartment. She was repeatedly
gang-raped by four men. Debbie's captors then put
advertisements on Craigslist and were earning hundreds of
dollars a night forcing her into prostitution.
She was forced literally to sleep in a dog crate. Remained
captive for more than 40 days. She was threatened by her
captors that they would hurt her family and throw battery acid
in her face and on her 19-month-old niece if she tried to
escape. Eventually, the police found her tied up in a drawer
under the bed.
Mr. Negash, I mean, I am asking kind of an obvious
question. What psychological and physical traumas are
experienced by girls who have lived through ordeals like this?
And, unfortunately, Debbie is not the only one.
Mr. Negash. This issue for me has been very, very
difficult, simply because I spent almost 30 years of my life
providing service to victims. I think whether the victims were
trafficked or refugees, you know, it is a life-changing
experience.
But in this discussion I think we need to keep in mind that
ultimately what we are trying to achieve is to provide the best
possible services to the victims. If there is one thing that
the victim actually always desire, it is to have the freedom to
choose, the freedom to live independently. I believe the trauma
of being a victim and the trauma of being a refugee and going
through a process of being tortured and raped and humiliated is
a trauma--it is a lifelong trauma. It is a scar that the client
will always have.
Mr. Welch. You know, there was a University of Pennsylvania
study that said the average age of girls in the United States
that were forced into commercial sexual exploitation was
between 12 and 14.
Mr. Sheldon, does the fact that the victims are so young
when they are sexually exploited impact the kind of services
they need and how you deliver them? And I would like you to
elaborate on that, if you would.
Mr. Sheldon. There is no question. As I indicated earlier,
the eight young women that I visited in Chicago have had such
huge psychological scars. It is a lot like domestic violence.
You are afraid of your perpetrator, but you are also afraid of
the unknown. Can I survive outside of this?
Mr. Welch. Right.
Mr. Sheldon. And their hope for the future, their whole
self-respect, their self-image has been entirely destroyed. And
that is the reason that I think we feel, as an agency, that
providing the kind of effective case management----
Mr. Welch. Uh-huh.
Mr. Sheldon [continuing]. So that these individuals are
given back the freedom that has been taken away from them.
Mr. Welch. And that full range of case management services,
how does ensuring that girls like Debbie get referrals for the
full range of family planning services that can help them
rebuild their lives?
Mr. Sheldon. Well, I think that that is the reason we have
case management agencies, to provide to them the array of
options that are out there. Ultimately, it is that victim that
we are trying to empower, it is the victim that will decide
what services they will avail themselves of or what services
they will deny.
Mr. Welch. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the witnesses, and
I want to thank the chairman for the hearing, and yield back.
Mr. Cummings. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Welch. I will yield to Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I want to follow up on one of Mr. Gowdy's
questions.
If the other organizations, if they said to you, ``We will
not provide these services,'' or gave similar language to what
the Catholic Bishops did, I am just wondering, would they have
suffered, perhaps, the same fate? Are you following my
question?
Mr. Sheldon. I am following your question. It would depend
on what the other applicants--what the range of options were
for the Department. And, in this particular case, we had three
other applicants who were competent and the reviewers' comments
indicate had the experience, with USCRI, 100 years of
experience, in dealing with refugees and trafficking victims.
So it would depend on what our other alternatives were. In this
case, we had three qualified alternatives.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Gowdy. The gentlelady from New York, Ms. Buerkle.
Ms. Buerkle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to our panelists for being here this morning
and for testifying here.
I am co-chair of the Human Trafficking Committee for the
Women's Caucus. So this is an issue that is very near and dear
to me. And I understand the issue and the scope of the issue,
and I understand--I have spoken on the topic. I am also a
health care professional and spent many years in the domestic
violence arena. So what we are talking about here today really,
for me, is about the dignity of the woman and the victim.
And I have to say, Mr. Sheldon, that--and I understand the
scope of the hearing, and the chairman has laid it out and
continued to emphasize the point about what we are here to talk
about. But I think what concerns me most are your opening
comments and some of the things you said with regards to this
issue.
Now, we have agreed on both sides of the aisle and you have
testified that a lot of these young women and these victims are
ages 12, 14. And so one of the things I hear is that we are now
going to ask them to make decisions that are going to compound,
and my colleague mentioned, compound the trauma--life-changing
decisions. And you are putting them before people who only will
think one way.
And you talked about, and I will quote you, getting advice
from people they trust. So, in my mind, what you are saying is
those who don't offer abortion services they can't trust. What
is it about the Catholic Conference that they couldn't trust
that they wouldn't be allowed to be in and to get that grant?
So that concerns me.
I think the biggest concern is the age of these kids, and
you are putting them in situations--they have no idea. They
have been traumatized, they are young, they are not competent
to make those kinds of decisions. And yet you are only offering
them, given what has happened here and who has gotten these
grants, you are only offering them one round of choices, and
that is that abortion is probably the best choice to deal with
your problem. And that is not fair to that woman, because we
don't know, and I would say you don't know, the trauma of
abortion. And my colleague mentioned it already, it may only
add to the victimization of what she has gone through.
You talked about this--you specified a strong preference
for those who provide this full range of services. And the
chairman talked about that. What is the strong preference? I
mean, even with factoring in in the one section about full
range of services, the Catholic Conference of Bishops, they
achieved that 89 percent score. How do you define a strong
preference?
Mr. Sheldon. I think I have been talking about that.
But let me articulate that nondirective counseling does not
mean that you provide counseling which supports abortion. The
question is whether you are willing to lay out for that
individual what options they have available. In the case of the
Catholic Bishops, there was an unwillingness to provide this
option. And I recognize the sensitivity of this.
I also believe that when you are dealing with case
management agencies, particularly in the arena of human
trafficking, there is a recognition of what is age-appropriate
counseling. There is a recognition of the age of that
individual and the difficulty that a child, as you have
indicated, who has been enslaved for in cases a year to 3
years, the difficulty that child has in comprehending what is
happening in their lives.
Ms. Buerkle. My time is clicking down here, and I want to
make sure--I just want to get--because one of the other things
you said is you want to make sure we offer those young victims,
those victims, any victims, the best possible choices and the
freedom to choose. And isn't having the Catholic Conference of
Bishops and someone with a proven track record and someone who
has given the whole range of services--food, clothing, shelter,
legal help--they were recommended to get the grant, and you
have excluded them. And so, therefore, I don't think that you
have given these victims a full range of choices and the right
to choose the services that they so deserve and they so need.
With that, I will yield back my time. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Gowdy. The chair thanks the gentlelady from New York
and would now recognize the gentlelady from the District of
Columbia, Ms. Holmes Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I couldn't disagree more with the gentlelady, who judges
the issue by the exclusion of some services from victims.
This is a rare, if not unprecedented, hearing. And I just
want to say for the record, this is a hearing about public
money. No one is entitled to a grant in the United States,
faith-based or otherwise. There is no preference for any group
to receive a grant. And each funding cycle is a new cycle.
Public money in our country comes from people with many
different backgrounds and many different views. They come
particularly----
Ms. Buerkle. Would the gentlelady----
Ms. Norton. No, I am going to continue.
They come particularly from people with many different
religious views.
So there is only one issue here. And that issue, it seems
to me, is whether HHS followed or failed to follow the
objective procedures for awarding a grant to victims, whoever
is the organization. I don't see how Congress can be concerned
with any but two issues: Were the procedures followed, and are
we paying attention, first and foremost, to the victims, as
opposed to the organizations, who, after all, in our system are
in competition with one another.
Now, so let me go through the processes to see whether any
of the procedures were violated. Because the majority has
suggested that HHS failed to follow its procedures. And I can't
find it, but I want to cross-examine you on that view.
The only thing I find in the act is the prohibition on
organizations that support the legalization of prostitution,
and no one has raised that as an issue here. And so I don't
think the statute, as such, can be said to have been violated.
So if we look, then, at the internal grant guidelines--and
that is all we are entitled to do--there is a policy statement
that says, ``an advisory review of discretionary grant
applications conducted by a minimum of three unbiased reviewers
with expertise in the programmatic area for which applications
are submitted.'' The objective reviewer scoring is, and here I
am quoting again, ``intended to provide advice to individuals
responsible for making award decisions.''
Now, Mr. Sheldon, the independent panel had to score the
applications, but the scores were advisory and not dispositive.
Is that the case?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate.
Ms. Norton. The panel scored the applications, provided its
advice, and so I can't see that the internal policies were
violated.
So let's look at the funding announcement. Because the
bishops applied even given what the announcement said. We don't
have to conform the announcement with the organization. We are
supposed to conform the announcement with what the victims may
need. ``May'' is the operative word there.
The funding announcement stated four separate times that--
in four different places that HHS would give strong preference
to grantees that would refer victims to family planning
services.
Now, the document--and this is what I want to question you
about--also said that scores would be one element in the
decisionmaking process and that they would not include a
reduction in points for those applicants who were not able to
provide a full range of referrals. I would like you to explain
that.
And after explaining that, my question, of course, is, do
you think all of the procedures were followed?
Mr. Sheldon. Yes. And let me articulate, as I have before,
I think the reviewers did a very good job. And they indicated
strengths and weaknesses in all of the applications and
indicated that all of the applicants did not provide sufficient
detail in several areas. Then they scored. Based on their
requests for additional detail, we went back to all the
applicants and requested additional information.
The answer to your second question is, yes, I believe that
we complied with all of the grant requirements----
Ms. Norton. You did not reduce the points?
Mr. Sheldon. Pardon me?
Ms. Norton. You did not reduce points for applicants who
were not able to provide a full range of referrals?
Mr. Sheldon. We did not.
Chairman Issa. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I would now ask unanimous consent that the ``Attorney
General's Annual Report to Congress and Assessment of U.S.
Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons (Fiscal
Year 2009),'' published 2010, be admitted into the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3939.040

Chairman Issa. We now recognize the gentleman from Texas,
Mr. Farenthold, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Farenthold. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Sheldon, Mr. Negash, thank you for being here.
Let's, kind of, get the cards on the table here. Just from
having listened to the questions on, in light of the scope of
this hearing, the full range of permissible gynecological and
obstetric care services kind of boils down to abortions or
contraception. Would that be a fair statement?
Mr. Sheldon. There is a range, but in the discussion here
it appears that that is what the questioning is on.
Chairman Issa. If the gentleman would yield, for the
record, there are three. There is also sterilization. Those are
the only three for which the Catholic Bishops had an objection
to providing, out of 200.
Mr. Farenthold. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I think in your discussion with Mr. Gowdy, Mr. Sheldon,
the question basically came down to, was the unwillingness of
the Catholic Bishops to provide these three services
dispositive of their application? I mean----
Mr. Sheldon. These funding announcements, we looked at the
totality and determined that all four applicants had the
competence to administer the grant. Ultimately, it came down to
exercising the preference.
Mr. Farenthold. And so you couldn't imagine any scenario in
which the Catholic Bishops or any other group who refused to
refer these three type of services would be awarded this grant?
Mr. Sheldon. That is not accurate, respectfully, that it
would have been--because a lot of the sub-grantees of the
current grantees have the same religious faith, the same
religious belief. But they have--basically, those organizations
have worked with those individuals so that they would not have
to violate their Catholic teachings.
Mr. Farenthold. Well, I mean, it seems to me there are two
separate Federal laws, the Weldon amendment and the Coats-Snowe
amendment, that specifically prohibit HHS from discriminating
against health-care providers that do not perform or refer to
abortion. Why do you think those aren't applicable here?
Mr. Sheldon. I checked with general counsel on this, but
let me point out that, as I indicated, that sub-grantees are
faith-based organizations who share the religious belief of the
Catholic Bishops, are still providing services under this
contract. But victims who require the additional services
outlined are not served by that individual sub-grantee.
Mr. Farenthold. All right. I am not sure that answered my
question, but just because I have already used up more than
half of my time, I do want to follow up with a couple of
questions with respect to what you just said about the victims'
desire or need for these services.
Have any of your organizations ever conducted an evaluation
of human trafficking victims to ask them how important they
consider these services to be?
Mr. Sheldon. Yes. There is research in that arena that we
will be happy to provide the committee.
Mr. Farenthold. I would like to see this, because, again, I
think we run into a situation where, as, again, Mr. Gowdy
pointed out, of the 2,271 victims that the USCCB helped,
almost--well, 988 were men and 1,283 were females. Does this
sound correct to you?
Mr. Sheldon. I am not sure I can speak to personal
knowledge.
Mr. Negash. I don't have the figures with me, but we can
get back to you with that.
Mr. Farenthold. All right. But a good percentage of them
were men. That would be a fair statement? I mean----
Mr. Negash. Again, you know, I will have to get that
information.
Mr. Farenthold. And so, guys don't require OB/GYN services,
right?
Mr. Negash. That is correct.
Mr. Farenthold. And so, USCCB could continue to service men
without any problem related to this. Would that be correct?
Mr. Negash. That is correct.
Mr. Farenthold. And what about the females who were
currently in the process with USCCB? What happens to these
women?
Mr. Sheldon. As I indicated earlier, the USCCB has been
very cooperative to assure that victims that are currently
being served continue to be served. And I would have to
compliment them on the smoothness by which we have made this
transition.
Mr. Farenthold. And, finally, again, I think Mr. Gowdy
pointed out and I would like to reiterate again, not all
victims of human trafficking are involved in the sex trade.
There is slavery for labor and other purposes.
Mr. Sheldon. Yes. I think the numbers who were actually
served under the contract who were victims of sex trafficking
was approximately 19 percent. The broader numbers that we have
seen indicate a much higher percentage of not only sex
trafficking but a combination of sex and labor trafficking.
Mr. Farenthold. You know, I just remain troubled that the
U.S. Catholic Bishops were discriminated here for their faith-
based belief and unwillingness to provide abortions. And I just
want to be on the record that I and I think many members on
this panel are troubled by this. Whether it actually violates
the letter of the law, as I referred to earlier, I think it
clearly violates the spirit of those laws. And I am extremely
disappointed at the way this is handled.
I will yield back.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Farenthold. Certainly.
Chairman Issa. I would just like to, since you brought this
point up, to clarify for the record.
So the figures you have been giving all day of these higher
numbers, much higher numbers, are not the numbers within this
program but numbers that are not supported either by the
Attorney General's annual report to Congress or by the actual
numbers reported by the previous oversight for 5 years of these
activities under your jurisdiction. Is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. They are not a reflection, but I would be
happy to provide the committee with the research that we have
seen in this arena.
Chairman Issa. Well, any independent research we would
appreciate having.
I would ask that the clerks annotate anyplace the witnesses
answered to higher numbers or agreed to higher numbers, that
they annotate the actual numbers that are in the record from
Health and Human Services and, appropriately, the Attorney
General's Office. Because we want to make sure that the
misstatements that you made earlier in agreeing to much higher
numbers are corrected for the actual numbers that occurred.
With that, we recognize--with that, we have concluded on
that side, so we would now go to Mr. Kelly of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you both, Mr. Sheldon and Mr. Negash, for being
here.
And I have been looking through this, and I know the
question really today was, was the Catholic Church
discriminated against? And so I go back in and I am looking and
I am seeing that there is language that I am wondering about,
regarding the development of the language giving preference to
applicants that provide all reproductive services. And I read
through and it says, for the first time--this is the first time
ever--this grant, ``The director will give strong preference to
applicants that are willing to offer all the services and
referrals delineated under the project objectives. Applicants
that are unwilling to provide the full range of services and
referrals under the project objectives must indicate this in
their narrative.''
Now, what I am trying to understand, was there any
discussion at all when they developed this language about the
conscience clause?
Mr. Sheldon. This language was developed--I have only been
the Assistant Secretary for 6 months. This language was
developed before I came to the agency.
Mr. Kelly. And I think--so you don't know. Does anybody
know how the language was developed?
Mr. Negash. The----
Mr. Kelly. Because this is the first time this has ever
happened. And, obviously, the Council of Catholic Bishops have
a pretty good track record because I am hearing how much money
they have gotten in the past, and they were granted this money
before, they have had it for 3 years, and they have done a
pretty good job with it. But it comes down to this one issue.
Mr. Negash. The drafting of the funding announcement is a
very collaborative process. In that process, the policy
experts, the Office of General Counsel, and career employees
were involved. So I believe that through the process of
developing the funding announcement, throughout the process we
have been consulting the Office of General Counsel to make sure
that the statement, and especially the services to be provided,
is consistent with existing statutes and law.
Mr. Kelly. Okay. But there is existing language out there
under a conscience clause. So I am asking, was there any draft
that included anywhere in there the conscience clause?
Mr. Negash. Again, throughout the process of developing
this announcement, we had consulted the Office of General
Counsel to make sure----
Mr. Kelly. And I understand you consulted the Office of
General Counsel. And, you know, in my lifetime, I know that
there is a huge difference between what is legal and what is
right. And I know we debate this all the time.
But you could structure the language of this grant that
would eliminate the conscience clause. And this is what bothers
us. And I think when I look at your scoring and I see how high
the Council of Catholic Bishops have scored and I know their
track record--and I think this is where the question comes in:
Why? Why now? Why do we go away from the way we used to look at
things? Why do we have a score and then disregard the score and
say, ``These folks came in pretty high, but you know what? Not
high enough, because they didn't agree to provide all?''
And I am asking, where is the conscience clause involved in
it all? And I would like to know if you have any documents,
including emails or any language or anything at all that is
applicable, that you could supply it to this committee. Because
I have to tell you, just coming from a private background, I
look at this and I say, you know what? We got gamed on this. We
structured this so tightly, we put language in there that would
preclude the Catholic Bishops participating, even though they
have a great track record, even though they score so high, even
though they outscore other people. And it comes down to, so why
was that language put in there? And why the disregard of the
conscience clause? Why?
And while it may be legal, and maybe that is the fulcrum
that it turned on or the point that it turned on, I have to
tell you, it is very disappointing for me, not just as a Member
of Congress, as a citizen of the United States, to look and
say, so you know what? They didn't do what you wanted them to
do, so we structured language to keep them out of the hall. We
fixed it, we gamed it so they couldn't participate.
All the good work they have done, everything indicated in
their past history was negated by the language. That is not
right, gentlemen. It is not right. It doesn't make sense to me.
It is not American. And, to me, this is absolutely pathetic
that we have to have a hearing to discuss this. This is so
obvious to me a way of eliminating faith-based people from
being able to participate by structuring language that would
leave them out.
And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Kelly. Yes, I will.
Chairman Issa. Mr. Sheldon, you did deliver, HHS delivered
us a conference call memo from August 11, 2011. Are you
familiar with the document?
Mr. Sheldon. No.
Chairman Issa. Okay. Well, I am now familiar with it, and
it very much goes to Mr. Kelly's statement.
When reading the document in ordinary English, it becomes
obvious that every single part of what is entitled the
``National Human Trafficking Victims Assistance Program Review
Panel Conference Call of August 11''--and I could even give you
the passcode, but I suspect it doesn't work anymore--what it
shows me is that you put a number on everything except the
preference that Mr. Gowdy, when sitting here in the chair, made
clear was so great that 20 points was weighted for it.
How do you answer today that you put over 20 points on this
strong preference? Because you put a number on it; the number
was the difference between 69 and 89 or greater. How do you
tell us today that you would have in a legitimate way weighted
20 points or more on this?
Mr. Sheldon. As I indicated earlier, we took the reviewers'
comments, the scores, the responses to our questions back to
applicants which the reviewers had indicated had a lack of
detail in all of the applicants' scores, all of that into
consideration in making a final decision. I believe that----
Chairman Issa. Mr. Sheldon, please answer the question--the
time has expired--if you can, briefly.
Mr. Sheldon. No, that is----
Chairman Issa. Okay. Then we will get it in a follow-up.
Mr. Labrador is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Labrador. I yield back.
Chairman Issa. The gentleman yields back to me, so now we
have 5 minutes.
Mr. Sheldon. Okay.
Chairman Issa. Let's go over this again. The numbers are
the numbers: 20 points, which is roughly--you know, it is more
than 25 percent difference. When you are looking at the delta
between 89 and 69, you realize, forget about the 110
hypothetical, this is a huge difference.
You said you take responsibility for it, even though the
committee sees the hands of other political appointees very
much involved in this. And they did make trips to the sixth
floor, and they did have consultation with the Secretary
directly. And we believe that that is part of our overall
investigation.
But the question for you, with the gentleman from Idaho's
time: You didn't put a weighting, an analytical weighting--at
the end of it all, the recommendation by civil servants, by
career personnel, before political appointees with a pro-
abortion bent in mind, before they weighed in, you had a career
professional consensus that the Council of Catholic Bishops
organization should have been included for all or part of this.
So it was deemed not acceptable over a single issue. The issue,
the code issue, is these health services, which is basically
abortion, contraceptive, and sterilization--3 out of 200.
Now, I ask you today, is there any way this committee can
legitimately not believe that the preference, the strong
preference, represented at least 20 points or more than 25
percent difference, thus making it virtually impossible for an
organization that was not going to essentially administer and
pay for abortions to have this preference? Was there any way
that I can reach another conclusion?
Mr. Sheldon. As I indicated, we looked at the reviewers'
comments, we looked at the scores, and we looked at the answers
to the questions that the reviewers indicated had not been
provided in sufficient detail in making a policy----
Chairman Issa. No, no, no, you are going back to your
talking points. We are not worried about the absence of detail.
The fact is, you gave a second bite and a third bite at the
apple to groups you wanted to qualify, or that HHS wanted to
qualify.
Now, one of the considerations this committee has to look
at broadly is, the damage is done. This complaint did not come
from the Catholic Bishops; this complaint came from our
recognition that if you can use this kind of political-
appointee judgment based on whether or not somebody will
provide abortions, then can't HHS start having a strong
preference to avoid doctors who will not do referrals for
abortions, nurses who will not work in abortion clinics,
Catholic hospitals that will not, in fact, perform abortions?
Is there any reason that I shouldn't see that this strong
preference in the Obama administration is going to be worked in
and that the conclusion we can reach today, based on the actual
analytics we have, is that you have to win by more than 25
percent, statistically impossible, or you don't win at all?
The fact is, a bidder who was in a statistical tie with the
top bidder was eliminated based on one item for which there was
a 20-point difference. The bottom line is you eliminated them
based on a single issue. And this document, which is in the
record, from August 11th makes one thing very clear, which is,
everything else is scored in numbers, and you made a decision
to score no number on something that had a 20-point preference
or greater.
Isn't it fair to say that this committee must in the future
write into law a requirement that if you are scoring by numbers
you score everything by numbers, and that you never again be
allowed to have a subjective earmark-type preference that
simply says, we put numbers on everything and then we don't put
numbers on something that is effectively a 100, a yes/no, you
either do it to our satisfaction or you don't get the contract?
Mr. Sheldon. Mr. Chairman, this department will
consistently follow the law. And if the law is changed, then we
will do that.
Chairman Issa. The law very clearly says that this was not
elimination. There was no question about that. Because the law
allowed for the Catholic Bishops organization to have this
contract and perform satisfactorily for 5 years or more.
Let me just conclude on the gentleman's time with one
question. If you are saying you followed the law and you
followed procedures, then you are saying it is within the law
to say, if you don't provide contraceptive services, abortion,
and sterilization, that, in fact, it is within the law for you
to deny the award of the contract?
Mr. Sheldon. It is within the law to respond to the needs
of this population, yes, I----
Chairman Issa. That wasn't the question to be answered. You
denied this grant award based on these three procedures the
Catholic Bishops were not willing to do. And in your own
testimony, before you answer, you said you renegotiated with
the Catholic Bishops. You tried to get them to cave in some
acceptable way on these narrow three issues. And when you found
that they didn't, you eliminated them from the grant process.
Mr. Sheldon. We asked for a response to their suggestion in
their application that they were willing to explore alternative
mechanisms by which ORR could carry out this particular
function.
Chairman Issa. Isn't it true--or, actually, no, the time
has expired. I don't want to exceed. I thank the gentleman for
the time and yield back.
We now recognize, having all Members had time, the
gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, who has waited patiently
to be the last questioner on the first round.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. First of all, let me say, Mr.
Sheldon, you know, the art of misdirection is alive and well in
Washington. We have heard a rattling off of amounts that
Catholic organizations have received in other programs, which
only, I would suggest respectfully, underscores the competence
and the effectiveness of the mission of those Catholic
organizations.
But why we are here today and why we are so concerned--
again, I authored this legislation that established the program
we are discussing--is that there is a new abortion referral
policy which is new policy. It is brand new policy. It is
radical, it is new. It wasn't there before, but it is there
now. So that is why we are here. So saying look how much we
gave over here or there, that is the art of misdirection. And
members of this committee, and certainly you I think, have
engaged in that, and I say that sadly.
Let me also say you can't have it both ways. First you
compliment the USCCB and their extensive network of
subcontractors by saying that the three awardees are entering
into contracts with them, a case of benign cherry-picking, I
would suggest.
But then you say that--and I think you said this very
critically--that those three NGO's are ahead of where the USCCB
was 5 years ago when they got the contract. That is because
they had to establish that whole network. So, please, don't
offer up that very false comparison, because it is very, very
misleading.
Let me ask: In what other programs has ACF approved
applications that received scores that were 20 points below
that which the NGO that didn't get the award? Are there
examples?
Mr. Sheldon. I am sure there are.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Can you provide them for the
record?
Mr. Sheldon. I can only speak to my personal experience.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Have you ever been a part of that?
Mr. Sheldon. I have only been here 6 months.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. But you have approved a number of
awards thus far. Have you taken those who had inferior scores
and jumped them to the head of the line in order to get----
Mr. Sheldon. There are several grants that we signed off on
where we have done, for instance, geographic skipping in order
to make sure that various----
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Where there have been scores done
by very competent reviewers who suggest 89, 74 for Tapestry, 69
for USCRI; 89, like I said, for the U.S. Catholic Conference of
Bishops. As the chairman has said repeatedly, a 20-point
spread. Are there examples?
Mr. Sheldon. As indicated previously, the scores are
advisory, but they were also prior to requests for additional
information from the applicants.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. So you moved the goalposts after
it was all over. So the reviewers are out of it now, and now
you are going to make your own decision?
Mr. Sheldon. No, we were specifically responding to the
comments that the reviewers had made in their comments.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Let me ask you this: Are you
familiar with Executive Order 13279?
Mr. Sheldon. Not by number.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. How about the President's
executive order entitled ``Fundamental Principles and
Policymaking Criteria for Partnerships with Faith-Based and
Other Neighborhood Organizations?''
Mr. Sheldon. Yes, in general.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. In that EO, which prohibits social
grant making agencies from discriminating against prospective
grantees on the basis of religion or religious beliefs, as well
as the interference of political appointees in the
decisionmaking process, do you concur with that? Do you think
that is important?
Mr. Sheldon. I do.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Now, the President said decisions
about awards of Federal assistance, financial assistance, must
be free from political interference or even the appearance of
such interference and must be made on the basis of merit, not
on the basis of the religious affiliation of the recipient or
organization or lack thereof.
Do you agree with that statement?
Mr. Sheldon. I do.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Then why did you break it? Why did
you supersede it and do something precisely contrary to that
when you had a proven NGO, competent in the field, that had
gotten high marks from your agency previously, from HHS. Even
on the medical issue, they were scored on that and found to be
completely competent and doing an exemplary job.
Mr. Sheldon. I don't believe we broke it.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Okay. Let me ask you this. How far
down in the rankings by expert reviewers were you prepared to
reach before you would have considered making an award to the
USCCB? I mean, had USCRI been 65 rather than 69, 50. Because
you did say before, and I hope you will correct this because I
thought it was a misstatement, you said they were equally
qualified. Not according to the reviewers. All four of those
NGO's were not equally qualified. But is that just your
opinion, or what is it based on?
Mr. Sheldon. I think if you will look back at the
reviewers' comments, it will indicate that each of the
applicants either had a strong capacity to lead the project,
had considerable experience in managing large refugee
trafficking projects, language similar to that.
Chairman Issa. I would ask unanimous consent that the
gentleman have an additional 3 minutes. Would the gentleman
yield?
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. I would be happy to.
Chairman Issa. Isn't it true that ``not qualified'' for one
of them was clearly there? You say that they were all
qualified, but your reviewers had a recommendation that one of
the applicants was not qualified.
Mr. Sheldon. I believe if you read the totality of the
reviewers' comments, Tapestry, which may be the one you are
referring to, indicated they had developed a strong
organizational plan. They had staff experience and qualified.
They had confirmed that the staff were qualified.
Chairman Issa. In the State of Georgia. In one State.
Mr. Sheldon. In the----
Chairman Issa. Okay, I just want to understand. You fully
qualified somebody with a low score and one State experience,
and then they are all fully qualified.
I yield back to the gentleman. Thank you for yielding.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Do you want to correct your
testimony?
Mr. Sheldon. No, I do not want to correct my testimony.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. You say they are equally
qualified.
Mr. Sheldon. I indicated that we believed that these
individuals were equally qualified to administer the
contracts----
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Even though the HHS review panel
stated ``Regarding USCRI, the overall level of detail in the
proposal is insufficient to ensure that the project will be
established and run to an effective level and that the
management plan is credible and comprehensive. There is a
complete lack of information on specific activities and the
timeline is vague, inhibiting evaluation of their
reasonableness.''
That is not my words. That is your reviewers.
Mr. Sheldon. And if you read the reviewers' comments on all
the applicants, for instance, USCCB, ``The proposal lacks
detail on shelter models.''
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. So you pick out one, shelter
models. This was a comprehensive, very negative assessment by
the reviewers. You pick out shelters. We are still in the
infancy of shelters. I know, because I am working the shelters
issues at home and abroad. So don't pick out one and somehow
juxtapose it as somehow they are equally weighted.
Let me ask you this: In terms of the Snowe-Coats or Coats-
Snowe and the Weldon conscience clause, are they applicable
here?
Mr. Sheldon. We checked with our general counsel's office
through the process and believe we are in line with all
statutes.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. So are you saying that those
statutes apply to this grant?
Mr. Sheldon. I am saying that we checked with the general
counsel's office, as I would in any occasion.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. But you are saying you checked.
You are not telling me what they said. Do those two laws,
conscience clause laws, have application to this grant or these
grants that had been let?
Mr. Sheldon. I would be happy to respond to you in writing
as to what the general counsel's office position has been.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. So you don't know?
Mr. Sheldon. I do know that we were told we were consistent
with all applicable statutes.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. That is just broad. There are two
very important conscience clause protections. A conscience
clause is obviously in the news every day of the week now.
There are 12 nurses at the UMDNJ in New Jersey who are being
compelled to be complicit in abortions, who are now in a
Federal suit that will be up in about a week, simply because
they have been told, You do this or you are demoted or you are
reassigned or you are fired. So conscience clauses are very
much in the cross-hairs of the abortion lobby. We know it.
Are those two laws applicable to these grants? You are the
head of it. I would like to know.
Mr. Sheldon. I believe they would be applicable. I believe
we have not violated them.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. How many victims of trafficking
and their family members who were being served at the end of
the contract with the USCCB experienced a break in services and
how many others are still not receiving services?
Mr. Sheldon. Again, I would compliment the Bishops on
their----
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. I am not looking for compliments
for them or anyone else. How many are not getting services?
Mr. Sheldon. I am not aware of any numbers.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. You are not aware of anyone who
has not gotten services.
Chairman Issa. The gentleman's time has expired. Do you
want to finish up?
Mr. Sheldon. To my personal knowledge, no.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey.
We now go to the--this is the second round--we go to the
gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for the
second round as well, because, frankly, it is an opportunity to
really get the fullness of what has gone on here. This is
really, as I understand it being a Protestant, not an attack on
the Catholic Church or even one of its entities. They just
happen to be a solid, positive, caring organization that is
seeking to reach and meet needs. I wish we would be dealing
with Samaritan's Purse here or Compassion International or any
others that would be offering these same services, but the
Catholic organization was the one that is in question here. So
it is really not an issue of saying this is an attack on them.
It also doesn't seem to be an attack on the money, as some
of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seemingly want
to point out that the Catholic Bishops received dollars for
their programs in nutrition, in shelter, in medical assistance,
and I am sure there are others as well. I forget some that were
mentioned. But, yes, they received support to do those things.
They received support to do those things apparently as long
as it did not come anywhere near the issue of one specific
issue, and that is abortion services and that is family
planning. That goes directly against the principles of many of
us here who believe in the foundational principles of this
country. That is the concern that I see that is going on.
When we talk about equally qualified, they have gone beyond
being equally qualified, meaning criteria that was put in place
and evaluated by a hearing panel.
This hearing really is about the concern that we have about
arbitrary social engineering and its dangers. It is a concern
that we would have that would say that the victim--and indeed
there is tremendous victimization that we are talking about
here that goes on--but an unwillingness to accept the fact that
has been accepted before that there are policies and principles
of organizations that go beyond the one victim and goes to the
fuller victimization that includes even the unborn child. That
is my concern.
And the fact that we have law in place, Weldon-Snowe, that
your counsel has indicated isn't being superseded or violated,
and yet the concern about the direction even of the Secretary
of HHS on this particular issue, that would seem to indicate
that, yes, it will be perceived as not being violated in order
to carry out the social engineering that goes on.
Mr. Chairman, I applaud you for holding this hearing, and I
think that to assume anything other than the fact that this is
not about religion or a specific religion, that this is not
about the money that is given to that same entity for other
issues, but the fact this is about showing that we have
broached something that we never countenanced here in the past
in this great country, where on the basis of strongly held
religious moral belief, you will be discriminated against. I
think that is what we are looking at.
I would be glad to yield my time to the gentleman from New
Jersey or the chairman again for further questioning.
Chairman Issa. If the gentleman wouldn't mind yielding to
me, and I will try to make it up to the gentleman from New
Jersey.
There is a question that has been just driving me crazy,
Mr. Sheldon. You have within Health and Human Services all
kinds of questions about abortion, contraception,
sterilization, and this isn't the only time it pops up within
the broad Cabinet position. If you have a mandate under
Executive Order 13279 clearly saying you cannot preclude
someone based on religious beliefs, if the Catholic Bishops
made it clear that this problem was the result of their
religious beliefs--and they clearly did that with you, I don't
have to call them to find that out--didn't you have an
obligation to square the difference between 13279, which said
you couldn't basically give a strong preference against a
religious belief, which you did, because the two were
inseparable? Didn't you have an obligation not ask the Catholic
Bishops for a workaround, but to produce proposed workarounds
that were acceptable to HHS?
Did that ever cross your mind, that that was really your
obligation, your obligation to square an executive order that
said you couldn't have this strong preference against their
religious beliefs, when in fact you clearly had a strong
preference against the result of their religious beliefs?
Mr. Sheldon. I do not believe that is the case.
Chairman Issa. Well, you can choose not to believe
something, but this is not a deniable fact here. These three
problems which were determinative in whether they got this
grant were the result of their religious beliefs, and they
articulated that to you, and you preferred others because of
the result of their religious beliefs, didn't you?
Mr. Sheldon. We made a decision to----
Chairman Issa. Please just answer the question. The time
has expired and it is easy enough. You did make an award around
what they told you was their religious beliefs preventing those
three procedures, didn't you?
Mr. Sheldon. I do not believe we did.
Chairman Issa. Then how the heck in the world can you say--
you know what, I will take additional time when it is my own. I
don't want to run over.
With that, we recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Connolly, for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, if you wanted to finish your
thought, I gladly yield to you such time as you may require.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman. I do want to try to
get this out.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, I just plead that I get my 5
minutes when you are finished.
Chairman Issa. The gentleman's plea has been heard.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chairman.
Chairman Issa. I think this is important to make the
record. I want to be fair. I don't want this to be one side or
the other on this. You were told by the Council of Bishops in
this consultation, I believe, that these were religious beliefs
that prevented them from providing these procedures, at least
in the way you originally envisioned them, correct?
Mr. Sheldon. I never had any conversations with the
Bishops. But I----
Chairman Issa. Or is it your understanding that this
preclusion is because of their religious beliefs?
Mr. Sheldon. I understand their religious beliefs. The
contract was about the delivery of services and our decision
was based on the merit of people who could provide those
services.
Chairman Issa. No, I understand that. But, if I am an
Orthodox Jew and I tell you I cannot--I cannot drive a car on
Friday night, and you have a contract that says I need a driver
7 days a week, and you know I can't do it on Friday night,
don't you have a clear prohibition by an Orthodox Jew that he
cannot or she cannot perform that duty? And then aren't you
dealing with the executive order that you have? You are asking
someone to do something which cannot be done under their
religious belief, and you either have to say, I am sorry but I
am precluding you because of your limitations under your
religious belief, or not? Isn't that the real question here?
Mr. Sheldon. I believe if I have a requirement for certain
kinds of services, those individuals who are willing----
Chairman Issa. So your answer is if I am an Orthodox Jew
and it is Friday night and I tell you that I can't drive you,
that in fact you are only dealing with a service, you are not
dealing with a religious belief?
Mr. Sheldon. And if I said to you, please come back with an
alternative as to how I can get the service I need on Friday
night and you came back with an alternative as to how that
could be done, I think that would be a different story.
Chairman Issa. Well, they don't have the responsibility
under the executive order. You do. And that is the point I am
trying to make. You had the ability to modify the contract. You
had the ability, within the contract provisions, you could have
said okay, we are going to have separate administration, a
separate procedure. We are going to recognize that a limited
amount of people will go to their doctor--because they sent
people to doctors, that wasn't the question--to go to their
doctor. And these other procedures in the case of rape, which
is allowed under Federal law--we are not dealing with all
abortions, we are only dealing with rape-based abortions for
Federal funding--that Medicaid can do it.
In the case of sterilization, in the case of contraception,
you had it at HHS, the ability to prescribe an alternative so
that you could meet both your perceived contract needs, which
you wrote, and the executive order that is still in place,
didn't you?
Mr. Sheldon. And that is the very reason we went back to
the Bishops and asked them to provide the details of the
alternative that they said they would be willing to do.
Chairman Issa. I appreciate that, Mr. Sheldon, and I know
we are not at odds, other than my point to you--and I
appreciate the gentleman from Virginia, who is going to get his
full 5 minutes--was you had the obligation of the executive
order and you had the obligation to meet what had been written
as a perceived list of services. And we are not arguing today
specifically about whether those services are right or wrong,
abortion, any of that, or even, you know, the contraception
question or any of those. We are arguing over who had the
responsibility. And you seem to think repeatedly in every
answer, the Bishops had the responsibility. And I am going to
say that, at least from this position in the chair, that we the
government have the responsibility to square executive orders
and the law and our request for proposals and grant writing. It
is not for the religious-based person who says, ``I can't drive
on Friday night through Saturday at dusk because of my
religion. And, yes, there is somebody else who can't do it on
Sunday.'' Let's reconcile that. It is our obligation as
government, at least that is my view.
I thank the gentleman from Virginia. He is very kind. He is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair.
I actually want to follow up on I think where the chairman
is trying to get at, because I actually have the same set of
concerns in terms of how the decision was arrived at. But I
want to clear away some debris, since I have been gone to
another hearing.
I think if there were suspicions that this had something to
do with a bias about a particular denomination, I think the
evidence is overwhelming that that is not true. So I think our
fears about that, if they existed before this hearing, can now
be allayed.
With respect to abortion, Mr. Sheldon, is there a single
penny in this grant award that funds abortion directly?
Mr. Sheldon. No. This award does not provide funding for
any direct services other than emergency services such as food,
shelter, clothing, emergency medical services.
Mr. Connolly. So it is presumably not about abortion. We
were talking earlier, and my time ran out at that time, about
the fact that the grant application talked about the need for
the provision of family planning services. I assumed by that,
that meant contraception. Is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. Contraception would be included in that.
Mr. Connolly. What else would be included in that?
Mr. Sheldon. Sterilization, abortion, the full range of the
200 services that we have been previously talking about.
Mr. Connolly. And heretofore the Catholic Bishops had been
the recipient of this grant money; is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. That is accurate. Contract money.
Mr. Connolly. And it was to provide contract services to
treat the victims of human trafficking; is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. To provide case management services.
Mr. Connolly. Case management. And, again, I was out of the
room, but if I understood a previous exchange, under that
contract 19 percent of the clients served were victims of
sexual trafficking; is that correct?
Mr. Sheldon. No, I think--and I would like to supplement
this later--but I believe the actual number was about 19
percent.
Mr. Connolly. Right. That is what I said.
Mr. Sheldon. I am sorry. I thought you said 90.
Mr. Connolly. But are you familiar with the CRS study that
says actually 79 percent of all trafficking victims are also
victims of sex trafficking?
Mr. Sheldon. I am not familiar with that specific study,
but I am familiar generally with studies which indicate a
higher percentage of individuals who are victims of sex
trafficking or a combination of sex and labor trafficking.
Mr. Connolly. Well, most of the victims, sadly, tragically,
of human trafficking are female; is that not correct?
Mr. Sheldon. That is correct.
Mr. Connolly. And most of those victims, female victims,
tragically are also victims of sexual trafficking; is that not
correct?
Mr. Sheldon. I believe that is accurate.
Mr. Connolly. So was it the concern of the Department that
given that data, that we had to shift the focus of the grant
award to provide more aggressively family planning services,
among others, to deal with sexually transmitted diseases and
unwanted pregnancies or the prevention of unwanted pregnancies?
Mr. Sheldon. Over the course of the last decade, we have
learned more and more about human trafficking, and it was based
on that that the Department made the determination included in
this report.
Mr. Connolly. All right. Here is what is bothering a lot of
us, I think. The Catholic Bishops ranked number one, as I
understand it, in the initial ranking?
Mr. Sheldon. Number two.
Mr. Connolly. Number two. But higher than others.
Mr. Sheldon. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. So why would we then, knowing that, actually
deny them the award when they came in number two?
Mr. Sheldon. The reviewers made several--and these are not
talking points, this is a fact. The reviewers made several
comments about a lack of detail in all of the applicants, but
we went back to request additional information. The grant
process also indicates that the scores are advisory in nature,
that the ultimate decision to award or not award rests with the
assistant secretary.
Mr. Connolly. All right. I only have 35 seconds. In your
opinion, Mr. Sheldon, having reviewed this case, and obviously
preparing for this hearing today, did you find any evidence--do
you believe there was any evidence of religious bias, of
political bias, in favor or against the ultimate recipients of
this grant money?
Mr. Sheldon. I can state unequivocally there was not.
Mr. Connolly. I am sorry, I didn't hear you.
Mr. Sheldon. I can state unequivocally there was not.
Mr. Connolly. And that is your testimony under oath?
Mr. Sheldon. Under oath.
Mr. Connolly. I thank you, Mr. Sheldon.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman. We now go to the
gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Kelly, for a second round.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, thanks for
holding the hearing. Mr. Sheldon, Mr. Negash, thank you.
Now, Mr. Sheldon, you have been on the job 6 months.
Mr. Sheldon. That is correct.
Mr. Kelly. I have only been on 10 months, so I know how you
are feeling. I am getting blamed for a lot of things that
happened before I got here, too. Anyways, because this is a
very serious matter--but I want to go back to an earlier
question. I would like all the documents, including emails,
about the preferential language and any discussion regarding
the conscience matter, because I think that is really crucial
to what we are doing right now.
Mr. Sheldon. Our staff will continue to work with your
staff on producing those documents.
Mr. Kelly. Okay, and I would sure appreciate that. The
purpose of these hearings really, I cannot tell you, the way I
look at it, to me there is such a bias. And, again, we got
gamed on this one. We changed the language to eliminate some of
the people that would have been normally included. So I think
that is pretty clear to me and to any commonsense, thinking
person.
Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield back my
time. I have to run to another hearing.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I
will just continue on something.
In 2009, isn't it true--this is before you came in, but
this was during the Obama administration--the Council of
Bishops in execution of this contract, this grant award, was
rated outstanding, weren't they?
Mr. Sheldon. I can't testify from my personal knowledge,
but I believe that to be the case.
Chairman Issa. Mr. Negash, how about your personal
knowledge? Our indication is that they were awarded greater
sums, they were listed as outstanding. Everybody at HHS was
extremely satisfied with their performance year after year
after year for 5 years under both Democratic and Republican
Presidencies.
Mr. Negash. I am not aware of any performance evaluation
that they were graded.
Chairman Issa. Okay. So here is the question we have been
waiting all day to ask in a strange way, because I have
listened to both majority and minority. The majority has asked
questions about these numbers and the grant process. The
minority has told us heart-wrenching stories about women who
have been persecuted and dealt with in the worst possible way
and raped. But these are the people that this organization that
was summarily eliminated was dealing with successfully for half
a decade, weren't they?
Mr. Negash. It is my understanding, Mr. Chairman, this
grant is not about providing direct services. My understanding
is the national agency was having a relationship with
subgrantees around the country.
Chairman Issa. Yes, I understand that. But this
organization for 5 years administered and provided excellent
service in finding--finding, including your former
organization--finding various people all over the country,
including Georgia and other places. They found the people to
provide the necessary services on a case-by-case basis to
1,000-plus women a year.
The fact is this is an organization that was compassionate
and successful. It wasn't about the money. They don't apply for
this for reasons of money. They apply because they want to
provide this service. They administered it successfully for 5
years. For 5 years, the women who had been raped, the women who
had been tortured, the women who had real needs, including STDs
to be taken care of, they were taken care of through this
process.
So my question to you, Mr. Sheldon, today is: In your
consideration of how important this 20-plus point delta that
had to be overcome to deny them any part of this grant, you did
so of an organization that in the past had succeeded in spite
of that, didn't you?
Mr. Sheldon. They have succeeded, and they are continuing
to succeed with human trafficking victims.
Chairman Issa. I understand. But they succeeded on this
contract effectively, this grant. This grant, these people.
These people had succeeded in the past, and yet they were
denied because of their religious beliefs preventing these
three procedures, correct--or two procedures plus
prescriptions?
Mr. Sheldon. They have provided, as I indicated, a strong
performance under the terms of the contract.
Chairman Issa. Okay. That is a good point, and I thank you
for that. The terms of the contract changed. Now, you keep
going back to you asked the Bishops and you went back to them.
I have become familiar during the intervening minutes with the
Council of Bishops' response, and I read it differently than
you do. I read their response in, if you will, this second
round, which often when we find contract irregularities, when
we find misconduct by bureaucrats or political appointees, what
we find are the second or third rounds are usually used to game
the system from the first round because they didn't like the
outcome. But the Bishops said they were willing to consider
alternative ways. As far as I read it, this was an outreach for
you to find an alternative way, not for them to propose an
acceptable alternative way, something that is acceptable to
you.
Do you see that somebody like myself could in common
English find that interpretation?
Mr. Sheldon. I felt by reaching back out to the Bishops and
asking for alternatives that they would be willing to provide
them.
Chairman Issa. But can you see how I could find that
reading?
Mr. Sheldon. I understand where you're coming from.
Chairman Issa. We'll take that as a yes.
We now recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lankford,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lankford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This new language that was added in, it is different than
the previous contract that for 5 years they had. Obviously,
they have done a good job on it in the past. That is well
established. There was some decision made at some point, I
assume based on data. Is there data out there somewhere saying
there was a portion of individuals that were interested in
these other abortions and contraceptives and such that didn't
get it and had complained back, or was there some study that
was done determining that this was not being provided and this
was a problem?
Mr. Sheldon. There is research indicating the needs of this
population, and based on that research--and we would be happy
to provide that----
Mr. Lankford. I am just wondering. In the specific
fulfillment of the contract, there was data that was provided,
saying that these things are needed and they are not being
provided, and the Catholic Bishops are prohibiting this.
Because obviously the Catholic Bishops are not providing the
health care, so they are sending them to clinics, and then the
HIPAA laws kick in, and they don't know what is happening at
that point. They are the caseworkers that are connecting them
with the clinic, and then health care is provided there. So I
would assume there is some data saying ``and they were
prevented from getting these services.''
Mr. Sheldon. What I can indicate and we will provide you is
the provisions that they provided in their subcontracts to
subgrantees restricting the options that those----
Mr. Lankford. Restricting payment for that, correct? It is
not saying you can't do it, but saying don't ask us for
repayment for these services.
Mr. Sheldon. We will provide the specific information to
you.
Mr. Lankford. Okay, that will be great. Because my
understanding was they're not saying you can't do that, you are
prohibited; we are going to reach into your doctor's office and
tell you what to do and what not to do. They are just saying if
this is performed, don't bill us for it because we don't
reimburse for that.
Mr. Sheldon. Well, under the terms of the the original
contract as well as the terms of this grant, none of the
dollars in this grant are for the actual delivery of services.
Mr. Lankford. That is what I am saying. That relationship,
they aren't prohibiting it, they're basically saying you won't
be reimbursed through us, or that is not something we
encourage.
Mr. Sheldon. I would be happy to provide the specifics,
but----
Chairman Issa. If the gentleman would yield for a second,
stop the clock. For the record, when I opened and mentioned the
documents that we had obtained that had not been provided by
HHS that the press have, which I understand have now been
accepted and hopefully the reservation is now withdrawn--it is
withdrawn. Additionally, the documents which the gentleman is
saying he will provide were requested and have not yet been
delivered.
So although I appreciate your saying you will deliver them,
we will expect full supplemental responses in writing or we
will bring you all back, because this is part of our problem is
that these documents which we suspect say what Mr. Lankford is
saying, we won't know for sure.
So if you can, to the greatest extent possible, make
assumptions of what you believe they say, it will prevent
coming back, because we are all pretty sure that Mr. Lankford
is correct as to his assertions.
Mr. Sheldon. We will do that. But I also would be happy to
come back.
Chairman Issa. You are a first. With that, the gentleman
may resume.
Mr. Lankford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Then with this shift
in what happened to the previous contract, there had to be a
decision made at some point that based on data or based on
decisions saying this was a problem, they did great in all
these six areas, except they didn't encourage people to have
abortions or encourage contraceptives. Because, obviously, as
you mentioned before, they are not providing, they are just
encouraging and sending that message out. So because they are
not encouraging contraceptives or they are not encouraging
abortions, we are going to put language in there to make sure
they do next time.
Who made that decision and when was that decision made?
Mr. Sheldon. Well, that decision was made, again, prior to
my getting here. But it's my understanding, it was made based
on research in terms of the needs of this particular
population.
Mr. Lankford. And the fact that it wasn't fulfilled in the
previous contract; or just other research, separate from that?
Mr. Sheldon. Other research, separate.
Mr. Lankford. If there is a change in the language on that,
who made that decision then? When was that decision made?
Mr. Sheldon. I believe that was a collaborative decision in
the establishment of the FOA.
Mr. Lankford. Mr. Negash, can you help us out, because
obviously you were there at that time?
Mr. Negash. I believe that the process of developing the
FOA, the Office of General Counsel, the policy expert within
SCF and HHS, including the leadership, made a point to include
that language.
Mr. Lankford. Okay. So can you list names that you say
there? You listed titles. Can you list names of the people
involved?
Mr. Negash. Well, I believe the Office of the Assistant
Secretary at that time, not Mr. Sheldon; the Office of General
Counsel. I can give you the list of who those people are. And,
I believe, the Office of the Secretary.
Mr. Lankford. Okay. So Kathleen Sebelius was involved in
that as far as making that decision to have that language
involved?
Mr. Negash. I don't have any contact with the Secretary.
Mr. Lankford. Right. But it came in from that office.
Mr. Negash. I believe the Office of the Secretary was
reviewing this.
Mr. Lankford. The issue is--and this is something we have
talked about in contract writing and in grant writing, and the
reason I bring all this up is because at times grants and
contracts are written in such a way to deliberately exclude
people, and to say I am going to write this in such a way to
make sure only a certain group would be eligible for this.
And if this language is written in such a way, there are a
couple problems here. One is the clarity of the exclusion. To
say that there is a priority or we are looking at it or this is
important to us is one thing. But to say, unless you encourage
abortions and contraceptives, you need not apply, that
certainly definitely is not in there. But the way the language
is written it establishes a process that, hey, anyone who has
this belief should not apply unless you are willing to give up
your beliefs. Unless you are willing to encourage abortions,
don't come. So the language is written in such a way to exclude
a group that had currently done it for quite a significant time
and had done a good job.
What I am interested in, is there data that is connected to
that saying: This was a problem in the previous 5 years. Based
on this data, we found this data from doing this, and so we
need to make this shift to purposely exclude the group that had
done it in the past that had high marks.
So that is the struggle here. And it goes into the whole
essence of how we write grants and how we write the proposal.
If the administration has determined in these areas you have to
promote abortions or we don't give you U.S. funds, say it. Just
come out and say it. Don't go through the whole dog-and-pony
show. Make it clear at the very beginning to keep that
priority.
So with that, I will yield back.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
We now recognize the ranking member for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Sheldon, if the Catholic Bishops had come
back after they told you they had some alternatives and said
these are the alternatives, what would have happened? I am not
saying--I mean, what would have been the process then? In other
words, they come back here, these are our alternatives. What
would have been the process then? Would there be a possible--I
know it depends on what they would say. But would there have
been a possible rescoring? What would happen? What would be the
process? I am not asking you for the results. The process.
Mr. Sheldon. No. We would have analyzed that in addition to
the reviewers' comments, in addition to the responses of the
other entities. And we had indicated in the funding
announcement that we intended to have multiple grantees, as
opposed to just one grantee.
Mr. Cummings. And, Mr. Sheldon, according to the grant
announcement, the scores do not take into account the
preference for applicants who can provide a full range of
services. The funding announcement states ``Applicants applying
to provide less than the full set of services and referrals
described under `case management' will not receive a reduction
in points in this section unless the limitations are likely to
impede a victim's ability to become certified and meet their
food, clothing, shelter and emergency health care needs.''
Why did the scores not take into account the strong
preference for a full set of services and referrals?
Mr. Sheldon. Because it was a preference as opposed to a
requirement of the contract.
Mr. Cummings. And so I would like to better understand just
by walking you through the review process. After applications
were received, reviewers gave out scores but they did not give
a recommendation as to which groups they thought should get the
grants.
Mr. Sheldon. That is correct.
Mr. Cummings. Is that right?
Mr. Sheldon. That is correct.
Mr. Cummings. So they gave out scores, but they didn't say
who should get them. After the scores were given, there were
followup questions for some applicants. Were the answers to
these questions taken into account in awarding the grants?
Mr. Sheldon. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. Did other applicants have questions--in other
words, was there some follow-up with the other applicants also?
Mr. Sheldon. There were questions, and we can provide
those. There were questions to all of the applicants patterned
after the reviewers' comments as to what weaknesses existed in
each of those individual applications.
Mr. Cummings. Now, do you ever change the scores based on
this type of additional information that might come in?
Mr. Sheldon. You would change the decision. You wouldn't go
back retroactively and change the scores.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. You might change the decision. So what
decision are you talking about? I thought you hadn't made the
decision yet.
Mr. Sheldon. We hadn't made the decision yet.
Mr. Cummings. I am sorry?
Mr. Sheldon. We had not made the decision at that point.
Mr. Cummings. So in other words, you may have been
contemplating a decision?
Mr. Sheldon. We were--I wanted to wait until we got the
responses to the questions that we had asked all the
applicants.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. Now, were the Catholic Bishops the only
ones that did not, you know, give responses other than saying
they had alternatives?
Mr. Sheldon. No, they provided a response. Because it
wasn't just on this issue. We also asked them for clarification
on their cost per client. But we can provide that, because it
wasn't just targeted to that one issue.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. And after the grants were awarded, were
the applicants informed as to why they were rejected, and if
not, why not? In other words, did you inform them as to why----
Mr. Sheldon. I believe we--Ms. Kinder, can you help me with
that? I think that they were indicated as to what the decision
was. I did personally meet with representatives of the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops at their request, after the
decision had been made, to kind of lay out the rationale for
the decision.
Mr. Cummings. And did they complain that they had been
discriminated against?
Mr. Sheldon. They did not complain that they had been
discriminated against. They did indicate that they would look
at their full range of options as to----
Mr. Cummings. They said they would do what?
Mr. Sheldon. Well, I can't--I am paraphrasing what they
said.
Mr. Cummings. Well, paraphrase as best you can.
Mr. Sheldon. That they would look at the full range of
options that they might have. And I took that to mean a
potential challenge to the award.
Mr. Cummings. And did they challenge it yet?
Mr. Sheldon. They did not.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Sheldon, I understand that you are a
political appointee and that you made this award decision which
has been sufficient for some to claim that the grant decision
was politicized. Was it appropriate for you to make the
decision?
Mr. Sheldon. All assistant secretaries, to my knowledge,
historically are given the authority to make decisions on
grants. As a matter of fact, in the Administration for Children
and Families, I approve all grant awards.
Mr. Cummings. And did you or anyone else at HHS give any of
the applicants an unfair advantage during the process?
Mr. Sheldon. No.
Mr. Cummings. And what was your primary purpose and goal
when you made your decision about the grants?
Mr. Sheldon. My primary purpose and goal, as I indicated in
my opening statement, is what was in the best interest of these
victims.
Mr. Cummings. Finally, and thank you for your indulgence,
Mr. Chairman--so it was not a decision based on promoting a
political party or a decision based on your dislike of the
principles of the Catholic Bishops; is that right?
Mr. Sheldon. That is correct.
Mr. Cummings. As I said in the beginning of the hearing,
the ultimate goal here today is to help the victims. We would
all benefit from hearing the voices of the human trafficking
victims and their advocates on why reproductive health services
are so critical, and I am sure we will in the future.
Mr. Sheldon and Mr. Negash, I want to thank both of you
very much.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
In order to preserve the normal member going last, what I
am going to do is skip this round and recognize the gentleman
from New Jersey, and then I will wrap up with just a few
questions.
The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Mr. Sheldon, the FOA says that
preference will be given to grantees under FOA that will offer
all victims referral to a medical provider who can provide or
refer for the treatment of--and, of course, the gynecological
services in question here is abortion. Given this language, how
are grantees able to use any pro-life providers, even pro bono
health providers who are pro-life?
Mr. Sheldon. There are several subgrantees to the current
grantees who are faith-based pro-life.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. But they are not bound--I am
talking about the referral to the victims, who they refer to in
terms of health care, the actual health care. This reads, plain
reading of the language, that we are talking that all victims'
referral to medical providers who can provide or refer for
provision of treatment for abortion.
So does this direct these individuals now to Planned
Parenthood? We know that at least one of the applicants who got
the award is looking to contract and set up an alliance with
Planned Parenthood. I mean, it precludes--it would seem on the
face of it that pro-life OB-GYNs, for example, are out of the
mix. Is that true?
Mr. Sheldon. I don't believe that is the case. As a matter
of fact----
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Would you clarify that for the
record?
Mr. Sheldon. As I indicated, there are several subgrantees
of the new grantees----
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Again, I am talking specifically
about referral for medical care, that they be providers of
abortion. That is what it reads.
Mr. Sheldon. The decision as to what the outcome of that
would be, as it has historically been in this country, has been
between the medical provider and the woman, and there is no
difference in this----
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. The USCCB did that, as you know.
They were out of it, as the chairman mentioned earlier, under
HIPAA.
Mr. Sheldon. I think if you will look at the language of
the USCCB, you will find it was much more restrictive than
that.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Okay, you can clarify the original
question for the record in written form.
Let me ask you, is the strong preference language for
abortion in any way related to the ACLU lawsuit? Did anyone
from or associated with the ACLU encourage the change in the
contract? Was it anyone within the Obama administration? Again,
getting back to origins, whose idea was this, and did this
language in any way emanate or was it supported by or perhaps
posed by any pro-abortion NGO? First question.
Second, on capacity: Tapestry in its application said it
had $400,000 annually, which means that this grant alone that
it got will triple what it has at its disposal to use. ORR said
it would give priority to those organizations whether
established nationwide or geographically in structure. We are
talking about a group that may not be able to meet this huge
burden that has been put on them, again, the tripling.
Let me ask Mr. Negash, did HHS make changes to the funding
opportunity announcement specifically to evade the conscience
protections currently in law?
Mr. Negash. Throughout the development of the funding
announcement, we actually worked with the Office of General
Counsel to make sure that the language in the funding
announcement was consistent with existing laws.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. So it wasn't in any way, shape, or
form to evade the conscience clause by writing the specs in a
way that Catholic USCCB need not apply?
Mr. Sheldon. I believe that the funding announcement was
written not to include or exclude anybody.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Could I get, could we get, the
committee get, a copy of the general counsel's written
statement, advice, guidance, whatever it is they conveyed to
you to make these decisions at the time that these decisions
were being made? Not now. We want to know what was
contemporaneous with the decisionmaking process. Could you do
that?
Mr. Negash. I believe so.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Let me--again, with the ACLU case,
if you could speak to this, Mr. Sheldon. Was it ever discussed?
Was the ACLU in contact? Please respond.
Mr. Sheldon. I was aware of the ACLU lawsuit, but it was
not discussed in conjunction with the decisionmaking process.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. At all?
Mr. Sheldon. At all. Or to my knowledge, was ACLU
contacted. They were not contacting me. I do not believe they
were contacting anybody in the Administration for Children and
Families.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Are each of the grantees as of
December 1st, as of today, performing exactly as prescribed in
the FOA?
Mr. Sheldon. I believe that they are--in response to that,
yes, I believe they are.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Could you provide a detailed
analysis, a snapshot as of today, whether or not there has been
a diminution of service as the baton has been handed over from
the USCCB to the three NGO's?
Mr. Sheldon. Yes.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. And finally with regard to
training, FOA was very clear about training. As a matter of
fact, the language of the legislation was----
Chairman Issa. If the gentleman would make this his last
question, please.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. I am out of time. Okay. Do I have
time for the question?
Chairman Issa. We will be indulgent for a last question,
but we are going to wrap up very soon. We have technically gone
over our limit.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
From the information provided to the company, it appears
only one of the successful applicants, Heartland, included
something approaching the required certification on training.
If this is correct, does HHS think it is appropriate for the
well-being and recovery of trafficking victims for the persons
providing services to have completed training in connection
with trafficking persons? Why and how was this overlooked?
Mr. Sheldon. I believe with all of the grantees, that we
ultimately made the decision are qualified to provide these
services.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Training.
Mr. Sheldon. Yes.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. So you say they are adequate and
they are ready to go right now.
Mr. Sheldon. I believe so.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Could you back that up as well for
the written record with precision?
Mr. Sheldon. Yes.
Chairman Issa. I thank you for your participation here
today.
I recognize myself. I am going to try to close up on a
number of issues.
Following up with Mr. Smith, on Tapestry, an organization
with only a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue, a CFO who
is not qualified by your own statements, I would appreciate
your coming back and making for the record some documentation
of why they were not at a minimum high risk for people already
at high risk. I think it is one of the areas that hasn't been
focused on enough. But clearly we are going to follow up,
because from our evaluation, notwithstanding that you could
have awarded to only one organization or only two--and you only
had one other national organization--to pick an organization
that had almost no revenues, the CFO, one of the most critical
people in this kind of activity, having no qualifications in
this area, does beg the question of competence that we are
seriously concerned about. Because we think that numbers were
in some ways not even as positive of the difference in these
organizations.
Again, I would have respected a single award not to the
Catholic Bishops perhaps more than the award the way we saw it.
But let me go through the question that has occupied most
of the time today. Under the executive order, I am going to
read a portion of it to make sure we get it officially in the
record, but additionally the executive order will be placed in
the record, without objection.
But what I read in G, for faith-based organizations in this
executive order, it says, ``Accordingly, the faith-based
organization that applies for or participates in a social
service program supported with Federal financial assistance,''
and this sort of broadly qualifies in that definition,
obviously, ``may retain its independence and may continue to
carry out its mission, including the definition, development,
practice and expression of its religious beliefs,'' and this is
the limitation, I want to make sure it gets in here too,
``provided that it does not use direct Federal financial
assistance that it receives for that purpose.''
Now, that is the operative language that we found and
believe applies. In the response that goes back to this that we
have been talking about, their response that you were not
satisfied with, it says ``USCCB/MRS is committed to acting in
accordance with Catholic teachings in administering the
program, including the determination of allowable and
unallowable costs.''
Now for my question: If the Catholic Bishops, and I am an
Antiochian Catholic so it is not my denomination but I am very
familiar with it--if the Catholic Bishops had told you how to
work around getting an abortion or birth control, wouldn't you
agree, since you are familiar at least somewhat with it, that
they would be violating their requirements? In other words, we
would all be appalled if a Catholic priest, or a bishop in this
case, told you how to get an abortion for a girl around them.
Wouldn't that be wrong under their teachings, very clearly?
Mr. Sheldon. Yes. And in effect, what other faith-based
organizations have done is not taken responsibility for that
particular victim.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. And that certainly would have been
a potential workaround. But they couldn't--they under their
faith, as I read it, could not be persecuted for not having an
answer that would cause them to tell you how to basically do an
abortion around them. So their canons of ethics, their vows,
prohibited them from answering the question that you say you
went to them to get, which is how do we work around your
problem on providing abortions and birth control and
sterilization.
They gave you an answer that they were willing to work with
your workarounds, but they couldn't, they clearly under their
religious protected faith-based executive order and supportive,
they couldn't tell you how to work around it.
Now, you just gave me the answer I have been waiting for
all day. It is clear you could have said we need to have a
provision that you don't take cases of pregnant refugees; that
when a refugee is determined to be pregnant, that in fact you
not take them. Additionally, you could have said, for example--
and I am not trying to run your Department, I woefully would be
inadequate to do any one part of government. You could have
said that certain sub-vendors had to be picked, and that they
had to be allowed to communicate pursuant to your needs to
other organizations. And in most cases the clinics would have
already done this anyway. You could have proposed those,
couldn't you?
Mr. Sheldon. We got a response from another applicant which
basically indicated how they would treat people of faith,
people of Catholic teaching, and they volunteered that they
would not refer victims to that particular entity.
Chairman Issa. Okay. So the system could have recognized,
if you use my example, because I grew up in a Jewish
neighborhood, of the Orthodox Jew unable to drive you on Friday
night. You could have suggested an effective workaround. They
might have rejected it, might have accepted it, might have
said, ``We can't answer it, but we will perform to the best of
our duty under the rules that you give us,'' which probably
would have been their answer, which is, ``We can't condone your
decision, we can't predict the outcome, but we will do what we
can do.''
And, by the way, the fact that they didn't complain, my
understanding is Christ didn't complain on the cross either.
Ultimately, some organizations do not complain as a matter of
their faith.
So, back to the real question that I want to close with, in
this and dozens or hundreds or thousands of other examples that
could occur in government when trying to deal with the
Executive order, isn't it within your authority under current
law and, at least in my opinion, within your responsibility to
try to find ways to move these two together?
And in the future--because this one is in our taillights--
in the future, wouldn't it be prudent for Health and Human
Services and other government agencies to say, look, we have to
look at effective ways to get around the rabbi who can't drive
to work after sundown on Friday, so to speak, and/or the
Catholics who cannot perform abortions? Isn't that something,
that if, in fact, Congress has said, in the case of rape of a
woman, an abortion is legal, to be paid for by government--that
is the current law, as I understand it--if that is the case and
somebody can't participate in it, isn't, under the Executive
order, it prudent that you develop the ability to reconcile to
that limited extent rather than only promoting organizations
who, from some of our Members, believe would promote abortion
rather than the litmus test of could they participate in legal
events?
Mr. Sheldon. And that is exactly what I was trying do by
going back to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. We may
disagree about where the primary responsibility----
Chairman Issa. But you don't disagree that a Catholic
bishop who tells you how to get a girl an abortion would be
going outside his beliefs. I mean, you already answered, yes,
you got that, that he couldn't--he or--in this case, only
``he's--couldn't tell you how to do it. So why, in a way, did
you expect to get an answer from the Catholic Bishops of how to
work around getting a girl an abortion? Isn't that
fundamentally, perhaps in hindsight, a mistake, where there
should have been an initiative by HHS not asking people of
faith to do and say and help you do what they cannot?
Mr. Sheldon. I was basically taking the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops at their word when they basically said, we
would be willing to work on an alternative.
Chairman Issa. Right, they would work with an alternative.
They could not give you that alternative. They could not tell
you how to provide an abortion to somebody, because it is
outside their faith.
I have gone way over my time. You have all been very
indulgent. We do look forward to getting the rest of the
materials for the record.
Again, the ranking member has a motion at this time. If he
would like to bring it up and discuss it, I certainly would be
willing to.
Mr. Cummings. I, too, want to thank you all, first of all,
for your testimony.
Mr. Chairman, I had said at the beginning that we wanted to
give more voice to the victims. And we ask for a day of
hearings because we did not have those voices here today. And
so, I think we need to do both. I think we need to have
additional hearings as our committee, and I am asking for the
minority to have hearings, and we would love to have them next
week. And so I renew my motion, or request.
Chairman Issa. The letter has been received, and we will
advise you.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Chairman Issa. And, with that, the hearing is concluded and
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:39 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statement of Hon. Gerald E. Connolly and
additional information submitted for the hearing record
follow:]

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