At a Thursday House oversight committee hearing on the administration’s decision not to renew funding to United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to help victims of human sex trafficking, the committee’s Republicans clashed with Health and Human Services official George Sheldon.
The hearing, “HHS and the Catholic Church: Examining the Politicization of Grants,” dealt with the Department of Health and Human Services’ denial of a new grant to USCCB — which had been receiving funding to combat trafficking since 2006 under a five year contract.
Despite protest from career HHS officials, as the Washington Post reported, three other groups received the grant, including two that received “significantly” lower scores from an independent review board.
“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,” committee Chairman Darrell Issa said, alleging that members of the administration changed the criteria for approval because of a bias against the Catholic Church.
Sheldon explained that in its determination HHS granted a preference to those groups “that would provide the full array of services.”
“Our experience in operating this program for ten years drove home to us the particular health risked 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 in 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,” Sheldon said, noting that if the applicant is unable to perform some of the tasks — such as abortion — they can contract with sub-grantees to provide those services.
“We selected grantees that are able to provide a full set of health-related referrals,” he added.
Issa pressed Sheldon on the independent scores of the groups that received grant money, asking why USCCR was denied the grant when it had a substantially higher score (89) than two of the three grantees.
“74 to 89 is a chasm. If you can’t explain the chasm then what I see here is they were dead on arrival, period,” he said. “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 two much less qualified. … You did not tell them that they could be just a shit-pot better and still not get the award. That has a chilling effect,” Issa said, going on to apologize for the language.
Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz yielded his time to New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith who lampooned the administration for their “bias.”
“The Obama administration’s bias against Catholics is an affront to religious freedom and a threat to all people,” Smith charged.
South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy hammered Sheldon on the score disparity, asking the HHS official what score would have been high enough to receive a grant.
“Assume this fact then: If they scored a 95, would that have been high enough?” Gowdy asked, to which Sheldon responded he could not speculate.
The Democrats on the committee focused on the administration’s granting of millions of dollars to Catholic charities and urged the committee to remember the plight of the victims.
Massachusetts Democratic Rep. John Tierney took issue with the characterization that HHS has an anti-Catholic bias.
“Some characterizations made, that the decision not to award the Catholic Bishops this particular grant, is somehow discriminating against the entire Catholic Church. In fact the title of today’s hearing frames Heath and Human Services as being in conflict with the Catholic Church,” Tierney said.
Tierney noted that Catholic entities have received millions from the administration.
“Earlier this year press accounts reported that Heath and Human Services awarded the bishops a $19 million grant to help foreign refugees in America. Now I think roughly that would be 7 times the amount that they requested in the grant we are talking about today… And in Fiscal Year 2011 the bishops received a total of $32 million in grants from Health and Human Services alone,” he added noting that in the last three years the administration has awarded over $650 million to Catholic organizations.
Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerald Connolly also took offense at the idea with Republicans’ charge that HHS discriminated against the Catholic Church.
“I am alarmed when people use hyperbole 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,” he said.
Following the debate, hearing participant New York Republican Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle told The Daily Caller that legislation addressing the criteria for awarding grants will likely be a result of the committee’s work. Buerkle — who pointed out during the hearing that abortion could be an added trauma for victims of human trafficking — said that the politicization of the process will cause more harm than good.
“This should be a concern to anyone who doesn’t agree with the views of this administration,” she said, adding that the decision was “very political.”