Mr. COBURN: "I call up amendment 2060. I ask unanimous consent that it be considered as read without objection. This is a straightforward amendment on conferences. We've all seen what has occurred with the GSA conference. This is all about transparency and creating a system where we're actually getting to see what is spent on conferences. There's not one branch of the federal government that does not have teleconferencing available, video conferencing available.

What we do know from 2000-2006, that the federal government spent over $2.2 billion on conferences. We know the travel budget is $15 billion a year, at a minimum $500 million a year spent on conferences. At a time when we need to have less this has grown remarkably -- during the Bush administration as well as this administration. This is just a simple good-government transparency where we have them put expenses on a web site showing what they're doing, why they're doing it. We limit foreign conference travel to 50.

We limit the maximum amount to $500,000 unless they can make an exception for that based on cause and reason. So it's simply a good-government program to get some visibility on what we're spending on conferences. And I'd ask for a voice vote on this."