Steroid Testimony: Questioning by Congressman Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER. My first question is to Mr. Schilling. And my belief is that all we have seen is sampling, and it is not adequate, and it is not independent, and so full of holes and ephedra and everything else, that if it was cheese, it would definitely be Swiss cheese. Clearly the policy needs to be fixed, and I’m disappointed that you don’t seem to share that view.

You said earlier, as I understood it, that we went from 5 to 7 percent positive down to 1.7, and that is progress. I thought I heard you also say it would be inevitable, and the people—this would be public. I haven’t heard 5 to 7 percent of the players named as using steroids. I haven’t heard 1.7 percent. Where is the public part?

Mr. SCHILLING. After the agreement renegotiated those past couple of months, those are instituted now. Those previous results are from the last two seasons. The 5 to 7 percent was the number that needed to be met for the testing to be put into effect, the different method of testing which was put into effect last year.

Mr. SOUDER. Under the previous policy, was anybody suspended for steroids?

Mr. SCHILLING. I can’t answer that.

Mr. SOUDER. The simple way to solve this is the way that Mr. Sosa and Mr. Palmeiro and Mr. Schilling and Mr. Thomas has said. I’m clean, I have been clean, I’ve taken the test, and I have passed the test. This is pretty simple, and the American people are figuring out who is willing to say that and who isn’t.

And as far as this being about the past, that’s what we do. This is an oversight committee. If the Enron people come in here and say, we don’t want to talk about the past, do you think Congress is going to let them get away with that? When we were doing investigations on the travel office, on Whitewater, if President Nixon had said about Watergate when Congress was investigating Watergate, we don’t talk about the past, how in the world are we supposed to pass legislation? When you are a protected monopoly, and all of your salaries are paid because you are a protected monopoly, how are we supposed to figure out what our obligations are to the taxpayers if you say you won’t want to talk about the past?

I praise those people that have come forward and have been in awkward situations before because of peer pressure and said, look, I’m clean; but I’m really disappointed because we have to talk about the past because there isn’t any way to address that. And unless there are independent entities doing this, I don’t believe this is going to pass the laugh test. I believe we have advanced some today, but we have also gone backward some today. And this is going to be very critical.

Yield back the balance of my time.