WASHINGTON — Abstinence-only sex-education programs don't work, and the federal government should stop funding them, U.S. Rep. Lois Capps said Wednesday.

"They have been a waste of taxpayer dollars and have produced no positive results," the Santa Barbara Democrat said.

The government has spent more than $1.3 billion of taxpayer money over the past decade to fund abstinence-only programs in schools and communities across the country. The programs encourage teens and young adults to postpone sexual activity until marriage.

But numerous studies, including one released last year by the Bush administration, have concluded that such programs have been ineffective in persuading high school students to put off behavior that could lead to pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.

Critics complain abstinence-only programs often distribute erroneous or misleading information and that teenagers in the federally funded programs aren't getting what they really need because they aren't taught about other methods of disease prevention and contraception.

"The bottom line is, as much as parents and teachers alike stress abstinence among teens, sexual activity is a reality for many young people," Capps told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is examining whether funding for the programs should be continued.

Capps was invited to testify because she worked as a school nurse and a health educator before she was elected to Congress. While abstinence should be at the core of any sex-education curriculum, "the best thing we can do to protect young people from the negative consequences of unsafe sex is to give them the information they need," Capps said.

California would have been eligible for $7 million in federal funding for abstinence-only programs. But the state refused to apply for the money because of government restrictions on how it could be spent and because a similar state-run program in the 1990s was found to be ineffective, Capps said.

Altogether, 17 states have rejected the federal funding because of public health concerns and because their governors found the programs to be inconsistent with the state's values or public health mandates.

Data suggests that teaching high school students about contraceptive use may be more effective at decreasing teen pregnancies than abstinence-only programs, Capps said, citing a 2004 study done in Kansas.

But Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican who supports abstinence-only education, said there's nothing wrong with setting "high expectations" for teens, which is what, he said, the government-funded programs do.

Sex-education programs should be examined to see what's working, but the government should not be trying to pull all funding for abstinence-only education, he said.