Further Continuing Appropriations, Fiscal Year 2007

FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 2007

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Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, there are many things that can be said against this continuing resolution, as the House has heard during today's debate. But after all those things have been said, I am convinced the only responsible choice is to vote for it--and I will do so.

In fact, it was the failure of responsibility on the part of last year's Republican leadership in Congress that brought us to where we find ourselves today. If they had done their job of developing and enacting the legislation to fund the essential functions of government, it would not be necessary for us to be acting now to make up for their failures.

In fairness, much of the blame rests with the Republican-led Senate. While the House last year did pass all but one of the regular appropriations bills, only two of those bills ever received a final vote in the other body--and only those two were enacted into law.

But even here in the House, the Republican leadership never even brought to the floor the bill to fund the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services--not before the election, evidently because they did not want to have to discuss it during their campaigns, but not even in the lame-duck session last year.

Given the situation the resulted from their predecessors' failure, Chairman OBEY and his colleagues on the Appropriations Committee decided that the best way to proceed was to bring forward this long-term continuing resolution, intended to complete action on appropriations for the remainder of this fiscal year, and then to begin work on the appropriations bills for the fiscal year that lies ahead.

I support that decision, and I will support this continuing resolution.

There are parts of it that I think fall short of what should be done in a number of areas. But there are other parts that I strongly support, including the provision that withholds any increase in the pay of Members of Congress--something that I think is overdue.

More than a year ago--in October of 2005--I urged the House's conferees to agree to a Senate amendment to the fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill that would have withheld a cost of living raise for Members of Congress. I regret that my plea was in vain, because I think we should be prepared to do our part when our country is at war, our homeland security must be improved, and the federal budget remains deep in deficit.

Withholding a congressional pay raise will make only a small change in the budget because the amount involved is minor compared with other expenditures. However, I think it is an appropriate first step for Members of Congress to forego this increase in our pay, and I am glad this legislation will have that effect.

I also am very pleased that the resolution includes $300 million in additional funding for the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, EERE, programs. My colleague Representative PERLMUTTER and I worked hard to get this funding included in the legislation, and I intend to work closely with our colleagues in Congress and with the Department of Energy to ensure that the research programs carried out at National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL, in Colorado benefit from a good deal of those funds.

Despite the importance of NREL's work, flat or decreased funding for NREL in recent years--coupled with earmarks and inflationary cost increases--has effectively reduced the funding for renewable energy research, which has led to a continuing struggle for needed resources and great instability at the lab. This in turn has severely affected the lab's ability to develop new technologies and continue the United States' leadership in renewable energy technologies. The boost for EERE funding in this bill could go a long way toward helping NREL regain its critical momentum.

The parts of the legislation dealing with defense and national security include increased funding for defense health programs, for basic allowance for housing, and for two important Department of Energy nonproliferation programs--the International Nuclear Material Protection and Cooperation program, which secures weapons-grade nuclear materials in the former Soviet States, and the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which secures high-risk nuclear material around the world.

It also includes $2.5 billion for implementation of a round of military base closures authorized in 2005. While the $2.5 billion is an increase from the funding provided for fiscal year 2006, it will still leaves us $3.1 billion short of meeting our Base Realignment and Closure, BRAC, commitments and nearly $1 billion short of the funds needed for military construction projects. Since the Army links its military construction and troop movement plans to BRAC implementation, this shortfall could have broad impacts on the rotation and return of troops and the building of new brigades.

It has been indicated that additional needs for BRAC and military housing will be addressed in the supplemental war spending bill we will soon consider in Congress. I hope that will be the case, and will work to achieve that result as well as to ensure that the Defense Department takes into account Colorado priorities as it makes the hard choices about which military construction projects to fund.

I also am pleased that Chairman OBEY and his colleagues recognized the importance of science programs across different agencies, allowing for increases at the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST.

However, I am greatly concerned about the impact this resolution could have on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.

In my district, NOAA operates the Earth System Research Laboratory, which has the largest concentration of NOAA research staff in the Nation--300--as well as the largest concentration of university staff funded by NOAA research, for a total of 1,000 Federal and contract employees. NOAA's programs in Boulder include the Space Environment Center, which provides essential space weather forecasting services; the NOAA Profiler Network, which gathers key weather information for a range of other agencies, including the Departments of Defense and Transportation; and the National Geophysical Data Center, the world's largest archive of geophysical data on observations of earth from space.

Funding for NOAA under previous continuing-resolution levels saw significant decreases, so I am pleased that overall the agency will see a return to the funding levels provided for fiscal year 2006. However, it is unclear how this will be distributed, and so there is a possibility that many important programs will not be adequately funded. I believe that we will have to work to address these issues when we consider the appropriation bills for fiscal year 2008.

NIST also has a significant presence in Colorado. The NIST facilities at Boulder have contributed to great scientific advances, but these facilities are now over fifty years old and have not been well maintained. Many environmental factors such as the humidity and vibrations from traffic can affect the quality of research performed in the NIST labs. Scientists have difficulty conducting cutting edge research in labs that have leaking roofs. NIST has included building renovations as a priority in past budgets, yet the final budgets have included so many earmarks that the agency's needs have not been met. The absence of similar earmarks from this resolution means that NIST may finally be able to address some of its most dire needs, including renovations of the Boulder facilities. I will work to ensure that much of the nearly $60 million in the NIST construction budget will be dedicated to renovating these facilities.

The appropriators had many tough choices to make with regards to funding the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA. Balancing the needs of the different NASA programs is critical and I appreciate that the appropriators realized that congressional intent needs to be clear and specific to ensure that no one program is completely devastated by funding cuts. While I am pleased that the decline in aeronautics research funding will be halted, I am also concerned about the cuts to the science and exploration programs, as well as to the space operations. It is not yet clear how NASA will accommodate these cuts. NASA is important to the Nation, and I will continue to push for adequate funding from my position as chairman of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee.

Education is vital to our country's youth and our economic future and I am pleased that the appropriators have provided several important programs with funding increases that will help keep our country strong. These include increases above the fiscal 2006 funding levels for Pell Grants, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, and Head Start. Furthermore, the appropriators made a step in the right direction by increasing funding in Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act, NCLB.

And I am pleased that by this resolution the Federal-aid highway program, in the Federal Highway Administration, is fully funded at the level guaranteed in the Safe, Accountable Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, SAFETEA-LU, with an obligation limitation of $39.1 billion for fiscal 2007, $3.5 billion over the fiscal 2006 enacted level.

So, in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I think Chairman OBEY and his colleagues deserve the thanks of the House for the work they have done to clear away the rubble left by the Republican leadership last year and to replace it with a firm foundation on which to build in the future. Adoption of this resolution will write an end to last year's sorry story and take the first step on a better, more responsible approach to carrying out our duties as legislators. I urge approval of the joint resolution.

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