Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill
Floor Speech
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Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor as the ranking member of the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. In that capacity, I rise to oppose consideration of the fiscal year 2016 Energy and Water appropriations bill.
Let me be clear, I do this reluctantly.
In my view, this is a very good bill. Senator Alexander and I have put forth a well-balanced bill within the allocation levels we were provided, which was a good level.
It has been a great pleasure for me over the years to work with Senator Alexander. I have the utmost respect for him. We have always worked things out, but this year I think we have a bigger issue, and I wish to address that in my remarks.
First, 6 of the 12 appropriations subcommittees received base allocations lower than last year.
Another four subcommittees received nominal increases but were still forced to make cuts due to rising costs beyond their control.
That leaves only two subcommittees--Energy and Water Development and Homeland Security--that received real funding increases.
That is why I believe considering the Energy and Water bill in isolation as we are now, rather than debating larger funding issues, is misleading. That is why I can't support the motion to proceed to the bill.
We all know the vote today is not just about Energy and Water. It is about the entire appropriations process, and that is the debate we should be having.
Instead of debating just this specific bill, the debate should be focused on eliminating sequestration, negotiating a budget agreement with the President and the House, and putting an end to the destructive cycle of continuing resolutions, omnibuses, and threats of government shutdown.
The Republican leader has already initiated budget negotiations. I am led to believe three meetings have been held. It can be done. It is what needs to be done. I fully support that effort. That is where we should focus our efforts.
Before I get into specifics of the Energy and Water funding issues, I want to take a step back and discuss two very disturbing issues I have seen from my seat on the Appropriations Committee, and I am not a newcomer.
I have been on that committee since I came to the Senate, which is more than 20 years ago. They are the negative effects of sequestration and the unravelling of the overall appropriations process.
The strict budget caps put in place by the 2011 Budget Control Act have been terrible for our country.
These spending caps, and the across-the-board cuts used to enforce them, were designed to be so devastating that Congress would do everything it could to avert them.
The problem is, the Supercommittee failed to reach the agreement in 2011, so those devastating cuts took effect.
These spending caps, which have essentially frozen spending levels for the last 3 years, do not account for the increasing requirements placed on the Federal Government.
The cost of veterans' health care is rising, insufficient, and has been roundly criticized. The cost of low-income housing is rising, the cost of educating our children is rising, and the cost of fighting natural disasters, such as drought and wildfires, is also rising. But the spending caps are not rising, meaning Congress is forced to make cuts to vital programs, and of course you get into the battle between the national security portfolio, such as defense, and the domestic portfolio.
My portfolio on Energy and Water is part national security, because of the nuclear weapons for our country, and the domestic part is the Office of Science, the Department of Energy, the Army Corps of Engineers, which is the only infrastructure program we actually have functioning.
Having a static budget like this year after year, which does not even account for inflation, is no way to run a country.
I am also disappointed by the collapse of the appropriations process. At one time--and I hope this is interesting to the Presiding Officer since he is a newcomer--it was the norm to pass each spending bill as a stand-alone piece of legislation. All Members could offer amendments, and each of us took ownership of the outcome. We haven't done that in a decade.
It used to be that the entire Appropriations Committee, members of both sides, would support bills drafted by each subcommittee chairman and approved by the full committee. We haven't done that in 5 years. It was heresy for a bill to come out on the floor and not have members of the Appropriations Committee support it. That is all gone today.
Everything changed in 2011. My Republican colleagues decided to vote against every appropriations bill to protest funding levels.
The die was cast, and we have had to cope with the consequences ever since.
Since fiscal year 2010, we have passed 24 short-term continuing resolutions, which do nothing but keep the government going at the funding levels of the year we were in at the time we passed the continuing resolution. That is nine more than in the preceding 5-year period. It is a 60-percent increase.
When Congress can't agree on funding levels, we end up putting Federal spending on autopilot.
Mr. President, 2011 also marked the year when Congress turned over the power of the purse to the executive branch. By banning the use of congressional adds, we not only admitted that we know less about our States than executive agencies, we also removed a key reason many Members voted for the appropriations bills.
And contrary to conventional wisdom, congressional adds were not out of control.
In 2010, the last year they were allowed, they totaled just one-half of 1 percent of spending approved by the Appropriations Committee. One-half of 1 percent were adds made by Members of this body and the other body to do public projects in their districts.
I believe every Senator knows a great deal about his or her State--I really do--and projects that are important for the State's survival, and I believe they evaluate them based on the importance to the public. I believe they know what vital projects need to be funded. Removing that ability has removed individual Member's stake in an appropriations process that functions, and so it is nonfunctional today. It has damaged our ability to govern, and I deeply believe that.
That is a long way of saying we need to return the appropriations process to the way it was handled in years past, and today's political vote on this bill doesn't move us in that direction.
Even though I do believe the Energy and Water bill represents an acceptable compromise under the circumstances, there are still significant issues with the bill caused by low spending caps.
The bill provides--and this is important--$35.4 billion. That is an increase over fiscal year 2015 funding of $1.2 billion for defense and $8 million for nondefense programs, and that is where you can see the problem. Those national security projects get an add of $1.2 billion--and it is largely the nuclear weapons--and all of our domestic projects, such as the Office of Science, all of the energy projects, all of the innovations, the Energy Department, the Army Corps of Engineers, fixing rivers, fixing dams, dredging, and everything the Army Corps of Engineers does only get $8 million as opposed to the $1.2 billion that is added for defense. But even with that increase, there are significant shortfalls.
I will give a few examples. For the past 4 years, California and the West have been suffering from a historic drought. I just came from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee meeting. Senator Boxer and I have put together a drought bill. We have worked on it for 2 years, and we finally have a bill with some short-term fixes and some long-term projects which can increase water supply in California.
Our reservoirs are at historic lows, and the Sierra Nevada snowpack, our major source of water, is at the lowest it has been in 500 years.
We have millions of dead trees littering the State, increased lightning strikes, big wildfires that go up like explosions into the air because it is so dry, and the State's agriculture sector, which feeds the country, has been heavily affected. This is a $43 billion industry that saw losses of $2.2 billion last year, has lost 17,000 jobs, and on and on and on.
Here are some other ways the Energy and Water bill is weakened by low spending caps. I will talk for a moment more about the Office of Science. This is money used to expand research at our National Laboratories, and we are $196 million below the President's budget request in this bill. Energy efficiency and renewable energy programs have seen an even bigger deficit with funding levels at $773 million below the President's budget request. This delays the development of vital technologies to reduce energy consumption and slash consumer spending.
Defense programs are also underfunded. With higher spending caps, we could be putting into place strategies to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. We just heard about a cesium sale to shady people that I can't remember ever happening before, and whether this opens the door to more, I don't know, but I do know it is a real weakness we have.
If we had some money, we could secure radiological resources at medical and industrial facilities, we could install mobile and fixed radiation detectors at ports and border crossings. We could also use additional funds to modernize the nuclear reactor infrastructure that supports the Navy. This includes developing more efficient reactor designs that can last 40 years without refueling.
These are weaknesses we see in the funding picture and in our bill. As I said, I actually believe it is a good bill when you know the circumstances under which we are functioning.
But this isn't just about Energy and Water, and we can't view it in isolation. As I said, Energy and Water had a decent allocation, even with the overall budget restrictions. But cuts made to other bills are far more dangerous, and we can't ignore these cuts.
I will highlight a few of them. The Subcommittee harmed by the current spending caps is responsible for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. The subcommittee received an allocation of $3.6 billion below last year. The Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education received cuts. These are draconian, and these programs affect our most vulnerable Americans. That is what the Presidential election is all about right now--the discontent over our inability to solve some of these problems.
There is a $331 million cut to employment and training services for youth, veterans, and the unemployed. There is an $87.8 million cut to teen pregnancy prevention programs. There is a $215 million cut to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--disease control. They are seeing diseases that I haven't seen since my childhood, such as measles, spring up all over the State of California, and we need to do these things to keep our people safe. Vaccinations are important.
There has been a $198 million cut to shelter and services for unaccompanied immigrant children, a $69 million cut to Federal student aid programs, and the elimination of a $250 million program to expand access to preschool. Expanding access to preschool is something everybody wants for low- and moderate-income 4-year-olds.
The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee, on the other hand, did receive an additional $1.9 billion this year. However, the committee required a $3.4 billion increase just to maintain current services.
As a result, the Subcommittee was forced to cut funding for mass transit projects by more than $500 million below last year.
Affordable housing assistance is slashed by $834 million, and the Community Development Block Grant Program that I used as the Mayor of San Francisco a long time ago, which could always be counted on, was reduced by $100 million.
These cuts affected millions of Americans and hurt communities across the country. We should not have to choose between providing rental assistance to low-income families and providing transportation options so they can get to work.
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The Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee also received a misleading increase in its allocation. While the Subcommittee received an extra $965 million on paper, it actually needed $1.1 billion just to account for last year's credit from the Toyota settlement that is no longer available this year. As a result, the subcommittee was forced to cut numerous important programs below last year's levels.
They include the U.S. Marshals Service, which was cut by $141 million; legal representation for immigrant children, reduced by $55 million; and Federal assistance to State and local law enforcement agencies, cut by $139 million.
Here is my conclusion. My good friend and colleague Senator Alexander is rightly proud of the work he and his staff have put into the Energy and Water bill, and, as I said, it is a good bill.
I sincerely wish the circumstance we find ourselves in today were different. Those of us on this side of the aisle should have a voice in what happens and how we can solve this problem.
So what I plead for is, in these negotiations that are starting, by Leader McConnell, to move ahead, let's get it started and let's stop the CRs, let's stop the omnibuses, and let's stop the fights over the debt limit and shutting down the government. Let's go back to an appropriations process that this country did well by and that worked.
I thank the Presiding Officer for his forbearance, and I yield the floor.
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