Making Further Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2003

Jan. 15, 2003

MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, because of the circumstances, I really don't have a prepared statement. I wish to outline for the Senate how we intend to proceed. We have been working for some time trying to obtain a process by which we could proceed to act on the 11 appropriations bills for the fiscal year 2003 which were not completed by the end of the last Congress.

I commend my good friend from West Virginia and his staff for assistance in working with us to work out this procedure. These bills that will soon be included in an omnibus amendment to this continuing resolution are familiar to the Senate. We worked on them throughout the last year. And I wish to say that to the best of my knowledge the components of this bill, except for one portion, were worked on on a bipartisan basis by the staffs of the 11 subcommittees that handled these 11 bills. I can't say that there has been total agreement on the part of anybody as to what we have done, but we have proceeded to reduce the 11 bills that were involved to the amount of the President's request, which was $750.5 billion, plus an amount that is represented by a budget request for the fire items that are included in the bill of $825 million. In doing so, we come down considerably in many of these bills.

But I point out to the Senate that the Government has been operating under the CRs that have been passed since October 1. All of the agencies affected by these bills have been operating on the basis of the 2002 appropriations level—the enacted level of funds for those agencies. If we do not finish these bills now, they will continue to act under the 2002 level until obviously we do something to take us down to the end of this fiscal year.

I have taken the position that the sooner we can enact these 11 bills the better off all the agencies are, and the better off the Congress is because our job is to turn to the requirements of the law to deal with the fiscal year 2004 bills through the budget process and through the consideration of the 13 bills that we have in the Appropriations Committee through the individual subcommittees and get them done this year—God willing—according to the normal schedule and before September 30. We cannot do that if we labor over these bills intensively for a period of time.

I am pleased to say that everyone concerned has been very cooperative, and, above all, the members of the Appropriations Committee on both sides of the aisle have worked hard to get us where we are today.

The amendment that I will soon present contains not only that portion that I mentioned in terms of a series of bills but it contains the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriations for fiscal year 2003. It provides budget authority for Agriculture, rural development, and the nutritional programs.

There is in this bill $670.4 million—more than the President's request—and more than $1.1 billion more than 2002.
I have a whole series of highlights on this bill. I don't want to take the time of the Senate to outline the individual ones. We will do that as we proceed on the bill. There are definitely needs for the programs for each of these items.

The second bill we have is the Commerce, State, Justice and related agencies appropriations bill. Again, this is the recommendation of the subcommittee as adjusted by the process I just outlined. It is approximately $2.5 billion above the 2002 enacted funding level.

These, of course, are a series of highlights. I may later ask to put them all in the RECORD as part of my opening statement. I want to review these outlines later. I do not make that request now.

We also have the District of Columbia appropriations bill. It makes appropriations for the District of Columbia. It is an item that is substantially higher than the President's request. It is a total of $512 million in discretionary budget authority for the District of Columbia.

We have the energy and water appropriations bill. It recommends $26.164 billion for 2003. It exceeds the President's request by $649 million, and it exceeds the 2002 level by $900 million.

We have the foreign operations bill among the 11 included in this amendment. This bill is $221 million below the President's request. It is also below the fiscal year 2002 level by $73.5 million.

The Department of the Interior bill provides $19.18 billion in total discretionary budget authority—an increase of $641 million over the enacted level of 2002. It is $36 million over the President's budget request for 2003.

The Labor-Health and Human Services bill deals with the President's request, which was $131.9 billion. This bill as recommended by my amendment will be $131.3 billion. The details will be in the items that I will put in the RECORD.

On the Department of Transportation and related agencies, we recommend $64.6 billion for 2003. This is $9.4 billion more than the President's request of $55.2 billion. I do not have a figure above the 2002 level. I will put it in the RECORD later.

We have the Treasury and general government appropriations bill. This provision is in the bill at $34.5 billion. The President's request was $34.2 billion, and the 2002 level was $32.8 billion. This is another area where it is above the President's request.

The last section is the section that deals with items that have been added to the 13 bills. One is to fund the election reform bill that was enacted in the last Congress. The maximum authorized level for that program for 12 months for fiscal 2003 was $2.35 billion. For the remainder of the bill, this amendment that I offer will fund election reform at $1.5 billion.

For drought relief, we have set a target of $3.1 billion. The provisions of the bill as presented by the Agriculture Committee and others will adjust the mandatory programs in order to provide relief for the drought that has occurred.

We also have a provision dealing with Medicare adjustments, dealing with physicians' payments and payments for rural hospitals. The total amount would be $1.6 billion. These items would be offset by a 1.6-percent across-the-board cut on the other 11 bills.

We have done our best to present to the Senate—I have, working with the members of the committee and their staffs—a bill to meet the requirements of the administration, to meet the requirements of the agencies, and to present a bill that can be taken to conference and worked out with the House in conference.

Madam President, I point out, the House has not passed any bills. The House has passed this continuing resolution, to give us a House-passed bill, to return this bill to the House for their consideration. We are hopeful that the House will enact its own version and send it to conference. As has been outlined already by the unanimous consent agreement that is in place, we will seek a conference with the House at the earliest possible time.

I urge Senators to consider the problem we face, and that is the problem of catching up with the bills we should have enacted last year. I point no fingers as to reasons we did not. The Senate Appropriations Committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Byrd, did report out all the bills. We were prepared to act, but circumstances at that time made it impossible for us to pass those bills.

Under the circumstances now, we cannot afford the process of passing separate bills, facing vetoes or veto threats, and having bills go back and forth between the Houses. If we are going to catch up and start the process of dealing with the 2004 appropriations, as is our duty in this new Congress, we must put these requests of the past, for the remainder of this fiscal year, in place. We must pass this amendment or something similar to it as soon as is possible, as soon as the Congress can agree and the President will concur with our actions.

I will say, I have discussed this at length with the Office of Management and Budget. I cannot say they approve of what we are doing, but I can say they approve of the fact that we are doing something. So that is what I am asking the Senate to do tonight, to start the process of doing something on these accumulated items that must be faced by this Congress as quickly as possible.

Mr. STEVENS. The Senator from West Virginia has an amendment to offer. I thank him for his comments. We are in substantial agreement, except in the conclusion. We both feel that the Government of the United States should not operate under a continuing resolution. What it means is that our agencies are not moving forward in 2003 at the rate actually requested by the President in 2001 for the fiscal year 2002.

Times have changed. They have changed considerably. Each of these agencies are subject to new laws that were passed both in 2001 and 2002 with regard to the programs that they administer. They cannot do those new programs without new money.

As the Senator from West Virginia said, they are currently operating on autopilot. I am an old pilot and autopilot is a wonderful thing to have, but it doesn't know how to change course unless someone turns the dials. Autopilot cannot take you off or land you. It only continues on the course that it is on. It will fly right into a mountain if you don't change the course. There is a mountain ahead of us, which is the mountain of unfulfilled commitments in the Federal Government, which both the President and Congress have made and changes that were made since the President first conceived the budget of 2002.

I do believe that the Senator is right. I would have joined him last year in proceeding as we did with the bill as reported. But it is different now. We are ready to start a new Congress. We, hopefully, will have our organization resolution soon, and we will be working toward complying with the laws that we work under—the Budget Act—and the requirement that we pass 13 appropriations bills for 2004.

We cannot get there if we pass these bills separately. As I said before, we will face the prospect of disagreement with the House and endless conferences on 11 bills, and possibilities of vetoes and motions to override, and all the time it will take. Mr. President, it will be June before we get down to the business of this Congress if we do not follow the recommendation to proceed that has been made now by me on behalf of the President and on behalf, I believe, of all the members of our committee.

We have differences on what should be in the bill, but the main thing is that we should proceed. I await the offering of the Senator's amendment. I know pretty well what is in it, and I regret that I cannot join him this year in supporting it.

Is the amendment now pending before the Senate, Mr. President?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is pending.

Mr. STEVENS. I yield to the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, presented a chart showing the major elements of the $5 billion homeland security package. Eventually, this homeland security money, since it is money that people involved in that area want, we will address not only this year, in this 2003 bill, not only in the 2004 bill, but out into 2005. This Homeland Security Department has not even formed yet, as we know. There are several components in the existing Government that will be transferred into homeland security, and they have funding in this amendment I have offered.

For instance, Senator Byrd wants to add to this amendment I have offered $1.4 billion for State and local assistance to combat terrorism, but we already have spread throughout the 11 bills $2.2 billion to deal with the same concepts. We have money for first responder radio equipment. We have money for emergency planning and training.

Last year, I supported this money that Senator Byrd wants in his amendment for this bill—in a series of bills, as a matter of fact. The problem we face now is, should we continue to operate at the 2002 level until we can find an agreement with the President as to the amounts Senator Byrd wants to add to the President's request or should we move forward through the way we allocated money in the bill for the various elements of homeland security in the existing Departments? The money we put in the existing Departments will be transferred to Homeland Security as that Department is formed.

Senator Byrd wants to put up an additional $1.8 billion for border security. Again, in the period ahead we will spend money like that, but in these bills already is a total of $4.3 billion, and we are looking at a period of less than 8 months to spend that money.

I have presented the amendment that is before the Senate now because we want to find a way to work with the President to close the books on the 2003 appropriations. We cannot do that if we continue to battle with the administration and try to give them money beyond what they believe is necessary.

At the time we were looking at this last year, we thought the Homeland Security Department would have been created before September 30 of last year. We wanted to put up money so it would be there for the Homeland Security Department to be transferred to start spending in October. This money would be started to be spent in late February or March.

I am trying to make a point. Take airport security; Senator Byrd wants an additional $720 million. We have already appropriated substantial monies that are in the supplemental from last year for airport security. We have tried to fund the needs of the Transportation Security Administration. We already have an additional $374 million in these separate portions of the amendment I have offered.

I am trying to emphasize the fact that we do not need to give this Department of Homeland Security more money beyond what has been asked.

On nuclear and energy security, I do not disagree with the statements that have been made about the needs for additional money. In this amendment I have offered is $1.650 billion for that function. Senator Byrd wants to add another $296 million. I understand he is trying to fully fund the estimated needs of homeland security for the future, which is a laudable goal, but we are trying to stay within some sort of budget constraint.

As I said, let's finish the job of getting the books closed on how much the agencies have to spend in the remainder of fiscal year 2003.

On Federal law enforcement with the FBI, Senator Byrd wants to add $212 million to the $1.2 billion already in the bill. I am urging the Senate to listen in terms of the concepts we have worked out. Stop this battle with the President over how much is needed for the agency that has not even been established yet. The various components of that agency, the Homeland Security Department, will have enough money coming into this new Department to fully fund whatever they can do by the time they get organized as a Department.

I urge the Senate to oppose the amendment offered by the Senator from West Virginia—not because he is not right at estimating the future needs of homeland security—because we believe we are right in saying, let's fund now the money that can be spent before the end of this fiscal year, be spent before September 30. I am confident we have sufficient moneys in this amendment that we have offered in the 11 separate sections which would normally be separate appropriations bills, enough money to deal with the problems of homeland security.

Beyond that, I remind the Senate the President still has some money left from the $20 billion we gave him after 9/11. If there are any defects here, he has more than $5 billion in that account and can allocate it if it is necessary to establish Homeland Security so long as it is working toward establishing the facilities and entities we need to prevent further repetition of the catastrophe of September 11.

I hope the Senate will listen. To adopt the Byrd amendment will be to prolong the conference. If it was in a bill that would go to the President, he would veto it. Then where are we? Maybe I am too pragmatic about this, but it is time to get this job done. The amendment I have offered will get the job done. There will still be some differences with the House. As a matter of fact, there will still be some differences with the administration because we have increased some items that they do not want to see increased and we have decreased some they do not want decreased. But overall, we are within the total limit and parameters of the requests of the President.

I hope tomorrow the Senate will be looking at this. There will be further debate tomorrow morning. The leader will, of course, state what the procedure will be. We expect a vote sometime around noon or soon thereafter on the Byrd amendment. I am hopeful that the Senate will work with us to try and understand my job now is to get this amendment to conference.

As I told the Senate Members, the House has not passed any of these bills. It passed some of them last year. We did not act on them. We passed some last year and they did not act on them. We are trying to restart the 2003 conference and there will be an overall conference on all 11 bills at one time if the Senate will give us the support to pass this bill and take it to conference.

There will be individual differences as far as amendments are concerned. As a matter of fact, there are some things in this amendment I personally would change, but they have been brought here by the work of the subcommittee chairmen and ranking Members of the individual areas covered by these bills. I think it is the best course to follow, to take this amendment to conference, to go to the House and say, let's get these 11 bills finished so the agencies will know for certain the money they have. Even the homeland security bill was not passed when we originally contemplated passing the appropriations to fund it.

I am confident we have done the best we can under the circumstance. Again, I do not criticize Senator Byrd. Eventually, we will spend more than $5 billion in addition to what we have in the amendment before the Senate. However, we do not need it now. I sat through all the hearings that have been mentioned, that Senator Byrd had on the needs for homeland security across the Nation. I remember going to small towns in my State when the mayor told me they needed a new fire truck. They needed a new fire truck? They have never had a fire truck. There is not anyone in the country that does not want some of this homeland security money. The question is, what is needed now to go on with the job and protect the country. I believe our amendment does it.

I send to the desk a statement prepared by the individual subcommittees that goes along with 11 components of this bill. Had we had the meetings of the separate subcommittees and reported separate bills, we would have prepared 11 reports. Instead, I am submitting for the RECORD to be printed the overview and summary of each of the components so there will be no question in the future of what is intended by the provisions of the amendment I have offered if it is enacted. I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the RECORD.