AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004-CONFERENCE REPORT-CONTINUED
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the conference report to the Omnibus appropriations bill that the Senate has been considering. Without question, we have a duty to ensure the continuing operations of our Government, and the package before us would enable this for a majority of the agencies and programs of the U.S. Government. I thank the appropriators on both sides of the aisle, including the senior Senator from Hawaii, Mr. Inouye, for their efforts in crafting this massive funding package, and particularly for their agreement on several provisions significant to the people of Hawaii that will meet urgent needs in transportation, education, agriculture, and juvenile justice. For example, funds included for the Juvenile Justice Information System will significantly enhance efforts by law enforcement officials and child-serving agencies in Hawaii to address the root causes of juvenile criminal behavior. This promises to have a tremendous impact on Hawaii's efforts to address juvenile crime.
I am also pleased that this package includes $1.5 million to initiate programs under the Excellence in Economic Education Act, to increase financial and economic literacy in our country. I also am a strong proponent of the $100 million in funding for the Mentoring and Mentoring Children of Prisoners programs, to ensure that young people in Hawaii and the Nation have access to the support, guidance, and assistance they need to help them through life's difficult and varied situations. These are a couple of the many initiatives that I feel very strongly about and worked on with my colleagues during the fiscal year 2004 appropriations process.
However, on balance, the flaws in this Omnibus package overshadow its favorable provisions. It is important to remember that we are here to serve in the best interest of our Nation. While differences in philosophy will always exist, as Members of Congress, we still have an obligation to work together, to look beyond those differences and find solutions. I do not believe that the Omnibus contains solutions that best serve all who live in our great Nation.
For example, as the ranking member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Financial Management Subcommittee, and the Armed Services Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee, I object to the elimination of two key measures from the Senate-passed Transportation-Treasury-General Government appropriations bill that would have improved fairness and cost-efficiency in Federal contracting. The Omnibus deletes a provision which would promote equity by granting Federal workers the same rights as private contractors to appeal decisions to contract out Government jobs. The Omnibus also strikes a requirement for minimal cost savings before decisions are made to contract out Federal work. To ensure accountability and transparency, Government contracting policies must achieve the best return on the dollar and be fair to Federal workers. These two goals are complementary.
The measure before us today fails to ensure diversity of our airwaves and deprives millions of workers of their right to overtime pay. In both cases, the other body and the Senate were in agreement on how to rectify these matters. However, the conferees, in working with the administration, determined that there should be a limit on the Federal Communications Commission's ability to grant licenses to only those stations that reach more than 39 percent instead of 35 percent of a market. In addition, the package before us will allow the U.S. Department of Labor to continue working on and finalizing its proposed rule to modernize and redefine exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act, which many employees have said will take away their right to be fairly compensated for work performed above their normal work schedule. The majority in Congress rejected the DOL proposal and urged the leadership to maintain the Senate approved provision that would have prohibited the DOL from using funds to promulgate or implement its proposed rule.
The conference report fails not only in the case of worker's rights and consumer rights, but also in consumer safety. During consideration of the Agriculture appropriations bill, I offered an amendment that would have prohibited the U.S. Department of Agriculture from using any funds to approve for human consumption any meat products from downed animals. This amendment was agreed to in the Senate. While the other body defeated a similar amendment offered by Representative GARY ACKERMAN of New York, many of his colleagues later indicated that they were unable to vote that day and would have supported his amendment. The support would have been enough to accept the amendment. It is unfortunate that Congress, in earlier legislative vehicles, and the conferees in this package, chose not to be proactive in protecting our food supply. For more than 12 years, I have been working to address this matter, and my amendment was the most recent example of that. While the USDA is making some strides to now address mad cow disease in cattle, we need to codify their efforts and expand the ban to all downer livestock that may pose a risk to human health, the importance of which was highlighted recently with the discovery of a diseased downer cow in the Pacific northwest.
Related to the Commerce Department, the provisions funding ocean exploration activities, marine aquaculture development, and coral reef research are disappointing. At the proposed levels, our country will not be able to promote an economically viable and environmentally feasible aquaculture industry to address the $7 billion seafood trade deficit. Activities exploring the deep ocean, one of the last scientific frontiers on Earth, need to be a greater priority in order for us to properly manage and protect these fragile marine communities. I am also concerned that an estimated 25 percent of the world's coral reefs have been lost and at least 30 percent are threatened by human activities. Funding levels in this conference report are insufficient to support research and monitoring activities for coral reefs, one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars in marine services for our country and is certainly very important for Hawaii.
Although important education priorities are provided for, this conference report continues to fall short on major programs, particularly those that help disadvantaged and special education students. Public schools in every State are struggling to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act. However, budget shortfalls at the State level resulting from a fragile economy have restricted the resources available to our classrooms. Our failure to fully fund the Federal commitment Congress made when it enacted the No Child Left Behind Act further strains the situation and sets even more schools up for "failure" and more teachers unable to become "highly qualified." The same goes for the commitment that we made even earlier in our history to fund the Federal portion of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It may have been many years since I led a classroom as a teacher or a school as its principal, but I remember the support that we needed to ensure that all of our children receive a top-notch education.
Everything that I have recounted here-sentiments echoed by several of my colleagues-leads me to conclude that I am unable to support the package before us, in its current form. I urge the appropriators in both bodies of Congress to improve this package so that it can be something that all of us can support.