Departments of Labor , Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008 - Resumed

Floor Speech

DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008--Resumed -- (Senate - October 18, 2007)

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Mr. ENZI. Senator Sessions has offered a very important amendment, and I am pleased to be a cosponsor. The amendment restores critical funding to the Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards. It is referred to as OLMS.

Funding for the Office of Labor-Management Standards in the current Senate bill is 20 percent below the requested amount, essentially scaled back from the 2006 level. Senator Sessions' amendment restores funding to current fiscal year 2007 levels and adds an additional $3 million to continue audit and enforcement efforts.

What is the Office of Labor-Management Standards and why is it so important? The fact is the Office of Labor-Management Standards is the only agency in the Federal Government that is devoted to protecting the interests of American workers that pay union dues. It requires financial reporting and transparency by labor unions about how they use their members' money, and it investigates and prosecutes union officials who are guilty of fraud or abuse of their members' financial interests.

There should not be any reasonable debate about the importance of financial transparency for any entity, including labor unions. We demand, as we should, corporate transparency in order to protect stockholders. Those who pay union dues are no less entitled to the benefits of financial transparency and fraud protection than those who purchase stock. Indeed, purchasing stock is a voluntary activity, while in many instances the payment of union dues is not voluntary. Protecting the financial interests of working men and women, giving them access to how their money is being used and providing remedies for those instances where the money is misused ought to be a priority, not an afterthought.

It is the height of hypocrisy to talk about protecting the rights of working men and women, or aiding the so-called middle class, while simultaneously slashing the budgets of one of the Federal agencies that protects the financial interests of those who pay union dues.

The Sessions amendment puts a question directly before the Senate. Will we vote down his amendment and allow the Office of Labor-Management Standards funding to be rolled back and go out of our way to send a message to the working men and women who pay union dues that protecting their rights is unimportant? That is the question we are being asked.

I hope we will not tell them that protecting their rights is unimportant. This amendment gives the Senate a chance to go on record about the importance of integrity in leadership elections, finances, and respect for the rights of individuals. We know every dollar in most of our paychecks matters. When we are compelled to give a portion of our paycheck away, either through taxes or union dues, it is an affront for that money to be used to inflate someone else's lifestyle, or to be misused in any other way. That is exactly what the Office of Labor-Management Standards guards against.

OLMS enforces the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, a law enacted with bipartisan support, including that of then-Senator Jack Kennedy.

In this administration alone, OLMS has returned nearly $102 million to union members who were robbed. There were only 8.7 million private sector employees represented by unions in 2006. I will restate that number. OLMS has returned $102 million to union members who were robbed. OLMS has indicted 827 individuals and gotten convictions on 790 of them. That is a pretty good record. Again, they have indicted 827, and they have obtained convictions on 790. That is a very impressive conviction rate by any standard.

I have a State-by-State breakdown of those statistics, which I will enter into the Record. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

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Mr. ENZI. This is so my colleagues can see how many union-represented employees have been protected in their States. These numbers indicate that union corruption is not an issue to which we can turn a blind eye. It may not be seen as politically correct by some in this body to fund an office that audits and investigates unions. But the truth is that having a strong Office of Labor Management Standards is the best thing we can do to help the labor movement. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. When rank-and-file employees feel everything is in the open and they can trust union leaders, they are probably more likely to join one.

It was the outcry of rank-and-file union members themselves that actually created the Office of Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. That act was born in the wake of egregious cases of fraudulent elections, embezzlement, and strong-arm tactics by a number of unions. The law also works to prevent backroom dealings between employers and union leaders that disadvantage the employees. The first section of the law, the Union Members Bill of Rights, was added by then-Senator and later President John F. Kennedy.

I certainly understand that not every department can receive an increase in every budget year. But what this bill does is quite remarkable. It singles out this one office, the Office of Labor-Management Standards, as the only enforcement agency in the whole bill to have its funding decreased.

Senator Sessions and I are asking today that we simply keep the Office of Labor-Management Standards at essentially the same funding level it received last year. The President requested an increase because OLMS has been taking on a number of projects, such as compliance assistance for unions, which would especially be helpful in light of their recent revised disclosure forms.

The funding called for in this amendment will be offset by a modest across-the-board cut in general administrative expenses of the departments funded under this bill. This reduction in administrative expenses is a very small price to pay in order to protect the rights of working men and women. These workers deserve to know how their hard-earned money is being used and deserve to be protected from those who misuse it.

I hope a majority of our colleagues will agree and vote in favor of this amendment.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to address the pending legislation, the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations legislation. While this legislation is very well intentioned, regretfully, I oppose the bill as it is currently drafted.

The legislation we are currently debating totals approximately $149 billion in discretionary spending for fiscal year 2008. This is roughly $9 billion above the level requested by President Bush. Mr. President, $149 billion sounds like a lot of money, but total spending in the legislation is actually much higher--about $605 billion when the mandatory spending is accounted for.

This legislation funds the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, as well as a host of smaller agencies. I know that all of my colleagues want to ensure these agencies are properly funded and staffed, so that Federal programs have the resources they need to properly function. But the level of spending in this legislation is excessive, and will add to the huge financial burden we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. So while this legislation is well intentioned, I can not support it as it is currently drafted.

My understanding is that, for a variety of reasons, the President will veto the legislation. The administration has been vocal about their concerns since the fiscal year 2008 budget resolution was considered earlier this year, so this veto threat should not come as a surprise to my colleagues. The Senate has been on notice. We need to move past the political theatrics associated with this bill and other appropriations legislation, and get to work on the real challenge of writing a balanced proposal the President is willing to sign. As U.S. Senators, one of our primary duties is to fund the Government. Our Founding Fathers designed checks and balances for a purpose, one being to force compromise on key, and sometimes contentious, legislative products. We ought to be thinking about--and debating--the type of legislation that will pass muster on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. We owe that to our constituents and to the American people.

I would also like to address other concerns I have with the legislation. The committee-reported bill contains stem cell language that overturns Presidential order, making more embryonic stem cell lines available for Government research funding. Currently, only embryonic lines created before July 9, 2001, are eligible for Federal funding. This legislation would extend that date until June 15, 2007. I do not support this provision as part of this vehicle. Earlier this year, we had a larger debate on the stem cell issue. I believe that we owe it to the American public to work on real solutions to this situation and not just keep moving a potential date. For these reasons, I was pleased to hear yesterday that the bill manager decided to remove this provision from the underlying committee-reported legislation.

The committee-reported bill also addresses funding for September 11 workers. Specifically, this legislation provides an additional $55 million for treatment, screening and monitoring for 9/11 related health issues. This is in addition to the approximately $45 million that was included in the emergency war supplemental earlier this year. In addition, this legislation for the first time expands funding to cover all city residents. The HELP Committee has been looking into this issue for well over a year. We should agree on the facts regarding worker health before we broadly expand current spending to cover residents. In addition, there are substantial unspent funds already available: out of a total of $92 million in fiscal years 2006 and 2007, and currently proposed under the President's 2008 budget, grantees have actually drawn down just $2 million in payments on fiscal year 2006 funds.

This legislation also cuts funding for the Office of Labor and Management Standards--known as OLMS--by $2 million, from $47.7 million to $45.7 million, while the President's request is $56.8 million. OLMS is responsible for overseeing union disclosure and corruption. This may seem like a small amount of money considering the scope of the overall legislation, but cutting funds targeted for policing corruption as a ``cost saving'' measure isn't a good way to build credibility with the American people. We must do better. With Sarbanes-Oxley, we made big business more transparent. We need to do the same thing with big unions. The Office of Labor and Management Standards can and must do exactly that. OLMS must be allowed and funded to do what we have told them to do. The transparency and accountability is for the benefit of the union members. Of course, this might be just like the card check bill where labor union management was trying to take away the right for potential members to have a secret ballot. Unions are for the members, not for the union bosses. Members have a right to know. That is what the law passed in 1959 was and is all about. Enforce the law. Be sure union members have a right to know.

I would also like to point out that the legislation does not contain funding for the National All Schedules Prescription Reporting Act--NASPER. Known as NASPER, this law was designed to assist States in setting up prescription drug monitoring programs--to make sure people can't get multiple refills of their restricted prescriptions merely by crossing State lines. Instead, this legislation funds an unauthorized similar program through the Justice Department. Congress should first fund the programs that are authorized by committees that have jurisdiction over the measures. As the lead Republican on the HELP Committee, I know the value of the authorization process--Federal programs are reviewed by Senators and staff to ensure there is value for program beneficiaries and taxpayers alike. Funding unauthorized programs usurps the entire authorizing committee process.

All that being said, there are many provisions in this legislation that are not objectionable, and some of which I support. Like previous years, the bill contains language that prohibits the Labor Secretary from issuing regulations related to the Workforce Investment Act, known as WIA, until the Congress has reauthorized the program. Reauthorizing WIA is a bipartisan priority for the HELP Committee, and a top personal goal of mine that I have been working toward for many years. Congress should first act to reauthorize the law before the administration moves forward with regulations. This reauthorization is long overdue. Modernizing job training programs will result in better, higher paying jobs. Under my chairmanship, we passed this reauthorization--but it was held by Democrats who would not allow the appointment of conferees because of concerns they would not be included in the process. That argument no longer holds true. They control a majority in each legislative body, and a majority on conference committees. Congress needs to pass this legislation to provide training for current and future jobs so Americans have the skills they need to get the best jobs--instead of sending them overseas because we don't have trained workers at home.

This legislation also restores the authority of the Railroad Retirement Board Office of the Inspector General to conduct Railroad Medicare audits and investigations. Similar language was included in previous years, but was dropped in the conference with the House. My hope is that this year we will be successful in restoring that authority. In September, Senator KENNEDY and I, together with Senators BAUCUS and GRASSLEY, weighed in on this issue with the Appropriations Committee, thanking them for including this language in their bill, and urging them to fight for this provision in conference. Restoring the ability to audit is fiscally responsible, and is the right thing to do.

In closing, while there are valuable provisions in the Labor-HHS spending bill that ought to be enacted, I will be voting against this legislation because of the excessive total spending level, as well as some objectionable policy language that I have discussed today.

I stand ready to work with all of my colleagues on a compromise product that can garner support from both the legislative as well as the executive branch of our Government.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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