[House Document 104-83]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





                                     

        104th Congress, 1st Session - - - - - - - - - - - - - House 
Document 104-83


 
                           VETO OF H.R. 1158

                               __________

                                MESSAGE

                                  from

                   THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

                              transmitting

      HIS VETO OF H.R. 1158, A BILL MAKING EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL 
 APPROPRIATIONS FOR ADDITIONAL DISASTER ASSISTANCE, FOR ANTITERRORISM 
   INITIATIVES, FOR ASSISTANCE IN THE RECOVERY FROM THE TRAGEDY THAT 
 OCCURRED AT OKLAHOMA CITY, AND MAKING RESCISSIONS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 
           ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 1995, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES




June 7, 1995.--Message referred to the Committee on Appropriations and 
                         ordered to be printed
To the House of Representatives:
    I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 1158, a 
bill providing for emergency supplemental appropriations and 
rescissions for fiscal year 1995.
    This disagreement is about priorities, not deficit 
reduction. In fact, I want to increase the deficit reduction in 
this bill.
    H.R. 1158 slashes needed investments for education, 
national service, and the environment, in order to avoid 
cutting wasteful projects and other unnecessary expenditures. 
There are billions of dollars in pork--unnecessary highway 
demonstration projects, courthouses, and other Federal 
buildings--that could have been cut instead of these critical 
investments. Indeed, the Senate bill made such cuts in order to 
maintain productive investments, but the House-Senate 
conference rejected those cuts.
    For example, H.R. 1158 would deprive 15,000 young adults of 
the opportunity to serve their communities as AmeriCorps 
members.
    It would deprive 2,000 schools in 47 States of funds to 
train teachers and devise comprehensive reforms to boost 
academic standards.
    It would reduce or eliminate antiviolence and drug 
prevention programs serving nearly 20 million students.
    It would prevent the creation and expansion of hundreds of 
community development banks and financial institutions that 
would spur job growth and leverage billions of dollars of 
capital in distressed communities across the country.
    And it would seriously hamper the ability of States to 
maintain clean drinking water, thus jeopardizing the health of 
residents.
    In the end, the Congress chose courthouses over education, 
pork barrel highway projects over national service, Government 
travel over clean water.
    At my instruction, the Administration has provided 
alternatives to the Congress that would product greater deficit 
reduction than H.R. 1158, cutting even more in fiscal year 1995 
spending than is included in H.R. 1158. But the spending 
reductions would come out of unnecessary projects and other 
spending, not investments in working families.
    My position on this legislation has been made clear 
throughout the legislative process. The Administration strongly 
and consistently opposed the House version of the bill because 
it would have unnecessarily cut valuable, proven programs that 
educate our children, invest in our future, and protect the 
health and safety of the American people. We worked closely 
with the bipartisan leadership of the Senate to improve the 
bill, and I indicated my approval of those improvements. 
Regrettably, the conference went well beyond the spending 
reductions contained in the bipartisan compromise despite my 
Administration's consistent urging to adhere to the Senate 
bipartisan leadership amendment.
    In addition, I continue to object to language that would 
override existing environmental laws in an effort to increase 
timber salvage. Increasing timber salvage and improving forest 
health are goals that my Administration shares with the 
Congress. Over the last 6 months, my Administration has put in 
motion administrative reforms that are speeding salvage timber 
sales in full compliance with existing environmental laws. It 
is not appropriate to use this legislation to overturn 
environmental laws. Therefore, I urge the Congress to delete 
this language and, separately, to work with my Administration 
on an initiative to increase timber salvage and improve forest 
health.
    My Administration has provided the Congress with changes 
that would enable me to sign revised legislation. I urge the 
Congress to approve a bill that contains the supplemental 
funding include din H.R. 1158--for disaster relief activities 
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for the Federal 
response to the bombing in Oklahoma City, for increased 
antiterrorism efforts, and for providing debt relief to Jordan 
in order to contribute to further progress toward a Middle East 
peace settlement--along with my Administration's alternative 
restorations and offsets.
    I will sign legislation that provide these needed 
supplemental appropriations and that reduces the deficit by at 
least as much as this bill. However, the legislation must 
reflect the priorities of the American people. H.R. 1158, as 
passed, clearly does not.


                                                William J. Clinton.
    The White House, June 7, 1995.