[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 48 (Wednesday, March 15, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3194-H3222]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR ADDITIONAL DISASTER
ASSISTANCE AND RESCISSIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1995
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 115 and rule
XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House
on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 1158.
{time} 1425
in the committee of the whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill
(H.R. 1158) making emergency supplemental appropriations for additional
disaster assistance and making rescissions for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 1995, and for other purposes, with Mr. Bereuter in the
chair.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having
been read the first time.
Under the rule, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] will be
recognized for 30 minutes, and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey]
will be recognized for 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston].
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
(Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, today we bring to the House our regular
and emergency supplemental appropriations and rescissions bills, H.R.
1158 and H.R. 1159. These bills, the product of 10 subcommittees, were
ordered reported by the Committee on Appropriations on March 2. This
was after 6 weeks of hearings beginning January 11 and culminating in
the completion of subcommittee mark ups on February 24.
Mr. Chairman, the scope and size of these bills is unprecedented.
Together these bills would rescind over $17.4 billion. If you add in
the $3.2 billion that has already been rescinded in the emergency
defense supplemental, the total rescissions reported by the Committee
on Appropriations in the last 6 weeks are over $20.3 billion during the
brief existence of the 104th Congress. I do not believe you will find
any comparable performance in past Congresses.
Mr. Chairman, the details of these bills are well known. We began
marking up in subcommittee nearly 3 weeks ago. These were open mark ups
and the news of what was in them spread quickly. Also the reports to
accompany them have been available since we circulated the bills for
our full committee mark up on February 27. The reasons for the action
we took are described in great detail in these reports. I commend them
to all Members. Because of this I will not spend any time reviewing the
bills at this point. Rather, I would like to talk about the overall
situation that we dealt with on developing the bills.
After I became chairman in early January, I said that we needed to do
a rescission bill. My reason was that we could not wait for our fiscal
year 1996 bills to begin to downsize the Federal Government. If we
began in fiscal year 1995, we would send the
message sooner of our resolve to produce a leaner, not meaner, less
intrusive government.
After we began to developing our rescission bill, major supplemental
appropriations needs became known. Early in December we became aware of
a significant unfunded problem in the Department of Defense of over $3
billion. When the President's budget was submitted, we learned of $7.5
billion more of supplemental needs, mostly for additional FEMA disaster
relief. At this point we were not sure that any fiscal year 1995 effort
to downsize Government would result in any savings beyond what we had
to develop to offset the $10 billion in supplementals.
The approach we used to address this problem was to keep the
development of the supplementals and rescissions separate. We put our
rescissions on one track and developed the supplementals on another. A
target was never set for rescissions. We just wanted to make a strong
effort, and place ourselves in the best position we could in developing
our fiscal year 1996 bills in order to meet expected significantly
lower allocations.
{time} 1430
First we peeled off enough rescissions to offset the defense
supplemental because it needed to move the quickest. Then we peeled off
enough rescissions to offset the nonemergency supplemental needs, and
finally we packaged the domestic emergency supplemental needs with all
of the remaining rescissions we had identified. As it turns out, we had
over a 3-to-1 ratio of rescissions to supplemental appropriations in
this final package.
I worked closely with the subcommittee chairman in aggressively
pursuing rescissions, but I did not do this with any fixed target in
mind. I am pleased with the outcome and with their product, but we were
not trying to achieve any goal except looking to the future and getting
a start on what needs to be done to balance the budget.
As it turns out, we were able to offset all supplementals, something
that has not been done before, and we reduced fiscal year 1996 outlays
resulting from prior appropriations by a very helpful margin.
We have started the process of downsizing the Federal Government, and
our fiscal year 1996 bills can more easily be meshed in with this plan.
Perhaps most importantly we have sent the message that we will reduce
the deficit beginning in fiscal year 1995 whether or not we have a
balanced budget amendment.
Here are the guiding principles we used to develop the rescission
proposals: We defunded unauthorized programs; we consolidated programs
where duplication was so obvious that a meaningful service could not be
rendered; we cut back on programs that received large increases in the
fiscal year 1995 bills. Where we found programs that just do not work,
we stood up and said so. And in other programs we flushed the pipeline,
especially in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
These principles produced huge results; some say these results have
gone too far, but when we get into the details Members will find out
just how important our thorough review of downsizing government was.
Take the special supplemental food program for women infants and
children for instance. We have been accused of taking food out of the
mouths of needy children. All we did was reduce slightly the amount of
carryover that was occurring in this program because it was being
increased faster than the system could handle it. No beneficiaries will
be impacted, no one will be removed from this program, and the program
funding will continue to increase.
We recommended terminating the low-income home energy assistance
program beyond fiscal year 1995. Now we are being accused of causing
low-income people to freeze to death, but this is just one more example
of a temporary program far outliving its time. Energy costs are far
below the pre-1980 levels in real terms. If low-income people need an
income supplement, then a reason other than energy cost needs to be
used. We need to go elsewhere and find other ways to help those people,
as we certainly can do with the myriad of programs that are available
under the Federal Government.
We recommended in these bills rescinding funding for construction of
six veterans' ambulatory care units. Funding for these projects was
added above last year's budget request. They were developed as part of
last year's universal health care proposal that subsequently died, and
if these projects are needed, then they could be reformulated as part
of a new health care proposal. Building facilities without
the solution on how to pay for them and how they might fit into some
other overall scheme just is not reasonable.
However, I understand there will be an amendment to address this
issue, and the problem may be resolved for the veterans.
But we are also recommending terminating the Summer Youth Jobs
Program. This program has turned into an income supplement program
without
[[Page H3195]] improving the employability of most of the participants
or providing any long-term positive effect or skills training and we
can do better than this. This program is not fulfilling any of its
objectives.
Opponents of these bills say we are cutting spending in the wrong
places. But this is a government with 163 job training programs,
administered by 15 agencies costing $20 billion. Do these programs
duplicate each other, do they work, can they be consolidated? Of course
they can. But if this is the wrong place, the wrong time for cutting,
then perhaps we should assume all 163 programs are doing just fine,
thank you, and move on. I doubt that that is the case.
What is wrong with looking at education programs where 240 separate
programs costing heaven knows how much and including 48 elementary and
secondary education programs continue to flourish, notwithstanding the
redundancy, the duplication and waste and inefficiency. Do they
duplicate each other? Of course they do. Are they cost effective? No.
Do they result in higher test scores? Obviously not from looking at the
scores over the years. No one in or out of government can really say
with certainty that we need any or certainly the vast majority of these
programs.
Let us not forget the 93 early childhood programs, the 46 youth
development programs, and the 14 nutrition programs. Actually I think
that is closer to 30 nutrition programs. Is everybody satisfied that
they are all functioning well and providing effective and efficient
service to the neediest of Americans? Of course not.
In fact, I am convinced that we cannot find any single bureaucrat or
advocate that says all of these programs are needed or meritorious. We
can consolidate them. We can render service where service is needed. We
can save the American taxpayer money, we can have fewer programs and
less bureaucracy. We can work toward a balanced budget by trimming the
Government down in this duplication and waste.
But if these are the wrong places to cut, what are the right places?
If this is the wrong time to cut, then when is the right time? Do we
fix the roof while the sun shines, or do we wait until the economy
takes a turn down and find a new excuse to prime the pump with new jobs
programs or youth development programs and more education programs?
Now that the balanced budget amendment has failed to pass the Senate,
the thorny question still remains: Will Congress ever cut Federal
spending? Even if we do not change the Constitution, it is still only
one avenue open to us. It is the old-fashioned way. It is simply to sit
down and get the job done, and take the first step, and that is what
this bill is, taking the first step.
The Committee on Appropriations took the view that now is the time
and that this rescission package is the way. The rescissions in these
bills are less than 1 percent of the entire Federal budget. But it may
be too much for some of our colleagues and for the President, all of
whom are casting about for excuses as to why we should not even cut a
single program.
They say we are not cutting spending, just paying for tax relief for
the rich. But even if Congress fails to cut taxes, spending will exceed
revenues by $200 billion this year and every year into the future,
according to the Clinton administration plan.
If we approve this bill or approve the Clinton administration plan,
another trillion dollars of debt will be layered on your children's
shoulders in 5 years' time.
Mr. Chairman, here we are with a chance. We can downsize the
Government, we can do it at a time of relative prosperity. We can
reduce the deficit if we have the courage to get rid of bad programs,
and we can do it in the old-fashioned way by just voting to cut
spending now.
Let us not wait until next year or the year after, let us take the
opponents at their word. If they are for getting our expenses in line
with our inflow, then indeed we must pass these bills and I would urge
the adoption of the bill.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 13 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, what I would like to do here is to set the stage and
explain why we are here and why we are doing this today. We have heard
the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] and a lot of our
Republican friends talk to us about deficit reduction and give us
lectures about the need for deficit reduction.
I think it is important to explain how this country got to this
moment. This chart will I think demonstrate what has happened to this
country since the end of World War II. At the end of World War II,
because we needed to borrow money in order to pay for the war, we wound
up with a national debt which was roughly 115 percent of our total
annual national income. Under a series of Presidents, Republican and
Democrat, and under Congresses which were mostly Democratic but
sometimes Republican, we brought that down on a bipartisan basis
through the years to the point where in 1980 our debt as a percentage
of gross domestic product was about 23 or 24 percent.
Then what happened is that Ronald Reagan was elected to office. He
presented us a budget which essentially doubled military spending and
which provided huge tax cuts for rich people, and that package was
rammed through this House. I know, I was here; I offered alternatives
to it. I warned at the time that if that budget package passed, we
would have an explosion of both the national debt and the Federal
deficit.
Mr. Stockman, who was the budget director for President Reagan at the
time, admitted that, in his words, ``the numbers did not add.'' In
fact, his exact words were these: He said:
In the budget that we sent down to the Congress we got the
deficit down to $31 billion by hook or by crook, mostly the
latter. We didn't think it all the way through. We didn't add
up all the numbers. We should have designed those pieces to
be more compatible. But the pieces were moving on independent
tracks. That's what happened. But for about a month and a
half we got away with that because of the novelty of it all.
Now that is Mr. Stockman talking, not me.
So the Reagan budgets were passed, and what happened? The Federal
deficit which had never been larger than $74 billion exploded to nearly
$300 billion over the next decade, and the national debt tripled and
quadrupled. As a result, this line began going in the wrong direction;
it began going up, so that today we are at a national indebtedness
which is about twice the level as a percentage of the national income
as it was in 1980.
So in the 1980s we had three different efforts to try to correct the
problem because the Republican party was embarrassed by what they had
produced. And we had three magic fixes: Gramm-Rudman I, Gramm-Rudman II
and Gramm-Rudman III. None of them fixed the debt, none of them
affected the deficit, although each of them promised within a time
frame of 4 to 5 years to balance the budget.
The public finally got fed up with it, and 2 years ago they elected
President Clinton. They expected he would do something about it. He
produced a budget which called for $500 billion in deficit reduction.
He got not a single Republican vote for that in the House or in the
Senate.
Under that, our committee, after that budget was passed, our
committee produced cuts in 500 separate programs in the first year of
the last biennium and last year we produced cuts in 400 programs in the
year during which I was chairman.
Now I will fully grant that our Republic friends did a much better
job of getting their message across about what happened on the budget
than we Democrats did. I will grant that. And as a result, we lost 53
seats because the public apparently did not like the fact that we had
voted for the Clinton budget. They did not apparently like the fact
that we had voted for the Clinton budget program which did bring that
deficit down from the $323 billion that George Bush told us it was
going to be on the day he walked out of the White House, down to around
$180 billion today.
{time} 1445
But I will grant we did not do a good job of explaining what we did.
We paid a price for it. I think that demonstrates that our party is
willing to pay whatever price is necessary to get
[[Page H3196]] the deficit down. We have already paid that price.
I would remind you that not a single Republican voted in either the
Senate or the House for that deficit-reduction package. I say that
simply to try to make the point that what we are talking about here
today is not a difference over spending levels. Every single amendment
that I asked the Committee on Rules to make in order would have saved
precisely the same amount of money that is being saved in this bill
today. What we argue about is where you are making the savings and
where you are not making the savings.
This is not an issue about the number of education programs or the
number of job-training programs. I stipulated at the beginning of the
markup that we supported the elimination of most of the programs in
question.
But here is what we do not support: We do not support hitting kids
before they are born by cutting back on the Healthy Start program as
this bill does. We do not support clobbering kids by wiping out over a
3-year time frame public broadcasting, because that is the only decent
television that most preschool kids get these days. We do not support,
as you do in another bill, cutting $7 billion below current services in
the school lunch program. We do not support that. We do not support
going after job-hungry kids by eliminating the summer jobs program,
610,000 kids just told to go take a walk this summer. We do not support
whacking tech prep and the school-to-work programs as this bill does,
and we do not support wiping out the drug-free school program that you
wipe out, and we do not support eliminating 100,000 scholarships for
kids who need help to go on to college. Neither do we support shooting
old people.
What this bill does is say to 2 million senior citizens who make less
than $10,000 a year, ``Sorry, but even if you live in my district, 30
below zero weather, you are not going to get any help to pay your fuel
bills anymore.'' That means those seniors are going to have to choose
between prescription drugs and heating their homes. I think that is a
lousy choice for any Member of Congress who makes $133 thousand a
year to impose on somebody in that income bracket. I think morally
that stinks.
I also think it is wrong to say that you are going to take 40 percent
of the housing hits and target them to senior citizens. So that is what
we object to. We object to where you are getting the cuts.
We also object to where you are not getting the cuts. We tried to get
the Coleman amendment made in order that would have allowed us to cut
$400 billion in highway demonstration pork, but the Committee on Rules
under the Republican leadership said, ``No, you cannot cut there.'' I
tried to offer an amendment which would delay for 5 years the
development of the F-22 aircraft which we do not even need until the
year 2014, but which is going to cost us $150 million a copy. We tried
to delay that for 5 years so we could save $7 billion so you would not
have to wipe out the school lunch program. The Committee on Rules said,
``No, we do not want you to have that fix-up.'' So they said we could
not offer that amendment.
We also wanted to set up a new system for disaster relief so that
every citizen who needs help can still get it, but gets it under a
system of loan guarantees paid for by State governments, not Uncle Sam.
That would have enabled us to restore a whole series of programs. We
would have been able to restore Healthy Start, Chapter 1, safe, drug-
free schools, education for the homeless, SSIG State scholarships,
Public Broadcasting, summer jobs, Eisenhower teacher training, senior-
citizen housing, older workers' programs, and veterans' benefits. But,
again, the Committee on Rules said, ``No, you cannot save the money
there. You have got to go after seniors. You have got to go after
kids.'' We think that is the wrong thing to do.
Now, why are we here? We were told a few months ago we were cutting
the $17 billion in order to free up money for the Republican tax
package. Two days ago we saw what that tax package does. We see what
that tax package says to corporations like AT&T, du Pont, Boeing,
General Dynamics, PepsiCo, Texaco, Greyhound Corp., Panhandle Eastern
Corp., W. R. Grace, Sundstrand Corp., Burlington Industries,
Westinghouse, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. These are the folks who
years ago paid no corporate tax, because we did not have an alternative
minimum tax in the tax code.
Now, the Republicans are ripping out the provision in the tax code
which says they have got to pay taxes. We are going to go back to the
years when we have these giant corporations paying no taxes.
The second thing the Republican tax package does is say they are
going to give three-quarters of the capital gains tax breaks to people
who make more than $100,000 year. So we argued in committee you should
not do that, you should not be shooting seniors, you should not be
shooting kids in order to provide these kinds of tax bennies.
When we offered the Murtha amendment to prevent these cuts from being
used to finance this kind of a rip-off, every single Republican in the
committee voted against our amendment. But now they have not been able
to take the heat. Why? Because the public understands you should not be
gouging seniors and kids in order to provide these kinds of tax rip-
offs, and because I frankly think that a lot of thoughtful Republicans
on your side of the aisle recognize that is not the right thing to do.
And so now we are told that they are suddenly going to accept the
Murtha amendment and accept the Brewster amendment and provide us with
the fig leaf by which they can now say, ``Well, we are not going to cut
taxes by making these reductions after all.''
I would simply say what this really means is that there is a great
deal of confusion apparently on the Republican side of the aisle about
what they are going to do with their taxes. We were told first they
were going to pay for whatever tax cuts they provide. Now we are being
told, ``well, we are not going to do it after all.'' We are going to be
told tomorrow in the Committee on the Budget that they are willing to
make generic cuts buy simply lowering the caps without describing which
programs are going to actually be cut.
But what this demonstrates is that whenever you have a specific
program which the Republicans are talking about cutting, then it is
going to be very difficult for them to get the votes in their own
Caucus to produce the votes for those cuts in order to finance the kind
of outrageous tax breaks which they are talking about in the Committee
on Ways and Means bill.
So I would urge Members today to vote for both the Murtha amendment
and vote for the Brewster amendment. But do not kid yourself, do not
kid yourself. In the end, they are still going to provide those wild
tax breaks for corporations and high-income people. That tax package is
just as misguided as shooting seniors and shooting kids' programs in
order to free up a few dollars so they can pretend that they are going
to make a significant impact on the deficit.
I urge a vote against this bill and to vote for those two amendments.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Lewis], the distinguished chairman of the Housing and
Veterans' Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations.
(Mr. LEWIS of California asked and was given permission to revise and
extend his remarks.)
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate my colleague
yielding and rise at this moment to express my strong support for the
work of the committee.
All of us recognize that the country faces a most serious economic
problem with ever escalating, year in and year out deficits, and a
total deficit pushing well beyond $4 trillion. The price will be paid
not by us but largely by a few of our children, indeed mostly our
grandchildren.
My section of the bill involves approximately one-half of the
rescissions that are involved here, and the subcommittee responsibility
covers a whole array of Federal programs ranging from veterans to
housing to EPA to NASA, a total of 22 different agencies.
Beyond that, within this bill is a very important element, a
supplemental appropriation that affects 40 different States that have
been impacted by disaster in recent years. A
[[Page H3197]] very significant part of that will affect my own State,
for as you all know, California in recent years has had every disaster
known to man. Californians have not asked to be put in this position,
but ironically, as we work together today, all of you know that much of
my State one more time is almost totally under water. One of the great
things about this process is that it reminds us one more time that in
times of crisis Americans come together as a unified public and help
each other.
There is little doubt that all of us know that this will not be the
last natural disaster. There will be another. We just do not know when
it will occur or what part of the country it will hit.
I want you all to know that at that point in time this Californian
stands ready to help you as you have helped us in the past.
Above and beyond that, we will be discussing a whole array of
rescissions within my subcommittee. And in a lot of that discussion we
will talk about HUD where there are some $7.2 billion worth of
rescissions. This chart indicates the problem we have in discretionary
spending and housing. Over the last 4 years, discretionary outlays have
increased a full 50 percent, moving from $20.5 to $31 billion. Anybody
who has any sense, who is willing to look, knows that those programs
need fundamental review, and our effort here is to establish a new
playing field whereby we will better serve the people who need Federal
housing assistance.
Under our proposals, not one family currently receiving services will
have those services terminated, and many more, in my judgment, will
receive better service over time in a much more efficient process. That
is what triggers and motivates these spending cuts.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Michigan [Mr. Bonior], the distinguished Democratic whip.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague for yielding and I
commend him for his statement earlier.
Mr. Chairman, the Republicans talk a lot about renewing American
civilization, but you cannot renew American civilization by taking Big
Bird from 5-year-olds, summer jobs from 15-year-olds, scholarships from
20-year-olds, in order to pay for a tax cut for the very wealthiest and
most comfortable in our society. That is exactly what this bill does.
Mr. Chairman, yesterday the Committee on Ways and Means reported out
the Republican tax plan out of committee. The bill cuts taxes by over
$700 billion.
But the deep and the very dark secret of the Republican tax plan is
this, the vast majority of the benefits go to those earning over
$100,000 a year or more. Under the Republican tax plan, if you earn
$100,000 a year, you get a tax cut of about $4 a day, but if you earn
less than $100,000 a year, you get a tax cut of about 7 cents a day. If
you are a Fortune 500 company under the Republican plan, not only will
you get a tax break, you might not have to pay any taxes at all.
Look at how they intend to pay for it. They want to cut over $200
billion from veterans' benefits. They want to cut heating assistance
for our elderly. They are cutting programs in nutrition for our
infants. They are cutting jobs for kids and drug-free schools. That is
what this bill does that is before us today.
So, Mr. Chairman, this is not what the American people voted for last
November. If this is what the first $17 billion in cuts looks like, I
can only wonder, I can only imagine what the next $700 billion is going
to look like.
Mr. Chairman, let us not target children to pay for tax cuts for the
most comfortable and the wealthiest in our society.
We all want to reduce the size of governments, but let us start by
cutting over $200 billion in corporate welfare. What about all the
irrigation subsidies and the mining subsidies and star wars? None of
that is mentioned in here. They are just going after kids, going after
the elderly. They are going after those in our society who are least
able to defend themselves.
Mr. Chairman, Republicans keep talking about wanting to have a debate
over issues. Well, we would love to debate these ideas, but under the
rule in which we are operating now in the discussion of this bill, we
have been shut out. Under this rule, we have time to debate probably
just a dozen amendments; 82 amendments printed in the Congressional
Record have been shut out. Is this what the Republicans mean by an open
rule, by gagging 82 amendments, using an elaborate set of criteria not
found in any House rule?
We cannot even offer amendments suggesting new cuts if we had them.
Under this rule the only cuts we can offer are deeper cuts to the
Republican cuts that have already been offered.
So, Mr. Chairman, this rule is closed. It is outrageous. It is
offensive. It is contradictory to everything said last year when our
colleagues on this side of the aisle complained to us about having open
rules, especially on deficit reduction proposals like this one.
{time} 1500
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to say ``no'' to targeting
children and the elderly, say ``no'' to tax cuts for the wealthy, say
``no'' to this bill.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
chairman of the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General
Government of the Committee on Appropriations, the great gentleman from
Iowa [Mr. Lightfoot].
Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
Mr. Chairman, I rise to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman from
New Mexico, chairman of the House agriculture appropriations
subcommittee.
I would like to discuss the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National
Swine Research Center to be located at Iowa State University. This
project was included in the rescission legislation.
This center has been developed as a direct result of a partnership
among the U.S. pork industry, the Agriculture Research Service and the
U.S. Congress. The center has always had, and continues to enjoy the
complete support of the Iowa congressional delegation and funding from
the Iowa legislature.
The subcommittee has raised legitimate concerns about the center's
mission in an era of declining Federal budgets. But I can assure the
gentleman from New Mexico and this House, the center meets the tough
criteria for future Federal spending.
Since the rescission bill was marked up, the Agricultural Research
Service has testified before the agriculture appropriations
subcommittee that the type of research to be conducted at this center
is unique to problems associated with large hog operations, especially
with environmental concerns.
My question to the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Skeen] is: Can we
work with the subcommittee to find a way to fund this necessary
research?
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
Mr. SKEEN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, I respond by saying, the subcommittee looks forward to
working with the gentleman and other members of the Iowa delegation to
find funds to start this research. It is my understanding the research
enjoys widespread pork industry support and is important to ensure the
continued world leadership of the U.S. pork industry into the next
century.
As the gentleman from Iowa stated, the Agriculture Research Service
has stated the unique nature of the research. It is essential that we
address the problems facing the U.S. hog industry. I look forward to
working with the gentleman.
Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico and look forward
to working with him to resolve this difficult situation.
Mr. SKEEN. This was an honest pork situation.
Mr. LIGHTFOOT. This is an honest pork situation. We are talking about
real pork, the kind on four legs that you eat.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio].
Mr. FAZIO of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time
to me.
Mr. Chairman, as we begin this first debate on the guts of the
contract on America, the Republican economic plan, we ought to reflect
on what has happened to working families' incomes
[[Page H3198]] in this country. It ought to be the baseline upon which
we base our basic judgments about what to cut in spending and where we
ought to be making adjustments in our taxes.
If you look at 1950 to 1978, Americans essentially at all income
levels grew together. The poorest actually grew the most. The
wealthiest, well, they had a 100-percent increase in real family income
growth, were consistent with all the other classes in American society.
But in the last 20 years, since 1979 through 1993, we had a marked
change in our society. The wealthiest gained most of the economic
growth, 18 percent increase in the top 10 percent. Those at the bottom,
in fact, 60 percent of all American working families, saw real declines
in their standard of living. They have been the ones who have paid the
price. Republicans offer little relief to that vast segment of our
workforce that has seen real incomes decline in this recent past.
Despite the explosive growth of overall household incomes in the same
period, most benefits were concentrated among upper-income families.
Now, if we want to go about restoring opportunity and providing the
foundation for income growth for most Americans, we have got to take a
different approach.
But that is not what we are doing here today. Without a doubt, this
is an important bill for many of us, including those from California
whose districts are under water and who have unpaid bills from the
North Ridge earthquake. Yet I think without much exception, hopefully
none, we will be opposing this disaster assistance bill because,
unfortunately, the Republicans have chosen to put that funding at risk
by unilaterally offsetting those funds with cuts that do California
more harm than good.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Packard], the distinguished chairman of the
Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations.
(Mr. PACKARD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PACKARD. Today, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am
proud to offer our first down payment to balance the budget by 2002.
Republicans made a promise to the American people; now, we are putting
out money where our mouth is. As chairman of the Legislative Branch
Subcommittee, I am pleased to contribute to this effort.
As the subcommittee responsible for funding Congress, I believe that
our legislative branch must undergo the same kind of scrutiny as every
other branch of Government. In fact, we should set the example.
I made a commitment to not just downsize for downsizing's sake. I
want to restructure, I want to make Congress work better at less cost.
As part of that effort, we defunded the Joint Committee on Printing
which oversees the Government Printing Office. This will remove
duplication and redundancy. The House and the Senate's current
committee apparatus can take over the Joint Committee's functions and
eliminate the excessive overhead in the process.
On a voice vote, my subcommittee unanimously approved the reductions
we made. I am pleased to offer these cuts as part of the rescission
bill now before us.
Furthermore, I wish to commend the gentleman from Louisiana, Chairman
Livingston, for his tenacious hard work and his dedication to deficit
reduction. This is a transitional time in America. The voters asked for
a smaller government that spends less, taxes less, and regulates less.
We must make some difficult choices to accomplish our goal. However,
the voters elected us to make those tough choices. We must and we will.
The American people, their kids and grandkids are counting on us.
I am proud of what we are doing today.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Hefner].
Mr. HEFNER. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
Mr. Chairman, the Republicans have a Contract With America. They are
proud of it. They had a 50-day celebration. They made a big to-do about
it. They should be proud of what they are doing with the Contract. It
is in the contract that you are going to have a cut that is going to
give a tax cut to the most wealthy, affluent Americans in this country.
And do it at the expense of the people who are the most vulnerable
people in our society: children, senior citizens, and veterans.
Make no mistake about it, that is going to happen. This money goes
into a pot. You can accept the amendments or whatever you want to do,
but this money is counted as cuts that you have made today and you are
going to use it for a tax cut.
I have a very limited amount of time here today, but I would like to
give you a couple of instances of what separates us, the Democrats,
from the Republicans. There was a group of consultants and people who
work regularly for the Republicans, having a meeting just around the
table with some of the people at Harper's.
Here are some of the things that were said when they talked about
social security. They said, they talked about cutting social security.
Mr. Frank Luntz, the Speaker's adviser, said, ``Philosophically, you
are right, but politically we can't do anything for at least 2 years
until we get the public's confidence.'' They also said, Mr. David Frum
said, ``The big programs like welfare, Medicaid and Medicare, will take
a little time to get rid of. But there is a lot of little ones that we
can get rid of right away.''
And Mr. Reed, who is a consultant for the Christian Coalition, says,
``The Legal Services Corporation, which provides legal aid for the
poorest in our country, would be a great one to start with.''
Be proud of your contract, but be honest about it. We are going to
have a tax cut for the wealthiest people in this country, and we are
going to put at risk the most vulnerable people in our society: the
little old lady huddling up in Connecticut because she does not have
the money to pay her heating bill, and the children who are going to be
suffering from the lunch program. It is going to happen.
You can do all the rhetoric you want, but that is what separates us.
I urge a vote--and I have never voted against a disaster in my life,
or an extension in my life--but this is one where I am going to make an
exception.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], the honorable whip for the majority
party.
Mr. DeLAY. I thank the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from
Louisiana, for yielding this time to me.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend the gentleman from Louisiana
[Mr. Livingston] for the work he has done on this bill.
I would just like to take this time to address two provisions in H.R.
1159 that act as moratoriums on Federal trip reduction requirements and
mandated emissions testing programs. The bottomline is simple: The
scant environmental benefits to be gained from these flawed programs
fall way short of the costs involved in implementing them.
I would like to thank Chairman Lewis for working with me on these
very important provisions and commend him for producing one of the
toughest subcommittee marks in this rescission bill.
By preventing EPA from enforcing these requirements through the end
of the fiscal year, we are giving the authorizing committee time to
reopen the Clean Air Act. Changes must be made to reflect the expensive
failures all of our constituents have encountered in dealing with these
programs. Likewise, we must give States the option to choose the
methods that work best for them to address their pollution problems.
EPA has backed off the trip reduction requirement. They acknowledge
its ineffectiveness and say they will not enforce it. But businesses
must still submit ``employee commute option'' plans to their States,
forcing employers to divert resources to comply.
The bottomline is that the law is still on the books and just because
EPA says it will not enforce it now, there is nothing to stop them from
reversing their position in the future.
[[Page H3199]] This situation is causing significant uncertainty in
the business community.
The moratorium in this legislation would provide that certainty until
the Congress has an opportunity to reevaluate the authorizing language.
As far as the federally mandated emissions programs go, a virtual
rebellion has occurred in those States required to implement them. Of
the 28 States forced to comply, 22 programs have been delayed or
suspended or the State has refused to comply altogether.
For example: in Maine the program was suspended after only 2 months
due to the high number of false failures and reports of vehicle damage;
in a demonstration in Denver, in January, cars were actually
deliberately rigged to fail the IM 240 emissions test but instead
passed with flying colors; according to a 1992 GAO report, the EPA
itself found that in one case, over 25 percent of the vehicles tested
using IM 240 failed initially, but then passed a second test, even
though no repairs were made; according to one State coordinator of the
so-called Green Party, ``This law is unfair to poor and working people
who cannot afford to pay $450 to have their cars fixed.'' Another
member said, ``The program won't accomplish what it is supposed to--
clean up the air.''
The fact is, that despite the EPA Administrator's pledge to grant
States flexibility on their emissions testing programs, EPA cannot be
trusted to handle these issues administratively. This moratorium
provides a desperately needed short term fix until a long-term
retooling of the requirement can be developed.
This bill doesn't repeal the laws that have broken down on the heads
of the American public. And it doesn't fix those laws either. All it
does is prevent the fact that these laws are broke from causing further
unnecessary pain.
Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I would also
like to thank the gentleman for this discourse which he has begun on
this very important question.
As the gentleman knows, there are many, many States under the gun of
the EPA on the auto emissions issue, and we want them to pause. They
said they are going to pause, as the gentleman indicated. But how do we
know they are not going to unpause and begin the process all over
again, when we are still not sure of the standards that are going to be
applied, how they are going to be tested, what mechanisms the States
are going to be given option to utilize?
It is important that we help the EPA help themselves.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to he time remaining
on each side?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] has 9\1/2\
minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]
has 9 minutes remaining.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Cleveland, OH [Mr. Stokes].
Mr. STOKES. I thank the distinguished ranking minority member, the
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] for yielding this time to me.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 1158, the
bill making emergency supplemental appropriations and making
rescissions for the fiscal year 1995. This bill would drastically cut
funding for programs that are vital to the most vulnerable and needy in
our society. As I stated in my remarks opposing the rule to this bill,
numerous attempts by my Democratic colleagues failed to override the
cold and callous reductions contained in this measure.
Everyone voting on this bill today should understand what these
actions mean to millions of Americans. It has been said that none of
the cuts in this bill would hurt people--that the cuts occur
prospectively. This is not the case. No matter how some may want to
justify these reductions, this rescissions bill is a prescription for
disaster. It is an assault on the very basic and essential programs
that impact the daily well-being of Americans; education, health,
housing, and jobs. That is why I am opposed to the bill before us
today.
Even if you support the argument that our Nation needs to be more
vigilant in its efforts to reduce the Federal deficit, there is no
grounds for the inequity in the rescissions in this bill. The figures
derived were not from any set target or economic formula. These amounts
were arbitrarily picked by the Committee Chairmen. In the end, the pain
and burden of this bill is placed squarely upon the shoulders of the
poor, the elderly, and the children of this country. These are the
people who are really jeopardized by this legislation.
Let's talk about these cuts and the nearly one-half million elderly
and almost 1\1/2\ million children living in public housing who will be
harmed by the almost $3 billion slashed from public housing programs at
HUD.
These elderly are predominantly single and disabled women, living by
themselves. They are the same constituents who have approached each and
every one of us about the need to provide special housing facilities
for the
elderly apart from special housing for the disabled and mentally ill.
After years of negotiation to ensure that the housing needs of all
special populations are met fairly by HUD, this bill in one fell swoop
eliminates the 5,000 new section 8 vouchers and certificates which
would be used for this purpose.
This cut, which completely eliminates the 69,000 new rental
assistance vouchers, would also mean that 12,000 certificates reserved
for homeless women with children--the fastest growing segment of
homeless persons in America--would be rescinded. Additionally, the
3,000 certificates set aside for homeless persons with AIDS would be
zeroed out.
Ironically, this bill cuts section 8 vouchers and certificates which
are used by FEMA to provide assistance to families displaced by the
Northridge earthquake in California, the same disaster for which we are
providing assistance for in this supplemental. How do you provide
disaster relief for them in one hand and take it away from them in the
other?
People living with HIV/AIDS are further harmed by the reductions in
this bill that eliminate funds for the housing for persons with HIV/
AIDS [HOPWA] program. This cold-hearted action virtually takes away the
only chance that people infected with HIV/AIDS and their families have
for housing at their most dire time of need. Slashing the funds for
this program will force people with HIV/AIDS--a growing number of whom
are women with children both infected or affected by HIV--into the
streets. This destroys any chance they may have had of leading a normal
life while undergoing treatment or any chance of dying with dignity.
Mr. Chairman, if this is not enough, what chance do our children have
when their brains and development are impaired as a result of ingesting
lead-based paint with this bill which reduces the lead based paint
abatement program at HUD?
One of the few possible sources of funding that may have been
available to ease the loss of Federal funding for assisted housing
half-way through the year, the community development block grant, is
also targeted for a cut. Every State and local jurisdiction across this
Nation benefits from this important program. In States like Georgia--
recovering from devastating summer floods--FEMA has utilized CDBG
monies in conjunction with its efforts to restore disaster communities.
This bill eliminates $350 million from CDBG.
This list goes on and on with what I consider to be short-sighted and
mean spirited rescissions. It is important that we defeat this bill
which hurts our most needy citizens.
Lastly, this is what this bill does:
Funding for Healthy Start is cut $10 million. This program provides
resources and assistance to urban and rural communities with high
infant mortality rates; 2,200 pregnant women will not receive primary
care; 33,000 prenatal visits will be eliminated; 3,000 pediatric
appointments will be eliminated; 5,800 clients will not receive child
care; 3,267 clients will not receive skill and job training.
Funding for low-income home energy assistance is terminated. Millions
of children and elderly will be forced to choose between heating and
food.
Funding for summer youth jobs has been completely eliminated, and
funding for youth employment training has been cut by more than 50
percent. Approximately 1.2 million young people will no longer have
summer jobs, and 318,000 will not receive employment training. This
action leaves over 1 million young people on the streets in our inner
cities and rural areas with missed opportunities, lack of hope, and
nothing constructive to do.
The bill destroys the school to work, the tech-prep program and the
youth fair chance program. Funds have been completely eliminated for
these programs.
Funding for veterans' medical assistance has been cut $206 million.
Funding for homeless veterans' employment training has been terminated.
Funding has been terminated for the Safe and Drug Free Schools
Program. Ninety-four percent of our Nation's schools will lose critical
resources for student safety and drug abuse prevention.
Funding for higher education is cut more than $237 million, and
includes a $111 million cut in financial aid. These cuts will place the
pursuit of a college education outside the reach of thousands of
students; $7.3 billion has been cut from HUD housing programs.
[[Page H3200]] These are but a cross section of the cuts in
``people'' programs. The action taken by the Republican majority is not
only unconscionable but also very mean-spirited.
This bill is a prescription for disaster. It hurts the elderly, our
children, our veterans, and low income people. I urge my colleagues to
defeat this bill.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
North Carolina [Mr. Ballenger].
{time} 1515
Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to engage in a brief
colloquy regarding State OSHA programs with Chairman Porter.
The committee bill includes a $16 million reduction in OSHA spending
for fiscal year 1995. As I understand it, this rescission represents
the entire increase over the fiscal year 1994 appropriation. The agency
will have an operating budget of $296,428,000 for fiscal year 1995.
I would like to clarify one point. In fiscal year 1994, State program
enforcement received $68.630 million and State program enforcement
received $70.615 million in fiscal year 1995, an increase of $1.985
million. It is my understanding that State programs will not be reduced
by any more than the original increase of $1.985 million.
Mr. Chairman, I ask the gentleman, is this your understanding?
Mr. PORTER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BALLENGER. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
Mr. PORTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina
for his question. It is also my understanding that the State plan
programs will not receive a disproportionate share of the cuts and will
receive the same level of funding appropriated for fiscal year 1994.
Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for
clarifying the point.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Coleman].
(Mr. COLEMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I gave all of my colleagues on that side
of the aisle an opportunity to make some more cuts, and they did not
take it. I say to my colleagues, you remember the amendment I took to
the Rules Committee as the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on
Transportation? I provided you an opportunity to go after some highway
demo projects. But they would have been in your district, just like
they would have been in Democratic districts, and you opted out of that
one.
So, Mr. Chairman, I do not want to hear any more speeches about tough
choices and courage on this bill when they go after the elderly and the
veterans in my district and the kids in my district. I do not call
those tough choices. I call that kind of a chicken way out because, as
I said, you had a chance to cut highway demo projects, by the way, up
to $2 million, if you wanted to, from ISTEA and House Appropriations
Committee highway demo project, but, no.
I want to tell the American people, and I want to tell all of my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle, you took the easy way out. We
don't want to harm any of our colleagues' projects because, after all,
we don't really think that's pork when it comes to our projects; do we?
So the statements of the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier] and
the statements of the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]
notwithstanding, it is not our side that wants business as usual. I say
to my colleagues, I gave you the opportunity, yet you would not allow
in this closed rule for me to present this amendment, and I didn't take
the money and put it anywhere else. I was just going to allow you to
cut another $400 million in my amendment. Or up to $2 billion if you
had offered one and made a more serious rescission package. I would
have preferred you not to take school lunches. I would have preferred
you not to hurt my veterans. I would have preferred you not to hurt the
elderly. But I didn't even require that you not do that. I gave you a
chance, and you didn't take it.
So, Mr. Chairman, I think it is high time we all stopped praising
ourselves over on that side of the aisle in the Republican Party and
patting yourselves on the back. It is time that they fessed up and
admitted they did not do what they could have done.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from North Carolina [Mr. Barr].
Mr. BARR. Mr. Chairman, I rise to engage the gentleman from
California [Mr. Lewis], who chairs the subcommittee dealing with HUD,
in a colloquy if he is willing.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BARR. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I would be very pleased to do
so.
Mr. BARR. Mr. Chairman, many communities throughout the State of
Georgia, including those within my own district, have raised a concern
regarding the proposed reduction of $349 million in community
development block grants. I am informed that the cut amounts to as much
as an 8 percent reduction from what has already been publicly announced
and communicated to them.
Mr. LEWIS of California. The gentlemen is correct. Many local
communities have been notified of their fiscal year 1995 allocations
and have initiated community meetings to plan for the release of CDBG
monies for the wide variety of eligible purposes.
Mr. BARR. So can we expect the committee to help us make a
determination of how to assure these communities that they will receive
what they were previously promised?
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I commend the gentleman from
Georgia [Mr. Barr] for his efforts.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Indiana [Mr. Burton].
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I think this is a very important
bill. It has 20 pages of cuts, approximately $20 billion. But one of
the things that really bothers me is that at a time we are making very
strong cuts to get this budget under control, we are sending up to $52
billion down to Mexico. The President circumvented the Congress of the
United States and did that by himself with the Secretary of the
Treasury from the exchange stabilization fund.
Fifty-two billion dollars.
Mr. Chairman, we are cutting $20 billion out of this, and at the same
time we are cutting Americans, and we should do that to get the budget
balanced, we are sending $52 billion to Mexico. This is at a time when
their peso is dropping like a rock and our dollar is dropping right
with it because, in part, of our sending that $52 billion down there.
The American people do not want us sending their taxpayers' dollars
down to Mexico, and we cannot even get a vote on it in this House of
Representatives. One of the things that I think is extremely important,
if we are asking Americans to take a hit in order to get this budget
balanced, we should do the same thing in foreign policy, and we should
tell the people in leadership here, and in the other body, and at the
White House, ``We want an up or down vote on the Mexican bailout.''
Mr. OBEY. How much time does each side have remaining, Mr. Chairman?
The CHAIRMAN. Five and a half minutes on each side.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
California [Ms. Pelosi].
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, in a famous court case a Supreme Court
Justice said of obscenity, ``I know it when I see it.''
Mr. Chairman, we see it here today in the form of the Republican
rescission bill on the floor. The bill abandons all sense of decency by
cutting programs for children and seniors in order to cut taxes for the
wealthiest Americans. Mr. Chairman, because the Republican disaster
bill cuts investment in children, like nutrition, education and summer
jobs, it will create other problems which will increase the budget
deficit while it increases the human deficit.
Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, it is indecent to cut assistance to
homeless vets and to cut other veterans' medical benefits while giving
tax benefits to the wealthiest Americans and corporations. It is
indecent to cut home heating oil for senior citizens. It is indecent to
ask California's children to pay $2
[[Page H3201]] billion--$2 billion in assistance for the aid that
California will receive for the earthquake disaster.
Mr. Chairman, much has been said about saddling our children with
increased deficits--budget and human. We must defeat this bill today.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Manzullo].
Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the committee
recommendation to restrict funding in the bill for the imposition and
enforcement of requirements that the States implement trip reduction
measures to reduce automobile emissions.
Under the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, Mr. Chairman, businesses
that employ over 100 people in severe ozone nonattainment areas have
developed a plan for forced carpooling. This employee commute option is
supposed to encourage alternative means of transportation. However this
plan is costly and, in some cases, impractical and unnecessary, which
is why I applaud the restricting of the funding.
Mr. Chairman, in my home State of Illinois the estimated cost of
businesses to comply with the employee trip reduction mandate is as
high as $210 million a year, and data from southern California shows it
simply does not work. One rural county in my district is included in
the Chicago severe nonattainment zone and has no mass transit system,
and people would be left with no reasonable option other than to
instigate forced carpooling to comply with the mandate. This is
unacceptable, and I applaud the Governor for standing against it.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
New Jersey [Mr. Frelinghuysen].
(Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN asked and was given permission to revise and
extend his remarks.)
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1158.
Mr. Chairman, as a new Member of the House I voted for a balanced
budget amendment knowing full well that such a measure would require
tough choices. While some contend that we do not need such an
amendment, personally I feel our Nation's future depends on it. Our
national debt is staggering, our annual deficit continues to grow, and
our actions today on H.R. 1158 mark the first real step to protect
future generations. We are here for our children and grandchildren,
pure and simple. If we act today, we give them the greater measure of
security. Most important, this first tough vote may give them a chance
to have the opportunities we now enjoy, a great education, the prospect
of a good job and a quality of life unparalleled in the world.
My hometown paper urges that the majority party start to act in the
new Congress, actually to cut spending. It urges Congress to start
making the tough spending decisions now. While I don't always listen to
my hometown paper, they are right: Don't talk cut, cut sensibly, and my
constituents agree.
Our vote today will lead to a balanced budget. Let's be clear; this
package is a $17.2 billion reduction out of a total of a $1.5 trillion
budget. It is a 1.1-percent reduction.
The bottom line is that we need to start the process. What better
steps than to consolidate a horde of programs, some highly duplicative,
some unauthorized by Congress itself, some with unjustified increases
and others paralyzed in the money pipeline with little likelihood of
being spent.
Specifically, this bill reduces the HUD budget by $7.2 billion
dollars. It has become obvious that many HUD programs are not working.
The GAO and the inspector general's report reflect those facts. We need
to get the money to people who Congress intended to help. The money
does no good sitting in Washington.
Then there is the issue of scare tactics now that we are at decision
time. They are the same tactics used when we made the same tough
choices in my State. Again, we were told the sky would fall in. It did
not happen. What did happen was smaller, smarter government. And we
reduced taxes. We can and we will make the same tough choices in
Washington. We can and will balance the budget while ensuring that the
needy in our country are cared for.
Let us focus on some facts. Just one example: There have been many
false accusations about the impact of cuts proposed in the Department
of Housing. Despite a reduction of $7.2 billion, not one of the 4.8
million households currently subsidized by HUD will lose housing
assistance. In fact, if all these cuts are approved, HUD's spending
will still increase $3 billion over last year's level.
In the end its the Washington bureaucrats that are running scared.
And scared they should be. No longer will we fund programs that don't
work; no longer will we allow Federal bureaucrats to sit on taxpayers'
money. We will set priorities, we will limit the size of Government,
and we will do what we said we would--reduce the deficit, balance the
budget, and restore the future to our children. I urge the passage of
this bill.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New
York [Mrs. Lowey].
(Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her
remarks.)
Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1158,
the omnibus rescissions and disaster supplemental appropriations bill.
I strongly disagree with the priorities laid out by this bill. This
bill cuts the muscle but leaves the fat. We owe the American people
deficit reduction that builds on the major reductions we have made in
the last 2 years.
There are cuts we should make. We can and should cut the strategic
petroleum reserve, abolish numerous Federal commissions, eliminate the
Aerospace Marketing Division within the Department of Commerce, modify
the Triad force structure and delay the F-22 aircraft. These are just a
few of the cuts I have advocated and will continue to push.
But the bill does not touch these programs, and the rule does not
allow us to offer amendments to make those cuts instead of the cuts in
this bill, fighting drugs and crime in the schools, helping students
attend college, providing nutrition to infants and pregnant women,
supporting education and public broadcasting, offering summer job
opportunities. These are not the cuts we should be making.
Mr. Chairman, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from New York [Mr. Forbes].
Mr. FORBES. Mr. Chairman, fairy tales could come true, it could
happen to you.
We are going to be listening to a lot of nonsense on the floor,
poppycock, bogus, misleading false information. This is the kind of
rhetoric that is coming out of the other side. It is manufactured
dialogue with no basis in fact or reality, and I think we ought not to
lose sight of that, Mr. Chairman.
The fact of the matter is that we are doing the necessary business of
the Nation as asked of us on November 8 of 1994. We are making the
tough decisions, and we are not hurting children, we are not hurting
veterans, and we are not hurting senior citizens, and it is
unconscionable of the other side to raise that kind of false rhetoric.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.
Mr. Chairman, I say to my colleague: Tell the little old lady who I
met in Stevens Point who was living in the house that her husband had
built for her as a wedding present and who had boarded up every room in
the house and was living only in the living room, the bathroom, and the
kitchen, even sleeping on the dilapidated couch, who needed the home
heating assistance program in order to stay in that house--tell her
you're not going to hurt her by this action. I don't know how many
people you've met like that, but you ought to meet more of them. You
would know better than to say you're not hurting them.
{time} 1530
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Miller].
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for
yielding.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of this package of
spending cuts. This is a balanced package that will both pay for
emergency disaster relief and start us on our glidepath to a balanced
Federal budget. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I have
been intimately involved in the development of this bill, and I must
say I have been surprised by the overheated rhetoric from the other
side about the rescissions. Let us be clear what we're talking about.
This package represents just 1 percent of the Federal budget--1
percent.
[[Page H3202]] But we cannot, as we have in years past, simply pass a
supplemental appropriation and expect to just ``find'' this money
somewhere in the budget. As we were all told when we were young, money
does not grow on trees, and I think it is time for the Federal
Government to admit that fact.
We all have heard a lot of rhetoric about children. Folks, it's time
we face up to the fact that the most important step we can take for our
children is to balance the budget and stop leaving them an inheritance
of debt. Let us stop living beyond our means and claiming we are doing
it for the kids.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill in a bipartisan fashion.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio
[Ms. Kaptur].
(Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to revise and extend her
remarks.)
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill, and I am
proud to be a Democrat today.
Mr. Chairman, I would love to run against any Member of this Chamber
who votes to eliminate the summer jobs for our teenage sons and
daughters. I would be proud to run against any Member who votes to
eliminate the winter heating program that helps people like Sadie in my
district, a women who is 73 years old, worked all her life at a
laundry, raised a family, and now survives by picking up odd jobs at
age 72.
I would love to run against any Member who votes to eliminate this
program today for the hundreds of thousand of seniors across our
country who depend on this program, and then to take those savings and
save them up for a tax cut for the wealthiest people in our society,
rather than raising the money by closing tax loopholes that let
billions of dollars go out the back door by letting our pharmaceutical
companies manufacture abroad, or not close the transfer pricing
loophole that lets foreign companies do business in this country and
not pay their bills.
Mr. Chairman, I would love to run against anybody that votes to
eliminate summer jobs and this winter heating program.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Mollohan].
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking minority member.
Ladies and gentlemen, I really do not know what the majority speakers
who have argued that this does not represent real cuts for real people
mean. Because it does take away from real people's programs.
In my remarks on the rule, I commented that the bill sets up a face
off between the emergency supplemental needs of States experiencing
disasters and domestic critical discretionary programs. It ravages
discretionary spending and sets up an unfortunate model for funding
into the future whenever we have disasters.
We are cutting programs which benefit the most volunerable in this
country under this legislation. We should be, Mr. Chairman, looking at
these programs more carefully. We should be sympathetic to California
disasters. But if we do not want to fund California disasters as
emergencies, we should find some other formula. Maybe we should start
an insurance program for disasters. But to us this as an excuse for
making cuts in discretionary spending, in child nutrition, in youth
summer programs, in homeless assistance grants, in community
development, to cut housing $7.3 billion, is absolutely unconscionable.
Now, what we are funding for the disasters is $5.3 billion. What are
we going to do with the other $12 billion not associated with the
California disasters? Is it associated with a tax cut? I suspect it is,
and I suspect that this bill includes rescissions to pay for high
income tax cuts by devastating domestic discretionary programs.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.
(Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, we are going into the amendment
process, a rather lengthy process, on this very important bill which
cuts a net of $11 billion in spending, the largest rescission bill in
the history of the country. It is a very important first step towards
balancing the budget.
Now, we have heard arguments that the deficits were caused by the
Reagan years, but everybody should know that Congress approves the
budget, Congress is the one that spends the money and raises the taxes.
And throughout the Reagan years, Ronald Reagan reduced taxes on the
American people, yet revenues went up and Congress spent more.
The reason we have the deficit is because Congress appropriated more
money than revenue received. Democrats controlled the House of
Representatives for the last 40 years; the Congress was responsible for
the deficit.
They never saw a program they did not like. They never saw a program
they did not want to take taxpayers' money and use it to tell them how
it should be best spent. Then when we finally try to get the spending
under control, we hear all of the bleeding hearts tell us how we are
cutting women and infants and children and all this other stuff. A cut
to them is an increase to any normal human being.
The WIC program, Women, Infants and Children Program, we are told we
are cutting. It is going up from $3.4 to $4.2 billion in the next 5
years. We are said to be cutting the school lunch program. It is going
up from $4.5 to $5.6 billion in the next 5 years. Those are not cuts,
those are increases.
We are trying to make this government more efficient. We are trying
to bring common sense to the budget, and we can hear this bleeding
heart stuff, this compassion game from now until eternity, but it will
not bring fiscal sanity to this country, and it risks the possibility
of total and unequivocal economic collapse and a lower standard of
living for every man, woman and child in this country in the future.
Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose H.R. 1158. Two-
thirds of the $17.1 billion in rescissions contained in H.R. 1158 are
taken from programs for children and the poor. While this fact
demonstrates the majority party's indifference to programs that impact
children, low-income families, and the elderly poor, the majority
party's indifference is compounded by the fact that these rescissions
were intended to offset part of the majority party's proposed package
of tax cuts that total $189 billion. When it was brought to light that
these cuts in programs for children and the poor were going to pay for
tax cuts for the rich, the majority party was forced to change their
strategy and dedicate the funds to deficit reduction.
I submit that this bill will only increase our nation's deficit. It
will increase our deficit in education, nutrition, housing, employment
and other services that our communities desperately need to raise the
future generations that will lead this nation. It decimates the
precious few dollars we spend on investments in our most important
asset--our human capital--and yet does not touch the tax credits,
subsidies, and direct benefits that corporations are feeding upon from
the Federal government.
H.R. 1158 cuts appropriations for low-income programs by 15% while
cutting appropriations for other programs by just 1%. Of H.R. 1158's
many rescissions, the following are some of the more egregious: All
$1.7 billion appropriated for the Summer Youth Employment Program for
the summers of 1995 and 1996 and thereby denies summer jobs to 600,000
low-income youth in each year; $7.2 billion in appropriations for
housing programs, including $5.7 billion for assisted housing; $1.7
billion in education appropriations, including all $482 million in FY
1995 appropriations for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program, $186
million from the Goals 2000 Program which includes state and local
grants to assist education reform, $232 billion in vocational and adult
education programs, and $63 million for Student Financial Aid under the
State Student Incentive Grant Program; and $206 million in veterans
programs, including $50 million for veterans medical care.
For the State of Hawaii, the rescissions package translates into cuts
totalling $73.5 million, including the following: $12.6 million for
Section 8 Housing vouchers and certificates, $7.4 million in Housing
modernization, and $1.45 million Housing subsidies; $4.4 million for
the Summer Jobs Program for the summers of 1995 and 1996; $2.2 million
for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program, $541 thousand for the Goals
2000 Program for grants for education reform, $413 thousand for the
Tech Prep Program which addresses the need for a more technologically
proficient work force, $303 thousand for the Education for Homeless
Children and Youth Program, $297 thousand for the Eisenhower
professional development program which provides
[[Page H3203]] state grants to assist in the professional development
of teachers in all the core academic subjects, and $260 thousand for
the State Student Incentive Grant program which may cause students to
lose their scholarships.
Of significant importance to my state is the elimination of two
programs dedicated to the well-being of the Native Hawaiian people. The
full remaining amount of Fiscal Year 1995 funds for the Native Hawaii
Education Act and the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act are rescinded in
this bill. The removal of these funds and proposed termination of both
programs constitutes an abrogation of Federal responsibility to the
native people of Hawaii.
Native Hawaiians are Native Americans. They occupied the land which
now constitutes the State of Hawaii for centuries prior to the islands'
annexation to the United States. The overthrow of the Hawaiian's
sovereign government in 1893 was achieved only through the illegal
actions of U.S. Government representatives.
For over 70 years, with bi-partisan support, the Congress has
acknowledged and reaffirmed the Federal Government's legal and moral
responsibility to the Native Hawaiian people by providing assistance
for the improvement of their social and economic welfare.
The Native Hawaiian Education and the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act
are among several programs designed to uphold the United States' trust
responsibility to the indigenous people of Hawaii. The termination of
these programs will have serious and detrimental consequences for the
most vulnerable Native Hawaiians--the elderly and the children--and
violate the integrity of the United States Government.
Yet in one fell swoop, without hearings or serious consideration by
the committee's with jurisdiction over Native American affairs, without
thought of the consequences, this rescissions package drives a wedge
into 70 years of history during which the Congress deliberately,
purposefully established programs for the Native Hawaiian people.
It is just another example of how these rescissions further shred the
social ``safety net'' of this country which has proved to be the
sustaining element of our society through recessions, inflation, times
of economic prosperity, through war and through peace. These
rescissions prove beyond doubt that the collective voice of those
Americans most impacted by these rescissions is but a faint echo, if
even that, at any caucus held by the majority party.
I strenuously oppose H.R. 1158 because in its attempt to complete the
implementation of the majority party's Contract with America, it
utterly decimates the more important Social Contract.
Mr. TORRES. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this cold
and heartless attack on our children, our veterans and our working
poor. Two days ago, I had lunch with some of my youngest constituents
at their elementary school in Pico Rivera, California. I wanted to see
for myself the importance of federal assistance programs and to learn
what these programs mean to the children and their teachers.
What I learned was heart-rending. It was heart-rending because for
many of these children, programs like Head Start, WIC, Summer Jobs, and
Drug Free Schools are the safety-net that keeps them from falling into
the abyss of drug abuse, gang violence and often death. It is a social
safety-net that is being stretched to the breaking point. This
rescission bill, with over a billion dollars in cuts to local school
districts, could rip a huge hole in this small but essential net. It is
appalling to think that there are people in Congress who would deny
this small but essential benefit. But that is exactly what the
Republican majority has decided to do.
energy and natural resources
The proposed reductions will also undercut important investments in
emerging energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies conducted
by the Department of Energy. I have to question the wisdom and
motivation behind cutting these conservation programs, when virtually
no funds were taken from the budgets for nuclear fission, nuclear
fusion, oil and coal programs. It almost seems as though any program
designed to aid the environment was targeted for life-threatening
surgery.
There are other cuts that I find baffling and which lead me to
question the priorities of the Republican leadership. For instance, the
rescission of $1.3 billion in Safe Drinking Water loans that are needed
to help States, localities and water suppliers protect the public from
waterborne diseases like deadly Cryptosporidium. I would also mention
the $145 million cut in the Energy Department's budget for cleaning up
nuclear waste in dozens of states around the country. These cuts, which
are now only figures on paper, could soon spell serious long-term
public health and safety problems.
Veterans
Mr. Chairman, I am extremely disappointed to see part of the
rescission package come at the expense of the already beleaguered
Veterans Affairs Medical facilities.
I spoke briefly in committee on this topic. But my resolve has not
diminished. Today I am compelled to stand up for a group of
people, 3.5 million under-represented citizens, from Puerto Rico and
the many veterans that live on the island.
Last year $34 million was provided to build an outpatient facility at
the VA Medical Center in San Juan, P.R., $4 million was approved to
complete the design and initial stages of the facility in FY 1994. With
the funding slated for FY 1995, construction was expected to begin
shortly.
Veterans Administration Secretary Jesse Brown considers this VA
outpatient addition a top priority. He visited the hospital in October
of 1994. during that visit he told the head of the hospital that he was
``angered, surprised and sickened,'' by what he saw.
The outpatient facility addresses a 15-year old problem of severe
overcrowding at the existing San Juan Medical Center. The current
situation leaves doctors to conduct medical examinations in the
hallways and nursing stations.
In Puerto Rico, demand for VA medical services is almost four times
greater than the national average. Outpatient care has proven to be
both effective and cost efficient. The San Juan VA Medical Center
cannot shift resources from inpatient to outpatient care without the
new facility. Construction on this project should not be delayed.
Today's action is just a step toward fulfilling the so-called
``contract,'' But, this action is a breach of the contract we have with
our Nation's veterans. Our Nation's veterans deserve better.
The Republican leadership has declared a new war on poverty, but in
fact they have declared war on the poor and the middle class. They
claim to be cutting spending in order to pay for a natural disaster
program. But these cuts are themselves a disaster in the making,
because they are cutting vital social programs while programs wealthy
corporations go untouched.
We are all for deficit reduction. In fact, Democrats voted to reduce
the deficit by over $400 billion last Congress, without a single
Republican vote. As long as the Republican leadership insists on
providing breaks for the well-to-do, it is my responsibility to defend
the average Americans who stand to lose the most.
Today's action is a step toward fulfilling the so-called
``contract.'' But, this action is a breach of the contract we have with
the American people. The contract we have with the American people
includes all Americans, not just the wealthy but all of our citizens,
whether they are young or elderly, black or white, rich or poor. The
American public simply deserves better than we are offering here today.
Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition
to H.R. 1158. This legislation constitutes a mean-spirited and ill-
advised attack on the well-being of our children and the health of our
environment. While cutting deep into programs which benefit the less
fortunate in our society, H.R. 1158 leaves the fat cats and corporate
welfare beneficiaries unscathed.
Because my time is limited, I will focus my remarks on a few of the
objectionable provisions in this bill.
At a time when we hear much rhetoric about family values from the
Republican majority, this bill rescinds $25 million from the special
nutrition program for women, infants and children, one of the most cost
effective and beneficial Federal programs. We should be spending more
money on the WIC Program, not taking away desperately needed assistance
to mothers and their children.
At a time when the Republican majority is preparing to end Federal
welfare programs under the guise of encouraging work, it rescinds $2.3
billion from Labor Department job training programs which help young
people to obtain meaningful work.
At a time when the Republican majority talks about creating an
opportunity society, this bill rescinds $1.6 billion in education
program funding, shutting the door on our children.
At a time when the Republican majority doesn't mention the word
environment in their contract because they know that the public
overwhelmingly supports laws which protect our environment, this bill
contains a blank check to ravage our national forests under the banner
of salvage sales. In their rush to judgment, the majority didn't even
bother going through the proper committees and include this authorizing
language only through a waiver of the House rules.
At a time when the Republican majority takes great pride in defending
property rights, this bill snubs private property owners who are
willing sellers of their land by decimating the Department of the
Interior's land acquisition budget.
[[Page H3204]] At a time when the Republican majority complains that
the Park Service is underfunded and uses that as an excuse to oppose
new park acquisitions, this bill rescinds $22.8 million from the park
construction budget.
At a time when the Republican majority wants to increase the role of
State and local governments, this bill eliminates the urban park and
recreation fund's entire budget of $7.4 million.
Mr. Chairman, this bill is riddled with misguided cuts and missed
opportunities to cut subsidies for corporate welfare. I have introduced
H.R. 721, the Public Resources Deficit Reduction Act of 1995, which
would recover more than $3 billion a year lost through unjustified
subsidies for timber, mining, grazing and water. While H.R. 1158 guts
environmentally beneficial programs it completely ignores these
environmentally destructive subsidies and the rule precludes any
consideration of the provisions of my legislation.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, H.R. 1158 is flawed because it contains
special interest provisions which are utterly irrelevant to deficit
reduction. As just one example, the committee report accompanying H.R.
1158 includes language which is intended to bypass the Resources
Committee and repeal section 3601(C)(1) of the 1992 Central Valley
Project Improvement Act. That section required a study to address fish,
wildlife and habitat concerns in the San Joaquin River and is objected
to by certain heavily subsidized irrigation interests. While it is
obvious that report language can not repeal a statute and this report
language is not enforceable and non-binding on the Bureau of
Reclamation, it does reflect the extent of the feeding frenzy that the
subsidized special interests engaged in with cooperation from the
Republican majority on this legislation.
Mr. REED. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to object to yet another attack
by the Republicans on America's most vulnerable citizens. This time,
the target is low income and elderly Americans who rely on public
housing assistance. Last week, House Republicans reported a rescission
package totaling $17.3 billion dollars. Forty percent of the cuts came
from one Department; the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
These Housing rescissions cut across virtually all of the Department's
housing programs, from public housing projects to elderly housing, and
from tenant-based rental assistance to homeownership initiatives for
working families. Rhode Island stands to lost $73.5 million dollars.
In Rhode Island alone, we are expected to lose over $9 million
dollars in modernization funds and operating subsidies for housing
authorities throughout the State. This will severely hurt city and town
officials because these reductions come in the middle of the fiscal
year. Without warning, they will be left with less money to run and
maintain public housing buildings where mostly elderly, low income and
disabled people live. Without proper funding, many households will be
displaced throughout Rhode Island and the Nation.
In addition, Republicans have cut $2.7 Billion in the Incremental
Rental Assistance Program. This means 69,000 rental certificates and
vouchers will be denied to low-income citizens who need some assistance
in paying their rent. Rhode Island's funding for Section 8 Rental
Assistance has been cut by $22 million dollars. This is a loss of 209
units, which means that those households with so-called Federal
preferences will spend more time on Rhode Island's waiting list. Those
without Federal preferences could wait forever. How can we expect to
reduce government assistance to low income people when we gut programs
that are designed to move these individuals from dependence to
independence?
Mr. Chairman, when so much talk around here is about reforming our
welfare system and ``empowering'' our citizens, it disappoints me
greatly that Republicans have decided to rescind funding for programs
that are designed to encourage self-sufficiency. One such program is
the Tenant-Based Rental Assistance Program, an approach that was hailed
by former Republican HUD Secretaries Jack Kemp and Carla Hills as the
primarily Federal program for helping low income families achieve
decent housing. This program maximizes individual choice and requires
minimal government interference in the private market, yet the
Republicans believe it is not worthy of proper funding.
It is important to point out that the rescissions to HUD will also
have a major impact upon our children. Among the funding on the
Republican chopping block is the lead hazard reduction fund. This
funding is necessary to reduce the high level of lead based paint still
found in many homes throughout America. In fact, my district has been
faced with the increased health and educational problems found in
children who have been exposed to lead. About one-third of children
under six in the Elmwood area of Providence have blood lead levels high
enough to require medical care. In 1994, 25 kids were hospitalized in
Rhode Island for lead-related heath problems. Without this funding,
these homes will go unprotected and result in higher cases of children
being exposed to lead.
In addition to hurting our children and the elderly, the Republican
rescission bill eliminates $297 million dollars to help fight this
Nation's homelessness problem including the deletion of 3,000 housing
certificates for persons with AIDS who are homeless. This action by the
House Appropriations Committee will only increase the current rate of
homelessness.
Republicans have argued that this rescission package will be used to
reduce government spending. At the same time, they propose a tax cut
that benefits families making over $100,000, a capital gains tax break
that will cost $183 billion over the next 10 years, and a so called
``neutral cost recovery'' tax break for capital intensive companies. So
while the American people are hearing from Republicans about how they
are reducing spending, the reality is they are reducing spending on the
poor, the elderly and our children to help finance tax breaks for the
wealthiest Americans.
The people I mentioned tonight--the elderly, the children, the
disabled, the homeless, the poor, anybody who benefits from HUD--will
all be worse off it this rescission bill passes. Make no mistake about
it, if this bill passes Congress, the only public housing for many
people will be on the streets of America.
Mr. Chairman, I urge Members to call their local housing officials
and ask them if this bill will make it easier or harder for them to run
their programs. If they tell you that these cuts will make it easier,
then I recommend you to support this bill. If, like the officials I
have spoken with, tell you this will severely hamper their programs, I
ask you to join me in opposing this bill.
Mr. BORSKI. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1158,
the Omnibus Rescissions and Supplemental Appropriations Act. This is
the most mean-spirited bill that I have ever seen come before the House
for consideration. This bill would literally take food from the mouths
of children and send millions of senior citizens into poverty. And for
what? Not to balance the budget. These cuts would go to pay for
emergency appropriations and to finance massive tax cuts for high-
income Americans.
This legislation cuts previously approved funding to pay for $5.4
billion in disaster relief for California, even though under the 1990
Budget Enforcement Act such funds are regarded as emergency
requirements, which do not have to be offset by cuts in other programs.
But, this bill goes even further, making cuts totaling $17.1 billion in
order to begin financing tax breaks, 80 percent of which will go to
those making over $100,000. The large majority of these spending cuts
are aimed at children and low-income elderly. The majority party in
this House is taking money away from the weakest in our society and
using it to help the most powerful. Clearly, this is Robin Hood in
reverse.
This package slashes funding from clearly successful programs that
assist young and unborn children. $25 million will be cut from WIC, the
Women, Infants and Children nutrition program. $10 million will be cut
out of Healthy Start, a prenatal nutrition and care program. All of the
funds for Safe and Drug-Free Schools will be eliminated.
An even larger share of the cuts in this package would be targeted at
low-income senior citizens. In the last 30 years, the proportion of
elderly living below the poverty line has been cut substantially
because of a variety of programs. This package would strike at the
heart of these same programs, forcing many seniors to fall below the
poverty line.
More than a million senior citizens now live in federally assisted
housing. This bill would cut $7 billion from housing assistance,
resulting in future shortages of decent housing and a reduction in
upkeep and security in units already occupied.
In addition, this package would eliminate funds that provide
assistance to elderly households to pay their winter heating bills.
Eliminating LIHEAP will force millions of senior citizens to choose
between heat and medicine.
This package also attacks the older worker program which provides job
opportunities to low-income Americans over the age of 55. These jobs
give older Americans the chance to earn an income while providing
services to local communities such as weatherization, park and play-
ground maintenance, and working with underprivileged children. $14.4
million will be cut out of this program.
Veterans are also targeted by this legislation. Over $200 million
will be cut from veterans' medical facilities and equipment. These cuts
will come at a time when more and more veterans are reaching the age
where they will need more medical service.
Mr. Chairman, it is becoming infinitely more clear every day that the
majority in this House intends to protect their friends and special
interests and do nothing to help middle-income Americans.
Unfortunately, this bill is only the
[[Page H3205]] beginning. I urge my colleagues to vote against it.
Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Chairman, the House Republican
Leadership has set in motion a process that endangers earthquake and
flood assistance to California. The Republican Leadership decided on
February 7, 1995, to require other States and other programs to be cut
to pay for the earthquake and flood assistance needed in California.
Spending cuts have never been required in other emergencies, emergency
spending is specifically excluded from needing offsets in the Budget
Act, and this action sets in motion a confrontation that California
does not need and may not win.
But the tragedy is that this bill is not about emergency aid. This
bill is really a ``Trojan Horse'' in which the Republican Leadership
has stuffed cuts of nearly $12 billion beyond those needed for the
emergencies. These cuts were intended for use as an offset for part of
the Republican tax cut, a bill that hasn't even been written yet and
won't be debated until next month. Then, facing opposition to this
approach, the Republican Leadership decided to take those excess cuts
and put them toward deficit reduction.
To pay for this, the Republican Leadership has cut housing programs,
veterans programs, EPA water and sewer grants, and NASA programs to pay
for this earthquake and flood assistance. They have pitted homeless
people in Chicago, against disabled veterans in Texas, against towns in
Kansas trying to pay for clean water upgrades, against the people of
Northridge. This just isn't fair. Even worse, it isn't needed.
Florida Hurricanes, Missouri Floods, and every other emergency in the
past have not required offsets. The Republican Leadership has broken
new ground by requiring these program cuts. They have, in effect,
broken a contract with the residents of California. If the Republicans
want to require ``pay as you go'' provisions to apply to emergencies,
change the Budget Act or propose legislation for self-insuring funds,
like many Democrats have done, such as Representative Mineta.
In essence, the Republican Leadership has engaged in a game of
``chicken'' with the White House and the Democrats in Congress and have
dragged the people of Northridge along for the ride. We may not be able
to pass this legislation because of the political fights that the
Republicans have started. We may see delay or even cuts to the
assistance package. And, at the end of the day, the President may have
to veto this bill, due to the unthinking cuts the Republicans have
made. And the tragedy is that none of this needed to happen in the
first place.
Mr. RUSH. Mr. Chairman, I rise this evening in strong opposition to
the mean-spirited and remarkably calloused rescissions bill which we
are in the process of considering in this body. I do so with a heavy
heart and a strong sense of foreboding about the effects of many of the
random cuts in worthwhile programs within this bill. There are several
which I felt particularly strongly about, and therefore I had authored
and filed amendments to restore three particular rescissions. However,
due to the restrictive rule which was authorized for consideration of
H.R. 1158, I am regrettably unable to offer these amendments. This is
another in an incessant progression of restrictions placed upon me and
other Members of this Congress who, while striving to represent their
constituents, have been prevented from doing so by the majority.
Three especially onerous rescissions, in my opinion, are those
regarding public housing, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
[LIHEAP], and the summer jobs program. In districts like Illinois'
First Congressional District whose residents have largely not yet
benefited from the improvements in the Nation's economy, the succession
of economic blows which these rescissions will land squarely on the
backs of those who can least afford such brutality is utterly
unconscionable and perhaps even somewhat bewildering.
The bill strikes more than two billion dollars for public housing
operating subsidies, modernization and development. Mr. Chairman,
nearly one fifth of my constituents live in public housing. Among the
developments in my district are some of the more notorious in the
Nation, including the Robert Taylor Homes and many others. Working in
close conjunction with HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and with the
support of the first President in more than a decade that understands
and cares about what happens to the Federal Government's tenants, we
have been laboring mightily to improve the plight of public housing
residents. I am shocked, appalled and dismayed at the sweeping and
damaging nature of the public housing-related rescissions which are
under consideration today in this body. For Chicago alone, the public
housing operating subsidy reduction would be more than $68 million, the
modernization reduction would be more than $25 million, and millions
more would be taken out of funding for development and major
reconstruction of obsolete public housing units. These cuts add genuine
injury to the insults which public housing residents have endured for
time immemorial.
Speaking of insults, what justifications can this body's
appropriators offer to defend their complete elimination of the summer
youth employment program? Can they really believe that prison
construction and lip service to false, Jack Kemp-style ``empowerment''
can be the only substitute for creating genuine economic opportunity,
real reduction of reliance on welfare, and consequent real reductions
in crime? Chicago's youth will pay a drastic price for these
reductions: of the $35 million which Illinois received last year, more
than one third went for jobs programs in the city of Chicago. There is
an identifiable human component to these cuts: some 65,000 Chicago
youth have been helped by this program in the past 5 years, but over
10,000 additional youths, most of whom will have no alternative
employment prospects of any kind, will be left on the street in the
future as a result of the elimination of this program.
Moreover, as my colleagues from northern States know, the Low-Income
Home Energy Assistance Program plays an essential role in keeping many
low-income families warm throughout the winter months. I should point
out that a large percentage of these families are either elderly or
have young children, which are the two segments of society that are the
most vulnerable to the elements found in colder climates. And Mr.
Chairman, it is important to add that not only do States in the north
rely on this program, southern States also utilize LIHEAP to assist
families to pay cooling bills in those areas that are subject to
extreme summertime temperatures. Again, these families from the south
that utilize LIHEAP funding are mostly elderly or live with young
children.
The State of Illinois alone receives 6 percent of total available
LIHEAP funding. This means that over 238,000 families received an
average of $258 in the last program year. If this rescission package
passes this body with the cuts in LIHEAP funding intact, all of these
Illinois families will have to look elsewhere for help in paying their
heating bills. In my district, if you consider that \1/3\ of these
families are on AFDC, and one third are elderly Americans on Social
Security, and \3/4\ of the total number of families receiving LIHEAP
are headed by single mothers, you are left with a painful and
unanswerable question: how will these families come up with money to
pay their heating bills? Many will be forced to make decisions on what
other basic necessity must be foregone in order to pay heating costs.
Elderly recipients will be forced to choose which prescription they
will leave unfilled; mothers will have to choose which child will go
hungry; and families will be sent into homeless shelters because they
cannot pay their monthly obligations.
As was the case with the public housing and summer jobs funding, I
had hoped to offer an amendment to restore funding for LIHEAP and
remove the program from the rescissions hit list. My friends who
support eliminating LIHEAP just do not get it--millions of families
around this Nation rely desperately on LIHEAP support. This program is
not a boondoggle, but rather is a matter of life and death for many,
pure and simple.
Mr. Chairman, the actions that the majority in House are sanctioning
today are a direct, blatant attack on the poor and disadvantaged in
this country. There are a host of other programs which will also be
decimated, including Community Development Block Grants--some $7.6
million of which was earmarked for Chicago--and all funding for the
groundbreaking Community Development Financial Institutions Fund on
which I and others worked hard in the 103d Congress. I can only hope,
once the hugely detrimental effects of these and other proposed cuts
come home to the American people, that my colleagues in the majority
will be justifiably and permanently restored to the minority party
status which they are so richly earning.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I am in strong opposition to the Republican
Rescissions Package before the House today. In my view, this bill is
part of a larger GOP agenda to advantage the wealthiest of Americans at
the expense of low-income children and the elderly poor.
Mr. Chairman, the Congress is currently operating under the Budget
Enforcement Act of 1990 which sets out the criteria for Congress to
respond to ``dire emergencies'' with supplemental appropriations.
President Clinton was correct in declaring the situation in
California--and elsewhere--a dire emergency and requesting $6.7 billion
in disaster-related supplemental appropriations. Under the Budget
Enforcement Act, this spending does not have to be offset by spending
cuts in other programs.
If the Republican Leadership disagrees with the Budget Enforcement
Act, then they should propose to amend it to create a special emergency
fund within the budget to be used to respond to natural disasters. In
future years, this would eliminate the need to make dire emergency
supplemental appropriations that are
[[Page H3206]] not included in the annual budget agreement. However,
the Republican majority has made no such long-term proposal. Instead,
they are attempting to use the California disaster as an excuse to cut
popular programs that primarily assist disadvantaged children and the
elderly poor.
The bill before us provides $5.4 billion in disaster relief but $17.1
billion in program cuts. The bill should not be considered in isolation
from the larger Republican agenda. Next week, the House is expected to
consider the Republican welfare reform legislation which would cut up
to $70 billion from programs to assist low-income individuals and
families. Following that bill, the Budget Committee is expected to
report legislation that would lower the caps for discretionary programs
by an additional $100 billion over the next 5 years, thus further
cutting important programs for low-income families. These cuts are
necessary to offset the $189 billion in tax cuts--primarily for upper-
income Americans and corporations--expected to be passed as part of the
Republican contract later this month.
The bill before the House today would:
Terminate summer employment programs for 600,000 disadvantaged youth;
Cut over $100 million from education programs for disadvantaged
children;
Terminate the program that helps more than 6 million poor families
pay their home heating bills;
Cut housing assistance for 630,000 poor families with children;
Cut housing assistance for 530,000 elderly Americans;
Terminate the program that provides housing for people with AIDS;
Cut 30 percent of the funds for public broadcasting; and
Cut over $200 million from VA medical programs.
Other cuts in this bill, such as the Healthy Start Program to reduce
infant mortality and the nutritional program for women, infants, and
children designed to decrease high-cost childhood medical problems, are
only going to add to the Federal deficit in the long run. Eliminating
housing assistance for more than 50,000 people with AIDS is not going
to save money. Without housing, these people will become even sicker
and end up in more costly hospital-based care. By cutting $186 million
from this program, the Federal budget deficit will be increased through
higher entitlement spending.
If this bill was about deficit reduction, then it would be part of an
orderly process responding to a revised 5- or 7-year budget agreement.
But it is not. If this bill was about responding to President Clinton's
request to provide dire emergency funding for the California disasters,
then it would be addressed in an orderly process as provided for under
the Budget Enforcement Act. But it is not.
This bill is the beginning of a radical effort on the part of the
Republican majority to provide tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans
and tax breaks for corporations at the expense of safety-net programs
for Americans who have the greatest need for assistance. This bill is
part of a larger agenda which does not reflect the majority views of
the American people. I urge my colleagues to oppose the Republican
rescissions package.
Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, my Republican colleagues like
to say they have a Contract With America. Well they sure as heck could
have fooled me. With this bill the GOP is severely violating a contract
that this body made with the American people just last year to ensure
that the interests of our most vulnerable citizens--our low-income
children, seniors, and veterans--are protected.
At a townhall meeting I held in my congressional district in Chicago
last week, my constituents decried the efforts of the Speaker and his
band of merrymen to steal from the poor and give to the rich. They
expressed outrage at the insolent attitude of the majority party that
caters to the monied interests in Washington while leaving them,
literally, out in the cold. They challenged the leadership in this
Chamber to propose solutions to the problems that continue to ail us
rather than simply oppose all Federal programs that are currently in
existence. In short, Mr. Chairman, my constituents demanded that this
Congress produce results, not some fancy, 100-day public relations
campaign.
Oh, if only the Speaker could have been there. Maybe then the
legislation before us would reflect real needs instead of misguided
priorities.
This rescissions package runs directly counter to the idea that we in
this body must help people to help themselves--something in which the
Speaker purports to believe. In fact, it runs directly counter to any
type of commonsense approach to public policymaking. With the
tremendously severe cuts in this legislation, the Republicans have
basically pulled the rug out from under millions of Americans and said,
``We simply don't care.''
However, my constituents and I do care about how thousands of
residents in the Chicago metropolitan area will be terribly devastated
by this legislation. The list seems endless.
The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program [LIHEAP], which helps 2
million elderly folks meet the high costs of their winter heating
bills, is completely wiped out by H.R. 1158. As a result, over 82,000
Chicago households that were served in fiscal year 1995 will be cut
off, not to mention those who have been on waiting lists. In a city
such as mine, where on an average winter day the temperature hovers
around 10 degrees, with the wind chill in the negative double digits,
you tell me this is a sound policy decision. Tell the family of 60-
year-old Earline Hooker, who froze to death in January in Chicago
because she wasn't able to get LIHEAP assistance, that this program is
fat in our budget. Get real.
This bill also rips hope and opportunity away from 600,000 of our
disadvantaged youngsters through the dismantling of the summer jobs
program that provides basic skills, income, and work experience. Across
the Chicago metropolitan area this summer, 11,000 kids who had looked
forward to being entrusted with responsibility will now be faced with
hanging on the street corner with nothing to do but get into trouble.
So much for promoting positive alternatives for our youth and investing
in the future, Mr. Chairman.
The GOP continues its assault on low-income babies and their moms
with a $10 million cut in Healthy Start--a proven program to provide
expectant mothers with prenatal care, a $25 million cut from the Women,
Infants, and Children nutrition program--knocking up to 100,000 mothers
and newborns into limbo, and a $90 million cut in the lead-based paint
abatement program--designed to deal with the health and related
problems that befall children whose brains and development are damaged
from lead-based paint. This is absolutely criminal.
Another, one of the most disturbing portions of this bill is its
complete lack of regard for the plight of public housing residents in
this Nation and the neighborhoods in which they live and work. Although
the Department of Housing and Urban Development has already begun a
serious effort to restructure and make Federal housing and community
development programs more efficient and responsive to local needs, the
Republicans don't want to hear it. They just want to slash, cut, and
burn without regard to the necessity or productivity of the program or
who gets hurt.
For instance, HUD has estimated that my city of Chicago will lose
$180 million in this fiscal year alone as a result of the rescissions
before us, eliminating more than 3,400 low-income housing units.
Another $90 million will be lost in assistance for public housing
modernization and operating subsidies, seriously disrupting already
weakened maintenance and security for residents. In addition, $21
million in funds to help the homeless and individuals with AIDS find
suitable shelter is out the window. Tell me how in the world this helps
achieve what one former President of the other party termed ``A kinder,
gentler nation.''
Ironically, even the Community Development Block Grant program that
was started under President Nixon, is favored by a number of Republican
governors, mayors, and county administrators, and is the ultimate
example of Washington giving back program control to localities--
something I though the majority supported--is nixed under this
legislation. Because of this, the Village of Oak Park in my district
will lose $200,000 that they had previously budgeted for making public
facilities accessible to the disabled, providing loans to low and
moderate income households for home improvement, promoting fair housing
and racial diversity efforts, and preventing child abuse and neglect.
Chicago will lose $7.7 million that would have gone to many similar
efforts. Where is the logic?
Also outrageous, Mr. Chairman, is my GOP colleagues' attempts to
insert language in the bill before us that would subvert the
President's recently issued Executive Order prohibiting Federal
contracts with companies that hire permanent replacement for striking
employees. Despite the fact that there is extensive precedent for
Presidential action regulating employment rights of Federal
contractors, the Republicans have used this bill to play more political
games instead of doing their jobs and governing,
Finally, it is a mockery of the democratic processes of this body
that the Rules Committee agreed to a rule that allows only amendments
in which any reduction in the bill's rescissions must be offset by
increasing rescissions in the same section of the bill. Such a rule
effectively protects the GOP's special interests while ensuring that
widely supported and much needed programs for average Americans are
targeted.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Republican
rescissions package, thereby upholding the budgetary contract with the
American people which we made last year.
[[Page H3207]]
Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this
bill. It is a down-payment on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans
that is made on the backs of low-income and elderly American across the
country. Like so many other bills brought to the floor this session, I
believe this bill will have consequences which its proponents have not
fully explored.
This bill targets programs designed to help low-income people meet
some of their most basic needs. One of the most egregious cuts would
eliminate funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
[LIHEAP]. This valuable program helps 5.4 million American households
meet their heating and cooling needs. Seventy percent of LIHEAP
recipients have incomes less than $8,000 per year. The average benefit
is merely $194, only a small portion of the cost of heating a home in
many parts of this country. In my state of Connecticut, 73,000
households received important assistance in 1993 alone. During the
winter of 1993 and 1994, one of the coldest and most brutal in recent
memory, LIHEAP ensured that millions of Americans, especially elderly
Americans, could afford to heat their homes. Without this assistance,
poor families will be forced to choose between paying their heating
bill and feeding their children. No one should have to make this
choice.
The committee argues in its report that LIHEAP was intended to be a
temporary program and that low-income people spend less of their income
on heating costs today than when the program was established. What the
Committee fails to note is that on average low-income families spend
18.4 percent of their income on heating costs while other families
spend only 6.7 percent. While a gallon of oil might be cheaper today
than it was during the last energy crisis, disadvantaged Americans are
spending nearly 20 percent of their total income on energy costs. This
figure is truly astonishing. This is a massive burden that would grow
to unmanageable proportions if this program is terminated.
LIHEAP is not a welfare program. Instead, it assists working families
and our senior citizens meet their most basic needs. With an average
benefit of less than $200 per year, it only pays a portion of heating
bills and helps people make it through tough times. It is truly a
safety net that helps millions of families to avoid the Faustian choice
between paying for oil or paying for medicine and food. We should
defeat this bill so that nearly 5.5 million American households will
not be faced with this choice next year.
I am also concerned about how cuts in this bill could undermine
efforts to fight crime. We spent much of the month of February debating
bills which my Repulicians colleagues said would be tough on criminals
once and for all. I believe that this bill will actually undermine our
efforts to fight crime.
For example, it cuts about $2 billion for youth summer job programs
under the Job Training Partnership Act. This eliminates all funding for
certain initiatives in 1995 and 1996. These funds provide summer
employment for tens of thousands of young people each year. We have
seen over and over again that when young people have educational or job
opportunities or recreation options their involvement in criminal
activities goes down substantially. Without the jobs these funds
support, many of our young people will have a lot of idle time on their
hands. Moreover, after my Republican colleagues eliminated prevention
funding provided under the crime bill, these kids won't be able to go
to a summer league. As a result, kids could turn to gangs for something
to do and criminal activity is likely to follow. This is one of the
consequences of these cuts that the committee report does not address.
In addition, the bill eliminates all funding for the safe and drug-
free schools program. Just last week former First Lady Nancy Reagan
testified eloquently before a House committee about the need to
redouble our efforts in the fight against drugs. Mrs. Reagan did the
country a great service with her ``Just Say No!'' campaign. There is
solid evidence that drug and alcohol education programs in our schools
work to reduce abuse and convince young people to avoid drugs and
alcohol. Moreover, these programs are very cost-effective because they
reach people before they get involved with the criminal justice system
or develop health problems.
Instead of following Mrs. Reagan's advice, my Republican colleagues
propose to terminate Federal support for these proven programs. They
argue that States should fund these efforts and that federal support
can come from other pots of money which are designed primarily to
provide treatment to drug addicts. Currently, we have failed to commit
sufficient resources to treatment and we can ill-afford to divert
scarce funding. With the positive results of in-school programs, we
should continue to provide a dedicated source of funding.
I also strongly object to eliminating funding for the National
Undersea Research Program [NURP]. NURP is vitally important to the
mission of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA].
It is the only program in the nation which specializes in undersea
research in our oceans and in the Great Lakes. Moreover, research
conducted by NURP scientists is relevant to Americans nationwide.
Scientists are currently involved in research on marine ecosystem
health, rebuilding fisheries, environmental technology development and
global warming.
By the year 2000, fifty percent of the population will live near the
coasts. Marine-related economic activity is responsible
for approximately one-third of our gross national product. Coastal
areas are some of the richest biological resources in the world and are
vital to our multi-billion dollar fishing industry, which employs many
more people ``on-shore'' than on boats in the Atlantic or Pacific.
Moreover, every American has a stake in accurately assessing the extent
of global climate change.
The NURP Centers specialize in using manned and unmanned deep-sea
submersibles in their research. The use of mini submarines and robotic
devices allows us to explore parts of our oceans and Great Lakes which
are impossible to reach with surface technology. Using these methods,
we are gaining insight into the dynamics of our marine environment
which will enable us to address long-standing problems. It takes years
of experience to operate these devices safely and effectively. If NURP
is eliminated, we will lose this expertise and much of this technology.
NURP is not just a coastal program. Research conducted by NURP-
supported scientists has important economic and environmental
implications for every American. I firmly believe that it provides
returns that dwarf the small appropriation it receives each year.
Further, under this legislation, many worthwhile housing programs
will suffer severely. Specifically, $404 million will be slashed from
operating assistance for low-income housing projects. $1.1 billion will
be cut from the modernization of existing public housing projects.
According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
reductions in these projects will affect 630,000 families with children
and 530,000 seniors, nationwide. In addition, the latter cut will
seriously affect capital improvement projects at many public housing
authorities, in my district and across the country. Many of these
facilities were built nearly 40 years ago and are beginning to fall
into disrepair.
This bill would slash and burn education funding, impacting every
school district. In addition to cuts in vital programs like Title I
Compensatory Education for the Disadvantaged, Federal Direct Student
Loans, and Student Financial Aid for higher education, a number of
other cuts will have profound repercussions in my district. In
particular, Impact Aid is critical to the delivery of quality
educational services in towns with naval installations which are exempt
from the tax base. In addition, the Javits Gifted and Talented Program,
the Law School Clinical Experience Program, Eisenhower Professional
Development Grants, Consumer Homemaking and Home Economics, the Tech-
Prep program, literacy programs, and school-to-work transition programs
provide important educational opportunities for Connecticut's students
and teachers.
This bill is short-sighted in its ``save a little now, pay a lot
later'' reasoning. By cutting $25 million from the Women,
Infants and Children special nutrition program [WIC], the bill
virtually guarantees that we will be paying more down the
road for medical care for low birth-weight and learning-
disabled children.
WIC is not the only vital health and human services program to be
harmed by this bill. Rural Health Outreach funding provides important
prevention and health education services for rural populations. Housing
Opportunities for People with AIDS [HOPWA] also provides critical
support for those who suffer from this devastating illness. The
Community Services Block Grant [CSBG] program is so important to my
district that I have received more mail on CSBG than on any other issue
so far this year, unanimously in favor of maintaining funding.
Constituent letters in support of CSBG are rivaled only by those in
support of public television, public radio, and the national endowments
for arts and the humanities. It has often been said that no society
ever flourished without supporting the arts which reflect its conflicts
and its culture. The National Endowment for the Arts, in particular,
has been a political punching bag for too long. These cuts are ill-
considered and unwise.
Mr. Chairman, I am concerned about an amendment accepted in Committee
which would require the Forest Service and the Department of Interior
to make 3 billion board feet of timber available in each of the next
two years. I understand the economic situation in the Pacific northwest
and the plight of timber dependent communities. I face a similar
situation in my district which is overly dependent on the declining
defense industry. Moreover, I
[[Page H3208]] also appreciate the need to get into certain areas and
remove burnt and blown down timber to combat fire dangers and insect
problems. No one wants a repeat of the devastating fires of 1994.
At the same time, I believe this amendment sets some dangerous
precedents. The definition of salvage timber sale is very broad and
could allow companies to harvest trees that would not normally qualify
for a salvage sale. The bill specifically authorizes below-cost timber
sales. It is truly ironic to include this language, which will ensure
that the American people continue to lose money on timber sales, in a
bill which is designed to slash federal spending. Moreover, the
amendment makes the blanket pronouncement that these sales will be
deemed to be in compliance with our most important environmental laws,
including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land
Policy and Management Act. This short circuits environmental review and
could lead to unintended damage to streams, fisheries and wildlife
habitat. Finally, I am very concerned that this amendment would
substantially restrict the ability of our courts to review the legality
of timber sales. Courts could not impose injunctions while challenges
are being heard and they could only bar a sale if the agency acted in a
capricious and arbitrary manner. This language unfairly ties the hands
of the courts.
This measure should not be part of an appropriations bill. It has not
been reviewed by the relevant authorizing Committees and has
implications for future timber sales that must be carefully weighed.
Mr. Chairman, this is a bad bill that slashes programs designed to
assist the most needy Americans. I also believe that it will cost us
more money down the road in terms of lost productivity, increased crime
and educational problems. I urge my colleagues to reject this bill.
Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition to the $26.5
million rescission from the National Institute of Standards and
Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP). As cochair of
the Congressional Manufacturing Task Force, I have had the opportunity
to hear and see first hand the success of the Manufacturing Technology
Centers. When Congressman Bob Franks and I formed this Task Force we
did so because we saw a need to develop new ways in which government
could stimulate continued manufacturing productivity as well as reform
policies that undermine the vitality of the industrial sector. The MEP
helps do just this.
This rescission would undermine this emerging nationwide network of
extension centers--co-funded by state and local governments--that
provide small and mid-sized manufacturers with technical assistance as
they upgrade their operations to boost competitiveness and retain or
create new jobs. This program has showed a rate of return of 7 to 1 for
the federal government's investment, with concrete benefits in
increased sales, cost savings and jobs for small manufacturers. It is a
valuable program.
Relative to our foreign competitors, the United States has few
established mechanisms to move technologies innovations into plants and
to ensure their adaptation into production processes. The MEP program
is one of them. This rescission will drastically reduce the
effectiveness of the program. While the United States is still the
world's leader in research and development, other countries like Japan
and Germany are not that far behind us. Other nations have incorporated
traditional business assistance services such as marketing, training
and managerial support activities into their technology transfer
delivery system to great advantage. Meanwhile in the U.S., some sources
say it takes up to 55 years from the time a new manufacturing
technology comes out of the laboratory until it reaches 90 percent of
the U.S. companies that could use it.
Programs like the Manufacturing Extension Partnership are helping
America stay competitive in the changing global markets. Let's not
destroy that by passing this rescission.
Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to address the American people
and give some insight into the fiscal priorities of the new
Congressional leadership. This rescissions bill seeks to slash nearly
one of every six dollars set aside for the disadvantaged in our country
in fiscal year 1995. That represents a dramatic $17 billion, or 15.7%
reduction in funding for federal domestic programs. In contrast, only
1.2% of the funding for the rest of the discretionary budget, including
defense, is targeted for reductions. Today the new Congressional
leadership sends a clear message: when it comes to making sacrifices in
the federal budget, it's children, women, and senior citizens first.
The Republicans terminate the summer youth program starting in 1995,
and reduce $1.7 billion in funding for education programs including
School-to-Work activities. Such ill-advised policy will produce modest
reductions in expenditures in the short-term, but yield substantial
long-term losses in the productivity and earning power of today's
youth. I question the wisdom of striking directly at the programs which
enable motivated young people to improve their own lives.
Additionally, these rescissions terminate a program which teaches
children about substance abuse and violence prevention, the Safe and
Drug-Free Schools program. While this rescission will do little to cut
the deficit, it does effectively cut through Republican rhetoric. The
leadership cannot convincingly claim to be tough on drugs and crime
while simultaneously taking away an effective tool in combatting
children's drug use.
Low-income families, including over one million senior citizens who
currently live in federally assisted housing, will bear 40% of the cuts
outlined in this package. If these $7.3 billion in housing rescissions
are enacted, safe, decent housing for recipient families will be
jeopardized, and the infrastructure of this multi-billion dollar public
investment will be badly damaged.
The new Republican leadership recommends the termination of the Low
Income Home Energy Assistance program (LIHEAP). Last year, this program
helped approximately 6.1 million low-income households pay their
heating bills, and half of those homes sheltered elderly or disabled
individuals. LIHEAP recipients have an average annual income of only
$8,257 and spend approximately 18.4% of that on energy expenses. They
will not easily recover from this loss. These families already face
significant hardships, and many will be forced to choose between
groceries and heat.
Finally, the Republican plan targets mass transit. In urban areas
like Minneapolis, this is the only program that provides affordable
transportation to low-income families. A $17.5 million reduction in
funding for public buses and bus facilities will severely impact many
areas in this country where buses are the only mass transit option
available. The efficient and effective bus transportation system in my
Congressional District has been a key element in
the development of the Twin Cities. This cut will depress both urban
and rural development while simultaneously reducing the limited
transportation options of low-income Americans.
I urge my colleagues to vote no on H.R. 1158, and reject a callous
attempt to place the burden of reducing the deficit directly on the
backs of children, women, and the elderly.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to discuss an issue that is
of great concern to me and the District I represent--Impact Aid. I have
dealt with Impact Aid for the last twelve plus years that I have been
in Congress. However, I have discovered in recent weeks that the issue
is not as familiar to many of my colleagues. So I would like to take
this opportunity to clarify to everyone what we are dealing with when
we discuss federal Impact Aid.
The Impact Aid program is designed to compensate localities for the
tax revenue lost due to the presence of federal facilities. More than
2,000 school districts in fifty states nationwide count on the program
as a reimbursement for the revenue loss by traditional funding sources,
like property, sales and income taxes. This rescission bill deals with
Section 8002 impact aid funding which provides payments for school
districts heavily impacted by the federal acquisition of property,
specifically for areas in which the federal government owns property
representing 10 percent or more of the value of all real property in
the jurisdiction. These
funds are especially important to one area in my District where the
federal government owns 40 percent of the land and I have heard from a
number of my colleagues who represent areas where the government owns
75 percent or more of the land. This land is not subject to local real
property taxes, a major source of funding for school systems. Please
bear in mind that the tax revenue lost on this land is in addition to
the losses incurred from those federal personnel who do not pay certain
state or local taxes. This lost revenue would have gone to finance
education in that area, including that for the children of federal
employees. Even without the revenue, the school districts must provide
education to the federal employees' children. Therefore, Impact Aid is
not a handout. It is not an entitlement. Rather, it represents the
federal government's obligation to provide access to education for the
children of federal employees.
I believe it is essential that we ensure all children have access to
an education. But this issue goes much further than that. In my
capacity as Chairman of the National Security Subcommittee on
Readiness, I am charged with ensuring that our armed forces are
prepared to meet any military challenge we may face. The most basic
assurance that we can provide is that of adequate personnel to defend
the interests of our nation. Impact Aid directly affects military
personnel who have agreed to serve their country but not at the expense
of their children's education. In fact, cuts in Impact Aid will impact
all children in a school district that experiences a resulting
[[Page H3209]] budget shortfall. If programs are cut, schools cannot
single out the federally connected children to bear the brunt of such
cuts. We must meet the needs of our children and those who serve their
country--we must continue to provide compensation to federally impacted
localities.
Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this
bill. This is not a rescissions bill, it's a resentment bill. It's a
bill that shows how much certain Members of this House resent the needs
of the poor, the young, and the elderly to get a helping hand from
government.
There are fair ways to reduce government spending to pay for disaster
relief and then there are mean-spirited and malicious ways of reducing
spending. This so-called rescissions bill is chock full of mean-
spirited cuts to people who need assistance.
And what are two-thirds of the rescissions in this bill going
towards? Certainly not much help for those who are going to be hurt by
these cuts. Far too much of these cuts are going towards people who
need no helping hand from the government. These cuts are going
predominantly to the top 10 percent of the wealthiest in the country,
not quite the group that's in need of a helping hand from the
government.
And what programs and people are getting rolled over by this
steamroller trying to get tax cuts to the wealthiest: Food programs for
women, infants, and children; low-income energy assistance for the
elderly; employment programs to teach young people job skills;
financial aid for students; health care programs for veterans; programs
to keep schools safe from drugs and crime; healthy start funds to lower
rates of infant mortality; and housing programs for the poor.
I guess the message being sent from those favoring this bill is that
those people I have just named will have to fend for themselves. I
don't think too much of the tax credit money going to the wealthy from
these cuts is going to make life better for the groups I've just named.
Looks like the Contract With America is limited to a select few.
Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this supplemental appropriations
bill for two reasons.
First, as a Californian, I'm disappointed that it fails to provide
adequate funding in response to recent disasters in my state. While the
administration requested $6.7 billion in emergency money to help
California rebuild after the Northridge earthquake, House Republicans
have provided just $5.4 billion--or $1.3 billion less than what's
needed to do the job right.
Second, I cannot support legislation which responds to natural
disasters in California by creating manmade disasters for families all
across the United States.
This legislation eliminates over $17 billion in funding that heats
our homes, nourishes our infants, enriches our culture, educates our
children, heals our veterans, and houses our poor.
Mr. Chairman, California may have had the earthquake, but it's the
most vulnerable in our society who will feel the aftershocks if this
legislation passes. I urge my colleagues to defeat the supplemental
appropriations bill.
The CHAIRMAN. All time for general debate has expired.
Pursuant to the rule, the amendment in the nature of a substitute
consisting of the text of H.R. 1158, modified pursuant to House
Resolution 115, is considered as an original bill for the purpose of
amendment and is considered as having been read.
The text of the amendment in the nature of a substitute, as modified,
is as follows:
H.R. 1158
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the
following sums are appropriated, out of any money in the
Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to provide emergency
supplemental appropriations for additional disaster
assistance and making rescissions for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 1995, and for other purposes, namely:
TITLE I EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS
CHAPTER I
DEPARTMENTS OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND
INDEPENDENT AGENCIES
Federal Emergency Management Agency
disaster relief
For an additional amount for ``Disaster Relief'' for
necessary expenses in carrying out the functions of the
Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance
Act (42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.), $5,360,000,000, to remain
available until expended: Provided, That such amount is
designated by Congress as an emergency requirement pursuant
to section 251(b)(2)(D)(i) of the Balanced Budget and
Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, as amended.
CHAPTER II
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
COAST GUARD
Operating Expenses
For an additional amount for ``Operating expenses'', to
cover the incremental costs arising from the consequences of
Operations Able Manner, Able Vigil, Restore Democracy, and
Support Democracy, $28,197,000, to remain available until
September 30, 1995: Provided, That such amount is designated
by Congress as an emergency requirement pursuant to section
251(b)(2)(D)(i) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit
Control Act of 1985, as amended.
TITLE II
RESCISSIONS
CHAPTER I
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG
ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Office of the Secretary
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-330, $31,000 are rescinded: Provided, That none of
the funds made available to the Department of Agriculture may
be used to carry out activities under 7 U.S.C. 2257 without
prior notification to the Committees on Appropriations.
Alternative Agricultural Research and Commercialization
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-330, $3,000,000 are rescinded.
Agricultural Research Service
buildings and facilities
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-330 and other Acts, $12,678,000 are rescinded.
Cooperative State Research Service
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-330, $1,051,000 are rescinded, including $524,000 for
contracts and grants for agricultural research under the Act
of August 4, 1965, as amended (7 U.S.C. 450i(c)); and
$527,000 for necessary expenses of Cooperative State Research
Service activities: Provided, That the amount of
``$9,917,000'' available under this heading in Public Law
103-330 (108 Stat. 2441) for a program of capacity building
grants to colleges eligible to receive funds under the Act of
August 30, 1890, is amended to read ``$9,207,000''.
buildings and facilities
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-330 and other Acts, $20,994,000 are rescinded.
Rural Development Administration and Farmers Home Administration
rural housing insurance fund program account
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-330, $115,500,000 for the cost of section 515 rental
housing loans are rescinded.
local technical assistance and planning grants
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-330, $1,750,000 are rescinded.
Alcohol Fuels Credit Guarantee Program Account
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 102-341, $9,000,000 are rescinded.
Rural Electrification Administration
Rural Electrification and Telephone Loans Program Account
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-330, $3,000,000 for the cost of 5 percent rural
telephone loans are rescinded.
Food and Nutrition Service
Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children
(WIC)
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-111, $25,000,000 are rescinded.
CHAPTER II
DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED
AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
General Administration
Working Capital Fund
(Rescission)
Of the unobligated balances in the Working Capital Fund,
$1,500,000 are rescinded.
Immigration and Naturalization Service
Salaries and Expenses
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $1,000,000 are rescinded.
[[Page H3210]] Office of Justice Programs
Drug Courts
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in title
VIII of Public Law 103-317, $27,750,000 are rescinded.
Ounce of Prevention Council
(Transfer of funds)
Under this heading in Public Law 103-317, after the word
``grants'', insert the following: ``and administrative
expenses''. After the word ``expended'', insert the
following: ``: Provided, That the Council is authorized to
accept, hold, administer, and use gifts, both real and
personal, for the purpose of aiding or facilitating the work
of the Council''.
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Industrial Technology Services
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317 for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and
the Quality Program, $27,100,000 are rescinded.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Operations, Research, and Facilities
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $37,000,000 are rescinded.
Technology Administration
Under Secretary for Technology/Office of Technology Policy
Salaries and Expenses
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $3,300,000 are rescinded.
National Technical Information Service
NTIS Revolving Fund
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $4,000,000 are rescinded.
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
Information Infrastructure Grants
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $30,000,000 are rescinded.
Economic Development Administration
Economic Development Assistance Programs
(Rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Laws 103-75 and 102-368, $37,584,000 are rescinded.
In addition, of the funds made available under this heading
in Public Laws 99-500 and 99-591, $7,500,000 for the Fort
Worth Stockyards Project are rescinded.
THE JUDICIARY
Courts of Appeals, District Courts, and Other Judicial Services
defender services
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $1,100,000 are rescinded.
RELATED AGENCIES
Small Business Administration
Salaries and Expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $15,000,000 are rescinded: Provided, That no
funds in that Public Law shall be available to implement
section 24 of the Small Business Act, as amended.
Legal Services Corporation
payment to the legal services corporation
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317 and prior appropriations Acts, $5,849,000 are
rescinded, of which $33,000 are from funds made available for
law school clinics; $31,000 are from funds made available for
supplemental field programs; $75,000 are from funds made
available for regional training centers; $1,189,000 are from
funds made available for national support; $1,021,000 are
from funds made available for State support; $685,000 are
from funds made available for client initiatives; $44,000 are
from funds made available for the Clearinghouse; $4,000 are
from funds made available for computer assisted legal
research regional centers; and $1,572,000 are from funds made
available for Corporation management and administration.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
RELATED AGENCY
Board for International Broadcasting
israel relay station
(rescission)
From unobligated balances available under this heading,
$2,000,000 are rescinded.
CHAPTER III
ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE--CIVIL
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
Corps of Engineers--Civil
general investigations
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-316 and prior years' Energy and Water Development
Appropriations Acts, $10,000,000 are rescinded.
construction, general
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-316 and prior years' Energy and Water Development
Appropriations Acts, $40,000,000 are rescinded.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Reclamation
operation and maintenance
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-316, $10,000,000 are rescinded.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Energy Supply, Research and Development Activities
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-316, $116,500,000 are rescinded.
Atomic Energy Defense Activities
Defense Environmental Restoration and Waste Management
(rescission)
Of the amounts made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-316 and prior years' Energy and Water Development
Acts, $28,000,000 are rescinded.
Departmental Administration
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-316, $20,000,000 are rescinded.
INDEPENDENT AGENCIES
APPALACHIAN REGIONAL COMMISSION
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-316, $10,000,000 are rescinded.
TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY
Tennessee Valley Authority Fund
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-316, $5,000,000 are rescinded.
CHAPTER IV
FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS
MULTILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE
funds appropriated to the president
International Organizations and Programs
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-306, $25,000,000 are rescinded.
BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE
funds appropriated to the president
Agency for International Development
development assistance fund
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-306, $45,500,000 are rescinded.
population, development assistance
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-306, $9,000,000 are rescinded.
MILITARY ASSISTANCE
Funds Appropriated to the President
peacekeeping operations
(rescission)
Of the unobligated or unexpended balances of funds
available under this heading from funds provided in Public
Law 103-306, $4,500,000 are rescinded.
EXPORT ASSISTANCE
export-import bank of the united states
subsidy appropriation
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-87 and Public Law 103-306, $5,000,000 are rescinded.
Funds Appropriated to the President
trade and development agency
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-306, $4,500,000 are rescinded.
CHAPTER V
DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Land Management
management of lands and resources
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $70,000 are rescinded, to be derived from amounts
available for developing and finalizing the Roswell Resource
Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement and the
Carlsbad Resource Management Plan Amendment/Environmental
Impact Statement: Provided, That none of the funds made
available in such Act or any other appropriations Act may be
used for finalizing or implementing either such plan.
construction and access
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, Public Law 103-138,
[[Page H3211]] and Public Law 102-381, $4,500,000 are
rescinded.
payments in lieu of taxes
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $5,000,000 are rescinded.
land acquisition
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
102-381, Public Law 101-121, and Public Law 100-446,
$1,997,000 are rescinded.
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
resource management
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $2,000,000 are rescinded.
construction
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading or the heading
Construction and Anadromous Fish in Public Law 103-332,
Public Law 103-138, Public Law 103-75, Public Law 102-381,
Public Law 102-154, Public Law 102-368, Public Law 101-512,
Public Law 101-121, Public Law 100-446, and Public Law 100-
202, $14,390,000 are rescinded.
land acquisition
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, Public Law 103-138, Public Law 102-381, and Public
Law 101-512, $7,345,000 are rescinded.
National Biological Survey
research, inventories, and surveys
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $16,680,000 are rescinded.
National Park Service
construction
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $22,831,000 are rescinded.
urban park and recreation fund
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $7,480,000 are rescinded.
land acquisition and state assistance
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, Public Law 103-138, Public Law 102-381, Public Law
102-154, Public Law 101-512, Public Law 101-121, Public Law
100-446, Public Law 100-202, Public Law 99-190, Public Law
98-473, and Public Law 98-146, $16,509,000 are rescinded.
Bureau of Indian Affairs
operation of indian programs
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $4,046,000 are rescinded.
construction
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $10,309,000 are rescinded.
Territorial and International Affairs
Administration of Territories
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $2,438,000 are rescinded.
trust territory of the pacific islands
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law 99-
591, $32,139,000 are rescinded.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Forest Service
forest research
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $6,000,000 are rescinded.
state and private forestry
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332 and Public Law 103-138, $12,500,000 are rescinded.
international forestry
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $1,000,000 are rescinded.
national forest system
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $3,327,000 are rescinded.
construction
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, Public Law 103-138 and Public Law 102-381,
$4,919,000 are rescinded.
land acquisition
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, Public Law 103-138 and Public Law 102-381,
$3,974,000 are rescinded.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
fossil energy research and development
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $18,650,000 are rescinded.
naval petroleum and oil shale reserves
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $21,000,000 are rescinded.
energy conservation
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $46,228,000 are rescinded and of the funds available
under this heading in Public Law 103-138, $13,700,000 are
rescinded.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
indian education
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $2,000,000 are rescinded.
OTHER RELATED AGENCIES
Smithsonian Institution
construction and improvements, national zoological park
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
102-381, and Public Law 103-138, $1,000,000 are rescinded.
construction
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
102-154, Public Law 102-381, Public Law 103-138, and Public
Law 103-332, $31,012,000 are rescinded.
National Gallery of Art
repair, restoration and renovation of buildings
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $407,000 are rescinded.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
construction
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $3,000,000 are rescinded.
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
salaries and expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $2,300,000 are rescinded.
National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities
National Endowment for the Arts
grants and administration
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $5,000,000 are rescinded.
National Endowment for the Humanities
grants and administration
(rescission)
Of the funds available under this heading in Public Law
103-332, $5,000,000 are rescinded.
CHAPTER VI
DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, EDUCATION, AND RELATED
AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Employment and Training Administration
training and employment services
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $1,603,094,000 are rescinded, including
$10,000,000 for necessary expenses of construction,
rehabilitation, and acquisition of new Job Corps centers,
$12,500,000 for the School-to-Work Opportunities Act,
$6,408,000 for section 401 of the Job Training Partnership
Act, $8,571,000 for section 402 of such Act, $3,861,000 for
service delivery areas under section 101(a)(4)(A)(iii) of
such Act, $33,000,000 for carrying out title II, part A of
such Act, $310,000,000 for carrying out title II, part C of
such Act, $2,223,000 for the National Commission for
Employment Policy and $500,000 for the National Occupational
Information Coordinating Committee.
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-112, $682,282,000 are rescinded.
community service employment for older americans
(rescission)
Of the funds made available in the first paragraph under
this heading in Public Law 103-333, $11,263,000 are
rescinded.
Of the funds made available in the second paragraph under
this heading in Public Law 103-333, $3,177,000 are rescinded.
state unemployment insurance and employment service operations
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $12,000,000 are rescinded, and amounts which may
be expended from the Employment Security Administration
account in the Unemployment
[[Page H3212]] Trust Fund are reduced from $3,269,097,000 to
$3,253,097,000.
Employment Standards Administration
salaries and expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $2,487,000 are rescinded.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
salaries and expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $16,072,000 are rescinded.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Health Resources and Services Administration
health resources and services
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $82,775,000 are rescinded.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
disease control, research, and training
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $8,883,000 are rescinded.
National Institutes of Health
national center for research resources
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333 for extramural facilities construction grants,
$20,000,000 are rescinded.
buildings and facilities
(rescission)
Of the available balances under this heading, $50,000,000
are rescinded.
Assistant Secretary for Health
office of the assistant secretary for health
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $1,400,000 are rescinded.
Agency for Health Care Policy and Research
health care policy and research
(rescission)
Of the Federal funds made available under this heading in
Public Law 103-333, $3,132,000 are rescinded.
Health Care Financing Administration
Program Management
(rescission)
Funds made available under this heading in Public Law 103-
333 are reduced from $2,207,135,000 to $2,168,935,000, and
funds transferred to this account as authorized by section
201(g) of the Social Security Act are reduced to the same
amount.
Administration for Children and Families
low income home energy assistance
(rescission)
Of the funds made available in the third paragraph under
this heading in Public Law 103-333, $1,319,204,000 are
rescinded.
community services block grant
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $26,988,000 are rescinded.
children and families services programs
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333 to be derived from the Violent Crime Reduction
Trust Fund, $25,900,000 are rescinded for carrying out the
Community Schools Youth Services and Supervision Grant
Program Act of 1994.
payments to states for foster care and adoption assistance
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333 for payments to States under section 474(a)(3) of
the Social Security Act, an amount is hereby rescinded such
that the total made available to any State under such section
in fiscal year 1995 does not exceed 110 percent of the total
paid to such State thereunder in fiscal year 1994 which,
notwithstanding any other provision of law, is the maximum
amount to which any such State shall be entitled for payments
under such section 474(a)(3) for fiscal year 1995.
Administration on Aging
aging services programs
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $899,000 are rescinded.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
education reform
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $186,030,000 are rescinded, including
$142,000,000 from funds made available for State and local
education systemic improvement, $21,530,000 from funds made
available for Federal activities, and $10,000,000 from funds
made available for parental assistance under the Goals 2000:
Educate America Act; and $12,500,000 are rescinded from funds
made available under the School to Work Opportunities Act,
including $9,375,000 for National programs and $3,125,000 for
State grants and local partnerships.
education for the disadvantaged
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $113,270,000 are rescinded as follows:
$105,000,000 from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
title I, part A, and $8,270,000 from part E, section 1501.
impact aid
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $16,293,000 for section 8002 are rescinded.
school improvement programs
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $757,132,000 are rescinded as follows: from the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, title II-B,
$60,000,000, title IV, $481,962,000, title V-C, $28,000,000,
title IX-B, $12,000,000, title X-D, -E, and -G, and section
10602, $21,384,000, and title XII, $100,000,000; from the
Higher Education Act, section 596, $13,875,000; from the
Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, title VII-B,
$28,811,000; and from funds derived from the Violent Crime
Reduction Trust Fund, $11,100,000.
bilingual and immigrant education
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $38,500,000 are rescinded from funding for title
VII-A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Special Institutions for Persons With Disabilities
national technical institute for the deaf
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $799,000 are rescinded.
gallaudet university
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $1,298,000 are rescinded.
vocational and adult education
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $232,413,000 are rescinded as follows: from the
Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education
Act, title III-A, -B, and -E, $151,888,000 and from title IV-
A, -B, and -C, $34,535,000; from the Adult Education Act,
section 384(c), part B-7, and section 371, $31,392,000; from
the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, $9,498,000;
and from the National Literacy Act, $5,100,000.
student financial assistance
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $83,375,000 are rescinded from funding for the
Higher Education Act, title IV, part A-4 and part H-1.
higher education
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $102,246,000 are rescinded as follows: from
amounts available for Public Law 99-498, $1,000,000; the
Higher Education Act, title IV-A, chapter 5, $496,000, title
IV-A-2, chapter 1, $11,200,000, title IV-A-2, chapter 2,
$3,108,000, title IV-A-6, $9,823,000, title V-C, subparts 1
and 3, $16,175,000, title IX-B, $10,100,000, title IX-C,
$7,500,000, title IX-E, $3,500,000, title IX-G, $14,920,000,
title X-D, $4,000,000, and title XI-A, $13,000,000; Public
Law 102-325, $1,000,000; and the Excellence in Mathematics,
Science, and Engineering Education Act of 1990, $6,424,000:
Provided, That in carrying out title IX-B, remaining
appropriations shall not be available for awards for doctoral
study.
howard university
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $4,300,000 are rescinded, including $2,500,000
for construction.
college housing and academic facilities loans program
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333 for the costs of direct loans, as authorized
under part C of title VII of the Higher Education Act, as
amended, $168,000 are rescinded, and the authority to
subsidize gross loan obligations is repealed. In addition,
$322,000 appropriated for administrative expenses are
rescinded.
education research, statistics, and improvement
(rescission)
(transfer of funds)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $55,250,000 are rescinded as follows: from the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, title III-A,
$30,000,000, title III-B, $10,000,000, title III-C,
$2,700,000, title III-D, $2,250,000; title X-B, $4,600,000,
and title XIII-B, $2,700,000; from the Goals 2000: Educate
America Act, title VI, $3,000,000.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, during fiscal
year 1995, $56,750,000 shall
[[Page H3213]] be available under this heading for the Fund
for the Improvement of Education: Provided, That none of the
funds under this heading during fiscal year 1995 shall be
obligated for title III-B of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (Star Schools Program).
libraries
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $34,742,000 are rescinded as follows: for the
Library Services and Construction Act, part II, $15,300,000,
and part VI, $8,026,000; for the Higher Education Act, part
II, sections 222 and 223, $11,416,000.
Related Agencies
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-112, $47,000,000 are rescinded. Of the funds made
available under this heading in Public Law 103-333,
$94,000,000 are rescinded.
Railroad Retirement Board
Dual Benefits payments account
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-333, $5,000,000 are rescinded.
GENERAL PROVISION
Federal Direct Student Loan Program
Sec. 601. Section 458(a) of the Higher Education Act of
1965 (20 U.S.C. 1087h(a)) is amended--
(1) by striking ``$345,000,000'' and inserting
``$298,000,000''; and
(2) by striking ``$2,500,000,000'' and inserting
``$2,453,000,000''.
CHAPTER VII
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
JOINT ITEMS
joint economic committee
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-283, $460,000 are rescinded.
joint committee on printing
(rescission)
(transfer of funds)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-283, $418,000 are rescinded: Provided, That, upon
enactment of this Act, any balance of the funds made
available that remains after this rescission shall be
transferred in equal amounts to the Committee on House
Oversight of the House of Representatives and the Committee
on Rules and Administration of the Senate for the purpose of
carrying out the functions of the Joint Committee on
Printing.
OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
Salaries and Expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-283, $650,000 are rescinded.
ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL
Capitol Buildings and Grounds
capitol buildings
(rescissions)
Of the funds made available until expended for energy
efficient lighting retrofitting under this heading in Public
Law 102-392, $500,000 are rescinded.
Of the funds made available until expended for energy
efficient lighting retrofitting under this heading in Public
Law 103-69, $2,000,000 are rescinded.
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
(rescissions)
Congressional Printing and Binding
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-283, $3,000,000 are rescinded.
Office of Superintendent of Documents
salaries and expenses
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-283, $600,000 are rescinded.
BOTANIC GARDEN
Salaries and Expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available until expended by transfer
under this heading in Public Law 103-283, $4,000,000 are
rescinded.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
(rescissions)
Salaries and Expenses
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-283, $150,000 are rescinded.
Books for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
salaries and expenses
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-283, $100,000 are rescinded.
GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Salaries and Expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-283, $8,867,000 are rescinded.
CHAPTER VIII
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
Transportation Planning, Research, and Development
(rescission)
Of the amounts provided under this heading in Public Law
103-331, $1,293,000 are rescinded.
Working Capital Fund
The obligation authority under this heading in Public Law
103-331 is hereby reduced by $8,000,000.
COAST GUARD
Operating Expenses
(rescission)
Of the amounts provided under this heading in Public Law
103-331, $6,440,000 are rescinded.
Acquisition, Construction, and Improvements
(rescission)
Of the available balances under this heading, $42,569,000
are rescinded.
Environmental Compliance and Restoration
(rescission)
Of the amounts provided under this heading in Public Law
103-331, $3,500,000 are rescinded.
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
Facilities and Equipment
(airport and airway trust fund)
(rescission)
Of the available balances under this heading, $69,825,000
are rescinded.
Research, Engineering, and Development
(airport and airway trust fund)
(rescission)
Of the available balances under this heading, $7,500,000
are rescinded.
FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION
Limitation on General Operating Expenses
The obligation limitation under this heading in Public Law
103-331 is hereby reduced by $42,500,000.
Federal-aid Highways
(limitation on obligations)
(highway trust fund)
The obligation limitation under this heading in Public Law
103-331 is hereby reduced by $70,140,000: Provided, That
$27,640,000 shall be deducted from amounts made available for
the Applied Research and Technology Program authorized under
section 307(e) of title 23, United States Code: Provided
further, That no reduction shall be made in any amount
distributed to any State under section 310(a) of Public Law
103-331.
Federal-aid Highways
emergency relief program
(highway trust fund)
(rescission)
Of the amounts provided under this heading in Public Law
103-211, $351,000,000 are rescinded.
FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION
Northeast Corridor Improvement Program
(rescission)
Of the amounts provided under this heading in Public Law
103-331, $7,768,000 are rescinded.
FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION
Transit Planning and Research
(rescission)
Of the available balances under this heading, $8,800,000
are rescinded.
Discretionary Grants
(limitation on obligations)
(highway trust fund)
The obligation limitation under this heading in Public Law
103-331 is hereby reduced by $17,650,000: Provided, That such
reduction shall be made from obligational authority available
to the Secretary for the replacement, rehabilitation, and
purchase of buses and related equipment and the construction
of bus-related facilities.
Notwithstanding Section 313 of Public Law 103-331, the
obligation limitations under this heading in the following
Department of Transportation and Related Agencies
Appropriations Acts are reduced by the following amounts:
Public Law 102-388 as amended by Public Law 103-122,
$67,227,500, to be distributed as follows:
(a) $29,022,500, for the replacement, rehabilitation, and
purchase of buses and related equipment and the construction
of bus-related facilities: Provided, That in distributing the
foregoing reduction, obligational authority remaining
unobligated for each project identified in the joint
explanatory statements of the committees on conference
accompanying such Act shall be reduced by fifty per centum;
and
(b) $38,205,000, for new fixed guideway systems, to be
distributed as follows:
$9,120,000, for the San Francisco BART Extension/Tasman
Corridor Project;
$12,655,000, for the Boston, Massachusetts to Portland,
Maine Commuter Rail Project;
$875,000, for the Orlando OSCAR LRT Project;
$980,000, for the Salt Lake City South LRT Project;
$745,000, for the Cleveland Dual Hub Corridor Project;
$1,500,000, for the Milwaukee East-West Corridor Project;
$845,000, for the San Diego Mid-Coast Extension Project;
[[Page H3214]] $2,235,000, for the Hawthorne-Warwick
Commuter Rail Project;
$7,595,000, for the Seattle-Tacoma Commuter Rail Project;
$1,490,000, for the Lakewood, Freehold, and Matawan or
Jamesburg Commuter Rail Project; and
$165,000, for the Miami Downtown Peoplemover Project.
Public Law 102-143, $43,296,500, to be distributed as
follows:
(a) $6,781,500, for the replacement, rehabilitation, and
purchase of buses and related equipment and the construction
of bus-related facilities: Provided, That in distributing the
foregoing reduction, obligational authority remaining
unobligated for each project for which the obligation
limitation in Public Law 102-143 was applied shall be reduced
by fifty per centum; and
(b) $36,515,000, for new fixed guideway systems, to be
distributed as follows:
$1,000,000, for the Cleveland Dual Hub Corridor Project;
$465,000, for the Kansas City-South LRT Project;
$950,000, for the San Diego Mid-Coast Extension Project;
$5,000,000, for the Los Angeles-San Diego (LOSSAN) Commuter
Rail Project;
$17,100,000, for the Hawthorne-Warwick Commuter Rail
Project;
$500,000, for the New York-Staten Island-Midtown Ferry
Project;
$4,000,000, for the San Jose-Gilroy Commuter Rail Project;
$1,620,000, for the Seattle-Tacoma Commuter Rail Project;
$880,000, for the Vallejo Ferry Project; and
$5,000,000, for the Detroit LRT Project.
Public Law 101-516, $2,230,000, for new fixed guideway
systems, to be distributed as follows:
$2,230,000, for the Cleveland Dual Hub Corridor Project.
Public Law 101-164, $1,247,000, for the replacement,
rehabilitation, and purchase of buses and related equipment
and the construction of bus-related facilities: Provided,
That in distributing the foregoing reduction, obligational
authority remaining unobligated for each project identified
in the joint explanatory statements of the committees of
conference accompanying such Act shall be reduced by fifty
per centum.
GENERAL PROVISIONS
(including rescissions)
Sec. 801. Of the funds provided in Public Law 103-331 for
the Department of Transportation working capital fund (WCF),
$8,000,000 are rescinded, which limits fiscal year 1995 WCF
obligational authority for elements of the Department of
Transportation funded in Public Law 103-331 to no more than
$85,000,000.
Sec. 802. Of the total budgetary resources available to the
Department of Transportation (excluding the Maritime
Administration) during fiscal year 1995 for civilian and
military compensation and benefits and other administrative
expenses, $20,000,000 are permanently canceled.
CHAPTER IX
TREASURY, POSTAL SERVICE, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
Departmental Offices
salaries and expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-329, $100,000 are rescinded.
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
acquisition, construction, improvements, and related expenses
(rescission)
(transfer of funds)
Of the funds made available for construction at the Davis-
Monthan Training Center under Public Law 103-123, $5,000,000
are rescinded. Of the funds made available for construction
at the Davis-Monthan Training Center under Public Law 103-
329, $6,000,000 are rescinded: Provided, That $1,000,000 of
the remaining funds made available under Public Law 103-123
shall be used to initiate design and construction of a Burn
Building in Glynco, Georgia.
Financial Management Service
salaries and expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-329, $160,000 are rescinded.
Bureau of the Public Debt
salaries and expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-123, $1,500,000 are rescinded.
Internal Revenue Service
information systems
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-329, $1,490,000 are rescinded.
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
The White House Office
salaries and expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-329, $171,000 are rescinded.
Federal Drug Control Programs
special forfeiture fund
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-329, $13,200,000 are rescinded.
INDEPENDENT AGENCIES
General Services Administration
Federal Buildings Fund
(limitations on availability of revenue)
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading for ``New
Construction'' in Public Law 103-329 for Bullhead City,
Arizona, a grant to the Federal Aviation Administration for a
runway protection zone, $2,200,000 are rescinded; for Hilo,
Hawaii, Consolidation, $12,000,000 are rescinded: Provided,
That of the funds made available under this heading for ``New
Construction'' in Public Law 103-123 for Sierra Vista,
Arizona, U.S. Magistrates Office, $1,000,000 are rescinded;
for Wheeling, West Virginia, Federal Building and U.S.
Courthouse, $35,861,000 are rescinded: Provided further, That
of the funds made available under this heading for ``New
Construction'' in Public Law 102-393 for Nogales, Arizona,
U.S. Border Patrol Station, $2,000,000 are rescinded; for
Atlanta, Georgia, Centers for Disease Control, site
acquisition and improvements, $25,890,000 are rescinded; for
Atlanta Georgia, Centers for Disease Control, $14,110,000 are
rescinded; for Newark, New Jersey, Parking Facility,
$9,000,000 are rescinded; for Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Courthouse, $11,548,000 are rescinded: Provided further, That
of the funds made available under this heading for ``New
Construction'' in Public Law 102-141 for Charlotte Amalie,
Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, U.S. Courthouse
Annex, $2,184,000 are rescinded: Provided further, That of
the funds made available under this heading for ``New
Construction'' in Public Law 102-27 for Washington, District
of Columbia, General Services Administration Headquarters,
$13,000,000 are rescinded: Provided further, That of the
funds made available under this heading for ``Repairs and
Alterations'' in Public Law 103-329 for Walla Walla,
Washington, Corps of Engineers Building, $2,800,000 are
rescinded: Provided further, That of the funds made available
under this heading for ``Repairs and Alterations'' in Public
Law 103-123 for District of Columbia, Central and West
Heating Plants, $5,000,000 are rescinded.
operating expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-329, $2,065,000 are rescinded.
Federal Election Commission
salaries and expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-329, $2,792,000 are rescinded.
Office of Personnel Management
salaries and expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-329, $3,140,000 are rescinded.
CHAPTER X
DEPARTMENTS OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND
INDEPENDENT AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
Veterans Health Administration
medical care
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $50,000,000 are rescinded: Provided, That this
amount is to be taken from the $771,000,000 earmarked for the
equipment and land and structures object classifications,
which amount does not become available for obligation until
August 1, 1995.
Departmental Administration
construction, major projects
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $156,110,000 are rescinded.
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Housing Programs
national homeownership trust demonstration program
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $50,000,000 are rescinded.
annual contributions for assisted housing
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327 and any unobligated balances from funds
appropriated under this heading in prior years,
$5,733,400,000 are rescinded: Provided, That of the total
rescinded under this heading, $690,100,000 shall be from the
amounts earmarked for the development or acquisition cost of
public housing; $1,157,000,000 shall be from amounts
earmarked for the modernization of existing public housing
projects pursuant to section 14 of the United States
[[Page H3215]] Housing Act of 1937; $2,694,000,000 shall be
from amounts earmarked for rental assistance under the
section 8 existing certificate program (42 U.S.C. 1437f) and
the housing voucher program under section 8(o) of the United
States Housing Act of 1937, which shall include $100,000,000
from the amounts made available for new programs within the
rental assistance earmark in Public Law 103-327; $15,000,000
shall be from amounts provided for the Family Unification
program; $465,100,000 shall be from amounts earmarked for the
preservation of low-income housing programs; $90,000,000
shall be from amounts earmarked for the lead-based paint
hazard reduction program; $186,000,000 shall be from amounts
earmarked for housing opportunities for persons with AIDS;
$70,000,000 shall be from the amounts earmarked for special
purpose grants in Public Law 102-389 and prior years;
$39,000,000 shall be from amounts recaptured during fiscal
year 1995 or prior years; $34,200,000 shall be from amounts
provided for lease adjustments; and $287,000,000 of amounts
recaptured during fiscal year 1995 from the reconstruction of
obsolete public housing projects.
congregate services
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327 and any unobligated balances from funds
appropriated under this heading in prior years, $37,000,000
are rescinded.
payments for operation of low-income housing projects
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $404,000,000 are rescinded.
severely distressed public housing
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327 and any unobligated balances from funds
appropriated under this heading in prior years, $523,000,000
are rescinded.
drug elimination grants for low-income housing
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327 and any unobligated balances from funds
appropriated under this heading in prior years, $32,000,000
are rescinded.
youthbuild program
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $38,000,000 are rescinded.
housing counseling assistance
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $38,000,000 are rescinded.
flexible subsidy fund
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327 and any unobligated balances from funds
appropriated under this heading in prior years, and excess
rental charges, collections and other amounts in the fund,
$8,000,000 are rescinded.
nehemiah housing opportunities fund
(rescission)
Of the funds transferred to this revolving fund in prior
years, $19,000,000 are rescinded.
Homeless Assistance
homeless assistance grants
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $297,000,000 shall not become available for
obligation until September 30, 1995.
Community Planning and Development
community development grants
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327 and any unobligated balances from funds
appropriated under this heading in prior years, $349,200,000
are rescinded.
INDEPENDENT AGENCIES
Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
salaries and expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $500,000 are rescinded.
Community Development Financial Institutions
Community development financial institutions fund
program account
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $124,000,000 are rescinded.
Corporation for National and Community Service
National and Community Service Programs Operating Expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $210,000,000 are rescinded: Provided, That this
amount is to be taken from the $386,212,000 which is
earmarked to be available for obligation for the period
September 1, 1995 through August 31, 1996.
Environmental Protection Agency
research and development
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $14,635,000 are rescinded.
abatement, control, and compliance
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $4,806,805 are rescinded.
buildings and facilities
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327 and prior years, $25,000,000 are rescinded.
water infrastructure/state revolving funds
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327 for wastewater infrastructure financing,
$3,200,000 are rescinded, and of the funds made available
under this heading in Public Law 103-327 and prior years for
drinking water state revolving funds, $1,300,000,000 are
rescinded.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Science, aeronautics and technology
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $38,000,000 are rescinded.
construction of facilities
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 102-389, for the Consortium for International Earth
Science Information Network, $27,000,000 are rescinded.
mission support
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, for administrative aircraft, $1,000,000 are
rescinded.
National Science Foundation
academic research infrastructure
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $131,867,000 are rescinded.
CORPORATIONS
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
FDIC affordable housing program
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-327, $11,281,034 are rescinded.
TITLE III GENERAL PROVISION
DENIAL OF USE OF FUNDS FOR INDIVIDUALS NOT
LAWFULLY WITHIN THE UNITED STATES
Sec. 30. (a) In General.--None of the funds made available
in this Act may be used to provide any direct benefit or
assistance to any individual in the United States when it is
made known to the Federal entity or official to which the
funds are made available that--
(1) the individual is not lawfully within the United
States; and
(2) the benefit or assistance to be provided is other than
search and rescue; emergency medical care; emergency mass
care; emergency shelter; clearance of roads and construction
of temporary bridges necessary to the performance of
emergency tasks and essential community services; warning of
further risks or hazzards; dissemination of public
information and assistance regarding health and safety
measures; provision of food, water, medicine, and other
essential needs, including movement of supplies or persons;
or reduction of immediate threats to life, property, and
public health and safety.
TITLE IV
SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS
CHAPTER I
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG
ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Food Safety and Inspection Service
For an additional amount for salaries and expenses of the
Food Safety and Inspection Service, $9,048,000.
Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service
salaries and expenses
For an additional amount for salaries and expenses of the
Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service,
$10,000,000.
Commodity Credit Corporation Fund
(transfer of funds)
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds of the
Commodity Credit Corporation in excess of $50,000,000 for
fiscal year 1995 (exclusive of the cost of commodities in the
fiscal year), may be used to carry out the Food for Progress
Act of 1985 (7 U.S.C. 1736o) with respect to commodities made
available under section 416(b) of the Agricultural Act of
1949. The additional costs resulting from this provision
shall be financed from funds credited to the Corporation
pursuant to section 426 of Public Law 103-465.
[[Page H3216]] CHAPTER II
DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED
AGENCIES
RELATED AGENCY
United States Information Agency
international broadcasting operations
For an additional amount for ``International Broadcasting
Operations'', $7,290,000, for transfer to the Board for
International Broadcasting.
CHAPTER III
FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS
BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE
funds appropriated to the president
debt restructuring
debt relief for jordan
For the cost, as defined in section 502 of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended, of modifying
direct loans to Jordan issued by the Export-Import Bank or by
the Agency for International Development or by the Department
of Defense, as authorized under subsection (a) under the
heading ``Debt Relief for Jordan'', in title VI of Public Law
103-306, $50,000,000.
CHAPTER IV
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Payments to Widows and Heirs of Deceased Members of Congress
For payment to the family trust of Dean A. Gallo, late a
Representative from the State of New Jersey, $133,600.
BOTANIC GARDEN
Salaries and Expenses
(transfer of funds)
Of the funds made available until expended by transfer
under this heading in Public Law 103-283, $3,000,000 shall be
transferred to the appropriation ``Architect of the Capitol,
Capitol Buildings and Grounds, Capitol Complex Security
Enhancements'', and shall remain available until expended.
CHAPTER V
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION
Office of the Administrator
(transfer of funds)
Section 341 of Public Law 103-331 is amended by deleting
``and received from the Delaware and Hudson Railroad,'' after
``amended,''.
CHAPTER VI
TREASURY, POSTAL SERVICE, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
Departmental Offices
salaries and expenses
(transfer of funds)
In the paragraph under this heading in Public Law 103-329,
delete ``of which not less than $6,443,000 and 85 full-time
equivalent positions shall be available for enforcement
activities;''.
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
salaries and expenses
(transfer of funds)
In the paragraph under this heading in Public Law 103-329,
delete ``first-aid and emergency'' and insert ``short-term''
before ``medical services''.
Internal Revenue Service
information systems
(transfer of funds)
In the paragraph under this heading in Public Law 103-329,
delete ``$650,000,000'' and insert ``$640,000,000''.
Administrative Provisions--Internal Revenue Service
In the paragraph under this heading in Public Law 103-329,
in section 3, after ``$119,000,000'', insert ``annually''.
United States Mint
salaries and expenses
(transfer of funds)
In the paragraph under this heading in Public Law 103-329,
insert ``not to exceed'' after ``of which''.
INDEPENDENT AGENCIES
General Services Administration
federal buildings fund
(transfer of funds)
Of the funds made available for the Federal Buildings Fund
in Public Law 103-329, $5,000,000 shall be made available by
the General Services Administration to implement an agreement
between the Food and Drug Administration and another entity
for space, equipment and facilities related to seafood
research.
Office of Personnel Management
government payment for annuitants, employee life insurance benefits
For an additional amount for ``Government payment for
annuitants, employee life insurance'', $9,000,000 to remain
available until expended.
TITLE V
RESCISSIONS
CHAPTER I
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG
ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Public Law 480 Program Accounts
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-330, $20,000,000 for commodities supplied in
connection with dispositions abroad, pursuant to title III of
the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of
1954, as amended, are rescinded.
CHAPTER II
DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED
AGENCIES
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Institute of Standards and Technology
scientific and technical research and services
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $19,500,000 are rescinded.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Administration of Foreign Affairs
diplomatic and consular programs
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $2,000,000 are rescinded.
acquisition and maintenance of buildings abroad
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317 and prior appropriations Acts, $20,000,000 are
rescinded.
International Organizations and Conferences
contributions for international peacekeeping activities
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $14,617,000 are rescinded.
RELATED AGENCIES
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
arms control and disarmament activities
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $3,000,000 are rescinded, of which $2,000,000
are from funds made available for activities related to the
implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
United States Information Agency
educational and cultural exchange programs
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-317, $5,000,000 are rescinded.
radio construction
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading, $6,000,000
are rescinded.
CHAPTER III
FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS
BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE
funds appropriated to the president
Agency for International Development
debt restructuring under the enterprise for the americas initiative
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 102-391, $2,400,000 are rescinded.
economic support fund
(rescissions)
Of the unobligated balances of funds available under this
heading from funds provided in Public Law 103-306, $7,500,000
are rescinded.
Of the unobligated balances of funds available under this
heading from funds provided in Public Law 103-87, $20,000,000
are rescinded.
Of the unobligated balances of funds currently available
under this heading, including earmarked funds, from funds
provided in Public Law 102-391 and prior appropriations Acts,
$15,475,000 are rescinded.
operating expenses of the agency for international development
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-306, $5,000,000 are rescinded.
assistance for the new independent states of the former soviet union
(rescissions)
Of the unobligated balances of funds available under this
heading from funds provided in Public Law 103-306,
$17,500,000 are rescinded.
Of the unobligated or unexpended balances of funds
available under this heading from funds provided in Public
Law 103-87 and Public Law 102-391, $30,200,000 are rescinded.
CHAPTER IV
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
Salaries and Expenses
(rescission)
Of the funds made available under this heading in Public
Law 103-283, $187,000 are rescinded.
[[Page H3217]] TITLE VI
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Sec. 301. None of the funds made available in any
appropriations Act for fiscal year 1995 may be used to issue,
implement, administer, or enforce any executive order, or
other rule or order, that prohibits Federal contracts with
companies that hire permanent replacements for striking
employees.
Sec. 302. Hereafter, the requirement pursuant to section
18(b)(3) of the United States Housing Act of 1937, for the
provision of an additional dwelling unit for each public
housing dwelling unit to be demolished or disposed of under
an application submitted by a public housing agency under
section 18(a) of such Act, shall not apply to any such
application approved by the Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development in fiscal year 1995 or in any prior fiscal year:
Provided, That no such application submitted by a public
housing agency to implement a final order of a court issued,
or a settlement approved by a court, before the effective
date of this public law, shall be affected by this paragraph.
Sec. 303. None of the funds made available in any
appropriations Act for fiscal year 1995 may be used by the
Environmental Protection Agency to impose or enforce any
requirement that a State implement trip reduction measures to
reduce vehicular emissions.
Sec. 304. None of the funds made available in any
appropriations Act for fiscal year 1995 may be used by the
Environmental Protection Agency to impose or enforce any
requirement that a State implement an inspection and
maintenance program for vehicular emissions.
Sec. 305. The Congress finds that the 1990 amendments to
the Clean Air Act (Public Law 101-549) superseded prior
requirements of the Clean Air Act regarding the demonstration
of attainment of national ambient air quality standards and
eliminated the obligation of the Administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency to promulgate a Federal
implementation plan under section 110(e) of the Clean Air Act
for the South Coast, Ventura, or Sacramento areas of
California. Upon the enactment of this Act, any Federal
implementation plan that has been promulgated by the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under
the Clean Air Act for the South Coast, Ventura, or Sacramento
areas of California pursuant to a court order or settlement
shall be rescinded and shall have no further force and
effect.
SEC. 306. EMERGENCY TWO-YEAR SALVAGE TIMBER SALE PROGRAM.
(a) Definitions.--For purposes of this section:
(1) The term ``emergency period'' means the two-year period
beginning on the date of the enactment of this section.
(2) The term ``Federal lands'' means--
(A) lands within the National Forest System, as defined in
section 11(a) of the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources
Planning Act of 1974 (16 U.S.C. 1609(a)); and
(B) public lands, as defined in section 103(e) of the
Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C.
1702(e)).
(3) The term ``land management plan'' means--
(A) a land and resource management plan (or, if no final
plan is currently in effect, a draft land and resource
management plan) prepared by the Forest Service pursuant to
section 6 of the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources
Planning Act of 1974 (16 U.S.C. 1604) for a unit or units of
the Federal lands described in paragraph (2)(A); or
(B) a land use plan prepared by the Bureau of Land
Management pursuant to section 202 of the Federal Land Policy
and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1712), or other
multiple-use plan in effect, for a unit of the Federal lands
described in paragraph (2)(B).
(4) The term ``salvage timber sale'' means a timber sale
for which an important reason for entry includes the removal
of disease- or insect-infested trees, dead, damaged, or down
trees, or trees affected by fire or imminently susceptible to
fire or insect attack. Such term also includes the removal of
associated trees or trees lacking the characteristics of a
healthy and viable ecosystem for the purpose of ecosystem
improvement or rehabilitation, except that any such sale must
include an identifiable salvage component of trees described
in the first sentence.
(5) The term `Secretary concerned' means--
(A) with respect to Federal lands described in paragraph
(2)(A), the Secretary of Agriculture; and
(B) with respect to Federal lands described in paragraph
(2)(B), the Secretary of the Interior.
(b) Two-Year Emergency Program of Salvage Timber Sales for
Federal Lands.--
(1) Salvage timber sales required.--Using the expedited
procedures provided in subsection (c), the Secretary
concerned shall prepare, advertise, offer, and award
contracts during the emergency period for salvage timber
sales from Federal lands to satisfy the volume requirements
of paragraph (2).
(2) Salvage timber sale volumes.--The salvage timber sales
sold under this subsection during the emergency period shall
contain the following total timber volumes (programmed or
otherwise):
(A) For Federal lands described in subsection (a)(2)(A)--
(i) not less than 3,000,000,000 board feet during the first
year of the emergency period; and
(ii) not less than 3,000,000,000 board feet during the
second year of the emergency period.
(B) For Federal lands described in subsection (a)(2)(B)--
(i) not less than 115,000,000 board feet during the first
year of the emergency period; and
(ii) not less than 115,000,000 board feet during the second
year of the emergency period.
(3) Use of salvage sale funds.--To conduct salvage timber
sales under this subsection, the Secretary concerned may use
salvage sale funds otherwise available to the Secretary
concerned.
(c) Expedited Procedures for Emergency Salvage Timber
Sales.--
(1) Sale documentation.--For each salvage timber sale
conducted under subsection (b) to meet the minimum salvage
timber sale volumes specified in paragraph (2) of such
subsection, the Secretary concerned shall prepare a document
that combines an environmental assessment under section
102(2) and implementing regulations of the National
Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4332(2)(E)) and a
biological evaluation under section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered
Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1536(a)(2)) and other
applicable Federal law and implementing regulations. The
environmental assessment and biological evaluation must
consider the environmental effects of the salvage timber sale
and consider the effect, if any, on threatened or endangered
species. In lieu of preparing a new document under this
paragraph, the Secretary concerned may use a document
prepared pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of
1969 before the date of the enactment of this section, a
biological evaluation written before such date, or
information collected for such a document or evaluation if
the document, evaluation, or information applies to the
Federal lands covered by the proposed sale.
(2) Time periods for, and reporting of, sales.--
(A) First year.--For salvage timber sales conducted
pursuant to subsection (b) during the first year of the
emergency period, the Secretary concerned shall--
(1) offer sales which contain fifty percent of the total
timber volume required pursuant to subsection (b)(2)(A)(i) or
(b)(2)(B)(i), as the case may be, within the first 3 months
of the year; and
(2) offer sales which contain the remaining volume required
pursuant to subsection (b)(2)(A)(i) or (b)(2)(B)(i), as the
case may be, evenly distributed throughout the remainder of
the year.
(B) Second year.--For salvage timber sales conducted
pursuant to subsection (b) during the second year of the
emergency period, the Secretary concerned shall--
(1) offer sales which contain fifty percent of the total
timber volume required pursuant to subsection (b)(2)(A)(ii)
or (b)(2)(B)(ii), as the case may be, within 15 months of the
date of enactment of this Act, and
(2) offer sales which contain the remaining volume required
pursuant to subsection (b)(2)(A)(ii) or (b)(2)(B)(ii), as the
case may be, within the remainder of the year.
(i) Each Secretary shall report to the Committee on
Resources of the House of Representatives and the Committee
on Energy and Natural Resources of the United States Senate
90 days after the date of enactment of this Act and on the
final day of each 90-day period thereafter throughout the
emergency period on the number of sales and volumes contained
therein offered during such 90 day period and expected to be
offered during the next 90 day period.
(ii) Special rules for second year sales.--The Secretary
concerned may begin salvage sales intended for the second
year of the emergency period before the start of the second
year if the Secretary concerned determines that the
preparation, advertisement, offering, awarding, and operation
of such sales will not interfere with salvage timber sales
required during the first year of the emergency period.
(3) Decisions.--The Secretary concerned shall design and
select the specific salvage timber sales to be offered under
subsection (b) on the basis of the analysis contained in the
document or documents prepared pursuant to paragraph (1) to
satisfy the applicable volume requirement in subsection
(b)(2) within the applicable schedule specified in paragraph
(2).
(4) Sale preparation.--The Secretary concerned shall make
use of all available authority, including the employment of
private contractors and the use of expedited fire contracting
procedures, to prepare and advertise salvage timber sales
under subsection (b) to meet the applicable schedule
specified in paragraph (2). The provisions of section 3(d)(1)
of the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act of 1994 (Public
Law 103-226) shall not apply to any former employee of the
Department of the Secretary concerned who received a
voluntary separation incentive payment authorized by such Act
or accepts employment pursuant to this paragraph.
(5) Cost considerations.--Salvage timber sales undertaken
pursuant to this section shall not be precluded because the
costs of such activities are likely to exceed the revenues
derived from such activities.
(6) Effect on other laws.--The documents and procedures
required by this section for the preparation, advertisement,
offering, awarding, and operation of any salvage timber sale
subject to subsection (b) shall be deemed to satisfy the
requirements
[[Page H3218]] of all applicable Federal laws (and
regulations implementing such laws) including but not limited
to:
(A) The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning
Act of 1974 (16 U.S.C. 1600 et seq.).
(B) The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43
U.S.C. 1701 et seq.).
(C) The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42
U.S.C. 4332).
(D) The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1531 et
seq.).
(7) Effect of salvage sales.--The Secretary of Agriculture
shall not substitute salvage timber sales conducted under
subsection (b) for planned non-salvage timber sales.
(8) Effect on judicial decisions.--The Secretary concerned
may conduct salvage timber sales under the authority of this
section during the emergency period and the first year after
the end of the emergency period notwithstanding any decision,
restraining order, or injunction issued by a United States
court issued before the date of the enactment of this
section.
(d) Reforestation of Salvage Timber Sale Parcels.--The
Secretary concerned shall plan and implement reforestation of
each parcel of land harvested under a salvage timber sale
conducted under subsection (b) as expeditiously as possible
after completion of the harvest on the parcel, but in no case
later than any applicable restocking period required by law
or regulation.
(e) Administrative Review.--Salvage timber sales conducted
under subsection (b), and any decision of the Secretary
concerned in connection with such sales, shall not be subject
to administrative review.
(f) Judicial Review.--
(1) Place and time of filing.--A salvage timber sale to be
conducted under subsection (b) shall be subject to judicial
review only in the United States district court for the
district in which the affected Federal lands are located. Any
challenge to such sale must be filed in such district court
within 15 days after the date of initial advertisement of the
challenged sale.
(2) Effect of filing on agency action.--For 45 days after
the date of the filing of a challenge to a salvage timber
sale to be conducted under subsection (b), the Secretary
concerned shall take no action to award the challenged sale.
(3) Prohibition on restraining orders, preliminary
injunctions, and relief pending review.--No restraining order
or preliminary injunction shall be issued by any court of the
United States with respect to any decision to prepare,
advertise, offer, award, or operate a salvage timber sale
pursuant to subsection (b). Section 705 of title 5, United
States Code, shall not apply to any challenge to such a sale.
(4) Standard of review.--The courts shall have authority to
enjoin permanently, order modification of, or void an
individual salvage timber sale if it is determined by a trial
on the merits that the decision to prepare, advertise, offer,
award, or operate such sale was arbitrary and capricious or
otherwise not in accordance with applicable law (other than
those laws specified in subsection (c)(6)).
(5) Time for decision.--Civil actions filed under this
subsection shall be assigned for hearing at the earliest
possible date and shall take precedence over all other
matters pending on the docket of the court at that time
except for criminal cases. The court shall render its final
decision relative to any challenge within 45 days from the
date such challenge is brought, unless the court determines
that a longer period of time is required to satisfy the
requirement of the United States Constitution. In order to
reach a decision within 45 days, the district court may
assign all or part of any such case or cases to one or more
Special Masters, for prompt review and recommendations to the
court.
(6) Procedures.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
law, the court may set rules governing the procedures of any
proceeding brought under this subsection which set page
limits on briefs and time limits on filing briefs and motions
and other actions which are shorter than the limits specified
in the Federal rules of civil or appellate procedure.
(7) Appeal.--Any appeal from the final decision of a
district court in an action brought pursuant to this
subsection shall be filed not later than 30 days after the
date of decision.
(g) Exclusion of Certain Federal Lands.--
(1) Exclusion.--The Secretary concerned may not select,
authorize, or undertake any salvage timber sale under
subsection (b) with respect to lands described in paragraph
(2).
(2) Description of excluded lands.--The lands referred to
in paragraph (1) are as follows:
(A) Any area on Federal lands included in the National
Wilderness Preservation System.
(B) Any roadless area on Federal lands designated by
Congress for wilderness study in Colorado or Montana.
(C) Any roadless area on Federal lands recommended by the
Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management for wilderness
designation in its most recent land management plan in effect
as of the date of the enactment of this Act.
(D) Any area on Federal lands on which timber harvesting
for any purpose is prohibited by statute.
(h) Rulemaking.--The Secretary concerned is not required to
issue formal rules under section 553 of title 5, United
States Code, to implement this section or carry out the
authorities provided by this section.
(i) Award and Release of Previously Offered and Unawarded
Timber Sale Contracts.--
(1) Award and release required.--Notwithstanding any other
provision of law, within 30 days after the date of the
enactment of this section, the Secretary concerned shall act
to award, release, and permit to be completed in fiscal years
1995 and 1996, with no change in originally advertised terms
and volumes, all timber sale contracts offered or awarded
before that date in any unit of the National Forest System or
district of the Bureau of Land Management subject to section
318 of Public Law 101-121 (103 Stat. 745).
(2) Effect on land management plans.--Compliance with
paragraph (1) shall not require or permit any change in any
land management plan in existence on the date of the
enactment of this Act.
The CHAIRMAN. The bill will be considered for amendment under the 5-
minute rule for a period not to exceed 10 hours.
No amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute made in
order as original text shall be in order unless printed as an amendment
to H.R. 1158 or H.R. 1159 in the portion of the Congressional Record
designated for that purpose in clause 6 of rule XXIII before March 14,
1995. Those amendments will be considered as having been read.
It shall not be in order to consider an amendment proposing to
increase the net level of budget authority in the bill.
It shall not be in order to consider an amendment proposing to
redistribute budget authority within the net level of budget authority
in the bill except within a chapter of the bill or, in the case of a
title of the bill not organized by chapters, within such title. Any
such amendment or any amendment thereto shall not be subject to a
demand for a division of the question.
Debate on each amendment to the amendment in the nature of a
substitute and any amendments thereto shall be limited to 30 minutes.
Are there any amendments to the bill?
amendment offered by mr. livingston
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 68, the Roybal-
Allard amendment, an amendment that the committee will support.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Livingston: Page 50, strike line
16 through 21.
Page 54, line 18, strike ``$38,000,000'' and insert
``$75,000,000''.
The CHAIRMAN. Under the rule, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr.
Livingston] will be recognized for 15 minutes in support of the
amendment, and a Member opposed will be recognized for 15 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston].
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to yield 5 minutes to
the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Roybal-Allard].
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Chairman, H.R. 1158, in its current form,
includes a number of harmful rescissions that specifically target the
most vulnerable segments of our Nation's population. These proposed
rescissions disproportionately affect seniors and the disabled, among
others, but barely touch the billions of dollars annually allocated for
corporate subsidies.
My amendment attempts to bring balance to the rescission package by
restoring $37 million in funding for fiscal year 1995 to implement one
of the most important supportive services programs administered by HUD:
The Congregate Housing Services Program.
The Congregate Housing Services Program has successfully prevented or
delayed the institutionalization of thousands of frail seniors and
persons with disabilities by providing vital, nonmedical services.
These services include meals, transportation, and personalized
assistance to bathe and dress, get in and out of bed, and to access
wheelchairs. The program also funds the retrofitting of individual
dwelling units and the renovation of facilities for supportive services
that enhance independent living. The $37 million to be restored by this
amendment would provide services to over 8,200 elderly and handicapped
persons throughout the country.
[[Page H3219]] The restoration of congregate housing services funding
would be offset by an equivalent reduction in NASA's Civilian Science,
Aeronautics, and technology development research programs that are
specifically designed to aid U.S. commercial aircraft firms. These
systems-oriented research programs to maintain commercial airline sales
should be a private, rather than a public responsibility. Think tanks
ranging from the Cato Institute to the progressive policy institute
have agreed that government-sponsored research programs should be basic
and primary, not industry-specific. Furthermore, the Congressional
Budget Office has targeted the NASA programs for possible elimination
in its March 1995 report entitled ``Reducing the Deficit: Spending and
Revenue Options.''
The congregate Housing Services Program is strongly supported by
housing advocates throughout the Nation, as well as the American
Association of Retired Persons because it improves the quality of life
for the most needy of older and disabled Americans and facilitates
independent living. The average elderly program recipient is a frail,
older woman in her mid seventies, living alone with an income of less
than $10,000 a year.
The Congregate Housing Services Program is a proven, cost-effective
mechanism to fund these important supportive services for seniors and
the disabled. The benefits of congregate housing services for
recipients receiving home care is only 25 percent of the average cost
of institutional care.
Congregate housing is a real lifeline for many elderly and disabled
tenants trying to avoid unnecessary confinement in expensive
institutions such as nursing homes. Without congregate housing
services, many elderly and disabled persons could end up in
institutions like nursing homes because many have no families and can't
take adequate care of themselves.
Mr. Chairman, I urge an ``aye'' vote on the Roybal-Allard amendment.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman's
statement and look forward, since she has gotten a chance to offer this
amendment, to her support on the bill.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr.
Lewis].
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, as you know and as Ms. Roybal-
Allard knows, we have discussed this problem very seriously and in
depth. There is no question the services to the elderly and the
handicapped under this program have worked very well in many instances.
In some instances we have serious concern about the management of these
programs.
{time} 1545
Indeed, what we are doing here or were doing here was to accept the
President's recommendation of rescinding this program as we try to
reexamine all of the handicapped services throughout the housing
programs. But in the meantime, because of the seriousness of the
difficulty and because we do not know exactly where we should be going
in the final numbers on this program and because I do have some
questions about the way the gentlewoman would pay for it by way of
cutting NASA, with reservation, I nonetheless am willing to consider
the gentlewoman's argument and I will accept the amendment.
I have discussed it with my ranking member as well.
Mr. STOKES. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. LEWIS of California. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. STOKES. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
The gentleman and I have discussed it, and I commend the chairman of
the subcommittee for accepting the gentlewoman's amendment. I concur in
the reasons for acceptance of it. I think it is a good amendment.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the gentlewoman
for bringing it to our attention in this serious way, and we accept the
amendment.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time,
and I assume the gentleman from Wisconsin has no requests for time
either.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston].
The amendment was agreed to.
amendment offered by mr. obey
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment No. 26.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Obey: Page 48, strike lines 10
through 24.
Page 54, line 18, strike ``$38,000,000'' and insert
``$24,110,000''.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the
amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The point of order is reserved.
The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] is recognized for 15 minutes
in support of his amendment.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would restore the much
needed funding for veterans' health care facilities and equipment. It
restores $206 million for veterans' health care and provides for an
identical offset in NASA's science, aeronautics, and technology
account.
The total NASA budget is $14.4 billion so this amendment cuts only
1.4 percent of the NASA budget so that we can afford better health care
for veterans.
Mr. Chairman, there is little debate that this funding for veterans'
health care is needed. This amendment restores funding to build six
critically needed VA outpatient clinics and to replace worn-out medical
equipment at VA facilities. Each of these clinic projects has been
carefully considered and authorized. They are an essential part of the
VA's effort to move away from costly inpatient care to delivering cost-
effective outpatient care.
This shift will provide better care for more veterans at lower cost
to taxpayers.
As I stated, the amendment provides for offsetting rescissions in
NASA's science, aeronautics, and technology account. Total 1995 funding
for this account is $5.9 billion, and it includes several unauthorized
programs that are either new starts at a time when we can ill afford
new starts or received large increases in 1995.
While these NASA programs undoubtedly have merit, we do have to make
tough choices. So I ask my colleagues, what is more important,
authorized projects to improve veterans' health care or unauthorized
projects such as building new rockets and satellites? The clear choice
must be veterans.
In fact, the cuts are in two programs: The advanced space
transportation program and the veterans' small satellite technology
program. The cuts would be sufficient to provide for the offset of $206
million. Funding for these two programs total $224 million, $18 million
more than necessary for the offset.
The advanced space transportation program is funded at $162.1
million, and it is aimed at developing a reuseable launch vehicle to
replace the space shuttle. This program is unauthorized. It was not
thoroughly debated in either the authorization or appropriation
committee. It is high risk, and it is extremely expensive.
The advanced small satellite technology program also is unauthorized.
Despite that, this program received a budget increase of 400 percent.
Let me repeat that, 400 percent, from $12.5 million in 1994 to $61.9
million in 1995. How in the world can we afford to increase funding for
satellites by 400 percent when we cannot afford better health care for
our veterans?
Mr. Chairman, I know that there are several Members on the other side
who will argue that they plan to offer different amendments that
restore the VA funding with offsets in the national service program. I
find that appalling in that it would force us to choose between serving
our veterans and providing education for our children and needed
services for our communities.
Let me say to my colleagues, this amendment provides a fairer offset
for restoring the veterans' funding. The amendment cuts only 1.4
percent of the NASA budget. In contrast, the Stump-Solomon alternative
would result in total rescissions of 72 percent of the national service
budget. That would
[[Page H3220]] devastate the national service program and break our
promise to thousands of young people who are serving our communities
across this country.
Mr. Chairman, the amendment sets the right priorities. It restores
funding for veterans' health care. It prevents devastating cuts in the
National Service Program, and it cuts NASA's budget, again, by only 1.4
percent.
I urge the adoption of this amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. Is the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]
opposed to the amendment?
point of order
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am opposed to the amendment, and I
insist on my point of order.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his point of order.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the
gentleman's amendment because it seeks to amend a paragraph previously
amended.
In the ``Procedures in the U.S. House of Representatives,'' chapter
27, section 27.1 states the following:
It is fundamental that it is not in order to amend an
amendment previously agreed to. Thus the text of a bill
perfected by amendment cannot thereafter be amended.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment seeks to amend text previously amended
and is therefore not in order.
I respectfully ask the Chair to sustain my point of order.
The CHAIRMAN. Does any Member desire to be heard on the point of
order?
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I do.
The CHAIRMAN. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr.
Obey].
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would urge the gentleman to withhold on his
point of order for a very simple reason. Absent the rule which was
adopted, the amendment of the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms.
DeLauro] would have been in order as an amendment to the previous
amendment that was brought up by the gentleman from Louisiana.
The gentleman from Louisiana brought up the original amendment, the
Roybal-Allard amendment, obviously under the rule, in order to preclude
the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] from offering the
amendment to restore funds for veterans.
I think this is an example of how the rules are being used to
establish a very unfair situation, which precludes Members from
offering amendments which otherwise would be perfectly in order.
I would concede the gentleman's point of order, but I would suggest
that this is just another indication of how cynical the overall rule
was which was adopted by this House an hour ago.
Mrs. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Chairman, Republicans have become Robin
Hood in reverse. They steal from the poor to give to the rich.
I support the DeLauro amendment to H.R. 1158 because Republicans do
not care about the vulnerable in our society--the very young and the
elderly.
The Republican method for raising money to give to the rich is to
rescind funding for authorized projects such as the VA ambulatory
clinics. They do not do this for humane reasons. They want to steal the
clinics and give a tax break to persons that make over $100,000.
Give me a break. What kind of nonsense is this? It is Republican
tricksters using old ideas from the 1980's--ideas that got us into this
mess. If we do what Republicans want--destroy programs that help
people, increase defense spending irrationally and give the rich tax
breaks--we will end in economic ruin. It did not work in the 1980's and
will not work now.
The CHAIRMAN. Are there other Members who wish to be heard on the
point of order?
If not, under the precedents recorded at section 31 in chapter 27 of
Deschler's Procedure, the point of order of the gentleman from
Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] is sustained.
For what reason does the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young] rise?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 75.
Parliamentary inquiry
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state it.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, since the amendment that was called up on the
Democratic side was ruled out of order, does that mean that the
recognition for amendments now reverts to the majority side, or does it
still stay on this side?
The CHAIRMAN. It is the discretion of the Chair. Does the gentleman
from Wisconsin seek recognition to offer an amendment?
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, yes.
Mr. Chairman, I will withhold. Could I inquire which amendment the
gentleman is planning to bring up?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, this is amendment No. 75, which
restores the veterans' appropriation.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, we might as well continue with the charade.
amendment offered by mr. young of florida
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 75.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Young of Florida: Page 48, strike
lines 10 through 24.
Page 53, line 13, strike ``$210,000,000'' and all that
follows through line 17 and insert ``$416,110,000 are
rescinded.''.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young] is recognized
for 15 minutes in support of his amendment.
parliamentary inquiry
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state it.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that no one will be
opposed to this amendment. Under those circumstances, is it possible
under the rule to reach an understanding about sharing of time so the
amendment may be discussed?
The CHAIRMAN. That is possible. The gentleman may also, by unanimous
consent, request that time if there is no other Member standing in
opposition.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman does not have to
make a unanimous consent request. I will be very happy to share the
time. What I would like to do is yield myself 5 minutes, 5 minutes to
the gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis], and 5 minutes to the
gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Stump].
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr.
Obey] is recognized for 15 minutes that the Chair would otherwise set
aside for opposition.
There was no objection.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the Chair.
The CHAIRMAN. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida [Mr.
Young].
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, the amendment called up restores
the funding for the Veterans' Administration military care facilities.
And the amendment No. 75 was actually filed by the gentleman from
Arizona [Mr. Stump], the chairman of the Committee on Veterans'
Affairs, and the chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from
New York [Mr. Solomon].
Amendment No. 80, which is one that I had filed at the same time, is
identical, so I called up No. 75 and I am going to yield most of the
time to the gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis] and the gentleman
from Arizona [Mr. Stump].
I just briefly want to say that today we are dealing with the
Contract With America. At the same time when we talk about veterans
issues and veterans medical care, we are talking about America's
contract with veterans. One hundred thirty years ago this month, just
outside this Chamber, just prior to the end of the Civil War, President
Lincoln made that commitment. And he said, ``Let us strive on to finish
the work we are in,'' and he said, ``to bind up the nation's wounds, to
care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and for
his orphan.'' Those words are engraved in the walls of the Department
of Veterans Affairs headquarters downtown as a reaffirmation of that
commitment to our veterans. In keeping with that commitment to
America's veterans, we offer this amendment today.
The amendment I offer today makes good on that contract with our
veterans, one that predates Lincoln's words with its origins in the
Plymouth Colony in 1636 and later the Continental Congress in 1776. Our
Nation has always provided for the needs of those who
[[Page H3221]] have come to the defense of our Nation, first by
providing pensions for those disabled in battle, and beginning in 1811,
by providing medical care. In fact the United States is acknowledged to
have the world's most comprehensive system for providing assistance for
veterans.
Today we honor our Nation's veterans by providing them with the
finest medical care available. Unfortunately, in States such as
Florida, which I have the privilege to represent, where the population
of veterans continues to grow rapidly, and where veterans facilities
provide service to thousands of other veterans visiting our State, the
need for veterans medical care far outpaces our ability to provide
services.
To address this problem, the Department of Veterans Affairs
recommended to Congress last year the establishment of a number of
relatively low-cost outpatient clinics that could expand the services
available to veterans with inpatient hospital care. Because of or
booming veterans population, the Department of Veterans Affairs
recommended, and the Congress included funding for, two outpatient
clinics in Florida, and four others elsewhere in our Nation.
These are urgently needed projects to provide for the immediate
health care needs of our aging veterans population. In testimony before
the Appropriations Committee last year, the Department of Veterans
Affairs talked of the need for the outpatient clinic at Gainesville to
replace the almost 30-year-old facility there, which is more than 35-
percent space deficient. Space is so restricted there that a converted
hallway serves as an emergency room to treat veterans.
The Orlando outpatient clinic and nursing home will replace leased
space which was sized for a caseload half of what is being handled by
VA personnel there. This project will not only move the VA out of the
current undersized lease space, but it will take advantage of a
tremendous opportunity to renovate the hospital at the Orlando Naval
Training Center to not only provide much needed primary and preventive
care, but also to meet the long-term needs of our veterans.
My amendment also will restore $50 million for the VA's medical
equipment account, an account which the Secretary tells me already has
a backlog of $800 million in needed purchases. This equipment ensures
that veterans have access to and are receiving the most up-to-date
treatment using the most advanced medical technology and equipment
available in our Nation today. We should expect our veterans to receive
no less.
Mr. Chairman, as provided for by the rule, my amendment would fully
offset the cost of restoring these rescissions by increasing the
committee's recommended rescission for the AmeriCorps.
The 103d Congress approved legislation establishing a national
service corps over my objection. In voting against this legislation, I
told my colleagues that our Nation should not be creating new and
costly programs with growing long-term financial requirements at a time
when we are trying to reduce Federal spending and eliminate wasteful
and unnecessary programs.
Our Nation has a long and rich history of volunteering to help our
neighbors in need. We do not need a new Federal program to pay
Americans to volunteer, especially with Federal funds that will squeeze
the resources available for higher priority needs such as caring for
our Nation's veterans.
Mr. Chairman, our veterans are the finest national service corps that
has ever served our country. We should honor them today by adopting
this amendment to make good on our contract to provide our veterans in
their greatest time of need.
Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Stump], the gentleman
from California [Mr. Lewis], the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon],
and myself jointly offer this amendment in the hopes that the House, as
the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] has suggested, will consider it
posthaste.
Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Lewis] to manage the rest of our time.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the gentleman from California, [Mr.
Lewis] is recognized for the balance of the 15 minutes in support of
the amendment.
There was no objection.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for
yielding this time to me.
I would like to speak to the House as to how we have come to this
position on this amendment.
The committee is faced with some very, very serious difficulties
interplaying between a variety and mix of serious programs under its
jurisdiction. Members know that we had the responsibility for VA
medical care funding. They also heard discussion already about housing
rescissions in this package. There are problems in EPA, et cetera. They
cut across the board of some 22 agencies.
As we looked at the question of was there room for any rescissions
relative to the VA medical care, one recognizes initially that there
are $17 billion in our bill that involve mandatory spending on those
programs. Above and beyond that, there is $19.5 billion approximately
in discretionary spending. It was our judgment that at least the House
might consider looking at the bill they passed in appropriations for
last year and rescinding the add-ons that took place in the Senate.
Frankly, the reason for those rescissions was not that we were
targeting the specific building that was involved but, rather, we
wanted to get the whole veterans discussion to conference with the
Senate to decide what kind of new direction we should take in these
programs that would do two things:
First, improve the quality and the efficiency of care to our veterans
throughout our VA medical system. But second, to try to save some money
in this category of spending as well, recognizing that if we are ever
going to be able to balance this budget, everybody is going to have to
participate. In this instance, we were attempting to make certain by
way of the conference that whatever rescissions took place among
veterans would be done fairly.
Having said that, the gentleman involved in this amendment have been
very persuasive. The gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Stump] indeed, the
gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] the gentleman from New York
[Mr. Solomon] all have been extremely helpful. The gentleman from
Florida [Mr. Young] especially within our committee has been helpful.
So with that we are essentially moving to replace the $206 million
which was a rescission for veterans and in turn the funding that would
counterbalance that restoring of money will come out of specific
programs within CNCS that we, too, will discuss further as we move
towards conference.
{time} 1600
In the meantime, I believe that the work that has been done by the
chairman, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Stump], especially has been
most productive in this connection. I look forward to working with him
regarding veterans' affairs in the months ahead.
Mr. STUMP. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
California.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from
california, Mr. LEWIS, now controls the time.
There was no objection.
The gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Stump] is recognized for 5 minutes.
(Mr. STUMP asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. STUMP. Mr. Chairman, let me say from the very beginning that I
greatly appreciate the support that I received from the subcommittee
chairman, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon]. The gentleman from
Florida [Mr. Young], subcommittee chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, and the subcommittee chairman are to be commended for
the job they have done in bringing this to the floor. I also want to
thank my cosponsor, the gentleman from New York, Gerry Solomon, for
what he has done.
Mr. Chairman, we are offering an amendment which sets forth a simple
choice in Federal funding priorities. First, it strikes $206 million in
cuts from V.A. medical care and construction accounts. Second, the
amendment offsets an identical amount from the Corporation for National
and Community Service.
The members of the Committee on Appropriations have done an extremely
difficult task in bringing this rescission bill to the floor. They
decided supplemental spending will be paid for, and they have done
that. Unfortunately, the V.A. cuts included in H.R. 1158 are medical
equipment purchases to the tune of $50 million, and outpatient
construction projects for $156 million.
Mr. Chairman, these accounts are some of the highest priorities of my
committee. The Committee on Veterans' Affairs' highest priority for
this
[[Page H3222]] year is going to be to reform eligibility standards for
health care. We strongly believe that Congress should not cut funding
for V.A. outpatient clinics while unobligated balances remain in a
program such as AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps pays so-called volunteers to
perform services that millions of Americans already do without seeking
any financial reward.
In fiscal year 1994, volunteers contributed a total of over 14
million hours of their time over 92,000 regularly scheduled volunteers.
Of the 20,000 AmeriCorps volunteers in the field today, over one-fourth
are working in either Federal or State agencies. This is not a
priority, Mr. Chairman. This is not even volunteerism.
Mr. Chairman, as I said at the onset, I believe the Stump-Solomon
amendment, along with the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young] and the
gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis], presents a simple choice for
Federal spending priorities. I believe this choice is crystal clear,
and hope all Members will support our
veterans over AmeriCorps, and also will support this amendment to
final passage.
Current statutory requirements dictate a counterproductive bias in
favor of costly inpatient treatment for veterans.
Cutting VA outpatient construction would be a tremendous setback to
the Veterans' Affairs Committee's policy initiatives favoring a more
rapid shift to outpatient care.
We strongly believe Congress should not cut funding for VA outpatient
clinics and medical equipment while unobligated balances remain in a
program such as AmeriCorps.
AmeriCorps pays so-called volunteers to perform services that
millions of Americans already do without seeking any financial reward.
The Department of Veterans Affairs Voluntary Service [VAVS] is in its
48th year of service to this Nation's hospitalized veterans in VA
health care facilities.
In fiscal year 1994, VAVS volunteers contributed a total of over 14
million hours of their time mostly from 92,534 regularly scheduled
volunteers.
It is hard to think of a better example for America's youth than this
program of true volunteers performing services to our veteran's without
the expectation or need for financial reward.
AmeriCorps targets the same population group for its members as the
military services, and they both use educational benefits as a major
incentive.
In testimony before the House National Security Committee on March 7,
1995, the Marine Corps stated that in fiscal year 1994, the Marines did
not achieve their enlistment contracting goals for recruiting.
For the first quarter of fiscal year 1995, all services failed to
meet requirements for new enlistment contracts.
DOD's awareness and attitude study is the measurement tool for
estimating the propensity of American youth to join the military.
Fiftysix percent felt AmeriCorps and other programs were better ways
to get money for college than joining the military.
AmeriCorps is hurting military recruiting, and will be a much larger
problem for recruiting if it is allowed to expand.
Rather than promoting American's desire for smaller and more
efficient government, AmeriCorps is channeling its participants into
Federal and State bureaucracies.
Of the 20,000 AmeriCorps volunteers in the field today, over one-
fourth are working in Federal or State agencies.
This is not a priority.
This is not volunteerism.
Mr. Chairman, as I said at the outset, I believe the Stump-Solomon
amendment presents a simple choice for Federal spending priorities.
I believe the choice is crystal clear and hope all Members will
support our veterans and vote for this amendment.
Organizations Supporting Stump-Solomon Amendment to Restore Veterans
Program Cuts With AmeriCorps Reductions
Paralyzed Veterans of America.
AMVETS.
Air Force Association.
Air Force Sergeants Association.
Association of Military Surgeons of the US.
Association of the US Army.
Commissioned Officers Association of the US Public Health
Service, Inc.
Chief Warrant & Warrant Officers Association of US Coast
Guard.
Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the US.
Fleet Reserve Association.
Jewish Reserve Association.
Marine Corps League.
Marine Corps Reserve Officers Association.
Military Chaplains Association of the USA.
National Association for Uniformed Services.
National Guard Association of the US.
National Military Family Association.
Naval Enlisted Reserve Association.
Naval Reserve Association.
Navy League of the US.
Non Commissioned Officers Association.
Reserve Officers Association.
The Retired Enlisted Association.
The Retired Officers Association.
US Army Warrant Officers Association.
US Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Association.
United Armed Forces Association.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. STUMP. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from New York [Mr.
Solomon].
Mr. SOLOMON. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
Mr. Chairman, we know what this amendment does. As the former ranking
member on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs for a number of years, I
can say that these outpatient clinics, especially with the aging
veteran population we have in America, will save this Government money
in the long run.
The reason we are taking the offsets from the National Service Corps
is because of something that happened on this floor 2 years ago, when
the National Service Corps legislation first came to the floor. I
offered an amendment at that time which would not allow the funds for
the National Service Corps to come out of the 602(b) allocations of the
Department of Veterans Affairs, HUD, and independent agencies. Instead,
they would come out of the education and labor 602(b) allocations, as
it should be.
I was assured by the Democrat then-chairman of the Education & Labor
Committee that my amendment would be supported in conference, and it
would stay there is the legislation. Unfortunately, when that bill went
to conference, the chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor did
not support my amendment. It was dropped.
What we are doing today, Mr. Chairman, is sort of a get-even. What
should have been done 2 years ago is going to be done today. Once this
amendment is adopted, it means that any future funding for the National
Service Corps whether funding the corps is good or bad, and I think it
is bad--veterans programs will not compete with the National Service
Corps for Federal funds at a time when the existing appropriated funds
for veterans barely cover the health benefits of those citizens.
On top of undermining military recruiting, ruining the true
spirit of volunteerism, creating a new and costly
bureaucracy, and serving less than one-half of 1 percent of
the population, this National Service Program will steal the
funds from veterans' hospitals, veterans' families, and
veterans' benefits.
That is what I said 2 years ago. That is exactly the problem we are
correcting today. That is why Members should support this amendment
here today with a unanimous vote of this Congress.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] is recognized
for 15 minutes, and controls the time under his unanimous-consent
request.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6 minutes.
____________________