[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 203 (Monday, December 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18792-S18793]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     MR. PRESIDENT, SIGN THE BILLS

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I want to switch to the matter of the 
appropriations bills and conference reports. Mr. President, the ball is 
in the President's court. It is in his hands. It seems to be missed in 
the news media that the Congress has been completing its work and 
sending bills to the President. He has bills on his desk that would, in 
fact, guarantee that approximately 621,000 Federal employees could be 
at work today or tomorrow. We do not need a continuing resolution for 
the Departments of Commerce, Justice, State, Judiciary offices, the 
Interior Department, and VA-HUD Departments to be opened and operating.
  So I say to the President of the United States, Mr. President, sign 
the bills. That is all you need to do. Sign the conference reports that 
you have before you and cut this problem down to almost nothing.
  There are two remaining appropriations conference reports that are 
now ready to move and should also be in the President's hands in the 
next 2 days or so. That would be the D.C. appropriations conference 
report. I believe we were able to reach an agreement on Saturday that 
the House will act on sometime, hopefully today, and the Senate will 
follow suit. It was not a perfect agreement or solution, but it was one 
that we should be able to live with. So we should have the D.C. 
appropriations bill done sometime tomorrow for sure.
  We also have broken loose again the foreign operations appropriations 
bill. We will try to move it through once again, and, hopefully, we 
will get both of those conference reports on to the President's desk. 
That will then be five of the remaining appropriations bills that will 
be with the President, leaving only the Department of Labor, Health, 
and Human Services appropriations conference report to be acted on.
  That resides in this body's hands. We have tried repeatedly, frankly, 
sometimes on both sides of the aisle, to get this bill up for 
consideration. But it is being objected to because of some issues that 
are very small in terms of the big impact of Labor, Health and Human 
Services. The way it has been held up--listen to this--it is being held 
up by filibuster on the motion to proceed. The Democratic leader has 
said that we cannot even proceed to take this bill up. I say to the 
Senate, let us just go with the regular order, bring up the Labor-HHS 
appropriations bill, regular order, amendments are in order, the 
Democrats can offer amendments, Republicans can offer amendments, we 
will vote and somebody will win and somebody will lose. It will not 
always 

[[Page S18793]]
be partisan; it will be bipartisan, the way the votes are recorded. And 
we will act on it.
  But, no, repeatedly the Democratic leadership has said, ``You cannot 
bring this bill up unless you take out in advance provisions we object 
to.'' Let me tell you what one of those provisions is--in fact, the key 
one. The conference has language that reverses the President's, in my 
opinion unconstitutional, act to reverse the Court's decisions on 
striker replacement. I believe most of the American people agree with 
the Republicans on this issue. But I say, let us bring it up, offer the 
amendment and let us vote. But we are being told, no, you cannot even 
vote on it. So that one strictly resides in the hands of the Senate 
because they will not allow the bill to be brought up and voted on.
  Let me talk about the bills that the President can sign. They include 
Commerce, and within the Department of Commerce, you have the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Maritime Administration, 
Federal Communications Commission, the Small Business Administration, 
and the National Weather Service.
  Sign the bill, Mr. President, and all those agencies will be back at 
work in the morning.
  The Justice Department. This includes the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and 
Naturalization, and Federal prisons. Sign the bill, Mr. President, and 
put those agencies back to work.
  The State Department. We all know what that does.
  Veterans Department. If the President will sign the bill on his desk, 
the veterans' activities will go forward full steam.
  Interior Department, including the Forest Service, Indian Health 
Services, and the Smithsonian. All the President has to do is sign the 
bill on his desk.
  In all of these agencies that I have just been listing, the President 
has no problem with what is in these bills. He probably wants more 
spending in each category because that is the construction of the 
problem. He wants more money spent. Never before in the years I have 
been in the Senate, or in the Congress, for that matter, have I seen a 
situation where the President wants to veto appropriations bills 
because they do not spend enough money.
  In the past, Presidents have vetoed appropriations bills because the 
Congress' insatiable appetite to spend more of the taxpayers' money 
could not be controlled. Now we have one where the President says, 
``Send me bills with more spending.'' It is a unique experience we are 
having.
  Independent agencies: Consumer Product Safety Commission, 
Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management 
Administration, National Aeronautics and Space, and the National 
Science Foundation. All of these independent agencies have funding. We 
have agreed to language. It is on the President's desk.
  Sign the bills, Mr. President, and all of these agencies will be put 
right to work. What are we talking about in terms of the number of 
employees?
  I have here a chart that shows the number of employees we are talking 
about. Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary involves this number of 
employees: 194,000 Federal employees; almost 200,000 people. Mr. 
President, 102,000 at Justice, 25,000 at Commerce, 28,000 that run 
Judiciary, 25,000 at State Department, 5,800 at SBA, and 8,000 at USIA, 
for a total of 194,000 Federal employees just affected by Commerce, 
Justice, State, and Judiciary.
  VA-HUD. NASA has 20,000; National Science Foundation, 2,000; 
Veterans, 240,000; HUD, 11,000. By the way, I understand about 98 
percent of the employees at HUD are considered nonessential--
nonessential, 98 percent. There are not a whole lot of the employees 
that are actually affected by this bill. It would get those back to 
work, anyway. The Environmental Protection Agency and others, 20,000, 
for a total of 293,000 affected by the VA-HUD appropriations bill now 
on President's desk.
  The Interior Department, 76,000 employees--seems like an awful lot to 
me; Indian Health Care, 15,500; Forest Administration, 38,000; Energy 
Department, 2,300, and 2,000 others, for a total of 133,800. You see 
part of the problem with the Federal Government: Look how many people 
you are talking about working for the Federal Government--almost 
621,000 just affected by these departments.
  Interestingly, too, is, why is the President objecting to the 
Interior appropriations bill? One, I am sure he wants more money. He 
wants more money for everything, of course. The thing they point to 
that they object to--get this--the big fight has been over how much 
timber footage would be allowed to be cut in Alaska in the Tongass 
area. There has been a long battle over what the agreement should be, 
but both sides have worked very diligently and reasonable people came 
up with an agreement between the Senators from Alaska and those in the 
House that might have some concerns about the number of board feet that 
is being cut.
  Then there is some problem with the Columbia River basin. I do not 
know exactly what it is, but I emphasize it involves how much timber 
can be cut in Alaska. Does the President want to shut down the 
Washington Monument and Carlsbad Caverns because he wants a few hundred 
thousand less board feet of timber cut in Alaska? Give me a break. The 
news media are running around and saying, ``Oh, the parks are closed 
down.''
  Ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues in the Senate, talking about a 
monument being shut down so terribly trivializes what is at stake here. 
What we are talking about is trying to control the size of spending of 
the Federal Government. We are talking about trying to balance the 
Federal budget. We all know it needs to happen. This is important. You 
are talking about the Federal Government--what it does, how much to 
spend, taxes on the people--for the next 7 years. So it is important 
that we get control of the Federal budget and do it in such a way that 
more jobs will be created, inflation will stay under control, so that 
interest rates will fall. We are talking about future generations. We 
are talking about the future of my son and daughter and the sons and 
daughters of all of us. Yes, we are talking about my mother, but we are 
also talking about what will be the situation 7 years from now.
  This is big. This is really important. The news media runs around 
saying, ``Oh, the monument is closed.'' We are talking about billions 
of dollars. We have those saying, ``I cannot get in to the monument.'' 
I think that we should be focusing on what we are really trying to 
accomplish here. This is serious. It is important. It is big. Do not 
miss the point. The President, with three strokes of the pen today with 
bills on his desk, can put almost 621,000 Federal employees to work. 
Should they be working if they are going to get paid? Absolutely, they 
should.
  Mr. President, I emphasize again that the people need to look at what 
is really happening here. I see the latest wire service story says the 
President plans to veto today three bills covering Natural Resources, 
Veterans Affairs, Housing, the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and 
State. He says the spending cuts are too large. Yet, if you look at 
these bills over the next several years or 7 years, they will all go 
up. They will all go up. Only in Washington when you control the rate 
of increase is it called a cut.
  The President can solve this problem, ladies and gentlemen. It is not 
the fault of the Congress. Just sign the bills, Mr. President. I yield 
the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. What is the parliamentary situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is conducting morning business 
until 11:30.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to 
continue as in morning business for not to exceed 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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