[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 117 (Friday, August 2, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9460-S9461]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       VA-HUD APPROPRIATIONS BILL

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, while we are talking about bills that need 
to be moved, I want to return to the matter of the VA-HUD 
appropriations bill. As Members in this body and those who are 
observing our actions will recall, last night, proceeding to the bill 
was objected to by the Senator from Minnesota. This bill is being held 
hostage for another issue not related to it.
  I rise today to point out to my colleagues the importance of passing 
this bill as quickly as possible. This is an appropriations bill. This 
is an important appropriations bill that provides money for the 
Veterans Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and 
Space Administration, National Science Foundation, and others.
  We not only have to pass that bill, however, to provide funds 
beginning on October 1, the start of the new fiscal year, there are, at 
the request of the administration, certain emergency supplemental 
matters that have to be dealt with now. Let me advise my colleagues 
that the consequences of continuing to delay action--and the delay last 
night may already have made it too late to get this bill through--I am 
ready, however, to stay here and work as long as the leadership wants 
us to work, because this bill contains a supplemental appropriation for 
Ginnie Mae, the Government National Mortgage Corporation. This bill 
provides a $20 billion increase in the current limitation on loan 
guarantees for mortgage-backed securities needed to finance FHA and 
Veterans Administration mortgages through September.
  If we do not pass this bill, it means that sometime probably in early 
September, the VA and FHA will no longer be able to sell in the 
secondary mortgage market the paper that is generated by an issuance of 
loans to veterans and to those who qualify for the FHA. These people 
will be without the financing that should be available to them, and it 
will be the fault of this body and those who have held up this bill if 
veterans in my State, in the State of California, the State of New 
York, or the State of Minnesota are not able to get mortgages in 
September.
  The effect will be ultimately increasing mortgage interest rates and 
constraining home financing availability.
  In addition, if this bill is delayed past the signing after October 
1, as of September 30 the Federal Emergency Management Agency advises 
us that they will no longer be able to write flood insurance policies. 
Property owners in every State in the Nation depending upon Federal 
flood insurance will no longer be able to get Federal flood insurance. 
The authority expires. We have been asked to include an extension of 
the authorization for one more year in this bill. Without this bill, 
flood insurance will not be available.
  There has also been discussion of water projects. Everybody knows 
that the District of Columbia is suffering from drinking water 
problems. This bill includes $2 million for water infrastructure funds, 
including funds that will go ultimately to the safe drinking water 
revolving fund in every State and the District of Columbia.
  That requires some additional explanation. We know that the House has 
passed the safe drinking water bill. We know also that the 
appropriations measure which passed both bodies and was signed into law 
for the current fiscal year had a provision that if the safe drinking 
water law was reauthorized prior to August 1, there would be roughly 
$725 million available for that fund. August 1 has come and gone. As a 
result of the terms of the appropriations bill for this year, that 
money goes into the clean water fund. Those moneys are in the process 
of being paid out by the EPA to the State revolving funds.
  When this bill is ultimately passed and signed by the President, 
traditionally the EPA takes about 3 months to get regulations issued so 
that funds can be paid out to all of the States under the formula for 
the drinking water revolving fund.
  We are prepared in this measure when the President signs the safe 
drinking water bill, as I hope he will, to credit the safe drinking 
water fund with the money that is poured over into the clean water fund 
and provide additional appropriations, reducing the clean water funds 
for the next fiscal year.
  I have assured the authorizing committees that we will make those 
moneys available as soon as we can approve this bill. As soon as we can 
send it to the President and get it signed, that money will be there.
  The opposition to moving forward to VA-HUD means that we are holding 
up money to go to drinking water projects and clean water projects. The 
money that was temporarily set aside until August 1 for the States for 
the drinking water funds is now in the clean water fund, and the EPA 
can continue to distribute that money. It can go to the States and the 
State revolving fund.
  So that money is not lost. There have been some irresponsible 
statements by people who do not understand the process that the money 
is being lost. The money is not lost. The money can go to work today, 
tomorrow, this week on the clean water fund, but if it gets passed by 
both Houses and the President signs the safe drinking water fund at the 
direction and at the request of the authorizing committees, I will 
recommend to the committee and to this body that we put an equivalent 
amount from the 1997 appropriations into the safe drinking water 
revolving fund so that the District of Columbia and other States--as 
soon as the Environmental Protection Agency writes the regulations and 
can hand out the money--will have the dollars available to improve the 
drinking water supplies. That is another reason this bill must be 
protected.

  In addition, this bill includes the funds needed as of October 1 to 
send out benefit checks to about 2 million poor and disabled veterans 
and veterans' widows. When this bill is held hostage, as it was last 
night, we are threatening the money that goes to the poor and disabled 
veterans and their widows.
  This bill, Mr. President, also has $1 billion to restore FEMA's 
disaster relief fund so that disaster victims from floods and other 
disasters across the country may be helped by FEMA. Mr. President, when 
someone holds up this bill and holds it hostage, it is holding hostage 
the money that would go to aid victims of disaster.
  I ask my colleagues to quit playing games with a vitally important 
appropriations bill. Deal with the other matters. There are many 
sensitive matters. There are many things that I have that are being 
held up, and I am doing my best to work out agreements with those who 
are holding them up. But I say to you that the appropriations bills 
need to go forward not only to fund vital programs that begin October 
1, but in the instance of the Ginnie Mae loan limitation, the bill has 
to be enacted as soon as possible so that Ginnie Mae's ability to sell 
VA and FHA mortgages will not expire.
  In addition, as of October 1, there will be no authority for FEMA to 
write flood insurance.
  Mr. President, we have talked enough about all of these problems. I 
hope that very shortly the majority leader will be able to ask 
unanimous consent to move forward on some of these vitally important 
measures that are pending before this body.
  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

[[Page S9461]]

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. President. I say to my colleagues that 
I will take only 2 minutes.
  Look, the Senator from Missouri--we know each other. We work together 
on the Small Business Committee. If we want to talk about being held 
hostage, we have a judge who is being held hostage. The Senator knows--
he was up here earlier--that there are a lot of discussions going on. 
And I think the majority leader is confident that this can be worked 
out very soon.
  Nobody is trying to stop everything. This all started with a 
wonderful judge. You would think she is wonderful. She thought she was 
going through the other night. Everybody had given their word. It was 
going to be by unanimous consent. And then, all of a sudden, for a 
variety of different reasons, it did not.
  It does not do any good for anybody to get angry at anybody any 
longer. It did happen. We are now trying to work this out. Believe me, 
this really was the judge that was held hostage. But we are beyond that 
now. We are working hard on an agreement, and that is going to happen.
  That is all I would say to my colleague. I think he knows that.
  Mr. BOND addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I would say simply that the effect of what 
has been done is to hold this bill hostage. I am not in here to fight 
about judges. I have had judges held up before. I sympathize with 
people who want to move things forward that are held up. I am simply 
pointing that out for whatever reason. I am not here to judge whether 
this judge may or may not be important in all the measures and all of 
the provisions that I have cited.

  I want to call attention to everybody in this body the likely 
consequences of holding up this bill. It was held hostage last night, 
and until we hear differently, I regret that it apparently is being 
held hostage, and the consequences.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, let me just take 1 minute, and then I will 
sit down.
  The Senator from Missouri is fussing quite eloquently here about not 
getting his bill up and giving a lot of reasons. The objection this 
morning came from your side, not from this side. It came from your side 
to bringing things up over a bill that is in the House, not in the 
Senate.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator yield? There has been no objection 
this morning. There has been no offer. There has been no objection. The 
objection was last night by the Senator from Minnesota on a judgeship.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I know what the objection would be. The 
reason it has been brought up is because there would be an objection, 
and the objection was made last night.
  The finger pointing has gone too far here. I think we need to call a 
quorum, wipe the sweat off, and try to work things out instead of 
pointing fingers at each other. We are getting too harsh.
  The majority leader is working hard, trying to make this thing work, 
and then we have people jumping up and down fussing back and forth. It 
is time it stopped. It is time it stopped.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. The Senator is correct. I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  Mr. DORGAN. I want to make the same point. The Senator from Missouri 
makes an appropriate point about the urgency, and we need to move this 
legislation. I understand that. I accept that. I hope we can do that.
  To suggest somehow that one Senator, the Senator from Minnesota, or 
anyone else in the Chamber is deliberately holding something hostage is 
not appropriate.
  What has happened here is there are a series of issues that get done 
by consent and by agreement, and the majority leader and minority 
leader and others have worked hard to put these things together. Some 
of them become unraveled, and there are a number of reasons that they 
become unraveled.
  The fact is when you start talking about taking hostages, if we 
wanted to spend some time we could talk about hostagees here for a 
while, but I do not think it would serve your interests or mine. I just 
think it is not appropriate to suggest that the Senator from Minnesota 
or anyone else is holding up this bill. There is a whole series of 
things that have to be done by agreement here, and when they are done 
all these things are going to work and happen.
  Again, I say that it is appropriate to talk about the urgency of this 
bill. I do not want to go back and talk about how this started, but I 
know how it started and so does the Senator from Missouri, and it needs 
to get unraveled, which includes a whole series of issues including 
this bill.
  I appreciate the Senator yielding.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

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