[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 57 (Tuesday, May 6, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4038-S4040]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS AND RESCISSIONS ACT OF 1997
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, before I go to the closing statement, I want
to talk a little bit about where we are on the supplemental
appropriations bill.
We began the debate on the supplemental appropriations bill on
Monday, yesterday, and we have been on it today. We did have one
recorded vote at about 2:30 this afternoon, I believe it was, and I
expected that we would continue then to work through the amendments,
with some recorded votes being
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required throughout the afternoon and even now late in the afternoon.
I understand some of the amendments are efforts to strike language in
the bill. Perhaps they have been worked out and we will have some
accommodation, perhaps, on the census issue. I understand the amendment
of Senator Wellstone was worked out in some way or the other, and he is
not going to offer his.
Then I received word that the Democrats decided they were not going
to offer any more motions to strike, amendments to strike, or any
amendments, until something was worked out with regard to the emergency
continuing resolution.
Mr. President, I say to the ladies and gentlemen of America, this is
supposed to be emergency supplemental appropriations. This is a piece
of legislation, appropriations, to provide funds for our troops in
Bosnia--and the funds that are involved there have been offset in this
bill--and to provide disaster assistance to States all across America
that have disaster needs.
What has happened? No. 1, the Democrats say, ``We're not going to
offer any more amendments until we get our way. We want to change the
bill that was reported out of the Appropriations Committee, and unless
it is changed to suit our desires, we won't come forward with any more
amendments.''
Then, we have before the Senate 109 amendments--109 amendments. Now,
are we serious about this supplemental emergency appropriations or not?
I do not believe there are 109 problems existing in this supplemental
appropriations bill. That is certainly not the way to get this
legislation moving quickly.
We will have a vote in the morning on cloture, I guess at 10 o'clock,
to accommodate a request from the Democratic side. If we get cloture,
then there will be 30 hours left on the supplemental. Under the rules
of the Senate, you can have up to 1 hour on an amendment. That is only
30 amendments. There are 109 pending. I presume some of those will be
wiped off the board if we get cloture.
I want to move the legislation. I am willing to work with the
Democrats and with the White House on the issues where they have
concerns, as we have on the census issue that has been before us.
But I want to serve notice now--and I am sending word to the
Democratic leader--that we are going to have a cloture vote in the
morning, but I am not filing another cloture motion tonight. I am not
going to try to cut off debate on this supplemental. We need to get
this work done. If we do not get the cloture motion passed tomorrow, if
we do not invoke cloture and stop what appears to be sort of a slowdown
filibuster, then we will just go to other issues or we will stay on
this bill as long as it takes.
I have been told that we need to pass it right away because there are
thousands of farmers and other people, small businesses in States in
the Midwest and in the Dakotas, and my own State of Mississippi, that
are going to need this help. It is throughout the country--in the
Midwest, in the South, in the Far West. And yet now we are ready to go.
It has been reported out of the Appropriations Committee last
Thursday--or maybe it was Wednesday--but we only had 1 day go by
legislatively before we brought this bill to the floor.
I want to emphasize, Republicans are ready to move this disaster
relief bill now. We can complete it tomorrow. We should complete it
tomorrow so that we can then go on to the comp time/flextime bill and
do a little something to help the working mothers of America before we
have Mother's Day. But we are prepared to work on the disagreements.
The way it works is the Senate acts, the committee acts, and then the
Senate acts. The House, by the way, has to complete their work before
we can pass the supplemental anyway. We go to conference and we
continue to work out the disagreements.
The way it does not work is, if you do not get your way you stop, you
know, offering amendments and you slow down the process.
So we will have the cloture vote tomorrow, and hopefully we will have
an agreement to cut off the filibuster and we can move this bill
through. But I want to talk a minute about what the problem is.
The President has indicated that he does not want legislation
included in the bill that would prevent or avert another Government
shutdown. This is not something that just was discovered last year. We
have had problems over the years of getting to the end of the fiscal
year and Presidents or Congresses not being satisfied with the state of
the situation, and the President would veto a bill or the Congress
would not send a bill to the President. We would run out of funds, and
you would have these shutdowns.
We had them during the Reagan years. We had them during the Bush
years. And now we have had them during the Clinton years. I think this
is an irresponsible way to do business. We need to work through the
process, but we should not endanger the people with the threat of a
manmade disaster, which is what happens at the end of the fiscal year.
It does not have to be in this bill and it does not have to be a
specific way, but what we need to do is to make sure that the American
people know that we are working together on a budget agreement, we are
going to be working together on the appropriations, each one of the 13
that comes through, and that they will know what they can count on.
If you are in education, you want to know what part the Federal
Government is going to pay on it; if you want to visit a national
monument, you would like to know that it is going to be open; if you
are a private business man or woman, and you do business with some
Federal facility, you would like to know that it is going to be open.
So all we want is some process that makes sure when we get to the end
of this fiscal year that the numbers we have agreed to will be honored.
But in the process we are not going to go through these, what I
consider to be very irresponsible games, whether or not the Government
is open or shut down.
So I hope that when we have--I am not going to file a cloture motion.
I reiterate that. Generally speaking, if I do not have to file a
cloture motion, that is well received. What I am saying is, we are
ready to go. We need to work on a number of amendments that are still
pending--amendments to change the bill, amendments to pay for the cost
of the bill, amendments to strike various and sundry sections in the
bill.
I think we have a good supplemental here the way it came out of
committee. Probably nobody would say it was perfect. But it is time
that we work out the disagreements, have debate, have votes, and move
to final passage. We can do that tomorrow, or we can do it Friday, or
we can do it some other time. But I want to make it clear that we are
ready to go and we are ready to have the debate and have the votes, and
then we will go on from there.
Mr. President, before I go to the closing script, would the Senator
from South Dakota like to make some comments on these eloquent remarks
I have been trying to deliver on this occasion?
Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the chance to
respond to the eloquence of my friend, the majority leader. And indeed
his remarks are eloquent, although misinformed. And so I felt the need
to come to the floor to clarify for the Record and for his information
our position with regard to the bill.
First of all, there is no Democratic position with regard to not
offering amendments. I do not know where that information was
generated, but I must tell you our hope is to expedite consideration of
the bill.
The current amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Reid,
is being negotiated, as the majority leader indicated, and he was asked
by Members on his side not to press for a vote until this can be
negotiated. So in compliance with the request from the Republicans, we
have not pursued a vote. But our desire is to offer amendments, to lay
this one aside if the need may be, but, regardless, to move the bill
along.
If a cloture motion is filed, I will encourage every member of our
caucus to support it. And my expectation is they
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will. So we want to work with the majority leader in getting this
legislation passed.
I share his concern about the large number of amendments. I urge our
colleagues to be prudent in offering amendments. I must say, some
people did not have the same opportunity as those in the committee to
offer extraneous legislation. And that extraneous legislation is the
source of some concern to many of us. I am hopeful that negotiations
can lead ultimately to a successful elimination of many of these
matters prior to the time we reach final passage.
I do not want to shut the Government down either. We have been
through some very difficult times in the past Congress with regard to
shutting the Government down. If that were the only concern, I do not
think we would have a problem.
Our concern is the degree to which deep cuts are made in investments
that we have already negotiated. And really it renders null and void
the very budget agreement that I have enthusiastically endorsed that
has culminated from our discussions last week. To say we are going to
agree to certain levels of investments, and then deeply cut those in
the very year that they were agreed upon, is not keeping very good
faith. That would be the first concern we have with regard to this
particular automatic continuing resolution provision.
The second concern was addressed by some of our colleagues on the
other side, as reported in Inside Congress on April 18. It says
Republicans support the automatic continuing resolution because it,
would remove President Bill Clinton's upper hand in this year's budget
talks and remove his ability to influence current appropriations
bills. Those kinds of statements cause us to be very wary, frankly,
about what the real motivation is here. We do not want to put the
Congress on automatic pilot. We do not want to cut out the role the
President ought to have as he negotiates with us what levels of
investments we make in many of these areas. I do not know if there are
political considerations here or not.
The best way with which to have a debate about this very important
piece of legislation is to do it outside an emergency spending bill. I
know the majority leader is working in good faith to see if we can find
a reasonable compromise. I hope we can work together to make that
happen.
As to the bill itself, nothing could be more important than for us to
successfully conclude consideration of this legislation early this week
and to get it off to the President as quickly as possible. The bill
ought to enjoy the support of every Member of this body. The sooner we
can get it off to the President, the better. The only way we can get it
off to the President, without a veto, is to successfully conclude some
negotiation with regard to the continuing resolution and these other
very sticky issues that were not added on the floor but were added in
the committee, even though they are extraneous to this particular bill.
We would not be in the delay that we are now in were they not added in
the first place. Because they were added, we now have to deal with
that. They knew they were controversial when they were added, but they
were added anyway. Now we have to contend with it. We are doing our
best to work with the majority leader to do so successfully.
I thank the majority leader for his statement today and hope he will
recognize that there is no delay on our side with regard to the
consideration of this bill, and we will work with him as best we can
under these circumstances to get it done as quickly as possible.
I yield the floor.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I have to say I am very pleased to hear the
Democratic leader say they are not delaying and they do not intend to
delay. In this body, if you have one Senator who prefers not to vote
for a while, he can pretty much make that happen. But if it is the
Democratic leadership's intent not to delay, that is good news, and I
am glad to hear that.
I presume, then, that based on that we will probably pass cloture
tomorrow, and we can move on to dispense with the amendments that are
pending in a reasonable time.
I think the Senator probably has the list of amendments that have
been filed. As a matter of fact, there are only about 9 or 10 that
state any purpose at all. Most of them have no statement of purpose on
file.
Mr. DASCHLE. There are 54 Republican amendments out of the 120
amendments filed.
Mr. LOTT. I thought it was 61 Democrats and 48 Republicans.
The point I am making is I have a list here, 10 amendments indicated
by 1 on our side, with no statement of purpose, and on the next page,
10 by your side. I think there is a lot of positioning and
placeholding, and we understand that is the way it happens around here.
I think if we could get cloture passed tomorrow and then work through
the amendments that are still legitimately filed and we are concerned
about, we can get those done tomorrow and bring this to a conclusion.
If not tomorrow, at a reasonable time on Thursday so we can move on to
other legislation. Of course, another thing, obviously, we would like
to still hold the final passage until the House has acted. We may not
actually be able to completely have the final passage until Thursday if
the House has not acted by Wednesday, but we could complete everything
and then have final passage on Thursday.
Now, with regard to the quote about not wanting the President to have
the upper hand, that is right. I do not want him to have the upper
hand. What we need to have is for nobody to have the upper hand. We
need to have coequal positions: Congress has a certain responsibility,
and the President has a certain responsibility and advantages. We need
to find a way to work through that, where neither side can hold the
other hostage, neither side. I am hoping we will find a way to do that
over the next 24 hours or next 2 days.
With that, Mr. President, I am prepared to go to close.
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