[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 10, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5468-S5470]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--S. 419

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Labor 
Committee now be discharged from further consideration of S. 419, a 
bill to prevent birth defects by developing and implementing new 
prevention and surveillance strategies and the Senate now proceed to 
its immediate consideration under the following limitation: One 
substitute amendment in order to be offered by Senator Bond, no other 
amendments be in order to the bill, and there be 30 minutes equally 
divided for debate with Senator Bond in control of 15 minutes, and the 
ranking member in control of 15 minutes, and further, following the 
disposition of the amendment, and the expiration or yielding back of 
time, the bill be read a third

[[Page S5469]]

time and the Senate proceed to a vote on passage of the bill as amended 
with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DASCHLE. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I am a 
cosponsor of that particular legislation and I appreciate having the 
chance to debate it on the Senate floor. I think there is probably 
broad bipartisan support for it. But I have indicated to the majority 
leader on a number of occasions now our strong desire to delay the 
consideration of any other legislation until we have the opportunity to 
consider again the disaster bill.
  There are people out there that have birth defects. There are people 
out there that do not have homes. There are people out there that do 
not have their farms, their businesses. There are people out there that 
do not have the opportunity to conduct their lives in a normal way that 
are waiting day by day for us to respond in a meaningful way to their 
circumstances.
  People in 35 States now have been affected by the disastrous 
circumstances that are addressed in this piece of legislation. We ought 
not do anything until we have had the opportunity once more to consider 
that legislation. So on behalf of the Democratic caucus, Mr. President, 
I object to the unanimous-consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The unanimous consent 
request of the majority leader is not agreed to.
  Mr. LOTT. I regret that the Democrats will not allow the Senate to 
consider this bipartisan legislation. I know there are a number of 
Democrats that are cosponsors of it. I presume we are going to find a 
way to consider this. This legislation would establish a national birth 
defects prevention research system. I point out that our bill is 
cosponsored not only by the Democratic leader, but Senator Dorgan, 
Senator Hollings, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, just to name a few, and 
a number of Senators on this side of the aisle.
  As I know the cosponsors are aware, an estimated 150,000 infants are 
born each year with serious birth defects, resulting in 1 out of every 
5 infant deaths. The bill is designed to establish regional birth 
defects research programs, establishes the Centers for Disease Control 
as the coordinating agency for birth defects surveillance and 
prevention, and authorizes grants to public and nonprofit organizations 
to develop new public awareness to reduce the incidence of birth 
defects.

  With regard to the supplemental bill, I presume that we are going to 
continue to work to try to find a resolution to this problem. I think I 
have proven over the past year that I always believe you can find a way 
to work through disagreements. Quite often here in the Senate, when we 
seem to be in an immovable position, when everyone is intractable, 
Senator Daschle and I have found if we go to the Senators that say, 
``No deal ever,'' and ask them, ``OK, what's the solution?'' I think 
quite often they say, ``Well, we can do it this way or that way.''
  What I have suggested to Senator Daschle and to the White House and 
to the House of Representatives and to the leadership in the Senate, 
including the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, is we can work 
together and see if we can come up with language that we can agree on 
with regard to this very important issue and with regard to preventing 
a Government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year and find a way to 
move the bill with some of the other language that is in there. Some of 
it may have to be removed; some of it may be compromised.
  But, you know, compromise is not something where you work it out with 
yourself, on one side of the aisle or one side of the Capital. Now we 
have to work among ourselves, Republicans and Democrats, House and 
Senate and the administration. It involves engagement.
  And I have asked several times along the last couple weeks, including 
last Friday and again yesterday, and including direct conversations 
with the President--``You know, can't we find a way to come up with 
some language that you can live with and that we can live with and move 
this issue beyond us and go on to other issues?''
  I want to note also for one and all that this bill was originally 
requested to be $4.1 billion. It is now at least $8.6 billion. And it 
is not just funds for disasters around the country, it is also funds 
for the Department of Defense and a lot of other programs that were not 
originally requested.
  I will just give you some idea what we are talking about. I hope I 
have the list here. It does include things like--and these are all good 
and fine programs, I guess--but $33 million I think it is for the 
Botanical Gardens, not exactly emergency disaster funding; $23 million 
for a parking garage in Cleveland, OH. I do not have the list here with 
me, but there is a long list of things that have been added along the 
way.
  Barnacles have been picked up on this ship. So one of the things I 
have suggested is, while we continue to work to try to resolve the 
amount and the language--in fact yesterday I was asked by one of the 
administration officials--I do not want to put words in their mouth--
``What is this objection that Attorney General Reno has to some money 
in the bill?'' I said to this person, ``Are you talking about the $2 
million for a law enforcement commission?'' Would the President want to 
start talking about vetoing a bill because of $2 million for a law 
enforcement commission? I do not think so, but I would like to hear 
what their argument is against it.

  One of the things I have suggested, with all honesty, and I did it 
back before the Memorial Day recess, rather than trying to negotiate 
this thing down or to solve all the language right now, we should go 
ahead and do a smaller bill that will provide the real emergency 
disaster and the urgent salary for DOD. That will still leave a lot of 
money and a lot of language that we will continue to work on.
  I guess what I am saying here is that I would like to get this worked 
out. I would like for us to move on to the reconciliation bill. I would 
like for us to move on to appropriations bills. I had hoped we could do 
two or three appropriations bills before the Fourth of July recess, and 
I still hope we can put them in there tomorrow. I would like for us to 
take up some of the nominations that are pending. I would like for us 
to take up adoption legislation, legislation that passed the House with 
465 votes, to make it easier to have adoptions in America. I did not 
bring it up last week because I found that we have a number of Senators 
on both sides of the aisle that have been working on that and have some 
good ideas, including Senator Rockefeller, Senator DeWine, Senator 
Craig, and Senator Chafee. They are working on it, and I think we may 
have a compromise adoption bill we could call up later on this week.
  All I am saying here is let us go on and do some of these bills that 
we should be able to do in a relatively short period of time, including 
the birth defects research program, while we continue to see if we can 
work things out. I am ready. I am ready. Help me. I think we can find a 
way to get this thing done.
  But it does not work this way. It does not work that the President 
says, ``Send me down a full plate of money, $8.6 billion --and, by the 
way, we do not want any of your language on it.'' I have gone back and 
I have looked at supplementals over the years, and there has hardly 
ever been a supplemental that did not have all kinds of extraneous 
language, all kinds of add-ons. If necessary, as the afternoon 
progresses, I will read the list. Many of the supplementals that went 
to President Reagan, President Carter, and President Bush had not one 
or two little pieces of language, lots of pieces. I will give you some 
idea of how on every supplemental, I believe without many exceptions, 
the Congress has expressed its will. We have input. We deserve some 
consideration. These are not insignificant issues.
  I am not convinced, for instance, on census, that at some point, once 
we fully understand how the sampling might work, that we would not want 
to do that. I think I have real legitimate questions that I do not know 
the answers to yet. Rather than let the administration start on down 
the trail, and we will do this by sampling, I want to know for sure how 
that is going to be better than enumeration. I want to know who is 
going to do it, and how it will be done. I do not know the answers.

[[Page S5470]]

  All I am saying is, take a time out on this issue, on census, until 
we have more time to work on it, and then we can resolve it this fall 
or even next year, but we should not get locked in now before we have 
had a chance to really look into it.
  So, I yield to my colleague, Senator Daschle, and ask my colleague to 
answer this question: If the Senate cannot consider this bill today, 
would he be in a position, if we cannot do it today, to grant consent 
for the Senate's consideration during Wednesday's session of the birth 
defects research program bill?
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me 
take the opportunity to respond to a number of points raised by the 
distinguished majority leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader is recognized.
  Mr. DASCHLE. The majority leader says that all disaster bills, all 
supplemental bills have had extraneous legislation. I suppose that is 
probably true. But I have also gone back and looked at all these 
disaster bills and extraneous legislation added to supplemental bills, 
and there is one difference between all of those in the past and this 
one: All of those in the past have the agreement of the President; all 
of those in the past have been negotiated with the White House.
  So, of course, you had supplemental legislation. Of course, you had 
extraneous legislation. But each and every time when that happened, the 
White House said, ``Send it down. I will sign it.'' In this case, the 
President has said, ``Look, these issues are so controversial and so 
far reaching and so problematic that I cannot agree.'' And the 
difference between this experience and all the others is the majority 
said, ``We will do it anyway.''
  Now, I give great credit to the Senator from Minnesota, the junior 
Senator from Minnesota, who sent all of us a letter in the last couple 
of days. The Senator from Minnesota had a very practical, pragmatic way 
with which to address this problem. What he suggested is that we simply 
take those controversial pieces out, have a good debate, have a 
discussion, see if we can find a compromise. Let's do it. Let's agree 
right now without any filibusters, without any delay. We can commit to 
a time certain for legislation dealing with census, for legislation 
dealing with a continuing resolution, for anything else that may be 
extraneous and onerous to the White House. We can agree to that.

  Now, I have suggested that to some of my Republican colleagues and 
the answer I get is, ``Well, the President is going to veto those bills 
if they go in their current form and we don't want that.'' So, in a 
sense, what they are saying is, we will hold hostage our troops in 
Bosnia, all of the people detrimentally affected by the natural 
disasters, and every single other item in this legislation because we 
want our way. That is what we are being told.
  Mr. President, there is no way to compromise with something like 
that.
  Now, like the majority leader, I have tried to find ways, and I give 
him credit for trying to come up with innovative ways with which to 
address this problem, but I must say we are in a set of circumstances 
for which there can be no compromise when it comes to holding hostage 
victims of natural disasters, holding hostage people serving their 
country in Bosnia.
  We cannot allow that to happen. So, let's take the suggestion made in 
good faith by the Senator from Minnesota. Let's take those pieces out, 
let's have a good debate on them, and maybe, in the process, we can 
find a compromise.
  But until that happens, Mr. President, as I said a minute ago, we are 
going to object to any other piece of legislation coming to the floor. 
And I object.

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