[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 93 (Thursday, July 11, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6633-S6636]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 5011
Mr. REID. Madam President, the Republican leader is on the floor. I
will propound a unanimous consent request. This relates to H.R. 5011,
the military construction appropriations bill.
I ask unanimous consent that a time to be determined by the majority
leader, following consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate
proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 486, H.R. 5011, the
military construction appropriations bill; and that it be considered
under the following limitations: that immediately after the bill is
reported, all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of
Calendar No. 479, S. 2709, the Senate committee-reported bill, be
inserted in lieu thereof; that debate time on the bill and substitute
amendment be limited to a total of 45 minutes, with an additional 20
minutes under the control of Senator McCain; that the only other
amendment in order be an amendment offered by Senators Feinstein and
Hutchison of Texas which is at the desk, with debate limited to 10
minutes on the Feinstein and Hutchison of Texas amendment; that upon
the use or yielding back of time on the amendment, without further
intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to vote on adoption of
the amendment; that all debate time not already identified in this
agreement be equally divided and controlled between the Chair and
ranking member of the subcommittee or their designee; that upon the
disposition of the Feinstein-Hutchison amendment and the use or
yielding back of the time, the substitute amendment, as amended, be
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agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read three times; that section 303
of the Congressional Budget Act be considered waived; and the Senate
then vote on passage of the bill; that upon passage of the bill, the
Senate insist on its amendment and then request a conference with the
House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses; and that the Chair be
authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate without
further intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. LOTT. Madam President, reserving the right to object, first, I
would say that I am glad we have reached the point where we are
prepared to start trying to move some appropriations bills. We are way
late in the year. But ordinarily, we move anywhere from as few as five
to as many as nine in July. I hope we can begin to get on a roll here
pretty soon on the appropriations bills because there are a lot of
things we need to do, but there are a few things we must do. One of
them is, we have to pass the bills to fund the Government for the next
fiscal year, and the fiscal year ends the 1st of October.
I am glad this is being asked for consideration now. I want to thank
the managers and both sides of the aisle for allowing time for Senator
McCain and others to review the managers' package. I understand that
has been worked out and has been cleared. I think this is a good way to
consider this legislation.
There may be objection, but I want the Record to reflect that I
strongly support this unanimous consent request and I support this
legislation. It is more than what the President asked for in this
particular category, but it still has to go to conference. I hope that
it can be worked out in such a way that it would be acceptable to the
President.
There are those who are worried that any time a bill of this nature
moves through the process, they lose an opportunity for critical
matters to be considered. For instance, let me be specific, because I
think Senator Kyl may talk about this, there are those from the West
and maybe other areas that have had fires in their States--we know some
of those in Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico--and floods, such as the
one they have had in Texas. There has probably been well in excess of
$1 billion used, involved in fighting the fires. Now that is going to
be needed to deal with the floods in Texas.
Those funds have been provided by transfer of funds from other
accounts. One of two things is going to happen: We are going to
replenish the funds taken from those accounts or those accounts are
going to come up short. Understandably, the Senators from the States
affected want to make sure there is going to be an opportunity for them
to provide the funds that have been used or replace the funds that have
been used to make sure money is there for upcoming needs.
I am sympathetic to that. I don't think this is the last train out of
the Senate. If this bill moves, there will be another one, and
hopefully we will be moving two or three appropriations bills every
week.
There may be other considerations about what do we do if we don't get
an agreement on the supplemental this week. I hope that within the next
24 hours something can be worked out on the supplemental appropriations
bill, which, by the way, has been hanging around now for over 100 days,
probably closer to 120 days by now. It is time to get an agreement. At
some point, if we don't get the supplemental funds, we may wind up not
having adequate funds for our airport security workers, the
Transportation Security Agency, and it will begin to affect the Defense
Department. I hope we can get all of this worked out.
I am sympathetic to those worried about that and the fires. But I
don't think that is justification for not moving forward on the
military construction appropriations bill. I support this request. I
want the Record to be clear about how I feel about the request and the
legislation.
With that, I withdraw my reservation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I know there is another reservation, but I
just want to respond to the leader because I want him to be able to
retire to his office when he feels necessary.
I had the opportunity to chair the Military Construction Subcommittee
and worked as ranking member. It is an extremely important subcommittee
for the military. With what has been going on in Afghanistan, it is
compounded as to its importance. That is why the two Senators who run
this committee, the Senators from California and Texas, Mrs. Feinstein
and Mrs. Hutchison, have worked so hard getting it in a posture that
has been signed off by literally everyone, including Senator McCain,
who has reviewed the work done. They have done a wonderful job.
I would also say to my friend from Arizona, Nevada, last year and the
year before, was scourged with terrible fires. We didn't have forest
fires; we had range fires that burned millions of acres. We were able
to get money to help replenish those rangelands so depleted as a result
of the fires.
I have been here a long time. I never remember a time when we did not
respond to take care of the needs caused by fires in this country. Most
of the fires occur in the West. We have always handled that.
We have 12 other appropriations bills coming through here. With all
due respect, I say to the junior Senator from Arizona, this is not the
time to hold up this legislation. There are at least 12 other bills. We
reported another one out of the committee today.
I would say to my friend, the Republican leader, I had the
opportunity to speak to Senator Byrd a short time ago. There is hope
that the supplemental conference will be completed tomorrow. Great
progress is being made. I hope we can move forward on this bill. This
is so important that we get it out of here and get it to the House.
I have no doubt, as tight as money is, that we will take care of the
fire needs of the western part of the United States. We always take
care of emergency needs, whether it is fire or flood. We will do so in
the future.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Madam President, I object, and I would like to explain the
reason why. I concur with the comments Senator Lott has made about the
importance of moving this legislation forward. I have conferred with
the ranking member of the committee, the Senator from Texas, who makes
a strong case that the legislation has been carefully crafted, and it
is important to move it forward. I totally concur with her on that.
I also have no problem with the way in which the unanimous consent
agreement has been constructed in terms of moving forward as soon as it
is possible to do so. I have no objection to any of that.
I do simply want to, as the minority leader said, preserve the option
of dealing with the subject of the recent floods and droughts on this
appropriation bill. The reason is as follows: The ranking member of the
committee, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and the
ranking member of the Energy and Water Subcommittee are all meeting
today with other people, including the Director of the OMB, the Senator
from Texas, and others, to try to figure out the best way to deal with
the new issue of the fire and flood and drought damages that have
occurred in this country since the supplemental appropriations bill was
put together.
My personal view is that the supplemental would probably be a
preferable place to include the disaster relief to replenish the funds
for the forest fires to the BIA and the Forest Service. There are
those, however, who disagree. If the Director of OMB and chairman and
ranking member of the Appropriations Committee believe that it is not
appropriate to use the supplemental as the vehicle for doing that, then
one of the other appropriations bills will be appropriate, and the
first one before us is the military construction bill. That would be
the next appropriate vehicle.
I am simply preserving their option to decide which is the best
vehicle for moving this forward. The reason specifically for wanting to
do it right now--in response to the Senator from Nevada, I am confident
that we will deal with this issue because it has to be dealt with.
Here is the very practical problem. We have had about one-fourth of
the
[[Page S6635]]
entire budget of the Forest Service now consumed in fighting forest
fires; whereas, ordinarily it is something like 4 percent of their
budget, or something like that. So they have borrowed from other
accounts in order to pay these firefighters.
The fires in Arizona cost almost $50 million to fight. As a result,
they have had to borrow that money from other accounts. The result of
that is that right after the fire is over, before it is even cool, they
will not be able to go into the area of these fires and prevent the
erosion that inevitably occurs as soon as the rains start, and now the
rainy season is beginning, and the planting of the grasses and trees
and so on that further inhibits that erosion. They literally want to go
in as soon as they can after the fire to stabilize the ground. If they
wait too long, it doesn't do any good. So they have to do that right
away.
The problem is, they have spent all the money in the restoration
accounts. The head of the Forest Service put a stop on the expenditure
of any money that doesn't have to be spent almost on an emergency or
daily operations basis. So right now, both the Department of the
Interior and the Department of Agriculture are significantly precluded
from doing the other things Congress mandated that they do.
We need to make sure they know they are going to have the funds to
restore those accounts so they can get on with the jobs we have asked
them to do; and, most importantly, in the very near term they can get
into the area of these fires and begin the restoration that is
essential in a timely fashion. That is why the first vehicle in terms
of an appropriations bill that can be used should be used for this
process--whether it is the supplemental or this appropriations bill.
There have been suggestions that the Interior Appropriations bill
would be a better vehicle. From a purely substantive point of view,
that is true, but that will not come before us for another month, or 6
weeks, or 2 months. That is, obviously, way too late.
That is the reason why we need to preserve this particular option. I
hope we can move quickly to the consideration of the MILCON bill, both
for the purpose of completing the work of the Senator from Texas, as
well as the work we are talking about.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I am the ranking member of the
Military Construction Subcommittee. I have worked very hard with
Senator Feinstein, the chairman of that committee, to produce a bill
that takes into account all of the priorities of the Department of
Defense, the administration, and the Members' requests. I think we have
done a good job. We didn't give every Member everything they asked for,
of course, but I think we have done a terrific job in meeting the needs
of the military and the requests of the administration.
We need to pass this bill. I appreciate the support of Senator Lott,
along with, of course, Senator Reid and Senator Daschle and Senator
Feinstein, that we need to move this forward. However, I wanted to say
that although Senator Kyl has objected--and I disagree with his
decision to do so--I understand his frustration, and Senator Reid said
he understands his frustration. We see it every night on the news--the
fighting of these incredible fires, people being put out of their
homes, ruining vast hundreds of thousands of acres of our forestland in
this country, and we are running out of money.
I hope that people have also seen the floods in my home State of
Texas. The Governor is now saying that the damage is estimated to be $2
billion. It only happened last week, so I cannot tell you exactly what
we are going to need to clean up the floods. But I know that the people
are suffering. I am going to be there tomorrow with Joe Albaugh, head
of FEMA, to look at the damage myself because I want to make sure we
are doing the right thing for the people of Arizona, the people of
Colorado, the people of New Mexico, the people of Idaho, and the people
of Texas. We have always done that.
So I understand Senator Kyl's frustration. I am sorry he is holding
up this bill, but I am committed to seeking a vehicle for an amendment
that would ensure that the money is there to fight the forest fires in
this country and to clean up the flood damage that we see happening in
Texas. We will do that. We will find the vehicle to do it. I commit
that we will. We are not going to appropriate money that isn't needed.
We are going to have a contingency appropriation so that if the money
is needed, it is there.
We all want to be careful with taxpayer dollars, but there has never
been an earthquake, or a flood, or a fire that we have not responded to
as a country and said we are not going to let people suffer when they
have nowhere to turn but to us. We will be there for them. So I am
committed to trying to find the right vehicle. I want to make the
decision now so we can get on with MILCON. If military construction is
the right vehicle, let's put that emergency appropriation on military
construction. I would prefer to see it on the supplemental
appropriations on which we are having a conference tomorrow. I would
like to put it there.
This is an emergency. We have had a change in circumstances since the
President sent his request to Congress. It seems to me that it is
common sense that we have had a change in circumstances that would
warrant a change in the cap. That would be the preferred way to handle
this emergency, which we all acknowledge we need to do. If we cannot do
that, I want the commitment for Senator Kyl, for Senator Domenici, for
the Senator from Colorado, that we will handle this issue. So if it is
not going to be on the supplemental, then I am willing to try to help
them put it on military construction. If it is not military
construction, then I don't think we will be handling any appropriations
bills until we get a commitment to address this issue.
I yield the floor to my colleague from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. I don't need the Senator to yield for a question, but I
will talk for a moment. Sometime yesterday I raised this issue when
most of the Republican Senators were in a meeting. It seemed, from the
feedback, that most of them agreed with the comments that were made
then. Essentially, we don't often have this situation, but what really
happened--I used the word ``yesterday''--the supplemental has been
around here for so long that it has run into a new problem. It ran into
the problem of forest fires--huge ones--and into flooding that has been
described by those who come from States where flooding has occurred.
But there is no question that the forest fires and the floods, because
they came a long time after these urgent supplementals, should have
cleared it.
In normal times you would be beyond the supplemental and you would be
waiting for something else; but the supplemental bumped right into the
fires and the floods, it took so long to get its rightful place here on
the Senate floor. It didn't seem to be very urgent when it took 2
months to get done. But now we want to try to live by the facts the
White House put into the budget before this new set of facts occurred.
After that meeting yesterday, I was very pleased to note that the
distinguished Republican leader joined with us and submitted to the
White House, to the Budget Director for the executive branch the fact
that this was going to happen sooner or later, that most of the people
we had talked to and that he had talked to--and shortly thereafter we
started talking with Democrats--that there was going to be substantial
support, if not 100 percent.
So I am pleased that we are at a point where we are going to put this
amendment on one of the bills.
I understand our distinguished ranking member of Appropriations has
concurred with others and doesn't want it put on the supplemental. That
is all right with me, provided we are standing in line with commitments
from those who we need commitments from, that the fire and flood money
will be on the next appropriations bill that comes by. Since I don't
want to take additional time, I assume that is where we are.
I will ask the Senator from Nevada a question: Are we now at a point
where we are going to decide on which appropriations bill we are going
to be free to put the emergency language for the floods and the fires?
Mr. REID. I say to the distinguished senior Senator from New Mexico
that we are trying to move these bills.
[[Page S6636]]
I cannot imagine that Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens would have the
fire money in the military construction bill. We reported, as the
Senator knows, another bill out of the committee, the legislative
branch appropriations bill. There are other bills coming up. As the
Senators from New Mexico and Arizona said, fire money should be in the
supplemental, but it is not. I just do not think it is going to be in
the military construction bill. That is why we should get it out of the
Senate and get it to the President. There are some significant military
needs that will be satisfied.
I say to my friend who is so aware of everything that goes on around
here because of his position on the Appropriations Committee and the
Budget Committee, I can never ever remember a time when we have not
taken care of fire needs and the flood needs of this country, and we
will do it this year also. If there needs to be another supplemental,
we will do that, or if we have to put the money in the Interior
appropriations bill or other bills, we will do that. I just do not
think this is the vehicle on which to do it.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I said yesterday that I do not
recall--I have been here a few years longer than the Senator from
Nevada--a situation where we would not pay for an emergency of forest
fires and the damages and costs that ensued.
Frankly, there are a lot of people in the West, particularly in
Nevada and my State, who have seen these fires and now hear on the
television that the Forest Service does not have money in its budget to
pay for them. They do. They are borrowing from another account.
As the Senator said and I have said, they are going to get reimbursed
shortly. The sooner we do it, the sooner we keep faith with the
hundreds of thousands of people in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico,
and Colorado who have been watching. It would be good if it is sooner
rather than later. While we are paying for many things, we should pay
for their account also. I assume that is what you are going to try to
do in the Senate.
Mr. REID. Yes, and I say to my friend, these moneys are so important
to the people of our respective States, there is no question about
that. I think it is a shame, for lack of a better description, that we
do not have it in the supplemental. I repeat that. If there ever was an
emergency, this is it. We have not budgeted for these moneys, and the
fire that swept Arizona is 400,000 acres.
We had a fire in Nevada at Lake Tahoe--we are so thankful it did not
ravage that basin--of only 1,000 acres. In the last 2 years, we have
had over 2 million acres burn in Nevada, not forestland but rangeland.
We need to take care of this emergency. It should be done in the
supplemental, but the majority leader, myself, and anyone on this side
who has jurisdiction will do whatever we can to speed this up as
quickly as possible.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator. I say to those who want to make
sure the supplemental not only passes but is signed, the Senator from
New Mexico is on their side. I am with them. I am certainly not going
to do anything to delay that, although it does seem strange to this
Senator, an urgent supplemental, which is intended for urgent
supplemental needs, would have to be isolated from this need because
some kind of arrangement has been made. The arrangement comes very
late, but it is an effort to get the bill done and to get the important
parties to agree.
I yield the floor.
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