[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 106 (Thursday, July 17, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9575-S9576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SENATE BUSINESS

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we have had a full week, a complete week, 
though it is Thursday evening, and almost 9 o'clock. We will not be in 
session tomorrow, and we will not have votes on Monday but will proceed 
to the Homeland Security bill Monday during the day and, hopefully, 
make progress.
  As we look over the course of the week, it has been a full and 
complete week, with a number of amendments and a lot of debate, a lot 
of issues. I congratulate members from the Appropriations Committee, 
the leaders on both sides of the aisle for their leadership, in 
bringing us to the point that we have now passed three of the 
appropriations bills.
  We will have a busy week next week. We will proceed as far as we can 
in addressing, hopefully, a number of appropriations bills next week. 
And then, that following week, which will be the last week we are in 
session, we will address Energy and, hopefully, complete the Energy 
bill, which is my intention, before the August recess.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if the distinguished majority leader will 
yield?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. I know he has a lot more work to do tonight. I want to say, 
briefly, before he completes his statement on Prime Minister Blair, and 
other things, in the National Journal's Congress Daily today, it was 
brought to my attention that, among other things, it says--and if it is 
here I am sure it is true; we know all things written are true that the 
press puts out--
  GOP staffers continue to meet in an effort to flesh out a reworking 
of the bill's electricity provisions. A new proposal expected to be 
released some-time next week.

  The only reason I bring this to the leader's attention this evening 
is that the bill, as it is, is very difficult. We know there are 
problems with the electricity section. On both sides of the aisle, 
people are concerned about it.
  If there is going to be a new electricity section in this bill, we 
have to have it next week because there is tremendous concern, 
especially by the Senators from Washington. And as we discussed 
yesterday, there are more than 300 amendments on this matter.
  The two leaders are sponsors of one of the main amendments in the 
bill, and I know the two leaders want to get this bill finished. But 
having said the two leaders want to finish the bill, we still have 98 
other Senators to worry about.
  I would hope there is some realization of the great difficulty of 
finishing this bill, especially if there is a new section to be written 
about electricity. If it is a section that everybody signs off on, that 
would alleviate a tremendously large problem with this bill.
  So I just want to say, we have 2 more weeks to go. I think this week, 
even though I am sure there is some disappointment in the leader in not 
being able to complete more appropriations bills, we did a monumental 
task of finishing this bill in the time we did. I think the debate was 
good. There were no nonrelevant amendments. No points of order had to 
be raised. So I think we have done good work. But I do not want, by the 
mere fact that we keep talking about the Energy bill, for anyone to 
think it is going to be a simple issue to get that completed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments from the 
assistant Democratic leader and understand that the task before us is a 
large one. One of the advantages we have is that we began to address 
the Energy bill on May 6 of this year. We have spent 12 days on the 
floor debating the bill. We made good progress on the Energy bill, and 
by saying we would spend a week, or the last week of this month, 
focused entirely on that bill, we have given all of our colleagues the 
opportunity to work--both members on the committee and our colleagues 
not on the committee--the opportunity to develop amendments, to discuss 
those amendments, to work in a bipartisan way across the aisle to come 
to agreement--and not necessarily consensus but agreement--in lots of 
different areas.
  One of the good things about, at least 6 weeks ago, saying and making 
very clear to our colleagues we are going to spend the last week on it 
is that it has given us the opportunity to work together and to look at 
the various potential amendments as well as the underlying bill.
  It is a huge challenge, I recognize, but one I personally look 
forward to working with the leadership on the other side of the aisle 
to accomplish as we go forward.
  Mr. President, tonight we passed the Defense appropriations bill. I 
am very pleased with the progress today. Now we have passed three of 
the 13 appropriations bills for the new fiscal year that begins in just 
under 3 months.
  In many ways, it is ironic because at the beginning of this year we 
had 11 appropriations bills we had to pass, and now we have passed 
three; so indeed we have passed 14 appropriations bills this year, 
which is remarkable. But, in truth, we have three appropriations bills 
of the 13 for the new fiscal year that we have passed. And now, well 
over an hour ago, that third one being passed is a benchmark in many 
ways. I am hopeful that over the course of the next week we will pass 
as many as three more appropriations bills. I am confident we will be 
able to pass two. I would like to be able to pass three, which would 
mean six appropriations bills passed before the August recess.

[[Page S9576]]

  On Monday, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, we will begin debate--
for the first time, I might add, in this Chamber--on a brand new 
appropriations bill; and that is the Homeland Security appropriations 
bill. A lot of my colleagues have not thought about it in those terms, 
but because of our response and reorganization--our response to, in 
some part, 9/11, but our reorganization of the Homeland Security 
Department--we now have a Homeland Security appropriations bill, and we 
will be addressing that beginning Monday.
  And, yes, each time I either open or close the Senate it seems people 
say it is a challenging schedule. It is a challenging schedule. Indeed, 
to complete all the appropriations bills, and to send them to the 
President before the beginning of the new fiscal year, will be a real 
challenge. But it is our responsibility to do so.
  As the distinguished ranking member of the Senate Appropriations 
Committee reminds us on a regular basis, one of our most basic 
responsibilities of the Congress under article I of the Constitution is 
that ``No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of 
Appropriations made by Law.''
  Thus, we take this fundamental responsibility seriously. And thus the 
discipline and the focus, the patience, the collegiality, the 
cooperation must all be reflected in order to accomplish that task.
  There is reason to be optimistic that for the first time in almost a 
decade we can complete action on all of the 13 appropriations bills and 
have them signed into law before the new fiscal year begins October 1. 
Again, when we accomplish that--if we accomplish it--but when we 
accomplish that, it will be for the first time in almost a decade.
  That optimism stems from a number of facts: first, from the fact that 
having adopted a budget resolution earlier this year, we now at least 
begin this appropriations process with a defined top-line spending 
level for all the appropriations bills next year, that top line being 
$784.6 billion.

  That optimism is also a result of the hard work of the chairman of 
the committee and the ranking member of that committee, as well as 
others, to establish very early a general understanding with the 
administration how the President's priorities and the congressional 
priorities will be considered.
  That optimism that we can accomplish completion by the end of the 
fiscal year also stems from the fact that of the 13 appropriations 
bills, the Senate and House's initial allocations are identical for 7 
of the bills, and these 7 bills, with identical allocations, represent 
three-quarters of all the appropriations for next year.
  A lot of this is made possible by a very close working relationship 
with the House of Representatives. Speaking of the House, I am 
optimistic that before they recess in about a week or 7 days from today 
or possibly tomorrow, they will have completed 11 of the 13 bills. That 
will have been a major accomplishment and one that will expedite going 
to conference quickly to resolve any differences with the Senate bills 
in September.
  Finally, that optimism is further strengthened by the fact that 
because we have a budget in place this year, because we passed a budget 
and we have a budget in place right now, we also have the tools to 
enforce the spending levels that are assumed in that budget.
  Over this week we have made much progress on the appropriations 
process. We have begun the process in earnest. We have achieved a good 
first step. Even with this optimism, I know it will not be easy. After 
the August recess, we will need to complete action on the remaining 
bills in the Senate and then conference those with the House.
  We also recognize that in discussion of these appropriations bills, 
there are many demands--we saw a number of them play out today--in the 
bills that come before us. We will see many very good programs, many 
very worthy programs that require funding. But we will also see 
programs--and will be talking about that on the floor--that were simply 
created at a different time in our history. Or we will be talking about 
programs that simply were created but have not met their goals, 
programs where continued funding is simply not the most effective use 
of taxpayer dollars.
  As we saw the deficit figures come out over the course of the last 
week, again and again we said, there are certain things that can be 
done. It is to grow the economy. It is to reap the benefits of the jobs 
and growth package that we passed on the Senate floor with those 
midterm and long-term effects of growing the economy, creating jobs. 
Thirdly, there is the fiscal discipline that does demand tough choices, 
that does demand tough decisions.
  We are committed in this body to slowing rates of Government 
spending, and indeed, if you exclude the spending in the war 
supplemental last spring, the appropriations for next year will 
represent less than a 3-percent increase over the current year.
  Spending will be tight. Many worthy programs and initiatives may not 
see the increases they have enjoyed in many recent years. Recent years' 
appropriations have grown at an annual rate of over 7 percent. That 
simply cannot be tolerated. It is unacceptable today, growing at 7 
percent. That is faster than the economy. That is faster than families' 
paychecks. We simply will not do that. We cannot do that. We need to 
engage that fiscal discipline.
  Again, if you take out that war supplemental from last spring, the 
appropriations for next year will be less than a 3-percent increase 
over the current year. It is that type of fiscal discipline that we 
will demonstrate.
  I do know we can live within our budget that we adopted earlier this 
year. I look forward to working with the Democratic leader and the 
leadership of the Appropriations Committee to fulfill our 
responsibility under the Constitution to enact appropriations bills and 
to do so in an orderly and timely manner.
  Our work this week demonstrates that disciplined, orderly manner 
again in a timely way. I thank my colleagues for their cooperation, for 
their patience as we, under the leadership of Chairman Stevens, proceed 
in this disciplined manner.

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