[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 113 (Monday, July 28, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10031-S10032]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SCHEDULE

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I wanted to touch on a couple of matters 
prior to the time we adjourn for the day. I have come to the floor now 
on several occasions to talk about the concern I have with regard to 
the schedule for the consideration of energy. We have a mere 3 or 4 
days left before the August recess is supposed to begin.
  As we debated the Energy bill last year, I can recall so vividly how 
frustrated many of us were with the length of time it took to work 
through the many very controversial issues.
  Energy is controversial. At the end of the day, we, in spite of our 
frustration, passed a bill that ultimately acquired 88 votes. The vote 
was 88 to 11. Because we were persistent and because we stayed on the 
legislation, we were able to complete our work and ultimately get a 
strong bipartisan vote--88 votes.
  That vote came after 24 days of debate, over the course of 8 weeks. 
We considered 144 amendments. At the end of that period of time, people 
felt as if they had their say. They had been able to offer their 
amendments. They expressed themselves and ultimately voted for the bill 
by an overwhelming margin.
  Unfortunately, so far, we have not been able to allow the Senate to 
work its will in that way with the pending energy legislation. We have 
been on it 12 days. We have only had 12 rollcall votes. So we have 
averaged one rollcall vote per day. We have considered 35 amendments, 
but, as I say, only 12 of those actually required rollcall votes.
  So we find ourselves now, at the end of the first day of the final 
week before the August recess, where we only saw the new electricity 
title on Friday--Friday night. I must say, that amendment alone--the 
electricity title--with all of its extraordinary geographical 
repercussions, poses very serious challenges to the Senate as we try to 
resolve the differences. So we have an electricity title that, I 
assume, could be laid down tomorrow. There will be amendments offered 
to the new electricity title because we know that, on a bipartisan 
basis, there is still a great deal of concern about it.
  We have not dealt with global warming. That, too, is going to 
generate controversy and amendments. There are also the issues of the 
Renewable Portfolio Standard, CAFE standards, hydroelectric dam 
relicensing, Indian energy, nuclear subsidies, and natural gas. In my 
part of the country, in South Dakota, natural gas alone warrants all 
the attention of the Senate to absolutely assure that we somehow can 
acquire available supply and stabilize price. There are also energy 
efficiency incentives, wind energy, carbon sequestration, exploration 
in the Outer Continental Shelf and, of course, the energy tax package.
  All of those issues have yet to be resolved. That was why on the last 
day prior to the July 4 recess I came to the floor to say if we are 
going to finish this bill, we better return to the legislation almost 
as soon as we come back because it will take that amount of time to 
accommodate the legitimate debates that must be a part of consideration 
of this comprehensive bill. Well, that has not happened.
  Now we find ourselves in the last week before the August recess with, 
I am told, over 380 amendments pending. Somehow there is an expectation 
that we can finish. I can hear, perhaps, the charge at the end of the 
week that, well, the Democrats just didn't want to finish the bill. 
Opponents just didn't want to deal with it. So they were dragging it 
out.

[[Page S10032]]

  I must again insist that there is no desire to drag this out. There 
are many very deeply held feelings about many of these issues because 
they affect the pocketbook and ultimately the very security of a vast 
number of people in this country whose reliance upon energy is perhaps 
as consequential as their reliance on food or anything else. It is a 
commodity that we must have. So, clearly, we want to resolve these 
issues. But we are not going to be jammed. We are certainly not going 
to treat lightly or minimize the consequences and the extraordinary 
importance of these issues as we continue this debate.

  I told the distinguished majority leader a few hours ago that I was 
in favor of grinding this out, trying to find as many ways to take up 
these issues and deal with them as we can. But nobody should be 
surprised if, at the end of the week, given the complexity and 
importance of these issues, that we have not completed our work. One of 
the reasons we have not completed our work, so far, is because we have 
had some other issues that have been the focus of attention in the 
Senate. One of those was the supplemental that passed. I want to 
comment on that briefly as well.
  On July 8, President Bush proposed a supplemental for $1.9 billion 
that consisted of three very critical parts: $1.55 billion for FEMA 
disaster assistance; $289 million for Forest Service and Bureau of Land 
Management to cover the costs of fighting wildfires all over this 
country; and $50 million for NASA's investigation of the Challenger 
disaster. The Appropriations Committee supported the President's 
request, but they added one more thing. On a bipartisan basis, and with 
the approval and support of the White House, they added an additional 
$100 million to head off a looming funding crisis that would force 
AmeriCorps to cut from its rolls 15,000 volunteers. The committee's 
decision to add AmeriCorps' funding to the package was affirmed on the 
floor by a vote of 77 to 21 to defeat an amendment to strip out 
AmeriCorps' funding, and then by a vote of 85 to 7 to support final 
passage of the underlying legislation.
  So we went into conference with our colleagues in the House with 
every expectation--given the President's support, given the 
overwhelming bipartisan vote on AmeriCorps and these other key issues, 
but most importantly, given the urgency that is evident to anybody who 
knows the circumstances--that before the House adjourned, we would have 
voted on all four of those components. Instead, for reasons I can only 
begin to imagine, the House Republican leadership cut nearly $600 
million from the President's request for FEMA disaster assistance. The 
result is that with that cut, we are told today that disaster 
assistance funds could run out before we come back in September. You 
are going to have States all over this country needing disaster aid, 
and it will not be available because those funds were eliminated.
  They also eliminated all the money that we need to fight wildfires. 
We have a fire that has now consumed over 2,500 acres just on the 
Wyoming side of the South Dakota border. To my knowledge, it still 
burns out of control. As a result of the funding cut, we may not have 
adequate funding to fight the fires that we know will occur in August, 
and perhaps in September, as a result of the elimination of this $289 
million. The money will not be there.
  And then, of course, the money for AmeriCorps was eliminated as well. 
Hundreds of worthy programs, serving tens of thousands of Americans, 
are going to be terminated because the AmeriCorps volunteers will be 
without funding.
  Mr. President, the state of affairs, and the reasons for the actions 
taken in the House, are simply unacceptable. We have to find a way this 
week to resolve these outstanding questions.
  I do not know what could be more important than ensuring that as 
these fires burn out of control, we are going to get the necessary 
resources to the Federal agencies so they can get needed resources to 
the sites of the disaster. That is true of FEMA. It is true of 
AmeriCorps. And, I must say, I am troubled with the message it sends 
about Challenger. It ought to be true of our commitment to find 
ultimately a successful conclusion to the NASA investigation of 
Challenger as well.
  Mr. President, I did not hear his remarks on the Senate floor, but 
the distinguished Chair of the Appropriations Committee expressed 
himself very clearly this afternoon, and it is my desire to work with 
him and others to see that we find a way to resolve this issue 
successfully. We cannot leave this week with the extraordinary message 
we would be sending to the entire country about FEMA, about forest 
fires, about the Challenger disaster, and about AmeriCorps.
  We have to find a bipartisan solution, just as we did earlier this 
month, to address those matters prior to the time we leave. The 
majority leader has noted that he feels so strongly about the Energy 
bill that we should not leave before we finish the Energy bill. I will 
say, we should not leave before we have resolved this crisis in funding 
for these four agencies. I hope on a bipartisan basis we can say that, 
we could reassert ourselves, or we could assure that somehow this 
matter can be resolved.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Alabama is recognized.

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