[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 119 (Wednesday, September 3, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11003-S11021]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant Democratic leader.
Mr. REID. Madam President, we just completed a very important vote
prior to the break. Senator Bingaman and I offered an amendment to
increase funding for programs relating to Hispanic children. There was
a point of order raised and that amendment was defeated.
I understand that. But I have trouble understanding a communication
released today from the White House. On this very day we were voting on
important issues relating to Hispanic children in America, they
released this communication that talks about an historic partnership to
improve educational opportunity for Hispanic children. This is nothing
but fluff, big piles of fluff.
When it comes to putting the programs where their mouth is, nothing
ever happens. We had an opportunity this morning to vote to help
Hispanic children, and what do we get from the White House? We get a
press release talking about an opportunity to sit down and talk. Here
is the statement: The partners will work with local communities to
reinforce positive expectations.
The positive expectations were the programs that have been cut and
eliminated by this White House.
I hope the American public sees what is happening. What we have from
the White House is nothing but piles of paper, nothing to help the
children about whom I spoke earlier today, including Ted Eubanks,
Mississippi Valley State University, or Maria de Lurdes Reynoso, who
talked about programs that changed her life, or Oscar Guzman, who talks
about programs that have given his family dignity as the first person
in his family to attend college.
I repeat for the third time in these few minutes, I am willing to
understand the defeat that has just occurred where, with rare
exceptions, the majority voted against the amendment offered by the
Senator from New Mexico and me to help Hispanic children. I understand
that. However, to have the hypocrisy, the same day, issuing this
release, ``Historic partnership to improve education for Hispanic
Americans,'' is absolutely ridiculous.
Amendment No. 1552 To Amendment No. 1542
Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise to join with my colleague from
Maine, Senator Collins, to introduce a bipartisan amendment to increase
the funding for nursing programs. I send this amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendments are
set aside. The clerk will the report the amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski), for herself, Ms.
Collins, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Jeffords, Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Murray,
Mr. Daschle, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Biden, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr.
Sarbanes, Mr. Kohl, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Schumer, Mr. Edwards, Mr.
Corzine, Ms. Landrieu, Mr. Baucus, Mr. Durbin, and Mr. Dodd,
proposes an amendment numbered No. 1552 to amendment No.
1542.
Ms. MIKULSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
[[Page S11004]]
(Purpose: To increase funding for programs under the Nurse Reinvestment
Act and other nursing workforce development programs)
On page 61, between lines 14 and 15, insert the following:
Sec. __. In addition to any amounts otherwise appropriated
under this Act for programs and activities under the Nurse
Reinvestment Act (Public Law 107-205) and for other nursing
workforce development programs under title VIII of the Public
Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 296 et seq.), there are
appropriated an additional $63,000,000 for such programs and
activities: Provided, That of the funds appropriated in this
Act for the National Institutes of Health, $80,000,000 shall
not be available for obligation until September 30, 2004:
Provided further, That the amount $6,895,199,000 in section
305(a)(1) of this Act shall be deemed to be $6,958,199,000:
Provided further, That the amount $6,783,301,000 in section
305(a)(2) of this Act shall be deemed to be $6,720,301,000.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise to offer this amendment so that
we can really get behind our nurses in this country and deal with the
critical nursing shortage facing acute care facilities and other
important facilities that need nurses. This is a bipartisan amendment
to the Specter substitute amendment. I am joining with Senator Collins
to offer this amendment, along with the other cosponsors.
Let me tell you what this amendment would do. It would provide $63
million to fund programs that recruit and retain nurses by helping them
pay for becoming nurses. This was created by last year's bipartisan
effort to pass something called the Nurse Reinvestment Act and also
other important programs to educate nurses. The Nurse Reinvestment Act
was an important bipartisan accomplishment in which we came together
across party lines to deal with the nursing shortage. This is a crisis
that affects patient care across the country.
So, what did we do? We created scholarship programs and we created
loan forgiveness programs to bring more nurses into the profession. But
while the legislation, the Nurse Reinvestment Act, created the
authorizing framework, it did not put money in the Federal checkbook.
That is our job in appropriations. We salute Senator Harkin and Senator
Specter for trying to fund this, but they are funding it at $15
million. You cannot keep nurses, you cannot get nurses, and you cannot
educate nurses to be nursing faculty on $15 million. We need more
money. Where there is the wallet, there is a will on the part of many
women and men who want to come into nursing.
We are in a crisis. There are 125,000 nurse vacancies in hospitals
nationwide. This does not even deal with nursing homes, home health
agencies, schools, and other sites.
The Senator from Maine and I have been champions of home health care.
She has the rugged terrain of Maine and I have the mountain counties of
Maryland, where we know our nurses get on snowmobiles to get out there
to visit patients who need them. There are just not enough of them, and
we need to make sure we deal with this. In my home State of Maryland,
there is now a 13 percent hospital nursing shortage; 2,000 full-time
nurses are desperately needed, not only in the bustling metropolitan
area of the Baltimore-Washington corridor but in our rural communities.
The nursing shortage will only get worse and we expect it will double
by 2010, to 275,000 nurses.
While we have people who want to come into nursing, we have a nursing
faculty shortage because nurses have so much student debt that they
really do not have the wherewithal to go on to the master's and
doctoral levels to do this.
I note the Senator acting as the Presiding Officer, Madam President,
is from North Carolina. She knows we have the wonderful urban areas of
Raleigh and Duke University, but I have talked to her about going out
to those rural communities. They just do not have what they need in the
way of nurses. Yet we teamed up to make sure they could use the
community college programs to get people into nursing and to stay in
those communities. What we are talking about is helping people who will
come into nursing. We will provide either scholarships or loan
incentives if they will come into those critical shortage areas. Isn't
this terrific?
What we know is many young women and even young men are coming into
nursing later in life and they have other responsibilities. This is why
we need to help them by making nursing education more affordable,
providing scholarships in exchange for 2 years, and also financial
assistance to obtain advanced degrees in order to be able to get our
people ready for nursing education. Our amendment funds other important
nursing programs to educate and train advanced-education nurses, such
as nurse practitioners, and also in other areas.
Our chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee faced a very
tight allocation. They did a fantastic job. What we need to do, though,
is get the Senate behind them and increase the funding for these
nursing education programs. We have all of the nursing groups behind
us. We have groups such as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation,
the Men's Health Network, the Federation of American Hospitals, and
AARP. Why? Because we know behind every great doctor there is an
outstanding nurse.
We need it for patient care. Where there is a nursing shortage, there
is going to be an impact on patient care. Our patients need it. The
baby boomers are getting older. The need for nurses is only going to
expand, and certainly by making a public investment to make nursing
education more available and more affordable, we are helping not only
to educate the nurse but I believe we are making an investment in
saving lives, in preventive health care, and home health care.
I hope my colleagues will join in supporting this amendment and I
yield the floor so others may speak about it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I am very pleased to join my friend and
colleague from Maryland in offering this important amendment to the
appropriations bill. Senator Mikulski and I have teamed up on many
health care issues, ranging from home health care, ensuring adequate
reimbursements to diabetes research, to helping draft the Nurse
Reinvestment Act as members of the Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions Committee.
Today we team up once again to increase the funding for the Nurse
Reinvestment Act and other nursing workforce development programs by
$63 million. I join my colleague from Maryland in saluting the efforts
of Senator Specter and Senator Harkin in providing some significant
funding for nursing education programs. Our amendment, however, would
bring the total level of funding for these vital programs up to $175
million in fiscal year 2004. That is not up to the full authorized
level, but it is an amount that we believe would allow us to make real
progress in remedying the extreme nursing shortage facing our Nation.
In fact, the United States is facing a nursing shortage of critical
proportions. Moreover, this shortage is only expected to worsen as the
baby boom generation ages and their need--our need--for health care
grows. According to the American Hospital Association, there currently
are more than 126,000 nursing vacancies in hospitals alone. The
Department of Health and Human Services estimates that by the year
2010, there will be a shortage of 275,000 registered nurses, more than
double the current number. In Maine, almost 1 out of 10 nursing
positions at hospitals across our State is vacant.
We also face persistent shortages of certified nursing assistants and
other front-line health care workers in our hospitals, home health
agencies, nursing homes, and other health care facilities.
The current nursing shortage poses a significant threat to the
ability of our health care system to deliver quality care. The New
England Journal of Medicine published a disturbing study last year
which found that nursing shortages in hospitals are associated with a
higher risk of complications and even death. The study reported in the
New England Journal of Medicine found that patients in hospitals with
fewer registered nurses were more likely to suffer from complications
such as urinary infections and pneumonia; they were more likely to stay
in the hospital longer; and they were more likely to die from treatable
conditions such as shock and gastrointestinal bleeding.
The fact is that nurses are the eyes and ears of our hospitals. They
often serve as an early warning system when complications begin to
develop. But
[[Page S11005]]
the problems cannot be detected and treated early if nurses do not have
sufficient time to spend with their patients.
Another study reported in the Journal of the American Medical
Association last year found that each additional patient in a nurse's
workload meant an increase of about 7 percent in the likelihood that
the patient would die within 30 days of admission.
This is literally a matter of life and death. If there are more
nurses, if hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care facilities
are adequately staffed with nurses, the quality of care provided to
patients and the likelihood of a successful outcome are much higher.
While the situation is grave today, we face even greater threats and
crises in the future. Our current nursing workforce is aging. In Maine,
61 percent of our registered nurses are at least 40 years old. As a
consequence, many of them will be retiring just as we aging baby
boomers begin to place additional demands on our health care system.
The nursing shortage therefore is sure to worsen if we do not make the
critical investments today--now. We need to act more to support our
current nursing workforce and to encourage more young people to choose
nursing as their profession.
Last year, Congress passed the Nursing Reinvestment Act to do just
that. This legislation had overwhelming bipartisan support. It
authorizes scholarships to nursing students who agree to provide at
least 2 years of service in a health care facility with a critical
nursing shortage. It creates career ladders to help nurses and other
health professionals advance in their careers. It provides loan
cancellation for nurses with advanced degrees in exchange for teaching
at schools of nursing.
Let me expand on that point.
Last year, I had the privilege of meeting with the nursing deans of
Husson, the University of Maine, and what is now Eastern Maine
Community College. They told me that they are being overwhelmed with
applications from students who are eager to study nursing, but they
simply cannot accommodate the qualified applicants who wish to enter
the nursing program. The reason: A shortage of nursing professors.
There is a very important provision in this bill that encourages
nurses with advanced degrees to teach at schools of nursing to help
close that gap and lessen that shortage so that we can start training
more nurses. It is not only a matter of encouraging more people to go
into nursing but also to make sure that we have the nursing faculties
available to educate these young students.
The Nursing Reinvestment Act builds on existing title 8 nursing
education programs that provide loan repayments to nurses, improves the
diversity of the nursing workforce, and expands opportunities for
nursing education at all levels. All of these programs play a vital
role in recruiting nurses and making sure that they have the training
required to effectively and compassionately care for their patients.
The promise of this new law and other nursing educational programs
will not be kept without an adequate investment of funds. That is why I
felt so strongly about joining with my colleague from Maryland in this
amendment. Increasing the funding level for these important programs to
$175 million in fiscal year 2004 will allow them to expand to address
nursing shortages in communities across the country.
I urge all of our colleagues to join us in supporting this vital
amendment.
Thank you, Madam President.
Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I am pleased to support the amendment of
Senators Mikulski and Collins that would bring the total funding in the
bill for these programs to $175 million, the amount requested by over
30 bipartisan Senators and groups ranging from AARP to cancer patient
groups to nursing and provider groups.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that more than one million
new nurses will be needed by the year 2010. Yet in my State of New
York, the number of undergraduate nursing program graduates has dropped
each academic year since 1996.
Even as the workforce shrinks, the patient population is projected to
grow. Baby boomers across the Nation are aging, and their healthcare
needs will put an extra burden on the system. In New York State, the
population over 80 will double by the year 2020.
As I travel across New York State, every type of community--urban,
suburban, rural--and every type of provider--hospitals, nursing homes,
home health agencies, hospices is affected by this shortage. All around
the State, nurses are facing an emergency of their own. That is why
last Congress I worked so hard to pass the Nurse Reinvestment Act which
will provide scholarships, public service announcements, and other
provisions to encourage people to enter the profession. But the current
nursing shortage exists not only because fewer individuals are entering
the nursing profession, but also because the healthcare industry is
having trouble retaining the nurses already on staff.
This amendment will help fund important nurse retention programs that
we authorized last year in the Nurse Reinvestment Act, based on proven
workplace principles, such as promotion of patient-centered care and
nurse leadership, that are shown to improve retention. The amendment
does not take any funding from other programs in the bill.
As so many studies have shown, our nursing care can often be the
difference in medical outcomes. For all the new technologies, talented
surgeons, and breakthrough drugs, I want people to remember that
nursing care is essential in keeping our healthcare system the best in
the world. Study after study has cited a direct link between the type
and quality of nursing care that is delivered and patient outcomes. We
trust nurses. In fact in a CNN/USA Gallop poll our Nation's nurses rank
second for their honesty and integrity, with 84 percent of Americans
rating them ``high'' or ``very high.'' If you are interested in who was
ranked first--it was firefighters, for their selfless acts of bravery
after the September 11 attacks.
We too admire nurses for their self-sacrifice, as individuals who
embark on a caregiving profession and found themselves on September 11
on the front lines of the battle against terrorism and bioterrorism.
Nurses were on the frontlines when anthrax first appeared, when SARS
hit, and nurses rose to the challenge and continue to rise to the
challenge.
This is why I am so concerned about the nursing shortage. Nurses are
more vital than ever, and that is why we must fund these programs and
make good on the promise of the Nurse Reinvestment Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. DAYTON. Madam President, I rise to speak on another matter
related to health care. I commend the distinguished Senators from
Maryland and Maine for their legislation which I will be proud to
cosponsor.
It is a matter I wish to address regarding the health and safety and
well-being of thousands of people in the area of my State of Minnesota
surrounding the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
The Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization conference report
which was signed before the recess by 24 Republican conferees and none
of the 14 Democrat conferees from either the Senate or the House
contains some very significant measures that were not provided for in
either the Senate or the House legislation. One of those which directly
affects my State very adversely would prohibit the use of airport
improvement program funds for the insulation of homes and apartments
surrounding the metropolitan airport that is in a DNL decibel range of
60 to 64 DNL. That is a technical term. But it basically means that
those who are most severely impacted, most of whom have received some
mitigation over the last few years through a pool of funds, including
airport improvement funds, passenger facility funds, as well as the
Metropolitan Airport Commission's own fees and the like, achieved a
certain measure of mitigation. But there are many thousands--over 8,000
homeowners and an estimated 3,200 apartment dwellers--who are in the
next phase scheduled to be insulated. And since the airport's location
decision was made, the Federal Aviation Administration, as a matter of
its record and decision, insisted that this program continue.
At the last minute, in a measure that was not considered by or voted
on by
[[Page S11006]]
either the House or the Senate in this conference report, a Senate
conferee reportedly inserted this language into the report. Now it
comes back and is scheduled to come at some near date before this body
to be voted up or down, which is, of course, the purpose of these
circumventions of the legislative process. They do not go through
committee for up-and-down votes nor a public debate back and forth.
They don't go to the Senate floor for debate back and forth and a vote
up or down. Instead, they are stuck in at the last minute in secret
proceedings with not even all of the conferees present--certainly not
all of the Senators present--and then it comes back in a matter that
adversely affects thousands of people in my home State; a measure
inserted without any notification to me, without any discussion by a
Member of this body at the behest of a lobbyist for Northwest Airlines,
which opposes this mitigation measure, and has done so and is within
its rights to do so but is responsible for altering an agreement that
has been reached; a record of decision made by the FAA as part of the
approval of this airport expansion which, if Northwest Airlines wants
to alter or eliminate, as they say they do, it is responsible for doing
so in a public process before a public body, and not by sneaking in an
amendment or language into a conference report that was not considered
or voted on by either the Senate or the House.
I find it highly objectionable that a Senator from another State
would act in such a way as to adversely affect, to cause potential
harm, if this were to go through, to thousands of constituents in my
State without consultation, without discussion or forewarning.
Regretfully, this is not the only instance in this legislation of
matters that were added to it in conference that received no
consideration in either the House of Representatives or in the Senate,
language that runs directly contrary to what the Senate adopted. I
speak specifically of the Senate adopting the Lautenberg amendment
which prohibited privatization of our air traffic control system.
Despite that amendment being added to the Senate bill, being the
official position of the Senate, despite the fact that the House did
not consider the matter, as the House bill was silent on it, out of
this conference committee comes a report which would immediately, upon
enactment, provide for partial privatization, for the privatization,
first, of smaller airports around the country.
Curiously enough, certain States, those that are proponents of this
measure, were exempted from inclusion because I suspect they recognized
that this is a highly speculative, highly risky, highly irresponsible
action, taken with no debate or forethought but simply to fit some
groups' rigid ideological biases that the private sector does
everything right and the public sector does everything wrong.
The trouble is, when they get elected with that ideology, they then
go about running Government so as to prove themselves right, and they
systematically dismantle functions, such as air traffic control, which
in this country is about as perfect as a human system can be, which has
a nearly impeccable record of performance over the years, by far and
away the best, most safety conscious, life-protecting, life-preserving
air traffic system anywhere in the world.
Yet this administration wants to start to dismantle it for no cause
whatsoever other than, as I said, to fit its own ideology. Rather than
coming to this body and having that debate, rather than going to the
House of Representatives and having that debate, they would rather wait
and have conference committee time where they can sneak back in with 24
of their caucus Representatives and Senators and put this matter before
535 elected representatives of the people, myself being one, who don't
have then any opportunity to delete it but simply to vote it up or
down.
I find this to be an egregious abuse of the legislative process, one
that consistently excludes Members such as myself who don't have the
necessary years of seniority to be appointed to these conference
committees. It is bad enough that the process is so skewed in favor of
those who simply, by the basis of having been here for more years than
others, get to dominate that critical phase of the process. But it is
intolerable to me, to this Senator--it is intolerable--when that
authority is abused and those conferees contrive to write legislation
that supersedes the legitimate authority of 100 Senators to decide
upon--by voting, by majority rule decisionmaking--what will and what
will not become part of those reports which then, if they are passed
and signed by the President, become law.
That is fundamentally a violation of the trust that the American
people put equally in each 1 of the 100 Members of this body. The
people of Minnesota, who sent me here, and who sent my colleague from
across the aisle, have the same rights to full representation from us
as do the constituents of the Senators from any other State regardless
of whether they have been here a longer or lesser time than I.
For my constituents' own vital interests to be harmed by a
contrivance of the process that has nothing to do with its integrity
but simply is a reflection of who has the power, who has the money, who
has the ability to hire full-time lobbyists to hang around these
Chambers and to slip into conference committees, at the last second,
where no one else is looking or can do anything about it, measures that
abrogate the public process in my State--I think in any State, but
certainly in my State--that is unacceptable and intolerable.
With all due respect to this institution, I cannot and will not allow
that measure to proceed. As I stated just before the beginning of the
August recess, I will do whatever I must do to prevent the proceedings
of this body leading up to the consideration of that measure. I hope we
can find 41 Members of the Senate who will oppose the conference report
for the 2 reasons I have just cited here and other measures that were
also added in conference that have an adverse effect, such matters as
regional airline operations.
It also adversely affects one city, Thief River Falls, in my State of
Minnesota. It imposes an additional $70,000-a-year funding requirement
on them. Again, it is not something that this body adopted. It is not
something that the House adopted. It is something that somebody else
decided they wanted to add for whatever reasons.
If this bill is not sufficient reason for the Senate to stand up and
put a stop to this kind of legislative freelancing through conference
committees, then I think the fundamental premise of equal
representation and the equal rights of each one of us as Members has
been fundamentally decimated, if not nearly destroyed--in some
instances is destroyed. And I, for one, am not going to be able to go
back and explain to the people of Minnesota why I sat quietly by while
their rights in this process were abrogated by somebody else usurping
that power and abusing it.
So, Madam President, I will be heard from on this matter again. I
don't know when the majority leader intends to bring this matter, the
conference report, to the Senate, but prior to that time, if this
matter is not satisfactorily resolved, then I am going to have to
continue to assert the rights of my constituents to the process that
this body established and should be following rather than some kind of
legislative freelancing, at the last split second, which totally
abrogates their rights and my responsibilities to protect those rights.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I see my colleague, Senator Gregg, in
the Chamber and I yield to him.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I wish to speak to this bill, and in a
moment I will have supportive charts to discuss this bill's efforts in
the area of education.
Let me begin by congratulating the chairman of the committee, Senator
Specter, for bringing to the floor a bill which has made major strides
every year since President Bush has been President, but especially this
year, under Chairman Specter's leadership, major strides on the issue
of educational funding. In the context of that funding, relative to
what was done when the Democratic membership controlled this Senate, or
when the President was a member of the Democrat Party, the difference
is startling.
[[Page S11007]]
President Bush and the Republican Senate have made spectacular
strides in assisting and supporting education in this country while, at
the same time, doing so during a very difficult period of America's
history, a period when we are fighting a war, a war which has required
huge resources, and a war which has required extreme attention by the
administration, and at a time that we have been in a period of economic
recession, in a period when the revenues to the Federal Government have
been dropping precipitously because of that recession. Even in the
context of those two very severe restraining events relative to
domestic program activity, this President has been willing to step
forward and focus on the issue of education, try to improve the
education of America's children and support that effort with dollars.
I think before we get into a discussion of the dollars, because that
is critical to the pending Byrd amendment, I will begin by saying this
goes beyond the issue of dollars, this goes into the question of the
attitude and approach to education.
What President Bush has said is we can no longer afford an
educational system which, year in and year out, in generation after
generation, leaves behind especially low-income children, takes those
children and runs them through the educational system and, at the end
of their schooling period, leaves them without the skills they need in
order to compete for and participate in the American dream. President
Bush has sounded a call to end that system and do something about the
failures of that system.
There are a lot of good-faith people, a lot of hard-working people in
the educational community in this country. A lot of teachers spend an
extraordinary amount of hours, time, and extra effort to try to make
sure their students succeed. Unfortunately, the fact is that, even
though we have radically increased the dollars in education over the
last 20 years, the performance of our children has not improved--
especially the performance of low-income children.
So President Bush said let's try a different way. That is where the
bill, the No Child Left Behind Act, came in. It says, rather than
controlling the input of legislation, rather than telling local school
districts how to run their schools, let's take a different look at this
and say, what are the children learning? Let's find out what they are
learning; let's shine a light on it. If they are not learning enough to
be competitive with their peers, or with what they need to be
successful in society, then let's put in the remedial efforts to try to
correct those problems.
It is an unusual approach in our educational system because,
basically, it calls on the educational community to be accountable, to
actually have to look at what a child is learning and determine whether
what they are learning is what the community expects them to learn. The
President's program, as passed by the Congress in a bipartisan
initiative, doesn't set a Federal standard for what a child in the
fourth grade in Epping, NH, knows; it rather says to the people in
Epping, you set the standard for what your children should know in the
fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. Once you have set that standard, you
are going to have to determine whether your children are learning to
that standard, and especially whether your low-income children, who
have historically been left behind, are learning to that standard. If
they are not, you are going to have to tell the parents they are not.
You will have to disclose to the community at large that a certain
percentage of the children are not reaching the standards the community
set for those children.
It is a radical idea for education to be held accountable, but it is
an idea whose time has come. So far, the response of the educational
community has been very positive. Most teachers understand this is a
law directed not in a negative way toward their efforts but in a
supportive way, trying to make sure school systems are more
accountable--especially in those areas where you have schools that have
not made the grade, where a majority of low-income kids are failing. In
other words, they are not reaching the standards of ability a fifth
grader should know in math or in English. In those schools, we are
going to try to improve their efforts.
There is a lot of remedial activity to accomplish that. The President
not only set out this new initiative in the concept and the way we
approach education--when somebody comes up with a good idea for smaller
classrooms, more computers, and throws out ideas without any
accountability as to whether it produces results, instead of taking
that input approach, but an output approach, where you actually expect
kids to learn and you find out if they are learning, and if they are
not, you do something about it, especially with low-income kids, not
only did he initiate that approach but he was willing to put the
dollars into the programs that succeed in this area.
I think it is important to understand, as we view the debate of this
amendment specifically before us--the Byrd amendment--that the dollars
the President has proposed, and which the Congress passed under the
Republican Congress, at least, have been a radical increase in funding
for education at the Federal level.
The most significant reflection is that, as a function of the Federal
Government, education has received more funding in the way of increases
than any other function in the Federal Government. You would not
believe that if you listened to the other side of the aisle. You would
think it was actually being cut or not maintained. But, in fact, what
the President has proposed, and what we have passed as a Republican
Congress, has been a dramatic increase in funding in education.
This chart reflects that. It shows that in 1996, when the Republicans
took control of the Congress, but most of the burst occurred in the
last 3 years since President Bush has come into office. The increase in
education has been 145 percent, whereas the increase in health and
human services is 100 percent. And in defense funding, if you ask a
person on the street what part the Federal Government expanded fastest
in the last 5 years, they would probably say defense because that is
all you hear about--especially from the other side of the aisle. But
that is not true. Defense funding increased only a third as fast as
education funding.
That really tells only part of the story. The story is what has
happened in the context of this President's efforts versus that of the
prior administration, this Republican Congress's efforts versus the
prior Democratic Congress's efforts, because we are now hearing all
these amendments being thrown at us from the other side about how we
are underfunding this or that and not doing enough funding here or
there.
But you have to ask yourself, what did they do when they were in
charge? Did they make the type of commitments they are now asking be
made by the Congress or did they maybe do substantially less and come
forward today because it is politically enticing to do so and claim
these accounts are underfunded and, therefore, we have to add these
additional moneys?
Well, I think there are a couple of facts that need to be addressed
right now. The first is President Bush's funding in comparison with
President Clinton's funding. In the last year of the Clinton
administration, $42 billion was spent on education in this country.
This year, after 3 years in office, President Bush will have increased
education funding by 60 percent over the last Clinton budget, to $67
billion. That is a huge increase and a huge commitment.
It goes beyond that. If you look at it by accounts, you will see what
President Bush has done is stand behind his words, especially in
comparison to what the prior administration did. For example, in the
entire period when the Democrats controlled the Congress and had a
Democratic President, their increases in title I spending were $286
million. Since the Republicans have controlled Congress--and primarily
since President Bush has come into office--it has gone to $1.2 billion.
If you total these in special education and also Pell grants--and we
have heard a lot of misrepresentation on the issue of Pell grants on
this floor--the difference is that in the period of a Republican-
controlled Congress--especially since President Bush has become
President--the average annual increase has been $4 billion. That
compares to about half a
[[Page S11008]]
billion dollars during the period President Clinton was in office and
when there was a Democratic Congress.
A Republican Congress and a Republican President have basically made
the commitments not only in the area of policy improvement but also in
the area of dollars to back up that new policy.
It is instructive, for example, to take a look at some of the
percentage differences between what the Republicans have done and what
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle did when they were in
control.
In the area, for example, of title I, our increases are 320 percent
higher than the increases of the Democratic membership. In the area of
IDEA grants, our increases are 770 percent higher than the increases
when the Democratic Party controlled Congress. In the area of Pell
grants--actually during the Clinton administration, Pell grants were
cut; they fell in funding--under this administration, the increases
have been on an annual basis about 10 times higher than what the
Democrats did during their period. It is dramatic.
Overall, if you were to put it into gross terms, that $4.1 billion
annual increase in educational funding, which has come about as a
result of the commitment of this President to improving education and
backing up those improvements with dollars, represents about an 858-
percent increase on an annual basis over what happened when our
predecessors were controlling the Congress and we had a different
administration.
The practical effect of this has been that we have created so much
more money flowing into the educational accounts at the Federal level,
unlike what is represented across the other side of the aisle that more
money is needed. In fact, what is happening is that we have put so much
money into these accounts so fast under President Bush and the
Republican Senate that we now have a situation where a large percentage
of the dollars which we have already appropriated cannot be spent and
have not been spent. In fact, of the $31 billion which has been
appropriated under title I or the No Child Left Behind Act, $9 billion
remains unspent. It is sitting at the Department of Education waiting
for the States to get to a position where they are able to draw down
those dollars. And this is not just from last year, this is from 2 to 3
years back, the whole period of President Bush's Presidency.
It is not an issue of lack of dollars. In fact, it is just the
opposite. We are putting so many dollars into the educational accounts
at the Federal level so fast that, to make sure they are spent
correctly, it has made it difficult for the money to actually be spent.
We, obviously, do not want to throw the money out there. It has to be
spent pursuant to a plan. Every State has to file a plan. But as a
result of the increased spending coming through the Bush initiatives,
as supported by this Congress and especially by the chairman of this
committee, Chairman Specter, who has been funding these accounts, we
now find there is approximately $9 billion of funds which has not been
drawn down.
Today we have before us an amendment proposed by the ranking member
of the Appropriations Committee--a man whom I greatly respect and who I
think all Senators respect because of his extraordinary history in the
Senate--which is proposing to add $6 billion of spending on to the
educational accounts. But how is it paid for? I think we need to
address that, too, because, of course, all these kids we are educating
and trying to make ready to participate in the American dream are going
to have to pay the bills we run up on them if we run them up as a
deficit.
So we put in place this year a budget. It was an idea that has been
brought back, so to say, because when the colleagues across the aisle
controlled the Senate last year, they did not put in place a budget.
Why? Because a budget requires fiscal discipline and there were, I
suspect, some who did not want fiscal discipline, did not want rules
which drive fiscal discipline to be put in place so that spending could
be controlled through budget points of order.
We had no budget last year. It was sort of a shock really. Here is
the Government of the United States functioning without a budget. It
was chaos--in fact, such chaos that not only did we not have a budget,
we did not have any appropriations passed under the leadership of the
last Congress, my colleagues across the aisle.
The first order of business when we took responsibility for this
Chamber, under the leadership of Senator Frist, was to pass all the
appropriations bills from the prior year--almost all of them, 11 of the
13 had to be passed in this year rather than last year when they should
have been passed. At any rate, we produced a budget this year, and we
passed it.
What is the purpose of the budget? The purpose of the budget is to
put in place some reasonable fiscal controls so that in a time when we
are obviously running very high deficits as a result of a number of
factors--primarily the slow economy which has slowed revenues, the war
in Iraq, and the war against terrorism--in that context where we are
driving, unfortunately, large deficits, not historically extraordinary
deficits but still very large deficits--we need to control the rate of
growth in those deficits by having in place a budget which at least in
some accounts gives fiscal discipline. So we put in place a budget.
The budget allocates to each area a certain amount of money to be
spent. Even in the context of the very severe deficit which we have--
and it is significant--the Budget Committee, under the leadership of
Senator Nickles, agreed to significantly increase the funding for
education to try to meet the goals set out by the President.
In the area of special education, we increased funding by over $1
billion; in the area of title I, we increased funding by over $1
billion in the budget; and in the area of Pell grants, we increased
funding by almost three-quarters of a billion dollars in the budget
even though that meant that other accounts had to be reduced because to
get the budget in place and have it be fiscally responsible, that
required, if we were going to increase some accounts, we were most
likely going to have to reduce others. We did a budget, and we passed
it in the Senate, and it was passed by the House.
We have in place a budget for this country, finally. We renewed the
concept of fiscal discipline through a budget after having abandoned it
for a year under the prior leadership of the Senate.
That budget sets out these spending goals, these spending limits
which are called caps, the amounts which should be spent in these
accounts. The leadership of this committee, Senator Specter, met those
caps and significantly increased by over $1 billion the spending on
special education, over $1 billion the spending on title I, low-income
kids, and almost $1 billion in spending on Pell grants.
Now we see these amendments coming from the other side saying: Even
though we have a budget, we should ignore it and we should fund all
these programs, not at the level that has been set by the budget or the
level that has been set by the Appropriations Committee, but at the
level set by the authorizing committee outside of the budget.
They are using a gimmick of classic proportions, advance funding, to
claim that they are really doing it in a fiscally responsible way. Let
me explain what advance funding is.
When a Senator offers an amendment which increases spending by $6
billion over what the budget allows, and then that person claims it is
paid for because they borrow the $6 billion from next year's budget,
that is not fiscal responsibility. That is a game. Anybody sees that as
a gimmick. What happens next year? You are $6 billion in the hole. So
next year you not only have to pay that $6 billion, you have to pay on
top of that whatever you are going to pay for the increase in those
accounts.
As a practical matter, it is doubling up the deficit. It would
probably be better from a practical standpoint if you did not advance
fund and you just said: All right, we are going to add to the deficit
$6 billion outside the budget, and we are not going to advance fund.
Advance funding is the worst of both worlds because it takes money
from next year, which creates havoc with next year, and at the same
time it aggravates the budget deficit issue. So as a practical matter,
the $6 billion that
[[Page S11009]]
is proposed in this amendment will add $6 billion to the deficit, if
not this year, next year.
Who pays for that? Who pays for going outside the budget? Well,
deficits are paid for by the folks who come here to work, who are
students in high school, who are pages. When they get out of college--
and I presume most of them will want to go to college--they are going
to get a job and that job is going to have a tax burden tied to it.
That tax burden is going to be directly related by how much we increase
the deficit today, because they are going to have to pay that bill down
the road. It is going to come to them, not to us, not to my generation,
most likely, but to my children's generation and to my children's
children's generation.
So every time we break the budget, we are adding costs to our
children. These are the same children we are trying to help. These are
the same people we are trying to help as they move through their
educational experience. How are we going to help them when we first--
well, unless we follow the President's program, we will not give them a
great education but, more importantly, when you pass on to them a debt
that is outside the discipline which is put in place to live by.
We put this budget in place so we would have fiscal discipline, so we
would not be passing on more of a deficit to our kids than is
reasonable. Yet these amendments keep coming at us, one after another,
saying just add to the deficit, if not this year, next year; don't
worry about it; it does not matter; it is for education.
I think it is ironic because the kids who are supposedly going to
benefit are the kids who are going to have to pay the costs, and as a
practical matter it is not going to benefit them that much. Why is it
not going to benefit them that much? Because we already have $9.3
billion of unspent money in these accounts. We have increased them so
fast that they cannot be drawn down effectively.
Now let's go to another issue, this concept that the authorized level
has to be funded. This is a very unusual concept for Congress, because
for all intents and purposes Congress does not fund anything to
authorized levels.
Authorized levels are statements of intent, purpose, goodwill. What
Congress funds is a budget and appropriated levels. But now we hear,
almost as a matter of sanctity, from the other side of the aisle that
we have to reach the authorized level or we have abandoned the children
of America.
That is a very interesting concept, but they did not subscribe to
that concept when they were in control of the Senate. Last time the
Democratic membership controlled this body, which happened to be a year
ago, they brought forward an appropriations bill under Labor-HHS, which
is the bill we are dealing with today, and they funded education. Did
they fund to the authorized level? No, they did not. They did not even
come close to funding to the authorized level.
This is the difference. This is the authorized level, the black line.
This is what the Democratic budget proposed. It is a pretty big gap,
about $4 billion. This was what was actually funded in the Democratic
bill, which never passed, by the way, nor did the budget because they
decided they did not want a budget and they could not pass their bill.
Suddenly there has been an epiphany on the other side of the aisle.
Suddenly, the authorized levels are sacrosanct and we must fund the
authorized level. Well, I suggest there is a touch of inconsistency,
especially in light of the track record we confront when we look at the
facts.
So we are turning to the basic underlying point, and that is this:
For the first time in at least a decade, and really longer, we have a
President who even in a period of extreme national difficulty--war
against terrorists who are set on destroying our Nation and killing
Americans, and have already done so--and a difficult economic period,
although we are coming out of it, hopefully, a President who even
during those hard times, where his attention has obviously been drawn
off, and appropriately so, to defending America and trying to get us
back to work, has continued his focus on making sure children are
properly educated in this country, and he is especially focused on low-
income kids. That is the uniqueness of what he has done.
Most of us understand that a child from a better-off family is
probably going to be taken care of in the educational system, but the
low-income child, who comes mostly from broken homes and
disproportionately lives in urban areas, has been left behind for
generation after generation.
Now we have a President who has said no longer and who is willing to
make this his purpose, even during these very difficult times when his
attention might and has been drawn off otherwise. He has supported that
purpose with huge increases in funding. In fact, in the first 3 years
of the Bush administration, he increased funding more for title I in 3
years than the prior administration did in 8 years by a factor of
almost 70 percent. The same is true in the special education accounts,
and to a lesser extent but to a significant point in the Pell accounts.
This is a President who has not only put forward creative and
imaginative policy to try to finally get a handle on the fact that so
many kids are not learning what they need to know in order to compete
for the American dream, has not only put together that policy but has
backed it up with real, hard dollars. In the budget this Congress
passed, we backed up the President.
Today, the issue is whether we are going to hold that budget, which
has these very significant increases in education, or whether we are
going to dramatically expand the deficit in what seems to me to be a
bit of inconsistency in relationship to what was proposed when our
colleagues across the aisle were in control.
This committee, under the leadership of Senator Specter, this
President, has done the work that needs to be done, lifted the weights
that need to be lifted in the area of funding education, and we should
be supporting this committee's mark in this area.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire for
those comments.
Before replying to Senator Mikulski and Senator Collins, we have
another amendment which is ready to be offered. I ask unanimous consent
that the pending amendment be set aside so there may be an amendment
offered by Senator Inhofe and Senator Dorgan.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 1553 to Amendment No 1542
Mr. DORGAN. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan], for himself,
Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Conrad, Mr. Kerry, Mrs.
Murray, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Nelson of Nebraska, Mr. Johnson, Mr.
Allen, Mr. Hagel, and Mr. Corzine, proposes an amendment
numbered 1553 to amendment No. 1542.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading
of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To provide additional funding for the Impact Aid Program)
On page 76, between lines 10 and 11, insert the following:
Sec.__. In addition to any amounts otherwise appropriated
under this Act for Impact Aid programs, there are
appropriated an additional $26,000,000 for Federal property
payments under section 8002 of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965, an additional $160,000,000 for basic
support payments under section 8003(b) of such Act, and an
additional $1,000,000 for payments for children with
disabilities under section 8003(d) of such Act: Provided,
That of the funds appropriated in this Act for the National
Institutes of Health, $595,000,000 shall not be available for
obligation until September 30, 2004: Provided further, That
the amount $6,895,199,000 in section 305(a)(1) of this Act
shall be deemed to be $7,082,199,000: Provided further, That
the amount $6,783,301,000 in section 305(a)(2) of this Act
shall be deemed to be $6,596,301,000.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I offer this amendment, along with my
colleague Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma. We do so on behalf of our other
cosponsors: Senators Lautenberg, Conrad, Kerry, Murray, Daschle, Ben
Nelson, Johnson, Allen, Hagel, Corzine, Akaka and Clinton.
[[Page S11010]]
I will yield to my colleague, Senator Inhofe, to make his statement,
following which I will make a statement about the amendment we just
offered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, our amendment adds $187 million to the
Impact Aid Program. If it is accepted, that will only put us at two-
thirds funding. It is important to understand what this is because it
seems as if we have come back every year since 1997 and had some
success increasing the percentage of a program that was put on the
books in the 1950s.
First, I agree with most everything the Senator from New Hampshire
stated. When you come up with something like this, you have to look at
it in the context of fairness and the overall budget. In this case, a
program came along in the 1950s that replenishes money that was to go
to our schools, that the Government has taken away from our schools. It
is as simple as that. They federalize land--perhaps in conjunction with
an Army post or Indian lands or in conjunction with a military base of
some kind--and when that happens, that takes the land off of the tax
base. So the money that would have gone from that tax base to the
schools is no longer there. However, the kids still have to be
educated.
In the wisdom of Congress in the 1950s they said: It is not fair. We
will have to at least treat these kids the same as other kids have been
treated.
There is an insatiable propensity for politicians to take from
programs and nobody will notice. This program started in the 1950s. It
was fully funded. It was fully funded up to 1969. In 1969, they started
dropping down. In 1996, it was down to 50 percent. In other words,
money that would have been there for the benefit of the children being
educated, only 50 percent was getting to the kids.
In my State of Oklahoma, in Lawton, since 1966 the impact aid for
Fort Sill, which is located adjacent to Lawton, OK, has dropped
substantially, down to one-half in 1996 compared to 1969. This
amendment would slowly bring this up to the point where we would be at
two-thirds funding.
Let me describe what has happened since 1996. In 1996, we were at 50-
percent funding. Until 1969, we were 100 percent, and people left the
program alone. But in 1969 that changed and it went to 50-percent
funding. We have been successful since then, and I commend my friend,
the Senator from North Dakota. We do not always agree on issues. We
have disagreed on national missile defense. We have disagreed on
AmeriCorps and many other issues. This issue is fairness, an issue on
which conservatives, liberals, Republicans, and Democrats can agree.
Due to our efforts primarily, it has gone up from 50-percent funding
in 1996 to 51 percent the next year, 57 percent the next year, 58
percent 2 years later and, if adopted, it will go up to two-thirds. The
kids will still not be treated fairly, nor will the school districts.
They still will suffer from the fact that the land went off the tax
base. However, at least we are on the right trend line, and we should,
in another 3 or 4 years, get to 100-percent funding.
I will relentlessly pursue this in any way we have to in order to get
to that point.
Fort Towson public schools in southeastern Oklahoma will gain $51,000
of impact aid if fully funded. This would bring it only to two-thirds
funding. As a result, they are having serious problems in these school
districts.
Oklahoma is not that much different from other States. In the State
of North Carolina, my information is that North Carolina actually has
more impacted students than the State of Oklahoma. I don't know where
North Dakota stands; I am sure we will hear in a moment. However, it is
a fairness issue. Oklahoma is not treated more unfairly than any other
State but equally unfairly. The students are not getting the education
they need because of one thing, and that is they have had the
federalized land taken off their tax base.
I join my friend from North Dakota in trying to pass this amendment.
In doing this, a lot of kids throughout America will be treated more
fairly. Down the road, in 5, 6, or 7 years we will find this program
will be 100-percent funded.
I thank the Senator from North Dakota for the time he has given me
and assure him I join him fully in getting this amendment passed for
the kids of Oklahoma, North Dakota, and throughout the United States.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. I am pleased to work with my friend from Oklahoma,
Senator Inhofe. As he indicated, this is an issue that brings support
from a bipartisan group of Senators.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter sent
on April 14, 2003, to Senator Specter and Senator Harkin, signed by a
wide variety of Members of the Senate from virtually every political
persuasion and every corner of the philosophical structure around here.
It shows the widespread support for the Impact Aid Program and for the
funding for this program that was originally promised.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, April 14, 2003.
Hon. Arlen Specter,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services
and Education, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Tom Harkin,
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human
Services and Education, Committee on Appropriations, U.S.
Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Specter and Ranking Member Harkin: As you
know, the Senate Impact Aid Coalition was formed in 1996 to
promote and improve the Impact Aid Program. Our coalition has
grown from just four Members of Congress in 1995, to its
current membership of 45.
Our goal for Fiscal Year 2004 is to increase funding for
the Impact Aid Program to $1.375.4 billion, a 15 percent
increase over last year's conference report funding level.
This increase will help local school districts, which have
lost tax revenue as a result of the federal presence in their
district, to serve their communities and provide a quality
education. This increase is also an important step toward
fully funding this program, which currently receives less
than half of its authorized funding.
In a time of budget constraints, we understand that you
have difficult decisions ahead, but it is our firm belief
that as our service men and women set out to defend our
country, we must not forget or ignore the children they leave
behind. While the focus on national security and homeland
defense is necessary to ensure that the well being of the
citizens of our great country, we also believe that Congress
must fulfill its federal obligation.
As you know, Impact Aid helps to ensure that military
children, children residing on Indian lands and in federally-
owned, low-rent housing facilities, and dependents of the
federal government receive a quality education. We believe
that Congress' commitment to Impact Aid is more important
than ever. In addition to the funding increase of 15 percent,
we ask that you maintain the eligibility of all students to
the Impact Aid Program as defined in the No Child Left Behind
Act.
We stand committed to the Impact Aid Program and are ready
to work with you and your subcommittee on this very important
issue. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of our
request.
Sincerely,
Tim Johnson, Chuck Hagel, Jack Reed, John Warner, Max
Baucus, Jeff Bingaman, Byron L, Dorgan, James Inhofe,
John Kerry, Daniel Akaka, Pat Roberts, Mike Crapo, Jim
Bunning, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad, Hillary Clinton,
Frank Lautenberg, Tom Daschle, Charles Schumer, Barbara
Boxer, Russell Feingold, Patty Murray, Jon Corzine,
Barbara Mikulski, Dick Durbin, Edward Kennedy, Maria
Cantwell, George Allen, Carl Levin, and Jeff Sessions.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, my colleague has well described this
issue. This is not some extraordinary grant program, some program that
will deliver something for nothing to some school district in the
country. This is keeping a promise. What is the promise? The promise
was made in 1950 that when the Federal Government comes in and takes
land or has property that is tax exempt, the Federal Government will
make a payment to local school districts in lieu of local property
taxes. That is what the impact aid is about. We have other similar
programs--PILT, or payments in lieu of taxes--but essentially Impact
Aid is a promise to our local schools who still have to educate
children despite their smaller tax base. Impact Aid says where we have
property, and that property is tax-exempt because it belongs to the
Federal Government--in most cases, for example, a military base--we
will provide impact aid to offset those costs. That is what this is,
impact aid.
[[Page S11011]]
In 1950, both President Truman and the Congress said let's do this.
It is not fair for the Federal Government's actions to adversely impact
a local school district's financial situation. So they created the
Impact Aid Program to directly reimburse school districts for the loss
of revenue caused by the Federal Government.
There are 1,400 school districts nationwide eligible for impact aid
payments serving 15 million children. Let me describe just one of them.
I toured a school one day in North Dakota some few years ago. It was a
school on the edge of an Indian reservation, a public school district
but a school district whose property base was largely tax exempt. So it
had very little property on its tax rolls, and therefore it could not
bond because it had such a small property base. It could not raise a
great amount of tax revenue, as well.
This is a school district that was in great difficulty. It had
roughly 150 children, two toilets, one water fountain. In the classroom
you saw children sitting 30 in a classroom with desks an inch apart.
Many were Native-American children. And one little girl named Rosie Two
Bears looked up at me and asked: Mr. Senator, are you going to build us
a new school?
Regrettably, I could not build a new school for them, but it was an
impact aid school. And the question of impact aid funding bears
directly on how many children are in a classroom, how many lavatories
exist, what the condition of the building is in which they are going to
school. In this particular building, they were holding classes in the
lower level of the building, but some days they could not hold the
classes because sewer gas was backing up on that level. Part of the
building was already condemned.
The question for us is, When a young child walks through that
classroom door, are they disadvantaged by having to go to a school that
is not in good repair? Having to go to a school where classrooms are
crowded? The answer is yes, of course.
I wish I could have told this little third grader, Rosie Two Bears,
Yes, I am going to build you a new school, but I couldn't do that. I
don't build schools. But I do come here with my colleague from Oklahoma
to fight for adequate funding for the impact aid program, to say this
Government has a responsibility to keep its promise--yes, to Rosie Two
Bears, but to other young children across this country.
I indicated we have 15 million children in these schools that are
eligible for impact aid. My colleague just told the Senate that if we
pass the amendment we have offered we will still only be providing two-
thirds of the money we had originally promised years ago as a Federal
Government to make up for the lost revenue in these local school
districts.
Some say it is a matter of choice. Yes, it is a matter of choice.
There are unlimited needs and limited resources. I understand all that.
We propose an amendment that adds $187 million.
Let me mention one other fact. The President proposed a cut to Impact
Aid that was very significant, as all of us know. The cut was restored
back to level funding by my colleagues, Senator Specter and Senator
Harkin. But just restoring to level funding means these schools still
fall behind because more children are affected in these impact aid
schools.
So what Senator Inhofe and I propose is to increase Impact Aid to at
least two-thirds of the funding that was promised by adding the $187
million.
Our amendment is offset in 2004 by moving the fiscal year 2004
advance-funding back to fiscal year 2003, which is exactly the same
method used by the leadership to increase funding for the underlying
bill by $2.2 billion. Some say nothing really is happening out in the
impact aid schools that would cause us to have to do this. Let me
describe what is happening. Medical Lake Washington State School
District has scaled back its afterschool and summer programs and is not
replacing the four elementary schoolteachers who retired. Why? It
doesn't have the money. It is an impact aid school.
The Saint Ignatius Montana School District eliminated four teachers,
resulting in larger class sizes, and was not able to give raises to its
teachers.
The Suttons Bay Michigan School District has reduced the number of
teaching positions and initiated a pay-to-play policy for participating
in athletics and extracurricular activities, and reduced spending on
textbooks.
Oceanside, CA, a big school district, has had to eliminate
transportation for 5,000 students in grades 7 through 12, and 139
teachers have been let go.
Grand Forks North Dakota School District reduced staff, delayed
textbook purchases, and delayed capital expenditures for technology and
facility needs.
These are real examples of what is happening in real schools that has
an effect on real kids entering classroom doors expecting to be able to
learn. We have an obligation, it seems to me, to keep our promise.
I said this yesterday, and let me make the point again because it is
not an unfair point, it seems to me. We are told that the money does
not exist to do everything we want to do. I fully understand and accept
that. So if the money does not exist to do everything, then the
question is how do we prioritize that which we believe must be done?
The question for us is where do children rank? Where do you put kids?
At the top? In the middle? At the bottom? Where do our kids fall in our
priorities?
I mentioned this yesterday and someone said maybe it was unfair that
just a matter of months ago Mr. Wolfowitz went to Turkey and said: If
you let our troops go through Turkey, we will give you $26 billion, $6
billion in grants and $20 billion in loans. I supported that. The next
day I called to find out where did the $26 billion come from, $6
billion of which was direct spending. They said that will come out of
our priorities.
So if we had the money for Turkey and didn't spend it, maybe we could
use the money that we didn't spend on Turkey to spend on American kids
going to classrooms that ought to be better classrooms, going to
teachers who have to pay for their own textbooks, going to schools that
are in disrepair, that need fixing, going to Rosie Two Bears' school to
make that a school we are proud of instead of having it be a school
where you walk through a classroom door and discover that young
children do not have quite the same opportunity because they are
crowded into a room and do not have the same capabilities as other
children in other schools.
My point is that this is all a matter of priorities and choices. We
make the choices. Not our uncles, not our kids, not our grandpas and
grandmas. We make the choices.
I said when I started, and I want to say it again because my
colleague from Pennsylvania is on his feet, that I think the Senators
from Pennsylvania and Iowa did exactly the right thing in restoring the
money that was cut in the President's budget for impact aid. It brought
us back to where we should be, at level funding, if the goal is only
level funding. But the Senator from Oklahoma and I said, and we believe
very strongly, that getting us to just two-thirds of what we had
promised we were going to offer to these school districts that are in
such desperate financial trouble because they have lost their property
tax base--just getting back to two-thirds is not an unreasonable goal.
Doing it by adding the money we propose in this amendment is an
investment in kids and an investment in this country that will be well
worth it.
Again, I say as I close, if you establish priorities in this Senate,
it seems to me the first priority is America's future, and America's
future is its kids. It is the kids. And education is about preparing
those kids for opportunity.
I hope very much my colleagues will accept this amendment. It is a
modest amendment. It is bipartisan. It has broad support. My hope and
expectation would be that with those who signed the letter in April to
the subcommittee, with those who have cosponsored our amendment today,
that we will be able to have a vote and be successful in adding this
money for the impact aid districts and the impact aid schools around
this country.
I know this will be a long and tortured trail on the floor of the
Senate for this particular bill. This bill is a very important
appropriations subcommittee bill. I serve on the Appropriations
Committee and I am deeply honored to do it for a very important reason.
It is one of the few committees these days in Congress that is truly,
[[Page S11012]]
truly bipartisan. We work in a way that respects each other and work
together in conferences on appropriations. These are really
conferences, not conferences in name in which one side never gets
invited, but real conferences. So this is a great committee.
The opportunity on the floor of the Senate to talk about priorities
and adjustments in the appropriations process is an opportunity that I
do not want to miss. My colleague from Oklahoma would say the same.
This is one we do not want to miss.
We thank very much the Senators from Pennsylvania and Iowa for
building back that funding which the President cut. We then ask for
their support for the proposition that we reach at least a two-thirds
funding level of that which was promise to the impact aid schools in
this country. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, at the outset I say I am very
sympathetic to the considerations raised by the Senator from North
Dakota. But the issue is where do we find the money?
As I look over a long list of items where we could make offsets and
could have cuts, there is not an item or a line that is desirable.
Should we cut money from the National Institutes of Health? Or from
community health centers? Or from many other lines? The judgment of the
subcommittee, backed up by the full committee, is that we made the
proper allocation.
I appreciate the comment made by the Senator from North Dakota that
we did reinstate the funds. The administration had made a request which
would have reduced the funding from last year by $187 million. The
subcommittee and the full committee have put that money back. I think
it is worth noting, since 1996 when the funding was $693 million, to
fiscal year 2003 when the funding is $1.188 billion, that is a 71.5-
percent increase. Regrettably, that is about as far as we can go.
At the appropriate time, for the information of the amendment's
sponsors, I am constrained to raise a point of order. The leadership
has advised the preference is not to vote until about 5:45. That does
not lock in a vote but that is the leadership's position because a
number of Senators are off the floor at this time.
I, again, urge my colleagues to bring amendments to the floor. We
have a list of about 40 amendments. In a relatively short amount of
time that quorum call sign is going to go on. As I have said on a
couple of occasions, on August 1 and before the recess, the majority
leader and I had a colloquy and talked about going to third reading. My
experience at the Senate has been there have been long delays. Senators
do have amendments but wait to bring them. I know that requires
planning, but the Senate has been on notice for more than a month that
this bill would be taken up on September 2. If we are to complete
action on this bill, we are going to have to have the cooperation of
the Senate.
If this bill is not signed by September 30, this bill will lose $3
billion. That is what it will cost if this bill is not signed by the
President by September 30. If there is to be any realistic chance of
having the appropriations bills finished by and large by September 30,
there is going to have to be cooperation by Senators who have
amendments but who haven't brought them to the floor. We were assured
one Senator would be here at 4 o'clock. Now word has come that the
Senator is not going to be ready. That puts the managers, who have the
responsibility for moving this bill ahead, at a severe disadvantage.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, will the Senator from Pennsylvania yield
for a question?
Mr. SPECTER. In a minute.
I understand I don't have the unilateral authority to move to the
third reading, but I am going to try to do that if we don't have
amendments come to the floor and if we have to wait through quorum
calls for protected other business which is not related to this bill.
I would be glad to yield for a question.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I have an observation in the form of a
question. Would it be a good incentive for those who take seriously and
come to the floor with amendments to offer them quickly and do so in
rather short order, as Senator Inhofe and I have done, especially when
it is an amendment of great merit? Would it set an example for it to be
accepted by the chairman of the subcommittee? That probably is a
rhetorical question. Let me ask further, if I might: What point of
order does the Senator intend to make against amendment?
Mr. SPECTER. The point of order would be under section 504 of the
concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2004 that the
amendment exceeds the discretionary spending limit in this section and
is therefore not in order.
The Senator raises a very tempting offer. I might almost be tempted
to say that any amendment that gets to the floor before 3:59 we would
be willing to accept, meritorious or not. That is very much in the eye
of the beholder. Of course, I can't quite do that. But I thank the
Senator from North Dakota for his diligence in coming to the floor and
speaking on an earlier amendment and offering this amendment.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, what reward does the Senator from
Pennsylvania suggest for that good behavior?
Mr. SPECTER. What was that?
Mr. DORGAN. I was just asking what reward he would suggest for that
good behavior. I suggest perhaps a good lesson for others might be to
see this meritorious amendment accepted by the chairman. There would a
rush here in droves to offer them very quickly. But the Senator could
think about that for a moment.
I wish to ask this question about the point of order. The amendment
Senator Inhofe and I have offered is an amendment that dutifully
increases part of this bill that we think is critically important, one
that still falls far short on the promise that has been made over the
years in the funding mechanism we use. It is the funding mechanism, I
believe, that in part is used in the underlying bill itself. I guess I
am a bit confused about a point of order lying only against our
amendment or against some broader construct of what is happening here
in the Senate.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the
answer to that?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The same defect would apply to the amendment
offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, let me make an observation. I do not
criticize the defect in the underlying bill. My hope is that the
Senator will not criticize the identical defect in the amendment. What
I have done, along with my colleague, Senator Inhofe, is offer an
amendment that embraces exactly the same approach that is used by the
Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from Iowa in funding the
underlying bill. I take no exception to that at all. I am fully in
support of that. Based on that, I hope the Senator from Pennsylvania
will not raise a point of order against the amendment.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I do not seek to enter into a
disagreement with the distinguished Senator on the point he just
raised. But as manager of the bill, I feel constrained to raise the
point of order at an appropriate time. I thought I would give the
Senator from North Dakota notice of that.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, let the Senator from Pennsylvania and me
and others discuss that off the floor. The only reason I raise the
question is that offering an amendment which uses an identical funding
source or the mechanism that is identical to the funding source offered
by the subcommittee is one that I thought would not engender a point of
order. At any rate, we do not intend to vote on that at this moment. My
understanding from the Senator from Pennsylvania is that this will
probably be dealt with later this afternoon. If that is the case,
perhaps we can discuss this between now and then.
My hope is that the Senator from Pennsylvania will not raise a point
of order and give us an opportunity for an up-or-down vote on the
merits of the amendment inasmuch as the same funding mechanism used in
the underlying bill and the same defect would occur in both.
Mr. DAYTON. Madam President, will the Senator from Pennsylvania yield
for a question? If he is looking for
[[Page S11013]]
amendments, would the Senator be willing to entertain one from this
Senator when this discussion is concluded?
Mr. SPECTER. Does the Senator from Minnesota have an amendment he
wishes to offer?
Mr. DAYTON. I have an amendment. Recognizing the generous offer of
the chairman of the subcommittee with the 3:59 deadline racing to a
conclusion, the magnitude of the offer by the Senator from North Dakota
is so modest by comparison that it should enhance his chances.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, may I inquire of the Senator from
Minnesota whether the amendment relates to this bill?
Mr. DAYTON. The Senator is correct. It relates to funding for the
IDEA.
Mr. SPECTER. The amendment does relate to this bill?
Mr. DAYTON. Yes. The Senator is correct. It relates to the funding
for IDEA.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, if the Senator has an amendment
relating to this bill, it certainly will be welcomed. I ask the Senator
from Minnesota if he would be willing to defer offering the amendment
to give the Senator from West Virginia an opportunity to speak for 10
minutes in advance of offering that amendment.
Mr. DAYTON. I will gladly step aside for the Senator from West
Virginia at any time. I hope the 3:59 offer might be extended to
include 30 seconds after the Senator concludes his remarks.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I yield to the distinguished Senator
from West Virginia.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I thank the Chair.
Madam President, I thank both of these illustrious Senators, the
Senator from Pennsylvania who is managing the bill before the Senate,
and I thank the distinguished Senator from Minnesota for his courtesy
and kindness.
I will be brief. I do intend to speak out of order. I ask unanimous
consent that I may speak out of order for not to exceed 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Byrd pertaining to the introduction of S. 1576
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). The Senator from Minnesota.
Amendment No. 1554 To Amendment No. 1542
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending
amendment be set aside, and I send an amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the amendment.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Dayton] proposes an
amendment numbered 1554.
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To increase funding for part B of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act)
At the end of title III, insert the following:
Sec. 306. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act,
the total amount appropriated, out of any money in the
Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to carry out parts B, C,
and D of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
shall be $22,109,931,000, of which $20,941,000,000 shall be
available to carry out part B of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (other than section 619 of such
Act).
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, this amendment would meet a 27-year-old
promise made by the Federal Government to the States and to the school
districts when IDEA was established. The promise was that the Federal
Government would provide for 40 percent of the costs, the additional
costs of providing special education services to every eligible
schoolchild. It is one of the most important commitments the Federal
Government has made for public education, especially at the elementary
and secondary levels, and the money could not be better spent on behalf
of leaving no child behind.
Sadly, at least in the State of Minnesota--and I know, from the
observations of other Senators, in many other States--the funding
presently is seriously inadequate to provide all of those services.
In Minnesota, some $250 million a year shortfall exists in funding
for special education which results in education dollars having to be
shifted from regular programs and services to special education to meet
the statutory requirement of school districts to provide services to
every qualified schoolchild. The result is that in Minnesota all the
students are harmed by the underfunding of special education, those who
are the recipients of those services, as well as those who see dollars
shifted from other programs for their benefit.
IDEA funding for part B for States in the current legislation before
us is set at $9.858 billion. To bring that funding up to the 40-percent
level, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would require an
additional IDEA part B funding of $11.082 billion. It is noteworthy
that the increase exceeds the appropriated amount. Another way of
looking at that is that the current level of appropriated dollars is
less than half--less than half--of what is necessary to meet that 40-
percent level that was committed to by the Congress 27 years ago.
I heard the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire earlier on the
Senate floor reference the increases in funding for special education
that President Bush has proposed, and I commend the President for doing
so. I have not served during the period of time which the Senator from
New Hampshire referenced, so I do not have the basis for comparing the
period of time during the 1990s that he referenced under the former
administration with the circumstances that this President is faced
with, but it is enough for me that President Bush has proposed in each
of his budgets an increase in funding for special education, and he
should be credited for doing so.
But the fact remains that even with those increases up until this
year, the Federal share of funding for special education nationwide is
approximately 17 percent of those total costs. In other words, still,
despite those increases over the last 3 years, it is less than half of
what the Federal Government promised over a quarter century ago.
I recognize that the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, with
his responsibilities to the budget and to an allotment for the
subcommittee's appropriations, has to or is likely to object to this
amendment, despite it being inserted just before the 3:59 deadline. I
recognize this is an amount that goes way beyond the current mandate of
the subcommittee. But as my colleague from North Dakota said so
eloquently just a few minutes ago, what we are really talking about as
we consider these different amendments in a broader sense is, What are
our priorities as a Senate?
What are our priorities as a Nation? Do we really mean what we say,
that no child shall be left behind? Are we willing to put forward the
necessary resources to accomplish that? Or is that just a rhetorical
statement without proper attribution from the Children's Defense Fund
and, whereas that esteemed organization has championed the resources
and the commitments that would be necessary to actualize that
statement, we in this Congress and, with due respect, the
administration have still fallen short of that responsibility.
We had, when I came into office, an incredible opportunity because we
were looking at projected surpluses for the next decade of some $5.4
trillion. That is a marked difference from the circumstances which
President Clinton faced throughout most of his administration when he
was bringing the Nation out of the previous era of deficit spending,
when he finally, through collaboration with the Congress--the Senate
and the House--during the last 4 years of his administration succeeded
in balancing the combined Federal budget. In fiscal year 2000, he
achieved for the first time in 4 years--and probably for the last time
in 40 or more years--a surplus in the non-Social Security part of the
Federal budget; in other words, education, health care, and the like--
everything except for Social Security, which at this point, this year,
is running about a $155 billion projected surplus; the rest of the
Federal budget was balanced. We had the resources projected that would
have kept that operating budget in a surplus mode for each of the next
10 years, according to both the CBO and the OMB when President Bush's
administration
[[Page S11014]]
took office in January of 2001. I thought then, as I offered this
amendment at that time, that we had a tremendous opportunity we should
not let go by to bring this funding immediately up to the 40 percent
promised level.
That year, in a bipartisan and very genuinely committed way, there
was an amendment that was adopted by the Senate that would have brought
full funding for special education up to the promised 40 percent level
over 6 years--5 years too long in my estimation, but it passed the
Senate. It went to conference with the House. It resulted in a
protracted conference committee of almost 6 months.
My esteemed former colleague, the departed Senator from Minnesota,
Paul Wellstone, was championing this measure, among others, in that
conference committee and insisting that the Senate position of building
to 40 percent funding for special education over 6 years be honored and
kept in the conference report. The House resisted and was adamant, and,
unfortunately, at the very end of the conference, the Senate conferees
agreed to the House position, causing my colleague, Senator Wellstone,
to vote against that conference report, as did I.
Since then, we have all recognized that the fiscal circumstances of
the Federal Government have changed dramatically. I find it a little
bit disingenuous for the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire to be
taking credit for the spending increases for education, which he
ascribes to this administration and this Congress; yet, every time
somebody from this side of the aisle proposes also to increase spending
for education, suddenly our side of the spending equation is bad
spending and his side of the spending equation seems to be good
spending. As far as I am concerned, it can be Republican spending,
Democratic spending, or independent spending for education, and it is
good spending. I don't care which administration, which session of
Congress, or which Members of Congress can claim credit for that. I
just want the credit to be there to be claimed because I know the
beneficiaries are the students of Minnesota and, I suspect, all over
the rest of the country.
I am also perplexed when I hear the Senator from New Hampshire, who
chairs the HELP Committee of the Senate--his expertise and knowledge of
these matters is widely respected by colleagues on both sides of the
aisle. But when he says, in effect, as he did earlier today, we have
put so much additional Federal money into public education at the K
through 12 level that the school districts aren't able to spend that
money fast enough--a couple of months ago, I heard the Senator state on
the Senate floor there was a surplus of Head Start positions available
nationwide, so there were more slots available than there were people
who wanted to get their children into a Head Start program.
I truly hope if those surplus funds are available, be it from New
Hampshire or any other State, they will be put into a reservoir that
could be drawn from by other States. I know in the case of Minnesota--I
heard the Senator from North Dakota state the same and I heard a number
of other colleagues, including Senator Pryor of Arkansas--I ask
unanimous consent that he be added as a cosponsor to this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DAYTON. He also shared the circumstances with me of the State of
Arkansas. When I run by the educators in Minnesota the assertion made
on the Senate floor that there is a surplus of Federal funding for
these programs, I get absolutely incredulous looks. I find far more
concurrence with the Senator from North Dakota, who observed teachers
in his State who are reaching into their own pockets for hundreds, even
thousands, of dollars, who go without expenses for basic program
materials, educational materials, trips to educational enrichment
opportunities, and the like that cannot be funded out of regular
budgets.
In Minnesota, there is an estimated $250 million shortfall of special
education money because of this underfunding of the Federal commitment,
which I can assure my colleagues every one of those dollars would be
spent swiftly and necessarily and would benefit students throughout my
State if they were made available. So where these surplus dollars are
that States and school districts elsewhere don't need, where the
additional slots for programs such as Head Start are residing that are
not being filled, I guess I would certainly like to see where that
exists.
I urge the Secretary of Education, if it is in fact the case, that
those funds and those slots be reallocated as swiftly as possible to
States like Minnesota, who need them and could benefit from them.
Yes, Mr. President, my amendment exceeds the budget as it exists
today. I note that when the budget for this fiscal year began, we were
looking at a deficit, we were told, of about $260 billion, if memory
serves me. Now we are told that we will exceed $500 billion. We are
asked rhetorically where will the money come from for these
expenditures. I answer rhetorically, from the same place the other $240
billion that has been added to the deficit this year will come from.
And the Senator from New Hampshire is right--that will come from
payments made by taxpayers in the future. But if we are going to spend
$100 billion, as some experts estimate we will, over the next year in
Iraq, if we are going to spend 10 percent or 15 percent of that amount
in Afghanistan, if we are going to spend $15 billion to address the
AIDS crisis in Africa over the next few years, as the President
proposed--and those are all either necessary or very worthwhile
humanitarian and strategic expenditures, but if we are talking about
additional spending on the magnitude of $15 billion, $100 billion over
the course of a year, how is it that we always run out of resources
when it comes to children, when it comes to especially schoolchildren
with special needs, when it comes to those who will be left behind in
Minnesota and I suspect will be left behind in 49 other States if these
additional resources are not provided?
I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for the opportunity to offer
this amendment. I hope it will be considered in the broader context of
the priorities of this body for the children of today and tomorrow. I
respectfully suggest it is money that will be extremely well spent. I
yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, will the Senator from Pennsylvania yield for
a question?
Mr. SPECTER. I will.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the manager of
the bill is working to set up a series of votes beginning at 5:45 p.m.
today; is that right?
Mr. SPECTER. Correct.
Mr. REID. Just to alert Members, we are going to have one, possibly
three votes at 5:45 p.m.; is that right?
Mr. SPECTER. Correct.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I had commented earlier today that there
was an expectation of voting at 5:45 p.m., that there were a series of
meetings at the White House and other places which would keep Senators
away from the floor until that time. I just responded to the question
from the Senator from Nevada that it is the likelihood, but it is not
locked in, that we will vote at 5:45 p.m. How many votes we will have
we are not certain at this point.
I thank the distinguished Senator from Minnesota for offering this
amendment. The issue on special education is one of great importance.
The Federal Government does have a responsibility to come to the 40
percent level. We have been far from it, but we have made very
substantial progress. I think it is accurate to say even enormous
progress.
Over the course of the past several years, we have made major
increases. When I became chairman of this subcommittee in 1995, in
conjunction with Senator Harkin, we made special education a priority,
and for the fiscal year 1997, we increased special education by
approximately $800 million. The next year, $700 million. The following
year, $500 million. The year after that, $580 million, $450 million,
$1.2 billion, $1.3 billion, and this year there is a projected increase
of approximately $650 million.
If you take a comparison from the year 1994, the special education
appropriation was slightly over $2 billion,
[[Page S11015]]
$2.05 billion. This year we are projecting it at $9.85 billion, which
is almost four times as much, almost 400 percent, slightly less. So we
have moved up very materially.
I do not have the statistics prior to the year 1996 on the Federal
share per student spending, but in 1996, it was 7.3 percent. We have
now advanced that to 18.7 percent. We are almost halfway to 40 percent.
If we were to fully fund IDEA, it would take another $11 billion to
$12 billion on top of the amount of money which we have allocated.
While I have deep respect for the amendment offered by the Senator from
Minnesota, I think it might even be possible he does not have an
expectation that we are going to have $11 billion or $12 billion more
for this item, much as we would like to and much as the Federal
commitment is there. But I think the progress has been enormous.
I make a special compliment to the senior Senator from New Hampshire,
Mr. Gregg, who has been at the forefront of this item, going back to
his earlier days in the House and his earlier days as Governor of New
Hampshire seeing the importance of this item.
It is an item of great importance for me. We are making a lot of
progress. It would be nice to do more, but I think everyone understands
we are far from being able to add an additional $10 billion, $11
billion, $12 billion here.
Again, for purposes of information, I will be constrained to raise a
budget point of order when we take up this matter for a vote at the
appropriate time.
Mr. President, let me again issue a call for amendments. Third
reading may be as remote as full funding for IDEA, but it is an idea
whose time may come, if not this afternoon, perhaps this evening or
perhaps tomorrow morning.
Amendment No. 1552
Mr. President, I have not made any manager's comments on the
amendment offered by Senator Mikulski and Senator Collins on the
nursing issue. That is an item of great concern. There is a tremendous
nursing shortage in the United States. The Mikulski-Collins amendment
seeks to raise the funding from $112.7 million to $175.7 million for a
$63 million increase.
I note that there have been increases of a very substantial nature.
In 2001, there was an increase of 23 percent. In 2002, there was an
increase of 10.6 percent. In 2003, there was an increase of 21.6
percent. And the items are funded on a level this year. It is relevant
to note that on the funding for the National Institute of Nursing
Research that there has been an increase this year from $130.5 million,
approximately, to $135.5 million, for a $5 million increase.
I think it is also appropriate to note that we assisted the nurses in
their effort to have standing to anesthesiology where we finally worked
out an arrangement where it would be up to the Governor of each State
to authorize payments, Medicaid-Medicare, to nurses who are so
certified so that they did not have to necessarily be an M.D.
anesthesiologist. The nursing issue is one of tremendous concern.
As I look over the Mikulski-Collins amendment for an additional $63
million and I look over the items which we are funding in an effort to
see if we couldn't make some accommodation, it is a matter of staying
within our 302(b) allocation or cutting somewhere. I do not think
anyone would like to cut low-income home energy assistance or community
health services or Head Start or the NIH.
As we wrestle with the import of the Mikulski-Collins amendment, we
are seeking a way to, if it is possible, have some offset which would
enable us to find a way to increase funding for nursing. But an offset
is going to require a cut somewhere, and that is the managers'
responsibility to try to balance out all of the competing interests.
Mr. President, if there still is no Senator on the floor and no one
has heeded my latest call to come to the floor, in the absence of any
Senator seeking recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Dayton are printed in today's Record under
``Morning Business.'')
Mr. DAYTON. Also, Mr. President, I have been here this afternoon and
have expressed my concern for the measures in the Federal Aviation
Administration conference report.
I am not going to consume time since we are proceeding to a time of
voting on some of these important education amendments, including one
of my own for funding for special education. But I do want to say again
that this matter, before it comes before the Senate, must be resolved,
or I will have to be back here in more of an obstructionist mode than I
was called upon to do today. And that would be something I would prefer
to avoid and see this matter resolved in some other way. I will be
working with my colleagues to see that occurs.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote in
relation to the Dorgan amendment No. 1553 occur today at 5:45; further
that following that vote, the Senate vote in relation to the Dayton
amendment No. 1554; provided that no amendments be in order to either
amendment prior to the votes; finally, there will be 2 minutes equally
divided for debate prior to the second vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, is the manager of the bill
going to raise points of order on these two amendments?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, I had previously stated that I would raise points
of order.
Mr. REID. I am wondering if we might be able to accomplish that now
to save a little time so we might not have to go through that later.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I would be agreeable to doing that. With
respect to the Dorgan amendment, I raise a point of order, under
section 504 of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year
2004, that the amendment exceeds discretionary spending limits
specified in this section and is therefore not in order.
Mr. REID. I would move to waive that and ask unanimous consent that
we be able to handle both of these points of order at the same time. I
ask unanimous consent that it be in order to waive the two points of
order en bloc. And then I would ask for the yeas and nays.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, it is agreeable with me. I had intended
to say that as to the Dayton amendment, I raise a point of order under
section 302(f) of the Budget Act, as amended, that the amendment
provides budget authority and outlays in excess of the subcommittee's
302(b) allocations under the fiscal year 2004 concurrent resolution on
the budget and is not in order. And if the Senator from Nevada is
saying he wants to raise two motions to waive en bloc, that is fine.
Mr. REID. That is the wish of the Senator from Nevada.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it shall be in order to
raise both points of order at this time.
Mr. SPECTER. Parliamentary inquiry: Obviously it is going to require
two votes on the waiver of the points of order to the two amendments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. DAYTON. May I ask the Chair, the intent is to have the vote on
the Dorgan-Inhofe amendment followed by 2 minutes equally divided
between myself and whoever, followed by a vote on waiving the Budget
Act on my amendment.
Mr. SPECTER. The statement by the Senator from Minnesota is accurate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the motion to waive is
considered made on both points of order.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I don't see any other Senator on the
floor to offer an amendment.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, if the Senator will allow me to, I ask
unanimous consent that it be in order that the yeas and nays be allowed
on both waivers.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. I ask for the yeas and nays.
[[Page S11016]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
A Transportation Bill
Mr. REID. Mr. President, prior to September 11, I proposed
legislation called the American Marshal Plan. This legislation received
the support of the National Council of Mayors and other governmental
entities, recognizing that it was extremely important that our country
do something about the deteriorating infrastructure. Hearings were
held. We had mayors from around the country testify as to the state of
the infrastructure in their cities. We were moving along very well
until September 11 and then we were certainly distracted from this and
many other things. We have been trying now for many months.
I am ranking member of the Subcommittee on Transportation. There is
no bill more important to States--I say that without any question--
every 6 years than the 6-year Transportation bill. It deals with
highways, but it also importantly today deals with mass transit. I
think it is a blot on this Congress that we do not have a
Transportation bill. We have not even had a markup in committee. I am
terribly disappointed that this is the case. We will not be able to do
a highway bill this year.
It only makes sense that when we haven't had a markup in committee on
a bill that is going to handle the highway and transit needs of this
country for 6 years, it takes a little bit of discussion in the
subcommittee, in the committee, and certainly on the floor. I would
hope that the Republican leadership is at least anticipating that we
will do a reasonable extension so that States around the country can at
least go forward. It is better than doing no bill.
The State of Nevada is a rapidly growing State. We have tremendous
highways needs, and now with the tremendous growth that has taken place
in the Las Vegas and Reno areas, we have mass transit needs.
We are in the process of opening a monorail system. We are
anticipating a light rail system. We have needs not only for our
highways but also our mass transit. This is the way it is all over the
country. It is beyond my ability to comprehend how we talk about all
that we are going to do but have not mentioned the highway bill.
I am reminded of your father, the chairman of the full committee, who
did a highway bill. I served on that committee. I have served on that
committee since I have been in the Senate. The late great John Chafee
pushed a highway bill. He was a person who was able to compromise. He
understood that legislation is the art of compromise. But in this forum
we are now in, it is either their way or no way. We have no bill.
I worked, when I first came here, with Senator Stafford of Vermont.
He is a wonderful gentleman to whom I wrote a letter recently. I can't
remember, I think it was on his 90th birthday. He was old and still
very healthy. We have done a highway bill with Senator Moynihan,
Senator Baucus. It appears we will not do a highway bill now. I think
that is just bad government. I don't know how anyone can take pride in
not having a highway bill. We have funding problems.
Remember, these are not taxes that we are suddenly going to assess
the American people to pay for highway and transit. Every time someone
goes to buy a gallon of gas for their car, they pay a tax; it goes into
a trust fund. We use these trust fund moneys for these bills that come
up every 6 years. People ask, Who is paying for mass transit? A
decision was made many years ago that because every person we put on
mass transit takes pressure off the highways, we would allocate about
20 percent of our highway funds to mass transit.
It helps our highway programs generally. All we want to do is spend
the trust fund money, but this administration will not let us do that.
They are afraid if we spend the money in the trust fund--it should not
be a slush fund; it is a trust fund--they are afraid if we spend the
money collected for the purpose of building highways, we will make the
deficit look bigger. I don't know how we could make it look bigger. The
deficit now is about $500 billion, and if we add the Social Security
surpluses, which are masking the deficit, it is near $600 billion for 1
year, the largest deficit in the history of this country by far.
Also, people are trying to rewrite the endangered species act, clean
air act, and historical preservation laws in a highway bill. That is
not the place to do that, Mr. President.
I hope some attention will be focused on what this Senate is not
doing, not passing a highway bill. If we do not do a bill at the right
time, we will have problems letting construction because some States
have very cold weather and they have to plan their construction needs
to meet the weather of that particular State. If we fail to pass a
long-term bill, it takes away all the ability of State highway
engineers, managers, and State highway directors to plan ahead. The way
we are able to get the most money out of the trust fund dollars is to
do a 6-year bill. Doing a bill a year at a time costs a lot more money.
There are issues that are on the must-do list. I don't know the exact
number of times we have voted on whether to invoke cloture on Estrada,
who wants to be a circuit court judge, but I think it is seven, eight,
maybe 10 times. It is a total, absolute waste of the Senate's time. A
vote has not changed from the time the first vote occurred to the last
one, but yet it is time the Senate is taking. Why aren't we spending
that time on the highway bill?
A lot of time is spent by the majority talking about the Senate
Democrats are so hard to deal with; they are not allowing the President
to have his judges. We have approved--I don't know the exact number; I
think it is around 140--140, and we have not approved three. We waste
so much time here on issues that do not advance the needs of this
country.
The appropriations bill is an important bill. I think we have had
some important discussion and debate. Tomorrow we have 11 amendments
lined up to be offered on this bill. It is important we move this bill
as quickly as we can. But in the process, talking about the things that
we must do, I would hope people would understand the importance of a
highway bill: For every billion dollars we spend on highways or
infrastructure development generally, 47,000 jobs are created, high-
paying jobs. That does not include the jobs that spin off from those
jobs. For every one of those 47,000 people working, they are able to
buy a new car, recarpet their home, buy a home, buy a TV set, and then
in turn other people work.
I guess this administration is not worried about employment, which is
obvious. The previous administration, the Clinton-Gore administration,
created about 23,000,000 or 24,000,000 jobs. Going back to the time of
Herbert Hoover, under this administration, it is the first time a
President has had a net job loss, which is over 2 million jobs now. It
seems to me it would be a good idea for this administration to join to
do something to push a highway bill to put out billions of dollars for
construction which creates hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Discharge of S.J. Res. 17
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I have submitted the requisite
number of signatures in order to discharge S.J. Res. 17 in accordance
with the requirements of the Congressional Review Act.
The discharge is as follows:
We the undersigned Senators, in accordance with chapter 8
of title 5, U.S. Code, hereby direct that the Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation be
discharged of S.J. Res. 17, a resolution on providing for
congressional disapproval of the rule submitted by the
Federal Communications Commission relating to media
ownership, and, further, that the resolution be immediately
placed upon the Legislative Calendar under General Orders.
Byron L. Dorgan, Ted Kennedy, Kent Conrad, Ernest F.
Hollings, Mark Pryor, Jon Corzine, Frank R. Lautenberg,
Russell D.
[[Page S11017]]
Feingold, Harry Reid, Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, Ron Wyden,
Richard J. Durbin, Debbie Stabenow, Blanche L. Lincoln,
Dianne Feinstein, Susan Collins, H. R. Clinton, Bill Nelson,
Charles E. Schumer, Tom Carper, Olympia Snowe, Wayne Allard,
Olympia Snowe, Saxby Chambliss, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Tom
Daschle, Max Baucus, Paul Sarbanes, Jack Reed, Trent Lott,
Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Kay Bailey Hutchison, John
Kerry, and Jay Rockefeller IV.
Mr. DORGAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 1553
The question occurs on the motion to waive. The point of order is
made under section 504 of H. Con. Res. 95.
The yeas and nays have been ordered.
The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Was it in order to have 1 minute of debate prior to the
rollcall vote?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the manager of the bill, the Senator from
Pennsylvania, has made a point of order against my amendment, which I
think is curious. I made the point that the same point of order, I
expect, would lie against the entire bill. The Senator from
Pennsylvania asked the Chair that question, and the Chair said yes,
both my amendment and the underlying bill have the identical defect.
I think it is interesting that then a point of order is made against
this amendment. The amendment I am offering is a bipartisan amendment
with Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma. It provides $187 million in
restoration of funding to the impact aid program.
This is about kids. It is about helping kids and helping schools
educate kids. This is money that is owed to these school districts.
Even with this amendment, we will fund only two-thirds of what we
promised we would do back in 1950.
Again, I make the curious point that a point of order has been made
against this amendment, so we will have a vote on waiving the point of
order. It is exactly the same point of order that I understand exists
against the underlying bill, because Senator Inhofe and I used exactly
the same mechanism to pay for this amendment as did the folks who
constructed this subcommittee bill.
I ask that my colleagues join me in waiving the point of order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe the opposition has spoken
previously. I yield back all time and ask for the recorded vote to
proceed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion. The
clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham), the
Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), and the Senator from Connecticut (Mr.
Lieberman) are necessarily absent.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would vote ``yea.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). Are there any other Senators
in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 53, nays 43, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 323 Leg.]
YEAS--53
Akaka
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Bunning
Byrd
Campbell
Cantwell
Clinton
Conrad
Corzine
Daschle
Dayton
Dodd
Dole
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Feinstein
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hollings
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lincoln
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Stabenow
Warner
Wyden
NAYS--43
Alexander
Allard
Bond
Brownback
Burns
Carper
Chafee
Chambliss
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeWine
Domenici
Ensign
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham (SC)
Grassley
Gregg
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Miller
Murkowski
Nickles
Roberts
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Sununu
Talent
Thomas
Voinovich
NOT VOTING--4
Graham (FL)
Kennedy
Kerry
Lieberman
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). On this vote, the yeas are 53,
the nays are 43. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not
having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected. The point of
order is sustained and the amendment falls.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, for the information of our colleagues, the
next vote will be the final vote tonight. I encourage Members who have
amendments to offer those tonight so we can begin voting in the
morning. But the next vote will be the last vote for tonight. Please
talk to the managers and come forward to offer your amendments as soon
as you can.
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, will the leader yield for a question?
What time does he expect the vote in the morning?
Mr. FRIST. There has been no time set for a vote in the morning.
Amendment No. 1554
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are now 2 minutes evenly divided prior
to the vote on the Dayton amendment.
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, my amendment increases funding for IDEA
part B by $11.8467 billion for fiscal year 2004, which is the amount
the Congressional Budget Office has determined is necessary to bring
Federal funding up to the 40-percent level that was promised 27 years
ago. The funding being allocated for fiscal year 2004 would provide
18.8 percent, or less than half of that 40 percent promised over a
quarter century ago.
President Bush deserves credit for increasing the funding for IDEA in
each of his three budgets. The Senate deserves credit, along with
President Bush, for increasing that funding. But the fact remains that
we are still less than half of what was promised 27 years ago. I know
for my State of Minnesota that is money that is desperately needed not
only for better special education but for better quality education for
all schoolchildren because money has to be diverted from regular
programs over to special education. This is money we can find.
I propose that the budget point of order be waived, and I thank the
Chair.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask that the Senate be in order so that
I can make an argument in opposition to this motion to waive.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we would always like to have more money
for virtually every line on this appropriations bill. There has been an
enormous increase in funding for special education--last year, $1.3
trillion; the year before, $1.2 trillion; this year, an increase of
$650 million. On a 10-year period, we have practically a 400-percent
increase.
There has been enormous progress made from 1996 when the Federal
share for students was 7.3 percent. Now we are almost at 19 percent,
almost at half of the 40-percent goal. While we would like to have
additional funding, it would cost about $11 billion more to adopt the
amendment and waive the Budget Act.
I do so reluctantly but emphatically.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on
agreeing to the motion to waive the point of order made under section
302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act. The yeas and nays have been
ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham), the
Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), and the Senator from Connecticut (Mr.
Lieberman) are necessarily absent.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would vote ``yea.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
deisring to vote?
[[Page S11018]]
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 42, nays 54, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 324 Leg.]
YEAS--42
Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Boxer
Breaux
Byrd
Cantwell
Carper
Clinton
Corzine
Daschle
Dayton
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Feinstein
Harkin
Hollings
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lincoln
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Stabenow
Wyden
NAYS--54
Alexander
Allard
Allen
Bennett
Bingaman
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Chambliss
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeWine
Dole
Domenici
Ensign
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham (SC)
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Miller
Murkowski
Nickles
Roberts
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Sununu
Talent
Thomas
Voinovich
Warner
NOT VOTING--4
Graham (FL)
Kennedy
Kerry
Lieberman
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 42, the nays are
54. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected. The point of order is
sustained and the amendment falls.
The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Amendment No. 1543
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is my understanding that one of the
underlying amendments is the amendment offered by Senator Robert Byrd
of West Virginia.
During the August recess, I visited many of my State's cities and
home school districts, stopping in to meet with principals, teachers,
parents, and students to talk about the state of education in Illinois.
We have many fine schools, there is no question about it. But we are
also being challenged by the fact that we face a sizable State deficit.
This year our Governor, Rod Blagojevich, had to find $5 billion in
savings out of our State budget, a substantial amount, making cuts in
many areas. He tried his best not to cut into State funding for
education. Despite his best efforts and the efforts of the general
assembly, most of the school districts I visited are facing serious
hardships.
Let me give one illustration. In Elgin, IL, they recently constructed
four new school buildings that were to be opened this year. But because
the Elgin School District has fallen so far behind in State and local
assistance, they will be unable to open those buildings. So there sit
four brand new schools which don't have the staffing and certainly
don't offer better amenities than the older schools offered; they just
cannot be opened. It is an indication of the problems faced by many
school districts in my State and across the Nation.
When President Bush was elected, he came to Congress and said he
wanted to be the education President. He suggested that we try a
bipartisan national approach to establishing better standards of
accountability for education across America. The President proposed No
Child Left Behind. It was a unique concept, one which called for
regular testing of students to determine whether they were making
progress and, absent that progress, changes would have to take place in
the school district. You would have to find better teachers or a better
school environment, principals who were more efficient in delivering
educational quality, and certainly demands would be made for better
teachers. All of these objectives were very positive.
I sat on the Senate floor and behind me at this seat was Senator Paul
Wellstone of Minnesota. Paul had a passion for education, a teacher by
his own profession. He was a great critic of No Child Left Behind.
Despite the fact that there was strong bipartisan support for the
President's program, Paul Wellstone would stand there with his
microphone day after day and speak to the Senate and the people
watching across America and say: Listen, tests are important, but
education is about more than just testing. He would say, incidentally,
if you pass the President's bill, you are going to have to come up with
the money to make certain these kids have a chance. If the scores don't
meet the norms or standards you expect, what are you going to do? Are
you going to help them or merely diagnose the problem and walk away
from it? He was skeptical that when the time came, we in the Congress
would appropriate the money to make No Child Left Behind work.
That was Paul Wellstone's speech day after day, week after week,
month after month. Ultimately, he voted against the bill. I voted for
it, but I remembered what he said. Then I went back to Illinois and
visited school district, large and small, rural and urban, districts in
growing areas of our State and districts in economically depressed
areas of our State. I found that many of them were echoing what Paul
Wellstone said in opposing No Child Left Behind. They were talking
about the burden on a teacher who comes to a classroom at the beginning
of the school year realizing that teacher will ultimately be tested in
a high-stakes test at the end of the year. What that test meant to the
students, to the school, and to the teacher was that in order to get
good grades on the test, teachers were kind of changing the way they
taught. They were no longer teaching in a creative and innovative
fashion, but they were focusing on answers to the test questions.
School administrators, incidentally, said: Senator, we are a little
concerned that the promises made by the Bush administration to send
money to school districts to meet the mandates of No Child Left Behind
are not going to be fulfilled. The promised money that was to come down
to the school districts under title I, which is money to help reach the
students who are not doing well on tests and help them to reach grade
level and to succeed, the title I funds promised by the Bush
administration under No Child Left Behind, is not going to be there.
That is the money that is supposed to be there for afterschool
programs, so that some of these same students running into difficulties
would have a helping hand after school; and summer school programs for
the same purpose are not going to be funded under the Bush budget.
The same school administrators in Illinois said, incidentally, this
idea of making certain that teachers meet certain levels of
qualifications and certification is a good idea, but it takes money to
reach those goals, to send some of these teachers back for additional
college classes in science, math, or whatever their specialty might be.
There is no money for the school district to deal with that.
So I heard the story over and over. It came to my mind that Paul
Wellstone was right; No Child Left Behind was a great promise, but it
is an unfulfilled promise because when the budget was delivered to us,
unfortunately, the money wasn't delivered with it. Title I, which would
help the No Child Left Behind Program, is underfunded by more than $6
billion in the Senate bill we are considering on the floor. Six million
kids across America are at risk of not meeting the standards if we
don't come to the rescue with the amendment by the Senator from West
Virginia, Senator Byrd. In my State, it would add $255 million in title
I funding to help more than 740,000 low-income kids meet the standards
we imposed--Federal standards we mandated under No Child Left Behind
that were mandated, but the program was not funded.
Over the last decade, the enrollment of low-income students in
Illinois public schools has increased from 32 percent to more than 37
percent.
Districts across the State are really trying to comply with No Child
Left Behind standards, but they need the full amount of the funds
promised to be sent to these school districts, as well as the full
mandate of the Federal law.
Illinois has done a number of school funding studies, and every one
of them shows definitively that it will take much more money to help
kids become proficient in reading and math. It stands to reason. If you
have a child struggling to learn to read, that child needs more
personal attention. But if you have a large classroom with 30 kids or
more, the likelihood of personal attention is diminished. So if you do
not send the funds to the school district for smaller class sizes, that
child who is
[[Page S11019]]
going to face the reading test has less of a chance of succeeding.
The State superintendent in Illinois testified this winter before the
Illinois House Appropriations Committee that it will take even more
funding to help low-income and non-English speaking students to keep
pace with their peers academically.
Our State superintendent, Dr. Robert Schiller, also stated:
Based on current trends, Illinois will fall short of
meeting the Federal goal, set forth in No Child Left Behind,
of all children meeting or exceeding reading and math
standards by 2014.
Thirty-seven percent of Illinois students fail to meet State reading
and math standards.
As is the trend nationally, Illinois has significant gaps between
white and minority student achievement and between low-income students
and their more affluent peers.
Last month, the Illinois State Board of Education released its early
warning list of school districts required to provide school choice,
supplemental tutoring, or take corrective action this school year. More
than 500 schools in my State are on the list, and the number might go
up by the end of the month when the final calculations are made.
Compared to other States, Illinois has been pretty lucky as far as
education funding at the State level. For this next fiscal year, which
started in July, the State was able to increase per pupil and
categorical funding to keep school districts on the road to
improvement. But beneath the surface, the Illinois State Board of
Education and our local school districts are struggling to implement
the requirements of the federally mandated No Child Left Behind.
District budgets are straining under these unfunded requirements
addressed by the Byrd amendment. How many Senators in this Chamber
stood up with great pride and said we are voting for No Child Left
Behind because we believe in accountability, education is the highest
priority in our country, and we need to be there for our kids and their
families? All of us who voted for the bill gave that speech.
Look what happened when the Bush budget came down. The money was not
there--a $6 billion shortfall in money needed in schools across
America.
We sent out all these wonderful speeches out to be printed in
newspapers, and we posed for pictures with students and teachers. But
months later, when it comes to funding the bill we passed, the Bush
administration refuses to put the money down and this Congress followed
suit and put together the bill before us today which also fails to keep
that promise. This title I money was supposed to be the pool of
resources from which districts would implement school improvement
provisions necessary to meet adequate yearly progress. Districts now
have to use State and local funds to try to reach those goals.
Despite an overall increase for K-12 education, more than $30 million
in cuts and reallocations were made at the State level in my State this
year. This includes a significant reduction in the number of State
board employees, the elimination of State gifted education programs,
the elimination of the State family literacy initiative, and the
statewide math education initiative.
While Illinois has been successful in keeping budget cuts out of the
classroom, that may not be the case if our State remains in its current
financial straits.
The impact of the Federal Government's failure to fund title I as we
promised is more deeply felt at the school district level where the
financial picture is bleaker.
Across Illinois, school districts are laying off teachers, cutting
programs, and reducing the hours of operation. Sixty-one percent of our
school districts are operating with deficits, and here we have a
Federal mandate from the Bush administration under No Child Left Behind
that imposes new responsibilities on these school districts operating
in a deficit and fails to fund the program.
Many of these school districts have had deficits for several years in
a row. This number is expected to rise about 80 percent next year. This
spring, 62 percent of local bond proposals failed, and 55 percent of
local tax referenda failed. Those are hard to pass in good times. In a
recession, they are particularly difficult to pass. And we had a
recession which began before this President came to office by a few
months and which has continued unabated ever since.
Our State unemployment rate is about 6.6 percent in Illinois. We have
lost 120,000 manufacturing jobs while President Bush has been in
office, and those numbers are duplicated across America. There is
little wonder taxpayers resist the idea of increasing their property
taxes at a time when we are facing this recession.
In many areas of our State, local revenue increases have been less
than 5 percent because they are limited by tax caps. When local
resources cannot be increased, it makes title I money even more
important to these cash-strapped school districts.
For example, in my hometown of Springfield, Public School District
186 has 36 elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. Just
over 15,000 kids attend school in that district. Springfield has had
financial challenges over the last several years and has cut more than
$30 million from the district budget in the wake of the failed tax
referendum. This year, six Springfield elementary schools failed to
make adequate yearly progress, and they must offer public school
choice. Springfield needs every title I dollar the district can get to
improve student achievement and get the schools moving forward making
progress.
What would Springfield do with the money? I asked the superintendent,
Dr. Dianne Rutledge. She said, with more Federal funding, if Washington
kept its promise to send money for No Child Left Behind, this is what
they would do with it. She would hire additional teachers to reduce
class sizes, and that on its face is a good idea. I have yet to meet a
teacher who has prayed for a larger class. They want smaller classes so
they can focus more attention on students who need help and even more
attention on students who are gifted who, with additional time, can do
extraordinary things.
She would also operate reading recovery, and hire a school
improvement coach for each school to provide intensive and personalized
year-round professional development to teachers and staff.
If the Senate fails to adopt the Byrd amendment, there will be less
money for Springfield. They will not be able to hire the teachers, and
fewer kids will have tutors.
Let's look at a larger school district in my State, the Chicago
public school system. They educate more than 438,000 kids in K-12 in
602 schools.
Eighty-five percent of the children in Chicago public schools are
defined as living in poverty. Roughly 90 percent are minority.
The Chicago public school system is, in many ways, the poster
district for setting high academic standards and adopting an aggressive
program for school improvement. Ten years ago, 48 percent of Chicago's
schoolchildren were performing in the bottom quarter of national
achievement in reading and math. Today that number has been cut in
half, first by Paul Vallis, who came in under the direction of Mayor
Daley and brought real reform to the Chicago public school system, and
then followed by Arne Duncan, our current CEO of Chicago public
schools, an extraordinary educator who is doing a great job. He
reported last week for the first time that number has been cut in half,
and Chicago public schools are performing above the Nation as a whole.
That is an amazing achievement in a district that diverse with so many
challenges.
Despite the Chicago public school system's dramatic recovery over the
last decade, 365 of its 602 schools have been labeled as failing to
make yearly adequate progress. That is more than half.
The Chicago public schools' budget increased this year over last. The
district has managed to avoid drastic cuts. Most of the increased funds
are committed to certain projects, and several of the initiatives are
specifically to comply with Federal requirements.
To comply with the highly qualified teachers mandate in No Child Left
Behind, Chicago public schools has just completed work on a brandnew $2
million database to track the qualifications of each of their 25,000
teachers. The Chicago public school system is
[[Page S11020]]
likely to have to create a similar system to track the qualifications
of thousands of paraprofessionals.
Complying with the Federal mandates of President Bush's No Child Left
Behind has led to some terrible challenges for this major city school
district. The Chicago public school system wants to invest title I
dollars in afterschool, summer school, and extended week programs. It
is required to use a large portion of its limited Federal resources to
move kids from schools that are failing to other schools.
What would the Chicago school system do with the money in the Byrd
amendment? We asked the finance director, John Maiorca. He would expand
afterschool and summer school opportunities for students at risk in
failing the test. He would invest in supplemental education services
and additional tutoring for these struggling students, and hire
additional teachers to reduce class size.
Two days ago, I was at the opening of the schools in Chicago. I went
to a school on the west side known as Dodge Academy. Dodge Academy
closed 2 years ago because it was a failing school, but there was a
promise made that it would improve and reopen. It has, and it is an
exceptionally good school.
One can tell, walking in the door, that this is a school that is
destined to succeed. Not only do they have a wonderful, bright, and
remodeled building because of a lot of hard work by the local school
district but they also have some of the brightest teachers. They are a
school that is trying a new concept, under the leadership of Mike
Koldyke, that is going to bring to each of these classrooms two
resident teachers. So for a year they are going to have teachers in
residence who are training to become teachers, working with veteran
teachers, and then they will move these newly qualified teachers with
experience to the failing schools in the Chicago public school systems
and try to turn them around. It is a great model. It works in
hospitals. It can certainly work in schools. But it costs money.
The money from title I, which would be part of No Child Left Behind
had the Bush administration and this bill adequately funded it, could
have been used for that purpose, but it is not there. With the Byrd
amendment, it would be there, and so the Chicago public school system
would have that opportunity.
So right now we are dealing with the broken promises of No Child Left
Behind, unfunded mandates at a time when school districts in Illinois
and across America are struggling to survive. How can we, in good
conscience, impose these ideas and mandates on the school districts, as
good as they may be, and then refuse to pay for them?
Senator Byrd really is calling to task all of us who voted on No
Child Left Behind, those of us who stood so proudly by this bill and
said this is the answer to America's education needs. The question now
is: Will we produce the money it takes to make this succeed? Quite
honestly, if the Byrd amendment fails, the answer is no.
Many of the same people who took great pride in saying they co-
authored this program, cosponsored it, and voted for it, will turn
around and vote against the funding for the mandates they are creating
in school districts across America. These are unfunded mandates in the
middle of a recession, at a time of State deficits, when schools are
struggling to survive, unfunded mandates from the Bush administration
in No Child Left Behind.
The only thing the Bush administration guarantees it will pay for is
the test. So the test will be administered but any effort to improve
the scores of students will be hampered, hindered with additional
obstacles because of the refusal of this Congress to appropriate the
adequate funds. We need to make certain that the $6 billion shortfall
in title I in No Child Left Behind is a shortfall that is filled, and
filled soon.
I rise in support of the Byrd amendment, commend Senator Byrd for his
leadership, and urge all of my colleagues to put their money where
their press release was. It is not just a matter of taking credit for a
program. Stand up now and appropriate the funds to make it work in
Philadelphia, in Iowa, in Chicago, all across America.
I yield the floor.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, the Labor, HHS, Education appropriations
bill for Fiscal Year 2004 provides $137.6 billion in discretionary
budget authority and $134.9 billion in discretionary outlays for the
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and
related agencies. These amounts are both precisely at the
subcommittee's 302(b) allocation. This is an increase of 2.3 percent in
discretionary budget authority and 6.8 percent in discretionary outlays
above the 2003 enacted levels.
Including mandatory spending, the bill provides a total of $370.7
billion in new budget authority and $294.6 billion in new outlays in
Fiscal Year 2004. With outlays from prior years and other completed
actions, the Senate bill totals $456.4 billion in budget authority and
$453.6 billion in outlays.
The committee-reported bill also shifts $2.2 billion in 2004 advance
appropriations back to fiscal year 2003, pursuant to an agreement with
the administration. These advance appropriations were originally
provided in the 2003 omnibus appropriations bill to avoid circumventing
the 2003 spending limits, an action which the President previously
objected to when he signed that legislation.
The purpose of this shift is to allow for $2.2 billion in additional
nondefense discretionary spending in 2004 without exceeding the budget
resolution's discretionary spending limit. However, since the budget
resolution set forth discretionary spending limits for fiscal years
2003, 2004, and 2005, this shift causes the committee-reported bill to
exceed the 2003 spending cap by $2.2 billion. Thus, a point of order
lies against the bill which may be waived with 60 votes.
Finally, it is also important to note that the bill which effectuates
the advance appropriations shift must be signed into law before the
beginning of the new fiscal year on October 1, 2003, in order for it to
count for budget scoring purposes.
Mr. President I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the
Budget Committee scoring of the bill be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
S. 1356, LABOR-HHS APPROPRIATIONS, 2004 SPENDING COMPARISONS--SENATE-
REPORTED BILL
[Fiscal year 2004, in millions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
General
purpose Mandatory Total
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senate-reported bill:
Budget authority..................... 137,601 318,766 456,367
Outlays.............................. 134,932 318,694 453,626
Senate committee allocation:
Budget authority..................... 137,601 318,766 456,367
Outlays.............................. 134,932 318,694 453,626
2003 level:
Budget authority..................... 134,476 289,398 423,874
Outlays.............................. 126,286 289,341 415,627
President's request
Budget authority..................... 137,587 318,766 456,353
Outlays.............................. 133,708 318,694 452,402
House-passed bill:
Budget authority..................... 138,036 318,766 456,802
Outlays.............................. 134,765 318,694 453,459
SENATE-REPORTED BILL COMPARED TO
Senate 302(b) allocation:
Budget authority..................... ......... ......... .........
Outlays.............................. ......... ......... .........
2003 level:
Budget authority..................... 3,125 29,368 32,493
Outlays.............................. 8,646 29,353 37,999
President's request
Budget authority..................... 14 ......... 14
Outlays.............................. 1,224 ......... 1,224
House-passed bill:
Budget authority..................... (453) ......... (453)
Outlays.............................. 167 ......... 167
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note.--Details may not add to totals due to rounding. Totals adjusted
for consistency with scorekeeping conventions.
S. 1356, LABOR-HHS APPROPRIATIONS, 2004 SPENDING COMPARISONS--SENATE-
REPORTED BILL
[Fiscal year 2003, in millions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
General
purpose Mandatory Total
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senate-reported bill:
Budget authority..................... 134,476 289,398 423,874
Outlays.............................. 126,286 289,341 415,627
Senate committee allocation:
Budget authority..................... 132,232 289,398 421,630
Outlays.............................. 126,286 289,341 415,627
SENATE-REPORTED BILL COMPARED TO
Senate allocation:
Budget authority..................... 2,244 ......... 2,244
Outlays.............................. ......... ......... .........
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ H. Con. Res. 95, the 2004 Budget Resolution, set out budgetary
aggregates not only for 2004, but for 2003 as well. As a result, the
joint statement of the conference committee on H. Con. Res. 95 (page
130 of H. Rpt. 108-71) included the allocations that are required by
law (section 302 of the Congressional Budget Act) for 2003 to the
Committee on Appropriations.
That allocation exactly reflects CBO's latest estimate of all regular
appropriations enacted for 2003, as well as the Emergency Wartime
Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-11). The above
allocation to the Labor, HHS subcommittee reflects CBO's FY 2003
current status for that subcommittee.
The Committee on Appropriations has yet to file 302(b) allocations for
2003 and, therefore, pursuant to the Congressional Budget Act, there
is a 60-vote, 302(c) point of order against the bill.
In addition, pursuant to Section 504(b) of H. Con. Res. 95, a point of
order lies against the bill for exceeding the 2003 discretionary
spending limits in Section 504(a) of H. Con. Res. 95.
Note.--Details may not add to totals due to rounding. Totals adjusted
for consistency with scorekeeping conventions.
[[Page S11021]]
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