[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 76 (Wednesday, June 14, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5828-S5837]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR DEFENSE, THE GLOBAL WAR
ON TERROR, AND HURRICANE RECOVERY, 2006--CONFERENCE REPORT
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 4939,
which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the
two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R.
4939) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the
fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other
purposes, having met, having agreed that the House recede
from its disagreement to the amendment of the Senate and
agree to the same with an amendment, and the Senate agree to
the same, signed by a majority of the conferees on the part
of both Houses.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, the supplemental appropriations bill has had
a long and arduous course getting here. I congratulate the chairman and
ranking member for working so hard to get it here.
This legislation will provide funds to support the brave men and
women who risk their lives every day in Iraq and Afghanistan on behalf
of our country. The legislation will provide assistance to those in the
gulf coast still struggling to recover from Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita, and also will help bolster border security and prepare for the
threat of bird flu. These matters are all vitally important, so I
expect the conference report to win broad support in the Senate. It
should.
But while I strongly support the goals of this legislation, I also
have real concerns about the many Senate-backed provisions that have
been left out of this conference report.
For example, the Senate included $648 million to bolster port
security. One would think that protecting our ports would be a priority
for this Congress, given the ongoing threat of terrorism and the
grossly inadequate safeguards for our Nation's ports. But the House
leadership completely rejected any additional funds for port security.
That is a serious mistake.
We learned during the Dubai Port debacle, the Dubai Port what I call
scandal in our country, of the inadequacy of the security of our ports.
We knew it before that, but it was certainly much worse than we ever
expected.
The House conferees almost completely eliminated the relief the
Senate proposed for farmers who have been suffering from recent drought
conditions. Many of these farmers, particularly in the Midwest, are
struggling financially, just as farmers in regions directly affected by
Katrina. Yet they will be shut out from any assistance under this
legislation.
This is very typical. Always the farmers, it seems, when there is an
emergency, look to the Democrats for help, as they should, because if
history is any example--and it usually is--Republicans simply don't pay
attention to farmers' and ranchers' problems.
I have talked about port security, I have talked about the ranchers
and farmers, but there is something else that was dropped in
conference, and that is the proposal to beef up VA medical care for our
Nation's veterans. As Senator Murray said yesterday and Senator Akaka
today, our Nation's veterans are in peril, but in this bill the move to
help them was dropped.
Another proposal to include compensation to health professionals,
first responders, and others who may be harmed in the future by
experimental flu vaccine has also been dropped.
I wonder why the majority leadership is so opposed to improving port
security and helping farmers and veterans. I don't understand. They say
they are concerned about cost. It is hard to take such statements
seriously when we consider what else has happened in the Senate this
week. Costs? At the same time the majority was stripping a few hundred
million dollars to bolster port security, to help our farmers, and to
help veterans, they, the majority, proposed spending $1 trillion to
provide a windfall to a handful of our Nation's wealthiest families.
When I say ``handful,'' I mean that of a country of 285 million or 290
million people, they want to help, at the most, 12,000 individual
estates, less than two-tenths of 1 percent. At the same time they are
asking for this trillion dollars that would have to be borrowed--of
course, we have borrowed from China, Japan, Saudi Arabia; more than
half the money we use to finance our country's operations is borrowed
from foreign countries. At the same time they are dropping help for
veterans, farmers, and port security, the majority has proposed a tax
break worth--for example, they say Paris Hilton's tax break alone would
be in the $14 million-$15 million bracket.
At the same time they are eliminating these programs I have mentioned
for farmers, ranchers, veterans, and security for our country, they are
proposing a tax break for the family of the former Exxon CEO worth $164
million, all paid for by more debt, largely from countries, as I have
indicated, such as China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia.
So I think we should erase from the equation the majority's
commitment to fiscal responsibility. The Republican majority in the
Senate has proven, along with President Bush, that fiscal
responsibility is not part of their mantra. When it comes to helping
average Americans and the middle class, Washington leaders are all for
spending cuts. When it comes to handing out tax breaks that explode the
deficit, they insist no billionaire be left behind.
I am disappointed by what has been left out of this conference report
and by the values and priorities these decisions reflect. Still, at the
end of the day, the items contained in this legislation are vitally
important. We must support our troops. We must assist the gulf coast.
We must tighten border security and prepare for a possible bird flu
outbreak. But this legislation should never be here. Why? Because it
should have been included in our regular budget. We are in the fourth
year of the war in Iraq--the fourth year--but he didn't put it in his
budget. Why? Because it would demonstrate clearly when that budget was
given to us how much more red ink there was in the budget.
I read in the papers that Senator John McCain of Arizona is going to
offer legislation on the bill that we will have before us this
afternoon, the Defense authorization bill, to no longer let the
President do that, to no longer use the unusual procedure; that is, we
are in the middle of the war, we have ongoing expenses, not to include
these expenses in his budget.
As I read the paper this morning, Senator McCain said he is going to
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offer legislation to stop that. If that is the case, and I understand
it, I would certainly join with him. What was done to make this an
emergency spending bill is wrong. We ought to have that part of the
budget and debate it like we do everything else.
I am sorry it took so long to get to the point where we are to get
the money for the troops, but it is here. I accept that.
I want to make one other point about what is so unusual about this
legislation. The Senate voted that they would have an extra $7 billion
to take care of education and labor issues. That is the Health-
Education-Labor Subcommittee that is operated by Senator Specter and
Senator Harkin. We have an extra $7 billion. Even with that money, it
wouldn't keep up with last year's numbers. But the House didn't want
that. Therefore, the House and Senate couldn't agree in an open
hearing, like we usually have with a conference report. So what
happened--sometimes in the middle of the night--is that item was
dropped, and they came up with something called a deeming resolution,
which is a mechanism for setting the total level of discretionary
spending for the upcoming fiscal year, totally apart from the normal
budget. It is used only when the normal budget process breaks down. It
obviously hasn't broken down.
A deeming resolution is an admission of failure and used as a last
resort. Yet here we are only a few weeks after the House completed its
budget, and the majority is already throwing up hands in defeat.
Apparently, they are not even going to produce a budget. That is a sad
commentary on the state of affairs.
Mr. President, I will use my leader time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, that is a sad state of affairs in
Washington. It is very clear that a point of order lies against this
supplemental. That means someone could raise a point of order, and it
would take under rule XXVIII a simple majority to overrule because it
is clear it would properly lie. It remains to be seen if anyone is
going to raise that point of order, but clearly it is available to
anyone in the Senate.
I hope in the future we can have a regular process for budgeting and
a regular process for conference committees to meet. We have talked
about doing that before. Under the Republican majority, conferences are
not really the way we used to do them--publicly. The Republicans run
these committees privately. There are no public votes most of the time.
It is a sad commentary how they have run things here, but as I said
before, during the 4\1/2\ years the President has been in office--I
guess it is 5\1/2\ years now, I am sorry--we have not had three
branches of Government. We haven't had legislative, executive, and
judicial branches of Government. We have had two. We have had the
executive and judicial branches. There have been no Presidential
vetoes. There has been no need for a Presidential veto because the
President gets anything he wants, as indicated with this legislation
going forward now.
I hope my friends in the majority will once again recognize
congressional oversight is important, to have some oversight hearings
to find out what is going on in Iraq, to find out what is going on with
domestic spying, to find out what is going on with global warming and
other issues of that nature, and not have a deaf ear to our
responsibilities as a legislative branch of Government, a separate but
equal branch of Government, as so defined by our Founding Fathers.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, we are here today discussing the
emergency supplemental conference report, which appropriates over $70
billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. Tomorrow we will return to the
Defense authorization bill that will include more discussion of our
efforts in those countries. The last week had events that this Senator
considers very positive: the finalization of a new government in Iraq
with the naming of Ministers of Defense and Interior, the U.S.
military's success of killing Al-Zarqawi, and the safe return of the
President just today from Iraq. While we have had these successes, I
think it is important for Congress, as we discuss both the supplemental
bill and the DOD authorization legislation, to keep in mind the
challenge ahead of us.
While Prime Minister Maliki has moved forward with his new
government, we know that national security experts warn that Iraq is
still in bad shape. I believe that Congress must do its job in holding
the administration accountable as we consider these two pieces of
legislation and make sure that 2006 is a year of significant transition
in Iraq. That is, specifically, that while we have understood the
challenges and mistakes that have been made, that we need to make sure
we are moving forward, and we need to make sure we are turning the
security efforts over to the new Iraqi Government.
While we have seen some promising developments in Iraq in the last
week, we need to remind ourselves that sectarian violence in the last
several months has been on the increase, and that the challenge for
Iraqi and U.S. forces remains high. The challenge before us as a
Congress is to remain vigilant on the accountability of the
administration as we consider this legislation I believe is paramount.
U.S. ground forces have been stretched and placed under enormous
stress. Sectarian militias are responsible for waves of increasing
violence, and there are now over 1.2 million internally displaced
persons throughout Iraq. And as I said, while we have had some
successes, not everything has gone as planned. There has been
mismanagement, contract abuses, fraud in various levels of our
reconstruction, and some lack of accountability on exactly how U.S.
taxpayer dollars have been spent. Electricity and oil production are
below prewar levels. This all has to change.
This year the United States has been spending about $8 billion per
month in Iraq, and Congress has appropriated to date about $320 billion
for Iraqi operations. We need to know where the President is going from
here.
Everyone should be thankful that Saddam Hussein is gone, but we
should learn from the mistakes that have been made so far and rebolster
our efforts to get more international support for what the Iraqi
Government and the United States are trying to accomplish. No matter
where the world community was prior to the U.S. involvement in Iraq,
everyone should rise to help the new Iraqi Government meet our growing
challenges. So this Senator wants to make sure that we are reaching out
and being effective at a broader international effort.
I call on President Bush to name a special envoy to Iraq to promote
regional diplomacy and to make sure the United Nations and the World
Bank are fully engaged. The President could name someone with the
stature and leverage of former President Bill Clinton or former
President George H.W. Bush, who was so instrumental in building an
international coalition before the first gulf war. I believe that again
today diplomatic collaboration is vital. A special envoy could help
garner the international support for both Iraqi reconstruction and
security. As I said, regardless of what foreign governments thought
about the administration's decision to go to war, everyone should share
the same desire to help Iraq succeed as a sovereign nation. The
international donor community has pledged approximately $13.5 billion
for Iraq and for reconstruction efforts but has only delivered about
$3.5 billion of that total. That must change. If nothing else, a U.S.
envoy could make its primary mission the financial contribution by
these countries to help shoulder the burden of stabilizing this very
important region of the world.
Second, I believe the United States should not hesitate in calling a
Dayton-like summit with our allies, with Iraqi neighbors, with the
United Nations, to make sure we are moving forward on answering any
political and security questions that will help in stabilizing the
region. We should also support the Arab League's plan to hold its own
international conference on reconciliation in Iraq. The international
community should work together to help the Iraqis reach a comprehensive
agreement to guarantee regional security, protect Iraq's borders,
supplant the militias with Iraqi Security Forces, and revive the
reconstruction efforts, especially in Baghdad. We cannot allow the
political process to drift. The international community must demand
that
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Iraqis continue making compromises necessary to end the sectarian
violence and to make sure that any amendments to the Iraqi
constitution, if necessary, take place in short order.
Third, I believe that the United Nations should become more involved.
The United Nations should encourage the creation of a U.N. High
Commissioner for Iraq similar to the U.N. High Representative for
Bosnia, which was created to work with the international community to
ensure a peaceful, viable state in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Creating a
U.N. High Commissioner of Iraq could open up the doors for countries
that might have otherwise been hesitant to participate. The U.N. can
call on its wide network of trained personnel and specialized
resources, saving U.S. taxpayers money and providing a genuine boost
for our efforts in Iraq.
We must also make sure that we are serious about last year's
amendment, the Warner-Frist amendment, which declared that ``2006
should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty
with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security creating
the conditions for phased redeployment of the United States from
Iraq.'' We pushed for greater oversight and required the administration
to provide Congress with quarterly reports, and while we have received
some information, the latest reports have not had sufficient
information about sectarian divisions and the risk of civil war and our
response to those risks.
The Department of Defense aims to train and equip about 325,000 Iraqi
troops and police by the end of the year. I want to make sure that
Congress, in our budget process, holds them accountable for meeting
these goals. For the sake of the U.S. troops that are on the ground, we
must make sure that the Iraqi government knows that we want the
security responsibilities transitioned to them. And we must make it
clear that the United States is not going to stay in Iraq indefinitely.
I take Prime Minister Maliki at his word. He basically has said that
the Iraqi forces could take complete control of security within the
next 18 months and that the new Iraqi Government could deal with the
militias and that the Iraqi Security Forces would take control as
quickly as possible. I think we need to continue to push that issue and
to make sure that we are meeting the milestones that will help that to
occur as soon as possible.
We also need to make sure that the efforts on reconstruction move
forward. The United States should help the Iraqis concentrate on
security and development efforts in certain areas to ensure that we are
demonstrating meaningful economic progress. I think again particularly
in Baghdad.
Protecting the Iraqi people and the civilian infrastructure should be
our highest priority. Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds alike must have faith
in their government's ability to provide access to reliable
electricity, clean water, and proper sanitation.
We must remember that we have to honor our commitment to our troops--
the U.S. military who have sacrificed so much. And no one on the Senate
floor will ever forget the awful cost of war. In Iraq, the loss of
nearly 2,500 members of our Armed Forces, and I am deeply concerned
about the 18,000 that have been wounded.
And just as our troops have been stretched to the limit, it is time
for us to realize that our capacity for veterans' health care has also
been challenged. Based on credible projections from the independent
budget, composed by Veterans Service Organizations, the Federal
Government is underfunding veterans' health care by at least $2 billion
and the demands on the system are growing.
In March, the VA told Congress they are seeing 38 percent more Iraq
war veterans than they had budgeted for. So what is the impact? Some
veterans are waiting more than 18 months just to get access to VA
health care, and thousands of others across the country are waiting for
access to care. As of the last month, more than 2,900 veterans in
Washington State were waiting over 30 days to gain access to outpatient
care that they deserve and have not been able to get because we have
not adequately funded the veterans' health care system.
Some experts suggest that one-third of the soldiers coming home from
Iraq seek mental health services, and we need to make sure that we are
adequately funding mental health. A lack of capacity in the veterans'
mental health system has caused a VA official recently to remark that
when it comes to mental health the waiting list renders care virtually
inaccessible. I believe this is unacceptable and that we have to do our
job and do not shortchange veterans' health care. We must give those
who have stood up for us the access to care that they deserve.
The United States must make sure that it does not ever condone
indiscriminate or deliberate killings of civilians. The overwhelming
majority of men and women in uniform are honorable and understand the
rules of war and requirements of the Geneva Conventions. Any
accusations of misconduct must be handled fairly by the military
justice system. We should also play our oversight role here in Congress
and make sure that Congress is not leaving the investigation of this
issue simply up to the Department of Defense.
We need to make sure that Congress is also investigating this issue
and providing the accountability and oversight that everyone deserves.
Whether it is detainee abuse or Haditha, we need to make sure that the
U.S. image is not damaged and our efforts to win the hearts and minds
both in Iraq and the war on terror are not hurt. We must make sure that
we have aggressive oversight and accountability of all agencies of the
Federal Government.
The United States should be an example of leadership committed to
treating people humanely and abiding by the rule of law and promoting
opportunity and a common vision.
I know that recently when British Prime Minister Tony Blair was here,
he gave a speech that said: This should be a moment of reconciliation
not only in Iraq, but the international community. The war split the
world. The struggle of Iraqis for democracy should unite it.
I believe that is what we must move forward on now too as we consider
these two pieces of legislation. Congress must be aggressive in its
oversight and accountability on these goals for 2006 and in turning
over control to the Iraqi people. And we must make sure that we engage
the international community to help us move forward in this effort. The
United States should lead the way, but it should do so with sufficient
international support.
And then I believe we must get on to our larger goals, one that the
9/11 commission recommended to us when it said: Just as we did in the
Cold War, we need to defend our ideals abroad vigorously. If the United
States does not act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world,
the extremists will gladly do the job for us.
So besides these objectives, we need to move forward in fighting
terrorism by promoting American ideals.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to commend my colleague from
the State of Washington for her statement. I believe that she has
outlined several things that should be taken into serious consideration
by this administration. A special envoy would be I think a dramatic and
important step forward in changing the battlefield in Iraq to a more
constructive environment. I also think the idea of the United Nations
appointing a high commissioner for this purpose will also be extremely
helpful. I associate myself with her remarks, and I thank her for her
observations on this war in Iraq.
The President visited Iraq yesterday. It was a surprise visit. I am
sure it did a great deal to help the morale of our soldiers to know
that our President would take this dangerous journey to be there with
them, even if it was for a brief period of time. I am looking forward
to the President's report to the American people today on what he found
and what he proposes. We are all hopeful that this war will come to an
end soon, that American troops will come home, and that at some point
very, very soon, we truly will have our mission accomplished.
This morning's newspaper informs us that we have lost 2,493 of our
best and bravest young men and women serving this United States in
Iraq. I asked a member of my staff to check when we lost 2,000
soldiers, and the date was October 25 of last year. It appears that in
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a very short period of time, we will pass the 2,500 mark. At the time
that we recorded the 2,000th military death in Iraq, I asked, along
with other Senators, for a moment of silence on the floor of the U.S.
Senate to acknowledge their great contribution to our country and in
respect for their memory. When the time comes that 2,500 have given
their lives, I will make that same unanimous consent request. Since
there are no Republican Senators on the floor at this moment, I won't
make it at this time, but I want the majority to know that I think, on
a bipartisan basis, Senators from both parties should come to the floor
when we have recorded the 2,500th death in Iraq and observe a moment of
silence in memory of our fallen warriors and in prayer for their
families whose lives will never be the same because of their loss.
At that time too we should reflect on those who have gone to serve
and have returned broken in body and some in spirit. Over 2,000 have
come back from Iraq with serious head injuries. Many of them are
struggling now to regain the basic faculties and strengths which they
need to lead a normal life. Another 15,000 or 16,000 soldiers have
returned who have lost an arm or leg or other grievous injury. They,
too, are struggling with their families and with the help of the
Veterans Administration to get back to a position where their lives can
return to normal.
We know we are not spending enough money at the Veterans
Administration. We promised these men and women, if you swear an oath
to the United States, if you wear our uniform and our colors, if you
will march behind the flag for America's security and interests, we
will stand with you. When you come home, we will be there. If you need
help in a hospital, we will provide it. If you need help paying for
your education or your future, we will help you.
We are not keeping our promise. In too many cases across America, the
Veterans Administration is not adequately staffed, not adequately
prepared to meet the returning veterans' needs.
I have seen it in my State. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a
serious problem. Men and women who are in combat are under extreme
stress. They are involved in actions which can leave a lasting imprint
on their minds. They are separated from their families, some for long
and repeated periods of time, and some come back needing a helping
hand. They need to sit down with a friendly counselor, a professional
who can bring them back through some of the terrible experiences they
have had.
I have met with these soldiers, these Marines and others. They are
brave enough to stand up and say, I need help, and we need to help them
so that their lives will be restored to normal. Unfortunately, the bill
we are now considering, the supplemental appropriations bill, doesn't
include an adequate amount for our Veterans Administration. We tried to
add it in the conference committee. There was a motion made by the
Senator from Washington, Patty Murray, to put more funds into the
Veterans Administration so we would not shortchange our soldiers. It
was defeated.
We have been through this before. It was only last year we went
through the same debate, and finally, after several months, the Bush
administration came in and said: I guess we just don't have enough
money for the veterans. And we added some. Why do we go through that
every year? We know these veterans are returning and they need our help
and we need to have the professionals there to give them that helping
hand.
It is unfortunate that this supplemental appropriations bill is the
way we fund this war. This is at least the fourth time we have had such
a bill. These bills are supposed to be for unforeseen emergencies--
hurricanes, earthquakes, things that occur that God has wrought and we
have to deal with but not for things that we can ordinarily anticipate;
that is what our budget is for.
The administration every single year takes the cost of the war and
puts it in an emergency bill, saying: We were surprised; we still have
a war going on.
We should not be surprised. We know that we have been in Iraq now for
over 3 years and that we are likely to be there for some time to come.
Putting this in a supplemental appropriations bill allows the
administration to say it is not part of the ordinary budget; therefore,
it is not part of the budget, not part of the budget deficit. That is
not true.
This $90-billion-plus bill is added to the debt of this Nation, and
we should be honest with the American people about it. This bill is not
an honest portrayal of the true cost of this war.
I am also really disappointed; when there are natural disasters
across America, one of the first victims is usually an American farmer.
These are people trying to make a living growing our food and fiber,
and changes in the weather, whether it is a drought or a flood, can
make all the difference in the world in their success. I cannot tell
you how many times in my congressional career I have been asked to come
to the rescue of farmers across the United States in virtually every
State in the Union, and I have done it because I know my agricultural
community is vulnerable as well and a time may come when they need
help.
This is such a time. Last year we had a drought in the State of
Illinois, a terrible drought that cost us dramatically when it came to
our corn crop and other production. I sat down with the Secretary of
Agriculture and said, Why don't you help our farmers? We always help
farmers in these situations.
He said: I looked at the statistics and, on average, the farmers in
Illinois are just fine.
On average? Farmers don't farm on average. They farm their acreage.
On average you may have one prosperous farmer near one who was wiped
out in the drought. On average both of them did just fine, but we know
the reality. The reality is that one farmer and his family are
suffering.
I urged this administration to do their best to help when it came to
this disaster assistance. Over 6,000 producers nationwide wrote to my
office and the offices of Senators Pryor, Lincoln, Dorgan, Salazar,
Dayton, and Johnson urging this disaster assistance. Major farm
organizations supported us. This drought we faced last year was the
worst in over a century. At least 10 counties in Illinois sustained a
20 percent loss in corn yield. The value of the Illinois corn crop was
down $1.1 billion. The Illinois Department of Agriculture estimates
that drought of 2005 lowered yields and resulted in a $443 million loss
to producers.
Now the farmers, coming back in the field, face extraordinarily high
energy prices because America does not have an energy policy. There has
been no leadership in Washington. The cost of fertilizer, the cost of
diesel fuel, the cost of gasoline has gone up dramatically, up to $25
an acre for farmers over the last several years right out of the bottom
line.
What we asked for in this bill was to give the farmers a helping hand
as we have for the farmers in the Gulf Coast States. I see my colleague
and friend, the Senator from Louisiana. The farmers in that State we
have helped, as we should, and Mississippi and Alabama, as we should.
But I think, when it comes to this national challenge, that we should
have stepped forward to help farmers across the board. This bill does
not do that, and I am disappointed.
There is another element in this bill which I think needs to be
addressed.
Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham). There are 5 minutes and 48
seconds remaining.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, that element relates to what is known as
the deeming resolution. That is Senate talk for the budget resolution,
which is kind of the broad outline of how we will spend money this
year. Instead of passing the budget resolution as we ordinarily do, at
the last minute in this conference committee the Republican leadership
in the House and Senate plugged this resolution into this spending
bill. It has been done before but not very often. It is an unusual
approach. What it means is the overall spending limitations for the
whole budget are now plugged into this special appropriations bill.
There is nothing sinister or wrong about that on its face, until you
look at the resolution itself. What they put in as the resolution is
President Bush's budget. Let me tell you that budget, sadly, is some
$16 billion below the budget resolution that the Senate approved on a
bipartisan basis.
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Let me give an example of what the President's budget will cut. These
are choices that have been made and will be made in the weeks ahead.
One of the areas that troubles me most is President Bush's proposal to
cut funding at the National Institutes of Health. That is the agency of
our Government that does research on medical diseases and challenges:
Lou Gehrig's disease, autism, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes--
the list goes on and on. President Bush's budget cut $1 billion from
the National Institutes of Health since 2003 and continues to cut
funding there.
There was a bipartisan commitment in Congress that we would
dramatically increase medical research, believing that most families in
America would applaud that expenditure of their tax dollars, and I
think they would. Now, if we are going to follow the President's
budget, we will be cutting back on medical research. Any family that
faces a serious medical illness understands that research is the one
lifeline you cling to. You pray for the best outcome, you hope for the
best doctor, but you are also counting on the National Institutes of
Health and other medical research to be looking for that cure.
Why would we cut back on it? And we do.
This President's budget also low-balls the spending for the Veterans
Administration. As I said before, last year they were proven wrong. It
means that instead of acknowledging the obvious, when we promise our
soldiers we will be with them when they come home we try to shortchange
it and then catch up with them later. It is no way to run a government.
It is no way to keep your promise to the men and women in uniform who
served our country so well.
There is one another particular issue as well that the President's
budget threatens about which I am concerned. We passed the budget
resolution and the Senate recognized that the global AIDS epidemic was
a major priority. Our budget included a bipartisan amendment to
increase funding for the global fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria by
$566 million. On average, $100 million contributed to the global fund
will mean 630,000 people around the world will have chemically treated
nets around their beds to avoid malaria, one of the No. 1 killers of
children in the developing world; 150,000 treatments for malaria for
each $100 million to the global fund; 80,000 treatments for
tuberculosis; 370,000 people with HIV tests; 11,000 people with AIDS
treatment.
This resolution strips $16 billion out of the budget that we just
passed, and that means there will be less money to fight these global
epidemics.
Why should we care? We should care, not just because of basic values
that many of us hold that they are our neighbors, they are our brothers
and sisters, but also because if disease is rampant in the world it
will visit the United States. If the avian flu becomes an epidemic
moving from animals to humans in some part of the world, we will have
21 days before it spreads around the world.
A century ago many of these diseases didn't survive the voyage on the
trip from the old world where now they survive the 8, 10, and 12-hour
airplane trips and come into cities and towns and counties all around
the world, including the United States, so our efforts on public health
around the world are not only for the right reason, they are also to
protect us.
As this President's budget cuts back on spending, threatens the
spending for the global fund, unfortunately, people will die as a
result of it and, unfortunately, we will live in a more vulnerable
world.
Budgets are about choices and usually hard choices, but the Senate
made those choices in March. Unfortunately, the bill before us from
this conference committee reverses that decision and makes threatening
cuts in the National Institutes of Health in the areas of veterans care
and in global AIDS, to mention just a few.
This President's budget had the deepest cuts in education of any
President in the last several years at a time when we need schools to
be the very best for the 21st century to create the opportunity that
our people and our children certainly deserve.
Members of the Senate are faced with a quandary. Here is a bill that
funds the war. Even those of us who voted against the war believe we
have to provide the resources so our soldiers have the equipment and
training and supplies they need to come home safely with their mission
accomplished, and I voted for every penny the President has asked for
that purpose. But within this is a budget resolution with which I do
not agree. If you could split your vote on this, I certainly would,
voting for the money for the soldiers but voting against this budget
resolution which will force us to make cuts in critical areas of
importance for America's future.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about the
supplemental.
As I begin, I would like to underscore some of the points the Senator
from Illinois just made about the disturbing deficiencies in this
particular supplemental relative to the underfunding of many ongoing
critical issues that he so eloquently outlined. But I would like to say
that there are some extraordinarily helpful items in this supplemental,
which is why I am going to support it, why I was pleased to be a part
of crafting the supplemental through the appropriations process as a
member of that committee, and why I would like to say a particular
thank you to the senior Senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd, and--I
see the chairman of the Appropriations Committee on the floor--to thank
the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, for his work in fashioning
through this Senate a bill that will bring so much help and urgently
needed support to the gulf coast.
It is not too soon for us to do this, considering hurricane season
started last week and there is a tropical storm out in the gulf as we
speak here on the floor. Throughout all the gulf coast, from Pascagoula
all the way to Beaumont and in parts of Florida as well, of course,
people are sitting on pins and needles, hoping and praying that this
season that we are entering is not as catastrophic as the one we just
left and looking to this Congress, looking to this Senate, looking to
the House, looking to our Governors of our States, to give them support
and encouragement. That is what this supplemental bill will do.
Within this supplemental bill, despite the real shortcomings that
Senator Durbin has outlined and the real dilemma for those who want to
support the troops in Iraq and support real disaster funds, there is an
unfortunate choice of having to cut some overall funding that is
critical to the country. But, from our perspective, representing the
State of Louisiana--and trying to speak as well as I can for the whole
gulf coast--we have to get this supplemental passed today.
The leadership of the Appropriations Committee has tried, on the
Senate side, to push a robust, strong supplemental bill through to help
the people of the gulf coast.
I would like to spend just a moment talking about some of the things
that we were successful with in this bill, starting with $3.7 billion
to repair and armor hurricane-protected levees throughout Louisiana, in
the southeastern part of our State as well as other parts of our State.
The reason this is so critical is, as I have said many times, it
wasn't the hurricanes which necessarily did us in in Louisiana,
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but what really put us at risk and what
really caused substantial damage and loss of life--1,300 people died in
the last hurricane season in the United States, a record we could not
even believe we would hit or a number we would hit, not in the year
2006, not with the warning we have, not with all the sophisticated
technology we have today, but 1,300 people lost their lives in large
measure because the Federal levee system collapsed. It broke in
multiple places because of underfunding over the years and because of
lack of integrity in the design. That report was released only 12 weeks
ago. Repairing those levees, armoring them, and building them better,
we are not able to do on a wish and a prayer. We need to do that with
real money, and the real money is in this bill.
I thank Senator Cochran and the administration for stepping up and
realizing that their original request was
[[Page S5833]]
billions of dollars short. Without this extra money, the people of
south Louisiana and in large measure the gulf coast of Mississippi--
which, by the way, is protected by the levee systems and the coastal
system of Louisiana--would be very vulnerable. We have added almost $2
billion through the process from the original $1.9 billion. Without the
strong support of Senator Byrd and Democratic Members as well as the
leadership of Senator Cochran, this would not have been possible.
I also wish to say that a very strong part of this bill we will find
in the $5.2 billion for community development block grants. The
original request by the administration was only about $4 billion. While
we were extremely happy for that because it was directed to Louisiana,
we were able to put an additional $1 billion for community development
block grants to make sure that Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, to some
degree Florida, and, of course, Louisiana get the help they need, not
through FEMA, which even on its best day is not working very well, not
through other agencies that have not been designed or are not
functioning well, but directly to our Governors and to our legislators
and local officials who can put this community development block grant
to good use--rebuilding 200,000 homes in Louisiana that were destroyed,
10 times more than Hurricane Andrew, which was the most expensive storm
to hit Florida or the United States prior to Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita. We are very grateful and very hopeful that this community
development block grant funding can go to rebuilding, to setting up a
new approach to rebuilding houses.
The saddest thing was that many people didn't have insurance because
they weren't in the flood plain. They didn't have insurance because
they had already paid for their homes. Their homes were paid in full,
on high ground, not in a flood plain. Then the levees broke, and
middle-income families, wealthy families, and poor families lost their
largest asset--their security for their retirement, their emotional
security, having worked a whole lifetime to build assets of a home,
washed away. For some parents and for some grandparents, this was the
way they were going to send their children or grandchildren to college.
Gone. Without this community development block grant, they have no hope
of restoring their asset or rebuilding their equity--no hope.
Mississippi has developed a plan that is slightly different from
Louisiana's plan. I am not sure either one of them is perfect, but it
is the plan they came up with. Our job is to get them the money and
urge them to do the very best they can with giving people a start.
This is just a picture of one house. I am sure Senator Cochran and
Senator Lott have others. I will literally show you pictures of homes
of all different shapes and sizes. Over 275,000 of them look like this.
Again, it wasn't just a regular hurricane, which we are used to in the
gulf. When the levees broke and a tsunami, a wave of 20 feet of water,
poured into the city of New Orleans out of Lake Pontchartrain, this is
what was left. That is what people came back to.
People ask: Senator, why isn't everybody scurrying around rebuilding?
Well, if this were my house--and my brothers' and sisters' houses look
like this; four of them lost their houses; this is what they look like.
When they showed up, I, frankly, know how they felt. They do not know
where to begin. Even if they can clean up their house, every house to
the left and every house to the right and every house as far as the eye
can see looks like this, and they are not sure they want to be the only
one back in the neighborhood, with no water, no lights, et cetera.
This is a problem of huge magnitude for the gulf coast. As I said,
this is not a place which is inconsequential to the Nation; this place
is the heart of America's energy coast. One of the reasons the price of
oil is so high is because these hurricanes shut down the oil and gas
industry for the most part in the gulf when they hit. Anytime a
hurricane comes to the gulf, we have to relocate within 24 hours about
6,000 to 7,000 oil workers who make their living on these platforms out
in the gulf. These are cities out in the gulf. Every time those waves
kick up, to great credit to the industry, I am not sure we had one loss
of life. I could be wrong, but I am not sure. I am almost sure there
was no loss of life to the workers here because we got them off of
those rigs, tied those rigs down, and buckled down for those storms.
When the storms pass, we all go back out and we set this up again.
Not only were these storms category 4 and 5 and we are still only 75
percent up, but the communities that serve them--like the community of
St. Bernard where a lot of people live who work in these oilfields lost
59 percent of their houses, and 90 percent of all their businesses were
destroyed because the levees broke. We are asking these people who live
in those houses which you just saw to go out to these rigs every day to
work to turn the lights on in this Chamber. They do a real good job of
that. I am proud of the work they do. But this supplemental will help
them rebuild their homes, rebuild their schools, and rebuild their
businesses. The least we can do is pass it without any more time lapse
to give them a chance to get back.
I hope members of the Appropriations Committee and the authorizing
committees will really grab this opportunity; that is, we fought to get
some additional money in this bill, and we ended up with $400 million
for some alternative housing.
Let me say as a Senator from Louisiana that I have been through these
storms. Can we please move past the plan to put people in trailers? It
is costing the Federal Government $70,000 to put people in a trailer.
We could practically build a house for $70,000 and let people live
there temporarily until they can get back into their real houses. It is
an extraordinary waste of money. We are wasting it at rates that
stagger people. We have to think about a new way of not putting
everybody in trailers.
Another problem with putting people in trailers is when the next
hurricane season comes along, their trailers could literally blow away
if they are not tacked down the way they should be, or secured. And
FEMA has just let all the people living in trailers know that they are
not to take the trailers with them. Even though they are travel
trailers, they cannot take them with them if they have to evacuate
because they might steal them.
Here we are going to have thousands of people who are living in
trailers which cost $70,000 each to hook up--and contractors made a lot
of money off of this system--and the people who have to live in them
only get a little bit of space to live. Some are living in them with
three or four children, which makes for an exciting opportunity for
families. These trailers cannot be moved when the hurricane comes. I
hope the winds don't get up to 150 miles an hour because we will have a
lot of trailers flying around. I don't know what is going to happen
there.
I am so happy that we could fight for this $400 million. That sounds
like a lot of money, but considering we are spending billions of
dollars on trailers, to think maybe we could do this a better way next
time--that is in this bill.
Another part in this bill which we fought hard to keep--and we got
knocked down quite a bit, but we managed to save a piece of it--was for
the colleges and universities. Mississippi has two colleges that were
very severely damaged. I believe that is correct. I could be wrong. If
I am, I will correct the record. But Louisiana has 12 major
universities--Tulane, Loyola, the University of New Orleans, Xavier,
Dillard, McNeese on the western side--and 45,000 people are employed by
these universities, and there are 40,000 students at these
universities. Dillard University, one of the historic Black colleges in
our country, a private college with an excellent reputation, small--the
kids are still at the Hilton Hotel taking classes and eating their
meals in the dining room of the Hilton Hotel because their whole campus
was destroyed. Their insurance is slow. They are having a hard time
getting back. But it is a beautiful, historic campus.
We have $50 million in this bill to try to give out grants. They have
borrowed as much as they can. Their boards of directors are fighting to
keep these universities up and running. Besides the great history of
these universities, they are the economic engine that is going to pull
the gulf coast up from its knees and pull it back. If not our
universities, who is going to do the job?
[[Page S5834]]
Instead of having our universities lay off people, our universities
should be hiring people. These are people getting good jobs that pay
$50,000 and $100,000. We need our researchers, teachers, and our
professors leading the way, and we need our students leading the way to
rebuild this great part of America. We have some money in this bill for
that. I am proud that we got bipartisan support for that effort on the
Senate side.
Finally, I wish to mention two other things. In the city of New
Orleans, where the water flooded 80 percent of the east bank of the
city, one of the facilities we lost was the veterans hospital. We have
over 400,000 veterans in Louisiana. I think we probably have about
300,000 in Mississippi. Between the gulf coast of Mississippi and New
Orleans, we had a very good system of health care for our veterans, who
really deserve our very best. All Americans deserve good health care,
but for men and women who spent their early years, their teenage years,
in their early twenties in foxholes, the least we can do for them for
defending this country and holding up the flag--today is Flag Day--is
make sure when their hospitals and clinics are destroyed that we not
only build them back but we build them back better and stronger. If
they were too close to the coast, we will move it back.
This hospital was safely in downtown New Orleans, not anywhere near a
coast, not anywhere near a lake, not anywhere near the ocean. Because
the levees broke, that building was flooded, and now we have veterans
without a hospital.
The money for that hospital is in this bill. My colleagues have
committed to pass the prerequisite authorization we need to get that
done. We will build up in the next couple of months a better health
care system for veterans in the gulf coast, and do it smartly with
taxpayer money because we are partnering with LSU and perhaps even with
Tulane to do a very interesting build of this new hospital that serves
veterans and the public alike as we rise up with a better health care
system for the gulf coast.
Finally, small businesses. I don't know what makes me sadder. I can't
even decide what is the saddest thing about this because it is all so
sad. We lost 20,000 businesses. Just as people lost their home, their
greatest asset, people struggle their whole life to build a business.
It might not have been a huge business, but it was their business. It
might not have been a $50 million business, but it employed three or
four people. It made a living for the business owner, and it
contributed to the society and to the strength of the community. Many
of those businesses are gone.
We have been very slow to recognize the extraordinary magnitude of
this disaster, saying to our businesses: Just go to the Small Business
Administration and get a loan.
I will spend 1 minute on this. Senator Kerry and I sat through 3
hours of testimony, 7 hours on the ground at a small business tour in
New Orleans. I want to tell you what people said: Senator, this makes
no sense to me. I got my loan. I asked for a $400,000 loan. I applied
for it. After 4 or 5 months, I finally got approved. But I don't really
need $400,000. My husband and I decided we really only want to borrow
about $200,000 because we do not want to take on that much debt. We are
afraid we can't really pay it back. But the Small Business
Administration told us we have to borrow the $400,000 because if we
don't, we cannot get a loan.
That is what is going on whether people want to believe it or not.
And it gets worse. Not only are they forced to borrow more money than
they need and more money than they really want, the Small Business
Administration only sends them, say, $20,000 of the $400,000. Guess
what their monthly amortization payment is on. It is not on the $20,000
that they have in hand, they have to pay based on the total amount.
Every month, they are paying principal and interest on the $400,000,
not the $20,000 they have in hand. That is the system under which our
small businesses are operating.
I am begging the Senate to send more money, not through the regular
channels, but this money will go through a different channel to give
different grants and loans to these businesses in hopes we can save
many of them. Some of them have been lost and can never be rebuilt. The
business owners have moved and gone to other places. But there are many
extraordinarily brave business owners who not only want to build their
businesses back but build their communities back. The least we can do
is give them programs that actually meet them halfway, that really
work, and stop burying them in paperwork and redtape, rules that make
no sense. It is enough to make someone want to quit. I would not blame
them. But people are not going to quit in the gulf coast.
As we pass the supplemental, it adds to some additional funding we
already passed. We will keep working until we get it right, building a
better school system, a better health care system, building levees and
support to protect this area because the people of the gulf coast
contribute much more than they take to the strength of this national
economy.
Off of this coast, wealth is created not just for the people who live
there but for this Nation. We are going to prepare ourselves for this
next hurricane season, pass the supplemental, and look with confidence
to the future as we continue to make progress.
Mr. COCHRAN. Has the time allocated under the order for the
Democratic side been used?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator Harkin has 15 minutes.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am happy to proceed at this point to
point out some of the changes made in the conference committee which
enabled us to get a conference report agreed to between the House and
Senate conferees and to be consistent with the requirements of the
administration.
The administration had sent a pretty clear message that a veto of
this conference report could be expected if the total amount exceeded
the amount requested by the President for emergency appropriations for
the war on terror and other needed expenses to help with the recovery
from the hurricanes that damaged the gulf coast area of our State.
The Senate Committee on Appropriations had numerous amendments
offered during the markup of this legislation, many of which were
related to other issues and other needs, all of which our committee
thought were legitimate and requests which should be met.
In the conference with the House, it became apparent we were going to
have to yield on some provisions we agreed to and put in our bill. The
House, likewise, recognized their bill was not perfect either, it could
be improved, and some of the Senate suggestions for additional funding
in some areas were agreed to by the House.
We wound up with a conference report which recommends $94.43 billion
for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, principally in connection with
the war on terror; hurricane recovery benefits are made available,
principally to the gulf coast region of our country; preparations for a
possible pandemic flu problem, which has been a cause for concern in
which funds were requested by the administration specifically for that
purpose; and other activities related to these principal subjects.
The level of funding is $14.47 billion below the Senate-passed bill
but is $2.48 billion above the House-passed bill.
There are some specific areas of interest that were debated in the
Senate which I am pleased to report were recognized by the conference
committee as worthwhile expenditures and investments of Federal funds.
Principally, in our State of Mississippi, the Navy retirement home
located in Gulfport, MS, which was virtually destroyed by the
hurricane, there was no specific request made by the administration for
funding of that. The House hadn't put money in the bill to deal with
that specific issue. The Senate did include substantial funding, over
$100 million, to deal with that problem. The conferees agreed, yielded
to the Senate on that issue. The administration has indicated it will
not veto the bill over that provision.
There are other similar provisions along the line where the Senate
had insisted that funds be included. Agriculture disaster assistance,
for example, had not been requested by the administration.
While keeping with the challenge to restrict the funding for benefits
related to damages caused by hurricanes, we did provide, for example,
$37.5 million
[[Page S5835]]
for the Foreign Service Agency to respond to damages caused by the
hurricanes of 2005. Neither the President's request nor the House-
passed bill included similar funding.
Of this spending, $5 million is for additional salaries and expenses
incurred by the Foreign Service Agency to respond to damages, and $32.5
million is for the Emergency Conservation Program. Real benefits are
going to flow from this conference report because of action the Senate
had taken and defended successfully in conference with the House. We
are assured the administration will use these funds to try to help
those landowners and those involved in production agriculture recover
from the devastation of these hurricanes.
There are other individual accounts, including one for $25 million
for the working capital fund of the Department of Agriculture. This was
requested by the President, I point out.
This conference report reflects a fair compromise between what we
were trying to do in the Senate bill, point out some areas we thought
had been underfunded or left out of other requests by the
administration for disaster relief, and still deal with the reality
that we have to be responsive and we have to stay within the restraints
dictated by good conscience, good government.
This conference report meets that challenge. I am pleased to be able
to present it on behalf of the Committee on Appropriations for the
Senate and urge it be agreed to.
I don't know if any Senators have requests for time for debate of
this bill, but inasmuch as there is time remaining on the Democratic
side, I will reserve the remainder of the time allocated to our side of
the aisle.
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. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Are we under an
order right now with a time limit? I have the floor, but I would like
to know how much time I am allotted.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 15 minutes.
Mr. HARKIN. Fifteen minutes?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Presiding Officer.
Mr. President, first of all, I want to say I have a great friendship
with, a liking of, and respect for the chairman of our committee, the
distinguished Senator from Mississippi. It is always a tough job when
you are bringing an appropriations bill out on the floor, especially a
supplemental. And I respect the effort that has gone into this.
However, I must say that there are a lot of things that I find very,
very problematic about this appropriations bill.
Again, there are some critical provisions included in this bill.
There is funding for our Nation to prepare for a possible avian flu
pandemic. Obviously, there is funding for our men and women in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and we want to support them in every way, with the
equipment they need to maximize their safety. There is also funding for
the U.S. Institute of Peace democracy-building activities in Iraq and
Afghanistan. So there are things in here that are very necessary that
we must provide.
On the other hand, however, there are some very disturbing and I
think sort of ominous precedent-setting things that are in this bill
that could lead to some real problems down the road.
I am extremely disappointed this bill includes a deeming resolution
for the budget. First of all, it should not be in here. Now, I tried to
explain a deeming resolution to one of my constituents the other day.
Try to explain it to someone. Try to explain it to someone who is not
sort of in this body--a ``deeming'' resolution. You see, we pass a
budget, but then the budget cannot get passed by the House, so,
therefore, we then are going to pass a deeming resolution to deem
something that we cannot pass as passed because we deem it passed.
Now, just try explaining that to the average citizen of this country.
They would think we have lost all our marbles in trying to do something
like this. I am hopeful we will reach some point in the Senate and the
House where this is absolutely forbidden in the future: putting
something like a deeming resolution on an emergency supplemental.
Now, we want to pass an emergency supplemental for the reasons I just
mentioned, but then to have to swallow something which makes no sense
whatsoever and which, quite frankly, is harmful and which the Senate
rejected before flies in the face of what I think is legitimate
legislative activity.
So the Senate voted 2 months ago overwhelmingly in favor of an
amendment that Senator Specter and I offered--bipartisan--to add $7
billion to the President's budget. The Senate voted 73 to 27. That is a
pretty overwhelming vote around here: 73 to 27. The aim was clear: to
allow Congress to fund our education, health, human services, and labor
bill. And it was not an increase but just to fund it at the same level
as in fiscal year 2005, 2 years ago. It was not radical. We were not
asking for a lot, not asking for the keys to the Treasury.
We said: Let's just spend the same amount of money we did 2 years
ago, not even accounting for inflation.
The Senate said: Let's stop cutting the programs that support working
families, people with disabilities, and students who cannot afford
college. Let's end the cuts to research on cancer and other diseases.
Seventy-three Senators agreed. They voted that way. Then the Senate
reconfirmed its position in conference. When this deeming resolution
was proposed, Senator Byrd offered an amendment that proposed the same
thing as what we passed in the Senate--the Specter-Harkin amendment.
Again, a majority of the Senate conferees voted to add the $7 billion.
Two times the Senate demanded this additional funding for health,
education, and labor programs, and human services.
Now, where is the $7 billion? Where did it go? It just vanished--
vanished. It is gone. The deeming resolution--again, try explaining
that to someone, to the average person. The deeming resolution that is
in this bill is at exactly the same level as the President's budget,
which we rejected in the Senate 2 months ago.
So what happened? The conferees from the majority party went behind
closed doors and stripped out the $7 billion. It is as if the 73-to-27
vote in the Senate never even happened.
So what does this mean? What is the impact? Well, let's look at what
happens. Under this now, the President's budget will cut funding for
cancer research by $40 million. Eighteen of the 19 National Institutes
of Health will face reductions.
This deeming resolution will now cut Social Services Block Grants by
$500 million. It completely eliminates the Community Services Block
Grant program. These are the two biggest discretionary programs for the
poor. They are kind of the glue that holds the human services delivery
system together.
The number of children served by Head Start will be reduced. The
Meals on Wheels Program will be cut.
In education, this deeming resolution, now following the President's
budget, will have the largest cut to Federal education in 26 years. The
No Child Left Behind Act will be underfunded by $15.4 billion. Title I,
serving our most needy children in school, will be frozen at last
year's level.
I could go on and on, but this is what we mean by passing a deeming
resolution on the supplemental.
At a time when Congress has just passed an additional $70 billion in
tax cuts, mostly for the wealthiest in our country--and we had an
effort a week ago to eliminate estate taxes, but, fortunately, we
stopped it. But I hear it may come back, another tax cut that will
benefit only 3 families out of every 1,000 families in America. We are
going to have another attempt, and that will cost us, I understand, a
half trillion dollars over 10 years. And it will go only to the
wealthiest in our society. Yet we are going to cut Meals on Wheels,
Head Start, cut education, title I, eliminate Community Services Block
Grants, cut funding for the National Institutes of Health.
What is going on here? Have we taken leave of our senses? This
deeming resolution, as I said, was not in the House bill, and it was
not in the Senate bill. There is a rule. We are supposed to
[[Page S5836]]
live by rules in our society. We have laws. People obey laws. We have
rules to live by so we know what the game is, so we know what we are
expected to do.
We have a rule that says anything that is added in conference that
was not in either bill is subject to a point of order. A point of order
now lies on this floor against this bill.
Now, why isn't anyone raising the point of order? Well, I am told
that the point of order will not be raised because the Chair, you see,
will have to agree with the point of order that this violates rule
XXVIII; therefore, the whole bill then falls.
What does that mean? Why, it means they would have to go back to
conference and strip out the deeming resolution. That might take a
couple of hours. Then it would come back, and then we would have a
supplemental appropriations without this ``deeming resolution.''
So why isn't rule XXVIII being invoked? Why aren't we raising the
point of order? I understand that what would happen is the Chair would
uphold the point of order, the majority party would move to override
the ruling of the Chair--and that takes 51 votes--and I am told the
majority party would have the 51 votes to override the ruling of the
Chair, and that would do away, basically, with rule XXVIII.
Well, what is so wrong with that? What is the good of having a rule
if you do not abide by the rules? I am reminded of one of my favorite
lines from ``Finnegan's Rainbow.'' It is a play. It goes like this: For
life is like cricket. We play by the rules. But the secret which few
people know that keeps men of class far apart from the fools is to make
up the rules as you go.
That is what we are doing around here. We are making up the rules as
we go. You never know from one year to the next what the rules are
going to be. The rules are only what the majority party deems the rules
ought to be at any given point in time. That is no way to run a
democracy. It is no way to run a legislative chamber. It is no way to
run the Congress.
So we have this threat: If you raise a point of order--which should
be raised--that whole rule falls. I question whether the rule is even
worth having any longer.
A couple of other notes.
How much time do I have remaining, Mr. President?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Three minutes 50 seconds.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, let me just note that upon the passage of
this supplemental appropriations bill, Congress will have provided over
$318 billion for the war in Iraq--almost all of it through emergency
supplemental appropriations.
Now, again, we must support our troops. They have no control over how
their operations and equipment are funded. So we want to support them.
But I have grave concerns about the way the Bush administration has
gone about funding the war--only through emergency supplemental
appropriations.
The war in Iraq has gone on for 3 years now. There have been eight
separate emergency supplemental appropriations measures to fund our
operations in Iraq.
This is how an emergency is defined by our own budget rules:
``Suddenly, quickly coming into being . . . not building over time . .
. an urgent, pressing and compelling need requiring immediate action .
. . unforeseen, unpredictable and unanticipated and not permanent.''
That is how our budget rules define ``emergency appropriations.''
Three years? War in Iraq? It is unforeseen, unpredictable,
unanticipated, sudden? Wait a minute, this does not meet the definition
of ``emergency.'' It is not unforeseen.
Why isn't the President sending us, then, a regular budget at the
beginning of the year to fund the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Because
they do not want to admit how much money they are spending there. They
want to mask it.
I am going to support this bill. I will vote for it because it has
some things in it and because I want to make sure our troops have the
equipment. But I want to go on record as saying I also have a
resolution that I introduced in the Senate that says three things. It
says: No. 1, we will not establish permanent bases in Iraq; No. 2, we
will not seek to control the oil in Iraq; and, No. 3, that we ought to
begin redeploying our troops out of Iraq by the end of this year.
So this may be the last time I will vote for any appropriations for
the Iraq war, because I believe we should start withdrawing and
redeploying our troops by the end of this year. I want to give them
everything they need for their safety and their well-being, but enough
is enough. And I also want to make it clear that this may be the last
time I will ever vote for an emergency supplemental appropriation for
the war in Iraq.
If it comes to the regular appropriations process, we will have our
hearings. We will see what is happening. But under an emergency, we
don't do that. The war in Iraq, we were told by Mr. Wolfowitz before it
started, would be paid for by oil; the cost to the American people
would be minimal. That is what Secretary Rumsfeld told us. We are up to
$318 billion and counting. It is time that Secretary Rumsfeld and this
administration start making some tough decisions about what they can
cut out of the Pentagon's bloated annual budget in order to fund the
war in Iraq.
Quite frankly, we know there is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse
going on in Iraq. It has to end. As long as we keep having emergency
supplemental appropriations, we will never eliminate the waste, fraud,
and abuse.
We all strongly support our troops. I will vote for this bill because
it contains funding for the troops, for avian flu, and other items, but
it is time that the war in Iraq only comes through the regular
appropriations process. It is time for us to start getting our troops
out of there by the end of this year.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. COCHRAN. I am happy to yield to the Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator allow me to propound a unanimous consent
request for the purpose of getting time? I ask unanimous consent that
upon all time being yielded back or all time being used relative to the
supplemental, that I be recognized for 15 minutes under morning
business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, may I ask what the unanimous consent
request was? I couldn't hear.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator requested 15 minutes as in morning
business at the conclusion of the debate on the supplemental.
Mr. HARKIN. I reserve the right, only if I could ask that the same 15
minutes be allotted to the ranking member of our Budget Committee, the
Senator from North Dakota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. GREGG. I withdraw my request, then. I find that to be a request
that has very little relevance.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The request is withdrawn.
The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, it is not my intention to use all of the
time available to this side. I have had no requests for speaking time
for any Senator on our side on the conference report. So the
disagreement can be obviated very quickly with my assurance that I am
going to speak for no more than 3 or 4 minutes, and then I was going to
yield back all the time remaining under this conference report under my
control. I advised the Senator from New Hampshire of that. That is why
he made the request, because it was not going to infringe on anybody's
time, considering the order under which we are operating.
I will proceed to conclude the debate on the conference report and
let everybody work out their differences on who speaks next and for how
long.
I am pleased we were able to get a bipartisan agreement on this
conference report. Senate conferees worked together, Republicans and
Democrats, to identify the priorities, to have suggestions fully
considered and fairly considered. I am proud of the work product of our
Committee on Appropriations in the Senate. I am particularly grateful
for the support of the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, who is
the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations. He cooperated in
every respect in terms of scheduling hearings, working to make sure
that our
[[Page S5837]]
committee had all the facts we needed to proceed to making a decision
on the President's request.
Our staff members are the very best. We are very fortunate in the
Senate to have the benefit of the services of Keith Kennedy, who is
staff director of the Appropriations Committee, and his counterpart on
the other side, Terry Sauvain, is equally dutiful and dependable in his
efforts on behalf of our committee. Chuck Keiffer managed much of the
floor activity and was at the markup session that we had that ran way
past midnight the night we were completing action on this conference
report. He was very supportive of the efforts and the needs of our
committee. Senator Ted Stevens, former chairman of the full committee,
is chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He and his
counterpart, Dan Inouye, are two of the finest Senators who have ever
served in the Senate. Their responsibility was to deal with the request
relating to defense issues. This was mainly a Defense appropriations
request the President submitted for the war on terror. But there were
other provisions as well related to that conflict and our effort to
defend our security interests. There were State Department accounts
involved. We had the benefit at the hearings of the Secretary of
Defense, the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, all talking about the needs for funding of our activities to
protect our country's security.
The chairman of the subcommittee that has responsibility for those
accounts in the State Department and foreign operations is Mitch
McConnell, who is a distinguished Senator from Kentucky and our
assistant leader. He turned in yeoman work, along with his counterpart
on the other side, Pat Leahy of Vermont. These are examples of how the
committee came together, Republicans and Democrats, and made the
decisions that had to be made, negotiated hard and diligently with the
House to work out differences between our two bills and considered
every request the administration made of the Congress for these
appropriations.
I want to single out two other subcommittee staff members. All of the
clerks worked hard because almost every subcommittee had a role to play
in shaping the final outcome. But on the Defense Subcommittee, Sid
Ashworth, who is the clerk, Charlie Houy, who is the Democratic
counterpart on that committee, are so dependable and so experienced and
dedicated to their jobs, it reflects great credit on the Senate for
people such as those I have mentioned today who worked so hard on this
conference report. I am delighted to be associated with them and
honored to chair the committee. They make my job so much more easy than
could possibly be imagined because of their skill and their
professionalism and the hard work they turned in to achieve the result
we did, not just to pass this bill but to serve the interests of our
country.
I am happy to recommend this conference report to the Senate. I yield
back the remainder of the time available under the order.
____________________