[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 125 (Friday, September 29, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10515-S10517]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             APPROPRIATIONS

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon as we go into the 
last hours of this session, before we are apparently going to adjourn 
for an entire 5 or 6 weeks, until after the election, to join with my 
leader on the Appropriations Committee, Senator Byrd, who spoke earlier 
today, and explain how the Republicans' failure to act on the annual 
funding bills is going to hurt all of our communities.
  As Senators, we have a job to do in passing the annual spending bills 
that fund essentially all of our Government. It is one of the most 
basic responsibilities we have. On the Appropriations Committee, under 
the leadership of Chairman Cochran and Ranking Member Byrd, we have 
done our job. But on the Senate floor, the Senate Republican leadership 
has blocked our progress.
  American families are going to pay the price. When I go home and talk 
to constituents in my State of Washington, they tell me they want our 
country to be strong again. The way that we can be strong again is to 
invest at home. That is what I have been fighting to do on the 
Appropriations Committee. But now the Republican leadership is refusing 
to allow us to move forward on the investments that we have agreed on 
in a bipartisan way in the Appropriations Committee. In fact, they are 
not even allowing us to debate making those investments. That is how 
wrong I see the priorities by this leadership.
  Some people may suggest that if we pass this continuing resolution, 
everything is going to be fine. I hear the claims that there is no real 
difference between passing the bills we have worked so hard to put 
together and just putting our Government on autopilot for a couple of 
months. Nobody should believe that. It is simply not true.
  There is a real cost to failing to act on the appropriations bills. 
This country is going to pay a price in airline safety. We are not 
going to be able to rapidly hire the air traffic controllers or safety 
inspectors we need. We are going to pay a price in highway safety 
because we are not going to be able to rapidly reverse the high 
increase in traffic fatalities. We are going to pay a price in the 
fight against terrorism. We are not going to be able to fund the 
Treasury Department's efforts to stop terrorist financing. We are going 
to pay a price in educating our kids, improving our communities, and 
training our workforce.
  Almost everywhere you look, we are going to pay a price if the 
Republican leadership succeeds in blocking action on the annual 
appropriations bills.
  I want to share some specific examples. First, I will say a word 
about why this is happening. It is not because of partisan gridlock or 
because we have not had enough time to act. All of our bills have been 
ready to go since August. It is because this Republican leadership does 
not want to have a public debate about America's priorities just weeks 
before an election. I suspect it is because they realize their 
priorities are out of step with the American people.
  There may be another reason to stall these bills. It hides the true 
cost of their wrong priorities. When we bring these bills up on the 
floor, we have a chance--all of us in America--to see what is funded 
and what is not. We have a chance to offer amendments and debate about 
priorities that deserve more support. By blocking that debate,

[[Page S10516]]

the Republican leadership is hiding the true cost of their policies. 
Just as they have used supplemental spending bills to hide the true 
cost of the war, they are failing to act on the annual spending bills 
to hide the cost of their misplaced priorities. They prefer to mask 
from the voters the tough funding choices their policies will require.
  They prefer to deny almost three-quarters of this Senate the 
opportunity to have any input on the appropriations bills by sending 
these bills directly from the committee to a conference. They prefer to 
set up an end-of-the-year train wreck that will require a massive 
Omnibus appropriations bill that will shortchange America's needs with 
a minimum amount of debate.
  I personally thank Senator Byrd for taking the time this morning to 
call this issue to the attention of the entire Senate, as well as to 
the entire Nation. I thank our committee chairman, Senator Cochran, for 
his very capable leadership of our committee. I only wish Senator 
Cochran was in power to control the floor schedule and not just the 
committee schedule.
  Last year, Senator Cochran surprised many of us and earned the 
respect of all of us in doing what seemed impossible: he succeeded in 
sending 11 appropriations bills to the White House for signature. He 
showed us how it should be done.
  This year, when it came to the management of our committee, Senator 
Cochran actually improved on last year's record. Last year, the 
Appropriations Committee reported all but one appropriations bill to 
the Senate floor before the August recess. This year, Chairman Cochran 
saw to it that each and every one of our appropriations bills was 
reported to the Senate floor before the August recess. That involved a 
lot of very hard work and some very long markups. No one worked harder 
than Chairman Cochran himself.
  Unfortunately, this year, the Senate Republican leadership didn't 
share Chairman Cochran's commitment. That is a change from last year. 
Last year, the Senate Republican leadership saw to it that all 12 
appropriations bills were considered on the floor prior to adjournment. 
Today, we are just a few hours away from the beginning of a very long 
fall recess, and yet the Senate Republican leadership has seen fit to 
call up only 2 of our 12 appropriations bills that the committee 
reported back in June and July. That record is shameful.
  The full Senate has only debated two funding bills this year--Defense 
and Homeland Security. They are certainly really important, but they 
are just 2 of the 12 bills that we are charged with passing.
  The others are critically important as well. Those bills ensure that 
the care of our veterans returning home from Iraq is met. They ensure 
that we educate our children, that we meet the housing needs of the 
people we represent, and that we deal with the health care of all of 
our families, particularly our seniors. Those bills support our efforts 
to fight crime and drug abuse, provide disaster assistance to 
struggling family farmers, and invest in our roads, our bridges, and 
our rail system.
  It seems, as far as the Republican leadership is concerned, that 
those issues this year can rot on the vine. According to their plan, 
these functions of Government will be subjected to a continuing 
resolution that guarantees them only the lowest possible funding level.
  I have had the privilege of serving on the Appropriations Committee 
for every one of my 14 years in the Senate, and I am certainly aware 
that Congress does not have a great track record when it comes to 
finishing all the appropriations work before the beginning of a fiscal 
year. But in my 14 years, I cannot remember a time when the Senate has 
made so little progress in executing its most basic responsibilities. 
The new fiscal year starts this coming Saturday, tomorrow. I had my 
staff go back and check the record, and I can tell my colleagues that 
in the last 14 years, we have never begun a new fiscal year having 
passed as few as two of the appropriations bills out of the Senate. 
This year, we have a deplorable record.
  Looking forward, we are now hearing rumors that the other 10 
appropriations bills are never going to come to the Senate floor for 
debate. We are hearing rumors they are going to be sent straight to a 
conference with the House of Representatives to put together some kind 
of massive omnibus appropriations bill. I hope that is not the case. 
That approach, frankly, is an insult to the 72 Members of this Senate 
who do not serve on the Appropriations Committee. As a member of that 
committee, I had the opportunity to review each of those bills the 
committee reported. I had an opportunity to offer amendments in 
committee and full committee markups, but 72 of my Senate colleagues 
never had that opportunity.
  Those 72 Senators were elected by the people of their State to 
oversee and influence decisions regarding the way their tax dollars are 
spent. By denying these 72 Senators the opportunity to debate these 
important bills, the Senate Republican leadership is denying those 
Senators' constituents the right to be heard. That is not the way this 
Senate ought to be doing its business.
  Our country will pay a high price if we fail to act on these 
appropriations bills.
  Some people are claiming it doesn't matter when we get around to 
actually finalizing the appropriations process. Mr. President, as the 
ranking member on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, 
Treasury, the Judiciary, and HUD, I want to tell my colleagues that it 
does matter. I will give a couple of examples.
  Last month, we experienced a tragic plane crash in Lexington, KY. The 
NTSB has not yet reported to us on the actual cause of that crash, but 
it was revealed that the air traffic control tower at Lexington had 
only one controller on duty--one controller on duty--contrary to the 
FAA's own policy. When this incident occurred, it was discovered that 
several other towers were also operating with only one air traffic 
controller.
  Everyone involved in aviation policy knows the FAA needs to hire more 
controllers. They have to fill the vacancies, and they have to replace 
a growing number of retirees. There is money in the FAA budget to hire 
more controllers. We put the money in the House and Senate 
appropriations bills to hire those controllers. But until the FAA 
Administrator gets a final budget, she won't know how many controllers 
she can hire or how quickly she can hire them. This is a basic issue of 
safety and people's lives. But it is the safety issue that the Senate 
Republican leadership is now happy to have wait on the back burner for 
a few more months.
  A similar situation existed in the hiring of more air traffic safety 
inspectors. We desperately need more safety inspectors to ensure that 
our financially strapped airlines are operating safely. An increasing 
amount of airline maintenance for U.S.-flagged airlines is now being 
conducted overseas. We need inspectors to visit those foreign repair 
stations to make sure all of the appropriate procedures are being 
followed.
  Just this week, the National Academy of Sciences reported that the 
FAA needs to modernize its system for determining how many inspectors 
they need and whom to hire. But the FAA cannot address any of those 
deficiencies until it gets its final budget for the year. This is just 
another safety issue that the Senate Republican leadership is now happy 
to have wait on the back burner for a few more months.
  The Republican leadership's failure to act could also hurt our 
efforts to fight terrorism. The Treasury Department has a critical role 
in combating terrorist financing. They are on the job morning, noon, 
and night trying to interrupt the cashflow between the terrorists 
and those who fund them.

  Ever since 9/11, the Treasury Department has been seeking increased 
resources from our subcommittee to fight terrorist funding. Our 
subcommittee has provided every dollar the Treasury Department has 
requested, including the funding for increased personnel and 
infrastructure for fiscal year 2007.
  The Treasury Department is now being told that the increased funding 
they had asked for will have to wait a few more months. Why? Because 
the Senate Republican leadership doesn't want us to debate the 
Transportation-Treasury bill before the election.
  One of the issues being discussed in the closing days of this session 
is the

[[Page S10517]]

security of our courts and our judges. An effort is being made to 
provide authorization for additional court security in the Department 
of Defense authorization bill. The brutal murder of a father and mother 
of a Federal judge in Chicago showed us the urgent need for better 
security.
  The Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill, as passed by the 
House and Senate committees, included sizable increases for that court 
security. We are not talking about an authorization; we are talking 
about cold, hard cash that will go out to better protect our judges. 
But you know what. That money can't go out until our appropriations 
bill is signed into law, and that can't happen if the Senate Republican 
leadership slows this appropriations process to a crawl.
  Finally, I want to talk about the critical need for improved safety 
on our highways. One month ago, our Nation received a wake-up call from 
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
  For many years, our country was making steady progress in reducing 
the overall fatality rate. But last month, the fatality rate on our 
highways started to move back up. Deaths from motor vehicle crashes 
jumped up 1.4 percent over the level in 2004. We had 43,443 deaths on 
America's highways in 2005. That is the highest number since 1990.
  We also have begun to see a number of road fatalities involving large 
trucks head back up. We made progress between 1998 and 2002, but since 
that time, the number of large truck fatalities is moving in the wrong 
direction.
  More and more people are dying on our highways, and Congress is 
working to respond. There are increased levels of funding, consistent 
with the SAFETEA-LU authorization law--both for highway safety and 
motor carrier safety in both the House and Senate appropriations bills. 
But those additional resources that save lives on our highways have to 
wait. Why? Because the Senate Republican leadership didn't want to 
debate this Transportation appropriations bill before this election.
  These decisions by the Senate Republican leadership to stall the 
appropriations process can and are having very real consequences.
  I want to state today my deep disappointment that the Senate 
Republican leadership has done such an abysmal job in fulfilling its 
most basic responsibility to fund our Government.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I ask for 1 additional minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, it doesn't have to be this way. Rather 
than spending the month of July and September debating bills for 
political reasons, we could have been debating these appropriations 
bills that are critically needed for the Nation's safety and security. 
We could have been fighting for the people we represent. We could have 
been meeting their basic needs, protecting their livelihoods, and 
ensuring their safety. But our leadership said no, and now our families 
are paying a price.
  I think the Senate deserves better, but more importantly, the people 
we represent deserve better.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.

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