[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 194 (Tuesday, December 18, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15823-S15826]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONSOLIDATED APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Constitution grants to Congress an
extensive array of powers, each of which in one way or another touches
the lives of every 1 of the 300 million people who live in America
today. But of all of those powers so carefully inscribed in article I,
none is so powerful or so necessary for the welfare of our country as
the power to appropriate monies--monies from the Federal Treasury. But
it is not simply within the power of the Congress to appropriate funds
for the operation of the Government. It is a duty that must be
exercised each year without fail and without excuses. The operation of
the Government to enforce our laws, to serve our people, to protect our
liberties depends upon Congress providing the funds that are necessary
to do so.
The bill that will soon be before the Senate, the Consolidated
Appropriations Act of 2008, is essential legislation for the country.
It includes 11 of the 12 annual appropriations bills. In all, it
appropriates $473.5 billion--spelled with a B, Mr. President, a capital
B. That is $473.50 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born.
It appropriates $473.5 billion for the operations of nearly every
agency in the Federal Government, save for those funded by the already-
approved Defense Appropriations Act.
The bill contains an additional $42.2 billion in emergency spending,
including $31 billion for the war in Afghanistan and for force
protection for our troops--American troops, our troops--in Iraq. I
wasn't for going there; I was against our going into Iraq. But we are
there. We are talking about our troops who are there in Iraq.
The President's budget, as submitted, simply did not include
sufficient funds for the health of our veterans. This bill provides
$3.7 billion more than requested to make sure the Veterans'
Administration can provide better care for our veterans.
The bill also includes $3 billion of emergency spending for border
security, $622 million for drought relief, $300 million for
firefighting in the West, and $250 million for low-income home energy
assistance. Emergency funds totaling $2.4 billion are also included for
peacekeeping operations in Darfur, refugee assistance, and other
foreign assistance programs. We also approved $194 million for the
replacement of the bridge which recently fell into the Mississippi
River.
The consolidated appropriations bill contains an unprecedented level
of transparency and accountability for Member-requested projects and
earmarks. Each and every earmark contained in the bill or described in
the explanatory statement is accounted for
[[Page S15824]]
in the tables that are part of the joint explanatory statement. These
tables describe the project, they describe the level of funding
approved, and they provide a list of the Members of either the House or
the Senate who requested the item. It is there, as clear as the
noonday's Sun in a cloudless sky. How is that, Bernie? We are not
supposed to address other Members directly, but in this instance, I
know I will be forgiven.
These tables, as I say, describe the level of funding approved and a
list of the Members of either the House or the Senate who requested the
item. All information required by Senate rule XLIV is included in the
explanatory statement accompanying the amendment. Read it, Senate rule
XLIV.
The total dollars that are earmarked is reduced--hear me now--by 43
percent. That ``ain't'' chickenfeed. The total dollars that are
earmarked is reduced by 43 percent compared to the appropriations bills
signed into law by the President 2 years ago.
It is imperative this bill be approved not the week after next, not
next week but this week. Last May, Congress passed a budget resolution
that balanced the budget by 2012 and permitted Congress to approve
appropriations bills at a level of $21.2 billion above the President's
request.
The Senate was able to work constructively on a bipartisan basis to
address the needs of the American people. After the deadly bridge
collapse in Minnesota, the Senate voted 88 to 7 to provide additional
funds to repair crumbling bridges. At a time when crime rates are on
the rise, the Senate voted for a bill that puts more cops--yes, they
protect you, they protect me--more cops on the street by a vote of 75
to 19. While oil prices are soaring, the Senate voted 75 to 19 to pass
a bill providing more help to low-income families so they can pay their
heating bills this winter.
After the shocking state of the Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital
made the news, the Senate voted 92 to 1 to approve a bill increasing VA
spending to allow better care for our returning warriors.
Because our borders are in need of additional enforcement to stem the
tide of illegal immigration, the Senate voted 89 to 1 to approve an
amendment with billions more for border security.
This bipartisan cooperation on moving the appropriations process
forward, while addressing the crucial needs of this country, would not
have been possible without the diligent work of the committee's ranking
member. Who is that ranking member? The distinguished and able and
venerable Senator Thad Cochran--may his tribe increase. That is from
Abou Ben Adhem, in case you have forgotten.
It is refreshing to know that in this era in which each political
party is urged to view the other as a mortal enemy, there is hope for
at least one oasis of comity in which the duty to govern is still taken
seriously. I thank my friend, Senator Thad Cochran, and all the other
Members of the Appropriations Committee for their hard work, their
diligent work to produce each--now listen to this--each of the 12
appropriations bills and for all their cooperation in the assembly of
this Consolidated Appropriations Act.
Sadly, the President does not share our view that we must invest in
America, apparently. The President--your President, my President, our
President--proposed to increase the Defense budget by 10 percent. The
President proposed to increase foreign aid by 12 percent. The
President--your President, my President, our President--proposed $195
billion of emergency spending for the wars, and yet the President
believes this 7-percent increase we sought for domestic programs was
fiscally irresponsible. As a result, he, the President--your President,
my President, our President--threatened to veto 9 of the 12
appropriations bills.
Under our Constitution, the President has the power to veto. He does.
Nobody disputes that. And the President made it clear, crystal clear,
as clear as the noonday's Sun in a cloudless sky, that he intended to
veto our bills.
We are already 10 weeks into the new fiscal year. It is time to
govern. There is a time in the affairs of men when we say it is time to
govern. There must be compromise from time to time, and so working
together across the aisle, such as Senator Thad Cochran and I--we shake
hands, we argue, we debate, and we contend with one another. At the end
of the day, we put our arms around each other and walk out of this
Senate together. So working together across the aisle, we have cut
$17.5 billion from the original levels approved by the Appropriations
Committee. As a result, domestic programs receive only a 3-percent
increase. I am not pleased with this outcome, but I urge all Senators
to support the consolidated bill.
Within the limits set by the President, we have funded as best we
could, the essential priorities of this Nation--your country, my
country. For our veterans, this package includes a record $43.1 billion
in funding for the VA. That is a lot of money, $43.1 billion in funding
for the VA, an increase of $3.7 billion over the President's request.
The bill provides $37.2 billion for veterans health care, and an
additional $124 million is included to hire more VA personnel to reduce
a 6-month backlog of benefit claims.
Funding for the National Institutes of Health is $613 million above
the President's request.
Energy prices are going through the roof, and we provide $788 million
more than the President requested for the Low-Income Home Energy
Assistance Program, which gives 2 million more families additional help
for winter heating bills at a time of these record oil prices.
Despite the fact that violent crime is on the rise--hear this,
violent crime is on the rise--for the first time in 15 years, the
President wanted to cut State and local law enforcement, but--there is
that conjunction ``but''--we have restored $1.2 billion to that unwise
cut.
Under the President's request, 600,000 women, infants, and children
would lose important nutrition assistance. We fully fund--yes, we fully
fund--the WIC program.
This package also makes education a priority--education a priority--
by increasing Head Start by $114 million, stopping the proposed cut of
30,000 slots for early childhood education. This additional $118
million for No Child Left Behind means that tens of thousands of
disadvantaged students will get the help they need to succeed in
school. For college students, the amount for Pell grants is increased
to $4,731 per year.
The President proposed to eliminate or slash numerous programs for
our rural communities, such as rural health, rural housing, and clean
water programs, but we have restored money for all of those programs.
The President wanted to slash funding for vital infrastructure
programs, but we--the Congress--have increased funding: For highways?
Yes. For repairing bridges? Yes. For airport improvements? Yes. And for
Amtrak. Amtrak. All aboard for Amtrak.
At my direction, the bill includes a $20 million increase above the
President's request for mine safety. Now I know something about that. I
know something about the need for mine safety. I am the son of a coal
miner.
This money will save lives.
Despite the failure of FEMA to adequately respond to Hurricane
Katrina, the President wanted to slash funding by over $1.5 billion for
first responders. We restore those cuts--how about that--and actually
increase funding by $544 million.
I am pleased also that the bill includes $31 billion for the wars in
Iraq--I was against that war. I said we ought not go in there; we have
no business being in there, but we are in there--and Afghanistan--I was
for that war--including $16 billion for the war in Afghanistan, over
$10 billion for force protection in Iraq, such as body armor and
systems to defeat IEDs, $1.1 billion for the Wounded Warrior program,
and $4 billion for other programs. It is a balanced package--a balanced
package--and I support it.
The bill invests in the security of our homeland and supports the men
and the women who are on the front lines of protecting our communities.
The Border Patrol will hire 3,000 more Border Patrol agents to protect
our borders. We nearly double funding for port security, chemical
security--we know what that is about down in the Canaan Valley of West
Virginia--and transit and rail security. The Justice Department will
hire 100 new U.S. Marshals, 200 DEA agents, and 160 FBI agents, and we
provide funding for hundreds of
[[Page S15825]]
new cops at the State and local level. Finally, we more than double
funding, to a total of $108 million, for screening and treating
illnesses suffered by those who bravely responded to the 9/11 attacks
at the World Trade Center.
Because so many Americans are worried about their mortgages and the
specter of foreclosure, this bill adds $180 million to provide credit
counseling and foreclosure mitigation to subprime borrowers.
These are not just meaningless numbers on an obscure government
ledger. There are consequences for our failure to invest in America.
Did everybody hear that? There are consequences for our failure to
invest in America. Bridges fall, fires destroy, hurricanes devastate.
People get sick from food that is not inspected and drugs that are not
adequately tested. Our schools, our roads, our transportation systems
are all in need of serious attention.
This bill is a genuine effort to compromise so that we can move
forward. It is a balanced bill. It is the result of over a month of
bipartisan negotiations. For the sake of the welfare of our Nation, it
is time--time, time--to govern. The ``gotcha'' politics that prevail in
Washington must end. To continue it damages our country from within and
damages our country from without and discredits both political
parties--your party, my party--both political parties.
With respect to the explanatory statement for the bill, the House-
approved amendment to H.R. 2764, was filed with the House Committee on
Rules by Representative Obey at approximately midnight Sunday night,
December 16, 2007. Accompanying the amendment is an explanatory
statement contained in the Congressional Record of December 17, 2007.
That statement, like the amendment, is the product of bipartisan,
bicameral negotiations. The joint explanatory statement is the final
vehicle for conveying congressional intent with respect to purposes for
which appropriations are made.
In order to assure that there is no ambiguity as to congressional
intent, the House amendment includes a provision that provides that the
explanatory statement submitted by Mr. Obey and printed in the Record
will serve the purpose of a conference report for determining
congressional intent. I fully endorse this provision, for in its
absence, this Administration, which strives to overturn statutory
language in its bill signing statements, would completely ignore
congressional intent.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to join my
distinguished friend from West Virginia in advising the Senate that we
have before us the Omnibus appropriations bill. It has been a long and
difficult road getting to this point.
The President, in February, delivered a budget request to the
Congress that included a robust increase for our Armed Forces, very few
increases for nondefense discretionary programs, along with many
proposed program cuts. Then, in the spring, the new majority in
Congress laid out a very different vision for discretionary programs,
one that called for some $23 billion in additional spending. We have
before us an Omnibus appropriations bill that reflects many of the
spending priorities of the Congress, both from the majority and
minority perspectives, but the bill also reflects the very real concern
about overall spending levels held by the President and most Members,
certainly on the Republican side of the aisle.
The bill is, without question, an imperfect product of an imperfect
process, but I think every Member of this body would rather have the
opportunity to vote on appropriations bills individually rather than
lumped together in one giant omnibus bill. I regret that the Senate did
not take up and consider all 12 of the appropriations bills
individually. When we fail to take up all of the bills, we invite the
creation of an omnibus bill, lumping all the other bills together, such
as this one, and we weaken the opportunity for the Senate to influence
the content of these bills and shape the final legislation. I hope next
year the leader will redouble his efforts to make time for
consideration of all the appropriations bills, even though it is quite
possible that we will again disagree with the President over
appropriate amounts of discretionary spending.
Having said that, this omnibus bill is, in my view, superior to many
of its predecessors in one sense: It contains virtually none of the
legislative matter that is so often added to omnibus bills. And I give
great credit to the chairman, my friend from West Virginia, and our two
leaders, Mr. Reid and Mr. McConnell, for this fact. The business of the
Appropriations Committee is complicated enough without importing
legislative baggage from other committees in a way that often undercuts
the delicate bipartisan and bicameral negotiations in other arenas.
I also note that the bill includes none of the riders or funding
prohibitions that the President previously identified as likely to
prompt a veto. While I am sure this is a disappointment to some
Senators, it is an important factor in our being able to support the
omnibus portion of this bill.
I also wish to touch briefly on the subject of earmarks. Much has
been made about earmarking throughout the year. Clearly, there have
been past cases of abuse, just as historically there have been abuses
of legislative powers in other areas. I hope the heightened scrutiny
and transparency of the appropriations process will eliminate any such
abuses going forward. The Appropriations Committee and its staff have
made extraordinary efforts to add transparency to the process going
back to well before the enactment of the ethics reform bill.
I think all Senators are comfortable in openly defending the funding
priorities they advocate and suggest be included in appropriations
bills, and they should be. This is another reason why it is so
important that the Senate make time to consider all of the
appropriations bills in an orderly process.
The total amount of congressional earmarks funded in this bill is
well below the level included in the fiscal year 2006 appropriations
bills. I know the amount is reduced because we hear the protests from
our colleagues and from our constituents as well. Whether the amount of
earmarking in this bill is ideal, I don't know. I suppose it depends on
the interests of the beholder. What I do know is Congress should never
yield its right or its power to make annual spending decisions and
include those decisions in the appropriations bills. Congress should
not leave it up to the executive branch, and it should not be persuaded
that last year's decisions are the right ones for the next year. That
is why we have an annual process. Enacting a long-term, continuing
resolution might appear to be an easy way to avoid controversy and
disagreements. It is an abdication of our responsibilities.
If Congress has to undergo vetoes of appropriations bills and make
modifications to bills as a result, so be it. But ultimately we need to
finish our work in a timely fashion and provide Federal agencies and
departments with a set of directives and spending priorities that
reflect the collective will of the legislative branch in consultation
with the executive branch. That is why we have hearings at the
beginning of the annual appropriations process, to get the views of the
administrators of the programs, to invite executives from the various
departments to tell us what their challenges are, tell us what the
President's priorities are, what the Cabinet Secretaries have to say
about their needs and their suggestions for appropriate funding levels.
We take those into account. These are serious issues that have to be
considered by the Congress. That is what the Appropriations Committee
tries to do every year, in reviewing the President's budget requests
and the information we receive at our annual hearings.
Finally, I wish to say something about a part of this bill that is
without question one that has to be fixed. The amendment adopted by the
House of Representatives includes $31 billion to fund the deployment of
American men and women overseas in the global war on terror. But the
House amendment restricts operating funds to those fighting in
Afghanistan and does very little to support our troops deployed in
Iraq. While I understand the political needle the House was attempting
to thread when it wrote this amendment, I think the message it sends to
our men and women who are deployed in these countries is unfortunate.
[[Page S15826]]
The Senate dedicated a serious amount of floor time to the debate of
Iraq policy this year. The debate was, of course, earnest and sometimes
informative. Amendments have been offered and votes were taken on
issues related to the war. Yet while the debates demonstrated a strong
and sincere desire among Members to successfully conclude operations in
Iraq as quickly as possible, there remains no broad consensus on any
particular alternative to the policy currently advocated by the
President or Ambassador Crocker or General Petraeus.
Let's be honest, that policy has produced undeniable successes in
recent months. I am sure deeply felt disagreements remain on the
subject of Iraq policy. But we have tens of thousands of American men
and women who are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, performing missions
assigned to them by our Government and with the blessing of Congress at
the outset. Those men and women need the resources to succeed. To try
to change American policy in Iraq by slowly starving our troops of
resources they need is unfair to them and very dangerous to our
Nation's interests. We should reject the House language and provide
adequate funding to support our troops until well into next year.
I wish to end my remarks by thanking and commending our chairman, Mr.
Byrd, my dear friend. We have worked together in writing and
negotiating these appropriations bills and this package that is coming
before the Senate. I know we haven't been able to agree on everything,
but we have reached an accommodation so that we present this now at
this point and urge its adoption. I thank all Senators who served with
us on the committee for their diligent efforts.
Last year, we had a large appropriations train wreck. We do not want
that again. It produced a large supplemental funding bill. But we
brought together a bill this year, despite new rules and hard
negotiations--renegotiations. I thank all our members for their hard
work on both sides of the appropriations committee, and I am happy we
will be able to present this bill to the Senate.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank my able friend for his generous
remarks, for his good work on the committee, and for his kind
leadership. I wish for him and all his loved ones a very merry
Christmas, in the old-time way.
I yield the floor.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for about 4 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________