[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 176 (Thursday, November 17, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7678-S7684]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND
RELATED AGENCIES PROGRAMS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30,
2012, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES--CONFERENCE REPORT
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
proceed to the consideration of conference report to accompany H.R.
2112, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the
two Houses on the amendments of the Senate to the bill (H.R.
2112), making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural
Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related
Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2012, and for other purposes, having met, have agreed and do
recommend to their respective Houses 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; that the House recede from its disagreement to the
amendment of the Senate to the title of the bill and agree to
the same.
Ms. MIKULSKI. I ask unanimous consent that committee report be
considered as read.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The report is considered read. Under the
previous order, there will be 2 hours of debate, equally divided,
between the two leaders or their designees.
The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of the
conference committee. I rise as the chair of the Subcommittee on
Commerce, Justice, and Science, one of the three subcommittees in the
conference report. The other is agriculture. Senator Kohl will be
coming to the floor to speak on behalf of his bill that is part of the
conference, and others will speak.
I wish to speak on the Commerce-Justice bill. I am pleased the Senate
is considering the conference agreement on fiscal year 2012. As I said,
I am CJS. Senator Kohl will speak on agriculture. Senator Patty Murray
managed the bill on transportation and housing. She is the chair, and I
am sure either she or her designee will speak about a subcommittee we
affectionally call THUD.
But let me talk about the CJS conference agreement. This is a great
agreement. It is the product of bipartisan and bicameral compromise and
cooperation. I wish to thank my ranking member, Senator Kay Bailey
Hutchison and her excellent staff. We worked hand in hand on this bill.
I wish to talk about our colleagues in the House. Much is made about
the prickly situation sometimes between the House and the Senate. But I
wish to thank Chairman Frank Wolf and ranking member Chaka Fattah for
their bipartisan support. There was give and take; sometimes stormy
exchanges. But at the end of the day, we worked cooperatively and
collegially.
So as we look at the process, what I wish to say is that the
conference agreement itself is a good one. Our bill, the CJS bill,
totals $52.7 billion in discretionary spending. We were frugal. It is
$600 million below the 2011 level, and it is $5 billion below the
President's request.
The purpose of this bill is to help create American jobs, make our
streets and our neighborhoods safe from violent crime and terrorism,
and to support innovation and technology so America can continue to be
an exceptional Nation.
It also promotes trade. We do this through our Federal agencies: the
Commerce Department, through its Economic Development Administration,
Patent Office, International Trade Administration, and the Census
Bureau. It also has important agencies related to innovation: the
National Institutes of Standards and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.
Our bill also has in it the Department of Justice, NASA, and the
National Science Foundation.
It has a lot of important things in it. It is also a bill that
promotes justice, including the Commission on Civil Rights, the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Legal Services Corporation.
Within shrinking funding levels, the CJS conference agreement
prioritizes activities that focused on creating jobs, saving lives,
protecting communities, and looking out for the future of our country.
The subcommittee faced two very pressing problems that are critical
to life and safety. One, our weather satellites. We had to come up with
a substantial chunk of money to make sure we had those important new
weather satellites that tell us about hurricanes, tornadoes, and other
things that are coming. Also, we had a real challenge in providing
adequate funding for America's prison population.
These activities are not considered mandatory for budget purposes,
but they are not truly discretionary. We had an obligation to fund
them. We also had an obligation to provide security funding to the two
conventions, to help them underwrite their security concerns.
Together, the bare minimum needed for the new JPSS satellite and
prison expenses is nearly $800 million--$350 million for prisons--and
we were able to meet that obligation.
We also looked out for our law enforcement, for our State and local
police departments. This bill provides $2.2 billion to support our Blue
Line to keep our police safe, to protect them with the equipment they
need, such as bulletproof vests, so they can protect us with modern
tools relating to crime scene analysis, forensic science, and enough
cops on the beat.
We funded Byrne grants at $370 million, a main Federal tool for State
and local police operations.
In terms of Federal law enforcement, we met obligations to the FBI
and funded them at $8 billion; our Drug Enforcement Agency at $2
billion; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the Marshals
Service, each at $1.2 billion. Our marshals no longer necessarily ride
the planes, but what they are out there doing is serving the warrants
that go after sexual predators and also make sure they fulfill their
responsibility to protect our Federal judiciary at the courthouses.
Those Federal law enforcement actions are at our borders, in our
streets, in our communities, and in important task forces protecting
our communities.
In terms of science and innovation, I am proud of what we did with
NASA--from the space shuttle legacy to our new vehicles for space
exploration. We also funded the James Webb Space Telescope, which will
be the successor to the Hubble. It is 100 times more powerful and will
assure America's place as a leader in astronomy for the next 30 years.
Our conference agreement was $17.8 billion. It is a balanced space
program. It ensures the continuity or continuation of human space
flight, does important work in space science, and also bold research in
aeronautics, so we can be at the cutting edge.
We also funded the National Science Foundation, which continues to do
that groundbreaking innovative work that the private sector works off
of. This year, three Americans shared the Nobel Prize for physics. One
was Dr. Adam Riess at Johns-Hopkins. He used the Hubble space telescope
to look out for dark energy, to look at decaying supernovas, and found
out that the expansion of the universe was speeding up.
The 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry winner, Dr. Dan Shechtman, was
working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology--which
this bill also funds--when he discovered new subatomic particles. Both
discoveries were considered unexpected and even game changers. These
Nobel Prize winners were those wonderful Americans who make use of
whether it was the Hubble telescope or the kind of work that goes on in
our chemistry labs. So we are out there winning the Nobel Prizes, but
our bill lays the groundwork for winning the markets.
On the floor is the chairman of the full committee, Senator Inouye,
and also Senator Kohl, who managed the bill and will speak for
Agriculture. There are many things I could say about what we did in the
bill, but I think I have summarized the basic themes.
I will be available to answer any questions from colleagues. I also
want the chairman of the full committee to have an opportunity to speak
and certainly Senator Kohl and Senator Blunt. I want to say to Senator
Blunt, when Senator Kohl had to be temporarily off the floor, I thank
him for working with me. We moved this bill and showed we knew how to
govern and move legislation. If we work this way, we will get America
moving again.
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I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, first I thank Chairman Barbara Mikulski
for her valiant work in the conference.
As we are all aware, the congressional budget process has faced
unprecedented obstacles over the past year. We have struggled to find
common ground on one of the most basic responsibilities of Congress--
funding the operations of the Federal Government.
Earlier this year, we saw politically charged threats of government
shutdowns, culminating with an irresponsible debt ceiling standoff that
brought our economy to the brink of disaster. The American people are
deeply frustrated that many in Congress put partisanship ahead of the
national interest.
Yet, despite these challenges, we now consider legislation that
reflects the good-faith efforts and input of Members of both sides of
the aisle in both the House and Senate. Given current fiscal and
political realities, this is no small accomplishment.
The conference report before us today includes three fiscal year 2012
appropriations measures: Agriculture; Commerce, Justice, Science; and
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. This legislation also
includes a continuing resolution that funds government operations
through December 16, giving Congress time to finish its work on the
remaining funding bills.
These bills are focused on a number of basic priorities: job
creation, public safety, science, nutrition, housing, and
transportation. Due to the stringent funding limits included in the
Budget Control Act, which established a discretionary spending level
that is $7 billion below last year's level, many items in these bills
are not funded to the levels I would prefer.
As we all await the outcome of the supercommittee, I again remind my
colleagues that we cannot balance the Nation's books on the back of
nondefense discretionary spending.
Despite our reduced spending levels, I am pleased that we have been
able to maintain investments in several critical areas.
Public safety is a top priority of this bill. The conference report
before us provides the resources necessary for the Food and Drug
Administration to begin implementation of the Food Safety Modernization
Act, which will better protect the American people from foodborne
illnesses.
The funding levels provided in the conference agreement for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Drug Enforcement Agency; Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the U.S. Marshals
Service will prevent layoffs and furloughs of Federal agents, enabling
the agencies to continue their critical missions with regard to public
safety.
The funds provided will also allow for increased law enforcement on
the Southwest border. I note that the bill maintains funding for COPS
hiring grants, which were eliminated in the original House bill.
The conference report before us funds an additional 11,000 new
housing vouchers for homeless veterans. It includes $500 million for
competitive TIGER surface transportation grants, as well as nearly $2
billion for new transit rail projects, and it maintains Federal support
for Amtrak.
This bill includes more than $12 billion for basic research at the
National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Science
Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
This research will plant the seeds for new discoveries that not only
win Nobel Prizes, but also earn profits and create American jobs in our
highly competitive global economy.
The conference report before us represents thousands of compromises
on issues large and small. It represents, in no small measure, the way
the Congress of the United States is meant to function.
The credit for this accomplishment rests with the members of the
subcommittees and their staffs. I thank the leadership of the three
subcommittees, Senators Kohl, Mikulski, Murray, Blunt, Hutchison, and
Collins for their exceptional efforts in completing these three bills.
We all recognize that we would not have been able to accomplish this
task without the countless hours put in by the staff of the
subcommittee. I want to take a moment--I think it is important--to
recognize them for their efforts.
I want to publicly thank Galen Fountain, Jessica Arden Frederick,
Dianne Nellor, Bob Ross, Molly Barackman-Eder, Gabrielle Batkin,
Jessica Berry, Jeremy Weirich, Jean Toal-Eisen, Molly O'Rourke, Alex
Keenan, Meaghan McCarthy, Rachel Milberg, Dabney Hegg, Stacy McBride,
Rachel Jones, James Christoferson, Allen Cutler, Goodloe Sutton,
Courtney Stevens, Heideh Shahmoradi, Brooke Hayes Stringer, Carl
Barrick, and Mike Clarke. They are the ones who should be receiving the
medal this evening.
This conference report is the culmination of a process that includes
countless hours of hearings, markups, debate, negotiations, and posting
online--and I underline this--all of the hearing testimony and
legislative text for any citizen to review. Finally, it represents the
one essential ingredient to a functioning democracy that has been in
short supply in recent months: compromise.
I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this measure and send it to
the President for his signature.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, this conference report contains
agreements between the House and Senate on three appropriations bills.
These bills support a wide range of important Federal Government
activities. It also includes an extension of the continuing resolution
that expires on Friday.
The conference report is the product of negotiations that have taken
place with the other body's conferees over the past several weeks.
I commend the chairmen and ranking members of each of the
subcommittees for the thoughtful manner in which they have undertaken
their responsibilities. I also thank the staff members for their
diligence and the many long hours they have spent in the performance of
their duties and bringing us to this point.
The practice of combining multiple appropriations bills into a single
package is not ideal, nor should it be encouraged. I would prefer, and
I know other Senators would as well, that we have the opportunity to
consider, offer amendments, and vote on the bills individually.
This summer, the months during which we normally debate
appropriations bills, Congress and the President were wrangling over
legislation to increase the debt ceiling and other matters. While the
committee moved quickly to report bills in September, we are now more
than a month into the new fiscal year and are only now approaching
enactment of the first three appropriations bills. I don't know how or
when we will be able to actually complete action on all these measures,
but I want the Senate to know that the members of this committee, under
the very able and distinguished leadership of Senator Inouye from
Hawaii, have done everything within our power to try to get the Senate
to move quickly but carefully to approve these bills.
So, Mr. President, without prolonging the debate and knowing other
Senators are here to speak, let me just say that we have the restraints
of the Budget Control Act, which were respected by the Appropriations
Committee. Caps were included that locked in recent cuts in
discretionary spending, and that is holding future discretionary growth
below the rate of inflation. The act we are passing will bring
discretionary spending as a percentage of GDP to the lowest levels
since the Eisenhower administration.
I am confident the House and Senate will work together in the coming
weeks to complete our negotiations on these and other appropriations
bills that will fully comply with the guidance set out in the Budget
Control Act. Today, we are making a good start with these three
appropriations bills, and I urge support for the conference report.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I support the conference report, which
includes appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, and the
Food and Drug
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Administration. I am pleased that we followed the regular process to
get to this point. It has not always been an easy process, but it has
produced a good and well-balanced bill.
Overall spending levels in this bill are closer to the Senate bill
than the House-passed bill. The conference bill is consistent with our
allocation and includes a nondisaster spending level of $19.565
billion, compared to $19.78 billion in the Senate and $17.253 billion
in the House. This funding level allowed us to protect important
ongoing programs, while continuing to reduce spending from last year.
Some of the highlights of the conference report funding levels are as
follows:
For the WIC Program, we were able to provide an additional $36
million above the Senate, bringing total funding to $570 million above
the House level.
The Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides assistance to
food pantries, is funded at the fully authorized level of $140 million.
The Food and Drug Administration is funded at the Senate level of
$2.497 billion, including increased funding to begin implementation of
the Food Safety and Modernization Act.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service is funded at $1.004 billion,
an increase of more than $32 million above the House level.
The Public Law 480 Program, which provides international food
assistance, is funded at $1.466 billion, an increase of $426 million
above the House level.
Agricultural research funded through the Agricultural Research
Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture is funded at
$2.297 billion, an increase of $282 million above the House level.
Disaster relief funds for the Emergency Watershed Protection Program,
Emergency Conservation Program, and the Emergency Forest Restoration
Program were provided based on the latest USDA estimates.
Beyond these important funding items, we also rejected many of the
controversial policy riders that were included in the House bill. Among
them were a provision prohibiting any food aid for North Korea, which
would tie the hands of U.S. negotiators; a provision blocking
enforcement of the Energy Independence and Security Act; and a
provision blocking participation in a global climate change task force,
as well as others.
Again, I think this is a well-balanced bill. We worked hard with our
House counterparts to identify and maintain priorities that benefit the
American people. I would like to again thank Senator Blunt for his help
during this entire process. His insights were extremely valuable.
Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this
conference report.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Kohl in
supporting the conference report, and I particularly want to talk about
the agricultural programs in the report.
This is my first year as the ranking member of the agriculture
subcommittee, and I have certainly enjoyed working with the chairman.
He has been generous and kind to me, including me in many of these
discussions.
In these days, it is no small feat for an appropriations bill to get
through the Senate in what is pretty close to regular order, and so I
am glad we were able to work closely together to get that done. I hope
we can do the same thing next year and have hearings and floor time to
pass the Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA bill again next year and
maybe in a way that is even closer to the timing and the order we would
like to see.
The conference report we are considering today reminds us that we can
and should return to the regular way of doing business on
appropriations bills. Even though the conference report includes three
separate bills, they were all vigorously debated on the floor, and more
than two dozen amendments were accepted. The process has certainly
yielded a better outcome than a large omnibus appropriations bill would
have.
The chairman has reviewed the details of the Agriculture bill, so I
will touch on only a few of the highlights.
Discretionary spending for agriculture programs is $350 million below
the fiscal year 2011 level and significantly below the fiscal year 2010
level. We are slowly but surely reining in discretionary spending.
To reduce overall spending, we have made difficult decisions. Most
programs in the bill that related to agriculture were reduced by 5
percent. We have, however, prioritized those programs that protect the
public health and help maintain the strength of our Nation's
agricultural economy.
I am particularly pleased we have been able to maintain funding for
formula research and competitive agricultural research programs in this
bill. Smart investments in American agriculture have been made by the
Federal Government for well over a century now, and this bill continues
that process of promoting competitiveness and is critical to helping
our farmers increase production and produce a food supply that is safe,
abundant, and affordable.
With unemployment still hovering around 9 percent, now is not the
time to place unnecessary restrictions on the competitive marketplace.
Therefore, this plan prohibits the Department of Agriculture from
moving forward with a costly and burdensome rule--GIPSA--that
Agriculture released earlier this year. This rule would have negatively
impacted poultry and livestock markets and damaged the overall strength
of the farm economy.
I am also glad the Agriculture bill includes funding to help farmers
and communities recover from natural disasters. Missouri has seen
unprecedented devastation from both tornadoes and flooding this year.
Funding included in this bill for the Emergency Watershed Protection
Program and the Emergency Conservation Program is necessary to help
those areas recover. It is important that we support our farmers as
they clear debris and as they regrade and rehabilitate their land for
the next growing season.
As the ranking member of the agriculture subcommittee, I have limited
my comments to agricultural funding, but I would be remiss if I didn't
point out the significant contributions of the Commerce, Justice,
Science Subcommittee and the Transportation, and Housing and Urban
Development Subcommittee in developing this conference report.
This bill, although it may have been referred to as the agriculture
minibus, doesn't do justice to the great efforts of my colleagues,
Senators Mikulski, Murray, Hutchison, and Collins, and their staffs.
They have all contributed a lot of time and effort to get this report
this far. It is not exactly what any of us would have done, but none of
us are exactly in charge of doing it all by ourselves.
I hope my colleagues will join me and join Senator Kohl in supporting
this bill.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I appreciate the distinguished Senator
from Missouri for managing the bill for our side because there are
three appropriations bills included in this package. I am also pleased
that we are actually passing appropriations bills that have been
amended and debated in the Senate the way it ought to be done.
I am also very pleased to talk about the Commerce, Justice, Science,
and Related Agencies bill, which is the subcommittee on which I am the
ranking member. The chairman, Senator Mikulski, has already spoken
earlier this evening on the bill and what is in it and how we put it
all together.
I can't thank Senator Mikulski enough for being the kind of chairman
who could really bring people together, bring the House Members
together, where we had some significant differences. I believe she and
I were on the same page, that we have national priorities in this bill,
and we ensured that those priorities were met because they are so
important for our country. It wasn't easy. As has been said by everyone
who has spoken, difficult choices had to be made. We had an allocation
that was $583 million below the fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution
level. It was $4.7 billion below the President's request.
This bill is also in accordance with the Budget Control Act that
passed on August 2, 2011. I just want to mention
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on that point that all of the appropriations bills that have gone
through the Appropriations Committee this year have met the Budget
Control Act requirements. That is something I think we should have done
and certainly something we were expected to do.
There are some Members, however, who will be speaking against these
bills. They wanted a different standard from the standard we set, which
was below the fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution and below the
President's request. But that is the standard we should have met, and
we did.
We struck a balance between the competing interests of law
enforcement, terrorism, research, and competitiveness through investing
in science. I think the chairman, Senator Mikulski, spoke about the
specifics of that, but I want to highlight some of the programs of
national interest that I was particularly insistent that we focus on.
We have worked hard to ensure that law enforcement receives the
priority funding needed to protect our Nation, our communities, our
children, and the victims of crime. That was a particular point that
Senator Mikulski made and with which I agree.
We have also made sure the FBI has the resources it needs to continue
its major role in the global mission of counterterrorism and
counterintelligence. Director Robert Mueller has seen the largest
transition of the agency certainly in modern times, but maybe ever--a
transformation from a traditional crime-fighting organization into an
intelligence-driven, threat-focused law enforcement organization and a
full member of the U.S. intelligence community since 9/11.
A lot of people are going to say: Well, gosh, why would you increase
the FBI? Well, because they are a part of our national security today.
They are no longer just a domestic crime-fighting agency--though very
important but nevertheless a smaller function. They are part of our
U.S. intelligence agencies that are helping us fight terrorism all over
the world. So we funded them, and I am glad we did.
We have also included language to encourage the Department of Justice
to maintain its current fiscal year 2011 level of funding that focuses
on the southwest border. This is so important, as we read about the
atrocities happening in Mexico and on our border, some of which have
begun to spread across the border, and drug cartels are becoming
increasingly emboldened.
I was talking to someone in the law enforcement community today who
has had very high positions in our government, and he said those drug
cartels are terrorists. I agree with him. Those drug cartels are
terrorists. What they are doing to innocent people is atrocious. So we
are encouraging and we have given the money to the Justice Department
for the southwest border.
The El Paso Intelligence Center is another important program that is
one of our first safeguards along the border. It is a national tactical
intelligence center that supports law enforcement in the United States,
Mexico, and the whole Western Hemisphere. It is the Drug Enforcement
Administration's most important intelligence-sharing entity focusing on
all things related to our borders.
Another important program in this bill is the State Criminal Alien
Assistance Program which we funded to provide Federal assistance to the
States and localities that are incurring the costs of incarcerating
undocumented criminal aliens who have been accused or convicted of
State and local offenses. We know there are counties throughout our
country that do not have big budgets. Yet we have illegal alien
criminals who are being put in county jails and city jails and it is
important for the Federal Government and it is the Federal Government's
responsibility to pay for housing those illegal alien criminals. We
have done so in this bill.
I was also pleased to work with Senator Mikulski and Jon Kyl, the
Senator from Arizona, to include more money for the U.S. Marshals
Service for its mission along the southwest border, including detention
construction and security upgrades in southwest border Federal
courthouses.
The last thing I wish to mention is that we had a very moving
ceremony yesterday honoring the significant astronauts--they are all
significant, but some of those who took the first chance to go where no
human being had ever been, and we honored them with the Congressional
Gold Medal, which is the highest honor Congress can bestow on a
civilian: John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first and second men to walk on the
Moon, the Americans who did that, and they were ferried there by
Michael Collins, who landed Apollo 11.
We talked, and the speeches were very uplifting, about the importance
of space exploration and what it has done for our country. It has
clearly been an economic boon to this country. It has created jobs, it
has created better quality of life, and it has also inspired
generations of scientists. With the significant support of Senator
Mikulski, we were able to give NASA the funding it needs to assure that
we have not only the vision that was established by Congress in the
2010 authorization bill but the funding to achieve the vision going
forward.
Since our space shuttle program has been shut down, we are now on a
mission to provide a commercial crew vehicle to take our astronauts to
the space station, where we are doing scientific research, and we have
fully funded the launch vehicle that is going to take our astronauts
beyond Earth orbit and into the asteroid and, hopefully, Mars. That
funding has started with this appropriations bill that is going through
this year.
So we will have our launch system and our Orion capsule that will be
the next generation of space exploration for our country, and Senator
Mikulski and I agreed on that priority, along with the Webb telescope,
which is a very significant scientific priority, that we would assure
that those priorities were met. We support the emerging commercial
space companies to bring cargo and astronauts to the space station, and
our investment for discovery on the space station as well as the
science that is gotten from these wonderful, incredible telescopes that
fly out there in space and gather information.
NASA has now released its design for the heavy launch vehicle that
will be able to carry our astronauts in the Orion crew vehicle to the
Moon, the asteroid, and beyond. Now that that decision has been made,
we can focus on the future and on moving human exploration forward.
NASA has announced its commitment to the path that Congress authorized,
and now we are providing the funds to accomplish the development of
that rocket.
Chairman Mikulski and I have strived to produce a bill that reflects
not only the Senate's priorities but the needs of our Nation. Not only
do I commend her and all the Senators who have a part in passing these
bills and the House Members who also have a significant part, but our
staffs did a lot of the work in making sure these priorities were met.
Her staff, Gabrielle Batkin, Jessica Berry, Jean Toal Eisen, Jeremy
Weirich, and Molly O'Rourke did wonderful work and were so close in
concept and in close relationships and working relationships with my
staff, James Christoferson, Goodloe Sutton, and Allen Cutler.
I recommend our bill. I think we stayed within the budget resolution,
the Budget Control Act we passed, but we set the priorities, and I am
very pleased to offer it to the Senate tonight.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask to be notified after 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be notified.
Mr. SESSIONS. I appreciate the work of the sponsors on this difficult
piece of legislation.
There is so much we would like to do. But every American knows that
when they are in debt, they have to cut back on spending. But
Washington remains in denial. This bill is a statement that Washington
does not take seriously the extraordinary dangers imposed by our debt.
It is bizarre that we passed on to a committee of 12 the job of
achieving deficit reduction while at the same time working to increase
the deficit with bills such as this one.
After the first 2 years of the Obama administration in which
nondefense discretionary spending surged 24 percent--not counting the
stimulus--it
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should not be difficult for us to find reductions that can be achieved
in these three bills that have been cobbled together as a mini omnibus.
But instead of doing the hard work and finding things we can reduce the
spending for and bringing this bill in with a reduction--a real
reduction--in spending, we now have a piece of legislation that is
moving forward with increases. In fact, what this amounts to and what
we are seeing in the committee of 12, the supercommittee, in their
secret work is apparently a demand by our Democratic colleagues that
taxes be substantially increased to fund the spending level we have
been on.
I recently also addressed some of the gimmicks I believe this bill
uses to conceal more spending than is apparent. One of these gimmicks,
creating the false appearance of cash savings in mandatory spending,
was actually increased, in this current version of the bill, in
conference. That is why I introduced the Honest Budget Act: to confront
these continuing problems.
Senator Olympia Snowe and I believe these kind of gimmicks, such as
on mandatory spending and claims of reductions that are not real, need
to be eliminated from our process as they help cause the great deficit
we are in.
I think it is particularly offensive that the bill is being
represented as a spending cut, even though that was the most minute
spending cut of $1 billion, when, in truth, it clearly increases
spending. We need real cuts, not minuscule cuts and certainly not
increases.
With the President at the helm of the ship of State, Washington is
continuing to steer toward financial disaster. We must get off this
path. The American people know it. I believe they spoke clearly last
November. We still have not gotten the message. We still remain in
denial.
Some say: Oh, the tea party. You shouldn't pay attention to them.
They were angry people. I think they were deeply frustrated people and,
yes, somewhat angry. Why should they not be when the people they have
elected to Congress, they now discover, are spending billions and
billions of dollars day after day, week after week, borrowing 40 cents
of every dollar that is spent? How can we defend that? How can we
defend to any American citizen our behavior that has allowed such a
debt situation to occur? We have had three consecutive trillion-dollar
deficits, and this fiscal year we are expecting to have another
trillion-dollar deficit. It is an unacceptable course.
I will oppose the legislation and urge my colleagues to do the same.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, as the ranking member of the
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations
Subcommittee, I rise in support of this conference report, and I
encourage our colleagues to join me in voting for this measure.
Let me first thank Chairman Patty Murray and her staff who worked
collaboratively with me and with my talented staff throughout this
entire process. I also wish to thank Chairman Kohl, Ranking Member
Blunt, Chairman Mikulski, Ranking Member Hutchison, and of course the
leaders of the full Appropriations Committee, Senator Inouye and
Senator Cochran. All of us have worked closely together to usher this
first group of appropriations bills to final passage.
I am particularly pleased that we brought these appropriations bills
to the floor through the regular order enabling members to examine,
debate, and vote in a fair and transparent process. That is a big
change from the approach that has, unfortunately, marred the process in
previous years when all the appropriations bills--or nearly all of
them--were bundled into one enormous omnibus bill that was considered
at the last moment in a rushed manner and without the opportunity for
full and fair debate and amendment. We didn't do it that way this time,
and I think that represents progress.
I am also pleased this conference report contains provisions that are
important to the State of Maine.
The Transportation-HUD bill recognizes the fiscal reality of what is
now an unsustainable $15 trillion debt, while making critical
infrastructure and economic development investments that will help to
create jobs. In this bill, we are also meeting our responsibility to
very vulnerable populations in our country. The bill strikes the right
balance between thoughtful investment and fiscal restraint, thereby
setting the stage for future economic growth. The proposed nonemergency
funding levels for fiscal year 2012 in this bill are nearly $13 billion
below fiscal year 2010, a reduction of nearly one-fifth in 2 years'
time. These significant savings represent an unmistakable commitment
and movement in the direction of fiscal responsibility.
For those reasons, and for many more, I urge my colleagues to vote in
favor of this conference report.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I want to spend a minute because I do not
think the American public knows how badly they have been hoodwinked by
Congress. The Budget Control Act told the American people that we cut
$1 trillion. That is what the claims were. The fact is, under the
Budget Control Act spending, discretionary spending will still rise by
$850 billion over the next 10 years. That is the truth.
We hear in the bills that are coming up the word ``emergency.'' One
of the things the American people cannot quite understand is--when they
have an emergency what they do is they end up having to make choices.
They do not have a bank that will loan them money regardless of whether
they are worthy of paying it back, and that is where we are. We are not
worthy of paying the money back that we are borrowing now. That is
going to become acutely obvious over the next 18 months in our country
as we see our interest rates rise.
We have a bill on the floor that meets the numbers and meets what the
Budget Control Act said but totally denies what the American people are
expecting. Let me talk about what I mean by that. There are five major
problems with this bill.
No. 1, it claims to cut spending when in fact it does not. When you
take all spending, it does not cut spending. We are going to hear and
we have heard already how it cuts spending but usually with the caveat
``not counting emergency spending.'' So the first thing it does is not
to address any of the problems our country has in terms of having to
deal with real cuts in spending, not decreases in the rate of growth of
spending. We have to have real cuts if we are going to create a future
for our kids. If we are going to be able to borrow money in the future
at an affordable interest rate, we are going to have to have real cuts.
We have to quit playing the game to the American people and start
talking to them as adults, not playing the game and actually being
dishonest with them about what we are doing.
This bill also continues to demonstrate that we are shirking our
duties in terms of doing oversight. We have provided funding for things
that obviously need to be corrected but we will not correct them. We do
not eliminate the wasteful programs. There is nothing in here, not one
duplicative program in any of these three segments of appropriations
bills, that is eliminated. Yet we know there is over $200 billion a
year in duplication costs to the Federal Government on programs that do
exactly the same thing. Yet we did not do any of it. It is no wonder
you can't cut spending if you don't get rid of programs that do the
same thing, none of which or 80 percent of which never accomplish their
goals or never have been measured as to whether they accomplish their
goals. That is the third thing.
The fourth thing this bill does is absolutely ignore FHA's condition.
It was announced they are about to run out of money. What do we do? We
raise the amount of money that people can borrow from the FHA at the
time when FHA is running out of money. The only problem with that is
FHA has a very friendly banker which the Congress has no control over
because when FHA runs out of money, do you know what they do? They go
and get it from the Treasury and we cannot stop it.
What we have done is we have raised the loan limit for FHA homes to
$729,000 in this bill. FHA is going to be out of money this year. They
will have no capital to protect the $1.1 trillion worth of loans they
are guaranteeing, and they will go get the money. Where is that money
going to come from? That money is going to come from--we are going to
borrow it from the Chinese. So we are going to compound the
[[Page S7683]]
very problem we have today. It is absolutely ignoring what the real
situation is on the ground, ignoring the real complications of not
acting, and consequently we actually make it worse for our kids and our
country.
Finally, it includes very few of the amendments that were passed by
wide margins in the Senate. One of mine is there. I am very thankful
for it. I think it is an appropriate amendment. But several others are
not, that were good, commonsense amendments. Yet somebody in the
Appropriations Committee decided even though they may have voted for
it, they pulled it out. It was not the majority on the other side who
insisted it come out because I checked.
What we have done is we are up here and we are going to pass this
bill. I have no doubt about it. But we are continuing down the road of,
No. 1, being dishonest with the American people about what we are
doing, how we are doing it; No. 2, we are shirking our responsibility
to eliminate the wasteful portions of the Federal Government which at
least are $350 billion a year, when you combine waste, fraud, and
duplication. None of that was attacked in this bill, none of it. Then
we are lying to them about whether we are actually increasing spending
or not increasing spending.
Our time is shortening. If you look at what happened in Europe in the
last 2 weeks, to the bond yields for Italy, to the bond yields for
Spain, we know what is coming. How bad does it have to get or how close
does it have to get to us before we will act in the best interests of
the country instead of the best interests of partisanship or the best
interests of our careers?
This is not a bad bill. It just doesn't do what the American people
need us to do right now, which is start cutting out the waste, fraud,
and duplication in the Federal Government so that their children will
have an opportunity to live in a country of opportunity.
This bill fails on that count. It should be defeated and a bill
coming back here with $10 or $12 or $15 billion less is what ought to
come back here. That is what ought to happen, if we were going to be
truly honest. Either I am being dishonest about the situation facing
our country or you are being dishonest in what you are bringing as the
answer on the floor. One of us is not telling the truth and I guarantee
the markets are going to prove me right. When we can no longer borrow,
as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve said, we are going to eventually
fix all this, regardless of the politicians. Do you know why we are
going to fix it? Because they are going to quit loaning us money. And
we have done nothing with this bill to solve the very real and
immediate problems in front of this country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, we are going to move this bill this
evening. I think we have other people who wish to speak and there is no
reason they should not come and speak. I encourage them to come over
here and say what needs to be said so we can get our work done. We have
a few people who still have opportunities to make a plane. We are not
going to be voting tomorrow. We plan to be voting here in the next 30
minutes or so. I hope people come to the floor and speak on the bill.
This bill has gone through a process with lots of amendments, lots of
debate. It went through a conference committee. It is not perfect by
anyone's standard of perfect, but legislation seldom is.
It is under the level that was established in the debt ceiling
agreement that also established how we deal with emergency spending. Of
course, many of our colleagues did not vote for that. They did not
agree with that at the time. It has only been a few weeks ago, but it
is the standard that the House and Senate worked on. These numbers
should be below that number. They are a little lower than the Senate
number which was at that number but higher than the House number. I
wish we could have been closer to the House number, but the House has a
different majority than the Senate does.
The real point is, if people want to come speak on this bill, the
vote is scheduled here in about a half hour or so and I hope people
will come on over and have their say on this bill, let the people know
in addition to their vote where they stand. We are waiting for a couple
of people to come. This would be a good time for them to do that.
I yield, and we will be waiting.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. MURRAY. I rise to speak about the transportation-housing title
of the bill before the Senate. It has broad bipartisan support because
it addresses the very real housing and transportation needs of American
families across the Nation.
This is not a perfect bill, but there is a lot to be proud of in the
conference report, and I am pleased with what we have been able to
accomplish with my colleague Senator Collins, because she has worked so
hard in a bipartisan way to get us to this point, and Chairman Latham
and Congressman Olver on the House side and all of their staff.
This bill makes needed investments in our transportation
infrastructure and creates critical jobs, while also supporting housing
and services for our Nation's most vulnerable.
This bill touches the lives of all Americans in ways they can
appreciate every day, whether it is a parent who commutes every day and
needs safe roads or new public transportation options so they can spend
more time with their family, a business that depends on a solid
infrastructure to move goods and attract customers, young families
searching for safe and affordable communities to raise their children
or a repeatedly laid-off worker who needs help to keep his or her
family in their home. This bill has a real impact on Americans who are
struggling in these troubling economic times.
Our bill takes a balanced approach that addresses the most critical
needs we face in both transportation and housing, while remaining
financially responsible and staying within the constraints of the
budget.
The bill contains improvement investments for our Nation, including
$500 million for the competitive, multimodal TIGER Program to help
improve our Nation's infrastructure, including rail transportation
projects; $1.4 billion for Amtrak, including funding for State-
supported services; sufficient funding to preserve housing for our
Nation's low-income families, elderly, disabled, and veterans who rely
on HUD's housing and rental assistance programs; $39.8 billion to
continue the Federal-Aid Highway Program at current levels; $45 million
for housing counseling; and $75 million for 11,000 new vouchers for
homeless veterans.
The bill also addresses the needs of communities that have been hit
by disasters this year, providing $1.7 billion in emergency relief
highway funding and up to $400 million in CDBG funding for areas that
have been most impacted by recent disasters.
It is not a perfect bill, but it is a good bill. It represents a
fair, bipartisan compromise that makes investments in our
infrastructure and protects the most vulnerable, while living within
our funding restraints. Our bill helps commuters, homeowners, and the
most vulnerable in our society. Most importantly, it creates jobs and
supports the continued recovery of the national economy.
I look forward to having it reach the President's desk soon for his
signature, and before I close I again thank my colleague Senator
Collins and all of her staff for all of their very hard work on this
bill. I also thank all of my staff members who worked beyond reasonable
hours to get this bill to this point tonight to be able to send it to
the President. They are Alex Keenan, Megan McCarthy, Dabney Hegg,
Rachel Milberg, Molly O'Rourke, Travis Lumpkin, Evan Schatz, and Lauren
Overman. I thank all of them for their hard work and all of Senator
Collins' staff as well as our chairman, Senator Inouye, and look
forward to the passage of this bill this evening.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I wanted to add to my earlier remarks in
support of the FY 2012 conference report which includes language I co-
authored
[[Page S7684]]
along with Senator Leahy allowing the heaviest trucks to travel on the
interstate highways in Maine and Vermont rather than forcing them onto
secondary roads and downtown streets.
Currently, the heaviest trucks in Maine are diverted onto secondary
roadways that cut through our downtowns on narrow streets. This creates
a major safety concern. It simply makes no sense to force heavier
trucks off the highway and onto our smaller roads, jeopardizing the
safety of both drivers and pedestrians.
In 2009, I authored a pilot project that allowed trucks weighing up
to 100,000 pounds to travel on Maine's Federal interstates for 1 year.
According to the Maine Department of Transportation, the number of
accidents involving trucks decreased. During the 1-year period covered
by the pilot, the number of crashes involving trucks on Maine's local
roads was reduced by 72 compared to a 5-year average. This information
and other data gathered during the pilot provide proof that this
language will increase safety.
In a case study of a freight trip following this route from Hampden
to Houlton, when these trucks were allowed to use I-95 rather than
Route 2, the driver avoided 300 intersections, 4 hospitals, 30 traffic
lights, 9 school crossings, 4 railroad crossings, and 86 crosswalks.
Virtually every safety group in Maine supports this language. These
groups include the Maine Association of Police, the Maine State Police,
the State Troopers Association, the Maine Department of Public Safety,
and the Maine Chiefs of Police. This language is also supported by
education and child advocacy groups such as Maine Parent Teachers
Association and the Maine School Superintendents Association.
Let me make clear: my amendment does not increase the size or weight
of Maine trucks. The only question is on which roads they are allowed
to travel.
This has been a long and hard-fought battle. But I am delighted that
I was able to convince my colleagues in both the House and Senate to
support my provision to allow the heaviest trucks to drive on Federal
highways in Maine.
I also want to voice my support for the Agriculture Appropriations
title of this legislation. I am particularly appreciative of the
efforts of the chairman and ranking member of the Agriculture
Subcommittee, Senators Kohl and Blunt, and their staffs for their
diligent work to move this legislation forward.
I also want to thank my colleague, Senator Mark Udall, for joining me
in co-authoring an amendment to ensure that schools continue to have
the flexibility they need to serve children nutritious meals at an
affordable cost. We worked with Members from both sides of the aisle
and from across the country in crafting a bipartisan amendment that
achieves this goal.
Our efforts will go a long way in ensuring that schools can serve
healthy meals that meet the nutritional needs of students in a way that
fits their budgets. The language overturns arbitrary restrictions
proposed by the USDA that would have so restricted the use of potatoes
in the school lunch program that a school could not have served a baked
potato and an ear of fresh corn in the same week--an absurd result.
We heard from many school advocacy organizations and school and
school food service professionals that the rule as proposed was too
prescriptive, too limiting, and too expensive. USDA estimates that the
opposed rule would have cost as much as $6.8 billion over 5 years. The
lion's share of these costs would have been incurred by the state and
local agencies.
We were pleased to have the support of the American Association of
School Administrators, National School Boards Association, Council of
the Great City Schools, National Association of Elementary School
Principals, Maine Parent Teacher Association, Maine School Management
Association, Maine Principals Association, Maine Department of
Education, and so many more.
Mr. President, for these and many other reasons I am proud to support
the FY 2012 conference report.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we would yield back whatever time is left on
the Democratic side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. All time
is yielded back on the Democratic side.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are going to continue to work tomorrow on
the DOD authorization bill. Everyone has been told by the two managers
of this bill that if they have amendments, they should offer them.
We are working on the Energy and Water bill. While we are making
progress on that with Senators Feinstein and Lamar Alexander, we have
some nominations we are working on.
The next vote will be at 5:30 on November 28.
We will be in session tomorrow.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I yield back the Republican time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
The question is on agreeing to the conference report to accompany
H.R. 2112.
Mr. BLUNT. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
The result was announced--yeas 70, nays 30, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 208 Leg.]
YEAS--70
Akaka
Alexander
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Bingaman
Blumenthal
Blunt
Boozman
Boxer
Brown (MA)
Brown (OH)
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Coons
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Hagan
Harkin
Hoeven
Hutchison
Inouye
Johanns
Johnson (SD)
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Manchin
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Moran
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Snowe
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
NAYS--30
Ayotte
Barrasso
Burr
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Enzi
Grassley
Hatch
Heller
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson (WI)
Kirk
Lee
Lugar
McCain
Paul
Portman
Risch
Rubio
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 70, the nays are 30.
Under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this
conference report, the conference report is agreed to.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. MENENDEZ. I move to lay that motion upon the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
____________________