[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 23760-23762]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 2684, DEPARTMENTS OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 
      AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2000

  Mr. WALSH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the 
Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2684) making appropriations for the 
Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, and 
for sundry independent agencies, boards, commissions, corporations, and 
offices for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other 
purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate 
amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from New York?
  There was no objection.


               Motion to Instruct Offered by Mr. Mollohan

  Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Mollohan moves that the managers on the part of the 
     House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the bill, H.R. 2684, be instructed to agree with 
     the higher funding levels recommended in the Senate amendment 
     for the Department of Housing and Urban Development; for the 
     Science, Aeronautics and Technology and Mission Support 
     accounts of the National Aeronautics and Space 
     Administration; and for the National Science Foundation.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. 
Mollohan) will be recognized for 30 minutes, and the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Walsh) will be recognized for 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan).
  Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, my motion instructs the House conferees to agree to the 
Senate's funding levels in three areas: The overall budget for HUD; 
NASA's Science, Aeronautics, and Technology and Mission Support 
Accounts; and the overall budget for the National Science Foundation.
  In each case, the Senate funding levels are higher than those for the 
House in this VA-HUD appropriations bill. I am moving to instruct 
conferees to adopt the higher numbers for these programs because these 
are all areas in which the House bill made excessive cuts. For HUD and 
NASA, the House-passed bill reduced appropriations substantially below 
the current year's level, as well as substantially below the request. 
For NSF, the House bill cut funding a bit below the fiscal year 1999 
level and well below the President's request. In each case, the House-
passed levels would do serious damage to important programs and are 
completely unwarranted at a time when the economy and the budget are in 
the best shape they have been for decades.
  When we considered the VA-HUD bill on the floor this year, many 
Members, Republicans as well as Democrats, raised serious concerns 
about the cuts being made, especially in HUD, NASA, and the National 
Science Foundation. The managers of the bill, myself included, promised 
to do all we could to bring about more adequate funding for these 
accounts in conference. This motion represents a step toward that 
result. Its adoption by the House would strengthen our position in 
trying to assure at least minimally adequate funding for high priority 
items.
  With respect to HUD, disregarding the various one-time offsets and 
rescissions that have no programmatic effect, the House-passed bill 
cuts appropriations $935 million below the fiscal year 1999 level and 
about $2 billion below the President's request. It cuts public housing 
programs $515 million below the current year level and cuts total CDBG 
funding $250 million below the current year. It provides no funding 
whatsoever to expand the number of families assisted through Section 8 
housing vouchers in contrast to the $283 million provided for that 
purpose in the current year, and it makes cuts in a number of other 
important programs as well.
  The Senate's total for HUD is about $1.1 billion above the House 
total, although it remains about $1 billion below the President's 
request. The Senate provided $50 million more than the House for 
homeless assistance, $300 million more for Community Development Block 
Grants, and a bit more for public housing operating subsidies. On 
Section 8, the Senate level is about $500 million above the House, 
although our first priority in Section 8 has to be taking care of 
existing contracts and vouchers, I hope that, within the Senate total, 
we would be able to find funds to provide at least some incremental 
vouchers.
  There are still millions of low-income families unable to afford 
decent housing. Indeed, the current economic boom may be making the 
problem

[[Page 23761]]

worse by driving up rents. We can afford the very modest increases in 
total HUD funding proposed by the Senate.
  As for NASA, Mr. Speaker, the House bill makes deep cuts there as 
well. Total NASA funding in the House- passed bill is $925 million, 
almost $1 billion below the budget request and $1 billion below fiscal 
year 1999. Some of the deepest cuts come in space science programs, 
such as the work on developing new technologies in the next generation 
of space-based observatories and planetary probes. Other deep cuts come 
in earth sciences programs, which use space-based observations and 
technologies to help better understand our own earth and make better 
use of the earth's resources.
  The Senate-passed levels for NASA are at the budget request, thereby 
providing $925 million more than the House bill. During the House floor 
debate, Member after Member, Democrats and Republicans alike, rose to 
express dismay about various cuts in NASA and to urge higher funding 
than provided in the House bill. Adopting this motion and instructing 
conferees to adopt the higher Senate number would take an important 
step toward restoring the funding for NASA that so many Members have 
advocated.
  The final part of my motion to instruct deals with the funding level 
for the National Science Foundation. The House recommendation did not 
even bring total funding for the foundation up to the 1999 level, much 
less anything approaching the budget request. The House bill level is 
$34 million below last year and $285 million below that request. The 
Senate bill provided a total funding level for the foundation of $3.9 
billion, identical to the budget estimate.
  Let us face it, science and research is not cheap. It costs a lot of 
money to achieve and maintain world leadership in math, biology, 
information technology, and computer sciences, among other disciplines. 
But it may cost even more not to strive for this leadership. The 
information technology sector of our economy amounts to more than $700 
billion today. We cannot afford to let our dominant position in these 
fields slip due to short-sighted and misguided budget policies.
  The administration's budget request for the National Science 
Foundation included $146 million as a part of a six-agency, multi-year 
initiative called Information Technology for the 21st Century, or I.T.-
Squared. The House-passed funding level included only $35 million for 
the NSF, the lead agency in that effort. If we recede to the higher 
Senate level, we should be able to provide more for this critical 
program intended to keep this Nation on the cutting edge of 
developments in information processing.
  Higher funding is necessary if we are to respond to the 
recommendations of the President's Information Technology Advisory 
Committee, which recently concluded that our long-term research on 
information technology has been dangerously inadequate. In the words of 
the director of the NSF, we are able and ready to do 21st century 
science and engineering, but we cannot do it on a 20th century budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge approval of this motion to instruct.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WALSH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
and I thank the gentleman for his thoughts and comments on the bill. 
And I wish to again thank him for his help in moving the bill through 
the House.
  As we now prepare for our conference with the Senate, we have made a 
lot of headway. And I would like to give credit to the staff, because 
the leadership has asked us to move expeditiously, and we are. And I 
think staff has us at a point now where we will be able to sit down 
with the Senate and begin and soon thereafter conclude the conference 
Wednesday morning.
  So the instructions that the minority side has offered, I think, are 
constructive. I think they are helpful. When we had the debate in the 
House, we were far below the President's request and we were far below 
last year's enacted level in NASA, National Science Foundation, and in 
some areas of HUD. So as chairman of the Subcommittee on VA, HUD and 
Independent Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations, I would see 
these as constructive.
  We had a very difficult time in the House, because our allocation was 
much lower than in the Senate. But leadership, I think wisely, has 
allowed us to go in to this conference at the Senate's spending level, 
which still keeps us below last year's enacted level, keeps us within 
the caps and our overall discretionary spending level. And so if we are 
wise and we work together, I think we can resolve these issues by 
meeting the priorities that were discussed.
  And I think we will probably hear more on NASA, on HUD and National 
Science Foundation from other Members here.

                              {time}  1700

  But I quite honestly could not agree more with the gentleman from 
West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan). The challenge is obviously getting 
everyone to agree on how much to increase spending in each of those 
areas, what the priorities are, without basically telling those 
Departments where the legislative branch wants to spend money. So I 
take the motion as constructive.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this motion 
to instruct conferees for the VA-HUD & Independent Agencies 
Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2000. This bill fails because it 
does not provide adequate funding for housing needs and it once again 
targets NASA for a reduction in funding.
  While the total included in the House bill for HUD looks like a 
substantial increase over the fiscal year 1999 appropriations level, 
dissenters to the House version can point to the reductions in HUD 
programs below the prior year's level that are spread throughout the 
bill.
  The bill provides a total of $26.1 billion for HUD programs and 
activities--$2.0 billion (8 percent) more than fiscal year 1999 funding 
(under official budget scorekeeping standards), but $2.0 billion (7 
percent) less than requested by the President. On a programmatic level, 
however, (i.e., looking at the amount of budget authority actually 
provided for individual housing programs), the bill provides $945 
million less for HUD housing programs than was available in fiscal year 
1999.
  Compared to current funding, the bill increases funding for one major 
HUD program, subsidized Section 8 rental housing contracts (2 
percent)--but decreases funding for public housing modernization (15 
percent), revitalizing severely distressed public housing (8 percent), 
drug elimination grants (6 percent), lead paint hazard reduction (13 
percent), housing for persons with AIDS (4 percent), the Community 
Development Block Grant program (6 percent), ``Brownfields'' 
redevelopment (20 percent), Fair Housing activities (6 percent), 
housing for the homeless (1 percent), and the HOME program (1 percent).
  In addition this bill would take the dream of exploring space and 
crush it beneath the weight of political posturing. This bill would 
tell our children, ``Forget about space. You will never reach it.''
  And our children's dreams are not the only casualties. Jobs are at 
stake. As a Representative for the City of Houston, I cannot stand by 
and watch my Houstonians lose their jobs because of these cuts. The 
Johnson Space Center in Houston provides work for over 15,000 people. 
The workforce consists of approximately 3,000 NASA Federal civil 
service employees. In addition to these employees are over 12,000 
contractor employees.
  NASA has predicted the effects of the cuts on the Johnson Space 
Center, and the picture is not pleasant. NASA predicts that an 
estimated 100 contractors would have to be laid off, contractors 
composed of many employees and workers; clinic operations would be 
reduced; and public affairs, particularly community outreach, would be 
drastically reduced. Also, NASA would likely institute a 21 day 
furlough to offset the effects of the cuts, and this furlough will 
place many families in dire straits. Also, the Johnson Space Center 
would have to eliminate its employee Safety and Total Health program.
  The entire $100 million reduction in the International Space Station 
would be attributed to the space center and would cause reductions in 
the Crew Return Vehicle program. This would result in a 1 to 2 year 
production slip and would require America to completely rely upon 
Russia for crew returns. This is a humiliating situation. We pride 
ourselves in being the world leader in space exploration, yet, what 
does it tell our international neighbors when we do not even have 
enough funding to bring our astronauts home?

[[Page 23762]]

   The cuts would not only effect Houston; they would effect the rest 
of the country. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center would need to cut 
over 2,500 jobs. Such layoffs would effect both Maryland and Virginia.
   The $100 million reduction in NASA's research and development would 
result in an immediate reduction in the workforce of 1,100 employees 
for fiscal year 2001. This would also require a hiring freeze, and NASA 
would not be able to maintain the necessary skills to implement future 
NASA missions.
   Negative effects will also occur across our Nation. Clearly, States 
such as Texas, Florida, and Alabama will see substantial cuts to the 
workforce, but given today's widespread interstate commerce, it is easy 
to imagine that these costs to the NASA program will hit home 
throughout America. And NASA warns that the country may not see the 
total effects of this devastation to our country's future scientists 
and engineers for many years.
   NASA contractors and employees represent both big and small 
businesses, and their very livelihood are at stake--especially those in 
small business. They can ill afford the flood of layoffs that would 
certainly result from this bill.
   Dan Goldin, head of NASA, has already anticipated the devastating 
effects of the NASA cuts. He predicts a 3 week furlough for all NASA 
employees. This would create program interruptions and would result in 
greater costs. Ladies and gentlemen, we are falling, if not tumbling, 
down a slippery slope. This bill would reduce jobs for engineers and 
would increase NASA's costs, a result that will only result in more 
layoffs as costs exceed NASA's fiscal abilities.
   We are at a dangerous crossroads. This bill gives our engineers and 
our science academics a vote of no confidence. It tells them that we 
will not reward Americans who spend their lifetimes studying and 
researching on behalf of space exploration. I urge my colleagues to 
join me in my effort to stop the bleeding.
   Over the past 6 years, NASA has led the Federal Government in 
streamlining the Agency's budget and institution, resulting in 
approximately $35 billion in budget savings relative to earlier outyear 
estimates. During the same period, NASA reinvented itself, reducing 
personnel by almost one-third, while continuing to increase 
productivity. The massive cuts recommended by the Committee would 
destroy the balance in the civil space program that has been achieved 
between science and human space flight in recent years.
   In particular, the Committee's recommendation falls $250 million 
short of NASA's request for its Human Space Flight department. This 
greatly concerns me because this budget item provides for human space 
flight activities, including the development of the international space 
station and the operation of the space shuttle.
   I firmly believe that a viable, cost-effective International Space 
Station has been devised. We already have many of the space station's 
components in orbit. Already the space station is 77-feet long and 
weighs over 77,000 pounds. We have tangible results from the money we 
have spent on this program.
  Just this past summer, we had a historic docking of the space shuttle 
Discovery with the International Space Station. The entire world 
rejoiced as Mission Commander Kent Rominger guided the Discovery as the 
shuttle connected with our international outpost for the first time. 
The shuttle crew attached a crane and transferred over two tons of 
supplies to the space station.
  History has been made, yet, we seek to withdraw funding for the two 
vital components, the space station and the space shuttle, that made 
this moment possible. We cannot lose sight of the big picture. With 
another 45 space missions necessary to complete the space station, it 
would be a grave error of judgment to impede on the progress of this 
significant step toward further space exploration.
  Given NASA's recognition of a need for increased funding for Shuttle 
safety upgrades, it is NASA's assessment that the impact of a $150 
million cut in shuttle funding would be a reduction in shuttle flight 
rate, specifically impacting ISS assembly. Slowing the progress of the 
ISS assembly would defer full research capabilities and would result in 
cost increases.
  Both the International Space Station and the space shuttle have a 
long, glorious history of international relations. We can recall the 
images of our space shuttle docking with the Russian Mir space station. 
Our Nations have made such a connection nine times in recent years. 
This connection transcended scientific discovery: it signified the true 
end of the Cold War and represented an important step toward 
international harmony.
  The International Space Station, designed and built by 16 nations 
from across the globe, also represents a great international endeavor. 
Astronauts have already delivered the American-made Unity chamber and 
have connected it to the Russian-built Zarya control module. Countless 
people from various countries have spent their time and efforts on the 
space station.
  To under-fund this project is to turn our backs on our international 
neigbhors. Space exploration and scientific discovery is universal, and 
it is imperative that we continue to move forward.
  I also denounce the cuts made by the Appropriations Committee to 
NASA's science, aeronautics, and technology. This bill cuts funding for 
this program $678 million below the 1999 level.
  By cutting this portion of the NASA budget, we will be unable to 
develop new methodologies, better observing instruments, and improved 
techniques for translating raw data into useful end products. It also 
cancels our ``Pathfinder'' generation of earth probes.
  Reducing funding for NASA's science, aeronautics, and technology 
hinders the work of our space sciences, our earth sciences, our 
academic programs, and many other vitally important programs. But 
under-funding this item by $449 million, the Appropriations Committee 
will severely impede upon the progress of these NASA projects.
  I ask my colleagues that represent the House of Representatives 
during conference to restore the $924 million to the NASA budget and to 
provide adequate funding to the HUD portion of this appropriation.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Motion to 
Instruct Conferees to accept the other body's funding level for HUD, 
which provides more money for important housing and economic 
development programs than the House bill and is much closer to the 
President's request. There are 5.3 million people in this country who 
suffer worst case housing needs. In Chicago, nearly 35,000 people are 
on the waiting list for affordable public housing. This is not the time 
to cut much needed housing aid to people on fixed- and low-incomes.
  But the House would cut HUD funding. My district, alone, would lose 
$4.5 million in critical aid that the President requested in his HUD 
budget proposal. That's 386 jobs that would not be created and 256 
homes that would not be built if we enact the House HUD budget. Across 
the country, the cuts would total 156,000 fewer homes and 97,000 fewer 
jobs. We can do better.
  The other body provides $500 million more for the Section 8 program, 
which provides rent subsidies for seniors, persons with disabilities 
and low-income families. It provides $64 million more for housing for 
seniors and persons with disabilities and for Housing Opportunities for 
Persons With AIDS (HOPWA). There is $300 million more the Community 
Development Block Grant Program, which local governments used to create 
jobs back home.
  Considering the importance of housing to the American family and the 
desperate need for that housing, it is incumbent upon us to take 
whatever opportunities are available to increase HUD funding. The other 
body's VA-HUD bill presents that opportunity. I urge my colleagues to 
vote for the Motion to Instruct Conferees to accept the other body's 
HUD funding level.
  Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Speaker, we have no more requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WALSH. Mr. Speaker, we have no further requests for time. I 
accept the motion of the gentleman to instruct conferees, and I yield 
back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Miller of Florida). Without objection, 
the previous question is ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this motion will be postponed.

                          ____________________