[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18858-18860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          APPROPRIATIONS BILLS

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, as the end of the 106th Congress is fast 
approaching, I am deeply dismayed about the prospects of completing 
action on the thirteen annual appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 
2001, which begins October 1st. Unfortunately, as has happened far too 
often in recent years, much of the work on appropriations bills remains 
to be done. There is really no valid excuse for the Senate's failure to 
do its appropriations work. The House has done its work in a timely 
fashion.
  Yet, to date, only two of the Fiscal Year 2001 appropriations bills 
have been signed into law--Military Construction and Defense. Of the 
remaining eleven bills, four have yet to even be brought up for debate 
in the full Senate. Those bills are Treasury, Commerce-Justice-State, 
VA-HUD, and The District of Columbia. As Members are aware, the 
conference report on H.R. 4516, the Fiscal Year 2001 Legislative Branch 
Appropriations is divided--broken into two divisions. Division A 
contains the conference agreement for the Legislative Branch bill. 
Division B, which was inserted into the Legislative Branch Bill without 
any input by Democratic Members of either the House or Senate, contains 
the entire Treasury-General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal 
Year 2001. This was done despite the fact that the Senate has never 
taken up the Treasury-General Government Appropriations bill at all. In 
addition, again without any input from the Democratic Members of the 
House or Senate, a tax measure to repeal the telephone excise tax was 
inserted in this same conference report. The measure was soundly 
defeated in this body yesterday, as I believe it should have been.
  Here we are with only nine calendar days left before the beginning of 
Fiscal Year 2001, and we have enacted only two of the thirteen annual 
appropriations bills and had them signed into law; two more were 
contained in the conference report on H.R. 4516, namely the Legislative 
Branch and Treasury-General Government bills. That leaves nine fiscal 
year 2001 appropriations bills remaining. Since, on yesterday, we did 
defeat the conference report, actually the Legislative Branch and 
Treasury-General Government bills have not been acted on, we have 
eleven bills remaining.
  To conform with the Constitutionally envisioned process, all four of 
these bills should be passed in the Senate before being taken up in 
conferences with the other body. To shortcut that process means that 
the full Senate never has an opportunity to amend these bills or debate 
provisions in them. Especially when it comes to bills which spend the 
taxpayers' money, we ought to take the time to allow debate and 
amendment by the full membership of this body. I hear all of this talk 
about tax cuts and giving the people back their hard-earned money. How 
does that square with the rather cavalier attitude we sometimes exhibit 
here when it comes to appropriations bills? Do we forget, that when it 
comes to appropriations bills, we are spending the people's money? 
Don't Members of the Senate feel an obligation to let the full Senate 
scrutinize, debate, and, if necessary, amend, bills that allocate those 
hard-earned tax dollars? No public debate by the Senate on the billions 
of dollars contained in these bills for programs and projects means 
that the public is denied critical information about the use of the 
public's money. In a body formulated to foster debate and to protect 
the rights of the minority view, it is especially irresponsible to 
abdicate those functions when it comes to spending the people's tax 
dollars.
  There is plenty of blame to go around as to why the Commerce-Justice-
State, VA-HUD, and DC bills have not been brought up, as well as the 
Treasury

[[Page 18859]]

bill. I do not seek to point the finger at anybody.
  The chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the members of the 
Appropriations Committee have done their very best to work on these 
bills, to report them. The Commerce-Justice-State bill has been before 
the Senate long enough that we could have passed it, we could have 
stayed in on Fridays and, if need be, on some Saturdays. We have done 
that before, and we could have gotten that bill passed and, at the same 
time, let Senators have the chance to offer amendments to it. That is 
what the process is all about.
  The leadership too often files cloture on appropriations bills and 
other matters, in order to limit the number of controversial and 
politically loaded amendments that can be offered by Senators on the 
minority side of the aisle. Democratic Members too often bring up 
``message'' amendments over and over again on appropriations bills 
because they find little opportunity to have those matters debated by 
the Senate on other bills.
  I have to say that the authorization committees, some of them at 
least, do not do their work and, as a consequence, the action and the 
responsibility then falls upon the Appropriations Committee. Members do 
not have an opportunity to offer amendments to authorization bills that 
ought to have been reported and brought to the floor. When those 
authorization committees do not act, naturally appropriations bills are 
the only vehicles to which Members can offer amendments that they would 
otherwise offer to the authorization bill.
  Every action has a reaction. Polarization breeds polarization. 
Nevertheless, we must find a way to accommodate the needs of all 
Senators, as well as fulfill the responsibility of the leadership to 
move must-pass legislation.
  This is not the first year that the regular appropriations process 
has broken down, but I urge us all to work on a bipartisan basis to 
ensure that it will be the last. Let us call a truce to the perennial 
warfare that we fight over these appropriations bills. Let us stop the 
drift that leads us to short cut the deliberative function of this 
Senate and all too often produces mammoth omnibus bills with everything 
but grandpa's false teeth thrown in. This is one grandpa who does not 
have false teeth. Mine would not go in.
  Huge omnibus appropriations bills make a mockery of the legislative 
process, and sending appropriations bills direct to conference without 
Senate action on them also makes a mockery of the legislative process. 
For FY 1997, 1999, and 2000, Congress resorted to the adoption of 
omnibus appropriations acts which contained a number of appropriations 
bills, some of which had never been brought up in the Senate. Those 
omnibus acts also contained massive amounts of legislative matter, as 
well as tax cuts--legislative matter that never saw the light of day on 
the Senate floor.
  For fiscal year 1999, the omnibus appropriations package enacted at 
the end of the session contained eight appropriations bills, as well as 
a tax bill totaling some $9.2 billion, and more than 60 major 
legislative proposals. Appropriations subcommittee chairmen and ranking 
members were not involved in a number of major decisions in their areas 
of jurisdiction, nor were the full committee chairmen and ranking 
members included in the decisions regarding the tax bill or the major 
legislative proposals. In all, that FY 1999 omnibus package totaled 
some 3,980 pages. It was wrapped together and run off on copy machines 
and presented to the two Houses as an unamendable conference report. 
That measure provided funding of nearly $500 billion and more than half 
of 3,980 pages contained legislative provisions. No one could possibly 
have known everything that was included in that omnibus monstrosity, 
just as no Member could have known what was in the omnibus bill for FY 
1997, or for that of FY 2000. But we are headed in that direction 
again.
  When we wait until the end of a session to take action on the 
overwhelming majority of appropriations bills, when we allow ourselves 
to be pressured by time, when we are forced to hurry because we are 
about to adjourn, it is an open invitation to the executive branch to 
sit down at the legislative table.
  The Constitution vests the power of the purse in the legislative 
branch. That is the House and Senate. That is where the Constitution 
vests the power of the purse. Yet the way we are acting, the way we 
delay and the results that come from such delay in the end constitute 
an open invitation for the executive branch to come to the tables.
  In that environment, most Senators are not in the room when the 
decisions are made. The President's men and the President's priorities 
carry great weight. It is late. The President's signature is needed, so 
the White House has the trump hand. Having squandered the whole year on 
meaningless posturing and bickering back and forth--
  I say back and forth. That means both sides. I do not stand here and 
accuse either side of having a monopoly on the bickering. We are all 
involved. But we are much more likely to yield to the administration's 
every demand then to complete our work.
  I am hopeful we can avoid such a process for fiscal year 2001. I am 
encouraged by the fact that a number of conferences are either under 
way or soon will begin. I was in one yesterday afternoon, last evening, 
and this morning.
  I urge the leadership to find a way to bring up the appropriations 
bills which have not seen Senate action for debate and amendment in the 
Senate. I think it would be useful for both leaders, if I might presume 
to make a suggestion, to appoint a group of Senators to discuss these 
remaining appropriations bills, and what amendments our colleagues deem 
most important to be offered. Let us reach out across our respective 
aisles and find a way to do our business without resorting to an always 
contentious, usually counterproductive, lame-duck session. That would 
be the responsible way to do business. That is the fair way to do 
business. That would be the right way to conduct the people's affairs.
  The American public is disenchanted with politics as usual and with 
the constant warfare that seems to continually be waged in Washington. 
We must recommit ourselves to working together in the spirit of 
cooperation to ensure that we find a way to fulfill our duties and our 
oaths of office as U.S. Senators.
  Nobody looks good in this annual mad dash to complete work on 
spending bills that should have been done months before. There are no 
winners here.
  The Republicans don't win; the Democrats don't win. The people lose. 
The result is an institutional erosion that we see going on. The Senate 
is losing its powers, it is losing its prerogatives, they are being 
taken from us, when we do not let bills come up and be debated and be 
amended by Senators. There are no winners.
  There are no gold, silver, or even bronze medalists. When we engage 
in this sloppy, annual relay race to get the job done at all costs, the 
baton always gets dropped, and the losers, once again, are the people 
we represent and the trust they have in us.
  The Senate--the institution, the one place in which the people's 
interests can be debated at length, and where bills can be amended, and 
where a check can be made on the House of Representatives, as the 
framers intended, and where a check can be exercised against an 
overreaching executive branch, when that is short circuited--the Senate 
loses its powers, its prerogatives go by the wayside, and the 
interests, the freedoms, and the liberties of the American people 
suffer.
  It is time that we talk about these things. I am the ranking member 
on the Appropriations Committee. I am very, very, very concerned. I was 
up at 3 o'clock this morning working on a speech, not this one, but one 
that I still intend to make about this very subject.
  Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire 
for his consideration and courtesy in allowing me to go forward. I hope 
I have not kept him waiting unduly.
  Mr. REID. Would my friend from New Hampshire allow me to enter into a

[[Page 18860]]

brief dialog with the Senator from West Virginia? It will be very 
brief.
  I say, through the Chair to my friend from West Virginia, that I do 
not believe the minority got us in this situation we are in. But I do 
say that we will do everything within our power to try to get ourselves 
out of the hole that we are in.
  It is certainly not the intention of the minority to hold up 
Congress, to hold up these appropriations bills. As a longtime member 
of the Appropriations Committee, and someone who has the greatest 
respect and admiration for the ranking member on the Appropriations 
Committee, I think it is important we work with the majority in trying 
to figure out a way out of this. Certainly we are willing to do that.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Democratic whip. I know he is willing to do 
just what he says. He wants to cooperate.
  We have to save this institution. There are Senators in this body who 
have never seen the institution work as it was meant to work. I will 
have more to say about that later. But there are Members in this 
institution who think that this is the way the Senate has always 
worked. It is not. And I am not pointing fingers at anybody. I like 
both leaders. But we have to do something. We just must avoid coming 
back after the election. That is a disservice to the Members of the 
other body. They have done their work on these appropriations bills and 
sent them over here. Now we ought to do ours. And it is a disservice to 
the American people.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, I spent all morning with you in a 
conference on the Interior appropriations bill.
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. REID. It was a difficult bill. But that is the way things are 
supposed to be done around here.
  Mr. BYRD. That is the process.
  Mr. REID. The process. And now, sometime today, there is going to be 
a bill reported out of that conference committee that will be brought 
to the respective bodies that will be approved.
  Mr. BYRD. Absolutely.
  Mr. REID. It is a nice piece of work. If the White House does not 
like it, they can do whatever they want with it, but the legislative 
bodies have spoken. It will pass overwhelming, that bill.
  Mr. BYRD. Yes. We have a duty. We have a responsibility.
  Now, I have been leader. I have been the majority leader, and I have 
been the minority leader, and I have been the majority leader again. I 
know what the problems and the pressures and the travails and the 
tribulations are of a majority leader. And I know what the tribulations 
and trials of a minority leader are. So I am well acquainted with their 
problems. I have had them all. I have been there. My footprints are 
still there. It isn't the quality of our life--that the people send us 
here for. It is the quality of our work on behalf of the people who 
send us here.
  I had bed check votes at 10 o'clock on Monday mornings. There are 
people who sit at the desk in front of me and there are some few 
Senators still in this body who will remember that: Bed check votes at 
10 o'clock on Monday mornings. But I alerted my colleagues: That is 
what we are going to have. And we are going to have votes on Fridays. 
We are not quitting at 12. Now, in return for that, we are going to 
work 3 weeks, and then we are going to be out 1 week. So you can go 
home and see your constituents and get an understanding of what their 
needs are. But 3 weeks we are going to be here. You are off 1 week. We 
are going to be here 3 weeks.
  And they loved it. Senators loved it. They knew I meant business. And 
I took the attitude: If you don't like me as leader--you voted me in--
then you can vote me out. But as long as I am leader, I am going to 
lead. I may not have many who will follow me, but I will do what I 
think is right for this institution.
  Well, my speech did not go over well with a few, but take a look at 
the record of that 100th Congress. That was a great Congress. That is 
the way we worked it.
  I understand--as I say, I like both of our leaders. I personally have 
great admiration for Mr. Lott and for Mr. Daschle. They have their 
problems. And we have to help them. But let's draw back here and think 
of the institution. The most important thing in the world is not for me 
to be reelected. That is not the most important. The most important 
thing is for me to do my duty to this Senate--to the Senate, to the 
Constitution, and to the people who send me here. And if it means I 
have to work early and late, so be it.
  I thank the distinguished Senator, and thank the Senator from New 
Hampshire again.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.

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