[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 25480-25481]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                            EDUCATION BUDGET

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have now served on the Senate 
Appropriations Committee and the Labor, Health and Human Services, and 
Education Subcommittee. I have been on that committee 15 years. Each 
year when we pass the budget for education and health, there are always 
tough negotiations, but we always manage to get through it and we get 
it to the President and move ahead.
  This year we had some long and tough negotiations on our bill. The 
first part of the year, the majority leader of the Senate said 
education was going to be their priority. Yet here we are at the end of 
the year--actually at the beginning of the new fiscal year; we are a 
month into the new fiscal year--and we still do not have our education 
budget through yet. It is going to be the last bill through.
  We have been working very hard over the last several weeks to bring 
this bill to its final conclusion. First of all, the chairman of our 
appropriations subcommittee, Senator Specter, worked very hard this 
year to get it through our committee and to get it through the Senate. 
Then we went to conference, and we have been locked in conference now 
for the better part of 3 months, most of it over the last month working 
out these differences, as we do on bills.
  Last night, Sunday night, we met for what was supposed to be our 
final negotiating process on the education budget. We started meeting 
last night after our vote in the Senate, so that must have been around 
8 or 9 p.m. We met until almost 2 a.m. There were tough

[[Page 25481]]

negotiations. Senator Stevens, as chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee, Congressman Bill Young from Florida on the House side, 
Congressman Porter, Congressman Obey, the ranking Democrat on the House 
Appropriations Committee and on the subcommittee that deals with 
education, and I and, of course, the Director of OMB, Mr. Lew, was 
there also.
  As I said, we had tough negotiations, but we had it down to about 
four or five issues, finally, and we hammered them out.
  Finally, at about 1:30 a.m. this morning, we reached our agreement. 
As is usually true of any agreement or compromise, there are things in 
the compromise that I do not like. I am sure there were things in there 
Senator Stevens does not like. There are items in there that 
Congressman Porter, a Republican from the House, and Congressman Obey 
do not like. Together we decided this was the best package we could do, 
and we all shook hands on it.
  Today, thinking we had finally reached an agreement on this important 
education bill, I find out that Majority Whip DeLay has turned his 
thumbs down on it, and so did Majority Leader Armey turn his thumbs 
down on it. Evidently, Speaker Hastert has said the same thing.
  What are we doing here? Why do we even have committees? Why don't we 
just let Speaker Hastert and Congressman DeLay and Congressman Armey 
deal with everything?
  The reason we have the committees is because people such as Senator 
Stevens know these issues. He has been working on these issues for 
years. And Congressman Porter and Congressman Young and Congressman 
Obey and Senator Specter and myself, we know these issues. We know the 
ins and outs of these issues. We have been working on them a long time.
  I am not on the Commerce-State-Justice Committee, so I could not 
negotiate on that because I do not know all the ins and outs of it, and 
neither does Congressman DeLay or Congressman Armey or Congressman 
Hastert know that. Yet they turned thumbs down on this deal we struck 
last night.
  Senator Stevens worked long and hard to reach this agreement. I am 
sure he was not happy with everything that was in it, just as I was 
not. But Senator Stevens dealt in good faith. We gave our word. We 
shook hands on it. So did Congressman Bill Young. I have worked with 
Congressman Young for 15 years--and Congressman Porter and Congressman 
Obey. We reached our agreements. We walked out of the room at 1:30 a.m. 
And today, Congressman DeLay and Congressman Armey say: No.
  I do not know. I feel very badly for Senator Stevens and the others 
who worked very hard on this, gave their word, shook hands. We had the 
agreement.
  What is at stake here? Is this all just an inside ball game, that it 
shouldn't bother anybody outside the beltway? Here is what is at stake.
  In education: Pell grants, some of the largest increases ever in Pell 
grants; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, giving money out 
to the States to help pay for the education of kids with disabilities; 
class size reduction, hiring more schoolteachers to reduce class size; 
school modernization so we can get money out to our schools so they can 
repair and fix up their schools. The average age of our schools in 
America is 42 years. They need to be fixed up. We had money for that.
  In health care, medical research: All the money for NIH for medical 
research; all the money for our community health centers that are doing 
so much to help our uninsured people in this country with health care; 
an important cancer-screening program for breast and cervical cancer 
for women.
  Child care: One of the biggest increases that we have ever had for 
child care.
  These issues are too important to be playing politics at this late 
moment. That is what is happening on the House side--pure politics.
  Again, I hope this is just a temporary setback. Congressman Armey, 
Congressman DeLay, and Speaker Hastert are talking about things that 
they do not understand. I am hopeful they will meet with Congressman 
Young and Senator Stevens, who understand that we had an agreement. Not 
everyone liked it, but it was a good agreement. It was one that we 
could live with, and one that I felt the President could sign.
  So these issues are much too important for our Nation's future, for 
our kids' future, for the health of women--too important for these 
kinds of partisan games this late in the year.
  I just want to take this time to urge our friends on the House side 
to not play games with this important education bill. We have to get 
this money out. We are already a month into our fiscal year. Our 
colleges, our school boards, our State departments of education need to 
know, need to have this money out there, so we can continue to hire 
teachers and reduce class size and modernize our schools.
  We need to get the money out there for breast and cervical cancer 
screening for women all over America. What we do not need is the kind 
of interference that we have had by Congressman DeLay and Congressman 
Armey and Congressman Hastert on the House side.
  Now is the time to pull together, as we did last night. This was a 
true bipartisan effort. Republicans in the House, Democrats in the 
House, Republicans in the Senate, and Democrats in the Senate worked 
together and we got an agreement. That is the way this place should 
work. Senator Stevens led it on the Senate side, Congressman Young on 
the House side. We got our agreements. It is too bad we see this last 
minute kind of partisan bickering from the House leadership.
  Again, I am hopeful this is a temporary setback. Let's get our 
education bill done. Let's get it to the President so he can sign it, 
so we can move ahead with the necessary task of educating our kids in 
this country. It is, indeed, a sad day today when we see what happened 
in education.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, before I yield to the Senator from Louisiana 
the remainder of the time, I just want to say to the Senator from Iowa, 
who is the subcommittee ranking Democrat, who has done such a 
remarkable job, I could sense from your voice in your presentation you 
were up most of the night working on this. It is not just last night 
that you worked on it; you have worked on this bill for months----
  Mr. HARKIN. Months.
  Mr. REID. And months and months. It is a great bill. It does so much 
for the American people. And there are no accolades here for you today, 
as there should be, because you have done such a remarkably good job of 
not only working that bill but making sure that the people in this 
Senate and the people around the country understand those people who 
have no voice.
  This subcommittee, of which you are the ranking member, is a 
subcommittee that does not have a lot of lobbyists working for the 
underprivileged. There are a lot of people working against them. We 
depend on you. We, on this side of the aisle, depend on you. And you 
are very dependable. I personally appreciate, as we all do over here, 
the great work you have done.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator from Nevada for his very kind 
remarks. I would just say to him, also, that, quite frankly, we had 
great cooperation from Senator Stevens on the Republican side in 
getting this bill through. He worked very hard on it, too. I just want 
to make that point because it is just a darn shame that in these last 
hours we have gotten thrown into this partisan thing on the House side 
by the House leadership.
  I thank the Senator.
  Mr. REID. Senator Stevens works very hard on everything he does.
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes.
  Mr. REID. I yield the remainder of our time to the Senator from 
Louisiana.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Six minutes.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Chair.

                          ____________________