[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12671-12673]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 5011

  Mr. REID. Madam President, the Republican leader is on the floor. I 
will propound a unanimous consent request. This relates to H.R. 5011, 
the military construction appropriations bill.
  I ask unanimous consent that a time to be determined by the majority 
leader, following consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 486, H.R. 5011, the 
military construction appropriations bill; and that it be considered 
under the following limitations: that immediately after the bill is 
reported, all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of 
Calendar No. 479, S. 2709, the Senate committee-reported bill, be 
inserted in lieu thereof; that debate time on the bill and substitute 
amendment be limited to a total of 45 minutes, with an additional 20 
minutes under the control of Senator McCain; that the only other 
amendment in order be an amendment offered by Senators Feinstein and 
Hutchison of Texas which is at the desk, with debate limited to 10 
minutes on the Feinstein and Hutchison of Texas amendment; that upon 
the use or yielding back of time on the amendment, without further 
intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to vote on adoption of 
the amendment; that all debate time not already identified in this 
agreement be equally divided and controlled between the Chair and 
ranking member of the subcommittee or their designee; that upon the 
disposition of the Feinstein-Hutchison amendment and the use or 
yielding back of the time, the substitute amendment, as amended, be 
agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read three times; that section 303 
of the Congressional Budget Act be considered waived; and the Senate 
then vote on passage of the bill; that upon passage of the bill, the 
Senate insist on its amendment and then request a conference with the 
House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses; and that the Chair be 
authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate without 
further intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, reserving the right to object, first, I 
would say that I am glad we have reached the point where we are 
prepared to start trying to move some appropriations bills. We are way 
late in the year. But ordinarily, we move anywhere from as few as five 
to as many as nine in July. I hope we can begin to get on a roll here 
pretty soon on the appropriations bills because there are a lot of 
things we need to do, but there are a few things we must do. One of 
them is, we have to pass the bills to fund the Government for the next 
fiscal year, and the fiscal year ends the 1st of October.
  I am glad this is being asked for consideration now. I want to thank 
the managers and both sides of the aisle for allowing time for Senator 
McCain and others to review the managers' package. I understand that 
has been worked out and has been cleared. I think this is a good way to 
consider this legislation.
  There may be objection, but I want the Record to reflect that I 
strongly support this unanimous consent request and I support this 
legislation. It is more than what the President asked for in this 
particular category, but it still has to go to conference. I hope that 
it can be worked out in such a way that it would be acceptable to the 
President.
  There are those who are worried that any time a bill of this nature 
moves through the process, they lose an opportunity for critical 
matters to be considered. For instance, let me be specific, because I 
think Senator Kyl may talk about this, there are those from the West 
and maybe other areas that have had fires in their States--we know some 
of those in Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico--and floods, such as the 
one they have had in Texas. There has probably been well in excess of 
$1 billion used, involved in fighting the fires. Now that is going to 
be needed to deal with the floods in Texas.
  Those funds have been provided by transfer of funds from other 
accounts. One of two things is going to happen: We are going to 
replenish the funds taken from those accounts or those accounts are 
going to come up short. Understandably, the Senators from the States 
affected want to make sure there is going to be an opportunity for them 
to provide the funds that have been used or replace the funds that have 
been used to make sure money is there for upcoming needs.
  I am sympathetic to that. I don't think this is the last train out of 
the Senate. If this bill moves, there will be another one, and 
hopefully we will be moving two or three appropriations bills every 
week.
  There may be other considerations about what do we do if we don't get 
an agreement on the supplemental this week. I hope that within the next 
24 hours something can be worked out on the supplemental appropriations 
bill, which, by the way, has been hanging around now for over 100 days, 
probably closer to 120 days by now. It is time to get an agreement. At 
some point, if we don't get the supplemental funds, we may wind up not 
having adequate funds for our airport security workers, the 
Transportation Security Agency, and it will begin to affect the Defense 
Department. I hope we can get all of this worked out.
  I am sympathetic to those worried about that and the fires. But I 
don't think that is justification for not moving forward on the 
military construction appropriations bill. I support this request. I 
want the Record to be clear about how I feel about the request and the 
legislation.
  With that, I withdraw my reservation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I know there is another reservation, but I 
just want to respond to the leader because I want him to be able to 
retire to his office when he feels necessary.
  I had the opportunity to chair the Military Construction Subcommittee 
and worked as ranking member. It is an extremely important subcommittee 
for the military. With what has been going on in Afghanistan, it is 
compounded as to its importance. That is why the two Senators who run 
this committee, the Senators from California and Texas, Mrs. Feinstein 
and Mrs. Hutchison, have worked so hard getting it in a posture that 
has been signed off by literally everyone, including Senator McCain, 
who has reviewed the work done. They have done a wonderful job.
  I would also say to my friend from Arizona, Nevada, last year and the 
year before, was scourged with terrible fires. We didn't have forest 
fires; we had range fires that burned millions of acres. We were able 
to get money to help replenish those rangelands so depleted as a result 
of the fires.
  I have been here a long time. I never remember a time when we did not 
respond to take care of the needs caused by fires in this country. Most 
of the fires occur in the West. We have always handled that.
  We have 12 other appropriations bills coming through here. With all 
due respect, I say to the junior Senator from Arizona, this is not the 
time to hold up this legislation. There are at least 12 other bills. We 
reported another one out of the committee today.
  I would say to my friend, the Republican leader, I had the 
opportunity to speak to Senator Byrd a short time ago. There is hope 
that the supplemental conference will be completed tomorrow. Great 
progress is being made. I hope we can move forward on this bill. This 
is so important that we get it out of here and get it to the House.
  I have no doubt, as tight as money is, that we will take care of the 
fire needs of the western part of the United States. We always take 
care of emergency needs, whether it is fire or flood. We will do so in 
the future.

[[Page 12672]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Madam President, I object, and I would like to explain the 
reason why. I concur with the comments Senator Lott has made about the 
importance of moving this legislation forward. I have conferred with 
the ranking member of the committee, the Senator from Texas, who makes 
a strong case that the legislation has been carefully crafted, and it 
is important to move it forward. I totally concur with her on that.
  I also have no problem with the way in which the unanimous consent 
agreement has been constructed in terms of moving forward as soon as it 
is possible to do so. I have no objection to any of that.
  I do simply want to, as the minority leader said, preserve the option 
of dealing with the subject of the recent floods and droughts on this 
appropriation bill. The reason is as follows: The ranking member of the 
committee, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and the 
ranking member of the Energy and Water Subcommittee are all meeting 
today with other people, including the Director of the OMB, the Senator 
from Texas, and others, to try to figure out the best way to deal with 
the new issue of the fire and flood and drought damages that have 
occurred in this country since the supplemental appropriations bill was 
put together.
  My personal view is that the supplemental would probably be a 
preferable place to include the disaster relief to replenish the funds 
for the forest fires to the BIA and the Forest Service. There are 
those, however, who disagree. If the Director of OMB and chairman and 
ranking member of the Appropriations Committee believe that it is not 
appropriate to use the supplemental as the vehicle for doing that, then 
one of the other appropriations bills will be appropriate, and the 
first one before us is the military construction bill. That would be 
the next appropriate vehicle.
  I am simply preserving their option to decide which is the best 
vehicle for moving this forward. The reason specifically for wanting to 
do it right now--in response to the Senator from Nevada, I am confident 
that we will deal with this issue because it has to be dealt with.
  Here is the very practical problem. We have had about one-fourth of 
the entire budget of the Forest Service now consumed in fighting forest 
fires; whereas, ordinarily it is something like 4 percent of their 
budget, or something like that. So they have borrowed from other 
accounts in order to pay these firefighters.
  The fires in Arizona cost almost $50 million to fight. As a result, 
they have had to borrow that money from other accounts. The result of 
that is that right after the fire is over, before it is even cool, they 
will not be able to go into the area of these fires and prevent the 
erosion that inevitably occurs as soon as the rains start, and now the 
rainy season is beginning, and the planting of the grasses and trees 
and so on that further inhibits that erosion. They literally want to go 
in as soon as they can after the fire to stabilize the ground. If they 
wait too long, it doesn't do any good. So they have to do that right 
away.
  The problem is, they have spent all the money in the restoration 
accounts. The head of the Forest Service put a stop on the expenditure 
of any money that doesn't have to be spent almost on an emergency or 
daily operations basis. So right now, both the Department of the 
Interior and the Department of Agriculture are significantly precluded 
from doing the other things Congress mandated that they do.
  We need to make sure they know they are going to have the funds to 
restore those accounts so they can get on with the jobs we have asked 
them to do; and, most importantly, in the very near term they can get 
into the area of these fires and begin the restoration that is 
essential in a timely fashion. That is why the first vehicle in terms 
of an appropriations bill that can be used should be used for this 
process--whether it is the supplemental or this appropriations bill.
  There have been suggestions that the Interior Appropriations bill 
would be a better vehicle. From a purely substantive point of view, 
that is true, but that will not come before us for another month, or 6 
weeks, or 2 months. That is, obviously, way too late.
  That is the reason why we need to preserve this particular option. I 
hope we can move quickly to the consideration of the MILCON bill, both 
for the purpose of completing the work of the Senator from Texas, as 
well as the work we are talking about.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I am the ranking member of the 
Military Construction Subcommittee. I have worked very hard with 
Senator Feinstein, the chairman of that committee, to produce a bill 
that takes into account all of the priorities of the Department of 
Defense, the administration, and the Members' requests. I think we have 
done a good job. We didn't give every Member everything they asked for, 
of course, but I think we have done a terrific job in meeting the needs 
of the military and the requests of the administration.
  We need to pass this bill. I appreciate the support of Senator Lott, 
along with, of course, Senator Reid and Senator Daschle and Senator 
Feinstein, that we need to move this forward. However, I wanted to say 
that although Senator Kyl has objected--and I disagree with his 
decision to do so--I understand his frustration, and Senator Reid said 
he understands his frustration. We see it every night on the news--the 
fighting of these incredible fires, people being put out of their 
homes, ruining vast hundreds of thousands of acres of our forestland in 
this country, and we are running out of money.
  I hope that people have also seen the floods in my home State of 
Texas. The Governor is now saying that the damage is estimated to be $2 
billion. It only happened last week, so I cannot tell you exactly what 
we are going to need to clean up the floods. But I know that the people 
are suffering. I am going to be there tomorrow with Joe Albaugh, head 
of FEMA, to look at the damage myself because I want to make sure we 
are doing the right thing for the people of Arizona, the people of 
Colorado, the people of New Mexico, the people of Idaho, and the people 
of Texas. We have always done that.
  So I understand Senator Kyl's frustration. I am sorry he is holding 
up this bill, but I am committed to seeking a vehicle for an amendment 
that would ensure that the money is there to fight the forest fires in 
this country and to clean up the flood damage that we see happening in 
Texas. We will do that. We will find the vehicle to do it. I commit 
that we will. We are not going to appropriate money that isn't needed. 
We are going to have a contingency appropriation so that if the money 
is needed, it is there.
  We all want to be careful with taxpayer dollars, but there has never 
been an earthquake, or a flood, or a fire that we have not responded to 
as a country and said we are not going to let people suffer when they 
have nowhere to turn but to us. We will be there for them. So I am 
committed to trying to find the right vehicle. I want to make the 
decision now so we can get on with MILCON. If military construction is 
the right vehicle, let's put that emergency appropriation on military 
construction. I would prefer to see it on the supplemental 
appropriations on which we are having a conference tomorrow. I would 
like to put it there.
  This is an emergency. We have had a change in circumstances since the 
President sent his request to Congress. It seems to me that it is 
common sense that we have had a change in circumstances that would 
warrant a change in the cap. That would be the preferred way to handle 
this emergency, which we all acknowledge we need to do. If we cannot do 
that, I want the commitment for Senator Kyl, for Senator Domenici, for 
the Senator from Colorado, that we will handle this issue. So if it is 
not going to be on the supplemental, then I am willing to try to help 
them put it on military construction. If it is not military 
construction, then I don't think we will be handling any appropriations 
bills until

[[Page 12673]]

we get a commitment to address this issue.
  I yield the floor to my colleague from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I don't need the Senator to yield for a question, but I 
will talk for a moment. Sometime yesterday I raised this issue when 
most of the Republican Senators were in a meeting. It seemed, from the 
feedback, that most of them agreed with the comments that were made 
then. Essentially, we don't often have this situation, but what really 
happened--I used the word ``yesterday''--the supplemental has been 
around here for so long that it has run into a new problem. It ran into 
the problem of forest fires--huge ones--and into flooding that has been 
described by those who come from States where flooding has occurred. 
But there is no question that the forest fires and the floods, because 
they came a long time after these urgent supplementals, should have 
cleared it.
  In normal times you would be beyond the supplemental and you would be 
waiting for something else; but the supplemental bumped right into the 
fires and the floods, it took so long to get its rightful place here on 
the Senate floor. It didn't seem to be very urgent when it took 2 
months to get done. But now we want to try to live by the facts the 
White House put into the budget before this new set of facts occurred. 
After that meeting yesterday, I was very pleased to note that the 
distinguished Republican leader joined with us and submitted to the 
White House, to the Budget Director for the executive branch the fact 
that this was going to happen sooner or later, that most of the people 
we had talked to and that he had talked to--and shortly thereafter we 
started talking with Democrats--that there was going to be substantial 
support, if not 100 percent.
  So I am pleased that we are at a point where we are going to put this 
amendment on one of the bills.
  I understand our distinguished ranking member of Appropriations has 
concurred with others and doesn't want it put on the supplemental. That 
is all right with me, provided we are standing in line with commitments 
from those who we need commitments from, that the fire and flood money 
will be on the next appropriations bill that comes by. Since I don't 
want to take additional time, I assume that is where we are.
  I will ask the Senator from Nevada a question: Are we now at a point 
where we are going to decide on which appropriations bill we are going 
to be free to put the emergency language for the floods and the fires?
  Mr. REID. I say to the distinguished senior Senator from New Mexico 
that we are trying to move these bills.
  I cannot imagine that Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens would have the 
fire money in the military construction bill. We reported, as the 
Senator knows, another bill out of the committee, the legislative 
branch appropriations bill. There are other bills coming up. As the 
Senators from New Mexico and Arizona said, fire money should be in the 
supplemental, but it is not. I just do not think it is going to be in 
the military construction bill. That is why we should get it out of the 
Senate and get it to the President. There are some significant military 
needs that will be satisfied.
  I say to my friend who is so aware of everything that goes on around 
here because of his position on the Appropriations Committee and the 
Budget Committee, I can never ever remember a time when we have not 
taken care of fire needs and the flood needs of this country, and we 
will do it this year also. If there needs to be another supplemental, 
we will do that, or if we have to put the money in the Interior 
appropriations bill or other bills, we will do that. I just do not 
think this is the vehicle on which to do it.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I said yesterday that I do not 
recall--I have been here a few years longer than the Senator from 
Nevada--a situation where we would not pay for an emergency of forest 
fires and the damages and costs that ensued.
  Frankly, there are a lot of people in the West, particularly in 
Nevada and my State, who have seen these fires and now hear on the 
television that the Forest Service does not have money in its budget to 
pay for them. They do. They are borrowing from another account.
  As the Senator said and I have said, they are going to get reimbursed 
shortly. The sooner we do it, the sooner we keep faith with the 
hundreds of thousands of people in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, 
and Colorado who have been watching. It would be good if it is sooner 
rather than later. While we are paying for many things, we should pay 
for their account also. I assume that is what you are going to try to 
do in the Senate.
  Mr. REID. Yes, and I say to my friend, these moneys are so important 
to the people of our respective States, there is no question about 
that. I think it is a shame, for lack of a better description, that we 
do not have it in the supplemental. I repeat that. If there ever was an 
emergency, this is it. We have not budgeted for these moneys, and the 
fire that swept Arizona is 400,000 acres.
  We had a fire in Nevada at Lake Tahoe--we are so thankful it did not 
ravage that basin--of only 1,000 acres. In the last 2 years, we have 
had over 2 million acres burn in Nevada, not forestland but rangeland.
  We need to take care of this emergency. It should be done in the 
supplemental, but the majority leader, myself, and anyone on this side 
who has jurisdiction will do whatever we can to speed this up as 
quickly as possible.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator. I say to those who want to make 
sure the supplemental not only passes but is signed, the Senator from 
New Mexico is on their side. I am with them. I am certainly not going 
to do anything to delay that, although it does seem strange to this 
Senator, an urgent supplemental, which is intended for urgent 
supplemental needs, would have to be isolated from this need because 
some kind of arrangement has been made. The arrangement comes very 
late, but it is an effort to get the bill done and to get the important 
parties to agree.
  I yield the floor.

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