[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 25258-25260]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Senator from Alaska and I have, for 
months, been importuning the Senate, the leadership, and anyone else 
who will listen, not to end this session with the passage of an Omnibus 
appropriations bill. I have, for years, opposed passage of Omnibus 
appropriations bills.
  We have seen within these last few years, especially, this 
excrescence on the skin of the body politic grow until now it has 
become malignant.
  I warned and warned and warned against Omnibus appropriations bills. 
I have complained that the leadership of the body has not worked 
diligently to prevent our being caught with our backs against the wall 
at the end of the session and with the absolute necessity at that point 
to act in haste and to act upon many appropriations bills at once, with 
all that portends. That makes it difficult, if not impossible, for 
Members to examine what is in the bill.
  So much of this is done at the hour of midnight and beyond. Staffs 
have to read through these bills and work on them, and Senators who 
cannot do that have to depend upon the work of those staffs. They are 
literally dead, as it were, with fatigue when they do this job this 
way.
  I have, time and time again, said to Senator Stevens: I hope we will 
avoid Omnibus appropriations bills. There is no good served with 
Omnibus appropriations bills. When that happens, we invite the 
executive branch into the exercise. It seems my colleagues, so many of 
them on both sides of the aisle, do not view that as a danger to the 
Senate, a danger to the constitutional system, and really a danger to 
the liberties of the people.
  We should pass 13 appropriations bills every year. I said that time 
and time and time again. The distinguished chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee at this moment, Senator Stevens, has done his 
level best to get 13 appropriations bills passed and brought to the 
floor.
  But I tell you, my friends, we have lost too much time with other 
things that could have waited, and now we find ourselves in the bind, 
when we do not have enough time to do the proper work on these 
appropriations bills. I am sick of this process. I am ashamed of it. I 
do not know if there will ever be a better example of what can happen, 
what can go wrong with this nefarious process of putting off 
legislation.
  Appropriations bills are the only bills we actually have to pass. 
They are bills to keep the Government running. This has to do with the 
oversight process, the examination of witnesses through the 
appropriations hearings. This is the absolute best form of oversight, 
when we can say to a witness from the administration, whatever 
administration it is: How have you done under this qualification here, 
that you would be limited to such and such, a number of dollars? What 
have you done? What has been the result? We are strangulating this 
oversight tool. We are wiping it out when we do not bring to the floor 
these bills on time.
  We get to the pass here. This is the pass. And we are cut off at the 
pass. Oh, we have to do this. We have to do this. We need to cut the 
time on the bill. We need to limit ourselves. Here in this case, only 
two of these appropriations bills have ever passed the Senate. Only two 
this year, right?
  Mr. STEVENS. Four, Senator.

[[Page 25259]]


  Mr. BYRD. Four passed the Senate. In any event, only two of the nine 
bills that are in the omnibus have passed the Senate.
  Mr. STEVENS. That is correct.
  Mr. BYRD. Now, that is a shame. That is a disgrace upon the 
escutcheon of the Senate. I am greatly concerned about that process. I 
have been, and I have many times expressed it to my dear friend, Ted 
Stevens, who has worked his tail off in trying to get these bills 
through the committee and through the Senate.
  Now, we cannot go on like this. We just cannot go on like this. I 
hope other Senators and I hope the leadership on both sides will see 
what can happen when we are brought to the wall, with our backs to the 
wall, and we have to ram through such important legislation without 
giving it careful consideration because we do not have the time and we 
rush these--can you imagine what is happening to the process when we 
approve appropriations bills in the Senate Committee on Appropriations 
and then do not bring those bills to the Senate? We do not bring those 
bills to the Senate.
  I will tell you, friends, I have been in this body now 46 years this 
year, and it was never that way in the old times. We always passed the 
appropriations bills. I believe you will find on the record, we passed 
them, with my help, on both sides of the aisle. I never did anything by 
myself. It was an absolute cooperation between both sides of the aisle 
in the Appropriations Committee. We did not have all of the 
recriminations and the fault finding. We worked together, and we 
brought those 13 bills to the floor, and we acted on them.
  Something badly wrong is happening to the appropriations process in 
the Senate, and I hope and plead with my colleagues that we take a good 
look at what is happening and that we all, as it were, rise up in arms 
against this way of pushing everything to the end of the session.
  We have squandered time. You remember the filibuster one night we had 
here? Remember the filibuster one night? Well, that is just one example 
of how we have foolishly squandered our time. And we have not been in 
here 5 days a week working. How about that? We ought to do better.
  I feel very, very badly about what has happened here. I never knew 
anything about this. I never knew this was in the bill until after I 
got up in the conference today and urged Senators to vote for it.
  Mr. STEVENS. Neither did I.
  Mr. BYRD. I said: I don't like this process. I don't like the fact 
that the minority is being shut out--at least one stage. I do not think 
the minority should ever be shut out. That is not in the book of the 
legislative process. That is not in the legislative process as I taught 
it over at American University. That is not in the legislative process 
as I learned it from those who came before me. That is not in the 
legislative process as it was when I was the majority leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may proceed 
for an additional 10 minutes, if necessary.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair and I thank all Senators.
  And so it is a terrible albatross around the neck of the Senate, and 
it is a terrible disservice to the people of these United States, who 
need to have their Senators examine bills carefully.
  Part of it is our fault. We don't have to be out of here on Mondays. 
We don't have to be out of here on Friday afternoons. They didn't run 
the Senate like that when I was coming up here. I didn't run the Senate 
like that when I was majority leader. I told my own crowd: You elected 
me leader, and you can throw me out if you want to, but as long as I am 
leader, I am going to be leader. I am not here for the pleasure of 
Members. I am here to get the work done. And we worked and we had 
votes. Any of you who were here when I was majority leader, we had what 
were called bed check votes on Monday morning at 10 o'clock.
  So I don't like this process. We are getting paid to work 5 days a 
week, 6 days a week, or 7 days a week, if it is necessary. I hope we 
don't start coming in here on the Sabbath and working. We need to keep 
the Sabbath day holy. But I say to you, my friends, we ought to get 
away from this bog-tailed schedule that we work on here--being in the 
Senate 2 days a week, or 2\1/2\ days.
  So there are many things that can be attributed to the breakdown 
here. There are many complaints that can be made, many fingers can be 
pointed, and many truths can be stated, pointing out where we are 
falling down.
  A number of Senators, may I say, have come to the floor to denounce, 
rather harshly, this provision that was included in the Omnibus 
appropriations bill, which would authorize--I know Ted Stevens; he 
would never want this kind of authority. That is laughable. He would 
never want this kind of authority. I would not either--chairmen of the 
Appropriations Committee and their designees to access the tax returns 
of companies and individuals. Why, this is a slam at the integrity of 
the Appropriations Committees of the two Houses, and especially it is a 
terrible thing to have somebody put this in a bill and lay this burden 
on the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. We don't want that. I 
have been chairman and I would not want that kind of authority.
  I want to thank Senator Stevens for coming to the floor and pledging 
to do what he can to correct this problem. I recognize that is not his 
fault. It is the inevitable result of a horrendous process that has 
developed in these last few years. You can go back and see the record 
for yourselves. The record speaks and the record tells the truth.
  I want to assure my colleagues that I knew nothing of this provision 
until after I had made my fine speech in the caucus talking about this 
bill, how good it was and how bad it was, and then urged Senators to 
vote for it, saying that it was better than having a continuing 
resolution. And lo and behold, the distinguished Senator from North 
Dakota got up right behind me and he and the Senator from Montana 
pointed out that this language was in the bill. I had not seen it. If I 
had known about it, I would have been the first Senator to the floor to 
deplore it. I would have done everything in my power to keep it from 
being included. It is egregious and it ought to make every Senator 
hopping mad at the process that caused it, at the process that caused 
this in the wee hours of the night--to have our staffs operate with 
fatigue in going over these matters.
  Why do we have to do it in the wee hours of the night? Because you 
are up against the gun, up against the deadline.
  Look at this massive piece of work that must be examined. This is 
what happens--I will say it again--when the Congress writes legislation 
behind closed doors. This is what happens when the Congress tries to 
cobble together nine appropriations bills, seven of which have never 
been considered by the Senate, into an Omnibus appropriations bill. 
This is exactly why we failed the people out there who are watching 
through those electronic lenses. We fail the American people when we 
cannot complete the appropriations process on time.
  I think it is a disservice to the chairman of the committee and to 
Senators who try hard to keep things going here and to move on a 
schedule that will get us through and not keep us waiting until the end 
of the session, when it is too late to act with care and to properly 
operate the oversight process. We open ourselves up to these kinds of 
abuses.
  I am told that the Senate now will do something about this. We have 
already allowed a unanimous consent request here that has been agreed 
to. I hope--that isn't quite enough--the majority leader, who was here 
a moment ago, will try to get a commitment from the Speaker of the 
House.
  Mr. STEVENS. We have that.
  Mr. BYRD. Very well. I am told by my colleague, Senator Stevens, that 
we have that commitment. Well and good. They will join the Senate in 
passing the joint resolution to remove this provision. I am also 
concerned about what the distinguished Senator from

[[Page 25260]]

North Dakota brought up when he spoke of the fact that when a bill is 
passed into law, it is a law, and it is either going to be repealed or 
vetoed. We need to hear from the leaders of both bodies that this 
provision will be removed, and we need also to hear from the leaders of 
both bodies that this won't happen again.
  I myself had said that I would vote for this bill. I am going to vote 
against it out of protest against this awful process. I have campaigned 
against this process on the floor; I have urged that we not let 
ourselves get into a situation wherein we have to nail together, tape 
together, put together pieces of appropriations bills, and whole 
appropriations bills, and come out with an Omnibus appropriations bill. 
And now we are going to be faced with a conference report that we 
cannot amend. So I will vote against this process. I will not support a 
process that results in this kind of chicanery. I thank all Senators 
for listening.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.

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