[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 18937-18938]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 POLICY ISSUES AND APPROPRIATIONS BILLS

  Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I rise to visit for a moment with my 
colleagues, both Republican and Democratic, about the ongoing debate we 
are having over the appropriateness of having policy issues debated and 
then decided in appropriations bills.
  We are now at the stage in our legislative process in which it looks 
as if we are going to complete our work on the final spending bill for 
the fiscal year that ended a few months ago and that by December 11, 
when the continuing resolution concludes, we very well may have an 
appropriations bill that takes us into the new year completed.
  There are some in the Senate who have argued that within this 
appropriations bill there is no place for policy riders, for provisions 
in that bill that direct in a more specific way how we spend money. I 
would say that is a terrible mistake on the part of Members of the 
Senate to reach that conclusion, and I would say it is wrong for our 
country. It is wrong based upon the Constitution of the United States 
that creates three coequal branches of government.
  In the legislative branch, we know that our role is to legislate, to 
create the laws, to appropriate the money. There cannot be a 
distinction between legislating and appropriating money. They end up 
being the same thing. When we appropriate money, we are directing an 
administration to conduct itself according to that appropriations bill. 
Particularly in this case, we have a few Democrats who are arguing that 
there shouldn't be any policy riders included in that appropriations 
bill. I doubt that we would hear that from Democrats if this were a 
Republican President and a Democratic Congress. In my view, it ought 
not to be any different. Congress's role is to make decisions about how 
money is spent. For too long, Congress has given up the power of the 
purse strings.
  This is a significant development in our constitutional history 
because in giving up the power of the purse strings, we authorize the 
executive branch--that branch of Government that is to execute the 
laws, to administer the laws--to have significantly more power. The 
American people and our Constitution are harmed when any Executive--
this President, previous Presidents, future Presidents--exceeds the 
authority granted to them by the U.S. Constitution. Sometimes I think 
we end up supporting Presidential decisions that we agree with and 
oppose those, obviously, that we disagree with. But the reality is that 
if those decisions are unconstitutional, if they exceed the authority 
that Congress has granted an executive branch, they ought to be denied, 
regardless of whether we agree with those decisions or not. In other 
words, the Constitution should trump.
  In my view, this Congress and many who preceded us have taken the 
opportunity to be in the back seat, granting authority or allowing 
Presidents to consume additional power well beyond the Constitution. I 
am here to encourage my colleagues--Republicans and Democrats--to 
reexert our constitutional grant of authority to legislate. We ought 
not to pay undue deference to an executive branch, whether the 
President is a Republican or a Democrat.
  I would say that in the time I have been a Senator, in this first 
term of my term in office, we have seen an executive branch that has 
continued to increase its power and authority and exceeded, in my view, 
its constitutional grant of authority and in so many instances has 
exceeded the authority granted to them by a statute--a piece of 
legislation passed by the House, passed by the Senate, and sent to the 
President.
  The President should only be able to do those things which are 
granted to him or her by the Constitution or by legislative enactment 
pursuant to the Constitution. That seemingly has been forgotten during 
the recent history of our country. Congress holds the power of the 
purse strings.
  There are many of us--Republicans and Democrats--who would like to 
direct the executive branch in how money is spent. The appropriations 
bill ultimately will determine how much money is spent. But in addition 
to that, we have the ability to direct whether that spending can occur, 
shouldn't occur or how it should occur. I think all of you have heard 
me speak previously, and some of you may remember about a particular 
provision that I wanted included in the Interior and Environment 
appropriations bill related to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service--the 
designation of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species.
  We have had this conversation. In fact, in a bipartisan way, that 
issue was voted on here on the Senate floor. It was approved, but the 
legislation it was attached to did not become law. Now the opportunity 
to instruct a Federal agency arises as we appropriate the money for 
them to operate. There are five States in the middle of the country--
New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma--that have felt the 
consequences of a decision made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
to list the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species. The issue 
that is so troublesome to me is that those five States have come 
together to solve this problem on their own without the heavy hand of 
the Federal Government. Conservation practices were being put in place. 
The U.S. Department of Agriculture was providing technical and 
financial assistance for conservation efforts to landowners to provide 
the incentives to put voluntary conservation practices in place across 
those five States. In my view, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only 
paid lip service to those conservation efforts. Their actions spoke 
louder than the words, and they listed the lesser prairie chicken as 
threatened.
  This decision at that point in time didn't provide enough time for 
local

[[Page 18938]]

plans to prove their effectiveness, and the reality is the problem in 
our State and across that region of the country was that we didn't have 
moisture. We didn't have adequate snowfall. We don't have adequate 
rainfall. When you have little or no rain, you have little or no 
habitat. You can't solve that problem without moisture. Now the rains 
have returned. Over the last 2 years, just as you would predict and as 
common sense would tell us, if there is more rain, there is more 
habitat and there are more birds.
  The most recent census of the lesser prairie chicken indicates that 
in the last 2 years, the population of that bird has increased by 50 
percent. Again, common sense tells us if there is rain and if there is 
moisture, there is habitat and the birds return. As the rainfall has 
returned, the habitat is growing, and it is healthy again. Local 
surveys indicate what we would expect: The bird's population is again 
increasing.
  Therefore, one might think it would be useful to take a second look 
at the listing. Despite our request of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service, they dismissed with little thought that as the species has 
returned, maybe it should no longer be listed. The opportunity that I 
and others have to rein in decisions that we believe are poorly made, 
lack common sense, and are unreasonable occurs in this appropriations 
process. My guess is that all of my colleagues have certain issues on 
which they want to direct a Federal agency about how to behave, what 
rules and regulations are appropriate, where we believe they have 
exceeded their authority or where they simply lack the common sense or 
sound science to have made an appropriate decision.
  There are some who say you shouldn't legislate on an appropriations 
bill. An appropriations bill is a legislative effort, and it would be 
wrong for us not to take the opportunity to direct agencies on behalf 
of the American people, on behalf of the constituents--in my case of 
Kansas--who feel very strongly about this issue and have suffered the 
consequences of the listing of the lesser prairie chicken by the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service.
  Despite the practical reasons that this listing should be reversed, 
the agency is not listening, and we ought to take the opportunity to 
direct their behavior in a legislative way. Whether or not an amendment 
is approved is decided here in the Senate by a majority vote. I would 
tell you that in the case of this issue, the amendment was offered in 
the Appropriations Committee. It is included in the Interior 
appropriations bill. The House has adopted similar language in their 
appropriations bill. So for those who say this is inappropriate, this 
is the legislative process as it should be. This is the Senators and 
the Members of the House of Representatives speaking on behalf of their 
constituents in a very constitutional and appropriate way.
  It is important for us to utilize our authority as Members of 
Congress to make decisions that benefit our country as we see best, and 
we ought to work together to accomplish that. There will be riders--
provisions that are offered that are included in an appropriations 
bill--that I will disagree with, but the appropriations process ought 
to work. As a member of the Appropriations Committee and as a Member of 
the Senate, I want to see us get back to the days in which the power of 
the legislative branch is able to be utilized and we make certain that 
we make decisions on how we spend the money.
  I appreciate the opportunity to be on the Senate floor today to speak 
as we move next week toward the appropriations bill and its conclusion. 
I wish to say that in a bipartisan way, we ought to work together to 
find opportunities to solve the problems that our constituents and 
Americans face. The legislative process is a way that we can do that. 
It is not inappropriate. In fact, it is the constitutional response to 
an abuse of power in an executive branch. Whether it is a Republican 
executive branch or a Democratic executive branch, we ought to work 
together as Members of Congress in utilizing our constitutional 
authority to make appropriate decisions for the American people.

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