Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. In view of that, Mr. President, I yield the floor. I urge my colleagues to adopt the amendment. Mr. HATFIELD addressed the Chair.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I have great respect for the Senator from Oregon. If he is confident with the Senate position with regard to this, I know that the $13 million rescission in this homeless assistance was also adopted by the House. Since we would not be adopting the rescission, I think it is very important that we would go to conference intending to prevail on that issue. If I have the assurance of the Senator from Oregon that he believes that will happen without a rollcall vote, then I will defer to him.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Based on that assurance, Mr. President, I will not ask for a rollcall vote at this time and allow the amendment to be voice voted. I urge all my colleagues to support it. I think it is a major improvement in the legislation, and hope it will be adopted.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask the manager of the bill, the Senator from Oregon, if it is appropriate to send an amendment to the desk. He indicates it is. Amendment No. 426 to Amendment No. 420 (Purpose: To restore funding for programs under the Community Services Block Grant Act)

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today with my good friend and distinguished colleague, Senator Domenici, to reintroduce a bill on behalf of our constituents, the people of the Pueblo of Isleta in New Mexico. The Senate approved and passed an identical version of this measure in the previous Congress. Unfortunately, the House adjourned before its Members were able to take action on our bill, but a similar measure was approved by the House in the 102d Congress. The legislation we are introducing today will provide authority for New Mexico's Pueblo of Isleta to file an aboriginal land claim in the United States Court of Federal Claims under the Indian Claims Act. The bill does not pass judgment on the claim or give the Pueblo priority on the court's docket. If, however, the Pueblo of Isleta proves to the court that it does indeed have a valid claim of aboriginal land use and occupancy, then appropriate monetary compensation would be determined by the court. In April 1992, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Law and Governmental Relations held a hearing on an early version of our bill. During that hearing, testimony made clear that the Pueblo of Isleta--like all the Pueblo Tribes in New Mexico--had standing to pursue land claims under the Indian Claims Act of 1946. Under the act, claims could be based either on title to the land or aboriginal use, but all claims must have been filed by 1951. Unfortunately, due to incomplete or improper advice from counsel, the Pueblo of Isleta filed only a limited claim based on a Spanish land grant, to which there was a written record, before the 1951 deadline. According to tribal leaders, their fore-fathers were not informed by counsel that they could file a claim based on aboriginal land use. Significantly, the Pueblo's counsel was a Bureau of Indian Affairs official who was later found by the court to have given erroneous advice on a similar matter to the Pueblo of Zuni. Like many other tribes, the Pueblos of Zuni and Isleta were completely dependent on the Bureau of Indian Affairs for advice and assistance regarding land claims during the 1940's and 1950's. Mr. President, this legislation would simply allow the Pueblo of Isleta to pursue a claim today, much like legislation Congress approved some years ago for the Pueblo of Zuni. Again, the bill does not give the Pueblo priority on the court's docket, and it does not pass judgement on the claim itself. The people of the Pueblo of Isleta are entitled to their day in court. This bill assures them of that right. I urge my colleagues to support its swift passage. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to offer a bill to correct an inequity that has developed along our border with Mexico with respect to tariffs on goods crossing the border. The United States currently permits duty-free entry of $400 of retail goods for personal consumption each month. There is a 10-percent duty on the next 1,000 dollars' worth of purchases brought into the United States. Mexico, by contrast, limits the amount of goods that can be imported for personal consumption to $50 per day. Goods above that amount have a duty of approximately 33 percent. Mr. President, this difference in policy obviously hampers trade along our borders. It is yet another burden on our border businesses, which are also currently struggling with the adverse effects of the peso crisis on the ability of Mexican citizens to purchase goods in the United States. Before introducing this legislation in the 103d Congress, I had hoped that this problem could be corrected administratively. I wrote to the Secretary of I also contacted the Commissioner of Customs in our country and President Salinas in Mexico. All, ultimately, to no avail. I still believe that there are two tracks we can take to persuade the Government of Mexico to increase its duty-free limit, and I believe that we should pursue both of them. The first is to get our Government to negotiate with the Government of Mexico to equalize the duties. My good friend and colleague from Arizona, Senator DeConcini, who retired at the end of the 103d Congress, inserted language in the fiscal year 1995 Commerce, State, Justice appropriations report that would direct the U.S. Trade Representative to make doing so a priority. It is my understanding that USTR officials have raised the issue in trade talks, but that the issue has yet to be resolved. Until it is resolved, I believe that we should pursue a second track, that of changing the exemption provided for in our tariff laws to match that of Mexico's. Together, these two actions can help ensure that retail businesses on both sides of the border are on the same footing. So, today, I rise to again offer legislation that would equalize the amount of personal retail goods that can cross the border duty-free in either direction. This legislation simply says that our duty will not be lower than Mexico's.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. That, to my mind, would be a restriction. That would be a limit or condition or otherwise restrict the President's authority to spend, because it would say, ``You cannot spend more than $100 million.''

Mr. BINGAMAN. OK. Madam President, I have delayed the Senate long enough. Let me just conclude by making a general statement. I think what we are faced with, with this amendment--and I think it is a conscientious effort by the Senator from Michigan and the Senator from Alaska to come up with some way of sorting out a separation of the appropriating process from the policymaking process. That is what they are trying to do here, as I understand it. They are trying to preserve to the Congress the ability to make policy while granting to the President dramatic new powers with regard to the actual appropriating of funds or the prevention of funds from being appropriated. That is what I understand is going on. I think it is very, very difficult to sort those things out. I think it is very difficult to grant to the President one power and reserve to the Congress the accompanying power--which is what this amendment is trying to do. I think it may go a short distance in getting us to that, but I think the grant of authority, if the bill which is pending before us is adopted, as I gather it is going to be--the grant of authority is broad and the President, I think, would find that he has very broad authority to countermand policy decisions by the Congress through the use of this new veto power that we would be granting in this legislation. Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. BINGAMAN. So it would not be limited just to the current fiscal year; is that correct, Madam President?

Mr. BINGAMAN. All right. Let me ask one other question here, Madam President, just to try to get a clear notion. The language of the amendment talks about language which ``rescinds or cancels existing budget authority.'' I guess I have two questions on that. What do we mean by ``existing'' and what do we mean by ``budget authority''? Are we talking about just this current fiscal year's rescissions? And, if so, is it appropriate to just limit or just exclude from the definition of ``item'' rescissions of budget authority? Or should we also be excluding from the definition of ``items'' rescissions of appropriations, as well?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I guess I still have a concern in talking about language that ``conditions * * * an item of appropriation not involving a positive allocation of funds.'' I did not know there were any items of appropriation that did not involve positive allocations of funds. I thought----

Mr. BINGAMAN. Let me ask, on the third subsection of this where it talks about--again, we are trying to define items and saying that items do not include conditions--language which ``conditions on an item of appropriation not involving a positive allocation of funds.'' Madam President, my concern is that I thought all items of appropriation were, by definition, positive allocations of funds. That is what I thought an appropriation was. It was an allocation of funds for a purpose. Here we are saying that we are not going to include in the definition of item language which ``conditions on an item of appropriation not involving a positive allocation of funds. * * *'' I do not understand that language. It sounds to me entirely contradictory. I am obviously missing something.

Mr. BINGAMAN. So the view of the Senator from Michigan is that that kind of a proviso does not constitute an implied obligation to expend those funds?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, let me go at this slightly differently. And I am not trying to delay my colleagues here. I do have legitimate questions that I wanted to ask. If I could get one other example for the Senator from Michigan to respond to. Considering this option, ``Of the $1 billion appropriated for research and development, not more than $100 million shall be spent on'' a specific project. Is that an earmark? I guess that is the question. Even though it does not mandate that $100 million be spent, it is a strong signal by the Congress that we intend that $100 million be available and spent. Is that an earmark which we are trying to eliminate by this legislation?

Mr. BINGAMAN. So the point is not to require that the limits and conditions and restrictions on the President's authority apply to funds appropriated in other bills; it is rather to require that the limits, conditions, and restrictions on the President's authority instead apply to funds that are in a separately enrolled portion of the bill. Is that what it is?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, if that is the case that we are trying to tie the restriction to the appropriation so as to keep the President from phrase ``otherwise appropriated funds''? It says here, ``only limits, conditions, or otherwise restricts the President's authority to spend otherwise appropriated funds.'' Does that mean I can put a restriction in the defense bill which relates to funds appropriated in the energy and water appropriations bill? Is that what that means? Why do we intend to exempt from this separate enrollment process limits, conditions, and restrictions on the President's authority to spend otherwise appropriated funds? Why is that? I do not understand.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, my question, though, the money reference in the example I just gave is not a reference that appropriates money. We have a bill that says we will give the Department of Defense $250 billion; that is the appropriations language. Then we put in a provision that says not more than $100 million of the funds appropriated in this bill can be spent for activities in Bosnia. Is that a separate item?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Let me ask the Senator from Michigan another question: Taking the example that the Senator from Arizona was referring to, suppose in the defense appropriation bill we were to say, ``Of the funds appropriated in this bill, not more than $100 million can be spent by the Department of Defense to go into Bosnia unless and until the President certifies to the Congress''--whatever. That would be the provision. Now, the Senator is saying that would be separately enrolled if we had that kind of a reference to a specific amount of money, which was the top amount that could be spent out of a much larger appropriation? Is that a separate item which would then be enrolled?

Mr. BINGAMAN. And there would be some incentive.

Mr. BINGAMAN. So they would go into another bill, which the President could either sign or veto, so that any condition that is not tied to a specific appropriation would be there for the President to sign or veto as he saw fit.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Well, Madam President, let me try to put this in into specifics here, and see if I understand it. As I understand it, what the Senator from Illinois and the Senator from Arizona are saying is that if we put a general restriction on a bill which cannot be tied to a specific appropriation, then that could be, or should be, separately enrolled as another bill, along, perhaps, with other restrictions.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, let me once again go at this and see if I am clear. I am concerned about this. Under the existing procedure--and it has lots of flaws, and I am as critical of it as many in this body are--we send the President a bill and it has money appropriated and it has conditions attached, and those are all together; the President either takes it or leaves it and, clearly, there are major deficiencies with that system. What I am concerned about with this amendment and this new bill that we are talking about here is that we are requiring that the dollar figures be separately presented as bills. And it would seem logical to me that if those are all items that are separately presented, any conditions we want to attach to the expenditure might be a separate bill, as well, might be presented as a separate bill, and we might put them all together. I do not know what we would call it, but that might be the result. The President would have the choice of vetoing each and every appropriation, and then he would be presented with sort of a catch-all remainder kind of a bill which has all these conditions in it. And there would be a great incentive on the part of the President to say, ``I will sign everything but the conditions. I do not like Congress telling me what to do. They do not know anything about Bosnia up in Congress.''