Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Madam President, thank you very much. We should be clear about a couple of things. The money is not necessary to take care of incompetent veterans. These veterans are being taken care of through the Veterans Administration system. They can keep up to $25,000 of their estate, but beyond that we are saying, as the House did, that we should not continue to build up their estate. These are people that do not have a spouse. They do not have a dependent child or dependent parent. This money simply goes to nondependent heirs when these incompetent veterans die. We had to make tough choices in putting this bill together because of the limits of funds. Madam President, $170 million that would have gone into the estates of these veterans goes to veterans' medical care. Now, the solution offered by my friend and colleague from West Virginia is to rely on a phony offset. Everybody in this Senate knows that there is no tax cut in this budget. He proposes to offset it against a tax cut. It is not there. What this budget waiver does is ask our colleagues to waive the Budget Act, to give up on balancing the budget, to forget about our promise to the American people to end the deficit in the year 2002. This is the ultimate budget buster. This is where the opponents of balancing the budget start the effort to unravel the budget agreement. It is a typical liberal solution--we will not make choices. If they were serious about getting this money back for these veterans, they would have offered a real offset and made choices as we have to do in the appropriations process. They did not. They said, ``Let's bust the budget. Let's have the ultimate estate builder plan, putting money into the veterans' estates,'' not to go to their heirs, but putting it on the credit cards of our children and grandchildren. I urge my colleagues not to waive the Budget Act on this matter.

Mr. BOND. I want my colleagues to have the pleasure of voting yes or no on this simple proposition: Do you want the unelected Administrator of the EPA to be able to change laws passed by Congress and signed by the President? I certainly do not. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the motion to table.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. BOND. The Senator from New Jersey----

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I think we are working out an agreement that that one can be accepted. That is on the transfer of fair housing. I think so long as we can guarantee that the transfer will occur--we do not want to disrupt operations. Our staff is working on it, and I hope we are close to agreement on it. I think we share the same goals. I just want to make sure that the language in the amendment gets us there.

Mr. BOND. I believe we need to table this one.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I suggest we proceed to a vote.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOND. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BOND. I express my sincere thanks to the chairman of the subcommittee. I realize what a difficult [[Page S 14354]] job this is. We look forward to working with him. It is vitally important for the environmental health and well being of this country to reauthorize this measure. He has taken the lead in that very difficult effort. We look forward to seeing that measure in committee and coming to the floor so we can perform some badly needed surgery to make sure the Superfund does what everybody expects it would do, and that is clean up dangerous sites and to do it on a priority basis. Now, Mr. President, I believe there are no further speakers on my side, so I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time. As I said before, there is no offset. It is totally smoke and mirrors. But in the technical language, Mr. President, the adoption of the pending amendment would cause the Appropriations Committee to breach its discretionary allocation as well as breach revenue amounts established in the fiscal year 1996 budget resolution. Therefore, pursuant to section 302(f) and 306 of the Congressional Budget Act, I raise a point of order against the amendment. Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield myself 1 minute. I always enjoy hearing my colleague from Delaware talk. It is very entertaining. But it has nothing to do with this bill. If he is talking about unfunded mandates, the Superfund is not an unfunded mandate. Ninety percent comes from the Superfund trust fund. We are saying we must reform the program so that we spend less money on the cleanups and that the States' share of 10 percent will go down. He is talking about not giving enough money to the States. We put $300 million more in the State revolving fund because we are concerned. It is a wonderful rhetoric, an enjoyable argument; just not this bill. And this bill is what we are talking about. The amendment has nothing to do with the comments, the very delightful comments, of my friend from Delaware. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. BOND. I ask there be an hour equally divided.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, it is important that we move forward on this bill. We have reached an agreement I believe on both sides. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from New Jersey be recognized to introduce an amendment on the EPA funding, that there be 1 hour divided in the usual manner and in the usual form, that at the conclusion of that 1 hour the amendment be set aside, and that the Senator from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold, be recognized to introduce an amendment on insurance redlining, that there be 45 minutes divided in the usual form and under the usual procedures, and at the end of that debate that a vote occur on or in relation to the Lautenberg amendment and that no second-degree amendments be permitted, and that the following amendment, the vote on the Feingold amendment, be 10 minutes in length and no second-degree amendments be permitted, but that the vote occur on or in relation to the Feingold amendment.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. The Senator would be happy to do so.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am delighted that the Senator from Rhode Island has offered this amendment. I am very glad he called it to our attention. We have, in St. Louis, MO, a significant impact from the brownfields question. I think this is one of EPA's better initiatives. It may make one suspicious to look at the breadth of support of this. But David Osborne, author of ``Reinventing Government,'' said: This is an important initiative. The barriers to cleaning up urban Superfund sites have stopped redevelopment in its tracks time and time again. This initiative will begin to solve that problem. It will bring businesses back to the city, create jobs and increase the urban tax base. Gregg Easterbrook, author of ``A Moment on the Earth,'' said: EPA's Brownfields initiative represents ecological realism at its finest, balancing the needs of nature and commerce. This path-breaking initiative shows that environmental protection can undergo genuine regulatory reform, becoming simpler and more cost-effective, without sacrifice of its underlying mission. Philip Howard, author of ``The Death of Common Sense,'' said: EPA's Brownfields initiative represents an important change in direction. It will help the environment and the economy at the same time by dealing with the problem of contaminated properties in a commonsense way. I think this is a win-win proposition for everybody. We are delighted to accept the amendment on this side.

Mr. BOND. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself, Mr. D'Amato, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Mack. This is designed to provide HUD with authority to renew expiring section 8 project-based contracts through a budget-based analysis. Now, what that means is that we are working with HUD, with OMB and the Congressional Budget Office to resolve a very difficult problem where project-based certificates have been issued in the past. The cost is above market rate. These are expensive projects. HUD knows, we know, the budget offices know, we have to resolve this problem. Since we were unable to get an agreement on a measure to fix the problem this year and stay within our budget allocations, there was a prospect that in some areas where there was very little available housing, people who live in project-based section 8 housing could be displaced. This problem was particularly acute in Salt Lake City, UT. Senator Bennett brought that to our attention. We found that there are many other areas around the country where it is possible that the developments could be converted to private use, people displaced. Even though we would make available section 8 certificates for those people displaced, as a simple matter of fact, there may not have been enough housing to take care of them. This is particularly true for the elderly and disabled. This amendment tells the Secretary to use a budget-based analysis to take a look at the costs of operating the Department and the debt service, to renew the contracts for a year on a basis which is fair both to the owner of the property and to the Federal Government so that we may continue to work on the problem of resolving the question about the expenditure on project-based certificates which are far above market rate. This is a fix that I think is acceptable on both sides. I hope my colleagues will accept it.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's comments. I certainly understand the severity of this problem. Missouri, as well as Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa is home to a largely rural population. I, too, am concerned for the future of this program. I will work with Senator Mikulski and members of the conference to address this issue. We include in this bill provisions which will make available budget- based rent renewal levels for project-based contracts which will remove the artificial impediment of the current ``fair market'' calculation. I hope this will help address this serious concern.

Mr. BOND. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BOND. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BOND. I would be pleased to assist my colleague, the senior Senator from Mississippi and senior member of the Appropriations Committee. [[Page S 14370]]