Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I move to table the Feingold amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BOND. First, let me agree with my friend from Wisconsin that we do not support nor do I think the insurance industry would support redlining. We believe that everyone should have access to all services, whether they be insurance or housing or credit, not in any way limited by race, gender or other impermissible classifications. What this language in the bill does--published, reviewed by the committee and the subcommittee, and brought here on the floor, not behind some closed doors, as he implied--is to say very simply that HUD should follow the law, a novel concept, perhaps one that may be a little foreign when one has perfect, pure motives. But even pure motives do not warrant disregard of the law. Section 218 of the VA-HUD appropriations bill prohibits the use of any funds provided by the bill for the application of the Fair Housing Act to property insurance. This provision was also included in the House version of the bill. In theirs, however, it went farther, and I think that may have been what the Senator was addressing. He said you could not even look into the existence of it. We did not say that in our bill. This provision, however, is an important means of eliminating duplication and wasteful expenditures of taxpayers' money. HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity has devoted substantial resources to regulatory and other activities aimed at addressing alleged property insurance discrimination, purportedly pursuant to the Fair Housing Act. HUD not only has devoted its own personnel to these activities, it has paid millions of taxpayers' dollars to fund studies by outside consultants, to hire large law firms to do investigations and to fund enforcement efforts by private groups. HUD's property insurance activities and efforts to regulate insurance are unwarranted and beyond the scope of the law, beyond the scope of the Fair Housing Act and in contravention of the McCarran-Ferguson Act. Every State and the District of Columbia have laws and regulations addressing unfair discrimination in property insurance, and they should be enforced. The States are actively enforcing these antidiscrimination provisions. Certainly, we can urge them to do better, but the law gives that responsibility to the States, and that is where the argument should be made. The States are employing a wide variety of measures to ensure neither race nor any other factor enters into a decision whether to provide a citizen property insurance. In light of these comprehensive State-level protections, [[Page S 14358]] HUD's insurance-related activities do more than add another unnecessary layer of Federal bureaucracy. The application of the Fair Housing Act to property insurance not only unnecessarily duplicates State action, but it also contravenes Congress' intent regarding the scope of the law. Congress never intended the Fair Housing Act to warrant HUD to regulate property insurance practices. The act expressly governs home sales and rentals and the services that home sellers, landlords, mortgage lenders, real estate providers and brokers provide, but it makes no mention whatsoever of the separate service of providing property insurance. Indeed, a review of the legislative history shows that Congress specifically chose not to include the sale or underwriting of insurance within the purview of the act. Further, application of the Fair Housing Act to insurance defies Congress' specific decision 50 years ago that in the area of insurance regulation, in particular, the States should remain unencumbered by Federal interference. In the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945, Congress determined that unless a Federal law ``specifically relates to the business of insurance,'' that law shall not be deemed applicable to insurance practices. By applying the Fair Housing Act to insurance, HUD simply disregards the fact that the law does not ``specifically relate to the business of insurance.'' Some argue that HUD's actions are justified by court decisions, citing two appellate court rulings, one in the seventh circuit and one in the sixth circuit. But these decisions do not, in fact, confirm that the Fair Housing Act applies to insurance. Indeed, they are expressly contradictory in connection with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Mackay. A favored position is that HUD included in the 1989 Fair Housing Act regulations a reference to nondiscrimination in the provision of property or hazard insurance or dwellings. But HUD took this action without expressed legislative authority from Congress. Unless the Supreme Court should interpret the HUD regulation as giving itself legislative authority, then there is no national authority for applying the Fair Housing Act to property insurance. I believe that the American people want Congress to have the Federal Government perform those functions it should perform, and it is required by constitutional law or other practice to do that effectively, to do our job well and to return to State and local governments those activities which are expressly left to the States and local governments. Regulation of insurance is one of those. As for the Federal Government, I think we have to streamline regulatory activities, and that means hard choices. However, there is one area where Federal spending should be cut back, where it should not be a problem to determine whether cutbacks are appropriate, and that is when HUD's activities go beyond the scope of the law. If HUD is not authorized to do it, in fact, is expressly prohibited from doing it, we have said in this bill, ``Don't spend any more money to do it.'' This would not be in question if HUD had not been going beyond the scope of the law in spending millions of dollars already. There is simply no justification, in a time of scarce resources, when HUD needs to be providing assistance in housing for those in grave need, to take away from that vital function funds that could go for housing and apply them to insurance-related activities that duplicate existing comprehensive State regulations, at the expense of the American taxpayer and at the expense of those people who depend upon federally assisted housing for their shelter. This should be an easy choice for this body: Provide housing assistance to those who need it, deal with the problems of the homeless, but get HUD out of an area where it has no authority, no responsibility and, in fact, has spent millions of dollars beyond its authority. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, how much remains on our side?

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may require. I believe the Senator from New Hampshire is on his way to the floor. As chairman of the subcommittee with responsibility over Superfund, I think it is very important he share with us his views. I do hope we can yield back some of the time so we can move on. This is a very important amendment, but I believe we have outlined it rather clearly. I would like to begin by agreeing with my colleague from New Jersey. He said many things that I agree with, particularly about largemouth bass. I love to go bass fishing, too. I want to see our waters cleaned up. We want to move together on that. He says we want to stop raw sewage going into lakes, rivers and streams. That is why, in this committee bill, we increase by $300 million the money going into the State revolving fund. The Senator from New Jersey made a very clear case for dealing with Superfund sites where there is human health at risk. I could not agree with him more. We need to be cleaning up these Superfund sites where there are [[Page S 14352]] human health risks. Unfortunately, two-thirds of the money being spent right now is going to sites which do not involve immediate human health risks or risks under current land uses. So we put in $1 billion and said ``prioritize those sites where human health risks exist now or might exist in the future.'' And then let us reform the program. The Senator from New Jersey talked about the tremendous hassles, the litigation, the administrative time and hassle that is going into the Superfund debates. We need to get out of debates on who is responsible and move forward with cleaning up. I look forward to working with the Senator from New Jersey to do that. He also talks about people who are afraid to drink the water. We need to authorize the safe drinking water fund. Again, we are working on that together in the Environment and Public Works Committee. I think it is very important that we cut through the chaff and get down to the serious job of making sure that our drinking water supply is safe. I look forward to working with him there. Let me just put a couple of things into perspective. The Senator from New Jersey says that our budget for EPA is 22 percent below the request. Let me put that in perspective. It should come as no secret to this body that we are making cuts. The subcommittee's allocation was 12 percent below last year's. There have been virtually no cuts in the Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest portion of the budget of this subcommittee. Second, most of the reductions in the Environmental Protection Agency have come from earmarked sewage grants and unauthorized State revolving funds and Superfund, where we proposed to target the resources in Superfund to those instances where human health is at risk or may be at risk under current land uses. We agree that protecting human health from Superfund sites is vitally important. We have not cut money for standard setting, for technical assistance, for enforcement. Those are held close to the current levels despite the subcommittee's constrained allocation. And, as I stated before, the committee's recommendation increases State grants. It recognizes the importance of fully funding the States so they can meet the environmental mandates. But, frankly, where we come down to disagreement is when the Senator contends--I believe without any justification at all--that the money for busting the budget in the environment is going to come from tax cuts from the wealthy. Unlike President Clinton's budget, this budget does not include in its budget tax cuts for anybody, even the tax credit for working families that we would like to see involved. That is not in this budget. There is no money to be used in this budget from these cuts for tax increases. If this Senator's amendment is agreed to, and the Budget Act point of order is waived, we will break the budget. There will be no tax cuts, and we will not be on a path to balance the budget by the year 2002. This is simply a budget busting amendment, and I urge my colleagues not to support it. Mr. President, I see the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire has arrived. The Senator from Delaware came in earlier. I ask the Senator from New Jersey if he wishes to proceed.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from New Jersey for his kind words. I appreciate the comments he made about our efforts here. But I wish we could have his support for the measure as passed by the committee and sent to the floor. I must rise in strong opposition to the amendment on substantive grounds and also the fact that it busts the subcommittee's 602(b) allocation. I will address, as I have previously, the budgetary sleight of hand and the smoke and mirrors that have been suggested as an offset. But let me talk about some of the substantive provisions, because I agree with the Senator that they are very important. As he noted, we worked very hard to increase funding for the environment because we have made great progress in the environment in this country. We need to continue that progress. Everything that we are doing in this bill is designed to ensure that the progress we have made continues. We have urged the EPA to pay heed to and adopt the recommendations of the National Academy of Public Administration, who have told EPA how they can do a better job of utilizing their funds, be more effective, and make sure that we get the most for our dollars in the environmental programs. That study was requested when my colleague, the Senator from Maryland, was chairman of the committee. It is something I support because I believe we can make progress. But I do not believe that this amendment can be supported, and I will raise a budget act point of order to it. Let me talk, though, about the substance. First, Superfund. While there may be disagreement on how we reform the program, there is virtually no disagreement that I know of that the program must be reformed. We have studies by the dozens outlining the problems with the Superfund Program. There have been 90-day reviews and 30-day reviews to improve the program. There have been Rand studies, CBO studies, GAO reports, and the National Commission on Superfund Reform. We are all familiar with the morass of litigation, the excessive administrative burdens, the length of time to clean up the sites. Most of us have heard from our constituents, small businesses, mom and pop operations that were bankrupted because their trash was hauled legally to a dump which later became a Superfund site and they became liable. We have all heard the stories about EPA requiring cleanups so clean that kids can eat the dirt, even when there were no kids near the site, where it is an industrial site, where nobody has even proposed to bring in a day care center or to make it a playground for a school. When we devote our resources to overutilization of cleanup techniques in an area where they are less necessary, we take away from funds where they can be put to uses right away, where they can have a positive impact on human health and the environment and avoid dangers. But the list of grievances against the Superfund goes on and on and on. We have poured billions of dollars into this program with little to show for it. We have spent billions of dollars and we have only about 70 sites which have actually been cleaned up and deleted from the national priorities list. We have hundreds of studies going on at sites and even more being litigated. This is a wonderful opportunity for full employment for lawyers, for administrative hassles, and that is not what we ought to be about. We ought to be about cleaning up Superfund sites. In his first speech to Congress, President Clinton declared, ``I would like to use the Superfund to clean up pollution for a change and not just pay lawyers.'' I believe I was one of a large group of Senators who stood and applauded that statement. I believe there is very strong agreement on both sides of the aisle that the President set the proper tone: clean up pollution, stop paying lawyers. There is little disagreement on either side that the program is not working, or not working as well as it should. The committee limited Superfund funding to $1 billion, as in the House, because the committee recognized that it was time to stop throwing away money at a wasteful, broken program. The committee's recommendations will fund sites which pose an immediate threat to human health and the environment and sites which are currently at some active stage in the Superfund cleanup pipeline. Our recommendations reflect the findings of a General Accounting Office report, which I requested. This General Accounting Office report says that two-thirds of the Superfund sites GAO looked at do not pose human health risks under current land uses. We are spending two-thirds of the money in the current Superfund Program on sites that do not pose a significant hazard to human health now or in the future under current land uses. I am not suggesting that these sites are not important and should not be cleaned up. I am saying that for these sites, we can delay cleanups until we reform the program so that we can concentrate our efforts on those sites which will provide a benefit in lessening dangers to human health and to ensure that commonsense solutions are implemented. The committee's recommendation reflected the fact that the reauthorization process is well underway. It will be a transition year, as it should be, for the Superfund Program. Therefore, we should only fund critical activities pending implementation of a reform program. Now, the Senator's amendment also would double funding for the Council on Environmental Quality. I point out that this committee has recommended continuing the Council on Environmental Quality at last year's funding. We would save CEQ, where the House wants to terminate that body. The question will be whether we terminate it or not. The ultimate conference committee will not come out with more than $1 million because we have put that amount in and the House has already passed. Despite some concerns that many may have that the CEQ is duplicating other agencies, this committee found, and I believe that CEQ does perform a valuable function; it performs a function of coordinating the activities of the administration and all the different bodies which may act on environmental matters. However, I think it should be limited to activities which are statutory in nature and which do not duplicate other agencies' activities. The funding provided is about the same level as the current level funding for CEQ. Now, the third point as to State revolving funds which the Senator's amendment would add $328 million. I fully support added funding for States to meet environmental mandates. That is why the bill before us carves out a special appropriation just for State funding. We increased funding for the State activities that comprises more than 40 percent of the EPA appropriations because that is money going to the places where it can actually clean up the environment. [[Page S 14350]] We believe that with reforms that can be implemented either by legislation or through the administrative procedures, we can ensure that the States will do a better job because they will not be limited just to cleaning up one particular kind of pollution but can direct their efforts to pollution which occurs in the air, the water, and the land, and not be limited just to one medium. Included in this funding that we have recommended is an increase of $300 million in funding for clean water State revolving funds over the current budget. Last year's bill contained some $800 million in sewer treatment earmarks. Those were nice for all of us to go home and take credit for, but they did not maximize the available funds for cleaning up the environment. We eliminated those earmarks so we can provide adequate funding for State revolving funds. I think the bill addresses the concern about the need for State revolving funds. I think that the bill is sound on environmental grounds, sound substantively, and I say that all of the talk about tax cuts, eliminating tax cuts, is so much political rhetoric. There are no tax cuts in this budget. There is no offset. We had to make tough choices in the subcommittee and the full committee. We chose to increase the allocation for EPA, but we are doing so within the constraints imposed upon us by Congress in the budget resolution. This amendment would bust the budget resolution. If the Senator was concerned, really concerned about getting more money in the environment, then he could have offered an amendment which would have proposed legitimate offsets. He did not do so. I urge my colleagues to oppose the waiver of the Budget Act. I reserve the time. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I would be pleased to yield for a question from the senior Senator from Hawaii.

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

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the remaining committee amendments previously excepted from adoption be adopted en bloc at this time.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, we are referring to the items that were excepted by request of the other side.

Mr. BOND. We are now prepared to go through the list of amendments we propose to adopt en bloc in the managers' amendments. I will send these amendments to the desk and ask unanimous consent that they be considered en bloc.

Mr. BOND. First, I send an amendment proposed by Senator Simon and Senator Moseley-Braun providing an effective date for the transfer of the Fair Housing Act enforcement from HUD to the Attorney General; Second, an amendment by Senator Johnston providing the EPA shall enter into an arrangement with the National Academy of Sciences to investigate and report on scientific bases for regulating indoor radon and other naturally occurring radioactive materials; Next, an amendment by Senator Bingaman relating to energy savings at Federal facilities; Next, an amendment to increase amounts provided for FEMA salaries and expenses, and Office of Inspector General, and emergency food and shelter; Next, an amendment to make technical corrections and modifications to the committee amendment to H.R. 2099, about 10 pages of corrections primarily in language to conform to the intent of Congress in the measures adopted here, and to clarify the subsection numbers; Next, an amendment by Senator Kempthorne and myself to provide additional time to permit enactment of Safe Drinking Water Act reauthorization which will release funds for the financial assistance program; Next, an amendment by Senator Faircloth to prevent funds being used for the filing or maintaining of nonfrivolous legal action, and achieving or preventing action by a Government official, entity, or court of competent jurisdiction; Next, an amendment by Senator Faircloth to preserve the national occupancy standard of two persons per bedroom in the HUD regulations; Next, an amendment by Senator Feinstein to expand the eligible activities under the community development block grant to include reconstruction; Next, an amendment by Senator Warner to impose a moratorium on the conversion of Environmental Protection Agency contracts for research and development; Next, an amendment by Senators Moynihan and D'Amato to transfer a special purpose grant for renovation of central terminal in Buffalo, NY, making available for central terminal and other public facilities; Next, an amendment by me to provide $6 million for the National and Community Service Act of 1990 to resolve all responsibilities and obligations in connection with the said Corporation and the Corporation's Office of Inspector General; And, finally, an amendment by Senator Feingold to require a report from the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development on the extent to which community development block grants have been utilized to facilitate the closing of an industrial commercial plant for the substantial reduction and relocation and expansion of the plant.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I move that the Senate insist on its amendments, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes thereon, and that the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the bill passed.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. If I might respond, we have been working out a number of these amendments. I think we are very close to agreement on a number of them. Some of them clearly are going to require votes. We are ready to line up two, one with an hour time agreement, one with a 45-minute time agreement. Then I cannot say on this side that there are any more of our amendments that should require a vote. I think they can be accepted or would be included in a--excuse me, there is one Senator Chafee is going to offer, proposes to offer about the brown fields. I hope that will be agreed upon. That might require a vote. It should be a short time limit. I would be interested on the minority side in what my colleague sees as the opportunities there.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BOND. I ask unanimous consent that the remaining stacked votes be reduced to 10 minutes in length.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote. [[Page S 14341]]

Mr. BOND

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

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk, and I ask the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. BOND. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, since my State of Missouri is not only a leading manufacturer of fishing lures and therefore very much interested in it--Missouri happens to host a large number of people who enjoy fishing--it is therefore with great pleasure on behalf of this side that we are willing to accept the Harkin amendment.