Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and Competition, of the Senate Judiciary Committee, be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 13, 1999 at 10 a.m. in room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building, on: ``S. 467, the Antitrust Merger Review Act: Accelerating FCC Review of Mergers.''

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs would like to request unanimous consent to hold a hearing on the reductions in force in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The hearing will be held on Tuesday, April 13, 1999, at 2:30 p.m., in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 13, 1999 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Finance Committee requests unanimous consent to conduct a hearing on Tuesday, April 13, 1999 beginning at 10 a.m. in room 215 Dirksen.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet on Tuesday, April 13, 1999, at 2:30 p.m., in closed/open session, to review submarine warfare in the 21st century.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, April 13, 1999, in open session, to receive testimony from the unified commanders on their military strategy and operational requirements in review of the fiscal year 2000 Defense Authorization Request and Future Years Defense program.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. You yield your 2, and I yield him 3.

Mr. DOMENICI. Do you have any left?

Mr. DOMENICI. I just want to say, whatever time Senator Jeffords needs, a few minutes, we will make sure he gets them. I would like to tell you, since you indicated that you and I have worked together on a lot of things, do you know what you could do for me that would be the best thing going? Not to have so many votes on budget resolutions. What is happening, we spend so much time voting on them that Senators are wondering what this whole process is all about. This year probably 50 percent of the votes, maybe 60 are all on the budget resolution and the four or five today. My job is getting more difficult because of that. Pretty soon Senators will be saying maybe it is not worth all this trouble. How much time do you need?

Mr. DOMENICI. That does not mean I do not get excited about things. Look, everything we are talking about here on the floor we just voted on. You either won or you lost. You happen to have won. Senator Kennedy has a proposal. That already was voted on. He lost. Let's see, what else do we have? Oh, Senator Lautenberg has an instruction. We already voted on that. It is interesting. I would just put in perspective for the Senators and for those listening, normally--I have been here for a while; I have wrapped up a lot of budget resolutions--we appoint the conferees. That is what we are doing here, this little administrative job of appointing conferees. We normally do it at the same time we pass those resolutions. So if we finish at 10 o'clock at night, by 10:15 this is gone, they have been appointed. Nobody moves to instruct the conferees, because they just voted on it; they already got their instructions through their votes. We made a mistake. We made a mistake. We should never have seen the press last night. We were not obligated to tell the press we had a meeting. We like to keep them informed. But now, because of everything they said about what we discussed, Senators are saying, ``Well, maybe they are not going to do in that conference what the Senate said we should do, so we are coming to the floor and reproposing the whole thing,'' bringing the issues all back up, even if they lost on them or even, in Senator Dodd's case, where he won on them, and we are going to have to vote again. Actually, everybody should understand, an instruction to the conferees, through the process we are doing this afternoon, is nice. It is a wonderful thing. You should be very pleased if you win. But the House isn't bound by it. That is just the simple truth of it. The conference is not between Senators asking for a second vote which will make their will the law; they are asking that we do something with the House to make them go with us. I am not promising that I can do that. If you win here on the floor, I am not promising that I can do that. As a matter of fact, some Senators think I can, that if we are to vote again on Dodd-Jeffords, I should just go over there and I will win that. Well, it isn't quite that easy. I do a little better here on the floor sometimes with all these Senators from both sides than I do sometimes in those conferences. I am not going to offer a second- degree. We all understand the issue. If you want to vote, we will have a vote. I guess I could tell you for myself, I understood very clearly who voted. There were some Republicans who voted with you. I didn't happen to be one. But I am not going to be able to carry any more water with any more assurance or any more power in the water that I carry because we vote again this afternoon than to go to that conference and wrap it up and say, Senator Dodd and Senator Jeffords won--not that they won this instruction. That would be there. So if you want to save some time, you might just urge me to do it better than the news reports, and I tell you I am going to try. I tell you that if we can't do that, I am going to find some way in the tax instructions to see if we can't do something significant in the area of child care through the Tax Code. But if you would like a vote, that may be an easier way. I say, though, there is a reason that we do not need to vote in additional money for this program. I will tell you what it is. I do not know the ultimate number, but I understand that almost all the States have a very large surplus in the TANF program, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. That is the successor to the welfare program, Mr. President. When we sent them the money, we sent them a block of money predicated upon a significant caseload and estimates about how much it would be reduced. It turns out that almost every State has a very large surplus there. What they plan to do with it, not every State but a very large number of them, is to use it for this program. As a matter of fact, I understand the regulations have been approved just yesterday which will authorize the States to use their TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, excesses for the block grant program, which we would still be funding for child care. So essentially I think we are going to have an expanded child care program. I do not think we need to do this, but I do not go to conference based on that. That is just an explanation to the Senate as to why a number of Senators did not think we needed to vote for that when it first appeared and won. Now I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. DOMENICI. I say to Senator Dodd, let me just put in perspective what we are going through here this afternoon. I am a mild-mannered guy.

Mr. DOMENICI. How much time does Senator Dodd have?

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, indeed. Motion To Instruct Conferees

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator very much.

Mr. DOMENICI. Having said that, with reference to mine, I yield back any time I have.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, with reference to the issue that is before us, I ask unanimous consent that with respect to votes in order to the motion to appoint conferees, the Domenici amendment No. 252, which I have just described, be considered a separate motion to instruct and the vote occur on, or in relation to, the Domenici motion, to be followed, pursuant to the consent agreement, by a vote in relation to the Kennedy motion.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask Senator Kennedy if he will yield back time on my amendment. I yield back mine.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wonder if the distinguished Senator from New Jersey could tell us, were there any other instructions?

Mr. DOMENICI. We will make a copy of that amendment and distribute it. What we are going to do with this amendment is simply add to the end of the Kennedy amendment two provisions that were voted on by the Senate during the debate, just as most of his instruction was already voted on. These two sections are essentially as follows: No. 1, the Roth, Breaux, and others amendment regarding a bipartisan proposal on Medicare; and, No. 2, an amendment offered by the Budget Committee in behalf of the distinguished Senator from Maine, Ms. Snowe, which essentially said that any additional on-budget surplus, non-Social Security money, that existed beyond the tax cut--which is, as I understand, about $102 billion starting 5 years from now--could be available for prescription drugs. Essentially, what we will then do is we will get a request for the yeas and nays on our amendment. I understand, pursuant to the unanimous consent, when it gets called up in order, we will get an additional 2 minutes, 1 minute per side, to explain it. So, essentially I am just asking we add to the end of yours, two proposals that have already been adopted by the Senate: One, the Roth- Breaux et al. on the bipartisan Medicare proposal; and, second, the Budget Committee portion, which was Senator Snowe's amendment, which said any excess surplus beyond the tax cut and Social Security could be used for prescription drugs. So we will vote on ours first and see what happens to yours. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, let me explain to Senator Kennedy.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, at the end of the Kennedy motion add the following: Include in the conference report, No. 1, amendment No. 176, offered by Senators Roth and Breaux, regarding Medicare reform; and section 209 of the Senate-passed resolution to the budget offered by Senators Snowe and Wyden, regarding the use of on-budget surpluses for prescription drug benefits. I send the amendment to the desk.

Mr. DOMENICI. If he yields his back, I am going to yield mine back.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I understand the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts has 1 minute.

Mr. DOMENICI. We can still amend. You could not, but we could.