Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I would say we have spoken all day. I think people know what the issue is. This really questions whether everything in the bill is an emergency. It is that simple. As provided in section 205(b) of House Con. Res. 290, I raise a point of order against the emergency designation on the nondefense spending items.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I want to make a proposal that I think is reasonable. The Parliamentarian has now ruled on the remaining amendments, as to whether they are germane or whether they are subject to a point of order, which would bring them down, and that is only true in the case of one of Senator Byrd's amendments. I want to propose that all those that are germane we accept by unanimous consent and that all those that are not germane fall. They could bring them up, we could raise germaneness. The Chair already ruled they would be struck down. We will have wasted 2 hours of time, and we would end up with exactly the same result. I am not sure if we voted on some of these germane ones they would pass. But it is almost midnight. I want to propose that all of the items on the list that are germane be adopted by unanimous consent or as modified--in the form that the Chair has it--that we adopt them, and those that are not germane we drop, and we would finish our business.

Mr. GRAMM. If that unanimous consent request is agreed to, I would go ahead and then make a point of order and the Senator can move to waive it.

Mr. GRAMM. I object.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: If the point of order should be sustained, would there be a vote on final passage on the bill tonight requiring us to stay here to cast it? (Laughter.)

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Maybe when we get into the postcloture we can. Finally, to sum up--and this is a President who has not vetoed a single bill, who came to this city determined to work on a bipartisan basis--he says: If the supplemental appropriations bill were presented to the President in its current form his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill. The point I am responding to is that when people say they do not understand why there is opposition to this bill given that we are in an emergency situation, that simply leaves out that the President has already said he would veto this bill. What we should be doing, it seems to me, is sitting down, perhaps the committee should go back and rewrite the bill, work with the President, and craft something the President would sign. The idea that somehow there is foot dragging going on when the President has already said he would veto the bill, I don't view as productive work in which we are engaged. It seems to me what we should be trying to do is to make this bill acceptable to the President. I also note that if you look at every agency of the executive branch of Government, you see that this bill funds every single agency of the executive branch of Government at a higher level than the President requested, except one. There is only one agency of Government that does not get more funding than the President requested under this bill. Guess what it is. Only one agency does not get more funding than requested by the President. What is the agency? The Defense Department. And this is a bill that is about homeland security. So there are two sides to the story. We are at an impasse. Those who want to see a bill signed into law and want to support a President who believes his effort is being subverted have some responsibility to do that. It is not that we are trying to be mean or hateful, it is that the President, who asked for the bill, said he will veto it. The numbers provided by the committee show it grossly overspends what the President requested; and not only that, it overfunds in areas that the President has said do not represent emergencies. Finally, in what I think is a twisting of the process, when we had a budget, we said there could be an emergency under two circumstances: With an agreement of two parties, the President and the Congress. If the President says something is an emergency and Congress says it is an emergency, it does not count on the budget. But under this bill, this $14 billion of nonemergency spending that is added, the President cannot take any of the money that is provided for an emergency, even though it is $10 billion less than he asked for; he cannot spend any of it, unless he designates this $14 billion add-on as a nonemergency. That is a perversion of the whole emergency designation.

Mr. GRAMM. Let me read the words from the Statement of Administration Policy: The administration strongly opposes this bill and also would strongly oppose any amendment to further increase spending above the President's request.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I object.

Mr. GRAMM. Reserving the right to object, I will be brief. We have several problems. We just got back into town and we have a complicated piece of legislation before the Senate. We want an opportunity to go through it. Second, we have the problem that not only is the bill over the President's bill by some $3.8 billion, but there is $10 billion the President asked for that is not given in the bill. There is $14 billion he did not ask for that is provided, and with something this complicated I think to ask Members to limit our ability to offer amendments in 2 hours and 15 minutes on the first day we get back is unreasonable. On that basis, I object.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have high regard for the Senator. I understand he is trying to do his job. We just had a luncheon with the OMB Director, representing the President. We were given, at the luncheon, and Senator McCain put it in the Record so it will be immediately available to everybody--I am sure everybody will get a copy of it--an outline of why the President opposes the bill, why he will veto it if it is adopted. This bill is 115 pages long. Just looking through it, there are provisions of which I was unaware. We need time to sit down and read it. On that basis, we are not going to agree to limit amendments on this bill this day. What we will do tomorrow, I think, depends on where we are when people have had the time to look at it. For the people who are on the committee who studied these issues, obviously they are up on them; they know them. Most Members are not members of the Appropriations Committee. So in reading through here, I see we have $2.5 million to train journalists in Egypt. That may be a very good idea. I don't know. Or that, of the funds appropriated in this paragraph, not less than $3.5 million shall be made available to programs and activities which support the development of the independent media in Pakistan. I would have to say, I may be exhibiting my ignorance, but I don't know whether or not that is a good expenditure of the taxpayers' money. I don't know if the President requested it in his bill. We have just gotten on this bill today. We are going to have to look at this to know where we are going and what we are doing. There are some very controversial amendments that are going be offered. I think we are going to have to see what they are before we are going to be ready to limit our amendments. I think there is a hope that this bill might be finished this week. I know our leader has that objective. But it is going to take us time to get through the bill and look at it and see to what extent we are going to want to offer amendments. Again, having just gotten the administration's position, given their strong opposition to the bill, I think it is going to take a day or 2 days or so for us to get through the bill and decide how we want to go about it. I know the Senator wants the trains to run on time, but there may be people who decide to blow the train up. They would have a very different objective. It is going to take us time to absorb the bill and decide what we want to do.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I don't want to get into lengthy debate here. I raised the question about the journalists because I didn't know. I could have spent our recess reading this bill. I did not. Maybe many of my colleagues did. I doubt it. We are not going to get this bill passed by passing it in a form that the President has already said he is going to veto. It seems to me if we are really in a hurry to pass this bill, that we need to figure out what we need to do to put it in a form so the President can and will sign it. I think we have three clearly identifiable problems. One, it spends $3.8 billion more than the President requested. No. 2, it does not fund $10 billion of emergency programs the President did request. And No. 3--what the administration says----

Mr. GRAMM. All I know is if you take the programs he requested and you take the programs that are funded here, that there is $10 billion of programs, as he defined them, that are not funded in this bill. That is the second problem. The third problem is there are $14 billion of programs that he did not request, that he did not designate as emergencies, that are funded in the bill. So you have three major problems: It spends too much money, it leaves out $10 billion that the President asked for to fight the war on terrorism, and then it spends $14 billion for which the President did not ask. It may very well be that the way he asked and the way you provided are subtly different. I think that is one of the reasons we need to look at it.

Mr. GRAMM. All I am saying is that is what the administration is saying in these letters they are giving us. I appreciate the job of the Senator from Nevada. He does it well. But if our objective is to get the money passed for the war on terrorism so it becomes law and the money can be spent, we are not going to do that by passing a bill the President today, in writing, is saying he will veto. If we are in a hurry to get the money, what we ought to do is find a way to fix those three problems: No. 1, we are spending way too much money as compared to what the President requested. No. 2, $10 billion he asked for in some form that we didn't provide. And then $14 billion he didn't ask for, didn't say that they were emergencies, but we are calling them emergencies. Then we have a provision in the bill that says he cannot spend any of the money as an emergency unless this $14 billion is deemed as an emergency, even though he doesn't think it is an emergency. So I just think we are a long way from home. And if our objective is to get something the President will sign and will become law, there are going to have to be dramatic changes in the bill. If I knew how to fix the bill today, I would do it; but I do not know how. It is just going to take time for us to figure it out. And that is what this is about.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I make a point of order that the Landrieu amendment No. 3470 violates section 311(a)(2)(B) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. GRAMM. Is this final passage?

Mr. GRAMM. Let's stay.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I do not know where we go from here in terms of procedure. I would like to say a few things. I will try to be brief.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, what is the situation with regard to time? Are we dividing it? Are we under the normal postcloture that any Member can have an hour? Is that the program?

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, we have a bunch of amendments pending, and I am against every one of them. Let me outline why. First, this bill is about trade. I am for it. All these amendments are against it. We are getting ready to pass this bill, I hope, by 70 votes or so. So if a Senator is for the bill and wants more trade, the quickest way to get it in the best form is to vote against these antitrade amendments. I am going to address three of them really quickly. First, the Hollings amendment. I want to remind my colleagues that thanks to the generosity of the American taxpayer, if someone loses their job because of international competition, they get a series of benefits under trade adjustment assistance that no other American gets. Anyone who loses their job, for example, in the textile industry qualifies for trade adjustment assistance if they can show or it can be shown that their job loss had anything to do with foreign competition; that it was the most significant factor in them losing their job. As a result, textile workers are eligible for trade adjustment assistance today. The amendment of Senator Hollings says if someone has lost their job in the textile industry anytime over the last 3 and a half years, or if they lose their job in the future, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with foreign trade, they should qualify for trade adjustment assistance. I think any of our colleagues can see the inequity in that. My State is the ninth largest textile State in the Nation. I love my textile workers as much as anybody else does, but I do not know how having a program to help people who lose their jobs because of foreign competition can be justified, and a judgment is made based on each circumstance, and then come along and say, but if someone works in the textile industry and they have lost their job, we are going to treat them differently than everybody else. I think there is a tremendous equity problem in that, and I think people working in the textile business would understand it. Also, the fact that it would apply not just for people who lose their jobs in the future but for 3 and a half years in the past. So for that reason, I oppose the Hollings amendment. Turning now to the Landrieu amendment, of all groups that benefit from trade, the maritime industries are the biggest beneficiaries. The great bulk of foreign trade comes into our ports. I am blessed in Texas, thank God, every day, to have many great ports. My maritime workers get to work on shipping things out, they get to work on bringing things in, and of all the people I have, they are among the most pro-trade people, for the obvious reason: Not only do they benefit as Americans, but they benefit because they get an opportunity to have more competition for their services. The Landrieu amendment extraordinarily says if someone loses their job in the maritime industry, whether it has anything to do with foreign competition--because they would get trade adjustment assistance if it did, under current law--that they qualify for trade adjustment assistance. What I think is extraordinary about this amendment is not that it treats people differently based on what kind of job they have, which I kind of think a little bit violates equal justice under the law, but of all the workers who would be said tend to be benefited by foreign trade, maritime workers would be virtually at the top of the list. In fact, looking back over my political career, the unions that have tended to support me have been maritime unions. Now they all ought to support me, but they have not. The maritime people have supported me because I support foreign trade. I do not understand why, of all workers in America, we would single out maritime workers as losers from trade. A, they are the biggest beneficiaries; and, B, to the extent that anybody was a loser, they could qualify for trade adjustment assistance. So I think the argument for the Hollings amendment is very weak. I think it is inequitable. I think it is unfair. It is illogical. I think all of those things, and more, apply to the Landrieu amendment. Turning very briefly to the Corzine amendment, the Corzine amendment says the President cannot enter into a trade agreement that has provisions that privatize public services. Now the Corzine amendment--I am not sure exactly how it is going to be argued because I had not heard it argued, but let me explain the problem with it. One of the biggest problems we have is getting countries such as Japan to let our contractors bid on their telephone company equipment and technology, trying to get them to let our contractors bid on building airports. The fundamental argument we use is we force them, whether these activities are controlled by government or whether they are controlled in the private sector, to move toward opening up competition. The Corzine amendment would not allow us to negotiate a trade agreement where we push a foreign competitor to open up a public service for competition. My guess is Senator Corzine is going to argue he does not want a trade agreement that opens up something our Government does for competition. The problem is, we cannot have trade agreements where we say, OK, we are not going to negotiate anything that opens up a public service in America for competition and expect other countries to do the same. I remind my colleagues, no matter how much you think of government doing things, rather than the private sector, we do less than anyone in the world. When we cannot bid on selling telephone equipment in Japan, it is because they have a national telephone company that is basically run and controlled by the Government. Certainly we don't want to write in our fast-track authority that we cannot negotiate to force Japan to open up those contracts to AT&T, to Bell, to all of our manufacturers. We have spent years doing that. I don't think we would want to undo it. One might argue if the Corzine amendment could simply prevent cooperation in things provided by the Government in America, that would be one thing. I personally don't think that is very good. But if you did, the problem is, these trade agreements are bilateral. You cannot take something off the table in our negotiations and leave similar things on the table in negotiating with our trading partner. I am not quite clear what he is trying to get at. Whatever it is, it is not good. We generate less of our GDP through government-provided services than any other major country in the world. Our biggest problem in many areas in promoting exports of American products is opening up government monopolies. This language basically takes us out of all those markets. It is a very bad proposal, in my opinion. Let me make it clear to our colleagues: I would like to see us enter into an agreement where we could go ahead and begin voting on the amendments that are pending so we can guarantee each side has a very short window to sum up things. We have been debating this bill for 18 days and our memories are starting to get stretched a little. We probably have a dozen amendments, more or less, that are pending which could be voted on. If we simply sit around and squander 3\1/2\ hours and let the clock run out on postcloture time, under the rule there is no debate of these amendments, they simply are voted on. I urge, especially the leaders on the other side of the aisle, to work out an agreement where we can begin voting and give people a short period of time to make their argument so we can vote. I understand we have a meeting at 2:30 and we are going to do bioterrorism during that hour. I hope when we come back from that meeting at 3:30, rather than waiting until 6:03, or whenever the time is, we could begin at that point voting, and we could give people a little bit of time to say what their amendment is about and give other people a little bit of time to say why they are against it. We have a couple of pending amendments that have points of order against them. It would be my intention when we get back from the 2:30 meeting, to see if we can make those points of order against those amendments--there may be an effort to waive the point of order. If so, there would be a vote at that point. I hope we can get this process going. There is no reason, in my opinion, to wait around until 6 o'clock and not give people an opportunity to make their case. I reserve the remainder of my time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Let me say that----

Mr. GRAMM. Twenty-two hours?

Mr. GRAMM. Twenty-three hours. So we have ample time, if the Senator wants to talk about this issue, to do it. I know the Senator from Utah wants to say a word about it. So I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. I object.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, not only do I not object, I concur.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I object.