Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that time spent in quorum calls requested during consideration of S. 1932 be equally divided between the majority and minority managers of the bill.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, at this point we turn to what is one of the more significant pieces of legislation to come before the Senate and the Congress during this session of the Senate. We always hear that. Whatever legislation comes to the Congress, they always say, Well, it is a significant piece of legislation--and it is. There is very little that he we do that cannot have that identification. But this one is a little unique because for the first time in 8 years under Republican leadership, this Congress will, if we are successful in passing this bill, conferencing it and then sending it on to the President, reduce the deficit of the United States through addressing what is the most significant item of spending in the Federal budget--mandatory programs. This is a major effort. As I said, it has not occurred in 8 years. The last time it happened was in the mid-1990s, and it has not occurred because people did not want to do it. It did not occur because it is not an easy thing to do. It is not easy to control the rate of the growth of the Federal Government, and it is not easy to control the growth of mandatory entitlement programs which is what this bill does. So it is an important step in the direction of fiscal responsibility, and it is one which I am very proud to have the opportunity to bring here to the floor as chairman of the Budget Committee. Let me explain quickly what the problem is so that people will understand the scope and concern of the issue of mandatory spending because it is going to impact not only America today but, more importantly, it is going to affect our children and our children's children if we do not do something positive in the area of trying to control Federal spending on mandatory programs. Mandatory programs are programs which people have a right to. In other words, if you were in the military and are a veteran, you have entitlement to certain benefits. If you are at a certain income level in this country, you have a right to certain benefits. If you are a student going to college and you meet certain income levels, you have a right to certain types of benefits. If you are a senior citizen in this country today, you have a right to certain benefits under the Medicare Program and the Medicaid Program, depending on your income level, and those payments have to be made. In other words, mandatory programs are programs where there is no discretion. The Federal Government has to pay out a certain amount of money because the law says that if a person meets a certain set of criteria, then that person has a right to the support of that program. Mandatory programs used to be a small percentage of the Federal Government, but today they have grown--and this has occurred over the last 20 years, actually in the post-1970 period--to be the largest part of the Federal Government. This chart reflects that. Back in 1975, mandatory programs represented a very small percentage. They are the orange bar here. Discretionary programs--let me explain discretionary programs. They are programs which are funded every year. Those are the ones you think of relative to Government, such as national defense, education, cleaning up the environment. That is called a discretionary program. Every year the Government makes a decision, under the appropriations bill process, that we are going to spend this much on foreign aid; we are going this spend this much on defending our country; we are going to spend this much on homeland security; we are going to spend this much on education. That is a discretionary program. We can change that every year. Nobody has a right to that money. Mandatory programs, as I said, people have a right to the program. So as we see the orange bar, in 1985, it was 45 percent of the Federal Government, discretionary being the balance. So there was an equal split between discretionary and mandatory. But you see that by today's accounting, mandatory programs represent approximately 56 percent of the Federal budget, the largest item in the Federal budget, and they are growing. In fact, this chart shows it rather dramatically. So that by the year 2015, they will be 62 percent of the Federal budget and essentially absorbing most of the Federal spending. What is the practical implication of that? Well, it means that if we are going to discipline ourselves as a government, we have to be willing to look at mandatory programs. The only way you can look at mandatory programs is through something called the reconciliation process. That is what we have in the Chamber today, a bill which controls the amount of spending the Federal Government does in the mandatory area and therefore reduces the debt if it reduces that spending. Why is it important to do this? Well, I mentioned the major programs in the mandatory area involve mostly health care and people who are retired: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And as a quirk of fate, there is this population group called the postwar baby boom generation, which is the largest generation in the history of our Government. This group has changed the country in every 10-year period. It has impacted the way the Nation lives. In the 1950s, we had to build a huge number of schools to meet the needs of this generation. In the 1960s, this generation had a huge impact on civil rights and women and, of course, in the Vietnam debate. In 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, this generation has been the most productive generation in the history of our country because it is the largest and also the best educated over that period and as a result has caused our country to obtain huge wealth, and we as a nation have been very prosperous as a result of this generation putting its oars in the water. But now this generation, the baby boom generation, is moving toward retirement and moving toward retirement rather quickly. By 2008, members of this generation will start to retire, and by 2030 this generation will, for all intents and purposes, be retired. And the effect of this huge generation retiring is it is going to put massive demands on people who are working; in other words, our children, my children, children of the baby boom generation, and their children are going to have to pay taxes to support the retirement benefits of this massive generation. To try to put it into perspective, in 1950, there were about 16 people working for every 1 person retired. Today, there are about 3\1/ 2\ people working for every 1 person retired. By the time we hit the year 2030, there will only be 2 people working for every person retiring in this country because the baby boom generation is huge. What is the impact on our Federal Treasury but more especially on the taxing of our children and our children's children when this happens? This chart, in red, shows it most dramatically. These are the three programs in the Federal Government--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--and the spending they absorb. Now, historically, Federal spending, the amount spent by the Federal Government, has averaged about 20 percent of the gross national product for a long time. That is the blue line here. And you can see that back in 1980, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid took up about 8 percent of the gross national product, and the balance was taken up in the Federal spending on national defense and other items. Today, that number has gone up so that it represents about 10 percent of the gross national product being absorbed by Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. But as you can see from this chart, by about the year 2030, when this baby boom generation is fully retired, these three programs alone--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--will use up all the revenues of the Federal Government--all of them. They will represent, in spending, 20 percent of gross national product. The practical implications of that are that you will have no money available for national defense, for education, for environmental cleanup, for all the different things you would like to do--for veterans affairs--because these three spending programs--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--will essentially be absorbing 20 percent of the gross national product, unless--unless--you want to dramatically increase the taxes on our children so that they actually end up paying more than 20 percent of gross national product in taxes or you are willing to slash programs and the benefits going to seniors. Neither of those options are very attractive, to say the least. If you look in the outyears, you see that these programs continue to accelerate even faster, so that by the year 2050, these programs are actually absorbing almost 30 percent of the gross national product. So we have to address this. Well, it is similar to that old television ad that used to be aired. There was an oil filter ad that said: You can pay me now or pay me later, and if you pay me later, it is going to cost a heck of a lot more. You can replace the oil filter today for $14 or a year from now or in 6 months you are going to have to replace the engine in your car for $2,500. You have the choice. We can act now and do some constructive and conscientious things to try to bring under control the rate of growth of entitlement spending, mandatory spending, that red line there, or we can bury our heads in the sand and say those are our children's problems, and they are going to have to pay our retirement benefits; we are not going to worry about them. Well, the Republican Congress and the President have decided it is not good policy to pass this problem on to our children and it is not fair and it is not right. So we produced a budget this year which, as I mentioned, for the first time in 8 years has moved into the sacred ground of trying to address controlling the rate of growth of mandatory spending and thus reducing the size of the Federal deficit. It has been complicated, it has been difficult, but we have made progress, and we now have in the Chamber this bill which does some very constructive things in this area. The bill itself represents about $71 billion, in gross terms, in reducing deficit spending over the next 5 years. However, because we felt there were some initiatives which needed to be taken in moving forward to make these savings and to accomplish this deficit reduction, because we felt there should also be initiatives to move forward, the net number in this bill of actual deficit reduction is about $29 billion. You may say, and some of our commentators have said: Well, it is not enough. This is small potatoes. Let me begin by saying, in New Hampshire, $39 billion is not small potatoes. I don't think it is anywhere in the United States, except in Washington. And more importantly, if you don't move forward with this attempt, you are essentially doing nothing, which means you have made no effort in the area of deficit reduction and no effort in the area of getting our spending under control. Now, why do we net out about $30 billion of new spending in this effort? As I mentioned, the total bill is about 71 and the spending reduction is about 39. Well, there are two major initiatives in this bill which account for most of the initial spending. The first is that the majority of the money from each one of the subcommittees--I should explain this quickly. Each committee in the Congress was asked to save a certain amount of money in their area of responsibility. The Finance Committee was asked to save $10 billion, the Agriculture Committee was asked to save $3 billion, the Education and Labor Committee was asked to save $13 billion. The Education and Labor Committee, in reaching its savings target, decided to reduce corporate subsidies that benefit people who lend money to students. Basically, they took a policy position that the corporate subsidies were too high in this area. In doing that, they felt that some of the savings from reducing those corporate subsidies should flow to students. So under the leadership of Chairman Enzi, there is essentially a major new push for funding programs that assist low-income students, low-income students who need assistance to go to college. That is good policy. We know that our country, if it is going to be competitive as we move into this century, has to be smarter, brighter, and more capable than the rest of the world, and the way you do that is by giving people the opportunity to go to college, no matter what their income levels are, and we give them an incentive to do that so they can be creative, imaginative, better educated and thus pursue better careers. And that is what we want, better careers for people. It creates jobs and opportunity throughout this country when we do that. So the HELP Committee--Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--came back with a program which had the $13 billion of savings in it, most of it through reducing corporate subsidies, lender corporate subsidies, and at the same time put a significant amount of new dollars, about $11 billion, into helping students, low-income students especially, go to college. The second major initiative is in the area of trying to keep doctors engaged in the Medicare Program. We know we have a lot of doctors who don't believe they are adequately compensated under Medicare and, as a result, are less inclined to see patients. The most important thing a patient needs if they are on Medicare is to see a doctor. That is fundamental to Medicare. There was a glidepath--it wasn't a glidepath; I guess it was a glidepath, it was coming down--to cut by 4.5 percent the salaries of doctors participating in Medicare. The chairman of the Finance Committee, Chairman Grassley, in a very foresighted decision, said that is not going to work because that means patients won't have access to doctors because doctors won't be treating patients if they have that sort of financial detriment placed on their back. Basically, in his bill, he has saved significant dollars in the area of health care. He has put a considerable amount of those dollars into the effort to keep doctors whole. There is no big increase in here for doctors, but basically they are at a freeze level. I guess it is a 1- percent increase, in fact, and that means we will have more access for people, patients will have more opportunity to see people they need to see when they are sick. That is an important initiative. All the spending--almost all the spending; I can't say all--almost all the spending programs in this bill, to the extent there are spending programs in this bill, are focused on low- and moderate-income people--in fact, almost entirely low and moderate efforts to give people more access to health care and students more access to college education. That being added up, we now have on the floor a $35 billion deficit reduction package. That is a major step forward. On top of that, there are major initiatives in this bill to address the pension issue. We know we have a serious problem coming at us in these areas: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, but running right along with that, as one might expect, is a huge problem coming at us in the private pension area. The pension guarantee fund, which essentially is a fund for when a company goes bankrupt--and we certainly are hearing a lot about that recently with our airlines--rather than allowing that company to completely wipe out that pension plan and all the people who worked for that company all their lives wake up one morning and find out they don't have a pension, even though they paid into it for years, this Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation guarantees a certain percentage of that pension will be paid--not all of it but a percentage of it. Because there have been so many bankruptcies and because we have had such a huge pressure on old-line industries in this country who had defined benefit plans, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is looking at a $30 billion to $50 billion deficit, which means it cannot meet its liabilities, which means, once again, at risk are even the slimmed-down pensions which come to people who find their pensions in the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. So in this bill there is an attempt to move toward solvency in that corporation, and that is good policy. Again, that came out of Senator Enzi's proposals, and he should be congratulated for it. His committee ended up with the largest lift, so to say, in this effort, and they did an excellent job in meeting that requirement. This is a very balanced bill, the bottom line of which is very simple: We are going to reduce the deficit by $35 billion in 5 years and that, quite honestly, translates--this is a big delta into the outyears--even into significantly more money as we move into the next 5 years. This is a significant step forward in the area of fiscal discipline. It is something that needs to be done in this country, and it is something this Republican Congress has been willing to step up to try to do. How has the other side reacted? We are going to hear a lot of people on the other side say this is a terrible bill because it cuts spending on the poor while it cuts taxes for the rich. That is the theme on the other side. It is a little hard to defend that position, quite honestly, in light of what this bill actually does. First off, this bill does not cut spending to the poor. To the extent there is new spending in this bill, it actually assists especially low- income students. The Medicaid changes are focused primarily on pharmaceuticals and, in addition, are designed to give Governors much more flexibility. I will tell you right now that a Governor who is worth his or her salt is going to be able to expand--expand--their care to low-income individuals under these proposals because they will have more flexibility. You give a good Governor more flexibility and they will need less dollars to do what they know is right. Because the stringencies of the Federal Government are so extraordinary, they waste a tremendous amount of money trying to meet the obligations. But there are no reductions in this bill toward low-income individuals. The reductions are focused on the pharmaceutical side. They are focused on trying to get the Medicaid system under control using good practices of management, something which I know the other side resists. But that is the way it works. Then there is this concept of there is a tax cut for the rich in here. First off, this bill has no tax cut in it at all. None. There is no tax relief in this bill. I wish it did have tax relief, but it has no tax relief. It cannot have tax relief, and I think this point needs to be made, and later on I will ask the Parliamentarian for his precise description of this point. But under this bill, if it has tax relief, it would mean the second reconciliation bill on tax relief could not be undertaken, as I understand it, and, therefore, this bill has been scrubbed of any tax relief activity. But the other side continues to say it is a tax bill. It is not. This is an opportunity--an opportunity--for the other side to vote to reduce the deficit by $39 billion--that is all it is--and to do it in a responsible way where we expand patients' access to health care, where we expand student loans, and where we get under control, finally, to some extent, some of these major entitlement programs, especially in the pension area, in the education area, and in the Medicaid area-- which leads me to my other point. We are hearing a lot of crying of wolf from the other side on the tax relief issue. We are going to hear over and over the refrain: If you look at the tax bill that is going to come next, $70 billion, there is actually a net loss to the Treasury of $30 billion or so because this reduces spending by $39 billion, but the tax bill puts in tax relief of $70 billion. The next bill, hopefully, will put in tax relief of $70 billion, but let's go to what the items are on that list. The next bill, the tax bill, is going to have in it a series of items that expire this year and next. What are the items that expire this year the other side appears to be opposed to because they say they are opposed to tax reconciliation? There is this alternative minimum tax. If we don't put in place relief for the alternative minimum tax, I think it is something like 8 or 9 or maybe even 20--the number is huge--million people, middle-income people, will suddenly pay taxes they did not pay before. It is a tax increase. The other side wants the increased taxes on those people, I guess. They want to raise the taxes on 8 to 9, 20 million people. Next is the research and experimentation tax credit. This is one of the most important tax credits at the Federal level because it encourages companies to be creative and, as we know, the reason we are competitive as a nation is because we create better products and we have better research, R&D, and that is what creates jobs and careers in this country. I guess the other side of the aisle wants to eliminate the R&D tax credit. They want to raise taxes on entrepreneurship and on creativity. The next tax that will expire in the next 2 years is the deduction for teachers' classroom expenses. This is the deduction we give to teachers who are good enough to, out of their own pocket, buy crayons for their classrooms; buy books for their classrooms, something they think their kids need. We decided teachers should have that type of help. Not the other side of the aisle. I guess they want to raise taxes on teachers who do that. They want to raise those taxes. The deduction for qualified educational expenses, once again, that is tied to the teachers' classroom expenses. A deduction for State and local sales taxes--I have to admit, I am not sympathetic to letting the State and local taxes be deducted because New Hampshire doesn't have a sales tax. We also don't have an income tax. If you want to live where somebody knows how to handle their money, come to New Hampshire. But most of the high-tax States in this country--Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and California--and let me see, how many Republican Senators are from those States? I can't remember. I don't think there are any. In all of those States, the sales tax is a huge portion of their revenue. Yet the other side of the aisle, I guess, does not want people in those States to be able to deduct their sales tax because they do not want the next tax reconciliation bill to come through here. Very ironic. I think it shows the hypocrisy, maybe, of the other side of the aisle when they come in here claiming they are opposed to the reconciliation bill when, in fact, the beneficiaries of this reconciliation bill are going to be the high-tax States, most of whom are represented by Democratic Members in the Senate. The list goes on. I hope people, when they hear this constant refrain in grand, large terms, will ask specific questions: What is that tax you want to raise on people? What is the tax increase you want to stick people with? Do you want people to have to pay more because they cannot deduct their sales tax? Do you want people to pay more because they are stuck with the alternative minimum tax? Do you want people to pay more because the teacher bought crayons for the classroom? Those are the questions you need to ask. So this proposal coming from the other side is really a straw dog, and it is a lot of hyperbole. But if you look behind the hyperbole and ask the substantive question, What are they really proposing, you see quickly they have no substance to their argument, and that, in fact, this is their opportunity, if they wish to try to reduce the deficit, to vote for this bill which cuts the deficit by $39 billion. We can also ask, Where is the Democratic budget that gives us an alternative? Have we seen a Democratic budget that has given us an alternative? We were on the floor for 50 hours, but we never saw a budget from the Democratic Party. Never. And we are going to be on the floor for 20 hours with this reconciliation bill. Are we going to see an alternative bill? I don't think so. In fact, we put together what the Democratic proposal has been since we started with the budget program, how much they have proposed in new spending. You cannot read this. There is so much spending, we couldn't put it in big letters. We ended up with little letters. You can't read it because there is so much spending. But it adds up to almost $500 billion of new spending that has been proposed by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle since January 1, just this year, $500 billion almost. So maybe that is their proposal. They never really fleshed this out in specifics, so we went back and asked-- clearly, if they had their way, they would probably want to increase spending--what is their specific proposal to reduce the deficit? What is that specific proposal? We went back and found out what it was, and here it is. This is the specific proposal of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for reducing the deficit: A blank page. A blank page. There is going to be a lot of hyperbole in the next few days about how this bill doesn't do this or how it doesn't do that, but what this bill does is it reduces the deficit by $39 billion over the next 5 years. That cannot be denied. And the one major vote, the one opportunity people are going to have in this Senate as a result of the hard deficit is going to occur when we have final passage of this deficit reduction bill. We are going to be debating it for 20 hours, and then, hopefully, we will go to a vote. I, again, congratulate all the chairmen of all the different committees who were able to hit this target in what is a very difficult time and a very difficult task. I yield the floor to one of the architects of this bill who did an extraordinary job, Senator Grassley.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the presence and use of small electronic calculators be permitted in this Chamber during consideration of S. 1932.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 259, S. Res. 255.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to address the issue which is being debated here relative to the amendment by Senator Harkin regarding the avian flu and how we are going to address this very serious potential pandemic. We all recognize this is a threat of dramatic proportions, not only to our society but to the world generally. As a Congress, we have tried to begin to address this matter relative to other issues that could have an equal impact, involving biologics that could be used against our society in a terrorist attack. Three years ago I authored a bill called the BioShield bill. Along with a number of Members of this Senate, including Senator Kennedy, who was the ranking member of the committee I chaired at that time, the HELP Committee, we put together a package which basically created a structure which we hoped would lead to development of vaccines to address the threat which was posed by the use of biological weapons against our country, specifically things such as smallpox, anthrax, botulism, and plague. That proposal, the BioShield bill, was funded at $5.6 billion, which is a lot of money. The reason we put that much money in the pipeline was because we wanted to create an incentive for the pharmaceutical industry and for startup biological companies to begin to develop vaccines. Our country, regrettably, has seen basically a devastation of the vaccine industry. We used to have 30 to 40 companies that were involved in the production of vaccines. Regrettably, that number is down to three or four. The reason we have seen this dramatic reduction in companies that are willing to invest in research and then develop vaccines is pretty simple. The return on investing in a vaccine is significantly less than the cost of investing in that vaccine as looked at through the eyes of a pharmaceutical company or those of a biological company, because of the threat of lawsuit. The fact is, the potential liabilities created by doing a vaccine are so huge that no amount of projected return on investment, from an investment standpoint, ever justifies creating a vaccine. So the vaccine companies have essentially contracted in this country and the assets which were being used to develop vaccines historically are now being used to develop other types of pharmaceuticals. The second reason there has been a contraction, at least in these areas, is there is no use for these vaccines unless an event occurs because there is no smallpox in this world right now, thank goodness, and vaccines against smallpox would not be necessary unless there were a smallpox outbreak. And there could not be a smallpox outbreak unless there were a terrorist event that uses smallpox as a weapon. It is a fact that you cannot have a smallpox outbreak in this world today unless there were an intentional decision to spread the smallpox by somebody who had a terrorist intent. So for a company to go in and develop a vaccine for that means they would be developing a vaccine which has no market. The BioShield theory was: Put a lot of money in the pipeline to create an economic incentive for companies and researchers and biological groups to pursue creation of vaccines only in those areas where there is no vaccine today or there is limited vaccine availability today and where the threat is not a common threat that would be spread in a way other than through terrorism. We listed the top six threats, No. 1 being smallpox, No. 2 anthrax, followed by things such as botulism and plague spread by a terrorist event, and said we would use this $5.6 billion to try to develop these vaccines. We thought we had therefore moved the issue along and started to resolve the issue. It turns out we did not. It turns out the BioShield bill, even though it had $5.6 billion behind it, has not energized the market or research atmosphere we hoped for. It turns out that only $1 billion has been spent on purchasing smallpox capability, the known manufacturing process for which had already existed. So we have learned a fairly significant lesson here which needs to be applied to the avian flu issue, and that is why it is important. The lesson is this: Even though you put a lot of money in the pipeline, you are not going to resolve the problem--the problem being resolved, of course, by having scientists being willing to develop ways to address these types of disease threats--unless you also put in place the mechanisms to create the atmosphere for the production of the vaccine. So last week or 2 weeks ago the HELP Committee passed a creative and strong bill, which was authored primarily by the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, which attempted to address the entire issue in a packaged way of how you energize the American creative spirit to produce responses and vaccines which will protect us from not only terrorist threats but things such as avian flu. One of the key elements of that is money. But another key element of that is the liability protection. So I came to the floor today to make it clear that even though it is correct that we need to put a significant amount of money in place, and put it in place soon--the amendment offered by the Senator from Iowa relative to the Defense bill, I think is the right approach. This amendment as an emergency supplemental, if it is put in place with the defense money being considered and in the context of what the administration is going to send up here as a proposal, probably within the next week, also may well be the right course. But all this money that is going to be put on the table is not going to solve the problem unless we are also sensitive to the fact that there are other forces out there that are limiting the willingness of the research community and the vaccine development community to pursue solutions. We have to take all those hurdles out of the way, not just one of them out of the way. It is critical that we do a comprehensive approach to this. I understand within a week or so the White House is going to send us a comprehensive approach. It is critical that we get that type of leadership on this. But we, as a Senate, at least, have already proposed a comprehensive approach through the proposal of Senator Burr, and we should make sure any movement in this area be tied to the proposal of Senator Burr and the HELP Committee, which was reported out, and the much more comprehensive amendment of Senator Enzi. This is a much more complex problem than putting money into it. We already know from our personal experience through the BioShield that putting money into it is not going to get the type of response we need. It has to be more than dollars; it has to be policy. Some of the specific things we need to do, beyond reforming the liability structure so we have people willing to participate in the vaccines, is to purchase a vaccine where it is available. Some obviously are available now, but the vaccine for avian flu is limited. Tamiflu has some serious limitations in its applicability, although there are other things in development which may work a lot better. We also have to have research capacity to handle an event like this in basic things such as surgical masks and hypodermic needles and bed capacity. All this has to be put together in a comprehensive structure, and there has to be a clearer form of how we would execute were we to be hit with a pandemic, with the responsibility being allocated and people knowing who they would be reporting to and how we would get action taken. There are a lot of things in play here to effectively address the avian flu issue, much of which is being addressed as a Congress, but much of which has to be addressed also by the administration and which we expect to see in the next few weeks from the administration--and dollars are only part of it. I wanted to put that caveat on the table. If we were to simply vote for the proposal from Senator Harkin and say we have done our job, we need to pass the Burr language. And we need to make sure the administration is aggressively pursuing a comprehensive and orderly approach to how they will deal with it, should an outbreak occur. I know they are. Every State is. My own State has already set up a very sophisticated approach of how they are going to deal with the necessity of potentially isolating people, and with the potential of having to ration the vaccine. These are going to be very difficult questions of how you deal with bed capacity and things such as that. There is a lot more to do. I wanted to discuss this in the context of the BioShield bill and what we need to do. This is more than a dollars issue. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. First off, I would note that the amount that is in my amendment is the exact amount which the Senator from Rhode Island asked of the Appropriations Committee less than a month ago. It is the exact amount that the Senator from Maine asked of the Appropriations Committee less than a month ago. It is the exact amount that 41 other Senators sent a letter to the Appropriations Committee and asked for relative to LIHEAP costs, low-income energy costs. Why was that amount chosen? It was not picked out of the air. It was chosen because that is the amount necessary in order to hold harmless the various low-income energy programs across this country, in order to cover the costs of the increase of fuel oil estimated in September, which was actually at a higher cost level than today. So this actually will represent more money than is necessary in order to keep these programs whole. It will actually represent additional money. It represents over a 48-percent increase in funding. That is a rather dramatic increase. In addition, this amendment that I have proposed is paid for. Our job should be to set priorities in this Congress. We should say, what is the priority? Well, I happen to think one of the priorities is making sure that senior citizens, people who live on fixed incomes, low-income individuals who are trying to heat their homes in this very difficult winter, with prices being high and with the winter already upon us--at least in New Hampshire we had some significant snow yesterday--that they will have the ability to have a program which covers those costs. But we should pay for it. What have I suggested? I have suggested a less than 1 percent cut across the board in all the other programs in this bill. That is the logical and appropriate way to pay for this increase in funding which is needed, an increase which is the exact amount of money that was asked for by the Senator from Rhode Island, the Senator from Maine, and other Senators who felt the need, as I do, for a commitment in this account. So it is a reasonable step. My bill is a reasonable action. I would also note one other thing. The Senator from Rhode Island and the Senator from Maine have offered an amendment which because it is so over the top from a budget standpoint, so outside the budget structure which we have, is subject to a budget point of order. As Budget chairman, I am fairly familiar with these. Those budget points of order are put in place to discipline ourselves, and of course it is to set priorities. My amendment is not subject to a budget point of order, an emergency point of order. So let us remember that when we are voting on this, if my colleagues want to have a realistic chance of getting a significant increase in funding for the low-income energy program, they should vote for my amendment because it is only going to take 51 votes to pass it; whereas, the amendment from the other side will take 60 votes. Remember that the number I have put into this amendment is the number which was actually requested by the sponsors of the first amendment, and therefore it is a reasonable number. It is not an arbitrary number. It is a number that makes sense. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that we return to regular order.

Mr. GREGG. What is the time status?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I will respond briefly--because I only have a minute, I will have to do it briefly--to the point of the Senator from Iowa. What is happening is that we are suggesting that we should put approximately a $3 billion hole in the budget to pay for heating costs. Who is going to pay for that? Who is going to pay for it if we do not set the priorities here and offset the costs? I will tell you who is going to pay for it--our children are, because we have to go out and borrow that $3 billion. So what we are essentially saying is we are going to take $3 billion from our children to pay for heating costs this winter for seniors and other people who are on fixed incomes. We should be responsible for that here this year, not be passing it on to the next generation to pay that cost through a debt, financing it through debt. Clearly, offsetting this spending makes sense, and my amendment does exactly that. It offsets it in a reasonable way, less than a 1-percent across-the-board cut, less than 1 percent in order to fund a very important program, increase funding for a very important program to assist seniors and other folks who are on fixed incomes and low incomes.

Mr. GREGG. I send a modification to the desk.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I simply note that this amendment increases the funding for the low-income assistance program by $1.27 billion, which is the number 41 Senators asked for the amount of increase. That means the program will effectively have been increased by about 48 percent. It will allow for the program to be held harmless, and, in fact, it will probably put extra money into the program beyond holding it harmless. In addition, this is paid for, so we are setting priorities. We are not passing this additional spending on to our children through debt, which means it is not subject to a point of order. In addition, it is the responsible way to approach this. As a practical matter, if you expect to increase the funding for low-income assistance programs, this will be your best vote to do it because this will only take 51 votes; the other votes took 60.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent at this time that my amendment, which is the second amendment to be ordered, be called up and that the other amendments be set aside so I can modify my amendment.

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

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I send my amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, the reason I sent this amendment up as a first-degree amendment is that I believe we have an understanding with Senator Reed and Senator Collins as to the voting sequence, and that is important, and that is why I originally asked to be protected with a second-degree amendment. The amendment is now pending. Once again, to summarize what the amendment does, it increases the funding for LIHEAP by $1.276 billion, which is the number which was asked originally of the administration about a month ago by 41 Senators, including Senator Collins and Senator Reed, in a letter sent to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Appropriations Committee. It is a significant number. The number is reached by determining what the projected costs of the increased cost of energy will be to our citizens who are living on a fixed income. Second, it is an amendment which is paid for where we recognize we have a priority as a Government to participate in assisting these individuals who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in dire straits if the energy costs, with their significant jump in price, make it impossible for them to buy adequate heating oil to heat their homes, and in recognizing that priority, we pursue a policy of making sure that the moneys will be put into the LIHEAP program, but at the same time it will be paid for by a reasonable, across-the-board cut, relative to other programs within this bill, on the theory it would be inappropriate to simply raise this spending without doing an across- the-board cut or without some adequate offset because that means we would be deficit financing this number and thus passing this cost on to our children to pay, rather than absorbing the cost, as it should be absorbed, by our generation. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Grassley be listed as a cosponsor.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I think that establishes pretty definitively what the number is. In fact, I drafted an amendment, which I intend to offer at this time, which would increase the funding for low-income energy assistance by an amount of $1.276 billion. The $1.276 billion which is, I believe, the agreed-to number about which 41 Members of this Senate, all of whom I believe are probably supporting various amendments in this area, signed a letter asking the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Appropriations Committee to put in place an increase in the LIHEAP program--is going to be the amount by which my amendment increases the LIHEAP program. That is a significant increase, a rather dramatic increase, in fact, and it represents, as a percentage, probably about a 50-percent increase in the program or well over a 50-percent increase; in fact, a 58-percent increase in funding and, in fact, hits the target we need to aim at in order to make sure that people of low incomes, living on fixed incomes, will have the necessary support they need to fund the cost of their energy this winter during the coldest months so they do not have to be put in a situation where they choose between food and warmth, something that would be inexcusable and inappropriate. There is a further thing that my amendment does because I do believe in a fiscally responsible approach, and I believe Congress has an obligation to set priorities. There is no question in my mind that an immediate priority for us is that we make sure that the low-income energy assistance program is adequately funded heading into what will obviously be a difficult winter in light of the high energy costs. That should be a priority of our Government. But in setting that priority, we should not pass the debt, as I said earlier, of funding that program on to our children. We should decide what we are going to cut or how we are going to reduce the rate of growth in spending at the Federal level to pay for this program. So my amendment, in addition to adding this fairly significant, rather dramatic increase in funding to the LIHEAP program, and a number which was originally supported by the 41 signatories of the letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Appropriations Committee, also puts in place an offset to pay for this. The offset represents an across-the-board cut under this bill of all accounts. It comes out to be less than a 1-percent cut, a nine-tenths- of-1-percent reduction in spending across other accounts to pay for this LIHEAP spending. That is the proper way to approach an issue such as this. Let's determine whether or not it is a priority. If it is a priority--and I believe it is a priority--to fund LIHEAP, then let's fund it and not pass it on to our children. That is what I do in this amendment. Rather than sending it up as a second degree, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, the regular order is that we are back on the bill, is that right?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, obviously, the amendment that is now pending of the Senator from Rhode Island and the Senator from Maine is an amendment I am sympathetic to. Those of us who come from the northern States, whether they be in the Midwest or New England, recognize that winter can be a beautiful time. Snow is wonderful, lovely, and certainly brings skiers to our region, and we very much encourage that. But it can also be an extraordinarily difficult time, difficult for people who are living on a fixed income, a set income, difficult for folks who have to find ways to heat their home and also meet the expenses of everyday life. Certainly keeping home heating is about as important an expense as you can have in everyday life. It is especially hard on senior citizens, seniors who have obviously fixed incomes in most instances. When the price of their fuel oil jumps significantly, they do not have a whole lot of opportunity to adjust their income because they are no longer earning a salary, usually, in most instances in order to meet that increase in cost. We have obviously seen a dramatic rise in the cost of energy prices, especially home heating oil and in the gas area for homes. So the issue becomes how do we help these people who, through no action of their own, find themselves in a dire financial situation and facing a very stark situation this winter, should they not have the dollars necessary to pay for their home heating oil. We are talking about people of very low incomes, people who are on fixed incomes, in most instances people who are senior citizens, and the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program which has been in place for a number of years has been a way of helping these people bridge this period, and it has always been focused on the neediest of the needy. It has been a well-administered program, at least in the State of New Hampshire where people who were clearly in distress, who have situations where they simply are unable to afford the cost of keeping their home heated in the middle of an extremely cold winter, had a place to go to get some assistance. It is a good program for that reason. It has been strongly supported over the years in a bipartisan way. The administration has consistently funded this program and has, to its credit, always released money early when it was necessary due to cold weather hitting us sooner than might have been originally anticipated under the traditional weather patterns, which is what happened last year. But this year we do face the unique situation of these huge runups in the cost of home heating oil in New England specifically and, of course, the gas across the Midwest and into parts of New England, and this runup is a function of a lot of different events. The Katrina situation is a big part of it. It has disrupted the refining capacity of our Nation rather significantly. Obviously, the instability of the Middle East is another part of it. The demand which is now being created in parts of Asia, especially China and India, as those economies expand, is part of it. But whatever the reason, we are seeing a dramatic jump in the cost of home heating oil specifically and therefore we know a lot of people, as we head into winter--and believe me, it is getting cold in New Hampshire. In fact, today there was a fair amount of snow in many parts of our State--we know these people are going to need some help, people of very low income, people who are living on very fixed and tight budgets. So it is appropriate that we expand the LIHEAP program to meet this unanticipated cost which is no fault of anybody's, certainly not those who are receiving the benefit of this program. The question is how do we expand this program? Over the last few weeks, we have had a number of attempts to expand this program. It really was not in a manner we call fiscally prudent or responsible, and we simply said we are going to put a lot of money in this program, money not budgeted, money outside the budget, and do it in a manner which would have violated the budget. So points of order were made against those proposals, and those points of order have all been sustained, and appropriately so. We do have a budget under which we must live. The issue is how do we set priorities within that budget. Right now I believe one of our actions should be to set a priority to put more money into the Low- Income Home Energy Assistance Program. We should absolutely do that, but we should do it in a way that is responsible so we do not end up passing the bills for today's energy costs on to our children by creating more debt. I don't think senior citizens who benefit from the low-income energy program want us to go into debt to pay for their energy costs and end up with our children paying the cost of their energy today, when their children might need the same type of support and would be less able to get it if they had to pay for not only their energy costs but also pay for the low-income energy costs of the last generation, the generation of today. The proper way to do this is to increase the LIHEAP program in a way that is fiscally responsible. The best way to do that is to look at what the need is, to begin with. The program costs or additional costs of the program, which we know will probably be generated as they can best be projected, on top of the money already being spent on the program, which is about $2.4 billion, is about $1.276 billion. This number of the additional cost increase, which is a fairly significant number--it is a lot of money--that was essentially reached by calculating the increase in energy cost as a result of a runup in energy prices and finding out how much oil and gas was used last year by this program and then basically converting that to the increase in the cost of the program. So the number that has been generally agreed to around here as being the correct number and the reasonable number and the number that would be consistent with the historic needs of the program is $1.276 billion. It is not me saying this, by the way. I didn't come to that number. Actually, 41 Members of the Senate signed a letter saying that. They wrote the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee on September 20--not that long ago--and asked for an increase in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program by $1.27 billion. Signing that letter were Senator Collins and Senator Reed, who are the authors of the pending amendment, along with, as I mentioned, 41 other Members, which is a fairly large number of the membership of the Senate, many of whom are from the Northeast. They reached that number through the calculations I just said. So that number is a reasonable number. I ask unanimous consent that this letter, signed by 41 Senators, be printed in the Record.

Mr. GREGG. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, as chairman of the Budget Committee, I regularly comment on appropriations bills that are brought to this Senate for consideration and present the financial comparisons and budgetary data. The pending Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations bill provides $141.7 billion in discretionary budget authority and $141.4 billion in discretionary outlays for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies for fiscal year 2006. Also included in the bill is $405.3 billion in mandatory budget authority and $405.2 billion in mandatory outlays for FY 2006. With outlays from prior-years, amounts declared as an emergency--$300 million for LIHEAP and $19 million for Refugee Assistance--and other completed actions, the Senate bill totals $547.3 billion in budget authority and $546.6 billion in outlays for FY 2006. These amounts would technically represent a decrease of 0.8 percent in discretionary budget authority and a decrease of 0.2 percent in discretionary outlays from the 2005 enacted levels. However, when taking into account the SSI pay date shift into FY 2007 and emergency appropriations, the bill provides $2.5 billion or a 1.7 percent increase in discretionary funding over the FY 2005 enacted level. As originally reported, the level of budget authority was precisely at the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation while the outlays amount was $1.1 billion below the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation. However, because the bill assumes erectile dysfunction drug savings--$105 million--that were recently enacted into law by HR 3971 for Katrina related unemployment insurance costs--and the QI and TMA extensions-- this bill is now $15 million over the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation and is subject to a 302(f) point of order. The committee-reported bill also delays $3.36 billion in SSI payments to elderly and disabled individuals--an amount equivalent to one month's worth of FY 2006 SSI obligations--from fiscal year 2006 into fiscal year 2007. The original purpose of this shift was to allow for $3.4 billion in additional non-defense discretionary spending in FY 2006 that otherwise would put the bill over its 302(b) allocation, thereby exceeding the discretionary spending limit agreed to with the House in this year's budget resolution. Not only could this action result in a hardship for the elderly and disabled on fixed incomes by delaying their ability to make their monthly rent payments, this accounting gimmick constitutes an advance appropriation that is unauthorized as well as exceeds the total level of allowed advance appropriations for fiscal year 2007 as set out under section 401(b) of the fiscal year 2006 budget resolution. As a result, a point of order lies against this bill for making an unauthorized advanced appropriation; if raised, the point of order may be waived only by an affirmative vote of 60 Members of the Senate. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the Budget Committee scoring of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Michigan.