Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. The TEA-21 total cost for 1998 to 2003 was a $218 billion bill. That included highways at $167 billion, transit at $41 billion, and safety and motor carriers at $10 billion. A straight 6-year extension of that would have been a $243 billion bill, with highways at $190 billion, transit at $49 billion, and safety and motor carriers at $3.4 billion. The administration's proposal was originally a $248 billion bill, with highways at $195 billion. SAFETEA, which is what is on the floor now, is a $318 billion bill, with highways at $255 billion, transit at $56 billion, and safety and motor carriers at $7 billion. The House, which is talking about marking up its own bill, is at $375 billion allegedly, with highways at $293 billion, transit at $82 billion--and it is not really clear yet what the safety and motor carrier number is, but it is pretty obvious if the House is over our number as we are taking this bill up on the floor, we are not talking about a conference that is going to come back to the budget number. So our one opportunity to enforce the budget, to have fiscal discipline, and to not significantly aggravate the deficit is this vote that is going to come up on the issue of waiving the budget. I certainly hope we will stand with the Senator from Arizona as he tries to enforce some fiscal discipline on this bill which, remember, if the budget number is put in place on this bill, it will be a 19- percent increase. We are not talking about cutting spending. We are talking about cutting spending in a lot of accounts. The President has sent up a freeze budget for domestic, nondefense, and nonnational security issues, so we are going to have to cut some spending around here. This bill is not going to cut spending. If it meets the budget, it is going to be up 19 percent. So it is not like we are asking people to take a hit or to reduce highway construction. In fact, highway construction will increase considerably if we go forward with a bill which is within the budget, and it will also be responsible, which is the key to this exercise. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I knew the question was going to be a good one. Let me point out that I offered an amendment 2 weeks ago. I was ready to vote on it at any time over those 2 weeks. It is hardly my dilatory tactics that kept us from going to a vote on that amendment. In fact, it was the manager of the bill who decided to take a parliamentary move which brought down my amendment and made it impossible for me to get to a vote. Why would it be dilatory on my part that the managers brought down my amendment without allowing me a vote? I guess I would turn the question back to the manager. Is the manager at this point willing to vote on my amendment? In fact, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to bring forward, recognizing that it is not germane at this time because the manager has positioned the bill so it is not allowed to be voted on, but I ask unanimous consent at this point, because the managers asked for a vote, that I be given a vote on my amendment, which was the amendment dealing with collective bargaining which was pending for a week and a half in this body and on which I was not given a vote.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate that question from the Senator from Arizona and that answer, both of which were excellent, by the way. I am glad somebody around here--who is not necessarily a member of the committee bringing the bill to the floor--knows the number by which the bill exceeds the budget. I do think that is sort of an elementary item you might want to know when you bring a bill to the floor of the Senate, by what amount do you exceed the budget, especially when you ask to waive the budget. The Senator from Arizona has answered that question. The bill exceeds the budget by somewhere in the vicinity of $24 billion, I believe was the Senator's statement, on the EPW side, and $2-something billion on the Commerce side. I am not quite sure why we should be waiving the budget on that size number. That is a big number: $24 billion.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I believe I have the floor and I am happy to yield for a question to the Senator.

Mr. GREGG. I would be interested in getting an answer first from the Senator from Missouri, who refused to answer my prior questions with any specificity, before I yield for a question. I will complete my statement and then yield.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. And after his was disposed of, mine would be properly in order; is that not correct, Mr. President?

Mr. GREGG. What would the amendment of the Senator from North Dakota be to? Mine was a second-degree amendment, I believe.

Mr. GREGG. I would ask what the Durbin amendment does and does not do.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. GREGG. This amendment deals with the rights of police officers to have the right to collective bargaining and firemen to have the right to collective bargaining.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise again as we proceed on the bill to present my concerns about where we are in the process relative to the highway bill and relative to the management of the Federal budget. The bill before the Senate with the proposed amendment which I believe has been offered, the substitute, creates a significant increase in funding and spending in the area of highways. Many Members support transportation improvements. I have always supported having a strong transportation program because it is critical to our infrastructure. But in doing that, we have to do it within the context of managing the budget correctly. We cannot simply put money into programs because we like them without doing it in the context of what the budget limitations are and what the various income is in the trust fund that would pay for these activities. The highway bill has always been a trust fund--not always--a trust fund-generated event, where the gas tax and other taxes that are highway related and transportation related are collected and spent for the purposes of building infrastructure. That is the way it should be. That is the way most States do it, too, by the way. I don't think any States use general fund revenues for the purposes of managing their highways, although I am not aware of that. As Governor of New Hampshire, when I had the honor and privilege to serve in that position, this was a very big issue that we not use the general funds for the purposes of managing our highways. However, what is happening in this bill, unfortunately, is that we are, through a series of accounting mechanisms which are, in my opinion, illusory in some ways and inappropriate in other ways, basically raiding the general fund for the purposes of funding highway construction activity and at the same time we are dramatically expanding the spending levels above what the levels are that are part of the budget process for the highway fund. That is inappropriate. It is inappropriate that we should be going outside the highway fund for the purposes of funding highways and that we should be exceeding the budget levels for the purposes of funding highways. Rather, we should have the fiscal discipline to recognize when you are in a difficult fiscal situation, as we are as a country, when you are running deficits, which we are, unfortunately, as a country, you must, in all accounts, including those which you are strongly committed to, have fiscal discipline. That involves staying within the budget and that involves being sure that in something where you are using a trust fund, you have the funds in place in that trust fund before you spend it. That is why I am concerned about this bill. It is my opinion if we allow this bill to go forward in its present form we will be significantly aggravating the deficit, we will be dramatically adding to the deficit, and we will be creating a precedent of using the general fund for the purposes of funding the highway accounts. That is bad policy. The underlying policy and having a strong transportation program can still be accomplished, but we should do it within the context of staying within the budget and staying within the highway bill. I have spoken on this before. This is not one item that stands alone on this issue. I suppose if we were running a surplus, or a deficit which was not so large or was not growing, I would probably tolerate this type of spending. This is, rather, an additional straw on the camel's back, and specifically our children. Our children have to pay the debt which we run up in the Government. It is passed on to the next generation. If we are going to be fair to our children and our children's children so they can have the quality of life we have, then we have to give them a government and a fiscal house that is in order. Unfortunately, within the last 2 years we have not necessarily followed that course of action as a Congress. We have passed a series of bills which have dramatically aggravated the situation relative to the budget, deficit spending, and long-term structural deficits--mostly on the entitlement side, and mostly in the area of programmatic activity that has to be spent, or programmatic activity that is locked in place on a flight path of expenditure. It occurs in the Medicare accounts and it occurs in the agricultural accounts. There is an attempt to do it in the energy accounts. It could potentially occur in this account, if it passes in its present form. That is why I have such reservations about this bill. I especially have reservations about the substance of it. I am not absolutely sure how it is structured because I haven't had time to look at it yet. But it appears to me that in its present form it does take money out of the general fund and move it into the highway fund through a variety of mechanisms which at best would be called playing fast and loose with the budget rules of this Congress. It is probably, therefore, subject to a budget point of order and is, therefore, inappropriate. In addition, if we are going to take up this bill, it is our first opportunity to have a bill which could address a variety of other issues we have concerns about as a government. There is a bill that was passed out of my committee which I had the good fortune to chair, the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, which deals with the rights of public safety officers, specifically firemen and police officers, who work in one of the most dangerous jobs in our country. It deals with fair treatment of them in the area of how they protect their rights in employment. It is a bill which has passed my committee a couple of times. It was being brought to the floor last year, and regrettably it didn't come through the entire process. But it does create an opportunity for fire and police personnel, and public safety personnel--who are very important, and who obviously use our transportation system rather aggressively--to protect the transportation system when there are violations of law relative to the operation on roads, or protecting it when there are hazardous events on the road, or when people are injured and fire rescue personnel respond, or even if there are fires involving transportation vehicles. So it is tied into this whole bill--the protection of police and fire personnel and their rights to have a reasonable workplace and a workplace where they feel they are getting what they need. It is something which I have been greatly involved in and committed to for many years. Thus, it is my intention at this time to send an amendment to the desk in the nature of a second degree to the amendment which is the pending substitute. I send an amendment to the desk. Amendment No. 2266 to Amendment No. 2265

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. This is the same amendment I offered before. Obviously, it was removed from being in order because the underlying amendment was withdrawn, so I have reoffered it to keep it in the batting order. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. GREGG. I send an amendment to the desk which second degrees the amendment of Senator Dorgan.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that after the completion of the statement of the Senator from Oklahoma, I have 5 minutes.

Mr. GREGG. Does the Senator mind, after he finishes his statement, that I be allowed to speak?

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GREGG. Then obviously I do not object.

Mr. GREGG. I was under the impression there was a unanimous consent request to set the amendment aside. I take it that did not occur.

Mr. GREGG. I object.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we are about to take up a new spending bill in the Senate involving transportation funding for the United States. This bill, which is an important bill, comes to the Senate in a fiscally unsound condition. That is regrettable. What is even more regrettable is that this is the continuation of an unfortunate line of legislation which has come to the Senate and which has been passed by the Senate and passed by the House. In some cases, not passed by the Senate but at least passed by the House, and has significantly expanded spending at the Federal level, which has in turn dramatically aggravated the national deficit. This is unfortunate. To recap some of the bills, we had, for example, the agriculture authorization bill, which included basically a conversion to an entitlement scheme of most of the agricultural programs and dramatically increased spending in those accounts well above what we would have budgeted on the discretionary side. That was followed, of course, by the most significant piece of spending legislation in my career in Government, the most significant piece of legislation from an entitlement standpoint since the Medicare bill was originally passed back in the late 1960s, early 1970s period, and that was the Medicare prescription drug bill. That bill included $400 billion--as represented, at least--of new spending over 10 years, which was unpaid for, and which had, after it is outside the 10-year budgeting window and got into the real terms of how that bill was going to affect national spending, had a price tag of somewhere between $6 and $8 trillion of unpaid-for spending. I did not support the Medicare prescription drug bill because I felt it was the largest generational tax increase in history, basically raising significantly the benefits for one generation which will have to be paid by a younger generation. That means the younger generation is going to have to increase their taxes significantly to support the older generation, my generation, the baby boom generation, by the tune of $6 to $8 trillion. Thus, I did not support that bill because I did not think it was fair to the younger generation to put this tax bill on them without substantive reform in the bill which would control the costs of Medicare. We passed this bill only 2 or 3 months ago. Now we learn the original estimates of the bill, which were $400 billion over 10 years, were misstated. It now appears the bill is going to be projected at costing $500-plus billion. That amount also is probably misstated. That is probably a conservative number. At the time the Medicare bill was debated in the Senate, there were some Members who said the accurate reflection for the 10-year period was closer to $700 billion, but the debt was not being correctly stated and, scoring being scoring, the bill came in at $395 billion. Ironically, if it came in at $401 billion, it would have been out of order, but it came in at $395 billion so it was in order. Now we learn 3 months later it really was $500-plus billion. That is just in 3 months. Imagine, if it jumped $100 billion, or 25 percent in 3 months, at the end of a year, if you project that number out, it will jump--that is a progressive geometric number--somewhere around 200 percent by the end of this year. Hopefully not. In any event, the fact that we were misled, the fact that this number is so high is unfortunate. The problem is, it puts in place structural spending which is out of control and which has to be paid for by one generation in order to support the next generation, which is unfair for our generation to do to our children unless we put in place reform. And there was no significant reform. That was the most egregious act I have seen in my career in Congress or in Government in the area of fiscal responsibility, because of the inappropriateness of one generation passing a tax increase on to another generation. That bill, which was a huge bill, was then followed by the Energy bill. The President of the United States asked for an $8 billion Energy bill. I supported an energy bill. We need an energy bill. It should be based on expanding conservation. It should be based on expanding renewables. It should be based on expanding supply. I am one of the few Senators from the Northeast who aggressively voted for all three of those areas. However, when the President asked for $8 billion, I thought that was reasonable and it was a budgeted figure. What happened? The Energy bill came back in the Senate at $24 billion which was $16 billion over what the President asked for. Due to a group of Members, fiscal conservatives and people concerned about some of the technical aspects of this bill, it did not make it through a filibuster issue. Now it is up to $31 billion. It just keeps going up and up and up. Those costs have to be passed on, once again, to our children, because we are basically financing the cost of that Energy bill on our children's backs through deficit spending. It is totally inappropriate that a bill that was supposed to be $8 billion ends up at $31 billion. Those bills are three egregious examples in the area of spending control, now to be followed by a fourth, it appears. Presently, we have the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, known as TEA-21, which basically funds the construction of highways, rail, and intermodal transportation in this country. This area of activity for governance is generally accepted to be an important part of our job as stewards of our country. We must maintain a strong infrastructure. I certainly believe that. So to accomplish that when TEA-21 was passed a few years ago, there was a 40 percent increase in funding over the previous funding bill, ISTEA. The theory was that we would take the money from the trust fund, which was paid in through the gas tax and other related taxes, and fund transportation in this country to the full extent of the amount of money we were taking in from the users of the highways and the users of the transportation system. That was a reasonable approach. There is no reason we should be taking money from the gas tax and using it for other exercises in Government, other needs in Government, whether they are justified or not, such as investments in agriculture or investments in small business or investments in education. It is appropriate that we should use the user fee, which is the gas tax, to support the construction of highways. The whole concept of the transportation bill was: We would pass a transportation bill which funded the construction of highways in this country and intermodal transportation at the level that the transportation system was supporting itself, basically through the gas tax and other revenue sources. We budgeted for that as a Congress, and then it was sent to committee. Regrettably, what we have seen come out of committee is something entirely different. What the budget suggested we spend in this area--depending on how you account for this--is either $221 billion or $255 billion. Mr. President, $221 billion is basically what the revenues are coming in from the highway fund, but we could have gone up to $255 billion if the total spending could be paid for by legitimate sources of income into the trust fund. Unfortunately, what happened when this bill came back was we ended up with a $318 billion bill. This represents a $93 billion increase over present funding under TEA-21. In fact, the Senate position is conservative compared to the House's position because the House is looking to pass a bill which represents something like $375 billion for this six year period of spending. These numbers are staggering. There are going to be a lot of numbers thrown around this body in the next few days on this bill, but no matter how you account for it, it is fairly clear this bill is over the budget by somewhere between $30 and $70 billion, depending on where it ends up, maybe even more. That is inexcusable. There will be an attempt to mask this. In fact, the Finance Committee will report out language which tries to accomplish that. They took a whole series of different taxes which are now flowing into the general fund, and they moved those taxes over to the trust fund, thus claiming the trust fund had revenues. They do not mention the fact, of course, that aggravates the general fund because if the money is not going to go into the general fund, then that becomes a deficit event. Again, it is not absolutely clear, because we have not gotten all the numbers yet, which is one of the reasons we should not be bringing this bill up yet, but it appears we are talking somewhere in the vicinity of $20 to $40 billion of gamesmanship here by moving revenues out of the general fund into the highway fund, and by claiming revenues from sources which do not pay revenues in. It appears that is a game that is being played. It is staggering when you think about it that we would have the chutzpah as a Congress to call up a bill that is $30 to $70 billion over the budget and in deficit when the deficit was just reported as being $520 billion--or projected to be that much for next year--and $477 billion for this year. It is as if there are blinders on in this institution on the issue of spending. Unfortunately, it is a bipartisan problem. That is why I guess it is happening so often. The Agriculture bill was a bipartisan bill. The Medicare bill was a bipartisan bill. The Energy bill was a bipartisan bill, and it appears that this highway fund has enough of a bipartisan majority to ram it right through this Senate, as fiscally irresponsible as it is. The problem is this: We can build all the roads in the world, but if we do not do them in a fiscally responsible way, then our children are not going to be able to afford cars to drive on those roads. Their quality of life is going to be reduced because we are adding to the deficit, and that means we are adding to their tax burden every time we do this. That debt burden translates into a reduced quality of life for future generations. We have put forward as a Congress a legitimate benchmark for legitimate spending in the area of TEA-21. The budget had in it a proposal to significantly increase TEA-21 spending, I think by something like 30 or 40 percent. But that has been ignored. It has been claimed that that amount is not enough. No. We have to go ramming past that and propose a bill on the floor of the Senate that is $93 billion over last year's spending and $30 to $70 billion over what the budget called for. And that is just the start. There is a game being played here besides the fact that most of the revenues for the additional funds which are claimed to be offset here are illusory, which is so outrageous that it gives smoke and mirrors a bad name. That is just the start because we all know what is going on. There is an agreement, a sub rosa agreement, if you wish, between the people who are supportive of this bill in this body and the people who want more spending in the other body that this figure that comes out of the Senate is irrelevant, that the final number is going to be a lot higher than the Senate number. As I mentioned, the House is already talking about numbers in the high 300s, and the representation we hear is we will be closer to the House number coming out of conference than the Senate number, which is already grossly inflated as far as cost. So I just simply lay this marker down. We are going to have to start getting serious about this deficit. We have not so far as a Congress, but we are going to have to because it is our job. It is our job to be stewards not only of today but of what we pass on to tomorrow. If we are going to be good stewards, then we have to be fiscally responsible. I hope others will take a serious look at this bill before they vote for it. Before they even vote to go to it, it would be nice if we actually knew what was going on and how many more games are going to be played before we go to the bill in its substantive form. We should certainly be willing to ask that much before we have cloture on the motion to proceed. But, in any event, as we debate the language of this bill and the purposes of this bill--which are well intentioned, and which can be paid for at a reasonable price--we need to keep in mind that this is one part of a series of bills that have not been fiscally responsible, and we have to start someplace in being responsible in managing the dollars of this country effectively. The other horses are out the barn door, with the exception of energy, although there is some talk that they are going to attach energy to this bill. This is the only item that is before us so far, but it is a big one. Therefore, we should take a hard look at it. Before we move it out of this body, we should try to bring it back in line with our budget and with the realities we face as a country, which is that we are spending a lot more money than we can afford as a Government. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to speak for up to 20 minutes in morning business.

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

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. That is correct. We have included the application process in this amendment so that other types of companies will also be allowed to access the DRC relief in this bill. This application process should allow other employers to receive relief, just like the steel and airline companies.