Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the completion of the statement of the Senator from Vermont, I be recognized for 10 minutes, the Senator from Missouri for 10 minutes, and the Senator from Arizona be recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. GREGG. I have an amendment dealing with employee option time.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment to this legislation which is extraordinarily relevant to the legislation. It is called the employee option time amendment. It basically gives people who work, especially working mothers, the opportunity to adjust their work schedule so they can do things they need to do for their family by allowing them to move the work schedule around so that if they have an issue where one of their children may have to go in the hospital or needs attention or a child has a soccer tournament or maybe there is a recital or maybe there is a family event they want to go to, a wedding, or they want to take a 3-day weekend to enjoy some event, such as a NASCAR race or something they need to get to, this amendment allows that working mother and that working family, or any worker for that matter, the opportunity to have that chance. In the past, it has been called flextime. We changed the title of it primarily because we changed the language to make it absolutely clear that this opportunity to move your work hours around is totally at the discretion of the employee, that the employer cannot force the employee to do this, the employer cannot require the employee to do this but, rather, the employee has the option of choosing to do this in a manner which they think is appropriate to their lifestyle. This is not a radical idea. It is not some conservative idea. It is just a basic idea of giving fairness and options to working people but people who are working a 40-hour week, especially to working single parents or parents generally. It is so unradical and so reasonable that Federal employees--Federal employees--have actually had this right to move their schedule around since 1978. But every time we have tried to give it to the rest of the folks who work in this country, it has been blocked. It has been blocked because some people felt it was inappropriate from a collective bargaining standpoint or they felt it would affect overtime or they felt the employee would be at a disadvantage relative to the employer. What we have done in this amendment is make it clear that none of those things could happen. This doesn't affect collective bargaining agreements. Overtime cannot be affected. If a person works more hours in a period, if a person exceeds the hours they are allowed to work without getting overtime, overtime must be paid. As I said earlier, the decision as to whether an employee pursues this course of action, of choosing to move their hours around, is left with the employee. The way it works technically is like this. This is the way it works at the Federal level with Federal employees, and this is the way it would work in this amendment when it is applied to the general population, especially people working 40-hour weeks. If you as a working mother, for example, know you have an event coming up for which you are going to need to take time off, for example, as I said earlier, such as your child has to go into the hospital for an operation--hopefully not, but if that is the case--or there is a big event in your family life, such as a recital or major athletic event, you want to know there are going to be 3 days you need for a wedding or for something that is significant, you can adjust your schedule so that one week you work up to 50 hours and in the next week you only have to work 30 hours or anything in between. You can work 45 hours in one week and 35 hours in the following week, whatever works relative to your schedule and your time. One can see the advantage of this, especially for people who have families and so much going on in their life that they do need to have more flexibility in their capacity to structure their hours. Today they can't do that. Today an employee simply can't do that unless they are a Federal employee. If they are a Federal employee, they can do that. This amendment, which we have taken up before in a different form, accomplishes the goal of giving parents especially, but all working people who work a 40-hour week, more capacity to make that schedule fit their lifestyle rather than having an arbitrary 40-hour work week schedule. The changes, as I have mentioned, which we made in this amendment so that it addresses the concerns which have been expressed on this floor before when we brought forth this idea--and this idea received a majority at least once--are, as I mentioned, to make it very clear, voluntary. On page 2 of the amendment, it states no employee may be required to participate in such a plan. On page 3 (2)(ii) states that the program may be carried out only if the agreement was entered into knowingly and voluntarily by such employee and was not a condition of employment. On page 4, it states in subsection (b) that if such an employee has affirmed in writing, in a written statement that is made, kept, and preserved, that the employee has voluntarily chosen to participate in the program. There are significant penalties in this bill for an employer who violates that voluntary aspect of an employee making a choice to go forward. So we have addressed that concern. As I mentioned earlier, we make it very clear that in no way does this abrogate the obligation to pay overtime if somebody exceeds the 80 hours in that 2-week period. So if you work 81 hours, you get overtime, just as you would if you were under the usual agreement of 40 hours a week. In addition, it makes it very clear this in no way abrogates any collective bargaining agreements. Most of the resistance of this amendment has come from the leadership of organized labor which, for some reason I don't understand, quite honestly, views this as some sort of a threat or potential threat to the collective bargaining process. It is not. We make it clear it is not. This is simply an attempt to put all Americans on the same footing as all Federal employees by giving them flextime. We call it employee option time to make it absolutely clear it is the employee who has the choice. The amendment in the past was linked also--and this is another reason it was resisted--to something called comptime. Comptime is something more controversial, I admit to that. Comptime is not in this amendment. Comptime isn't going to be offered as an amendment, I don't believe. Rather, we are sticking purely with what has traditionally been known as flextime and what has been given to Federal employees for over 20 years, almost 30 years. It is a very reasoned approach. When one thinks about it, yes, the minimum wage is going to help some people, but as a practical matter, this idea of giving people more capacity to manage their schedule is going to have a much greater impact on the quality of life of people than raising the minimum wage. Literally millions of people are going to have this authority and find it will increase their quality of life. Most of the people who will receive this new opportunity to adjust their schedule to fit what their family needs are not making minimum wage. They may be wage earners and they may be hourly paid, but they are certainly not making minimum wage. So this is going to benefit literally millions of people beyond the minimum wage earners, and it is especially, as I mentioned, going to benefit those people who have families, and especially benefit those people who are single parents trying to raise families and being in the workplace at the same time, which is one of the most difficult things anybody does in our country. This gives them more flexibility to manage their schedule so they can do things that are important to their families. It is a reasonable amendment. It is so reasonable, as I have mentioned, that the Federal employees have accepted it. It has been accepted by the Federal employees. I ask that the amendment be called up.

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Alexander be added as cosponsor to the amendment.

Mr. GREGG. I yield back my time.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I understand we are in morning business at this time?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to thank the Senator from Tennessee for his support at this second look at waste amendment which I have offered. The Senator's arguments, as always, are extraordinarily cogent and logical. He makes the point--which I think is very valid, as a former Governor who had the line-item veto, which is a much stronger authority than what we have in this amendment--that this is important, managing the fiscal house, to making sure that items which get into legislation as a result of being put in arbitrarily by some individual Member of Congress but which are not subject to the light of day in the traditional way--by being brought across the floor as individual items but, rather, are put into major pieces of legislation, sometimes representing hundreds of billions of dollars in spending--that those items can be reviewed again and get a vote as to their credibility and as to their appropriateness and whether they represent something on which American tax dollars should be spent. This proposal, this fast-track rescission, which is what it really is, is not a partisan proposal. In fact, as proposed in my amendment, second look at waste, it would actually be primarily under the control of the next President. It has a 4-year window of activity and then it is sunsetted. By the time it would get into law, should it pass the Senate and then pass the House, it is likely that this President will only have, probably, a year and a half to use this authority, and then the next President, whoever that President may be--maybe a Republican, maybe a Democrat--will have the authority to use this rescission ability for 2\1/2\ years. So it is not partisan. Second, it was drafted, as the Senator from Tennessee noted, basically to mirror a proposal that was put forward by Senator Daschle. In fact, I have called this amendment daughter of Daschle. It is essentially the Daschle amendment as offered back in 1995, which was cosponsored by Senator Byrd. There are only two major changes--well, three major changes, and I have already said to those who have asked me that I am willing to adjust those changes to bring it even more in line with Daschle. One of the changes in this bill from the Daschle bill was that the President would have 300 days to send up his rescission notice. Some people have expressed concern that that gives the President the ability to use that rescission notice as a club over people's heads. The reason we gave the President 300 days in this amendment was we had reduced the number of rescission notices in the Daschle amendment. There were potentially 13 rescission actions available to the President, and in this amendment, there are only 4 available to the President. Therefore, in the Daschle amendment, it was required that the rescission notice be sent up soon after the bill was signed. But, of course, with 13 different opportunities, it could go on all year long. We felt that since we were reducing it to four, we should give the President more leeway as to when he sent up those rescission notices. But I can understand the argument. In fact, I accept the argument that maybe that is too much authority in the sense it gives the President too much leverage over the Congress. So when, I hope--I am using the term ``when''--when this amendment comes forward in an amendable form, I will offer an amendment to reduce the 300 days back to 30 days. So the President would have to send up his rescission notices within 30 days of it being signed, or at least asking us to take a second look at it, and that should adjust that problem and bring it directly in line, pretty much in line with what the Daschle amendment was originally. The other area which was different from the Daschle amendment is the issue that deals with mandatory spending. Some people have said new mandatory spending--not existing programs, not existing veterans programs or farm programs or Medicare or Medicaid, but if there is a new mandatory program, that can also be subjected to the President asking for a second look at it. It has been argued by some on the other side that this would undermine the ability to reach a comprehensive settlement on entitlement reform. That is really a straw argument. That argument has no legs. The practical matter is, if a President reaches an agreement with the Congress on something as extraordinarily important as major entitlement reform, part of that agreement is going to be that the President signed off on it. So this argument of, well, but the President might come back and change it later on with a rescission notice really has no legs. It is just being made for the purpose of giving comfort to folks who believe they want to vote against this amendment. If people want to vote against it, that is their right. But don't use that as an excuse. What this amendment essentially does is it allows the Congress to fulfill its obligation to make sure that money which is sent by our taxpayers is spent effectively, honestly, appropriately, and without waste. And, it gives the executive branch a role in asking the question of Congress: Did you really mean to spend this money? I have to say, I have been here for a while--14 years in the Senate-- and I have seen a lot of bills come across this floor which were fairly large, and when I took a look at them after I maybe had voted for it, I realized there were some things in them that I wished weren't in them. I didn't happen to vote for the highway bill which had the bridge to nowhere--the famous highway bill. But had I voted for it, I think I would have wanted to take a second look at some of the projects in that bill. The same is true of a lot of our appropriations bills when we get to the end of the year and we haven't gotten our appropriations process completed effectively, so we lump 3 or 4 different appropriations bills, sometimes 5 or 6, occasionally 10, appropriations bills into 1 and we call it an Omnibus appropriations bill. Those bills tend to get items in them which have received no scrutiny, which are simply the result of an earmark for the purpose of accomplishing something which some Member of the Senate or the House feels is appropriate but which one suspects, if the entire House or the Senate were to take a look at, we would say: Well, better to put that money toward reducing the deficit than toward spending the money in this specific area. So this bill is, as I have said and as the Senator from Tennessee so eloquently said, a second look at waste. The purpose is to give us, the Congress, another tool to manage waste. Now, I wish it had come up last week because, quite honestly, I thought it was much more appropriate to last week's debate when we were debating earmarks and when about 50 percent of the debate time was spent on earmarks because that is what it is really about. But it has now been put on this bill as a result of an agreement I reached with the Senator from Nevada, the majority leader. I respected his position. I admire his leadership. I didn't want to create a situation where the lobbying bill got tied up forever over this issue, and the Senator from West Virginia said he would do that if I kept this amendment on the lobbying bill. So I agreed to put the amendment off and bring it forward at this time. So, hopefully, no one, when we get to this issue of cloture, is going to vote against cloture on the theory that it is not appropriate to this bill because, as I said earlier, I think people are stopped from making that position. It is a technical legal term that basically says, out of fairness: You can't make that case because, basically, the reason this amendment is on this bill is because I was asked to put it on this bill by the majority leader. Therefore, that is why we are going forward at this time. So this is going to be the opportunity for Members of the Senate to vote on whether they believe a tool which will significantly improve our capacity to manage earmarks, to manage waste, is going to have a chance to be passed. It is a tool which has been offered by myself but which was actually offered by Senator Daschle and which was actually voted for by 37 members of the Democratic Party at that time, 20 of whom are still serving in the Senate. So it does seem to me that it is not unreasonable to ask that we take it up and pass it at this time and move it forward. When we get to the cloture debate, I will have more to say on the matter, but I did want to come down and express my appreciation to the Senator from Tennessee for supporting the amendment.

Mr. GREGG. Of course.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator for his question. He is absolutely right. The essence of his question is that the power is retained with the legislative branch. This is not a line-item veto. This is not a veto. This is just the President saying to us, the legislators who have the power of the purse, take another look at this, which is why Senator Byrd supported it the last time it was on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. GREGG. Well, answering the Senator through the Chair, then the money gets spent. If either House does not agree with the rescission, then the rescission fails. So the power of the legislative branch is retained, which is its constitutional authority, to spend money as it deems appropriate, and the President has no capacity to override that under this bill. All he has is the capacity to say to the legislative branch: Do you think you want to do this? If either House says, yes, we do, then the money is spent.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his question, which may have been rhetorical, and certainly I agree with that. To put this in context, we have to remember we are going to spend close to $3 trillion--we probably will spend $3 trillion this year in the appropriating accounts and in our budgets. There is no way we can manage all that efficiently, but certainly every tool that we can get that helps us manage it efficiently we should have. This is just another tool in the tool box to make sure we don't waste the taxpayers' money.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?

Mr. GREGG. The Senator from Missouri is asking for 4 additional minutes?

Mr. GREGG. I have no objection to the Senator proceeding.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that during quorum calls in this hour, the time be equally divided on both sides.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, could you tell us the entire allotted time?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, what is the time status?

Mr. GREGG. And the other side?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Massachusetts would give me the courtesy of closing the debate since it is my amendment.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for allowing me to proceed in this manner. I think people listening may get confused. In our discussions, the Senator from Massachusetts is addressing the second cloture vote. I am addressing the first one. The second one addresses the issue of minimum wage. I am talking about the second look at the waste amendment, or enhanced rescission amendment, which is the first cloture vote. This is not a line-item veto. That pejorative is being thrown at it by people who think the line-item veto is inappropriate and transfers too much power to the President. That was settled in the 1990s when President Clinton was given it, and then it was ruled unconstitutional. This is the daughter of Daschle amendment. It is essentially rescission language that allows us to take a second look at waste and mismanagement that may occur as a result of earmarks being put in omnibus bills. We talk around here about earmarks and the inappropriateness of some of them. This is another opportunity for us to look at inappropriate earmarks and to eliminate waste as a result of that. It tracks very closely the Daschle language. The Senator from North Dakota mentioned three areas where it differs from the Daschle language. I don't think any of those three areas are substantive. The first was on the issue of entitlements. Of course, entitlements have to be on the table. The argument that for some reason a global agreement on entitlements is going to be undermined by this opportunity to take a second look at wasteful spending is a total straw dog. No such global agreement would be reached unless this language was also addressed and the question of the President's power was addressed. Secondly, the idea that a packaging of rescissions will put undue pressure on Members to vote for a bad rescission in favor of a good rescission because they will be put together is totally specious or inaccurate because of the fact that the motion to strike is retained so that packages can be broken up. As I said earlier, I am going to take the 300 days, if we get this to the amendment process, and move it back to 30 days, so that is not an issue either. This is a question of how we better manage the taxpayers' dollars. It is that simple. There is no reason why we should allow inappropriate spending to be buried in omnibus bills, as mentioned by the Senator from South Carolina, and then never have an opportunity to go back and take a look at that inappropriate spending. It is such a logical idea that it was voted for by 37 Members of the Democratic Party the last time it was on the floor, 20 of whom still serve in the Senate. Individuals who voted for essentially this exact proposal--not exact, but it is so close it is hard to differentiate-- are still serving in the Senate. I hope those individuals will vote for cloture so that we can move on and do this very significant piece of reform. Is it going to dramatically affect the deficit? I have said it isn't. What it is going to do is give us an opportunity to effectively address waste mismanagement and inappropriate earmarks that will help the deficit because I put the money toward the deficit. I acknowledge it is not going to be dramatic sums, but it is better management of the American taxpayers' money, and that is our goal. It is not unconstitutional. It does not have a constitutional issue with it. It has been addressed. In fact, it is a proposal that is so reasonable in the area of constitutionality that Senator Byrd, the last time this proposal was put forward, said: I have no problem with giving the President another opportunity to select from appropriation bills certain items which he feels, for his reasons, whatever they may be, they may be political or for whatever reasons, I have no problem with his sending them to the two Houses and our giving him a vote. He is being reasonable. It is a reasonable approach. The idea is simply to allow the President to say to us: Listen, I looked at this bill; it is spending $400 billion or $500 billion. There is some money in here that I don't think should be spent. Why don't you take a another look at this, Congress, and if either House says no, we are going to spend that money, they can spend it, or if either House strikes an item, it gets struck and it is not part of the rescission package. This is good management. It has been voted out of this Senate before. I hope it will be voted out again. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I guess I will end my statement and ask people to vote for cloture. Cloture Motion

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, if the leaders have completed their statements, I would ask for recognition. Mr. President, first, let me begin by thanking the majority leader and the Republican leader for their efforts here in allowing me to bring forward this amendment at this time. As we know, 2 weeks ago I offered this amendment. At the time, I offered it because I felt it was appropriate to the lobbying reform vehicle, as the lobbying reform vehicle had been greatly involved in the issue of what is known as earmarks. Earmarks are where certain Senators put specific language into a bill which allows spending to occur for a specific item. I am not inherently opposed to earmarks. Many are very genuinely of good purpose. And I have used it in cases to benefit programs which I thought were appropriate. In fact, I think the legislative branch has a right to direct spending. If you do not direct spending as a legislative branch, then the executive branch has the authority to direct spending, and the practical effect of that is the legislative branch is giving up one of its key powers, which is the power over spending. However, there have, over the years, been abuses of the earmark process. We all know that. We have seen it. And there have actually been abuses which have been unethical. We have seen that in recent times. So the key, I believe, to earmark reform is transparency and allowing the Congress and the people we represent to see what is being earmarked, and allow the Congress to actually have to vote on it. The idea of the enhanced rescission proposal, which I have here--and I call it a second-look-at-waste proposal--is to allow the President to send back to the Congress items which he or she feels were inappropriately put in some other bill and which did not receive an up- or-down vote. Now, how could that happen, people might ask? It happens very simply. A lot of vehicles we pass here, a lot of laws we pass here, a lot of spending proposals we pass here involve literally tens of billions, sometimes hundreds of billions of dollars in spending. What will happen is these bills, which have these huge conglomerates of spending activity in them--which are known as omnibus bills--sometimes we find embedded in them little items, smaller items of spending which were put in there for the purposes of accomplishing specific activity by Members of the Congress, sometimes at the specific request of people who have been asking for those programs. The President, of course, does not have the choice of going in and saying: Well, that is a bad program or that is an inappropriate program. He or she must sign the entire bill, the whole bill--a $10 billion bill, $100 billion bill, $300 billion bill. That bill must be signed in its entirety. Pieces of it cannot be separated out. So what this second-look-at-waste amendment does is allow the President, on four different occasions, to send back to the Congress a group of what would be earmarks in most instances for the Congress to vote on again, and essentially say to the Congress: Well, those items which were buried in this great big bill--those specific little items-- should be reviewed and Congress should have to vote them up or down. Congress then, by a majority vote, must vote on whether it approves those specific spending items. That is called enhanced rescission. It is not a line-item veto. A line-item veto is where the President can go in and line-item out a specific item and then send it back to the Congress, and the Congress by a two-thirds vote must vote to override the President's proposal to eliminate the spending. In this instance, the Congress retains the right to spend this money if a majority of the Congress decides to spend the money in either House--in either House. So as a practical matter, it is a much weaker--dramatically weaker-- proposal than what is known as the line-item veto, which passed here in the early 1990s and was ruled unconstitutional. In fact, this amendment has been drafted so it will be constitutional. And, in fact, it has been drafted in a way that basically tracks rather precisely and very closely the language that was offered by Senator Daschle and Senator Byrd back in 1995 and was then called enhanced rescission. We made one major change in the initiative which we proposed last week to make it even closer to the language of Senator Daschle and Senator Byrd in that we have included in this proposal, which has been filed here today, enhanced rescission which includes the right to strike. What does that mean? That means the Senate will have the right to look at the package of rescissions sent up by the President, which might be two, it might be three, it might be 10, and the Senate does not have to vote up or down the entire package; the Senate can actually go in and vote up or down specific items within that. So it even gives the Senate, and the House for that matter, significantly more authority over this process. The proposal we are putting forward is what we call second look at waste, what was called, back in 1995 when it was offered by Senator Daschle and Senator Byrd, fast-track rescission. It is not a line-item veto. I want to reinforce this point because what is shown on this chart references the Daschle language of 1995 and the amendment which we have offered today. You can see that the two agree on almost all the key elements. The Daschle language established a fast-track process for consideration of Presidential rescissions. We do the same thing. The Daschle language required congressional affirmation of the rescissions. We do the same thing. The Daschle language allowed the President to suspend funds for a maximum of 45 days. We do the same thing. On the left side of the chart are Senator Daschle's proposals, supported by Senator Byrd and 20 other Members on that side of the aisle. It did not permit the President to resubmit a submitted rescission request. We do the same thing. It allowed for the rescission of discretionary funding and targeted tax benefits. We do the same thing--only allowed motions to strike, no amendments. So you can move to strike, the same thing as the Daschle amendment. It required rescinded savings to go to the deficit so it could not be respent. That also we do. Now, the two big changes we have from Senator Daschle's proposal: We allow rescissions of new mandatory programs, not existing mandatory programs. You cannot go in and rescind a farm program that already exists or a VA program that exists. No. A new mandatory program. And we do not allow the rescissions to occur as often, or the President to send up as many rescissions as he could have under Senator Daschle's and Senator Byrd's amendment. We only allow the President to send up four rescission requests. Under Senator Daschle's and Senator Byrd's amendment, you could arguably send up 13 rescission requests. So we have significantly limited the ability of the President to sort of game the system and also tie up the Congress. It is important to understand this change we have made actually significantly increases congressional authority over the rescission process, as does this one. This other change gives the President additional activity on congressional mandatory spending. Why did we put that in there? Well, because today 60 percent of Federal spending is mandatory spending. The simple fact is that if you do not address mandatory spending in new mandatory programs, then you are taking out the ability to address the budget in a significant way. Now, I noticed Senator Conrad, in one of his very well-stated statements in regard to this enhanced rescission, second-look-at-waste program, said: Well, this puts a gaping hole in any agreement that would be reached between the Senate and the President on how to handle even entitlements. I do not believe that. I do not believe that. I think if the Senate and the President reach an agreement on how to handle entitlements, part of that agreement is going to be that the enhanced rescission program that is proposed here is not going to apply. That is logical, reasonable, and the way it is going to work. Obviously, the Congress is not going to give up that much authority if we are going to reach that type of agreement, and I do hope we reach such agreement. That would be good for us as a Nation. Again, I emphasize we have put in this new amendment, as it has been sent up, the motion to strike. This was an issue of considerable disagreement on the floor. A lot of Members believed that by not giving us a motion to strike, we were giving too much power to the executive on the issue of enhanced rescission. Senator Daschle and Senator Byrd, in their amendment in 1995, had that language. The administration is not happy with that language. I can argue it both ways. But I think in order to have consistency between both and because it is a significant right to retain with the legislative branch, we have put it back in. I also think it is important to note that any savings go to deficit reduction. Deficit reduction should be our goal. If the President sends up something he thinks is wasteful and we agree, let's rescind it and send it to reduce the deficit rather than rescinding it and sending it on to be spent. That makes a lot of sense. To show you how different this is than the line-item veto, back in 1995, when we had the line-item veto--and remember, when we passed it, 11 members of the other party who are presently serving in the Senate voted for the line-item veto: Senators Baucus, Biden, Dorgan, Feingold, Feinstein, Harkin, Kennedy, Kerry, Kohl, Lieberman, and Wyden; I voted for the line-item veto--that was ruled unconstitutional. That was dramatically more power given to the executive. This basically gives no power to the executive other than to ask the Congress to take another look and vote again. So one would presume that the folks who voted for the line-item veto back in 1995, unless they have changed their view, would be supportive of a much more weaker fast-track rescission approach in 2007. In addition, the Daschle amendment, which was supported by Senator Byrd and others, had 20 Democratic cosponsors--and it was essentially the same amendment we are offering today--Senators Akaka, Baucus, Biden, Bingaman, Boxer, Byrd, Conrad, Dodd, Dorgan, Feingold, Harkin, Inouye, Kohl, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Mikulski, Murray, Reid, and Rockefeller. All supported the Daschle rescission language, which is essentially the language we have offered today, especially now that we put in language relative to a motion to strike. To read a couple quotes that I believe are informative and accurate, back in 1995, Senator Feinstein said about the proposal: Really, what a line-item veto is all about is deterrence, and that deterrence is aimed at pork barrel [spending]. I sincerely believe that a line-item veto will work. Senator Feingold said: The line-item veto is about getting rid of those items after the President has them on his desk. I think this will prove to be a useful tool in eliminating some of the things that have happened in the Congress that have been held up really to public ridicule. That is the line-item veto they were talking about, a much stronger language than this enhanced rescission language. Senator Byrd on the Daschle language said: The Daschle substitute does not result in any shift of power from the legislative branch to the executive. It is clear cut. It gives the President the opportunity to get a vote . . . So I am 100 percent behind the substitute by Mr. Daschle. Senator Dodd said: I support the substitute offered by Senator Daschle. I believe it is a reasonable line-item veto alternative. It requires both houses of Congress to vote on the President's rescission list and sets up a fast-track procedure to ensure that a vote occurs in a prompt and timely manner. That is an accurate statement as to what it does. Then, Senator Levin, in March 1996--all these quotes are from 1995- 96-- I, for instance, very much favor the version which the Senator from West Virginia has offered, which will be voted upon later this afternoon. That so-called expedited rescission process, it seems to me, is constitutional and is something which we can in good conscience, at least I can in good conscience, support. Senator Levin is one of our true constitutional scholars in this institution. And Senator Biden, in 1996, said: Mr. President, I have long supported an experiment with a line-item veto power for the President. So he supported the line-item veto. Again, I note that this is nowhere near the line-item veto language. In fact, this language has been vetted, vetted aggressively, not only by Senator Daschle when he offered it back in 1995 but since then with a variety of individuals who are constitutional scholars, to make sure it settles the issue and does not, in any way, take from the Congress the power of the purse, which is the issue that, of course, was raised against the line-item veto in Clinton v. The City of New York, which struck down the line-item veto on the grounds that it did go too far in violating the presentment clause. This language does not do that because it retains to the Senate and to the House absolute authority over spending. It simply asks them, through the Executive, to take a second look at an item that might otherwise--and, in fact, for all practical purposes--never get a clear vote. It was something that was buried in some larger bill. Because we have retained the right to strike, we have even gone further by saying that the entire package which the President sends up, assuming he sent up more than one item to rescind, would be subject to a right to strike. So the Congress has the ability to pick and choose in its second-look process as to what it thinks makes sense and what it doesn't think makes sense. There is probably going to be a lot of stuff sent up that the Congress agrees with, because some things happen in these major bills where items get in that people don't notice, and certainly a majority of the Congress feels, if they took another look at it, they would not be inclined to support. Equally important is the restriction on the President, which is different from the Daschle-Byrd amendment, which is that we only allow him to do this four times. That is important. I am willing to go back from four and maybe take it back further. Senator Lott came to the floor and said he didn't like the idea of four. If we get this thing moving along, I am willing to take a look at less rescission packages. But the President, under the original Daschle amendment in 1995, had 13 shots at the apple because he could do it on each appropriations bill. At that time, we had 13 appropriations bills; now we have 12. But today, under this amendment, he will only have four chances to package ideas, initiatives he thinks were inappropriately buried in some bill, send them back up and say: Take another look at this. I have to get 51 votes to support taking out this item. What is the purpose of all this? That is the technical purpose in describing it, but what is the real purpose of all this? The real purpose is to get to the issue of managing the Federal purse. Congress has the right to the Federal purse. That is the most important power Congress has. I have listened to the explanation of the Senator from West Virginia on this for many years, and he says it more eloquently than anyone else. Everyone has to agree with his position. The power of the purse is the power of the legislative branch. But this is about managing that power. This is about when a bill comes roaring through that has $300 or $400, $500 billion of initiative in it, called an omnibus bill usually, and you have to pass it because the Government closes if you don't. This is about saying: All right, there is going to be a process where we can take another look at some specific items in that bill without giving up to the Executive power which the Executive should not have, which is the capacity to line item something and force us into a supermajority. That is what this is about. That is why I presume Senator Daschle offered it back in 1995, and that is why I offer it today. In the end, it is going to give us better discipline over our own fiscal house. It is going to make us better stewards of the taxpayers' dollars. We will be able to say to the taxpayer: Yes, that bill may have been a $500 billion bill. Maybe there were some things in there that we shouldn't have done. We are going take a second look at it to make sure those things were not wasteful. We are going to pass the bill because we need to pass the bill to keep the Government going, but we will have a chance to take a second look. It is just good management, without giving up the authority of the legislative branch, in my humble opinion. I hope that Members who take a look at this will consider it carefully. I know it has been caught up in the dialog of politics. I regret that. I regret that last week it got caught up and was represented by some as being an attempt to poison the lobbying bill. That was never my intention. I didn't even think of that, quite honestly, when I offered this amendment. I didn't know it was going to be so controversial. I thought I would just get a vote. That was not my intention, and I don't think it was anybody's intention on our side. It got caught up in the broader fight of what we do sometimes around here. We let process overwhelm substance. It got characterized by the talking head community out there as both a legislative attempt to kill the lobbying bill and a legislative attempt to show the power of the minority. It wasn't any of that. It was simply an attempt by me to bring forward what I thought was good legislation which would be constructive to our process of fiscal discipline, which happens to be one of my high priorities. Now it is on the minimum wage bill. I greatly appreciate the Senator from Nevada and especially the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from Wyoming, who have to manage this bill, being courteous enough to allow their bill to already have an amendment on it that maybe isn't immediately related to their bill. This, however, was not my choice. I would have preferred to have it on the lobbying bill, which it was immediately related to. That was an earmark bill. That had a lot to do with earmarks. This has a lot to do with earmarks. But nobody can argue that this is the wrong vehicle because I didn't choose this vehicle. This vehicle was chosen for me. That is why we are doing it here. When we get to the motion on cloture, I hope people will vote for it on its merits and will not vote for it on some procedural argument, such as this is the wrong vehicle. Because I think people are sort of estopped, to use one of our legal phrases--I remember that phrase from law school--from claiming that this is the wrong vehicle. Because as a practical matter, I was told to put it on this vehicle. I didn't choose it. I was told. I am trying to be helpful. So that is why it is here. That is the presentation in brief. There will be more discussion as we move down the road. I look forward to hearing from everyone. I hope people will take a hard look at the actual substance of the amendment. Substantively, it is not a line-item veto. It is essentially the ``daughter of Daschle,'' for lack of a better term. I would hope that we would consider it on its merits as such. It will give us a chance to govern better and to handle the purse, which we are charged with by our constituents, more frugally and efficiently. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Selma Mittal be granted the privileges of the floor during consideration of H.R. 2 and votes that may occur in relationship thereto.