Jerry Lewis

Mr. LEWIS of California

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, my amendment strikes the second part of the first paragraph, the words ``and shall maintain the funding of all existing scientific and technical support contracts at not less than the current level.'' I do not think the chairman would have any problem with that.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, out of all the money we are talking about here, that is almost a drop in the pond. I would be surprised if we could not satisfy the gentleman.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate my colleague cooperating, with the time difficulties we have as well as the problem the gentleman is attempting to draw our attention to. Frankly, the amount of money the gentleman is talking about is a very small amount of money in this entire picture. I am personally willing to commit to the gentleman that I will work very hard in conference to try to restore that money, and bring it to the attention of the appropriate members of the Senate side as well.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Knollenberg], a member of the committee.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, colleagues, I am pleased to present H.R. 2099--the VA, HUD, and independent agencies appropriations bill for fiscal 1996. Let me get right to the bottom line. This bill, as it now stands, provides $60.045 in discretionary budget authority and $19.361 billion for mandatory accounts. This represents an overall reduction of $10.006 billion--or minus 14.3 percent--in domestic discretionary authority from last year's levels. It is $10.482 billion less than President Clinton requested for the 22 agencies, boards, and commissions that fall within the subcommittee's jurisdiction. Following directly from our recent success in the rescissions package, this bill represents the urgent need to put Uncle Sam on a diet. We are doing what many said could never be done. We are making the tough decisions required to balance the Federal budget in 7 years. The bill reflects real cuts in each and every agency, except the VA's medical care account. These cuts, in this bill, at this time, are absolutely required if we are to keep our commitment to the American people regarding changing the way their Government in Washington operates with their hard earned tax dollars. We do not have the luxury of postponing these decisions to the outyears. We have tightened Uncle Sam's belt a notch or two, but this is the beginning, not the end, of identifying real savings. At this point, I want to move away from the numbers for just a moment in order to share a few observations about the many people who have made it possible for the subcommittee to bring this bill to the floor today. I know that you will understand when I say this--the chairmanship of the VA-HUD subcommittee is not a lonely job. The Members should know how fortunate I feel to be working so directly with Mr. Stokes of Ohio who chaired the subcommittee in the 103d Congress. Mr. Stokes is much more than a friend. Time and again, he has been someone on whom I can absolutely count when it comes to understanding the impact of the fundamental changes which we are making. The gentleman from Ohio never stops listening or working with me regardless of how much he may disagree with the substance of any matter under negotiation. And we appreciate the help we get from his able staff-- particularly Leslie Atkinson and Del Davis. Throughout our hearings this year as the subcommittee developed the bill, I encountered reactions ranging from amazement to amusement among our subcommittee's 11 other members. But I have always known that I could count on each and every one of those members to work with me to improve the direction, substance, and purpose of this bill. Indeed, it is a very special privilege to work on such a close basis with all who serve on the VA-HUD subcommittee. To a person, they are men and women of uncommon intelligence and conviction. This bill reflects their bipartisan participation and cooperation. Last, I want to say how much I value and appreciate the work of the staff. With the exception of Paul Thomson who has long worked with us on appropriations matters, ours is a brand new [[Page H 7821]] partnership. The work of the staff--beginning with our staff director Frank Cushing and including Jon Gauthier, Tim Peterson, and Todd Weber has been first rate. Their attention to detail has been nothing short of essential and I just want each and every one of them to know of our appreciation. In keeping with the Speaker's guidance, the subcommittee has made every effort to work with all of the committees of jurisdiction that authorize the various programs affected by this bill. Though there will be continuing controversy over the numerous housing and environmental administrative provisions contained in this bill, the membership should know that we have worked diligently at both the member and staff level to develop the language with the knowledge and expertise of the various chairs in the Commerce, Transportation and Infrastructure, Veterans, Banking, Judiciary, Science, and Agriculture Committees. When we have completed general debate, I will offer an amendment that increases the total dollars already provided for VA medical care, VA health professional scholarships, special needs housing, homeless assistance, and FHA multifamily credit subsidies. This amendment culminates the prolonged negotiations which we have had with our leadership and many of our authorizing partners. I share their desire to see much less legislation in this bill next year and I hope the coalitions which we have formed in working together this year will be lasting ones. Let me move now to summarizing just a few of the many difficult choices and positive highlights that make up this complex piece of legislation. difficult choices Four agencies are terminated for a savings of $703 million in discretionary authority from 1995 enacted levels: The Corporation for National and Community Service, Community Development Financial Institutions, the Chemical Safety and Hazards Investigation Board, and the Council on Environmental Quality. It's possible that we may get an amendment contemplating the elimination of yet another--the Selective Service System. The bill does not provide requested funding for the construction of two additional VA hospitals in Florida and California which would have resulted in major construction costs of $343.2 million this year. We hope to continue working with Members from the affected regions to provide state of the art outpatient facilities that are consistent with the direction that Veterans Secretary Jesse Brown suggested last year when the VA was participating in the national health care reform debate. NASA, too, will make a major contribution to deficit reduction. Their budget has been reduced by $705 million from last year's level. And we have gone much farther than I think Administrator Goldin would be comfortable with. This bill begins the process of reducing the size of NASA's plate. It makes real and painful program changes which will reduce fiscal year 1996 and outyear pressures. Two major NASA programs, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility and EOS will be substantially altered in order to help reduce the pressures on the overall bill. This bill provides $4.88 billion for the EPA--a reduction of $2.4 billion or 33 percent from the fiscal year 1995 level. Frankly, our bill is an urgent plea to Administrator Browner. If you believe that Superfund is broken, help us fix it. If you believe that command and control is the wrong approach, act now to make EPA a facilitator of progressive environmental policy rather than an enforcer of excessive and inflexible Federal mandates. If you believe that EPA should base decisions on proven sound science, risk assessment, and thorough cost- benefit analysis, by all means join with us in perfecting this bill. The EPA is a regulatory agency completely out of control, an agency that until now has delighted in routinely redefining its mission without proper congressonal oversight. The legislative provisions in this bill reflect the need and desire to restore some common sense and flexibility to the challenges of environmental protection in our country. The EPA should be a facilitator of progressive environmental policy rather than an enforcer of excessive and inflexible Federal mandates. With regard to Superfund, I understand that my colleague from Ohio, Mr. Oxley, the chairman of the authorizing Commerce Subcommittee, is set to move a reauthorization bill this fall. It is my hope that Administrator Browner will work with the authorizing committee in addressing the difficulties of this task. The issuance and funding of new records of decision [RODS] by potentially responsible parties is one area that should be analyzed during the reauthorization process. Emphasizing the positives The subcommittee has provided a funding level of $38.1 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA stands alone among the agencies in our jurisdiction. It's funding is not significantly reduced. Every requested dollar for mandatory spending is provided. If my conforming amendment is adopted in a few moments, an increase of $562 million will be provided for medical care--over and above last year's funding level of $16.2 billion. We have also taken great care to provide every available dollar for the basic research mission of the National Science Foundation. NSF would receive $3.1 billion in this bill--a reduction of 6.5 percent or $200 million from last year's level. The subcommittee's overall funding level for HUD, if my manager's amendment is adopted, would be $19.4 billion. The mark recognizes that two of HUD's largest and most cost effective programs--community development block grants--$4.6 billion--and the home investments partnership program--$1.4 billion--are working largely as intended. Neither program will absorb reduction's from last year's level. The subcommittee has been mindful of the guidance from those who receive HUD dollars--nonprofits, local public housing authorities, and resident groups--that reductions in their funding should not proceed this year absent substantial legislative reform that maximizes flexibility in how they administer Federal housing dollars. And, even though HUD's comprehensive reform bill is far from final action in the authorizing process, we have provided $862 million for a section 8 replacement assistance fund. In all of these matters, I have had the privilege of working with Mr. Lazio--the chairman of the Banking Subcommittee on Housing. He has reminded me more than once that there is great need for thoughtfulness when one wields the machete. Numbers drive policy. Policy drives perception. And before we know it, we can have real change in the broken delivery mechanism that we all know as HUD. The section 8 replacement assistance funds will provide for nearly 77,000 units of tenant based housing, thus allowing the Secretary to proceed with two of his most important initiatives--tearing down the worst of the low vacancy high rises in public housing and targeting assistance to individuals rather than properties. These vouchers will be available to anyone who loses their unit if these long overdue changes are undertaken by the Secretary. No one will be thrown out on the street and many of the individuals who could receive assistance under this fund will be in decent housing for the first time in years. Mr. Speaker, these are the challenges and highlights presented with the fiscal year 1996 VA, HUD, and independent agencies appropriations bill. I hope that the members will see fit to accept the difficult tradeoffs reflected here. I urge you to support the bill when we get to final passage. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's question. I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] even more for his leadership on this issue and for expressing his concerns about this important matter. Mr. Chairman, I expect to work with the gentleman from Arizona as we go to conference. Where we can find money between accounts, we would certainly hope to improve upon this one and I appreciate the gentleman's assistance.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentlewoman from California [Mrs. Seastrand] for purposes of a colloquy.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate my colleague yielding. I rise only to try to clarify a portion of the earlier discussion on the part of the author of this amendment. He referred to an earlier Lazio amendment, and at least implied in that discussion that he really intended that the offset here be from NASA accounts by one way or another. The reality is that his amendment that is on file, would take it from FEMA accounts. It is a budget-buster in that connection. Literally, those FEMA accounts cannot function when they are reduced to zero. I wanted to make sure that the membership understood that. I presume that the author understood it, but the membership might very well have been confused.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Sensenbrenner].

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate both the interest of the gentleman from California [Mr. Brown] in the work of NASA and also the gentleman's chart, because it reflects many of the frustrations that I share with the gentleman. One of our problems has been that NASA's financing begins in our Subcommittee on Appropriations. There is no question that funding competing with housing and veterans' programs has competed with NASA. On the other hand I have argued that the only hope that NASA really has to get continued support within the House is the mission in space. That is how we developed the broadly based bipartisan support that NASA has had so far. Frankly, without space station, I think all of that disappears.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that there could be a perfecting amendment that would be found out of order.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to proceed to the DeFazio amendment with a time agreement of 10 minutes per side with votes thereon to be rolled, likely until tomorrow.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, to my knowledge, there are no additional amendments to title II. I would hope that what we might do is proceed to title III and then move to the DeFazio amendment, as per our earlier agreement.

Mr. LEWIS of California. The vote would roll until tomorrow.

Mr. LEWIS of California. EPA has two other major infrastructure projects ongoing, including a new headquarters in D.C. The budget will not sustain 3 projects at one time. There is also a problem with authorization. The building is only authorized for $159 million. To my knowledge, no attempts have been made in past Congresses to address this authorization problem. As the gentleman knows, it is against the rules of the House to appropriate funds for a project of this kind which is not authorized.

Mr. LEWIS of California. I am more than slightly aware of my colleague's support for this project. He has been very persuasive in making his point to our committee. Today's discussion has indicated the difficulty we are having with money between accounts and because of that, the pressure is very, very great. The gentleman has, indeed, caused all of us to scratch our heads and try to figure out how we can readjust some of these accounts. We are going to look further between now and conference, but I commit to the gentleman that over the years we are going to make sure that we have carefully analyzed the alternatives to see how we can help.

Mr. LEWIS of California

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill, H.R. 2099, and that I be permitted to include tables, charts, and other extraneous material.

Mr. LEWIS of California

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the following committees and their subcommittees be permitted to sit today while the House is meeting in the Committee of the Whole House under the 5-minute rule: The Committee on Agriculture, the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, the Committee on Commerce, the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities, the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the Committee on International Relations, the Committee on the Judiciary, the Committee on Resources, the Committee on Small Business, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It is my understanding that the minority has been consulted and that there is no objection to these requests.

Mr. LEWIS of California

Mr. LEWIS of California. I must say, indeed, the new leadership has had 3 months to consider these problems. They have not been able to change the world yet, but the gentlewoman should know we are working on it.

Mr. LEWIS of California. If I could say to the gentlewoman, this program has existed for some time. The people in charge of the authorizing committee during that time chose, for one reason or another, not to reauthorize it. As a result of that and because there is no money in the bill, it does not qualify under the rules of the House. It has nothing to do with this rule. It has to do with the rules of the House. I am sorry to say that. That is the reality we are dealing with.

Mr. LEWIS of California. I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I understand my colleague's question and concern. Her amendment is a very special category for, as you may recall in the rescissions process, we eliminated the money for this program. As a result of that, there is nothing in the bill to transfer moneys to, and above and beyond that the program is not authorized by the authorizing committee.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I first want to express my very sincere appreciation to both the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Quillen], my colleague on the Committee on Rules, as well as the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson], for their courtesy during our effort to put this bill together and to fashion a rule that allowed us to go forward with the work that we had to do here. I would like also to express my appreciation to my colleague, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], for his very kind remarks regarding our effort on this bill. Mr. Speaker, we will have plenty of time today to discuss the substance of this bill, so I do not intend to put us through any of that at this moment, except to mention a couple of items that may not come up in the debate and reference a bit of the discussion relative to the language that exists within this bill. Earlier in the year, during the rescissions process, the new majority made some effort to address what the House had done relating to spending during the 1995 fiscal year. It became very obvious to all of us that we were establishing spending priorities for the future of this country. The effort is an attempt to reduce the rate of growth of spending across [[Page H 7813]] the Government. There is little doubt that all of us recognize the need, progressively, to try to make sense out of what we are doing with our budget in terms of the national debt. Whether my colleagues are supportive of balancing the budget by 2002, as we propose, or they support the idea of balancing budget in a 10-year period as the President has proposed, clearly, we are going to have to address the question of reducing spending across all those elements of Government, especially where there is discretionary spending. Mr. Speaker, this is one of those bills with the largest pools of discretionary spending. There is not any doubt that because the appropriations process is moving ahead of the authorization process, that there are implications between policy direction and what we ought to be doing with spending. Because of that, we have been working very, very closely with all of our authorizing committees. We are working with approximately six different committees, working with their chairmen with members, Democrat and Republican alike, attempting to seek new direction from those policy committees. That has led to the addition of a good deal of language in this bill, much of which has been protected. I am a Member of the House who has long said that the appropriations process should be as separate as possible from the policy work of the authorization committees, but this is a most unusual year. Post ``the revolution,'' our policy has implications relative to spending and the reverse is also true. So I want the House to know that while we have language in many instances that is designed to help us reduce spending, it is not the intention of this chairman to have the appropriations process become the authorization process in the years ahead. I would hope in the future that we will have very little language. But, indeed, the language in this bill is very important in terms of that overall effort to get a handle on the budget and move towards balancing the budget. We are at the same time, redirecting a long-established pattern of more spending every year by way of our appropriations bills. Mr. Speaker, I want to mention one other subject area and that deals with the section of this bill that involves funding for NASA. Earlier in the year, we had no small amount of controversy swirl around the recommendations of this subcommittee that related to closing down some centers of NASA--three of them--and also to terminate one major program and delay a couple of others. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with the Members how we came to that position, for it has had a very interesting impact upon our process. During the rescission work that I mentioned earlier, I had the opportunity to work with a number of my agencies. None was more cooperative than NASA. NASA stepped up to the plate and Administrator Goldin was most helpful in helping us examine their priorities. Because of this, NASA did quite well in the rescissions process. We attempted to have the same kind of communication during the 1996 appropriation process, and that began with meetings between myself and Administrator Goldin. We thought we were on a perfect pathway to effective cooperation, and then I received a phone call from the Administrator and his staff that indicated that somewhere on high, above the Administrator's office, the word had come down from the administration that they did not want communication with our committee about those priorities. They said, ``Let the committee make its cuts itself.'' Essentially, they were saying, ``Do not cooperate.'' I suggested to the Administrator, and the people at NASA, that their bill would come forward in much different form than it might otherwise have, because I felt there was a need to consider the impact of infrastructure upon costs. We should be willing to reexamine programs in place to see if they continue to work. It was very important that we be able to consider elements like that as we evaluated NASA's future. Clearly, I knew that we were not going to close centers, but we did need to send a message, not just to NASA but especially a message to this administration, that we need their cooperation if these bills are going to make sense for the country. Democrats and Republicans, we need to work together. Indeed, I was very disappointed in the administration's lack of willingness to cooperate. Mr. Speaker, this bill is going to be a very controversial bill, without any question, but it does put us on a pathway that indeed gives us a real shot at balancing our budget by 2002. We treated each account as equitably as possible. VA medical care is a very important account and we have done very well in that connection. From there, the reductions in spending that are involved treat every other agency in an equitable fashion, one against the other. Mr. Speaker, this is a very good bill, in my judgment. I appreciate the Members' attention, I certainly appreciate their support, and I look forward to their vote for the bill.