Barbara Mikulski

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I was prepared to go on to discuss the VA-HUD bill, and I am prepared to continue to discuss the VA-HUD bill. Mr. President, who has the floor?

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Carl Levin and Senator John Kerry be added as cosponsors to the Bond- Byrd-Mikulski-Stevens VA health care amendment, No. 1744.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Is the Senator not going to answer my question?

Ms. MIKULSKI. What is the Senator talking about--5 minutes or 5 hours?

Ms. MIKULSKI. What is the operational definition of that?

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, recognizing the right of the Senator to continue to hold the floor, we are trying to figure out how we are going to manage the VA-HUD bill, which was the pending business until we yielded for the Senator's unanimous consent. Would the Senator share with me approximately how long he will continue to speak so we can organize our other speakers and amendments?

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to reconsider the vote.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, as I commented, it is technical and correcting and has been cleared on both sides.

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

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I wish to propose a technical amendment in behalf of Senator Inouye. This amendment is simply a technical and correcting amendment. It makes a technical correction to a HUD grant previously awarded to Hawaii. It has been cleared on both sides of the aisle.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, first I would like to ask unanimous consent that Senator Dick Durbin be added to amendment No. 1744, the Byrd, Stevens, Bond, Mikulski $600 million VA-HUD amendment.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, a comment on the remarks made by the junior Senator from Maine. I, too, share her concern to ensure that the needs of the homeless are recognized, and we try to do that in our bill. As she knows, under this bipartisan coalition, we increased funding for the homeless by $45 million. We have to talk about not only more but how it is distributed. I share the Senator's concern about the rural homeless because it is not only isolated but it is often invisible because of distance and the very culture of small towns and also, I might add, in Maine, that Yankee spirit of ``we take care of our own,'' not wanting ``to turn to charity,'' yet at the same time facing very rugged winters, some of which now, with fall weather, are on their way. So when we think about Maine, it is not all L.L. Bean catalogs and fall foliage. It is some very serious problems. We want to work with the Senator on it. Know that we face some of these same rural issues in our own home States. I thank the Senator for bringing even more heightened visibility in our debate.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Yes.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I, too, wish to, first of all, express my support for the people of North Carolina. I believe the way we express our support and our concern is not only with kind words, which we would like to say many, but with deeds. Right now James Lee Witt and other emergency management people are responding with gallantry and are trying to get a swift assessment of damage. We want to work with you, Senator Helms and Governor Hunt, to really be able to get emergency assistance to the communities and to do it in a way that is swift, helpful, and also affordable. I, too, have been hit by damage in my State. Senator Bond is right. One of the first things we did together was to be in Missouri because they had been hit by floods. A short time later we were hit by ice storms and floods. You know what is so heartbreaking: After the floods and the waters come, then the water goes down, and you just see broken dreams, the hard work of lifetimes just washed away. You go into a home, and there is the tattered photograph of the wedding picture, there is the mud-saturated picture of the graduation, and the appliances when you open the door. I think what I remember also, most of all, in addition to the tears, is the mud, the smell, and so on. The first thing is that it breaks your heart. We want to make sure it does not break their pocketbook. That is what we can work on. Hurt hearts. I believe the people of North Carolina will have so many communal ways that those hearts will be healed. But the immediate thing we can do is to make sure that the devastation to the pocketbook is not permanent and that they have the opportunity to restore a way of life. So I just say to the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Edwards, that he is not alone nor are those thousands and thousands of people. We have been thinking about you. We have been praying for you. Our hearts are filled with sadness that people have lost their lives. We really do not want to see the loss of their way of life.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, and the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reid, for their compliments. I particularly want to thank the Senator from Maryland, my very dear and esteemed colleague. We have a wonderful alignment in Maryland with Senator Sarbanes, the ranking member on authorizing and I on housing appropriations. I thank him for all of the work he has done in terms of our housing and our urban economic development initiatives, and also for being concerned to make sure that HUD serves not only urban America but our rural and suburban communities as well. I thank him for his steadfast belief that the American dream is home ownership and for his desire to promote home ownership. I am particularly grateful for that, and we have done that in this bill. Also, he is a champion for the homeless, which, again, I believe we address in this bill. Then there is the in-between group, those people working for self- help, working very hard to move from welfare to work. They often qualify while they are working for certain subsidies, be they food stamps and, in some cases, section 8 housing, essentially making work worth it. If you are willing to work hard every day, we are willing to at least subsidize housing for you and your family. So his presentation about the need for more section 8 vouchers, I believe, was an excellent one and one with which I am in complete agreement. I say to my colleague from Maryland that this bill is a work in progress. To be able to find an offset or a new revenue stream to meet the need for new vouchers now and to be able to sustain them in the future is a set of actions I wish to take. I am working closely with the administration to find an offset that would be both reliable and sustainable, and I look forward to our continued working relationship. I welcome his ongoing support and collaboration. Again, this bill is a work in progress. I really do thank the Senator. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI. If the Senator will yield, isn't it safe to say we will have no votes before 2 o'clock, to protect Members?

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, first I thank the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, for his assistance on this bill and his advocacy for veterans. We would not have even be able to move this bill to the floor had it not been for Senator Stevens and Senator Byrd identifying the $600 million. We need to look at where we were 6 weeks ago. Veterans' health care under the spending caps was down $1 billion. Thanks to the advocacy and ingenuity, I might add, of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the ranking member, we were able to come to the floor. That is why I also said in my opening statement that we had the will, but we didn't have the wallet. Again, with Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens identifying a window or a particular technique to declare $600 million in emergency, we will be able to ensure that nothing is closed. I don't dispute the comments of the Senator from Minnesota about the need for more. I also don't dispute his comments about the need for better. The Senator from Minnesota is well known for his advocacy for veterans. We particularly congratulate him for his steadfastness in continuing to bring to our attention the plight of veterans with posttraumatic stress syndrome. I also remember him speaking for the nuclear vets--those who were exposed to nuclear radiation where that trauma was not compensated for or identified. I thank the Senator for what he has done, but I have to say his amendment violates the Budget Act. It breaks the spending caps. He and I know the Budget Act leaves much to be desired. The budget policy leaves much to be desired because the spending caps have prohibited us from meeting compelling human needs. I know that some time this week President Clinton will be vetoing the tax bill. I am glad he is going to do that because then maybe we can get down to serious business about how we can fund Social Security, extend the solvency of Medicare, and meet compelling human needs. I say to the Senator that I support what he wants to do in principle, but I will not be able to support his amendment because it violates the budget caps. But, again, the points that he has made are very well taken.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, while we are waiting to fine-tune the unanimous consent on this amendment, I would like to comment on this amendment. I also would like to take this opportunity to ask unanimous consent that Senator Harry Reid be a cosponsor of the $600 million VA amendment offered by Senators Byrd, Stevens, Bond, and Mikulski.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I join with my colleague from Missouri in asking all those on my side of the aisle, please cooperate with the committee, have those first-degree amendments in by 3, so we can expeditiously move this bill. I also ask my colleagues on my side, those who want to speak about aspects of the bill, come forward and be prepared to speak. We have already been on the bill for 2 hours and haven't had one quorum call. I hope, in order to move expeditiously, we don't have big, empty spaces.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask that Senator Sarbanes be added as a cosponsor to our $600 million VA amendment.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I object.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 1747 (Purpose: To increase the amount appropriated for the Veterans Health Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs by $1,300,000,000)