Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I recognize an American who honorably served our Nation for nearly 40 years. At the age of 25, Lieutenant Floyd Calvert Jr., an Oklahoman and Cherokee Indian, served as a bomber pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps flying B-29 aircraft in the Pacific Theater during World War II. On June 1, 1945, Lt. Calvert and his crew of ten from the 504th Bomb Group took off from Tininan Island, in the Marianias to strike Osaka, Japan. Immediately after delivering his ordnance, his B-29 aircraft was hit and severely damaged by anti-aircraft artillery fire. Lt. Calvert's headset was blown off inflicting wounds in his scalp and left arm. His co-pilot was also wounded and unable to assist in flying the damaged B- 29. With the right inboard engine on fire, Lt. Calvert placed his aircraft in a steep dive to extinguish the flames. With the fire out he tried in vain to feather the engine but the runaway propeller spun off and flew into the right outboard engine, creating a very grave situation with both engines on the right side inoperable. Lt. Calvert's crew decided to remain with the crippled B-29. Wounded and bleeding, Lt. Calvert flew solo toward the airfield at Iwo Jima. To reduce the aircraft's weight and extend its range, he proceeded to jettison all removable items, to include life rafts, reducing their chances of survival if they had to ditch the aircraft into the Pacific Ocean. Once over Iwo Jima, Lt. Calvert circled his bomber to permit other bomber aircraft to recover or bail out over the tiny island. In a feat of unprecedented airmanship and heroism, Lt. Calvert then flew a flawless approach and landing, bringing his crew to safety in an aircraft that would never fly again. Like so many of his time, Lt. Calvert returned to Oklahoma and began a fifty-one year marriage and raised five children. He worked for 34 years as a federal employee at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City and served on his local school board and in his church. Today, at age 82, he resides with his youngest daughter, her husband and their two children, and he remains an inspiration to our generation as we look back and admire the heroes of our past. I thank him for his unwavering service and sacrifice to the United States of America. May God bless Floyd Calvert Jr. and his family.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson), and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), are necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) and the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Campbell) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. NICKLES. I ask my colleagues from----

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. NICKLES. They would have the right to ask unanimous consent for the amendment to pass. If there is no objection, the amendment would be adopted. If someone raises a point of order on germaneness, their amendment would fall.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Campbell), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Lott) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, this amendment is very straightforward. It would strike section 2002 that is on page 116 of the bill. Section 2002 deals with the emergency provisions in the bill. I have been in the Senate for 22 years. We have never done this. Ever since we have had emergency provisions in the bill, we have never done it. The impact of the amendment is that it prohibits the President from spending any money, any nondefense emergency spending in the bill unless he spends it all. That is not the way we have done emergencies under the Clinton administration. That is not the way we have handled emergencies under President Bush's administration since 1990. I will read the language in the bill on page 116: Any amount appropriated in this Act that is designated by Congress as emergency requirement pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, as amended, shall not be available for obligation unless all such amounts appropriated in this Act are designated by the President, upon enactment of this Act, as emergency requirements pursuant to that section. What that means is, for nondefense, there are some sections in this bill and in the President's requirements calling for emergency designations. This says if he spends any of it, he has to spend it all. We have never done this before. We didn't do that in the Clinton administration. The Clinton administration had emergency requests every year. We granted almost all of them plus some. This President requested the emergency designation. He came to Congress and actually requested $24.47 billion in emergency assistance, emergency appropriations, and an additional 2.7 under contingency emergency appropriations. He requested that. We are getting ready to give him more. What has happened is, the House has already passed a bill. They passed a bill at $29 billion. The President's total was 27. The House came back and said: We will give you the $27 billion you requested, and we will do an additional $1.5 billion for defense. But the additional $1.5 billion for defense was under contingency. If the President declared it an emergency, he could spend it. But if he didn't, he wouldn't. So the President is basically saying: He still is getting his $27.3 billion of emergency assistance. He doesn't have to spend that additional $1.5 billion. That is the way we have done it. In other words, when we go into emergency spending, the special designation means it doesn't count. We have budgets every year. Until this year, we have passed budgets. Those budgets have had targets. But when we have an emergency, we say it doesn't count towards the caps; we are going to waive it because there is a special emergency. Maybe we have had an earthquake, a fire, a flood, serious damage, so we call that an emergency. They were not budgeted, they were not planned, they were not expected, such as the World Trade Center incident of 9-11. We had a very significant, as a matter of fact, $40 billion emergency that we paid for last year. But it was with the concurrence of the President and the Congress. Now in this case we are saying: Mr. President, that is fine, we will take your emergency, but you have to take all of our emergencies or you don't get any of yours on nondefense. We have never done that before, to my knowledge. I used to be on the Appropriations Committee. I happen to still be on the Budget Committee. The Budget Committee should be outraged by this. Every once in a while one committee kind of exceeds jurisdiction or goes into the jurisdiction of another committee. That is what we are doing right here. We have never had a supplemental appropriations bill, to my knowledge, that had language like this. Incidentally, this has the attention of the administration. The administration's position basically states that they will veto the bill if this is in there. I will read from the administration's statement of policy dated June 4, the first page: In addition, the bill severely constrains the President's ability to fund emergency homeland requirements by compelling him to release nonemergency money provided in the bill. If the supplemental appropriation bill were presented to the President in its current form, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill. That is on the first page. On the third page of the statement of administration policy it says: The Senate version of the bill also unduly restricts the President's prerogatives in numerous areas. First, it requires the President to designate all or none of the nondefense funding contained in the bill as an emergency. The Budget Enforcement Act provides that the President retain control over the release of emergency funds added by Congress to ensure that the funds respond to critical emergency needs. By contravening in this long established budget enforcement mechanism, the Senate would require the President to waste taxpayers' dollars on low priority, nonemergency items in order to access vital, high priority homeland security recovery funding. It is very clear, the administration is adamantly opposed to this provision. This is as direct a veto threat as we have had from this administration in their time in office. It is reversing a precedent we have followed on emergency spending for the last 13 years.

Mr. NICKLES. I am happy to yield.

Mr. NICKLES. To give an example--I appreciate the question--there are a lot of things in this bill. My friend from Arizona pointed out a couple of them earlier today. There is one where the President said, some of these provisions don't relate to homeland security, including $11 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, for economic assistance to New England fishing and fishing communities; $26.8 million for the USGS survey for urban mapping activities. The administration said that is not urgent; it wasn't requested. If section 2002 is not stricken, those things will have to be funded or you don't get funding for New York City. You don't get funding for homeland security needs that are requested. There is billions of dollars in here that the President did request that we are putting in jeopardy because of this bill's ``all or nothing'' approach. We do that on normal appropriations. We don't do it on emergency bills. The reason we don't do it on emergency bills is that the emergency bills are outside the budget. They are special. They are figures over and above set spending levels. We have agreed to a budget. We have agreed to caps. We shake hands. That is what we are going to abide by. But when it comes to emergencies, we say we are going to waive the budget. The budget no longer applies. Therefore, caps no longer apply. This is the national emergency. That is what we passed, the $40 billion following the World Trade Center. It is a national emergency. We agreed to do it. Usually, we do it with overwhelming majorities, if it is truly an emergency. This is saying, well, before you get part of that emergency, you have to take the entire thing. All I am saying is that previous Presidents have always said we have to concur. When we made the budget deal--and this goes back, I tell my colleagues to Andrews Air Force Base in 1990. That basically said if you are going to have caps, cases in which we have an emergency might pose a problem. So we put in emergency provisions, and you can waive the caps if there is truly an emergency, and that could be designated if it is agreed upon by both Congress and the administration. Now we are saying if Congress has it in there, Mr. President, you have to take it all, or you don't get a dime. I think that is an infringement on the budget process. I think the emergency process all together is a big waiver of the budget, a big way to get around budgets, one of the reasons why spending can grow astronomically. It has grown dramatically over the last few years. If we allow this provision, I think we are opening up the door to greater abuse of the emergency provisions. Very quickly and briefly I urge colleagues to strike section 2002 and keep the emergency provisions we have had for the last 13 years at least the same as they are. Let's not change them. We have a new President. Why should we curtail his authority, vis-a-vis his predecessors? I think that would open the door to a lot of spending and abuse of the emergency process. I urge my colleagues to strike section 2002. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Campbell), and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Thurmond) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, first, I note to my friend from Ohio, I am going to call up an amendment shortly. Does the Senator wish to make a comment on the last amendment?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I defer to my colleague from Ohio so he can make comments on that amendment.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Snaator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Campbell), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich) are necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), and the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Campbell), are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Is that amendment germane postcloture?

Mr. NICKLES. Does the amendment fall?

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I make that point of order.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I tell my friend and colleague from Nevada, I am happy to work with him to try to expedite consideration of the bill. I might note, the President sent the urgent supplemental request on March 21. It was just recently marked up--I believe, last week. So we have had it on the floor for a couple days. We have had a chance to review it. We did cooperate with the assistant majority leader to invoke cloture, which is unusual. I can't remember invoking cloture on an appropriations bill. Maybe the chairman of the committee remembers. It has probably happened, but it is not often. We did it in an effort to try to streamline it. There are a lot of people trying to pass a budget on this bill. I happen to be on the Budget Committee. I would like for us to consider a budget, but we haven't had a budget on the floor of the Senate yet. Some people were trying to rewrite the budget through the Appropriations Committee, and I questioned the wisdom of that. I was a little concerned about that. Invoking cloture eliminates the budget debate. We are not going to have four or five more proposals dealing with budgets and caps and budget rules, and so on. We will deal with appropriations bills. Now we have a list of amendments, a list of amendments germane postcloture. I will work with the Senator from Nevada to review that list. I don't know if we can possibly pass this bill tonight. I will try. I will work with him to try to do it. We will try to pass a good bill. Some of us are concerned about the expense of the bill. The bill is $4 billion over the President's request, and we didn't fund everything the President requested. There is a provision in here that says we are going to change how we do emergencies. I have an amendment to deal with that. I will call it up pretty quickly. I urge all my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, if they have germane amendments, to bring them forward. Let's consider those and see how much progress we can make on the bill. I don't know if we can finish this bill tonight. I will work with my colleague to do so. If not, we will work to see if we can't come up with a timetable, a framework to where it is mutually agreeable to finish this bill as soon as possible.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the pending business?

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent.