Collin Peterson

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important issue that we dealt with in the committee, and also on the floor of the House. It has to do with the conservation reserve program, which has been a tremendous success in this country. We in this bill have come to a compromise between myself, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Boehlert], and the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Barrett]. There were some differences of opinion, but we did come together on what we think is the best language, and we want to make sure that the Senate understands that the House has the best language in this area. What we do, Mr. Speaker, is we cap the program at 36.4 million acres, we repeal the fiscal 1996 appropriation bill prohibition against new enrollments. We do provide for an early out option that has been sought by some people. What we do is we limit it to land that has been in the program for 5 years, that has to have an erodability index of less than 15, and then it will allow these people to opt out of the program with 60 days' notice. There is another provision in here that was sought by some which would say that the conservation reserve contracts cannot exceed the average market rank for comparable land in that particular area. Mr. Speaker, there have been some that have tried to put additional criteria and restrictions on this program that we are concerned are going to undermine the success and viability of this program. We just had a 13th sign-up around this country, in my district, because of some of the restrictions that some have tried to put on this. Hardly and land in my district qualified. What we are trying to do here is to make sure we keep the program like it has been for the last 10 years, keep the criteria the same. What we have here is a straight, clean, reauthorization for 7 more years, along the lines of the way we set the program up in the first place. We would encourage everyone's support, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I am proud to stand today to offer this amendment with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Boehlert] and the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Barrett]. On behalf of the Sportsmen's Caucus, which has made the Conservation Reserve Program the main focus of this Congress, we are very pleased with the language that is in this amendment. This is a straight, clean, reauthorization of the Conservation Reservation Program, which is what we have been working for, for the last couple of years. I think the earlyout provision that has been negotiated with the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Barrett] and others is a good provision which is actually, in my judgment, going to benefit wildlife, because frankly, the first 5 years of these contracts are when they do the best job in providing habitat for wildlife. It might be a good thing to allow these to turn over after 5 years so we can take some of this mature cover and turn it into new cover, which is the best for wildlife. So, Mr. Chairman, I think we have got a very good compromise put together here. It is going to be good for wildlife, farmers, conservationists, and environmentalists. I am glad to support this.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, this bill is not perfect, and the process probably could have been a lot better and a lot different than it was, but I think we lose sight that there are some good things in this bill. We are reforming the sugar program and extending it, something that a lot of people did not think we were going to get done, but we got accomplished in this bill. There have been, in certain areas, a lot of work done within the committee. I just want to talk about the dairy provisions. I wanted to commend the gentleman from Wisconsin, Chairman Steve Gunderson, and his committee for all the work that they have done in this area. The gentleman and I and others traveled to every part of this country to put together these dairy changes. People need to understand that this is the most significant reform in the dairy program that has been offered up in 50 years. Most of it is reform. We do some things to help the farmer. We get rid of the budget assessments. We do a lot of things that a couple of years ago would have been very controversial with farmers and people did not want to do. We discontinue the price supports on butter and powder immediately. We reduce price supports over time on cheese and make a number of reforms that frankly a lot of people thought we were never going to be able to accomplish. There are going to be alternatives put forward here that claim to be reform, but if one looks into them, one will find out that they are phasing this out over a long period of time. Historically, when we tried to get the order system changed and when the department even had testimony in their hearings that they ought to change the order system, it has not happened. In this bill we have order system reform mandated. There is a hammer. If it does not happen, the class 1 price differentials that are written into the statutes are going to be repealed. There is significant reform in the dairy area in this legislation. The committee, at least in that part of the process, did its work. We traveled all over the country. We worked on a bipartisan basis. We have come up with a bill here that I think we can all be proud of and support. I just hope that the people will not lose sight of the fact that there has been a lot of good work put into this bill just because there are a couple of areas that are controversial and we are divided on. So I voted for this bill in committee, and I encourage the support of my colleagues if we keep the dairy part of this bill in the bill.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. We hear a lot of talk tonight about this program being a subsidy program. Let us just talk about what this is about. This is about trade. We in this body, in the dead of the night, in a lame duck session, passed a GATT Agreement that we should not have passed. I opposed it all the way. But why in the world did we go over and negotiate that agreement, and I had an opportunity to represent this Congress over there, along with the ranking member, where we gave up a lot to come to an agreement on how much sugar we are going to let in this country, and then we come with a bill that will completely undo what we have done in that agreement? These European competitors are subsidizing their producers at twice the level that we are doing in this country. It is not a subsidy, it is just a floor we are putting underneath the products. That is what this is all about. What this amendment is going to do, if we continue this-- and this was done, by the way, last night--it is not thought out. It is not workable. This was just drawn up at the last minute. What this is going to do is force the Secretary of Agriculture to reduce the loan rate, which is going to force us to take these 1.23 metric tons and force sugar into this country, and it is going to destroy this industry. I urge you to oppose this amendment.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman from Wisconsin, Chairman Gunderson, said, we do have a bipartisan bill here that we have worked out on a long-time basis. Steve Gunderson and I and others in the committee traveled this country for the last 2 years trying to put this thing together. We have huge regional fights within this industry, and we have an opportunity finally with this compromise to end those fights and put this industry on a more level playing field, to move us to a more market-oriented policy, and if there was any other easy solution, we would have come up with that solution during that 2-year period of time. We have been on every side of this issue, we have had the whole industry against us as we tried to do this, and this is a true compromise that will get us in the direction we need to go. And the reason that we need this is that we have a lot of dairy producers in this country that are in big trouble. In our State we are losing three dairy farmers a day, and that is not because they are getting too much money for their milk. The fact of the matter is they are getting too little money for their milk, and this bill does increase their income, and it should increase their income, but it does it in a reasonable way that will be able to be dealt with in the marketplace. We need to be clear about some of the people that are up arguing in favor of a more market-oriented plan. One of the gentlemen here from the State of California, they have a quota system. They have a system that is way away from the market, and then they stand up and have the gall to argue that we should move to a more market-oriented plan. In our plan we tried to take the special concerns of California into account. I think we did that. I think we came up with a system where we can bring them in and put all of us on a level playing field. And now they come in around the back door. Mr. Chairman, this compromise gets rid of a lot of these regional inequities that we have been dealing with over the last number of years. We are seeing the industry shift out of the Midwest into places like California because we had a system that is not fair, that has been the government skewing this and moving the industry because of an unlevel playing field, because of a system that was set up in 1985 as some people in this Congress and a back-room deal that got us into this mess, and this is the way out of it. So please reject the Solomon amendment and support the committee compromise.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of rule IX, I hereby give notice of my intention to offer a resolution--on behalf of myself and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Johnston]--which raises a question of the privileges of the House. The form of the resolution is as follows: Whereas the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is currently considering several ethics complaints against Speaker Newt Gingrich; Whereas the Committee has traditionally handled such cases by appointing an independent, non-partisan, outside counsel-- a procedure which has been adopted in every major ethics case since the Committee was established; Whereas--although complaints against Speaker Gingrich have been under consideration for more than 14 months--the Committee has failed to appoint an outside counsel; Whereas the Committee has also deviated from other long- standing precedents and rules of procedure; including its failure to adopt a Resolution of Preliminary Inquiry before calling third-party witnesses and receiving sworn testimony; Whereas these procedural irregularities--and the unusual delay in the appointment of an independent, outside counsel-- have led to widespread concern that the Committee is making special exceptions for the Speaker of the House; Whereas a resolution calling for a status report on the Gingrich investigation was tabled by the House without debate on November 17, 1995; Whereas a second resolution calling for a status report on the Gingrich investigation was tabled by the House without debate on November 30, 1995; Whereas the integrity of the House depends on the confidence of the American people in the fairness and impartiality of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Therefore be it resolved that; The Chairman and Ranking Member of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct should report to the House, no later than December 19, 1995, concerning: (1) the status of the Committee's investigation of the complaints against Speaker Gingrich; (2) the Committee's disposition with regard to the appointment of a non-partisan outside counsel and the scope of the counsel's investigation; (3) a timetable for Committee action on the complaints.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I reluctantly rise today to oppose the rule and the bill, and I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle that we in the Coalition, as you know, strongly support balancing the budget in 7 years. We have done it. We have put a budget together that gets to balance in 7 years, borrowing less money than you do. We do it in a different way, we think, in a more sustainable and humane way. I think the most encouraging thing that has happened is we heard the Speaker say a day or two ago that everything is on the table. And we just want to say to you that we are ready, willing, and able to work with you to get this job done. We voted with you the other night on the continuing resolution, and once this veto is over with and we get down to negotiating, we are looking forward to sitting down with you and working this out. We are disturbed that we were frozen out of things such as the agriculture changes and some of these other areas. We are hoping we can get past this current situation and sit down and work out a balanced budget that will be good for the American people.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, first of all I want to commend all the chairmen of the task forces of the coalition and Members that served on those task forces for their hard work. It has been a lot of effort put in this budget, and this coalition budget is a honest plan to balance the budget, as the gentleman from Utah said, in 7 years through real reforms in Government programs. We make tough choices to balance the budget first instead of borrowing money to pay for tax cuts is being done in the other plan. Because we do not have tax cuts up front, we add $30 billion less to the national debt over the next 7 years than the Republican plan and put the deficit on a much more reasonable guidepath toward a balanced budget. The deficit actually increases in the second year under the Kasich substitute because of that tax increase. The coalition plan does not include this deficit bump in the second year, and in fact reduces the deficit by $61 billion in the second year. The coalition plan does not include any of the unspecified Medicare savings or budget gimmicks such as pension reversion, merger of the bank insurance fund, back-loaded IRA's, and other tax changes that make the deficit appear smaller in the first year but actually cost the taxpayers money over the long term. If we remove these gimmicks from the plan, the deficit will be $25 billion higher than in the first 2 years under the Republican plan. The coalition budget backs up the deficit reduction in this bill with tough enforcement mechanisms that make sure we meet the deficit targets. The coalition budget includes budget process reforms such as line-item veto and the lockbox to allow Congress and the President to cut spending further. In addition, Mr. Chairman, we make a change in here that most anybody looking at this thinks we need to make. The coalition budget includes a 0.5-percent reduction in the CPI. In the Republican plan they pick up the real Bureau of Labor Statistics 0.2 change in 1999. We do what a lot of people say we should do. Five prominent economists chaired by Michael Boskin said that the CPI is overstated by between 0.7 and 2 percent. Alan Greenspan has said that it has been overstated by maybe 1 percent. The CBO says it is anywhere from 0.2 to 0.8 percent. So we picked something that we think makes some sense, and, if we are going to get at this budget problem, we have got to get something out of every area. This CPI is a fair way to spread the burden of balancing the budget evenly by treating all programs equally including tax indexing. There is lots of Republicans, including the Republican majority leader, that support this, and we also have a flat-rate COLA which we think makes a lot of sense for lower-income Americans. We urge our colleagues' support.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here today in support of the manager's amendment to H.R. 1114, which will revise the Federal Department of Labor's Hazardous Occupation Order No. 12. Mr. Speaker, this legislation is somewhat unusual by congressional standards. It delivers a common sense solution to a real world problem. Furthermore, it was developed in a collegial and bipartisan manner with input from all concerned parties. No one walked away from the table, no one refused to work in good faith, and in the end a consensus was reached. Mr. Andrews, Mr. Ewing, Mr. Combest, and Chairman Goodling are all to be commended for their work on this legislation. Their efforts should set the standard by which we develop all future corrections day legislation. For Members on my side of the isle I would note that H.R. 1114 was developed with the full participation of the United Food and Commercial Workers, and they are not actively opposed to this legislation. To put it simply, H.R. 1114 will allow 16- and 17-year-old grocery store employees to throw cardboard boxes into a compacting or baling machine. The only time that this will be allowed is when the doors to the machine are locked open, and the machine itself is turned off with the key removed and in the possession of an adult supervisor. In addition, the machines themselves will be required to meet the most current design safety standards of the American National Standards Institute. That's it. The bill will not damage current standards for workplace safety in the retail food marketing industry. But it will eliminate an unnecessary regulatory burden on employers in the retail grocery business who often provide that important first job to 16- and 17-year- old young men and women in all of our home towns. The manager's amendment to H.R. 1114 addresses all of the pertinent safety questions satisfactorily. It will insure maintenance of a rational workplace safety standard while getting the Federal Government out of the silly business of regulating who throws away cardboard boxes in the back of the supermarket. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1114 solves a specific problem in a rational and responsible manner. In my opinion, Congress should take on more issues in this manner--responsibly and rationally. I urge the Members to support this consensus legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I hope that the American people are listening to what the Members of the coalition are saying today because the political parties in Washington are not listening. They are, once again, putting bills on the floor to achieve their partisan political ends. The coalition has a bill that is going to fix the Medicare System and do it in the right way, and we are not even going to be allowed to have a vote on that bill on the floor of the House today, and I think it is an outrage. I give credit to my Democratic colleagues. They put a bill together that fixes the part A problem with Medicare. The problem is they have ignored the problem in the part B part of the system. Frankly, we think it needs to be fixed if we are to have a sustainable situation here that will not come back to haunt us within our hospital system and within the senior citizens. On the other side, the Republicans have put together a bill that goes further than we think they can sustain. We do not think what they have in this bill is achievable, and, frankly, they have this hundred billion dollars extra in this bill so they can pay for the tax cut which Members of the coalition, by the way, support. We just think it should be put off until after we get the budget balanced, and we think this is where the American people are as well. Mr. Speaker, our bill, as I said, picks up the fixes to part A, but we also do the fixes that need to be made in part B, and we also do the things that need to be done to make the rural health part of the system work. Yesterday the Republicans made an attempt to fix the rural health part of the bill and what they found out happened, as some of their Members are telling me, is they will have hospitals in their district that will have money taken away from them to pay for other hospitals in their district. One of those Members said 25 of his counties will lose, 22 are going to gain. Mr. Speaker, that is no kind of fix. The reason they are in this problem is they have rates of growth in their bill that are too low, that is not realistic, and that is why they cannot make this work. We think it is really an outrage, one more time, that we have two extreme positions, that are not the right positions, and we will not have the opportunity to vote on the right position until next week. We urge the defeat of this rule.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be withdrawn as a cosponsor from House Resolution 94.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to strongly oppose the Deutsch amendment. My colleagues need to understand what is going on here. Ninety-five percent of our market of mink, the mink ranchers in my district, is overseas. They have no Government program. They have no other money that comes to them, except for this MPP program. It is only $1.9 million. If we destroy this industry, what we are going to do is what we did with the wool and mohair industry; we are just going to give that industry to the foreign countries, to the Danish, to the Norwegians, to the Finlanders. Mr. Chairman, I can personally tell my colleagues that these mink ranchers are having a tough time. They are on the verge of going out of business anyway. They do not need us to single them out with this amendment and make the situation harder. Mr. Chairman, this is not about MPP. What this is about are the animal rights folks, who do not like these people, trying to drive one more nail in their coffin. I ask my colleagues to strongly oppose this amendment and maintain the mink industry in this country. These are good people, family farmers. We do not need to put them out of business.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I along with a lot of my colleagues very much want to support a responsible, reasonable and balanced plan to balance the budget. While there are many positive aspects of this budget, and it represents a clear improvement over the budget that was initially passed by the House, I have concluded that the conference report still falls far short of its goal. Under this conference report, 2 years from now the budget deficit will be the same as it is today. More importantly, this budget takes credit for $170 billion of economic bonus whether or not CBO concludes that it deserves the credit. While I agree that we need to reform Medicare and Medicaid, I have not been convinced that we can achieve savings in these programs of the magnitude required in this budget without doing harm to our health care system. I also have serious concerns about the cuts in agricultural programs in this budget. Cuts of this magnitude will unilaterally disarm American agriculture in the battle of the global economy. [[Page H 6581]] Finally, I do not understand why the conferees continued to insist on savings in education programs. If there is one place we agree, it is that we need to have an opportunity for our young people. Mr. Speaker, I urge rejection of this conference report. Mr. Speaker, it is with disappointment that I rise in opposition to this conference report. I strongly support the goal of balancing the budget by 2002 and am committed to finding a bipartisan solution to our deficit problem. I very much want to support a reasonable, balanced, and responsible plan to balance the budget. While there are many positive aspects of this budget and it represents a clear improvement over the budget initially passed by the House, I have concluded that this conference report still falls short of this goal. This budget falls well short of the goal of putting the budget on a responsible path toward balance. The conference report backloads the deficit reduction in the last 2 years. In fact, under this conference report, 2 years from now the budget deficit will be the same as it is today. Although the conferees initially reported that tax cuts would be postponed until CBO has certified that we have produced sufficient spending cuts to balance the budget, the conference report before us now does not include this provision. The Ways and Means Committee will not need to wait until CBO certifies that we have put the budget on a credible glide path toward balance before enacting tax cuts. More importantly, this budget takes credit for the $170 billion economic bonus whether or not CBO concludes that we deserve credit. I agree that it is imperative that the budget control the growth of Medicare and Medicaid by reforming these programs to reduce their rapid growth. However, I have not been convinced that we can achieve savings in the Medicare and Medicaid programs of the magnitude required in this budget without doing harm to our health care system and shifting costs to States and local governments and the private sector. I am particularly concerned about the impact that Medicare and Medicaid could have on critical rural hospitals. I also have serious concerns about the cuts in agricultural programs in this budget. Once again, agriculture is being asked to bear more than its fair share of cuts. Cuts of this magnitude will unilaterally disarm American farmers in the battle in the global economy. Finally, I do not understand why the conferees continued to insist on savings in education programs. If there is one priority in the budget that everyone should be able to agree on, it is that we should help younger generations receive the education they need to provide for a strong future for this Nation. The education cuts, particularly in student loans, will make it much more difficult for students to help themselves by receiving an education. The budget alternative offered by the coalition earlier this year met the goal of balancing the budget by 2002 through responsible reforms of government programs while avoiding the ill-advised cuts in agriculture, Medicare, Medicaid, and education programs in this conference report. I continue to believe that the coalition budget represents the reasonable middle ground that can be the basis for a consensus on this issue. I intend to work with the President and the leadership of Congress in a constructive manner to put together a plan to balance the budget that can receive strong support within Congress and among the American public and which can be enacted into law.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support House Resolution 168. I am a cosponsor of this resolution, in spite of the fact that it is not everything that some of us wanted. Some of us actually wanted a tougher process than we have got in this resolution. But I do think it moves us in the right direction. There is bipartisan support for this process, and I am glad to be able to serve as part of this corrections day task force that is being set up. As I say, there are a number of Democrats on our side that think that we need to do something about overly burdensome Federal regulations. I was not really too involved in all of this regulatory process until I got looking at this moratorium bill that was introduced early on this session and got to reading some of the regulations that were promulgated and were of concern in this moratorium. What I found out is there were 615 regulations adopted in just a month and a half, and I sat down and read all of those 615, and if every Member of Congress would sit down and read every regulation, we would be in a lot better shape in this Congress, and we maybe would not need bills like this. But the other thing that I found is that there are 204 volumes of Federal regulations, and if you sat down and read those regulations 40 hours a week, it would take you 8 years to read all of the Federal regulations that we have promulgated over the last number of years. I do not think that there is anybody that understands everything that is in all of these regulations. I really think that what we need is a requirement that every Member of Congress read every rule and every regulation, and that would be the best thing that we could do. We are working on some other bills. We have a sunset bill which will help, if we could get that passed, that would say we are going to look at every regulation, and we are going to sunset those that are no longer necessary. We thought in the House that the moratorium would help, that we would have a timeout on regulations to look at the process. I think the 45- day legislative veto that the Senate is proposing will help. Again, I am not sure how much good it will do, but it will clearly put more focus. I think this Corrections Day process will clearly help us in changing this regulatory process, because what it will do, in my opinion, it will focus Members and focus the public's attention on this regulatory process which, in my judgment, has really gotten out of hand. I want to commend the chairman, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. McIntosh], and the subcommittee that I serve on for kind of making it a priority of that subcommittee to do oversight on the regulatory process. We have traveled to a number of areas in the country and listened to ordinary citizens and their reactions to some of the regulatory overburden. And as I understand it, the chairman is going to continue that process so that we are going to have oversight on the regulatory process, and that is going to help, as well. I also want to commend the chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], for being with us on these issues, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger], the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], and others. So I just want to say that there are a number of Democrats that are concerned about the regulatory process. We have been working where we can to have a reasonable response to the overregulation that we have seen in this country, and the truth is that we should write, in my judgment, legislation more specifically so we would not have so much rulemaking, that we should read every rule that comes out, and, lastly, that we should pass this Corrections Day bill because it will move us in the right direction.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate a good friend of mine, Don Schirrick, for being honored as Minnesota's Knight of the Year. It is an honor that is well deserved. Don joined the Knights of Columbus 7 years ago in Thief River Falls, MN, and 4 years ago, he helped start a council in Red Lake Falls. That council has now grown to 100 members. Don has always been one of those people who thinks of others before thinking of himself. He has spent much of his time during the past 4 years raising money for the community. Just last year, he worked on an annual marathon, which raised $7,000 for St. Joseph's School and a Tootsie Roll drive, which raised about $600 for Northwood Home. [[Page E1230]] Don was named local Knight of the Year last year, which entitled him to enter the State competition against 20,000 others. A panel of seven knights from across the State picked Don as Minnesota Knight of the Year. Again, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Don Schirrick on his honor, and thanking him for his tireless work on behalf of the Knights of Columbus and the community of Red Lake Falls.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the substitute, which is the coalition budget proposal. This budget, which was drafted by the coalition budget task force and has been endorsed by the coalition, is the most responsible and sensible budget before the House. The coalition budget is based on the common-sense principle that we should not cut taxes until we have done the hard work to balance the budget. The coalition is not opposed to tax cuts. In fact, coalition members strongly support tax cuts to stimulate investment and savings. What the coalition budget says very clearly is that we should make certain that the budget is on a clear path toward balance before we consider tax cuts. If we do not bring the deficit under control first, any economic benefit from tax cuts will be undercut by the continued drag that our national debt places on the economy. We recognize that if we are not careful when we make changes in Medicare and Medicaid there will be severe consequences for individuals who depend on these programs and the small hospitals that will not be able to survive if we are not careful. The coalition budget calls for significant reforms to achieve savings in the Medicare and Medicaid Programs, but is based on a careful review of how much we can reduce those programs with out having an adverse impact on our health care system. The same is true in agriculture programs. Once again, agriculture is being asked to bear more than its fair share of cuts. Cuts of this magnitude will unilaterally disarm Americans farmers in the battle in the global economy. The coalition budget will require real cuts in agricultural programs that will require sacrifice on the part of many of my constituents. However, the coalition budget sets a reasonable level of cuts that can be made without dismantling agriculture policy. The budget we pass should make our country stronger for future generations by stopping the practice of putting an increasing burden of debt on their back and by providing funds for programs such as education, research and other programs which invest in the future of our country. We do not include reductions in the Stafford loan program that the committee budget requires. We provide $35 billion more than the committee in education and training programs that will help us achieve a strong economy and high standard of living. The coalition budget is a realistic budget that balances the budget by 2002 without jeopardizing valuable programs. I urge its adoption.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule and this conference report. I do so not because I oppose cutting spending, but because the conference report does not include the Brewster-Minge lockbox amendment which applied all of the savings from the bill to deficit reduction. The Brewster-Minge amendment would have reduced the discretionary spending caps to reflect the savings in each of the next 5 years from the spending cuts in the package, thereby applying the savings to deficit reduction. The Brewster-Minge amendment would have reduced the spending limits by $66.2 billion over 5 years. Incidentally, I would point out that the Brewster-Minge amendment uses the same approach to reducing the discretionary caps that was in the Penny--Kasich amendment offered by our former colleague Tim Penny and the current chairman of the Budget Committee John Kasich in the 103d Congress. The House overwhelmingly passed the Brewster-Minge amendment when the rescission bill was considered by the House, but the House leadership almost immediately began to back away from its support of the amendment. The other body passed a significantly weaker version of the lockbox that only applied the savings from the first year to deficit reduction instead of reducing the caps to lock in the savings for all 5 years to deficit reduction. Unfortunately, the conference chose to accept the weaker version of lockbox that only applies $15.5 billion in savings to deficit reduction. The House conferees would have us believe that they had to drop the Brewster amendment because the other body would not accept it. However, I would point out that Pete Domenici, the chairman of the Budget Committee and a very influential member of the other body on budget issues in the other body endorsed the approach in the Brewster-Minge amendment during the debate on this bill on March 29. He said, and I quote, ``We could take this little $6 billion savings and make it recur each year, and we would be over $30 billion * * * We will have to do more than that.'' I have heard some members argue that the savings from the lockbox amendment are irrelevant because we will reduce the spending limits much more in the reconciliation bill later in the year. If that is true, then I do not understand the objection to making those reductions now by accepting the Brewster-Minge amendment. Should we not lock in the savings now just in case we do not enact lower spending limits later in the year for whatever reason? Mr. Speaker, we should defeat this bill and send it back to conference so bill. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection and support the request of the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I again want to commend the gentlemen for their good work, and hope that we can get this to conference, and talk some sense into the other body. Unfortunately, they appear to be somewhat in the capture of the bureaucracy and the status quo. Hopefully, if we cannot get the entire moratorium through, maybe we can get some specific items in the moratorium through on the Senate side. Again, I commend everyone and urge support of this motion. Mr. Speaker, I have no further Members wishing to speak, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As I said, I did not think we needed to debate this bill, but I think we need to clear up a couple of things. The coalition and many other Democrats were proud to support this piece of legislation. I think that some of the claims that were made by some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle may have been valid as we looked at the original bill. But in our judgment it is not valid, and I really want to associate myself with the remarks of the previous two speakers, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], in the final bill. We have taken care of the concerns that people had about this bill. The President has the ability to exempt regulations that he feels need to go ahead. This claim that the agencies are going to be stopped dead from doing any regulatory process is not true. I think the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay] said it very clearly. Unless we do not believe that the President of the United States is going to do the right thing, this bill is not the kind of extreme bill that some people have laid out. I just want to make the point that many of us on this side of the aisle support this piece of legislation, and we ask people to look at the final product, because it is very different than the bill that was originally introduced. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes and 30 seconds to the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Barrett].

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would agree with the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the chairman, that I do not think the Senate took a position on this. I just want to say, some of us on this side of the aisle worked with the gentleman. I think as the bill was originally put together, these claims may have been valid. But I do not think it is valid with the bill as it passed the House. We clearly gave the President the opportunity to deal with regulations that he felt were important to the imminent threat to the health and safety that might happen. We exempted routine administrative regulations. The claim cannot be made about this bill that it is going to stop all regulations for this moratorium period. That is not true. This does provide a mechanism that we think is reasonable to allow for regulations to go ahead that are necessary. What we are trying to do with this moratorium is put a time out on regulations until we can get the other things in place so we can start bringing some commonsense, some cost-benefits and risk assessment to the regulatory process. We think that it is a reasonable approach. As I say, I support what the chairman is doing, and I hope that we can get some of the elements of the moratorium bill into the final version when we finally do get to conference with the Senate. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, as a fiscal conservative who believes that it is critical that we put our fiscal house in order, I cannot tell you how much fun it is to participate in this debate today on how we should be balancing the budget instead of debating whether or not we should be balancing the budget. I want to congratulate the other side and the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Kasich, for helping to make this debate possible and for bringing a budget to the House floor which tackles many of the tough choices that we have to face. I also want to congratulate the gentleman from new York [Mr. Solomon] and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] for the proposal to balance the budget in 5 years. Unfortunately, I cannot support the committee resolution as it is before us today. This resolution allows us to postpone and possibly even avoid the tough choices that we must make. It calls for a very unusual process that allows us to make the politically popular and easy choices before we even consider the real spending cuts that are necessary to balance the budget. Even if we do not duck these tough choices, as this resolution allows us to do, the overwhelming majority of the spending cuts called for in this resolution will occur in the last 2 years. I hope that the committee is right in its assumptions, but I am afraid that the savings that are supposed to occur in the last 2 years will not materialize and we will be left with a deficit that continues to drag down our economy. Fortunately, Mr. Chairman, the House will have an opportunity to support a sensible and fiscally responsible alternative to the committee resolution when the coalition budget is offered as a substitute tomorrow. The coalition put together this alternative because the coalition members have long been committed to the goal of balancing the budget, but we believe that it must be done in a way that makes sense and will work. The budget that we produced is a realistic proposal that does make sense. It achieves a balanced budget by the year 2002. It borrows $160 billion less than the committee resolution without making unreasonable cuts in vital programs. Unlike the committee resolution which back loads the deficit reduction in the last 2 years, the coalition budget cuts spending first and provides for a reasonable, level glide towards a balanced budget in the year 2002. Mr. Chairman, if my colleagues have any reservations about the budget resolution before us today, I urge them to review the coalition budget carefully. I am confident that if they have done that, they will agree with me that the coalition budget is the most sensible alternative before the House and deserve the support of all Members.