Richard Shelby

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be temporarily set aside in order that the Senator from North Carolina, Senator Helms, be recognized to offer an amendment.

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, what is the pending business of the Senate?

Mr. SHELBY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. SHELBY. Page 15. I will read it to you, the language, on page 15, where it says: ``Federal-Aid Highways, (Liquidation of Contract Authorization), Highway Trust Fund).'' For carrying out the provisions of title 23, United States Code, that are attributable to Federal-aid highways, including the National Scenic and Recreational Highway as authorized by 23 U.S.C. 148, not otherwise provided, including reimbursement for sums expended pursuant to the provisions of 23 U.S.C. 308, $26,125,000,000 or so much thereof as may be available in and derived from the Highway Trust Fund, to remain available until expended. That is the provision.

Mr. SHELBY. Because of H.R. 2084, the House bill, on page 15.

Mr. SHELBY. Reclaiming my time, I want to answer that, if I may. We have checked with the Parliamentarian. That is why we have a Parliamentarian here, among other things, for guidance at times. We have been told that the affirmative defense of germaneness would lie here because of the legislation.

Mr. SHELBY. I am glad to yield.

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I want to talk about germaneness for just a minute. I know the point of order has not been made yet, but I want my colleagues to know that the Senators who could raise the rule XVI point of order are trying to characterize the bill's RABA provision as not germane to this bill. But before bringing this provision to the floor, we checked again with the Parliamentarian, and he indicated the defense of germaneness did, in fact, exist on this provision by virtue of legislative language in the House-passed text. This language was not drafted with the goal of creating germane language. If my colleagues will recall, the rule XVI point of order was reestablished after this bill had been reported from committee and we did not need to modify the provision in order to make it germane. It is germane because it is germane, and it is consistent with rule XVI. What my colleagues are asking--if they do this--is to rule against a provision that is clearly germane pursuant to existing Senate rules under rule XVI. I urge my colleagues to reject at that time, if that is done, that proposition and uphold the germaneness of this provision. My colleagues have probably thrown a lot of smoke at you as to why you should not support the existing Senate appropriations provision, things such as preserving the genius of TEA 21. Some Western or public land States may get hurt under this provision, but do not let this confuse you. Be careful, I would suggest, when Members argue jurisdiction and in the same breath claim that your State might--yes, I repeat, might--be disadvantaged by a provision, and then raise a point of order--if they do--rather than voting on the merits of the issue. Why? Because what the Appropriations Committee has done is simple and straightforward and directly benefits every State. Let me be clear again. Every State will receive more money because of this provision because all the money will go directly to the States with fewer strings attached than it would otherwise. In addition, the money will get to the States sooner, so they can tackle the most critical transportation problems without having to wait on some Washington bureaucrats to deem their problems worthy of Federal funding. I believe it is clear that we cannot--yes, we cannot--always count on the Washington bureaucrats to be fair and impartial when making decisions about these discretionary highway funding issues. In fact, I have here a General Accounting Office study--a copy of the study is on the desk--that shows that the Department of Transportation does not always follow its own policies when distributing discretionary highway funds and that the distribution process can be highly politicized. The Appropriations Committee provision does not hurt Western or public land States in any way. Each of these States will have a guaranteed increase in highway funds, and they will get their money earlier. They can use these additional resources on public lands projects or whatever they want. So why raise a point of order--if, in fact, they do--as I anticipate, instead of voting on the provision? Because the opponents know they are asking Members to vote against their own States' interests. They are hoping you will not see that if the vote is on the point of order. What the Members objecting to the appropriations provision are asking you to do is forgo two birds in the hand, we might say, on the off chance that there might be a smaller bird in the bush somewhere else. Think about it. Not a very good deal, in this Senator's estimation, and not one which is in the best interests of any Senator's State. If you think so, check with your Governor in your State.

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I believe it is important that all Members of the Senate clearly understand the distribution of revenue aligned budget authority--that we called RABA--which the subcommittee integrated into this bill. The philosophy of the Transportation Act for the 21st century was that highway funding is intrinsically linked to receipts to the highway account of the highway trust fund, and that increased gas tax receipts should be passed along to the States for highway construction and improvement projects. The provision in TEA 21 that I described is a mechanism to guarantee additional revenue in the trust fund from greater than anticipated gas tax receipts would be spent for that purpose. The Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee's provision, which we have been talking about, ensures this intent is met and it is completely consistent with the spirit of TEA 21. The President's budget submission, however, requested to divert a third of these funds away from the Federal aid highway program to fund other programs and their initiatives. The subcommittee rejected this approach. Instead, we adopted one that honors the commitment Congress made to the States when it passed TEA 21, which I supported along with others. Our bill sends the funds directly to the States in order to maximize the Federal resources flowing to each State. I want to be clear this afternoon. This does not alter the TEA 21 formula. It, in fact, embraces the formula by strictly adhering to each State's individual guaranteed share under section 1105 of TEA 21. This is one of those rare instances where Congress is able to put forward a proposal that benefits every Member in every State in the Union. Within a constrained Federal budget, it is an approach which increases the amount that is available to the States for highway construction. I believe it makes sense and at the proper time I believe my colleagues--I hope, at least, they will support it.

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

Mr. SHELBY

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

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all first- degree amendments to the Transportation appropriations bill must be filed by 12 noon today, Wednesday, September 15, with the exception of one amendment by each leader and a managers' package of amendments.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, just for a few minutes I would like to address some of the overview, as I see it, of this Transportation appropriations bill. Mr. President, after being delayed by the objection to the Transit Equity Provision, I am pleased that the Senate will finally have the opportunity to consider the fiscal year 2000 transportation appropriations bill. Although the subcommittee's funding allocation is tight, I believe we are presenting the Senate with a balanced approach to meeting our Nation's transportation needs by providing adequate funding for all modes of transportation. At the same time, the senior Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Lautenberg, and I have gone to great lengths to craft a bill that I believe accommodates the requests of Members and funds their priorities. The current fiscal constraints were especially felt in the transit account, where demand for mass transit systems is growing in every State. But funding is fixed by the TEA 21 firewall. My proposal for managing an account in which Members' requests were more than 20 times the available funds was the Transit Equity Provision. This measure, which I included in the original subcommittee mark of the bill, would have limited the amount of transit capital funds any single State could receive in fiscal year 2000 to no more than 12\1/2\ percent of the total. The two states that receive the lion's share of national transit funds--30 percent of the total in fiscal year 1999--are California and New York. The provision would have redistributed any transit capital funds appropriated to these two states in excess of 12\1/2\ percent to the remaining 48 states. This would have resulted in approximately $5 million more for every other state, for their own transit programs-- while New York and California would still have received more than $693 million each. Last Thursday, however, the Senate failed to reach cloture on the motion to proceed to the transportation appropriations bill if it included the Transit Equity Provision, and I have agreed to strip the provision from the bill in order to move this legislation forward. The equity provision is not central to the appropriations bill. The total program funding levels, which are set at the TEA-21 firewall limits, remain unchanged. I included the provision to help create more room within those totals for the national transit program. My colleagues have written to me with new start project requests totaling $2.84 billion and with bus project requests totaling $1.8 billion. If the appropriations bill honors all the current and anticipated full funding grant agreement projects and the bus earmarks for fiscal year 2000 that were included in the TEA-21 authorization, we have left only $96 million in new starts funding and $235 million in bus funding--to accommodate not only the billions of dollars' worth of requests from my colleagues in the Senate, but also the earmarks that have been included in the House transportation appropriations bill. This task is beyond challenging: It is impossible. There is no way to begin to satisfy the demand for discretionary transit capital funds. I do not want this fact to catch my colleagues by surprise. I bring this bill to the Senate floor today without the Transit Equity Provision. By engaging in a lengthy and public debate on this issue, as well as a recorded cloture vote, I hope that my colleagues are now more aware of the pressures on this account nationally, and that they better understand why I have so actively sought a way to provide funds for what I thought were my colleagues' transit priorities. The bill honors our commitment to increase the flow of federal funds for construction to improve infrastructure throughout the nation. Within the framework of a $49.5 billion total bill, $37.9 billion is provided for infrastructure investment in highways, transit systems, airports, and railroads. This is 6 percent more than last year's level of funding and is greater than the administration's request. This bill respects the Highway and Transit firewalls that TEA-21 imposed. I would like to point out to my colleagues that we adhered strictly to the TEA-21 firewalls, even though outlays will be greater than the amount anticipated when Congress enacted TEA-21. By providing the funds above the firewall level, there were fewer dollars available to fund other priorities within the subcommittee's jurisdiction, including the Coast Guard and FAA. I believe this illustrates the pitfalls of trying to manage annual outlays in multi-year authorization legislation and is one of many reasons the Senate should reject a proposal to establish more budgetary firewalls around trust fund accounts. I yield to my colleague under the unanimous consent agreement, the senior senator from New Jersey, the ranking member of the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee.

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

Mr. SHELBY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, in light of this agreement, there will be no further votes this evening, and the next votes will occur at 11 a.m. Wednesday, tomorrow. Mr. WYDEN addressed the Chair.

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time on two amendments that have been offered by Senator Wyden relative to airline reporting be limited to 1 hour of total debate, to be equally divided in the usual form. I further ask that votes occur on or in relation to the Wyden amendments in the order in which they were offered, beginning at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, tomorrow, with 2 minutes for explanation between each vote and no additional amendments in order prior to the votes.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. That is exactly right.

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Chair lay before the Senate H.R. 2084, the House-passed fiscal year 2000 Transportation appropriations bill, that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 1143, as modified by striking section 321, be inserted in lieu thereof--being amendment No. 1624--that the amendment be considered as original text for the purpose of further amendment, and that points of order against any provision added thereby are preserved.

Mr. SHELBY. I would like, first, to modify my unanimous consent request. I think it might be best that I restate it, if I may.

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Chair lay before the Senate H.R. 2084, the House-passed fiscal year 2000 Transportation appropriations bill, that all after the enacting clause be stricken, and the text of S. 1143, as modified by striking sections 321 and 339, be inserted in lieu thereof, that the amendment be considered as original text for the purpose of further amendment, and that points of order against any provision added thereby be preserved.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. I also want to note that in the Senator's tax bill and in the House tax bill, some of these restrictions on life insurance consolidation have been addressed.

Mr. SHELBY. I ask that the Chairman keep in mind the further rationalization of these restrictions as this bill heads into conference and in future action in the Committee.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce a bipartisan bill with my colleagues, Senators Bayh, Bryan, Rockefeller and Bingaman. Entitled the ``Manufactured Housing Improvement Act,'' (MHIA) this bill is designed to modernize the requirements under the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 and to establish a balanced consensus process for the development, revision, and interpretation of Federal construction and safety standards for manufactured homes. Many do not realize that the majority of new manufactured homes of today are completely different from those of twenty or even ten years ago, and that this is the fastest growing segment of the housing industry. Today nearly one out of four new single family homes is a manufactured home, and the industry recently set a twenty-year sales record. There are good consumer-oriented reasons for this tremendous growth--manufactured homes offer quality and aesthetically pleasing housing at an average cost of $41,100, excluding the land. Today, manufactured housing has lowered the threshold to the American Dream of home ownership for millions of Americans, including first-time home buyers, senior citizens, young families, and single parents. With 5.3 million American households in need of affordable housing, I believe it is imperative to update the laws that regulate the private sector solution to affordable housing. In order for the manufactured housing industry to remain competitive, Congress must modernize the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974. My bill would do just that. MHIA would establish a consensus committee that would submit recommendations to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for developing, amending, and revising the Federal Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards. In addition, the committee would be authorized to interpret the standards and recommend appropriate regulations. Consumers will still be protected by HUD because the Secretary will have absolute authority to reject any recommendations, for any reason, submitted by the consensus committee. The Manufactured Housing Improvement Act would authorize the Secretary of HUD to use industry label fees for the administration of the consensus committee and the hiring of additional HUD staff in order to assure adequate consumer protection. The Secretary of HUD would also be authorized to use industry label fees to facilitate the availability and affordability of manufactured homes. This legislation is a very significant step forward in that both consumer and industry groups such as the Seniors Coalition, 60 Plus, and the Council for Affordable and Rural Housing, the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, the North American Steel Framing Alliance, and the Community Associations Institute, along with the Manufactured Housing Institute and the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform, have endorsed this legislation. The industry participants have modernized the quality and technology of manufactured housing. It's time for Congress to modernize the laws that regulate an industry that provides affordable housing and contributes more than $33 billion annually to our nation's economy. Similar legislation passed the House at the end of last Congress on a bipartisan basis under suspension of the rules and has been introduced again this year. I hope this year the Senate will take the lead and send the MHIA to the House as soon as possible.