Arlen Specter

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we have been proceeding reasonably well on handling amendments. We had a short period between 12 and 12:30 where we did not have amendments pending. I understand we will have an amendment presented at about 6 o'clock this evening. But that leaves us with an hour and 22 minutes. The distinguished Senator from Texas wishes to speak for 10 or 15 minutes. We can accommodate his schedule. We have quite a number of amendments which have been filed and others where there has been an indication that there will be amendments. I urge my colleagues to come to the floor. Floor time is hard to find. When this bill moves ahead tomorrow or the day after or Friday, the bill is going to be finished this week, however long it takes us. We are anxious to conclude the work of the Senate. Now is the time. I yield to my distinguished colleague from Texas 10 to 15 minutes, as he chooses, and ask unanimous consent for his recognition to speak for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. SPECTER. That is acceptable, provided those on the floor can muster a no which either exceeds the ayes or is so recognized by the Chair to be the predominant voice vote. I call for the question on a voice vote.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I appreciate the thrust of the argument being advanced by the Senator from New Hampshire in terms of expenditures. There is no doubt that the deficit is excessive. There is no doubt that the national debt is an enormous burden on our society. When we deal with the issue of energy assistance for the poor, there has been a generalized agreement, as evidenced by the amendment offered by the Senator from New Hampshire, agreeing that there ought to be LIHEAP assistance. He approaches it differently than the Reed-Collins amendment, which treats the issue as an emergency, and instead has an across-the-board cut of almost 1 percent on all funding under this bill. The bill is not cut to the bone. The bill, in its present shape, goes into the bone. It does not have an increase for inflation. It has a very marked shortfall on many programs. We heard one this morning on education in the caption of Pell grants where there simply is not enough money to take care of the basic needs of these three departments. Education and health care are our two major capital assets. Without good health, people cannot function. Without a decent education, people cannot progress. This allocation of $145 billion is right to the bone. We find ourselves in what I think is a genuine emergency situation with respect to fuel assistance. It is as much an emergency as Katrina is to the people who are victims of that hurricane. That incident has markedly raised the cost of fuel oil and natural gas where people need it for heating. Where we can appropriate the kind of dollars which we have for Katrina--and I am not questioning that--this is right in the same boat, to use an overused metaphor. Much as we have problems with the deficit, much as we have problems with the national debt, this is, I think, a genuine emergency, and the accounts on this bill simply cannot tolerate further cuts. Therefore, I am constrained to oppose the amendment offered by the Senator from New Hampshire. Mr. President, in the absence of any other Senator seeking recognition--I was about to suggest the absence of a quorum--but let me urge my colleagues to come to the floor, instead, and offer amendments. We have an indication that there will be an amendment offered at 6 o'clock. We may be in a position to vote on some amendments at that time, if no other amendments are to be offered. But we have 47 minutes between now and 6 o'clock where there is ample time for someone to come to the floor a few minutes and offer an amendment. It may be the offerer of the next amendment will be here at 5:30. I am advised there may be a change. That still leaves us 16 minutes. We can get a lot done in 16 minutes, if somebody comes to the floor and offers an amendment. We don't like to waste any time, Mr. President. We have a complicated bill here. Wait and see, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, Friday, or whoever knows when this week we will finish this bill--and the majority leader and the managers are determined to finish the bill--16 minutes will look like a lot of time. I remind my colleagues about the argument over a unanimous-consent request for 1 extra minute last Thursday. We have those arguments from time to time, sometimes made by experienced Senators who know that if you object to a 1-minute unanimous consent request, it will take at least 5 minutes to straighten it out. Eventually they got the minute. Mr. President, 15 or 16 minutes is a lot of time, so I urge my colleagues to come to the floor. In the interim, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, before the amendment is adopted, I would like to have an opportunity to speak on this side of the aisle. This amendment would use a portion of the funds for the Corporation for National and Community Service to do a study of national service programs in rural areas. I think, again, this is a good idea which the Senator from Colorado is offering. Rural areas are too often underserved and underfocused. Pennsylvania has more people living in rural areas than any other State in the Union. It might be surprising, but we do. I think it is a good amendment, and I will now defer to the Senator from Colorado for urging its adoption.

Mr. SPECTER. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I would suggest, if I may, that we conclude action on this amendment, with a brief reply by this side, so we can move ahead with the amendment, anticipating its adoption. I think that would be a more orderly process. So technically, I do object--with that suggestion.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the amendment calls for the Secretary of Education to undertake a study to evaluate the effectiveness of violence prevention under the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program. I think it is a good idea. So frequently we make appropriations for certain purposes and never have any concrete idea as to how well the programs are working. One area analogous to this is the money we spent on literacy training and job training, so-called rehabilitation in our correctional system. It is not enough we spend the funding, never having an idea as to really what works and what does not work in terms of stopping recidivism. I believe the Senator from Colorado has struck a good idea. I support the amendment and join with the Senator from Colorado in urging its adoption.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I agree with everything Senator Kennedy has said about the importance of increasing Pell grants. But the difficulty is, in adding this appropriated fund, in his effort to add additional money, there is no offset. We have a budget of $145 billion. We have made the allocations as best we can. Since I took over the chairmanship of the Appropriations subcommittee, in 1995 we have increased the Pell grants on an annual basis from $2,340 to $4,050. I would like to increase them more, but there simply is not enough money to do so. If the Senator from Massachusetts has a suggestion as to some other priority which is of lesser importance, I would be glad to listen. This is a carefully crafted bill. Much as I would like to increase the Pell grants, there simply are not the funds to do so. I am constrained to ask my colleagues to support the point of order.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I believe the amendment which has been offered by the Senator from Rhode Island and the Senator from Maine is one of necessity. It is regrettable that fuel costs have grown so high, occasioned by a great many factors, one of which is what has happened with Hurricane Katrina and the elevation of oil, the elevation of natural gas prices. This issue of low-income home energy assistance, LIHEAP, has been a difficult matter for this subcommittee for the 24 years I have been on the subcommittee because it poses such a drastic alternative for so many people. The comment ``heat or eat'' is a very accurate one. That really is the choice for so many, especially the elderly. I have supported funding for LIHEAP in the past, and I believe it is accurately characterized as an emergency. I say that recognizing the very heavy, burdensome obligations the Federal Government has and that spending is a very major issue. But when it comes down to the exigencies of this moment where we have appropriated so much money to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, we are talking about brothers and sisters of those victims of people who live in Rhode Island or New Hampshire or Maine or Pennsylvania or so many States in the Union. So I will be supporting the amendment Senator Reed and Senator Collins have offered. I have been advised that there will be an alternative amendment put forward to have an across-the-board cut. I do not think that is the better answer to the issue, but I wanted to put that on the record so that if we move ahead with the yeas and nays, we will hold off on the vote perhaps to vote on them side by side, if there is not a second- degree amendment. We will see what we sort out on procedure. I thought it important as manager on this side that I make this statement which I have. I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we have been sitting in the Chamber without accomplishing much for more than 45 minutes now. We had, in my view, more quorum calls and more time which was not spent on the bill than we should have. We have a great many amendments pending, and we are going to be pushing ahead. We are filing cloture today, and we are going to be pushing ahead to try to get this bill finished at the earliest time. Whether it is Thursday, Friday, or when this week, I do not know. We have been awaiting for more than 30 minutes the arrival of a Senator to offer another amendment. And very candidly, I am tired of waiting. So that concludes the action on this bill today. We will begin tomorrow morning with a series of amendments. We had wanted to vote on a number of amendments which were pending, but we cannot because too many Senators have other commitments. That is something that is hard to understand sometimes: why we are notified midafternoon that Senators are too busy to attend to the business of the Senate and to vote. I say in gest that I am going to run for majority leader on a platform to have a 4-day workweek, from Monday noon until Friday noon. That would double the workweek of the Senate. The second plank of my platform--I notice the two Senators from Georgia are amused; anybody would be amused--to hold down these votes to 15 minutes and 5 more minutes, we did pretty well on that. We had an 18\1/2\-minute vote. So that is a little progress. The junior Senator from Georgia is nodding in the affirmative. But we have to do better. And to advocate a 4-day workweek, which would double the work of the Senate, is said only facetiously. I would have only one vote, my own. I would have maybe two or three if I didn't run on that kind of a platform. Seriously, we need to get on with this bill. But it is now past 6 o'clock, and that concludes our activity on the bill. I think the custom of the Senate is to move to morning business at this point. I am advised we have not yet filed cloture, Mr. President, so I suggest the absence of a quorum so we technically stay on the bill until the final signature is added so that the cloture motion can be filed.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for coming to the floor to offer these amendments to move the bill along. His amendment for $198.5 million for community health centers is certainly directed to a good program. These are very important health centers which are of great assistance to the American people. In the allocations of the funding, we have allocated for the next fiscal year in excess of $2 billion, $2,037,871,000. The figure I gave was the request, but the allocation is $1,839,311,000, which is an increase of $105 million over last year. Similar to the considerations on the amendment by the Senator from Massachusetts, the subcommittee and the full Appropriations Committee have given deliberation to the various priorities and believe this is the right figure. It is a customary approach to suggest an across-the-board cut. If you fractionalize it, it comes out to a small figure. But still, it is important. It comes out of the National Institutes of Health. It comes out of the Centers for Disease Control. It comes out of many programs which are, I am at a loss as to whether to say, barely adequately funded or underfunded or not sufficiently funded, but they can't spare the money. This is a matter of priorities. When the Senator from New Hampshire says he would be glad to consider some other offset, I would be pleased to work with him on another offset. But in order to have another offset from some other allocation, there has to be proof and a showing that adding $198.5 million for community health centers is more important to America than where we have allocated it. And we have not picked these figures with a dartboard, Mr. President. We haven't pulled them out of the air. There has been laborious effort going through the history of these programs--how many we have, what we can cut, what we can add to. It is balanced off against many factors, including the Pell grants we heard about. So that it is necessary to oppose the amendment, as much as I would like to see more money in community health centers and many other lines. With respect to the effort to add $5 million to the rehabilitation vision amendment, that, again, is another good amendment, but, again, it is a matter of allocation and where we will get the money. The Senator from New Hampshire would like to discuss the matter further. I think that is always useful, and I am prepared to undertake that to see if some accommodation can be made short of an outright opposition to the vote. So we will pursue that. I do thank him for coming to the floor early in this debate and advancing ideas to help us move the bill along, and that inspires me to ask 1 of his 97 colleagues, aside from the 3 of us who are in the Chamber now, to come to the floor with other amendments so we can keep this bill moving. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SPECTER. We may consume all the time until 12:30, but there is a possibility that we may not. So if any other Senator has an amendment to offer, I urge that Senator to come to the floor at this time so that we can utilize all of the floor time for debate on this important bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, just by way of a very brief comment as to the contentions raised by the Senator from Massachusetts, I recall his amendment on the budget resolution for $5 billion. I recall it very well because I voted for it. As I recollect it--we are checking the record now--it was a one-vote margin. There was considerable consternation about not having that amendment go to conference. I stayed with the Senator from Massachusetts on the $5 billion because I share his concern for education. And then it went to conference, as our procedures moved it through, and it was dropped. So Senator Kennedy's $5 billion with which I agreed is not there anymore. And if it were there, we would have a good bit more money to add to the Pell grants. If I could find more money for the Pell grants, I would like to. If we could replay the cards of what happened on the $5 billion, I would like to do that, too. But I am confronted with a situation where I have an allocation that came through the process of the Senate, and I have to work within that framework. The priorities are established as best we can. I think it is appropriate now for Senators who have the floor--we are going to vote at 2:15--to raise the point of order so it is on the record. Mr. President, in anticipation of the vote at 2:15 for purposes of the record, I do raise a point of order under section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act, as amended, that the amendment provides budget authority and outlays in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation under the fiscal year 2006 concurrent resolution on the budget and therefore is not in order.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we have 33 minutes between now and the time of our policy luncheons when it is our practice to adjourn, so I would encourage my colleagues to come to the floor to offer an amendment. In the absence of any other Senator in the Chamber seeking recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I move to vitiate the yeas and nays on amendment No. 2197 and proceed to adopt the amendment by voice vote at this time. I cleared this matter with Senator Harkin.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 25, 2005, at 2:15 p.m. to hold a Business Meeting.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 25, 2005, at 10 a.m. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 1829, to repeal certain sections of the act of May 26, 1936, pertaining to the Virgin Islands; S. 1830, to amend the compact of Free Association Amendments Act of 2003, and for other purposes; and S. 1831, to convey certain submerged land to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and for other purposes.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I put all Senators on notice that we will soon be starting the debate on an amendment to be offered by Senator Durbin. We had expected to go on the bill at 10, with morning business scheduled from 9:30 to 10, but morning business has run a little late. One of the Senators asked for an extension of time, which was not objected to. Now Senator Stabenow has asked for 5 minutes, which we will agree to. Senator Harkin and I are on the floor, and we are anxious to proceed with the business of the bill. I know Senator Harkin would like to make a comment.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the request was made to have the amendment which is pending accepted by a voice vote. It is really in the nature of a technical amendment. The amendment reduces Federal administrative costs for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services by $15 million with no cuts coming from oversight and enforcement. This reduction is necessary to bring the Labor-HHS bill into compliance with its allocation ceiling. Concerns have been raised that this reduction would reduce the funds available to administer the new prescription drug program. This is not the case--the reduction will come from administrative overhead, supplies and contracts. We had talked about having a vote on it this morning at 10:30, but in light of the request that we not vote on that amendment but vote on the Durbin amendment, that is acceptable to this side. As I said before, Senator Stabenow has asked for 5 minutes, and we are prepared to yield that time. But we want to put all Senators on notice we are anxious to proceed with the bill, and I will expect to start on the Durbin amendment at about 10:24 and expect to vote on it sometime between 10:45 and 11. Senator Harkin and I, backed by the leaders, have said that we are going to do our best to enforce 20-minute votes, 15 and a 5-minute extension. So all Senators should know when we start the Durbin vote that it will be limited to 20 minutes to the extent that Senator Harkin and I can prevail on that. When we finish the Durbin vote at about 11:15, we would be pressing to have amendments filed. We have a long, complicated bill. There is an amendment lined up at 2:15, but if we are to move this bill along and to avoid pressing for third reading and final passage, we want to avoid lengthy quorum calls. I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I made an opening statement on Friday morning and I intend to yield in a moment or two to my distinguished colleague, the ranking member, Senator Harkin. I urge all Senators to come forward with their amendments. So far staff has contacted every Senator's office to find out if there are amendments which the Senator intends to file. We have been made aware of approximately 15 amendments identified so far where there is an intention to file. We have had a fair number of other comments from staffers of other Senators who do not know what their Members intend to do. We have a very complicated bill, in excess of $145 billion, three of the most important Departments of the Federal Government: Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor. We are in the closing days of this session. After the passage of this bill, we are going to have to go to conference and resolve many difficult matters. So it is important that this bill be completed as early as possible. We also have many Members who are involved in this bill who are engaged in the preparation of the confirmation hearings on Ms. Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court of the United States. That is weighing very heavily on my mind, but this is an important bill which comes first. Senator Harkin and I are determined, and Senator Frist, the leader, as well as Senator Reid, the Democratic leader, will back us up. Senator Reid took the initiative to remind Senators about a statement which I initiated last week about going to the 15-minute plus 5, 20 minutes total, vote tally so we do not consume a large amount of time, which has become the practice of the Senate. Speaking as the manager, and I know Senator Harkin concurs with this--I would ask the Senator if that is correct?

Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. Again, in the absence of any Senator seeking recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SPECTER. If we have third reading, we will not need a cloture motion. I am persuaded by the eloquence of the Senator's argument.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, Senator Harkin just called my attention to the fact that a quorum call has been underway for a protracted period of time. Senator Harkin and I are very much opposed to quorum calls during our watch. I ask Senator Harkin if it is too early to call for a third reading or final passage.