Arlen Specter

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I send a series of cleared amendments to the desk and ask unanimous consent that they be agreed to en bloc, with the motion to reconsider laid upon the table.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished majority leader for his comments and for his leadership on these very important issues. He has truly been a leader in this area, and he has consistently pushed for improvements in Federal programs to eliminate health disparities. In fact, he authored the Title VII and Title VIII Reauthorizations as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee's Public Health Subcommittee during the 105th Congress. As he knows, our subcommittee has a long history of supporting HRSA's Health Professions Training programs. Senator Harkin and I appreciate the contributions these programs make to our provider workforce through a variety of scholarships, loans, grants and contracts. Unfortunately, the allocation that was provided to the subcommittee for FY04 did not permit us to fully support these worthy initiatives. I agree with the majority leader that a restoration of funding for all health professions programs should be our goal in conference. I am pleased to commit to the majority leader that I will do all I can to fully restore funds for the four diversity programs and, at a minimum, bring funding for the other programs to the House level.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for raising this important issue. As he pointed out, the lack of a uniform and comprehensive cancer survivorship plan is becoming a critical public health issue for the millions of cancer survivors and their families and friends. That is why I worked with my close friend Senator Harkin to secure increased funding for this program. Like so many public health programs, especially within the Chronic Disease Account, there is a lot more that can and should be done. I will work with my friend from Nevada and the conferees to secure the highest possible funding level for comprehensive cancer programs.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I alert all Senators as to our schedule. I have had a number of inquiries as to what we will be doing. There are very few amendments remaining to be voted upon. Unless we are going to have a series of rollcall votes on amendments which the managers have agreed to, the senior Senator from Arizona has notified this manager there are objections to amendments. At this time I ask unanimous consent to offer an amendment by Senator Sessions regarding the Centers for Disease Control on a plan related to blood safety and ask for its immediate adoption. The provision of the amendment is ``not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this act, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shall prepare a plan to comprehensively address blood safety and injection safety in Africa under the global AIDS program.'' The area of disagreement, if I may inform my colleagues, is whether the word ``shall'' will be in the amendment, which is what Senator Sessions insists upon, or whether it will be ``may,'' which would leave it up to the discretion of the executive branch as to whether they will carry out the study. If the yeas and nays are requested, I intend to ask my colleagues to deny a sufficient second. I have consulted with the Parliamentarian who advises that the rule is, to have a sufficient second, there must be one-fifth of those who previously voted, which would be 19 out of 95. If this will require a rollcall vote, I cannot predict how many rollcall votes we will have this evening, but I would not make dinner plans.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the adoption of the Sessions amendment.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, there is no doubt about the seriousness of the West Nile virus. But we have, at the present time, some $76 million at the Centers for Disease Control. This past Saturday, I visited the Centers for Disease Control. I took a look at their maps and saw the incidence of West Nile and have no request from the Centers for Disease Control that there ought to be any additional funding. Mr. President, I raise a point of order under section 504 of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2004 that the amendment is not in order because it exceeds discretionary spending limits.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we have decided to accept the amendment of the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Ensign. Does the ranking member concur in that?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, this is the most spirited debate of the entire bill, and we have had some spirited debates. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his compliments. I haven't gotten around to totaling the savings. But I was pleased to hear that we saved some $24-plus billion. Over a 10-year period, it is in the high of $300 billion. I am pleased to note that I believe there is a very big difference between the National Institutes of Health and anybody else who wants to declare an emergency. Simply stated, NIH deals with life and death. At any rate, we have saved more than $24 billion this year--a vast sum over 10 years. I ask my colleagues to support this amendment, and I move to waive the Budget Act.

Mr. SPECTER. I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, there is no doubt about the desirability of the program encompassed in the amendment by the Senator from Louisiana. We already have in the account $100 million. I wish we had more money, but that is the maximum we can do with the budget resolution within the allocation. Therefore, with reluctance, I raise a point of order under the Budget Act and the resolution and say that the amendment by the Senator from Louisiana is not in order.

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, the managers would like to have one additional vote before people go to the meeting with Secretary Powell. So I ask Senators to stay in the Chamber. If we are to finish this bill today, we are going to have to move along with dispatch.

Mr. SPECTER. I yield my time to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, there is no doubt about the seriousness of the problem of West Nile. I made a trip to the Centers for Disease Control on Saturday and took a look at their operation, took a look at their charts, took a look at their projections as to where West Nile had struck, the number of illnesses, the number of fatalities. However, we are funding the Centers for Disease Control now at $5.760 billion. It is true $1.100 billion is directed additionally for bioterrorism, but that agency is extensively funded. With respect to the allocation directly for West Nile, they have $36.760 million in this bill. We have in NIH at least $40 million more, for a total of $76 million. Here again, I would like to see additional funding if we had the money. When we talk about the funding for the mosquitos of $100,000, I went over, in a lengthy visit at the Centers for Disease Control, their priorities and their needs. That is a program just recently authorized. There was no request by the administration. With the tremendous constraints on the rest of the bill we did not fund it. However, I believe we have adequately funded West Nile. And certainly we have funded the Centers for Disease Control. So they are in a position to allocate additional funds if they think it is necessary. But on this phase of the record, I think our appropriations bill is adequate. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. That is correct, Madam President.

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I support what the assistant Democratic leader has had to say. We have six votes stacked now. We are going to have quite a number of additional votes. There is a tempo around the Senate of completing the bill. If we are to finish this bill tonight, we are going to have to work through.

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, we have structured this bill very carefully and crafted it very carefully. While I appreciate the interest of the Senator from Nevada, if we restructure it with these across-the-board cuts, we will be digging into a lot of vital programs which the subcommittee and the committee have carefully considered and crafted on what we think is balanced. I yield back the remainder of my time so we can move to the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I yield the remainder of my time so we can proceed to the amendment by the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, there is no doubt about the value of the afterschool programs. That has been recognized by the subcommittee and we have put $1 billion in the program. This is $400 million more than the President's request. Would we like to have additional funds? Certainly we would, but we simply don't have it within our allocation. The amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada with an across-the- board cut would cut into many very important programs. There will be fewer youth employment training centers, fewer NIH grants, fewer dislocated worker trainees, fewer kids in Head Start, and fewer kids in child care. In the interest of time, I ask unanimous consent that this chart be printed in the Record.

Mr. SPECTER. Now we go to the Landrieu amendment.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we are set to proceed with a series of stacked votes at 9:45 a.m. There are a fair number of amendments which have yet to be offered. The distinguished ranking member and I are prepared to work through those amendments expeditiously. It may be possible to accommodate some of the Members in their requests. The majority leader has again announced that upon completion of this bill there will be no votes on Thursday or Friday, although the Senate will be in session. When that word travels throughout the membership, there is more incentive to complete this bill at an early time. Yesterday we did have a productive day, starting at 5:15 p.m. We had four rollcall votes. We debated six amendments on into the evening. As I survey the sheet, if we have cooperation on all sides, it is possible to move through this bill in an expeditious way and perhaps finish this bill today sooner rather than later. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I agree with the Senator from New York about the importance of funding to fight HIV/AIDS, but we are funding more than $2 billion for the Ryan White program. We have in the Senate bill on AIDS some $14 billion-plus. We have on other Departments funding some $4 million. There has been a certification from the Director of HIV/AIDS that this $2 billion is all that can be appropriately used. We raised a point of order last night. I very much would like to have a larger appropriation for this subcommittee to have more money on education and health care and more money for HIV/AIDS, but we are constrained by the budget resolution and by our allocation. Therefore, I reluctantly oppose the amendment and have raised the point of order. The waiver has been asked for. We are now ready to vote.

Mr. SPECTER. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the intervening time be equally divided between both sides--whatever time there is--to make a presentation.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I believe low-income home energy assistance is a vital program. I have fought for it during my entire tenure in the Senate. Pennsylvania has a problem similar to Maine and Rhode Island. We have in this budget $2 billion for LIHEAP. Last year there was $1.7 billion in the regular account and $300 million in the contingency fund. This year we improved it. We put all the money into the regular account so you won't have to go to contingency to have the extra $300 million spent if certain conditions arise. Had we left the account as it was last year, perhaps this amendment would have been obviated or perhaps whatever amount of money we would have put in there would have been an increase. That is a constant occurrence in the management of this bill. I must tell you that it gets a little tiresome reading the newspaper accounts in the Philadelphia Inquirer and other Pennsylvania papers about how Senator Specter is voting against increases on important discretionary programs. The fact is, we have funded this program more generously than last year. Although the total figure is the same, $2 billion, we now have it all in the regular account so you don't have to go to contingency in order to access the $300 million. I would like to have a larger account for this bill to have more money for education, more money for health, and more money for LIHEAP. I know the choice for many people, especially senior citizens, is heat or eat. But we have a budget resolution that this Senator-manager has to stay within the limits. Therefore, I reluctantly have raised the point of order.

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, there is no doubt about the quality or priority of what the Senator from Illinois has offered. We have $3.378 in funding for educational professional development. I submit that this is adequate, and is certainly all we can do within the budget resolution. I ask unanimous consent that this chart be printed in the Record.