John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. If the gentleman will yield again, I would like to pick up on what the gentleman from Minnesota said, and that is that this is a pretty special time. For the first time in the 17 years that I have been here, we are literally able, fiscally able to do something about Social Security's long-run future and Medicare's long-run future. Heretofore, we have had to struggle year to year with the deficits that have beset our budgets. We simply did not have the wherewithal to muster the energy and do something about Social Security. Now we can do something, if we will. The question before us is, do we have the will to do it? Last August, just as soon as CBO and OMB had both projected large accumulations of surpluses over the next 10 to 15 years, the first action we got from our colleagues on the other side was a large tax bill. And I think some of the surplus should be given back to the American people in the form of tax reduction, no question about it. But I think the American people want us to fix Social Security for the long run and we have got the opportunity now. If we had voted for that tax bill last summer, and the President signed it, the wherewithal to deal with Social Security would have been gone and the problem we have right now, closing the budget this year, we are 1 month into a new fiscal year, do not have a budget, only foreshadows the problems we would have had in 2001, 2002, on past 2010, as far as the eye can see, if that tax bill had been passed. It would have left us strapped and unable to do anything about Social Security, much less Medicare.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, my friend, whom I greatly respect, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, has just said that I left out a line. There is a line on Dr. Crippen's chart. It comes at the bottom of the page after CBO has scored this budget and says it is $17 billion into Social Security. That line says ``if you use Congressional scorekeeping.'' Well, CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, is our budget office. We have hired them to do it. Their record for scorekeeping is pretty impeccable. Over the last 10 years they have only been 0.4 percent wrong, plus or minus $2 billion dollars, for the past 15 years in scoring discretionary spending. What they are saying is, ``Do not use their scorekeeping; use our arbitrary scorekeeping. We will borrow this from OMB, and this from CBO, whatever best serves our purposes.'' The best, consistent and proper way to score the budget before us is to use CBO. Their track record is good. We have always used them in the past. If you use CBO, you are $17 billion into Social Security.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, a continuing resolution is a confession of failure on the part of Congress. It is a confession by Congress that it has not done its job, so is the appropriation bill that follows this continuing resolution. We were elected to use our judgment, our experience, to use our discretion to get the best value out of the American taxpayers' money. What do we do with an across-the-board cut? It is nothing less than abdication of the judgment that we were elected to use. It whacks the budget across the board by 1 percent, cutting the good with the bad. Now that may sound minimal. One percent sounds trivial. But if it is minimal, why not go back through these 13 bills and do it using discretionary judgment, picking out things that have been larded into these bills, Member adds, and we can start with Senator Lott's helicopter landing ship, just one of many things that cost several hundred million dollars that we can do without. The Navy said so, did not want it, did not ask for it. One percent is not minimal if someone is one of the people who have been hurt by the cut. As my colleagues know, we have spent the better part of this year, this past year, trying to get veterans health care up to the level that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs itself says we need to fund it at in order to keep our promises made to the men and women who served our country particularly in time of war, and if there are any promises we ought to keep; we ought to keep the promises we made to our veterans. What does this bill do? We have got the veterans' health care up by 1.5, $1.7 million; it whacks it $200 million. That is health care veterans will not be able to get if this bill were to become law. We spent last year, the whole past year, trying to get funding for our men and women in uniform, our Armed Services, up to the level where they want to stay in the service and encourage others to join the service because recruitment and retention are off, both badly. What does this bill do? The appropriations bill that will come after this continuing resolution will whack our men in uniform to the tune of 28,000 men and women on active duty who will have to be involuntarily separated, removed from service. What in the world will that do to morale when we are trying to encourage retention and recruitment? Kicked out of the service, mindless across-the-board cuts. General Shelton summed up the effects yesterday when he said a 1 percent across-the-board would be devastating to our national defense. But that is what we are proposing here today. All of this mindless carnage to the budget is being done in the name of holding Social Security surplus harmless, and it is a worthy goal; but I suggest to my colleagues in truth this is not the real goal. The real goal is to send these 13 appropriation bills to the President, have them veto several of them, and then we will be able to say he is responsible for our having to borrow this year from Social Security. Well, Mr. Speaker, that dog will not hunt. Do not take my word for it. Listen to what CBO says this morning just off the press in its summary of 12 bills that this Republican majority and this House and the Senate have passed, the last to come, Labor-HHS. It summed them all up, and here is the summary right here on this chart in the simplest possible terms for people to understand. The appropriations spending cap for this year in July was $580 billion. At that level, CBO said we would have a surplus this year of $14 billion, $14.4 to be exact. So that means if you spend $594 billion, the cap on appropriations, plus the on-budget surplus, you can stay out of Social Security. But CBO says today, looking at all 13 appropriation bills, that they spend altogether $611 billion. Simple arithmetic says, therefore, these bills to date are $17 billion already into the Social Security trust fund, $17 billion already into the Social Security surplus, because these bills to date spend $611 billion as opposed to a spending ceiling of $594 billion if you want to stay out of Social Security. There it is in simple form. In more complicated form I have a letter here dated October 28, 1999, from Dr. Crippen, who is the Director of CBO, which I would like to insert in the Record. It sets it straight. It spells it out. You are already $17.1 billion into Social Security. That is the bottom line, no way around it. Let us vote down the Labor-HHS bill so we can get down to reality and get down to budgeting, rather than blaming, which is what the people elected us to do. Mr. Speaker, I include the following for the Record: Congressional Budget Office, U.S. Congress, Washington, DC, October 28, 1999. Hon. J. Dennis Hastert, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Speaker: As you requested in your letter of October 27, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the on-budget deficit for fiscal year 2000, incorporating appropriation action to date. CBO's estimates are based on appropriation bills that have been signed by the President and, for those that have not yet been enacted into law, on the most recent conference agreements. The enclosed table provides CBO's estimate of how those bills would affect the on-budget surplus for fiscal year 2000. As you requested, the table displays the impact on that estimate of the adjustments made to CBO's figures for Congressional scorekeeping purposes--with the exception of the adjustment made for contingent emergencies. In response to numerous questions about the on-budget deficit and related matters, CBO has prepared a memorandum entitled Discretionary Spending Caps, Deficits, and the Social Security Surplus, which provides some context for addressing the budgetary issues you have raised. A copy of that memorandum is enclosed. If you wish further information, we will be pleased to provide it. Sincerely, Dan L. Crippen, Director. Enclosures: TABLE 1.--ESTIMATED BUDGETARY IMPACT OF CURRENT APPROPRIATION ACTION FOR

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, my colleague the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) was on the floor a minute ago, and he said that we should really be celebrating our success. I agree. We have come a long way from 1992 when the deficit, even with a large surplus in Social Security, was $290 billion and headed up. We passed three budgets to reverse that course, a budget summit in 1990, the Clinton Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act in '93, and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and my side put the votes on the board to pass those bills and we are proud of the accomplishment. But one of the disciplines we implemented when we passed those bills was to put a ceiling, a cap, on discretionary spending, the stuff that runs the government. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) said we should not be denigrating this accomplishment, but how can you help but denigrate what this budget before us represents? Because what it does is make a mockery of the discretionary spending ceiling. The discretionary spending ceiling for this year, according to CBO, is $580 billion in July, $579.8. We are $30 billion over that particular limit, $30 billion over that limit. We have exceeded the discretionary spending limits to that extent. You can do that if is a genuine emergency, but the Census, an emergency? $4.4 billion? Spare parts, POL for the Army, an emergency? Give me a break. We are trashing the rules, the disciplines, that have gotten us to where we are in doing this. The result was given to us this morning by CBO as soon as they saw what this bill, the Labor-HHS bill, appropriated. They scored the entire 13 bills that make up the discretionary spending budget, and here it is: The cap for this year is $580 billion. If we can attain that cap, CBO told us in July that we would have a surplus of $14 billion, without including Social Security. That gives us a target of $594 billion. As long as we keep the spending within that level, we do not have to dip into Social Security. But what is the total according to CBO of outlays, total spending under all 13 appropriation bills passed by this House, controlled by the Republicans? $611 billion. The arithmetic is simple. We are $17 billion into Social Security. Now, if you look at the letter CBO sent me this morning, and we have copies over here we will gladly share with you, that is Table 1. Look at Table 2. Dr. Crippen goes on to say in Table 2 you do not have a 1 percent problem. If you want to cut across the board to put this budget back in balance and out of Social Security, you have got a 4.8 percent across- the-board problem. And if, because that would be disastrous for defense and veterans, you want to leave out veterans and defense, you have got a 10.8 percent problem. So all of this talk about 1 percent across the board is just a minimum cut is poppycock. As soon as we recognize that, read CBO's letter, they are our neutral, nonpartisan budget shop. They have served us well. They have scored outlays over the last 6 years from 1993 to 1998 with an error factor of 0.4 percent. As soon as we take their advice and get this back in proper condition, then we can get out of this sham budgeting and into real budgeting and finally close this process. But it is not a 1 percent problem, it is a much bigger problem.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, we are playing catchup ball. We are rushing to conclusion trying to finish the budget because we are 20 days into a new year without a budget. And as these bills whirl past us, I think it is fair to stop and ask what is the score right now. Just where are we? How much have we spent against what we have got? To get an answer to that question we have only to look on page H10596 of the Congressional Record. We can see that we are $599 million in this bill alone above where the House was, and that is why this rule is required, because we are above the 302(b) allocation. We split the available resources into 13 different bills early in the year, and now this bill comes to us $600 million more than the allocated share it is entitled to. This continues a trend that has gone on here repeatedly with the bills that are coming to the floor. The three largest bills in the 13 appropriation bills are Defense, which is $8 billion more than the President requested; HUD-VA is $2 billion more than the President requested; and I am told Labor-HHS, which comes here tomorrow, is $2.2 billion more than the President requested. And, of course, we have passed an Ag emergency bill that was not in the original calculus at $8.7 billion more than we originally contemplated. Those alone, back of the envelope, come to 20.7, and the surplus for next year is 14.4. That means, just on the back of the envelope analysis, that we are $6 billion into the Social Security surplus. We have spent the on-budget surplus, and we are $6 billion into Social Security. But it is worse than that. If we take all the bills, according to the Committee on the Budget's analysis, we are $36 billion right now above what was allocated for discretionary spending. Thirty-six billion. Now if my colleagues are asking themselves, how did we do this, two gimmicks, basically. Number one, emergency spending. We have taken it to new heights. We have expanded the definition of an emergency to unprecedented extremes this year; $18.8 billion by our calculation, $24.9 according to the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations. And then we have used creative scorekeeping. We have discarded, dispensed with, the scorekeeping that our own budget shop, a neutral nonpartisan CBO, congressional budget shop, would render of the budget authority we have provided, and said, no, it is at least $18 billion, $17.1 billion less than what you say. That is how we got $36 billion over the caps and into Social Security. So where are we, if we adopt this bill? If we back out the gimmicks, we are over, way over, the discretionary spending caps we set; and we are well into the Social Security surplus. If we pass this bill, we will be $600 million over the caps and in BA, $200 million more in outlays into Social Security. That is why this bill is not a good idea.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, this bill is nothing but a distraction from Congress's real work. We are 19 days from the new fiscal year and only five out of 13 appropriations bills have been signed into law. Eight remain to be enacted. But instead of doing its work, the House is wasting its time taking up this pointless bill which has no possibility of passage. What we have before us are revenue offsets that the President proposed last February in his budget. They come to the floor under suspension, we cannot amend them, and the House is being made to vote on these offsets in total isolation from the President's proposals, his initiatives. The President offered these offsets, among other things, to defray the cost of hiring more teachers, 100,000 more teachers to reduce class size and putting more cops on the street. We do not get to vote for that, we only vote for the revenues and have no idea where they might be applied. When you ask yourself why this bill under these procedures is being brought up, you can only conclude this is a red herring. It is offered to draw attention from the fact that CBO has said that when you back all the gimmicks out of the bill before us, the majority has already spent more than the discretionary spending caps allow and in fact is $23.8 billion into the Social Security surplus. To get around this problem, they have proposed some offsets of their own. For example, they proposed a $3 billion hit on the TANF fund, but the Republican governors protested and it was quickly dropped. Then they proposed to pass the DeLay amendment, $9 billion. It took a hit on working families with children, stretched out their earned income tax payments, and it met with instant rebuke from none other than the Republicans' own likely presidential nominee, Mr. Bush. Governor Bush said, ``You're trying to balance the budget on the backs of poor people.'' Now they are talking about across-the-board cuts. But to raise $23.8 billion in across-the-board cuts, they would have to cut across the board 6.6 percent. Unless we want to spend the rest of this month in pointless bills like this, we need to put aside our differences and work together to bridge this gulf. The President has invited the congressional leadership to the White House today to discuss ways to break this deadlock. The meeting will take place tonight and it is a welcome first step. But this is no way to begin the process of getting together on something that has to be done.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, when combined with defense appropriations in the Military Construction and Energy and Water bills, the Defense Appropriations Conference Report for FY 2000 brings total defense funding to $289 billion, $7.4 billion more than the President requested. This level of spending is above the ceiling imposed by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997; and since the on-budget surplus of $14.4 billion in FY 2000 has been committed already by other appropriations bills, this spending level could lead to borrowing from the Social Security surplus in FY 2000. To avoid the appearance of being over the caps and into Social Security, the conference report resorts to a number of ``gimmicks.'' It classifies $9 billion in new budget authority as ``emergency spending.'' It directs that outlays in FY 2000 be scored at $10.5 billion less than CBO estimates. As an offset to extra spending, it includes non-germane provisions that direct spectrum sales in FY 2000, although CBO deems them improbable, and it scores the proceeds of the spectrum sales at $2.6 billion, although CBO disputes any proceeds in FY 2000. I support most of the defense spending in this agreement, but not the ``gimmicks.'' This is no way to budget. This report allows ``spending caps'' and ``emergency spending'' to mean whatever the majority says they mean. It disregards CBO's scorekeeping, despite its track record for accuracy, and by fiat inserts outlay estimates of its own. These rules, disciplines, and procedures have helped us achieve the first budget surpluses in thirty years. If we treat these rules in the cavalier way this report treats them, our on-budget surpluses are not destined to last long, and we may soon find ourselves borrowing again from Social Security. This conference agreement provides $269.4 billion in discretionary budget authority (BA) for defense in FY 2000. This includes $9.0 billion in emergency funding and $2.6 billion in funding that is ``offset'' by spectrum sales (more details below). Of the $9.0 billion in emergency funding, $1.8 billion was previously appropriated in the Kosovo Emergency Supplemental bill for military pay raises. In conference, $7.2 billion in Operations and Maintenance (O&M) funding already included in the House bill was designated as an emergency. The purpose of this increase was not to increase the total amount of defense funding (the conferees actually cut the House bill). Rather, it was to raise the caps and create room for an increase to the allocations of other subcommittees, such as Labor-HHS-Education. According to the Appropriations Committee's press release, the gross total of the bill (including emergencies) is almost $900 million less in BA (and $3.3 billion less in outlays) than the House-passed version of the bill, but $17.3 billion more in BA than the 1999 appropriated level excluding emergencies. According to the press release, the following accounts were increased. (Figures are dollar increases compared to President's request except Military Personnel.): O&M--$1.0 billion. Procurement--$1.1 billion. R&D--$3.2 billion. Military Personnel--4.8% pay raise vs. 4.4% pay raise. Budget Gimmicks in the Bill Emergency Declaration: Besides the $1.8 billion for ``emergency pay'' contained in the Kosovo Supplemental, the conference report declares $7.2 billion BA for routine O&M activities to be an emergency even though these activities were not declared emergencies in either the original House or Senate bills. This gimmick is intended to help other subcommittees, not the defense subcommittee, because the emergency will increase the total caps, and money is fungible. To facilitate this kind of chicanery, the Senate has adopted a new rule, which requires 60 votes to declare a non-defense emergency, but only a simple majority to declare a defense emergency. Delaying Contractor Payments: The conference report included two provisions, sections 8175 and 8176, not found in either the original House or Senate bills, that relax the time table for Pentagon payments to defense contractors by an extra amount of time ranging from five to seven days longer than current practice, depending on the type of payment. This will result in slipping about $1.250 billion in outlays from FY 2000 into FY 2001. Scoring Adjustments: Several adjustments have been made to CBO's scoring of appropriations bills that contain defense funding: (1) Outlay ``plugs'' or ``directed scorekeeping'' total $10.533 billion. As explained below, this consists of $9.7 billion in general scorekeeping of outlays and $833 million related to contingent emergencies. (2) $2.6 billion has been added as a ``credit'' for provisions that direct the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a spectrum auction. CBO does not believe that the spectrum auction of television frequencies can be completed in 2000, and scores its revenue potential at zero for FY 2000. If the spectrum sales were to occur on a more reasonable schedule, CBO believes they would only raise $1.9 billion, not $2.6 billion. The $9.7 billion plug is supposed to represent the difference between OMB and CBO scoring of the President's budget, but that figure includes the difference in contingent emergencies between OMB and CBO. Nevertheless, CBO is ordered to count contingent emergencies twice for a total of $10.533 billion in ``plugged outlays,'' $833 million more than the discrepancy between CBO and OMB.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen). (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means. (Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, fiscal year 2000 begins in 2 days, and we have no budget, no prospect of one. What we have instead is a red herring, this resolution, one House resolution hastily filed less than an hour ago which makes a promise that the majority has already broken. This resolution asserts that we should not spend any of the Social Security surplus. Now there is nothing wrong with that in principle, but there is a big problem with it in fact. When we recessed last August for our break, the House had already spent the entire on-budget surplus of $14.4 billion for the next fiscal year, fiscal 2000, and we invaded the Social Security surplus, the House had, Mr. Speaker, on the majority's control and direction by some $16 billion. Now do not take my word for that. This is the conclusion reached by the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Dan Crippen, in a letter dated to me August 26. I put a copy of it in the Record: U.S. Congress, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, DC, August 26, 1999. Hon. John M. Spratt, Jr. Ranking Democratic Member, Committee on the Budget, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Congressman: CBO's most recent baseline projections, which assume that discretionary outlay's in 2000 will equal the statutory limits on such spending, show an on-budget surplus of $14 billion in 2000. As requested in your letter of August 18, the Congressional Budget Office has computed what the on-budget surplus would be using the following assumptions that you specified: You requested that we incorporate legislation passed by the Congress since the baseline projections were prepared. The only such legislation with significant budgetary impact is the Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act of 1999, which would reduce the surplus by an estimated $5 billion in 2000. You also asked that we adjust the baseline figures to reflect spending designated as an emergency. In the appropriation process so far, each chamber has made one emergency designation. The House has passed $4 billion in funding for the census that it has specified as an emergency requirement, while the Senate has passed $7 billion in emergency spending for aid to farmers. You also requested that we include the effects of various scorekeeping directives and adjustments made by the budget committees, which would have the effect of reducing the outlays attributed to appropriation bills. Directed scorekeeping adjustments for defense, highways, and mass transit total around $11 billion. Outlay reductions in the nondefense category that equal 1.14 percent of new budget authority would increase that total by another $3 billion. In addition, the House Budget Committee has directed CBO to make additional scoring adjustments, totaling $3.1 billion, involving proceeds from spectrum auctions and criminal fines paid to the Crime Victims Fund. The Senate Budget Committee has adjusted CBO's outlay estimate of the spectrum auction provision by $2.6 billion. In total, these adjustments come to about $17 billion for the House and $16 billion for the Senate. The Balanced Budget Act for adjustments to discretionary spending limits to reflect funding for payment of dues in arrears owed to international organizations and for compliance efforts of the Internal Revenue Service related to the earned income tax credit. Based on appropriation action to date, we estimate that these adjustments would total about $350 million for fiscal year 2000. Including about $700 million in additional costs for debt service, the adjustments that you have specified total about $27 billion for the House and $30 billion for the Senate. Applying those adjustments to CBO's July baseline projection of the on-budget surplus would turn that measure into a deficit of $13 billion (based on House actions) or $16 billion (based on Senate actions). Finally, CBO's baseline calculation of the on-budget surplus excludes about $3 billion in spending for administrative expenses of the Social Security Administration because that spending is designated as off-budget. The budget resolution, however, treats such expenses as on-budget. If the deficit figure were adjusted to be consistent with the budget resolution, the projected on-budget deficit under your assumptions would reach $16 billion (based on House actions) or $19 billion (based on Senate actions). If you wish further information, we will be pleased to provide it. The CBO staff contact is Jeff Holland. Sincerely, Dan L. Crippen, Director. Since the August break, Congress has taken up more bills. We spent $11 billion more of the Social Security surplus. This is neatly shown on this very basic graph right here. We started the year at $14 billion, looking for $14.4 billion surplus in fiscal 2000 because of actions already taken in the Committee on Appropriations and elsewhere including the tax bill. That surplus was converted to a deficit of $16 billion, and right now, if we carry out the track on which we are headed, it will be at least $27 billion, and I say ``at least'' because that makes minimal allowance for what will happen with Labor HHS, Mr. Speaker, the biggest of all the appropriation bills. The graph referred to is as follows: FY 2000 ON-BUDGET SURPLUS/DEFICIT: WHERE THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS IS NOW,

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time to close. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is long on principle, a principle that most of us agree with. In fact, we initiated it in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. We laid out the plan for achieving a situation in 2002 where we would have a unified budget surplus. We are well ahead of the plan we laid out for ourselves. The majority of the Social Security payroll taxes this year were, in fact, used to pay down Government debt. We are not quite there yet. Now we have this resolution on the floor of the House at the 11th hour when we are facing a shutdown of the Government unless we pass one of these stopgap resolutions called a CR. We are out here spending our time on what is an empty gesture because this is long on principle, but short on practicality. Because this resolution vows that this House will not do what it has already done; and that is pass spending legislation that would require the Government to dip into the Social Security trust fund, borrow money from the Social Security trust fund next year as it has for the last 45 or 50 years. If the sponsors of this resolution were in earnest, what they would be doing is proposing now an amended budget resolution, a road map to get us from where we are with one budget resolution, with one appropriation bill passed, 12 still mired in conference or committee, and not passed. We do not need any more resolutions like this. We need to get down to work and pass a budget.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the minority leader. (Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I first heard of concurrent resolutions when I worked in the Pentagon years ago. I remember the assistant general counsel for fiscal matters at the Pentagon, Murray Lamin explaining it this way: this is a confession of failure on the part of Congress. Congress is saying, in effect, we did not get our job done, so keep spending money the way they spent it last year until we catch up with them and tell them otherwise. Well, Mr. Speaker, I rise today as the ranking Democrat on the Committee on the Budget to say, this is no way to make a budget. I regret that we have been brought by the majority to this juncture, but I have to say it has been clear since last April that this is where we were headed. The resolution that we passed, the House budget resolution, was always unrealistic. We tried to make that point in earnest in the well of the House when we took it up last March. We did not succeed. We reiterated the same arguments when the tax bill came before us. And we said, to accomplish this tax bill, $792 billion, we will have to make cuts in discretionary spending that exceeds anything Congress has ever done before. It is not realistic. These cuts in the 10th year could reach as much as 30 percent across the board in nondefense discretionary spending, as much as 50 percent in discretionary spending nondefense in the items that could actually be cut. We have never done anything like that before. So what we have before us right now is a reality test, and it is well that it has come, because the reality is that this resolution simply will not work. We cannot get it passed. It cannot be implemented. It is well that we have this reality test before we locked it in place, particularly the tax bill we had before us last August. Because what is happening now just foreshadows the budget difficulties that we would have every year for the next 10 years, at least, had we passed that tax bill premised on deep, unrealistic cuts in discretionary spending. The majority keeps telling us, they have since last April, that they will not touch Social Security. We all have endeavored to try to minimize the amount of money we have taken out of Social Security, and each year we have done better and better. But the truth of the matter is, the majority all the time, they were repeating this as if it were their mantra, every one of their leadership has said it different ways, we are not going to take a dime out of Social Security, as they were repeating it, they were doing just that. As I said earlier on the floor, do not take my word for it. Dan Crippen, Director of CBO, confirmed it to me in a letter August 26. As of that point, they were already $16 billion in the Social Security surplus. Since then because of other spending they are at least $11 billion more into the Social Security surplus. Now, to do what we just did, comply with the resolution we just took up and close this budget on those terms, they have got to take at least 10 of the 13 appropriations bills back up and re-mark those bills. We cannot even close the budget as it is. Now we are going to send them back, is that what we are proposing to do, did and tell them to take $30 billion out of the mark already? It is not realistic. We will all vote for this concurrent resolution. Most of us will vote for this resolution. But I hope it is not an excuse for more delay and more denial. What we need is bipartisan cooperation to close this budget on grounds that are fiscally realistic.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask that I might have a statement placed in the Record. On rollcall vote No. 430 on the bill H.R. 1402, I mistakenly voted ``yes'' when in fact I intended to vote ``no'' on this amendment.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I want to elaborate on the remarks I made on September 15, 1999, regarding certain provisions of S. 1059, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000. As I noted during floor debate, I strongly support the vast majority of this bill, particularly the pay and retirement provisions. But this good bill is marred by some of the text that sets up a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) as a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy (DOE). I have reservations about the way these provisions were inserted in the bill--with little discussion among the Members of the Conference Committee--and I have reservations about the substance of some of these provisions. I will not speak on the conference process at length, but I cannot dismiss it because I cannot remember the Congress acting on such an important matter with so little information and so little discussion among the Members of the conference committee. Neither the House nor the Senate Defense Authorization bill contained language requiring a comprehensive restructuring of the Department of Energy, yet we ended up with about 50 pages worth of text. We did have former Senator Warren Rudman testify before the committee prior to conference, but we did not take testimony from the Energy Department itself, or from the senior statesmen of the labs and nuclear weapons complex, men like Johnny Foster or Harold Agnew. The legislation that the conference committee ultimately produced was not vetted in any meaningful manner among the Members, the Administration, or outside experts. This is not a good process for an important piece of national security legislation. My first and foremost concern on the substance of the legislation is that we have blurred the lines of accountability when it comes to preventing and ferreting out future espionage at our nuclear labs and weapons complex. I think one thing we can all agree on is that counter- intelligence requires a clear line of command and accountability. A clear chain of command was at the heart of Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 61, which the Cox Committee unanimously recommended be implemented. This legislation contradicts PDD 61 by setting up two different counterintelligence offices with overlapping responsibilities, and no clear direction on how the offices are supposed to interface with each other. As a member of the Cox Committee, I find it disturbing and ironic that the restructuring provisions fail in what should have been its top priority: setting up clear lines of command and accountability on counterintelligence. My second and more general concern is that the Secretary's ability to conduct oversight of the complex could be seriously hampered by this legislation. We already know that the price of no oversight is a legacy of contaminated sites that will cost hundreds of billions to clean up. Revelations about contamination of workers at Paducah show that we cannot disregard the health and safety concerns for workers in the nuclear weapons complex and the communities that surround these sites. The history of the last few decades tells us that the nuclear weapon sites and activities of the Department of Energy require more sunshine, more scrutiny, and more oversight, not less. Any Secretary of Energy must have strong oversight authority, and I fear that this legislation detracts from rather than adding to the Secretary's oversight powers. Having criticized these provisions, let me say that I do not think they were drafted with bad intent. But they were drafted hastily, without adequate hearings, with no vetting among outside authorities, without the benefit of constructive criticism that comes in the mark-up process, and without any discussion among members of the conference committee. A good example of the type of confusion that arises from these hastily-drafted provisions is the work of the Energy Department's non- weapons facilities--the science labs. The science labs perform a great deal of work for almost every element designated as part of the new National Nuclear Security Administration. This is especially true for the current Offices of Non-Proliferation and National Security (NN), Fissile Materials Disposition, Naval Reactors, and the Office of Intelligence. The language of the conference report, though, raises the question of whether the current cooperation between the science labs and weapons facilities will be allowed to continue, or be prohibited by the language separating the weapons labs from the rest of the DOE complex. For the Office of Non-Proliferation and National Security for example, the science labs provide a significant portion of the technologies and expertise for such programs as Materials, Protection, Control and Accountability (MPC&A), a program I helped establish. This is also true for the Nuclear Cities Initiative, in which a science lab (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, or PNNL) co-chairs the U.S. effort in one of the first three Russian nuclear cities selected. That arrangement is especially fruitful because PNNL is the only U.S. lab with real-life experience making the transition from a closed U.S. ``nuclear city,'' Hanford, which produced key nuclear materials for the WWII-era nuclear weapons, to a non-weapons community in which such scientific expertise is put to more peaceful use. The science labs play a major role in providing technical expertise and collaboration for the Initiatives to Prevent Proliferation (IPP) program, attempting to develop self-sustaining, U.S. and Russian scientific collaborations that are mutually beneficial. The science labs provide valuable technologies and expertise of the NN efforts in Safeguards and Transparency regarding Russian nuclear warheads. Science lab personnel, in fact, chair important working groups in that effort, and have developed technologies that will be used in identifying and securing Russian warhead materials. The science labs are vital parts of all of DOE's efforts to build lab-to-lab relationships and programs that enhance U.S. national security by applying American eyes and know-how to the potentially dangerous situations in the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) complex of the former Soviet Union. The science labs also play a critical role in the NM arms control programs, providing vital technologies for verifying compliance with arms control agreements (reductions, dismantlement, production, testing, safeguard and storage, etc.) and detecting the attempted proliferation of WMD materials. Such technologies are proving useful in terms of all WMD materials-- chemical, biological and radiological. Science labs also make major contributions to the efforts of the Office of Fissile Materials Disposition (MD). A science lab leads the U.S. effort in the International Nuclear Safety Program. Of course, the science labs will continue to contribute a great deal to the DOE offices outside the NNSA, on matters, for example, of energy, the environment and nuclear cleanup. Also, like the weapons labs, have the authority and expertise to ``work for others,'' and often perform important work for other agencies such as the Department of Defense, Justice, State, and the Central Intelligence Agency. The science labs' contribution to the offices that are scheduled to be in the NNSA is clear, and I do not believe the conferees had any intention of scuttling these contributions by implying that the science labs could not work for NNSA offices. However, the language contained in the conference report is not clear on this question. Title XXXII concentrates solely on the three nuclear weapons laboratories and production facilities, and while it makes specific provision for those weapons labs to perform work for other agencies and for DOE offices outside the new, semi-autonomous administration, it is silent on the role of the non-weapons labs. Such ambiguity breeds confusion and illustrates the flaws in the process of drafting the DOE reorganization title and inserting it into the conference agreement. I served on the conference committee and I was involved in negotiating some of the conference report. I do not think that it was the intention of the conferees for this legislation to impede the continuation of these services in any way.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the vast majority of this bill, particularly the pay and retirement provisions. But this good bill is marred by some of the text that sets up a National Nuclear Security Administration as a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy. I have reservations about the way these provisions were inserted into the bill with little discussion among the Members of the Conference Committee, and I have reservations about the substance of some of these provisions. I will not speak on the process of the conference at length, but I cannot dismiss it because I cannot remember the Congress acting on such an important matter with so little information and discussion among the Members of the conference committee. Neither the House nor the Senate Defense Authorization bill contained language requiring a comprehensive restructuring of the Department of Energy, yet we ended up with about 50 pages worth of text. We did have Senator Rudman testify before the committee prior to conference, but we did not take testimony from the Energy Department itself, or from the old senior statesmen of the labs and nuclear weapons complex, men like Johnny Foster or Harold Agnew. The legislation that the conference committee ultimately produced was not vetted in any meaningful manner among the Members, the Administration, or outside experts. This is not a good process for an important piece of national security legislation. My first and foremost concern on the substance of the legislation is that we have blurred the lines of accountability when it comes to preventing and ferreting out future espionage at our nuclear labs and weapons complex. I think one thing we can all agree on is that counterintelligence requires a clear line of command and accountability. A clear chain of command was at the heart of Presidential Decision Directive 61, which the Cox Committee unanimously recommended be implemented. This legislation contradicts PDD 61 by setting up two different counterintelligence offices with overlapping responsibilities, and no clear direction on how the offices are supposed to interface with each other. The same problem exists in the respect to dual Inspectors General. I find it ironic that the restructuring provisions fail in what should have been its top priority: setting up clear lines of command and accountability on counterintelligence. My second and more general concern is that the Secretary's ability to conduct oversight of the complex could be seriously hampered by this legislation. We already know that the price of no oversight is a legacy of contaminated sites that will cost hundreds of billions to clean up. Revelations about contamination at Paducah show that we cannot disregard the health and safety concerns for workers in the nuclear weapons complex and the communities that surround these sites. The history of the last few decades tells us that the nuclear weapon sites and activities of the Department of Energy require more sunshine, more scrutiny, more oversight, not less. Any Secretary of Energy must have strong oversight authority, and I fear that this legislation detracts from rather than adding to the Secretary's oversight powers. Having criticized these provisions, let me say that I do not think they were drafted with bad intent. But they were drafted hastily, without adequate hearings, with no vetting among outside authorities, without the benefit of constructive criticism that comes in the mark-up process, and without any discussion among members of the conference committee. The best thing to do is to vote for this motion to recommit, cut out Title XXXII, and then pass the Authorization Act so that the pay raise for our troops is not delayed. We will have that opportunity when at the end of debate when Mr. Dingell offers a motion to recommit. If we pass that motion, we can then rework the reorganization provisions in Title XXXII and bring them back to the House in a stand- alone bill, ensuring that our legislation will safeguard our nuclear security without returning us to the days when we operated a nuclear weapons complex with next to no responsible oversight.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the vast majority of this bill, particularly the pay and retirement provisions. But this good bill is marred by some of the text, some of the provisions that set up the National Nuclear Security Administration as a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy. I have reservations about the way in which these provisions were inserted in the bill, a little discussion among members of the conference committee, consultation with the energy committee, and I have reservations about the substance of the provisions themselves and that is where I want to direct my attention. I have heard people say that the existing Department is complicated, but what we have created is a bit of a complication, too. In the title that we have added, 3216, section title 32, there are 18 different functions over which this new semi-autonomous agency, on page 458 and 457, will have virtually exclusive authority. Let me show some of the problems that are created by this. This bill set up two different offices for counterintelligence, one of the places where we have really had a problem, two different offices, one under the Secretary and one under the Administrator. They have overlapping jurisdiction. The bill does not clearly define how they interface, who has authority over the other. If we do not like the way counterintelligence is being conducted in the new administration, what do we do about it? Well, read on. Because if we read on, we will find that the bill says that the Secretary can only interact with this new administration through the administrator, no other way, he can only get the guy fired if he does not respond to his directives. There is no interface proscribed in the bill. I do not think this was intended. This was a matter of haste and a matter of doing this without vetting it adequately both within the conference and outside the conference. Here is another problem: We have established these 18 separate departments. As I said, the section 3213 severely hamstrings the Secretary's ability to use his staff to provide oversight because the act says explicitly, nobody who works for the administration ``shall be responsible to and subject to the authority, direction, and control of'' anybody in the Department of Energy except for the Secretary. What was the criticism Warren Rudman made of this agency? That it has been arrogant, that it has not been responsive to criticism, that it has been insensitive. We are just enforcing that with this particular statute if it does not work. This needs to be taken back to the drafting room. It needs to be reworked. We can do it in an afternoon or so. It is not a lot of work. But there are places in this bill that are going to give us problems in the future and if not addressed, indeed could worsen the very problems that we are dealing with right now. It duplicates bureaucracy. It undercuts the Secretary. Do my colleagues think 46 attorney generals have an idle concern? Can we at least not relitigate this issue? They say that the Federal Compliance Act, which finally said that all of these nuclear weapons facilities were subject to RCRA and CERCLA and environmental laws. They say that it is undercut, that this is in doubt. We at least should go back to the bill and dispel that and not relitigate this issue. It needs to be reworked. We will have an opportunity to vote on the motion to recommit, and I urge my colleagues to vote for it.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, on September 5th of this year, the Darlington Raceway will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Southern 500 stock car race, now known as the Pepsi Southern 500. The Darlington Raceway, I'm proud to say, is located in my district. It was built in 1949, and unlike most stock car tracks of its day, it was paved with asphalt, giving the track its name, ``The Lady in Black.'' Harold Brasington, a native of Darlington, attended the Indianapolis 500 in 1933, and brought home with him a dream, a vision of some day having a race track in his home town, Darlington, South Carolina. Harold Brasington's dream had to wait out the Depression and World War II, but he nurtured it and in 1949 he made it come true. The first Southern 500 was held on September 1, 1950, and sanctioned by ``Big Bill'' France and NASCAR, the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing. Strom Thurmond was the Governor of South Carolina at the time, and he and his lovely wife, Jean, cut the ribbon and christened the race the ``Southern 500,'' to the delight of 25,000 fans, an unexpected overflow crowd. The Southern 500 was an instant success. It soon grew into the largest sporting event in South Carolina. This Labor Day Weekend, over 100,000 people are expected for the 50th anniversary. Millions more will enjoy the race by television or radio. The great success of the Darlington Raceway started with the vision and skills of two great entrepreneurs, Harold Brasington and ``Big Bill'' France, both now gone. But their leadership has been carried forward by Jim Hunter, who has made Darlington Raceway bigger and better than ever, and who has won recognition as South Carolina's ``Economic Ambassador.'' Because of his skills as a manager and sports promoter, the Pepsi Southern 500 and the TranSouth 400 now generate over $50 million, making the Darlington Raceway a top source of tourism income for South Carolina. Other race tracks have been built since 1949, some larger, some more glamorous than Darlington. But the Darlington Raceway remains world famous, and an attraction fans everywhere, because it remains the genuine article. The Darlington Raceway has never forgotten its roots and the people who helped make it what it is. Every year, the Darlington Raceway makes a substantial contribution to Darlington's schools. It recognizes a Darlington County Teacher of the Year, and awards a scholarship to a Darlington County high school senior; and every year, it cosponsors a gala honoring 1500 county educators. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to represent the Darlington Raceway. As we approach the 50th Anniversary of the Southern 500, I think commendations are in order for Jim Hunter, President of the Darlington Raceway; for Bill France, Jr., CEO of International Speedway Corporation and President of NASCAR; and for everyone involved in bringing us 50 years of the finest, most exciting stock car racing in the world.