Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, fear is a terrible quotient in the political spectrum. And the fear that an across-the-board cut might reduce the level of spending today, spending under the 2002 appropriations level, is a great one. But I can state to the Senate without equivocation, not one FBI agent will be cut, not one will be lost. We have an increase, again, of nearly $500 million in the overall FBI level--rounded off a little bit. We have another increase of $158 million for the Joint Terrorism Task Force. An across-the-board cut to those two increases, $436.5 million for the FBI and $158.5 for the Joint Terrorism Task Force, is about $80 million. That still represents an increase for those two programs. An across-the-board cut would not reduce the FBI at all--there would be no reduction. The Department of Justice would still receive an increase of well over a billion dollars after the across-the-board cut. I have respect for my friend with regard to facing the problem of an across-the-board cut. It is an indiscriminate cut and that is why I don't like it. It goes across the board and says take from each account so much money in order to achieve putting all the items you want to take to conference into conference. But remember, it is a mechanism to get to conference. I could eliminate all of the across-the-board cuts if I took out all of the add-ons from that side of the aisle, or take out all the add-ons from this side of the aisle, the Members' requests. If the Senate wants me to do it, I will put them in the Record. They total a considerable amount more than 2 percent of the budget. Under the circumstances, to accuse me of some strange tactic by having an across-the-board cut to accommodate those requests, take them to the conference with the House and see how much the House will allow us to add, for these Members to add, I think is a little duplicitous. So before I am accused of cutting the FBI or cutting milk for babies or something such as that, keep in mind, if it keeps up, I will not put them in. We could take every one of them out with just one single amendment. If the Senate wants to do that, we wouldn't have any across- the-board cut at all. Take the Members' accounts out of this bill and there will be no across-the-board cut. I suggest the defeat of the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia. (At the request of Mr. Daschle, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. STEVENS. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. STEVENS. Where does the Senator get those figures? The FBI received $3.49 billion in fiscal year 2002 and this bill has $3.92 billion. Beyond that we provided $158 million in the FBI joint task force. Not one FBI agent will be fired. We will not increase, but not one will be fired. Where does the Senator get those figures?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes.

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield on my time?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I understand the position of the Senator from West Virginia. However, I wish to state the policy of this amendment that I have offered is that it does not go below the level of the 2002 appropriations that are the basis for the continuing resolution is in effect now. I took the position if we went below the funding level that is out there now based on the 2002 level of appropriated funds, Members would say: Wait a minute, we are better off to continue on the 2002 level. The Senator's statement about what was cut are cuts from the proposal we brought before, and I joined him in bringing that before the Congress last year. We are not cutting any veterans. We are not cutting out anyone who is receiving care now. We are cutting out the increase that would have been available under the bills that were pending before the Congress last year. As a practical matter, there may be some items where the programs had been ramped up because of a supplemental. We are working on the basis of the appropriated level of funds for 2002. In some instances, the continuing resolution does ramp up a little bit, as we found out with regard to an item that was before us last night in the amendment we dealt with just before we went home. I do believe the Senator's amendment, as I understand it, strikes the offsets. We are back at the question of whether the Senate wants to discipline itself. We had no budget resolution last year. That was not the fault of any action of the Appropriations Committee under the chairmanship of the Senator from West Virginia or myself. We had no budget resolution. Had we had a budget resolution, we would have had a level of discipline, and that is the ceiling that had been established by the budget resolution. The President sent a budget to the Congress, and it was limited to $750.5 billion. We have before us a proposal that limits that to $751.3 billion because the President submitted a subsequent request and amended his budget for the fire program of $825 million. Lacking any other basis for a level of discipline, after the election, Senator Byrd and I, Congressman Young, and Congressman Obey got together and agreed we would hold the level of the President's $750.5 billion if we could get the bills done at that time. We did not get them done, and when we came back, the President asked me to join him and asked if I would continue the quest for a limit at that level of $750.5 billion. He agreed at that time to give us the $825 million for the fire program. The offsets listed in title VI, which Senator Byrd would strike, are offsets that are necessary to achieve basically two things: One is the full funding for the amount that can be spent of the election reform bill in the 7\1/2\ to 8 months that are remaining, a bill that is absolutely necessary to be funded and put into place if we are to avoid, or at least try to avoid the problems of the election in the year 2000. This would modernize the election system throughout the country. This was a bipartisan bill that was passed, and this is its funding. Secondly, the tremendous drought disaster areas of the country demand help. We faced a problem of how to deal with that, so we added the monies for drought and disaster to this bill and we offset it by an across-the-board cut in all programs. That, again, is dealing with the basic problems of the country in a way that we will take these to conference, and we hope to come out of the conference with a bill approved by the House, that the President will sign, that will not exceed the $751.3 billion level but will take care of these and hopefully keep the two basic programs, drought disaster and election reform, and hopefully stay within the level we have agreed to try to achieve, and that is the $751.3 billion. Our goal is to cover these, and we intend to cover them within the bill without across-the-board cuts. I do not know if we can get there. We know the House disagrees with a series of things that the Senate added. The Senate still has basic items above the President's budget request in most instances. So the House may want us to come down on a series of those. We are going to conference, and for the first time we will deal, through the full committee process, with 11 of the 13 bills, an enormous undertaking. The only way we can get the two critical items to conference, in order to stay within our stated goal and demonstrate that we are going to stay within that goal to limit our expenditure to $751.3 billion, we provide for an across-the-board cut. I personally think it is going to end up somewhere around 1 percent by the time we are finished. If there is not a 1-percent slush in every item in this budget, then I really have not been here 34 years, going on 35. These bills are estimates, and we are reducing estimates by 1 percent in order to take to the President the final bill at the level he sees fit to set. I think it is a legitimate objective. Again, if we were not in the process of dealing with the post-9/11 situation, if we were not in the process of building up to try to protect the interests of our country abroad and our allies in terms of Iraq, if we were not dealing with the problems in Korea, if we did not have the problems we have abroad--they are all military in nature--we probably would not have this problem because we have already passed the two bills, the military construction bill and the Defense appropriations bill. Even in this bill we have given the President an additional amount of money for intelligence and activities with relationship to the problems I have mentioned, and we have emphasized the protection in training and equipment for our men and women who are in uniform. There is no question about that. That has strained the national budget, and it has led the President of the United States to urge us to hold this level to $751.3 billion. I urge the Senate to defeat the Senator's amendment. I know across the Senate, if this becomes final, people are going to say this is going to be down, that is going to be down, and that is true. There are going to be some accounts that are not as high as we would like to have them, and as I would like to have them, but there is going to be a budget the President will sign, and we can go on to the work of 2004. We are trying to get behind us the problems of the last Congress. I really feel very uncomfortable about the fact that we are trying to pass 11 bills that should have been passed by the last Congress, and I have been trying to do it in a way that no one says who shot John or why would we not pass them. In my opinion, one of the main reasons is we did not have a budget resolution. We did not have a budget resolution for a lot of reasons. In any event, we do not have one now, and the only way I know to get this bill to conference is to insist upon maintaining the discipline that is required to show we are going to get a bill to the President that he will sign. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. STEVENS. We agree, no second-degree amendments and an up-or-down vote.

Mr. STEVENS. Does the Senator wish to have no second-degree amendments?

Mr. STEVENS. Is this the one on the across-the-board cuts?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we have an hour on the amendment; 45 minutes for the Senator from West Virginia, 15 minutes for our side.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it is my understanding the Senator from West Virginia will offer an amendment. I would like to inquire from my good friend if we could put a time limit on this amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote. Mr. SCHUMER. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are prepared to accept this amendment. What it does is it dedicates moneys that are already in the bill to the consideration of the process of developing the system of detecting items in cargo vans as they come into our country. It is a very vital subject, and we are pleased to work with the Senator from New York. I urge its adoption. I yield back the remainder of our time.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the Senator from New York offered the next amendment on which the yeas and nays have been ordered. As I promised last night as we wound up, we have reviewed Senator Schumer's amendment, and he has drafted a modified amendment which he will offer and which we will accept. I want to call to the attention of Senators that there are some of these amendments that can be worked out, if we have a chance to work them out. We want to work with both sides of the aisle to try to accommodate the desires of Senators with regard to these 11 bills in one amendment. I yield to my friend from New York.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, 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. Amendment No. 31, as modified

Mr. STEVENS. I move to table, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Regular order. A voice vote.

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

Mr. STEVENS. I agree it does not, but this money is going back in under the negotiations strategy we outlined. I guarantee it is going back in, but give us some leeway to deal with this bill. It is an enormous bill. Again, I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. All right. Thirty seconds.

Mr. STEVENS. If the Senator wishes a minute, I ask unanimous consent that he would have an additional minute.

Ted Stevens

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