Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this does not increase the amount under the bill but transfers money from one account to another to take care of the CDBG problem outlined by the Senators from the States of the disaster area in the upper Midwest.

Mr. STEVENS. On behalf of Senators Snowe, Kerry, Gregg, Collins, Kennedy, Smith, and Breaux, I send to the desk a revision, a modification of that amendment, and I ask unanimous consent it be considered in place of the amendment originally offered.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I send to the desk a new amendment and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. STEVENS. This amendment has been cleared by both sides of the aisle. I urge its adoption.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent further reading be dispensed with.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. STEVENS. I have a series of matters, here, and then I ask the Chair to recognize the Senator from Texas, [Mrs. Hutchison] once we complete these matters. That is the end of the business before the Senate. There are some Senators that wish to make statements. I will deal with that in a minute. Amendment No. 114 (Purpose: To study the high rate of cancer among children in Dover Township, New Jersey)

Mr. STEVENS. If the Senators will bear with us, I think we will start a vote at about 20 minutes of 6 o'clock. Let me first take care of the housekeeping problem. I ask unanimous consent after the Senate votes on the question of advancing S. 672 to third reading, it be held at the desk, and that when the Senate receives H.R. 1469, the Fiscal Year 1997 Supplemental Appropriations and Rescissions Act from the House, the Senate proceed immediately to its consideration, that the text of S. 627 as amended by the Senate be adopted as a substitute for the House text, that the House bill as amended be read for a third time and passed, the Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House, that the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees, that motions to reconsider the votes on the preceding action be tabled, and that all the above mentioned actions take place without any intervening action or debate. Let me explain. That means in a few minutes we will vote on advancing this bill to third reading. That, in effect, will be the final vote by the Senate on this bill. There are people that asked for a final vote. This is the way to do it. The House has not acted on the bill. We have done this before. It has been cleared with both sides. I repeat my request for unanimous consent.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent further reading be dispensed with.

Mr. STEVENS. The committee is well aware that funds for these disasters must be appropriated during the entire rebuilding period, which can take several years. We will work with the Senators from Minnesota, North and South Dakota to ensure that the disaster needs of your States are met during the 1998 appropriations process, as well as future appropriations bills, if necessary.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent further reading be dispensed with.

Mr. STEVENS. I understand the Senators' concerns. The administration has expressed similar concerns about this provision. We will certainly look carefully at this provision in conference and do what we can to provide an appropriate level of funding.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to table the Senator's amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. I understand the Senators' concerns. The administration has expressed similar concerns about this provision. We will certainly look carefully at this provision in conference and do what we can to provide an appropriate level of funding for both elements of the Dual Use Program.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I regret to say I shall move to table this amendment, and I want to point out the problem we have. If we cut 1.9 percent off the original 1997 nondefense appropriations at this time, it will be a 5-percent reduction on the amount that is available for the rest of the year. For agencies such as the Veterans Administration, Department of Education, the Coast Guard and many others, that would be devastating in this final period of this year, the final one-third of this year. I do share the concern--I think I have demonstrated that --of balancing the budget. On the other hand, I remember too well one of the greatest earthquakes that has occurred since we started recording earthquakes, the second largest, apparently, in the history of the United States, in my State. We also had a flood that was so large it engulfed almost the whole interior of Alaska, around Fairbanks, for miles. I know what these people are going through. Much of the mismatch in this situation comes from the scoring process under the budget; not from how money is spent, but how it is scored. For instance, I have managed the defense bill substantially now over the past years. When we originally get budget authority for defense, it has 100-percent outlays. If we rescind that now, with a quarter of the year left--it will be effective for the last quarter of the year--we get a 25-percent outlay cut. The authority is for a year. If we start spending it the 1st of October, there would be 100 percent. If we can rescind it the 1st of October, and this is what the Senator from New Mexico was saying, if we can rescind it in the budget authority at the beginning of the year and not spend through the whole year, we get 100- percent credit. When we rescind it now and it becomes effective in the last quarter of the year, we get 25 percent. This is really a great way to shrink Government. All you have to do is pray for the largest disaster in history and you cut the Government in half. There is no sense being proposed, from the point of view of the disaster victims. It may make theoretical sense. We have cancelled enough budget authority--we deal with budget authority, and the scoring says you only get 25 percent, because if you start spending this money in the beginning, you spend 100 percent; if you have not spent it so far and if you start spending it now, you only get 25 percent. The Senator goes further, though. He carries it into the next year and succeeding years. We have done our best to try and mitigate the budgetary impact. For the first time, I cannot remember a disaster bill where we tried our best to mitigate by offsets, but we have. We have offset budget authority. It is not possible at this time of the year to offset enough so that we can get it all accounted for this year. The Senator from Texas says, ``Well, then go into next year.'' We are already fighting-- as a matter of fact, the fight is going on in this very building--over what the budget agreement means in terms of next year and succeeding years in terms of outlays and budget authority. I tell the Senate very simply, until we work out a better way to deal with disaster relief--incidentally, I concur with the Senator from New Mexico who said we have done this in this bill. We have money here that anticipates there are going to be more disasters during the balance of this year, and we have put it up and we have offset that money. There will be disasters, Mr. President, unfortunately, in the balance of this year. I mentioned the earthquake that we had. The earthquake that started somewhere down in the Tennessee area and came up the valley, came up the fault, was so great in the 1850's that when that earthquake occurred, the bells rang in churches in Boston. If that fault goes at this time in our lifetime, Mr. President, the cost will be so staggering that you cannot imagine the cost, or the cost of a San Francisco earthquake. That is what the Senator from New Mexico asked: How large does a disaster have to be before it is an emergency? We will do our best to prepare for emergencies, and if we can work out a different approach on the scoring so it makes more sense from the point of view of the budget, I am perfectly willing to work with anybody to do it. We did not appropriate any money unless we thought it was absolutely necessary and justified. We had a bipartisan review. We had everyone critique these bills. We had many amendments suggested, a few on this floor this week, but we have not heard many money arguments. The Senator from Texas is raising a money argument. We have not had debates about the money because people know the money in this bill has been gone over and over and over, and it is justified. I say we have done our best. We set a new precedent. We set the precedent that even disaster money will be offset to the extent it is possible to find budget authority to do so, and the outlay scoring is a secondary question. That is all we ask for the emergency part that is authorized under the Budget Act. We are authorized to ask for a total emergency waiver of the Budget Act. All we have asked for is a waiver of the scoring impact of outlays, and that will give us the money that we need to proceed to meet these disasters. Mr. President, I do believe it is an absolutely essential bill. Again, I point out, though, my last comment, I hope we are not accused, again, of somehow or another delaying the money. There is over $2 billion down there in the executive branch right now that is being obligated. I am told if they obligate everything they can, they will not obligate all that in the balance of the year. There may be a deficit of about $250 million if they do everything they can possibly do between now and the end of September. It will be about $2 billion. The Senator is right to think about when the money is going to be spent. It is going to be spent over the years to come. But that is the way you recover from disasters: You put the money up, obligate it, and it, in fact, will be spent over a period of years. Hopefully, those areas will be strong again and they will recover, as our State has recovered from the great earthquake that happened in 1964.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. STEVENS. And then Senator Byrd and I will close.

Mr. STEVENS. May I yield to him, then. The Senator can use the remainder of the time.

Mr. STEVENS. If it is proper.

Mr. STEVENS. If the Senator will not mind, after the next spokesman, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. STEVENS. I said to the Senator from Texas I will yield to him. I will yield now 10 minutes and reserve the remaining 10 minutes for our time.

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator from Texas withhold just a second, please, and let me inquire how much time we have remaining?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from New Mexico.