Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Regular order. The Senators had their time.

Mr. STEVENS. Our formula is the 1996 formula. The 1996 formula is the one that has been used by Senator Warner, and we are using the same formula. We are not changing the 1996 formula. We are looking for a statement the Senator made.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, Senator Domenici, I am informed, does not wish this time. I yield it back for him. I close by saying we make no change in the basic law. The allocations under this bill are under the 1996 formula. Without unfairness, as is pointed out in the statement from the chairman of the Public Works Committee, and I read this because it is very strange that this--it does not normally happen.

Mr. STEVENS. Well, Mr. President, I intend to close, so I will wait.

Mr. STEVENS. Does any further Senator have any time?

Mr. STEVENS. By regular order, I am bringing back the Reid amendment. It was set aside temporarily.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I seek to clarify that. The Byrd amendment is to delete a portion of the bill before the Senate. The McCain amendment was incorporated in that.

Mr. STEVENS. Does the Senator care to have his colloquy at this point?

Mr. STEVENS. I presumed, Mr. President. When I get the floor, I will be happy to yield for a minute.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I notice the leader is here, and I know he has leader time.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am going to make a rather technical statement here now about this amendment, and I hope Senators will listen to it. I will put a chart in the Record and put that chart on everyone's desk. Last night I served notice that we are not going to permit this amendment to take the whole time today. We are going to finish this bill today. And as soon as a reasonable amount of debate has taken place, I intend to move to table this amendment. If we are going to finish here tonight in the time that both leaders have urged us to do-- it is a matter of courtesy. If the Senate will remember, last week at this time we finished a bill in time for our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to attend an annual meeting together. Ours starts tonight--early tomorrow morning really. But we are going to finish this bill tonight. This is one of the amendments that could be debated all day. We took over a day when we debated this matter last year. So let me just state this. And I know the Senator from New Mexico wants to add to what I have to say. And I shall urge him to interrupt me at any time he wants to do so, but without my losing my right to the floor. I understand the interest of the Senator from the State of Virginia in offering the amendment today to the supplemental. It is a nonemergency transportation title to the supplemental appropriations bill before us. I want to make sure that he and the Senator from Florida and the Senate know how this additional funding became part of the supplemental appropriations bill. The matter arises out of a Treasury Department error made in 1994 which was finally corrected last year in recording the gas tax receipts from the States for the fiscal year 1994. The Treasury initially misallocated $1.6 billion to 1995, which should have been credited to 1994. In turn, that created a distribution of obligation limitations to the States for 1997 that was in error. We did not make that error. The Treasury Department made that error. When that error was discovered, to the credit of the Senator from New Mexico--the administration originally indicated that they lacked the statutory authority to correct the distribution. Eventually, the administration was persuaded that it did have in fact the authority to make the change but only after the Senate had a very divisive vote on this issue, as the Senate will recall. Accordingly, the fiscal year 1998 budget request from the President requests $318 million for 24 States to fulfill the erroneous expectations that were generated by publishing the 1997 obligation limitation allocation to the States. Again, let me say the President wants to fulfill the erroneous expectations based on the Treasury Department error. What we did in Appropriations was provide the $318 million requested by the administration. Then we provided the $139 million that the Senator's amendment from the State of Virginia references. This is the additional obligational authority that results from a correction in the 1994 account stemming from the same Treasury error. The additional $139 million in funds go to only 10 States. Finally, we provided an additional $475 million to make whole the 29 States whose 1997 apportionment of obligation limitation was below the 1996 apportionment bringing them back up to their 1996 level. The chart I placed on every Member's desk from the Highway Administration shows that the only winners from 1996 to 1997, were in fact the so-called donor States. What the Senator from Virginia's amendment would do is to further increase the obligation limitation for the donor States, and push the 27 States back below their 1996 apportionment level. What the Senator's amendment will do, in part, is validate the error made by the Treasury Department. From 1997 to 1998 there is a $1.358 billion increase in the obligation limitation for highway funds. And every single penny of that increase goes to the donor States. Every nondonor State is effectively frozen at their 1996 level by the supplemental approach and would be pushed below that level by the Senator's amendment. Some would argue that in a growing program no State should be expected to receive less than it received in the prior year. What the amendment before us now argues, that the $1.358 billion increase for a minority of States is not enough, that other States' programs should shrink so these so-called donor State programs can grow at even faster rates based upon an error that is now admitted by the Treasury Department. That is hard for this Senator to understand. And it is impossible for this Senator individually or as chairman of the Appropriations Committee to support. In short, we have provided an almost $1 billion increase in the obligation limitation. It is roughly split between donor and nondonor States. It is, in my opinion, a fair and equitable approach based upon the calculations by the Federal Highway Administration, and it is something that I support personally as well as support by virtue of being the chairman of the committee bringing this report before the Senate. By comparison, the amendment before us of the Senator from Virginia would have the $139 million for the 10 States paid out, and then the balance of the $933 million go through the formula, an approach which would leave 27 States below their 1996 obligation levels. Now, to bring the 50 States up to their 1996 obligation levels through the formula, it takes a $2.4 billion increase in obligation limitations. Now, I have to say, as a Senator that represents the largest State of the Union, my heart is heavy right now about the arguments we had yesterday, and I intend to say more about that today. But my State is the largest State in the Union, and if every State is supposed to get back the specific percentage of taxes, user fees and royalties paid into the highway fund, my State would like to get back all of the Federal taxes and royalties paid by producers of oil from our State. This donor-donee-State business leaves us cold. Just think where we would be if every decision made by our Founding Fathers had been held to the test of whether their individual States received the precise percentage of revenue from every source that it paid into the Treasury. There would have been no expansion of the United States. The debate over donor-donee diverts the Congress from the real issue of the highway program. The Eisenhower vision was a national network of highways and then a network of superhighways. People ought to read Eisenhower's book. As a young colonel he tried to take a brigade across the country, as I am sure the occupant of the chair knows, and found he could not get there from here. He had to keep going up and down rivers to find places to go across, and the highways were not connected. Eisenhower's commitment, really, in running for President was to link this country together with a highway system, and he succeeded. Now, this vision could never have been achieved on a donor-donee concept. The Federal highway system would not exist if such a concept had been controlling in President Eisenhower's time. People would not be driving through Texas or Virginia unless there were, in fact, highways paid for by revenue collected from other States. We need to get back to the idea that the highway system is to tie the country together and to provide the infrastructure that makes America more competitive in international markets. It reduces congestion, it makes trips on our highways more safe, and it provides the necessary investment for transportation infrastructure to foster economic growth in this country. Mr. President, in short, the donor-donee theory has the potential to destroy the promise of the national highway system. Further, the philosophy that drive the donor-donee debate will lead many of us to come back and tell Congress, what about the money we paid into the Treasury from which we received no benefit, none at all, those of us who come from the States that produce the oil that provided the feedstocks to make the gasoline that fuels our automobiles? Now, we produce 25 percent of that in one State. Twenty-five percent of all the domestic production comes from Alaska. We have never said give us back every dime we paid, that the oil industry pays, into the Treasury on that oil. I say to my friend from Virginia I could not be more insistent. Again, I ask the Senators to look at the chart I have provided. The donor-donee theory leads to winners and losers. Our bill leads to equity. It corrects the error of the Treasury Department and it restores the 1996 levels to all States. It does so fairly, while at the same time giving the donor States what the President has requested, and more, to both fulfill the erroneous decision of the Treasury Department and to correct the accounting error. I want to ask my friend from New Mexico, Mr. President, if he has any corrections to make to the statement I just made.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation be authorized to meet on May 8, 1997, at 10:30 a.m. on the Hazardous Materials Transportation Reauthorization.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 8, 1997, beginning at 9:30 a.m. to consider revisions of Title 44/GPO.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 8, 1997, at 2 p.m. to hold a hearing on: S. 43, Criminal Use of Guns.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, be authorized to hold an executive business meeting during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 8, 1997, at 10 a.m.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of the Governmental Affairs Committee to meet on Thursday, May 8, 1997, at 10 a.m. for a hearing on the Government's Impact on Television Programming.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 8, 1997, at 10:30 a.m. to hold a business meeting.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 8, 1997, to conduct a mark-up on S. 462, the Public Housing Reform and Responsibility Act of 1997.

Mr. STEVENS

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

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. 70 (Purpose: To set aside certain funds for the project consisting of channel restoration and improvements on the James River in South Dakota)

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

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside.

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

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