Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the original amendment would prohibit the expenditure of funds after September 30, 1997. There are no funds in the bill for defense to be spent after September 30, 1997. The amendment of the Senator from Texas would prohibit spending funds after June 30, 1998. No funds in the bill will be expended after June 30, 1998. So the amendments take on an image perspective, from the point of view of this Senator. I am certainly not going to oppose them on that point. But I emphasize that they are just a statement of policy. It amounts to a sense-of-the-Congress position about the expenditure of funds. They would not be a barrier to the expenditure of funds under the circumstances of this bill.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have been informed that others wish to speak on this amendment. Under the circumstances, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. STEVENS

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. STEVENS. We had almost arranged for an amendment to be called up at 9 o'clock, to be voted on at 10 o'clock, and I discussed with Senator Byrd, does the Senator have any objection if we set aside this situation now and took up that other amendment and have it argued between 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock and come back to this amendment at 10 o'clock.

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

Mr. STEVENS. They are, as I said, necessary to assure that funding during a disaster period now on emergency basis are available for farm operating loans and flood plain easements and the offsets for those amounts that are necessary. I ask the amendments be agreed to en bloc.

Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that three amendments on behalf of Senator Conrad be considered and agreed to en bloc. I am going to send those amendments to the desk in a minute. These amendments have been cleared by the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee. They provide additional emergency disaster funding for farm operating loans and flood plain easements and offset these additional amounts. I send these three amendments to the desk and ask they be considered en bloc.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask the amendment be agreed to.

Mr. STEVENS. This is to increase the number of units available for FHA under the HUD/State Housing Finance Agency Risk-Sharing Program. It is a matter that deals with adding units for 1997. It is cosponsored by, as I understand it, by Senators Sarbanes, D'Amato and Mikulski.

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

Mr. STEVENS. For the purposes of the remaining amendments, I ask the Reid amendment not come before the Senate before tomorrow.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I send amendment No. 169 to the desk.

Mr. STEVENS. I cannot announce there will be no more votes, but it is not our intention to call upon amendments that would require votes tonight. We do expect to start very early in the morning and have a vote at approximately 10 o'clock in the morning on one amendment and then a period of debate on Senator Byrd's amendment to strike the continuing resolution proposal in the supplemental emergency bill. We will have a vote on that. It is our intention to finish this bill tomorrow evening. I might say to Senators who have amendments, I urge them to come and present their amendments and try to work out, to the extent we can, time agreements on obtaining time tomorrow. It will be very much in short supply, Mr. President. We are going to move to go to third reading at or around 6 o'clock. I say that again: We are going to move to go to third reading at or around 6 o'clock if that is parliamentarily possible at that time. I think it will be. Amendment No. 169 (Purpose: To increase the number of units available for FHA insurance under the HUD/State Housing Finance Agency Risk-Sharing program)

Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay it on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. U.S. Courthouse in Montgomery, AL

Mr. STEVENS. I do ask that the amendment be tabled, and I move to table this amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have to oppose the amendment of the Senator from Arizona. With regard to the funds for the Paramount Theater, for instance, in Kentucky, these are funds that were already made available for a parking garage there in the same area, and those funds are being reprogrammed to another project that is involved in the same area which is a historic landmark. We have another funding request here concerning the VA hospital. These funds were appropriated in 1997 for this project, but unfortunately the authorizing language was left out of the Veterans Housing Act. What we are doing is going through the act again and reappropriating it with authorizing legislation. That is a technicality, really. We do have the money, and there are highway funds allocated, in addition to those already allocated in Utah, that will be allocated for the planning and engineering design of projects for the Olympics. These are the Winter Olympics for 2002, a very historic thing to have Olympics in our country. Just as every country, we have to have special parking lots, special entrances, security involved in roads, streets, and highways in connection with the Winter Olympics. That is a noble use of funds for those projects. Of course, the highways and roads and parking lots are usable afterward. I do not argue about that. There is no question about the need for getting going now to allocate those funds for those highway projects that do meet the criteria of past allocations. We have a whole series of other problems that the Senator mentioned. I only say that some of them may be small disasters, such as the salmon problem which the Senator has mentioned. Others are items that we put in the bill because of the timeliness of the construction that is required. I will probably be making comments further tomorrow on other matters of the bill to try to explain some of these items. There are items here in several departments, and the Senator has pointed them out, that are not disaster related. That is why this is an emergency and supplemental appropriations bill. These amendments go to the supplemental portion, normal supplemental allocation of funds for items to be completed this year. These are moneys to be used in the remainder of fiscal year 1997. I am sad to say I do oppose the amendment of the Senator. I understand what he is doing. For the Senator's benefit, I hope he understands what I am saying. Senator McCain has become the chairman's large image on the wall, and I have to tell everyone that has an amendment that is presented to our committee in connection with supplementals or even annual bills, ``You better be sure we have the justification to get these by the Senator from Arizona because he is our watchdog.'' We need watchdogs and we appreciate them, but I have to say I will be glad to tell the Senator sometime about the 1,000 amendments we did not approve. We had more than 1,000, I might add, suggested to our committee. These are the ones that survived. I defend what we have done, and under the circumstances, it would be my intent to table when the Senator is finished with his remarks.

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

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.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this deals with the collection and dissemination of information on prices received for bulk cheese. It requires the Secretary of Agriculture to collect and disseminate statistically reliable information from milk manufacturing plants on prices received for bulk cheese and requires a report to Congress on the rate of reporting compliance. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask that Senators Santorum, Feingold, and Kohl be added as cosponsors.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this is a simple amendment which extends the expanding small business participation in dredging section of the Small Business Competitive Demonstration Program Act of 1988 to September 30, 1997. I urge its adoption.

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