Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. I think it is even worse than that. If you read the language, it says no failure or inability of an agency to make the certification is required under this section. The language of the line just above it says you are not required to do it. You are not required to do a cost-benefit analysis if it is going to alter any statutory requirement, for example, you have to consider cost. You are not required to do it if you are under an agency deadline. You are not required to do it if you are under a judicial deadline. If you are not required to do it, you do not have to issue any certifications either. It is a very clever set of language. If you read it together, it makes pretty good sense. If you can make sense out if it, it kills the bill, It ought not pass.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. If I were trying to draft an amendment that very clearly defeated this bill, I could not have done a better job than the author of this amendment. This bill provides for two requirements in the law basically. It says that when a new rule is going to be promulgated by an agency it needs to do two things. It needs to do a risk assessment and it needs to do a cost analysis. Now if I were drafting an amendment designed to kill this bill I would see to it that I gave the agency a chance to avoid both of those requirements, and guess what? This amendment does exactly that. If the agency currently is writing rules under a statutory requirement that costs cannot be considered in the implementation of those rules, and many of our regulatory laws have such a provision, the endangered species is a good example. It says that once a species is listed you have to cover it, regardless of costs, regardless of how many people are put out of jobs, regardless of how many businesses have to shut down, regardless of how much private property has to be put out of commerce. It says you protect that species regardless of the cost of it. So, if you were operating under a statutory requirement that says do this and you do not have to worry about costs, under this amendment you would be protected in that statutory requirement. You would never have to do a cost analysis. Let us assume that you want to avoid doing a risk assessment as well. Under this amendment the author has included words to say that nothing in this act shall be construed to modify or to alter any statutory or judicial deadline. Here is the way you avoid risk assessment under this deal. You simply say we are under a statutory deadline. We do not have time to do a risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis. We have to meet this deadline, therefore, we have promulgated this rule without the benefit of risk assessment, cost-analysis. How do you avoid it under a judicial deadline? Let me tell my colleagues how cleverly some of these agencies work. Friends of the Earth sued our Interior Department recently and sued the Department on a claim that the Interior Department was not listing species fast enough. There were 4,000 candidates for listing before the Interior Department, by the way, nominated by a single biologist in most cases, and they were not moving fast enough to list these species. So Friends of the Earth filed a suit, and guess what our Interior Department did? It did not contest the suit, it did not go to court and argue that we really have to do a scientific study before we list a species. It instead went into closed doors, behind chambers and agreed to a consent judgment that said okay, we give up; we are going to list 200 new species within the next 18 months, regardless of whether we do any scientific review of whether those species ought to be listed as threatened or endangered. We automatically list 250 new species and under this amendment you have to meet this new judicial deadline of 18 months so we cannot do a risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis of that rule listing 250 new species which may not be threatened, may not be endangered, but the Interior Department has consented to judicial judgment agreeing to do so. If I wanted to defeat this bill, if I wanted to make sure you never did risk assessment, if I wanted to make sure all the statutes that say you cannot take cost into account are not changed by this bill, I would adopt this amendment. This amendment says you do not have to take cost into account. If the statute says that currently, this amendment says you do not have to do risk assessment if you do not have time. This amendment says you do not have to worry about risk assessment, cost- benefit analysis if you are operating under a consent judgment that you agreed to, so list 250 new species even though they may not be threatened or endangered. This amendment ought to be defeated.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I simply want to say I support this amendment. It ought to be passed.

Mr. TAUZIN. The problem, if I can respond, is this House has already spoken in many of these regulatory statutes, and in many cases unfortunately those statutes were written in another day and time. Those statutes say you cannot take cost into account. This bill would change that. It would say from now on you take cost into account. You provide the same level of protection. You simply try to do it with the least-cost option. You do it with more flexibility. If this amendment is adopted, you go back to the old law. This bill to create risk-assessment, cost-benefit-analysis requirements is defeated by this amendment. This amendment ought to be defeated.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I too want to urge a vote against this motion to recommit. The bill as presently constructed says that anyone with any interest in the rule has to disclose that interest, whether you have an interest from an environmental standpoint, whether you have an interest from wherever you are coming from, from a labor or management standpoint. It allows all of those with expertise to serve on the panel provided you disclose your interest. That is they way it ought to be. This motion to recommit will defeat that provision of the bill. We need to defeat this motion to recommit.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, on a visit to the British parliament recently I learned something rather interesting about a phrase we use in America, a phrase called ``in the bag,'' and when we say something is in the bag, we normally mean it is completed, it is a done deal. Mr. Chairman, the phrase comes from something that refers to this amendment and is appropriate to the discussion of why this amendment is vitally important and why it should be passed. In the history of the British parliament and the fight for democracy with the monarchs in Great Britain the concept of petitioning the government for redress was a very important concept, one that was won at great cost and great loss of life in that struggle between monarchy and tyranny and the rights under a democracy. The British Parliament has come to respect that right to petition as such a strong right that it now includes in its construction a bag, literally a bag, that is placed at the door of the Parliament, and, when a petition arrives from the people of Great Britain and is accepted by the Parliament, that petition goes in that bag. Hence the expression ``It's in the bag.'' The expression means it is a done deal, the Parliament can no longer ignore the wishes, the petition, of the people of the country. The government must respond to the people in their request for some action, some redress of wrongs, some correction of some grievance, and so it is with the Barton-Crapo-Tauzin amendment. Mr. Chairman, this amendment literally does the same thing for the people of America. It says that when the people of this country who are affected by rules and regulations of this Government honestly believe and can substantiate with documentation to that effect, that our Government has passed a rule or regulation which unduly burdens their life which could be amended to provide the same equivalent protection to safety, health, and the environment as the old regulation does, which could be revised so that they could live with it with less cost, fewer job losses, fewer plant closures, fewer property damages, fewer impacts upon small businesses; if there is a way to have the same protection, and yet do it with less of an impact of regulation in our lives, this amendment says the people shall have the right to petition the Government and that petition is in the bag. Government cannot ignore it, but it must act upon it in a given and expressed time period where the Government must review it. Now it does not say that the Government must take the action that I petitioned them to take. It simply says, ``If I support my petition with enough documentation to justify a request that provided under the old rule, can be made available with a more flexible rule, one that will cost our citizens less, one that will employ, in fact fewer lost jobs in our society, one that will shut down fewer plants, one that will let us continue to be a productive society and yet have the same safety, health and environmental protection as the old rule, that the Government cannot ignore that petition. It is in the bag, and the Government must consider it. Now let me read to my colleagues the most important section in our amendment. It says that the purpose is to revise rules and program elements where possible to achieve substantially equivalent protection of human health, safety or the environment at a substantially lower cost of compliancy or a much more flexible manner. Mr. Chairman, those are the goals of this thing, and that is the only basis upon which petitions can be filed and accepted by the Government agency. I ask, Who among you would not want our Government to review its rules to find out if we can have the same protection and still have people employed in this country? Who among you would not want our government to review its rules to make sure that small businesses did not have to shut down, that mills don't have to close, that our country can go on working and producing food and fiber for our families and have the same equivalent protection?'' Mr. Chairman, that is what this amendment does. It says when the people of our country affected by the rules this Government makes petitions this Government to look over its rules and to see whether or not there is not a better way to do it, that the Government ought to hear it and the Government ought not deny those petitions. It ought to accept them, take them into the bag, if my colleagues will, and give us a chance to get a better rule. That is all it says, that is all it does, and anyone who opposes this amendment, says that they are just happy as a lark with any old rule that puts people out of work, and costs us too much in small businesses, and creates to much of a problem in our society, and we are not going to do anything about it. If risk assessment cost analysis has value for the future, it also has value for citizens who want to petition this Government about wrongs and to redress those wrongs with a petition process that looks back at an old rule that could be made better. This is all this does. Mr. Chairman, I want to call to my colleagues' attention one last section of the amendment that is probably equally important. It says that nothing in this section shall be construed to preclude the review of revision of any risk assessment or risk characterization document, rule or program element at any time under any other procedures. It says in effect that while we create the accelerated review process where Government has to take account of the petitions filed by people in this country, that we still reserve the right of our people to petition this Government and to seek changes under any other procedures, any other rights guaranteed under our Constitution, protected. In fact, Mr. Chairman, under that Constitution is a right bought and paid for with many, many lives in the history of the struggle for democracy against tyranny. The right to petition Government is what we are debating today on this amendment. I say to my colleagues, ``Those of you who believe in that right, who believe that Government ought not ignore the wishes of the people of this country when they petition Government, ought to vote for this amendment.''

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by my good friend, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer], and urge its defeat. The amendment and the bill have one thing in common. The amendment and the bill refer to the judicial review that is already available in the statutes that create the regulatory authority that is affected by this bill. Currently the law permits judicial review of agency actions across a broad span of regulatory authority. That judicial review occurs at the final option of the agency. Nothing has changed in this bill in that regard. There is still a judicial review provided by the current law for agency actions at the end when the agency makes a final determination. The only difference between this amendment and the bill is where this amendment says that in that agency action judicial review no question can be raised regarding the adequacy of certification or other documents prepared pursuant to this act. And here is the most important and relevant part, and any alleged failure to comply with this act may not be used as grounds for affecting or invalidating the rule. What this amendment says, in effect, is that you can have judicial review of the agency's action but the agency's failure to follow this law is not grounds in that judicial review for affecting or invalidating the rulemaking by the agency. In short, this amendment says it is OK for the agency to violate the law, not to follow risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis, to ignore the will of this Congress, the will of the people of this country expressed in its representative body, to ignore it completely and do what they have been doing for years and that is never do a proper risk assessment, cost- benefit analysis. What purpose is there in passing such an amendment, if it is not to defeat the very purposes of the bill? If an agency never has to answer in court for its failure to follow the law in this country, what on earth are we here doing passing laws requiring agencies to follow the law? If we, in the same law we pass, say it is OK not to follow the law, what are we doing here? The bottom line is, if you believe in this law, if you believe that agencies ought to do relevant and important risk analysis, risk characterizations, and they do what all of us hope this Nation will begin to do, consider cost in the equation and look for the least-cost alternatives by which we regulate our society and in all these important areas, if you really believe in that principle, how can you possibly vote for an amendment that says in the judicial review of whether or not the statute has been followed, it does not matter whether the agency followed the statue, it will have no effect upon the judicial interpretation of the rulemaking by the agency? If on the other hand you believe in this bill, you must defeat this amendment, because this amendment literally defeats the bill.

Mr. TAUZIN. Reclaiming my time, the gentleman's amendment does not just say do not look at the procedure. The gentleman's amendment says that the alleged failure to comply with this act, the alleged failure to conduct risk assessment, the alleged failure to do a cost-benefit analysis has nothing to do with the court's ability to say that this rulemaking is invalid. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's amendment says it does not matter whether you did not even follow any procedure, whether you ignore this law completely, the rulemaking is still going to be valid because the judicial department cannot review the agency's failure to follow this act. That is what the gentleman's amendment does. If it did only what the gentleman said, I might understand this amendment. It goes well beyond that. It says clearly ``any alleged failure to comply with this act.'' What does a common, normal reading of that mean? It means if you did not follow the act, if you did not do risk assessment cost analysis at all, by any procedure, the alleged failure to follow this act does not make any difference. Therefore, the agency can ignore this law and go on its way, and no judicial review will ever happen. Mr. Chairman, if we want that effect in this bill, just vote against the bill, do not ask us to pass this amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Crapo amendment. Mr. Chairman, the argument is made that the Crapo amendment defining what an emergency is in the bill is too tightly drawn, perhaps too restrictive of the word ``emergency.'' Let me argue the contrary. The bill provides an exception to the act. It says that an agency that is undertaking a rulemaking does not necessarily have to do risk analysis, risk characterization, when an emergency exists in the making of a rule. It does not say that risk analysis cost-benefit performance must be conducted on every agency action, carrying out an existing rule. To carry out a rule that already exists, the agency simply performs its function. It is in the new rulemaking, in the execution of new rulemaking decisions, that the act requires a risk assessment, risk characterization, and cost-benefit analysis. It provides an exception even in that case. Even when it needs to move swiftly on a rule, if in fact it finds an emergency, it can avoid the very necessary requirements of looking at cost, looking at risk, and doing a relative analysis of the two. The bill says that ``You can avoid this bill any time the agency head declares an emergency.'' I remember we had a rule in the sessions in Louisiana that you could only pass taxes in an off year, but the Governor wanted to pass it one year and it was not the right year. He asked his advisor ``What can I do?'' He said ``You can declare an emergency.'' He said ``What is going to be the emergency?'' The emergency was that it was the wrong year to pass taxes, so he declared the emergency and proceeded. It was, of course, contested in court. Here the effort is to define ``emergency'' in a clear and concise way. I want to call Members' attention to the words chosen by the gentleman from Idaho [Mr. Crapo] in his amendment. If this amendment were restrictively written, we would probably see a lot of ``ands'' in it: ``you have to find this and that and this and that'' before you find an emergency. However, look at the words. It says that ``It is immediately impending.'' What is an emergency if it is not immediately impending? It says it is extraordinary in nature. That indeed is the nature of an emergency. It says that it demands attention due a condition, circumstance, or practice reasonably expected to cause death, serious illness, or severe injury to humans, or substantial endangerment to private property or the environment if no action is taken. On the contrary, this amendment is drawn to cover all of the real emergencies that should be useful in avoiding the real necessities of risk assessment cost-benefit analysis, when there is a real impending emergency. Without this language, Mr. Chairman, any agency head can use that term ``emergency'' to avoid this act. With this language, with all of the ``R''s in it, you have to find something real that is present, that is pending, that is extraordinary, and can in fact cause damage to health or environment or to humans or to private property or to the environment itself before the agency can avoid this bill. If this bill is worth passing, this amendment is necessary to make sure that agency heads abide by it. Remember, we are talking about rulemaking, not agency action. We are talking about rulemaking, and to make a new rule, you ought to follow this bill. If you do not want to follow this bill, there ought to be a real, impending, extraordinary emergency why, to make a new rule, you will not follow this bill. I urge adoption of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Idaho.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment that is in order.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yield to me. Mr. Chairman, a previous speaker rose to question whether or not we can constitutionally pass this line-item veto. I think that argument needs to be answered. I would like to try to answer it just for a second. This Congress could, if we wanted to, instead of appropriating in 13 appropriation bills or 11 or 3 or 1, we could appropriate in hundreds of appropriation bills. We could appropriate every single appropriation in a single bill, if we wanted to. Clearly, under the Constitution, the President would then have the right to veto that appropriation, and we would have a two-thirds obligation to override that veto. Clearly, Mr. Chairman, we could if we wanted to create a line-item veto authority through that mechanism. If we can create it that way, my argument to the gentlewoman from California, who argued against the constitutionality of what we are trying to do today, is that if we could create it that way, we can most certainly, under the Constitution, create it the way we are trying to create it today. I want, last of all, to commend my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger], for the excellent job he did in this bill. I will join him in support of the bill. process, that some of the arguments I have made today, the suggestions I have made today, be considered in this process, because I want this bill eventually to be signed into law and I want it, most of all, to work. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, just in quick answer to my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Blute], no, the amendment does not act as Gramm- Rudman did to set caps and have automatic rescissions. It simply says that the authority of the President to line item any item of the appropriations would occur when the Congress appropriated funds in excess of the glidepath numbers set by CBO to take us to that balanced budget amendment. If, for example, this Congress this year approved the budget that President Clinton just submitted yesterday, we would be approving a $200 billion deficit for the next fiscal year. Under the glidepath amendment I suggested, the President would have the authority to line item 26 billion dollars' worth of appropriations out of that bill. He certainly could look for all the wasteful spending in $26 billion. If we approved his budget for the next 5 years, in each one of those successive years his line item authority would be $45 billion in 1997, $84 billion in 1998, $129 billion in 1999, and $141 billion in the year 2000. I want Members to think for a second about what authority and how that authority might be used when the President had the authority to line item 141 billion dollars' worth of appropriations out of this Congress. This amendment I am offering, Mr. Chairman, is by no means a weakening amendment. This amendment is meant to strengthen, in fact, the application, the practicalities of this bill, and to make it work. Mr. Chairman, I ask Members to think about this. It may be, by the time the Senate gets through with this bill and we get to a conference, this may be just the tool to make it work, to get enough of the Members of the other body to accept it, and to get a bill on the statute books, not just past this House, that really works. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond. Mr. Chairman, I hate to think that we have just confused a metaphor with the circus analogy. But the point of the matter is that the bill as we have it before us today is very much like the bills that came before I think 33 of the 43 legislatures that have a line-item veto authority. It says in effect that the President is going to have this authority to reduce deficit spending. That is what this is all about. Hopefully we will use it to get rid of wasteful, incorrect spending, but the purpose is to reduce the deficit. And my point in this amendment, and I hope the gentlemen on the other side will continue to consider it as we go through this process, is that if the Congress of the United States cannot deliver a balanced budget next year, the question ought to be what can be deliver, what ought we deliver? And the answer is, we ought to stay on that glidepath. If we do not stay on that glidepath, as steep as it looks to my friend, as dangerous as it seems, as risky as it may appear, we will never reach the balanced budget by the year 2002. We simply have to get on that glidepath, and we have to stay on it. It seems to me that if we use the line-item veto properly, as other States do, to insist that the Congress stay on that glidepath, that that will be the most important thing we do to make the line-item veto work and to make the balanced budget of the Constitution work, if indeed the Senate approves that amendment that we have sent over just last week. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. While I agree that that is a good idea, that is not what the bill does. The bill refers only to deficit-reduction line-item veto authority.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the other day as we debated the issue of the line-item veto itself, I noticed to the Members of the House the likelihood of my offering this amendment in the Committee of the Whole. This amendment is called the glide path amendment and is offered in an attempt to make the line-item veto a more practicable, workable solution to a problem that plagues this Congress and has plagued Congresses in years past. The graph on my right, as I indicated earlier, is a confusion of metaphors, but nevertheless accomplishes the purposes intended. The graph at the right indicates the CBO estimates of where this Congress needs to be every time we have an appropriation for the next budget year if we are in fact to accomplish the purposes of the balanced budget amendment recently sent to the Senate, and if we are in fact to balance the budget by the year 2002. For example, in the next fiscal year, 1996, we are expected to have no more than about $174 billion in deficit if we are to be on the path that takes us to this balanced budget, as we have dedicated ourselves to when we adopted the balanced budget amendment. Each year thereafter, the deficit must be reduced pursuant to this graph if we are to reach that point by the year 2002. Now, if you saw recently in the news the President's announcement of his budget plans for the next 5 years, you will be astounded to find out that the President is proposing that we stay at $200 billion deficit for the next 5 years. His budget plans as outlined just yesterday indicate that for the the next fiscal year, 1996, he is proposing a $200 billion deficit. For the year 1997, he is proposing a $200 billion deficit. For the year 1998, approximately a $200 billion deficit. In fact, to use the analogy of this football field, he would have us stepping out of bounds a few of those years, running over cheerleaders and the bands and everything else on the sideline. We would simply never begin to get on this glide path to the line-item veto, and that is unfortunate. That means, of course, we here in Congress are going to have to do a better job than the President yesterday proposed if we are going to carry out the promise we made to the American people in a contract signed by many Members here to carry out the promise of a balanced budget amendment by the year 2002.Now, what the glidepath amendment to this bill does is it attempts to make the line- item veto a very practicable tool to be used by this Congress, the Presidency, and the American people, in achieving these numbers. Now, why do I suggest it? I suggest it because in three out of the four States that have a line-item veto, those States provide that the line-item veto is used by the Governor to delete from the budget bill approved by the legislature any appropriations he deems necessary to reduce their budgets down to a balanced budget. The bill as it comes before us today is written very similarly. It says in effect that the President of the United States, when we adopt the line-item veto later today, would have the authority to strike from our budgets each year any appropriation he deems necessary in order to reduce the deficit. Now, here is the problem. Unlike the States that have that a line- item veto, we cannot pass a balanced budget for next year. If you believe we can, please raise your hand. I do not see any hands. And if all the Members were here, I would probably not see many hands. The bottom line is we cannot find $200 billion of spending cuts in the next years's budget, and everybody knows it. The best we can do is get on this glidepath that takes us to a balanced budget by the year 2002. So what authority ought we give the President during this 7 year period when Congress should be responsible enough to stay on this glidepath not to adopt budgets that give us $200 billion deficits each year. It seems to me the practicable way in which to use a line- Congress is to say that the Presidents should use that line-item veto authority to excise from the budget every expenditure that rises above this line in order to enforce responsibility in this Congress, to ensure that we stay on this glidepath, that we land safely in the year 2002 with a balanced budget. Now, I understand that my friends on the Republican side are not going to accept this amendment, and I understand why. They want to think about it some more. They want to think whether or not this derogates from the contract provisions of a line-item veto, and I appreciate that, and for that reason I will not even ask for a recorded vote today. But I did want to bring it up. I think it is the most practicable way to make this thing work, to enforce responsibility in the House, to ensure that this House and the other body lives up to the promise of the balanced budget amendment and delivers each year a budget that meets the CBO estimates, that gets us to the balanced budget by the year 2002. The amendment also provides once we hit that balanced budget in the year 2002, that every year thereafter the President would have a line- item veto, every year, to excise from the budget any expenditure that went above the balanced budget from the year 2002 thereafter. So unlike the sunset amendment that came earlier, that I think was an amendment to weaken this bill, this amendment actually strengthens it, and makes it in fact more workable. Now, I want to caution my friends in the Republican Party who have signed what I consider to be a pretty dog-gone good Contract With America, many of its provisions will find a great deal of support, as you did in the last few weeks, from Democrats in this body who have long fought for things like unfunded mandates, have long fought for a balanced budget amendment, long fought for property rights amendments and reform of some of the regulatory processes, long fought for lowering the taxes on businesses and workers in America, particularly the taxes that act as a disincentive to investment and job creation in our society. That is why so many of us have cosponsored so many of the features of the contract. We have in fact pursued those bills ourselves for many years. But I want to caution you. If we are going to pass into law, into a law that really works for the American people, the provisions of that contract, not just to vote on them today, pass them in the House and see them die in the Senate, not to just pass them even in the Senate and see them vetoed by the President, not even just to pass them and see them become law and then fail because we have not written them properly, my caution is let us do it right the first time. Make sure when we pass a line-item veto it really works for the purposes intended, that it works to discipline the Congress, to ensure that we follow the promises we made when we adopted the balanced budget amendment just a week or so ago, and that we do in fact get on a glide path that gets us down safely to a balanced budget by the year 2002. This amendment is an attempt to do that. It is offered in a very friendly fashion. I will vote for the line-item veto without this amendment. I only hope that my friends on the other side who believe as I do, as strongly as I do, in the line-item veto, in fact, as they saw just recently, I even voted against exempting highway funding from the line- item veto. If they believe as strongly as I do in it, then work to see possibly in the process that an amendment like this gets considered, perhaps in the conference between the House and the Senate, perhaps somewhere along the way, that when we get through we have an amendment, a line-item veto probably that really works for the good that we intended it for, that it works to discipline this body toward a balanced budget by the year 2002 and does not unnecessarily, unnecessarily reshape the balance of powers so critical in our Constitution. Let me make that final point. This grant of a line-item veto authority, as the States have given their Governors, as we are about to give it to the Presidency, is an extraordinary grant. It says to the President, you have more authority, rather than just veto an entire bill to take on the entire Congress on a bill, it gives the authority to the President to take on every single Member of the House and Senate and every line they write in every bill that appropriates money in this Nation. And it requires two-thirds of the body to overrule him. That is a pretty strong grant of authority, pretty extraordinary. I think we can constitutionally do that. But I think we ought to limit it to the cases where the Congress has failed to meet its responsibility, failed to live up to its obligation to balance our accounts, failed to stay, if Members will, on this glide path that gets us to a balanced budget and eventually stays in a balanced budget posture after the year 2002. If we grant this extraordinary authority for that purpose and that purpose alone, I think we will have written a good bill today. If we create a new authority in the President that has nothing to do with congressional responsibility, which allows the President to take on any Member of this House and Senate regardless of whether this body has been responsible, then perhaps we are going too far and we ought to think about that before we finally adopt this bill. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding time to me. There is an old country song that goes, ``I was country when country wasn't cool.'' I was for the line-item veto long before being for the line-item veto was cool, and those who support the line-item veto, who believe that it really ought to work in this country to enforce congressional will power, to stop deficit spending, and stop pork-barrel projects, ought to be for the line-item veto in its purest form, ought to make sure we exempt no discretionary spending that is deficit spending from this bill. I joined many of my colleagues in voting to make sure we did not exempt military spending, defense spending from this bill, and I am amazed today that we are debating whether to leave an exemption for highway funding in this bill. How can we be consistently for the line- item veto and all it means for us to enforce the balanced budget and to end deficit spending, to stand up, as I did and others did, against exempting defense spending from this bill, and then be for exempting highways and bridges? Well, my colleagues know there is a little log-rolling goes on once in a while. I am not saying highways and bridges are not important, any more than I thought defense was not pretty important for our country. But when we start exempting things that are discretionary spending from the line-item veto, designed to stop deficit spending in our country, we are on a slippery slope, rather, that I think destroys the whole purpose of the line-item veto. Those in America who believed in that contract provision are going to be sadly surprised when they wake up tomorrow morning and find out we adopted a bill that leaves out highway funding as an item for the line- item veto when we would not leave out defense spending. They are going to be sadly surprised that some Members who support the line-item veto do not really support it in all its purposes.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 3 additional minutes.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I am not yet debating this amendment. I am saying if we do not adopt this amendment later, we ought to vote for the majority override that is before us.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, the bottom line is if you are going to pass a bill that gives the President line-item veto, even when this Congress has been responsible, you are creating all of the problems that many have risen to the mike and spoken about today and yesterday. You are creating the problems of a President who has the authority to cajole, coerce, in some cases even politically blackmail Members of this body, even when the Congress has been responsible. Now, if you want to give this Congress the same power legislators have to protect against that, and at the same time you want to use a line-item veto as a tool to enforce congressional responsibility, to enforce the balanced budget amendment we recently adopted, this kind of an amendment will do it. On the other hand, if this bill is changed, as it may be changed, to go beyond deficit line-item reduction by line-item veto, to go beyond that point, then maybe you better consider the majority override. That is my point today. I will support a two-thirds majority override as long as the line- item veto is like the three-quarters of our States provide, designed to protect against irresponsibility on the part of the legislature, designed to guarantee line-item veto authority to the Governor or the President for any deficit spending beyond the area of responsibility, as in this case beyond the CBO numbers and eventually beyond the balanced budget requirements of the Constitution. This will come up later. But I caution you, if this bill is changed from a deficit reduction line-item veto into something else, and I am told that amendment may be offered later, then I suggest that the majority override is the right way to go. Perhaps we should get some signal on that before we vote on the amendment pending before us.