Jim Walsh

Mr. WALSH

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, we have reviewed the amendment, we think it helps the bill, and we are prepared to accept it.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it is in violation of section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. The Committee on Appropriations filed a suballocation of budget totals for fiscal year 2004 on July 22 of this year. This amendment would provide new budget authority in excess of the subcommittee suballocation made under section 302(b) and is not permitted under section 302(f) of this act. I ask for a ruling of the Chair.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, we would be happy to accept the amendment.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order against the gentleman's amendment.

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

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment adds another bureaucratic arm to the Veterans Administration by creating a new assistant secretary. This function, the function of emergency preparedness, is already under the Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning. Emergency activities are well planned, managed and executed under the current arrangement. Another part of this amendment takes money away from regular medical care. We just heard some debate about the cost of medical care and the need for additional funds for medical care. This would take money out of medical care to create these new crisis centers. I believe the money should be prioritized to treating sick veterans. That is the mission of the Veterans Health Administration, and the focus should remain there. Emergency response and research centers and activities are already funded under the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense and Health and Human Services, where they rightly belong. I would urge a strong ``no'' vote on this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. WALSH. I thank the gentleman for his comments. I thank him for his help. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the bill. Sequential Votes Postponed in Committee of the Whole

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), a member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and a combat veteran.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

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

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, just briefly, to correct a point, there are no cuts for the homeless in this bill. There is an increase of $35 million. There are no cuts in section 8 housing vouchers, there is an increase of over $900 million. But if we accepted this amendment, it would cut HUD's information technology by 35 percent and make it very difficult for them to continue their operation. For that reason I oppose the amendment, and I urge a ``no'' vote. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 2861, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to bring before the House today H.R. 2861, the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act for 2004. Prior to proceeding, Mr. Chairman, in discussing the bill before us, I would like to offer my sincere recognition and thanks to my ranking member, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan), for his help in bringing this bill to the floor. He and I have forged a strong relationship over the last 5 years working on this bill. I feel the result reflects most of our shared priorities. We consulted during hearings during the formation of the bill, during markups, and his advice has been remarkable and we would not be here if we had not had it. I would also like to thank and recognize the staff on both sides of the aisle for their hard work and assistance. My personal thanks to Tim Peterson, the clerk of the subcommittee; Dena Baron; Jennifer Whitson; Jennifer Miller; and Doug Disrud on the majority side, and to Michelle Burkette, Mike Stephens, and Jerry Johnson for the minority. I would also like to express my appreciation to Gavin Clingham and Angela Ohm on the gentleman from West Virginia's (Mr. Mollohan) personal staff, as well as Ron Anderson and Art Jutton on my personal staff for their assistance in getting this bill to this point in the process. Mr. Chairman, I would like to just sum up briefly the bill. Most of the attention has been focused on the veterans portion, and I will address that at the end. In housing, we have provided an increase of about close to $1 billion to provide for full funding for section 8 housing vouchers. There are no new incremental vouchers, but we have fully funded the existing vouchers that include vouchers that are targeted for housing for people with AIDS. It is also for disabled individuals in our society. So those are dedicated funds, and they will continue to flow. In the Environmental Protection Agency, we provided approximately $8 billion, and I think we have done a good job in continuing the progress that we have made in protecting the environment; and we do expect several amendments in that area of the bill, some of which we will accept. In NASA, NASA really is a status quo budget, pending the outcome and the release of the Gehman Commission report. We expect that that report will have profound implications for NASA, and we expect that the administration, once that report is available, will come forward and express their views to us, which may result in additional supplemental expenditures depending on what the report says, but we do await that report. The National Science Foundation, the Congress is on record as requesting that we double the National Science Foundation in 5 years. We cannot keep that pace, although in the past we have done close to double-digit increases in the past 3 or 4 years in NSF; and I think the subcommittee has shown great leadership in supporting the investment in the new technologies, information technologies and others that this country leads the world in. We will have a 5 percent increase, which I think given our allocation is a remarkable commitment to our scientific community. These are all peer reviewed, non-earmarked funds. So they encourage some of our finest educational institutions across the country and our finest young people. Lastly, the veterans budget, which has been the focus of most of the discussion so far. Mr. Chairman, we have increased veterans medical care by approximately $1.3 billion over last year. It is about a 6 percent increase in medical care. We have provided about $1 billion increase in the mandatory portion of the bill which is veterans benefits. It is a $2.5 billion increase. We were asked to provide additional funds to veterans. We were unable to do that, given the allocation that we had. It is an increase, it is a substantial increase, but it is not a record increase similar to what we provided 2 years ago and then again last year. But, in fact, this subcommittee has increased the veterans budget and the medical care side by close to 50 percent in the last 5 years. So since 1998, close to a 50 percent increase in veterans medical care. The difficulty is that the number of customers, the number of patients that we have had at the veterans hospitals has outstripped those increases. The Congress has tried diligently and this has been the number one priority of the subcommittee to fully fund veterans health care, and we are trying. It is pretty clear by the discussion that Members expect us to provide more, veterans expect us to provide more, veterans service agencies expect us to provide more. This is not the end of the process. The process continues after this bill is hopefully passed today. We have to go to conference with the Senate. And I pledge to work with the minority, with the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan), with our Republican leadership, the leadership of the House, and with the Senate to find any way we can to improve the funding for veterans medical care and at the same time looking down the road at things that the Congress can do to improve the situation by making administrative decisions to bring veterans in through the process more quickly, to take some of the pressure off the prescription drug problem by passing a prescription drug benefit for all Americans, by looking at the Medicare subvention issue which would allow veterans to use their Medicare payments to pay for going to the veterans hospital. There are a number of things we can do. We cannot do them all in this bill, but I do pledge to continue to work to try to improve the situation as we go towards the conference. [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH25JY03.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH25JY03.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH25JY03.003 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH25JY03.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH25JY03.005 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH25JY03.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH25JY03.007 Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, yes, I agree. NSF needs to make implementation of the Cybersecurity Research and Development Act a priority.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. We have looked at the amendment. We compared it to what EPA's position is. We are very confident that the EPA has made it very clear that it will not use statistical analysis that devalues the lives of older people, that that was the right decision. The gentleman's language is perfectly acceptable, and I have no objection to the amendment.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. We do agree. It is a good amendment, it helps the bill, and this is a worthy goal for the Veterans Administration; and we endorse the amendment.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I yield to the distinguished gentlemen from New York (Mr. Boehlert), my neighbor and colleague, for the purpose of a colloquy.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve my point of order.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. We are prepared to accept the amendment. I thank the gentleman for his diligence, and we think this will help the bill.

Mr. WALSH

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce), my colleague from the Committee on Rules, who has helped us to guide this bill through the Congress the last three years. She does a great job and knows the bill very well and is very capable at this. I would like to first of all, Mr. Speaker, talk a little bit about the rule. This rule provides for the customary protections usually afforded all appropriations bills at this stage of the process. It is an open rule but it waives points of order against unauthorized appropriations because so much of this bill is unauthorized. The Appropriations subcommittee is appropriating funds for NASA, much of which is unauthorized; EPA, much of which is unauthorized; HUD programs, National Science Foundation, and we have heard a lot about veterans, and we will continue to hear more about veterans. But there are a lot of items in this bill that are of critical importance to these Departments; and this would, in effect, provide the authorization required for this current year. Most of the focus has been on veterans issues in this bill, and rightly so. It is the priority for the subcommittee each and every year that we provide for funding for this area. But I would like to talk a little bit about some of the other aspects of the bill, the other Departments that are funded in this bill. HUD is the Department that provides for housing for all Americans. We have fully funded the section 8 housing voucher program, which allows individuals to live where they would like and take their housing vouchers with them to help pay for their rent. It is a very popular program. It is fully funded. Of our allocation, which was only about a $3 billion increase over last year, a billion of that goes just to fund the cost increases in the section 8 housing voucher program. No new vouchers, but it is fully funded. And I would remind my colleagues that thousands of American veterans live in section 8 housing, and they benefit substantially from that portion of the bill, as all other Americans do. In the AmeriCorps program, which has had a lot of discussion and debate of late, the subcommittee provides them with about a $100 million increase over last year's budget. We raised the cap. We allow AmeriCorps to put on an additional 5,000 volunteers, which is something the President wants. We go from 50,000 to 55,000. Our only hope is that they will hire that many, as opposed to last year when they had a cap of 50,000 and they put on 67,000 volunteers. So there are problems over at AmeriCorps and National Corporation that they are working on trying to fix. We are going to provide them with additional funds this year; and, hopefully, we will get it right this year. The Environmental Protection Agency. We provide for about $8 billion in funding for that agency. We maintain the level of enforcement that we maintained last year, which was an increase over the prior year. We have added back about $.5 billion in funds to the EPA to provide for clean water, wastewater improvements, and combined sewer overflow conversions so that we can help clean up our Nation's water. There is a tremendous demand out there. This will not cover the problem; but of our $3 billion increase in allocation, about $.5 billion of it went to clean water SRF and State and tribal assistance grants. NASA is really a status quo budget because we are waiting to hear what happens with the Gehman Commission. They will be reporting back to the Congress probably in August, and we expect that that will have some major ramifications for NASA. The administration will have to weigh in on that, and possibly we could be dealing with that in a supplemental later in the year. I do not know. I do not know what the administration will want us to do. But we did not deal with those issues in this bill. As I said, it is a status quo budget for NASA. National Science Foundation. The Congress has asked us to double National Science Foundation over a 5-year period. We could not do that with this allocation. We have provided for in the last several years almost double-digit increases in the National Science Foundation. Everybody agrees these are important investments for the country, but we provided for about a 5 percent increase in National Science Foundation. That brings us to veterans. And I describe this bill, the VA-HUD and independent agencies bill, as a train, and the engine that pulls the train through the Congress is the veterans funding. It is the most important priority of the subcommittee. It has the largest advocacy group. It has the broadest support within the Congress. Now, as I said, we had about a $3 billion increase in our allocation over last year's enacted level, and $1.3 billion of that goes toward the veterans medical care. There is also a $1 billion increase for veterans mandatory programs for veterans benefits, so a $2.3 billion increase just for veterans out of the about $3 billion that we got as an increase. Actually, the mandatory is separate, but an overall increase in veterans, counting discretionary and mandatory, is about a $2.5 billion increase. Mr. Speaker, we have increased veterans spending in the last 5 years by almost 50 percent, 49 percent. I do not believe there is any other Department in the Federal Government that has experienced a 50 percent increase in the last 5 years. This subcommittee has bent over backwards to try to meet the needs of our veterans. Now, we will hear, and it is accurate, that the number of veterans actually coming into the VA has increased beyond that number. But I would submit that most of the new veterans coming in are coming in for prescription drugs. They are what we refer to as category 7s and 8s. The Congress has, in its wisdom, dramatically expanded eligibility for access to the veterans health agency. Many of the new veterans that are coming in are not indigent and they are not service connected, but they are eligible under the new broadened eligibility rules that the Congress put in place. That is putting an additional burden on the VA. It is creating long waiting lines. There are a couple things that can happen that the administration can do. One of the things the Secretary is talking about relates to one of the problems we are experiencing. A category 7 and 8 looking to come in for prescription drugs cannot get them until they have a physical, even if they have had a physical by their own personal doctor. Now, that it is a double cost. It is a cost possibly in Medicare; it is also a cost in the VA if they need to get two physicals. There is some discussion about waiving that initial physical for veterans when they come to the VA if it is just for prescription drugs. So that would reduce the waiting time. Also, there was in this bill when we first brought it to the Congress a fee requirement, a $250 premium and a $15 copay, which has been stripped from the bill. So those additional fees that were in the bill are no longer in the bill. We just do not have the allocation that some people would like us to have, the amount of funds some people would like us to provide. The budget resolution that we passed required us to raise veterans spending for health care even higher. The problem was we did not have the resources to do that. There was an assumption in that budget resolution for $7.5 billion more than we actually had. It was supposed to come from mandatory savings, from waste, fraud, and abuse savings; but that was knocked out in the conference so we did not have those additional funds. Now, we went back and rescinded $5 billion from defense to provide the Committee on Appropriations with an additional $5 billion, which we did do, which provided some relief; but we still came up about $2.5 billion less than what was assumed available in the budget resolution. So it squeezed us. Now, I do not stand back from the commitment that this bill has made to veterans. We have increased mandatory spending. We have increased discretionary spending. It is clearly the priority. We have increased veterans health care 50 percent in the last 5 years. As I said, no other Department, no other agency in the Federal Government has experienced that kind of growth. This is a bill we can be proud of. This is a bill that maintains its commitment and maintains its promise to veterans, but it also provides the necessary resources to make the investments in our Nation's intellectual and technological future by making investments in the National Science Foundation. On NASA, we are waiting for the report and we will respond to that. Environmental protection, we think this is a strong vote of support for protecting our environment, which is a priority for our party and for all parties in this country, certainly for the President. It provides an increase for AmeriCorps, and it also fully funds our Nation's public housing program, which, to me, is as important a commitment as our commitment to the veterans. We have an obligation, I think, in this country. This is a very competitive society. Some people do not compete as well as others. There is a need out there for public housing, and this Congress stands behind that commitment to those individuals that, until they can get on their feet and manage their own housing costs, we need to stand behind them. So it is a very complex bill; we have limited resources, but a full desire to meet our commitments that we have. Mr. Speaker, I am proud of this bill, and I urge its support and support of the rule. It is a good rule. It is an open rule.