C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, I want to agree with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas). We are friends. I would say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas), we live and learn. He referred to how I might have voted on an earlier Gekas amendment, but the situation was considerably different then than it is now. But I have a great difference with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas), as he said this is what the American people want. They want the status quo. Well, I do not believe that. The reason I do not believe that is that every Member in this House was elected by about the same number of people to represent that district and to do what is right for the country. That is where the people speak. Now, let me tell my colleagues how the people have spoken in just this year alone. What I am holding here is a stack of legal-sized papers. On each of these pages is a specific request made to the Committee on Appropriations, including requests for changes in the budget and changes in appropriations over last year. Now, here they are. The Members of Congress have spoken. I hope that they are all listening to this. There are 21,547 requests from Members of this House, mostly to change from the status quo of last year. Now, are the Members that asked for these requests to be considered by the Committee on Appropriations going to be satisfied with the status quo? I do not think so, Mr. Chairman. To be honest, will the Committee on Appropriations grant every one of these requests? Of course not, because they run close to $90 billion over last year's budget, so we cannot do all of that. So one thing that appropriators do is go through these lists, and they try to prioritize based which requests have the most merit. Well, the people of America, through their elected representatives in the House of Representatives, have spoken. They do not want the status quo. They want all these changes over last year. Here is the fact and here are the pages. These are the pages and the requests of all members. But if we have an automatic continuing resolution in place where we enjoy this status quo that makes life easy for all of us, the people's voice will have been muted because these 21,457 requests will not even be considered, let alone adopted. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen). (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg), who is a member of the Committee on Appropriations and also a member of the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on the Budget. (Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, last year a similar bill was introduced. The Committee on Appropriations asked that it be referred to the committee, and, after thorough consideration, we reported the bill with a negative recommendation. Some of the things that we were concerned about have now been taken out of this basic bill, which makes us a little more happy. However, there are amendments made in order that would restore some of those items that we really do not want to see in this bill. So we will deal with those as they come. I was going to use this chart later in the debate on the two year budget amendment, but I want to use it now since the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) made such a compelling case as to how this bill would drag out the the budget process by involving the executive branch of government at this early stage. What I want all of our colleagues to know is if you look at this chart, every one of these months that are colored red are days that the Committee on Appropriations lost in dealing with its 13 appropriations bills. We lost all of that time, 6\1/2\ months, before we could even begin our work because we did not have a budget resolution. Until we have a budget resolution which allows us to make our 302(b) assignments, we cannot begin the actual markup of our legislation. Now, if you look at the green color, that is how many days have gone by since we got the 302(a) allocation. Since that time, the committee went to work very rapidly. We have already marked up six of our 13 bills in subcommittee, and we have already marked up four of our major bills in committee. We already passed earlier today one of our primary bills, and we have others prepared to go to the floor. So we have done that much appropriations work in the couple of weeks that are colored green. If we extend the time it takes before we can actually begin our work for another 2, 3 or 4 weeks, we are not going to be able to get to the end of the fiscal year and have our work completed. We promised the leadership on both sides of the aisle that we would complete our work expeditiously, and we are well on target to do that. Any further delay in the budget process takes time away from the appropriations process, and, Mr. Chairman, time is not on our side, as you can see from this calendar. So rather than finding ways to extend the length of the budget process, we should be trying to find ways to reduce the time of the budget process, to give more time for the Committee on Appropriations to deal with the 13 appropriations bills in subcommittee, in full committee, on the House floor and in conference committee with the other body.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. The base text of this legislation would create new mandatory spending for: impact assistance to coastal states; Conservation and Reinvestment Fund activities; wildlife conservation and restoration activities; Urban Park and Recreation Recovery Program activities; Historic Preservation Fund activities, Federal and Indian lands restoration activities, Farmland Protection Program activities; and endangered and threatened species recovery activities. The currently authorized version of these programs are funded through annual discretionary appropriations. Without getting into the merits of the authorizations, the funding mechanisms included in this proposed legislation would represent a huge increase in backdoor spending if it were adopted by this House. The amendment before us would return the funding for these authorizations to discretionary appropriations for fiscal years 2002 through 2005. This is the right way to approach funding these activities, and this amendment should be adopted. Establishing mandatory spending for these activities is exactly contrary to what this House has been attempting to do in getting control of the runaway spending of the past and establishing controls and priority setting mechanisms for all spending. Mandatory spending should only be used for programs whose needs are paramount and nearly absolute. Even though many activities are funded by trust funds or other direct revenue sources, this is not justification to pass through these funds to program beneficiaries year after year without annual review. For those of you that think that the programs in this proposed legislation deserve funding compared to other discretionary programs, there is a way to make that happen. It's called the appropriations process. It's the best priority setting mechanism in the government. It reflects better than anything else the annual spending priorities of Congress. For those of you that say the overall discretionary levels are too low to accommodate funding these programs, there is a way to address that. It is called the congressional budget resolution. If you think the overall level discretionary level is too low, you can make your feelings known in the budget resolution process. For those of you that think the discretionary levels are about right but you want these activities funded anyway, you can put pressure on the appropriations process to do so. But, it would be extremely inconsistent with the established budget process to create this type of new mandatory spending while supporting tight discretionary spending. This mantra of ``unlock the trust funds'' has got to be recognized for the bad budget process that it is creating. One of the reasons that we have trust funds is so that we can review the spending needs placed on them, not so that there is just an automatic pass through mechanism. They are trust funds, not revolving funds. The people that pay the money into them need to be reassured that the Congress is continuously reviewing spending priorities. It is the rightful purview of Congress to decide to reduce or increase trust fund spending as it sees fit based on priorities, not based on the fact that the revenue source is a trust fund. Without the fixes proposed by this amendment, this is bad legislation. Members shouldn't think that this is a free vote to support your particular program interest and ignore the financing mechanism. Don't think that the budget problems will get sorted out later. There is a very bad track record being developed in that regard. Don't think that the Senate or the President will do the right thing later even though we won't now. Mr. Chairman, the fiscal year 2001 appropriations process is getting into full swing. We have a lean overall allocation. We will be bringing lean bills to the floor. We will have high priority needs that those bills won't be able to fund. It just seems to me that if we defeat this amendment and allow new mandatory spending at the same time we are trying to establish priorities on a discretionary allocation, things are out of whack. That would be an insult to the process. We need to adopt this amendment and get back to a rational priority setting system. Vote ``yes.''

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the very distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I am reluctant to rise in opposition to the amendment offered by my good friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), because we do like to save money every chance that we can get, his comments to the contrary notwithstanding. I have an idea that he voted for one of the or for the biggest amendment yesterday that was added to this bill. Anyway, the gentleman's amendment wants to reduce the non-emergency appropriations in the bill. The President asked for over $400 million worth of non-emergency items, but he offered offsets for those non- emergency items. We reduced the President's request from the $420-some million to $160, but we maintained the $420 million worth of offsets, so we have actually offset far more than we have non-emergency spending items in this bill. One of the things that would be affected by the Stearns amendment would be safety at our nuclear weapons facilities in the United States. Some of this money that would be reduced by this amendment, has to do with upgrading and restarting the enriched uranium operations, which were shut down for safety reasons. We are trying to make them safe. This is at the Y-12 plant in Tennessee. The money this amendment would reduce would also address hazard analysis, the safety authorization basis for activities to be performed in FY 2000 at the Pantex plant in Texas. So we are talking about safety in our nuclear facilities. Another item that my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) might be interested in, because I know that he had supported it, and many of his colleagues have supported funding for abstinence education. This amendment would take a pretty good chunk out of that money that was agreed to for abstinence education. I do not think the gentleman wants to do that, because I know that he supports that program. I am against the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I want to agree with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) that this is not an insignificant amendment. This is a major amendment. But here is what it does. It waves the white flag of surrender in the war against the drug lords in Colombia, which provide most of the drugs, illegal drugs that come into the United States. Now we want to wage the effort to eliminate those drugs at their source. This waves the flag of surrender. I have already talked many times during the various amendments today about the money for Kosovo. This bill is not sending any money to Kosovo. The money spent in Kosovo was already spent. The President made that deployment without getting the approval of the Congress, but the money has been spent. The money was taken from the fourth quarter operations and maintenance accounts of the military services, which means, if we do not replace that money, they have to stand down their training activities for the last quarter. This amendment is also very significant. It deals with military construction. It says that none of the funds can be used for construction outside of the United States or its territories or possessions. I wonder if the gentleman from Texas is not familiar with the fact that we have 37,000 American troops in Korea, in and around Korea, in that region, 37,000 American troops. They need some medical facilities. They need some housing, some new housing. The facilities are very old in Korea. The CINC who just retired from Korea has given us a substantial argument as to why there are military construction requirements in Korea. The new CINC, who has just assumed the job in Korea, has also told us that there are needs in military construction. This amendment would prohibit us doing for our troops who are in Korea, whether they like it or not, and that is not one of the most favored deployed areas, those needed construction jobs. That to me is significant. If we cannot take care of our own troops, and we have been there ever since the end of the Korean War, and it is at least a year-long deployment for most of the troops that are there, we cannot even consider supporting this amendment if we believe that we have a responsibility to the Americans who serve in uniform. And I urge a strong rejection of the Paul amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the distinguished ranking minority member on the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds just to say that I agree with what the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) is saying, but that is not what his amendment does. What he is saying is great, but what his amendment does is not what he is saying. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield our 10 minutes for purposes of control to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the issue that the gentleman's motion brings to the attention of the House is an important issue and one that in the next few weeks, as we go to prepare for marking up the regular appropriation bills, I would like to work with the gentleman to try to find the proper way to handle this and not just do it here at the last minute. If we were to agree to this motion to recommit, we will have undone basically everything we have done here in the last difficult 16 hours, yesterday and today. So I just simply ask the Members to vote ``no'' on the motion to recommit, then vote ``yes'' on final passage, and then for everyone to have a safe trip back home to their districts, visit with their constituents, and come back next week all fired up for another round. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), who is the ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I would announce that I have only one speaker to close, so I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). I wish he would vote for the bill, though.