congressional_record: CREC-2000-12-15-pt1-PgS11808-2
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| granule_id | date | congress | session | volume | issue | title | chamber | granule_class | sub_granule_class | page_start | page_end | speakers | bills | citation | full_text |
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| CREC-2000-12-15-pt1-PgS11808-2 | 2000-12-15 | 106 | 2 | LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION | SENATE | SENATE | ALLOTHER | S11808 | S11809 | [{"name": "Arlen Specter", "role": "speaking"}, {"name": "Susan M. Collins", "role": "speaking"}] | [{"congress": "106", "type": "S", "number": "3280"}] | 146 Cong. Rec. S11808 | Congressional Record, Volume 146 Issue 155 (Friday, December 15, 2000) [Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 155 (Friday, December 15, 2000)] [Senate] [Pages S11808-S11809] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment about the pending appropriations bill on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, which comes from the appropriations subcommittee which I chair. There has been an extraordinarily rocky road for this bill this year. I think it is very regrettable that on December 15 we are still debating that bill and the entire package is as yet unsettled, although hopefully it will be resolved before the end of the day. But there have been many days when we have been hopeful about resolving matters before the end of the day and that has not occurred. Without going into the background on prior years, it has been a very difficult matter to get the bill on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education to the President for signature and to resolve the controversies. This year, my ranking member on the subcommittee, Senator Tom Harkin, and I have worked as partners on this matter. When he chaired the subcommittee, I was ranking, or when I have chaired the subcommittee, he has been ranking. Both of us understand--and have for a long time--that if you want to get something done in Washington, you have to cross party lines. That is more true today than ever. It will be even more true in the 107th Congress when we have a 50-50 split. But we brought that bill to conclusion on the Senate vote on June 30 of this year, which tied the record going back to 1976. We completed a conference report on July 27, the last Thursday before we adjourned for the Republican convention and the August recess. We did that with a lot of extra effort, hard work by our staffs led by Bettilou Taylor on my staff, so we could get the bill to the President right after Labor Day. There is no use sending it in August, but we were prepared to submit it to the President the day after Labor Day. We had met the President's figure of $106 billion, which was a $10 billion increase over the program authority from last year. We did that because the experience in the past had been that when we quarreled with the President about the total figure, invariably there were add-ons at the end when the issue [[Page S11809]] went beyond September 30 into October or November. Candidly, it was difficult to get the Republican caucus to agree to $106 billion in the Senate and in the House, but we did that. But in presenting the bill, the conference report, we had some priorities which were somewhat different from those of the President. We had, for example, added $2.7 billion for the National Institutes of Health because we thought that was a very high priority item. We had also made some changes on the $2.7 billion which the President had requested for school construction and additional teachers, giving him that money but adding a provision that if the local boards of education wanted to use the money for something else after fulfilling very stringent requirements, that they could use it for local control. When we sat down to negotiate with the White House, the President and the Democrats in the House upped the ante and asked for an additional $6 billion. From my way of thinking, that was totally unacceptable because we had provided the $106 billion which the President had initially requested. After all, it is the congressional prerogative to set the priorities on appropriations. That is spelled out in the Constitution. The President has to sign the bill but we have the lion's share of responsibility, in my view, to establish the priorities. Those negotiations degenerated--at least in my opinion--until there was an inclination by some in the conference to pay $114 billion. I refused to be a party to that amount of money because I had fought hard to raise the figure to $106 billion and I felt there would be no credibility in what I would present as chairman of the subcommittee if I would be a will-o'-the-wisp and raise it to any figure to satisfy the demands of the White House and the House Democrats. There was a tentative agreement of $114 billion and I declined to sign any conference report which reflected that figure. Ultimately that arrangement broke down. Now we have come to the point where the negotiations have produced a figure of $108.9 billion, which is still more than the $106 billion we had originally projected, but in the spirit of accommodation, trying to finish the business of the Congress, I am prepared to go along with that figure although very reluctantly. There have been changes in the bill which I find totally unacceptable. The National Institutes of Health has had an increase of $2.7 billion over fiscal year 2000, which had been in all along, now cut by $200 million to $2.5 billion. I believe that the National Institutes of Health is the crown jewel of the Federal Government. It may be the only jewel of the Federal Government. We have added almost $9 billion to the funding on NIH in the last five cycles. The Senate, in one of the first years under my chairmanship, came in at the figure of a $950 million increase. The House would not go along. We compromised out at $907 million. The next year we added $1 billion; the year after, $2 billion; the year after that, $2.3 billion, which was cut a little on an across-the-board cut. This year we put in $2.7 billion, now reduced to $2.5 billion. But we have a total of almost $9 billion added in these last five cycles and they have made tremendous strides on the most dreaded diseases--Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and cancer and heart ailments and the whole range. It is my hope in the future that whoever chairs the subcommittee will have better cooperation on all sides to present the bill to the President before the fiscal year ends. I think, had that been done, we could have mustered a very strong position that our priorities were superior to what the President had in mind, and that if he were going to veto the bill, we ought not to be fearful of his veto but we ought to accept it as his view and then take the case to the American public. I think, had the bill been submitted to the President on September 5, we would have won that fight. Or if we had not won it outright, we would have compromised in terms so we wouldn't be here on December 15, still arguing about this Labor-HHS-Education bill as the principal source of contention. (The remarks of Mr. Specter pertaining to the introduction of S. 3280 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'') Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I again thank my distinguished ranking member, Senator Jay Rockefeller, who works collaboratively on veterans affairs matters and all members of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. It is a committee which has worked in a bipartisan way. It has a very excellent staff, with staff director Bill Tuerk. I thank the staff for their assistance and commend to the public and the Congressional Record the legislation which has been passed during the 106th Congress. I know my time has expired, and I note the presence on the floor of a distinguished Senator, Ms. Collins. I yield the floor. I was about to say ``another distinguished Senator,'' but I modified that to ``a distinguished Senator.'' The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine. Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, before the Senator from Pennsylvania leaves the floor, if that is his intention, I thank him for the exceptional job he has done in ensuring that we do have funding increases for critical programs such as those at the National Institutes of Health. I heard the Senator from Pennsylvania, the chairman of the subcommittee, describe it as the crown jewel of the Federal Government, and I totally agree with his comments. He has also been an advocate for more education funding, combined with more flexibility. I wish we had followed his advice earlier this year and sent the appropriations bill down to the White House, completing his work in a very timely fashion back in July, I believe it was. I commend the Senator for being an outstanding chairman. I am a great admirer of his and appreciate all of his hard work. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I express my thanks to Senator Collins. We work very closely together with a very distinguished group of Senators--Senator Jeffords, Senator Snowe, and who is the fifth member? Yes, Senator Chafee, who is presiding. I thank the Chair and thank Senator Collins. ____________________ |