September 11, 1975
Page 28697
Mr. MUSKIE. President, the substitute offered by the distinguished majority leader is designed to implement the resolution, considered and adopted by the Senate Democratic Caucus this afternoon, which I introduced. Needless to say it would have been impossible in the caucus to reach an agreement substantively on a pricing policy to supported by the caucus with a view to resolving the issue which has separated the President and Congress all these many months. So the effort in the caucus was precisely what the distinguished Senator from Michigan has suggested, a spirit of constructive cooperation to lay down a means for reaching an accommodation on substantive policy.
There was disagreement even on that point within the caucus, and we have finally reached an agreement.
There is nothing negative about this proposal. It is all positive. We have discussed it with the distinguished Senator from Michigan, and some of his colleagues, in an effort. to reach agreement at the leadership level so that we need not have this debate.
As I understand the difficulty in reaching agreement was because the President was unavailable. The President had indicated before he became unavailable, traveling I gather in New Hampshire, that 45 days was the period he could accept. I do not know whether he laid down any imperatives with respect to the section 4(g) policy. It is not our doing that he is unavailable. I find it incredible to consider that he would not accept these modifications, which the majority leader has proposed to the Senate.
I have always regarded the President as a cooperative and moderate kind of a man. If he were available, I find it incredible to consider that he would not accept these modifications if he understood their purpose.
So I explain to the Senate what the purpose of these modifications is.
First of all, let me make the point that, with respect to the Emergency Allocation Act, the President by his veto rejected the option of continuing it in its present form or in the form in which it existed prior to September 1. There is no 4(g) authority available to the President today. There is no Emergency Allocation Act authority available to the President today.
There has been created deliberately by his veto this hiatus. With respect to the importance of acting today rather than next Wednesday, if a hiatus between today and next Wednesday is important to the President, then he should have considered that when he vetoed it. I assume when he vetoed he accepted the reassurances he says he received from oil companies, and others, who make pricing policy in the petroleum field, that they would exercise restraint following his veto to give the President and Congress some time to work out a policy.
If that restraint were available to the President in connection with his veto, surely it is available to us for the purpose of implementing the majority leader's proposal between now and next Wednesday.
So I do not see any greater sense of urgency in that connection than the President saw when he exercised his prerogative of vetoing the extension of the Emergency Allocation Act.
I will be happy to yield to anyone. But, first, to get down to this proposal. Why 60 days? Was this some arbitrary number, simply for the purpose of being different from the President? Not at all.
As a number, I chose it because looking ahead to the legislative schedule, it is the number that made sense if we really wanted a constructive period of congressional consideration not only of the President's proposals but also of congressional initiatives in the substantive field.
We have already agreed informally to try to complete appropriations bills by October 10, and that is going to take some doing, if we concentrate on that job alone.There may well be some slippage on the October 10 date for that purpose.
Second, we are required, under the program we have adopted, to complete consideration of the congressional budget by the end of October. It is not a requirement of law, because that period, under law, is different this year from what it will be next year, because it is the budget program we have adopted. There will be some slippage with respect to the budget if there is slippage in the consideration of appropriation bills. So at best, if we are to finish the second budget resolution by the end of October, we are going to have a very full plate, indeed, without trying to precipitate this issue into the middle of October.
So it seemed to me not unreasonable, taking into account these legislative problems — which I assume the President did not, because he had no responsibility for doing so — that the President would not find it unreasonable to consider an additional 15 days within the ballpark. If the President presumably undertook to consider the conveniences of the administrative process in suggesting a time frame, I do not think it inappropriate for us to consider the conveniences or imperatives of the legislative time frame. I do not think it is unreasonable to present them to him.
The distinguished Senator from Michigan has told us that the President is not available so that we can present them to him. We have from now until Wednesday for that purpose; and I repeat: I do not believe the President would be unreasonable. I doubt very much that he would veto the majority leader's proposal because of 15 days. If he does, that is his prerogative.
With respect to the 4(g) authority, the majority leader's proposal says that this period, whether it is 45 days or 60 days, shall not be interrupted by the President's use of this 4(g) authority to precipitate consideration of his decontrol proposals.
If we adopt whatever time it is — 45 days or 60 days — and 2 or 3 days after that period the President sends up a decontrol plan under his 4(g) authority, then we have to abandon, in effect, the time that we have voted ourselves for consideration and plunge into the substantive debate in order to act within 5 days.
Incidentally, that 5-day period under 4(g) , as a practical matter, is useful only on the House side. We cannot conceivably exercise our legislative prerogatives on the Senate side within 5 days.
Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. JACKSON. I just want to corroborate what the Senator has said, and that is that we were unable to act on the last proposal sent up by the President. We were in the embarrassing situation of being ready to move for days and days and we could not do a thing, and it was only the House that could act. That particular provision of the law must be corrected so that the legislative process can function. It cannot function in the Senate. It can function only in the House, and even there it was a tight squeeze.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the Senator from Washington. He is correct.
In addition, in the formal discussion we had with some of the Republican leaders before we came to the floor, they tried to reassure us on this point by saying that they could not imagine that the President would use the 4(g) authority to vitiate the time period to which we refer. If they cannot imagine it and implicitly would not approve of it, then what is their objection to including it?
Then there is no doubt. Then there is no doubt that for 45 days we will be free of the kind of confrontation which an exercise of the 4(g) authority would create, we would be free of that kind of confrontation, free to devote our time to finally resolving this issue, which we have found so difficult to resolve during, these many months.
I think it makes sense to create this kind of period in which we try to generate a spirit of compromise and accommodation.
I cannot really believe that the difference between 45 days and 60 days is that much of a hangup to the President, if it accommodates us under our legislative pressures and our legislative schedule. Surely, accommodation must take that into consideration.
Second, with respect to the 4(g) authority, I simply repeat that if everybody all around says it is inconceivable that the President would interrupt this period by an exercise of 4(g) authority, then what in Heaven's name is the objection to simply suspending that authority for 45 days?
Mr. PASTORE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. PASTORE. Mr. President, I associate myself with everything the distinguished Senator from Maine has said.
The voice that speaks now is the voice within a group of 61 Senators who voted to override that veto. We are not speaking from a minority position. We are speaking from a majority position.
Sixty-one Members of the Senate voted to override that veto. We were unsuccessful because, under the law, a two-thirds vote is required. I am not lamenting that fact. It is in the Constitution.
But, after all, whether one is a Republican or a Democrat, whether one comes from a consuming State or a producing State, it should be recognized that what we are saying now comes from the voice of 61 Senators of the 100 Members of this body.
There is no animosity involved here. There is no venom involved here. There is no embarrassment to the President. There is no embarrassment to the Republican Party. There is no embarrassment to anyone. But we have been admonished from time to time that we should cooperate; that whatever we should do to resolve this energy crisis should be done in a spirit of partnership.
What are we quibbling about? Here is the proposal. The proposal says that for 45 days, the Senate and the House should be left alone to analyze the proposals of the President and to come up with their own program; that if they do not do so within 45 days, then within the next succeeding 15 days, the President would have a perfect right to send up his own program and have it either approved or rejected in toto. That is what this is all about. How anyone can infer that this is some kind of backhanded strategy to embarrass the President is beyond me.
If you really want the Congress of the United States, if you really want 61 Members of this body, to join hands with you in doing what needs to be done for the benefit of the people of this country, I say the time has come when we have to begin to join hands and stop our confrontation.
I am not against Oklahoma. I am not against Wyoming. I am not against Michigan. I am not against Arizona. I am for the people. People are disturbed. People are greatly disturbed about these high prices and what might happen. I say, very frankly, that the President of the United States understands that today we are in a very bad way.
We are in a very bad way, because everyone admits that if these controls come off suddenly, it will be cataclysmic.
Already unemployment is high. Already, inflation is on the rampage. The big question here is how do we get together to stop it?
The point is that we do not have that much time and these programs have to be analyzed. All we are saying is, "If we cannot reach a consensus within 45 days, then, Mr. President, you do what you want under this (g) reserve." I do not know how much fairer we could be.
I do not know, really, what you want from us. What is it that you want? We are 61 and you are 39. What is it that you really want?
Do you want crucifixion? Is that the only answer? Must we march to Calvary? What is this?
I say, gentlemen, the time has come when we must say, let us sit down, as Lyndon Johnson used to say, and visit with one another.
No one here is trying to be political. No one here is trying to crucify anybody; nobody here is trying to embarrass anybody.
So I say, America is sick and tired of confrontation. What the people want today is cooperation. What they want is partnership.
They look at us and they say, we have elected 100 decent people to the Senate of the United States and all we hear back home is wrangle, wrangle, wrangle; politics, politics, politics.
All we are talking about here is the price of petroleum. And I tell the Senators, it is a serious problem. It is not easy for JOHN PASTORE to go home and tell John Doe, whom he meets on Main Street, that the price of gasoline is going to go up, and the price of home heating oil is going to go up. Our people are becoming more and more desperate. In my State, unemployment is over 16 percent. That is what this is all about.
I beg you — I beg you — If you want me to get on my knees, I will get on my knees, but I beg you, for once in your lives, will you listen to the voice of 61?
Mr. GARN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. For a question?
Mr. GARN. No, I would like to respond briefly to the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. MUSKIE. I will be happy to yield the floor. I had finished my remarks and what I did not finish, I think the Senator from Rhode Island took care of.
Mr. GARN. If I may, briefly, speak in the continuity of debate there.
Mr. MUSKIE. Well, I have yielded the floor.
Mr. GARN. I have listened to the debate. I have talked to the Senator from Montana and I would like the Senator from Maine to know that I do not object to the proposal or the substitute. I think 60 days is reasonable. I have no objection to removing the 4(g) authority during that time. I do not think it would be reasonable of the President of the United States to haggle over 15 days. I am only speaking as the Senator from Utah. I do not represent the President or the minority, but I would not support a veto if he vetoed 60 days. I think that would be ridiculous.
Having said that, let me say that I think it is just as ridiculous for the 61 on that side to haggle over 10 days with the House. The American public is sick and tired of wrangling. They are sick of the bickering. I have been out in Utah and they are darned tired of it. They would like some compromise.
We have an opportunity here just to pass a bill which was passed in the House, where the Democrats are 2 to 1. They are the Senators' Democratic colleagues over there, not ours. I think it is just as ridiculous for the Senate to haggle over 10 days as it would be for the President to haggle over 15.
Mr. PASTORE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. GARN. In just a moment, Senator.
Both sides, I think, are being ridiculous. If what the Senator said is true, why not get on with it, pass the House bill, get it into law tonight and avoid any possibility of the prices going up. The House could have stayed around long enough to work on it tomorrow, but it did not. If it had, then I would not object to the substitute.
I think we should ask the President to be fair, but let us be fair, too.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. PASTORE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. GARN. I yield to the Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator will remember that when I made the proposal, I made it not trying to ridicule the President's proposal for 45 days. I said the reason for choosing 60 is not just to be different. The reason for choosing 60 is solidly based upon a thoughtful consideration of the legislative pressures and activities that face us between now and November 1. Fifteen days makes a great deal of difference. It is not inconsequential. It makes a great deal of difference.
Mr. GARN. We are talking about 10 days of difference on the other side with the House.
Mr. MUSKIE. I think the House, after mature reflection — we have not presented this case to the House yet. I think the House, on mature reflection of what is involved with us, may decide the 60 days is a good idea.
Mr. GARN. I think the Senator is probably right, but they cannot until next Wednesday. I think that is the point.