June 25, 1976
Page 20686
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, at this time I would like to make a few brief comments on the ERDA authorization bill, S. 3105, so that Members of the Senate can be aware of the bill's budgetary implications from the standpoint of the first budget resolution.
Let me first point out that this is an authorization bill, not an appropriations bill. Yet we are all aware of the kinds of pressure that authorizations bills can place upon the appropriations process. Restraint in the appropriations process will be essential in the energy area if the priorities and limits of the congressional budget are to be observed and the targets not to be exceeded.
Such restraint has already begun. Just last Wednesday the Senate passed the public works/energy appropriation bill which provides most of the funds for ERDA. As passed, that bill appropriated funds well below the level authorized in this bill. While additional funds are to be appropriated to ERDA in the Interior and related agencies appropriation bill, the final amount appropriated to ERDA is likely to be considerably less than the amount authorized in the pending legislation.
Indeed, unless such restraint is observed, the allocations of the congressional budget for energy purposes will be exceeded.
As I have mentioned many times before, Mr. President, the congressional budget process is not a line item process and the Budget Committee is not a line item committee.
Although the Budget Committee does not deal in line items, we obviously had to make assumptions regarding major program areas in order to arrive at meaningful budget targets. In the case of energy, for example, the first budget resolution assumes funding of $5.1 billion in budget authority and $4.2 billion in outlays. If we are to spend more than this for energy, then some other area of the budget will have to be cut unless we wish to increase the deficit. This amount, by the way, is $1.1 billion in budget authority and $0.8 billion in outlays above the President's January budget request, in light of the greater emphasis Congress puts on progress toward lower cost energy and national energy sufficiency.
The pending bill authorizes $6.8 billion for ERDA in fiscal year 1977. This amount, if fully funded, would result in outlays of $5.7 billion. These figures, let me add, are net amounts in that the legislation assumes $700 million in ERDA receipts that would be used to offset agency spending.
The funding for ERDA falls into three of the functional categories of the budget: First, function 050 — national defense, second, function 250 — general science, space and technology, and third, function 300 — natural resources, environment and energy.
In each of these functions the amounts authorized in the pending bill, if fully funded, would exceed the spending assumed in the first budget resolution. The potential exceeds in one function — natural resources, environment and energy, function 300 — requires particular discussion.
The problem before us is that Congress will be considering a wide variety of energy legislation that impacts on function 300 — including the pending bill — that, if fully funded at the authorization levels, would result in spending far in excess of our first budget resolution assumptions — more than $1 billion higher in the case of budget authority and about $500 million higher in the case of outlays.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD at this point a table showing these various pieces of energy legislation and their potential impact on function 300 if they were fully funded.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[Table omitted]
Mr. MUSKIE. The arithmetic of the table compels the conclusion that in several instances at least, the Appropriations Committee will have to fund energy programs at levels below what is authorized if Congress is to stay within the targets in the first budget resolution. Indeed, the potential for far exceeding the budget resolution targets is such that the Committee on Appropriations may have to make deeper than usual cuts.
I realize that the ERDA bill is only one of several energy bills that will come before the Senate. But from a budget standpoint the bill is the largest single piece of energy legislation we will debate, and the Senate should be aware of the budgetary picture for energy. We simply cannot appropriate the full amount for each of the energy bills without breaking the congressional budget target.
Though we must keep the budgetary situation clearly in mind, I believe this bill should pass. This bill will continue research and development in nuclear power, an energy source vital to New England. The bill will expand our fossil fuel and solar energy efforts upon which the entire Nation's long term energy future depends. And it will accelerate work on energy conservation, a program with vast potential yet to be fully realized. So I support this bill, even though full funding is unlikely.
Mr. President, let me add just one last comment about this bill in regard to the provision which authorizes $230 million to begin work on a new Federal uranium enrichment plant. I support this program — as I supported the $170 million for it in the public works appropriation bill — because it seems evident that the Nation needs additional enrichment capacity, though exactly how soon and how much is not at all clear.
I am aware that the administration's bill to allow ERDA to guarantee the entry of private ventures into the uranium enrichment business is now on the calendar. It is my understanding that as revised by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, that bill, S. 2035, provides that each contract ERDA plans to enter into with these private enrichment ventures will have to be approved by Congress. If S. 2035 is enacted, several of these contracts will be submitted shortly thereafter. The parameters of the first of these contracts have been disclosed and can be described as exceedingly generous.
The Federal enrichment facility authorized to be started in the pending bill offers an alternative to at least the first of these guaranteed private ventures, an alternative that should be utilized if ERDA is unable to negotiate a contract that protects the interests of the United States.
I thus support this $230 million authorization as an important feature of congressional energy policy. It represents a start toward needed expansion of our enrichment capability. It also represents a means to encourage ERDA to negotiate firmly with the private enrichment ventures.