September 8, 1977
Page 28254
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, as the Senate considers S. 977, the coal conversion bill, it is appropriate to comment on the second budget resolution's relationship in function 300 to forthcoming energy legislation. This month will be "energy month" in the Senate, as we consider various bills that will comprise the national energy plan.
Funding for energy is classified in Function 300: Natural Resources, Environment and Energy. The ceilings for this function recommended in the second budget resolution for fiscal year 1978 are $24.9 billion in budget authority and $20.8 billion in outlays.
These amounts are sufficient to accommodate the various programs found in function 300. These programs include Federal energy activities including those in FEA, ERDA, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the environmental activities of the EPA, the water resources activities of the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, and various activities of the Department of Interior such as Parks and Federal Land Management.
Mr. President, the recommended ceilings for function 300 are ample. They are designed to fund the major new energy legislation that comprise the national energy plan, additional environmental programs, as well as to supplemental current funding for important natural resources programs. But the ceilings are not designed to accommodate every future spending request that may fall within function 300.
Let me outline the situation in this function. Appropriations to date total $15.5 billion in budget authority and $18.9 billion in outlays. These amounts are $9.4 billion in budget authority and $1.9 billion in outlays below the recommended ceilings of the second budget resolution as reported. While this difference is sizable, the expected requests for additional funding in this function from legislation not yet enacted are even greater.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table showing these expected requests for additional fiscal year 1978 funding in function 300 be printed in the RECORD at this point.
[Table omitted]
The table shows that expected requests for additional funding in function 300 total at least $11.4 billion in budget authority. Together with the other expected additional funding request in this function, the amounts for energy — if all were enacted and fully funded — would bring the functional total to $26.9 billion in budget authority. This is $2 billion above the recommended ceiling of $24.9 billion. Outlay totals associated with this budget authority are within the outlay ceiling of the second budget resolution. However, one reason we are so concerned with limiting budget authority is the future year outlay implications of such authority.
What all this means is that the recommended ceiling for budget authority in function 300 cannot accommodate every possible item that might emerge. Anyone who believes we should fund everything, who thus believes that the ceiling is too small, ought to try to amend the budget resolution when it is debated by the Senate rather than seek appropriations later that will breach the functional ceiling.
I firmly believe that the function 300 ceilings recommended by the Budget Committee are generous. Not extravagant, but generous. We are recommending, after all, a level that is $9.4 billion in budget authority and $1.9 billion in outlays above what already has been appropriated.
And we are recommending ceilings that are $4.2 billion in budget authority and $0.8 billion in outlays above the function 300 targets of the first budget resolution.
But in fiscal year 1978, we are facing a budget deficit of $64 billion, and we simply cannot afford to be extravagant. We cannot afford everything that we would like to have. But we can afford — and the recommended ceilings in function 300 of the second budget resolution allow for — major new spending in fiscal year 1978 for energy, environmental, and natural resource programs.