April 25, 1978
Page 11429
Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, I fully support the national budgetary goals set forth in Senate Concurrent Resolution 80. The proposed budget for fiscal year 1979 is designed to promote continued expansion of our national economy with an accompanying reduction in unemployment at the lowest possible risk of inflation.
However, in light of current balance-of-payments deficits, achievement of these goals will be difficult. As the Budget Committee's report indicates the United States balance of payments have swung from a surplus of $11.6 billion in 1975 to a record deficit of $20.1 billion in 1977, an outflow of an estimated $31.7 billion. This change has been caused in large part by the rapid expansion of oil imports. The critical nature of this capital outflow emphasizes the need for a strong national energy policy based upon the reduction of oil imports and the greater utilization of domestic energy supplies.
The budgetary needs for implementation of such a national energy policy were considered by the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in the formulation of its recommendations to the Budget Committee. In the committee's judgment the recommended budget authorities and outlays were viewed as necessary to achieve national energy program goals. The committee's recommendations also reflect anticipated enactment of the conference agreement on energy legislation associated with coal utilization, energy conservation, utility rate reform, and natural gas legislation.
In order to adequately provide for the implementation of this energy legislation, the Energy Committee recommended that the total budget authority for the energy function be increased by $1,531,000,000 above the President's proposed budget of $9.5 billion. The Energy Committee's recommendations were viewed as necessary to implement current law as well as agreements reached by the Senate-House conference on national energy plan legislation. The committee's recommendations do not reflect anticipated supplementary funding requests from the administration for major new energy supply initiatives. Such initiatives may require subsequent adjustments in the second budget resolution.
Mr. President, adequate funding for these energy programs is essential if we are to reduce oil imports without accompanying adverse impacts on our economy. Thus I am disturbed by the action of the Budget Committee in recommending a fiscal year 1979 target of $10.2 billion in budget authority for the energy function. This is $500 million below the $10.7 billion target recommended by the authorizing committees. Adoption of this ceiling is likely to preclude full implementation of the National Energy Act and the initiation of major new energy supply initiatives. For example, there is insufficient flexibility for the Congress to authorize significant additional projects for the early commercialization of coal gasification, oil shale and solvent refined coal.
Mr. President, in formulating its views and recommendations the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources gave major consideration to emerging national needs and priorities. Our concern was for the effective maintenance of ongoing programs of proven importance within the requirement for strict fiscal responsibility. The greatest possible emphasis was placed upon economic and fiscal restraint. The Energy Committee's recommendations thus were conservative. Therefore, I am deeply concerned for the potential impact of the Budget Committee's recommendation.
Mr. President, before continuing I wish to ask the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee (Mr. MUSKIE) for a clarification of the numbers for the energy function as set forth on page 74 of the report on Senate Concurrent Resolution 80. My question concerns the figure of $10.7 billion in budget authority as recommended by the authorizing committees.
The President's budget request for the energy function anticipated a refund of $500 million in "gas guzzler" taxes. However, I understand this refund is not assumed for in the Budget Committee's recommendation of $10.2 billion for theenergy function. Am I correct?
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, let me respond to the distinguished chairman of the Energy Committee by first noting that the Budget Committee does not line-item specific programs and projects. We do not attempt to establish programmatic detail in the functional targets we recommend. That is the task of the authorizing and appropriation committees.
In formulating the functional targets this year, we employed for the first time the concept of missions as a means to construct our recommendations. Use of these missions, which are displayed in the committee report accompanying the budget resolution, enable us to provide further explanation of our recommendations, without impinging upon the jurisdiction of the other committees. In formulating our recommendations, we must, of course, consider major spending proposals such as the gas guzzler tax refund.
The chairman of the Senate Energy Committee is correct in his interpretation of the committee's assumption regarding a refund of the proposed gas guzzler tax. The Budget Committee recommendation of $10.2 billion in budget authority does not assume enactment of legislation providing for these refunds, as the President's budget request proposes. The committee did not do so because the Senate Committee with legislative jurisdiction over the tax, the Finance Committee, made no mention of the tax or refund in its March 15 report, and because enactment of this refund, at this time, seems most unlikely. The refund is not part of either the Senate or House version of the energy bill now in conference.
Should the refund be enacted, funding for other programs would be affected. By the passage of an item not contemplated in the budget resolution, the competition for funds is increased. There are more claims placed upon the same number of dollars. Items that otherwise could be funded within the targets of the resolution might well be displaced if an unforeseen item, such as this proposed refund, were to require funding. This is one of the benefits of the new budget process. It forces related programs to compete, squarely and openly, for the limited dollars available.
Mr. JACKSON. I thank the Senator for his clarification of this point.
Mr. President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, I am disturbed by testimony and comments of administration officials indicating that the President's proposed budget consciously underfunded various programs in the expectation of major supplementary appropriation requests. This was of sufficient concern to the Energy Committee that its report to the Budget Committee states:
The President's proposed budget has consciously underfunded various programs in the expectation of submitting major "supplemental" appropriations requests later in fiscal year 1979.
To the extent that the committee has discovered such inadequacies in the proposed budget, this report recommends that the First Concurrent Budget Resolution for fiscal year 1979 and the relevant authorization and appropriations acts provide for adequate funding at this time.
The sizeable increases recommended by the Committee are, to a significant extent, occasioned by anticipated "supplemental" budget requests which will be necessary to carry out program activities currently anticipated by the Executive Branch, but not fully provided for in the President's proposed budget for fiscal year 1979.
The Budget Committee may wish to give its serious attention of this practice of deferring funds requests into "supplemental" appropriations measures. The adverse effects upon the budgetary process of such an approach are self-evident.
The Congressional process of annual authorizations and the First Concurrent Budget Resolution cannot be effective or rational if major policy decisions which will impact on the current and next fiscal year are habitually withheld by the Administration until initial budget decisions have been completed by the Congress.
Mr. MUSKIE. I welcome this comment by the distinguished chairman of the Energy Committee, and I share his concern.
If an administration consciously reduces its January budget request by not including funds for programs it fully intends to initiate and fund during the fiscal year, then its proposed budget is but an interim document that misleads the public, mocks the congressional budget process, and is an affront to those of us in the House and Senate who are working for budgetary discipline.
I cannot say this forcefully enough. Budgetary proposals must be presented in the beginning of the year, prior to the first budget resolution. The section of the Energy Committee's report quoted by Senator JACKSON is exactly right:
The congressional process of annual authorizations and the first concurrent budget resolution cannot be effective or rational if major policy decisions which will impact on the current and the next fiscal year are habitually withheld by the administration until initial budget decisions have been completed by the Congress.
Let me advise those in the executive branch responsible for budgetary matters that we expect the President's January budget to be a full and complete document. This administration, or any administration, no longer can simply send up major budgetary proposals whenever it suits them, and expect the Congress to wrench its budgetary process accordingly.
This year, the January budget does not contain funding requests for either the urban policy or for phase two, the new energy supply initiatives now under review in the Department of Energy. If the administration wants to fund phase two in fiscal year 1979, it should have so advised the Congress and presented its proposals in time for the Energy Committee to comment upon them in the March 15 report to the Budget Committee and in time for the Budget Committee to consider them in the context of the first budget resolution.