April 25, 1978
Page 11412
TIME-LIMITATION AGREEMENTS
(Senator HART assumed the chair.)
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I should like to get some indication of where we stand this afternoon. The next issue will be presented by Senator CURTIS, a motion to recommit which he will offer. The next issue will be an amendment by the distinguished Senator from Delaware (Mr. ROTH). I understand that Senator TOWER may have an amendment.
Mr. CURTIS. Will the distinguished Senator yield?
Mr. PROXMIRE. If the Senator will yield, I have an amendment that would cut $5 billion from the budget authority at this time.
Mr. MUSKIE. I should like to find out right now. Senator CURTIS has agreed to 30 minutes to be equally divided.
Mr. CURTIS. I shall be glad to limit this to 30 minutes, 15 minutes on each side, assuring the Senate that we shall make up in quality of debate what we yield in length.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a time agreement of 30 minutes, equally divided, on the Curtis motion; and 1 hour, equally divided, on the Roth amendment.
Mr. ROTH. Will the Senator yield for a moment?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. ROTH. I understand that the Senator from California would like some time. I am not sure how much he wants.
Mr. MUSKIE. May we have unanimous consent on the Curtis motion, 30 minutes equally divided?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, as far as my amendment is concerned, I am satisfied to set it at 1 hour, to be equally shared, but the junior Senator from California would like 15 minutes prior to my resolution to give a statement.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished Senator from California have 15 minutes' time following the Proxmire amendment, to be followed by an hour on the Roth amendment, to be equally divided.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. Will the distinguished Senator from Maine yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, I yield.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. I wonder what the rush is. We are dealing with vast amounts of money here. I should like to have a chance to speak on the proposal to recommit. I might want to speak on the Roth amendment. I might want to speak on the Proxmire amendment. I might want to speak on other matters. I do not see why we have to get unanimous consent for 15 minutes on very important and vital issues.
Mr. MUSKIE. Any Senator may object, of course.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. I do not like to object. I may object.
Mr. MUSKIE. The unanimous consent requests have been put and agreed to.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I may have an amendment of selective cuts. I should agree to 30 minutes, 15 minutes on a side.
Mr. MUSKIE. May we have the attention of the Senator from Virginia? I put the unanimous consent request that on the Domenici amendment, there be 30 minutes equally divided.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. I heard the request. I did not object. I have no objection to any of the requests. All I am wondering is why we have to have such limited time on the vast sums of money which are involved. These amendments seem to me to be important amendments or they would not have been offered. I shall not object to the time limitation.
Mr. MUSKIE. I can only say to the Senator that, as far as I am concerned, the Budget Act provides for 50 hours of debate, 2 hours on every amendment. That is fine with me. There are, I think, possibly six amendments that are pending or about to be offered and, under the Budget Act, that would require 12 hours unless shortened.
It is the authors of those amendments who are suggesting the time agreements. If that is the will of the Senate, that is fine with me. I am willing to stay here all week on this resolution if that is the will of the Senate. But as these amendment sponsors seek to get time agreements, I put them to the Chair, as I am willing to do. I am not going to exercise unilateral opposition to them. If any Senator wishes to object, I certainly accept that. I am anxious to serve the will of the Senate.
Frankly, I hope that we will give this budget resolution enough attention so that, if and when we finally approve it, we will honor it and support it afterwards. If it takes a week to do that, I am willing to do that. I am not sure that time alone is the measure of the Senate's will. But if time alone will do it, I shall stay here 2 weeks on this resolution. I understand what the Senator is saying.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. You cannot get a very good understanding of something in 15 minutes, I will tell you that.
Mr. MUSKIE. I agree; I have difficulty myself.
Mr. SCOTT. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am in sympathy with what the floor managers are attempting to do to dispose of this. At the same time, I have the same concern as my colleague. I am wondering if the leadership on both sides, the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator from Maine, would indicate that if some Senator wants to speak, they have no objection to unanimous consent for that Senator to speak a few extra minutes. Maybe that would be a solution.
Mr. MUSKIE. It would not be necessary because we do have time on the bill. I assure Senators that if time has run out on any of these amendments or motions and any Senator wishes to speak, I would yield time on the bill. I would certainly do that.
Mr. SCOTT. I thank the Senator.
Mr. MUSKIE. I say that to the senior Senator from Virginia as well.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the distinguished senior Senator from Texas has an amendment, on which a 1-hour time agreement would be agreeable.
Mr. MUSKIE. I ask unanimous consent that there be an hour on the Tower amendment to be equally divided.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CURTIS. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.
Mr. MELCHER. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. CURTIS. I cannot yield on my time. I shall yield if he wishes to make a request.
Mr. MELCHER. Will the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee yield me 3 minutes on the bill?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, of course. I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Montana.
Mr. MELCHER. I thank the distinguished chairman and the distinguished senior Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. President, in this resolution, there is an item of $3.9 billion for budget authority for energy supply. I want to draw the attention of the Senate to a small portion of that. It is the magnetohydrodynamics, or MHD, program.
Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is a national program with involvement of a score of private and public research and engineering centers in almost as many States. The late Senator Lee Metcalf, Senator Mike Mansfield, and myself sponsored a symposium on November 6 and 7, 1969, at Eastern Montana College. With our State's vast coal reserves, we were advocating a crash program to develop an environmentally cleaner method such as MHD to generate electricity from coal. The MHD environmental advantages are no air pollution problems and very little water required. This technology further indicated an increase in efficiency of 40 to 50 percent.
At that time little or no Federal funds were being allocated for MHD research. However, in the early 1970's Federal involvement began to grow, and by 1975 the Energy Research and Development Administration had developed the "national open cycle MHD power development program." It has never been a crash program; in fact, many of us believe it has been underfunded. But we are now at a critical point when a policy decision must be made on whether the potential of MHD justifies an acceleration in the program.
The component development and integration facility will be operable in 1979. Although it is in Butte, Mont., the various component parts that will be tested at this facility are being developed at the score or more of centers scattered across the country. Only 9 percent of the total funds appropriated for the program have been spent in Montana. The bulk of the funds were for contracts let by ERDA for component parts, or "hardware."Avco, Westinghouse, General Electric, and others advocate an immediate acceleration of the program to acquire different components of different engineering for testing at the CDIF as quickly as possible. Two successes they point out justify the acceleration. These are development of the "super magnet" and Avco's test of a generator this past March which operated successfully for 250 hours before being shut down on schedule.
The advice of the engineers and scientists in these centers — loosely called the "MHD community" — is to accelerate the program this year to save not only time but also money. They firmly believe the development of another complete hot flow train, enlargement of the CDIF to rapidly test the various components and a determined start toward successful development of other components such as the air heater are essential for fiscal year 1979 funding of the program. They believe the MHD program can reach a point of successful design 18 to 24 months sooner by this acceleration.
I concur with their judgment, and I stress again it is a policy decision on the part of the committee which I hope will be affirmative.
Mr. TALMADGE. Will the distinguished Senator yield to me 1 minute on a privileged matter?
Mr. MUSKIE. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Georgia.