October 15, 1979
Page 28308
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine has 20 minutes on which he will control time.
The Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I heard the question raised of what importance is procedure when such very real human needs are involved, and I have seen so much of that instinctive reaction to problems in the last 2 weeks I am beginning to ask myself, "Are we ever going to honor procedure again?"
Whenever procedure gets in the way, the intent is to push it aside, roll it over, in order to achieve an immediate objective.
The Energy Mobilization Board bill last week, my objection to that was that we were giving to that Board powers to brush aside, to roll over, laws that had taken years to put on the statute books to protect values that Congress thought were important, that the country thought were important.
Now here what difference does it make if we add this $1.3 billion to this appropriation bill? Mr. President, we do have a budget process. If we add this amount to this bill this bill will be nearly $1.6 billion in outlays over the budget. I think that is an accurate figure; $1.6 billion, or close to it. That is the first point.
This program does not go to this particular appropriation subcommittee. The money is not allocated after the budget process is adopted to this subcommittee. So, if you give this subcommittee another $1.3 billion by means of this amendment, you are taking it away from some other subcommittee — which one I do not know, but it has to come out of somewhere. Otherwise, there will be a point of order raised with respect to some program, and it might be another program close to your hearts.
When you abandon procedure you have no way of knowing where the pressure is going to come, who is going to be heard. So this has no place on this appropriation bill. This appropriation bill will be over the budget if this amendment is adopted.
With respect to this program, I am the father of the existing program. I bulldozed it through.
How? Through the Budget Committee 3 or 4 years ago. I put it in the Community Services Administration, and now I am forced into the position of appearing to be against it.
I say to you that the best protection for programs of this kind is the budget process where priorities are established and then protected by the process.
Now, third, Mr. President, the Budget Committee of the House and the Budget Committee of the Senate are in conference at the present time. We began that conference last week. There are eight open functions that we have not been able to reach any agreement about. We have got the most difficult conference in my experience as chairman of the Budget Committee.
It is conceivable that the House and Senate conferees will not be able to reach agreement. It is conceivable that the budget process may well die or take the first step toward dying around the second concurrent budget resolution.
One of the difficult areas within which we are trying to reach agreement is energy. The Senate in the budget resolution has $22.5 billion unearmarked within the area of the energy supply mission. The House has roughly $14.5 billion in that mission. The House does have $1.6 billion for fuel assistance. The Senate has about $0.5 billion for fuel assistance. We are trying to work out agreement between the House and Senate positions that are widely separate.
If this amendment is adopted now, and I hope the budget process ends up with the result hoped for by the sponsors of this amendment, the issue will be taken out of conference, depriving the Budget Committee of important leverage in undertaking to accommodate differences with respect to a range of issues in the energy field, as well as other functions, from defense to human services programs which find the House and Senate apart.
I suppose there is nothing wrong in terms of the long range affairs of mankind if we just bypass the budget process and, having dispatched the Budget Committee into conference with the House to resolve issues like this, we take these issues back and decide them on the Senate floor, which is really what we are trying to do. I do not like any of this procedure with this bill, coming to the floor with a $20 billion synthetic fuels program without an authorizing bill — that is not my idea of the way to handle it. I think that bypasses procedure in a very unfortunate way, but now we are going to do it or we propose to do it, at least with respect to fuel assistance.
Mr. President, I am really not going to belabor the point. My heart is with the program which is the subject of this amendment, and I just cannot see doing it this way.
There is a way of achieving the same result by following procedures. If out of the budget conference the House and Senate conferees agree on a program of $1.6 billion which, I think, is a high probability, there is going to be a way of appropriating the money.
Mr. CHILES. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, I yield to my good friend.
Mr. CHILES. I just want to join in the remarks that the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee is making.
In addition to sitting on the Budget Committee I chair the Senate Committee on Aging. We held hearings early on, several months ago, really about the problem that was coming up in regard to the tremendous increases in cost and how they were going to relate to older people.
In connection with those hearings we testified before the Human Resources Committee on their need to come up witha measure that would take into consideration the problem we were facing.
I have been a supporter in the Budget Committee, and in the conference that is now going on, for the figure of $1.6 billionwe have been trying to negotiate in a coalition really made up of the fact that some of us are supporting that, some were supporting other measures that had to do with that package, and I agree with the Senator that if this amendment is adopted tonight and we put this on this bill, I do not know what that does to what I also agree was a very promising thing that we were going to get $1.6 billion available for this program, that we have the kind of coalition to do that.
I am also concerned that we are putting the money into this Interior bill. I do not think it should go to the Interior Subcommittee. I do not think that really is where this program belongs. I think this program belongs in the HEW Subcommittee on Appropriations, and I think that is where the people, Chairman MAGNUSON and the other people, who have been concerned and worked in this area are going to know something about the program.
I do not know that it goes in as a mark of money in the Interior Subcommittee, and what really will happen to that, given the fact that the general interests of that subcommittee are in areas dealing with new sources, exploration, leasing and into those kind of areas.
I think it would be very unfortunate to sort of jeopardize this item.
It is nice to be able to stand up and write your press releases back home and say, "We got on this area and we really did something about it." But I am convinced if we get it in the budget resolution we will find a way, we will then have agreement between the House and Senate, as to what the number should be.
It is our position in the Senate as to how we are cross-walking that and we are sending it into human resources, HEW, and that is where the money would be allocated, the function to which we are allocating it.
It would go into the proper place to which it should go.
I think if I were worried about whether I was going to be able to get energy assistance or not this year, the course on which we are embarking is much more certain to get there than to just say we now have a vehicle so we are going to put it on this bill, when we do not have the authorizing legislation yet before us, when we do not have the Budget Committee resolution of the problem and the understanding of this problem.
I just hate to see us have to go to a vote on this now because, like the Senator from Maine, I hate to vote against the program now; I hate to see other Members of the Senate vote against it, when we have been supporting it from the outset, when we have held hearings in our committee, the Aging Committee has, when we have gone to the Budget Committee and are now in conference fighting for the very dollars that are in this program, and now have it tacked on a bill that is considerably over its budget right now, and going higher, and this being an outlay and an add-on now is something that puts us in a position which again I think is going to jeopardize the very thing that all of us are trying to do in supporting the energy assistance.
So I feel it is very unfortunate that we are forcing this thing to a vote on this proposition, and I join the Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank my good friend. I had promised to yield to the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. NELSON) and then to the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. PRYOR).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senator from Mainethat he has 4 minutes remaining. The Senator from New York has 6 minutes and 35 seconds, and the Senator from Kentucky has 4 minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will state it.
Mr. DOMENICI. Is there any time remaining on the bill that the Senator from Kentucky could yield?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The only time is on the amendment.
Mr. NELSON. I wonder if I—
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield to the Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. NELSON. I do not think you want to yield me your time. I agree with what the Senator from Maine says about procedure, but I think it is urgent to do something. I better ask my time from—
Mr. JAVITS. I yield the Senator 2 minutes.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I agree with the Senator from Maine about the procedure. The problem that we have is that the Human Resources Committee has other bills. One of them is mine. My staff went to HEW 13 weeks ago, because all of that has been handled out of the Human Resources Committee under the OEO authorization passed in 1974, to try to get them to act on a formula and get moving. They got their formula out about 10 days ago, and it could not pass on this Senate floor under any circumstances.
The Finance Committee has several bills dealing with the subject. One of them is that of the Senator from Connecticut. It is tied in with the windfall profits tax. That legislation might be out on this floor a week from Wednesday or so. But if we do not move on it now, there will be no checks going out to people who need it before February 1.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I ask the Senator, does he think, if we approve this amendment today, the checks are going out tomorrow?
Mr. NELSON. No.
Mr. MUSKIE. I mean, you have to watch not only how fast we can vote today, but how fast the procedure will go from the vote today to checks in somebody's pocket.
What I am arguing for is to follow the regular procedure so that it can move as rapidly as possible, and I bet my horse will get to the wire as quickly as yours will. With all the debate, there does not seem to be any agreement on how to handle it.
Mr. NELSON. I think it ought to be block grants to the States. HEW thinks they ought to put it in FSI checks.
Mr. MUSKIE. There is only one place to put it, under the CSA in existing programs, for this year.
Mr. NELSON. But they do not—
Mr. MUSKIE. They would complain that we have not given them the money early enough in years past. We have been very tardy in getting the money out in acceptable form for use. But now the support is here, the administration is for it now, and they can get moving. But I do not think they can set up a new structure now.
Mr. CHILES. Would the Senator agree that we have even a failsafe when the continuing resolution comes back November 6?
Mr. MUSKIE. Oh, yes, there is no question about it.
Mr. NELSON. But that will not help for the additional $1.2 billion.
Mr. MUSKIE. Oh, yes, it will.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. PRYOR. If the Senator from Wisconsin requires additional time to ask a question of the Senator from Maine, I yield to him.
Mr. NELSON. No.
Mr. PRYOR. I thank the Senator from Maine for yielding. I would like to state very briefly that I have been listening to this debate very carefully, because I heard a portion of it about 3 weeks ago in the Committee on Aging, which the Senator from Florida chairs, and he has spoken here this afternoon.
My first concern, Mr. President, is, first, that we are going over the budget, and second, that I do not think we have necessarily laid down a concrete solution for a criterion for expending properly this $1.3 billion. We say that we are going to basically give sort of a bloc grant, I guess you would say, to CSA, theCommunity Services Administration. That sounds fine, but my question is this, and I would like to ask the distinguished Senator from New York, who is distinguished by his compassion for people, we are going to be placed in a very precarious position because of the questions that still have to be raised, and also the balance we are attempting to achieve for these people.
First, I would like to ask, what is the criterion? Is it based on the percentage of the population over 60 or 65? Is it based on the AFDC program? What part do food stamp allocations have to play in the disbursement of this money? Does the temperature have anything to do with it? For example, is Hawaii going toget the same amount of money as the average for the Union? The same, say, as in Senator RIBICOFF's State of Connecticut?
Finally, it has been brought to the attention of the Committee on Aging that this includes as much as a 10-percent administrative cost, which I think will create yet another bureaucratic nightmare if this proposal is passed without us giving it a proper amount of questioning.
Once again, I applaud the efforts and integrity of the Senator from New York to bringing this matter to our attention, but I have these questions about it, and Iwould appreciate the Senator's responding to those questions.
Mr. JAVITS. Mr. President, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to the Senator's questions.
Section 222(a) (5) of the Equal Opportunity Act gives the money to the Community Services Administration for emergency energy conservation services "to enable low income individuals and families, including the elderly and the near poor, to participate in energy conservation programs to lessen the impact of the high cost of energy on such individuals and families," and so on.
To carry it out, now in the HEW conference report is $250 million, which is being made available. That is distributed based on climate, the poverty level, and fuel costs, to be set by the CSA and the Governors. Actually, under the administration plan, the CSA is going to distribute $400 million to the Governors, and the balance of it will go to AFDC and SSI recipients.
That is the emergency program. There is nothing new about it; it has been tried for $200 million already. It is just that the pressure this year is growing because of increased fuel costs.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield me 2 minutes?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine has 1 minute and 30 seconds remaining.
Mr. MUSKIE. You may have it.
Mr. DOMENICI. Could I have an additional 30 seconds?
Mr. HUDDLESTON. I yield the Senator an additional 30 seconds.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am sure the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Florida do not need the Senator from New Mexico to support their position, that they are wholeheartedly and unequivocally for this program. In fact, the Senator from Maine is much too modest. The most significant portion of this program is his bill. He was the first one to introduce it. He shepherded it personally through the Budget Committee and the committees involved here. He would not stand up on the floor of the Senate and try to defeat a measure that is more needed now than when he started. I think the Senator from Maine would agree with that.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do.
Mr. DOMENICI. It is not getting less, it is getting more. The President has included it in his program in a very dramatic way. The Senator from Florida, who chairs the Committee on Aging, is fully aware that those to whom his committee is dedicated are the most in need. He would not be here on the floor opposing that effort.
The problem is that we want to see to it that we get this program and get it in the best possible, manageable manner in the quickest way.
I think we are convinced that by adopting this amendment we will not do that, but rather that we should postpone it and let it run its normal course. The Senators are both fighting, as I am, to make sure that the program exists and can come alive to help our people. We do not want to solve the problem in a singular way that is apt to cause it to work less than well. We hope the Senator from New York, having made his case, will give us time to make sure we can report back to the Senate that if there is room for between $1.3 billion and $600 million in the budget process, let two committees work their way in the next couple of weeks. That is what we wish. We certainly urge that on the Senator from New York.
I thank the Senator for yielding time.