November 14, 1979
Page 32285
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, for the benefit of Senators who are interested, I do not expect that a vote on the Dole amendment will take place very soon, at least not before I have an opportunity to describe what I understand to be the consequences of the vote just taken for States in circumstances similar to my own State's and what would be the consequences of approval of the Dole amendment. There are some 29 States which are in those circumstances.
The immediate effect of adoption of the Dole amendment or the vote on the tabling motion would indicate that, at the moment, the majority of the Senate would support the Dole amendment. The effect of that, for those Senators who have been interested in the Boschwitz amendment, would be to kill the Boschwitz amendment. We would have no other opportunity to modify the Boschwitz amendment to try to accommodate the Boschwitz amendment to the committee bill.
What the Dole amendment does is move in the opposite direction from the direction in which those of us from cold States sought to move with the Boschwitz amendment. The Dole amendment does not involve a lot of money, but what it does is establish a floor for three States: Louisiana, Mississippi, and Hawaii. Those are estimable States, but they are not cold States.
Senator DOLE listened to the debate on the Boschwitz amendment, which is designed to modify the pending bill to a more sensitive response and a more appropriate response to the problems of the poor who are cold. The Senator from Alaska knows what I am talking about, and there are other Senators who know. His response is not to try to accommodate our problem, but to provide even more money for the warmer States, so that more money is to be taken away from the colder States. That is what the Senate just voted to do. I simply cannot casually submit to that judgment without protesting and, at the same time, wrack my brain for some way to move in a more equitable direction with respect to the people in my State.
I have listened to the rationale on the committee bill. What it is is this, as I understand it—
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, may we have order?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If the Senator will suspend.
Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield for just a moment?
Mr. MUSKIE. Without losing my right to the floor.
Mr. STEVENS.. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senator not lose his right to the floor while I make a brief comment, since he mentioned my State.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the Senator from Maine is, I think, right on course.
Mr. President. as far as I am concerned, I am from the coldest State of the Union. The impact of the bill we just passed in Interior appropriations, $1.6 billion, would provide Alaska with some $5 million in assistance. It will cost our people more money in taxes than this bill will bring back to our State. With the Dole formula that is cut down significantly and we would be paying $14 million to Washington to achieve that.
I am willing to support the bill with the Muskie amendment because I understand some of the problems of the cold States in New England. But I would urge the absolute defeat of this bill if we do not change it the way the Senator from Maine wishes, because the people from cold States are paying more than those from these warm States.
There is no reason for this fantastic amount of assistance to be going into States which do not have a heating problem.
We just debated this in the conference committee on the Interior appropriation bill. We debated it at length. Now I see even the Dole formula does not go as far as we want in the Interior bill in trying to work out the balance for the cold States.
In my opinion, the Boschwitz and Muskie formula is the minimum that ought to be agreed to.
Again, I personally urge defeat of the bill with the Dole amendment because existing law in the Interior appropriation bill that is going to the President for his signature now is better than the Dole formula, with all due respect to my friend from Kansas.
Mr. DOLE. Will the Senator yield at that point?
Mr. STEVENS. I do not have the floor. He has the floor.
I want to say that there is no reason for this bill at all if it is going to obscure existing law.
I think Members of the Senate ought to reconsider this because we just voted on the Interior appropriation bill to provide a formula for the first year that is workable.
If we cannot work it out suitably now, let us at least let the first year proceed and not pass a bill, or not attempt to place a bill on the windfall profits tax legislation — if it is worse than the bill already sent to the President.
I thank the Senator from Maine.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
Mr. MUSKIE. I will yield in a moment.
But I would like to take up what we have just been told by the Senator from Alaska (Mr. STEVENS) .
Mr. President, the fact is, I say to the Senators here, that the formula written into law in the Interior appropriations bill with the support of a majority of this Senate and a majority of the House is on its way to the President — if he has not already signed it — and it more accurately reflects the kinds of equities that Senator BOSCHWITZ seeks to serve with his amendment than the committee bill.
The fact is that with a program this winter going into effect under the Interior appropriation bill formula, it will be cut back — cut back in many of our States if the pending bill becomes law for 1981 and 1982.
Let me emphasize that again. If this year's program is administered in accordance with the formula of the Interior appropriation bill — as it will be — and if the pending bill becomes law for 1981 and 1982, my State in 1981 will find its program cut back 38 percent.
Now, what kind of sense, what kind of justice, will that be perceived as being by the people of affected States?
We pass one law for the 1980 heating season and within a week we pass another law that cuts it back for States in the cold-weather areas of the country for 1981 and 1982.
That may make sense to those Senators who voted against tabling the Dale amendment. It does not make sense to me. It does not make sense to the Senator from Minnesota.
We are going to talk about this nonsense and this injustice until somehow we get the message across to my colleagues in the Senate.
This body is made up of a lot of people who have different opinions about a lot of subjects. But I find we are not all totally parochial in our view. We are not totally insensitive to concepts of fairness and justice.
The fact is that I considered offering an amendment — I still may if I can find a way to do it, but it will be hard to do with the Dole amendment standing between me and that objective — to write into this bill the formula we approved in the Interior appropriation bill.
What could be more sensible than that? If we start a program for the 1980 heating season under one formula, why do we not continue with it for 2 or 3 years to see whether it works, and then change it. But, to change it before we have even implemented the program for this year; what kind of nonsense is that?
We are told that the Human Resources Committee and the Finance Committee debated these issues at length and they came up with a formula in the bill before us. I say to the Senate that the House and Senate conference on the Interior appropriation bill went through the same kind of exercise, listening to the arguments, discussing the issues, and I am sure the case on every side was put as vigorously as it was in the Finance Committee and the Human Resources Committee.
Why then do we not adopt that formula instead of this formula which changes the rules after one winter?
I mean, what is so almighty right about the formula in this bill that justifies us in concluding that the Interior appropriation bill formula is wrong?
And if we do that, what will we do next week about the formula — next week, when some other vehicle brings the issue before us and we consider what we ought to do?
The Senate would be spinning around on the merry-go-round so fast that all our heads would be turned. We would not know where to focus our attention or what equities to serve.
Mr. President, I do not intend to let this come to a vote until we get a better shake with respect to this issue and our very real problem that we are now faced with in the form of the Dole amendment. I do not intend to stop talking until we find a way to do that.
Before we debated this this afternoon, all yesterday afternoon and all today, we debated formulas, modifications of the committee bill, and there seemed to be no reluctance on the part of the floor manager or the chairman of the Finance Committee to recognize that maybe we had a case to which they ought to respond.
Before noon today, we had been presented, I think, with four different alternatives — three alternatives to the Boschwitz amendment and three modifications of those alternatives based upon the idea of a floor. None of those ever has been offered. They were offered privately. They were considered as a possible consensus. None has been offered.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. Instead, the Dole amendment — I watched the activity on the floor — was generated out of the leadership on the bill pending before us; and apparently it was offered in order to block these other proposals that we had been considering in private as a possible compromise.
That is what the Dole amendment is. The Dole amendment does not represent any of the substantive alternatives that were discussed over a 24-hour period, with one of which we almost reached agreement — not one of them. All it does is pick up the floor for three States. Obviously, that is not the real thrust of the Dole amendment.
Hawaii, Mississippi, and Louisiana do not really need that kind of supplemental assistance with respect to either heating costs or total energy costs. The Dole amendment was offered to block any other modification of Boschwitz-Muskie.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Dole amendment is approved, we cannot amend further. We could offer any of the proposals that have been considered seriously by the chairman of the Finance Committee, the floor manager of the bill, and other Senators, all of whom have been working for 24 hours to try to put together a consensus formula.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. And we cannot offer them now. I want to be sure that the whole picture is laid out, I say to the Senator from Kansas.
Mr. WILLIAMS. If the Senator is interested in that. will he yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Before I ask the question, I will refer to the evolution in discussion of proposals for an amendment.
We all were part of it — the Senator from Maine, the Senator from Minnesota, the Senator from Louisiana, I and others.
It was first discussed, and so designated, as alternative No. 1 to Boschwitz-Muskie, and the runs were made. That was discussed and the runs were made on the basis of no minimum.
Later on — and this took a long time, over many hours — another alternative Boschwitz-Muskie amendment was drawn, incorporating a minimum.
Then there was a gathering, and it was felt that one of those was going to be offered by the Senator from Minnesota. So we all repaired to our, desks and looked to the Senator from Minnesota, and the amendment was not either of those alternatives. It was a total surprise to me, I know, to go down there and find the scribbling of the amendment that incorporated the original Boschwitz-Muskie amendment.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I respond to that?
Mr. WILLIAMS. I am going to ask the Senator to respond.
After all those hours of development and of those runs that were made and a feeling — obviously, not a certainty, but there was a feeling — that we were going to have one of the alternative Boschwitz-Muskie amendments we had all worked on, then came a surprise.
Mr. MUSKIE. It was not a surprise.
Mr. WILLIAMS. It was to us.
Mr. MUSKIE. Wait a minute. I see the Senator from Louisiana shaking his head "yes." I will tell the Senator what my conversation was, in the time frame to which he has been addressing his remarks.
We were trying to move toward a consensus. A handful of us were involved. The Senator from Louisiana constantly emphasized that he had to be sure that the people on his committee were fully apprised of everything with respect to their interests in their States. We received like consideration.
So, before we met to a final agreement — I do not want to be accused again of saying something that my friends did not hear — we sent our staffs out to prepare this sheet, which was designed to show Senators the basic choices: The committee bill, the original Boschwitz-Muskie amendment, and the alternative that we thought might be the basis for compromise. That is the point to which our discussions, I understood, had finally reduced themselves — three possible options.
By the time these sheets came back to us, they were being distributed to other Senators, so that other Senators could react; and we were made aware of inequities, from the point of view of some Senators, that we had not considered as we were developing the proposed compromise.
So Senator LONG, Senator BOSCHWITZ, and I — and I thought Senator WILLIAMS — again he is going to miss what I am saying. Senator WILLIAMS was in the grouping around Senator LONG's chair. I said:
Why don't we ask Senator BOSCHWITZ to lay down his amendment so that we can begin the discussion and so that all Senators will have an input into it? Then, in the course of that discussion, maybe we can generate support for one or another of these alternatives. At least, Senators will have a chance to respond to them, to raise questions about them.
So the Boschwitz amendment was not offered in defiance of the negotiating process in which we had been engaged. It was offered as a way of continuing the negotiating process.
Then, suddenly, we were confronted with the Dole amendment, which cut all this off — all of them.
Mr. DOLE. Not all.
Mr. MUSKIE. We had no opportunity to develop a consensus behind one of these other options or some modification of them — none whatsoever. The negotiations were completely without any significance or meaning at this point.
The Dole amendment is not suggested as an option. We never discussed it as an option — not at all. In the six alternatives — and that is what they come down to — not one has been presented.
Senator BOSCHWITZ has discussed the Boschwitz-Muskie amendment, with a minimum, with Senator DOLE, and we thought that Senator DOLE was positive and responsive to that, but that is not what Senator DOLE offered.
Another Senator was interested in offering the alternative with a minimum which we discussed and which came closest to being a consensus amendment before we hit the floor with it, but that never was offered.
Instead, we are completely sidetracked by an amendment which blocks all these other efforts at compromise — completely blocks any attempt on the part of the Northern States, who believe we have a good case, from any opportunity to get equity, either in the form of the Boschwitz amendment No. 1 or Boschwitz No. 2, or these others, or some modification.
The floor manager and the chairmen of these committees have decided to play hardball. Since they cannot get us to play it their way, they are going to shove it down our throats. That seems to be what the shift in tactics is all about. I can understand the temptation of people who have the votes on the floor to use those votes to ride roughshod over a perceived minority, and I suppose that has been done more than once. I have seen it done more than once. But I really expected something more from the sympathy that I was told the floor manager and the chairman of the Finance Committee felt toward our problem. They assured us of that.
Now they have been engaging in a parliamentary tactic that blocks us off, cuts our feet from under us. I do not understand why, because 29 States would benefit from the Boschwitz amendment over the committee amendment. But the Senators from some of those 29 States have been blocked because they are tied down to the agreement between the Human Resources Committee and the Finance Committee to attach this bill to the windfall profits tax and to make the human resources bill the fuel assistance policy of this Congress. So in order to get that bill attached to Finance, Human Resources struck a deal with Finance which required that all the members of both committees stick to the deal. That is what we are confronted with, and that is where we lost the votes.
All he has to do is go through the roll call to identify the Senators from cold States who supported this.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to make sure we do not get too far from the facts?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. WILLIAMS. If the Senator looks at the last roll call, he will find that a lot of members of the Labor and Human Resources Committee voted to table Dole. That is contrary to what the Senator said.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is their judgment. There are a lot who did not.
Mr. WILLIAMS. They are not locked into anything. That vote shows it. There is a lot of opinion here but that is fact, and they are not locked in and they voted against the position of this chairman. I do not know what happened with the chairman of the Finance Committee, that is, whether his troops were solidly with him or not.
Mr. MUSKIE. I am not going to pursue that line.
Mr. WILLIAMS. The Senator should not start it.
Mr. MUSKIE. I talked to some of the Senators from States that would be benefitted and heard their response personally about why they could not support the motion to table.
Whether they all did, I have not analyzed the roll call vote, no. But I have talked to enough of them to know that they were influenced by their commitment to this agreement.
Mr. WILLIAMS. The Senator is saying he was partially wrong in what he said before.
Mr. MUSKIE. I will concede that if the Senator will concede he is partially wrong.
Mr. WILLIAMS. I found no one locked in. I tried to lock a few in.
Mr. MUSKIE. I withdraw my concession.
If the same facts do not suggest the same conclusion to both of us then the facts are disputable. That is what the Senator is saying.
Mr. WILLIAMS. There is no one on the committee who contributed more to the work of the Labor and Human Resources Committee in energy and his response to it than the Senator from Wisconsin, and I believe he voted earlier today.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is quite clear from the vote earlier today and I acknowledged that. The Senator from Wisconsin is a man who has my highest respect as a Senator. I have the highest esteem of him and his friendship. As a matter of fact, I have the same feelings toward the floor manager of the bill. But that does not mean I agree with every conclusion the two Senators draw or the Senator agrees with every conclusion I draw about what the facts in my State relative to this problem mandate that I do.
The Senator has had his way with the vote on the last amendment. I see no way to get my way or anything approaching it. So I am engaged in protesting what I regard as an act of injustice by the Senate, and I will protest as long as I have voice to do so, and I am trying to do so.
Mr. LONG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I am trying to do so. I see other Senators. I do not often do this. As a matter of fact, this is my 21st year in the Senate, and I can recall only one other time in which I have sought to use delay and extended debate to make a point and to achieve justice. I am not a filibusterer. If I did not believe deeply about this I would not be standing here. I could be quiet and let the committee bill pass and then go to my State and say, "See what I did for you; you have $25 million coming in the State next year," if that is what the figure is. I will not have to tell them next year it will be cut back to $18 million because of this bill. But it will be. It will be cut back to $18 million next year if this bill becomes law. I will have to explain that next year.
Mr. LONG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. But I will not take that row. I think this is an injustice.
Mr. LONG. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes.
Mr. LONG. Mr. President, it seems to this Senator that what the Senator from Maine is doing right now is illustrating and proving the point that the Senator from Louisiana has been trying to make in the beginning, and that is that whatever we come up with here should be a compromise because a number of States, feeling that they are being victimized, have every right, and when they feel strongly their Senators will stand on this floor and do just what the Senator from Maine is doing, talk at length and make clear that they do not think it is fair, that they do not think it is right and marshal their case. The difficulty about it is that when you get something that has perhaps a majority but that does not have a 60-percent majority, Senators who feel strongly that they are not being treated fairly might feel so strongly that they just keep on talking about the matter and we never do pass anything.
What this Senator hopes to do is to try to accommodate the views of all Senators, especially insofar as they have a good point and a good logical argument.
Mr. MUSKIE. Why does the Senator exclude me from that?
Mr. LONG. Just a minute. I will explain to the Senator why I do not. This Senator has worked on the Finance Committee, and his committee managed to work out a compromise where we came out with a formula. Everyone on the committee voted for it. Every single Senator on the committee voted for a formula that we agreed upon, even though I think those from the frost-belt States felt they were not getting all the consideration they deserved and those from the sunbelt States felt that they certainly were not getting all the consideration they deserved. But we have agreed on a formula and we voted for it.
Mr. MUSKIE. Does the Senator believe that the legislative process stops in committee?
Mr. LONG. No. But now the same formula that we are talking about was agreed to in the Labor Committee where there was not a single Senator from the so-called sunbelt at all on that committee so that the nearest one
Mr. MUSKIE. It was not agreed to in the conference on the Interior appropriations bill.
Mr. LONG. I do not know about that. I am familiar with the bill I am talking about here.
Please understand, I say to the Senator, as far as the Senator from Louisiana is concerned, he is willing to compromise. I think the Senator from Maine knows that.
He has discussed with the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Minnesota and others various suggestions, and may I say to the Senator that when the Senator from New Jersey was on his feet and referred to the fact that the Boschwitz amendment that was offered was a surprise, I hope the Senator will pardon the Senator from Louisiana for nodding. It was not much of a surprise to me, because I was not sure which Boschwitz amendment he was going to offer. But it was a surprise to the Senator from New Jersey, and that is what I was nodding about. It was a surprise to the Senator from New Jersey because he was under the impression the Boschwitz amendment which was going to be offered was one that had been the subject of some negotiations and was something of a compromise between those who had offered the original proposal and the other one.
Mr. WILLIAMS. I have my speech in which I was going to agree with it. It will never be given, I guess.
Mr. LONG. As a matter of fact, the Senator was going to agree with the proposed compromise by the Senator from Minnesota. So it was clearly a surprise to him.
The Senator from Louisiana was not sure which Boschwitz amendment was going to be offered, but he knew that the Senator was thinking about offering his original suggestion rather than one of the compromise proposals that have been discussed.
But the Senator has a good point when he says he proposes to stand here and fight as he has the capability to fight for what he believes is right, and I hope he understands that he is not the only Senator who has the talent, the ability, and the inclination to do that when he really feels that his State is not being treated fairly. That is why this Senator believes that what we need is something that takes into consideration the arguments of all and the views of all parts of the Nation. not just something that one section of a nation imposed on another, but something where we all try to consider the viewpoint of the others and bring something that shows respect for the point of view of all Senators and all States.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I say to the Senator, first of all, I suppose I should not have made an ambiguous nod a matter of record, and if I misinterpreted the Senator's nod, I apologize. But, second, the Senator talks compromise and he surely did, all yesterday afternoon and all morning, and he was still talking compromise as I was when it was agreed that Senator Boschwitz would offer his amendment, but then the Senator participated in the Dole strategy which cut off all possibility of compromise. So I assume that the Senator's patience for compromise had terminated at some point without my realizing it.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. As a matter of fact, when Senator DOLE rose, at that moment we were considering offering one of the proposals that we had considered as a compromise, and of course we were cut off by the action of Senator DOLE.
Since I referred to Senator DOLE a couple of times, I will yield to him without losing my right to the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. STEWART). The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. DOLE. The fact is that the Senator from Maine knows the Senator from Kansas — maybe I just came in at the wrong moment, but I did not see anything happening around here, and I thought I could get something happening, get this thing moving again. I was prepared to offer at one point the Boschwitz-Muskie proposal with the floor; but I did not see the Senator and the Senate then decided to go to something else. I remembered the majority leader's admonition to do something.
I certainly am willing to compromise. I was not in on all of the negotiations even when this bill was brought to the floor. The Senator from Kansas had no part in that. But I will say again, having gone through the exercise in the Senate Committee on Finance adopting the approach taken by the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Minnesota, and having failed in that, it seemed to me that we had an obligation in the Committee on Finance to do something, and with the leadership of the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin and others on the committee, we finally forged this compromise.
It was not satisfactory to everyone, but at least it was something we could get out of the committee by unanimous vote. So, in effect, what we have now as the Dole amendment is the Human Resources Committee formula with the Senate Finance Committee floor. The two committees adopted essentially the same low-income energy assistance programs, and I ask unanimous consent at this point to put a description of both in the RECORD. I will not go through all the differences.
There being no objection, the description was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
Mr. DURKIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a short question?
Mr. MUSKIE. I have the floor.
Mr. DOLE. I hope that perhaps we will have an opportunity to work out a compromise. I am not trying to block a compromise. I am trying to stir up one, and if we can accomplish that we have made some progress.
Mr. MUSKIE. I think in order to move toward a compromise the Senator's amendment would have to be withdrawn.
Mr. DOLE. I may do that.
Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a comment without his losing the floor?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes.
Mr. BENTSEN. Let me point out again what the Senator from Maine has talked about and what the Senator from Kansas has talked about. There has been a compromise. The administration bill that was proposed to the Committee on Finance was more favorable to Texas, frankly, and we have had a long and tough fight with a very diverse committee, with a wide spectrum of philosophy.
You have seen the same thing happen in the Committee on Labor and Human Resources. So what you have brought before you is really the result of a great deal of compromise taken over a long period of time.
But the comment was made earlier about how can you arrive at a formula, how can you do justice to this and try to get some kind of correlation for it? We had such an approach, I think, in the Committee on Finance because we had the Community Services Administration study here in Washington in 1977 that said that half of the energy costs for a poor family goes to heat. I am sure that it probably exceeds that sum in Maine but, nevertheless, there was a ratio, and we arrived at that radio, and we gave half credit for degree days, and we adjusted that for the poor.
Then we tried to balance that off. There was a rationale to this approach. We tried to balance that off by the energy costs to the individual family.
We are talking about the problems of the poor across this Nation, and we have given additional consideration to the colder States of our Nation because, frankly, we thought they had the best part of the argument.
But when we talk about taking 75 percent, and then squaring that, I cannot see any rationale at all in something called squaring. I do not believe it is a square amendment when you try to bring in that kind of an approach.
Frankly, what we are talking about are the same things the Senator is talking about, which are the choices for the poor, whether it is for heating or lighting or cooking or keeping their food from spoiling. They are tough choices today, and the costs have gone up at a very substantial rate and to a very substantial degree.
If you use just degree days, you take a situation like the State of Washington, which has a substantial number of degree days above the national average. Yet, when it comes to the cost per family for energy they are dead last, they are the lowest. So you run into some major inequities, and that is what we have tried to finally balance out.
You feel just as strongly as you do, I say to the Senator, and I feel just as strongly on the other side. But I have been through that fight and I have been through that compromise, and that is what I thought we had brought before us and that is where I have to stand.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator has heard the old saying — and I forget what senatorial character first uttered it, but he was for every compromise of which he was a part.
I was not a part of one of the compromises that went into the committee, and I have rarely seen a controversial piece of legislation where compromise has been limited to the committee. The Senate is entitled to compromise, too. The number of Senators who are affected by the Boschwitz amendment are entitled to their day in court, and they have been denied it by the introduction of the Dole amendment and the motion to table which cuts off their legislative opportunity to make their case and to get a fair judgment on it.
So I understand, I acknowledge, after Senator NELSON had made his comments, sure, the two committees had addressed a lot of time to this, considered the issues and made the best judgment they could make. But that does not mean that their judgment is immune. There are a lot of us from cold weather States here who will not agree with the cold weather Senators who are part of their compromise, and clearly we do not agree. Nevertheless, we think we have a case.
I yield without losing my right to the floor to the Senator from Ohio.