January 24, 1980
Page 678
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma, my good friend and supporter on the Budget Committee, has covered the issues raised by this conference report, and I do not want to delay consideration of the report unduly.
However, I think it is important to repeat at least some of the principal points he makes in order that by emphasizing them we might have some assurance that those points come to the attention of Senators generally.
Mr. President, I join the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma in strongly objecting to one section of this conference report. I do so with some reluctance because of the respect I have for the floor manager of the bill, the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. NELSON) and for the ranking minority member of the committee, Senator WEICKER, both of whom undertook to press the Budget Committee's concerns, which I am about to discuss and which Senator BELLMON has discussed, on the conference committee. If they could have had their way we would not be here debating this issue this afternoon. I would like to make that very clear for
the RECORD.
I realize that they have worked long and hard on this legislation, which has been in conference since May 23 of last year.
I do not desire to endanger enactment of the important reforms directed at reducing the overlap and duplication in the disaster loan programs of the Small Business Administration and the Farmers Home Administration. However, as chairman of the Budget Committee, I cannot ignore the fact that contained in this bill is a provision — having nothing to do with the design or operation of the programs of the Small Business Administration — that would enact into law a specious budgetary practice with a significant mischief-making potential.
Section 113 of this bill would establish a precedent for the policy that the cost of Federal direct loan programs, as reflected in the budget, should not include the cost of the borrowing that the Government must undertake in order to finance the loans. Such a policy is contrary to widely accepted principles of government finance. It is contrary to GAO, OMB, and Treasury Department policy. It is opposed by the President. It is contrary to truth in budgeting. It is contrary to the views of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. And it should be contrary to the policy of the U.S. Senate. Section 113 came from the House bill. It was not in the bill that the Senate passed on May 16, and it should not be in any bill that the Senate passes.
Therefore, Mr. President, I urge that this section be stricken from the bill. To accomplish this under the Senate's rules, the Senate must first defeat the conference report. Following such action, I would intend to offer immediately an amendment identical to the conference agreement except for the deletion of section 113.
Mr. President, section 113 of S. 918 would exempt the Small Business Administration from the requirement, which it has had since the inception of the program, that it pay interest to the Treasury on the outstanding cash disbursements from the disaster loan fund.
The expenditures from this fund, as found in the fiscal year 1981 budget appendix, are primarily for the cost of physical and nonphysical disaster loans and for an interest payment to the Treasury. The costs of the program are financed, first of all, through repayments on disaster loans made in previous years, from downward adjustments of obligations made in prior years, and from the unobligated balance in the fund. The difference between the cost of the program and the financing elements outlined above, is provided through direct appropriations. In recent years appropriations have been substantial. In fiscal year 1978, $2.6 billion was appropriated, and in fiscal year 1979, $1.2 billion was provided.
Since the inception of this program, section 4(c) (5) of the Small Business Act has required the Small Business Administration to pay into miscellaneous receipts of the Treasury, following the close of each fiscal year, interest on the outstanding cash disbursements from both the disaster loan fund and the business loan and investment fund. The interest rate on these payments is required by law to be equal to the current average market yield on outstanding interest bearing marketable public debt obligations of the United States of comparable maturities as calculated for the month of September preceding the fiscal year.
Section 113 of the conference agreement would, if enacted, modify existing law so that the requirement to pay interest to the Treasury would apply only to the business loan and investment fund. It would no longer apply to the disaster loan fund. And, according to the administration's interpretation of this legislation, the Small Business Administration could no longer be required to make this interest payment to the Treasury.
The result would be to lower the apparent cost of the disaster loan program by the full amount of the interest payment. CBO has estimated the size of this interest payment at over $400 million in fiscal year 1980, at about $425 million in fiscal year 1981, and at almost $450 million in fiscal year 1982. As interest rates are rising, these amounts seem likely to increase.
Mr. President, what is the real effect of this change? Is it merely technical? Is this merely a bookkeeping transaction without meaning? Unfortunately, Mr. President, I can assure the Senate that such is not the case.
The results of this change would be substantive and far-reaching. First, exempting SBA from this payment would have such a major effect upon SBA disaster loan financing that the Congressional Budget Office estimates SBA would not have to seek additional disaster loan appropriations until around fiscal year 1984, all as a result of this budgetary gimmick. Does the Senate desire that the financing of the disaster loan fund become entirely self-sufficient for an indeterminate period of time? Does the Senate wish this program to be entirely exempt from the scrutiny of the appropriations process?
I would hope not, Mr. President. The costs of SBA's programs, like the costs of all other Federal programs, are very real. The Appropriations Committee, therefore, must be aware of them, must give them proper oversight, and must provide for them in appropriations bills. And the budget must account for them in their proper place, as costs incurred by the SBA disaster loan program.
As I shall discuss in a few moments, this is in accordance both with widely accepted principles of government finance and with simple commonsense that say the Government should acknowledge to the public the cost of what it is doing.
In addition to removing the program from the scrutiny of the appropriation process, this gimmick would distort the apparent cost of this program as it is presented in the budget. It would lower the apparent cost of the disaster loan program by about $400 million per year. It would lower the apparent cost of community and regional development programs in budget function 450 by about $400 million per year. And it would increase the apparent net interest costs of the Federal Government as presented in the Treasury Department's budget and in function 900, interest, by about $400 million per year.
Mr. President, these are not small amounts we are talking about. CBO estimates the fiscal year 1980 interest payments from off-budget agencies to the Treasury to be about $5.7 billion and intragovernmental interest from on-budget agencies to be $2.7 billion. By fiscal year 1984, CBO estimates that these two figures will increase to $10.5 and $3.7 billion respectively, assuming a continuation of current law. If the policy espoused by the conference report were adopted generally, the relative magnitudes of agency and Treasury budgets would be distorted by more than $8 billion in fiscal year 1980 and by more than $14 billion by fiscal year 1984.
Mr. President, I have discussed this issue with the distinguished chairmen of the Senate and House Small Business Committees. Some important points have been raised about certain assumptions and facts underlying the line of reasoning that I have just set forth, and I would like to address these at this point in my remarks.
First, I have been asked why there is any more reason to assume that direct loans should be financed through government borrowing than it is to assume that they should be financed out of the revenues from taxation. Now that is an interesting question. It is a fair question. And I should like to answer it. The answer requires careful consideration of basic principles of government finance. The issue really is "when should governments borrow?" This is an issue that has been thought about and analyzed for many years. There has emerged a widespread agreement among government finance experts of all political persuasions — setting aside for the moment the problems of stabilization policy — that government investment programs creating benefits extending many years into the future should be financed by borrowing. The logic behind this conclusion is that payment for such a program should be spread over time into the future commensurate with the extension into the future of the benefits of the program. And this is what we are talking about with the SBA disaster loan program. These loan dollars are meant to be used for capital investment purposes. A home or a business rebuilt with an SBA disaster loan will be used for many years. The benefits of that loan will extend far into the future.
The alternatives for financing the SBA disaster loan program are taxation and borrowing. What criteria should determine the government's choice between these two methods of finance? James Buchanan, a widely respected economist from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, has written, and I quote:
These criteria must be drawn from the characteristics of the government expenditure to be financed. The major distinction between the two methods lies in the location of the real cost or burden in time, with the tax method concentrating this cost in the current or initial period and the borrowing method postponing this cost until some later periods. This basic difference allows some reasonably definite rules to be laid down concerning the choice. For those public expenditures or outlays that are expected to yield up all or a major portion of public service benefits in a reasonably short period of time, taxation should be employed. Clearly, resort to borrowing to finance spending of this nature will simply exploit future taxpayers for the benefit of current public beneficiaries....
Real borrowing, as a method of financing public services, should, therefore, be limited to the financing of public expenditure projects that are expected to yield benefits over a long period of time. That is, those that are expected to be of a permanent nature. Here the analogy with the private economy is quite close. Business enterprises normally borrow, that is sell bonds, to finance capital expansion programs. Borrowing is accepted as an appropriate method of financing outlays that are bunched in time and are devoted to the purchase of equipment which will last over a long period. The principle of amortizing the debt over the period of the useful life of the project is accepted in business, and this principle is also applicable to government units.
The appropriate rules for choosing between taxation and real borrowing have, to some extent, been incorporated in traditional fiscal practices. Borrowing is limited to the financing of extraordinary expenditures and to the financing of 'capital' projects.
The same conclusion is reached by another distinguished economist, Richard Musgrave of Harvard University. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD Professor Musgrave's analysis.
There being no objection, the analysis was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
ANALYSIS
To illustrate the point, consider a project whose services become available in equal installments over three periods. Also, suppose that the life (or residency) span of each generation covers three periods, and that the population is stable. Finally, assume that loans advanced by any one generation must be repaid within its life span. In each period the benefits accrue to three generations, including generations 1, 2, 3 in the first period; 2, 3, 4 in second; and 3, 4, 5 in the third period. To contribute their proper share, generations 1 and 5 should each pay one-ninth of the cost; generations 2 and 4 should each pay two-ninths; and generation 3 should pay three-ninths. Let us now suppose that the total cost is $100, and that it is to be allocated accordingly. To simplify matters, we will disregard the allocation of interest cost.
The entire outlay of $100 must be raised and spent in the first period. Of this, $33.3 is obtained by taxation, divided equally between generations 1, 2, and 3. The remainder is obtained by loans from generations 2 and 3. There can be no loans from generation 1 owing to our rule that each generation must be repaid during its life span. In the second period, tax revenue is again $33.3, contributed now by generations 2, 3 and 4; the debt held by generation 2 is retired in full, and loans of $16.6 are advanced by generation 4 to retire part of the debt held by generation 3. In the third period, the tax revenue of $33.3 is contributed by generations 3, 4, and 5. It is used to retire the remainder of the debt held by generations 3 and 4. In retrospect, the total cost has been divided between the five generations in accordance with benefits received. Loan finance in this case not only provided credit to taxpayers but resulted in a bona fide division of the cost between generations — a result impossible to secure through tax finance.
Mr. MUSKIE. And so, Mr. President, it seems clear that we are on solid ground in assuming that the financing of a direct loan program such as the SBA disaster loan program is through borrowing and not from taxation. It follows, therefore, that the Government's borrowing cost is a legitimate part of the overall cost of this program. If the Senate passes this conference report on S. 918, then the Senate would be endorsing a departure from sound and widely accepted principles of Government finance. A vote for this bill as it now stands, is a vote for a policy of budgetary deception. I do not feel the Senate should be a party to such action.
A second point that came up in my discussion with the chairman of the Senate and House Small Business Committees is the contention that interest payments are not required for all Government loan programs. In response to this allegation I will simply say that in actual fact, almost all Government direct loan programs do pay interest to the Treasury. The following is a list supplied to me by the Treasury Department of the 39 public enterprise funds that make interest payments to the Treasury.
I ask unanimous consent that this list be printed at this point in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the list was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
PUBLIC ENTERPRISE FUNDS
FUNDS APPROPRIATED TO THE PRESIDENT
International Development Assistance: Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Commodity Credit Corporation: Price support and related programs: Reimbursement.
Rural Electrification Administration: Rural communication development fund.
Farmers Home Administration.
Agricultural credit insurance fund.
Rural housing insurance fund.
Rural development insurance fund.
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Economic Development Administration: Economic Development Revolving Fund.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Fisheries loan fund.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE — CIVIL
The Panama Canal Corporation: Panama Canal Company.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Health Resources Administration.
Nurse training fund.
Health education loans.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Water and Power Resources Service: Colorado River Basin project.
Upper Colorado River storage project.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Post-secondary Education: College housing loans.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Power Marketing Administrations: Bonneville Power Administration fund.
Colorado river basins power marketing fund, Wester.
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Housing Programs:
Revolving fund (liquidating programs).
Federal Housing Administration fund.
Low-rent public housing — loans and other expenses.
Housing for the elderly or handicapped fund.
Government National Mortgage Association:
Management and liquidating functions fund.
Special assistance functions fund.
Emergency mortgage purchase assistance.
Community Planning and Development: Urban renewal programs.
New Community Development Corporation: New communities fund.
VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION
Veterans reopened insurance fund.
Direct loan revolving fund.
Loan guaranty revolving fund.
OTHER INDEPENDENT AGENCIES
Export-Import Bank of the United States.
Federal Emergency Management Agency: National flood insurance fund.
National Credit Union Administration: Central liquidity facility.
Small Business Administration:
Disaster loan fund.
Business loan and investment fund.
Lease guarantees revolving fund.
Tennessee Valley Authority: Tennessee Valley Authority fund.
OFF-BUDGET FEDERAL ENTITIES
Department of Agriculture: Rural electrification and telephone revolving fund.
Rural telephone bank.
Postal Service: Postal Service.
United States Railway Association: Regional rail reorganization program.
Mr. MUSKIE. All of these existing programs, Mr. President, pay interest to Treasury. Moreover, it is OMB and Treasury policy that all new loan programs should follow this practice. Therefore, adoption of the suggestion that the SBA disaster loan fund — which has made such payments since its inception — should now be exempted would be to take a step away from a policy of full budgetary disclosure. It would set an unfortunate precedent that others might be only too eager to follow.
The program most analogous to the SBA disaster loan fund is the Farmers Home Administration emergency loan program. This is financed out of the agricultural credit insurance fund, which does make interest payments to the Treasury. And was included in this list I just recited.
As I mentioned previously, Mr. President, it is the policy of both the General Accounting Office and the Office of Management and Budget that the cost of direct loan programs should reflect interest expenses. The handbook on accounting principles and standards of the General Accounting Office contains the following instructions:
For agency programs or activities financed by advances or borrowings from the Treasury on which interest is required by law to be paid, the interest costs incurred and paid shall be accounted for in the same manner as any other costs which are paid by the agency.
Where there is no requirement to pay the interest costs on the government's investment and an agency is engaged in the performance of services or sale of property outside the government for revenues, a determination should be made as to the significance of such costs. When they are significant in relation to the financial results of operation otherwise determined, their omission from the accounts and financial statements results in a seriously incomplete disclosure of the costs of performance and of the net financial results. In such circumstances, and when an interest factor is included in revenues obtained from sales made or services rendered, the interest costs should be determined, included in the accounts, and reported in the financial statements.
The Office of Management and Budget has a clearly defined policy on this subject as well. This policy is stated in circular A-70, which directs the heads of executive departments and agencies to "include all revenues and expenses" whenever they propose legislation to extend, revise or create a Federal revolving fund credit program.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to insert at this point in my remarks the complete text of the GAO requirements.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
GAO REQUIREMENTS
(E) INTEREST
Interest is a cost generally applicable to all Federal Government expenditures. This concept is based on the fact that the Government's disbursements are made from a single pool of funds in the Federal Treasury which are not earmarked as to source or use. If funds disbursed for any given purpose had not been so disbursed, they could have been applied to repay or reduce borrowings, with a consequent savings in interest costs.
Interest as a cost when required to be paid
For agency programs or activities financed by advances or borrowings from the Treasury on which interest is required by law to be paid, the interest costs incurred and paid shall be accounted for in the same manner as any other costs which are paid by the agency.
If the interest required to be paid by an agency is significantly less than the interest cost to the Treasury, the difference should be accounted for as an additional interest cost in accordance with the same principles as those applicable to agency programs to which significant interest costs apply but are not required by law to be paid.
Interest as a cost when not required to be paid
Where there is no requirement to pay the interest costs on the Government's investment and an agency is engaged in the performance of services or sale of property outside the Government for revenues, a determination should be made as to the significance of such costs. When they are significant in relation to the financial results of operation otherwise determined, their omission from the accounts and financial statements results in a seriously incomplete disclosure of the costs of performance and of the net financial results.
In such circumstances, and when an interest factor is included in revenues obtained from sales made or services rendered, the interest costs should be determined, included in the accounts, and reported in the financial statements.
(1) The interest cost for each year should be determined on the net Federal investment in the program or activity at the beginning of the year and on. the net additions to such investment during the year. Accumulated net income or deficit should not be included in the interest base.
(2) The rate of interest to be used should be one which the Secretary of the Treasury annually determines to be representative of the cost to the Treasury for borrowing for such investments. If the United States has outstanding marketable obligations with maturities reasonably comparable to the estimated period for which the Federal funds are invested, the Secretary should consider the average yields on such obligations in determining the interest rates.
(3) Interest determined to be applicable to an investment in property being constructed should be added to construction costs as interest during construction; after such property is placed in service, the interest should be classified as an operating cost. It is not necessary that agencies performing services or producing products mainly for use within the Government include interest in their accounts or disclose it as a cost in their financial statements. However, cost data for such activities used in making comparisons for purposes of management decisions (such as on make- or-buy alternatives) should include an interest factor whether or not recorded in the accounts.
Mr. MUSKIE. And so, Mr. President, the two preceding points clearly affirm the validity of the need to have the interest costs of direct loan programs attributed to the programs themselves, and, not to the Treasury Department.
There is another reason for having these programs make interest payments,. Mr. President, and that has to do with program control by the Congress and OMB. These direct loans are repaid with interest. As a result, the revolving loan funds can build up to sizable amounts unless the funds pay interest to Treasury. For example, if Congress makes a billion dollar appropriation for a direct loan program and this money is used to make 20-year loans at 10 percent interest, by the time the loans are paid back in 20 years a total of $2.3 billion will have been repaid to the Government. If the congressional budget and appropriations processes are to retain effective control over these programs, they cannot be allowed to accumulate huge surpluses of this kind.
This is not a new issue, Mr. President. Two years ago the conference report on H.R. 11445, the Small Business Amendments of 1978 contained an identical provision. On October 11, 1978, when the conference report was before the Senate, I pointed out that a section of the agreement "would remove from the law the requirement that the SBA disaster loan fund pay interest to the Treasury for outstanding loans. That means," I noted, "that the budget for SBA would no longer show the costs of financing its own program. An estimated $0.3 billion of the SBA costs would be shifted to the accounts of the Treasury. This gimmick, of course, would not save one dime of the taxpayers' money. Its only effect would be to make it more difficult for Congress and the public to learn the true cost of this program." The President subsequently vetoed the bill.
Last year, the pending bill began its passage through the Senate and the House. The interest payment section to which I object was not in the Senate-passed legislation, but it was in the House-passed bill. On June 21, 1979, Senator BELLMON and I wrote a letter to the Senate conferees expressing our concerns about several provisions in the House bill.
"The first and perhaps most serious problem," we wrote, "is that the June 12 agreement accepts a House provision exempting SBA from the requirement that it pay interest to Treasury on its outstanding disaster loan borrowings. Under the provision, the SBA would borrow from the Treasury interest free, and then loan those funds to private businesses and individuals at an average interest rate close to the Government's cost of capital. SBA would then retain the interest payments it received on its own loans, reducing both the apparent cost and budget impact of its programs. In this manner, the cost of the interest subsidy granted to SBA disaster loan borrowers would no longer appear on SBA's books but would be 'hidden' in Treasury accounts.
"The provision would not save either disaster victims or taxpayers 1 cent. All it would do is utilize a cosmetic accounting gimmick to deceive both the Congress and the public as to the true cost of SBA's disaster loan program, and deprive the Appropriations Committee and the Congress of a valuable form of program oversight."
On October 4, we wrote to the conferees again. Again we expressed our concerns about the interest payment provisions:
We understand that the proposed conference agreement would enact into law an unsound budgetary procedure which is strongly objectionable: Namely, the exemption of SBA from the requirement that it pay interest to Treasury on its outstanding disaster loan borrowings. This accounting gimmick, by lowering the apparent cost of the SBA disaster loan program, would deceive both the Congress and the public as to its true cost, could deprive the Appropriations Committee of a valuable form of program oversight and would damage the integrity of the Federal budget. We hope that this provision, section 111 of the House bill, will not be included in the conference agreement.
So the Senate conferees were on notice, Mr. President, of the Budget Committee's deep concern about this attempt to legislate a specious budgetary practice. Time and again Senator BELLMON and I have objected to this, and yet here it is in this conference report that is before the Senate today.
In conclusion, Mr. President, I again serve notice that when the debate on this conference report has been completed I shall ask the Senate to reject the conference report and substitute for it a bill that is identical in all respects except for the deletion of section 113.
The reasons for deleting this provision are clear, Mr. President. Section 113 has nothing to do with the design or operation of SBA programs. But it has a great deal to do with the budget and appropriations processes. The leadership of these committees from both sides of the aisle feel so strongly about this issue that we are asking the Senate not to pass this legislation in its present form, but to reject the conference report, then to delete section 113, and to send the bill back to the House.
Section 113 is bad public policy. It should be rejected for many reasons: The true cost of this program would be concealed. As much as one-fourth of the total cost would not be shown. Informed decision making depends upon accurate information about the true cost of programs competing for limited public resources.
It would set an unfortunate precedent. Other Federal agencies with loan programs now pay interest to the Treasury. If the policy in S. 918 were followed instead, the $8.4 billion cost now properly assigned to the Government programs could all be hidden in Treasury accounts. The true costs of those programs would be grossly understated.
It would decrease the likelihood of congressional scrutiny. If this and other revolving loan funds were no longer required to make interest payments to Treasury, many of these programs would not need any new appropriations. They could use their receipts from loan repayments for program expansion. Congressional and executive scrutiny might diminish accordingly.
I think that the essential analysis of this issue has been made by Senator BELLMON and I have tried to back that up. I do not think that, insofar as Senators BELLMON and WEICKER are concerned, any further discussion on our part could add to their understanding of this issue. I think they understand it clearly. I do not know whether we are reaching any other senatorial ears at this point, in any case. But the issue is clear. It is a longstanding one. The Budget Committee has been making it for several years.
So, Mr. President, I am willing to yield the floor at this time. I do not see much need in my taking much more time, unless a question should arise in additional discussions to which I ought to address myself.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, does the Senator yield the floor?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes.
Mr. NELSON. As the Senator well knows from his long experience here, the conference report that is before us is as a consequence of the hearings and deliberations by the House of Representatives on the measure, as well as the hearings, markup, debate, and action on the floor of the Senate.
We went into conference with 134 items in disagreement.
There was an item on which the House and the distinguished chairman of the House committee felt very strongly. The distinguished Senator from Maine, the chairman of the Budget Committee, discussed the matter with the chairman of the House Small Business Committee,
Congressman SMITH. Congressman SMITH was not prepared to yield on the point at issue.
As I have said previously, the Senator recognizes this provision was not in the Senate bill.
There is not much more I can say other than after lengthy consideration we resolved every issue we could. This one issue was unresolvable and so there it stands. I understand the position of the distinguished Senator from Maine as chairman of the committee, and the ranking minority member (Mr. BELLMON) . We have a procedure here in which the Appropriations Committee is required, by current statute, to appropriate to the Small Business Administration the difference between what the agency charges for money and what its cost of money is. So in the whole process the Congress appropriates, the Treasury transfers to the Small Business Administration, and then the Small Business Administration makes a payment back to the Treasury. This process gives a clearer picture of the cost of this particular program.
I do not know that there is an easy answer other than the current statute, although I do not agree with the opinion of the General Counsel for the Small Business Administration who says it will prohibit the SBA from making the payment. I think there is a fair question that the administration, OMB and the Appropriations Committees, as a matter of practice, may very well appropriate that money for SBA and require SBA to make the payment to Treasury. I think that is an issue worth exploring.
The next point, I might say to the Senator from Maine, is that at the very least, the SBA budget ought in any event to reflect what the cost is.
I thank the Senator.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the Senator for his comments.
Let me say first of all, reinforcing what I said at the outset of my earlier remarks, that I understand the frustrations in working through a conference with this many items in disagreement. I know from my own exposure to the efforts of Senator NELSON and Senator WEICKER over the years that they work hard and pretty effectively to sustain the Senate position. So there is no criticism of their efforts implicit in what I said.
Second, in recognizing the frustrating and prolonged time that is often involved in resolving these differences, I am not very often inclined to challenge conference reports. But here I think that what is involved is a potential for setting an undesirable precedent across 38 other programs in the budget which I think underlies reinforcing the Senator's view on this issue for the benefit of the House, forcing them to take another look at this issue standing all by itself. I am prepared and Senator BELLMON is prepared, and I am sure the Senate is prepared, to approve everything else in the conference report. By isolating this issue, I would hope that all of the House conferees would look at the arguments we are making, which I believe are so universally supported by expert opinion, and that they might be persuaded to change their minds.
If that does not work, then I would hope that we could pursue the other option suggested by the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin of requiring the payment of interest notwithstanding the language in this report. I would prefer, of course, to eliminate any doubt that that be the practice that we follow. But if that option is open, I certainly would want the opportunity to pursue it. I appreciate the suggestion of the Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. NELSON. On that point, the staff advises me that the conference agreement only eliminates the requirement; it does not prohibit a payment. I would not want to state that too positively, however, without studying it more closely. I am inclined to feel that the administration and the Appropriations Committees could require that it be done and, obviously, the administrator of any agency or department could do it. I think that could be done.
Mr. MUSKIE. I certainly welcome the opportunity to examine the issue to this extent, to see if we have another solution other than the option we are discussing this afternoon.
Mr. President, I do not want to take any more time. I ask for the yeas and nays on the conference report.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.