The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE RESCISSIONS BILL” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S9738-S9739 on July 12, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE RESCISSIONS BILL
Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I read this morning in the paper that the majority leader has dismissed what I think was a very reasonable proposal about how to proceed on the rescissions bill. I want to be just very clear about where we are right now in the deliberations.
Madam President, on Friday morning Senator Moseley-Braun and I came to the floor of the Senate to express our concerns about the most recent version of the rescissions bill that had been worked out the night before. There had been a deal struck by some parties on Thursday night, and it was coming over to the Senate from the House Friday morning around 10. It was about 120 pages long. We had not had an opportunity to examine it. There were some I think who wanted to just voice vote it. But at a minimum, we wanted an opportunity to propose several amendments and to have debate on each of them.
Madam President, the position that I took then and I think Senator Moseley-Braun took as well--she certainly can speak for herself--is that when it comes to major spending bills, I have always said we should have recorded votes. That is critically important. We should not have voice votes on large spending bills that are this crucial. By the same token, when you have a bill with $16 billion in spending cuts, and there are changes made from what we had passed in the Senate, changes made at the last second--then clearly it is important to talk about those changes, to talk about the priorities reflected in these cuts, what kind of programs are going to be cut, how they are going to affect people in the country and what the alternatives are.
So we talked some about our amendments. I focused on the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program. I will not take a long time on that right now. I spoke about that at some length on Friday. I talked about a very important Medicare Counseling program for senior citizens to make sure they do not get ripped off. And all too often that happens by insurance companies on supplementary coverage to Medicare. I talked about an important job training program for homeless vets, and other job training funds for dislocated workers. And Senator Moseley-Braun talked about school infrastructure and all the problems that go with the lack of investment in schools and lack of investment in children.
As it turns out late Thursday night some of the funding we had restored in the Senate was then cut again. This was a deal that we did not think was such a good deal. What we said was that we at least ought to have the right to propose amendments, have debate and have those voted up or down.
Madam President, at the end of this debate on Friday the majority leader pulled the bill from the floor, and said that it would not come back up except under a unanimous-consent agreement but certainly with no amendments. We are talking about a $16 billion spending bill, and he was insisting on no amendments. I sure think there is enough time for a few amendments. We made it very clear yesterday that we would agree to the four amendments. I have three amendments. Senator Moseley-Braun had one amendment. I think we were going to limit the debate to 1 hour on each amendment, equally divided, and we would stack votes for the next day. And I think we would have 40 minutes for summary of each amendment before votes, 10 minutes for each one. I was surprised that proposal has been turned down, because I thought it was eminently reasonable.
I must say to you, Madam President, that it seems to me that there must be something more at stake here. I do not understand what the majority leader is worried about. I mean I suspect that he would have the votes to defeat these amendments, though I do not think these amendments should be defeated. Certainly, this is all about the whole question of the way the legislative process works.
Madam President, I quote from a piece today in the New York Times about what is going on in the House:
Draconian cuts; Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Resources yesterday did their work . . . eliminating jobs programs, programs in the Department of Energy like the Low-Income Energy Assistance, Head Start, Safe and Drug-Free Schools, assistance for the homeless, enforcement of environmental laws, job training programs for summer youth.
Madam President, in our amendments these are the very priorities we want to call into question. I believe that this rescissions bill was just a glimpse of what is to come. These are truly distorted priorities.
And what is especially troubling is that there are alternatives to cutting these high-priority programs. For example, we do not see rescissions in any of the wasteful spending within the Pentagon. We wanted to transfer a little money out of the travel and administrative budget of the Pentagon; over 60 percent of all the Federal Government's travel and administrative funds is in this one agency; billions and billions of dollars, to make sure people do not go cold in the winter; to make sure there is some support for dislocated workers. We wanted to at least attempt to restore funding for that, offsetting the cuts with cuts elsewhere. The dislocated worker funding is also key to many Americans. For example, we see bases being closed throughout the country. We see people losing their jobs. And we are not going to provide people the opportunity to have retraining and find other work? We are unwilling to provide a little bit of a support for elderly people by way of consumer protection when they purchase health care policies? We are not interested in any support for homeless vets when it comes to some job training or cutting that? But when it comes to subsidies for oil companies, coal companies, tobacco companies, that is not on the table. When it comes to looking at some of the waste within the Pentagon and transferring some of that funding to some of these programs, that is not on the table.
Madam President, let me be very clear about it. Our proposal was eminently reasonable.
We wanted to have some debate on key parts of this bill, which makes
$16 billion worth of cuts in Federal spending. We agreed to some time for each amendment. It was limited time. We wanted to talk about the priorities of these cuts, and propose some alternatives. My understanding is that the majority leader has now dismissed even that.
Madam President, I do not think four amendments, a total of about 4 hours, is too much time to spend in the legislative process on a $16 billion rescissions bill. I do not think democracy works well when we shut off this debate and discussion. I do not think people in the country really know what we are doing when we shut off this debate and discussion. Frankly, I think that is the issue.
I am determined, given the reasonableness of our proposal, that we will have an opportunity to have these amendments considered, and we will have debate, within limits, and people will vote up or down, and people in the country will know that we are cutting funds for job training for dislocated workers, low-income energy assistance, counseling programs for older people about consumer protection to make sure they do not get ripped off when they purchase health care coverage, job training for homeless vets, and basic repair of schools for kids.
That is what we are doing. And now look at what the House Appropriations Committee is doing. This rescissions bill is just a glimpse of the distorted priorities that are now being put into effect in this Congress. Americans do not want to see their fellow citizens who have been laid off because of retrenchment or because of base closures without an opportunity to have job retraining. They do not want to see low-income people going cold in cold-weather States. They do not want to see senior citizens without consumer protections. They do not want to see homeless vets without some support. They do not want to see kids without some opportunities, learning in decent schools.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. WELLSTONE. And I think the majority leader may be worried about that. So I am ready for the debate on these amendments, and I hope we will be able to work out some agreement.
I yield the floor.
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