Date: 1981-11-18
Speaker: ROBERT C. BYRD (democrat)
Chamber: S

Mr. President. I am attempting here to change the exp~ration date for this continuing resolution from September 30. 1982. to December 18. 1981. which would be 4 weeks from this coming Friday. I offer this amendment today not to obstruct in any way the continued operations of the Federal Government but rather to try to insure that the Government does operate under the security of finial appropriations bills. and to the extent that such bills are not enacted 11nally. then. of course. under the security of a final appropriations act such as the continuing resolution. There will be considerable discussion about the time constraints surrounding this continuing resolution. It is true that a continuation of funding must be in plare by this coming Friday midnight. and my amendment does nothing to hinder that necessity. On Tuesday. November 10. the President during his press conference comiplained. and rightly so. that Congress had not sent him one of the regular appropriations bills for fiscal year 1982. My amendment would .-insure that Congress will address the Presidents concern. We are told that the regular appropriations bills will be considered. that the defense bill will come to the floor for consideration. that the LaborHSS bill will come to the floor for consideration. that the Treasl.ryPostal Service hill will come to tho floor for consideration. and that the various conference reports on those and other appropriations bills will come to the floor for consideration. But the Senate has had the HUD conference report since September 15 and we have not had that conference report brought to the floor. The appropriations committees have completed conferences on five appropriations bills. The House of Representatives passed and sent two of them to us and the Senate has not considered them. Appropriating funds is among the major responsibilities of Congress. The people who elect us to represent them expect us to do just that. to represent them. to discharge our responsibilities. There are major spending bills that have not had consideration other than by the 29 Senators who are privileged to serve on the Appropriations Committee. The entire Senate needs to exercise its responsibilities and to give full deliberation to those bills. Then both the House of Representatives and the Senate should work out the differences and both bodies agree or disagree to the comproniise. Here we have. Mr. President. a huge bill that will operate for a full year. until September 30. with not a single regular appropriations bill having reached the Presidents desk. From time to time the Senate and the House of Representatives have adopted continuinig resolvtions as stopgap measures to provide funding for agencies for which regtLar appropriations bills have not yet passed Congress and been signed into law by the President. Those continuing resolutions are precisely what I stated. They are stopgap appropriations measures. They are to fill the interim gap created by the fiscal years beginning date having passed and until such time as the appropriations bill for that particular fiscal year has been enacted into law. But now here what we see is a continuing resolution that wvould extend until next September 30. the end of the 1982 fiscal year. and ttTapped up in that continuing resolution would be presumably the funding for all of the departments and agencies of Government that are normally funded through enactment of 13 regular appropriations bills. not counting supplement als and so on. This. of course. is a subversion of the appropriations process. It opens the way for an omnibus appropiriation bill in the future In the form of a continuing resolution. It may very well be that at some future time Congress would want to adopt rules and procedures allowing for appropriations to be made through an omnibus bill. and I have always felt or have long felt there are some things that can be said in support of that approach. But as of now we do not have that procedure. We are still operating under- the rules and precede~nts of a good many years. and certainly through this year the House has passed a number of appropriation bills. sent them to the Senate. The Appropriations Conmmittee of the Senate has taken up a goodly number of those appropriation bills and has acted on them. But they have not been acted on by the full Senate. As I say. some of the conference reports that are ready for action In the Senate have not been taken up in the Senate. So here we are now up against a deadline of Friday night of this week midnight. Agencies and Departments of Government would be unable to operate thereafter. social security checks. veterans checks. checks to the military. Federal employees. and so on. would not be sent out. Yet now we find ourselves in this kind of a box and faced with that situation. but also faced with the situation of not having finally sent to the President of the United States a single appropriation bill. So this approach. as I say. perverts the normal committee process. the normal appropriations process. and It is a very serious precedent to have facing us. I think it deprives the Senate of the kind of contemplation that it should give to each of the appropriation bills. and it is for those reasons that I have sent the amendment to the desk. The appropriating of funds Is among the major responsibilities of Congress. as I state. and the entire Senate needs to exercise Its responsibility and give full deliberation to all of the appropriation bills. A full years continuing resolution would not advance the decisions of the Senate which it has already made. At this time four major appropriation bills have not been acted upon for inclusion in the continuing resolution. and the full Senate has never had the Issue before it. So In adopting an emergency stopgap measure it seems to me that we are very hard put to explain the providing of funding for. perhaps. a full year as an emergency or as a stopgap measure. The Senate Appropriations Committee has done a remarkable job. The chairman of that committee. Mr. HATFIELD. has demonstrated the highest degree of fairness and dedication. Integrity and purpose. and has done an extraordinary Job. The other members of the committee. the ranking member. Mr. PROXMIRE. and all other Members on both sides of the aisle have dutifully approached their task and that committee has reported all of its bills. As I look at the calendar. the committee has reported all of its bills. that Is correct. and I am now looking at the status of appropriation bills. first session. 97th Congress. The Appropriations Committee has reported every regular appropriation bill. Two of them have passed the Senate and gone through conference and conference reports are awaiting action In the Senatefour have proceeded to that status. What are we going to do about all of these appropriation bills? What is going to happen to these conference reports? Are they all going to be folded into this continuing resolution. which is meant to be a stopgap measure or are we going to take up those four conference reports and the remaining appropriation bills and act on them as we have heretofore? As I say. heretofore there usually have been one or two bills. especially foreign opgrations or foreign assistance. that have not made it. and possibly one or two others where there has had to be a stopgap measure. But never before have we seen this situation In which conference reports on appropriation bills await action here at the bar of the Senate. other appropriation bills have been reported from the Senate Appropriations Committee under the able leadership of Mr. HATFIELD and Mr. PROXMIRE. and yet the Senate does not take them up. So the President was Justified in complaining about the fact that not a single appropriation bill has been sent to him by Congress. But here we find ourselves. therefore. without taking action on those bills and about to take action on the continuing resolution. which will wrap everything therein. and have a date. September 30 next year. which Is the end of the fiscal year. So we might as well just quit and go home. pass continuing resolutions for a year at a time and take some of the burdens off the Appropriations Committees. and the Senate will not have to deliebrate on 13 appropriation bills. Just pass one continuing resolution so that we avoid adequate debate on each departments funding request. we avoid the usual debate on the various agency requests. we obviate the opportunity to amend 13 appropriation bills that deal specifically with certain appropriation Items. We simply take up one continuing resolution. have It extend to the end of the fiscal year. September 30. and then begin anew and adopt a continuing resolution for the next year. but wait until the last 2 or 3 days before that expiration date is upon us. and then come with that continuing resolution to the floor. There Is obviously no time left to scrutinize carefully the Items on the continuing resolution. and very little time left to debate them. This continuing resolution was reported out from the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday. There is no report accompanying It. I am a member of the committee and!I find no fault with that under the exigencies that confronted the committee. To have a report accompany the continuing resolution from the committee would have meant the 3day rule would have prev~ented takIng up the continuing resolution this week probably unless a unanimousconsent were given. which means that any one Senator could have objected to proceeding to this continuing resolution. I find no fault with the committee. The committee was acting under extenuating circumstances. But that Is what we are going to be faced with every year. the last 2 or 3 days Just before the date of the expiration of the continuing resolution here. we will have the continuing resolution for a year that will extend to the following September. Every Senator should be zealous not of his rights and prerogatives so much as the* responsibilities he has to carry out his duties to his constituency and the right of his constituents to have these matters debated thoroughly and openly. I shall shortly send to the desk an amendment in the second degree which provides for a December 18 date rather than a December 19 date. My amendment would not obstruct the action on this continuing resolution. It would simply mean that by 4 weeks from this coming Friday this continuing resolution would expire. thus giving the Senate time during that 4 weeks to take up. In an orderly manner. the remaining appropriation bills. the conference reports. carefully study them. debate them. and act upon them and. by virtue of such action as the Senate acted on each appropriations bill. to that degree it would be unnecessary to have a continuing resolution at the time this continuing resolution resolution would expire on December 18. 1 think it is a resonable request. I think It Is our duty to demand that those appropriations bills be brought up In this body. I think It is our responsibility to the people to be able to debate each of those bills and the conference reports thereon and avoid adopting a continuing resolution that provides for the funding of various departments for an entire yearan entire year. I think we will be remiss in our duties If we do not follow the normal appropriations process and set a new expiration date here which would require us to again face this matter by December 18. I yield to the Senator from Wisconsin.