Cochran underscores inaction of Democratic-led Senate
Senator Cochran, Ranking Republican of the Senate Appropriations Committee, took the Senate floor on Thursday, July 31, to highlight the failure of the Democrat-led Senate to fulfill its annual appropriations responsibilities or act on meaningful energy reform.
Last week the Senate halted action on the Fiscal Year 2009 Appropriations process because of hesitation from Democrats to vote on appropriations provisions regarding domestic oil production.
For weeks, Republican Senators have been advocating for consideration of legislation, both in the Appropriations Committee and on the Senate Floor, that would allow for further domestic oil exploration as well as energy conservation. However, the Senate adjourned last week without a vote on drilling. The Democratic leadership in the Senate refused to allow the vote to take place on the pressing issue. This vote was prevented for several reasons:
- The Democratic leadership opposes increasing domestic oil production, and they do not want to be against the 70 percent of Americans who are in favor of it. 80 percent of Mississippians are in favor of domestic drilling as well. Who would want to be against those numbers?
- The Democratic leadership recognizes that several Democratic senators would vote alongside every GOP senator in support of the bill. This would result in allowing the bill to pass.
- Also, they know that Senator Obama would vote against that bill, therefore, they don’t want to risk allowing Obama to cast the unpopular vote.
The full text of Cochran’s remarks on the U.S. Senate floor is provided below.
“Mr. President, two weeks ago today, the Committee on Appropriations marked up three Fiscal Year 2009 appropriations bills. Those bills would provide funding for programs ranging from agricultural research to veterans health care, and from foreign aid to the infrastructure that supports our men and women in the Armed Forces. While some members of the Committee had concerns about the overall spending levels in those bills or individual provisions within them, the Committee reported the measures by broad, bipartisan votes. Those votes reflect the Committee’s collective belief that it has a fundamental responsibility each year to draft, debate, and report to the Senate its spending recommendations for the day-to-day operations of our government.
The markup on July 17th was the Committee’s fourth markup of the year to consider Fiscal Year 2009 bills. The bills reported at that meeting brought to 9 the total number of Fiscal Year 2009 bills approved by the Committee. There was every expectation that the Committee would complete action on the remaining three bills in July, as Chairman Byrd had publicly indicated. It was also expected that the Committee would consider a second supplemental bill.
Despite complete inaction on appropriations measures in the other body and low expectations for timely enactment of the Fiscal Year 2009 bills, the Committee was fulfilling its responsibility to make recommendations to the Senate, and moving toward completion of the only portion of the appropriations process under its direct control. I give Chairman Byrd credit for getting the Committee as far as he did given the dim prospects for floor action. The Senate deserves to at least see the committee bills before making a judgment about whether it will allocate time to consider them.
Unfortunately, Mr. President, progress in the Committee came to an abrupt halt last week. The Chairman announced that the Committee would not meet to consider the remaining Fiscal Year 2009 bills, and would not meet to consider a second supplemental. At the time, the reasons given for the cancelation were not clear. It was clear, however – and has been explicitly admitted since — that further markups were canceled because the majority did not wish to discuss, debate, or vote on amendments relating to domestic energy production. Mr. President, it is virtually unprecedented in our committee to cancel a markup to avoid a vote.
The amendments that likely would have been offered in Committee are completely germane to the appropriations process. The appropriations bills in place for Fiscal Year 2008 contain at least two provisions that prohibit the use of funds for certain purposes, and thereby inhibit the development of American energy resources. One of those provisions is the moratorium on further development of oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf. The other prohibits the issuance of regulations that would govern the development of our extensive domestic oil shale resources. Both of these matters would have been directly relevant to a Fiscal Year 2008 supplemental. It is also likely that one or both of these provisions would have been continued in the FY 2009 Interior and Related Agencies appropriations bill, and as such would have been subject to consideration by the Committee.
Nobody is playing political games in wanting to offer these amendments. Members interested in offering these amendments had several opportunities to present them during markups of the other appropriations bills, but withheld from doing so on the promise that the Committee would meet to consider the appropriate bills. I thought this was the responsible thing to do, Mr. President. But perhaps I was wrong.
Members are entitled to their own views about whether the moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf development should be continued. The same goes for oil shale production. But at a time when energy prices are dramatically affecting our economy and challenging the budgets of families across America, I do not think we as a Congress are entitled simply to sweep the issue under the rug because it’s inconvenient. We are not entitled to continue the moratoria for another year as part of a long term continuing resolution without so much as a debate or a vote.
In addition to increasing our domestic supply of energy, responsible development of the Outer Continental Shelf and of American oil shale will mean billions of dollars in royalties, rents and bonuses that will be paid to states and the U.S. Treasury — money that otherwise would be paid to foreign governments, many of which have policies that are in opposition to U.S. interests.
Responsible development of new areas of the Outer Continental Shelf and of American oil shale won’t solve our energy problems overnight. But no one is claiming that it will. But if we take action now, perhaps we can avoid a debate 10 years from now in which we try to adopt ‘quick fixes’ to overcome our failure to even vote on these matters today.
When last week’s markup was canceled, all of the Republican members of the Committee wrote to Chairman Byrd to express our disappointment, and to ask that he reconsider. I ask that a copy of that letter be included in the Record. It is now obvious we will go out of session not having done our work as a committee, having not met to consider appropriations bills that deal directly with the most pressing issues facing American families today.
When we return in September, it is highly unlikely whether the Committee will ever act on the remaining Fiscal Year 2009 bills, or the second supplemental. Both the Majority Leader and the Speaker have indicated that we will consider a second supplemental bill in September, but it is hard to imagine there will be enough time to act on that measure in Committee. That is a shame, Mr. President. Yesterday Chairman Byrd issued a press release outlining what would have been in the Chairman’s mark of the supplemental had the Committee met to consider it. He outlined a bill that would appropriate some $24 billion to respond to natural disasters, to improve American infrastructure, and for other purposes.
The Chairman included a number of items that I had requested that are important in my state of Mississippi and our ongoing efforts to recover from Hurricane Katrina. He included a number of other items in response to requests by members on both sides of the aisle. While there will justifiably be concern about the total cost of this proposal and some of its component parts, in my view it is a measure worthy of consideration in the Appropriations Committee.
But a press release is not a markup. It’s not a draft of a committee bill. No senator can amend a press release. No senator can see the legislative language that would implement the spending described in the release, and no senator can know what provisions might be included in the bill but not mentioned in the press release. I am the Ranking Member of the Committee, and I do not know these things.
If I thought we would return in September, hold a markup of the bill, giving the Senate time to debate it fully, perhaps I would be less concerned. But we know that time is short once we return. And based on what we’ve witnessed on the floor in recent months, I have little confidence that senators will be allowed freely to offer amendments to the supplemental if it is taken straight to the floor.
Mr. President, I want to reiterate that Chairman Byrd has done an admirable job of trying to uphold the Committee’s responsibilities and prerogatives in the face of these circumstances. We both share the view that our Committee has an important and fundamental responsibility to write and put forth bills that support the basic operations of our nation’s government. As a Congress, however, we are getting into some very bad habits as it pertains to consideration of these bills.
We are completely abandoning efforts to move the regular appropriations bills across the House and Senate floor, something which has nothing to do with filibusters. Nobody filibustered the Fiscal Year 2008 bills that were brought to the Senate floor. When we do manage to pass appropriations measures, the differences between the measures are resolved not by an open meeting of a conference committee, but usually in closed door negotiations followed by an ‘exchange of messages’ between the House and the Senate. And now, apparently, we are starting to cancel committee markups based on an unwillingess to take votes on pressing and entirely germane matters.
I regret these trends, Mr. President. I regret it for the sake of a Committee that is struggling mightily to maintain its tradition of bipartisan action. I regret it for the sake of the millions of Americans who will simply not understand why the United States Senate cannot manage to take a votes or process its legislation and its appropriations bills in a straightforward and open manner.
I regret the way we are letting things slide into an unusual procedure that does not reflect credit on the United States Senate.
-U.S. Senator Thad Cochran
Tags: appropriations, democratic led congress, domestic oil production, Energy, Energy Reform, rising gas prices
