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For the other land management agencies, the bill provides an increase of $27 million for the Fish and Wildlife Service, including more than $13 million for the operation of the national wildlife refuge system. The bill increases the Forest Service operating account by $17 million, including significant increases for recreation management, forest ecosystem restoration, and road maintenance. A $22 million increase is provided for management of lands by the Bureau of Land Management, as well as another $5 million increase for payments in lieu of taxes. The amount provided for PILT reflects a continued effort to steadily increase appropriations for this program without harming the core operating programs funded in this bill. Though appropriations for PILT were stagnant throughout the first half of this decade, the amount provided in this bill represents a 28 percent increase over the amount provided in fiscal year 1995.
Among the programs in this bill that are specifically for the benefit of Native Americans, the committee's top priority has been to provide the Secretary of the Interior with the resources necessary to fix the Indian trust fund management system. Indian land and trust fund records have been allowed to deteriorate to a deplorable state, and the Department of the Interior now finds itself scrambling to reconcile thousands upon thousands of trust records that are scattered across the country. Many of these records are located in cardboard boxes that have not been touched for years, or in ancient computer systems that are incompatible with one another. The Department is performing this task under the watchful eye of the court, having been sued by those whose trust accounts it is supposed to be managing.
I believe that Secretary Babbitt is making a good faith effort to address this problem, and as such have recommended a funding level for the Office of the Special Trustee that is $39 million over the amount originally provided for fiscal year 1999. This amount will provide for both the manpower and the trust management systems necessary to fix the problem. I will note, however, that the Federal track record in managing large system procurements is spotty at best. As such, I hope to continue to work closely with the Committee on Indian Affairs and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to ensure that these funds are expended wisely, and that we will not regret our decision to provide such a considerable amount for this purpose. I plead with my colleagues, however, to refrain from offering amendments to this bill that would radically change the course of action for trust management that has been laid out by the administration. Any such changes should be carefully considered and have the benefit of hearings by the authorizing committees.
With regard to other Indian programs, I will quickly note that the bill provides an $83 million increase for the Indian Health Service, as well as significant increases for both Indian law enforcement and Indian school construction and repair. Funding for Indian schools continues to be among the highest programmatic priorities expressed by members of the Interior Subcommittee.
The Interior bill also funds a myriad of programs that preserve and enhance our nation's cultural heritage. Perhaps the most visible of these programs are the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities. While the subcommittee's allocation did not allow us to increase these accounts by large amounts as would be the desire of many Senators, the bill does provide a $1 million increase for each program. These increases will not allow for any dramatic expansion the Endowments' ongoing programs, but do indicate the committee's general support for the Endowments and the efforts they have made to respond to the various criticisms that have been leveled at them. I hope that we may able to do even better next year.
The bill also includes the full $19 million required to complete the Federal commitment to the construction of the National Museum of the American Indian on The Mall, and $20 million to continue phase two of the comprehensive building rehabilitation project at the Kennedy Center.
The final grouping of agencies in this bill that I will mention at this time are the energy programs. The bill provides funding for both fossil energy R&D and energy conservation R&D at roughly the current year level. These programs are vital if we hope to stem our increasing dependence on foreign oil, to preserve the country's leadership in the manufacture of energy technologies, and to enable our economy to achieve reductions in energy use and emissions in ways that will not cripple economic growth. The bill also preserves funding for the weatherization and state grant programs at the fiscal year 1999 level. Maintaining current funding levels for these programs is made possible in part by the absence of any new appropriations for the naval petroleum and oil shale reserves, and a deferral of appropriations previously made for the Clean Coal Technology Program.
Mr. President, I would like to touch on two more issues that may be of particular interest to members. The first is funding for land acquisition. Many Senators are aware that the President's budget request included some $1 billion for a ``lands legacy'' initiative . This initiative is an amalgamation of programs, some of which the committee has been funding for years, some of which are entirely new. Many of the programs included in the initiative lack authorization entirely. While the committee may well have chosen to provide many of these increases if it were allowed to distribute a $1.1 billion increase in spending, the lands legacy initiative is absurd in the context of any overall budget that adheres to the terms of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997--the very act that has helped produce the budget surplus that the President is so anxious to spend.
To be clear, this bill does include large amounts of funding for a variety of land protection programs. The bill provides about the same amount of funding for Federal land acquisition as was included in the Senate reported bill last year. It also includes significant increases for other land protection programs such as the Cooperative Endangered Species Fund and the Forest Legacy program. The bill does not, however, include funds for the new and unauthorized grant programs requested by the administration, and does not include funds for the Stateside grant program that is authorized under the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. While I am sympathetic in concept to the Stateside program, the subcommittee's allocation does not provide the room necessary to restart the program.
Finally, I would like to take a moment to discuss the issue of appropriations ``riders.'' This administration has leveled much criticism at this Congress for including legislative provisions in appropriations bills. This criticism is disingenuous in at least two ways. First, there are without question legislative provisions in this very bill that, if removed, would prompt loud objections from the administration itself. Among these are provisions well known to my colleagues, such as moratoria on offshore oil and gas development and a moratorium on new mining patent applications. There are also some less well-known provisions that have been carried in this bill for years, the subjects of which range from clearcutting on the Shawnee National Forest to the testing of nuclear explosives for oil and gas exploration. Nearly all of these provisions are included in the bill because Congress at some point felt that the Executive branch was tampling on the prerogatives of the legislative branch.
This leads to my second point. It should be well apparent to my colleagues that this administration long ago made a conscious decision not to engage Congress in productive discussions on a wide array of natural resource issues. Most of these issues are driven by statutes that most reasonable people admit are in dire need of updating, streamlining or reform. Instead, the administration has chosen to implement its own version of these laws through expansive regulatory actions, far-reaching Executive orders and creative legal opinions. When the administration overreaches in this fashion, concerned Senators are compelled to respond. The administration knows this, and has clearly made a political calculation that it is in its interest to invite these riders every year. For the administration to criticize the very practice that it deliberately provokes is, as I have said disingenuous at best.
If the administration wishes to take issue with the substance of these provisions rather than hide behind a criticism of the process, it is welcome to do so. Consideration of this bill is an open process. It is not done ``in the dark of night,'' as we so often read. The bill has moved through subcommittee and full committee, and is open for amendment by the full Senate. I expect that we will discuss some of these provisions during the coming debate, and hope that Senators will carefully consider the arguments made on both sides. What I hope Senators will not do, is vote to abdicate the Senate's responsibility to oversee the actions of the executive branch, or sacrifice the power of the purse that is granted to the Congress by the Constitution.
With that admonition, Mr. President, it is probably an appropriate time to turn to Senator BYRD and thank him for his assistance in drafting this bill. He has been an invaluable resource as I have tried to be responsive to the priorities of Members on that side of the aisle, and has been particularly helpful in securing an allocation for the subcommittee that enables us to report a bill that is deserving of the Senate's support. I thank Senator BYRD's staff as well--Kurt Dodd, Liz Gelfer, a detailee, and Carole Geagley for all the hard work they have done on this bill. I also want to thank my subcommittee staff for the long hours and hard work they have put in on this bill--Bruce Evans, Ginny James, Anne McInerney, Leif Fonnesbeck, Joe Norrell, and our detailee Sean Marsan. Kari Vanderstoep of my personal staff and Chuck Berwick--who has now departed my office for business school--have also done a great job of coordinating the many parts of this bill that have a direct impact on the State of Washington.
Once again, I think this is a good bill that balances the competing needs of the agencies it funds against the broader fiscal constraints that we have imposed upon ourselves. I hope my colleagues will support the bill.
There is one final point I want to make, Mr. President, and emphasize to all the Members and their staffs who are within hearing.
This is a bill created by many individual Senators' requests for projects in their home States, and sometimes for projects that are regional and national in scope. This year, at least during my tenure, we set another new record. One hundred Senators made more than 2,400 requests for specific provisions in this bill. Obviously, we could not grant all of the requests that are valid. I must say most of them were, in the sense they were for projects that would increase the ambience of the park system, the national historic system of the country as a whole.
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Senator BYRD and I, working together, have done the best job we possibly could in setting priorities for those programs, within the constraints of a bill I have already said is very limited in the total amount of money we have.
So Members' requests that are not included in the bill were not ignored; they were simply omitted either because the given individual had higher priorities within his or her own State or because other priorities intervened in their way.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I speak today in support of the fiscal year 2000 Interior and Related Agencies appropriation bill. This is an important bill which provides for the management of our Nation's natural resources, funds research critical to our energy future, supports the well-being of our Indian populations, and protects the historical and cultural heritage of our country. I urge the Senate to move swiftly in its consideration of this appropriation bill.
It has been my privilege to serve as the ranking member for this bill at the side of our very able chairman, the senior Senator from Washington. Senator GORTON has done an outstanding job in crafting the bill and balancing its many competing interests, a particularly daunting challenge this year in light of the spending caps within which the Appropriations Committee must operate. Even in the best of years, crafting the Interior bill is not an easy task.
The Interior bill remains one of the most popular appropriation bills, funding a diverse set of very worthy programs and projects. The bill is full of thousands of relatively small, yet very meaningful details. Our chairman is a master of the complexities of the Interior bill. It is a pleasure to work on this appropriations bill with Senator GORTON at the helm. He has treated the Senators fairly and openly. This bill was put together in a bipartisan manner, and it reflects priorities identified by Senators, by the public, and by the agencies which are charged with carrying out the programs and projects funded in the bill.
The breadth of the activities covered by the Interior bill is vast--ranging from museums to parks to hospitals to resources to research--with most of the funds being spent far away from the capital. This bill funds hundreds of national parks, wildlife refuges, national forests, and other land management units. This bill supports more than 400 Indian hospitals and clinics and thousands of Indian students. A wide variety of natural science and energy research and technology development are funded through this bill, providing immediate and far-reaching benefits to all parts of our Nation and to our society as a whole.
This bill makes its presence known in every State--from the rocky coasts of Maine to the mountains of California, from the coral reefs of Florida to the far flung island territories of the Pacific, from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And the number of requests Senator GORTON and I have received from Senators for project funding in the Interior bill--more than 2,400 requests for specific items--reflects its broad impact. While it is impossible to include every request, Senator GORTON has done an admirable job of accommodating high-priority items within the allocation, an allocation that is $1.13 billion below the President's budget request and nearly $20 million below last year's enacted level of $13.94 billion in new discretionary spending authority.
Highlights of this bill include:
A total of $234 million for federal land acquisition, which is $178 million below the President's fiscal year 2000 request (with reprogrammings) and $94 million below the level of funding included in the fiscal year 1999 act for land acquisition.
A continuing emphasis on operating and protecting our national parks. Park operation funds are increased by $70 million, including increases of $19 million for resource stewardship, $16 million for visitor services, and $20 million for park maintenance.
A continuing focus on the operational needs of the other land management agencies. The bill contains an increase of $24 million for the operating accounts of the Bureau of Land Management, including a $9 million increase for range management. The bill also provides an increase of $22 million for the resource management account of the Fish and Wildlife Service, including an increase of $13 million for refuge operations and maintenance.
The bill contains $159 million for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, allowing operation of the reserve without selling any of its oil.
Fossil energy research and development is funded at $395 million (with use of transfers and prior year balances), which is an increase above both the enacted level (by $11 million) and the request level (by $27 million). Specific increases also are provided for select energy conservation programs in building research and standards, transportation technology and specific industries of the future activities.
While this bill provides needed resources for protecting some of our nation's most valuable treasures, we still have a long way to go. The agencies funded through this bill are starting to make progress towards addressing their operational and maintenance issues, thanks to the leadership of the Congress. But we are by no means out of the woods. Many deplorable conditions remain; many important resource and research needs are unmet. We must continue our vigilance towards unnecessary new initiatives as well as unwise decreases, our support for the basic programs that provide the foundation of the Interior bill, and our careful stewardship of the resources and assets placed in our trust.
Lastly, I extend a warm word of appreciation to the staff that have assisted the Chairman and myself in our work on this bill. They work as a team and serve both of us, as well as all Senators, in a very effective and dedicated manner. On the majority side, the staff members are Bruce Evans, Ginny James, Anne McInerney, Leif Fonnesbeck, Joseph Norrell, and Sean Marsan. On my staff, Kurt Dodd, Carole Geagley, and Liz Gelfer have worked on the Interior Bill this year. This team works under the tutelage of the staff directors of the full committee--Steve Cortese for the majority and Jim English for the minority.
Mr. President, this is a good bill, and I urge the Senate to complete its action promptly.
Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, what is the pending legislative business?
Mr. GORTON. I believe I have not abandoned the floor at this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair is advised by the Parliamentarian that the floor was open.
Mr. GORTON. Then I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has the floor.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I believe I have the floor.
Mrs. BOXER. Point of order, Mr. President. You recognized the Senator from Washington, Senator MURRAY.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has the floor.
Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair for that clarification.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise to talk about some legislative language that is in the Interior bill, on which I will be offering an amendment shortly, which is going to give away more of our public lands for the benefit of a few and at a tremendous cost to all the rest of us. This is a cost to the American taxpayer and to our environment.
I want to begin, as I talk about this, by expressing that I am not going to be attacking the mining industry, which this amendment will be speaking to. I believe mining is an important industry in our country.
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