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We continued funding empowerment zones, brownfields, homeless grants, and housing for the elderly and disabled. We would surely like to have increased funding for these programs, but our allocation was not enough to do this. We hope that in next year's budget, we could take a look at it because

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   Also, again, on a bipartisan basis, we know we need a new production program. We are looking forward to the recommendations of the housing commission and the Commission on Senior Housing so that we could then get a framework for proceeding.

   Also, my senior colleague, Senator PAUL SARBANES, chairing the Housing and Banking Committee, has been leading the fight against predatory lending. We started that fight in this committee under Senator Bond, and we are going to continue that. We have added funds in the inspector general's office to target the antipredatory lending activities.

   Also, we have provided in this bill $80 million to create computer learning centers in low-income neighborhoods. These will be competitive grants to nonprofits and to local governments. I prefer to keep it to nonprofits. This will help cross the digital divide and, we believe, can be used for job training during the day, structured afterschool activities in the afternoon, and essentially be one of the important empowerment tools.

   Let's move on to the environment. For EPA, we provide $7.5 billion, an increase of $435 million above the President's request. We ensure that the Federal enforcement of environmental programs remains strong. We restore 270 enforcement jobs cut by the President. The President proposed a major shift in policy this year. These 270 jobs are like our environmental cops on the beat. The President wanted to shift this to a grants program of $25 million. We again felt we were breaking new ground without the authorizers taking a look at what is the best way to enforce the environmental laws. We know it needs to be a Federal-State partnership. But we didn't want to eliminate our current framework until we had really a very clear, well-thought-through process.

   The EPA inspector general found numerous examples of weaknesses in State enforcement programs. That is why we had so many yellow flashing lights.

   This bill keeps our commitment to clean and safe water by fully funding the clean water State revolving loan fund at $1.35 billion. This Nation is facing an enormous backlog of funding for water infrastructure projects--some estimate as high as $23 billion per year. Out of all the requests we got for congressionally designated projects, probably the largest number and those that just cried out for a response were in water and sewer, from very small rural communities that are on the brink of disaster to large metropolitan water supplies where the water and sewer was built over 100 years ago and are on the verge of collapse.

   Mr. President, we really hope that it will be a major initiative of the authorizing committee to look at our infrastructure needs. I think this is very important in terms of a public investment for our communities.

   Let's go to FEMA. Our bill provides, for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, $3.3 billion. Of this total, $2.3 billion is designated for the disaster relief account to be available in the event of an emergency or natural disaster.

   I should note for my colleagues that of the $2.3 billion designated for disaster relief, $2 billion is designated as an emergency under the terms of the Budget Act. Tropical Storm Allison had a devastating impact on Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. We have to replenish this disaster account and at the same time have a cushion for these impending disasters. We restore $25 million for Project Impact and increase the FEMA fire grant program to $150 million. I will be saying more about that in the course of the bill.

   Mr. President, I want to move on to NASA. We provided $1.46 billion for NASA programs--$50 million over the President's request--and $300 million over last year. This was one of the more difficult parts of our appropriations. We found ourselves dealing with a $4 billion-plus overrun on the international space station. I will say that again. We found ourselves dealing with a $4 billion overrun on the international space station. I am very disappointed and dismayed at the way the space station is being managed. I am going to be very clear on the record. I am absolutely committed to the space station, and I am going to do all I can to see that it is completed. But NASA needs to get its act together on the space station and deal with these cost overruns.

   We really want to ensure that we do complete the space station but not at the expense of cannibalizing other programs or reducing the space station to only three astronauts. You cannot do the space station science for which this whole project was completed with three astronauts. We also need to be sure that our astronauts can return safely. We need to focus on the safety of our astronauts, and this is one of the other reasons we are working on shuttle upgrades.

   On the National Science Foundation, know that Senator Bond and I wanted to double it, but we could not. We did increase it by $256 million. We hope to provide more. Senator Bond and I, and a large number of colleagues, think it is in our national interest to do so. This recommendation represents a downpayment on that policy objective.

   We provide nearly $500 million for nonotechnology and information technology, and $150 million to meet the needs of institutions and States. We also are increasing math and

   science education, as well as supercomputing hardware.

   The Science Foundation budget will emphasize three goals: Support for people--from the scientist to the graduate student; to develop support for the basic research enterprise of this country; and also support for the tools we need for future science and technology.

   Let me go into national service. We funded national service at $420 million. This keeps national service strong. Voluntarism is our trademark and it highlights the best of America. What we did here was provide $25 million to teach-the-teachers in technology. We have included that in the bill to encourage veterans to volunteer with our young people. Again, we could have done more, but we just didn't have the money. I think what we did do meets these needs.

   This speech is kind of boring because it is about numbers and data--$500 million over here, $300 million this, and the President's that, and our requests, et cetera. But when you get down to it, what this money represents is really a commitment to honoring our veterans, building our communities, housing and urban development, protecting our environment, and investing in space in the National Science Foundation so that we have the new ideas to come up with the new products, encouraging voluntarism.

   We also provide that in the event any community is hit by a national disaster, while they have to go through the records, they would not have to forage for funds to pay for it.

   I thank Senator Bond and his very capable staff for their most collegial and cooperative efforts in moving this bill forward.

   I yield the floor.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.

   Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am very pleased to stand wholeheartedly in enthusiastic support of S. 1216, the VA-HUD fiscal year 2002 appropriations bill as reported from the Committee on Appropriations.

   My compliments to Senator Mikulski as the new chair of the VA-HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee for her hard work and her commitment to making this bill a balanced piece of legislation for all Members, for the administration and, most of all, for the people who are served by it--and they are many--as the Senator has so eloquently outlined.

   I could not ask for a better chair and, previous to the transmogrification, a better ranking member. I know that some identify us as one of the more collegial teams in this Chamber. I am proud of that. I think we make a good team.

   After extensive, hard work on the very important and difficult and complex issues in this bill, we agree on the

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   In addition, while no bill is perfect or addresses every Member's concerns--and certainly we had many hundreds and thousands of concerns--I think the bill strikes the right balance in funding both the Members' priorities and the administration's priorities.

   In particular, despite our tight allocation, we have done our best to satisfy the priorities of Senators who made special requests for economic development grants, water infrastructure improvements, as well as requests for other State and local priorities. Such requests numbered over 1,600 individual requests, totaling over $22 billion, which illustrates the level of interest and demand for assistance in the bill. That means, on the average, each Senator submitted 16 requests, costing a total of $220 million for our humble little bill. We obviously could not address all of these requests, but we have tried hard to address as many of the most pressing needs as we could.

   We have also met most of the administration's funding priorities. I compliment the administration for not looking to create a series of new programs, but instead focusing on--with some exceptions--maintaining existing program levels and reforming program implementation to ensure that the agency can deliver the needed assistance under existing program requirements.

   Again, I emphasize that we don't need a lot of new programs in this bill. We do need to ensure that existing programs are managed well and effectively and the people who are to be served receive the benefits that are intended in the bill.

   I will be relatively brief in my review of the bill because the VA and veterans' needs remain the highest priority, and funding decisions in the bill are designed to ensure the best quality of medical care for our veterans, to keep the best doctors in the VA system. To achieve this, we have funded VA medical care at $21.4 billion, an increase of some $400 million over the President's request, and over $1.1 billion over the 2001 level.

   I know some Members believe the funds are inadequate, but I emphasize we have increased this account every year and have worked hard to ensure there are adequate funds for the medical needs of our veterans. In fairness, we can spend only so many funds efficiently and effectively. I believe we have done the best we can.

   Moreover, Senator Mikulski and I are committed to meeting the medical needs of veterans, and we are working with VA to ensure successful implementation of the new CARES process that will result in better VA facilities, the better targeting of services and medical care throughout the country, assuring we do not waste money that is meant for veterans medical care on maintaining unneeded or excessive capacity buildings.

   The 2002 VA-HUD Senate appropriations bill provides $31 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is $443 million over the budget request and $2.5 billion over last year's level. This includes funding needed to renew all expiring section 8 contracts and also provides funds for 17,000 incremental vouchers.

   I personally remain deeply concerned that vouchers do not work well in many housing markets. We need to develop new production programs that assist extremely low-income families in particular.

   We have also included $650 million for the Public Housing Capital Fund over and above the President's budget request, and have added $300 million for the Public Housing Drug Elimination Program, a program the administration sought to eliminate in its budget. These are both important programs, and the VA-HUD bill essentially preserves last year's funding levels.

   In particular, I emphasize my support for the public housing capital funding, which is critically needed to address some $20 billion in outstanding public housing capital needs. We must ensure those people who live in assisted housing have decent housing in which to live and to raise their families. As a civilized and developed nation, we owe the least of our citizens, in terms of economic wealth, at least that much.

   In addition, we maintain funding for both the CDGB and HOME programs at the 2001 level, while rejecting an administration set-aside of $200 million in home funds for a new downpayment program. The set-aside is unnecessary, in our view, since this activity is already eligible under the HOME program. I stress my support for both HOME and CDBG because they rely on decisionmaking guided by local choice and need. We are asking the people who are there on the ground, in the community, to determine how best to use funds for community development and to meet the housing needs of the population in their communities.

   I hope and trust these funds are used by States and localities as an investment in housing production to meet the increasing housing needs of low-income and extremely low-income families.

   In addition, the bill funds section 202 elderly housing at $783 million; section 811 housing for disabled at $217.7

   million. These funding levels are the administration's requests and approximately the same as the 2001 level. The bill includes over $1 billion for homeless funding, with a separate account of almost $100 million for the renewal of the expiring shelter plus care contract. Again, these funding levels reflect the administration's request at last year's funding levels.

   As for the Environmental Protection Agency, the bill includes $7.75 billion, which is some $435 million over the 2002 budget request. It includes $25 million for State information systems as requested by the administration.

   We did reject the administration's request to transfer some $25 million for State EPA and enforcement efforts, keeping these funds at EPA. I support that premise. As one who was a Governor, I ran environmental protection programs in my State . I have a great regard and a great respect for the work done at the State level, but the proposed transfer of enforcement responsibilities from EPA to the States may be premature. It appears to us a number of States may need to upgrade their enforcement capacity before a transfer of EPA enforcement responsibilities to States is warranted.

   In addition, the bill maintains funding of the clean water State revolving fund at $1.35 billion instead of reducing this amount by $500 million for the funding of a new sewer overflow grants program.

   Funding of this new sewer overflow program is premature without additional funding. Both the clean water and drinking water State revolving funds are key to building and rebuilding our Nation's water infrastructure systems and should not be compromised with new programs without significant new funding.

   I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of continuing to maintain funding for these State revolving funds . For clean water infrastructure financing alone, there is a need for some $200 billion over the next 20 years, excluding replacement costs and operations and maintenance.

   For FEMA, the bill appropriates an additional $2 billion in disaster relief. The chairman and I intend to offer an amendment to make these funds available upon enactment. We feel strongly these additional funds should be available as soon as possible in the event we face disasters beyond the normal expectations during the remainder of this fiscal year. If we do not have that money, then this body is going to be put in a real bind to try to respond to a disaster which might occur in any of our States. I believe every Member should support this program because almost everyone represents a State which has benefited recently from the availability of these important disaster assistance funds in the face of some unexpected and unfortunate disaster in their States.

   We need to ensure FEMA has the necessary funds to meet all possible emergency contingencies during this fiscal year and the next fiscal year. The VA-HUD appropriations bill also funds NASA at $14.56 billion. This is an increase of $307.5 million over last year. It is $50 million above the budget request. This includes $6.87 billion for human space flight, while capping the

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   Senator Mikulski and I share huge concerns over the current status of the space station, as she has so forcefully and eloquently noted, especially when cost overruns currently exceed $4 billion this year alone. There also appears to be a total loss of management control by NASA with regard to the space station.

   In the current configuration, the space station must depend upon the Russian Soyuz for any emergency escape capacity from the station, and there continues to be inadequate habitation space that is needed for science research, the primary justification for the construction of this station.

   Right now, they can only hold three astronauts in the space station. The time of two and a half of them is required to operate the station. That means we go through all the work and trouble of sending up a space shuttle, sending up astronauts, and we get one-half of one FTE working on science. That is a disaster, and it is and should be an embarrassment for NASA.

   Not to be too bleak, however, NASA is making great strides in other areas of research, including space and Earth science. Remote sensing is becoming a viable and important technology and many of our space science missions are unlocking the mysteries of the universe.

   In addition, the bill continues our commitment to the space launch initiative, the SLI. This is a critical program that should provide for the development of alternative technologies for access to space. Nevertheless, I have heard some reports that NASA may be losing control of the SLI program. Again, NASA needs to keep a tight focus on technologies being proposed and the funding which is approved.

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