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Mr. President, we are in a war. Isn't this really unconscionable? Isn't it

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   We are now about to have a big fight with the President and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle about increased spending. How can my colleagues on this side of the aisle go into that battle with clean hands when we continue to add porkbarrel project after porkbarrel project--$9 billion so far of unrequested, unauthorized items that are specifically earmarked for certain powerful members of the Appropriations Committee. That is not right, Mr. President.

   Sooner or later, we are going to educate the American people about this, and it is going to come to a halt. I am afraid it may be later rather than sooner. It continues to lurch out of control, and no one believes we have enough money for defense spending. No one believes that. That is why we are spending extra money on defense, and yet these projects continue to be added both in conference as well as in the bills themselves, and it is not acceptable.

   It is not acceptable. If the average American knew more about this, they would reject it.

   I intend to do as I have done in the past to make sure as many Americans understand where their tax dollars are spent.

   I yield the remainder of my time.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.

   Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am proud to rise in strong support of a conference report on H.R. 2620, the VA-HUD fiscal year 2002 appropriations bill. The chair of the committee, Senator Mikulski, has done an excellent job in crafting this measure. I am deeply grateful for her leadership.

   She was kind enough to talk about the smooth transition. It was not something we desired, but it was something that worked extremely well because we have had the good fortune of being able to work closely on this measure for a number of years. In fact, it was a seamless transition.

   I believe the legitimate wishes and concerns of Members of this body, the needs of the veterans, those who depend upon housing for Federal Government assistance, those who depend upon the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up our rivers and our waters and our air, are well served by this measure.

   I add my compliments to Congressman WALSH, the chair of the House VA-HUD Committee, and Congressman MOLLOHAN, the ranking member. This bill has been a very tough one because of the limitation on funding, but I believe it strikes the right balance. We have met many of the administration's funding priorities, and I compliment the administration for not looking to create a series of new programs but instead focusing on some exceptions, maintaining existing program levels and reforming program implementation to ensure that agencies can deliver assistance under existing program requirements.

   The Senator from New Mexico has asked for a few minutes out of my time, so I ask the Presiding Officer to notify me when I have used 9 minutes of time. I do wish to reserve some time for Senator Domenici for a very pressing issue he must address.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.

   Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, the respective leaders have asked the vote be held at 4:30, so we are going to have some extra time. We can accommodate the Senator for as much time as he or the distinguished Senator from New Mexico would like to have.

   Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my chairman. I will try to be reasonably brief, but there are some important things I wish to include.

   To return to the analysis of the bill, the VA and veterans needs remain the highest priority of the bill. The funding decisions in this bill are designed to ensure the best quality of medical care for our veterans and to keep the best doctors in the VA system. Furthermore, Senator Mikulski and I are committed deeply to meeting the medical needs of veterans, and we are working with the VA and the administration to ensure the successful implementation of the new CARES process, which is designed to assure that VA has the facilities it needs, that targets the services and the medical care throughout the country, and gets rid of unneeded facilities that drain money away from needed care for veterans.

   In addition, the VA-HUD bill appropriates some $30.2 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, an increase of $1.7 billion. This includes funding to renew all expiring section 8 contracts and provides for 18,000 incremental vouchers. I do remain deeply concerned that vouchers do not work well in many housing markets. We do, as the chairman of the subcommittee mentioned, need to develop new production programs that assist extremely low-income families in particular. This is a need that we must address, and we look forward to working with the authorizing committees, the Millennium Housing Commission, and others, to ensure it is

   addressed.

   The bill also reflects our continuing support for CDBG, the HOME Program, homeless assistance, FHA mortgage insurance, and assistance for abatement of lead hazards in housing.

   As for the Environmental Protection Agency, the bill includes a $587 million increase to $7.9 billion, $74 million over the fiscal year 2001 level. The bill maintains funding of the clean water State revolving fund at $1.35 billion and drinking water at $850 million. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of continuing to maintain funding for these State revolving funds .

   The clean water infrastructure financing alone, there is a need in this country for some $200 billion over the next 20 years, excluding replacement costs and operation and maintenance.

   I want to address some comments made about spending characterized in this bill as porkbarrel. The Members of this body know this bill funds monies that go through to State and local governments. This is a measure that includes funds for the Community Development Block Grant Program. Under that program, we take Federal dollars and send it back to the local communities so Governors, mayors, and city council members can allocate the needs in their community.

   Is that porkbarrel? I happen to think that providing money for needed community improvements is not porkbarrel spending. This measure also sends, as I just said, $1.35 billion for the clean water state revolving funds to clean up sewers, and $850 million for safe drinking water . Is that porkbarrel? I do not think so.

   The greatest need for many of our communities, whether they be large or small communities, is to have the money they need to develop projects that will make them strong communities and to assure that the water systems are healthy. We provide that money.

   Now my colleague was addressing the fact that out of that money, we send back for community development block grants some 6.8 percent. Less than 10 percent has been designated by Members of the House or the Senate for particular high need activities and investments in communities in their State .

   Do Members of Congress somehow know less about the needs of their communities for community development? Do Members of Congress somehow know less about the need for critical improvements to water and sewer supply systems? I think not.

   This money goes to those communities that have needs for tremendous efforts to improve community life, whether it be facilities that will bring in more business or whether it be money to go to drinking water or cleaning up sewer water in the States. This is one of the areas where those legislators in Congress who are concerned and who pay attention to the needs of their State can find areas where there are pressing needs. I believe, by and large, they do an excellent job, and we do a good job.

   One may quarrel with some of the decisions made by local officials on community development block grants. One may quarrel with some of the decisions made on clean water in State revolving funds for drinking water , but the fact

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   Mr. President, I do not see the Senator from New Mexico. I believe we have additional time remaining so I will continue and intend to address the subject he was going to address because I know he feels very strongly about it. One of the major controversial areas we have addressed in this bill concerns the level of arsenic in drinking water . In this case, the bill supports the current regulation of 10 parts per billion for arsenic levels in drinking water , and while this level is supported by a number of scientific studies, the requirement that the communities must meet these new requirements by 2006 is very troubling because there are communities in the United States, especially communities in the West, communities in New Mexico and Idaho and other States, where there are high levels of naturally occurring arsenic in the water .

   Unfortunately, for communities which are small and do not have the financial ability to meet these requirements, the possibility is some very unwanted consequences of forcing through a regulation on all communities.

   We provide some relief in these communities through a temporary waiver. Our colleagues on the authorizing committees objected to this approach even though the leaders of the committee on both the House and Senate sides believed it was warranted. The conference report defers to those committees and suggests the authorizing committees pay attention to an evaluation to be done by EPA on the affordability of these projects and how a small system variance and exemption programs should be implemented for arson. This is a serious issue. Congress will have to address and balance this need over the next few years, both the financial burdens and health concerns faced by the small communities on the new arsenic standards.

   To be blunt, the last thing we need is to push these communities, with high arsenic levels in their drinking water , to abandon local municipal water systems which are reducing the levels of arsenic and force residents to go back to untreated and unregulated wells where they would be getting potentially higher levels of arsenic and potentially being exposed to greater health risks, not only from arsenic but from other sources of water pollution that would be treated in the municipal water systems.

   For FEMA, the conference report includes $1.5 billion in emergency disaster assistance, funding for firefighters, and flood mapping and mitigation. I join with my colleague from Maryland in expressing my gratitude for the way FEMA moved in. They have our highest appreciation. They stepped up to the plate and assisted the citizens of our Nation during this time of need.

   I will address for my colleagues the fact, at the request of Representatives and Senators from New York, that we took special note of the economic needs of the people and businesses in New York that have been devastated by the tragic terrorist attack of September 11. The President allocated $700 million for New York for the VA/HUD community development block grant. In this bill we included authority for HUD to meet these needs through existing programs, including broad authority to waive a part of the statute--except for labor standards, environmental standards, fair housing, and antidiscrimination--to meet these truly pressing needs. I understand a community economic development corporation has been established to allocate these funds .

   I believe the Governor and the mayor set up a Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation that will hand out the funds . I raise this point because today the Environment and Public Works Committee passed out of committee a new measure setting up a different form of allocating these funds . I caution members of that committee, on which I happen to serve, that we not set up a competing structure. We need to do the job well. We need to do it right. We need to do it one time and not have two different structures stumbling all over each other. We have, we think, dealt with the concerns, and we will be happy to work with friends and colleagues from New York to make sure we do it effectively.

   Finally, I mention in addition to funding NASA at $14.78 billion, we have expressed grave concerns about the serious cost overruns. The costs of the International Space Station have continued to grow, over $4 billion above more recently; it is probably now $5 or $6 billion. There seems to be a total loss of management control by NASA with regard to the space station. We have received a report from the Young commission to study the International Space Station. I believe it is a top priority for the administration to find a new Administrator as soon as possible to review the extensive analysis and major recommendations of the Young commission and make whatever program and management reforms are necessary to ensure the ISS and other NASA programs meet our expectations and not rob the funding for NASA.

   I express my strong feeling, as the chair of our subcommittee has, for the need to double the National Science Foundation budget. We have to meet pressing human priorities. But for the long run, the pressing human needs of this country are going to be met to the extent that we fund the scientific exploration that goes on in the National Science Foundation. We should not be shorting the basic scientific research. I hope we can have the support of our colleagues to get the money to increase it next year to put us on the path of doubling.

   In addition to thanking Senator Mikulski, I express my sincere thanks to the members of the subcommittee and my staff, Jon Kamarck, Cheh Kim, and Isaac Green, who worked long and hard. They have become very good friends and worked closely, particularly in the new setting with limited space, with our good friends, Paul Carliner, Gabrielle Batkin and Joel Widder, for their quality work and commitment to the process. They have done an excellent job, and we are very proud of the work they do.

   I, too, commend this bill to my colleagues and urge unanimous support.

   I yield the floor.

   Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to voice my support for the fiscal year 2002 HUD-VA conference report. I congratulate Chairwoman MIKULSKI and Senator BOND for the outstanding job they have done to provide HUD with the resources it needs, while working within a very tight allocation for all of the agencies within their jurisdiction.

   The conference report before us today is a great improvement over the administration's budget request. The budget request for HUD, the agency that provides housing assistance to this Nation's poorest families, was sorely inadequate. Their proposal would not even have provided the funding necessary to maintain HUD programs at current levels.

   The appropriators recognized the great need for housing assistance in this country by providing more funding than the administration requested in almost every program area.

   The increases included in this bill are clearly needed. We have a severe housing crisis in this country, and the need for housing assistance continues to grow. In addition to the 5 million very low-income households in this country who have worst case housing needs, which means they are either paying more than half of their income towards rent or living in severely substandard housing, another 2 million people will experience homelessness this year. These families face greater challenges today, as the Nation's low-income housing stock continues to shrink. In the past decade, the number of units available to extremely low-income renters has dropped by 14 percent, a loss of almost a million units.

   These statistics make clear that programs to aid low-income families must not be cut, but must be expanded to meet the growing need. Unfortunately, the overall funding level requested by the administration put Congress in the untenable position of choosing between maintaining the current affordable housing stock or funding additional needed housing units. The appropriators were forced to forego expanding housing opportunities so that scarce Federal resources could be used to maintain existing housing, a choice that is both cost-effective and necessary. While we need to expand Federal housing programs, we have an obligation to ensure that the affordable housing that exists is habitable and safe.

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   For this reason, I am pleased that the conference report increases funding for public housing, a program that houses over 1.3 million of this Nation's poorest families. This bill provides $2.84 billion for the Public Housing Capital Fund, the fund used to repair and modernize public housing--$550 million above the administration's request. There is a significant need for Public Housing Capital Funds as HUD estimates that there is currently a $22 billion backlog in needed capital repairs in public housing. A cut of the magnitude proposed by the administration would have led to further deterioration of this Nation's public housing stock. Fortunately, the bill before us today provides additional funding, helping us to maintain a much needed resource and to ensure that the Federal investment in public housing is protected.

   Recognizing the importance of public housing, the conference report funds the Public Housing Operating Fund at $3.5 billion, $110 million above the administration's request. I am disappointed that this bill does not separately fund the Public Housing Drug Elimination Fund. The administration requested no funding for this critical program which helps to fight drugs and crime in our public housing communities. The conference report provides $250 million more for the Operating Fund than provided in fiscal year 2001 to ensure that PHAs will not have to cut all of their anticrime activities. While this increase will assist PHAs in continuing after-school programs, mentoring activities, and safety patrols, I am concerned that PHAs may be forced to use the increased funding to pay for rising utility costs, leading to a reduction in activities normally funded by the Drug Elimination Fund.

   In addition to ensuring that public housing is maintained, this bill fully funds the Homeless Assistance Programs. I am pleased that the bill provides $100 million to fund Shelter Plus Care renewals. Shelter Plus Care provides permanent housing to formerly homeless people, and this $100 million will maintain all of these housing units, while allowing communities to continue to meet the demand for additional homeless services.

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