Unanimous Consent Agreement

Mr. GRASSLEY. I thank my colleagues for their attention to this important children's care policy. They are correct that something must be done to address the funds that have and will revert to the Treasury in the near future. They are also correct to the constraints within the omnibus bill. I strongly support the State Children's Health Insurance Program. It is a program that provides health care for over 16,000 low-income children in my State.

Senators CHAFEE, SNOWE, and ROCKEFELLER are looking to address a necessary maintenance issue within S-CHIP. As Senator SNOWE noted, I worked very closely with Senator BAUCUS, Senator CHAFEE, Senator ROCKEFELLER, Chairman TAUZIN, and Representative DINGELL on a bipartisan, bicameral proposal that would have addressed expired S-CHIP funds.

The proposal reflected a balanced approach to redistributing S-CHIP funding taking into account that some States are spending through their existing allotments and other States are ramping up their programs and will need additional funding in the years to come.

This proposal did not pass the Senate last year, but it is a fair approach to redistributing S-CHIP funds. Unfortunately, I cannot support including this policy at this time. The omnibus is a poor vehicle for this necessary maintenance.

I am sympathetic to the intent of this policy, although this is neither the time nor the place to address this issue. The Senate and the House have an agreement with the administration to keep the omnibus appropriations bill under $750 billion. The S-CHIP policy costs over $1.2 billion in budget authority in 2003. An amendment of this nature would break that agreement and that is simply not acceptable. I appreciate the willingness of Senators SNOWE, CHAFEE, and ROCKEFELLER to accept this reality.

I assure my colleagues that I will work with them in the near future to update the S-CHIP redistribution policy in the near future as chairman of the Finance Committee. It is my understanding that Senator NICKLES, the chairman of the Budget
Committee, is also interested in a regular order approach and that he is interested in putting money aside in the budget to address the needs of S-CHIP.

With this in mind, I believe the most appropriate way to address this issue is to work with the chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator NICKLES, to secure sufficient funding for this bipartisan S-CHIP proposal and then to address it in the Finance Committee. I will also continue my work with Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman TAUZIN, so the Senate and the House can move forward in a coordinated fashion.

I assure my colleagues that I will work with them once the Budget Resolution for fiscal year 2004 has been adopted to move legislation quickly through the Finance Committee that reflects a bipartisan, bicameral 2-year agreement on S-CHIP.