Patriot Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I have very little to add to what Senator Collins said. Her remarks were compelling and eloquent. With the increase in prices, with the severity of the winter which is already upon many parts of this country, Rhode Island, and particularly Maine, it is obvious we need more funds just to keep what we were able to do last year. In fact, even if we are successful--and I hope we are--in authorizing the full allocation of $5.1 billion, there will still be a significant number of Americans who qualify for the program who will not be able to receive any type of help this winter. So this is an important step, but it is certainly not a complete solution to the problem of low-income people struggling to heat their homes.

As the Senator also pointed out so accurately, there is a real dilemma. Many families will have to give up food to heat their homes, and they will have to make other sacrifices. This is an extraordinary burden and particularly so this winter because of the huge increase in heating costs and the severity of the weather that is predicted for the region.

There has been some suggestion, or objection, I should say, to our proposal on several grounds. There is a suggestion that we have been inconsistent in what we have asked for. Last September, Senator Collins and I authored a letter, and we were joined by 40 of our colleagues, for an increase of about $1 billion. Forty-three Senators, including myself and Senator Collins, wrote to the Appropriations Committee. What we were asking for was allocation of emergency funding, funding that would go to the President so that at his discretion he could identify areas of the country under severe conditions and make allocation of these funds.

What we are talking about today is fully funding the State grant program. One of the reasons it is essential to fully fund the State grant program at the level of about $5.2 billion is because of the complexity of the formulas. Unless we fully fund this program, many of the States that are in the most dire circumstances won't receive funding.

Essentially, what happens is there is a front loading of funds to the areas of the country that are affected by winter, but as the funds in LIHEAP increase, appropriations and allocations go to areas of the country--the Southwest, the Southeast--that have problems in the summertime and need cooling assistance. The irony would be if we increase money but do not really increase it to the full level, we would be funding--and I think it is appropriate to do that--States that are not affected by the winter and providing very little for the States such as Wisconsin, Maine, New Hampshire, and others that need the heating assistance today. So that is the rationale underlying our request.

I point out that we have brought this issue to the floor on numerous occasions, and we have had the support of a majority of the Senators on both sides of the aisle and across the country. This is not a regional issue; this is a national issue. This is not a Republican or Democratic issue; this is a bipartisan issue. We have had that support because the majority of our colleagues recognize the reality. Prices are up, the temperature is down. People are going to suffer if we do not act.

There has also been a suggestion that this is inappropriate because it is not offset by cuts in other programs. Well, I would hasten to add that in the next few weeks we are going to consider many programs and funding requests that are not offset. Today, if one reads the newspapers, the Pentagon is preparing about a $100 billion supplemental request for funding in Iraq and Afghanistan. That may come down; it may go up. No one is proposing that we not consider that because it will not be offset by cuts in other programs. I think we are going to see, at least in the House version of the tax reconciliation bill, significant tax cuts which I believe are not offset. I think we should move to a balanced budget. I think we should take the tough steps that we took in the 1980s. I came here as a Congressman in January 1991, and we were running huge deficits every year. It took us a while. It was under the leadership of President Clinton that we were able to reverse that.

At the end of the 1990s, in the year 2000, we were looking at a projected surplus. Lo and behold, it is now the year 2005, and we are back into annual deficits and a projected deficit over many years before us. So we can do it, but I suggest those are not strong arguments to stop us from doing what we have to do today to help people who really will suffer if we do not take appropriate action.

I hope my colleagues would join Senator Collins and I--and again I would point out that this is a bipartisan, broadly based group of Senators who are coming together to make a simple request that I think is compelling, given the obvious reality, huge increase in prices, falling temperatures, people who will give up eating to heat their homes, people who will take drastic steps. Unfortunately, we read about it every winter in our part of the country, Senator Collins and I, where they turn the stove on at night, they go to sleep, and there is a fire, an explosion, a terrible tragedy. They are just trying to keep warm. We can help them. I hope we will.

I am pleased and proud to be doing this with my colleague and friend, Senator Collins from Maine.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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