ANWR and LIHEAP

Dec. 21

Senate Votes to Cut Services for Poor - But It's STILL Not Over

December 21 - This morning 50 Senators voted to cut nearly $40 billion from federal spending. Vice President Cheney cut short his trip to Pakistan in order to cast the deciding vote to cut aid for the poor. Despite the vote in the Senate, there is one more shot to defeat the bill (see below.)

Five brave Republican moderates (Senators Snowe (ME), Collins (ME), Chafee (RI), DeWine (OH) and Smith (OH)) joined with all Democrats and Independent Jeffords (VT) to vote against it. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) arrived in a wheelchair, delaying his recovery from recent knee surgery, to cast his vote against the bill.

The bill raises health care costs for the lowest income families, cuts child care for families moving from welfare-to-work, imposes new stringent work requirements for welfare recipients, cuts assistance for abused and neglected children, and increases the cost of student loans. Here's how your Senators voted: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00363

We offer our warmest thanks and appreciation to the tens of thousands of advocates who flooded Senate offices with phone calls, letters and emails. You are all superstars. We also thank the many staff members in the House and Senate who worked with us, putting in long, late hours in a valiant struggle to improve the bill.

But believe it or not - it's still not over!!!

On the Senate floor, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) raised objections to provisions in the bill that violate Senate rules. The Senate voted to uphold these objections and the provisions were stripped from the bill.*

This means the bill approved by the House in the early morning hours of December 19 is different from the version approved by the Senate. The full House must come back into session to vote on this version before it can become law.

That means there is one more shot to defeat the bill in the House.

The outcome is too important to the lives of low-income people not to do everything in our power to stop this bill in its tracks.

Republican moderates who voted for the bill on Monday morning had just a few hours to review the 774-page package. Now that what's in it is coming to light, we must make the strongest effort to persuade members to change their vote to no. (Here's how your Representative voted: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll670.xml)

- How the overall bill affects low-income people: http://www.cbpp.org/12-20-05bud.htm

- How the TANF provisions impose harsh new work requirements: http://www.cbpp.org/12-18-05bud2.htm

Call your Representative toll-free: 800-426-8073

Tell them: Reject the budget reconciliation conference report - it hurts the poor, the sick, and people with disabilities, young and old.

Thanks so much to the American Friends Service Committee for donating the toll-free number. AFSC welcomes groups to circulate and use the toll-free number in support of the non-partisan budget goals towards which CHN always works and without linking the alert to a website soliciting donations or actions which may be used to support partisan lobbying or work.

*We understand the provisions stripped away do not make major changes to the cuts to low-income services. One provision stripped away would have protected hospitals from lawsuits if they refused to care for a patient who could not pay the Medicaid co-payments.

December 22, 2005

SENATE CUTS LIHEAP FUNDING:

Despite Claims, There Is No Legitimate Connection Between ANWR and LIHEAP

by James Horney

On Wednesday, December 21, the Senate voted to strip from the conference report on the defense appropriation bill for fiscal year 2006 (H.R. 2863) legislative language that would have opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling. The Senate also voted to strip from the defense appropriation bill an unrelated provision appropriating $2 billion to the Low-income Home Energy Assistance Program - funds that are badly needed to help low-income families pay heating bills, which are rising dramatically this winter because of sharp increases in energy prices.

The White House and Congressional Republican leaders may try to claim that the LIHEAP funding had to be dropped because it was related to the ANWR provision. Such a claim would be false. The funding provided to LIHEAP to help families pay this winter's heating bills was a straightforward appropriation of general funds ("there is appropriated, out of any funds in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, an additional $2,000,000.) completely unrelated to receipts collected in connection with ANWR.

The funds that would have been provided for LIHEAP in the defense appropriation bill are badly needed because the amounts provided for that program in the Labor-HHS appropriation bill cleared by the Senate on December 21 are inadequate. The spike in fuel prices this year means that substantially more LIHEAP funding is needed this year than last.[1] Moreover, as a result of the one-percent across-the-board cut in virtually all discretionary funding for fiscal year 2006 that was not stripped out of the defense appropriation bill, the LIHEAP funding for this year provided by the Labor-HHS appropriation bill (a little less than $2.2 billion) will be one percent lower than the amount that was provided last year (without any adjustment for inflation).[2]

Reportedly, Senate Majority Leader Frist has said that the Senate will consider a supplemental appropriation bill that would include additional LIHEAP funding when the Senate returns from its recess next year. This provides no real assurance that additional LIHEAP funds will be available in time to help hard-pressed families during much of this winter. The Senate is not scheduled to reconvene for business until the middle of January (it will meet on January 3 for a pro forma session and then adjourn immediately until January 18). The House currently does not plan to reconvene until January 31. Even if the Senate and House act expeditiously after returning to pass a supplemental appropriation bill that provides additional funds for LIHEAP (which could be difficult given the number of other controversial issues that could arise in connection with consideration of that bill), much of the funding would be distributed too late to help pay heating bills during the depth of the winter. Furthermore, Senate Majority Leader Frist's assurances do not committhe leadership of the House, which has consistently resisted providing additional LIHEAP funding through the regular process, to go along with the plan to provide supplemental funds for LIHEAP or to do so quickly. Indeed, the House Leadership could decide once again to hold LIHEAP funds hostage to passage of other controversial legislation, as it has done in recent weeks.

What the Senate Did - And Why It Did Not Have to Strip LIHEAP Funding

The Senate voted to strip out two parts (Division C and Division D) of the defense appropriation bill. Division C contained the language that would allow exploration and drilling for oil and gas in ANWR. Deleting Division C from the bill was necessary to prevent that from occurring, but it was not necessary to delete Division D, which included the $2 billion appropriation for LIHEAP.

Confusion about a relationship between LIHEAP and ANWR may have arisen because Division D did include, among other things, authority to spend a portion of the receipts from the sale of drilling rights in ANWR (which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would not begin to be collected until 2008) that do not go to the state of Alaska (half of the receipts would go to Alaska). A small portion of the receipts anticipated in future years (2.5 percent, or an estimated $100 million in 2008 and $25 million in 2010) would be dedicated to LIHEAP. None of those funds would have been available to help meet heating costs this winter.

Division D also provided that a larger portion of the anticipated ANWR receipts (80 percent of the federal share of bonus bids and rentals and 20 percent of the federal share of royalties) would go to help Gulf Coast states recover from the hurricanes that devastated that area last fall and to limit damage from future hurricanes. (This represents only a modest portion of hurricane recovery and restoration funds provided in the defense appropriation bill. The bulk of the funding - provided as appropriations from the general fund - are contained in Division B and remain in the bill as passed by the Senate.)

In addition, Division D contained a provision (Section 2) that provides a straightforward fiscal year 2006 appropriation of $2 billion for LIHEAP. The availability of this funding has nothing to do with ANWR (or spectrum auction) receipts.

While it would be reasonable to delete the provisions of Division D that dedicate some of the receipts from ANWR to Gulf Coast recovery and restoration if ANWR exploration and drilling would not be allowed (although no harm would be done if those provisions were not deleted, since the specified funds simply would not be available), there is absolutely no reason why striking the ANWR drilling provisions included in Division C should lead to striking the portions of Division D that are not related to ANWR receipts, such as the LIHEAP funds that would have been directly appropriated from the Treasury.

Other Important Funding Also Stripped From Bill

In stripping all of Division D from the defense appropriation bill, Senate leaders also eliminated some other high priority funding unrelated to ANWR. Division D provided that up to $2 billion in receipts from the 2009 auction of rights to a part of the electromagnetic spectrum currently used for analog television transmission would be dedicated to Gulf Coast recovery and reconstruction. Division D also provided that a portion of the receipts from that spectrum auction could be used for certain other purposes such as providing funds to state and local governments to aid their preparations for natural disasters or terrorist attacks. All of these provisions were removed from the bill.

The LIHEAP funding and other spending not related to ANWR receipts were stripped from the bill for reasons that had nothing to do with ANWR (except, perhaps, pique over having to strike the ANWR provisions from the bill). Perhaps the Congressional leaders responsible for stripping all of Division D from the bill hope to use the prospect of restoring funding for LIHEAP and the Gulf Coast recovery and restoration at some future point to help gain passage of some other unrelated, but highly controversial, legislation.

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End Notes:

[1] Richard Kogan and Aviva Aron-Dine, Out In The Cold, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, December 7, 2005, at http://www.cbpp.org/10-6-05bud.pdf.

[2] The spending cut reconciliation bill now pending in the House includes $1 billion in funding for LIHEAP, but that funding does not become available until fiscal year 2007. Thus that funding provides no help at all with this year's skyrocketing heating bills (and probably will not help with next year's bills either, since appropriators can simply reduce the 2007 appropriation for LIHEAP by that $1 billion).

U.S. Senate rejects drilling in ANWR

Last updated Dec 21 2005 08:47 AM MST

CBC News North

The U.S. Senate failed to muster enough votes Wednesday to pass a measure that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican, tried to include oil drilling in the wildlife refuge in a military budget bill.

Drilling supporters fell four votes short of getting the required 60 votes they needed to avoid a filibuster over the oil drilling issue.

Senate leaders were expected to withdraw the legislation so it could be reworked without the refuge language.

The chief of the Yukon's Vuntut Gwitchin, Joe Linklater, said he was relieved by the news but the fight is far from over.

"As long as there is a Republican majority in the House and in the Senate and as long as George Bush is president this issue will not go away for us," he said.

The military spending bill also included billions of dollars for Hurricane Katrina relief and billions more in home heating subsidies for the poor.

Linklater said before the vote that Stevens' effort to include drilling approvals with hurricane relief and heating subsidies was sneaky.

"It's appalling and I think he managed to bully his way in," said Linklater.

Stevens has spent 25 years trying to win a vote to allow oil rigs into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This latest attempt was the second this fall. An attempt to get ANWR drilling in a budget bill failed in November.

Senate Approves Cuts, but Not Drilling

Cheney Breaks Tie on Budget Measure; Democrats Block Arctic Oil Provision

By Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, December 22, 2005; A01

Senate Republicans, by the narrowest margin yesterday, pushed through a major budget measure that would trim federal spending by nearly $40 billion over five years, but they were stymied by Democrats in their effort to open Alaska's wilderness to oil drilling.

Vice President Cheney took his seat as president of the Senate just past 10:30 a.m. to cast the tie-breaking vote on a hard-fought budget bill that would allow states to impose new fees on Medicaid recipients, cut federal child-support enforcement funds, impose new work requirements on state welfare programs and squeeze student lenders -- all for the purpose of slowing the growth of federal entitlement programs.

The vote was 51 to 50, with five Republicans and one independent joining 44 Democrats in opposing the measure. Maryland and Virginia senators voted along party lines.

Final victory was denied, however, when Democrats used a parliamentary objection to strike three small provisions from the 774-page measure, forcing it back to the House for a new vote, which may not occur until early next year. That denied President Bush a quick White House signing ceremony and guaranteed more division over the measure, but allowed GOP leaders to claim a victory on Capitol Hill in the effort to reduce the deficit.

The Democratic budget maneuver was quickly followed by the Senate's failure to cut off debate on legislation to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. It was another defeat for oil companies and for Alaskan lawmakers who have sought access to the refuge's coastal plain for more than two decades. Despite rising oil prices and growing concern over the nation's dependence on foreign oil, lawmakers still appear unprepared to buck the ardent opposition of environmentalists and allow drilling rigs into the Alaskan wilderness.

After hours of negotiations and a bitter denunciation by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who added the drilling provision to the bill, the Senate voted 93 to 0 to approve the defense bill without the drilling authority. Stevens angrily complained to his colleagues that they were sacrificing billions of dollars in oil royalty revenue that could have gone for domestic priorities such as Hurricane Katrina disaster aid, homeland security funds and heating bill assistance for low-income people.

"I'm going to go to every one of your states, and I'm going to tell them what you've done," said Stevens, the leading advocate of drilling in Alaska. "This was wrong."

The Senate also approved a huge spending bill to fund fiscal 2006 health, education and labor programs, as well as defense authorization legislation and a six-month extension of the USA Patriot Act. The House was scheduled to meet in a pro forma session today, although it was unclear last night how it would deal with the Patriot Act extension and the revised defense spending bill, which the House had approved with the drilling provision before leaving town this week.

The day's events all but guaranteed that 2005 would end in discord and confusion for Congress. GOP leaders have struggled in recent months to corral unruly members, and they had hoped to compensate for a long and frustrating year with clear victories on major priorities.

Bush and Republican leaders tried to make the best of the situation, hailing the passage of the budget bill as a realization of one of the GOP's top priorities. It was the first time since 1997 that Congress has tackled the growth of entitlement programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, which are governed by set funding formulas, not annual spending bills. The president has made changes to such programs a priority in his effort to reduce the federal deficit.

"The Senate vote to reduce entitlement spending is a victory for taxpayers, fiscal restraint and responsible budgeting," Bush said.

"The bottom line is, we stood firm and we made tough choices," said Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), praising what he called "a very important and proud day."

But House Republicans lamented Democratic tactics that will keep the measure from being enacted immediately. The House had narrowly passed the bill, 212 to 206, in a predawn vote on Monday, and now, with a new vote in the House coming, opponents of the budget bill -- from organized labor to the powerful seniors lobby AARP -- began gearing up for another fight.

"Today, Senate Democrats derailed the first meaningful entitlement spending reform in almost a decade," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), who helped lead the fight for the budget cuts.

Opening the Alaskan refuge to drilling has been a centerpiece of Bush's energy agenda since he took office. But it apparently reached another dead end yesterday when the Senate voted 56 to 44 to cut off debate on the defense bill. Two moderate Republicans, Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.) and Mike DeWine (Ohio), joined 40 Democrats and independent James M. Jeffords (Vt.) in opposition. The bill's supporters were three votes short of the 60 needed to break the filibuster, since Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a drilling proponent, switched his vote to oppose the measure for procedural reasons.

On the budget, the Democrats relied on arcane Senate rules, named after their creator, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), to assert that four tiny provisions must be struck because they made substantive policy changes without affecting federal revenue. The Senate parliamentarian ruled against the Democrats in their effort to strike one provision, designed to block foster-care assistance for grandparents caring for family members.

The parliamentarian upheld three other objections -- two requiring reports on Medicare changes and one that would have shielded hospitals and doctors from lawsuits filed by Medicaid patients. The Senate voted 52 to 48 to overturn the parliamentary ruling, well short of the 60 votes needed. Three Republicans -- Chafee, Gordon Smith (Ore.) and Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) -- joined all 44 Democrats and Jeffords to uphold the ruling.

On the final vote, Republicans Chafee, Susan Collins (Maine) , DeWine, Smith and Snowe sided with Democrats against the budget.

Frist lashed out at what he called the Democrats' "childish antics." House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) sent a letter to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), asking that the House pass the new version of the budget by unanimous consent, ending the need to summon lawmakers back to Washington.

But even before the request, Pelosi had promised to force another vote.

"Democrats believe this Republican bill has the wrong priorities," she said in a statement. "That is why we will request a recorded vote where all members return to Washington to make clear their values to the American people."

A coalition of labor unions and liberal interest groups immediately swung back into gear, drafting a list of 18 House Republicans in hopes of persuading eight to change their vote.

"Make no mistake -- we're going to keep on fighting until we permanently derail these reckless budget and tax cuts," said Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the union that has largely bankrolled the fight against the budget measure.