Cord Byrd: “as the end of the 106th Congress is fast approaching, I am deeply dismayed about the prospects of completing action on…”

“as the end of the 106th Congress is fast approaching, I am deeply dismayed about the prospects of completing action on the thirteen annual appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2001, which begins October 1st. Unfortunately, as has happened far too often in recent years, much of the work on appropriations bills remains to be done. There is really no valid excuse for the Senate's failure to do its appropriations work. The House has done its work in a timely fashion. Yet, to date, only two of the Fiscal Year 2001 appropriations bills have been signed into law--Military Construction and Defense. Of the remaining eleven bills, four have yet to even be brought up for debate in the full Senate. Those bills are Treasury, Commerce-Justice-State, VA-HUD, and The District of Columbia. As Members are aware, the conference report on H.R. 4516, the Fiscal Year 2001 Legislative Branch Appropriations is divided--broken into two divisions. Division A contains the conference agreement for the Legislative Branch bill. Division B, which was inserted into the Legislative Branch Bill without any input by Democratic Members of either the House or Senate, contains the entire Treasury-General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001. This was done despite the fact that the Senate has never taken up the Treasury-General Government Appropriations bill at all.”