Haley Stevens: “There is money in this amendment I have offered, in one bill or another, dealing with each subject Senator Byrd wishes…”

“There is money in this amendment I have offered, in one bill or another, dealing with each subject Senator Byrd wishes to cover by his amendment. I can say that the money in the Byrd amendment is going to be spent sometime by the Federal Government in dealing with these issues. The question is, when should we make it available? The President of the United States has said, because of all the other pressures on our Federal Government, he wanted to limit spending under these bills to $750.5 billion. He has given us a new amendment--there will be a second one, too--and that adds $825 million to deal with the enormous fires that occurred in our country last year. As a consequence, we agreed before the end of last year to try to live within the President's limitations. We were unable to do so in the period after the election. Now that we have come back, of course, it is a new Congress and that agreement we made last year to limit it to the President's level was not still binding. But it is binding on me, because I went to see the President and he asked if I would try to do this and get these bills done so we can turn to the budget request, which he will submit to the Congress after the State of the Union Message. I told him I would. I am in the position of asking the Senate to hold to the amount the President asked, the amount of these 11 bills. I didn't really decide every number in these bills.…”