James M. Jeffords: “I rise to present this conference report to the Senate today, at long last. It has been some 90 days that we have been…”

“I rise to present this conference report to the Senate today, at long last. It has been some 90 days that we have been trying to reach agreement. I hope my colleagues will listen very closely to what I have to say, and I hope very strongly that we will be able to pass this conference report. I do so with the confidence that this is the best compromise we can achieve at this time. It is important that we enact this bill and provide the D.C. city government with a remainder of the Federal payment and bring to an end the uncertainty about fiscal year 1996 appropriations. We are already partially through the year, and we still have not met our commitment to the city. This bill contains some very important and long overdue educational reforms. However, it contains a couple of provisions that were very contentious. I will explain those briefly. I think we have reached an accommodation on one. There is an abortion provision in there that says, 'No funds, Federal or local, covered in this appropriations bill can be used for abortion, except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.' Also, there is a provision which was not intended to be controversial--I want to clear that up--with respect to Davis-Bacon. There is no intention in this bill to waive the Davis-Bacon Act, except with respect to donated services to repair school facilities. I wanted to make it clear that they were not covered by the Davis-Bacon Act.”