Jeff Bingaman: “let me say I think I understand that, and if I was on the Appropriations Committee, I probably would think this was a…”

“let me say I think I understand that, and if I was on the Appropriations Committee, I probably would think this was a great piece of legislation, because it would mean everybody would go to the Appropriations Committee, to an even greater extent than they do now, when they want to see something legislated. This goes to the authorizing committees, and this says if you were to put together a piece of legislation that said everyone who has an airport in the country will put in metal detectors and the Federal Government will pay 90 percent and States will pay 10 percent, or localities will pay 10 percent, whoever owns the airport will pay 10 percent, that legislation is out of order. You are right, under this procedure, you can come to the floor and you can waive the point of order, but the way you have to draft it here, it is out of order for us to consider that legislation. Let us suppose the Commerce Committee, which I assume would have jurisdiction, wanted to bring a bill to the floor which had a sharing of cost between the Federal Government, State government and local government that involved air traffic safety. That would be out of order. Now, you say OK, well, you can waive the point of order. I am just getting to the point of should we be writing into law a statement that it is out of order for Congress to consider legislation unless we at the Federal level are proposing to pay 100 percent of the cost.”