Thomas Daschle: “I offer these modifications in part because I have been informed that there are concerns about the germaneness of the…”

“I offer these modifications in part because I have been informed that there are concerns about the germaneness of the offset we had included in the health amendment (No. 1734), and to make a minor technical correction to the trust reform amendment (No. 1739). The customs user fee is a very legitimate and, I would say, appropriate offset; but under the constraints presented to us under the rules, there is a technical point of order that can be raised. So in order to avoid points of order, we will avoid using this offset. I regret that because I do believe that the offset would help us alleviate some of the appropriations pressures that understandably the ranking member and the chairman had to confront as they were addressing the issues of the overall allocation and availability of funding. Let me just go back to my comments last week when I offered the amendments. Very briefly, the first amendment would provide for $292 million in additional funding for the Indian Health Service. This was the amendment that, on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis, we passed during the budget resolution. I had offered an amendment that would have provided for, I believe, $2.9 billion to fully fund the Indian Health Service, in terms of meeting the basic health care needs of their current user population.”