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This Statement of Administration Policy provides the Administration's
view on
H.R. 2378, the Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government
Appropriations Bill, FY 1998, as reported by the House Appropriations
Committee. Your consideration of the Administration's views would be
appreciated.
The Committee has developed a bill that provides requested funding for
many of the Administration's priorities. However, as discussed below, the
Administration will seek restoration of certain of the Committee's
reductions to the President's request. We recognize that it will not be
possible in all cases to attain the Administration's full request and will
work with the House toward achieving acceptable funding levels. The
Administration is committed to working with the House to identify
reductions in the bill in order to find offsets for the restoration of
funds that the Administration seeks. We urge the House to reduce funding
for lower priority programs, or for programs that would be adequately
funded at the requested level, and to redirect funding to programs of
higher priority.
Federal Election Commission
The Administration appreciates the Committee's action to provide the
President's request of $34 million for the Federal Election Commission
(FEC). However, funds have not been provided to support enforcement
actions and audits of the 1996 campaign as requested in the President's
April 7th budget amendment. Instead, the Committee has provided funding
for accelerating various modernization initiatives. While modernization
improvements are welcome, and are part of the FEC's long-term agenda, the
immediate need is for staff and resources to address the backlogged
workload.
The Administration strongly objects to the limitations included in
appropriations language that would condition the availability of $4.2
million of the funding on filling all current Commission vacancies and on
enactment of legislation prohibiting the reappointment of Commissioners.
Both of these restrictions would place unwarranted and intrusive
limitations on the Commission's ability to meet its current workload
demands and are unrelated to the Commission's current performance. These
provisions would amend underlying law without the benefit of hearings or
debate. Therefore, we urge the House to drop these restrictions and
amendments to underlying Federal Election Campaign law.
Importation of Lethal Firearms
The Administration strongly opposes section 518 of the Committee
bill. The practical result of this section would be to deny the Federal
Government an effective mechanism to control the importation of hundreds of
thousands of inexpensive firearms such as M-1 carbines and M1911 45 caliber
semi-automatic pistols. These are weapons provided to foreign governments
by military assistance programs, and were not intended to become low cost
firearms available for civilian use. Low-cost firearms that are
concealable, and/or capable of accepting large capacity magazines, and/or
capable of being easily converted to fully automatic fire frequently wind
up in the hands of criminals. Such weapons are particularly attractive to
criminals. In short, the net effect of the proposal would be to thwart the
Administration's efforts to deny criminals the availability of inexpensive,
but highly-lethal, imported firearms.
Federal Employees Health Benefits Program
The Administration strongly opposes the provision contained in the
Committee bill that would restrict Federal Employees Health Benefits
Program (FEHBP) coverage for abortions except in situations where the life
of the mother is endangered or the pregnancy is the result of rape or
incest. While the President believes that abortion should be safe, legal,
and rare, the Administration does not believe that Federal employees and
their families should be precluded from choosing to purchase health
insurance that includes broader coverage. The Administration believes that
the decision to cover abortion should be left to each health plan
participating in the FEHBP. Thus, Federal employees who wish to purchase
health coverage that does not include abortion services would have that
choice. The provision in the Committee bill does not allow Federal
employees and their families to make that choice.
Internal Revenue Service
The recently enacted Balanced Budget Act of 1997 provides authority
for an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) compliance initiative. The
Administration urges the House to appropriate $107.1 million for this
initiative, as requested in a budget amendment submitted on September 17,
1997. A provision allowing for an adjustment to the discretionary spending
caps was included in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 to accommodate funding
for this proposal.
The Administration requests restoration of the Committee's $73
million reduction to the requests for the Internal Revenue Service's
(IRS's) Processing, Assistance, and Management and Tax Law Enforcement
accounts. The Committee bill would not provide the funding necessary for
the inflationary increases requested in the President's budget. At this
reduced level, we project that IRS would have to reduce FTE funded through
these two accounts by approximately 1,500. This would lead to reduced
taxpayer service assistance and an IRS-projected, five-year revenue loss of
$1.1 billion.
The Administration urges the House to fund the IRS Year 2000 needs
without jeopardizing other critical information technology projects. The
absence of funding for these projects would undermine the IRS's ability to
improve customer service and compliance.
"Winstar" Funding
The Administration is very concerned that the bill does not include
the President's request to authorize the Secretary of Treasury to transfer
$33.7 million from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's FSLIC
Resolution Fund to the Department of Justice for expenses related to the
ongoing Winstar litigation. This funding is vital to the Government's
defense in this litigation, which involves over 120 cases and potential
claims against the Government of about $20 billion. Without sufficient
litigation support, the taxpayers are likely to be held liable for much
larger damages. We look forward to working with the Committee to resolve
this issue as the bill moves through the process.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
The Administration requests restoration of $19 million to avoid
compromising the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' (ATF's) ability
to combat the Nation's most violent criminals. The reductions made by the
Committee would force ATF to make FTE reductions at the same time that it
is responding to recent congressional and Administration initiatives such
as the Brady Law, church fires, Youth Crime Gun Interdiction, arson and
bombing investigations, criminal firearms trafficking, and other
anti-violent crime initiatives. The reductions would also force ATF to
curtail its drug-related law enforcement activities, which could result in
increased numbers of incidents committed by those involved in drug
distribution.
Secret Service
The Administration strongly objects to the Committees's $15.5 million
reduction to the request for White House security funding (in the Secret
Service Salaries and Expenses account and the Violent Crime Reduction Trust
Fund). This funding is needed to implement fully all of the security
requirements identified in the White House Security Review. We also
request restoration of the $12 million reduction to the President's request
for funds to ensure the ability of the U.S. Secret Service to continue
providing adequate Presidential and dignitary protection, as well as
maintain financial crime enforcement efforts.
Cooperative Purchasing
The Administration opposes the repeal of section 1555 of the Federal
Acquisition
Streamlining Act (FASA) of 1994 and would support an amendment to strike
the repeal. This section would allow State and local governments, and
Indian tribes to buy products off the General Services Administration's
Federal supply schedule contracts, often at advantageous prices. If the
repeal is not stricken, the Administration is willing to work with the
Congress on a compromise provision that would permit such purchases for a
number of specified product categories in demand by State and local
governments and whose affected producers have not objected. We would
further urge that this authority include a limited pilot program for
pharmaceuticals used to treat life-threatening conditions, beginning with
drugs used to treat HIV. We also urge the retention of GSA's authority to
make any of the services it provides to Federal agencies available to a
qualified nonprofit agency for the blind or other severely handicapped that
is to provide a commodity or service to the Federal Government under the
Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act. GSA's total collection of administrative fees
will not increase by more than the incremental increase in the cost of
administering the program.
Office of National Drug Control Policy
The Administration appreciates the Committee's support for the Office
of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP's) national media campaign to
prevent drug abuse among America's youth. However, we are concerned that
the funding level provided is not adequate to accomplish our goals.
Prohibiting the obligation during FY 1998 of $46 million of the $195
million appropriated to the media campaign would limit available funding
for the campaign to $149 million. The Administration's request for $175
million is based upon recommendations from experts in the field and is the
amount necessary to fund four media exposures per week to the 9-17 age
group. Funding the campaign at significantly lower levels than requested
would limit the number of media exposures or restrict the scope of the
campaign, thus hindering its success.
In addition, the Administration is particularly concerned about the
legislative veto provisions in the bill that seek to condition the
obligation of funds provided for the national media campaign upon the
approval of a strategy by the Appropriations Committees. Such consultation
with Congress can be achieved without this specific language.
Finally, the Committee bill would create two new High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Areas. The designation of High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Areas in the appropriations bill would undermine ONDCP's statutory
authority to designate such areas based on its review of the larger picture
of drug use, availability, and trafficking in specified areas of the
country, in consultation with other Federal and State officials. The
Administration is also opposed to the language that would require funding
for existing High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas at no less than the FY
1997 level, as funding decisions are based, in part, on annual performance
evaluations.
Whistleblower Protection.
The Administration objects to section 505 of the bill, which would
prohibit the use of funds provided in the Act to pay the salary of any
official who interferes with communications by other Federal employees with
Congress. While the Administration strongly supports the Whistleblowers
Protection Act and the protections it affords Federal employees, this
section raises substantial separation of powers concerns in depriving the
President and his department and agency heads of their ability to supervise
the operations and communications of the Executive Branch, including the
dissemination of information affecting Executive Branch confidentiality
interests. The House is urged to strike this provision.
Unanticipated Needs
The Committee bill fails to provide the requested $1 million to enable
the President to meet unanticipated needs in furtherance of the national
interest, security, or defense. The Administration urges the House to
include this amount to ensure that the President has the same ability to
meet such needs as previous Presidents have had.
Infringement on Executive Authority
There are several provisions in the Committee bill that purport to
require congressional approval before Executive Branch execution of aspects
of the bill. These include provisions that purport to require
congressional approval for certain transfers between appropriations within
the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center,
the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms, the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Secret Service. The
Administration will interpret such provisions to require notification only,
since any other interpretation would contradict the Supreme Court ruling in
INS vs. Chadha.
Additional Administration concerns with the Committee bill are
contained in the Attachment. We look forward to working with the House to
address our mutual concerns.
Attachment | 
