A True Mystery Story: Making Laws on the Sly : Evading scrutiny, budget bills reach far past fiscal matters

Few Americans have any idea what is in the 3,703 pages of budget reconciliation bills up for votes this week in Congress, apart from knowing they are supposed to put the federal budget in the black by the year 2002. What’s more troubling is that few members of Congress really know their contents either.

The mammoth bills attempt to limit growth in Medicare, Medicaid and welfare and other social spending programs. Somewhere in the Senate or House version are provisions that reduce student loans and farm subsidies and even abolish the Commerce Department.

None of these should be sacrosanct. But under the laudable banner of deficit reduction, the congressional leadership has used the budget bills to make major policy and regulatory reversals that have little to do with fiscal integrity. And all this has been done with almost no debate, hearings or public scrutiny.

THREAT TO REFUGE: Consider, for example, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the north coast of Alaska. For years, the oil industry has wanted to open the coastal plain of this magnificent preserve of caribou and polar bears to oil exploration and drilling but has been thwarted by national environmental laws. Alaska’s three-man congressional delegation persuaded fellow Republicans that the refuge could provide $1.3 billion in royalties toward deficit reduction. So, with almost no debate, and even though the revenue figure is far from certain, the budget bills blithely have swept away environmental concerns, exempting oil companies from the National Environmental Policy Act and many other federal and local controls.

The House version flatly calls the bill “the primary land management authorization for all activities associated with” oil exploration, development and production. This to open up a frigid reserve that, by the most optimistic estimate, would provide less than one year’s supply of crude oil for the U.S. market.

Or take the issue of national nursing home standards. After well-documented reports of horrendous abuse and neglect of the elderly, Congress in 1987 imposed national standards as part of Medicaid legislation. The rules could hardly offend any ideology: Patients cannot be drugged or restrained, and staff workers must meet minimum training requirements. But as part of an effort to save $182 billion over seven years from the Medicaid health program for the poor, the House reconciliation bill turns the residents over to the tender mercies of state regulators, eliminating federal care standards in the process. Fortunately, on Thursday Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas yielded to Republican moderates and agreed to drop this provision in the Senate version. It survives in the House bill.

COMMERCE DEPT. TARGETED: The House bill (but not the Senate’s) eliminates the Department of Commerce. Whether this agency is needed is a legitimate issue, but it is not something to be disposed of in the frenzy of budget reconciliation. The bills also contain major changes in farm subsidies, ending supports to market wines, for example. We agree that crop supports are outdated and need overhaul, but the changes are likely to cause substantial disruption in agricultural areas and must be examined more deliberately.

Both houses are expected to pass their bills by this weekend, against a backdrop of polling that suggests the public is skeptical that the budget can be balanced in just seven years. President Clinton has vowed to veto the GOP-packaged budget after the House and Senate versions are reconciled in conference and sent to the White House, and despite their majorities the Republicans lack the votes to override. So the real action will come in the next few weeks of horse-trading. Let us hope the process will provide a chance to excise the most glaringly egregious elements of the budget.