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body every day because after I had signed the conference report 

 originally with the understanding that we were going to have a grant 

 program in the bill, which was going to be voted on by this House, I 

 find that, lo and behold, we have an extra conference session which was 

 after we had already signed the original conference report. Of course, 

 I dutifully walked over to the second conference after the first confer- 

 ence and was told by one of the Members of the other body : "Well, we 

 needed one more phrase in the conference report, which really is not 

 going to mess up anything." 



But we had assurance that if the little phrase was added, the bill 

 would be signed — at least, they would recommend that it be signed — 

 by the President. Of course, the little phrase that was added in at the 

 eleventh hour, in my opinion, effectively guts the whole grant program 

 that we have worked on for about a year in the House and in the 

 Senate. 



The House conferees by a close 4 to 3 vote agreed to accept the lan- 

 guage that the Senate said was so necessary, and the Senate said that 

 they had unanimously agreed that this was going to be added after the 

 conference was over, so I thought that the only way that I could 

 register my objection to what had happened was by not signing the 

 conference report. 



I do say that the bill is better than anything we have had before. 

 I say that, I guess, because we never have had anything before, so it 

 is better than nothing. But I am deeply disappointed that the con- 

 ferees decided the way to do it was to have a conference after the 

 conference and add all of this additional language, which we voted 

 through so quickly in about a 15-minute conference over here on 

 the House side. I really think we have done severe damage to the 

 concept of grants and the way it should be handled. 



One of the other points I want to make, and I will ask this question 

 of the chairman of the committee and the chairman of the conference, 

 the gentleman from New York (Mr. ]\Iurpiiy) is that it was my 

 understanding that the concept of the bill that left the House and the 

 Senate was that imder the formula. States would be allocated a 

 certain amount of money based on a set formula contained in the bill, 

 and that that money would revert back to the general and that if the 

 States did not use it after the fiscal year was over, then that money 

 would revert back to the general treasury. In reading the Congres- 

 sional Record, as we all did last night. I know everyone noticed the 

 fact that the chairman of the Senate conferees said that it really would 

 not work like that. His language and statement on the conference 

 reported on the Senate side yesterday basically said that the money 

 would not be disbursed to the States until the State had demonstrated 

 to the Secretary that it would be used for the purposes described in the 

 bill. In my opinion that is yet another addition to what our under- 

 standing was originally, that being that the money would be allo- 

 cated and then if not used, would be returned back to the general 

 treasury. I would like to ask the chairman, what is his interpretation ?. 



Mr. Murphy of New York. JNIr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield ? 



Mr. Breaux. I yield to the gentleman from New York. 



Mr. Murphy of New York. I tliank the gentleman for yielding. 



The gentleman states the case very accurately. As the committee 

 proceeded through its deliberations, and we had wanted to have grant 



