A House-passed bill sets "unrealistic" targets for the federal government's war on drugs, says drug czar Barry McCaffrey. But House Republicans contend that the Office of National Drug Control Policy should be able to create a virtually drug-free America by the year 2001.
The quarrel over how much ONDCP can accomplish in the next five years is fueled by political posturing, Democratic critics say. But Republican House leaders are hailing the debate as a precedent-setting moment in the federal government's push to implement the Government Performance and Results Act, which calls on Congress and the agencies to set goals for federal programs--and then measure how close they come to reaching them.
The bill passed by the House reauthorizes the ONDCP, the White House office in charge of coordinating drug control efforts among more than 50 federal agencies. Rep. Denny Hastert, R-Ill., inserted six performance goals for federal drug control efforts into the bill, including a 90 percent reduction in teenage drug use by 2001 and a 50 percent cut in the total number of Americans who use drugs. The bill also calls for an 80 percent reduction in the availability of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana in the U.S. by the end of 2001.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, praised Hastert for including the targets in the bill.
"This is how we can all use Results Act principles as we do our legislative work--clarifying what Congress expects each program to achieve for the American public," Armey said at a House Government Reform and Oversight Committee hearing on the Results Act last week.
Hastert, speaking on the House floor recently, said the bill, H.R. 2610, gives McCaffrey additional powers to make sure federal agencies are spending funds wisely and working to achieve the goals set in the legislation.
"There are certain to be differences of opinion about how high or how low the bar should be set in this fundamentally reengineered approach to our national drug control policy, but the important point about this bill is that for the first time ever, Congress is actually setting a standard, a bar, and empowering the drug czar's office to promulgate aggressive performance measures for the agencies, which will provide results," Hastert said.
But in letters to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt, Gen. McCaffrey called Hastert's targets "unrealistic." McCaffrey said the ONDCP can cut U.S. drug use in half in 10 years.
An ONDCP spokesman said the office's own plan is "real, and it's optimistic. But it's not Pollyanna-ish."
Rep. Tom Barrett, D-Wis., opposed the GOP bill. He said a requirement for the ONDCP to report to Congress twice a year on its progress and the bill's two-year authorization are signs that Republicans want to use the high targets as campaign fodder against the Democrats.
"Judging by its major provisions, the bill appears designed to achieve political advantage in the 1998 and 2000 elections, all at a cost to ONDCP and its efforts to fight drugs at the federal level," Barrett said.
The drug policy debate may create a precedent for budgetary battles beginning in February, when federal agencies will announce their performance targets for fiscal 1999 under the Results Act.
Carl DeMaio, a Results Act specialist at the Congressional Institute, said he is pleased to see a debate over programmatic goals instead of a dispute over budget figures.
"I want to see this happen across the board on other issues," DeMaio said.
The administration has not yet threatened to veto the bill.
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