Spencer Abraham

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I send to the desk an amendment to strike title II of the bill.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, the section of the bill which I am moving to strike is quite an important section and quite an important policy issue to me and to a number of Members of this body. It pertains to the Department of Commerce. It pertains to efforts a number of us have launched this year in separate legislation to basically eliminate the umbrella we call Department of Commerce and reassign a number of the programs and functions of that Department to other areas of Government, but dramatically reduce the overhead and the bureaucracy by eliminating the umbrella called the Department of Commerce. Obviously, I am a strong advocate of this legislation in that I am the chief sponsor of the freestanding bill which was introduced earlier this year. I support very much the effort to dismantle the Department and reassign its relevant functions. It had been my hope--and it remains my hope--to find the right time and the right vehicle to pursue this objective. Indeed, in the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the bill, which was initially my bill, has gone through hearings, and it has been marked up and reported out of committee with favorable report to the full Senate. It is my hope that at another time--hopefully very soon--we will have the opportunity to look either at the package that came out of the Governmental Affairs Committee as a freestanding bill or some combination of that package and the one that was included in the bill that I am seeking to strike tonight. Madam President, the simple fact is that this is not the right time and this is not the right vehicle for us to consider this important question of the Department of Commerce. There are many compelling arguments, some of which I will make during our brief time tonight to discuss this issue. But I think the purpose of giving concentration of focus of the Senate on this very vitally important issue tonight is not the right time. For that reason, I send this motion to the desk. I yield the floor. I retain the remainder of our time. Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.

Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield myself such time as I need. I appreciate some of the points that have been made. We have had these discussions in the context of committee debates and so on on this issue, but I think it is important to make two points. First, my position with respect to the Department of Commerce has not changed. As the prime sponsor of this legislation, I remain committed to it. Tonight is just not the night I think this debate should occur. There are a lot of arguments made which suggest that somehow the Department of Commerce makes the engine of this country's free enterprise system function. I have talked to business people in my State and business people across the country. They do not share that opinion. In fact, a recent poll that was conducted by the Chamber of Commerce of Detroit, MI, which is a very bipartisan organization, indicated 47 percent of those polled supported eliminating the Department of Commerce, only 6 percent were opposed, and the rest just did not have an opinion. The fact is that the Department of Commerce as currently comprised is not a Department that deals exclusively with, or for that matter in large measure with, commerce and creating jobs and opportunities. In fact, the largest operation within the Department is NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It is, indeed, the largest subunit of the Department of Commerce, and while it has some connection with activities relating to commerce, not much of it does. In addition, a large part of the Department of Commerce is what I guess we would term duplicative of other aspects of the Federal Government. In fact, a GAO study recently indicated that the Department of Commerce shares its mission with at least 71 Federal Departments, Agencies, and offices. Indeed, that overlap is what we should be trying to eliminate in Washington, and the purpose of the bill which I have introduced is designed to eliminate that duplication, to save the taxpayers' money while retaining those parts of the Department of Commerce that make the most sense. Indeed, as former Secretary of Commerce Bob Mosbacher has indicated, ``The Department is nothing more than a hall closet where you throw in everything that you don't know what to do with.'' Indeed, that is what the Department of Commerce has become. It was not intended to be that type of a department, but that is what we find. We find trade functions in the same place as the weather bureau. And while many Americans, I think with justification, complain about what is going on here in Washington, as I tell people what the various functions of the Department of Commerce are, they scratch their heads in total puzzlement: Why would you be putting all these different, diverse, unconnected, and unrelated activities under one roof? The answer is that the Department has survived simply as the catchall of things that do not seem to fit in other places. The legislation which I will be bringing back to the floor finds the right place for the different functions of Commerce that ought to be retained and eliminates those that do not. Let me just speak about one special area because I know it is one of concern to people on both sides of the aisle, and that is the trade responsibilities of the Department of Commerce or more broadly the trade activities of the Federal Government. Much has been made of the role that Commerce plays with regard to trade. Indeed, it does play a role. But interestingly enough, only 8 percent of the total Federal spending on trade promotion in this country is actually directed by the Department of Commerce. The other 92 percent falls under other Agencies of Government and other Departments. So, in fact, as with many other things in the Commerce Department, Commerce is not in charge of trade. It just plays one of a number of governmental roles with respect to trade. Our legislation is designed to try to bring these trade functions together under one roof where there can be coherence and strategy, people pulling together to try to help our country be more effective. Indeed, I would say to those who would say we have to have the Department of Commerce because of the great trade deficit, if that is the case, why are we running these huge deficits? One of the goals I have is to bring these trade functions together more coherently so that we can try to address trade issues not just in the competition sense, not just in the ways the U.S. Trade Representative's office does, but also in the strategic sense as I think can better be done where the trade functions are comprised in one area of Government rather than across many, many different areas. Finally, the people in my State think all the bureaucracies in Washington are too large, but they especially find it puzzling as to why we have to have the Commerce Department with 37,000 employees making an average salary of, I think it is about $42,000 a year. That is more than the average salary of the families in Michigan; 37,000 people represents more people than live in cities such as Traverse City, MI; Port Huron, MI, Jackson--almost all the cities of Michigan. It is a huge bureaucracy that is a very well-paid bureaucracy, and while many of the people there are doing good jobs, some of these functions are no longer needed and many would run more efficiently and effectively and help produce in fact more positive results if they were better assigned than is currently the case. [[Page S 16906]] Later we will get to these issues in more detail, and I look forward to that debate at a future point. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, during the debate on the partial-birth abortion ban, opponents have made claims about this procedure and this legislation that simply are not supported by the facts. I ask unanimous consent that a fact sheet by the National Right to Life entitled ``Partial-Birth Abortions: A Look Behind the Misinformation'' and a letter from Barbara Bolsen of the American Medical News along with the accompanying material be printed in the Record.

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to take this time to explain some of the votes I cast during consideration of the VA, HUD, independent agencies appropriations bill on September 27, 1995. Senator Bumpers offered an amendment to reduce the appropriation for implementing the space station program with the intent of terminating the program. The Bumpers amendment raised the question as to what the United States fundamental goals and needs are in exploring space. While it is clear that the space station has spurred technological and scientific development unrelated to space, I am not convinced that these developments justify the enormous taxpayer expense of the space station. Therefore, at this time, I supported Senator Bumpers' amendment. Since the amendment failed, however, we will most likely continue to fund the space station for fiscal year 1996, and as we spend more on this program we will come closer to a point at which it would no longer be wise to discontinue funding. I believe we are near that point and will review this budget request again next year to determine whether eliminating funding for the space station would benefit taxpayers. Senator Rockefeller offered two amendments regarding benefits for veterans. One involved compensation for mentally incompetent service- related disabled veterans and the other would have increased funding for the general veterans medical account. My opposition to these amendments was not based on their content, but rather on the fact that the funding mechanism for both of these amendments involved waiving the Budget Act. More than any veteran-specific funding we can provide, balancing the budget will benefit veterans and their children. Any amendment which increases spending and puts our country further from achieving a balanced budget ought to be rejected. And while I do not doubt that Senator Rockefeller's amendments have merit, his inability to find other spending offsets made them impossible for me to support. Senator Lautenberg also proposed to waive provisions of the Budget Act in order to provide more funding for the Superfund Program. While I share Mr. Lautenberg's concern for the environment, very few Americans familiar with the Superfund Program would disagree that it is in need of reform. We have spent billions of dollars on the Superfund Program already, and the results have been minimal. Superfund has resulted in more lawsuits, more paperwork, extreme cleanup mandates, and few cleanups. This is a classic attempt to throw good tax dollars after bad. Without meaningful reform of the program, I am not convinced that Superfund dollars are being well-spent, making it impossible for me to support this amendment. Senator Mikulski offered an amendment which would have restored $425 million in funding for the Corporation for National and Community Service. While I applaud her efforts to encourage Americans to provide more service to their communities, this program costs $26,000 per participant per year--a level which cannot be sustained in the current budget environment. Furthermore, I could not support funding for this program upon learning that $14 million out of last year's AmeriCorps funds were used to fund Federal agencies. While the administration claims it is cutting staff, they are actually playing a shell game with taxpayers' dollars by using AmeriCorps workers in the Federal Government. I am confident that the original supporters of this program did not intend for these volunteers to choose Federal employment as their community service. Forty percent of the dollars currently spent on AmeriCorps is used for administrative purposes by the Federal Government. These funds would be more efficiently and effectively spent on a local rather than a national level. Another amendment which touched on an important social issue was the Sarbanes amendment to transfer $360 million from section 8 contract renewals to homeless assistance grants to increase funding for Federal homeless programs. Most Americans share a common concern regarding the plight of the homeless and agree that the Government should play a role in the solution. Nevertheless, I voted against this amendment for two reasons. First, the underlying bill provides $760 million for homeless grants, with an additional $297 million in homeless grants funding available from the earlier rescission bill, which deferred this funding from fiscal year 1995 to fiscal year 1996. In total, homeless programs will have $1.057 billion to spend in fiscal year 1996. The Sarbanes amendment would not increase this funding by one penny. All the funds he proposes to transfer would not be available until fiscal year 1997. In other words, this amendment would not have helped one homeless person next year. Second, I was concerned that an unintended consequence of this amendment would be to increase homelessness. The bill provides $4.35 billion in funding for section 8 contract renewal. Section 8 subsidizes the construction and operation of apartment buildings, provided the owner agrees to rent a certain percentage of those apartments to low- income people. Currently, 1.5 million units are subsidized in this fashion, and many of these contracts are due to expire. If they are not renewed, many of the tenants will lose their homes. In order to pay for the increase in homeless funding, Senator Sarbanes would have reduced funding for renewing section 8 contracts. By taking away from this account, this amendment threatens to put people currently housed under the section 8 program on the street. The Federal Government has a role to play in helping the homeless, and in this case the underlying bill fills this role by addressing the needs of people already living on the streets as well as ensuring we don't encourage additional families to join them. Overall I believe we have produced a solid appropriations bill, one which stays within the budget limitations necessary to balance the budget by the year 2002, delegates much of the funding to States in the form of block grants so that spending is more effective, and revises or eliminates programs that simply have not been working. I was proud to support final passage of this legislation.

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Washington.

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to take this time to explain my votes on various amendments to the Commerce, Justice, State appropriations bill which passed on September 29. The Specter amendment sought to strike the language from this bill that prohibited the use of Federal funds for abortions for women in Federal prison except where the life of the mother would be in danger if the fetus were carried to term or in the case of rape. The House and the Senate have repeatedly upheld the position that when taxpayer funds are used for abortions, the abortions should be restricted to those pregnancies which are the result of rape or incest or which pose a risk to the life of the mother. I do not think these restrictions should be expanded for women in prison and, therefore, I voted to table the Specter amendment. Senator Kerrey offered an amendment to provide $19.8 million for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's information infrastructure grants by cutting a like amount from the Justice Department's travel account. I opposed this amendment for several reasons. First, many of the NTIA's duties are duplicative of those carried out by the Federal Communications Commission. The underlying bill moves us toward a unified telecommunications entity, and I believe it is the correct path to take. Second, the infrastructure grants are an unauthorized program that have little relation to the job of regulating the telecommunications industry. Legislation I have sponsored to terminate the Department of Commerce would also eliminate the advisory and grant making functions and transfer the management duties to the FCC. I also opposed a Domenici amendment to eliminate provisions in the bill which would, in my opinion, vastly improve the Legal Services Corporation. The Commerce, Justice, State appropriations bill in the Senate eliminated the Federal Corporation and block-granted to the States- Federal funds for the provision of legal services to the poor. The Domenici amendment to this bill would have restored the Federal Corporation and provides additional Federal funding for the Corporation. I support eliminating the Federal Corporation and block-granting funds for legal assistance for the poor to the States. The Corporation itself provides no legal services to the poor, but rather grants Federal money to local organizations that give legal assistance to the poor. This is a function the States can perform at least as effectively as the Corporation has. I also opposed an amendment which was sponsored by Senators Kohl and Cohen which took $80 million from funding for the FBI to combat violent crime and terrorism and put it into $30 million for local block grants for various social programs such as boys and girls club, more palatably dubbed by the sponsors of such measures crime prevention programs, $30 million for additional grants made by the Office of Justice Assistance, and $20 million for additional grants for ``Weed and Seed'' programs. The initiatives the sponsors sought to fund may well be worthy. In my judgment, however, many of them have no proven record of helping with the fight against crime, the purpose for which Federal crime money should be reserved. To be sure, the sponsors designated between 2 and 3 percent of the money for evaluation of these programs. But in the first place it is unlikely that serious evaluation can be performed with that budget; and in the second place, in my view, we should evaluate the programs before giving them additional funding.

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 26, 1995, for purposes of conducting a subcommittee hearing which is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony from academicians and State and local officials on alternatives to Federal forest land management. Testimony will also be sought comparing land management cost and benefits on Federal and State lands.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 26, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing to discuss quality of care in nursing homes.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to hold a business meeting during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 26, 1995.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, October 26, 1995 at 9:30 a.m., in room 485 of the Russell Senate Building to conduct a hearing on S. 1341, the Saddleback Mountain-Arizona Settlement Act of 1995, a bill to transfer certain lands to the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the City of Scottsdale, AZ.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, October 26, 1995 at 9:30 a.m., in room 485 of the Russell Senate Building to conduct a hearing on S. 1327, the Saddleback Mountain-Arizona Settlement Act of 1995, a bill to transfer certain lands to the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the City of Scottsdale, AZ.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 26, 1995 to conduct a mark-up of S. 1260, the Public Housing Reform and Empowerment Act of 1995. In addition, the committee will conduct a mark-up of pending nominations.

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. At this time, I believe the next item in order will be the amendment of the Senator from Texas.

Mr. ABRAHAM. We yield back the remaining time.

Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield such time as he may need to the Senator from Delaware.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I will vote against the Breaux amendment. Although I have expressed support for making the $500-per-child tax credit refundable against the FICA tax, this amendment is the wrong way to achieve this objective. First, it dramatically limits the $55 credit for many middle-class families. Second, it limits the number of children who would qualify for the credit. For families earning between $60,000 and $75,000, this amendment would unfairly prevent them from receiving the $500 child tax credit. It is my hope that FICA refundability will be raised during conference and that a solution will be adopted which will provide much needed tax relief to all American families.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. ABRAHAM. I thank you, Mr. President. The next amendment I will offer is pretty straightforward. It basically creates a mechanism by which the Medicare beneficiaries can be rewarded for assisting us in ferreting out the waste, the fraud, and abuse in the Medicare program. Under the amendment, the Secretary of HHS has the responsibility of setting up two programs--one program that in effect is a whistle-blower program which would provide bonuses to Medicare beneficiaries who will identify Medicare fraud and abuse. The other program would be designed to provide bonuses to Medicare beneficiaries who identify waste, and to streamline and make more efficient and less costly the Medicare system. Mr. President, I think this will help us to achieve cost savings in Medicare while at the same time providing benefits to Medicare beneficiaries who assist us in that effort. I urge its adoption.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, the next amendment before us is very simple.

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, at this time I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, on behalf of our side, we will agree to that.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, at this time, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Texas, to be taken off our time on the bill.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.