Robert Bennett

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Would the Senator yield on that point?

Mr. BENNETT. I do not have the figures in front of me, but I would be happy to supply them to the Senator. If you take the total amount set aside for tax cuts, you would find that the vast bulk, I think in the neighborhood of something like 80 percent of the value of the tax cut, goes for the $500 tax credit for children. The taxes that the Senator is pointing out, in terms of the total impact, are relatively small and can honestly be described as minor in their financial impact. By far, the greatest bulk of the tax money is going for the $500 rebate for children. That is the expensive item in the tax cut bill. I am sure the Budget Committee would be happy to give the Senator those details.

Mr. BENNETT. I am happy to yield.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his reasoned response. I remain unconvinced by it, but I appreciate the manner and the tenor in which it is offered. May I make several comments, and then I will return to the chair, and perhaps this will pass on for those who want to read about it in the Record. The reference to wage and price controls and HMO's. Wage and price controls, by definition, are imposed by Government. Market conditions may set prices elsewhere. One of the main things wrong with our whole health care system--and the Senator and I can have this discussion at length at some other time--is the very fact that market forces do not operate here and cannot because of the Government's attempt to enforce wage and price controls. We have a circumstance, I say to the Senator, where the user of the service is not the purchaser of the service, and market conditions therefore cannot operate. If I, for example, am enrolled in an HMO I do not like, there is nothing I can do about it because the person who chooses that HMO is my employer. It is the employer who purchases the service, pays for it and makes the deal. It is I, the employee, who uses the service.

Mr. BENNETT. I will yield in a moment. I have been the chief executive officer of a company and, therefore, in a position to choose what kind of health care the employees will get. It will come as no surprise to say that I chose a program that I liked. During the debate over the Clinton health care plan, people would say to me, ``Why don't you give us as good a health care plan as you have as a Member of Congress?'' My response was, ``I wish I had as good a health care plan as I had before I came to Congress,'' because the only health care plan I have now, as a Member of Congress, is that which the Government has decided to make available to Government employees. If you want the same kind of health care plan I have, go get yourself a Government job. But if you want a different kind of health care plan, go petition your employer. That does not make sense. In any other circumstance, you make the choices if you buy the service. But we have created a circumstance here in our country--frankly, we can debate the historical roots of it-- where the employer makes the decision but the employee receives the service. So whom does the HMO have to please? It has to please the health and human resources person at the employer's desk. If the employee does not get what he wants, too bad. The employer has made the choice.

Mr. BENNETT. I am happy to.

Mr. BENNETT. This is not the place to get into these details. I say the plan I chose had a number of choices within it so that the employees could make, frankly, almost as many choices as Government employees could make. Ultimately I had to make the decision as to what the framework would be for our employees. I made a decision to a plan that, in my opinion, was better than the one that is currently available to me. My employees, I think, were better served with that decision that I was making than the Government employers and the decision you are talking about. Those are not appropriate questions here. We can have this discussion elsewhere. I think they go to the core of what has to be addressed when we talk about fixing the health care system in this country. To summarize, and then I will return to my duties in the chair, I have always congratulated President Clinton on his leadership in addressing America's health care problems. I am one Republican who has been critical of my party's inability to exercise the proper leadership here. President Clinton did a courageous thing in taking this issue on. I had congratulated him at the time. I congratulated him all the way through, even while disagreeing with him on the details of his plan. I have congratulated him for his courage in being willing to face the fact that our health care system in this country is broken and badly needs fixing. I just do not think his solution fixed it. In my opinion, his solution made it worse. I feel the same way about Medicare, that my party has had the courage to recognize that Medicare, to be handled as business as usual, is headed for disaster, and it is headed for disaster quickly. We have taken the political heat. We have taken the political rhetoric. We have been accused of slashing and burning. However, we have stood up to facing the problem. As the Washington Post has said in its editorials, the Republicans deserve credit for telling the truth about Medicare and the Democrats have slipped into the posture of ``Mediscare.'' That, in fact, does not add and contribute to the debate. I thank my friend from West Virginia for the opportunity to have this exchange. I thank the Senator from Michigan for allowing me to escape the enforced silence of the chair long enough to vent my feelings on this issue, which I am sure will continue to provide opportunity for lots of dialog for lots of months and perhaps years to come. I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNETT. Yes.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, we perhaps should end this. I hope it is instructive. I am sure the Senator from West Virginia and I will continue this at another venue. We clearly are not communicating here. He has outlined what I consider to be a prime example of what I was talking about. The Government has decided that his daughter's choices will be limited to Blue Cross-Blue Shield. The Government has decided that the plan I was under before coming to the Senate will not be available to me now that I am in the Senate. The Government has picked, yes, 29 different plans, and that is a lot, but that is not all that is available. I cannot take my money that is being spent for health care, deducted from my pay, go out in the open market and buy something else with it. I can only use it within the framework that this commission that he has described has made available to me. Now, I will concede to him, absolutely, the commission he described did a good job and most employees will find that in the choices the Government offers they will find something that covers their needs. The point is that 29 choices is not the universe. If I want to make choice number 30, my employer--in this case the Government--has decreed that I cannot make choice number 30 with the money they are spending on my behalf for health care. That is another debate for another time. We can have it. But I wanted to introduce it into this circumstance because I think it addresses the basic issue and goes back to the amendment that the Senator has offered.

Mr. BENNETT. By all means.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent the time be divided equally between both sides.

Mr. BENNETT. I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from Missouri.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I yield an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I want to talk about the two issues that are on the floor; first the minimum wage, and then the TEAM Act. I am willing to vote on the minimum wage at any time. I intend to vote against an increase in the minimum wage, and I do so for the following reasons. If we increase the minimum wage, we eliminate jobs, and we eliminate jobs primarily among middle-class white suburban teenagers. You may say, ``Well, that is fine. We do not owe these middle-class white suburban teenagers anything. So let us eliminate their jobs.'' I was a white suburban teenager in a middle-class family, and I started work at 14 when the minimum wage was 40 cents an hour. That dates me, I recognize, around here. I got a nice raise when the minimum wage went to 75 cents an hour. I did not need the money. The money was not the issue. The issue was that I learned that I had to be at work on time. I learned that I had to put in a good time at work. Looking back on it, the work I did, frankly, was not significant to the corporation. They could have done without it. But as long as they were paying me that low wage, it did not hurt them that much to have me around, and I liked to think I at least made things a little more comfortable if not more profitable. It was the most significant learning experience of my young life. It was more significant than many, if not most, of the classes I took in high school. It was more significant in setting the pattern of my life and work habits in my life than the extracurricular clubs that I went to and the other things I was involved in. It was a tremendously worthwhile experience, as I am sure it is for the other middle-class teenagers who are experiencing their first work opportunity, a work opportunity that will be outlawed if we raise the minimum wage to the point where the employer says, ``Well, I cannot afford it anymore, and I will cut it off.'' Virtually every employer who has contacted me on this issue has said, ``If the minimum wage goes up, I will eliminate jobs.'' I say to those who get so excited about how low the money is, why is it more moral for a person to be unemployed at $5.25 an hour than it is for that person to be working at $4.25 an hour? Somehow, I do not see the social benefit in having somebody unemployed at a high rate whereas they could be working at a lower rate in an entry-level job.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. The headline coming from another circumstance but driving to the heart of this issue said this: ``Why are the liberals afraid of democracy?'' This had to do with another circumstance where liberals were complaining about people voting on an issue and saying that the Government should dictate it. Why, said the speaker at this particular symposium, himself a liberal, ``are the liberals afraid of democracy? Are they afraid they would lose? Why are the unions afraid of the TEAM Act? Are they afraid that workers, speaking for themselves, exercising democratic rights, will in fact end up in a circumstance that might be good for those workers? Do they not trust the workers?'' Here are the kinds of things that are illegal now, without the passage of the TEAM Act, in terms of discussions between workers and businesses. They cannot discuss an extension of employees' lunch breaks by 15 minutes. That is illegal. They have to have the union discuss that in their behalf. They cannot discuss the issue of decreasing rest breaks from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. You would think they could get together, exercise their democratic rights, rights of free speech, to talk about that? Oh, no. Under the present law that is illegal. The union has to be the one to do that. How about sitting down with management and the workers to discuss tornado warning procedures? Oh, no, we cannot trust the workers to have that kind of discussion. They may give away the store. We have to have the union there to protect their rights. The union must decide, not the workers who are directly involved. How about rules about fighting? Oh, no, we cannot have that discussion with the workers. We have to have that discussion with the union. Sharpness of the edges of safety knives? No, we cannot have the people who actually handle the safety knives discuss that with management. We have to have the union there. The list goes on and on. I am willing to vote on minimum wage. I am willing to vote on TEAM Act. I am willing to vote on the gas increase. I am not willing to have some people in this body say to us, ``You can vote on the ones that we think are important, but we will not let you vote on the ones that you think are important.'' I say, in closing, to those who are so concerned about the minimum wage, why, if it is such a vital social benefit for so many people, was it never mentioned by the then-majority party for the 2 years that they held both the Presidency and the Congress? Never once did it come up when they had the opportunity to control the agenda, control the veto, and control the passage through here. They did not even mention it, let alone raise it. Now, all of a sudden, it is an amendment that must be offered to every single bill. I think the coincidence is that $35 million has been pledged in support of the President's campaign by the labor unions, and the decision has been, suddenly, well, it is important. So now we will bring it up, even though we never did when we were in charge. I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNETT. Finally, on the TEAM Act, as it is called, I want to make these observations. Going back to a headline that appeared in a local U.S. paper--I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to continue for another 3 minutes.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I will abide by the admonition of the senior Senator from Kentucky and make sure that I fall below the $389 limit.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I want to touch on a few issues quickly, some which the Senator from Kentucky referred to and some that we are talking about generally. First, on the deficit being close to $300 billion in 1992; it is half that now. When I campaigned in 1992 for election, I said that the deficit will come down regardless of what happens, and every politician in Washington will take credit for it coming down. One of the major reasons it will come down, having nothing whatever to do with any politician in Washington, is that we will finish paying for the savings and loan bailout. That is moving through the system like a pig in a python, and once it finally is digested and taken care of, you will go back down to the same level of deficit you had before we had the bailout of the savings and loan. A lot of us will look at each other and say, ``Aren't we heroes? Look. It has come down.'' When in fact all that really happened is that we are paying off a one-time obligation, and that was completed. The other reason it comes down is because the cold war is over and we have had substantial downsizing in the Defense Department. The President talks about 270,000-and-some civilian employees no longer on the payroll. Yes, and over 200,000 of those are in the Defense Department having to do with base closures and other downsizing activities in the Defense Department. The structural deficit is as persistent and pernicious as it ever was, and the size of the civilian work force unrelated to the cold war is as big and as obtrusive as it ever was, and we are kidding ourselves with these short-term numbers to think that something serious and long term is taking place.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, tomorrow is tax freedom day. It is an artificial calculation, but it serves to focus our attention on how much of the time we spend working as a Nation to pay our taxes, because on the 7th of May, finally, if we had paid everything we had earned to the Federal Government, we could begin taking something home. As I say, that is an artificial calculation. We do it because it focuses our attention on one question. This is the fundamental question when you address the whole issue of taxes. Whom do you trust to spend your money? Do you trust the people in Washington? Do you trust the Federal Government to spend your money more wisely than you can or do you decide in a free society that you want to hang on to more of it to spend for yourself? Obviously, we have to trust the Federal Government to spend some of our money. There are some things the Federal Government does that we cannot do for ourselves. The most obvious example that I can think of is the Interstate Highway System. We could not go out as individuals and contract to build the roads, to make the plans, to lay out the routes. All of those things are appropriate activity of the Federal Government. When the Interstate Highway System was first proposed back in Dwight Eisenhower's time it was a Member of this body, Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, who made the decision that we would not pay for the interstate highway system with debt. He said, we will pay as we go, and that was the beginning of Federal gasoline taxes going into the national highway trust fund to pay for the Interstate Highway System. And it worked. We trusted the Federal Government to spend our money more wisely on highways than if we had spent it ourselves. We gave the Federal Government that money, and the Interstate Highway System was created. I find it interesting, Mr. President, to know that now the tax increase that was pushed through by President Clinton 2\1/2\ years ago is a tax on gasoline that does not get spent on our roads or on the interstate highways. President Clinton is spending that money for something else. I am supporting the repeal of the increase in the gas tax because I think in this area I trust myself more than I trust the Government to spend those extra few cents on gas. If I could be sure the Government was going to spend it on roads, I would not be so anxious to be for repeal of the gas tax. But we have broken away from that concept that was established here in this Chamber by a Member of this body that said the money that gets paid for gasoline taxes, gets spent on roads and highways and bridges. President Clinton has broken that link and said, ``No. Let's tax gasoline, but let's trust the Federal Government more than we trust the individuals on the issue of how that should be spent.'' Now, we have heard in this debate the whole discussion of tax rates going up. The justification for tax rates going up is that we need more tax revenue in order to pay down the deficit. That sounds fine, Mr. President, but as Members of this body know--I come from a business background and was a businessman until I ran for the Senate, and I discovered very quickly what every businessman knows--raising prices does not mean increased sales. Raising tax rates does not mean increased tax revenue. We have all seen the example where Ford Motor has brought out a new version of its best-selling automobile, the Ford Taurus. The Ford designers were so enthusiastic about how beautiful the Taurus was that they raised the price on the Taurus. It stayed at that higher level for something like 3 weeks when they discovered that people were not willing to pay the higher price. What did they do to get sales moving? They lowered the price. Lo and behold, when they lowered the price, sales started going up. That is exactly the same principle that applies to the Federal Government. If you lower the tax, we can see revenues begin to go up. Let me be personal about this, Mr. President. During the 1980's, I was CEO of a company that started out literally in a basement in a suburban town in Utah. It had four employees. Today that company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and has a market value approaching three quarters of a billion dollars. It has 2,700 employees. We built that business at a time when our effective tax rate was 28 percent. That meant we were able to make our choices as to how the money would be spent in buying inventory, building buildings, hiring new people, instead of having the Federal Government make the choices as to how that money would be spent. Today if we were to start that business again, the effective rate on the money we would earn would not be 28 percent as it was in the 1980's, it would be 42 percent--a 50-percent increase. I say, Mr. President, we would not have created those 2,700 jobs if we had been facing a 42-percent effective tax rate. Now, a study has been done on the impact of the tax increase that President Clinton gave us in 1993. President Clinton talks about all the new jobs that have been created since he has been President. According to the study by the Heritage Foundation, that number would be 1.2 million higher than it is if President Clinton had not given us that tax increase. Yes, we have had some increased jobs because we were coming out of a recession. We would have 1.2 million more. From my personal experience, the difference between paying 26 percent and 42 percent can account for that. What it boils down to is this, Mr. President: Americans all want to earn more, and they want to keep more of what they earn so that they can do more with that money they are allowed to keep. In my own personal experience, I saw that happen. We earned more as our business was successful. We were able to keep more because we had a lower tax rate, and we were able to do more, reflected in those 2,700 jobs that we created. Every one of the people that holds one of those jobs, Mr. President, pays taxes. Every one of them is adding to the revenue of the Federal Government by virtue of what we did creating that business. The Federal Government was a winner all across the board when they allowed us to earn more and then keep more that we earned so we could go out and do more in creating those additional jobs. It comes down, again, Mr. President, to the fundamental question that I asked at the beginning. When you address the question of tax freedom day, you are asking this fundamental issue: Whom do you trust to spend your money? Do you trust the bureaucrats? Do you trust the regulators? Do you trust the planners in Washington? Or do you trust individual Americans all over this country, taking their money and making the decisions as to where it will be invested, where it will be channeled, where it will be spent, in a way to build the economy? I, for one, Mr. President, think that government does many good things. I think I can trust the Federal Government with a good chunk of my money to do things like build roads and bridges, defend the country, and take care of the other challenges that we have as a nation. But when it comes to making the fundamental economic decisions as to what will make this country grow, I trust individual Americans more than I trust the planners in Washington. For that reason, I am hoping that we can move the date back toward the 1st of January when Americans can say, ``I have stopped working for the government and now I am working for the growth of this country as a whole.''

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, we have a lot of conversation going on around the country these days about the economy and what it is people want to have happen and what it is people are searching for in terms of the Federal approach to the economy. I will suggest several guideposts that I think we need to follow when we talk about the economy. If I may, Mr. President, I want to put them in terms of the individual lives and the individual economies of each American. I think the American people want to do three things with their economy. No. 1, they want to earn more. That is a fairly natural thing. I think we all identify with that. We want to earn more. Then we want to keep more, hang on to more of what it is we do earn by the sweat of our brow. Then we do that, earn more, keep more so that we can do more, not just to pile up the money somewhere, but to use it to do things with. Let me give you some examples on these ideas, Mr. President. First, earning more. That comes as a function in our economy of the growth of the economy. We want to earn more because the economy is growing, not because we are taking it away from somebody else--I earn more because you earn less; we don't want that kind of approach--but growth, more jobs, more economic activity is the way we earn more. In my home State of Utah, we are currently enjoying a tremendous economic boom. More growth is occurring, and, as a result, perhaps the sweetest result for most people's ears, is that now in Utah jobs are plentiful. People can find work in Utah, whereas as recently as a dozen years ago, it was very tough to find a job. But as the economy grows, jobs are available and everyone can earn more, keeping more. I will talk again about my own experience in Utah. In our company, which was an S corporation--I know a lot of people turn off because this sounds technical--but an S corporation is simply, for tax purposes, a corporation where the earnings are allowed to flow through to the tax returns of the owners. So the corporation does not pay any tax. The whole earnings of the corporation are added on to the individual tax returns of the owners. The owners pay the taxes. When we had a corporation like that in Utah, we were paying a top tax rate of 28 percent during the 1980's. Today, that tax rate, as a result of the tax increases that have occurred, is 42 percent, a 50 percent increase, Mr. President, that occurred over a period of just 3 years. So even though we may have been earning more, we were not able to keep even as much as we had been earning. We were not able to keep that which was coming in to our company, and our activity, with the taxes going up, as I say, from 28 percent to 42 percent. Why is it important if we are earning more to keep more? Back in the days when we could keep all but 28 percent of that, we could do more. We were able to create jobs. The particular company that I was involved with, when I became involved, had just four employees. We were creating jobs for four people. I was the fifth one hired and put on the payroll. Today that company employs close to 3,000 people. We earned more because we were in a growth industry. We were able to keep more because the tax rate was at 28 percent. We were able to do more with the money that we kept in the form of creating job security and a better lifestyle for nearly 3,000 people, new jobs created that did not exist before. One point I think we need to understand very clearly as we talk about the jobs that were created during the Reagan years--President Clinton talks about the jobs that have been created during his administration-- we must understand that the Federal Government does not create a single job. No government does. The only government jobs that are there are those jobs that are created to be paid for with somebody else's taxes. All of the new jobs that represent earning more and growth come out of the private sector. All the Federal Government can do is create an atmosphere in which that growth can take place. It cannot, by passing a law, create a job, unless, as I said, it takes somebody's tax money to create a job. Your salary, Mr. President, my salary, the salary of everyone here comes out of somebody else's taxes. All Government jobs do. So the Government should focus on creating an environment, an atmosphere, where the entrepreneurial energy of private Americans can create growth. Then the Government should say, ``Let's look at our own expenditures to hold down the spending on the Government side so that those who are creating the jobs, allowing people to earn more, are allowed to keep more of that which they create.'' If we do that, we know from experience they will then do more with the money they are allowed to keep that will benefit the economy and all Americans as a whole. But what it really comes down to, Mr. President, is this. It is a question of trust. Does the Government trust its citizens to go out in the economy and take care of their own problems? Does the Government trust its citizens to hang on to the money that they earn and make their own decisions with it? Does the Government trust its citizens to take the kinds of actions that will cause the economy as a whole to grow and create prosperity for all of us? I am one who does trust the American people. I am one who thinks we need to roll back the tax increases that have occurred, allow people to keep more of their hard-earned money. I believe when we do that we will see the threefold result I have been talking about here, Mr. President. People will be able to earn more--if they are allowed to keep more, they can then do more. I call upon all of us to support policies that move in that direction. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed as in morning business for no more than 10 minutes.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I rise to express my strong support to the efforts of Chairman Murkowski to move this package of bills. I would like to add my thoughts as well, as to what some have called the demise of the Utah wilderness bill. I am disappointed that the Senate failed to break the filibuster of the Utah wilderness bill. I would have liked to have had the Senate continue to debate the bill because I believe that, given the opportunity, we could have convinced those of my colleagues who had doubts about this bill to support it. I am also a realist and I understand that in this Chamber, if one does not have the votes to invoke cloture, it is difficult to move any piece of legislation. I want my constituents, the people of Utah, to know of my appreciation for their tremendous support over the last 14 months. Despite what a small, but very vocal minority would have the Senate believe, the people of Utah wanted a sensible, balanced wilderness bill. S. 884 achieved that balanced approach and it was supported widely across the State of Utah. I believe that a letter in support of our bill signed by over 300 elected officials in Utah is a good indicator that it has strong public support. A rigorous public comment process, involving thousands of written comments, personal testimony, and over 40 public hearings assisted the Utah delegation in drafting this bill. It was a thorough, well-thought-out process and it was open to plenty of criticism from the other side. I, particularly, want to express my tremendous appreciation to those county commissioners from the rural Utah counties who would have been most impacted by wilderness designation. These faithful and dedicated public servants have devoted thousands of hours to develop the county proposals. Despite the fact that S. 884 included 1.1 million acres more than the counties recommended as wilderness, these individuals recognized the need to bring the 20-year debate to closure. The county commissioners have invested thousands of dollars, and sacrificed their personal time to come to Washington to enlighten my colleagues about the wilderness issue. There are dozens of names that deserve to be mentioned, but I would like to give particular credit to Commissioner Louise Liston of Garfield County, Commissioner Lana Moon of Millard County, Commissioners Bill Redd and Ty Lewis of San Juan County, Commissioners Randy Johnson and Kent Peterson of Emery County. I would also be remiss if I failed to mention Commissioners Joe Judd of Kane County and Teryl Hunsaker of Tooele County. As always, the fine commissioners of Washington County, Gayle Aldred, Jerry B. Lewis, and Russ Gallian were instrumental in providing expertise. There are dozens of other faithful commissioners and I apologize that I cannot mention them all by name. The Utah wilderness issue is not dead. On the contrary, it is very much alive and very much unresolved. It will come again before the Senate, and at some point we will be forced to finally deal with the issue. It is my hope that next time, my colleagues will give greater consideration to the $10 million of taxpayers' money and the 20 years of BLM expertise that went into providing the basis for our recommendation. Again, while I am disappointed that Utah wilderness will not be included in this package, there is a silver lining in this cloud. Mr. President, as you know, Utah is preparing to host the 2002 Winter Olympics. Last fall, Senator Hatch and I introduced the Snowbasin Land Exchange, which would authorize the Forest Service to enter into a land exchange with the Snowbasin ski resort to exchange 1,320 acres of Forest Service land around Snowbasin for over 4,000 acres throughout the Wasatch Front. It is an equal value exchange, and a win-win situation for both parties. Not only for the Olympics, but for other reasons as well. For example, in Utah open space in some areas is at a premium. As our population swells each year as thousands of people from other States like California and New Jersey come to Utah because of our quality of life, our precious open spaces along the Wasatch Front are rapidly disappearing. As part of this exchange, the Forest Service will acquire lands along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail which is one of the most heavily used recreational trails in northern Utah. The people of Weber County will benefit as the critical wildlife habitat along the benches above Ogden is preserved along with the open spaces. Development will be prevented from encroaching upon these areas. Again, it is a win-win situation arranged for through this exchange. Unfortunately, the Snowbasin exchange was caught up in the politics of the day and for various reasons, this legislation had the brakes put on it by the Clinton administration. Snowbasin and the Utah delegation proceeded through months of negotiations with the Forest Service and finally reached agreements on virtually every one of the administration's concerns. This legislation is necessary for the successful implementation of the 2002 Winter Olympics and I know that my colleagues are as concerned as I am that this legislation is implemented so Snowbasin may proceed to prepare for the men's and women's downhill. We all want a successful Olympic event. This legislation is included as part of the chairman's package and I am pleased that we can finally act upon this bill. Again, Mr President, I thank the chairman for his willingness to move this package and I encourage my colleagues to support it. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to the two Johns-- Chafee of Rhode Island and Breaux of Louisiana--for the leadership they have shown and for the tenacity which they have maintained throughout this process. As I go home to Utah, I have two reactions from people, as they go through the process and go through what we have done here. The first one that comes from people, who are, perhaps, more partisan than some others, is to find some aspect of this thing and complain. ``How can you, Senator Bennett, support''--fill in the gap--and the reaction is, ``No, I do not support that. You are right, I campaigned against that.'' ``Well, how can you stand here and say that this was a good thing that you have been involved in?" And then we get to the second reaction, which comes from many of the same people, but includes a broader spectrum, and it is summarized, ``Can you guys not get your act together back there and solve some of these problems?'' ``Why are you so partisan that you cannot address the fundamental issues of the country.'' ``Instead of a Democratic or Republican solution,'' one of my constituents said, ``is there not an American solution?'' I am not so filled with hubris as to say the result here is the ``American solution'' as opposed to the Republican or Democratic solution. I remember something my father used to say when talking about his experience in the Senate. He said, ``We legislate at the highest level at which we can obtain a majority.'' I think that is the driving force here--that we have recognized that there will be things in the bill that I will hate. There will be things in the bill that I will really like and that folks on the other side will hate. But we legislate at the highest level at which we can obtain a majority. And the way we obtain a majority is to talk to each other and work things out and make the kinds of changes and understandings that we have to make in order to get there. Unfortunately, in the circumstance we live in today, a majority is not 51 votes; a majority is 60 votes. And you cannot get 60 votes in the Senate if you do not have some give and take. So I salute the tenacity of the folks who have been involved in this process to keep at it and to keep both sides together and to keep both sides equal. I think that is a powerful, powerful idea. What are we doing, Mr. President? We are trying to solve the financial problems of the United States. What are the financial problems of the United States? Quite simply, spending exceeds income at an increasing rate. That is very fundamental. So we have to address ways of increasing income and ways of decreasing the growth of spending. The thing that I endorse the most out of this is the recognition that there are ways to increase income that defy the wisdom of the computers that make straightforward extrapolations. The willingness of everyone to put a capital gains tax cut in this package is the most encouraging thing for me. The computers say it is going to cost us money. I know the computers are wrong. I know that when we get actual experience, we will find that cutting the capital gains tax rate, as this package does, will increase capital gains tax revenue. Every time we have done that in history, that has been the result. Every time we have raised the capital gains tax rate, we have reduced capital gains tax revenue. Why we cannot get the computers programmed to recognize that fact is something I have quit arguing about, because I have been unable to budge anybody who programs the computers. But the willingness of both sides to say, OK, we will score this as a revenue loss, even though I know it is not, and we will pay for it because it is the right thing to do, shows a degree of understanding that I think is terrific. The other thing we do in this package that I salute is that we have the willingness to confront the CPI. We have the willingness to say the Consumer Price Index is out of whack. The Consumer Price Index is driving the increase in spending. We have to confront it, even though it produces a bonus for a lot of our citizens. I am heartened by the courage of all 22 members of this group, Democrats as well as Republicans, who looked each other in the eye and said, ``It is time for a little truth telling. Even though the CPI is politically sensitive, it is time to do the right thing.'' So, Mr. President, as I said, I salute the two Johns for their leadership, and the other 20 members of the group, who stood together on these crucial issues. I recognized immediately that there are things in the deal I do not like. But, ultimately, the direction in which it moves us is the direction in which the country must go, in a bipartisan manner, lowering the temperature of the partisan arguments that occur on this floor. I am proud to have been a part of the overall effort.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I am pleased to offer my spirited congratulations to the University of Utah Men's and Women's Ski Team on their recent NCAA championship. The University of Utah has a lengthy tradition of producing competitive, skilled student-athletes and I am proud to recognize these champions today. I would like to congratulate their individual hard work and dedication, as well as their competitive team spirit and unity. Utah is proud to be represented by these talented student-athletes and coaches. The University of Utah Men's and Women's Ski Team of 1996 are true champions and I would like to mention each member of their team individually. I congratulate Women's Alpine team members: Christi Hager, Heather Munroe, Tina Kavcic; the Men's Alpine team members: Alain Britt-Cote, Mike Elvidge, Andy Hare; the Women's Cross-Country team: Stine Hellerud, Heidi Selnes, Ingvil Snofugl; and the Men's Cross-Country team: Tor Arne Haugen, Asle Slettemoen, Kurt Wulff. I would also like to congratulate the coaches Mark Bonnell, Kevin Sweeney, and John Farra, as well as the trainer Greg Thorpe and the Director of Skiing at the University of Utah, Pat Miller. Utah is proud of the accomplishments of this team and its coaches. In addition to being home to the ``Greatest Snow on Earth'', the U.S. Ski Team and the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, Utah is proud to be the home of fine higher education institutions like the University of Utah. To the talented and skilled student-athletes and coaches on the 1996 Men's and Women's Ski Team from the University of Utah, I give my heartfelt congratulations on their 1996 NCAA championship and confidence we will continue to see their names listed among the outstanding athletes in the country and the world.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I am delighted to join with my colleagues in commenting on Earth Day and, I hope, adding some information and perspective to the debate on Earth Day that will move in the direction that will be good for our country as a whole. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this 26th anniversary celebration of Earth Day. Many natural factors influence grazing on western public lands, with precipitation or the lack thereof probably being the single most important one. Without moisture, and specifically, moisture falling at the correct time, the amount of potential forage can be severely impacted. We can try but there is usually little, outside of asking for divine intervention, that humans can do to influence natural events. But we can change perceptions about public land grazing. We can manage the conflict that arises based on these perceptions. Never before in the history of this country has there been an issue so divisive, emotional and surrounded by perception, myth and hysteria as the issue of western public land grazing. Yet there are solutions; solutions that can solve conflict through planning, science, consensus, and shifting from traditional paradigms. I speak to you today about a solution that has my support. It blends new ideas about natural resource management, planning and science with a healthy dose of old-fashioned hard work and common sense. Coordinated resource management is not about the management of grazing; any issue that has polarized western public land managers, public land users and lawmakers. CRM is a process that offers solutions to natural resource problems, requiring the cooperation of landowners, Government agencies, and other interested individuals and groups. Coordinated resource management is a voluntary and cooperative solution to natural resource management issues. CRM is based on the work of many, but notably the work of Allan Savory culminated in his book ``Holistic Resource Management.'' Conflict about management and use of western public lands has festered for years especially over multiple uses on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. This low profile agency, often overlooked by most Americans, has become the focus of intensive battles over the variety of uses it manages. Western public lands have gone from being the lands that no one wanted, to lands targeted by special interest groups for designation or special uses. This has been done without regard for traditional uses of the land and the families and industries that have adapted to the use of these lands. Conflict between users perceptions about management and the future of western public land agencies are the issues. These can be resolved by careful implementation of coordinated resource management. Using the best efforts of local people, private landowners, interested Federal, State, local and State agencies, CRM integrates and coordinates resource uses to accomplish specific goals. The process is designed to achieve comparability between land and resources uses. There are a number of success stories world wide where CRM has been used to solve resource management issues. In my State, one of the notable examples is the Desert Ranch in northeastern Utah. Once a ranch troubled by apparent downward trends in forage production, conflicts with wildlife, incidents of extreme erosion, and degraded riparian areas, it is now a model of natural resource management efficiency. After implementing a holistic or coordinated resource Management plan, the ranch now graze more livestock than it has traditionally and produces some of the finest big game hunting in the West. Cattle have been used at such intensities as to make traditional private and public land range managers blanch. In most instances several hundred more cattle than normal graze pastures, which rebound with dramatic increases in forage production. Riparian areas have improved significantly, after being grazed at such intensities, to the point that streams are stocked by naturally breeding populations of trout instead of the Utah Division of Wildlife resources. Compare this to adjacent public and private lands where decreases in the numbers of livestock are almost annual, and where erosion and over grazing impact riparian areas and their value. Why this dramatic difference? Hard work, vision and a coordinated resource management plan. There are many other successes, especially tied to grazing. But the value of CRM is that the process can be applied to almost any resource management issue including the designation of wilderness. CRM addresses the dilemma of managing areas with multiple use ownership, conflicting management objectives and requirements, conflicting land-use demands and off-site impacts. The overall goal of coordinated resource management is to serve as a vehicle to reach agreement on natural resources issues that will improve natural resources values for all users and to promote quality natural resource management through collaborative efforts. In other words, if people come to the table with the goal of reaching consensus, regardless of the diversity of agendas, many natural resource conflicts can be solved and perceptions changed. I support the concepts of CRM and encourage the use of the process to solve natural resource problems. We can set a goal to use the coordinated resource management process as a dynamic, long-term tribute to Earth Day 1996. I remember as a freshman Member of this body sitting on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee when someone came before that committee for confirmation. I will not identify him because I do not want to embarrass him. The exchange that occurred between him and the then chairman of the committee, the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Johnston], speaks for itself and does not need to necessarily be personalized. In the process of the confirmation hearing, Chairman Johnston said to this man, somewhat startling me, ``When you make your decisions on the environment, will you make those decisions on the basis of sound science or superstition?'' Well, I sat there as a new member of the committee and thought this is a very easy question to answer. I wondered why the chairman raised it. Then I heard the response from the witness. He started to give all kinds of discussions about considerations that had to be examined and constituencies that should be heard from, and so on. Chairman Johnston interrupted him. He said, ``You are not answering my question. When it comes to issues of the environment, will you make your decisions on the basis of sound science or superstition?'' The answer came back in the same mode, that there are many constituencies of the Department of Energy and the constituencies have to be heard. A third time Chairman Johnston stopped him and asked the question. ``Do not evade it. Give me a direct answer. Will you make your decisions on the basis of sound science or superstition?'' For the third time the answer started to come out, and the chairman cut him off, and said, ``It is clear that you do not want to answer the question, and we will move on.'' I was sufficiently disturbed by that. But when it finally came my turn to question the witness, I said to him, ``Do you realize what this Record says as it currently stands? You have been asked three times by the chairman of this committee, a senior member of the Democratic Party, a major figure in the party that controls both Houses of Congress, and the administration, that, `Will you make your decisions on the basis of sound science or superstition?' and each time you have failed to answer. Unless you do answer that, the Record is going to stand quoting you as saying you do not believe that sound science should rule over superstition when it comes to the environment. Do you really want the Record to show that?'' At that point he said to me, ``Well, no, Senator, I do not want the Record to show that. Of course we will pay attention to science.'' I said, ``That is the point that gets lost in all of this debate about the environment. We have a number of misconceptions about the environment to make us feel good, and I am delighted that you have finally made it clear that at least in your area under your jurisdiction environmental decisions will be based on sound science instead of response to the superstitions that are going around.'' That particular exchange, long since passed into history, has stuck in my mind. I repeat it here on Earth Day because I think that is the crux of the various controversies that we are involved in when we talk about the environment. Let me address one of the misconceptions that I find as I go around and talk to people about the environment. That is the notion that Nature is perfect, human beings are despoilers, Nature does things in an orderly way, and human beings just mess things up. That, I think, is the misconception that surrounds this whole environmental debate. I sat in the chair one evening during the debate on the grazing bill, and the senior Senator from Wyoming, Senator Simpson, showed us some photographs. I was sufficiently impressed by that. I think we ought to take a look at them again. I brought them along. It so happens that over 100 years ago, in 1870, a photographer went out in Wyoming and started to take pictures of the magnificent scenery that is available in Wyoming. Here is the photograph taken on August 12, 1870, of a particular vista in Wyoming. In 1976, a photographer went back to the same spot and took a picture from the same location. If you will examine the difference, you will see that under wise management by human beings, the grasses are much healthier, the area and vegetation is much lusher. Human beings, instead of despoiling the ground, have in fact improved it. The Senator from Wyoming had a number of such pictures. I have brought along two of them. Here is another one. Here is the 1870 photograph--pretty barren, pretty bleak. Here is the 1976 photograph, 100 years later--much healthier vegetation, much healthier conditions. In the debate on the Utah wilderness bill, I produced this photograph for our colleagues to see. This is not 100 years. This is only 50 years. The Escalante River in 1949. You can see how barren this is. After 50 years of wise management in the area, you can see now that this area is revegetated. I showed this in Utah during the Easter break, and I was attacked by some people who said, ``Senator, just because its pretty doesn't mean its wilderness.'' They pointed to the lower photograph and said, ``That's a violation of nature because,'' Senator, ``you're not smart enough to know this. We are. Some of that vegetation down there is not indigenous to Utah. These trees that ended up here came from outside of Utah. It's a violation of the purity of this wilderness to have Asian species in that area.'' I went back to some land managers to ask them about that, and they said, ``Yes, there is some tamarisk there. Some of the green vegetation around the river area--you see no vegetation whatever here--some of the green vegetation is tamarisk, but most of the vegetation is cottonwood, shrubs, and grasses indigenous to Utah. Tamarisk is not a weed. It is a tree that was imported ironically for soil conservation reasons. The tamarisk was planted to prevent erosion. Now, if we adopt the notion that everything nature does is perfect and everything we need to do should be geared toward preserving things in their absolutely natural state, we run into a very serious problem. That problem is this: Nature is not constant. Nature changes the face of the land all the time. Secretary Babbitt has just spent 4 days walking along the C&O Canal to try to raise our awareness of Earth Day. Why the C&O Canal? Because with one storm, nature devastated the C&O Canal. It was all scenic, protected, and preserved, but nature came along and after one storm, with the winter floods the C&O Canal was devastated. If you go back to my home State of Utah and say we want our land to remain in the condition that nature decreed that it should be, the argument could be made that the entire State should be under water. There was a time--and it can be demonstrated by the geologic features along the benches around the Salt Lake Valley, and throughout the mountains, that Lake Bonneville, as we call it, once covered most of the State of Utah and southern Idaho. It was bigger than any of the Great Lakes--bigger than Lake Michigan or Lake Huron or Lake Superior-- it was a huge body of inland water. Is it not wonderful that nature has created this magnificent, inland, freshwater sea? And then something happened. Nature changed it. One day, in southern Idaho, up by Lone Rock, the lake burst its banks and an outlet to that freshwater sea was created. It started, over the many millennia, to disappear. What we have remaining in Utah now is another magnificent gift of nature. It is the Great Salt Lake. The salt flats to the west of the lake are the remnants of Lake Bonneville which over the millennia. In that area now you have this unique natural phenomenon called the Bonneville Salt Flats created by nature. If we are going to say that in the name of the environment we must preserve nature as it was, we have to go back to the boundaries of Lake Bonneville and try to find some way to fill it all up with water again because that is what nature once had. The fact of the matter is--and this is sound science, Mr. President-- nature changes. It changes daily. It changes over the years. It changes in ways that are good, and, as the C&O Canal, it changes in ways that are bad. Our responsibility as proper, sound stewards of the land and environment is to make intelligent decisions and not get carried away with superstition, nor rely on misconceptions as fact.