Robert Bennett

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kansas for her kind and generous words. It has been an interesting odyssey for me to get involved in the health care issue. It came up in the 1992 campaign, when I ran for the Senate in the first instance. I must confess, the first time the question came up I was pretty much stumped for any kind of an answer as to what we ought to do on health care. I do not like being stumped for an answer, so I have plunged into this issue ever since I have been in the Senate, and the more I get into it, the more certain things become clear. One of the things that is very clear is that we need insurance reform now. It is something we can do now. And we should be careful not to attempt a complete overhaul of the system just to get insurance reform. That was one of the errors, in my view, that was made strategically by the President of the then majority party in the last Congress. I always said, and repeat again, that the President deserves credit for having raised this issue. It is such a thorny issue that the instinct of most politicians is to flee from it. I learned in the days when I was working with the Congress, before I came here, that all you needed to do in order to defeat a bill was, not convince Congress that it was a bad bill, all you had to do was convince them that it was a controversial bill and they would flee from the controversy. So I salute the President and have always done so, since coming to the Senate, for his courage in raising the issue. But in the last Congress, I seriously departed from the President because of his insistence that the entire system had to be fixed at once with a single bill and a single Congress. I thought that was the height of arrogance and, ultimately, it proved to be impossible. I remind people that the Clinton health care plan was not voted down in the 103d Congress. It simply died, collapsed of its own weight, and a vote was never taken on it because it could never be put together in such fashion that it was ready for a vote. So I commend the Senator from Kansas and the Senator from Massachusetts in their willingness to say, ``Let's step aside from the attempt to do everything in a single bill. Let's pick out the most pressing problems and see if we can address those.'' Those of us who tried to put forth this strategy in the last Congress were attacked as incrementalists, and we were denounced as being insufficiently compassionate and concerned. I do not know anybody in this body who is more compassionate and more concerned than the Senator from Kansas. I stand now to say that the incremental approach that we proposed in the 103d Congress is now bearing fruit in the 104th, primarily due to her leadership and her compassion and her concern. So I am delighted to be a cosponsor of the bill and to participate in this debate. I do have to make a few general observations, however, before I get into talking about this bill, so that people who have heard me on health care in the past will know that I have not abandoned those observations. I believe that we have the system that we have in the country today primarily because of the tax laws in this country. We have a system that is distorted, for a whole series of reasons. Not to go through the whole litany but to, again, lay down certain principles so that I am not accused of abandoning them, we have not one health care system in this country but two. The first one is the delivery system, and it is run by doctors and nurses and hospital administrators and researchers and research hospitals and foundations and all of the rest of it, and it is dedicated to delivering the finest health care medical result for our citizens as possibly can be. The second system is the payment system, and it is run by insurance companies and adjustors and, to a very large extent, the Federal Government. Forty percent of the health care bills in this country are paid by the Federal Government. The payment system, to a certain extent and certainly to a larger extent than is proper, in my view, distorts the delivery system. Delivery system decisions are made on the basis of payment system decisions, and that is where we get into all of the difficulty, in my view. If we could devise a way that the delivery system goes forward with the focus primarily on producing the best medical result for the patient, undistorted by the payment system, we would have the ultimate circumstance. If I may give us an example--I realize it is not perfect, but it is one we ought to look at--I have been in Shriners hospitals. The Shriners raise every dollar that they spend for health care, which means that they do not interface with a single insurance company or a single Government bureaucrat. They simply raise the money to pay the bill for the kids, and they make the decision as to what will be done in a Shriners hospital solely and entirely on the question of medical need. Here is the result of not having to deal with insurance companies or the Government at the Shriners Hospital in Salt Lake City: The cost per day, per-bed night, or whatever the appropriate medical term is, in the Shriners Hospital in Salt Lake City is $95. What could we do in medical costs if the per-night cost in a hospital were $95 for every 24-hour period? The administrative costs of running the Shriners hospital system are 4 percent, which means that 96 percent of every dollar they raise to take care of the medical needs of these kids goes to the kids and only 4 percent goes to administration. That is what happens when you do not have to deal with an insurance company or with the Government bureaucrat. That is the goal for which we should aspire somewhere out there to clean up the enormous costs and complexity of the system in which we are engaged. I think the answer to that lies in restructuring our tax laws in the way we deal with health insurance. That is a speech I have given before; it is not a speech I will give today, but I lay that down because I do not want anyone who is listening to me to think that for one moment I have abandoned that as my ultimate goal: To get to the circumstance where we clear up the enormous complexities that now beset the whole health care issue. That having been said then, Mr. President, let me address S. 1028 and my support for it. As I said at the outset, I believe in the incremental approach. I believe that when you are dealing with a trillion dollars' worth of economic activity, trying to fix it all at once with a single piece of legislation is a major mistake, and I think we learned that lesson in the 103d Congress. The most pressing issue for most Americans is the question of job lock, the question of insurance through the employer keeping people tied to a particular employer or to a particular job. During the campaign, whenever this came up, I had a little exercise I would go through, and it never failed to produce exactly the same result. As people would turn to me and say, ``What is the biggest problem with health insurance,'' I would answer with a question. I would say, ``How many of you here know of someone--either yourself, a member of your family, or friend--who is locked in a job he or she hates because he or she is afraid to lose health insurance?'' I would just sit back and watch the hands go up, and they would always go up in sufficient number around the room to make my point: That portability of health insurance is, for most Americans concerned with this issue, the No. 1 challenge, and portability of health insurance is at the core of S. 1028. If we can make it possible for people to ultimately control their own destiny and not be under the control of their employer, then we have solved the problem for many, many Americans. I am not one who subscribes to the statistics about the tremendous number of uninsured. I point out that for most of the uninsured, they are just passing through that category. I give this example. In my own family, I have a son who, when he turned 24, went off the family policy. The insurance company says he should be through with school at age 24. I said, ``I agree with you he should be through with school at age 24, but he's not, so what do we do?'' Well, I called him up and said, ``Jim, go down to the student health center and sign up for the student health policy at the University of Southern California.'' He said, ``Sure, dad, I'll take care of that.'' Those of you who have children know that it took about 6 months for him to finally get around to taking care of that. During that 6-month period, he was one of those statistics of the uninsured. He had gone off my policy because he was too old to be a dependent and he had not gotten around to signing up with the other, and so he ended up in that statistical pool of the uninsured. Frankly, it is not my son, Jim, we are worried about here. It is the people who, in that statistical pool, have a real problem. I raise that only because I think it is unfair to use the huge statistical number of 37 or 40 million or whatever it may be, to try to highlight the problem that is really severe and significant for roughly a third or even a quarter of that number. But the people who are in that quarter, the 10 million, whatever, have real problems, and this bill addresses those problems. We should understand that this terror of losing health insurance that has caused job lock can become more than just a personal problem for the individual involved. It can have consequences throughout the entire economy. The Senator from West Virginia spoke about the entrepreneurs who leave a secure business to go start another one. I have been one of those entrepreneurs and had the experience of walking out of a secure company where I had health insurance, being told, ``OK, you have COBRA coverage for 18 months, and in that 18-month period, good luck in lining up some other kind of health insurance.'' I was able to line up another kind of health insurance for me, but discovered a very difficult problem. My secretary, who left with me when I left the company to start my own activity, was also covered by COBRA, and in that COBRA period while we were putting together a health insurance plan for our little tiny company--just the two of us; we were the only two employees--she came into my office one day and said she had to see a doctor, she was not feeling well. She came back from the appointment and said, ``I have a brain tumor. It is operable. It can be handled, but the problem of dealing with it is going to take a timeframe longer than the 18 months of COBRA. What are we going to do?'' I will not bore the Senate with the details. We were able to solve the problem. We were able, through the State of Utah and some of the things that it does on health insurance, to find an insurance pool that would accept her. But I saw firsthand how difficult that can be. People who are normal and healthy and have no problems at all in the 18-month period of COBRA are suddenly faced with this kind of circumstance. So that is why I have joined in cosponsoring S. 1028. It is focused on a single problem. It is not an attempt to solve all of the issues simultaneously and thereby get gummed up in all of the challenges that face our health insurance and health care problems. It deals with the most pressing problem for most Americans who fall in this category. It does so in such a way that it does not close the door to the kinds of solutions I want to see down the road. It does not close the door to the kind of tax reform that I think will ultimately bring us the ultimate health care solution. So, for those who say, ``Well, Senator Bennett, you have been a voice for the entrepreneurial approach, the market approach, and don't endorse anything until you can restructure everything,'' I say, we have not got that luxury. We have to deal with the problem of job lock, the problem of portability of health insurance as quickly as we can, even as we have these other discussions for the solution a long way down the road. Again, Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Kansas for her leadership and her tenacity. I say, as I have said before, that the loss of her membership in this body will be keenly felt. She brings an aura of civility and intelligence, combined with a tenacity and a sense of steel in her back that sometimes her pleasant exterior will cause people to misjudge. We have been honored with her service in the Senate. I think this will be a monument to her service in the Senate. I am delighted to be one of those who raises a voice in support of that concept. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mrs. KASSEBAUM addressed the Chair.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that A. J. Martinez, a fellow from the Department of the Interior, be granted privilege of the floor during consideration of H.R. 1296, and all votes taken thereon.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Colorado for giving us that perspective which I think perhaps we needed. If any of our colleagues are watching in their offices, they may think that the Utah wilderness bill is the only issue and that we are involved in overkill, perhaps. However, there are some things that I think appropriately should be said in this circumstance. And I will do my best not to repeat what has been said by my colleagues, Senator Murkowski, and Senator Hatch. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Senator Johnston, my colleague from Louisiana, for his kind words at the beginning of this debate. He provided a tremendous amount of help on this issue when it was before the committee. And, as he said accurately, it was his proposal backed unanimously by all of the Democrats on the committee that became the basis for the final wording of the bill in terms of the release language. I agree with Senator Hatch--that many of those who are now attacking the bill in newspaper advertisements and elsewhere have not read that language and need to understand that they are attacking a bill that no longer exists. I know that does not meet their needs because their political needs require them to attack the very worst possible bill. I do not happen to think our first proposal was the worst possible bill. But they do, and they can keep the emotion up, if they continue to attack that which we have long since abandoned. Mr. President, I have a different view perhaps of this issue. And I apologize if this is unduly personal. But this is the only way I can really describe how I come to this issue. I am a city slicker. That is a term used perhaps in some places. But I grew up in a city, went to school in a city, and raised my family in a city. I knew little or nothing about these issues until I decided to run for the Senate. I came with the perspective of somebody for whom wilderness meant a drive in the country on a Sunday afternoon. My opponent for the Senate was the author of H.R. 1500, the bill that called for at that point 5.4 million acres of wilderness in Utah, and he was lionized by all of the same groups that are now buying the full- page ads in national publications to attack the bill that we are debating here today. It was interesting to me to follow him around the State of Utah and see him back away from his original proposal the more exposure he had to real voters. It is also interesting that now that the voters of Utah decided to retire him from public life that he has become the chairman of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the group that has been paying for these advertisements around the country. I do not know how much they spent. I would guess it would be millions of dollars, knowing what I do know about the cost of advertisement--perhaps even in the tens of millions of dollars. We will never know. The group will never tell us. The group does not tell us where their financial support comes from. The group does not tell us who is behind their efforts. But they have mounted this effort and run these ads in attack of this bill. As I say, I am a city slicker. I came to this issue really with no preconceptions one way or the other. I was forced into it by virtue of the fact that my campaign was against Wayne Owens who was the primary mover of this effort, and who continues, as I say, today as one of the primary forces behind it. I decided I had better learn something about the issue. I know that strikes some people as a little strange in politics. But I decided that I was not going to be able to run on discussion of this if I did not know anything about it. So this is what I did to try to find out about it. The first thing I did was talk to the people who lived on the land. I went out to the land, and I sat down with the people who live there, and I asked them to tell me about it. I will not bore you with all the things they told me, but one conversation sticks in my mind. A woman down in southeastern Utah walked out with me. We had been in an area where we had been having dinner with a group of people. We walked out into the open air, and she said, ``Bob, look around. What do you see?'' Well, I did not know what I was supposed to see, so I had to make up some kind of comment. I did not know what I was looking for. But she said, ``Look around at this land. What do you see?'' I shrugged my shoulders a little, and I said, ``It's pretty.'' She said, ``It's pristine.'' I said, ``Yes, that's right. It's pristine. That's wonderful.'' She said, ``Bob, my family and I have been making our living off this land for five generations. Tell me we don't love it and we can't take care of it properly.'' So that was the first experience I had as I went out and talked to people who live there and have their feeling of stewardship for the land. It is very real. I submit to the Senator from New Jersey that it is as real as his sense of stewardship or that of anybody else who sends in their subscriptions to the various environmental groups but who has never had the experience of living on the land from generation to generation. These people are not despoilers. These people are not exploiters. These people are stewards, and they are good stewards, of the land. The reason the land is in the condition it is in that we can be talking about it as needing to be preserved for our children is that these people have preserved it in that condition for five generations and more. All right. That is the first thing I did. I talked to those who live on the land. Then I decided, well, I better talk to the professional managers, the people who make their living managing this land for the Federal Government. As Governor Leavitt pointed out in his letter that Senator Hatch quoted, the professional managers run more of the State of Utah than the elected Governor does. The head of the BLM in Utah geographically has wider sway than the Governor and the State legislature put together. So I went and talked to these professional managers, and I asked them to tell me about this wilderness thing, help me understand it. They looked at me. They had to take my measure for a little while. They had to decide whether I was really serious about trying to get their view. When they finally decided that I was serious about wanting to know without any preconception, they said, ``Senator''--by this time I had been elected so they used that term. They said, ``Senator, we can't manage 5.7 million acres of wilderness. You give us 5.7 million acres as wilderness, and we are going to have all kinds of incursion into that land because we don't have enough police force to keep people off land that they have been traditionally entering for many, many years. We are finding it already in the study areas; the 3.2 million acres that are being studied cannot in perpetuity be managed as wilderness. We are already seeing incursions that we can't control.'' They said, ``One of the reasons the BLM came up with 1.8 million acres of wilderness is that we decided that was the maximum amount we could effectively protect as wilderness. The rest of it simply could not be managed.'' They gave me this example of why some acreage is not appropriate for wilderness. They said the 5.7 proposal talks about land that comes right up to the highway. They said, ``Senator, we cannot stop people out there along the highway from parking their cars on the side of the highway and picnicking on that land.'' Now, the land has no wilderness characteristics in the terms of the bill as Senator Hatch has described; that is, the original Wilderness Act. The reason it is included in the 5.7 is that these people want it as buffer land for wilderness area that is maybe 5, 6, 10, 20 miles away. So they have taken the wilderness area that is 20 miles away from the highway and decided that in order to protect it, in their view, they are going to put the wilderness designation right up to the highway itself. They said, ``Now, Senator, stop and think about it. Are you getting the wilderness experience in an area untrammeled by man when you are standing 50 feet away from an interstate highway?'' That is not the kind of solitude that the Senator from New Jersey waxed so lyrical about earlier this morning. That land does not qualify in any sense for a wilderness designation, and yet, according to these professional managers, it is included in some of the proposals that we have. So I thought, well, OK, I have talked to the people who live there. I have talked to the managers. Maybe I ought to go see the land myself. So I went out to see the land, and I discovered something that as a city slicker I would never ever have known, something that I think is being ignored in this debate, something that has been ignored in this Chamber, and something that I would like to talk about as being crucial to this issue, and that is this. I discovered that human beings do not automatically degrade the quality of the environment. Indeed, I discovered that in some circumstances human beings improve the quality of the environment. Is that not a radical notion? Everything we have been hearing about preserving wilderness is that we have to preserve this in its pristine, magnificent quality, or something really worthwhile will be lost and we will get in place of it something terrible that comes from human beings. Let me show you some pictures, Mr. President, some that we have brought together and some that I saw for the first time as I was presiding the other night when the Senator from Wyoming was talking about grazing. Let us take first some of the pictures from the Senator from Wyoming because I think there is a significant point to make. I will not go through all of them as he did. It so happens that in 1870 a photographer got loose in Wyoming, and he went around and took some pictures of areas that he thought were particularly significant. The picture on the top is in Jackson. It was taken on August 12, 1870. In 1976, a little over 100 years later, modern photographers going over these magnificent old photographs decided they wanted to go back to the same place and take a picture of exactly the same scene. So they did. What do you see between 1870 on the top and 1976 on the bottom? You see a lusher environment. You see more trees, more vegetation, healthier grass than you saw 100 years ago. What is the difference? The difference is that for the succeeding 100 years wise stewardship by human beings has been practiced on that land, and environmentally it has gotten better and not worse. We have another one by the same process, same photographers. This is also in Wyoming. I wish I had some pictures like this of Utah. I have one that I will get to. Again, Jackson, August 20, 1870, on the top. You see the kinds of things that we hear on this floor about overgrazing and the range in terrible condition and the grasses having been destroyed, and so on. Now you look at it 100 years later with wise management and you see trees in the riparian area; you see lusher grass; you see healthier plants because human beings have exercised wise stewardship. Now let us go to the one in Utah. The Senator from Wyoming had a whole series of these and built his whole presentation around them. I was tremendously impressed. This one is not 100 years. This one is only about 50. I picked this one because the Escalante River is one of the areas of high controversy in this wilderness debate. The top photograph was taken in 1949. It shows the Escalante River. The bottom photograph was taken in 1992. What do you see in the bottom photograph? You see lush vegetation through the riparian area, so lush you cannot even see the river because there is so much foliage there. And where did that come from? That came from human intervention into the area. That came, primarily, from cattle. We have heard so much about how terrible cattle are for the environment. We heard from the Senator from New Jersey the basic assumption that when cattle get into an area, there is automatic overgrazing. As I said, I walked the land myself. This city slicker went out and went over some land and discovered a fascinating thing that I would never have learned, growing up in Salt Lake City, UT. I had a guide who took me through it and he showed me two tracts of land, side by side. We walked over both. The one tract of land had cattle grazing on it on a regular basis. The vegetation was healthy. The watershed was good. The grasses were healthy and strong and lush. We then went to another area, which, ironically, was BLM land where cattle permits had been denied. The first piece of land was private land, right next to it a piece of BLM land where permits had been denied. Here the land was beginning to turn to desert. There were no grasses. Such vegetation as was there was scrawny and drying up, showing, if you will, something very similar to the contrast in those two photographs. I said to the man who was guiding me through, ``All right, now tell me why this is?'' He says, ``It is very simple.'' He said, ``Out here in Utah and Arizona''--actually, this particular tract of land was in Arizona, right on the Utah border--``it is so dry that the land cakes, and when the water finally comes in the infrequent rainstorms, it hits this caked-over land, this dried-over land, and it runs off and does not get in below the surface to nurture anything, unless something comes along to break through the surface of that land.'' He said, ``The something that most often comes along that can do the land most good is a cow.'' When a cow comes along, every time it steps, before a rainstorm, afterward there is a little puddle of water in every one of those steps where the cow goes by. And then the seeds are coming through the air as the wind blows along. And where do those seeds get caught? They get caught in those little indentations made by the places where the cattle have stepped. And if there is water there and seeds there, and then fertilization--the cow carries that process with it and drops it along the way--you begin to get what you see in this patch of land, strong plants and lush grass, rather than the desert effect that you get in this patch of land where the cattle have been kept away. That is exactly what has happened in the Escalante River. Yet, in the name of protecting the environment and doing what is best for the environment, there are people who would say the top photograph is better than the bottom photograph. The top photograph represents something we must preserve for our children and our grandchildren, and the bottom photograph represents exploitation and despoilation of our natural resources. That is a moral judgment that I cannot make. I do not find any moral superiority in deserts over vegetation. Some people might be able to make that moral judgment. I cannot. So I came away from that experience, talking to the people who lived on the land and finding them to be good stewards who loved the land every bit as much as anybody who ever sent off his card to the Sierra Club, talking to the managers who run the process and finding them to be conscientious and intelligent people who want to do the right thing for the land, and then finally walking the land myself and going through this process, I came away with the conviction that there is no single magic bullet for us to solve our environmental problems, such as slapping a wilderness designation on a map and then saying nature will take care of this and human beings, stay away forever and ever. Let me give another example of why it is the people of Utah are so concerned about this question. Why do we care? Why do we care whether land is designated as wilderness or left in BLM inventory? What big difference does it make? Let me give one example in Juab County, UT, where there is a little town called Mona. I have driven through Mona. I would like to say for the sake of this debate I have stayed there and talked with some folks, but I have not. I must be honest. I just kept right on driving, and you get through Mona pretty quick when you are driving. It does not slow you down very much. Mona's secondary source of culinary water is a spring located on Forest Service land. Unfortunately for the people of Mona, this spring extends into the Mt. Nebo Wilderness Area, which was designated in 1984. It is a small spring. It has a flow of only 5 to 20 cubic feet a second, depending on the time of year. The pipeline is operated by the tiny little Mona Irrigation Company. For the last 2 years, Mona has been prevented by the Forest Service from accessing and maintaining the spring, even though the first historic use of the spring began in 1870. Under the terms of the Wilderness Act, prior activities are grandfathered in and allowed to go on. If you had a grazing permit, according to the act, you can continue to graze. If you had a mining permit, according to the act, you can continue to mine. In fact, we know that once something is designated as wilderness, all that goes out the window, it is walled off, no human activity whatsoever regardless of what may have been going on there before. The historic use of this spring began in the 1870's. There has been over 120 years of use of this water. The Forest Service, now, will not give permission for the tiny town of Mona to access and maintain its source of drinking water until an environmental assessment is completed. I will say the Forest Service has not been obstructionist about this, in any kind of confrontational way. They have simply said this is what the regulations are and we are going to enforce them. We are sorry about it. They have not been particularly cooperative. They have just enforced the rules. So, for 2 years now, Mona cannot deal with maintaining this source of water that they have been using for 120 years. I would be a little more sympathetic with the wilderness advocates if this spring were, say, 3 miles inside the wilderness boundary. Mr. President, it is 900 feet from the wilderness boundary. But they are forbidden from crossing that boundary to go provide maintenance on a source of water that they have been using for 120 years. That is the kind of thing that scares the living daylights out of the people in Utah, who live next to these wilderness designations and are saying, ``What is going to happen to us when we start facing the bureaucracy that surrounds the enforcement of a wilderness designation?'' Much has been said about the process. I will not revisit that except to give my version quickly of what happened, and some of the things that we have gone through here. As Senator Hatch pointed out, the BLM started the study here. I should point out for the sake of partisan clarity that the decision as to what would be studied and what would not was not made by Jim Watt. It was made during the Carter administration by those environmentally friendly folks who President Carter appointed to the Department of the Interior. They did their study, they came up with their conclusion, and then they opened it up for standard appeals, comments and so on. The Utah Wilderness Association, a group not to be confused with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, protested that the Department of the Interior and the BLM had missed some very significant areas. Their protest was not only heard; it was upheld. Some 800,000 acres were added to the study area in response to the protests of the Utah Wilderness Association. I happen to believe that that protest was wise and that the decision that was made to add those additional acres to the study area was the correct decision. There were other protests that were made that were defeated in court. I made that point at the press conference where we all got together to announce our intention to try to resolve this issue, and some folks came up to me after the press conference and said, ``Oh, no, no, Senator, we've never lost any of our appeals, we've never lost any of our challenges.'' I said, ``Well, then, my staff is misleading me and the folks at the BLM are misleading me. They said every time you have challenged this original designation you've lost.'' ``Well,'' he said, ``we did have to withdraw some of our appeals, but it was withdrawn because we didn't have enough money. We couldn't afford to proceed.'' I find that a very interesting statement in the light of what we have heard on this floor today from the chairman of the committee of roughly $1 billion of liquid assets in the hands of those who are fighting this bill. If they have enough money to buy a full-page ad in the New York Times, they have enough money to pursue their effort in behalf of some of these court challenges. No, I do not think they withdrew the challenges because they did not have enough money; they withdrew the challenges because they knew they were without merit and they were going to lose and they did not want the embarrassment of having that loss on the record. We decided--that is, the members of the delegation--in concert with the Governor that we were going to start this whole thing from scratch again. Senator Hatch has described the hearings that were held at the county level, the hearings that were held statewide and all of the rest of that. We are being told now that 75 percent of the people who responded to those hearings were in favor of 5.7 million acres. I can only agree with Senator Hatch that that is an incorrect figure, incorrect statement. What was very clear to me as we went from place to place was that the caravan of protesters went with us. It became kind of a ballet. As the delegation would move into a new area, then all the protesters would move and they would have the same buttons on. They would come in and demand the places and then tell us the same thing they told us in the previous location. Then we would get in our cars and drive to this location and they would get in their buses and come, and we would go through the same charade. For them to say 73 percent of the people who testified were all in favor of this other proposal, I would say it is the old story used when you turn down somebody for a job and he said, ``But I've had 10 years experience,'' and the answer is, ``No, you haven't, you've had 1 year experience repeated 10 times.'' We had this same group of people repeating the same arguments over and over and over again. On one occasion, the Governor turned to say something to a member of his staff and the witness stopped and said, ``Governor, I'm speaking to you.'' The Governor turned back and apologized, listened, and then said to me, ``The reason I felt I didn't have to listen to her is because I had heard the same testimony from her four times and I thought I knew what it was she was going to say.'' It was interesting to me that when we were through with this process, we came up with roughly the same result that the BLM had produced in their 15 years of activity. We did not try to do that. We did not deliberately set out to validate what they had done, but we found it fascinating that when we were through, we had the same result. This is what we were told at those hearings, and we have heard some of it on the floor today. I would like to respond to it. We were told: ``Wilderness will make money.'' We heard that from the Senator from New Jersey. ``Tourists come to Utah, tourism is Utah's No. 1 industry. If we just add wilderness to the mix, we will make money.'' Mr. President, I have a map of the State of Utah, and you will see that it is filled with bright colors. What are all these bright colors? The yellow is BLM land. You will see if you get close to it that there are a bunch of little tiny squares of purple all the way through there. Those purple squares belong to the State of Utah. Those are the school trust lands that came in the enabling act when the State was created. But all of the yellow you see here is BLM land. This happens to be a military reservation, the Utah Testing and Training Range. I do not recommend you go out there on your vacation; they are likely to drop bombs on you. That is what they do when they take off from the airfield. The dark blue is water, Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake. The green is Forest Service land. When we talk about the Federal Government owning 67 percent of the State of Utah, it is the combination of Forest Service land and BLM land. The salmon color lands are Indian reservations. Interestingly, this area where it shows a great deal of white land is, in fact, an Indian reservation. I will tell you what the white is in just a moment. This land is national recreation area, also not available for any kind of private development. The white land that you see left over, that is private land. That is the amount of land that the citizens of Utah own. The Senator from New Jersey says Utah is one of the most urbanized States in the Union. Maybe when you see the land pattern you can understand. There is not any private land available except in the urban areas. That is a bit of an overstatement, but I think it comes closer than some may realize. You may ask, ``What is all this private land on what is supposed to be an Indian reservation?'' That is land the Indian tribes handed out to their members, so it is still an Indian reservation but it is held by title by the members of the Indian tribe. So if we are going to talk about exploitation of private landowners, you are going to see that the amount of land that the private owners can exploit is very, very minimal, compared to all of the other land uses. But I came to the chart for this purpose, because we are talking about the issue of making money off wilderness. You see this dark green place inside the green Forest Service land. This is wilderness, and that is not obscure wilderness. This is wilderness so popular that the Forest Service has to issue permits to people to go in. They do not want anybody in there in any higher levels of visitation than they are getting right now. This is wilderness that for its tourist potential has reached the saturation point. The Forest Service will not let anybody else in, and it happens to be in the two poorest counties in the State of Utah. Wilderness has not made them wealthy, the way some of the proponents of this proposal would have you believe. The other green that you see here in the yellow area is the wilderness that is included in our bill. This is the 2 million acres that we have been talking about, and the various places where it will be, including--yes, including--the Kaiparowits Plateau that we heard so much about earlier in the debate. Mr. President, I put that out because, again, I am a city slicker. I did not know this until I came to the Senate. I had no understanding of the way the land in Utah is allocated and owned until I came to the Senate and got into this debate. I love to go out into the wilds. I love to go out and commune with nature and have the kinds of experiences that Senator Bradley quoted the professor from Colorado was having. ``The silence is stunning,'' he said. I have had that kind of experience in Utah. I have gone off by myself and had that kind of tremendously uplifting experience. I did not know at the time I had the experience where I was in terms of who owned the land. I have gone back and checked. I was on BLM land. I was on land exploited. Why? Because some cattle had been through there. I did not know that. I had my experience without knowing that. I guess I am deficient somehow in that I do not require the knowledge that nobody else has ever set foot on the land for me to have that kind of experience on the land. The vast majority of the people who come to Utah to have that kind of experience have it in the green areas, that is, the national forest. We have 8 million acres of national forest in the State of Utah. The only difference, from my perspective, between the national forest and the other lands that we are talking about setting aside as wilderness is that you can get to the national forest. I can go to the national forest in my automobile. There is no way in the world I am going to be able to go to these areas we have designated as wilderness in an automobile. That is fine. So 2 million acres; it meets the criteria of the Wilderness Act. I agree that that ought to be set aside, primarily for ecological reasons. But most people who are talking about wanting more wilderness have the mistaken impression that what they are talking about is pretty country. They are saying we want to keep the country pretty and keep away the strip malls and the hamburger stands and so on. There are 8 million acres where there will never be a strip mall or a hamburger stand or any other kind of commercial exploitation in the State of Utah. There are 8 million acres right now in national forests. You add to that the 2 million acres that we have of national parks,--I am surprised at how many of my constituents think wilderness means national parks--add the 2 million acres that we are proposing in wilderness, taken off the BLM land, and you will have 12 million acres of Utah set aside that can never ever be used for any kind of commercial exploitation, plus 20 million acres left to be managed in the way that we saw in the first photograph I showed of Escalante Canyon. There are 20 million acres left to be exploited, the way that picture on the bottom indicates it is exploited, plus 12 million acres where there will never be any commercial activity of any kind. That comes to 32 million acres. I think that is enough. That all meets the standard of what the law has said that gives us all the legacy that we need to pass on to our children. Mr. President, I have two other things I want to say that I found as I went around on my odyssey to talk with the people who lived there, talk with the managers, and to look at the land myself. The first one has to do with the issue that Senator Bradley raised with respect to Kaiparowits. As Senator Hatch very appropriately pointed out, our bill protects hundreds of thousands of acres in Kaiparowits. The real issue in Kaiparowits, however--we must be honest about it, Mr. President--is not the number of acres; the real issue of Kaiparowits is called, ``Will we allow any exploitation of the coal reserves that are under the surface in the Kaiparowits Plateau?'' You see the full page ads that talk about ripping out all of this magnificent scenery so that coal can be ripped from the Earth, flung around the world, and as the final statement in the advertisement says, ``A foreign corporation gets all of the profits, and Utah is left with a hole in the ground.'' In the first place, the particular foreign corporation that they are talking about happens to be a very good corporate citizen of the State of Utah and has been mining coal in the State of Utah for close to 100 years. But, quite aside from that, let us talk about it from the environmental impact standpoint. The Senator from New Jersey talked about long-wall technology in coal mining. I have been down in a coal mine in Utah. I have seen long-wall technology. I say to anybody who has not had that experience, it is one of the most fascinating experiences you are going to have in your life because you cannot conceive, or at least I could not conceive, how any engineer would ever be bright enough to sit down and figure out how that whole thing works. It is just absolutely stunning. With the long-wall technology that now occurs in coal, it will be possible for the mining company to go into the coal seam at Kaiparowits and take out virtually all of the available coal through a single mine opening. We are not talking about strip mining here. We are not talking about tearing the top off of the Kaiparowits Plateau. We are talking about a hole on the side of a mountain roughly the size from that door to that door in this Chamber and maybe 16 to 20 feet high. That is about all the bigger the hole has to be. How much coal are we talking about? You figure you have a good seam of coal if it runs anywhere from 6 to 8 feet in height. The seam under Kaiparowits is about 16 to 18 feet in height, more than twice the size of the coal seam that you would consider very good. There is enough coal under Kaiparowits to provide the power needs of several Western States for the next 100 years. As Senator Hatch pointed out, it is environmentally friendly coal. It has the right kind of chemical makeup and is the kind of coal you want to burn instead of the kind of coal from other parts of the country, parts that are very well represented in this body, I might add. How do we get to this opening where this coal can be taken out? In order to get to the opening where the coal can be taken out, you have to go down into a circular canyon. That is good from an environmental standpoint because it means if you are not standing closer than about 100 feet from the edge of the canyon, you cannot see it. How many acres are we talking about? How big a platform? How big a footprint is going to be placed on the land when this thing is fully operative? Forty acres, Mr. President. At the bottom of this circular canyon, virtually hidden by the nature of the way the canyon was formed, 40 acres at the bottom of this canyon will be admittedly despoiled and exploited, 40 acres will be filled with buildings that are not particularly pretty to look at, 40 acres will be filled with sheds and equipment. And for that 40 acres which cannot be seen anywhere on the Kaiparowits Plateau--I stood on the Kaiparowits Plateau and looked at it directly myself--for that 40 acres that cannot be seen anywhere on the Kaiparowits Plateau, we could produce enough coal to furnish the energy for several Western States for over 100 years. Now, in this book, ``Wilderness at the Edge,'' where we see the whole 5.7 million acres laid out in all their glory--and it is glory--they tell us all of the places we ought to designate as wilderness that we do not have as wilderness. There is an interesting little suggestion. One of the places they designate as wilderness happens to have a railroad tunnel running underneath it. The railroad tunnel is already in. The trains are already going back and forth. They say it should still be designated wilderness because the activity beneath the surface does not detract from the glorious wilderness experience on top of it. I say to those who wrote this book, what is the difference between coal mining that is going on underneath the surface, hundreds if not thousands of feet below the magnificent scenery up above, and railroad cars going back and forth? If you can live with railroad cars, saying that does not detract from the experience on the surface, I tell you, you should be able to live with coal mining, particularly with the long wall technology to which the Senator from New Jersey referred. Now, Mr. President, in conclusion, I know those are very welcome words, and for most of the people who are listening, I go back to the comment made by the Senator from New Jersey in his conclusion. He quoted an editorial from a newspaper, the editors of which, I would guess, have little or no personal experience with any of these issues we have been talking about. The editorial says there are two philosophies, and we have a clash between the two philosophies: Whether we want to support solitude and recreation, one philosophy; or whether all things on the Earth should be exploited for human development, the other philosophy. Of course, they came down on the side of the first, as does the Senator from New Jersey, which is his right. I respect him for it. I respect the thoughtful, intelligent way in which he proposed his arguments. I suggest, however, based on what I now know about this, that these are not the two philosophies at stake here at all. I suggest, Mr. President, that, yes, this is an argument between two philosophies, but these two philosophies have nothing to do with the question of, are you in favor of solitude and recreation, or are you in favor of human development? The two philosophies are these, Mr. President: Do you believe that nature is perfect and benign and must be left alone to achieve the highest moral goal; or do you believe that nature is constantly changing, moving from one moral circumstance to the other with such rapidity that there is no moral judgment that can be found, and therefore nature can be managed without any moral implications. Based on what we have seen here, based on what I have seen as I have gone throughout the western lands, I believe that there is moral justification for managing nature, for planting trees where they did not exist before, for running cattle on areas that will produce greater vegetation than was there before. That is my philosophy. I do not run from it nor apologize for it. I close with this real-life example that illustrates what I am talking about. There is in Utah--there was in Utah; I must put it in the past tense, unfortunately--there was in Utah in Garfield County, one of the counties that would be most affected by this legislation, a magnificent field--beyond field; a magnificent area--filled with buttercups. I did not ever see it myself, but I am told, and I am quoting from those who did see it. It was one of the most awe-inspiring sights anyone could experience, going out and seeing this huge field, lush and gorgeous, at the proper time with buttercups blooming. Cattle grazed in that field, and people who belonged to the organizations listed by the Senator from Alaska decided that field of buttercups was so magnificent that it must be preserved; it must be protected from the degradation of human beings. Since there was no legislative way to do it, they raised the money-- the money presumably they could not find to bring the lawsuits to protect their position elsewhere--they raised the money, purchased this piece of land, and then fenced it off so that the beauties of nature as manifested in these buttercups would be protected forever and ever. That was just a few years ago, Mr. President. If you were to go to Garfield County today and ask the residents of Garfield County, ``Where are your buttercups,'' they would tell you there are no buttercups. They would take you out to the piece of land that had been fenced off and preserved from any human management. You can see that. What it is filled with is dead grass. Why? Because no longer were human beings allowed to run their cattle through that area, so that the grasses that choked out the buttercups were able to grow up, unmolested and uneaten. The manure that the cattle normally brought with them into the area disappeared, and now the heavy grasses have grown up, choked out all the buttercups, and then, unfertilized themselves, have died, and you have one of the most sterile, uninspiring pieces of real estate on the planet to which somebody paid a fairly pretty penny in order to preserve the buttercups. Mr. President, human involvement in the environment is not automatically bad for the environment. Human involvement in the environment, if properly managed, can produce good results for the environment. Saying that we are not going to allow someone that does not have any personal stake in this issue to lock up huge chunks of the environment in the name of the environment does not mean we are opposed to the environment. In my view, Mr. President, sound stewardship by intelligent human beings who love the environment can be good for the environment. Locking humans out arbitrarily by legislative fiat is not automatically the proper environmental thing to do. I close as I began, Mr. President, by taking you back with me to that moment when I first began my odyssey in understanding this issue, as I stood with this woman in southeastern Utah, looking out over absolutely pristine territory, and having her say to me, ``Look at the land. What do you see? It is pristine. My family and I have been making our livings off of this land for five generations. Tell me we do not love the land and that we cannot be trusted to manage the land.'' I could not tell her that. I cannot tell this Senate that. I cannot tell the President of the United States that. The bill we have crafted is not only the right bill for the people of Utah, it is, Mr. President, the right bill for the environment and the environmentalists. If they will simply come out of their carports and come away from their mailing lists and come with us, to go through the land and talk with the people who live there and spend time with the land managers, the true lovers of the environment will come to agree with us that our bill for wilderness in the State of Utah is the proper environmental response.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, in my comments here on the floor, I will simply make two points: First, this has been described repeatedly as having something to do with balancing the budget. We are being told how many millions--by implication, billions--of dollars of corporate welfare are going to the huge ranchers because of the Domenici bill. I would like to put that in context, Mr. President. If the revenue projections of the Secretary's proposed raise in grazing fees are met, which I do not believe they will be, we will generate in increased revenue less money than it took us to put the subway in between the Capitol and the Hart Building. We are not talking about enough money to make any difference whatsoever in terms of the balanced budget circumstance. I repeat, Mr. President, it cost us more to renovate the subway cars running between the Capitol and the Hart Building than the administration will generate in increased fees if their projections are correct. I do not believe their projections are correct for this very reason. That is a tiny amount of money as far as the Federal Government is concerned. The amount of increased grazing fees is an enormous amount of money for those families who are living, literally, on the edge right now. They will be unable to pay the increased amount called for by the Secretary, so they will go out of business. We will not only not get the increases the Secretary is projecting, we will not get any money at all. I believe the Federal revenues will go down rather than up if the Domenici position is not maintained. I believe that we will see significant financial damage throughout all parts of the rural West. That is my first point. My second point, Mr. President, is illustrated with this photograph. Some of you may have seen the pictures that were in full-page ads in the New York Times and the Washington Post and other national publications in which this part of the land was shown in a photograph. The question was asked, whose public lands are they? The implication was that we were getting degradation on the lands. I have heard that again here--degradation on the lands. Well, I call your attention to the lower photograph. Maybe it is difficult to see across the Senate. It is very clear that the riparian areas in this part of rural Utah are substantially better off in the lower photograph, the more recent photograph, than they were in the first paragraph. What is the difference? The first photograph was taken before grazing was allowed in the area, before the cattle were allowed to get into the area, break up the hard crust of the land with their hooves, allow water to get below the ground surface, allow seeds that were in the air to take root and fertilize the ground with their urine and defecation. We see here lush, lush growth in the riparian area. We see a better environmental circumstance than we saw before the cattle were there. I wish every Member of this body could have been here last night when the senior Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Simpson] had a series of photographs showing 100 years' difference in the State of Wyoming. In every case, the environment was substantially better 100 years later because cattle had been in it. This is an environmental vote, Mr. President, and the proper environmental vote is to vote with Senator Domenici. Mr. President, I appreciate the leadership shown by my colleague, Senator Domenici in bringing this legislation to the floor. I am pleased to join with many of my colleagues in support of this revised and significantly improved legislation. Grazing of livestock on western Federal lands has been increasingly and unfairly referred to as a subsidized form of welfare. Yet, the western livestock industry is key to preserving the social, economic, and cultural base of rural communities in the West. This lifestyle helped open the West to productive development and responsible stewardship. Grazing is a healthy way to sustain and utilize renewable resources. We are all familiar with the administration's highly controversial regulations, and the significant impact on the way grazing on public lands are to be managed. I believe these regulations pose a serious threat to the stability of the industry. The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management and the Agriculture Departments U.S. Forest Service manage 268 million acres, or 37 percent of the 720 million acres of public and private rangelands in the West. The State of Utah is 69 percent controlled by the Federal Government. We have 22 million acres of BLM lands and an additional 8 million acres of Forest Service lands. Detractors of grazing speak of continued rangeland degradation, yet the professional range managers for these agencies have admitted that Federal rangelands are in the best condition they have been in this century. Great strides have been made in improving the range lands through the use of partnerships and promotion of good stewardship. Furthermore, through shared stewardship with the livestock industry and the general public, populations of wildlife are increasing and stabilizing, and water quality on Federal lands has improved significantly. I believe that S. 1459 will eliminate the controversy caused by the administration's grazing regulations and help mitigate the firestorm they caused in the West. I am as concerned about the public's right to be part of the planning and decisionmaking process as I am about the bureaucratic quagmire caused by frivolous appeals and protests. Our legislation provides for full public participation in the planning process, allows for protest by affected interests and encourages public involvement through the Resource Advisory Committees and the NEPA process. The general public has the opportunity to comment on actions and site specific NEPA documents, by attending scoping meetings, hearings, and by responding to requests for comments by the agencies. Since the BLM and U.S. Forest Service offer service to the same list of customers, often from the same building. This legislation would cut bureaucratic redtape and simplify the management of livestock grazing by simply managing all Federal land grazing by the same rules, regardless of jurisdiction. This makes it convenient for the permittee and/or lessee and greatly reduces conflict while reducing the costs of Federal land management. Grazing is only one of the many uses that occur on Federal lands. This legislation supports and strengthens the concepts of multiple use management, which is basic to the management strategies of both agencies. The privileges of all Americans to access and use these lands is protected. The investments made by the livestock operator in range improvements, which have significantly helped wildlife, are protected. Our legislation seeks to eliminate the on-going clash over water between State and Federal levels by simply recognizing each State's right to allocate and manage water in their jurisdiction. Mr. President, I believe this legislation provides a vehicle for our professional Federal land managers to join with livestock men and women in managing our Federal rangelands. We can do this while protecting the rights and privileges of all Americans, enhancing wildlife and riparian values and maintaining the viability of the livestock industry in the West. Grazing on Federal lands is economically and socially important in my State and in the West. I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation in the hope that common sense can once again prevail in Federal land management decisions. I ask unanimous consent to have a summary printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, it has come to my attention that there may be a need to give the Environmental Protection Agency additional guidance and budgetary flexibility regarding their support for climate changes studies in developing countries and their contribution to joint implementation activities carried out by Federal agencies to reduce CO2 emissions worldwide. At present, a total of $8 million is appropriated for these activities in the Omnibus appropriations bill. As I understand it, there is a development consensus that the United States can achieve significantly greater CO2 reductions and better value for dollars spent by supplementing that $8 million with another $4 million, drawn from the general allocations provided to the global climate account. CO2 reductions accomplished under joint implementation activities accrue to the United States. I am not proposing that we incorporate this direction to EPA today, but I am suggesting that this is an issue that we should discuss prior to and during conference with the House, especially if this kind of programmatic flexibility will assure that we achieve our environmental objectives in a way that is most cost effective and which demonstrates the United States commitment to environmental protection.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, how much time is remaining?

Mr. BENNETT. I apologize to the Senator. I thought I had more time than that. I yield all 42 seconds to the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, what is the time situation?

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I find all of this debate about Iran- Contra very interesting. I was not here for it, and so I enjoy being brought up to date on past history. It is interesting, but it is irrelevant to the issue before us because the issue before us is: Are there still things yet to find out about Whitewater which need to be found out? This has nothing whatever to do with whether or not the Iran-Contra Committee was able to find out what it needed to find out from Ollie North in the timeframe that it set for itself. This has nothing to do with the timeframe of the Whitewater Committee, which is trying to find out information that has been denied it by a series of circumstances, some of which I believe are deliberate. I make that statement, recognizing that it, perhaps, is emotionally charged for some. I try to stay away from emotionally charged statements on this issue because I realize how easily this can get out of hand. But I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there has been a deliberate attempt on the part of those who have been called before the committee to withhold information from the committee and to see to it that the committee does not receive that which it needs. I know of no such charges that have been made in past investigations, and, even if they were, frankly, they are irrelevant to this issue. This issue is very simple, again, Mr. President. It is simply this: What is there yet to find? What will it take us to find it? It has nothing to do with any past investigation of any other circumstance. It has to do with this investigation of this set of circumstances. What is there yet to find, and what will it take us to find it? The editorials that have been quoted here--I have quoted them, the New York Times, the Washington Post, others. The most recent one I will return to again, as my distinguished chairman has. But it makes this point, relating to the question of, ``Can the committee not wind its affairs up?'' This is what the Washington Post has said. I repeat it again: . . . here is part of the problem; The McDougals and Governor Tucker are currently unavailable for Washington testimony as they are defending themselves against a 21-count indictment handed up last August alleging fraud and conspiracy on their part. It came courtesy of independent counsel Kenneth Starr and a federal grand jury in Little Rock. Judge Hale, whose earlier guilty plea slims down considerably his chances of ever returning to the bench, is similarly occupied in Arkansas and unavailable to be heard by anyone in Washington. He is the prosecution's key witness against the governor and the McDougals. Their trial, which just got started, is one reason the Whitewater committee hearings have been dragged out. I will repeat that, Mr. President. ``Their trial is one reason the Whitewater Committee hearings have been dragged out.'' It is not a conspiracy on the part of the Republicans. It is not an attempt on the part of the Republican National Committee to delay this into an election year. There is a trial going on, over which the Republicans on the committee have no control, that is preventing these witnesses from coming before us. This is why we are asking for a time that will allow us to deal with those witnesses when they become available. We do not know when this trial will be over. If we knew with certainty when the trial would be over and when these witnesses would be available, I, for one, would be willing to set a date, appropriately far off into the future, that would allow us time to deal with these witnesses. We do not know. We cannot know. And, therefore, it does not make sense for us to set a firm date. Back to the editorial, quoting: The other reason is the protracted battle with the White House over subpoenaed documents and the very slow and uncertain way certain important documents finally are produced. In other words, the delay in the eyes of the Washington Post has not been because the committee wants to drag it out for political reasons; it has been because the White House has been unresponsive. I am a member of this committee. I have been to as many of the proceedings as I possibly could, given the schedule and the other challenges that apply. I thought I knew this controversy fairly well. I have now picked up the recent copy of Time magazine and read the first installment of a book that was written, initially at the recommendation of Susan Thomases, one of the President and First Lady's closest friends and confidants, in an attempt to make sure the whole story got out. She went to the author and said, ``Will you write a good book on this?'' The author spent an hour and a half in the White House with Mrs. Clinton, and she said, ``I will cooperate with you, and I will see to it that everybody connected with me will cooperate with you. We want the truth to come out.'' Now, we have the book that was created by that genesis and I can only describe it as devastating. It is devastating to those who say, ``There is no there there.'' It is devastating to those who say the Republicans are on a partisan activity, because nothing significant really happened. As I say, I am a member of this committee. I thought I knew this issue fairly well, until I read this week's issue of Time magazine and found out there is a whole lot more that I did not know about, and I have been a member of the committee attending these sessions. So, Mr. President, I conclude by saying there is plenty more yet to find out, and I am sorry if it did not come out in the same timeframe as other investigations have had. But that is entirely beside the point. The point is, I repeat again, what is there yet to find out and what will it take for us to find it? The answer to that question dictates that we proceed in the fashion that the distinguished chairman, Mr. D'Amato, has asked us to proceed. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of the time. Mr. FAIRCLOTH addressed the Chair.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I now move to proceed to calendar 341, Senate Resolution 227.

Mr. BENNETT. I have to leave the floor, and I thank my colleague from Maryland for his courtesy. I simply say, Mr. President, that subsequent editorial that the Senator from Maryland quoted is in exactly the vein of what I am talking about, that I find the Democratic leader's proposal to be too short a leash, but this Senator would not object if we met the two objectives called for of enough time to sift through the late-arriving papers and the ability to interview witnesses who are currently unavailable. My only objection to the proposal made by the Democratic leader is that it does not provide for meeting those two. So I say to the Senator from Maryland, Mr. President, that this Senator would be willing to have some kind of agreement along the lines that he is now talking about. My objection is to the cutoff date in the proposal made by the Democratic leader which I think is too short a leash.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, may I respond to that very quickly?

Mr. BENNETT. Yes.

Mr. BENNETT. I withdraw the request.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I have several observations and reactions to the statement by the Senator from Maryland, who has done his usual thorough job of examining a whole series of issues. But if I may, Mr. President, without being disrespectful of my colleague, I would like to say that those issues are not particularly significant or relevant to what we are talking about here. I was not in the Senate when the Senate discussed Iran-Contra or the October Surprise or Watergate or any of the other hearings that he has discussed in such detail. The issue before us is not whether or not those hearings were conducted well or badly, whether they were conducted in a speedy and expeditious manner or whether they were dragged out. The issue is whether or not this committee deserves more time to do its work. For that reason, I will not really debate with the Senator from Maryland anything regarding Iran-Contra or October Surprise or any other such issue. The committee clearly needs more time to conclude its work. That is a given. The proposal offered to the Senate by the distinguished Democratic leader very specifically demonstrates a recognition of the fact that the committee needs more time. So I do not think that question is at issue. The only question at issue before us is, how much time do we need? To me, the answer to that is very simple--as much time as it takes to get the facts. It is not that complicated. I know my colleague from Florida spoke for 45 minutes, close to an hour. My colleague from Maryland has spoken for the same period of time. To me, the issue is very simple--how much time will it take to get the facts? Not how much time has elapsed or how many witnesses we have heard or how many documents have been furnished or how much time was taken in another controversy that took place years ago. How much time do we need to get the facts? In an effort to try to come to that point, Mr. President, I turn to the press. I will quote briefly from three editorials. They have been quoted extensively before. They have been put in the Record. So I will simply summarize some of them on the point that I have tried to make. The Washington Post on the 25th of February, after examining many of the outstanding issues says this in conclusion: Who knows where this all will lead? The committee clearly needs time to sift through these late-arriving papers as well as interview witnesses now unavailable because they are key figures in the Whitewater-related trials. So like it or not, the Senate committee is unlikely to go off into the sunset at month's end when its mandate expires. Clinton officials have done their share to extend the committee's life. That summarizes it for me, Mr. President. Why do we need more time? Because Clinton officials have not been as forthcoming as they should have been. The committee clearly needs time for two reasons. One, to sift through these late-arriving papers. Why are they late arriving? Again, ask President Clinton and his staff. The committee has been asking for them for months. One, to sift through these late-arriving papers, and, two, interview witnesses who are now unavailable because they are key figures in the Whitewater-related trials. Very straightforward. All right. The New York Times, making comment in the aftermath of the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries says: The excitement of Iowa, New Hampshire has diverted attention from the Senate Whitewater committee and its investigation into the Rose Law Firm's migrating files. I think that is an interesting phrase, the law firm's ``migrating files.'' Naturally this pleases the White House-- Referring to the lack of focus on this-- Naturally this pleases the White House and its allies, who hope to use the interregnum to let their `so what' arguments take root. David Kendall, the Clinton's private attorney, says the curious paper trail is just one of the meaningless mysteries of Whitewater. Then the Times says: There are mysteries here, but they are not meaningless. Then it goes on again through that which has been covered so many times. I do not feel the necessity of covering it one more time. But the Times concludes: Perhaps the files will also show that there was no coverup associated with moving and storing these files. And this sentence--I love it, because it summarizes what we are talking about. Inanimate objects do not move themselves. It is pointless to ask Senators and the independent prosecutors to fold their inquiry on the basis of the facts that have emerged so far. To do so would be a dereliction of their duties. I love the way this is written. The ``migrating files,'' ``inanimate objects do not move themselves.'' Another newspaper, USA Today, offered these comments in an editorial. It leads off with this statement: This week author Hillary Rodham Clinton was supposed to inform the nation about the truths kids can tell us. Instead, the nation is confronted with questions about whether the First Lady is telling the whole truth about her role in two scandals, Whitewater and Travelgate, and whether she and her husband can stop acting like children when asked about it. It then goes on to list a series of questions. Again, they have been talked about at great length here on the floor. I see no point in asking them again just for the sake of asking them. But I like the conclusion, again, out of this editorial, after renewing all of these questions. It says: Mrs. Clinton and the President have raised these questions, not Republicans. I would like to repeat that for emphasis, Mr. President: Mrs. Clinton and the President have raised these questions, not Republicans. They've created the impression they may be covering something up by being less than thorough in responding to legitimate demands for information. This is not the first time Mrs. Clinton has run into such a problem. She never fully explained profits from the 1970's commodities trades. Concerns linger that the profits came from wealthy friends seeking political favors. And then the conclusion, with which I heartily agree: Rather than pointing fingers at the investigators, the Clintons need to offer some apologies, plus the whole truth of what went on with Madison, Whitewater and the travel office. Nothing less will do. That is the end of that editorial. So, Mr. President, I could go on for a significant period of time and review what we found out in the committee, rehearse the various things that were said, comment once again on the inconsistencies and all of the rest of that. I do not see that it serves much purpose. The issue is very clear: How much more time does the committee need? I believe that the offer made by the Democratic leader is for an insufficient amount of time. The argument is made that the request made by the chairman of the committee for no firm date is too much time. I hope both sides can sit down and say somewhere between the offer made by the Democratic leader and the request for an open-ended inquiry made by the chairman, we can find a date that can satisfy the two requirements, which are sufficient time to sift through the late- arriving documents and enough time for us to hear from the witnesses who are currently unavailable. To me, it is not that hard to figure out. I hope that we can arrive at that point instead of tying up the Senate in endless rehashing of issues that, as I say, in my view, are not relevant. I go back to the New York Times for the final summary of that when the New York Times said editorially, for the Democrats to filibuster this request will look like silly stonewalling. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. Mr. SARBANES addressed the Chair.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of calendar No. 341, Senate Resolution 227 regarding the Special Committee on Whitewater.

Mr. BENNETT

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

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now stand in adjournment for 1 minute, and that when the Senate reconvenes its morning hour be deemed to have expired.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I would like to bring a matter to the attention of the chairman regarding agriculture research. While it does not require a legislative provision, I believe it deserves some attention by the Department of Agriculture, and it seems appropriate to discuss while we are talking about the farm bill. Is it the chairman's understanding that the Department of Agriculture has an interest in eradicating livestock diseases, and also has funded research and other programs for the purposes of researching, controlling, and eradicating disease over the years?

Mr. BENNETT. Would the chairman agree that given the scarcity of resources, a way to maximize a tight research budget may be to share the cost with other countries?

Mr. BENNETT. I thank the chairman.

Mr. BENNETT. I understand that there is a collaborative research project being developed by two well-respected research groups, one in the United States and the other in Scotland, that has the hope of eventual eradication of this disease by understanding how and when scrapie is transmitted. At least two countries, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, have committed to share the cost of funding the research project with the United States. Part of the study will be conducted at a land-grant university. While the research project does not appear to fit squarely into current funding mechanisms at ARS, APHIS, or CSREES within the Department of Agriculture, would the chairman agree that it would be in the interest of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to seriously consider the feasibility of funding such a study?

Mr. BENNETT. Is it the chairman's understanding that scrapie, a contagious and fatal livestock disease, has had a detrimental impact on the sheep industry?

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, last year, I delivered a rather lengthy speech on the issue of taxes. I talked about flat taxes. I talked about capital gains taxes. I talked about the relationship of tax revenue to tax rates and mentioned at that time the work of the Kemp Commission that was studying all of these issues. In the time that we have been in recess the Kemp Commission has reported, and I wish to make a brief comment now, perhaps reserving the right to make a longer comment at some point in the future. I salute the Kemp Commission for the work that they have done. I note with some degree of pride and satisfaction that in my statement on the floor I talked about four basic principles that should guide our tax system: neutrality, simplicity, stability, and fairness. In its report, the Kemp Commission incorporated all four of those but added a fifth that I wish I had thought of, and that is visibility. That is, they pointed out that people should know how much taxes they are paying. Taxes should be visible so that the average American will be aware of what is happening. The Kemp Commission did another thing that I find salutary. They talked about the impact of payroll taxes on the lives of Americans. In all of our discussion, both here and out on the campaign trail, among those who are seeking the Presidency of the United States, the entire focus is on the income tax. I wish to talk a little bit about that this afternoon and point out the wisdom of the Kemp Commission's focus not only on the income tax but also on the payroll tax. If you were to draw a line between all Americans at roughly 50 percent, you could with fairness say everyone above that line in terms of his or her earning power pays income taxes, and everyone below that line does not. Now, it is not exactly that clear, but roughly 97 percent of the taxes paid as income taxes are paid by people in the top 50 percent of our wage earners, which means that the bottom 50 percent of our wage earners pay virtually no income tax at all. That means then that if you focus all of your attention on the income tax and the various flat tax proposals that are out there, you are leaving out any kind of tax relief for roughly 50 percent of America's wage earners and that 50 percent that are doing the most poorly in terms of the amount of money they are bringing home. Now, let us talk about the tax burden of the payroll tax on that bottom 50 percent. Some will say, well, the payroll tax is only 7.5 percent or some such number, depending on where you fall. It may be a little more when you add the Medicare taxes to it. The other is paid by the employer. The fact, of course, is, Mr. President, all of that money is paid by the employee. I have run a business. I know that when the time comes to decide whether or not you are going to hire a new employee, you look at the total cost of that employee. If this is an employee that is going to be earning $20,000 a year in pay that shows up on that employee's W-2 form, you as the employer know that he is actually going to cost you $30,000 a year because you have to pay these payroll taxes, unemployment compensation taxes to the State, Medicare taxes, et cetera, on behalf of that employee. So you never think in terms of a $20,000 employee. You think in terms of a $30,000 employee. That means that in order for you to hire him, he has to produce at least $30,000 worth of economic benefit to your firm. If he cannot generate at least $30,000 benefit to you, you cannot afford him, even though his paycheck stub shows that he is earning $20,000. So if he is earning $30,000 for your company, clearly the employer's share is really money that he has earned and it is deposited in his name in the various trust funds that are set up around here to handle the entitlements. So that means in the economic value that employee is generating not 7.5 percent, 8 percent, whatever is taken out of that value for taxes, but twice that amount--the amount he puts in and the amount the employer puts in in his name. This means that for our lowest paid workers in this country, they are sending to Uncle Sam and to State legislatures and State tax collectors approximately 25 percent of the gross economic value that their earnings represent--25 percent. Yet none of that is dealt with when we are talking about income tax reform because none of those payments are income tax payments. What are they for? It is interesting, the debate we are having on the floor about slashing Medicare--I should put ``slashing'' in quotation marks because, of course, everyone knows that every proposal dealing with Medicare proposes increasing the spending on Medicare--but in all of this discussion about Medicare, where does the money come from? The money going into Medicare does not come from the income taxpayer; it comes from the payroll taxpayer. It is payroll taxes that support the Social Security trust fund, so when Ross Perot starts to draw Social Security, on top of the benefits and blessings that he has by virtue of being a billionaire, that will be paid for by someone in the lowest half of the earnings scale making his or her payroll tax contributions to the Government every pay period. That is why I say it is salutary that the Kemp Commission not only focused on income tax, but spent some time talking about the payroll tax, saying that the payroll tax should be made deductible for the individual as it now is for the corporation or the employer. Yet there is a problem with that, Mr. President, because, as I say, it is only the top 50 percent that pay any income taxes at all. So, if your payroll taxes are deductible from your income tax but you are not paying any income tax, the deductibility of payroll taxes, while a nice concept, does not do you any good. So, Mr. President, on this occasion I rise to commend the Kemp Commission for the work they have done. I think they have done a first- class job of opening the debate and laying out basic principles. I rise to commend them on their adoption of the five basic principles: that taxes should be neutral, simple, stable, fair, and visible. I rise to commend them on their opening wedge, if you will, on the issue of fairness of payroll taxes. But I make the point that we have in fact just opened the door to deal with payroll taxes, and, if we are going to truly start with a clean sheet of paper and build a tax system in this country that makes sense, we are not only going to have to toy with the idea of abolishing the IRS and the present income Tax Code, we are also going to have to address the question of what we do about payroll taxes that have become so burdensome and, in many ways, so unfair in the way they operate in the lives of the people who live below that center line that divides the income taxpayers from the other half of the country. This, I think, is perhaps the source of greatest anger on the part of people who recognize that the tax burden is crushing and unfair, and they feel a sense of helplessness as they deal with it. If you are a person living below that 50 percent line, you have absolutely no options. If you are above the 50 percent line and someone comes along and changes the tax law, you are earning enough money that you can change your behavior to take advantage of the changes in the tax law. I pointed out here on the floor before a study by Dr. Feldstein--and it has been placed in the Record--that the tax increase supported by President Clinton and pushed through the Congress in 1993 has in fact produced only one-third of the amount of revenue that was promised at the time it was formed. Why? Clearly because the people in the top 50 percent changed their behavior in reaction to that bill, did other things with their money, and avoided paying taxes, an activity which the Supreme Court of the United States says is perfectly appropriate and legal. Tax avoidance, they have said, is not illegal. Tax evasion is. That is a different thing. But changing the way you handle your money to avoid taxes has become a time-honored American activity. The bill was passed on this floor. President Clinton signed it with great fanfare. ``Now we're going to get this additional revenue to deal with the budget deficit.'' The study by Dr. Feldstein says they only got one-third as much revenue as they projected. That makes the people who live in that top 50 percent feel kind of smart that they were able to do different things with their investments and avoid the taxes. But the people at the bottom 50 percent have no such options. Their taxes are entirely payroll taxes. If they get a raise, their taxes go up automatically because it is a percentage of everything they earn up to the level in which they can cross the line into the top 50 percent. That is where much of the anger is coming from. That is where much of the frustration is. And, frankly, it is appropriate anger and frustration. So I hope as we deal with this issue in our debates here on the floor, we will include, as I have not done but the Kemp Commission has opened the door for us to do, the people in the lower 50 percent as well as the people in the upper 50 percent. Mr. President, it is very clear we will not have a structural reform of the tax system in either area, income taxes or payroll taxes, in this Congress. We do not have time for it. The Finance Committee calendar is jammed. We have long since learned that this kind of legislation is very complex and requires a great deal of study and work. All we can do is open the dialog, begin the debate in this Congress, and look for the time in the next Congress when we will have an opportunity for genuine tax restructuring. I was asked by a newsman today, will we have serious restructuring of the tax system in 1997? Well, my crystal ball is as cloudy as everybody else's. I cannot make a prediction of that kind with any sort of accuracy. But I did make this comment, and I repeat it here, debate over the tax structure, I believe, will be a central issue in the 1996 Presidential and congressional campaigns. It will become one of the defining issues in that debate. If I may, should the Republican nominee prevail in the 1996 election, then a serious attempt to restructure the tax system will indeed begin in January 1997. Should President Clinton prevail in the elections this fall, then I believe that conversation about restructuring the tax system will remain conversation and nothing will happen beyond that which we have seen for the last 40 years, which is tax reform by name, tinkering around the edges, in fact, with the basic tax system that we currently have remaining intact, except for those marginal changes for the remainder of President Clinton's second term, should he receive one. This is a fundamental issue. We have a tax system now that is clearly unfair, that has spun out of control to the point where it is unpredictable in terms of Government policy and which creates tremendous antagonism and anger on the part of the citizens who are subjected to it. The time has come to begin the serious debate of restructuring it, top to bottom, not just income taxes, but also payroll taxes. And while we are at it, we might as well look at the user fees we charge and the tariff structure. Let us take a completely clean sheet of paper for every way in which the Government raises revenue and see if we are not smart enough, as we look forward to the next century, to put together a system that works better than the one that was crafted roughly 70 years ago. So, Mr. President, again, I commend the Kemp Commission for the contribution that it has made in prying open these issues and the principles it has laid down and look forward to the time when we can have this debate through this Congress, and, as a partisan, if I may say so, I look forward to the time when a new President will help us tackle this in a very serious legislative way in January 1997. I yield the floor. Mr. KYL addressed the Chair.