Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. After extensive negotiations over the past year with the Department of the Interior, the affected States, and the industry, the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Fairness Act is now before the Senate for final passage. This bipartisan reform of the Federal Royalty Program is identical to the version passed by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in May. The Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Fairness Act will result in a simpler, fairer and more cost effective way to administer oil and gas royalty collections on Federal lands. This is important legislation for the independent producers in New Mexico and for independent producers throughout the Nation. The bill, H.R. 1975, amends the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Management Act of 1982 with respect to royalty collections on Federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf. It does not apply to Indian lands. The bill establishes a statute of limitations to ensure royalty audits and collections are final within 7 years from the date of production; establishes reciprocity with respect to payment of interest on royalty overpayments and underpayments; simplifies recordkeeping and reporting requirements; and expands the Federal royalty functions that may be delegated to a qualifying State. In short, The Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Simplification and Fairness Act will streamline the process, reduce the burden on industry while protecting the revenues of New Mexico and the Federal Government. I worked hard to make this a bill the President would sign. I urge that we pass this bill as soon as possible and send it to the President for his signature. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I introduce the Medical Nutrition Therapy Act of 1996 on behalf of myself and my friend and colleague from South Carolina, Senator Hollings. This legislation is similar to a bill, H.R. 2247, that was introduced last year in the House by Representative Jose Serrano. It provides for coverage under part B of the Medicare Program of medical nutrition therapy services which are furnished by or under the supervision of a registered dietitian or nutrition professional. Mr. President, at a time when the Medicare system is under increasing scrutiny and the Congress and administration are debating how to ensure the long-term stability of the program, I believe that the legislation I am introducing should be an integral part of those debates. Medical nutrition therapy is the assessment of patient nutritional status followed by therapy, ranging from diet modification to administration of specialized nutrition therapies such as intravenous or tube feedings. It has proven to be a medically necessary and cost- effective way of treating and controlling many diseases and medical conditions, including AIDS, cancer, kidney disease, diabetes, and severe burns. The treatment of all of these conditions and numerous others saves health care costs by speeding recovery and reducing the incidence of complications. This in turn results in fewer hospitalizations, shorter hospital stays, and reduced drug, surgery, and treatment needs. An analysis of nearly 2,400 case studies submitted by members of American Dietetic Association members showed that on average more than $8,000 per patient can be saved with the intervention of medical nutrition therapy. The July 1995 issue of the American Journal of Medicine highlighted a study that found that the use of a diabetes team, led by an endocrinologist working with a nurse diabetes educator and dietitian, resulted in a 56-percent reduction in length of hospital stays among patients hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of diabetes compared with patients treated by an internist alone. Currently, hospital care of diabetic patients costs an estimated $65 billion a year. The potential 5-day reduction in hospitalization found by this study translates into billions of dollars per year in potential health care savings and that is only the savings related to diabetes treatment. The true saving resulting from the increased use of medical nutrition therapy in other illnesses is substantial and that is why I am here today to offer this legislation. Mr. President, no consistent policy or approach exists for covering the costs for medical nutrition therapy. In inpatient settings, dietitians' services are often folded into hospital room and board charges and are not reimbursed while equipment and prescribed medical nutritional products are often, but not always, treated in the same manner. In outpatient settings, coverage is inconsistent for both dietitians' services and other nutrition therapies. Medicare and some Medicaid programs cover physician-prescribed medical nutrition therapies as part of a home care therapy benefit. However, professional dietitian services are not covered as a reimbursable expense. I believe that we need to change this and the legislation I am offering today will achieve that. I also believe that as the relevant studies are developed it will be clearly shown that coverage of medical nutrition therapy of reducing health care expenditures and should be an integral part of any long-term solution to the solvency of the Medicare Program.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I introduce the Medical Nutrition Therapy Act of 1996 on behalf of myself and my friend and colleague from South Carolina, Senator Hollings. This legislation is similar to a bill, H.R. 2247, that was introduced last year in the House by Representative Jose Serrano. It provides for coverage under part B of the Medicare Program of medical nutrition therapy services which are furnished by or under the supervision of a registered dietitian or nutrition professional. Mr. President, at a time when the Medicare system is under increasing scrutiny and the Congress and administration are debating how to ensure the long-term stability of the program, I believe that the legislation I am introducing should be an integral part of those debates. Medical nutrition therapy is the assessment of patient nutritional status followed by therapy, ranging from diet modification to administration of specialized nutrition therapies such as intravenous or tube feedings. It has proven to be a medically necessary and cost- effective way of treating and controlling many diseases and medical conditions, including AIDS, cancer, kidney disease, diabetes, and severe burns. The treatment of all of these conditions and numerous others saves health care costs by speeding recovery and reducing the incidence of complications. This in turn results in fewer hospitalizations, shorter hospital stays, and reduced drug, surgery, and treatment needs. An analysis of nearly 2,400 case studies submitted by members of American Dietetic Association members showed that on average more than $8,000 per patient can be saved with the intervention of medical nutrition therapy. The July 1995 issue of the American Journal of Medicine highlighted a study that found that the use of a diabetes team, led by an endocrinologist working with a nurse diabetes educator and dietitian, resulted in a 56-percent reduction in length of hospital stays among patients hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of diabetes compared with patients treated by an internist alone. Currently, hospital care of diabetic patients costs an estimated $65 billion a year. The potential 5-day reduction in hospitalization found by this study translates into billions of dollars per year in potential health care savings and that is only the savings related to diabetes treatment. The true saving resulting from the increased use of medical nutrition therapy in other illnesses is substantial and that is why I am here today to offer this legislation. Mr. President, no consistent policy or approach exists for covering the costs for medical nutrition therapy. In inpatient settings, dietitians' services are often folded into hospital room and board charges and are not reimbursed while equipment and prescribed medical nutritional products are often, but not always, treated in the same manner. In outpatient settings, coverage is inconsistent for both dietitians' services and other nutrition therapies. Medicare and some Medicaid programs cover physician-prescribed medical nutrition therapies as part of a home care therapy benefit. However, professional dietitian services are not covered as a reimbursable expense. I believe that we need to change this and the legislation I am offering today will achieve that. I also believe that as the relevant studies are developed it will be clearly shown that coverage of medical nutrition therapy of reducing health care expenditures and should be an integral part of any long-term solution to the solvency of the Medicare Program.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment would allocate $10 million within the DOD university research initiatives program element 61103D for the United States-Japan Management Training Program. This program was begun in fiscal year 1991 at my initiative. It has enjoyed the support of both the Armed Services and the Appropriations Committees since its inception and I have been very grateful for the support of the senior Senators from Alaska and Hawaii. The goal of the program is to train American scientists and engineers and business managers in the Japanese language as part of their graduate educations and then place them in Japanese research institutions for internships or fellowships where they could learn firsthand how the Japanese research and development system--second only to our own at more than $100 billion per year--functions. They could then later in their careers in American industry and government help tap and build bridges to the Japanese research efforts in their areas of expertise. Essentially, this was an effort on a modest scale to learn from the Japanese success in tapping our research enterprise through such fellowships at our universities. By all reports--and there have been several thorough reviews of this program--the program, as run by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research [AFOSR], has done an impressive job of achieving its objectives. Nineteen universities from around the country have received grants under the program and there has been significant cost-sharing from non-Federal sources to match funds provided by AFOSR. Unfortunately, in fiscal year 1996, AFOSR was only able to fund the program at $2 million from its own resources after several years in which DARPA had provided AFOSR $10 million per year for the program. Essentially, the program got caught up in the politics of the Technology Reinvestment Project [TRP], even though the Japan program's focus was only peripherally related to the TRP's focus on government- industry technology partnerships. Earlier this year, the Senate Armed Services Committee in its report provided discretion for the Pentagon to allocate up to $10 million to the Japan program from either PE61102F, the Air Force's defense research sciences program element, or PE61103D, the Office of Secretary of Defense's university research initiatives program element. The Armed Services Committee also directed AFOSR to ensure that cost-sharing from non-Federal sources should match AFOSR funds to the maximum extent practicable in future grant awards. The Appropriations Committee in its report on the pending bill also urged the Pentagon to fund this program up to the $10 million level in its report language on the university research initiatives program element. I agree with the Appropriations Committee that the university research initiatives line is the more appropriate source for funds for this program, although the Air Force Office of Scientific Research should continue to manage it. I very much appreciate the Appropriations Committee's continuing support for the program. My amendment would take the extra step of insuring the full $10 million is really available to the program. I believe that taking this step is warranted in light of the great success the program has enjoyed in achieving its goals. I hope that the managers of the bill can support taking this additional step in supporting the Japan program. I urge the adoption of the amendment and yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment will bring the defense appropriations bill into conformance with the authorization bill on the total cost of the renovation of the Pentagon reservation. My amendment reduces the cost cap in the bill by $100 million to a total of $1.118 billion. This is identical in purpose to the amendment passed by the Senate on June 25 during debate on the defense authorization bill. The amendment is very simple and straightforward. It reduces the funds for the Pentagon renovation project by $100 million. As we have realigned our defense programs to meet changing needs, funds for many projects have been reduced or eliminated. Despite big reductions in defense spending and defense personnel, the Pentagon renovation project has enjoyed a steady flow of cash. The time has come to impose greater financial discipline on the Pentagon, just as the Pentagon has asked other military organizations to be more frugal. This would be the first reduction in funds for this expensive project since its inception half a decade ago, and it amounts to less than 10 percent of the total. Many things have changed since this 15-year project began, and I believe Pentagon renovation plans can be better aligned with today's realities. There are many factors which ease the impact of a reduced renovation budget. For example, the Department of Defense is downsizing. As the civilian and military workforce is steadily reduced, demands on workspace have eased. Construction costs in the Washington DC area have fallen and contract costs for the renovation have turned out to be considerably lower than the original estimates. On one construction contract alone, for example, costs were 36 percent less than anticipated. Also, modern communications technology makes it unnecessary to have large staffs at the Pentagon to manage dispersed operations. Mr. President, in 1990 Congress transferred responsibility for the operation, maintenance, and renovation of the Pentagon from the General Services Administration to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Congress recognized that the serious structural problems of the Pentagon building had to be addressed without further delay, and we took this action to get the long overdue project moving forward. Congress earmarked the $1.2 billion DoD would have paid to GSA in rent for the next 12 or 13 years as a break even way to pay for the renovations. This $1.2 billion was not based on projected renovation costs; it was simply a sum that was available and seemed a logical way to fund the renovation. Congress also provided the Department of Defense great flexibility in managing this large and complex project. Since fiscal year 1994, the Senate Appropriations Committee has required the Secretary of Defense to certify that the total cost of Pentagon renovation will not exceed $1,218 million. But this $1.2 billion cap does not include all the renovation costs. In fact, there are four catogories of expenses which add substantial amounts to the total. For example, the Pentagon estimates the cost of buying and installing information management and telecommunications equipment is $750 million. This amount is not part of the $1.2 billion cap. Neither is the heating and refrigeration plant, the classified waste incinerator, the furniture, or the 780,000 square feet of leased spaces for people who must be moved during the construction. A figure of $1.2 billion is misleading; the expense of renovating the Pentagon easily exceeds $2 billion. Last year the Senate passed my amendment to cut Pentagon Renovation expenses by $100 million. During conference, however, the conferees agreed to eliminate that requirement and instead directed the Defense Department to review the Pentagon's renovation plans and recommend cost saving options. In fact, this review had been underway since March of 1995. A March, 1995 Pentagon press release stated: This review will include re-examination of all lower cost options. At a time when the Secretary has initiated efforts to improve housing for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, we need to do all we can to insure that dollars being spent for other infrastructure projects are not being taken away from the very high priority of improving the lifestyles of our men and women in uniform. I agree with this sentiment, and now I'd like to ensure that we turn these words into actions. This well publicized review was supposed to produce a report which was due in February of this year. We didn't get that report, but on June 5 the Armed Services Committee staff did receive a one-page memo which states the Defense Department has found a savings of $37 million and will continue to look for more. A reduction of $37 million out of a total of $1.2 billion is not what I consider an aggressive response to our call to reduce costs. Mr. President, 15 months ago the Pentagon itself publicly announced the intent to reduce the cost of this project. The Defense Department identified a new spending target only after last year's threat of a reduced cap and after I announced at the Readiness Subcommittee markup on April 30 that I would introduce a similar amendment this year if I was not convinced by the Pentagon's long-overdue report. Well, that report is not here. I am not convinced that $37 million is the best the Pentagon can do in the way of savings. The only way in which we can force additional savings is to keep up the pressure. That is what my amendment does. Mr. President, Americans have been asked to tighten their belts and they expect no less from their Government. The Pentagon must be expected to do the same. I yield the floor and urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank you for the time.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this debate about the so-called TEAM Act has, unfortunately, produced more heat than light. I first began to focus on the issue several months ago when I visited a small high- technology firm in my State, Lasertechnics, in Albuquerque, NM. Lasertechnics is a very good employer and has on staff about 60 people. The issues related to unions organizing are far from the minds of anyone in that firm, as far as I can tell. The company has about two dozen different teams discussing many task-oriented items. But some of those teams have the potential of running into subjects considered ``terms and conditions of employment,'' as that phrase is used in the National Labor Relations Act. Flex time to help bolster Asia-Pacific sales is one example that stands out in my mind. If the owner of that company, Gene Borque, just decides one day to issue flex time schedules or a policy governing flex time, then clearly there is no violation of the law since there is no union in that company. If he has a team decide on a policy, and the team enters into back-and-forth discussions with him on that subject, then according to the NLRB, there probably is a violation of the law as it now stands. This circumstance should be the focus of our discussion if we are ever able to get into a meaningful discussion about these issues in the future, because, in my view, Gene Borque, the owner of this company, should not be in danger of violating the law by operating as he does today. The issues being debated are very real. First of all, how can we assure employers the right to organize their companies to get the best effort and sense of ownership from their workers? And at the same time, how can we assure employees that they retain an ability to organize into unions and to bargain on terms and conditions of employment free from the threat of sham unions being established or manipulated by employers? These are both legitimate goals. Several weeks ago it was my hope and my belief that we could develop language to offer as a substitute for S. 295 that would satisfy both of these objectives. I had hopes of offering an amendment that would substantially improve the TEAM Act so that, first, there would be no ambiguity that workplace teams and nonunion workplaces were permitted under the law, and, second, that we would specify that teams that discuss terms and conditions of employment would have to comply with certain other requirements to assure that company dominated or sham unions could not be established and that workers would have a determinative role in any discussions on those terms and conditions of employment. Mr. President, after several weeks of trying to find this common ground to propose a substitute for the bill that we are considering, I have concluded that it is not possible at this time. The organization of employers that has been formed to support the TEAM Act has determined to resist amendments and to drive toward passage of S. 295 even though this legislation faces a sure veto by the President. The labor unions, on the other hand, have organized to oppose the TEAM Act. Relying on the President's promised veto, they have determined that the TEAM Act or any substitute for it which amends section 8(a)(2) of the NLRA should be opposed. In my view, the concerns that the unions have about the TEAM Act that is before us are well founded. I do not want to get into a technical discussion about the legislation, but many people, including the Chairman of the NLRB, Howard Gould, as well as the Dunlop Commission and others have argued that an adjustment is needed in section 8(a)(2) of the National Labor Relations Act because of recent decisions that have blurred the definition of what are considered terms and conditions of employment. S. 295 tries to remove the ambiguity by providing a sweeping umbrella over all workplace teams and any discussions. In my opinion, this opens the window to the possibility of company dominated or sham unions. I have long believed that we might be able to fix the language of the TEAM Act so as to maintain the flexibility that is required to fit with the highly fluid nature of a modern workplace team and still build in protections for workers' rights and interests in this process. S. 295 needs to be fixed. We have not been able to do so. Accordingly, I will vote against the bill. I regret that the two sides on this important issue cannot be brought together on common ground. Some of the explanation is in the atmosphere of hostility that has traditionally surrounded labor-management issues in our country. In part, the result flows naturally from the very different views that the two sides have of the relationship between employees and employers. Of course, to some extent, the result is a natural consequence of the political season that we are in. Although the script for what is to happen with this legislation this year is known to us all, I hope that in the next Congress we can have a more serious and constructive debate about this important set of issues. In many companies throughout the country, the workplace of 1996 is not the workplace that Congress was reacting to when the Wagner Act was passed in the 1930's. For many, the term ``empowering workers'' is not just hollow rhetoric. On the other hand, all employers do not concern themselves with the rights and prerogatives of workers. The concerns that unions have raised are well rooted in our Nation's history. At a future date I hope we can see adoption of some well-reasoned and balanced reforms to the law that clearly is not possible today. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, finally, the issue of raising the minimum wage has come to the floor for a vote. It has been disturbing during these many months that the Republican leadership has employed extraordinary legislative tactics, some quite complicated and perplexing even for our parliamentarians, to keep the Members of this Chamber from voting on this issue. In the State of New Mexico, which I represent, more than 10 percent of the work force, approximately 80,000 workers, would receive a wage increase if this legislation is passed. Let me put in stark perspective what we are talking about. Minimum wage levels today are approaching their lowest levels in history. Despite having raised the minimum wage 17 times since 1938, each time with bipartisan support, the minimum wage will hit its lowest level in real dollars in January 1997. Two-thirds of those earning the minimum wage today--and working full time--are adults, and 40 percent of those earning minimum wage are the sole breadwinners for their families. For working hard, trying to stay in the mainstream of those wanting to get ahead in this economy, these workers make just $8,840 a year. And usually, they don't have health coverage. They don't have gain-sharing. They aren't covered by pension benefits. And their training resources are usually very limited, if not non-existent. This is a subject that we should have been allowed to vote on long ago. Americans need to know that we support those who want to work to get ahead. A family of four earning less than $16,039 is classified as one in poverty. And yet, we have a substantial portion of America's work force earning $8,840 a year--well under the poverty level. Furthermore, I think that we must recognize that women represent 60 percent of the work force earning minimum wage, and that occupations with the highest percentage of minimum wage workers are women. This is not acceptable. Earlier this year, I issued a report entitled ``Scrambling To Pay the Bills: Building Allies for America's Working Families.'' In that report, I endorsed an increase in the minimum wage--which I strongly support today. However, we tried to do some other things in that report as well. One of these was to address the huge disparity between what the CEO of a firm made in salary compared to the lowest-paid employee of that respective firm. Numerous objections came from the business community that we were attempting to set up a ratio that did not reflect a reasonable ratio between the highest and lowest paid workers for a company. When we wrote this, I mistakenly assumed that the lowest paid employee was probably earning somewhere about $15,000 a year--and 50 times that figure would allow the CEO to earn $750,000 a year, in order to receive some tax advantages we were proposing. That same week, the Washington Post reported that CEO's of America's top 100 firms earned an average salary over $4 million. I was wrong on two fronts. The lowest paid are earning less than $9,000 a year and the highest paid salaries are somewhere between 400 and 500 times this figure. I don't think that this ratio reflects a fair balance between those who are working hard to help companies and communities prosper and those who are profiting higher up in the salary chain. We must defeat an effort here today sponsored by Senator Bond to exempt certain small businesses from paying a higher minimum wage to their employees. Of the more than 10 million workers who deserve a raise, the Bond amendment exempts nearly 5 million--and would have undermined the entire rationale for the minimum wage, which establishes a floor above which all employees can expect a fair and decent return for the work they expend on an employer's behalf. The Bond amendment would encourage employers to favor particular groups of workers over others, particularly younger workers over older ones. This is not acceptable and not just. The Bond amendment also creates a 6 month waiting period before the increased minimum wage kicks in. This is nothing more than a way for many employers with high turnover to keep from ever paying the minimum wage to those who work in high turnover industries. It is not uncommon for restaurants to experience more than 200-percent staff turnover in 1 year. Workers can't support families--and can hardly support themselves--on $4.25 an hour. In the 17 previous times that the minimum wage has been raised, there have been naysayers who have predicted dire consequences. The economic trauma that had been predicted by these negative commentators has never occurred, and it is wrong not to include minimum wage workers in the gains of an economy that is producing sky-high corporate salaries, historic corporate profits, and all time high stock market averages. Mr. President, we can't ignore hard working Americans working on the lower end of the economic ladder any longer. I strongly support this raise in the minimum wage, and I urge others to do the same.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the chance to speak, address the Senate today on the very important issue of retirement security. The Senator from Vermont, Senator Jeffords, and myself are introducing today two bills. I will just read the title for people so that they will get an idea what these bills will do: To establish a Pension ProSave system that improves retirement income security for millions of American workers by encouraging employers to make pension contributions on behalf of employees, by facilitating pension portability, by preserving and increasing retirement savings, and by simplifying pension law. Mr. President, before I describe our proposal, let me describe the problem, because I think the problem we are attempting to confront is severe, is serious, and affects many of us in this country. This first chart I have here describes the problem very well. This is a chart with the title, ``More Than 50 Million Workers Are Not Earning A Pension.'' This pie chart shows that over half of the private sector workers in this country today, 50.8 million people, as of April 1993, so I am sure it is even larger now, but over 50 million people are not covered by any kind of pension. This, of course, is separate from Social Security, which is not a pension program. But as regards any other type of pension, more than half of our workers are not covered today. Let me show another chart that sort of breaks this down by State and shows the problem as it exists from State to State. You can see the percentages. This chart shows on a map here the percentage of people covered by some type of pension plan in each of our States. People might ask, why is a Senator from New Mexico even interested in this issue? I can tell you why. When you look at New Mexico, we have the lowest percentage of our workers covered by pensions of any State in the Union; 29 percent of our private sector employees in New Mexico actually have some degree of pension coverage. Let me show another chart here, which tries to make the same point somewhat differently and just shows the percentage of workers who do not have coverage: ``State Differences In Pension Coverage.'' Starting from the top, the State with the largest percentage of workers not covered is New Mexico, with 71 percent; next Louisiana, 69 percent; then Nevada, 67 percent; and on down the list. I see my friend from North Dakota on the floor. In his State, 61 percent percent of the people in that State do not have any pension coverage. So this is a serious, serious problem. The final chart I will show is a chart to make the point that the problem is not getting better or getting solved. In fact, it is getting worse. This shows two different figures here, first the figure for 1979 and then the figure for 1989. The red is the percentage of coverage that existed in 1979, the yellow is the percentage of coverage that existed 10 years later, in 1989, for different groups in our society depending upon the extent of the education they have received. We can see for those with less than a high school education, in 1979, 44 percent of those people were covered; in 1989, 28 percent. And on and on down through the list. Again, it is clear that our Nation has a severe problem to confront. Second, it is clear the problem is getting worse. The reasons for inadequate pension coverage are what we need to focus on. I believe there are four key reasons why so many of our citizens have no pension coverage. First, present law does not provide adequate incentives for employers to contribute to a pension plan for themselves and their employees. Many of our small businesses, the vast majority of our small businesses, do not contribute at the present time because those incentives are not there. A second reason is that, in addition to inadequate incentives, present law imposes significant administrative duties on employers who wish to assist in providing pension coverage. A third reason is that the rapid pace of job change, combined with significant waiting periods before retirement benefits vest, results in many employees losing their rights to retirement benefits when they move from job to job. The fourth reason is that present law greatly limits the amount of pretax savings that a person can achieve unless his or her employer does take on this administrative duty of establishing a pension plan. Let me describe briefly the proposal that Senator Jeffords and I are putting before the Senate today and are having referred to committee. This Pension ProSave proposal seeks to increase the number of Americans with some level of pension benefits by curing the deficiencies that are presently in the law. First, it provides an additional tax incentive to an employer if he or she commits an amount equal to at least 1 percent of each employee's salary to a pension for all employees. The maximum amount each year that an employer may contribute for each employee would be $5,000. A second way we are trying to correct deficiencies is that the administrative duties on the employer wishing to participate in this Pension ProSave proposal are kept to an absolute minimum. Employers are given the flexibility to increase the amount of the contribution to the pension plan or to suspend payments entirely for a single year, if that is necessary because of economic hardship in the business. The employer participating in Pension ProSave is free of any future pension obligations to employees once those employees leave the job. That is a very important benefit to employers, as we see it. A third way we are trying to correct deficiencies is that the employee will become eligible to accrue pension benefits whenever those pension benefits are made by the employer. If the employer wants to participate in Pension ProSave, the employer would have to go ahead and make contributions for each employee once the employee has been employed for 6 months. But those payments would vest immediately once they were made into the ProSave account of the employee. When an employee not covered by Pension ProSave leaves a job where benefits have accrued, that employee would have the right to direct the employer to transfer the cash equivalent of accrued pension benefits to an account in the name of the employee and the Pension Portability Clearinghouse which we are establishing under this act. Under Pension ProSave, an employee may save additional pretax dollars for his or her own retirement in the amount twice what the employer contributes each year, to a maximum of $5,000, whichever is less. Amounts employees are permitted to save are in addition to what might be saved in an IRA or some other pension plan. To accomplish this set of objectives, we are proposing to establish a nonprofit, private corporation chartered by an act of Congress, which would be designated the Pension Portability Clearinghouse, to administer the Pension ProSave system. The corporation would be governed by a board, the members of which would be appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. Payments into the clearinghouse would occur, first, when an employee who has chosen to participate in Pension ProSave makes a payment to the account of an employee; Second, when an employee makes a payment, as permitted, which could be up to twice what the employer has made that same year; And third, as I indicated before, when an employer who does not participate at the direction of the employee transfers cash payments to a Pension ProSave account when the employee leaves that employer's company. There are some similarities in what we are proposing to the TIAA-CREF model, with which many people are familiar. TIAA-CREF is the largest pension plan for administration of pension benefits that currently exists in this country, and I believe in the world. TIAA-CREF, originally established by Andrew Carnegie to help those teaching in universities to have pension coverage when moving from one educational institution to another, current manages more than $136 billion for approximately 1.7 million participants at more than 5,500 institutions. The similarities between the Pension Portability Clearinghouse and TIAA-CREF are that we would have central administration of accounts for multiple employers. Also, we would provide the ability of employees and employers to use the mechanism of Pension ProSave accounts if they chose to. We differ from TIAA-CREF in several significant ways also. First of all, Pension ProSave would be open to all employers, not just to those in a particular industry or particular field. TIAA-CREF, for example, is limited just to those involved with higher education or research. Pension ProSave is limited strictly to maintaining records of account balances and not to managing funds or selling annuities. Again, that would be a significant difference between what we are proposing and TIAA-CREF. We also have some similarities in this proposal to the Federal thrift savings plan in that we do provide a means to establish a retirement account and to add to it as a person proceeds through their career. We differ from the thrift savings plan in obvious ways also in that we have designed Pension ProSave for contributions to retirement savings even as a person moves from job to job. The thrift savings plan, of course, is limited to Federal employees, people working for a single employer. Pension ProSave provides for immediate vesting of employee contributions. The thrift savings plan for Federal workers does not. Pension ProSave does not have any requirement on employers to match contributions by employees as the thrift savings plan does. So what we are proposing is not a carbon copy of TIAA-CREF; it is not a carbon copy of the Federal thrift savings plan either. Instead, it is a new mechanism which employers could choose to take advantage of or not, as they see fit. For those who do choose to participate, it provides a hassle-free way for the employer and the employee to save more pretax dollars for retirement. There is one other feature of Pension ProSave that I want to highlight, and that is the opportunity it provides for employers to engage in profit sharing with their employees. Suppose, for example, that I am a small business owner and I am not sure from one year to the next how well or how poorly my business will do. Under Pension ProSave, I would have the option of setting up Pension ProSave accounts for each employee by committing to contribute as little as 1 percent of their salary into those accounts each time I issue a paycheck to them. By making that 1 percent contribution, I give each employee the opportunity to contribute an additional 2 percent from their own resources. But if I do contribute the 1 percent each pay period from January, say, through December and then decide that it has been a very good year for my business and I want to share some of the profit with employees, I could increase that contribution into Pension ProSave for my employees to 2 percent or to 5 percent, as long as I did not exceed the $5,000 total limit per employee. This proposal does provide a hassle-free way to save pretax dollars for retirement, a hassle-free way to participate with profit sharing programs for employees. It promotes savings. It will help more people to reach retirement with pensions. It will help to buffer individuals against the turbulence of this economy we live in. It will provide more employers with a good vehicle for profit sharing. All of those are major benefits to our Nation. Mr. President, one cause of the extraordinary economic anxiety in our Nation is related to the eroding sense of financial security at retirement. A recent study of worker's views of their present and future economic circumstances found that most people believe that despite the twists, turns, and pitfalls in our rapidly changing economy, that they can chart a successful course to retirement. But their anxiety levels were extremely high when concerns about the solvency of Social Security and about the great number of Americans without pension benefits were mentioned. Americans include retirement security in their personal strategies for economic success. I believe that America is calling for a credible proposal that will get more of our Citizens covered by some kind of pensions. There is no doubt that increasing retirement savings will help bolster national savings, which will help spur more long-term investment and economic growth. I urge my colleagues to review this proposal which Senator Jeffords and I are offering and join us in this effort to improve retirement security for many millions of Americans.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, today, along with Senator Domenici, I propose an amendment that will allow for better administration, law enforcement, and operational procedures for both the White Sands National Monument and the White Sands Missile Range. The bill will exchange about 10,000 acres along the border of the White Sands Missile Range and the White Sands Monument which abut each other. It also transfers to the monument the administrative jurisdiction over about 2,500 acres which lie within the White Sands National Monument but are currently controlled by the White Sands Missile Range. I ask unanimous consent that a letter and an information paper be printed in the Record. The letter, dated June 27, 1996, is from the National Park Service and is signed by Roger G. Kennedy. It states that the Department does not have a problem with the amendment. The letter further states that the Office of Management and Budget has no objection to the presentation of this report for consideration before the Senate. The second document is an information paper from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, Paul W. Johnson. The paper states that the Department of the Army supports this legislation. It also states that the Office of Management and Budget has no objection to the presentation of this amendment. Mr. President, the area that I am speaking about is a unique geological formation. This gypsum deposit known as ``White Sands'' is very important to my home State of New Mexico. The sands cover approximately 275 square miles with about 40 percent lying within the monument and the remaining portion of the dunes, to the south and the east, belonging to the White Sands Missile Range. As a brief history, on January 18, 1933, President Hoover designated 142, 987 acres, in the Tularosa Basin, as the National Park. From the very beginning, the park has been a success. Within its first 2 years of operation, the White Sands monument shattered the attendance records of the 23-unit Southwestern National Monuments in the Four Corner States of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Bingaman pertaining to the introduction of S. 1923 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I appreciate the time that has been granted me, and I yield the floor. Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, in June 1941, the U.S. Army petitioned for 1.25 million acres of public and private land in the Tularosa Basin for a bombing range. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt approved the Army's request. The Trinity site, where the first atomic bomb was successfully tested on July 16, 1945 is part of the range. With the region's open space and supportive civic leadership, both the monument and the missile range have been successfully neighbors for many years. Mr. President, this amendment will help both the monument and the missile range manage their property more efficiently.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the chance to speak, address the Senate today on the very important issue of retirement security. The Senator from Vermont, Senator Jeffords, and myself are introducing today two bills. I will just read the title for people so that they will get an idea what these bills will do: To establish a Pension ProSave system that improves retirement income security for millions of American workers by encouraging employers to make pension contributions on behalf of employees, by facilitating pension portability, by preserving and increasing retirement savings, and by simplifying pension law. Mr. President, before I describe our proposal, let me describe the problem, because I think the problem we are attempting to confront is severe, is serious, and affects many of us in this country. This first chart I have here describes the problem very well. This is a chart with the title, ``More Than 50 Million Workers Are Not Earning A Pension.'' This pie chart shows that over half of the private sector workers in this country today, 50.8 million people, as of April 1993, so I am sure it is even larger now, but over 50 million people are not covered by any kind of pension. This, of course, is separate from Social Security, which is not a pension program. But as regards any other type of pension, more than half of our workers are not covered today. Let me show another chart that sort of breaks this down by State and shows the problem as it exists from State to State. You can see the percentages. This chart shows on a map here the percentage of people covered by some type of pension plan in each of our States. People might ask, why is a Senator from New Mexico even interested in this issue? I can tell you why. When you look at New Mexico, we have the lowest percentage of our workers covered by pensions of any State in the Union; 29 percent of our private sector employees in New Mexico actually have some degree of pension coverage. Let me show another chart here, which tries to make the same point somewhat differently and just shows the percentage of workers who do not have coverage: ``State Differences In Pension Coverage.'' Starting from the top, the State with the largest percentage of workers not covered is New Mexico, with 71 percent; next Louisiana, 69 percent; then Nevada, 67 percent; and on down the list. I see my friend from North Dakota on the floor. In his State, 61 percent percent of the people in that State do not have any pension coverage. So this is a serious, serious problem. The final chart I will show is a chart to make the point that the problem is not getting better or getting solved. In fact, it is getting worse. This shows two different figures here, first the figure for 1979 and then the figure for 1989. The red is the percentage of coverage that existed in 1979, the yellow is the percentage of coverage that existed 10 years later, in 1989, for different groups in our society depending upon the extent of the education they have received. We can see for those with less than a high school education, in 1979, 44 percent of those people were covered; in 1989, 28 percent. And on and on down through the list. Again, it is clear that our Nation has a severe problem to confront. Second, it is clear the problem is getting worse. The reasons for inadequate pension coverage are what we need to focus on. I believe there are four key reasons why so many of our citizens have no pension coverage. First, present law does not provide adequate incentives for employers to contribute to a pension plan for themselves and their employees. Many of our small businesses, the vast majority of our small businesses, do not contribute at the present time because those incentives are not there. A second reason is that, in addition to inadequate incentives, present law imposes significant administrative duties on employers who wish to assist in providing pension coverage. A third reason is that the rapid pace of job change, combined with significant waiting periods before retirement benefits vest, results in many employees losing their rights to retirement benefits when they move from job to job. The fourth reason is that present law greatly limits the amount of pretax savings that a person can achieve unless his or her employer does take on this administrative duty of establishing a pension plan. Let me describe briefly the proposal that Senator Jeffords and I are putting before the Senate today and are having referred to committee. This Pension ProSave proposal seeks to increase the number of Americans with some level of pension benefits by curing the deficiencies that are presently in the law. First, it provides an additional tax incentive to an employer if he or she commits an amount equal to at least 1 percent of each employee's salary to a pension for all employees. The maximum amount each year that an employer may contribute for each employee would be $5,000. A second way we are trying to correct deficiencies is that the administrative duties on the employer wishing to participate in this Pension ProSave proposal are kept to an absolute minimum. Employers are given the flexibility to increase the amount of the contribution to the pension plan or to suspend payments entirely for a single year, if that is necessary because of economic hardship in the business. The employer participating in Pension ProSave is free of any future pension obligations to employees once those employees leave the job. That is a very important benefit to employers, as we see it. A third way we are trying to correct deficiencies is that the employee will become eligible to accrue pension benefits whenever those pension benefits are made by the employer. If the employer wants to participate in Pension ProSave, the employer would have to go ahead and make contributions for each employee once the employee has been employed for 6 months. But those payments would vest immediately once they were made into the ProSave account of the employee. When an employee not covered by Pension ProSave leaves a job where benefits have accrued, that employee would have the right to direct the employer to transfer the cash equivalent of accrued pension benefits to an account in the name of the employee and the Pension Portability Clearinghouse which we are establishing under this act. Under Pension ProSave, an employee may save additional pretax dollars for his or her own retirement in the amount twice what the employer contributes each year, to a maximum of $5,000, whichever is less. Amounts employees are permitted to save are in addition to what might be saved in an IRA or some other pension plan. To accomplish this set of objectives, we are proposing to establish a nonprofit, private corporation chartered by an act of Congress, which would be designated the Pension Portability Clearinghouse, to administer the Pension ProSave system. The corporation would be governed by a board, the members of which would be appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. Payments into the clearinghouse would occur, first, when an employee who has chosen to participate in Pension ProSave makes a payment to the account of an employee; Second, when an employee makes a payment, as permitted, which could be up to twice what the employer has made that same year; And third, as I indicated before, when an employer who does not participate at the direction of the employee transfers cash payments to a Pension ProSave account when the employee leaves that employer's company. There are some similarities in what we are proposing to the TIAA-CREF model, with which many people are familiar. TIAA-CREF is the largest pension plan for administration of pension benefits that currently exists in this country, and I believe in the world. TIAA-CREF, originally established by Andrew Carnegie to help those teaching in universities to have pension coverage when moving from one educational institution to another, current manages more than $136 billion for approximately 1.7 million participants at more than 5,500 institutions. The similarities between the Pension Portability Clearinghouse and TIAA-CREF are that we would have central administration of accounts for multiple employers. Also, we would provide the ability of employees and employers to use the mechanism of Pension ProSave accounts if they chose to. We differ from TIAA-CREF in several significant ways also. First of all, Pension ProSave would be open to all employers, not just to those in a particular industry or particular field. TIAA-CREF, for example, is limited just to those involved with higher education or research. Pension ProSave is limited strictly to maintaining records of account balances and not to managing funds or selling annuities. Again, that would be a significant difference between what we are proposing and TIAA-CREF. We also have some similarities in this proposal to the Federal thrift savings plan in that we do provide a means to establish a retirement account and to add to it as a person proceeds through their career. We differ from the thrift savings plan in obvious ways also in that we have designed Pension ProSave for contributions to retirement savings even as a person moves from job to job. The thrift savings plan, of course, is limited to Federal employees, people working for a single employer. Pension ProSave provides for immediate vesting of employee contributions. The thrift savings plan for Federal workers does not. Pension ProSave does not have any requirement on employers to match contributions by employees as the thrift savings plan does. So what we are proposing is not a carbon copy of TIAA-CREF; it is not a carbon copy of the Federal thrift savings plan either. Instead, it is a new mechanism which employers could choose to take advantage of or not, as they see fit. For those who do choose to participate, it provides a hassle-free way for the employer and the employee to save more pretax dollars for retirement. There is one other feature of Pension ProSave that I want to highlight, and that is the opportunity it provides for employers to engage in profit sharing with their employees. Suppose, for example, that I am a small business owner and I am not sure from one year to the next how well or how poorly my business will do. Under Pension ProSave, I would have the option of setting up Pension ProSave accounts for each employee by committing to contribute as little as 1 percent of their salary into those accounts each time I issue a paycheck to them. By making that 1 percent contribution, I give each employee the opportunity to contribute an additional 2 percent from their own resources. But if I do contribute the 1 percent each pay period from January, say, through December and then decide that it has been a very good year for my business and I want to share some of the profit with employees, I could increase that contribution into Pension ProSave for my employees to 2 percent or to 5 percent, as long as I did not exceed the $5,000 total limit per employee. This proposal does provide a hassle-free way to save pretax dollars for retirement, a hassle-free way to participate with profit sharing programs for employees. It promotes savings. It will help more people to reach retirement with pensions. It will help to buffer individuals against the turbulence of this economy we live in. It will provide more employers with a good vehicle for profit sharing. All of those are major benefits to our Nation. Mr. President, one cause of the extraordinary economic anxiety in our Nation is related to the eroding sense of financial security at retirement. A recent study of worker's views of their present and future economic circumstances found that most people believe that despite the twists, turns, and pitfalls in our rapidly changing economy, that they can chart a successful course to retirement. But their anxiety levels were extremely high when concerns about the solvency of Social Security and about the great number of Americans without pension benefits were mentioned. Americans include retirement security in their personal strategies for economic success. I believe that America is calling for a credible proposal that will get more of our Citizens covered by some kind of pensions. There is no doubt that increasing retirement savings will help bolster national savings, which will help spur more long-term investment and economic growth. I urge my colleagues to review this proposal which Senator Jeffords and I are offering and join us in this effort to improve retirement security for many millions of Americans.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Kyl's amendment with regard to the collection and release of intelligence quality imagery of Israel and other countries. Mr. President, the Senator from Arizona and I have been working on this issue since he was in the House and serving on the House Armed Services Committee. Back in 1994, when it first came to our attention that a United States firm which was then called Eyeglass was planning to enter into an agreement with a Saudi firm, EIRAD, to establish a ground station in Riyadh that would be capable of receiving and distributing spy-satellite quality imagery of Israel throughout the Middle East, we organized letters from House and Senate Members urging the administration to reject this proposal. Over 60 Senators signed the Senate version of the letter in October 1994. A similar large number of House Members signed the letter organized by then Congressman Kyl. Mr. President, that problem was ultimately resolved in May 1995 with an exchange of letters between the Commerce Department and the firm, by then called Orbimage, in which the firm agreed to exclude the territory of Israel from its viewing area and to put a technical fix on the satellite that would prevent such viewing. With that assurance, the Commerce Department agreed to the rest of the EIRAD deal. Unfortunately, that did not solve Israel's problem because there are several other United States firms who are planning to launch so-called commercial imaging satellites with resolutions at ground level as low as one meter. Israel, as one of our closest allies, has been working with the administration for the past year, to see if its concerns can be accommodated under the licenses of the other potential American operators of commercial high-resolution satellites. Frankly, the industry and the Commerce Department have been resisting these reasonable requests while many in the national security agencies have been trying to extend the policy established in the Orbimage case. Why is Israel concerned? Israel is a small country that takes its security very, very seriously. It has enjoyed total air superiority over its territory for decades. A lot of its qualitative advantage over its numerically superior potential foes derives from its control of its airspace and the inability of its foes to find, let alone target critical defense facilities. Obviously, the United States and the former Soviet Union were able to image Israel with their spy satellites, as they were able to image the entire globe. But those spy photos were not shared with Israel's foes, certainly ours were not. Now with the end of the cold war the United States is leading the way toward commercialization of what once was a treasured secret. There is a technological imperative to do this because as a result of decades of Federal investment and many billions of Federal dollars, our firms clearly have a technological lead. Israel finds this very threatening. It has asked for our help in preserving its qualitative edge as long as possible. I believe we should give our friend this help. Doing so is clearly permitted under the administration's 1994 policy on commercial high-resolution imaging. As the Eyeglass/Orbimage case demonstrated and as the 1992 Remote Sensing Act envisioned, the U.S. Government retains the right to control the shutters of our commercial satellites for foreign policy and national security reasons. This is a time for such control. Mr. President, the argument against granting Israel's request was summed up in an editorial in this week's Space News. It claims that our whole nascent industry will come crashing down if this precedent is set. That frankly is hogwash. Our industry cannot and should not try to make profits by providing spy satellite images of Israel to Syria and Libya and Iraq and Iran. If they ever thought that market would be allowed to them, they were misreading the Congress. As I said earlier, the precedent was set in the Eyeglass case that we would go the extra mile for Israel's security. There are a very limited number of similar cases around the globe. Our policy will ultimately have to deal with those as well, for instance South Korea and Bosnia where Americans are deployed. But the vast majority of the Earth's surface will be available to our imaging firms if there really is a multibillion-dollar commercial market for geographic information systems with 1 meter resolution. I have my doubts about the size of that market, as apparently many investors do as well. But if it's there, excluding Israel from it for the next decade or so will do no damage to our firms' prospects or profits. Mr. President, I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me start by saying what I am sure is true for all those speaking for this amendment and that is we agree that the United States needs to maintain the most capable and effective military anywhere in the world. But I rise to support Senator Exon's amendment, his freeze amendment to trim spending in this defense authorization bill to the same level as is in the current fiscal year because I believe that kind of fiscal discipline is possible and prudent and still allows us to maintain the most capable military on the face of the planet. The Pentagon is able to live with a freeze. We are outspending all of our potential foes by at least a factor of 2. The foes that we most often hear discussed when we are talking about defense issues are Iraq and North Korea. Mr. President, both of those countries are bankrupt. The combined defense budgets of both of those countries equal about 5 percent of our defense budget. We have allies in Europe, in Asia, whose defense budgets also dwarf those of our potential foes. Our colleagues who voted for the concurrent resolution last week are asking our nondefense agencies to live with a freeze in discretionary spending after the budgets of those same agencies were cut by more than $10 billion last year. The civilian agencies, those that we are asking to live with the freeze, face huge challenges as this country prepares for the 21st century--challenges of educating our children, preserving our environment, of caring for our veterans, of enforcing our criminal laws, of maintaining our transportation infrastructure, and developing new technologies. But we have told those agencies that we must live with a freeze this year, a $15 billion cut from the President's request for funds for those agencies. But, for the Pentagon, even with the cold war long over and security challenges facing this country reduced to a level that would have been inconceivable when I entered the Senate 14 years ago, our colleagues propose a budget resolution to open up their purses for one last spending spree, adding an additional $11.3 billion above what the Pentagon requested for fiscal year 1997. Senator Exon's amendment would cut a total of $4 billion in spending from the bill. It would leave an increase of $9 billion for defense spending above what the President requested. The level we are proposing would fund every single add-on proposed by the committee that is actually included in the Pentagon's future year defense program; that is the long-range planning document that the Pentagon works off. This bill is going to have to be trimmed by $1.7 billion, as several Senators have already indicated. We know that. Senator Exon essentially proposes an additional $3.2 billion cut. From my experience on the committee during the last 14 years, I am sure that the conferees can find $4 billion in low-priority add-ons to eliminate in the conference. Mr. President, Senator Exon's amendment is almost identical in magnitude to the one that was offered by Congressmen Shays and Neumann 2 weeks ago to the House defense appropriations bill. Their amendment received 60 Republican votes. I hope that Senator Exon's amendment will be similarly attractive to some of the Republican Senators who are committed to deficit reduction this year. It is our intention that this reduction in spending authority would be used to reduce the Federal budget deficit which is projected to increase in 1997 under both the budget plan passed by Congress last year and the one submitted by the President earlier this year. Mr. President, I honestly believe that this bill could be cut even more than the $4 billion Senator Exon proposes and with no adverse effect on our security. There is an advertisement that appeared in the New York Times the other day on the 23d of June, on Sunday, by a group of business leaders pointing out that the last sacred cow in our budget needs to also share in this burden of budget cuts. I think that is good advice. I hope we will follow that advice. I believe most Americans would like to see us hold the line on defense spending at the President's request, and I urge my colleagues to adopt the Exon amendment and do so. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I send another amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am persuaded that my amendment would substantially improve the bill if it were adopted. I think the legislation in the bill, the permanent law we are dealing with, is not appropriate for the time we live in and not appropriate for the budget constraints that we realistically have to deal with. I am also well aware that in this even-numbered year, it is very difficult to get the necessary majority to vote for an amendment such as the one I have proposed here. One of the real fears of many in this body, I am sure, is that they might in some way be viewed as being soft on crime or weak on defense. I do not in any way think that my amendment is a signal that a person is weak on defense. I think it is a sign that a person is realistic about the resources that we have to devote to our national defenses, and that both the President and the Republican leadership here in Congress have committed to devote to our resources over the next several years. I think we would be well off to get on with the repeal of these minimum force provisions that are in permanent law. I recognize, though, that with the opposition of the leadership of the Armed Services Committee on this issue, that we would not prevail with this amendment. For that reason, I will withdraw the amendment and keep it for another day when we will have a greater opportunity to prevail with it. At this point, I withdraw the amendment.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment that I have just sent to the desk would propose to repeal a provision that was adopted in last year's defense authorization bill. That provision makes it the permanent law of the land that we will have at least 1,445,000 active duty military personnel, including at least 495,000 in the Army, at least 395,000 in the Navy, at least 174,000 in the Marine Corps, and at least 381,000 in the Air Force. That is a permanent provision of law that we added last year. The provision states these ``end strengths . . . are the minimum strengths necessary to enable the armed forces to fulfill a national defense strategy calling for the United States to be able to successfully conduct two nearly simultaneous major regional contingencies.'' The provision gives the Secretary of Defense only half a percentage point leeway in meeting these minimum active duty levels. Even if the Secretary of Defense, in any given year, persuades Congress to go to a lower end strength level, under the provision which is now permanent law, the following year the Secretary is again bound to the 1,445,000 end strength level unless he again asks and again Congress agrees to approve a waiver. Mr. President, it is just bad law. The committee has included a provision in the bill before us that makes it minimally tolerable in the coming year by giving the Secretary of Defense not half a percent leeway but instead a 5 percent leeway for each of the services. The committee report points out that ``the committee has found that one- half percent flexibility is not enough, is insufficient to prevent the services from taking short-term management actions that may adversely affect service members, solely to meet the assigned end strengths at the end of the fiscal year.'' Mr. President, every year since I came to the Senate, section 401 of the defense authorization bill has established a maximum active duty end strength for each of the services. That seemed to me to make some sense. Last year however was the first time in memory that Congress established a minimum active duty end strength as well as a maximum. In this coming year the minimum and maximum will be identical, or almost identical, for three of the services, the Army, the Marines, and the Air Force. This makes no sense from the point of view of running a personnel system. This provision in permanent law is not just bad personnel policy; it is fundamentally flawed in its ties to the Bottom-Up Review and the need to ``successfully conduct two nearly simultaneous major regional contingencies.'' This is the only place that I am aware of where the Congress has chosen to memorialize the Bottom-Up Review in permanent law. During the debate we just had a few minutes ago on the Coats- Lieberman amendment, which mandates a new strategic review to replace the Bottom-Up Review, we heard a great deal of criticism of the Bottom- Up Review and its underlying assumptions. I agree with that criticism. How then, assuming that criticism is accurate--and the vote certainly would reflect the Senate agrees that the criticism is valid--how do we justify leaving this provision in title 10 of the United States Code the permanent law of the country, when we know that next year, whoever is President, the Bottom-Up Review will be overtaken and the two major regional contingency assumptions will be history? Mr. President, let me remind my colleagues that the Republican Congress and the President are fundamentally in agreement on the total resources this Nation will devote to defense in the coming years. Let me just show a chart here that makes that point very dramatically, I believe. I know we hear a lot of rhetoric on this Senate floor about who is stronger, which of the parties has the strongest position with regard to our national defense, but this chart makes the case, I think very persuasively, that spending between fiscal year 1997 and 2002 under the President's budget as scored by the CBO and spending under the final Republican budget resolution is essentially indistinguishable. The total spending increase over the 6 years proposed by the Republicans is $18.6 billion, with $11.3 billion of that coming in the first year. When you go through all the different numbers, Mr. President, it is clear that we have less than a 1 percent increase difference. This is the dire emergency that we have heard discussed in reference to spending. It turns out that President Clinton was 99 percent right on defense spending levels according to the Republican defense spending plans, if not according to their defense oratory. Mr. President, the central justification which has been made for much of the additional money that is being added to this bill is that the Pentagon is underfunding modernization of our military. The bill that we have before us adds about $7.7 billion in procurement, about $3.7 billion in research and development. We have heard often during debate on this bill about the Joint Chiefs' $60 billion target for procurement and how short the bill is in meeting that goal, even with the additional money that we are adding in. The fact is that the Republican outyear defense budgets will never reach that target either unless there is a significant additional drawdown in military personnel on the order of several hundred thousand active duty personnel. The fact is the Republican deficit hawks who put a premium on balancing the budget by 2002 have won the battle, the budget battle, over the Republican defense hawks. But they have generously granted a 1-year reprieve, one last spending spree to the defense hawks in an election year. Mr. President, this does not make sense. You cannot say that you are going to balance the budget, that you are going to increase funds for modernization and for quality of life and for readiness, and you are going to keep the active duty force level at 1,445,000. The Republican budget resolution does not add up, nor, for that matter, does the President's defense budget. What is going to give, I predict, whoever is President, has clearly got to be the force structure level. Mr. President, I favor modernization of our Armed Forces. I favor quality housing for our troops. I favor providing full pay raises to our forces. I favor long-term research to help keep our forces at the forefront of this ``revolution in military affairs.'' I favor investments in the mobility of our forces and maintaining the readiness of our forces, although I welcome the efforts that have been made to look at tiered readiness. But for this Senator, all of these priorities--modernization, pay, housing, readiness, mobility and research--all of them take precedence over the size of the force structure within constrained budgets. The Nation needs a well-equipped and well-paid and well-housed and highly mobile military to deal with the reduced threats of this post-cold-war world. It will be a smaller force than the Bottom-Up Review force. We will not have 1,445,000 active duty personnel. We all know that that is where the Pentagon is headed next year, whoever is elected this fall. Under the bill that we have before us, we are going to put off until next year, perhaps even the year after, any serious discussion about future force requirements. We are going to put off any serious discussion about necessary trade-offs between force structure and modernization and readiness within budget constraints. This year this bill proposes one last shopping spree before we cut up the credit cards. That is not what we should be doing. Mr. President, by passing my amendment and by repealing the provisions from last year's authorization bill that mandates the 1,445,000-person active duty force in permanent law, the Senate would spur a debate on these trade-offs. If we do not repeal the provision this year, we will be doing it next year or the year after. It is only a matter of time. I urge the adoption of my amendment. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this is an amendment that would have the effect of reducing the $1.2 billion cost of renovating the Pentagon by $100 million. I send this to the desk on behalf of myself, Senator Bradley, and Senator Feingold. This would be the first reduction in funds for this very expensive project since its inception half a decade ago. It would amount to about a 10-percent reduction in the total. Mr. President, dramatic shifts have occurred in geopolitical terms during the past decade, and these shifts have caused fundamental changes in our defense posture. As we have realigned our defense programs to meet changing needs, the funds for many projects have been reduced and eliminated. Despite significant reductions in defense spending, the Pentagon renovation project has enjoyed a steady flow of cash. In my view, the time has come to impose greater financial discipline on the Pentagon, just as the Pentagon has asked other military organizations to be more frugal. Too many of our military members are forced to work and live in unhealthy and unsafe conditions. We need to ensure that the renovation of the Pentagon does not jeopardize funding for other more urgent needs. Many things have changed in this world since this 15-year-long project began, and I believe the Pentagon renovation plans can be better aligned with today's new realities. There are many factors which ease the impact of a reduced renovation budget. For example, the Department of Defense is downsizing. As the civilian military work force is steadily reduced, demands for work space have eased as well. Construction costs in the Washington, DC, area have fallen. Contract costs for the renovation have turned out to be considerably lower than originally estimated. On one construction contract alone, for example, costs were 36 percent less than anticipated. Also, modern communications technology makes it unnecessary to have large staffs at the Pentagon to manage dispersed operations. Mr. President, in 1990, Congress transferred responsibility for the operation, maintenance, and renovation of the Pentagon from the General Services Administration to the Secretary of Defense. Congress recognized that the serious structural problems in the Pentagon building had to be addressed without further delay, and we took this action to get the long overdue project moving forward. Congress earmarked $1.2 billion that the DOD would have paid to GSA in rent for the next 12 or 13 years as a breakeven way to pay for the renovations. The $1.2 billion was not based on any projected cost of renovation, it was simply a sum that was available. This seemed to be a logical way to fund the renovation, so Congress provided the Department of Defense great flexibility in managing the project. Mr. President, this $1.2 billion cap people need to understand, Senators need to particularly understand that this $1.2 billion cap which has been in the law for several years now does not include all the renovation costs. In fact, there are four categories of expenses which add substantial amounts to the total. For example, the Pentagon estimates that the cost of buying and installing information management and telecommunications equipment will be another $750 million. This amount is not part of the $1.2 billion cap. Neither is the heating and refrigeration plant, the classified waste incinerator, the furniture or the 780,000 square feet of leased space for people who have to be moved during the renovation itself. The figure of $1.2 billion is, therefore, misleading. The expense of renovating the Pentagon easily will exceed $2 billion. Last year, the Senate did pass essentially this same amendment that I am offering today to cut the Pentagon renovation expenses by $100 million. During the conference, unfortunately, the conferees agreed to eliminate that requirement and, instead, they directed that the Department of Defense review the renovation plans and recommend some cost saving options. This review has been underway, I am informed, since March of 1995. The well-publicized review was supposed to produce a report which was expected in February of this year. We did not receive that report. On the 5th of June, the Armed Services Committee staff did receive a single-page memo which states that the Department has found a savings of $37 million and will continue to look for more. A reduction of $37 million out of a total of $1.2 billion is not what I consider an aggressive response to our call to reduce costs, and the one-page memo is not what I consider a thorough analysis of options for reducing costs. Over the past 6 years, we have dramatically reduced defense spending and manpower without once reducing the funds for the renovation of the Pentagon. Fifteen months ago, the Pentagon itself publicly announced its intent to reduce the cost of the project. The Department identified a new spending target only after last year's threat of a reduced cap and after I announced at the Readiness Subcommittee markup on April 30 that I would offer this same amendment this year if I was not convinced by the Pentagon's long overdue report. Mr. President, that long overdue report is still overdue. I am not convinced that $37 million is the best the Pentagon can do in the way of savings. The only way in which we can force additional savings is to keep up the pressure and insist on more in the way of accountability for this very, very large project. That is what this amendment does. Americans have been asked to tighten their belts. They expect no less from their Government. The Pentagon needs to be expected to do the same. I yield the floor. Yeas and Nays Vitiated--Amendment No. 4274

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak briefly on S. 1219, the Campaign Finance Reform Act and to discuss two amendments I intend to offer to the bill if the Senate invokes cloture on the bill tomorrow. As a cosponsor of S. 1219, I am pleased to join with my friend and colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain, and my friend and colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold, in supporting this legislation. I want to commend Senators McCain and Feingold for their efforts in bringing this measure to the Senate for its consideration. They have been tireless champions of the need to reform our campaign finance system and I am encouraged by the way they have worked together to develop a bipartisan approach to a problem that has escaped solution for so many years. As my colleagues know, 2 years ago I completed an expensive and negative campaign. The only positive thing that I brought from that experience was the time I was able to spend listening to the concerns of New Mexicans and traveling around the State. Unquestionably, one of the most significant recollections I have of the campaign is the enormous amount of money that I was forced to raise and spend to defend against a wealthy opponent who attacked early and continued with a negative campaign until the votes were counted. That is one of the reasons why I support S. 1219 and why I have supported every serious attempt to fix our campaign finance system. Clearly, Mr. President, the system is broke and anyone who thinks otherwise simply has not looked at the facts. More and more of our time is spent raising money, special interest groups have too much influence at the expense of the individual American, and, most important, the American people have lost confidence in their elected officials because they no longer believe that we have time to listen to them. Instead they believe that only the wealthy can serve in Congress and that we are engaged in an endless pursuit of special interest money. While this is not true in all cases, I am very concerned that if we do not reform the current system soon, the fears of average Americans will become real. Mr. President, we need to change the system and I believe that the bill offered by Senators McCain and Feingold offers us a chance to regain the confidence of those who sent us here. If cloture is invoked tomorrow, I intend to offer two amendments to this legislation. These amendments are contained in legislation I offered earlier this year with my friends and colleagues Senator Pell and Senator Campbell, S. 1723. The first amendment requires that if a qualified candidate for Federal office references his or her opponent in a TV advertisement they must do so themselves if they want to take advantage of the lowest unit-rate charge provided to candidates for Federal office under the Communications Act of 1934. If the candidate voluntarily chooses not to make the reference herself, or himself, the candidate would not be eligible for the lowest unit rate for the remainder of the 45-day period preceding the date of a primary or primary runoff election or during the 60 days preceding the date of a general or special election. The candidate would, of course, continue to have access to the broadcast station and would be able to air whatever advertisement they wish, but they would not be eligible for the special benefit that Congress has provided under the Communications Act. The second amendment requires that broadcasters who allow an individual or group to air advertisements in support of, or in opposition to, a particular candidate for Federal office, allow the candidate in the case where a candidate is attacked, the same amount of time on the broadcast station during the same period of the day. Mr. President, these are not new concepts. In the 99th Congress, Senator Danforth offered a bill to require a broadcast station that allowed a candidate to present an advertisement that referred to her opponent without presenting the ad herself, to provide free rebuttal time to the other candidate. Since then, other variations of what has become known as talking heads legislation have been incorporated in overall campaign finance reform bills and introduced as free standing bills. In a little over a month, both national parties will be holding their conventions. After that the race will be on, not only for the White House but also for 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats and untold number of State and local elections. I can say in all honesty that I do not envy my colleagues here in the Senate, whether they are Republican or Democrat, because I now that they will soon be subjected to the same type of negative attacks ads that I had to face in my last election. Many of these ads will contain misrepresentations, distortions, and outright untruths. A voice will appear on the television but it will not be the candidate's. Perhaps an image will appear but it will not be the candidate's either. Instead, the candidate will be hiding behind the message and that message will undoubtedly be negative. Mr. President, I am told that public opinion polls show that politicians are held in only slightly higher esteem than lawyers and journalists. While that may be true, I know that my colleagues, regardless of their political affiliation, are honorable men and women who care about their respective States and our Nation. They are also courageous. It is not easy putting your reputation and privacy on the line to run for public office at any level. Unfortunately, the negative perception persists. I believe that one of the reasons for that is the trend in today's campaigns to attack, attack, and attack, to go negative early and stay negative until the votes are counted. As Senator Danforth noted, legislation requiring the candidate himself to present ads that reference his opponent would serve the purpose, ``to open up speech, open up the ability to respond, the ability to defend oneself. In the case of a candidate making a negative attack, we try to improve the sense of responsibility and accountability by making it clear that the candidate who makes the attack should appear with his own face, with his own voice.'' I believe that the amendment I am discussing today, just like the legislation by Senators McCain and Feingold, will begin the process of restoring the confidence of the American people in public service as an honorable endeavor and in the election process as one where ideas and platforms, not the candidate's personalities, are debated. Mr. President, I would again like to commend my colleagues Senators McCain and Feingold for their commitment to bringing this legislation to the floor of the Senate and I hope that we will all vote tomorrow to allow debate and votes on amendments and the underlying legislation. The American people deserve nothing less.