Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I wish to state a couple of questions and ask for the majority leader's response, if I could, at this time. Madam President, I know that there has been an agreement worked out with regard to the voting on the nominations and on the START II Treaty. I know that yesterday we had another discussion on the Senate floor, and the majority leader referred to his intention to, also in addition to the nominations for ambassadors, clear the rest of the items on the Executive Calendar before we left. I just wanted to once again ask for his assurance that that is his desire and his intention before we adjourn this fall.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I understand that the Senator from Alabama, who is a cosponsor of the flag burning amendment, is somewhere nearby and wants to give a statement at some point here. Obviously, I will be glad to defer to him when he wants to make that statement. Let me just state again what I said at the beginning of this discussion. That is, my objection to proceeding with the amendment is not because I think the Senate should not be able to vote on this issue. I do not support the amendment; I did not support it when it came up before. But I do not object to us going ahead and getting a vote. But I do believe that before we move to amend the Constitution, as is proposed here, we need to tend to the business of carrying out our duties as they are set out in the Constitution. Those duties are pretty clear, and we in the Senate have some very specific duties to carry out. Article II, section 2 of the Constitution says: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur . . . So we have a responsibility to pass on treaties. . . . and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States . . . So my position is, Mr. President, we ought to go about doing that which the Constitution requires of us before we proceed to amend the Constitution. Or we should at least get agreement as to a date when we are going to do that which the Constitution requires of us; that is, passing on the President's nomination for these ambassadorial posts. I have this list here. It is a long list, which I referred to earlier. I think it is one that clearly deserves our attention. As I pointed out in my earlier statement, it represents the people in the countries that these ambassadors will serve in, which represent about a third of the world's population. Why should we in the Senate be able to, day after day, week after week, look the other way and say it is not our responsibility, it is not our problem? It is our responsibility under the Constitution, Mr. President; it is our problem, and we need to get about the business of dealing with it. Mr. President, I think it is interesting that this is coming up in this context. We are constantly hearing about the respect that we all have for the Constitution. I do not doubt that respect. I think, clearly, anyone who devotes his life to public service is demonstrating a real commitment to this country. We all swear to an oath of office when we are sworn in here in the Senate, and it is an interesting oath, which I would like to read for people, just to refresh people's memory. The question which the Presiding Officer asks each of us is: Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that you take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion . . . Here is the important part, I think, for purposes of this discussion, Mr. President. . . . and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office which you are about to enter, so help you God. Mr. President, well and faithfully discharging the duties of the office of a U.S. Senator today includes voting on the Ambassadors that the President has nominated to serve in these countries. Well and faithfully discharging the duties of the office of a U.S. Senator today means voting on the START II treaty, which has been here languishing in the Senate now for many months. So that is the point that I am trying to make. Since the Senator from Alabama is not here wishing to speak, let me go ahead and make a few other points about, first of all, the START II treaty. START II is the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It was signed by President Bush on January 3, 1993, shortly before he left office. It is a landmark agreement. It will reduce nuclear arsenals in both the United States and the former Soviet Union by close to two- thirds. This is not a minor item, Mr. President. This is not some detail that we have not gotten around to dealing with. This will reduce the nuclear arsenals in both the United States and the former Soviet Union by close to two-thirds. START II is a vital successor to the first START Treaty, which was negotiated by President Ronald Reagan. Not only does START II reduce nuclear stockpiles in both Russia and the United States to between 3,000 to 3,500 warheads each, it also eliminates multiple independent reentry vehicles, MIRV's. Policymakers and military officials in both parties agree that START II is vital to U.S. strategic interests. Mr. President, I know we are in a very major discussion and debate, nationally, about whether the United States should be involved in the NATO activity in Bosnia. I think that is important. I think it is a very important military initiative, diplomatic initiative that this administration is involved in. But I would say that at least as important is following through and ratifying START II and then seeing that it is properly implemented. When the history of this century is written, Mr. President, our ability to move from the cold war down to a period where there is less threat and to a situation where less nuclear threat is going to be a determining factor in whether or not we have carried out our stewardship properly, I think it is the height of folly for us to lose sight of that important need and constantly be focusing on other matters here that are not time sensitive. As I said earlier in the discussion, whether you believe that we ought to have a flag burning amendment or whether you disagree about the flag burning amendment, everyone has to concede that this is not an urgent matter. We have been a nation now for 206 years. We have never had a flag burning amendment to the Constitution. There is not an epidemic of flag burning going on in this country, Mr. President. I have scoured the newspapers to try to find examples of people out there burning flags. In our history there have been some examples. Clearly, it is not something that is urgent and that needs dealing with this week here in the U.S. Senate. These other matters in my opinion do have some urgency about them. I will get into that in more detail later in the discussion. Let me give some quotations about the START II treaty from various leaders in this country, former leaders, present leaders. President George Bush made the statement, ``The START II treaty is clearly in the interests of the United States and represents a watershed in our efforts to stabilize the nuclear balance further reduce strategic offensive arms.'' Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee said, on February 3 of this year, ``I am persuaded that the 3,000 to 3,500 nuclear weapons allowed Russia and the United States in this START treaty does meet reasonable standards of safety.'' The Heritage Foundation has a briefing book they provide to new Members [[Page S 18045]] of Congress. That briefing book for this 104th Congress had in it a statement that said, ``The START II treaty should serve U.S. interests and should be approved for ratification.'' That is the Heritage Foundation, one of the more conservative think tanks here in our Nation's Capital. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, said, ``With a U.S. force structure of about 3,500 nuclear weapons we have the capability to deter any actor in the other capital no matter what he has at his disposal.'' That was in July 1992. The present Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is testifying at this very moment in the Armed Services Committee, as the Presiding Officer well knows, said on May 25 of this year, ``I strongly urge prompt Senate advice and consent on the ratification of START II.'' Senator Richard Lugar on October of 1992 said, ``If new unfriendly regimes come to power, we want those regimes to be legally obligated to observe START limits.'' Senator John McCain, who serves with us here and with great distinction on the Armed Services Committee, said on January 2, 1993, ``With the conclusion of START II, the threat of nuclear war has been greatly reduced and our relationship with the former Soviet Union reestablished on a more secure basis.'' Now, obviously, Senator McCain was assuming we would ratify that treaty. If we fail to do so I think he may want to rethink that statement. The former Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, made the following statement on June 17 of 1993: No relationship is more important to the long-term security of the United States than our strategic relationship with Russia. Despite the new spirit of cooperation between us, Russia remains the only nation on Earth with the capability to devastate the United States. Any arms control agreement, even one as sweeping at START II, represents only one element of that relationship. While arms control is only one element of our relationship it remains an important one. START II, along with the initial START treaty remains overwhelmingly in our interest as we move into the post-cold war era. It offers enhanced stability, fosters transparency and openness and sounds the death knell for the first-strike strategies of a bygone era. That is a quotation by former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. Finally, let me give a quotation by Lynton Brooks who was the chief negotiator of START II. He said on May 18, 1993--and I point out that was shortly after the first hearing on START II by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on this chronology. This is 1993 I am talking about, 2\1/2\ years ago, Mr. President. Lynton Brooks, our chief negotiator of START II said: START II completes the work begun by START I. Building on the 9-year effort that led to the first START treaty, START II drastically reduced strategic defensive arms and restructures the remaining forces in a stabilizing manner appropriate for the post-cold war world. Along with its predecessor companion, START II represents a codification of the new nonconfrontational relationship between the United States and the Russian federation. In short, START II is another major step toward a 21st century characterized by reduced threat and increased stability. That is an indication, Mr. President, that there is very strong bipartisan support for the ratification of this treaty. If this was an issue that there was great division on I would probably not be here today urging that we get a time certain to vote on START II. Leaders on both sides of the aisle have indicated the importance of moving ahead. I can see no justification for us continuing to deal with matters that are less time sensitive such as the proposed constitutional amendment while this matter and the confirmation of these ambassadorial nominations continues to be delayed. Let me also put a few more things in the Record or call then to the attention of my colleagues here, Mr. President. We have a letter here from Jennifer Weeks who is the Arms Control and International Security Program Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists. This is a letter dated November 9 of this year to Senators. I am sure that the Presiding Officer and each Senator received a similar letter. It says: I am writing to bring to your attention the article by Russian ambassador Yuri K. Nazarkin on the START II nuclear reduction treaty which is printed on the reverse side of this page. START II currently pending in the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and the Russian Duma would reduce Russia's deployed strategic nuclear arsenal by 5,000 warheads. It also would eliminate all of Russia's 10 warhead SS-18 missiles, a longstanding U.S. policy goal. But as Nazarkin points out, if the Senate does not act promptly to ratify START II, there is little hope that Russia will approve the treaty. START II was submitted to the Senate by President Bush. It has strong bipartisan support and the Union of Concerned Scientists strongly support START II and urges the Senate to move swiftly to ratify this crucial treaty. I will not read the full text of that article, Mr. President, but let me just quote from Ambassador Nazarkin a couple of statements he made: START II represents a real opportunity to lower the nuclear danger that plagued our sense of security during the cold war. Once the agreement is ratified and enters into force American and Russian strategic nuclear forces are to be reduced by about 70 percent from their cold war peaks. It is certain that further delay on the American side will be used in Russia as an argument to defer ratification. Now Ambassador Nazarkin headed the Soviet delegation to the conference on disarmament in 1987 through 1989 and the nuclear and space talks including START from 1989 to 1991 and participated in the preparation of START II. He is the senior adviser to the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. President, let me just be a little more precise about how we get the reductions or what reductions are called for in START II. The START II treaty will eliminate, according to this information I have here--he cited a figure of 5,000. This information is that it will eliminate around 4,000 strategic nuclear weapons from the arsenal of the former Soviet Union. This includes the centerpiece of the Russian arsenal which is the SS-18. Any intercontinental ballistic missile which carries more than a single warhead will be eliminated under the treaty. The following is a list of delivery systems and their payloads, which are expected to be destroyed under the treaty. Let me go through this list very briefly so people understand what we are discussing here. The SS-18. I think those who have followed defense issues and our arms competition with Russia over the last several decades know the importance of the SS-18 as part of the threat that we face. This treaty would eliminate 188 launchers and 1,880 warheads of that type. The SS-19. This treaty would eliminate 170 launchers and 1,020 warheads of that type. The SS-24, 46 launchers, 460 warheads. SLBM's, sea-launched ballistic missiles. We would see 600 of those eliminated. Submarine-launched ballistic missiles. As I understand it, the limit there is 1,750 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The current Russian arsenal is estimated at about 2,350. So, it is time, in my view, that we proceed to ratify this treaty. It is time, certainly, that we at least get a chance to vote on it. Some of my colleagues here, who are not on the floor at this moment, have spoken out recently in favor of action on START II. Let me just quote some of them, because I have been quoting a great many others who are not here in the Senate. Let me just quote some of those who are here and indicate my agreement with their statements. Senator Lugar, on October 31 of this year, talked about both the Chemical Weapons Convention and START II. Senator Nunn, on October 31, said, ``We must also make maximum use of arms control agreements such as START II and the international treaties and conventions such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, and the Chemical Weapons Convention.'' Mr. President, I should clarify, for anybody who is interested, that I am not here insisting that we get a time certain to vote on the Chemical Weapons Convention. I do believe it would be advisable for us to move quickly to consider that, but there are some questions that have been raised. I understand the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee wishes to have additional hearings and explore those questions, and I certainly wish to defer to [[Page S 18046]] his judgment on that and do not, at this time, believe it is essential that the Senate try to get to this issue. My concern on START II is that the hearings have concluded. They concluded 7 months ago and we still have not been able to get the issue before the Senate for a vote. On October 31 of this year, Senator Sarbanes made the following statement. He said, referring to the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee: The chairman is refusing to take action on a number of other very important matters before the committee, a number of very significant treaties. We have completed hearings on the START II treaty. Agreement has been reached on all the substantive issues related to that treaty. No business meeting has been scheduled to consider it. Senator Feinstein spoke on the 1st of November this last month and said: The START II treaty, signed by the Bush administration and not yet ratified by the Congress, is the farthest reaching arms reduction treaty ever signed in the history of this Nation. I know of no significant opposition to the ratification of the START II treaty. Nonetheless, the committee is unable to begin consideration of it. This is wrong. There is a group that calls themselves the U.S. START II Committee. They have sent a letter, dated November 13, to all Senators. Let me just read that letter into the Record in case some Senators have not had a chance to see that. It says: Dear Senator: The United States Senate is about to adjourn without addressing the single most important issue of international affairs. Worse, a lost opportunity now may mean that the chance for nuclear arms control could be postponed for a decade. The Senate needs to ratify START II. This is why what we believe to be a distinguished group of citizens, experts in arms control, with both military and foreign policy experience, has joined together to urge Senate action yet this fall. We all know the history of START II and what it does: the single most dramatic reduction in the nuclear arsenals of both the United States and the Russian Federation. Another significant step back from the history of the relations between the two countries for the last forty-five years. Equally important, potentially, the treaty serves as an example to other countries seeking to acquire this nuclear capability that there is an alternative to ownership of weapons of mass destruction: disarmament. Our conversations with Russian leaders have made it plain that if we fail to ratify this year, there is a significant reduction in the likelihood that Russia will act on this treaty next year. Years of work that have spanned both Republican and Democratic Administrations, years of a genuinely bi-partisan effort, will be lost. The last speech that then Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave to the House of Commons foresaw this day. The Prime Minister, confronting a cold and hostile Soviet Union, with both worlds then confronting each other with missiles and bombs, stated that ``someday we will be allowed to emerge from the terrible era in which we are required to reside.'' We urge the Senate and you, individually, to take up START II before adjournment and ratify the treaty. Sincerely, U.S. Committee for START II Dave Nagle, Chair, Freedom Support Coalition. Lindsay Mattison, Director, International Center Mr. President, one of the things we always look at here in the Congress, perhaps too much in my view, is to see what the public reaction is. So we do have some indication of what the public thinks about the whole notion of START II. Mr. President, 68.4 percent of the public that was polled by a national security news service poll of over 1,000 Americans, which was conducted between April 21 and 25 of this year--68 percent thought that the U.S. Senate should ratify START II, 20.1 percent opposed ratification, another 11 percent expressed no opinion. A similar question that was asked in that same poll showed that 82.3 percent of Americans believe that the United States and Russia should agree to negotiate deep reductions in their nuclear weapons. Only 11 percent opposed doing so, while 6 percent expressed no opinion on that subject. So this is not just a group of academics who think we should get on with the business of reducing the nuclear arsenal in Russia as well as here. I would say, the START II treaty is very well designed to bring about major reductions on the Russian side. This is not a unilateral disarmament kind of treaty. There is nobody, Republican or Democrat, that I have heard, who argues that this treaty is unbalanced in that regard. This is a treaty that is very much in our interest and very much in the Soviet interest as well. Mr. President, let me also just refer to some of the editorials that have been written on this subject around the country in recent weeks. There is an editorial in the Friday, November 3, edition of the Boston Globe. It is entitled ``Two Treaties Held Hostage.'' I will just read portions of that for Members. During their Presidential terms, Ronald Reagan and George Bush had the good sense to negotiate two arms control treaties crucial to U.S. national security--the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START II, and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Bush and Boris Yeltsin signed the treaty on chemical weapons January 3, and Bush submitted it to the Senate as one of his final acts of statesmanship. It is sad to say that ratification of these two badly needed treaties is being sabotaged by Republican Senators Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Bob Dole of Kansas. Their deliberate thwarting of the ratification process is perverse, not merely because they are undoing the wise work of Republican Commanders in Chief but because their motives seem to be petty and personal and political. That is a statement in the editorial, Mr. President, which I do not necessarily subscribe to. But I do think it gives the flavor for the editorial comment which is out there. The Washington Post wrote on the 16th of November ``Poison Gas and Sen. Helms'' is the name of their editorial. It goes on with: Nearly three years ago, under President Bush, the United States signed a treaty banning chemical weapons, the most powerful comprehensive arms control agreement ever negotiated. It is making no progress toward ratification by this country because the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee does not like it. Although it was written under American and Republican leadership, there is now a real chance that it could go into operation without American participation. They are talking about the Chemical Weapons Convention in that case. There is a New York Times editorial dated the 8th of November entitled ``Jesse Helms' Hostages.'' It says: Because of the obstinacy of Senator Helms of North Carolina, the United States does not have an Ambassador in Beijing at this time. That is an issue I want to address in a few minutes. * * * the United States does not have an Ambassador in Beijing at this time and relations with China have reached their most delicate and dangerous point in more than 20 years. I will at this point go ahead and talk some about the importance of getting these ambassadors appointed, Mr. President. I had the good fortune to travel to China, to Korea, and to Japan earlier this year. I did so on a trip under the auspices of the Armed Services Committee, and I did so at a time when relations between the United States and China were clearly strained. Some of that strain remains in that relationship, but some of it, hopefully, has been reduced. But one thing I was struck with on the trip to Beijing and to China was that this Nation, which is, of course, the most populous Nation in the world, has a very fast growing economy, has a tremendous influence over everything that happens in the Far East and, of course, much that happens in other parts of the world as well. We have no Ambassador. When you go to our Embassy there, the personnel there do their best to accommodate your needs, to keep the doors open, and to keep business going as usual. But the simple fact is we have no spokesman there representing our administration, our Government, our country, our President. That is a detriment to us. It has been a detriment to us for several months now. I think it is particularly unfortunate myself--this is just a personal view of mine--that we are not going ahead and voting on the ambassadorship for China, because one of our former colleagues was nominated by the President to serve in that capacity. He has had hearings. I believe he has strong bipartisan support for serving in that position, as he should have because he had a very distinguished career here in the Senate. But I can tell you that the issues that we tried to address there could much better be addressed if we had a Presidential appointee representing us in our Embassy in Beijing. This is too important a job and too important a position for us to just leave vacant month after month, week after [[Page S 18047]] week, on the assumption that it does not really matter. It needs to matter to us. It matters very much, I believe, to the executive branch of our Government. I believe it matters a great deal to the Government officials that might be in Beijing. I urged them to return their Ambassador. Relations in August when I was in Beijing were strained to such an extent that the Chinese Government had withdrawn their American Ambassador, asked their Ambassador to come back to China for a period of time. My urging to the Foreign Minister and to other Chinese officials I spoke to was that they return their Ambassador to Washington and that they signal to our Government as quickly as possible that they would like us to move ahead with the appointment and the confirmation of Jim Sasser as our Government's representative and Ambassador in Beijing. I would say to their credit--I do not know; I am sure they had urgings from a great many other sources and a great many other individuals--but to their credit, in response to whatever set of circumstances, they went ahead and did exactly what I was urging them to do and what I am sure others were urging them to do; that is, they returned their Ambassador to Washington in order to improve the lines of communication, and they signaled to our administration that they would like the administration to go ahead and appoint Senator Sasser to this important position. The administration, of course, followed through quickly indicating that Senator Sasser was their nominee. The hearings were held. We now wait. We now wait for some additional action presumably. According to the chart which I have here, Mr. President, the nomination was sent to the Senate on the 25th of September. The reason I think it is important we raise this issue this morning is that the Congress is approaching the end of its actions in the first session of the 104th Congress. When we do adjourn that first session of the 104th Congress, it will be clearly several weeks before we begin again in the new year to transact business here in the Senate. If we do not get this matter dealt with now, if we do not get a ratification of not only Senator Sasser as the nominee to serve in China, but if we do not get a ratification of each of these, if we do not go ahead and approve the nominations for each of these important countries, it will clearly be next spring before any action will be taken by the Senate. I think that is in derogation of our duties, Mr. President. I think we have a duty by virtue of our position as Senators to go ahead and pass judgment on the nominees that the President sends forward. If people want to vote no, I have no problem with that. Everyone gets elected to vote his or her conscience. If people want to come on the Senate floor and vote against any of these nominees, I think they should clearly do that. My only point is we need to have an opportunity to express the will of the Senate and get on with it. If these nominees are acceptable to a majority of Senators, we should approve them. If these nominees are not acceptable to a majority of Senators, we should disapprove them and allow the administration to appoint an alternative to serve in these important positions. Let me talk a little about this trip to Asia which I did take earlier this year and which I felt was a very instructive and informative trip. We had three major themes that we were trying to learn about. One was regional security issues. There has been great concern raised about nuclear tests, about possible missile technology exports from China, about concerns about China's defense expenditures and weapons modernization and potential threats to other countries in that region. There were this summer live ammo military tests in the Taiwan Straits. There have been some aggressive behavior in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Those were all the very real national security issues, regional security issues that we wanted to explore, and we did have a chance to do that with several governmental officials. We also wanted to explore trade because we have an enormous problem in our trade relations with China. Anyone who has not paid attention to our trade relations with China cannot be adequately informed about our trade situation today in the world. In 1994, the United States, according to our Government's figures, had a trade deficit with China of $29 billion. The anticipated trade deficit for this year, 1995, is $36 billion, and the expectation is that in 1996, the trade deficit could rise to as high as $50 billion. So what we see is that China is fast replacing Japan as the No. 1 trade problem that the United States has. We had a $60 billion trade deficit last year with Japan. Everyone recognizes that that is a serious problem. We have had various initiatives to try to deal with it. Unfortunately, in the case of China, we are just now beginning to awake to the fact that trade is a serious problem. So that was another issue we wanted to look at and did get a chance to look at very seriously. Technology development, that is another area where the policies of the Chinese Government I think are ones that we need to be aware of and concerned about. Clearly, their Government policy is to target particular technologies and develop those technologies, to trade market access for technology transfer. That is, if a United States company wants access to the Chinese market, they are required to give up technology, their rights to technology to get that access. Obviously, electro property rights are another major part of the technology development issue. But let me just talk a little more about the trade problem, Mr. President, because I think that perhaps highlights it as much as anything. I have a good friend who is a co-owner of a company in my home State which produces wallets, leather wallets, and they employ about 250 people in the southern and west mesa side of Albuquerque to make these wallets. These jobs are decent paying jobs. They are primarily jobs held by women and many of the employees, many of the employees of this company are single women who are trying to raise families at the same time that they hold these jobs. I received a press clipping about 2 or 3 weeks ago indicating that that plant in Albuquerque employing those 250 people was about to close, that they had announced they would close the plant and those 250 people, primarily women, who work in that plant--I have visited the plant several times--would be out of work, those jobs would be gone. So I called my friend and said, what is the problem? Why are we having to close the plant in Albuquerque and put 250 women out of work? The answer was, we are no longer cost competitive, or part of the answer at least was that we are no longer cost competitive with China. In China, they will do the work much cheaper. There is no limitation on their ability to import into this country the finished products, and from just looking at the bottom line there are great incentives provided by the Chinese Government for us to locate more and more manufacturing there, and those manufacturing jobs there are displacing United States manufacturing jobs. That is an old story. That is a story that many people have told in one form or another around this Senate ever since I have been here over the last decade or so. We have to find some solutions to that. Part of the solution to that is to get serious about our trade deficit with China. We need to recognize that this deficit cannot be allowed to grow from $29 to $36 to $50 billion year after year after year, indefinitely. At the rate of growth that is now involved, we are clearly by the end of this decade going to have a bigger trade deficit with China than we have with Japan. It is not a trade deficit that will go away quickly because they are manufacturing, they are displacing manufacturing that goes on today in this country. They are manufacturing and selling into this country. And we are not able to sell into that country to near the extent we should. That is a problem that needs to be on the front burner of our U.S. Trade Representative's office, on the front burner of the Department of Commerce. It is to some extent, but I believe very strongly that it would be on the front burner to an even greater extent if we had an Ambassador in Beijing who could make the point that this issue is important to us, who could represent our Government in meetings in that [[Page S 18048]] capital, and clearly we do ourselves a disservice by not going ahead and approving that nomination. Mr. President, I have not visited the other countries on this list. I believe it is fair to say I visited none of the other countries on this list. But there are some very important trading partners and very important allies that are also represented. Let me just point out some of those. In Malaysia, we have a nominee there whose nomination was sent to the Senate on June 13. I know of no objection that has been raised to that nomination. Here it is nearly December 13, and yet no action. We have not been given a chance to vote. If there is an objection, we should hear it; we should debate it; and we should vote our conscience one way or another. I have not heard of any. In Cambodia, we have a nominee there which was sent to the Senate for consideration again on June 13. Again, I know of no reason why that nominee is not an acceptable nominee. Everything I have heard would indicate to me that he is an acceptable nominee, but we have not been given a chance to vote. In the case of Thailand, again on June 21, a nominee was sent to us for the Ambassador to Thailand. I know of no objection that has been raised to that nominee being appointed, but we are not doing our duty and voting on the issue. In the case of Indonesia, there I do want to just make a very short statement about our nominee. The President's nominee is Stapleton Roy, who I am sure is well known to many Members of this Senate. He was formerly the Ambassador representing our country in Beijing. He did a superb job. He is eminently respected by everybody in diplomatic circles, and I think he is a superb appointment for that position. Again, his nomination was sent up on June 28. No action. I have heard of no complaints about his appropriateness for the position. In fact, everything I have heard is praiseworthy. I had the good fortune to meet with Stapleton Roy before we took our trip to China. I say to colleagues, he was extremely helpful in pointing out issues that we needed to explore with Chinese officials because of his great knowledge of United States-China policy and his great experience in that regard. In the case of Pakistan, Pakistan is a very important country in the world today. We have a great many sensitive issues that we are dealing with. We have votes here on the Senate floor. In the case when the defense bill was on the floor, I remember several votes about our policy toward Pakistan. I think everyone recognizes the importance of having an ambassador representing this Government in Pakistan. Oman. That is another very important ally of this country in the Persian Gulf area. And clearly we need to have an ambassador there. That ambassadorial nomination, again, was sent on June 28. Lebanon. Our country has a proud and longstanding relationship with Lebanon. Many of the outstanding people in my State, leaders in the business community, leaders in all the important communities in my State have great pride in their Lebanese heritage. We should clearly have an ambassador to Lebanon. I have heard nobody suggest that this was not the proper ambassador. I could go on down the list. Many of these countries are in Africa. Again, I have not visited them, but I believe that it is important for us to have ambassadors there. South Africa is a clear example. It is important enough that our Vice President is there this week on a trip. I have had the good fortune, as I know many Senators have, of hearing Nelson Mandela speak to joint meetings of the Congress. I believe I have heard him now twice on trips that he has taken to this country. That relationship between the United States and South Africa is a very important relationship during these important years as that nation moves out of and renounces apartheid, moves on to an open society. Clearly we need to have someone there representing U.S. interests. Mr. President, there are many other issues that I could go into, and I am glad to as the day proceeds, because I think these are important issues that we need to have before us. But at this point I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I did object to proceeding with the debate on the flag amendment because I believe that we have neglected some other very important constitutional duties. Specifically, we have neglected to provide our advice and consent of ratification of START II and also on confirming the nomination of ambassadors to nations, which include over a third of the world's population. That has now been delayed many months. I have been told this morning that a deal which would allow for the Foreign Relations Committee to meet tomorrow and report the treaty and these nominations, which will allow the Senate to approve them next week and deal with the State Department authorization bill, as well, may be at hand. I would be delighted if that proves to be true, and I would gladly yield the floor and allow the Senate to proceed with debate on the flag amendment as soon as we can get some kind of unanimous-consent agreement to that effect. But, for the moment, I think that I have no choice but to talk for a period here about the constitutional obligations we have to provide advice and consent on treaties and with regard to the appointment of ambassadors. Mr. President, before we amend the Constitution, I hope we will not amend the first amendment, as proposed in the flag amendment, for the first time in the history of this Republic. I believe we should not go on to consider that before we get about the business of carrying out our current responsibilities under the Constitution. Article II, section 2 of the Constitution deals with the powers of the President. The second paragraph says: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States . . . Mr. President, I have a couple of charts which I would like to refer to here just to make the points that need to be made. This first chart deals with the chronology of events related to the START II treaty. This treaty was signed by President Bush on January 3, 1993. It was submitted to the Senate by President Bush on January 15, 1993. That was almost 3 years ago. Until last December when the issues were resolved that allowed the START I treaty to enter into course, perhaps it was appropriate not to proceed with the ratification of START II. Once that treaty was overcome, then everyone expected that the START II treaty would be dealt with by this body early this year--early in 1995. The last hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the treaty took place on March 29 of this year. Senator Lugar, at a conference the next day on March 30 said, I chaired the final Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing in the Senate yesterday on the START II treaty. The committee will seek to mark up the treaty after the April recess. We will look to potential floor action during the middle of the month of May. It is a good treaty, but it is one thing to have reached agreements and understandings, another to have fully implemented. Mr. President, next week we will be in mid-December, fully 7 months behind the schedule that was outlined by the senior Senator from Indiana, whom I greatly respect for his leadership on our policy toward Russia. I wish we had held to the original timetable. Obviously, we have not. I fear the delay has only complicated the prospects for treaty ratification in the Russia Duma. We have provided an obvious excuse for inaction for 7 months now. We should not make that excuse, extend that excuse, for 8, 9, or 10 months. As Senator Lugar went on to point out in his March 30 speech, To reach the START II limits by the year 2000 or 2003 will require enormous effort and cost, particularly on the Russian side. This will be difficult in the best of times but it is particularly challenging given the political and economic revolution engulfing Russia today. The genius of the Nunn-Lugar cooperative reduction effort has been to face the facts squarely and try to help where we can in the Russian's effort to dismantle their nuclear stockpile. Months of inaction on our part cannot have improved the prospects for ratification in the Duma. In the elections in Russia in less than 2 weeks we are likely to see a more conservative Duma emerge, where one Start II ratification will be more difficult as a challenge for President Yeltsin. Mr. President, I believe our delay in carrying out our constitutional duties on START II has consequences and they are potentially very bad consequences for our security and for our relations with Russia. Similarly, I believe the delay in carrying out our constitutional duties on ambassadorial nominations has consequences. I have a second chart here I want to go through. This is a list of the ambassadorial nominations that have been delayed. This is from the time that they were submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee. We have the names of the ambassadors whose papers are entirely in order and who could be confirmed rapidly if the Foreign Affairs Committee were to hold a business meeting. There are 18 names on the list. We can go into them in some detail later on in the morning or later in the day. Together, we have also listed, of course, the countries that they would be ambassadors to and the date that the nomination was sent here to the Senate. Most of these people, 14 of them to be precise, are Foreign Service officers. Four of them, Jim Sasser, Sandra Kristoff, James Joseph, and John Gevirtz are noncareer political appointments. Many of these nominations have been ready to move since July. Mr. President, the lives of these people and their families have been disrupted by our inaction. Our ability to carry on our diplomatic efforts with these nations and in these parts of the world have been disrupted, as well. The signal that we send to the rest of the world when we fail to have ambassadors in key capitals is not a good signal. Look at the list of nations that we have here, Mr. President: China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, our Ambassador to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Organization--APEC, which met recently, and we were not represented by an ambassador at that meeting. The Vice President attended in lieu of our President because of the difficulties here in getting agreement on a budget. What sort of signal are we sending to Asia when we will not carry out our constitutional duties here in the Senate in a timely fashion? These nations include over a third of the world's population and some of the world's fastest growing economies. We have important and very critical interests in these nations, yet we cannot get around to confirming our ambassadors to them. Many of the other nations listed are in Africa: South Africa, Cameroon, Rwanda, et cetera. Again, what sort of a signal are we sending? In the case of South Africa, again, the Vice President is there on a trip this week. I am sure that our neglect of our responsibilities in the Senate is much [[Page S 18039]] bigger news in those nations than it is here, but what we are doing or failing to do in my view is wrong and my point this morning is that we need to get agreement in the Senate to take action on these nominations and to take action on START II before we proceed with other less pressing business. Mr. President, the proposal that the majority leader would like to move to today is the amendment to the Constitution dealing with flag burning. Whether a particular Senator opposes that amendment or favors it, I think all of us would have to agree that it is not urgent for the Senate to act on that proposal. We have survived as a nation now for about 206 years without that amendment being adopted. I am a fairly regular reader of the newspaper. I read the newspaper this morning. I could find nothing in there indicating that people are burning flags around this country or around the world, in fact. Of course, the proposal is primarily aimed at those burning flags in this country. The point is very simply, Mr. President, whether you favor or oppose the amendment, it is not urgent that we deal with it. We do not need to put aside other pressing important business in order to deal with the flag amendment today and tomorrow. I think it is much more important that we do the business of the Senate, and the business of the Senate very simply as set out in the Constitution which we are now talking about amending, the business of the Senate is to approve nominations-- or disapprove. I am not saying here I expect every Senator to come to the floor and vote for each of these Presidential nominees to be ambassador. It is possible that some of our colleagues would like to vote against them. That is fine. I am not insisting on a particular outcome. I am saying that the Senate should have the chance to vote on these ambassadorial nominations and on the START II treaty before we conclude our business this year. I understand that Senator Hatch is on the floor and he would like to speak for a period on the flag amendment. I certainly am willing to yield to him to do that since we will still be in a period debating whether or not to proceed to consideration of the bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I do object.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Senator from Connecticut and have just one more question. Is it the intent of H.R. 1058 that sanctions for the cost of the entire action would apply if the complaint substantially or seriously violates Rule 11(b)?

Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank my friend and colleague from Connecticut.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Senator from Connecticut and would ask him if it is his understanding that Section 101(3)(A) relating to sanctions for filing frivolous pleadings is intended to apply the most serious sanction of attorneys' fees and costs for the entire action only to a complaint that substantially violates Rule 11(b)?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I was wondering if my friend and colleague from Connecticut, Senator Dodd, would yield for a question?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Is it therefore correct to say that for all other pleadings or motions, whether filed by the plaintiff or defendant, that violate Rule 11(b) the sanction would be an award of attorneys' fees for the costs associated with that particular pleading or motion only?

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I wanted to just add some information for my colleagues about some of the ambassadors that I have been discussing this morning and so far today about the qualifications of these people. These are individuals that have been nominated by the President. There are 18 of them that are presently pending in the Foreign Relations Committee. They are an outstanding group of nominees. I was just provided with more detailed information about what they have been doing in their careers and why they are considered by the President to be qualified for these important positions. So I thought I would go through some of that information so that any Senator who has a doubt about the qualifications of any nominee would hopefully have that doubt put to rest. I do not know many of these people myself, but I would like to at least put in the Record the information about them. Mr. President, going down the list, the President's nominee to Sri Lanka is Mr. Peter Burleigh, who is presently the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Personnel. He is a career appointee in the Department of State. He has been with the Department of State now for some substantial period of time. He was a Peace Corps volunteer before that. He has a very distinguished resume which we will include in the Record. The second of these nominees is the President's nominee for APEC, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. This person, Sandra Kristoff, is now the coordinator in that position, and she is being nominated by the President for the rank of Ambassador in that same position--again, a very distinguished career of involvement in foreign policy and trade related issues. The third on this list is John Malott, who has been nominated by the President as the Ambassador to Malaysia. [[Page S 18057]] He is presently the senior adviser to the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs. He is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service at the class of minister-counsellor, clearly a very distinguished and recognized public servant in our diplomatic corps. Next is Mr. Kenneth Quinn, Kenneth Michael Quinn, who has been nominated by the President to the position of Ambassador to Cambodia. He is presently a special project officer for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Department of State--again, a career of foreign service, class of minister-counsellor. I would just point out parenthetically here, Mr. President, that I can remember years in which we had great debates on the Senate floor expressing concerns about the political nature of the appointments being made by one or another President to some ambassadorial positions. In this group of 18, all but 4 of the 18 are career Foreign Service officers, have devoted their entire career to working in our diplomatic corps, and the four who are not career Foreign Service officers I think are recognized by all to be well qualified to take important positions like this. After the Ambassador to Cambodia is Mr. William Itoh, the President's appointee as Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand, presently a student in the Capstone Program at the National Defense University--again, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the class of counsellor. Next is a gentleman I referred to in my statement this morning, Mr. Stapleton Roy, who has been nominated by the President as Ambassador to the Republic of Indonesia. He again is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of career minister. I would point out that he was born in China. He has spent much of his life in the Far East and China in particular. He is extremely well recognized as an expert on that part of the world and has served our country extremely well in important positions including Ambassador to China. He now, of course, is being considered for this other very important position for which I hope we can confirm him. The next after Mr. Roy is Thomas Simons, Jr., who is nominated by the President as the Ambassador to Pakistan. He is presently the Coordinator of U.S. Assistance for the New Independent States. His Foreign Service grade is career member of the Senior Foreign Service, a career diplomat, as many of these nominees are, and somebody who clearly has earned the respect and confidence of the President. Next is Frances Cook, who has been nominated by the President to be the Ambassador to Oman, presently the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs--again, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. Next is Richard Henry Jones, who has been nominated by the President as Ambassador to Lebanon. And again we have a person who at the present time serves as Director of the Office of Egyptian Affairs in the Department of State, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with a class of counsellor. Next is James Collins. Mr. Collins has been nominated by the President as Ambassador-at-Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for the New Independent States, and again a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the class of minister-counsellor, also a very distinguished career which I think well equips him for that position. Next is Charles Twining, who has been nominated by the President as Ambassador to the Republic of Cameroon, presently the Ambassador to Cambodia, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the class of minister-counsellor--again, a very distinguished public servant in our diplomatic corps. Next is James Joseph. The President has nominated James Joseph as Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa. He presently is the president of the Council on Foundations and has a very distinguished career in a great many different areas, but obviously has the President's confidence. Next is Joan Plaisted. Joan Plaisted is the President's nominee as Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, now presently serving as Director of the Office of Thailand and Burma Affairs in the Department of State, another career member in the Senior Foreign Service with the class of counsellor. Next is Don Gevirtz, who has been nominated as Ambassador to the Republic of Fiji, to the Republic of Nauru, to the Kingdom of Tonga and Tuvalu--again, a very distinguished individual whose present position is chairman of the board and chief executive officer the Foothill Group, Inc., in California. Next is our own former colleague, Senator Jim Sasser, who is presently an attorney here in the District of Columbia as well as in Nashville, TN, earlier this year was a fellow of Harvard University and is now, of course, the President's nominee as Ambassador to Beijing. And I think all of us who have served with him would agree that he will perform in an exemplary fashion in that position as he would in any position for which the President would nominate him. Next is David Rawson, whom the President has nominated as Ambassador to the Republic of Mali, presently the Ambassador to the Republic of Rwanda, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of counselor; again, a very distinguished career in our diplomatic service. Next is Robert Gribbon, who has been nominated by the President as Ambassador to the Republic of Rwanda. His present position is Ambassador to the Central African Republic, another career member of the Senior Foreign Service, with the class of counselor; a very distinguished career, formerly a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya. Finally, Gerald Wesley Scott, who has been nominated by the President as the Ambassador to the Republic of the Gambia. He is presently the Deputy Chief of Mission in Zaire and in the American Embassy in Kinshasa, Zaire, another career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the class of counselor. Mr. President, I have gone through this list and given a little information about each of these individuals just to make the point that this is not some kind of political effort on my part or on the President's part or anybody to get these people in these new positions. These people have devoted their careers, their entire professional lives, to serving this country in often very difficult circumstances. They have been chosen by the President to serve in these important positions, and we owe it to them as well as to those people we represent in our home States to get on with approving their nominations so that they can continue to represent this country in those important positions. That is the list of ambassadors that are presently being held up in the Foreign Relations Committee. I hope very much that we will be able to get an agreement here today, or very soon, to have all of those nominees reported to the Senate floor and have a vote on those nominees as well as on START II before we adjourn this session of the Congress. I think that would be a very major accomplishment and something that would allow us to feel we had done our duty under the Constitution, which I think is certainly what all of us are intending to do. So with that, Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I compliment the majority leader for the progress made. I am glad to hear all this. I was not aware of it. I do believe it is important we make that one additional phone call and get this nailed down. If I go ahead and say fine, proceed--quite frankly, I have been asking the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, about these matters for about 3 weeks now, and he has consistently, and in good faith, said we are just about to agree. We are very close. I know he is in good faith; I know the majority leader is in good faith; I certainly feel I am in good faith. But I do want to see us get the agreement entered before we proceed to consider this constitutional amendment. As I said, I have no objection to us voting on the constitutional amendment, but I would like to have that put off until we have agreement to vote on these other matters that are agreed to by all Senators. Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I certainly have no question about the majority leader's good intentions with regard to these matters. I think he has been trying to move ahead on them. But unfortunately, in order to get anything done around here, you need unanimous consent. We do not have that as yet. In fact, the ambassadorial nominations we have been discussing are still not out of committee, and the START II treaty is still not out of committee. They are not on the Senate Calendar. I feel if we could get a unanimous-consent agreement which provided for a vote prior to adjournment this fall of this session on the Ambassadors and also provide for a time and some limited amount of debate to get START II dealt with, I certainly would be willing to go with that. I think what we do need is an agreement that Senator Helms and all the others who are involved in this will agree to. I do not have any involvement in the negotiations that are taking place with the State Department reorganization or any of that. I do not have a dog in that fight, as the saying goes. I do want to see us deal with these particular matters I have identified here. I would like agreement among all Senators to do that. If we can get that unanimous- consent agreement, with Senator Helms agreeing to it, then obviously that would resolve my concerns.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, if I can respond to the majority leader's suggestion.

Mr. BINGAMAN

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

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Would the Senator from Alaska yield for a question?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank you and I thank the Senator from Hawaii for his constant courtesy and helpfulness to all of us here in the Senate. I also regret that I must rise in opposition to this conference report on the Defense appropriations bill. It is clear to me that the bill should be vetoed, and that the President is going to veto it. Let me quote from a letter that the President sent to Congressman Livingston dated October 18. It said: However, by appropriating $6.9 billion more than I requested, the conference report did not address my fundamental concerns about spending priorities. As the bill now goes back to conference following its defeat on the House floor, it is important that the conferees understand where I stand. Absent a broader agreement with Congress that adequately funds crucial domestic programs in other appropriations bills, I will veto any defense appropriation bill that adds extra billions for defense programs not in my request. [[Page S 17154]] Mr. President, the conferees did not address the President's fundamental concern about misplaced priorities in their second conference. And this conference report, like its predecessor, is full of unrequested, unneeded, and unsustainable add-ons. As for funding of crucial domestic programs in other appropriations bills, particularly the Labor, HHS, the VA-HUD and the Commerce, State, Justice bills, it is absolutely clear that we have made virtually no progress since the President wrote. The fiasco of closing down the Government has only widened the gulf between the majority party and the President on what our domestic priorities should be. Indeed, the majority party's interest in cutting programs for education, the environment, civilian research, heating assistance for low-income citizens, national service, Indian programs, and many others seems to grow as we proceed through this budget debate. I voted against the bill when the Senate passed it early in September. I thought it was worthy of a veto then. In my view, the conference has not improved it. In fact, it has made it worse. This bill has truly become a weapons-for-everybody bill. When it left the Senate, the bill was $6.45 billion above the President's request. It is now $6.9 billion above the President's request. But that figure alone understates the net addition because, according to press reports, the conference report that we are here considering takes back $1 billion that the National Reconnaissance Office, [NRO] had accumulated in unspent funds. That money was spent on unneeded, unrequested, unsustainable weapons that were not in the Senate version of the bill, just as the other $6.9 billion were. If you adjust for the NRO money, this bill is in fact about $8 billion above the President's request, not $7 billion. The conferees had enough money to buy ships, planes, trucks, helicopters of every description, some of which--like a $20 million Cyclone class patrol craft--were in neither bill prior to going to conference. The total add-on package is in the range of $10 billion. There are offsets in the range of $2 billion as well. The obvious question is what is it that justifies this extraordinary increase in defense spending, and I for one cannot point to a threat. We spend twice as much as all of our potential adversaries combined. If we put together the budgets--our budget with those of our NATO allies and Japan--we and our allies are outspending our potential foes by more than 3 to 1. Of course, it will be argued that much of the additional spending in this bill is somewhere in the Pentagon's budget for the next 6 years. That was the argument that was made for the $1.3 billion HLD-7 amphibious assault ship that the Senate debated when we passed the bill in August. The Navy planned to buy that ship in the year 2001. That will undoubtedly be the argument that is used to justify the $900 million LPD-17 amphibious transport dock which the House insisted on in conference. The Navy planned to buy that in 1998. Mr. President, this is really an extraordinary argument. Essentially those who make it are saying that they can pick and choose anything in the 6-year plan that the Department of Defense has that helps their State or district and that plan when you add it up totals about $1.6 trillion. Where else in our budgeting this year are we finding the ability to do that? The answer clearly is nowhere. Everywhere but in this case of the Pentagon we cannot find enough for this first year's budget, let alone find money to add $1 billion projects in the States or districts of powerful members of the Republican leadership. But worse are the programs that do not even fit in the 6-year plan. Some of these have huge budgetary implications. The B-2, which was not in the Senate bill, has an outyear requirement for tens of billions of dollars. National missile defense, which my colleague from North Dakota spoke about, will require tens of billions of additional dollars not in the 6-year plan. There is certainly no money in future year budgets for the Hellfire-2 and the CBU-87 antiarmor munitions. The Pentagon's own inspector general told Congress that we already had enough of these munitions to cover every target in a 2 major regional contingency scenario, and yet the Senate voted to continue to buy these unneeded weapons, and the conferees agreed to spend tens of billions of dollars on them as well. There certainly is no money in the 6-year plan for most, if not all, of the member interest add-ons in the research and development budget, which always seems to have an outyear requirement that goes on and on. I have in mind items that the Senator from Arizona has on his earmark list, like the curved plate technology program, the Center for Astronomical Adaptive Optics--which presumably should be funded by the National Science Foundation's astronomy program, if at all--the Pacific Software Research Center. There are many others. It is frankly disconcerting to me that the Technology Reinvestment Project, which is a competitive and a cost shared program, was cut by $305 million while noncompetitive, noncost share programs like those I referred to flourish in these supposedly austere budget times. Obviously, austerity stops at the door of the Pentagon as far as this bill is concerned. Mr. President, we cannot afford these add-ons even under the Republican budget. There is no money in the outyears to sustain the programs. As Congressman Obey has repeatedly pointed out, the Republican defense budget over the 5-year period from fiscal year 1998 to 2002 is less than the President's. Let me repeat that. The Republican defense budget for fiscal years 1998 to 2002 is less than what the President has asked for. According to an article from the November 6 issue of Aviation Week, the Republican majority is considering reducing the net 7-year addition to the defense budget from $20 to $8 billion in the final negotiations over the budget with the President, whenever that negotiation occurs. I ask unanimous consent that that article from Aviation Week be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, whatever figure emerges, this bill is inconsistent with it. This bill assumes future Congresses are going to spend tens of billions of dollars more for defense than the Republican budget resolution allows. The Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year made clear in its report that it had not designed the authorization bill to be consistent with the realities of the out-year Republican defense budget totals. The committee said on page 3 of its report: The Committee remains concerned about the adequacy of funding levels for national defense programs in coming years. * * * Budget levels proposed for future years do not adequately fund even the level of forces required for the Bottom-Up Review Force. * * * The limited progress reflected in this bill cannot be maintained unless future funding is increased. Mr. President, increasing defense spending above the June budget resolution is not even on the table. Nor should it be. I hear no one in the Republican leadership saying they want to increase defense spending even more. Despite the rhetoric in last year's campaign about the President not spending enough on defense, the fact is all the 7-year Republican defense budget does in its current form is provide a 2-year infusion of pork this year and next followed by 5 years in which Republicans are saying that the President is being a tad too generous to defense. Mr. President, I say we should forgo the pork this year and next. Let us put this money to better use in the domestic appropriations bill, particularly Labor-HHS, VA-HUD, and Commerce- State-Justice, all of which require additional funds to sustain critical programs. I suspect that by the end of this year's budget process, at least some of the unneeded, unrequested, and unsustainable projects will be stripped from this bill. Mr. President, there are several other provisions which concern me in this bill. When the Senate debated this bill in August, the senior Senator from Arkansas, Senator Bumpers, offered an amendment to trim the defense export loan guarantee authority in this bill from $15 to $10 billion. The vote to table that amendment was 53 to 47. Yet the conferees came back with $15 billion in loan guarantees for defense exports, to the extent they are authorized. Unfortunately, a loan guarantee [[Page S 17155]] provision is included in both the House and Senate versions of the authorization bill. So if there is an authorization bill, this appropriations bill will put the taxpayers at risk to the tune of $15 billion for defaults on payments for defense exports. Mr. President, when Senator Kempthorne started working on this issue a couple of years ago, he sought authority for a trial program to guarantee about $1 billion in defense exports to a limited number of countries. At that time, it was a subsidized guarantee. Now it is supposed to be paid for by the defense industry itself. But we have moved in 2 short years from a $1 billion trial program to a full-blown $15 billion program of defense export guarantees. Mr. President, we should not be attempting to prop up our defense industry by turning it into the arms merchant for the world. It is our own troops who will too often be facing off against these weapons. Instead, we should be taking the lead in trying to negotiate arms transfer restraints. There is a historic opportunity with the end of the cold war and with nations across the globe attempting to free up funds for economic development and useful infrastructure to scale back regional arms races. This loan guarantee provision is just bad public policy and I regret it was not at least scaled back by the conferees after the close vote on the Bumpers amendment. Mr. President, I also regret the cuts made in this bill to the technology reinvestment project and SEMATECH. The $305 million cut in the technology reinvestment project and the $50.5 million cut to SEMATECH in the last year that it was seeking Federal funds, send precisely the wrong signal to the Pentagon's research bureaucracy. The signal is that rather than leveraging the commercial sector in innovative ways to save the taxpayers' money in developing and procuring dual-use technologies, it is OK to hunker down and pursue duplicative, ultimately dead-end research with a military label on it. In fact, not only is it OK, but it is the preferred approach of the congressional majority. This is again bad public policy which the Pentagon cannot afford to pursue at a time of limited resources and which will come back to haunt us in the next century if it is not soon reversed. Mr. President, I could go on and on and cite additional problems with this bill. I think the point is well made. And I will not delay the Senate further in discussing the details of the conference report. I urge my colleagues to vote against the bill. I urge the President to carry out his threat to veto the bill. It reflects a set of priorities with which I for one do not want to associate myself at a time when we are doing so much damage to many vital domestic programs. Mr. President, as stated by the Senator from North Dakota, this bill does make a mockery of all the speeches that I have been hearing here on the Senate floor about deficit reduction, about the need to balance the budget, about the need the tighten our belts. The Congress can and must do better than to ratify the misplaced priorities reflected in this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the letter to Mr. Livingston printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, it is with pleasure that I ask the Senate to recognize Manuel T. Sanchez for his service to my home State of New Mexico. Manuel has distinguished himself as a successful family man, businessperson, and community leader. He was born on November 15, 1901 in Las Vegas, NM, 11 years before New Mexico was admitted into the Union. Needless to say, Manuel has witnessed New Mexico flourish and change during his lifetime. In the early 1920's, Manuel and his family moved to a section of Albuquerque known as Martineztown. There they started a grocery store to serve the community. This store is still in operation today and it still serves as an unofficial meeting place for social and political gatherings. In 1933, Manuel was elected Democratic ward chairman of Ward 11 B. During those early years he worked closely with my uncle John Bingaman in helping Governor Tingley succeed in his campaigns. For over 60 years, he has continued to serve in this capacity as ward chair. His success is a result of his dedication to the work ethic and in the belief that a person's word is as good as a written contract. It would have been impossible for Manuel to represent his community as Democratic ward chairman for such an extended period of time if people did not put trust in his word. Although much about New Mexico has changed since Manuel's childhood years, one characteristic that has not changed is a strong sense of community. He is very central to that feeling in Martineztown. Whether in the grocery store or at the Barelas Cafe eating some combination of green chile, I believe he deserves recognition and our thanks for his service to the community over the years. It is with this thought that I wish Manuel many more years of health and happiness on this his 94th birthday.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to proceed for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I wanted to call to the attention of the Senate today the release of the fifth annual national education goals report, which was released earlier this morning by a group, a bipartisan group of Governors, myself, and several State legislators who are members of this national education goals panel. The panel is presently chaired by Governor Bayh of Indiana, and soon it will be chaired by Governor Engler of Michigan. Governor Engler was there this morning, as were Gov. Christine Todd Whitman from New Jersey and Governor Romer from Colorado, who was the first chairman of this panel, and various others of us. I wanted to just briefly summarize what was found in that national education goals panel report, because I do think it is important. This is the midpoint between 1990 and the turn of the century. As people will recall, in 1989, President Bush met with 50 Governors in Charlottesville, VA, to set out national education goals for the country to pursue between the year 1989 and the year 2000. Those goals were agreed upon. I think they are good goals for the country. And we began the process. Part of what was agreed to there was that we not only had to have goals, but also had to have some standards, and we had to have a way of assessing progress, to determine whether or not the country was moving in the right direction or moving in the wrong direction. The report today says that we are moving in the right direction but at a very, very slow pace. In some States the pace is very much slower than in others. It also makes the point, strongly, that we do not have enough data to understand what is happening to the extent we would like to. There is good news in the report. There is also bad news in the report. Let me just summarize a little bit of the good news first. The report shows that during the period 1990 through 1992, and unfortunately we only have statistics now through 1992, but during that period math achievement at grades 4 and 8 in the United States did improve. It went up fairly significantly, I would point out. It did not do near as well in some States as it did in others. Where the national average went from 20 to 25 percent, that is 25 percent of the students who were tested measured up as being proficient in math in the eighth grade in 1992, in my home State of New Mexico, unfortunately, the figure was 14 percent. So we have a ways to go, not just in my State but throughout the country. The same basic questions and same basic testing and proficiency measurements were used internationally as well as in this country. Where we have set a goal, and the President and Governors set a goal of being first in the world in math and science achievement by the year 2000, this set of statistics we released today shows that in fact we are substantially behind Taiwan, which is at 41 percent on this same graph. So [[Page S 16855]] though there is progress to report, it is not enough progress. Another item of progress that should be noted is that students took more of the challenging advanced placement tests in basic academic subjects--in English and math and science and history. That also is good news. We also are able to report that, among adults, more adults took adult education classes throughout this country in 1992. A significantly larger number took adult education classes than they did in 1990. Again, that is good information and good news. The bad news, unfortunately, is in the report as well. That is what the report's purpose is. It is to point out where we are making progress and where we are not. Unfortunately, high school graduation rates have remained at about 86 percent. That is not a change. That is not improvement. We need to make improvement in that area. Reading achievement at grades 4 and 8 have remained about the same. Again, that is not good news. There is a large gap that continues, between minority and white students as far as college enrollment and completion of college. Again, that large gap is not good news. In my home State of New Mexico, as I indicated, we have not done as well as the national average in some important respects, particularly in the math criteria, but also in the reading. I think other States can also learn from this data that was released today, where they need to make progress. The bottom line is that the work of improving educational performance in this country needs to continue. We are part way through the 10 years. We are not all the way. We have a great distance to go. I would point out one important fact. That is, the greatest progress that is shown in all of this data is in the area of math achievement, and that is the only area where we have general agreement on the standards that we are striving to achieve. The credit for that goes to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. They came up with their own set of standards, which they have promulgated throughout the country and urged math teachers to adopt. Many teachers have. Many school districts have. Many States have. And I think progress in math performance is improving. Performance in math is improving to a significant extent because we have focused on that area and we have concentrated on how to, in fact, define what we want to accomplish and go about accomplishing it. So I wanted to make the point that this effort continues. It is a bipartisan effort. I think it is a very important effort. I know we get caught up in all kinds of political battles here in the Congress. In my opinion, this is one subject and one issue that ought to be above politics. Both Democrats and Republicans should, I believe, renew our commitment to improving education in this country. I think the Congress has a role in that, which of course we have debated. The States have the primary responsibility. I do not think anybody would argue with that. Of course, local school districts, local schools, teachers, principals, parents and students have the ultimate responsibility. I appreciate the chance to bring these issues to the attention of my colleagues and I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I wish to speak for a few moments on another matter. This is a subject of profound importance that the Senate is not dealing with at the moment, and that is providing our advice and consent to ratification of the START II Treaty. The START II Treaty is one that was negotiated and signed during the Bush administration. It is so clearly in our national interest to proceed with that treaty that I have heard literally no dissent on that subject. Yet, it remains bottled up in the Foreign Relations Committee, apparently, as a hostage in a dispute over whether the chairman of the committee will get his way in the consolidation of our foreign affairs agencies. In my view, this is profoundly wrong. Getting rid of several thousand nuclear weapons in Russia is so clearly in our national interest that it is, to me, tragic that the treaty is caught up in the sort of brinkmanship that has come to characterize the new congressional majority's approach to legislating. If it is not the daily public threat to refuse to raise the debt limit, it is the quiet threat we hear to torpedo the SALT II Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Let me read into the Record some statements made by various people-- most of who happen to be Republican--in favor of the START II Treaty. President George Bush: ``The START II Treaty is clearly in the interest of the United States and represents a watershed in our efforts to stabilize the nuclear balance and further reduce strategic defensive arms.'' Senator Helms, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee: I a m persuaded that the 3,000 to 3,500 nuclear weapons allowed Russia and the United States in this START treaty does not meet reasonable standards of safety. He made that statement on February 3 of this year. The Heritage Foundation, in the briefing book that they prepared for new Members of this Congress: ``The START II Treaty will serve U.S. interests and should be approved for ratification.'' The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell: ``With a U.S. force structure of about 3,500 nuclear weapons, we have the capability to deter any actor in the other capital no matter what he has at his disposal.'' The present Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili, said: ``I strongly urge prompt Senate advice and consent on the ratification of START II.'' Senator Richard Lugar of this body said: ``If new unfriendly regimes come to power, we want those regimes to be legally obligated to observe START limits.'' Senator McCain said: ``With the conclusion of the START II, the threat of nuclear war has been greatly reduced, and our relationship with the former Soviet Union established on a more secure basis.'' Mr. President, let me also read into the Record a statement made by the President's press secretary on October 20, in response to yet another postponement of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee business meeting on this issue. This is headlined, ``The White House Office of the Press Secretary.'' It says: The President expressed concern today about the postponement of yesterday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee business meeting. He urged the Senate to completes its consideration of both the START II Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention and to provide its advice and consent to their ratification as soon as possible. I ask unanimous consent that the full statement be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise this morning to call the Senate's attention to a report that was released yesterday by the Council of Economic Advisors. The report is entitled, ``Supporting Research and Development to Promote Economic Growth: The Federal Government's Role.'' This report eloquently makes the case for the enormous positive impact which Federal investments and research and development have in promoting economic growth and providing greater opportunities for our children and for future generations. Most of the debate we have had, Mr. President, about this budget this year has focused on whether particular cuts or reductions or particular tax increases have been fair to one group or another in our country. For example, are the Medicaid cuts too deep? Are the Medicare cuts too deep? Should we be putting an additional financial burden on students in schools? Should Congress be scaling back the earned-income tax credit on low- and moderate-income families while cutting taxes for those who are better off? But another important part of the debate, the budget debate, needs to be about the impact of what is proposed in this budget on the long-term economic growth of the country. And that is the issue that I would like to focus on here this morning. The report that was released yesterday by the Council of Economic Advisors makes several crucial points that the congressional majority needs to understand as it embarks on what I see as a disastrous course of slashing Federal civilian research investments by the year 2002. Let me just read a couple sentences from the report. It says: Increasing the productivity of the American workforce is the key to higher living standards and stronger economic growth in the future. Evidence indicates that investments in research and development have large payoffs in terms of growth. . . . Indeed, investments in--research and development--are estimated to account for half or more of the increase in output per person. Maintaining or increasing this country's research and development effort is essential if we are to increase the rate of productivity growth and improve American living standards. The report finds that ``many studies have demonstrated that investments in research and development yield high returns to investors and even higher returns to society.'' The report points out that it is this difference between the returns capturable by a single firm or an individual and the returns to the society as a whole that leads the private sector to underinvest in research and creates the need for public investment in research and development. Mr. President, this is a need that has been recognized throughout this Nation's history, going back to the first Treasury Secretary of this country, Alexander Hamilton. The report points to the $30,000 that was appropriated in 1842 to build a telegraph between Washington, DC, and Baltimore, to demonstrate the feasibility of Samuel Morse's new technology. It points to the 1862 Morrill Act, and that is an act, of course, that has benefited each of our States--Government funding of agricultural research. It points to the enormous benefits that have flowed from the expansion of Federal research investments following World War II pursuant to the vision that Vannevar Bush described in his report ``Science: The Endless Frontier,'' which was submitted to President Truman in June 1945 at the end of the war. Yet, there are some very disturbing charts in this report. The first of these charts I want to refer my colleagues to is a chart of nondefense research and development expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product. What you can see here is that the United States has been lagging behind Japan and Germany in its nondefense research expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product for more than two decades. The yellow line is the United States. Japan is now substantially above both the United States and Germany in its investment in research and development, nondefense research and development, as a percentage of its gross domestic product. This second chart indicates Federal investments, U.S. investments in nondefense research and development and shows very clearly that they have been declining substantially since the 1960's as a percentage of gross domestic product. You can see from the period 1961 to 1996, there was a short period there in the early sixties where there was a substantial increase during the heyday of the space program. It began to come down. It has continued its downward trend, as a general matter, until today, and it is scheduled in this proposed GOP budget for a substantial additional decline in the next several years. That Federal research investment, as this chart shows, will plummet during the next several years. As the report that was issued yesterday points out, this is a greatly different plan of action from what governments in other parts of the world are doing, particularly Japan and Germany, who are our main rivals economically and technologically. Those countries around the world are seeking to follow the example of the United States, to emulate the successful American model of the last century, just at the same time that we, as a nation, seem bent on abandoning that model or wrecking it. The Council of Economic Advisers' report points out that the Japanese Government recently announced its plans to double its research and development spending by the year 2000. We have a chart here that I think is a very important chart for people to focus on. This highlights the effect of our congressional budget plan and the effect of the Japanese plan. What you can see is that by the year 1997, Japan will overtake the United States in Government support for nondefense research and development, and that is not as a percentage of our gross domestic product, that is in absolute dollars. You can see that by 1997, the Japanese will be spending more than we will if we stay on the course that has been [[Page S 16563]] laid out in this budget resolution. Obviously, this gets even worse in the years ahead, as you go to the year 2000. The Council of Economic Advisers' report also points out that there is no basis in historical data to believe that cuts in Federal research and development spending will be compensated for through additional private sector investments. I think this is a very important point, Mr. President. This next chart, which I really do commend to everybody because I think it has a very important message about how history works, it makes it very clear that there is a correlation between changes in Federal research and development expenditures and changes in private sector research and development expenditures 1 year later. The private sector follows the Federal Government lead in investing in research and development. The report concludes the correlation means that if Federal research and development support is cut, the Nation is likely to lose future rewards not only from the federally supported research and development that will not be undertaken, but also from the industrial research and development that will not be undertaken as the private sector scales back in response to Federal cuts. Stated very simply, when the Federal Government spends more on research and development, the private sector follows its lead. When the Federal Government spends less on research and development, the private sector follows its lead and spends less. Mr. President, this is a horrible position for our country to place itself in as we approach the beginning of the 21st century. These cuts in Federal civilian research and development are not just theoretical numbers out there. These are cuts that are being made in many of the appropriations bills that we are passing on the floor of this Senate. The energy and water appropriations bill, which we passed on Tuesday, cuts civilian energy research by 17 percent, $637 million. That was 17 percent from the President's request and it was cut 13 percent, or $462 million, from the last year's level of funding. Some research and development activity, such as solar and renewable energy research and development, were cut an even larger percentage, 35 percent, in that particular bill. The same is true in the transportation appropriations bill that we passed on Tuesday. The conference report cut the Transportation Department's R&D budget request by 30 percent from the President's level of request and by 8 percent from last year's level. In these two bills alone, civilian research and development is cut by almost $1 billion from the President's request, by over $500,000 from the fiscal year 1995 level. Far deeper cuts are coming in the Commerce, State, Justice appropriations bill, in the VA-HUD appropriations bill and in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. This is not what we should be doing to our country as we approach the 21st century. If we do not change from this path, I believe that we will condemn future generations and our own children to a less prosperous and less productive America. I urge my colleagues to read the Council of Economic Advisers' report and think about the consequences, the long-term consequences, of eating the seed corn of our future prosperity. I urge my colleagues to think about the consequences of falling behind other industrialized nations in research and development and ultimately in productivity and standard of living. There is a clear and a constructive role for the Federal Government in investing in research. It has been carried out since the beginning of our Republic and, on a very large scale, it has been carried out since the Second World War. It has served our Nation well. It should not be lightly discarded as a collateral casualty of the effort to balance the budget.