Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I stand before you today to pay tribute to a truly outstanding University in my home State of Missouri, Lincoln University. Lincoln has played a large role in African American education in my home State of Missouri, as well as across the nation. Lincoln was founded in 1866 by the Caucasian officers and the African American enlisted men of the 62nd and 65th United States Colored Infantries who fought for the Union during the Civil War. These men wanted to establish a school that would devote itself to educating freed African Americans. By soliciting funds and donating their own salaries, they raised $6,000 within a few days. With these funds, the soldiers were able to open the doors of Lincoln Institute on September 17, 1866. In 1869, Lincoln began to receive $5,000 in aid from the State of Missouri for teacher training. By 1940, Lincoln Institute had become Lincoln University and had evolved from a teacher training school to a full University offering Graduate instruction. In each of the decades Lincoln has continually added programs, expanded its facilities and opened its doors to all applicants that meet its entrance criteria. This past year the University has come under the new leadership of Dr. David Henson. Dr. Henson became the seventeenth President of Lincoln on July 2, 1997. I am excited about continuing my close relationship with this outstanding University by working with Dr. Henson. He has held many leadership positions during his 25 years of higher education and I know he will continue to strengthen the University's already impeccable reputation. It is an honor for the entire State of Missouri to have a University like Lincoln, whose service and character-building programs, along with the new guidance of Dr. Henson, will continue down the road of success. I commend Lincoln's President, Dr. David Henson, for his commitment to excellence and hope for continued prosperity in the future.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Small Business will hold a hearing entitled ``The President's Fiscal Year 1999 Budget Request for the Small Business Administration--Part II.'' The hearing will be held on Thursday, April 2, 1998, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in room 428A of the Russell Senate Office Building. The hearing will be broadcast live on the Internet from our homepage address: http://www.senate.gov/sbc For further information, please contact Paul Cooksey at 224-5175.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, yesterday, the Senate approved an amendment to S. 1768 that would provide $260 million for emergency Community Development Block Grant funding for disaster relief, long-term recovery, and mitigation in communities affected by Presidentially- declared disasters in FY 1998. This funding is designed to complement the funding currently provided through the traditional emergency disaster programs under the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Small Business Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers. Contrary to the apparent belief or desire of some Members and constituents, CDBG funding is not intended or designed to be the primary source of federal funding for natural disasters. In particular, the emergency CDBG program has become a catch-all program and a slush fund for natural disasters that is seen by some as an entitlement. This is wrong. We need to change how we view and respond to disasters--we need to develop policies that are based on state/federal partnerships and are designed to prevent and prepare for disasters. I say this because it is good policy, but also because we cannot keep dipping into the different funds which support the many important programs under the VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee. For example, over the last 3 and one-half years, the Congress has offset the cost of emergencies out of HUD section 8 housing assistance at a cost of some $10 billion. Last year alone, the Congress used $3.6 billion in excess section 8 reserves to pay for disaster relief. Well, the bill has come due. For this year, all available section 8 reserve funds are already committed as part of the FY 1999 Budget to renew expiring section 8 housing contracts. Without these funds, many elderly and disabled persons and families will be without housing. In addition, natural disasters are not going to go away and the cost of disasters likely will continue to escalate. In the last 5 years, we have appropriated a staggering $18 billion to FEMA for disaster relief, compared to $6.7 billion in the prior 5-year period. As I have already noted, I have many concerns about using CDBG funds for emergency disaster purposes, especially since the Department of Housing and Urban Development has failed to provide adequate data and accountability concerning the use of these emergency CDBG funds in the past. Nevertheless, while I continue to have reservations, the emergency CDBG legislation in the emergency supplement is intended to ensure that emergency CDBG funds are used appropriately and where needed. In particular, this legislation is designed to ensure that the funds go to disaster relief activities that are identified by the Director of FEMA as unmet needs that have not or will not be addressed by other federal disaster assistance programs. In addition, to ensure accountability, states must provide a 25 percent match for these emergency CDBG funds and HUD must publish a notice of program requirements and provide an accounting of the CDBG funds by the type of activity, the amount of funding, an identification of the ultimate recipient, and the use of any waivers. I also want to make it clear that I intend to monitor fully the use of these emergency CDBG funds. I expect these emergency CDBG funds to be used fairly, equitably and to the benefit of the American taxpayer, especially, as required by the CDBG program, to the benefit of low- and moderate-income Americans. I also want to make clear that these emergency CDBG funds are not intended as a substitute for the state/local cost-share for dams and levees. The purposes of a state/local cost-share are to ensure accountability, local investment and to underline the importance of the federal/state partnership. Using CDBG funds as a state/local cost share in levee and dam projects defeats these purposes and undermines state and local responsibility. As a result, the VA/HUD FY 1998 appropriations bill limited the amount of CDBG funds to $100,000 for the state/local cost-share of the Corps of Engineers projects, including levees. That standard still applies.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I thank the Chair. I look forward to debating at the appropriate time these two very important amendments which provide roughly $1.86 billion for emergency relief. I hope that we will be able to deal with those amendments this afternoon. I thank the Chair, and I thank the chairman of the committee. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and I thank the distinguished chairman of the committee. I have two very important amendments that really deal with the substance of disaster relief, particularly, in fact, not only New York and the New England States, but the Southeastern States and the Western States. There was a request--I repeat it--that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, concerning community development block grant programs, on behalf of myself, Senators Mikulski, Stevens, Snowe, Collins, D'Amato, Jeffords, Leahy, Mack, Graham of Florida, and Boxer, I send the amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask that this amendment be temporarily set aside.

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

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I now ask that the amendments be temporarily set aside.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I seek recognition to offer two amendments. I would be happy to defer to the distinguished chairman of the committee. Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I now send an amendment to the desk relating to the Federal Emergency Management Agency on behalf of myself and Senator Mikulski.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I thank Senator D'Amato, the chairman of the Ranking Committee which has jurisdiction over the Community Development Block Grant Program for his kind words. It was a pleasure to work with you to ensure that the Supplemental Emergency Appropriations Act contains sufficient funding to help impacted areas recover from natural disasters. Specifically, I commend the Senator from New York for his diligence in ensuring that the full scope of the impact of the ice storm in the Northeast was made known to the Appropriations Committee. Without his efforts, and those of his colleagues, many of the needs of the people of New York and the entire Northeast region might not have been fully addressed. Given the circumstances which have been brought to our attention, the committee believes the additional $60 million is fully justified and will help the residents of the area recover from the ravages of the ice storm.

Mr. BOND. I thank the chairman. Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. That is correct. The amendment would appropriate an additional $1.6 billion for FEMA.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, while I appreciate the concerns of the Senator from Oklahoma, let me clarify one point that I think may be somewhat confusing. The funding in this amendment is to reimburse FEMA and to cover costs for disasters occurring in this and prior fiscal years, not in future fiscal years. It would simply allow us to begin fiscal year 1999 without an enormous, outstanding disaster relief requirement. In particular, this $1.6 billion appropriation includes funds to cover the costs of disasters anticipated to occur in the balance of fiscal year 1998. This amendment is not about advance funding, but is intended to provide the necessary funding only for disaster relief requirements for fiscal year 1998 and prior years. The Senator from Oklahoma has expressed his concern about the cost of disaster relief. No one has been more concerned about the cost of disaster relief than I. In our subcommittee, we have held a number of hearings focused almost solely on FEMA reform and the exploding costs of disaster relief. In response to these hearings, we demanded that the administration and FEMA submit a responsible package of Stafford Act amendments. While FEMA has provided a package of FEMA reform amendments, these are a difficult sell, although we remain hopeful that the authorizing committees will work to implement these and other reforms. I have been joined by my distinguished colleague and ranking member from Maryland, who had the great privilege and high honor of chairing this subcommittee previously and has been an absolutely essential part of the committee deliberations. I will ask her in just a moment to address some of these. I emphasize that we need to amend the Stafford Act. We also need administrative changes. Nevertheless, at the same time, these FEMA funds of $1.6 billion are needed now to meet current FEMA requirements. This appropriation is needed to ensure that we have adequate funding for disaster relief. Nevertheless, there are a number of us who are very much concerned about the cost of disaster relief. Each year, we see the costs of disaster relief rising exponentially. The need for cost containment is paramount. For example, in the last 5 years, we have appropriated a staggering $18 billion to FEMA for disaster relief, compared to $6.7 billion in the prior 5-year period. While I know we have had some major disasters in the last 5 years, we also had significant disasters in the previous 5 years. The costs are clearly out of control. As I have noted, for several years, I requested that FEMA submit a legislative plan to control disaster costs. After cajoling and arm twisting, threats of reduced funding, FEMA finally submitted a proposal for reforming the Stafford Act last summer. The proposed amendments address several very important areas, including new incentives for mitigation, streamlining the grant process, and eliminating certain facilities currently eligible for disaster relief, such as golf courses. This is how we must address the cost of disaster relief. It is far better for authorizing legislation to say what we are going to replace and for what we are going to provide assistance. It is very difficult to address disaster relief issues after the fact when people come to the floor and there is a great outpouring of sympathy. I have been here, I have done that, I have seen it. We have a T-shirt with it emblazoned on it. Once there is a disaster, people come in and they have all of these needs for disaster assistance. And I might say that this body has been extremely generous and, in some ways, we have opened the floodgates. Well, we are not talking with this amendment about what we would do in the future. We are talking about requirements that have already occurred. I strongly agree that in the future we should limit disaster aid to those truly in need, to people, to entities, to communities that cannot protect themselves against disaster. If they are a profitmaking business, if they are a revenue-generating business, then let them purchase insurance, let them take care of their needs in advance. We need to come in and help those who truly cannot help themselves. However, until we do that, we have to do something to fund and to provide the resources for the commitments already made. If the Nickles amendment succeeds or if this amendment is not adopted, we are going to be facing in the VA-HUD Subcommittee a $4 billion lien against the bill. And there will be some very untenable choices. We are the ones, Senator Mikulski and I, who have to take the first cut at funding the programs in the VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee. To be clear, without this amendment, it will be very difficult for us to even meet the President's request for Veterans Administration medical care, which is $40 million less than the fiscal year 1998 level. We would be shorting veterans medical care which is not acceptable. In addition, we would be forced to make drastic cuts to low-income housing, including elderly housing, EPA, and Superfund, as well as important space and science programs. I can tell you that this will not be pretty. I can tell you that the disasters have occurred and that commitments have been made. The question is, will we, in this measure, replenish those funds and carry through on the obligations FEMA has made for this year? As we look to the future, I would love to see us get disaster relief under control with an appropriate authorizing reform measure and also adjust the budget for regular and timely disaster appropriations. Disaster relief needs are running over $3 billion a year--to some $3.6 billion a year. If we are serious about meeting FEMA disaster requirements in the future, I would love to see the budget take account of the needed $3.6 billion worth of FEMA disaster relief requirements each year. We are not there yet, but I am committed to getting FEMA disaster relief and disaster relief requirements under control. Mr. President, I see my distinguished colleague on the floor. I yield the floor. Ms. MIKULSKI addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, let me get in on this very elucidating discussion my colleagues are having. It seems to me that if the emergency designation was taken off the FEMA amendment without offsets, I believe this bill would be subject to a point of order. In particular, we would have to come up with offsets of $1.6 billion in budget authority for the current year. Plus, we also would have to offset the outlays. If you are trying to take $1.6 billion in budget authority out of a program 7 months into the year, the impact on any one program would be devastating and, in many cases, would defund the program. If there are programs with such offsets which my colleague can identify where there is totally wasteful spending, we would be happy to discuss those offsets. Frankly, I don't know of any program from which we could take $1.6 billion in budget authority out of this year's appropriations in the current fiscal year 1998. I agree with many of the things the Senator from Oklahoma has said. He is very eloquent. I look forward to going into battle with him to trim down and to rationalize the emergency funding process. We need a champion like the Senator from Oklahoma. I really appreciate him reading the plaintive words we put in the committee report. I did not think anybody read committee reports. I am deeply indebted to my colleague for laying them out for the Senate, because nobody would have believed me if I had read them. But this process of putting money into CDBG has gotten out of control. Frankly, what we said in the committee hearings was far stronger than what I said in that committee report. The $500 million we appropriated for the CDBG emergency program in FY 1997 was more than I recommended. This was for the disastrous flooding in the Upper Midwest. I thought CDBG emergency funding was out of control, and, frankly, nobody has yet been able to tell us where the money has been spent. I wish that everybody who so strongly supported and steamrolled the passage of that emergency designation and that emergency CDBG funding would come and help us look through the debris of the accounting systems and find out where the money went. But that does not change the fact that we have, in this measure, tried to establish for emergency CDBG funding some criteria and some guidelines to make sure that the money is not totally wasted. We say the money has to go to disaster relief activities identified by the Director of FEMA as unmet needs that have not or will not be addressed by other Federal disaster assistance programs. To ensure accountability, States must provide a 25 percent match for these emergency funds and HUD must publish a notice of program requirements and provide an accounting of the CDBG funds by the type of activity, by the amount of funding, and a listing of each recipient. That is our effort to get a handle on these things. The Senator from Oklahoma has identified a much larger problem. We need to get a handle on our disaster program. We have attempted to establish reforms. I lost out. I was steamrolled last year, and I am sure someday we will find out where the money went. But in response to emergencies, we come through again and again and we are very generous. For example, in July of 1995, we put in $39 million in CDBG funds for the Oklahoma City bombing, which was a real disaster. That was put in as an emergency and it was offset. Now, the problem of offsets is a problem that we have faced every year. Over the last 3 and a half years, we have offset the cost of emergencies out of HUD section 8 housing reserves at a cost of some $10 billion. Last year alone, Congress used $3.6 billion in excess section 8 reserves to pay for disaster relief. Madam President, the well has run dry. We are at the bottom. If you want to start throwing people out of publicly assisted housing and say that rather than designate the FEMA amendment as an emergency, we are going to walk down the street and tell a sweet little lady in section 8 housing that we need to balance the budget, that we are sorry, but your section 8 assistance is no longer valid and you have no housing--well, that is harsh and not acceptable. However, these are the kinds of decisions we have to make. Nevertheless, I am delighted to know that we will be working with the Senator from Oklahoma in an attempt to reform FEMA programs and get FEMA expenses under control. I urge my colleagues to support a motion, which I must regrettably make, to table the second-degree amendment. I certainly want to give my colleague the opportunity to conclude, and the Senator from Maryland, if she wishes. Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. That would certainly expedite matters and allow us to express ourselves. There will not be an effort to change that. So this will be on the second-degree amendment to FEMA. Madam President, I move to table and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I was preparing to move to table. But I wondered whether my colleague was going to offer a similar amendment to take the emergency designation off of the CDBG, and if he wanted to have one vote serve for two----

Mr. BOND. The request for emergency CDBG funds came from our colleagues. If you wish to have all of them speak to you personally, I would be happy to direct them to you. I can assure you that the $260 million in emergency CDBG funding is significantly less than has been requested by our colleagues in this body.

Mr. BOND. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, NATO has been the keystone for Western Democracy for the past 50 years. It has stood solidly as a successful deterrent against the spread of Communism and as a community of democracies where markets have flourished and where differences are settled without drawing a sword against one another. NATO's key alliance was based upon a mutual pact of deterrence from external threats . . . and lets be honest--it was and I stress was, an alignment to offset the voracious behemoth called the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is dead. We need to keep it so. Expansion of NATO to include nations who have struggled to extricate themselves from years of slavery under the yoke of Leninist/Stalinist dictatorial regimes will insure the eternal demise of a world-communist conspiracy. NATO was a major contributor to the successful end of the Cold War and was in fact responsible for a 50 year period of peaceful coexistence in Western Europe; the longest such period in modern history. In order to continue to fulfill its purpose of ensuring peace and freedom, NATO needs to adapt to a new Europe, a Europe without a Soviet-alliance but a Europe which faces a myriad of other challenges. As our country adapts to a changing world situation, a world without a Cold War, so must our alliances. NATO must change or become a mere relic of the Cold War. Those who advocate the status quo ask us to live in a non-existent past. To those who claim that the expansion of NATO will be a threat to the Russian people, I note that the 50 years of relative peace on the European continent extended to the Russian border, as well. Stability in the region has been and will be stability for the Russians. NATO poses no offensive threat to any other nation. It is a gathering of countries who want to break the cycle of war. For those who are afraid of Russians who threaten their neighbors because these nations desire peaceful alliances, I say, ``Do not bow to the will of a few radical extremists; stand up for those who strive to join a community of free and democratic nations who are our neighbors. Do not let the Russians run our foreign policy.'' For those who say that the nations of Central Europe face no threat today, I say that this expansion is the most likely way to preserve this situation. For those who claim that this will dilute NATO, I say that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, whose people have demonstrated their embrace of democracy, will add a renewed strength of purpose to the alliance. Yes, there are questions which must be answered concerning the costs to the United States of this expansion. I have stated time and again that the costs must be defined and we will hold NATO to those numbers. Our coffers are not limitless. But any costs which insures peace and stability will be less than the costs of the anarchy and chaos of medieval conflicts or a resumption of the Cold War. To have set a list of conditions for admittance to the organization, and then to change our minds to those countries which have achieved those conditions is isolationist, elitist and shortsighted. It could drive them to make other alliances for their own collective protection and rather than resulting in a series of treaties the likes of which have fostered the most fruitful 50 years in history, we will set the stage for a complicated entanglement of alliances which will look curiously like those which precipitated World War One. We do not need to learn that lesson all over again. I am very comfortable in joining the company of such individuals as General Collin Powell, General Norman Swartzkopf, Former Sec Def Richard Cheney, Former Secretaries Baker, Eagleburger, Haig, former Ambassador Kirkpatrick, and a host of other Secretaries, Generals, Admirals and other distinguished personages. So, I call upon my colleagues to support an expansion of freedom, democracy and peace vote to support including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in the NATO family of nations.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Yes. Amendment No. 2014 to Amendment No. 1676 (Purpose: To designate certain segments of corridors of the Appalachian development highway system in Mississippi and Alabama as routes on the Interstate System)

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I say that the leadership of the chairman of the subcommittee is something for which we are all grateful. He helped donor States that were being shortchanged to come up to a much fairer level. It really makes a difference when you have a leader like Senator Warner, who is working to assure fairness to assure the goals that we all seek, and I am deeply indebted to my good friend for the work that he has done not just for Virginia, but for many States and for everybody in America. I thank my distinguished colleague.