Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to pay special tribute to Mr. Darwin Hindman of Columbia, MO, and the Dolphin Defenders of St. Louis, MO. These outstanding Missourians are among 15 honorees nationwide to receive this year's Chevron-Times Mirror Magazines Conservation Award. This honor is being bestowed in recognition of the contributions made by Mr. Hindman and the Dolphin Defenders to environmental conservation and development. I congratulate them for their highly notable achievements and encourage their continued efforts to create balanced solutions to natural resources problems. Mr. Darwin Hindman, Jr., the newly elected mayor of Columbia and president of Missouri Rails Trails Foundation, Inc., is one of five receiving the Citizen Volunteer Award. Mr. Hindman [[Page S6830]] is responsible for establishing Katy Trail State Park along the north bank of the Missouri River. Through his public activism and fundraising efforts, Mr. Hindman successfully spearheaded creation of the Katy Trail that follows the historic Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 to 1806. Mr. Hindman also was instrumental in developing the MKT Fitness/ Nature Trail. Mr. Hindman and the foundation are working with the State and others to expand the Katy Trail, with the goal of extending it across the State. The Dolphin Defenders of St. Louis is a group of more than 50 inner city children working to restore their neighborhood by improving the environment. Their name comes from the group's desire to mimic dolphin behavior of protecting each other from danger. The Dolphin Defenders revitalized a once trash laden vacant lot used by drug dealers and abusers into a beautiful environmental retreat now known as the Promised Land. The group has also recognized children surviving in violent communities by planting 31 trees on Arbor Day in Visitation Park. The Dolphin Defenders are one of five nonprofit organizations/ public agencies to receive this year's Conservation Award. Moneys raised from the youth group's continuous collection and recycling of tires and glass bottles enable the Dolphin Defenders to pursue new environmental projects. The honorees will be recognized at an awards dinner on May 17 in Washington, DC, and will receive a $2,000 award along with a bronze plaque acknowledging their achievements and continued efforts to enhance the environment. The awards program was established in 1954 by the late Ed Zern, a nationally recognized sportsman, humorist, author, and former columnist for Field & Stream. Nearly 900 individuals and organizations have received this award since its conception to honor individuals and groups who protect and enhance renewable natural resources. My sincerest congratulations to Mr. Hindman and the Dolphin Defenders for their significant accomplishments and contributions to conservation and the environment.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BOND. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Alaska. We will have further discussions on that. I appreciate the discussion he has conducted and the ruling of the Chair. I think we are going to do some further investigation of that matter. At this point, I appreciate very much his stating his views. We will continue to review that and work at the staff level to assure there is no problem.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, may I address a question to the manager and sponsor of this legislation? The Banking Committee's Subcommittee on International Finance has jurisdiction which looks remarkably as though it may be appropriate to this measure. While I am in general support of the position of my distinguished friend from Alaska, I would like to have an explanation for this body as to the jurisdiction and what he feels is the appropriate committee referral. Might I ask that question of the Senator from Alaska?

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, today I am joined by Senator Ashcroft in introducing the Ozark Wild Horse Protection Act. Since 1990, the citizens in southeast Missouri have been engaged in a struggle with the Department of the Interior's National Park Service [NPS] to prevent a group of about 30 feral horses from being rounded up by the Government and relocated or slaughtered. On behalf of these Missouri citizens who have fought to protect these horses, Congressman Bill Emerson has tirelessly led the fight to stop this action. This legislation I introduce today is companion legislation to H.R. 238, introduced in the House by Congressman Emerson on January 4, 1995. It prohibits the removal or assistance in the removal of, any free- roaming horses from the Ozark National Scenic Riverways [ONSR], except in the case of medical emergency or natural disaster. Mr. President, unfortunately, this is yet another case where the bureaucrats think they know best and have blatantly disregarded the perspective, suggestions, and views of the local citizens. St. Louis, MO, conservationist and landowner Leo Drey noted that these horses were in the park long before the NPS and ``The horses probably spend more time loafing on our land than they do on the riverways. There's only a few of them and they don't congregate to the extent they do any serious trampling or damage.'' A Missouri citizen's group called the Missouri Wild Horse League, which is based in Eminence, MO, was created several years ago to protect the horses from the National Park Service. This group has roughly 3,000 members. Mr. President, that membership is more than six times the number of citizens who live in the league's headquarters city of Eminence, MO. It has been the contention of the NPS that the 30 horses that roam the 71,000-acre site should be removed because their presence is in conflict with the management policies of the NPS and their activities threaten plant communities. We are talking about a site almost two times the size of the District of Columbia where the 30 horses roam. I suggest that the NPS would be hard pressed to even find the horses on roundup day. In 1990, to prevent removal of a part of this area's heritage that the National Park Service is charged to preserve, 1,000 local citizens signed a petition to keep the wild horses in the ONSR. That same year, the Missouri Senate unanimously passed a resolution objecting to the removal of the horses. Still, the NPS ignored the importance of this local treasure to the people in this area. Subsequently, citizens in Missouri filed suit and, in June of 1990, U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh issued an injunction. The NPS would still not yield, appealing the ruling. They would not concede in their fight to impose the Federal Government's will on the public, notwithstanding the views of the local citizens, notwithstanding the views of the Missouri Senate, notwithstanding the views of Missouri representatives in Congress, and notwithstanding the decision of a U.S. district court judge. The NPS prevailed in the higher courts. That is why it is urgently needed for the Congress to intervene and prevent this Government-managed horse rustling. At the request of Congressman Emerson, former ONSR Superintendent Sullivan agreed to delay any roundup until there is opportunity to address this issue in the 104th Congress. While I appreciate this one concession on the part of the former superintendent, I find it inconceivable that the intransigence of former Superintendent Sullivan has brought this issue before the Secretary of the Interior, the U.S. Supreme Court, and now before the U.S. Congress. It is rare to find Federal field personnel as out of touch and acting with total disregard for local sentiment--that is typically reserved for their bosses in Washington. has the Federal Government in such low standing with the American citizens--the notion that it is the olympians on the hill who know what's best for the peasants in the valley. At this juncture, I believe Congress has no other alternative but to pursue this matter as expeditiously as possible. The National Parks Subcommittee of the House Committee on Resources is scheduled to hold a hearing on May 18 to consider H.R. 238. I congratulate Congressman Emerson for keeping up the heat on this issue. Had he not, I expect the horses would already be gone. And, I fear that if we cannot expedite action on this bill, they will be gone.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, it is with great pleasure that I recognize Jim Henry as Missouri's Small Business Person of the Year for 1995. Jim Henry is the president and chief operating officer of the R.C. Wilson Co., located in St. Charles. In years to come, we may refer back to 1995 as the year of small business owners. More attention is being given to the accomplishments of small business persons than at any time since I entered government service. Small businesses will create 66 percent of all new jobs this year. By contrast, large companies with over 5,000 employees will add only 6 percent of the new jobs. Small businesses are the engine that is fueling our economy, generating 52 percent of all sales and one-half of the gross domestic product. It is, therefore, very appropriate that the Small Business Administration has set aside this week to honor our Nation's men and women, like Jim Henry, who own and operate small businesses. Jim Henry's business, the R.C. Wilson Co., is a collection agency. Most of us think of a collection business as one that is insensitive at best. However, since Mr. Henry purchased the company in 1985, he has worked hard to establish a level of excellence that is essential for success in today's competitive business environment. His business philosophy puts a special emphasis on the dignity of the consumer, and provides professional service and outstanding results while maintaining the fine image of the client. Jim Henry has been an innovator. Over the past 10 years, he has expanded and enhanced the delinquent-account collection services by fully computerizing his agency. He added optical-disk storage and on- line capability with clients. He has recognized the tremendous changes in the work place by adding on-line connections for employees working from home. His business was the first of its kind in Missouri to add a computerized dialing system. In 1985, the R.C. Wilson Co. employed 25 people with annual billings of $1.25 million. Today, Jim Henry has 114 employees and bills $4 million a year. His success rate is nearly 50 percent better than the industry average. Jim Henry has succeeded by recognizing the needs of his customers and clients, by working hard and by being innovative. Equally significant, Jim Henry has never forgotten his employees, many have been with the company for over 20 years. He has shown us how to be an excellent businessman and employer, and I am proud to recognize Jim Henry as Missouri's 1995 Small Business Person of the Year.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Small Business will hold a hearing on Thursday, May 18, 1995, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-628. The focus of the hearing is the Small Business Administration's 7(a) Business Loan Program. For further information, please contact Paul Cooksey at 224-5175.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of the welfare bill my friend from Iowa has just introduced. Our proposal represents a fundamental change in the Since the creation of aid to families with dependent children, public aid has been regarded as an entitlement. If you meet the requirements for eligibility, you receive the cash, with no strings attached. The current system has been rightly maligned by persons from all walks of life, including researchers, advocates, pastors, politicians, and even the recipients. The system is impersonal, inefficient and encourages continued dependency. Recipients can continue to receive cash month after month after month without having to think about their futures, and without being given any help in thinking what they might do to become self-sufficient. Our proposal changes that way of thinking and requires something from the recipients in return for benefits. By the year 2003, 90 percent of recipients would be required to sign a binding contract with the State. The contract would outline the specific steps that each recipient will take to move off of welfare and into self-sufficiency. The contract states clearly when benefits will end. If a recipient fails to live up to the terms of the agreement at any time, benefits will be reduced and ultimately terminated. I believe a large reason for the malaise and stagnation in today's welfare programs is that we have not required anything in return for benefits. This one way street, this lack of reciprocity, has bred an ethic of dependence rather than a work ethic. The only way we can turn this around is to require something in return for the generosity of the American taxpayer. Most Americans believe our Government has a responsibility to help families in need, but also believe that individuals have a responsibility to help themselves. This plan will help people who want to help themselves to create a better life. The contractual arrangement between recipients and the State-- representing the taxpayer donors--is the only requirement we would impose on the States. I believe it is fundamental to ensuring that we move people from welfare into productive private sector work. The House-passed bill requires States to implement a number of ideas that make good sense, but this notion of a contract is not among them. I am concerned that if we do not require that recipients of public assistance work, or behave responsibly, or take steps to wean themselves from public assistance in every case, then our efforts at reform will result in more of the same. The principle that Senator Harkin and I have agreed on that should govern welfare reform efforts at every level is this: Public assistance is a two-way street. If you want to receive benefits, you must work and behave responsibly in return. That said, we have also learned that our Nation's Governors are far ahead of Washington in generating reform ideas and in implementing them. Currently States must undertake a lengthy and cumbersome waiver process in order to obtain permission to implement common sense reforms. States that want to require welfare recipients to obtain preventive health care for their children, or to ensure that their children stay in school, or wish to allow recipients to keep more of their earnings from a part-time job--good ideas all--must now obtain a waiver from HHS. This is costly, time-consuming, and silly. Our bill permits States to implement any one, a combination of, or all of a variety of options to reform welfare without permission from the feds. The current system penalizes work and saving by placing severe restrictions on outside income and on assets. Our plan permits States, at their discretion, to increase the earnings limits and amounts families can save prior to losing benefits. We also permit States to disregard the income of a teenage worker in the family. The current system encourages a high rate of teenage unemployment among AFDC households. The last thing stressed, low-income neighborhoods need is more unemployed teenagers. One of the major problems low-income families face today is cycling on and off welfare. Mothers who leave welfare must often return within a matter of months, because their child-care arrangements have fallen through or because they simply cannot make their bills. Our bill would extend transitional child care benefits from 1 year to 2. We permit States to allow families to keep more outside income before losing benefits, and to save more prior to leaving welfare so that the transition from welfare to work runs more smoothly. We provide a menu of welfare reform options, but leave it up to the States to decide which combination will best suit their needs. I hope the version that is eventually passed by the Senate will expand State flexibility, not restrict it further. We recognize that our plan is not the be all and end all of welfare reform. I will be open to other options that expand State flexibility and innovation. But I believe this bill contains many good ideas which are not being widely discussed and hope to draw the attention of my colleagues to those ideas. I commend the efforts of my friend from Iowa and urge other Senators to review our bipartisan effort as we begin debating this contentious issue.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I state my support for H.R. 1380, the Truth in Lending Class Action Relief Act of 1995. This important legislation is designed to impose a class action moratorium on certain lawsuits under the Truth in Lending Act. This legislation is narrow but necessary to give the Congress an opportunity to review the requirements of the Truth in Lending Act and the possible unintended consequences of the Rodash case and the possible impact of Rodash on the mortgage finance industry. Rodash is a Florida case that allowed for the rescission of a mortgage where the lender disclosed certain delivery fees and an intangible tax in an improper place on the settlement sheet. This case has now been used as precedent for nationwide lawsuits that could potentially disrupt and damage our mortgage finance industry. I emphasis that the violation in Rodash was a technical violation of the Truth in Lending Act, and that the fees in question were small and that any improper disclosure was unintended. Nevertheless, a complete rescission of the mortgage was permitted. In addition, since 1991, some 11.8 million loans totaling $1.3 trillion have been refinanced. The cost of rescinding these mortgages is about $217 billion. To apply Rodash to the mortgage industry is like killing a mosquito with an atomic bomb. I believe we need to consider these consequences. Thank you, Mr. President. The bill (H.R. 1380) was deemed read three times and passed.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I join my colleague, Senator Bryan, in introducing the Consumer Reporting Reform Act of 1995. We have spent several sessions of Congress in perfecting this legislation, and I expect this bill to enjoy wide bipartisan support. In particular, this legislation balances the needs of the consumer to have accurate credit information, while ensuring that the credit industry provides such information without the imposition of unreasonable regulatory burdens. The Fair Credit Reporting Act is overdue for revision and reform. I know that we have all heard too many horror stories about inaccurate credit information and the inability of consumers to get the information corrected. The Fair Credit Reporting Act was written long before computer technology was as sophisticated as it is today. These technological advances have meant a drastic increase in the amount of information that can be kept and is kept on individuals. Current law simply does not adequately protect consumers. For example, currently the law only requires that credit bureaus reinvestigate within a reasonable period of time. It was not uncommon for it to take months, even years, to get a credit report corrected and cleaned up. And even in cases where a consumer does succeed in getting the incorrect information removed or corrected, there is nothing to prevent the incorrect information from being put back on the credit report. I believe that the single most important consumer protection provision in this legislation is the 30-day limit on the reinvestigation procedure. If the disputed information cannot be verified or is found to be inaccurate within 30 days, then it is corrected or removed from the credit report and cannot be reinserted without a notice to the consumer. [[Page S5450]] This is the cornerstone of the legislation--the most significant improvement over current law. In addition, I realize that the credit bureaus have voluntarily instituted a 30-day standard in recent years, but there is no force of law behind it to hold them to it. I congratulate the credit bureaus for taking steps to make the system more accurate, but I feel that legislation is still needed. It was the threat of this legislation that has cleaned up the system, and I think we have an obligation to finish the job. This legislation, in particular, will address concerns about accuracy in the system and the need for consumer privacy. I emphasize that I have met with many of my constituents to listen to their horror stories of trying to fix mistakes on their credit reports. They have met with many of the same obstacles that millions of other consumers have faced--months of waiting for their credit reports to be fixed, credit grantors who are unresponsive, and no one to talk to who will listen to their complaints. As you know, these problems are not new. I have been hearing about these problems for years and trying to find a way to address them. This legislation is designed to address these problems. Because it traditionally takes a long time for the credit bureaus to respond and fix credit reports, the bill requires the process to be completed in 30 days. As I have said, if the information in the report cannot be verified by the creditor who submitted it within 30 days, it will be removed from the report. In addition, it cannot be reinserted later unless the consumer is notified. When a consumer goes through the reinvestigation process with the credit bureau and the problem is still not fixed, our bill gives the consumer the right to sue the creditor who will not fix the information it submitted to the credit bureau. This bill also contains limited Federal preemption to ensure that there are uniform Federal standards to govern a number of procedural issues which are part of credit reporting and which will reduce the burdens on the credit industry from having to comply with a variety of different State requirements. For example, the bill preempts requirements regarding prescreening, information shared among affiliates, reinvestigation timetables, obsolescence time periods and certain disclosure forms. In addition, the civil liability section makes it absolutely clear that there are only private causes of action against a furnisher after that furnisher has had an opportunity to reinvestigate and fix any mistakes. I believe that this legislation is a well-balanced bill. All interested parties benefit from this bill. The free flow of accurate information will help all sides by promoting good economic decisions in our free market economy. Consumers get increased disclosure and a 30- day reinvestigation time period and the credit industry gets a limited Federal preemption, the ability to share information among affiliates, and broader prescreening abilities.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. That is exactly my point. I do not believe that the priorities chosen by the National Service Corps are the priorities of the American people. Americans do choose where they give their time voluntarily. We know where people want to give and work as volunteers. Over 80 million Americans choose to donate unpaid time to charitable volunteer work each week and they choose their churches, their schools, their hospitals, the Red Cross, the Girl Scouts, the Big Brother/Big Sisters. They do not choose to donate their time to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation, or the Department of Labor. I think the American people might well be shocked to learn that these Federal agencies were chosen over other well-known, well-established and much respected volunteer organizations which were turned down. I am sure that if you go back to the State programs, my colleagues will undoubtedly show me examples of Girl Scouts and Red Cross programs funded through the State commissions, one of two sources of funding, but that is not the area of national priorities. The corporation has clearly chosen not to fund those groups. The further away from States and local communities where the volunteer work is actually being done, where people volunteer their time and their resources, that the decisionmaking occurs, that is where decisions to fund the Federal Departments and those agencies which carry out the politically correct goals happen. I suggest that the funding decisions of the national corporation may not reflect the priorities of American people. I have not examined the decision of the State commissions sufficiently to be able to comment on those. We will explore those in the VA, HUD Appropriations Subcommittee during our fiscal 1996 oversight hearings. But for the purposes of the discussion of the Daschle amendment, I absolutely do not believe we should restore funding for the Corporation for National Service. In fact, considering some of the other tough decisions we have made, there is room for further cuts. We are only bringing the program back to the 1994 level. Based on what I described, I believe that is overly generous. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to turn down the Daschle amendment. The Daschle amendment has one provision which has been called to our attention by Senator Inouye, the problem with funding for Indian housing. I have been working with Senator Inouye and his staff. I believe we can accommodate the needs of Senator Inouye for the Indian housing. I think we need to take special recognition of the problems which may arise there at a later time in the discussion of this bill when we have an amendment, however we work it out with Senator Inouye, who has been a leader on this, and Senator McCain. We will attempt to work out a good compromise to make sure that the cuts do not fall unnecessarily heavily on our native Americans. I will discuss the particular needs of that program. That, too, is included in the Daschle amendment. But the main point of the Daschle amendment is to cut $1.3 billion from what was described last week by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle as ``critically needed, vitally important, let's-do-it-now emergency relief'' so we can go back and spend money on HUD, which is already spending too much money, on the National Service Corporation, the AmeriCorps direct dollars, which are keeping all those wonderful people employed at Federal agencies. Mr. President, I just do not believe we need to restore those cuts. So I urge my colleagues not to accept the Daschle amendment. I yield the floor. Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. These are agencies all of which applied. ``Funded'' are the ones which were funded by the AmeriCorps direct program. The ones ``Not Funded'' are the ones I just read, beginning with the Future Farmers of America.

Mr. BOND. Yes.

Mr. BOND. I thank the Chair. It seems as if we have been at this for some time, and we have had some very enlightening discussions in other areas, but this bill, which the distinguished Senator from South Dakota seeks to amend, is an extremely important one. I spent some time last week presenting the details of this measure and talking about reasons why it was necessary for us to rescind budget authority and outlays for the coming year. Having made those points, I do not want to make them again. I wish to instead focus on some of the basic underlying assumptions in the Daschle amendment. You will recall that this bill as we reported it out of the Appropriations Committee provides in the current year and next year about $6.7 billion for the California disaster relief effort. The Daschle amendment cuts $1.3 billion out of that. Mr. President, I would have to say what a difference a week makes, because last week we heard from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that what we needed was an across-the-board cut in all Federal agencies as an emergency step in order to pay for the terrible natural disasters which have afflicted the country this past year. In particular, we heard a very compelling argument from the Senator from California about the tragedies in her State and the need to provide the money so that the residents of California would get their lives and communities back together. Thus, they offered an amendment to provide $6.7 billion in disaster funding and cut elsewhere across the board. Today, it appears maybe they do not need all that money. Today, just a few days later, the terrible California disaster described so eloquently is not going to require the $6.7 billion it did last week. Now they only require $5.4 billion. Never have I seen $1 billion saved quite so quickly. I had to ask myself why. Well, I soon discovered it is not that they really want to save that money. Instead they want to spend it on some of their and the President's favorite programs. Today, instead of setting the money aside to help disaster victims, they want to raid a rainy day fund and spend it on so-called volunteers or throw more money at HUD, an agency in the midst of its own financial and management disaster. It is no wonder that many of my colleagues agree with the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of what happens when a rainy day fund for disasters is set up. I believe we ought to set money aside, but there are some questions I have about setting it up. Let me quote from the disaster task force report which was issued only 3 weeks ago. I had the pleasure of serving with the distinguished Senator, Mr. Glenn, from Ohio as co-chair of that disaster task force. We brought together all of the information on disasters and asked the agencies--CBO, GAO, CRS--about what we might do. In that disaster task force report prepared by the agencies there was a very prophetic statement. Our report said: A tendency to spend accumulated funds might be a problem unless the law restricted the types of disasters that would qualify. Policymakers could become tempted to be more generous in relieving small disasters or to raid the fund for spending in other programs. Well, Mr. President, that kind of looks to me like what we had. Only 3 weeks from the report and days from the discussion of the rainy day fund the first raid is being attempted on disaster relief. So let me tell my colleagues, if this is what we can expect, regular, systematic raids on the disaster relief fund to pay for political goals, then I for one, this Senator, is not going to support any sort of rainy day fund. What kind of discipline does this show to the American people, that just days after arguing for a $6.7 billion rainy day disaster fund, the same people now want to raid the fund for other purposes? How many families set aside funds for emergencies and then successfully resist the temptation to raid them? How many communities and small businesses set aside funds and then successfully resist the temptation to just dip in a little more for some reason? But not our colleagues here today. They view the disaster relief fund as a honey pot which lets them avoid tough choices of where else to cut in order to spend more on the programs they like. Instead of standing up and saying, ``We don't like your proposed spending cuts; here are ours to replace them,'' our friends on the other side of the They say, ``We want to spend first and worry about the deficit and the debt later on''. Again, I go back to the prophetic words of the disaster relief task force. In that report the agency said: Requiring the Congress to cut spending and other programs would raise the political cost of providing disaster relief. Now, increases in disaster relief increase the budget deficit, which may impede economic growth over the long term. But the effects on the standard of living of future generations have far less direct influence on political decisions than having to cut programs this year or next year. No wonder our debt is nearly $5 trillion. No wonder the President's budget thought it would be OK to leave the deficit at $200 billion a year for the next 5 years, adding another $1 trillion to our national debt. This is a debt, Mr. President, that threatens our economic stability. Our distinguished colleague from Georgia has already spoken about what judgment the international financial markets are passing on the value of the dollar. And it is because we just do not seem to be too concerned about adding another little $1 trillion to our national debt. Well, Mr. President, I think it is very serious for our economy and it is very serious for our children and grandchildren who are going to be carrying the burden of that debt on their credit card. Let me speak about one particular aspect of the Daschle amendment. I want to focus on that for, I hope, the enlightenment, perhaps, of my colleagues. But maybe they all know it. I want to focus on the proposal to restore national service funding. I believe this issue highlights the fundamental differences between those who would shrink Government and those who still believe in business as usual. The bill before us proposed a cut of $210 million to bring AmeriCorps and other new programs authorized by the 1993 National and Community Service Act back to the fiscal year 1994 level. The fiscal year 1995 appropriation for this year was $575 million; the rescission currently in the bill would bring that funding level back to $365 million. The National Service Corporation had hoped to have 33,000 volunteers enrolled by the end of fiscal year 1995. The bill before us, as reported out of committee, would keep the number of volunteers--and I say ``volunteers'' in quotes--at about 20,000. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Daschle amendment for the additional reason because I do not believe the increase in funds for AmeriCorps is justified. The cut we have proposed is legitimate. We are not gutting the program, as some have suggested. The corporation actually received a huge increase for the current fiscal year over the fiscal year 1994 level. They had $365 million in fiscal year 1994 for AmeriCorps grants, education awards, technical assistance, and related activities. They received $575 million in last year's appropriation for the current fiscal year. That is a 58-percent increase for an untested program. I have not seen any increase of that level in any other discretionary program. At a time when we are running budget deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars each year on top of a debt load of $4.8 trillion, we just cannot afford the increase. This rescission will not affect any programs now in operation. The fiscal year 1995 funds are not scheduled to be spent until the start of the school year in September 1995. So we will not have to stop work that is now going on. We are simply proposing that the amount available to the programs scheduled to begin this fall be the same as for those that began last fall. Under the Senate bill, none of the volunteers--or, actually, employees--currently serving will be affected. The program would remain at the same level. The corporation could still increase the number of those it hires and chooses to fund in State and local programs next year by reallocating the money provided. For instance, the corporation is now spending $32 million on innovation, demonstration and assistance activities, which includes training and technical assistance for AmeriCorps programs. Presumably, most not-for-profits that receive funds are already experienced themselves in training new employees and providing services. And many of them are working with true volunteers. The corporation also spent $3 million this year on planning grants. Now, those do not fund a single new position, but simply allow an organization to plan how they will use volunteers in the future. And, both the National Service Corporation and the State commissions spend a good deal of money on public relations and recruitment of volunteers-- read ``employees.'' I would argue that we can do less of that since the program is now well established, if it is continued, and it is well known. In addition, the corporation awarded more than $14 million to Federal agencies this year, nearly 10 percent of the total amount available for AmeriCorps grants. Why are we padding the Federal payroll with paid, they call them, volunteers--I call them employees--at the same time the administration claims it is downsizing the civil service? We cut it on one hand, but we call them volunteers and we spend $14 million hiring them on the other hand. I think there is a good deal of room to make cuts in these areas if the corporation wants to increase the number of those serving in State and local programs, under the bill. I remain a great skeptic of the program. I am looking forward to conducting oversight hearings, which we will have in our subcommittee during the next few months, to determine exactly where our money is going. And, in particular, I am concerned about the money going to AmeriCorps national direct programs. Under the act, in 1993, there are three different ways that you can receive funds. One-third of the funds are available to States according to a population-based formula. The States then choose which programs receive funds. Another third of the funds are distributed to programs that are first selected by the States and then submitted to the corporation for competitive consideration. The final third of the funds for AmeriCorps are distributed directly to the National Service Corporation to programs operated by national nonprofit organizations, programs operating in more than one State, and to Federal agencies. I would like to focus the attention of my colleagues on some of these programs. I think America would be surprised to learn where fully one-third of the funds for AmeriCorps is actually going. I venture to guess that most Americans believe that money in this pot is going to help support the efforts of some well-established, reputable, mainstream volunteer organizations that we have all come to know and rely on. We would expect, Mr. President, the funding would go to the Red Cross, the Girl Scouts, Boys and Girls Clubs, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and the 4- H; that they would be the ones receiving funds from that source. That certainly was my expectation. Needless to say, I was surprised to learn that is not where the money is going. So I asked, and the Corporation for National Service provided me, with a list of all applicants in the ``National Direct'' program for 1994, as well as a list of those groups that receive funding. I have made a chart of some of the examples that we have found. I think they will be illustrative. All of these groups applied for ``AmeriCorps Direct'' awards for fiscal year 1994, as well as many other groups. This is not the exclusive list. Here is the list of who was funded and this is a partial list of those who were not funded. Many well-established, reputable, and noncontroversial voluntary organizations did not receive funds. But look at the list of those who did receive funds, in addition to those that are Federal agencies. Can you say ``politically correct''? Take a look at what we funded. This was our volunteer money. We are downsizing the civil service, cutting the Federal Government, getting rid of employees. So why is the money going to hire people in the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Veterans Affairs? you get a program, call it a ``volunteer'' program and use it to fund these. And then there are others, ACORN Housing, Legal Services Corporation, National Endowment for the Arts, National Community AIDS Partnership. These are the programs being funded by the AmeriCorps direct funding program. These are some of the ones that are not funded, and somehow it strikes me as passing curious that they chose not to fund the Future Farmers of America, the National 4-H Council, the Girl Scouts of America, the American Red Cross, Big Brother/Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs, National Audubon Society, Appalachian Mountain Club, American Library Association, United Negro College Fund, United Way of America, and United Cerebral Palsy Association. I have had an opportunity to work with many of these fine organizations, and when you are talking about volunteers, this is where I think you need support, if you need support, to get people who are actually doing volunteer work.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I would like to get back to what I believe is the business before us. Are we on the Daschle amendment as amended by the Dole amendment?

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, today I am pleased to cosponsor the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. This bill opens the door for a meaningful deliberation on the regulatory burdens choking our Nation. As cochairman of the Senate Regulatory Relief Task Force with Senator Hutchison, we have examined our Nation's regulatory framework and identified those rules which impede economic growth without providing offsetting social benefits. In particular, regulation is choking our Nation's banks. This legislation seeks to end the cycle of mounting regulation in that industry. I applaud the bill's efforts to eliminate burdensome rules and to streamline reporting and compliance procedures. My colleagues Senators Shelby and Mack have provided a great starting point for the debate on banking regulation reform. I will continue to work with them in refining this legislation so that it upholds the safety and soundness of the banking system while satisfying the investment needs of our communities. Mr. President, the cost of regulatory compliance is astounding. The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council estimates that the industry's annual compliance costs exceed $17.5 billion. This burden is the result of decades of largely unintegrated legislative and regulatory initiatives. Since 1968 our Nation's banks have faced a major new law almost every 11 months. In the past 5 years, Congress has passed more than 40 laws affecting bank operations. While most of these laws begin as well- intentioned ideas, they usually mushroom into administrative complexity unintended by Congress. This layering of regulation--bill after bill, year after year--has created great inefficiency, redundancy, overlap, and common contradiction in the laws that govern the banking industry. We must end this cycle.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I want to thank my ranking member, Senator Mikulski, and commend her. I have appreciated her courtesy and the continuing cooperation that we have had. I had the pleasure of serving on this committee when she was the chair. I have only recently found how large a job it was. She mentioned something about the hand we have been dealt. Both of us, as chair and ranking member, now have a very difficult hand to play. Senator Mikulski is extremely well informed and dedicated to the programs in this subcommittee. Her congressional role as an appropriator and an overseer she does with extreme skill and dedication and concern. I have the highest regard for her and her staff. We have worked together to try to obtain information on these programs, which has not been provided to members in a timely manner by the agencies, particularly by HUD. Having said that, I could not disagree more strongly with the amendment that the Senator has offered. As I indicated, I will, at the appropriate time, move to table the amendment because, No. 1, this amendment does nothing toward deficit reduction. The message I believe the people of America sent last November is that we have to get the deficit under control. That is No. 1. No. 2, and I think even more serious, is that this substitute for the measure reported out of the Appropriations Committee totally fails to address the vital need to stop the out-of-control commitments by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for future spending which this Congress and this budget cannot afford. That is why I think that this measure should be tabled. I will urge my colleagues to do so. Now, let me say something about the proposal of the VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies Subcommittee in the FEMA disaster relief supplemental and rescission bill. This chapter, our chapter, rescinds more than $6.8 billion and includes a supplemental for FEMA disaster relief of $1.9 billion for the current fiscal year and provides the balance of $6.7 billion requested as an advance appropriation for FEMA for fiscal year 1996. This will enable the Congress to monitor the utilization of the amount provided before further releases of the contingency appropriation for the next fiscal year. With respect to the rescissions, the subcommittee's total of $6.8 billion is more than half of the rescissions contained in this bill. As my ranking member pointed out, this is a level that is almost double the subcommittee's proportionate share of total nondefense discretionary spending. However, the committee's recommendation is less than the House-passed total of $9.3 billion; it also substantially exceeds the President's request of only $648 million in rescissions. Mr. President, the committee's recommendation reflects the urgency of beginning the long and difficult task of curbing Federal spending. I am mindful that the Appropriations Committee has direct jurisdiction over only one-third of the Federal budget, which is discretionary spending. I certainly agree with those who point out that a balanced budget cannot be achieved in any way solely through cuts in discretionary spending. Let me be clear about that. There can also be no doubt that further reductions can and must be made in these activities if we are ever to erase our budget deficit, or hope to do so, and to stop passing on to our children and our grandchildren the burdens of the debt that we were too profligate to stop running up during our stewardship of the Federal Government and its resources. The formulation, the putting together of this large package of rescissions, has been difficult. The committee was limited in its recommendation to funds which have not been obligated and which are not constrained by concerns over disruption of important ongoing activities. Necessarily, we directed our focus toward rescissions which would not only curb expenditures in the short term, but which would yield the effect of redirecting programs and terminating Finally, the committee's recommendations reflect our attempt to be as balanced and as fair as possible. No major agency within our jurisdiction was spared. Out of NASA, we took $150 million. Out of the National Science Foundation, we took $132 million. Out of the Department of Veterans Affairs, we took $100 million. As noted, the largest reductions were taken in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, $4.6 billion; and in the Environmental Protection Agency, from which $1.4 billion was taken--not because of a policy of determination against these activities, but simply because of the fact that these two agencies have the largest unobligated balances which can be rescinded and which will curb future year expenditure growth. Now, a number of these reductions are painful. I have discussed these with officials in the administration who wonder why we are making these cuts. I have had calls especially with respect to termination of new initiatives, such as the Community Development Financial Institutions Program and halting previously planned expansions, such as National Service or AmeriCorps. I also know that many of my colleagues would rather not deal with reductions in popular programs such as VA medical care, no matter how modest. However, Mr. President, let me be clear: If we are going to cut, we have to cut something. There is nothing in this budget that was put in because people did not like it. Everything that was put in here was put in last year or in the years before because somebody argued successfully that it was a good idea. We cannot cut spending without cutting things that have some support. Frankly, with the budget crisis that we face, one of the things we have had to do is put a hold on new commitments. Given the state of our budget deficit and the tremendous debt that we have driven up, a debt which will hit $5 trillion and require Congress to raise the debt ceiling before the summer is over, we have to start making some cuts no matter how difficult they are. It is clear we must make reductions now or face even greater cuts and dislocations in the future under a very constrained allocation for discretionary spending. Mr. President, two additional concerns have been raised over the general approach of this supplemental and rescission measure. The first relates to the prevailing sentiment that all supplementals, even emergencies which are or can be procedurally outside the caps, should be offset by reductions in other discretionary spending. I accept and support this greater standard of budgetary discipline because we need to do it. It is a necessary step toward balancing our budget. But we should be mindful that this revision in our current budgetary practice demands a reappraisal of how subcommittee allocations are treated, since the bulk of emergency supplementals are provided for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which just happens to fall within the jurisdiction of the VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies Subcommittee. The fact that we have to increase appropriations for FEMA, in my view should not mean that in the future we have to make cuts from very important programs in HUD, VA, NASA, and other agencies which are disproportional to the cuts taken by other domestic discretionary programs. There is no way that our subcommittee can, in the future, be expected to pay for supplemental emergency requests for FEMA disaster relief. The number of Presidential-declared disasters and the amount of funding for such emergencies have been dramatically rising in recent years. A total of $14.8 billion has been appropriated in the last 5 years. The pending supplemental bill carries the request of $6.7 billion, which is almost 10 percent of the entire discretionary allocation of the subcommittee. We cannot be expected to offset such massive requests without dramatic impacts on other ongoing activities within our jurisdiction in future budgets. These are national disasters. My ranking member has pointed out the scope of these disasters. If they are paid for, resources should be identified on a Federalwide basis, not just by one subcommittee which happens to have FEMA within its jurisdiction. Matching such supplementals with rescissions within the subcommittee should not and cannot be a precedent for how such needs will be addressed in the future. Let me move to the second point, which is more complicated but has an equally clear answer. That is the concern that we are rescinding too much from HUD. The answer is simply ``no,'' we are not. Some have questioned why HUD is being cut more than $4.6 billion, or two-thirds of the total rescission of $6.9 billion for the subcommittee. The answer is simple. The cut is roughly proportionate to the Department's available budgetary resources. Although HUD received new appropriations for fiscal year 1995, that is the current spending year we are in, of $25.7 billion, HUD represents about 39 percent of the funding for our four major agencies--almost $2 out of every $5--it also carried into this fiscal year $35 billion in unobligated prior year balances. In fact, it carried more money in unobligated balances than we appropriated for this year. We could have the anomaly, even if we wiped out all new authority for HUD, that HUD could spend more than its current year appropriation because of the unobligated balances. In other words, HUD has more than double its current fiscal year appropriation available in budgetary resources when you include the massive amount of unspent, unobligated HUD funding. Simple mathematics do not tell the whole story. We have to cut HUD. We have to stop spending new dollars. The chairman of the committee, the distinguished Senator from Oregon, made the point very clearly. When we say ``cut'' in this context, we are not talking about throwing people out of housing or imposing burdens on people now being served. We are talking about cutting new commitments, additional spending requests, commitments that could be extremely expensive over time and are not now undertaken. We have to begin now, if there is any hope of surviving the very constrained freeze minus future for discretionary funds that we expect to see throughout the appropriations committee and even in our subcommittee. The Congressional Budget Office recently analyzed the HUD reinvention blueprint and discovered that the cost of HUD-subsidized housing will increase by over 50 percent under the President's plan over the next 5 years. Let me point out that currently, this year, we are spending $26.4 billion. That is how much we are spending this year. The Congressional Budget Office--which as we will all recall, the President in 1993 said is the independent scorekeeper, the objective scorekeeper to whom we must turn for the most honest, most accurate estimates of spending-- took a look at the information HUD provided at the time of the budget submission. There have been subsequent discussions and submissions, but based on what HUD, through OMB and the President, presented to us, HUD spending would increase to $28 billion next year, $30.7 billion the following, then $33.8, then $38.9 billion; by the year 2000, HUD- assisted housing would be $39.9 billion--50 percent more than we are spending this year. And, also, incidentally, the total of all these five red bars would come to about $39 billion. So we would be adding $39 billion to the national debt over 5 years, according to CBO's estimate. Unless we act now to curb the spiraling growth in outlays, we are going to have to make some very draconian cuts in the near future and be in a position where we cannot honor commitments made to those in public and assisted housing. As I have indicated, I have had meetings with the Secretary of HUD and the Director of OMB. We have gone over many of these questions. They have promised us additional details, which we have not yet had an opportunity to see and analyze. They have said they will meet with the Congressional Budget Office to explain and perhaps even suggest revisions. But let me point out, even under the President's own budget submission, the President asked for HUD to be increased by $20 billion in budget authority over the next 5 years us, at a time when we know that discretionary spending must be kept under control, to increase outlays, to increase actual spending, by his own numbers, by $14 billion. I suggest there is no way we can do that. I suggest we are faced with a difficult--but a simple--solution, and that is turn off the pipeline of new subsidized units. That is the fundamental focus of the committee's recommendations for this rescission bill. We are also recommending a portion of the funds rescinded by the House be restored, and that we redirect resources to another urgent priority; namely, the restoring of budgetary sanity to this out-of-control department. We say go ahead with the programs to demolish the failed housing developments and put the rest on a sound footing to survive the competition and the subsidy reductions coming down the pike. Some of my colleagues have said we do not need to deal with severely distressed public housing. This is one area where I believe I agree very strongly with the Secretary of HUD. There is no greater problem in many of our communities than the uninhabitable, often vacant, thoroughly unlivable, large public housing units in many of our metropolitan areas today. Too many of them have become havens for crime, for drugs, and violence. They are not only not a safe place to raise a family, they are a great danger to the neighbors who live in the vicinity and they are tremendous blots on the landscape of our major metropolitan areas. To me, this is an investment in the future which must be made now if we are to stop some of the spread of blight that has been generated by poorly maintained and poorly conceived projects of the past. Amid all the debate over the future of HUD, it is important to keep in mind that over 4.8 million families receive Federal housing assistance, and over half of them are elderly or disabled. It is also important to note that such housing assistance is expensive. As I said, $26 billion in current year fiscal year 1995 outlays and current costs are rising. In fact, with the long-term contractual commitments previously made by HUD the Government is currently obligated to pay over $187 billion over the life of these contracts, some stretching out 40 years. Many of my colleagues have approached me to express grave concern over some of the battles of the press releases in the State demonstrations characterizing those of us who wish to cut HUD's new commitments as being ready to throw people who are getting assisted housing out on the street, having no concern for the people who are assisted by HUD. I am told that C-SPAN carried a program this weekend that featured HUD officials but it also featured special interest groups and local officials who want to spend as if there was no tomorrow, who think that we cannot spend enough money on HUD and its programs to satisfy them. Frankly, let us be clear that we are sensitive to and very concerned about the obligations and the undertakings of HUD. That is why we want to make sure that they do the job properly. It is I think not helpful for those who would be advocates for the programs of HUD to make the kinds of irresponsible charges that some local officials have made. That does not advance the level of discussion. That does not assist in helping us formulate responsible programs given the long-term nature of the obligations and commitments. Halting the budgetary growth of the Department can only be accomplished with a focused, determined, multiyear effort. Unless we begin now with this bill we will lock ourselves into another multibillion-dollar chunk of long-term budget obligations. This is only a first step, one of many in which we will go beyond the limited fixes in cuts that can be accomplished in a rescission bill. We have to enact through the authorizing committee major reform legislation later this year. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Appropriations Committee, my colleagues on the authorizing committee and other interested Members in this body in formulating a responsible program. But we are not going to be able to adopt a responsible program if we allow the budget to continue to spin out of control to run up obligations and commitments now that will cost us billions of dollars we do not have in the future. Only if we put a tourniquet on the bleeding and stop the new commitments can we make sure that our restorative work, our surgery and our treatment of the patient, a very sick patient of HUD, can be successful. I will ask my colleagues to join me in a motion to table. But for the moment, I yield the floor. I reserve the remainder of my time. Ms. MIKULSKI addressed the Chair.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield such time as I may require. I ask unanimous consent that no second-degree amendments be in order on this amendment prior to the motion to table, which I will make at the end of the expiration of the time or yielding back.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I think there has been agreement on both sides that the vote occur at 1:15 p.m. today. I have just a few comments. I do not believe there are any further speakers on this side. I had a few comments, and after that I will be prepared, if my distinguished ranking member is, to yield the remainder of the time, ask for the yeas and nays, and ask unanimous consent that the vote be held at 1:15.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes. eloquently made by my good friend from California. She was kind enough to invoke the memory of President Eisenhower. You have to have a pretty good memory, because after World War II, I believe that was probably about the last time we balanced a budget around here and stopped running a deficit that adds to the debts of our children. She has made a very strong argument for every spending dollar that we have. She said it is all being spent just properly and we can take an even cut across the board. Frankly, I hope that we have come beyond that point where we can say that the only way to cut is to cut across the board. We have seen examples in recent years of how various agencies can look at programs and make cuts to programs that are not working or that have been overappropriated. The current administration calls it Reinventing Government. The current administration has asked that we cut $5 billion from NASA, not across the board, not across from everything. They are asking the Administrator, and I believe we are going to support him, to take a look at where cuts can be made, not across the board, not off of everything, but combined activities, combined areas where cuts can best be made because we cannot keep spending like money is going out of style or our dollar will go out of style. Our friend from California mentioned taking computers away from children. Computers are very important for children, but I have been in schools where I have seen rows and rows of computers sitting on empty desks with no children in front of them. I cannot address all of the cuts made in other parts of the bill, and I will rely on my colleagues who serve on those subcommittees to talk about those, but let me talk about the cuts in EPA. We have cut money that was funded for a program that was not authorized last year. We have left in the safe drinking water funds for EPA the amount of money that the administration has requested for next year on the hope that we will reauthorize the Safe Drinking Water Act and be able to spend that money. We are not cutting jobs, we are cutting money that cannot be spent. My colleagues talked about the hurt, what a tremendous hurt is being imposed by cutting off some of the Federal spending. Let me tell you about the hurt that is going to be inflicted on our country and on future generations if we continue to build this deficit. We have a commitment to spend far more than we are taking in and, unfortunately, we have no leadership from the President in cutting that spending. He raised taxes and promised to cut spending, and his budget projections show our spending increasing $366 billion over the next 5 years. He would add $1 trillion to the national debt. What about the hurt of that $1 trillion added on to almost $5 trillion that we have now? That is a tremendous burden for future generations to carry, and we have seen what happened to our neighbor to the south when they spent more money than they had. The international market said the peso is weak. They did not get their economic house in order, and there is a crisis in Mexico. What has happened in Mexico to the peso could happen in the United States to the dollar. The dollar has fallen against the value of the yen, lost almost a third of its value because the international markets think we are not getting serious about cutting spending. We are cutting spending here to get our house in order, and we are also trying to fund supplemental emergency appropriations for disasters. Disaster spending over recent years has been about $19 billion. I am pleased that we heard about how important it is to California, because you know how much of that went to California? Mr. President, $11 billion. Sixty percent of the money that we have spent on disasters has gone to California--$11 billion. We are stepping up to the table to meet the needs of our friends and neighbors in California, as this body stepped up to help the people in the State of Missouri and the Midwest when we were struck by floods. But when we make those cuts, Mr. President, I suggest that the only responsible way to make cuts is to eliminate low-priority items, to eliminate money that is not being spent or that does not need to be spent or, as we are doing in this bill, to cut spending that we cannot afford for the future. That is why I believe that all these wonderful arguments do not hold any water when you look at the cuts that are made in the portion of the bill before us today; that is HUD, VA, and independent agencies. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BOND. I thank my ranking member for accommodating me. This is a very important amendment because it does go to the philosophy of the approach that was taken in the Appropriations Committee. The ranking member has offered a different approach. I just want to touch very briefly on a couple of things she mentioned so that my colleagues will understand what we are doing. We took $90 million out of lead paint. Why did we do something like that? Are we not concerned about lead paint? You bet we are concerned about lead paint. There is an ongoing $10 million study of the best way to establish standards for removing lead paint. Yes, we need to get lead paint out, but we are not going to spend that $90 million until we know the best way to do it. I ask the distinguished occupant of the chair if he remembers the tremendous amount of money we spent and wasted on removing asbestos because we acted first, without thinking about it and without planning and getting the best scientific information? Yes, we took $90 million out, but it is $90 million that we cannot spend. Modernization for public housing. Yes, we recommended taking $836 million out of the modernization fund, about 20 percent--a little more than that--and it would still leave over $3 billion. We also proposed to do something also to let local housing authorities do the modernization without playing ``mother may I'' with HUD. HUD is an agency that cannot manage itself, and it has not done a good job of managing the decisions of local public housing authorities. I will be proposing in the authorizing committee a bill to change the way we do this and to say that unless the public housing authority fails on the basic standards that we set, the PHMAP standards we set several years ago, we are going to let them exercise their discretion in how to utilize funds made available. We believe that even with $836 million less, they can do a far better job if HUD is off their backs. My distinguished ranking member has mentioned the national service, or AmeriCorps, a program very near and dear to her heart. Let me say that we have cut almost in half the proposed rescissions proposed by the House. The House wanted to slash it deeply. In our so we can find out if the program works. Yes, they are spending money right now. They have hired people. We would allow them to continue throughout this year. But I think before we go charging down the road and say we can have a 40- or 50-percent increase, actually in the year beginning with the school year, we ought to find out if it works. I have had people call me and tell me about one or two instances where very good things were done. I like to encourage volunteers. There have been instances where the National Service Corps volunteers have worked with true volunteers, not people being paid, but people who are really volunteers. I like the concept of VISTA, because VISTA enabled us to provide resources to organize volunteers. I believe in voluntarism. We have literally hundreds of millions of people who are volunteers every year, and not because they are paid in a program that provides over $25,000 a year, more than the median wage. That is not a volunteer, that is a public employment job. I have heard other questions raised and suggestions that maybe AmeriCorps, national service corps is not working well. I suggest that we not throw a lot more money at it until we see if it works. That is why we are willing in the measure before us that was passed out of the Appropriations Committee, to let the program continue throughout this year, so we can find out how it works and to see whether the supporters, my ranking member, or the skeptics, myself and others, are right and make the decisions then. That is the philosophy, Mr. President, that we followed, trying to cut things where spending was not critical, trying to stop commitments for new spending that will bankrupt America in the future. That is our philosophy. I also want to mention that I have had discussions with the ranking member. We are working on a sense-of-the-Senate resolution to set up a rainy day fund or a California disaster fund, and to encourage a study of the way we do it, to begin to set aside money to start reforms in FEMA. I believe that this is the road we must go. A report was prepared by the task force which the Senator from Ohio, Senator Glenn, and I chaired last session, to report on the confused and conflicting means that the Federal Government has gone about assisting in disasters. Is it really assistance or have we thrown a lot of money out the door? We need to take a hard look at that disaster assistance approach and make sure that the money we spend on disasters is well spent. There is no question about the outpouring of concern and sympathy in this body when a severe disaster strikes. And FEMA has gotten much better. They get the dollars out the door very quickly. First, we need to look and make sure the dollars are going where they actually do some good and are not wasted; and, second, we need to keep our control on the Federal budget to make sure we do so in a responsible way. I think something like the rainy day fund that my colleague from Maryland has suggested is a good idea, so we would set aside a set amount of money each year. We do not know where the disasters will strike. We do not know whether it is a flood, hurricane, tornado, or an earthquake. Earthquakes are not just located in California. Earthquakes can hit the east coast. Earthquakes have occurred, of a very significant magnitude, in my home State of Missouri in the Midwest. There are many, many, types of disasters each year. They are different kinds, and we know $1 to $2 billion will be spent. Maybe we ought to have a separate line in the budget, a 14th department that is disasters, and set it aside. It could be appropriated so that it comes, not from this one subcommittee's jurisdiction, but from across the board. I look forward to working with my colleague from Maryland and other colleagues as we attempt to reform FEMA to make sure the money is spent well and within the budget constraints. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my ranking member for her kind comments. We have a lot more battles to work on. We are working together on many things. I would conclude by pointing out some of the differences in our approaches. As I said, the Senator from Maryland would cut across the board, cut across the board. Her proposal, as best we can calculate it, would take another $2.589--almost $6.2 billion in budget authority from defense and $1.243 billion, or $1,243,000,000 out of outlays for defense. We are working right now on a defense supplemental which is vitally needed if we are not to deprive our fighting men and women of the support, the ongoing assistance, that they need. This would be a disaster. We cannot take more out of defense than we just did in the defense supplemental that is pending in conference right now. My good friend from Montana said it makes no sense; our proposal is not policy driven. Unfortunately, he is talking about something that is not before us because we have based the recommendations in this measure brought from the Appropriations Committee on policy. He was not able to get safe drinking water authorized for the last 2 years. The money has not been used. What we are rescinding is safe drinking water money that is not even authorized. We have left in the $500 million that the administration requests for next year, in hopes we finally can get safe drinking water reauthorized. I strongly support the reauthorization. There is no sense in leaving money which cannot be spent because there is no authorization.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment before us. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the hour of 1:15 I be recognized to offer a motion to table and that after the yeas and nays are granted, there be a vote at 1:15 on the motion to table.