John Breaux

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to speak to my colleagues in this body as well as to our colleagues in the other body regarding the subject on which the Senate has spent a considerable amount of time; that is, pipeline safety, legislation which passed the Senate by a unanimous vote, with Republicans and Democrats supporting a unanimous consent request to pass this legislation without any dissent and without any arguments against it whatsoever. On September 9, that bill passed the Senate and is now pending over in the other body where our House colleagues are taking a look at this legislation, trying to figure out what course they should take. This legislation passed this body by unanimous consent because of the good work for over a year by colleagues in both parties. I particularly commend and thank the chairman, who I understand is coming over from the Commerce Committee, Senator McCain, for his good work and for working with me as a member of the committee but also taking the rather unusual step of inviting other interested Senators to actually participate in the markup in the Commerce Committee. I credit Senator McCain for making it possible for Senator Murray of Washington to come over and actually sit in on the hearings, which is unusual for a Member, to take the time not only to attend to her duties in her own committee but to take time to listen to witnesses in another committee, which she did sitting at the podium with those of us on the Commerce Committee and also participating in asking questions. It was a good combination between what Senator McCain allowed, which was a little unusual, and what Senator Murray was able to participate in because of her strong interest and because of what has happened in her State with the recent tragic accident involving a pipeline which exploded, resulting in the tragic death of individuals from her State. The result of those hearings was a compromise piece of legislation, which is a 100-percent improvement over the current situation with regard to how we look at the issue of pipeline safety. This is an issue that is extremely important to my State. We have over 40,000 miles of buried natural gas pipelines in the State of Louisiana. If you look at a map of our State, it shows all of the buried pipelines. It looks like a map of spaghetti in an Italian restaurant because we have pipelines all over our State transporting the largest amount of natural gas coming from the offshore Gulf of Mexico as well as onshore pipelines that distribute gas not just to the constituents of my State but to constituents throughout the United States who depend upon Louisiana for a dependable source of natural gas. Pipelines in Louisiana are important not just to Louisianians but also to people from throughout this Nation. The bill we have is one that requires periodic pipeline testing. It says if we can do it from an internal inspection, we will do it that way. If that is not possible, we have to do it with what we call a ``direct assessment'' of the lines, which actually means companies would have to dig them up and physically inspect the lines. We require enhanced operator qualifications to make sure the people who are doing the work are trained and have a background in this particular area. We call for investments in technology to look at better ways of doing what is necessary to ensure their safety. States would be given an increased role. But I have to say that the primary role would be the Federal Government's because these are interstate pipelines we are talking about under the pipeline safety area. Communities would also be given increased involvement. I think it is important to let them know where the lines are and that they are being inspected and also to hear their suggestions. They don't regulate the pipeline safety requirements, but they should be involved by being heard. I think to the credit of everybody, particularly Senator Murray, this type of feature involving local community involvement is 100 percent better than it used to be because in the past there was very little involvement whatsoever. The problem we take to the floor today to talk about is time. This is not rocket science. We don't have a lot of time to complete this bill. We hope our colleagues in the House who use this Senate vehicle will bring it to the floor in the other body and handle it in an expeditious fashion. I repeat, this bill passed the Senate by a unanimous vote. It should not be controversial. It should be something that our friends and colleagues in the other body, Republican or Democrat, would be able to say we worked together with our Senate colleagues in an equal fashion and came to an agreement that this is good legislation. It increases the safety of pipelines that are buried throughout the United States to help assure that we will not have some of the tragic events we have had in the past. The companies we have dealt with in my State support this measure. They want some improvements. They have been very helpful in making suggestions, as well as individuals and groups of concerned citizens who have made recommendations. We have taken all of them into consideration. We have a good piece of legislation that we hope our colleagues will be able to take up. Let's get it signed. If we let some of the details guide the actions in the other body, unfortunately, we may end up with nothing instead of a good bill. I think we should recommend this to our colleagues and do so today.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, thank you.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I rise today to ask my colleagues support the National Recording Preservation Act, legislation that maintains and preserves America's most significant recordings during the first century of recorded sound for future generations to enjoy. This legislation is especially important to my state of Louisiana, which has its own rich and distinct musical tradition. Louisiana is known around the world for having a culture all its own. We are best known for our good music, good food and good times. We especially celebrate our cultural heritage through our music. The Storyville district in New Orleans is said to be the birthplace of jazz--America's only indigenous musical genre. Louis Armstrong, perhaps the most influential jazz artist of all time, grew up orphaned in New Orleans when jazz music was coming of age. Acadiana is the home of great cajun and zydeco artists like the late Beau Jocque, the late Clifton Chenier, Michael Doucet and Beausoleil, and Zachary Richard, all of whom communicate to the rest of the world what life is like on the bayou. In the northern part of our state, Shreveport's Municipal Auditorium was the home of the Louisiana Hayride, where Elvis Presley got his first break after being turned down by the Grand Ole Opry in Tennessee. The Louisiana Hayride shaped the country music scene in the 1940's and 50's by showcasing artists like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson in its weekly Saturday night radio broadcasts. Bluesmen like Tabby Thomas and Snooks Eaglin have kept the Delta blues tradition alive and well in Louisiana. The Neville Brothers, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, all the talented members of the Marsalis family, and many others, continue to keep us connected to our culture and help us celebrate it. According to the Louisiana Music Commission, the overall economic impact of the music industry in Louisiana is about $2.2 billion as of 1996, up from $1.4 billion in 1990. So music isn't just important to my state's culture, it is important to its economy. Unfortunately, since many recordings are captured only on perishable materials like tape, we are in danger of losing these priceless artifacts to time and decay. Recognizing the importance of preserving Louisiana's musical heritage, I have sponsored The National Recording Preservation Act. This legislation, which is modeled after a similar law to preserve America's disappearing film recordings, creates a National Recording Registry within the Library of Congress The registry will identify the most historically, aesthetically and culturally significant recordings of the first century of recorded sound and maintains these for future generations to enjoy. The registry will include works as diverse as slave songs, opera, world music and heavy metal. I hope Louisiana's many and varied contributions to the field of music would be well represented in this national registry. The National Recording Preservation Act directs the Librarian of Congress to select up to 25 recordings or groups of recordings for the registry each year. Nominations will be taken from the general public, as well as from industry representatives. Recordings will be eligible for selection 10 years after their creation. To help the Librarian of Congress implement a comprehensive recording preservation program, this legislation establishes a National Recording Preservation Board. The board will work with artists, archivists, educators, historians, copyright owners, recording industry representatives and others to establish the program. The bill also charters a National Recording Preservation Foundation to raise funds to promote the preservation of recordings and ensure the public's access to the registry. To maintain the success of the music industry in Louisiana, we must strive to inspire our youth by exposing them to their musical heritage. This legislation helps us take steps to cultivate our traditions and our young artists, and will allow us to continue to attract tourists to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Zydeco Festival in Plaisance, Louisiana. Congress should enact the National Recording Preservation Act so future generations can fully appreciate Louisiana's contributions to the history of recorded music in our country.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Missing Children Tax Fairness Act. As a father and grandfather, I know there is no greater fear than having a child taken from you. No family should have to go through such a horrible tragedy, yet in 1999 alone, approximately 750,000 children were reported missing. The parents of these missing children must face the daily reality that they may never find their children or even know their fate, yet most never lose hope or give up the search for any clue. It seems unfathomable that families in such a tragic predicament would be faced with the added burden of higher taxation, but that is exactly what is happening under current tax policy. Recently, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued an advisory opinion which stated that the families of missing children may claim their child as a dependent only in the year of the kidnapping. However, in the following years, no such deduction may be taken, regardless of if the child's room is still being maintained and money is still being spent on the search. The IRS Chief Counsel admitted that this issue is ``not free from doubt'' but concluded that, in the absence of legal authority to the contrary, denying the dependency exemption was consistent with the intent of the law. I believe this issue should be decided differently and that Congress must remedy this unjust situation. The Missing Children Tax Fairness Act will clarify the treatment of missing children with respect to certain basic tax benefits and ensure that the families of these children will not be penalized by the tax code. It makes certain that families will not lose the dependency exemption, child credit, or earned income credit because their child was taken from them. I believe this a fair and equitable solution to a tax situation faced by families who are victims of one of the most heinous crimes imaginable--child abduction. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this important piece of legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and my statement be printed in the Record.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, as the Ranking Democratic Member of the Commerce Committee's Science, Technology, and Space Supcommittee, I am joining my Chairman, Senator Frist, in introducing legislation to establish a National Space Commission. If past experience holds true, NASA will be a catalyst for scientific discovery in this new century. In the past year, NASA has worked on a variety of valuable projects from finding a value for the Hubble Constant which measures how fast the universe is expanding to docking with the International Space Station for the very first time. Earlier this week, NASA and the Russian Space Agency completed the docking of the Service Module to the International Space Station, setting the stage for the first permanent crew to occupy the station. Now, our space exploration agency is poised at a crossroads. After several failures, management has made some changes and reinvested in the work force and in project oversight. During the next year, NASA will try to meet a very aggressive schedule for the assembly of the Space Station, and we will finally have our orbiting laboratory in space. At the same time, a new Administration will be entering the White House. It seems to be an appropriate moment to stand back and ask where our space program is going in the next twenty years. Now is the time to look to the future. The Millennium National Space Commission will build on the work of the 1985 National Space Commission and help us formulate an agenda for the civilian space program. In doing so, it will help keep this nation in the forefront of scientific exploration of ``the final frontier.''

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to address a long-standing problem which adversely affects the safe and reliable maritime transport of oil products. The legislation I am introducing today will eliminate the application and use of strict criminal liability statutes, statutes that do not require a showing of criminal intent or even the slightest degree of negligence, for maritime transportation-related oil spill incidents. Through comprehensive Congressional action that led to the enactment and implementation of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, commonly referred to as ``OPA90'', the United States has successfully reduced the number of oil spills in the maritime environment and has established a cooperative public/private partnership to respond effectively in the diminishing number of situations when an oil spill occurs. Nonetheless, over the past decade, the use of the unrelated strict criminal liability statutes that I referred to above has undermined the spill prevention and response objectives of OPA90, the very objectives that were established by the Congress to preserve the environment, safeguard the public welfare, and promote the safe transportation of oil. The legislation I am introducing today will restore the delicate balance of interests reached in OPA90, and will reaffirm OPA90's preeminent role as the statute providing the exclusive criminal penalties for oil spill incidents. As stated in the Coast Guard's own environmental enforcement directive, a company, its officers, employees, and mariners, in the event of an oil spill ``could be convicted and sentenced to a criminal fine even where [they] took all reasonable precautions to avoid the discharge''. Accordingly, responsible operators in my home state of Louisiana and elsewhere in the United States who transport oil are unavoidably exposed to potentially immeasurable criminal fines and, in the worst case scenario, jail time. Not only is this situation unfairly targeting an industry that plays an extremely important role in our national economy, but it also works contrary to the public welfare. Most liquid cargo transportation companies on the coastal and inland waterway system of the United States have embraced safe operation and risk management as two of their most important and fundamental values. For example, members of the American Waterways Operators (AWO) from Louisiana and other states have implemented stronger safety programs that have significantly reduced personal injuries to mariners. Tank barge fleets have been upgraded through construction of new state-of- the-art double hulled tank barges while obsolete single skin barges are being retired far in advance of the OPA90 timetable. Additionally, AWO members have dedicated significant time and financial resources to provide continuous and comprehensive education and training for vessel captains, crews and shoreside staff, not only in the operation of vessels but also in preparation for all contingencies that could occur in the transportation of oil products. This commitment to marine safety and environmental protection by responsible members of the oil transportation industry is real. The industry continues to work closely with the Coast Guard to upgrade regulatory standards in such key areas as towing vessel operator qualifications and navigation equipment on towing vessels. Through the efforts of AWO and other organizations, the maritime transportation industry has achieved an outstanding compliance record with the numerous laws and regulations enforced by the Coast Guard. Let me be clear: responsible carriers, and frankly their customers, have a ``zero tolerance'' policy for oil spills. Additionally, the industry is taking spill response preparedness seriously. Industry representatives and operators routinely participate in Coast Guard oil spill crisis management courses, PREP Drills, and regional spill response drills. Yet despite all of the modernization, safety, and training efforts of the marine transportation industry, their mariners and shoreside employees cannot escape the threat of criminal liability in the event of an oil spill, even where it is shown that they ``took all reasonable precautions to avoid [a] discharge''. As you know, in response to the tragic Exxon Valdez spill, Congress enacted OPA90. OPA90 mandated new, comprehensive, and complex regulatory and enforcement requirements for the transportation of oil products and for oil spill response. Both the federal government and maritime industry have worked hard to accomplish the legislation's primary objective--to provide greater environmental safeguards in oil transportation by creating a comprehensive prevention, response, liability, and compensation regime to deal with vessel and facility oil pollution. And OPA90 is working in a truly meaningful sense. To prevent oil spill incidents from occurring in the first place, OPA90 provides an enormously powerful deterrent, through both its criminal and civil liability provisions. Moreover, OPA90 mandates prompt reporting of spills, contingency planning, and both cooperation and coordination with federal, state, and local authorities in connection with managing the spill response. Failure to report and cooperate as required by OPA90 may impose automatic civil penalties, criminal liability and unlimited civil liability. As a result, the number of domestic oil spills has been dramatically reduced over the past decade since OPA90 was enacted. In those limited situations in which oil spills unfortunately occurred, intensive efforts commenced immediately with federal, state and local officials working in a joint, unified manner with the industry, as contemplated by OPA90, to clean up and report spills as quickly as possible and to mitigate to the greatest extent any impact on the environment. OPA90 has provided a comprehensive and cohesive ``blueprint'' for proper planning, training, and resource identification to respond to an oil spill incident, and to ensure that such a response is properly and cooperatively managed. OPA90 also provides a complete statutory framework for proceeding against individuals for civil and/or criminal penalties arising out of oil spills in the marine environment. When Congress crafted this Act, it carefully balanced the imposition of stronger criminal and civil penalties with the need to promote enhanced cooperation among all of the parties involved in the spill prevention and response effort. In so doing, the Congress clearly enumerated the circumstances in which criminal penalties could be imposed for actions related to maritime oil spills, and added and/or substantially increased criminal penalties under the related laws which comprehensively govern the maritime transportation of oil and other petroleum products. The legislation we are introducing today will not change in any way the tough criminal sanctions that were imposed in OPA90. However, responsible, law-abiding members of the maritime industry in Louisiana and elsewhere are concerned by the willingness of the Department of Justice and other federal agencies in the post-OPA90 environment to use strict criminal liability statutes in oil spill incidents. As you know, strict liability imposes criminal sanctions without requiring a showing of criminal knowledge, intent or even negligence. These federal actions imposing strict liability have created an atmosphere of extreme uncertainty for the maritime transportation industry about how to respond to and cooperate with the Coast Guard and other federal agencies in cleaning up an oil spill. Criminal culpability in this country, both historically and as reflected in the comprehensive OPA90 legislation itself, typically requires wrongful actions or omissions by individuals through some degree of criminal intent or through the failure to use the required standard of care. However, Federal prosecutors have been employing other antiquated, seemingly unrelated ``strict liability'' statutes that do not require a showing of ``knowledge'' or ``intent'' as a basis for criminal prosecution for oil spill incidents. Such strict criminal liability statutes as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Refuse Act, statutes that were enacted at the turn of the century to serve other purposes, have been used to harass and intimidate the maritime industry, and, in effect, have turned every oil spill into a potential crime scene without regard to the fault or intent of companies, corporate officers and employees, and mariners. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) (16 U.S.C. 703 et seq.) provides that ``it shall be unlawful at any time, by any means or in any manner, to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture, or kill, . . . any migratory bird . . .'', a violation of which is punishable by imprisonment and/or fines. Prior to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, the MBTA was primarily used to prosecute the illegal activities of hunters and capturers of migratory birds, as the Congress originally intended when it enacted the MBTA in 1918. In the Exxon Valdez case itself, and prior to the enactment of OPA90, the MBTA was first used to support a criminal prosecution against a vessel owner in relation to a maritime oil spill, and this ``hunting statute'' has been used ever since against the maritime industry. The ``Refuse Act'' (33 U.S.C. 407, 411) was enacted over 100 years ago at a time well before subsequent federal legislation essentially replaced it with comprehensive requirements and regulations specifically directed to the maritime transportation of oil and other petroleum products. Such strict liability statutes are unrelated to the regulation and enforcement of oil transportation activities, and in fact were not included within the comprehensive OPA90 legislation as statutes in which criminal liability could be found. With the prosecutorial use of strict liability statutes, owners and mariners engaged in the transportation of oil cannot avoid exposure to criminal liability, regardless of how diligently they adhere to prudent practice and safe environmental standards. Although conscientious safety and training programs, state-of-the-art equipment, proper operational procedures, preventative maintenance programs, and the employment of qualified and experienced personnel will collectively prevent most oil spills from occurring, unfortunately spills will still occur on occasion. To illustrate this point, please permit me to present a scenario that highlights the dilemma faced by the maritime oil transportation industry in Louisiana. Imagine, if you will, that a company is operating a towing vessel in compliance with Coast Guard regulations on the Mississippi River on a calm, clear day with several fully laden tank barges in tow. Suddenly, in what was charted and previously identified to be a clear portion of the waterway, one of the tank barges strikes an unknown submerged object which shears through its hull and causes a significant oil spill in the river. Unfortunately, in addition to any other environmental damage that may occur, the oil spill kills one or more migratory birds. As you know, under OPA90 the operator must immediately undertake coordinated spill response actions with the Coast Guard and other federal, state, and local agencies to safeguard the vessel and its crew, clean up the oil spill, and otherwise mitigate any damage to the surrounding environment. The overriding objectives at this critical moment are to assure personnel and public safety and to clean up the oil spill as quickly as possible without constraint. However, in the current atmosphere the operator must take into consideration the threat of strict criminal liability under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Refuse Act, together with their attendant imprisonment and fines, despite the reasonable care and precautions taken in the operation and navigation of the tow and in the spill response effort. Indeed, in the Coast Guard's own environmental enforcement directive, the statement is made that ``[t]he decision to commit the necessary Coast Guard resources to obtain the evidence that will support a criminal prosecution must often be made in the very early stages of a pollution incident.'' Any prudent operator will quickly recognize the dilemma in complying with the mandate to act cooperatively with all appropriate public agencies in cleaning up the oil spill, while at the same time those very agencies may be conducting a criminal investigation of that operator. Vessel owners and their employees who have complied with federal laws and regulations and have exercised all reasonable care should not continue to face a substantial risk of imprisonment and criminal fines under such strict liability statutes. Criminal liability, when appropriately imposed under OPA90, should be employed only where a discharge is caused by conduct which is truly ``criminal'' in nature, i.e., where a discharge is caused by reckless, intentional or other conduct deemed criminal by OPA90. As this scenario demonstrates, the unjustified use of strict liability statutes is plainly undermining the very objectives which OPA90 sought to achieve, namely to enhance the prevention of and response to oil spills in Louisiana and elsewhere in the United States. As we are well aware, tremendous time, effort, and resources have been expended by both the federal government and the maritime industry to eliminate oil spills to the maximum extent possible, and to plan for and undertake an immediate and effective response to mitigate any environmental damage from spills that do occur. Clearly unwarranted and improper prosecutorial use of strict liability statutes is having a ``chilling'' effect on these cooperative spill prevention and response efforts. Indeed, even if we were to believe that criminal prosecution only follows intentional criminal conduct, the mere fact that strict criminal liability statutes are available at the prosecutor's discretion will intimidate even the most innocent and careful operator. With strict liability criminal enforcement, responsible members of the maritime transportation industry are faced with an extreme dilemma in the event of an oil spill--provide less than full cooperation and response as criminal defense attorneys will certainly direct, or cooperate fully despite the risk of criminal prosecution that could result from any additional actions or statements made during the course of the spill response. Consequently, increased criminalization of oil spill incidents introduces uncertainty into the response effort by discouraging full and open communication and cooperation, and leaves vessel owners and operators criminally vulnerable for response actions taken in an effort to ``do the right thing''. In the maritime industry's continuing effort to improve its risk management process, it seeks to identify and address all foreseeable risks associated with the operation of its business. Through fleet modernization, personnel training, and all other reasonable steps to address identified risks in its business, the industry still cannot manage or avoid the increased risks of strict criminal liability (again, a liability that has no regard to fault or intent). The only method available to companies and their officers to avoid the risk of criminal liability completely is to divest themselves from the maritime business of transporting oil and other petroleum products, in effect to get out of the business altogether. Furthermore, strict liability criminal laws provide a strong disincentive for trained, highly experienced mariners to continue the operation of tank vessels, and for talented and capable individuals from even entering into that maritime trade. An earlier editorial highlighted the fact that tugboat captains ``are reporting feelings of intense relief and lightening of their spirits when they are ordered to push a cargo of grain or other dry cargo, as compared to the apprehension they feel when they are staring out of their wheelhouses at tank barges'', and ``that the reason for this is very obvious in the way that they find themselves instantly facing criminal charges . . . in the event of a collision or grounding and oil or chemicals end up in the water''. Certainly, the federal government does not want to create a situation where the least experienced mariners are the only available crew to handle the most hazardous cargoes, or the least responsible operators are the only available carriers. Thus, the unavoidable risk of such criminal liability directly and adversely affects the safe transportation of oil products, an activity essential for the public, the economy, and the nation. Therefore, despite the commitment and effort to provide trained and experienced vessel operators and employees, to comply with all safety and operational mandates of Coast Guard laws and regulations, and to provide for the safe transportation of oil as required by OPA90, maritime transportation companies in Louisiana, and elsewhere still cannot avoid criminal liability in the event of an oil spill. Responsible, law-abiding companies have unfortunately been forced to undertake the only prudent action that they could under the circumstances, namely the development of criminal liability action plans and retention of criminal counsel in an attempt to prepare for the unavoidable risks of such liability. These are only preliminary steps and do not begin to address the many implications of the increasing criminalization of oil spills. The industry is now asking what responsibility does it have to educate its mariners and shoreside staff about the potential personal exposure they may face and wonder how to do this without creating many undesirable consequences? How should the industry organize spill management teams and educate them on how to cooperate openly and avoid unwitting exposure to criminal liability? Mr. President, I have thought about these issues a great deal and simply do not know how to resolve these dilemmas under current, strict liability law. In the event of an oil spill, a responsible party not only must manage the cleanup of the oil and the civil liability resulting from the spill itself, but also must protect itself from the criminal liability that now exists due to the available and willing use of strict liability criminal laws by the federal government. Managing the pervasive threat of strict criminal liability, by its very nature, prevents a responsible party from cooperating fully and completely in response to an oil spill situation. The OPA90 ``blueprint'' is no longer clear. Is this serving the objectives of OPA90? Does this really serve the public welfare of our nation? Is this what Congress had in mind when it mandated its spill response regime? Is this in the interest of the most immediate, most effective oil spill cleanup in the unfortunate event of a spill? We think not. To restore the delicate balance of interests reached in the enactment of OPA90 a decade ago, we intend to work with the Congress to reaffirm the OPA90 framework for criminal prosecutions in oil spill incidents. The enactment of the legislation we are introducing today will ensure increased cooperation and responsiveness desired by all those interested in oil spill response issues without diluting the deterrent effect and stringent criminal penalties imposed by OPA90 itself. I look forward to continuing the effort to upgrade the safety of marine operations in the navigable waterways of the United States, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to address a long-standing problem which adversely affects the safe and reliable maritime transport of oil products. The legislation I am introducing today will eliminate the application and use of strict criminal liability statutes, statutes that do not require a showing of criminal intent or even the slightest degree of negligence, for maritime transportation-related oil spill incidents. Through comprehensive Congressional action that led to the enactment and implementation of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, commonly referred to as ``OPA90'', the United States has successfully reduced the number of oil spills in the maritime environment and has established a cooperative public/private partnership to respond effectively in the diminishing number of situations when an oil spill occurs. Nonetheless, over the past decade, the use of the unrelated strict criminal liability statutes that I referred to above has undermined the spill prevention and response objectives of OPA90, the very objectives that were established by the Congress to preserve the environment, safeguard the public welfare, and promote the safe transportation of oil. The legislation I am introducing today will restore the delicate balance of interests reached in OPA90, and will reaffirm OPA90's preeminent role as the statute providing the exclusive criminal penalties for oil spill incidents. As stated in the Coast Guard's own environmental enforcement directive, a company, its officers, employees, and mariners, in the event of an oil spill ``could be convicted and sentenced to a criminal fine even where [they] took all reasonable precautions to avoid the discharge''. Accordingly, responsible operators in my home state of Louisiana and elsewhere in the United States who transport oil are unavoidably exposed to potentially immeasurable criminal fines and, in the worst case scenario, jail time. Not only is this situation unfairly targeting an industry that plays an extremely important role in our national economy, but it also works contrary to the public welfare. Most liquid cargo transportation companies on the coastal and inland waterway system of the United States have embraced safe operation and risk management as two of their most important and fundamental values. For example, members of the American Waterways Operators (AWO) from Louisiana and other states have implemented stronger safety programs that have significantly reduced personal injuries to mariners. Tank barge fleets have been upgraded through construction of new state-of- the-art double hulled tank barges while obsolete single skin barges are being retired far in advance of the OPA90 timetable. Additionally, AWO members have dedicated significant time and financial resources to provide continuous and comprehensive education and training for vessel captains, crews and shoreside staff, not only in the operation of vessels but also in preparation for all contingencies that could occur in the transportation of oil products. This commitment to marine safety and environmental protection by responsible members of the oil transportation industry is real. The industry continues to work closely with the Coast Guard to upgrade regulatory standards in such key areas as towing vessel operator qualifications and navigation equipment on towing vessels. Through the efforts of AWO and other organizations, the maritime transportation industry has achieved an outstanding compliance record with the numerous laws and regulations enforced by the Coast Guard. Let me be clear: responsible carriers, and frankly their customers, have a ``zero tolerance'' policy for oil spills. Additionally, the industry is taking spill response preparedness seriously. Industry representatives and operators routinely participate in Coast Guard oil spill crisis management courses, PREP Drills, and regional spill response drills. Yet despite all of the modernization, safety, and training efforts of the marine transportation industry, their mariners and shoreside employees cannot escape the threat of criminal liability in the event of an oil spill, even where it is shown that they ``took all reasonable precautions to avoid [a] discharge''. As you know, in response to the tragic Exxon Valdez spill, Congress enacted OPA90. OPA90 mandated new, comprehensive, and complex regulatory and enforcement requirements for the transportation of oil products and for oil spill response. Both the federal government and maritime industry have worked hard to accomplish the legislation's primary objective--to provide greater environmental safeguards in oil transportation by creating a comprehensive prevention, response, liability, and compensation regime to deal with vessel and facility oil pollution. And OPA90 is working in a truly meaningful sense. To prevent oil spill incidents from occurring in the first place, OPA90 provides an enormously powerful deterrent, through both its criminal and civil liability provisions. Moreover, OPA90 mandates prompt reporting of spills, contingency planning, and both cooperation and coordination with federal, state, and local authorities in connection with managing the spill response. Failure to report and cooperate as required by OPA90 may impose automatic civil penalties, criminal liability and unlimited civil liability. As a result, the number of domestic oil spills has been dramatically reduced over the past decade since OPA90 was enacted. In those limited situations in which oil spills unfortunately occurred, intensive efforts commenced immediately with federal, state and local officials working in a joint, unified manner with the industry, as contemplated by OPA90, to clean up and report spills as quickly as possible and to mitigate to the greatest extent any impact on the environment. OPA90 has provided a comprehensive and cohesive ``blueprint'' for proper planning, training, and resource identification to respond to an oil spill incident, and to ensure that such a response is properly and cooperatively managed. OPA90 also provides a complete statutory framework for proceeding against individuals for civil and/or criminal penalties arising out of oil spills in the marine environment. When Congress crafted this Act, it carefully balanced the imposition of stronger criminal and civil penalties with the need to promote enhanced cooperation among all of the parties involved in the spill prevention and response effort. In so doing, the Congress clearly enumerated the circumstances in which criminal penalties could be imposed for actions related to maritime oil spills, and added and/or substantially increased criminal penalties under the related laws which comprehensively govern the maritime transportation of oil and other petroleum products. The legislation we are introducing today will not change in any way the tough criminal sanctions that were imposed in OPA90. However, responsible, law-abiding members of the maritime industry in Louisiana and elsewhere are concerned by the willingness of the Department of Justice and other federal agencies in the post-OPA90 environment to use strict criminal liability statutes in oil spill incidents. As you know, strict liability imposes criminal sanctions without requiring a showing of criminal knowledge, intent or even negligence. These federal actions imposing strict liability have created an atmosphere of extreme uncertainty for the maritime transportation industry about how to respond to and cooperate with the Coast Guard and other federal agencies in cleaning up an oil spill. Criminal culpability in this country, both historically and as reflected in the comprehensive OPA90 legislation itself, typically requires wrongful actions or omissions by individuals through some degree of criminal intent or through the failure to use the required standard of care. However, Federal prosecutors have been employing other antiquated, seemingly unrelated ``strict liability'' statutes that do not require a showing of ``knowledge'' or ``intent'' as a basis for criminal prosecution for oil spill incidents. Such strict criminal liability statutes as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Refuse Act, statutes that were enacted at the turn of the century to serve other purposes, have been used to harass and intimidate the maritime industry, and, in effect, have turned every oil spill into a potential crime scene without regard to the fault or intent of companies, corporate officers and employees, and mariners. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) (16 U.S.C. 703 et seq.) provides that ``it shall be unlawful at any time, by any means or in any manner, to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture, or kill, . . . any migratory bird . . .'', a violation of which is punishable by imprisonment and/or fines. Prior to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, the MBTA was primarily used to prosecute the illegal activities of hunters and capturers of migratory birds, as the Congress originally intended when it enacted the MBTA in 1918. In the Exxon Valdez case itself, and prior to the enactment of OPA90, the MBTA was first used to support a criminal prosecution against a vessel owner in relation to a maritime oil spill, and this ``hunting statute'' has been used ever since against the maritime industry. The ``Refuse Act'' (33 U.S.C. 407, 411) was enacted over 100 years ago at a time well before subsequent federal legislation essentially replaced it with comprehensive requirements and regulations specifically directed to the maritime transportation of oil and other petroleum products. Such strict liability statutes are unrelated to the regulation and enforcement of oil transportation activities, and in fact were not included within the comprehensive OPA90 legislation as statutes in which criminal liability could be found. With the prosecutorial use of strict liability statutes, owners and mariners engaged in the transportation of oil cannot avoid exposure to criminal liability, regardless of how diligently they adhere to prudent practice and safe environmental standards. Although conscientious safety and training programs, state-of-the-art equipment, proper operational procedures, preventative maintenance programs, and the employment of qualified and experienced personnel will collectively prevent most oil spills from occurring, unfortunately spills will still occur on occasion. To illustrate this point, please permit me to present a scenario that highlights the dilemma faced by the maritime oil transportation industry in Louisiana. Imagine, if you will, that a company is operating a towing vessel in compliance with Coast Guard regulations on the Mississippi River on a calm, clear day with several fully laden tank barges in tow. Suddenly, in what was charted and previously identified to be a clear portion of the waterway, one of the tank barges strikes an unknown submerged object which shears through its hull and causes a significant oil spill in the river. Unfortunately, in addition to any other environmental damage that may occur, the oil spill kills one or more migratory birds. As you know, under OPA90 the operator must immediately undertake coordinated spill response actions with the Coast Guard and other federal, state, and local agencies to safeguard the vessel and its crew, clean up the oil spill, and otherwise mitigate any damage to the surrounding environment. The overriding objectives at this critical moment are to assure personnel and public safety and to clean up the oil spill as quickly as possible without constraint. However, in the current atmosphere the operator must take into consideration the threat of strict criminal liability under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Refuse Act, together with their attendant imprisonment and fines, despite the reasonable care and precautions taken in the operation and navigation of the tow and in the spill response effort. Indeed, in the Coast Guard's own environmental enforcement directive, the statement is made that ``[t]he decision to commit the necessary Coast Guard resources to obtain the evidence that will support a criminal prosecution must often be made in the very early stages of a pollution incident.'' Any prudent operator will quickly recognize the dilemma in complying with the mandate to act cooperatively with all appropriate public agencies in cleaning up the oil spill, while at the same time those very agencies may be conducting a criminal investigation of that operator. Vessel owners and their employees who have complied with federal laws and regulations and have exercised all reasonable care should not continue to face a substantial risk of imprisonment and criminal fines under such strict liability statutes. Criminal liability, when appropriately imposed under OPA90, should be employed only where a discharge is caused by conduct which is truly ``criminal'' in nature, i.e., where a discharge is caused by reckless, intentional or other conduct deemed criminal by OPA90. As this scenario demonstrates, the unjustified use of strict liability statutes is plainly undermining the very objectives which OPA90 sought to achieve, namely to enhance the prevention of and response to oil spills in Louisiana and elsewhere in the United States. As we are well aware, tremendous time, effort, and resources have been expended by both the federal government and the maritime industry to eliminate oil spills to the maximum extent possible, and to plan for and undertake an immediate and effective response to mitigate any environmental damage from spills that do occur. Clearly unwarranted and improper prosecutorial use of strict liability statutes is having a ``chilling'' effect on these cooperative spill prevention and response efforts. Indeed, even if we were to believe that criminal prosecution only follows intentional criminal conduct, the mere fact that strict criminal liability statutes are available at the prosecutor's discretion will intimidate even the most innocent and careful operator. With strict liability criminal enforcement, responsible members of the maritime transportation industry are faced with an extreme dilemma in the event of an oil spill--provide less than full cooperation and response as criminal defense attorneys will certainly direct, or cooperate fully despite the risk of criminal prosecution that could result from any additional actions or statements made during the course of the spill response. Consequently, increased criminalization of oil spill incidents introduces uncertainty into the response effort by discouraging full and open communication and cooperation, and leaves vessel owners and operators criminally vulnerable for response actions taken in an effort to ``do the right thing''. In the maritime industry's continuing effort to improve its risk management process, it seeks to identify and address all foreseeable risks associated with the operation of its business. Through fleet modernization, personnel training, and all other reasonable steps to address identified risks in its business, the industry still cannot manage or avoid the increased risks of strict criminal liability (again, a liability that has no regard to fault or intent). The only method available to companies and their officers to avoid the risk of criminal liability completely is to divest themselves from the maritime business of transporting oil and other petroleum products, in effect to get out of the business altogether. Furthermore, strict liability criminal laws provide a strong disincentive for trained, highly experienced mariners to continue the operation of tank vessels, and for talented and capable individuals from even entering into that maritime trade. An earlier editorial highlighted the fact that tugboat captains ``are reporting feelings of intense relief and lightening of their spirits when they are ordered to push a cargo of grain or other dry cargo, as compared to the apprehension they feel when they are staring out of their wheelhouses at tank barges'', and ``that the reason for this is very obvious in the way that they find themselves instantly facing criminal charges . . . in the event of a collision or grounding and oil or chemicals end up in the water''. Certainly, the federal government does not want to create a situation where the least experienced mariners are the only available crew to handle the most hazardous cargoes, or the least responsible operators are the only available carriers. Thus, the unavoidable risk of such criminal liability directly and adversely affects the safe transportation of oil products, an activity essential for the public, the economy, and the nation. Therefore, despite the commitment and effort to provide trained and experienced vessel operators and employees, to comply with all safety and operational mandates of Coast Guard laws and regulations, and to provide for the safe transportation of oil as required by OPA90, maritime transportation companies in Louisiana, and elsewhere still cannot avoid criminal liability in the event of an oil spill. Responsible, law-abiding companies have unfortunately been forced to undertake the only prudent action that they could under the circumstances, namely the development of criminal liability action plans and retention of criminal counsel in an attempt to prepare for the unavoidable risks of such liability. These are only preliminary steps and do not begin to address the many implications of the increasing criminalization of oil spills. The industry is now asking what responsibility does it have to educate its mariners and shoreside staff about the potential personal exposure they may face and wonder how to do this without creating many undesirable consequences? How should the industry organize spill management teams and educate them on how to cooperate openly and avoid unwitting exposure to criminal liability? Mr. President, I have thought about these issues a great deal and simply do not know how to resolve these dilemmas under current, strict liability law. In the event of an oil spill, a responsible party not only must manage the cleanup of the oil and the civil liability resulting from the spill itself, but also must protect itself from the criminal liability that now exists due to the available and willing use of strict liability criminal laws by the federal government. Managing the pervasive threat of strict criminal liability, by its very nature, prevents a responsible party from cooperating fully and completely in response to an oil spill situation. The OPA90 ``blueprint'' is no longer clear. Is this serving the objectives of OPA90? Does this really serve the public welfare of our nation? Is this what Congress had in mind when it mandated its spill response regime? Is this in the interest of the most immediate, most effective oil spill cleanup in the unfortunate event of a spill? We think not. To restore the delicate balance of interests reached in the enactment of OPA90 a decade ago, we intend to work with the Congress to reaffirm the OPA90 framework for criminal prosecutions in oil spill incidents. The enactment of the legislation we are introducing today will ensure increased cooperation and responsiveness desired by all those interested in oil spill response issues without diluting the deterrent effect and stringent criminal penalties imposed by OPA90 itself. I look forward to continuing the effort to upgrade the safety of marine operations in the navigable waterways of the United States, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, as the Ranking Democratic Member of the Commerce Committee's Science, Technology, and Space Supcommittee, I am joining my Chairman, Senator Frist, in introducing legislation to establish a National Space Commission. If past experience holds true, NASA will be a catalyst for scientific discovery in this new century. In the past year, NASA has worked on a variety of valuable projects from finding a value for the Hubble Constant which measures how fast the universe is expanding to docking with the International Space Station for the very first time. Earlier this week, NASA and the Russian Space Agency completed the docking of the Service Module to the International Space Station, setting the stage for the first permanent crew to occupy the station. Now, our space exploration agency is poised at a crossroads. After several failures, management has made some changes and reinvested in the work force and in project oversight. During the next year, NASA will try to meet a very aggressive schedule for the assembly of the Space Station, and we will finally have our orbiting laboratory in space. At the same time, a new Administration will be entering the White House. It seems to be an appropriate moment to stand back and ask where our space program is going in the next twenty years. Now is the time to look to the future. The Millennium National Space Commission will build on the work of the 1985 National Space Commission and help us formulate an agenda for the civilian space program. In doing so, it will help keep this nation in the forefront of scientific exploration of ``the final frontier.''

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I thank all of our colleagues who have engaged in the debate so far. It is summertime in Washington so I guess that means it is sugar amendment time. The Senate essentially voted on this once before. It seems we do it every July and August, during the summer months. The exact same amendment was voted on last August 4. The Senate rejected the amendment by a vote of 66-33, a 2-to-1 margin. I think the reason it was rejected by such a large margin is that Members are finally beginning to understand the sugar program and what it really involves and why it has worked for so many years as a benefit both to producers and also to the consumers of sugar and sugar products. It is not a perfect program, but it is one that has improved over the years. I will make a couple of comments about it. Before that, I want to mention the fact that not too far back, this Congress was really involved in the crisis involving the increase in gasoline prices. We talked about gasoline prices going up 25 cents a gallon, 30 cents a gallon, 50 cents a gallon, and everybody being in an uproar about it. The sugar program has been at a loan rate of 18 cents since 1985. It hasn't gone up one-half cent since 1985. What I want to do is take a moment to try to explain, as briefly as I can, how the program works. We have had talk on the floor this afternoon about these ``huge'' subsidies being given to some wealthy family, I heard, somewhere in Florida. I have almost 700 sugar cane farms in Louisiana and the growers would be very surprised to learn there is a big subsidy program out there, because the sugar program is not a direct subsidy from the taxpayer by any stretch of the imagination. What sugar farmers get is a loan, as other commodities also get, such as rice, cotton, and other farm products. The loan is 18 cents per pound for sugar. It is a non-recourse loan. What that means, simply, to people not in the agriculture business, is it gives farmers the option of putting their crop under loan at harvest time. They have the option to either pay back the loan in dollars or, if the market price falls so low they cannot do that, they can forfeit their sugar to the Government as payment for the loan. The interesting thing is that, since 1985, there has not been one single forfeiture under the loan program. Not one. Farmers have put their crop under loan and they have paid back the loan when the loan was due to the Federal Government. That is how the program works. There is no direct subsidy to make up the difference in a price, where taxpayers have to dip into their pockets to give to a sugar farmer. It is a non-recourse loan, which means they can either pay it back in dollars or forfeit the amount of sugar that they have put under loan. Some would say, well, the sugar program protects domestic sugar by preventing sugar imports from coming into this country. That is not true. In fact, the sugar we are importing varies between 15 and 20 percent. It comes from 40 countries around the world. It is GATT legal. It comes into this country, under the program, from 40 different countries around the world. Here is the thing that I think is really interesting, because I guess in addition to saying it is a huge subsidy program--which it is not; it is simply a loan program--is that somehow consumers are being harmed by this program. This chart, I think, is consistent with what Senator Conrad from North Dakota was pointing out. We have a bar chart; I think he had a graph. It is essentially the same thing. This is data from the Department of Agriculture. It is not from the sugar industry; it is from the USDA. It indicates that it has been 3\1/2\ years since the start of the 1996 farm program when we put the new and improved program into effect. The chart from USDA indicates that the prices for producers have fallen, and the consumer prices for sugar and sweetened products have risen. This shows sugarcane farmers in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Hawaii, which produce the bulk of the sugarcane used for sugar. Since 1996, when we put the program into place, the price of sugarcane to the producer, to the farmer, has fallen 14.6 percent. These are USDA numbers. The prices for wholesale refined sugar, beet sugar, USDA tells us, have fallen 31.9 percent. These are USDA numbers. They show prices falling to the producers, the farmers of cane sugar, and prices falling to the producers of sugar from sugar beets. You would think that if the price to the farmer is falling by 31.9 percent, in one case, and 14.6 percent for sugarcane farmers, my goodness, that must be great for consumers, right? Everything that uses sugar should have a corresponding fall in its price, right? Wrong. Look at what happened to the price of sugar on the shelf. The price of sugar on the shelf has risen a very small amount, while the price for the people producing sugar cane and sugar beets has been drastically falling. But the price of sugar on the shelf has been on the increase when you would expect that it would be going down. Look at what happened. Here is where the complainers were. How many Members of Congress have gotten letters from people saying gas prices are too high? Probably quite a few of us. ``Do something, Senator. Gas prices are too high.'' How many people have gotten a letter from a housewife, or somebody running a home, saying, ``You know, my biggest problem is that I went to buy 5 pounds of sugar and it is so high I have to choose between clothes and shoes and sugar.'' Nobody is writing about that and complaining about the price for 5 pounds of sugar going through the roof. Do you know why? Because it is not. Here is what has been happening. The people who use it--the large manufacturers who make candy--and I can name them, but I will spare them the embarrassment--have had their prices go up 6.4 percent, while a main ingredient, sugar, has been plummeting over here. Not the price of candy. A main ingredient's price has been going down, but the price of their product has been going up. Cookies and cakes are big users of sugar. The most important thing in these products is probably sugar. Their prices have gone up 6.6 percent, according to the USDA, while the price of sugar, a main ingredient, has plummeted. Cereal? Big users. There are a lot of sugar- coated flakes for kids. Cereal prices have gone up 8.3 percent. The price of sugar to the farmer has plummeted. The last one is ice cream. I love it. I would buy it no matter what it costs. It has gone up 9.8 percent. There is a lot of sugar in ice cream. What they are paying for the sugar is a lot lower than it used to be. Boy, their product price doesn't reflect that. If there are problems here, they are candy, cookies, cereal, and ice cream. It used to be the soft drink industry, but they got out and quit using sugar. Today the price of their product is more than it was when they were using sugar. And then look at the cans of artificially sweetened soft drink products and the cans of the naturally sweetened soft drinks; the price of an artificially sweetened soft drink is no less than the price of the one that is using the natural sweetener. Try to explain that when they say the real problem is sugar prices. These are USDA figures, not mine and not sugar producers. Their prices have plummeted under the program. There is no direct Government subsidy. It is a loan. Sugar farmers have never forfeited one single loan since 1985. They have paid it back, and paid it back in dollars, and it has been the same loan rate since 1985. It has been 18 cents. That program, designed to help everybody, has seemingly not helped the farmer very much. But it is the only thing we have. Like every other product and commodity that we try to help in a balanced fashion, it has done that. I will conclude by saying that this is the same vote we had last August. The Senate spoke very clearly then, 66-33. I hope that we will do the same thing today. I yield the floor.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I rise, as have some of our colleagues today, to express my deepest sympathy to Senator Paul Coverdell's friends, family, and to his wife Nancy, as others throughout the State of Georgia as well as throughout this country mourn the passing of one of our colleagues who, indeed, was a very special person. I think when we reflect on the times we had and the opportunity we had to spend with Paul Coverdell, we will certainly remember him as a Senator's Senator; by that I mean a person who was really interested not so much in the message of the day but, rather, in actually working together to bring to this floor and to the American people legislative products that were appropriate to get the job done. I think all of us, when we see our legislative branches becoming more and more partisan and more and more separated by imaginary aisles that separate us, can think back and remember Paul Coverdell as a person who was willing to work with anyone who was willing to work with him in order to accomplish legislation that was in the interest of this whole country. I had the opportunity, as so many of our colleagues did, to work with him on education. I think his approach to that major legislative effort was one from which we can all learn a great deal--how he handled the product he was trying to get passed into law. What I mean by that was he was willing to sit and talk with Democrats as well as his Republican colleagues to try to fashion a compromise that could accomplish the reform of our legislative system. Far too often, that is sort of unique and different in the way things are done--both in this body and in the other body across the Capitol. I think as we remember the experiences and good times we had with him, we can take with us the admiration and respect all of us have expressed of him, but also, at the same time, the lesson he taught us by his actions. That lesson, in my mind, was how we work together to accomplish good things for the American people. He did that. We can remember and we can learn from his actions. That is how I want to remember the good times I had and the privilege of experiencing it with him during the legislative process. He will be missed, of course, by his family and close friends back home. He will be missed by the people of Georgia. He will, indeed, be missed by the people of America--those Americans who think that the function of this body and our Congress in general is to do whatever we can, working together, to make lives better for all American citizens. That is what Paul Coverdell attempted to do as he was able to accomplish so many things in that fashion. He will be particularly missed by this institution and by everyone who wants to make government work better for the American people. Paul Coverdell represented that type of Senator. He, indeed, was a Senator's Senator. He will be sorely missed but very fondly remembered. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Thank you very much. I just make the point, we have a Food and Drug Administration and Health and Human Services Department that already is overburdened. The amendment as is currently pending is going to require them to set up a program in 150 countries around the world to ensure that every warehouse, every manufacturer, every person who handles every drug in their country that is coming to this country be certified as healthy. They cannot do that. That is an impossible burden. This should not be passed. I think we should vote no.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, is there any time in opposition to the amendment?

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Mississippi for yielding. I was thinking about the argument that we had on the Senate floor about importing medical supplies in terms of prescription drugs from foreign countries into the United States because they might be cheaper. I could get open-heart surgery in Mexico for a lot cheaper than at Oschners in New Orleans or at the Mayo Clinic or at Johns Hopkins or any other fine institution in the United States. It would be half as expensive. I doubt many Americans want to put their lives in the hands of people they know are not regulated. I could buy many items in countries around the world, and many Third World countries, which would be a lot cheaper. I remember one time going to Hong Kong. I saw some of the Lacoste shirts with the little alligator. My wife and I were shopping in Hong Kong and they had all these Lacoste shirts. They were $5. I said: That is incredible, a heck of a deal. I will buy a Lacoste alligator shirt for everyone I know for gifts for Christmas. We bought one after another. I bought one or two myself. We came home and the first time I washed the shirt, the alligator fell off. The alligator fell off because it was a counterfeit shirt. The shirt nearly dissolved after the first washing and the alligator drowned in the washer. The product was totally worthless. It was a counterfeit product. It is one thing when you are buying a knit shirt. When someone is sending me drugs that have been either manufactured in a foreign country or even manufactured here and sent to a Third World country and stored in a warehouse, God knows where, under conditions that may be totally contrary to the safety of that drug, who knows who deals with those products in that country in the privacy of that warehouse. Who knows how many times somebody might go into that warehouse and take the product, and instead of saying we will have 100 pills, if I cut it in half, I could have 200 pills. If I could cut it into fourths and end up not with 100 pills but 400 pills, look how much money I can make if I do it that way. If I can take that type of quality control, which is nonexistent in a foreign country, and say that is how I will make my money, what kind of products will we be giving to the American consumer? This is not a Lacoste shirt that an alligator might fall off of. This is medicine that is important to the safety and the life of our constituents. Why do we have a ban on the importation of foreign drugs passed by Congress in 1987? In order to protect U.S. consumers, to make sure that the drugs were not improperly stored, or improperly handled, or improperly shipped, or perhaps made to be like my Lacoste shirt, totally, absolutely counterfeit. How many Federal bureaucrats are we going to put in 150 countries around the world to ensure those products in those countries are safely stored, safely handled, and not diluted? And how many more bureaucracies are we going to create to make sure those problems don't develop? We can get a lot of things cheaper in a lot of other countries. How about buying cheaper wheat from China? They have a controlled economy where the Government runs everything and sets the prices. Could we not buy a lot of wheat from China and give it to our constituents a lot cheaper? We don't do that because it is not a level playing field. In that sense, we are competing with a micromanaged economy overseas that the Government participates in and helps their farmers. Our people can't compete against that. It is not a good idea. This is the bottom line--actually two things. No. 1, there is no guarantee we are not going to create a boondoggle with this for all the wholesalers. There is no guarantee, without the Cochran amendment, that anybody who is a consumer is going to have any of the benefit of any of what we are trying to do by importing cheap Third World drugs into this country. Nobody has a guarantee the savings would be passed on to the consumer. I can see a wholesaler who wants to get the drug for $20 selling it for $40 over here and making one heck of a profit. There is no guarantee without the Cochran amendment. The final point is that this is not the answer to the problem. The answer to the problem is to find a way to guarantee to Medicare beneficiaries that they get the best deal, that we have some ability to provide them with the coverage they need at the price they can afford. That is the real answer. People say we do not want price controls in this country; that is anti-American. But we are going to buy the price controls from other countries around the world. We will let them impose price controls, and then we will buy from them. Why don't we just put on price controls in this country and call it what it is? We are saying essentially we don't like price controls but we like other countries' price controls and so we will buy it from them with absolutely no ability to guarantee the product coming over here is the product that left this country. Here is the problem. If a Medicare beneficiary walks into the drugstore and has no insurance because Medicare doesn't cover him, the pharmacist tells him: It is $100 for your prescription. That Medicare beneficiary has to take it out of his pocket or gets his children to pay for it, or, if they are very destitute and poor, Medicare pays for it and they pay $100. If you don't have any coverage, you pay $100 for the prescription. If, however, you work for the Federal Government, if you are a Senator or one of the staff people here who happens to have the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, and you go into the drugstore and buy the same prescription, you don't pay $100, No. 1, because there is volume purchasing because they are purchasing for all the FEHBP people who are covered by FEHBP. The discount by volume purchasers for the insurers gets it down to about $70, a 25-plus-percent discount. That is the average by volume purchasing. But none of us or our staff even pays the $70. We will probably pay a coinsurance of about $35, for some plans even a copayment which could be $15 or $20. So that is the answer to the problem. The answer is not to import Third World countries' price controls. Talking about Canada is one thing. I guarantee if this passes, we are not going to be importing a lot from Canada. We are going to be buying from countries whose handling of these drugs we have no ability to control. If it were coming from Canada, it would not be a bad deal. We know how they operate. But this amendment is not limited to Canada. Any Third World country will be able to handle the drugs, dilute them, do anything they want, store them where they want, and we will not be able to guarantee the validity of that drug. This is the answer to the problem: Not importing from other countries, but to try to ensure that all Medicare beneficiaries have some type of coverage that allows them to get the benefits of volume purchasing and also to have some type of insurance where the Federal Government assumes part of the responsibility, part of the risk, and the providers compete and also assume some of the risk to get the price to the Medicare beneficiary down to half or less. That is what we should be working on. This is a Band-Aid type approach. Really, it is worse than a Band-Aid approach because Band-Aids help; this doesn't help. It puts the American consumer at risk. We passed this law to prevent all the things that are likely to happen if this amendment passes. We should not go back to our constituents and say: We are letting you get cheap drugs from foreign countries because they have price controls. It is the wrong approach, and we should recognize it as such. I yield the floor.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to the Ecole Classique Academic Games team from Metairie, Louisiana, which is one of the most successful Academic Games teams in America. For the past seven years, Ecole Classique has competed in the National Academic Games in Eatonton, Georgia. Over these years, the team has won hundreds of first, second and third place honors, more than 100 national titles, and seven sweepstakes championships as the finest team in the country. They have also won national titles in all four divisions, something no other school in the country has ever achieved. The Ecole Classique team undergoes an intense year of preparation and hard work to prepare for the Academic Games. At the tournament they divide into fuor divisions and use creative problem solving skills and strategies to compete against other students from across America in the areas of Social Studies, Language Skills, Mathematics and Logic. Once again, their hard work has paid off. At this year's competition, the Ecole Classique students won more than 100 trophies, 16 national championships and two sweepstakes titles--far outpacing their nearest competitors. Making Ecole Classique's accomplishment even more remarkable is the fact that while other teams are comprised of all-star students pooled from multiple schools, Ecole Classique's team only consists of students who attend this small school in Metairie, Louisiana. I must also salute the team's coach, Don Shannon. An extraordinary leader and mentor, Mr. Shannon has distinguished himself by becoming the only Academic Games coach in the nation to lead multiple sweepstakes champions in all four divisions. I congratulate the remarkable students of Ecole Classique's Academic Games team who continue to make their family, school and community proud, and extend my very best wishes for their continued success.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, will the distinguished Chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee yield for a question?

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Chairman. I want to commend the gentleman from Washington and the distinguished ranking member for the great leadership they have demonstrated in crafting the FY2001 Interior Appropriations bill. Gentlemen, last year you were both instrumental in securing funds for a project of great personal interest to Senator Lott and myself, the Kemp's ridley sea turtle project. The project, funded in part through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a twenty-year-old on-going success story in the recovery of a highly endangered species. Since 1978, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has spearheaded the sea turtle conservation work at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. This collaborative conservation project with the Mexican government and the U.S. shrimp industry, through the National Fisheries Institute, protects Kemp's ridley sea turtle nests and females from predation and other hazards, and ensures that young turtles make it into the sea. I am pleased to report that this Spring, the project has reached an all time success level with some 750 turtles laying eggs in over 5,000 nests, a record in the past 40 years. However, this year, despite the demonstrable success of the project, the Fish and Wildlife Service did not request funds for the Kemp's ridley sea turtle project. I am extremely concerned and want to express my strong support for continued funding for this valuable conservation effort.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague, Senator Dorgan, in introducing legislation designated to address the issue of Internet sales taxation. As a consumer, I know first-hand how popular, simple and easy it is to buy items over the Internet. In fact, the Internet saved me at Christmas when I bought last-minute gifts for my wife, four children and our two little granddaughters. But, as a member of both the Senate Finance and Commerce committees, I also know Congress has an obligation to examine how these same, tax- free Internet sales can financially harm businesses and state governments. Senator Dorgan's bill balances the concerns of state and local governments with the importance of maintaining easy access to Internet services. It allows state and localities to enter into an interstate compact for the purpose of simplifying their sales tax systems for remote sales. Once 20 states have joined the compact, Congress can disapprove of their efforts. If Congress does not act, those states that have joined the compact and simplified their sales tax systems, will be authorized to collect sales tax on the purchases their citizens make over the Internet. Our proposal, recognizing that collecting taxes must not be overly burdensome for online retailers, also provides a collection fee for all Internet retailers who collect these taxes. It ensures Internet purchases are not singled out for special tax treatment at the expense of neighborhood businesses, and state and local governments. This restores equality, a key aspect of any good tax system, without placing an unfair burden on anyone. I believe that this is a fair and equitable bill that takes reasonable steps to address the concerns of both online retailers and state and local governments. We all agree Internet access should not be taxed, and that states and localities should not be allowed to impose discriminatory taxes on the Internet. In fact, Senator Dorgan's bill extends the moratorium on these types of sales for another four years. But, I ask, is it fair to levy sales taxes on a person who buys a book from his local bookstore, but not his neighbor who buys that same book over the Internet? I do not think it is fair. It isn't fair to residents who must pay the local sales tax because they don't own a computer. It isn't fair to local retailers collecting the tax who must compete with Internet retailers who don't. And, it isn't fair to the states and their local governments that are losing money they need to fight crime and fires, and to give their children a quality education. In Louisiana, sales taxes make up 33 percent of all revenues. Economists estimate that Louisiana could lose up to $172 million in state revenues by 2002 because Internet sales are not taxed. Other states are confronted with similar difficulties. When faced with these facts, it's no wonder two-thirds of Americans support Internet sales taxes. The sales tax is not a new tax. It has been collected by states from their citizens for more than 100 years. It should be collected on all sales, regardless of whether they occur on Main Street or the information superhighway. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this important piece of legislation.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the chairman of Finance Committee for yielding me time to make a couple of brief comments on the issue that is before the Senate. Let me suggest, first of all, that the issue in the Congress is not whether or not this Congress should be for providing prescription drugs under the Medicare program to seniors. There is no difference in that. I don't know of any Member of Congress to whom I have talked--either in the House or in the Senate--who is opposed to saying to the Nation's 39 million Medicare beneficiaries that they should be covered for prescription drugs. That is a given. The question is not whether they should be covered; the question is, How are we going to do it? I suggest that this is a baby who is not ready yet to be born. What do I mean by that? What I mean is that we are taking 30 minutes to debate an attempt to pass a prescription drug proposal on which a national Medicare bipartisan commission spent a year and a half working. We are, in 30 minutes, trying to pass a bill which has never come through the appropriate committee of jurisdiction--the Finance Committee. We have had 14 days of bipartisan hearings on this issue. This afternoon, in a bipartisan fashion in the Senate Finance Committee meeting room, we sat and discussed this same issue--this identical issue--on how to construct a Medicare prescription drug plan that can work. We met additionally another time this week on the same subject. It is not the proper process to yank that work product out of the responsible committee and say we are going to have 15 minutes on this side to debate a new entitlement program being added to a Medicare program which is in danger of default. It is in danger of going bankrupt. And yet we are going to add a new entitlement program with 15 minutes of debate on this side, and 15 minutes of debate on that side, and say we have done what is right and proper for the Medicare beneficiaries of this country? I suggest that is not the right way to do it. I commend Senator Chuck Robb, who is a member of our Finance Committee, and Senator Bob Graham, who has spent a great deal of time crafting this amendment. This may be the right way to go, but it is not yet ready to get there. We need more analysis. We need to consider if you can do it through an insurance program. Finally, I think it is incredibly important that, whatever we do, we do not just add an entitlement program without doing some real basic reform to the Medicare program. We have a Medicare+Choice Program under Medicare right now. Does anyone in this body think it is working correctly? It is being micromanaged by HCFA with 4,000 employees, and it is a disaster. We should not be looking backward and doing things the old way. We are moving into the 21st century. We should not be acting as if it is the 19th century. We should be crafting new ways of solving these problems, and not going back to policies that have failed. Medicare was a wonderful program in 1965. But it is frozen in the 1990s. The challenge we have is not to debate a political issue, but to come together to find a way to solve the problem. There are interesting ideas that are being discussed by the Senator from Florida, by the Senator from Virginia, by myself, and others on the Democratic side, working with Members on the Republican side to come up with something that is creative. Are we not capable of thinking outside of the old style box of just adding another entitlement program to the Medicare program without reforming anything? I suggest we should not make that mistake. If we want to put ourselves on the Record on prescription drugs, why not pass a Senate concurrent resolution that says, yes, we all think it is important that prescription drugs today are as important as a hospital bed was in the 1960s, and have a resolution that says that and says we are going to work in a bipartisan fashion to work out an agreement instead of debating an issue. I suggest that what we have is a very narrow opportunity to do that. We are not going to be able to reform the whole program in the 30 days left in this session in a Presidential election year. That is not going to happen. But if we do prescription drugs, should we not do some reform attached to it? I think the suggestion and the answer is absolutely yes. Let the Finance Committee do our work, and bring something to the floor that is doable and passable. I suggest it is the right way to proceed.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the baseball teams at Louisiana State University, LSU, and the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, ULL, the LSU women's track team and all Louisiana student-athletes. If there is one thing Louisianians take as seriously as our politics and cooking, it is our athletics. In fact, Louisiana has an excellent tradition when it comes to producing great athletes. This is easily demonstrated in the number of athletes from Louisiana who have played or currently play professional sports. Sports teaches us the importance of teamwork, goal-setting and determination. It also teaches us to never give up, even when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. No one has to tell the University of Louisiana-Lafayette's baseball team about perseverance and defying the odds. They had to defeat the nation's number one ranked team twice in one day to get to the College World Series. But once there, they defied expectations by posting a respectable two wins and two losses, and etched the mascot ``Ragin' Cajuns'' into the vocabulary of every college baseball fan. Teams at LSU have also applied the lessons taught in athletics, as well as Yogi Berra's oft-repeated truism ``it ain't over till it's over,'' to become one of the finest athletic programs in the country. The LSU baseball team, after starting the season 6-0, struggled to a 6-5 record in their first 11 games. But, with the help of tremendous senior leadership, self-confidence and the will to win, LSU finished strong by ending the season with an outstanding 52-17 record and their fifth national championship in nine years. And the LSU women's track team is no stranger to dramatic finishes, either. Down 46 points on the final day of competition, they scored just enough points on a winning performance in the final event to win their 12th NCAA outdoor championship in 14 years. In all, LSU had one of its finest athletic years ever during the 1999-2000 season. Outside of these two national titles, a total of 11 teams finished in the nation's top 10 in their respective sports. This year's two national championships gives LSU a total of 35 national championships, the most of any school in the Southeastern Conference. And of the 20 sports LSU sponsors on the varsity level, 14 finished the year in the nation's top 25 and participated in NCAA championship events. I salute the student-athletes who have helped make Louisiana one of the finest states for collegiate athletics in the country. And I especially congratulate the LSU baseball and women's track teams who have proved once again it isn't how you start the game that matters, but how you finish. It is this value that will transcend the playing field to make Louisiana's student-athletes champions in the biggest game of all--the game of life.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I start by commending the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee for his important observations about this legislation; also, to commend the principal sponsors of this legislation, Senator Kennedy and Senator Smith, for bringing this matter to the attention of our colleagues and seeking our support for this legislation. I do not think this is that complicated an issue, quite frankly. I do not think the issues are so complex that they call for an extended psychological discourse on the makeup of the American population. Quite frankly, the issues are fairly simple. America stands for the constitutional principle that all men and women are created equal and that we are all guaranteed the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness regardless of who we are or where we are from or what we think, what our political views are, or what is the essence of our makeup as a human being. That is a right that is guaranteed to all Americans in the Constitution. I think no one really questions that. That principle does not mean everyone in America has to agree with everybody else. In fact, I think that, far from it, we are a nation that certainly encourages diversity of thinking, differences among competing ideas, and differences among the respected beliefs of all the people who make up our great Nation. That constitutional principle does not even mean that we have to like each other. Certainly there are instances when Catholics do not like Protestants, and Protestants do not like Jews, and Jews do not like Muslims, and Cajun Americans may have differences with British Americans. For that reason alone they do not particularly care for each other; they do not like each other; they do not want to associate with each other. That also is their constitutional right, I suggest, in this country to take that opinion of people with whom they disagree. But our constitutional principles do, in fact, guarantee clearly that we as Americans cannot do violence or do harm to other people in our country, especially when that violence or harm is based solely on whom these other people might be. To do violence solely because of someone's religious beliefs, their personal ideas, or concepts about what is right and what is wrong, or because of their religion or where they are from is especially repugnant to all of us as Americans. You do not have to like everybody, but you certainly cannot harm anybody, and especially you cannot harm anybody solely for whom they happen to be or who they are. This legislation then is aimed at adding crimes that are motivated by a bias against people solely because of their gender or solely because of their sexual preference or perhaps because of some disability they might have. I, therefore, think this legislation which the authors bring to the Senate is appropriate and should be supported. It will send a clear message throughout this country that these types of activities in this country will not be tolerated. Again, in America, our right to not embrace or befriend someone with whom we do not want to be associated, for whatever reason, is guaranteed. But what is also guaranteed is their right under the Constitution of the United States to be protected against violence and harm that others might do unto them solely because of who they are. As Americans, we certainly should be proud of our multicultural and multiethnic heritage. We are a diverse nation and when we look at other nations that are having problems because of their heritage or their diversity, we can be proud in this country that we, in fact, are a different nation than many others. Therefore, this legislation sends a strong and clear message that domestic terrorism and violence against people in our country based merely on who they are or what they believe is something that deserves national protection, and Federal legislation is, in fact, important. A hate crime against any American is a crime against all Americans, and this legislation saying that is a Federal right upon which we will insist is appropriate and proper and deserves our support.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, we are excited in Louisiana that the ``enterprise strategy'' we are developing for human resources systems is recognized by the Appropriations Committee as a model for other service and DOD wide information systems. All of these legacy systems need to be modernized to become cost effective and interoperable. The committee's support for our efforts, and for other information technology additions to this bill, confirm the need to restructure and coordinate all of our service and DOD wide information systems. Only by doing so can we provide real-time information to our warfighters that improves both readiness and effectiveness of our troops. The ITC in New Orleans was just recently chartered as part of the Navy's year old Program Executive Office for Information Technology and Enterprise Management (PEO/IT). Specifically, the ITC is designated by the Navy's PEO/IT as the ``primary support command for enterprise software development.'' The PEO/IT is the Navy's only PEO for Information Technology and has been delegated authority for the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, Enterprise Acquisition Management, the ITC, the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System (DIMHRS), and other information technology programs. The PEO/IT's authority over these programs was chartered in November 1999, well after the FY 2001 DOD budget process had commenced. Interim and additional funding for the ITC in New Orleans is critical in FY 2001. This funding will ensure that the ITC can continue to provide the Navy and DOD's unique enterprise strategy integration efforts. Only by pursuing this strategy can we guarantee that current human resources information systems and future systems are developed, integrated and managed in accordance with the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 and other OMB initiatives based on the Government Performance Results Act. This enterprise strategy develops and integrates new and current legacy information systems so that they will all be interoperable and provide our service personnel and commanders in the field real-time, usable, human resource data about training, experience, and other human resource data from which our commanders can make deployment decisions, fulfill combat mission requirements, and improve readiness. Again Mr. President, I thank the chairman, and our ranking member, the senior Senator from Hawaii, for recognizing the importance of this effort. I look forward to working with them in future years to provide for its continued success. Nonlinear Acoustic Landmine Detection research and development at Stevens Institute of Technology

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3127

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I rise today to honor Mr. Joseph Nastasi, who has been an advocate for the seniors of Monroe, Louisiana, for 18 years as executive director of the Ouachita Parish Council on Aging. A veteran of World War II, and the wars in Korea and Vietnam, Joe honorably served his country in the Marine Corps from 1943 until he retired in 1979. After his long and distinguished service, Joe shifted his focus to serving older Louisianians as he began work with the Ouachita Council on Aging in 1982. Under his leadership, the Ouachita Council on Aging has significantly increased its senior services. Eighteen years ago, daily meals were delivered to 80 seniors. Today, that number has expanded to approximately 500. And, in large part to Joe's efforts to enhance senior transportation, more seniors in Ouachita Parish now have access to essential services such as heart and cancer centers. In addition to his work with the Council on Aging, Joe has also served as President of the Louisiana Council on Aging Directors Association, on the boards of the Louisiana Public Transportation Association and Louisiana State University Monroe Medical Center, and as a member of the Louisiana Elderly Health Care Council. As ranking Democrat of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, I can tell you that Joe has been an invaluable resource to me and my Aging Committee staff. Last November, he testified at an Aging Committee field hearing in Monroe and provided excellent insight into the challenges faced by family caregivers. Joe's experience and insight have enriched our work time and again. After many years of loyal service, Joe recently retired from the Ouachita Council on Aging. I want to thank him for his hard work and dedication, and wish him well in his retirement.