Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, the amendment is up, isn't it?

Mr. BUMPERS. I now call up my amendment.

Mr. BUMPERS. My good friend and colleague from Alaska, Senator Murkowski, mentioned the fact that I come from a State where poultry is a big industry, which, indeed, it is. And they have been taking a lot of hits lately. Tyson Foods, which is by far the biggest poultry company in the United States, has been fined by the State of Maryland, been made to change their operations. The Secretary of Agriculture announced last week that we need a totally new set of regulations dealing with animal waste, including poultry. They are subject to all kinds of regulations. I have been here for 24 years now, and I defy any Senator to tell me one time I ever objected to a regulation that dealt with the environment where the poultry industry was involved. I wonder if the Senator from Alaska would tell us how he would feel if I came in here knowing that the poultry industry was creating an environmental disaster and said, well, I want 27 more months to study it--if last year I came here with a proposal saying you can't do anything to the poultry industry until every Governor in the country or every Governor whose State has poultry signs off on it, and, once you get that in place, say, well, all the Governors have to be consulted, and you get that in place, and then I come back and say, no, we need 27 more months to study it. I don't know how people would react to that. I expect rather severely. But I will tell you one of the differences. Very few States have hard rock mining on Federal lands. Incidentally, I might just at this point say, Mr. President, there was an editorial a couple weeks ago in the New York Times entitled ``Time for Mining Law Reform.'' I ask unanimous consent to have that printed in the Record.

Mr. BUMPERS. This says exactly what I have been saying, and that is, the President ought to veto the Interior Appropriations bill if my amendment is defeated. And I personally think he will. With all these disasters which I have addressed, all we have had is one delay after another. In 1993 they said, ``Well, we are working on a mining bill,'' and in 1994 the same people who said we are working on a mining bill and we should not deal with these regulations did everything they could to stall until 2 weeks before we were to go home to make sure there was no mining bill. And then last year they said, ``We want all the Governors to have a say in this. Don't put a regulation into effect that prohibits the leakage of cyanide from a gold mining site unless all the Governors have signed off on it.'' They backed off that and they said, ``Well, they have to be consulted.'' We said, ``Fine, they ought to be consulted.'' So they were consulted. And the president of the Western Governors' Association told the Senate Energy Committee that ``We have been consulted.'' So what do they do then? They come back and say, ``Well, now we want the National Academy of Sciences to study the regulations''--anything under God's sun to keep from dealing with an unmitigated disaster. Why are the people of America indifferent? They don't even know about it. There is no hard rock mining in my State. I am not running for reelection, but if I were running for reelection I wouldn't get any votes in my State out of this issue. As Gilda Radner used to say--``if its not one thing, its another.'' And the Senator from Alaska alluded to the fact that I had, indeed, been working with the National Mining Association trying to craft something to reform the 1872 law that Ulysses Grant passed and has been such an unmitigated disaster for this Nation. Think about a law still on the books that Ulysses Grant signed to encourage people to go West. Is that a legitimate reason for allowing this 126-year-old bill to stay on the books--encourage people to go West? That is what we are dealing with. And the Senator from Alaska said he and Senator Craig had a bill, and I asked them not to bring it up. That is true. I did that because I thought we were going to make a deal. The Chairman of the National Mining Association--who is a very fine, honorable man, in my opinion, a man of immense integrity--and I worked extremely well together. We were honest with each other, and our staffs developed a draft proposal. Unfortunately, that was before we ran it by the Western Senators. Two Western Senators said we can't do this. And the Senator from Alaska said the reason they didn't bring up the bill he and Senator Craig crafted was because he thought we had a deal. I thought I had a deal, too. The bill they wanted to bring up, the bill they crafted and they said it was too late to bring up, let me tell you what it would do. It says, first, that environmental regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Interior cannot be stronger than the State where the mine is located. Think of that. There is no point in even having a Federal regulation. Each State would be a king with regard to mining on Federal land. Every State would determine what the environmental regulations would be, because the Federal regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Interior could be no stronger than the State regulations of a particular State where a mine was located. How foolish can you get? And, when it came to the royalty, they would grandfather every mining company holding a valid claim. There are 300,000 claims in this country. If you grandfather everybody who has a valid claim, you would not collect enough royalties in the next 30 years to buy a ham sandwich. There is nobody to pay it. After all, people have been buying Federal lands for $2.50 an acre for the last 130 years. You cannot charge them a royalty because they own the land. We sold it to them for the princely sum of $2.50. So when you take all of them and everybody else who turns up with a valid claim, there is nobody left to pay a royalty. Mr. President, let me make a philosophical point. I am an unabashed, card-carrying, hardened environmentalist. In 1970, when I ran for Governor in my State the first time, the environment was just then becoming an issue in this Nation, albeit a fairly low key one. But it made a lot of sense to me, based on what I had read, and so I began to talk about the environment. I began to talk about Arkansas' magnificent rivers and streams and how they were being polluted. I began to think. In 1966, I went fishing on the Buffalo River, the most beautiful river in America. It was so magnificent. I had no idea that my own State had such a treasure. Two nights we camped out on a sandbar. We ate and we drank and we created a lot of garbage, and the tour guide took all the garbage that we created and put it in a plastic bag, waded out as far as he could into the river, and tossed it. And nobody thought a thing in the world about it. Finally, after a little bit of that, somebody began to raise the question about the Buffalo River being polluted. To shorten the story, we made it a national scenic river. It is a pristine, clean river. People come from all over the world just to camp out on the banks of the Buffalo or to fish the Buffalo. It was not even popular with the local people when we made the Buffalo River a national treasure, and today there is not anybody up there who would go back to the old ways. So, yes, you are being addressed by a card-carrying environmentalist. Do you know the other reason? I have three children and six grandchildren. We talk about how much we love them, how they are our most precious possession, how our whole life is calculated to make life more pleasant for them, and then we come in here to vote for trash like this. We only have one planet. God, in his infinite wisdom and in the heavens, gave us one planet to sustain us forever. Not next week, not next year--forever. We say, ``Well, God certainly didn't mean to stop putting cyanide poison into our underground aquifers and our streams and rivers, because there are jobs involved in this. God didn't intend that.'' No--that is how specious the arguments are that I have been listening to this morning. So you only get one chance to preserve the planet. You can buy these arguments about, well, what is wrong with the National Academy of Sciences studying the rules for mining? Nothing, except they have already studied it. Everybody studied it. There are GAO reports galore. If the National Academy of Sciences is so important to us, why was it not mentioned last year, and the year before and the year before that? It is a nicely crafted idea, because at the fundraisers, if anybody raises the question, you can say, ``What is the problem with the National Academy of Sciences--it is a very prestigious organization--studying the rules on how we are going to mine?'' It would not take 27 months. Mr. President, 27 months is carefully calculated to take us past the Presidential election of the year 2000. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Feingold, and the Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu, be added as cosponsors.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, Bill Clinton, my friend from my home State of Arkansas, has been taking a lot of trashing lately, a lot of it richly deserved. I am not here to defend the President. But I will tell you one thing. You can say a lot of things about him but you cannot say he is not an environmental President. I will tell you what I think he will do. I think he will follow the advice of Dale Bumpers and the New York Times and veto this bill if this amendment is defeated. I can tell you I don't care how weak he is, I don't care how disturbed he is about all of this, I don't care how disturbed the American people are, I promise you there is one thing about him that he will not yield on and that is the environment; and for the very same reason nobody in the U.S. Senate ought to yield on it. I know it is painful. I know companies are put upon because of the environment. But, when you think about what has happened to the environment over the past 300 years of history in this country, it is time we implement strong measures. Did you know that the rules right now say that you cannot even regulate a mine of 5 acres or less, you can go out and create all the damage you want to on 5 acres? That is a pretty good spread for some mines. In the State of Nevada, there are 2,400 mines of 5 acres or less. Here is a letter from the BLM office in Reno, NV, to an assemblywoman in Nevada, about these 5-acre mine sites. The BLM says: Since enactment of BLM's surface management regulations in 1981 [that's the one we are still trying to live with, put in effect in 1981, since the regulations in 1981] the BLM in Nevada has processed nearly 10,000 notices. Currently, there are approximately 2,400 active notice-level operations in Nevada. There have been many environmental and operational problems associated with the smaller operations in Nevada. We aren't talking about 1872. We are talking about May 1, 1997. Let me repeat that. There have been many environmental and operational problems associated with the smaller operations in Nevada. In summary, there are 90 exploration or mining sites of five acres or less in Nevada where a reclamation bond would have either probably prevented a new modern-day problem from developing or would have been used to reclaim an environmental problem. You can defend that if you want to if you are from Nevada. That is your privilege. Do you know something else? The Federal regs of 1981 are just like the Nevada law. We exempt all mines of 5 acres or less. Thousands and thousands of them are exempt under Federal regulations. And you think that doesn't create environmental havoc? Mr. President, I am not terribly optimistic about my chances of succeeding today. Last year, happily, we were able to work out an arrangement where we said we will consult with the Western Governors. Nobody mentioned the National Academy of Sciences last year. I have been in the Senate 24 years and ever since I have been on this issue, nobody has ever mentioned the National Academy of Sciences. But somebody cleverly came up with the idea and said, ``At your fundraisers, you can always defend yourself; you can say, `The National Academy of Sciences did a study on that.' '' I sure hope they come up with a good set of regulations. I yield the floor, Mr. President.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, first of all, I want to make one point that perhaps has not been made, and that is that this amendment only applies on Federal lands. Bear in mind, all mining does not occur on Federal lands. There are all kinds of mines in this country on private lands. There are some on State lands. I might also say that we have given away 3.2 million acres of land in the past 126 years. Well, we did not give it away; we charged $2.50 an acre for it. Lands the size of the State of Connecticut we have given to the mining industry in the past 126 years to mine on. Do you know what else? They own it. We gave them a deed for $2.50 an acre, and they own it. And these regulations do not apply to people who own their own land. The States regulate that. One other point I want to make is that I believe the Senator from Idaho indicated something about my political position, my political base. No. 1, there is no political base on mining in my State. There is a political base for being on the side of keeping the environment as clean as possible, but that is not unique to my State. I assume that there are some people even in Idaho and Alaska who want to keep the environment as clean as possible. Let me say, as the Senators tick off all the laws that the mining industry has to comply with--clean air, clean water, reclamation--tell us which one of those you want to repeal. In the 1970's when a number of environmental laws were passed, go back and look at the speeches that were given, and given again today, about what a terrible disaster this would be if we passed this bill and made people comply with these nonsensical, crazy regulations. It is just another case where the old Federal Government is trying to tell us how to run our lives. Do you know the reason the Coeur d'Alene River is now a clean, pristine river? Because of the Clean Water Act. I applaud the people of Idaho who I assume didn't want that river to be polluted any further. I can tell you, it may or may not have happened if it hadn't been for the Federal Government's intervention. I don't know where that beautiful river in my State, the Buffalo, would be right now if we hadn't made it a wild and scenic river and stopped the disastrous pollution of the river. In the 1970's 65 percent of the streams, rivers and lakes in this country were neither fishable nor swimmable. And because of the terrible old Federal Government and all their regulations imposing on the business community of this country, today it is reversed--65 percent of the streams, lakes, and rivers of this country are fishable and swimmable. How I wish I could live long enough to see that figure at 100 percent. It is expensive. It is expensive to undo a mess. As I said on the Senate floor last week in a different context but it bears repeating here, as the English philosopher said, there is nothing more utterly impossible than undoing what has already been done. Do you think Bill Clinton wouldn't like to undo some of his past? Do you think people in my State wouldn't like to undo some of the surface mining, the strip mining, that we allowed to take place? They just dug out the earth, piled it up in big layers, took the coal, and left it. It is not even half over. When you consider the fact that mines of 5 acres and less aren't even regulated, when you think of all the 3.2 million acres of lands we have given to the mining industry, these lands are not included. So what do we have? The Senator from Idaho said Senator Bumpers is up there talking about what happened years ago. In 1992, in Colorado, Summitville's actions cost the taxpayers $30,000 a day; 6 years ago that disaster occurred. What did they do? They polluted 17 miles of a river. It is now a Superfund site. Zortman-Landusky, 1998, in Montana--going broke. Taxpayers will get to pick up the tab while we do another study by the National Academy of Sciences. Then you can go home and say, ``Yes, I'm for the environment.'' I think the National Academy of Sciences ought to study these things as the disasters pile up. In 1998, in South Dakota, they are not quite broke yet, they are in financial difficulties. They had a $6 million bond, and the cleanup figure is now estimated at $10 million. Who picks up the difference? You know who picks up the difference. There are 557,000 hardrock mine sites that are abandoned. Today, 59 of them are on the Superfund list. The cost to the poor taxpayers: $34 to $71 billion, because the U.S. Congress engaged in sophistry, specious arguments, as the pollution went on, as the unreclaimed mines were left for the taxpayers to pick up the tab. Think about 2,000 sites in our national parks that have to be reclaimed. Twelve thousand miles of rivers are polluted, and they say we need another 27 months to study it. I don't know much of anything else I can say about this. I will have a lot more to say tomorrow when I offer yet another amendment on mining. Then the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from Idaho can have a big party and say, ``That mean old Senator from Arkansas, we have heard the last of him,'' because you will have. I have been on this subject now for 10 years, with just a few marginal successes. As I pick up the paper in a few years and watch how things have gone, I will be a detached taxpayer, still with strong feelings about it. All I can say is, I did my best to try to save this planet for my children, my grandchildren, and yours. Let me repeat one more time, when you consider FLPMA, which we passed in 1978, when you consider the National Forest Management Act, when you consider the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, tell us, which ones would you strike? Which ones would you repeal? It reminds me, as a southerner, what a tough time we had coming to grips with civil rights. Monday morning I will speak at an assembly at Central High School in Little Rock where, 31 years ago, the National Guard was called to keep black children from going to school there. The Arkansas Gazette, at that time the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi, took a strong stand against Orval Faubus, who was Governor and who called out the National Guard to keep those nine children from going to school at Little Rock Central High School. They lost circulation down to about 82,000. Orval Faubus was elected six times--the first Governor ever elected to a fourth term. Only one had ever been elected to a third term. And who today would take that side of that question? There are a few, of course. Who today would want to go back to charging people to vote?--which they did when I was a young man. You had to go down to the courthouse and pay a dollar for a poll tax. Who would go back to that? If I were to start talking about the literally hundreds of things that we have done in this country that were terribly unpopular--I can remember when every doctor in America said, ``If you pass that Medicare bill, you will be sorry; it will be the end of health care in this country.'' Can you find me somebody today who doesn't like Medicare, including the medical profession? No. In the 1970's--go back and look at the speeches made when we passed a variety of environmental statutes. I never read as many doomsday speeches in my life. Who would go back to the time when we didn't have NEPA? Who would want to go back to the time where we emptied our garbage out in the Buffalo River in plastic bags? Sometimes it is a long time coming, and the disastrous part of it is that so much of it is irreversible; you cannot put it back the way God gave it to us. That might be getting too heavy on an issue like this. But I am telling you, when you look at the statistics of how many abandoned mine sites there are right now, when you look at the fact that we know what this is--this is nothing more than a dilatory tactic. There is not one Senator who doesn't know precisely what this is about. It is a simple delaying tactic. Mr. President, I yield the floor and yield the remainder of my time-- Mr. President, I will not yield back the remainder of my time. I think Senator Landrieu may wish to speak, so I will reserve the remainder of my time for her.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, here is what the new regulations contain: Regulations to minimize adverse environmental impacts, if economically and technically feasible--that is a pretty big loophole; that is what these new regulations provide--reclaim the land to its prior condition; bonding, enough bond to cover reclamation costs; and, protect the air and water quality. Let me ask my opponents on this issue, to which of those do you object? To what do you object? Mr. President, these arguments about the poor gold miners processing gold--I have heard those same arguments year after year, and sometimes when gold was more than $400 an ounce. If gold is cheap, that is the argument. If gold is high, then it is jobs. If neither apply, then it is that bad old Federal Government trying to regulate our lives-- anything under God's Sun to keep from doing anything to make the mining companies of this country do it right. This is the simplest amendment in the world. Everybody knows what it is. For 17 years, since 1981, we have been living with regulations for the most part which were hopelessly out of date. In the meantime, we have been allowing cyanide to go into the rivers and streams and the underground aquifers of this country, and they don't want to do anything about it. They don't want a regulation or a rule that makes people responsible for that. I think I have said everything I can possibly say about this issue. I will simply say I may lose this afternoon, and probably will. And when 27 months have gone by, unless somebody takes it on again next year, maybe we will get James Watt back as Secretary of the Interior and we will not have to worry about things like this anymore. This is very carefully crafted to say to Bruce Babbitt that you cannot do anything-- you can't do anything until the year 2001. At that time, my opponents on this divinely hope that there will be a Republican President and there will be a Secretary of the Interior who will do their bidding. That may happen. And in the meantime, unmitigated, unfathomable economic disasters will continue to occur. If this is an issue for the Senate to do something about, all you have to do is vote yes. If you do not want to do anything about it, then vote no. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. Is there 10 minutes equally divided beginning at 2:15 on this amendment?

Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS

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

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, both caucuses are still in session. I ask unanimous consent that the beginning of the debate, 10 minutes equally divided, begin at 2:20 p.m.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Is time to be charged against both parties when there is nobody speaking?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, let me just say to what few colleagues may be listening, in 1976, the Secretary of the Interior was charged with the responsibility of making sure that people who mine on Federal lands belonging to the taxpayers of America, not cause undue degradation of the land. In 1981, the Secretary promulgated regulations to determine how mining would take place. It was obvious after that that the gold mining companies were using cyanide--cyanide--to mine gold. We have had three unmitigated disasters since 1981. We have cyanide running in the rivers and streams and our underground water supplies of this country. In 1991, Secretary Lujan tried to change the rules so we could take care of that, as well as other things that needed to be taken care of. In 1993, everybody said, ``No, let's wait; we're going to get a new bill.'' Nothing happened. In 1997, Secretary Babbitt started to promulgate rules to try to take care of underground leeching of cyanide poisoning, as well as a whole host of other things. Senator Reid got an amendment put on last year that said every Governor in the West would have to sign off on that. We finally compromised by saying the Secretary would have to consult with Governors of the West, which he did and which they certified that he did. This year, they come in and say, ``No, let's don't do it yet; let's have the National Academy of Sciences study it.'' It takes 27 months, 27 more months under this amendment to get these rules promulgated, carefully orchestrated to go past the year 2000 and, hopefully, to get a Secretary of the Interior to their liking so we can continue to pollute the rivers and streams of underground aquifers of this country with cyanide poisoning. People of this country have a right to expect something better than that, and all I am doing is striking this so that the Secretary can go ahead and issue the rules on November 17. If the Congress doesn't like them, let them change them. But for God's sake, let's keep faith with the American people and say we are going to do something about Summitville, CO, 1992. The bond was insufficient. They took bankruptcy. Zortman-Landusky, MT, 1998; Gilt Edge, SD, 1998.

Mr. BUMPERS. I plead with my colleagues and simply say let the Secretary do the job we hired him to do and promulgate the rules we told him in 1976 he ought to promulgate. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. I would. I thank the Senator very much.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, since I have been in the Senate, I have come to the floor--and I would not want to miss my last opportunity before I leave the Senate--to express my strong, strong support of the National Endowment for the Arts. We talk a lot in this country about how uncivil we have become; how uncivil our children have become. During the same time--I am not making the correlation--the National Endowment for the Arts' funding has gone down about 50 percent. I think it was close to $200 million when I came here. I can tell you an experience I had when I was overseas waiting to come home after the war, and was bored to death. I have told this story before. But it is worth repeating. I saw a sign up on the bulletin board one day: ``Would you like to learn about Shakespeare? Come to such and such a room tonight.'' So about six people just like me, bored stiff, waiting to get home, went over. It turned out that a Harvard dramatist--a drama coach from Harvard--had put up the sign. He began to tell us about Shakespeare. He began to tell us about Hamlet. He had a tape recorder. In those days I had never seen a tape recorder. I remember. He said, ``Listen to this.'' He spoke into his tape recorder and he proceeded to deliver Hamlet's speech to the players. It was a magnificent thing. It was the most mellifluous voice I had ever experienced. He played it back on his tape recorder. I was just stunned. It was just so beautiful. He handed us the tape recorder, and he said, ``We are going to have each one of you do the same thing.'' I remember. I was about the second one. He handed us the script. I cannot tell you how embarrassed I was. I went ahead, and read ``Speak the speech, I pray.'' I read the whole speech. I still remember it. I will not repeat it here. Then he turned the tape recorder on, and it came back. It was pure ``Arkansas redneck.'' I made up my mind right then that I did not want to sound like that the rest of my life. To be brutally frank with you, if it had not been for the experience I had with that drama coach for all of those nights--about six nights--I daresay I might not be standing on the floor of the Senate today. It was just a happenstance, just an opportunity. Every time we give a child that kind of an opportunity, we are always a stronger, better, more civilized nation. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed for--I will not say a specific period of time, I simply say that I will yield the floor any time our leader or anybody working on the bankruptcy bill asks me to. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed as in morning business.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I had not intended to discuss the subject of the hour this morning, and I will only do so briefly and, hopefully, not in a controversial way. I heard the Senator from Pennsylvania pleading with people to reserve judgment. And I simply want to echo what he said. These are very traumatic times for this country. And I would say, despite the trauma the country is experiencing over the apparently possible impeachment of the President, we still have a tremendous amount of work to do in the U.S. Congress, and the American people have a right to expect us to do that business before we leave here. While it is more gratifying, I suppose, from a political standpoint, as well as from a personal standpoint, to immerse ourselves in the Starr report, we still have so much very serious, important work to do here, and I would be willing to suggest that we should come back after the election if necessary to deal with some of these things. Having said that, let me say that the President will respond in time to the Starr report, I am sure. He is entitled to be heard. The American people are entitled to an objective, nonpartisan deliberation based on the facts. As a former trial lawyer, I have gone before jurors who I had a sneaking suspicion had made up their mind before I got to make my opening statement. And I can tell you, it is a very queasy feeling. I have tried cases when, in my own mind, I was satisfied that the jury had made up its mind before the case was tried, before they heard the evidence, despite what we lawyers call voir dire examination, where you ask the jurors: ``Do you have any preconceived notions about this case?'' All of them said no. And I did not come to that conclusion that they made up their mind before they heard the evidence just because I lost, it was based on other things. The American people have an inimitable, innate sense of fairness. The vast majority of the people in this country want, expect, and have a right to know that this whole situation is going to be considered in a very dignified way in accordance with the process. This should not be--and I do not think it will be a political witch hunt. And I want to compliment the people in the House whom I have watched in the Rules Committee and in the Judiciary Committee, and the Speaker of the House, in their admonitions to their own Members about this being a very solemn, somber time in the history of this country and we must treat it with the seriousness it deserves. This is not one of those ``let's give them a fair trial and string them up'' kind of hearings. So as an English philosopher once said, ``There's nothing more utterly impossible than undoing that which has already been done.'' Whatever the President's sins, they have been done. So far as anybody much knows at the present, the American people know what those sins were, his indiscretions, what he described as ``indefensible.'' So the question before the House will be whether or not any or all of those things combined reach the threshold that the Founders intended in the Constitution; and that is, we know it is not treason and it is not bribery, and the next question will be: Does it reach the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors? The President has admitted, as far as I know, virtually everything. So he has bared his soul to the American people and pleaded for their forgiveness, as he did this morning before a prayer breakfast. So, Mr. President, while I did not come over here to speak on that, I just wanted to add my comments to those of the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Specter. And I would also like to say that when I talk about the work we have yet to do here, I am talking about issues of health care, I am talking about issues of the environment, and I am talking about issues of education. I am not trying to make a comparison, but what I am saying is that morality is often like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. There has been an awful lot said about the President sacrificing his moral authority. And I would simply remind people--and this is not intended to be defensive--I would simply remind people that allowing children to go without health care is immoral, too, in this Senator's opinion. And abusing the only planet God gave us to sustain ourselves is also immoral. Probably next Tuesday, The Senate will debate a provision included in the Interior Appropriations bill that would prevent the Secretary of Interior from being able to strengthen the environmental rules determining how the giant mining companies of this country will mine gold, silver and so on from our public lands. Most people don't know it, but we mine gold through a process called heap leach mining. And do you know what we use? Cyanide. I am not saying it is immoral to use cyanide, but I am saying it is immoral to block regulations determining how you are going to use cyanide to keep it out of rivers, streams and the underground water supply. That is what the amendment on Tuesday will be about. I put in the category of being immoral to say the Secretary of the Interior must wait and let somebody else do a study before he can protect the environment. Last year, we had a handshake deal on this subject--we agreed not to procrastinate and delay Interior Department regulations any longer. Now, this year we have to have the National Academy of Sciences study it--postpone it for another 27 months. At the end of that, the mining industry will probably want the National Organization of Women to study it. After that, they will want NASA to study it --anything to keep from facing up to despoiling the only planet we have to sustain our children and grandchildren. As I say, morality takes a lot of forms.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I also wanted to discuss another matter of significance. We are going to technically have a budget surplus this year. Nobody knows how much it will be. The CBO has estimated the surplus will be somewhere between $50 and $63 billion. They have projected $1.4 trillion in surpluses over the next 10 years. We need to keep in mind that estimates are just that--estimates. When you consider the fact in the last 60 days, $1.9 trillion has been lost on the stock exchanges of this country, you tell me how you would evaluate that study that was made about 4 months ago that we are going to have a $1.4 trillion surplus over the next 10 years. The surplus may hold up this year and we may get a surplus next year, because an awful lot of people are bailing out of the market. But when we talk about a surplus, it has been said time and time and time again on the floor of this Senate, it is not really a surplus. I don't know why in the name of God we keep calling it a surplus when it isn't. But for the sake of argument, because this is the way we do it here, let's assume we will have a $50 to $63 billion surplus this year. But let me add this caveat: $100 billion of that is the excess in the Social Security Trust Fund. You take the Social Security excess out and we will have a $40 to $50 billion deficit. Now, having set the stage for whoever may be listening to this argument, we are effectively looking this fall for a surplus, and every dime of it will come from the Social Security Trust Fund. Then I pick up the paper this morning and I see where there is a move in the U.S. Senate to go ahead with a tax cut after all. I don't know whether what I read this morning is true or not, but I have applauded our Budget Committee chairman in the past because he has steadfastly been opposed to tax cuts this year. But this morning I read that maybe he is about ready to sign off on an $80 billion tax cut. I want to say this: There is an unassailable argument that can be made, that we are cutting taxes for some of the wealthiest people in America and it is coming right out of the Social Security Trust Fund. If you put $100 billion that we collected in Social Security this year, in excess of what we paid out, if you take that surplus and take it off budget and put it in the Trust Fund where it is supposed to be, you have a deficit. If you leave it in, you have a surplus. It is a phony surplus. And this tax cut will come out of the phony surplus, which means it is coming right out of the Social Security Trust Fund. Now, I would not presume to give political advice to the people on the other side of the aisle, and I can tell you that nobody ever lost a vote--normally--voting for a tax cut. In 1993, we lost control of the Senate because we voted for a tax increase on the wealthiest of Americans which brought about our current economic prosperity and renewed fiscal soundness. I said time and time again, if the Democrats had to lose control of the Senate for casting a very courageous vote that brought this country 7, 8 years of economic vibrancy, it was worth it. I lost two of the dearest friends I had in the election of 1994 because they voted for the 1993 budget bill. We have been benefiting from it ever since, and we now find ourselves in this very happy, euphoric state. Why cannot we enjoy and leave it alone? Why do we have to keep tinkering with it? If you don't want the Social Security Trust Fund to be a vibrant fund, something that gives people who are in the workforce at the age of 25 or 30 some degree of assurance that it will be there for them, if you don't want to do that, say so. Mr. President, do you know that under current estimates--and these estimates, as I say, are just what I say they are; they depend on the economy and they depend on a lot of things. But the Social Security Administration estimates by the year 2020, the Social Security trust fund will have a $3.7 trillion surplus. The only problem with that is 12 years later it is bankrupt. If we don't fix Social Security--we are not going to do it this year--if we don't get at it soon, and we allow ourselves to squander a $3.7 trillion trust fund, it will be one of the most callous, irresponsible acts ever taken by the U.S. Congress. If you don't want it to go to the Social Security Trust Fund, then you just tell your constituents you are not for a tax cut; you want it to either stay in the Social Security Trust Fund or you want it to go on the national debt, which now stands at about $5.2 trillion. We still have a vibrant economy. When you start taking money out of the Social Security trust fund to funnel into the economy, you have the remote chance of increasing inflation. You increase inflation, you increase interest rates. You increase interest rates, the buying of cars and houses goes ``kerplunk.'' Those are simple economic principles. They are just as certain to happen as the night following the day. Why cannot we be grateful for our prosperity? Mr. President, I vented my spleen on one of my favorite subjects this morning, and that is that I think tinkering with the phony surplus in order to provide a tax cut is not only bad economic policy, it is bad politics for those who propose it. In 1981--I am not sure I would have had the courage, except I had just been reelected, had 6 years in front of me to rectify whatever sins I committed--in 1981, I stood right here--I think I have been sitting at this desk for about 18 years--and I made the point just before we voted that if you passed Ronald Reagan's tax cuts and doubled defense spending, you were not going to balance the budget in 1984, you were going to create deficits big enough to choke a mule. There is nothing more fun for a politician than to be able to say I told you so, so that is what I am saying. Eleven Senators voted against that. There were only three Senators who voted against the tax cuts and for the spending cuts, which would have balanced the budget in 1984; it was yours truly, Bill Bradley from New Jersey, and Fritz Hollings from South Carolina. But 11 of us voted against that tax cut and said you are going to get the deficit out of control. My precise words were: ``It will be big enough to choke a mule.'' You will find that in the Congressional Record. And we did it. I don't know whether we choked a mule or not, but the consequences were absolutely horrendous, and remained horrendous until 1993 when we were looking at $300 billion in annual deficits as far as the eye could see. So I am pleading with my colleagues to think about it. My voice is not persuasive on the other side of the aisle, and I know that. It is very presumptuous of me to even make this speech, and I don't intend to lecture. I am simply saying that despite what is going on here in this traumatic time in the history of this country, let's not compound that by making a terrible economic mistake. And, as I say, for some, in my opinion, it is a terrible political mistake. I yield the floor. Mr. Brownback addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS

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

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I wonder if the distinguished proponent of this bill from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold, would be willing to yield some time. Does the Senator have any additional time?

Mr. BUMPERS. My speech will be much better than sitting in a quorum call. I thought I might get more time.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, let me just conclude my remarks by reiterating something I said earlier about the issue of free speech. We all know that the difficulty is a constitutional one because the courts have ruled that this is a free speech issue. But it can be overcome. It can be overcome with the McCain-Feingold bill. It can be overcome with public financing. There are all kinds of ways to amend the way we finance campaigns in this country without violating free speech. But let me just ask my constituents--no, let me ask my colleagues--no, my colleagues have already made up their minds. Let me ask the American people: Do you think we have a nice, democratic, fair system of electing Members of the House and Senate when some fat cat can give a candidate $4,000; he and his wife can give a candidate $4,000--$2,000 for the primary, $2,000 for the general. I ask you, how much can a working man making $10 an hour on an assembly line give? The question answers itself. If he has a wife and two kids, he can't give anything. I don't care how much he may love a candidate; he is not in a position, at $10 an hour, to be making political contributions. The second question: When a candidate gets $4,000 from a fat cat-- when legislation is being considered in the U.S. Congress, who will get the candidate's attention? The poor stiff with a wife and two children to feed, educate and clothe and who is trying to make a living? How much attention is he going to get compared to the guy who gave $4,000? Now, that is an illustration that is palpably clear to everybody. Herman Talmadge, one of the great Senators who served here, had a lot of sayings in making speeches. He said, ``If you want your audience to pay attention, you've got to throw the corn where the hogs can get to it.'' You have to say it so people can understand it. What I just said is understandable. It is essentially as much a one-line description of what this debate is about as anything I can conjure up. The guy that gave $4,000 gets a lot of free speech, and a lot of the free speech he gets goes right into the ear of the Senator or the Congressman that got the $4,000. And when the phone call comes into the office from the poor guy making $10 an hour, with a wife and kids, because he wants a passport or because he knows a friend from Bolivia that is being mistreated under the immigration laws, do you know where his phone call goes if it is answered at all? It goes back to the staff. Where does the call go from the guy who gave $4,000? You and I both know where it goes. It goes directly into the office of the Senator. Do you call that free speech? Do you call that a democracy? It is impossible to keep up with the campaign finance laws as they are written today. One of the things Al Gore is charged with is making a phone call from his office to solicit money. I am not going to say anymore about that because everybody here understands that. The President is under investigation now under a 90- day sort of determination by the Attorney General as to whether or not in 1996 his campaign coordinated some ads with the Democratic National Committee. Today my side is going to lose. The way we finance campaigns is going to continue exactly as it has been since the memory of mind runneth not, and investigations of either Democrats, or Republicans, or both will continue. It is impossible to level the laws of this country, and in this very hostile partisan environment. Sometimes I think about offering a resolution in the Senate saying it is the sense of the Senate that there are some Democrats who have not yet been investigated and we want to know why. We will continue to lose this debate until the American people wake up not only to the corruption of the financing laws of the country, but to the fact that their democracy is disappearing right under their nose. It is so difficult at times to get people to focus on something that is a little bit complicated. They don't understand. Since it doesn't really relate to them, they just do not want to be bothered. Republicans--I will hand it to them. They are zealots. Rain or shine, they go vote. My party--we have to ride in the sunshine. In all fairness, I have to say that we represent a lot of people who do not own automobiles. They oftentimes don't have ways to get to the polls, unless some of that campaign money is given to drivers to go out and get them and bring them in. I saw a poll that showed that 71 percent of all Republicans say they are going to vote, and about 60 percent of the Democrats say they are not going to vote. Unless that figure changes, I can tell you what this election is going to do. I assume the President has to take some responsibility for that. I just do not know. He is my friend, and that is a separate subject. We will deal with that later. But even absent the Starr report, absent Monica Lewinsky, we had a plateful for the American people to ingest. Part of that plateful is corruption, which is, in my opinion, as threatening to the Nation as the Kenneth Starr report is. I suspect this country is in a bit of a funk today. I haven't looked at the market yet. It started off down this morning. I think that is all the result of people being upset and depressed--and, is the country leaderless? How is this all going to come out? Is it going to take 5 or 6 months to get this resolved? All of those things. Tonight, when you listen to the news, that is all you will hear. Tomorrow night, when you listen to the news, that is all you will hear. And here is something that goes right to the heart of whether we survive as a democracy, or not. Frankly--I hate to condemn the public-- they are not paying attention. Every poll shows it. What is the most important thing to you? Campaign finance is about tenth on the list. Democrats keep trying to make it a big issue, trying to get people to pay attention to it, and in all fairness, seven or eight Republicans. But how can you expect them to when they hear absolutely nothing on the evening news but Monica Lewinsky and Kenneth Starr's report. As I say, I am not condemning the American people. That is just the way we are made. That salacious stuff is a lot more exciting than talking about campaign finance reform, which is complex. Mr. President, I have said all that I want to say, and all that I need to say. But I especially wanted to put in the part about free speech. It is so tragic that everybody here knows who is getting the free speech, and everybody knows whose voice is not heard because of the way we finance campaigns. I say that we ought to go to public financing. That way every person in this country who is a taxpayer would know that his vote was as important as anybody else's. His voice would be as important as anybody else's. As long as it is the richest and the wealthiest people who determine the outcome of elections in this country, where do you think we are headed? I will leave that question with you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I came over to express my very strong support for campaign finance reform. From the time I ran for Governor in 1970 until 28 years later--this very moment--I have abhorred the system of financing campaigns in this country. One of the reasons--not the main reason, but certainly one of the reasons I decided not to seek reelection this year was because I detested going out and raising money. Let me also say that it is reaching the point in this country where the cost of campaigning goes up every single year--and there is no end in sight. Right now the Attorney General is conducting a 90-day interim period investigation on whether or not the DNC coordinated a 1996 campaign with the President of the United States. The same thing is going on with the Vice President. And the same thing will go on forever until we change it, and change it dramatically--soft money, hard money, issue ads, attack ads. I close, Mr. President, by saying I consider not only the method of financing campaigns in this country ominous, quite frankly, I consider it rotten to the core. I also want to say to the American people----