Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I now ask for the yeas and nays on each of those amendments.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, the Senator from Illinois, Senator Simon, has arrived on the floor. He is my No. 1 cosponsor. Is the Senator from Illinois willing to defer? Senator Thompson from Tennessee has been waiting an inordinate length of time. He has been waiting on me to finish speaking. I promised him that he could go immediately after me. He will not take very long for his statement. But I do want my colleague to be heard on this asset sale amendment.

Mr. BUMPERS. Will the Senator from Tennessee yield me up to 5 minutes?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I want to profoundly thank the Senator from Tennessee for bringing this to the Senate's attention. I think the Members of the Senate did not realize an amendment was going to be required to do what he wants to do--return the contributions to the Presidential race where they were before. As the Senator from Tennessee correctly points out, it is one of the few things that has worked, in my opinion, perfectly around here. I am one of the people who happen to favor public financing of campaigns. We are the only developed nation on Earth that does not publicly finance campaigns. To me that is alien to most people in this country. They do not like that. But I can tell you that it would be the best investment the American taxpayer has ever made to finance senatorial and House races and the Presidential race. You take money. I do not want to be too caustic and cynical about this. But I can tell you, you are never going to get things the way you want them around here as long as the money plays the role it does in Presidential races, and certainly as long it plays the role it plays now in elections for the Senate and the House. So I just want to compliment him to make sure we do not move in the wrong direction. I would like to think that at some point we will move in the right direction and publicly finance these so every Senator can vote without worrying about who he might offend that gave him money the last time. I do not mean that to be unduly critical of any Member. Everybody here has done it. It has become a requirement. Let me just say one thing. In 1960, 70 percent of the people of this country said they had quite a bit of confidence in Congress. That was 36 years ago. At that time you could take $100,000 in $100 bills as a political contribution and never report it to a soul. You did not have to do anything. Put it in your pocket. And unless somebody caught you at it, it was perfectly OK. You could take a 2-weeks all-expense-paid vacation paid for by some lobbyist. There was nothing wrong with that. People who back home came into your office seeking favors, oftentimes Members of Congress would send them back to their law firm in their hometown and they split the profits of that law firm at the end of the year no questions asked. Nobody knew, and nobody the wiser. You could take $100,000 in hundred dollar bills for making a speech, and nobody knew it. Nobody cared. And 70 percent of the people in this country thought Congress was doing a pretty good job. All of a sudden, CBS discovered that you could make money off the news. So they developed ``60 Minutes.'' They put a little pizzazz in the show business end of the news, and you could make it profitable. And they did. And ``60 Minutes'' became the most widely watched show in America and the most profitable show CBS had. Shortly thereafter, as the Senator from Tennessee alluded, the Watergate affair developed; scandal after scandal. From 1972 to 1974, until 1996, Congress has tried to reform itself all beginning with Watergate, and we have. We do not get much credit for it. But if you are looking for gratitude resign from the U.S. Senate. What has happened? The ethics manual is that thick. Every Senator, if he has any thought at all about his future, keeps the Ethics Committee on auto dial. His secretary does. Now you have to report every dime you take in over $200. You report it faithfully. You do not make speeches for honoraria. We passed a bill here, one of the best things we ever did, to make us comply with the laws that everybody else has to comply with. I can tell you a lot of people around here have found out that it was tough for the business community of this country to comply with the civil rights bill, EEOC, to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, to comply with the wage and hour laws. We have to do that now. And you have to file an ethics report, which every Member of the Senate did last week, showing every dime you have, where it is, how you made it, every stock you own, every acre of ground you own, everything. And after all of that, today 28 percent of the people have quite a bit of confidence in Congress. On the one hand, you might say, well, what people did not know back then was good for them. But the truth of the matter is we did it and we did it right. There are about 500 Rush Limbaughs in the country. There are about 13 clones of ``60 Minutes.'' And so if you expect those people who are in the money making business to compliment you on the fact that the ethics manual is that thick, forget it. But it is the right thing. We pursued the right course. This body, this Congress is better as a result of having cleaned up our own act. The Senator from Tennessee is right on course when he says we do not want to go back to eventually having to finance the Presidential campaign with private contributions. It has worked fine, and again I applaud him for it. I wholeheartedly support it. I hope he will ask for the yeas and nays. I hate to see it adopted on a voice vote. I thank the Senator for yielding. Amendment No. 4015 (Purpose: To amend the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to prohibit sense of the Senate amendments from being offered to the budget resolution) Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. I send an amendment to the desk, Mr. President.

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

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, this amendment deals with a change the Republican majority made to the budget rules last year which permitted the use of revenue from asset sales to be scored against the budget. The last two CBO Directors, Mr. Reischauer and Mr. Penner, have criticized this change to the budget rules as being bad public and fiscal policy. From 1987 to 1995, we had a firm policy that you could not sell assets and use the revenues derived from those sales to count against the deficit. Nobody quarrels with the occasional selling of an asset. At times it makes perfectly good sense. But when you score the asset sales against the deficit, you have to ask yourself, next year, what do you do for an encore? When I was Governor, I received a revenue sharing check from the Federal Government for $21 million. I did not put the money in the State operating budget because I knew then, even as a freshman Governor of Arkansas, it was bad policy. I did not have to come to the Senate to find that out. It was bad policy because if I had put it in the operating budget, revenue sharing could have came to an end the next year, which it did after I came to the Senate. We received revenue sharing for several years and were glad to get it, but it was eventually discontinued. All I could think about was the poor Governors out there who had been using revenue sharing for operations--their share of Medicaid, their educational budget, and when suddenly you find $100 million not coming in next year, what do you do? You raise taxes or reduce services to make up the difference. And so, in 1987, this body very wisely said: In the future, you cannot sell assets and score the revenue for budgetary purposes. That was the rule we operated under until 1995. All of a sudden, in 1995, the Republicans took control of Congress and began proposing to sell a number of assets, including the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve; the Federal power marketing administrations, which generate hydroelectric power at Federal dams; the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, which we have been filling up with oil for almost 15 years now for the rainy day when we might have another Arab oil embargo; and the Uranium Enrichment Corporation. Incidentally, I have no quarrel whatever with selling the Uranium Enrichment Corporation. I was glad that the Federal Government privatized the Corporation, but do not score it against the budget deficit. Mr. President, not only was there a proposal to sell these assets, but a senior Member of the House of Representatives introduced a bill to appoint a commission--listen to this one, Mr. President--to decide which of the national parks should be sold. So where are we headed Mr. President? We are going to have a big national yard sale and sell some of our most valued national treasures in an attempt to mask the budget deficit, including some of the national parks. If you think this is just rhetoric, look at this chart outlining last year's proposal to sell the naval petroleum reserves, the major part of which is the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve in California. It produces about 63,000 barrels of oil a day. Let me show you what a silly idea the proposed sale is. According to CBO, the sale of the naval petroleum reserves would produce $1.55 billion in revenue. However, over the 7-year budget scoring window we would lose the $2.47 billion in revenue that would have been produced had the Government retained title to the asset. That would result in a net increase in the deficit of $992 million over 7 years. Selling the naval petroleum reserves now in a rush to make it appear that you are going to balance the budget makes absolutely no sense. If we can balance the budget--and God knows, we ought to over the next 6 or 7 years--that is fine. But do not do it by selling off the Nation at a loss. As the chart demonstrates, the $1 billion loss occurring over the 7- year budget period is just part of the story. If the asset were sold, the Federal Government would continue to forgo approximately $400 million in revenue annually. This would add an additional $12 billion in losses over the approximate 30 year lives of the reserves. So we are going to sell an asset for $1.55 billion in order to try to balance the budget by the year 2002, and if you consider the 30 subsequent years we lose $12 billion. Bad policy? No; insane policy. A moment ago I mentioned the power marketing administrations. For the uneducated, the power marketing administrations, or PMAs, market hydroelectric power generated at Federal dams. The Southwestern Power Marketing Administration serves my State, and I do not want it privatized, I do not want it sold, and I am going to do everything I can to keep it from being sold. Here is why. It is not just because the people of Arkansas use the power; it is because I believe in honest budgeting. This chart is intended to demonstrate the actual impact the sale of a PMA would have on the deficit. Assume that in 1996 the Federal Government receives $1 billion from the sale of a particular PMA. What do we lose? The first year, 1996, we would lose $100 million in revenue that would have been produced if the PMA stayed in Federal ownership. So what happens? It is true that we get $900 million more in 1996 than we lose. We get $1 billion, we lose $100 million in revenues, and, on its face, the deficit would fall by $900 million. But look at what happens in the future. In the year 2000, we still have only gotten $1 billion, but we have now lost half of it in revenues foregone. By the year 2002, when we are supposed to balance the budget, we've received $1 billion, but now we have lost $700 million in lost receipts, and the net effect on the deficit is only $300 million. But here is where the proof of the pudding is. Look at the year 2020. We still only got $1 billion in 1996-1997, but in the year 2020, considering the $100 million a year in revenues we have lost, the Federal Treasury is a net loser of $1.5 billion. No wonder Reischauer said it is bad policy. It is crazy policy. Last year the Senator from Alaska took strong exception to my last two charts which point out that the change in the budget scoring rule could produce crazy proposals such as the sale of Mount Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty. Mount Rushmore is a moneymaker. There is no telling what we might get. But you know, there is something more important than that. Mount Rushmore is a national symbol. I have been there; you have been there, Mr. President. It is a magnificent thing. They are designing a portrait there out of that stone of an Indian on a horse. I think it is Crazy Horse. It is not finished yet. It is going to be magnificent. But let us say we are going to put Mount Rushmore up for sale. Do not worry about the fact that this honors four truly great Presidents of this Nation that the United States wanted to honor forever. Sell it off. I do not know what the Republicans in the House have in mind with this bill to sell off natural parks. Maybe they have the Statue of Liberty in mind. Now that would probably bring a lot of money. Is that not magnificent? But you know something? It is no more magnificent than Yellowstone, Yosemite, the White River Wildlife Refuge in my State, or Hot Springs Natural Park in my State, which are near and dear to me. Let me say to the Senator from Alaska that I do not think these sales are going to happen. I am just giving the worst-case scenario I can think of, and based on some things that have happened around here in the last 2 years, I am not making any promises. But I can tell you we had it right in 1987 that we would not score assets sales for deficit reduction purposes, for a very good reason: It is bad fiscal policy and it is bad public policy because you have to make it up. If you reduce the deficit $1 billion by selling the PMA's this year, how do you make up that deficit next year to make sure the deficit stays on a downward slide? You have to come up with $1 billion someplace else. Mr. President, I serve on the Energy Committee. This year the budget resolution instructs the Energy Committee to report legislation that will produce savings of $1.4 billion over 6 years. However, the resolution only directly mentions how the Committee is expected to meet $400 million of the savings. There are only three options available to the committee to meet the additional $1 billion requirement: First, we could sell the PMAs; second, we could impose royalties on hardrock mines; or third, we could allow oil and gas drilling in ANWR. My friend, the senior Senator from Alaska, obviously supports the latter approach. He and I are good friends. We fight like saber-toothed tigers on the floor, but we are good friends. We just could not disagree more on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Let me just say this: It is my firm belief that the President of the United States will veto any bill that comes to him that allows drilling in ANWR. I will certainly urge him to. The other two possibilities are political nonstarters. A large number of Senators oppose the sale of the PMA's and the mining industry will again fight tooth or nail against any royalty. Everybody in this body knows that I have fought for 7 years to reform the 1872 mining law. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I cannot believe: First, that I have been fighting that battle for 7 years and second, that, because I have not yet won, the Secretary of the Interior continues to be forced to deed valuable public land and minerals for practically nothing. He does not have any choice. He is required to under this 122-year old law. The Secretary of the Interior, several weeks ago was forced to give a deed to a mining company for 40 acres of public land for the princely sum of $200. What do you think was on the 40 acres that the taxpayers of this Nation got $200 for? Eighty million dollars' worth of gypsum. Two years ago, he deeded land containing 11 billion dollars' worth of gold. So a third possibility would be to impose a mining fee to produce $1 billion over the next 6 years. But if I am any judge of the makeup of the U.S. Senate, about the only votes for that will be on this side of the aisle. There will be few votes on the other side--maybe five. You talk about balancing the budget; you talk about wanting a constitutional amendment. Oh, yes, let us go back and tinker with what James Madison did, and John Adams and John Jay and Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin. Let us go back and tinker with what they did 206 years ago drafting the Constitution that has made us a great nation, the freest nation on Earth, the longest living democracy, the oldest constitution in the world, tinker with that to bring about a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, but do not disturb those big international mining companies who have been raping and pillaging the U.S. taxpayer since 1872. I yield the floor, Mr. President. Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. Is it possible for me to yield the Senator from Alaska time under the unanimous-consent agreement?

Mr. BUMPERS. I have 2 hours total; is that correct?

Mr. BUMPERS. One hour for all three amendments?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. I had the possibility of three amendments, two for sure. I understood that there would be 2 hours, that I could allocate that 2-hour period any way I wanted to in offering those three amendments. Is that correct or not?

Mr. BUMPERS. Let me ask the Senator this question. Who controls the time in opposition, then?

Mr. BUMPERS. The Senator from New Mexico could yield the Senator from Alaska time on this amendment?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I will be very brief in concluding the debate on my amendment. First of all, I want to in the interest of fairness and honesty in the debate say to my good friend, Senator Stevens from Alaska, that, number one, while we are debating what I consider to be a terrible policy of scoring asset sales, in all fairness to the Senators from Alaska, there is no proposal to sell ANWR. There is a proposal to lease it. It is calculated to bring $2 billion. But the Federal Government only gets half of that. Is that not correct, Senator? And we would proceed to withdraw royalties once it is developed. So, as I say, in the interest of fairness, while we are debating asset sales, ANWR is technically not an asset sale. And I must confess that my principal objection to leasing ANWR is because I consider it bad environmental policy. That is not to say that at some point in the not too distant future in an emergency or something we will not consider it. I might consider it myself. And I know all the arguments. I have heard the chairman of the Energy Committee, with whom I sit on a regular basis, make all those arguments for opening ANWR. We just happen to have a disagreement on that. I consider ANWR just like I do people who save money as a nest egg for their old age. One other thing: In my argument a moment ago, I pointed out that when I was a Governor I got a check for $21 million from the Federal Government and I did not put it into the operating budget for sound business reasons. I gave it to the Arkansas Highway Department to build highways with. In that way, if revenue sharing ever came to an end, we would not be all discommoded by having to fire 1,000 State employees, or cut the education budget, or cut the State police, or something else. Let me say to my Republican colleagues. The Republican Party considers itself a party of business in this country. You are friends of the business community. We like to think we are too. But I know the Republicans for the most part take pride in being probusiness. I am probusiness too. But let me say to my colleagues before you vote on this amendment which will amend the Budget Act to provide that you cannot sell assets and score it for deficit reduction purposes call, just call three of your closest friends who have a business of any size and ask them: Would they as a sound business principle sell off a building? Let us assume you have three buildings. You sell one building because you do not need it anymore. Ask how many of them would go out and hire a bunch of people knowing that next year they will not have that money, and they have to increase sales, or do something to make up for that shortfall? I can promise you every single president of the company you call will say exactly what the two previous heads of CBO have said: it is bad policy. Let me say, Mr. President, to be crystal clear to everybody, this amendment does not prohibit asset sales. If the Senate voted to sell the Statue of Liberty, it could do that. This amendment could not prohibit it. I would not vote for it. I would consider that horrible national policy. All I am saying is if you do sell an asset--we have and we will continue to--I have voted for some asset sales--do not score it. It is bad business. The Senator from Alaska said his people do not want any more taxes. Well, now, that is not the most profound statement I ever heard, with the utmost respect to the Senator from Alaska. Folks in Arkansas do not want any more either. But everybody wants a balanced budget. Everybody wants to go to Heaven but not just yet. So I want to balance the budget, but I do not want a dishonest budget. To score assets is deceptive. It is dishonest. And you will miss the mark of a balanced budget in the year 2002 or 2003 if you do nothing else except sell assets and score them. You will miss achieving a balanced budget by exactly the amount of the asset you sell and score. Now, Mr. President, I offered this amendment last year and we got 47 votes the first time I offered it, and we got 49 votes the second time I offered it. I am hoping we will continue the trend of increasing our margin by two votes to 51 this year. Maybe not. But I can tell you this fight is just like me fighting with Mrs. Bumpers; the ones I win just are not over. This one is not going to be over until this Senate accepts that scoring of asset sales is bad policy. I yield the floor. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, if the Senator from New Mexico will yield just a minute, one thing I wanted to do was to read into the Record a list of organizations that support this amendment: Taxpayers for Common Sense, National Parks and Conservation Associations, National Audubon Society, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Friends of the Earth, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, National Wildlife Federation, National Wildlife Refuge Association, Alaska Coalition, Alaska Wilderness League, American Public Power Association, Defenders of Wildlife, Greenpeace, National Resources Defense Council, Northern Alaska Environmental Center and the Sierra Club. Now, those are mostly environmental groups, some in Alaska, and I can tell you what they are concerned about. Some of these people are just concerned about the sale of power marketing administrations, but most of these organizations are worried about the sales of wildlife refuges; they are concerned about selling off national forests; and they are concerned about selling national parks. If you think that is farfetched, just bear in mind there is a bill already in the House to set up a commission to do exactly that, to report back to us on the national parks we do not need and that can be sold. I yield the floor, Mr. President. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, before the Senator moves on, I understood I had the right to offer 2 amendments.

Mr. BUMPERS. Well, one I may not offer.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President I want to congratulate my distinguished colleague from Iowa for a very sensible amendment, one that ought to receive the unanimous approval of this body. This budget contains just over $500 billion in discretionary spending. I want my colleagues to think about this for a moment. We are looking at a total budget of between $1.6 trillion and $1.7 trillion and only a bit over $500 billion of that is for discretionary spending. Under this budget, about $265 billion of that is for defense. That does not leave much for programs that go to the very heart of the values of the country and the things that really make this Nation strong, like education and transportation. I can tell you that the number of explosions you can set off with weaponry is not necessarily related to the real strength of this Nation. I am always nonplused and puzzled when so many people jump under their desks every time somebody mentions cutting defense. You can savage education, which this budget does, you can savage the environment, which this budget does, you can savage the programs that people depend on for their very livelihood, earned-income tax credits, and on and on it goes, you can deal with those programs and you can ask for a whopping tax increase for the wealthiest among us, but if you ask defense to take one single dollar less, everybody goes berserk. Now, there are some politics in this. But I want you to remember that the amendment of the Senator from Iowa is well above the administration's request. There is not any reason why Republicans ought to join in lockstep to vote against this. It is well above what the President has requested for the Pentagon, it is well above what the Defense Department says it needs. I heard the distinguished Senator from Texas a moment ago, a woman whom I admire and respect, saying that we just simply cannot weaken our defenses. I want to ask my colleagues this: Who are the enemies you are going to spend this money for? Who are they?

Mr. BUMPERS. Pardon?

Mr. BUMPERS. The President cuts back on defense spending now and the budget resolution cuts back on it later.

Mr. BUMPERS. I have to admit that over the period of this budget resolution, there is a sum total of $11 billion difference between the Republican budget proposal and this amendment--$11 billion.

Mr. BUMPERS. Then the Senator from Texas proceeded to talk about how weak we could become. I will tell you how you get weak. You get weak by paying interest on a national debt that we incurred during the 1980's when defense spending went from $150 billion to $300 billion in 8 years. If we had not been so foolish, we would not be fighting about a balanced budget these days. It is because of the interest on that staggering debt increase that we cannot balance the budget. There is not anybody here that I will yield to on supporting our defense needs. I served 3 years in the Marine Corps during World War II, and I learned a little bit about defense first hand, and now I sit on a defense appropriations subcommittee. I know how it all works, and I know how it happens. But I can tell you, this amendment will save the taxpayers of this Nation billions.

Mr. BUMPERS. No, I am not going to yield until I finish.

Mr. BUMPERS. Thirty seconds.

Mr. BUMPERS. The question is, who are the enemies against whom we must spend $265 billion? Who are the enemies that we feel constrained to spend over $1.6 trillion over the next 6 years to defend against? The Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Simon], said a moment ago that we spend as much on defense in this Nation as the top five possible adversaries, including China and Russia. It is worse than that. We spend as much as the top 10, and if you add NATO, we spend almost twice as much as the top 10 and there is not an enemy in sight.