Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. And military financing. We have given both of those countries billions of dollars of weapons over the years under the foreign aid bill.

Mr. BUMPERS. There is a provision in the bill that sets up a new method--directs the Department of Defense to set up a new method for financing arms sales. My amendment will strike that provision. It is a very simple amendment. Everybody will understand it.

Mr. BUMPERS. They cannot afford the weapons so we are going to sell them with loan guarantees under this new program?

Mr. BUMPERS. If the majority leader will yield, I wonder if it is possible to sequence the amendments so the Members will have some idea as to the sequence. I am not pleading for mercy, but I have to go to a funeral in my State this weekend, with absolutely no reservation. I have to leave here tomorrow night. I have a couple of amendments, and I would like to offer them before I leave. I think it would be expeditious for the Senate if we can get some lined up and some sequence and time agreements, maybe 30 minutes or an hour. I think we got the tough ones out of the way. The rest should not take that much time.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I heard some ingenuous arguments, but the Senator from Connecticut saying we need to level the playing field when we already have 53 percent of the market headed for 60 percent is ingenuous. I do not know how much more you can level this field. But I would like to ask, on my time, the Senator from Idaho to tell me one country that we are going to finance under this provision that cannot buy weapons right now and to which you would want to provide loan guarantees. Name one.

Mr. BUMPERS. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BUMPERS. Exponentially.

Mr. BUMPERS. Absolutely. The Defense Department says it is not needed, and the administration says it is not needed. As the Senator said, we have 53 percent of the arms market now, headed for 59. It is not as though we are not competitive.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, in just a moment I will yield to my good friend from Maryland, but I just want to make a couple of points. You know, the Senator from Connecticut just talked about jobs. I have to tell you this is one place where I consider that the worst of all arguments is to create jobs so we can sell weapons abroad. As I said, those weapons always have a tendency to get into terrorist hands. They get into all kinds of hands. They wind up half the time being used against us. And in addition to that, an awful lot of the arms sales in this country are quid pro quo. We will sell you so many weapons, but we will also create so many jobs in your country that would otherwise be in the United States. It is a trade-off. And when it comes to who is creditworthy, you have Mexico. We are bailing them out right now. They are eligible to buy weapons under this. Chile, they are eligible. All of the Pacific rim, 37 nations on here. I promise you even some of those nations in Central Europe are lousy credit risks. They are fine and we wish them well, but they are a lousy credit risk. We have no business setting up yet a fifth way to sell weapons in addition to the four we already have. Finally, let me just read this White House position for whatever this is worth to my colleagues. ``The bill would require the Secretary of Defense to establish a program to issue loan guarantees and surety against losses arising from the financing of defense exports to certain countries. The administration opposes this program because the administration has not found it necessary given the availability of existing authority for transactions of this type and the substantial American presence in international markets for military equipment.'' Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to my distinguished friend from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes. Mr. SARBANES addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, we have a 30-minute agreement on this, but perhaps because it is a very straightforward, simple amendment, we may be able to do it in less time than that, and I hope we can. Right now, the United States totally dominates the foreign arms market. We sell 53 percent of all the arms in international trade. We also have four separate methods of financing these sales which help maintain our position of dominance. First of all, the Arms Export Control Act allows the President to commit the U.S. Government to a loan guarantee or a grant. Second the Export-Import Bank can finance any sale of technology as long as it is nonlethal. So we sell a lot of military hardware to countries that are financed by the Export-Import Bank. Third we have foreign military financing which is a part of the foreign aid bill. We pick out the countries and give them grants to buy our weapons. We say here is $1 billion for you and $1 billion for you. Come and buy whatever weapons you want until you use up that $1 billion. We can also subsidize loans with this program. Fourth we have foreign military sales. Under this program the U.S. Government or a U.S. company sells arms to a foreign government. The bill we are debating says four methods of financing arms are not enough. We have to have another one. And it directs with virtually no guidance the Defense Department to set up a program exactly like OPIC. Senators know what OPIC is. You pay a little fee and you get your loan guarantee. That is all there is to this amendment. I say four is enough. Let me read you though just for entertainment purposes a list of the countries that arms sales merchants in this country will be selling arms to by simply paying a small fee to this new organization that the Defense Department is ordered under the bill to set up. You are not looking at another S&L scandal, but you are looking at something that has the potential for a mini-S&L. We just got through writing off $7.1 billion to Egypt and $300 million to Jordan. I do not want to refight those battles, but how do you feel about Burundi? Do you want to give loan guarantees to them? They already buy weapons from us. Here is a list of roughly 100 countries that the contractors, the arms merchants of this already country sell arms to. Now, the arms merchants are hot for this, and I do not blame them. How would you like to be able to sell $100 million worth of weapons to some Third World nation where 50 percent of the people are starving to death for a [[Page S 11299]] little simple fee you pay on the front end? Incidentally, there is not even a prohibition in this against financing the fee. Let us assume you have a $10 million sale. Let us assume the fee is $500,000. Just add that on. Make it a $10.5 million loan. Finance the whole thing. There is no prohibition against it. But here is Burundi, Chad, Djibouti, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Namibia, Senegal, Zambia, Zimbabwe--100 of them. And someday in the future they will pay a little fee, and we will sell arms to them on credit. And the American taxpayer will assume the risk. Now, Mr. President, I have a moral compunction about this. I make no bones about it. I have some moral reservation about how many arms we sell abroad. We keep forgetting that our weapons last longer than our friendships. Do you know where the contras down in Nicaragua got most of their arms? They were the arms we left in Vietnam. The Vietnamese inherited a cache of weapons that would choke a mule, and a lot of them went to the contras in Nicaragua. What happened to all the Stingers we sent to Afghanistan? Why, our good friends the Iranians have about 30 of them. As I said, we sell 53 percent of all the arms sold in the world, and the Pentagon estimates by the year 2004 we will be selling 59 percent. That is 59 percent of all the arms sales, and somebody will say, ``Well, if we don't do it, somebody else will.'' I heard that argument the first year I was in the Senate, and I still hear it. I say let someone else then. This may influence some of you--The White House strongly supports this amendment. The administration does not want another method of financing weapons. And the Pentagon says this can only marginally affect the number of weapons that we are going to be selling abroad. Mr. President, in 1993-1995, that time period, we sold $53 billion worth of weapons. Let me ask you this: Who here believes that this Nation is safer and stronger because we are selling anywhere from $10- to $20 billion worth of weapons abroad each year? Now, Mr. President, let me say to my colleagues this is not the biggest item in this bill, but it is just another provision in which we ought not to get involved. I promise you we are going to be financing weapons to countries, and we are going to be forgiving the debts. We are going to be picking up all these bad loans. It is a very generous method. And there are a lot of Third World countries that will jump on this thing like a chicken after a June bug, and obviously the arms merchants will be tickled to death to sell the weapons.

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

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

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, let me correct that. I am sorry, I misled the leader. I am leaving here tomorrow night.

Mr. BUMPERS. If the majority leader will yield for a question, I have one amendment I would like to offer tonight. I am willing to settle for a 30-minute time agreement. I would like very much to go in front of the DOE amendment, which will take 2 hours, if that will be all right. It will be very helpful to me.

Mr. BUMPERS. That will be satisfactory.

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield the floor.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to John M. ``Mike'' Curran, an outstanding public servant from my State, who will soon retire from Government service after a distinguished 32- year career with the U.S. Forest Service. Mike began his career with the U.S. Forest Service in 1965 as a landscape architect in the Intermountain Regional Office in Ogden, UT, and was later reassigned to the Ashley National Forest. In 1968, he moved to the Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Denver, CO. From there he went to the San Juan National Forest in Colorado where he served as forest landscape architect for 5 years. Mike held District Ranger positions from 1975 to 1981 in Wyoming, Buffalo Ranger District, and Colorado, Taylor River Ranger District. In 1981, he was selected as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University. He then spent 4 years in the Forest Service's Washington office in programs and legislation where, during 1984, I was privileged to have Mike assigned to my staff as a Legislative Fellow to the U.S. Senate. In working with Mike on a daily basis, I developed a great respect and appreciation for his intelligence, his integrity, his judgment, and his sensitivity to the many complexities of environmental issues. Imagine my delight when, in 1986, Mike became the Forest Supervisor of the Ouachita National Forest, headquartered in Hot Springs, AR. During his tenure in the Ouachitas, Mike has worked hard to forge a unique partnership between research and the forest which fosters the advancement of ecosystem management. His vision, initiative, and tireless efforts have earned the Ouachita National Forest national and international recognition for leadership in the evolving concept of sustainable forestry. He also made involvement of the public in the decisionmaking process a priority, always striving for new and innovative ways to improve this relationship. Significant recognition of his efforts include the Chevron Conservation Award, the Oklahoma and Arkansas Wildlife Federation Forest Conservationist of the Year Awards, the United Nations Environment Programme Award, the Chief's Ecosystem Management Award, and the Charles L. Steele Award by the Arkansas Nature Conservancy. On a personal note, it was a unique set of circumstances which combined to forge the decade-long relationship Mike and I have enjoyed. From a valued staff member to an agency head in my home State, Mike has also become a personal friend. We have argued over issues and worked together to preserve and protect the beautiful land surrounding Lake Ouachita, and we have celebrated together those accomplishments which have added to Arkansas' deserved reputation as the Natural State. After he retires, Mike and his wife, Leslee, will be dividing their time between Arkansas and Colorado. I am pleased that although my State and our Nation are losing an exemplary public servant, I will be keeping a valued friend and constituent.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Senator, DOE said that they would expect this to cost billions to complete.

Mr. BUMPERS. It is not always easy to get the unanimous consent to extend the time.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I want to accommodate the expedient disposition of this bill. I suggest an hour, and we will try to cut it to 30 or 40 minutes. One hour equally divided.

Mr. BUMPERS. It is regarding the $65 million for a cancer institute.

Mr. BUMPERS. Does the Senator from New Mexico have my amendment?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. BUMPERS. I am sorry. I missed that. How much time do I have remaining?