Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Parliamentary inquiry: Does the order provide for a quorum call?

Mr. BUMPERS. I ask unanimous consent, with the permission of the Senator from Michigan, to divide the time of the quorum call between the two parties, the proponents and the opponents.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3155 (Purpose: To amend the Arms Export Control Act to provide waiver authority on certain sanctions applicable to India or Pakistan)

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I am told there are a couple questions on our side of the aisle. I regret that I announced earlier there was no objection on this side. Apparently, there are at least a couple questions. So if we could leave that amendment, set it aside in order to let Senator Lugar go, then we will try to clear it between now and the end of that time.

Mr. BUMPERS. I move to lay it on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BUMPERS. I ask unanimous consent that the sponsor of the amendment, Senator Bryan, be given 1 minute to respond.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, this amendment has been cleared on this side of the aisle.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, let me just say, at the rate we are going, we should be able to finish this bill by Saturday night a week around midnight. We have 64 amendments left. We have spent about 2\1/2\ hours on this one. A lot of the people on this side are going to the White House at 4:30, and I hoped we could get a vote on it before they had to depart. I am always reluctant to suggest to anybody they cut their remarks short, and I guess we have already missed the 4:30 deadline. I see two Senators who are just chomping to speak, so there is no point in asking for a time agreement at this point. But I just want to make the Members aware, and I know I am joined by my distinguished chairman in saying, we are going to have to do something to speed this process up or we are not going to get out before December 1. I thank the Chair. Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, the amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Bryan, in my opinion, is a meritorious amendment. He and I fought this battle. I fought it for maybe 3 or 4 years alone, and then Senator Bryan came to the Senate, and we have labored in the venue of trying to do away with what was then the Market Promotion Program and now called the Market Access Program. I have absolutely no quarrel with trying to assist people who really need help. The Export Enhancement Program isn't being used. It is a big program, but it isn't being used. When I started on this, the Market Promotion Program included the biggest companies in America, and that is the source of my objection. I am talking about some of the biggest corporations in America. And I see my good friend, Tyson Foods, is on the list still. I am sure they welcome getting $440,000 a year. Tyson Foods does over $5 billion a year, and I certainly do not want to pick on a company in my home State, particularly one that has so many of my close friends in it. But that is precisely the reason I have always objected to this program. I know that it does some good. I heard the chairman, Senator Cochran, talking a while ago about some of the benefits of it, and who has benefited, and how much, and so on. I just think it is welfare for the rich. That is the reason I have always opposed it. Senator Cochran and I disagree. I guess this is about the only thing--maybe one or two things--we will disagree on in this entire bill. We get along famously in the committee, but this is one that I simply could not let my dear friend, Senator Bryan, take on alone. I just wanted to get my 2 cents' worth in and to state that I will vote with Senator Bryan on this. I yield the floor.

Mr. BUMPERS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BUMPERS

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

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, in just a moment, staff will have a bill that I introduced several months ago. I would like to just discuss it briefly so we can get that behind us before I offer it. But this is an amendment that would award the Congressional Gold Medal to the nine African American children who integrated Little Rock Central High during probably the greatest threat to the Constitution since the Civil War. I lived through it. I was in a small town in western Arkansas called Charleston. That is my hometown, where I was born and reared. My hometown had integrated in 1954, very quietly and very peacefully, a town of 1,200 people at the time. Our schools had successfully integrated from the fall of 1954 until Governor Faubus called out the Guard to block integration at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock. Let me also say that Charleston, this little hometown of mine which I am seeking to get designated a national commemorative site by the Park Service this year, was the first school to integrate following the Brown v. Board of Education decision in May of 1954. I was on the school board during that time, and we integrated the school that fall. There is still some controversy because good records were not kept about how many African American children were integrated into the school system. It went along smoothly. There were some schools that wouldn't play us in football, and there were some schools that wouldn't allow our band to participate, because we had African Americans on the football team and in the band. We lived with that as best we could. There was a lot of seething undercurrent. Even though it had gone peacefully for 3 years, there was still an unrest among some. After the turmoil in Little Rock, that seething unrest surfaced. I will never forget, Mr. President, I was trying a lawsuit on the third floor of Logan County Courthouse in Paris, AR, and I heard these rumbling trucks going down Highway 22 from Fort Chaffee which came through my hometown to Little Rock to provide the logistical support for the 101st Airborne which President Eisenhower had sent in to Little Rock to enforce the integration of that school. It was a very ominous, frankly, rather terrifying time. I was not as concerned about what was going on in Little Rock--though that was terrifying and certainly to the people in Little Rock it was terrifying--as I was with the certain knowledge in my own mind that we were in for big trouble in my hometown, too, because I knew, as I say, that seething unrest was going to be fortified and encouraged to try to do the same thing, and sure enough it happened. We had a big knock-down-drag-out election in March of 1958, and the whole issue was: Shall we stay integrated or shall we re-segregate? I convinced a friend of mine to run to fill one of the vacancies that had been created because things got so hot a couple of board members resigned. I think there were about 600 votes cast in that election, probably five times more than ever had been cast in a school election in Charleston, AR, in its history. In any event, the so-called ``moderates'' won overwhelmingly, and that put the issue to rest in my hometown. Back to the Little Rock Nine. Ernie Green testified in the Energy Committee the other day in support of a bill to make Central High School in Little Rock a unit of the Park Service. He was one of the Little Rock Nine, later was Assistant Secretary of Labor when Jimmy Carter was President. Anybody who didn't live through that time can never understand what a traumatic period that was for my State. We didn't attract a single industry in the State of Arkansas for almost 10 years after the Little Rock High School integration crisis. But those nine young black children who were escorted into that school in the fall of 1957 by paratroopers from the 101st Airborne showed more bravery than anybody I have ever seen in my life. It was absolutely unbelievable. They have been recognized in a lot of ways, but S. 1283 would provide them with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an honor that they are due and that is long overdue. This bill was recently reported out of the Banking Committee and is now on the Calendar. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 465, S. 1283.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, the amendment has been cleared on this side.

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

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, the Senator is correct. This amendment has been cleared on this side.

Mr. BUMPERS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, the amendment has been cleared on this side of the aisle.

Mr. BUMPERS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3130 (Purpose: To transfer funding for credit sales of acquired property to subsidize the cost of additional farm ownership loans)

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, this bill continues the current hiring system being used within the Forest Service and the Agricultural Research Service to examine for, and make, first permanent competitive Federal appointments. The hiring system will terminate on June 30, 1998, unless it is extended. Applicants and management officials have had an overwhelmingly positive response to the hiring system. Specifically, management believes the program has increased its control over hiring, resulting in a greater likelihood that the candidate pool is appropriate and available, reducing the number of staff hours expended in testing, examining and rating applicants. The Office of Management and Budget has no objection to this amendment. I think this has been cleared on the other side.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I would like to move on to the next amendment and come back to this one. Amendment No. 3132 (Purpose: To make an amendment relating to rural housing programs)

Mr. BUMPERS. The amendment has been cleared on this side of the aisle, Mr. President.

Mr. BUMPERS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, it is not quite ready yet. Hopefully, it will be by the time we finish this package of amendments. Amendment No. 3135 (Purpose: To amend the Wetlands Reserve Program by exempting thirty year easements from payment limitations; and clarifying the interpretation of ``Maximum Extent Practicable'' regarding the Wetlands Reserve Program enrollment goal)

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3143 (Purpose: To establish a pilot program to permit certain owners and operators to hay and graze on land that is subject to conservation reserve contracts)