Conrad Burns

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. I may need more than that. I think it is important for this body to understand that the spectrum has already been reclaimed and is owned now by the FCC. It is available for sale. Is that not correct, I will ask my friend from Arizona?

Mr. BURNS. I appreciate that. The only reason I ask the question is I think we should be very sure of our grounds here. Who actually owns that spectrum? Is it still in the hands of the original winner in the lottery? Or is it owned by the FCC? I think that is a question we should ask before we consider this amendment. I am just trying to clarify that.

Mr. BURNS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BURNS. I ask unanimous consent I have 1 minute just to ask a question in response, because I think it is important this body understand this.

Mr. BURNS. I need 2 minutes?

Mr. BURNS. If the Senator is correct, then that clarifies my question. I thank the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I rise today to engage in a colloquy with chairman of the VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. I want to discuss the need for regulatory reform at the Environmental Protection Agency. As the chairman knows, I have been extremely concerned with the petroleum refinery MACT regulation. MACT is the acronym for the term maximum achievable control technology. I would like to thank him for adding report language which reflects the committee's concerns with this rule. I strongly encourage EPA to reevaluate this rule because it is not based on sound science. In 1980, industry did not have the extensive controls and technologies that are now in use. In fact, in 1980, the requirements from the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments had not yet kicked in. Obviously, in the last 15 years, refineries have made significant improvements in reducing emissions. EPA has simply ignored all of these improvements and based a rule on 15-year-old data in order to inflate its benefits. This rule will cost refineries and fuel consumers in this country at least $100 million each year. This puts refineries in Montana and throughout the Nation at economic risk. And what about the jobs these refineries provide the local communities? Well, they are at risk, too. Almost $20 million of this will be spent to meet the paperwork and monitoring requirements of the rule which do nothing to improve public health or the environmental protection. Mr. President, I would like to make one final point. All of the information is based on EPA's own data and analysis. None of this information is based on any kind of industry study. This information can be found in the final rule published in the Federal Register on August 18, 1995. Refiners in Montana have simply asked that this rule be based on sound science, including accurate and current data. They have not asked for any rollback of environmental regulations. Since the data are the basis for the entire rulemaking, it seems to me that EPA must go back to the beginning and redo the rule from scratch. I look forward to working with the chairman in conference regarding the refinery MACT rule; and I thank him.

Mr. BURNS. I appreciate the chairman's comments and support. brevard and leavenworth va facilities

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I want to finish with one point here and then I think I will yield some time to the other side because I think we have pretty much made our point. When we look at the McCarran-Ferguson Act, it says: No act of Congress shall be construed to invalidate, impair, or intercede any law enacted by any State for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance unless such act specifically relates to the business of insurance. In other words, what they are saying, if we want to change the McCarran-Ferguson Act, it has to be done in freestanding legislation. Basically, I will go right back to say that we are just adding redundancy. We are adding another layer of bureaucracy to try to deal with something the States are having success in enforcing. I think we are laying one law on top of another law. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes of extra time to the manager on the other side and I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I want to associate myself with the words of the chairman of this committee and make a couple of points. Whenever we start talking about Government and Government rules and regulations, first of all I do not think anybody deplores discrimination at any stage more than I do. Because we would allow this into this bill will not take care of the problems that we seem to be facing in insurance redlining. Of course, I still believe in the jurisdiction of McCarran-Ferguson. Every State and the District of Columbia have laws and regulations addressing unfair discrimination in property insurance. Do we become redundant and put one law on top of another, thinking that the Federal enforcement will be any better than the State enforcement? I think that is a question. Congressman Kennedy over on the House side offered an amendment to strike the language prohibiting HUD from promulgating Federal regulations and it was soundly defeated, bipartisan, by a 266-to-157 margin. What we are seeing with this amendment is exactly what this Senator and the American people do not want to see--the Federal Government getting involved in something where the States clearly have jurisdiction. It might surprise you that even Congressman Dingell, former chairman over on the House side, in a letter dated November 3, 1994 to Secretary Cisneros of HUD, and Alice Rivlin, said this: It is important to note that the Fair Housing Act does not explicitly address discrimination in property insurance. Nor does the legislative history that accompanies the act indicate any intention to apply these provisions to business insurance. He went on and added: It is also particularly significant because the legislative history of the act reveals that in 1980, in 1983, 1986, and 1988, Congress specifically rejected attempts to amend the act to cover property insurance. So we are going into an area that clearly is the jurisdiction of the States. I think we are also going into an area where we become very, very redundant on the laws, and putting one on top of the other probably does not take care of the problem that all of us want to see taken care of. I ask my colleagues, if redundancy is part of what we are trying to fight out in this Government, then maybe we should take a look and see what we are doing here where the States clearly have jurisdiction. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, today I introduced a bill to establish an education satellite loan guarantee program from communications among education, Federal, State, and local institutions and agencies and instructional and educational resource providers. Americans face many problems and challenges in education. From Montana to Maine, local school districts to large universities, educators are being asked to do more with less. There is overcrowding in urban areas and a lack of access to educational opportunities in many rural areas. We are being challenged as a nation, and we must react as a nation with unity of purpose. We must marshall our resources and save our children's future. Over this Nation's history, we have used good old American creativity to conquer many challenges and force new horizons. I believe that technology plays a key role in making us world leaders. In the areas of space and defense, our technological know-how has made us second to none. We should act now to apply our same know-how to education. Whether it be through copper wire, glass, or satellites, distance learning can provide access to the vast educational resources of our Nation, regardless of wealth or geographic location. There is a crisis facing America's distance education providers and users at all levels of schooling due to shortages and price increases in satellite capacity. This crisis in the distance education field has been noted and documented by the satellite and broadcasting industries and the National Education Telecommunications Organization [NETO]. The crisis facing the educators is a lack of availability of satellite capacity and dramatically escalating costs which puts an educational institution's ability to equitably transmit instructions at high risk. We must start right here, right now, by taking advantage of the satellite technology that exist today. More than 90 American college provide education and instruction to K- 12 school districts, colleges, libraries, and students in other distant education centers, nationwide and internationally. In my own State of Montana and throughout the country from Washington State through Texas to Maine, teaches and students are receiving word that they will not have access to instruction heretofore received in science, math, language, and other special events. Rural and urban school districts, family health centers in hard-to-reach areas and rural hospitals will be immediately impacted at the start-up of the fall 1995 semester. If nothing is done to ameliorate the crisis more than 200 small education entrepreneurial communications centers are at risk [[Page S 14412]] by the fall of 1996. These are communications centers in America's colleges, school districts, and education consortia which include State education and television agencies who have invested State and local taxes to create cost-effective, equitable transmission using satellite, telephone, and cable to deliver instruction and training in classrooms throughout the Nation. For an interim solution to the crisis, Congresswoman Constance Morella, Congressman Ceorge E. Brown, Jr., and I have asked NASA to dedicate unused satellite capacity to the education sector as the prime users for a period up to 3 years. However, we must begin to create an adequate satellite system dedicated to education to meet the educational needs and demands of America's students, teachers, and workers for the future. The bill introduced today will facilitate the acquisition by an appropriate nonprofit, public corporation of a communications satellite system dedicated to the transmission of instructions, education, and training programming that is not subject to preemptive use by Federal Government for purposes of national security. The bill would authorize the Secretary of Interior to carry out a loan guarantee program under which a non-profit, public corporation could borrow funds to buy or lease satellites dedicated to instructional programming. A dedicated educational satellite will allow us to address two barriers faced by those involved in distance learning via satellite. First, it will insure instructional programmers that they will be able to obtain affordable satellite transmission time without risk of preemption by commercial users. Second, it will allow educators using the programming to have one dish focused on one satellite off which they can receive at least 24 channels of instructional programming--every hour of the school year. There is no doubt in my mind that distance learning is a growth area and that there is a role for the Federal Government in facilitating that growth. The Office of Technology Assessment's 1989 report, ``Linking for Learning: A New Course for Education'' documents the recent growth of distance learning, calling the growth in the K-12 sector dramatic. OTA anticipates this growth to continue. The National Governors' Association in 1988 found that while fewer than 10 States were promoting distance learning in 1987; 1 year later two-thirds of the States reported involvement. The NGA passed a resolution in 1988, and revised it in 1991, expressing their support for a dedicated education and public purpose satellite-based telecommunications network. Following their 1989 education summit in Charlottesville, VA where former Governor Wallace Wilkinson of Kentucky and other Governors raised with President Bush the proposal for this dedicated system, the EDSAT Institute was formed to analyze the proposal. In 1991, they issued a report entitled ``Analysis of a Proposal for an Education Satellite,'' and they found as did the OTA report, that individual States and consortiums of States are investing heavily in distance learning technologies and that the education sector is a significant market. The organization, the National Educations Telecommunications Organization [NETO], was formed after the EDSAT Institute held seven regional meetings during the summer of 1991. Through these meetings, they recognized the need to aggregate the education market for distance learning and concluded that an education programming users organization was needed. NETO has a distinguished board of educators, public policy officials, State education agencies, and telecommunications experts who are committed to the goal of developing an integrated telecommunications system dedicated to education. The first step is what we are facilitating through Federal loan guarantees. If this legislation passes, the Federal Government will be setting a national policy in support of a telecommunications infrastructure for distance learning. A policy that will cost the government relatively little compared to the benefits our Nation will receive through improved education and educational access. The risk to the Federal Government is minimal. The only risk the Government is assuming is the risk that the distance learning market will dissipate. I think the findings of the National Governors' Association, the OTA, and the EDSAT Institute prove highly unlikely. But I also believe that with distance learning, as with transportation and other infrastructure-dependent markets, once an infrastructure is in place the market will expand beyond our current expectations. A dedicated satellite system will bring instructional programming which is now scattered across 12 to 15 satellites into one place in the sky. This collocation will allow educators to receive a variety of instructional programs without having to constantly reorient their satellite dish. By making the investment in a dedicated system on the front end, we are reducing distance learning costs for educators on the State and local levels. The programmers will benefit because they will be able to market their programming to a wider audience and will be guaranteed reliable satellite time at an affordable rate. A rate that will be equal no matter how much time they buy. Programmers include public schools, colleges, universities, State agencies, private sector corporations and consortiums, such as the star schools consortiums, and independents. The users will benefit because their investment in equipment to receive instructional programming may be reduced because of the technological advantages of focusing on one point in the sky. Users include primary and secondary students, college, and university students, professionals interested in continuing education, community members, and government bodies. The benefits far outweigh the costs in my mind. A dedicated educational satellite will allow our kids to benefit from equal access to quality education. This is really just the first step. Both NETO and I believe that a telecommunications infrastructure for use by the educational sector should not be technology specific. I plan to continue pushing for passage of S. 1200 to make a national broadband fiber-optic network a reality. NETO's vision is for an integrated, nationwide telecommunications system, a transparent highway that encompasses land and space, over which educational and instructional resources can be delivered. They envision bringing together the land- based systems that are already in place, not replacing them. This is an inclusive effort, not an exclusive one. I hope that my colleagues will join me in making this a reality. Technology has transformed every sector of our lives. It can transform education as well. It will not replace teachers, it will empower them with better teaching tools. It will inspire our young people to actively engage in their education. It will expose them to the world around them and broaden their horizons. Our Nation's children deserve no less. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, today I introduced a bill to establish an education satellite loan guarantee program from communications among education, Federal, State, and local institutions and agencies and instructional and educational resource providers. Americans face many problems and challenges in education. From Montana to Maine, local school districts to large universities, educators are being asked to do more with less. There is overcrowding in urban areas and a lack of access to educational opportunities in many rural areas. We are being challenged as a nation, and we must react as a nation with unity of purpose. We must marshall our resources and save our children's future. Over this Nation's history, we have used good old American creativity to conquer many challenges and force new horizons. I believe that technology plays a key role in making us world leaders. In the areas of space and defense, our technological know-how has made us second to none. We should act now to apply our same know-how to education. Whether it be through copper wire, glass, or satellites, distance learning can provide access to the vast educational resources of our Nation, regardless of wealth or geographic location. There is a crisis facing America's distance education providers and users at all levels of schooling due to shortages and price increases in satellite capacity. This crisis in the distance education field has been noted and documented by the satellite and broadcasting industries and the National Education Telecommunications Organization [NETO]. The crisis facing the educators is a lack of availability of satellite capacity and dramatically escalating costs which puts an educational institution's ability to equitably transmit instructions at high risk. We must start right here, right now, by taking advantage of the satellite technology that exist today. More than 90 American college provide education and instruction to K- 12 school districts, colleges, libraries, and students in other distant education centers, nationwide and internationally. In my own State of Montana and throughout the country from Washington State through Texas to Maine, teaches and students are receiving word that they will not have access to instruction heretofore received in science, math, language, and other special events. Rural and urban school districts, family health centers in hard-to-reach areas and rural hospitals will be immediately impacted at the start-up of the fall 1995 semester. If nothing is done to ameliorate the crisis more than 200 small education entrepreneurial communications centers are at risk [[Page S 14412]] by the fall of 1996. These are communications centers in America's colleges, school districts, and education consortia which include State education and television agencies who have invested State and local taxes to create cost-effective, equitable transmission using satellite, telephone, and cable to deliver instruction and training in classrooms throughout the Nation. For an interim solution to the crisis, Congresswoman Constance Morella, Congressman Ceorge E. Brown, Jr., and I have asked NASA to dedicate unused satellite capacity to the education sector as the prime users for a period up to 3 years. However, we must begin to create an adequate satellite system dedicated to education to meet the educational needs and demands of America's students, teachers, and workers for the future. The bill introduced today will facilitate the acquisition by an appropriate nonprofit, public corporation of a communications satellite system dedicated to the transmission of instructions, education, and training programming that is not subject to preemptive use by Federal Government for purposes of national security. The bill would authorize the Secretary of Interior to carry out a loan guarantee program under which a non-profit, public corporation could borrow funds to buy or lease satellites dedicated to instructional programming. A dedicated educational satellite will allow us to address two barriers faced by those involved in distance learning via satellite. First, it will insure instructional programmers that they will be able to obtain affordable satellite transmission time without risk of preemption by commercial users. Second, it will allow educators using the programming to have one dish focused on one satellite off which they can receive at least 24 channels of instructional programming--every hour of the school year. There is no doubt in my mind that distance learning is a growth area and that there is a role for the Federal Government in facilitating that growth. The Office of Technology Assessment's 1989 report, ``Linking for Learning: A New Course for Education'' documents the recent growth of distance learning, calling the growth in the K-12 sector dramatic. OTA anticipates this growth to continue. The National Governors' Association in 1988 found that while fewer than 10 States were promoting distance learning in 1987; 1 year later two-thirds of the States reported involvement. The NGA passed a resolution in 1988, and revised it in 1991, expressing their support for a dedicated education and public purpose satellite-based telecommunications network. Following their 1989 education summit in Charlottesville, VA where former Governor Wallace Wilkinson of Kentucky and other Governors raised with President Bush the proposal for this dedicated system, the EDSAT Institute was formed to analyze the proposal. In 1991, they issued a report entitled ``Analysis of a Proposal for an Education Satellite,'' and they found as did the OTA report, that individual States and consortiums of States are investing heavily in distance learning technologies and that the education sector is a significant market. The organization, the National Educations Telecommunications Organization [NETO], was formed after the EDSAT Institute held seven regional meetings during the summer of 1991. Through these meetings, they recognized the need to aggregate the education market for distance learning and concluded that an education programming users organization was needed. NETO has a distinguished board of educators, public policy officials, State education agencies, and telecommunications experts who are committed to the goal of developing an integrated telecommunications system dedicated to education. The first step is what we are facilitating through Federal loan guarantees. If this legislation passes, the Federal Government will be setting a national policy in support of a telecommunications infrastructure for distance learning. A policy that will cost the government relatively little compared to the benefits our Nation will receive through improved education and educational access. The risk to the Federal Government is minimal. The only risk the Government is assuming is the risk that the distance learning market will dissipate. I think the findings of the National Governors' Association, the OTA, and the EDSAT Institute prove highly unlikely. But I also believe that with distance learning, as with transportation and other infrastructure-dependent markets, once an infrastructure is in place the market will expand beyond our current expectations. A dedicated satellite system will bring instructional programming which is now scattered across 12 to 15 satellites into one place in the sky. This collocation will allow educators to receive a variety of instructional programs without having to constantly reorient their satellite dish. By making the investment in a dedicated system on the front end, we are reducing distance learning costs for educators on the State and local levels. The programmers will benefit because they will be able to market their programming to a wider audience and will be guaranteed reliable satellite time at an affordable rate. A rate that will be equal no matter how much time they buy. Programmers include public schools, colleges, universities, State agencies, private sector corporations and consortiums, such as the star schools consortiums, and independents. The users will benefit because their investment in equipment to receive instructional programming may be reduced because of the technological advantages of focusing on one point in the sky. Users include primary and secondary students, college, and university students, professionals interested in continuing education, community members, and government bodies. The benefits far outweigh the costs in my mind. A dedicated educational satellite will allow our kids to benefit from equal access to quality education. This is really just the first step. Both NETO and I believe that a telecommunications infrastructure for use by the educational sector should not be technology specific. I plan to continue pushing for passage of S. 1200 to make a national broadband fiber-optic network a reality. NETO's vision is for an integrated, nationwide telecommunications system, a transparent highway that encompasses land and space, over which educational and instructional resources can be delivered. They envision bringing together the land- based systems that are already in place, not replacing them. This is an inclusive effort, not an exclusive one. I hope that my colleagues will join me in making this a reality. Technology has transformed every sector of our lives. It can transform education as well. It will not replace teachers, it will empower them with better teaching tools. It will inspire our young people to actively engage in their education. It will expose them to the world around them and broaden their horizons. Our Nation's children deserve no less. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Burns pertaining to the introduction of S. 1278 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business for no more than 5 minutes.

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

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. That concludes my remarks. I yield the floor.

Mr. BURNS. I thank the chairman, Mr. President. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment proposed by Senator Bumpers to shut down the space station. He is correct when he says every year for the last 6 years he has introduced this amendment to eliminate all funding for the space station, in effect killing the programs that have provided most of the technological advance and promises for many more, and, of course, it promises to have many more to come. Mr. President this program is probably one of the most vital programs we have when we start talking about science and technology and research, and it is a catalyst that spurs the curiosity of all the young people going into those fields. The space station is the driving force for emerging science and technology and the inspiration for young people. It makes them want to excel in the sciences and, of course, in math. To dampen the spirit of our children to succeed in science and math, and that education, would be by dampening this space station and killing their hopes for the future. You cannot put a price tag on that. There is no way to measure that. But I know one thing; it is not measured in dollars and cents. The international space station is the most important U.S. space effort since the Apollo program, and its foundation for the future in human space flight programs in the post-cold-war era. It combines America's technological mastery, the United States' international leadership, and the pioneering spirit from which Americans find themselves in the center of modern history. Nobody supports reducing the Federal deficit or balancing the budget more than I do. But we also have to worry about the pioneering spirit that really is the foundation of building this great country. We cannot afford not to do that. Let me make an analogy. Let us draw from another time. Maybe it is a pretty important time for the State from which Senator Bumpers comes from. But let us compare this time to the time of President Thomas Jefferson when he requested support of the Lewis and Clark expedition that finally led to the Louisiana Purchase--or it was after the Louisiana Purchase. At the time of Jefferson's request, about half of the Federal budget was going toward debt retirement and interest on the national debt. He requested $2,500 for that expedition. We all know what that expedition did for our country. Personally, I know what it did for my State--not my home State of Missouri but of my home State now of Montana. Today the interest on the national debt is around 14 percent of the Federal budget, and the space station request is one-seventh of 1 percent of the Federal budget. So I would say that both the President and the Congress have the multiyear balanced budget plans, and the full funding of the space station which is included should stay there, and is a bold step. And another bold step would be making that investment in the future. It is the right way. It is the right thing to do. America does have a role in shaping the future of humanity in the 21st century, and it should be no less than what it was. It has been great. But also it is our big step in space. There are many justifications that are cited for the program: It stimulates technology and provides commercial opportunities. And if we will look to see the direction in which we are going, we are going in that direction; more commercialization will be a part of NASA. The fundamental reason though basically is it expands the frontier, the frontier of knowledge and understanding, a frontier where humans can live and work. The space station is an international space station. It is a cooperative program. It draws the resources and the scientific expertise not of just the United States but 13 nations. So cancellation would severely undermine the credibility of this country with its international partners. International investments in the station are substantial and represent the centerpieces of the space program of our international partners. I chair the authorizing committee of NASA. It has had its troubles in the past, but for the last 3 years it has been within, and sometimes under, cost and schedule, and that has been something unusual, because we have taken a personal interest in NASA to make sure it does what it is supposed to do, when it is supposed to do it, within budget. [[Page S 14234]] We have tried to iron out its problems. We have a director who, before he was ever told there were going to be cuts, walked up to the bar and said, ``I will take $1 billion out of my budget a year for the next 5 years if that will help you on the Hill to balance your budget and still keep this very vital, important program underway.'' This Thursday, aboard the space shuttle, the United States will launch its second microgravity laboratory which will be in space for 16 days. The mission will be a precursor to the space station laboratory. We will try out a lot of things. I held a hearing last May on the space station. From that hearing, the subcommittee determined that NASA has overcome some of those problems I was talking about earlier and they are ready to come up to the bar, deal with those, finish the development, and start using this unique laboratory that we will use for a long, long time. By the way, Lewis and Clark had their problems getting started, too. They underestimated by a factor of three the number of people required to execute the expedition. So what else is new? Everything we have done always operated under Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong will. But if you look at the history of our space program, from the day of inception, when we had a President stand up in this town and inspire this country to reach out into space, it has probably been one of the most successful that we have ever undertaken, especially going into the unknown, dealing with technologies that were unknown at the time. Today, our manned flight program represents the pinnacle of human achievement and it transcends everybody in this country. It is a center of pride. It is that part of America that is the example of what we are as a people. We are a curious people. We are people who reach out. Only this country can do it. And some pride has to be taken for that. I am committed to this project, not merely because of the high technology jobs it brings to 37 States, but because it is the right thing to do for America. I noticed with interest the map of the Senator from Arkansas. I did not see Montana as one of those blackened in places that receives all the aid money. But I know the effect it has on our young people whenever a shot goes up, and as we perform some of the successful operations in research and development practices in space. We should not be so shortsighted to shackle ourselves to this planet. After all, space is the next frontier.

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, first of all, I ask for the yeas and nays on the adoption of the conference report.

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote occur at 10:20 this morning.

Mr. BURNS. That will be good.

Mr. BURNS. I would be pleased to yield to the assistant majority leader.

Mr. BURNS. I appreciate my friend from Mississippi raising this issue and I am pleased to clarify the scope of this project. The funds provided in this conference report for the road relocation project in Gulfport, MS, are intended to pay the first half of the cost for the total road relocation effort. This phase 1 effort is intended to begin the job of relocating the road. It is my hope that the second phase of this funding effort will be in the 1997 military construction appropriations request.

Mr. BURNS. Will the Senator yield so I can propound a unanimous- consent request?

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, the conference committee's decision to include funding for phase 1 of this project was intended to initiate actions to execute this project in fiscal year 1996, including contract award and initial construction. I would note that the project is in the Senate defense authorization bill currently in conference, and under the authority which will be provided by the adoption of that conference bill, the Department should proceed in due course to execute all actions required to perform this work. We hope to pay for this work in two phases--not just one.