Bill Bradley

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to complete this. I do not think it will be longer than 5 minutes, but if it is, it will be a minute or two, and I prefer not to be interrupted.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

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

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I wish to address a few of the points that were made yesterday by the distinguished Senators from Utah on the underlying wilderness bill. First, there is the assertion that S. 884, that we are now dealing with, had been fixed, particularly that the release language had been fixed, been modified. It has been modified somewhat, I think, to reflect the debate in the Energy Committee but despite all the changes the amended version just drops the requirement that the released lands shall be managed for ``nonwilderness multiple purposes'' and substitutes a full range of uses--not much difference. However, the amendment still says that the lands released ``shall not be managed for the purpose of protecting their suitability for wilderness designation.'' The previous version of the bill as reported out was a kind of belt and suspenders approach to release. It had two protections against further wilderness designation. The revised version still leaves the belt even though the suspenders have been removed. It still remains an unprecedented provision in wilderness bills. Next, the protected areas. Is it fair to say that almost 20 million acres have been released and can now be exploited? The distinguished Senator from Utah questioned whether you could say that, but both versions of the bill as reported and as amended find that all public lands in the State of Utah administered by the BLM have been adequately studied for wilderness designation. This eliminates further consideration of approximately 20 million acres. There are other problems which I will not get into at this stage, but I would like to just focus on the acreage where the distinguished Senators from Utah have asserted that plenty of land in the Kaiparowits Plateau and other areas, plenty of land has already been protected-- 125,000 acres in Kaiparowits and 110,000 in Dirty Devil Canyon--but the point is what is not protected. There are about 525,000 acres in Kaiparowits that were in the House bill and 152,000 acres in the Dirty Devil area. So the question is not what is protected but what is not protected, particularly on the Kaiparowits Plateau. The proponents of the bill have basically constantly referred to the House bill which is 5.7 million acres. I am not pushing 5.7 million acres. I have not introduced a bill that advocates 5.7 million acres, nor has any such bill been introduced. I am simply concerned that 2 million acres is far too little to protect out of 22 million acres of BLM land. I am concerned that all the remaining land would be permanently released from consideration as wilderness. But once again I am not saying that 5.7 is the right number. Keep in mind that it is 3.2 million acres that are currently protected as wilderness. Also, the Senators from Utah should recognize that if the Utah wilderness bill does not pass or is vetoed, the result will not be that 5.7 million acres are protected. Instead, for the time being, the 3.2 million will remain protected for study and a new recommendation will have to be developed. Third, there is the assertion that acreage is an issue for Utah to resolve. I would argue that acreage is far from the only issue here. In fact, there are many other issues that should be of great concern to other Senators and to other taxpayers. As to the hard release language, as I said, the belt is still there even though the suspenders have been removed. The land exchange provision should be of concern to taxpayers since the State is going to likely give up land of little value in exchange for very valuable Federal land on which they will want to mine coal, according to the Assistant Secretary. The exceptions to traditional wilderness rules for motor vehicle, also to water rights language, all are very ominous precedents. And finally there is the assertion that there was nothing wrong with the BLM inventory process. The distinguished Senator from Utah basically said that this was not the case, and he quoted Jim Parker, a former Utah BLM State director, to support the assertion that the BLM's inventory was not seriously flawed. Mr. Parker has made statements supporting the BLM wilderness inventory and has been cited as an expert. However, Mr. Parker did not work on the BLM in Utah during the inventory but was living in Washington, DC, at the time. I think it should be clear what the BLM's position is on this bill. Yesterday, I received a letter from Bob Armstrong, the Assistant Secretary of Lands, Minerals and Management, that supports the view that the BLM officials recognize the Utah BLM process was in fact flawed. Mr. Armstrong says: I am told by professional career staff at all levels of the organization that the Utah wilderness process was the most controversial, and perhaps the most political, in the entire BLM wilderness process. The letter goes on to state: It is the position of the BLM that far too little land is protected under this bill and too much land is released for development. In short, no one should be claiming the support of the Bureau of Land Management and its professional staff-- No one should be claiming BLM support-- for S. 884. I ask unanimous consent that the letter from Mr. Armstrong be printed in the Record.

Mr. BRADLEY. I remind my colleagues that there are 33 titles to this bill. I personally would have no objection to moving almost all 33, and we already have a veto threat in the form of a letter from the Secretary, and yesterday also we have a statement of administration policy from the Executive Office of the President also being very clear on that issue. I hope we will be able to recognize that this Utah wilderness bill is far from complete and that there are many things that need to be done before it could be thought to be a true wilderness bill. Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to commemorate Greek Independence Day--a national day of celebration of Greek and American democracy. Yesterday marked the 175th anniversary of the beginning of the revolution which freed the Greek people from the Ottoman Empire. A historic bond exists between Greece and America, forged by our shared democratic heritage. America is truly indebted to the ancient Greeks for giving the world the first example of direct democracy. The philosophical and democratic influences of the ancient Greeks provides the inspiration for our democratic Government to flourish. It is therefore fitting that Members of this Chamber join in paying tribute to the long struggle for freedom that Greece endured. On March 25, 1821, when Germanos, the archbishop of Patros, proclaimed Greek independence, another link between Greece and the United States was forged. The American revolution served as a model for the Greek struggle for freedom and when the Declaration of Independence, translated into Greek, served as the declaration of the end of the Greek struggle, a circle was completed. The interconnection between Greek and American democracies lies not only in the philosophical underpinnings of our Government, but in many areas of American life. Percy Bysshe Shelley once said, ``We are all Greeks! Our laws, our literature, our religion, our art, have their roots in Greece.'' The tremendous influence that Greece has had on American life continues today through the activities of the vibrant Greek community in America. In every field--politics, entertainment, business and education--Greek-Americans continue to contribute to American life. In particular, I wish to pay tribute to the Greek-American community in New Jersey. Groups that are leaders in the New Jersey Greek Community include: the Greek American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, the Greek American Voters League of New Jersey, the Hellenic American Bar Association of New Jersey, the Pan Gregorian Enterprises & Foundation, P.G.E.I. of America Charitables Foundation, Inc., the Council Generals of Greek Cypriot, the Order of AHEPA and the Joint Public Policy Committee of Hellenic American Women. On behalf of these organizations, the Greek community in New Jersey and all Americans of Greek descent, I am honored to pay tribute, on behalf of the Nation, to the Greek community during the celebration of their independence day.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Alaska for his statement, and I thank the distinguished Senators from Utah for their strong advocacy of one of the provisions in this bill. I know how much they care about this legislation. I know how long they have worked on it. We have a basic disagreement, which I will try to explore in as much depth as I can for the next--I do not know how long it will take, but I want to do it with comprehensive explanations so they can then respond to what I have said. I would only make one point with regard to this bill as a package. As one Senator, I am prepared to have virtually every one of the 33 titles, maybe with 2 or 3 exceptions, moved through the Senate right now. I do not oppose those sections. What I have a problem with is the Utah wilderness bill, which I will get to, to explain. So I want the Senate to know that all of the other provisions in this bill I have no objection to passing today on voice vote with the exception of two or three, maybe four maximum, of the titles in the underlying bill. It is clearly the chairman's prerogative to put these together in a package. I am not sure, if I were someone who was interested in a particular provision--I might say that this bill has several provisions that I want for my State--that it would be the wisest course if the President actually does veto this package. We could get down several months only to find that the President has vetoed not only Utah land, the wilderness bill, but he has vetoed all of the other smaller provisions that are totally noncontroversial that could move through the Senate today and, in some cases, through the House easily. I think that ought to be established. I think the wiser course here would be to detach from this package the Utah wilderness bill and to have some more time to talk about that, and then move the other elements of this bill. I know there are a number of Senators who are interested in their particular provisions. I have no objection to moving them. What I would like to do if I could this morning is take my time to really talk a little bit about the history of public lands. I would like to focus on Federal lands in the United States and in Utah. I would like to focus on the economic development pressures in Utah. I would like to talk about sustainable development. I would like to put this bill in the context of how we got here, and how the bill does in relation to the concept of sustainable development. Then I would like to talk about the effect on the rest of the country, and why I think that the Utah wilderness bill is clearly a national bill in a very, very deep sense. I say that with great respect for the knowledge and the commitment of the Senators from Utah, whom I know care as deeply about their State as any Senator in this body cares about his or her own State. So I make these comments with respect for them and at the same time with a very profound disagreement. Mr. President, the idea that America has public land, public patrimony that belongs to all of us, really began in 1778, when the small State of Maryland led a protest against those States that had made vast claims of territory west of the Appalachian Mountains, our original frontier. Under their royal charters, Virginia had laid claim to territory reaching to the Mississippi and up to what is now Michigan, and Massachusetts claimed much of what remained in the then United States. The Senators, Congressmen, the statesmen from Maryland had a different idea. They said that the land, which was the defining feature of the new Nation, should be owned and used in common. And Maryland refused to sign the Articles of Confederation until this idea of common land won respect. By 1802, the young Nation had taken 233 million acres for the public good between the Thirteen Colonies and the Mississippi River, and with the Louisiana Purchase, and over the next 51 years, the common domain grew to more than 1.4 billion acres of public land. While the Nation came together around Maryland's idea of public land, the question of what to do with it remained. The fundamental conflict between divisions expressed by Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton dominated this debate, as it did so many others. Jefferson believed that land should be put in the hands of small farmers even if it meant giving it away, while Hamilton believed that land sales could be the steadiest source of income for the Nation. With the oppressive debt from the Revolutionary War, the Hamilton view prevailed. And the principle for most of the first half of the 19th century was that ``lands were to be sold, and the proceeds appropriated toward shrinking or discharging the debts.'' That was a quote. But the land being what it is, Jefferson was also correct in his prediction that Americans looking for open space ``would settle the lands in spite of everybody.'' Land sales never made up more than 10 percent of the Federal revenue because people simply laid claim to the lands, moved onto the lands. With the passage of the Preemption Act of 1841, the Jeffersonian view prevailed, giving the land away, in hope that it would extend across the continent a nation of small farmers. The Homestead Act followed in the 1860's with its promise of 160 acres for a family, a blessing in the fertile ground of the Great Plains--160 acres. Beyond the 100th meridian, the north-south line running roughly from Minot, ND, to Laredo, TX, the 160 acres was almost useless. As Senator William Borah said of the Homestead Act, ``The Government bets 160 acres against the filing fee that the settlers cannot live on the land for 5 years without starving to death.'' Indeed, only 35 percent of the claims ever lived up to full ownership, with the rest left to be assembled in very large parcels. Just as selling the land did not fulfill Hamilton's vision, giving it away did not live up to Jefferson's vision of a country of independent, self-sufficient young farmers passing their modest legacy of land from generation to generation, renewing themselves by tilling the land. Neither vision, the sale of the land nor giving it away, really lived up to either of the Founders' idea. Instead, mining interests laid the first claim to the land. Every single major mining strike in the history of the West--gold in California, Colorado, and Montana, silver in Idaho, Nevada--was made on public land. Then ranchers who had quickly exhausted the capacity of the public land of the high plains, moved West, taking vast acreage of thin, fragile grassland in the northern range and fencing it in to keep homesteaders out. Mr. President, about this time Americans finally began to really look at their land. The reports of the great surveyors, Ferdinand V. Hayden, George M. Wheeler, and John Wesley Powell, these reports came East, along with the photographs of William Henry Jackson and the paintings of Thomas Moran. Tales of great geysers and Powell's vivid descriptions of a canyon opening like a beautiful portal to a region of glory led to a popular campaign to protect something of this legacy. The creation of Yellowstone National Park, the first national park, in 1872, was a moment of great national pride. The truer reflection of our view toward our national lands, our public lands, in that same year was the passage of the General Mining Act of 1872, setting fees of $2.50 an acre for a permanent mining claim, an error at the time and an outdated disgrace today. As the new century approached, the parks movement accelerated and the country finally escaped the old question, ``Should we sell it or should we give it away?'' In 1891, the National Forest System was created. By 1907, nearly 10 percent of the Nation's land had been rescued from the cycle of transfer and destruction. The great barbecue, as the historian C. Vernon Parrington called the abuse of the land in the 19th century, had come to an end, but the struggle had really only begun. Miners, ranchers, farmers, and timber interests began a long fight to reclaim the unlimited gold, silver, copper, grasslands, water, and tall trees which had been given away for so long that they had convinced themselves that they had earned them. In Charles Wilkinson's phrase, the ``Lords of Yesterday,'' the interests and ideas that pull us back toward the 19th century, grew and grew in Washington, especially after Theodore Roosevelt left the White House and Gifford Pinchot left the Interior Department. In 1920, the Mineral Leasing Act gave oil companies access to petroleum reserves on public lands, even national forests. But the Teapot Dome scandal led President Hoover to ban the oil reserves from exploitation. And the dust storms of the 1930's, which blackened the skies from New Mexico to the Dakotas as a result of overgrazing and overfarming, led to the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 which closed 142 million acres of public land and was called ``the Magna Carta of conservation.'' The New Deal economist Rexford Tugwell declared ``the day on which the President signed the Taylor Act * * *. laid in its grave a land policy which had long since been dead and which walked abroad only as a troublesome ghost within a living world.'' Tugwell's analysis was seriously premature. The land policy of the 19th century has not yet been buried. Indeed, it lives on in this bill, in the grazing bill, and in several others before this Congress in this year. The advocates of a return to the free-for-all of the past used their power in Congress and the appealing image of the brave, solitary westerner--an image at odds with reality then and now--to lead the assault on this protective impulse to protect the land. Senator Patrick McCarran of Nevada accused the Grazing Service of seeking ``to legislate the trailblazers of the West out of existence,'' and launched what one historian called ``the lengthiest, most concerted, and in some respects, the most successful attempt made in the 20th century by one person to force a reinterpretation of land policy more in accordance with the wishes of the using interests.'' I repeat, ``the using interests.'' McCarran succeeded in turning the bureaucracy in favor of the using interests. He abolished the Grazing Service and merged it with another large agency, creating the Bureau of Land Management. The Bureau of Land Management was given so many responsibilities--leasing of oil, gas, coal, oil, shale, and geothermal sites. Management of hard rock mining claims on its own land, plus on the lands of the national forests, management of 8 million acres of commercial forests, wetlands and fishable streams, thousands of archaeological sites as well as grazing, all of these responsibilities, so much given that McCarran and his backers reasonably assumed that the agency would become ``Unconvincing Goliath,'' in the words of Prof. Sally Fairfax. By 1973, the BLM had plainly abandoned the task of protecting grazing lands from the next Dust Bowl. Only 16 percent of its rangeland was in good condition. The 341 million acres managed by the BLM are often called the leftover lands or the lands nobody wanted. They are what remains of the 2.1 billion acres that had not been sold, given away, or set aside as national park or national forest. The BLM does not have the clear sense of mission of the Forest Service or the Park Service. Indeed, in the 1950's, its nickname was the ``Bureau of Livestock and Mining.'' It gives a sense of what the Agency thought its lands were most valuable for in those days. Yet, those lands include some of the most breathtaking and fragile places in the Nation: The Potosi Mountains of Nevada; Glacier Peak in Washington; Mount Lester in Wyoming; California's Lake Ediza; and in Utah, the Valley of Dirty Devil, the Kaiparowits Plateau, Grand Staircase, Escalante Canyon, the Henry Mountains, and many others in the State of Utah. These are lands that if we sacrifice their quiet peace for a short-term economic gain, it will be to the lasting regret--the lasting regret--of many Americans. Let me just frame that by focusing on one of these areas. The Kaiparowits Plateau in southern Utah, an extraordinary place, is one of the most remote places in the United States. I would like to quote from what one person said about that. His name is Charles Wilkinson, a professor at the University of Colorado. He says: Kaiparowits, the interior of the Colorado Plateau, itself the interior of the nation, is not just for coal. Few people come to this southern Utah plateau because modern conveniences are so distant, traditional beauty so scarce, normal recreational opportunities so limited. Precipitation measures ten to twelve inches a year. There are just two or three perennial streams, and they carry little water. One dirt road, usable by passenger cars, runs up to Escalante. Otherwise, it is all jeep trails. Pinon-juniper stands offer almost no cover from the sun. Cross-country backpacking is for experts only. You have to scour the topographic maps, plan your trip with care (being sure to hit the springs), and stock to your plan. Even a short hike is a challenge. From a distance, Kaiparowits looks flat on top but in fact it is up- and-down, chipped-up, confusing. You can get lost, snakebit, or otherwise injured. There's no one to call. Kaiparowits is, in a word, wild--``wilderness,'' as Raymond Wheeler put it, ``right down to its burning core.'' Eagles, hawks, and peregrines are in here, especially in the wind currents near the cliffs, and so are bighorn sheep, trophy elk, and deer. Archaelologists have recorded some 400 sites but there are many more--there has been lttle surveying, except near some of the mine sites. From Kaiparowits you are given startling Plateau vistas in all directions, vivid views more than 200 miles if the winds have cleared out the haze, views as encompassing as those from the southern tip of Cedar Mesa, the east flank of Boulder Mountain, the high LeSals, DeadHorse Point, long, stretching expanses of sacred country. If you climb the rocky promontories on top of Kaiparowits, you can see off to Boulder Mountain, the Henrys, Black Mesa, Navajo Mountain, the Kaibab Plateau, the Vermilion Cliffs. The languid stillness of Kaiparowits turns your mind gently and slowly to wondering about time, to trying to comprehend the long, deep time all of this took, from Cretaceous, from back before Cretaceous, and to comprehend, since Lake Powell and the seventy-story stacks of Navajo Generating Station also now play part of the vista, how it is that our culture has so much might and how it is that we choose to exert it so frantically, with so little regard of the time that you can see, actually see, from here. Perhaps somehow by taking some moments now, here, here in this stark pinon-juniper rockland place, here in this farthest-away place, a person can nurture some of the fibers of constancy and constraint that our people possess in addition to the might. The silence is stunning, the solitude deep and textured. Kaiparowits makes you decide on the value of wildness and remoteness. Kaiparowits is where the dreams for the West collide. Coal, jobs growth. Long vistas, places to get lost in, places to find yourself in. The BLM wild lands teach us, also, about the people who once lived and worked and loved and worshipped for such a long time in what has been called BLM land for such a short time. Last year, my son Seth, then twenty, and I took a long, home-from-college trip to the canyon country. We hiked most of one day up to our calves in a creek that over the course of some seven million years has cut a thousand feet down through the fiery, aeolian Wingate Sandstone and the layers of rock above it. In a rare wide spot in the canyon, behind a cluster of junipers, we found a panel of pictographs on the Wingate. The artisan painted this row of red and white images-- supernatural and life-size--two thousand years ago, perhaps more. The three stolid figures had wide shoulders, narrow waists. We could see straight through the round staring eyes, and the eyes could see through us. We called it ``Dream Panel.'' It would be so contemptuous of time to deal away Kaiparowits and Dream Panel. Perhaps the states would protect these and other wild places of national worth as well as they are protected now. But do we want to risk it? Mr. President, until the 1960's, none of the public lands were fully protected for mining, automobiles, construction, and other uses. The concept of wilderness did not exist, not only on the BLM lands, but even in the national parks and forests. As a way of preserving public land, the idea of wilderness really owes its origin to Arthur Carhart, a landscape architect hired by the Forest Service in 1919 and sent to design a road encircling Trappers Lake in Colorado's San Isabel National Forest. Instead of laying out the road, he bombarded his bureaucratic supervisors with memos urging that they abandon the project and retain some area ``to which the lover of the outdoors can return without being confronted by a settlement, a country store, telephone pole, or other sights of civilization.'' After Carhart built a friendship and alliance with Aldo Leopold, the great naturalist and author of ``A Sand County Almanac,'' the Forest Service accepted his idea and made Trappers Lake the first development project it had ever denied because of the threat to the natural integrity of the land. The legacy of Carhart and Leopold fell to Robert Marshall, a slightly eccentric man, who during college decided to walk 30 miles in every State of the Union, covering that distance in a single day in each State. Once he covered 62 miles in a day. Well, Marshall joined the Forest Service in 1930 and advocated not just protection of some land as wilderness, but the importance of sheer size--vast tracts of wilderness rather than small parks in every State. He compared wilderness to the ``Mona Lisa'' and he said, ``If you cut up the `Mona Lisa' into little pieces one inch square and distribute them among the art galleries of the world so millions might see it, where hundreds now see it, neither the millions nor the hundreds would get any genuine value.'' The point here is that wilderness has a size factor that is itself valuable. Although Marshall rose to a high position in the Forest Service, his greatest legacy came when he left to found the Wilderness Society in 1935. The society came into its own with the successful fight against a plan to build two major dams on the grounds of Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. Instead of moving from fight to fight against this development or that, the society developed the idea of permanently classifying some portion of the public lands to be protected from development. When Senator Hubert Humphrey introduced such a bill in 1957, not only the commercial interests and the western Senators and Congressmen, but even the Park Service and Forest Service were flatly opposed. Above all, they were offended by the idea that citizens from the areas affected should participate in the decisions about what should be protected. Senator Arthur Watkins of Utah argued that a permanent wilderness designation would ``hamstring economic development,'' but at the same time, like opponents of the Yellowstone in the 1870's, he insisted that ``Millions of acres are already preserved in the wilderness state and probably always will be.'' The bill which finally passed in 1964 contained the following definition of wilderness: A wilderness, in contrast to those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and the community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. That is the definition of wilderness in the 1964 act. It ordered the agencies that manage Federal land to review their own holdings and recommend those that qualify for wilderness designation--wilderness, a ``community of life untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.'' But this review omitted the over 300 million acres managed by the BLM. Those lands came under the purview of the Wilderness Act only in 1976. At that time BLM was given 15 years to review its own holdings and recommend those to be protected. However, Mr. President, that was in 1976. It was not long before James Watt took the reins of the Department of the Interior and in the long tradition of deliberately crippling the bureaucracy at BLM moved the deadline up from 1991 to 1984--one would assume not in an effort to protect the land quickly but to overwhelm the agency and destroy the review process. In other words, what was supposed to take 15 years of careful, painstaking, accurate analysis of public land under the control of BLM with designation of specific wilderness was now contrasted into a very short time. And it is the legacy of that action that brings us to where we are today in consideration of the Utah lands bill. The Wilderness Act, if it is allowed to work as intended, can be the final step in our escape from the lords of yesterday--the compulsion to transfer lands and to let their soil and mineral resources, their trees and their vistas to be exploited for short-term gain rather than preserved for future generations. Bernard DeVoto urged us to ``maintain portions of the wilderness untouched, so that a tree will rot where it falls, a waterfall will pour its curves without generating electricity, a trumpeter swan may float on uncontaminated water--and moderns may at least see what their ancestors knew in their nerves and in their blood.'' That is what is possible, if the Wilderness Act is allowed to work. Mr. President, what about the Federal lands generally in the United States and in Utah? The Federal Government currently owns approximately 650 million acres, or nearly 30 percent of the 2.3 billion acre land area of the United States. However, this is far less than the Government has owned in the past. Since 1775 the Federal Government has acquired through purchase and war over 1.8 billion acres, and at various times in U.S. history has held title to nearly 80 percent of the Nation's total area. Nearly two-thirds of the land once owned by the Federal Government has been transferred to the States, or to private interests. Where did the land come from? Well, the original 13 and the move over to the Mississippi is about 236 million acres. If you add the Louisiana Purchase, you add 529 million acres. If you take the Oregon compromise, you add 183 million acres. If you take the secession from Mexico at the end of the Mexican-United States war, you add 338 million acres. If you take the Alaska purchase, you add 378 million acres. Those are the main places that the land came from. How were the Federal lands disposed of? During the 19th century a number of Federal laws encouraged transfer of Federal lands to homesteaders; as I said, earlier, the Homestead Act of 1862 to miners, the Mining Act of 1872, and to railroads and to others. In general, the purpose of the act was to encourage development and settlement of the West. Lands were also sold to raise money and granted to States for specific purposes--funding for education, for example. As a result of the land acts, over 1.1 billion acres have been transferred out of Federal ownership in the following ways. Homesteaders got 287 million acres. Railroad companies got 94 million acres. As a frame of reference, that is the equivalent of all of the land of Washington and Oregon given to railroad companies. Military bounties got 61 million acres, and grants to States were around 328 million acres. Those were the largest chunks of who got the land--the homesteaders, the railroad companies, military, and States. Altogether, private interests have acquired title to 69 million acres of Federal lands through patents associated with either extraction of minerals or fossil fuels. So that is where the Federal lands went. Who manages these public lands? Four agencies administer 96 percent of the Federal land. For conservation, preservation, or development they are the National Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service. The majority of lands managed by these agencies are in the West, which is ironically the most urbanized part of the country in terms of per capita. In 1891, as I pointed out, Congress granted the President the authority--now repealed--to establish forest reserves from the public domain. In 1906 and 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt more than doubled the acreage of the forest reserves which resulted in Congress limiting the authority of the President to add to the forest system. Here is one of the more interesting images that I have ever come across. Teddy Roosevelt came to office, and he kept a big chunk of national forest claiming it for national protection. He did that essentially by his Executive power. And then Congress passed an amendment saying that no further Presidential reservations would be permitted unless they were approved by Congress. There was a date by which that was to go into effect. And the story is that the night, or two, before the law was supposed to go into effect, Teddy Roosevelt was in the White House with Gifford Pinchot, his great national forester. They had the maps of all of the West laid out, and by Executive order he cut out of the maps prior to the law going into effect vast acreages that he had then preserved. At present, the National Forest System includes 155 national forests covering 187 million acres, 20 national grasslands with 4 million acres, and 103 other units such as land utilization projects and research and experimental areas with less than 500,000 acres. So that is the National Forest System. The BLM, Bureau of Land Management, again as I said earlier, was created in 1946 as a result of the merger of the General Land Office and the Grazing Service, and the BLM currently manages about 268 million acres, about a third of which is in Alaska. Its lands are used for multiple purposes including grazing and wilderness. So in addition to the National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management is the National Wildlife Refuge System. Following Pelican Island in 1903, the number of refuges continued to grow, and in 1966 the National Wildlife Refuge System was established under the management of the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior, and the Fish and Wildlife Service manages 494 refuges covering 91 million acres. The National Park Service. The National Park Service manages 368 million units including 55 national parks. The basic mission of the National Park Service is to conserve, preserve, protect, and interpret the natural, cultural, and historic resources of the Nation for the public. To a considerable extent, the Service also contributes to meeting the public demand for certain types of outdoor recreation opportunities. Scientific research is another activity encouraged by the Service in units in the National Park System. Then the final body is the National Wilderness Preservation System which was established by the Wilderness Act of 1964 and today contains nearly 104 million acres in 44 States. So these are the four principal land management agencies of the United States. They administer a total of 621 million acres of which 104 million acres or 17 percent is wilderness. So what about the State of Utah, the public lands of Utah? Of the land that makes up Utah, frankly, along with Nevada, California, and parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and South Dakota, totaling 334 million acres, approximately 52 million acres came into Federal ownership when it was ceded to the United States by Mexico in 1848 at a cost of $16 million, roughly. In 1896, having agreed forever to abandon polygamy, Utah was granted statehood. At that time, in exchange for giving up plural marriage, and because Utah did not receive internal improvement and swampland grants, the Federal Government granted 14 percent of Utah territory's land area to the State. That was substantially more than the 6 to 7 percent that the omnibus States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington received just 5 years earlier. These land grants were allocated to specific activities, and I ask unanimous consent that this chart be printed in the Record.

Mr. BRADLEY. Remaining Federal lands currently constitute approximately 32 million acres in Utah or 62 percent of the State. That is what most people in United States do not understand, and that is why when the Senator from an eastern State, particularly one as densely populated as New Jersey, stands up to speak about this subject, they frequently say, ``Well, you don't understand what it means to have 60 percent of your State owned by the Federal Government.'' Indeed, New York State has only 1 percent, Michigan has 9 percent, Nevada has 90 percent, and Utah has 62 percent. Four Federal agencies dominate, and very little land in Utah has been designated as wilderness. In fact, out of the 32 million acres, about 800,000 of those acres have been currently designated as wilderness. The bulk of the land, 22 million acres, is managed by the BLM. Next highest is the Forest Service with about 8 million acres, and the National Park Service about 2 million acres. However, approximately 3.2 million acres in Utah which have not received wilderness designation are currently managed as wilderness. Official wilderness, 800,000 but 3.2 million acres now being managed as wilderness. What about economic development, the pressures in Utah on economic development? The issue before us is not just what to do with the public lands in Utah, the lands owned by all the taxpayers, but also what is the best path for Utah's future. Utah's economy is being transformed. I am sure the Senators from Utah can speak to this with much more knowledge and probably much more direct interest, so my comments are in the way of observation. The State is rapidly urbanizing and policies which reflect the old patterns of agriculture and extractive industries have little or nothing to do with the current economic realities. For example, from 1979 to 1993, Utah jobs in mining and agriculture declined by 5,000 while jobs outside these sectors increased by 360,000. In 1993, less than 1 job out of 100 was associated with mineral extraction during a period of rapid expansion in the State economy. The entire spectrum of extractive industries from minerals and agriculture to forestry and wood products has been in relative decline since the 1960's and contributes just one-eighth as much income as do service industries to the State income. Even worse, many extractive industries such as mining are subject to boom and bust conditions and resulting economic instability. A study by Prof. Thomas Power, chairman of the department of economics at the University of Montana, found that extractive industries such as agriculture and mining are playing a decreasing role in Utah's economy and that ``wilderness protection does not in any significant way threaten the ongoing development of the Utah economy.'' Wilderness protection is not a threat to the Utah economy. In fact, Power finds that the most likely economic effect of additional wilderness protection will be positive, not negative. While alternative economic uses of wilderness are marginal and primarily the product of speculative mineral activities, additional wilderness designation is linked with more predictable economic activity, the kinds associated with a high quality natural environment which is increasing in demand across America. Utah's population has also undergone rapid expansion in the last 25 years. While the population as a whole in the United States increased by 29 percent, Utah enjoyed an 80-percent jump. Much of this was directly attributable to the attraction of the State's largely unspoiled environment. For example, St. George grew by 35 percent just in the last 5 years largely due to retirees moving in from California, and I can understand why. It is a beautiful, beautiful place--not so far from the Zion National Park. Utah's greatest asset is its unique natural beauty, a beauty which draws tourists from around the world. According to Power, Lands with wilderness qualities are a relatively scarce resource that has significant alternative uses that satisfy important human needs and desires. . . Wildlands provide a broad range of benefits that make the lives of Utah residents more satisfying and fulfilling in at least the same way that most of their purchases in commercial markets do. In the competition to attract new businesses and residents, the quality of natural and social environments will be particularly important. Power views wilderness designations themselves as a sort of advertisement that the natural beauty of the State will remain available for future generations. Preservation of public lands also has direct and measurable economic benefits. Tourism has grown to be Utah's most important industry. Spending by travelers in Utah accounts for roughly 69,000 jobs and the $3.35 billion they spend generates some $247 million in direct tax impact for State and local governments in Utah. The Governor's Office of Planning and Budget expects the State's tourism industry to continue to be one of the fastest growing segments of Utah's economy. Utah's special attractions lured about 15 million tourists including 1 million foreigners to the State in 1994. Visitation to the State's dozen national parks has increased more than 20 percent in the past 5 years; there has been a corresponding increase in visitation to the surrounding BLM lands, most of which would not be protected under S. 884. In some of the counties with lands under consideration for inclusion in the wilderness system, tourism provides over 60 percent of total jobs. Wilderness designation has little of the claimed negative effects cited by its most vigorous opponents. When 3.2 million acres were set aside in the wilderness study areas through the BLM's inventory process, agriculture accounted for 1.3 percent of the income earned in Utah. Ten years later the figure was virtually the same. The protection afforded by wilderness management in the study areas had made no change in Utah's agricultural economy. The same neutral or beneficial effect is also true for grazing. According to a University of Arizona study published in the Journal of Range Management, in designated wilderness in Arizona, forage allocation for grazing has actually increased. And wilderness designation allows the continuation of existing grazing uses. But even if designation had a significant impact on grazing, the Federal grazing lands in Utah currently contribute just eight hundredths of 1 percent of the total State income. With mining, too, the impact of wilderness designations is less than might be assumed. Since lands currently being mined are not suitable for wilderness, designation will not result in any losses of existing mining jobs. Oil and gas drilling are also declining contributors to the State's economy. Utah has the second highest drilling cost per barrel for any State containing significant oil and gas reserves, as a result of difficult access and complex geology. Small decreases in global oil prices have phased-out exploration and production in many parts of Utah. Utah's demonstrated coal base is significantly smaller than Montana, Wyoming's, Colorado's, and even North Dakota's. Significant advances in longwall mining technologies has increased productivity in Utah's underground coal mines, thereby decreasing the size of coal mining work forces. Thus, while productivity is at its highest in history, coal industry employment has decreased steadily. Then there is uranium. Huge deposits of uranium ore have been opened in Australia and Canada and Russian uranium may also be coming on to the United States market. U.S. production is more likely to come from the lowest-cost uranium reserves in Wyoming, New Mexico, and northern Arizona, not from wilderness deposits in Utah. As these figures show, extractive industries are not going to provide, I think, a stable future for the State, that is, simply looking at the data, looking at the materials, looking at where the economic growth has come, looking at where the employment has come. One might conclude, simply looking at the data, that extractive industries are not going to provide a stable future for the State of Utah. Statistics for Washington County, which is Utah's fastest growing, total and per capita personal income are rising in the region as a direct result of growth in the service sector. The conservation of 3.2 million acres by the BLM as wilderness study areas in 1980 did not devastate the affected county economies. Growth that occurred in each of these counties through the 1960's and 1970's continued through the 1980's and 1990's despite the negative economic effects caused by the drop in energy prices. Yet even with the decline in extractive industries and their decreasing impact on job creation, S. 884 was put together to reflect the old economic thinking and old economic patterns with boundaries set to accommodate a series of new extractive developments which threaten currently pristine areas. These include a proposal for a large tar sands mining development on the edge of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and in the Book Cliffs; a 3,000 megawatt coal-burning power plant in the heart of the Kaiparowits Plateau--as I said earlier, one of the three or four largest undeveloped areas in the lower 48 States--coal strip mining south and west of Bryce Canyon National Park; a petroleum and carbon dioxide gas extraction field in the headwaters of the Escalante River, involving as many as 97 production wells and 11 four- story compressor plants; chaining of thousands of areas of forests, some of which would be visible from Bryce Canyon National Park; and, even construction of a railroad. One tar sands project alone, in the Dirty Devil area, would entail the drilling of 35,000 injection and recovery wells, the construction of at least 100 miles of associated roads, 30,000 acres of soil disturbed, 14,000 acres of vegetation stripped away, and 2,000 archaeological sites disturbed or destroyed. In order to support these projects, hundreds of miles of new roads to gain access and new facilities to feed and house workers would be needed. The bill itself includes damaging language which allows unprecedented incompatible uses even in supposedly protected areas. These include allowing jeeps, motorcycles, and other off-road vehicles on remote dirt tracks, low-level military overflights which disturb wilderness solitude and even future dams, pipelines, and communications antennas in some areas. Accommodating these proposed uses, no matter how speculative or damaging, was the principal reason many important areas were dropped from consideration for wilderness designation under S. 884. Boundaries seemed to be altered and entire regions omitted in order to permit new, large damaging projects which would fuel yet another cycle of economic boom and bust. Unfortunately, these projects proposed for the Colorado Plateau look familiar. They are the same types that have failed in the past because of unfavorable world commodity prices, lack of demand, or simply the high cost of doing business in a remote and forbidding area. While it is unlikely that most of them would ever be completed or be economically viable, even preliminary site work, such as roadbuilding, would destroy their wilderness qualities forever. So, that is what I see is the economic circumstance in Utah. The extractive industries declining both as a percent of the State economic product and the numbers in employment, and this bill going in the direction of trying to keep that future available, to the great detriment of the fastest growing areas, the service sector, and in particular tourism, that is growing every year as more people want to come and see and experience these remarkable lands on the Colorado plateau and in the Basin Range. The way to look at Utah's future, from my own view, and this is just my view, and the role that this bill will play in that future, is not from an absolutist perspective, however, not from an absolutist perspective that elevates environmental values above economic growth. Development is not wrong, and it has a place in both the publicly held and private lands of Utah. The principle that it must apply, in my view, is that of sustainable development. (Mr. DeWINE assumed the chair.)

Mr. BRADLEY. Sustainable development is not pure abstraction, but a real plan for action with a specific definition. The definition endorsed by the President's Council on Sustainable Development, in a report issued last month, is as follows: Sustainable development means: To meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is a concept with an imperative behind it that is much like the imperative to balance the Federal budget, only much broader. It brings together the idea of a growing economy in which every adult has the opportunity to earn a living and support a family with the promise of a healthy life and a high quality of life for this and future generations. What does sustainable development mean in the American West? Charles Wilkinson, a law professor and historian of Western lands, puts it well. He says: Good science, good laws, good economics, and good communities come together in the idea of sustainability. At its core are the responsibilities lodged in the idea of intergenerational equity which [has been described] as the principle that ``every generation receives a natural and cultural legacy in trust from its ancestors and holds it in trust for its descendants.'' Development cannot wear the land and waters down but rather must maintain their vigor. A working policy of sustainability encompasses a practical and phased-in, but still rigorous and comprehensive, program of conservation so that consumption can be reduced. But the obligation to provide for the next generations also includes the duty to maintain a vital economy. Sustainability, then, affirmatively recognizes the need for development. . . The first step in approaching sustainability is to identify exactly what must be sustained--the ``natural and cultural legacy'' that we have received and must pass on. Traditional extractive development in the West has focused only on the specific resources being extracted. Water projects, for example, were designed to meet only the demand for water, by which was meant water as a commodity--for mining, farming and ranching, energy development, and industrial, municipal, and domestic use. Any other benefits, such as the blue-ribbon trout stream on the Navajo Dam on the San Juan River, were purely secondary and often accidental. Avoidance of negative effects, such as loss of the salmon runs, was largely a matter of luck, as when the Army Corps of Engineers' fish ladder at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia actually turned out to be workable. The overriding goal was to create commodity benefits, which were viewed as being nearly infinitely sustainable in those simpler times. . . But our thinking has evolved. In many national forests, a broader view of sustainability is not being achieved. Only the specific resources being extracted--commercial timber -- is being renewed. Other parts of the forest, which must be taken into account to achieve true sustainability, are in jeopardy. The health of certain fish and wildlife populations. Soil on steep slopes. The recreation economy. Species diversity. The ancient forests. Views. Beauty. Glory. Awe. Sustainability is measured not by board feet but by the whole forest. Unless you disagree with the concept of sustainable development, that we owe our descendants the legacy we have received from our ancestors, it is imperative to compare the Utah wilderness bill with this idea. Before I go into great detail about the specifics of the bill, I want to briefly consider the question, Does the bill live up to the idea of sustainable development? First, the bill elevates one set of resources above all others, both within and without the areas designated wilderness. Grazing, mining, timber sales and commercial development are protected. The wilderness designation boundaries creep carefully around the sites of planned development. The wilderness value is secondary and incidental to the other aims, and appears to be almost accidental. All evidence suggests, as I will show later, that the ``using interests'' of Utah, and their friends at the BLM, seem to have asked the question: ``What areas don't we want for mining and development?'' before they asked ``What areas do we want protected for the future?'' Second, the uses that are given priority are not those which will lead Utah to a sustainable, prosperous future. Minerals, timber, water, and grasses are not infinite resources, and cannot be sustained without limits. Mining and agriculture add up to about $800 million of the total income of the State. That is down from $1.1 billion in 1980 and steadily declining. The rest of the Utah's economy, all that earned from other sources, has grown from $20 to $30 billion in the same time. So mining and agriculture, from $1.1 billion to $800 million, the rest of the economy growing from $20 billion to $30 billion at the same time. In extractive industries, it costs more and more to bring fewer and fewer returns as resources are exhausted. The economic values of tourism, quality of life, nonextractive industries, such as software development, high technology, grow and grow as more is invested in them. Third, the bill not only fails to protect the natural legacy for future generations, it affirmatively denies them the right to protect it for themselves, and that is the section on managing it for suitability for wilderness. Fourth, there is yet another component which Wilkinson describes as part of sustainable development in the West: the idea that a community can best determine for itself how to preserve its legacy for its children. He writes: After identifying all economic, environmental, cultural and abstract (or spiritual) elements that need to be sustained, [I envision] a community coming together; identifying problems; setting goals--a vision--for a time period such as twenty or forty years; adopting a program to fulfill those goals; and modifying the program as conditions change. The process that led to this bill was the opposite of this idea. Instead, an agency in Washington, crippled by politics and captive of interests, decided on its own which elements needed to be sustained. It ignored, denounced, and shouted down the county commissioners and citizens who had other thoughts. Finally, the process brought us a plan that cannot be altered if conditions change. So now, Mr. President, I want to put the bill in some context. I have already spent some time this morning talking about the history of public lands in our country and how the Federal Government's stewardship of our Nation's environmental heritage has evolved over the years. I think this history provides the context within which to address the situation that faces us today: how do we achieve a balanced, reasonable plan for conserving America's natural heritage while providing opportunity for economic growth and development across our public lands? This is the challenge we face today as we consider the Utah Public Lands Management Act. This bill--I have not seen all of the changes in the modification that was sent to the desk, so I would add a couple other hundred thousand acres here or there--but this bill would designate between 1.8 and 2 million acres of wilderness in Utah. It would release approximately 20 million BLM acres of land that are not designated as wilderness areas. It would allow the State to exchange land with the Federal Government. It would deny Federal reserved water rights on lands designated as wilderness. It would provide new management directions for the designated wilderness areas, some of which are exceptions to the standards established in the Wilderness Act of 1964 that would allow military overflights and allow motorized access. It will allow motor boat access in designated areas. The legislation, in my view, fails to strike the balance between using our natural resources, which is the right of all U.S. citizens as stakeholders in a common heritage, and abusing natural resources which are the shared heritage of the entire people of the country. This legislation designates too little of Utah's spectacular landscape as wilderness. Of the almost 22 million acres of BLM land in Utah, only about 1.8 to 2 million, less than 10 percent, would be designated as wilderness. Vast tracts of America's most magnificent public lands would be left open to development; the wilderness that is designated by the act would be managed in a manner contrary to the protections afforded by the Wilderness Act, and the unprecedented inclusion, now modified somewhat, of hard release language would attempt to bar the rest from forever being protected by the shield of wilderness designation. Before I begin to talk about the specific shortcomings of the bill-- and there are several serious flaws that I want to call to the attention of the Senate--I would like to take a moment to sketch the history of public lands management in Utah since the adoption of the Wilderness Act in 1964, because I think that history paints a clear picture of how we arrived at our present dilemma. In 1964, Congress enacted what Charles Wilkinson called one of our Nation's noblest, most future-looking innovations. The Wilderness Act of 1964 established the National Wilderness Preservation System and marked the first time any government had ever legislated in favor of wild lands. Today more than 125 other nations protecting more than half a billion acres have followed the lead of the United States in establishing protection for their wilderness acres. However, the 1964 act did not include, as I said earlier, Bureau of Land Management lands; only national forest, parks, wildlife refuges were covered under the protective umbrella of the act. However, in 1976, in response to concerns raised by citizens in southwestern Utah, Congress finally called for a wilderness study of all BLM lands nationwide. Each BLM State office was directed to inventory all roadless areas with wilderness characteristics. Following on the heels of the inventory, each State office was directed to study, hold hearings, and recommend--after giving full weight to all issues, including economic concerns--which areas in the inventory should be defined as wilderness areas. Every State complied with this directive with the exception of Utah. BLM officials in Utah failed to produce an initial comprehensive inventory of roadless areas with wilderness characteristics in their State. Instead, they embarked on a course that I think mirrors the debate we have here today. In 1980, after only a 1-year period of study, the Utah BLM eliminated nearly 20 million acres from wilderness consideration. In one fell swoop, the BLM removed an area of land that was five times the size of my own State of New Jersey from wilderness consideration. This move left just 2.6 million acres protected, which was later increased to 3.2 million acres after appeals by Utah conservationists. Finally, in 1991, the Utah BLM delivered its final recommendation of lands to be designated wilderness areas--and that figure was a mere 1.9 million acres. This low-ball figure was derived as a result of the BLM inventory process that was, I think, much too sensitive to the developmental interests. The history of the BLM inventory is crucial, and it is a crucial part of the story of public lands in Utah. We need to understand that Utah's BLM wilderness inventory was not an unbiased, scientific study, but it was the result of a highly politicized process. The inventory work done in the 1970's and 1980's was politically driven, and the results were seriously flawed. The flawed product, with its recommendations of 1.9 million acres to be designated as wilderness is replicated in the bill S. 884 we are considering today. Criticism of the BLM inventory process has come from all corners, with the most striking group being BLM employees involved in conducting the inventory. In response to these criticisms, in August 1980, just prior to the BLM's final inventory decision, Terry Sopher, the national director of the BLM wilderness program, traveled to Utah to investigate charges that the inventory had been misdirected for some reason or another. Sopher reported that, ``Based on what we had seen, there was an egregious violation of policies.'' Sopher returned to the District of Columbia to recommend that the inventory be redone. However, that recommendation and that effort was halted after the 1980 election. A decade and a half later--go forward a decade and a half; that was 1980--1995, BLM employees were still voicing strong criticisms of the way the inventory process was conducted. On July 7, 1995, Janet Ross, who worked as a BLM employee on the BLM official inventory work in Utah, held a press conference with the former BLM national director, Jim Baca, and coordinator, Keith Corrigan. All three told the press that BLM's wilderness inventory excluded wilderness for reasons that were not exactly clear. Ms. Ross, now director of the Four Corners School of Outdoor Education located in southern Utah, said, It is my experience and professional judgment that we did not perform and were not allowed to perform a competent wilderness inventory. The result was that substantial wilderness-quality acreage was arbitrarily excluded from further study and proper consideration.'' Utah newspapers following the inventory process were also extremely critical of the inventory process. Following the inventory work, in August 1982, the Salt Lake City Desert News editorialized against the BLM's work. It wrote, ``* * * there was much Utah land that should have been considered for possible designation as wilderness, but the BLM `just' did not study it.'' Additionally, in the 1980's, Utah citizens filed a series of legal challenges with the Interior Board of Land Appeals against the BLM's inventory, appeals which covered 925,000 acres in 29 roadless areas. In 1983, the administrative court responded with a stunning indictment of the BLM's work in the largest appeal of its kind in the history of the court. The Utah BLM had been in error, the board ruled, on 90 percent of the lands in question. Citizens were unable to challenge all of the wilderness areas the BLM dropped during the inventory because they faced a 30-day deadline, and a single one of the appeals often required filings that were 2,000 pages, several hundred photographs, and over 100 affidavits. The belief that the BLM inventory process was seriously flawed was shared by congressional committees that held oversight hearings on the process. In 1984 and 1985, House Public Lands Subcommittee Chairman John Seiberling held a series of oversight hearings to investigate charges that the Utah BLM's inventory was flawed. After the investigation, Seiberling told reporters, ``They've left out areas that obviously qualify for wilderness * * * their position is absolutely absurd.'' Spurred on by the realization that the Utah BLM's erroneous work would result in millions of acres of wild lands being subject to the possibility of development, Utah citizens conducted their own inventory. The citizens' work took years, requiring thousands of hours of field work. Unlike the BLM, these citizens walked every one of the roadless areas on foot and determined that there were actually 5.7 million acres of remaining wilderness. Their work was published in a 400-page book entitled ``Wilderness at the Edge.'' There was a bill that their proposal recommended that was introduced in 1989 by Congressman Wayne Owens. When he left the House, Representative Maurice Hinchey reintroduced H.R. 1500. Now, Mr. President, now that I have had the opportunity to chronicle the controversy that has surrounded the development of this legislation, I want now to discuss the specific flaws in the bill. S. 884 suffers from several major flaws, each of which merits serious consideration. First, and most alarming, is the hard release language. Not only the 4 million acres which Utahans seek immediate designation, but also the additional 16 million acres of Utah BLM lands. As I heard the modification, the bill has been modified, and it has been improved. The change is helpful, but I will argue later why that change is not sufficient, and how it is in its present structure, a back-door way for doing the exact thing that the original bill had intended to do, while at the same time doing it a little more skillfully. Second, the bill leaves nearly 4 million acres of America's Red Rock Wilderness open for development. These 4 million acres, some of our most magnificent national treasures, landscapes that would no longer be protected for our future generations, include Fish and Owl Creek Canyons on the east side of Cedar Mesa, that is the home to 1,500-year- old Anasazi cliff dwellings; the wild country of the Kaiparowits Plateau that I talked about earlier; the heart of the Dirty Devil canyon system; the slopes of the Beaver Dam Mountains; the White Canyon, with its important habitat for desert bighorn sheep and lands adjacent to Zion National Park; and countless others in the basin range region. I will save for another day the discussion of the basin range region. Third, the bill transfers a large chunk of the Kaiparowits Plateau Wilderness out of Federal ownership to the State of Utah for the development of a coal mine, with no regard for its outstanding actual quality or value. The Kaiparowits, as I described earlier, is inhabited by a wide variety of wildlife species, including mule deer, mountain lions, coyotes, foxes, and over 210 species of birds. Several areas on the Kaiparowits contain examples of the marine and terrestrial fossils found nowhere else in the world. If the Kaiparowits were to become State land, the national public would have no voice in how the land is managed. Mr. President, S. 884 would designate no wilderness in the half- million-acre Kaiparowits region of south central Utah between a slice of Fifty Mile Mountain on the east and a sliver of Paria River on the west. Instead, more than 50,000 acres in the heart of this omitted region would be turned over to the State of Utah to facilitate coal development. Fourth, the bill expressly denies a water right to wilderness areas designated by this act. In the two most recent BLM wilderness bills enacted--for California and Arizona, and I think also in Nevada-- Congress reserved a quantity of water sufficient to fulfill the purposes of the act, which is protecting lands designated as wilderness areas. This bill would deny the right to water for lands that are protected under this act, thereby preventing protected lands from having the right to the very water which gives it life. Ironically, one of the reasons for granting wilderness protection to desert wild lands in Utah is to shelter relatively rare riparian ecosystems. Protecting the lands which contain the habitat of species that live on the banks of rivers and lakes without protecting the water which sustains these same systems is shortsighted, to say the least. Fifth, the bill includes provisions permitting the State of Utah to exchange State land within or adjacent to wilderness areas for Federal lands in other locations, so long as the lands exchanged are of approximate equal value. Taken at face value this would benefit both parties. However, Sylvia Baca, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Land and Minerals Management, at the Department of Interior has testified that ``equal value'': * * * is clearly not the case when the specific tracts shown on the map are reviewed. The tracts proposed to be obtained by the State have high economic value for mineral, residential, or industrial development. The fair market value of the lands may be 5 to 10 times more than the value of the lands that would be transferred to the Federal Government. Mr. President, S. 884 also permits partial exchanges that would allow the State to acquire desirable Federal land in exchange for whatever land the State wants to give up. The State gets to arrange, in other words, both sides of the transaction. It identifies both the lands it wants to dispose of and the lands it wants to acquire. The Federal Government must approve the transaction, once again, provided the lands are of approximate equal value. Sixth, this bill makes broad exceptions to the Wilderness Act of 1964, dangerous precedents, which the act affords protections that preserve the unique and spectacular wilderness qualities of public lands. These exemptions would allow and in some circumstances even encourage new nonwilderness activities in designated wilderness areas. For example, passage of this bill would restrict the Secretary of Interior's authority to control motorized vehicles in wilderness, even on new routes; allow new dams to be constructed under the guise of modifying existing small spring catchments; allow new water users to dry up wilderness streams; allow the construction of permanent buildings and roads and wilderness under the guise of interpreting cultural resources; allow the military to construct new communication sites in wilderness; and include special unnecessary overbroad language permitting low-level military flights and the establishment of new special-use airspace over wilderness; and provide livestock permittees an argument for special treatment on allotments in wilderness. Mr. President, those are what I consider to be the major flaws in this bill. I know that some of my colleagues will argue that preservation of Utah's unique national heritage is a matter best left to the State's own delegation with its considerable wisdom and considerable talent. In this case, I have to disagree. Wilderness is a gift we give to our children and grandchildren, a gift that once destroyed can never be reconstructed. The children of New Jersey deserve it, as much as the children of California or Colorado. As a Southwestern poet, Ann Weilern Walka, has written of southern Utah, this beautiful, vast, unique area of the world: Why not acknowledge that there is something here more important to our beleaguered society than a marginal mine, an overgrazed permit? A great American myth is embodied in wild lands, and it is myth, ultimately, that holds people together. The bits of this continent, too formidable to penetrate by road the last of what drew our ancestors to North America, be it ten or ten thousand years ago, an opportunity to breathe deep and re-imagine their lives. The scraps of Eden still afford us awe in an age of cynicism, steady us when human affairs are dizzyingly complicated, reaffirm our eroding sense of American innocence and courage. Places like these, places to get lost, to become grounded, to meet our Maker, to rediscover our forebears' resourcefulness and grit, to take heart, are promised in our most abiding stories. I might close my opening statement with a quote from the Oakland Tribune that reminds us that ``The battle over public lands in the West is a battle between two philosophies: one that says untouched land is inherently valuable to all Americans, from those who use it for solitude and recreation to those who simply enjoy knowing that there are still pockets of nature left on the continent; and one that says all lands, including those owned by the public, should be put to work in one way or the other.'' These public lands belong, I believe, to the former group, and so do I. I yield the floor.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a measure designed to ban the sale and possession of domestic Saturday night specials, which are inexpensive, short-barreled--4" or shorter, easily concealed handguns that are made from inferior materials and lack any sporting purpose. These handguns have flooded the black market and are disproportionately used in violent criminal activity. These weapons are poorly made, unreliable and, in some cases, unsafe. They are cheap to build, cheap to purchase, and are roughly 3.4 times more likely to be involved in violent crimes than are handguns from other major manufacturers. Their destructive impact on the lives of American citizens must be stopped. Mr. President, in the aftermath of the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968, which targeted small caliber, easily concealable, and poorly made imported handguns named Saturday night specials. It was Congress' intent to eliminate imported guns which were believed to be disproportionately involved in crime. Specifically, the legislation banned the importation of handguns not particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes. Congress, however, exempted domestic manufacturers from the legislation, resulting in the creation of a protected domestic industry that produces and markets small, poorly made, easily concealable handguns. Today, Mr. President, six handgun manufacturers in southern California dominate the production of Saturday night specials. In 1992, they made over 80 percent of the .25 ACP, .32 ACP, and .380 ACP pistols manufactured in this country. Indeed, in 1992 these companies manufactured 685,934 handguns, or 34 percent of all handguns made in the United States. According to 1993 figures, one of the Saturday night special manufacturers, Lorcin Engineering Inc., is the leading pistol manufacturer in America. In 1968, ``the American Rifleman''--a publication of the National Rifle Association, in arguing in favor of a ban on Saturday night special imports, noted that such weapons were ``miserably made, potentially defective arms that contribute so much to rising violence.'' This statement is equally applicable today to domestically manufactured Saturday night specials. The carnage and killing that occur in our Nation's towns and cities are directly related to the proliferation of these weapons of destruction on the streets of America. According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, these pistols are purchased in bulk at retail by illegal dealers and smuggled by bus or train to urban centers for resale on the street. Once they reach the streets, domestic Saturday night specials, which sell for as low as $35, are the starter guns of choice for criminals and the very young. For example, in 1990, a 5-year-old from the Bronx, NY, carried in his pocket a loaded domestic Saturday night special to kindergarten. In 1992, a 15-year-old aimed a domestic Saturday night special from the roof of a New York apartment building and shot a policeman in the ankle. Mr. President, these guns are disproportionately used in robberies and murders. From 1990 to 1992, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms [ATF] traced approximately 24,000 handguns sold after 1986 and used in murders and other crimes. Saturday night specials produced by three southern California companies accounted for 27 percent of the traces, as compared to 11 percent for the much larger Smith and Wesson Company. According to the Wall Street Journal, police in Houston confiscated nearly 1,000 guns used in crimes in 1991. Three Saturday night specials produced by southern California companies--the Raven .25 ACP, the Davis .380 ACP, and the Davis .32 ACP--ranked as the top three guns confiscated. The same year in Cleveland, police confiscated more than 2,000 handguns; the Raven .25 ACP ranked second. The Washington Post reported in June 1994 that of all 21,744 guns seized at crime scenes and traced by ATF during 1991 through 1993, an astounding 62 percent--or 13,559 handguns--were produced by a southern California manufacturer of Saturday night specials. ABC television's ``Day One'' reported that in 1994, the Lorcin .380 ACP was the single firearm most frequently submitted to ATF for tracing. Thus, there is no question that these weapons are the weapons of choice of criminals. Of significant concern is also the threat that these guns pose to law enforcement. The single gun with the greatest number of police homicides per number of guns in circulation is the .32 caliber pistol. As of 1992, nearly 90 percent of these guns were manufactured by the southern California gun makers. Mr. President, for the sake of the American public and the law enforcement community, it is time that Congress take action to get these killing machines off the streets of America. Mr. President, under the 1968 Gun Control Act, ATF has developed an elaborate scheme to determine whether foreign firearms should be classified as Saturday night specials. To gain entry into the U.S. market, imported guns must meet minimum size and safety specifications and pass a battery of individual design, performance, and materials standards. The ATF classification scheme considers the quality of the metal used to construct the weapon, as well as the combined height and length, weight, caliber, safety features, and accessory features of the weapon. By the mid-1970's, ATF estimated that over half of all of the handguns produced domestically could not legally have been imported. Domestic Saturday night specials are cheaply made and unreliable. Large domestic handgun manufacturers--such as Smith and Wesson--produce small quantities of guns because their production process is labor intensive. On average, these guns retail for $600. By contrast, the Saturday night specials are assembled in mere minutes using cheap materials, yielding high volumes that sell for as little as $35 per gun. The results are predictable. For example, the zinc alloy used in many of the Saturday night specials is so soft that it can be shaved with a knife. Moreover, the alloy begins to distort at 700 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to 2,400 degrees for the stainless steel in quality guns. In addition, while the Saturday night specials typically have minimal safety devices that block the trigger from being pulled, they lack safety equipment found on higher quality guns, such as firing pin blocks that help prevent accidental discharge. Indeed, officials at ATF have indicated that the Raven .25 ACP pistol produced by one of the southern California companies can discharge if it is loaded and dropped to the floor, thereby failing ATF's drop test. The quality and reliability of domestic Saturday night specials is so atrocious that Edward Owen, Jr., Chief of the Firearms Technology Branch at ATF, has stated: ``If someone gave me one as a gift, I would throw it away.'' The unreliability of these guns, Mr. President, highlights the fact that they have no sporting purpose and cannot be depended on for self- defense. This fact was illustrated in a May 1994 segment of ABC television's ``Day One''. A Colorado Springs gun shop owner is firing one of the domestic Saturday night specials when it jams. As she attempts to clear the weapon, the correspondent asks her what would happen at that moment if she was relying on the gun for protection. She answers, ``Well, I just got killed.'' In independent tests of domestic Saturday night specials by ``Gun Tests'', Lorcin's .22 caliber pistol, the L-22, was found unacceptable. In test firing, evaluators ``experienced 20 misfires due to light firing-pin strikes and 36 failures to completely lock into battery, and--the gun--failed to feed truncated-nose ammunition about 25 percent of the time.'' Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal, many gun- store owners have decided not to sell domestic Saturday night specials because ``the quality is too poor, replacement parts are too hard to obtain, and the dollar profit per gun is too small.'' Mr. President, since these weapons are useless for self-defense and have no sporting purpose, the present legislation would apply the Gun Control Act of 1968 to domestic Saturday night specials, thereby banning the possession and sale of these weapons shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce. Specifically, the present ATF import classification scheme--which considers the quality of the metal used to construct the weapon, as well as the combined height and length, weight, caliber, safety features and accessory features of the weapon-- would be applicable to domestic Saturday night Specials. Mr. President, the focus of this bill is to ban inexpensive, short- barreled, easily concealed handguns that are made from inferior materials and lack any sporting purpose. Thus, this legislation would not ban high quality, domestic snub-nosed revolvers and derringers containing adequate safety features that would otherwise be banned because of their size. Moreover, this legislation would exempt from coverage those high quality, domestic handguns that meet the overall ATF size requirement, but would otherwise fail the ATF test because of their light weight and low caliber. Mr. President, the Justice Department recently released a report concluding that 86 percent of all firearm-related crimes occurring in 1993 were carried out with a handgun. This represents an 18 percent increase from 1992. Also, of the more than 24,500 murders in 1993, 16,189--(70 percent)--were committed with firearms, and four out of every five firearm murders involved the use of a handgun. The evidence is clear that domestic Saturday night specials--inexpensive, poorly made handguns that lack any sporting purpose--are disproportionately involved in criminal activity and pose a significant threat to the safety of American citizens. Mr. President, it is time to stop the carnage in our Nation's streets caused by these killing machines. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a measure designed to ban the sale and possession of domestic Saturday night specials, which are inexpensive, short-barreled--4" or shorter, easily concealed handguns that are made from inferior materials and lack any sporting purpose. These handguns have flooded the black market and are disproportionately used in violent criminal activity. These weapons are poorly made, unreliable and, in some cases, unsafe. They are cheap to build, cheap to purchase, and are roughly 3.4 times more likely to be involved in violent crimes than are handguns from other major manufacturers. Their destructive impact on the lives of American citizens must be stopped. Mr. President, in the aftermath of the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968, which targeted small caliber, easily concealable, and poorly made imported handguns named Saturday night specials. It was Congress' intent to eliminate imported guns which were believed to be disproportionately involved in crime. Specifically, the legislation banned the importation of handguns not particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes. Congress, however, exempted domestic manufacturers from the legislation, resulting in the creation of a protected domestic industry that produces and markets small, poorly made, easily concealable handguns. Today, Mr. President, six handgun manufacturers in southern California dominate the production of Saturday night specials. In 1992, they made over 80 percent of the .25 ACP, .32 ACP, and .380 ACP pistols manufactured in this country. Indeed, in 1992 these companies manufactured 685,934 handguns, or 34 percent of all handguns made in the United States. According to 1993 figures, one of the Saturday night special manufacturers, Lorcin Engineering Inc., is the leading pistol manufacturer in America. In 1968, ``the American Rifleman''--a publication of the National Rifle Association, in arguing in favor of a ban on Saturday night special imports, noted that such weapons were ``miserably made, potentially defective arms that contribute so much to rising violence.'' This statement is equally applicable today to domestically manufactured Saturday night specials. The carnage and killing that occur in our Nation's towns and cities are directly related to the proliferation of these weapons of destruction on the streets of America. According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, these pistols are purchased in bulk at retail by illegal dealers and smuggled by bus or train to urban centers for resale on the street. Once they reach the streets, domestic Saturday night specials, which sell for as low as $35, are the starter guns of choice for criminals and the very young. For example, in 1990, a 5-year-old from the Bronx, NY, carried in his pocket a loaded domestic Saturday night special to kindergarten. In 1992, a 15-year-old aimed a domestic Saturday night special from the roof of a New York apartment building and shot a policeman in the ankle. Mr. President, these guns are disproportionately used in robberies and murders. From 1990 to 1992, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms [ATF] traced approximately 24,000 handguns sold after 1986 and used in murders and other crimes. Saturday night specials produced by three southern California companies accounted for 27 percent of the traces, as compared to 11 percent for the much larger Smith and Wesson Company. According to the Wall Street Journal, police in Houston confiscated nearly 1,000 guns used in crimes in 1991. Three Saturday night specials produced by southern California companies--the Raven .25 ACP, the Davis .380 ACP, and the Davis .32 ACP--ranked as the top three guns confiscated. The same year in Cleveland, police confiscated more than 2,000 handguns; the Raven .25 ACP ranked second. The Washington Post reported in June 1994 that of all 21,744 guns seized at crime scenes and traced by ATF during 1991 through 1993, an astounding 62 percent--or 13,559 handguns--were produced by a southern California manufacturer of Saturday night specials. ABC television's ``Day One'' reported that in 1994, the Lorcin .380 ACP was the single firearm most frequently submitted to ATF for tracing. Thus, there is no question that these weapons are the weapons of choice of criminals. Of significant concern is also the threat that these guns pose to law enforcement. The single gun with the greatest number of police homicides per number of guns in circulation is the .32 caliber pistol. As of 1992, nearly 90 percent of these guns were manufactured by the southern California gun makers. Mr. President, for the sake of the American public and the law enforcement community, it is time that Congress take action to get these killing machines off the streets of America. Mr. President, under the 1968 Gun Control Act, ATF has developed an elaborate scheme to determine whether foreign firearms should be classified as Saturday night specials. To gain entry into the U.S. market, imported guns must meet minimum size and safety specifications and pass a battery of individual design, performance, and materials standards. The ATF classification scheme considers the quality of the metal used to construct the weapon, as well as the combined height and length, weight, caliber, safety features, and accessory features of the weapon. By the mid-1970's, ATF estimated that over half of all of the handguns produced domestically could not legally have been imported. Domestic Saturday night specials are cheaply made and unreliable. Large domestic handgun manufacturers--such as Smith and Wesson--produce small quantities of guns because their production process is labor intensive. On average, these guns retail for $600. By contrast, the Saturday night specials are assembled in mere minutes using cheap materials, yielding high volumes that sell for as little as $35 per gun. The results are predictable. For example, the zinc alloy used in many of the Saturday night specials is so soft that it can be shaved with a knife. Moreover, the alloy begins to distort at 700 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to 2,400 degrees for the stainless steel in quality guns. In addition, while the Saturday night specials typically have minimal safety devices that block the trigger from being pulled, they lack safety equipment found on higher quality guns, such as firing pin blocks that help prevent accidental discharge. Indeed, officials at ATF have indicated that the Raven .25 ACP pistol produced by one of the southern California companies can discharge if it is loaded and dropped to the floor, thereby failing ATF's drop test. The quality and reliability of domestic Saturday night specials is so atrocious that Edward Owen, Jr., Chief of the Firearms Technology Branch at ATF, has stated: ``If someone gave me one as a gift, I would throw it away.'' The unreliability of these guns, Mr. President, highlights the fact that they have no sporting purpose and cannot be depended on for self- defense. This fact was illustrated in a May 1994 segment of ABC television's ``Day One''. A Colorado Springs gun shop owner is firing one of the domestic Saturday night specials when it jams. As she attempts to clear the weapon, the correspondent asks her what would happen at that moment if she was relying on the gun for protection. She answers, ``Well, I just got killed.'' In independent tests of domestic Saturday night specials by ``Gun Tests'', Lorcin's .22 caliber pistol, the L-22, was found unacceptable. In test firing, evaluators ``experienced 20 misfires due to light firing-pin strikes and 36 failures to completely lock into battery, and--the gun--failed to feed truncated-nose ammunition about 25 percent of the time.'' Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal, many gun- store owners have decided not to sell domestic Saturday night specials because ``the quality is too poor, replacement parts are too hard to obtain, and the dollar profit per gun is too small.'' Mr. President, since these weapons are useless for self-defense and have no sporting purpose, the present legislation would apply the Gun Control Act of 1968 to domestic Saturday night specials, thereby banning the possession and sale of these weapons shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce. Specifically, the present ATF import classification scheme--which considers the quality of the metal used to construct the weapon, as well as the combined height and length, weight, caliber, safety features and accessory features of the weapon-- would be applicable to domestic Saturday night Specials. Mr. President, the focus of this bill is to ban inexpensive, short- barreled, easily concealed handguns that are made from inferior materials and lack any sporting purpose. Thus, this legislation would not ban high quality, domestic snub-nosed revolvers and derringers containing adequate safety features that would otherwise be banned because of their size. Moreover, this legislation would exempt from coverage those high quality, domestic handguns that meet the overall ATF size requirement, but would otherwise fail the ATF test because of their light weight and low caliber. Mr. President, the Justice Department recently released a report concluding that 86 percent of all firearm-related crimes occurring in 1993 were carried out with a handgun. This represents an 18 percent increase from 1992. Also, of the more than 24,500 murders in 1993, 16,189--(70 percent)--were committed with firearms, and four out of every five firearm murders involved the use of a handgun. The evidence is clear that domestic Saturday night specials--inexpensive, poorly made handguns that lack any sporting purpose--are disproportionately involved in criminal activity and pose a significant threat to the safety of American citizens. Mr. President, it is time to stop the carnage in our Nation's streets caused by these killing machines. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BRADLEY

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

Mr. BRADLEY. Madam President, today the Senate will have the opportunity to return a bit of market discipline to the Federal grazing program. At a time when the Congress is cutting assistance to the poor, to education, and to a wide variety of other vital services, we cannot ignore any potential sources of additional Federal income. The Federal grazing program must also begin to pay its own way. The fee contained in S. 1459 covers only a small part of the actual cost of the grazing program. The Bumpers amendment seeks to increase this fee to a level at least a bit closer to what would be the fair market value of grazing services by adopting State grazing prices. According to the Congressional Research Service, the 12 States they studied charge from about 1\1/2\ to 10 times as much as what is charged for grazing land under this Federal bill. While there may be small differences in the condition of some State and Federal grazing lands, any differences do not justify a fee disparity of 10 times grazing. Many of my colleagues are fond of saying that the States know best regarding most programs. Just return programs to the States, they say and programs will magically improve. Well, why cannot we look to the States when it comes to revenue, too? State programs are managed to bring in money to support their schools. They cannot afford to subsidize grazers at the expense of their children's education. As a result, no State studied charges anything like the Federal fee. By adopting the State level, we also insure that fees are appropriate for local conditions. Madam President, this amendment is simple. The rest of the bill is not. According to the statement of administration policy submitted on S. 1459, the bill severely limits the ability of public land managers to protect the land and its resources and manage lands for multiple use. The bill curtails most public participation in grazing management decisions and activities, and severely weakens the requirements for compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The bill also contains troubling water rights language which, according to the Department of the Interior, may bar transfer of water uses from Federal to private land and language which would prevent ranchers from taking land out of production for conservation uses. In other words, they have to keep it in grazing. Worst of all, the bill violates the spirit under which Federal lands are supposed to be managed--for multiple uses which benefit all of the people and not just a few, organized groups. Our public lands belong to all Americans, whether they hike, bird watch, or graze livestock. Whether they live in Wyoming or New Jersey. They should never become the exclusive province of any one use. Madam President, I urge my colleagues to vote for this Bumpers amendment, a fiscally conservative amendment, and later for the Democratic substitute that will be offered by Senator Bingaman which makes needed changes in the underlying bill. Amendment No. 3556, As Modified

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington for yielding time. I do not know if I will use the entire 10 minutes. Last year on an appropriations bill, we passed the timber salvage rider which I consider one of our bigger, if not the biggest, mistakes in natural resource management of the last 18, 19 years. We abandoned our environmental principles and endorsed a program of logging essentially without laws which undermines protections for precious resources, with only slight economic justification. It is very difficult to accomplish all those things with one piece of legislation, but that is what the rider did. We passed the original rider with little knowledge of its potential impact and without holding any hearings. I remember standing on this floor during the debate on that rider and focusing on the language that said any tree susceptible to fire or insects could qualify as a tree for salvage, which meant the entire forest. Members thought that they were voting to remove dead and dying trees from our national forests in order to protect forest health and capture the remaining value of trees which had been damaged by devastating fires. But we argued against that, pointing out, no, that is not what the language of the rider says. The language was not just for dead and dying trees that needed to be salvaged, but that vast areas of the national forests--healthy trees--would be cut as a result of this rider. Unfortunately, in our view, the rider, more or less, prevailed in its breadth. The courts interpreted the law to mandate the cutting of some of America's most valuable trees. I hope that everyone has a chance to see the pictures that the distinguished Senator from Washington has on the floor, to look at the old-growth forests that are being cut because of this rider. Anyone who has ever walked in old-growth forests understands that there is a dimension to those forests that is beyond the material. And cutting trees that are 50, 60, 100 years old means that it is going to take that long for them to regrow, if they do, and destroying habitat in the process. Mr. President, the areas that are subject to cutting under the court decision include the healthy old-growth forests of western Oregon and Washington that have been long off-limits to timber sales because of their environmental sensitivity. Mr. President, it would be irresponsible for this Congress to ignore those environmental problems and take actions which could make them worse. For example, a recent long-term study of the effects of timber cutting in the Northwest found that there was increased flooding even after 20 years, resulting from clear-cutting in sensitive areas. How can we appropriate millions more in this bill to repair flood damage in areas without taking the steps that the Murray amendment represents, to reduce the risks of future floods by assuring a full-growth national forest? How can we do that? If you had the forest restored, you would have fewer floods; but we cut the forests, and we have more floods. Then we take taxpayers' dollars to make those individuals that are affected by those floods whole. Mr. President, the timber salvage is not just an issue for the Northwest, which is another point. Even though the focus is on those old-growth forests, the riders apply equally to forests nationwide by requiring salvage sales in areas that would otherwise have been rejected for legitimate environmental reasons. Although agencies such as the National Marine Fisheries Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and EPA have objected to many of those sales, courts have held that they must go forward because of this salvage amendment rider, because they are required by the letter of that law. Even worse, Mr. President, the rationale for the rider rests on improving deteriorating forest health conditions. That is supported with very little data. We lack even the basic information needed to justify cutting trees on the scale endorsed by the rider, under conditions which suspend environmental laws and terminate almost all avenues for administrative and judicial appeal. Senator Murray's amendment, I believe, would supply this missing information by requiring a new National Academy of Sciences study for forest health that provides the answers that Congress needs to regulate the forests sensibly. We do not have the answers right now. The law was passed, essentially mandating the cutting, and we do not have even the information to back it up. Last year's rider also undermines President Clinton's consensus Northwest forest plan, which took many months to produce and gave some hope for settling the region's longstanding timber wars. Instead, under the rider, the timber wars have resumed at full force. The distinguished Senator from Washington pointed out that the President said he thought that he could work with it, and that is why he signed the bill. That was before the court decision said no. There were vast areas that were now open for salvage that the President had no idea of under the language of the law as he read it. The court broadly interpreted it so that now you are not just going in to pick up a few dead trees and dying trees, but you are slashing old-growth forests, as in the pictures that the distinguished Senator from Washington has shown to the Senate and to the country. Mr. President, we have a chance to reverse these mistakes. We have a chance to take a more measured approach to timber salvage. That is the Murray amendment. It is supported by a wide variety of environmental groups. I know that that is not important to everyone, but it should be registered. The Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society, Wilderness Society, National Resources Defense Council, regional groups throughout the Pacific Northwest, they understand the significance of cutting old- growth forests. All this Murray amendment does is put laws back into the timber program. It is probably the biggest environmental vote that we are going to take, at least so far, this year. I urge my colleagues to support the Murray amendment and restore lawful logging to our national forests. I yield the floor.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise to offer my warmest thanks, respect, and heartfelt congratulations to my legislative director, Trudy Vincent, who will leave my staff at the end of this week. For 3 years, in her second tour of duty in my office, Trudy has been the anchor of my legislative work, and deserves much of the credit for the legislative accomplishments of my office since 1993. Although Trudy will be leaving my staff, she will not be leaving the Senate, and my office's loss is the gain of my colleague Senator Bingaman of New Mexico, who will undoubtedly grow to depend upon her much as I have. Like many of the most gifted and successful of the staff members who serve this institution, Trudy first came here as a fellow through an academic program, having first pursued and succeeded in another demanding field. In her case, Trudy first attained a doctorate in psychology, then joined my office in 1987 as a legislative fellow, working on innovative education and health initiatives. When her first tour of duty in my office ended after a year, Trudy joined the staff of her home State Senator, Senator Mikulski, rose to legislative director, and returned to my staff as legislative director in 1993. I have found her good sense, her wide knowledge, her broad network of friends and professional contacts, and her sense of humor to be of invaluable help in all that I do for the people of New Jersey and the Nation. The most important attribute a Senator or legislative staffer can possess, I have found, is persistence and dedication. You have to be entrepreneurial, always looking for opportunities to move a good idea forward and never giving up when things look bleak. Trudy exemplifies these qualities. Her persistence and dedication has helped us move forward most of my urban initiatives of 1993, the funding for the high school student exchange with the republics of the former Soviet Union, student loan reform, several nominations, and very soon, I hope it will lead to final passage of my bill to prohibit new mothers from being discharged from the hospital before they or their babies are ready. In addition to these qualities, there is an intangible between a Senator and a staff member. It is related to loyalty and knowledge, but it also is something more. It is the phenomenon of being confident that the staff member knows how to further the Senator's goals in a way that is consistent with the Senator's values and style. I've always felt that way about Trudy. I could truly leave it to her and know that it would be done as I would want it done. I guess I'm saying that at the core of a Senator-staff relation is trust. That's clearly the way it's been between us, for which I am lucky and very grateful. I want finally to thank Trudy again, express my appreciation for all her long hours and hard work, and wish her all the best fortune as she continues to contribute to the workings of this democratic institution after I leave.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to repeal the emergency salvage timber provisions that Congress enacted as part of last year's rescissions bill. I believe that the salvage rider is one of the biggest mistakes that Congress has made in natural resource management in the last 25 years. We need to admit our error and correct it as soon as possible with new legislation. Both consciously and unwittingly, last Spring this body endorsed a program of logging without laws which undermines environmental protections for precious resources and has slight economic justification. Even worse, we passed the original rider with little understanding of its potential impact, without holding hearings, and based on an ``emergency'' that may not exist. Members thought they were voting to remove dead and dying trees from our national forests in order to protect forest health and capture the remaining value of trees which had been damaged in a series of devastating forest fires. However, the rationale on which the rider was based, deteriorating forest health conditions, the rationale on which the rider was based, is supported by very little data. We lack even basic information to justify cutting trees on the scale endorsed by the rider and under conditions which effectively suspend environmental laws, and terminate almost all avenues for administrative and judicial appeal. Members were surprised to find that the courts have interpreted the law to mandate the cutting of some of America's most valuable trees, including the healthy, old growth forests of western Oregon and Washington which have been off-limits to timber sales for years due to environmental concerns. These forests support a rich mix of fish and wildlife, from endangered bird species to commercially important salmon and are valuable as well for their own beauty and uniqueness. Yet under the rider these majestic trees might be sold at bargain prices under outdated contracts and using outdated environmental terms. This is not just an issue for the Northwest. The rider also requires that the Forest Service offer salvage sales in all regions of the country including sales that would otherwise be rejected for legitimate environmental reasons. Although agencies such as the National Marine Fisheries Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and the Environmental Protection Agency have objected to many of these sales, courts have held that they must go forward, no matter how devastating, because they are required by the letter of the law. In addition, the rider undermines President Clinton's consensus Northwest forest plan which took many months to produce and gave some hope for settling the region's longstanding timber wars. Instead, under the rider, the timber wars have resumed at full force. Now we have a chance to reverse the mistakes we made last year and take a more measured approach to timber salvage sales. First, my bill returns forestry law to where it was before the rider was passed. Trees can still be cut but environmental laws must be obeyed. I believe it is appropriate to completely repeal the salvage rider, not just modify it around the edges and invite further confusion from the courts. Second, my bill calls for a study of the forest health issue by the National Academy of Sciences and the General Accounting Office in order to determine the extent of the problem and how it can best be addressed, both financially and ecologically. I urge my colleagues to join me in reversing last year's mistake. It is time to restore lawful logging on our national forests. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to repeal the emergency salvage timber provisions that Congress enacted as part of last year's rescissions bill. I believe that the salvage rider is one of the biggest mistakes that Congress has made in natural resource management in the last 25 years. We need to admit our error and correct it as soon as possible with new legislation. Both consciously and unwittingly, last Spring this body endorsed a program of logging without laws which undermines environmental protections for precious resources and has slight economic justification. Even worse, we passed the original rider with little understanding of its potential impact, without holding hearings, and based on an ``emergency'' that may not exist. Members thought they were voting to remove dead and dying trees from our national forests in order to protect forest health and capture the remaining value of trees which had been damaged in a series of devastating forest fires. However, the rationale on which the rider was based, deteriorating forest health conditions, the rationale on which the rider was based, is supported by very little data. We lack even basic information to justify cutting trees on the scale endorsed by the rider and under conditions which effectively suspend environmental laws, and terminate almost all avenues for administrative and judicial appeal. Members were surprised to find that the courts have interpreted the law to mandate the cutting of some of America's most valuable trees, including the healthy, old growth forests of western Oregon and Washington which have been off-limits to timber sales for years due to environmental concerns. These forests support a rich mix of fish and wildlife, from endangered bird species to commercially important salmon and are valuable as well for their own beauty and uniqueness. Yet under the rider these majestic trees might be sold at bargain prices under outdated contracts and using outdated environmental terms. This is not just an issue for the Northwest. The rider also requires that the Forest Service offer salvage sales in all regions of the country including sales that would otherwise be rejected for legitimate environmental reasons. Although agencies such as the National Marine Fisheries Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and the Environmental Protection Agency have objected to many of these sales, courts have held that they must go forward, no matter how devastating, because they are required by the letter of the law. In addition, the rider undermines President Clinton's consensus Northwest forest plan which took many months to produce and gave some hope for settling the region's longstanding timber wars. Instead, under the rider, the timber wars have resumed at full force. Now we have a chance to reverse the mistakes we made last year and take a more measured approach to timber salvage sales. First, my bill returns forestry law to where it was before the rider was passed. Trees can still be cut but environmental laws must be obeyed. I believe it is appropriate to completely repeal the salvage rider, not just modify it around the edges and invite further confusion from the courts. Second, my bill calls for a study of the forest health issue by the National Academy of Sciences and the General Accounting Office in order to determine the extent of the problem and how it can best be addressed, both financially and ecologically. I urge my colleagues to join me in reversing last year's mistake. It is time to restore lawful logging on our national forests. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the bill was passed, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the role of money in politics, and its consequences. I rise also to introducing a legislative proposal--a constitutional amendment and a bill--to free democracy from the power of money. Mr. President, last fall a man approached me in New Jersey. He said, ``Senator, I worked at this place, in one job, for 22 years, In that 22 years, three different companies owned the place. In not one of the three companies did I vest for a pension, because none of them owned the place long enough. So I am now retiring, after 22 years of working here, without a pension, at all.'' A woman came up to me on my annual walk along the Jersey Shore and said, ``six months ago, my husband lost his job. Two months ago, I lost my job. We have three children and now we have no health insurance. I went to our pediatrician and he said if the kids get sick, he'll take care of them but Senator, this is America, and you shouldn't have to have a friendly pediatrician in order to get health care for your kids.'' In California, a white-collar worker named Ron Smith who lost his job at McDonnell-Douglas 2 years ago told a journalist how his sense that he was ``starting to lose my grip'' feeds into the divisiveness that is tearing our country apart: ``I get angry, and a lot of anger is coming out,'' he said. ``I'm blaming everyone, minorities, aliens coming across the border. I don't know how much truth there is to it. I mean, I don't think there are any planners and engineers coming across the border. [But] it hurts when you go to an interview and you know damn well you can do the job, and you know they are looking at you and thinking, `Forget it.' ''. In the last 7 years, 100,000 people lost their jobs with GE, 60,000 at IBM, 40,000 at Sears. The merger of Chase Manhattan with Chemical Bank will mean the loss of 12,000 jobs. And AT&T just announced that they will eliminate 40,000 more jobs, most of them this year. My colleague Senator Biden recently told me that at the Hercules Corp.'s research center outside Wilmington, the downsizing has accelerated and become brutal. When employees arrive at their office building on Monday morning, they know that they have been fired when they see a Pinkerton security man standing outside their office door. Usually he tells them that he's sorry and he knows they've worked hard for 22 years, but could they please have their desk cleaned out by noon--and if they don't mind, he'll stand at the door, because the company doesn't want to take the chance that the computer system will be sabotaged. On Mondays at the Hercules Center, no one carpools, because it is impossible to predict who will be going home at noon. The heavy footsteps of downsizing, relocation, part-time jobs, temp jobs, middle age without health care and retirement without a pension may be near or still distant, but they are heard in every home. People are working harder for less. In 1973 the average production, nonsupervisory wage was $315. In 1994 it was $256. That's about 70 percent of workers. During the first 6 months of 1993, the Clinton administration announced that 1.3 million jobs had been created, to which a TWA machinist replied, ``Yeah, my wife and I have four of them.'' And indeed, over half of the newly created jobs were part time. For all but the fabulously wealthy, the idea that working hard can lead to a secure future, a chance to provide a better life for your children, and an adequate retirement is slipping away. I hear this fear everywhere: Among the urban working poor, in suburban living rooms, at factory gates, and among engineers with Ph.D.'s and 30 years of experience with large, still-profitable corporations. The most painful part of it for me as someone who entered politics with a belief that government could make people's lives better and more secure, is that the political process seems deaf, almost willfully deaf, to the economic anxieties of nonwealthy Americans. Instead of using public power to balance the excesses of private power and enhance opportunity, too many politicians continue playing the proverbial fiddle while the lives of working people become more desperate. Democrats and Republicans both march along the well-worn paths of symbolic politics, waving flags labeled ``welfare,'' ``crime,'' and ``taxes'' to divide Americans and win elections. Republicans cling to the illusion that government is the problem--even the enemy of freedom--and that less government and free markets will automatically relieve the fears of working Americans. Democrats cling to old programs, like worker retraining, without ever stopping to ask whether those programs are actually working to change lives for the better or whether jobs are available for the workers we're training. The political process is paralyzed. Democracy is at a standstill. The budget stalemate is only the latest headline. The Federal Government has not been able to act decisively and with public consensus behind it in years. On health care, on taxes, on creating jobs, on reforming welfare, we have been at continual deadlock. Democracy is paralyzed not just because politicians are needlessly partisan. The process is broken at a deeper level, and it won't be fixed by replacing one set of elected officials with another, any more than it was fixed in 1992 or 1994. Citizens believe that politicians are controlled: by special interests who give them money, by parties which crush their independence, by ambition for higher office that makes them hedge their position rather than call it like they really see it, and by pollsters who convince them that only the focus group phrases can guarantee them victory. Citizens affected by the choices we have to make about spending and regulation simply don't trust that the choice was made fairly or independently, or in some cases even democratically. They doubt that the facts will determine the result, much less the honest convictions of the politicians. Voters distrust government so deeply and so consistently that they are not willing to accept the results of virtually any decision made by this political process. Tell people in my State of New Jersey as I did in 1989-90 that the Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced their Federal taxes by $1 billion a year and they don't believe you because their State and local tax increases offset the reduction. It's gotten to the point that I've had constituents call on the phone to ask how I voted on a particular bill. When my office tells them that the vote hasn't occurred yet, they don't believe you because a radio talk show host who hadn't done his homework said otherwise. For at least 6 years, since the repeal of the catastrophic care legislation in 1989, through the erosion of environmental laws, to the failure of health care reform and the backlash against the crime bill last year and the budget this year, every major step government has taken has been jeopardized by this mistrust, by a deep and widespread conviction that politicians are acting is their own individual interests rather than acting as honest representatives of the democratic will. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, but one of them is money. Those who think it's just a matter of perception that politics is driven by money should consider the following facts: In House-Senate negotiations over reform of telecommunications laws, which are still in progress, one large telephone company, Ameritech, appears to have won a special provision allowing it to build a monopoly in the burglar and fire alarm business, while its competitors are prohibited from entering that industry. Ameritech's PAC gave almost half a million dollars last year in 600 separate contributions to hundreds of Members of Congress of both parties, primarily those on committees with jurisdiction over its industry. Another company, Golden Rule Insurance, Inc., gives over $900,000 in PAC money and soft money contributions to Members of Congress, and hundreds of thousands more to organizations affiliated with Speaker Gingrich. In return, the company wins endorsement of medical savings accounts, an insurance product that only Golden Rule offers and which would cost the Treasury $4 billion, as a centerpiece of the Republican Medicare reform. Lobbyists for big corporate contributors sit in the offices of congressional leaders and write the legislation to repeal a century's worth of environmental protections. New Members of the congressional majority, while billing themselves as reformers, collect on average more than $60,000 from Washington- based political action committees in just the first 6 months in office, a year and a half before they seek reelection. Some take more than $100,000 in their first days. State legislatures, where most politicians get their start and which others treat as a modest, part-time contribution to citizenship, have been taken over by the same forces of money that captured Congress. State legislative races now routinely cost what congressional races used to cost. In New Jersey last year, State Senate candidates spent a record $8 million on 80 races, most of which were not competitive contests. Illinois Assembly and Senate candidates raised $49 million, $2.4 million of it from out-of-State interests, such as gambling companies that seek licenses and new markets. I have cited more examples involving the new Republican majority than Democrats not because they are uniquely corrupt, but because these incidents are more recent, and money apparently flows to the winners when power shifts. While these abuses are not new, the amounts involved and the level of conflict seem to multiply every few years, with this year's congressional freshmen taking twice as much money from PAC's right away than the freshmen who came to office in 1993. I saw one estimate that said that, in total, at all levels of government in 1996, nearly $1 billion would be spent. So the story becomes clear. Economic anxiety eats away at people who work in America. Government fails or refuses to respond. Voters develop a profound and unyielding mistrust of the legislative process. Legislators, including some of those posing as reformers, surrender their offices and their consciences to corporate lobbyists and big contributors with narrow interests to protect. Or, if they maintain their integrity, as many do, they still have to swim in dirty water which makes it even more difficult to stay clean. And amid biennial promises of change, nothing ever changes. It's a story Americans have heard before. It's the story of the late 19th century, the era of the spoils system and recurrent scandal, when politics became hostage to the money power of Wall Street financiers, railroads, and industrialists, when each Senator was virtually the property of whichever magnate had engineered his appointment. It was a time when Washington was dominated by endless debates about the tariff--a dispute between wealthy financiers and wealthy manufacturers--quite willfully ignoring the economic plight of the vast majority of Americans who were farmers, miners, and factory workers, or women and African-Americans prohibited from voting. The theologian Walter Rauschenbusch wrote of that time that ``In political life one can constantly see the cause of human life pleading long and vainly for redress, like the widow before the unjust judge. Then suddenly comes the voice of property, and all men stand with hat in hand.'' Our Nation's history demonstrates that the conduct of democracy is not an abstraction. When politics becomes hostage to money, as it did in the late 19th century, and as it increasingly is today, people suffer. Neither economic opportunity nor economic security is given the place it deserves in our national ambitions. There is still a very tangible relationship between the level of opportunity and security available to every American family and the extent to which we can keep our democracy secure and separate from the force of money. The late 19th century was the last time, until now, that America's prosperity failed to translate into higher wages and increased security for American workers. Teddy Roosevelt called the moneymen of politics, ``the gloomy anticipations of our gold-ridden, capitalist-bestridden, userer-mastered future.'' But the path to a better 20th century rested on four progressive principles: Universal suffrage; direct election of Senators; initiative and referendum to give the people a direct check on policy; and campaign finance reform. Although Theodore Roosevelt proposed that ``Congress provide an appropriation for the proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties [and] no party receiving campaign funds should accept more than a fixed amount from any individual,'' only modest disclosure requirements were adopted at the time. Until we had radically reformed our democracy, to take it away from the Goulds and Vanderbilts and give it back to the people, we could not become the kind of nation that protected seniors from abject poverty, that protected children from abuse, that respected the heritage of the land. But, over time, the failure to complete action on that last reform, on the role of money in politics, became a more glaring omission. As the television replaced the Grange hall, the saloon, or the town square as the central forum for public debate, money became an ever more important factor in who ran for office and who was elected. Today we see people spend $28 million to run for the Senate, a President raising $44 million for a primary campaign that doesn't exist, and individuals contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to campaigns by funneling them through the various State parties. Many accomplished and capable people are right now considering whether to become candidates for the House and Senate. They should be asking themselves, ``Can I work hard enough to do a good job?'' or ``Do I have new ideas that would benefit my constituents?'' Instead, they are wondering ``Can I find a thousand individuals and PAC's willing to give me almost a million dollars?'' and ``Is there an interest group willing to spend a lot of money to defeat my opponent?'' Money not only determines who is elected, it determines who runs for office. Ultimately, it determines what government accomplishes--or fails to accomplish. Under the current system, Congress, except in unusual moments, will inevitably listen to the 900,000 Americans who give $200 or more to their campaigns ahead of the 259,600,000 who don't. Real reform of democracy, reform as radical as those of the progressive era, and deep enough to get government moving again, must begin by completely breaking the connection between money and politics. It must eliminate all the interested money--that is, money with strings attached, from all congressional races. We have to start by understanding what has happened to past efforts to free politics from the grip of money. Three profound misconceptions have led to the demise of every recent proposal to reform campaign finance. The first misconception is constitutional. The Supreme Court in 1976, in the case of Buckley versus Valeo, held that a rich man's wallet is no different than a poor man's soapbox. Restrictions on total campaign spending, and on wealthy individuals using their own money to buy an office, were held to be equivalent to restrictions on free speech. Even reformers who found this logic absurd have felt it necessary to tiptoe around the Supreme Court, building elaborate contraptions of incentives and voluntary spending limits rather than risking the Court's wrath by simply declaring it illegal to buy a seat in the House or Senate, with your own money or someone else's. On something as crucial to democracy as the role of money in elections, a role that has destructively expanded every year I have been in the Senate, the Constitution is the place to fix the thwarting of the people's will. The second misconception is similar, but runs deeper. It is rooted in a failure to understand that democracy and capitalism are separate parts of the American dream, and that keeping that dream alive depends on keeping one from corrupting the other. Speaker Gingrich, for example, has accused those who advocate spending limits of ``nonsensical socialist analysis based on hatred of the free enterprise system.'' He has compared the $600 million spent on congressional elections with the $300 million spent to advertise three new antacids, and concluded that politics is underfunded. Gingrich is not the only person who holds this view, but he makes the sharpest accusations. I would respond by saying that I have no hatred for the free enterprise system, but it is not the same as democracy. Market share is not political power. Democracy and civil society have a different ethic from the marketplace. Democracy requires calm and thoughtful deliberation, and a willingness to accept losing in a fair process, and civil society proceeds from a belief that giving without expectation of return is the highest human gift. Both ethics are much different from the frenetic quest for market share and profit. The third misconception is that different sources of money in politics are more or less corrupting than others. When politicians write what they call campaign finance laws they try to protect their own sources of funding while cutting off those sources that primarily go to their opponents. Thus the endless hairsplitting between political action committees, individual contributors, personal wealth of candidates, soft money, and independent expenditures. Some proposals even draw distinctions among various types of political action committees, banning some and protecting others. The result, Mr. President, has been legislative proposals that tiptoe around actually limiting spending on campaigns; that claim to reduce corruption but don't challenge the idea that money should decide elections; and that draw endless distinctions among different types of money. If any of these proposals became law, they would make very little difference. But the biggest problem with these tortured, hairsplitting, incremental approaches is that voters can't understand them. They don't see, just as I don't see, how these bills would actually fix what's wrong with democracy. As a result, there are no consequences for politicians who block these proposals, so that even incremental reforms never pass, even when they appear to have momentum. To free our democracy from the power of money, I believe we have to start with two straightforward principles: First, money is not speech. A rich man's wallet does not merit the same protection as a poor man's soapbox. Second, all interested money in politics is potentially corrupting. Whether it comes from an individual, a PAC, or a candidate's own investments, it sometimes comes with strings attached, and limiting one source will only open up others. Money in politics is like ants in the kitchen. You have to close every hole, or they will find a way in. Today I want to present a specific legislative proposal that builds a realistic structure for a new era in American democracy around these basic principles. I would start by amending the Constitution simply to clarify that political money is not speech. I will put forward an amendment that would give every State and the U.S. Congress explicit authority to limit spending in campaigns and contributions from any sources. Such an amendment, or a reconsideration by the Court of its decision in Buckley, would be an essential underpinning of any real reform. I have supported few constitutional amendments during my time in public life, and I have been especially skeptical of those that sought to limit rights. However, I am convinced that this amendment would protect rights by strengthening democracy. It would not limit the first amendment, but would clarify that the right to buy an election is not a form of freedom of expression. We should also consider the possibility that our current system of campaign finance is as deeply unconstitutional as any reform might be. Years ago the Court outlawed so-called white primaries, in which the white voters who controlled Democratic parties in southern States met to decide who their candidate would be. Today we have a wealth primary, where wealthy contributors determine who has the opportunity to run for office and who we have a chance to vote for. This amendment would eliminate the wealth primary and give every American an opportunity not only to run for office but to vote for who they want to. With the constitutional misconception out of the way, I would start from scratch. This proposal would focus on Senate elections, but would provide a model for elections to the House, State legislatures, governorships, or even the handling of referenda. I would give the citizens of each State direct control over how much money would be spent in their State's elections. I would say to each taxpayer, in each State, you have an opportunity to give from $1 to $5,000 per year, but only to a campaign in your State. You would contribute it by adding it to your tax liability and sending the checks with your tax return. But you would be contributing to the election campaign, not to a candidate. All the money would go into a shared fund, and every Senate election year, on Labor Day, the candidates would take the fund and divide it equally among all qualified candidates--Republican, Democrat, or qualified independent. Outside of the money from the common fund, Senate candidates could not raise or spend any money from PAC's, individual donors, the party, or their own pocketbooks to further their candidacy. If the voters and taxpayers concluded that they liked the level of information and advertising they got from a $20 million campaign--if they agreed with Speaker Gingrich, in other words--they could choose that kind of election. If they wanted a cheaper election they could choose that option by their votes on the tax return. To ensure that all candidates have an opportunity, an equal opportunity, to reach all voters, I would reclaim part of the public airwaves as a public forum. Every broadcast licensee, radio or television, would be required as a condition of licensing to provide 2 hours of free time to every candidate, 1 hour in prime time, in units of at least 1 minute. The airwaves are public property. They now offer the closest thing we have to a shared culture and a common forum for discussion of ideas. That forum should not be available only to the highest bidder. We have not only a right to insist that broadcasters provide that space, but a responsibility to ensure that the public's airspace is used in the interest of rebuilding democracy. Who would be a qualified candidate, eligible to receive money from the common fund and broadcast time? Any party that had received 10 percent of the vote in the previous two Senate elections would automatically qualify once it selected a candidate. Independent candidates and new parties would be required to obtain signatures of 5 percent of all eligible voters in the State, but once they qualified, the candidates and their ideas would be treated equally. A candidate who refused to participate in at least one debate would be completely shut out--he could not participate in the shared fund or raise money separately. Candidates seeking the nomination of a major party would not receive funds or broadcast time for the primary, and would be permitted to raise private funds. But they would be required to raise 100 percent of those funds in contributions of $100 or less. That's it. For the general election there would be no PAC's. No private contributions from wealthy individuals. No bundling of contributions from the executives of a company to evade PAC limits. No money from out of State. No candidates using their own funds. No refusal to debate. All the sources of potential corruption in the current system would be cut off. Speech would be protected; money would be restricted. This proposal won't sound like anything we've heard before. It will take people a while to get used to it. Some people will worry that there won't be enough money for good campaigns. But if that is so and the people are less informed, that will be their choice. No longer will special interests control it. But keep in mind that TV and radio accounts for about 50 percent of the cost of campaigns. With free broadcast time, the money which will be cut, if voters choose a low- budget campaign, would be the money that candidates spend on polling, consultants, gifts, and the rest. The process of providing information to voters would more than likely be protected, but then again, if it decreases, it will be the citizens' choice. Other people will be offended at the idea of contributing to democracy, rather than to a candidate. Some people said to me, ``I don't want my money to be shared with Senator Helms?'' or ``Why should I contribute to Senator Kennedy?'' That's a fair concern. But as things now stand, an incumbent can raise as much as $17 million, $10 million more than even a well-funded opponent. Putting that incumbent and his or her opponents on a level playing field is far more important than the $1,000 that any of us, as an individual, can give to either candidate in that race. If you have the strength of your convictions, there is no reason to fear a fair fight. Others will say that the proposal helps incumbents, but incumbents have an even bigger financial advantage in the present system and they are defeated regularly. Besides, if doing your job well helps you get reelected, who can criticize it? Finally, still others may note that I have supported public financing of campaigns in the past and this is not exactly public financing. Indeed, it is not public financing. It does not take taxpayer dollars and provide them to political campaigns. It is not public financing, but it is public control of elections. As long as voters mistrust politicians as they do, we're not going to get past the skepticism about public financing. We have to rebuild that trust first, and I think that giving voters control of campaigns is the way to do it. I believe there is a deep hunger for this kind of reform. I have been very impressed by the energy of activists at the State level, who are using one breakthrough in democracy--the initiative and referendum--to break down the barriers to another, campaign finance reform. Never before have we seen so much grassroots activity on the issue of campaign finance reform. In 1994, ballot initiatives won in Missouri, Oregon, and Montana, as well as the District of Columbia in 1992. And, so far, we can expect in 1996 initiatives in Maine, California, and Alaska, Arkansas, and Colorado. Other States where groups are considering initiative drives include Wisconsin, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Illinois. The initiatives on the ballot this year are radical and serious. Whether they emphasize modest public financing or limiting contributions to $100, they are big, uncompromised reforms that would go a long way toward freeing State legislatures from the grip of moneyed interests. I consider those State activists my partners in this reform proposal, and I believe they deserve to have a proposal on the table in Washington that is as radical, as serious, and as real as what people are talking about in the States. Many politicians and academics may focus on what they see as the worst possible outcome of this proposal: that voters, given control, might choose to sharply cut back the amount of money available in campaigns. Indeed, they seem to be contributing less in the Presidential checkoff. But if that happens, the worst consequence would be a resurgence of door-to-door campaigning, of politicians listening instead of polling, and of campaigns led by candidates and their ideas rather than consultants and their focus-group-tested messages. In other words, the system would adjust in what could very well be a way that reinvigorates citizen participation. To argue against changing the status quo that everyone knows compromises democracy is a terribly pessimistic position. Now is the time to be bold. At its best, however, I believe that giving voters control over campaigns will be enough to return democracy to the people, freeing it from the power of money. It could restore confidence and faith in the legitimacy of democratic decisionmaking, freeing both Congress and the Presidency from the cycle of gridlock, action, and backlash. Ultimately, it will free our democracy to do what it can do when it works well: use the power of government to build a structure of economic security and economic opportunity for all American families. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the proposal along with the text of both the constitutional amendment and the Senate Campaign Finance Reform Act be included in the Record.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the role of money in politics, and its consequences. I rise also to introducing a legislative proposal--a constitutional amendment and a bill--to free democracy from the power of money. Mr. President, last fall a man approached me in New Jersey. He said, ``Senator, I worked at this place, in one job, for 22 years, In that 22 years, three different companies owned the place. In not one of the three companies did I vest for a pension, because none of them owned the place long enough. So I am now retiring, after 22 years of working here, without a pension, at all.'' A woman came up to me on my annual walk along the Jersey Shore and said, ``six months ago, my husband lost his job. Two months ago, I lost my job. We have three children and now we have no health insurance. I went to our pediatrician and he said if the kids get sick, he'll take care of them but Senator, this is America, and you shouldn't have to have a friendly pediatrician in order to get health care for your kids.'' In California, a white-collar worker named Ron Smith who lost his job at McDonnell-Douglas 2 years ago told a journalist how his sense that he was ``starting to lose my grip'' feeds into the divisiveness that is tearing our country apart: ``I get angry, and a lot of anger is coming out,'' he said. ``I'm blaming everyone, minorities, aliens coming across the border. I don't know how much truth there is to it. I mean, I don't think there are any planners and engineers coming across the border. [But] it hurts when you go to an interview and you know damn well you can do the job, and you know they are looking at you and thinking, `Forget it.' ''. In the last 7 years, 100,000 people lost their jobs with GE, 60,000 at IBM, 40,000 at Sears. The merger of Chase Manhattan with Chemical Bank will mean the loss of 12,000 jobs. And AT&T just announced that they will eliminate 40,000 more jobs, most of them this year. My colleague Senator Biden recently told me that at the Hercules Corp.'s research center outside Wilmington, the downsizing has accelerated and become brutal. When employees arrive at their office building on Monday morning, they know that they have been fired when they see a Pinkerton security man standing outside their office door. Usually he tells them that he's sorry and he knows they've worked hard for 22 years, but could they please have their desk cleaned out by noon--and if they don't mind, he'll stand at the door, because the company doesn't want to take the chance that the computer system will be sabotaged. On Mondays at the Hercules Center, no one carpools, because it is impossible to predict who will be going home at noon. The heavy footsteps of downsizing, relocation, part-time jobs, temp jobs, middle age without health care and retirement without a pension may be near or still distant, but they are heard in every home. People are working harder for less. In 1973 the average production, nonsupervisory wage was $315. In 1994 it was $256. That's about 70 percent of workers. During the first 6 months of 1993, the Clinton administration announced that 1.3 million jobs had been created, to which a TWA machinist replied, ``Yeah, my wife and I have four of them.'' And indeed, over half of the newly created jobs were part time. For all but the fabulously wealthy, the idea that working hard can lead to a secure future, a chance to provide a better life for your children, and an adequate retirement is slipping away. I hear this fear everywhere: Among the urban working poor, in suburban living rooms, at factory gates, and among engineers with Ph.D.'s and 30 years of experience with large, still-profitable corporations. The most painful part of it for me as someone who entered politics with a belief that government could make people's lives better and more secure, is that the political process seems deaf, almost willfully deaf, to the economic anxieties of nonwealthy Americans. Instead of using public power to balance the excesses of private power and enhance opportunity, too many politicians continue playing the proverbial fiddle while the lives of working people become more desperate. Democrats and Republicans both march along the well-worn paths of symbolic politics, waving flags labeled ``welfare,'' ``crime,'' and ``taxes'' to divide Americans and win elections. Republicans cling to the illusion that government is the problem--even the enemy of freedom--and that less government and free markets will automatically relieve the fears of working Americans. Democrats cling to old programs, like worker retraining, without ever stopping to ask whether those programs are actually working to change lives for the better or whether jobs are available for the workers we're training. The political process is paralyzed. Democracy is at a standstill. The budget stalemate is only the latest headline. The Federal Government has not been able to act decisively and with public consensus behind it in years. On health care, on taxes, on creating jobs, on reforming welfare, we have been at continual deadlock. Democracy is paralyzed not just because politicians are needlessly partisan. The process is broken at a deeper level, and it won't be fixed by replacing one set of elected officials with another, any more than it was fixed in 1992 or 1994. Citizens believe that politicians are controlled: by special interests who give them money, by parties which crush their independence, by ambition for higher office that makes them hedge their position rather than call it like they really see it, and by pollsters who convince them that only the focus group phrases can guarantee them victory. Citizens affected by the choices we have to make about spending and regulation simply don't trust that the choice was made fairly or independently, or in some cases even democratically. They doubt that the facts will determine the result, much less the honest convictions of the politicians. Voters distrust government so deeply and so consistently that they are not willing to accept the results of virtually any decision made by this political process. Tell people in my State of New Jersey as I did in 1989-90 that the Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced their Federal taxes by $1 billion a year and they don't believe you because their State and local tax increases offset the reduction. It's gotten to the point that I've had constituents call on the phone to ask how I voted on a particular bill. When my office tells them that the vote hasn't occurred yet, they don't believe you because a radio talk show host who hadn't done his homework said otherwise. For at least 6 years, since the repeal of the catastrophic care legislation in 1989, through the erosion of environmental laws, to the failure of health care reform and the backlash against the crime bill last year and the budget this year, every major step government has taken has been jeopardized by this mistrust, by a deep and widespread conviction that politicians are acting is their own individual interests rather than acting as honest representatives of the democratic will. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, but one of them is money. Those who think it's just a matter of perception that politics is driven by money should consider the following facts: In House-Senate negotiations over reform of telecommunications laws, which are still in progress, one large telephone company, Ameritech, appears to have won a special provision allowing it to build a monopoly in the burglar and fire alarm business, while its competitors are prohibited from entering that industry. Ameritech's PAC gave almost half a million dollars last year in 600 separate contributions to hundreds of Members of Congress of both parties, primarily those on committees with jurisdiction over its industry. Another company, Golden Rule Insurance, Inc., gives over $900,000 in PAC money and soft money contributions to Members of Congress, and hundreds of thousands more to organizations affiliated with Speaker Gingrich. In return, the company wins endorsement of medical savings accounts, an insurance product that only Golden Rule offers and which would cost the Treasury $4 billion, as a centerpiece of the Republican Medicare reform. Lobbyists for big corporate contributors sit in the offices of congressional leaders and write the legislation to repeal a century's worth of environmental protections. New Members of the congressional majority, while billing themselves as reformers, collect on average more than $60,000 from Washington- based political action committees in just the first 6 months in office, a year and a half before they seek reelection. Some take more than $100,000 in their first days. State legislatures, where most politicians get their start and which others treat as a modest, part-time contribution to citizenship, have been taken over by the same forces of money that captured Congress. State legislative races now routinely cost what congressional races used to cost. In New Jersey last year, State Senate candidates spent a record $8 million on 80 races, most of which were not competitive contests. Illinois Assembly and Senate candidates raised $49 million, $2.4 million of it from out-of-State interests, such as gambling companies that seek licenses and new markets. I have cited more examples involving the new Republican majority than Democrats not because they are uniquely corrupt, but because these incidents are more recent, and money apparently flows to the winners when power shifts. While these abuses are not new, the amounts involved and the level of conflict seem to multiply every few years, with this year's congressional freshmen taking twice as much money from PAC's right away than the freshmen who came to office in 1993. I saw one estimate that said that, in total, at all levels of government in 1996, nearly $1 billion would be spent. So the story becomes clear. Economic anxiety eats away at people who work in America. Government fails or refuses to respond. Voters develop a profound and unyielding mistrust of the legislative process. Legislators, including some of those posing as reformers, surrender their offices and their consciences to corporate lobbyists and big contributors with narrow interests to protect. Or, if they maintain their integrity, as many do, they still have to swim in dirty water which makes it even more difficult to stay clean. And amid biennial promises of change, nothing ever changes. It's a story Americans have heard before. It's the story of the late 19th century, the era of the spoils system and recurrent scandal, when politics became hostage to the money power of Wall Street financiers, railroads, and industrialists, when each Senator was virtually the property of whichever magnate had engineered his appointment. It was a time when Washington was dominated by endless debates about the tariff--a dispute between wealthy financiers and wealthy manufacturers--quite willfully ignoring the economic plight of the vast majority of Americans who were farmers, miners, and factory workers, or women and African-Americans prohibited from voting. The theologian Walter Rauschenbusch wrote of that time that ``In political life one can constantly see the cause of human life pleading long and vainly for redress, like the widow before the unjust judge. Then suddenly comes the voice of property, and all men stand with hat in hand.'' Our Nation's history demonstrates that the conduct of democracy is not an abstraction. When politics becomes hostage to money, as it did in the late 19th century, and as it increasingly is today, people suffer. Neither economic opportunity nor economic security is given the place it deserves in our national ambitions. There is still a very tangible relationship between the level of opportunity and security available to every American family and the extent to which we can keep our democracy secure and separate from the force of money. The late 19th century was the last time, until now, that America's prosperity failed to translate into higher wages and increased security for American workers. Teddy Roosevelt called the moneymen of politics, ``the gloomy anticipations of our gold-ridden, capitalist-bestridden, userer-mastered future.'' But the path to a better 20th century rested on four progressive principles: Universal suffrage; direct election of Senators; initiative and referendum to give the people a direct check on policy; and campaign finance reform. Although Theodore Roosevelt proposed that ``Congress provide an appropriation for the proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties [and] no party receiving campaign funds should accept more than a fixed amount from any individual,'' only modest disclosure requirements were adopted at the time. Until we had radically reformed our democracy, to take it away from the Goulds and Vanderbilts and give it back to the people, we could not become the kind of nation that protected seniors from abject poverty, that protected children from abuse, that respected the heritage of the land. But, over time, the failure to complete action on that last reform, on the role of money in politics, became a more glaring omission. As the television replaced the Grange hall, the saloon, or the town square as the central forum for public debate, money became an ever more important factor in who ran for office and who was elected. Today we see people spend $28 million to run for the Senate, a President raising $44 million for a primary campaign that doesn't exist, and individuals contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to campaigns by funneling them through the various State parties. Many accomplished and capable people are right now considering whether to become candidates for the House and Senate. They should be asking themselves, ``Can I work hard enough to do a good job?'' or ``Do I have new ideas that would benefit my constituents?'' Instead, they are wondering ``Can I find a thousand individuals and PAC's willing to give me almost a million dollars?'' and ``Is there an interest group willing to spend a lot of money to defeat my opponent?'' Money not only determines who is elected, it determines who runs for office. Ultimately, it determines what government accomplishes--or fails to accomplish. Under the current system, Congress, except in unusual moments, will inevitably listen to the 900,000 Americans who give $200 or more to their campaigns ahead of the 259,600,000 who don't. Real reform of democracy, reform as radical as those of the progressive era, and deep enough to get government moving again, must begin by completely breaking the connection between money and politics. It must eliminate all the interested money--that is, money with strings attached, from all congressional races. We have to start by understanding what has happened to past efforts to free politics from the grip of money. Three profound misconceptions have led to the demise of every recent proposal to reform campaign finance. The first misconception is constitutional. The Supreme Court in 1976, in the case of Buckley versus Valeo, held that a rich man's wallet is no different than a poor man's soapbox. Restrictions on total campaign spending, and on wealthy individuals using their own money to buy an office, were held to be equivalent to restrictions on free speech. Even reformers who found this logic absurd have felt it necessary to tiptoe around the Supreme Court, building elaborate contraptions of incentives and voluntary spending limits rather than risking the Court's wrath by simply declaring it illegal to buy a seat in the House or Senate, with your own money or someone else's. On something as crucial to democracy as the role of money in elections, a role that has destructively expanded every year I have been in the Senate, the Constitution is the place to fix the thwarting of the people's will. The second misconception is similar, but runs deeper. It is rooted in a failure to understand that democracy and capitalism are separate parts of the American dream, and that keeping that dream alive depends on keeping one from corrupting the other. Speaker Gingrich, for example, has accused those who advocate spending limits of ``nonsensical socialist analysis based on hatred of the free enterprise system.'' He has compared the $600 million spent on congressional elections with the $300 million spent to advertise three new antacids, and concluded that politics is underfunded. Gingrich is not the only person who holds this view, but he makes the sharpest accusations. I would respond by saying that I have no hatred for the free enterprise system, but it is not the same as democracy. Market share is not political power. Democracy and civil society have a different ethic from the marketplace. Democracy requires calm and thoughtful deliberation, and a willingness to accept losing in a fair process, and civil society proceeds from a belief that giving without expectation of return is the highest human gift. Both ethics are much different from the frenetic quest for market share and profit. The third misconception is that different sources of money in politics are more or less corrupting than others. When politicians write what they call campaign finance laws they try to protect their own sources of funding while cutting off those sources that primarily go to their opponents. Thus the endless hairsplitting between political action committees, individual contributors, personal wealth of candidates, soft money, and independent expenditures. Some proposals even draw distinctions among various types of political action committees, banning some and protecting others. The result, Mr. President, has been legislative proposals that tiptoe around actually limiting spending on campaigns; that claim to reduce corruption but don't challenge the idea that money should decide elections; and that draw endless distinctions among different types of money. If any of these proposals became law, they would make very little difference. But the biggest problem with these tortured, hairsplitting, incremental approaches is that voters can't understand them. They don't see, just as I don't see, how these bills would actually fix what's wrong with democracy. As a result, there are no consequences for politicians who block these proposals, so that even incremental reforms never pass, even when they appear to have momentum. To free our democracy from the power of money, I believe we have to start with two straightforward principles: First, money is not speech. A rich man's wallet does not merit the same protection as a poor man's soapbox. Second, all interested money in politics is potentially corrupting. Whether it comes from an individual, a PAC, or a candidate's own investments, it sometimes comes with strings attached, and limiting one source will only open up others. Money in politics is like ants in the kitchen. You have to close every hole, or they will find a way in. Today I want to present a specific legislative proposal that builds a realistic structure for a new era in American democracy around these basic principles. I would start by amending the Constitution simply to clarify that political money is not speech. I will put forward an amendment that would give every State and the U.S. Congress explicit authority to limit spending in campaigns and contributions from any sources. Such an amendment, or a reconsideration by the Court of its decision in Buckley, would be an essential underpinning of any real reform. I have supported few constitutional amendments during my time in public life, and I have been especially skeptical of those that sought to limit rights. However, I am convinced that this amendment would protect rights by strengthening democracy. It would not limit the first amendment, but would clarify that the right to buy an election is not a form of freedom of expression. We should also consider the possibility that our current system of campaign finance is as deeply unconstitutional as any reform might be. Years ago the Court outlawed so-called white primaries, in which the white voters who controlled Democratic parties in southern States met to decide who their candidate would be. Today we have a wealth primary, where wealthy contributors determine who has the opportunity to run for office and who we have a chance to vote for. This amendment would eliminate the wealth primary and give every American an opportunity not only to run for office but to vote for who they want to. With the constitutional misconception out of the way, I would start from scratch. This proposal would focus on Senate elections, but would provide a model for elections to the House, State legislatures, governorships, or even the handling of referenda. I would give the citizens of each State direct control over how much money would be spent in their State's elections. I would say to each taxpayer, in each State, you have an opportunity to give from $1 to $5,000 per year, but only to a campaign in your State. You would contribute it by adding it to your tax liability and sending the checks with your tax return. But you would be contributing to the election campaign, not to a candidate. All the money would go into a shared fund, and every Senate election year, on Labor Day, the candidates would take the fund and divide it equally among all qualified candidates--Republican, Democrat, or qualified independent. Outside of the money from the common fund, Senate candidates could not raise or spend any money from PAC's, individual donors, the party, or their own pocketbooks to further their candidacy. If the voters and taxpayers concluded that they liked the level of information and advertising they got from a $20 million campaign--if they agreed with Speaker Gingrich, in other words--they could choose that kind of election. If they wanted a cheaper election they could choose that option by their votes on the tax return. To ensure that all candidates have an opportunity, an equal opportunity, to reach all voters, I would reclaim part of the public airwaves as a public forum. Every broadcast licensee, radio or television, would be required as a condition of licensing to provide 2 hours of free time to every candidate, 1 hour in prime time, in units of at least 1 minute. The airwaves are public property. They now offer the closest thing we have to a shared culture and a common forum for discussion of ideas. That forum should not be available only to the highest bidder. We have not only a right to insist that broadcasters provide that space, but a responsibility to ensure that the public's airspace is used in the interest of rebuilding democracy. Who would be a qualified candidate, eligible to receive money from the common fund and broadcast time? Any party that had received 10 percent of the vote in the previous two Senate elections would automatically qualify once it selected a candidate. Independent candidates and new parties would be required to obtain signatures of 5 percent of all eligible voters in the State, but once they qualified, the candidates and their ideas would be treated equally. A candidate who refused to participate in at least one debate would be completely shut out--he could not participate in the shared fund or raise money separately. Candidates seeking the nomination of a major party would not receive funds or broadcast time for the primary, and would be permitted to raise private funds. But they would be required to raise 100 percent of those funds in contributions of $100 or less. That's it. For the general election there would be no PAC's. No private contributions from wealthy individuals. No bundling of contributions from the executives of a company to evade PAC limits. No money from out of State. No candidates using their own funds. No refusal to debate. All the sources of potential corruption in the current system would be cut off. Speech would be protected; money would be restricted. This proposal won't sound like anything we've heard before. It will take people a while to get used to it. Some people will worry that there won't be enough money for good campaigns. But if that is so and the people are less informed, that will be their choice. No longer will special interests control it. But keep in mind that TV and radio accounts for about 50 percent of the cost of campaigns. With free broadcast time, the money which will be cut, if voters choose a low- budget campaign, would be the money that candidates spend on polling, consultants, gifts, and the rest. The process of providing information to voters would more than likely be protected, but then again, if it decreases, it will be the citizens' choice. Other people will be offended at the idea of contributing to democracy, rather than to a candidate. Some people said to me, ``I don't want my money to be shared with Senator Helms?'' or ``Why should I contribute to Senator Kennedy?'' That's a fair concern. But as things now stand, an incumbent can raise as much as $17 million, $10 million more than even a well-funded opponent. Putting that incumbent and his or her opponents on a level playing field is far more important than the $1,000 that any of us, as an individual, can give to either candidate in that race. If you have the strength of your convictions, there is no reason to fear a fair fight. Others will say that the proposal helps incumbents, but incumbents have an even bigger financial advantage in the present system and they are defeated regularly. Besides, if doing your job well helps you get reelected, who can criticize it? Finally, still others may note that I have supported public financing of campaigns in the past and this is not exactly public financing. Indeed, it is not public financing. It does not take taxpayer dollars and provide them to political campaigns. It is not public financing, but it is public control of elections. As long as voters mistrust politicians as they do, we're not going to get past the skepticism about public financing. We have to rebuild that trust first, and I think that giving voters control of campaigns is the way to do it. I believe there is a deep hunger for this kind of reform. I have been very impressed by the energy of activists at the State level, who are using one breakthrough in democracy--the initiative and referendum--to break down the barriers to another, campaign finance reform. Never before have we seen so much grassroots activity on the issue of campaign finance reform. In 1994, ballot initiatives won in Missouri, Oregon, and Montana, as well as the District of Columbia in 1992. And, so far, we can expect in 1996 initiatives in Maine, California, and Alaska, Arkansas, and Colorado. Other States where groups are considering initiative drives include Wisconsin, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Illinois. The initiatives on the ballot this year are radical and serious. Whether they emphasize modest public financing or limiting contributions to $100, they are big, uncompromised reforms that would go a long way toward freeing State legislatures from the grip of moneyed interests. I consider those State activists my partners in this reform proposal, and I believe they deserve to have a proposal on the table in Washington that is as radical, as serious, and as real as what people are talking about in the States. Many politicians and academics may focus on what they see as the worst possible outcome of this proposal: that voters, given control, might choose to sharply cut back the amount of money available in campaigns. Indeed, they seem to be contributing less in the Presidential checkoff. But if that happens, the worst consequence would be a resurgence of door-to-door campaigning, of politicians listening instead of polling, and of campaigns led by candidates and their ideas rather than consultants and their focus-group-tested messages. In other words, the system would adjust in what could very well be a way that reinvigorates citizen participation. To argue against changing the status quo that everyone knows compromises democracy is a terribly pessimistic position. Now is the time to be bold. At its best, however, I believe that giving voters control over campaigns will be enough to return democracy to the people, freeing it from the power of money. It could restore confidence and faith in the legitimacy of democratic decisionmaking, freeing both Congress and the Presidency from the cycle of gridlock, action, and backlash. Ultimately, it will free our democracy to do what it can do when it works well: use the power of government to build a structure of economic security and economic opportunity for all American families. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the proposal along with the text of both the constitutional amendment and the Senate Campaign Finance Reform Act be included in the Record.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, when the Senate considered its version of securities litigation reform, I supported a number of amendments to it and eventually voted for the bill. I did so because it is my belief that that the bill stuck the best available balance between protecting investors from fraud perpetuated by unscrupulous issuers and shielding growing businesses seeking investment capital from frivolous and costly lawsuits. Currently, frivolous lawsuits act as a damper on economic growth-- imposing additional costs to growth and expansion that are both unwarranted and unnecessary. Lawyers can now tie up businesses in years of seemingly endless discovery and litigation--thus creating incentives for innocent issuers to settle rather than go through a protracted legal battle. There is little doubt that these suits impose a burden on the economy and should be stopped. At the same time, individual investors need to be able to rely on the information that they receive about potential products and they need to know that the legal system is there to protect them in the case of an unscrupulous issuer. As it has emerged from conference, the bill has been modified in a number of ways. Much attention has been directed to the pleading standard, the safe harbor, and the fee shifting provisions among other issues. The President identified these three area of concern in his veto message. I have carefully reviewed the conference report and weighed the arguments on both sides. My conclusion is that the conference report would, on balance, achieve the goals of I sought when I voted for the Senate-passed bill--stemming the tide of meritless litigation while at the same time putting in place certain pro-investor measures. How does the bill do this? First, it ensures that lawsuit must have merit by setting forth pleading standards which require that plaintiffs must have a basis for their case before they are allowed to proceed. Many times, a case is brought with little evidence and legal fishing expedition ensues through the defendant's files. In some cases, firms will settle the suit in order to save themselves the long-run costs associated with discovery and litigation of the case. Now much has been made of the exact specifications surrounding the pleading standard in the bill. A number of critics contend that it goes beyond the already stringent standards of the second circuit--and would have the effect of closing the courthouse door for many small plaintiffs. Ambiguities in the statement of managers have served only to heighten these criticisms. In fact, the language of the bill does codify the second circuit standard in part--and the statement of managers says so. But even within the second circuit, there are varying interpretations of the standard. That is why the conference report deliberately rejects a complete codification of the second circuit and adopts language which is substantially similar to the language in the Senate-passed bill and its report language. The major change, the substitution of the words ``state with particularity'' for ``specifically allege,'' was made at the request of the Judicial Conference and therefore does not substantially modify the language as passed by the Senate. For investors, the bill would also ensure much greater accuracy in the statements made by issuers of debt and, at the same time, encourage them to disclose more fully, relevant information. The bill achieves this end by creating a workable safe harbor for so-called forward- looking statements--i.e. predictions about the future of a particular security. In essence, issuers are required to accompany their predictions by ``meaningful cautionary'' language--language that should serve as ample warning to potential investors about the risks that the particular security may entail. This safe harbor has been endorsed by the chairman of the SEC. But the SEC has a further role to play to ensure the fairness of the safe harbor. Many critics contend that it will create a ``license to lie'' and lead to the duping of unwary investors by unscrupulous issuers. There is a strong need for the SEC to add content to the regulations written to interpret this bill. Specifically, it will need to set out in a clear, rigorous and responsible manner, the facts that should be included in forward-looking statements so that they are truly ``meaningful and cautionary''. In addition, the Commission needs to make clear which part of the second circuit pleading standard is to be enforced and how. The SEC has a role in making this bill work, and its involvement in the process will be critical to achieving the goals the underlie the conference report. The bill also creates incentives against filing meritless litigation by bolstering the use of rule 11--which provides sanctions for filing frivolous lawsuits. Though it exists in current law, rule 11 is rarely used. The conference report requires a judge to make a finding as to whether rule 11 has been violated and then to impose sanctions subject to the discretion of the court. In addition, the report sets forth circumstances under which the sanctions under rule 11 could be mitigated. The bill also contains a number of other provisions designed to first reduce the pressure to settle frivolous claims by reforming the liability system, second, produce meaningful information about the fairness of a settlement by requiring accurate disclosure of settlement terms, and third make it easier for participants in a class action to understand how lawyers are being compensated and to challenge attorney's fees by reforming the way in which attorney's fees may be calculated in these suits. Finally, some critics have contended that the bill will truly mean that the small investor will not have access to the judicial system. I believe that this is not the case. I have already discussed may of the major issues of concern above. There is one additional area that gives me pause. The conference report includes a discretionary bonding requirement that was not in the Senate bill. Opponents claim that the possibility of requiring a bond is yet another impediment to small investor access to the judicial system. In fact, the bonding provision is at the discretion of the judge. Similar bonding options exist in other parts of the securities law and have not proven to be particularly burdensome. Of course, should the bonding provision prove unworkable or a true bar to the courthouse, it should be revisited, as should any other portion of this bill which becomes problematic. I certainly stand ready to reconsider this bill should it not achieve the goals which I have set out, but on balance I think its advantages outweigh its disadvantages.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. I will be very brief. I rise to speak in opposition to the conference report. I know there are others who want to speak, and I simply want to make a few points. I think it will be vetoed. I think it should be vetoed. I think that it continues the process of watering down our efforts to protect the environment, and it in my view should be rejected. There are three areas that I believe need our special attention. The first is that under the conference report the protection of fish, wildlife and plant species awaiting endangered species listing would be blocked for another year, even if the species is on the brink of extinction. Mr. President, we have an Endangered Species Act in order to protect those species that are on the brink of extinction. If we delay listing year after year, we might as well not have a law. When you delay the implementation of this law, you do not have one at all. We cannot declare any species in that period of time as endangered and the damage may be permanent. This is of real concern in a number of areas, for example, the marbled murrelet. I also know that the Mount Graham squirrel is an important specie that is endangered and affected by this act. I am not sure that in the next year it is going to be all over for either one, but the general direction is clear. If we continue to prevent the law from functioning, we might as well not even have that law, which, of course, is the intention of some who will delay the implementation of the law. Second, Mr. President, is the rider on alternative P to the Tongass National Forest timber plan in Alaska. The conference report locks into place, through fiscal year 1997, the timber requirements of alternative P, which is a 4-year-old discredited draft forest plan. Alternative P mandates a logging target approximately 44 percent higher than the average cutting level over the past decade. And it does so in an area where the largest number of jobs are in tourism and fishing and not in timber cutting and in an area where unemployment is very low compared to the national average. Mr. President, I am very concerned about what we have done in this bill with regard to Tongass. I think that it allows for much more cutting than we had anticipated when we passed the 1990 Tongass Timber Reform Act. And it is another example of Congress' changing things for the worse after there has been an agreement because the votes are there to change those things. And I think, frankly, it will be one of the major reasons that the President will veto this bill. Finally, Mr. President, there are a series of cuts in vital programs. This bill follows the pattern set in the VA-HUD appropriations bill which makes reductions in the Corps of Engineers wetland enforcement budget and forbids the EPA from enforcing wetlands law, which in my State of New Jersey is a tremendously important thing. This bill repeals protection for the newly created Mojave National Park and halts scientific studies needed to protect critical species in the Columbia River basin. It halts the Department of Energy's program to set energy appliance efficiency standards that have been developed jointly with the industry, which will save consumers a lot of money and reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. One might say you can save more oil from increased conservation than you could from opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Mr. President, this bill has gotten better, but it still does not meet what I think are the highest possible standards. The President's statement on the report cites several additional shortcomings. For example, there is $50 million in funding restored for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. This additional funding, however, falls short of levels needed to maintain these important programs. While the Bureau of Indian Affairs' budget has been increased $25 million above the previous conference level, that would still leave the program $111 million short of the House mark and $159 million below fiscal year 1995 enacted levels. The most significant effect of this action remains the crippling reductions targeted at tribal priority allocation programs which support essential tribal government, law enforcement, housing improvement, Indian child welfare, adult vocational training, road maintenance, and other basic reservation services. I believe that this funding should be restored. It is not in the report. I think this will be another reason that the President will veto this proposal. So, Mr. President, in conclusion, I think the report has gotten better, but it is not yet good enough. I urge my colleagues to reject the bill and the President to veto it because I do not think that the American people in 1994 voted for an attack on environmental problems. I believe we should not be delivering to the American people an antienvironmental Christmas present. I do not think they asked for it, and I do not think they will welcome it. I hope that the President will veto the bill. Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the very important question of whether or not to authorize the deployment of United States ground troops to Bosnia. let me start with where I have been on this issue and continue with where I am today. Mr. President, I have long believed that Bosnia itself is not a strategic interest of the United States. I have agreed more with Bismarck who said that the Balkans were ``not worth the loss of one Pomeranian grenadier'' than I have with those European politicians who have seen it as the contested terrain necessary to extend their countries' reach to the middle East. In essence, the Bosnian conflict represents the conflict of Western Christendom, Orthodox Christendom and Islam and it flows from grievances passed on from grandparent to grandchild over centuries. While the United States has long had a vital interest in the security of Europe in general, there has been no indication over the past 4 years that the conflict in Bosnia would spread in any significant destablilizing way, notwithstanding the legitimate worries about Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, and Turkey. Further, while the United States has humanitarian interests related to countering ethnic cleansing and other barbaric conduct, I do not think that it is possible for the United States to intervene and to stop every ethnic conflict in the world. Why Bosnia and not Rwanda has never been answered by the architects of our current policy. The most striking thing about the Bosnian war is that virtually no one, from the beginning, championed pluralism. Instead, we accepted the premises of the warring parties and lost the high ground. I also believe that thee have been a lot of missed opportunities to curtail the horrors during the four years of this conflict. Because we did not seize them, we have been left with a much more difficult situation. For example, in the Bush administration, the United States, fresh from the triumph in the Gulf, could have threatened massive air power to deter the Serbian President Milosevic from pursuing by force his ambition to create a greater Serbia. We failed to do so and the conflict expanded exponentially into war. Similarly, in the first 6 to 12 months of the Clinton administration, I believe that there was another opportunity for the United States to warn Milosevic and then to act directly against him if he persisted. The United States could have sent a high level emissary to apply diplomatic pressure and to threaten air attacks to deter Serb aggression. But the United States failed to act in any meaningful way and the war has continued for a period longer than the Korean war. In the absence of U.S. action, I have supported equalizing the military imbalance in the region. While certainly not a solution to the underlying conflict, military parity is crucial to any last peace between the Gosnian Moslems, the Croats, and the Serbs. As a result, I voted repeatedly for lifting the arms embargo. But once again, we missed an opportunity and the embargo and military imbalance have persisted. That is where I have been on this issue. Mr. President, I recognize that some things have changed. We have a peace agreement initialed by Moslems, Croats, and Serbs. We have the commitment of NATO to secure the military aspects of this agreement and we have the commitment of President Clinton to deploy 20,000 United States ground troops to Bosnia and another 5,000 troops to Croatia, as part of this agreement. Where Europe failed to get agreement, America succeeded but the results put us in the middle of Europe's most volatile region as not only a coguarantor, but the broker of the agreement. Mr. President, I recognize also that several things have not changed. The ethnic enmity between the parties continues. The Moslem-Croat Federation remains fragile and divisions persist among the leadership of the various parties to the agreement. As importantly, I still do not believe that Bosnia itself is a strategic interest of the United States. Indeed, if there were no counterbalancing factors, it would be my position that the United States should not deploy United States ground forces to Bosnia. One of the primary problems that we are facing is that we are left to make this decision in a conceptual vacuum. Although the cold war has ended, no one has provided a coherent vision of the post-cold war world. Rather, ad hocism tends to rule the day. This void is particularly pertinent for the United States. The United States is the most powerful country in the world. With that power, however, comes certain responsibilities. There comes the leadership responsibility to formulate a coherent vision of the world. Yet, no one, including the administration and its predecessor, has defined the role of the United States or NATO or their respective strategic interests since the days of the cold war. But those days have ended. Time after time since 1990, we have looked in the rearview mirror instead of ahead to the horizon of a new world. The retreat to a strategy of ``cold war lite'' is reflected in bloated defense budgets, confused priorities and a gradual erosion of American influence abroad. I believe an administration's highest foreign policy priority is to develop a new conceptual framework and I believe a President's role is to first see that it is done and second, to articulate it often enough and persuasively enough so that the American people and the rest of the world know where we are going in foreign policy and why. The administration's proposal for United States troop deployment in Bosnia is a prime example of the reigning ad hocism. And it brings with it, several grave problems: To begin, how do we define success? The administration has not clearly stated how it will evaluate the success of the mission. Focusing only on the military mission, the administration has left great ambiguity, if not confusion, regarding the issues of refugees and disarmament. The result is very dangerous because you cannot really have an exit strategy unless you know what it is you are supposed to achieve. For an exit strategy is not a deadline, it is a process for continuously evaluation means against goals. By stating that the mission will not extend beyond a year, the administration also invites delayed violations. As a mechanism of control, a time limit leads to loss of control. A stated 1 year termination of our involvement is a temptation for the contending parties simply to delay a showdown for a year. In hoping for a limited mission that could simultaneously solve the deeper conflicts, there has been an incomplete disclosure of where this action will lead. In a year from now, will United States troops be withdrawn only to allow the Croats and Serbs to carve up Moslem Bosnia? Will we feel any better just because our military objectives have been ostensibly achieved? Will the United States' leadership role be maintained and NATO's role restored if Bosnia falls into renewed conflict upon the withdrawal of NATO? Unfortunately, I think the answer is no. Do the Croats yearn so much for economic ties to Europe and the Serbs fear so much the resumption of sanctions that they will restrain themselves from conquering the Moslem enclaves once United States troops leave? Again, I fear the answer is no. Once we are down the road and involved, the most likely outcome is for this mission to continue-- for NATO, with United States troops, to engage in the protection of Bosnia enclaves for the indefinite future. A related, but distinct problem is the disconnect between the defined mission and our objectives. If the administration is to be believed, our mission is only military and can be completed in 1 year. Nevertheless, to justify the deployment of U.S. troops in this case, the administration has defined certain humanitarian interests--to prevent ethic cleansing, to prevent a renewed conflict between the parties, and to create one federated Bosnian state. Neither the limited military mission that the administration has laid out, nor the hoped for year of ``breathing space'' will be able to accomplish those objectives. The administration is taking the rhetorical high ground, but its plan falls far short of delivering on the rhetoric. No one is saying now that the Moslem enclaves are going to be the Berlins of the last years of the twentieth century with NATO forces placing a tripwire around them and protecting them in a dangerous world. Instead, the administration trumpets the brevity of the mission as if American forces 6 months on the ground is an inoculation against the deep hatreds that caused the ethic cleansing in the first place. Such an attitude, from my perspective, is naive and wrong. I think the time has come for the administration to level with the American people about the logical end result of this mission. Only a lasting peace will avert us from being faced by Christmas 1996 with the choice of a longer commitment or failure. In addition, there has yet to be any sufficiently comprehensive definition of either the rules of engagement or contingency plans. What will U.S. troops do in the case of cross-border conflicts, if the Serbs attack the Croats or the Croats attack the Serbs? What will United States troops do if the French troops in Saragevo are directly attacked with the resulting loss of many French lives? Under what if any circumstances will U.S. forces be withdrawn prior to the completion of the military mission. These are very important issues, but there still are no precise answers as there were not when the Bosnian Serbs took UNPROFOR hostage following NATO bombing. Lacking a coherent vision, there also appears to be little recognition of the implications of this 1 year decision and its potential outcome for our strategic interests throughout the world. If we withdraw our troops and Serbs or Croats subjugate the Moslem enclaves, there will be, for example, significant repercussions in the Islamic world, in the Persian Gulf, and elsewhere. Again the 1 year time horizon could put our withdrawal at a time of maximum uncertainty or danger in the Islamic world--a time when the old, well-known voices could be replaced by more strident fundamentalists--who regard renewed Bosnian horrors as a rallying cry and the United States as the villain who promised and then reneged. Whether such repercussions are worth the interests we are ostensibly saving have not, as far as I know, been addressed. It is worth remembering the example of Ronald Reagan's Lebanon intervention. The Marines arrived, departed, returned after the Sabra and Shatila massacres and then spent over a year just hunkering down with tragic results. Finally, those who say that there is no alternative are posing a false choice and ignoring the last 4 years. One might choose deployment as the best of two bad choices. But that does not mean that there were no more choices. A policy of strength that proceeded from a new strategic framework and was pursued from the beginning of the breakup of Yugoslavia was the alternative that no one talks about because it was not developed. Despite these and other problems with this ad hoc approach, I recognize that there are counterbalancing concerns. Most notably, the President has pledged U.S. participation and the deployment of U.S. ground troops. I have said twice that the United States has not strategic interest in Bosnia itself. Paradoxically, because the deployment decision proceeded ad hoc, it places more emphasis on the downside of undercutting the solemn commitment of our President and of undermining the United States role in Europe where we do have strategic interests. As a result, we in Congress have a new level of responsibility. With all said, I believe that the word of the United States and the ability of the President to lead and to make decisions as leader and Commander-in-Chief, are important elements of the United States' world position. The decision to deploy, however poorly thought out, if carried through and maintained over time, will send a strong message worldwide. It will, for example, show the Chinese that the American concern for human rights does not single them out, but is part of our worldview. It will say to the Japanese and other parties in Northeast Asia that an American President can deliver on his word. It will say to the Islamic world that, as with the gulf war, a non-treaty commitment made by the United States can extend to Islamic territory as well as to Israel, and it will say to all of Europe that the United States remains a European power. Further, while not of major significance, there are benefits from United States and Russian forces working together in the same field. By engaging in a joint military mission that has very limited objective, I believe that we will be helping Russia to take positive steps in its post-cold war development and once again, it will have geopolitical value in Asia by showing that the United States and Russia are building a new spirit of cooperation and friendship. There are also potential benefits for NATO, although as I noted before, potential dangers as well. NATO has been searching for a defining role since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This, the first actual NATO deployment, not just a patrol or reconnaissance mission, marks NATO's departure into peacekeeping. This mission will include troops from the new European democracies, thereby providing a more useful bridge into the West than the ill-conceived drive for immediate NATO expansion. In addition, this mission has brought the French back into the NATO command structure, making NATO a more complete European force. One hopes, however, that the ambiguities in the agreement will not lead to alliance bickering and disagreements, even though the seeds have already been planted--with disagreements already arising over refugees, disarmament and the arming and training of the Bosnian Moslems. Having weighed all of these considerations, I have reluctantly decided that it is in the best interests of the United States to support the deployment of U.S. troops at this time. I believe, however, that, contrary to administration rhetoric, this will be a very difficult and long mission. I urge the administration to level with the American people now and to do all within its power to improve the circumstances under which U.S. troops are deployed.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, our American flag is best protected by preserving the freedom that it symbolized. I cannot support a constitutional amendment that would limit that freedom. At the same time, I believe that anyone who burns the American flag is an ungrateful lowlife who fails to understand how special and unique our country is, and I tremendously respect those New Jerseyans who support this amendment and have urged my support with great dignity and conviction. Like most Americans, I revere the flag as a symbol of our national unity. I want it protected from abuse. That is why I strongly supported the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which sought to punish those who would destroy our flag. That is why I regretted the Supreme Court's subsequent decision in United States versus Eichmann, which declared the law in violation of the first amendment. That is also why I enthusiastically support and today urge passage of another law that would make it illegal for someone to burn a flag, if the act itself would incite violence. In our system, the first amendment is what the Supreme Court at a particular time says it is. The Court has said that the Flag Protection Act violates freedom of expression. A future Supreme Court may reverse that decision. Although I wish the Supreme Court had ruled the other way, it did not. The question now is whether protecting the flag merits amending the Bill of Rights. In making the decision to oppose this amendment, I consulted my heart and my mind. My heart says to honor all those who died defending American liberty. My heart conjures up images of the marines holding the flag on Iwo Jima, the crosses in the fields at Flanders, the faces of friends who never came back from Vietnam. My heart says, what a nation believes in, what it will preserve, what it will sacrifice for, fight for, die for, is rarely determined by words. Often people cannot express in language their feelings about many things. How do I know? Because I struggle with it every day. Remember the pain you felt when the Challenger exploded before your eyes? Remember the joy you felt when World War II and the Korean war ended? Remember the shock you felt when you learned of the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King? Remember the feelings of attachment you have for the Lincoln Memorial, the Statue of Liberty, the U.S. flag? These are symbols and shared memories for places, events, and things that tie us to our past, our country, and to each other, even when there are no words at all. When someone gives respect and recognition to them, we are moved, sometimes to tears. When someone demeans them or shows disrespect, we are outraged. My heart says honor the flag, and I do. My mind says, when our children ask why America is special among the nations of the world, we tell them about the clear, simple words of the Bill of Rights, about how Americans who won our independence believed that all people were blessed by nature and by God, with the freedom to worship and to express themselves as they please. We found these truths to be self- evident before any other nation in the world did, and even before we created the flag to symbolize them. Our Founding Fathers believed that fundamental to our democratic process was the unfettered expression of ideas. That is why the amendment that protects your right to express yourself freely is the first amendment, and politicians should never put that right at risk. Now if this constitutional amendment passes, we will have done something no Americans have ever done--amended the Bill of Rights to limit personal freedom. Even if you agree with the flag amendment, how can you know that the next amendment will be one you will like? You cannot. So let us not start. Once you begin chipping away, where does it stop? Do not risk long-term protection of personal freedom for a short-term political gain. America's moral fiber is strong. Flag burning is reprehensive, but our Nation's character remains solid. My best judgment says we are in control of our destiny by what we do every day. We know the truth of Mrs. Barbara Bush's words that America's future will be determined more by what happens in your house than by what happens in the White House. I have traveled America for over 25 years. I know we still have standards, insist on quality, believe in hard work, honesty, care about our families, have faith in God. A rapidly changing world looks to us to help them define for themselves what it means to be free. Our leadership depends more than ever on our example. This is the time to be confident enough in our values, conscientious enough in our actions, and proud enough in our spirit to condemn the antisocial acts of a few despicable jerks without narrowing our basic freedoms. My mind says that the best way to honor those who died to preserve our freedom is to protect those freedoms and then get on with the business of making America a better place. I took an oath to support and to defend the Constitution of the United States. Each Senator has to decide in her own mind and in his own heart what he feels he must do, to fulfill the promise he made to preserve and to stand by the Constitution. Different Senators will arrive at different answers. For me, this amendment does not preserve the Constitution. To the contrary, it constricts, narrows, limits-- makes it less than it was before. To preserve means to keep intact, to avoid decay, but this amendment would leave freedom of expression less intact, less robust, more in a state of decay. To support an amendment which would, for the first time in 204 years, reduce the personal freedom that all Americans have been guaranteed by the Constitution would be, for me, inconsistent with my oath. I will never break my oath. Finally, in his dissenting opinion on flag burning, Justice Stevens warned us about using the flag ``as a pretext for partisan dispute about meaner ends.'' Politics can be a mean business, but it can also be a glorious business. Sometimes an event has unexpected consequences. Let's be frank; there is patriotism on both sides of this debate. So let me tell you what I believe about patriotism. Patriotism--I know how it feels to be proud to be an American. I remember how I felt back in 1964 when the United States Olympic basketball team defeated the Soviet Union in the finals--I remember standing on the victory stand, with the gold medal around my neck, chills running up and down my spine, as the flag was raised and the national anthem played. I was proud to have won--for myself and for my country. Patriotism--it is like strength. If you have it, you do not need to wear it on your sleeve. The patriot is not the loudest one in praise of his country, or the one whose chest swells the most when the parade passes by, or the one who never admits we could do anything better. No, a patriot is one who is there when individual liberty is threatened from abroad, whether it is World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, or even the wrongheaded action in Beirut in 1983--yes, that too. All those who served in these conflicts were defending liberty as our democracy chose, in its sometimes fallible way, to define the need to defend liberty. But you do not need a war to show your patriotism. Patriotism is often unpretentious greatness. A patriot goes to work every day to make America a better place--in schools, hospitals, farms, laboratories, factories, offices, all across this land. A patriot knows that a welfare worker should listen, a teacher should teach, a nurse should give comfort. A patriot accords respect and dignity to those she meets. A patriot tries, in a secular as well as a spiritual sense, to be his brother's keeper. When the only grandfather I ever knew came to America, he went to work in a glass factory. He worked with his hands, and he worked long and hard. After work he lived for three things: The first thing he lived for was going to the public library on a Saturday night to check out western novels, which he would read and reread over and over again. The second thing he lived for was to sit on his front porch on summer nights with a railroad whistle in the background and listen on the radio to his real love, baseball. And the third thing he lived for was to tell his grandson--me--what America meant to him. He said America was great because it was free and because people seem to care about each other. Those two, freedom and caring, are the two inseparable halves of American patriotism. As Americans who love our flag, we must not sacrifice the substance of that freedom for its symbol, and we must learn to care more about each other. We must not restrict our fundamental freedom. To do so, I believe, would betray the meaning of the oath I took to support the Constitution and the promise I made to myself to always do what I thought was right. I oppose this amendment.