Ben Campbell

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate now proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 692, H.R. 2909.

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

Mr. CAMPBELL

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

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the bill be read the third time. The bill (S. 1089), as amended, was read the third time.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I further ask unanimous consent H.R. 820 be discharged from the Commerce Committee and the Senate proceed to its consideration. Further, I ask all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 1089, as amended, be inserted in lieu thereof, the bill be read the third time and passed, with a motion to reconsider laid upon the table.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. It is the Committee's intent that prescription drugs purchased off the Federal Supply Schedule, as authorized under H.R. 1167, are for the exclusive use of tribal members, not for non-Indian employees of a tribe. Furthermore, it is the intent of the committee that prescription drugs purchased through access to the Federal Supply Schedule by tribes are not to be resold.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I would be glad to clarify this matter for the distinguished Senator from North Carolina. Your understanding is correct.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, on September 15, 1999, I introduced S. 1586, the Indian Land Consolidation Act Amendments of 2000. At that time I pledged to work with all interested parties to address the vexing problems associated with fractionated ownership of Indian lands. These lands were carved out of Indian reservations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Within only a few generations, the ownership of the allotments was divided among dozens of the heirs of the original owners of these parcels. This situation has only grown worse as each decade passes. In 1983, Congress tried to solve fractionation when it enacted the Indian Land Consolidation Act (ILCA), P.L. 94-459. The ILCA prevented small undivided interests from passing by either devise or descent. Only those interests that produced more than $100 in revenue in the preceding year were exempted. In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled in Hodel v. Irving, 481 U.S. 704, that those provisions of the ILCA violated the 5th Amendment by taking property without just compensation. Then in 1992, the General Accounting Office surveyed 12 Indian reservations with fractionated ownership and reported to Congress: BIA's workload for ownership records is substantial. The agency maintains about 1.1 million records for the 12 reservations. Over 60 percent of the records represent small ownership interests of Indian individuals--some as small as one four thousandth of 1 percent. (GAO/RCED-92-96BR) In 1994, the Department of Interior began a national consultation with tribal leaders and landowners concerning the need to address fractionation through a comprehensive legislative proposal. Based on these consultations, in June 1997, the Administration submitted a legislative proposal on land fractionation to Congress. Also in 1997, the Supreme Court ruled in Babbitt v. Youpee, 519 U.S. 234 that the 1984 amendments to the ILCA did not go far enough to alter the Court's previous finding that the ILCA violated the 5th Amendment. On November 4, 2000, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee (SCIA) held a joint hearing on S. 1586 with the House Committee on Resources. On March 23, 2000, the SCIA reported S. 1586. Relying on a suggestion in the Supreme Court's 1987 opinion, the reported bill allowed an owner to devise fractional interests of less than 2%, but eliminated the intestate descent of such interests. These interests were allowed to ``escheat'' to the tribe exercising jurisdiction over the parcel. Because of the controversy associated with the escheat provision, Committee staff continued to work with interested parties to develop a proposal for addressing fractionation without the use of escheat. On June 14, 2000, the SCIA reported S. 1586 with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. In response to concerns that probate reform should be comprehensive, the reported version of the bill was not limited to smaller fractional interests. Instead the bill addressed both the problem of fractionated ownership and the loss of trust land through devise and descent. The bill provided that non-Indian heirs and devisees would receive ``non-Indian interests in Indian land,'' rather than fee title to trust and restricted land. In most instances, these interests would operate as if they were a life estate in the interest. S. 1586 was endorsed on June 28, 2000 by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the largest and most representative tribal organization in the Nation, through Resolution Jun-00-044. The Resolution requested that the bill's sponsor continue to work with NCAI to address technical issues. Throughout June and July, a concerted effort has been made to consult with Indian tribes, landowners, and inter-tribal organizations, BIA personnel, and interested academics to clarify and simplify the bill. For example, in many instances a ``non-Indian estate in Indian land'' might prove a more complicated interest than was necessary to achieve the bill's objective. It was recommended that the bill's non-Indian estate should simply be replaced by an ordinary life estate. A proposed amendment in the nature of a substitute has been produced. The amendment differs from the version reported by the SCIA on June 14, 2000 in the following ways: The definition of ``Indian'' is amended. As reported on June 14, 2000, the definition included members of Indian tribes and those eligible for membership in an Indian tribe. The proposed amendment adds a provision for: ``any person who has been found to meet the definition of `Indian' under a provision of Federal law if the Secretary determines that using such law's definition of Indian is consistent with the purposes of this Act.'' This amendment will ensure that individuals who are treated as Indians for other purposes of Federal law will also be treated as Indian for purposes of this Act. Section 207 dealing with the devise and descent of interests in trust and restricted lands has been rewritten to provide that non-Indians inheriting interest in trust and restricted land will now receive life estates in place of ``non-Indian interests in Indian land.'' The owner of allotted land who does not have any Indian heirs may devise his interest to non-Indian heirs. Such a devise may then reserve a life estate if the remainder interest is acquired by the tribe under section 206(c). Section 206(c), which allows Indian tribes to acquire interests devised to non-Indians has been rewritten for clarity. As reported on June 14, 2000, S. 1586 provided that interests of 5% or less that pass by intestate succession would be inherited with the right of survivorship to prevent further fractionation. Since the BIA is in the process of reforming its trust and probate management system, the proposed amendment provides that this provision will not take effect until the Secretary certifies that the BIA has a process in place to track interests held with the right of survivorship. A separate subsection concerning gift deeds is now incorporated into another section that allows the Secretary to approve conveyance of trust land to Indians. Also, trust land may now be conveyed to Indians by a person of Indian ancestry who owns trust land, but does not meet the ILCA''s definition of Indian. A second title to S. 1586 includes the text from S. 1315 and its House counterpart H.R. 3181, which allow the Secretary of Interior to approve oil and gas leases on lands allotted to individual Navajo Indians, as long as the specified majority of owners of undivided interests approve the transaction. S. 1315 and H.R. 3181 were introduced at the request of the Navajo Allottee Association, Shii Shi Keyah. I have described S. 1586 as the ``cornerstone'' of the Committee's efforts to reform the BIA's management of land fractionation. Without this bill, interests will continue to fractionate. That is why the Department of the Interior continues to support this bill, even though it differs greatly from the Department's original proposal. As far back as 1934, a member of the House of Representatives referred to fractionated interests as: ``a meaningless system of minute partitioning in which all thought of the possible use of the land to satisfy human needs is lost in a mathematical haze of bookkeeping.'' S. 1586 provides a framework that will allow the Federal government, tribal governments, and those who own interests in allotments to begin addressing these issues.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. The Senator is correct. In 1994, the Congress received a series of complaints from Indian tribes that the Department was attempting to unilaterally amend agreements it had previously reached with Indian tribes who were assuming functions previously carried out by Federal officials. The Congress had to remind the Department in 1994 that it must treat the agreements it reached with Indian tribes as bilateral accords that cannot be amended except by mutual consent. Now, the Department is insisting on a regulation that would permit it to unilaterally revise agreements it had previously reached on a bilateral basis with individual Indian tribes. The American Indian and Alaska Native organizations find these and the remaining seven regulatory provisions objectionable, and I agree with them.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I thank the Senator and will work with him on this issue in the days and weeks ahead.

Mr. CAMPBELL. The tribal representatives have provided the Committee with a list of eight issues. They have asked the Department to agree to not publish any regulatory provision which: limits the reallocation authority of a Self-Governance Tribe/consortium by requiring that reallocation of funds may only be between programs in annual funding agreements; limits the local decision-making of a Self-Governance Tribe/consortium by requiring that funds in an annual funding agreement shall only be spent on specific programs listed in such funding agreement; prohibits Tribal Base funding from including other recurring funding within Tribal Priority Allocations; requires renegotiation or rejection of a previously executed Self-Governance Compact or Funding Agreement or a provision therein; prohibits a Self-Governance Tribe/ consortium from investing funds received under Self-Governance Compacts in a manner consistent with the ``prudent investor'' standard; requires any Self-Governance Tribe/consortium to adopt ``conflict of interest'' standards which differ from those previously adopted by its governing body; applies project-specific construction requirements to a tribal assumption of project design and other construction management services or of road construction activities involving more than one project; or fails to provide that ``Inherent Federal functions'' for purposes of the published regulations shall mean those Federal functions that cannot be legally transferred to a Self-Governance Tribe/consortium.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, the Senator from Arizona is correct. The Committee on Indian Affairs has received a series of communications from Native American tribes and tribal organizations indicating their opposition to eight of the hundreds of proposed provisions. These eight ``impasse'' issues appear to involve particularly sensitive matters which the Indian tribes believe would seriously set back the advances these tribes have made in the field of tribal self-governance during the past decade.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President today I am pleased to introduce the Indian Gaming Regulatory Improvement Act of 2000 to make specific and what I feel are needed changes to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, 25 U.S.C. Sec. 2701, et seq. (``IGRA''). The IGRA was signed into law in 1988 with two broad goals in mind: First, to provide for the continued economic opportunities tribal gaming presents to Indian tribes, and second, to provide a regulatory framework for tribal gaming to ensure the integrity of such gaming for the benefit of tribes as well as customers of tribal gaming operations. In 1988, tribal gaming was a relative new activity and in 12 years tribal gaming gross revenues have grown from $500 million to $8.26 billion. By statute these revenues are spent by tribal governments on physical infrastructure, general welfare and the betterment of Indian and surrounding non-Indian communities. For the 198 tribes that now conduct some form of gaming the economic benefits for the tribes as well as surrounding communities cannot be ignored. For these communities collectively, unemployment has dropped and tribes who operate gaming have been able to provide for housing, health care and education for their members and to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs for Indians and non-Indians alike. The legislation I am introducing today is not intended and should not be viewed as a comprehensive attempt to remedy all matters that have arisen in the past 12 years. Rather, this bill takes aim at very specific items. 1. With regard to gaming fees assessed against tribal operations, this bill will require the Federal National Indian Gaming Commission to levy fees that are reasonably related to the duties of and services provided by the Commission to tribes, and in certain instances to reduce the level of fees payable by those operations; 2. It establishes a Trust Fund for such fees that can only be tapped for the specific activities of the Commission mandated by the IGRA; 3. It provides statutory authority for the Commission to establish through a negotiated rule-making process, Minimum Standards for the conduct of tribal gaming, acknowledging that for class III gaming the standards are to be determined by the tribe and the state through negotiated gaming compacts; 4. It authorizes technical assistance to tribes for a number of purposes including strengthening tribal regulatory regimes; assessing the feasibility of non-gaming economic development activities on Indian lands; providing treatment services for problem gamblers; and for other purposes not inconsistent with the IGRA; 5. It launches a negotiated rulemaking to eventually clarify the current conflict between the IGRA and other Federal law with regard to the classification of certain games conducted by tribes; and 6. Last, to bring the Commission in line with all other Federal agencies it specifically subjects the Commission to the reporting and other requirements of the Federal Government Performance and Results Act. Mr. President, while there are other matters that Indian tribes and others wish to address that are not included in this bill, I am hopeful that people of good will find this legislation to be appropriate, reasonable and targeted to specific issues that he arisen in the part 12 years. It is my hope that we can debate and discuss the bill in Committee to get the views of affected parties and iron out whatever differences there may be. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President today I am pleased to introduce the Indian Gaming Regulatory Improvement Act of 2000 to make specific and what I feel are needed changes to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, 25 U.S.C. Sec. 2701, et seq. (``IGRA''). The IGRA was signed into law in 1988 with two broad goals in mind: First, to provide for the continued economic opportunities tribal gaming presents to Indian tribes, and second, to provide a regulatory framework for tribal gaming to ensure the integrity of such gaming for the benefit of tribes as well as customers of tribal gaming operations. In 1988, tribal gaming was a relative new activity and in 12 years tribal gaming gross revenues have grown from $500 million to $8.26 billion. By statute these revenues are spent by tribal governments on physical infrastructure, general welfare and the betterment of Indian and surrounding non-Indian communities. For the 198 tribes that now conduct some form of gaming the economic benefits for the tribes as well as surrounding communities cannot be ignored. For these communities collectively, unemployment has dropped and tribes who operate gaming have been able to provide for housing, health care and education for their members and to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs for Indians and non-Indians alike. The legislation I am introducing today is not intended and should not be viewed as a comprehensive attempt to remedy all matters that have arisen in the past 12 years. Rather, this bill takes aim at very specific items. 1. With regard to gaming fees assessed against tribal operations, this bill will require the Federal National Indian Gaming Commission to levy fees that are reasonably related to the duties of and services provided by the Commission to tribes, and in certain instances to reduce the level of fees payable by those operations; 2. It establishes a Trust Fund for such fees that can only be tapped for the specific activities of the Commission mandated by the IGRA; 3. It provides statutory authority for the Commission to establish through a negotiated rule-making process, Minimum Standards for the conduct of tribal gaming, acknowledging that for class III gaming the standards are to be determined by the tribe and the state through negotiated gaming compacts; 4. It authorizes technical assistance to tribes for a number of purposes including strengthening tribal regulatory regimes; assessing the feasibility of non-gaming economic development activities on Indian lands; providing treatment services for problem gamblers; and for other purposes not inconsistent with the IGRA; 5. It launches a negotiated rulemaking to eventually clarify the current conflict between the IGRA and other Federal law with regard to the classification of certain games conducted by tribes; and 6. Last, to bring the Commission in line with all other Federal agencies it specifically subjects the Commission to the reporting and other requirements of the Federal Government Performance and Results Act. Mr. President, while there are other matters that Indian tribes and others wish to address that are not included in this bill, I am hopeful that people of good will find this legislation to be appropriate, reasonable and targeted to specific issues that he arisen in the part 12 years. It is my hope that we can debate and discuss the bill in Committee to get the views of affected parties and iron out whatever differences there may be. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Madam President, I have one further comment. Both of these officers put their lives on the line, as all of our Capitol Police officers do and, indeed, officers in law enforcement across the country. J.J. Chestnut and John Gibson were personal friends to many of us. I used to be a policeman years ago, as some of my colleagues know. I collect shoulder patches, which are pretty easy to get. Most police organizations will send them to you if you like to collect them. John had a collection and we used to trade shoulder patches. If he had two of a patch I didn't have, or if I had two of one he didn't have, we would trade back and forth. When you talk about the Capitol Police, they are not just uniforms; these are real people with real lives and real families. Both of them left a wife and children, as the Presiding Officer knows. It has been 2 years, but they are still fresh in my mind--and that is a tragedy. Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Madam President, I came to the floor to tell my colleagues my disappointment that we are not able to move forward with the Treasury and general government bill. It is certainly not a perfect bill, but it is a darn good bill. As chairman of the subcommittee, I can say that we worked very hard on that. I remind my friends that we only have about 28 working days left--not much to complete the whole appropriations process, which we are required to do by law. That gets us in trouble. Two years ago, we didn't have the opportunity to complete the Treasury bill, and it ended up in what is commonly referred to as the omnibus bill. People in the Senate understand what that is, but to the millions of Americans who watch these proceedings, the omnibus bill is, in one word, a mess. It is that bill where we stick everything in at the end that we didn't have time to finish. We end up with a bill a foot thick and weighs 30 pounds, with 3,000 to 5,000 pages. Nobody in this body can read it all because we don't have the time before we have to vote on it. That is how we get in trouble. We vote to pass it through as a last-minute emergency. When we go home, people say: Why did you vote to give money to that frivolous thing on page 2,403? And we don't even know why we voted for it, which is why it is so important to get the bills through one by one. Let me mention a little bit about the Treasury and general government bill as it is going to come to the floor, if we can get an agreement. I don't think there is anybody in this body who doesn't know that we have a sieve, not a border, between the U.S. and Canada and the U.S. and Mexico. Our customs people are severely understaffed and underfunded. If you want to stop drugs at the border, the money to do that is in this bill. We need to do that. The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas we started about 8 years ago expanded to about 44 States and many cities. That is the agency that coordinates reduction of drug use and trafficking among our local law enforcement, State law enforcement, and Federal law enforcement. If you want to reduce drug trafficking, the money is in this bill. We also have upkeep and maintenance for Federal buildings. A number of them nationwide are in disrepair, as everybody knows. We have to put money into making sure the buildings are sound, safe, and fireproof. We are not doing that very well. The money to do that is in this bill, too. If you want to reduce drug violence, the money to do that is in this bill. We know this is a very important year for the Secret Service. They are being asked to do more in an election year, with limited resources. The money to do that is also in this bill. In fact, as all of us know, there are many, many requests by individual Senators in all of these bills. I was going through the list on our bill. We have 13 pages of requests by individual Senators for money in this bill. It is rather surprising to me that some of the Senators who are opposing bringing this bill to the floor are the ones who asked for money to be put in the bill in the first place. It is similar to when we consider the so-called pay raise and people demagog it, the thing passes, and they quietly pocket the money and leave. We have the same situation with this bill. A lot of people have very important programs in this bill. Again, there are 13 pages of things Senators want in this bill. Also, Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes to talk about a program which I believe deserves the support of the Senate--the Gang Resistance Education and Training or GREAT Program. GREAT is administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, in partnership with State and local law enforcement. Unfortunately, gang activity has increased in our country in recent years. ATF has developed a program to give our children the tools they need to be able to resist the temptation to belong to a gang. The GREAT program is eight years old, and has grown from a pilot program in Arizona to classrooms all over the United States--and in Puerto Rico, Canada, and overseas military bases. ATF estimates that about 2 million students have received GREAT training. GREAT was designed to provide gang prevention and antiviolence instruction to children in a classroom setting. ATF trains local law enforcement officers to teach these classes, and provides grants to their offices to help pay for their time. This program is having a positive effect on student activities and behaviors, and is deterring them from involvement in gangs. A side benefit is that the graduates seem to be doing a better job of communicating with their parents and teachers, and getting better grades. For the third year in a row, the Administration is requesting only 10 million dollars for grants for the GREAT program. For the last two years, Congress felt that wasn't enough to fund the many requests for help from State and local law enforcement and provided 13 million dollars for GREAT grants. 10 million dollars still isn't enough. I urge my colleagues to support the effort of the Committee to again provide 13 million dollars for grants to State and local law enforcement for this worthwhile and effective program. I hope my colleagues will reach some consensus and allow us to move forward. It is an extremely important bill, and I certainly urge our leadership to try to get this to the floor. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Wednesday, July 26, 2000 at 1:30 p.m. in room 485 of the Russell Senate Building to mark up pending legislation to be followed by an oversight hearing on the Activities of the National Indian Gaming Commission; to be followed by a legislative hearing on S. 2526, to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. Those wishing additional information may contact Committee staff at (202) 224-2251.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, last night the Senate passed the Fiscal Year 2001 appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Related Agencies with my support. Today I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Manager of the bill, Senator Cochran, for his willingness to accept my amendment to require that funds available in the Food Stamp Program be used for the purchase of bison meat for use in the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR). This amendment was cosponsored by Senators Dorgan, Conrad and Domenici. The buffalo has always played an important role in Native American culture, religion and history, providing Indian people with clothing, tools, and food. Bison meat is extremely healthy, low fat, and high protein meat source that in the past was a staple of nutrition for Indian people. However, when our own government decided it was best for tribes to be placed on reservations, often far away from their traditional lands, tribes lost this nutritious food source and from this, we are seeing some severe and devastating effects on the health of our Native communities. Today, Native Americans suffer from diabetes and heart disease at five times the rate of any other group in the United States. Diabetes is a killer and the cure for it is elusive. One of the things we can do is to encourage a better diet for Native people. This is awfully hard to do when the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations is the main source of food for nearly 125,000 Native Americans and most of the meat that they do receive is canned and high in fat and sodium. Two years ago USDA purchase $2 million in bison, and then another $6 million in 1999 through a bonus buy purchase and had enormous success with it. My office has received numerous requests from Tribal Food Distribution Program Directors, tribal recipients and buffalo producers to help secure additional of bison. I sent a letter to Secretary Glickman requesting such purchases and his response is not encouraging. Mr. President, the amendment I offered will direct USDA to use $7.3 million of the Food Stamp Program to purchase bison meat. The Food Stamp Program, funded at around $21 billion, is expected to have a substantial surplus from lower participation given our healthy economy and low unemployment rate. It only seems reasonable that we could use a very small portion of those funds to help provide a healthier and culturally preferred choice of food for Native Americans. I yield the floor. explanation on votes

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I appreciate the Chairman and the Committee including $123,000,000 in emergency funding for the Customs Service Automated Commercial System, or ACS. The current legacy computer system of the Customs Service is in dire need of this emergency funding. This 16 year old system regularly experiences what is called ``brownouts'' or system-wide outages. When this system goes down, believe it or not, the Customs Service must process all entries by hand. These outages are only becoming more frequent and they are lasting longer and longer. You can imagine the delays at the border that this situation causes. For example, in an outage in March at the Buffalo port, a five-hour delay generated so much paper that the entry documents were piled so high Customs could not see their customers on the other side of the counter. Not only do these outages create long lines at the ports, but after the system is back up and running, Customs employees must then work overtime trying to enter all of the paper entries generated during the outage. Therefore, Mr. President, I am pleased that the Committee has included this funding to address this very serious issue. amendment no. 4001 (Purpose: To fully fund the Food and Drug Administration's food safety initiative activities) On page 57, line 2, strike ``$78,589,000'' and insert ``$72,589,000''. On page 57, line 10, insert before the period the following: ``: Provided further, That in addition to amounts otherwise appropriated under this heading to the Food and Drug Administration, an additional $6,000,000 shall be made available of which $5,000,000 shall be made available for the Centers for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and related field activities in the Office of Regulatory Affairs, and $1,000,000 shall be made available to the National Center for Toxicological Research''.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Wednesday, July 26, 2000, at 2:30 a.m. in room 485 of the Russell Senate Building to conduct a hearing on the S. 2526, to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. Those wishing additional information may contact Committee staff at 202/224-2251. committee on energy and natural resources subcommittee on water and power

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Tuesday, July 25, 2000, at 10 a.m. in room 485 of the Russell Senate Building to conduct an oversight hearing on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Those wishing additional information may contact Committee staff at 202/224-2251. committee on indian affairs

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I would like to address the terrible loss the Senate suffered yesterday, when Paul Coverdell left this Earth. I was truly shocked by the news. Just last week, Paul was on the floor of the Senate, working in his quiet and non-assuming way. Yesterday, I was writing him a get-well card. Today, he is gone. Paul was a dedicated public servant. He served the state of Georgia and this nation in the Army, the legislature, as a businessman, as the head of the Peace Corps and in the U.S. Senate. The respect he had earned from his colleagues here is evident in his appointment to numerous task forces and his election to a leadership position. His passing is a major loss to this body and this great country. Since I am also from a state where agriculture is an important part of the economy, Paul was a valuable ally in ensuring the family farms do not disappear. I also admired his work to keep our children safe from drugs and crime, a priority he and I shared. Paul represented the best of America: a belief that people flourish when they have the freedom to work and make their own decisions. Paul will truly be missed. He stood out in the Senate for the simple reason that he never drew attention to himself. In a business where egos can run rampant, Paul did not display one. He preferred to get things done. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Nancy, and their family. They have some tough days ahead of them. I hope they can look back, as I do, at the impressive record of Paul's work with a sense of pride. I am thankful for the chance to know such a man.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Bingaman and others in this Sense of the Senate Resolution related to a class action lawsuit that was filed some years ago by several Indian tribes against Secretary Babbitt for failure to fully pay for contract support costs necessary for tribal contractors to carry out Federal programs and services under the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, as amended, 25 U.S.C. 450 et seq. To fully understand this issue a little background is in order. I was the proud sponsors of S. Res. 277, commemorating the 30th anniversary of President Nixon's ``Special Message to Congress on Indian Affairs'' in which he laid the foundation for modern Federal Indian policy-- Indian Self Determination. Built on the twin pillars of political self determination and economic self sufficiency, this policy continues to be a driving force in the economic progress some tribes are making. The 1975 ISDEA was enacted to further this policy by authorizing Indian tribes to contract for the performance of Federal programs and services by ``stepping into the shoes'' of the United States. Now, 25 years later, nearly one-half of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Service programs and services are subject to tribal contracts and compacts. To facilitate these contracts, the United States is obligated to provide the administration costs--or ``contract support costs''--to those tribes that carry out ISDEA contracts, just as it does to military contractors, research universities and other entities. The Ramah Navajo Chapter v. Babbitt case resulted in a judgment of $82 million against the U.S. to be paid from the Judgment Fund for failure to pay these contract support costs. Under the law applicable to this case, the Treasury Department may seek to have the BIA reimburse the Judgment Fund for this amount. The funds for reimbursement would come from the BIA's operating budget, resulting in manifest inequity for not only the plaintiff tribes but for all tribes who depend on BIA funds for core programs such as law enforcement, education, child care, and others. This sense of the Senate amendment would not prevent the kind of reimbursement that the tribes and I fear, but expresses the consensus of the Senate that the agencies involved--the BIA and the IHS--should declare Indian program funds unavailable for purposes of reimbursement. I remain hopeful that stronger language can be crafted to protect these funds, and in the interim lend my support to this amendment. I want to commend Senator Bingaman for his hard work in finding a solution that does not run afoul of the budget rules and commit to working with him and others as we proceed to conference in this bill.