John Chafee

Mr. CHAFEE

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, the bill now before the Senate is the ``John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Authorization Act.'' The concept of a national Center for the performing arts originated during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. President Eisenhower envisioned a national cultural center in the nation's capital, and in 1958, with the support of Congress, he signed into law the National Cultural Center Act, which established the Center as an independently administered bureau of the Smithsonian Institution. Following the death of President Kennedy, the Congress in 1964 renamed the Center in honor of the late president. The Kennedy Center was opened to the public in September 1971. The response was overwhelming--so much so that the Center's Board of Trustees requested help from Congress in maintaining and operating the Center, for the benefit of the millions of visitors. In 1972, Congress authorized the National Park Service to provide maintenance, security, and other services necessary to maintain the facility. For the next two decades, the Park Service received federal appropriations for the maintenance and operation of the Presidential monument. In the early part of this decade, however, it became clear that the Kennedy Center facility--which had not seen comprehensive capital repair since its opening--had deteriorated significantly due to both age and intensive public use. Those repairs that had taken place--such as the 1977 repair of the leaking roof--were undertaken in response to threatening conditions. The Board of Trustees, with the support of the Park Service, therefore set out to achieve a more effective long-term approach to management of the facility, with one entity responsible for both the care of the physical plant and the staging of performance activities. In 1994, therefore, Congress approved and the President signed the John F. Kennedy Center Act Amendments (Public Law 103-279). That Act authorized the transfer of all capital repair, operations, and maintenance of the Center from the Park Service to the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees. The Act also directed the Board to develop a comprehensive, multi- year plan for the restoration and ongoing maintenance of the Kennedy Center. In 1995, the Board delivered the Comprehensive Building Plan, which set forth a long-term, two-stage program for the remediation of substandard building conditions, as well as continuous maintenance for the future. Phase I, scheduled for Fiscal Years 1995 through 1998, has concluded successfully. During this time, several major projects were completed, including the installation of a new, energy-efficient heating and cooling system, replacement of the leaking roof and roof terrace, and the major renovation of the Concert Hall. Phase II is scheduled to take place over the next eleven fiscal years, through Fiscal Year 2009. This stage will involve the massive ``Center Block'' project, during which the Opera House will be overhauled, as well as projects to make improvements to the plaza, improve accessibility to the theaters, install fire and other safety technology, and make a host of other repairs designed to ensure that the facility meets life safety standards. That brings us to the legislation we are considering today. For the major Phase II projects to get underway, Congress must revise the 1994 Act to authorize appropriate funding for the next several fiscal years. This bill authorizes significant funding levels for the next eleven fiscal years for maintenance as well as capital repair work. The bill before the Senate is H.R. 3504, the House-passed bill. It is almost identical to S. 2038, legislation that I introduced and that was reported by the Environment and Public Works Committee on June 12, 1998. Because of the similarity in the two bills, we are pleased to pass the House bill without amendment sending it to the President for his signature. The Kennedy Center is a living Presidential memorial and a national monument, and as such demands a high standard of maintenance and upkeep. As an ex-officio member of the Board, and Chairman of the authorizing Committee, I am dedicated to the appropriate restoration and preservation of the facility, which millions of Americans have enjoyed for more than a quarter of a century. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the Congressional Budget Office setting forth the budgetary impacts of this legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. CHAFEE

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I am pleased today to introduce the Adoption Equality Act of 1998, legislation that will make it easier for children with special needs to find permanent, adoptive homes. I want to extend my sincere thanks to Senator Rockefeller for his commitment to this legislation and to foster and adoptive children generally. Senator Rockefeller joins me as an original cosponsor, as do Senators DeWine, Kerrey, Bond, Levin, Landrieu, Dorgan and Moynihan. Nationwide there are 500,000 children in foster care. In Rhode Island there are approximately 1,600 children in foster care. On average, these children will spend more than two years in out-of-home care before they are either returned home to their biological families or freed for adoption. The majority of the children who have been legally freed for adoption--95 percent--have special-needs, which in the world of child welfare means that they are children who are hard to place. They may be older children, they may be children in sibling groups that the state does not want to separate, they may have physical disabilities or mental or emotional problems, or they may belong to a minority group. The federal government provides an incentive to families wishing to open their homes to these children by offering some of them a monthly subsidy to help defray the cost of adopting these children. It is expensive to care for children, and even more expensive if the child has special needs. The monthly subsidy, which is less than the monthly payment for the child to be in foster care, is used to defray some of these additional costs. What makes no sense about the current system is that the federal government only makes these subsidies available to special-needs children who are being adopted whose biological families were poor. If the child is being adopted by a low-income family, but their biological family was not low-income, that child will not receive a federal adoption subsidy. This system makes no sense to me, and that is why we are introducing the Adoption Equality Act today. This measure would make all special- needs children eligible for a modest federal adoption subsidy, regardless of the income of their biological parents. The income of the prospective adoptive parents would be taken into account when calculating the amount of the subsidy, as it is under current law. Mr. President, I believe this is a simply issue of fairness to these children and the families who adopt them. We should be doing everything we can to help these children find permanent homes. The Adoption Equality Act builds upon the critical reforms we made last year in the enactment of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring and passing this bill. Thank you Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, today, I am pleased to join with Senators Bob Graham, Joe Lieberman, Arlen Specter and Max Baucus in introducing a bipartisan managed care reform bill--the Promoting Responsible Managed Care Act of 1998. In November 1997, a number of us formed the bipartisan, bicameral Congressional Task Force on Health Care Quality to better understand the mounting public frustration over managed care. The task force heard from numerous consumer and provider groups, and received presentations from the sponsors of all of the major managed care reform bills now pending in Congress. The bill we are introducing today, the Promoting Responsible Managed Care Act of 1998, has benefited greatly from the efforts of the task force, and we wish to thank all participants, on both sides of the aisle, for their attentiveness and diligence. This legislation was developed in accordance with the following principles: Bipartisan legislation which can be enacted this year. Provides all Americans in privately insured health plans with basic federal protections. Meaningful enforcement which holds managed care plans accountable, and provides individuals harmed by such plans with just compensation. Report cards to enable consumers to make informed health care choices based on plan performance. As my colleagues well know, next month the Senate is headed for a polarized debate on managed care reform, which may well result in gridlock. Each party has put forward a plan which contains features unacceptable to the other side--such as exposing insurers to lawsuits in state court in the case of the Daschle plan, and the broad expansion of medical savings accounts (MSAs) in the case of the Nickles plan. It is for this very reason that we have put forward a bipartisan plan--one which blends the best features of both the Democratic and Republican plans, but omits the so-called poison pills. When it comes to restoring public confidence in managed care and ensuring a basic floor of federal patient protections, gridlock simply will not be an acceptable outcome. We believe Congress has the responsibility to step up to the plate in the remaining weeks of this session and to enact legislation which the President can sign into law to address the outstanding concerns Americans have about their managed care. Indeed, despite continuing opposition from the insurance industry to the enactment of any reform legislation, many of the managed care industry's own leaders have privately expressed concern about the future of managed care if legislative action is not taken soon to strengthen public confidence. In our estimation, given the hardened positions of both parties, the only way Congress can succeed in that endeavor this year is for a bipartisan centrist plan to emerge once it becomes clear that neither the Daschle or Nickles plan has the requisite support to cross the finish line. What we would like to do now is to take a few minutes to lay out the key components of our proposal. First, I will talk about the scope of the bill--a topic which you will be hearing a lot about in the coming weeks. Then, Senator Graham will outline our patient protection provisions, and Senator Lieberman will discuss the importance of arming consumers with meaningful Report Card information, and a credible enforcement regime to ensure that managed care plans play by the rules. In 1996, Congress passed significant reforms of the private health insurance marketplace with respect to the issue of portability. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, also known as the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, established a federal floor of portability protections for all 161 million privately insured Americans. We see no reason for narrowing the scope of the patient protections in this next and far more consequential area of reform. Thus, like the Daschle plan and the House-passed GOP bill, the Promoting Responsible Managed Care Act would apply to all privately insured Americans. This approach preserves state prerogatives to enact more stringent standards, while assuring a minimum floor of federal protections for all Americans in private health plans--whether those plans are regulated at the state or federal level. In contrast, the Senate Republican plan proposes to provide a more limited range of patient protections to a much narrower band of the American population-- primarily those 48 million enrollees in self-funded ERISA plans. While it is true that individuals in these plans have fewer protections than those in state-regulated plans, that alone is insufficient reason for denying these basic quality improvements and safeguards to all 161 million Americans in privately insured managed care plans. Such a bifurcation would, in our judgment, create many unnecessary and inequitable circumstances for consumers, and exacerbate the already unlevel playing field which exists in the health insurance marketplace. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill, a summary of the bill, and excerpts of what organizations are saying about the Promoting Responsible Managed Care Act be printed in the Record.

Mr. CHAFEE

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I am curious what the Dorgan amendment is--environmental. Would you briefly describe that?

Mr. CHAFEE. Not totally.

Mr. CHAFEE. Not totally cleared on both sides.

Mr. CHAFEE

Mr. CHAFEE. It is incorporated in the amendment. It is my understanding that this amendment regarding the DOT building and the lease arrangement is acceptable by the managers. While I----

Mr. CHAFEE. I have nothing further to say. If they are prepared to take that part, I am delighted.

Mr. CHAFEE

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I would like to clarify a point that was raised on the floor yesterday concerning an unfortunate event that occurred in my home State of Rhode Island almost a decade ago: the failure of the Rhode Island Share Deposit Insurance Corporation (RISDIC). Some Senators have suggested that the failure of RISDIC was triggered by credit unions getting overly involved in business lending. That is not entirely accurate. The credit unions did not trigger the RISDIC crisis. Instead, the collapse of the system can be traced to a substantial embezzlement from the Heritage Loan and Investment Corporation, a type of state-chartered bank. In fact, of all the credit unions that were closed in Rhode Island during that crisis, none was federally insured and none was either supervised or examined by federal regulators. Indeed, during that entire period of the so-called credit union crisis, those credit unions that were chartered, insured, supervised, and regulated by the federal government continued to perform flawlessly, despite the disastrous economic turmoil around them. So I just want to say again that the RISDIC crisis was not caused by credit unions. Rather, the credit unions were the unfortunate victims of a crisis brought about by embezzlement from a bank.

Mr. CHAFEE

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I want to engage in a colloquy with the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Gregg. On page 93 of the report accompanying the FY99 Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary Appropriations Act (S. Rept. 105-235) is a provision appropriating $1 million for a data survey of Narragansett Bay, to be conducted in conjunction with the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC). I would like to outline to the chairman my understanding of the purpose of these funds, and request his concurrence. The $1 million appropriated for this project is to be used by CRMC for a Geographic Information System (GIS) software program to develop digital data on Narragansett Bay's resource conditions, availability and use. Advanced sonar technology would be employed to assess the Bay's bottom sediment types, habitat and use conflicts. A previous EPA study, the Narragansett Bay Critical Resource mapping project, was unable to collect data on bottom habitat, due to the limitations of research methods used at the time. The data collected by this project would provide CRMC with information that, combined with input from other sources, would be helpful in determining appropriate sites for aquaculture leases, a function currently hindered by inadequate data and ongoing disputes over use. The data would also be useful in making several other decisions related to marine management issues. In addition, the project is intended to provide for studies relating to questions regarding environmentally sound and economically sustainable forms of aquaculture by the University of Rhode Island's Partnership for the Coastal Environment. It is intended that the data collected and developed under this project not only be utilized by CRMC, but will also be made available to other Federal and State agencies as well as private fishery and conservation groups. I would like to briefly describe some of the entities that could potentially benefit from this data and ought to have access to it. First, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) could use the data to identify existing essential fish habitats (EFH) not only in Narragansett Bay, but also in nearby Rhode Island and Block Island sounds. In addition, the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC) ought to have access to the data in order to help establish suitable shipping lanes for larger vessels serving the cargo port at Quonset Point. Further, the data could be useful to NOAA's National Estuary Research Reserve NERR in selecting eelgrass restoration sites, identifying areas impacted by fishing gear, and areas suitable for habitat restoration. Finally, the data should be accessible to interested private fishery and conservation groups, such as the Rhode Island Shellfishermen's Association, the Ocean State Fisherman's Association and Save the Bay. Let me also point out what this project is not intended for. This initiative is not aimed at giving preference to one group or interest over another in the use of, or issuance of permits in, Narragansett Bay and other marine resources in Rhode Island. Instead, it is simply intended to provide State and Federal authorities with the best possible information to assist them in making the most responsible public policy decisions not just on aquaculture permitting, but also on a variety of matters involving our precious natural resources. I would ask Chairman Gregg if he concurs that the description I have provided on this funding is the Committee's intent?

Mr. CHAFEE

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

Mr. CHAFEE

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate is considering H.R. 39, the African Elephant Conservation Reauthorization Act. The bill was introduced by Congressmen Young on January 7, 1997, favorably reported by the House Resources Committee on April 21, 1997, passed by the House the same day, and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. Senator Jeffords introduced a companion bill, S. 627, on April 22, 1997. The Committee held a hearing on both bills on November 4, 1997, and favorably reported them on May 21, 1998. Today we take up the House passed bill to expedite Congressional action on this important legislation. The bill reauthorizes the African Elephant Conservation Act for four years, through 2002, at the current authorization level of $5 million annually. The current law was enacted in 1989, in response to a sharp decline in many populations of African elephants due primarily to poaching for ivory. Population estimates vary widely across its range, but the total population is estimated to have declined by as much as 50 percent, from 1.3 million elephants in the late 1970's, to less than 700,000 in 1987. The species continues to decline, with a population of about 540,000 elephants in 1996. The Act established a process for implementing strict ivory import controls, and established a dedicated fund for cooperative conservation projects in African countries. The Act has been tremendously effective in assisting in conservation efforts worldwide. Under the authority of the Act, President Bush established a moratorium on all ivory imports into the United States, which served as the impetus for the worldwide ban on trade in elephant parts and products, approved by the Parties to the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) one year later. Through the Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service has funded 60 projects in 19 countries since 1990. The law has generated approximately $22 million for elephant conservation programs, of which $6.8 million has been provided by the U.S. Government, with $15.8 million from other sources. Indeed, the success of this law has led to similar laws for Asian elephants, rhinos and tigers. Again, I am pleased that the Senate is considering this legislation, and I hope that the President will sign it into law soon. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. CHAFEE

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I ask that I might have 7 minutes to speak.

Mr. CHAFEE. I would appreciate it if the Chair would let me know when the 7 minutes are up.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I have listened carefully to the Senator from Idaho and his remarks. He indicated that it was a ``shocking''--if I am quoting him correctly--``shocking'' event to punish the person whose weapon caused the damage; the person who is careless in the storage of that firearm under this legislation pays a penalty. The Senator from Idaho, as I understood him, thought that was a very strange procedure. I will say this, Mr. President. I think every one of us know that if you own a pit bull, and you don't keep that pit bull tied up properly, and it mauls some innocent child, that the owner of that pit bull is liable. We have a situation akin to that--not pit bulls, but dangerously loaded weapons that are carelessly strewn about someone's home. A youngster comes in and gets hold of them and uses it for destructive purposes. That person that owns that weapon ought to pay the penalty. The suggestion that this is something strange and unheard of strikes me in itself as being strange. Mr. President, we have seen, all of us, these horrible incidents that have taken place over the past year in schools where youngsters have obtained weapons frequently because the weapons are not properly stored. They are not properly locked up. They are left around not only carelessly, but they are loaded. Let's just review these, if we might. In October, a 16-year-old at Pearl High School in Mississippi went to school with a hunting rifle. He shot and killed a student and a teacher, leaving a second teacher with a bullet wound in the head. In December, a student at Heath High School in West Paducah, KY, used a pistol to kill three other students. I mean, this is what is happening in our schools. The shooter was 14 years old. In March, two boys in Jonesboro, AR, one 11 years old and the other 13 years old, pulled the fire alarm in their school. As students and teachers left the building, the two boys began shooting. They killed five people: Four young girls, and a teacher. In April, a 14-year-old boy in Edinboro, PA, went to a school dance with a gun he apparently removed from his father's bureau drawer. He killed a science teacher and injured two students and another teacher. At Thurston High School in Springfield, OR, a 15-year-old who was suspended for carrying a gun to school returned to school the next day and opened fire in a crowded cafeteria. He killed two students and wounded 19 others--19 others. He killed two, and wounded 19 others. Police suspect he shot and killed his parents as well. These are terrible, tragic shootings. According to Handgun Control, 91 percent of handguns involved in unintentional shootings come from the home where the shootings occur. Mr. President, this is a national disaster. There are 192 million firearms--192 million firearms--in the possession of private citizens in our Nation, and 35 percent of American homes contain at least one gun. Each year, more than 500 children accidentally shoot themselves or a sibling, a family member, with a family gun. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the firearms-related death rate for American children under the age of 15--I mean, I think it is important we realize what we are talking about here. These youngsters are under 15. The rate in the United States for the death rate of these children through guns is 12 times higher than that of the other 25 industrialized nations combined. One thing is certain. It is simply too easy for children to get a gun. At the very least, adults should be encouraged to store their guns in a manner and a place that is inaccessible to children. If they don't, and if the child uses the gun to harm himself or someone else, the adult should be held responsible. I find it hard to argue with that premise. As I say, if there is a pit bull, no one would argue a bit that the pit bull should be chained up. We have seen incidents--certainly, I have seen them in my State-- where they are not chained and they maul some youngster terribly. The owner of that dog, that pit bull, is held responsible. And the owner of a gun that is far more dangerous than that pit bull should likewise be held responsible. Are we embarking on something radical here, something that is unacceptable by the public? In April, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll was taken--a bipartisan poll by Peter Hart and Bob Teeter, whom most of us know. We know Bob Teeter. We have worked with him. Others on the other side have worked with Peter Hart. This is the question: Congress is considering legislation that holds adults criminally responsible if they allow young children to have access to firearms that are used to injure or kill another person. Do you favor or oppose this legislation? That was the question. You are going to hold adults criminally responsible if young children have access to firearms that are used to injure or kill another. The answer was 75 percent said they favored this type of legislation; 21 percent said they opposed it, and 4 percent were undecided. It seems to me that it is time that we in Congress caught up with the American people on this issue. Here is an opportunity to encourage gun owners to act responsibly by keeping their weapons out of the reach of children. This amendment does not prevent anybody from owning a gun. That is a red herring, if anybody suggests that. It says if you are a gun owner who has reason to expect a child to be on the premises, you must store your gun safely. I don't think the National Rifle Association would object to that. Certainly, it seems to me, they would encourage people to store their weapons safely. If they failed to store them safely, and a child uses it to harm himself, or someone else, the gun owner can be held criminally liable. That makes total common sense to me. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this commonsense approach to gun safety. I thank my cosponsor who worked so hard on this, and I thank the Chair.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, may we have order?

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, it is clearly recognized that if you own a pit bull and it is recognized as dangerous, you better control that pit bull. And if that pit bull slips away and injures, severely mauls a child, you are liable. So it is with guns. If you leave a gun lying around that a juvenile gets to and that juvenile causes severe damage with that gun either to himself or to another individual, then you are to be liable, likewise. If you are liable for a pit bull, you certainly ought to be liable for a dangerous weapon like a rifle or a handgun that is left lying around. If you keep it under lock and key, that is a different matter, you are not liable. I urge everyone to support this amendment.

Mr. CHAFEE

Mr. CHAFEE. I agree with Senator Leahy. The American taxpayers have already spent over $1 million on the EPA Mercury Report. The Report does not need to be redone. I do not believe that anyone who actually reads it objectively would conclude that we need to study mercury all over again before Congress or EPA can make any decision about mercury emissions. But that is precisely what the House report language would require. This report language is an inappropriate use of the appropriations process.

Mr. CHAFEE. I agree with the senior senator from Vermont that although the EPA Mercury Report does the best job so far in quantifying mercury emissions, many believe that the report understates the actual amount of mercury being released to the environment. Along with Senator Leahy, I voiced my concern when the release of the EPA Mercury Report was delayed. It is my understanding the EPA is taking a number of long- overdue steps to address mercury emissions. Toward the end of obtaining better data on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, we should begin collecting information from these facilities on the mercury that they emit. As Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I intend to hold hearings in September on the issues raised by the EPA Mercury Report and Senator Leahy's amendment in order to foster a broader public discussion from all concerned parties about the information and findings that are contained in the EPA Mercury Report.

Mr. CHAFEE. I thank the Senator. University of Cincinnati

Mr. CHAFEE. Madam President, page 71 of the committee report accompanying the fiscal year 1999 VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Appropriations bill states that, ``[n]one of the funds provided to the EPA are to be used to support activities related to implementation of the Kyoto Protocol prior to its ratification.'' I want to try to get a clarification on this report language from the distinguished chairman of the VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Subcommittee, Senator Bond. I would agree that the EPA should not use appropriated funds for the purpose of issuing regulations to implement the Kyoto Protocol, unless and until such treaty is ratified by the United States. I would like to point out, however, that the United States is a full participating signatory nation to the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change. Under the 1992 Framework Convention, which was agreed to in Rio de Janeiro by President Bush and later consented to by the U.S. Senate, the United States pledged to carry out a wide variety of voluntary initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. These initiatives, being implemented by the EPA, the Department of Energy, and other agencies, are in place today. The Congress has funded these initiatives for several years now, indeed, long before the December 1997 climate conference in Kyoto, Japan. These initiatives; the Climate Challenge program, the Program for a New Generation of Vehicles, Green Lights, Energy Star, and others, have to varying degrees reduced greenhouse gas emissions by increasing energy efficiency across a broad range of domestic industrial sectors. They make sense for other reasons, Madam President. We have found with these programs and others that our companies and American consumers benefit economically. When we conserve resources and reduce energy consumption in a sensible way, we save money. When we research, manufacture and market new energy efficient goods and services, we create export opportunities and jobs. We also increase U.S. energy security by reducing our dependence on imported oil, natural gas and coal. Finally, when we find cost effective ways to reduce greenhouse gases, we oftentimes reduce other air pollutants like mercury, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide. So, I want to make sure that the committee report language that I cited previously does not interfere with these important and worthwhile efforts. I would ask my friend from Missouri if these ongoing energy conservation and climate-related programs and initiatives, which are not intended to directly implement actions called for under the Kyoto Protocol, would go forward under this bill?

Mr. CHAFEE

Mr. CHAFEE. Yes, I would be happy to. The DWSRF is to be used to assist pubiic water systems to finance infrastructure projects needed to comply with federal drinking water regulations. Public water systems that regularly serve at least 25 year-round residents or have a least 15 service connections qualify for assistance. The DWSRF may be used if it will significantly further the public health objectives of the Act. We recognize that there are a few communities that are currently serviced by wells that are contaminated, and the best way to solve the existing public health problems intended to be addressed by the Act may be to create a federally regulated public water system.

Mr. CHAFEE. Yes, it is my opinion that providing Drinking Water State Revolving Loan fund money to the community of Colwich to create a public water system will further the health objectives of the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996. Therefore, the State of Kansas has the authority to allocate DWSRF money to the community of Colwich.

Mr. CHAFEE

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

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with Senator Lugar and others in offering this amendment today. The proposal seeks to establish a more balanced, deliberative U.S. policy as regards international sanctions. Today, nations throughout the world look to the United States for leadership. The end of the cold war has clearly left the United States as the sole remaining superpower. We are sought after for many reasons: Financial assistance, military might, political leadership, and the advocacy of democratic ideals. When the world looks to us for leadership on international sanctions, I am afraid that the administration and Congress have taken steps that increasingly have undermined our Government's reputation and influence abroad. The tendency--and it is particularly true with regard to Congress--to impose sweeping unilateral--that is, we do it alone-- economic sanctions against nations whose behavior we disapprove of, I believe, is detrimental to our national interest and certainly has not succeeded in producing the results that we seek. Let us look at several recent examples. We have heard much about the situation with respect to Pakistan, in which the threat of tough, mandatory U.S. sanctions did nothing to dissuade the Pakistanis from testing nuclear weapons. The 30-year embargo on Cuba, has done nothing to hasten the end of the Castro regime or ease the suffering of the Cuban people. And just this year, we passed legislation to impose sanctions on entities suspected of assisting Iran's missile program. Moreover, when our sanctions have been structured to punish countries who continue to deal with the rogue nation we are trying to isolate, the outcome has been even murkier. All that these secondary sanctions end up doing is generating bad feeling among our allies about ``American imperiousness,'' and precipitating complaints from our trading partners to the World Trade Organization. As a result, the world's attention turns away from the rogue nation in question, and instead focuses on the United States and its actions. Mr. President, if Congress continues this habit of imposing, on an ad hoc basis, unilateral sanctions against any nation because of a form of behavior we find objectionable, our influence in the world will be diminished. While sanctions laws may feel good and bolster our sense of righteous indignation, sanctions imposed under these laws far too often do nothing more than antagonize nations and their peoples, and get us into trouble with our trading partners. Moreover, sanctions mean that our influence on the region in question drops sharply. And less U.S. influence means that the values we hold dear--democratic government, market economics and respect for human rights--will not be promoted worldwide. There must be a better way. I am an original cosponsor of S. 1413, the original Lugar bill to make wide-ranging reforms of our laws on unilateral sanctions. The amendment before us today, which is based on that legislation, would establish procedural guidelines and informational requirements before any further unilateral sanctions are imposed. It also provides for enhanced consultation between the executive and legislative branches of government prior to the imposition of sanctions. Finally, it mandates a two-year sunset for such sanctions, unless Congress specifically chooses to renew them. This amendment does not preclude Congress or the President from taking action necessary to achieve vital national security and trade objectives. However, it does ensure that such measures first will be considered in a thoughtful and responsible manner, and that we at least will have some idea as to whether these policies may actually achieve their intended goals. Thus, I urge my colleagues to support the Lugar amendment. I do want to stress that I think it is a great mistake for us to embark on these unilateral sanctions as freely as we do. This amendment, I believe, is a good one. Furthermore, it says that if we do impose sanctions, that there is to be a sunset provision. That sunset provision goes into effect after 2 years, unless, of course, Congress chooses to renew the sanctions. This amendment does not preclude Congress or the United States from taking action necessary to achieve vital national security or trade objectives, but it does assure that such measures are, first, very carefully considered in a responsible manner and that we at least have some idea as to whether the policies may actually achieve their stated goal.