Thad Cochran

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, under the previous order, there is permitted the offering of a managers' amendment. Senator Bumpers and I have been working to identify requests from Senators for inclusion in this managers' amendment, and we have now prepared a managers' amendment and it includes the following four amendments: An amendment to be offered by myself and Senator Bumpers on behalf of Senators Daschle, Dorgan, Johnson, Conrad and Baucus, regarding the Livestock Indemnity Assistance Program; an amendment proposed by Senators Grams and Wellstone regarding the planting of wild rice; an amendment proposed by Senator Craig regarding inspection and certification of agricultural processing equipment; an amendment proposed by Senator DeWine on the Orphan Feeding Program in Haiti.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, as Chairman of the Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services, which has jurisdiction over postal matters, I must point out that the Feinstein amendment would require the U.S. Postal Service to issue a special postage stamp. Such a special stamp--generally referred to as a semipostal--would sell for 1 cent above the basic first-class letter rate, with most of the differential going to fund breast cancer research. Though this is a well-intentioned amendment, and breast cancer research is a highly worthwhile cause, the idea of using the Postal Service as a fund- raising tool is not a good one. The list of diseases that should be given added research funds is endless. Requiring the Postal Service to issue a semipostal stamp for breast cancer would place the Postal Service and Congress in the very difficult position of determining which worthy organizations or research programs should receive fundraising assistance from the Postal authorities and which should not. The concept of semipostals has been around for years. Some nations issue them, but most do not. The European experience with this kind of stamp has shown that they are rarely as beneficial to the designated organization as expected. Consider the example of Canada. In 1975, the Canadian Postal Corporation issued a series of semipostal stamps to provide supplementary revenue for the Canadian Olympic Committee. It was reported that while the program received exceptionally good promotional and advertising support, it fell short of its intended revenue objective. Demand for the semipostals throughout Canada was reportedly insubstantial. The program--viewed as a failure--concluded in 1976. More recently, the Canada Post issued a semipostal to support literacy. With a surcharge of 5 cents per stamp, it raised only $252,000. After raising only a modest amount of money, combined with a tremendous administrative expense, Canada Post says they will not issue another semipostal. There is a strong U.S. tradition of private fund-raising for charities. Such a stamp would effectively use the United States Postal Service as a fundraiser, a role it never has had. The Postal Service's job--and expertise--is mail delivery. Congress should be mindful that the postage stamp pays strictly for postal operations. It is not a fee for anything but delivering the mail and paying the cost of running the service. In fact, section 3622 of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 precludes charging rates in excess of those required to offset the Postal Service's costs of providing a particular service. In other words, the Postal Service does not have the authority to put a surcharge on a postage rate that is cost and overhead driven. There is simply no legitimate connection between the desire to raise money for a cause, and maintenance of the postal service's mission of providing universal service at a universal rate. This is an effort to bypass the legislative process with an amendment on an appropriation bill and even though the Feinstein amendment's goals are laudatory, it should be rejected.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I congratulate the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Water Subcommittee for his work in bringing this bill to the Senate. While I commend the chairman for his efforts, I have concerns about the trends in the funding levels that are being proposed for the Mississippi River and tributaries projects, particularly those in the Yazoo Basin of Mississippi. The President's budget proposed a 20-percent reduction from last year's level for Mississippi River and tributaries construction projects. The budget also proposed cutting projects in the Yazoo Basin by over 50 percent. As the committee has indicated in its report that accompanies this bill, this reduction, along with others in operations and maintenance and investigations, is unacceptable. Mr. President, Congress addresses flooding and other natural disasters as they occur around the country. The victims who have suffered damages derive benefits from supplemental disaster assistance legislation, as we saw just recently. This year, it was the Dakotas and other States. A few years ago, it was in the Midwest when the Missouri River flooded, and nearly every year, there is some degree of flooding in the Yazoo Basin in the State of Mississippi. The lower funding levels that are being proposed for projects to control flooding in the Yazoo Basin result in more delays, higher construction costs, and more damages occur year in and year out from floods in this region of the country. It will also result in increased spending on disaster assistance instead of funding long-term solutions to the flooding that occurs in this area. These delays will only increase the likelihood and the severity of flooding in the future and damages that result from those floods. Incremental funding for these and many other Federal construction projects is a reality of the current budget environment. But incremental funding results in cost increases over the life of a project that has been authorized and that has been partially funded in the past. It will cost $54 million as a result of even a ten-year funding cycle on the three main projects just in the Yazoo Basin alone--the Upper Yazoo project, the Upper Steele Bayou project, and the Big Sunflower River Maintenance project. That amounts to a 20 percent cost increase. Mr. President, I will continue to work with the committee and the subcommittee to identify the levels of funding necessary to maintain project schedules that are more realistic and more cost-effective in the future. I hope that we can reach agreement and convince the administration that it needs to recognize the inevitable consequences of these budget cuts that are, year-in and year-out, submitted to the Congress on these projects. My friend from New Mexico has done an excellent job, a masterful job in dealing with all of these pressures and cross-currents of interests that flow to this committee and are involved in the development of this legislation. And so I am proud of the work product that he has produced, and we support it. I am voting for it. We hope that by working together we can continue to identify ways to assure adequate funding levels for these projects that have been authorized for a long, long time. Read the book ``Rising Tide,'' which talks about the beginning of the effort to get the Federal Government's resources involved in the Mississippi River and tributaries project. It is on the best-seller list now and I invite everyone to read that book. There are projects which I have identified in this project definition that are still not completed, and that flood was in 1927. We continue to, incrementally, piecemeal, see these projects increasing in real costs because of the failure to address them in a more aggressive way. That is the point of my statement. People are beginning to wonder-- are these projects ever going to be finished? They have a right to raise the question. If they are not finished, the flooding that occurs every year is going to continue to be an annual disaster for the folks in this region.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, at the outset of the debate, I made a speech that lasted about 20 minutes. It is in the Record, so I am not going to make it again. I will try to make it in 25 seconds. We are limiting export controls in a very small area of lethal computer technology. Please vote against the Grams-Boxer weakening amendment and support the Cochran-Durbin-Thurmond-Glenn amendment.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee for his contribution to the understanding of this issue and for his cosponsorship personally of the amendment and his announcement that the distinguished Senator from Maine, Senator Collins, is now a cosponsor of the amendment. This indicates that we have a broad base of cosponsors for the Cochran amendment, which means, if you are for the Cochran amendment, you would vote against the Grams and Boxer substitute for the Cochran amendment, because their amendment undermines the effort to impose a change in the current policy to require simply that our Department of Commerce approve sales of computer technology and computers by U.S. firms to overseas customers that have a computing capability of between 2,000 MTOPS and 7,000 MTOPS, if they are certain kinds of countries called Tier 3 countries, to ensure that they are not military users or that the computers will not be put to a military use. The problem with the current policy is that the Department of Commerce is leaving it up to the U.S. exporters to make this determination now. Some have gotten into trouble because some, like Silicon Graphics in California, are now under a grand jury investigation because of sales made to questionable users in violation of the current policy. The question is whether they knew or should have known that the end use was going to be military or the end user was going to be military; whether they exercised that degree of diligence required by the current policy. Do we want to continue that kind of policy that puts at risk all of our computer companies when engaged in these international sales? I say no. It is time to put the onus, not on the computer company trying to make a sale abroad, but on the Department of Commerce, which has the responsibility of administering its own policies. But they are shifting their burden to the exporter, away from the Government, and this is causing difficulty. It has resulted in seven very sophisticated, high- end supercomputers being used now by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, an arm of which is involved in the modernization of the Chinese nuclear weapon program and capabilities. In Russia, the chairman of the equivalent to the Atomic Energy Commission there, boasted that they now have a supercomputer with a potential previously unknown, because of U.S. technology exports to Russia. That is the entity that modernizes and maintains the nuclear weapons of Russia. What we are unwittingly doing by carrying forward and going forward with this policy with no change, which is what the Grams amendment basically suggests, it says make a list, tell everybody who they should not sell to--you cannot do that. You cannot possibly make a list and put down all the fronts for the People's Liberation Army or others who might be involved in either developing new weapons of mass destruction or exporting the technology for these weapons: North Korea, Iran, other countries and nation-states that we know now are developing more and more sophisticated and lethal weapons of mass destruction capability, with delivery systems. We know that is going on. Here we are providing the technology to do simulations that they cannot do now without our technology. They cannot buy this. They cannot buy this from any other country except the United States. And we are leaving it up to U.S. exporters, saying our policy depends upon the good intentions and the capabilities of our U.S. civilian companies to determine these end uses and end users, who they are, what they are going to do with the technology, whether or not they are going to transship it to some other entity. There are facts on the record, as a result of hearings held in our subcommittee that has been looking at proliferation issues all year, that are overwhelming and completely persuasive on this point. This policy ought to be changed. The only way Congress can influence change is by adopting a change, by doing so in this amendment. We cannot issue a regulation. We cannot make an administrative policy change here in the Senate. We can ask them to do it. We have already done that and it has not resulted in the change that is necessary. It is simply if you were a suspicious end user, we want the Department of Commerce to certify that it is OK to make that sale. The Senator from California correctly discusses whether or not some of our closest allies are going to be adversely affected by this amendment. Israel has been purchasing computer technology under existing policy with licenses from the Department of Commerce. That is going to continue. That is not going to change. There is not going to be any slowdown in the process if someone is a trusted ally or friend. We don't even require licenses for our NATO allies. They are Tier 1 countries. But the Tier 3 countries--that includes China, Russia, and a lot of other countries--do have to have the approval of the Department of Commerce under our amendment if the computer capability is within a certain range. These are not PC's. The Senator from Missouri, and my dear friend, suggests that this is like the PC's on our desk, at our workstations in our offices. He is talking about the Pentium server, that is the network, the hardware for the entire network. I know he did not mean to misrepresent it, but you have to understand what he's talking about. He has acted like an attache walks into Radio Shack and buys one of these computers that has an MTOPS speed and capability that would be described in this amendment. That is not true. You cannot do that. First of all, an attache could not afford it. These are expensive. The fact is, we are talking about only 6.34 percent of the total supercomputer sales that would be affected by this amendment. Mr. President, 95 percent of all of the sales have been approved within 30 days that do require licenses. The Senator from Minnesota said it is over 100 days you had to wait to get approval. That is not borne out by the facts, by the testimony before our subcommittee by the people at the Department of Commerce. So I am hopeful that Senators will think carefully about what we are trying to do. I know the computer companies are putting a lot of pressure on, sending everybody messages and phone calls and the rest. I would not want to have to go through another process. But we are talking about only such a small part of the market, a small part of those manufactured workstations and other large pieces of hardware that have the potential to be used to upgrade lethal weapons systems and missile systems to make them more accurate, to make them more lethal, to make them competitive with the U.S. arsenal that is designed to protect us. And we are going to put at risk our own system of national defense? We can't do that. Mr. President, I urge Senators to vote against the Grams-Boxer amendment and then vote for the Cochran-Durbin amendment.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, does the distinguished Senator from South Carolina wish time on the amendment?

Mr. COCHRAN. How much time remains on both sides, Mr. President?

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, to refresh the memory of Senators about this amendment that is now the pending business, at an early stage in the consideration of this authorization bill I offered an amendment for myself and on behalf of the distinguished Senator from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] to modify the administration's existing policy relating to the export by U.S. companies of supercomputers in the global marketplace. The reason this amendment was considered important for the consideration of the Senate on this bill is that it, first of all, involves exporting technology that no other country in the world has. Unlike many of our arms sales, defense equipment or technology sales around the world, whether to friendly allies or those who may not be so friendly, computer technology has evolved here in the United States to the point that we have the corner on the market. No one can compete with us in many areas of supercomputer technology. The Japanese have developed an impressive capacity in this area as well. But one thing has come to our attention in the subcommittee that I chair on Governmental Affairs, the Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services. We have had a series of hearings that began the first month of this year. We have had at least one hearing every month. And we have explored one aspect of weapons proliferation. It was at a hearing that we had recently on the exporting of technology that we learned that the United States was a proliferator of weapons technology that was threatening the security of the United States, and putting at risk United States servicemen, servicewomen, other interests, and other assets and interests throughout the world, because we were giving countries like Russia and China and others the capacity to improve the lethality, the accuracy, and the capabilities of nuclear weapons systems through the exporting of technology that they were using to simulate tests, which they would not otherwise be able to do, and to upgrade the quality and accuracy of their missile delivery systems and weapons systems. This does not make good sense. Japan's export control policy is more restrictive than our policy. The President came into office after a campaign which involved a lot of discussion about changes in the world security situation. We all rejoiced in the past two administrations when so much progress was made in terms of reducing the threat to the security of the United States because of the changes going on in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The fact is, that we were able to relax somewhat when those weapons systems were no longer targeted at us. But the fact remains that there is a tremendous potential threat, not only in Russia but some of the other states of the former Soviet Union for the development at some future date of an attitude that may put our security relationship at greater risk than it is today. And so we do have an interest in refraining from doing those things ourselves that end up unwittingly or carelessly investing in others the capability to develop modern, more lethal, and more dangerous weapons systems that could threaten our security interests. One other aspect of this is that part of our hearings have been involving the sale of weapons systems by countries like Russia and China. We had a whole series of witnesses come before our committee talking about this as a problem now, selling missiles, for example, to Iran, selling nuclear weapons technology to countries like India and Pakistan and others. But we see emerging around the world a new capacity on the part of many of these countries that we do not trust at all to have those kinds of systems that can inflict great damage, destroy assets that we have, and people, troops that we have in the Middle East or in South Korea, sailors who are on ships around the world who are now vulnerable to cruise missiles in the Mediterranean that we never had to worry about before because of this proliferation of missiles and technologies and weapons systems. So that is the big issue here. So that is why we have suggested that the administration's new policy--when they came into office they said we are going to open up and take the controls off of our exports so we can take advantage of the new security situation around the world, let our businesses enjoy a more relaxed atmosphere. That is all fine. But what we have learned in the last 18 months of this new policy--it was put into place in October 1995--the new policy has resulted in supercomputers coming into the possession of the Chinese Academy of Sciences which has a component that is involved in the modernization of the Chinese nuclear weapons program and systems. They now have seven supercomputers that came from the United States that they are using, they potentially are using, to develop a more modern weapons capability in nuclear weapons. The Russian chief of atomic energy boasted recently that his operation, the group of people he has under his control in his laboratories--Chelyabinsk 20 and Arzamas 16--these are locations where they do work on nuclear weapons systems in Russia that they now have a supercomputer capability previously unknown, compliments of the United States. This is a sad state of affairs because of a policy that is much more relaxed now. And I want to describe the details of it. That is why we have these 90 minutes reserved here so Senators will understand how serious a threat this is and what it means in practical terms. We have seen the administration develop this new policy that identifies countries in categories. They call it a four-tier system. Tier 1 countries are our best friends, NATO Allies. There are no restrictions. Tier 2 are those countries where it is more lenient still. Tier 3 and Tier 4. Tier 4, there is a complete embargo on the exporting of computer technology of all capability. You cannot sell computers under our new system to these Tier 4 countries. They are Iran, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, a couple of others. Tier 3 are those countries where, depending upon the capability of the computer, there are restrictions. There are no restrictions for the PCs, the personal computers, no restrictions. But when you get up into these high-end computer systems there are restrictions, you have to get an export license from the Department of Commerce. And the way you decide whether you need a license or not is to decide if the end use of the computer is going to be for a military purpose or a civilian purpose or if the user is a military entity or a civilian entity. The problem with the administration's policy is the Commerce Department does not tell our exporters whether the end use or the user is military or civilian. They leave it up to our exporter to find that out for themselves. That is the problem. That is what this amendment is about. We are trying to change one part of this policy to require the Federal Government to approve the sale--in the case of these countries in Tier 3, China, Russia, and a number of others--where the potential for use of this technology for military purposes has become so apparent and real. Now, I am not suggesting that our computer companies are carelessly and negligently and wholesale selling these high-end computers, these advanced computers, without careful analysis of who their customers are. Some of them are making a very conscientious effort to ensure that. But what they cannot do and they do not have the capacity to decide, that in the reality of this new situation there are front companies being developed--in the case of China, for example, in Hong Kong and maybe other places, as well, and I cannot discuss all of this because some of it is classified--but there are companies that have been established, whether by governments or government-related industries, who are able now to purchase U.S. computers because they are a civilian company, and then turn around and sell it to a company that is affiliated with one of these governments. That is what has happened, apparently. So do we want to continue to leave to the capabilities of a computer exporter the responsibility of making these determinations, by understanding what is a front company and what is not? They do not have the resource to do that. Our intelligence community, however, and the resources of our Federal Government are much more nearly able to make this kind of determination. Under Secretary Reinsch at Commerce talked about this policy at hearings in our committee, and you could tell that Commerce realized that changes had to be made in the way they were monitoring and supervising and implementing this new policy. After our hearing, they started making changes. They started putting out a list, for example, of entities around the world that they think are suspicious enough or they have evidence enough so they can say you cannot tell this entity or that entity in these Tier 3 countries because we know that puts at risk the potential use of this technology for nuclear weapons purpose or other weapons of mass destruction purpose. So they are making some changes. The fact is they left a lot of things off the list, they left a lot of entities off the list that we know in the past have purchased or wound up having these technologies. So it creates a situation where a change needs to be made right now. This is the change that we think is best. We are pleased to have the cosponsorship on this amendment of distinguished leaders in the area of proliferation here in the Senate. Senator Thurmond, who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, supports our amendment. Senator Warner supports our amendment. Senator Glenn, who has previously served as chairman of this proliferation subcommittee and chairman of the full Committee on Governmental Affairs, and been a leader in this effort his entire career in the Senate, and he announced yesterday--and put a statement in the Record, which we invite Senators to look at--that he is supporting this amendment. Senator Durbin of Illinois was in the hearing and has taken an active role in trying to understand and deal with this emerging problem. It has emerged full-blown into one of the most serious threats to our Nation's security, and it has been done because of the way this policy has played out and the way the problem has increased. So we think that Senators ought to look carefully at this. Let me just say this chart tries to explain how a small area of the computer industry and the hardware that are involved are affected by this amendment. The diagonal lines here that say Chelyabinsk-70 and Arzamas-16 are nuclear weapon labs in the Soviet Union, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences that we know wound up with United States computers that can be used now throughout China for the purpose of developing new modern weapons of mass destruction. This represents numbers of total computers, 6.34 percent of the total U.S. computer export markets affected, and targeted only those computers going to those Tier 3 countries with lethality or capability of 2,000 MTOPS to 7,000 MTOPS. These are millions of theoretical operations per second. That is how you measure the capability or speed of computation of computers. That is the way the Commerce Department has broken this down and divided up these up so that they reflect the capabilities of these computers. A PC has a capability of 250 MTOPS. We are talking about advanced computers, very expensive, and, of course, the computer industry is competing with each other to make these sales. This is another point: If you were running a big computer company-- IBM, Cray computer, whatever the names are--you do not want to have to go to the Secretary of Commerce and tell them you are thinking about making a sale or you have a customer on your screen that you think you can sell a big, heavy-duty, new, modern, expensive computer to, you do not want to tell anybody about it. If you are a salesman, you do not want that word out on the street. You do not want somebody at Commerce looking into it and asking a bunch of questions of you. You would like to go in and make the sale. If the customer is ready to buy your computer, you want to go in, sign the deal, and make the sale. Of course, you have a responsibility under the new policy to satisfy yourself about who the end user is, what the end-use purpose is, and so you hurry to get that done. No matter how conscientious you are, you might not do as good a job with that, particularly if you have a competitor who is trying to make the same sale. So we are in a situation where the competition of the U.S. market and economic system is working against our interests in protecting our national security and maybe taking a little bit more time and understanding what the potential is for this sale in terms of coming back at us in a new, advanced missile that has capabilities never before possible because of U.S. computer manufacturers selling in these markets to the countries that have the money to buy them. You are talking about the big countries. I am particularly concerned about Russia and China, specifically. We are developing, we hope, better relationships with both countries. We are working to improve our relationships around the world, make this a more stable, safer, peaceful world. That effort has to continue. What we are doing today, in calling it to the attention of the Senate today, is not at all designed to sour or make that process more difficult, but we have to recognize that this is still a dangerous relationship in many respects. These are the countries that have the greatest capability in the world today, and past attitudes among some in those countries that do not have our interests at heart, do not have our security uppermost in their mind, who may be capable of diverting some of these technologies for uses such as the development of new generations of weapons of mass destruction which not only they but some of their friends end up with in the due course of business. I have gotten calls and we have had visits from some in the computer industry saying this amendment is not necessary; it is not necessary to put this in the law. Why don't we just change the policy? Well, we can't change the policy. We are the Congress. The executive branch makes policies. They issue regulations. One of the Senators asked me in a formal colloquy yesterday why we needed to put this in a bill. Well, it is the only way that Congress has available to it to participate in the policymaking process in helping to do our part to ensure that our Nation's security is protected. We cannot issue a regulation, we cannot modify a policy other than doing it the way we are doing it right now. Now, the Senator from Minnesota, who is my good friend, has an alternative. He wants to do things other than change the policy. He wants to ask GAO to investigate it. We are already having GAO investigate this and gather more information. We are continuing to discuss with GAO other areas where we might get information that will be more helpful to the Congress in understanding what our options are. He suggests that Commerce ought to publish a list of prohibited purchasers. That list is good for as long as the ink is drying, but no further. What if a change occurs and they have not gotten a new list out with modifications, and you see nobody is on the list with the name of a company that you have been contacted by and you make the sale or you try to make the sale, and you decide this is a civilian company. There was nobody in uniform who came to see you, so your assumption is that it is a civilian. Well, the names change, these identities change, the purposes of companies change, the contacts and relationships of companies, particularly in this part of the world we are talking about, can change. So you are going to invite them to start changing things. If they see they are on the list, they will probably dissolve their corporation if their purpose was to be a front for the People's Liberation Army, and some of these companies are. How is an innocent U.S. exporter to know? You cannot have all these agents and assets to detect this kind of thing on the payroll of the company. But the U.S. Government has resources, and they have a better opportunity to make these determinations. What we are simply saying is--not as the Senator from Minnesota wants us to do, which is nothing. His amendment just absolutely guts the effort to change the policy. It says there will be no change in policy as we are suggesting here. There will be no change. We will leave it up to the Commerce Department to improve its policy by making a list, and we will ask the GAO to look into this more. That is not good enough. I am hoping the Senate will vote down the Grams amendment and support the Cochran-Durbin amendment. The cosponsors, I hope Senators will consider, who are on this bill right now, and I do not have a last count, but we are well into the double digits. Around 20 Senators have cosponsored this amendment. It is a strong statement of support for change that is needed now to protect our Nation's security. If we fool around and argue about this and are mealymouthed and don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or scare any of the computer companies, they don't want to get Congress to agree on any sale and they want to use their best efforts--I am not suggesting they don't, but they don't have the capacity, they don't have the expertise, they don't have the reach, the broad reach of the U.S. Government and its intelligence community to make these determinations. So for these few computers with MTOPS between 2,000 and 7,000, for these few countries in tier 3, we are suggesting that any sale has to be first approved by the Commerce Department to ensure that the end use is civilian and that the end user is civilian and not military. That is all this is. Every other computer sale and administration policy can continue without any new restraint whatever. I am hopeful the Senate will review this situation carefully, Mr. President. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. COCHRAN. Who controls time under the order?

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, this morning the Senate will resume consideration of S. 936, the defense authorization bill, and begin 90 minutes of debate on the Grams second-degree amendment to the Cochran amendment regarding supercomputer export controls. At approximately 11 a.m. the Senate will vote on or in relation to the Grams amendment, to be followed by a vote on or in relation to the Cochran amendment. Following that, the Senate will continue consideration of amendments to the defense authorization bill with rollcall votes occurring throughout the day. As the majority leader announced last night, the scheduled cloture vote will be postponed temporarily today, and an assessment will be made later today of the progress being made on the defense bill. With the cooperation of all Members, that cloture vote may not be necessary if good progress is made on the bill. It is the intention of the majority leader that action on the defense authorization bill be completed this week. Senators should anticipate a busy session today that will extend into the evening. Work is anticipated as well on Friday, if necessary, to finish this important legislation. That announcement is made by me at the request of the majority leader for the information of all Senators. Mr. President, as contained in this announcement, there is now 90 minutes that is available on the Grams amendment. If the Chair wants to make the announcement, I will yield the floor temporarily for that.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, Japan has a more restrictive export control policy than does the United States. I support making the Department of Commerce export licensing process more efficient, though a more efficient process cannot come at the expense of national security concerns, which must be adequately addressed in the process. I would note, as well, that more than 95 percent of export licenses considered by Commerce are currently approved in 30 days or less. Amendment No. 669

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, this amendment will not in any way reduce the number of American high-performance computers going to Tier 3 countries. It does not change the administration's standards for making the exports; all that is changed is the question of who makes end-use and end-user determinations for Tier 3 countries. In fact, at least eight high-performance computers have been exported to Tier 3 countries with an individual validated license since this policy started. Only entities that shouldn't be receiving these supercomputers in the first place won't, because of closer scrutiny by the executive branch, receive them under this amendment. So, the suggestion by some manufacturers that this amendment would somehow reduce their market share is an argument that has no basis in fact.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, the current policy is established in regulation, and regulation has the force and effect of law. For Congress to participate in the policymaking process it must pass legislation. Furthermore, the pace of technological advancement is such that, at some point in the future, it is entirely possible that the 2,000 MTOPS level--which is the administration's current floor--will have to be raised. That is why, on July 7 on the Senate floor, I said that if, 4 or 5 years from now, industry's optimism proves to be correct, I will be pleased to return to the floor and offer legislation adjusting the 2,000 MTOPS level.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, according to the Department of Commerce, from the period January 25, 1997, through March 1997, 1,436 supercomputers were exported from the United States. Of that number, 91--or 6.34 percent--went to Tier 3 countries, some of which went with an individual validated license. We know, based upon statements by Russian and Chinese Government officials, that some of these supercomputers are in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a military facility in Chungsha, China, and in Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70. Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70 are both well-known nuclear weapons development facilities in Russia; the suggestion by exporters that these high performance computers would be in either of these locations and not be doing nuclear-related work appears to be somewhat self- serving and contrary to common sense. According to Russia's Minister of Atomic Energy, these supercomputers are '`10 times faster than any previously available in Russia.'' The Chinese Academy of Sciences, which has worked on everything from the D-5 ICBM to enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, hasn't been shy about its new supercomputing capabilities, saying that its American supercomputer provides the Academy with ``computational power previously unknown'' available to ``all the major scientific and technological institutes across China.'' American high performance computers are now available to help these countries improve their nuclear weapons and improve that which they are proliferating.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, based upon statements made by Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration William Reinsch, it is highly unlikely that personal computers capable of more than 2,000 MTOPS will be available by next year. At a recent hearing Secretary Reinsch said, ``high-end Pentium-based personal computers sold today at retail outlets perform at about 200 to 250 MTOPS,'' and at another hearing, this one before my subcommittee on June 11, he also said that ``computer power doubles every 18 months, and this has been the axiom in the industry for I think about 15 years.'' The math is straightforward; if top-end PC's are capable of 250 MTOPS today, 18 months from now they'll be capable of 1,000 MTOPS; and 54 months from now--in 4\1/2\ years--they'll be capable of 2,000 MTOPS. Fifty-four months from now is not, contrary to the claims of some computer manufacturers, the fourth quarter of next year.

Mr COCHRAN

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

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent there now be a period for morning business during which Senators may speak for up to 5 minutes each, lasting until the hour of 3 p.m.

Mr. COCHRAN

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

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN. Would there be any way to modify the amendment to make it germane in a postcloture situation?

Mr. COCHRAN. If the Senator will yield in response to that response by the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that there be printed in the Record a chart on exports of high-performance computers; and an unclassified report from the Director of Central Intelligence, as mentioned in my earlier remarks; and an editorial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggesting that the administration should not wait, that it must act now on this issue.