William Cohen

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. I object, because none of us will get to speak.

Mr. COHEN. Madam President, let me thank my friend from Delaware, and especially in view of the fact that I expect that he will engage in a very passionate recitation which may start out to be 15 minutes but I suspect will extend long beyond that time. I say that having been the beneficiary of many of his speeches here in the Senate and in many cases having been enlightened as a result of his taking the floor. Madam President, let me just respond to some of the comments offered by my colleague from Georgia who has not offered yet but has outlined an amendment that I believe goes a long way toward addressing the concerns of the administration and many of our colleagues in the Senate over the implications of a unilateral lifting of the arms embargo in Bosnia. The administration has made the point, I believe, to the Democratic caucus, to the Republican conference, that if we lift the embargo unilaterally, the United States is then going to be endangering the viability and the continuing force of U.N. sanctions on Iraq and Libya. So to deal with this concern, Senator Nunn is proposing--or will propose--an amendment that directs the President to seek a vote in the U.N. Security Council on lifting the embargo as the President has said he would do and as the Senate urged him to do last August in the Nunn- Mitchell amendment. I might point out that Senator Nunn was on the floor last year in August asking the President to go to the United Nations to seek a resolution on this. And, of course, the President went but did not seek a vote in order to lift the embargo. Senator Nunn's amendment aims to achieve a multilateral action. The amendment does not in any way, as he said, impact upon the provisions of Dole-Lieberman. It simply strives to give the greatest possible international support of U.S. policy. Here is my concern. If the Nunn amendment is accepted and becomes part of the bill, once UNPROFOR decides or is asked to leave, the President would then go to the United Nations and seek a multilateral lifting of the embargo. Then, obviously, that resolution could be vetoed by one of the members of the Security Council. I think it is reasonable to expect that. I think it is inevitable it would occur. At that point, as I understand the legislation, the President would be required to automatically lift the embargo unilaterally as soon as UNPROFOR's withdrawal from Bosnia is complete. Once he has made the effort under the Nunn approach to go to the U.N., and it fails, because either they fail to take action in the U.N. Security Council or a permanent member vetoes it, then under the Dole-Lieberman bill the President will be required to lift the embargo unilaterally. It raises an issue that we have to contend with. If the Security Council undertakes consideration of the measure and a permanent member of the Security Council vetoes it or prevents it from coming to a vote, then under terms of this legislation, automatically the President will be forced to lift the embargo. Does that not flout the U.N. Security Council? That is one way of interpreting it. What I suggest as a possible option--and it is something that we ought to consider during the course of this evening, and if the matter carries over until tomorrow, we can consider it at that time as well-- is to consider requiring under that scenario that the matter be taken directly to the General Assembly. Under existing procedures, the United Nations does have a way to bring this matter before the General Assembly. The ``Uniting for Peace'' resolution was created at the initiative of the Truman administration during the Korean war. It has been a part of U.N. practice and procedures since 1950, and basically it works as follows. If the Security Council is unable to act on an issue affecting international peace and security because of disagreement among the permanent members of the Council, consideration of the issue can be moved to the General Assembly. This is done through a procedural resolution in the Council, which is not subject to a veto. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who was the father of the ``Uniting for Peace'' idea, said at the time of its adoption, ``The General Assembly can and should organize itself to discharge its responsibility promptly and decisively if the Security Council is prevented from acting.'' The 1950 resolution, itself, states that ``the failure of the Security Council to discharge its responsibilities on behalf of all the Member States--does not relieve the Member States of their obligations or the United Nations of its responsibilities under the Charter to maintain international peace and security--(S)uch failure does not deprive the General Assembly of its rights or relive it of its responsibilities under the Charter in regard to the maintenance of international peace and security--.'' In the event of a failure by the Security Council to counter a threat to international peace and security, the resolution states that ``the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately--.'' The General Assembly's powers in such circumstances are far-reaching. The resolution for example, states that the Assembly can call on Member States to take ``collective measures including, in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression, the use of armed forces when necessary.'' It has been pointed out during the debate that in each of the last two years, the General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly and without dissent to lift the embargo. This has been to no avail, however, because the Security Council has primary authority on questions of international peace and security. But once the Council has failed to act because of a conflict among the permanent members and the Uniting for Peace process is invoked, authority shifts to the General Assembly to take the matter up. I suggest that this is one option we may want to consider. I realize it may pose some difficulties for Members; namely, if we take the matter to the General Assembly and the General Assembly overwhelmingly--as it has done on two prior occasions--votes to lift the embargo, are we not setting a precedent that other efforts will be made to invoke the General Assembly's authority on measures that we might not like to see go forward? That is an issue we have to contend with. I might point out that use of this procedure is, in fact, not unprecedented. This procedure has been used at least eight times. It was used by the United States in 1950 to respond to a Soviet veto of a resolution regarding North Korea's aggression. Subsequently, the ``United for Peace'' mechanism was invoked to support international action in the Suez crisis; also in response to the invasion of Hungary back in 1956; the Lebanon crisis of 1958; [[Page S 10637]] the crisis in the Congo in 1960; and the question of Bangladesh in 1971. It was used again after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. A resolution was introduced to condemn the Soviet Union for that invasion, but a veto was cast by the Soviet Union and the matter was taken to the General Assembly. So in the event that the Nunn amendment does not include my provision or in the event that the Nunn amendment is not tabled, then it would be in order to take up the second-degree amendment that I would like to offer. s Let me just give you a few reasons why I think we should give this second-degree amendment serious consideration. First, it would serve as a means to enable the members of the U.N. to exercise their right and obligation under the U.N. charter to maintain international peace and security even if the Security Council fails to act. Second, it would allow the United States to act in conjunction with the more than 100 U.N. members states who have voted during the last 2 years for the General Assembly resolutions urging the lifting of the embargo. Third, it would recognize the importance of multilateral action in this critical area. As such, I believe it meets the objections the administration and a number of our colleagues have raised during the course of this debate regarding the damage that a unilateral lifting of the embargo would cause to the credibility and integrity of the United Nations system. We would be going to the General Assembly where, with overwhelming support, lifting the arms embargo would be undertaken as a U.N. action. It would not be a unilateral lifting, as would result under the Dole-Lieberman bill, even if it is amended by Senator Nunn. And fourth, let me suggest that it perhaps reduces the likelihood of a veto in the Security Council because all the permanent members would be on notice that the United States is going to seek to refer the matter to the General Assembly. For each of these reasons, I would respectfully ask my colleagues to consider it this evening. I think it adds to the Nunn resolution. It does pose the issue of whether or not we want to see this procedure invoked when it may be adverse to our interests. That is something with which we have to deal. My basic question would be whether or not we want to be in a position to obtain multilateral action in lifting the embargo, when we know that one or more permanent members might veto or will exercise a veto in the Security Council. If a veto is to be exercised, then going to the Security Council is really a futile act. And second, the bill would require the President automatically to then go and unilaterally lift the embargo. With my second-degree amendment, the matter would be brought to the General Assembly to take action on a multilateral basis. I believe that would be preferable to taking unilateral action ignoring the U.N. Security Council. So I thank my colleagues for their deference, especially the Senator from Delaware for his consideration. This is only a proposal. I would ask my colleagues to consider it during the course of the debate. I may not offer it. But I have talked to Senator Nunn about it, and we share, I think, mutual concerns about the procedure we are now invoking in going to the United Nations. But I think it is a worthwhile endeavor on our part to give it serious consideration. I now yield the floor. Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I would like to offer a few comments this morning in support of the legislation dealing with lobby disclosure and gifts for Members of Congress. I think it is clear that the level of cynicism and disillusionment of the American people about the performance of Government and the integrity of public officials has reached rather historic heights. I think what helps fuel that sense of outrage is the public sense that the system is not serving the public good but instead is being manipulated by so-called special interests that serve their own ends. I would like to take a few moments to talk about the special interests and this anti-Government feeling that is so pervasive throughout the country. It seems to me that the word ``politician'' over the years has always been taken in a negative fashion. We hear radio commentators, for example, talk about ``the politicians.'' It is not said in a complimentary sense but rather a negative one. I have always preferred to use the phrase ``public official'' or ``public servant,'' because I think that is basically what we are sent here to be, and that is to serve the public's interest. Again, the word ``politician'' has that negative connotation or spin, and I suspect the words ``lobbyist'' and ``special interest'' fall in the same category. Everyone who serves in the House and Senate understands that we are not specialists. We are great generalists. Perhaps in our past lives as private citizens, we had some degree of specialty. Mine was as a trial attorney. I tended to specialize in certain fields within that practice of trial work. Coming to Congress, I no longer was able to specialize by virtue of the fact that I had to have a much broader view of things. I had to try to make myself as knowledgeable as possible in a great variety of areas. So I became, like most of us here, a generalist. Of course, we are all familiar with the expression that a generalist is someone who reads less and less about more and more until he knows absolutely nothing about everything. I do not think we all fall in that category but, nonetheless, we often have to float along the top of issues by virtue of the very volume of issues we are required to confront. So when we hire people to work for us, our staff members, we try to hire the best and brightest to make sure that they are well informed on the issues that we are going to confront during the course of a legislative session. Lobbyists also play a very important role in our system. They are not to be derided or denigrated or criticized or condemned. They, in fact, are hired as experts to represent the people who, indeed, have special interests that come before the Congress. The notion somehow that special interests are antidemocratic could not be more wrong. Indeed, our Founding Fathers determined that our country was comprised of special interests. Virtually everybody in the country has a special interest. If you are talking about farmers who want subsidies or other Government programs to assist them in the production of their products, they are clearly a special interest. If you talk about homeowners who wish to have a tax deduction for interest payments on their mortgage, that clearly is a special interest. It is a policy we have adopted to encourage people to become homeowners but, again, it is a special interest. We have business men and women who would like to have accelerated depreciation schedules so that they can continue to modernize their businesses. That is a special interest. You can go to any facet of our society, and virtually everyone has a special interest in Government policies. Perhaps one of the clearest examples of this came about many years ago when I was flying on Delta Air Lines from Bangor to Washington. As I boarded the plane, a flight attendant stopped me, and she said, ``Are you bothered by all of those lobbyists down in Washington every day?'' I could see by her facial expression that she, in using the term ``lobbyist,'' saw them as some sort of evil affliction upon our system. I said, ``Frankly, I am never bothered by a lobbyist in Washington.'' The only people who lobby me intensely are flight attendants who insist that I preserve their tax-free travel status. There was a measure under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee some years ago to tax so-called fringe benefits. Many flight attendants, instead of receiving direct compensation, get free travel benefits for themselves and their spouses. Congress was considering taxing those benefits as income. So every time I got on the plane, guess what happened? I was lobbied by the flight attendants, saying, ``Please do not touch our tax-free travel benefits.'' A point I was trying to make to the flight attendant was that she, in fact, was a lobbyist. She was lobbying me, as were her colleagues, on each and every occasion I got on a plane. It was another case of lobbying on behalf of a particular special interest. So we have this notion that somehow lobbyists are an evil upon the system--that is wrong--and that special interests are somehow also something to be condemned, when, in fact, they are an inherent part of our system. People organize along the lines of their special interests. We can see many people here in the galleries today, visitors to Washington. They may be on school vacations or family vacations. They come to the Senate and to the House to sit in the galleries to look upon the system at work. For the most part, they cannot take the time out of their daily lives--and they probably cannot afford it--to be lobbying Members of Congress on a regular basis. But they may have a very special interest. They may have a very special interest in legislation that will have a major impact upon their businesses, upon their professions, upon their lives. And so what many are forced to do, by circumstances, is to hire an expert, hire a trade association, or hire a law firm that has developed expertise over the years to better articulate their viewpoints and to bring their views to the attention of the legislators who are elected to represent them. That is all part of our system. That is exactly what the democratic system is all about. The difficulty, of course, comes when there is a misperception that it is the special interests who hire the lobbyists who are gaining access and unfair advantage over the general commonweal, the general public good. That is where the cynicism starts to set in when there is a perception that just a few key people are being paid very high dollars in order to shape and influence and alter public policy in ways that are very damaging to the overall good of the country. That, Mr. President, is why we are here today to talk about lobbying disclosure, because the current system is simply a sham. It does not work. The laws are confusing, vague, overlapping, and duplicative. They require some to register--not many. Those who do register file information which is virtually meaningless. And so the cynicism starts to set in once again. We can recall that during the last Presidential campaign, when Ross Perot started to call the attention of the American people to those high-priced lobbyists and special interests in Washington controlling the destiny of the American people, he struck a cord, a deep cord of public approval. What we need to do is to reform the system in a way that provides uniformity, that provides simplicity, and that provides clarity. Those are the goals that Senator Levin and I have been striving to achieve for several years now. Frankly, we found during the course of the hearings on this legislation that there was not great disagreement from the lobbying community itself. They were, in fact, eager to have some piece of legislation, comprehensive in nature, that would lay out with clarity exactly what are their responsibilities. So we tried to address the issue of who is required to register? Who is being paid to lobby? How much is that person or organization or firm or association being paid to lobby? And to lobby on what? So basically, who is being paid how much to lobby on what? Those were the essential ingredients of the legislation we have proposed in past sessions. Regrettably, there was a good deal of misunderstanding in the final days of the last session that delayed action on the bill. I believe this is an issue that cannot continue to be delayed without contributing to this deep sense of cynicism that continues to exist among the American people. It is my hope that as we discuss this today, and focus, also, on the issue of gifts, we can reach agreement. I might say that few of us believe that any Member of this body or the other body is going to be corrupted by a steak dinner or a pocketknife or some other token that comes through a Member's office during the course of a year. Nonetheless, it is an issue that we have to address. I think Senator McCain struck precisely the right note when he said we should not be arguing whether the gift limit should be $20, $50, or $100. The issue is whether there should be any at all. Should we try to remove the seeds of discontent, even though we feel that it has been perhaps mischaracterized, that it is a false perception? Nonetheless, it is a deeply held perception, so we ought to remove it. Mr. President, Senator Levin and I have proposed an amendment to the lobby disclosure bill which is designed to meet the objections of our colleagues. We think that it fairly does that. First, as Senator Levin already indicated, the grassroots lobbying provisions that were included in last year's conference report that caused such controversy are no longer included in this bill. They are excluded. The pending amendment would go even further to the extent there is any uncertainty on this point. It provides additional clarification that the bill does not apply to grassroots lobbying or other communications made by volunteers to express their own views. The amendment also doubles the thresholds when individuals or organizations are required to register as lobbyists. It eliminates the provisions that would establish a new agency to administer and enforce the law. It maintains the current system of having reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House. I understand the concern on the part of our colleagues, who say, ``Here they go again, another new layer of bureaucracy. Here is a brand new agency that is going to be created with all the attendant levels of bureaucratic delay and redundancy.'' I think there was a measure of merit to the concern. Our problem was that we did not know where to put the repository for the reports. We have agreed, however, that we do not want to complicate this matter and create another bureaucratic layer of duplication for the people who have to file. So we have agreed to eliminate that provision. Finally, the amendment would strike the enforcement provisions and, instead, provide the Secretary or the Clerk to notify lobbyists who may be in violation, and refer possible violations to the appropriate U.S. attorney if no corrective action is taken. We have tried to accommodate our colleagues' concern that this is somehow going to turn into a witch hunt of lobbyists who might have made innocent mistakes. That is not our intent at all. I have tried to indicate by my own comments that I believe lobbyists provide a valuable contribution to the legislative process. We, frankly, cannot function effectively without having lobbyists who represent ``special interests,'' who are in fact the American people. We need their expertise to be brought to our staffs and to us, and to weigh their views. That really is what we are elected to do--to weigh the relative merits of the case made by those advocates who are hired by the American people to come to us to urge a particular position. As long as a system is open to everybody, the American people will benefit. The danger is when there is a perception that only a few big lobbyists are getting through, only a few big special interests are getting through, only the ones who can afford to hire the high-priced individual can get through. That is where the cynicism comes in, and that is what we have to do our level best to seek to eradicate. We want to make sure that the public is fully aware of who is being hired, by whom, how much they are being paid, and to do what. As long as there is full disclosure of those activities, then at least there is hope that we can reduce that level of distrust, that level of alienation, that level of cynicism. Mr. President, I hope as we move through the afternoon's debate that we can arrive at an understanding or accommodation. We have tried to take into account our colleagues' concerns. We believe that we have moved substantially in that direction, to remove any doubts about what the goal ought to be. I think the goal is shared by all--simplification, uniformity, and clarity. Those are the goals that Senator Levin and I seek to achieve, and I believe with a measure of good will demonstrated throughout the day we can arrive at a consensus where there will be virtually unanimous consent for the legislation that will emerge. I yield the floor.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I am introducing legislation today to clarify an interpretation of a section in the Internal Revenue Code that imposes a $3 departure tax on ship passengers aboard vessels that travel outside the U.S. The provision was intended to apply to passengers on cruise ships and gambling voyages. The language of the statute reaches further, however, and the International Revenue Service has been interpreting the law to apply to a broader class of passenger ship traffic, including ferry services that operate between the United States and Canada. Section 4471 of the Internal Revenue Code was added to the Internal Revenue Code in the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1989. The provision originated in the Senate Commerce Committee as a means of that Committee fulfilling its reconciliation instructions. The tax writing committees assumed jurisdiction once it became clear that the provision was more in the nature of a tax than a fee. The fee, as envisioned by the Commerce Committee, was intended to apply to overnight passenger cruises that do not travel between two U.S. ports, and to gambling boats providing gambling entertainment to passengers outside the territorial waters of the U.S. Unfortunately, the statutory language of the 1989 Act was not drafted in accordance with the intent of Congress. As a result, the tax appears to apply to commercial ferry operations traveling between the United States and Canada. Two such ferries operate between Maine and Nova Scotia. The Maine ferries carry commercial and passenger vehicles to Nova Scotia in the warmer months as a more direct means of transportation between Maine and eastern Canada. As such they are an extension of the highway system, carrying commercial traffic and vacationers. The lengths of the voyages are approximately 11 hours and almost all passengers traveling on the outbound voyages do not return on the inbound voyages of the two ferries. Because the trips are of some length, the ferries provide entertainment for the passengers, including some gaming tables that bring in minimal income. This is not a voyage for the purpose of gambling and the great majority of the passengers, including children, do not gamble. Clearly, these ferries are not the kind of overnight passenger cruises or gambling boats intended to be covered by the law. However, the IRS has been interpreting the statute to apply this tax to ferries. The statute establishes a dual test for determining if the tax applies. First, the tax applies to voyages of passenger vessels which extend over more than one night. As a factual matter, the Maine ferries do not travel over more than one night but the IRS interprets that they do because it takes into account both the outward and inward voyage of the vessel. The IRS considers both portions of the trip to be one voyage even though virtually no passengers are the same. Second, the tax applies to commercial vessels transporting passengers engaged in gambling. Although the intent was to apply the tax to gambling boats, the wording of the statute applies to all passengers on vessels that carry any passengers who engage in gambling, no matter how minor that gambling. That interpretation subjects the Maine ferries to the tax because they earn a minimal amount of income from providing gambling entertainment to some passengers. The legislation I am introducing clarifies the statute by exempting ferries which are defined as vessels where no more than half of the passengers typically return to the port where the voyage began. This legislation is not intended to give a special break to a certain class of passenger ships. It is instead intended to clarify the statute so that it achieves its original intent: To tax passengers on cruise ships and gambling voyages, not passengers on ferry boats. The imposition of the tax to ferries is particularly unfair. First, because Congress did not intend to tax such ferries. Second, because the burden of the tax relative to the price of the ticket, is greater on ferries. Their ticket prices are much lower than tickets for cruise ships so the tax is considerably more burdensome for ferry operations and interferes to a greater extent with their operations. Similar legislation addressing this issue has been approved by the Finance Committee in the past but the underlying bills were not enacted into law. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the introduced legislation be included in the Record.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, let me take just a moment to thank my colleague from Michigan and also my colleague from Kentucky. I think the substitute language they have agreed to will make an improvement on the underlying amendment we offered to the legislation earlier today. For simplicity's sake, we might call it the Levin-McCohen bill. That would perhaps clarify the fact that Levin-McConnell is amending the Levin-Cohen amendment and perhaps eliminate some of the confusion surrounding that. The changes which have been agreed upon I think do improve the amendment in the sense that it makes it clearer; that it also will achieve what I believe to be an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote for the measure. It has been a long time in the making. I take this opportunity to thank Senator Levin for his steadfastness in pursuing lobby disclosure reform over the years we have worked together. I yield the floor.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I reintroduce legislation to help the Department of Housing and Urban Development deal with the fraudulent practice of equity skimming. As the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight, I have investigated a disturbing number of instances of fraud. Over the past 2 years, I have been looking at the Department of Housing and Urban Development's [HUD] subsidy and mortgage insurance programs. This investigation has focused on an outrageous practice know as equity skimming. Equity skimming is the term used to describe a particular type of housing fraud. It occurs when an owner of a HUD-insured project takes money intended to be used to pay the mortgage and provide maintenance and upkeep of the project and diverts it for his or her own use. This diversion of funds often causes the owner to default on their mortgage, forcing HUD--which guaranteed the loans--to pay the private lender the balance of the mortgage. At this point, HUD assumes the mortgage and the owner is required to make mortgage payments to HUD. Regrettably, however, the owner often continues to divert funds for personal use rather than meet mortgage and other expenses. As a result, these projects often fall into disrepair, forcing the tenants to endure intolerable living conditions. The term ``equity skimming'' is somewhat of a misnomer in that the actual equity that the owner invests in the project is relatively small compared to the amount skimmed by the owner. The HUD IG estimates that equity skimming has cost taxpayers approximately $6 billion to date. HUD has approximately 20,000 total projects in its insured mortgage portfolio, totaling over $40 billion. HUD holds another $10 billion in mortgages already in default. An additional $10 billion worth of HUD-insured mortgages are estimated to be at risk of default and in fiscal year 1993 alone HUD paid $965 million in multifamily housing mortgage insurance claims to private lenders. HUD's IG believes that a significant amount of the defaults are a result of equity skimming. The tragedy of this fraud goes beyond the waste of taxpayer dollars. As a result of equity skimming, tenants have been forced to live in horrible conditions because needed repairs go unattended to. At the same time, the owners of these projects live the high life while HUD is stuck with the cost of insuring the mortgage and rehabilitating the deteriorated project. Let me give a couple of examples of how this shoddy practice has worked. In upstate New York, partners in a nursing home claimed to be broke and failed to make payments on a $5.1 million HUD-insured mortgage. While they were defaulting on the mortgage and sticking the taxpayers with the bill, the partners used various guises to divert some $500,000 to personal use and paid themselves another $1.7 million in fees for unverified services. While these partners were lining their own pockets, nursing home residents were going without appropriate care. Another case of equity skimming involved a company in Texas, which managed approximately 86 HUD insured and/or subsidized multifamily projects. Results of a HUD IG audit revealed that $19.6 million of the expenses were either ineligible or questionable because of insufficient support or evidence; The management company inadequately documented $1.2 million in maintenance expenses and lacked documentation for some $5.6 million in contracting expenses. The management company also diverted $500,000 in project funds. The projects deteriorated at the expense of HUD, the taxpayers and the tenants who lived in seriously substandard housing. Due to the management company's lack of cooperation with HUD's auditors, HUD was unable to identify all the diversions and unsupported expenses. In yet another case of equity skimming, the owner of four projects in Tennessee, diverted some $4.7 million for personal benefit after defaulting on the HUD-insured mortgages. The owner also diverted almost $800,000 to his wife rather than pay the mortgage. The owner also used another $1 million to pay another loan and diverted $1.2 million to his other companies. Because of improper diversion of project funds, the condition of a housing project in Kansas deteriorated leaving the tenants, who were receiving Federal rent subsidies, living in deplorable conditions. Apartments were roach infested, ceilings were falling down, and doors and windows provided neither security nor protection from the weather. The cost to rehabilitate the project came to an estimated $1.4 million on a property worth $1.8 million. Two other cases of equity skimming in Minnesota cost the Government almost $600,000. In one case, two partners collected rent and Government subsidies while failing to make full mortgage payments on their federally insured mortgages. The total cost to the taxpayers in this case was about $425,000. In the other case, two owners of five subsidized buildings collected more than $173,000 in rent while neglecting to make mortgage payments. HUD is taking positive steps to crack down on the owners engaged in equity skimming. HUD is working to prevent the diversions from happening in the first place but, if this fails, HUD intends to step up its efforts to recover the diverted moneys. My legislation will give HUD some much needed tools to help curb the problem of equity skimming. My legislation has three parts. The first part would allow equity skimming to fall under provisions of the Federal money laundering statute. Under current law, when the Federal Government sues project owners who steal or misappropriate money from federally insured housing projects, owners are able to protect their ill-gotten gains by transferring these assets to other individuals or parties during the lengthy litigation process. Making equity skimming a violation of the Federal money laundering statute will allow the Government to seize the assets. The second part would make HUD insured mortgage programs subject to the statute which makes it unlawful to obstruct Federal auditors. Unfortunately, there is currently some question as to whether this existing statute applies to owners who receive HUD-insured mortgages because the owners receive no direct Federal payment. Because the mortgages are insured and no money goes directly to the owner from the Government, owners are able to use the ambiguity in the law to stonewall Federal auditors. My bill would make clear that owners of housing projects financed with government-insured mortgages are subject to the audit obstruction statute. Perpetrators of equity skimming would no longer be able to hide their books from Federal auditors. The third provision in the bill requires HUD to provide in its agreements with borrowers that HUD could recover from project owners any funds lost by HUD as a result of equity skimming. Under this new provision, if an owner is convicted of equity skimming, the owner will be responsible for HUD's entire loss. Currently, HUD is unable to recover any funds it used to pay off the balance of the defaulted mortgage even if the borrowers are found guilty of equity skimming. Mr. President, this legislation should go far in slamming the door on fraudulent owners and managers who take advantage of both taxpayers and tenants to line their own pockets. I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the inspector general at HUD, Susan Gaffney, in support of this legislation, and the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Ten minutes.

Mr. COHEN. I thank my colleague for yielding. Mr. President, I was intrigued with the Senator from Texas' comment toward the very end of his presentation where he said that for 25 years we have legislated unfairness. We have passed legislation not based on quality, but rather on race and gender. The 25 years stood out in my mind because it tended to ignore that for 200 years we have tolerated and practiced unfairness. We said that all men are created equal. That is our defining document. Not ``all women are created equal.'' Not ``all blacks are created equal.'' They were not even treated as human but only three-fifths human, as slaves, as pack mules. We broke up their families, and we humiliated them for years and years--not 25 years--but a couple of hundred years or more. And suddenly we come back and say, ``Well, it is all equal now. The field is completely level. We live in a colorblind society.'' Does anyone here really believe that, that we live in a colorblind society? There was an item in the paper recently about ``good ol' boys'' getting together for a good old time. They were Federal employees--ATF, maybe FBI, maybe Secret Service, maybe IRS. Does anyone here truly believe that we do not live in a colorblind society today, that discrimination does not exist? The Senator from Texas says that we should not let someone get a contract based on a preference. He believes that if you give someone a special preference, you impose a disadvantage on others. That is one side of the argument. How about whenever you impose on someone a special disadvantage by virtue of their race or gender? It seems to me that you give someone or another group a special advantage. The Senator from Texas would like to have the best-qualified people receiving contracts. I agree. How about Jackie Robinson, do you think he was the best-qualified player at the time? How about Satchel Paige, do you think he was the best-qualified pitcher at the time? Was he granted access to the professional leagues? Jackie Robinson, yes, he was the first to break through the color-barrier, after years and years of practiced racial discrimination. Satchel Paige played the prime of his career in the Negro Leagues, only making it into the big leagues after the color-barrier had been broken. But he made it to the Hall of Fame nonetheless. The difficulty is, of course, that none of us believe in quotas, because quotas are arbitrary, they are capricious, they are without merit. But the Senator from Texas believes we should have not more group preferences. Well, how about veterans? Is that in the amendment? I do not think so. I hope not. But make no mistake, we grant preferences to many groups. We grant preferences to veterans because they have made a great sacrifice for this country. We take that into account and we grant them preferences, regardless of what their contribution was. Some served in combat. Some served as medics. Some served as flight assistants. Some served back in the United States. They all were willing to make the commitment, so we treat them as a group and we give them special consideration, as we should. How about small businesses? Are we prepared to eliminate the small business set-aside, and give no more preferences in government contracts to small business? Should we let them go up against the giant conglomerates, without a care of how small or how capable they are. Even if they cannot compete against the big guys--tough luck, no special consideration. I know that there is some disagreement about affirmative action, even within the minority community. There are some who feel that the very existence of affirmative action has stamped the red letters of ``AA'' on their foreheads; that they somehow have been stamped as affirmative action babies; that people believe they could not make it on their own, notwithstanding their capabilities; that they are seen only as the beneficiaries of affirmative action. I watched a program just this evening where one very passionate individual said, ``I don't want to support any program that infers or implies that I am somehow inferior.'' That really is not the issue, because he is not inferior. The problem is that he and others have been victims of societal discrimination. Others call it racism for that is what it is. The truth is that they were not judged based on their quality, they were not judged based on their merit, they were not judged based on the content of their character, but they were judged based on the color of their skin. That has been the practice over the centuries in this country. Yes, progress has been made. But I listened to the stories of the Tuskegee airmen and I remember the turmoil they experienced fighting in World War II, feeling they had to fight two enemies: one called Hitler, the other called racism in this country. I listened and I remember very well Congressman Louis Stokes, who was a member of the Iran-Contra committee, speaking about what it felt like for him to make a contribution to his country in the service, but to be barred from eating and sleeping in the same barracks as his white counterparts. It did not matter that he was prepared to die on the battlefields; that was OK. You are equal out on the battlefields, you are just not equal in the barracks, you go to the other room, you go to the other fountain, you sleep in another place. That has been changed, not through the marketplace, but through actual affirmative action on the part of the U.S. Congress. We changed that. We helped to legislate the beginnings of equality--not entirely, but we helped to legislate at least a part of the way. But it still exits day in and day out. I can give you example after example of people who walk into places of employment who are turned down, not because they are not qualified or the best qualified, but simply because of the color of their skin or even their gender. So we have not arrived at a color-blind society. I know there are those on the floor who will say our goal must be a color-blind society, and I agree, but we are not there yet, not when you put Martin Luther King's photograph in the cross-hairs on a T- shirt, not when you put signs up that say, ``No blacks''--and I am qualifying it a bit here--``are allowed to cross this line.'' The Senator from Texas says this is simply a surgical strike on this particular piece of legislation. But he has already indicated there is going to be surgery after surgery. This is only one surgical strike. We have a bombardment coming until every aspect of any kind of remedial action for past, present and future discriminatory policies are eradicated. So why have we had set-asides? We ought to face the issue, why have we had set-asides? It is because blacks and other minorities have been frozen out and women have been locked out of opportunities. We have had 200 years-plus of this discrimination, but only 30 years of trying to overcome that. We are not trying to put unqualified people into positions, but to give those people who are qualified an opportunity to break through the barriers that we have allowed to exist for a long, long time. The point of affirmative action is not to establish quotas, it is to allow qualified people to overcome discrimination. So the Senator from Texas asked the question: If you believe we ought to legislate unfairness, then you support the amendment that has been offered as a substitute. I would put it another way: If you believe we ought to ignore unfair practices, if you believe we ought to allow those who have been historically and to this day are treated unfairly in the marketplace to continue to be discriminated against, then you vote for the amendment of the Senator from Texas. Mr. President, I think the choice is pretty clear. I hope when the vote finally comes that we will reject overwhelmingly the amendment of the Senator from Texas and support that of our colleague from the State of Washington.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, at the heart of the amendment of the Senator from Texas is that everything should be decided on merit. That makes the assumption that we are all starting off on a level playing field. That makes the assumption that we all have equal opportunity and we are born with that equal opportunity. That completely ignores what is a reality of our lives--that not everybody has an equal opportunity, not everyone has equal access to education, not everyone has the same opportunity to break through various barriers. There is the assumption that everything is decided on merit. If that is the case, why do we have laws against monopolies? Why do we just not say the company that gets the biggest, that provides the most for the least should prevail in every case? Why do we need to break up monopolies if everything is to be decided on merit? We have law to prevent that because we understand that not everyone is treated equally in the marketplace.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. COHEN. I would like to associate myself with the Senator's remarks and indicate that I wish to commend him for the effort he has made to try to persuade our colleagues to move closer to the position of the Senator from Rhode Island and the Senator from Ohio. Mr. President, I have been engaged in the debate over regulatory reform since February when the Government Affairs Committee held a series of hearing on the issue. I was involved in the negotiations over the bill that emerged from the committee and held a field hearing in April where Mainers had an opportunity to express both support for and opposition to regulatory reform. I have also carefully watched the debate that has transpired on the Senate floor over the past 2 weeks. Tuesday there was a vigorous debate on the Glenn-Chafee substitute, which, to my disappointment, was narrowly defeated. I believe that there has been sufficient time for all views to be aired and that extended debate has let to substantive improvements in Dole-Johnson bill. S. 343 has changed a great deal since its introduction. Its supermandate has been significantly modified, its petition process has been narrowed, and the scope of judicial review has been reduced. Due to an amendment on the floor, the threshold for rules to qualify for cost-benefit analysis has been raised from $50 to $100 million, a change that will help agencies target resources at remedying rules that impose the greatest burden on the economy. Additional negotiations have taken place during this week, since the first cloture petition failed, and some additional concessions have been made to opponents of the bill. I believe that both sides have negotiated in good faith, and I applaud Senators Hatch and others involved in the process for accepting a number of reasonable changes to the underlying bill. While these changes do not go far enough to ameliorate the concerns I have previously expressed about the bill, there comes a time when the majority must be permitted to impose its will. I believe that time has now come. I would prefer to see a bill that relied more on Congress to improve the regulatory system than the courts, and I would like to try more incremental reform instead of flooding our agencies with such burdensome analytical requirements that their effectiveness may be hampered. Yesterday I had occasion to discuss this legislation with Philip Howard, author of the book that has been cited dozens of time during the course of this debate, ``The Death of Common Sense.'' To summarize his views, the man who wrote the book about common sense believes that the bill, in its current form, does not make sense. Its over reliance on litigation and Rube-Goldbergesque petition process will complicate the regulatory process instead of streamlining it. We might well do better to start all over again and try to come up with a bill that is less complicated, but would achieve the goal of meaningful regulatory reform. Even though I have been unable to convince my colleagues on these issues, I will not stand in the way of permitting an up or down vote on the approach that they support. But if cloture is obtained, I will vote against the bill. Even if the bill passes the Senate, there remains a long way to go before the bill becomes law. The legislation that passed the House is clearly unacceptable. By voting for cloture today, I am not suggesting that I will vote for cloture on a conference report that contains the same defects as the House bill or exacerbates the weaknesses of the Senate bill. But the time has come for the process to move forward. I still hold out hope that the bill will continue to be improved and a bipartisan regulatory reform bill will be enacted into law during this session of Congress.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of the Governmental Affairs Committee to meet on Wednesday, July 19, at 9:30 a.m., for a hearing on the subject of criminal debt collection efforts.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Wetlands, Private Property, and Nuclear Safety be granted permission to conduct a hearing Wednesday, July 19, at 9:30 a.m., on section 404 of the Clean Water Act.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 19, 1995, at 9:30 a.m. to hold an open hearing on intelligence matters.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Labor and Human Resources be authorized to meet for an executive session, during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 19, 1995, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of the Governmental Affairs Committee to meet on Wednesday, July 19, at 2 p.m., for a hearing on the subject of criminal debt collection efforts.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 19, 1995, at 2 p.m.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be permitted to meet Wednesday, July 19, 1995, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-215, to conduct a hearing on Medicare.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 19, 1995, for purposes of conducting a full committee business meeting which is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. The purpose of this meeting is to consider S. 852, the Livestock Grazing Act.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. We have come to that point. We have delayed and been irresolute too long.

Mr. COHEN. Exactly. We have seen them use U.N. forces as hostages, make them pay tribute, demand that they give up 50 percent of their fuel or food or medicines in order to gain passage to the areas for which they were headed. It has been one humiliation after another. Again, this is not to diminish in any way, to undercut the tremendous heroism being demonstrated by those who are there. But when the ground forces call in and say, ``Please send us air cover,'' and someone sitting in Zagreb, or perhaps back in New York, says, ``No, that might be too provocative,'' there has to be a level of exasperation among those who are now held hostage with the threat of their throats being severed in response to any action taken by the United States. It seems to me that we have really very few choices here. We can say there is going to be an all-out war declared against the Bosnian Serbs, and mean it; saying we are going to wage holy hell, in terms of your country, for what you have done and continue to do, unless you are willing to sit down and negotiate a peace and not only to say it but to mean it. I am not sure--that means coming, sort of, I call it a Shaquille O'Neal: You come big or you do not come at all. That type of strategy. You come with power, overwhelming power, and you have a united front. It is not the United States, it is not Britain, it is not France; it is the United Nations represented by its members' [[Page S 10285]] military forces, meaning you are going to wage war in order to help make a peace. I have not seen such resolve offered or indeed generated by our European allies to date. It has been, more or less, these half-step, half measures. ``Let's see if we cannot contain. Let's see if we cannot work out something.'' With no real threat that can be made, a legitimate threat, backed up by power. Each time we made a threat the threat has been empty. It has been idle. So each time there has been an idle threat made we have invited the arrogant display on the part of the Serbs. So I say to my friend, we have some choices here. They are very clear, in terms of either go in, in a very big way, in a united way, in order to help make a peaceful solution--say it and mean it and do it, meaning that nothing is off base. It could be carried all the way to Belgrade if necessary. That runs a risk of running into a controversy with our Russian friends. That is why I raised the question yesterday. What is the role of the Russians in all of this? What have been the state of negotiations between the Russian diplomats and our own? Are they prepared to act, as a member of the United Nations, to really see that a peace is arrived at? Or has it been one of covert support, be it military or moral assistance, to those who continue to snub and to violate the U.N. sanctions? We do not know the answer to this. I do not know the answer to this. They obviously will be a major player. They can have a major impact on what is to take place. Obviously, if the arms embargo were to be lifted, we could foresee more arms going in to the Serbs as well as to the Bosnian Moslems.

Mr. COHEN. I agree with my friend from New York. One of the great tragedies in all of this is that the United Nations has been deeply-- not fatally perhaps--but deeply humiliated. Day after day after day, we have seen the Serbs flaunt their arrogance to the United Nations. To send blue-helmeted peacekeepers into that region, declare no-fly zones that go unenforced--in fact we see a reversal, an inversion, where the Serbs threaten the United Nations that they will shoot down any aircraft that they see in the no-fly zone. That is a complete inversion.

Mr. COHEN. Certainly.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, let me conclude my remarks by saying that no Member here can stand on the Senate floor with complete assurance that we know what the outcome of our deliberations and ultimately our vote will be. That is something we cannot predict. There is no foreknowledge of the finality of things in this body or elsewhere. There are great risks involved in whatever decision we choose. I might point out that the Dole resolution of several months ago has already been taken over by events. Perhaps we could have beefed up the forces several months ago and prevented the Serbs from overrunning the so-called safe haven areas. That is no longer the case. They have been and are being overrun. One or two more remain. The difficulty, of course, now, is that assuming the Dole resolution were to pass, I think the administration makes a valid point that there is going to be more bloodshed. The Serbs are on the offensive. They are in high gear now. They are moving, there is no doubt about it. If they think that the U.N. forces are coming out with the aid and assistance of the United States, they will move as expeditiously as possible to exact even a greater blood toll. That is something I think that we can anticipate, reasonably, will take place. I must say that as we have delayed and delayed and delayed and exercised this sort of Hamlet-like irresoluteness, we have witnessed safe area after safe area falling, more atrocities being committed, more rapes, more plunder, more pillage, more arrogance. The notion that the Serbs can flaunt their military power in the face of the United States, or indeed the entire Western [[Page S 10284]] world, strikes everyone as simply unacceptable. We should make no mistake about it. We do not have any real conclusive answers as to what will flow from our action. That is why we have hesitated today. Perhaps if we had followed Lady Margaret Thatcher's leadership several years ago, we would not find ourselves in the place we are today. Perhaps if we had taken collective action 3 years ago--we can go back and retrace our mistakes. We can go back and say perhaps if we had never recognized Bosnia as a separate state--all the ``perhapses'' that we can engage in right now--but we are where we are, and what we are witnessing is an ethnic cleansing on a horrific scale. So we cannot turn away from what is taking place. We are trying not to become engaged in that effort. But I think we have to be very careful on the proposals coming out of our European allies. I give them great credit for their willingness to commit ground forces in an effort to preserve lives. And they have preserved lives. I want to make this point again. They have helped to sustain life in that war-torn country. But I take issue with the notion that UNPROFOR is responsible for cutting down on the numbers, the vast number of casualties. Secretary Perry testified to that in open session of the Senate Armed Services Committee. I pointed out, at that time, the reason the casualties have fallen is because the Serbs have largely accomplished their objectives. They have cleansed those areas. They have murdered those people, so they achieved most of their objectives, so the casualties have come down. It is not in any way to diminish or denigrate the heroic effort on the part of UNPROFOR, but UNPROFOR really has not been there in order to defend against Serb aggression. They have been trying to deliver food and medicines and carry out a humanitarian mission--against all odds, I might add. So I think there is danger in whichever direction we go. If we are to follow the French proposal, if we are to be asked to provide the helicopters and gunships necessary to transport French troops to certain regions, I can imagine what the Serb reaction will be. Let us not go at Gorazde, let us go over here to Tuzla. Let us pick a different location. Then we are into ferrying troops here and there with the risk, obviously, of losing our gunships, our transport helicopters, our men and women. That obviously will involve us in a very significant way. So there is no easy solution. There is no happy ending to this tragic story. And whatever route we take is going to involve risk for the United States. I listened with great interest to my colleague from Massachusetts saying there are no risk-free options. There are not. Every option we consider has great risks. But we have been standing by, year after year, and we have watched the decimation of a people take place. And we have foundered because we have not had a consensus, we have not had a sense of obligation, we have not had a moral commitment to do much about it, other than to talk. So I think the time for talking has reached an end. I believe we have to take action. Whether ultimately the Senate will go on record as supporting the Dole resolution remains to be seen. For the first time, I have heard my colleague from Massachusetts suggest an option, something akin to what President Bush put together for the Persian Gulf war. It will be interesting to find out what our allies think about such a proposal. I have not heard such a proposal offered on this floor before, or indeed in any of the international circles. Perhaps there is support for having a Persian Gulf-like armada go off into the hills of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am not satisfied that is the case. Nonetheless, I believe the time has come for us to take action, knowing full well there are risks involved. There are risks to the men and women who are in our armed services. There are risks involved that this will be seen as an effort to Americanize the war. There is also the risk that, indeed, the U.S. Senate, by its action, could be blamed for the failure which has preceded any action we might take. Those are risks we have to assume with full knowledge before we finally cast a vote, either today or sometime during the course of the week. I yield the floor.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, earlier this year, I had a chance to address a conference in Munich, Germany, and it dealt principally with the issue that we are still struggling with here today. I will repeat some of the comments that I made during that conference because they bear repeating here. I said: We have entered a new world of disorder and our inability to formulate coherent policies and strategies to deal with ethnic conflicts and the expansion of NATO membership has led to cross-Atlantic fear, confusion, incoherence and recrimination--a state of affairs not unprecedented for the NATO alliance. With respect to Bosnia itself, I observed: NATO cannot act unless America leads. America will not lead unless it can persuade the American people that it is imperative for us to do so. The conflict in Bosnia is not perceived to involve American interests that are vital. Rather, it is a quagmire where its inhabitants would rather dig fresh graves than bury old hatreds. The European members of NATO were not willing to wade into the quicksand of ancient rivalries and engage in peacemaking operations so the responsibility was passed to the United Nations, which has fewer divisions than the Pope and none of his moral authority. As a result, we are all bearing witness to the decimation of a nation that was guaranteed protection under the U.N. Charter while the best we can offer is to seek to minimize the bloodshed by denying arms to the victims of aggression. So we have a situation where our collective acquiescence to aggression may be the lesser of two evils. But it is nonetheless the participation in the evil of ethnic cleansing that we hoped would never again touch the European continent. Well, we are still hesitant to take more aggressive action even today. I spoke these words in February because the consequences of our actions cannot [[Page S 10282]] be predicted. None of us can predict the full implications of what we are to do and not to do here today. But it was the absence of this predictability that prevented the development of a consensus. I suggested at that conference that a number of things had to be done--that new leadership is required at the United Nations, and that Mr. Akashi should be asked to resign immediately. I issued that statement in February. I believe it to be the case, even more so, today. I also suggested that when a no-fly zone or weapons-exclusion zone had been declared, it should be enforced and not allowed to be violated with impunity; no tribute or tolls should be paid by UNPROFOR forces to gain passage to help the victims of war; no tolerance should be granted for taking hostages or using them as human shields. If any harm were to come to UNPROFOR forces, we should take out every major target that allows the Serbs to continue to wage war. That power should be disproportionate to the transgression, and no area in Serbia ruled out of our bombsight. UNPROFOR should be given the heavy armor necessary to protect its forces and achieve its humanitarian mission. That is what I suggested at the time in early February. If we were unable to give UNPROFOR--whose troops were trapped in the layers of a disastrous dual-command structure--the authority and firepower to achieve these ends, then we should remove the forces before the United Nations political impotence is allowed to corrode any further the integrity and credibility of NATO. I think the time has long since passed for us to try to strengthen UNPROFOR. I might take issue with the statement that UNPROFOR has been responsible for significantly reducing the numbers of casualties. I think the UNPROFOR forces should be celebrated and heralded as the heroes that they are for wading into this quicksand, this quagmire of conflict--not a peacekeeping mission. There is no peace there. So they are truly courageous men and women who have sacrificed their lives in order to bring humanitarian relief to those suffering from war. But, Mr. President, it is too late at this point to say that UNPROFOR should be beefed up, should be given a military role that it has yet to be provided with. I think that time has long since passed. I was at the briefing yesterday, when Secretary Warren Christopher came before the Republican conference policy lunch, along with General Shalikashvili. I listened with care, because I have also had doubts in terms of the consequences of any action we might take. I listened to what they criticized would be the result of the Dole-Lieberman resolution. They said, First, it would cause the immediate withdrawal of UNPROFOR, with a huge flood of refugees; second, it would Americanize the war; third, the United States obviously has a lot at stake in U.N. resolutions; fourth, it would increase the expansion of the war. General Shalikashvili indicated that the passage of the Dole resolution would make life more difficult for UNPROFOR, and the withdrawal operation would also be made more difficult. I think those are fair observations. I asked the questions: What would the administration's policy now do? Who would be in control of this beefed-up UNPROFOR mission? Would it be General Boutros Boutros-Ghali? Would it be Mr. Akashi, whose leadership, I think, has been in doubt? Who would order the airstrikes? Who would pick the targets? Who would decide whether the sites were too dangerous to hit, and that it might provoke Serbian response? Who would transport the French troops to the regions they now seek to reinforce? What is the Russian role in all of this? We know that the Russians historically have been supportive of the Serbs. What has been their role to date? What would be their role in the future? What is the state of negotiations that have taken place behind closed doors at diplomatic levels between Russian negotiators or representatives and our own State Department? Frankly, Mr. President, I did not hear a satisfactory response. I heard statements of ambiguity, of doubt--no real clear direction of whether or not we would be in charge. I heard statements made like: Well, no longer will we have the disastrous dual-structure arrangement; that is something that would be under the control of the United States. I have not seen evidence of that before. When the forces on the ground have requested military assistance, they have been overruled. Each time we have promised to provide airstrikes, we have done so in the most minimalist of ways--creating a large 20-foot crater at an airstrip which could then be filled in within a matter of 20 or 30 minutes. The option of destroying aircraft on the ground was precluded because that might be too provocative. So I have yet to hear a clearly enunciated strategy coming from the administration on exactly what the proposal is. The administration has warned that Senator Dole's proposal would Americanize the war in Bosnia. This is the greatest fear of the administration, and the greatest hope on the part of some in Europe who are looking to shift the blame to the United States for failed policies. At the same time, I might point out that the administration is considering using U.S. forces to reinforce Gorazde--using helicopters to ferry French troops and provide air cover with attack helicopters and AC-130 gunships. This is a proposal that would immediately Americanize the war. The administration has also made it clear that it will move French troops to Gorazde only if the United States has a free hand to attack Bosnian Serb--and possibly the Serbian Serb--air defenses that could threaten United States aircraft. The United States would also, I am told--I have not seen it spelled out--insist on a free hand to bomb any other Serb forces that could possibly pose a threat to United States forces or that threaten the success of the mission. Now, the administration, I think, is absolutely right to insist on eliminating the dual-key arrangement with the United Nations if we are involved with reinforcing Gorazde. But it would make us responsible for the outcome. It would, in fact, Americanize the war. I believe we have to think very carefully before we decide to try to reinforce Gorazde, as the French have proposed. This would require significant American involvement, and I think the charge would be we are thereby contributing to the Americanization of the war itself. I think there is a very serious reason to question whether Gorazde can be saved from a determined Serb assault. Gen. John Galvin, who served as both the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and as a military adviser to the Bosnian Government, came before the Senate Armed Services Committee and testified that the eastern enclaves in Bosnia are militarily indefensible. I think the events of the past 2 weeks only reinforce that assessment. I know that many American military officers have questioned the French proposal to reinforce Gorazde because of the great difficulty, not only in transporting the troops and equipment there, but also of resupplying them once they are deployed. Agreeing to the French proposal would mean that we are committing our forces to an ongoing mission in which the United States Army aviation troops would be operating in the midst of the Bosnian war. Even assuming the French proposal is completely successful in deterring a Serb attack on Gorazde, this very success would free up Serb forces who are now focused on the eastern enclaves to move to new targets: Tuzla, Sarajevo or the narrow swath of Moslem-held territory connecting these cities. If we are seriously going to consider the French proposal, we should not be naive about the implications. It would Americanize the conflict. It would result in ongoing United States Army combat missions in Bosnia. There should be no doubt about that. I also want to point out, Mr. President, that I believe the administration is refusing to engage in debate on this proposal in a serious way. The administration officials seem to be deliberately mischaracterizing--I was going to say ``misrepresenting''; perhaps that is too harsh a word--mischaracterizing [[Page S 10283]] what the Dole-Lieberman proposal says, because the administration really does not have a credible argument against it. During the daily press briefings yesterday, both the White House and the Defense Department spokesmen framed their case against this proposal by saying that by lifting the arms embargo, it would force UNPROFOR to leave Bosnia. I am going to quote here statements coming out of the administration: . . . lifting that arms embargo unilaterally as proposed . . . would lead to an Americanization of the war . . . and drive out UNPROFOR . . . Kenneth Bacon, a DOD spokesman. . . . that decision by the U.S. Congress (to lift the arms embargo) would trigger a decision by UNPROFOR to withdraw from Bosnia and then we would be in the position of having to commit ground troops to extract U.N. personnel from Bosnia . . . Michael McCurry, White House spokesman. [The Dole-Lieberman proposal] as we've said over and over again . . . would draw the United Nations out of Bosnia. Again, Michael McCurry. These arguments really have very little to do with the legislation before the Senate. The Dole-Lieberman proposal would lift the arms embargo only if--let me repeat, only if--UNPROFOR withdraws and only after UNPROFOR withdraws. So it seems to me that the administration's core objection that it would force UNPROFOR to leave Bosnia is not, really, quite relevant. The administration's argument may be applicable to the original bill that Senators Dole and Lieberman introduced in January calling for the arms embargo to be lifted in May, even if UNPROFOR were still in place. I think that the sponsors of this resolution have recognized the legitimacy of the administration's argument, and they modified the proposal so it would not take effect unless and until UNPROFOR departs. I must say, the administration is still refusing to acknowledge the changes that we have in front of us, a different proposal, even though it has been circulating throughout Washington and, indeed, the world, for the past several weeks. I also think the administration is trying to confuse the issue of unilateral versus multilateral lifting of the arms embargo. There is a common misperception, spread by those who do not support the resolution, that the United States alone desires to lift the arms embargo in the Government of Bosnia. That is not the case, Mr. President. In fact, the U.N. General Assembly has called for the lifting of the embargo on Bosnia a number of times, most recently November 1994, in Resolution 49/10. This resolution was passed by the General Assembly without dissent. Close to 100 nations voted in favor of the resolution. Not one voted in opposition. A similar resolution, No. 48/88, passed the assembly a year before, with 110 nations voting in favor and none voting against. I think it is simply inaccurate to assert that a lifting of the arms embargo by the United States would be unilateral. There are many other nations who would be eager to join the United States should that prove to be necessary. I would ask to have printed in the Record relevant portions of the two U.N. resolutions I mentioned, as well as a list of the many nations that have voted for them.