Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I also thank the chairman, and sincerely appreciate all his assistance. small airport user-fee program

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to add my words of thanks to the Senator from Rhode Island, Senator Chafee, and the Senator from Louisiana, Senator Breaux, who led this effort to address what I believe is the most important question facing America. What we do here will largely determine the economic future for us and for our children. That is the stakes of the debate that we have embarked upon. Mr. President, the hard reality is that we are facing a time bomb in this country. It is a demographic time bomb. It is the time bomb of the baby boom generation. The baby boom generation begins to retire very soon now. They are going to double the number of people who are eligible for Social Security, for Medicare, and the other entitlement programs. We know what that means. There is no mistaking the future if we fail to act. The Entitlements Commission told us clearly, if we stay on our current course, by the year 2012, every penny of the Federal budget will go for entitlements and interest on the debt. There will be no money for roads. There will be no money for defense. There will be no money for parks. There will be no money for item after item that is important to the American people. Mr. President, the Entitlements Commission also told us that if we fail to act, future generations will face either an 80 percent tax rate--an 80 percent tax rate--or a one-third cut in all benefits. Mr. President, that is a catastrophe. We have a window of opportunity--a narrow window of opportunity--to get our fiscal house in order before that calamity occurs. Our generation will be judged based on how we respond. Mr. President, future generations will curse our generation if we fail to act. What this group has said is there is a way. We can do it. We have demonstrated the way. On a bipartisan basis, 22 Senators came together and wrote a plan that will strengthen the economic future of America. Mr. President, it will mean more savings, more investment, stronger economic growth, more jobs, and a brighter economic future for our children. We can do it. We must do it. We have the opportunity to do it, if we have the courage to escape our narrow, political, partisan trenches that have prevented us from doing what must be done. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, today, the Senate considers a constitutional amendment regarding term limits for Members of Congress. The debate over the term limits constitutional amendment has shown that both sides of this issue are passionate about the importance of congressional service. The proponents of the term limits amendment argue that it is time to change our Constitution to address the length of congressional service. The opponents of the term limits amendment respond that not only is a term limits constitutional amendment unnecessary, it threatens the foundation of our system of government and principles of democracy. I cast my vote against the term limits constitutional amendment. My service in the Senate began as a result of an election held in North Dakota in the fall of 1986. I won election to the U.S. Senate by defeating an incumbent who served North Dakota for 6 years in the Senate and 17 years in the House. Because of this election, I can appreciate arguments about the power of incumbency. However, most importantly, I appreciate the power of the voters. Voters have the power to vote for the candidate they feel best fits the elective office, whether the person is an incumbent or a challenger. It concerns me that a term limits constitutional amendment would limit the voters' choice to only those persons who are not disqualified because of this amendment. It is my view that in a democracy, voters should be able to choose whomever they want to represent them. We should not deny voters the opportunity to vote for someone they believe best represents their interests simply because that person has been in the office for 12 years. According to the Congressional Research Service, at the beginning of the 104th Congress, the average length of service of a Member of the House of Representatives was 7.75 years, while the average length of service of a Member of the Senate was 10.2 years. So despite the lack of a constitutional term limits amendment of 12 years, the voters have successfully managed their own system of term limits, commonly known as the elective system. Term limitations might be more detrimental than beneficial. It takes time to develop real expertise and experience on the wide variety of issues that come before Congress. Term limitations could result in the loss of this experience. In a sense, the voters already have the power of term limits in their hands: they can vote their elected representatives out of office at any election, from their local sheriff to their U.S. Senator. Additionally, the loss of the seniority system would prevent small States such as North Dakota from getting and keeping clout in Congress. Large State delegations would dominate the leadership and become even more powerful, and small States would be hurt as a result. California has 54 seats in Congress; New York has 33; Texas has 32; Florida has 25; and Pennsylvania has 23. North Dakota has only three. Rather than impose arbitrary term limits, I believe we should focus our attention on campaign finance reform to allow a larger number of people to enter congressional races. I supported campaign reform in past legislative sessions, and I will continue to support campaign reform in the 104th Congress.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, the farm bill enacted 2 weeks ago has changed the Farm Service Agency's loan eligibility rules for thousands of producers only a few weeks from planting. It has become very clear that the effective date of the new loan eligibility provisions is causing hardship for producers in the midst of implementing farm and ranch plans for the year. Farmers and ranchers are being informed that, although their loan applications were approved, the Secretary is now prohibited from providing the loan funds to the farmer under the new farm bill. Thousands of farmers will be forced to cancel seed, fertilizer, machinery, and land contracts with local, main street businesses. Many businesses have already delivered seed and fertilizer based on the Government loan commitment. Many farmers who expected to plant a crop this year when prices are high will simply have to move to town and look for other work. This is not sensible policymaking. My legislation will delay the effective date of some of the loan eligibility provisions to give farmers and ranchers, and the businessmen who depend on doing business with the farmers and ranchers, time to adjust to the new loan eligibility law. Section 648(b) of the credit title of the farm bill was made effective on the date of enactment. My bill will change the effective date of section 648(b) to make the provisions effective 90 days after enactment, or July 5, 1996. It is my hope that my colleagues will support this legislation. During conference, I and many of my colleagues hoped that section 648(b)'s effective date would be deferred to allow farmers some warning of the new restrictions and avoid the problems farmers are now experiencing. However, the majority insisted on making the provisions of section 648(b) effective upon enactment. As a result, the Secretary is prohibited from allocating funds and making those loans, even if there were pending applications or approved applications or borrowers who had relied on approved applications to their detriment. The immediate and harsh effect of this provision was part of the reason I opposed the farm bill conference report. It is my opinion that the entire farm bill should be revisited and corrected. However, the case for correcting the harsh effective date of section 648(b) is particularly compelling and that is why I am introducing this legislation today. It is April 1996 and no one can argue that many farmers and ranchers, who are now prohibited from borrowing under section 648(b), have relied to their detriment on approved applications for ownership loans, operating loans, and emergency disaster loans. It is also too late in the season to provide these farmers and ranchers with time to obtain some other form of financing. During my time in the Senate and on the Agriculture Committee, I have supported measures to make the Federal Government a more responsible and practical agricultural lender. I have worked to reduce and eliminate the amount of debt the Farm Service Agency carries on its books. By introducing this legislation, I am not encouraging the Farm Service Agency to make risky loans. However, for those farmers who have been approved for loans, have relied on that approval to their detriment, and find themselves days away from planting, it is just too late to secure other forms of financing. The timing of the immediate effective date in the Farm Bill is plain mean-spirited. I hope my colleagues support this bill to give farmers and ranchers 90 days to adjust to the Farm Bill's new restrictions.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, the farm bill enacted 2 weeks ago has changed the Farm Service Agency's loan eligibility rules for thousands of producers only a few weeks from planting. It has become very clear that the effective date of the new loan eligibility provisions is causing hardship for producers in the midst of implementing farm and ranch plans for the year. Farmers and ranchers are being informed that, although their loan applications were approved, the Secretary is now prohibited from providing the loan funds to the farmer under the new farm bill. Thousands of farmers will be forced to cancel seed, fertilizer, machinery, and land contracts with local, main street businesses. Many businesses have already delivered seed and fertilizer based on the Government loan commitment. Many farmers who expected to plant a crop this year when prices are high will simply have to move to town and look for other work. This is not sensible policymaking. My legislation will delay the effective date of some of the loan eligibility provisions to give farmers and ranchers, and the businessmen who depend on doing business with the farmers and ranchers, time to adjust to the new loan eligibility law. Section 648(b) of the credit title of the farm bill was made effective on the date of enactment. My bill will change the effective date of section 648(b) to make the provisions effective 90 days after enactment, or July 5, 1996. It is my hope that my colleagues will support this legislation. During conference, I and many of my colleagues hoped that section 648(b)'s effective date would be deferred to allow farmers some warning of the new restrictions and avoid the problems farmers are now experiencing. However, the majority insisted on making the provisions of section 648(b) effective upon enactment. As a result, the Secretary is prohibited from allocating funds and making those loans, even if there were pending applications or approved applications or borrowers who had relied on approved applications to their detriment. The immediate and harsh effect of this provision was part of the reason I opposed the farm bill conference report. It is my opinion that the entire farm bill should be revisited and corrected. However, the case for correcting the harsh effective date of section 648(b) is particularly compelling and that is why I am introducing this legislation today. It is April 1996 and no one can argue that many farmers and ranchers, who are now prohibited from borrowing under section 648(b), have relied to their detriment on approved applications for ownership loans, operating loans, and emergency disaster loans. It is also too late in the season to provide these farmers and ranchers with time to obtain some other form of financing. During my time in the Senate and on the Agriculture Committee, I have supported measures to make the Federal Government a more responsible and practical agricultural lender. I have worked to reduce and eliminate the amount of debt the Farm Service Agency carries on its books. By introducing this legislation, I am not encouraging the Farm Service Agency to make risky loans. However, for those farmers who have been approved for loans, have relied on that approval to their detriment, and find themselves days away from planting, it is just too late to secure other forms of financing. The timing of the immediate effective date in the Farm Bill is plain mean-spirited. I hope my colleagues support this bill to give farmers and ranchers 90 days to adjust to the Farm Bill's new restrictions.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the death of Ed Mudkie marks a deep personal loss for me, and a loss for our Nation. Senator Muskie was a close personal friend and leader in both the Senate and our national political scene. As a young man, I can remember my admiration for his integrity and dedication when I served as a midwestern State coordinator for his Presidential campaign in 1972. In the Senate he was the leader in urging creation of a Senate Budget Committee so the Chamber would have a committee with a board overview of the budget process. In this time of public concern over the Federal budget, it is important we remember that as the first chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Muskie warned the Congress and the Nation of the need to balance our Federal budget to protect America's future. Those of us who serve on the committee today are still mindful of the foresight he showed, and are working to see that his legacy is fulfilled. Americans of this generation also owe a debt to the former Senator from Maine for his vision and his tireless efforts in awakening Congress and the Nation to the critical importance of enacting comprehensive laws to protect our Nation's environment for future generations. Our Nation owes him a deep debt of gratitude we can never repay.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I wonder if we can get at least an order that would be acceptable so that those of us who have been waiting for an extended period might get a timeframe so that we will not just be waiting around and then find the list somehow gets altered and we wait some more.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I personally thank Senators Domenici and Wellstone for bringing this amendment to the Chamber tonight. I rarely take the time of my colleagues, in the evening hours, to speak, because I often feel that it is an imposition on their time. Tonight, I think this amendment is so important that it requires all of us to speak. This amendment simply asks that mental illnesses be treated on a parity basis with other illnesses. It is inescapable: An illness is an illness. There should be no differentiation between how we treat those who have a mental illness and a physical illness. When I was the assistant tax commissioner in North Dakota, Senator Dorgan was the tax commissioner. We had a young woman who was our receptionist. She was a beautiful and vibrant young woman. She was somebody who absolutely lit up an office. One day, she just went off the deep end with a mental illness that none of us knew that she had. Pictures were speaking to her. She had all kinds of aberrant thoughts. It led to her institutionalization. It led to her attempting to take her own life. That was a young woman, because of a suicide attempt, who did enormous damage to herself from which she will never fully recover. That young woman had a mental illness, and that illness deserved to be treated like any other illness. She is not alone. There are millions like her all across America. As we sought to reach out and help this young woman, I became somewhat educated about what was happening in our communities. One thing I learned is that we actually treat differently those with a physical illness and those with a mental illness, and it is a tragedy. In our State, we have taken the step to recognize that there should not be discrimination between illnesses. What we have found is it does not cost more money. Oh, it does as you begin, but as you go forward, it does not cost more money, and it does not cost more money because, if you fail to treat, the physical ailments mount and become much more expensive. I would say to my colleagues, we passed this amendment. We passed this in the Finance Committee on Medicaid, during reconciliation. I offered the amendment. It was adopted. It passed here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It was only taken out in conference. We passed it in the Finance Committee based on the best evidence that shows over time this will not cost money. I submitted detailed studies from North Dakota that demonstrate that. I hope my colleagues will vote for this amendment tonight. It is the right thing to do. I hope my colleagues will agree to the Domenici- Wellstone amendment. They will be proud the rest of their lives that they did. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to express my strong support for S. 1028, the Health Insurance Reform Act. Over the past several years, access to health care has been one of the most important issues facing Americans. Far too many Americans-- over 40 million this year--are uninsured, and an equal number are affected each year by preexisting condition exclusions and the job lock that results when workers fear that they will lose all or part of their insurance if they change jobs. Two year ago, I and many of my colleagues spent countless hours trying to find a compromise health care reform bill that would ensure access to health insurance and health care, maintain choice and quality for consumers, and control the skyrocketing growth in health care costs. Given the importance of this effort to millions of Americans, I was disappointed that our effort to find a moderate solution to these issues was blocked. The bill before us today takes a modest step in the right direction. It attacks the most egregious barriers to health insurance: the use of preexisting condition exclusions to deny coverage to those who most need health insurance, and the lack of portability when workers change jobs. Addressing these issues will guarantee access to health insurance for an estimated 25 million Americans who would otherwise be subject to these barriers. However, it is important to remember that, although this is an extremely important step, it is only a first step. It guarantees access to health insurance, but it does not guarantee that the available insurance will be affordable. And, as a representative of a rural State, I wish this bill improved access to health care services in medically underserved areas. Thus, when we complete the first step by enacting this bill, our health insurance reform journey will not be complete. There is lots of room for further progress in making health care available and affordable. Mr. President, with that caveat, let me explain why this bill is so important. Today, millions of Americans are denied insurance because they or someone in their family have so-called preexisting conditions. This means the family of a child born with a heart murmur can't find insurance because no insurance company wants to take the risk of covering the costs of treating this heart condition. And it means that someone who has paid insurance premiums through an employer-sponsored plan but then leaves that job because she needs a major medical procedure--for example, an organ transplant--may not be able to get insurance when she tries to return to the workplace. That's just wrong. No one should be forced to stay in a job she hates because she fears she will lose her health insurance if she tries to change jobs. And no one who has paid insurance premiums faithfully for years should lose his insurance because he becomes sick and an insurance company refuses to renew his employer's policy. This bill fixes these problems. It strictly limits preexisting condition exclusions when a person or a family applies for health insurance for the first time. It prohibits any preexisting condition exclusions for people who have faithfully paid their insurance premiums for at least 18 months and then need to get new insurance because they change jobs or lose their jobs. This means that people who change jobs can rest assured that their new insurance policy will fully cover them. The bill also requires insurance companies to provide coverage to any employer with two or more employees. This keeps insurance companies from denying insurance to certain types of business just because the company thinks the employees are likely to get sick. It prevents the cancellation of coverage for a company just because one of its employees has gotten sick and incurred large medical costs. And it allows small businesses and other groups to band together in voluntary cooperatives to bargain as a larger group for lower premiums and better coverage. Finally, the bill requires individual insurance companies to provide coverage to individuals who lose their job or become self-employed and exhaust their conversion coverage under COBRA. Coming from a State with large numbers of self-employed farmers and other small business men and women, I am keenly aware of the fragility of the individual insurance market. Average premiums in this market are much higher than in the group insurance markets because of adverse selection. Although critics of this so-called group-to-individual portability provision greatly exaggerate its likely effect on this market, their arguments are not groundless. This provision will result in more sick people entering the individual market. In order to prevent this from greatly increasing premiums for those who are already in this market, I hope States will proceed very carefully in applying rating restrictions that could inadvertently worsen the adverse selection inherent in this market. I am encouraged that the bill gives States great flexibility in designing their own approaches to meet the goals of this legislation. This allows them to develop innovative solutions tailored to the special needs of their population while ensuring that workers still have access to affordable health insurance without unreasonable preexisting condition exclusions. Mr. President, this legislation takes a major step forward in reforming the private insurance market. It removes the biggest barriers to health insurance and will enable Americans to change jobs freely without fear of losing all or part of their insurance coverage. I urge my colleagues to reject the controversial special-interest provisions added in the House that threaten to kill this important effort, and to instead pass a bill that commands broad bipartisan support.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, Newsweek magazine on February 19, 1996, published an article regarding research that is underway by several pediatric neurobiologists in the United States on the development of a child's brain. The research examined the significance of early childhood experiences, particularly for children ages 0-3, on the development of the brain. According to researchers, ``it's the experiences of early childhood, determining which neurons are used, that wire the circuit of the brain as surely as a programmer at a keyboard reconfigures the circuits in a computer. Which keys that are typed--which experiences a child ahs-- determines whether the child grows up to be intelligent or dull, fearful or self-assured, articulate or tongue- tied.'' According to the researchers, almost anything is possible provided children are exposed to the right experiences at an early age. As one researcher, Harry Chugani of Wayne State University remarked, ``early experiences are powerful, they can completely change the way a person turns out.'' Mr. President, the findings of these neurobiologists support a much closer examination by Congress of whether we are providing sufficient support at the Federal level for Head Start programs, and especially the Zero-to-Three initiative for infants and toddlers. As my colleagues may recall, during consideration of Head Start reauthorization in 1994, authority for a new infant and toddler initiative was adopted as part of the reauthorization of Head Start programs. Under the reauthorization, 3 percent of total appropriations for fiscal year 1995--$3.5 billion--was set aside for Zero-to-Three programs. Currently, funding for the Zero-to-Three initiative totals $106 million. By 1998, the level of funding for the Zero-to-Three initiative will increase to 5 percent of total appropriations. President Clinton has requested $3.9 billion for Head Start in his fiscal year 1997 budget. Under Head Start fiscal year 1995 appropriations, more than 750,000 children between the ages of 3 and 4 are participating in Head Start programs nationwide. Mr. President, the research of neurobiologists suggests that we may be missing an opportunity to ensure that our children develop to their fullest potential during the early years in life, ages 0-3. The neurobiologists point out that there is a narrow window of opportunity to develop the brain's potential and that to wait until the ages of 3 and 4 when most children begin Head Start programs may be too late to have a significant impact on the brain's development. I urge my colleagues to examine the research regarding the development of a child's brain that is discussed in the February 19 issue of Newsweek. I ask that the text of the article from Newsweek appear in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. [From Newsweek, Feb. 19, 1996] Your Child's Brain (By Sharon Begley) (A baby's brain is a work in progress, trillions of neurons waiting to be wired into a mind. The experiences of childhood, pioneering research shows, help form the brain's circuits--for music and math, language and emotion) You hold your newborn so his sky-blue eyes are just inches from the brightly patterned wallpaper, ZZZt: a neuron from his retina makes an electrical connection with one in his brain's visual cortex. You gently touch his palm with a clothespin; he grasps it, drops it, and you return it to him with soft words and a smile. Crackle: neurons from his hand strengthen their connection to those in his sensory-motor cortex. He cries in the night; you feed him, holding his gaze because nature has seen to it that the distance from a parent's crooked elbow to his eyes exactly matches the distance at which a baby focuses. Zap: neurons in the brain's amygdala send pulses of electricity through the circuits that control emotion. You hold him on your lap and talk . . . and neurons from his ears start hard-wiring connections to the auditory cortex. And you thought you were just playing with your kid. When a baby comes into the world her brain is a jumble of neurons, all waiting to be woven into the intricate tapestry of the mind. Some of the neurons have already been hard- wired, by the genes in the fertilized egg, into circuits that command breathing or control heartbeat, regulate body temperature or produce reflexes. But trillions upon trillions more are like the Pentium chips in a computer before the factory preloads the software. They are pure and of almost infinite potential, unprogrammed circuits that might one day compose rap songs and do calculus, erupt in fury and melt in ecstasy. If the neurons are used, they become integrated into the circuitry of the brain by connecting to other neurons; if they are not used, they may die. It is the experiences of childhood, determining which neurons are used, that wire the circuits of the brain as surely as a programmer at a keyboard reconfigures the circuits in a computer. Which keys are typed--which experiences a child has--determines whether the child grows up to be intelligent or dull, fearful or self- assured, articulate or tongue-tied. Early experiences are so powerful, says pediatric neurobiologist Harry Chugani of Wayne State University, that ``they can completely change the way a person turns out.'' By adulthood the brain is crisscrossed with more than 100 billion neurons, each reaching out to thousands of others so that, all told, the brain has more than 100 trillion connections. It is those connections--more than the number of galaxies in the known universe--that give the brain its unrivaled powers. The traditional view was that the wiring diagram is predetermined, like one for a new house, by the genes in the fertilized egg. Unfortunately, even though half the genes--50,000--are involved in the central nervous system in some way, there are not enough of them to specify the brain's incomparably complex wiring. That leaves another possibility: genes might determine only the brain's main circuits, with something else shaping the trillions of finer connections. That something else is the environment, the myriad messages that the brain receives from the outside world. According to the emerging paradigm, ``there are two broad stages of brain wiring,'' says developmental neurobiologist Carla Shatz of the University of California, Berkeley: ``an early period, when experience is not required, and a later one, when it is.'' Yet, once wired, there are limits to the brain's ability to create itself. Time limits. Called ``critical periods,'' they are windows of opportunity that nature flings open, starting before birth, and then slams shut, one by one, with every additional candle on the child's birthday cake. In the experiments that gave birth to this paradigm in the 1970, Torsten Wiesel and David Hubel found that sewing shut one eye of a newborn kitten rewired its brain: so few neurons connected from the shut eye to the visual cortex that the animal was blind even after its eye was reopened. Such rewiring did not occur in adult cats whose eyes were shut. Conclusion: there is a short, early period when circuits connect the retina to the visual cortex. When brain regions mature dictates how long they stay malleable. Sensory areas mature in early childhood; the emotional limbic system is wired by puberty; the frontal lobes--seat of understanding-- develop at least through the age of 16. The implications of this new understanding are at once promising and disturbing. They suggest that, with the right input at the right time, almost anything is possible. But they imply, too, that if you miss the window you're playing with a handicap. They offer an explanation of why the gains a toddler makes in Head Start are so often evanescent: this intensive instruction begins too late to fundamentally rewire the brain. And they make clear the mistake of postponing instruction in a second language. As Chugani asks, ``What idiot decreed that foreign-language instruction not begin until high school?'' Neurobiologists are still at the dawn of understanding exactly which kinds of experiences, or sensory input, wire the brain in which ways. They know a great deal about the circuit for vision. It has a neuron-growth spurt at the age of 2 to 4 months, which corresponds to when babies start to really notice the world, and peaks at 8 months, when each neuron is connected to an astonishing 15,000 other neurons. A baby whose eyes are clouded by cataracts from birth will, despite cataract-removal surgery at the age of 2, be forever blind. For other systems, researchers know what happens, but not--at the level of neurons and molecules--how. They nevertheless remain confident that cognitive abilities work much like sensory ones, for the brain is parsimonious in how it conducts its affairs: a mechanism that works fine for wiring vision is not likely to be abandoned when it comes to circuits for music. ``Connections are not forming willy- nilly,'' says Dale Purves of Duke University, ``but are promoted by activity.'' Language Before there are words, in the world of a newborn, there are sounds. In English they are phonemes such as sharp ba's and da's, drawn-out ee's and ll's and sibilant sss's. In Japanese they are different--barked hi's, merged rr/ll's. When a child hears a phoneme over and over, neurons from his ear stimulate the formation of dedicated connections in his brain's auditory cortex. This ``perceptual map,'' explains Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington, reflects the apparent distance--and thus the similarity--between sounds. So in English-speakers, neurons in the auditory cortex that respond to ``ra'' lie far from those that respond to ``la.'' But for Japanese, where the sounds are nearly identical, neurons that respond to ``ra'' are practically intertwined, like L.A. freeway spaghetti, with those for ``la.'' As a result, a Japanese-speaker will have trouble distinguishing the two sounds. Researchers find evidence of these tendencies across many languages. By 6 months of age, Kuhl reports, infants in English-speaking homes already have different auditory maps (as shown by electrical measurements that identify which neurons respond to different sounds) from those in Swedish- speaking homes. Children are functionally deaf to sounds absent from their native tongue. The map is completed by the first birthday. ``By 12 months,'' says Kuhl, ``infants have lost the ability to discriminate sounds that are not significant in their language, and their babbling has acquired the sound of their language.'' Kuhl's findings help explain why learning a second language after, rather than with, the first is so difficult. ``The perceptual map of the first language constrains the learning of a second,'' she says. In other words, the circuits are already wired for Spanish, and the remaining undedicated neurons have lost their ability to form basic new connections for, say, Greek. A child taught a second language after the age of 10 or so is unlikely ever to speak it like a native. Kuhl's work also suggests why related languages such as Spanish and French are easier to learn than unrelated ones: more of the existing circuits can do double duty. With this basic circuitry established, a baby is primed to turn sounds into words. The more words a child hears, the faster she learns language, according to psychiatrist Janellen Huttenlocher of the University of Chicago. Infants whose mothers spoke to them a lot knew 131 more words at 20 months than did babies of more taciturn, or less involved, mothers; at 24 months, the gap had widened to 295 words. (Presumably the findings would also apply to a father if he were the primary caregiver.) It didn't matter which words the mother used--monosyllables seemed to work. The sound of words, it seems, builds up neural circuitry that can then absorb more words, much as creating a computer file allows the user to fill it with prose. ``There is a huge vocabulary to be acquired,'' says Huttenlocher, ``and it can only be acquired through repeated exposure to words.'' Music Last October researchers at the University of Konstanz in Germany reported that exposure to music rewires neural circuits. In the brains of nine string players examined with magnetic resonance imaging, the amount of somatosensory cortex dedicated to the thumb and fifth finger of the left hand--the fingering digits--was significantly larger than in nonplayers. How long the players practiced each day did not affect the cortical map. But the age at which they had been introduced to their muse did: the younger the child when she took up an instrument, the more cortex she devoted to playing it. Like other circuits formed early in life, the ones for music endure. Wayne State's Chugani played the guitar as a child, then gave it up. A few years ago he started taking piano lessons with his young daughter. She learned easily, but he couldn't get his fingers to follow his wishes. Yet when Chugani recently picked up a guitar, he found to his delight that ``the songs are still there,'' much like the muscle memory for riding a bicycle. math and logic At UC Irvine, Gordon Shaw suspected that all higher-order thinking is characterized by similar patterns of neuron firing. ``If you're working with little kids,'' says Shaw, ``you're not going to teach them higher mathematics or chess. But they are interested in and can process music.'' So Shaw and Frances Rauscher gave 19 preschoolers piano or singing lessons. After eight months, the researchers found, the children ``dramatically improved in spatial reasoning,'' compared with children given no music lessons, as shown in their ability to work mazes, draw geometric figures and copy patterns of two-color blocks. The mechanism behind the ``Mozart effect'' remains murky, but Shaw suspects that when children exercise cortical neurons by listening to classical music, they are also strengthening circuits used for mathematics. Music, says the UC team, ``excites the inherent brain patterns and enhances their use in complex reasoning tasks.'' emotions The trunk lines for the circuits controlling emotion are laid down before birth. Then parents take over. Perhaps the strongest influence is what psychiatrist Daniel Stern calls attunement--whether caregivers ``play back a child's inner feelings.'' If a baby's squeal of delight at a puppy is met with a smile and hug, if her excitement at seeing a plane overhead is mirrored, circuits for these emotions are reinforced. Apparently, the brain uses the same pathways to generate an emotion as to respond to one. So if an emotion is reciprocated, the electrical and chemical signals that produced it are reinforced. But if emotions are repeatedly met with indifference or a clashing response--Baby is proud of building a skyscraper out of Mom's best pots, and Mom is terminally annoyed--those circuits become confused and fail to strengthen. The key here is ``repeatedly'': one dismissive harrumph will not scar a child for life. It's the pattern that counts, and it can be very powerful: in one of Stern's studies, a baby whose mother never matched her level of excitement became extremely passive, unable to feel excitement or joy. Experience can also wire the brain's ``calm down'' circuit, as Daniel Goleman describes in his best-selling ``Emotional Intelligence.'' One father gently soothes his crying infant, another drops him into his crib; one mother hugs the toddler who just skinned her knee, another screams ``It's your own stupid fault!'' The first responses are attuned to the child's distress; the others are wildly out of emotional sync. Between 10 and 18 months, a cluster of cells in the rational prefrontal cortex is busy hooking up to the emotion regions. The circuit seems to grow into a control switch, able to calm agitation by infusing reason into emotion. Perhaps parental soothing trains this circuit, strengthening the neural connections that form it, so that the child learns how to calm herself down. This all happens so early that the effects of nurture can be misperceived as innate nature. Stress and constant threats also rewire emotion circuits. These circuits are centered on the amygdala, a little almond- shaped structure deep in the brain whose job is to scan incoming sights and sounds for emotional content. According to a wiring diagram worked out by Joseph LeDoux of New York University, impulses from eye and ear reach the amygdala before they get to the rational, thoughtful neocortex. If a sight, sound or experience has proved painful before--Dad's drunken arrival home was followed by a beating--then the amygdala floods the circuits with neurochemicals before the higher brain knows what's happening. The more often this pathway is used, the easier it is to trigger: the mere memory of Dad may induce fear. Since the circuits can stay excited for days, the brain remains on high alert. In this state, says neuroscientist Bruce Perry of Baylor College of Medicine, more circuits attend to nonverbal cues--facial expressions, angry noises--that warn of impending danger. As a result, the cortex falls behind in development and has trouble assimilating complex information such as language. movement Fetal movements begin at 7 weeks and peak between the 15th and 17th weeks. That is when regions of the brain controlling movement start to wire up. The critical period lasts a while: it takes up to two years for cells in the cerebellum, which controls posture and movement, to form functional circuits. ``A lot of organization takes place using information gleaned from when the child moves about in the world,'' says William Greenough of the University of Illinois. ``If you restrict activity you inhibit the formation of synaptic connections in the cerebellum.'' The child's initially spastic movements send a signal to the brain's motor cortex; the more the arm, for instance, moves, the stronger the circuit, and the better the brain will become at moving the arm intentionally and fluidly. The window lasts only a few years: a child immobilized in a body cast until the age of 4 will learn to walk eventually, but never smoothly. There are many more circuits to discover, and many more environmental influences to pin down. Still, neuro labs are filled with an unmistakable air of optimism these days. It stems from a growing understanding of how, at the level of nerve cells and molecules, the brain's circuits form. In the beginning, the brain-to-be consists of only a few advance scouts breaking trail: within a week of conception they march out of the embryo's ``neural tube,'' a cylinder of cells extending from head to tail. Multiplying as they go (the brain adds an astonishing 250,000 neurons per minute during gestation), the neurons clump into the brain stem which commands heartbeat and breathing, build the little cerebellum at the back of the head which controls posture and movement, and form the grooved and rumpled cortex wherein thought and perception originate. The neural cells are so small, and the distance so great, that a neuron striking out for what will be the prefrontal cortex migrates a distance equivalent to a human's walking from New York to California, says developmental neurobiologist Mary Beth Hatten of Rockefeller University. Only when they reach their destinations do these cells become true neurons. They grow a fiber called an axon that carries electrical signals. The axon might reach only to a neuron next door, or it might wend its way clear across to the other side of the brain. It is the axonal connections that form the brain's circuits. Genes determine the main highways along which axons travel to make their connection. But to reach particular target cells, axons follow chemical cues strewn along their path. Some of these chemicals attract: this way to the motor cortex! Some repel: no, that way to the olfactory cortex. By the fifth month of gestation most axons have reached their general destination. But like the prettiest girl in the bar, target cells attract way more suitors--axons--than they can accommodate. How does the wiring get sorted out? The baby neurons fire electrical pulses once a minute, in a fit of what Berkeley's Shatz calls auto-dialing. If cells fire together, the target cells ``ring'' together. The target cells then release a flood of chemicals, called trophic factors, that strengthen the incipient connections. Active neurons respond better to trophic factors than inactive ones, Barbara Barres of Stanford University reported in October. So neurons that are quiet when others throb lose their grip on the target cell. ``Cells that fire together wire together,'' says Shatz. The same basic process continues after birth. Now, it is not an auto-dialer that sends signals, but stimuli from the senses. In experiments with rats, Illinois's Greenough found that animals raised with playmates and toys and other stimuli grow 25 percent more synapses than rats deprived of such stimuli. Rats are not children, but all evidence suggests that the same rules of brain development hold. For decades Head Start has fallen short of the high hopes invested in it: the children's IQ gains fade after about three years. Craig Ramey of the University of Alabama suspected the culprit was timing: Head Start enrolls 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds. So in 1972 he launched the Abecedarian Project. Children from 120 poor families were assigned to one of our groups: intensive early education in a day-care center from about 4 months to age 8, from 4 months to 5 years, from 5 to 8 years, or none of all. What does it mean to ``educate'' a 4-month-old? Nothing fancy: blocks, beads, talking to him, playing games such as peek-a-boo. As outlined in the book ``Learningames,'' each of the 200-odd activities was designed to enhance cognitive, language, social or motor development. In a recent paper, Ramey and Frances Campbell of the University of North Carolina report that children enrolled in Abecedarian as preschoolers still scored higher in math and reading at the age of 15 than untreated children. The children still retained an average IQ edge was 4.6 points. The earlier the children were enrolled, the more enduring the gain. And intervention after age 5 conferred no IQ or academic benefit. All of which raises a troubling question. If the windows of the mind close, for the most part, before we're out of elementary school, is all hope lost for children whose parents did not have them count beads to stimulate their math circuits, or babble to them to build their language loops? At one level, no: the brain retains the ability to learn throughout life, as witness anyone who was befuddled by Greek in college only to master it during retirement. But on a deeper level the news is sobering. Children whose neural circuits are not stimulated before kindergarten are never going to be what they could have been. ``You want to say that it is never too late,'' says Joseph Sparling, who designed the Abecedarian curriculum. ``But there seems to be something very special about the early years.'' And yet . . . there is new evidence that certain kinds of intervention can reach even the older brain and, like a microscopic screwdriver. rewire broken circuits. In January, scientists led by Paula Tallal of Rutgers University and Michael Merzenich of UC San Francisco described a study of children who have ``language-based learning disabilities''-- reading problems. LLD affects 7 million children in the United States. Tallal has long argued that LLD arises from a child's inability to distinguish short staccato sounds--such as ``d'' and ``b.'' Normally, it takes neurons in the auditory cortex something like .015 second to respond to a signal from the ear, calm down and get ready to respond to the next sound; in LLD children, it takes five to 10 times as long. (Merzenich speculates that the defect might be the result of chronic middle-ear infections in infancy: the brain never ``hears'' sounds clearly and so fails to draw a sharp auditory map.) Short sounds such as ``b'' and ``d'' go by too fast--.04 second--to process. Unable to associate sounds with letters, the children develop reading problems. The scientists drilled the 5- to 10-year-olds three hours a day with computer-produced sound that draws out short consonants, like an LP played too slow. The result: LLD children who were one to three years behind in language ability improved by a full two years after only four weeks. The improvement has lasted. The training, Merzenich suspect, redrew the wiring diagram in children's auditory cortex to process fast sounds. Their reading problems vanished like the sounds of the letters that, before, they never heard. Such neural rehab may be the ultimate payoff of the discovery that the experiences of life are etched in the bumps and squiggles of the brain. For now, it is enough to know that we are born with a world of potential--potential that will be realized only if it is tapped. And that is challenge enough.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Who has time?

Mr. CONRAD. I would be speaking in opposition.

Mr. CONRAD. I will just proceed and end at an appropriate time. That is the agreement that I have.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair and the ranking member for his courtesy. I thank the chairman of the committee, as well, for his graciousness throughout the debate. We have disagreed, but we have disagreed in a way that I think you would expect of Senators who have mutual respect. I certainly respect the chairman and the ranking member. I wish all committees were conducted in the way the Agriculture Committee is conducted. People are given a complete and fair chance to present their views. We disagree, but we do it without personal rancor. I think that is a tribute to the chairman and ranking member. Mr. President, we are in 1996, and we are working on the 1995 farm bill. Something is wrong. What is wrong is that there has been a failure to act. This is the first time since 1947 that a farm bill has lapsed before a new farm bill has been put in place. So we are late. Mr. President, it is critical that we act quickly so that farmers know the rules of the road as they proceed in this new crop year. This new farm bill has many positive elements. Let me talk about three. First, this farm bill retains permanent law. That is critically important because, at the end of this 7-year period, if we had followed the lead of the House, there would be nothing. There would be no permanent farm law. Farmers would have no assurance that there was provision for them in the future. Mr. President, we have had tough fights on this question, but permanent law has been preserved. The second positive element of this bill is that it provides a dramatic increase in flexibility for farmers. They can plant for the market and not for the farm program. That is certainly a significant improvement. Third, this farm bill provides a guaranteed payment that will help farmers with the repayment of advanced deficiencies from last year. Now, some say that farmers ought to be repaying, without assistance, their advanced deficiencies from last year because prices have been high. It is true that prices are very good right now. But it is also true that you do not benefit from high prices if you do not have a crop. Mr. President, in my State, many farmers have had 3 years of very poor crops. They have had it because of very serious weather conditions. We have gone from the extraordinary circumstance of the worst drought since the 1930's--in 1988 and 1989--to having the wettest conditions, we have seen in decades, for 3 years in a row. Mr. President, it is very hard for some people to understand why farmers are complaining about weather conditions, when conditions turn wet. Mr. President, they just did not turn wet; we got the deluge of the century. In one day, one little town in North Dakota received 10 inches of rain. This is an area that gets maybe 25 inches a year. They received 10 inches in one day. We have, in the Devil's Lake basin, what I have described to my colleagues in the past as a remarkable circumstance of a closed basin with a large lake that is rising as a result of these wet conditions. It has gone up 13 feet in the last 2 years. The National Weather Service has just informed us it is going to go up another 2\1/2\ feet this year. The surface area of the lake has doubled. We had Federal officials come out to look at the disaster that is occurring there. They asked the city officials of the little town of Minnewaukan why they built their water treatment facility so close to this lake because now this water treatment facility is surrounded on three sides by this lake. The city officials laughed, and told the Federal officials, ``When we built this treatment facility it was 7 miles from the lake. Now it is surrounded by the lake.'' Mr. President, those very wet conditions have meant that many farmers have gotten only a partial crop, and even though prices are high they have not had the benefit because they have not had a crop to sell. So these guaranteed payments--especially this year--are important in allowing them to repay and stay in business. But just as I have talked about what are I think the positive features of this bill, I would be remiss if I did not say that I believe the underlying farm policy contained in this legislation is fatally flawed. First of all, it decouples payments from prices and production. Mr. President, that is wrong. This legislation contains payments that are fixed but sharply declining. That is wrong. This legislation provides no adjustments if prices plunge, or yields are low. That is wrong. I remember very well in 1986--that was the year I was elected to the U.S. Senate--wheat that is now selling for over $5 a bushel was selling for $2 a bushel. But we had a safety net. We had a deficiency payment system that allowed some offsets from the Federal Government. That saved literally thousands of family farmers in my State. Under this legislation there will be no safety net. Thousands of farmers will be forced off the land if prices plunge, or if yields are abnormally low because of disasters. I remember very well what it was like in the 1980's going town to town and meeting to meeting. People came up to me broken financially and in spirit because prices collapsed. Mr. President, we should not fashion a farm policy that turns its back on people in times of disaster, whether it is a price collapse, or a weather disaster. We ought to maintain a safety net in this legislation. Mr. President, in my State there are now 30,000 farmers. I believe that under this legislation if prices decline--and they will; we know that it is inevitable in agriculture that prices will decline--when they do, literally thousands of family farmers in my State will be at risk. I believe we will lose perhaps as many as 10,000 family farmers. That will be felt in every city and town in my State. Every school, every rural electric cooperative, every farm co-op, and every grocery store will be hard hit, if more farmers leave the land. And what will happen to those people? They will go to the cities of the country--the cities where there are already too many people. I look around us here in the Nation's Capital, Metropolitan D.C. and I see too many people here already. It makes no sense to have more people come to the cities and leave the countryside bare. Mr. President, in Europe they have a policy to keep people on the land. Europe has that policy because they have recognized that it makes sense. They understand the jobs that are created by having agricultural production in their countries. Mr. President, Europe has been hungry twice. They never intend to be hungry again. As a result, they support their farmers at a level three to four times what we do for ourselves. On exports they support their producers at a level eight times ours. They understand that there are not just the jobs on the farm--that there are the jobs in every element of agriculture that are attached to having that production in their countries. In this country there are 20 million jobs involved in agribusiness, from trucking to running the elevator, to all the ancillary activities of agricultural production--20 million jobs. Agriculture is one of the two shining lights in the export picture of the United States. Airplanes and agriculture are two places where we enjoy a substantial trade surplus. But under this legislation, Mr. President, we are raising the white flag of surrender. We are engaged in what I call ``unilateral disarmament'' because we are saying to our competitors, ``You go ahead and aggressively seek these markets. We are going to back off. We are going to back down. We are going to let you take them.'' Mr. President, this is a profound mistake. And, if we allow it to go forward, we will see happen to us in agriculture what has happened to us in automobiles and electronics, and every other place where the United States did not fight for its market share. Mr. President, that is a mistake. We would never do it in a military confrontation. It makes no sense to do it in a trade battle. Mr. President, for those reasons I will reluctantly vote against this farm bill in the hopes that it will send a signal that there are things we must do for the future. (The remarks of Mr. Conrad pertaining to the introduction of legislation are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, on another matter, we learned yesterday that Canada is banning all imports of United States durum as a result of the karnal bunt fungus found in Arizona. Mr. President, this ban means that no durum may be exported to Canada. Durum is the wheat that makes pasta. So all the pasta lovers should understand most of the durum that makes pasta in this country is grown in North Dakota. Eighty-seven percent of the durum wheat that makes pasta is grown in North Dakota. And our Canadian friends from the north have now banned all imports of U.S. durum wheat. What does that mean? Well, it means a lot. It means that our durum is not going to be able to leave through the Great Lakes. That is where the grain that is grown in North Dakota and the rest of the Midwest is transferred to what we call lakers, ships that go on the lake to transoceanic vessels. Those transfers are made in Canadian ports. This ban will mean that our grain cannot leave through those Canadian ports. That means our grain is going to have to go south through the gulf adding a lot of cost and expense. That means we are going to be less competitive against the Canadians. Mr. President, one might understand what the Canadians are doing here if in some way they were threatened. They themselves have acknowledged they are not threatened. They themselves have acknowledged that karnal bunt cannot survive in the cold of Canada. And there is no karnal bunt that has been found in the Midwest. The only place it was found was on isolated farms in some southwestern States. So the Canadians are engaged, I believe, in a deception. They are saying they are banning our exports of durum wheat through their ports to protect their producers. But by their own statements they know--and they have acknowledged--that they are not threatened. So what is really going on, Mr. President? I believe it is an attempt to secure a competitive advantage, and we should not allow it. We should fight back. Today, I am introducing two bills: One that will ban imports of Canadian durum until Canada drops its restriction on our grain. And the second bill would ban the imports of all cattle and beef from Canada given the fact that we have seen the mad cow disease develop in England. We know there have been shipments of cattle from England to Canada in the past. If they are going to threaten us because of karnal bunt found in Arizona, we can threaten them in the same way and shut off all imports from Canada of their beef and their cattle because of the mad cow syndrome in England when we know there have been shipments of beef from that country to Canada. It makes just as much sense to ban imports of cattle and beef from Canada where there is no known BSE as it does to ban imports of wheat from the upper midwest where there are no known outbreaks of karnal bunt. That is equivalent treatment. That is standing up for America. I hope that other of my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation to send a clear message to our neighbors to the north that we are not going to accept their refusal to take our exports of durum through their markets. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, on another matter, we learned yesterday that Canada is banning all imports of United States durum as a result of the karnal bunt fungus found in Arizona. Mr. President, this ban means that no durum may be exported to Canada. Durum is the wheat that makes pasta. So all the pasta lovers should understand most of the durum that makes pasta in this country is grown in North Dakota. Eighty-seven percent of the durum wheat that makes pasta is grown in North Dakota. And our Canadian friends from the north have now banned all imports of U.S. durum wheat. What does that mean? Well, it means a lot. It means that our durum is not going to be able to leave through the Great Lakes. That is where the grain that is grown in North Dakota and the rest of the Midwest is transferred to what we call lakers, ships that go on the lake to transoceanic vessels. Those transfers are made in Canadian ports. This ban will mean that our grain cannot leave through those Canadian ports. That means our grain is going to have to go south through the gulf adding a lot of cost and expense. That means we are going to be less competitive against the Canadians. Mr. President, one might understand what the Canadians are doing here if in some way they were threatened. They themselves have acknowledged they are not threatened. They themselves have acknowledged that karnal bunt cannot survive in the cold of Canada. And there is no karnal bunt that has been found in the Midwest. The only place it was found was on isolated farms in some southwestern States. So the Canadians are engaged, I believe, in a deception. They are saying they are banning our exports of durum wheat through their ports to protect their producers. But by their own statements they know--and they have acknowledged--that they are not threatened. So what is really going on, Mr. President? I believe it is an attempt to secure a competitive advantage, and we should not allow it. We should fight back. Today, I am introducing two bills: One that will ban imports of Canadian durum until Canada drops its restriction on our grain. And the second bill would ban the imports of all cattle and beef from Canada given the fact that we have seen the mad cow disease develop in England. We know there have been shipments of cattle from England to Canada in the past. If they are going to threaten us because of karnal bunt found in Arizona, we can threaten them in the same way and shut off all imports from Canada of their beef and their cattle because of the mad cow syndrome in England when we know there have been shipments of beef from that country to Canada. It makes just as much sense to ban imports of cattle and beef from Canada where there is no known BSE as it does to ban imports of wheat from the upper midwest where there are no known outbreaks of karnal bunt. That is equivalent treatment. That is standing up for America. I hope that other of my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation to send a clear message to our neighbors to the north that we are not going to accept their refusal to take our exports of durum through their markets. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today's vote marks the return of the product liability issue to the Senate. It was about 1 year ago, May 10, 1995, when I voted for final passage of the Senate version of the product liability bill. Yet before final passage, I voted against cloture four times. I voted against cloture because I had reservations about some of the provisions in the bill, including the absolute punitive damage cap and one way preemption clauses within the bill. However, after cloture was achieved, I voted in support of final passage in the hopes that the Senate and House conferees, working in conjunction with the White House, would reach a reasonable, balanced, and fair compromise. Unfortunately, the conference report, rather than improving the bill, raises more questions and concerns. In the Senate bill, the language made it clear that the following would be excluded from the definition of product, electricity, water delivered by a utility, natural gas, or steam. However, the conference report adds an exception that in application, swallows the exclusion. The exception provides that if electricity, water delivered by a utility, natural gas, or steam is subject under State law to strict liability, the provisions of the product liability conference report apply. This is an expansion of the Senate bill. Also, in the Senate bill, the provision regarding negligent entrustment was found in the applicability section and it provided that nothing in the title, the products liability bill, would apply to negligent entrustment cases. However, in the conference report, the negligent entrustment language is moved to the seller liability section and therefore negligent entrustment actions are not excluded from the provisions of the bill. Does the Senate really want to send a signal to those who, for example, serve alcohol to minors that their liability is substantially reduced? The conference report language changes the Senate bill's provision on statute of repose by reducing the number of years and inserting ambiguity on the scope of products covered under statute of repose. The statute of repose is reduced from the Senate bill's period of 20 years to the conference report's period of 15 years. Changes in the definition of durable goods have raised ambiguity over whether the statute of repose remains applicable to only durable goods used in the workplace. Finally, my concern remains about provisions which change State law only when that law is unfavorable to negligent manufacturers. If the goal is to create a uniform Federal law, the conference report should not make exceptions for States in the areas of statute of repose and punitive damage cap formulas. I regret that I am unable to vote for cloture on this conference report. I remain supportive of reasonable and balanced product liability reform. My vote for final passage of the Senate bill on May 10, 1995, is a testament to my position.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee for clarifying the intent of Congress regarding the utilization of CDBG funds for flood mitigation efforts. I also want to thank the chairman and ranking member of the full committee for their help throughout this process.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, my distinguished colleague from North Dakota and I offered an amendment reprogramming $44.9 million from Air Force research and development, R&D, accounts to operations and maintenance, O&M, earmarked for retention of our entire fleet of B-52H aircraft in active status or a fully maintained attrition reserve. Retention of these aircraft makes good sense. The B-52 is currently our only dual-capable aircraft, capable of responding anywhere in the world with advanced conventional precision guided munitions or in support of our nuclear deterrent. The B-52 is our most proven bomber, and as a result of consistent upgrades which are continuing, the B-52 is a thoroughly modern aircraft. Gen. Michael Low, former Commander of the Air Combat Command, has stated that the B-52's airframe is good until 2035. The B-52 is also cost effective, making it a good buy as we work to balance the budget. As my colleagues may be aware, the Air Force has announced its intention to send up to 28 of these aircraft to the boneyard at Davis- Monthan. This is clearly unwise. In the context of great uncertainty over Russian ratification of START II, loss of the capability to reconstitute the current force structure in a relatively short period of time would likely decrease Russia's incentive for ratification. I know that my colleagues shared this concern when they voted to pass the fiscal year 1996 Defense Authorization Act, which included a provision prohibiting the retirement of any B-52's or any strategic systems, with fiscal year 1996 funds. Recent events in the Taiwan Strait and frequent threatening Iraqi military maneuvers near Kuwait since the gulf war highlight the wisdom of this provision. In an era when we face the possibility of sudden massive aggression that leaves us little time to deploy reinforcements, the B-52's global reach is a valuable capability we ought not sacrifice. As many of my distinguished colleagues are aware, the Botton-Up Review [BUR] found that 100 deployable conventional bombers are needed to win one major regional conflict [MRC] before swinging to another MRC. Because of the slow pace of conventional upgrades to the B-1 fleet and the continuing production of the B-52, however, we could only deploy 92 global range bombers if we had to go to war today. Sending dual-capable B-52's to the boneyard when we are unable to meet our requirements for even one MRC is unwise, if not dangerous. Retention of these proven, cost effective, and highly capable bombers is clearly in our interest, and I believe that this amendment is the right way to do it. In light of the great budgetary pressure faced by the Air Force in this time of fiscal austerity, I am pleased that a portion of the Defense Department's unexpected inflation dividend was available for reprogramming. No other valuable Air Force program will be negatively affected by this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and call on the Department of Defense to respect Congress's prerogative to determine the structure of our Armed Forces. In particular, I urge the Defense Department to postpone inactivation of any part of our B-52 force until Congress has completed all action on this year's defense budget, including the reprogramming package currently under development by the administration and supplemental appropriations legislation for fiscal year 1996. I thank my distinguished colleagues for their careful consideration of this amendment, and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the chairman and ranking member for their comments. We have one additional question for the chairman and ranking member.

Mr. CONRAD. I notice that the chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on VA-HUD and Independent Agencies are on the floor and Senator Dorgan and I would like to engage them in a short colloquy. As you know, two amendments to the omnibus appropriations bill were adopted on the floor on Monday providing much needed hazard mitigation and disaster relief for the people of the Devils Lake Basin in North Dakota. As Senator Dorgan and I stated on the floor prior to adoption of those amendments, Devils Lake reached a 120-year high water level last year, and the resulting flooding caused more than $35 million in damages. Based on the most recent National Weather Service forecast on March 1, we anticipate record high lake levels again this year. The amendments which were adopted will go a long way toward preventing another disastrous flood from occurring. We would like to know if additional assistance might be available to North Dakota through the Community and Development Block Grant Program.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I also want to thank the Senators for clarifying the intent of Congress regarding emergency funding for Devils Lake. This funding will help prevent tens of millions of dollars of damages in Benson and Ramsey Counties and on the Devils Lake Sioux Indian Reservation.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I note that the chairman and ranking member of the Commerce/State/Justice Appropriations Subcommittee are on the floor at this time. Senator Dorgan and I would like to engage them in a colloquy concerning the amendments which we offered and which were accepted yesterday to help prevent flooding at Devils Lake, ND The omnibus appropriations bill now includes emergency funding to address flooding at Devils Lake, ND. The lake is located in Benson and Ramsey Counties, as well as in the Devils Lake Sioux Indian Reservation. Last year, as my colleagues know, the lake reached a 120- year high water level, causing more than $35 million in damages. The National Weather Service projects that the lake will rise an additional 2\1/2\ to 3 feet this year. It is our understanding that the additional $10 million provided to the Economic Development Administration is to undertake emergency flood prevention efforts at Devils Lake. These emergency funds are critical to the area's economy, and will help prevent some of the $50 million in flood damages expected this year at Devils Lake.