Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I am only quoting the Almanac.

Mr. CRAIG. But my question is: The individual foreign ops, Agriculture, and Defense bills were in fact not individually debated on the floor and amended?

Mr. CRAIG. I made this comment, and the Senator made a corresponding comment that appears to suggest that my comment is in conflict with his and they may not be. I want to correct this for the record. The Congressional Quarterly Almanac says that only seven appropriations bills had passed the Senate on October 1 of 1987. But we did not provide for the President an omnibus bill with 13 in it until December 22, 1987. I am not suggesting by this statement that the Senate didn't go on to debate those individual bills on the floor between October 1 and December 22; I didn't draw that conclusion.

Mr. CRAIG. If the Senator will yield for one last question.

Mr. CRAIG. That is correct.

Mr. CRAIG. It is the Senator's time.

Mr. CRAIG. The State of West Virginia and my State of Idaho are very similar. Both are small, rural States. Both the Senator from West Virginia and I are very proud of the fact that we have equal power in the Senate. Our Founding Fathers assured that. That is what created this marvelous balance. Both the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from Idaho serve on the Appropriations Committee. Obviously, the Senator from West Virginia has tremendous seniority and is former chairman of that committee. I am still pretty much a freshman. We appreciate that debate process. There is no question about it. At the same time, I am one of those Senators who, before the August recess, turned to my majority leader and said something he didn't want to hear. I said: You know, I am going to start researching the need for a lame duck session because we are not going to get our work done. We have not been allowed to move bills to the floor without 100 amendments or 50 amendments. The Senator from West Virginia can certainly characterize those amendments the way he wants. I will characterize them by saying at least 50 percent of them are political. They come from both sides. I cannot say that the other side is any more guilty than we are for making a public political statement on an amendment that never passes. We are all frustrated by that. But when you subject a bill to full debate on the floor without being able to get a unanimous consent agreement to govern the time, then we could go on for days and sometimes an entire week on the floor on a single bill. Is that necessary?

Mr. CRAIG. I see. But not individually brought to the floor? I understand what you are saying. I am not disputing what you are saying about incorporating them into a CR.

Mr. CRAIG. Yes.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today I rise to welcome Mr. C.J. Chen as the new Representative at the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO). Mr. C.J. Chen, former foreign minister of Taiwan, has recently replaced Mr. Stephen Chen as Taiwan's top diplomat in the United States. Mr. C.J. Chen is certainly qualified to speak for his government and to brief us on all the issues affecting the good relations between the United States and Taiwan. Representative Chen was born in China and educated in Taiwan and Great Britain. He received a law degree at the University of Cambridge and was a resident fellow at the University of Madrid. Following his training in Europe, he returned to Taipei and served in many key positions. Most notably he was senior deputy in Taiwan's Washington office in the 1980's; later he was a vice foreign minister, a senator in the Parliament, and a government spokesman. Prior to June of this year, he was the Foreign Minister for the Republic of China. Representative Chen's appointment as Taiwan's chief diplomat in the United States is a strong indication of the importance his government attaches to Taiwan-United States relations. He will have a unique opportunity to keep us abreast of the new administration's peace initiatives for the region. Representative Chen has already made a great start on Capitol Hill. I trust that he will have a very successful stay in Washington and on Capitol Hill. He is a very talented and respected representative for TECRO.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I understand there are two bills at the desk due for their second reading.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I object to further proceedings on the bills at this time.

Mr. CRAIG. I ask unanimous consent that they be read by title at this time.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I understand that under this conference report that is now on the floor, the Senator from Wyoming has an hour reserved.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for the course of the last hour and a half, I have been both in committee and in my office. While in my office, I watched a good deal of the discussion going on here on the floor by some of my colleagues on the other side--Senator Graham from Florida, Senator Boxer from California, Senator Durbin from Illinois, and Senator Dorgan from North Dakota--talking about the issue of prescription drugs. There isn't a Senator here who does not recognize the importance of this issue primarily with the senior community in America today-- primarily with the poorer of that community who cannot afford some of the new drugs that are on the market that are clearly improving their lifestyle, extending their health, and allowing many of our citizens to live better and longer. That is why some of us, if not all of us, for the last couple of years have recognized the need to respond to the prescription drug issue within Medicare as a primary health provider in this country for our seniors. When that belief first came about, it came about in the context of the reform of Medicare. I think it is important to give a little history. With a health care program in this country that is 30 years old, we began to recognize that it was in trouble; that it was continuing to pay for health care needs that were sometimes no longer needed and costs continued to go up. We were constantly working to adjust it. In the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, we made adjustments. Some of those were right; some of those were wrong. Some of those were interpreted by the Federal health care administrators in a way that Congress didn't intend, and we are going to make some of those corrections this year for nursing homes and hospitals. The fundamental question is and should be, Was Medicare providing the necessary health care needs of our seniors? Out of that grew the prescription drug issue. No question about it, as the President knows, these new designer drugs that are out on the market that are a result of our science, our technology, are doing wonderful things. They are not included. They are not a part of the old Medicare model that we created 30-plus years ago. That is why in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 this Congress and this Senate said: Let's create the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. Let's reform it to fit the 21st century and the needs of the seniors of America in the 21st century, and let's do that in the context of shaping it differently, making sure prescription drugs are a piece of it. That will be the new health care paradigm. The President appointed people. We appointed people. We worked. They studied. We brought in the best health care experts in the country and they brought about a report. Something happened along the way. We were getting closer and closer to an election cycle, and it appeared tragically enough that the other side saw this much more as a political issue than a need for substantive reform. As a result, that commission reported it lacked the one vote necessary for a majority to report back to Congress its findings and its proposal for the Congress to act. Interestingly enough, the two Democrats from the Senate, Senator Breaux and Senator Kerrey, who served on that committee, voted for the report. They saw it as a major step in the right direction and, of course, the President's appointees were advised to vote against the report, or so we understand. They voted against it. Eleven votes were needed to approve the commission's recommendation; 10 of the 17 commissioners voted yes. We needed one more and we simply did not get it. Before the vote ever took place, President Clinton announced the commission had failed and that his own advisers would draft a plan to serve the Medicare program. I think what he was saying was that his own advisors would draft a political plan to serve the next Presidential election. The politics of Mediscare and prescription drugs moves now into the political arena. That announcement occurred in March of 1999. It literally was the sounding of a trumpet, the sounding of the fact that prescription drugs and Medicare without reform would become a part of the political mantra of the day; every Senator, Democrat and Republican, recognizing that we had to deal with prescription drugs. In fact, it was interesting to me that Senator Breaux said: We are not going to fix Medicare; we are going to be looking for issues to beat each other over the head with once again. That is what he said in the Congressional Record of March of 1999--a Democrat, referring to the commission and a failure of the commission and a failure of this President to stand up and be counted for at a time when we had a chance, a window of opportunity to make major national reform in Medicare and to include prescription drugs in it. We would not be here today voting or debating this issue had that report come forward, been crafted into law, in bill form, and been debated. We would have debated it. With that kind of bipartisan support it could have and it would have happened. But it didn't happen. And tragically enough, it is not going to happen this year. We are engaged in a national debate over which side can provide the best form of prescription drug program for the seniors of America. The debate in the field today between candidate George W. Bush and candidate Vice President Al Gore has now moved to the floor of the Senate. Prior to that debate, the Congress, in its budget resolution, said: Let's put $200 million in there to deal with prescription drugs this year so that seniors who are in true need, the truly neediest of the senior community who are making those choices between food and prescription drugs could be cared for. I hope we can still get them. While we have the national debate ongoing today between Governor Bush and Vice President Gore--and it is an appropriate debate to have--the Vice President, I don't believe, deserves another bite at the apple. He has had 8 years and he had a chance to go to this President and say: Let's do Medicare reform. Let's do it now in a bipartisan way. Let's take this issue off the table. That isn't what happened. It is just too ripe for politics. It is just too tasty an issue to engage in a national debate about it. That is what we are about today. It is now on the floor of the Senate. Vice President Gore has his prescription drug plan out; George W. Bush has proposed his; we will attempt to deal with ours. I have the privilege of now serving on the Finance Committee. The Finance chairman has brought about a bill and we hope to have it on the floor and we hope it will comply with the amount of money necessary in the budget to fund this in the short term to deal with the problem in the immediate sense. Governor Bush says: Let's deal with it now and let's give truly needy seniors the solution to the problem now. And Al Gore says: No, no, no; let's work on this--18 months, 2 years; We will have a better plan; we will have an all-inclusive plan. There are very real differences in what is proposed. Our Vice President says an all-Government plan, Government control, Government managed, universal for everyone. We are saying, no, no, we like the one in the model that the Governor from Texas has put up, with greater flexibility, more choice for seniors. It is very similar to what I have, and very similar to what the Presiding Officer has, under insurance, allowed to be provided for Federal employees by private providers. There is flexibility to make choices. I don't think I want a Federal warehouse in Boise, ID, distributing drugs to seniors 500 miles away at the other end of the State. I want the local pharmacy allowing the local senior to make the choice with his or her doctor as to what their true needs are and for those needs to be covered in Medicare. That is what the seniors of America want. They don't want the Government saying yes or the Government saying no. There are very real and fundamental debates. I suspect we are going to hear Senators such as the Senator from Florida now on the floor--and this is an important issue in a State with so many seniors, as has the State of Florida, and I don't dispute that. But it is important that we engage in this debate and that the American public stop and say, gee, is there a free lunch and are there free drugs? The answer is no. It will cost someone, and it will cost $200 or $300 or $400 or $500 million, or $12 billion a year to do a universal program, or a lot more than that. We know it will be very costly. Therefore, it is right and proper to decide who can afford to pay and who can't afford to pay. How about those seniors who have their own health care program now that pays? Why would Al Gore want to wipe out those insurance programs and go to a Government program? I don't think any seniors who study the program and understand that are going to like that idea. They are going to want their own health care program that they paid for and that maybe is a condition of their retirement coming down from the company they had worked for all their lives. And they ought to have it. That is the kind of flexibility and the dynamics we ought to have in the marketplace. This Congress, in a bipartisan way, will ultimately solve this problem. We can do it this year a little bit of the way to help the truly needy. That is what we ought to do. I hope we can resolve that in a bipartisan fashion. Then we will allow the national debate to go on. We will ask every senior to compare the score charts, the Governor Bush plan versus the Al Gore plan--a Government plan versus a plan of choice, versus a plan of individualism; a relationship between a doctor and his or her patient versus a relationship with a Government provider. That choice is going to be very simple for Americans when they are given it in a clear, understandable way. That is why I am on the floor today. Let's back away from the clutter and the finger pointing. Let's compare the plans--they are both out there now--on a point-by-point basis, and let us do what we can do here this year. We have $200 million built into the budget. We did it in advance, knowing we ought to deal with this issue. We ought to deal with it now for the truly needy seniors of America, those who make the horrible choice of food versus prescription, heat versus prescription. Not in America. Never in America should that be allowed to happen. I hope the politician will step back for a moment from the restrictions or complications of that issue and solve that problem now for our truly needy seniors while we allow the national debate to go on as to what America and American citizens wish to choose as a part of their overall health care needs. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to use up to 10 minutes of that hour.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, September 26, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. S. 3039, a bill to authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to sell a Forest Service administrative site occupied by the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Boise, Idaho, and use the proceeds derived from the sale to purchase interests in a multiagency research and education facility to be constructed by the University of Idaho, and for other purposes, has been added to the agenda. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. For further information, please call Mike Menge at (202) 224-6170.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, September 26, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 3052, a bill to designate wilderness areas and a cooperative management and protection area in the vicinity of Steens Mountain in Harney County, Oregon, and for other purposes and S. 3044 a bill to establish the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area in the State of Arizona. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. For further information, please call Mike Menge at (202) 224-6170.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order today, notwithstanding an adjournment of the Senate, to read for the first time two bills introduced by Senator Kennedy and that objection to a second reading be ordered today.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution and preamble be agreed to en bloc, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record in the appropriate place.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of H. Con. Res. 371 and that the Senate then proceed to its consideration.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements related thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with the above occurring en bloc.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed in morning business and to consume such time as I may need.

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