Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Chairman. clean coal technology

Mr. CRAIG. First, allow me to thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member for their hard work on the Fiscal year 2001 Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. Despite scarce resources and tough choices, they came up with a fiscally responsible bill that meets important priorities, which I support. There are some important projects to be funded in this bill that I would like to work with the Chairman on. We are proud to be the home of Lake Coeur d'Alene in North Idaho. It has become a world-class destination for all sorts of outdoor activities--from golf to water sports to mountain biking. This tourism is important to the local economy and the ability to partake in these activities is vital to the local residents' quality of life. I know the Chairman is very familiar with the area, since it is a short distance from Spokane, Washington and is a popular recreation destination for many of his constituents. The problem we have encountered is a lack of public boat launching facilities. Most of the lake front land around the lake is privately owned, so land for public launch facilities is scarce. However, the Bureau of Land Management has purchased land for a boat launch facility and has completed all of the appropriate studies and planning; they are simply lacking the funds to build the facility. The local community, including many residents of Washington State, tenaciously support the project and are willing to provide about $700,000 toward the project. In the same part of the great State of Idaho, mining has been and, hopefully, will continue to be a substantial part of the local economy--providng the minerals we all need. The University of Idaho and Washington State University want to work with the U.S. Geological Survey to develop new high-tech methods of modeling geology, to be tested in North Idaho, but eventually applied world-wide, to provide better exploration and modeling techniques to find groundwater, minerals, etc. In the Southern part of Idaho, we are very concerned about the proposed listing of the Sage Grouse as an endangered species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been petitioned to list the species, which would have a dramatic impact on the lives of the people of Southern Idaho, as well as future BLM and Forest Service operations. It becomes readily apparent when you visit Southern Idaho that the entire region is habitat for Sage Grouse. Local working groups have been formed across Southern Idaho to find local, collaborative projects to restore Sage Grouse habitat and the species which would make a listing under the Endangered Species Act unnecessary. To be successful, this effort appropriately requires some federal support. Finally, also in Southern Idaho, there is an urgent need to re-open the BLM's air tanker resupply base at the Twin Falls airport. This base was closed in 1998, after an internal inspection indicated unsafe conditions. This is the only such base within 100 miles of most of the Idaho-Nevada border, which uniquely suits it to provide the fastest possible response and turnaround times in this area during the fire season. In this vast expanse of vulnerable landscape, in the dry season, a small accident rapidly could become a major fire disaster. We've seen that happen in other parts of the country and we should take steps here to prevent it. The community has worked diligently with the local BLM office to re-open the base as soon as possible. However, in the national office, this project has been slipped back from year to year and down the priority list. Everyone agrees this base must be replaced. Our concern is simply that it should be done now, rather than be subject to further postponement. I hope the chairman will work with me when this bill goes to conference to find funds for all of these important and fiscally responsible projects.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, would the distinguished Chairman of the Subcommittee yield for a colloquy regarding several important, proposed projects under the jurisdiction of the Interior Subcommittee?

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Senator for the leadership he has taken in this area. It is so critically important. About a month and a half ago, I got a call from the Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, who said: I am headed to Idaho. I am going to look at the Craters of the Moon National Monument. I might want to expand it. ``I might want to expand it,'' was what he said. It is currently 54,000 acres. He has recommended that it be expanded to 754,000 acres. He doesn't take into consideration grazing. He wants to overlay Park Service and BLM management into a confusing new kind of configuration. Most importantly--this is the point the Senator from Oklahoma has just made--there have been no public hearings, no local input. He went around and held some meetings with some affected or potentially affected parties. If the Congress were handling this, we would have the full NEPA process. We would have an EIS. We would incorporate our county governments. We would look at the kind of impact this designation would have. The Senator is right, he and I might ultimately agree with it, but what about the county roads that go through it and some of the private roads that go through it and the elimination or the blockage of those roads. Those are the kinds of issues this President and this Secretary have totally ignored in the name of the Clinton legacy. I hope this amendment will pass. It is time we halt this action and bring this through the Congress to an appropriate public process to sort out all these difficulties. That is what the committee on which the Senator from Oklahoma and I serve has the responsibility of doing: refining and crafting public policy. I thank the Senator.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG. We checked with the Forest Service when we prepared the Forest Service budget, and their preparedness program has been fully budgeted for the year. They told us that it was adequate to meet their needs, and the current needs. Does the Senator know otherwise?

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have been listening with great interest for the last several minutes as the Senator from Nevada made his presentation in relation to an amendment to take $30 million out of the timber program. He has given the reason that we have a catastrophic situation in the West today--some 39 million acres of our public timbered lands are in a critical situation as it relates to stand- altering fires, and we ought to do better planning. Therefore, we ought to take the money out to do better planning so we could circumvent this situation. And, oh, by the way, logging exacerbates that problem by leaving some slash on the ground. The argument of the Senator might have some modicum of validity if we had not done what we did last week. Last week, we passed Senator Pete Domenici's bill for which the Senator from Nevada voted. We put $240 million, not $30 million--$240 million in a fuel reduction program. In fact, the Forest Service says it funds entirely, Senator Bryan, all that they can do. It even provides additional money for planning. So, really, the fire issue should be set aside in your debate, based on the actions of the Senate last week. I think what the Senate did last week is responsible, to put that kind of money into fuel reduction, especially in the urban interface and in those areas of the kind we saw at Los Alamos, in New Mexico, where we saw hundreds of homes go up in smoke as a result of bad policy and bad management on the part of this administration coming together. What are we talking about, then, if the fire issue has been dealt with appropriately by this Senate? If what we are talking about is the existing timber program that obviously the Senator from Nevada opposes, as do many environmental groups that he finds himself here on the floor today representing, then the fire issue I think is relatively moot. So let's talk about the timber sale program. What the Senator from Nevada is doing when he talks about it being a money loser is he is taking money out of a program from a portion of the program that really is the money maker. So he is fulfilling a prophesy of argument that somehow this will continue to be a money loser, and most assuredly it will be if you take money from that kind of program. Let me talk about the program for a few moments, where it is as a part of an overall forest policy in our Nation, and why it is important we keep some approach to a timber program, whether it is for green sales to supply dimensional timber to the housing industry of our Nation, or whether it is for the purpose of thinning and reducing the overall burden of the number of trees within a stand of timber, therefore increasing the viability of forest health in our Nation's forests. Those 39 million acres of timberland that are in critical condition today across our Nation are, in fact, a result of the overstocking of these acreages. Some 400-plus trees per acre now exist on land that 100 years ago, long before man was out there logging them, had only 60 trees per acre. As a result, we need a concentrated program of management for fuels reduction for fire, but I also think we can reasonably argue that we can take some of those trees out for timber, logging, home building, purposes for the Nation's economy. Let me give an example of where we are with the industry at this moment and why I think it is important we discuss it. On this first chart, it shows in 1989 there were about 150,000 jobs in the timber industry nationwide. In 1997, that had been reduced to about 55,000 timber jobs, almost a two-thirds reduction in overall employment that is in direct correspondence, in part, to the amount of logging that goes on. Since the Clinton administration has come to Washington, its timber policies have reduced logging on our national forests by over 80 percent nationwide--an 80-percent reduction nationwide in overall logging. What does that mean on a State-by-State basis? Let me give an example of what it means in at least three States. It does not mean much in the State of Nevada. They do not have trees to log, except in very limited ways. This is what it means in the State of Washington from 1989 to present: It means 55 mills closed and 3,285 primary mill jobs. That is what that kind of policy means. In my State of Idaho, 13 mills closed, 1,083 people. In the State of Oregon, 111 mills closed and 11,600 people. That is even after the President's new plan. Remember, when he came to office, he held a big timber summit in Oregon: Save the trees and save the jobs. They have not been able to produce the jobs. In fact, they had to backtrack and even back away from their own policy because of the pressure from environmental groups. They were unwilling to support their own policy. The Senator from Nevada is now on the floor trying to argue for a major reduction in that policy. In the State of California, 46 mills and 4,427 jobs. It will not affect Nevada. They do not cut trees there, or cut very few. I have worked with the Senator from Nevada on an area that I think is tremendously important. The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources just reported out S. 1925, the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act. The Senator from Nevada and his colleague have been extremely concerned about the health of the forest in the Greater Tahoe Basin, and he should be. That forest is an overmature, climax forest. In other words, it is beyond the point of healthy adulthood. Trees are dying; trees are too thick. There is an urban interface with beautiful big recreational homes built amongst the stands of timber. They have a silviculture problem with the potential of massive wildfires in the Tahoe Basin, losing those beautiful homes, and creating a catastrophic environmental situation that could badly damage the beautiful Lake Tahoe itself. The Senator from Nevada has a problem. He has a bill that authorizes work to be done in the basin, but he has no money. What he is doing tonight is cutting out of one of the budgets of the Forest Service, some of the very money that will go to restore Lake Tahoe and the Tahoe Basin. I am not quite sure he can get it both ways. I have worked with the Senator from Nevada to try to assure the Tahoe Basin restoration program will go forward and that we will have adequate moneys to begin to do the kinds of silviculture programs, the thinnings and the necessary efforts, that will create a higher level of forest health in the Tahoe Basin. We cannot do it tonight because the Senator from Nevada is cutting $30 million to the detriment of his own program. I suggest when he was approached by the environmental groups to do this amendment that was not a factor, but what is a factor is that the Senator from Nevada has not had money appropriated for his project. He will hand it over to the Forest Service at large. It is a bill that will authorize the Forest Service to move in that area, and he is even cutting the budgets of the Forest Service, or attempting to as we speak. That is frustrating. It is extremely frustrating to this Senator who has worked very closely with the Senator from Nevada to assure that his Tahoe Basin project is authorized because it is necessary and it is appropriate. Last week, the Senator from Nevada joined with us to put over $240 million into a fire reduction program and a program to allow the Forest Service to study even greater amounts of fire suppression by reduction of the fuel loading on our national forest floors. Yet today he comes back with that argument. Let me suggest this argument is for one purpose and one purpose only, and his amendment will serve for one purpose and one purpose only. We find it right here in a letter from the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. This labor union--men and women who work for the forest products industries--says: The Bryan amendment places thousands of forest product jobs at risk and jeopardizes the social and economic stability of rural communities. You are darned right it does. In the rural communities of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington that still have mill jobs, that still ought to be cutting trees. We have 13 and 14 percent unemployment, and this will drive the unemployment up even further. No, those communities are not reaping the benefit of the current full employment economy. The mills on the eastern side of Washington are not reaping the benefit of the high-tech jobs of western Washington. The mills in north Idaho are not reaping the benefits of the high-tech jobs of south Idaho, and so on. What we have attempted to do with reasonably consistent and environmentally sound policy is to ensure a balance. The Senator from Nevada denies us that balance by refusing to allow the Forest Service to have the very tools necessary to properly manage the current timber program. This is not about new roads. There is a road moratorium. The Senator from Nevada knows that. The environmental community last week claimed a major victory with the President's new roadless area initiative. The Senator knows there is not going to be any new roads built. So roads are not the argument, not now and not for the near future. What is at stake is the very jobs that produce the dimensional lumber that comes to the markets that builds the homes of America. It is right and reasonable to assume that some of it ought to come from the forests of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and California. I hope the Senator, recognizing that this whole issue has shifted pretty dramatically in the last 72 hours, will recognize that his amendment no longer has carrying with it the validity that his argument might have had just last week. Mr. President, $240 million later, this Congress, in a responsible fashion, has addressed the catastrophic fire situation that might now exist in our public lands and are willing to deal with it. Those are the issues at hand that are so very important to all of us. Lastly, the very money the Senator will eliminate from the projects and from the programs--here is a letter from the Society of American Foresters saying that the fire in Los Alamos that cost us 235 homes clearly demonstrates that if we had been allowed to have used the stewardship timber sales programs that, in part, the Senator's amendment will now deny us, we could have reduced the fuel loading and, in many instances, we might have saved those homes. That is exactly what we are trying to deal with here. I hope my colleagues will vote with me in voting down the Bryan amendment. There is no basis for the arguments that are placed today that relate to the amendment itself. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for giving an evaluation of the time remaining on the amendments that must be dealt with. I know the chairman has been struggling since around 3:15 to get Senators to debate the amendments, and now all of a sudden they appear on the floor in the last minutes. I conclude my debate. The Senator from Montana, I know, wants to speak to this issue. It impacts his State and the economy of his State. Once again I say to the administration, shame on you for taking people out of the environment, all in the name of the environment. It doesn't seem a very good solution to me, if you are going to tout tourism and recreation to us western States as an alternative to the elimination of the extractive resource industries that have provided economies to our States for the last 100-plus years.

Mr. CRAIG. I am happy to yield to the Senator.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I stand in support of my colleague from Wyoming on his amendment. I was quite surprised when Senator Reid of Nevada spoke on the floor about this issue because I heard what he was saying before. It was given in testimony before the Subcommittee on Parks, chaired by the Senator from Wyoming, by the national environmental groups. He was following their script. Their script says: Get all of the snowmobiles out of the park. For some reason that impacts the parks. I have ridden snowmobiles in Yellowstone. I am not sure the Senator from Nevada has. I am not sure many Senators have. I don't dispute the need to manage the number of snowmobiles and the entry of snowmobiles where they travel. But arbitrarily and without justification, Assistant Secretary Barry--who has now fled to the Wilderness Society once he tried to accomplish his damage here in this administration with the Park Service--came before the committee and emphatically said they had to go. In a press conference a few days prior to that hearing in almost a defiant, arrogant way, he said he was going to take all of them out of the parks, finish the rulemaking in Yellowstone, and so be it--failing to recognize the industries that have built up around snowmobiling at both entrances to Yellowstone Park; failing to deal with them in a responsible, cooperative way--so that he could ensure the mantra of the Clinton administration, and that public lands generate economies in recreation and tourism. Here quite the opposite was going on--no economy, everything for the environment, even though the facts bear out that you can still have an economy, meaning people on snowmobiles in Yellowstone in the wintertime, and still protect the environment. How do you accomplish that? You work with the industry. What do you do with the industry? You ask them to redesign their sleds so they make little to no noise and very little pollution --if there is any of consequence that would damage the environment to begin with. What does the industry say? They can do it. In fact, last winter they were operating in Yellowstone with a prototype put out by one of the snowmobile manufacturers. It was a four-cycle instead of a two-cycle engine. The Senator from Nevada was bemoaning the pollution of the two- cycle. We now know they can produce a four-cycle that will be certainly less environmentally damaging. They are willing to do that. The moment the industry said to the Park Service we can supply you with a new sled that meets these standards, the Park Service says: Oh, well, it wasn't air pollution, it wasn't noise pollution, it was wildlife harassment. Somehow the wildlife of Yellowstone is going through some emotional problem as a result of snowmobiles trafficking by recreationists on a daily basis. I am not quite sure they have had any examples of these wildlife species in therapy. But somehow they seem to know a great deal about it. The bottom line is simply this: The environmentalists have told this administration they want snowmobiles out of the parks. I suggest to the National Park Service that they have a real problem on their hands in management. In other words, they are denying public access to parks that were designed to protect the environment and also allow public access. They have a crisis in management. They don't have an environmental problem in Yellowstone, they have a management problem, a failure on the part of this administration, and certainly this President, to recognize the cooperative balance between the environment and the public and how one benefits from creating this kind of balance for all to benefit from.

Mr. CRAIG. Those would be under the commercial logging program because they could be done for less money and more efficiently. And that is the point of my argument, I say to the Senator. That is the program you are cutting.

Mr. CRAIG. Where trees must be removed--merchantable timber--there are areas where thinning is clearly necessary and so proscribed under the act.

Mr. CRAIG. In the Tahoe Basin Restoration Program, that is near and dear to the Senator--and it is to me; it is a beautiful part of our country.

Mr. CRAIG. Now, the chief is a political appointee. Will the Senator yield for another question?

Mr. CRAIG. Yes, we can, because I am giving categorical facts that the President's chief of the Forest Service said the preparedness program was fully funded. That is all I am saying.

Mr. CRAIG. I am quite sure they would say that it is funded adequately because this administration does not want to cut trees commercially.

Mr. CRAIG. Are you talking about timber harvest or the fuel reduction program?

Mr. CRAIG. No, not at all, because what we did with the $220 million----

Mr. CRAIG. Even though the chief and his budget people say it is? I see. That is what we understood. Does the Senator now have information from the Forest Service that says otherwise?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, certainly, Kay Bailey Hutchison, our colleague from Texas, has led us on the issue of the marriage penalty tax. I think probably she has sensitized all of us to it as only a woman can. I mean that in the sense of understanding the true balance that ought to be in this Tax Code that isn't in the Tax Code. She has been persistent with the Congress and with this Senate to assure that we develop a sense of equity and balance in the Tax Code that our marriage penalty tax relief legislation will offer. Who pays the marriage penalty? In our country, about 22 million married couples do. They are not wealthy. They are modest- and middle- income families. In my State of Idaho, that is 129,710 families. To really bring this home, if, from the time a couple marries, they were to put away, with interest, the difference in the disparity of taxes between $1,000 and $1,400 per year, on the average, for their first child, they could afford to pay 3 years of his or her education at a State institution in my State of Idaho. So it is significant. It is important. There is no question it would help, and can help, the American family. The usual suspects out there who are opposed to this, I think, are using the most tired and sad arguments against tax relief. They simply are arguing from a position of the wrong facts. We have heard them whining about tax cuts and saying the tax cuts are for the rich and somehow you ought not give the rich any opportunity. Of course, in this instance they have simply missed the mark, and they know it. They know they are on the wrong side of this issue. Tax relief, in the area of the marriage penalty tax, helps working families. It ends discrimination against married couples. It reduces the Tax Code's antifamily bias that no tax code should have in it. We have always said that the very foundation of our culture and our country is the family, and yet we take advantage of that union in the Tax Code by causing them to pay more in taxes. Low- and middle-income married couples are the ones who truly are hurt by this penalty. On average, a married couple hit by the marriage penalty will pay about $1,400 more a year in taxes than two single persons at the same combined income. That is where the penalty rests. In total, the marriage penalty overcharges couples in this country $32 billion a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office--that is right, $32 billion a year--that could stay out there with those young couples. I use the example in my State of Idaho that if they simply put it in a bank, with interest, by the time their first child is old enough to go to college, they can afford his first or her first 3 years at a State institution in my State. I think those who oppose marriage tax penalty relief oppose, frankly, all tax relief. The more they can get to spend on Government programs and Government solutions--and go home to their constituents and talk about what wonderful things Government is doing for them--somehow they think that most of our citizens are either undertaxed, and not giving enough to Government for all those wonderful solutions to their problems, or the current Tax Code is fair. They are not worried about a Tax Code that charges a family an extra $1,400 or more, when a family certainly needs that additional income as they become a family unit. They are opposed to all tax relief. If you pay taxes, somehow, in this argument, you are rich; and the rich do not need the relief. How many times have we heard that? At least I have heard it in the good number of years I have been in the Senate. Every time we talk about tax relief, somebody over there on the other side of the aisle says: Gee, those darn Republicans want to give that money back to the rich, and the rich don't need tax relief. Low- and middle-income families do need tax relief. So the opposition on the other side always ponies up some kind of what I call tax-relief ``lite'' amendments to offer, so they can show some degree of compassion. Yet at the same time they offer nothing except a new Government program. Let me break it down into the three most significant ways that the Tax Code extracts the marriage penalty for us to understand. First of all, it is discrimination in the standard deduction area. About two-thirds of the taxpayers take the standard deduction. For a married couple, the standard deduction this year is $7,200. For two single taxpayers with the same combined income, it is $8,600. This is the first $392 of the marriage penalty. Lower and middle-income taxpayers are more likely to take the standard deduction than upper- income persons. Many middle-income families who itemize are still hurt by standard deduction discrimination because the amount of the standard deduction determines whether they itemize. In other words, one element triggers the other element in our Tax Code. The Senate bill would provide relief to 25 million couples by making the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly equal to the standard deduction for two singles with the same combined income. That is a little complicated, but it is easy to understand that for those who take the standard deduction--and those tend to be the lower and middle-income families--the benefit is immediate and, as we have said, is approximately $1,400 a year. The second area deals with discrimination in the earned-income tax credit area, the EITC. We are all familiar with the EITC. It is supposed to reward work, ease income tax and other tax burdens, and supplement incomes for low-income working families with children. It is astonishing, in a program designed to help lower income families, the phaseout schedule for EITC benefits again imposes an antimarriage, antifamily penalty. This is the very program Congress designed to help low-income families. Yet when we look inside the code, the way the IRS has interpreted it and administers it, there is an antimarriage, antifamily penalty. The Senate bill would begin addressing marriage penalty inequity in the EITC by first increasing the maximum credit by $526, starting the phaseout range $2,500 higher than it was at an income level just above $15,000. The third area of discrimination is in the tax brackets. For the average couple paying a marriage penalty, bracket discrimination charges them another $1,000. Bracket discrimination usually takes the lower income earned by one spouse, which would be taxed in the 15- percent bracket if he or she were single, and taxes it at the other spouse's 28-percent rate. This devalues the spouse and the spouse's work that provides the second income for the family. Of course, in some instances, both spouses are professional and choose to seek their profession in the marketplace. In other marriages, one spouse simply wants to supplement the overall family income to broaden the ability of that family to earn, to save, to invest, and to provide for its children. In this instance, this particular structure of the Tax Code actually devalues the value of the income of that spouse who goes into the marketplace to earn additional income for the family. For folks with modest means, this adds what we could easily call insult to the very injury that the Tax Code levees to the taxpayer. Time after time on this floor, we hear how many families are forced to earn a second income to make ends meet. Currently, the heavy hand of Government has the first claim on the second income. For anybody who would choose to vote against this particular provision, shame on them. Especially shame on them if they then turn around and argue that circumstances are so tough out there that every family needs two incomes. Let us work today to lessen that burden, to make it less tough, to give that family unit greater choices as to whether they both want to work in the marketplace or one would choose to stay home. The Senate bill provides help for 21 million couples, including 3 million senior citizens, by expanding the 15-to-28 percent bracket for one couple to a range equal to that for two singles. In addition, this bill preserves the full effect of the family tax credits enacted in the 1997 Taxpayers Relief Act. We now find that particular provision taking effect. More and more middle-income families are slipping into the alternative minimum tax or the AMT. In fact, even some EITC families are now being affected by this. The AMT is already a dubious tax. It requires thousands of taxpayers to figure their returns according to two different tax systems. I don't think anyone really intended the AMT to apply and wipe out the family tax credits we enacted in 1997, including the $500-per-child tax credit, the HOPE education credit, the lifetime earnings credit, and the ongoing dependency care credit. It is time to cut back on the antifamily AMT, and that is exactly what this provision will do. In conclusion, we want a Government that is truly profamily. Certainly all of us--and in a sincere way--want to make sure our laws are profamily. Yet those who will vote against the marriage tax penalty are talking about two different systems. They are being very inconsistent with honesty and integrity in debating this kind of an issue. You cannot talk profamily on one side of the issue and turn around and vote against this provision that we will be voting on on the floor this evening. Our Tax Code says, unless we change it tonight, don't get married. And if you do, you are going to pay higher taxes. We say it is time we create equity in this equation. Our Tax Code says you will pay a penalty if both spouses work and you will be the most heavily taxed if your incomes are about equal. We say the best antipoverty program is a family and a job in America, or two jobs in America taxable at a lower rate, leaving more money inside the family unit to provide for that family and those portions of the American dream they seek to secure. We encourage our citizens to dream a better dream, of a fairer and freer society. Our Tax Code has a great deal to say about the size and the scope of their dreams. I hope we will vote tonight to strike a blow for a profamily, pro- American, American-dream approach, not have the Tax Code constantly confusing the message and sending a negative signal. We are going to pass it, I do believe, and seize the opportunity. In closing, I say to the President: Come on. Quit playing the political games you are playing right now. You have to have this new spending program and this new spending program with a multitrillion- dollar surplus. Give the highest taxed generation in history just a little break. When this bill gets to your desk, sign it. I yield the floor.

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 Thursday, July 20, 2000, at 2:00 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. S. 2834, a bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Bureau of Reclamation, to convey property to the Greater Yuma Port Authority of Yuma County, Arizona, for use as an international port of entry; H.R. 3023, an act to authorize the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Bureau of Reclamation, to convey property to the Greater Yuma Port Authority of Yuma County, Arizona, for use as an international port of entry; and H.R. 4579, an act to provide for the exchange of certain lands within the State of Utah, have 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. committee on energy and natural resources

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, repealing the estate tax is one of the more populist tax cuts considered by Congress this session. Not only do studies show the estate tax has a dramatic impact on the ability of family-owned farms and businesses to survive and create job opportunities, survey after survey has revealed that 70 to 80 percent of Americans in general are critical of the tax and supportive of its repeal. This broad-based support is evident in the number of states that have acted to repeal their state-level estate taxes. Since 1980, more than 20 states have elected to repeal their estate taxes. Mr. President, there is no excuse for continuing a tax that confiscates capital from our most productive citizens. It's anti- growth. It's anti-jobs. It's anti-American. Mr. President, it's time to bury the death tax. Exhibit 1 Death Tax Devastation: Horror Stories From Middle-Class America (By William W. Beach, Director, Center for Data Analysis, The Heritage Foundation) The death tax is the nightmare of the American dream, as these real-life experiences from middle-class America will show. Millions of Americans spend their adult lives working hard, sacrificing and saving, obeying the law, and doing the countless other things that official Washington has told them are the ingredients of a successful life. They are encouraged as federal laws are passed that should expand economic opportunity and guarantee that civil rights will be as much as part of the marketplace as they are a part of community life and education. Thousands of political speeches reinforce the impression they have that Washington believes the United States really is a land of opportunity and a place where the financial fruits of hard work can be used to endow the next generation's economic struggle with greater potential. However, for those whose economic success also resulted in significant assets (like a farm, a small business, a factory, or a trucking fleet), what official Washington says is nothing less than a lie. At the end of life, the federal death tax will sweep across the profits of family-owned businesses and estates and leave in its wake millions of devastated survivors, employees, and communities. Many people whose assets will be depleted to pay the death tax unfortunately learn about estate and gift taxes so late in life that they spend their last days as frequently in the company of their tax lawyers and accountants as they do with their families. The federal government taxes the transfer of wealth between generations at rates as high as 55 percent. At $30 billion dollars, the death tax burden in the United States is the greatest in the world. Indeed, this country owns the dubious distinction of holding the fruits of economic success in lower regard than many of its ideological and economic adversaries. The full case for repealing federal death taxes will involve more than testimony from its victims. However, evidence of harm to the U.S. economy and public finances pales in comparison to the stories of the men and women whose economic virtues regrettably laid the basis for their own and their offspring's financial devastation. The following sampling of evidence from that anecdotal record has been compiled from testimony before Congress, newspaper articles, and statements of family members whose lives were changed by federal death taxes. the death tax hurts family farms and ranches The death tax destroys family businesses and farms, and forces families to spend their hard-earned money on lawyers, accountants, and life insurance policies to deal with it. The Public Policy Institute of New York found a negative relationship between anticipated death tax liability and growth in employment, particularly for growing firms. Business owners are afraid to hire new people and expand their businesses when they face the death tax. The reason is simple: Hiring new people is optional; paying taxes on the family estate is not. Family Farm Horror Story #1 Tim Koopman's family has owned ranch property in California for most of this century. His children would like to continue to run the ranch, but the death tax may prevent this. Since Tim's mother died four years ago, the Koopman's have paid about $400,000 in death taxes. For three of those years, however, Tim has been able only to pay the interest on the death tax bill, and soon he will not be able to pay that without selling some or all of his land. This is a decision that he does not want to face. This land is an important part of his life. The Koopman's faced the death tax once before. In 1973, Tim was forced to sell one of the family's ranches to pay the $125,000 death tax bill that he owed when his father died. Now the family faces the death tax again. Tim wants to pass the ranch on to his children, but the hefty death tax may leave little ranch for him to do so. Family Farm Horror Story #2 Lee Ann's family owns a ranch in Idaho. They have lived there for three generations, providing jobs for the local economy and helping to create a strong community. The family did not acquire a lot of material wealth, so it came as a great shock when the government hit them with a $3.3 million death tax bill after their father's death. Although the death of Lee Ann's father was devastating, the death tax bill made it worse. The family had no debts and owned their land outright; they thought they had nothing to tax. However, their land had increased in value enough to trigger the death tax. Lee Ann's mother, who has been under tremendous strain since her husband's death, is haunted by the realization that after she dies, her family may lose the ranch because of this tax. Another concern is who will buy the ranch if they are forced to sell. Lee Ann worries that, as is the case with so many other properties, the purchaser will not be another family rancher, but rather a wealthy absentee owner who flies in once or twice a year for a vacation. This has been happening more frequently in Idaho, and the sense of community that Lee Ann enjoyed for most of her life is quickly being lost. Family Farm Horror Story #3 Robert Sakata is a 42-year-old vegetable farmer from Brighton, Colorado. Back in 1944 his father paid $6,000 for 40 acres of land to begin a family farm. Six years later, he purchased additional land for $700 an acre. Today, the elder Sakata is 73 and owns 2,000 acres of farmland near the Denver International Airport--a piece of land worth nearly $380 million. This might seem like a wonderful situation for the Sakata family, yet the family owns no other investments; after the elder Sakata and his wife pass away, Robert will face a tax bill of over $200 million. Robert has admitted that he would have to sell off half the farm and lay off many of his 350 workers ``who are like family.'' ``We don't live like millionaires,'' Robert has stated. ``We're just trying to sustain a family business.'' They will have a difficult time. the death tax will force them to lay off workers and sell land that has been part of the family for more than five decades. This treatment of hardworking successful citizens is hardly the story line for an American dream.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, during debate of H.R. 8, the question has been raised: Does the death tax really impact family-owned farms and businesses? The answer is an emphatic ``Yes!'' According to the book, ``The Millionaire Next Door,'' self-employed individuals are four times as likely to accumulate $1 million in assets over their lifetime than those people who work for someone else. Moreover, while self-employed individuals make up only 20 percent of the workforce, they comprise two-thirds of those Americans whose estates are worth more than $1 million. As a tax on accumulated wealth, the estate tax is a direct attack on these individuals. Meanwhile, the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy estimates that seven out of ten family-owned businesses fail to survive from one generation to the next. While this failure rate can be attributed to many factors, the federal estate tax is cited by family business owners as a major obstacle blocking a successful transition. For example, a report by the Family Enterprise Institute found that 60 percent of black business owners believe the estate tax makes the survival of their business significantly more difficult or impossible. Finally, the estate tax hampers the ability of family-owned businesses to compete against larger corporations. In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, a lumberyard owner from New Jersey spoke of incurring up to $1 million in costs associated with preserving the family business pending the death of his grandmother. At the same time the family was incurring these costs, the business was also competing against a new Home Depot store that had moved into the area. Home Depot is not subject to the estate tax. Mr. President, death tax repeal is also pro-jobs. A survey of 365 businesses in upstate New York found an estimated 14 jobs per business were lost in direct consequence of the costs associated with estate tax planning and payment. That amounts to more than 5,000 jobs lost in a limited geographical area. Nationally, the Wall Street Journal reported that an estimated 200,000 jobs would be created or preserved if the estate tax were eliminated. Mr. President, a false argument made by the opposition is that the tax code already protects family-owned businesses from the death tax. While the 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act included provisions to protect family-owned businesses from the death tax, these provisions have proven so complicated and cumbersome that few family businesses choose to use them. For example, in order to qualify for the Family Business Exclusion, an heir has to have worked in the family business for at least five of the eight years leading up to the death of the owner. Following the death of the owner, the family must continue to participate in the business for at least five out of eight years. Both these restrictions create significant problems for family members. How does a son or daughter know when the eight-year ``clock'' starts ticking. If their parents are elderly, do they sacrifice going to college in order to begin working in the business? Moreover, once the business is transferred, the tax deferred by receiving the Qualified Family Business designation hangs over the business for at least eight years, affecting the ability of the business to attain credit or attract investors. Similar difficulties have been realized from other carve-outs. For example, Section 2032A allows closely-held farms and businesses to receive a valuation based upon the property's current use--say farming--rather than its ``highest and best'' use--say commercial development. In order to qualify for the lower valuation, however, the estate and heirs must meet qualifications similar to those required for the Family Business Exclusion. Despite the obvious benefits, only a small fraction--less than one percent in 1992--of taxable estates elect to use it. The provision is simply too complicated for widespread use. With regard to the death tax, it is proving very difficult to protect one set of assets while taxing another. A good-faith attempt was made to protect family-owned businesses from the death tax three years ago, but by most accounts that attempt has largely failed. The best way to protect family farms and businesses from the death tax is to repeal it. I have a paper by Bill Beach of the Heritage Foundation summarizing just a few of the real life stories of farms and businesses harmed by the death tax. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.