Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. May I inquire how much time remains on this side of the issue?

Mr. CRAIG. This side will retain its time.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Harkin amendment. The Harkin amendment would make changes to Social Security benefits. It would: increase benefits to widows; and increase benefits for stay- at-home parents by attributing earnings to them while they stay home. Mr. President, everyone wants to help moms and widows, especially during election years, but Social Security is exactly the wrong tool for the job. The Harkin amendment would fail to provide meaningful assistance to the people they are targeted to aid. Worse, it would increase Social Security's unfunded liabilities by almost a third, reduce Social Security trust fund balances by hundreds of billions, and accelerate the system cash-flow crisis. Social Security is one of the few federal programs that already takes stay-at-home parents into account. Under the current system, married spouses generally receive about the same Social Security benefit regardless of whether they worked full- time, part-time, took a break for child-rearing, or did not work at all. For example, in 1996 women who receive Social Security benefits based upon their own work record received an average benefit of $657, while women whose benefits are based upon their husband's work record received $596, just a 10-percent difference [Social Security Administration]. In other words, there is no motherhood penalty in Social Security. If Senator Harkin wants to help mothers, why doesn't he embrace tax relief like the Senate Marriage Tax Relief Act, which would allow parents to keep more of their income before it gets sent to Washington? Instead, his proposal would take a program already under financial distress and make it go broke faster. Moreover, under the Harkin amendment, years after you've incurred the expense and raised your children, you get a few more benefits from the Federal Government. Who pays for those benefits? You guessed it, your children. Not much of a deal. The Harkin amendment is exactly the wrong solution to help stay-home parents. Senator Harkin estimates this proposal would cost just a few billion over the next 10 years. That is a gross underestimate. While the Social Security Administration has not estimated the ``motherhood'' proposal, economist Henry Aaron offered a ``seat-of-the- pants'' estimate in Slate Magazine [4/5/00] of .25 percent of taxable wages. That's about $150 billion over 10 years. Meanwhile, Senator Harkin's proposal to increase widow's benefits would cost about .32 percent of taxable wages [Report of the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social Security, Volume I: Findings and Recommendations, January 1997]. That translates into $166 billion over the next 10 years. Now the Senator has put a limit on his benefit, so it won't cost quite that much, but it is still substantial. The Harkin amendment claims to pay for these new benefits by transferring money from general funds to the Social Security trust fund. The amount of the suggested transfers is staggering. Including interest, it literally amounts to over 60 trillion dollars over the life of the transfers--over sixty trillion dollars! What do general fund transfers accomplish to help ease the burden taxpayers face in coming years? Nothing. What do the experts have to say about general fund transfers? President Clinton's Budget: ``These [trust fund] balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures but only in a bookkeeping sense. These funds are not set up to be pension funds, like the funds of private pension plans. They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the Government's ability to pay benefits.'' Congressional Budget Office: ``The Administration's proposals would create transactions between government accounts, but such intra- governmental transfers do not by themselves increase the resources available to the government.'' Dan Crippen--Director of the Congressional Budget Office: ``Too many of us--from the President to members of Congress to my high school classmates--believe the current balances in the Social Security trust funds will help ease the burden on the children of the baby boomers. That is, unfortunately, not true.'' Henry Aaron--Brookings Institute: ``The president proposes to deposit government bonds to defray part of this unfunded liability, thereby putting a call on future general revenues--personal and corporation income taxes--to pay for this unfunded liability,'' according to testimony before the Ways and Means Committee, 2/2/99. Mr. President, Senator Harkin's trust fund transfers are a fraud. Whether the system is financed through payroll taxes or from general funds, the Social Security system is poised to claim an increasing share of future worker income. By 2075, that share is one-fifth of taxable payroll--20 cents of every dollar a worker earns. That 20 cents is taken before the other income taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes are collected to pay for national defense, policing the streets, educating children, and other government services. It also is assessed before the worker can purchase housing, clothing, food, education, and transportation. All for a program that--in many cases--offers the worker less money than he or she contributed. Meanwhile, expanding Social Security benefits when the program is already going broke is wholly irresponsible. As Robert Reischauer, former Congressional Budget Office Director, observed about similar proposals. ``We still have a program that is going to face difficulties. Compounding those difficulties is not responsible policy.'' The Harkin amendment is the worst sort of pandering. It pits one generation against another. Younger workers against older retirees. It should be defeated.

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. President, I call up amendment No. 3795.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I will take a few moments to clarify where we are because I think some of our colleagues are slightly confused as to the amendment I offered dealing with the roadless area review and the FACA committee process, and the amendment our colleague from New Mexico has offered, and the Senator from California has just spoken to, dealing with fuel reduction in our forests. There is no doubt, what I was attempting to do dealt specifically with the roadless area rule specific to whether there had been a violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. I was asking the Secretary to formulate an advisory committee to review that. I had visited with Senator Domenici and several things came together that I think are important for us to deal with in the immediate. First of all, there have already been two lawsuits filed against this administration on the Federal Advisory Committee Act process as it relates to the roadless area review process. We believe a judge will make a decision on those two lawsuits, as to their validity and their ripeness, by mid-August. What is important here is for the courts to clarify whether FACA, as a law, is either real or dead letter. Let me explain that. This administration has been accused and found in violation of FACA on several occasions. But the problem is, once the court has made that determination, the rule was already on the ground. So it is like they violated the law, but so what. The process is over with. What the court will decide this time is, Is FACA a law that should intervene prior to a final rule and cause an administrative agency to change its course of direction or action prior to a final rule? That is what will happen in August. I have decided it is important we do not get in front of that ruling by the courts. I think it is very important for this Congress to know whether the law it crafted, known as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, is a dead letter or if it is operative. Right now, based on findings, it is a Catch-22: Yes, they violated the law but so what; the rule is already in place. That is not the intent of Congress. The intent of Congress is to cause a cause of action change in a rulemaking process if the Federal Advisory Committee Act has been violated. Then enters the Los Alamos fire and Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici trying to resolve that particular crisis of bad policy and bad decisionmaking coming together to not only create a catastrophic environmental situation but also ultimately to cost the taxpayers of this country $1 billion, or somewhere near that. That is the tip of an iceberg of a current forest health problem to which the Senator from California has spoken so clearly. What the Senator from New Mexico and the Senator from California saw, witnessed, experienced, with hundreds of lives and hundreds of families and lives displaced----

Mr. CRAIG. Most assuredly I will. I think the Senator knows exactly what I am saying. If he wants the guarantee that FACA will be used, I will be happy to restate it. I ask unanimous consent that the words ``full public meetings'' appropriately be placed at the right stage of this. I will work to comply with that.

Mr. CRAIG. Just one more question, briefly.

Mr. CRAIG. If I may answer, it is because this committee is formulated under FACA. Go to the Federal Advisory Committee Act and there before you will be all the terms by which this committee will be structured. So instead of listing page after page of documentation, I am simply saying that the Secretary will constitute a committee under FACA to make determinations as to whether the appropriate actions have been taken. So the Senator is right; I didn't list all of those things. But you and I operate under the Federal Code. The Federal Code is there and that is why we have done that. amendment No. 3795, as modified

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, in a few moments we may be voting on a motion to strike section 116 of this appropriations bill. That is the amendment offered by our colleague from Illinois. I hope Senators will join with us, as they did last year, in opposing this kind of striking of language. The Senator from New Mexico has said it so clearly, as have the Senator from Montana and the Senator from Wyoming. They have caused all of us to understand where we are in the process of reexamining the grazing permits of western livestock grazers. I don't think we have put it in the context we ought to for the Senator from Illinois. If we had, maybe he would be less inclined to come to the floor with this issue in hopes of gaining another environmental certificate this year from the Sierra Club for his charging, dynamic rhetoric on behalf of the environment. Let me for a moment, if I may, deal with this in a hypothetical way. What if there had been a lawsuit in Rosemont, IL, that suggested the air traffic coming into O'Hare Airport was causing air congestion within that air shed and that air quality could not be arrived at there without changing the character of the management of the O'Hare Airport by reducing its flights by 50 percent? Of course, the Senator from Illinois and I know--he lives in that region; I fly in and out of that region--if you do that, O'Hare Airport is out of business. Thousands and thousands of people would be laid off, if that were to become a Federal rule or a restriction against that activity. More importantly, this is a hypothetical case. There is a lawsuit that the air traffic coming in and out of O'Hare has created a situation that disallowed that area from gaining its air quality standards. So EPA is in there examining it and establishing a rule to see whether O'Hare can continue to manage its air flights in and out in a way as to sustain its viability and meet the air quality standards. But the rule hasn't been made at a time that the judge has said: Either get it done or I will enforce a reduction in air traffic by 50 percent. The Senator from Idaho likes that idea, so I come to the floor on the appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation and say: I want to strike an amendment the Senator from Illinois has in there. Let's extend this period of time and allow EPA to complete its rulemaking process so that we can keep O'Hare alive. I think it is important that we put all of these kinds of things in context. Illinois is not a public grazing State. Idaho is, New Mexico is, Arizona is, Montana is, and so is Wyoming. What the Senator from New Mexico has said is that under today's environmental laws, and yesterday's environmental laws, these grazers will be allowed to graze during that period of time in which the permit process, through an examination by BLM or the Forest Service, is ongoing to reassess their permit and to adjust and change it in concert with current environmental law. I don't know why he would want to stop that. Obviously, he tried last year and the Council on Environmental Quality agreed with us, we defeated that amendment, and the environment is better today because of it. I hope our colleagues will stand with the Senator from New Mexico, as they did last year, and say to the Senator from Illinois that we are not going to put ranchers out of business. We live with environmental law, we are sensitive to it, and we believe in it. We are not going to arbitrarily do as I suggested in my hypothetical case with O'Hare Airport, which is an area that is not of my interest, but it is an interest of the Senator from Illinois because it is in his State. I don't know much about it, but in my example I want to come in and arbitrarily change the name of the game. Of course, he would work to disallow that, and this Senator would respect the Senator from Illinois for saying that is not my business; that is the business of the Federal Aviation Administration and the State of Illinois, the city of Rosemont, and the Senator from Illinois--not the Senator from Idaho. I think that is the issue here. In 1878, the diaries of a cavalry officer in charge of the cavalry in eastern Oregon, northern Nevada, and southern Idaho reflected the following: I believe the grazing lands of this region to be 50 to 60 percent depleted. That was in 1878. Why? No BLM management. No Federal land management. No standards. Large grazing herds out of the Southwest swept through that country and their history, of course, has filled our history books with the nostalgia of the great trail drives. But there was a young man who was used to the land, and at that time he made an observation that the grazing in the region he used to ranch in and that these Senators are concerned about had already been depleted by over 50 percent--in 1878. I can say to the Senator from Illinois, because of the standards established by the grazing industry, the environmental community, the Federal Government, U.S. Forest Service, and BLM, many of those lands are much better today than they have ever been. In fact, everyone who knows the western grazing lands and the riparian zones the Senator so eloquently spoke of know that they are hundreds of percent better than just a few decades ago. In fact, let us not forget that when the Secretary of the Interior, at the beginning of his tenure back a few years ago, wanted to go out and find some bad grazing examples that he could talk about to change his grazing land policy, his staff came back and said: Mr. Secretary, we can't find any. We can't find the kind of examples you want to bad mouth the grazing industry and management policies of the Forest Service and BLM because grazing has substantially improved and is continuing to improve. That is what the Domenici provision, section 116, is all about-- continuing that relationship of progressive improvement, environmentally, for the benefit of our country and for the benefit of the wildlife, but also for the benefit of the grazing industry. Improved grazing and better grass in our country means fatter cattle. By the way, we sell them by the pound. I am not at all embarrassed for saying that. That is the way the industry works, in a balanced and necessary way. I thought it was important to bring this debate into context to the Senator from Illinois, who knows more about the subject I proposed hypothetically than I do. I suggest that I probably know a great deal more about public land grazing than he does. I and my family have used public lands for grazing for over 100 years. I have walked on them, I know the changes, and I have helped to get improved standards. We are doing it right on the public lands of the West today, and a great deal better than we used to do it. I think it is important that we recognize grass as an asset and a natural resource that can be used for a multitude of reasons. One of those reasons is to produce red meat protein for the American consumer. That is what the issue is about. I hope my colleagues will join with me in denying the Senator from Illinois his motion to strike. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, amendment No. 3795 to the Interior appropriations bill deals with the U.S. Forest Service's proposed roadless initiative. My amendment would earmark $1 million from the Forest Service's timber sales account and direct the Secretary of Agriculture to charter an advisory committee, under the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, to review the proposed rules and the accompanying draft environmental impact statement for the roadless area initiative. The advisory committee would be charged to provide the Secretary with advice on improving the proposed rule and the draft environmental impact statement. My amendment would further prohibit the Secretary from spending any additional appropriations under this or any other act on the further development of the roadless area rule until the Secretary has received the report of the advisory committee. Let me tell you why I am offering such an amendment. To date, the subcommittee that I chair, the Forests and Public Land Management Subcommittee, has held three oversight hearings on the roadless area initiative launched by our President last fall. I can tell the members of this committee unequivocally that this is the most slipshod rulemaking effort I have seen--the worst example--in over 20 years as a federally elected official. Let me note an example we have found in an examination of the communiques with the White House. For example, this is a letter to Raymond Mosley, Director of the Federal Register. This comes from an officer within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She says: Would you please correct our mistakes. In our haste to get the notice to the Register as quickly as possible, we failed to notice that the document heading was missing. There has been such a phenomenal rush to judgment on this effort to fulfill the President's political agenda with this issue that all of the people have made mistakes and have had to go to the Federal Register's office to amend them. It is not unlike what we saw Katie McGinty do just this week with TMDL rules, where this Senate, 2 weeks ago, spoke to the fact that this rule ought to be delayed. The President withheld his signature of the MILCON appropriations bill, allowing the EPA to accelerate. I suspect when we begin to examine the rules that have come out of EPA, signed by Katie McGinty yesterday, we will find the same kind of mistakes were made only because of a quick political rush to judgment to try to either circumvent the acts of Congress or to deny the public the kind of input that is important and justifiable in these kinds of procedures. Among the numerous procedural violations of the Federal statute, I think the most egregious is the willful violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, an act that this administration has had trouble complying with many times. I could cite examples where other courts have ruled after the fact of the rulemaking that, yes, this administration had been in violation of FACA. Our oversight record and the executive branch's documents obtained during the oversight process provided a clear record of these violations. Between May and July last year, a small group of environmental activists met with the White House, the Department of Agriculture, and Forest Service officials to develop what eventually became the proposed rule about which we are talking. All of these meetings were held behind closed doors with no notification provided to the public. Advice and materials were solicited from the environmentalists by executive branch officials in the form of legal memoranda, technical documents, polling data, media relations material, and paid advertising in support of the proposal. Here is an example: George Frampton, head of CEQ, from Mike Francis at the Wilderness Society. Through all of these processes, what they are suggesting is that we submit to you the necessary materials from which you can move to deal with this issue. I think it is fascinating we find Mike Francis saying: I attach a draft of the ``letter to the chief'' concept that Charles, Mike, and I have worked on as an idea to provide historical linkage to the President. Ironically, the very letter that George Frampton then sends to the Secretary of Agriculture proposing this rulemaking was a parallel letter, almost identical, word for word. Mr. Frampton, before our committee, did make reference to the fact that, yes, they were very similar, if not alike. That letter came from the Wilderness Society itself. In many cases, these materials were used by executive branch officials in charge of developing the proposed rule. For example, the polling data was used by lower level officials to brief their superiors. In another instance, there was direct consultation between the outside groups and the administration to coordinate paid and earned media efforts. Let me repeat that. Government officials sat down with outside groups prior to the rulemaking process and determined that they would launch a paid media campaign. There was even dialog within these memoranda that we gathered that suggested dates and times and the kinds of media markets we are talking about. Of course, I have referenced the letter to the Secretary from George Frampton, which is a mirror image of the letter that was proposed by staff at the Wilderness Society. In response to the questions before my subcommittee, administration officials conceded that the issue of compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act was never raised in their meetings or deliberations, and counsel was never consulted on the matter. This group of environmental advisers was in every way but one an advisory committee to the Federal Government. The one exception was that the committee was never chartered under the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Had they been chartered, the composition of the committee would have had to have been balanced or at least more balanced than it was, and their meetings would have had to have been published and open to the media and to the public. In other words, the process of sunshine and public participation would have had to have been involved in this very process. Those are citing just a few of the differences and what I believe are substantial violations. Left to its own devices, the administration will not correct the legal violations. They have been cited and examples have been given, both in my committee and at a comparable committee in the House. Lawsuits have been filed. Yet they will not respond. They are simply charging ahead to a pre-November deadline so that all of this fits into the political context that they chose to bring it into by the very announcement of the President last October. I think, therefore, it is up to Congress to correct these violations and the resulting inequities. We must, unfortunately, intervene if we want to see the rule of law followed and direct the Secretary to follow the law and charter an advisory committee legally under FACA. Then a broader range of interests will have the opportunity afforded to a selected few with connections to high-level administration officials as insiders and friends. The advice they will offer to improve the proposed rule will be offered in the sunlight of public disclosure and ultimately cause the reaction, as it should, of public opinion. It will not be offered in secret, and it will not be offered behind closed doors as it was. This would restore the rule of law and sunshine in Government. The reason I offer this is the magnitude and the significance of the issue. Some who are from States that are not impacted by large public landownerships or some who oftentimes think that environmental votes are just easy and free to make because they have little or no consequence to their constituency ought to react to this by saying that the administration stepped beyond the rule of law, clearly outside of the intent of what Congress designed in the Federal Advisory Committee Act. This is the magnitude, the significance of what I am talking about. This chart is significant only as a visual. These red areas represent approximately 42 million acres of existing Forest Service wilderness. Every acre of this 42 million was heard before a House and Senate committee. It was a give and take between the delegates of the State and other Senators and Representatives. It was debated on the floor of the House and the Senate, and it was ultimately passed, all 42 million acres of existing Federal Forest Service designated wilderness. In other words, the public process was full. What the President announced in October and what has been going on behind closed doors--with now a few public hearings--is the yellow or nearly 60 million acres of public lands now up for redesignation by this President. What does that represent? It represents the whole State of Massachusetts and the whole State of Rhode Island and the whole State of Connecticut and the whole State of New Jersey and the whole State of Delaware and the whole State of Pennsylvania and the whole State of Maryland and the whole State of West Virginia. Sixty million acres of land are being decided by this President and a few of his administrators with Congress not speaking a word. Never before in the history of this country has an action of this magnitude been taken without full public process and without action and participation on the part of the Congress itself. What I am suggesting by my amendment is meager in relation to the impact of what is going on behind the doors of the White House and USDA and the Forest Service. I am asking for $1 million out of the forest road fund. I am asking that the Secretary inform an advisory committee of independent people, and that they advise us on the fact that FACA was or was not violated. I think the significance here is, if the President had operated under the law, or we believed that he did, I may not be here on the floor; although, I probably would be because I am dedicated to a public process. I believe that what my colleagues did in the sixties--the Democratic Party--in causing all meetings to be open and public and registered, and being the primary authors of the act, I think that is the right thing to do because I think the public ought to be involved. That is why we are here today--to involve the public in something that represents all of these States, 60 million acres of the public's land and the ultimate future of how that land will be managed. That is what is important about this amendment.

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

Mr. CRAIG. Yes, briefly.

Mr. CRAIG. Is the nature of a catastrophic event that is in the nature of forest health. We now have 22 million acres of our forested lands in crisis because of the fuel loading that has been talked about because of a management style of the last 50 years. Yet there seems to be no desire to deal with this on a constructive, environmentally positive basis that begins to remove that fuel. The amendment of the Senator from New Mexico, of which I am now a cosponsor, which is a substitute offered to my amendment, goes at this problem in a very real and direct way. That is why I think it is so important that we move forward. I have been advised--and I agree--we should allow the courts to act on the Federal Advisory Committee Act. We will find out whether we have a real law or whether we have a false law; whether it works or it does not work. We will know that by mid- August. If they rule otherwise, we have either to come in and revise it or I think the Congress should act and intervene against the President in his rulemaking process, outside the public policymaking process of the Congress itself. But in the meantime, there is no question in my mind, with my activities, looking at the U.S. forest-managed lands-- last week I was in Great Falls, MN. Last year, on July 4, they had a 472,000-acre blowdown. There are fuel loading problems in that State and every other State in the Nation that has public forested lands, that are phenomenal in their nature. Let me explain. The Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, talked about literally having barrels of gasoline on the ground, in equivalent Btus of fire capability. It is believed that in these areas, 22 million acres, at least at the top of the stack, that fuel loading equivalency is nearly 10,000 gallons of gasoline per acre in equivalent Btu or firepower. Yet our Forest Service and this administration choose not to do anything about it. If we are good stewards of the land, we will not allow the stand-altering, environmentally crazy policy of catastrophic fire of the kind in the forests of New Mexico and the kind that are burning across the West today to be the policy of the management of our forests. I would be the first to tell you we ought to reenter fire as a management tool of the ecosystems of our forests, but fire ought not enter an acre of land that has 10,000 gallons of gasoline stored in the form of slash and dead and dying timber in equivalent Btu's. That we cannot tolerate, or it will truly destroy the land as we know it, the environment as we know it, the riparian areas as we know them, and certainly habitat for any wildlife, let alone any kind of constructive management that would provide the needed fiber for our public in home building, paper, and so many materials we have wisely used our forests for over the years. I support Senator Domenici, Senator Bingaman, and Senator Feinstein as a cosponsor of this substitute. It is critically important. In closing, in the substitute there is an important analysis, and it is an analysis that deals with the roadless problem. If the amendment of the Senator from New Mexico becomes law, it will cause the Forest Service to develop a cohesive strategy for protecting people and sustaining resources in fire-adaptive ecosystems; in other words, a fire strategy to deal with these kinds of fuel loadings. It would then have to place that strategy against the other rulemaking processes that are underway. One of those rulemaking processes is the roadless area review or the roadless area protection proposal, to see whether that proposal denies the Forest Service the ability to manage these lands to protect them from catastrophic fire. I find that an important test and a necessary analysis of where we are going and how we want to manage these lands. It also causes them to look at the areas of concern of the Senator from California--the Sierra Nevada framework and the Sierra Nevada draft plan environmental impact statements. All of those deserve to be examined in light of the fire situation we have on these public lands at this moment. We cannot idly sit by and watch hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of acres a year burn in wildfires, destroying wildlife habitat, destroying fiber that could be constructively used and, most important, dramatically altering the ecosystems of those areas that embody these catastrophic fires. I support the substitute. It is important we stay in focus on the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The courts will rule in August, and then Congress will be able to act according to that ruling if, in fact, the courts have decided the Federal Advisory Committee Act is a dead letter in public law. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a staff intern, Bill Ebee, be granted the privilege of the floor for the purpose of this debate.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak for a few moments. Senator Dorgan was on the floor talking about the character of his State and the character of this issue of estate tax or death tax, whatever we wish to call it. I call it that which destroys the American dream. I have always been amazed that anyone who serves in public life can justify the revenue they spend for the sake of Government as somehow destroying someone else's life or property. Yet over the years, clearly, the estate tax provision of our national Tax Code has done just that. The Presiding Officer is from the State of Wyoming. I am from Idaho. Much of our States are made up of farmers, ranchers, and small business people. Really, the character of the business and industry of our States is made up of small businesses. Some of us strive all of our lives in a small business to create a little estate that we then want to hand to our children, if they choose to carry on that which we have developed. Yet in nearly every instance today, under current law, to be able to carry on that small Main Street business or that farm or that ranch, you have to re-buy it. You have to sell it to get the revenue to pay off the Federal Government, and then you spend the rest of your life, as the person who is the inheritor, paying for the business. That is not the American dream. That is not what built the basis of wealth in our country which has generated this tremendous economy, which employs the men and women who make up the workforce of our economy. That is why I and others have consistently argued that, clearly, we needed to either eliminate the estate tax or do it in a way that recognizes those small- and medium-size proprietorships and businesses that are not held in stock or in corporations. That is exactly what we are attempting to do. I am always amazed that the other side will come to the floor and say: Well, this is a great idea, but then again we ought to consider this or that, and maybe we ought not to do that, and that somehow it is wrong to generate wealth in our society and to want to be able to pass it on to our children and grandchildren. Shame on those who want to deny the American dream. Shame on those who want to deny the energy and the spirit that has created this country and made it the greatest country ever known on the face of the Earth--a country great for its ability to allow individual citizens to grow and generate wealth in business. That is what this debate is fundamentally about. So anybody who wants to come to the floor and deny us as a Congress, as a people, the right to deal with this issue in a fair and equitable way simply denies the average citizen of this country the American dream. Let us not get lost in the words. Let us not get lost in the phraseology about a little bit here and a little bit there, and we have to have all this money to spend in Government. This is the time of the greatest prosperity in the history of this country. There are articles out there saying that the surplus is going to double and triple into the trillions of dollars; yet we still have in the law a situation that says: If you die, you lose. If you die, the Government gets your work. If you die, all of the lifetime you have spent building a little business, a farm, or a ranch is somehow no longer yours. I am sorry, but I am not going to get fouled up in the rhetoric, and I am going to continue to come to the floor to try to cut through the silly philosophy that somehow the Government has a right to all your money. What we have here is a responsible and legitimate piece of legislation to change the tax law of this country to gradually move us out of the situation that says if you die, you sell your business and the Government gets the money. What is wrong with medium- and small- size businesses that are not large corporations or stock-held businesses? What is wrong with allowing your children to have them, if they want them to continue that business and continue that legacy? That is the issue that is before us. That is what is embodied in H.R. 8. I suggest that anybody who would want to say something different-- whether it is on the minor side, or whether they want to use the politics of the day to deny this to the average American--shame on you. I don't see any good politics in that kind of bad politics.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, under a unanimous consent agreement, we are slated to recess at 12:30, is that correct?

Mr. CRAIG. Yes.

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. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 2754, a bill to provide for the exchange of certain land in the State of Utah; S. 2757, a bill to provide for the transfer or other disposition of certain lands at Melrose Air Force Range, New Mexico, and Yakima Training Center, Washington; and S. 2691, a bill to provide further protections for the watershed of the Little Sandy River as part of the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit, Oregon. 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. 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 originally scheduled for Wednesday, July 12, 2000, at 2:30 p.m., has been postponed until Friday, July 21, 2000, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this oversight hearing is to receive testimony on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement implementing the October 1999 announcement by President Clinton to review approximately 40 million acres of national forest lands for increased protection. 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 Mark Rey at (202) 224- 6170. subcommittee on forests and public land management

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I thank Senator Domenici for spelling out so clearly the crisis on the Nation's public lands today. Yesterday, I held a hearing and I had two regional foresters: A regional forester that largely is in charge of all the forests in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington; the other forester in charge of all the forests along the Sierra Nevada in California. They admitted yesterday that this President's roadless policy is going to jeopardize 21 million acres of forested lands that are now at high risk to catastrophic wildfires, the very thing the Senator is talking about. Yet this President's policy is to lock it up, walk away, and hope it doesn't burn. We are talking, as the Senator so clearly spelled out, about thinning and cleaning--not extensive logging--but clearly changing the environment in a way that fire would not be as destructive as it has been at Los Alamos. I cannot forget the picture on television, the DA Cat rolling along the fire line in the forests of New Mexico, rolling along the dirt, right down through a riparian area. Why? To put out the fire. Now, if the proper action had happened the way the Senator spelled it out, that would never have occurred at Los Alamos, with 21 million acres now at risk of catastrophic wildfires as a result of this President's policy.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I am concerned about the funding level for Medicare contractors. The Senate committee mark reduces the FY 2001 funding level by $57 million below the President's Budget recommendation. I believe that this funding reduction will adversely impact fee-for- service claims processing activities and the ability of contractors to provide critical beneficiary and providers services. In the recent past, we have seen the effect inadequate funding levels can have on services. In 1998 payments were slowed down, and beneficiaries and providers were forced to deal with more voice mail rather than human beings when they called their contractors with questions about claims. We need to fund this program adequately to ensure beneficiaries get the service they deserve.