Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Having said all of this, let there be no mistake. Guns are not for everyone. We restrict children's access to guns and we restrict criminals' access to guns, but we must not tolerate politicians who tell us that the Second Amendment only protects the right to hunt. We must not tolerate politicians who infringe upon our right to defend ourselves from thieves and stalkers and rapists and murderers. And we must not tolerate the politician who simply says: ``Pass another gun control law and call 9-1-1.'' 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. The hearing will take place on Saturday, June 17, 2000, at 9:00 a.m. on the campus of the College of Southern Idaho, Twin Falls, Idaho. The purpose of this hearing is to conduct oversight on the proposed expansion of the Craters of the Moon National Monument. 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 (202) 224- 6170. Subcommittee on Water and Power

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the unanimous consent agreement that we are operating under takes us through 12 noon, does it not?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for no more than 2 minutes.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank Senator Wellstone for his consideration. I do appreciate that very much. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon, as most of us do, to speak about the crop insurance conference report that is now before us and to thank those conferees--the chairman of the full committee, Senator Lugar, Senator Roberts, and others on our side, certainly, who were engaged, as they should be, to produce this conference report, and thank them for the hard work they have rendered in bringing about crop insurance reform. It is a challenging process at best. They have done an excellent job in balancing the interests we have in agriculture, and to have crop insurance that reflects the diversity of agriculture itself. With the passage of the farm bill, Congress--we--promised crop insurance that would work. I am pleased to see that we now are living up to that promise by passing sweeping legislation to bring some normalcy back to our Nation's farm economy and to expand the risk management tools available to our farmers and ranchers. The crop insurance conference report addresses several concerns farmers from my State and I have about the current Crop Insurance Program. The conference report provides increased subsidies for greater buy-up of crop insurance, funding for research and development of specialty crop insurance, and the removal of the NAP area trigger, just to name a few of the improvements. This legislation is a very balanced approach, containing meaningful and sweeping reforms that all of us would admit are long overdue. As we all know, the agricultural economy has been in a dramatic slump for the last good number of years. USDA reports that overall conditions in the economy in early 2000 are largely a replay of last year. Agriculture is a part of the world economy, and farmers across the board are facing very difficult times. For the past 2 years, though, we here in Congress have tried to respond to the agricultural crisis by providing over $15 billion in emergency economic aid. I do not stand back from that. I think it was appropriate and necessary to keep our agriculture economy out of bankruptcy. The need this year is not much different than last. I am pleased that there is $7.1 billion in economic farm aid in this conference report. This funding includes $5.5 billion additional AMTA payments, or market loss payments; $200 million for specialty crops; $500 million for oilseed payments; $11 million for wool and mohair maintenance; loans for producers who were affected by the AgriBioTech bankruptcy that impacted my State and other States dramatically, including Oregon, Washington, Montana, some 30-plus States that were involved in both grass clover and alfalfa seeds. I have worked for and supported the funding because I believe it is what our farmers need to stay in business in the short term. We must help them deal with this if we can; and I think we are. USDA reports that global economies are now improving. Of course, we know that many of our products sell openly in the world market. As that economy improves, so does the demand for agricultural commodities from this country and the improvement of price. The conference report also includes the Plant Protection Act, a bill I have been working on for nearly 2 years. What is it? It is a weeds program. That is what it is all about. I think those of us who are familiar with agriculture recognize that we have not been good at dealing with weeds. Those of us who live near large tracts of public land recognize that our public land neighbors have been less than good stewards of their land by allowing major increases in noxious weed populations on our public lands. This is a major step in the direction of improving that. It follows the President's initiative that was taken a couple of years ago with the legislation Senator Akaka and I have worked on for some time. I hope we can meet the other needs that Senator Akaka has, and I will work with him in the agricultural appropriations that will follow to see if we can make that happen. This legislation will organize and expand the function of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. APHIS currently gets its authority from 10 different statutes, some of which are outmoded and conflicting and complicated. As a result, it simply has not provided us with the kind of consistency we need to deal with commercializing technologies and the use of biocontrols in the area of weeds.

Mr. CRAIG. I thank my colleague. I would speak probably no more than about 5 or 6 minutes.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. Chairman, I want to briefly raise an issue that is of the utmost importance to produce growers and shippers throughout every region in the United States and of great concern to me and several other of my colleagues in both the House and Senate. On October 27, 1999, eight Department of Agriculture (USDA) fruit and vegetable inspectors stationed at the Hunts Point Terminal Market in the Bronx, NY, were arrested and charged with accepting bribes for downgrading loads of produce so that receivers could negotiate lower prices with shippers. This week, I understand those inspectors were sentenced for their illegal and fraudulent scam at the Hunts Point Terminal Market in the Bronx, New York. While these guilty inspectors are being held accountable through our legal system for their actions, the economic damages to the produce industry remain unaddressed. Moreover, to my knowledge, those individuals with direct oversight responsibility within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) have not acknowledged to the Congress how their oversight activities failed, why the Department discounted complaints by the industry over the past several years, the number of inspections that are connected with the guilty USDA produce inspectors or even an estimate of the damages incurred by produce growers and shippers. This is unacceptable and USDA must act expeditiously to restore confidence and integrity in the federal inspection system for the produce industry. If injured parties are not justly compensated through the legal process, we must ensure that every appropriate action is taken by the Congress to ensure the losses that occurred as a result of this scam are returned to injured parties. Based on similar cases where fines paid by guilty parties have gone directly to the federal Treasury, it is very doubtful that growers or shippers injured will see any of the funding owed to them as a result of this unfortunate scam. I am certainly committed to working with the industry on this critical issue and urge both the Senate and House Agriculture Committees to take immediate action as soon as possible to move forward with a full investigation of this matter.

Mr. CRAIG. This bill has broad support from the American Nursery and Landscape Association, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, the National Christmas Tree Association, the National Potato Council, and many others that for a long time have recognized the need to reform this area of the law. Again, I commend the conferees on both sides of the aisle for the hard work they have undertaken in producing this conference report in a way that will produce reform in crop insurance that I think is now functional, workable, and becomes the kind of risk management tool we promised American agriculture some years ago. With that is the supplemental program for emergency purposes that will go a long way toward stabilizing the agricultural economy as we move through this year and into next. 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. The hearing will take place on Wednesday, June 8, 2000, at 9:30 a.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 H.R. 359, an Act to clarify the intent of Congress in Public Law 93-632 to require the Secretary of Agriculture to continue to provide for the maintenance and operation of certain water impoundment structures that were located in the Emigrant Wilderness at the time the wilderness area was designed in that Public Law; H.R. 468, an Act to establish the Saint Helena Island National Scenic Area; H.R. 1680, an Act to provide for the conveyance of forest Service property in Kern County, California, in exchange for county lands suitable for inclusion in Sequoia National Forest; S. 1817, a Bill to validate a conveyance of certain lands located in Carlton County, Minnesota, and to provide for the compensation of certain original heirs; S. 1972, a Bill to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to convey to the town of Dolores, Colorado, the current site of the Joe Rowell Park; S. 2111, a Bill to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to convey for fair market value 1.06 acres of land in the San Bernardino National Forest, California, to KATY 101.3 FM, a California corporation. 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 contact Mark Rey at (202) 224-6170. subcommittee on water and power

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today I rise to bid farewell to Taiwan Representative Stephen Chen. Representative Chen has been an effective envoy for Taiwan in the United States. One of his more remarkable accomplishments has been his ability to promote and strengthen improved relationships between Taiwan and the United States. Over the last two years, he has secured important contacts for Taiwan. Assisted by Mr. Leonard Chao, his chief aide in congressional relations, Representative Stephen Chen has kept us informed of developments within Taiwan, including trading relationships, advances in human rights, moves toward a complete and open democracy, and the peaceful transition of power from the Nationalist Party to the Democratic Progressive Party on May 20th. Representative Stephen Chen and his wife, Rosa, have been cordial hosts at Twin Oaks. They have gracefully entertained their guests with stories and anecdotes from their many diplomatic postings throughout the world. A master of seven languages, Representative Chen's ability to interpret language nuances has invariably impressed his guests. He is also known for his unique calligraphic capacity of scripting English with a Chinese writing brush. Along with these skills, Representative Chen's foremost gift is his diplomatic courtesy--ever so subtly, he makes his guests want to understand more about his family, his country, and our world through his views. After nearly fifty years of dedicated diplomatic service to Taiwan, Representative Stephen Chen and Mrs. Rosa Chen, will retire from public service and return to Taiwan. They can be duly proud of their many accomplishments. They will be missed by all who were acquainted with them here in Washington, and we send them off to Taiwan with our best wishes and appreciation.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation along with my colleague from Idaho, Senator Crapo, that will eliminate government waste, conserve wildlife, and provide hunter safety opportunities. We are all familiar with the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson funds which impose an excise tax on firearms, archery equipment, and fishing equipment to conserve wildlife and provide funds to states for hunter safety programs. These funds were created decades ago with the support of both the sportsmen who pay the tax and the states who administer the projects. The federal government collects the tax, which amounts to around half-a-billion dollars a year, and is authorized to withhold a percentage of the funds for administration of the program. This is how it should be. However, thanks to the thorough oversight of the program by Mr. Young of Alaska, Chairman of the House Committee on Resources, it was uncovered that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with administering the program, abused the vagueness of the law in exactly what constituted an administrative expense. Under current law, the Service is authorized to withhold approximately $32 million a year to administer the program and, quite frankly, the law leaves it up to the Service as to what is an appropriate administrative expense. Mr. Young discovered that the Service was spending this money on expenses that were outside the spirit of the law. These tax dollars paid by hunters and fishermen were being used for everything from foreign travel to grants to anti-hunting groups to endangered species programs that work against the interests of hunters. In addition, they created unauthorized grant programs, some of which have merit and are authorized in our bill, but all of which were created outside of the law. Mr. President, I am not going to rehash all of the hearings that were held in the House on this issue. What I will say is that it was an embarrassment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and, not until all but two members of the House supported legislation to fix the problems did the Service begin cooperating with Congress and admitting there were actions at the Service which they are not proud of. In response to the waste, fraud, and abuse uncovered by his Committee, Mr. Young introduced legislation to fix the problems. His legislation caps the administrative expenses at around half of the currently authorized level, sets in stone what is an authorized administrative expense, provides some specific money for hunter safety, authorizes a multi-state grant program, and creates a position of Assistant Director for Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Programs. His bill, H.R. 3671, passed the House on April 5th with an overwhelming vote of 423-2. Mr. President, Senator Crapo and I have taken the lead of the House by using their bill as a model and simply strengthened it for the sportsmen who pay the excise tax. By providing more money, $15 million per year, for hunter safety programs and providing a total of $7 million per year, $2 million more than the House, for the Multi-State Conservation Grant Program, this bill ensures that the money that sportsmen pay for wildlife conservation and hunter safety is actually used for those purposes. Mr. President, this is a win-win for everyone--for wildlife and for tax payers--and I urge my colleagues to support it and work for its quick enactment.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation along with my colleague from Idaho, Senator Crapo, that will eliminate government waste, conserve wildlife, and provide hunter safety opportunities. We are all familiar with the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson funds which impose an excise tax on firearms, archery equipment, and fishing equipment to conserve wildlife and provide funds to states for hunter safety programs. These funds were created decades ago with the support of both the sportsmen who pay the tax and the states who administer the projects. The federal government collects the tax, which amounts to around half-a-billion dollars a year, and is authorized to withhold a percentage of the funds for administration of the program. This is how it should be. However, thanks to the thorough oversight of the program by Mr. Young of Alaska, Chairman of the House Committee on Resources, it was uncovered that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with administering the program, abused the vagueness of the law in exactly what constituted an administrative expense. Under current law, the Service is authorized to withhold approximately $32 million a year to administer the program and, quite frankly, the law leaves it up to the Service as to what is an appropriate administrative expense. Mr. Young discovered that the Service was spending this money on expenses that were outside the spirit of the law. These tax dollars paid by hunters and fishermen were being used for everything from foreign travel to grants to anti-hunting groups to endangered species programs that work against the interests of hunters. In addition, they created unauthorized grant programs, some of which have merit and are authorized in our bill, but all of which were created outside of the law. Mr. President, I am not going to rehash all of the hearings that were held in the House on this issue. What I will say is that it was an embarrassment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and, not until all but two members of the House supported legislation to fix the problems did the Service begin cooperating with Congress and admitting there were actions at the Service which they are not proud of. In response to the waste, fraud, and abuse uncovered by his Committee, Mr. Young introduced legislation to fix the problems. His legislation caps the administrative expenses at around half of the currently authorized level, sets in stone what is an authorized administrative expense, provides some specific money for hunter safety, authorizes a multi-state grant program, and creates a position of Assistant Director for Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Programs. His bill, H.R. 3671, passed the House on April 5th with an overwhelming vote of 423-2. Mr. President, Senator Crapo and I have taken the lead of the House by using their bill as a model and simply strengthened it for the sportsmen who pay the excise tax. By providing more money, $15 million per year, for hunter safety programs and providing a total of $7 million per year, $2 million more than the House, for the Multi-State Conservation Grant Program, this bill ensures that the money that sportsmen pay for wildlife conservation and hunter safety is actually used for those purposes. Mr. President, this is a win-win for everyone--for wildlife and for tax payers--and I urge my colleagues to support it and work for its quick enactment.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I was sitting in my office watching the floor on C-SPAN and I heard my colleague from Wyoming speak out about some of his concerns as they relate to conduct of priority business on the floor of the Senate. I am pleased he would come this early afternoon to discuss what I think is really a very important and necessary issue for all of us to understand but, more importantly, for the public that pays close attention to what we do to understand. During debate last week, after the vote concerning the Byrd-Warner amendment on the President's open-ended mission in Kosovo, several things were said by the minority leader that I feel need to be corrected. If you were to take the minority leader at face value last week, I think you would have gotten a distorted view of what we did in the Senate and what was an appropriate and necessary approach. The day before the vote on the Byrd-Warner amendment, the Senate passed a rule that said only germane amendments could be offered to appropriations bills. ``Germane'' is a technical term for relevant. The following day, the minority leader stated before us: No majority leader has ever come to the floor to say that, before we take up a bill, we have to limit the entire Senate to relevant amendments. Those are the minority leader's words, straight out of the Congressional Record. When I heard that, I was surprised, and I began to think about past Senates, past Congresses. I began to do some research. I must tell you I was surprised that the minority leader would, in fact, make that statement. The minority leader also said that he would defy anybody to come to the floor and challenge the statement. I am here today, I did my research over the weekend, and I challenge the statement of the minority leader. I think it is time the American people understand exactly what he meant and why he meant it. We have important and critical legislation that needs to be passed in a timely manner to deal with all that is important for the millions and millions of Americans whose lives are impacted by what we do here. In the appropriations bills there is money for education, health services, agriculture, for the environment, for national defense, and for other essential Government services on which so many people rely. I want to take a few minutes to explain what the majority leader said last week and, more importantly, I want to spend more time saying why what the minority leader said last week was wrong. The majority leader was clearly trying to expedite the activities of the Senate when he asked those of us on each side of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, to agree to unanimous consent requests that would cause the Senate to move along in a timely fashion. When the minority leader came to the floor and suggested that irrelevant amendments should be debated in full and this was an inappropriate thing and had never been done before, then what he was saying simply was not an accurate statement. The rules of the Senate are very easy to understand and fairly straightforward. For instance, a cloture vote, as far as its dictionary definition, is a petition to limit debate. The petition must be signed by 16 Senators. It is then voted on by the entire Senate, and it takes 60 votes to invoke cloture; in other words, to move on. Cloture is a formal way of ending a filibuster, or ending intentional debate that prolongs the proceedings of the Senate. A filibuster, of course, is a time-delaying tactic, a strategy used to extend debate, as I just mentioned, and ultimately to prevent a vote from being taken by Senators. By the way, the term ``filibuster'' comes from the early 19th century Spanish or Portuguese pirates' term ``filibusteros,'' meaning those who held ships hostage for ransom. Therefore, in order to stop a filibuster, a tactic used to hold the Senate hostage, a cloture motion must be filed. It is the formal beginning of the process to end a filibuster. Let me go back to what the minority leader said last week. He said that ``No majority leader has ever come to the floor to say that''-- meaning we ought to limit debate and move to the relevant issues of the day. He said that--``before we take up a bill, we will have to limit the entire Senate to relevant amendments.'' In other words, shaping the debate, moving it along in a timely fashion. That statement caused me to take a short walk down memory lane. Let me take us all back to the 103d Congress. The Senate was controlled by Democrats, not Republicans, under the watchful eye of the majority leader, George Mitchell. During the same Congress, almost 300 legislative measures were enacted into law. Of those 300 measures, Senator Mitchell considered 15 of them to be the object of a filibuster. In other words, Senator Mitchell feared that there would be a filibuster on a particular piece of legislation. Senator Mitchell's response to this imaginary threat was to file 43 cloture motions on these 15 measures. Let me repeat: Senator Mitchell filed 43 cloture motions on 15 legislative measures he thought might be filibustered. Of these 43 cloture motions, 21 of them--almost half--were filed on the same day the Senate actually began debating a bill. In his attempt to break a filibuster, he filed cloture on bills 21 times before debate had even begun. If there was any intent to intentionally limit debate--and once you have a cloture motion in place, and once you have proceeded to the bill postcloture, then only relevant amendments should apply--then, of course, George Mitchell was doing exactly what he intended to do as majority leader, Democrat majority leader of the Senate: Limit debate, shape debate to the particular bill involved. Did Senator Mitchell say before a bill was even offered that the Senate would be limited to relevant amendments? He did not have to say it. His actions said it, and they were very clear, loud actions. He did 21 filings of cloture the same day the Senate actually debated a bill. He took a procedural step that would make the threat a reality. In other words, he did not come to the floor to suggest he might have to do something to limit debate to relevant amendments; he just did it. And that is the prerogative of a majority leader. Clearly, Senator Mitchell went much further than the rule we passed last week. As the minority leader well knows, Senator Mitchell perfected the art of confrontational legislating. Not only would Senator Mitchell not allow nonrelevant amendments, he filed cloture on bills 43 times in the 103d Congress. That is the record. That is setting the record straight. I say to Minority Leader Daschle, I took up your challenge. I did my research. I believe those are the facts. But Senator Mitchell's tactics of the past pale in comparison to the strategy of the minority leader in the Senate today. Again last week, the minority leader said on the floor in reference to an appropriations bill that: Constitutionally, appropriations bills must begin in the House of Representatives. We are, in a sense, circumventing the rules of the Congress by allowing these bills to be debated and considered prior to the time the bill comes before the Senate. I did some simple research, such as picking up a copy of the U.S. Constitution and turning to article I, section 7, clause 1, and reading it, just reading it: All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. Let me also turn to another provision, ``Riddick's Senate Procedure, Precedents and Practices.'' This is, of course, one of the procedural booklets we follow: Bills originate in the House: In 1935, the Chair ruled that there is no Constitutional limitation upon the Senate to initiate an appropriation bill. Obviously, the intent of what I am suggesting is that we can initiate appropriations bills, and we have, and we have held them at the desk. As the House sends its appropriations bills across, we attach a House number or we move through that process in a way that accommodates. Why would the minority leader propose such an idea? I think it is really quite clear. It is to obstruct the action and the movement of the Senate. Maybe there is another reason. Maybe there is a reason that is subliminal, that is not so clear. Maybe the reason was talked about this morning in the Washington Times: ``CBO now predicts a $40 billion surplus''--even a greater surplus of monies than the kind that was predicted earlier that the Budget Committee analyzed when it proposed its budget resolution. Maybe it is why he wants to drag the feet of the Senate through June, July, August, and into September, so at the very end, a lame duck President, with his veto, can hold a Senate hostage and gain the spending of billions more dollars than were proposed in this present budget when he proposed total discretionary appropriations of about $223 billion where our budget discretionary spending is around $600 billion. Maybe he really wants to make good on not giving American citizens some tax relief by returning some of these surplus dollars to them. Maybe he really wants to make good on the idea that expanding Government and spending more money is really the mantra, the very foundation and the basics of the Democratic Party that he represents. I am not sure, but what I am sure of is that what the minority leader said on the floor of the Senate last week does not ring true to past Senate actions practiced by Democrat and Republican majorities. We operate on the rules of the Senate. We operate on past precedent. We also operate on a consistency that assures a motion of activity here that produces 13 appropriations bills in a timely fashion to fund our Government in a way that I think our American citizens and taxpayers expect us to perform. What the minority leader said last week was we would not perform; he was going to draw a line and stop us, and he drew that line in the sand. He said, for example: We do not need to deal with the same bill twice; let's wait until the House gets its bill here. Yet he was saying that in the backdrop of a gun debate that had been dealt with numerous times on the floor of the Senate over the last year; in fact, a debate in which his side had won and passed legislation that moved to the House, and the House rejected it. I am not quite sure I understand even that argument because it not only is inconsistent with the very actions that were taking place at the time, and that was, we were redebating for the fourth or fifth time an idea or a piece of legislation in which the Senate itself had been involved throughout the 106th Congress. The reason I have come to the floor this early afternoon is to set the record straight. I think it is important for the Senate and for the United States as a whole to understand how we operate and that what we were doing and what we were proposing were clearly consistent within the rules. No rules had been bent. There was not a rules committee of a single individual but the action of a Congress and a Senate operating under unanimous consent and doing so in an appropriate and responsible way. If there was a bad precedent set last week, it was not bad in the sense that it was one majority leader simply following the actions of another majority leader some sessions ago, recognizing the timely need to move legislation along and to be able to do so by limiting certain types of amendments that were irrelevant to the fundamental debate and the consideration of a given appropriations bill. I hope this clears the air. I hope what we experienced last week was but a thunderstorm, and now the clouds have cleared and the air is a bit fresher. I hope we can move on in a timely fashion, as we must, because if that does not happen, I and others will be coming to the floor on a very regular basis and I will not mind pointing a finger at those who object and those who obstruct. We have a responsibility to cause our Senate to operate in an appropriate fashion, and certainly debate on one and all issues is important and can happen, but I do believe the citizens of this country expect us to get our work done; they expect us to balance our budget; they expect us to be fiscally responsible; and, most importantly, they expect and anticipate a limited Government that does the right things for its citizenry. That is what we are intent upon accomplishing. I hope we can move forward, and I hope we can do so in a timely fashion. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I didn't say that.

Mr. CRAIG. May I inquire how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes to Senator Bunning.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President I have sat quietly by through the hours of last evening and listened to my colleagues debate a sense-of-the-Senate resolution with great passion, and I respect them for their passion. I think all of us enter issues wanting to believe in them and trust they are the right thing to do. We saw an awful lot of moms on The Mall this weekend marching because they thought it was the right thing to do. They marched against violence, I trust. Some of them have had violence ravaged against them and their families, and they were here to speak out about that. Interestingly enough, underlying the march was a premise of gun registration and gun control. I think most Americans recognize while that is an important issue with violence, that does not solve the violence that takes away so many of our young people. That is why we are on the floor today. It is strange we find ourselves with such passion about something that will not count. A sense-of-the-Senate resolution is like walking outside and saying: It's pretty nice today, and tomorrow it will probably be better. But, of course, the Presiding Officer knows tomorrow it may not be better; it may be worse, weatherwise. In other words, just saying it does not make it so. A sense-of-the-Senate resolution is in itself a political point, a political expression. It is not substantive law. It is not intended to be. It is intended to make a political point. So what is the fuss about? The fuss is that we have already dealt with this issue, and the House rejected it. Somehow my colleagues on the other side of the aisle cannot accept the idea that the Congress of the United States has rejected something about which they feel so passionate. So they have stopped the process in the Senate. They have chosen a tactic that most of us would choose not to use to stop the process in a nonsubstantive way. I do not dispute their passion, but I do question their motives. Here we are dealing with a piece of legislation that has to pass this year to make our Government run. I serve on the subcommittee of appropriations that deals with military construction. The Senator from Washington serves on that committee. She was there at that committee making sure her bases in Washington and my base in Idaho got treated fairly. But we are stalled out right now. We have lost 8 hours of critical time in a very short legislative year, not out of substantive debate but a political point. I know that may spell some degree of importance, but passing the Daschle resolution today does not the world change. Passing the Lautenberg amendment last year might have changed the world if the House had not said no to the Senate's approach. So here we are today in politics and not in legislation. Of course, the other side wants to be reflective of what those women said on The Mall. So do I. I cannot tell you I feel their pain because I have not lost a loved one to violence. But I think I can understand just a little bit of it. You see, there were other moms marching there, too, but they did not get much attention. They, too, had lost loved ones to violence. But they also recognized that they have a right in this country; and the right is to self-defense to protect themselves and their families when law enforcement cannot make it there in time. Moms want to do that. They will put themselves in harm's way to protect their children. Tragically enough, the other moms are saying: Let the Government do it. The Government can fix this problem. And the Government can fix this problem if it will only pass a law. Oh, my goodness. What a hoax. What a false premise, to tell those moms, who came from all over the country, with dedicated concerns, that we will just pass a law and the world will be a better place. It has not happened. This Congress, year after year, struggles with violence in our country; and we reshape the structure of our laws to deal with it. Yet we have not found an answer to it. We have not found an answer to it because our culture has changed dramatically over the years. The family unit is different than it used to be. Children are reared differently than they used to be. The violence in our juvenile culture today is alarming. We all appreciate it. We are all frustrated by it and angered by it. Yet you were led to believe that all kids die because of a gun. It ``ain't'' so. It just ``ain't'' so. In 1997, 1,700 kids died because of motor vehicles. They were killed in a car crash, a violent car crash. Sixteen hundred were killed in traffic accidents. That is violence, perpetrated on somebody 10 years of age or younger. Mr. President, 750 died by drowning. We know we cannot outlaw drowning. Now, we can teach kids to swim, and we can teach water safety, and we can lessen the risk, but, God knows, we cannot legislate here to stop drowning because if we could, we would. But we know we cannot. Mr. President, 575 died of suffocation--rolled over on their pillow, rolled over on a plastic mattress, got a sack over their head--some very dramatic--and, in the end, a violent act. Residential fires, 570; struck by or on something, 89; falls, 87; cycling, 78; poisoning, 58. Now, this is 1997. But yet on The Mall on Saturday, it was: 5,000 kids die because of guns. They were not telling the truth. That is the problem. Because the bulk of those kids were 15 to 19 years of age, and they were caught in the crossfire of a drug war on the streets of America. That is violence and that is tragic and that is horrible. And we are going to try to fight a war on drugs. But in 1997, only 48 kids age 10 years or younger were killed by the misuse of a firearm. And the number is less today. Those are the facts. Those are the facts that come from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. And doggone it, we ought to set the record straight, and we ought to be honest with those moms. That is what we ought to be. Yet today we are not. Today, the rhetoric is not about the violence in America against America's young people; it is about a false premise of passing a law and the world will be better and the Sun will come up tomorrow. I do not think we can do that. I would like to be able to do it. I am not at all convinced we can. Firearms, misused, killing young people, 10 years of age or younger, is 10th or 11th on the list of how young kids die 10 years of age or younger. Those are the facts. It is important we talk about them. So we are stalled out on a critically important piece of legislation that ought to move. I hope it will move. We dealt with guns last year, and the Congress rejected what we did. I did not support it. I voted against it. I thought it had gone too far. Pass a law; fix it; it is all over with; we have made the world a safer place. And 20,000 gun laws that we currently have, with few of them being enforced--and most of them not, in many instances--and we pass another law and turn to the American people with a straight face, and say: The world will now be safe? I think not. And guess what. The American people understand it. On Saturday of this past week, a candidate for President stood up and said: I am going to buy a lot of safety locks, and I am going to make them available to people who want to use them. Somebody said: That is a silly idea. I say that is a great idea. Why aren't we doing this with Government here? Why don't we voluntarily get involved in making the world safer and educating people and training them? The Senator from Nebraska said: Kids who are trained in the use of firearms do not hurt themselves. And they know better because they know a firearm is a dangerous object misused. Kids who are not trained, kids who are not educated, are the kids who hurt themselves. Yet this Government is not involved in an educational program. So when a candidate for President steps up and says, ``Let's make the world safer, on a voluntary basis,'' somebody says, ``Make it mandatory.'' We are going to set up a cop system to go into every house to check to see if every gun has a trigger lock on it? I do not think we are going to do that. Yet that is kind of what the other side is suggesting: Make it mandatory, and enforce it. How do you enforce a law such as that? The practicality is, you don't. You don't enter every home in America to prove it; that is, unless you have licensed the gun and you know the gun is there. Then do you do random checks on private property? I don't think we get there, either. I think our Constitution, somewhere else in its text, would deny the Government of this country the right to enter that private property, for whatever reason, unless there was just cause and a court order. Those are some of the real issues. I am frustrated--I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are, too--that we cannot reach out and solve these critical problems, that somehow the passion that we feel about the violence that is wrought against the young people in this country cannot be fixed by this august and powerful body called the Senate. We know we can't fix it, so let's try to politic it. Boy, have we tried. The other side couldn't gain traction because the American people said: Something is wrong besides just laws. Something is wrong in the culture of our country. Something is wrong with all of the violence our children see, and it transfers into their minds. Somehow they begin to understand that they can act violently, and there is no consequence for that action or there is less consequence. Yes, they watch a lot of violent activities on television and, yes, they play a lot of violent games and, yes, it has an impact. Well, let's fix Hollywood. Do you think this side of the aisle would do that? I doubt that. We are not going to fix them because that is first amendment rights. Nobody over here is saying we have to restrict first amendment rights. It is only the second amendment we fix. That is why we are here today, stalled out, for the political point the opposition is trying to make on this issue. It is raw politics. It is not substance, and they know it, because it is a sense of the Senate. Last year, when we debated the Lautenberg amendment, that was substance. That could have become law if the Congress of the United States had agreed. But they didn't. We are here today stalled out for the politics of the issue, not the substance of the issue. We want to say to the Million Mom March and the hundreds of thousands who were gathered on The Mall, we care, we hear you. That is what we keep hearing from some of our Senators. Well, we all heard them, and you are darned right, we care. The issue is violence in America--all violence, not just guns. That is a minority part of the violence. It is sometimes the most visible and the most publicized, but this is the beginning of spring and into summer. This is the swimming season. Nobody today is standing on the floor suggesting hundreds of kids will drown this year from improper training and improper supervision of their parents and we ought to pass a law to save all those kids. No, we are not doing that. Why? Because we can't. That is why. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG. I did not make that statement.

Mr. CRAIG. Please, check the Record. I did not make that statement.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, somehow today, if you do not believe what I believe, you are not caring nor are you compassionate. Let me suggest to anyone listening, and certainly to all Senators, no one on this side of the aisle--and I know no one on that side of the aisle--is saying that. We listen, too. Many even participated in the Million Mom March in this Nation's Capital last Saturday. I cannot tell you we felt their pain, but we heard it spoken because unless you have experienced the kind of loss that some of those mothers experienced, I doubt that you can feel it. But you can empathize with it, and all of us do. Is that why we are bound up on the floor with this issue today? No, it is not. We have been on this floor before, for the last year, on the issue of guns, long before the Million Mom March. The reason we have been on the floor is because what some have wanted to do, the rest of the Congress has not wanted to do--largely because the American people are tremendously frustrated at this moment about violence and about laws and laws not enforced and laws that are enforced and the lack of safety or the sense of security and the obvious real violence that goes on in America today. No, those moms, at least many of them, were sincere. Others, I am quite confident, had a political agenda. There were second amendment moms who were there. They had a political agenda. They are also sincere because they really do believe that passing gun laws does not a safer world make. It does not take the criminal who perpetrates the vast majority of the crimes off the street--who, by the way, very seldom walks into a gun shop and buys a gun but of course acquires his or her gun off the street in an illegal fashion. ``We want commonsense gun laws,'' is what we have heard. Yet the underlying mantra of the Million Mom March is not commonsense gun laws; it is registration and licensing. Even some of the most liberal, who believe in gun control, openly admit you cannot get there. You cannot pass licensing and registration because the Congress will not pass it and the public would not accept it, largely because it just would not work. Cars are licensed? Yes, cars are licensed, but you don't have to have a license to own a car. You don't have to have a license to drive a car if you drive it on your private property. A car is not a right in this country, guaranteed by the Constitution. You have to have a license to drive a car if you drive on public roads. Licenses for cars did not start for safety arguments; they started as a way to tax an owner of a vehicle to gain revenue for vehicular purposes in States. So there is that quick jump to logic: You have to have a license to own a car. Wrong. You do not need a license to own a car. It is not a right; it is a privilege. There is a very real difference. It is important that a few of us cut through the fog of the emotion and the rhetoric here. I do believe there are constitutional rights in this country. I think we ought to be terribly careful about how we infringe upon them. That is part of the debate we are involved in today, and that is the most important part as far as I am concerned. One of the other issues I think is most important is the question of ownership--250 million guns in this country and somehow we ought to take them all down or take a lot of them down, or register or license to deal with them. I do not find this humorous, but I find it practical. Holland is a nation in Europe--we all know about it: dikes and tulips, a beautiful country, wonderful people. Guns are outlawed in Holland. It is against the law to own a gun, except under unique circumstances. Guns are outlawed in Holland. Now the Dutch authorities are trying to come to grips with a rash of stabbings in Amsterdam. Last year they began a ``turn in your knife'' campaign, to try to stop the violence in Amsterdam, ravaged upon fellow citizens of Holland by knives. In other words, violence is the issue, not guns, not knives. Now they are thinking in Holland about a ``buy up the knife'' campaign, something like we have done in this country, or even suggesting they prohibit knives in Holland. Politicians ought to pass a law, some are suggesting. Is it a reflection of the weapon or is it a reflection of a human problem that is called violence? I think it is the violence issue we are here about today. I know the Senator from California wants to deal with that issue. So do I. But I do not think we all understand how to deal with violence. I believe most of the moms who marched on Sunday were expressing their frustration about the violence that their children experience. I yield to the Senator from Idaho such time as he may consume.

Mr. CRAIG. I will retain 5 minutes of my time. I will yield a couple of those minutes, but we will need the rest for closing purposes.

Mr. CRAIG. Before I yield to my colleague from Wyoming, it hardly seems important, but it is. I joined with the Senator from New Jersey to right the spousal abuse provision, and I voted for it. He didn't say that on the floor; he should have. We had some disagreements. We worked out those differences so that those who are adjudicated spousal abusers can't buy a gun. But those who were only accused but not proven can still hold their rights. Those are the facts. The Senator from New Jersey knows it; he failed to say it. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, when the Senator from Michigan speaks I always listen because we work very closely together on issues that deal with kids. Most of the time, we agree. All of the time that we work together, we are very sincere. I do not question the sincerity of the Senator from Michigan in the statement he made. I am not surprised he was on the Mall last Sunday. He is somebody who feels very deeply about the issues in which he becomes involved. We have worked very closely on issues dealing with young people, such as in making sure that we could streamline adoptions so young people without loving families could find those families and become a member of those families. So I listen very closely when that Senator speaks. I also listened to those at the Million Mom March over the weekend. I went to their web site. I looked at their issues. I studied their premise. I do not question their sincerity, but some of their issues do not fit common sense and will not work in America. Here is their No. 1 issue shown on this chart, No. 1 on their web page: ``License Handgun Owners and Register All Handguns.'' It also happens to be the No. 1 gun issue in a certain Presidential candidate's portfolio this year. Coincidence? Maybe not. But the reality of licensing gun owners and registering firearms is something that almost all Americans have viewed as an anathema for a long while. Why? Because they really do believe that a gun, once acquired as private property, is no business of the Government that they should know about. I supported background checks. In fact, I am probably one of the few Senators who insisted that the ATF come to the Hill years ago and work on the aggressive implementation of instant background checks. I wanted that to happen. It is now happening today. I brought appropriations bills to the floor to fund ATF to make it happen. There was great resistance downtown. They just did not want to make it work. I am not sure why. We can instant anything today in our computers. We can instant our credit. We can instant any idea we want, in rapid response, through the tremendous telecommunications ability of our country. But somehow we just could not get this online. And the reason we could not, there was a bias. The bias was waiting periods, resistance to the acquisition of firearms. Today we have an instant check. By the way, as we know, last weekend it malfunctioned; it went down. Gun shops, that are law-abiding gun shops, that are federally licensed gun shops, had to quit dealing for a time, quit selling, because they could not do instant background checks. We are not opposed to background checks. We are not opposed to background checks at gun shows. Sorry to dispel the myth. What we are opposed to is unnecessary regulation, recordkeeping, the kind of thing that would create an ability of the Government to follow back and check on what most of our private citizens and 65 million law-abiding gun owners feel is a constitutional right and none of their Government's business. The folks in Australia, Bermuda, Cuba, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Jamaica, and Soviet Georgia were worried about gun licensing and registration, because they were fearful it would result in gun confiscation. They were right. It did. Citizens in those countries today don't own firearms. They were confiscated by their government once their government could find where they were. Is it wrong for American citizens to be concerned? I think not. There are, certainly, issues that those moms were marching on about which all of us are concerned: safety locks on handguns, yes, that manufacturers are producing. Should the Federal Government require them? I don't believe it should, but I would certainly have them on my handguns if I owned handguns. If I were a single person living in a dangerous neighborhood and I bought that handgun for self-protection, I might not want a safety lock on that gun in the dark of night when my door is being crashed in by an intruder. I wouldn't want to fumble in the darkness to take the safety lock off. I would want the instant protection that the gun I acquired offered me in my right of self-protection. But because I didn't have the lock on, by what some are arguing on the other side, I would be in violation of a Federal law. Instinctively, none of us want that. None of us want to voluntarily feel we force ourselves to be in violation of a law in defense of our person and in defense of our property. Those are some of the kinds of practical nuances that argue not against common sense but against some of what is being tried here today. So if it doesn't work, politicize it. If you can't get your way around here, politicize it. Some got their way in the Senate a year ago. They passed the Lautenberg provisions in the juvenile justice bill. I didn't support them. I thought they had gone too far. I think the gun community of America thought they had gone too far, the law- abiding gun community of America. Criminals didn't care. They recognized what some of my colleagues in the Senate don't recognize, that by definition, they don't play by the rules so they don't care what we do. They break laws. That is why they are called criminals. But somehow we write these laws and everybody will march in step with what their Government demands. Law-abiding citizens will do so. Anyway, we passed the Lautenberg law. The House rejected it. Somehow our colleagues on the other side can't accept that fact and won't accept it. So here we are today, holding up a very important piece of appropriations legislation, all for the sake of making a nonbinding political point. Well, it is a political body. They certainly have that right. But it is nongermane, and it doesn't fit. We ought to do something that does fit. Most importantly, we ought not perpetrate a hoax on the millions of mothers who expressed their frustration over violent acts in this society last Sunday. I think most were sincere. I think some were very high-level organizers of certain political interests. I think their web page demonstrates that. That is really not the issue. The issue is, can we pass laws that work and can we pass laws that are enforceable and that the American public will accept? That is the crux of this debate. That is the point of the politics. I retain the remainder of my time.