Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, are we in morning business at this time?

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am pleased to join many of my colleagues today in support of S. 2251, the crop insurance reform bill. Senator Grams spoke most eloquently on the issue and of its importance. He has certainly led the issue, along with a good many other of our colleagues who brought us to this point of shaping the legislation and bringing it to the floor. I thank the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Lugar, for recognizing the issue and the need for the legislation. While he didn't agree with all that is in S. 2251, he recognized its importance. He recognized the importance of building a compromise, as we were able to do in the committee. At this time, I am proud to join not only the chairman but certainly my good friend, Senator Roberts, and Senator Kerrey, who really led the issues that are found and embodied in S. 2251. There is no question that reform of the Federal Crop Insurance Program was not only a necessity but it was an obligation. It was a promise that we in the Senate and the House made to America's production agriculture when we moved to the new agricultural policy embodied in the current farm bill, Freedom to Farm. We said not only would we free up individual farmers to produce for the market absent specific Federal programs but we would provide them with the necessary tools to compete. One of them would be a risk management tool--crop insurance--so they could use it against downturns in the market or certain environmental circumstances such as drought, frost, or floods that might impede their ability to produce or destroy the very crop they planted in the ground. We also said we would look at the trade issue, and obviously the sanctions our Government had placed against certain potential markets across the world. We addressed that last year in the Senate. We will address it again this year. If we can pass the sanctions legislation and it becomes law, and if S. 2251 becomes law, then we will have completed a package that was promised a good number of years ago to our farmers and ranchers across this country. The bill before us addresses several concerns farmers in my State and I have had about crop insurance. The bill provides increased subsidies for a greater buy-up of the crop insurance; funding for research and development of specialty crop insurance, which is critically important; removal of the noninsured assistance program, better known as NAP, area trigger which was a true impediment in past Federal crop insurance programs; and several other items. Let me explain the uniqueness of Idaho agriculture. There are sometimes two or three crop components to our large Midwestern agricultural producing areas. Idaho's great agricultural economy is based on minor crops and nontraditional crops. We know about Idaho's potatoes. But we oftentimes don't know about Idaho's winter peas, or our trout, or our seed peas, or our lentils, or our sugar beets, or our barley, or our mint. Many people don't recognize that I have one of the most diverse agricultural counties in the Nation that produces large quantities of seeds for sweet corn, carrots, onions, celery, and all of those kinds of things you would not expect a State such as Idaho to grow, but we do because of our unique environment and our ability to control moisture through irrigation, and, as a result, creating the ideal situation for the growing of some of these seed crops. These are all minor crops and high-value crops that are sensitive to certain environmental or market downturns. Current Federal crop insurance does not always provide for them. This legislation not only provides for the research to move us in that area, but it removes the NAP area trigger that was very prohibitive. That is why I have worked with Senator Kerrey and Senator Roberts to include a provision to reform the Noninsured Assistance Program, or NAP, in this amendment. NAP is used by farmers who grow these ``specialty'' or ``minor'' crops across our Nation. This legislation removes the area trigger and makes it a much more workable proposition for farmers in my State. I often hear from farmers who are frustrated that crop insurance does not exist for our many specialty crops. It is why my farmers don't use it at the rate other producers across the country do. This legislation should move us in the direction of creating another risk management tool for Idaho's agricultural production. I hope we can accomplish that. This legislation specifically encourages the development of specialty crop produce and allows the risk management agency to partner with entities to develop new crop insurance products. The bill also inverts the subsidy formula to make higher levels of coverage more affordable to farmers. These changes will speed new products to the market and make crop insurance a real risk management tool. These changes will help farmers protect crops against the disasters that oftentimes hit. I once farmed and ranched. I remember one day standing at the window of my farm and ranch home watching a hailstorm wipe out 200 acres of the most beautiful barley crop I had ever raised. But I was fearful that year that we were going to have hailstorms, and this was a unique crop. This was a seed crop, and a high-volumn crop because it was a new, hydrosized barley. I had it insured. While I was rather fearful of the destruction of crop, as I watched it, I also knew I had protected my investment. I had done the right thing. It was a tool that was available in the market at that time, and it was affordable. That was 25 years ago. Today, that tool doesn't exist at the level of affordability that it did in those days. As a result, farmers have walked away from crop insurance and have oftentimes during disastrous circumstances simply turned toward Washington to say to those of us who serve here: Help us. What we are saying today with this legislation on the floor of the Senate is: Agriculture, help yourself. We are providing you with the ultimate of risk management tools, so you should not have to rely on a Federal Government to bail you out of a circumstance that is beyond your control. We give you the option, and we want you to use the option, providing for yourself as a stand-alone, private entrepreneurial entity of this economy. This bill, however, provides a provision that concerns me, and it concerns the cattle producers of my State. The provision is federally- subsidized revenue insurance for livestock production. This could disrupt markets by masking market signals and create dependency on subsidies that could stimulate overproduction and create perverse incentives for producers who are striving to make sound, market- oriented management decisions. The livestock industry of our Nation has never turned to the Federal Government to help them. They have received in situations of drought sometimes feed assistance, but there has been no program in the past that simply provided a level of stability to their income as has been true of other commodities produced by the agricultural sector. They are inherently worried about a Federal program that might create or cause market incentives that are not true to the livestock or beef industry market. The beef industry is recovering now from a market downturn of the past few years. Relative to other segments of agriculture, the beef industry works unobstructed by Government pricing and direct payments to producers and other controls. This allows beef producers to make decisions about their own enterprises without having to worry about what Congress will do about the program or to the program. Cattle ranchers tell me they like it that way although it is sometimes very tough. I would like to see the beef industry continue down the path toward an open market approach, unstifled by any form of government involvement in their situation. I hope in conference with the House we might work out this livestock provision in a way that will not create a preferred market incentive. In my view, S. 2251 does the most for specialty crops and minor crop insurance of any proposal I have seen to date. Once again, I want to thank Senator Roberts, Senator Kerrey, Senator Lugar, and others who have directed a tremendous amount of their energy to resolving the issue of Federal crop insurance by presenting the legislation now before the Senate. I hope we will have a sizable vote on it tomorrow and that we can move it to conference with the House to work out our differences and put it on the President's desk at the earliest possible date. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Wednesday, March 29, 2000, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 1778, to provide for equal exchanges of land around the Cascade Reservoir; S. 1894, to provide for the conveyance of certain land to Park County Wyoming; and S. 1969, to provide for improved management of, and increased accountability for, outfitted activities by which the public gains access to and occupancy and use of Federal land, and for other purposes. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For further information, please call Mike Menge or Bill Eby at (202) 224-6170. committee on indian affairs

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 Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Thursday, April 13, 2000, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 2034, a bill to establish the Canyons of the Ancients National Conservation Area. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For further information, please call Mike Menge or Bill Eby at (202) 224-6170.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I am pleased to come to the floor this afternoon with my colleagues from Maine and Arkansas and others who are here to discuss the Senate's consideration of H.R. 5. It is an interesting moment for me because when I first came to Congress in 1981, one of the first pieces of legislation I cosponsored was the elimination of the earnings limit test on those seniors who were taking Social Security and, as we know, limited in the amount of money they could earn at that point in time. In 1983, the Congress decided, along with then Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, and President Ronald Reagan, that an entire reform of the Social Security system was necessary and that there should be a substantial tax increase to create solvency in the Social Security system. It seemed reasonable to me and my colleagues in the House at that moment; why should we not encourage those who were retiring and taking their Social Security benefits at age 62 or 65 to go on and earn an income beyond the Social Security benefit and pay into the system. We were still caught in the Depression-era mentality that somehow you took an older person and shooed them away from the labor market by some kind of, what I called, perverse incentive; that is, we will tax you out of the labor market if you choose to be a productive citizen in it. As a result, we did not put the reform into Social Security in 1983 as we should have. We know Social Security today is very solvent. It is solvent as a result of that 1983 initiative that was a bipartisan effort on the part of the House and the Senate. The reform we are here to discuss today is one that was clearly debated at that time and denied, denied by a Congress that was still under the control of groups in this country that had dominated labor policy for years and believed that at age 65 you left the labor force and went into retirement and some younger person took your slot. They had failed to recognize that economies expand and grow; If you treat an economy right, there is not only always need for new hires, but there is oftentimes a tremendous demand for the kind of knowledge, what I call institutional knowledge, that older workers bring to the workplace. Of course, we know that is very much the case today. I guess my mother would probably have called me strong willed in my youth. That was a polite way of saying I was bullheaded. I would persist, if I could, until I won the issue in which I was interested. Over the years, I and others of the House and the Senate have persisted. Every year, we went out and introduced the earnings limitation elimination. Every year, we were either defeated or the appropriate committees simply would not recognize it. That was through the 1980s and the early 1990s. Of course, as we know, the economy in large part has dramatically changed. During that period of time, my father considered retiring from the farming and ranching business in his midsixties. He found it was of no value to do so because he would have denied himself a substantially larger income than he could have ever received from Social Security. So it wasn't until after age 72, when the earnings limitation did not apply, that my father and my parents, along with a good many other seniors in our country who were self-employed and who were clearly entitled to receive Social Security benefits, simply denied themselves the benefit because they couldn't afford to take it. They waited until much later in life to decide to retire or, as my dad said, slow down a little bit to 12-hour workdays instead of 18-hour workdays, which was quite typical of his generation in the labor force. Now, at age 84, he still thinks a 12-hour workday is a modest effort for any one individual to make in his or her contribution to society. I say that with a bit of jest, but it is very true of that workforce. It was only at that time I think they recognized that my persistency, along with others of my colleagues in trying to eliminate the earnings requirement, was the right and appropriate thing to do. So we were saying to seniors, age 65 through 69, they could only continue to earn up to a certain limit, $17,000 a year, while receiving the full benefits of Social Security. But for every additional $3 of earnings beyond that limit, the Government reduced their benefit by $1--in other words, again, still penalizing them, still saying: We want you out of the workforce. Even if you are healthy, even if you are productive and can be a major contributor to the workforce, get out, if you want to receive the full benefits of the Social Security system that you had paid into all of your productive life and that you were certainly entitled to receive. Well, as we have worked this issue over the last decade, one thing has changed. The President, for example, instead of expressing open opposition, is now saying this is a bill he will sign. As my colleagues from Arkansas and Maine have said the House, in almost a unanimous vote, declared their support for H.R. 5 in the last several weeks. I think the Senate will respond in kind this week. I have set forth a lot of the reasons it is important. It is fundamentally important because it is fair. That is the No. 1 reason we ought to be doing it. It is fair for an individual who has paid into the system all of his or her productive life, at age 62 or 65, to gain those benefits and go on to continue to work if they wish. Do we say to a young Federal employee who has vested his or herself in the retirement program of the Federal system and who chooses to step out and gain those benefits that they can't go on working? Do we say that to a military retiree? In fact, quite the opposite--we expect them to go on working. Now, of course, as our seniors live longer and find out that some of their retirement benefits are simply not enough and they are outliving them, there is not just the accommodation of fairness to a senior in the workplace, there is the accommodation of necessity. Many of our seniors find it necessary to work beyond age 65 to provide for themselves, to try to sustain the lifestyle they had when they were once full employees at a different period in their lives. So a combination of other forces is now working out there. I am proud that, as a Republican, I and many of my colleagues have worked over the last several years to change the character of the workplace, to recognize the flexibility that is necessary in a new and very different world from 1935, or 1945, or 1955, or 1965, or 1975, or even 1985. We know that the workplace of the year 2000 is even different than the workplace of 1995. Now both spouses are working. Now we offer flexibility in kind. Now we allow people to stay home and work from their homes as major contributors in the workforce, and we offer flextime, and so forth. Yet we have said this up until now to a senior at the appropriate age of receiving full benefits from the Social Security system: If you go out and find a job, you can only earn up to a certain limitation and beyond that we will penalize you substantially until you are probably old enough not to want to work anymore, and then you can have the full benefits even if you do work. Shame on us. Shame on a Congress and a Government that has held that policy as long as we have. Now, of course, as my colleague from Arkansas states, this is the longest sustained period of near full employment that our country has seen in decades. Now we need the senior in the workforce more than ever, for all of the right kinds of reasons. As the House has spoken, I hope the Senate will speak in a unanimous vote and that we can send this to the President and say: Mr. President, the Congress of the United States is ready to knock down the decades- old law that no longer fits the American workforce or the American culture--if it ever did. And we have done this in a unanimous way. That is the kind of expression I hope the Senate will make this week. The House has already spoken. I think that is probably due to my persistence, along with many colleagues over the past decade and a half; we have argued that this is something that is right and fair, in the first instance, and now is a combination of necessity, in the second instance, as the culture and economy of this country have changed significantly over the period of time in which this provision has been a part of the labor and Social Security laws of our country. Madam President, I will proudly vote for H.R. 5 and encourage all of my colleagues to do the same. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize teachers across America for the vital work they do. I come from a family of educators, so I have seen firsthand the impact teachers have on children. They do this because they care about each and every child they teach. These public servants deserve our gratitude and thanks. While I believe this can be said of all teachers, I would like to recognize one particular teacher today who embodies this sentiment. She is Nancy Larsen, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and she was chosen by my state as Educator of the Year. One look at her career shows why she was chosen as the Educator of the Year. She has dedicated eight years of her life to teaching the second grade, and these eight years have been full of innovation and a real love for education. Not only has she been busy in the classroom, she has also found time for activities which broaden her knowledge and make her a better teacher. For example, she has published articles in magazines such as Learning and Portals: A Journal of the Idaho Council International Reading Association. She has also designed and presented numerous workshops in the past five years, and participates in many professional organizations, including serving as President of the Panhandle Reading Council. While these activities are important, her classroom work is what truly sets her apart. For example, she actively seeks to involve parents in her students' education, realizing that parental involvement is key for scholastic success. Her weekly letters on students' activities, her project, ``Family Math Night,'' are further examples of her commitment to parents as computer and classroom helpers. There have been many studies which show that parental involvement increases children's ability to learn. Nancy know this from her first day on the job, and has worked to make this involvement a reality. Her students adore her and her peers respect her. This is what every teacher strives for, and Nancy has earned this respect. As one of her students said, ``I'm really glad to have such a nice teacher.'' As you can see, Nancy Larsen is truly a treasure for her school, for Idaho, and indeed for the Nation in general. Teachers like Nancy make education a rewarding experience for students and parents alike. I am proud that the state of Idaho chose her as its Teacher of the Year. She is a great example for the rest of the state and the Nation, and I hope this award gives her a platform so she can help other teachers to have the same success she has.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues and to acknowledge the leadership of Senator Bond in introducing the Federal Employees Adoption Assistance Act of 2000. Congress has repeatedly demonstrated strong support for adoption. I think there is a clear consensus here that adoption is a positive experience--for children needing homes, for birth parents, and for adoptive parents, not to mention for society at large. In recent years, we have shaped federal policies so that they do more to help waiting children find permanent, loving families. Now we have an opportunity to bring home our advocacy for adoption. The Federal Employees Adoption Assistance Act follows the lead of a growing number of private sector businesses in establishing an adoption benefit for employees. It is well known that family-friendly workforce policies help attract and retain qualified workers. While adoption benefits generate considerable good will and loyalty among employees, they cost little for employers, because they are relatively rarely used. Yet in view of what continues to be a huge price tag for adoption--in the tens of thousands of dollars--these benefits can truly make a difference in helping an employee choose this option for creating or expanding a family. By implementing these policies for federal workers, we can underscore our strong message of support for adoption and encourage more private sector employers to do likewise. At the same time, we will be improving the competitiveness of the federal government in recruiting good workers and helping to increase current workers' job satisfaction and commitment. The benefit that could be provided by the Federal Employees Adoption Assistance Act is by no means lavish, but it compares favorably with similar benefits in the private sector. This policy will be good for workers, good for the federal government, good for taxpayers, and--most important--good for the more than 100,000 children in this country who are eligible for adoption today but still awaiting a permanent, loving family. I congratulate Senator Bond for bringing this initiative to the Senate and encourage all our colleagues to join us in working to pass this important legislation.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues and to acknowledge the leadership of Senator Bond in introducing the Federal Employees Adoption Assistance Act of 2000. Congress has repeatedly demonstrated strong support for adoption. I think there is a clear consensus here that adoption is a positive experience--for children needing homes, for birth parents, and for adoptive parents, not to mention for society at large. In recent years, we have shaped federal policies so that they do more to help waiting children find permanent, loving families. Now we have an opportunity to bring home our advocacy for adoption. The Federal Employees Adoption Assistance Act follows the lead of a growing number of private sector businesses in establishing an adoption benefit for employees. It is well known that family-friendly workforce policies help attract and retain qualified workers. While adoption benefits generate considerable good will and loyalty among employees, they cost little for employers, because they are relatively rarely used. Yet in view of what continues to be a huge price tag for adoption--in the tens of thousands of dollars--these benefits can truly make a difference in helping an employee choose this option for creating or expanding a family. By implementing these policies for federal workers, we can underscore our strong message of support for adoption and encourage more private sector employers to do likewise. At the same time, we will be improving the competitiveness of the federal government in recruiting good workers and helping to increase current workers' job satisfaction and commitment. The benefit that could be provided by the Federal Employees Adoption Assistance Act is by no means lavish, but it compares favorably with similar benefits in the private sector. This policy will be good for workers, good for the federal government, good for taxpayers, and--most important--good for the more than 100,000 children in this country who are eligible for adoption today but still awaiting a permanent, loving family. I congratulate Senator Bond for bringing this initiative to the Senate and encourage all our colleagues to join us in working to pass this important legislation.

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 Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place Thursday, March 30, 2000 at 2:30 p.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 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.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, there are few duties of the Senate more important than the confirmation of nominees to positions on the federal bench. It is my strong belief that the qualifications of the nominees must be weighed carefully and deliberately, no matter what level of the court system the nominee is supposed to join. My decision on a judicial nominee's fitness is based on my evaluation of three criteria: character, competence and judicial philosophy--that is, how the nominee views the duty of the court and its scope of authority. This is the original role of the judiciary: neither rubber- stamping legislative decisions, nor overreaching to act as substitute legislators. I have heard from citizens complaining about the harm done by social activists of the bench--harm that may only be reversed by an extraordinary action on the part of the legislative branch, if at all. It is exactly this aspect of the nomination before us that concerns me. I have reviewed the background materials on Judge Paez, and I cannot ignore the nominee's penchant for imposing his own political vision on the case before him. Judge Paez has shown, on more than one occasion, his activist judicial philosophy. He was quoted in the Los Angeles Daily Journal as saying: ``I appreciate the need of the courts to act when they must, when the issue has been generated as a result of the failure of the political process to resolve a certain political question. . . . There is no choice but for the courts to resolve the question that perhaps ideally and preferably should be resolved through the legislative process.'' That is as clear a statement of judicial activism as I have ever heard. On another occasion, Judge Paez demonstrated that his politics were more important than the appearance of judicial impartially and independence. In a 1995 speech he attacked California Proposition 187 (to end assistance to illegal immigrants) as anti-Latino ``discrimination and hostility'' and Proposition 209 (to end racial and gender preferences in California) as anti-civil rights. What strikes me is that, at the time, both propositions were subject of pending litigation. Clearly the Judicial Code of Conduct prohibits a judge from such comments. Even if these were the only incidents of this kind, they would weigh heavily with me. But Judge Paez' record contains a number of other troubling episodes. In the Los Angeles Alliance for Survival case, Judge Paez ruled that a Los Angeles city ordinance--prohibiting aggressive panhandling at specified public places and passed in response to the death of a young man who refused to give a panhandler 25 cents--was unconstitutional under California's constitution. He affirmed that this law constituted ``content-based discrimination'' because it applied only to people soliciting money and consequently granted an injunction to prevent it from being enforced. However, apart from Los Angeles where the ordinance has yet to be enforced, the same law has been ``peacefully'' upheld in other parts of California by other federal judges. The position expressed by Judge Paez was well out of the mainstream. This became even clearer last week, when the Supreme Court of California, asked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the merits of Paez' holding, held that the Los Angeles ordinance was constitutional and valid. I have also been troubled about the implications and consequences of the Unocal decision issued by Judge Paez in 1997, in which he ruled that American companies can be held liable for human rights abuses committed by the foreign governments or overseas companies owned by the foreign governments with which they do business. This decision leaves open a wide range of issues and has the potential to cause significant consequences in the U.S. and world markets, not to mention U.S. foreign policy. It is not surprising that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has expressed its opposition to the nomination of Judge Paez to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in view of the decision's potential impact on international commerce. At a minimum, Judge Paez pushed the limits of prior law in this ruling--but this decision takes on a great deal more significance in light of his prior statements and other judgments. This is a judge who is ready, willing, and able to act on an opportunity to open new frontiers in the law. I share the concerns that many of my colleagues have raised about the structure of the ninth circuit itself. It covers 38 percent of the area of the Nation and serves more than 50 million people, 20 million more than any other circuit. It has 28 authorized judgeships, 11 more than any other circuit. I am one of the majority of Senators representing that circuit who believe it should be split. The ninth circuit remains, as the New York Times labeled it, ``the country's most liberal appeals court'' and a circuit out of the mainstream of American jurisprudence. Over the past six years, the Supreme Court has reversed nearly 90 percent of the ninth circuit cases it has reviewed: in 1997-98, the reversal rate was 96 percent (27 out of 28 decisions) and 35 percent of the decisions reviewed by the Supreme Court were from the ninth circuit. It has been suggested that the ninth circuit has difficulty developing and maintaining coherent and consistent law because, as the size of the unit increases, the opportunities the court's judges have to sit together and to develop a close, continual, collaborative decision making decrease. Of course, this would increase the risk of intracircuit conflicts since judges are unable to monitor each other's decisions and very seldom have the chance to work together. In any event, my constituents and other citizens in the ninth circuit would hardly be well served by adding yet another liberal judicial activist to the current mix. Whether or not Congress ultimately addresses the circuit's problems by agreeing to the split I am advocating, this Senate should not exacerbate the problems with this ill-advised nomination. I know the administration must take the best case possible for its nominees, but they cannot expect this Senator to ignore ``the other part of the story.'' Judge Paez' record reflects an eagerness to use his authority to accomplish social change and a disrespect for principles of judicial decision making. In sum, I strongly believe it would be a mistake to advance Judge Paez to the ninth circuit, and I will vote against his confirmation.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Seniors' Security Act of 2000--a bill that will address the growing problem of prescription drug coverage for senior citizens. As we are all aware, seniors' access to prescription drugs is an important issue. Currently, traditional fee-for service Medicare covers few drugs for seniors. At the same time, however, prescription drugs are an increasing component of seniors' health care. For these reasons, I believe that it is time Congress worked to increase American seniors' access to prescription drugs. The Senior's Security Act of 2000 will increase seniors' access to prescription drugs in two ways. First, it will extend tax equity to seniors by allowing them to deduct the cost of health insurance that contains a qualified prescription drug benefit. We already provide such favorable tax treatment for employer-provided health insurance and are moving toward doing so for the self-employed. If we are truly concerned about seniors' access to prescription drugs, we should do the same for them. In addition, SSA 2000 will also allow both current and future seniors to deduct the cost of long-term care insurance from their taxes and make long-term care insurance available through employer-provided flexible spending accounts (FSAs). SSA 2000 also provides for the design by National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) of additional Medigap policies in order to make prescription drug coverage more accessible and affordable. This process follows that which produced the existing Medigap policies. SSA 2000 also directs the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) to analyze and report on the salient issues in the design of prescription drug benefit policies. MedPAC is directed to issue their findings in a June 1, 2000 report to Congress and the NAIC in order to aid in designing new Medigap policies. I believe SSA 2000 will make prescription drug coverage cheaper, both directly and indirectly. More than 18 million seniors have an income tax liability that can be reduced by this reform; by increasing the number of participants and making new Medigap policies a available, the bill will indirectly reduce the cost of coverage, as well. Unlike some other proposed reform measures in this area, it preserves and strengthens the private insurance market--it contains no mandates, no price controls, and preserve all existing Medigap policies--rather than jeopardizing or eliminating it. This bill does not attempt to address the issue of prescription drug coverage for every senior; instead, it is the answer for a portion of the senior population who have been paying at least part of the costs for their health care and prescription drugs, but still need and deserve to have a reduction in their out-of-pocket expenses. The Seniors' Security Act of 2000 is the best way to provide relief to this group of seniors, while at the same time continuing to work towards solutions for those seniors who aren't as economically secure. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

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

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. 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 Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Friday March 10, 2000, at 9 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 1892, a bill to authorize the acquisition of the Valles Caldera, to provide for an effective land and wildlife management program for this resource within the Department of Agriculture, and for other purposes. In addition, testimony will be taken from the Government Accounting Office and the Forest Service on the Government Accounting Office review of the Forest Service's appraisal for the acquisition of the Valles Caldera. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For further information, please call Mike Menge or Bill Eby at (202) 224-6170.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, thank you very much. I am extremely pleased to be able to come to the floor this afternoon to join my colleague in support of S. 1134, the Affordable Education Act. A few moments ago, I was in our TV studio cutting a tape, as many of us oftentimes do, to send back to our constituents or to speak out on a given issue in which a group has asked us to become involved. I was cutting a tape on a project that is a nationwide project called Safe Place. You have probably seen that triangular, yellow sign that shows a child inside that is on the glass or door of a small business, a fire station, or a city hall. It says ``Safe Place,'' and designates that particular location as ready to receive a child in crisis, a child who has had a crisis within its home or with its peers in the community and feels at risk and therefore seeks a safe sanctuary, a haven. I have also asked our colleagues to support the third week of March for the second year in a row as National Safe Place Week. The reason I say that in the context of the Affordable Education Act is that we Americans recognize the value of our young people. We recognize they are without question our most important asset and that we have a fundamental responsibility to them as a culture and as a society. When I speak about Safe Place, that is one of the first things we think of as a parent and as a community. Are our children safe within our homes, safe within our suburbs, or safe within our communities? The next thing we begin to think about after their safety is their well- being beyond safety. I think we all recognize that beyond safety comes education as a major part of a child's well-being; therefore, early on as a country we began to establish a general educational system so that all of our young people could be more educated and more prepared than the generation before them. Education has become a profound part of all levels of our government. While we recognize education is still the primary responsibility of State and local units of government, we have also said the family unit has as its major responsibility not only the haven of safety and security but the responsibility of assuring its young people an education and that we in government would help facilitate that, we would help make that happen. But most important is to empower the parent and the family in a way that allows them to bring on that fundamental and basic responsibility of providing for their children and their education. S. 1134, the Affordable Education Act, looks at some primary concerns, and it recognizes our Tax Code penalizes the family for saving money to defray a child's educational expenses. Is it fair to penalize them for wanting a better future for their children as a part of what I think is the fundamental responsibility of a human culture? Of course it is not. By expanding the educational IRA, we are doing something substantive to address a parent's concern about his or her child's education. Opponents of this bill claim we are not helping education as a whole but only giving a subsidy to private schools. Shame on them. Shame on them for trying to narrow the debate when the fundamental debate is to broaden the issue and to expand the ability of families to provide for their children's education. It is simply not the case that we offer a subsidy to the private school. The money parents can save with these accounts can be used toward books, supplies, and other ``qualified educational expenses'' at a public or a private school. Why should we stand in the way of a parent's responsibility, that I think I have appropriately explained, in fulfilling the needs of their child in his or her educational desires? This bill also benefits public education by changing the formula for local government bonds so more money would go to benefit public school construction. What is wrong with that? We have already heard about a deficit in the safety of some of our old educational structures or the need to expand and improve or to build new educational structures. It is true, though, that this bill would benefit parents who do not send their children to public schools, as the money from these savings accounts can be used to help defray expenses incurred at a private school or for home schooling. Yes, let me repeat that: Home schooling. What is wrong with allowing and empowering the parent to work for the education of their children? This again comes down to the issue of fairness. Instead of being selective and saying all children have to march down this single Federal national public tightrope because that is the only way they can get an education, we are saying that is simply not true. Thousands and thousands of American families today are demonstrating just that. They want the flexibility of choice to send their child where they think that child will receive the best education. Why shouldn't we have the intelligence--maybe there is another word that fits better--to allow that parent to do as he or she wishes and to improve their ability to do so with this kind of law, for these parents to decide if their children would learn better wherever they chose to place them? We in Washington should not penalize them for making every effort to ensure their child receives a quality education. This bill allows parents, many of whom are of lower or middle class, to use up to $2,000 tax free to help their child learn the way the parent wants them to learn--not a Washington bureaucrat, not a labor union leader, but the parent. That is where the fundamental and primary responsibility lies. In the end, it comes down to this essential question: Should we be taxing the money parents use to further their child's education or should we give them an opportunity by allowing them to put away a tax- free dollar in that benefit? I, for one, do not believe we should tax in this area. This is the same as levying a punitive tax on education. We all know the old axiom: When you tax something, you get less of it. It is just very fundamental and very simple to understand. This legislation goes a long way toward offering parents that opportunity to advance their child's education. I know of no other issue today that is more important than the general issue of education. When I am home in my State of Idaho, holding town meetings or visiting with the citizens of my State, education is the issue. There is no question they express great concern, either about the safety of their schools, the quality of the education being provided, or the expense of a college education today. All Americans hope for a better life for their children than the one they led. They are absolutely sure that better life will come through fulfilling an American dream that offers an optimum educational experience. That is why this legislation, S. 1134, is so important. The sanctuary of security is our first parental instinct; our second is to try to provide the very best opportunities for our children. Those opportunities will only come and a parent will only be able to provide for the very best if they have the greatest of flexibility to assure that child has the better educational experience. That is what this legislation is about. I thank my colleague from Georgia for the leadership he has taken in working to empower America's families to put away in a nontaxed environment just a little bit to ensure the opportunity of their children to secure the education of their choice. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague Senator Johnson in introducing the Emergency Commodity Distribution Act of 2000. Children are our future. I strongly believe each child deserves at least one warm, nutritious meal every day. I stand before you today with a new bill that will restore $500 million to the School Lunch Program. The positive impacts of this program are endless. Children should not have to pay the price of not having enough money for food. Originally enacted in 1946, the school lunch program set goals to improve children's nutrition, increase low-income children's access to nutritious meals, and to help support the agricultural industry. A family of four has to have an income at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level to qualify for a free lunch. The income for these families is tragically low. Congress has a role in providing these children with assistance their families cannot provide. Last year, Congress enacted the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act. This legislation amended the School Lunch Act to require the United States Department of Agriculture to count the value of bonus commodities when it determines the total amount of commodity assistance provided to schools. This change will result in a $500 million budget cut for the school lunch program over a nine-year period. In FY1998, the school lunch program comprised over 90 percent of schools, with some 90,000 schools enrolling 46.5 million children. Children receiving free lunches averaged 13 million a day, and those receiving reduced price lunches averaged 2.2 million a day. Each state and millions of children are affected. This program provides a basic requirement of food for needy children. No child should be without food. The Emergency Commodity Distribution Act of 2000 would ensure that schools receive the full value of entitlement commodity assistance, and allow the School Lunch Program to continue to meet its dual purpose of supporting American agriculture while providing nutritious food to schools across the country. I urge members to support this bill, support children, and support our future.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to invite my colleagues to join me in sponsoring a resolution designating the week beginning March 12, 2000 as ``National Safe Place Week.'' This resolution supports the successful Project Safe Place program and encourages its growth. This resolution promotes a program that improves the quality of life for young people across the nation without depleting social service funds or instituting new government programs whose success is unsure. Project Safe Place makes use of programs already in place, seeks to bring families together by helping them resolve their conflicts. and does not reach into the taxpayer's pocket. The National Network for Youth estimates that more than two million young people run away from home each year. Increasing numbers of teens and even children are also being turned away from their homes by disinterested or frustrated parents. On the street, these youth are likely to resort to using drugs, prostitution and other criminal behavior or survive. They are more vulnerable to physical or sexual violence, and they are more likely to commit suicide. Without help, their future is bleak and frightening. Project Safe Place is designated to assist young people and families who face difficult situations. The problems vary from one individual to the other. Some young people ask Safe Place for assistance because they frequently find themselves in hour-long screaming matches with their parents. Others go because they are beaten and mentally abused at home. Sometimes they have a parent who is addicted to drugs or alcohol. All the young people who find Safe Places have in common an overwhelming need to improve their home life. The program works by creating a network of businesses and public locations that display the bright yellow, diamond-shaped Safe Place logo in their windows or on other highly visible places on the front of their buildings. Businesses and locations such as convenience stores, fire stations, libraries, and fast food restaurants are effective Safe Places because they are found throughout the community and they tend to be easily accessible. Also, young people are more likely to ask for help in familiar, non-threatening places. In most cases, it is easier for a young person to find a convenience store and walk into it than it is for him or her to track down a social services agency, travel to it and then brave the intimidation of walking through its doors. The employees at Safe Places are trained to act as a link to help. At the Safe Place they make sure youth who ask for help are taken into the back of the store or restaurant, away from people who may know them and question them later. The employee immediately notifies a shelter. The shelter sends a volunteer counselor to talk to the youth, offer advice and evaluate the problem. The volunteer, who is the same gender as the young person, will transport the youth to the shelter if more counseling is necessary or if the young person would like a safe place to stay. If the youth decides to stay at the shelter, parents will be notified that the young person is all right. Project Safe Place is a national program that operates locally. It is a unique collaborative effort between youth service agencies, a network of volunteers and local businesses to make help available to youth quickly and in their own neighborhood. Safe Place aims to return young people to a healthy emotional environment. That could mean seeing that the family receives counseling or that could mean finding a place outside the house for the youth to live. In addition to enhancing outreach programs to area youth, the distinct Safe Place signs increase awareness of the plight of troubled youths. They remind adults of problems in the community and often inspire people to volunteer. They demonstrate to businesses that the private sector can play a positive role and usually lead to more Safe Place sites. Since its beginning in Louisville, Kentucky in 1983, acknowledgment of Project Safe Place has been crucial to letting young people know that the service is available to them and inspiring others to create more Safe Places. In March 1998, many Senators helped pass Senate Resolution 96, making the third week to March 1998 ``National Safe Place Week.'' Since then, sites grew from 6,000 to 8,000. Today, more than 30,000 young people and their families have been helped. Even if your state is not one of the 34 that has at least one Safe Place, the program has probably still affected your state. It is likely that a runaway from your state has been returned to his or her family through this program. Counseling initiated by the program may have involved a parent who lives in your state. My goal is to have at least one Safe Place in every state by the end of the decade. I urge all my colleagues to champion this plan and to begin by cosponsoring this resolution making the second week of March ``National Safe Place Week.'' The designation of time is a crucial step in promoting awareness of this effective program. Your support will help continue the valuable partnership between government and the private sector as we move toward a society with happier and safe young people.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today I rise to propose a resolution expressing the sense of the Congress regarding the responsibility of the United States in guaranteeing the security and passage of vessels through the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal Treaty and the Treaty concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal were a battle fought and lost before my time in the Congress of the United States. However, we still have an obligation to the world, our allies, and the people of the United States to ensure that the Panama Canal will remain open, secure, and neutral in providing safe passage to vessels of all nations. These treaties with Panama gave the United States the option of continuing our presence in Panama beyond 2000. This option must be exercised! The United States needs to retain a presence in Panama to ensure a measure of power projection capability in an area of vital national interest to our economy, our freedoms, and our way of life. Mr. President, this extension of our presence in Panama is also consistent with the intent of Congress. The 1979 Panama Canal Act, which incorporated the treaty into United States law, included a sense of the Congress resolution that the ``best interests of the United States require that the President enter into negotiations with the Republic of Panama for the purpose of arranging for the stationing of United States military forces after the termination of the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977.'' Panama agreed to these terms in 1979. Since this time, both sides have been working on an agreement to define our future presence, but progress on this effort stalled in early 1998. The current administration's policy in the region is a legacy of missed opportunities, including their failure to negotiate a continued United States presence in Panama. There exists a dire need for a stabilizing presence which the United States has brought to the region since World War II. Although the traditional threat of a foreign naval attack on the Canal has virtually disappeared, the United States still needs to be able to project military power in the region. The unprecedented upsurge in political instability and state-sponsored terrorism that the United States now faces makes it necessary to provide rapid troop and logistical transit through the Canal. The need to conduct surveillance or to pursue actual and potential adversaries also requires immediate access to the Canal. Such possibilities make it essential that the United States retain a measure of conventional military presence in the region. There are many other reasons for the United States to retain a presence in Panama: First, the United States conducts a number of humanitarian and civil-military programs throughout the region. These missions have been greatly benefitted in the past with lower transportation costs and greater efficiency afforded by centralized logistics within the region. Second, as we all know, Panama is located in the center of a major drug transit corridor. Anti-drug operations will continue to be a critical feature of United States policy in the region. Third, with the issue of military readiness, the Jungle Operations Training Center at Fort Sherman provided unequaled facilities for training in low-intensity warfare. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frederick C. Smith stated that this and other sites ``will be difficult to replicate elsewhere.'' Last, 65 to 80 percent of the Panamanian people favor United States involvement in the region. In conclusion, Mr. President, we need to send a decisive message to the current administration to renew negotiations for security arrangements and a continued United States presence in the region. And the United States Government should make it clear to the world that the Panama Canal will remain free, open, and neutral, and any indications to the contrary will be considered as an act of war against the people of the United States.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague Senator Johnson in introducing the Emergency Commodity Distribution Act of 2000. Children are our future. I strongly believe each child deserves at least one warm, nutritious meal every day. I stand before you today with a new bill that will restore $500 million to the School Lunch Program. The positive impacts of this program are endless. Children should not have to pay the price of not having enough money for food. Originally enacted in 1946, the school lunch program set goals to improve children's nutrition, increase low-income children's access to nutritious meals, and to help support the agricultural industry. A family of four has to have an income at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level to qualify for a free lunch. The income for these families is tragically low. Congress has a role in providing these children with assistance their families cannot provide. Last year, Congress enacted the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act. This legislation amended the School Lunch Act to require the United States Department of Agriculture to count the value of bonus commodities when it determines the total amount of commodity assistance provided to schools. This change will result in a $500 million budget cut for the school lunch program over a nine-year period. In FY1998, the school lunch program comprised over 90 percent of schools, with some 90,000 schools enrolling 46.5 million children. Children receiving free lunches averaged 13 million a day, and those receiving reduced price lunches averaged 2.2 million a day. Each state and millions of children are affected. This program provides a basic requirement of food for needy children. No child should be without food. The Emergency Commodity Distribution Act of 2000 would ensure that schools receive the full value of entitlement commodity assistance, and allow the School Lunch Program to continue to meet its dual purpose of supporting American agriculture while providing nutritious food to schools across the country. I urge members to support this bill, support children, and support our future.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to make a few remarks concerning National Potato Lovers Month. It is whispered that February is the month for lovers. Well, Idahoans know that better than most Americans. You see, February is National Potato Lovers Month. That means that the ``eyes'' of the nation are upon the great state of Idaho. Our spuds come in all shapes, sizes, and varieties, but they all have homegrown a-peel: Hot taters, big taters, little taters--even tater tots. Spuds all over the state of Idaho chip-in to put our best side up during National Potato Lovers Month. Potatoes are truly an ``all-American'' food. In fact, instead of apple pie, it would be more accurate to say something is as ``American'' as the potato. Potatoes were first pulled from the ground in the New World, whereas apple pie originated in Europe. As early as 200 B.C., Inca Indians used potatoes to prevent indigestion and rheumatism, and used their growing cycles to measure time. During the 19th century, the American food was planted in Ireland, where its popularity surged. In fact, the Irish soon learned they couldn't live without potatoes. When Irish potato crops failed for three years, eight million people died. Later in the 19th century, Irish immigrants popularized potatoes in America. They eventually discovered the promised land for potatoes-- Idaho. Our state has the cool and moist climate that grows perfect spuds. The only hiccup in America's steady consumption of potatoes came in the 1950's. First, instant convenience foods hit the market, and then a fad diet mistakenly identified potatoes as fattening. But when the tuber's true traits were told, potatoes joined the ranks of other processed foods. Spuds have a long and cultivated history that includes the political stage. Politics and the potato met long ago, when Thomas Jefferson served spuds at White House dinners to special guests. And politics and the potato met again when Dan Quayle accidentally gave the country--and himself--a spelling lesson, making Dan Quayle a true ``hot potato.'' The potato continues its appetizing presence in the political arena. We here in the Senate might disagree, but we usually stop short of calling each other half-baked. And, because we know there is more than one way to skin a potato, we generally manage to unearth solutions. To celebrate National Potato Lovers Month, I'll be sending each of my colleagues a sampling of the world's best spuds--Idaho potatoes.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent Kristine Svinicki of my staff, a congressional fellow in my office, be allowed access to the floor for the duration of the debate on S. 1287.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am pleased to come to the floor this afternoon and support the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in an effort he has led for a good number of years. I have participated with him in trying to bring some reasonable resolution to the issue of a permanent repository for the high-level nuclear radioactive waste of this country. Mr. President, this debate will proceed. It is my understanding we have a vote tomorrow morning. Already we have heard a variety of opinions on the process used to deal with the issue of high-level nuclear waste. Without question, this is an issue that Congress has dealt with over the years in which the public has had to go through more misstatements, false statements, or emotional statements about what isn't true or what some wished might be true. All we can do is look at the scientific and engineering facts of the history of the management of nuclear waste in our country to say that this country, about 99.9 percent of the time, has done it right and not exposed their citizenry to the mismanagement of the storage of waste. Yes, we have learned periodically of the handling of radioactive materials where mistakes were made and immediately corrected. However, our country has a positive legacy in nearly all instances of dealing with this issue. The Senator from Alaska and I have brought different versions of this issue to the floor over the last 4 years as we have tried to force this administration to move responsibly following the enactment of a law in 1982 that was a long-term approach toward funding and establishing a permanent geologic repository. We are now at a time when the issue of radiation release standards at what may become the permanent geologic repository at Yucca Mountain has been largely the focus of what this legislation deals with. It think it is important to put the debate in the context of what is happening under current law, not under the legislation, under the law as it stands today. My purpose in describing the current situation is to explore with my colleagues what I believe is a problem with EPA's current path and for my colleagues to understand why I have reservations about the games that are currently being played. My frustration with EPA is that sometimes their science is rolled up in politics. Let me also be clear about what is at stake. I firmly believe, if Congress does nothing on this issue, what is at stake is the viability of geologic disposal. In other words, to me this issue is larger than the site at Yucca Mountain. It is about whether or not we will be able to site and license a geologic repository anywhere in our country. It is not by accident that legislatively we picked Yucca Mountain years ago. It was not done with a crystal ball. It was done with some reasonable knowledge that the geology of the region might well hold up and would probably be a point of isolation of the kind we would want for a repository, compared with no other place in the Nation. That has still held up and remains true today. I do not believe the current process for setting radiation standards in dealing with this is what I would hope we would have. It is not being informed by good science, and I hope that Congress will bring good science back into the process. That is why this legislation is very important. The chairman's original bill, S. 1287, contained the remedy of giving authority to set radiation standards to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Why? Credibility. Honesty, no politics, in large part, and a historic standard of doing it with the kind of science and knowledge that you want to have to make these kind of decisions. The chairman's substitute bill has a different remedy. EPA would still set the radiation standards but only in consultation with the NRC and the National Academy of Sciences. I wish EPA were not setting those standards. I don't think they have the scientific knowledge or credibility to do so, although we have created this myth about them because it says: They are the Environmental Protection Agency. Surely their commitment is to the environment. Sometimes their commitment is to politics. You cannot say that about the National Academy and you cannot say that for the NRC. So what we have tried to do and what the chairman, I believe, has successfully done is bring all this together. Therefore, we can maybe satisfy the political side of it and, I hope above hope, we can address the scientific and the engineering side of it in a way that is credible and, most important, safe for our public and, of course, safe for the State of Nevada. Both of these approaches are superior to the current situation which I would like to describe. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for setting the radiation standards at the Yucca Mountain repository. That authority was granted to EPA in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. So on August 19 of last year, 1999, the EPA finally proposed a draft radiation standard. That draft standard is lengthy and has a lot of technical detail, but it boils down to two critical items. In other words, when you sort through the chaff, here are the facts that make this issue important. First, EPA's draft proposes an individual protection standard from all exposure pathways--food, water, air, et cetera--of no more than 15 millirems per year. Second, EPA proposes a ground water protection standard that limits ground water contamination to levels at or below EPA's maximum contaminant levels for drinking water--drinking water, in an area where none is drank, or where there are no people to drink it. What that means, in simple terms, is that if we are able to sink a well at the repository and draw the water up and into a glass, EPA says you have to be able to drink that water straight from the ground without treatment. Not much water is consumed without treatment today, except maybe in an isolated farmsteads and in some rural areas. There are very few places, even in remote wilderness areas, where I would be willing to sample drinking water in the way I have just described it. Even in some of the pristine, beautiful areas of my State of Idaho, I suggest you do not drink from a stream. My forebears were able to do that, but today you might get a bacterial contamination known as Giardia. So we have a 15-millirem standard overall for Yucca Mountain and requirements for underground water that translates, I am told, to a limit of about 4 millirem exposure from underground water. Those are technical terms. That is why I have tried to break them down to a simple explanation as to what it might mean. What I want my colleagues to understand is that these levels, 15 millirems and 4 millirems, are measured against a background level, a point of measurement. You have to have that to determine any increases. You go to what is known as a background level of naturally occurring radiation--from the rocks, the nature of rocks, and of course the Earth and the atmosphere itself--naturally occurring radiation of about 300 millirems per year. Yucca Mountain is located in a very arid, desert environment. If you had to try to find a site within the entire contiguous United States where you might have some hope of meeting a 4-millirem ground water standard, Yucca Mountain is the kind of site you would want to pick. Yet even in the case of Yucca Mountain, the period of performance is so long and the radiation limit is so unrealistically stringent that there is some doubt that the Department of Energy will be able to demonstrate with absolute certainty that a 4-millirem ground water standard could be met. If a dry, desert site cannot meet a 4-millirem ground water limit, it is reasonable to question whether any site anywhere could meet this unrealistic standard. I could talk at length about how ridiculous I find these kinds of radiation limitations, but I think there is a body of criticism of EPA's proposal already existing in many of the comments that have been submitted by experts--not politicians but by experts on EPA's draft. Perhaps it will be more persuasive to my colleagues if I quote from the comments submitted to EPA by radiation experts regarding this draft radiation standard. The American Nuclear Society, which is a nonprofit professional association made up of 11,000 members who are nuclear scientists, engineers, administrators, educators, physicians--you notice in that list I did not say politicians; they do not have a reason to be political, they are professionals in an area of importance to this country--they submitted comments on EPA's radiation standards. The American Nuclear Society had the following to say regarding the 15- millirem proposal: The individual dose limit that EPA is recommending is not appropriate. That is what they said. EPA points out that the proposed dose limit of 15 millirem per year is far below the level of background radiation-- I have already mentioned that-- (about 300 millirem per year) and that any hypothesized effects of background radiation are not detectable against the rate of health effects in the general public. While this is certainly true, we believe that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a better basis in scientific logic than EPA. The individual dose limit that the NRC has proposed (25 millirem per year) is also lower than warranted. . . . [W]e conclude that a dose standard of 70 millirem for the repository alone is appropriate, conservative, and adequately protective. So the American Nuclear Society, an association of these 11 million professionals, has endorsed a radiation standard as high as 70 millirem per year. What does the American Nuclear Society have to say about the 4- millirem groundwater standard? They say the following: A ground water standard is unnecessary. . . . EPA's reasons for applying a groundwater standard appear to stem from a desire to influence the engineering design of the repository and to reduce collective dose to the general population, neither of which is appropriate. Both approaches are inconsistent with the National Academy of Sciences conclusion that an individual dose standard is adequately protective. . . . In other words, you do not need to do both. [V]ery small individual doses are not meaningful in assessing public health impacts. . . . In addition, the Linear, Non-Threshold theory of radiation health effects is being questioned with increasing intensity, and a body of scientific opinion exists today that holds it to be without scientific basis. . . . If it is ``without scientific basis,'' then maybe the only basis left is a political basis. That is the frustration with which the chairman and I have had to deal for the last few years as we have tried to bring this issue to completion so the American people would know they had a permanent, safe repository in which to put high-level nuclear waste. How do other nuclear experts look at this? Let me turn to the comments submitted to EPA by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a letter dated November 2, 1999, providing NRC's review of EPA's draft 15 and 4 millirem radiation standard. On the ground water standard, NRC commented the following: The NRC staff objects to the inclusion of separate groundwater protection requirements for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain because these requirements would result in non-uniform risk levels, they misapply the Maximum Contaminant Levels . . ., and they far exceed what is needed for protection of public health and safety. If the public is listening to me or if they have listened to some of this debate, they would say: But, Senator Craig, don't you really want to make this as safe as humanly possible? The answer, of course, is yes. The only problem with what EPA is saying is that if we make it that safe, we cannot make it. Of course, I am sure my colleagues from Nevada hope that would be the case. If that were true and if it were to become true, this Nation would still be without what the world of engineering and science says is a safe, permanent repository for nuclear waste. Why? Because we allowed politicians instead of scientists to make a determination as to what is right and how this facility ought to be constructed for the purpose of long-term safety. What does the NRC have to say about the 15-millirem limit as compared to the NRC's proposed 25-millirem limit per year? Again I quote from the NRC's comment letter to EPA: Although the EPA rule proposes a lower limit of 15 millirem, and the difference between 15 and 25 millirem is small, the lower value is not necessary for protection of public health and safety and would provide little, if any, reduction in health risk when compared with 25 millirem. It is also important to consider that the average American receives approximately 300 millirem per year from background radiation. Oh, my goodness, you mean we are all being irradiated as we stand here or as we travel in our cars or live in our homes or walk in our back yards? The answer is, yes, we are. It is natural. Shame on that Sun and shame on the ground and shame on the minerals within the ground because they collectively give us 300 millirem per year in background radiation. NRC goes on to say: In addition to the lack of public health and safety benefits, there are regulatory concerns associated with lowering the dose limit to 15 millirem. Specifically, as the dose limit becomes smaller, limitations in the DOE's models used for estimating performance, and the associated uncertainties in supporting analysis, become more pronounced. In other words, how you prove your case becomes more complicated. Further, a 15 millirem dose limit is likely to cause unnecessary confusion for the public and cause the NRC to expend resources without a commensurate increase in public health and safety. Zero risk. Is it possible in the world today, with all of our talent, all of our intelligence, and the best computers in the world, to construct a zero-risk environment? The answer is no. It cannot be done. It is humanly impossible under any circumstance for any situation; not just for radioactive material, but automobiles and planes, walking across the street, or riding the train back to our offices in the Senate. Zero risk? No. It does not exist. It does not exist in science, and it does not exist in the environment. It never has, and it never will. Yet I am quite sure the public believes we are so sophisticated today that we in fact could create that with the unique talents of this country. We cannot. It is important we say that. That is why we have professionals determine what is doable, right, and responsible, and that is all tied with costs and the ability to create. What the NRC is saying by that--``the expending of resources without commensurate increase in public health''--is one can lower it to such a level of safety that there is no justification to go beyond that. I could continue quoting from these various radiation experts for a very long while because the list is long; remember, experts not politicians. Their objections to EPA's current draft radiation standards reflect a very thorough and well-researched review of EPA's proposal, and the criticisms of these experts should inform our debate as we struggle to understand what all of these numbers mean and what they mean for the future of this country's nuclear waste disposal program. But I think perhaps DOE said it best, in a letter to EPA transmitting DOE's comments on the draft radiation standard. And the reason that I like this quote is, I think it sets the larger context for what these radiation standards mean for our ultimate success or failure. DOE says the following: EPA's standards will play a pivotal role in achieving the long-standing policy of the United States to properly dispose of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel in an underground mined geologic repository. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must implement EPA's standards in its regulations for licensing a repository at the Yucca Mountain site, and DOE must be able to comply with those NRC regulations in order to construct a repository. If EPA were to select unrealistic, unnecessarily conservative, or non site-specific standards, the result could be the rejection of an otherwise suitable site, and the de facto rejection of the geologic disposal option without commensurate benefit to the protection of public health and safety. Such rejection would not avoid the consequences of radioactive water management, but it would require resort to a different and currently undefined approach. I think the statement I just read describes the situation we are in now with EPA's unrealistic and unsupportable draft standard. I hope my colleagues will agree with me that this is a situation Congress must act to correct, by bringing good science back into the process of setting a radiation standard. We need a disposal program. Congress, more than a decade ago, chose a course, a path. We began to tax the ratepayers of the utilities that have nuclear generation in this country to pay for that path. That is where we are today. Some resist that path using all the reasons they can humanly generate, and that is why it is important we have this legislation. I hope the Congress can pass it and the President will sign it. Those are the issues with which we have to deal in understanding this problem. It is critically important to our Nation. At lunch today, I addressed a group of congressional staff and people in town who represent energy companies and those who do not. I said: I find it fascinating that the administration would want to take us through a climate change initiative, known as the Kyoto Protocol, in which they want to reduce carbon emissions in this country; therefore, we would have to reduce the use of fossil fuels which are currently our most abundant source of energy. In doing so, they are also not willing to find a way to deal with nuclear waste, so that we can see an extension of the nuclear generation of our country for electricity. They are downplaying that energy source also, and, at the same time, we have a Secretary of Interior who wants to blow up hydro dams. They downplay hydro, and they will not even put hydro in the renewable resource category. I find it fascinating, a country that exists on energy, an economy that is being driven today by artificial intelligence as a new industry, and that very industry operates on electricity itself. I see our staff on the floor with computers in front of them. If you turned off the power of that computer, its brain would go dead, we would no longer have the tremendous expansion of this economy from which we are all benefiting. Yet we have an administration phenomenally resistant to the establishment of a permanent repository for nuclear waste but is open to the idea that if you do not handle the waste, you will ultimately kill the industry; and if you kill the industry, you will never build another nuclear reactor to generate environmentally clean electrical energy. And they want to get rid of the dams and they want to stop burning fossil fuels. Oh, my goodness. What a reality check for our country, to have as our national policy no energy policy at all. Our wealth and our very existence, as a major economic force in the world, has always been built on the abundance of reasonably inexpensive but readily available energy. That is a part of all of this debate. I think it is probably separate from what my colleagues from Nevada would say in opposing this legislation. Obviously, they have to reflect the politics of home, as they should. But for a President to say, in a relatively unspoken way, as a policy for the country, we have no energy policy at all--we do not even have an energy strategy except maybe a few windmills and solar cells--it is no policy at all. That is why we are on the floor trying to close the link between the generator of electrical power, by the use of the atom, and the necessity to have a responsible method for handling the waste that is created by that form of generation. While the rest of the world around us builds nuclear reactors for generating power, and has responsibly handled their waste--and has used, in large part, our technology to do so--we have been bound up in the politics of it for well over a decade. I hope, finally, an opportunity exists for us to break through it. In my opinion, this is one of the most significant environmental bills we will have before the Congress this year. While those on the other side would like to cast it as antienvironment, finding a way to collect the nuclear waste of this country, and putting it in one safe spot, far from any human being, high in the dry desert of Nevada, seems to me, and a lot of other people, to be darn good policy. So let me thank my colleague from Alaska for his leadership. While he and I over the years have had disagreements on this issue, we have worked them out. We have asked the Senate to work with us to work out the differences. In most instances they have because this policy is too important for the normal course of politics that it has been served. This is an issue whose time has come. I hope the Senate and the House recognize that as we attempt to deal with it. Again, I thank my chairman and yield the floor. Mr. BRYAN addressed the Chair.

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 Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing previously scheduled before the subcommittee on Tuesday, February 22, 2000 at 3 p.m. on S. 1722, a bill to amend the Mineral Leasing Act to increase the maximum acreage of Federal leases for sodium that may be held by an entity in any one State, and for other purposes; and its companion bill, H.R. 3063, a bill to amend the Mineral Leasing Act to increase the maximum acreage of Federal leases for sodium that may be held by an entity in any one State, and for other purposes; and S. 1950, a bill to amend the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 to ensure the orderly development of coal, coalbed methane, natural gas, and oil in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming and Montana, and for other purposes, has been moved to Thursday, February 24, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. In addition, a hearing has been scheduled before the subcommittee on Tuesday, February 22, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of this hearing is to conduct oversight on the Administration's effort 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, DC 20510. For further information, please call Mark Rey (202) 224-2878.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Craig Thomas, for coming to the floor today once again to shape and clarify some of these issues that are going to be front and center before this Congress and this Senate over the coming months as we deal with Presidential initiatives, Presidential budgets, and some of the issues that are going to be, by fall and November, election-time issues. Last week, I took issue with the President's State of the Union Address in a broad sense as it related to the budget and some of the initiatives he propounded within the State of the Union. Today, I will focus, as my colleague from Wyoming has focused, on the element in the President's speech dealing with guns and gun violence. Last November, the Centers for Disease Control reported 34,000 Americans die every year from firearm injuries. If there is good news to be found in that terrible statistic, it is that the number has declined every year for the last 4 years. It is fewer than the 43,000 Americans who die every year from motor vehicle accidents. And yet when we have some of our colleagues on the floor pounding their podiums and saying how terrible it is--and it is terrible--they forget to put it in relation to other kinds of accidents and/or intentional acts that produce deaths among the American citizenry. That figure of 34,000 is far less than the 44,000 to 98,000 patients who die every year by medical error. That is right. I am talking about errors made in the delivery of medicine. It is estimated that 44,000 to 98,000 patients die every year by medical error--that is a statistic which comes from the Institute of Medicine--and yet somehow when such a tragedy happens, it does not make the headline in the paper; it simply makes the obituary page. When we consider there are over 200 million privately owned guns in the United States, we cannot escape the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of America's 80 million gun owners are peaceful and extremely responsible and using their constitutional rights in a responsible-citizen way. There are 80 million gun owners and 200 million privately owned guns in America. We in the Government are charged with the responsibility of seeing that guns are used appropriately within the Constitution. That is, in part, our job. It is an American right and responsibility of all Americans, should they wish to exercise it. We are here to deal with those who use guns to intimidate, to steal, to rape, to murder. That is what the Government is for. That is our job, not to restrict or control the right of the free citizen in the exercise of his or her constitutional right, but to go at those who do the opposite, who use the right in the wrong way--to steal, to rape, or to murder. This duty comes before any other matter that we would want or should want to consider on the issue of guns. We know when the Government takes this responsibility seriously, we save lives. You can come to the floor and pass all of the politically driven bills that you want to, but if they are not enforced or not enforceable, then it is a political statement, not a responsible act of our Government. In Richmond, VA, a Republican initiative called Project Exile has stepped up and prosecuted the gun-toting criminals and cut the murder rate by 30 percent every year since it was enacted in 1997. That is in Richmond, VA. In fact, it is said in Richmond that a man walked into a 7-Eleven with a baseball bat to rob it. They caught him. They said: Why didn't you use a gun? He said: You get locked up if you use a gun. Isn't it amazing that the criminal element of our society will read and respond to the effective and targeted enforcement of a law? As a result of that, in a city that was plagued by what any person would judge as a high rate of crime and murder, it has dropped that precipitously, since the targeted direction of law enforcement not only to arrest but to prosecute and lock up those who misuse their gun rights. How does the administration address the duty to the American people? Over the past 7 years, the Clinton-Gore administration has cut the ATF's pursuit of criminals who use guns by nearly half. The number of prosecutions fell by nearly as much, and the number of gun-toting criminals convicted fell by one-third. This isn't an NRA statistic; this is an independent Syracuse University statistic. It is objective by every politician's measurement. This is how it profiles on a chart. Last year, in this Chamber, Vice President Al Gore cast the tiebreaking vote in favor of interfering with peaceful, law-abiding, responsible gun ownership--not criminals, but responsible citizens exercising their right to go out and buy a firearm for their personal ownership and possibly for their personal protection. It was quite a moment for the Vice President. There he sat in that chair, the image of leadership. He was able to tell Americans how concerned he was about gun violence because he had cast the tiebreaking vote to impose greater restrictions on law-abiding Americans. But I wonder, when this administration was gutting the enforcement of laws against gun violence, was the Vice President casting his vote then? No. Here is the Vice President's record, right here on this chart. This is where he and the President took over the law enforcement responsibilities of the Justice Department of this country. Look what happened during the Reagan and the Bush years--aggressive efforts to go at the criminals; arrests went up; crime began to go down. Here the Clinton-Gore administration backed off. They cut budgets. You know the rest of the story. When this administration was letting violent criminals off, I have a simple question to ask: Where was Al? How many gun-toting criminals would be locked up today if the Clinton-Gore administration had merely kept pace with the Reagan-Bush administration's record portrayed on this chart? I would like to hear the Vice President answer this question to American mothers. It is the right question to ask. It is a response that all deserve. But there is more disturbing evidence that this administration does not take seriously its duty in law enforcement. The national instant check system is designed to immediately notify the FBI if a criminal is trying to purchase a gun. I support that. Every Senator supports the ability of someone going into a licensed firearm dealer to buy a firearm immediately being checked, just like swiping your credit card through a machine at any retail outlet in America and instantly finding whether you have credit on your card so you can make that purchase. We want the same kind of response when it comes to the purchase of a gun. We are nearly there. We have nudged, we have pushed, we have cajoled this administration and their Justice Department until they have finally done it--although they dragged their feet progressively over the last 8 years. According to a staff report of the Senate Judiciary Committee, since November of 1998, this Republican initiative, started here on this floor--the instant check system background check--has stopped over 100,000 criminals from purchasing guns. That represents an enormous number of bad actors who need to be put back in jail. How many have the administration put back in jail? To my knowledge, none. You heard the President in the well of the House in the State of the Union Address talk about all of these criminals detected and stopped from buying a gun. If a criminal walks into a hardware store or a gun shop and attempts to buy a gun over the counter from a licensed firearm dealer, and his background is checked, and he is a felon with a record, he has violated a law. He is in violation of the law. Yet the ATF has referred only one-fifth of 1 percent of these criminals acting illegally to the Justice Department for prosecution. Mr. President, I am sorry. You can talk all you want about guns, but your actions show you don't care. You only want the politics of it. Last year, this Congress said: No. We do not want the politics of it. We will not take that effort. We want substance. The administration claims it has increased the referral of firearms cases back to the States for prosecution. But that is the same as letting a criminal off the hook. That is not an accusation of the States. These are Federal firearms violations. They deserve Federal prosecution. State prosecutors have fewer resources than Federal prosecutors, and State firearm convictions result in shorter sentences. Moreover, with a budget that grew 65 percent from 1992 to 1998, I am sorry, Janet Reno, we gave you the money; you didn't do the job. That growth in budget was the Justice Department. The Clinton-Gore administration even lets convicted felons off the hook. Last September, we came to the floor to speak about it. This President, with his Executive power, granted clemency to 12 terrorists convicted of 36 counts of violating Federal firearms laws. I am amazed at you, Bill Clinton, that you can stand on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and, with a straight face, talk about firearms control, when you turned loose convicted felons, convicted of firearms violations. As recently as last year, the President said he would spend not more than $5 million on the programs such as Project Exile, the kind I just outlined used in Richmond, VA. We asked for $50 million. The President largely got his way. The final figure was about $7 million. Sorry, Mr. President. Last year at this time you didn't deserve credit for any of it. Now you have stepped up. Now you are saying you want $280 million to hire new investigators and prosecutors, both at the Federal and the State level. I ask you why, Mr. President? I think I know the answer. It is polling well. You went out and asked the question of the American people about law enforcement, something every Senator knows about, and it polled well. It got in the State of the Union. It is far from clear that inadequate funding is the problem. The drop in prosecutions we have seen under this administration cannot be explained entirely by staff levels. The ATF observers at Syracuse University attest, ``other unknown forces or policies changes are apparently at work.'' Many observers believe the administration already has the resources it needs to increase as dramatically as they want the prosecutions necessary. I ask unanimous consent to continue for 3 more minutes.

Mr. CRAIG. One other issue I think is important: The President did something the other night that is the most radical expression on gun control by any President in the history of this country--I think that is worth repeating--the most radical proposal on gun control by any President in the history of this country. Here is what he said: Every state in this country already requires . . . automobile drivers to have a license. I think they ought to do the same thing for handgun purchases. Mr. President, it is obvious you don't understand. What the President failed to grasp is that no State requires a license to purchase a car. If you want to have it hauled home to your ranch out in Wyoming and you stay on your ranch and you never get off on the public road, you, Senator Craig Thomas, do not need a license to own a car. You need a license to drive a car on a public right of way, on a public road. States do not require a license to drive a car except on public roads. That is the whole point the President made. The average American scratches his head and says, yes, license cars, license guns. But the President said you had to have a license to buy a gun, a direct statement of violation of the second amendment of our Constitution. I can understand why Americans are frustrated, but I doubt the President has had a driver's license, maybe a valid one, in a long while. He has not needed one. I doubt he has ever waited in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a license or to take the test in a long while. So if the President wants to license handguns like cars, then he is talking about issuing licenses to take a firearm out in public because it would be against the Constitution to require a license to buy one, so he must be talking about taking a license out to take a gun out in public. Well, we already do that. It is called concealed carry permits. Thirty States already say you can get a license to carry a gun in public, and it is called a concealed carry. The State of Vermont doesn't require a license at all. I regret to inform you, President Bill Clinton, that what you are talking about is something I don't think you understand. No State requires a person to have a driver's license to purchase a car, nor should this Federal Government ever require a free citizen in our country the need to have a license to purchase a gun. Mr. President, are you then talking about a national concealed carry law? That is probably a pretty good idea. For those who want to carry in public, you could say you have to have a certain safety record and safety standard and experience and all of those kinds of things if you want--not to own, now, but to carry openly in public. I think that is what the President is not talking about at all. My time is up and there are a good many other facts to be dealt with. In States that have concealed carry, crime drops; when the criminal element knows that the citizen out there is armed for his or her self- protection, for the protection of their private property and their personal rights and their person itself. Extensive study has also shown that when states begin issuing concealed carry permits, murders drop by about 8 percent, rapes fall by 5 percent and aggravated assaults drop by 7 percent. Moreover, as economist John Lott notes, states that began issuing nondiscretionary permits between 1977 and 1992 ``virtually eliminated mass public shootings after four or five years.'' Why does crime fall when citizens' right to bear arms is protected? Because there is nothing a criminal fears more than a citizen who can defend himself. The President's comments were, of course, a plug for the Vice President, who has been talking for some time about regulating guns like cars. I wonder if that's really what either of them wants. In the words of second amendment scholar David Kopel, ``if Gore follows through on his promise to treat guns like cars, he will oversee the most massive decontrol of firearms in America since 1868, when the 14th Amendment abolished Southern states' Black Codes, which prohibited freedmen from owning guns.'' Preserving and strengthening the second amendment would suit most Americans just fine. I hope that's really what the President and Vice President want. But I suspect it isn't. And I worry that if word gets out, some poor White House speechwriter is going to lose his job. These are issues we will debate at length on the floor of the Senate over the coming months. I thought it was important to come to the floor to begin to understand, to begin to explain so the American people can more clearly understand the kind of irrational approach this administration is currently proposing and certainly the less than legitimate record they have in the area of law enforcement when it comes to the use of a firearm. I thank my colleague from Wyoming for taking out this time.