Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me close out the debate on this side of this issue by saying to Senators that you will have an opportunity to vote to table the McCain amendment in a few moments. It is an amendment that really does not face the reality of the situation today. While product prices across the country, are low, we have one program in agriculture that is working reasonably well. That is a program that, in value to the farmer, beet or cane, since 1990, has actually gone down. But it has not translated through to the consumer because the sweetener industry, and the confectionery industry have continually raised their prices. This is not a subsidy, nor is it a cost to the taxpayer. There is no net cost to the taxpayer. All of these recourse loans are repaid at current interest rates. It is important to recognize it is a way of marketing and effectively distributing the product of this agricultural producer. It has also been clearly pointed out that you cannot compare current values and markets with world markets because most sugar around the world is sold on contract. That which is not is dumped to the bottom. So to compare that, it is not even apples and oranges; it is apples compared with nothing. It is important this program be retained. We revised it dramatically in 1996 in the new farm program, and it has worked effectively since that time. I hope those who supported us in 1996 on a similar amendment will stand with us today, in behalf of the American producer, both cane and sugar beet and the American consumers. American consumers find themselves paying substantially less than other consumers, some nearly $1 billion less on an annualized basis than other comparable consumers around the world in developed nations that are large consumers of sugar. I hope my colleagues will join me in voting to table the McCain amendment. I yield the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to tell the Senators from New Hampshire and Arizona that this is a sweet deal, but I can't say that because they are obviously deadly serious and, in my opinion, are dramatically misrepresenting a program that has not slipped through the cracks at all. It was negotiated and put in the 1996 farm bill to benefit hundreds of growers in my State and in other States across the Nation. It is to develop a program that doesn't cost the taxpayers of this country one dime. For the Senator from New Hampshire to say that a consumer goes to the marketplace and buys a candy bar, and therefore is paying a government tax is false on its face and false by its fact. They are paying what the candy bar company retails the product for. Let me repeat for the record and for all listening, sugar farmers, cane or beet sugar raisers, in this country do not receive one Government payment. There is no subsidy involved. Instead, there are loan programs they can use for marketing purposes, and they pay them back with current interest rates. The Senator from Arizona knows that. That is the way the program works. He is striking that out, but he is leaving the assessment in place. So he is saying: You can't have a relationship to your Government where we are going to tax you if you raise or produce sugar in this country. USDA estimates the sugar program saves taxpayers $500 to $700 million per year in deficiency payments on corn farmers and others who are paying an added 25 cents for the value of that product. These are the facts with which we are dealing. Governments of all sugar-producing countries have directly intervened in their production and have dramatically subsidized that production, driving down prices in the world market. Those are the facts that our growers deal with on an annual basis. American workers in 42 States benefit from the sugar policy. The sweetener industry has a positive annual impact of about $26.6 billion in the U.S. economy, and they add about 420,000 jobs to that economy. Here is the strange fact: You are being told sugar producers are making lots of money and the consumer is paying for it. When we passed this new farm program in 1996, from that time forward, the price of cane sugar has dropped about 5 percent to the producer. The cost of beet sugar has dropped about 13 percent. Now, it is interesting that sugar products have gone up 20 to 30 percent, so the consumer is paying more, but the producer is getting less under this program. So when you have a Senator standing on the floor saying the producer is making out like a bandit, well, if a 13- percent reduction in beet costs and a 5-percent reduction in cane is real--and it is--who is making out like a bandit? I guess it is the retailer or manufacturer that has nothing to do with this. It is the marketplace at work. Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am willing to accommodate the Senator from New Hampshire. I understand he has a time conflict.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, first I would like to thank Chairman Cochran and Senator Kohl for the hard work they have put into the Fiscal Year 2000 Agriculture, Rural Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. It is a challenging process, and they have done an excellent job balancing competing interests within the confines of a balanced budget. I wish to engage in a colloquy with the distinguished Chairman of the Subcommittee regarding funding for the Greater Yellowstone Interagency Brucellosis Committee (GYIBC). There is currently a Cooperative State Federal Brucellosis Eradication Program to eliminate the brucellosis from the country. States are designated brucellosis free when none of their cattle or bison are found to be infected for 12 consecutive months. As of March 31, 1998, 42 States, plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, are free of brucellosis. The presence of brucellosis in free-ranging bison in Yellowstone National Park threatens the brucellosis status of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, as well as the health of their livestock herds, which are free of the disease. Reintroduction of the disease into a brucellosis-free State could have a serious economic impact on domestic livestock markets and potentially threaten export markets. The Committee saw fit to allocate $610,000 for the coordination of Federal, state and private actions aimed at eliminating brucellosis from wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone Area. I would like to clarify how this money is to be allocated. Of the funds appropriated for the GYIBC, $400,000 is for the States of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana to participate in the GYIBC, with the understanding that 50 percent goes to the state that chairs the committee and 25 percent goes to each of the other states. The remaining $210,000 is for the State of Idaho to protect the State's brucellosis-free status and implement the Idaho Wildlife Brucellosis plan. Is it the intent of the Committee to use these funds as I have described?

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Chairman. aphis plant protection colloquy

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, first I would like to thank Chairman Cochran and Senator Kohl for the hard work they have put into the Fiscal Year 2000 Agriculture, Rural Development, and related Agencies Appropriations bill. It is a challenging process, and they have done an excellent job balancing competing interests within the confines of a balanced budget. I wish to engage in a colloquy with the distinguished Chairman and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee regarding the appropriation for the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service plant protection programs and regulations. The funds this bill makes available for plant protection are critical to protecting American agriculture from diseases, pests, and invasive plants. My own state of Idaho struggles greatly with noxious weeds, such as leafy spurge, which compete with the native grasses so essential for the raising of cattle. Researchers at the University of Idaho and around the country are working diligently to develop mechanisms to use biological controls for weeds and to manage diseases of important agriculture plants. It is my understanding that current APHIS regulations require a permit for interstate transfer of a pathogen or plant infected with a pathogen from one research location to another. However, research and education facilities routinely transfer plant materials from one research location to another using good management practices. To facilitate researchers' work on behalf of American agriculture, I ask that the Committee clarify its intent that the appropriations contained in this bill for the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service should be used to carry out plant protection programs and regulations that take into account the levels of risk presented by pathogens and to establish mechanisms to expedite or provide exemptions from any formal permit or certification processes for research and education facilities established under implementing regulations as the Secretary deems appropriate. Is it the intent of the Committee to use these funds as I have described?

Mr. CRAIG. It is also the Committee's belief that the routine handling of a variety of pathogens by many research and education facilities, using good management practices, has occurred widely without their untoward release and establishment in the environment?

Mr. CRAIG. I understand from researchers in my state that pathogens that might be considered for exemption or expedited processes include: endemic and naturalized pathogens for which there is extensive information and handling experience and for which management strategies have been developed; pathogens intended for educational, research, or reference use that are not to be released into the environment; or pathogens that present low risk because of their mode of survival, dissemination, or some other aspect of their biology. Is that the Committee's understanding?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. Chairman, is it the intent of the Committee that APHIS consult with relevant scientific societies as well as state regulators of plan pathogens and on-site reviewers of facilities where possible in modifying current regulations or developing future regulations regarding the movement of pathogens between research and education facilities?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I yield to the Senator.

Mr. CRAIG. Thank you, Madam President. For the last 20 minutes, I have listened to my colleague from North Dakota with some degree of clarity discuss the issue that is true in his State today and true in most areas of American agriculture. I will in no way attempt to modify or suggest any different kind of impact on the family farm, but I suggest that most family farms in Idaho today are multimillion-dollar operations, and we should not attempt to invoke the image of a small farm, a husband and wife, struggling to stay alive. A husband and wife and family team in production agriculture today are struggling to stay alive in an industry that recognizes their investment in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. There is no question that the character of American agriculture has changed. While some are still caught up in the rhetoric of the family farm--and there are still some small farming units--most of those who farm small units today recognized some years ago that their life could not be made there unless they supplemented it with outside income. That, of course, has been the character of the change in production agriculture for the last good number of decades--true in Idaho, true in North Dakota, true in Mississippi, true in almost every other agricultural State in our Nation. How do I know that? That is what the statistics show. But in 1965 and 1966, as a young person, I was given a unique opportunity to travel through our Nation on behalf of agriculture as a national officer of FFA, Future Farmers of America. I was in almost every agricultural State in this Nation speaking to young farmers and young ranchers. I happened to have had the privilege of staying on many of those farms and ranches. For the course of 1 year, I saw American agriculture like few are given the opportunity to see it. I must tell you, it was an exciting time because I met wonderful people, I saw a unique lifestyle that is true in many instances today, and I did see and feel the heartland of America as few get the opportunity to experience. While I was traveling, I gave many speeches. The speech oftentimes started like this: That a family farmer or a farmer in American agriculture today produces enough for him or herself and 30 other people. That was 1965. Today, if I were that young FFA officer traveling the Nation, my speech would have to change, because I would say that that farmer or rancher produces enough for him or herself and 170 to 180 additional Americans. Has the family unit changed? Oh, very significantly. In almost all instances, it is four or five times larger than it was in 1965 and 1966. But it is phenomenally more efficient and much more productive. Because of those efficiencies, instituted by new technology or biogenetics, we have seen great productivity. So it isn't just a measurement of crops produced against prices for those crops; it is a combination of the whole. I think it is very important that we portray American agriculture today for what it is and for what it asks from us. In 1965 and 1966, it was not just Government and politicians that suggested farm policy in this country ought to change; it was American agriculture itself that came to us in 1965 and 1966 and said: Get Government off our backs. American agriculture has changed. We don't want to farm to a program. We want to farm to a market. We don't want to be restricted in limited acreages. We don't want to be restricted in limited markets. We want the ability to be flexible to move with the market. Congress listened. Out of that listening came the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, which is now called Freedom to Farm. The Senator from North Dakota said it is a failure. The Senator from North Dakota is wrong. It has met every objective it was intended to meet--expanded markets, expanded production, with flexibility for the individual producer. All of those goals that were a part of Freedom to Farm have been met today. Today, before the Ag Committee, we heard about a comprehensive study that said agricultural income in the decade of the 1990s will surpass any other decade, at a time when the number of farmers has gone down and productivity has gone up dramatically. That is all part of the good news of the story. So it is not an abject failure, unless you did not vote for it because you did not believe in it in the first place, and you really do want Government controls, and you really do want a Government plan to which farmers farm instead of the market. My guess is, that is part of what the Senator from North Dakota was talking about. That is not what I am here to talk about today. That is where we differ substantially. But we do not differ on the other issue. That is the issue of the current commodity price crisis in production agriculture across our Nation and across the world. That is very real today. Many of our commodities are finding their price in the marketplace at or below Depression-era prices. That in itself is a crisis, and that we should respond to. Last year, we did not cast a deaf ear on production agriculture in this country. The taxpayers of this country, recognizing the plight the American producer in agriculture was in, gave handsomely. Billions of dollars flowed into production agriculture, and directly through to the farmer, and to the rancher in some instances. As a result of that, farm income was substantially buoyed. That will happen again this year. But it will happen in the context of Freedom to Farm. We are not going to go in and start changing long-term farm policy until the Senator from North Dakota and the Senator from Idaho can agree that Freedom to Farm was an abject failure--when, in fact, I do not believe it was; and I think the Senator from North Dakota would be hard pressed, looking at the facts and the intent, to argue that it was either. So we are here today not to talk about a long-term policy change but to talk about the current crisis. It is a crisis that is not just taking place within this country; it is a commodity crisis that is worldwide. Let's talk about 1996, 1997, and part of 1998. That is when we crafted a new farm bill. That is when commodity prices were higher than they had ever been around the world, and we drained all of our reserves, and we were told never again would we see low prices. But there were some things missing from that ``never again'' argument. We didn't anticipate a general downturn in world economies, especially the Asian economy, an Asian economy that had increased its overall import of agricultural foodstuffs from the United States by nearly 27 percent in the period of a 5- to 6-year span. Those imports are down by 11 percent today. Those are the facts. Is that a direct result of Freedom to Farm policy failing? I suggest that it isn't. I don't think the Senator from North Dakota would disagree. Now, what has that caused? It has plummeted commodity prices in our country. We agree that there is a current farm crisis, and we agree that that crisis could extend itself for some time to come. We agree that Congress ought to respond to it so we don't lose those production units and the families and the human side of it that is so critical across our country and to smalltown Idaho just as much as smalltown North Dakota. The difference, at least in the current situation of the moment, is the heavy hand of politics, tragically enough. Last year we were able to agree, and we worked at crafting a bipartisan package. This morning, while we were there in the Ag Committee holding a hearing with the Secretary, all of a sudden the committee room emptied. I wondered where they had gone. The chairman said: Well, they have gone out to hold a press conference with the Vice President. The heavy hand of Presidential politics now tragically plays at this issue. It shouldn't have to be that way and, in the end, it won't be that way, if we are to craft the right kind of policy to deal with a crisis that isn't Democrat or isn't Republican, but it is at the heartland of America's fundamental production unit, American agriculture. The chairman of the Ag Subcommittee of Appropriations has struggled mightily over the course of the last several weeks to try to see if we couldn't arrive at a package that would respond. Our goal is not to add hundreds of billions of dollars to programs that don't have any sense of immediacy or any sense of getting money directly through to the farmer. Our bill is substantially smaller in that regard than the bill offered by the minority leader of the Senate. But our bill, when it comes to money to production units, money to farmers, and money to ranchers, is there. It is real and it is the same dollar amount. I am willing to talk farm policy, and I am willing to debate it, but not in the short-term and not in the immediate sense of an emergency, because it is awfully hard to argue that the emergency at hand was produced by Freedom to Farm. Let me read briefly from a report called ``Record and Outlook,'' put together by a very responsible group called the Sparks Company out of McLean, VA. This report is called ``Freedom to Farm, Record and Outlook,'' prepared for the Coalition for Competitive Food in the Agricultural System. Here is their analysis. Most people say that the Sparks Company is widely recognized as reputable and is nonpartisan in its analyses of those issues that it examines. Here is what they say: The recent slowing of the farm economy primarily reflects two major factors: Farmers response worldwide to mid-decade record high prices. . . In other words, what they are saying was those prices in 1996 and 1997 sent a message to American agriculture: Gear up your production. They sent a message to world agriculture: Gear up your production. Consumption and prices are here to stay. And that is what happened, and worldwide production is at an all-time record. They go on: . . .and the downturn in the economic and financial health of one region of the world, Asia, which also is the largest market for U.S. farm and food products. I have already mentioned the tremendous ramp up in the increase in purchases of agricultural foodstuffs in Asia and now the dramatic decline. The study concludes that both the high record prices of 1995, 1996, and part of 1997, and the more recent readjustments, are the result of ``ordinary market developments and reactions, with some unusually good weather patterns helping boost output, while the economic downturn in Asia and elsewhere has weakened the prices. As a result, the current market downturn reflects temporary, rather than fundamental market changes.'' Temporary problems, but a real crisis. Permanent problems? They say not so. So if you are going to change permanent policy, you ought to be able to determine that there is first a permanent problem. That is what I think the Senator from North Dakota has failed to argue, while he and I would agree on the sense of immediacy to the current crisis. The report goes on to talk about modest shortfalls in harvests and yields during 1993 through 1995, during the time when these markets were ramping up. Output fell below the 10-year trend and stocks plummeted. In other words, storage and surplus. Strong world economic growth then stimulated demand and record high grain and oilseed prices; world planting and harvests above trends in the United States and worldwide during 1996 through 1998; also good weather and high grain and oilseed yields, especially in the United States, rapidly rebuilt depleted stocks in spite of significantly above-trend consumption during that period. In other words, we were pushing production, but the world was consuming. Significant increases in non-U.S. production competing for growing world markets largely in response to record high prices of the mid-1990s. For example, all of the very considerable above-trend wheat production has been outside the United States, while the share of increased production outside the United States has been 44 percent for corn and 35 percent for soybeans. Lastly, they point out that the downturn in economic and financial health of key world markets, especially Asia, the largest U.S. export market, has increased pressure on U.S. prices, although world grain and oilseed use has been well above trend during the last 3 years. What is the point of those comments? The point is that no matter how we would have designed the policy, we were working against a world situation, both economically and climactically, and productionwise that would have been very difficult to foresee. We did not foresee it, nor was it debated in 1995 and 1996, as we were crafting Freedom to Farm. We didn't recognize it in 1997. Toward the tail end of 1997, it became an indicator of problems to come. By 1998, it was very clear, and Congress responded. It is now 1999 and Congress will respond again, with a multibillion-dollar direct aid package to production agriculture. I said before the Ag Committee today and before Secretary Glickman that I am willing, starting next year, to review Freedom to Farm. I don't think production agriculture is going to walk away from the freedoms and the flexibility it has. Is there a way of crafting a safety net or something that causes some adjustments over time? It is possible. I would not suggest that it isn't. But the rest of the story of Freedom to Farm that we have not successfully matched yet, but something that Congress, Democrat and Republican, agreed with and promised production agriculture with the passage of Freedom to Farm in 1996, were two other elements. One was a risk management practice, better known as crop insurance. We have placed that money in the budget, but we can't yet agree on a package that is bipartisan in character, that meets the regional differences within our country, certainly the regional differences between the Midwest and Idaho or the Midwest and the South or the Northeast. If we had had a comprehensive risk management crop insurance package today, the very real drought that Washington, DC, and States east of the Alleghenies are in at this moment would have been dramatically offset if farmers had had that kind of risk management tool. But we have not yet agreed as to how to make it flexible and diversified in a way that meets those kinds of needs of specialty crops and the uniqueness of agriculture across this country. So a promise made; we have not fulfilled it yet. The other area, of course, is the expansion of world trade. The Senator from North Dakota is right. We are not trading in world markets like we should. Let me tell you, Bill Clinton and company have been asleep at the switch now for many years. Do they have a division down at the Department of State that goes out and aggressively markets on a daily basis American agricultural surpluses? No, they don't. We offered them and provided them the tools to move aggressively in the markets. There was a bit of a yawn down at the Department of Agriculture, and that yawn has continued for the last good number of years. So point the finger, I am; but I am pointing the finger at the very agencies of our Government that are responsible for breaking down those political barriers between a consuming market somewhere else in the world and a production unit here in the United States. We have not done that well, and we should. We promised it, in part. Last year, I and Senators from the other side of the aisle stood together and were able to knock down the sanctions against Pakistan and India to move markets. This year, at our urging--and I applaud the President; now that I have criticized him, let me applaud him for bringing forth an Executive order that said that foodstuffs and medical supplies would not be subject to sanction. That was 3 months ago, and 3 months later, in the time of an agriculture crisis, they are just getting the regulations out. Well, now, give me a break, Mr. President. You mean your bureaucracy takes 3 months to write a regulation that says farmers can supply a world market that they were denied? There is a lot of blame to be shared here, but, Mr. Vice President, you were on the Hill today talking about a farm crisis. Last I checked, the Department of Agriculture and State Department were under your watch, and for 3 long months you have sat and watched as the bureaucracy ground out regulations that allow access to world markets. I am sorry, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President, there is blame to be shared all around. Let me shift just a little of it to you, Mr. Vice President, and you, Mr. President. The spirit is in the right place, but couldn't you have cut to the chase? Couldn't we be moving grains, rice, and food commodities, and lentils into mid-Asian and the Central Eastern markets today like we should be? Well, we will be by fall and into the winter, thanks to a policy you put in place, Mr. President. But 3 months later, we are finally beginning to see its regulations. Late is better than none at all. I will accept that and we will move on. But, again, open the world markets. It is political barriers that are out there, not market barriers. Those are political barriers that only governments can knock down. When it is nation-to-nation, our Government at the Federal level has to be responsible, and we fail to be. My credit goes to the chairman of our Senate Agriculture Committee who, for several years, has been pushing legislation to pull down those barriers. Last year, he offered it on the floor. It passed. This year, it will pass this Senate again, and I hope it passes the Congress. I hope the President can deal with it, and I hope he will sign it. Those are long-term provisions, but once in place, they are a legitimate and responsible role for Government to participate in. Manipulating the market, shaping the price? Absolutely not. We have to let the marketplace work its will. But it is very important that Government play the role it should play, and that is in dealing with the political barriers of trade, most assuredly in times of need, providing some safety nets. We did that last year, and we are going to do it again this year. I hope in the end we can craft a crop insurance plan that will provide the risk management tools that we have said to production agriculture we would provide. Well, those are the circumstances in which we find ourselves today. In the course of the next few hours, the Senate will have an opportunity to vote on two very different measures, in the sense of a total package. They are very similar in the dollars and cents that go directly to production agriculture. I hope that, in the end, out of this can come a bipartisan package. There is a great deal in the Daschle-Harkin package that may be OK at some point down the road; but my guess is not without hearings held and no understanding of some broad policy changes that are at this moment not necessarily justifiable in this time of dealing with crises, both a price crisis and the situation that deals with weather disaster. Those are the circumstances as I see it. I hope my colleagues will vote with the chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee in supporting his amendment and not allowing it to be tabled, so we can get at a clear vote and finalize this work today. If that can't be done, I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join with us in seeing if we can make some adjustments in a final package. But I believe that the package offered up by the chairman is certainly in good faith and responds in an immediate way to need, and that the money can move directly to production agriculture, sending a very critical message to the families and the men and women engaged in agriculture in our economy that we care and we understand the importance of them and what they do for all of us as Americans, and Americans are responding by a substantial ag package of nearly $7 billion. I yield the floor. Mr. BAUCUS addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 1500, Withdrawn

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise in support of S. 1429, the Taxpayer Refund Act of 1999. This debate has been about numbers and surpluses and budget rules. To some extent, it has to be. But our efforts to provide tax relief are also about something more important: People. The kind of relief that both the Senate and House tax bills would provide is a matter of providing real help to real people who have real needs. This tax relief is about returning some modest amount of liberty, some small measure of power, to the people. This is the most heavily taxed generation of Americans in history. Providing some degree of tax relief will return to individuals and families more power over their own lives, more ability to meet their pressing needs, and more of an opportunity to pursue their dreams. I've looked at both the Senate and House bills. I think we can come up with a very good conference report based on these two bills--a conference report that preserves the best of both bills, and helps improve the lives of all Americans. We are talking about a tax bill that removes some fundamental unfairness from the current system. For example, it just isn't fair that two individuals should be forced to pay hundreds of dollars more in taxes simply because they get married. That's why the Senate bill ends the marriage penalty for two earners. I think we should go farther, which is why I've supported the Gramm amendment and the Hutchison amendment and hope we can do more in conference. Mr. President, it just isn't fair that working families sometimes have to sell part or all of the family farm or the family business just to pay taxes. I've seen family farms carved up because of the death tax. The other side would have us believe that this is a debate about the so-called ``estates'' of rich people. It's not. Death tax relief is a question of saving the family farm; maintaining the family business; and allowing people the fundamental freedom to dispose of their own property and their own savings as they see fit. The death tax imposes a double tax, because it confiscates property and savings built up from income left over after it's already been taxed one, two, or three times before. But we know where the other side and the Administration are coming from. In fact, this Administration's former Secretary of Labor, in one of his books, called it a ``loophole'' for the tax code to allow parents actually to pass along some of their savings and possessions to their children. I support the relief from the death tax in this bill and wish we could do more. That's why I've supported the Kyl amendment. This tax relief bill is good for children. It would allow more parents to afford child care, both because it increases and expands the child care tax credit, also called the Dependent Care Credit, and because it allows more modest- and middle-income families to make full use of the child tax credit we enacted in the 1997 Tax Relief Act. It also would expand the tax exclusion for foster care payments. This bill will help make education more affordable and available to individuals and families. It includes tax-free, qualified tuition plans; extends the employer-provided tuition assistance; and makes our 1997 education tax credits more fully available to modest- and middle- income families, by taking it out of the Alternative Minimum Tax calculations. We should be doing even more to help families meet their educational needs and opportunities. This is why I've supported the Coverdell- Torricelli amendment to expand and improve Educational Savings Accounts. The Coverdell-Torricelli amendment would give parents greater choice in how best to educate their children. The issue here is parental choice. Who knows best--parents or a distant government bureau in Washington, DC? In recent years, the focus has been entirely too much on growing the government and inventing federal programs. But much of that national government is far removed from the year-to-year and day- to-day decisions that parents must make, and work on with teachers and school boards, about their children's education. This amendment would shift power and resources back to the most local level--Mom and Dad. The Coverdell amendment would allow more flexibility--and the use of more of their own money--as they face decisions about paying for things like tutoring, home computers, private or religious school, higher education, and vocational education. The amendment focuses especially on those who find it hard to pay for educational expenses now. In talking about public schools, supplies and activity fees are a burden on parents today. The Coverdell amendment would help families deal with those costs. Mr. President, a few months ago, we passed the Ed-Flex bill. This law gives the state educational agency and the local educational agency the flexibility in how they spend federal dollars. Now, Mr. President, it is time to give parents similar flexibility in how they help provide for their children's education. I hope we can do more to help families with their children's educational needs when this bill goes to conference. I hope we can include provisions that come much closer to the Coverdell-Torricelli amendment. Besides helping families with the care and education of their children early in life, this bill also will help provide care in the twilight of life, through an additional deduction for providing in-home care for an elderly family member. This bill takes a significant step forward in making health care coverage more affordable and available for millions of Americans. Small businesses and farm families, especially, will be helped by the accelerated, full deductibility of health care premiums, as will other workers not covered by an employer-provided plan. More Americans would be able to plan for long-term care, a critical area of growing need, because of an above-the-line deduction for individuals and inclusion in cafeteria plans at work. America's farm families are in a period of economic crisis today. That crisis should be, and will be, addressed in a major farmers' aid package a number of us are working on. But additional, much-needed help is provided in this bill, as well. Besides self-employed health insurance and death tax relief, this bill would provide for increased expensing, starting next year, to $30,000; create the new FARRM Accounts--Farm and Ranch Risk Management Accounts--that Senators Grassley, Burns, I, and others have been working on; protect income averaging from the Alternative Minimum Tax; increase credits for reforestation; and allow farmer co-ops more dividend flexibility. Like farmers, small business, the over-taxed engines of job-creation, innovation, and economic opportunity in our economy, will finally receive some relief from many of these same provisions. The Senate bill makes tremendous strides in retirement security. Today's baby boomers, the first generation to have spent their entire lives in the most heavily-taxed generation, are becoming increasingly anxious about their prospects for retirement security. Why is no mystery: Since the baby boomers were children, they have seen the average family's tax burden, at all levels, increase by more than 50 percent, as a share of income. When the government takes 50 percent more from you than it did from your parents, how do you save and invest for your own retirement? All taxpayers, of all incomes and all ages, stand to benefit from expanding the use of Individual Retirement Accounts. In the past, IRAs were a simple, universally-understood, readily-accessible to save for retirement. One of the worst things in the 1986 tax bill was the confusing limitations placed on IRAs that, in fact, have discouraged many modest- and middle-income workers from using them. Farmers and small business owners and their employees, especially, have an important stake in more accessible IRAs, because they have no other large, employer-provided pension plan to participate in. Mr. President, the tax relief bills moving through Congress will help real people. The real debate is over two competing visions of how the government can help people. Those of us who support tax relief say, we help people when we give them back the power and freedom to control their own destinies. The other side says, they think it would help people if the government made decisions for them, and dispensed dependency through an expensive bureaucracy. You can confiscate more and more money from workers, savers, and families. That, in fact, has been and is the trend. Then the government can spend that money, grow the bureaucracy, write more rules, make citizens feel more like supplicants, and, in the end, hand someone another small government check. Or we can let workers, savers, entrepreneurs, and families keep a little more of their fruits of their own labors, and let them apply that directly to taking care of their children, their parents, their health care needs, and their education. We can, as this bill does by extending the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, tell employers they can keep a little more of what they earn, if they also provide jobs for disadvantaged, hard-to-place workers. Today, 70 percent of taxpayers receive no recognition of charitable giving--because they don't itemize their deductions. We can, in this bill, reward and encourage those middle-class taxpayers who benefit their community, help the less fortunate, and promote the social good, by letting them keep a little more of their hard-earned income, with an above-the line deduction for charitable donations. We are talking about a modest and reasonable package of tax relief. Both Houses are calling for a tax cut of only 3.5 percent over the next 10 years, or less than one-fourth of the total amount taxpayers have been overcharged by their government. We are proposing a modest amount of tax relief that leaves plenty of room to safeguard Social Security completely. In fact, with the budget we passed earlier this year, for the first time in history, Congress has committed itself to reserving all of the Social Security surplus, and all future Social Security revenues, exclusively for future Social Security benefits. Our tax relief is based upon huge over-collections of taxes from American workers and taxpayers. In other words, yes, it is based upon projections of budget surpluses--surpluses projected both by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the President's own Office of Management and Budget. It is interesting that the same critics who criticize the idea of basing tax relief on projections then make up their own, speculative projections about the cuts in future spending programs they claim would result from this tax relief. In point of fact, we all agree that Medicare, Veterans programs, education, and other priorities must be maintained and improved in the future. The budget we passed earlier this year provides for that, and this tax relief package doesn't infringe on them. I remember how, just a few years ago, some in Congress, the White House, and special interest groups made dire predictions of how spending on all kinds of essential programs would have to be slashed to balance the budget. Since then, a new Congress came to town in 1995, committed to balancing the budget and reining in the growth of government. We've still had increases in spending, but they've been more moderate. We do have some high priority programs to re-evaluate. Some increases are needed. In other places, we need more restraint, and even some cuts. But a balanced budget and a significant surplus have emerged--along with an economy that is strong because the people who work, save, invest, and create jobs took us seriously when we said we would balance the budget and limit the growth of spending. Now, Congress has taken the first critical steps needed to save and preserve Social Security for the current generation of seniors and those who expect to retire soon. We all agree the next step is to modernize it for future generations. Our budget, and this tax relief, is perfectly consistent with that commitment. Most of us agree with the majority of the bipartisan Medicare Commission that we need to shore up that program as well, too. That will involve expanding or improving some of what Medicare provides, as well as expanding consumer choice, increasing market discipline, curbing waste and abuse, and finding savings. Unfortunately, the necessary super-majority of the commission didn't allow it to turn its majority views into what it could call its ``official'' recommendations. But we in Congress stand ready to work with the President on the responsible reforms suggested by that commission and others. And this Congress remains committed to reducing the national debt. Under our budget, and including this tax bill, we will cut the public debt in half over the next ten years, and reduce the debt by more than $200 billion over what the President's budget recommendations called for. Still, Mr. President, even as we tackle all these challenges, we do have the capability of refunding to the hard-working American taxpayers a little of what they have been overcharged. That's what this legislation, and this debate, are all about today. The choice is simple: More government and more spending versus letting the people keep a little more of their hard-earned incomes and a little more control over their own lives. Mr. President, I vote for this tax relief bill because I am casting a vote of confidence for the wisdom of the people, and a vote to help by removing some of the heavy tax burden they are bearing. community renewal and charity empowerment amendment

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for yielding. It is obvious from the Senate vote we just had that we could only have delayed this process for several days, but we could not have stopped the ultimate result, which would be sending a flawed Senate bill to a conference with the House. Since that is the case, I see no reason to burn up good will by forcing the Senate to vote again and again with the same result on the various procedural steps that lie before us. If this is where the Senate will ultimately make its stand, I am willing to let the process move forward. However, some may be asking why we even made the attempt to stop this action. Sometimes it can be unclear why a Senator cast the vote he or she did. That's especially true for procedural votes like the cloture vote we just had. So let me be clear why I voted the way I did--against cloture, against cutting off the debate on this measure, against moving this version of S. 254 to a conference with the House. It's not because I oppose the juvenile justice bill. Quite the opposite: it's because I support good juvenile justice reform. I support the many provisions of this legislation that truly address criminal violence, such as: Making sure violent juveniles are held accountable for their criminal actions; providing resources to states and localities to combat juvenile crime; toughening enforcement of the laws already on the books; helping communities promote school safety; helping parents and the media do more to limit the exposure of children to violence in the entertainment industry. I support these reforms, and I could support the version of juvenile justice reform passed by the House. However, the reason I opposed the Senate bill, and why I voted against cloture just now is because this is not a juvenile justice reform measure. It's also a gun control measure. Gun control has nothing to do with stopping youth violence and crime. Gun control of the kind proposed in this bill is not just ineffective--it is counterproductive because it would cut off lawful and beneficial uses of firearms. And what may be the most important thing for anyone watching this debate to understand: gun control is something the House of Representatives has already said--with a bipartisan vote--it will not accept. This is a set-up, folks. The House has said it will not accept gun control, and the Clinton-Gore Administration, along with its cronies in Congress, have said they won't accept a juvenile justice bill without gun control. Does anybody else see a problem here? The problem is obvious. I don't see how the conference committee will fashion a version of juvenile justice that both the House and Senate can live with--but I can tell you one thing: whatever comes out of this conference won't have enough gun control in it for the Clinton-Gore administration. In fact, I'm going to make a prediction here and now that whatever emerges from the conference committee will instantly be criticized--and maybe even threatened with a veto--because it doesn't have enough gun control in it for Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and the folks who work with him. That is because they need gun control as a political issue, and they are not interested in juvenile crime unless they have their political issue along with it. I said, folks, that is ``politics,'' and I mean it, plain and simple. Since the day the Senate took its vote, and since the day the House has taken its votes, we have watched the political maneuvering down at the White House and with the Vice President on this issue. Their debate isn't about controlling violence and violent youth. It is about a narrow political agenda of the far left. It was a campaign kicked off by the President when he blamed the Littleton, Colorado killings on--and I quote from the speech that was later released by the White House and printed on its web page--``the huge hunting and sport shooting culture in America.'' What did the hunting culture and the sport-shooting culture in America have to do with the killings in Littleton, CO? In the mind of this President and this Vice President, it was politics. It was their entry once again into this debate. That's right--the President wasn't talking about the cultural crisis that distresses all of us on all sides of this issue and the breakdown of families, the powerlessness of communities, the alienation of young people, the violence and brutality promoted by the entertainment industry. It was all politics narrowly focused. No, what the President chose to blame was American hunters and spot shooters. According to the Clinton-Gore administration, those who lawfully exercise a right protected by the United States Constitution--those people are responsible for the brutal, senseless killings at Columbine High School. Shame on you, Mr. President. If you are one of the tens of thousands of adult volunteers who have helped train Boy Scouts and other young people in marksmanship, in one of the most successful youth sporting programs in history--according to the President, you're part of the problem. If you take your family on an annual hunting trip, a ``bonding experience'' for yourself and your kids--according to the Clinton-Gore administration, you're part of the problem. If you represented the United States of America in the Olympic shooting events, the gun control community wants you to know that you're part of the problem. If you hunt for food to put on your table for your family, according to the Clinton and Gore administration, because of Littleton, CO, you are part of the problem. But it wasn't enough to insult millions of law-abiding Americans by accusing them of responsibility for what happened in Littleton. The President went a step further to suggest that if these law-abiding citizens don't go along with his gun control agenda and give up more of their liberty, then they don't care about the lives of children. I find that unbelievable. But that is what was implied very clearly by this President--the leader of the free world accusing those who uphold the law of being responsible for those who break the law, accusing those who would passionately defend their civil liberties as being bad citizens, accusing those who may have a firearm for the sole purpose of recreation or defending themselves and their families, accusing these people of not wanting to save children's lives. And since that kickoff back in April, what have we seen? We have seen an all-out public relations campaign headed by the White House against lawful firearm use. We have seen political candidates of the left trying to outdo each other on gun control ideas. It is called have a gun control idea a week and somehow it may elect you in November of 2000. Maybe this political campaign is scoring points with the gun control community. But I can tell you the people who I have been hearing from-- the people outside the Capital Beltway who really have to deal with youth violence in their communities and in their schools--are saying gun control misses the point entirely. They are saying the solution to youth violence is far more complicated than adding one more layer to the 40,000 gun control laws-- 40,000, that is right--that are already on the books. They are saying they need real help and real ideas from Washington, DC, and not a political placebo for the 2000 election. They are saying it is time to stop pushing political agendas and start pushing a law enforcement crime control agenda. The Senate had a choice today between a bill that focused on juvenile justice reform and a bill that serves a political agenda. I think the Senate's vote today has made the job of the conference committee harder and perhaps impossible. My choice would have been a clean bill that prioritized law enforcement and focused on solving the problem of youth violence. That is the kind of bill I hope to see coming out of the conference. That is the kind of bill I will work for coming out of the conference-- the kind of bill that I could support and I believe that America wants. They don't want politics in this issue. They want safer schools and safer streets and they want to know their children are safe from violent juveniles who would otherwise make these environments unsafe. I thank my colleague from New Hampshire for yielding. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 1361, Withdrawn

Mr. CRAIG. I am happy to yield.

Mr. CRAIG. I will be happy to yield in a moment. I would like to reform the 1872 mining law, and I would like the Senator from Illinois to help me. The Senator from Nevada has stood ready with me for now well over 5 years for that purpose, only to be denied it by this administration. They kept walking away from the table. They would very seldom come and sit down with us. I must tell you, I do not know why. I ultimately had to draw the conclusion that they preferred the issue over the solution because it was our effort in the State of Nevada, a very important mining State for our country, and my State of Idaho, a very important mining State, that we resolve this issue. That, of course, is why I think it is necessary. A mining claim is a parcel of land containing precious metal in the soil or the rock. That is what a claim is. A mill site is a plot of ground necessary to support the operations of a mine. That is what a mill site is. Mill sites are critical to mining because, amongst many uses, they hold the rock extract, that which is brought up out of the ground from the diggings of the mine, containing milling facilities that extract valuable minerals from the ore and provide a location to house administration and equipment and repair and storage facilities. Let me suggest a comparative to the Senator from Illinois. If I bought a half acre of ground in downtown Chicago for the purpose of building a 50-story building, and they said I could go down 50 feet and establish parking, but I could not go up any, and I was not given any air rights, then I could not build the building. I could acquire the property and I could dig down, but I could not go up. That is exactly what the Senator is suggesting tonight, that you can gain a mining claim under the law but you cannot build a mill site because 5 acres, I think as most of us know, is a fairly limited amount of ground, and that is exactly what the Federal Government has recognized for 127 years. As a result of that, what the Government has said is, if you meet these standards and you incorporate it in a mining plan, you can have additional acres we will permit you for that purpose. Is that unlimited? I say to the Senator from Illinois, it is not. To suggest to anybody in the BLM, including this administration's BLM, that they give carte blanche acreages of land to mining companies is, in fact, not true. That is the reality of working with the BLM. Whether it is a Republican BLM or a Democrat BLM, both administrations, all administrations, have adhered to the law. It is important that the law not be misrepresented. I suggest to the Senator from Illinois that mining is not necessarily a clean business. Digging in the ground is not necessarily a clean business. It is not environmentally pristine. That is the character of it. There are few businesses where you disturb or disrupt the ground that are. It is how you handle them after the fact with which I think the Senator from Illinois, the Senator from Washington, the Senator from Massachusetts, and I would agree. I hope they do not want to run the mining industry out of our country. We already have substantial exodus from our country because of costs of mining based on certain standards. They all attempt to comply. The greatest problem today is access to the land. The Senator from Illinois does not have any public land in his State, or very limited amounts. My State is 63 percent federally owned land--your land and my land. I am not suggesting that it is Idaho's lands, nor would the Senator from Nevada suggest that only Nevadans ought to determine the surface domain of the State of Nevada. We understand it is Federal land. Nevadans and Idahoans and Americans all must gain from the value of those resources, but we also understand that they must be gained in an environmentally sound way. We have worked mightily so to build and transform a mining law for that purpose. I must tell you that the Solicitor, both as a private citizen environmental advocate and now as a public citizen Solicitor, has fought us all the way, because he wanted a law that fundamentally denied a mining company the right of discovery, location, and development unless it was phenomenally limited. Those are the issues that clearly we deal with when we are on the floor. Let me say in closing, Mr. President--and it is very important for the Senators to hear this--we are not changing the law. We are simply saying: Mr. Leshy, you do not have it your way until policymakers--the Senator from Illinois and the Senator from Idaho--agree on what the law ought to be. That is our job; that is not John Leshy's job. Ours will be done in a public process with public hearings and public input and not in the private office of a Solicitor down at the Department of Interior who, in the dark of night, slips out and passes a rule and the stock market crashes on mining stock. I do not think the Senator from Illinois would like that any more than we would if we did it to major industries in his State, because he and I are policymakers and we should come to a meeting of the minds when it comes to crafting reform of the 1872 mining law. That is what I want to do. I hope that is what he wants to do. Are we legislating on an appropriations bill? No. We are saying: Mr. Solicitor, you do not have the right to change the law. We will leave the law as it is, as the current 1999 or 1998 handbook at BLM says it is, as the current handbook down at the Forest Service says it is, and that is the handbook a mining company uses to build a mining plan, to build a mining operation. He said at the last hour: The handbook is no good even though we wrote it, even though we OK'd it, and even though that is the way we operate. I do not think so. We now know why. Because, for goodness sake, we read his book, the book he crafted in 1988 saying: Let's create a crisis, let's bring the mining industry to its knees, and just maybe then we will get the Congress to move. I heard John Leshy in 1988 and again in 1990, as did the Senator from Nevada. We worked mightily to change the law, and we are still working to do it. We have not been able to accomplish that. I hope we can, and we will work hard in the future to do that. But I hope my colleagues and fellow Senators will support us tonight in leaving the current law intact and not allowing this administration, or any other one, through their attorneys, to arbitrarily change a law without the public process and the public input that the Senator from Illinois and I are obligated to make, and yet tonight he defends the opposite. I do not think he wants that. I do not think any of us want a private process that will deny the right of public input.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me speak directly to the Senator from Illinois, the Senator from Massachusetts, and the Senator from Washington. I have heard statements from the Senator from Illinois that I know he means in good faith but I think are wrong. The record must be corrected in that regard. The law does not allow many of the things he has suggested might happen. For example, tonight he suggested that the Craig-Reid amendment would allow unlimited surface land domain. That is simply not true. Let me repeat for the record, that is an inaccurate statement. Here is what the law allows today and what the Reid-Craig amendment does: It simply reinstates the law as it exists today. The Senator from Illinois is absolutely right as to what the 1872 mining law says as to the 5 acres per claim. However, what attorneys have said who were brought before the subcommittee that I chair, while that was the law, it was based on the concept of the Comstock Lode, which was the mining activity in the State of Nevada that generated the 1872 mining law. From that time forward to today, it was viewed in the law as a minimum necessary requirement. What the Senator from Illinois did not say, which refutes the idea that this is some kind of unlimited land surface grab, is the BLM, the administrator of claims on public land, in the process of working with a mining company that is establishing a mining operation establishes the 5 acres and additional acres as is necessary to conduct that mining operation. What does that mean? That does not mean unlimited acreages. It means exactly what I said it means. It means that the Bureau of Land Management develops a mining plan consistent with the mining operation all inclusively consistent with the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act for a mining company to effectively mine the mineral estate they have established under the mine plan and with their permit. That is not unlimited. It is our Federal Government. The BLM under the law establishes the surface domain that a mining company can have for the purpose of operations. Is that unlimited? I repeat to the Senator from Illinois, no, it is not. It is restricted by the character of the process and by 127 years of operation. That is what it is. That is what we are attempting to reinstate. The Senator from Illinois went on to say: Why didn't they go to the courts? Why have they come to Congress? The reason they have come to Congress is because the act of the Solicitor would be automatic and immediate. The Senator from Nevada earlier spoke to the consequence of this decision. Mining stock in this country dropped by a substantial percentage point on the stock exchange because the Solicitor's opinion was saying if it were fully implemented both prospectively and retroactively, it would dramatically halt existing mining operations and cost mining companies that were operating under good faith, the law, and the historic practice as prescribed by the Forest Service and the BLM, by their manual, and by their current handbooks, it would have simply stopped them, and they would have waved literally hundreds of millions of dollars in the process of developing a mining plan that was environmentally accurate and environmentally sound. I know the Senator from the State of Washington is upset because the crown jewel mine in her State was, by her own State's environment director, announced to be the best ever; that they had met all of the environmental standards; they were complying with all the Clean Air and Water Act and somehow the Solicitor stepped in and stopped the process. The senior Senator from the State of Washington and the supplemental appropriations bill this year said it is just blatantly unfair for a company to operate in good faith under the law and under the environmental laws of our country. For the Solicitor, an appointed bureaucrat, to step in and stop them without any public process is against the very character of the law we create on this floor. So the senior Senator from the State of Washington was right in doing what he did. At that supplemental appropriations conference, while I was trying to do exactly what the Senator from Nevada and I have just done with this amendment, we said: No, let's not do that. I chair the Public Land Subcommittee, the mining subcommittee. Let's hold hearings on this issue. Let's see if the Solicitor is right in doing what he has done. We brought in mining authorities, lawyers who practice this law professionally full time before the committee, asking if the Solicitor was right in doing what he did. Their answer was absolutely not; 127 years of practice would argue that the Solicitor reached out in thin air and grabbed an opinion that he knew would bring the mining industry to its knees. Why would he know it? Surely, he wouldn't do it arbitrarily or capriciously. Surely, he wouldn't do that for political purposes. Want to bet? Let me state why he did it. Let me speak to Members in Mr. Leshy's own words, words written in his own book, called ``Reforming the Mining Law: Problems and Prospects.'' This Solicitor knew exactly what he was doing. He did it for political purposes. He did not do it for the kind of benevolent, benign, environmentally sound reasons that the Senator from Illinois suggested. The Solicitor said: A hoary maxim of life on Capitol Hill is that Congress acts only when there is either a crisis or a consensus. The Solicitor at the Department of Interior attempted to establish a crisis in the mining industry with the mining law. He went on to say: Currently there is no genuine crisis involving hardrock mining-- although the Senator from Illinois worked for about an hour to gin one up-- but with a little effort crises sufficient to bring about reform might be imagined. That is what the Solicitor said when he was a private citizen environmental advocate against mining. So then he went on to say: At the extreme, it might even be appropriate for the Interior Department and the courts to consciously reach results that make the statute unworkable. The Solicitor himself in a former life, in 1988, said: You know what we could do? We could create a crisis and make the statute unworkable, and we would force the Congress to change the law. And then all of a sudden John Leshy was no longer private citizen, environmental advocate; he was public citizen appointed Solicitor of the Department of Interior. And what did he do? He followed his own words and his own edicts. He attempted to create a crisis. And a crisis it was, and we have spoken to it already, the crisis that tumbled mining stock dramatically in the stock markets of this country. A message went out to the mining industry: You are not only unwelcome on public lands, we are going to try to run you off from them. That is a hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars industry, with tens of thousands of employees across this country, yet the Solicitor, a nonelected public official with no public process, did this. The Solicitor's opinion was not subject to public comment or review. The Department of Interior failed to provide a forum for interested parties to express their views. The Solicitor's opinion is a change in the law that the administration made without any kind of review. It just simply said: That's the new law. And I say ``new law'' because for 127 years the Department of Interior, the BLM, and the Forest Service operated under the law that Senator Reid of Nevada and I are attempting to reinstate this evening. That is what the Solicitor did.

Mr. CRAIG. The Solicitor went on to say: Some particularly dramatic episode that highlights the particular anachronisms of the Mining law might also encourage Congress to perform surgery on the Law. That is what the Solicitor said, and that is what the Solicitor did. What John Leshy failed to say is that over the years he and I have met around the country, debating, and he has wanted to change the mining law in such a dramatic way that the mining industry of this country simply could not operate. The Senator from Illinois suggested we ought to change the law. You know, he is right. As chairman of the Public Lands Subcommittee and as chairman of the mining committee for the last 5 years, I say to the Senator from Illinois, we have tried to change the law. We even brought it to the floor once, passed it in a supplemental, and guess what happened. President Clinton vetoed a major change in the 1872 mining law. What did that law have in it? Major reclamation reform. It had within it a hard rock mining royalty that would have funded that reclamation reform so if mine industries went bankrupt, there was a public trust provided by the mining companies to do that kind of reclamation reform. But this President and his Solicitor will not allow that kind of reform to happen. I have worked in good faith, and, I must say, the Senator from Nevada has, for the last 5 to 6 years to make significant change in the 1872 law. We recognize the need for its modernization. That is not denied here. But what you do not do is the very backdoor, unparticipatory, nonpublic effort of the kind the Solicitor did. The Senator from Illinois talked about the degradation that happened in his State. What the Senator did not say is, it does not happen anymore. The reason it does not happen anymore, and the reason he should not use it as an example, is that there is a law that disallows it today. There is full mine reclamation on surface mining, especially in the coal industry. So let me suggest to the Senator from Illinois, let's talk today and not 50 years ago, when he and I would both agree those kinds of practices now are unacceptable. They may have been acceptable then, but they are not acceptable now. In fact, the Senator from Illinois held up a picture. He did not quite know where it was. I will tell him where it was. It was in the State of Montana. I have been to that site. I have traveled and seen these problems. Three times we tried to get that issue in Montana cleaned up. Environmental groups stepped in and sued. You kind of wonder if they do not want the issue instead of a resolution to the problem. We have worked progressively with them to try to reform the 1872 mining law, and in all instances they have said no. Here is why they said no. They said: We don't want you to have the right to go find the mineral if you find it in a place in which we don't want you to mine. That is an interesting thesis because gold is, in fact, where you find it. It is not where you might like to have it for environmental reasons. What do we do with a thesis like that? We say OK, gold is where you find it, silver is where you find it, but because of our environmental ethics and standards today, you have to do it in an environmentally sound way. That is what you have to do. You have to comply with the Clean Air Act. They did in the State of Washington. You have to comply with the Clean Water Act. They did in the State of Washington. You have to meet all the State standards--tough standards in the State of Washington. You have to meet all the Federal standards--tough standards in the State of Washington. That is what the Crown Jewel Mine did. And yet, at the last moment, in the 12th hour, by pressure from environmental groups, Mr. Leshy came out of his closet and said: No, you can't. And the senior Senator from the State of Washington said: Wrong, Mr. Leshy. That is not the way a democracy works. That is not the way a representative republic works. If they played by the rules and they played by the law, then they must have the right to continue. That is the issue we are talking about. We are talking about dealing fairly and appropriately with the law. Let me go ahead and talk about Mr. Leshy some more because he is being talked about tonight as the savior of the environment. Let me tell you what he is really out to do. It is not to save the environment but to destroy the mining industry. He has worked for decades with this goal in mind. What did he say in this book he wrote in 1988? What he said was: Bold administrative actions, like major new withdrawals, creative rulemaking or aggressive environmental enforcement, could force the hand of Congress. Mr. Leshy is right. He forced the hand of Congress. The Senator from Washington and I discussed this briefly in the Appropriations Committee. I do not stand tonight to impugn the integrity or the beliefs of the Senator from Illinois or the Senator from Washington or the Senator from Massachusetts. But it is important that when you say unlimited withdrawal of surface, I say it is wrong, because it is not right; that is not what the law allows. The Department of Interior does not allow that unless it is within the plan, unless it is bonded, unless it meets all the environmental standards, and it is proven to be required by the mining operation as appropriate and necessary. Those are the laws as we deal with them today. I suggest the Senator from Montana was absolutely right. I am talking about reforming the 1872 mining law. It is a location and a withdrawal law. It is not an environmental law. Modern mining companies must adhere to the law, and that is the Clean Air Act, and that is the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and all of those that are tremendously important. That is what we debate here this evening, and that is why it is critically important that we deal with it in an upfront and necessary manner.

Mr. CRAIG. Probably for about another 10 or 15 minutes.

Mr. CRAIG. Let me say to the Senator from Nevada, I am ready to relinquish the floor. The Senator from Massachusetts has been waiting a good long while. I will work with the Senator from Washington. It is certainly her amendment. We have second-degreed it. If we can arrive at a time agreement, I would like to do so to accommodate all who have come to speak on this issue. It is important that they have that opportunity. At the same time, we want to finish this before the wee hours of the morning, and we want to conclude it either with a vote on the second degree, or, if that is not going to happen, if we cannot arrive at something, we will want to look at finalizing this by a tabling motion. Let me work with the Senator from Washington.

Mr. CRAIG. I will be happy to yield the floor.