Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to offer an amendment relative to the inspection of equipment used in the production of agricultural products. For years, FSIS has inspected and certified all equipment used in processing agricultural products. However, FSIS announced on May 2, 1996, its intent to discontinue its prior approval process. While the FSIS proposal is still pending, no system of prior approval has been developed anywhere at USDA. Mr. President, the Craig amendment would establish a fee for service system for equipment inspection within AMS, which currently inspects processed agriculture products. Let me stress: The system would be entirely voluntary. Those equipment manufacturers who choose to participate would pay for the service and, if the equipment qualifies, become AMS certified. This proposal is self-funding and would use the existing trust fund established in section 203(h) of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946. By providing a certification process to replace the FSIS system, the amendment would both reduce the risk that unacceptable equipment could be purchased and installed in processing plants and enhance exports of processing equipment. Mr. President, I appreciate the support of the managers of the bill in adopting this amendment. amendment no. 976 (Purpose: To require the United States Agency for International Development to use at least the same amount of funds made available under title II of Public Law 480 to carry out the orphan feeding program in Haiti during fiscal year 1998 as was used by the Agency to carry out the program during fiscal year 1997) On page 53, line 3, before the period, insert the following: ``: Provided further, That, of the amount of funds made available under title II of said Act, the United States Agency for International Development should use at least the same amount of funds to carry out the orphan feeding program in Haiti during fiscal year 1998 as was used by the Agency to carry out the program during fiscal year 1997''.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, it is about time we start giving American consumers the same information granted in these other nations. Likewise, this legislation is not overly burdensome. The bill provides for a wide variety of labeling options, any number of which might be easily employed by American retailers to display information they already know. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to consider this legislation seriously. It is time to close the gap of knowledge that currently exists relative to where imported produce is grown. American consumers have the right to know where their food came from and, given the opportunity, will use that information to protect and provide for their families.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague, Senator Graham, to introduce the Imported Produce Labeling Act of 1997. For the past 67 years, since Congress passed the Tariff Act of 1930, almost everything imported from abroad has been labeled as to its country of origin. Guidelines now exist for products of virtually every kind--from clothing and toys to prepared food. Pick up almost anything in your local supermarket or department store and you're likely to see its country of origin clearly displayed. This is sound trade policy, which has served our Nation well. It is now time, Mr. President, to extend these same labeling requirements to imported produce. Currently, containers carrying imported produce from abroad are required, by the same Tariff Act of 1930, to be labeled as to where that produce was grown and packed. This information makes it possible for American importers, shippers, and retailers to know the produce's country of origin. However, that information is never revealed to the consumer. What this legislation would require, Mr. President, is for this important information, already in the hands of our retailers and shippers, be passed on to those who ultimately purchase and consume the imported produce. We're asking, quite simply, for retailers to let the American consumer know what they're eating and where it was produced. The United States imports approximately 1.7 billion dollars' worth of fruit and vegetables every year. Almost all of this produce is purchased and consumed by unsuspecting shoppers who have no idea where, or under what conditions, it was grown. While some might claim these new labeling requirements are unfair or burdensome, these claims are simply not true, and aim to distract the real issue: the consumer's right to know. I would point out to these critics, Mr. President, that most of our international trading partners already require such labeling. While I won't take the time to read the names of all these nations now, I would like to draw your attention to two of those with the strictest labeling requirements, Canada and Mexico--our two closest trading partners. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of countries which currently require country of origin labeling for produce to be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to grant congressional consent to the Pacific Northwest Emergency Management Arrangement entered into between the States of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington and the Provinces of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. Mr. President, I am pleased that so many of my colleagues from the Pacific Northwest have joined me in cosponsoring this important legislation. This agreement, negotiated and signed by the Governors of the four Pacific Northwest States and their colleagues in Canada, would significantly improve multi-State and binational cooperation during the response phase of natural disasters in the Northwest. In addition, it would provide for region-wide civil defense coordination and guarantee residents of each State emergency services. The agreement does this while protecting the individual sovereignty of each State and Province. Mr. President, given the impact of recent natural disasters across the Pacific Northwest, my colleagues can easily understand why this measure is so important. I hope the Senate will act quickly in seeing this measure approved without delay. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of this legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to grant congressional consent to the Pacific Northwest Emergency Management Arrangement entered into between the States of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington and the Provinces of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. Mr. President, I am pleased that so many of my colleagues from the Pacific Northwest have joined me in cosponsoring this important legislation. This agreement, negotiated and signed by the Governors of the four Pacific Northwest States and their colleagues in Canada, would significantly improve multi-State and binational cooperation during the response phase of natural disasters in the Northwest. In addition, it would provide for region-wide civil defense coordination and guarantee residents of each State emergency services. The agreement does this while protecting the individual sovereignty of each State and Province. Mr. President, given the impact of recent natural disasters across the Pacific Northwest, my colleagues can easily understand why this measure is so important. I hope the Senate will act quickly in seeing this measure approved without delay. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of this legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, it is about time we start giving American consumers the same information granted in these other nations. Likewise, this legislation is not overly burdensome. The bill provides for a wide variety of labeling options, any number of which might be easily employed by American retailers to display information they already know. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to consider this legislation seriously. It is time to close the gap of knowledge that currently exists relative to where imported produce is grown. American consumers have the right to know where their food came from and, given the opportunity, will use that information to protect and provide for their families.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague, Senator Graham, to introduce the Imported Produce Labeling Act of 1997. For the past 67 years, since Congress passed the Tariff Act of 1930, almost everything imported from abroad has been labeled as to its country of origin. Guidelines now exist for products of virtually every kind--from clothing and toys to prepared food. Pick up almost anything in your local supermarket or department store and you're likely to see its country of origin clearly displayed. This is sound trade policy, which has served our Nation well. It is now time, Mr. President, to extend these same labeling requirements to imported produce. Currently, containers carrying imported produce from abroad are required, by the same Tariff Act of 1930, to be labeled as to where that produce was grown and packed. This information makes it possible for American importers, shippers, and retailers to know the produce's country of origin. However, that information is never revealed to the consumer. What this legislation would require, Mr. President, is for this important information, already in the hands of our retailers and shippers, be passed on to those who ultimately purchase and consume the imported produce. We're asking, quite simply, for retailers to let the American consumer know what they're eating and where it was produced. The United States imports approximately 1.7 billion dollars' worth of fruit and vegetables every year. Almost all of this produce is purchased and consumed by unsuspecting shoppers who have no idea where, or under what conditions, it was grown. While some might claim these new labeling requirements are unfair or burdensome, these claims are simply not true, and aim to distract the real issue: the consumer's right to know. I would point out to these critics, Mr. President, that most of our international trading partners already require such labeling. While I won't take the time to read the names of all these nations now, I would like to draw your attention to two of those with the strictest labeling requirements, Canada and Mexico--our two closest trading partners. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of countries which currently require country of origin labeling for produce to be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management. The hearing will take place Thursday, July 24, 1997, at 10 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. 858 and S. 1028, to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct a pilot project on designated lands within Plumas, Lassen, and Tahoe National Forests in the State of California to demonstrate the effectiveness of the resource management activities proposed by the Quincy library group and to amend current land and resource management. 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 Judy Brown or Mark Rey at (202) 224-6170.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. It is my understanding that the Communal Areas Management Program for Indigenous Resources [CAMPFIRE] Program in Zimbabwe is currently meeting all of the conditions placed on it by the amendment.

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Senator.

Mr. CRAIG. It is my further understanding that the language in this amendment dealing with trophy hunting is only a prohibition on a direct USAID subsidy of hunting in the CAMPFIRE Program and should not be interpreted as a negative statement about the indispensable role hunting plays as a management tool for elephants and other foreign species.

Mr. CRAIG. It is my further understanding that Zimbabwe has a very successful elephant conservation program has had led to a population increase of 43,000 elephants in 1987 to 67,000 elephants in 1996 and that much of this success is due to the CAMPFIRE Program.

Mr. CRAIG. Finally, it is my understanding that nothing in this amendment should be interpreted as having any effect on any other U.S. law or regulation regarding wildlife conservation and hunting.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise in support of the gentleman from Washington State and to add my request that this body go on record in clear support of the Department's Plutonium Disposition Program. In particular, the Department should be commended for all its fine work leading to the January Record of Decision, which chose two options for the disposition of the excess weapons plutonium. These two options-- immobilization and use of mixed oxide [MOx] fuel in existing reactors--will set the pace for parallel activities in the former Soviet Union. We should encourage the Department now to implement this decision in an expeditious manner, for the sake of world peace and stability. In particular, we understand that the Department intends to begin the process of selecting the suite of industrial partners that will carry out the MOx Program. I look forward to the fruits of that labor, and strongly encourage the Department to move out expeditiously. Accomplishments in this program can do a lot toward world security, not to mention what it can do for DOE's image and reputation at home and abroad.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me tell the Senator from Wisconsin, it is not my intent to impugn his integrity. I am simply saying when you live in a State with an abundance of water, your feelings about water are different. My colleague's State of Arizona is abundant with water today as a desert because this Congress saw fit to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into water development in his State, and his State is the great beneficiary of those programs today. Whether you agree or disagree, the reality is, Arizonans know how to allocate water resources most effectively. But the Ute Indians have not had that opportunity, and I am simply saying that when you are in a high desert, you recognize that if human life is to exist, it exists only in the presence of water. I think my colleague understands that, but having been born and raised in the high deserts of the West, I think there is an understanding and appreciation that is sometimes difficult to convey, and that was my intent. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, in 1988, I helped my colleague from Colorado, Senator Campbell, develop and pass the Colorado Ute Water Settlement Act. It was fair and responsible at that time to deal with a dispute that could only be dealt with in the nature that we solved it with this legislation. From that point to now, there has been discussion and dispute and a substantial scaling down of this project. In the high deserts of the West, water is everything. If my colleague from Wisconsin lived in the deserts of the West, he would be scrambling to secure water for his people. He doesn't live there. He doesn't understand the importance of this very, very critical water issue. This is a balanced compromise with all parties sharing. These Indians, these native Americans without water can find it very, very difficult to eke out an existence, whereas, with water, they have an opportunity with agriculture to prosper and develop their lands. That is what this issue is all about. Let us keep our word and our promise. Let us develop an understanding that when we, from the West, come to our colleagues asking for the development of water in the high deserts, that we work cooperatively with them to do so, as we worked with our colleagues from the upper Midwest to secure flood control and those kinds of things where they have an abundance of water and we have little to no water. This is the important issue. I hope the amendment will be rejected by the Senate, recognizing the promises and the commitments made and the kind of cooperative relationship we have with all of our colleagues, where one has an abundance of water; in this instance, we have little to no water. Therefore, to secure, to maintain, to ensure an environment, to actually increase the abundance of wildlife, one must catch and store the water when it is available, and that is what this is all about. Not only for resource use, for environmental reasons, but most assuredly to enhance the ability of native Americans in this instance to improve their lot and to gain what is responsibly and rightfully theirs. So I hope that my colleagues will reject this amendment and get on with the commitment we made in 1988 for this very important water project. Mr. ALLARD addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, first of all, I ask unanimous consent that Kristine Svinicki on my staff be allowed the privilege of the floor for the remainder of the consideration of S. 1004, the energy and water development appropriations bill.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to address a provision of S. 1004, the appropriations bill for energy and water development for fiscal year 1998. I refer specifically to the President's request for a new initiative within the Department of Energy, called nuclear energy security. The bill before us contains no funding for this new initiative. I wish to address my colleagues on the reasons for the subcommittee's treatment of this initiative and the direction in which I believe the Department should focus its nuclear energy research and development program. The committee report to accompany S. 1004 states that although the committee supports the use of nuclear energy to produce electricity, the Department's proposed program to address technical issues will have insufficient impact to justify the expense and therefore, no funding was provided. I am concerned that the Department of Energy will take the wrong message from this action. It is my view, as a member of the Appropriations Committee and as a member of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, that this country needs a viable nuclear energy program--both for our energy security and for our national security. Recently, the President commissioned his Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Energy Research and Development Panel to study and report back on whether the United States should have a nuclear energy program and if so, what its goals should be both domestically and internationally. A lot of good work on this issue has been done, or is underway within the Department of Energy and the national laboratory complex. Specifically, Sandia National Laboratories, in New Mexico has contributed substantially. While I won't delineate the findings at length at this time, let me just indicate to my colleagues, that the greatest minds that we have nationally to weigh in on this question have done so, and they believe that the failure to have a strong nuclear energy research and development program will diminish our national security, our economic competitiveness, and the public well-being. The bottom line is that as our primacy in nuclear R&D declines, we will lose our ability to participate on the world stage and to observe and understand the civilian nuclear programs of emerging nations. For these reasons, it is my hope that the Department will continue to construct, and will propose as appropriate, a nuclear energy program that fulfills these goals.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, my amendment would change the current pay- go procedures by establishing a 60-vote point of order against using tax increases to pay for new mandatory spending increases. My amendment is the first step toward reining in the uncontrolled costs of mandatory spending programs that I believe threaten our fiscal future. This budget should have gone further in entitlement reform and it should not have added more entitlement spending, but there is one reform that should be made definitely, and that is to cause no further harm. My amendment will not affect a single current beneficiary of a single existing entitlement program. My amendment will not affect a single person who will qualify to become a beneficiary under the current requirements of any existing entitlement program. My amendment will not prevent the creation of a new entitlement program if there is a true need for the program. It simply will require that such a need be truly demonstrated. My amendment will not prevent a tax increase that is used for deficit reduction. What my amendment will do is put an end to the fiction that tax increases are capable of offsetting the cost of additional mandatory spending. Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, under section 904 of the Budget Act, I move to waive the point of order against the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, several assertions have been made on the floor this morning that this is not a tax increase if we repeal this depletion allowance. It was also suggested that mining companies don't pay taxes. Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. The average mining company pays 32 percent tax with minimum alternative. This would increase it to over 42 percent. I would like to inform the Senator from New Hampshire that mining companies invest about $400 million in each mining operation. He is raising taxes on mining companies that employ thousands of people, in one of the highest paid wage industries in the Nation. He is also attacking the very industrial base of our country. When you come from a State where you have to pledge not to raise taxes, I guess you can raise them if there is some political advantage to do so. That appears to be the case here this morning. It is all politics, with no sensitivity toward the strength of the industrial base of this country and the opportunity to continue to provide strong high-paying jobs in the public land States of our Nation.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today I would like to take a few moments to pay tribute to Flip Kleffner who, after a long and distinguished career as University of Idaho alumni director, will be retiring June 30. I take a personal interest in his retirement because, as a fellow University of Idaho graduate, I've been the beneficiary of all his work. Flip has served as alumni director for the past 15 years and has been involved with the University of Idaho most of his life. He is a former student body president and was a standout athlete who excelled at basketball, baseball, and football. In fact, he still holds the school record for the longest punt at 82 yards. Flip has always made everything he does a very personal effort. In that regard, he's a tremendous example of how one person really can make a difference. He has quietly given countless hours of volunteer service to his community--in everything from youth sports to education--without expecting anything in return. In addition, his efforts to continually improve the quality of education in Idaho have helped the State keep its best and brightest at home. Flip has a wonderful sense of humor and is one of the most personable, pleasant people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. He will be greatly missed at the university, but I'm confident he'll remain an active force for good on campus--even in retirement. He has had a remarkable career and I wish him all the best now as he enters this new chapter in his life.