Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we are now in morning business?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I am pleased to add that we have looked at the hearing record and the report of the Committee on Indian Affairs on H.R. 2464. The Subcommittee has reviewed the bill, and I am confident that had we had more time this session, we would have reported it favorably. We have no problems with the bill as reported by the Committee on Indian Affairs. I see no reason for further consideration of the legislation by the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Lands or the Full Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. In addition to the loss of this high-stake game, I argue that Saddam Hussein won the divide-and-conquer battle. It is disturbing to note how many nations who were supportive of active participation in the coalition developed by President George Bush in the gulf war, have either failed to offer support or have condemned the American strikes and the American actions. The Russians not only opposed United States actions, but they went so far as to criticize the administration for playing electoral politics. France, once an important ally in the region, has refused to participate in patrolling the expanded area of the southern no-fly zone. Turkey, an ally since World War II, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have all expressed concern and refused to allow the United States to base some of their actions in their countries. By moving unilaterally, the President has isolated the United States in the region and weakened our position not only in the gulf, but it could spill over into other regional issues such as the U.S. effort to further the Middle East peace process. One point that has come to light which bothers me greatly is the lack of action to address growing concerns about the division and strains against the various Kurdish factions. Efforts to push diplomatic negotiations could have prevented the situation from escalating to the point that both Iran and Iraq were called into the conflict for support by the various factions. In addition, when new intelligence reports indicated troop movement, why were there no efforts to deter the looming action before troops were allowed to reach the Kurdish safe haven and quickly move into Irbil, remove the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and execute approximately 100 non-Kurdish Iraqi dissidents who based their anti- Hussein activities out of the area? Mr. President, the $1 billion-plus that the United States has spent establishing and maintaining the Kurdish safe haven is also lost. It has been acknowledged by U.S. officials that Saddam Hussein has left a massive security presence. That presence will keep his political opponents muted, and serve as a constant reminder to Iraqis and, indeed the world, that he intends to regain control of his entire country. Saddam is here to stay. In closing, while I appreciate the President's efforts to brief congressional leaders yesterday, I remain frustrated at the lack of a clear and precise direction on the part of the administration in dealing with Saddam Hussein. He is not going away, and neither are our interests in the region. We have lost ground during this go-around. But, we have been given a reprieve by the Iraqis, who recently announced a discontinuance of attacks on United States aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone, and ceased efforts to rebuild air defense systems destroyed by our missiles. Therefore, time is of the essence, and the President must get his policy on track, and this situation back into balance. And, President Clinton, you do accomplish this by vetoing the very bill that will fund our efforts in the Middle East and keep our men and women in uniform safe. I say in conclusion that it is time that the White House woke up, that America demand the answer to the fundamental questions: Why are we there? What is our mission? What is our end game? I must say to President Clinton, you have not demonstrated even the simple logic of why you would want to veto a defense appropriations bill at a time when you are offering expanded activities in an area where no mission is clear. I say, Mr. President, step up to the mike and step up to the country. Do what you are supposed to do as our Commander in Chief. Respond, in a clear, unequivocal message, as to what is our mission and work with us to not only defend our troops but to finance them, because as you send them in harm's way, you have a simple and most important obligation as our Commander in Chief, and that is to make sure that they are well financed and well cared for. Exhibit 1 [From Newsweek, Sept. 23, 1996] Why We Stopped the Gulf War (By Brent Scowcroft) We have been listening to the same sad refrain for five years; if only George Bush had finished off Saddam Hussein when he had the chance at the end of the gulf war, we wouldn't be in this mess today. There are two things wrong with this reinterpretation of history. The first is that we never had the objective of destroying Saddam's regime during Desert Storm. The second is that had we continued the war and overthrown Saddam, we might be worse off today. We had a crucial but limited objective in the gulf war, to reverse Iraqi aggression, and to cripple Saddam's offensive military capabilities. The international coalition that President Bush put together to fight the gulf war was based on this carefully defined goal. We certainly hoped that Iraq's defeat would lead to Saddam's collapse, but we viewed that prospect as a potentially beneficial byproduct of our victory. If we had made Saddam's overthrow part of the objective, there would have been no international coalition; even during Desert Storm, our Arab allies stopped their troops at Iraq's border because they wanted no part of an attack on Iraqi territory. If we had continued to prosecute the gulf war after we achieved or stated objectives, we would have destroyed the coalition and squandered much of what our victory had achieved. So if we had pressed on to Baghdad in 1991, we would have been on our own. And if we had succeeded in overthrowing Saddam, we would have confronted a choice between occupying Iraq with thousands of American troops for the indefinite future and creating a gaping power vacuum in the Persian Gulf for Iran to fill. There was no support among the American people for the first alternative in 1991, and even less so today. The second alternative would have put our vital national-security interests in jeopardy. Put simply, we recognized that the seemingly attractive goal of getting rid of Saddam would not solve our problems, or even necessarily serve our interests, any more than the overthrow of Diem was a silver bullet to the conundrum of Vietnam. So we pursued the kind of inelegant, messy alternative that is all too often the only one available in the real world. Having driven Saddam out of Kuwait and destroyed much of his offensive military capabilities, we concentrated on keeping the pressure on Iraq so that it could not and would not once again threaten its neighbors. This is the policy that the Clinton administration inherited. Saddam may have made his move into northern Iraq two weeks ago because he thought that with a presidential campaign underway in the United States, we would not respond. Not for the first time, Saddam miscalculated. We were right to strike back, but we did so in a way that did no lasting military damage to him and inflicted significant collateral political damage on us. The cruise-missile attack was quick, clean and easy. But it may have sent Saddam the wrong message--that he would only pay the price of a pinprick. When the smoke cleared, it looked to most political leaders around the world as though Saddam was better off and the United States was worse off than before the current crisis began. A far more effective military response, though a more dangerous one, would have targeted the Republican Guard units that moved into northern Iraq. An air attack on those forces would have put Saddam on notice that he must pay a real price for his defiance. It also would have put on notice Iraqi soldiers--on whom Saddam depends to remain in power--that any time they march out on Saddam's orders, they will be subject to devastating aerial bombardment. Now we are into the next round. Saddam has fired missiles at our aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones. In return, we have threatened a further ``disproportionate'' response and are ostentatiously augmenting our military forces in the area. The next time we hit Saddam, we should hit him hard, and where it hurts him most, so that he cannot mistake our message. Airstrikes will have to focus tightly on Iraq's military machine, making it clear that we intend to punish Saddam, not harm the Iraqi people. The Republican Guard is an obvious target. The key point, however, is that the ``Iraq problem'' is not susceptible to quick fixes. Dealing with Iraq will continue to require patience and persistence, leadership and skill. For the foreseeable future, a successful and sustainable--if unsatisfying--policy is likely to share the same objectives as the one we have followed since the end of the gulf war: relegating Saddam to the category of a nuisance and preventing him from re-emerging as a threat to his neighbors or our vital interests.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Texas for requesting this morning business and special order to talk about not only the situation of Defense appropriations, but the impending foreign policy crisis in this country. And as we begin to look seriously, Mr. President, at ending this legislative session and completing our work, there are some remaining appropriations bills that simply must be dealt with in a fair and honest way to effectively close down the Congress. One of those is the 1996 Department of Defense appropriations bill. In short, Mr. President, saber rattling by this administration has occurred in places other than Iraq. Recent indications that President Clinton will veto the bill that the Senators from Arizona and Texas and I are talking about this morning, which provides funding to our Nation's armed services--including the current deployment in the gulf and those now preparing to respond to the President's call of another 3,500 troops to be deployed, and who may well be in the air at this moment headed for Kuwait--is, to me, a position that our President should find unconscionable, but yet at this very moment the message coming out of the White House is, veto Defense authorization. The brave men and women serving this Nation and protecting our security and the Nation's interests should not be turned into pawns for Presidential election politics. I cannot begin to express my frustration over this situation because the timing for this President and his political agenda appears to be extraordinary. Therefore, I hope the President will respond by indicating his support for our Armed Forces and his willingness to sign this critical piece of legislation. The deployment of our troops does not occur without cost. The Senator from Arizona has already referenced that very effectively. The President has deployed U.S. forces widely in peacekeeping efforts, and it is time to respond in kind by paying for it. That is what the American public would expect of a Commander in Chief. Mr. President, I would like also to take a moment to again address some of the concerns that I mentioned last Friday in the press about the ongoing situation in Iraq, because it is fair to talk about that situation in the context of Defense appropriations, all in one statement, because they fit so well together. As I have said, they clash at this moment in what appears to be a Presidential political agenda that just does not fit. What is our policy? What is our mission? What is our goal in Iraq? It is a straightforward question that deserves to be answered. The President, as I mentioned, is now deploying troops to Kuwait. More American lives could well be on the line. And it is past time--it is clearly past time--for this President to tell the American people what his answer to those three questions are. Reports yesterday from CNN stated that 3,500 troops are headed to Kuwait. Claims were made that calling off the deployment now would send the wrong message of weakness to Iraq. I would argue that the message has already been sent in the form of a lack of foreign policy to address this situation. The deployment of troops to Kuwait is clearly a case in point. This announcement of sending 3,500 troops comes on the heels of comments by the President that he was reconsidering a decision to send several thousand troops to Kuwait. The Washington Post quotes President Clinton as saying this: We have sought no confrontation with Saddam Hussein. We never did, and we don't now. My concern is that we limit Saddam Hussein's ability to threaten his neighbors, that we do it with the ``no-fly'' zone, and in so doing, we keep our pilots safe. I am not here to criticize the worthy goal of keeping our pilots safe. However, this administration's policy is changing daily. The White House has not had its press conference this morning, so we do not know what the foreign policy of today is. We were told the actions of expanding the southern no-fly zone was a reaction and a lesson to Saddam Hussein that his use of force would be met with force. However, the message did not register. We did not address the area of violation, which was the introduction of 30,000 Republican Guard troops into the Kurdish safe haven at the request for help from one of the Kurdish factions. In addition, our reaction did little to dissuade Iraqi activities. The administration claimed that our actions were justified because of the inhumane actions of the Iraqis against the Kurds. However, we have already lost that battle. Hussein's troops moved into the safe haven under the vigilant watch of our intelligence sources and they have remained. We have done nothing to respond to Saddam Hussein's actions. In a recent article printed by the Canadian news magazine Maclean's, an unidentified State Department official was quoted as saying: By attacking in southern Iraq rather than striking at the forces that Saddam used against the Kurds in the north, the United States sent him a clear signal that it is concerned only about the security of the oil supplies from Kuwait and other Persian Gulf states, and does not care much about what he does inside his own borders. . . . We've not demonstrated [in all fairness, Mr. President] a lot of courage. . . . Our actions have not left the region any more secure. [Bluntly put] Saddam has gotten away with it. Mr. President, this concern is not isolated but has been quite widely reported in news from Government officials and independent analysts. These criticisms do not question the need to respond to Hussein. Rather, they question the nature of the response chosen by our President. An action was necessary, but it should have reflected Hussein's aggressive behavior. Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser under Presidents Ford and Bush, put it very succinctly in an article printed in the September 23 edition of Newsweek. We were right to strike back, but we did so in a way that did no lasting military damage to him and inflicted significant collateral damage on us. The cruise-missile attack was quick, clean, and easy. But, it may have sent Saddam the wrong message--that he would only pay the price of a pinprick. When the smoke cleared, it looked to most political leaders around the world as though Saddam was better off and the United States was worse off than before the current crisis began. Mr. President, the article covers a number of other cogent issues on this situation. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record following my statement.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have comments that will take probably up to about 8 minutes. The Senator from Arizona is with us, and I understand he has a scheduling conflict, so I will be more than happy to yield to him. Mr. KYL addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me echo again what the Senator from New Mexico has just said. This is a fascinating precedent being established here in this amendment by the Senator from Arkansas, precedent in the way we would sell public resources. Never before have we said to a large timber company, ``You're going to pay a premium for the tree because you're larger,'' and to the smaller timber producer, ``You'll pay less.'' We have never said to a rich person who walked into a national park, ``You're rich, so you'll pay more.'' And we have never said, therefore, to the poor person, ``You will pay less.'' We have always established what we believed was a fair market price for the value of the public resource. That is your job, Mr. President, and that is mine. This past year we made every effort to accomplish that. We debated it long and loud in the committee that the Senator from Arkansas and I are members of. We agreed and disagreed; and we came back again and structured another provision to reform. It had a fee increase in it for all parties who would lease the public's grass. But what the Senator from Arkansas is saying is, ``If you're rich, this blade of grass for your cow will cost you more than if you are less rich.'' You and I both know that deciding who is rich and who is not rich is very arbitrary. Sometimes you can own 1,000 head of cattle, and owe the bank $5 million, and have a net worth of nearly zero. That happens in the cattle business on occasion. I doubt that the Senator from Arkansas would call that rich, because if that individual rancher liquidated, there may be nothing left, especially after estate taxes and all of those kinds of things. But the important issue here is that the Senate heard the need from the public to raise the grazing fees and to reform grazing, and we did, and the Senate acted. I do not know where the Senator from Arkansas is coming from at this moment other than for the political sound bite for the up and coming campaign, because it is precedent setting, very precedent setting, to argue that we will divvy up the blades of grass of the public domain by who is rich and who is poor, and we will use that as a determination. We have never done it in any other way of selling a public resource, and we all recognize the importance of marketing public resources to get a fair and effective return to the Treasury. Mr. President, that is what this Senate did. I think we ought to be proud of that work. Now, to attempt an end run around that effort, an end run that is precedent setting and totally unbalanced, is, without question, in my opinion, the wrong way to go. It divides the grazing communities of the West. It should not be allowed to do that. It totally rearranges what has been a historic arrangement that has stabilized the West and brought good stewardship to the public lands. The stewardship now recognized by the Department of the Interior has resulted in better conditions on Western grazing lands than in the last 100 years. We, as trustees of that public domain, ought to be proud of that because we have insisted that stewardship go forward. Now, that stewardship is a product of the relationship of the permittee--that is, the rancher who has the permit that leases the grass that grazes the cattle--that stewardship resulted in the quality of the rangeland we now have. If you break it up into a rolling crap shoot of a kind that has been proposed by the Senator from Arkansas, that stewardship goes away. No longer do you have the kind of longevity in grazing that goes from generation to generation with the clear recognition that that has produced quality stewardship, quality rangeland, quality wildlife habitat, and by the Department of Interior managers' own admission, the best conditions in rangelands in 100 years. Mr. President, I hope we could table this amendment. I think it is wrong. I think it is unfair to divide the rich and the poor and establish that kind of an argument. If we do that, I think you and I will want to come back here and say to the millionaires that walk into our national parks, ``You are rich, you pay more; for those on food stamps, if you can get to the parks, you pay less.'' That that should not be the way we do it, but that is what is being proposed here today.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes in morning business.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, what is the business of the Senate at this moment?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I don't remember, but I believe Yogi Berra says, ``This is like deja vu all over again.'' It really is. I am so saddened that my friend and colleague from Arkansas likes to engage in the typical class warfare game that his side of the aisle oftentimes likes to play over issues where they project that there is some big evil creature out there profiteering off of what is the public's interest or the public's resource and, therefore, we ought to stop them. If that were true, I would be standing not only beside my colleague from Arkansas, but I would be supporting his legislation. That has never been the case. What is the case is that the environmental community of our country, for well over two decades now, have tried to find a reason to change the character of the western public grazing lands for a variety of reasons. And through that, they have searched for a variety of arguments that somehow would ring solid with our citizens, that would say that public policy that directs our public lands somehow is misdirected, that the Congress has failed in its responsibility to the American people and, therefore, we ought to change public grazing land policy. I certainly don't hold the edge on the knowledge on this issue. But I am one of a few Senators on this floor that once leased public grazing lands from the BLM and from the Forest Service. My family ranching businesses did that for years. We are no longer in those businesses. There is no conflict of interest with this Senator. But I represent thousands of cattlemen in my State who do graze. Of our agriculture industry in the State of Idaho, which is the number one total receipts industry in my State, cattle is the largest segment of agriculture. It isn't potatoes when it comes to dollars and cents in total sales; it is cattle. Eighty percent of those cattle have to graze on public land at least some time during the year. The reason is that 63 percent of my State is owned and managed by the taxpayers of this country, the Federal Government, the public domain, the people's estate, however one wants to describe it. So, in other words, Washington, DC, has more to say about running Idaho than Idaho has. The largest segment of our agriculture industry, therefore, has to rely on Federal public policy to survive. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. There is one thing Idaho appreciates, though, and that is its large expanse of public lands. We don't want it to be private per se. We have found that there is a tremendous heritage there that speaks to the public lands, that enjoys them, not just for cattle grazing, but for access--hunting, fishing, and for the quality of the environment that my State of Idaho has. My grandfather, a good number of years ago--a good number of years ago--homesteaded in Idaho--then just a State. At that time there was no BLM, there was no Taylor Grazing Act. He was a grazer, a rancher, a sheep rancher. He found out that the great big interests out of the Southwest, out of Colorado, large ranching combines, that owned thousands of acres and tens and thousands of head of cattle, would sweep across the western lands, including Idaho, grazing them at will. Large sheep operations did the same. He and other ranchers across the West joined together and appealed to the Congress to create the Taylor Grazing Act, to control and limit grazing. In the late 1800's, a U.S. cavalry officer, stationed in Idaho, wrote in his diaries that the public rangelands and the western rangelands of Idaho were depleted by over 80 percent from overgrazing. That was before the turn of the century. That is when my grandfather and others of western heritage said, ``This had gone too far in an uncontrolled fashion, and we ought to do something about it.'' Congress created the Taylor Grazing Act. Out of that, they directed their interests back to the States and back to the local rancher and not the large national interests or regional interests. They created committees. They created local control, and they began to turn the western grazing lands around. Now, few remember that history or that heritage. Today's memory doesn't even want to realize that, before the turn of the century, western grazing lands were already in trouble because they had been overgrazed by largely no control whatsoever, until the Congress of the United States stepped into this vast domain of public lands and said we have to do something about it. And they did. And if you will remember a couple of years ago, Mr. President, when Secretary Babbitt was trying to find a reason to change public grazing policy, because the environmental community had wrestled him to the ground and said, ``cattle-free by '93,'' and ``you have to change this policy.'' In his effort to try to find a reason, he asked the staff of the Department of Interior to find worse-case scenarios. In a memo that I divulged on this floor--a secret memo--they said, in essence: Mr. Secretary, that is hard to do because the western grazing lands are in better condition than they have been in 100 years. So why do you want to eliminate grazing? Why do you want to tighten it down? Well, in a few instances, there are problems. There are some riparian areas critical to wildlife habitat and water quality that need to be administered differently. That is true in my State, as it is true in other public land grazing States across the Nation. There isn't a Senator on this floor that wouldn't suggest that these lands be managed in a responsible fashion, not just for grazing, but for wildlife habitat, for archeological values, for outdoor recreation, for water quality, for all of the reasons that we have in the public domain. But we in Idaho and the West say that, amongst all of those reasons, grazing should be equal, and it should have, by character of the Taylor Grazing Act that created these grazing relationships with private people, some level of priority. Why? Because a big chunk of the economy of Idaho depends on access to that land. We have incorporated that for over 100 years into the economic base of our State, and if we had known that the Federal Government was going to sweep in and change the character of local economies, maybe we would have fought over a hundred years ago when we came into the Union to make all of those States private land instead of a large portion of them remaining federally owned public lands. But that didn't happen. It has not happened. Idaho has a wonderful public land heritage, and we want to keep it that way. But we sure want to try to maintain a working, cooperating, sharing relationship with the Federal land management agencies that says there can be some grazing, mining, logging, water quality, and environmental integrity and all of those combinations of multiple balanced uses that are so critical to the character of the western public land States. That part is what the Bumpers amendment is not all about. It does not understand, nor does it share, that relationship that has existed for well over 100 years. When we talk about the character of the West and wanting to preserve it, this is an amendment that would dramatically change the character of the West. For the people who come to Idaho today, because Idaho is what it is and has been for so long, part of that which they enjoy is the ranching heritage, along with the great outdoors and the beautiful landscapes and the pristine air. For over 100 years we have grazed Idaho actively, and it is still a beautiful State. Several years ago, I, along with others who have primary responsibility in the Committee of Energy and Natural Resources for this issue, began to recognize there needed to be some adjustment in grazing fees; that somehow the formula currently being used by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service was not working well. Mr. President, you know the struggle we went through. We offered a variety of amendments and a variety of bills. We passed a grazing reform bill through the Senate this year. Senator Pete Domenici, Senator Craig Thomas, certainly Senator Conrad Burns, who has just spoken, myself, and others were involved in crafting that. We introduced one that was not liked at all by a variety of interest groups. We went back to the drawing boards, and we invited all interests-- sportsmen, wildlife enthusiasts to environmentalists--to make recommendations for change. Why? Because we didn't like the ranch form regulations that Secretary Babbitt was shoving through because we felt that in the long term it would badly damage the relationship of the grazer to the public land, and after taking information from all of those groups, we made between 27 and 30 changes in our legislation before it passed through the Senate with a bipartisan vote. Why this amendment, then? I think the Senator from Montana said it well. It is somehow the big versus the small, and that does not seem to work very well. A blade of grass is a blade of public land grass and ought to be worth the same to anybody who wants to buy it. Certainly, when we sell trees off the national forests we do not say to the great big Weyerhaeuser's or Louisiana Pacific's, or any of the big timber companies, ``You have to pay a premium because you are big,'' and to the small timber operator in my State of Idaho, ``You are small and you are little and you pay less.'' We don't do that. We offer it to up to bid. But in the instance of grazing, because grazing is tied with the ranch, we have said you will pay a fee determined by the Congress. That is what we have tried to do in a fair and equitable way, and I think we have accomplished that, because not only are we trying to get a reasonable amount of money from the public resource for the public Treasury, but we are still trying to reflect the relationship that was crafted back in the teens with the creation of the BLM Act, or the Taylor Grazing Act, when we said that ranches ought to have a relationship to that public land to be able to graze it under reasonable conditions. That kept the local economy together. That kept the main streets of Grand View, or Twin Falls, or Oakley, or Buhl, or any of these small Western agricultural ranching communities, together because they didn't own the vast lands. Those were owned by the public. But there would still remain a relationship between the ranching community, the economy, and the land. For a long time that was the right relationship, but now we have wanted to make changes. The Bumpers amendment makes the kind of change that dramatically alters big and small, because the one thing that has never been talked about in all of this was all of my small ranchers have been marvelous stewards of the land throughout this time. They are the ones who gave the time. They are the ones that put in the water systems. They are the ones that have largely made the public range what it is today by investing millions of hours of person time and millions of dollars of their own money on public lands to improve them not just for grazing, but for wildlife habitat. Yet, that seems to not be recognized today in this kind of amendment, the big versus the small, the rich versus the not-so-rich, which should never become a factor in the uniform management of and the selling of public resources. Yet, that is what the Senator from Arkansas attempts to do. And it is wrong, Mr. President, it is just plain wrong. We do not treat any other public resource--renewable or nonrenewable--that is up for sale that way. Let us compare it. You go to a national park. You pay a fee to go into a park. Do they ask you at the time you drive through the park, ``Are you a millionaire,'' or, ``Are you poor?'' If you are a millionaire, you pay $10,000 to enter the national park, and if you are not so rich, you pay the daily fee. We do not do that when somebody enters the public resource buildings of the national treasures of the Nation's Capital. There is a fee charged, and that happens in some instances but not many. Yet, taxpayers pay millions of dollars annually to keep these beautiful buildings up. Do we say to the rich, ``You pay more,'' and to the poor, ``You pay less''? No, we do not do that. But that is what the Senator from Arkansas does on grazing. When we provide coal resources, oil resources, they go to the highest bidder, and they go to the finder. Then we have a national fee that we charge per ton or per gallon. Do we say to the Standard Oil's of America, ``You pay more,'' and to the small stripper well producers in Kansas, ``You pay less''? No, we do not. We expect a reasonable and a balanced fee. I don't know how, Mr. President, to make another comparison that the public would understand. How about two apartments, one side by side, and one is furnished and one is not furnished. That is what the Senator from Montana was talking about. Certainly, the one that is furnished you would pay more for. So when the Senator from Arkansas talks about State lands, in many instances, the State lands are a better quality grazing land. The services on them are treated differently. Certainly, it is true of private grazing. I know; I used to lease out private grazing. We took care of the cattle. We fixed the fences. We sold to them. We made sure that the water facilities were operating, and the person who put the cattle on the land never came back to see them sometimes until 2 or 3 months later when they wanted to pick them up. So we were able to charge more because we offered a service. But when the rancher leases public grazing land, BLM or Forest Service land, none of those services are offered. You ride for the cattle, and you care for the cattle. You pick up all of those extra expenses. That is a part of the reason that the formula over the year has reflected some of disparity of difference, and it is unfair to make those comparisons. But I am afraid that some of my colleagues, who have an entirely different mission in mind than just getting for agriculture a fair price for the public resource, want to change the story. And, in changing it, they know that the consequence of their action would be disastrous to the public grazing lands as we know it. I hope, Mr. President, that Senators will once again join with us in rejecting this amendment. This Senate has done its duty. We have crafted a compromise, bipartisan grazing reform bill with a fee increase in it which is fair and equitable to all, and passed it through the Senate. Now, to have this kind of an end run on an amendment that divides--that says to the rich this, says to the less rich this, that says we create different levels and different fees for different blades of grass grazed by different cattle, it does not make sense. It will not work. We do it nowhere else when we deal with public resources, and we certainly ought not do it with grazing. So I hope that the Senate will reject this amendment at the appropriate time and continue to work with the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to accomplish the grazing reform that we need, because there is no Senator who would suggest we need none. As a Senator who represents a western public lands State, I will tell you that I helped lead the reform this year. We did not stand back, because we wanted to make sure that the reform was reflective of not only national interests but that unique relationship that was crafted with the Taylor Grazing Act decades ago between the public lands State and the public domain and the public resource and the grazing industry and the citizens of the States involved. That is the issue at hand here. I hope the Senate will honor its historic commitment in these areas to maintain balance and to maintain reasonable return for the public resource. I yield the floor. Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, with my colleague from Wyoming just having spoken, one would think it is ``Western day'' on the floor of the U.S. Senate, especially when I choose to come to the floor this morning also to speak about Western public lands issues. Certainly, the issue of national parks, in which the Senator from Wyoming is so knowledgeable, is not just a Western issue; it is clearly a national issue, with national parks spanning the length and breath of our country. I come to visit about an issue that has been in the skies of the West all summer. It doesn't happen to be there at this moment. As I flew out of Idaho this weekend after a rainstorm, the sky was clear. But for well over 2 months this summer, up until this weekend, Western skies have not been clear. They have been filled with smoke. If you had flown over Idaho or nearly any part of the West as I have many times this summer, you would have been convinced that the West truly was on fire. In many instances, that was true. Our Western forests and rangelands have burned again at an unprecedented rate this summer. Smoke from extensive wildfires invaded our cities. It damaged tourism, it caused health problems, and homes adjacent to the public lands were in jeopardy and many burned as a result of the high incident of wildfires. I know that you and others have seen this on television, it was talked about oftentimes on national television and in the newspapers through the course of the summer. Wildfires were regular occurrences on nightly news shows in the West in States like Oregon or Idaho or California or Arizona or New Mexico or Montana or Wyoming or in places in Utah. Tragically, what we heard this summer has become a regular occurrence which we in the West have had to endure. Nearly every 2 years, it seems, since 1988, the frequency and intensity of fire has gone well beyond the historic norm. Its genesis is the increasingly poor health of our public forests and the fuel buildup from millions of acres of dead and dying trees and unforaged, or in other words, nongrazed, grasslands of the West. It is a problem that we could do something about in this Congress and as Americans if we chose to do so. These fires are destroying our resources, trying our patience and exhausting our financial ability to suppress them. This year another record will be set with more than 6 million acres burned, in excess of the record set only 2 years ago, and before that, in 1988. In fact, this is the largest amount of acres burned in a single year since 1967. Firefighting forces started the year with over $400 million of debt, and the deficit continues to pile up as more and more Federal personnel and equipment are thrown into this battle against wildfire. The Knutson-Vandenburg, known as the KV, fund has been the handy source from which we have borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for emergency firefighting costs, and it is now broke. There is no money in the fund. KV moneys are collected from timber sale revenues specifically to replant and regenerate public forests with new seedings. Because the borrowed money has not been replaced, the tree planting programs are now in jeopardy. In other words, what we are doing is we are borrowing all of the money to fight fires, but we are not putting the money back, so there is no money to replant the forests. Tragically enough, there are some folks out there who say, ``Oh, well, this is Mother Nature; let it be.'' I am one of those who cannot agree with that, and I think most of our colleagues cannot, and certainly the citizens of the West cannot. My question to my colleagues is simple: How long can we ignore what is happening in our western forests? If that smoke were blowing through the urban canyons of the eastern cities, how long would the public put up with it before demanding action from their Representatives in Congress? I have offered a long-term, broad-based solution with my legislation to restore forest health. We have a chance to pass that legislation. It is S. 391, which was approved by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in June; but it has been hung up in politics, politics, and environmental politics that have no basis in science and no understanding of the tragedy that our western national forests are experiencing today. It is simply the politics of politics that has stopped efforts to deal with forest health, and I ask that you help me to change that, because we should be addressing the crisis that exists, and will continue to exist, in the western forests. I have stood in this Chamber to sustain the temporary emergency salvage law which is critical to our short-term needs from the 1994 fires. And, yes, I have heard some people claim that there is no emergency. If that is true, they were not listening to the nightly news this summer, or they were not listening in Idaho or Oregon or Washington or Montana or Wyoming or Utah or Arizona or California or New Mexico. They are simply ignoring the fact, or they are being lulled to sleep by the symphony of environmental voices that would only argue that this is Mother Nature at her finest. There is an emergency. A critical emergency. But in most people's minds it is not an emergency until the fire starts and is roaring up the mountainside and threatening their own town. Then it becomes an emergency overnight, and all of the resources of the State and Federal Government, including the Army and the Marines, are brought into the fight. Oregon's Governor, in fact, this year declared a state of emergency because of the fires roaring across the State of Oregon. Would it not make more sense to take preventive actions before the crisis starts? Of course that makes sense, but then again it is not politically correct right now to make sense about the idea of managing our forests if man is involved in that management. It makes better sense for some to argue that you simply lock them up and let Mother Nature do her thing. Well, Mother Nature was doing her thing this summer, and she burned well over 6 million acres of land, land whose forests will now take decades and sometimes generations to restore or replace themselves. First of all, we must permit active management of these forests. We must reduce forest fuels to restrict the size of the fires and cool their intensity. Some scratch their heads and say, ``What are you talking about, Senator? Fires are hot.'' That is right, but some fires are hotter than others. And when you have phenomenal fuel buildup of the kind we have seen because of the dead and dying trees on these forest floors, and ignored because of the absence of management, these fires are intensively hotter than the normal fires that oftentimes amble through a forest burning shrubbery but not destroying and killing the trees. Those normal fires are the fires of Mother Nature of decades ago, those are the fires that periodically cleansed our forests. But these cleansing fires were not the fires of the summer of 1996. Would it not make more sense to take the preventive action that I am talking about? Of course, we could do that. First we must permit, as I have mentioned, the active management of our forests. We must reduce the fuels. One needed activity is salvage timber removal, and my guess is we will be back on this floor later this year, and probably the first of next year, asking for flexibility to do salvage on some of these 6 million burned acres. There will be Senators on this floor who will say, ``But environmental groups do not want this; it would be destructive.'' And so we would let hundreds of millions of dollars in trees then rot and wash away, and we would not replenish our funds to replant and regenerate our forests. For the life of me, I cannot understand how that is good business, good environmental business, good economic business, for that matter, or just good management. It is, in fact, poor management, poor management at its very worst. Let me close by asking the cooperation of the Senate, whether it is the passage of my forest health legislation or whether it is just the simple awakening to the situation that exists in the western forests of today, a situation that is largely our doing, largely our doing because we have been so good at putting out fires over the last 30 years that we have now created the circumstance which creates the extraordinary, the unusual, the dramatic fires that we saw in the West this summer. So I hope that we recognize an emergency exists, and if we created it, we ought to be able to manage it. The science of forestry today argues that we can, but it is not a science of ignorance or a science of turning your back. It is a science that demands the kind of active management that the U.S. Forest Service and its professionals know how to use, if they would only be allowed to do so. Frankly, it is not the science of this administration, which has passively ignored the problem because of the pressure placed upon them by certain environmental groups to do nothing and walk away. In Idaho and the rest of the Western States over the next decade, doing nothing and walking away will simply create another summer of 1996 over and over again. Millions of acres will be burned, houses and private property will be lost, and the debt will mount, a debt that the public owes for fighting these fires in an effort to save the resource and save private lands and private resources. We can avoid this. We can avoid this by wise and responsible management. I yield back the remainder of my time. Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have been glued to the television today in order to keep myself updated on the situation in Iraq. Needless to say, I am more than a little frustrated that no attempts have been made by the President to consult the Congress on this swiftly evolving situation. I do not say this lightly, Mr. President, but CNN reporting is not what I would consider fulfillment of the President's reporting obligation in the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act states that the ``President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before'' introducing troops into imminent hostilities and shall also consult with Congress regularly after the introduction of combat troops. Mr. President, that also applies when situations develop into hostilities. This obligation was easily overlooked for the incident on August 31. The Congress was adjourned on recess, making it difficult, if not impossible to brief Members prior to taking action. The Congress stood with the President in an effort to fully support our troops and his decision as Commander in Chief. However, the current situation is quite different. The Congress is here, and we are waiting. Let me be clear, Mr. President, support for our troops is steadfast. But the President cannot assume the continued support of Congress if he fails to keep us informed. Mr. President, the President acted to counter Saddam Hussein's aggression against the Kurds, and quickly declared victory. The President's policy to-date is not a victory. In less than a week's time, the premature declaration has soured into a situation that has our pilots being shot at in the Northern No-Fly Zone, Hussein gaining a strong foothold in the former Kurdish safe-haven, and a movement of American personnel and equipment into the Persian Gulf. If a strong and clear policy is not defined soon, the President's policy in the gulf will most assuredly become an abject failure. It's time to come to the Congress and the American people with a defined mission, goals and exit strategy. It is time for the President to fulfill his obligations under the War Powers Act. In my speech on the situation in Iraq, just a week ago today, I expressed concerns about the President's failure to maintain the alliance with our gulf war partners. Without the coalition, we risk losing the necessary strategic advantage we how hold, and our defensive presence in the gulf will necessarily deteriorate. Saddam Hussein is testing our resolve in the Persian Gulf by his efforts to play divide and conquer with the United States and our coalition partners from the gulf war. Without a clearly defined missioned and policy, we will continue to be pulled into a situation that will isolate us in the region and leave few, if any, positive options to resolve the situation. Saddam Hussein is not an individual to be toyed with. He understands little other than aggression, and we should be wary that for him, embarrassing the United States at any cost may be considered a victory. This is very important, Mr. President, because that cost could include American lives. Mr. President, the reporting on CNN provides good and timely information, but it does not provide insight, direction, or a clear message about the policy you intend to pursue. Therefore, it is my hope and my purpose to encourage the President to fulfill his obligation to the Congress under the War Powers Act for the American people and for our troops.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRAIG

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

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forest and Public Land Management. The hearing will take place Wednesday, September 25, 1996, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 987, a bill to provide for the full settlement of all claims of Swain County, NC, against the United States under the agreement dated July 30, 1943, and for other purposes. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For further information, please call Judy Brown or Mark Rey at (202) 224-6170.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to discuss with the Chairman a process that has been initiated between the General Services Administration [GSA] and several Federal, State and local agencies, of which the Appropriations Committee would want to take cognizance. This process concerns the feasibility of designing and constructing a live animal research and holding facility at Boise State University. The facility would be used for basic and applied ecological research, providing biological information and related technical support to natural resource managers and policymakers, and education and information transfer. It would directly serve the Raptor Research Center at Boise State University. A first meeting has been held between GSA representatives and some of the agencies that will use the proposed facility, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the Peregrine Fund, and Boise State University, which would be the site of the facility. GSA believes this is the kind of project that falls within its purview and is something that may be beneficial to undertake.

Mr. CRAIG. No. These initial contacts are necessary to determine if the project can and should be pursued by GSA and other agencies involved.

Mr. CRAIG. The discussions currently underway are preliminary and should lead to a determination of whether to initiate a formal feasibility study.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, certainly Senator Kempthorne and I, by our comments, can display only great pride in the fact that the majority leader has chosen Greg Casey to be our new Sergeant at Arms. We reflect that pride for our State of Idaho. I say to Greg, his wife Julia, and Gregory, Jr., congratulations, we look forward to a good number of years working with you during your service in the U.S. Senate. I congratulate the majority leader for a wise choice. Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me thank the majority leader for yielding this morning and reflect on the wise and judicious decision of the majority leader to choose my chief of staff, Greg Casey, to become the new Sergeant at Arms of the U.S. Senate. As the majority leader mentioned, Mr. President, Greg and I and Senator Kempthorne go back a good many years in working in the political effort in Idaho and here in Washington. I had the privilege of hiring Greg to be a field director for me in my first congressional campaign. He came to Washington with me and served in a variety of capacities, ultimately becoming my chief of staff while I served in the House, left to go to Idaho to rebuild an organization called the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry into a major force as a spokesman for business and industry in the State of Idaho. When I was elected to the Senate in 1990, I asked Greg to return with me to put my Senate staff together and he has served as my chief of staff since that time. I am extremely excited for Greg and his family, and for Idaho, that the majority leader has chosen him to become the Sergeant of Arms here in the Senate, a very large responsibility. I am extremely proud that Greg now has the opportunity to serve in that capacity, not only for the Senate but for our country and for the State of Idaho. I, on behalf of Idaho, can speak with a great deal of pride in saying we know Idaho is extremely proud today to have Greg Casey as the new Sergeant at Arms here in the U.S. Senate. Greg, congratulations. We will look forward to working with you, and also we will seek your counsel from time to time as it comes to the administration of my office and my offices in the State of Idaho. Again, thank you, Mr. Majority Leader, for yielding. Let me now yield to my colleague, Senator Dirk Kempthorne, who also has had a close working relationship with Greg Casey over many years.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, title XXXI, subtitle F of the 1997 Defense Authorization Act is an amendment I sponsored in the Senate to clear up several unnecessary and delaying bureaucratic requirements that currently exist in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Land Withdrawal Act--Public Law 102-579-WIPP. This title will allow the WIPP facility to open, meet a major environmental objective, and save the taxpayer money. The purpose of the WIPP is to provide for the safe disposal of transuranic [TRU] radioactive and mixed wastes resulting from defense activities and programs of the United States. These materials are currently stored at temporary facilities, and until WIPP is opened, little can be done to clean up and close these temporary storage sites. Idaho currently stores the largest amount of TRU waste of any State in the union, but Idaho is not alone. Washington, Colorado, South Carolina, and New Mexico also store TRU waste. The agreement recently negotiated between the State of Idaho, the DOE and the U.S. Navy states that the TRU currently located in Idaho will begin to be shipped to WIPP by April 30, 1999. This legislation will assure this commitment is fulfilled by clearly stating that it is the intent of Congress that the Secretary of Energy will complete all actions needed to commence emplacement of TRU waste at WIPP no later than November 30, 1997. The opening of the WIPP will solve a nagging and ongoing problem at the INEL--what to do with this nuclear waste that has accumulated over the years at the Idaho site. We cannot solve the environmental problems at sites such as the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Rocky Flats Weapons Facility, Savannah River and others without WIPP. The reason is obvious. Without a place to dispose of the waste, cleanup is impossible, and without cleanup, further site decommissioning can not occur. The goal of this bill is simple: To deliver on Congress' longstanding commitment to open WIPP by 1998. This bill amends the Waste Isolation Land Pilot Plant Land Withdrawal Act of 1992 in several very significant ways. It deletes obsolete language in the 1992 act. Of particular importance is the reference and requirements for test phase activities. Since the enactment of the 1992 act, the Department of Energy [DOE] has abandoned the test phase that called for underground testing in favor of above-ground laboratory test programs. Thus the test phase no longer exists as defined in the 1992 law and needs to be removed so it does not complicate the ongoing WIPP process. Most important, this amendment will streamline the process, remove duplicative regulations, save taxpayers dollars--currently, the costs of simply watching over WIPP exceed $20 million per month. This bill does not remove EPA as the DOE regulator of the WIPP. DOE has stated numerous times that it does not want to self-regulate. The Department believes that having EPA as the regulator will instill additional public confidence in the certification process and the facility itself, once it opens. I am skeptical regarding EPA. EPA has a poor record of meeting deadlines. The WIPP, as a facility, is ready to operate now and is basically waiting on EPA's final approval. The schedule DOE has established to meet the opening dates is an aggressive timetable. It is successful only if EPA can accomplish its tasks on time. I strongly encourage them to do so. Idaho and the Nation need to have the WIPP opened sooner rather than later. Each day of delay is costly (nearly $1 million per day in taxpayers' dollars), and the potential dangers to the environment and human health resulting from the temporary storage of this waste continue. It is time to act. We must, if we are to clean up sites such as the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. We must act to dispose of this nuclear waste permanently and safely for future generations. The passage of this Defense authorization bill clears the way for that to happen.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. If I might ask the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies Appropriations about the EPA review of the national ambient air quality standard for particulate matter. I understand that there are recent epidemiological studies that indicate a correlation between exposure to air polluted with particulates and adverse human health effects, and that EPA is studying this matter as a high priority.

Mr. CRAIG. I am pleased to learn that the committee has directed this level of funding to EPA for this important research. This comprehensive research program is very much needed. At present, there appears to be insufficient data available for the agency to decide what changes, if any, should be made to the current standard. There is no scientific consensus on whether it is necessary to change the current ambient air quality standards for particulate matter to protect human and environmental health. It has come to my attention that in a letter to EPA on June 13, 1996, EPA's own Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee concluded that ``our understanding of the health effects of [particulates] is far from complete,'' and these scientific uncertainties prevented the committee from agreeing on the agency's suggested new particulate standards. In addition, the former chairman of this advisory committee who is now a consultant to the advisory committee, Roger McClellan, wrote the current chairman in May to advise him that ``the current staff document does not provide a scientifically adequate basis for making regulatory decisions for setting of National Ambient Air Quality Standards and related control of particulate matter as specified in the Clean Air Act.'' Finally, in a peer-reviewed article just published in the Journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, scientists John Gamble and Jeffery Lewis conclude that the recent epidemiology studies that show statistically significant acute health effects of particulate air pollution do not meet the criteria for causality. They suggest that the weak statistical correlations of increased mortality are as likely due to confounding by weather, copollutants, or exposure misclassification as they are by ambient particulate matter. As the chairman is aware, EPA is under a Federal court order to make a final decision on whether to revise the current clean air rule regarding particulate matter. Under the court order, EPA must make a proposed decision on or before November 29, 1996, and a final decision on or before June 28, 1997. Can the Chairman inform me whether the court order allows the agency to decide not to revise the particular standard until there is sufficient scientific basis for doing so?

Mr. CRAIG. If the Senator would yield, I would ask the chairman that if EPA is only going to begin to implement the CASAC research program in October of this year, how can it be expected to issue a proposed rule on November 29, as required under the court order?

Mr. CRAIG. I agree with my distinguished colleague from Oklahoma. I do not want the people in our states breathing unhealthy air. I applaud and fully support the funding provided by the Senator from Missouri's committee for particulate research. I just don't think it makes much sense to promulgate new standards until you know what particles are unhealthy. It is my understanding that rural fugitive dust might be further regulated by the EPA when it issues its new particulate standards. Idaho, and I believe, my colleague's State of Oklahoma, are renowned for the volumes of fine, natural dirt that are carried by our breezes out West. Even without winds, just driving down a road, tilling a field, running cattle, sanding roads in the winter, or the gentlest of mining operations, will create dust. If dust is unhealthy, I'm sure the hard working people of my state will want to know about it, and would want to take measures to protect themselves. So I look forward to the CASAC's targeted study to be implemented before the rural fugitive dust standards are changed.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, Saddam Hussein's movement into northern Iraq was yet another direct threat to U.S. national interest: to maintain security and stability in the Middle East. American cruise missiles have struck various Iraqi military installations with the purpose of deterring Iraq from further violence against the Kurds and to take out air-defense systems that posed a danger to our air patrols. I support the President as our Commander in Chief and his decision to attack Saddam Hussein's military installations to provide greater protection for our personnel enforcing the current and expanded no-fly zone. I stand 100 percent behind the brave men and women in our Armed Forces. Therefore, I support the resolution we are voting on this evening which condemns Saddam Hussein's actions and expresses support for our troops and the President's efforts to curb further actions by Iraq. It is my understanding that after intelligence reports disclosed the Iraqi military buildup, clear warnings were sent that he should not use any military force--warnings that were not heeded. Mr. President, Saddam Hussein's actions and our response didn't come out of the blue. They are an extension of ongoing efforts to enforce the restraints placed on Iraq at the end of the Gulf war. Therefore, while the use of force should always be a last resort tool of foreign policy, the reckless and aggressive pattern of actions Hussein has carried out, required the only warning he would respond to: force. While we can understand these recent events, the future of this situation remains a concern for us all. U.S. interests in the region have not changed. In addition, the various conflicts among neighboring nations and the division within the Kurdish people, further complicates our ability to stabilize the situation. It is critical and in our national interest that the administration work with our allies, especially those in the region, to bring this incident to a peaceful conclusion. Finally, while the cold war has come to an end, it is clear that we continue to live in an unstable world where our national security interests will be tested. We must continue to fully fund our Armed Forces so they remain strong. When we ask American men and women to put their lives on the line for our country, they better have the best equipment and training possible. Mr. President, there is no doubt that we have strong national security interests in this very volatile and unstable region of the world. Any further hostility by Saddam Hussein's forces against our personnel, or in violation of Operation Provide Comfort or the other restraints established by the international community must be met with a swift and decisive response from the United States.