Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. CRAIG. A second-degree amendment to the Bumpers amendment that would require a fair market value.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I retain the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. I object.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I yield the Senator from Nevada 5 minutes of our time.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, my second-degree amendment sets forth a variety of solutions to a problem that has plagued this Senate and this Congress for several years as we have debated changing the 1872 mining law. If we have heard it once, we have heard it many times from the Senator from Arkansas saying, ``Isn't it a crime that we are giving Federal land away for $2.50 an acre under this old law?'' Mr. President, I think we all recognize that there was, on the surface of that issue and that argument, a problem. That was a fair market value for the surface of the land in 1872. It is not today. My second-degree amendment is very clear. It says that that $2.50 an acre now changes to a charge of fair market value. And what is that? That is a value established by the Federal agency in charge, the BLM in this instance, by a general appraisal method that they now use to establish land values. According to a recent study conducted by the University of Nevada Natural Resource Industry Institute, a fair market value in Nevada would range--we are talking surface value now--anywhere from $100 to $250 an acre, instead of the $2.50 an acre. The fair market value for the surface estate is not a solution to the total problem of reform that all of us have tried to achieve over the course of the last good number of years. But I would like to suggest to the Senators this evening, and encourage their support for this second degree, that it is a major step forward, that we are beginning to solve the problem of the 1872 mining law by offering this. Now, those who would argue that we ought not allow Federal land to continue to be owned in private ownership, we have provided a reverter clause in here that says when that property is used up, when it is no longer being mined, when there is no longer a mining value or a mining practice going on, that land reverts back to the Government. That is a strange idea. We are giving title. We are making the private individual pay for the title. But we are doing that only for the purpose of mining. No more of the arguments of condominiums and no more the arguments over development outside of the intent of the public policy to mine. So, we have addressed that. And we have said that land would revert back. And that is, I think, a great achievement if this Senate can pass that through to the conference and cause the Congress to deal with that important issue. And then in the end we assist the Secretary, as the Senator from Nevada spoke, in resolving his problems by giving him the extra resources to solve the patenting stalemate that he has currently got going on in the Department of the Interior. The Secretary today at breakfast agreed that first-part patents were a property right, and he had to proceed. But he was handicapped by no staff or the inability to [[Page S 11875]] deal with that issue. And the third portion of this amendment would offer him that opportunity. With that, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. CRAIG. If the Senator would wish to complete his statement, I will close out the debate on my second degree. Go ahead. You have yielded all time back?

Mr. CRAIG. Do you wish to use your 48 seconds at this time?

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair. Vote on Amendment No. 2293, As Amended, As Modified

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

Mr. CRAIG. Let me join with my colleague from Alaska who is chairman of the full Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the argument I think he has so clearly just placed before this Senate as it relates to a Senate bill that I introduced some months ago, S. 506, which reforms the 1872 mining law, and deals with the very issue that the Senator from Arkansas is attempting to deal with this evening. It recognizes the patenting process which those of us who I think understand mining on public lands recognize as a clear and necessary part of causing private industry, be it a small miner or a large miner, to gain access to those properties for the purpose of mining. Now, there have been a variety of other approaches argued over the years. But none of them seem to work in the sense of being able to allow that person to have title to the property and the surface of that property so they can begin to develop a mining operation. There is no question that there are those like the Senator from Arkansas who view the ability to block patents as a way to block access to the resources of our public lands. The thing that I think most of us recognize, and clearly I recognize in S. 506, is that patenting was an important process. But the 1872 mining law bestowed that property right on an individual who had brought forth a valid claim. That property right was bestowed for $2.50 an acre. That is obsolete. And it is the $2.50-an-acre clause, if you will, provision within the law, that most people have been able to hang their hat on as an effective argument for saying for some reason we are simply giving away the public domain, failing to recognize the millions and millions of dollars that has to be put on that $2.50 land for that property and that resource to become productive, and as a productive resource to employ people, to pay taxes, and to do the very kinds of things that those of us who are guardians, if you will, of the public domain believe to be a responsible use of that resources estate. So historically the surface of the land was of little value, not of no value, but a very limited value. And the Government in 1872--the Government today should not use the value of the land as a barrier to gain access to the resource below it, the mineral estate for that mineral being used in the economy of our country to employ people, to serve our industrial base, and to do all that we have always expected our minerals and our natural resources to do for us. So, in S. 506, what I say in proposing that legislation that is before the committee is that we do fair market value. Let us take that issue away. Let us do not offer that argument anymore of $2.50 an acre. Let us deal with fair market value. Well, how do we arrive at it? There is really no magical process at all. It is simply the standard appraisal process that the BLM would use in this instance of equivalent values of acreage during the patenting process to allow that title to pass for value, in this case, fair market value. Now, in some Western States that might be as low as $100 an acre because that is what the surface value would go for of like lands in the immediate area. And most of these lands we recognize oftentimes are a long ways away from any private property of value to use as a comparative in the appraisal process. So I think that is not a difficult thing to arrive at. That is exactly what we have been trying to arrive at. We have offered legislation in good faith. We have held a hearing. We have been in negotiations. And yet this administration wants something substantially different. In most instances, they have already argued they would like to prohibit mining on public lands. They no longer view it as a compatible use of our natural resources and, in many instances, they have proposed ideas that would be so restrictive that the mining industry that operates in our country today would choose not to mine anymore, and they would go as they are now going: Offshore to foreign countries to invest their money where they can receive a much higher rate of return with much fewer Federal regulations with which to comply. I believe, and I think many Senators do believe, that public policy says that mining of public resources for the value of our country, our mineral estate, our industrial base and for employment is a good public policy. So then let us be allowed in a reasonable fashion to move through authorizing legislation to assure that that public policy exists. We have tried to now for 4 years, and the Senator from Louisiana, when he chaired that committee last year, in good faith tried. But you cannot please everyone and, in many instances, those accommodations were tried and simply failed, and today we believe we have a good bill. [[Page S 11872]] We have sat down in good faith with the Senator from Louisiana to negotiate, and I believe he has attempted to negotiate in good faith. Yet, we have not arrived at anything, largely. Yes, the offer is still on the table, but I can tell you in all fairness, I am tremendously disappointed that the kind of offer back that we get is so penalizing and so restrictive to the ability to produce a viable industry on the public land resource that we are trying to, in a responsible way, offer out to the public simply disallows us from moving forward. As a result of that deleterious kind of amendment, as that offered by the Senator from Arkansas, that says no more patenting, a patent moratorium--in other words, shut the industry down until the Congress can function, but the Congress cannot function because the Congress cannot agree. So when you put a moratorium on patenting, you have really put a moratorium on future mining, and if there is no future in future mining in this country, then the industrial base, the mining base of that base begins to move offshore, because the resources that are being mined today in the mines that are operating today, like all mines, some day will wither away, the resource is used, it is completely depleted, and that mine has to close. To maintain a successful industrial base and viable mining industry, there always has to be a future, there has to be the ability to explore, the ability to discover, the ability to claim, and the ability to patent, to gain the fee title to that property so that the mining operation can continue. It is with those concerns this evening that I approach this amendment, as we have in the past, from the Senator from Arkansas. And I must say in all fairness, the arguments we have heard tonight are not new arguments. The arguments the Senator from Arkansas has used have been used year after year. If you cannot find new arguments, where is the problem? Most of us recognize that the problem did exist, the problem was there, but the problem no longer exists today, largely because of this Senate's responsibility and concern about the environment and the putting of the environmental laws in place that has made the modern mining industry of today substantially different than it was 30 years ago. But the 30-year-old arguments still get drawn to the public eye. The straw person, if you will, of this is the past and not the present. So not only do we have to argue about the future, we have to convince many of us that the current situation is OK. I believe it is, and I believe the mining industry of this country is a responsible industry that performs in an environmentally sound way, complying with the Clean Water Act and complying with the Clean Air Act and doing what they must do inside the regulatory structure that our Government, through public policy formulated by this Senate, has provided. That is not at issue. Then what is the problem? Why is this amendment deleterious? Why would it shut down the industry? For the simple reason that it forecloses the opportunity of a future; it forecloses the ability of the industry to go out and explore and gain patent and be able to have the assurance of future resource for future development as the current resource grows progressively depleted. It is with those concerns that tonight I offer a second-degree amendment, and I send that to the desk.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have sat through 2 days of probably some of the most substantive debate on a key issue in this country that I have heard in years, listening to the debate of our colleague from Oregon, who has led the Republican side of welfare reform, and certainly the senior Senator from New York on the other side, both men of tremendous substance attempting to deal with a very important issue for our country. I have just listened to the Senator from West Virginia in a most sincere appeal for resolution of an issue that has gone beyond what I think most Americans ever intended it to be. In some way my comments this morning are a part of that because I am talking about a very real people issue in the West that has caused, by its presence and by our inability to act, people to go on welfare, to be subject to at least or to ask for assistance from their State to provide for food on their children's table. And so, if I could for just a few moments, I wish to reflect on an issue which is really very perplexing that I and others in this Chamber have attempted to deal with over the years that is now front and center again, at least in the timber-producing States of our Nation. Every week, I receive tragic appeals from unemployed forest workers struggling to feed and care for their children, many of them, as I have just mentioned, on the edge of welfare at this moment. A major reason for their struggle is that a rising flood of subsidized Canadian timber has captured nearly 39 percent of our domestic softwood lumber market in May of this year. This May figure is already an all-time record for foreign market's share of lumber in our country, and the industry anticipates that the figure in June will be equal to or will exceed that level. This flood of imports also has contributed to a 34-percent reduction in U.S. softwood prices since 1994. Last year alone, Canada sent to the United States nearly 16 billion board feet of lumber worth $5.8 billion. Tens of thousands of jobs and the economic livelihood of hundreds of communities throughout the public forested States of our Nation, primarily in the West, depend on a prompt and fair solution to this problem of Canadian subsidized timber. What is the cause of the problem? In Canada, where 92 percent of all timber is Government owned, Provincial programs allocate trees to producers under long-term agreements at a fraction of their fair market value. Producers in British Columbia, for example, paid on the average of $100 per thousand board feet of timber in 1994. That is in stark contrast to United States producers immediately across the border in the States of Washington and Idaho and down into Oregon paying $365 per thousand board feet of timber of the same type and the same quality--nearly 300 percent more than what was being paid in Canada. United States prices are substantially higher because in the United States, unlike Canada, trees from virtually all public and private forests are sold at fair market value through the competitive bid process. Coupled with that, there has also been--by Government edict, environmental laws, Endangered Species Act--a tremendous reduction in the allowable timber cut or the allowable sales quantity on our public forests. The result of this and the subsidies have resulted in mills shutting down and, of course, the competitive advantage that should be ours in our own market being dramatically lost to this flood of subsidized timber. All regions of the country have announced production curtailments, temporary shutdowns, and permanent closures of mills and related businesses. Small family-owned businesses have been devastated. If prompt action is not taken, the inequity will only get worse. The United States lumber industry is competitive but for Government curtailment of supply and Canadian subsidies. United States lumber production costs, excluding timber, are the same and in most instances lower than Canadian production costs. The United States output per employee is about the same as the Canadian industry. Canadian labor costs are higher and rising faster than labor costs in the United States. Canadians must adopt a fair market-based approach to timber pricing to begin to level the playing field that we are talking about. These pricing policies also have been criticized by Canadian groups, including Canada's maritime and small lumber producers. Criticism also comes from a previous British Columbia Forest Minister who said that Canadian timber pricing practices harm the Canadian economy and do not provide a good return from the industry. Over the past 10 years, United States lumber industries have repeatedly won duty determinations against Canadian subsidies before the United States Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission. Why? Because it is obvious and well-known that Canada subsidizes its industry. In 1993, however, three Canadian members of the binational panel operating under chapter 19 of the United States-Canadian Free-Trade Agreement ruled that Canadian timber pricing practices are not subsidies under United States law. In response, the U.S. lumber industry filed a constitutional challenge to the panel's authority to arbitrate such disputes. This challenge was withdrawn when the industry was assured by United States Trade Representative Kantor that Canada would agree to consultations to address the timber pricing issue. There was also another reason why our trade ambassador entered in; he did not want the Canadian Free Trade Agreement and its problems and its loopholes exposed. When that agreement was passed in the mid-1980's, I voted against it, and in the Chamber of the House--I was then a Congressman--I argued that these loopholes did exist and that we had set ourselves up for the very scenario being played out today. If our Trade Ambassador wants to solve this problem and keep the free-trade agreement intact, then he ought to move on this issue. In spite of these consultations, I think legislation may be needed to resolve the problem that has surfaced with this binational panel or panels as a result of the free-trade agreement. Past panels have ignored the standard of review mandated by the agreement and United States law, and two Canadian members of one lumber panel failed to disclose serious conflicts of interest. Because these rulings by nonelected, non-United States panelists are binding under the United States-Canadian Free-Trade Agreement, and now under the North American Free-Trade Agreement, serious constitutional and procedural issues arise. Reform is needed to assure that future panels do not and cannot ignore U.S. law in order to protect unfair trade practices. So where are we today, Mr. President? The U.S. softwood lumber industry is in no condition to endure unrestrained, subsidized imports during an extended period of negotiations. Nonetheless, the first meeting of the United States- Canadian lumber consultations that [[Page S 11811]] occurred on May 24 and 25 was inconclusive. The second meeting on July 11 and 12 produced an acknowledgement, finally, of a glimmer that says, yes, there is a problem, and suggested there were prospects for eventual solutions, but without sufficient urgency, in my opinion, to curtail the massive loss of U.S. industry and jobs that is now going on in this country. More than 10 years ago I organized congressional opposition to this persistent, recurring problem. And I say this morning to the Canadians, down the road from this Capitol, turn up the volume on your television set if you are watching C-SPAN2 at this moment, because in the Canadian Embassy you are about to begin to work once again, because we are going to put you to work, as this country speaks out for its forest products industry and the men and women who work for it. We will no longer allow this loophole to exist in the United States-Canadian Free-Trade Agreement. I have sent letters to the administration urging a quick and permanent solution to this problem. And I must say at this moment, Ambassador Kantor, your lip service does not answer very well the concerns of the men and women in Idaho and across the Pacific Northwest that are losing their jobs. A third United States-Canadian lumber consultation panel is to meet in September. This meeting must accelerate and complete efforts to produce a concrete framework for permanently reforming Canadian pricing schemes in order to eliminate the subsidies provided to the Canadian producers. So in conclusion, Mr. President, I hope this problem will be resolved quickly, jointly between the United States and Canada in their negotiations. Frankly, I would prefer if that were to happen. But if it does not happen, this is one Senator who will rally other Senators and Members of the other body to resolve this problem legislatively like we had to do in the late 1970's. And to our Trade Ambassador, Ambassador Kantor, go to Canada in September and work to resolve the issue. Lip service no longer serves well the unemployed men and women of the forest products industry. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I yield whatever time there may be to the organizer of the special order.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me thank my colleague for yielding, but also let me thank him for taking out this special order to discuss with the Senate and those who might be watching this morning the tremendously important issue of Medicare. I think I, along with him and many others, are dismayed and amazed at the recent attempts to attack the integrity of the Medicare trustees' report on the status of the Medicare trust fund. There has been a great deal of partisan rhetoric on the validity of the report, as well as criticism of the budget resolution the Congress has adopted this year in reflection of that report in an attempt to handle it in an up-front way. When you look at those who are members of the board of trustees, it becomes clear that the report is certainly not a partisan effort to spin one idea or another about Medicare. The Medicare trustees are Robert Rubin, the Secretary of the Treasury; Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor; Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services; Shirley Chater, Commissioner for Social Security; Stanford Ross; and David Walker. These six people serve on the Social Security and the Medicare boards of trustees. The last two members, Stanford Ross and David Walker, were appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to represent the public. The boards are requested by law to report to the Congress each year on the operation of the trust funds and to project the financial status of those funds. The Medicare trustees, in their annual report on the Medicare trust fund released in April of this year, concluded that action is needed to be taken if Medicare is going to operate after the year 2002. The following is an excerpt that other Senators this morning may have mentioned, but I think it is clearly noteworthy and ought to be a part of the Record. Let me read from that trust fund report: The Federal hospital insurance-- HI as it is known. trust fund which pays inpatient hospital expenses will be able to pay benefits for only about 7 years and is severely out of financial balance in the long range. The trustees urge the Congress to take action. Let me repeat that: The trustees urge the Congress to take action. That is their job, Mr. President, to tell us what is wrong and to suggest to us what we ought to do, and they urge us to take action designed to control the Federal hospital insurance trust fund to address the projected financial imbalance in both the short range and the long range through specific program legislation as part of a broad- based health care reform. The trustees believe that prompt, effective and decisive action is just critically necessary. So some people will say this is not an urgent issue because the trustees have reported these concerns of solvency, or lack thereof, over the past and it still continues to exist today. We hear Members of the other body shrugging their shoulders and saying, ``This isn't big news. This isn't important news. We've heard these reports before.'' It is because the Congress in the past has heard those reports, Mr. President, and has micromanaged making the minor adjustments over the years to control the costs that have allowed us to maintain the trust funds. However, those artificial cost controls, lower reimbursement rates, the growing paperwork that has been a result of these reactions to reports and the solutions now no longer work, or at least that is what the trust funds are saying, that we have to make the adjustments and we have to do it now or the Medicare beneficiaries in rural States like mine are simply not going to be served as they have been served in the past. At or below-cost reimbursement rates have made it difficult to recruit new physicians in my State of Idaho and have forced many doctors to limit the number of Medicare patients they will treat. In other words, our actions of the past, while trying to save the system, have now squeezed it into a situation where doctors are dividing and sorting out and saying, ``We will, but we won't, and we'll limit our practices and we'll limit our ability to receive and care for Medicare patients.'' As I said many times both on the floor of the House of Representatives when I served there and now in the Senate, rural Idaho is not just 20 miles down the interstate. It is something that sometimes requires hundreds of miles of distance and time. Of course, if it is the middle of the winter, it may be that very difficult passage over a snowbound pass that results in the care or lack of care delivered, and that is all a part of this Medicare equation that we have to talk about. I will say that even the President realizes this is a problem now that he cannot walk away from and it is why he dealt with it in his own budget. Although his rhetoric does not match up with the figures of his own budget, he, too, unlike a lot of other Members of his party, recognizes the critical nature Medicare is in and has to be addressed. President Clinton has launched a number of attacks on the Congress for spending too little on Medicare. However, when you start comparing numbers, there is little difference between the President's plan for Medicare over the next 7 years and the budget targets set in the congressional budget resolution. They are just a little ways apart. According to the Office of Management and Budget, President Clinton proposes to spend $1.697 trillion on Medicare over the next 7 years. That figure is very close to the $1.62 trillion--and I said ``trillion''--that was targeted for Medicare spending under the congressional budget resolution. In real money terms, Mr. President, the difference is less than a nickel on the dollar between the President and the Congress. On some of the graphs I have seen, it is almost nondiscernible. In addition, the spending targets in both the Congress' and President's budgets are not cuts in spending, as others would like to have us believe. Rather, they are lower rates of growth. Under the Republican plan, Medicare's annual spending will increase by $178 billion this year to $274 billion in the year 2002. That is an annual growth rate of 6.4 percent, and yet, there is this wringing of hands to suggest that we are severely slashing Medicare to its recipients. Let me suggest that it is a 6.4-percent growth, and that is substantially larger than current rates of health care increases on a cost annualized per patient. Right now we are spending over $4,816 a year per Medicare recipient and, by 2002, under the Republican plan to strengthen and maintain Medicare, we would be spending $6,732. Regardless of which figure you use, both represent increases in spending about one and a half times higher than the rate of growth in private sector health care spending. That level of growth can be achieved without breaking the trust. However, the trust cannot continue to grow more than twice as fast, because that path leads us to bankruptcy. Mr. President, just 19 months ago, the President proposed major reductions in Medicare in order to pay for his Government-run health care proposal. He said at that time that those reductions were not cuts: Today, Medicaid and Medicare are going up at three times the rate of inflation. We propose to let it go up at two times the rate of [[Page S 11722]] inflation. That is not a Medicare or a Medicaid cut. So when you hear all this business about cuts, let me caution you that is not what is going on.--President Bill Clinton, speech to the

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I wanted to share with my colleagues a fine book authored by Dr. Fredrick Chien, Foreign Minister of the Republic of China. ``Opportunity and Challenge,'' published by the Arizona Historical Foundation, is a collection of Minister Fredrick Chien's speeches and writings, given between 1990 and 1994. These writings fully explain Taiwan's foreign policy; students of politics or anyone interested in the study of Taiwan will find them extremely helpful. Of particular note is Taiwan's advocacy of ``pragmatic diplomacy.'' Even though the Republic of China does not have formal relations with many countries, its ``pragmatic diplomacy'' has enabled Taiwan to have substantive relations with nearly all the countries in the world. Taiwan's relationship with the United States is a classic example of ``pragmatic diplomacy'' at work. Despite the lack of formal ties, Taiwan and the United States enjoy an informal working relationship which continually grows stronger. After a careful study of Chien's writings, I conclude that the Republic of China is on the right track in terms of expanding its international presence. One of the challenges facing Minister Fredrick Chien and his government is Taiwan's bid to rejoin the United Nations. Clearly, Taiwan is qualified to be a member of the U.N. It is to be hoped that the world will soon see the injustice of keeping Taiwan out of the U.N. and will invite Taiwan to rejoin the world body. The U.N. issue has been mentioned prominently in ``Opportunity and Challenge,'' and so have a number of other interesting issues such as Taiwan's relationship with the Chinese Communists, the independence movement in Taiwan and the role of Taiwan in the 21st century. ``Opportunity and Challenge'' is a collection of well thought-out statements on Taiwan's foreign relations by one of Taiwan's most eminent leaders: Fredrick Chien. I highly recommend this book.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management to review the implementation of Section 2001 of the fiscal year 1995 Emergency Appropriations and Funding Rescissions bill. This is the section that deals with emergency salvage of diseased dead timber on Federal forest lands. The hearing will take place on Thursday, August 10, at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Those who wish to submit written statements for the record should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For further information, please call Mark Rey at (202) 224-2878.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to express some concerns I have about sections 631 and 632 of the Department of Defense authorization bill for fiscal year 1996, S.1026. These two sections Nos. 631 and 632, will grant unlimited commissary shopping privileges to ready reservists, certain retired reservists and to all their dependents. Mr. President, I am a strong supporter of the men and women who serve this Nation, including those who serve in the Ready Reserve. Their commitment to this Nation's security is strong, and they deserve our support. My concerns about sections 631 and 632 are not about the Ready Reserve, but rather about the budgetary impact of these proposed changes. In total, Mr. President, these sections give an estimated 2 million people unlimited access to military grocery stores here in the United States and overseas. This is quite a dramatic expansion over current law, which limits reservists to shop at commissaries while on active duty plus an additional 12 shopping trips during the course of a year. Up until now, only active duty, career military men and women enjoyed unlimited commissary shopping privileges. However, under section 631 and 632 the Congress will be bestowing this special benefit to 2 million civilians. Stated differently, if we adopt this language, civilian reservists will have the same compensation benefit as career active duty military personnel. Mr. President, I have been advised that according to the Department of Defense, there will be no budgetary implications associated with granting unlimited shopping privileges to the ready reservists, retired reservists, and their families. I hope this is in fact true, because this is not the same message that we heard when such an expansion was contemplated in the fiscal year 1994 defense authorization bill. According to Pentagon testimony just 3 years ago in 1992, every dollar of sales in a commissary store requires about 16 cents in appropriated funding. In other words, it takes roughly 16 cents of taxpayer money to subsidize a dollar sale in a commissary store. Back in 1992, the Defense Department also told Congress that $24 million in tax dollars is needed for every additional 100,000 commissary patrons. Now, here we are in 1995, and all of a sudden, everything has changed. Now, according to the Pentagon, it won't cost the American taxpayer a single dime to grant 2 million civilians unlimited access to commissary stores. If this is true, and commissary stores have become efficient, streamline operators, this has to be one of the most astounding success stories in recent memory for the Pentagon. Mr. President, let me conclude by saying that many of us in this Chamber have been working very hard to reduce the Federal deficit and to achieve a balanced budget by the year 2002. Therefore, it is my concern that section 631 and section 632 may be taking us in the wrong direction if this expansion results in the need for greater appropriations and taxpayer subsidies next year. This is especially true in light of the multitude of needs we are trying to fulfill for both active personnel and reservists, within growing budget constraints.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. All right. Mr. President, I, like all of my colleagues, come to the floor today gravely concerned about the ability of the Ethics Committee of the U.S. Senate to function in an appropriate manner and to render its decisions and to bring those decisions to the floor of the U.S. Senate to be considered by our colleagues. At the outset of my comments, let me recognize the chairman from Kentucky, who has, in my opinion, served in an honest and forthright way to cause this procedure to go forward in a timely fashion, but in a thorough and responsible fashion, so that the accused and the victims of this issue could be considered appropriately. I think he has done an excellent job. And I must also say that, in my over 1\1/2\ years of service in this body, I also served under the Democrat chairman. He, too, functioned in the same manner. As has been mentioned by my two colleagues, the staff of that committee is, by every respect and every test, bipartisan. They have worked in that fashion untold hours to bring about a body of knowledge and information from which we should make decisions that is probably, in total, unprecedented in number of pages and hours of work effort involved. For the next few moments, then, let me read something into the Record that I think is extremely valuable for the Senate to focus on, because somehow in this proceeding, there is an attempted air of suggesting that things are being done behind closed doors, and that that somehow is unfair to the process and unprecedented in the openness of the U.S. Senate, and, therefore, judgments and decisions rendered inside that environment could somehow be distorted on behalf of a colleague under consideration and against those who might be victims. Let me read: May 17, 1995. The attached resolution of investigation was unanimously voted by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics on May 16, 1995.

Mr. CRAIG. The reason I do that is to show you and the rest of the Senators who I hope are listening this afternoon that there has been a concerted effort on the part of the Ethics Committee, not only to thoroughly investigate but to, in a responsible and timely fashion, spread before the Senate and the public the process and the procedure by which the Senate Ethics Committee was conducting its charge and its responsibility in the investigation of Senator Bob Packwood. Mr. President, I have had the unique experience of serving on this Ethics Committee and the Ethics Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. I have also had the unique experience of serving on both of those bodies during times of extremely high profile cases. During the time that I served in the House it was the time that the House Ethics Committee was investigating the Speaker of the House, Jim Wright. All during that investigation there was never a question that there should be public hearings. But there was always a tacit understanding that all of the findings and all of the information collected would become a part of the public record, and that it would become a part of the public record simultaneous to the decisions, the findings and the recommendations of that Ethics Committee to the whole of the U.S. House as to the penalties that might be brought down on then the Speaker, Jim Wright. I must tell you, Mr. President, that is exactly how the Ethics Committee of the U.S. Senate plans to operate. That there will be full public disclosure. Less than a few days ago we voted unanimously to cause that to happen. That, upon our findings and upon our recommendations to the U.S. Senate we would spread, for the public's review and for the Senators' review, all of our thousands and thousands of pages of findings and all 264 witness depositions, the vast body of information that you have already heard about today that have been talked about by my colleagues. Never once in my experience on any Ethics Committee in either of these two bodies have I ever voted against public disclosure. I believe it is our responsibility. I think it is, more importantly, the right of the public to know. But I also recognize it is the responsibility of the Ethics Committee of the U.S. Senate so charged by the U.S. Senate to operate in a bipartisan--or as my colleague from New Hampshire said, a nonpartisan-- environment, in which to render its decisions. I was, frankly, very amazed to see our committee for the first time split apart on this issue. I do believe that this, in itself, could be one of the most precedent setting involvements that we have ever seen, precedent setting in the fact that after 32 years of nonpartisan or bipartisan relationships we now find ourselves causing that aisle to divide us on how this committee should operate before it has rendered its decision to the Senate as a whole. Last week that professional nonpartisan staff looked at us, after having provided us with all of this information, and said: It is our recommendation that public hearings are not necessary. There is nothing to be gained. It appears that, after the exhaustive effort at full discovery that was a unanimous vote of the committee, that there is little or no information that can be gained. It is now time to make a decision. It is now time to review and to render to the Senate our findings for the purpose of the Senate agreeing or disagreeing on those findings and those recommendations. I am therefore tremendously bothered and frustrated that we risk making partisan what some 31 years ago we took off from the partisan table. I understand the pressures. I understand the nature of the arguments being placed. I also understand the uniqueness of these particular allegations. But in all fairness I find them no different, as it relates to the conduct of a Senator in this body charged with the responsibility of being a U.S. Senator, whether he or she acted in a proper and responsible fashion, or whether he or she did not. And that is exactly what the Ethics Committee of the Senate is charged with finding out. I am also amazed that we have members of the committee who would suggest they ought to have the right to question witnesses. It is important for the U.S. Senate to know that, by a unanimous vote of the committee, we charged the professional staff with the responsibility of going forward to take depositions and at no time was any member of that committee barred from the right to attend those depositions and to question any and all witnesses. So I am a bit surprised today that any member of the Ethics Committee would come to the floor using the argument that they did not have the opportunity to question all of the witnesses of whom questions were asked and depositions were taken. That is not true. What is true was that they had that right but, because of the vastness of the investigation, we spread the bulk of that responsibility to the professional staff of the Senate Ethics Committee. I also remember arguing and agreeing and voting unanimously to not leave one stone unturned, to examine all allegations, to ask all parties under which allegations had been launched as to any kind of relationship or involvement Senator Packwood had with any individual. And I must say, in all fairness, in a wholly bipartisan voice, that the committee responded in an exhaustive bipartisan, nonpartisan fashion. So there is a precedent here, and it is a precedent of risk. It is a precedent of politicizing. It is a precedent of making partisan this very nonpartisan approach to dealing with the discipline of U.S. Senators. Discipline is the responsibility of the Senate and of its calling, and all of us understand that. And all of us for 32 years in this body have taken it most seriously. Every Senator has one absolute uncontested right--that when the Ethics Committee renders its finding and its decision, and it brings it to the floor of the U.S. Senate for a full public debate, that any Senator can investigate and review those findings, make a determination, argue for or against, offer amendments to change judgments and decisionmaking, and proceed in that fashion. That is the way we have always functioned. As the chairman of the committee said, never before in the middle of a proceeding has it ever occurred to the U.S. Senate to abruptly attempt to cause the rules of the Senate to be changed because a Senator comes to the floor arguing that something in an alternative fashion ought to be done. The Senate has the rule. The Ethics Committee has made a decision, and the decision was not to hold public hearings. The fundamental reason has already been stated, time and time again-- upon advice of the professional staff. All of the information was available. So if hearings are for the purpose of allowing the public to know and to collect additional information and the second criteria had been met, then what about the first criteria? That criteria has also been met, and that is to provide full public disclosure of all relevant information, which is nearly 100 percent of all of the documentation that has been put before the committee for its process. So I have one simple closing plea that I offer to my colleagues, my fellow Senators. I hope they are listening this afternoon in their offices, and I hope that they will come to the floor to vote with this in mind. I ask my colleagues to allow us to finish our decisionmaking process, to allow us to bring to the floor in a responsible fashion our findings and our conclusions and our recommendation, and then for the Senate to do as they have done historically, and I believe responsibly: Judge us, judge our findings, and vote accordingly. I hope that is the case. I hope you will allow us to finish our work in a responsible fashion in defense of the victims, and in respect for the process, recognizing that in the end Senator Packwood, too, has rights, and that we respect all parties as we work this issue to bring about that conclusion that I hope this Senate will honor and recognize in its vote on this issue this afternoon. To fulfill that request, your vote would be to oppose the Boxer amendment, which I believe is the appropriate vote in allowing this committee to continue to function with its responsibility at the request of the U.S. Senate.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Ethics Committee. Let me inquire of the Chair, are we to move to recess at 4 o'clock for the purpose of the conference, or is there any standing UC on that?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that two field hearings have been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The purpose of the hearings will be to receive testimony on the proposed acreage limitation and water conservation rules and regulations issued by the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of the Interior on April 3, 1995. The first hearing will take place on Monday, August 21, 1995, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in the cafeteria of the College of Southern Idaho, 315 Falls Avenue, Twin Falls, ID. The second hearing will be held on Monday, August 21, 1995, beginning at 4 p.m. at the City Council Chamber, City of Riverton, 816 N. Federal Blvd., Riverton, WY. Because of the limited time available for the hearings, witnesses may testify by invitation only. It will be necessary to place witnesses in panels and place time limits on the oral testimony. Witnesses testifying at the hearings are requested to bring 10 copies of their testimony with them on the day of the hearing. Please submit one copy of testimony in advance to the attention of James Beirne, Senior Counsel, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. Written statements may be submitted for the hearing record. It is necessary only to provide one copy of any material to be submitted for the record. If you would like to submit a statement for the record, please send one copy of the statement to the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For further information regarding the hearings, please contact James Beirne, Senior Counsel, at (202) 224-2564 or Betty Nevitt, Staff Assistant, of the Committee staff at (202) 224-0765. committee on indian affairs

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I want to thank the bill managers for agreeing to my and Senator Kempthorne's amendment that provides $4.9 million for safety upgrades to the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant. I strongly support this proposal, the electrical and utility systems upgrade [EUSU] project, that will upgrade the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant utility systems. This project will correct high risk environmental, health and life safety deficiencies at the plant. As the Department of Energy has stated in their field budget request, ``Correction of these deficiencies will reduce health and safety risks and provide safe and reliable utilities to support the ICPP mission.'' These facilities are outdated, overloaded and not in compliance with State regulations, DOE orders or national codes and standards. This project includes upgrades to normal and standby power electrical systems, sanitary sewer systems and water systems. Madam President, there are spent nuclear fuels stored at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant and it is essential they be stored safely. Madam President, this amendment will assure that goal is met. I thank the managers.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I yield to my colleague from Wyoming such time as he may consume, to discuss the action that the Senate and the appropriate committees have decided to take.