Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I have very limited time. I apologize. I am not in any way--how do I say this--taking offense at what the Senator from Louisiana has said. We have worked very closely on this issue. She and I held fundamental disagreement on one portion of the bill. I made an effort to change that. I made an effort to have no net gain of Federal lands in the States. Willing seller, willing buyer--all of those kinds of things we worked to get. We couldn't get them. So I have fought, as other colleagues have fought, not to allow CARA to come to the floor this year for a vote. Let me talk more about something else before my time is up. I mentioned that nearly 1.2 million acres of Federal land burned in my State this year, beautiful forested land that was in trouble environmentally, and when Mother Nature came along and struck with her violence, it all went up in smoke. There is a lot of money in this bill to begin to deal with those problems, a great deal of money in this bill to pay off the fire expenditures that are natural to do so. A lot of this money is to pay back the expenses that were incurred this year, the millions and millions of dollars spent each day for nearly 60 days across this country during the peak of the fire season when the skies of Idaho were gray to black, as it was true in other States across this Nation. There is a lot of money in this bill for that purpose. There is also additional money in this bill, new language, and new policy, on which Senator Domenici of New Mexico and I worked with a lot of others, to try to create an active management scheme that will allow in areas where there are now urban dwellers--we call it the urban wildland interface--which I will come back to. I thank my colleague from Illinois for yielding. This is an important bill. We have addressed a lot of the problems. I hope my colleagues will join in supporting the passage of the Interior appropriations conference report. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

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

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I came to the floor to speak on this important issue before the Senate and to talk once again to my colleagues about what I believe to be the dark cloud of a national emergency. The American consumer has begun to detect a problem because the price of gasoline at the pump has gone up 25 or 30 percent in the last year. When they begin to pay their home heating bills this winter, I think they will recognize where the problem lies. We have had the President and the Vice President trying to position themselves politically over the last month and a half on energy because of the spike in prices, but frankly they have articulated little. Now just in the last week we have had the Vice President present an energy policy for the country, and we have had Governor George Bush talking about an energy policy that he would propose. Here is why these things are happening. Finally, I hope, the American people are beginning to focus on the very critical state of the availability of energy in this country, to run the economy, to make the country work, turn the lights on, move our cars, and do all that it takes to run an economy based on a heavy use of energy. We are now importing between 56 to 58 percent of our crude oil needs. Some will remember that during the era of the oil embargo of the mid- 1970s we were only importing 35 percent of our needs. Even at that time there were gas lines and fighting at the gas pumps because American consumers were frustrated over the cost of gas. What I am saying, America, is we no longer control our energy availability, our energy supplies, our energy needs. Is it any wonder why prices have more than tripled in the last 2 years from a low of about $11 per barrel of crude oil to a high late last month of $38? The reason is somebody else is setting the price by creating either a scarcity of supply or by the appearance that there would be a scarcity of supply. It is not American producers controlling prices and supply, it is foreign producer countries. The items we do control in the marketplace are demand and supplies we might be able to produce from our own resources. Natural was selling for $2 per 1,000 cubic feet last year, just a year ago, and on Friday of last week natural gas was selling for $5.20 for every 1,000 cubic feet. That is better than a doubling of that price. As winter approaches, Americans likely will face the highest energy prices ever. Let me say that again. As the winter approaches, Americans are going to awaken to the highest energy prices they have ever paid. If the winter is colder than usual, energy prices will be even higher. Electricity prices will move right along with gas and oil because many of the electrical-generating facilities of our country are fueled by natural gas. While petroleum and natural gas supplies appear to be adequate, no one can doubt that the supply and demand for crude oil, natural gas, and other energy sources is very tight, resulting in increased prices for these commodities. While many observers believe supplies of oil and natural gas will be sufficient to meet our needs in the coming months, I am concerned these important resources will likely remain in very short supply and, therefore, will be very costly to the American consumer. I believe, and I mean this most sincerely, as a member of the Senate Energy Committee who for the last 10 years has tried to move policy and has seen this administration either say ``no'' by the veto or ``no'' by the budget, I sincerely believe the Clinton-Gore administration, by its failure to produce a national energy policy, is risking a slowdown, perhaps even a downturn, in this economy. Some expect energy prices to remain high throughout the first quarter of 2001, above $30 a barrel for oil and as high as $4 per thousand cubic feet for natural gas. If this is true and that cost ripples through the economy, then they--and by ``they'' I mean the Clinton administration--are truly risking a slowdown in the economy. This means Americans will be paying more than $1.50 per gallon of gas and perhaps twice as much as they paid for residential natural gas use last year. Driving, heating homes, providing services and manufacturing goods will be much, much more expensive under this new high-cost energy economy. It is not only the price at the pump you worry about anymore; it is the plastics; it is the supply of goods; it is everything within our economy that is made of the hydrocarbons that will go up in price. Since energy costs are factored into the cost of all goods and services, we can expect food, appliances, clothing--essentially everything--to become more expensive. As these costs rise, the amount of capital available for investment automatically begins to decline, pulling the economy down along with it. As we devote more of our money to the daily need for energy, we have less to spend on the goods and services that we need, the goods and services that have fired our economy. As budgets shrink, consumers will be forced to make hard choices. If we have to spend 10 or 15 percent more of our income to fill up the tank or to buy the services and goods that are energy intensive, then, of course, we will have less money to spend elsewhere. We are in this undesirable position not because we are short on energy resources such as oil, natural gas, or coal; we are here because this administration, in my opinion, has deliberately tried to drive us away from these energy sources. Look at their budgets and look at their policy over the last 8 years. Al Gore himself has spoken openly about how much he hates fossil fuels, how he wants to force the U.S. off fossil fuels no matter the cost. He has proposed many times to do so. Twice in the last 8 years the Clinton-Gore administration has tried to drive up the cost of conventional fuels. Isn't that interesting? Just in the last few weeks they have been trying to drive down the costs by releasing crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve into our market, but for the last 8 years it has been quite the opposite. America, are you listening? Are you observing? Why this change of heart? Why this change of personality? First, Clinton and Gore proposed a Btu tax, which the Republican Congress defeated. They had to settle for a 4.3-cent gas tax. The Republicans in every way tried to resolve that and to eliminate it, but that was how they spread it into the market. They took that and said: We are not going to use it for highway transportation as we have historically done. We want it for deficit reduction. During debate on the Btu tax, the administration admitted that its intent was to encourage conservation, or discourage use, and therefore cause us to move more toward renewable energy sources by dramatically increasing the cost of conventional fuels. In other words, tax America away from gasoline and oil. Next, the Clinton-Gore administration designed the Kyoto Protocol. We all know about that. That is the great international agreement that will cool the country, cool the world down because the Administration asserts that the world is warming due to the use of fossil fuels. They said it is necessary that we do it, critically important that we do it. But if implemented, it would substantially penalize the nations that use fossil fuels by forcing reductions in fossil fuel usage. The Vice President has publicly taken credit for negotiating this document. I don't think you hear him talking much about it today. He is a bit of a born-again gas and oil user of in last couple of weeks. But clearly for the last 8 years that is all he has talked about, his Kyoto Protocol, penalizing the user nations to try to get them to use less energy, all in the name of the environment. The protocol could result in a cost of nearly $240 per ton of carbon emissions reduction. What does that mean to the average consumer out there who might be listening? This results in a higher cost of oil and gas and coal. What would it mean? About a 4-percent reduction in the gross domestic product of this country. If we raise the cost of those three items-- oil, gas, and coal then we will drive down the economy 4-percent. Simply translated, that means thousands and thousands of U.S. jobs would be lost and our strong economy weakened. Yet the Vice President takes credit for flying to Tokyo and getting directly involved in the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol. This is Al Gore's document. Yet he talks very little bit about it today. Why is this administration so wholeheartedly committed to forcing us to stop using fossil fuels at almost any cost? Because they buy into the notion that our economic success has been at the expense of the world's environment. I do not buy into that argument. I think quite the opposite is true. I believe our success has benefited the world. Our technology is the technology that the rest of the world wants today to clean up their environment, to make their air cleaner, to make their water more pure. It is not in spite of us; it is because of us that the world has an opportunity today, through the use of our technology, to make the world a cleaner place to live. The challenge now is to ensure we go on in the production of these technologies through the growth and the strength of our economy so we can pass these technologies through to developing nations so they can use them, whether it be for their energy resources or whether it is simply to create greater levels of efficiency, and a cleaner economy for their people. The message to Vice President Gore is don't shut us down. Let us work. Let us develop. Let us use the technologies we have and expand upon them. You don't do that through the absence of energy. You don't do that with 2,300 windmills spread across the Rocky Mountain front. You do that by the use of what you have, to be used wisely and hopefully efficiently at the least cost to provide the greatest amount of energy that you can to the economy. To ensure that we all succeed, we must pay attention to our strengths. The United States has an abundant supply of oil, natural gas, and coal, and we must, if we wish to have an influence on the price of these commodities, develop our own resources in an intelligent, responsible, and environmentally sound way. Were we to produce oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, we could produce up to 1.5 million barrels of oil a day. Some say that will destroy the refuge. Envision the refuge in your mind as a spot on a map, and compare it to putting a pencil point down on the map of the United States. The impact of that pencil point on the map of the United States is the same impact as drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Shame on you, Mr. President, for vetoing that legislation a few years ago. If you had not, we might have 1.5 million barrels of additional crude oil a day flowing into our markets for 30-some years. We would not have to beg at the throne of OPEC. We would not have to go to them with our tin cup, saying: Would you please give us a little more oil? Your high prices are hurting our economy. The President was not listening in 1995 when he vetoed that legislation. Other oil and gas resources can come from production from the Federal Outer Continental Shelf and from onshore Federal lands in the Rocky Mountain front. The abundance of our crude oil and the abundance of our gas is phenomenal. Yet, a year ago, in the northeastern part of the United States in New Hampshire, Al Gore, now a candidate for President of the United States, said he would stop all drilling. He does not want us to drill anywhere, and he would do it in the name of the environment. These resources can be obtained today, under the new technologies we have, with little to no environmental impact. When we have finished, if any damage has occurred, we clean it up, we rehabilitate it, and the footprint that was made at the time of development is hardly noticeable. That is what we can do today. There is no question that the road to less reliance on oil, natural gas, and coal is a responsible one, but it is a long one. You do not shut it off overnight without damaging an economy and frustrating a people. We have these resources, and they are in abundance. We ought to be producing them at relatively inexpensive cost to the American consumer while we are investing in better photovoltaic and solar technologies and biomass, wind, and all of the other things that can help in the total package for energy. The problem is simply this: This administration stopped us from producing additional energy supplies at a time of unprecedented growth in our economy. Of course, that economy has been based on the abundance and relatively low costs of energy. Creating punitive regulatory demands, such as the Btu tax and the Kyoto Protocol, is not the way to go if you want an economy to prosper and you want the opportunities of that economy to be affordable and benefit all of our citizens. Such policies create--the policies of which I have spoken, Btu tax and Kyoto Protocol--winners and losers. The great tragedy is that the American consumer ultimately becomes the loser. The path to stable energy prices is through a free market that rewards efficiency and productivity and does not punish economies for favoring one form of energy over another. The American consumer will make that decision ultimately if he or she has an adequate number of choices in the marketplace. The Vice President, in his recent speech on energy, simply repeated the tired, old rhetoric of the Carter administration and every Democrat candidate in past presidential elections. Each placed reliance on solar, wind, and other renewables and on energy conservation--all admirable goals that Presidents Reagan and Bush also encouraged, but Presidents Reagan and Bush supported renewables with the clear understanding that renewables could not be relied upon to replace fossil-fuel-fired electrical generating capacity that currently supplies our baseload of electricity. And that baseload demand will continue to rise as our economy grows. Presidents Reagan and Bush also recognized that somehow the automobile was not just going to disappear overnight and that it was not going to be replaced by electric cars within the near future. They understood that. They rewarded production and encouraged production. For 8 years now, domestic oil and gas production has been discouraged and restricted, and the American consumer is paying the price at the pump. This winter the American consumer will also pay a dramatic price as their furnaces turn on. Can it be turned around overnight? Absolutely not. We must begin to invest in the business of producing, whether it be electricity or whether it be oil from domestic reserves or gas. It is there. It awaits us. We simply have to reward the marketplace, and the marketplace will produce. We cannot continue to squeeze it, penalize it, and refuse access to the supplies the American consumer needs. It is a simple message but a complicated one, especially complicated by an administration that says: No, no, no, let the wind and the Sun make up the difference. Probably not in my lifetime or in the lifetime of any of the youngest people listening today can and will that be possible. But a combination of all of those elements of energy coming together--hydro, nuclear, or the production of crude oil and gas from our own reserves, supplies from abroad, and renewables and conservation--will be necessary to carry us through a crisis that clearly could spell a major hit to our economy. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I will consume up to 15 minutes of time in relation to the energy issue.

Mr. CRAIG. Has there been a time agreement on the legislation just proposed?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico. yellowstone energy and transportation study

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, would the distinguished chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee indulge me in a colloquy for clarification purposes on use of Laboratory Directed Research and Development by Department of Energy national laboratories?

Mr. CRAIG. Is it the Chairman's view that permission to derive LDRD funds from EM sources should be granted to all National laboratories under the new authority established in this bill?

Mr. CRAIG. Does the Chairman see any circumstances to justify granting this authority to some of the laboratories but not to others?

Mr. CRAIG. Would it be fair then to assume that all 2001 laboratory planning budgets prepared while the EM restriction was in place would be impacted by removal of the LDRD restriction?

Mr. CRAIG. As the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee knows from the Department's testimony including Secretary Richardson and Dr. Carolyn Huntoon, EM Assistant Secretary, the Administration, with significant encouragement from the Congress, is now on record in support of restoring EM programs as a funding source for LDRD in 2001.

Mr. CRAIG. When DOE's Environmental Management budget request for FY 2001 was submitted to Congress earlier this year it continued a restriction on the use of DOE environmental management funds for LDRD purposes carried over from FY 2000. The EM restriction of LDRD was subsequently rescinded by OMB later in the year at strong urging by numerous Senators including myself. Subsequently, the Senate Defense Authorization and the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations bills directed that DOE return LDRD to full scope, to include use of EM funds. The Senate Defense Authorization bill permits use of LDRD up to 6%; and this conference report also permits use of LDRD funds at 6%. Is this the Chairman's understanding?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. The Senator makes a point that I hope echoes across this country, which is that you cannot honor, recognize, or enhance the concept of breaking the law or acting illegally and therefore be rewarded for it. We are struggling mightily on the floor to address a need in this country; it is called an employment need--H-1B workers primarily for the high-tech industry. The Senator knows I have worked on H-2A, the issue of primarily Hispanic workforces but migrant labor coming to this country to work in agriculture. We have a very real need there, but we are trying to adjust a law so that it accommodates a citizenry, treats them in a humane way, but stays within the law because we have to control our borders. It is critically necessary that as a nation we control our borders. What you are suggesting--and this is my question--if you can make it across the border illegally, and if you can stay here long enough and raise your issue through an interest group long enough, or with a political party, you may be rewarded for having broken the law by getting someone to do something for you.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me talk just a little more about what the Congressional Caucus on Adoption and the coalition we formed actually does. As you know, coalitions or caucuses here in the Congress are nonpartisan. We are bicameral. We are an alliance of Members of the House and the Senate, now 150 strong, who work very closely together for the purpose that both Senator Landrieu and I have talked about. We are from all political stripes: Liberal, moderate, conservative. But we have one goal, and that is to help facilitate and change the laws so young people, in search of loving, permanent homes and families can come together. Just this last week, we were able to see the ``adoption bonuses'' announced. These are the incentive payments that were created by Congress in the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which provides to States, if you will, the carrot and the stick to assure that States help get more children out of that system once they have determined that the natural parents--if they are still living--are unable or unacceptable to parent these children. Then they move them into adoption and into loving homes. These are the incentives we have created in the passage of that law for the reshaping of foster care in our country. I would be remiss if I did not mention the name of the late Senator John Chafee, and Senator Mike DeWine, who, with myself, and others--I say to Senator Landrieu, I think she was just coming to the Senate at that time--worked to reshape that law. It has become a tremendously valuable change in the law because, tragically enough, for all the right reasons--and for some of the wrong motivations--the foster care system in our country was becoming a warehouse which young people went into and stayed and oftentimes graduated out of at the age of 18, never knowing a permanent home, sometimes living in three or four or five homes during their life. Foster care parents are wonderful, loving, giving people, but those children knew that this was not a permanent environment. They did not have a mom or a dad. We are changing that now, and doing it very quickly, by erring on the side of the child and making the determination for the child and not for the natural parent, because, by definition of being in foster care, that parent in some way has given up a good many rights or has been found dysfunctional and unable to care for the child they may have brought into this world. Also, last week--and I will let the Senator speak more about this-- Senator Landrieu, working with Senator Helms, was very instrumental in bringing about the final clearance of the Hague Treaty that deals with international intercountry adoption, which is so critical as we try to change laws not just in our country, nationally and on a State-by-State basis, to create greater uniformity in State law to accommodate and enhance adoption, but also working internationally. These are very important steps. Let me conclude and yield back to the Senator by saying this to my colleagues. In November, we are not going to be here, hopefully. We are going to be adjourned. All of us will be back in our States and back in our hometowns. November is Adoption Month. That is when our Nation celebrates the institution of adoption. I certainly encourage my colleagues to think about November and look forward and ask the congressional coalition to work with them in giving them material or information so they could prepare to give a speech back in their home State about adoption. Host an adoption party for prospective parents and adoptable children. Most importantly, though, speak publicly about it. Make your citizens in your State more aware or at least give them the opportunity to be more aware of it. You can also do something I did. You can host, with the U.S. Postal Service, a ceremony about the adoption stamp that was just released this year. You can give out those stamps. It is a marvelous activity that the Post Office loves to do, not only to bring attention to adoption but to bring attention to the fact that they are sensitive to these kinds of important issues in our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, again, a very special thanks to my cochair with the Congressional Coalition on Adoption for the tremendous work she has done. We now are able to have an intern, thanks to a private organization helping facilitate the development of our coalition. Lastly, a marvelous lady in Boise, ID, Jolyn Callen, is my Angel in Adoption. Her advocacy grew out of her own experience adopting her daughter from abroad. She is now a volunteer with a local adoption agency, helping others who are thinking about adopting or going through the adoption process. Even as we work to streamline this process and improve the law and create the tax credits, all of that, it is still a phenomenally daunting process. It takes time. It is a legal approach and necessary, as we make sure that the laws are dealt with appropriately. What we want to make sure is that there are no locked doors, that the doors are there with large signs on them for people to walk through, whether it be State by State or across the Nation or nation to nation, to assure, as Senator Landrieu says, that every child in search of a home can find one. Let me close by drawing attention to the map behind Senator Landrieu. A good many people will recognize that these are all of the people and their names and locations that we have just placed into the Record. For Senators who might be listening or Senators who will read this Record, look at the States where there are no Angels yet. That means you haven't done your homework. That means you haven't gone home to check to see who that marvelous individual is in your State who is helping facilitate an adoption or may have 10 or 12 or 15 adopted children of their own. They are all over America, wonderful people, whether it is at the court level, at the family level, at the agency level, advocating for children to be placed in permanent, loving homes. Next year, when the Congressional Coalition on Adoption once again steps forward to name nationally our Angels in Adoption, let's make sure that this map is completely full, not 150 but several hundreds of citizens who are helping us facilitate and work for this very worthy cause across our country. I thank the Senator from Louisiana for the tremendous work she does and yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we will vote later this afternoon on a motion to change the way we proceed here to allow an amendment to come to the floor of the kind the Senator from Minnesota has spoken to. This is an interesting process because the beauty of the process of the Senate that the Senator speaks of is that there are rules and procedures by which we live. Historically, most Americans understand that when they elect a majority to the Congress, they expect that majority, under the Constitution, to form a Congress and to form rules and to be able to manage that Congress. Under that responsibility of management, which this time the Republicans have under the majority leader of Trent Lott, there are the rules that each one of us as Senators have a right to enforce and to live by; that is, that we are all equal as our Founding Fathers assured that every State must be. But it also recognized that there are more important procedures and processes that keep us functioning and functioning well. It is the rule of the majority, and in some instances in our Senate it is a supermajority that must move, giving the minority even greater rights to speak out. While the Senator from Minnesota may be frustrated, clearly he has the right to make every effort to enjoy his right. But if a majority or a supermajority says, no, that is not the way we will proceed, and this is what we must do to carry on the business of the Senate and the Government, then while it may collectively have chosen to say to the Senator from Minnesota this is the way we are going to go, it is very difficult to suggest that is an outright denial of his right. We are here to deal with allowing people from other countries to come to this country to work and not only to share in the American dream, to enhance the American dream, but to share in the freedoms and the benefits that all citizens in our country have. While we as a country have always recognized the importance of our existence, we are a conglomerate as a country. We are not one people in the sense of one nationality or one color or one religion. We are all Americans, and we live under this marvelous system. We are brought together by our Constitution, and oneness under that Constitution which is really spelling out the rights and the freedoms of us as citizens. We take seriously allowing others to come. They must come by rule, and they must come by law, or we become a nation quite lawless. Certainly a lawless nation is a nation that loses control of its boundaries, loses control of its borders, and, in fact, could lose control of its institutions--the very institutions of which the Senator from Minnesota and I are so proud. We, as a country, have established laws. We have said this is the way a foreign national can enter our country to enjoy those things that are basically American. Some would choose to enter illegally; in other words, they would choose to violate the process or to violate the law. We have before us today what we consider is waiving the rules of the Senate to consider a bill that basically says it is OK to violate the law; that we will change the law now that you violated it to make you legal. I don't think American citizens with their full faith as it relates to how our institutions of government work are going to be very excited about that idea. They, too, may once have been a foreign national and became a naturalized American citizen. My family was five or six or seven generations ago. I am not sure when. But in the late 1700s, they were once foreigners coming from the great land of Scotland. I have tremendous empathy for and have always voted when it came to changing our immigration laws or adjusting them to accommodate the needs of our country and the needs of our citizenry. But we as an institution and responsible as caretakers under the Constitution cannot reward the breaking of the law by simply changing it and saying it is OK now. It is OK if you can make it across the border into this country. Somehow we will accommodate you and change the law. A sovereign nation is not a nation if it cannot control its borders-- if it cannot police its borders and control the process of movement across those borders, both exit and entry. That is what creates a nation. That is what constitutes a nation. That is what identifies us as a nation. We are not one indivisible world. We are one indivisible nation under God. Nations make up a world. There is a fundamental debate going on on the floor today, and it spells a difference. My colleague from Texas talked about the millions and millions of foreign nationals who have applied to become American citizens, or at least legal as foreign nationals in our country. They stand in line. They work the procedure. It is complicated. We want it to be complicated. We do not want all of the world at our doorstep, nor would any other nation of the world. But we have always recognized that the vitality of our country is the uniqueness of our character, and our character is made up of many, many who come here and are not only the beneficiaries of our country but the great contributors to our country. They are many, and they are all different. Once they are here and once they are legal, under the process of law then they become part of that one nation indivisible. There is a very important vote this afternoon that will occur about 4:30. It will be to decide whether we are going to change the law to allow those who came here illegally to all of a sudden be legal and, therefore, send a message to the world that there is no consequence. If you can make it across the border, you are home free. That is not the way you sustain a nation. That is not the way you identify a border. That is not the way you protect the strength of our sovereignty. Diversity is important. We all recognize that because we are all part of this great diversity. We became the melting pot of the world, as so many down through the years have spoken of, but in doing so we did it through process and procedure--orderly with responsibility under the law. That is why this vote this afternoon will be so important. I hope the Senate will not choose to waive our rule or waive our procedures for the purpose of an amendment that would clearly change the character of the law and allow an illegal alien to have benefits from having been the performer of an illegal act. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. May I ask one more question?

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. CRAIG. Under current law as to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, people who seek either status in this country as a legal resident but not a citizen, apply and basically line up on a list and wait for the process to move them through; is that how it works? You are saying we would jump millions ahead of that?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, last night, as we were recognizing these national Angels in Adoption, I had the privilege of introducing Lynette Cole and her parents, Gale and Larry. Lynette is a beautiful young lady whom we have come to know as Miss USA. She is a young lady of color, and her parents are not of color, they are Caucasian. Yet the marvelous chemistry of the family said they were made for each other. They came together, both she and her brother, to be adopted by Larry and Gale Cole and to be raised by them. Never prouder parents did you see than last night when they were standing beside their beautiful daughter on stage--all three--to be recognized as Angels in Adoption. It was so appropriate that we did that. Here is a perfect example of what can happen when all of the right chemistry comes together, but, more importantly, when all of the right law comes together. Here is an adult couple who wanted this child, who could not adopt her. They were not allowed to adopt her. They actually moved out of one jurisdiction into another, where the laws were different, so they could adopt this child and become her permanent parents. The country knows the rest of that story now--not only the story of their unlimited love, but the fact that they raised and helped shape a beautiful young lady who ultimately became the reigning Miss USA 2000. So it was my tremendous privilege last night to be there to honor them and to recognize them as the recipients of our Congressional Caucus on Adoption national award of Angels in Adoption. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am going to use some time this afternoon and depart from this immediate debate to talk about an event that occurred last night which I and my colleague from Louisiana had the opportunity to cohost, along with the Freddie Mac Foundation. My colleague, Senator Mary Landrieu, and I are cochairs of the Congressional Caucus on Adoption. Both she and I are adoptive parents and very proud of that fact. For the last good number of years, we have worked to organize our colleagues into a caucus to become sensitive to the issues of adoption. We became very active in the transformation of the foster care laws of our country which this Senate passed 5 years ago that have certainly made many children safer and available to individuals, couples who want to form families through adoption to provide permanent loving homes for those children. More importantly, the Senator and I have been active with our colleagues on the House side to literally debate and move nationally the whole issue of adoption, both at the State and the Federal level. Why? For a very simple reason. We know, and many of my colleagues know, that there are literally hundreds of thousands of children who are in search of loving adults and parents who will provide them with a home-- not a foster home, not a temporary home, but a permanent home. Why? Because their natural parents either are no longer alive or are dysfunctional in a way that they cannot provide for and love these children. In many instances, they were actually harming these children and, as a result, we have worked in a bipartisan way to make a very real difference. In the course of all of our efforts, the Senator from Louisiana and I a year ago stumbled on an idea that we thought just made all the sense in the world, to lift the visibility of and the general public awareness of adoption: That there are marvelous, beautiful young people who are in search of a home. We began to ask our colleagues in the Senate and the House to recognize individuals who were outstanding in the area of adoption, whether it was individuals, families, or couples who were adopting children, whether it was foster parents, whether it was mentors who were attempting to work in the adoption of children, or volunteers with the court-appointed special advocates, known as CASA, who help family courts by working with children in their homes, support communities, organizations across the country, or just outstanding individuals who stand above it all, whose greatest and most direct interest is in helping kids. Last night, we recognized a number of people who are doing just that. One hundred and twenty nominees flowed from House and Senate Members and from their States to be recognized. At a gathering last night at the Hyatt, over 450 people, hosted by the Freddie Mac Foundation, came together to honor Angels in Adoption. I now turn to my colleague, Senator Mary Landrieu, my cochair of the Congressional Caucus on Adoption, to speak to this issue. There is a lot more to be said, and I want her to have a full share of this time as we talk about the most important issue of providing loving, caring homes for children who do not have them and who can have them if we can simply help facilitate the ability of adults to adopt these children.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. You can check it.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I join with my colleague from Arizona in thanking you for your leadership in the work you have done on energy. I remember, several years ago, when the Senator from New Mexico was talking about the state of play of the nuclear industry and that failure to respond to an equitable process to bring about the appropriate handling of waste would ultimately curtail the ability of this industry to grow and provide an environmentally sound and clean source of electrical energy. That is when we were talking about energy when most of our supplies were in some margin of surplus. Today that surplus does not exist. In the past eight years, with no energy policy from the Clinton administration, we are now without surplus. We are now entering what could well be an energy crisis phase for our country and our economy. If that is true--here we stand with the longest peacetime growth economy in the history of our country--could this be the tripwire that brings mighty America down? Because we have a President and a Vice President without an energy policy. In fact, under their administration, we have seen a drop in the energy production of our traditional kind. They even want to knock out big hydrodams out in the West that are now supplying enough electricity for all of the city of Seattle, WA. And they say, in the name of the environment, we would take these down. Shame on them. Why aren't they leading us? Why aren't they providing, as they should, under policy and direction, abundant production and reliable sources? Historically, our economy has been built on that. America has been a beneficiary of it. (Mr. KYL assumed the Chair.)

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, what I thought I might do for a few moments this afternoon is talk about the state of play of where we are as a Senate and as the 106th Congress trying to complete its work and adjourn for the year. I think a good many of us are frustrated at this point. We have tried mightily to produce the appropriations bills, to work with our colleagues, Democrat and Republican. Obviously, there are differences in how to resolve those differences. We are spending billions and billions of dollars more than we spent a year ago. Yes, we have a surplus. But, yes, the American people are telling us government is as big as it ought to be. There are new national priorities, and we are attempting to address those. But what I think needs to happen, and what has historically happened, at least, is an effort to move the 13 appropriations bills through the process, to vote them up or down, and get them to the President. We tried that last week, to move two of them together: the Legislative Branch appropriations bill and the Treasury-Postal bill. Out of frustration on the floor, and our colleagues on the other side deserting us, those bills failed. I think the average public listening out there says: What's happening here? Why are we almost at the end of the fiscal year and yet a fair amount of the budgetary work needed to be accomplished in the form of appropriations bills to fund the Government for the coming year have not been accomplished? You saw Senator Bob Byrd lament on the floor of the Senate last week, about the Senate working and getting the appropriations bills passed and sent to the President. And I have to lament with him. I agree that this work should go on. He said: There are Senators in this body who have never seen a situation work as it has been meant to work. I think he was denoting the budget process itself and whether it worked and functioned on a timely basis. How well has the appropriations process worked? I began to ask that question of my staff, and we did some research over the weekend. I thought it was important that I come to the floor today to talk a little bit about it because I, too, am concerned. Since 1977, Congress has only twice--in 1994 and in 1988 --passed all of the 13 appropriations bills in time for the President to sign all into law before the October 1 legal fiscal year deadline. Let me repeat that. Only twice since 1977 has Congress passed all of the 13 appropriations bills in time for the President to sign all into law before the October 1st deadline. Now, that either says something about the budget process and the appropriations process itself, or it says how very difficult this is in a two-party system, and how difficult it is to make these substantive compromises to fund the Government of our United States. Most years, the Congress only gets a handful of appropriations bills through all the congressional hurdles by October 1, and so, more often than not, has had to pass some, what we call, a stopgap funding bill before it adjourns for the year. Senator Byrd, on Thursday, said that huge omnibus appropriations bills make a mockery of the legislative process. They certainly don't subscribe to the budget process under the law that we have historically laid out. But, then again, from 1977 until now only twice has that budget process worked effectively. So I could lament with Senator Byrd about huge omnibus bills or I could simply say how difficult it really is. Yet bundling the funding bills has been more the exception than the rule in the last 23 years. In other words, what we were attempting to do on the floor of the Senate last week was not abnormal. We were trying to expedite a process to complete our work and to do the necessary budget efforts. In fact, in 1986 and in 1987, Congress was unable to send even one funding bill to the President by the legal deadline of October 1. That is an interesting statistic. Let me say it again. In 1986 and 1987, by the October first deadline, the President of the United States had not received one funding bill for Government from the Congress of the United States. In 1986, one of those years when Congress passed zero funding conference reports, Senator Robert Dole was the majority leader of the Senate. I am here today to say I agree with Senator Byrd, and I lament the fact that bundling is not a good idea. But in 1987, he took all 13 of the appropriations bills, put them together, and sent them down to the President as one big bill. I think a little bit of history, maybe a little bit of perspective, adds to the value of understanding what the Congress tries to do. That was 1987. All 13 appropriation bills bundled and sent to the President before one separate bill was ever sent to the President. The year 1986 was the first time since 1977. In 1987--I want to be accurate here--was the second time. In 1986 Republicans were in charge. They couldn't get it done. And in 1987, when Senator Byrd was in charge, they couldn't get it done. So here are 2 years, two examples, one party, the other party, 1986 and 1987, that all 13 appropriation bills were bundled into one and sent down for the President's signature. Let's take a closer look at 1987. On October 1, the legal deadline, not a single appropriation bill that passed the Congress had been transmitted to the President. Compare this year, when two have already been signed. That is now, the year 2000, two have already been signed by the President, and we expect to send additional bills to the President before October 1. At least that is our goal. We will work mightily with the other side, whether we deal with them individually or put a couple of them together. In fact, no appropriation bill ever went to the President, I am told by our research, in 1987. Of the 10 funding bills both Houses of Congress passed, none emerged from the Democrat- controlled House and Senate conferees. It was a difficult year. President Reagan was the first to sign an omnibus 13-bill long-term continuing funding bill on December 22 of 1987. Remember, the Congress continued to function late into the year and up until December 22, just days before Christmas, so we could finally complete the work and get it done. Of course, during those years I was not in the Senate. I was in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now, all said, during that budget battle in 1987, we passed four short-term CRs. During that time, we kept extending the deadlines necessary and passed four short-term CRs to complete the work of the Congress. President Reagan did not even receive a bill until the morning after the final short-term CR had expired. The CQ Almanac described it as a 10-pound, 1-foot-high, mound of legislation. I remember that well. In fact, I was involved in a debate on the floor of the House that year when I actually helped carry that bill to the floor. All 13 bills were passed and signed twice in 1994 and 1998. Excuse me, 1988; I said 1998. That is an important correction for the Record. On October 1, the Senate had passed only four appropriation bills, and this was with a 55-45 majority. Compared to this year, as of September 7, this body had passed nine bills so far. I think it is important to compare. It is not an attempt to criticize. Most importantly, it is an attempt to bring some kind of balance and understanding to this debate. I have been critical in the last several weeks. I have come to the floor to quote minority leader Tom Daschle talking about ``dragging their feet and not getting the work done, expecting Republican Senators to cave.'' Well, certainly with those kinds of quotes in the national media and then watching the actions on the floor of this past week, you would expect that maybe that is a part of the strategy. On October 1, only seven bills had been reported to the Senate. This, according to the 1987 CQ Almanac, is because the Appropriations Committee could not even agree how to meet its subcommittee allocations. Compare that to this year. As of September 13, all 13 bills have been reported to the Senate. Well, I think what is recognized here is that while bundling bills is not a good idea--and I see the Senator from West Virginia has come to the floor; he and I agree on that. He and I agree that bundling is not a good process because it does not give Senators an opportunity to debate the bills and to look at them individually and to understand them. At the same time, both sides are guilty. Certainly when Senator Byrd was the majority leader of the United States Senate, that was a practice that had to be used at times when Republicans and Democrats could not agree. That is a practice that we will have to look at again here through this week and into next week as we try to complete our work and try to deal with these kinds of issues. You can argue that some of these bills did not get debated on the floor of the Senate. That is true now; it was true in 1987. You can argue that they didn't get an opportunity to have individual Senators work their will on them by offering amendments. That is going to be true now; it was clearly true in 1987. The one thing that won't happen this year--I hope, at least--is that 13-bill, 10-pound, 1-foot-high mound of legislation. Clearly, I don't think it should happen, and I will make every effort not to let it happen. That isn't the right way to legislate, and we should not attempt to do that. The leadership, last year, in a bipartisan way, along with the White House, ultimately sat down and negotiated the end game as it related to the budget. Many of our colleagues were very upset with that. They had a right to be because they didn't have an opportunity to participate in the process. The reason I come to the floor this afternoon to talk briefly about this is that, clearly, if we can gain the cooperation necessary and the unanimous consents that must be agreed to, that very limited amendments should be applied to these appropriation bills, then we can work them through. I am certainly one who would be willing to work long hours to allow that to happen. But to bring one bill to the floor with 10 or 12 or 13 amendments with 60 percent of them political by nature, grabbing for a 30-second television spot in the upcoming election really does not make much sense this late in the game. We are just a few days from the need to bring this Congress to a conclusion, to complete the work of the 106th Congress and, hopefully, to adjourn having balanced the budget and having addressed some of the major and necessary needs of the American people. It is important that we do that. I am confident we can do that with full cooperation and the balance, the give-and-take that is necessary in a bipartisan way to complete the work at hand. Mr. President, I yield the floor.