Tom Daschle

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I would like to use the remainder of my leader time for a statement unrelated to the pending legislation.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I will not belabor this point. Let me state one last reminder to my colleagues. If we have an agreement, that agreement will entail, at least as it stands now, an understanding that all Senators would have to file their amendments no later than Thursday morning. That leaves tonight and tomorrow and Thursday morning up to a time certain to offer amendments. So if Senators are serious about offering these amendments, I hope they will come to the floor tonight as late as it takes. This is an opportunity to present your amendments. Come to the floor tomorrow. But take advantage of what I think is an effort on both sides of the aisle to accommodate Senators with serious suggestions and proposals as to how to improve this piece of legislation. If we do that, I am sure the distinguished Senator from Arizona is correct. We can reach some agreement tomorrow as to how to dispose of this bill in a way that will accommodate all Senators. I yield the floor.

Mr. DASCHLE. If the Senator will yield?

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I did not hear all the words of the distinguished majority leader, but I did hear the end of his comments. Let me say again, as I have said to him personally: it is not our desire to hold up this piece of legislation. Our desire all along has been to work in good faith with the Republican majority. We have consulted with a number of our colleagues, all of whom have indicated their amendments are relevant. I am somewhat surprised myself, frankly, with the list of amendment. I had indicated publicly I did not think the list was going to be as long as the list is. But I have given the assurance to the majority leader that we desire to finish this bill this week. We have also indicated that our message to all Members would be that they would have to offer their amendments prior to 10 o'clock on Thursday. That is an excellent guarantee. We have also indicated that the amendments that we intend to offer would be relevant. These have not necessarily been offered in the past, and I hope we could find some way to accommodate all Senators here. If we have to go to a cloture vote, we will go to a cloture vote. But the issue, if we go to a cloture vote, will be whether we, as a minority, have the opportunity to be heard on a very important issue, and to offer all relevant amendments. We only received this amendment yesterday evening. It is a substitute that was laid down yesterday. We have not been given an opportunity today to even offer an amendment. There will be no votes on amendments tonight. So I hope that everyone shows some accommodation, and some willingness to cooperate. We are doing our best. We may be able to get that list down even some more. But I hope we can continue to work in good faith. And let me emphasize to the majority leader and to others, I think if we do work in good faith, we can accommodate all Senators in a responsible way. But to lay down this substitute, then to file cloture, then to tell us that we cannot even offer amendments--most of which or all of which should be relevant--in my view is just unacceptable. I hope in the end we can deal with this in a reasonable way. I am sure that we can. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me emphasize to Senators on our side of the aisle that I hope we could offer some amendments tonight. Now, I understand the majority leader to say if we have the ability to vote on them, let us do that. Let us move ahead. But there are really two issues here. The first issue is whether or not the Democratic minority will have the right to offer amendments to be heard on any one of a number of bills that may come before us. I do not think the Republicans in the past have been any more willing to accept the majority laying down a bill, cutting off debate, and not allowing amendments, especially those that may be germane or relevant, from being considered and debated upon and ultimately voted on. That is not how we should do business here. What I thought we did was to try to work out arrangements whereby both the majority and the minority would have the opportunity to offer amendments in a reasonable way, and to have votes on those amendments and ultimately work through the legislative process. If we are precluded from doing that, then in my view we have no choice but to vote against cloture and to drag this process out as long as we must. Nobody wants to do that. But I think I can say for many members of the Democratic caucus that we will do that if that is our only recourse. Second, let me just say this is not just a question of a line-item veto. Obviously, there are legitimate differences of opinion with regard to what is the most appropriate form of a line-item veto. There are differences on both sides of the aisle. Our hope is that we can work through those differences and come up with a meaningful piece of legislation that will enjoy broad bipartisan support. But whether we have broad bipartisan support depends upon whether or not there is bipartisan cooperation. It is not just a vote on a line-item veto. It is a vote on various concepts involving line-item veto or line-item rescission and I am fairly optimistic that ultimately as we work through these amendments, and as we work through the course of the week, that we can come to some ultimate closure on this issue in a way that would allow everyone here to feel good about our progress. So I hope cooler heads can prevail, and that we can truly accomplish all that both the majority leader and I and others have expressed a desire to do this week.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I have listened to the words of our majority leader. The first thought that comes to mind is what a difference a year makes. I do not recall how many times over the course of the last couple of years our Republican colleagues would come to the floor and criticize, sometimes bitterly, the majority leader at the time for laying a bill down that nobody on the other side had seen, a bill that in their view did not have hearings, or a bill that was not the subject of any negotiations between Republicans and Democrats. I can recall on health care being held for weeks and months, simply because there was a very complicated piece of legislation that they said ought to be examined, needed to be looked through, and needed to be thoughtfully considered. The times have changed and the situation is different than it was a year ago. This is a different piece of legislation, but the issue is the same. There ought to be overwhelming bipartisan support for a line- item veto. I do not think there is any serious debate about that. Democrats and Republicans want a line-item veto. I think there is broad, bipartisan support for the concept of a line-item veto. The majority leader says that he hopes we can get bipartisan support for this proposal. But I guess I have to ask how badly they want bipartisan support when we have not been involved in these negotiations; we have not had any opportunity to see this provision until it has now been laid down. There have been no discussions with Democrats with regard to this particular proposal. So if, indeed, there is a true desire for bipartisan cooperation, that is an unfortunate way to make that fact known. The majority leader also made the comment that this proposal will submit all expenditures to line-item veto--all expenditures. I hope that is accurate. As I understand it, there is a question about ``all'' expenditures. That is one reason I think it will be very helpful for us to have the opportunity to talk through, think through, and work through this legislation pertaining to an ``item.'' As I understand it, some of the tax provisions that may be on the list of priorities for our colleagues on the Republican side include capital gains, but I am told capital gains and a number of other tax provisions that will clearly be defined as expenditures--in this case, tax expenditures-- would not be included in this particular provision of the bill. So we will have to take a good look at whether everything is on the table or not. passed through the Budget Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee. They were the subject of hearings. They were the subject of a markup. We had a good debate, and they were presented to the floor in a way that is the accepted practice here in the Senate. And we now know those bills and all the work the committees have done apparently is for naught. That is not going to be considered here. What is going to be considered is some compromise--that has generated a good deal of support on the other side--that we have not seen. There have been no hearings. There was no markup. There was no opportunity for committees to even consider this particular piece of legislation, at least this year. The majority leader indicates that this has been a proposal that has been around since 1985. Nearly half of the current membership of the Senate was not here in 1985 and have not had the opportunity to consider a proposal which would involve the individual enrollment of every single line item before it is sent to the President. That, too, reminds me of the comments made last year about the paperwork involved with the 1,300-page health bill. They felt we ought to be able to reduce all that paperwork and send something simple to the President. Now we have some colleagues who are saying we do not want to send something simple, we want to send something complicated. We do not want to send something short, we want to send something that may involve 2,000 or 3,000 pages. We will have a good debate about all of this, but I do urge all of my colleagues to take great care before they make any decisions about whether this legislation is what the Senate wants to sign into law; before we make any conclusions as to whether everything is on the table; whether this is the most practical; whether, indeed, there is opportunity for bipartisan support for this particular version. What I hope will not happen is that we will be told to accept this version or no version at all; that we either take this or we are not going to have a line-item veto. I hope that does not happen because, as I said, I think there is very strong support for the concept of a line- item veto. Simply to say it is this one or nothing certainly does not reflect what I hope will be the opportunities we have to work together on a whole range of issues. We should not be told that it is this or nothing, that there is no other version that is acceptable when so many Members on both sides of the aisle have supported other versions, have supported other approaches, and might have ways in which to improve even this particular piece of legislation. So I know that all of my colleagues on this side of the aisle will look with great interest at the provisions of this bill and will have more to say as the days this week unfold. Certainly it will be my hope as well that we could finish this week. There is no reason why, given the broad amount of support, that we could not finish. But part of whether or not we finish depends on the degree to which there is genuine cooperation, genuine interest in bipartisanship, and whether we have an ability to better understand what some of these concepts actually include. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I had the opportunity to listen to the remarks made by the distinguished majority leader. Let me say, I have just come from a meeting with the President --not about this issue, but another issue--and I do not think there is any question that the President is prepared today, tomorrow, or at any time to reiterate what he said all along. He supports the line-item veto. It is that simple. There is no question about it. We do not have to make this a political issue. We do not have to try to put words in his mouth. He does not need that. He can do that for himself. The fact is, President Clinton supports the line-item veto. Period. The fact is, so do most Democrats. I have supported a line-item veto since coming to the Congress. I did 15 years ago and I do today. I always have. I believe that it is an important aspect of good legislating. I recognize that 43 States have already done what we would like to do here. Forty-three States have already acknowledged that Governors ought to have an opportunity to review and send back for further review items in legislation. Regardless of how many times it takes, if a Governor, or a President for that matter, thinks that a line item ought to be reviewed, he ought to have the right to send it back. That is the issue. Line-item rescission, as it really is properly called in this case, is something an overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans support. The trouble is defining what it is we are referring to when we say line-item veto or line-item rescission. That is the issue. I do not think there is any doubt that Democrats and Republicans could come together this afternoon and agree upon an approach, if you take our past positions and acknowledge that on the Republican as well as the Democratic side there is a consensus about the need for a line- item veto. Unfortunately, what has happened over the course of the last several days, in spite of the fact that two bills were reported out of committee, in spite of the fact that there has been, as the distinguished majority leader said, a great deal of consideration given to the line-item veto in the past, there has been a backroom deal cut. In the closet somewhere, in the Cloakrooms or in the back rooms, some of our Republican colleagues have decided that whatever versions have been considered in the committees are not good enough; that they wanted to come up with a bill that we have not seen. I remember so well the complaints raised last year by many of our colleagues on the other side about not having been consulted, about wanting our cooperation, but not having the opportunity to even see a draft of a health bill and, as a result, they said, they vehemently opposed many of the provisions in health bills that were offered time and again on the Senate floor. ``We were not consulted,'' they said. ``That is not a good legislative process,'' they said. ``We ought to take the committee process and make it work,'' they said. Well, they were making some arguments that, frankly, I shared. In fact, I thought we had consulted, but certainly not to their satisfaction in some cases. But the point was made over and over that we simply had not reached out adequately to them and for that reason they were unwilling to cooperate with us. Well, now I hear the majority leader and others say that they hope they can get Democrats to cooperate on this issue; that they can find a way to ensure that we get a number of Democrats to support this version of line-item veto that nobody has seen. It is a line-item veto proposal that, to the best of our knowledge, takes a good idea to the extreme, and, frankly, from a constitutional and a practical point of view, is much in need of consideration and review as we go through the next several days. Mr. President, I think that just about every Democrat would like to support the bill that was offered originally by the chairman of the Budget Committee Exon. That a bill that has received a good deal of consideration and, as I understand it, has support on both sides of the aisle. We would like to take that bill and say, ``Let Members begin with this.'' This is a piece of legislation that obviously has merit. It is a piece of legislation that is broad in scope. As introduced, it would include not only appropriations but taxes. It would give Members an opportunity to review more than just the appropriations process. It is a bill, as I understand it, that Majority Leader Dole has cosponsored, I have cosponsored, a number of other legislators have cosponsored in the past that contains all the needed protections against an imbalance of power between the President and the Congress, something that we want, if we are going to do this right, to ensure that the balance between the executive and the legislative branch is maintained. It offers an approach that we all can support, something that we all recognize is needed. That balance is critical on a whole range of issues, not just appropriations. Most importantly, we want to protect Social Security. We want to take that off the table. Obviously, there is legislation pending that would insist that we take Social Security off the table when it comes to balancing the Federal budget over a period of time. We also want a piece of legislation that will not permit a minority in Congress to hold a majority hostage, that does not overturn the central principle of democratic government: majority rule. It is amazing to me how many times we find both sides of the aisle lamenting how we are captive of the minority, how we cannot do the people's work in part because a small group of people is holding hostage a certain piece of legislation. Holding the majority hostage, and keeping us from doing the kind of things that we know we should be doing. In essence, we want legislation, Mr. President, that allows Members to do that, that protects majority rule, that protects the principles enshrined in the Constitution, proven by 200 years of practice in legislating, and providing the balance that we have all wanted between the executive and the legislative branches. The Domenici-Exon approach creates a fast-track procedure to make sure Congress does not ignore the President's desire to review a certain provision not to finance a particular project. That is another concern. We want to be sure that when a President comes up with his list of rescission items, that it is not ignored as it is today. Under the bill, Congress would have the opportunity to review in a very careful way each and every one of these items, with the understanding that they will be reviewed within a specified, delineated period of time. This would force the Congress to act, and ensure an open and public debate and vote on particular projects within a designated period. Spending would then be dependent on the merits of that particular proposal. Supporters will be held accountable. That is what I think all advocates of line-item veto have argued is the central principle here. That when we isolate out a given item, not buried in the paragraphs and pages of thick bills in the future, that supporters will have to come forth and say, ``I believe that it is in the best interests of the country to support this particular item, and we are willing to have a vote on it. We are willing to put it under the light of day.'' We should have an all-out debate on whether it merits majority support. If it does, then obviously it ought to be enacted into law. I think that is what the American people want: Accountable, open Government, but Government that allows Congress in a more meaningful way to specify with great authority those things we want from those things we do not. The line-item authority the President has under current law is too weak. Everyone appreciates that because Congress can ignore the President's proposal to cancel spending. There is nothing right now that requires the Congress to act when a President rescinds something. We are really in a situation that is untenable, frankly. The President knows there are things within a bill that he is unwilling to support, and yet he is faced with the dilemma of either supporting it or vetoing the entire piece of legislation. He can rescind items, be ignored by Congress, and nothing ultimately is accomplished, adding to the public cynicism, and adding to the extraordinary difficulties we have in making things work better, legislating with an understanding that there has to be a better way. Spending goes forward, no money is saved, cynicism goes up, and ultimately the system breaks down. Since 1974, Presidents have proposed to cancel $72.8 billion in spending. Congress has canceled only $22.9 billion of those requests. In addition, Congress cut $70 billion out on its own. That is an interesting point and I think people have to understand that issue. The fact is that the Congress has cut more in the aggregate from its appropriations than what the Presidents over the last 20 years has proposed. We actually have a better budgetary record when it comes to overall spending than what the Presidents have proposed in their rescissions. The problem is we cannot agree on which line items ought to be reduced or eliminated. Because we cannot agree, nothing is done. We cut, the President proposes cuts, but those Presidential proposals more times than not are ignored entirely. The Domenici-Exon bill corrects the weakness in current law. First of all it forces the Congress to vote. The President has 20 days to notify Congress; 2 days later a bill with the President's proposals has to be introduced; 10 days later the Congress must vote. That is what it says. The President proposes within a 20-day timeframe what specific rescission items he believes the Congress must review and act upon. Two days later, a bill with all of those Presidential proposals is introduced, and within the next 10 days the Congress is forced to vote on each and every one of these items. That, to me, is what the American people have said they want. That is exactly what I think Democrats and Republicans probably could agree upon, a process by which there would be a certain review, a certain vote, and a reaction to the President's specific requests at a time that I think most people would consider to be fair. Second, it prevents filibusters of rescission proposals entirely. As I said, this is a fast-track approach. The Senate gets 10 hours to debate. And an equivalent time limit is imposed on the House. There is no way to drag this out. We would have the certainty, the confidence in knowing that when the President sends down his rescission message, the Congress must act, and act within a certain period of time. When that comes to the floor, there is 10 hours of debate, and it is over. We have made our decisions. We have enforced the deal and defended each and every one of these items. Most importantly, it is done with the confidence in knowing that everyone will have their opportunities either to defend or oppose these rescission items in a time certain. Third, it puts all the savings into deficit reduction. That is another thing I think the American people say they want. Let Members not take spending from one side of the ledger and put it into something else. Let Senators recognize that, indeed, if we are going to do what we said over 5 weeks we are going to do when we had our debate on a balanced budget amendment, everyone said they would recognize the need for a glidepath, and are unwilling, of course, to put in writing a blueprint, at least to date. That is, our Republican colleagues have been unwilling to show just how they will do it. I think I have heard a number of our colleagues advocate certainly if we are going to save money, it ought to be dedicated to deficit reduction. Unfortunately, I hear my colleagues on the House side argue just the opposite, that, indeed, we ought to have a $600-plus billion tax cut and find ways to offset that tax cut with cuts in spending. That has been the debate ongoing for several weeks over on the House side. The combinations of time certain, with the realization that everything we do would be dedicated to deficit reduction, prohibiting Congress to cancel spending on some unnecessary project and turning it around and using it for tax cuts or some other purpose, is exactly what I think this Congress and The combination of these provisions make present law into a real line-item veto power for this President and for all future Presidents. Congress has to defend all of its questionable spending openly. Current law gives Presidents only the opportunity to propose canceled spending, but nothing to make Congress respond. That is the problem we have today. The President proposes, and the Congress ignores. The Congress ignores and ultimately nothing gets done. (Mr. SMITH assumed the chair.)

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, this bill is going to change business as usual. There will be less ability to sneak things in, less opportunity for people late at night to put little provisions in the bill that we only understand later to have consequential effects both budgetarily and otherwise. It gives the President the chance to highlight questionable spending and force the authors to defend it publicly, discourages questionable projects if authors know they may be forced to defend them in public. So there is no doubt the legislation that many of us support, the original Domenici-Exon bill is strong, it will work. Unfortunately, it ought to be the bill that we are debating today, but we are not. We are not because, for some reason, the Republicans have chosen to come up with a new concoction, some other provision that does not have the provisions that I just described, despite the broad bipartisan support for a bill that throughout the process has shown to have the kind of bipartisan support necessary to move this legislation along. Mr. President, I wonder what the real motivation may be. Is the motivation the desire to pass meaningful line-item veto legislation or the motivation to try to embarrass the President or the Democratic Members of the Senate? I do not know. I hope it is, as the majority leader has indicated, a true desire to resolve this issue, to move this ahead, to bring to the Senate, and ultimately to the President, a bill that he can support, a bill that would do the kind of things that I have outlined are necessary if, indeed, we are going to have a practical, constitutionally sound piece of legislation that enjoys broad bipartisan support. The Republicans have arrived at a consensus to promote what I understand is a completely different line-item veto than anything we have seen so far called separate enrollment. As I have indicated, to my knowledge, no Democratic Senator was invited into the Republican discussions on this approach, even though some prominent Democratic Senators have been strong supporters of this version of the line-item veto. The approach that I am told the Republicans are going to offer has not been considered in any committee of this Congress, no hearings have been held, no committee has voted on it. Both S. 14 and S. 4, by contrast, were voted out of the Budget Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee. Hearings were held earlier this year. Democrats, in the course of those hearings, have offered to work with our Republican colleagues. Unfortunately, in response to that offer, the unilateral compromise made on the other side apparently has been achieved without any participation by Democrats. As I understand it--and again we will have to wait until it is proposed in order to know for sure just what the Republicans have in mind, and we will have that opportunity next week--but as I understand how separate enrollment would actually work, the approach requires that each individual item of any appropriations bill passed in Congress be broken up by the enrolling clerk into separate bills to present to the President. The President would be able to veto any of the bills. Take a bill, any one of the appropriations bills that we have had in the past. This one is a good example. It is Public Law 103-316 passed in the 103d Congress, the Energy and Water Development Appropriation Act fiscal year 1995. This bill has approximately 20 pages with hundreds and hundreds of line items. Line items that are listed here include emergency funds for purposes of transportation; uranium supply and enrichment activities; flood control and coastal emergencies; line items for the Tucson diversion channel, $2.5 million; the Jefferson- Jacksonville, IN, line item. It does not say what in particular that line item is for. The Wallisville Lake, TX, plant, $1 million. Line item by line item, it has hundreds of specific line items listed one by one in this bill. But as I understand, the Republicans are suggesting that we take each one of these line items, separately enroll it, and send it on to the President. So what this bill did when we passed it in 1994--the Congress passed the legislation, it went to the enrolling clerk, one bill with all of these line items in it. The enrolling clerk then sent it to the President. The President has the ability to take this bill, veto it, send it back to Congress, or sign it into law, if he so chooses. If he vetoes it and sends it back to Congress, the Congress could override it and it could become public law. If the Congress failed to override it, of course, it fails to pass and it is put in the trash can, and we start all over. That is how a bill becomes a law. It is pretty simple. It has five steps; that is it. That is all it is. Enrolling, signing, vetoing, or overriding and the enactment into public law. That is a pretty simple process and one that, as advocates of paperwork reduction, we could all support. Keeping it simple is what we all want. This is what the Republicans are proposing. This is the separate enrollment version of this bill. Each one of these line items, every single one of the line items listed here--Red River emergency bank protection; Red River below Dennison Dam levee; West Sacramento, CA; Sacramento River flood control project; Savannah Harbor deepening in Georgia; Casino Beach, IL; Lake Pontchartrain; Lake Saint Geneva, MO; Hackensack Meadowlands, NJ; Salem River, NJ--every one of these would be separately enrolled. The Congress would pass it. It goes to the President. The President would sign each one of these line items into law; he would veto some of the others. Congress, in every single case, would either have to accept this as public law or consider each one of these line items as a veto and repeat the process over and over and over and over again, hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of times over the course of several weeks, I am sure, in order just to pass this appropriations bill. That is what we are talking about. This chart really does not depict it all. Here is what it would take. I did not think we would want to spend all the money on the charts required for that one appropriations bill, but it will take this piece of paper with another chart on it, this one, this one, this one, and we can just go right on down the list, Mr. President, page after page after page. It would take 85 of these charts to detail what would happen to one energy and water appropriations bill. I can probably find something here for South Dakota, if I looked hard enough. For the life of me, I cannot understand how somebody who would advocate paperwork reduction would want all of us to go through this every single time we pass an appropriations bill, and we are not even getting to another issue that I wanted to bring up, and that is a tax bill. So, Mr. President, I know that sometimes back-room coordination and compromise produces some interesting product, but I have to say, this shows a real sense of imagination. I am really excited to see how over the course of the next several days our Republican colleagues will give us an opportunity to understand how this works. We are turning this process upside down. We are turning it upside down and inside out, and taking what is a very simple, streamlined process that has worked for 200 years and turning it into an absolute nightmare, a paperwork jungle, the likes of which is going to take more forests than we can count to produce one appropriations bill. I hope we are into recycling because you could take one appropriations bill and print several Bibles the next year. I mean, it is going to take a long time for us to consider the enrollment potential here for each and every one of these items to go on to the President. The one thing it will do is keep the President in the White House. You will not see him going out making many speeches because he is going to have to do a lot of signing here, and with each a free-for-all when it comes to considering each one of these items, one by one, as separately enrolled bills. Mr. President, I am concerned about that, obviously, and I will not belabor the point today, but we will get into this again later on. I am also concerned about another provision of this approach. We are not just dealing with the impracticality here. What troubles me is that we would be putting the power in the hands of the minority, requiring one-third of one House of the Congress to sustain a veto over any one of these provisions. This Congress is run by majority rule. This Congress has worked well under majority rule for a long time. We have for purposes of closer examination the right to filibuster, and both sides of the aisle have defended their right to extend debate on many occasions. Democrats have used it most recently, but we have all had that opportunity. Do we really want to go even further than that and lock into law for all perpetuity the right of even a smaller minority to hold hostage every one of these public laws, every one of these specific line items? Do we really want one-third of the Senate to keep us from doing our work in a meaningful way? Why would we want to do that? Why would we want to require that supermajority on something with this kind of complexity? Mr. President, I hope that as we consider the propriety of all this, we also understand how important it is we not just limit ourselves to appropriations here. I could be accused of making the other side of the argument here, but I am going to do it anyway because I think that what is fair is fair. If we are going to do this, what I do not understand--and I guess the only thing that the Republicans may be able to give as an answer to why we are limiting this to appropriations is at least we would save a couple of forests if we did not get into other scope questions like taxes. We would not have to cut down all the trees of South Dakota to produce a tax bill. But I believe a tax bill ought to be subject to the same review. I believe a tax bill ought to have the same opportunity to be considered--but certainly not like this. Certainly if our Republican colleagues argue that review is good, I do not understand why they say review of tax provisions is not good. That just defies my ability to respond. I understand why we would want to review appropriations. I am not sure what the position of our colleagues on the other side would be on entitlements. I personally would have no objection to that. But I do believe that if we are going to look at all spending, we certainly ought to look at tax expenditures as well. We ought to be looking at tax breaks just like we are looking at those unique little deals that we put in appropriations bills. As I understand it, our Republican colleagues, if they are willing to do anything, are willing to only put in tax breaks affecting fewer than 100 people. Do you know how many tax breaks that actually includes? What they want to do is exclude most every consideration of tax legislation for reasons that are not entirely clear. As the majority leader has said, this is not the first time we have debated this issue. This separate enrollment proposal came up in 1985. It was 10 years ago. I do not know if it had any more consideration in 1985 than it has had in the committees in 1995, but I do know that it was the subject of a great deal of debate. In fact, a successful filibuster was led at the time by the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Hatfield, who, coincidentally, is chairman again. At that time, Senator Hatfield described it as ``one of the most dangerous proposals that has come before this Senate in my 19 years.'' He called it ``a mad piece of legislation,'' which he took great pride in having stopped. Senator Hatfield eloquently described what would result. General appropriations measures might be converted into literally hundreds of separate bills. True to his conservative nature, he was not as literal as I was. I think it is thousands. The President would be swamped with paper and would have difficulty keeping track of things. . . We should be equally concerned that legislative intent may be completely overridden when items intentionally linked and sequenced together are enrolled. That was Senator Hatfield. That was the chairman of the Appropriations Committee in 1985. Senator Hatfield, as he always is, was eloquent, perceptive, and, thank goodness, successful in bringing this Senate to its senses in dealing with this exact proposal 10 years ago. Sometimes, it takes more than once to kill a bad idea. But this is a bad idea. I thought it was killed 10 years ago, but it has reared its ugly head apparently, and we are going to have to deal with it again. But I hope the same vision and the same commitment and the same appreciation of the magnitude, the enormity of the problem, will be just as evident as we debate the issue this time. During that same debate, my friend and colleague, Senator Hatch, now the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, stated that the separate enrollment approach ``is not good constitutional policy.'' Even the Clinton administration has expressed concern, and obviously the President, as I said earlier, has been very supportive of the line-item veto. But if I were the President of the United States, wondering how I am going to spend my time most productively, I would have to ask: Is this how I wish to do it? I do not know how strong his hand is, but I have to say he had better have a very strong hand if he is prepared to sign into law 1,700 or 1,800 individually enrolled items each and every time we send an appropriations bill to the President. Walter Dellinger, the assistant Attorney General, has written, We have not been convinced of the constitutionality of this approach in the past. . . and we continue to question its validity. Questions arise because the Constitution is very clear on how the veto process works. Article I, section 7, reads in part: Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated . . . That is what the Constitution says, that the President of the United States, if he approves it, he will sign it, but if not he will return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated. How do you return a bill when it has been broken into 1,800 pieces? How can we constitutionally ensure we are living up to the letter of the law when we are now going to require the President to put a jigsaw puzzle together when it comes to signature, to figure out which pieces he signs and which he does not as separate enrolled items? It does not say he shall sign those parts he approves. He must approve it all or nothing. So this proposal seeks to bypass that very clear requirement by the subterfuge of allowing the Clerk of the House to take apart every appropriations bill and re-enroll it into separate bills to present to the President. The Constitution grants no such power to Congress. It clearly says, ``Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate . . . .'' Little bits of legislation enrolled separately are not what have passed the House and the Senate. So, the other side is proposing changing the current process--rather than sending a single bill down as the Constitution requires. It is a very simple process that our forefathers understood, that frankly works in 43 States--no other State has ever tried this, by the way. Mr. President, 43 States have tried this. This works. This is something that Governors understand. Line-item rescissions work. States do not try this. This does not work. It is impractical. In fact, I would go beyond that, it is really a crazy notion that somehow we could take one bill with every individual line item and page after page after page, and enroll those separate things and put them on the President's desk stacked this high every time we send an appropriations bill to the President. We will have a lot more time to talk about this next week, but I hope those who may be listening to this debate suggesting here, the impracticality of what our colleagues are suggesting, the problems it has, not only for appropriations bills, but for any bill we may want to send to the President. I hope they understand, too, that what the Republicans are saying is they are unwilling to subject, to this or anything else, most tax provisions. They do not want to do that. Then, on top of it all, they want to say we are going to give the power to a minority in a minority to respond directly to the President's specific line-item vetoes. We are going to hold ourselves hostage to a very small minority within the Senate. We cannot do that. That is what this debate is all about. It is not a debate about a line-item veto. It is not a debate about whether we ought to review things and give a second look to those items the President holds out to be of dubious nature. It ought not be a debate about whether we limit this to appropriations or to taxes. Everything ought to be on the table. I hope it is going to be a good debate about whether we ought to have majority rule or not. I hope it is going to be a good debate about what ought to be the most practical way we can have a line-item veto. That is what we ought to have the debate about--not separate enrollment. Not something that is as amazing to me in its complexity as anything that I have had to deal with in 16 years. We will have a good debate about this, but I hope everyone understands it would not be necessary--I think the vast majority of our colleagues could come to an agreement this afternoon--if there was a true, bipartisan spirit on how we take up line-item veto, how we address these issues in a meaningful way. If we are accused of holding anything up I will stand ready to be accused of trying to do what we can to bring people to their senses before we do something as crazy as this. I hope we can pass meaningful line-item veto legislation. If we do something like that, then I am convinced we are going to get a broad consensus and not much debate. I yield the floor.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I am going to take some leader time. We are, hopefully, about to come to some agreement on the business of the day, but until that happens I have a statement I wish to make on another matter.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, last week, Senator Baucus introduced the Missouri River Water Control Equity Act. I have cosponsored that bill because all the analysis of the current master manual guidelines for managing the dams along the Missouri River that I have seen confirms that change in the corp's management of the river is long overdue. The assumptions about economic uses that drive the management of the river have not been seriously reexamined or revised in 50 years. In those 50 years, times and conditions have changed dramatically. But the management of the river has not kept pace. In 1992, the General Accounting Office noted that the master manual for operating the dams is outdated. GAO concluded that the corps has been managing the river based on ``assumptions about the amount of water needed for navigation and irrigation made in 1944 that are no longer valid.'' According to GAO, ``the plan does not reflect the current economic conditions in the Missouri River Basin.'' The Corps of Engineers, caught between the competing self-interest of the upstream and downstream States, has recommended only modest revisions in the master manual. In May 1994, the corps selected a ``preferred alternative,'' which calls for shortening the navigation season by 1 month and a higher spring flow rate. Given the conditions that now exist along the Missouri River, these changes are clearly insufficient to equitably distribute the economic benefits of the river. For example, shortening the navigation season by only 1 month means that the concerns of the percent of the economic benefits of the river--will continue to drive management of the river for the foreseeable future. A recent review of the master manual revision by the Environmental Protection Agency found that more emphasis should be placed on recreation and less on navigation. EPA concluded that, ``The preferred alternative identified in the draft environmental impact statement is likely to result in little, if any, improvement to the Missouri River ecosystem.'' Navigation is a declining $15 million industry. Recreation in the upstream States is a growing industry worth more than $50 million today. Continuing to give clear precedence to navigation cannot be justified. And while I am intrigued by the corps' proposal to increase the spring rise to more closely mimic natural flow conditions, I am concerned about possible impacts on bank erosion. The Missouri River has for years been plagued by bank erosion and siltation, which slowly but inexorably takes productive land from the shores and deposits it in the river, smothering fisheries and reducing the hydroelectric generating potential of the dams. It is critical that the corps develops and implements a systematic plan to reduce erosion along the river. Under current management conditions, the four upstream States, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota--States that sacrificed prime river bottom land for the construction of dams-- receive 32 percent of the benefits from the river. The four downstream States receive 68 percent of the economic benefits. To illustrate how minor are the corps' proposed changes to the master manual, under the referred alternative, downstream States continue to receive 68 percent of the economic benefits. Times have changed. Management must change with them. In the business world, management that fails to adjust to changing conditions does not survive. The corps should strive to better reconcile the management of the river with the economic conditions that exist today. Given the results of the GAO report, the corps' own evaluation, and the EPA review of that analysis, the proposed revisions in the master manual should have gone much farther. Greater consideration should have been given to increasing the permanent pool from its current level of 18 million acre-feet. It is clear that there are significantly greater recreation and wildlife habitat benefits at higher permanent pool levels. Given the immense and growing economic value of recreation in the upstream States, the management priorities for the river need to change. I intend to do everything possible to encourage the corps to recognize the changes and trends in the use of the river and to develop more defensible management guidelines. The bill introduced last week is a first step. It focused a beam of light on this process and reveals the long-overdue changes that should be made. This process will be long and arduous. To succeed in achieving meaningful change, a great deal more education and discussion will be required. I hope that my colleagues will approach this issue with an open mind and allow their judgment to be guided by objective analysis of the conditions today, rather than by memories of what they were 50 years ago. In the end, management policy for the river should be driven by facts and reason and a desire for equity. I am confident that if those are the criteria employed, more serious and defensible change will certainly result. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, today I introduce a bill to amend section 6901 of title 31, United States Code. This bill will provide payment in lieu of taxes to nontaxable Indian land that is conveyed to the ownership of an Indian or Indian tribe or to the United States in trust for an Indian or Indian tribe. In 1976, Congress authorized a program to help compensate counties and units of local government for the loss of property taxes from the presence of tax-exempt Federal lands within their jurisdictions. This program, commonly referred to as payments in lieu of taxes, or PILT, is administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Payments are made for tax-exempt Federal lands administered by the BLM, Forest Service, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and for Federal water projects and some military installations. This amendment will provide compensation to local governments for lost revenue from land that is conveyed to an individual Indian or tribe and then converted to trust status. This amendment does not apply to Indian land that was not originally subject to property taxes or land converted to trust status prior to the enactment of this bill. The purpose of the amendment is to provide a means for local governments to be compensated for the loss of revenue that results from the tax-exempt status of Indian land without discouraging individual Indians and tribes from converting recently purchased land holdings into trust status. The additional PILT compensation will be minimal. Far more Indian land is converted from trust status to fee status. During the past 5 years, less than 1,000 acres have been converted to trust status in South Dakota. This amendment is a fair and sensible approach to remedying an inequity effecting local governments in South Dakota and across the Nation. Mr President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I will just take leader time and not take any time reserved for the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts. Let me make four very important, but simple, points. First of all, the President has every right to issue this Executive order. The precedent set by virtually every one of his predecessors makes that point loudly and clearly. President Bush, President Carter, President Nixon, President Johnson, President Truman, President Roosevelt--they all issued Executive orders having to do with important national priorities, and they did so without anyone challenging their right to make those choices. Obviously, they may have been in significant disagreement, but the fact is they made those Executive orders with the clear understanding that it was within their constitutional right to do so. That is what this President is doing as well. The President is simply saying, ``Look, if you want to do business with the Federal Government, you simply cannot replace striking workers who are conducting a legitimate strike with replacement workers.'' That is all he is saying. I do not think that is too much to ask. Obviously, given the extraordinary difficulty working families are having today, the need to assure balance in the workplace is all this issue is about. Giving workers the right to strike, the right to maintain balance in a working relationship with their employers, has been something guaranteed under the National Labor Relations Act for 60 years. The second point is that this is simply an issue of fairness. The right to strike--the right to ensure that your grievances can be heard in a meaningful way--is a longstanding right of workers, and one which must be protected. They must continue to have the right to strike, and this Executive order simply says that we are going to have that guarantee in writing, at least as far as Government contracts are concerned. The President has made it very clear that working families are a priority in this country. My third point, Mr. President, is this: as the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts has said, this is the first in what will be a series of very critical votes this Congress that directly affect working families. What happens on this vote will send a clear message about what the Congress is going to do and the position it will take with regard to a number of these issues in the future. If they lose the longstanding balance that has existed between labor and management, if they lose a fundamental right guaranteed all workers, I do not know that it bodes very well for other issues that will be pending. There are those who suggest we eliminate the minimum wage. There are those who suggest we eliminate the Davis-Bacon Act. They have suggested a number of attacks on the rights of working families, and certainly this is the first opportunity we have to defend those rights. I hope that everyone understands the critical nature of this vote. It goes beyond simply a question of filibusters. It goes beyond a question of procedure on the Senate floor. It goes to the very heart of why we are here defending the rights of workers at times as important as this. The fourth point, Mr. President, is one that I hope everyone can appreciate. As we go through the final moments of this debate, we must remember that the question of whether or not the rights that have been reaffirmed in this Executive order are respected is of fundamental importance to our relationship with the President. The President must make decisions with regard to executive branch policy. He has made a very important decision to respect the rights of working families. I think it is imperative that we respect his authority to do so. That is all we are saying here, that this President, as other Presidents have done, has made a decision with regard to working families that, in our view, ought to be upheld and ought to be respected. So, Mr. President, in a couple of minutes, we are going to be casting a vote that goes beyond procedure, a vote that goes beyond simply a motion to invoke cloture. It goes to the very heart of whether working families are going to have the right to maintain the balance in the workplace that we all recognize is important to them and to this country. So I hope we can sustain the necessary votes to defeat cloture this morning and send a clear message to working families that the Senate is on the side of families, on the side of working people, on the side of maintaining the balance between labor and management that we have recognized for the last 60 years. I yield the floor.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, last month, Republicans in the House of Representatives marked the first 50 days of their efforts to pass the Contract With America. Notably missing from their speeches was any mention of progress in the fight to enact health reform. Indeed, this issue was not even mentioned in the House Contract With America, nor was health reform among the priority bills introduced by Republicans in either the House or Senate leadership. Meanwhile, in this first 100 days, another group of citizens in my home State was learning, personally and painfully, why we need to continue the fight for health reform. The 3,300 retirees of John Morrell & Co., a South Dakota meat packing firm, learned this January that the firm was ending all retiree health coverage. Many of these retirees and their families had worked for Morrell all of their adult lives. On January 24, Morrell retirees received a simple, yet unexpected, letter stating that their health insurance plan was being terminated, effective midnight, January 31, 1995--only a week later. The benefits being terminated, the letter said, included all hospital, major medical, and prescription drug coverage, Medicare supplemental insurance, vision care, and life insurance coverage. For those retirees under 65, this action poses a particular problem. While Morrell gave them the option of paying for their own coverage for up to 1 year, few can afford the $500 monthly premium for a couple. And many cannot purchase coverage at any price, because of preexisting conditions like diabetes or heart disease. Medicare beneficiaries would have to buy expensive supplemental insurance on their own. Morrell's decision was all the more painful to the retirees because it was so unexpected. These retirees believed they worked for a fair company; that a fair day's work resulted in a fair day's pay. They found out the hard way that the company they had helped to build had turned its back on them. They also found out that the court system was not sympathetic to their cause: The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the company's decision. The union is now planning to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. Sadly, some of the retirees will not live long enough for a possible reversal. And, if medical expenses eat up their income and assets, some Morrell retirees might be forced to resort to welfare. All will struggle financially and emotionally to accept the change in benefits that they counted on for life. A recent edition of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader recounted the stories of several Morrell retirees and their families. One 26-year veteran of Morrell is legally blind, has diabetes and arthritis, takes heart medication, and wears a hearing aid. His $300 monthly pension from Morrell will not even cover the prescription drugs he needs. He fears the financial burden of high medical costs will force him and his wife to sell their home. Another retiree gave up $130 from his monthly Morrell pension so his wife could get health insurance. He now has cancer and glaucoma, and his monthly prescription costs are $800. His wife's monthly drug costs are $200. His monthly pension from Morrell, after 30 years service, is about $300. Finally, a retiree who had a kidney transplant and recently had a leg amputated, figures that he can pay for the company-offered insurance coverage for the year it is available. After that he is not sure what he will do to pay the $1,000 monthly cost for antirejection drugs, which Medicare doesn't cover. Mr. President, the stories go on and on. They describe proud people who worry that high medical costs will impoverish them or force them to rely on their children for financial help. They are stories about loyal employees who each day will live in fear of illness and injury because they have no health insurance. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated situation. What happened to Morrell workers could happen to any of the 14 million retired workers who believe they and their families have lifelong health insurance coverage through their employers. As companies look for ways to reduce their health care costs, they will no doubt look at drastic reductions in, or outright elimination of, retiree health care benefits. That just is not the way it should be in this country. We all like to think that, if we work hard and play by the rules, we will be rewarded, especially in our old age. Sadly, when it comes to our health care system, this is often not the case. I was disappointed that the 103d Congress was unable to pass comprehensive health reform, because many of the proposals we were considering would have addressed the problem the Morrell retirees now face. A union official recently said, ``I wish that Harry and Louise could see what's happened to the people at Morrell.'' I could not agree more. The problems we talked about in last year's health reform debate have not gone away simply because that session of Congress has ended. The Morrell retiree situation is a painful reminder of that fact. As I recently indicated in a letter to the majority leader, I remain committed to working with all of our colleagues to craft legislation that will address the serious problems of the health care system that plague American families and businesses. I will also be offering in the next few weeks a bill that will deal directly with the problem that Morrell and other retirees face. I hope that those who have blocked and delayed health reform will at least support the effort to ensure that our Nation's retirees get a fair day's wage from a fair day's work.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I want to commend the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts for his eloquent and passionate leadership on this issue. Let me also commend many of my other colleagues: the Senator from Iowa, the Senator from Minnesota, the Senator from Illinois, and a number of others who have participated over the last several days in this debate. No one should misunderstand what this debate is all about. Obviously, if Senators have heard any of the speeches made by the colleagues whom I have just mentioned, there can be no misunderstanding. Quite simply, it is about fairness. That is the issue. It is fairness for American working families, in a very important set of circumstances: the workplace. It is fairness in reaffirming their right to strike, fairness in restoring a fundamental balance between workers and management, and fairness in halting the practice of requiring striking workers to pay taxes for salaries of workers who replace them. That is really what this issue is all about. The President understands that. He understands he is on solid ground in issuing the Executive order as he did a couple of weeks ago. The order is quite simple. It says to do business for more than $100,000 with the Federal Government, you cannot hire replacement workers in the case of a strike. That is all it says. A person simply cannot do what the law of the last 60 years has said could not be done. This President is doing exactly what President Bush did in 1992. President Bush required unionized contractors to notify employees of their right to refuse to pay union dues. He was not challenged by Republicans when he issued that particular Executive order. President Clinton is doing also what President Carter did in 1978, when he issued an Executive order that directly affected the lives and livelihood of thousands of working families by limiting what Federal contractors could agree to in collective bargaining. In fact, this President is doing exactly what President Roosevelt, President Truman, Presidents Nixon, Johnson, Carter, and Bush have all done in the past. In this case, he has shown Presidential leadership in protecting the rights and the spirit of the law for all working families. The President is well within his rights, in my view, for at least three good reasons. First, as I indicated, there is ample precedent in virtually every past administration for the past 60 years. Second, he is supported by the American people. More than 60 percent of the American people, according to recent polls, have shown that they oppose the use of permanent replacement workers in the event of a lawful strike. The American people understand the question of fairness. They appreciate the need for worker-management balance. The American people support actions and laws to guarantee that balance, which is really what the Executive order was designed to do. And third, this action taken by the President is consistent with the National Labor Relations Act itself, signed into law, as I said, by President Roosevelt about 60 years ago. In fact, this year, we will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act, an act that fundamentally appreciates the balance in the workplace, that understands the need for the right to strike, that underscores the importance of providing opportunities for workers and management to work out their differences. That was the law that recognized the need for American workers to form organizations to bring the balance back into the workplace. It has been a balance that, frankly, has worked well for 45 years, a balance that has brought about better wages, a balance that has brought about better working conditions, better retirement security, better productivity. But it is a balance that was destroyed by the actions taken by President Reagan during the PATCO strike of 1981, when the President of the United States hired permanent replacement workers. His action sent a green light to every business in the country. Virtually all of the work of 45 years under the National Labor Relations Act was lost with that action, and for 15 years now, Democrats in Congress, and others, have attempted to pass the Workplace Fairness Act to restore the balance that we had for those 45 years, an act which very simply puts into law what we believe was there all along: a prohibition of the hiring of permanent replacement workers during a strike; a restoration of the balance that we had in labor-management relations up until 1981. It is important to note that a majority of Congress has supported the Workplace Fairness Act. There have been more than 50 votes for it on those occasions when the legislation was brought before this body, and were it not for a minority that kept it from being passed, it would, in fact, be law. So whether it is law or whether it is an Executive order, this clarification is long overdue and extremely important to all working families. The right to organize, the right to bargain collectively is essential to American workers. As history has shown, the right to strike is the right to be taken seriously. The right to strike is the only leverage workers have when bargaining with management. their families, resorting to a strike is sometimes the only way to resolve a labor dispute. But when employers are free to replace striking workers, that leverage disappears and the imbalance destroys any hope of meaningful conflict resolution. We have seen it in the precipitous drop in the number of strikes over the past 20 years. There are nearly half the strikes in the early 1990's that there were in the 1970's, and the number of union members has also declined. The attack on this Executive order is part of a well-orchestrated effort to dramatically reduce the Federal role in workers' security. This effort ranges from calls for the elimination of the Federal minimum wage law, to proposals to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act, to efforts to minimize the regulation of workplace safety. These efforts are orchestrated to continue the rollback of the progress we have made for decades under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Act and other important labor legislation. As the rollback continues, while unions are threatened, the American worker and working families have seen their incomes and the level of job benefits plummet. In constant dollars, wages have now declined by more than 10 percent in 10 years. Wages have actually gone down by more than a dollar an hour since the 1970's. Moreover, far fewer workers have health insurance benefits or retirement benefits than they did back then. Without the right to strike, workers continually lose the right to negotiate. Without the right to negotiate, they lose the right to benefits, benefits on which they and their families depend. By taking this action, the President is simply saying, ``If you're going to bid for Federal tax dollars on a Federal contract, all we ask is that you live up to the intent of the National Labor Relations Act. If there is a strike, we want you, the company, to resolve it in a responsible way. We want you to renounce the practice of hiring permanent replacements.'' Working families are counting on us to support the President. This is a very important vote for them and for the future of labor law in this country. A vote against cloture is a vote for working Americans at their time of greatest need. It should also be a clear sign of our desire to reverse the long downward slope of economic security for all working families. There is much which must be done, including the passage of meaningful health reform during this Congress. Hopefully, we can do that and many other things to restore the kind of security and confidence that working families must have if they are to look to the future with any more optimism than they can right now. But this is the place to begin, on this vote, on this important issue, to send the kind of clear message: that we understand the importance of balance, that we understand the importance of fostering meaningful negotiations between workers and their employers, that we understand the right to strike, that we understand the importance of a law that has now been on the books for 60 years, and that we restore the kind of equality in the workplace that workers now say is even more important than it was back in 1935. So, Mr. President, I hope that we can defeat this cloture motion and send the kind of message that I know Republicans and Democrats want to be able to send to working families. And that is: we appreciate your plight, we appreciate your need for security, we appreciate your need for more confidence in the future than you have right now. I hope that all Senators will understand that message and support us in our effort to defeat cloture on Wednesday morning. With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, last month we commemorated the 50th anniversary of Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima holds a special place in our national consciousness because of the mythic heroism of those who fought there-- and because of the ultimate sacrifice made by those who died there. Grateful as we are to the veterans of Iwo, the truth is: Every veteran has performed an act of heroism, and every veteran deserves this Nation's support. Not simply our gratitude. But our support, while they are on the battlefield, and after they leave it. This week, during an address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, President Clinton announced a number of initiatives that will provide for some of our newest veterans--the veterans of the gulf war--the support which they clearly need and deserve. I want to focus in particular on one of those initiatives. The President announced that he is creating a Presidential advisory committee on gulf war veterans' illnesses. This will be the first fully independent panel to examine the issues surrounding what has come to be known as gulf war syndrome, the chronic medical problems suffered by many gulf war veterans and, in some cases, their spouses and children. There are currently 30 studies being conducted on the gulf war syndrome. The advisory committee will act as a clearinghouse. It will coordinate research efforts into the causes and treatment of gulf war- related illnesses. It will also conduct aggressive outreach efforts to make sure that gulf war veterans and the medical professionals who treat them are kept fully informed of any advances. The advisory committee will work with the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, and Health and Human Services. And they will report directly their findings and recommendations directly to the President before the year is out. America showed 4 years ago during the gulf war what we can accomplish when we mobilize all our resources to achieve a goal. The veterans of that conflict are now relying on us to marshall our resources once again to provide them with the medical care they need and deserve. Whether an injury is diagnosed or undiagnosed; whether it was caused by a bullet, by some invisible, poisonous gas, or by any other factor, it is still a service-related injury, and the man or woman who suffered it deserve our support. In the last session I worked with my friend and colleague Senator Rockefeller to develop legislation that would give VA the authority to pay compensation to ailing gulf war veterans, even if the exact nature of their illness has not yet been diagnosed. Congress passed that legislation because it was the right thing to do. For more than a decade, I fought to gain compensation for veterans whose illnesses were caused by exposure to agent orange in Vietnam. That battle was won eventually, but only after a science proved what commonsense already told us: that there was a clear scientific link between agent orange and the illnesses. Let us not repeat that mistake. When the men and women who fought in the gulf were called to serve they did not say, ``Let us conduct a study.'' They did their duty. Now a grateful Nation should do its duty. The President's advisory committee will help us perform that duty with the least possible duplication or delay. As a veteran myself, and as a grateful American, I salute the President's initiative.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. The practice of permanently replacing workers who are exercising their right to strike, as guaranteed by longstanding Federal labor law, is wrong. It is wrong to punish striking workers for exercising their rights, and it is wrong to use replacement workers to disrupt the collective bargaining process. Since 1935, the National Labor Relations Act has expressly protected the right of workers to strike over economic conditions. Moreover, the act promises workers that they cannot be discharged by their employer for exercising this right. Under current interpretations of the law, employers are not violating the National Labor Relations Act when they hire replacement workers during a strike and promise to make those positions permanent. Rather, these employers are taking advantage of a true anomaly in Federal labor law, one which sets out a dubious distinction between firing a striking worker and permanently replacing that worker. To the worker, however, it is of little comfort to know that he or she has been permanently replaced rather than fired. The result in both cases is the same, and the right to strike becomes a right to lose your job. I believe strongly that the Congress must pass legislation to get rid of this anomaly in Federal labor law. Unfortunately, a minority of the Senate was able to block passage of such a bill last year. Having said that, however, I must emphasize that the President is not attempting to do by Executive order what Congress was prevented from doing last year. There can be no disagreement that our Founding Fathers entrusted Congress with the power to adopt the laws of the land. To the executive branch, they assigned the duty of implementing those laws. If the Executive order issued by President Clinton upset this balance of power, I would strongly oppose it. But it does not. Rather than usurping the policymaking role of the Congress, this Executive order sets out the terms under which the executive branch will fulfill its own constitutional role. Implementing the laws passed by Congress involves the procurement of goods and services by the Federal Government. To do this, the Federal Government enters into contracts with suppliers, as any business would do. In these dealings, the Government wants the same things that businesses want: a quality product, a reasonable price, dependable service. And like any business, the Federal Government selects the suppliers it believes are best able to meet these objectives. Indeed, with precious taxpayer dollars at stake, I'm sure most Americans want the Government to do business with only the most stable and reliable companies. Are companies that replace their workers during a lawful labor dispute the most stable and reliable suppliers for the executive branch? The President--the CEO of the executive branch--has determined that they are not. The use or threatened use of permanent replacement workers makes strained labor-management relations even more contentious. In fact, disputes involving replacement workers last seven times longer than disputes that do not. A company that replaces its workers during an ongoing dispute is trading in its experienced employees for inexperienced ones. This necessarily raises questions about the timeliness of delivery and quality of product these replacement workers will produce. Should the Federal Government take a gamble on products that might not be up to snuff? The President has determined that it should not. let's not forget that NASA and the Defense Department spend a large percentage of the Federal Government's total procurement dollars. When it comes to space and defense programs, it is critical that these dollars go to contractors of the highest caliber. On the other hand, it must be noted that this Executive order will not prevent the Defense Department or any other Federal agency from contracting with the supplier that best fits its needs. In fact, the order specifically guarantees the flexibility of an agency to enter into contracts with companies that have been debarred by the Secretary of Labor if a compelling reason can be shown. My Republican colleagues are suggesting that President Clinton has taken an extraordinary step by issuing this Executive order. On the contrary, Executive orders have been used throughout the years by Democratic and Republican Presidents alike to set forth important policies of the Federal Government. And addressing the issue of labor-management relations in an Executive order is not new, either. President Reagan did it in 1981 when he permanently banned the striking PATCO members from returning to their jobs as air traffic controllers. And President Bush did it twice in 1992 when he issued Executive orders to prohibit the use of prehire agreements on Federal construction contracts and to require Federal contractors to post notices with regard to union membership. What it comes down to, then, is this: President Clinton has revised the executive branch's procurement policy--nothing more. And he has done it in a way that will help ensure that the Federal Government obtains the best goods and services it possibly can from its suppliers. disagrees with this policy, she should introduce legislation to overturn it. That bill should be the subject of hearings by her committee and considered through the normal legislative process, not tacked on to a supplemental appropriations bill. The chairwoman is attempting her own end run around the legislative process. I urge my colleagues to reject this effort and to get down to business with what is a very important measure to our national defense. impact of rescission on doe cleanup program

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I wish to thank the distinguished Senator from North Dakota for his comments this morning. I have respected the leadership of Senator Conrad on this issue, as I have of the distinguished Senator from Montana. Mr. President, a number of Senators have been developing for some time a bill that we are introducing today that would put our money where our mouth is when it comes to making the tough decisions on the budget that we all know must be made. Over the course of the last several weeks, we have had a vigorous debate about the advisability, the practicality, and the prudence, of a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As everyone knows, by a very close vote, the Senate has decided, at least for now, that there will not be a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. But no one should interpret that to mean there will not be an effort to reduce the deficit, or that we will not continue on the progress that we have made in the past 3 years on getting the deficit under control. We intend to continue deficit reduction further than it has come to this point. We want to balance the budget by a date certain without relying on the Social Security trust funds. We made good progress. We have reduced the deficit, now, by 40 percent from what it was just 3 years ago. It has been a long time since the Senate and the Congress has done that. The last time Washington has reduced the deficit 3 years in a row was during the time of Harry Truman. So we have come a long way. We have made some very tough choices. We made tough choices with regard to both revenue as well as cuts in 1990. We made very tough choices, and on another very close vote, passed a $600 billion deficit reduction package in 1993. We have come this far as a result of those very tough choices, choices for which a lot of Members took a lot of political heat. We can say, perhaps somewhat boastfully, that because of those tough choices, our country is stronger today. Because of those tough choices, we have actually been able to make real progress in meaningful deficit reduction. We need another effort just like that this year. The only change that I hope we can make is that in 1993, unfortunately, it became a very partisan choice, the Republicans versus Democrats. I hope this year, given the tremendous burden we all must share in coming to grips with this deficit, that it does not have to be partisan; that it indeed will be a bipartisan effort at deficit reduction; that we could put the next installment on deficit reduction into place now in 1995. So the bill that we are introducing, Mr. President, will do just that. It says very fundamentally three things. First and foremost, that we shall reduce the deficit to zero by the year 2002, or at the earliest possible date set by the Budget Committee. Our view is that unless we have a time certain, it is really impossible to develop the necessary blueprint to get us from here to there. Recognizing that we have $1.8 trillion of deficit reduction decisionmaking ahead of us, there is no way we can come to grips with it and do all that we must to do it right unless we take it in installments year after year, recognizing that each year has to be a downpayment. So that is the provision in our bill: to set a date certain, either 2002 or the earliest date set by the Budget Committee. The second provision is one that we have talked a good deal about: protecting Social Security. I said the deficit over the course of the next 7 years will be $1.8 trillion more if we do nothing. That is our goal. It would be $1.2 trillion if we were to use the Social Security trust funds to finance the deficit. Many of us feel that using Social Security trust funds to pay for other government programs is wrong. There is a designated purpose for those trust funds, and we do not want to play games with trust fund dollars or with the revenue that would be required to meet the obligations we have to workers who will need the trust funds to retire in future years. So our view is to take Social Security off the table, to recognize the magnitude of the problem for what it really is--$1.8 trillion--and to begin making the effort to balance the budget, as we know we must. The third, and an equally important element in this budget package, is one which simply says this must be the Congress to start this effort. This must be the Congress to begin making the headway and leading the way to ensure that future Congresses do what we know we must do. We cannot delegate the responsibility to future Congresses, it has to be this one now, this year, this session of Congress. And so our bill makes that point very clear. Our bill provides for a budgetary point of order--a requirement that 60 Senators must vote to overturn--against any reported budget resolution that does not balance the budget by a date certain. So, Mr. President, there has been a lot of discussion, a lot of debate, and a lot of strongly held feelings about how we get from here to there. I believe the time has come for us to put aside the rhetoric, to get down to the real hard decisionmaking that we all must do if we are going to accomplish this in a successful way. In 23 days' time, the Budget Committee is required--by law--to produce a budget blueprint. In 38 days, Congress must approve a plan. We stand ready to work with our Republican colleagues to craft a plan that meets the goals set out in the bill we are introducing today. We hope they will support this bill. Mr. President, the Social Security trust funds are the only Federal funds that are explicitly excluded from the deficit calculations under this bill. That is because, as I have said, the surplus revenues building up in those trust funds--amounting to $705 billion between now and 2002--would otherwise be raided to balance the budget. Just as we are determined to protect Social Security, this bill would force Congress to set national priorities as need to protect those who need our help. Cutting back on meals for schoolchildren, as some are proposing, is not what proponents of this bill have in mind. Neither would we support cutting back on benefits to veterans with service-connected disabilities. The debate should be about priorities. We must balance the budget, and we must do it in a way that strengthens the economy and that is fair. I am very pleased that so many of my colleagues have joined me in cosponsoring this bill. Many of them are on the floor this morning to participate in this colloquy. I yield the floor at this time to accommodate the other statements. Mr. President, I ask that the time that I have just used be taken from my leader time. And I ask unanimous consent that the full 30 minutes under my control be made available to my colleagues.

Mr. DASCHLE. With that, I yield to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, and I designate the distinguished Senator from North Dakota as the manager of the time. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, the Corps of Engineers manages the flow of the Missouri River based on assumptions about economic uses of the river that have not been seriously reexamined or revised in 50 years. Impartial observers, including the General Accounting Office, acknowledge that the rules for operating the dams along the river, known as the master manual, are outdated. Historically, upstream States, including South Dakota, have accepted the burden of flood control on the river. This tradition began with the sacrifice of prime land to the construction of dams to prevent downstream flooding. Over time, recreation in upstream States has come to play a much more prominent role in producing economic benefits from the river. Yet corps management of the river ignores this development and continues to give recreation lower priority than competing downstream uses. Today there is general consensus on the need to substantially revise the guidelines by which the Federal Government operates the dams on the Missouri River. After reviewing the management of the Missouri River in 1992, the General Accounting Office concluded that the corps has been managing the river based on ``assumptions about the amount of water needed for navigation and irrigation made in 1944 that are no longer valid.'' According to GAO, ``the plan does not reflect the current economic conditions in the Missouri River Basin.'' As a result, in 1989 the Corps of Engineers initiated a study of the operation of the main stem of the Missouri River, in anticipation of revising the master manual. A number of alternative management plans were developed and, based on the historical behavior of the river--from 1898 to 1994--the economic and environmental impacts of each alternative were evaluated. The goal of this exercise was to identify which alternative would maximize the economic value of the river, considering such factors as flood control, navigation, hydropower, water supply, and recreation. In May 1994, the corps selected a preferred alternative, which called for shortening the navigation season by 1 month and maintaining a higher permanent pool behind the dams. In July 1994, the draft environmental impact statement [EIS] was released for review. The public comment period ended on March 1. What has become clear through this 6-year process is that the downstream States will go to great lengths to prevent this reassessment from moving forward. Congressional representatives from downstream States consistently have attempted to block any revision of the Master manual that reflects the changing economics of the river and gives recreation the priority it deserves. The House Appropriations Committee in 1993--at the behest of downstream members--called on the corps ``to follow the legislative priorities and regulatory guidelines expressed in its current master manual until a new management plan is approved by Congress.'' Now that the corps has selected the preferred alternative, the downstream States have made it clear that they will fight the changes it recommends. It appears increasingly unlikely that even modest changes in the master manual will be allowed to occur without legislation. That is regrettable. To focus light on the heart of this issue, today Senator Baucus is introducing the Missouri River Water Control Equity Act, which seeks to ensure that the changing economic conditions are acknowledged and reflected in the management of the river. This bill simply states explicitly policy that should be implicit. This bill reflects the analysis of corps professionals. It would require the agency to maintain a permanent pool of 44 million acre-feet behind most dams, while allowing it to maintain lower levels if necessary to meet downstream needs for flood control, water supply and hydropower. It would also reduce the navigation season and require the corps to develop and implement a plan to mitigate stream bank erosion caused by operation of the dams. Mr. President, times have changed. Assumptions valid 50 years ago are no longer valid today. Since 1944, significant economic changes have occurred in the economy of the Missouri River. The downstream users refuse to accept this fact. Instead, they cling to the outdated assumptions that disproportionately reward their States to the detriment of upstream users. Given the results of the corps' own evaluation, the revisions should have gone much farther. Greater consideration should have been given to increasing the permanent pool from its current level of 18 million acre-feet. The analysis performed by the corps demonstrates significant increases in recreation and wildlife habitat benefits at higher permanent pool levels. Given the immense economic value of recreation in the upstream States--now a $77 million per year industry--as well as the ecological damage that has been suffered over the years due to disruption of wetlands and the flooding of prime crop land--the master manual should be altered to better support these activities. The bill introduced today would require the corps to make modest changes in the management of the river that their professionals have recommended; changes that are fair and that increase national environmental and economic benefits from the river. Neither the upstream States nor the Nation as a whole can afford to continue business as usual. It is my hope that Congress will take an objective look at this issue, recognize the merits of this legislation and move swiftly to enact it.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the President.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me begin this morning by going back to the debate yesterday and making a couple of remarks with regard to those who spent the better part of an entire month on the floor debating this issue. The manager on the Republican side, the distinguished Senator from Utah, was a gentleman. He did an outstanding job and gave everyone the opportunity to be heard, and to discuss the issue, in a way that I think fits the Senate. It was, as the distinguished Senator from West Virginia said yesterday, a very good debate, a rigorous debate, a bruising debate in many cases but, certainly, one that afforded everyone the opportunity to be heard, to present their case, to make their positions well known. That was due in no small measure to the manner in which the distinguished Senator from Utah managed the legislation the entire time that it was pending on the floor. Let me also commend the distinguished senior Senator from Illinois for his tenacious approach to the debate, and also for conducting himself in a very admirable way. I know that often, as take our positions, we sometimes allow our own personal views to mask what in other ways would be a very legitimate discussion of issues. Certainly, the Senator from Illinois, as he conducted himself throughout this debate, did not allow whatever personal views he may hold with regard to the positions taken by other Senators to distract him from conducting himself in a way that I thought was extraordinary. Certainly, the Senator from Idaho [Mr. Craig], and his leadership on this issue was also extraordinarily commendable. I hope that as we take on these issues, as difficult and as fractious as they become sometimes, we can maintain civility, and that we can find ways with which to disagree without being disagreeable. I know there are a lot of strongly held views and a lot of temptation sometimes to get personal, to be negative. But I think that the course of this debate was one of our better moments. It was an opportunity for us to debate the issues in a meaningful way, without getting personal, being negative, and without distracting from what is our real purpose in being here. Mr. President, the vote we took yesterday may not be the last on the constitutional amendment. The majority leader has indicated, as is his right, he is going to raise the issue again at some later date. Regardless of when that time may come, I think the real question now is: Can we as Democrats and Republicans work together? Can we find a way with which to put aside our differences on an amendment itself and commit ourselves to doing what we say we must do? We need to recognize that the clock is ticking, and to recognize that without some determination to take responsibility, to set forth a glidepath, we will be right back where we were a month ago, with no real progress, with no real substantive demonstration of our determination to resolve this matter 1 year from now, 2 years from now, or 3 years from now. So, Mr. President, I think it is very important that we recognize that the clock is ticking. We have 43 days, by law--43 days by law--to produce a budget resolution. We did that last year. We hope very much that we can do it again this year. It is tough. And for those who say we do not need a constitutional amendment to do the job, I think it is all the more important that we demonstrate that we can; that we are up to the task; that we can meet our responsibilities to make it happen correctly, to make it happen in the way that was foreseen when we passed the laws setting up this budget process. So within the next 43 days, we hope that a majority will come forth, and that we can work together to produce what we have called for on many occasions, a glidepath to a date certain, a time within which we will reduce the deficit to zero, a time within which we can be assured that indeed we are going to take the reins of responsibility and produce a balanced budget. When that happens, we can look back with some pride at the way in which this whole effort was undertaken. I hope also that we will abide by the law passed some time ago that stipulates that we do so without the Social Security trust funds. That is the law. We are required already to keep Social Security off-budget. So that ought to be our task. That ought to be the responsibility that we all grasp now as Republicans and Democrats. Pro-balanced-budget amendment supporters and those who oppose it must recognize that we have a timeframe within which we must produce, a timeframe that is a little more than a month long, which requires us, by law, to set out a budget resolution that provides the glidepath that we all say we want. Let us make it a time certain. I am not wedded to a specific date today. But I would agree to a time certain, a time within which we can, with some confidence, look to a decline of the deficit to the point where we can say with authority that we have taken Social Security out of the calculation, as the law requires; we have reduced the deficit annually, building on the 3-year record we have set out now, and we have done it within the timeframe that the law requires. I think the American people would look at this Congress in a very different way. I think they would look at us with a great deal of admiration if we said we are going to do what we all say we want to do. Certainly, this is the time to prove it. This is an opportunity for us to demonstrate real responsibility. It is an opportunity for us to demonstrate real bipartisanship. It is an opportunity for us to set politics aside and say this is our task, and there can be no more important responsibility. We are going to do it and do it in a way that we all can feel proud. So I sincerely hope, Mr. President, that everyone will accept that task, and that everyone will take this responsibility seriously. I think the majority is going to live up to their commitment. I am sure they will produce a resolution. I hope they will produce that resolution in the time the law requires. So our purpose in coming to the floor this morning is to say that the balanced budget amendment debate, for now, is behind us. It is over. Let us get on with the real work of doing the job, doing what we say we are going to do. Let us get on with making sure that we do not miss this opportunity. Let us get on with trying to do what we all have professed is the most important thing we can do, and that is set out the glidepath to a balanced Federal budget at a time certain. That time certain is in the next 43 days. Mr. President, I know of several of my colleagues that have come to the floor also to express themselves on this issue. I will yield whatever time he may require to the Senator from Nevada. Balanced Budget Amendment

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. I yield the Senator an additional 60 seconds.