Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of this amendment on behalf of American workers and American families. Here in Washington, and on the campaign trail we hear a lot of talk about corporate downsizing, stagnant wages, and worker anxiety. Throughout this country, American workers and their families are frustrated and anxious of what the future might bring. And, if we're going to do more than pay lip service to these issues, if we're going to be serious about helping those Americans that work hard and play by the rules then this amendment should pass by a unanimous vote. Today, with this measure we have a genuine opportunity, on behalf of millions of American workers, to turn the minimum wage into a true living wage. Today, the real value of the minimum wage is at its second lowest point in 40 years--$4.25 an hour. Now, I want every person in this room to consider living on $4.25 a hour; or, living on $36 a day. That's an annual income of $8,500 a year--well below the poverty level for a family of three, which is $12,500. How can any American expect to bring themselves out of poverty or pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they're expected to raise a family on $8,500 a year? Over the past year I've heard a lot of talk from the other side of the aisle about encouraging responsibility and a strong work ethic among our Nation's welfare recipients. I think it's something we can all agree upon. But, it is utter hypocrisy to talk about encouraging self-sufficiency and responsibility while we ask our Nation's poorest citizens to live on a meager wage of $36 a day. Let us be clear, the people affected by the minimum wage aren't high- school kids flipping hamburgers at McDonald's. I can see why people would like to believe that: it certainly makes it easier to oppose this amendment. We're talking about child care workers, waiters and waitresses, telemarketers, custodians, salesclerks, and the list goes on and on. The fact is, more than 73 percent of those affected by the minimum wage are adults. More than 47 percent are full-time workers. Four in ten are the sole earner for their families and nearly one in five currently lives in poverty. What's more, nearly 60 percent of minimum wage workers are women, more than three-quarters of whom are adults. That's 5.2 million adult women, many of whom are also busy raising children who would be directly affected if we pass this amendment. These figures represent millions of American workers who are just able to keep their heads above water, who are barely subsisting at three-fourths the level of poverty. For them this amendment isn't about politics or partisan games--this is about economic survival. Now, my colleagues from across the aisle often use the argument that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs. But study after study has shown that this is a fallacious argument. Studies done after the minimum wage was raised in 1990 demonstrate that not only did it have a negligible effect on job loss, but in some locales it actually brought higher employment. The fact is, a higher minimum wage is not only a stronger incentive to work, but it reduces turnover, increases productivity, and lowers cost for retraining and recruiting. And, the fact is we're not even talking about an enormous increase-- only 90 cents an hour. And, while 90 cents may not seem like a lot to most people, it represents $1,800 in potential income for American workers. For a family struggling to make ends meet, a simple 90-cent-an-hour increase in the minimum wage would pay for 7 months of groceries, or 1 year of health care costs, or more than a year's tuition at a 2-year college. And if you don't believe me, listen to the experts. According to a recent study by economists William Spriggs and John Schmitt: ``The overwhelming weight of recent evidence supports the view that low-wage workers will benefit overwhelmingly from a higher Federal minimum wage.'' And that's the choice we have before us today: To raise the minimum wage and make a real difference in the lives of close to 12 million American workers. If we want to be serious about moving welfare recipients to work, if we want to calm the fears of anxious workers, if we want to provide economic opportunity for every American we have a solemn commitment to pass this amendment and raise the minimum wage for American workers. In the past, this body has, in a bipartisan manner, overwhelmingly supported increasing the minimum wage. The last time we raised it in 1989, the Senate voted 89 to 8. Indeed, Senator Dole, who I often hear talking about the importance of working families on the campaign trail, was a key supporter of raising the minimum wage in 1989. Well, I hope Senator Dole and all my colleagues continue the bipartisan tradition of supporting the minimum wage and join me in backing this critically important amendment for American workers.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, it has come to my attention that ICI Export Ltd. was erroneously listed among the ``Corporations and companies cited in the international media as having commercial activities with the Republic of Cuba'' in the Congressional Record of March 5, 1996. ICI Export Ltd., which is in no way affiliated with ICI Americas, Inc., has not existed since 1992. I ask that the attached letter from William A. Meaux of ICI Americas, Inc. be printed in the Record. The letter follows: ICI Americas Inc., Washington, DC, March 12, 1996. Hon. Christopher Dodd, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Dodd: Thank you very much for your offer to correct the erroneous listing of ICI Export Ltd. in the Congressional Record of March 5, 1996, on page S 1490. The listing of ICI Export Ltd. by the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, Inc. is in error. ICI Export does not exist, has not existed since 1992, and is not affiliated with any company in the ICI group. After 1992, it is our understanding that ICI Export Ltd. became Zeneca International Ltd. located at 10 Stanhope Gate in London, England. Zeneca International Ltd. is not affiliated with, does not own, and is not owned by, ICI Americas or any other ICI company. We are very grateful for your offer to correct this inaccuracy in the Record. Sincerely, William A. Meaux.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. I will try to use less time than that, because I know my colleague from Washington has several requests for additional time. First of all, let me commend our colleagues from West Virginia and from Washington for their tremendous work on this legislation. They have spent countless months, indeed years, working on this issue. I want to express my gratitude to them and the gratitude of my constituents in Connecticut. They have dealt with a complicated, sensitive issue in a forthright manner, allowing all to have a full say in what ought to be included in the legislation. I strongly urge our colleagues to support their effort, the Common Sense Product Liability and Legal Reform Act of 1996. Mr. President, I am not new to this issue. During this debate, I have been playing a supporting role to the efforts of Senator Rockefeller and Senator Gorton. But I began working on this issue 10 years ago, when I joined with our former colleague, Jack Danforth, and attempted to fashion a product liability bill. None of our efforts ever made much headway through the legislative process, but I think we helped lay a foundation for the measure we are considering today. Mr. President, when I ask the businesses in my State to list the single most important issue to them, they tell me that it is product liability reform, more so than taxes or any other issue. This is particularly true of my smaller manufacturers, the tool and die makers, and other industries that are supported by larger companies like United Technologies, Sikorsky, and Electric Boat. This is the issue they care more about than anything else. Across this country, manufacturers are spending seven times more to prepare for product liability cases than they are on research and development. Because of these costs, innovative products never make it to the market. There is no question, for example, that there would be more research into an aids vaccine if companies were not fearful of the current product liability system. Additionally, the high costs of litigation raises the cost of many products. This so-called tort tax accounts for an estimated 20 percent of the cost of a ladder, 55 percent of the cost of a football helmet, and 95 percent of the cost of childhood vaccines. The excessive costs of the product liability system also hurt the competitive position of American companies. Some American manufacturers pay product liability insurance rates that are 20 to 50 times higher than their foreign competitors. Of course, if this system were working well for consumers, that would be an important argument for maintaining the status quo. But that is not the case. As I mentioned earlier, consumers are denied innovative products and must pay higher prices for products. And what about people who are injured by the products that do make it to the marketplace? Do they benefit from the current system? The answer is no. A General Accounting Office study concluded that it takes almost 3 years for a case to be resolved. That is 3 years that an injured person must wait to be made whole. Regrettably, this delay leads many injured people, particularly those with very severe injuries, to settle for less than their full losses. Clearly, the present system is broken. We need to fix it and the conference report makes some important repairs. My colleagues have already discussed some aspects of the bill, but let me highlight some provisions that are particularly important. uniform system First, by providing Federal standards in certain areas, this measure will provide a more uniform system of product liability. These standards will add more certainty to the system, and help reduce transaction costs. When you consider that 70 percent of all products move in interstate commerce, Federal standards make sense. The National Governors Association supports this approach. The association has testified: The United States needs a single, predictable set of product liability rules. The adoption of a Federal uniform product liability code would eliminate unnecessary cost, delay, and confusion in resolving product liability cases. alternative dispute resolution The provision in the bill that encourages the use of alternative dispute resolution will also help reduce the excessive costs in the current system. Currently, too much money goes to transaction costs-- primarily lawyers fees--and not enough goes to victims. A 1993 survey of the Association of Manufacturing Technology found that every 100 claims filed against its members cost a total of $10.2 million. Out of that total, the victims received only $2.3 million, with the rest of the money going to legal fees and other costs. Clearly, we need to implement a better system in which the money goes to those who need it--injured people. statute of limitations Consumers will also benefit from a statute of limitations provision that preserves a claim until 2 years after the consumer should have discovered the harm and the cause. In many cases, injured people are not sure what caused their injuries, and by the time they figure it out, they have often lost their ability to sue. This legislation will provide relief for people in such situations and allow them adequate time to bring a lawsuit. This legislation will also improve the system for businesses--from large manufacturers to the hardware store down the street. alcohol and drugs Under this bill, defendants would have an absolute defense if the plaintiff was under the influence of intoxicating alcohol or illegal drugs and the condition was more than 50 percent responsible for the plaintiff's injuries. This provision, it seems to me, is nothing more than common sense. Why should a responsible company pay for the actions of a drunk or a drug user? product sellers The bill also institutes reforms to help product sellers. They would only be liable for their own negligence or failure to comply with an express warranty. Product sellers who are not at fault can get out of cases before running up huge legal bills. But as an added protection for injured people, this rule would not apply if the manufacturer could not be brought into court or if the claimant would be unable to enforce a judgment against the manufacturer. punitive damages In my view, the conference report also strikes an appropriate balance on punitive damages. There are reasonable limitations on punitive damages, but the judge could award a higher amount against large businesses if the limited punitive damage award is insufficient to deter egregious conduct. biomaterials The biomaterials provision also addresses a critical problem. It would limit the liability of biomaterials suppliers to cases where they are at fault, and establish a procedure to ensure that suppliers, but not manufacturers, could avoid unnecessary legal costs. This provision will help ensure that Americans continue to have access to lifesaving and life-enhancing medical devices. My colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, authored this proposal and I commend him for his excellent effort. balanced legislation The provisions I have outlined demonstrate the balance this legislation strikes between consumers and businesses. In the final analysis, the reforms in the bill should strengthen the product liability system for everyone. Mr. President, I commend the conferees for staying so close to the Senate bill. In my view, the House bill went too far. It contained provisions that would have applied in a wide range of cases, including medical malpractice. The stakes of legal reform, the rights and responsibilities of all Americans, warrant a more cautious approach. There are some areas of our legal system where problems must be addressed. Securities litigation and product liability are obvious examples, but we should avoid wholesale changes. The conference report we are debating today takes the right approach. It is a moderate measure that makes modest reforms. It strikes a careful balance between the needs of consumers and businesses, and should help improve the product liability system for everyone. Before closing, let me again commend Senator Rockefeller and Senator Gorton for their excellent work on this legislation. As I discussed earlier, this conference report has very few changes from the Senate bill that they crafted so carefully. They have also done a superb job in keeping this legislation moving forward. I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture and help pass this conference report. Mr. President, I yield back whatever time I may have remaining to our distinguished colleague from Washington. Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, we have the high honor of having with us in the U.S. Senate today the President of Haiti, Rene Preval, who is visiting us in the Senate today. My colleague from Georgia, Senator Coverdell, and I had a very good meeting in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Recess

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess for 5 minutes so that our colleagues may have the opportunity to greet President Preval.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the prospects for peace in Northern Ireland. Over the past 2 years, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland have made significant strides toward achieving a fair and lasting peace for their troubled land. And as one of more than 40 million Irish-Americans, I take great pride in the critically important role that the United States and, in particular, President Clinton is playing in this process. It was the President's courageous move, in February 1994, to grant a visa to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams that set the wheels of peace in motion. That step, controversial at the time, was a critical factor in leading to the IRA's unilateral announcement of a cease-fire, 6 months later. For the first time in 25 years, the threat of violence in Northern Ireland was but a distant and unrealized fear. The roadblocks, the checkpoints, the house-to-house searches that defaced Northern Ireland for a generation began to disappear. And, in stark contrast to the past 25 years of sectarian conflict-- which claimed 3,000 Catholic and Protestant lives--when the people of Northern Ireland gathered together over the past 2 years it was more often to celebrate and not to grieve another untimely death from the troubles. The desire for peace among the peoples of Northern Ireland was underscored just this past December, when President Clinton became the first American President to travel to Northern Ireland. I had the great pleasure of joining the President on this trip. And I guarantee that regardless of one's political, ethnic or ideological persuasion, it was impossible not to be genuinely moved by the heartfelt reception that the President received. On several occasions the President was welcomed by crowds of more than 250,000 people, all intent on listening to his message of reconciliation. This outpouring of support is indicative of the great desire among the majority of Northern Ireland's residents to live in peace with their neighbors. But, just a month ago, those hopes for peace were dealt a stinging blow by an IRA bomb that rocked London's Docklands district killing 2 people, injuring more than 100 and causing millions of dollars in property damage. This reprehensible act serves as a nightmarish reminder that the peace process in Northern Ireland is far from complete. The 17-month cease-fire in Northern Ireland, which made such progress in diminishing the fears and anxieties of violence among millions of Protestants and Catholics, was ripped asunder. The image of British soldiers patrolling the streets of Belfast--a vision many of us hoped and believed had been banished--disturbingly reappeared on our television screens. What's more the London bombing threatened to permanently derail the peace process, which has come so far in moving the peoples of Northern Ireland closer to peace than at any time in a generation. For this reason, I am particularly heartened that at this moment of crisis, both Prime Minister Major and Prime Minister Bruton stepped forward to put Northern Ireland firmly back on the path toward peace. On February 28, Mr. Major and Mr. Bruton outlined a new proposal for bringing all parties to the peace table by June 10. Now the two governments are seeking to work out arrangements for a broadly acceptable electoral process that will lead immediately to all party talks in June. I commend Prime Minister Major for going the extra mile at this critical juncture in the peace process, in part by dropping his precondition that the IRA decommission prior to the commencement of all party talks. I only regret that British authorities did not see the wisdom of that approach sooner when it was first recommended by Senator Mitchell and the other members of the International Body. Perhaps if they had, the current escalation in tensions could have been avoided and the parties might already be engaged in substantive talks toward peace. The actions of Prime Minister Major and Prime Minister Bruton echo the words of the wonderful Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his poem, Station Island, Heaney writes: You lose more of yourself than you redeem doing the decent thing. Well Mr. Major and Mr. Bruton did the decent thing and I applaud both of them for their foresight and their vision. Let me also say that Mr. Major's compromise is commendable in light of the IRA's recent wave of bombing attacks in London. These irresponsible actions have only created confusion and greater animosity in the search for peace. The IRA's actions eroded goodwill between Catholics and Protestants and threatened to derail what was already a fledgling peace process. The time is now for the IRA to make clear to all parties in the conflict that they are truly prepared to enter into inclusive all-party negotiations to bring a fair and lasting settlement to the conflict. And, if Sinn Fein is to be an active participant in helping to shape the agenda for all party talks, the IRA must refrain from further violence. The future of Northern Ireland will not be found in the barrel of a gun. Compromise will not be achieved under the threat of violence. This is a lesson the IRA must understand and accept. The first step in affirming that commitment would be for the IRA to immediately reinstate the 17-month cease-fire they brazenly and foolishly broke last month. The second step would be for Sinn Fein to show a greater willingness to compromise on the decommissioning issue. I think we all recognize the need for Sinn Fein to be at the negotiating table and directly involved in all-party talks. Thus, we must redouble our efforts in the coming weeks to settle on an elective process that will be broadly acceptable to all parties and which will lead to a lasting peace in Northern Ireland. I remain optimistic that by March 17, St. Patrick's Day, all the involved parties, working together, will be able to agree upon a fair and comprehensive agenda for all party talks in June. In order to reach this goal all sides, Catholics and Protestants, Irish and British, must act in good faith in order to smooth the process toward genuine reconciliation. As an American of Irish descent, the resolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland is of particular significance and importance to me. Both sides of my family immigrated to this country from Ireland. For me a foreign trip to Ireland is akin to a family reunion. That is why I am so desperate to see this process succeed and bring a lasting peace to Northern Ireland. And I believe that today we stand on the cusp of a truly new era of peace and reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants. In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, I am once again reminded of the words of Seamus Heaney: History says, don't hope on this side of the grave, but then once in a lifetime, the long, far tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme. So hope for a great sea change on the far side of revenge. Believe that further shore is reachable from here. Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells. At no time in the history of Northern Ireland have Catholics and Protestants been so close to that point where hope and history rhyme. Together with all involved parties, the American people must stand together with those whose goal is peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, might I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes?

Mr. DODD. Ninety-six to three, in fact, for the resolution to terminate the hearings, to call for the termination on February 29. It is unfortunate we have come to this where you have a request unprecedented in the annals of Congress--unprecedented, Mr. President-- for an open-ended hearing with an additional $600,000. That brings the pricetag of this investigation to in excess of $30 million in this country. That is the reason people are upset, frankly, that kind of open-ended appropriation, no end in sight and, of course, no substantiation of any unethical or illegal behavior. When you add that to the fact that we have had virtually no hearings occurring on major issues affecting people's lives in this country, like Medicare, Medicaid--we are going to have an extensive debate on education today; we are going to be cutting $3 billion in education programs--there were hardly three or four hearings on all of education, as the Presiding Officer knows. Yet, we had 50 hearings on White water and 10 or 12 hearings on Waco and Ruby Ridge and almost none on education, none on Medicare, none on health, and you want to know why people are angry? That is why they are angry in this country. We spoke up and said, ``Look, 5 weeks, $185,000.'' That is plenty of time to complete this process. We are not saying stop it today. We are saying take another 5 weeks and wrap up the business of this committee. That is a reasonable, reasonable proposal, and I think it is regrettable we have a position taken of 4 months now which takes us virtually into September--when we eliminate the August recess-- September, October, a handful of days before the election. It is patently political. It is so transparently political that an infant can see through it, and most of the American people have. That is why we object to this request of an open-ended proposal with $600,000. I hope that the majority Members, at least some of them, will step forward and offer to sit down and resolve this matter so we can get the work done and not allow it to spill over into the campaign. I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for providing us some time.

Mr. DODD. Will my colleague yield?

Mr. DODD. I just say to my colleague, I think there is a value in having those hearings. My colleague did a good job. My point is, if you do it to the exclusion of other hearings, then it seems to me we are off on the wrong track. My colleague did a good job.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I will seek the floor in my own right. I wish to just make a comment here in responding to the suggestion of our colleague from New York that the Democrats here voted against an open- ended $600,000 appropriation hearing process because of the White House pulling strings. No one suggested that our Republican friends who voted unanimously to continue this were somehow having strings pulled at all, nor would I make that suggestion. But certainly the fact that at this juncture we find ourselves in a stalemate ought to suggest, particularly when you consider it was only a few short months ago that this body voted almost unanimously for these hearings to be conducted--this was not a partisan issue. As in most cases, it was bipartisan to get this underway. It was almost unanimous, I believe.

Mr. DODD. Will my colleague yield at this point? Can we get 5 minutes to respond, on this matter that has been raised for the purpose of debate, for the ranking minority member, appropriate to give him a chance to respond to Senator D'Amato?

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of this amendment to increase real education funding for our Nation's children. Over the past year, this Congress has eliminated billions of dollars for educating America's young people. And this CR would continue that process by slashing $3 billion from vital education programs. This moves us toward the single largest cut in education spending in our Nation's history. And, there are real children behind these cuts: $137 million would be slashed from Head Start, affecting more than 20,000 3- and 4-year-olds; $679 million would be cut from math and reading programs, affecting 700,000 children; $266 million cut from the Safe and Drug-Free School Program; affecting 23 million kids. And all funding for summer youth jobs would be cut, leaving half a million American teenagers with nothing to do this summer. In my State of Connecticut, $9 million in Federal education funding will be lost. And most of those cuts come in the title I program, which provides remedial education for thousands of Connecticut's poorest and most disadvantaged children. These cuts make it near impossible for schools and colleges across this country to plan ahead. School districts do not know how many new teachers or new aides to hire. Educators are faced with appalling choices--which programs and what children will receive meager Federal benefits. And all this comes at a time when public schools are making real progress in solving the myriad problems that face them; at a time when a good education is more essential than ever to guarantee our children the ability to compete in the global economy. But instead of increasing funding, or at the least, maintaining current levels, this Congress is intent on pulling the rug out from underneath America's children. This CR would wreak severe havoc on America's schools, on America's education programs, and most of all on America's children. This is no way to run the Government and this is no way to balance the budget.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, it is with great sadness that I rise today following the death of Matthew Eisenfeld of West Hartford in the terrorist bombing in Israel. The four most recent terrorist attacks have not only threatened the fragile peace in this region, but also resulted in the death of one of our own. Matthew was a bright and caring individual who spoke out for peace in the Middle East--and his voice ultimately will not be silenced unless we give into those who use vicious acts of violence to derail efforts for peace in this region. Throughout his short life, Matthew had a strong impact on the lives of the people he met. Clearly, he was a fine student with a good heart. He dedicated himself to others and worked hard to learn and follow the teachings of the Jewish faith. It seems ironic that at the time of his death, Matthew was working on a haggadah, the traditional book of freedom and liberation read at Passover. He truly believed that the land of Israel that he loved so much would one day be at peace. Following the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, Matthew was asked to speak at a memorial service for the slain leader. His message was full of hope that the Middle East peace process would continue. Even in the dark days immediately following the death of the Prime Minister, Matthew stood up and called on those gathered not to give up hope and stressed the necessity of continuing the work of Mr. Rabin. We have now lost another decent and caring man whose life was a testament to peace. This is a tragedy not only for Matthew's family and friends, but also for the countless number of people who could have met Matthew and learned from him if this senseless act of hate had not occurred. We must remember Matthew's love of humanity and continue to work to spread his message of peace and hope. Soundly condemning these senseless acts of violence while rededicating ourselves to the peace process, is the finest way to honor Matthew Eisenfeld's life and the other innocent men and women who have lost their lives in these terrible bombings.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, my colleague from Maryland is exactly right. He answers his question with his question. In fact, it obviously is far more reasonable. Again, I recall the then-minority leader, Senator Dole, making the case in part that it was not just the politics. He worried about the damage being done to the Presidency, the office of the Presidency. So he made that appeal on the basis that we ought not to damage the office of the Presidency. Of course, we are well aware that our colleague from Kansas, the majority leader, is an active candidate for the office of the Presidency today, and yet yesterday in the Rules Committee when the matter came up as to whether or not we ought to try and put some limitation on this for 5 weeks and a limited amount of money, there was a vote. Our colleague, Senator Ford of Kentucky, offered an amendment to the open-ended proposal and said, ``How about 5 weeks, $185,000, with an additional month to wrap it up?'' The majority leader was there for the vote. He voted against that and voted for the open-ended proposition. Only 5 years ago he was, of course, making a strong case in the other direction.

Mr. DODD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, let me preface my remarks this afternoon, if I may, by acknowledging the very difficult decisions that Senators on both sides of the aisle have to make over the coming days--I hope it is days and not weeks--on this issue. Let me also preface my remarks by, first of all, commending and thanking my colleague from Maryland who has been the ranking member of the Banking Committee and has handled the lion's share of the work on our side of the aisle over these past many months and demonstrated, I think, remarkable patience and a great sense of cooperation. I do not know the exact number, but I think there has been only a handful of incidents in the last sets of hearings that we have had over the past year and a half where there has been any real disagreement at all between the majority and the minority, thanks to the leadership of the Senator from Maryland, cooperating and working with, I might say, of course the Senator from New York, the chairman of the committee. I think it is important for all our colleagues to know the tremendous amount of work that the Senator from Maryland has done. Let me also say I appreciate the job of the Senator from New York. It is not an easy job to be chairman of a committee, particularly one that has the responsibilities as this committee has had over the past 270 days to try and sort out the various differences that exist. But nonetheless, it will be, to some, a difficult decision. For others, I do not think it is that difficult a decision, given the amount of time we have spent. Conducting a thorough Senate investigation is hard and painstaking work. Certainly I can appreciate the dilemma in which some of the people in the majority find themselves, particularly when there are those who come to them and say, ``Look, you must vote with us here regardless of what your own feelings may be on this issue. We have to have your vote. Stick with us on this.'' We have all at one time or another, I suppose, been confronted by those who have asked us to ``stay with them,'' as the usual expression goes, even though our own views may be otherwise. I am especially sensitive to that difficulty, because I well remember my own experience with the debate on a matter, not unlike the one before us this afternoon, involving President Bush's role in the so- called October Surprise of 1991 and 1992. Some of my colleagues may remember there were allegations in late 1991 that President Bush, when he was Ronald Reagan's running mate in 1980, had had secret meetings with the Iranian Government to urge that Government not to release the American hostages until after the 1980 Presidential elections, thus avoiding the October Surprise that might have lifted President Carter to reelection. There was an enormous hue and cry in the media about those allegations, and a little bit of excitement among some of our colleagues who viewed this as an opportunity to do some damage to President Bush, as we went into the 1992 elections. There were many, many articles, many, many stories, many, many editorials, about those allegations. Mr. President, I believed at the time that those allegations--after looking at the charges that were made and the information that was being offered to support those conclusions, I thought that the conspiracy theories that were being hatched by those who wanted to bring those hearings to bear were motivated principally, in my view at the time, by politics. For those reasons, Mr. President, I, along with others opposed that investigation. And I hope that some of my colleagues in the majority do so now, despite the pressures that I am sure members of the majority are getting today to vote for open-ended hearings with a $600,000 appropriation are getting--in fact, I know it is the case because a number of our colleagues have basically told me they think this is a waste of time and money. But this sense of staying together because we have 34 weeks to go before election day, and everybody sort of linking arms here, let us not let this get out of hand here. If anyone deviates or breaks ranks, of course, this falls apart. I know what that is like. So as a result of several of us voting differently, those hearings did not go forward. They ended, much to the disappointment, I might say, of a number of our colleagues who felt we should have gone forward. The reason I raise that is not to suggest somehow that the Senator from Connecticut deserves any particular commendation, but to hope there might be some colleagues today who are faced with a similar fact situation and might respond similarly, when we know, frankly, that an additional $600,000--$400,000 in consulting fees--an open-ended investigation, at this juncture, with respect to those involved, has gone on too long. The overwhelming majority of people in this country think, frankly, it has gone on too long. It has been 270 days, the longest congressional investigative hearings--to the best of my knowledge--in the history of the U.S. Congress. Twenty months. The Watergate hearings went on 16 or 17 months; Iran-Contra, 6 or 7 months, from January 1987 through August 1987. Those I remember very, very well because the now majority leader, Robert Dole, came to Senator Inouye and Chairman Hamilton--in 1987 now, not 1988--and said, ``Even though you have the right under the resolution to go until October of that year, can we not wrap these up in August?'' I will tell you why. Because it was getting involved in election-year politics. Let us get it done early. Dan Inouye, the Democratic Senator from Hawaii, and Lee Hamilton, a Congressman from Indiana, who cochaired those investigations, agreed with the then-minority leader Dole to wrap up those hearings in August, so that they would not contaminate the political season 1 year out--not 34 weeks out, but 1 year out. As a result of that, the Iran-Contra hearings were completed by early August 1987, if my memory serves me well. I think, as our distinguished colleague from Maryland pointed out, there were 21 hearings, in fact, conducted between early July 1987 and early August 1987, in order to accommodate the then-minority leader's request. Now here we are 34 weeks away, after 20 months of hearings, 270 days, 50 actual hearings, 100 witnesses, and 50,000 documents have been turned over. I do not know how many people have been through depositions. And it is nothing, by the way, even remotely close to Iran-Contra in allegations. I remind my colleagues to remember the days when Fawn Hall was stuffing documents into her cowboy boots, sneaking into the White House, or they had shredding parties at the White House, they called them, to destroy documents. Nothing like that has been alleged here. We have documents that have turned up. I know our colleagues have gone on at some length--I think, entirely appropriately--to examine what happened there. None of us has suggested that we ought not to look into that. But as I pointed out in the past, in every single case where these documents have emerged, nothing in them contradicts anything we learned earlier. Had these documents produced contradictory evidence, the suspicions about showing up late, or in some other place, would have much more credibility. But everything we found in the documents that came later has corroborated what we knew earlier. It does not excuse the fact they showed up late. Again, we may never know the answers completely. But to suggest there is a great conspiracy here is not borne out by the facts of what was in the documents once discovered. So my basic plea, Mr. President, is for some Members on the other side to join us, and we could end this. Ending it is not to terminate it tomorrow, from our perspective. The Senator from Maryland and the minority leader have offered five more weeks of hearings, almost $200,000 more in money, beyond the almost $1.5 million we have spent in the last 2 years just in the Senate, and one more month beyond that to write the report. So it is a proposal to go to the end of May. That is about 20 weeks away from election day, not a year as we were in 1987. Yet, we are being told flatly that that is unacceptable. Mr. President, you might understand the frustration we feel in all of this. That is not an unreasonable request. The original agreement was to end in February. We had snow days. We had a disagreement over the executive privilege argument, which took some days. You can make a case that you need a bit more time. But we entered into those agreements almost unanimously, with maybe two or three dissenting votes. But when you end up with almost all of the Senate voting overwhelmingly to conduct the hearings and to do the second phase and to agree on the termination date, and to be told on February 29, ``Sorry, we are going to ask for $600,000 more and no date certain when we end them,'' despite the fact that we are weeks away from election, knowing full well that the mere fact that you are having these hearings would create the kind of damage we would like to cause, that is why we are upset about this. This is no great joy to be engaged in a lengthy debate and discussion here. We ought not to be doing this. Here we are, and we hold one hearing on Medicaid all last year--one, despite the proposals to cut $240 billion out of that program. I think we had two or three hearings on education, and virtually no hearings on health care at all. Then we sit around and wonder why it is that Pat Buchanan seems to be igniting some support when he talks about jobs and people and they see us suspending maybe a week on the floor of the U.S. Senate debating the Whitewater hearings. We had 10 or 12 days on Waco. I do not know how many House hearings and Senate hearings there were on Ruby Ridge. I think there is value in looking at those issues, but this is going beyond the pale, going too far. It is going way too far. So we are urging, Mr. President, that some Members of the majority stand up and join us in this compromise proposal to bring a conclusion to these hearings and to do so in a reasonable way, with a reasonable amount of dollars. We are the ones on the committee who have to sit there day after day. We are prepared to do it. I remember in the summer of 1994, when we sat there 12, 13 hours a day in order to wrap this up. We went late into the night to do it. If it takes that, then let us do it. We are prepared to do that, to bring this to closure. So we are urging colleagues to join us in this proposal, in this effort. Mr. President, I went over some of the earlier points. It may be worth it to reiterate some of the things that happened. The Senate's Whitewater investigation began in 1994, with bipartisan support. Bipartisan support was continued in May 1995 when the Senate overwhelmingly approved Senate Resolution 120 to create the Special Committee To Investigate Whitewater. Since 1994, there have been more than 50 hearings, as I have mentioned, with testimony from well over 100 witnesses, after detailed examination of more than 45,000 pages of documents. By the way, Mr. President, it is worthwhile to note that here, unlike in other congressional investigations, not a single witness from the White House came other than voluntarily, and several witnesses came on many occasions. Other than the argument over attorney-client privilege--which is a legitimate argument--every single document received we received voluntarily. There has been no effort here to fight for the release of documents at all except when there was a legitimate question about attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. Those only occurred in very rare cases. Beyond that, in every other instance, we had a tremendously cooperative White House on this. I think the documentation is about fifty-fifty: About 10,000 or 12,000 pages of White House representation, and 12,000 from the Clintons' files themselves that have come into the committee's possession for examination. It is hard for those who pushed for this investigation to admit that nothing new has been turned up. Yet, that is the case. I might point out in addition to the moneys we have spent of almost $2 million, not including what we may be spending now with this additional request, the Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro law firm out on the west coast has spent several millions of dollars over the last 2 years on an independent examination for the RTC, Mr. President, of the Rose Law Firm and related matters. As you know, Mr. President, they concluded their report in December, but when the new billing records at the White House showed up they asked for an extension to determine whether or not the conclusions in December would be warranted. They did that examination and basically several day ago filed their final conclusions after examining these new records and reached the conclusion in their words, ``That no more moneys ought to be spent on the Whitewater investigation.'' That, in fact, in their view there was no proof to substantiate the Clintons' or the law firm's involvement in the Madison Guaranty issues. It is a long report, about 170 pages. I do not expect my colleagues to read through it but the conclusions are there for people to read. Again, that has been completed. Then we have the $26 million spent by the independent counsel up to now. Again, as our colleague from Maryland pointed out, I believe it is $1 million a month; $1 million a month the independent counsel is consuming. Nothing we are suggesting here limits the independent counsel's investigation. In fact, they can go on in perpetuity. Some fear they probably will, if past practice is any indication of future conduct. We ought to take a look at that issue at some point, but the independent counsel proceeds apparently at $1 million a month with no limitations on their work. So there is $30 million--more than $30 million--that has been spent over 270 days or so, with more hearings than in any other investigation in the history of Congress. Is it unreasonable that we say can we not wrap this up in 5 weeks--our part of this, in 5 weeks--with $200,000, almost a quarter of a million dollars, in additional funding? Is that an unreasonable request, particularly when you compare it to the request that says we want half a million, not including consulting fees for an unlimited amount of time. Which is the more reasonable request in light of what we have been through over these past several years?

Mr. DODD. I will be glad to yield.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, may I inquire, are the managers controlling time, or may I seek time in my own right?

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

Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague from Maryland for raising that point. It goes to the heart of what I was suggesting at the outset here, that in the conduct of these investigations by and large there has been an effort at least on the part of those of us here to seek bipartisan accommodation. These are not matters that necessarily ought to fall into the area of partisan debate because we recognize the sensitivity of them. Hence, over the years, the formation of these committees and the allocation of resources, with some minor exceptions, have enjoyed bipartisan support. As the Senator from Maryland points out, it was, in fact, the leadership of the majority in 1987 that agreed with the minority and accommodated their request to not allow those hearings to spill over into the fall of 1987, a year away from election day. Not 34 weeks away from election day, a year away from election day. I might point out that resolution called for the termination of the Iran-Contra hearings in October 1987. That was the termination date. We moved it back and finished the work in August, a year and a half before the election, because the request from the then-minority leader was that this might contaminate the election season. Yet here, after the longest investigatory hearings in the history of Congress, 50 hearings, 100 witnesses or more and all of the information we have accumulated and collected, to a request to wrap this up 6 months--less than 5 months, less than that--before election day, the answer is a resounding, ``No. Tough. We have something going here politically and we are going to ride this one down the road here, even though we have no information or no evidence of any wrongdoing--not even any wrongdoing; any unethical behavior--we are going to ride this one out because, who knows, maybe we can get something going here.'' This is a very unhealthy thing for this body to be doing, very unhealthy. It invites a kind of deterioration in the comity that is essential in this body to get anything done, when we engage in this kind of practice. Mr. President, what we are confronted with here, then, is obviously the dilemma the majority is in--which should be a dilemma which is not that difficult to resolve but nonetheless is a dilemma--do you push, on the one hand, for an extension of the hearings that we have already conducted for such a lengthy period of time deep into the Presidential campaign season and thus undermine, in my opinion, the integrity of the Senate with what will appear to be, at least it does to many, a purely partisan attack on the President? Or do you admit that the investigation has turned up no new evidence of illegal or unethical behavior and risk the vocal wrath of those on the fringes for whom the very absence of proof is in itself evidence of a coverup? A true Hobson's choice, in many ways, for the majority leader and the majority. At this point, I think it is appropriate to ask if it was necessary for the Senate to even reach this point. I do not believe so. One of the key provisions of Senate Resolution 120 was a requirement that the special committee conclude its business by February 29, 1996. By adopting a date specific to terminate the special committee, the Senate as a body wisely--wisely--intended to eliminate the taint of partisan politics from the committee's work and to avoid the kind of pressures that come from outside fringe groups that demand a continuation of our work in perpetuity. That is why, unanimously, we agreed on that date. Now, we understand we may need a few more days. We understand that. But we avoid the very problem that we have now found ourselves in by establishing those kind of dates. By the way, I went back and researched this. There is not a single investigation that I could find done by the Senate of the United States over the past 30 years that did not have a termination date in the original resolution that established the committee. Wisely the Senate has done so to avoid the kind of problem we get into when you have open-ended investigations with no end in sight. Therefore, we put that in the resolution. In adopting a cutoff date well in advance of the 1996 Presidential elections, the Senate was following the same procedures advocated by the majority leader, as pointed out by our colleague from Maryland, back in 1987 when he then as minority leader successfully argued for the limiting of the duration of the special committee to investigate the Iran-Contra affair. Of course, as this deadline approaches we find ourselves operating in a far different political landscape than we were in the months following the 1994 congressional elections. The enhanced political position of the President has led some to speculate that the proposed extension is little more than a desperate, nakedly partisan attempt to smear the First Family. What is particularly interesting is that as the committee moved closer and closer to the deadline which we established almost unanimously it actually slowed down the pace of the hearings to the point where we held only eight hearings in the entire month of February, and none in the last week of February. I remind my colleagues there were no votes. The majority leader did not call up any votes in the month of February. There were no interruptions. Yet, for the entire month we were all around--members of the committee. We had eight hearings over 5 weeks, and only one hearing with a single witness in the last week of the hearings. Mr. President, I also find it interesting that last week the majority provided a preliminary witness list indicating that it wanted to call as many as 60 to 75 people as witnesses when over a month ago, and before we heard from 15 witnesses, the chairman of the committee said in response to questions from myself and Senator Sarbanes of Maryland that ``we have identified 60 potential witnesses.'' That was on February 1, 1996, on page 84 of the transcripts. As I mentioned, we have heard from 15 witnesses since that time, leading one to reasonably believe that we were down to calling 45 witnesses, or less at this point. I say this not to place the chairman of the special committee in any embarrassing position but to illustrate the fact that the bar keeps getting raised by the majority as to how much time they need to complete their inquiries. It would be one thing, of course, if we had no precedents to rely upon as far as Senate investigations go. But, in fact, we have many precedents, including our experience with the Iran-Contra hearings. The contrast, as has been pointed out by our colleague from Maryland, could not be more stark. When the Iran-Contra hearings entered its final months of existence and knew it had a lot of ground to cover, it held 21 hearings in that 1-month period. Mr. President, that is 21 hearings in 1 month by Iran-Contra, compared to 8 in 1 month by the Whitewater Committee. Did Senators have more stamina in 1987 than they do in 1996? Probably not. I do not think so. But perhaps there was a greater will to get the job done by the members of that committee than we have seen so far by the members of the Whitewater Committee. The majority raises a number of issues to justify an indefinite extension of the special committee. But I believe, based on the facts, that the alternative that we are offering to this indefinite extension will provide ample time for the committee to complete whatever work remains. The primary reason cited by my friends on the other side of the aisle for continuing these hearings indefinitely has been that the White House has failed to cooperate with the committee's investigation. That is just fundamentally wrong. To buttress this contention, we are told by the majority and it is pointed out by the majority, the confrontation over the so-called Kennedy notes--that is the lawyer--and the discovery since January of documents are relevant to the committee's work. The conclusion drawn by the majority is that the White House will delay providing damaging documents until just before the committee's termination date and thus an open-ended extension is warranted. Mr. President, the facts do not justify such a conclusion. First and foremost, this administration, as I said earlier, has been more cooperative with the committee's investigation than any administration in memory. The White House has turned over 14,000 pages of White House documents, and the President and the First Lady's personal attorney have turned over in excess of 10,000 to 20,000 pages of additional documents. Furthermore, every administration official has been made available to the committee and has testified voluntarily--every single one of them without the promise of immunity that Congress was required to give members of the previous administration during the Iran-Contra hearings. Many of us in the Senate well remember the actions of the previous two administrations with respect to the Iran-Contra investigation. Who can forget the time we heard about high-level national security officials holding shredding parties at the White House? In fact, the top two Reagan officials in White House deleted over 5,000 e-mails in the hours just before they both resigned in disgrace from their positions; 5,000 e-mails were destroyed just hours before they submitted their resignations. And yet we did those hearings in 6 months. Who can forget the image of Fawn Hall stuffing sensitive documents into her boots so they could be spirited out of the White House before investigators could examine them? Many of us remember the changing memory of top officials who refused for 6 years to turn over documents to the independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh, despite repeated demands to do so. None of that has happened here. What have we received? We have received as a good-faith effort by the White House to comply with the innumerable and frequently overly broad requests of the special committee. Perhaps there would be more credibility to the allegations if the documents that have been turned over since January offered startling new evidence of wrongdoing, or if they contradicted previous testimony. But the fact is that all of these documents--yes, even the ones we found just recently--confirm the information that has been provided to the special committee in previous evidence; in every single case. Far from revealing the smoking gun, these documents provide exculpatory evidence that there was no illegal or unethical activity by the President or the First Lady or administration officials. We have also been told by the majority, citing the controversy over producing the so-called Kennedy notes as a reason for why the committee cannot complete its work on time. The fact of the matter is that there was a legitimate dispute between the committee and the White House over the legitimate claims of attorney-client privilege. To simply dismiss the White House concerns on this issue is nothing more than obstructionism. But as Geoffrey Hazzard, a noted professor of law, stated in a letter to the White House at the time of this controversy, and I quote from it: Presidents of both political parties have asserted the privilege. This position is, in my opinion, correct reasoning from such precedents as can be applied. Accordingly, the President can properly invoke the attorney-client privilege. I am not trying to reopen the debate on this issue which ended after mutually satisfactory negotiations with the committee getting all the documents it had requested, but to put to rest an assertion that there was no basis for the White House to be concerned with inadvertently waiving the President's right to confidential communications with their attorneys. There are some observers who believe that the entire controversy over the so-called Kennedy notes was orchestrated by the majority to create a conflict within the White House over providing documents. The reason for that belief is that there has been a strong tendency on the part of the committee to make document requests that are so broad as to make compliance virtually impossible. There are numerous examples of this, not just a few. But I particularly remember when the majority wanted to subpoena--listen to this--all of the telephone records from the White House to area code 501, which just so happens to be the entire State of Arkansas--all of the telephone records of the entire State of Arkansas. That was the subpoena request. If you think I am making this up, that is the kind of request we were getting. Senator Kerry of Massachusetts and I asked majority counsel for the basis of such a broad request, and let me quote from the hearing transcript. Senator Kerry. That's the entire State of Arkansas. You want calls to the entire State of Arkansas from the White House for 5 months? Majority counsel. I don't know what the area code 501 encompasses. Senator Dodd. It's the entire State. You ought to know that before you put it in a subpoena. There you have a case where here we are subpoenaing an area code and counsel says, I don't know what it encompasses. We are just going to throw the net out here. You wonder why we are frustrated and angry over how this is proceeding. Ultimately, the subpoena was narrowed, thanks to the efforts of the Senator from Maryland, to a legitimate framework. But that small example, that one example I hope gives our colleagues a flavor of the difficulty faced by the White House during these proceedings. It seems that every time the majority makes a document request, it starts out so broad that days or weeks of negotiations are necessary before the request can be complied with. Thus, the question might not be why the White House takes so long to comply with the document requests but, rather, why the majority consistently chooses to frame those requests in a way that ensures the maximum amount of time will elapse before there can be compliance with the request. That is one of the reasons for the delay.

Mr. DODD. I should complete my remarks at that particular point. I think that makes the case. It is a better example than almost the entire area code of a State. Mr. President, another reason we have been given as to why the committee should be extended indefinitely--and let me emphasize this indefinite extension--is that we must wait until the independent counsel has completed his trial of Governor Tucker, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal, in Arkansas. That trial is scheduled, after several delays, to begin on March 4--in fact, it is underway--and to last from 6 to 10 weeks. However, the idea of waiting for Mr. Starr's trial to end is contrary to the bipartisan position taken by the special committee just a few months ago. On October 2 of last year, the chairman and Senator Sarbanes sent a letter to Mr. Starr. Let me quote from this letter, if I may. This is from the chairman of the Whitewater Committee and Senator Sarbanes, joint signatures. The letter says: If the special committee were to continue to defer its investigation and hearings, it would not be able to complete its task until well into 1996. They continued saying: We have now determined that the special committee should not delay its investigation of the remaining matters specified in Senate Resolution 120. We believe that the concerns expressed in your letter do not outweigh the Senate's strong interest in concluding its investigation and public hearings into the matter specified in Senate Resolution 120 consistent with section 9 of the resolution. Section 9 of the resolution is the provision that requires the special committee to complete its work by February 29, 1996. So the committee is specifically on record, it is on record, as opposed to delaying its work in order to accommodate the trial going on in Arkansas. One cannot help but wonder what has changed other than the political situation to prompt the chairman to unilaterally change his mind on this fundamental issue. There is one critical fact that I hope my colleagues will not lose sight of during the course of these debates, and that is that our decision about extending the committee will not affect the investigation of the independent counsel by one iota. There are no limits, none, on either the duration of Mr. Starr's investigation or its scope or its cost, for that matter--none whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the independent counsel recently requested and received permission to expand his inquiry to include matters from 1992 that were not originally part of his mandate. I hope that those Senators who might worry that ending our investigation will somehow give the Clintons a free ride will certainly want to know what Mr. Starr is doing down in Little Rock with a staff of 30 attorneys, 100 investigators, and a cost to the taxpayers of $1 million a month on top of the $26 million he has already spent. That would be a good inquiry, maybe extend these hearings. Maybe we ought to do an investigation of how that investigation is being done-- $26 million. You have more lawyers down there than you do focused on organized crime in some of our major cities. The American public might want to know how their tax money is being spent with that kind of an effort. Given the absence of any compelling factual basis to continue these hearings, Mr. President, the alternative that we have proposed through the minority leader, Senator Daschle, I think is more generous in allowing the committee to complete whatever task the majority feels must still be accomplished. You know, Mr. President, in some ways I regret we did not do what the minority had done back in 1987. In retrospect, maybe we should have had the minority leader, Senator Daschle, approach the majority last fall and ask to wrap up these hearings early, as Senator Dole did in 1987. Remember what I said earlier, the original termination date was October of 1987. Senator Dole came in the spring and said, ``Can't we get this done early, get it done by August, in order to avoid the campaign season of 1988? Can't you get it done in August of 1987, not in October when it gets into the campaign season?'' Maybe we should have approached the majority last fall and said, ``How about getting this done earlier?'' Then maybe we might have finished around February. Instead, we thought it was on the level. In fact, it was set at February 29 as a reasonable time, and then because you may need a few extra days, we have suggested 5 more weeks, almost a month and a half more of hearings, and an additional month to file the report, and almost $200,000 more to do it, not to mention the consultants' fees that are going to be spent. Our colleagues ought to know that I think a substantial minority or maybe a majority of the Senators on this side feel this should have ended on the 29th, and that is it. But because Senator Sarbanes and the majority leader and others, myself included, made a case, look, a few more days here, let us try, and there are additional witnesses we need; let us try to wrap this up. But I think many people here feel, as the American public does by overwhelming majorities--they feel this has gone on too long--$30 million dollars. It is their money we are spending on this. It is their money that is being spent on this, on this investigation that has gone nowhere, shown nothing, uncovered nothing. Now they want half a million dollars more of your money to spend on this, along with consultancy fees for an unlimited amount of time. You wonder why the American public get sick and tired of how Washington pays attention to itself, is preoccupied with itself, trying to get $30 million to spend on hearings instead of looking into what is happening to our cities or education or health care or joblessness in America. You could not get the votes here for that. But we will spend $30 million over 270 days, and 50 hearings, on whether or not something happened in the 1980's, 15 years ago, in Arkansas. Then we wonder why there is rage in the country over how Washington does its business. Well, you get a good taste of it now in this last Congress. Not one hearing on Medicare. Whether you agree with the cuts or not, the fact that we would propose cutting $240 billion out of the safety net for people's health care, and we do not even have a hearing to look at it and examine it. Oh, but we can spend 50 hearings on this, 10 or 12 hearings on Waco, 15 hearings on Ruby Ridge. Boy, those are important issues. That is just what the American public sent us here for. That is how they want their money spent. Now they want an unlimited amount of time and a half a million more. And people say, wringing their hands, ``Why are people so upset with Washington?'' Well, watch this spectacle over the next few days. You do not have to ask yourself the question. We ought to wrap this up and get it over with. It has gone on too long. The proposal by the minority leader, Senator Daschle, is a reasonable one--this body ought not to take 10 minutes to debate it--5 more weeks, $185,000 to complete its work, and particularly as it is coming down, as everyone--everyone--knows in the country. It is one thing to engage in politics with your own money, but to engage in political activities with the taxpayers' money is insulting. It angers people. It makes them angry. They are right to be angry. They ought to be angry about this process and watch these votes when the votes come up and remember how people vote on this, how quick they are to spend their money on this. But how unwilling they are when it comes down to your health care or your kid's education or your jobs. They are, ``Oh, no, we can't afford to do that. We've got to balance the budget, but, by God, we'll spend the money on this.'' That is why people are angry in America. And I do not blame them. So, Mr. President, I hope in the coming days here, over the next day or so, that we can reach an understanding here that 5 weeks is plenty amount of time. We can hold a lot of hearings in 5 weeks. We can wrap this up and put it behind us. It is unhealthy for this institution. It does damage to this institution. It does a disservice to the American public. So I urge that we come to an agreement on this and move along. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.

Mr. DODD. I appreciate my colleague making that point. I wonder if my colleague would agree that it is not unreasonable for those who watch those kinds of requests to begin to question whether or not there is an intentional desire to provoke a delay, knowing full well that such a broad request is going to have to be unacceptable, so that time is consumed narrowing the request to a reasonable level so that the White House in this case can respond. I do not know how long my colleague actually spent in those cases to actually narrow the subpoenas down to a reasonable level. May I inquire. Was it several days?

Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague for that additional information which I had forgotten, but it is a very good point indeed. Any communication to, was it 18 employees? Did I hear it correctly?

Mr. DODD. Anyone?

Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague. I apologize. I thought it was 18. It was 18 months, every single employee, past or present, in this administration over an 18-month period.