Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Funding from the Agricultural Research Service will be needed to establish this institute. I understand that with the funding provided for ARS in this bill, that may not be possible. I ask the Chairman if he would assist us in the upcoming Conference Committee to ensure that ARS funding is adequate to accommodate this important project?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wish to engage in a colloquy with the Chairman of the Subcommittee, the Senator from Iowa, and the Senator from New Mexico regarding the establishment of a Bioinformatics Institute for Model Plant Species as a collaborative effort between the USDA Agriculture Research Service, New Mexico State University, and Iowa State University.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I thank Senator Helms. He asked if he could speak before me. I said, of course, and that permitted me to hear what he had to say. It was beautiful, and I was privileged to hear it. Most of us are privileged to believe in a hereafter. Frankly, it is difficult for me to conceive of an adult human being with a mind and a heart, difficult for me to see how they do not all believe there is a hereafter. But there is no doubt in my mind that what I believe by faith is true, and there is no doubt in my mind that Paul Coverdell is in the hereafter. I didn't come to the floor today to speak about matters of great depth or of religion or faith or hope. I came to talk about the Paul Coverdell I knew day by day. Let me first say, it is very difficult to put the flowers and the cloth where they actually belong, because Paul Coverdell is not known as much for being at that desk as he is being in this aisle and taking somebody's place in this chair. For most of his time in the Senate, he was either putting together a group of Senators to address an issue or he was trying to get the Senate's work done, because he was asked either by a chairman or by the leader to do it. The more difficult the task, the more it was given to him. When you had an education bill with 200 amendments or a Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill with, at one point, 270 amendments, somebody quietly asked that one of our Senators help. It was almost always Paul Coverdell who was asked. He was so good at it and so friendly and could bring people together so well that the chairman willingly accepted his help. I can see the last time he pulled up his coat and was given, after he accepted the assignment, a list with hundreds of amendments on it. The task was: Narrow them down. By the end of the day, they were talking optimistically about finishing. And by the next day, Paul Coverdell, not at that desk but walking these aisles and sitting with Senators everywhere, was getting the work done, always being considerate, kind, and understanding. Sometimes we herald Senators because they have been here a long time. I suggest that Paul Coverdell and his wife Nancy and those who knew him, those who elected him, and those who supported him must know by now that he was a wonderful Senator. That was not measured by his having four or five terms as Senator, as I have been lucky to do, or my friend, Thad Cochran, who sits here, from the State of Mississippi. But he, in a few years, captured all of our hearts and all of our hopes for success. We would transplant them over to him. I came with no speech but with a letter. Two days, 3 days before he died, I arrived at my desk and found a letter. My staff had taken it out of the mail and put it on my desk. Frankly, I left it there not knowing he would die. I was going to read it in due course. Surely, the day that he died, I sat down at my desk and read his letter. The letter is not profound. The letter is Paul Coverdell. It is the Paul Coverdell who is so considerate that after coming to my office and spending an hour and a half of his time with a staffer of his and two of mine, where he had asked me if I would be of help, he willingly said: I will come to your office. We talked with a couple of my staff who were assigned to him. He did a job for the Republicans in preparing something we needed, and then he wrote a letter on top of all that where he was doing the labor, the work. He wrote this letter: Dear Pete: Thanks again for meeting to discuss our recess communication efforts. As always, your insight has been quite helpful in determining how to craft a credible short term message on the surplus. Bill Hoagland and Jim Capretta of your staff were of invaluable assistance to us as well. Thanks again. Sincerely, Paul D. Coverdell. I submit there are not too many of us who would be so considerate that when we wrote a Senator to say it was good to be with you, would mention the staff people who really got the work done because they knew more about it than we did. But here is Paul Coverdell, the last sentence of his letter, thanking Bill Hoagland and Jim Capretta by name. He puts it in here. How many Senators are that considerate as to what the names of staffers are who they meet in another Senator's office? Some of us are not considerate enough to say: Would you please repeat your name because I would actually like to know your name. I believe this is typical of Paul Coverdell. I surmise that for his whole life, certainly while he was in the Peace Corps, and the public service part of his life, he was always considerate. Let me suggest that being considerate does not mean being weak. Being considerate does not mean you don't get something done. Being considerate does not mean you cave in. Being considerate is being like Paul Coverdell. As I indicated, I will never remember him in that seat that we honor him by today because that is his assigned seat. I will remember him as more the epitome of a Senator who worked on the floor of the Senate. That is a very special kind of Senator. First of all, most of us don't know how to do it. Secondly, most of us are not asked to do it. He was asked. He knew how to do it in terms of helping people bring difficult matters to a head, to solutions, and helping his party with great insights on strategy. Mr. President, I say to his wife Nancy and his beloved: We don't know how to explain this to any of you. We are incapable of doing that. But, clearly, if you don't know it now, in very short order you will understand that he lived a very great life as a Senator, and the respect and admiration that has been shown, and will be shown, is probably an indication that he was as close to all of us as any Senator around. With that, I say good-bye, Paul; God bless you and your family. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, that is correct. However, I would note that the emergency needs for on-the-ground work on fuel reduction in New Mexico are very great. I understand that the agencies could use more than $50 million in emergency dollars for projects ready to go in New Mexico by the end of the year. The Collaborative Forest Restoration Program will help promote additional projects for fuel reduction. Considering the terrible toll fires have taken in the state, I hope our federal land management agencies will use as much as possible in this emergency funding to decrease the risk in New Mexico urban-wildland interface communities.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, Friday morning, July 12th, the House of Representatives passed the Valles Caldera Preservation Act by a vote of 377-45, and it will soon be signed by the President. Later this month, the Secretary of Agriculture will take possession of the Baca ranch. He will be charged with the task of managing the Valles Caldera National Preserve for an interim period until the Trust is appointed. In order for the Preserve to be opened to the public at the earliest possible time, the Secretary and the Trust will have to complete a substantial inventory, put together interim plans, and provide for the immediate requirements of basic public safety and law enforcement. The Department of Agriculture has provided us with a breakdown of proposed activities over the next year, and estimates that they will need about $990,000 to prepare the Preserve for an eager public, over half of which will go into planning and law enforcement activities. Once the Trust takes over, hopefully in about 6 months, funds will transfer to them, so that they can take over management responsibilities for the Preserve. The $990,000 will be taken out of the budget of the Department of the Interior Solicitor's office, the bureaucrat who recently issued an opinion to federalize several reclamation projects in New Mexico.

Mr. DOMENICI. Of course.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, pursuant to section 313(c) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I submit for the Record a list of material in S. 2839 considered to be extraneous under subsections (b)(1)(A), (b)(1)(B), and (b)(1)(E) of section 313. The inclusion or exclusion of material on the following list does not constitute a determination of extraneousness by the Presiding Officer of the Senate. To the best of my knowledge, S. 2839, the Marriage Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2000, contains no material considered to be extraneous under subsections (b)(1)(A), (b)(1)(B), and (b)(1)(E) of section 313 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, section 314 of the Congressional Budget Act, as amended, requires the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to adjust the appropriate budgetary aggregates and the allocations for the Appropriations Committee to reflect amounts provided for emergency requirements. I hereby submit revisions to the 2001 Senate Appropriations Committee allocations, pursuant to section 302 of the Congressional Budget Act, in the following amounts: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Budget authority Outlays ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Current Allocation: General purpose discretionary. $541,565,000,000 $547,687,000,000 Highways...................... .................. 26,920,000,000 Mass transit.................. .................. 4,639,000,000 Mandatory..................... 327,787,000,000 310,215,000,000

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I'm glad to have the Senator from Arizona as a sponsor of my amendment, which does provide additional necessary funding to the BLM and the Forest Service for fuels reduction. And I am aware of the work being done by the Ecological Restoration Institute. My staff met with the director of the program. It is my understanding that, from within funds provided for the Bureau of Land Management in this amendment, $8.8 million is provided for the Ecological Restoration Institute.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, this amendment increases direct spending in excess of the committee's allocation. I raise a point of order against the amendment under section 302(f) of the Budget Act.

Mr. DOMENICI. I am making a point of order.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I believe the next amendment is numbered 3837.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, this amendment offered by Senators Wellstone and Dodd----

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I assume so.

Mr. DOMENICI. It was their proposal. Now they say forget about all that; they want $80 billion. We want to rewrite a budget resolution in July of the year, instead of months ago when we were writing budget resolutions. All of a sudden, they want $80 billion set aside for Medicare and prescription drugs. If ever a point of order was not only correct under the law, but, substantively speaking, right, so that we don't spend the whole Medicare fund and end up with more burdens on the fund than we can pay for, and have some prescription drug program that starts 3 years from now, it is now. I feel very comfortable in saying to the Senate that you ought to stick with the Budget Act and the budget process. In the end, the seniors will be glad you did because their children will be protected. There will be a Medicare program around for an awful long time, and we will reform it in a way that can be sustained, that we can afford, and of which everybody will be proud. If I have any time before I make the point of order, I yield it to Senator Nickles.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have raised the point of order on this amendment. Let me just recap for you. Not too many months ago, we produced a budget resolution. There was debate in committee. We started at $20 billion as a good starting point to reform Medicare and provide some prescription drugs. Just to show the sequence, the ranking member, Senator Lautenberg, thought we ought to have $35 billion. Before we finished, a bipartisan solution was crafted by the distinguished Senator from Maine, as I recall, and the distinguished Senator from Oregon. It was heralded as the solution. It was $20 billion to reform, $20 billion for prescriptions. Everybody said, ``Good.'' That is in effect. When somebody comes to the floor tonight, with a few days left in the session, and wants to rewrite the budget and change that to $80 billion, I say the seniors know we just cannot continue to have this kind of bidding. We will bankrupt Medicare ultimately and we will not get the kind of reform we need and we will be holding out to them a bankrupt system, but we got prescription drugs. Incidentally, the President thought we could do it with $31 billion, and he would not start it for 3 full years. How do you like that? All of a sudden, we have the solution to all the problems, and the solution is, not $20 billion, not $35 billion that Senator Lautenberg wanted, not even $40 billion. It is $80 billion. The point of order is real substance in this case. Seniors know we should not be doing this because of their future and the children's future. We should not be trying to raise the ante on the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am going to make a point of order very shortly. I think the Parliamentarian will agree that it will be granted unless a motion is made. They are going to have to have 60 votes to waive it. It is good on the part of the Senate to have such rules. To give a little history, in the Budget Committee we were talking about $20 billion for Medicare over the next 5 years. My recollection is that the distinguished Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Lautenberg, offered an amendment and they took it all the way to $35 billion. A little while later in the process, with Senator Wyden helping, a bipartisan approach was taken in the committee and we said $40 billion--$20 billion if you don't get any reform and $40 billion if you get some reform--in the first 5 years. Everybody should know that the President asked for $31 billion. The budget resolution provides $20 billion plus $20 billion, which is $40 billion. And then, everybody should know that the President's proposal doesn't take effect for 3 years, until 2003. All of a sudden, when the year is about over, we have somebody proposing not to spend the $35 billion that Senator Lautenberg wanted, not the $40 billion that the bipartisan Senators did in a budget resolution, which everybody thought was a very wonderful idea--in fact, Senator Snowe and Senator Wyden led that in the committee, as I recall; is that correct, I ask Senator Nickles?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I make a point of order that this violates section 306 of the Budget Act because it tries to rewrite the budget resolution on a tax bill.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to offer strong support of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001. This legislation contains many positive things for the state of New Mexico and the United States--both in the programs funded and the changes made to enhance research and development efforts. Chairman Warner should take pride in his committee's efforts to appropriately allocate defense funding. For the second year in a row the committee was able to recommend a real increase in defense spending by adding $4.5 billion above the President's fiscal year 2001 request. The recommendation of $309.8 billion is not only consistent with the budget resolution it also allows for a 4.4-percent increase in real growth for defense from last year's appropriated level of funding. The committee authorized $63.28 billion in procurement funding, a $3.0 billion increase over the President's budget. Operations and maintenance was funded at $109.2 billion with $1.5 billion added to the primary readiness accounts. Research, development, test and evaluation was budgeted at $39.31 billion, a $1.45 billion increase over the President's budget. These impressive funding levels mark the beginning of a challenging march toward a stronger, better, national defense. Quality of life receives needed attention. I applaud the 3.7-percent pay raise for military personnel, the comprehensive retail and national mail order pharmacy benefit, the extension of the TRICARE Prime benefit to families of service members assigned to remote locations and the elimination of copayment for services received under TRICARE Prime. Military construction is increased by $430 million. I am delighted that projects critical to the productivity and well being of the service members and their families residing in New Mexico have been included in this bill. These are not glamorous projects, they are projects that will replace critical crumbling infrastructure, such as the replacement of the Bonito pipeline between La Luz and Holloman Air Force Base. Five additional Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams were included at a cost of $25 million. This will provide us with a total of 32 Civil Support Teams by the end of fiscal year 2001. These teams are comprised of full-time National Guard personnel trained and equipped to deploy and assess suspected nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological events in support of local first responders. One such team is currently being trained and fielded in New Mexico, ensuring that my constituents have better protection against such attacks. Over $1.0 billion, an increase of $363 million over fiscal year 2000 funding, is authorized for Defense and Energy nonproliferation and threat reduction programs. These programs continue to make great strides in the critical process of securing weapons of mass destruction and retaining scientific expertise in the former Soviet Union. To further ensure that these threat reduction programs achieve their goals, the committee has also included several initiatives to obtain greater commitment and necessary access from Russia. I also will offer an amendment to increase funding and expedite our efforts in restructuring the Russian nuclear weapons complex. Finally, $446.3 million is provided for the defense science and technology program--a 9 percent increase over the President's budget. This funding will focus on the revolutionary technologies to meet challenging emerging threats. Several projects critical to New Mexico's contributions to our national defense are supported by this legislation. The Armed Services Committee approved an authorization of $60 million for the Warfighter Information Network program. Laguna Industries plays a key role in manufacturing and assembling these mobile command and control units needed by active and Guard units across the nation. The committee also authorized $94.2 million to fully restore the Airborne Laser, ABL, program funding. The Air Force's ABL program is the only missile defense system currently contemplated that would strike and kill missiles in their boost phase. The Tactical Higher Energy Laser, THEL, was authorized at $15 million for FY2001. THEL represents one of the first weapons systems being tested that utilizes high energy lasers for the purposes of missile defense. The THEL program has been funded through a cost-share arrangement between Israel and the United States, with TRW having also made substantial investments in the program. I strongly believe that lasers will transform both our offensive and defensive military means in the years to come. We should fully support these programs and address shortfalls in the science and technology funding in these technologies to ensure more rapid development and fielding of high energy laser weapons. The committee also authorized $49 million in additional funding for activities of the Air Force Research Laboratories at Kirtland Air Force Base, including $5 million for the Scorpius Low-Cost Launch program, $15 million for Military Space Plane, and $5 million for the Solar Orbit Transfer Vehicle Space Experiment. The Big Crow Program Office was authorized at $7 million by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Big Crow represents a unique electronic warfare test and evaluation capability used by all of the services to ensure their weapons can perform as needed in realistic warfighting scenarios. An authorization of an additional $3 million will ensure continuation of the important blast mitigation research at New Mexico's Institute of Mining and Technology. New Mexico Tech houses our Nation's experts in terrorist explosives and is developing innovative ways to protect against this threat. While I appreciate the committee's attention to these and other important programs, I believe that more must be done to ensure the directed energy science and technology is better coordinated and sufficiently funded. These technologies can assist in our defense efforts against some of the most prevalent threats confronting us. I will also be offering an amendment to this legislation that I believe will go a long way in achieving these goals. In 1998 I spoke before this body and stated the need to start the new millennium by stopping the ebbing tide and ending the lengthy decline in defense spending. This year I am grateful to see the chairman and his committee have made the crucial step of maintaining, and improving on, the FY 2000 increase in defense spending. We must not flag in our efforts to support a strong national defense. The committee has recognized, as do most of us concerned about our national defense, that combat readiness of our Armed Forces must not be at risk. Our soldiers, and our country, deserve a national defense budget that is in keeping with international uncertainty and growing threats. Our soldiers and U.S. citizens are counting on us.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I say to my good friend, Senator Craig, that under our Constitution this body was enacted to have two Senators from every State. I hope every State is concerned with what happens in other States. I will be the first to admit that it is very easy not to pay attention to the speech the Senator just made because, obviously, there are whole States--many of them--that don't have this problem because they have no vast public ownership in the midst of their cities, out in their countrysides, or built right up against communities, be it the Bureau of Land Management or the Forest Service. So there is a tendency not to pay attention when a couple of States come to the floor and show some very dire problems that exist in the management of the public domain. I have a few issues today that won't all be raised on this amendment I will offer. But before the Interior bill is finished, I will talk about some very serious problems out in the Southwest, which is more than one State. Over the last 3 or 4 weeks, New Mexico has had its share and then some. So I want to talk about, first, a substitute that I am going to offer, which the distinguished Senator Craig understands I will offer. I hope we can vote on both his suggested amendment and the one I am offering as a substitute. But I think we have come to the conclusion--he and I and others--that if we can pass the substitute today and have it go to conference with the distinguished chairman and ranking member supporting it in the manner that it will receive support in the Senate--which I think is rather overwhelming--we will be satisfied that that is a good day's work and something that is very important for the forests of our country, which many Senators don't know about because they don't have any public forests. But they can take it from a group of us that the forests of the United States, whether they are run by the Forest Service or whether they are run by the Bureau of Land Management, are in terrible shape today. Of course, there are people in the country who can talk about how they got that way. But I say to my good friend from Illinois, I know he doesn't have time, but it would be a pleasure to take him out to some areas surrounding Santa Fe, NM, or the areas that our good friend, Senator Feinstein, will talk about in her State, or that Senator Bingaman has observed as he toured Los Alamos. The fire there and the fire on the other side of the State took almost 30,000 acres. It would kind of pale in comparison to that incendiary on the top of the hill that almost burnt down Los Alamos. Let me tell you the reason we are offering this substitute. It is because there is an emergency existing in our forests that has to do with cleaning up the forest so that we can lower the threshold for fire. Anybody paying attention to the 48,000 acres that burned around Los Alamos would quickly come to the conclusion that the forest was almost like a storage of gasoline on the ground in barrels, and that when a fire started, it was just like gasoline burning because we never cleaned the forest. All over the place were knocked down trees with debris and trees that were so close together that if they started burning, it was just like the wind. The wind was blowing at 35 to 45 miles an hour in both of our fires. With the hazardous waste on the ground that we never clean up because either we don't have enough money, or there are certain people in the country who fight even cleanup, where you take the small logs in the forest and you take the kindling that has been accumulating and take it out of there and either control burn it or let it be used by those who can find usage for that kind of a resource. So we have a substitute today that is called the Hazardous Fuel Reduction Act. We are asking the Senate to find that an emergency exists out there in our forests. I am very pleased to say that a number of Senators concur that there is an emergency and that we ought to put some money up in the state of emergency and get on with cleaning up these forests. I thank my cosponsors today. We have done this without a lot of work because I have to do this rather quickly upon my return from New Mexico, seeing that the city of Santa Fe, NM, could possibly burn because the community is in direct contact with the forest. The watershed for the city of Santa Fe, which many people like to visit, is right up in the mountains and is filled with kindling and with hazardous waste waiting to burn. So what I have done is ask a few Senators to join me today. I will quickly summarize what we are doing. The Senators who joined me are from both sides of the aisle. On the Democratic side, we have Senator Feinstein and my colleague, Senator Bingaman. On the Republican side, in addition to myself, we have Senators Kyl and Craig. I am sure Senator Craig would quickly indicate with me that if we wanted to circulate it, we would get many more Senators. The point is, we want to get this disposed of on this bill and not cause a great delay for the two distinguished managers. Let me say up front that we don't change any environmental laws. We have worked at this, and we have had everybody work at it. We have not modified NEPA and we have not changed any other laws of that type in this measure. This measure will allow the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to use all current authorities for fuel reduction treatments. It will give new authority for using grants and cooperative agreements for fuel reduction. It is at the sole discretion of the Secretaries. There is nothing mandatory about it, that they can provide jobs to local people in the local communities for fuel reduction activities. In my State--which might be different from California--there is a very huge built-up desire on the part of people living in the rural communities of New Mexico to want to join in partnership through their communities and put people to work helping to clean up the forests. There is nothing in this substitute that says we are going to log the forests. Yet if there is an opponent who comes to the floor to argue against this by some who do not want it, they will say it is just another way to log the forests. If anybody says that, read the amendment. I don't choose to read it today, but it does not do that. In cleaning the forest, they will cut some small logs, but it will be pursuant to a plan which will show that the primary reason for all of this is to get rid of some of that hazardous fuel that has been piling up waiting to be burned. In addition, the Secretaries will be able to include in some of this work nonprofits and cooperative groups, such as the YCC, or other partnerships and entities that will hire a high percentage of local folks. The Secretary has to publish a list. The other things were options and discretionary. This one has to be published by September 30, identifying all urban wild land interfaces. That is what we are worried about--not the whole forest, the interface, the communities at risk from wildfire, and, identify where fuel reduction treatment is going on, or will start by the end of the year. Then by May they will have to say why they have not and cannot treat the rest of these communities where the interface has occurred. For any reasons not limited to lack of funds, they will have to state why. Finally, the Forest Service has to publish its cohesive fire strategy, which they have in draft form. They haven't published it. They will have to publish it and simply explain--not delay, but just explain--any differences in current rulemaking and how the new policy of closing roads could impact with firefighting. I know they don't want to do this. The truth is that is the only way the public is going to find out how conflicts are occurring and whether they should be resolved or whether we should leave them lingering out there in a state of combat, ending up almost daily with lawsuits filed with one side trying to beat the other with some select group of environmentalists in nature most of the time filing these lawsuits. I repeat that there is nothing that exempts environmental, labor, or civil rights laws. There is a lot of permissive language in here and very little that is mandatory. But from what this Senator has seen of the forests after these two enormous fires, it is pretty obvious that the professionals will want to employ these techniques to get started where the interface of communities with forests have occurred to some major degree. Amendment No. 3806 To Amendment No. 3795, As Modified (Purpose: To protect communities from wild land fire danger)

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I send the amendment in the nature of a substitute to the desk.

Mr. DOMENICI. Senator, let me say the idea of putting posters around has proliferated. I don't think we ought to add more to the confusion of a vote by having them around. I had no intention to pass judgment on the validity of your exhibit, which I find very difficult to interpret and rather irrelevant, but besides that, I don't have anything to say about it. Let me say, why strike a provision that the Federal Government's inaction cries out to be left in this bill, which was signed by the President last year? I might even tell my friend from Illinois, can you believe it, I talked to him personally on this issue because he wanted to understand what the hoopla was about. I will not paraphrase him, but he signed the bill with this provision in it. It does no one any harm, and nothing has happened to say it has hurt the environment in this past year. And this issue has nothing in the world to do with how much ranchers are paying. If we ever get into a debate upon the issue of, are they getting a great deal from the Government, I will bring from my State name after name of ranchers who are just not even making a living on the Federal domain today. Whatever price he suggested, they just can't hardly make a living under the rules and regulations of the U.S. Government. That has nothing whatever to do with this issue. The assertion is not correct that the BLM has to leave correctable degradation in place and issue a new permit while damage could continue on the property. Read the amendment. Whatever power the Bureau of Land Management has, it keeps. That means if they issue a permit and they had the authority to make a correction to its terms to fix a problem, they still have it. Nothing is missing. This provision lets the rancher feel a little more comfortable. He is not as denuded and vulnerable by having no permit until they get ready to issue it to him after they finish processing, which in the past would have taken a couple of years, maybe 2\1/2\ years. Now BLM is getting closer to finishing processing of all the expiring permits. I am glad. The amendment is working. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I think almost everyone has heard the name Dr. Milton Friedman. I would like to start my brief remarks by quoting this very distinguished Nobel prize winning economist, who notes: The estate tax sends a bad message to savers, to wit: that it is OK to spend your money on wine, women and song, but don't try to save it for your kids. The moral absurdity of the tax is surpassed only by its economic irrationality. You could stop there and say no more, and ask, do we really have a tax on the books of the United States that will lead Americans to waste their money rather than save it to leave to their children? And then to be add the economically irrational absurdity. One could just read that indictment and conclude that it is a good source of information, a Nobel winner in economics, a splendid proponent of entrepreneurial capitalism and what makes it work and what detracts from its working. Dr. Friedman's quote could be the sum and total of my speech. I could stop there. But let me proceed on with a couple of facts. These are real. It does not raise very much money. It is a big trap for the unwary. It is viewed as the most confiscatory tax, with its rates reaching 55 percent, and if coupled with the generation-skipping tax, the practical effect of the tax is that it can grab as much as 85 cents on the dollar. I do not believe we in America ought to have any tax on the books that can take as much as 85 percent of any dollar, earned or owned, by any American. So that is the debate. It hits a diversity of people. Two groups most adversely affected are small businesses and family farms, which are absolutely frightened of the concept that at a point in time when they most need their managing partner, when the business or farm needs its key person the most, that key person has died, by definition, and up to 55 percent straight on-- without generation-skipping trusts protecting children--55 percent of the estate would go to the Government. There are all kinds of excuses and explanations. It is payable over time. Yes, some would say: Thank you, Federal Government, as you take 55 percent of everything we saved and earned and built up; it is generous that you let us pay that 55 percent over time. I do not know if that means anything. It probably means the Government got to the point where it was absolutely absurd trying to make them pay that 55 percent all at once because the horror stories were so rampant that Congress would say: What are we up to? After listening to that for a while, they made it payable on the installment plan. Again, my own sense of what this does and what my constituents have told me is consistent with Dr. Milton Friedman: The Estate Tax penalizes savers. Someone who is getting old may have accumulated an estate perhaps made up of a nice house, a nice summer cabin, and may own two filling stations. Try that on as to whether they are a real rich person: A really nice house, a summer cabin, and two filling stations of the modern type today. They are going to pay a huge amount on the appraised value of that estate, and let's add to it that they saved and have $50,000 in the bank. All of these assets were acquired with money that had already been taxed as income under the Federal income tax. It is a double tax; I do not think anybody would doubt that. Nobody would come to the floor and say it is not. Assets are purchased with after-tax dollars and then taxed again under the estate tax. The approach in the bill before us is a very fair approach. There are some who think the bill allows rich people to avoid paying taxes. It does not. The change is a timing change. Death would not be the taxable event. Instead, a family business or farm or other asset inherited would be taxed when it is sold, but it is not a giveaway, as some allege, because the basis for calculating the tax at the time of the sale would be the same as if the original owner had sold it. It would be taxed on a carryover basis. That means, to make it very simple, if your entire assets are three warehouses when death occurs, the three warehouses have a value at the date of death, but they are not taxed then. When one or two or three of those warehouses are sold by the inheritor, they pay a capital gains tax using the original value, which might have been the value 10 or 15 years ago when the asset was first acquired. If they make a very large amount of money when they sell it, that is taxed as capital gains. It is changing the taxable event from the date of death that triggers the tax to the date of an actual sale by one who inherits it. That is the event. It seems to me when everybody has that understood--some of the people who are saying this is not a fair approach, and some Americans who have been listening might say, Is this really fair--they will come down on the side that this is a much fairer approach than taxing on the value on the date of death. I compliment the chairman of the Finance Committee for his fine work. He is correct that this is one tax that should be abolished. This is a good and fair tax policy, and it moves us toward tax simplification, which, in and of itself, is commendable and something we are always trying to do with our Tax Code but succeed rarely. We talk much and succeed rarely. new mexico water rights

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to talk about some other things that should be abolished. Last week, the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior issued a two-paragraph memorandum that he calls a legal opinion. In that memo opinion, he attempts, in one fell swoop, to overrule New Mexico water law and the rights that are established under New Mexico water law which are called the rights of prior appropriation, the cornerstone of water rights, and the right to use water and how to allocate water when water is stored. In that same opinion, as I view it, he has abolished our water law and nationalized the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, one of the largest irrigation districts--if anyone has flown over Albuquerque, that big green belt is the Rio Grande, and anything you can see in Albuquerque on that part of the river is part of the conservancy district. That conservancy district is not, as the Solicitor said, ``an agent of the Federal Government.'' He is going to have plenty of time to prove that for he is going to be challenged in every court wherever we can, and perhaps even in the Congress, on whether that is an appropriate conclusion. Let me tell you about the creation of this Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and its mission. First, it was created by the State of New Mexico by our State legislature in 1923. It was the Conservancy Act of New Mexico. It was not created by the Federal Government. It was created by New Mexico. It owes the Federal Government no money. It paid off its last rehab and construction loan in 1999. Solicitors at the Department of Interior or any other lawyers just do not walk around nationalizing assets. In some countries, dictators do, but certainly it is not the way we do things in America. The partial effect of this memo is to overturn New Mexico and western water law. In our State, water is a precious commodity. I wish we had more of it so it would not be so precious, but it is precious and we have too little of it. In New Mexico, we have endangered species. We have more than one, but one lives in the lower reaches of the Middle Rio Grande River. We have a silvery minnow. And in the river right over the mountains is a blunt- nosed shiner. I wish we had fewer endangered species and more water-- that would be very good--but such is not what has been dealt New Mexico. We have a water rights system, and it essentially is a seniority system. This Solicitor ignores that basic premise. Adding insult to injury, the matter was already before our Federal courts, and on June 19, 2000, Interior Solicitor Leshy issued a brief opinion stating that the Bureau of Reclamation, the entity that manages some of the water, has title to the water in this Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. How he will ever make that stand up I do not know, but I hope there are judges left who will get to the heart of this issue and determine that is not a policy nor is it fact. In October of 1999, the Bureau of Reclamation biological assessment stated the bureau did not have a controlling property interest in this Middle Rio Grande conservancy facility. On Thursday, the Albuquerque Bureau of Reclamation area manager sent a letter to the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District that they operate as agent of the United States and should operate its ``transferred works'' allow 300 cfs of water to bypass San Acacia Dam on the lower river for the silvery minnow. This places all the burden on these farmers and none on the rest of the users, which is inconsistent with New Mexico law again. This places all the burden on this one group. The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District's position is that providing water for the fish should not all be borne by their water users, i.e. the farmers. The burden should be shared. There are many big water rights holders including the city of Albuquerque. The Bureau of Reclamation countered that it has title to the Conservancy District's water so it can claim it, but that it does not have authority to take the Albuquerque city's water because it is other people's water. New Mexico says that the Federal Government must comply with State law and get a permit to change irrigation water to water for fish habitat. It further admonished that the Federal Government has no authority to interfere with the state's interstate delivery obligations. I believe the federal government's strategy is to divide the parties, as well as to avoid a hearing on the merits of the biological need for wet water for the fish. To conclude, if we are ever to have cooperation to preserve this endangered species, the silvery minnow, this is exactly the way not to do it. There was a burgeoning working together, cooperative group. I was part of it. Many environmental groups were part of it. We were looking for a way to collectively and collaboratively create some habit activities, and then construct some habitats for this minnow, and to do it with the full assistance of the Federal Government. Along comes this Leshy opinion and out the window goes all that. Now it is full speed ahead with litigation on all sides, and people working in the Congress to see what we can do to be fair. If I have not used all my time, I yield whatever I have to the distinguished floor manager, the Senator from Wyoming. I thank the Senate for the time given me this morning.