Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure be granted permission to meet Tuesday, September 28, 10:00 a.m., Hearing Room (SD-406) to receive testimony regarding the FY2000 public buildings requests of the General Services Administration.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Committee on the Judiciary requests unanimous consent to conduct a House-Senate Conference on Tuesday, September 28, 1999, beginning at 10 a.m. in Dirksen Room 226.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, The Committee on Veterans' Affairs would like to request unanimous consent to hold a joint hearing with the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs to receive the legislative presentation of the American Legion. The hearing will be held on Tuesday, September 28, 1999, at 9:30 a.m., in room 345 of the Cannon House Office Building.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I say to my colleague from Idaho that I would support such funding in the EM-50 account and encourage the DOE to make such funding available.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield for an inquiry? I thought the vote was scheduled by unanimous consent to be at 5:30. Might the Senator from New Mexico inquire when we might start voting?

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, for the people of America who are interested in where we are on the tax cuts and the President's message regarding the veto, I thought I might share my version of what has happened. First of all, the main reason the President has given for vetoing the tax bill is we need to take care of Social Security and Medicare first. The question is, When will the American people ever get a tax cut? If we don't ask that question, we don't put anything in perspective as to where we are and where we will be. I will share why I believe the tax cut was right and why I believe what the President is talking about is not right and will probably yield to no tax cut to the American people. First, I might ask rhetorically, how long has the President been President? I guess he has been President almost 7 years. He will then have an eighth year. Whatever legacy he will leave the American people is close at hand. Why have we not solved Social Security in the 6 years and 9 months he has been President? But now that we have a surplus, when we can give the American people a little piece of it in a tax cut, all of a sudden the President thinks we ought to save Social Security. Why didn't we save it last year or the year before? Why didn't we save it after the President conducted hearings in three or four cities in America and said he understood it and he thought he knew what we ought to do and he sends a package. However, in terms of reform he does almost nothing and sets up a new fund to put in a piece of everybody's Social Security money, not in individual investment accounts but, in a new trust fund to be run by--whom? Seven or nine people; appointed by whom? The Government of the United States. Who believes the Government is going to manage the funds for Social Security in a way to make money and enhance the value of their pension plans? Who believes that? Hardly anyone. Second, who believes we ought to have the Federal Government, with appointed people, investing billions and billions, maybe even trillions of dollars in the stock of America and in bonds in America, without being very concerned whether they will distort the market? Instead of being a free market with equities, loans and bonds, it will be a market controlled by what the Federal Government thinks? Just think of that, a year after it exists there will be somebody on the floor of this Senate saying: We should not invest any of that money from Social Security in cigarette companies. Boy, everyone will say, of course, we should do that. Then next year there will be a report that obesity comes from McDonald's and other companies that sell us quick-fix foods. So somebody will say: Why would we want to invest money in McDonald's? They add to obesity in America. Then, who knows what else? We will distort the American market. Everybody who is thinking understands the President has not submitted anything credible on Social Security. Is it not interesting, there we are showing a $3.4 trillion surplus over the next decade, $2 trillion of which belongs to Social Security, and they will get it--but what about the rest of it? Should we sit around and wait to spend it? Or should we give some of it back in an orderly manner over a decade? Mr. President, your concerns about Social Security and Medicare do not ring true. They come into existence when you do not want to give the American taxpayers a tax cut. That is why all of a sudden they come up. Now you have even indicated we might be able to get that done in a few weeks. Get what done? Fix Social Security and Medicare, which you have not been able to fix in almost 7 years in office? In a few weeks we can fix it so we can give the American people a tax cut? Friends, you understand in a Republican budget there is a very large set-aside that is not spent on anything that can be used to repair Medicare. The problem is the President does not have a plan into which anybody wants to buy. He sent us a plan to fix prescription drugs for a part of America that might need them under Medicare, and nobody likes his plan--Democrat or Republican. So why doesn't he sit down and talk seriously about fixing that? A commission that was bipartisan, that came up with a reasonably good plan--bipartisan, bicameral, citizens and legislators--he caused that to be distorted and thrown away by asking his representatives to vote no when everybody else voted yes. Because we needed a supermajority, it failed by one vote. We had a plan. If I were a senior, I would say: Madam President, it looks to me as if you do not want my children and my grandchildren to have a tax cut because you are trying to use as an excuse that we have to fix Medicare and Social Security when you do not need that money that is going in the tax cut to fix either of them. Why did it take him so long to fix them, if all of a sudden we must fix them in the next few weeks in order to get a tax cut? Frankly, there are a lot of other reasons the President has given, but these are the ones that are politically aimed at America. If you read the polls, if you ask the question the wrong way, Americans will say: Fix Medicare and Social Security first. But if you said to them in a poll question: If we have sufficient money left over to give the American people a tax cut and we have enough money for Social Security and Medicare, would you want to give them a tax cut? watch the answer. The answer, instead of what they are quoting around, would be 85 percent. That happens to be the facts.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I want to talk a little bit about education because somehow or another we have ourselves involved in competing resolutions about the funding of education when we do not know how much education is going to get funded because the appropriation bill has not been produced yet. If this were a court of law, the Daschle resolution would be dismissed as being premature. There is no issue yet. But we will have to debate it and vote on it. Before we are finished, the Appropriations Committee that handles Labor-Health and Human Services will produce a bill that is more consistent with the budget resolution than anything else. Regardless of what it looked like 3 or 4 weeks ago, they are going to have sufficient resources. Remember, the President of the United States advance appropriated, in his function and in his budget, $21 billion. We are going to do some of the same things because they are legitimate and proper. When you take that into consideration, frankly, the Daschle resolution is talking about a nonreality. I can say there is a high probability, and if I had one more afternoon to go talk to a couple of Senators on that committee, I would predict with certainty--but I can say with almost certainty that the subcommittee of the Senate on Labor-Health and Human Services will appropriate more money in education than the President put in his budget. When you combine what they are going to give, it will be more than the President's. Is it going to have every single item in it? I do not know. In fact, before we vote on the final determination of education funding, the Senate will debate the issue on an appropriations bill which I have just described which will have more funding in it than the President's. We will probably decide in a floor fight on this floor how that education program should be structured. I think the occupant of the chair knows that Republicans have been working very hard at loosening up this money from the strings and rigidities of Washington into something that will go local schools in a looser fashion, from which we can get accountability and flexibility. We give flexibility and we expect accountability. It will not be all the line items the President wants, but it will be more money than the President requested. So I do not know what we are voting about in these resolutions. They are premature. The only guidance we have is the budget resolution that Republicans voted for and which said that of the domestic programs, there are a number of priorities but the highest one is education. The Senator occupying the chair voted for that resolution. In fact, it said we should appropriate, over the next 5 years, in excess of $28 billion--$26 or $28 billion more than we had been appropriating regularly under the President's approach. Over 10 years, it should be somewhere around $85 billion or $90 billion more. That is the only direction and guidance we have. That is not binding. But if ever there was something you know you are going to do when you pass a budget resolution, it is this because the American people think it is right. But the American people do not think we are making headway with the existing education programs. They would be thrilled if we gave more money and did it differently. Why should we be doing it the same old way which we have been doing it, which has no accountability and is all targeted whether the schools need it or not? They have to put on the same pair of socks and same shoes in every school district in America. They have to fit into the same shoes in order to get the Federal money, whether they have the problems or not. Then we have the great program that we call IDEA, where we told them you get started with special education and we will end up paying a substantial portion of it. We did not. We cheated. We made them pay a lot more than they were supposed to after we mandated it. Under Republican leadership, we are putting more and more money into that program for special education because we told them to do it, and we said we would pay a certain percent and we never came close. We keep putting more in than the President. The President complains about some targeted program we do not fund, but we fund IDEA and it loosens up money the States would otherwise have to spend for a program that we mandated, that we never lived up to our commitment on, and that is pretty good and we probably will do that this year, provide more funding than the President asked for. So I don't know, when this 5:30 vote comes, what we are voting on. I think we ought to put them both off and let's see what the appropriations subcommittee does. But if we do not, I can say I don't know why anybody would vote for the Daschle resolution. It is a statement of unreality. It is a statement of hypotheticals. It is a statement of: Here is how much money they have to spend in that subcommittee, so I am going to do some arithmetic and assume everything is going to get cut 17 percent. That is about where the 17-percent number comes from, but it does not mean anything because nobody suggests that all the money Labor-Health and Human Services gets is going to be divided the way any Senator currently thinks it should be. It is going to be done by a committee that has been doing it for many years. Those are my two thoughts for the day. I have used about 5 minutes on each, and I talked faster than I normally do because I did not want to stay down here too long. Other Senators want to speak. I repeat: If we cannot give the American taxpayers a cut in their taxes when in the past 6\1/2\ years the tax take of America, what we have taken from the taxpayers, is up 58 percent--got it?--the tax receipts of America in the last 6 years 9 months is up 58 percent. The average check increase for American working people is up 11 percent, and the cumulative increase of Government annually over 7 years--6 years 9 months--is 22. Who was cut short? A 58-percent tax increase, 22-percent growth in Government, 11-percent growth in the paychecks of Americans. They need some of their money back. That is what that issue is about. If not now, when? On education, wait and see. We will do better than the President. It will be hard to convince the President, and he will have something to say about it. We ought to put up a nice big board and add up the numbers when we are finished with appropriations. We will do better than he did. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise in support of S. 1596, the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development and independent agencies appropriations bill for 2000. This bill provides new budget authority of $93.6 billion and new outlays of $55.5 billion to finance the programs of the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and other independent agencies. I congratulate the chairman and ranking member for producing a bill that complies with the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation. This is one of the most difficult bills to manage with its varied programs and challenging allocation, but I think the bill meets most of the demands made of it while not exceeding its budget and is a strong candidate for enactment. So I commend my friend, the chairman, for his efforts and leadership. When outlays from prior-year BA and other adjustments are taken into account, the bill totals $91.3 billion in BA and $103.8 billion in outlays. The total bill is under the Senate subcommittee's 302(b) allocation for budget authority and outlays. I ask Members of the Senate to refrain from offering amendments which would cause the subcommittee to exceed its budget allocation and urge the speedy adoption of this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the Budget Committee scoring of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. How long will it be in terms of the remarks the Senator will make before he yields the floor?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, historically, the royalty has been calculated at the wellhead. The essence of the problem is that MMS decided they want to change that--in many instances, tax it as a royalty many miles downstream. They contend there is a duty to market. A court has already ruled there is no duty to market. They want to come in by the back door and establish regulations and rules that will, indeed, tax beyond the real value of the oil, based upon rules and regulations. It is a new tax, a backdoor way of taking away our prerogative. That is why we have been fighting this for the last 3 years.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I first thank Senator Hutchison for her kind remarks. I tell her, as cosponsor, what a pleasure it is to work with her. We have been sponsor or cosponsor--depending on the year--of this measure for the last 3 years. Hang in there, I say to the Senator. We have not lost yet. We will not lose this time either because we are right. I want to give a quick summary of the issues, as I see them. When you get right down to it, it isn't all that complicated. First, we need to have new MMS regulations, but the regulations they steadfastly insist on putting forth are fatally flawed. During the moratorium that the Congress has imposed, several of us--Senators Landrieu, Nickles, Thomas, Hutchison, Enzi, Breaux, Murkowski, and others--have tried to get the agency to fix the regulations, and they stubbornly refuse. In fact, at the request of the administration, we have all sat around the table on at least two occasions, if not more, with the MMS people and the oil people, sitting around talking about the flaws in it, as the industry sees it. But they refuse to take care of the real problems and stubbornly insist they are right. Procedurally, the regulation writing process has been tainted. Let me make sure everybody understands that. People involved in writing the regulations were taking $350,000 payments from the Project on Government Oversight, POGO. When the procedure is contaminated, the best way to proceed is to discard the tainted work product and start over. That is why we have a country with laws. Process is important. People writing regulations are not supposed to be paid by someone who has an interest in the outcome. Can you imagine if the Senate were debating an issue and the shoe was on the other foot what we would be hearing here on the floor? If somebody had taken money, in this case, from the oil or gas companies, think where we would be. The whole process would be thrown out. We need to get to the bottom of the $350,000 payments from the Project on Government Oversight, which is known as POGO. Senators Murkowski, Hutchison, Nickles, and I have written several letters to Secretary Babbitt on this issue. Because of the procedural irregularities alone, the moratorium should remain in place until satisfactory answers are provided regarding the wrongdoing. It has been months, and we really have no satisfactory explanation. That is absurd. No other description is accurate. These MMS regulations are unworkable, arbitrary, complicated, and beyond what they ought to be. One producer with one well with one kind of oil would have to value his oil in 10 different ways. There is no justification for such complexity. It can only be labeled an abuse of power. In addition, the MMS could even second guess, audit, and sue that producer on seven different theories. This is a scheme that is unnecessarily complicated and plainly unworkable. We ought to be able to do better. Regardless of which industry is on the other side of this, we ought to be able to do it better and make it workable. My conclusion is that these regulations are borderline absurd. The proposed rules exceed the MMS authority. These regulations raise royalty rates by imposing a nonexistent and recently quasi-judicially rejected duty to market. The proposed rules are premised on a rejected legal theory called duty to market. The relationship between the producer and the MMS is spelled out in the lease. It is a concise document defining the responsibility and duties of the producer and the MMS. Oil is valued at the lease, period. That is what the lease says. The lease is based upon statutory language in the law. The Mineral Lands Act, 30 USC 226(b), which governs leases for onshore Federal lands, specifically states: A lease shall be conditioned upon the payment of a royalty rate of not less than 12.5 percent of amount or value of the production removed or sold from the lease; [that is] at the time the oil is removed from the well. That is the definition. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 USC 1331, et seq., governs Federal leases for drilling offshore. The act requires offshore leases to pay: A royalty to the lessor on oil and gas . . . saved, removed or sold from the lease. By regulation, MMS wants to unilaterally rewrite the leases and the law and create a duty to market out of thin air. Duty to market is Government mooching because it wants to increase the royalty amount owed but will not allow a deduction for the costs incurred in getting the higher price. In other words, they would like the higher of the prices at the wellhead or at some other point. And if the higher one happens to be downstream with a lot of costs involved in getting it there, they don't even want to permit you to deduct the cost of getting it from the wellhead to the downstream or upstream source. They want to get the highest royalty and, thus, make the business swallow, without deductibility, the cost of getting it there. We don't do that anywhere in American capitalism. We don't do it in our IRS. We don't do it in simple, good CPA accounting procedures. By analogy, under today's law, the MMS bases its royalty valuation on essentially the wholesale price for the oil. Under the proposed rule, they are basing the royalty on the retail price, which is not authorized by Federal law. The rule does not allow certain transportation and other costs necessary to get the higher price to be deducted from the royalty payment. When I went to law school, I was taught that one party couldn't unilaterally change a contract. When I went to law school, regulations were to implement, not rewrite, the law. Regulations were to be consistent with the law. I was taught that agencies did not have the authority to rewrite contracts through regulations. MMS lawyers must have missed that week of law school because that is exactly what they are trying to do now. If MMS can change contracts through regulation, in direct violation of the law of the land, why can't other agencies do the same? For example, why can't Medicare unilaterally, without congressional approval, change its contract with Medicare recipients and say: You have a duty to stay well; Medicare won't pay your Medicare bills because you breached your duty to stay well? That would be absurd, just as this new way of charging royalties is absurd. If we allow MMS to change the royalty rate, there is nothing to keep the IRS from saying: We want to get more money from American families. So they will issue some complicated regulations and raise their taxes. That would be a usurpation of the exclusive role of Congress. What MMS is trying to do is a usurpation of the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress. There is no duty to market in the lease. There is no court-ordered duty to market in the law of the land. It is a figment of the ``tax- raising imagination'' of MMS. They want to raise royalty rates, and that is it. Creating a duty to market when none exists usurps the prerogatives of the Congress and ignores the precedents set by the Department's own review board. In May, the Interior Board of Land Appeals, known as the IBLA, ruled that there was no duty to market in a case known as Seagull Energy Corporation, Case No. 148 IBLA 3100 (1999). The IBLA has the expertise in these royalty cases. This was a 1999 case before the IBLA. Secretary Babbitt reversed that in a case involving Texaco, Case No. MMS-92-0306-0&G. The Secretary unilaterally, and in direct contravention of the moratorium imposed by this committee, overruled its own Board of Land Appeals. I want to commend Senator Nickles for developing legislation to clarify the authority MMS has regarding oil royalty valuation. Simply stated--and I believe he is right--it stands for the proposition that there has never been, is not, nor ever shall be a duty to market. If you read a Federal oil and gas lease, there is no mention of a duty to market. It has been the Mineral Management Service position that the duty to market is an implied covenant in the lease. This legislation says the MMS is wrong. That is what the legislation Senator Nickles has introduced, working its way through Congress, says. Let me back up and explain the issue and why this legislation is needed. Oil and gas producers doing business on Federal leases pay royalties to the Federal Government based on fair market value. Under this administration, this is easier said than done. One of the longstanding disputes between Congress and the MMS has been the development of workable royalty valuation regulations that can articulate just exactly what fair market value is. Cynthia Quarterman, former director of MMS, set out the Interior Department's position that fair market value includes a duty to market the lease production for the mutual benefit of the lessee and the lessor but without the Federal Government paying its share of the costs. Many of these costs are transportation costs, and they are significant. MMS calls it a duty to market. I believe it is the Federal Government mooching, trying to get paid without bearing its share of the cost. The bill states congressional intent: No duty to market; no Federal Government mooching. Let me be clear: Where there is a duty to market, it is a matter exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Congress. It is not the job of lawyers at MMS to raise the congressionally set royalty rate through the back door. The so-called duty to market is a backdoor royalty increase, and there can be no doubt about it. The MMS has been unable to develop workable royalty valuation rules, and Congress has had to impose a moratorium on these regulations. The core issue has been the duty to market, and I believe I have explained why this is a serious problem. Nobody is attempting to do anyone a favor. Nobody is attempting to be prejudicial toward the MMS and the Federal Government's tax take. What we are talking about is simple, plain fairness. I won't say equity, because as a matter of fact it is law, not equity, that sets this. It is probably equitable also. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Will Senator Wellstone yield, without losing his right?

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 Conference Report before us today. Chairman Warner and his Committee have done an excellent job in prioritizing available funds to provide for our national defense. Any deficiencies in this authorization bill are a result of overall budget constraints and expanded commitments rather than inattention to our nation's vital security needs. I appreciate the Committees efforts to bring direct spending under control in this bill and conform to the Budget Act limitations. As Chairman of the Budget Committee and a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee I know how difficult the exercise of prioritizing funds is. Every year all of the Congressional Defense Committees face tough choices as to how to best allocate funding so as to meet our immediate defense needs without sacrificing our future. As budgets shrink and global commitments swell, this task becomes increasingly difficult. Mr. President, I would like to underscore the problems Congress currently faces. Here my message is two-fold: first, we do not live in a peaceful world; and, secondly, we cannot defend our national interests if we are not committed to a strong military. I, and many of my colleagues, believe that U.S. prosperity rests on a strong, dedicated military. Everyone has heard the phrase ``peace through strength.'' Perhaps some believe that having been coined during the Cold War, this adage is anachronistic. I strongly disagree. Continued economic growth and the absence of a tangible, imminent threat to our security breed complacency. Complacency characterizes the current attitude toward our national security. As victors of the Cold War we appear to have a false sense of security about this new era. Thus far, the results of U.S. military intervention have not offered evidence that we should worry. However, our current military superiority is a product of the massive investments made during the Cold War. This Administration has not sustained the necessary investments. At the same time, they've increased U.S. military commitments overseas--often without clearly defining the strategic objective of those deployments. Complacency regarding our nation's strategic interests sends a message that ripples through every level of our national security apparatus--from our current inability to recruit the requisite talent to the trained pilots, technicians, and mid-career military professionals leaving for private sector jobs. Although diffuse and more difficult to discern, threats to our national security do exist. Instability in numerous regions throughout the world create security risks with adverse economic, and potentially strategic, impact. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction also presents a grave threat. NATO intervention in Kosovo further aggravated potential threats to our national security--specifically, damage to our relations with Russia and China. In addition, Kosovo deployments will stretch an already overextended military to its limits--not to mention a limited, but not insignificant, contribution to peacekeeping efforts in East Timor. Peace through strength is still an appropriate theme. Complacency erodes our potential. If we demonstrate a strong commitment to the men and women in uniform, they will have a good reason to join and to stay. Mr. President, with those thoughts in mind, I would like to briefly discuss the work of Senator Warner's Committee on the Conference Report before us today. First, a critical initial step in meeting our commitment to the men and women in uniform is found in the pay raises, incentive pay, and pension reforms found in this bill. As of January 1 next year, all members of the uniformed services will receive a 4.8% increase in their monthly pay. Furthermore, pay increases beyond that date will be one half a percent above inflation. The Conference Report outlines special incentive pay and enlistment bonuses to a variety of needed specialists or highly-trained personnel in our armed forces. Lastly, improvements to military retirement pay and eligibility in the Thrift Savings Plan will provide additional reasons to join and continue serving in our military services. According to a GAO study requested by myself and Senator Stevens military pay and retirement packages are not the core reasons for our retention problems. However, these improvements offer an important first step toward addressing quality of life shortfalls in the lives of our military men and women. The Committee also increased readiness funding beyond the Administration's request. In addition to the $2.25 billion of emergency money, this conference report adds about $1.6 billion in readiness- related accounts. The President's budget only included $5.4 billion in military construction to fund $8.5 billion worth of projects. This ``split funding'' approach was to be a one-time accounting gimmick to create room for other spending and still remain under the budget caps. I applaud the Authorization Committees' decision not to use this approach for military construction. The pay and pension reforms as well as additional funding for military readiness and military construction will alleviate some of the problems in the immediate term. Necessary still is to address the foreign policy decisions that have led to the high operational tempo. More money cannot resolve questions regarding overseas operations or the organizational ability of any one military branch to respond to post-Cold War deployments. These are systemic problems borne of both domestic and foreign policy decisions. Unless and until we clarify the U.S. position and responsibilities in this new era, we will not know the rules for engagement or intervention. This dilemma has profound implications for the size, structure, and capabilities of our military. There are several items of significant impact on the state of New Mexico included in this authorization bill. I would like to briefly discuss a few of them. Although foremost a matter of national security, the provisions on the Department of Energy restructuring also will have a substantial impact on thousands of workers in New Mexico. These provisions ensure that brilliant science and tight security are compatible within our nuclear weapons infrastructure. Mr. President, I remind my colleagues that the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) Report demanded legislative changes. It clearly stated, ``The Department of Energy is a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven incapable of reforming itself.'' The PFIAB Report's specific recommendations included: Creation of a new, semi-autonomous Agency for Nuclear Stewardship. Streamline the Nuclear Stewardship management structure. Ensure effective administration of safeguards, security, and counterintelligence at all the weapons labs and plants by creating a coherent security/CI structure within the new agency. I and my colleagues, Senator Kyl and Senator Murkowski, followed these recommendations closely in drafting the legislation for DOE restructuring. The creation of a semi-autonomous agency for our nuclear weapons work will implement a true ``Chain of Command'' approach, with all the discipline this entails. I truly believe that this approach, if it had been used in the past, may have avoided some of these security problems and will help us avoid them in the future. These changes are desperately needed at the Department of Energy, and they must be made now. Another national defense issue that has substantial implications for New Mexico is the McGregor Range withdrawal. McGregor Range is one of six military parcels withdrawn from public domain in 1986. These parcels comprise nearly 30 percent of the Department of Defense's 25 million acres. McGregor Range comprises nearly 700,000 of Fort Bliss's 1.12 million acres. The Fort Bliss garrison is adjacent to El Paso, Texas, but McGregor Range is located entirely in New Mexico. McGregor range is vital to military training and readiness. Fort Bliss has a critical role as a national center for air defense, and McGregor Range is essential for fulfilling that role. McGregor Range is the only range in the United States capable of training America's air and missile defense forces. Because all CONUS Patriot forces are stationed at Fort Bliss they depend on McGregor for the training needed to ensure their full readiness prior to deployment. There is strong regional support for this renewal. 176 public comments expressed support for the Army's preferred alternative. An additional 26 expressed support for one of the other alternatives. The provisions in this bill will continue historic non-military uses of the range which include livestock grazing and hunting for 25 years. Military training and testing requirements for McGregor Range are foreseen for at least the next 50-years based on weapons systems that are either currently fielded or are planned for fielding in the near future. For this reason, the Army's Environmental Impact Statement preferred a 50-year withdrawal. My amendment to the Senate Defense Appropriations bill includes a 50- year withdrawal. I am pleased with the work of the Authorization Committee, but I still firmly believe that 25 years is not an adequate period of time for withdrawal of the McGregor Range. Many important programs for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland were authorized by the conferees. Aerospace propulsion programs at Phillips were increased by $6 million. An increase of $28.6 million above the $115.3 million budget request was authorized for Phillips' Exploratory Development programs. Advanced Spacecraft Technology programs received an additional $19.5 million authorization, including $5 million for the Scorpius Low-Cost Launch program. Directed energy programs comprise a substantial proportion of New Mexico's defense related research, development, and testing initiatives. Different services are working on a variety of laser weapons to achieve better and cheaper cost-per-kill defenses against missiles. Chemical lasers development for the Airborne and Space Based Laser programs are authorized at almost $500 million annually. The pioneering work and ongoing basic research for these systems is at Phillips in Albuquerque. With a view toward the future of laser weapons, this conference report requires the Secretary of Defense to develop a unified DoD laser master plan. The objective is to maximize the return on our investment in these important technologies by coordinating these efforts across the services and provide a roadmap for future development. I strongly support this effort. The conferees also provided an additional $20 million authorization for solid state laser development and $10 million for the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL), programs which are tested at the High Energy Laser Test Facility (HELSTF) at White Sands Missile Range. HELSTF is also designated as the Army's Center of Excellence for all Army test and evaluation activities. An additional $4 million is authorized for the Counterterror Technical Support program. This funding will support the cutting-edge research in blast mitigation materials and structures at New Mexico Tech. Although the President's request included no funding for military construction at New Mexico's defense installations, the conferees added $9.8 million to renovate 76 units of housing at Holloman Air Force base and $14 million to replace cracked and deteriorating airfield ramps at Kirtland. Another $8.1 million is authorized to repair one of the main runways at Cannon Air Force base. In addition, the New Mexico Air National Guard's Composite Support Complex at Kirtland is authorized at $9.7 million. All of these projects address quality of life or operational needs of the utmost importance to personnel at these installations. Mr. President, again, I would like to thank Senator Warner and the members of his Committee for their diligent work in allocating tight resources in the best feasible manner. At the same time, I would like to reiterate my view that many of the problems we currently face in our Defense Committees result from inadequate definition of U.S. interests. The systemic problems--retention, readiness, operational tempo--are a product of domestic and foreign policy decisions. We have neither clarified the U.S. position in the current international environment nor have we established relevant rules for U.S. engagement. Instead, we rely more and more on our military to compensate for failed diplomacy. Or we ask our soldiers to play referee in regions of the world teeming with ethnic conflict and territorial disputes. Without first defining our national interest in this new era, we cannot pretend to downsize, right-size, or structure our military to adequately defend U.S. interests throughout the world. More importantly, without a clear picture of the appropriate military structure and necessary force capabilities we cannot answer the $280 billion question: How much is enough?

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. With that, I yield the floor and say I hope the Senate, by bipartisan, overwhelming majorities, passes this bill with this amendment on it, which is going to be good for America, good for nuclear weapons, and it will diminish the chances for spying and counterintelligence to work against our nuclear weapons in the secrets that are so imperative. Let's look back on this day and say we finally did something to move in the right direction. I yield the floor. Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I say to my fellow Senators, this bill is a very important bill. The part I worked on is very small. It has to do with reforming the Department of Energy as it pertains to the handling and maintenance of nuclear weapons and everything that goes with them. I compliment those who prepared the overall bill. It is a very good bill for the defense of our Nation, and it deserves the overwhelming support of the Senate. We had no other way to accomplish something very important with reference to a Department of Energy that was found to be totally dysfunctional, not by those who have tried over the years to build some strength into that Department, some assurance that things would be handled well, but rather by a five-member select board that represented the President of the United States, headed by the distinguished former Senator Warren B. Rudman. Those five members of the President's commission, with reference to serious matters that pertain to our national security, concluded that the Department of Energy could not handle the work of maintaining our weapons systems, maintaining them safe from espionage and spying, and could not handle an appropriate counterintelligence approach because there was no one responsible and, thus, everybody pinned the blame on someone else and we would get nowhere in terms of accountability. I ask unanimous consent that the names of the five members of that board be printed in the Record, with a brief history of who they are and what they have done in the past.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am just going to address three issues as it pertains to the reform of the Department of Energy as it pertains to nuclear weapons development.

Mr. DOMENICI. Absolutely. Mr. President, what I want to do is dispel any notion that the amendment that created a semiautonomous agency within the Department, to be headed by an assistant secretary who would be in charge of everything that has to do with nuclear weapons development--and they would do things in a semiautonomous way, not in the way that the rest of the Department of Energy does its business--is taking away the authority of the Secretary; that is, the Secretary of Energy. The Department of Energy is an amorphous Department put together at a point in history when a lot of things were dumped in there. Some have no relationship to other matters in the Department. And, yes, we put the nuclear defense activities in that Department. No one could contend that if the Congress of the United States, and the President concurring, wanted to take all of the nuclear weapons out of that Department and put them in an independent agency--which was one of the recommendations of the five-member panel--that that would be unconstitutional, illegal. And there would be no Secretary of Energy involved at all. The other suggestion was, rather than make it totally independent, to leave it within the Department and make it semiautonomous. We did that. The Secretary, and some of those arguing on behalf of a different approach, chose to say that the Secretary does not have enough to do and enough say-so about nuclear weapons development, and therefore it is wrong. I want to read from the bill's two provisions. In carrying out the functions of the administrator-- That is the new person in charge of the semiautonomous agency-- the undersecretary shall be subject to the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary. Second: The Secretary shall be responsible for establishing policy for the National Nuclear Security Administration. It goes on with two other provisions assuring that the overall policy is under the jurisdiction of the Secretary. But I remind everyone, had we chosen not to do that, it would have been legal. We could have taken it all out and had no Energy Secretary involved. We chose not to. We chose to say: Leave it there so there can be some cross-fertilization between the Energy Department's work and the nuclear activities on behalf of our military and our defense. We got this finished, and we made accommodation on the floor of the Senate with reference to the environment. Never was it intended that the semiautonomous agency would be immune from any environmental law. In fact, the first writing of this bill had a legal opinion that if you do not mention it, it is subject to all environmental laws. We came to the floor and some Members on the other side, I think quite properly, said: Why don't you specifically mention that the new semiautonomous agency is subject to the environmental laws? We did that. In fact, it says: The administrator shall ensure that the administration complies with all applicable environmental, safety, health statutes, and substantive requirements. Nothing in this title shall diminish the authority of the Secretary of Energy to ascertain and ensure that compliance occurs. Because we wrote it in, some quibble with the words that we used to write it in. Now they are saying: Are you sure you included everything? We thought we included everything by mentioning nothing; then we tried to include everything verbally and some said: You have to change the words because you really don't mean it. There is nothing to indicate that we have exempted or immunized any of our environmental laws in this statute. They are totally applicable. It is just that the new administrator applies them to the nuclear weapons department separate and distinct from the rest of the activities of the Department of Energy--and it is high time, in my opinion. There are some letters from attorneys general, and I just want to say I read some of them. I have no idea how they came to their conclusions. I will just cite one. The attorney general of Texas, in responding after he received an explanation of the bill from the distinguished chairman, Senator Warner, wrote a letter saying: After reading your letter, I am satisfied that this legislation was neither intended to affect existing waivers of Federal sovereign immunity nor to exempt in any way the

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I will not take much time because there are so many people who want to speak to this bill and its many other ramifications. My assessment was that the President was concerned about the environmental provisions. We went through it very carefully. I believe the President was satisfied that what we had done was intended to keep this semiautonomous agency totally within the purview of every environmental law of this land. The second issue, obviously, had to do with counterintelligence because the Department under Bill Richardson had gone to a great deal of effort to create a policymaking mechanism for counterintelligence and had appointed somebody to be in charge of it. The amendment in its original form did not account for that. It put all of the counterintelligence within the new, semiautonomous agency. That issue was raised with Chairman Rudman as he testified, and, as the distinguished chairman of the full committee indicates, it was raised to the committee by Mr. Lew from the OMB. Perhaps the good point was made. I think it could have gone either way. But I am certain that everybody involved in security will say it is all right the way it is. Secretary Richardson made the point that there are some counterintelligence issues that are broader and apply in different places within the Department than just in the nuclear weapons part. You shouldn't have two kinds of policies developed on counterintelligence. So we said the policy will be developed in the Office of the Secretary and it will be implemented and carried out in toto for the nuclear part by the semiautonomous agency, and the Assistant Secretary, or administrator--whichever we choose to call him--implements this provision. I believe those are the most important issues of which we spoke. I think the President clearly understood that you could manage a nuclear weapons system without a Secretary of Energy. You could do it similar to NASA, with perhaps a board of directors, and he even commented that certainly would not be illegal. But the point is, we want to leave it in the Department. But when you leave it there, you have to make it somewhat autonomous or you haven't changed anything. I think by the time we were finished that was well understood. I believe we have a good bill with reference to reforming this Department. I think within a couple of years you will see security in a much better shape. I think you will see ``accountability'' as a word of which you will not only speak but you will know who is accurate. And it is high time, in my opinion. I thank the distinguished Senator, Mr. Warner, for involving me again here tonight. I think I have said enough. I yield the floor. I hope the Senate passes this tomorrow overwhelmingly.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to say for the Record that there are so many people who have worked hard on this legislation. I don't want the Record to even imply that I was more responsible than others. Maybe I worked earlier than some. But Senator Kyl worked very hard. Senator Murkowski conducted some marvelous hearings on the subject. Both the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Intelligence were greatly involved and, in fact, participated in helping us with this and supported it wholeheartedly. The Senators on the floor from the Armed Services Committee, Senator Bingaman and Senator Levin, contributed to some positive things on the floor that were changed as a result of their concerns. I think altogether we have a bill that will work.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the distinguished Chairman, and I yield the floor. the national environmental respiratory center

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. Chairman, I would like to discuss with you an important transportation research initiative addressed in the report accompanying the FY 2000 Transportation Appropriations bill. I refer to the National Environmental Respiratory Center headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I would like to engage the distinguished Senator from Alabama, the Chairman of the Subcommittee, in a colloquy. I want to begin by commending you, Senator Shelby for the hard work you have done in crafting this Transportation appropriations bill. You have done a fine job under difficult circumstances in funding the priorities identified by the Committee in this bill, and providing increased flexibility to the states. As you know, one of the more important highway programs in this bill for my home state of New Mexico is the Indian Reservation Roads program. The program is directed to about 22,000 miles of Bureau of Indian Affairs roads serving tribal lands. Of these roads, only 11 percent of the paved roads are rated as being in good condition. Close to 90 percent of the unpaved roads are know to be in poor condition. Indian Reservation Roads funds are critical to improving transportation for Native Americans in New Mexico. I understand that in putting together this bill, the Chairman adjusted the revenue aligned budget authority (RABA) allocation formula, and that programs under the Federal Lands Highways program will receive a total of $37.3 million less in funding under the Senate bill than they otherwise would under TEA-21. This will affect the Indian Reservation Roads program, which is part of the Federal Lands Highways program. Because of these changes to the RABA formula, Indian Roads will not receive an additional $14.5 million in funds it is authorized to under TEA-21. Thus, the Indian Roads program will receive $275 million, instead of the full $289.5 million that would be allocated under TEA-21. I am concerned about this and hope that the Chairman will work to improve the situation for Indian Roads in conference. As this bill moves to conference, will the Chairman pledge to make every effort to sustain full funding as envisioned by TEA-21 for the Indian Reservation Roads program?

Mr. DOMENICI. I appreciate the Subcommittee's support for the NERC Center, and I would like to highlight the potential of this Center's work as it would relate to the Department of Transportation's mission. The National Environmental Respiratory Center--NERC as it is called--is the only research program in the United States focused specifically on the increasingly troublesome issue of understanding the health risks of mixtures of air pollutants. A major difficulty in moving forward in managing these residual health risks associated with air quality is the fact that no citizen ever breathes one pollutant at a time. Scientists are realizing that it is unlikely that any remaining effect of air pollution on health is actually caused by a single air pollutant acting alone. Clearly, the transportation sector is at least one significant factor in the relationship between air quality and public health. Therefore, it is essential that the Department of Transportation participate in the interagency, multi-disciplinary public-private NERC initiative. I thank the Committee for acknowledging this effort in the report accompanying the pending bill. The National Environmental Respiratory Center was conceived as a joint government-industry effort to determine how to identify the contributions of individual pollutants and their sources to the health effects of complex mixtures of air contaminants. The work is well underway and broad recognition of its importance is manifested by the continually increasing support from industry. Continued support through this appropriations bill is essential to carrying out the Center's multi-year research strategy. Accordingly, Mr. Chairman, I am hopeful the U.S. Department of Transportation will take heed of our recommendation, and I look forward to working with you on this matter.