Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator wants to ask for the yeas and nays on his amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield Senator Santorum 15 minutes, and then Senator Nickles needs 15 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI. How much time does the Senator want?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Roth amendment. Clearly, there is a long way to go before we have rendered Social Security solvent way into the next century. But it is even more obvious that this is the era when part of what a citizen who is working should have for retirement should be a personalized savings account or an annuity that comes from that personalized savings account. There can be no doubt that it can be structured in such a way that it will turn out to be better for the senior citizen. They will be assured of the benefits that they are getting now and, in most cases, will come out far, far ahead. In the meantime, if it works right, the surpluses of the U.S. Government, if used partially for this, will be invested in a safe way, not solely in IOU's from the Federal Government, which is where they go now, which is the law now; rather, they will be invested where they can, without much risk, yield significantly more and, when compounded, the power of compounding is enormous. So in a very real sense I come here today saying to the distinguished Senator, Senator Roth, chairman of the Finance Committee, that the time has come for some significant reforms that will not put in jeopardy the Social Security system, but rather in the long run make sure that it is not short of money, that its liabilities will not be there to destroy the system, but rather that in years to come, it will be more solvent, and that ultimately, with part of it being compounded because of the annual return that will come from safe investments, it is clear that everyone gains. The seniors gain, the 21-year-old paying into the system today gains, and the American economy is the beneficiary of individuals investing in this economy across the board so that the working people of the United States will own an interest in the American companies that produce our wealth. Frankly, I am delighted that we are going to discuss this today. If we discuss it for a long time, that is fine with me. If we discuss it for a short time and it passes, that is fine with me. But clearly, we discuss a lot of things that are not nearly as important to our future, and we adopt sense-of-the-Senate resolutions that are, in many instances, not even important to the fiscal policy of our Nation and the future well-being of our people. This is moving in the direction of reform and personalized accounts, and is a very appropriate thing to be doing on a budget resolution. It has everything to do with what we do with our surpluses, if we have them, what we do with capital needs in the future, and how we assure senior citizens that they are going to be guaranteed a Social Security check or better, because they will have invested some portion of it in personalized accounts. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. I don't have any further questions. I think there are some other Senators on our side that do, and in due course they will come down. I have nothing further. Are you finished on your side?

Mr. DOMENICI. In a sense, if this sense of the Senate is ever carried out, the Finance Committee would have to find room on the tax side for $3.3 billion of tax cuts; is that correct?

Mr. DOMENICI. Let me make sure I understand a couple more things.

Mr. DOMENICI. Can you explain how we will get so much for so little?

Mr. DOMENICI. $3.3 billion?

Mr. DOMENICI. How much is the program that you envision going to cost the Federal Treasury?

Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if I might ask a couple questions.

Mr. DOMENICI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. DOMENICI. If there was time in opposition--I don't know what it is--we yield it back.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, from what I understand, we have no objection on this side, and I understand there are no objections on the Democratic side. Therefore, I believe if we yield back our respective times, we can accept this amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, today there is a $1.5 billion backlog of repairs, renovation, and replacement for all federally owned and operated BIA schools, including elementary, secondary, and post- secondary schools. A December, 1997 report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) concluded that ``the cost of the total inventory of repairs needed for BIA education facilities (elementary and secondary only) is $754 million. This includes $693 million for repairs to school buildings, including dormitories for students. It also includes $61.7 million in repairs needed for education quarters such as employee housing. The footnote to this estimate notes that $754 million ``does not include the costs of replacing school buildings. BIA's priority list for constructing education facilities includes eight unfunded school replacement projects with a total estimated cost of $112 million.'' The BIA Construction Priority List Mr. President, we in the Senate who pay close attention to this BIA priority list for school construction are well aware that this list has been frozen for several years now. This means that the eight school scheduled for replacement are the ones on this frozen priority list. I am attaching this list of 16 total BIA schools from the Administration's FY 1999 budget request for the Record. Obviously, a school that is replaced would be deleted from the list of school needing repair. The GAO report includes the costs of schools scheduled for replacement. In short, the GAO estimate does not fully estimate the costs of replacement schools. To get a rough idea of the costs of replacing these schools, including those that are not on the frozen priority list, I have checked with the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Kevin Gover. His office informs me that 50% of the 185 BIA schools are over 30 years old and fail to meet current codes and standards. The GAO, has noted that 25% of BIA schools are over 50 years old, and, of course fail to meet the same standards for safety and teaching. Total BIA Schools Needing Replacement and Repair There are 93 BIA schools that should be replaced--well beyond the current priority list of 16. At an average cost of $180 per square foot, these 93 schools would cost one billion dollars to replace. Replacing these 93 oldest BIA schools would leave about $200 million in repair and renovation costs for the remaining 92 BIA schools. This simple arithmetic gives us a current estimate of about $1.2 billion to bring all federally operated BIA schools up to par. Indian Community Colleges These Indian community colleges fall into two categories: those run by the BIA and those that are tribally controlled community colleges. In the first category, those run by the BIA, Haskell (Kansas) and SIPI (Albuquerque) are the only two that are fully federally operated by the BIA. The BIA now has 26 tribally controlled community colleges eligible to receive funds through the Tribally Controlled Community Colleges Act, and one more, United Tribes Technical College, funded through the BIA's Community Development funds. In total, then, there are 29 Indian Community Colleges with direct BIA funding, and one, Crownpoint Institute of Technology, that is funded primarily through the Carl Perkins Vocational Education program of the U.S. Department of Education. These Indian community colleges have an estimated repair and renovation cost of about $310 million. Replacement costs, such as the Shiprock branch of Navajo Community College, are not included. The Shiprock branch is estimating the costs for a new campus at about $28 million. The need for married student housing at Crownpoint Institute of Technology is also not included. Total BIA Schools and Indian Community Colleges For the sake of simplicity, we can easily estimate that total repair, renovation, and replacement costs for all elementary, secondary, and post-secondary BIA schools and tribal schools eligible for BIA funds, exceed $1.5 billion. GAO Report on BIA Schools For the benefit of my colleagues, I would like to submit an edited version of the GAO study on Indian school repair needs. Please keep in mind that this report is focused on elementary and secondary schools only. The GAO finds that 47,200 Indian students are served by 173 schools. The BIA count is 185 schools and over 50,000 students. The BIA schools range in size from 15 to 1,144 students, with about half of these schools enrolling fewer than 200 pupils. Growth is very high in these schools with an increase in student enrollment of 25 percent since 1987. Most of this growth has occurred in the last 5 years. About 10 percent of all Indian students attend BIA schools, funded or operated by the BIA. The vast majority or 90% of Indian students in America attend regular public schools. BIA schools are located in 23 states, but are highly concentrated in 5 states--North Dakota, South Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico, and Washington. BIA schools are generally in poorer physical condition that even central city schools and lack more key facility requirements than typical American schools. The BIA schools are older and less able to support computer and communications technology than average American schools. Conclusion (S. Res. 100 on Education of American Indians) In addition to the physical needs of our federally operated Indian schools and colleges, there is a parallel crisis in operating funds for Indian schools nationwide. American Indian students have the highest dropout rate of any racial ethnic group (36%) and the lowest high school completion and college attendance rates of any minority group. Average annual funding for Indian college students is $2,900 compared to $6,200 for Americans as a whole. Senate Resolution 100, introduced in the First Session of this Congress which I introduced with the cosponsorship of Senators Campbell, Inouye, Johnson, Dorgan, and Wellstone, discusses the overall situation of Indian education and calls upon the 105th Congress to address these issues through major education bills under consideration. I urge my colleagues to review Senate Resolution 100, and support its passage by this body in order to draw more needed attention to the major problems we face today in Indian education. I ask unanimous consent that S. Res. 100 be printed in the Record, along with the BIA school construction priority list, and my summary of the GAO report on Indian school repairs.

Mr. DOMENICI. What has been amazing to the Senator from New Mexico is the way the U.S. Government fails to recognize its sole and singular responsibility. We are busy all the time, every year, with budgets that try to do new things. Frankly, the President of the United States had a very long list of new things, new programs. In fact, he had a suggestion that we use a lot of the money for helping classroom size, helping build public schools. But the real problem here is that if we do not rebuild the Indian schools that are run by the Government and put them under some management and maintenance, nobody will. They don't belong to anybody else. They are not being run by the State of Georgia, or the school board of Bernalillo County, Albuquerque. It is either we do it or the Indian young people go to school in buildings that are not fit for occupancy, much less for Indian education. I don't know what to do about it. The Senator from New Mexico doesn't know what to do about it. I work at it every year. We need to get some proposal to get this huge backlog taken care of and get on with being able to say to our Indian young people and the teachers who are in those schools, ``We think enough of you to give you a school that offers you an opportunity like the rest of Americans to get educated.'' The school building doesn't make the child, but I tell you, you can have a bad enough school building that the child can hardly learn. So I have asked that this resolution contain another provision, just in an effort to see if we can get there, and that provision, which was in the modification that Senator Johnson sent to the desk, asked the President of the United States--if I am not correct--it asked the President to submit to us by a date certain a 5-year plan to see to it that, regarding the Indian schools the Government owns, the Government must maintain them or they will not get maintained, and those where we have to build a new one because the old one is decrepit, that entire package be put in a 5-year plan and the President recommend to us how we might get that done. Frankly, I believe unless and until that shows up in a Presidential budget, we are not going to find the resources in the Senate or the House to do what we must do. This is not a little $50 million problem; this is a hundreds-of-million-dollar problem. So I believe we are on to something here in this resolution. It is not just a hollow one; it is one that is to get something back from the Chief Executive of America, and it is going to tell us whether we agree on this problem, and if they do, how do we take care of it in a given number of years. I anxiously await, and I will see to it that we hold this in conference, because I think it is the kind of thing that should be in the budget. Some sense-of-the-Senates don't belong in, but this belongs in because this is a problem we can't fix in a budget resolution. We can hardly fix it in appropriations, as you know. So, Senator, thanks for your leadership. I am glad to be on board. This will be welcome news in Indian country.

Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if you would mind having him called and we will modify it by adding him on it. I think we should ask to have the chairman on it.

Mr. DOMENICI. Is Senator Campbell, the chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, on it?

Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if Senator Bingaman of New Mexico has been asked about being a cosponsor?

Mr. DOMENICI. First, I want to ask, did the Senator name me as a cosponsor?

Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if the Senator will yield me 5 minutes?

Mr. DOMENICI. I believe he is calling up an amendment and he has time on the amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I understand that amendment will be put in the process whereby it will be assigned an opportunity to be voted on, if that is the case, in due course. Mr. President, I might discuss with the distinguished Senator from New Jersey where we are now. Senator Tim Johnson has an amendment that he would like not only to call up but to take 3 or 4 minutes on. I am a cosponsor. I think we should accept it. We might be able to get that one done today.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Senator DeWine.