Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Yes.

Mr. DORGAN. Well, as the Senator knows, I have felt very strongly about our trade deficits. The one area of our economic performance that is very troubling is the area of trade indebtedness that continues now to mushroom. In fact, just in the last week, we saw an announcement that we have experienced the largest trade deficit in the country's history. I am particularly concerned about our merchandise deficits, because that reflects the deficits in terms of the goods that you produce, not services and because it is an indicator of the health of the manufacturing economy. I don't think you can remain a world economic power unless you have a vibrant, strong manufacturing sector. I am very concerned about the trade deficits, and I have spent a great deal of time talking to our Trade Ambassador and this administration. I think our trade policies need adjustment. It is not that I don't believe we shouldn't have expanded trade around the world; of course we should. But this country needs to stand up for its own economic interests in a thoughtful and useful way. We need to stand up for our interests with respect to the Chinese, the Japanese, the Europeans, and others to say that our market is open to your goods, it is wide open, but only on the condition that trade between our country and yours is fair. During the first 25 years after the Second World War, we could have foreign policy masquerading as trade policy, or the reverse, and we could beat anybody on the globe in international trade with one hand tied behind our back. But that has changed. We face formidable competitors in international trade. And the corporations who do the business around this world now separate themselves from nationalist interests, and they are simply interested in finding out where they can produce the cheapest and where they can sell for the best price. Often that mismatch means you can produce more cheaply if you find a Third World country in which you can produce and dump chemicals into the streams, pollutants into the air, and pay kids 14 cents an hour. You don't have all of the encumbrances you have producing in an industrialized country. You can produce whatever it is you are producing and ship it to Chicago, Pittsburgh, Charleston or Fargo. The dilemma of all of that is the bifurcation of production and the means to purchase, which creates this trade deficit between countries. The trade deficit is a very serious economic problem. It is one of the few blemishes that exists on this complexion of good economic news. And we must begin to address it. I know that most people want to ignore it. They don't want to talk about it. Interestingly enough, some of the economists in this town have always said that NAFTA and free trade are good. They said, ``You know, our trade deficit is just a function of fiscal policy deficits. You won't have a trade deficit if you ever get the budget balanced.'' Guess what has happened? We have gotten the deficit under control and our trade deficits are still mushrooming. I really should, as a public service, rewrite the textbook, because the answers are now apparently wrong. In fact, we should get their names--some of the best economists in time who have said that--and I should get their quotes and bring them to the floor. So those are the things that we need to have a thoughtful discussion about. I appreciate the Senator from West Virginia raising the issue. He and I coauthored a piece of legislation, which is now law, that created a trade deficit review commission. It is my hope that the commission will soon begin meeting and sift through all of these policy areas and hopefully make recommendations to Congress in an expeditious way to allow us to get some new ideas and some new energy and new perspectives on this very critical issue. The commitment of the Senator from West Virginia, Senator Byrd, to passing that trade deficit review commission legislation--which is, as I said, now law--is very important and very helpful to this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I think you can hear a collective sigh of relief around the Capitol Building now that the impeachment trial--only the second in the history of our country--is complete and we can turn our thoughts to other issues, turn our energies to other enterprises. Most of us seek election to the U.S. Senate--whether it be from West Virginia or North Dakota or Arizona--because we feel passionately about public issues. And there are many, many public issues--both here at home and around the world--that should and will command our attention. Recently I told my colleagues a short story about Teddy Roosevelt. I want to talk today about a couple of issues, and it is probably appropriate to start with Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt lost both his wife and his mother on the same day in different rooms of his home. And he was so stricken with grief that he decided to do something different with his life. He decided to go west for some while and see if he could find himself again. Teddy Roosevelt had some resources, so when he made his decision to go west, he decided to go to the Badlands of North Dakota. He knew that in the Badlands there were cowboys, and so, I am told, he went to Brooks Brothers and ordered a cowboy suit to be made for him. And Brooks Brothers made a cowboy suit for Teddy Roosevelt. He got a bowie knife, a sterling silver bowie knife with an ivory handle, I understand, that had his name on it, and it said ``Tiffany's.'' He bought it at Tiffany's. And he got silver spurs, and on the rowel of each spur were engraved his initials. So when the train stopped in North Dakota for Teddy Roosevelt to disembark, to go to live in the Badlands and raise horses and cattle, this fellow stepped off the train wearing his Brooks Brothers cowboy suit and a pair of rimless glasses, with his bowie knife from ``Tiffany's,'' and his sterling silver engraved spurs. The cowboys in the Badlands thought, ``What on Earth has landed here in Medora, ND''--this man they called four-eyes, with his rimless glasses and his funny Brooks Brothers cowboy suit and his sterling silver spurs. They made fun of him, poked fun at the way he looked. And then, as the story goes, in the Badlands saloon in Medora, ND, one unlucky cowboy goaded him too far and wanted to pick a fight with him. It took only a matter of minutes, apparently, for this rather unusual looking character from the East, with his Brooks Brothers cowboy suit, to knock this local cowboy senseless in the Badlands saloon. Then the rest of the cowboys had a different impression of this fellow. Yes, he looked a little different, but he had some real mettle. They knew a little something about him. And Teddy Roosevelt, of course, went on to carve a rather rich chapter of his life ranching in the Badlands of North Dakota. I told my colleagues that story some while ago because we are all kind of different. We gather here in the U.S. Senate, 100 of us, coming from different parts of the country with different philosophies. We even dress differently from time to time. And so we come to this place, this place of debate in our democracy, from all kinds of different perspectives. But we respect each other. We do not make fun of each other. We know that each arrives here with a passion and a mission on behalf of those who sent us here to do the best we can for this country. We do not settle our disputes with saloon fights. We do it through debate. We respect the other person's view. We might disagree with it in a very aggressive way, but we respect each other. And through the process of public debate, the give and take, the process of democracy works. Now we turn our attention from an impeachment trial, which I think was difficult for every single Member of this Senate and for the country, to other issues--health care, a Patients' Bill of Rights; education and how we improve our schools; what we do to strengthen Social Security and Medicare; and more. There are two enduring truths about the last quarter century for everyone who serves in the Senate. One is that we have experienced a cold war that consumed a substantial amount of our energy, time, and resources; the second is that we have had crippling Federal budget deficits. Both of those enduring truths have now changed. The cold war is over and the Federal deficits are no more. The Soviet Union is gone, the cold war is over. That changes a great deal of our international issues and attention. The crippling Federal budget deficits that used to grow year after year are gone and we now see predictions and projections that year after year we will experience Federal budget surpluses. Since those two enduring truths have changed, I want to focus on one aspect of them today, and that is the reason I came to the Senate floor. We have people who now say that because the Federal budget deficits are going to turn into Federal budget surpluses, let us very quickly propose returning $500 or $600 billion in tax cuts to the American people over the next 10 years. I want to talk about the merit of that. It would be a tragic mistake, in my judgment, for this Congress to decide that--at the first sight of budget surpluses, after a long, dark period of mushrooming Federal budget deficits that have accumulated to a $5.5 trillion Federal debt-- we should try to outbid each other on who can return more tax money to the American taxpayer. I think the greatest gift that we could give to America's children would be to decide that when we turn the corner and experience real budget surpluses, we begin during good times to reduce the Federal debt. There can be no greater gift to America's children than for us, during good economic times, to begin reducing the crushing Federal debt. That debt, as I said, stands at $5.5 trillion. I have a chart that shows what kind of surpluses we are expected to experience over the next 10 years, recognizing of course that none of us can know with certainty what will happen next week, next month, or next year. The budget surplus, which is the top line of this chart--and these figures came from the Congressional Budget Office--amounts to more than $2.5 trillion over 10 years. That doesn't mean very much to me because that is not a real surplus. It is a surplus that is made possible by the use of the Social Security trust funds which, in my judgment, cannot be used to calculate a budget surplus. The second line of the chart calculates what happens to our surplus if you take the Social Security trust funds and set it aside--which ought to be done-- for the purpose of saving it for the time when it is needed as the baby boomers will retire. The real surplus, then, begins in the year 2001. In 1993, when President Clinton took office, he inherited a budget deficit that year of about $300 billion. That has turned around dramatically. We have in this country experienced wonderful news with an improving economic outlook in this country. So we have gone from about a $300 billion deficit to a $7 billion deficit in the upcoming fiscal year--almost a balanced budget. The next year the budget will be in balance, even without counting Social Security trust funds, and that is the prediction for every year thereafter for the following eight years. The question is, What do we do as a result of that? We have people rushing through the door saying, let me propose a $650 billion income tax cut. Some say a 10-percent across-the-board income tax cut. Aside from the merits on that issue, I happen to think that the crushing tax burden is not the income tax, but the increasing payroll taxes that American workers have had to pay. Most working families in this country pay more in payroll taxes than they pay in Federal income taxes. My point is this: As we begin to construct a new fiscal policy rooted with the understanding that we no longer face crippling budget deficits, let us start to think about our priorities. The easy politics would be to say, let's just give a lot of tax cuts, let's talk about across-the-board tax cuts. But a much more responsible approach, in my judgment, would be to say during good economic times it is required for us to begin the long process of reducing the Federal debt. Now, if that is a priority--and I hope it will be for the majority of the Members of the Senate, reducing America's debt during good economic times--that should be, in my judgment, complemented by our understanding that the Social Security system also needs shoring up. We must reserve some of our projected surplus to make that system whole and well and solvent for the long term. I want to make a point about Social Security because some people wring their hands and gnash their teeth because of the problems we have with Social Security. These are not big problems. The Social Security problem--to the extent there is one--is born of success. One hundred years ago, you were expected to live to age 48 in this country; today, the life expectancy is almost 78. We have increased life expectancy by 30 years. People live longer and better lives for a lot of reasons. That is success. Does that cause some strain to the Social Security system? Of course it does, but it is born of success. And let us not wring our hands about that. We can easily resolve these issues. Third, in addition to reducing the Federal debt during good economic times with this budget surplus and making certain that we are responsible for making Social Security solvent for the long term, the proposal that the President and some others have offered, to use any additional tax cuts outside of that for the purpose of providing incentive for savings, makes a lot of sense to me. Encouraging personal private savings in this country, which the President proposed through USA accounts--and there are other approaches--seems to me to make a lot of sense in terms of creating the foundation for long-term, solid economic growth for the next two, three and four decades. Having said all that, let me make this point: We in this country have the strongest economy in the world right now. I studied economics in college and then I taught economics in college very briefly. That experience hasn't hindered me, but nonetheless I taught some economics. One of the things you teach in economics is that there are two principles you strive to achieve in an economy--stable prices and full employment. In our country's current economy, we have virtually no inflation and we have nearly full employment. And we--at a time when the Asian economy is weak, when the Russian economy has collapsed, when the Brazilian economy is weak--have the strongest economy in the world. Is it by accident? I don't think so. I don't happen to think that Republicans or Democrats have the answer either. It is not as if, somewhere down in the engine room of this ship of state, there is an engine with dials and knobs and a lever, and if we can just find the right dials and knobs and levers to pull and push, the right amount of tax cuts, the right amount of spending, the right amount of M1, that somehow the ship of state will do fine. I don't happen to think the engine room works that way. Economies have everything to do with the confidence of the people. When people are confident about the future, they make individual decisions such as: I will buy a car; I will buy a house; I will make this investment because I am confident about the future. They make those kinds of decisions based on their confidence. That creates the foundation for an economy. When people are not confident about the future, they say, I will not make that purchase; I will defer buying an automobile; I will defer buying this home because I am not so confident about the future. So it is the confidence of the people upon which this economy rests. All of the indices show the American people are confident about the future because the President and the Congress together--I am talking about all Members of the Congress coming together-- have made some good decisions in recent years, decisions that say deficits matter, and we are going to tame them. That isn't to say that we shouldn't continue to invest--even as we tame the Federal budget deficits. We are going to invest in the kinds of things that will make this a bigger, better, stronger country. We had, as the Senator from West Virginia will recall, a vigorous debate in the last Congress about a highway bill. Some around here were just wringing their hands about the amount of money we were going to spend on highways. The money that we are going to spend on highways, coming from the gasoline tax collected at the gas pump when people fill up their cars with gasoline, is going to go into improving America's infrastructure-- building roads, repairing bridges, and generally making us a better country. It is an investment in our country, just as it is an investment in young people to improve schools. It is an investment in our future. Ben Franklin once said, ``Anyone who puts their purse in their head will never lose their purse.'' That is what education is about. Education is an investment in our children. We have made a lot of thoughtful decisions in the last 6 or 8 years; frankly, it can go well beyond that. We can go back to the 1950s when we talk about roads and think of the decision that President Eisenhower and the Republicans and Democrats in Congress made about an interstate highway system. You could ask yourself, could anybody in this country justify building a four-lane interstate between Fargo, ND, and Beach, ND, all those hundreds of miles where there aren't a great deal of people? You could have had one of the watchdog organizations pull that apart in the fifties and say, ``Look what they are spending where not many people are living.'' But President Eisenhower and Congress said that we are going to link this country together with the interstate highway system. Transportation is universal. We have done a lot of good things, and a lot is left to be done. As we deal with fiscal policy and especially with the question of tax cuts and budget surpluses, I hope we can make thoughtful and good decisions for the long-term future of this country. I think very strongly that the first priority is for us, during good economic times, to reduce the Federal debt. The second priority is to say we owe it to the Social Security system to make it whole. The third priority says let's encourage private savings through tax cuts because that strengthens America in the future as well.

Mr. DORGAN. Of course.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Thank you Senator Lott, Senator Daschle, and Mr. Chief Justice for the skill and dignity you have given these proceedings. I wish every American could see and hear the Senate in these deliberations. There is a kind of majesty to see the Senate chamber filled with Senators listening to each other in debate and deliberation. We are different people, coming from different regions with different philosophies, and that is what creates the unique character of this wonderful institution. I want to tell you briefly today about Teddy Roosevelt. Over a century ago, Teddy Roosevelt was consumed with grief following the death of his wife and mother who died on the same day. He decided to change his life and move out west. When he stepped off the train in the Badlands of North Dakota, he was wearing a cowboy suit hand-tailored from Brooks Brothers, rimless glasses, a Bowie knife with ``Tiffanys'' engraved on the handle, and Sterling silver spurs with his initials on each rowel. The local cowboys thought he was a joke. One unlucky cowboy picked a fight with Teddy in a Badlands saloon in Medora. In minutes, the cowboy was punched senseless by this funny looking easterner. And then Teddy Roosevelt was accepted. Being different, looking different didn't much matter to the folks in the Badlands after that. Here in the Senate we're very different people too. No saloon fights here, though. We engage in verbal battles. And the Senate works because we accept each other, and we share a common purpose. The discussion we are having today reminds me again of the unique skills and passion for our country possessed by each and every member of the Senate. How do we apply these skills and that passion here and now? Mark Twain once said, with tongue in cheek, that ``the next best thing to a lie, is a true story no one will believe.'' Well, this sorry chapter in our rich history embraces both. Lies, yes! And truth that is almost unbelievable. We meet here as Senators to consider whether to remove from office a president elected by the American people. In the entire history of our country, the Senate has never voted to remove a president. In fact, it has been tried only once. The Framers of our Constitution made it very hard to do; and they made it, with a 2/3 vote required in the Senate, impossible to do on a ``partisan'' basis. The matter that calls us to this duty is a sordid one. It is truly a scandal and a drama without heroes and without winners. It is about a president who should be, and I'm sure is, ashamed of his behavior. Is there anyone here in the Senate who had a sexual relationship with one of their interns? Of course not! The President did. He had a sexual relationship with an intern, and he lied about it, to the country, to all of us, to try to conceal it. This President has betrayed our trust and I have expressed to him personally how profoundly disappointed I am with his actions. This matter is also about an Independent Counsel who you and I know has leaked confidential information from secret proceedings of a grand jury, and whose actions in detaining Monica Lewinsky should be troubling to every Senator. And an Independent Counsel who came to Congress with such prosecutorial passion that his ethics advisor resigned in protest. And it is about many others as well. Major figures and bit players, some who conspired in disgraceful ways, and others who were innocently swept into the maelstrom of a sensational scandal. But, for all of the intrigue, the matter here is less complicated than some would have us believe. Here is a short chronology. Several years after the day she claims that then-Governor Bill Clinton made unwanted sexual advances toward her, Paula Jones appeared at a conservative political gathering to announce she was filing suit against the President. Some while later, following the Supreme Court ruling that the case could go forward, the President was called to a deposition in the Jones case. In that deposition, which the Judge later determined to be immaterial, and in a case that was later dismissed, Bill Clinton denied having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. That was a lie. Oh, I know about the convoluted definition of sex that was used, but I think he lied. But that's not a matter before us. The impeachment article about that deposition was defeated in the U.S. House. Following the President's testimony in the Jones case, the Independent Counsel, appointed three years earlier to investigate a Whitewater land deal, and controversies called Travelgate and Filegate, swung into action to investigate this sex scandal. Linda Tripp was wired, Monica Lewinsky was detained by the Independent Counsel and the FBI, and they told her she shouldn't call her lawyer. A grand jury began hearing witnesses and after many months the President appeared before that grand jury to answer questions. Then, one-and-a half months before the 1998 general election, the U.S. House, with cooperation from the Independent Counsel, released to the American public all of their investigative material and the secret proceedings of the grand jury. Following the election, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee began their impeachment hearings. The Independent Counsel, in a virtual footnote to his presentation before the House on the sex scandal, admitted he had not been able to implicate the President on Whitewater, Travelgate or Filegate--but he got him on the sex matter. And so the House managers and the Independent Counsel used the President's bad behavior to weave their charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. And finally the U.S. House on a partisan vote sent to the Senate the two articles of impeachment. That's the chronology as I see it. And so we gather--conducting a trial of this sordid mess. What are we to do? What is our duty? What is, as Lincoln said, ``our last full measure of devotion'' to this country. I am deeply troubled by this President's behavior. But I am also troubled by the constitutional gravity of removing a President. Some, with a mere wave of the hand seem to say that ``it's not such a big deal.'' But they are wrong. This decision affects the very roots of our democracy. The selection of the head of government by the governed in a free election is rare. It is still the case in too many countries that power shifts through the barrel of a gun--through raw, naked power and violence. In our country, the American people choose their President by the simple, elegant act of voting. It is through voting--not fighting--that power shifts. Our governments change without an army marching. With no shots being fired. What a remarkable thing to behold. The Constitution does contain a very special provision allowing for the removal of a President ``for bribery, treason, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.'' It does that because the Framers wanted to provide a method to remove a president who was acting in a manner that threatens the country. But the Framers worried that a partisan majority could try to remove a President for political gain. Hamilton, in the Federalist 65 said, ``the greatest danger . . . that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of the parties than by the real demonstration of innocence or guilt.'' Mason said that the President should be removed for ``great and dangerous offenses'' that amount to ``attempts to subvert the Constitution.'' Hamilton wrote that impeachable offenses result from a ``violation of public trust'' and ``relate chiefly to injuries done to society itself.'' It is also clear that the impeachment process was not meant to punish a transgressor. In fact, the Constitution provides that any such ``crimes'' would still be punishable in the criminal justice system. In short, impeachment is a device to prevent grave danger to the Nation. I believe that the Framers of the Constitution would be startled by this impeachment effort. That this impeachment process was passionately partisan in its birth in the U.S. House is not in question. In fact, two of the House managers who brought these articles of impeachment to us called for the impeachment of President Clinton long before they had ever heard of Monica Lewinsky. Seventeen Republican Congressmen had called for impeachment hearings long ago. Theirs was a cause searching for a reason. Nearly two years ago, before Linda Tripp, before Monica Lewinsky, before Betty Currie, before knowledge of sex with an intern, before a stained dress, before the deposition in the Jones case, before the testimony to the grand jury, two of the House Managers who argued for these impeachment articles had introduced an impeachment inquiry resolution. Representative Bob Barr and Representative Lindsey Graham said then that it was about ``the rule of law.'' They were asking for the nullification of an election before they knew the existence of a Monica Lewinsky and before the action that led to the two articles of impeachment now before us. Isn't there room to wonder then, that maybe this is exactly the partisan passion that persuaded our Framers to place the impeachment bar just above the vertical leap of those Members of Congress who would carry ``fill in the blank'' impeachment papers for every reason and every season. Take the partisan flavor away. I don't think the case has been made that the President's behavior, while reprehensible, poses a grave danger to the Nation. Therefore I cannot vote to nullify the results of the last election. The people chose Bill Clinton and I do not believe the case made against the President meets the constitutional threshold for removing a president. I respect those here who differ. I do not allege that your guilty vote is partisan. You have reached a different conclusion charge than I did, and I respect you for that. But I cannot vote for these articles of impeachment. This is not a case of high crimes and misdemeanors. It's a case of bad behavior by a President who has shamed himself. But let us not respond to his bad behavior by hurting our country. Let us not aim at Bill Clinton and hit the Constitution. I do not vote to support our President. I vote against these articles of impeachment to support our Constitution. In the final analysis, however, the President should take no solace in this vote. I and others in the Senate have joined in a censure resolution that expresses a harsh judgement about the President's actions. Now, it is time for the country to move on.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President. When the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement came into effect ten years ago, part of the understanding on agriculture was that our two nations were going to move rapidly toward the harmonization of pesticide regulations. It is now a decade later and relatively little actual progress has been in harmonization that is meaningful to our agricultural producers. Since this trade agreement took effect, the pace of Canadian spring and durum wheat, and barley exports to the United States have grown from a barely noticeable trickle into annual floods of imported grain into our markets. Over the years, I have described many factors that have produced this unfair trade relationship and unlevel playing field between farmers of our two nations. The failure to achieve harmonization in pesticides between the United States and Canada compounds this ongoing trade problem. Our farmers are concerned that agricultural pesticides that are not available in the United States are being utilized by farmers in Canada to produce wheat, barley, and other agricultural commodities that are subsequently imported and consumed in the United States. They rightfully believe that it is unfair to import commodities produced with agricultural pesticides that are not available to U.S. producers. They believe that it is not in the interests of consumers or producers to allow such imports. However, it is not just a difference of availability of agricultural pesticides between our two countries, but also in the pricing of these chemicals. In recent times as the cost-price squeeze has escalated, our farmers have also been deeply concerned about pricing discrepancies for agricultural pesticides between our two countries. This past summer a survey of prices by the North Dakota Agricultural Statistics Services verified that there were significant differences in prices being paid for essentially the same pesticide by farmers in our two countries. In fact, among the half-dozen pesticides surveyed, farmers in the United States were paying between 117 percent and 193 percent higher prices than Canadian farmers. This was after adjusting for differences in currency exchange rates at that time. As a result of the pricing concerns raised by our producers, the recent agricultural agreement between the United States and Canada included a provision for a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Ag Canada into the pricing differentials in agricultural chemicals between our two countries. While such a study is a welcome step forward, our farmers deserve more concrete steps. Harmonization cannot continue to be an illusive goal for the future. We must provide meaningful tools by which we can bring some fairness to our farmers. Today, I am reintroducing legislation that would take an important step in providing equitable treatment for U.S. farmers in the pricing of agricultural pesticides. This bill would only deal with agricultural chemicals that are identical or substantially similar. It only deals with pesticides that have already undergone rigorous review processes and have been registered and approved for use in both countries by the respective regulatory agencies. The bill would establish a procedure by which states may apply for and receive an Environmental Protection Agency label for agricultural chemicals sold in Canada that are identical of substantially similar to agricultural chemicals used in the United States. Thus, U.S. producers and suppliers could purchase such chemicals in Canada for use in the United States. The need for this bill is created by pesticide companies which use chemical labeling laws to protect their marketing and pricing structures, rather than the public interest. In their selective labeling of identical or substantially similar products across the border they are able to extract unjustified profits from farmers, and create unlevel pricing fields between our two countries. This bill is one legislative step in the process of full harmonization of pesticides between our two nations. It is designed to specifically to address the problem of pricing differentials on chemicals that are currently available in both countries. We need to take this step, so that we can start creating a bit more fair competition and level playing fields between farmers of our two countries. This bill would make harmonization a reality for those pesticides in which pricing is the only real difference. Together with this legislation, I will be working on other fronts to move forward as rapidly as possible toward full harmonization of pesticides. The U.S. Trade Representative, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have the responsibility to make harmonization a reality. Farmers have been waiting for a decade for such harmonization. We should not make them wait any longer. Mr. President, I request unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation today, along with other colleagues, that is designed to inject more airline competition and improve air service to small communities. Since the deregulation of the airline industry two decades ago, hundreds of small communities have experienced service degradation and many have lost service altogether. Vast geographic regions of our country have suffered unacceptable geographic isolation as the airlines have withdrawn service in smaller communities. This trend needs the serious attention of the Congress and the Department of Transportation. Included in this legislation are several provisions designed to promote airline competition and develop air service to the many rural areas of the country that have suffered the consequences of laissez- faire deregulation. The consequence can be summed up in one phrase: ``unregulated monopolies.'' Unregulated monopolies result in a number of effects: (1) higher prices and fewer choices for consumers and (2) the elimination of competition and the establishment of entry barriers that make competition a nearly impossible task. While deregulation has been a wonderful success for the people who travel between the major metropolitan areas of the country, it has been an unmitigated disaster for most rural areas and smaller communities. Transportation Department studies have documented that 167 communities has lost air service in the past two decades and hundreds have suffered service degradation manifested by loss of jet service or loss of access to a major hub airport. In a report by the General Accounting Office issued in October, 1997 entitled, ``Airline Deregulation: Barriers to Entry Continue to Limit Competition in Several Key Domestic Markets'' [GAO/RCED-97-4], operating limitations and marketing practices of large, dominate carriers restrict entry and competition to an extent not anticipated by Congress when it deregulated the airline industry. The GAO identified a number of entry barriers and anti-competitive practices which are stifling competition and contributing to higher fares. The GAO issued a similar report in 1990 and the 1996 report said that not only has the situation not improved for new entrants, but things have gotten worse. These mega carriers have created theifdoms, securing dominate market shares at regional hubs. Since deregulation, all major airlines have created hub-and-spoke systems where they funnel arrivals and departures though hub airports where they dominate traffic. Today, all but 3 hubs are dominated by a single airline where the carrier has between 60 and 90 percent of all the arrivals, departures, and passengers at the hub. The fact is that deregulation has lead to greater concentration and stifling competition. The legislative history of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 shows that Congress was as deeply concerned about destructive competition as it was with the monopolization of air transportation services. Thus, the CAA sought to ensure that a competitive economic environment existed. As we can see, deregulation is realizing the fears anticipated by the Congress in 1938. Competition has not become the general rule. Rather, competition is the exception in an unregulated market controlled largely by regional monopolies. Deregulation has also resulted in disproportionate air fares. It has been demonstrated that hub concentration has translated into higher fares and rural communities that are dependent upon concentrated hubs have seen higher fares. Studies from DOT and the GAO have demonstrated that in the 15 out of 18 hubs in which a single carrier controls more than 50% of the traffic, passengers are paying more than the industry norm. The GAO studied 1988 fares at 15 concentrated airports and compared those with fares at 38 competitive hub airports. The GAO found that fares at the concentrated hubs were 27% higher. The difference between regulation and deregulation is not a change from monopoly control to free market competition. Rather, the change is from having regulated monopolies serving 93% of the market to deregulated monopolies serving 85% of the market, according to Dempsey. Today, nearly two-thirds of our nation's city-pairs are unregulated monopolies where a monopoly carrier can charge whatever they wish in 2 our of 3 city-pairs in the domestic market. A January 1991 GAO Report on Fares and Concentration at Small-City Airports found that passengers flying from small-city airports on average paid 34 percent more when they flew to a major airport dominated by one or two airlines than when they flew to a major airport that was not concentrated. The report also found that when both the small airport and the major hub were concentrated, fares were 42 percent higher than if there was competition at both ends. A July 1993 GAO Report on Airline Competition concluded that airline passengers generally pay higher fares at 14 concentrated airports than at airports with more competition. The report found that fares at concentrated airports were about 22 percent higher than fares at 35 less concentrated airports. The same report found that the number of destinations served directly by only one airline rose 56 percent to 64 percent from 1985 to 1992, while the number of destinations served by 3 or more airlines fell from 19% to 11% during that same period. This report confirmed similar conclusion reached in previous GAO studies conducted in 1989 and 1990. The fact is that deregulation, while paving the road to concentration and consolidation, has allowed regional monopolies to control prices in non-competitive markets. While the entrance of low cost carriers has introduced competition in dense markets, the main difference between today and pre-deregulation is that the monopolies are unregulated. Concentration, not competition, is the current trend in the airline industry. In 1938, when the Federal Government began to regulate air transportation services, there were 16 carriers who accounted for all the total traffic in the U.S. domestic market. By 1978 (the year Congress passed deregulation legislation) the same 16 carriers (reduced to 11 through mergers) still accounted for 94% of the total traffic. Today, those same 11 carriers (now reduced to 7 through mergers and bankruptcies) account for over 80% of the total traffic [measured in terms of revenue passenger miles]. When these 7 carriers (American; Continental; Delta; Northwest; United; and US Air) are combined with their code-share partner, they account for more than 95% of the total air traffics in the domestic U.S. One expert estimated in 1992 that since deregulation, over 120 new airlines appeared. However, more than 200 have gone bankrupt or been acquired in mergers. Between 1970 and 1988, there were 51 airline mergers and acquisitions--20 of those were approved by the Department of Transportation after 1985, when it assumed all jurisdiction over merger and acquisition requests. In fact, DOT approved every airline merger submitted to it after it assumed jurisdiction over mergers from the Civil Aeronautics Board in 1984. Fifteen independent airlines operating at the beginning of 1986 had been merged into six mega carriers by the end of 1987. And, these six carriers increased their market share from 71.3% in 1978 to 80.5% in 1990. At a hearing last year in the Senate Commerce Committee, Alfred Kahn, the father of airline deregulation, testified and offered some interesting reflections on the results of airline deregulation. I recounted for him the unprecedented concentration in the market that was fostered by the deregulation he helped create and asked him if he foresaw this and if the competition he expected to merge has been realized. He responded with great disappointment saying that the industry concentration has perverted the purpose of deregulation and he pinned much of the blame for this result on the mergers. He said: ``While I do not want to mention anyone by name, but one of the problems is that there was one Secretary of Transportation who never met a merger she did not like.'' These mega carriers have created competition free zones, securing dominate market shares at regional hubs. Since deregulation, all major airlines have created hub-and-spoke systems where they funnel arrivals and departures though hub airports where they dominate traffic. Today, all but 3 hubs are dominated by a single airline where the carrier has between 60 and 90 percent of all the arrivals, departures, and passengers at the hub. The non-aggression pacts between the major airline carriers are also being manifested in code-share partnerships--which are virtual mergers--where they pledge not to compete but to combine their route systems to further solidify their control over their regional monopolies. Northwest has announced a deal with Continental; while United and Delta are teaming up; and American and US Air are establishing a partnership. While code-share partnerships are not mergers, but the impact on market concentration may be the same. The proposed partnerships between the major carriers (and their code- share partners) will have the following shares of the U.S. domestic market: Delta/United: 35 percent; American/US Air: 26 percent; and Northwest/ Continental: 21 percent for a total of 82 percent. In contrast, the rest of the carriers share less than 20% combined-- the largest share of which is Southwest Airlines at 6.4%. This legislation would establish the Small Community Air Service Development Program which could go a long way to address the small community air service problems. Earlier this year, Senator McCain and others introduced S. 82, the ``Air Transportation Improvement Act,'' which contains provisions establishing this program. However, the authorization level proposed in that legislation does not provide adequate enough resources for this demonstration program to make much of a difference. Thus, this bill would establish a 5-year pilot program, authorized at $20 million per year--which is half the amount currently provided annually to the Essential Air Service Program. In contrast, S. 82 provides only $30 million total over a 4-year period. At that level, very few communities will be able to participate and their air service deficiencies will unfortunately continue. In addition, the bill requires the Department of Transportation to review the marketing practices of the major airlines and to take action to rectify problems that impede air service to small and medium sized communities. Numerous GAO reports have highlighted the anti-competitive nature of some airline policies toward travel agents; bias in computer reservation systems; and certain gate arrangements at some airports. These barriers to entry need to be addressed and this legislation would address those problems. This measure also includes a provision to facilitate air service to under-served communities and encourage airline competition through non- discriminatory interconnection requirements between air carriers. This provision simply imposes a nondiscrimination requirement on air carriers with market dominance at large hub airports--which are the bottleneck access points to the national air transportation system-- with respect to interline agreements in order to allow competitors to interconnect into the large hub airports. Interline arrangements will allow passengers to move more efficiently between carriers when transferring between while maintaining the independent identities of competing carriers. Barriers to competition in the airline industry have grown more insurmountable under the hub and spoke system where the major carriers dominate the large hubs, granting them regional monopolies. These dominate carriers are selective with their cooperation with other carriers; limiting their interline and joint fare agreements only to carriers that will not directly compete with them. In a circumstance where a major airline dominates access to the large hub airports, carriers not afforded the cooperation of the major airlines face an insurmountable barrier to entry. The principle of this amendment is simple: if an air carrier has market dominance at a large hub airport, then that carrier cannot discriminate amongst carriers with whom it provides cooperation to allow passengers to transfer between each carrier's network at the dominate hub. This amendment would not impose any code-sharing or other business agreements on marketing or promotion. Rather, it requires cooperation and prevents anti-competitive discrimination with respect to interline agreements between carriers. The principle underlying this provision is similar to the fundamental principle driving local competition in telecommunications markets. When Congress de-regulated the telecommunications industry three years ago, the fundamental element to promote competition in that legislation was the requirement that the incumbent carriers would be required, by law, to allow their competitors to interconnect into their network. In a situation where the incumbent dominates or controls the local bottleneck (in phone service it is the local loop and in aviation it is the large hub airports through which most all air traffic flows) the only way to permit competition is to require interconnection. If the incumbent carriers are permitted to exclude passengers from competing airlines to flow between their system and that of their competitors, the major carriers that dominate the hubs will ensure that there is no possibility of successful competition. The interline provision is similar to the interconnection requirements imposed upon local phone monopolies. In order to develop competition in the local market, we had to impose, by law, the requirement that the monopoly must allow its competitors to interconnect into their networks. The interline provision is the aviation equivalent of that requirement (except that under this provision, the only requirement is that dominant carriers who control access to the air service bottlenecks cannot discriminate amongst the carriers it provides cooperation to permit passengers to transfer between networks). In light of what has been required of other industries under the goal of promoting competition (e.g., telecommunications), a non-discriminatory interline requirement makes sense if one wants to see a competitive industry. This provision is not about re-regulation--it is about fulfilling the goal of deregulation by encouraging competition and allowing competition to be the regulator. Fostering competition is a mandate of the Airline Deregulation Act. This amendment is consistent with the mandate under current law that the Secretary foster competition. Under the Airline Deregulation Act, Section 40101 of Title 49, U.S.C., the Department of Transportation is directed to: avoid unreasonable industry concentration [Sec. 40101(a)(10)]; encourage, develop, and maintain an air transportation system relying on actual and potential competition [Sec. 40101(a)(12)]; and encourage entry into air transportation markets by new and existing carriers [Sec. 40101(a)(13)]. The interline provision will strengthen the economic viability of air service to small rural communities and enhance the ability of regional commuters and new entrants to provide essential air service. It also will prevent the major airlines from engaging in the anti-competitive behavior of excluding smaller and new entrants from the national air transportation network. When the Congress eliminated the old Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) in 1984, there was concern, at that time, about the abuses employed by the major airlines to selectively use interline agreements as an unfair competitive practice. During the debate on the Conference Report on the CAB Sunset Act, Congressman Norman Mineta said: In recent months there have also been concerns that the larger carriers in the industry might use the right to interline with them as a device to restrict competition. This could be accomplished by selective refusals to interline or by selective refusals on reasonable terms, based on competitive considerations. Under section 411 of the Federal Aviation Act, the CAB has authority to act against unfair competitive practices arising from agreements to interline. The conference bill transfers this authority to the Department of Transportation and we expect the Department to carefully monitor interlining practices to be sure that there are no abuses. This will help preserve the system of interlining and the major benefits it brings to consumers. The only way to allow for competition in this environment is to impose conditions on the major carriers to cooperate with their competitors. Interline and joint fares are necessary to ensure that the dominant carriers will not kill potential competitors by denying them access to the essential facilities of the air transportation industry: the major hubs. These facilities have been built with public funds and all carriers should have access to those facilities. Interline and joint fares will help create that access. This legislation is not a silver bullet that will alleviate all the air service problems facing certain parts of the country. However, it does carefully target certain known problems that impede airline competition and it establishes a badly needed program to assist small communities in improving their air service. I hope my colleagues will support this legislation.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation today, along with other colleagues, that is designed to inject more airline competition and improve air service to small communities. Since the deregulation of the airline industry two decades ago, hundreds of small communities have experienced service degradation and many have lost service altogether. Vast geographic regions of our country have suffered unacceptable geographic isolation as the airlines have withdrawn service in smaller communities. This trend needs the serious attention of the Congress and the Department of Transportation. Included in this legislation are several provisions designed to promote airline competition and develop air service to the many rural areas of the country that have suffered the consequences of laissez- faire deregulation. The consequence can be summed up in one phrase: ``unregulated monopolies.'' Unregulated monopolies result in a number of effects: (1) higher prices and fewer choices for consumers and (2) the elimination of competition and the establishment of entry barriers that make competition a nearly impossible task. While deregulation has been a wonderful success for the people who travel between the major metropolitan areas of the country, it has been an unmitigated disaster for most rural areas and smaller communities. Transportation Department studies have documented that 167 communities has lost air service in the past two decades and hundreds have suffered service degradation manifested by loss of jet service or loss of access to a major hub airport. In a report by the General Accounting Office issued in October, 1997 entitled, ``Airline Deregulation: Barriers to Entry Continue to Limit Competition in Several Key Domestic Markets'' [GAO/RCED-97-4], operating limitations and marketing practices of large, dominate carriers restrict entry and competition to an extent not anticipated by Congress when it deregulated the airline industry. The GAO identified a number of entry barriers and anti-competitive practices which are stifling competition and contributing to higher fares. The GAO issued a similar report in 1990 and the 1996 report said that not only has the situation not improved for new entrants, but things have gotten worse. These mega carriers have created theifdoms, securing dominate market shares at regional hubs. Since deregulation, all major airlines have created hub-and-spoke systems where they funnel arrivals and departures though hub airports where they dominate traffic. Today, all but 3 hubs are dominated by a single airline where the carrier has between 60 and 90 percent of all the arrivals, departures, and passengers at the hub. The fact is that deregulation has lead to greater concentration and stifling competition. The legislative history of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 shows that Congress was as deeply concerned about destructive competition as it was with the monopolization of air transportation services. Thus, the CAA sought to ensure that a competitive economic environment existed. As we can see, deregulation is realizing the fears anticipated by the Congress in 1938. Competition has not become the general rule. Rather, competition is the exception in an unregulated market controlled largely by regional monopolies. Deregulation has also resulted in disproportionate air fares. It has been demonstrated that hub concentration has translated into higher fares and rural communities that are dependent upon concentrated hubs have seen higher fares. Studies from DOT and the GAO have demonstrated that in the 15 out of 18 hubs in which a single carrier controls more than 50% of the traffic, passengers are paying more than the industry norm. The GAO studied 1988 fares at 15 concentrated airports and compared those with fares at 38 competitive hub airports. The GAO found that fares at the concentrated hubs were 27% higher. The difference between regulation and deregulation is not a change from monopoly control to free market competition. Rather, the change is from having regulated monopolies serving 93% of the market to deregulated monopolies serving 85% of the market, according to Dempsey. Today, nearly two-thirds of our nation's city-pairs are unregulated monopolies where a monopoly carrier can charge whatever they wish in 2 our of 3 city-pairs in the domestic market. A January 1991 GAO Report on Fares and Concentration at Small-City Airports found that passengers flying from small-city airports on average paid 34 percent more when they flew to a major airport dominated by one or two airlines than when they flew to a major airport that was not concentrated. The report also found that when both the small airport and the major hub were concentrated, fares were 42 percent higher than if there was competition at both ends. A July 1993 GAO Report on Airline Competition concluded that airline passengers generally pay higher fares at 14 concentrated airports than at airports with more competition. The report found that fares at concentrated airports were about 22 percent higher than fares at 35 less concentrated airports. The same report found that the number of destinations served directly by only one airline rose 56 percent to 64 percent from 1985 to 1992, while the number of destinations served by 3 or more airlines fell from 19% to 11% during that same period. This report confirmed similar conclusion reached in previous GAO studies conducted in 1989 and 1990. The fact is that deregulation, while paving the road to concentration and consolidation, has allowed regional monopolies to control prices in non-competitive markets. While the entrance of low cost carriers has introduced competition in dense markets, the main difference between today and pre-deregulation is that the monopolies are unregulated. Concentration, not competition, is the current trend in the airline industry. In 1938, when the Federal Government began to regulate air transportation services, there were 16 carriers who accounted for all the total traffic in the U.S. domestic market. By 1978 (the year Congress passed deregulation legislation) the same 16 carriers (reduced to 11 through mergers) still accounted for 94% of the total traffic. Today, those same 11 carriers (now reduced to 7 through mergers and bankruptcies) account for over 80% of the total traffic [measured in terms of revenue passenger miles]. When these 7 carriers (American; Continental; Delta; Northwest; United; and US Air) are combined with their code-share partner, they account for more than 95% of the total air traffics in the domestic U.S. One expert estimated in 1992 that since deregulation, over 120 new airlines appeared. However, more than 200 have gone bankrupt or been acquired in mergers. Between 1970 and 1988, there were 51 airline mergers and acquisitions--20 of those were approved by the Department of Transportation after 1985, when it assumed all jurisdiction over merger and acquisition requests. In fact, DOT approved every airline merger submitted to it after it assumed jurisdiction over mergers from the Civil Aeronautics Board in 1984. Fifteen independent airlines operating at the beginning of 1986 had been merged into six mega carriers by the end of 1987. And, these six carriers increased their market share from 71.3% in 1978 to 80.5% in 1990. At a hearing last year in the Senate Commerce Committee, Alfred Kahn, the father of airline deregulation, testified and offered some interesting reflections on the results of airline deregulation. I recounted for him the unprecedented concentration in the market that was fostered by the deregulation he helped create and asked him if he foresaw this and if the competition he expected to merge has been realized. He responded with great disappointment saying that the industry concentration has perverted the purpose of deregulation and he pinned much of the blame for this result on the mergers. He said: ``While I do not want to mention anyone by name, but one of the problems is that there was one Secretary of Transportation who never met a merger she did not like.'' These mega carriers have created competition free zones, securing dominate market shares at regional hubs. Since deregulation, all major airlines have created hub-and-spoke systems where they funnel arrivals and departures though hub airports where they dominate traffic. Today, all but 3 hubs are dominated by a single airline where the carrier has between 60 and 90 percent of all the arrivals, departures, and passengers at the hub. The non-aggression pacts between the major airline carriers are also being manifested in code-share partnerships--which are virtual mergers--where they pledge not to compete but to combine their route systems to further solidify their control over their regional monopolies. Northwest has announced a deal with Continental; while United and Delta are teaming up; and American and US Air are establishing a partnership. While code-share partnerships are not mergers, but the impact on market concentration may be the same. The proposed partnerships between the major carriers (and their code- share partners) will have the following shares of the U.S. domestic market: Delta/United: 35 percent; American/US Air: 26 percent; and Northwest/ Continental: 21 percent for a total of 82 percent. In contrast, the rest of the carriers share less than 20% combined-- the largest share of which is Southwest Airlines at 6.4%. This legislation would establish the Small Community Air Service Development Program which could go a long way to address the small community air service problems. Earlier this year, Senator McCain and others introduced S. 82, the ``Air Transportation Improvement Act,'' which contains provisions establishing this program. However, the authorization level proposed in that legislation does not provide adequate enough resources for this demonstration program to make much of a difference. Thus, this bill would establish a 5-year pilot program, authorized at $20 million per year--which is half the amount currently provided annually to the Essential Air Service Program. In contrast, S. 82 provides only $30 million total over a 4-year period. At that level, very few communities will be able to participate and their air service deficiencies will unfortunately continue. In addition, the bill requires the Department of Transportation to review the marketing practices of the major airlines and to take action to rectify problems that impede air service to small and medium sized communities. Numerous GAO reports have highlighted the anti-competitive nature of some airline policies toward travel agents; bias in computer reservation systems; and certain gate arrangements at some airports. These barriers to entry need to be addressed and this legislation would address those problems. This measure also includes a provision to facilitate air service to under-served communities and encourage airline competition through non- discriminatory interconnection requirements between air carriers. This provision simply imposes a nondiscrimination requirement on air carriers with market dominance at large hub airports--which are the bottleneck access points to the national air transportation system-- with respect to interline agreements in order to allow competitors to interconnect into the large hub airports. Interline arrangements will allow passengers to move more efficiently between carriers when transferring between while maintaining the independent identities of competing carriers. Barriers to competition in the airline industry have grown more insurmountable under the hub and spoke system where the major carriers dominate the large hubs, granting them regional monopolies. These dominate carriers are selective with their cooperation with other carriers; limiting their interline and joint fare agreements only to carriers that will not directly compete with them. In a circumstance where a major airline dominates access to the large hub airports, carriers not afforded the cooperation of the major airlines face an insurmountable barrier to entry. The principle of this amendment is simple: if an air carrier has market dominance at a large hub airport, then that carrier cannot discriminate amongst carriers with whom it provides cooperation to allow passengers to transfer between each carrier's network at the dominate hub. This amendment would not impose any code-sharing or other business agreements on marketing or promotion. Rather, it requires cooperation and prevents anti-competitive discrimination with respect to interline agreements between carriers. The principle underlying this provision is similar to the fundamental principle driving local competition in telecommunications markets. When Congress de-regulated the telecommunications industry three years ago, the fundamental element to promote competition in that legislation was the requirement that the incumbent carriers would be required, by law, to allow their competitors to interconnect into their network. In a situation where the incumbent dominates or controls the local bottleneck (in phone service it is the local loop and in aviation it is the large hub airports through which most all air traffic flows) the only way to permit competition is to require interconnection. If the incumbent carriers are permitted to exclude passengers from competing airlines to flow between their system and that of their competitors, the major carriers that dominate the hubs will ensure that there is no possibility of successful competition. The interline provision is similar to the interconnection requirements imposed upon local phone monopolies. In order to develop competition in the local market, we had to impose, by law, the requirement that the monopoly must allow its competitors to interconnect into their networks. The interline provision is the aviation equivalent of that requirement (except that under this provision, the only requirement is that dominant carriers who control access to the air service bottlenecks cannot discriminate amongst the carriers it provides cooperation to permit passengers to transfer between networks). In light of what has been required of other industries under the goal of promoting competition (e.g., telecommunications), a non-discriminatory interline requirement makes sense if one wants to see a competitive industry. This provision is not about re-regulation--it is about fulfilling the goal of deregulation by encouraging competition and allowing competition to be the regulator. Fostering competition is a mandate of the Airline Deregulation Act. This amendment is consistent with the mandate under current law that the Secretary foster competition. Under the Airline Deregulation Act, Section 40101 of Title 49, U.S.C., the Department of Transportation is directed to: avoid unreasonable industry concentration [Sec. 40101(a)(10)]; encourage, develop, and maintain an air transportation system relying on actual and potential competition [Sec. 40101(a)(12)]; and encourage entry into air transportation markets by new and existing carriers [Sec. 40101(a)(13)]. The interline provision will strengthen the economic viability of air service to small rural communities and enhance the ability of regional commuters and new entrants to provide essential air service. It also will prevent the major airlines from engaging in the anti-competitive behavior of excluding smaller and new entrants from the national air transportation network. When the Congress eliminated the old Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) in 1984, there was concern, at that time, about the abuses employed by the major airlines to selectively use interline agreements as an unfair competitive practice. During the debate on the Conference Report on the CAB Sunset Act, Congressman Norman Mineta said: In recent months there have also been concerns that the larger carriers in the industry might use the right to interline with them as a device to restrict competition. This could be accomplished by selective refusals to interline or by selective refusals on reasonable terms, based on competitive considerations. Under section 411 of the Federal Aviation Act, the CAB has authority to act against unfair competitive practices arising from agreements to interline. The conference bill transfers this authority to the Department of Transportation and we expect the Department to carefully monitor interlining practices to be sure that there are no abuses. This will help preserve the system of interlining and the major benefits it brings to consumers. The only way to allow for competition in this environment is to impose conditions on the major carriers to cooperate with their competitors. Interline and joint fares are necessary to ensure that the dominant carriers will not kill potential competitors by denying them access to the essential facilities of the air transportation industry: the major hubs. These facilities have been built with public funds and all carriers should have access to those facilities. Interline and joint fares will help create that access. This legislation is not a silver bullet that will alleviate all the air service problems facing certain parts of the country. However, it does carefully target certain known problems that impede airline competition and it establishes a badly needed program to assist small communities in improving their air service. I hope my colleagues will support this legislation.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wanted to call the attention of my colleagues to a piece that was written by our distinguished Senator from West Virginia, our colleague, Senator Byrd, that appeared in today's Washington Post entitled ``Don't Tinker With Impeachment.'' The reason I want to do that is there are discussions occurring now, according to some of my colleagues and accounts in the newspaper and on television, about trying to create a mechanism to require a vote in the Senate during the impeachment trial on the findings of fact prior to a vote on the articles of impeachment themselves. I was just looking at the Constitution in our Senate manual, and, of course, article III in the Constitution establishes the basis for impeachment, and it is simple, direct and provides nothing of the sort that would lead Senators to believe that they can bifurcate the vote in the Senate in an impeachment trial first to findings of fact and have a majority vote on findings of fact and then to move toward a vote on the two articles of impeachment that are currently in front of the Senate. But I think the article written by our colleague, Senator Byrd, provides the best description of the difficulty with these findings of fact. Let me read just a few comments, and I ask unanimous consent to have the article printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the article, in part, by Senator Byrd says: The notion of trumping the articles of impeachment with even a ``broad'' findings of fact flies in the face of what the Framers of the Constitution intended. They deliberately set the bar high when it came to the vote on articles of impeachment, first by requiring a supermajority of two-thirds of the Senate to convict, and second, by fusing the penalty-- [that is] removal from office [being the penalty]--into the question of guilt. In voting on articles of impeachment [he goes on to say] senators must answer not one but two questions: Is the president guilty or not guilty of committing high crimes and misdemeanors, and, if he is guilty, do his actions warrant removal from office? Continuing to quote from Senator Byrd's article: This was not a casual coupling on the part of the Framers. Their intent was to force senators to set aside their own passions and prejudices and focus instead on the best interests of the nation. To lift this burden from the shoulders of senators by offering them a way to convict the president without having to accept responsibility for removing him from office would, in effect, bastardize the impeachment process. Moreover [he says] the aftershocks would be felt long after this impeachment has faded into history. No longer would senators be confined to the articles of impeachment formulated by the House of Representatives. No longer would senators need a two-thirds majority vote to pronounce a president guilty. From this time forward, they could cite the precedent set by the Senate in the 106th Congress as giving them carte blanche to write, and approve by a simple majority, ersatz articles of impeachment cloaked as ``findings of fact.'' Senator Byrd, as always, finds the bull's-eye in this debate. This is not some ordinary debate; this is a debate about constitutional requirements and responsibilities and what the provisions of the Constitution mean with respect to impeachment. The impeachment article provisions of the Constitution require, when impeachment articles are voted by the U.S. House of Representatives and sent to the Senate, that a trial must commence, and the vote on the articles of impeachment would be conducted by the Senate; and two- thirds of the Senate would have to vote guilty on those articles of impeachment in order to remove a President from office. But it doesn't bifurcate the vote, doesn't call for extra procedures, doesn't call for findings of fact, doesn't allow some Senators to say, ``Yes, that's what the Constitution says but we're going to create a new, or pretend there's a new, provision in the Constitution without having the difficulty of debating Madison and Mason and Hamilton and Franklin over our proposal. We'll just pretend it's in the Constitution. And we'll have separate votes on findings of fact. And in fact, doing that, we can have our own little vote and create our own little result with only 51 Members of the Senate voting in favor of our resolution.'' That is a terrible idea and, in my judgment, stands this Constitution, and the article of impeachment provisions in this Constitution, on its head. But Senator Byrd says it much better than I do. I will, as I indicated, include his article at the conclusion of my remarks. This Constitution, written in a room in Philadelphia over 200 years ago, is quite a remarkable document. It established the separation of powers. It established the framework for a new kind of Government that has worked remarkably well. If those who watch these proceedings and become interested in the Constitution would go to that room in Philadelphia, they would see that that room still exists. It is called the Assembly Room in Constitution Hall. That room, which is smaller than the Senate Chamber, has a chair in the front of the room where George Washington sat as he presided over that Chamber. The same chair sits there today. And you will see where Mason sat, Madison, Franklin, and others who wrote this Constitution. They wrote it on a hot Philadelphia summer with the curtains drawn to keep the heat out of that room, and they created this remarkable document that is printed here in the Senate Manual. And that is the document by which we in the Senate are now conducting an impeachment trial. I come to the floor today only to say that I think there is great danger in believing there are things written in this Constitution that don't exist in the Constitution. There is danger, in my judgment, in suggesting ways or mechanisms by which some can vote and create majority votes on some extraordinary findings of fact that are not provided for in this Constitution. In this impeachment trial, there is one of two results, and that is a vote on the two articles of impeachment that have been sent to the U.S. Senate by the House of Representatives. That vote will be a vote cast by each and every Member of this Senate, and the vote will be either a vote to convict or a vote to acquit--guilty or not guilty on the two articles of impeachment. And my hope is that when the Senate reconvenes in the impeachment trial, all Senators will have read this rather remarkable article by the preeminent constitutional scholar in this Chamber and the historian of this U.S. Senate, the esteemed Senator Byrd. Exhibit 1 [From the Washington Post, February 3, 1999] Don't Tinker With Impeachment (By Robert C. Byrd) While the lawyers are busy deposing witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial of the president, a number of senators are continuing to work quietly behind the scenes to chart a course that will end the trial with a minimum of political carnage. One route currently being investigated is a so- called ``findings of fact,'' an extravagant novelty by which a simple majority of the Senate could condemn the president's behavior within the framework of the impeachment process without being forced to remove him from office. This convict-but-don't-evict strategy appeals to some senators who have no appetite for prolonging a trial whose outcome is all but certain. At the same time, they are squeamish about the likelihood of an all-but-inevitable acquittal without having some vehicle to first register their condemnation of the president's actions. No doubt their motives are sincere, and I applaud their ingenuity, but this findings-of-fact proposal is not the answer. While the Senate sits in the impeachment trial, it is not in legislative session. The insertion of such a legislative mutant into the impeachment proceedings would subject the process to some very experimental genetic engineering. The notion of trumping the articles of impeachment with even a ``broad'' findings of fact flies in the face of what the Framers of the Constitution intended. They deliberately set the bar high when it came to the vote on articles of impeachment, first by requiring a supermajority of two-thirds of the Senate to convict, and second, by fusing the penalty-- removal from office--into the question of guilt. In voting on articles of impeachment, senators must answer not one but two questions: Is the president guilty or not guilty of committing high crimes and misdemeanors, and, if he is guilty, do his actions warrant removal from office? This was not a casual coupling on the part of the Framers. Their intent was to force senators to set aside their own passions and prejudices and focus instead on the best interests of the nation. To lift this burden from the shoulders of senators by offering them a way to convict the president without having to accept responsibility for removing him from office would, in effect, bastardize the impeachment process. Moreover, the aftershocks would be felt long after this impeachment has faded into history. No longer would senators be confined to the articles of impeachment formulated by the House of Representatives. No longer would senators need a two thirds majority vote to pronounce a president guilty. From this time forward, they could cite the precedent set by the Senate in the 106th Congress as giving them carte blanche to write, and approve by a simple majority, ersatz articles of impeachment cloaked as ``findings of fact.'' And why stop at findings of fact? If the Senate can ignore the intent of the Framers to combine a guilty verdict with removal from office in an impeachment trial, maybe senators can find a way around the constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder, or legislative punishments. The Senate impeachment trial takes place in a quasi- judicial setting, and findings of fact would move the Senate headlong into an area reserved for the judicial system, where the Senate, under the separation of powers principle, dares not go. Findings of fact would become part of a quasi-judicial record that could not subsequently be amended or overturned. Could such a record of findings of fact be later used by an independent counsel before a federal grand jury in an effort to secure an indictment? If this or any president were to be indicted, could such findings be introduced as evidence in a subsequent trial in an effort to sway a jury and bring about a conviction? Who knows what monsters this rogue gene might spawn in future days? The impeachment process, as messy and uncomfortable as it may be, is working as designed. This is neither the time nor the place for constitutional improvisation. No matter how sincere the motivation, our nation and our Constitution will not be well served by this sort of seat-of-the-pants tinkering. A post-trial censure resolution that does not cross the line into legislative punishment is something else. It can and should be considered by the Senate after the court of impeachment has adjourned sine die. Censure is not meaningless, it will not subvert the Constitution, and it will be indelibly seared into the ineffaceable record of history for all future generations to see and to ponder. For those who fear that it can be expunged from the record, be assured that it can never be erased from the history books. Like the mark that was set upon Cain, it will follow even beyond the grave.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today Senator Hagel of Nebraska and I rise to introduce a bill to correct a fundamental flaw and inequity in the tax code that we need to fix immediately. This legislation is identical to a bill that I authored in the last Congress. Too often, family farmers are not able to take full advantage of the $500,000 capital gains tax break that city folks get when they sell their homes. Today, this inequity is particularly onerous for thousands of family farmers who are being forced to sell their farms due to depressed commodity prices, crop disease and failed federal farm policies. Once family farmers have been beaten down and forced to sell the farm they've farmed for generations, they get a rude awakening. Many of them discover, as they leave the farm, that Uncle Sam is waiting for them at the end of the lane with a big tax bill. One of the most popular provisions included in the major tax bill in 1997 permits families to exclude from federal income tax up to $500,000 of gain from the sale of their principal residences. That's a good deal, especially for most urban and suburban dwellers who have spent many years paying for their houses, and who regard their houses as both a home and a retirement account. For many middle income families, their home is their major financial asset, an asset the family can draw on for retirement. House prices in major growth markets such as Washington, D.C., New York, or California may start at hundreds of thousands of dollars. As a result, the urban dwellers who have owned their homes through many years of appreciation can often benefit from a large portion of this new $500,000 capital gains tax exclusion. Unfortunately this provision, as currently applied, is virtually useless to family farmers. For farm families, their farm is their major financial asset. Unfortunately, family farmers under current law receive little or no benefit from the new $500,000 exclusion because the IRS separates the value of their homes from the value of the land the homes sit on. As people from my state of North Dakota know, houses out on the farmsteads of rural America are more commonly sold for $5,000 to $40,000. Most farmers plow any profits they make into the whole farm rather than into a house that will hold little or no value when the farm is sold. It's not surprising that the IRS often judges that homes far out in the country have very little value and thus farmers receive much less benefit from this $500,000 exclusion than do their urban and suburban counterparts. As a result, the capital gains exclusion is little or no help to farmers who are being forced out of business. They may immediately face a hefty capital gains tax bill from the IRS. This is simply wrong, Mr. President. It is unfair. Federal farm policy helped create the hole that many of these farmers find themselves in. Federal tax policy shouldn't dig the hole deeper as they attempt to shovel their way out. The Dorgan-Hagel bill recognizes the unique character and role of our family farmers and their important contributions to our economy. It expands the $500,000 capital gains tax exclusion for sales of principal residences to cover family farmers who sell their farmhouses or surrounding farmland, so long as they are actively engaged in farming prior to the sales. In this way, farmers may get some benefit from a tax break that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Our bill is not a substitute for larger policy reforms that are needed to restore the economic health of our farm communities. This tax relief measure is just one of a number of policy initiatives we can use to ease the pain for family farmers as we pursue other initiatives to help turn around the crippled farm economy. Specifically, the Dorgan-Hagel bill would expand the $500,000 tax exclusion for principle residences to cover the entire farm. This provision will allow a family or individual who has actively engaged in farming prior to the farm sale to exclude the gain from the sale up to the $500,000 maximum. What does this relief mean to the thousands of farmers who are being forced to sell off the farm due to current economic conditions? Take, for example, a farmer who is forced to leave today because of crop disease and slumping grain prices and sells his farmstead that his family has operated for decades. If he must report a gain of $10,000 on the sale of farm house, that is all he can exclude under current law. But if, for example, he sold 1000 acres surrounding the farm house for $400,000, and the capital gain was $200,000, he would be subject to $40,000 tax on that gain. Again, our provision excludes from tax the gain on the farmhouse and land up to the $500,000 maximum that is otherwise available to a family on the sale of its residence. We must wage, on every federal and state policy front, the battle to stem the loss of family farmers. Reforming tax provisions has grown increasingly important as a tool in helping our farm families deal with drought, floods, crop disease and price swings. We believe that Congress should move quickly to pass this legislation and other meaningful measures to get working capital into the hands of our family farmers in the Great Plains and all across the nation. Let's stop penalizing farmers who are forced out of agriculture. Let's allow farmers to benefit from the same kind of tax exclusion that most homeowners already receive. This is the right thing to do. And it's the fair thing to do.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today Senator Hagel of Nebraska and I rise to introduce a bill to correct a fundamental flaw and inequity in the tax code that we need to fix immediately. This legislation is identical to a bill that I authored in the last Congress. Too often, family farmers are not able to take full advantage of the $500,000 capital gains tax break that city folks get when they sell their homes. Today, this inequity is particularly onerous for thousands of family farmers who are being forced to sell their farms due to depressed commodity prices, crop disease and failed federal farm policies. Once family farmers have been beaten down and forced to sell the farm they've farmed for generations, they get a rude awakening. Many of them discover, as they leave the farm, that Uncle Sam is waiting for them at the end of the lane with a big tax bill. One of the most popular provisions included in the major tax bill in 1997 permits families to exclude from federal income tax up to $500,000 of gain from the sale of their principal residences. That's a good deal, especially for most urban and suburban dwellers who have spent many years paying for their houses, and who regard their houses as both a home and a retirement account. For many middle income families, their home is their major financial asset, an asset the family can draw on for retirement. House prices in major growth markets such as Washington, D.C., New York, or California may start at hundreds of thousands of dollars. As a result, the urban dwellers who have owned their homes through many years of appreciation can often benefit from a large portion of this new $500,000 capital gains tax exclusion. Unfortunately this provision, as currently applied, is virtually useless to family farmers. For farm families, their farm is their major financial asset. Unfortunately, family farmers under current law receive little or no benefit from the new $500,000 exclusion because the IRS separates the value of their homes from the value of the land the homes sit on. As people from my state of North Dakota know, houses out on the farmsteads of rural America are more commonly sold for $5,000 to $40,000. Most farmers plow any profits they make into the whole farm rather than into a house that will hold little or no value when the farm is sold. It's not surprising that the IRS often judges that homes far out in the country have very little value and thus farmers receive much less benefit from this $500,000 exclusion than do their urban and suburban counterparts. As a result, the capital gains exclusion is little or no help to farmers who are being forced out of business. They may immediately face a hefty capital gains tax bill from the IRS. This is simply wrong, Mr. President. It is unfair. Federal farm policy helped create the hole that many of these farmers find themselves in. Federal tax policy shouldn't dig the hole deeper as they attempt to shovel their way out. The Dorgan-Hagel bill recognizes the unique character and role of our family farmers and their important contributions to our economy. It expands the $500,000 capital gains tax exclusion for sales of principal residences to cover family farmers who sell their farmhouses or surrounding farmland, so long as they are actively engaged in farming prior to the sales. In this way, farmers may get some benefit from a tax break that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Our bill is not a substitute for larger policy reforms that are needed to restore the economic health of our farm communities. This tax relief measure is just one of a number of policy initiatives we can use to ease the pain for family farmers as we pursue other initiatives to help turn around the crippled farm economy. Specifically, the Dorgan-Hagel bill would expand the $500,000 tax exclusion for principle residences to cover the entire farm. This provision will allow a family or individual who has actively engaged in farming prior to the farm sale to exclude the gain from the sale up to the $500,000 maximum. What does this relief mean to the thousands of farmers who are being forced to sell off the farm due to current economic conditions? Take, for example, a farmer who is forced to leave today because of crop disease and slumping grain prices and sells his farmstead that his family has operated for decades. If he must report a gain of $10,000 on the sale of farm house, that is all he can exclude under current law. But if, for example, he sold 1000 acres surrounding the farm house for $400,000, and the capital gain was $200,000, he would be subject to $40,000 tax on that gain. Again, our provision excludes from tax the gain on the farmhouse and land up to the $500,000 maximum that is otherwise available to a family on the sale of its residence. We must wage, on every federal and state policy front, the battle to stem the loss of family farmers. Reforming tax provisions has grown increasingly important as a tool in helping our farm families deal with drought, floods, crop disease and price swings. We believe that Congress should move quickly to pass this legislation and other meaningful measures to get working capital into the hands of our family farmers in the Great Plains and all across the nation. Let's stop penalizing farmers who are forced out of agriculture. Let's allow farmers to benefit from the same kind of tax exclusion that most homeowners already receive. This is the right thing to do. And it's the fair thing to do.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, earlier this week, I joined the Chairman and Ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in introducing the Air Transportation Improvement Act. While I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this legislation, I am sorry that we are in the position of introducing a bill that should have been passed last year. Due to a number of unfortunate circumstances, including the unqualified mess at the end of the 105th Congress where 8 out of the 13 appropriations bills had to be lumped into a single massive bill, the Congress failed to complete its duty to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and related programs in the regular order of doing business. As a result, the FAA and important infrastructure programs such as the Airport Improvement Programs, were only extended until the end of March 1999. Thus, we are forced to begin the new Congress by taking up last year's business. The FAA bill introduced yesterday needs to be one of the first priorities of this Congress. This is the case not only because of the pressing deadline of the short term extension, but also because this legislation contains some very important policy initiatives that will inject more airline competition and improve air service to small communities. While I support the general thrust of this legislation, I still believe that we need to consider some adjustments to this legislation. In particular, I believe that the Small Community Air Service Development Program established under this legislation is too modest in size to have much of an impact. Since the deregulation of the airline industry two decades ago, hundreds of small communities have experienced service degradation and many have lost service altogether. Vast geographic regions of our country have suffered unacceptable geographic isolation as the airlines have withdrawn service in smaller communities. This trend needs the serious attention of the Congress and the Department of Transportation. Thanks to the bipartisan cooperation on this legislation among the leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee, we have developed the Small Community Air Service Development Program which could go a long way to address the small community air service problems. However, the authorization level proposed in the legislation introduced yesterday does not provide adequate enough resources for this demonstration program to make much of a difference. I hope that as the Commerce Committee works on this bill that we will be able to increase the authorization levels for this important new program. I also realize that there is some serious controversy surrounding some provisions in this bill. It is my hope that we will be able to reach some fair compromises over the contentious provisions and that this bill will pass the Congress in very short order. I want to commend Chairman McCain and Senator Hollings for their leadership on this legislation. I know that there is a strong desire on both sides of the aisle to work on this legislation and pass it as soon as possible.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. President Clinton has proposed at a meeting I was at with the bipartisan leadership of the Congress, that this is the year in which we tackle the challenges facing Social Security and Medicare. I think the Presiding Officer was at that meeting. I think there is a determination by Republicans and Democrats in Congress, by the President and Congress, that we owe it to the American people to address these entitlement questions, to make the kinds of changes that are necessary so that we can give the American people confidence that these programs will be around for a long, long while. But I do want to emphasize this challenge is born of success because people are living longer and better lives. I don't want people to come here saying these programs don't work. The Social Security program and the Medicare program have been remarkably successful. Just before the Medicare program was developed, over half of the senior citizens in America had no health care coverage at all. None. Now, 99 percent of the senior citizens in America are covered with health care. That is a dramatic difference and an improvement in the lives of tens and tens of millions of Americans. Mr. President, those are some of the challenges we face. I agree with the majority leader that the sooner we get to them the better. We must discharge our responsibility first on the impeachment issues, but then we must turn to the business of this country and respond to the challenges I have just described. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I make a point of order a quorum is not present.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wanted to take just a moment following the presentation by the majority leader to say that he begins this session of Congress with a very substantial weight on his shoulders. He is a leader in a Congress that is facing a very unique challenge. I consider the majority leader a friend. I know that these are not easy times for him, and I hope that as we proceed with the important matter of impeachment that all of us in this Chamber can work together with Senator Lott and the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, to see that we do the job that we are required to do by the Constitution in a thoughtful, deliberative, and bipartisan way. I know there are some outside these Chambers who are worried about the Senate proceeding too quickly with the impeachment trial. Those who have had an opportunity to read two centuries of history of the U.S. Senate know that one of the last worries that one ought to entertain is that the Senate will ever move to quickly, or follow too closely. The U.S. Senate is an extraordinary, deliberative body. The problem has seldom ever, in the history of this country, been that the Senate moves too quickly. Rather, my concern is that we discharge our responsibilities to do our duty and do it in a way that will give the American people confidence that the Senate exhibited the dignity they would expect from this institution. The Senator from Mississippi, the majority leader, indicated that there are many other issues that challenge us and that will require our attention. He is absolutely correct about that. I, too, hope that we can join together to deal with these issues in a more bipartisan spirit in this Congress than we have seen in recent Congresses. I want to mention just a couple of those challenges. The Senator from Mississippi said that the way the last session ended was not a good way to end. He is right about that. It was shameful that so much business was left on the table at the end to be considered and dealt with by a few people--many of them unelected--behind closed doors and then brought to the floor by unanimous consent. That is not a way to do the Senate's business. It is not a way to do the business of Congress. All of us know that. All of us knew it then, and we ought to see if we can find a way to change the rules to prevent that from happening in the future. With respect to challenges that we face, first the challenges abroad: All of us understand the dilemma that is posed to us and the entire world in what is increasingly a global economy as a result of the economic collapse and significant challenges facing the economies of the Asian countries. All you have to do is ask American farmers what they have experienced as a result of Asian economies being weak and, therefore, purchasing less in farm commodities from our country, and you will understand the direct impact, not just in that sector, but in virtually every sector in this country. We have a stake in how well other countries in the world are doing. When the Asian economies experience significant trouble--recession and collapse--it affects our country and our future. When the Russian economy collapses, it affects us. When the Brazilian economy is in trouble, it affects us. So these difficulties that are being experienced in many areas of the world have the capacity to affect in a significant way the American economy. And we must work with our Secretary of Treasury, with the President, and with Members of Congress, to reach out and see that we try to contain the spreading financial problems that exist in other parts of the world. The other challenges are pretty obvious as well. When the country of North Korea tests medium-range missiles, when the country of Iran begins testing medium-range missiles, presumably to hoist something aloft and threaten someone down the road, do we need to be concerned about that? You bet. The testing of missiles by North Korea and Iran is a very ominous threat to this country and ought to be of great concern to us. When India and Pakistan decide to punctuate their poor relationship by exploding nuclear weapons virtually under each other's chin, is that destabilizing to the world? You bet it is. Do we need to be concerned about that? Of course. We have about 7,500 nuclear weapons in our arsenal. I expect that in Russia and other parts of the world there are 7,500 nuclear weapons. And if the Russian Duma decides to approve START II at some point in the future, we whittle that number of nuclear weapons down to 5,000. That is still far too many--5,000 nuclear weapons on each side? It doesn't make any sense. So we have a challenge to try to respond to that. We must respond to the issue of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. When you look at the potential threat to the entire world posed by India and Pakistan, two adversaries detonating these nuclear weapons virtually in front of each other, and then consider that other countries are trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, as well as the capability of delivering them on the top of a missile, is that a concern. When countries like Iran and North Korea start testing missiles, is that a challenge to this country? You bet it is. And this Congress needs to be concerned about it and work with this President to develop policies to try to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the technology for delivering those weapons. Here at home the challenges also are obvious. We are blessed with an economy that is growing and strong. Virtually every indicator of economic health in this country is positive. Unemployment is down--way down. Inflation is down, almost nonexistent. Home ownership is up. Crime is down. Violent crime is way down. You can take a look at a whole range of statistics to determine what is happening in this country. While we have a lot of challenges, you have to conclude that things are better in this country as a result of economic growth and other public policies that have encouraged changes in America. That doesn't mean everything is just fine. Among the challenges we have in this country is still to deal with the issues of education and health care, for example. The majority leader mentioned education. We don't run the education system in this country, and we shouldn't. Elementary and secondary education is largely operated and controlled by local school boards, and by State legislatures. Local control of schools has been a hallmark in this country, and I don't quarrel with that. I support that. But we can and should in this country develop national goals and aspirations of what we want to accomplish in education. Among the things we can do will be to commit ourselves to repair or construct new school buildings to replace those that are falling down. At the end of the Second World War, we had folks come back to this country who fought for our country's liberty and beat back the fascism of Hitler. They came back and got an education under the GI bill and had families. They paid taxes to build schools. We had a lot of new schools built all over America in the 1950s. Today, many of those schools are in disrepair. We need new schools and bigger classrooms. We need to repair schools that are crumbling. I have spoken at length on this floor about going into a school that educates largely Indian children--the Cannon Ball Elementary School. At this school, sewer gas comes up into a room used as a classroom at least once or twice a week and the classroom has to be evacuated. 150 kids go to school in a building where there are two bathrooms and one water fountain, where you can't connect a computer to the Internet because the wiring is so old, a building that has largely been condemned. Do we need to do something about that? Is it fair to a third grader to go to school in conditions like that? No. We can do something to encourage additional school construction and school repair to make these facilities good facilities. We can also do something to encourage the reduction of class size by the hiring of more teachers. We can encourage that through public policy here without deciding that we should run the local school systems in this country. But I will tell you, if we improve education nationally through public policies that say education matters, this country will be stronger and better because of it. Education must be a priority. Our children are our future, and our ability to educate our children to become the best they can be is a significant investment in the future of America. Health care is another important issue we must address. We had a debate about this in the last session of Congress, but we did not solve the problem. Mr. President, 160 million people are now herded into health care chutes called managed care organizations. And now too often a family enrolled in an HMO discovers when a loved one gets sick that the question of what kind of care they are going to get is not necessarily just a function of what the doctor says that care ought to be but also a function of whether an accountant 500 or 1,000 miles away in the insurance company office decides they want to allow that kind of medical treatment to be performed. We have talked on the floor of the Senate about the horror stories. I am not alleging that these incidents happen with all HMOs, but I am alleging that they happen all too often. We need to pass in this Congress a Patients' Bill of Rights to say to the American people that when you go to a doctor, you have the right to go to a doctor of your choice who can meet your medical needs. You have a right to go to an emergency room if you need to. I told a story several months ago about a woman who broke her neck and was taken to the hospital unconscious. She was told later that her care was not covered because she didn't get prior approval to come to the emergency room. Now, what kind of nut case would make that kind of judgment--that someone who is unconscious and has a broken neck needs prior approval to get emergency treatment. We need a Patients' Bill of Rights, and this Congress ought to pass it. We didn't in the last session, and we need to this session. I hope we can join together on this issue. If there are specific debates about the details, let's work them out. Let's pass a Patients' Bill of Rights to respond to these problems. I come from farm country. While this country is doing better, and there are a lot of reasons to say our country is in pretty good shape, family farmers aren't in good shape. Those who went out and bought a Christmas ham probably paid $30 or $35 for a pretty good sized ham. Do you know that at about the same time, there was a farmer who put a hog in a pickup truck and hauled that hog to market and sold it. That 200- pound hog brought that farmer $20. The shopper bought a ham for $35 and the farmer gets $20 for selling a 200-pound hog. Somebody is stealing in between. That is strong language, but the fact is that all of the packing plants, for beef, sheep, chickens and hogs, are now tightly controlled by just a few companies. If you are selling a cow, you sell it into a market system in which four companies control over 80 percent of the cattle slaughtered in this country. The same is true with hogs-- slightly less but pretty much true. The point is that these family farmers are experiencing collapsed prices for hogs, collapsed prices for cattle, collapsed prices for grain. This country will end up without family farmers in its future if it doesn't come to grips with a better farm policy that gives family farmers a chance to make a living. Every single institution, every single enterprise that touches what farmers raise is making record profits. Farmers who gas up the tractor and tend to the cattle are the ones who are losing their shirts. But everybody else is making record profits--railroads are making record profits; the slaughter plants, record profits; the cereal manufacturers, record profits. The farmer gets practically nothing for his grain, and the manufacturer puts it in a plant someplace and puffs it up, and then puts it on the grocery store shelf as puffed wheat. The farmer got close to nothing for the wheat and the folks who puff it up and put it in the box get rich because they are providing the puff to the consumer. Why have we decided in this country that family farming doesn't matter? Because a majority of this Congress in recent years apparently doesn't care whether we have family farmers in our future. I hope that changes, and I hope in the 106th Congress we can go back and revise that and have a farm program that really matters. We need a farm policy that says to family farmers: this country is a better place if we have a network of family farmers all across America, out there working and raising families under those yard lights that we call family farms. You talk about family values. You can't be for family values if you are not for family farmers. The history of this country is one of nurturing family values on family farms. Those values roll out to our big towns and big cities from our family farms. So that is another of the challenges. Finally, Senator Lott mentioned appropriately the challenge of dealing with the entitlements programs. We must in this Congress deal with the long-term financial difficulties facing Social Security and Medicare. Is that a tough job? Sure, but we need to do it. The issues facing Social Security and Medicare are born of success. If people weren't living longer, we wouldn't have financial strains on these programs. One hundred years ago, in the year 1900, if you were living in the United States of America, you were expected to live to be about 48 years of age. Now a century later, you are expected to live, on average, about 78 years in the United States. Is that good news? Absolutely. I was at a place a while back where there was a 94-year-old woman. She danced all night at this place where they polka and waltz, and so on. You can go out and find people living much longer, healthier lives, doing things they never expected to do. Part of it is perhaps a better lifestyle, safer workplaces, part of it is better nutrition, part of it is the result of breathtaking medical changes. Fifty years ago, someone who had cataracts would be blind. Today they get an operation, and they can see. It used to be if you had bad knees or bad hips, you were in a wheelchair. Today you get new knees or new hips. Those who half a century ago would die of heart disease have heart surgery. You can find people 80 years old who have new knees, new hips, heart surgery and no cataracts, and they say, ``We feel like a million bucks.'' All of these breathtaking medical advances have helped improve life in this country. People are living longer. That provides us with a challenge. With more people living longer, it means we have more strain on Social Security and the Medicare programs, but, gosh, that challenge is born of success. We ought not shrink from that. So we make some adjustments here and there, thoughtful adjustments that recognize these programs work and they are good programs, but we can do that. This Congress can do that and should. Mr. GREGG assumed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Is it correct to say that the fact that specific funds are being provided to the National Weather Service to maintain operations at the offices which were identified in the 1995 Secretary's report signals that the Congress expects these offices to continue and that the NWS ought not to be taking any actions that would suggest that these offices will be closed?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator is correct. The statement of managers does not mandate, as a matter of law, any further studies by HCFA on this issue. Nor would HCFA be impeded from moving forward with issuing a final rule regarding the physician supervision issue. In fact, the language clearly states it is not intended to discourage or delay HCFA from moving forward. I know this issue is particularly important to some of us because nurse anesthetists are the sole anesthesia providers in 70% of rural hospitals. Finalizing this proposed rule is critical to rural America.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I share my colleague from North Dakota's position on the nurse anesthetist issue and thank him for his comments. I believe that HCFA should move forward and issue a final rule removing the physician supervision requirement and defer to state law.

Mr. DORGAN. I would like to inquire of the distinguished Chairman of the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Subcommittee, Mr. Gregg, as to the intent of language in the FY99 conference report on National Weather Service operations at Williston, North Dakota.

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the Subcommittee Chairman for his commitment to this provision in the bill. The Commerce Secretary has agreed that closing the Williston weather station would amount to a degradation of weather service. It is critical, therefore, that Congress send a strong signal that the station at Williston be kept fully operational.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the language to which my colleague refers is only included in the statement of managers and does not have a binding effect on HCFA. As a matter of law, nothing in the bill or the report language would prohibit HCFA from moving forward with the final rule.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, am I to be recognized for 15 minutes?