J. Exon

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may need off of our 5 hours. I believe it is the first time charged to us. We are now proceeding as I understand it with debate on the conference report on the budget.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I wish to associate myself with the remarks by the distinguished Senator from Mississippi. I just want to say a few words about my friend Bob Dole. I suspect my feelings are not significantly different by what has been thought and what has been said by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. So aside from the Bob Dole that we all know so very, very well, I just want to say that I was pleased to be here and to hear that excellent speech that Senator Dole gave as his farewell address in the U.S. Senate. It was sad in lots of ways, and yet it was so reassuring to see someone of the integrity, the ability, the character, and the good nature of Bob Dole spelled out in that speech so very, very well. I hope that many, many people in the United States heard that speech by my friend and colleague, the man from Kansas. I have worked with him so very, very long on so many issues. Many times we have been on the same side, but on many of the items we have been on opposite sides. But never, as Senator Dole mentioned in his speech this morning, has he ever, to my knowledge, violated that cardinal rule of the U.S. Senate--unwritten, which is just as effective: A man's word or a woman's word is their bond. In all of these nearly 18 years that I have had the pleasure of my association with Bob Dole, I have never known Bob even to give a hint of breaking his word, because if there was ever a man in the U.S. Senate for whom we all know his word is his bond, that is Bob Dole. On a personal note, I just want to say when I saw Bob walk out after his address, it took me back to times in all of our lives when there have been breakups. I suppose the first was when we graduated from grade school and that old gang of ours broke up and went on through our educational process. And certainly it is true. When you left the service of the United States of America, that old gang was broken up. That old gang that Bob Dole was with was suddenly broken up when he nearly gave his life in combat, in defense of the national security interests of the United States of America and the free world. But I thought of that breakup when I saw Bob walk out that door an hour or so ago. Bob Dole meant so much to me because, despite our differences from time to time, we always had an excellent personal working relationship. He came into Nebraska on two or three occasions to support my opponent in one of my races. But never did Bob Dole say anything bad about Jim Exon, even though he could have probably found some legitimate things that he could and maybe should have said. But that was not Bob's way. Bob came into Nebraska, and he campaigned for my Republican opponent-- not against Jim Exon. I think that is the mark of not only a great statesman but a very effective leader, which he was of his party as majority leader on that side, but also someone that you could be truly proud of and call your friend. Little known outside the Senate, I suspect, was Bob's strongest characteristic, and that was his sense of humor. I am not sure that the public at large has understood that. But I have had an ongoing relationship--very friendly--with Bob Dole on many, many occasions. In fact, this year when he was running for President of the United States, I suggested to him--and he knew it was facetious--that I might consider a draft to be his Vice Presidential running mate, if he was interested in that. Bob knows that I am a Democrat--always have been and always will be, and we had lots of jokes about that. But over the years of friendship, over the years of serving on very tough issues, sometimes we were maybe at sword's point, one would think, when we were debating a measure of some importance on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Bob Dole never lost his sense of humor. He never forgot his sense of humor. And I think that is what helped carry him through probably that life-threatening wound that he received in battle and probably through some of the more heated debates that have taken place here on the Senate floor. I have never seen Bob Dole do anything but smile when someone said something or told him something that he thought was humor. So I am saddened by the fact that a coworker for whom I have great respect, has made a choice that I think was the right choice for him to make, especially with regard to the heavy responsibility that he carries for his party, and he will carry in the Presidential election this year. In that regard, maybe I can sum up my feelings, friendship, and understanding with Bob Dole by a statement that I made to him in one of our more humorous conversations maybe 6 months ago right in the heat of those very tough Republican primaries for President of the United States. I said to Bob Dole, ``You know, Bob, if we have to have a Republican President''--then I repeated it--``if we have to have a Republican President, I hope it is you.'' People that do not understand humor might think that was a cutting thing for Jim Exon to say, but Bob Dole knew what I was saying. Bob Dole knows that myself and all, likely, on both sides of the aisle respect not only the man's talent but the man's sense of responsibility and his sense of humor which has endeared him to those of us on both sides of the aisle. Godspeed, Bob Dole, to you and your wonderful wife, Elizabeth. You are a great couple. And whatever the future holds, we will always hold you in high esteem. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.

Mr. EXON. I have no objection whatsoever. This Senator was one of those, also, who wishes to speak. I will be seeking 5 minutes of my own time for that subject during the next hour.

Mr. EXON. Reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to object. Is it the Senator's intention that we would go to the budget then at 3:30? Is that the plan?

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I just want to clarify, I understood you said we would vote by 3:30 tomorrow if it is here; is that right?

Mr. EXON. That would be Wednesday. If we do not vote then, we vote when?

Mr. EXON. We have no objection.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. I advise my friend, I am expecting Senator Kennedy momentarily. I have no certainty beyond Senator Kennedy, but I am certain Senator Kennedy will be here very shortly, and I will yield to him such time as he needs when he comes. Other than that, I know of no Senator on this side who will be speaking tonight, but we have had surprises before, as you know.

Mr. EXON. We agree with that.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts whatever time he needs off of our 5 hours.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. I am happy to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from California.

Mr. EXON. I thank the Chair. I thank my friend from California for her kind remarks. Mr. President, I am very disappointed by this constitutional balanced budget amendment charade staged by the majority. My colleagues know that I am a staunch and dogged supporter of a balanced Federal budget and a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I have not changed in my resolve but quite obviously others have. There is something to be said for consistency and political honesty even during a political campaign. Up until very recently, I thought that if you favored one, you had to support the other. They clearly go hand-in-hand. But that was before the political shenanigans evidently brought about by election-year politics. But watching the majority leader and the majority party become the new high priests of what George Bush called voodoo economics has caused me to question whether the Republicans sincerely want a balanced budget at all or just a meaningless campaign issue. Advocating a balanced budget amendment while advocating fiscal policy that makes it impossible to function is ludicrous. One minute, the majority leader calls for passage of a balanced budget amendment. But in nearly the same breath, he simultaneously pushes massive tax deductions that would reduce revenues by multibillions of dollars such as deductibility of Social Security payroll taxes, repeal of the gas tax, and a laundry list of other tax breaks too numerous to mention. On the spending side, he calls for a $50 billion plus revival of star wars that would additionally worsen the deficit. All of this fiscal nonsense--it is fiscal nonsense, Mr. President--has caused me to conclude that I will not be a party to this hypocritical enterprise that falsely promises to balance the budget down the road, but avoids every hard vote to cut the deficit here and now and actually reach balance by 2002 when supposedly the constitutional amendment would kick in. I find the about-face by the majority puzzling, to say the least. The National Review once quoted Bob Dole calling supply-side economics a ``magic formula that would give us lower taxes, all the benefits voters clamor for, and every weapons system on the military's wish list.'' Doesn't that sound rather familiar now? The majority leader was known for many years as downright hostile to supply siders, including his former nemesis, Jack Kemp. He once chided that Mr. Kemp liked to preach painless ways to reduce the deficit, and I quote Mr. Dole, ``while some of us do all of the dirty work.'' Perhaps the majority leader does not want to get his hands dirty anymore. Why do you suppose that is so? During one of his previous Presidential runs, the majority leader said that the American people ``are ready for bitter medicine'' to reduce the deficit, but now he has become the tax cut candy man. The majority leader also liked to joke that he had good news and the bad news. Once again I quote the majority leader. ``The good news was that a busload of supply side economists had plunged off the cliff. The bad news was that there were three empty seats.'' Mr. President, no one is laughing today, not the American people who will be stuck with a new deficit bill because of the Senator's 11th hour conversion to supply side economics. Jokes aside, I cannot fathom how anyone who had a perch so close to the unholy economic mess that supply siders created could now become their standard bearer. Former OMB Director David Stockman recanted, at least, from the deficits that he helped create. He wrote: The real root problem goes back to the July 1981 frenzy of excessive and imprudent tax cutting that shattered the Nation's fiscal stability. A noisy faction of Republicans have willfully denied this giant mistake of fiscal governance and their own culpability in it ever since. Instead they have incessantly poisoned the political debate with a mindless stream of anti-tax venom while pretending that economic growth and spending cuts alone could cure the deficit. Mr. Stockman was right and everyone in this Chamber, including the majority leader, knows it. But the majority leader was already agreeing with this assessment years ago. In January 1982, he told the Washington Post: I do not subscribe to the fantasy that if we do nothing, deficits will disappear. Some of those in Congress who are the most vocally leading the fight against tax increases propose nothing to bring spending under control. It is hard to conceive a worse economic or political path to follow. There is another revealing quote of the majority leader in the New Republic of January 7, 1985: ``I never thought growth would deal with the deficit.'' To continue the quote from Dole, ``Mondale's view of it was all right. He was the wrong salesman.'' At least now we know where's the beef. The majority leader also told the New York Economic Club in January 1984: Unlike some who believe we can sit on the sidelines and allow economic growth to balance the Federal budget, I believe that Congress and the administration must earn its redemption. I say to the distinguished majority leader, so do I. We can earn some redemption today by pulling this travesty off the floor of the Senate. Mr. President, I have spent many an hour advocating a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. No one has been more intent on this endeavor. I went even further than some of my colleagues would dare. I took the debate from a philosophical discussion to a level where it really counts. I tried to get Congress to abide by the very policy statement set out in the balanced budget amendment. At the beginning of this Congress, I offered an amendment that would have created a point of order against considering any budget resolution that fails to comply with the requirements set out in the balanced budget amendment. But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who were white hot in their passion for a balanced budget amendment, were curiously cool to that amendment. You hear all of these pious speeches about how we want to balance the Federal budget, but if we had a dollar for every Senate speech in favor of a balanced budget we would have had a budget surplus long ago. Then comes along a Presidential election, and all of a sudden Senators are falling all over themselves to cut taxes. I heard one Senator say, well, this was not the first tax that he would have cut, but it was an opportunity to cut taxes, and he was not going to miss it. It is a transparent political ploy, and this Senator, for one, has had enough of it. Last year, the Senate had a thoughtful and measured debate on the balanced budget amendment. I did not particularly savor the outcome, but I was proud of the manner in which the Senate conducted the people's business. We were thorough, we were thoughtful, we were fair, and we acquitted ourselves with repute. But today's action by the majority wreaks of partisanship and election year politics. It is not serious or sound public policy. It is more like a sound bite. This is a crass and appalling public relations stunt concocted and orchestrated by the Republican majority and the Republican National Committee. Their motives are as obvious as their tactics are unseemly. Mr. President, I will not dance to their piper. I deplore their tactics. Using Congress as a backdrop, the majority will do their very best to embarrass the President and divert attention away from their 15 months of failed leadership. They will grasp at every thin reed to win back the White House, even this trumped up attempt to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that everyone knows in advance will fail. I suppose they feel they have no choice. The majority needs and wants to shift the attention of the public away from their flash-in-the-pan agenda and their inability to produce a fair balanced budget behind which the American people can rally. Mr. President, that reminds me of an article I once read. In August 1985, David Stockman, President Reagan's OMB Director, presented Senator Bob Dole with a supply side birthday cake. According to the press, the Senator chortled with glee to find that under the icing the cake was hollow. I say to the majority leader, so is this attempt to win votes in November. The Senate majority leader, 20 points or so behind in the race for the Presidency, has come up with a gimmick to reduce the gas tax by 4.3 cents, which, if maintained until the magical year of 2002, could cost the Treasury $34 billion in revenues when we are already far short of any attainable goal to meet the constitutional guaranteed balance by that date. No matter the fact that the price of crude oil has fallen back to its low late in February. According to the Wall Street Journal, the majority leader is also advocating of a $500 a child tax credit and a $500 annual credit for individuals contributing to charities. His key advisers are urging a 15-percent across-the-board tax cut. Billionaire Steve Forbes and adviser Jack Kemp are pushing a flat tax reduction. Meanwhile, President Clinton is inching toward more tax cuts as well. Where will it end? When will the tax bidding stop? When are we all going to recognize that we are on the road to bankruptcy? I have criticized President Clinton for his tax cut proposals as well. But, by comparison, he is a piker. One thing is certain, President Clinton will not be around when the heavy lifting starts after the year 2000. At best, Bob Dole would be approaching 80 years of age, in his second term as President. What an exciting prospect for keeping promises. I ask my colleagues on both sides, how on Earth can we debate a constitutional amendment to balance the budget and then have a host of tax cuts in the wings that will worsen the deficit? And, yes, I say worsen the deficit, because the offset that the majority cobbles together or attempts to cobble together to pay for the tax cut will, in all likelihood, be something we are already counting on to help balance the budget. You cannot spend the same dollar two or three times. So, if Senators want to cut taxes and then ask me to join them to support a balanced budget amendment, they will soon find this Senator unwilling to go with them down that crooked road of no return. It is madness. It is unconscionable. It is the biggest flimflam in history. The American people should understand that if a constitutional amendment to balance the budget by 2002 is followed by the tax cuts proposed or waiting in the wings by the majority, including a huge $180 billion tax giveaway in the reconciliation bill, then future Congresses will face by far the largest tax increase ever imagined. Such a happening would be the height of fiscal and budget irresponsibility, and would saddle future Presidents and future Congresses with an unworkable fiscal dilemma. In conclusion, if the distinguished majority leader is indeed earnest about reopening a serious debate on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, he will find a strong and willing ally in this Senator, as he has in the past. He knows that. I will not, however, be a party to this partisan charade. The numbers simply do not add up. We must repudiate this partisan sham. The honest, fiscally conservative vote on the Dole initiative is no. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and I yield the floor. Mr. BENNETT addressed the Chair.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I yield the balance of my 2 minutes to my friend from South Carolina.

Mr. EXON. I thank very much my great friend and colleague from South Carolina, whom I have admired ever since I came here 18 years ago. I served under him on the Budget Committee, and I served under him in his chairmanship of the Commerce Committee. We have worked together for so very long on the budget problems of the United States of America. But I simply say that I wish everybody who serves in Congress had his head screwed on as correctly as does the Senator from South Carolina. During all of this rancorous debate about who is to blame, I am reminded once again of that time--it must have been in 1979--when Jimmy Carter was President of the United States. I believe the Senator was on the Budget Committee and Senator Muskie served as chairman. I remember well the statement that the Senator made when the President of the United States called us down to the White House. The President was very alarmed by the fact that the deficit for that particular fiscal year was likely to go over $100 billion, and if we did not arrest what we were doing, we were going to exceed in the next year or two $1 trillion--the horrible $1 trillion figure--on the national debt. I do not know what the interest on the debt was at that time, but obviously it was small compared to what we are now paying. So the Senator from South Carolina is accurate in explaining what he did with regard to the remarks that have been made on the floor of this Senate today. We are not here to find fault. We are here trying to solve a problem. But the problem we have been sinking into over the years goes back to the time when supply-side economics was ushered into this body, when Ronald Reagan became President of the United States. As the Senator from South Carolina just said, President Ronald Reagan, who is an honorable man, said when he came into office that he was going to balance the budget in 4 years. The facts of the matter were that the budget went out of balance in those 4 years faster than it has gone out of balance any time in the whole history of the United States of America. The facts of the matter are, while there has been so much criticism of the President of the United States today, it should be remembered and written indelibly, so it will not be forgotten, that under this President we have had 3 successive years of deficit reduction, from a figure of about a $300 billion shortfall in the budget each year, down to about $130 billion. That is what Bill Clinton has done. So Bill Clinton is the one who has accomplished reducing the deficit faster than any President, probably going back to Harry Truman or Lyndon Johnson. We still have a major problem on our hands. It goes back, and all of this crying and moaning today goes back to that period in the early 1980's when the United States of America was under $1 trillion in national debt and was under $100 billion a year in the annual deficit. That rose appreciably. And as the Senator from South Carolina has said time and time again, if we had not run up those deficits that were run up under Ronald Reagan, the budget would be balanced today, would be in surplus today, and we would not have all the concerns that we do have about future solvency of Social Security and Medicare. So I simply say that the reason I am not going to vote for the constitutional amendment to balance the budget, as I elaborated on to some extent earlier today, is the fact, Mr. President, that this is a sham. This is a political sham where the U.S. Senate is being used as a tool in the Presidential race. Unfortunately, that is not the way to run the Government and that certainly is not the way to run our budget. I do appreciate very much the Senator yielding me time.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. Why would a terrorist group or rogue nation spend 15 or 20 years and billions of dollars to manufacture a rudimentary nuclear warhead and long-range ballistic missile delivery system which would lead a noticeable trail from where it was launched, when a weapon concealed in a suitcase or on the back of a rented truck can do the same job right now at a small fraction of the cost and with much greater anonymity? Not only is the Dole star wars system useless in defending America against such a threat, it would divert scarce resources from the immediate and pressing concerns of combating terrorism and protecting our troops in the field against theater ballistic missile attacks. Aside from the cost of the Dole Star Wars Program, Mr. President, the question of the need to pursue a crash program of a decision to deploy a system that is not in compliance with the ABM Treaty carries with it immense consequences, not only as to the reliability of the United States to uphold its treaty obligations, but also the future of ongoing arms control programs and policies. It would be sadly ironic from the standpoint of whether other nations would believe us if passage of the Dole star wars bill jeopardizes implementation of the START I and ratification of START II by the Russian Duma. That would be a tragedy, and we cannot accept that risk. These accords, if fully realized, would eliminate over 5,000 nuclear warheads designed to strike America. We cannot be frivolous about the future of START I and START II. These are the most significant arms reduction treaties in the history of mankind, major strides away from the prospect of nuclear holocaust and the lingering shadow of the cold war. Abrogation of the ABM Treaty in the pursuit of enhanced national security would be foolhardy if it halted the destruction of the very nuclear weapon delivery systems we are trying to defend against. Such a scenario, if played out, would likely endanger other concrete efforts, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction. In short, our actions, if we go for and vote for the Dole star wars bill, should not be considered in a vacuum. Intended or not, implementation of the Dole star wars bill would have a far-reaching, chilling effect on the future of arms control. Often forgotten in the debate on the national missile defense is the question of whether technology is sufficiently mature enough to mandate the year 2003 as the deployment date. The record of missile interceptor testing to date and in the foreseeable future is one of more failure than success. In the rush to deploy a prototype system using highly advanced and sophisticated technology by the year 2003, we will be forsaking, Mr. President, the-fly-before-you-buy principle that has served us well in recent years. Not only will we be limiting the testing and evaluation of the system in a push to field a system at an earlier and unnecessary date, we will be locking ourselves into certain technologies which may become obsolete by the year 2003. Contrary to the claims of the proponents of this bill, the administration is pursuing a program to develop and deploy a continental missile system to meet the future threat. The so-called 3- plus-3 Program is a two-step plan to develop the necessary technology over the next 3 years and then make a decision as to the wisdom of deploying a system in the subsequent 3 years. The Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Service Chiefs are in solid support of this reasonable and responsible approach. Our best war- fighters and intelligence experts agree that approval of the Dole star wars plan would be folly in that the threat simply does not exist in the near term to justify jeopardizing the arms control treaties that will allow the military to fund other spending priorities within the military. The American people understand the folly of the Dole star wars bill as well. I have a collection of over three dozen newspaper editorials from around the country in opposition to this bill. I ask unanimous consent that excerpts of these editorials in opposition to the Dole star wars bill be printed in the Record so that my colleagues can better understand what the American public is saying about the Dole star wars bill before they cast their votes on this expensive, unnecessary, and destabilizing proposition.

Mr. EXON. I yield the floor.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I was struck to hear the term that people on the other side were startled that we would oppose this, that we are being blackmailed by Russia, and that we are being held hostage by Russia. Nothing could be further from the truth. I simply say, Mr. President, that already the opposition is saying we are against missile defenses on this side. We are not against missile defenses. The talk was made about the Patriot, how important that was in the gulf war. This Senator and most of the Senators on this side were leaders, when we were in charge of the Senate, in developing the Patriot missile. What we are against is hastily moving, as the Dole star wars bill would do, to a missile defense that is untested, untried, with no assurance whatsoever that it will work. Go with us. We are with the experts at the Pentagon. We are with the President. We want a missile defense, but we want it in a timely fashion and not rush to violate treaties that the United States of America signed in good faith. I ask unanimous consent that two letters from CBO relating to the cost issue be printed in the Record.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, the Dole star wars bill the Senate is debating is a reckless and expensive attempt to recreate the nostalgia of the cold war through the regrettable and unwarranted use of fear and fabrication. Over the last several years, the majority has resolutely turned a deaf ear to the objections of millions of men, women, and children at risk while it continually snips away at America's safety net. But in a conversion worthy of Jekyll and Hyde, the majority is passionately arguing that we throw open the Treasury doors to create a new defense safety net to take the place of the social safety net it is intent on unraveling. Multibillion-dollar missile launchers will replace school lunches in this new gilded net. Guns in the sky will replace efforts to remove guns from our school playgrounds. Money that used to help the poor buy heating fuel in winter will now heat lasers orbiting the Earth. The underlying premise of the Dole star wars bill is that the ballistic missile threat targeted toward the United States is so great, so urgent that nothing short of a crash program similar to the race to the Moon in the 1960's will do. No cost to the American taxpayers is too great. No arms control treaty is too valuable. The siren call behind the Dole star wars bill is a seductive one indeed: If you believe in a strong national defense, then you must be willing to shield America against missile attack--a missile attack anywhere, anytime--regardless of the consequences. But, like the sirens tempting Odysseus, to heed the call will bring catastrophe, not security. The packaging of the Dole star wars bill is slick and the rhetoric is packed with chest-thumping patriotism. But the issue of missile defense is much more complex than it may seem to some. A number of questions need to be asked and answered before the Senate can judge the need to embark on a crash program to field a national missile defense system in 6 years. What is the threat of ballistic missile attack facing the United States today and in the near future? From where does this threat originate? And are there other less costly, more effective means of meeting this threat, whatever it is? What is meant when the bill requires a defense against a ``limited, unauthorized, and accidental attack'' What is the likelihood of such attacks occurring? And what type of missile defense is necessary in order to blunt such an attack if there is one? What type of attacks against the United States using weapons of mass destruction would the Dole star wars system be powerless to defend against? How are we as a nation addressing this terrorist threat and how would pursuing a star wars system affect the timeliness of these efforts? What is the cost of the mandate contained in the Dole star wars bill and how will it be paid for? Or to turn the question around, what social program or other defense priority will suffer as a result of this expensive undertaking. What are the consequences of fielding a missile defense system that violates the existing limitations of the ABM Treaty, as required by the Dole star wars bill? Will implementation of the START I Treaty be endangered? Will ratification of the START II Treaty by the Russian Duma be jeopardized if we renege on our ABM Treaty obligation? Will it affect other arms control agreements pending or in the future if America backs down and violates a treaty, such treaties as the Chemicals Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty? Will implementation of the Dole star wars system prompt an expensive and destabilizing arms race which would otherwise not occur? Is missile defense technology sufficiently mature to mandate a 2003 deployment date? Of course not. Will the fly-before-you-buy principle be applied to this highly advanced and sophisticated technology through extensive testing and evaluation prior to the operational deployment? What has been the record of missile defense testing to date? That is an important question. Are we rushing to judgment on certain technologies which may be obsolete and marginally effective in order to meet an arbitrary date upon which there is no basis for its selection? Finally, what are the alleged shortcomings of the administration's 3- plus-3 missile defense plan which the Dole star wars bill professes to correct? The Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the service chiefs are in solid support of the two-step plan to develop the technology over the next 3 years and then-- and then, Mr. President, and then only--make a decision as to the wisdom of deploying in 3 years. Why is this unanimous opinion of the civilian and military leadership of this country in the Pentagon not sound? These are just a few of the questions relevant to the Dole star wars bill at 9\1/2\ pages in length. That is what that bill takes up. The bill is deceptively modest, but beyond the printed words are many consequences, both intended and perhaps unintended, which must be seriously considered, I suggest, before far-reaching legislation is voted upon. In a general sense, I am disappointed that the majority is insisting on raising the Dole star wars bill at this time. Why is that necessary? The issue is already intractably ensnarled in the web of Presidential politics, and I lament the unavoidable reality that support for the Dole star wars bill by Members of the majority party will be seen as some sort of test of party allegiance and debate concerning important national security issues, such as missile defenses, should be separated--should be separated--completely, Mr. President, from the game of Presidential chess playing. Senator Dole, in his May 23 opening statement on this bill, made it clear that the two shall be intertwined. Perhaps the most curious statement made by Senator Dole during his initial floor debate was when he disavowed forcing the Secretary of Defense to do anything, though the bill mandates the deployment of a highly effective multilayered missile defense system capable of intersecting dozens of warheads. Senator Dole is quoted in the Congressional Record as saying: The choice of what type of system is left up to the Secretary of Defense . . . The decision on what is affordable and effective is left up to the Secretary of Defense. Why is it that the distinguished majority leader professes to defer to the Secretary of Defense on such fundamental aspects of the program details but feels compelled to overturn his wisdom on the need--on the need--for and timing of the deployment of a national defense missile system? The Senate cannot have it both ways. If Congress forces the hand of the Pentagon contrary to its wishes to decide in 1996 that we shall deploy such a system by the year 2003, we cannot walk away from the cost of the decision, the limitation it places on the type of architecture to be used and the consequences such a preemptive breach of the ABM Treaty will have on other aspects of arms control treaties that are ongoing and also affects the future efforts to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Mr. President, approval of the Dole star wars bill will have a definite anti effect and serious consequences, not the least of which are in the area of cost. In the last 34 years, the United States has spent $100 billion on missile defense programs. To proceed, as the Dole star wars bill would have us do, would cost the U.S. taxpayers, according to the Congressional Budget Office, $31 to $60 billion, not including operating and support costs associated with the system once it is deployed or the cost of buying and launching the satellites necessary to maintain the system as existing satellites begin to fail. According to CBO, the postdeployment costs would reach a few hundred million dollars annually by 2005 when ground-based systems and space- based sensors would be in place. After 2010, though, operating and support costs would increase significantly because of the need to launch replacements for any space-based system which wear out over time. The CBO goes on to predict that at some point, new technology or reassessment of the defense situation could lead to changes in the system which could raise the costs even much higher. Overall costs to implement the Dole star wars bill could easily approach $70 to $80 billion. This is in addition to the $100 billion our Nation has already spent on missile defense programs. Mr. President, a word of caution. Our Nation is also pursuing a multilayered theater missile defense system to protect our troops in the field against ballistic missile attack. I strongly support this, as does the President and the members of the Joint Chiefs. This Senator agrees with our uniform and civilian leaders that the theater missile defenses is our most immediate concern and deserves to be our top priority. But the pricetag for developing, producing, deploying, and operating these land-based and sea-based theater systems will add a minimum of $20 to $30 billion, increasing our running missile defense bill to nearly one-quarter of a trillion dollars before it is all over. Before we can commit to building a $60 billion national missile defense system, perhaps there should be a more involved discussion, Mr. President, of who or what are we defending against. Three of the four nations capable of launching a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile are American allies. And the fourth, China, possesses an arsenal that could easily overwhelm the sort of limited defense mandated by the Dole star wars bill, though why China would launch such a suicidal nuclear holocaust is difficult to imagine. The best national intelligence estimate we have is that the threat of a Third World nation possessing the capability to strike the United States is at least 50 years away. Furthermore, the nation most often mentioned as a rogue state and emerging threat to the United States is North Korea, though they have not ever developed or tested a missile anywhere near capable of striking a major U.S. population center. Furthermore, current reports are that North Korea is economically bankrupt and in the process of melting down internally. Unable to feed itself, the North Korean Army is reported to be eating grass and roots in order to survive. What chance does the North Korean Communist regime have to survive another 15 years, not to mention at the same time developing and deploying a nuclear weapon and a missile delivery system that could be successful in targeting the United States, at least in that timeframe? Most people in the United States understand that the United States must be more realistic, and the likely attack on American soil using a weapon of mass destruction would come in the form of a terrorist attack similar to what took place at the World Trade Center or in Oklahoma City. Terrorist groups have the means today to launch an attack that could kill thousands of Americans using chemical and biological weaponry. As an open society, we are as a nation at extremely high risk and vulnerable to such attack. Only through the fine work of our intelligence and law enforcement community have many of these plots been foiled. Why would a terrorist group or rogue nation spend 15 to 20 years and billions of dollars to manufacture a rudimentary----

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 4 minutes.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, if I have the floor, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Massachusetts at this time.

Mr. EXON. May I ask a question? Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. EXON. Would the Senator also add on 3 minutes for the Senator from Massachusetts?

Mr. EXON. Reserving the right to object, I would like to see what the parliamentary procedure is and ask the Chair to make a ruling. I have 15 minutes that was assigned to me under the original schedule, and also Senator Leahy. The time is about up. I would not object to the request from the Senator so he can finish his remarks so long as the same procedure would be afforded to this Senator after he has finished his presentation.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. Yes, I do believe that the Senator from Montana is correct in making that assumption. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee has a limited amount of mandatory programs under its jurisdiction to target for savings as part of a reconciliation bill. With the exception of privatizing the Power Marketing Administrations, a proposal that was soundly rejected during last year's debate, I might add with the Senator Montana's leadership. I can think of no other policy under their jurisdiction that could generate a $1 billion in savings.

Mr. EXON. Yes, I do find that strange. The committee report for last year's budget resolution cited ANWR as the major mandatory savings assumption for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. indeed, it's inclusion in the final reconciliation bill was one of the major reasons why the President vetoed that bill.