Russell Feingold

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to offer a measure which will serve as a first step towards eliminating the inequities borne by the dairy farmers of Wisconsin and the upper Midwest under the Federal Milk Marketing Order system. The Federal Milk Marketing Order system, created nearly 60 years ago, establishes minimum prices for milk paid to producers throughout various marketing areas in the U.S. For sixty years, this system has discriminated against producers in the Upper Midwest by awarding a high price to dairy farmers in proportion to the distance of their farms from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. This legislation is very simple. It identifies the single most harmful and unjust feature of the current system, and corrects it. Under the current archaic law, the price for fluid milk increases depending on the distance from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, even though most milk marketing orders do not receive any milk from Wisconsin. The bill I introduce today will prohibit the Secretary of Agriculture from using distance or transportation costs from any location as the basis for pricing milk, unless significant quantities of milk are actually transported from that location into the recipient market. The Secretary will have to comply with the statutory requirement that supply and demand factors be considered as specified in the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act when setting milk prices in marketing orders. The fact remains that single-basing-point pricing simply cannot be justified based on supply and demand for milk both in local and national markets. This bill also requires the Secretary to report to Congress on specifically which criteria are used to set milk prices. Finally, the Secretary will have to certify to Congress that the criteria used by the Department do not in any way attempt to circumvent the prohibition on using distance or transportation cost as basis for pricing milk. This one change is so crucial to Upper Midwest producers, because the current system has penalized them for many years. By providing disparate profits for producers in other parts of the country and creating artificial economic incentives for milk production, Wisconsin producers have seen national surpluses rise, and milk prices fall. Rather than providing adequate supplies of fluid milk in some parts of the country, the prices have led to excess production. The prices have provided production incentives beyond those needed to ensure a local supply of fluid milk in some regions, leading to an increase in manufactured products in those marketing orders. Those manufactured products directly compete with Wisconsin's processed products, eroding our markets and driving national prices down. The perverse nature of this system is further illustrated by the fact that since 1995 some regions of the U.S., notably the Central states and the Southwest, are producing so much milk that they are actually shipping fluid milk north to the Upper Midwest. The high fluid milk prices have generated so much excess production, that these markets distant from Eau Claire are now encroaching upon not only our manufactured markets, but also our markets for fluid milk, further eroding prices in Wisconsin. The market distorting effects of the fluid price differentials in federal orders are manifest in the Congressional Budget Office estimate that eliminating the orders would save $669 million over five years. Government outlays would fall, CBO concludes, because production would fall in response to lower milk prices and there would be fewer government purchases of surplus milk. The regions which would gain and lose in this scenario illustrate the discrimination inherent to the current system. Economic analyses show that farm revenues in a market undisturbed by Federal Orders would actually increase in the Upper Midwest and fall in most other milk-producing regions. While this system has been around since 1937, the practice of basing fluid milk price differentials on the distance from Eau Claire was formalized in the 1960's, when the Upper Midwest arguably was the primary reserve for additional supplies of milk. The idea was to encourage local supplies of fluid milk in areas of the country that did not traditionally produce enough fluid milk to meet their own needs. Mr. President, that is no longer the case. The Upper Midwest is neither the lowest cost production area nor a primary source of reserve supplies of milk. In many of the markets with higher fluid milk differentials, milk is produced efficiently, and in some cases, at lower cost than the upper Midwest. Unfortunately, the prices didn't adjust with changing economic conditions, most notably the shift of the dairy industry away from the Upper Midwest and towards the Southwest, specifically California, which now leads the nation in milk production. Fluid milk prices should have been lowered to reflect that trend. Instead, in 1985, the prices were increased for markets distant from Eau Claire. USDA has refused to use the administrative authority provided by Congress to make the appropriate adjustments to reflect economic realities. They continue to stand behind single-basing-point pricing. The result has been a decline in the Upper Midwest dairy industry, not because they can't produce a product that can compete in the market place, but because the system discriminates against them. Today, Wisconsin loses dairy farmers at a rate of more than 5 per day. The Upper Midwest, with the lowest fluid milk prices, is shrinking as a dairy region despite the dairy-friendly climate of the region. Other regions with higher fluid milk prices are growing rapidly. In an unregulated market with a level playing field, these shifts in production might be fair. But in a market where the government is setting the prices and providing that artificial advantage to regions outside the Upper Midwest, the current system is unconscionable. I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and bring reform to this out-dated system and work to eliminate the inequities in the current milk marketing order pricing system. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am delighted to join with my colleague, the Senior Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Kohl) as an original cosponsor of the Federal Energy Bank Act. As a politician, the idea of the federal government ``leading by example'' in the area of energy efficiency has made sense to me for a long time, so much so, in fact, that in campaigning for the Senate in 1992, I included energy efficiency in my campaign platform. I proposed an 82-point plan to reduce the deficit, a series of specific spending reductions and revenue changes which, if enacted in sum total, would have eliminated the deficit. Among those items, as I was a candidate for office after the passage of the 1992 Energy Policy Act and after the United States' signing of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, was one to encourage the federal government to implement a comprehensive energy savings program for the federal government through energy efficiency investments. After all, I believe that if Wisconsin consumers and business have been converted to the wisdom of compact fluorescent light bulbs, efficient heating and cooling systems, weatherization, and energy saving computers, among the wide range of potential efficiency improvements, that the federal government promoting those actions should also make the same investments to the taxpayers' benefit. Section 152 of the Energy Policy Act mandated that Federal agencies use all cost-effective measures that could be implemented with less than a 10-year payback to reduce energy consumption in their facilities by 20 percent by the year 2000 compared to 1985 consumption levels. Both of the two previous Administrations have been committed to these types of common sense ``no-regrets'' energy savings strategies. After taking office, I have learned that among the most significant constraints to implementing more energy efficient practices in the federal government is the lack of sufficient funds to invest in energy efficient equipment. Section 162 of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 directed the Secretary of Energy to conduct a detailed study of options for financing energy and water conservation measures in Federal facilities as required under the Act and by subsequent Executive Orders. On June 3, 1997, the then Secretary of Energy (Mr. Pena) released that study. It documented a need for a $5.7 billion financial investment between 1996 and 2005 to meet the Energy Policy Act and Executive Order goals, a value which could vary from a low of $4.4 billion to a high of $7.1 billion given variability in both energy and water investment requirements. The best estimate, according to the same study of the total federal funding available to spend on energy and water efficiency improvements from various sources, including direct agency appropriations, energy savings performance contracts, and utility demand-side management programs, and appropriations to the Federal Energy Efficiency Fund, to the federal government to meet those needs over the same time period is $3.7 billion. Thus, under DOE's best estimate, at the federal level we face a potential shortfall of funds necessary to achieve our federal energy and water conservation objectives of $2 billion. In order to address this shortfall, I am pleased to join as a co- sponsor of this legislation to create a federal energy revolving fund or ``energy bank.'' I hope this legislation can be one of the items on which we can reach bipartisan consensus in our efforts to develop a national energy strategy this Congress. Some in this body may be concerned that the existence of the current Federal Energy Efficiency Fund alleviates the need for additional federal conservation investment. The problem with the current fund, which operates as a grant program for agencies to make efficiency improvements, is that it does not contribute to the replenishment of capital resources because it does not have to be paid back and is therefore dependent upon appropriations. Under the legislation, I join in cosponsoring with my colleague from Wisconsin today, federal agencies will be required, to deposit 5 percent of their total utility payments in the proceeding fiscal year to capitalize the fund. After 2001, the Secretary of Energy will determine an amount necessary to ensure that the fund meets its obligations. Agencies will then be able to get a loan from the fund to finance efficiency projects, which they will be responsible for repaying with interest. The projects must use off-the-shelf technologies and must be cost effective. The best part of this approach is that the technologies are required to have a three-year pay back period, and, therefore, this legislation achieves some modest savings for the taxpayer. CBO scores this measure as saving $3 million over 5 years. There is a need to improve federal procurement of energy efficient technologies, and this measure is a positive, proactive measure to ensure that federal agencies specifically set aside funds to achieve this goal. The Senior Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Kohl) and I look forward to working with the administration to advance this legislation as a piece of the country's overall greenhouse gas reductions strategy. In conclusion, I look forward to working with my Senior Senator on this issue. I believe that this is a unique opportunity for Senate colleagues to support legislation that is both fiscally responsible and environmentally sound.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I am reintroducing a measure that I sponsored in the 106th Congress to reduce the amount of federal irrigation subsidies received by large agribusiness interests. I believe that reforming federal water pricing policy by reducing subsidies is important as a means to achieve our broader objectives of achieving a truly balanced budget. This legislation is also needed to curb fundamental abuses of reclamation law that cost the taxpayer millions of dollars every year. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed legislation, which came to be known as the Reclamation Act of 1902, to encourage development of family farms throughout the western United States. The idea was to provide needed water for areas that were otherwise dry and give small farms--those no larger than 160 acres--a chance, with a helping hand from the federal government, to establish themselves. According to a 1996 General Accounting Office report, since the passage of the Reclamation Act, the federal government has spent $21.8 billion to construct 133 water projects in the west which provide water for irrigation. Irrigators, and other project beneficiaries, are required under the law to repay to the federal government their allocated share of the costs of constructing these projects. However, as a result of the subsidized financing provided by the federal government, some of the beneficiaries of federal water projects repay considerably less than their full share of these costs. According to the 1996 GAO report, irrigators generally receive the largest amount of federal financial assistance. Since the initiation of the irrigation program in 1902, construction costs associated with irrigation have been repaid without interest. The GAO further found, in reviewing the Bureau of Reclamation's financial reports, that $16.9 billion, or 78 percent, of the $21.8 billion of federal investment in water projects is considered to be reimbursable. Of the reimbursable costs, the largest share--$7.1 billion--is allocated to irrigators. As of September 30, 1994 irrigators have repaid only $941 million of the $7.1 billion they owe. GAO also found that the Bureau of Reclamation will likely shift $3.4 billion of the debt owed by irrigators to other users of the water projects for repayment. There are several reasons why irrigators continue to receive such significant subsidies. Under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982, Congress acted to expand the size of the farms that could receive subsidized water from 160 acres to 960 acres. The RRA of 1982 expressly prohibits farms that exceed 960 acres in size from receiving federally- subsidized water. These restrictions were added to the Reclamation law to close loopholes through which federal subsidies were flowing to large agribusinesses rather than the small family farmers that Reclamation projects were designed to serve. Agribusinesses were expected to pay full cost for all water received on land in excess of their 960 acre entitlement. Despite the express mandate of Congress, regulations promulgated under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 have failed to keep big agricultural water users from receiving federal subsidies. The General Accounting Office and the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior continue to find that the acreage limits established in law are circumvented through the creation of arrangements such as farming trusts. These trusts, which in total acreage well exceed the 960 acre limit, are comprised of smaller units that are not subject to the reclamation acreage cap. These smaller units are farmed under a single management agreement often through a combination of leasing and ownership. In a 1989 GAO report, the activities of six agribusiness trusts were fully explored. According to GAO, one 12,345 acre cotton farm (roughly 20 square miles), operating under a single partnership, was reorganized to avoid the 960 acre limitation into 15 separate land holdings through 18 partnerships, 24 corporations, and 11 trusts which were all operated as one large unit. A seventh very large trust was the sole topic of a 1990 GAO report. The Westhaven trust is a 23,238 acre farming operation in California's Central Valley. It was formed for the benefit of 326 salaried employees of the J.G. Boswell Company. Boswell, GAO found, had taken advantage of section 214 of the RRA, which exempts from its 960 acre limit land held for beneficiaries by a trustee in a fiduciary capacity, as long as no single beneficiary's interest exceeds the law's ownership limits. The RRA, as I have mentioned, does not preclude multiple land holdings from being operated collectively under a trust as one farm while qualifying individually for federally subsidized water. Accordingly, the J.G. Boswell Company re-organized 23,238 acres it held as the Boston Ranch by selling them to the Westhaven Trust, with the land holdings attributed to each beneficiary being eligible to receive federally subsidized water. Before the land was sold to Westhaven Trust, the J.G. Boswell Company operated the acreage as one large farm and paid full cost for the federal irrigation water delivered for the 18-month period ending in May 1989. When the trust bought the land, due to the loopholes in the law, the entire acreage became eligible to receive federally subsidized water because the land holding attributed to the 326 trust beneficiaries range from 21 acres to 547 acres--all well under the 960 acre limit. In the six cases the GAO reviewed in 1989, owners or lessees paid a total of about $1.3 million less in 1987 for federal water then they would have paid if their collective land holdings were considered as large farms subject to the Reclamation Act acreage limits. Had Westhaven Trust been required to pay full cost, GAO estimated in 1990, it would have paid $2 million more for its water. The GAO also found, in all seven of these cases, that reduced revenues are likely to continue unless Congress amends the Reclamation Act to close the loopholes allowing benefits for trusts. The Department of the Interior has acknowledged that these problems do exist. Interior published a final rulemaking in 1998 to require farm operators who provide services to more than 960 nonexempt acres westwide, held by a single trust or legal entity or any combination of trusts and legal entities to submit RRA forms to the district(s) where such land is located. Water districts are now required to provide specific information about farm operators to Interior annually. This information is an important step toward enforcing the legislation that I am reintroducing today. This legislation combines various elements of proposals introduced by other members of Congress to close loopholes in the 1982 legislation and to impose a $500,000 means-test. This new approach limits the amount of subsidized irrigation water delivered to any operation in excess of the 960 acre limit which claimed $500,000 or more in gross income, as reported on their most recent IRS tax form. If the $500,000 threshold were exceeded, an income ratio would be used to determine how much of the water should be delivered to the user at the full-cost rate, and how much at the below-cost rate. For example, if a 961 acre operation earned $1 million, a ratio of $500,000 (the means-test value) divided by their gross income would determine the full cost rate, thus the water user would pay the full cost rate on half of their acreage and the below cost rate on the remaining half. This means-testing proposal was featured, for the fifth year in a row, in the 2000 Green Scissors report. This report is compiled annually by Friends of the Earth and Taxpayers for Common Sense and supported by a number of environmental, consumer and taxpayer groups. The premise of the report is that there are a number of subsidies and projects that could be cut to both reduce the deficit and benefit the environment. This report underscores what I and many others in the Senate have long known: we must eliminate practices that can no longer be justified in light of our effort to achieve a truly balanced budget and eliminate our national debt. The Green Scissors recommendation on means-testing water subsidies indicates that if a test is successful in reducing subsidy payments to the highest grossing 10% of farms, then the federal government would recover between $440 million and $1.1 billion per year, or at least $2.2 billion over five years. When countless federal program are subjected to various types of means-test to limit benefits to those who truly need assistance, it makes little sense to continue to allow large business interests to dip into a program intended to help small entities struggling to survive. Taxpayers have legitimate concerns when they learn that their hard earned tax dollars are being expended to assist large corporate interests in select regions of the country who benefit from these loopholes, particularly in tight budgetary times. Other users of federal water projects, such as the power recipients, should also be concerned when they learn that they will be expected to pick up the tab for a portion of the funds that irrigators were supposed to pay back. The federal water program was simply never intended to benefit these large interests, and I hope that legislative efforts, such as the measure I am introducing today, will prompt Congress to fully reevaluate our federal water pricing policy. In conclusion, Mr. President, it is clear that the conflicting policies of the federal government in this area are in need of reform, and that Congress should act. Large agribusinesses should not be able to continue to soak the taxpayers, and should pay their fair share. We should act to close these loopholes and increase the return to the treasury from irrigators as soon as possible. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am very pleased to once again introduce a campaign reform bill with my friend and colleague, the Senator from Arizona. This year we have an important new cosponsor, the senior Senator from Mississippi, Senator Thad Cochran, so this bill will be known as the McCain-Feingold-Cochran campaign reform bill. This is the fourth Congress in which Senator McCain and I have introduced a bill. We have made progress each year, and now we are closer than ever to finishing the job for the American people. The time for campaign finance reform to pass the Congress and become law has now come Mr. President. And Senator McCain and I are going to dedicate ourselves to this issue like never before to make it happen. The bill we are introducing today is broader than S. 1593, the bill we took to the floor in October 1999, but narrower than S. 26, the McCain-Feingold bill that was introduced in the beginning of the last Congress. Our bill this year consists of a soft money ban, the Snowe- Jeffords language on issue ads, the Beck provision on union dues, and a few other provisions that will provide credibility to this reform bill as it's passed into law. Very significant in my mind is a clear prohibition on political fundraising in federal office buildings. This is a strong base bill for reform, but we are ready and willing to entertain the suggestions and proposals of all 98 other Senators. Each of us in this body is an expert on this issue, and I know that many of my colleagues have innovative ideas on how to improve our election laws. Any amendment that adds to this bill in a positive way and and doesn't undercut its basic principles will be given every consideration. One provision on which we will not compromise is the ban on soft money. The bill here is as tough and comprehensive as possible, leaving no room for the soft money abuses we have seen in the last decade. Obviously, loopholes will develop over time, but I am satisfied that this bill closes the soft money system down and anticipates at least some of the clever schemes that might be developed to avoid the ban. In the last election cycle, we saw over $500 million in soft money raised by the political parties. This system is a scandal that we must eliminate now. The bill includes the Snowe-Jeffords language on issue ads. This provision will have a major impact on labor union ads, but it is fair and balanced between unions and corporations. It will have minimal impact on established advocacy groups like National Right to Life and the Sierra Club because they have a significant small donor base, but it will prevent corporations and unions from laundering money through such groups. It allows groups to continue to run these ads as long as they use only individual money and disclose the large donors to the effort. The provision covers only phony issue ads on radio and TV, not direct mail, phone banks, or newspapers, or the Internet, but we are open to working with all sides to work out a fair and balanced way to broaden its coverage if that is what the Senate wants to do. Similarly, we are open to proposals that will require additional disclosure of election related spending by unions, corporations, and advocacy groups. But they must treat all players in this system evenly and fairly. That brings me to the issue that has received a lot of attention in recent weeks, so called ``paycheck protection.'' In the past, this has been a poison pill to reform, but with the changes in the Senate, we clearly have the votes to defeat the extreme and one-sided ``paycheck protection proposals that have been offered in the past. We will hold the President and those working with him to the standard that he himself has enunciated any proposal has to be fair and balanced. Our bill is currently fair and balanced. It treats unions and corporations equally. The paycheck protection proposals we have seen in the past are not fair and balanced. They attack only one player in the election system labor unions. Mr. President, I look forward to a real debate early this year, not only on our bill but on amendments that my colleagues want to offer. I am happy to meet with any Senator who wants to discuss a reform proposal. If we all work together, this process can yield a campaign reform bill that we will be proud of, and we can start out this new Congress by cleaning up our elections and ridding our system of the corrupting of soft money.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Arizona for his kind remarks. I am happy to be back with him on this effort. As John McCain has said many times, we know that every Member of the Senate is an expert on this issue. Every Member has ideas about how we should reform the campaign finance system. What we want out of this is an opportunity for an open amending process so the Senate as a whole can fashion a bill to send to the President.

Mr. FEINGOLD. I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce the Quality Cheese Act of 2000. This legislation will protect the consumer, save taxpayer dollars and provide support to America's dairy farmers, who have taken a beating in the marketplace in recent years. When Wisconsin consumers have the choice, they will choose natural Wisconsin cheese, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) may change current law, and consumers won't know whether cheese is really all natural or not. If the federal government creates a loophole for imitation cheese ingredients to be used in U.S. cheese vats, cheese bearing the labels ``domestic'' and ``natural'' will no longer be truly accurate. If USDA and FDA allow a change in federal rules, imitation milk proteins known as milk protein concentrate or casein, could be used to make cheese in place of the wholesome natural milk produced by cows in Wisconsin or other part of the U.S. Mr. President, I am deeply concerned by recent efforts to change America's natural cheese standard. This effort to allow milk protein concentrate and casein into natural cheese products flies in the face of logic and could create a loophole for unlimited amounts of substandard imported milk proteins to enter U.S. cheese vats. My legislation will close this loophole and ensure that consumers can be confident that they are buying natural cheese when they see the natural label. Our dairy farmers have invested heavily in processes that make the best quality cheese ingredients, and I am concerned about recent efforts to change the law that would penalize them for those efforts by allowing lower quality ingredients to flood the U.S. market. Over the past decade, cheese consumption has risen at a strong pace due to promotional and marketing efforts and investments by dairy farmers across the country. Year after year, per capita cheese consumption has risen at a steady rate. Back in the 1980's, when I served in the Wisconsin State Senate, cheese consumption topped 20 pounds per person. During the 1990s consumption increased by over 25 percent, and passed 25 pounds per person. Last year we saw an even more dramatic increase when per capita cheese consumption rose an amazing 1.5 pounds to reach 29.8 pounds. This one-year increase amounts to the largest expansion since 1982! I am proud to say that my home state of Wisconsin, America's dairyland, was one of the main engines behind this growth. After all, when consumers see the label ``Wisconsin Cheese,'' they know that it is synonymous with quality. Over the past two decades consumers have increased their cheese consumption due to their understanding, and taste for the quality natural cheese produced by America's dairy industry. Recent proposals to change to our natural cheese standard could decrease consumption of natural cheese. These declines could result from concerns about the origin of casein and other forms of dry UF milk. The vast majority of dry ultra filtered milk originates from countries with State Trading Enterprises. Many of these countries subsidize their dairy exports through these trading mechanisms, and have quality standards that are well below those of the United States. While it is difficult to obtain specific numbers about the amount of dry UF milk produced in foreign countries, I have heard disturbing stories about the conditions under which the casein and milk proteins are sometimes produced. For the most part, dry UF milk is not produced in the US. In fact, it is, for the most part, produced in countries where sanitary standards are well below those of the United States. These products are sold on the international market, and under the proposed rule they could be labeled as natural cheese. This cheap, low quality dry UF milk tends to leave cheese greasy and increases separation problems. The addition of this kind of milk will certainly leave the wholesome reputation of ``natural cheese'' significantly tarnished in the eyes of the consumer. This change would seriously compromise decades of work by America's dairy farmers to build up domestic cheese consumption levels. It is simply not fair to America's farmers! Mr. President, consumers have a right to know if the cheese they buy is unnatural. And by allowing unnatural dry UF milk into cheese, we are denying consumers the entire picture. This legislation will paint the entire picture for the consumer, and allow them enough information to select cheese made from truly natural ingredients. Allowing dry Ultra-Filtered milk into cheeses will have a significant adverse impact on dairy producers throughout the United States. Some estimate that the annual effect of the change on the dairy farm sector of the economy could be more than $100 million. The proposed change to our natural cheese standard would also harm the American taxpayer. If we allow dry UF milk to be used in cheese we will effectively permit unrestricted importation of these ingredients into the United States. Because there are no tariffs and quotas on these ingredients, these heavily subsidized products will displace natural domestic dairy ingredients. These unnatural domestic dairy products will enter our domestic cheese market and may further depress dairy prices paid to American dairy producers. Low dairy prices result in increased costs to the dairy price support program. So, at the same time that U.S. dairy farmers are receiving lower prices, the U.S. taxpayer will be paying more for the dairy price support program. Mr. President, this change does not benefit the dairy farmer, consumer or taxpayer. Who then is it good for? The obvious answer is nobody. America's farmers have invested a tremendous amount of time and effort to create the best cheese industry in the world. They should not be penalized for their efforts. This legislation addresses the concerns of farmers, consumers and taxpayers by prohibiting dry ultra-filtered milk from being included in America's natural cheese standard. Congress must shut the door on any backdoor efforts to stack the deck against America's dairy farmers. And we must pass my legislation that prevents a loophole that would allow changes that hurt the consumer, taxpayer and dairy farmer. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a measure that will begin to restore to many dairy farmers throughout the nation, part of the market power they have lost in recent years. Mr. President, when dairy farmers across the country voted on a referendum two years ago--perhaps the most significant change in dairy policy in sixty years--they didn't actually get to vote. Instead, their dairy marketing cooperatives will cast their votes for them. This procedure is called bloc voting and it is used all the time. Basically, a Cooperative's Board of Directors decides that, in the interest of time, bloc voting will be implemented for that particular vote. In the interest of time, but not always in the interest of their producer owner-members. Mr. President, I do think that bloc voting can be a useful tool in some circumstances, but I have serious concerns about its use in every circumstance. Farmers in Wisconsin and in other states tell me that they do not agree with their Cooperative's view on every vote. Yet, they have no way to preserve their right to make their single vote count. After speaking to farmers and officials at USDA, I have learned that if a Cooperative bloc votes, individual members simply have no opportunity to voice opinions separately. That seems unfair when you consider what a monumental issue is at stake. Coops and their members do not always have identical interests. We shouldn't ask farmers to ignore that fact. Mr. President, the Democracy for Dairy Producers Act of 2001 is simple and fair. It provides that a cooperative cannot deny any of its members a ballot if one or two or ten or all of the members chose to vote on their own. This will in no way slow down the process at USDA; implementation of any rule or regulation would be able to proceed on schedule. Also, I do not expect that this would change the final outcome of any given vote. Coops could still cast votes for their members who do not exercise their right to vote individually. And to the extent that coops represent farmers interest, farmers are likely to vote along with the coops, but whether they join the coops or not, farmers deserve the right to vote according to their own views. I urge my colleagues to return just a little bit of power to America's farmers, and a little bit of pure democracy to the vote on issues that have such an impact on their future. I urge my colleagues to support the Democracy for Dairy Producers Act, a dairy bill without regional bias. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Chuck Robb, a friend and colleague whom I deeply admire. Throughout our service together in the U.S. Senate, I have observed Senator Robb's unfailing commitment to principle. Chuck Robb served his country courageously in Vietnam, and he served the Commonwealth of Virginia just as courageously in the U.S. Senate. Time and again, he voted his conscience, despite pressures to the contrary. Senator Robb let principle, not politics, be his guide during his service in the body. His conduct should give every American faith that legislators can conduct themselves in a way that does honor to our democracy. Senator Robb opposed the flag desecration constitutional amendment, opposed the Defense of Marriage Act, and supported spending cuts while opposing the politically popular tax cuts. He did what he thought was in the best interest of Virginians and the nation, and I thank him for that. The Senate is a better place for Senator Robb's service, and I join my colleagues in wishing him and his family all the best as he moves on to new endeavors.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. I thank the Senator from Alaska for helping me to clarify these issues. the torres-MARTINEZ DESERT CAHUILLA INDIANS CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT OF 2000

Mr. FEINGOLD. As my colleague further knows, the conveyance reservations contained in 43 C.F.R. Sec. 2653.11 prohibit the grantee from authorizing any mining or mineral activity of any type, or ``any use which is incompatible with or is in derogation of the values of the area as a cemetery or historic place'' as defined further by 36 C.F.R. Sec. 800.9. Is it the case that nothing in this act is intended to prevent the United States from seeking enforcement of such prohibitions, as authorized under C.F.R. 2653.11?

Mr. FEINGOLD. As the Senator knows, 43 C.F.R. Sec. 2653.5 requires that regional corporations that are conveyed cemetery sites or historical places pursuant to section 14(h) of ANCSA agree to accept a covenant in the conveyance that these cemetery sites or historical places will be maintained and preserved solely as cemetery sites or historical places by the regional corporation, in accordance with the provisions for conveyance reservations in 43 C.F.R. Sec. 2653.11. Is it the case that, if the Secretary of the Interior chooses to act favorably on these conveyance applications, nothing in this act is intended to prevent the Secretary from complying with the covenant requirements of these regulations in conveying these seven parcels of land to the CAC?

Mr. FEINGOLD. Am I further correct in my understanding that one of these parcels, Coghill Point, is near an area which was determined to be eligible for designation as a wild and scenic river as part of the Chugach National Forest planning process?

Mr. FEINGOLD. Am I also correct in my understanding that five of these parcels covered by these applications are currently within the Nellie Juan-College Fjord Wilderness Study Area, WSA, designated by Congress in section 704 of Public Law 96-487, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, ANILCA?

Mr. FEINGOLD. As I understand the legislation, it directs the Secretary of the Interior to reinstate applications for the conveyance of seven parcels of land, now in federal ownership as part of the Chugach National Forest, for a determination of eligibility for conveyance to the CAC as historical places or cemetery sites under section 14(h) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, ANCSA. Is that correct?

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I appreciate the work of my colleague from Colorado, Mr. Campbell, and of my colleague from Hawaii, Mr. Inouye on H.R. 5528, the Omnibus Indian Advancement Act. I am pleased that this measure includes several provisions that will benefit Wisconsin tribes. However, I have concerns regarding title XV of this measure, which reinstates applications for particular parcels of land that are now part of the Chugach National Forest to be conveyed to the Chugach Alaska Corporation, CAC, the Alaska Native Corporation for the Chugach Region. The provisions included in title XV of H.R. 5528 differ from those included in title II of H.R. 2547 and its companion bill in this body S. 1686. These bills are in the jurisdiction of the Senate Energy Committee. Would the Senator be willing to allow me to engage in discussion with the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Murkowski to clarify a few important points about this legislation?

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise with regret to mark another milestone in the history of our system of justice. This morning's papers report that yesterday the state of Texas carried out its 39th execution, the most of any state since 1862, when the military hanged 39 Native Americans in one day in Minnesota. This evening, Texas is scheduled to surpass that record with its 40th execution. This is a regrettable record. This year, as of yesterday, states in America have executed 82 people. We have reached a sad state of affairs when this Country executes nearly 100 people every year. In 1998, only China and the Congo executed more people a year than did the United States. And we have reached an inequitable state of affairs when nearly half of the executions this year--39 out of the 82 to date--were carried out in just one state. The state with the next most executions this year, Oklahoma, has had 11 executions. Southern states have carried out nearly 9 out of 10 executions that have taken place this year. Across the street, the building that holds the Supreme Court of the United States has emblazoned across its pediment the words ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' In a Nation that prides itself in that equal justice, how can we abide a system where nearly half of the executions are carried out in just one state? Finally, I rise to mark another milestone. On Tuesday of next week, the Federal Government is scheduled to reenter the grim business of execution. For nearly 40 years, no one has been executed in the name of the people of the United States. That is set to change next Tuesday. In light of the demonstrated evidence of regional and racial disparity in the application of this most final punishment, I call on the President to stay that execution. I call on the President to impose a moratorium on Federal executions and establish a blue ribbon commission to examine the fairness of the system of capital punishment in America. In September, the Department of Justice released a report on the federal death penalty system. That report found that whether the federal system sends people to death row appears to be related to the federal district in which they are prosecuted or the color of their skin. After the Justice Department released the report, White House spokesman Jake Siewert confirmed the President's view that ``these numbers are troubling'' and that more information must be gathered to determine ``more about how the system works and what's behind those numbers,'' including ``why minorities in some geographic districts are disproportionately represented.'' We do not yet know why our federal system produces racially and geographically lopsided results. We need a systematic review. Many are joining in asking the President for a moratorium on executions. Their ranks include, among so many others, Lloyd Cutler, the esteemed former adviser to Presidents Carter and Clinton; Julian Bond, Chairman of the NAACP; and the Reverend Joseph Lowrey, chair of the Black Leadership Forum and President emeritus of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Yes, justice demands that crimes be punished. But if we demand justice, we must administer justice fairly. Before we reach the milestone of reinstituting Federal executions, let us pause to evaluate the fairness of our Nation's machinery of death. Mr. President, let this be a milestone that we choose not to reach, next week. God willing, let this be a milestone that we choose not to reach, if ever, for some time to come.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I will quote from the editorial: When the credit card industry came to Congress to ask for help in collecting debts from deadbeats, Congress should have said: It's not government's job to bail you out. Why don't you tighten up your own lending practices? Instead, Congress let the industry turn a bankruptcy reform bill into a debt collection assistance plan. The editorial continues: The House and Senate had before them 172 recommendations from the National Bankruptcy Reform Commission, which was led by Madison attorney Brady Williamson. The commission had stressed that bankruptcy law must remain balanced: It must work for creditors and debtors. But the Congressmen also had before them lobbyists for the credit card industry and similar lenders. Quickly, bankruptcy reform legislation became a campaign fund-raising bonanza for the politicians, with the lending industry ``investing'' $20 million in contributions. Just as quickly, bankruptcy reform turned into the credit card industry's bill. My colleagues are well aware of my concern about the influence of money on politics and policy. As I have said a number of times on this floor over this past year, this bankruptcy bill is really a poster child for the need for campaign finance reform. You only have to look at what the credit card industries get in this bill and, just as importantly, the disclosure that consumers don't get to understand that. There is another thing missing in this bill. Remember, this bill is supposedly designed to end the abuses of the bankruptcy system by people who really can't afford to pay off more of their debts. But the biggest abuses, and all the experts agree on this, come when wealthy people in certain States file for bankruptcy by taking advantage of very large or unlimited homestead exemptions that are available in their States. Some people with large debts even move to a State such as Florida or Texas where there is an unlimited homestead exemption specifically for the purpose of filing for bankruptcy. The National Bankruptcy Review Commission and virtually all leading academics believe that homestead exemptions are being abused and that a national standard is, indeed, needed. And, by a vote of 76-22, the Senate adopted a very good amendment from my colleague, the senior Senator from Wisconsin, which would have closed the loophole. That amendment would have put a $100,000 cap on the amount of money that a debtor shield from creditors through the homestead exemption. But almost unbelievably, after that overwhelming bipartisan vote in the Senate, that amendment was stripped out of the bill by a group of Senators--again working in secret--and it was replaced by a weak substitute. The bill that has been stuffed into this conference report limits the homestead exemption to $100,000 but only for property purchased within 2 years of filing for bankruptcy. That means that wealthy debtors can plan for bankruptcy by moving to an unlimited homestead exemption State, buying a palatial estate and putting off their creditors for 2 years before filing bankruptcy. If they do that, they can continue to shield millions of dollars in assets and throw off their debts with the bankruptcy discharge. The bill will have no effect on this abuse of the bankruptcy system. This bill will not close the homestead exemption loophole of people like Burt Reynolds and Bowie Kuhn have used in the past. Supporters of this bill have chosen to ignore reforms that would give this bill real balance. Somehow the interests of wealthy debtors who use the homestead exemption to abuse the bankruptcy system are more important than the interests of hard-working Americans who, through no fault of their own, whether from a medical catastrophe or the loss of a job or a divorce, are forced to seek the financial fresh start that bankruptcy has made possible since the beginning of our Republic. It is interesting, and very revealing, to contrast the treatment by this bill of wealthy homeowners who abuse the bankruptcy system with how it treats poor tenants who need the protection of the bankruptcy system to keep from being thrown out on the street while they try to get their affairs in order. As I mentioned, the provision dealing with the homestead exemption is virtually meaningless. At the same time, the bill includes a draconian provision that denies the bankruptcy stay to tenants trying to hold off eviction proceedings, even if they are able to pay their rent while the bankruptcy is pending. I think this provision--I hesitate to use this language--has become something that is purely punitive. It will have no impact at all on getting debtors to pay past due rent. It will result in people being evicted who are not abusing the bankruptcy system, but who are trying to use it for exactly the purpose for which it was intended--to get a fresh start and become once again productive members of our society. When the bankruptcy bill was before the Senate at the beginning of this year, I tried very hard to pass an amendment that would have made the bill less harsh on tenants while at the same time denying the protection of the automatic stay to repeat filers who are abusing the system, and who, as I understand it, were the whole reason why they want to change the provision. I listened to the arguments of the Senator from Alabama who had concerns about my original amendment. What I did then was to modify the amendment to take account of some reasonable hypothetical situations that the Senator from Alabama came up with in our debates in committee and then here on the floor. But the realtors strongly opposed my amendment and the Senate rejected it by a nearly party line vote. That was unfortunate. It confirmed my view that this bill is not balanced. It is not rational. It is about punishing people, not just stopping the abuses that we all agree should be stopped. Shortly before the election, the Senator from Alabama was on the floor once again arguing that this bill is necessary to crack down on tenants abusing the bankruptcy system to live rent free. My amendment would have cracked down on those abusers too, but without harming good faith debtors who need the automatic stay of an eviction to avoid homelessness and be able to pay some of their debts. The failure of the majority to recognize the harshness of the bill on this point and accept a reasonable amendment that deals with the abuse just as effectively was a great disappointment to me. It reinforced by judgment that this bill is not balanced, it is not fair. Let me turn to what proponents view as the central feature of this bill, the means test. After much work, I believe this feature of the bill is still flawed and unfair. The means test is the mechanism that the bill's proponents believe will force people who can really some portion of their debts into Chapter 13 repayment plans instead of Chapter 7 discharges. The means test requires every debtor to file detailed information on their expenses and income which is then analyzed according to a formula. Those who pass the means test can file a Chapter 7 case; those who fail would have to file under Chapter 13. The bill that is now before us includes an important ``safe harbor'' for debtors who are below the median income. The means test does not apply to them. That is a good thing, since studies show that only 2 or 3 percent of debtors would be required to move from Chapter 7 to Chapter 13 under the means test. But even with that ``safe harbor,'' the bill has significant problems. First, the bill specifies that for purposes of determining the safe harbor, the median income for each individual state should be used, rather than the higher of the state or national median income. This will unfairly disadvantage people who live in high cost areas of low median income states. In the Senate bill, we included a safe harbor from creditor motions that applied to people with income less than either the national or the median income. The people who drafted this final bill ignored that standard. I doubt they really believe it will mean that more abusers of the system will be caught by the means test. But they did it anyway, giving further evidence of the arbitrary nature of this bill. In addition, the means test still employs standards of reasonable living expenses developed by the Internal Revenue code for a wholly different purposes. These standards are too inflexible to be fair in determining what families can live on as they go through a bankruptcy. They are arbitrary. And they are also ambiguous with respect to things like car payments because they were not designed to be used in this context. We have pointed this out repeatedly over the past few years, but the sponsors of the legislation have insisted on using these inflexible IRS standards. The safe harbor from the means test also inexplicably counts a separated spouse's income as income available to a mother with children who has filed for bankruptcy, even if the spouse is not paying any child support. This can't be fair. Let me repeat that. Mothers filing for bankruptcy because their spouses have left them are treated for purposes of the safe harbor as if the spouse's income is still available to them. That is what the bill we are about to vote on does. It makes no sense. It is arbitrary and punitive. But perhaps the thing that is most curious about the means test is that while we now have a safe harbor for lower income people, they still have to fill out all the same paperwork, doing all of means test calculations using the IRS expense standards. Why is that? If the intent is to exempt lower income debtors from the means test, why have them go through the means test anyway? The burden of the means test for these people is not the result--a tiny percentage would ever be sent to Chapter 13 because of it. No, it is the burdensome paperwork that is the problem. This bill makes it more difficult to file for bankruptcy. By leaving the paperwork requirements in place, the means test remains a barrier for low income debtors, even with the safe harbor. Let me give you one example. This bill would deny the protection of bankruptcy to a single mother with income well below the State median income if she does not present copies of income tax returns for the last 3 years, even if those returns are in the possession of her ex- husband. I can see no justification for this result whatsoever. So for those supporters of the bill who trumpet the safe harbor, I ask you: Why doesn't the bill apply the same safe harbor to creditor motions as the Senate bill did, and why doesn't it exempt people who fall within the safe harbor from the paperwork requirements? I have yet to hear reasonable answers to those questions, which leads me to believe that there are no reasonable answers. This bill is arbitrary, and it is punitive. This bill also includes a number of ``presumptions of nondischargeability'' provisions, which basically say, ``these debts can't be discharged in bankruptcy because we think they look like people are running up bills in contemplation of bankruptcy.'' In other words, they are abusing the system. They are accumulating debt with no intention of paying it off. The problem is that these presumptions are unfair. So instead of being a deterrent to abuse of the system, they are simply a gift to the credit industry, and a harsh punishment to hard working people trying to do the best they can to meet their obligations to their families. One such provision creates a presumption of nondischargeability if a debtor takes $750 of cash advances within 70 days of bankruptcy. Seven hundred fifty dollars in a little more than two months. That is not much. I think all of us can imagine a single mother with children who loses her job or has unexpected medical bills for her kids and has to use cash advances to buy food and for her family or pay her rent. But if that woman files for bankruptcy, the debt to the credit card company is presumed to be fraudulent. That means that the debt from those cash advances will not be discharged by bankruptcy. It will still hang over her head as she tries to get back on her feet and support her family after the bankruptcy proceeding is over. That is not balanced. Once again, this bill gives special treatment to credit card companies at the expense of the most vulnerable members of our society. It is arbitrary and punitive. This example shows how empty the proponent's arguments are when they claim that the bill gives first priority to alimony and child support. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee had a big chart listing all the ways that the bill supposedly helps women and children. But, as has already been mentioned by other Senators on the floor, 116 law professors have written to us to contest that claim. Let me quote from their letter because I think it is very important to hear these arguments in some detail. The letter says: Granting ``first priority'' to alimony and support claims is not the magic solution the consumer credit industry claims because ``priority'' is relevant only for distributions made to creditors in the bankruptcy case itself. Such distributions are made in only a negligible percentage of cases. More than 95 percent of bankruptcy cases make no distributions to any creditors because there are no assets to distribute. Granting women and children a first priority for bankruptcy distributions permits them to stand first in line to collect nothing. Women's hard-fought battle is over reaching the ex- husband's income after bankruptcy. Under current law, child support and alimony share a protected post-bankruptcy position with only two other recurrent collectors of debt-- taxes and student loans. The credit industry asks that credit card debt and other consumer credit share that position, thereby elbowing aside the women trying to collect on their own behalf. . . . As a matter of public policy, this country should not elevate credit card debt to the preferred position of taxes and child support. Mr. President, what the law professors point out so convincingly is that the key issue is not how the limited assets of a debtor are distributed in bankruptcy, but what debts survive bankruptcy and will compete for the debtor's income when the bankruptcy is over. In a variety of ways, this bill will encourage reaffirmation agreements and increase nondischargeability claims which will lead to more debtors having more debt that continues after bankruptcy. That is what hurts women and children, not the priority of child support claims in the bankruptcy itself. The priority of claims in the bankruptcy itself is almost meaningless since in the vast majority of bankruptcy cases there are no assets to distribute. People are broke, and they do not have anything to sell to satisfy their creditors. That is why they file for bankruptcy. You can't squeeze blood from a stone. One of the most interesting things about this bill, as I have seen in other legislation as well in recent years, is the almost Orwellian names of some of its provisions. There are a number of them. For example, there is a title of this bill with the name ``Enhanced Consumer Protection,'' but many of the provisions in this title actually offer little, if any, protection at all. The weak credit card disclosure provisions are an example. Yes, those may be enhanced consumer protections, enhanced from nothing, but they are not considered sufficient by any organization, not one organization, whose primary concern is consumer protection. There is another section with the so-called ``Enhanced Consumer Protection'' title called ``Protection of Retirement Savings in Bankruptcy.'' That sounds pretty good. What the provision actually does is put a cap on the amount of retirement savings that is put out of reach of creditors in a bankruptcy proceeding. Before this bill, there was no limit at all on the amount of retirement savings that can be protected. So this bill is not an enhanced consumer protection at all. It is a step backward for consumers and hard-working Americans who tried to put aside some money for their golden years. Incidentally, this provision is nowhere to be found in either the bankruptcy bill that passed the Senate or the bill that passed the House. This is one of those provisions that appeared out of nowhere. In fact, before a firestorm of criticism forced him to reconsider, the Senator who proposed this provision wanted to let consumers waive the existing protection of retirement savings in boilerplate consumer credit agreements. So the $1 million cap is an improvement over what the sponsors of this bill tried to do, but it is hardly a protection. Here is another sort of Orwellian title. Section 306 is called ``Giving Secured Creditors Fair Treatment Under Chapter 13.'' It ought to be called ``Giving Certain Secured Creditors Preferred Treatment Under Chapter 13'' because it favors those who make car loans over other secured creditors and over unsecured creditors. Here is how it works. There is, of course, a concept in bankruptcy law currently called cramdown or stripdown. It recognizes the fact that the collateral for some kinds of loans can lose value over time so it may be worth significantly less than the debt owed. Remember that in a bankruptcy proceeding, secured creditors get paid first, but the cramdown concept says to those creditors that they only get paid first up to the amount of the value of the collateral for the loan. After that, if they are still owed money, they have to get in line with the other unsecured creditors. To give a more tangible example, if someone owes $10,000 on a car loan, but the car which is collateral for that loan is worth only $7,000 now, then only $7,000 of that loan is considered secured in a bankruptcy. That makes perfect sense since the maker of that loan has the right to repossess the car, but if it does that, it can only get $7,000 when it sells the car. What the bill does is eliminate the cramdown for any car that is purchased within 5 years of bankruptcy. That means that even though the vehicle that secures the loan has lost much of its value, the entire amount of the debt must be repaid in a chapter 13 plan. This gives special treatment to the lender and, more importantly, it will make it much more difficult for a chapter 13 plan to work, and that will hurt people who want to pay off their debts in an organized fashion under chapter 13. Most people file chapter 13 cases because they want to keep their cars. The cramdown allows them to reduce their car payments to a reasonable amount, leaving enough money to pay off other secured creditors and make a repayment plan work. According to the chapter 13 trustees who know what they are talking about since they deal with these cases day in and day out, this single provision of the bill will increase the number of unsuccessful chapter 13 plans by 20 percent. Making it more difficult to get chapter 13 plans confirmed will lead to more repossessions of cars and ultimately to more chapter 7 filings. Even where a chapter 13 plan can be confirmed and is successful, the anticramdown provision will reduce the amount a creditor can pay to unsecured creditors or to child support or alimony. In essence, payments on a car worth far less than the debt are given priority over child support, another example of how this bill is arbitrary and punitive and how the claims of the bill's proponents that the bill will help women and children are empty indeed. The anticramdown provision undermines the efficacy of chapter 13. All the experts tell us that. I have to point out the irony here. The avowed purpose of proponents of this bill is to move people from chapter 7 discharges to chapter 13 repayment plans. Yet the bill actually has the effect of undermining chapter 13. There is even another provision in this bill that undercuts chapter 13. A small group of Senators who shaped this bill in a shadow conference accepted a provision from the House bill that says for those debtors with income above their State's median income, chapter 13 plans must extend over 5 years rather than 3. That is a 66-percent increase in payments required to complete the plan. In view of the fact that the majority of 3-year plans fail, the requirement that the debtor go 2 more years without an income interruption or unexpected expenses will inevitably lead to an even higher rate of chapter 13 plan failures and discourage even more debtors from filing voluntarily under chapter 13. As I have said before, this bill is really, in a way, at war with itself. Bankruptcy experts from around the country tell us clearly that it will not work. This bill will destroy chapter 13 as an option for many debtors. If we pass it, I am convinced we will be back here trying to fix it once it starts to take its toll on the American people. In the meantime, how many lives will be made harder? How much more heartache are we going to inflict on hard-working Americans? I have spoken for quite awhile here about the problems with this bill. In fact, I am sorry to say, I have probably only just scratched the surface. This is an immensely complicated bill about a very technical area of the law. There are provisions in this bill that I would venture to guess that no one in this body really understands. Indeed, some of the statements by proponents of the bill indicate that they don't understand bankruptcy law or this bill. This is the kind of bill where we need to rely on the experts to give us some real guidance. And we just have not done that here. Once again, we have a letter from 116 law professors. They are from all across the country. They are not debtors' lawyers, they are not all Democrats, they do not have an ideological agenda. They just understand the law and care about how it operates. And they are pleading with us. Let me quote from their letter: Please don't pass a bill that will hurt vulnerable Americans, including women and children. That is what the 116 law professors say. This is extraordinary. The experts beg us to listen to them. They do not have a financial interest here. They do not represent debtors. None of them is in danger of declaring bankruptcy. They just hate to see this Congress make such a big mistake in writing the laws. They do not want us to ruin the bankruptcy system, which dates back to the earliest days of our country, by passing a bill that is so unbalanced, so arbitrary, and so punitive. We have one last chance to listen to these experts, one last chance to step back from the brink of passing a very bad law, a law that I believe we will come to regret. It is a matter of simple fairness and simple justice. I want to assure my colleagues that I am not opposed to reform of the bankruptcy laws. I know there are abuses that need to be stopped. I voted for a bill here in 1998 that passed the Senate with only a handful of votes in opposition. There are things we can do--and should do--to improve the bankruptcy system. There are loopholes we can close and abuses we can address. We can do it in a bipartisan way. We can write a balanced bill that the Senate and the country can be proud of. We can rely on the advice of experts, as we have always done in this complicated area in the past. But we did not do that here. We relied on the credit card industry, which has showered Senators and the political parties with campaign contributions, and it shows. I urge my colleagues to vote against this unfair bill. This Senate can do better, and we will do better next year if this bill is defeated. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I would like the opportunity to address the bankruptcy issue, and I am here to say that I am very disappointed that the majority leader chose to bring this bankruptcy bill back to the floor. Let me remind my colleagues that the House passed this conference report on October 12, and the majority leader first moved to proceed to the conference report on October 19--well before the election. He could have sought and invoked cloture on the bill and had this final debate any time in the month before the election. Instead, he waited until right before the election, and then was unable to get cloture because many Senators, of course, were back home in their States campaigning. In this lame duck session when we ought to be doing only the business that is essential to keep the Government running and leave substantive legislation to the representatives of the people who were duly elected on November 7, only now has cloture been invoked and we are headed for a vote on final passage. We are here in a lame-duck session, taking final action on an extraordinarily important and controversial and far- reaching substantive legislation. The American people didn't vote for this Senate on November 7. With all due respect, they voted for a new Senate, with a decidedly different makeup. Why did the majority leader bring up this bill again? Why is he trying to put this bill through in this lame-duck session? The Senate is going to have a very different makeup in a month, and this legislation might turn out very differently in the next Congress. I suppose because we are all eager to finally bring this Congress to a close he thought there would be pressure on those Members who oppose the bill to relinquish the debate time the Senate rules provide for and let the bill go to final passage without a fight. The supporters of this bill want to get this over with, pass the bill, and send it to the President where it will certainly meet a veto pen or perhaps a veto pocket, depending on when the other business of the Senate is completed. Before we recessed for the election, I spoke at some length about the very regrettable procedure that was used to bring this bankruptcy bill back to the floor. I continue to believe that allowing four Senators meeting in secret in a conference committee to write the final version of the bill that we are now considering is a terrible affront to the tradition of reasoned deliberation in this body. As I said before, this procedure diminishes the Senate floor in favor of the backroom conference committee chosen to address these issues by none but themselves, accountable to none but themselves and open to observations by none but themselves. This procedure sets a terrible precedent for our work, and I sincerely hope it will never be used again. I would be remiss in my responsibilities as a Senator if I did not also speak about the terrible damage that this bill will do to the bankruptcy system in our country and, even more importantly, to so many hard-working American families who will bear the brunt of the unfair so-called reforms that are included in this bill. It is a good thing that this bill will not become law. The President's veto, whether by pocket or by pen, will protect our country's most vulnerable citizens from a harsh and unfair measure pushed through this Congress by the most powerful and wealthy lobbying forces in this country. President Clinton will do a service to those citizens by standing up to powerful special interests and vetoing this bill in the waning days of his administration. First, let me talk about what is not in this bill, which is directly related to the fact that powerful special interests have had the chance to shape it. As I have discussed on this floor before a number of times, this bill is not a balanced piece of legislation. The interests that are the strongest supporters of this bill--the credit card companies and the big banks--succeeded in limiting the provisions that will have any effect on the way they do business. These interests gave us and our political parties millions of dollars of campaign contributions and they like the results they achieved in this bill. Billions of credit card solicitations go out each year to consumers-- not millions but billions. Most experts agree that part of the rise in bankruptcy filings over the past decade, although the number is actually now on the way down, is due to credit card companies and the banks irresponsibly extending credit to people who have already shown they cannot handle additional debt. I have next to me a pile of credit card solicitations. This pile of solicitations was collected by just one of my staff members over the past year and a half since this bill was marked up in the Senate Judiciary Committee. These were sent to his home. This pile of solicitations, 85 in all, came in the mail to one person--one person-- in the last 19 months. I am sure that the member of my staff is a very creditworthy individual, but 85 offers for a new credit card--and these direct mail offers don't include the constant invitations for credit cards that people see every day on the Internet and on the TV. This industry's sales techniques are out of control. The credit card companies are making bad decisions every day, and now they are here before this Congress asking for our help. Boy, did we give it to them. This bill is a bailout for the credit card industry. It is going to make it easier for credit card companies to collect more on the bad decisions they have made, the credit they have extended to people who already have maxed out on 2, 5, even 10 credit cards. Make no mistake, giving the credit card companies more power will work to the detriment of women and children trying to collect alimony and child support. If we are going to pass a credit card industry bailout bill, the least we should do is help save the industry from itself by taking some steps to make sure consumers are made more aware of the consequences of taking on ever-increasing amounts of debt. We had the chance in this bill to require credit card companies to be more open with consumers about the consequences of running a balance on a card, but we didn't do it. We need more prevalent and more detailed disclosures on credit card statements and solicitations. There are limited disclosure requirements in the bill, but they don't go far enough, in my opinion. I think it is clear that the main reason they don't is the power of the credit card companies. A few days ago the Wisconsin State Journal, a newspaper in my home area which is generally perceived as a conservative, quite probusiness newspaper, summarized well my concern about the extent to which this bill gives the credit card industry what it wants. I ask unanimous consent the Wisconsin State Journal editorial from December 4 be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, let me begin by agreeing with the Senator from Minnesota. The measure before us is a work of injustice. It works injustice on the Senate's procedures. And if it passes, it will work injustice on millions of Americans struggling to cobble together a fresh start after financial hardship. And the measure is also a clear example of the power of money in the legislative process. That's an injustice too, because it puts the needs of the special interests ahead of the needs of the American people. Let us begin with the procedural injustice. If Senators allow business to be done as is being attempted with this conference report, then we might as well all just go home. Because conference committees will be doing our jobs. Unlike a normal conference report, this conference report includes absolutely no legislation on the matters that the Senate sent to the conference committee--which, for the information of my colleagues and the people watching, was a bill on embassy security and authorizations for the Department of State, a terribly serious matter. That was not what came back--nothing like that. Instead this conference report brings back to the Senate a complete bill entirely irrelevant to the bill sent to conference. What it brings back is a bankruptcy bill. That is not the job of a conference committee. It is not the job of a conference committee to search out the legislative vineyards for whatever issues appear ripe for decision. It is not the job of a conference committee to write legislation on matters not committed to it. The conference committee is doing our jobs. The Constitution confers on the Senate and the House of Representatives certain enumerated powers. Article I, Section 1, of the Constitution provides: ``All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.'' If the Senate so chooses, it may delegate some of its powers to a committee of its Members. But if those Members so delegated recognize no limits on their authority, then they have usurped nothing less than all the powers that the Constitution vests in the Senate itself. The conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs a full Senate and a full House of Representatives in Congress assembled? The conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs amendments between the Houses on the bankruptcy bill? The conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs the Senate to disagree to any House amendments or insist on any Senate amendments on the bankruptcy bill? The conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs the Senate to request a conference or agree to a conference on the bankruptcy bill? The conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs the Senate to consider any motions to instruct the conferees on the bankruptcy bill? The conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs the Senate even to name conferees on the bankruptcy bill? The embassy security conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs for Congress to address the increase in the minimum wage that the Senate attached to the last bankruptcy bill? The conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs for Congress even to take up, consider, debate, and amend this particular bankruptcy bill, which was introduced on October 11? The conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs for the Senate to take any action whatsoever to grant this conference committee power to act on bankruptcy? The conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs all the Senators who are not Members of the conference committee? Because the conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs for us to fly and drive in to Washington, sometimes from vast distances, from around the country? Because the conference committee is doing our jobs. Who needs all these Senate offices and all the Senators' staff? A handful of offices would do, four to be exact, because the conference committee is doing our jobs. As one longtime observer of Senate procedures asked, who died and made them king? Because the conference committee is doing our jobs. The Senate used to have rules to prevent this sort of thing. Rule 28 of the Standing Rules of the Senate addresses conference committees. Two of that rule's six paragraphs deal with the scope of conferences. Paragraph 2 of Rule 28 states, in relevant part: Conferees shall not insert in their report matter not committed to them by either House. . . . If new matter is inserted in the report . . ., a point of order may be made against the report, and if the point of order is sustained, the report is rejected or shall be recommitted to the committee of conference if the House of Representatives has not already acted thereon. And then, paragraph 3 of Rule 28, dealing with complete substitutes, states: 3(a) In any case in which a disagreement to an amendment in the nature of a substitute has been referred to conferees, it shall be in order for the conferees to report a substitute on the same subject matter; but they may not include in the report matter not committed to them by either House. They may, however, include in their report in any such case matter which is a germane modification of subjects in disagreement. (b) In any case in which the conferees violate subparagraph (a), the conference report shall be subject to a point of order. Then, Mr. President, on October 3, 1996, in what seemed like almost a whim, the Senate cast aside this century-old Standing Rule, which I just read in part. To secure last-minute, end-of-session passage of a version of the Federal Aviation Authorization Act that included an extraneous provision of special interest to the Federal Express Corporation, the Senate voted 56 to 39 to overturn the ruling of the Chair and nullify the rule. At that time, Senator Specter called it: ``a very, very serious perversion of Senate procedures.'' Mr. President, conference reports are privileged. Consequently, Senators cannot debate a motion to proceed to a conference report. Senators cannot employ a filibuster to block its consideration. Conference reports are not amendable. If, as is often the case, and is the case here, the House has already acted on a conference report, motions to recommit the conference report to the conference committee are not in order in the Senate. Conference reports present the Senate with a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. As I am sure my colleagues have observed, the Senate works at two speeds: a deliberative speed and a get-down-to-business speed. The regular order under the Standing Rules of the Senate reflects the deliberative speed. We see the getting-down-to-business speed in unanimous consent agreements, the budget process, and conference reports. When Senators take up these get-down-to-business matters, they enter into a kind of social contract. Senators agree to give up their normal rights under the rules to debate and amend, which are very important in this institution. In exchange, through subject-matter limitations, these procedures grant Senators some notice--and Senators have a right to some notice--of what they can expect. As Senator Kennedy said in 1996: ``We send a bill to conference . . . knowing that the conference committee's work is likely to become law. And until October 1996, the precedents governing conference committees prohibited them from bringing back any matter ``entirely irrelevant'' to what the Senate or House passed. In October 1996, the Senate breached that compact. Now the process can force Senators to live with restrictions on their rights to debate and amend conference reports without having even the slightest idea of the reports' subject matter in advance. And the last-minute additions will probably become law. Mr. President, I think most would agree, this change is profoundly undemocratic. Conference committees are populated disproportionately by senior Members and Members favored by the leadership. This conference, as a case in point, was signed off on for the Senate by just four men who have been here an average of 22 years. Conference committees are far less representative of the people than the Senate as a whole. In conference, the majority need not work with the minority party at all. Under this majority, the majority often has not. On this bill, the majority certainly has not. Conference committees usually work in secret. Senate rules require no open meetings. House practice has generally required one photo opportunity. Thereafter, in the eyes of the Senate's rules, Senators' signatures on the conference report constitute their votes, and nothing further need be done in public. Mr. President, we know that conference committees have long been the graveyards of amendments. Senator Russell Long used to quip, ``Why fight an amendment on the floor if you can drop it in conference?'' And that appears to be what has happened to the minimum wage increase that the Senate attached to the last bankruptcy bill, and to many other amendments, including some that I proposed, that made the bill somewhat more palatable to the Senate. And today we see a conference committee becoming the delivery room for a brand new piece of legislation. Like Athena from Zeus's head, a new law is springing whole from the conference committee without floor consideration, debate, or amendment. Today, the chickens are coming home to roost. This majority, in its continuing crusade to snuff out any opportunity for the minority to debate and amend, now carries this monstrous conference report precedent to its logical extreme. As I said in my statement on the Military Construction Appropriations bill on May 18, this majority has time after time flouted or changed the Standing Rules of the Senate to ratchet down the rights of the minority. This majority has thus shown a disturbing willingness to cast aside long-held precedents to serve immediate policy ends. Minority party rights have suffered as a result. Mr. President, four Senators do not constitute the Senate. Yet absent Senate rules to restrain them, small groups of Senators meeting secretly in conference committees can arrogate much--if not most--of the Senate's power. If the Senate allows the kind of legislation-writing by conference committee that has taken place here, then Senators will have done nothing less than surrender their jobs. They will have surrendered their authority and responsibilities to the very few who happen to be in whatever conference committee is meeting on any given day. If we allow this practice, we will have perpetrated, in my view, and I don't think this is an exaggeration, one of the greatest abdications of responsibility in the history of the Senate. Let us be clear about why this is happening. When the Senate considered the last bankruptcy bill, in November of 1999, Senator Kennedy offered an amendment to provide working Americans a much-needed increase in the minimum wage. The Republican caucus added 112 pages of tax breaks, costing $103 billion, most of which would have gone to the top fifth of the income distribution. The Senate could have sent a bill on bankruptcy and the minimum wage to conference with the House. But the Constitution requires that revenue measures originate in the House. So the plain effect of the Republican tax break amendment was to kill the bankruptcy bill and also to kill the minimum wage increase. And now, the majority seeks to take the remains of that dead bankruptcy bill from the graveyard, and stitch it together with material from completely different entities that they have found in various legislative dissecting rooms. The result is a not a modern Prometheus, but a monster, artificial and hideous. Now why did the majority engage in this extremely unusual procedure? Why seek a conference committee that could be used to work its will in secret and bring to the floor a new bill that will be voted on up or down with no amendments? Was it to bring forward a bill that is crucial to our national security? No. Are the experts in the field clamoring for it? No. I have talked to bankruptcy judges, bankruptcy trustees, practitioners representing both creditors and debtors, law professors who specialize in this area, and they all strongly oppose this bill. No, the clamor is coming from another quarter. The special interests. The interests that want this bill so desperately that they have pushed the Majority to use this most unusual, almost unprecedented procedure, are the big banks and the credit card companies. They want this reform bill because it is skewed toward their interests. This is a bill written by and for the credit card companies. That's why all the nonpartisan experts on bankruptcy law oppose it. So why is it before the Senate today? Mr. President, for over a year now, I have been Calling the Bankroll on the Senate floor, to inform my colleagues of the campaign contributions, particularly soft money contributions, that have been given by interests that would benefit from or that oppose legislation that we are considering here in the Senate. I have often stated that these contributors set the agenda on this floor. And this bill, I'm afraid, is a poster child for the influence of money on the legislative process. Mr. President, Common Cause put out a report this spring showing the stunning amount of money that the credit industry has contributed to members of Congress and the political parties in recent years. $7.5 million in 1999 alone, and $23.4 million in just the last three years. One company that has been particularly generous is the MBNA Corporation, one of the largest issuers of credit cards in the country. In 1998, MBNA gave a $200,000 soft money contribution to the Republican Senatorial Committee on the very day that the House passed the conference report and sent it to the Senate--not terribly subtle. In December 1999, MBNA gave its first large soft money contribution ever to the Democratic party--it gave $150,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on December 22, 1999, Mr. President, right in the middle of Senate floor consideration of the bankruptcy bill. And just a few months ago, on June 30, 2000, Alfred Lerner, Chairman and CEO of MBNA--one person, one individual--gave $250,000 in soft money to the RNC. Mr. President, the following figures are from the Center for Responsive Politics, through the first 15 months of the election cycle, and in some cases include contributions given later in the election cycle. MBNA and its affiliates and executives gave a total of $710,000 in soft money to the parties. Visa and its executives gave more than $268,000 in soft money to the parties during the period. Mastercard gave nearly $46,000. Finance and credit card companies gave $5.4 million in soft money, PAC and individual hard money contributions in the first 15 months of the 2000 election cycle. When you add that to the $14.6 million that the commercial banks gave, you have, Mr. President, in the midst of all these other special interests, one of the most powerful lobbying forces in public policy today. And you just might have the answer, in fact you do have the answer, to the question, ``why is this bill before the Senate today?'' Some in this body say that the public doesn't care about campaign finance reform Mr. President. But I would be willing to bet that if you took a public opinion poll and asked the question whether the Senate should use extraordinary procedural means to send a campaign finance bill that would ban soft money to the President instead of this bankruptcy bill, the answer would be an overwhelming ``Yes.'' After all, the House passed the Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform bill last year by an overwhelming margin. And the President would sign that bill. All that is needed for campaign finance reform to become law is Senate approval, and a majority of Senators supports this bill. On the other hand, the President has said repeatedly that he will veto this bankruptcy bill. So even if this procedural gambit is successful, the bill won't become law. But the campaign finance reform bill doesn't have millions of dollars in campaign contributions behind it, the same way this bankruptcy bill does. So the majority persists, the majority persists in trying to force this bill through the Congress in the waning days of the session. And it may get its way. But it will not pass this bill into law. Mr. President, this bill has millions of dollars of soft money contributions behind it. And I'm sure that the donors of those contributions believe they are doing the right thing for their companies by giving them. But it is very interesting that the leaders of major corporations, whose money drives this soft money system, are increasingly uncomfortable with it. In a poll of top business executives from the 1,000 largest companies in the United States, released last Wednesday by the Committee for Economic Development, 79 percent of the respondents said they believe the campaign finance system in this country is broken and needs to be reformed. Sixty percent of respondents agree that soft money should be banned. So even among those interests that benefit from the soft money system, there is strong support for ending it. And the reason for that, I believe, is two-fold. First, America's businesses and business people are tired of being hit up for money. Year after year, these credit card companies have been sending money to the parties and Members of Congress hoping for some return, and I think they are tired of it. Second, Mr. President, business leaders in this country are coming to realize how bad this system looks to the public, how poorly it reflects on the legislative and political process. The word is out, for example, about this bankruptcy bill. It is not necessary, it goes too far, it's unfair and imbalanced. Newspapers have editorialized against it; law professors have written op-ed pieces about what's wrong with it; news magazines have done exposes of the money behind it. The monied interests have succeeded in getting the bill back to the floor, and they may get it through the Congress. But if it passes, the bill and this body will not have the respect of the American people or the press. That's why America's business leaders want reform of the system Mr. President, because they know very well it taints all of us, even the legislation that they so desperately want the Congress to pass. Mr. President, I invite my colleagues to look about this Senate Chamber and examine its form. Since January 4, 1859, this Senate has done business in this open room, ringed all around by galleries for the people. To the west, behind me, are the public visitors' galleries. To the north, behind the Presiding Officer, are the wooden desks of the press, who report our proceedings to the Nation. The Senate began holding sessions open to the public more than 206 years ago, on February 20, 1794. The Senate opened galleries for the public in December 1795. The first radio broadcast from the Senate Chamber took place in March of 1929. Some Senate hearings appeared on television as early as 1947. Many credit ABC's live coverage of the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1953 with helping to turn the tide against McCarthyism. Twenty years later, another generation learned about democracy as Senator Sam Ervin presided over the Watergate hearings in 1973. The Senate began radio broadcasts of floor debate in 1978 with the debate on the Panama Canal Treaty. The House began televising its floor proceedings in 1979. The Senate opened its proceedings to television on a trial basis in May 1986. And since June 2, 1986, C-Span has carried our debates to viewers throughout the Nation. We conduct ourselves in the open like this because the Senate best serves the Nation when it conducts its business on this Senate floor, open to the public view. It is here, on this Senate floor, that each of this Nation's several states is represented. And it is here, in their debate and votes on amendments and measures, that Senators become accountable to the people for what they do. The Senate is distinctive for the amount of work that it used to do on the Senate floor. In contrast to the House of Representatives, where more work is done in committee, the Senate used to do more work on the floor. The majority today diminishes the Senate floor in favor of the backroom conference committee, chosen to address these issues by none but themselves, accountable to none but themselves, and open to observation by none but themselves. The proceedings of the Senate floor are open to view because, as Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, ``Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.'' William Jennings Bryan put it this way: ``The government being the people's business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at all times open to the public view. Publicity is therefore as essential to honest administration as freedom of speech is to representative government.'' It is a legal maxim that ``Truth fears nothing but concealment.'' And it follows as night follows day that concealment is the enemy of truth. As Justice Brandeis also wrote, ``Secrecy necessarily breeds suspicion.'' How will the public gain confidence in the work of the Senate if the public cannot see its operations? Morley Safer once said that ``All censorship is designed to protect the policy from the public.'' If the majority had confidence in its policy, would it not do its business in the light of day? As Senator Margaret Chase Smith said on this Senate floor on September 21, 1961, ``I fear that the American people are ahead of their leaders in realism and courage--but behind them in knowledge of the facts because the facts have not been given to them.'' In another context, Senator Robert Taft said on this Senate floor on January 5, 1951: The result of the general practice of secrecy has been to deprive the Senate and the Congress of the substance of the powers conferred on them by the Constitution. And as Senator Kennedy, our distinguished colleague, warned in 1996: This . . . is a vote about whether this body is going to be governed by a neutral set of rules that protect the rights of all Members, and by extension, the rights of all Americans. If the rules of the Senate can be twisted and broken and overridden to achieve a momentary legislative goal, we will have diminished the institution itself. And that, in the end, is what has happened here. Four Senators who had the good fortune to be named to confer on an embassy security bill have taken it upon themselves to conduct the business and exercise the powers that the Constitution vested in the Senate and the Congress. In 1973, the nuclear physicist Edward Teller said, ``Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction.'' Mr. President, my fear is that this majority will simply continue down this path of snuffing out minority rights, creating one legislative Frankenstein after another. Senator Kennedy warned in 1996: ``It will make all of us less willing to send bills to conference . . . .'' My fear is that we can no longer trust any conference committee. On this Halloween, I fear for what legislative creatures will walk abroad as long as this majority holds power. I, for one, will stand guard against them and fight them. In defense of the Senate, I urge my colleagues to join me, Senator Wellstone, and others, and oppose this conference report. I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, that is absolutely right. Let me make it clear, the ban on soft money that Senator McCain, I, and a majority of this body support, bans corporate contributions, union contributions, and unlimited individual contributions. It is fair and balanced. The Senator from Nevada is absolutely right. People who might be listening to this discussion might say: Well, these kinds of contributions have always been allowed anyway. That is not true. These kinds of unlimited contributions by corporations, unions, and individuals really didn't exist for purposes of these television ads until 5, 6 years ago. This is a new corrupting influence on our system, the likes of which has not been seen since the turn of the last century. I refer to the turn from the 19th to the 20th century. In answer to the question of the Senator from Nevada, that is what led to the 1907 Tillman Act which prohibited contributions by corporations in connection with federal elections, and then, when the unions came into their prominence in the middle part of the century, the Taft-Hartley Act said unions also must be prohibited from giving contributions. All we are trying to do is put the genie back in the bottle. Unlimited contributions have always been considered inappropriate in our system of government, and shame on this Congress that we can't see the worst corrupting influence in 100 years and that we didn't, before the turn of the century, shut it down, because it must be shut down. I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, it is just a shame that we have managed to get to the year 2000 election without having any significant action on campaign finance reform. We did take the first tiny step in the right direction on a strong bipartisan vote by doing something about disclosure by these 527 groups that were sort of a scam in the making, but we did not address the need to ban soft money which the overwhelming majority of both Houses support and the President is ready to sign. It is a glaring failure of this Congress. Everybody else in the country knows, including those who supported the campaign of the Senator from Arizona for President on the Republican side, that soft money is a real cancer on the system. But somehow, again, the Congress is behind the people. I can't help but note, in answer to the question, that we are going to make a very important decision in the next few days on who the next President of the United States should be. The candidate of the Democratic Party, Al Gore, has pledged to make the McCain-Feingold ban on soft money the first piece of domestic legislation he will introduce, and he has pledged to work for it and sign it when Congress passes it. The candidate for the Republicans, Governor Bush, apparently is prepared to veto it. So the tragedy, in answer to the question, of this Congress not acting is that if somehow Mr. Gore is not elected, we may finally get the 60 votes we need to break the filibuster but we will have a President who is not ready to do something about the corrosive and corrupting influence of money in politics. Of course, the Senator knows from my work on this, that I consider this to be one of the two or three greatest problems in our society. We just have to do something about the corrupting effect of money on our political and legislative system.

Mr. FEINGOLD. I yield for a question.