John Glenn

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Allegra Cangelosi and Patricia Cicero be permitted privileges of the floor while I introduce this legislation.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the National Invasive Species Act of 1996 with my colleagues Senators Leahy, Jeffords, Moynihan, Sarbanes, Johnston, Inouye, Mikulski, and Levin. This act is a reauthorization and expansion of the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act of 1990. I am pleased that my Ohio colleague, Congressman LaTourette and 18 of his colleagues in the House of Representatives also are introducing this act today. Picture a pollution spill in the waters of your region that simply will not go away. Government and industry teams work to disperse it with chemicals and mechanical barriers, but as soon as the treatments stop, the pollution resurges. Worse yet, the spill spreads and concentrates in connecting water ways, and is further seeded by unintentional transport overland. Municipalities, manufacturers, and agriculture experience degraded water supplies and higher operating costs. Shell fisheries and fin fisheries permanently decline. This scenario seems like a nightmare, yet it closely approximates the result of unintentional releases of nonindigenous species, or biological pollution, into U.S. waters. As a Senator from the Great Lakes region, where we spend many millions of dollars annually to battle sea lamprey and zebra mussel infestations, I can attest that such biological spills can and do happen, their impacts on the receiving system are additive, and the resource degradation is permanent. As shown in the display map, the zebra mussel, a native species of eastern Europe, has spread throughout the United States from the Great Lakes where it was unintentionally introduced in ballast water of commercial vessels around 1986. Wherever it becomes established, the zebra mussel threatens both economic and environmental well-being. It clogs intake pipes, fouls drinking water, and covers swimming beaches with sharp shells. The zebra mussel also has led to the loss of many highly valued native species of freshwater mussel in both the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. I remember when Allegra Cangelosi, who is with me on the floor today, first came into my office and talked about zebra mussels in the 1980's. She had a bottle of these critters and set them on my desk and said, ``Here is what they are.'' And they multiply--each zebra mussel lays about 30,000 eggs a year. Eggs that are laid early in the season mature into adult zebra mussels by the end of the season. Zebra mussels and other nonindigenous species can survive in ballast water transported into our nations waters largely because we now have faster sea transportation. Ironically, some of our own waters in this country are cleaner, allowing the species to become established. The Great Lakes are not the only entryway for invasive species into U.S. waters. Last week, I hosted a National Forum on Nonindigenous Species Invasions of U.S. and Fresh Waters in cooperation with the Northeast-Midwest Institute. At the day long event, experts and natural resource stakeholders from around the country cited invasion impacts in just about all of America's fresh and marine waters. Biodiversity and economic well-being are suffering due to invasions of nonindigenous species in San Francisco Bay, the Pacific Islands, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, the Northeast and Southeast Atlantic coasts, the Great Lakes, and Lake Champlain. In 1990, I authored and gained enactment of the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act to begin to address the tremendous problem of unintentional invasions of aquatic species into the Great Lakes and other U.S. waters. The 1990 act consisted of two basic parts: One which focused on prevention of new introductions of species into the Great Lakes by the ballast water of vessels; and the other which established a national program of prevention, monitoring, management, and control of invasive species already established in U.S. waters. All of the many vectors of aquatic species transfers fell under the purview of this portion of the act. Most of the revisions contained in the bill which I am introducing today with my Senate and House colleagues pertain to the prevention portion of the program. With respect to prevention, the 1990 act focused on ballast water of vessels. This water is the leading vector for unintentional transfers of nonindigenous species into United States waters. Ships carry ballast water to maintain trim when they are empty or partially empty of cargo. They discharge this water at their ports of call. Currently, there is practically nothing to prevent the uptake, transfer, and discharge of organisms along with that water. An estimated 21 billion gallons of ballast water from vessels from foreign ports is discharged into U.S. waters each year. That's 58 million gallons per day, and 2.4 million gallons per hour. This ballast water contains just about everything and anything that was in the harbor from which the water was drawn. It is estimated that 3,000 species of aquatic organisms are in transit in ballast tanks around the world in any given 24-hour period. Most of these organisms will come to nothing in the receiving ports, but any one of them could cause billions of dollars of damage. It's a huge gamble. Even human cholera is transported unintentionally in ballast water and has been detected in ships visiting Mobile Bay and the Chesapeake, among other regions. Fortunately, a ballast management practice known as high seas ballast exchange greatly reduces the transfers of dangerous organisms through ballast water. This technique is not applicable in all circumstances; it cannot be employed in stormy weather and with some types of vessels. However, where it can be employed safely, it results in a substantial reduction in the risk of invasive species transfers. It is for this reason that the Australian Government among other nations, and the International Maritime Organization, already encourage ballast management practices for commercial vessels. The 1990 law included a voluntary ballast management program for the Great Lakes which automatically became regulatory in 1992. The act assigned the Coast Guard the task of consulting with the maritime industry and Canada to develop voluntary guidelines, conducting education and outreach, and, after 2 years, promulgating regulations to help reduce the probability of new introductions of alien species by commercial vessels into the Great Lakes. The 1990 act also included several studies to help build information on the threat and impacts of ballast discharge on other U.S. waters. These studies, now complete, provide strong evidence that unmitigated ballast water exchange is a serious economic and environmental threat in regions outside the Great Lakes. In particular, the biological study conducted pursuant to the act found that a new species of aquatic organism invades San Francisco Bay every 12 weeks. Serious risks of invasion to the Chesapeake Bay and Florida coasts have also been documented. A crab which is the host of a dangerous human parasite has been found in United States waters within the Gulf of Mexico, fortunately not yet established. In light of this information, and based on the successful experience with the Great Lakes voluntary ballast management program, my 1996 proposal establishes a national voluntary ballast management program to begin to address concerns of other United States coastal regions. The Coast Guard is directed to issue voluntary ballast management guidelines for all vessels visiting U.S. ports after operating outside the exclusive economic zone. Consistent with the Great Lakes program, I want to stress, Mr. President, that this program puts safety first. The guidelines will protect the safety of vessel and crew, whatever that may entail, including waiving the requirement where necessary. While there will be no penalty against vessels which do not participate in the national program, record keeping by vessels to document participation is required. In the interest of maintaining a level playing field, the Coast Guard has authority to issue the same guidelines as regulations in regions where a review of ship records reveals poor cooperation with the voluntary approach. Importantly, the maritime industry would see only one set of rules nationally. However, over time, there may be enforcement mechanisms associated with the guidelines in certain regions. Of great interest to the Great Lakes community, the successful Great Lakes regulatory program remains in place. For better prevention of invasions in the future, a ballast water management demonstration program is established in the Act. This project will demonstrate promising ballast technologies and practices to prevent the introduction and spread of nonindigenous species through ballast water. Other changes to the 1990 program which are contained in our National Invasive Species Act of 1996 include: First, the authorization of research in several coastal regions--including the Chesapeake Bay, Lake Champlain, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico--which are at particular risk of degradation by species invasions; second, voluntary guidelines to help recreational boaters to prevent unintentional transfer of zebra mussels; and third, provisions to encourage more regions to set up coordinating panels and develop State management plans for invasive species prevention and control. Though now much broader in scope, I am proud to announce that the overall cost of the National Invasive Species Act of 1996 does not exceed that of the 1990 law. I would like to close by pointing out that species invasions that originate anywhere on the continent have the potential to affect all of us. Once established on the North American continent nonindigenous invasive organisms will make their way to the far reaches of their potential range. Just as the zebra mussel has expanded its range from the Great Lakes to the entire Mississippi River and has been found on recreational vessels entering California, the east coast marine resources could be harmed by invasions on the west coast and vice- versa. Moreover, biological pollution of U.S. waters, so far, has not had serious public health implications. But the 1992 transfer of human cholera from South American ports to the shellfish beds of Mobile Bay via ballast water of commercial vessels reminds us that our luck may not hold forever. It is in everyone's interest to improve our Nation's precautions against invasions of aquatic nuisance species. Mr. President, I will ask unanimous consent that an updated version of a Northeast-Midwest Economic Review article be printed in the Record following my remarks. This article provides further background on the context, history, and content of the National Invasive Species Act. I am personally quite excited about the progress that we can make in protecting the economy, the environment, and the biodiversity of our coasts through passing the National Invasive Species Act this year. Unusual in the environmental arena, this issue offers us low-hanging fruit and bipartisan enthusiasm. I am grateful to my colleagues, Senators Leahy and Sarbanes for authoring legislation last year which helped draw attention to the national scope of the invasive species problem, and to my other colleagues for joining us in support of the National Invasive Species Act. I look forward to working closely with them to gain its enactment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, along with the article previously mentioned.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the National Invasive Species Act of 1996 with my colleagues Senators Leahy, Jeffords, Moynihan, Sarbanes, Johnston, Inouye, Mikulski, and Levin. This act is a reauthorization and expansion of the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act of 1990. I am pleased that my Ohio colleague, Congressman LaTourette and 18 of his colleagues in the House of Representatives also are introducing this act today. Picture a pollution spill in the waters of your region that simply will not go away. Government and industry teams work to disperse it with chemicals and mechanical barriers, but as soon as the treatments stop, the pollution resurges. Worse yet, the spill spreads and concentrates in connecting water ways, and is further seeded by unintentional transport overland. Municipalities, manufacturers, and agriculture experience degraded water supplies and higher operating costs. Shell fisheries and fin fisheries permanently decline. This scenario seems like a nightmare, yet it closely approximates the result of unintentional releases of nonindigenous species, or biological pollution, into U.S. waters. As a Senator from the Great Lakes region, where we spend many millions of dollars annually to battle sea lamprey and zebra mussel infestations, I can attest that such biological spills can and do happen, their impacts on the receiving system are additive, and the resource degradation is permanent. As shown in the display map, the zebra mussel, a native species of eastern Europe, has spread throughout the United States from the Great Lakes where it was unintentionally introduced in ballast water of commercial vessels around 1986. Wherever it becomes established, the zebra mussel threatens both economic and environmental well-being. It clogs intake pipes, fouls drinking water, and covers swimming beaches with sharp shells. The zebra mussel also has led to the loss of many highly valued native species of freshwater mussel in both the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. I remember when Allegra Cangelosi, who is with me on the floor today, first came into my office and talked about zebra mussels in the 1980's. She had a bottle of these critters and set them on my desk and said, ``Here is what they are.'' And they multiply--each zebra mussel lays about 30,000 eggs a year. Eggs that are laid early in the season mature into adult zebra mussels by the end of the season. Zebra mussels and other nonindigenous species can survive in ballast water transported into our nations waters largely because we now have faster sea transportation. Ironically, some of our own waters in this country are cleaner, allowing the species to become established. The Great Lakes are not the only entryway for invasive species into U.S. waters. Last week, I hosted a National Forum on Nonindigenous Species Invasions of U.S. and Fresh Waters in cooperation with the Northeast-Midwest Institute. At the day long event, experts and natural resource stakeholders from around the country cited invasion impacts in just about all of America's fresh and marine waters. Biodiversity and economic well-being are suffering due to invasions of nonindigenous species in San Francisco Bay, the Pacific Islands, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, the Northeast and Southeast Atlantic coasts, the Great Lakes, and Lake Champlain. In 1990, I authored and gained enactment of the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act to begin to address the tremendous problem of unintentional invasions of aquatic species into the Great Lakes and other U.S. waters. The 1990 act consisted of two basic parts: One which focused on prevention of new introductions of species into the Great Lakes by the ballast water of vessels; and the other which established a national program of prevention, monitoring, management, and control of invasive species already established in U.S. waters. All of the many vectors of aquatic species transfers fell under the purview of this portion of the act. Most of the revisions contained in the bill which I am introducing today with my Senate and House colleagues pertain to the prevention portion of the program. With respect to prevention, the 1990 act focused on ballast water of vessels. This water is the leading vector for unintentional transfers of nonindigenous species into United States waters. Ships carry ballast water to maintain trim when they are empty or partially empty of cargo. They discharge this water at their ports of call. Currently, there is practically nothing to prevent the uptake, transfer, and discharge of organisms along with that water. An estimated 21 billion gallons of ballast water from vessels from foreign ports is discharged into U.S. waters each year. That's 58 million gallons per day, and 2.4 million gallons per hour. This ballast water contains just about everything and anything that was in the harbor from which the water was drawn. It is estimated that 3,000 species of aquatic organisms are in transit in ballast tanks around the world in any given 24-hour period. Most of these organisms will come to nothing in the receiving ports, but any one of them could cause billions of dollars of damage. It's a huge gamble. Even human cholera is transported unintentionally in ballast water and has been detected in ships visiting Mobile Bay and the Chesapeake, among other regions. Fortunately, a ballast management practice known as high seas ballast exchange greatly reduces the transfers of dangerous organisms through ballast water. This technique is not applicable in all circumstances; it cannot be employed in stormy weather and with some types of vessels. However, where it can be employed safely, it results in a substantial reduction in the risk of invasive species transfers. It is for this reason that the Australian Government among other nations, and the International Maritime Organization, already encourage ballast management practices for commercial vessels. The 1990 law included a voluntary ballast management program for the Great Lakes which automatically became regulatory in 1992. The act assigned the Coast Guard the task of consulting with the maritime industry and Canada to develop voluntary guidelines, conducting education and outreach, and, after 2 years, promulgating regulations to help reduce the probability of new introductions of alien species by commercial vessels into the Great Lakes. The 1990 act also included several studies to help build information on the threat and impacts of ballast discharge on other U.S. waters. These studies, now complete, provide strong evidence that unmitigated ballast water exchange is a serious economic and environmental threat in regions outside the Great Lakes. In particular, the biological study conducted pursuant to the act found that a new species of aquatic organism invades San Francisco Bay every 12 weeks. Serious risks of invasion to the Chesapeake Bay and Florida coasts have also been documented. A crab which is the host of a dangerous human parasite has been found in United States waters within the Gulf of Mexico, fortunately not yet established. In light of this information, and based on the successful experience with the Great Lakes voluntary ballast management program, my 1996 proposal establishes a national voluntary ballast management program to begin to address concerns of other United States coastal regions. The Coast Guard is directed to issue voluntary ballast management guidelines for all vessels visiting U.S. ports after operating outside the exclusive economic zone. Consistent with the Great Lakes program, I want to stress, Mr. President, that this program puts safety first. The guidelines will protect the safety of vessel and crew, whatever that may entail, including waiving the requirement where necessary. While there will be no penalty against vessels which do not participate in the national program, record keeping by vessels to document participation is required. In the interest of maintaining a level playing field, the Coast Guard has authority to issue the same guidelines as regulations in regions where a review of ship records reveals poor cooperation with the voluntary approach. Importantly, the maritime industry would see only one set of rules nationally. However, over time, there may be enforcement mechanisms associated with the guidelines in certain regions. Of great interest to the Great Lakes community, the successful Great Lakes regulatory program remains in place. For better prevention of invasions in the future, a ballast water management demonstration program is established in the Act. This project will demonstrate promising ballast technologies and practices to prevent the introduction and spread of nonindigenous species through ballast water. Other changes to the 1990 program which are contained in our National Invasive Species Act of 1996 include: First, the authorization of research in several coastal regions--including the Chesapeake Bay, Lake Champlain, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico--which are at particular risk of degradation by species invasions; second, voluntary guidelines to help recreational boaters to prevent unintentional transfer of zebra mussels; and third, provisions to encourage more regions to set up coordinating panels and develop State management plans for invasive species prevention and control. Though now much broader in scope, I am proud to announce that the overall cost of the National Invasive Species Act of 1996 does not exceed that of the 1990 law. I would like to close by pointing out that species invasions that originate anywhere on the continent have the potential to affect all of us. Once established on the North American continent nonindigenous invasive organisms will make their way to the far reaches of their potential range. Just as the zebra mussel has expanded its range from the Great Lakes to the entire Mississippi River and has been found on recreational vessels entering California, the east coast marine resources could be harmed by invasions on the west coast and vice- versa. Moreover, biological pollution of U.S. waters, so far, has not had serious public health implications. But the 1992 transfer of human cholera from South American ports to the shellfish beds of Mobile Bay via ballast water of commercial vessels reminds us that our luck may not hold forever. It is in everyone's interest to improve our Nation's precautions against invasions of aquatic nuisance species. Mr. President, I will ask unanimous consent that an updated version of a Northeast-Midwest Economic Review article be printed in the Record following my remarks. This article provides further background on the context, history, and content of the National Invasive Species Act. I am personally quite excited about the progress that we can make in protecting the economy, the environment, and the biodiversity of our coasts through passing the National Invasive Species Act this year. Unusual in the environmental arena, this issue offers us low-hanging fruit and bipartisan enthusiasm. I am grateful to my colleagues, Senators Leahy and Sarbanes for authoring legislation last year which helped draw attention to the national scope of the invasive species problem, and to my other colleagues for joining us in support of the National Invasive Species Act. I look forward to working closely with them to gain its enactment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, along with the article previously mentioned.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I did not come to speak on this particular subject that was just addressed by Senator Faircloth, but I wanted to set some facts straight in the interest of fairness. The facts are that when President Reagan took office, the national debt was at $1 trillion--the result of a buildup through all of the Presidents since George Washington through Jimmy Carter. During the Reagan-Bush years, we added $3.9 trillion. Currently, the national debt is about $5 trillion. In the summer of 1993, President Clinton announced the reconciliation bill that he put forward with his economic policies. We passed the bill in the U.S. Senate without a single Republican vote--not one. It resulted in the first 3 years of budget deficit reduction since Harry Truman was in office. We went from a budget deficit of $292 billion in the year we passed the reconciliation bill in 1993, down to approximately $240 billion in 1994 and $163 billion in 1995. This year the budget deficit is estimated to be $142 billion. There are several estimates on that amount, including CBO. For the first time since Harry Truman, we have had a steady reduction of the Federal deficit over a 3- year period. We worked for a balanced budget, and we are on the road to attaining it.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the conference report on the the farm bill. While I strongly favor some aspects of the bill, I have serious reservation about the 7-year contract and the dairy provisions. This bill ends the system of giving subsidies to farmers when market prices drop. Instead farmers sign a 7-year contract to get annual market transition payments regardless of market conditions. I support moving to a market oriented farm policy. However, I think it is wrong to pay farmers regardless of market conditions and I strongly oppose paying farmers when they do not plant a crop. In times when commodity prices are high, such as now, farmers will receive big checks they do not need, in bad years farmers will receive little or no support. I also oppose giving the Secretary of Agriculture the authority to implement the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact. This provision allows six States more leeway in setting their own prices. I think we need to take a good look at our current system of dairy price supports and move dairy along with the other commodities into a realistic market oriented system. I support the conservation provisions put forward in this bill which emphasize land management options for farmers and livestock producers, not simply land retirement, to reduce the harmful environmental and economic impacts of agriculture activities. For example, the bill authorizes the Environmental Quality Incentives Program [EQIP] which combines the functions of several current conservation programs into one voluntary incentive and cost-share program for crop and livestock producers. I am pleased that the bill channels additional needed funds to rural development and agricultural research programs through the Fund for Rural America. I do not believe this bill is good public policy. I am concerned it will cost us more to phase into the new program than to maintain current law. And finally, I also feel that the Congress will be forced to return to this issue as soon as less favorable market conditions return for farmers.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to Col. Fred E. Kishler, Jr., who died this past January. From August 1994 until his death, Colonel Kishler served as the Director of the General Defense Intelligence Program [GDIP] Staff where he served with great distinction. Colonel Kishler was a fellow Buckeye--born in Tiffin, OH, and receiving his undergraduate degree at Heidelberg College in Tiffin. In his lengthy and distinguished Air Force career, Colonel Kishler flew dangerous, sensitive missions in the U-2 spy plane and other aircraft, and was responsible for fielding numerous tactical and strategic intelligence systems. His greatest love as a pilot was flying the U-2, spending approximately 15 years in the U-2 program. Colonel Kishler accumulated over 4,800 flying hours--over 2,000 of those hours were spent in the cockpit of a U-2, and he flew 106 combat missions in Southeast Asia. During the Vietnam War, he demonstrated his courage as a flight leader for search and rescue missions, and he supported the Son Tay POW raid. In 1991, Colonel Kishler came to work for the Defense Intelligence Agency, first serving as the Chief of the Reconnaissance Division for Functional Management. His hard work and effectiveness led to other positions as the Associate Deputy Director of the Programs and Evaluation Division of the National Military Intelligence Collection Center, and ultimately as the Director of the General Defense Intelligence Program Staff--particularly challenging assignments in a period of declining resources where we have had to do more with less. Colonel Kishler's honesty, integrity, and professionalism gained the respect of Congress as well as the Department of Defense. Among Fred's many decorations and awards were the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Medal with thirteen oak leaf clusters, and the Air Force Commendation medal. Mr. President, I join all of my colleagues on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in paying tribute to the memory of Col. Fred E. Kishler, Jr., and pass along our deepest sympathies to Colonel Kishler's mother and father--Fred and Marjorie Kishler; his wife, Susan; and their sons, Mark and Fred. Fred Kishler was a credit to the Air Force and the United States of America, and he will be sorely missed.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in support of this legislation and want to commend the efforts of Senators Rockefeller and Gorton on their work. This legislation has been needed for a long time and I am pleased that we will be taking this positive step forward today. I have been concerned for years about our current product liability system and I believe that meaningful reform is long overdue. I believe that this bill will benefit both consumers and businesses. Under our current system, manufacturers of products are subject to a patchwork of varying State laws which contribute to unpredictable outcomes. In some cases plaintiffs receive less than they deserve and in others, plaintiffs receive too much. Because of the unpredictability, cases that are substantially similar receive very different results. The Congress is currently debating the proper role of the Federal Government across a broad range of issue areas. Many believe that functions now conducted at the Federal level should be moved to the States. On this issue I believe that we need a more uniform system of product liability and therefore Federal standards are necessary. I believe this legislation will improve the competitiveness of our industries which means jobs. I also believe that the biomaterials provisions will help insure that much needed medical devices will remain available to many Americans. Because of liability concerns many products are becoming unavailable. Examples include materials used in heart valves, artificial blood vessels, and other medical implants. In Cincinnati, OH, Fusite, a part of Emerson Electric Co., has been in business since 1943. They supply glass-to-metal sealed hermetic terminals. One terminal body is used by the makers of implantable batteries in heart pacemakers. In 1995, because of the liability concerns, Fusite determined it would no longer supply this product. The current system is unfair to consumers. Much too much money is spent on litigation rather than compensation and the high cost of product liability insurance means higher costs for consumers. Without doubt an injured party deserves fair compensation, however the cost of litigation is substantial. More and more is spent on legal fees and less is spent on important areas such as research and development. In some cases manufacturers decide not to invest in or develop new products because of product liability concerns. Ultimately this burden of product liability makes our companies less competitive in world markets than foreign companies. I have been particularly concerned that as we reform our product liability laws we do not affect the rights of individuals to bring suits when they have been harmed. On the contrary, it is my intent to bring rationality to a system that has become more like a lottery. For me, legal reform does not mean putting a padlock on the court house door. There are several very important improvements that this legislation will provide. A statute of repose of fifteen years is established. Joint liability is abolished for noneconomic damages in product liability cases. Defendants are liable only in direct proportion to their responsibility for harm. Therefore, fault will be the controlling factor in the award of damages, not the size of a defendant's wallet. Another important area is punitive damages. Although I am concerned about the establishment of caps on punitive damages, I believe that the judge additur provision included in the bill will allow for appropriate punitive damages in egregious cases. Mr. President, not every provision in this legislation is written the way I would have preferred, but I believe that it is significant reform and urge its passage.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Good. Now, let me ask about the second review panel stage: I trust that it is the managers' intention that should an agency decide to significantly modify a proposed final rule on the basis of the panel's report, the agency will reopen the rulemaking proceeding and allow public comment on the newly revised proposal. I believe that not to do so would be to overturn longstanding rules against ex parte communications. Again, securing meaningful input from small entities should not be at the price of undercutting the openness and fairness of the Government decisionmaking process.

Mr. GLENN. I thank the Senator very much. I am glad that we agree on how this process will work.

Mr. GLENN. Good, now let me ask specifically with regard to the first review panel stage: I trust that it is the managers' intention that the review panel's report and related information be placed in the rulemaking record in a timely fashion so that others interested in the proposed rule may have a reasonable opportunity to review that information and submit their own responses to it before the close of the agency's public comment period for the proposed rule.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I support the managers' amendment to S. 942, the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act. I have been a long supporter of regulatory reform, and I believe this legislation provides significant regulatory relief to small businesses, small governments, and other small entities. I congratulate the managers of this bill--Senator Bond, chairman of the Small Business Committee, and Senator Bumpers, Ranking Democrat on the committee--for their efforts to craft a workable bill. I know they have consulted frequently with other members, the small business community, and the administration to address concerns and improve the legislation. In the midst of contentious debate about other regulatory reform issues, Senator Bond and Senator Bumpers have put together a regulatory reform bill that will provide significant relief to small business. This legislation should get broad bipartisan support in both the Senate and House, and I am sure will soon be signed into law. The purposes of this legislation are important and I support them. Some of the details, however, still concern me. For example, the bill provides for judicial review of Regulatory Flexibility Act decisions. This will put needed teeth into the Reg Flex Act and ensure that agencies prepare required regulatory impact analyses and pay more attention to the special impact of their rules on small business and other small entities, such as local governments. I am concerned, however, that these judicial review provisions may be overly broad and will lead to unnecessary litigation. Only time will tell whether my concern is well founded. At this point, I am prepared to give the new provisions the benefit of some doubt. The bill also establishes a small business ombudsman process to help improve cooperation between regulatory agencies and regulated businesses. I support this idea. But, I am concerned that the implementation process, with its Small Business Fairness Boards, will end up creating a one-sided record of complaints that will distort the broad public mission of our agencies. Our agencies should not be viewed as the enemy when they carry out the laws passed by the people's representatives in Congress. I am happy, at least, that in the final version of the bill before us, the Ombudsman will focus on general agency enforcement activity and not attempt to evaluate or rate the performance of individual agency personnel. Finally, the legislation creates small business review panels to ensure that small business perspectives are fully considered by agencies during rulemaking. Again, I support the important purpose of ensuring that agencies hear the voices of the little guys who do not always get through the maze of agency process and the larger more organized commenters. It is, however, important to ensure that this opportunity for comment does not create a precedent of giving special leverage to one segment of the public. I am, at least, heartened by the fact that review panel comments on an agency proposed rule will go into the public record, and that other interested parties will have an opportunity to respond to those comments before the agency makes its rulemaking decision. The fact that these review panels, as well as the Fairness Boards, will be subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act [FACA] and the Government in the Sunshine Act will also help ensure that the new process will be open to the public. On balance, I believe the managers' amendment should be supported. Again, I commend Senator Bond and Senator Bumpers for their openness to concerns about the bill. Since we first saw drafts a week or so ago, significant changes and improvements have been made. Given these changes, I will vote for the managers amendment. But given my concerns, let me also say that these provisions should not be modified by the House. If they are made more onerous, then they should not be supported. If House action leads to changes in conference, then the Senate should say no to the conference report. Let me clear up one fact about this legislation. A week and a half ago, on Thursday, March 7, 1996, Senator Bond stood here on the floor and described his hopes for a bipartisan agreement on this legislation. Our Minority Leader, Senator Daschle, agreed, saying that Democrats hoped to provide broad, if not unanimous, support for the final bill. Unfortunately, several other of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle then went on to accuse Democrats of delaying the bill and even of engaging in a filibuster. That could not be further from the truth. When the Small Business Committee considered the legislation on Wednesday, March 6, there was general agreement that a managers' amendment would be prepared for the bill. On the 7th, as we waited to see the proposed amendment, we were surprised to hear our Republican colleagues accusing Democrats of holding up the bill. As it turned out, I did not see the final proposed manager's amendment for another whole week--March 14, an entire week after Thursday the 7th. Far from Democrats holding up this legislation, the fact is that the managers of this bill were not ready to bring the bill to the floor until at least a full week after we were being accused of delay. I am definitely not criticizing the managers. Their careful deliberations are to be commended. But certainly, other Senators should not be falsely accused of delaying the bill, when they were only waiting to see the results of those deliberations. I hope I have set the record straight. There was never a filibuster on this legislation. We are happy there is finally an agreement on the managers' amendment. We are pleased that we now have it and can move forward and quickly pass the legislation. I must say though, that once again, I am very disappointed in the rhetorical excesses of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Rather than even admit to working cooperatively, which is the case with the bipartisan bill before us, they tried to mislead the public about the status of this legislation. There certainly are enough instances where we honestly disagree, but here where we are working together, there is nothing to disagree about. We need more of the bipartisan cooperation seen in the work of Senators Bond and Bumpers and the other members of the Small Business Committee on this legislation. We need much less of partisan sniping. The Nickles-Reid Congressional Review Amendment S. 942 comes to the floor with an agreement to consider one other amendment. This is the Nickles-Reid Congressional Review legislation and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. We passed this legislation last year, as a substitute to the Regulatory Moratorium. Congressional Review will create more work for us, but its expedited legislative veto process will ensure congressional accountability for Federal agency rules. I believe we need this process so that we can do our part for regulatory reform. I have always been struck when in hearings, agency officials--under successive administrations--have pointed out that most agency regulations are strictly required by laws passed by Congress. The Nickles-Reid Congressional Review process will close the loop, so that when an agency issues a rule that some may oppose, we will have an opportunity to consider it in the context of the law and determine its reasonableness. This will not only help with accountability for individual rules, but will also help us identify specific statutory provisions that need revision. For these reasons, I am happy to support the Nickles-Reid amendment, and urge my colleagues to do so, as well.

Mr. GLENN. Let me make sure I understand how the Small Business Review Panels will work. Before the publication of an initial regulatory flexibility analysis for a proposed EPA or OSHA rule, the SBA's Chief Counsel for Advocacy will gather information from individual representatives of small businesses, and other small entities such as small local governments, about the potential impacts of that proposed rule. That information will then be reviewed by a panel composed of members from EPA or OSHA, OIRA, and the Chief Counsel. The panel will then issue a report on those individual's comments, which will become part of the rulemaking record. Then, after the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register and prior to the publication of a final regulatory flexibility analysis, a second review panel will be convened, and again it will review and report on the individual's comments on the proposed rule. Is this correct?

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in strong support for this amendment. I listened carefully to my colleague from Massachusetts and I agree with him completely. I will confine my remarks to the Advanced Technology Program, the ATP. I have risen on this floor many times to talk about the importance of research and the importance of moving research into industry and then into use--that is, the importance of development, and the importance of Government's role in areas where private capital is not available even though maybe it should be. I urge my colleagues to increase our investment in the ATP because that is what it is, an investment. And it is an investment that will yield a high return in high-wage jobs and in long-term economic growth. We need a well-balanced Federal R&D budget. We need a Federal R&D budget that, of course, is strong in defense research, but not just defense, which seemed to dominate research for many years. We need strength also in civilian research, in basic research, and in applied research. And applied research includes the development of high-risk, high-payoff civilian technologies. We know that new technology accounts for one-half of long-term economic growth. I repeat that. We know that new technology accounts for one-half of the long-term economic growth of this country. We know that workers in high-technology industry are better paid than the average worker, in fact, on the average, 60 percent better paid. We know that past public investment, in semiconductors, in computers, in advanced materials, and in other technologies have paid for themselves many, many times over. These technologies have been at the heart of our economic expansion. We know that the private sector is cutting back on long-term R&D in favor of shorter term, more product-oriented work. In 1989, I proposed legislation to create what I called the ACTA, Advanced Civilian Technology Agency. It was going to be a counterpart to DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. The purpose of ACTA was to help put U.S. industry on an even footing with competitors who had the benefit of teaming with their Governments. Team Japan and Team Germany, for example, ensure that their companies quickly develop, produce, and market new products. They use tools ranging from R&D tax credits and low-interest loans to research consortiums. There is no single, magic silver bullet. Congress decided against a new agency and instead created the Advanced Technology Program, ATP, within an existing agency. NIST has managed the ATP, I think by any measure, in an exemplary fashion. But now, after 6 years, some of my colleagues want to kill this promising young program, without, I think, even understanding what it is they are killing. I think it would be very short-sighted to kill a program just as it is starting to have an impact. We have two recent studies of the ATP program. And they agree that the program has stimulated companies to join together, to collaborate, to form strategic alliances. These partnerships are not easy for companies because they fear the loss of intellectual property rights, the loss of trade secrets, and the loss of control overall. But ATP has catalyzed changes in corporate behavior that could have profound effects on future R&D. The studies also agree that ATP has speeded up research, cutting months off of the R&D cycle. Global competition in high technology moves at a fast pace. And months can be critical sometimes. Let us be clear on one thing--this is not just a Government program. ATP is industry-led. Industry picks the technologies. Industry puts up 50 percent or more of the resources. Industry takes the biggest risk. And to call this corporate welfare or picking winners and losers is just know-nothing nonsense. People who have claimed that have not looked at the program, or do not know what they are talking about, or have some other agenda, because this is not corporate welfare or picking winners and losers. ATP helps fund precompetitive research--research that lies in the gap between basic research and commercial development. ATP focuses on high- risk potential breakthroughs, technical know-how that will benefit industry across the board, that will boost national competitiveness and that will improve our lives. ATP partners with companies in 31 States. That shows how widespread it is, 31 States. The companies are working on quicker and easier genetic diagnostic tests, for instance, much smaller computer chips, better materials for fiber optics and more. You say, are these things important? Of course they are. And they can be multiplied over and over. We could have a whole list here today. Those are just three examples. In my State of Ohio, for example, companies with ATP help are working on 15 different projects ranging from high-temperature, high-pressure tolerant enzymes for the chemical food and diagnostic industries to gene therapy for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Most of the projects are geared to moving U.S. manufacturing well into the 21st century. There are projects on ceramics, composites, long optical polymers, metal powders, superabrasives and extremely precise measuring technologies--all in the areas of breakthroughs that would have an enormous impact on our society and on our industry. Let me take as an example the first of these--ceramics. People say, ``ceramics.'' They think of dishes and things that you hold water in, vases, things like that. But if we make a major breakthrough in high- temperature ceramics, so that we could coat turbine blades, or the inside of high-temperature engine chambers, we could raise operating pressures and temperatures. That would let us make far more efficient use of fuel. We could have smaller turbines and engines. We could make electric cars much more practical than they are now, when we have to store energy in lead acid batteries. If we made a breakthrough in ceramics, we make a whole new industry possible. Breakthroughs in ceramics make breakthroughs possible in engines and electric cars and a whole host of things. Each one of the technologies that I mentioned can have that kind of serendipitous effect on new industries and new research in our country. These and other technologies that industry is developing with the help of ATP--not directly, but with the help of ATP--will not only create jobs and enhance productivity, but will make life healthier and the environment cleaner at much lower cost. We are just starting to see the benefits of the ATP in jobs and technologies coming to market. Some of our friends on the other side speak of the need to tear programs out by their roots. That was one of the statements I heard the other day. For programs like ATP and for programs to bring educational technology to our students, that is a prescription for an economic wasteland. It will be an economic disaster if we start tearing programs like this out by their roots. We should, instead, be nurturing these programs so that we and our children and our grandchildren can enjoy their fruits. Mr. President, the United States has grown to what it is today mainly because we have been a research-oriented nation and a curious people, a people willing to put money into inquiring into the unknown. We have moved into leadership in the world because of that type of curiosity, curiosity that has been exhibited by our companies, by our colleges, by our universities, indeed, by the Federal Government, in taking the lead in these areas. If there is one thing this Nation should have learned throughout its history, and I think we have learned, it is that money spent on research almost always pays off beyond anything we see at the outset. How can we not approve ATP? By my reckoning we should be expanding it further rather than considering cutting it out. In closing, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I hope it passes for the good of this country and for the future of this country. Amendment No. 3475 withdrawn

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Sports Heritage Act of 1996. This legislation addresses a problem faced by many communities after the loss of a professional sports team and is a companion to a bill I introduced in November, the Fans Rights Act. Simply, the Sports Heritage Act would allow a community to keep a professional team's name and colors in the event of a relocation. The only condition is that the team must have played at least 10 years in the community. The bill also says that the elected officials of a community can waive this right. Mr. President, relocation fever is sweeping American professional sports. At a record number, professional sports teams are abandoning-- or attempting to abandon--their host communities, often with little regard for the historical legacy of the team in its home city. The Sports Heritage Act gives communities some protection over that historical tradition. For example, the proposed team relocation which has truly shocked sports fans across the country is the Cleveland Browns' decision to move to Baltimore. Mr. President, I am not going to get into the specifics of that move or why it has shocked sports fans. But let me tell you a bit about the tradition of the Browns in Cleveland. The Cleveland Browns have been a symbol of undying and unwavering fan support for half-a-century. During the football season, Lakefront Municipal Stadium is packed to the rafters with Browns' fans rooting on their team. There have been glorious Browns' seasons and their have been not-so-glorious seasons. But one constant has been the fan support. And that support has been passed on from generation to generation. I am pleased that the deal between the city and the NFL will maintain the Browns' name and colors in Cleveland for a future team. Let's be honest, did anyone really think Baltimore Browns sounded right? Not only doesn't it sound right, it flies in the face of sports history in Cleveland, in Ohio, and the rest of America. The name Browns belongs to the rich sports tradition of northern Ohio and its right that the name and colors will stay. Another example is the Oakland Raiders. How many of us spent the last decade referring to the team as the Oakland Raiders instead of the Los Angeles Raiders? Or could you imagine other situations, such as the Orlando Yankees or the New Orleans Cubs? I'm not suggesting these two storied franchises are going to move, but I use the examples to stress how a team name can be woven into the fabric of a community's traditions. The Sports Heritage Act would permit communities that have long- standing ties to a sports franchise, 10 or more years, to retain the team name for any future franchises. I think that's only fair. The current relocation fever in professional sports has brought about a great deal of attention in Congress. Fans and communities need more protection and I believe the Fans Rights Act will accomplish that. The Sports Heritage Act will help strengthen that protection and I urge all Senators to support this bill.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today in support for the reauthorization of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's [ATSDR] study examining the connection between consumption of contaminated fish and human health. I am honored to join my colleagues, Senators Levin, Kohl, and DeWine, in the reauthorization of this study of immense importance to the people of the Great Lakes basin. I am also pleased that my Ohio colleague, Congressman LaTourette, and Congressman Oberstar have introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives. That bill was successfully included in the House-passed Clean Water Act Reauthorization. As you may know, the Great Lakes States have fish advisories warning the public against consumption of certain fish at particular levels due to contamination. This bill would continue a research program designed to investigate and characterize the association between the consumption of contaminated Great Lakes fish and short- and long-term harmful human health effects. The ATSDR study develops a body of knowledge on exposure pathways, body burdens, and associated human health effects in defined at-risk populations. These populations include sport anglers, the urban poor, pregnant women and their children, native Americans, and elderly. This body of knowledge has a variety of potential and beneficial uses. Perhaps most importantly, it may be used to assist State and local agencies in developing fish advisories, remedial action plans, and lake-wide management plans. The study's findings may also increase general public awareness of the health implications of the toxic pollution in the lakes, and provide a study model for other human health research. Congress has recognized the merits of this human health effects research in the past. I thank my Great Lakes colleagues for their continued support in the effort to understand the impacts of consuming contaminated fish and hope others will recognize the merits of reauthorizing the ATSDR human health effects research.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may require.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the District of Columbia appropriations bill. I oppose this bill for the same reasons that Senator Simon and Senator Kennedy have already discussed, because it includes a provision that permits publicly funded ``scholarships,'' to low-income students to attend private and religious schools in the District. I believe this is just another attempt to fund private schools with already scarce Federal dollars, too scarce. I have consistently opposed attempts by Congress to encourage the use of Federal funds to support private schools whether in the form of tuition tax credits or vouchers. Including this provision would be the first step toward establishing a permanent voucher program for education in this country. Mr. President, if the public schools are not producing the product we want, we need to fix the system, not start siphoning additional money from its purposes and from what it is being used for now. The system of public education in this country is available to all children. Every young person has a right to expect to get a good education out of the school system in this country. If it is not producing the high level of achievement needed, we cannot abandon it, but rather we must find ways to make necessary improvements. Not only that, but this is a time when education programs are suffering from a disproportionate share of Federal budget cuts. Diverting Federal resources over to private schools rather than trying to strengthen the public school system of this country is just wrong. Mr. President, I think most people are surprised when they find out what a small percentage of support comes from the Federal Government for elementary and secondary education. The Federal Government plays a very major role in higher education--Pell grants, loans, things like that. That help is really an aftermath of the success of the GI bill for education after World War II. So the Federal Government has a very major role in higher education but plays a very minor role in elementary and secondary education; the highest we ever got up to was about 9 percent of the expenses for elementary and secondary. It gradually drifted down to 6 percent. If I heard Senator Simon correctly a moment ago, I believe the current figure is only 1.6 percent, something like that. I do not know whether it is that low or not. I thought it was still around 5 or 6 percent, which is too low to begin with. Elementary and secondary education is basically funded through State and local funding. It comes from an antiquated property tax we should have corrected many years ago. Go back to the early days of this country, and most of the wealth of this country was in property. We did not have NASDAQ and the big New York Stock Exchange and the international flow of funds and investments. We had property, and that was a fair measure of people's ability to support an educational system. So a property tax became the norm for supporting education in this country. Now we are over two-thirds a service economy, and yet we stick with the property tax. As Lester Thurow pointed out in his book a couple years ago, we run our educational system not on a national basis like every other major industrialized country in the world; in this country we elect 15,000 independent school boards who are getting elected on the basis of, ``We will not raise your taxes.'' That is how we take care of one of the most important functions of our whole society--how we educate our kids for the future, how we educate our young people to be competitive in an increasingly competitive world. I personally think we should be doing more on this at the Federal level. International competition is going to eat us up if we are not careful and do not get our kids the first-rate education that they deserve. I do not want to see money siphoned off from our system, supporting efforts to leave the public school system. So I will support the finest public school system in the world, in this country and vote to supply the money for that. There is another concern about this that was mentioned on the floor a few moments ago. That is, this proposal does not require private schools receiving vouchers to accept students with learning disabilities, behavioral problems, homeless students, or those with limited English proficiency. You can siphon off the kids you want and not take the kids in wheelchairs, the kids with learning disabilities, the kids with dyslexia that are treatable and should be treated and should be part of our system that helps young people get a start in this world. There is no requirement for private schools receiving vouchers to accept students with these problems. Public schools have the responsibility to educate all students. I certainly worry, with this legislation, that vouchers will skim the best students and leave public education with little Federal help and yet expect them to solve all the educational problems. That is just wrong. I believe that providing vouchers to religious schools also is unconstitutional. There is no Federal or State court, as I understand it, that has ever upheld using vouchers for private or religious schools. In fact, in August, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued an injunction against the expansion of Milwaukee's School Choice Program to include religious schools--an injunction against them. Vouchers undermine any serious attempts being made to reform our public education in this country. With this voucher provision included, I will vote against the District of Columbia appropriations bill. Mr. President, very briefly--I know other Senators are waiting--but while I have the opportunity, I want to mention my opposition to another provision in this conference agreement which was recently brought to my attention. That is section 2551(b)(6), which would waive Federal procurement laws for the GSA Administrator when he provides technical assistance and advisory services for the repair and improvement of D.C. schools. I am told the sole reason this provision exists is to speed up the process of getting D.C. schools in shape in conjunction with a 2-year flash program. While that may be an admirable goal to get these things taken care of speedily, both GSA and the D.C. government have been plagued with their share of problems over the last few decades. The District in particular is ripe with examples where contracting was not carried out properly, and to just waive all the rules and regulations and let them go because we need speed in this particular area, I think takes too big a chance. We all know too well there is enormous potential for fraud and abuse in procurement. I am not willing to approve such broad authority without any assurances attached to it. There are reasons for these procurement laws, reasons throughout Government why GSA has a procedure. We just revised them. I was chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee when we went through some of these procedures and changed the procurement laws for our whole Government to protect against fraud and abuse in these programs. To waive those things, particularly with the District of Columbia, that does not have a good track record in the area of contracting and fiduciary or financial responsibility, I think is just wrong. This legislation does not even include a reporting requirement on contracts awarded under this provision. There is no evidence that they considered using one of the exceptions to full and open competition under the Competition in Contracting Act [CICA], such as unusual and compelling urgency or in the public interest. While these procurements would still be protestable, it would have been a much more palatable solution than broad waivers. I have opposed blanket waivers of procurement laws in the past. Most recently I came to the floor to speak against the waiver of procurement laws with respect to the FAA. Although I continue to believe that the FAA waivers were a bad precedent to set, at least that legislation contained a very specific list of the laws to be waived. No such list exists in connection with this provision. A few laws, such as CICA and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act have been named, but the phrase, ``* * * or any other law governing procurements or public contracts * * *,'' leaves the rest of the field wide open to include labor, civil rights, and financial management laws. The list in this bill, at the very least, should be as explicit in the D.C. appropriations bill as it is in the DOT appropriations law. This is a very dangerous precedent to set even for a limited period of time and for a limited purpose. If the conference report is defeated, I hope the committee will consider this view and redraft, if not delete, this provision from the bill. My basic objection, going back to where I started, is, to siphon off money from the public school system for private purposes is just flat wrong. If we have problems with our public school system, let us fix it. Let us vote the money for it, not siphon off what little money we have in it now. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, today, I am introducing legislation to amend the Single Audit Act of 1984. This legislation will both improve financial management of Federal funds and reduce paperwork burdens on State and local governments, universities and other nonprofit organizations that receive Federal assistance. I am happy that the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Stevens, joins with me in cosponsoring the bill, as do Senators Levin, Cochran, Pryor, Cohen, Lieberman, and Brown, all fellow members of the Governmental Affairs Committee. Over the last several years we have made great strides in reforming the sloppy and wasteful state of Federal financial management. The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, which I strongly support, was a major accomplishment in this regard. Much more remains to be done, however, to achieve greater accountability for the hundreds of billions of dollars of Federal assistance that go to or through State and local governments and nonprofit organizations. Much more also remains to be done to reduce the auditing and reporting burdens of the Federal assistance management process. The Single Audit Act Amendments of 1996, which I introduce today, goes a long way toward achieving these goals. The Single Audit Act was enacted in 1984 to overcome serious gaps and duplications that existed in audit coverage over Federal funds provided to State and local governments, which now amount to about $200 billion a year. Some governments rarely saw an auditor interested in examining Federal funds, others were swamped by auditors, each looking at a separate grant award. The Single Audit Act remedied that problem by changing the audit focus from compliance with individual Federal grant requirements to a periodic single overall audit of the entity receiving Federal assistance. The act also set specific dollar thresholds to exempt small grant recipients from regular audit requirements. This structured approach of entity-wide audits simplified overlapping audit requirements and improved grantee-organization administrative controls. The Single Audit Act also served an important purpose of prompting State and local governments to improve their general financial management practices. The act encouraged the governments to review and revise their financial management practices, including instituting annual financial statement audits, installing new accounting systems, and implementing monitoring systems. The improvements represented long- needed and long-lasting financial management reforms. Studies by the General Accounting Office [GAO] confirmed these accomplishments. The success of the act also prompted the Office of Management and Budget [OMB] to apply single audit principles to educational institutions and other nonprofits that receive or passthrough Federal funds (OMB Circular No. A-133, ``Audits of Institutions of Higher Education and Other Nonprofit Organizations,'' March 1990). During my tenure as chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, I requested that GAO study the implementation of the Single Audit Act and suggest any needed changes. The resulting report, Single Audit: Refinements Can Improve Usefulness (GAO/AIMD-94-133, June 1994), reviewed the successes of the act, but also pointed out specific modifications that could improve the act's usefulness. The legislation I introduce today is based on GAO's findings, and in fact, was developed in cooperation with GAO and OMB. Moreover, OMB is presently revising its Circular A-133 consistent with the purposes of this legislation. Finally, the bill also reflects comments received from State, local and private sector accounting, and audit professionals, as well as program managers. Altogether, the legislation will strengthen the act, while simultaneously reducing its burdens. First, the legislation extends the act to cover nonprofit entities that receive Federal assistance. Again, these organizations are currently subject to the single audit process under OMB Circular A-133. Broadening the act's coverage in this way ensures that all nonFederal grantee organizations will be covered uniformly by a single audit process. Second, the bill reduces audit and related paperwork burdens by raising the single audit threshold from $100,000 to $300,000. This would exempt thousands of smaller State and local governments and nonprofits from Federal single audit requirements. It would still ensure, however, that the vast majority of Federal funds would be subject to audit testing. Needless to say, it would also not interfere with the ability of Federal agencies to audit or investigate grantees when needed to safeguard Federal funds. Third, the bill would improve audit effectiveness by establishing a risk-based approach for selecting programs to be tested during single audits for adequacy of internal controls and compliance with Federal program requirements, such as eligibility rules. The Single Audit Act has required audit testing solely on the basis of dollar criteria. Using the risk-based approach will ensure coverage of large programs, as well as others that are actually more at risk. Fourth, the legislation improves the contents and timeliness of single audit reporting to make the reports more useful. Currently, auditors often include a number of different documents in a single audit report. These documents are designed to comply with auditing standards but leave many confused. A summary document, written in plain language, would greatly increase the usefulness of single audit reports. Shortening the reporting timeframes will also make the single audit reports more useful. The current practice of filing reports 13 months after the end of the year that was audited significantly reduces their utility. An ideal period would be the Government Finance Officers Association's standard of 6 months for timely reporting by State and local governments. However, given the multiple audits that some State auditors have to perform, the legislation establishes a 9-month standard. Moreover, the legislation gives flexibility for extensions as needed. The overall goal, still, is to shorten the reporting timeframe to make the single audit reports more useful to assess the stewardship of organizations entrusted with Federal funds and to prompt any needed corrective actions. Fifth, the legislation increases administrative flexibility. OMB is authorized to issue rules to implement the act and may revise certain audit requirements as needed, without seeking amendments to the act. For example, OMB would be authorized to raise even higher the $300,000 threshold. Auditors also will have greater flexibility to target programs at risk. In these and other ways, the Single Audit Act Amendments of 1996 will streamline the underlying Single Audit Act, update its requirements, reduce burdens, and provide for more flexibility. This legislation builds on the significant accomplishments of the 1984 act and I am confident that the Senate will move the legislation expeditiously. In December 1995, the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs held a hearing on the status of Federal financial management, including the Single Audit Act. Charles Bowsher, the Comptroller General of the United States and, Kurt Sjoberg, the California State auditor, representing the National State Auditors Association, strongly supported the legislation and recommended that it be enacted. Edward DeSeve, Office of Management and Budget Controller, also applauded the legislative effort. The support of the Comptroller General and the State auditors is especially important. The Comptroller General was instrumental in advising the Congress when the original Single Audit Act was enacted. He followed the subsequent implementation of the act and has made the recommendations for improving the act that was the basis for the current legislation. I give great weight to his recommendations for amending the Single Audit Act. State auditors, for their part, are key players in the single audit process. They conduct or arrange for thousands of single audits each year. So, their views are also critically important. Following the December hearing, the National State Auditors Association met to discuss the legislation and decided unanimously to support its enactment. I submit their letter of support for the Record. Finally, I commend to my colleagues the fact that this legislation is bipartisan. Again, Senator Stevens, chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, joins with me in cosponsoring the bill, as do Senators Levin, Cochran, Pryor, Cohen, Lieberman, and Brown. This bipartisanship also extends to the House of Representatives. With this bipartisan support, I am sure that this good Government legislation can soon become law. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that additional material be printed in the Record.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, today, I am introducing legislation to amend the Single Audit Act of 1984. This legislation will both improve financial management of Federal funds and reduce paperwork burdens on State and local governments, universities and other nonprofit organizations that receive Federal assistance. I am happy that the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Stevens, joins with me in cosponsoring the bill, as do Senators Levin, Cochran, Pryor, Cohen, Lieberman, and Brown, all fellow members of the Governmental Affairs Committee. Over the last several years we have made great strides in reforming the sloppy and wasteful state of Federal financial management. The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, which I strongly support, was a major accomplishment in this regard. Much more remains to be done, however, to achieve greater accountability for the hundreds of billions of dollars of Federal assistance that go to or through State and local governments and nonprofit organizations. Much more also remains to be done to reduce the auditing and reporting burdens of the Federal assistance management process. The Single Audit Act Amendments of 1996, which I introduce today, goes a long way toward achieving these goals. The Single Audit Act was enacted in 1984 to overcome serious gaps and duplications that existed in audit coverage over Federal funds provided to State and local governments, which now amount to about $200 billion a year. Some governments rarely saw an auditor interested in examining Federal funds, others were swamped by auditors, each looking at a separate grant award. The Single Audit Act remedied that problem by changing the audit focus from compliance with individual Federal grant requirements to a periodic single overall audit of the entity receiving Federal assistance. The act also set specific dollar thresholds to exempt small grant recipients from regular audit requirements. This structured approach of entity-wide audits simplified overlapping audit requirements and improved grantee-organization administrative controls. The Single Audit Act also served an important purpose of prompting State and local governments to improve their general financial management practices. The act encouraged the governments to review and revise their financial management practices, including instituting annual financial statement audits, installing new accounting systems, and implementing monitoring systems. The improvements represented long- needed and long-lasting financial management reforms. Studies by the General Accounting Office [GAO] confirmed these accomplishments. The success of the act also prompted the Office of Management and Budget [OMB] to apply single audit principles to educational institutions and other nonprofits that receive or passthrough Federal funds (OMB Circular No. A-133, ``Audits of Institutions of Higher Education and Other Nonprofit Organizations,'' March 1990). During my tenure as chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, I requested that GAO study the implementation of the Single Audit Act and suggest any needed changes. The resulting report, Single Audit: Refinements Can Improve Usefulness (GAO/AIMD-94-133, June 1994), reviewed the successes of the act, but also pointed out specific modifications that could improve the act's usefulness. The legislation I introduce today is based on GAO's findings, and in fact, was developed in cooperation with GAO and OMB. Moreover, OMB is presently revising its Circular A-133 consistent with the purposes of this legislation. Finally, the bill also reflects comments received from State, local and private sector accounting, and audit professionals, as well as program managers. Altogether, the legislation will strengthen the act, while simultaneously reducing its burdens. First, the legislation extends the act to cover nonprofit entities that receive Federal assistance. Again, these organizations are currently subject to the single audit process under OMB Circular A-133. Broadening the act's coverage in this way ensures that all nonFederal grantee organizations will be covered uniformly by a single audit process. Second, the bill reduces audit and related paperwork burdens by raising the single audit threshold from $100,000 to $300,000. This would exempt thousands of smaller State and local governments and nonprofits from Federal single audit requirements. It would still ensure, however, that the vast majority of Federal funds would be subject to audit testing. Needless to say, it would also not interfere with the ability of Federal agencies to audit or investigate grantees when needed to safeguard Federal funds. Third, the bill would improve audit effectiveness by establishing a risk-based approach for selecting programs to be tested during single audits for adequacy of internal controls and compliance with Federal program requirements, such as eligibility rules. The Single Audit Act has required audit testing solely on the basis of dollar criteria. Using the risk-based approach will ensure coverage of large programs, as well as others that are actually more at risk. Fourth, the legislation improves the contents and timeliness of single audit reporting to make the reports more useful. Currently, auditors often include a number of different documents in a single audit report. These documents are designed to comply with auditing standards but leave many confused. A summary document, written in plain language, would greatly increase the usefulness of single audit reports. Shortening the reporting timeframes will also make the single audit reports more useful. The current practice of filing reports 13 months after the end of the year that was audited significantly reduces their utility. An ideal period would be the Government Finance Officers Association's standard of 6 months for timely reporting by State and local governments. However, given the multiple audits that some State auditors have to perform, the legislation establishes a 9-month standard. Moreover, the legislation gives flexibility for extensions as needed. The overall goal, still, is to shorten the reporting timeframe to make the single audit reports more useful to assess the stewardship of organizations entrusted with Federal funds and to prompt any needed corrective actions. Fifth, the legislation increases administrative flexibility. OMB is authorized to issue rules to implement the act and may revise certain audit requirements as needed, without seeking amendments to the act. For example, OMB would be authorized to raise even higher the $300,000 threshold. Auditors also will have greater flexibility to target programs at risk. In these and other ways, the Single Audit Act Amendments of 1996 will streamline the underlying Single Audit Act, update its requirements, reduce burdens, and provide for more flexibility. This legislation builds on the significant accomplishments of the 1984 act and I am confident that the Senate will move the legislation expeditiously. In December 1995, the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs held a hearing on the status of Federal financial management, including the Single Audit Act. Charles Bowsher, the Comptroller General of the United States and, Kurt Sjoberg, the California State auditor, representing the National State Auditors Association, strongly supported the legislation and recommended that it be enacted. Edward DeSeve, Office of Management and Budget Controller, also applauded the legislative effort. The support of the Comptroller General and the State auditors is especially important. The Comptroller General was instrumental in advising the Congress when the original Single Audit Act was enacted. He followed the subsequent implementation of the act and has made the recommendations for improving the act that was the basis for the current legislation. I give great weight to his recommendations for amending the Single Audit Act. State auditors, for their part, are key players in the single audit process. They conduct or arrange for thousands of single audits each year. So, their views are also critically important. Following the December hearing, the National State Auditors Association met to discuss the legislation and decided unanimously to support its enactment. I submit their letter of support for the Record. Finally, I commend to my colleagues the fact that this legislation is bipartisan. Again, Senator Stevens, chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, joins with me in cosponsoring the bill, as do Senators Levin, Cochran, Pryor, Cohen, Lieberman, and Brown. This bipartisanship also extends to the House of Representatives. With this bipartisan support, I am sure that this good Government legislation can soon become law. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that additional material be printed in the Record.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I am glad to see there are a few of us left in Washington this morning: The Presiding Officer, Senator Hatch from Utah, myself--maybe there are a few other Senators around Capitol Hill, but there are not very many. It is that situation I wish to address briefly this morning. I do not come to the floor very often and give lengthy speeches. This will not be a very lengthy speech this morning either, but sometimes I think a sense of responsibility on how the Senate conducts its business or does not conduct its business is in order. It is that issue I want to address this morning. Mr. President, the Senate conducted rollcall votes on Wednesday. And although we are not technically in recess, there are no plans to have votes until February 27. No vote of the Senate was taken to decide whether we would recess. It was just decided we would go through the charade of pro forma sessions, of looking like we are doing something when actually we are not. I think it is important for the American people to know about what is going on here, because we have not passed all the appropriations bills for the fiscal year that started last October. We are 5 months into this fiscal year without having dealt with the unfinished business of the Senate. Currently the following departments are operating without regular appropriations bills. The Department of Veterans Affairs; the Department of Housing and Urban Development; the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Commerce, the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Health and Human Services. We passed a continuing resolution. That is what we call it. A continuing resolution means you are supposed to go ahead and continue your operations as they were in the previous year if we have not passed an appropriations bill. But this year there is a new angle to this because in order to get a continuing resolution passed on most of these departments, most of what we would normally have had as a continuing resolution is not there because we have reduced most of them by 25 percent over what their expenditure limits would have been. In other words, most of them are having to limp along and make reductions in their activities. I want to spell some of these out in a few minutes. But let me just say that five appropriations bills remain unfinished, and funding for the District of Columbia is not complete. We have yet to agree on a plan to balance the budget over the next 7 years. We do not have a welfare reform bill, nor Medicare reform, nor Medicaid reform, nor health insurance reform, nor product liability reform, nor Superfund reform, nor an Endangered Species Act, nor a Safe Drinking Water Act, nor a Clean Water Act, and we even face defaulting on the debt endangering the full faith and credit of the United States come March 15 if we have not acted. And, incidentally, all of these CR's also run out. So there would be no funding for these agencies or departments come March 15 unless we take action of the full Congress to correct it. All of the above is what we were supposed to be doing back in the 1995 calendar year that would apply to fiscal 1996 which we are in right now and have been since last October. We have not even started yet on the 1996 agenda that will be for next year's budget. So we are completely behind. This lack of achievement will not stand in the way, however, of a 20- day break in the Senate schedule. I know that recesses are scheduled during a legislative session. But I want to call the attention of the Senate and the attention of the people of this country to the fact that this election year the Senate schedule is already curtailed, and we are well behind even on this year's activity. Mr. President, by my count, if we assume an Easter recess, a Memorial Day recess, a Fourth of July recess, an August recess for the party nominating conventions, and an October 4 sine die adjournment--and a not unusual Senate 4-day workweek. The norm here is that nothing of substance usually happens Monday morning and there is nothing of substance normally on Friday afternoon. There are only about 88 legislative days left in this 104th Congress this year to accomplish the business of last year as well as the business of this year. It is probably more like 70 to 75 days when we know the actual number of days when Members are here in numbers to conduct business. Sometimes we put things off from one day to another because certain people are not here, or their schedule has been accommodated by leadership on both sides of the aisle. But I think even an optimistic count, if you look at the calendar, is that we will have about 88 days left this year. That may come as a shock to a lot of people because they think we are here in mid-February and we have all the rest of this year to get our job done. We do not. Of the legislative days here, we have about 88 days left for this year right now. I do not see how we accommodate our business that has to be done in that time period. Let me point out some of the problems that the Nation faces and we avoid by not being here doing our work. I requested that some of the affected agencies tell me how they are dealing with these cutbacks right now. This is not something speculative out there into the future. We can surmise as to what may be out there in the future. But here are a few things that are being curtailed right now, services that the people of this country thought they were getting and are beginning to be cut back on. Why? Because we have not passed the appropriations bills, and because we accommodated the demands of mainly the people over in the House that said that if they were going to even make a continuing resolution it had to be with major cutbacks in fundings now. In other words, they are doing what should be legislative cutbacks by just saying we will not provide the money, and we just refuse. So for most of these agencies or departments some of them are going along on about a 25-percent reduction. Let us look at the Environmental Protection Agency. According to the EPA, 40 percent of its planned inspections of industrial facilities were missed during this period--40 percent. EPA typically conducts 9,000 inspections a year and takes 3,700 enforcement actions. These inspections help protect our drinking water and our air quality. Continued funding shortfalls will not allow EPA to catch up with its backlog. The work necessary to develop tap water standards for pollutants like cryptosporidium will be delayed. A couple of years ago, in 1993, 100 people died and many more were sickened by cryptosporidium. Even though this is a priority issue, these standards take time. And this is a complex issue requiring extensive data collection which is being delayed right now. Toxic waste cleanups are being slowed. Cleanups at hundreds of sites were stopped during the shutdown, and half of those will not be able to resume quickly. Further funding shortages will only cause further delay. Three new cleanups in Ohio, my home State, at Uniontown, Dayton, and Marietta may not begin this year. It looks as though they will not begin this year as scheduled. Further delays are expected in efforts to control industrial discharge into rivers and streams. The public's right to know about toxic chemical emissions in their area is jeopardized. Delays in pesticide registration will affect crop protection. Standards for controlling toxic industrial air pollutants will be delayed. A toxic sweep task force was established by Cleveland and the State of Ohio to rid the city of toxic problems that pose threats to the public health and welfare, fire safety, and serve as barriers to property redevelopment. Twenty-seven properties have been cleaned up under this program. EPA help was requested on three of the more difficult sites. However, EPA cannot respond, and redevelopment is delayed and may not occur at all. Those are just a few of the things that are going on just with the EPA budget because of this failure of the Congress to act. Under Health and Human Services, although many critical programs received full-year funding, the level of funding is not keeping up with the increased need due to our growing elderly population, and especially the old and frail elderly who need health and support services in order to just stay in their homes and their communities. The Health Resources and Services Administration supports programs such as community and migrant health centers, and maternal and child health block grants. The impact of interrupted and short-term funding is expected to result in reduced services to the poor, and will be detrimental to the health services infrastructure and the quality of services, including preventive services. Because final action has not occurred, uncertainty exists as to the availability of funding for Ryan White CARE Act programs. This inability to predict the annual level of funding available to cities and States will impact planning and operating systems for HIV/AIDS victims. The cities of Cleveland, Fort Worth, Hartford, Minneapolis, Sacramento, and San Jose now qualify for title I--HIV Emergency Relief Grant Program to provide emergency assistance to localities disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic--funds under both existing and proposed legislation because of the ever-growing need of HIV/AIDS services. Awards to all new cities must be delayed until there is permanent legislation. Under education--Mr. President, the largest investment we make to boost low achievement in educational skills is title I which provides some 50,000 schools and about two-thirds of our elementary schools across this country, with funds for individualized instruction, smaller classes, extra time to learn after school, use of computers, and more parental involvement. According to Secretary Riley, at continuing resolution levels title I will be cut by $1.1 billion, or 17 percent. This will deny help to more than 1 million students and cost 40,000 to 50,000 teaching and teaching aides' positions. As an example, Chicago could lose some 600 teachers. In Beaver Local School District of Lisbon in northeastern Ohio, that means the elimination of the program for the middle school, losing three teachers, and ending remedial reading and math for 120 children. Ohio could lose over $50 million. That is just an example in my home State. But the same thing is going on all over this country--cutbacks in education and helping kids get a decent start in school, giving them remedial help that they need is being cut back right now. The Department of Labor is operating at funding levels provided in the House-passed bill. Should this continue, summer jobs for youth will be eliminated wiping out Federal support for summer jobs for 600,000 young people--600,000 young people, if we continue to do nothing the way we have been doing, will not have summer jobs. Employment and training programs would be reduced by $1.6 billion, meaning 800,000 other people would be deprived of much needed services. Back to Ohio again. Ohio would receive $35 million less for job training and assistance with 30,000 people unserved that normally would have been helped during that period. Veterans. Congress' failure to deliver an acceptable VA-HUD appropriations bill is having a devastating effect on veterans programs. Veterans medical care is compromised by the requirement to eliminate 5,100 full-time medical employees at VA facilities. This will result in treatment of 36,000 fewer inpatients and 800,000 outpatients. This is the equivalent of closing three medical clinics with an average of 300 beds each. How can we possibly justify that? In addition, funding levels under the current CR preclude construction of two hospitals that are needed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, CA, and Brevard County in Florida. It also eliminates funding for five projects required to renovate and correct major deficiencies in older VA hospitals. How can we possibly look any veterans that are in those hospitals, who sacrificed in combat or wherever, however they came to be in the hospital, in the eye and say, ``Well, you are not in a war so we are going to cut you fellows out; we are going to cut the funding back, shut the facilities down.'' I find that very hard to accept. The Justice Department. Under the current continuing resolution, the Community Oriented Policing Services, so-called COPS Program, is funded at 75 percent of its 1995 levels. At this level, 1,674 additional police officers could be hired. Under the President's request, 3,166 could be added. This means there are 1,492 fewer cops out there on the beat. Mr. President, I went up and visited one of the COPS programs in Toledo, OH, not too long ago. It is working very well. They have the additional police out in the community organizing the people to have community watch programs and cooperative programs. It is working very, very well. But those programs are now going to be reduced or eliminated or new ones will certainly not be started. The Department of Commerce. In the Department of Commerce, a variety of programs have been affected by delays which have impacted fishing communities, delayed NOAA's satellite procurement program, threatened funding of National Weather Service contractors and suppliers, disrupted orderly trade relations which hinders exporters, threatened Economic Development Administration assistance to local governments and businesses following military base closures. Review and processing of applications for new State coastal zone management programs in Ohio and Texas and Georgia have delayed eligibility for Federal funding of $2 million a year. Mr. President, these are just a few examples of the consequences of our inaction. Beyond the terrific impact of these shortfalls is the question of how can we expect to operate a system of government in the most efficient way possible while supporting it in only bits and pieces--starts and stops. No organization can operate effectively when run on that kind of an interim basis. Planning is hindered when you are funded for the next 6 weeks and uncertain about another, and whether or not there will be a 10th continuing resolution. We do not even know that. We do not know what the conditions of acceptance of another CR will be. The CR permitting the action I am talking about here this morning expires on March 15 along with the debt limit. You can be certain that efficiency of Government services will be questioned when it comes to next year's funding but Congress will not likely blame itself. Federal workers become an all-too-easy target. Mr. President, yesterday's Washington Post says, and I quote, ``Congress has gone home to campaign. Given the little they have accomplished to date, you wonder what the members will campaign on, but resourceful troopers that they are, they will no doubt find something.'' After a discussion of the farm bill, the Post suggests that Congress, ``Can go on to the rest of their unfinished business, like raising the debt ceiling so the Treasury doesn't have to default, finishing this year's budget so they can get on to the next and figuring out what if anything they want to do about Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, the Clean Water Act and a couple of other trifles like that.'' ``Trifles'' I am sure they meant tongue in cheek. Another clip out of the newspaper, Kevin Phillips noted in his column of February 7 in the Los Angeles Times, ``The 104th Congress may be the worst in 50 years.'' The forces of an ideological jihad have failed to find workable compromise on their agenda and have forgotten that democracy depends on compromise. Failing to move a radical agenda to turn back America's clock, an effort to shut down the executive branch of the Government also failed. Now it appears we are applying the same tactics to the legislative branch of Government. Mr. President, not doing business is no way for the Congress to do business. One of the few successes of last year was requiring Congress to abide by the same laws as everyone else. I believe we are violating at least the spirit of that law when we hold Government employees hostage, when we borrow from the pension funds to keep the Government afloat, when we drive the Government to the brink of default, when we do not complete the job we were hired to do in the time we were supposed to do it, when we force the agencies and departments of Government to operate on an interim basis facing imminent cutoffs of funds and in a final note of folly when all else fails the Congress leaves town with very limited legislative time left in this calendar year of 1996. Mr. President, maybe we should require that Congress abide by another law that people in all of our communities have to work with also, and that is no work, no pay. We had votes on that. They did not pass. Maybe we ought to reconsider that when we get back in here. Meanwhile, Mr. President, everyone is out campaigning, doing whatever they are doing while the work of the Government sits here and is not being accomplished. We were elected to come here and deal with the problems and the programs of this country. We have not even dealt with the work we were supposed to do last year, and we certainly have not gotten around to completing that or even beginning the work we are supposed to do this year and time is very, very short. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the editorial out of yesterday's Washington Post and also the column by Kevin Phillips out of the Los Angeles Times of Wednesday, February 7 be printed in the Record.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I just want to make a few remarks about the recess. In fact, we are going on a vacation period when we have not even come close to completing the work of the U.S. Senate. I do not know whether people realize it, but if they look at the calendar they will see that we are into the middle of February. I do not think they realize what a short time period we have left to do the business of the Senate for this year in 1996. This year there are political party nominating conventions, and we will adjourn before the November elections. We will not come back in after the elections because that is just a lame duck session. In effect we are saddled with getting everything done between now and the convention time. If you consider our sine die adjournment which is scheduled for October 4, and take out the normal holiday periods of Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, August recess, and Labor Day, we have about 85 legislative working days left. And if we go on our normal 4-day week schedule where we do not come in until Monday noon and go out by Friday noon, which makes about a 4-day workweek, it means we have a total of about 65 working days left in this legislative year. I do not think people realize how tight we are on time. We have not even begun to complete the work of last year yet. We have five appropriations bills--VA-HUD appropriations, Commerce, State, Justice appropriations, Interior appropriations, Labor-HHS appropriations, and D.C. appropriations. In addition to that, we had hoped to have a balanced budget agreement. We had hoped to have welfare reform. We have an absolutely critical debt limit extension that has to be done so that the full faith and credit of the United States is honored around the world. That is not one that we can really put off at all. The continuing resolution and the debt limit expire by March 15. We now are taking off 3 weeks--almost 3 weeks. I find that unconscionable. Then we wonder why the American people have a lack of faith in their Congress to get things done for this country. I appreciate the fact that there is a Presidential campaign on. But we need a balanced budget agreement. We want welfare reform. The debt limit absolutely has to be passed. We need health insurance reform legislation. We have a continuing resolution to provide funding for those appropriations bills not yet enacted, all of which are limping along below their normally funded levels. Mr. President, these are the leftovers from last year. This does not even address the new authorization and appropriations bills that we have to pass in 1996 for fiscal 1997. Here we are out for approximately a 3-week period, and to avoid a vote on whether we should go out or not--we are going to have pro forma sessions; a couple of them a week in which there will be no votes. We will have morning business only. We will come in and make our speeches, and nothing else will be accomplished. I find that unconscionable. I never said I am ashamed of the U.S. Senate. But I will tell you right at this moment I come closer to it than any other time. Do people realize we only have some 65 to 90 legislative days this year? These are important pieces of legislation. The items that are being partially funded with the continuing resolution now are limping along, as I said. We have veterans programs that are begging right now--where veterans hospitals are not getting the funding that they should have. We are not getting the new hospitals that were promised to be built. So we know that on February 26, we will not get anything done. Then we will have the 27th, 28th, and the 29th, and the 1st left in that week, if we work all day Friday--which is becoming rare around here. The debt limit expires on March 15 and we will actually have only somewhere around 11 or 12 days to complete the work. That will be the total time that we will have to work on the continuing resolution to provide for those five appropriations bills left over from last year. And we know from past experience that there are going to be quid pro quos all over the place on the debt limit and any CR's. We know that because that is what has happened every time they have come up this year. I think we are getting very, very short on time. I think we should stay here. And I think we should be working at the people's business. I think we should be working around the clock on this. And I think we should be working from 9 o'clock on Monday morning until 6 o'clock Friday afternoon--which is what the people expect of us when they elected us and sent us here. They do not expect us to come in here and work 3\1/2\- or 4-day weeks and then come back home and make all sorts of excuses about why we cannot get important legislation passed. I do not think people across this country realize we are still working on last year's agenda--five appropriations bills that we do not have done yet, and the new appropriations bills coming up this year. We only have 65 to 85 legislative days left in this year. For us to go out now for whatever purpose and for whatever reason I just think is not right. I am sorry we were not able to have a vote on this so we could in effect hold people's feet to the fire and say, ``OK. If you want to go out, at least have guts enough to vote on it.'' But that is not the way things work. So we are going out. We will not have pro forma sessions next week because that is President's week. Normally there is a break here. And then the following week we will have two pro forma sessions, as I understand it; one this Friday on the 9th, and then on the 20th and the 23d but not with votes. We cannot have any votes on anything important. So we will all come in here and act like we are doing something, and we are not. I just do not think that is worthy of the people of this country who sent us here. Mr. President, in one of these pro forma sessions I will have a great deal more to say about this. I will provide additional examples of where we are being hurt. Weather forecasting is being degraded. Public safety is jeopardized. The National Weather Service is cutting back for lack of passing a Commerce bill. There is a whole number of things that people do not normally think about, programs funded at levels that are one-fourth reduced. Advanced Technology, the program Ounce of Prevention Council, Local Climate Change, Cops on the Beat, Drug Courts, AmeriCorps, Community Development Financial Institutions, HHS Office of Consumer Affairs--all of these are things that are being cut back now because we do not stay here and do the job we were sent here to do. I just find that unconscionable. I am so sorry that we are not staying here to take care of these things that we thought were ``must-do'' legislation. One other comment on the debt limit: Do we know what we are dealing with here? Are we to the point where Wall Street and world's financial community doubt the true faith and allegiance of the United States monetary system? Most of the nations of the world use our currency as their reserve currency. They put dollars in the bank depending on them. We put gold in the bank at one time. They put dollars in the bank. They have that kind of faith. Yet, we are going to run right up to the hilt again on this and create a lot of doubt as to whether we are going to pass a debt limit. And, if the past is any predictor of the future, we know we are going to have a lot of things attached as riders so that the House has its way on the Contract With America. I wish they had a Contract With America on how to keep faith and allegiance in our currency, and faith in our Government, because all we have been doing so far is creating doubt as to our ability really to manage things. So I regret we are going out. I regret we are going to stop having productive sessions here. I would have much preferred that we stay here and take care of the Nation's business. It seems to me that is what we should be doing. We will have more to say on this later, and I yield the floor.

Mr. GLENN. I yield for a question.

Mr. GLENN. I would answer the Senator by saying absolutely, I think there is that danger. We saw a lot of comment in the international financial press and our own domestic financial press when we extended this to March 15. There was some real concern expressed as to why March 15, why was it not longer? If we really were confident that we were taking care of the best interests of the United States and our economy, why did we not make it longer? Why did we make it such a short period of time? The closer we get to that deadline, it seems to me, the more questions are going to be raised. The Senator makes a very good point. If we ever had a real default, if we ever come up and really go into default, it affects our credit rating. It raises interest rates, and it would cost future taxpayers billions of dollars in higher borrowing costs. To play around with that like Russian roulette, playing with fire around gasoline on something that important for the future of this country I just think is unconscionable. I do not think we should be going out.