John Glenn

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. On this particular amendment, I probably would accept the amendment. I think there would be objection on our side to accepting the amendment.

Mr. GLENN. I thought the unanimous consent request was on all the--

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, let me congratulate the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Kohl] for taking the initiative on this matter. His constituents were hard hit in Milwaukee not long ago when they had some of these problems with cryptosporidium. It resulted in around 100 deaths and some 400,000 people ill. So he brings this to our attention. He certainly has the personal experience of knowing what happened back right where he lives with people he knows. For that reason, I fully support the Senator from Wisconsin on this amendment to ensure the health and safety of our people. As I stated earlier when talking about the E. coli bacteria, this bill, S. 343, does not, in my opinion, provide that essential balance of regulatory relief and protection of the American people, and there does have to be that kind of a balance. That is why I supported the minority leader's amendment on the USDA E. coli meat and poultry inspection rule. And that is why I support this amendment on rules addressing cryptosporidium. The current dangers to public health from contaminated drinking water were made clear by the outbreak of cryptosporidium in the water supply of Milwaukee, WI. As I said a moment ago, it resulted in an estimated 100 deaths and over 400,000 illnesses. I do not know the population of Milwaukee, but that means just about everybody around that area was sick for a while-- 400,000 people ill, and some ill enough that around 100 died from this--died. So the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin would exempt this critically important rule from the burdensome requirements of this bill. I support this amendment in order to show how important rules that are already underway will be delayed and can be stopped by the regulatory reform bill before us. I stated earlier the situation with this rule reminds me of the regulatory moratorium we had before us not long ago except now we are calling it regulatory reform. Rules that are in the pipeline and will be final soon must still go back to square one all over again. Even with the emergency exemption that the proponents of S. 343 keep pointing to, this rule would still be subject to all the petition provisions, be subject to all the judicial review opportunities, the agency review of rules, and et cetera, all the things that are provided. Also, the emergency exemption in S. 343 does not really exempt anything from the bill. It would be only temporary at best. It only provides for a 180-day grace period after issuance of the rule. That is, it gives an agency an additional 180 days to comply with the requirements of the bill and that is it. Now, at the end of the 180 days, all of the onerous requirements of S. 343 kick in again. No exemption then. Just new opportunities for challenges, uncertainty, and delay. Now, I guess the people who wrote this assume that 180 days was enough to do all the investigating that would have to be done. But some of these rules and regulations take years and years to finalize. Yet, we are saying, Do this within 180 days or you have to go back and start all this all over again. It is just a new opportunity for challenges, uncertainty and delay. What will happen to the implementation of the rule when it faces those prospects? Well, regardless of the Senator from Wisconsin's amendment, the cryptosporidium rule will be caught in the vise of S. 343 and public health will suffer. The potential delays for this rule are very real. So there will be the additional deaths and sicknesses. They will be very real, too. Those sicknesses and deaths will be to those Americans who possibly assume wrongly that their water is safe to drink. This amendment is certainly a step in the right direction to protect the health of the American people. But it certainly is not enough. S. 343 will catch other important rules, and overall it will make the jobs of the agencies to protect health, safety, and the environment much more difficult. S. 343 simply does not fulfill my two principles for regulatory reform: regulatory relief and protection for the American people. And I repeat for the umpteenth time on the floor, there has to be a balance between those two. That is why I, along with Senator Chafee and many others, have introduced S. 1001, which we believe is a balanced regulatory reform proposal. It is a tough bill. It is not an easy bill. But our bill would not shut down these important rules that are already in the pipeline. So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I strongly encourage them to take a hard look at our alternative proposal for regulatory reform, S. 1001. It makes amendments like this unnecessary. Mr. President, I would like to also talk for a moment about problems for control of cryptosporidium with the amendment to exempt prior proposed rules, the Johnston amendment, so-called, that we just passed. Now, the amendment we passed, which I voted against, would raise several problems for control of cryptosporidium, even apart from the likelihood that the continued application of the section 623 petition process would have the effect of nullifying the exemption. First, the interim enhanced surface water treatment rule [IESWTR] to address waterborne microbial contamination, was proposed on July 29, 1994. This proposal did not actually contain a specific approach to control such contamination, but as an integral part of the negotiated agreement with stakeholders, including the drinking water industry, it set forth general control options that might be part of a final rule and request for other options. This was done because, per the agreement, the final rule was to be developed after and based on a large effort by the industry to gather scientific information on microbial and related drinking water contaminants. By being made very general as controls, as agreed, the proposal would expedite the regulatory process after the data collection. Second, given how little of necessity that the proposed IESWTR told about the controls to be required in a final IESWTR, judges may conclude it would be irrational to apply the exemption to a proposed rule which arguably does not fulfill the normal function of a proposal--to describe the initially intended direction of the regulatory agency's approach to controls on the particular issue. Now, given the general rule of legal interpretation that the legislative body not be presumed to have intended an irrational result and the concern elsewhere in the bill, and in this amendment, that notice in the Johnston amendment--that notice suggests final rules should be substantially similar--substantially similar to proposed rules, some judges might find this a basis for deciding that Congress could not have intended any proposal made before April 1, 1995, to include this proposal. Further, as the word interim suggests, the regulatory negotiation left open the potential that further controls might be needed for cryptosporidium, and the IESWTR did not necessarily represent the full regulatory response appropriate for cryptosporidium. The concept for the interim rule to be promulgated as quickly as reasonably possible after the information collection was completed shows the intent of the reg neg to put in place--regulatory negotiation--to put in place whatever controls were quickly attainable but still solidly science based. Thereafter, if implementation of the interim-enhanced surface water treatment rule left a substantial remaining risk to health from cryptosporidium, that risk could be addressed in an enhanced surface water treatment rule. Therefore, even if the proposed IESWTR did prove to be exempted under this amendment, any later enhanced surface water treatment rule clearly would not be exempted. I bring that up because it does apply to cryptosporidium and specifically with regard to the Johnston amendment that we passed just a short time ago. So once again I urge my colleagues to support the amendment by the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin. He points out the dangers because there were dangers in his State that resulted in around 100 people dying and some [[Page S 9786]] 400,000 ill. I think knowing that the danger, knowing that that is what has already occurred, to say that we should take any chance at all or make any requirement for going back and doing new analysis, new risk assessment, we know the risk is there. Doing new cost-benefit ratios, doing new everything when we know what the danger is, I think would be a mistake. So I fully support the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, and I would urge my colleagues to support this amendment when we have a vote here in a half hour or so. And I hope that it will pass because it is something that is needed to protect the health and safety of this country so we do not have more outbreaks such as the disastrous one that happened in Milwaukee. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I still object until we have a chance to look at this. Mr. President, I object, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, the Johnston amendment, as revised, will exempt from the cost-benefit and risk assessment provisions of this bill any pending rules proposed before April 1 of this year. However, Senator Johnston's amendment does not solve the E. coli problem, since it would continue to subject the HHCCP rule to a petition and look-back process, as well as judicial review. That is of considerable concern. These procedures could expose this important public health rule to unnecessary and potentially life-threatening delay. In addition, Senator Johnston's amendment would continue to apply the requirements of this bill to many rules now in the pipeline which were proposed after April 1. Those rules would be subject to all of the requirements of the bill--cost-benefit analysis, risk assessment petitions, and look-back. This amendment would continue to allow the bill to delay rules that are currently in the pipeline, such as protections against cryptosporidium, unsafe mammography standards, and other important rules. For that reason, I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Johnston amendment and yes on the Daschle amendment, which would clearly permit the HHCCP rule, a rule that would protect the public from tainted meat, to go forward without change. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. GLENN. Earlier today, I said I might. I wanted to see the language. I think it was good that I said that earlier. We have had a couple of changes here in the middle of the unanimous-consent request that changed the nature of this. So I did not make a commitment to vote for this in whatever form it might come up. I am for the general principle being proposed, but not the way this was developed today. So I yield the remainder of my time, and I am ready to go to a vote.

Mr. GLENN. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I know the majority leader wants to speed this along, and I agree with that. We have been moving along pretty well. But I think without knowing what amendments might even be put forward and how serious they might be, I would not want to agree on time limits unless we had the amendments in advance and could look at them and decide how important they are. I will have to object.

Mr. GLENN. We can lay it down tonight and discuss the time limit tomorrow. I would not want to agree to a time limit tonight.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it was our opinion that we knew exactly what we were going to vote on at 5 o'clock. Now I do understand that is liable to be changed?

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I want to respond briefly to the remarks by the senior Senator from Maine because on our committee, the Governmental Affairs Committee, he has been one of the stalwarts on the Republican side in working on these matters of regulatory reform, and he deserves a lot of credit for that. I particularly appreciate his remarks. He is a cosponsor of the Glenn-Chafee approach to this whole matter of regulatory reform. We worked with him through the years. And I know how devoted he is to bringing some reform in this particular area. So I appreciate his remarks very, very much. I yield the floor.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. And we went through some of that this morning.

Mr. GLENN. No, that is not what Dole did yesterday. You have not been listening to the debate on the floor.

Mr. GLENN. Maybe some are. If we prevent deaths with this legislation, what is wrong with going ahead where we know there is a clear and present danger?

Mr. GLENN. Contamination of meat and poultry products sickens 5 million Americans a year and kills 3,500 to 4,000 people every year.

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

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the minority leader. I have stated several times in the Chamber the importance of regulatory reform and the importance of the legislation that we are considering here. I know it does not get all the inches in the newspaper and all the TV time because it is bland, dry, arcane, all the words you can put together to make it uninteresting. Yet I would say this. I think this is one of the most important pieces of legislation--it affects more Americans directly--than any legislation we will take up this year except for probably the appropriations bills. The rules and regulations that are put out pursuant to the laws that we pass here affect every single man, woman and child, every business, every activity that we conduct in this country. I believe very strongly in the need for regulatory reform for every person and business in America, but it must be done sensibly and it must be done with balance. Regulatory reform, to be true reform, should fulfill two principles. First, it should provide regulatory relief for businesses, State and local governments, and individuals. And, second, it also should provide the necessary protections to the safety, health and environment of the American people. Now, that is the balance. S. 343 does not, in my opinion, provide that essential balance of regulatory relief and protection of the American people. That is why in this specific instance I support the minority leader's amendment on the USDA E. coli meat and poultry inspection rule. Now, what is the problem? E. coli, what does that mean? Most people would not even know what you are talking about. Yet, according to USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, 3,000 to 7,000 people die each year--not just made ill but 3,000 to 7,000 people [[Page S 9745]] die each year--from foodborne illnesses like E. coli, and another 3 to 7 million people get sick every year from such illnesses. Just from the E. coli bacteria alone, the estimates are, about 500 people die per year, year in, year out, year in, year out--500 fatalities. We have had testimony before our Governmental Affairs Committee; we have heard the stories of those who have lost loved ones to E. coli. Rainer Mueller testified before our committee about his son's death from eating an E. coli contaminated hamburger, painful death. It could have been prevented if we had better inspection standards in the first place. Nancy Donley came to Washington to tell the story of her son Ellis who also died from eating E. coli contaminated meat. The tragedies are real. Now, is anyone immune from this? Other figures indicate that about 4 percent of the ground beef in supermarkets has E. coli bacteria present in it--4 percent. Just on an average, that would be 1 out of every 25 hamburger patties that you pick up or 1 out of every 25 steaks that you pick up out of a supermarket has E. coli bacteria. Why is the problem then not more severe? Because we cook that meat and that kills E. coli. But in the raw state it has E. coli, and if it is not cooked enough you can come down with it. This can cause death, particularly among children. Now, in the State of Washington, we remember the problem out there where 3 children died, 500 were sick from contaminated hamburgers from just one fast food outlet back a couple of years. How do we prevent this? USDA is finally modernizing its inspection methods to be able to detect deadly bacteria like E. coli. The new proposal is called hazard analysis and critical control point [HACCP]. That will be the rule which will bring our Nation's meat and poultry inspection system into the 20th century. Now, the proposed rule, the public comment period for which just closed, was wanted by the meat industry and has wide public support. It was pushed for by the meat industry. And the public certainly wants it. It will prevent deaths and illnesses, and we should not put this off. The minority leader's amendment would exempt this critically important rule from the burdensome requirements of this bill. I support this amendment in order to show how important rules that are already underway will be delayed and can be stopped by the regulatory reform bill before us. The situation with this rule reminds me of the regulatory moratorium that we had before us a short time ago except now we are calling it regulatory reform. Rules that are in the pipeline and will be final soon must go back to square one. Forget that the Department of Agriculture has already done a cost-benefit analysis. It now will be subject to all the requirements of S. 343--new rulemaking procedures, new decisional criteria, opportunities for lawyer after lawyer after lawyer to sue the agency and stop the rule, petitions for the agency to review the rule, and so on. Unending legal battles and litigation. The potential delays for this rule are real but so also real are the additional deaths and sicknesses suffered by Americans who thought they were eating safe meat. And, indeed, every American deserves to have the meat they eat be safe. And yesterday the majority leader offered an amendment which was accepted to specifically include food safety rules among those rules covered by the bill's exemption provision. And yesterday the point was repeatedly made that there already was included in the bill an exemption from analysis requirements of the bill for ``health, safety or emergency exemption from cost-benefit analysis,'' which is the title of that section of the bill, but that is only for a 180-day period. Then the rule could be subject to judicial challenge if the agency had not completed all the analysis, and we would, indeed, be back to square one again. The problem is that section does not really exempt anything in the bill. It only provides for a 180-day grace period after issuance of the rule, that is, it gives an agency an additional 180 days to comply with all the many requirements of this bill and all the legal challenges that can go along with that. And that is it. At the end of the 180 days, all of the onerous requirements of S. 343 kick in again, no exemption there----

Mr. GLENN. No. I would rather finish and then answer questions. Just new opportunities for challenges, uncertainty, and delay. What will happen to the implementation of the rule when it faces these prospects? Regardless of the majority leader's amendment, the E. coli rule will be caught in the vise of S. 343 and public health will be in danger. The minority leader's amendment is a first step in protecting the health of the American people, but it certainly is not enough. S. 343 will catch other important rules, and overall it will make the jobs of the agencies to protect health and safety and the environment much more difficult. S. 343 simply does not fulfill my two principles for regulatory reform: Regulatory relief and protection for the American people. That is why I, along with Senator Chafee and many others, have introduced S. 1001, which I believe is a balanced regulatory reform proposal. Our bill would not shut down important rules such as USDA's meat and poultry inspection rule. Our bill would require cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment, but it would not force agencies to choose the cheapest, least-cost rule. It would not let the lawyers drag the agencies into court over every detail, every step along the way. It would not create several petition processes that could be used to tie up agency resources in litigation. But it would provide for sensible reform and it would allow the agencies to perform their important duties. Let me add that our bill also would not catch rules that are almost final, like the meat and poultry infection rule. Our bill has an effective date of 6 months from enactment, which gives the agencies time to gear up for the many requirements of this legislation. That makes sense. That is what we should be doing here, working toward commonsense reform. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I strongly encourage them to take a hard look at our alternative proposal for regulatory reform, S. 1001. It makes amendments like this unnecessary. But I urge my colleagues to support the amendment put in by the minority leader.

Mr. GLENN. I will be glad to yield for a question.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, talking about castigation, I think the very fact of filing cloture indicates a castigation of how we have been operating on this side. It indicates that something has to be cut off to move us forward and that we have not been doing an adequate job here. I do not think that is the case at all. That is what I referred to by castigation. As far as the schedule, I do not believe there will be a more important piece of business before this Senate this year than this legislation. It may be dry, it may be arcane, it may be hard to understand, and it may be complicated. But this stuff affects every person here in this room. It affects every person in this city, and across this land, and in major, major ways. I just do not see that we are going to be able to rush through something like this and do the job that should be done for the people of this country. Since Monday, I am told by staff there have been 16 amendments; 11 of those were put in by Republicans; 6 of those were withdrawn; there were 5 of the Democratic proposals, I believe, that have been voted on. So that is an indication of what we have done since Monday. This is Wednesday evening. I do not think that is taking too long on what is one of the most important pieces of business that this body will take up this year. The appropriations bills may be more important. But I do not think any other legislation is going to affect as many people directly in this whole Nation as what we do on this. To now have to go under a 30- hour time limit and say, ``If cloture is invoked, that is it. No matter how important it is for the people of the country, no matter how complex, how complicated, yes, we are going to rush through because we have some other stuff we have to get on to.'' We all have to get out for that August break, for sure. I agree. I want to go out on the August break. But to rush through this thing and indicate that we have to meet some schedule, I think, is unwarranted because this is a very important piece of legislation. I say once again that since Monday, 16 amendments, 11 of them Republicans, 6 of those withdrawn, 5 Democrats, and we have had votes. I think we have moved along pretty well since Monday, and so I must say it disappoints me greatly, obviously, when we felt we had to file cloture, or the leader felt he had to file cloture on us when we have been operating in good faith, moving along, spending long hours on this. So I am disappointed, that is all. Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise now with a sense of real disappointment because I thought we were moving along very well. We were doing this in good faith, moving as fast as we can. There has not been delay on our side. We have not submitted a lot of amendments. The amendments have taken some time to discuss, but that discussion has been as much on the Republican side as it has on the Democratic side. I think any fair analysis of the record over the last 2 days would show that. In fact, on the bill we are considering, S. 343, it is the Dole- Johnston bill, and I think one of the coauthors of that bill has been responsible for as much time on the floor--more time on the floor being spent than have those of us who have opposed some of that. I do not know why it is necessary to try to make this point with cloture, which means there seems to be a feeling that we have been delaying things on our side so we have to be cut off with cloture. I do not think that is fair. I really do not. I think anybody who has watched these proceedings or been involved on the floor here knows we have been going ahead in good faith. We have been trying to move things. We have not delayed things. The only delay I can think of, out of the last 2 days, where any time was taken on our side that might be looked at as unnecessary on the other side, was the time this afternoon when we were trying to work out this agreement for whether the Johnson amendment and the Daschle amendment were going to be taken up in what order. There was a period of maybe an hour this afternoon where we wasted time on that, that is true. But that is the only time. Outside of that, we have been operating in good faith that we were moving ahead on these things. I think this puts a whole different cast on this thing. I do not know whether this fits the same pattern as some of the patterns a little earlier a month or so ago when we were laying down a bill and putting down the cloture the same day before we even got started. But this is just an unfair castigation, as I see it, of the way we have proceeded on this bill. So I must say I am disappointed. Obviously, I cannot do anything about it. But I am disappointed that the other side views this with such lack of faith in our good efforts to move forward on this that they think it is necessary to file cloture. I yield the floor.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Madam President, do I understand then that the Senator from Utah would be amenable to setting aside what was just accomplished here so that the minority leader could go ahead with the amendment that we have prepared?

Mr. GLENN. Madam President, further inquiry, can we have copies of the amendments? I suggest the absence of a quorum.