John Glenn

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Madam President, if we go back in history, we see that the development of weapons of war have become more and more hideous as time goes on. One of the biggest steps forward in that direction--or steps downward, depending on how you look at it--was the development of nuclear weaponry near the end of World War II. I was involved in World War II and in the Korean war. I have been through combat. I know what it is like. When I came to the Senate, I could not imagine anything more horrible than the use of nuclear weaponry in future wars, if they ever came up. The horrors of conventional war are bad enough without imposing nuclear weaponry into that scenario. My desire to do something in this area motivated much of my work here in the Senate, and I have taken a leading position on this issue through the years. Some of it has been very controversial. There have been various approaches to this issue. I want to discuss just a few of those today. We have been hearing much talk in this body lately about the use and the value of sanctions, which is one of the tools we have applied to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to more and more countries around the world. This tool has been applied in many other foreign policy contexts as well, and I am the first to agree with those who say that we may have gone too far in the application of some of these instruments of foreign policy--some of them. There have been successes and there have been failures. It has been a rather spotty record all the way through. When you consider this whole issue, it seems to revolve mainly around two questions: First, in our international relationships, where do we use carrots and where do we use sticks, to put it in those terms. Where do we use enticements to people, to try and entice them into a certain behavior we would like to see, and where do we use sticks? Where do we threaten the punishments that they may consider ahead of time that might cause them not to go into certain areas of behavior we would like to see them avoid? Second, what role should sanctions play as an expression of disapproval or punishment in cases where it is manifest that behavior will not be significantly altered as a result of the imposition of sanctions? Now, the debate in Congress and in most of the think tanks around town and across the country has been most curious because they seem to want it both ways. They want sanctions in some areas and not in others, but not necessarily with regard to nonproliferation. If we consider some other areas, for example, probably the most salient example of the failure of sanctions from every perspective is the drug war. Now, all of us are against drug use. We want to cut out drug use, whether by cutting the flow from abroad or at our borders or within our communities or whatever. We have those sanctions on, but no one in Congress is standing up to proclaim that sanctions against persons or countries which are contributing to the illegal use of drugs ought to be eliminated. We want to keep those sanctions on. Why? In part, because the drug war is politically popular. The war against drugs is politically popular, and its effect on commercial activity by American business is mixed. We have some businesses in this country actually flourishing because of the drug war--manufacturing of equipment used in surveillance, construction of jails, so on. So those people are not about to go to the National Association of Manufacturers or the Chamber of Commerce to complain about unilateral U.S. sanctions. But the complaints about sanctions are now legion when sanctions are applied in other contexts, like the one I am addressing today--nonproliferation. This is not to say that the critics of congressionally mandated sanctions have no case. I agree with some of the points that they make. But there are extremists who take the position that sanctions are never effective and are therefore always inappropriate. There are also extremists who insist on taking a punitive approach to every vexing foreign policy problem. These folks never saw a sanction they didn't like, and any approach to an issue that doesn't take the hardest line is denounced as some sort of appeasement. I might add that quite often there are political points as much as public policy points trying to be made by some of the tacks that these people seem to take. Well, as the author of numerous pieces of legislation on nuclear proliferation that have included both carrots and the sticks of sanctions as tools for achieving certain nonproliferation objectives, I have tried to forge a balanced approach to the proliferation problem. Most recently, my 1994 legislation, which has been referred to as the Glenn amendment, was used by President Clinton to impose a variety of economic sanctions against both India and Pakistan because of their recent nuclear tests. Those sanctions were tough. We didn't pull any punches with those sanctions. Those sanctions mandated that military sales and any aid programs had to stop. It said we would block credits and loan guarantees by U.S. Government agencies. We would oppose any loans or cooperation with those countries under sanction from the World Bank, or IMF, the so-called IFITs, International Financial Institution Transactions. We would also block credit from private banks, and we would prohibit the export of dual-use technology to those countries which might be used for military purposes. Now, that is tough legislation. We didn't give a waiver authority at all. We had rather spotty experiences with Presidents in the past and we said we were going to make this tough; the President could delay the imposition of those sanctions for 30 session days if he wanted, but the President didn't have the authority to waive those sanctions, as is the case with some other legislation. That was done very intentionally. These sanctions now require congressional legislation in order to remove them. Let's look at the history behind the 1994 legislation--I think it is important to know--in order to understand why this legislation took the form that it did. It is tied up with the history of the cold war and U.S. nonproliferation policy. We could go back to the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most people realized since those days that we needed to prevent a nuclear holocaust by somehow, some way reducing nuclear weapons. Now, that has remained through the years a long-term objective. And through many of those years it was very disappointing to see the spread of nuclear weapons go on, or nations trying to gain nuclear weapons capabilities. While nuclear reductions and ultimately nuclear disarmament remained our long-term objective, it would become even more difficult if more and more nations developed a nuclear weapons capability. And with that long-time objective in mind, we passed legislation over a period of more than 20 years trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, while at the same time holding out the hope for eventual weapons control. In 1978, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, which I coauthored, was enacted. It provided for carrots on nuclear cooperation for countries that adhered to certain nonproliferation principles, and it provided the stick of sanctions--cutoffs of nuclear cooperation for countries engaged in dangerous nuclear activities related to bomb making, including nuclear detonations. The Presidential waiver was provided within that legislation. A year earlier than that--in 1977--I authored an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act that provided for cutoffs of economic and military assistance to countries that received or exploded a nuclear device, or were engaged in--and this is important--either the import or export of dangerous nuclear technologies involving plutonium production and separation--either import or export, either way, whether the country was supplying the stuff or receiving it. I provided a Presidential waiver in this case also. This legislation, along with the so-called Symington amendment on nuclear enrichment technology transfers, resulted in a cutoff of economic and military assistance for Pakistan in 1979. While the Glenn amendment could have been waived, the Presidential waiver attached to the Symington amendment was impossible to exercise; only congressional action could remove the Symington sanction. Then we came to Afghanistan. After the Afghanistan war erupted--which coincided almost very similar in time to the installation of a new administration--the Reagan administration decided they could not provide military assistance to the mujahedin in Afghanistan without lifting the ban on assistance to Pakistan. The reason was that the material had to flow to Afghanistan through Pakistan. We could hardly get them to transport material through the Pakistani border area and across their territory to Afghanistan if we had sanctions on against Pakistan. So there was a waiver. The Administration went to Congress and asked for a repeal of the Symington amendment, but Congress wasn't willing to do that. We were unwilling to give the Pakistanis total relief from pressure to halt their evident nuclear weapons development program, so a compromise was struck. Congress agreed to a legislated 6-year waiver of the Symington sanctions, but at the same time passed an amendment that I offered to remove the ability of the President to waive a cutoff of economic and military assistance to any nonweapon state like Pakistan that explodes a nuclear device. In effect, the line in the sand on sanctions had been pulled back. My purpose in removing the waiver was simple. I didn't know how long in fact the Afghanistan war would proceed. I believed that just as long as it went on, the Pakistanis would count on the Reagan administration not to put nonproliferation policy ahead of cold-war policy. My amendment did provide for a possible 30-session-day delay of sanctions by the President following a detonation, but no waiver without congressional action. Now, turn over the calendar a little bit. In 1985, when it was clear that the Pakistanis were still going for the bomb--something we had known for a long time--which they consistently denied at all levels of their government, Congress moved the line in the sand a bit closer by passing the Pressler amendment, which also carried no Presidential waiver. It mandated a cutoff to Pakistan, unless the President certified that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear explosive device. Note the wording: The President could not certify they did not possess a nuclear explosive device. It was under this amendment that Pakistan was cut off from economic and military assistance in 1990, after the Afghanistan war ended--and I should add about 3 years after the Pakistanis actually had made the bomb that we knew they were working on all that time. But other international developments were going on all through this same period. In terms of world events at this point, we were witnessing the demise of the cold war and the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union. This brought new hope for really, truly, and finally at least gaining control of nuclear weaponry, after going through years upon years upon years of what we call MAD--mutually assured destruction--on both sides if anybody set off a nuclear weapon. Those were long years where we thought that nuclear nonproliferation was dead and wasn't something with which we really were going to succeed. But finally, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, this brought new hope for really gaining control of nuclear weaponry. In a comparatively short period of time there was real optimism that control over these weapons could be gained. I was one of those who changed my views on this completely during that time period, because I had been very pessimistic through the years. Even though I am the author of much legislation, as I just recounted, on this, I didn't feel that we were really gaining much in the world, and we were starting to move in place. And other nations were really trying to get nuclear weaponry. So we weren't really accomplishing much. But all at once I began to feel very optimistic at this time, because at the end of the cold war and the agreement with the Soviet Union we saw missiles being taken out of silos; weapons being taken down; fissile material being taken out; the cores of nuclear weapons being taken out and used for other purposes, for stockpile, or whatever. But they were no longer in the weapons aimed at each other halfway around the world. Real progress was being made. I began to feel pretty good about this. With U.S. leadership, we then worked to obtain progress on arms control and nonproliferation. Over a period of time we had 185 nations sign up under the nonproliferation treaty. Progress was being made on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, also, which currently has 149 signatories. If anyone had come to me and told me a few years ago that we would have that many signatories, that we would have 185 sign up under NPT and 149 for CTBT, I would have told them they were crazy to even contemplate such a thing. But that is what has happened. So things are moving in the right direction. Indeed, so much progress was being made on the test ban treaty and so much progress had been made on computer simulation of nuclear weapon tests that it was unclear whether any further nuclear explosions would have to take place anywhere. Back in the old days it was quite apparent that if a nation was going nuclear they didn't say they were a nuclear nation unless they had gone out and really tested a weapon. They couldn't just say their engineering was good, that they will rely on engineering and claim they were a nuclear state and that they knew the thing would go off. That wasn't the way it went. You had to take it out and test it. And if you didn't, you couldn't rely on nuclear weapons. What has happened with the supercomputer and supercomputer simulation is that the need for testing is no longer clear. The way it is now is we think probably you could have a nuclear weapons capability without doing any testing. So the hope was at that point--the hope we had in 1994--that much tougher sanctions would put the final nail in the coffin for nuclear tests. There wouldn't be any nuclear testing if we could just make this a tough law. So although the circumstances in 1994 were much different than those of 1981, the Glenn amendment of 1981 was updated with tough sanctions. It became the Glenn amendment of 1994. I thought it was working. And it was working until just a few months ago. Unfortunately, the hope on which the amendment was based went down the drain when India's extreme Hindu Nationalist Party overrode what most of the world thought should have been more responsible behavior and set off a nuclear weapon. And Pakistan responded in kind with their demonstration also to make sure they were not left out of things, too. So we are now faced with a situation which will test the mettle of our diplomacy in south Asia like few times in history, I guess we could probably say like never before. The sanctions that are being imposed because of the Indian and Pakistani tests will fall on both of them, and may help us--I hope it does--move the Indians and Pakistanis toward more responsible behavior in the aftermath of the tests. We must admit that the sanctions did fail in their primary purpose, which was to prevent a test in the first place. But I look at this as a setback, not the end of our efforts. One could only speculate if this failure was due to the sanctions' unilateral nature or whether the Indians would have tested under any circumstance. This is not to say that unilateral sanctions are never to be imposed as nonproliferation threats. Quite the contrary. For example, the threat of such sanctions was helpful in the special cases of Taiwan and South Korea, when both of those countries were taking steps toward proliferative activity some years ago. We could also indicate that there were other nations that we thought were moving perhaps in that direction, too, and who ultimately gave up their programs--like Argentina and Brazil, and South Africa. But anyway, to go back to Taiwan and South Korea, both of those countries were heavily dependent on the United States. So unilateral sanctions worked, and they worked well. I think our sanctions also worked for a while in maybe holding back some of Pakistan's advance in their nuclear weapons program, because we made it more difficult for other nations to cooperate with Pakistan as they were trying to achieve their nuclear weapons capability. But in general I believe it has been increasingly clear that with the dramatic expansion of the world community--sources of information, sources of equipment, sources of trade around the world--I believe that sanctions become really effective only if they have multilateral support. Let me repeat that because that is the basis of some of these things that I want to elaborate on just a little bit further. Sanctions become really effective only if they have multilateral support, whether through our allies or through the United Nations. Unilateral sanctions are not as effective as we would like to see them. That is the understatement of the day. And there are situations where the imposition or continuation of mandated unilateral sanctions may make a problem even worse. So I have come to believe that except in very special circumstances, such as those we faced in 1981, sanctions legislation that give the President no role in their implementation or continuation should be avoided, and laws which have been constructed in such fashion should be amended. That is the reason I am here on the floor today. In my 1994 legislation, the President has no role in the process of implementation or the continuation of sanctions. And the Congress, because of the tradition of no limit on Senate debate, can be hamstrung by a determined minority of Senators who wish to retain sanctions because of considerations that may have nothing to do with the original transgression. So we don't want to permit that to happen, either. So, accordingly, on June 26, just before the recess, I introduced the Sanctions Implementation Procedures Act of 1998, which is labeled Senate bill 2258, which, if passed, will be applicable to all country sanctions laws that do not contain a Presidential waiver which the President may exercise on the grounds of protecting the national interest. I want to, in order to give the President more leeway, get multilateral support, which is what I would like to see happen either with our major allies or through the United Nations. This bill would give the President the option of delaying any imposition of congressionally mandated sanctions for a period not to exceed the combination of 45 calendar days, followed by 15 session days of Congress. The President, if he chooses to delay the sanctions, must provide a report to Congress no later than the end of the 45-day period in which he discusses the objectives of the sanctions, the extent of multilateral support for the sanctions, and the estimated costs and benefits, both tangible and intangible. If in this report the President recommends that we don't go ahead with the sanctions--he recommends nonimplementation of the sanctions-- then expedited procedures are triggered for 15 session days in both the Senate and the House of Representatives--both Houses of Congress--for the purpose of approving or disapproving the President's recommendation--in other words, expedited procedures which provide for no filibuster. We take it up in preference to other legislation. We give it priority. So it could not be delayed. Equally important, if the sanctions go into effect--let's say that the Congress says, ``OK. Yes. Mr. President, we think this should go into effect,'' or if the President just chooses to put it into effect and says, ``Yes, we do have multilateral support, and, yes, we do have enough support to make the sanctions really bite to make them meaningful''--if the sanctions go into effect, they remain so for two years and then this procedure is repeated on the sanctions' second anniversary, and each anniversary thereafter. In other words, there would be a time certain after every sanction in which the administration would have to consider the effectiveness of it, a report to the Congress, and Congress then would either take appropriate action as they saw fit at that time or we let the sanctions continue on for another year. For sanctions already in effect at the time of enactment of this bill, this procedure is triggered at the next anniversary of the sanction if it has been in place for 2 years or more, or at the second anniversary for sanctions less than 2 years old. So this proposed legislation is retrospective and prospective both. We are trying to set down rules here that would apply and make sense on how we will operate in the future with existing sanctions that are in there now and ones that might be applied in the future under current and future laws of our land. Madam President, this bill does not give the President carte blanche to waive congressionally mandated sanctions, as some bills do, and does not allow a minority of the Senate to prevent sanctions from being lifted as is the case with some of our laws. We have worked on this very hard, and I believe this bill provides a balance of responsibilities between the President and the Congress. We do not cut the President out of the equation. We do not cut the Congress out of the equation. We recognize our constitutional responsibilities at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. This would apply in the imposition and removal of sanctions, and I urge the support of my colleagues for this bill. I know that a task force has been formed to look at some of the sanctions legislation, and I will be presenting this to that task force also for its consideration. There are several bills that will address this particular problem, but I think this bill really establishes a balance, and I hope I can rely on my colleagues for support when this subject comes to a vote. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. GLENN. Madam President, I want to compliment Senator Bond and Senator Mikulski for the hard work they have done on this bill. I know personally of their efforts in this regard. I certainly support the tack they have taken and look forward to taking part in the debate as it continues over the next couple of days with regard to this matter. I wish to speak today on a different matter. I ask unanimous consent we proceed as in morning business for the duration of my speech, which will not be beyond about 15 minutes, and then revert back to VA and HUD.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to make a few comments concerning S. 2138, the Fiscal Year 1999 Energy and Water Development Appropriation Bill. The West Columbus Floodwall Project is an extremely important infrastructure project currently under development by the City of Columbus and the Army Corps of Engineers. Once completed this project will protect over 2,800 acres of urban development, and approximately 6,200 homes and businesses. Construction of this $118 million project was initiated in 1993 and was on schedule and budget for completion in 2002. The fiscal year 1999 civil works budget request for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provided only $1.8 million for continued construction of this important project. The Committee increased the fiscal year 1999 funding to a total $7.5 million. Although I am grateful for the Committee's action, I am concerned because this project requires $16 million to keep it on track and moving forward. Mr. President, this project is unlike a lot of other flood projects in that it does not provide vitally needed flood protection for West Columbus until it is fully completed. Funding for this project at less than $16 million could delay it for up to one year and this area will continue to be exposed to an increased potential for flood damages of up to $455 million. In addition, the homeowners and businesses in this area will face continued zoning restrictions, and development of 2800 acres will be delayed. The city of Columbus has been damaged in the past by severe flooding of the Scioto River, which runs through the heart of its downtown. In 1913, 1937 and 1959, the city was devastated by flood disasters resulting in millions of dollars in damage to commercial and residential property, destruction of homes and businesses, and the loss of many lives. In 1990 and 1992, the city again experienced serious flood scares. If the West Columbus project were in place during previous recent flood events, damages would have been prevented. Mr. President, during the December 1990 rainfall and flood event, inundation and localized flood damages occurred in the Phase 1B/ McKinley Avenue area. The Scioto River rose to a flood level approaching a 20-year frequency. If the project features had been in place at that time, the interior runoff would have drained to the stormwater pump station ST-8 and would have been pumped out of the interior. Instead, an existing storm sewer flap gate was held shut by the high Scioto River flood stage, preventing the interior runoff from draining to the river. Adjacent businesses were flooded until the Scioto River receded to a level that permitted the flap gate to open and allow interior runoff to drain to the river. During the July 1992 storm, rainfall in excess of 4 inches fell over the interior area along with a moderate rise in the Scioto River. An existing storm sewer flap gate was held shut and interior runoff could not drain to the river. If the proposed Dodge Park stormwater pump station had been available, it could have pumped excess runoff to the river, thus preventing flood damages that occurred along Rich Street. Mr. President, I understand that sufficient funding was not available for the many critically needed flood protection projects contained in this bill. For this reason I will not offer an amendment, however, I thought it was important to express my concerns and address the potential impacts of not funding this project at the required level of $16 million. I am pleased that the House was able to fully fund this project in their bill and it is my hope that during Conference, the Senate will recede to the House's position and provide $16 million for the West Columbus Floodwall Project. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Jess and Selma Kaufman on the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary on June 20. Jess served in the United States Navy during World War II and was wounded at the Battle of Guadalcanal. On June 20, 1948, Selma Bruckner and Jess Kaufman were married in Brooklyn, New York. Now retired and living in Stratford, Connecticut, their marriage has been blessed by their children David, Susan and Steven. Successful marriages represent real commitment and serious work, yet the rewards are among the greatest delights of life. We share your joy in the years accomplished, and wish you many more rich and fulfilling years of happiness together. Annie and I are delighted to extend our congratulations to the Kaufmans on their 50th wedding anniversary!

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the outstanding entrepreneurial achievement of a resident from my home state of Ohio, Mr. Ross O. Youngs. The President of Univenture Incorporated, Ross was recently named as Small Business Person of the Year. The decision was made by Vice President Al Gore and Aida Alvarez, Administrator of the Small Business Administration. Mr. Youngs was selected from a highly competitive field of 53 small businesses representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. Ross Youngs began Univenture 10 years ago with an idea, hard work, perseverance and a limited budget. In the long standing tradition of the American Entrepreneur, Ross took a $20,000 personal bank loan and started a company in his basement. Over the following nine years, two Small Business Administration guaranteed loans helped Mr. Youngs expand production. Sales have risen in 10 years from $111,000 to $15 million. Ross Youngs' company Univenture has proven itself to be an outstanding example of American small business. Univenture is not only a successful company but also a contributor to the community in a number of ways. The firm works with a local organization to employ people with disabilities, Univenture supports the Columbus Police Department's Shop-With-A-Cop Program to provide gifts for needy children during the holiday season and contributes to the Wexner Center for the Arts. Mr. Youngs continues to be an example of outstanding achievement in business and his community. It is with great pride that I recognize Mr. Ross Youngs as the National Small Business Person of the Year during National Small Business Week. I extend my congratulations and wish him continued success.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for Senate ratification of the Protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 on Accession of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. This is the fourth time that the Atlantic alliance, which rose from the ashes of World War II, has decided to expand. And each time, expansion has served the same purpose--to expand the area in Europe within which peace, stability, freedom and democracy could flourish. The NATO Alliance was remarkably successful throughout its initial decades. Today we are considering a step designed to ensure that the success continues into the next century. This is not a decision that NATO, the U.S. or the Senate takes lightly. It is a more serious issue which goes to the heart of the question of how the U.S. can best promote our interest in peace and stability in the post-Cold War era. After all, these new members will enjoy all the benefits and bear all the responsibilities which apply to the current members of this mutual defense alliance. The U.S. will be obliged to consider an attack on Warsaw, Budapest or Prague in the same manner we are not obliged to consider an attack on London, Paris or Bonn. Having fought in two wars, I am most cognizant of the solemnity of the obligation we will be undertaking through the ratification of this agreement. The 1990s, which witnessed the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Warsaw Pact, brought about a fundamental transformation in Europe. Where once we saw Europe divided into hostile, ideologically-opposed camps, we now see a continent increasingly united by a commitment to the principles of democracy and free market economics. Initially I had two principal concerns about the proposed enlargement of NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic--the cost to the U.S. and the impact on relations with Russia. In the nearly ten months since NATO made the official decision to offer membership to these three nations, I have continued to examine these two areas and will summarize, very briefly, my conclusions. In December of last year NATO completed a review of the estimated increases in the costs to NATO's commonly-funded budget resulting from enlargement. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's report describes how NATO conducted its review and calculated its cost estimate. NATO first identified the military requirements of incorporating these three new members into the Alliance. Teams of experts were then dispatched to each country to evaluate facilities, infrastructure, and current capabilities to meet NATO's projected military requirements. With this information, NATO then developed a cost estimate for bringing the current capabilities into line with NATO requirements. The NATO studies concluded that the cost of enlargement will total $1.5 billion over the next ten years. Thus, according to NATO, the additional U.S. payment to the common-funded budgets will average approximately $40 million per year over ten years. This amount does not seem to me to be excessive, given the U.S. stake in continued security and stability in Europe. Obviously, in addition to these commonly-funded costs, there will be considerable additional costs to the new members themselves, which each of them has pledged to meet. Yes, the United States may decide to help these new NATO members modernize their military forces; just as we have provided such assistance to many of our current NATO allies through, for example, the provisions of loans or loan guarantees, for the purchase of U.S.-made military equipment. However, Mr. President, that is a separate decision for the U.S. government, one that is neither required by nor prohibited by our decision to support enlargement. The responsibility for ensuring that their militaries are capable of meeting their obligations to the common defense rest with the new members themselves. It hardly needs repeating that cooperative relations between Russia and the U.S., and Russia and NATO, serve the interests of the U.S. and the Alliance. I am convinced that NATO enlargement and the development of a NATO-Russia relationship are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, since NATO made clear its intention to expand, NATO and Russia have concluded the ``NATO-Russia Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security'', signed last May. This agreement is designed as a means of regularizing and formalizing consultative procedures between NATO and Russia. Further, NATO is a purely defensive alliance, and a threat to no nation. The peace and stability within Europe promoted by the Alliance benefits the entire continent, including Russia. It may be unreasonable to expect Russia to approve of NATO expansion. But neither is Russia's unhappiness over the expansion likely to become the determining factor in Russian behavior toward the U.S. and the Alliance. In summary, Mr. President, I believe that these two major issues arising from NATO expansion have been satisfactorily addressed. I will support NATO expansion and hope that the Senate will ratify the expansion agreement by an overwhelming margin.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise to congratulate Professor Harry M. Clor of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, on the establishment of the Harry M. Clor Professorship in Political Science. This coming weekend, Professor Clor's colleagues and students will gather in Gambier to honor him upon his retirement for his many years as an outstanding professor of political philosophy and constitutional law. In addition to his many years as one of Ohio's exceptionally dedicated teachers, Professor Clor is also a distinguished scholar and author of books and numerous articles on constitutional law and public morality. Ohio has always been fortunate to be the home for many outstanding colleges and universities. I am pleased to recognize Kenyon College and its Department of Political Science as they honor the distinguished service and teaching career of Professor Harry M. Clor.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Fine.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, what my amendment would do is say we could keep the $2,000 that is in the bill now, but we would move that just to be used for post-12th grade education. In other words, we move from $500 up to $2,000, but we say it cannot be used for private schools, for private school vouchers, and so on. I think when we start down this track, we start toward the ruination or start opening the door, a toe in the door, for a ruination of our public school system. I want the finest public school system we can have. Voting a voucher system or taking public money off to support private schools is not the way to go about it. I urge support for my amendment.

Mr. GLENN. I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I think this Nation of ours came to be what it is, more than anything else, for one reason, and that is public education in this country was not what it had been in Europe. It had not been just for the kids from the castle. It had not been just for the rich kids or the wealthy young people. It had not been just for those who were politically well connected, who knew somebody. In this country, education came to be for every single person, and that grew as a national interest. It was implemented then for the K-12, as we know it now, through the States and localities and communities across this country. They formed local school boards, and we have school districts. Now every single State has a requirement for public education. We did not preclude other people who had parochial school ideas for their children, or whether they wanted to send their kids to boys schools or girls schools or a special interest of some kind, from forming those schools and from sending their children to those schools. But we looked at the public responsibility as being to the public schools that gave a good education to every single young person in this country.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. ``Don't Drain Public schools.'' That is exactly what we are talking about. We will drain public schools to the benefit of private schools, and 70 percent of the money will go to people already capable of providing, to the top 20 percent of the people already capable of providing for private schools for their kids if they want it. The insert in this article, and I will not read the complete article, the insert says, ``Washington should help address the education deficits in the Nation's public schools, but shifting even a small amount of tax money to private schools is not the answer, at least not yet.'' That about summarizes everything that I want to make a point of this morning. I think there is a vote on my amendment at 2:15 after our respective party caucuses. I hope people can think long and hard about this. I see this as a first step down a long slippery slope toward less and less support for our public school system, that which serves all America, that which enables people at the lowest level of economic advantage in this country to get opportunity through education and their own hard work to be a contributing member of society and make as much of a success of their lives as anybody else. I reserve the remainder of my time. Exhibit 1 [From the Los Angeles Times Editorials, Apr. 21, 1998] Don't Drain Public Schools The White House and the Republican majority in Congress both talk about how much they want to improve education in the United States. But they have very different plans for doing it. President Clinton speaks of more teachers, more schools, more special programs and higher standards. Republicans would rather offer a small monetary reward to every parent who saves for educational expenses, including tuition for non-public elementary or high schools. The White House opposes this modest tax break because it would allow the use of federal funds to subsidize private and parochial schools. On this issue, Clinton is right. Improving public education has become a top political priority from the District of Columbia, where public schools are in dismal shape, to Los Angeles, with its overwhelmed system and awful test scores. Washington should help address the yawning educational deficits in the nation's public schools, but shifting even a small amount of tax money to private schools is not the answer--at least not yet. Clinton isn't personally against private schools; his daughter graduated from one last year. But rather than encourage an exodus from public schools at the expense of the taxpayer, he says he wants to fix the public schools to serve all children, including those whose parents cannot afford private or parochial schools with or without a new education savings account. Fixing the schools is a tall order, as residents of Los Angeles know all too well, and parents can never be blamed for wanting the best for their children. But most educators and employers would agree that the White House is right. The House of Representatives has approved a GOP bill that would create education savings accounts that work like individual retirement accounts for parents of students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Parents would be allowed to save as much as $2,000 a year in a special account. The interest would accrue tax-free, so long as the money was withdrawn only for education purposes, including books, computers, tutoring and, foremost, tuition. The Senate is expected to take up its version of the bill this week. Though schools are traditionally a local responsibility, Washington has been increasingly willing to help. That help should be expanded, but care must be taken to avoid undermining public education. America's great economic engine was built on public schools that took all comers--poor, working-class, middle-class and beyond--and that same mix remains essential for a healthy educational system. Tax savings under the bill would, according to an analysis by the Joint Tax Commission, average a paltry $7 to $37 a year per family. But the principle is big. This national private-versus-public debate boils down to a difference of priorities. Clinton's ambitious wish list, unveiled during his State of the Union address, calls for spending $12 billion over seven years to pay for 100,000 new teachers, reducing class size to 18 students in the primary grades and creating 50 ``education opportunity zones,'' patterned after urban enterprise zones, in high-poverty areas, plus funding to help build new schools. Republicans favor initiatives that would allow more parents to remove their children from public schools. Neither side can expect to prevail while a Democrat sits in the White House and Republicans control Congress, but irreconcilable differences should not be allowed to lead to gridlock. Both sides agree that something needs to be done about public education. Public schools, especially in cities, are in trouble. But there are promising reforms being tried, from a radical public school choice program in Seattle to a mayoral takeover in Chicago to L.A.'s focus on the 100 worst-performing schools. Playing on the frustration of parents in a way that undermines the whole system is not the cure.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, the point I was going to make is this: Families in the top 20 percent of income distribution, would receive 70 percent of the benefit of this bill--70 percent. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that more than half the savings would go to families whose children would attend private schools anyway. So 70 percent of the money, 70 percent of the benefit, is going to go to those who already are fully capable of sending their kids to private schools. So the bill subsidizes the savings and spending patterns that already exist. I do not think we should be heading back toward a bill that sends us back to the place where our forefathers started in Europe: where education is going to be best for the wealthy, where education is for those who have political connections, where education is available for the kids from the castle. That is not the way this country developed. Our country went ahead because we had programs that made education available for every single young person in this country--every single person. And that is what we should still be shooting for today. Cleveland, OH, has one of only two voucher programs in the country. The other is in Milwaukee. In Ohio, this program permits State funds to be used to send low-income children to private schools. It is the only program that allows the children to attend religious schools, parochial schools, with taxpayer funds. It is being challenged now before the Ohio State Supreme Court on that basis. It is funded at $12.5 million over 2 years. It is just finishing its second year right now, and results have been very spotty. As a matter of fact, there are other problems that have developed also. How about paying for taxicabs for the kids? They found out that the yellow schoolbuses that the school system depends on were not adequate to furnish the transportation for the young people that were going to be taking advantage of the voucher program. That wasn't foreseen. So student taxi rides account for more than half of the $4.8 million deficit in Cleveland's 2-year-old school voucher program. It shows how an unintended consequence can take over in some instances. The voucher program had to turn to taxi firms and provide payments to parents in lieu of transportation services. That is half the funding. There is no strong evidence at the end of the second year of the program that the voucher program increases student achievement. We need to have a better understanding of what makes a school successful before we institute a program that benefits a comparatively few young people and takes money out of the public school system. That should be our major concern--our desire to have a good public school system. Strengthening public education in this country is something we have to do. It is necessary if we are going to be competitive in the economic future of this country. Only by making high-quality education available to all American children --not a favored few, but all American children--will we help develop the skills they need to find meaningful high-wage jobs, while developing a capable and productive work force that is essential, literally essential, to the economic future of this country in this new worldwide economic environment in which we live. Education reform is one of the top issues before the country now. It is talked about all over, in magazine articles, and is on the cover of magazines. One that I read last night talked about the education problem. That is why I continue to oppose attempts to encourage the use of Federal funds for nonpublic education, whether in the form of tuition tax credits or vouchers or school choice. I believe including K through 12 in educational IRAs is the first step toward establishing a permanent voucher system. It just bleeds off necessary money from the public schools. We have a public school system of education in this country that is available to all children. If this educational system is not producing the high level of achievement this Nation now needs, we can't abandon them, we can't say we will just take less money and put it in the public school system. We can't abandon them. That is why I support the school construction amendment initiatives that will help reduce classroom size and directly benefit all our Nation's public schools by ensuring that all children attend safe and modern public schools. Senator Kennedy mentioned that a moment ago, and I agree with his remarks on that. I believe everyone should be saving for their children's education, but the difference between elementary and secondary education and higher education is important. Every child in this country is entitled to a free, appropriate, tuition-free education in every State. We have State laws in every State in our Union that require that. Higher education, going on to the college and university level, however, is optional and is tuition-based. It is hard for parents to save for college. I believe it is appropriate to provide incentives to help them do so. I have supported the prepaid tuition plans in the State of Ohio as a way that students can be assured of a quality education at one of Ohio's State universities or at one of their colleges there. The amendment which I am offering returns the educational IRA back to its original purpose--higher education expenses only. The only change I make is to keep the increase that is proposed in the contribution limit for education IRAs from $500 to $2,000. I think that is fine. This increase in the contribution will enable parents to save more per year for higher education. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment. We have a lot of problems in this country. The old property tax that has been around for a long time is no longer adequate to do the job. It may have been OK back in the days of Jefferson and Washington when we didn't have NASDAQ, the American Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, mutual funds and so on. Most of the wealth at that time was in property, so a property tax was very appropriate to support the schools. Particularly over the last four or five decades we have now developed into being a service economy where two-thirds of our wealth, two-thirds of our national income, comes from the service industry. So the old property tax is no longer adequate to do our schools. We have to get away from that. Proposition 13 in California we are familiar with, did, in my view, wreck one of the finest education systems in the country. They are having a lot of problems that everybody else has around the country these days. We are the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have a national education system. I am not here today to say we should go to a national education system. That would probably get me run down the front steps of the Capitol pretty fast. But we have to do more from the Federal level. We are only a tiny part of our K through 12 education. I think it is just around 5 percent now. Most of that is in school lunch programs and things like that and not directly on educational matters. Our system in this country, as Lester Thurow pointed out in his last couple of books, our system is basically run by 15,000 independent school boards all saying, ``We won't raise your taxes,'' and then they get together and decide what they will do in the local school districts. They get elected on ``we won't raise your taxes,'' ``We aren't going to vote on any other taxes; we will not raise your property taxes,'' so we at the Federal level are increasingly up against this as to what we should be doing. What we see is we are becoming gradually less competitive in a worldwide environment. We can't let that happen. The answer is not, as in this Coverdell bill, to say we will siphon money off from the public school system and give it over to the private school system in the form of vouchers or IRAs or whatever, take it out and put it over there, away from the public school system and support them less instead of more. That doesn't solve our problems in this country. So we do have some other problems. We have to address those, but not this way and not with this particular piece of legislation. I noted this morning in looking at the Los Angeles Times their lead editorial today was entitled ``Don't Drain Public Schools.'' I ask unanimous consent to have this printed at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. GLENN. No objection.

Mr. GLENN. Fine.

Mr. GLENN. Yes, without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I offered an amendment yesterday to the Coverdell educational IRA bill. The amendment I propose will simply delete the K-12--kindergarten through grade 12--expenses as an authorized deduction for education IRAs. The amendment will keep the increase in the annual allowable contribution from the current $500 to the maximum $2,000 a year. I think that is fine, that is good. But deleting K-12 and increasing the allowable contribution returns education IRAs to their original purpose of providing incentive savings incentives for higher education purposes. That is what the Federal Government has basically taken responsibility for through all the many years that we have been around here. We should be looking at this whole bill for what it is. It is tax support for private school education. I believe it is bad education policy. I believe it is bad tax policy. I also think it is probably going to pass. If it does, I think the President is going to veto it. He has indicated that that is his intention. If we look back to the days of our forefathers when people were coming to this country, they came here to have the opportunity for education. They were used to only the rich or--kids from the castle-- being able to have formal education. There were basically two kinds of people. There were the educated and the uneducated. And that is another way of saying there were the wealthy and the poor. That is what education was all about. It was to enable everybody to move up, to have a chance, to use their God-given talents and capabilities and their own desires to move ahead, to make a better life for themselves. And in this country, in the United States, we knew that if a democracy was to succeed--we did not want to return to serfdom, and rule by a few, and wealth for just a few--education was key to making a democracy succeed. It was not a choice in our democracy, it was a must, or our country was doomed. And the freedom to be educated, that most important freedom to be educated, spread to communities and States. And they all formed and supported public schools for all--for all--of our people. And that is the important thing we are addressing here today--education for all of our people. It was a requirement that we have minimum education. This is my 24th year as a U.S. Senator representing the people of Ohio. And in that time, I have seen many attempts to divert Federal funds from public to private education. The approaches to accomplish this goal have been many. We had tuition tax credits; we had the voucher system; school choice; now educational IRAs for elementary and secondary education. The Coverdell IRA, I believe, is a backdoor voucher that will do nothing to improve public schools for our public schoolchildren. That is the responsibility of Government. If other people want to take money, for whatever reason, whether it is religious or whether they just want a different school for their kids, whether they want all boys or all girls schools--that was a choice we did not deny. We did not say that we are going to Federally subsidize that kind of educational choice. And we should not be trying to do it now. The educational expenses that the Coverdell bill provides would include tuition and fees at public, private, and religious schools. The bill does not target needy families. And I believe here is one of the biggest reasons against what is being proposed here with the bill.

Mr. GLENN. Thank you, Mr. President. Amendment No. 2017

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I have no objection.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. GLENN. This amendment will simply delete the K-12 expenses as an authorized deduction for education IRAs. The amendment will keep the increase in the annual allowable contribution from the current $500 to the maximum $2,000 a year. Deleting K-12 and increasing the allowable contribution returns education IRAs to their original purpose of providing incentive savings for higher education expenses. I believe we should be looking at this bill for what it is; it is tax support for private school education, pure and simple. Also, I believe this is bad education policy and it is bad tax policy. And let me tell you why. We go back to the days of our forefathers: our own parents and grandparents and great, great grandparents coming to this country from Europe, where many were escaping persecution. One of the big things that they wanted for their children was an education. That's because education was, pure and simple, not for everybody. Education was only for the kids from the castle, or education was for the rich, or education was for the politically connected. And there were two kinds of people in those lands in Europe that our forefathers came from: wealthy and poor, educated and uneducated. When they landed in this country of ours and started expanding and started setting up communities, and became a United States of America, they knew that if democracy was to succeed, if they were not to return to serfdom, and ruled by a few, that education was not a choice; in a democracy it was a must or the democracy was doomed. The freedom to be educated spread to States and communities where public schools were established for all. That idea expanded and caught fire and took root. It was the beginning of our system of public education in this country. The public, taxpayers, continue to pay for this educational system. And, out of that education of all has come research, has come commitment, has come economics, has come agriculture, has come business, has come industry, has come health, has come standards of living that are the envy of the world; we have had longer life expectancy, all of those things, and more, because of universal education, the best we can have for our people. At the same time, if people, for religious reasons or beliefs, want education which reflects this or they want a particular kind of education--it used to be all-boys schools, all-girls schools, whatever; we supported that as long as those schools--were not supported with public money. We supported the right of people to have private schools, and support private schools as long as they paid for them. But the Government response was and is to provide not just a satisfactory educational system in this country, not just an educational system that will get us by, not just one that is OK, but what we should be shooting for is the best educational system in this world for all of our citizens in this country, through a public educational system. Public school systems now are having some problems, that is true. It is not much wonder when we look how they are set up. We don't have a national education as such. I am not proposing here today we suddenly say all States and local communities are taken out of the picture here and we are going to go to a national school system as other nations have. As a matter of fact, every major industrialized nation in the world has a national school system. But our school system in this country has come under some stress. It is no wonder, when we think back in the early days of this country when we had a tax for schools, it was paid for basically by the property owners. Back then we didn't have a NASDAQ, a New York stock exchange, an American stock exchange and mutual funds all over the place for people to invest in. Most of the people capable of supporting schools had their money in property, in real estate, real property. So it was natural that a property tax was put in place, and those people were the ones who wound up supporting most of our school systems. As it developed, we had other problems because today no longer is a property tax indicative of the wealth of this country, because two- thirds of our economy is now generated from the service industries in our society. So it is no wonder the property tax has become unpopular with an awful lot of people. Plus, we have another problem, too, in this country as far as making sure we get a good education for everyone. As Lester Thurow has been pointing out in his last couple of books, our basic K-through-12 education system in this country is run by 15,000 independent school boards all getting elected on the basis of ``We won't raise your taxes.'' That is some system. I think it is amazing that it has worked as well as it has up until now. Our K-through-12 education gets a little over 5 percent of their funding from the Federal Government. It is not something where the Federal Government tries to run the whole school system. But that is a little bit of background on what I think is very important: that every single child in this country should be able to get the finest, the best education of any place in this world. We should not be siphoning money off of our public education system to provide vouchers for private schools. This is my 24th year as a U.S. Senator representing the people of Ohio. In that time, I have seen many attempts to divert Federal funds from public to private schools. The approaches to accomplish this goal have been many--tuition tax credits, vouchers, school choice, and now educational IRAs for elementary and secondary education. These proposals all allow parents to select which school their children will attend and thereby competition, supposedly, with public schools. It is the presumed goal they will improve students' performance as a result of competition. There are problems coming up because public and private schools don't compete on an even basis. Private schools, unlike public schools, can refuse to accept students with disabilities or discipline problems and are not subjected to the same requirements. Each time these proposals come before the Senate, I am proud to say I have cast my vote in opposition because I firmly believe we must have the finest public school system in the world. That is what the Government should be supporting--not putting money off into other experiments. I want parents to exercise their right and responsibility to decide the school their children will attend--public, private, parochial. Nothing wrong with choice. However, it is not the responsibility of the Federal Government to pay them to do so. As I see it, the Coverdell IRA is a backdoor voucher that will do nothing to improve public schools, which are my main concern, for our public school children. This new IRA tax subsidy provides tax breaks for educational expenses, including tuition and fees at public, private, and religious schools. Also, the bill does not target needy families. In fact, here is one of the facts I was very much interested in: Families in the top 20 percent of income in this country--the top 20 percent of income in this country--would receive 70 percent of the benefit. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that more than half the savings would go to families whose children would attend private school anyway. So the bill subsidizes the savings and spending patterns that already exist. Let me repeat that: 70 percent of the benefit would go to families already in the top 20 percent of income. In other words, the analogy I made a little while ago regarding the land of our forefathers in Europe, where education was for the wealthy, for the privileged, for the kids from the castle, we are now taking a step back in that direction by helping mainly those who are already well enough off to send their children to private or parochial schools. As I stated, qualified educational expense is defined in the bill to include tuition, fees, tutoring, special needs services, books, supplies and equipment, including computers. The expenses must be incurred in connection with the beneficiary's enrollment in a public, private, or parochial elementary or secondary school, and the funds may be used to pay for expenses such as room and board and uniforms and transportation. Let me give a little bit of personal experience from Ohio. Cleveland, OH, has one of only two voucher programs in the country. The other one is in Milwaukee. In Ohio, this program permits State funds to be used to send low-income children to private schools. It is the only program that allows the children to attend religious schools with taxpayer funds. It is funded at $12.5 million over 2 years. Right now, the legality of the program is being challenged and it is before the Ohio State Supreme Court now. Let me say this, the program has been in effect now for 2 years. In surveys made recently of how the academics are going with the children in these schools, it is not all that great. So far, they have not been able to show any real results where the kids that are going to these private schools are any better off academically than they would have been in public school. Some of the proponents of the voucher system in Ohio and Cleveland say it hasn't had long enough to take effect yet. We are close to the end of the second year of this program now and testing has not shown much difference at all. Another problem that was unforeseen--and this may seem like a minor problem and maybe not one that will be a problem nationally, but it shows we have some unforeseen consequences sometimes when we start something like this. That is paying for taxicabs. Paying for cabs to carry children to private schools is one of the reasons the school choice program is in jeopardy in Cleveland. This is no small item. Students' taxi rides account for more than half of the $4.8 million deficit in Cleveland's 2-year-old school voucher program. More than half of the deficit goes to providing kids taxicab rides basically because the school officials had no yellow bus transportation available for the voucher students. So sometimes there are unintended consequences. The voucher program had to turn to taxi firms and provide payments to parents in lieu of transportation services. The image of children riding taxicabs to private schools because the Cleveland public schools could not accommodate them on its yellow schoolbuses is one example of the structural deficiencies in the program and one of the main reasons why some Clevelanders are pretty much up in arms over this. I have a couple of newspaper articles that I will later have included in the Record. Now, as I mentioned, there is no strong evidence so far that participation in a voucher program increases student achievement. We need to have a better understanding of what makes a school successful because we institute a program that benefits comparatively few. Instead of looking for incentives for parents to send their children to private schools, I believe it is far more important we take steps toward strengthening public education across the board in this country and not trying to find ways to take money off and put it into the private school systems. A strong educational system must be a fundamental part of our effort to keep our country strong and keep it competitive. Only by making high-quality education available to all American children, not just a few, but all American children, will we help develop the skills they need to find meaningful, high-wage jobs while developing a capable and productive work force that is essential to the economic future of this country. Education reform is one of the top issues in this country. That is why I continue to oppose attempts to encourage the use of Federal funds for nonpublic education, whether in the form of tuition tax credits, vouchers, or school choice. I believe that including K-12 in educational IRAs would be the first step toward establishing a permanent voucher system, one that bleeds off dollars needed in our public schools. We have a system of public education in this country that is available to all children. We need to make it the best and the finest in the world, one that is second to none in this world if our children are going to be competitive in the future. This education system is not producing the high level of achievement this Nation now needs, and we cannot abandon them and say we are going to bring up a favorite few and send them off to other schools. Rather, we need to find ways to make improvements. That is why I support another amendment that will be proposed, and that is the school construction amendment--an initiative that will help reduce classroom size. These will directly benefit all of our Nation's public schools by ensuring all children attend safe, modern public schools. I clearly believe that everybody should be saving for their children's education--for their higher education. The difference between elementary and secondary education and higher education is important. Every single child in this country is entitled to a free, appropriate, tuition-free education in every State in this Nation. Higher education, on the other hand--once you get above the minimums of the high school level--is optional and is tuition-based. It is hard for parents to save for college. I believe it is appropriate to provide incentives for them to do so. I have supported the prepaid tuition plans in the State of Ohio as one of the ways students can be assured a quality education at one of Ohio's universities or colleges. This amendment I am offering returns the educational IRAs back to its original purpose--higher education expenses only. The only change I make is to keep the annual increase in the contribution limit for education IRAs, which goes from $500 to $2,000. This increase in the contribution limit will enable parents to save more per year for higher education. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment. Again, I ask my colleagues to look at this bill for what it is--a tax break for private school education. I believe it is bad education policy and bad tax policy. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that two articles--one from the Washington Times and one from the Washington Post--be printed in the Record.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to offer an amendment to the Coverdell educational IRA bill. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Landrieu be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. GLENN. I thank the Chair. amendment no. 2017