John Glenn

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, this is a day that has been long in coming. We have worked for the better part of 2 years to get this legislation to the point where it is now, out of conference and here to get its final stamp of approval by the U.S. Senate. And with the same action taking place over in the House, that means this legislation will finally go to the President, who has announced his support for this legislation. This has been a long process. To those not directly involved in all the committee work and I do not know how many hundreds of meetings and so on involved with all of this, without having been involved directly with some of that, I think it is difficult to appreciate what has happened with regard to this legislation. It is landmark legislation. I think we have come up with a very excellent product here, one that literally does change the relationship between the Federal, State and local governments for the first time in probably 55 or 60 years. This is legislation that passed the Senate back in January by a vote of 86 to 10, and my hope is that we will be able to pass this bill through the House and Senate tomorrow morning and get it to the President shortly. Before I go into a description of the conference report, I would like to provide just a little bit of background to the whole unfunded Federal mandates debate. On October 27, 1993, State and local elected officials from all over the Nation came to Washington and declared that day to be ``National Unfunded Mandates Day.'' These officials conveyed a very powerful message to Congress and the Clinton administration on the need for Federal mandate reform and relief. They raised four major objections to unfunded Federal mandates. First, unfunded Federal mandates impose unreasonable fiscal burdens on their budgets. Second, they limit State and local government flexibility to address more pressing local problems like crime and education. Third, Federal mandates too often come in a one-size-fits-all box that stifles the development of what might be more innovative local efforts--efforts that ultimately may be more effective in solving the problem the Federal mandate is meant to address. And, fourth, they allow Congress to get credit for passing some worthy mandate or program, while leaving State and local governments with the difficult task of cutting services or raising taxes in order to pay for it. And that fourth item was probably the most important of all. In hearings held by the Committee on Governmental Affairs in both this and the last Congress, we heard testimony from elected State and local officials from both parties representing all sizes of government--State, local, county, townships, all levels and all sizes of government. It was clear from and townships just as hard as they do big cities and larger States. I think it is worth stepping back and taking a look at the evolution of the Federal-State-local relationship over the last decade and a half, so we can put this debate into some historical context. I believe the seeds from which sprang the mandate reform movement can literally be traced clear back to the so-called policy of new federalism, a policy which resulted in a gradual but steady shift in governing responsibilities from the Federal Government to State and local government over the last 10 to 15 years. During that time period, Federal aid to State and local governments was severely cut or even eliminated in a number of key domestic program areas. At the same time, enactment and subsequent implementation of various Federal statutes passed on new costs to State and local governments. In simple terms, State and local governments ended up receiving less of the Federal carrot and more of the Federal stick. The actual cost of Federal mandates. Let us examine the cost issue first. While there has been substantial debate on the actual costs of Federal mandates, suffice it to say that almost all participants in the debate agree that there is not complete data on Federal mandates to State and local governments. In fact, one of the major objectives of S. 1 is to develop better information and data on the cost of mandates and to force that to be considered up front. Likewise, there is even less information available on estimates of what potential benefits might be derived from selected Federal mandates--a point made by representatives from the disability, environmental, and labor community in the committee's second hearing in the last Congress. Nonetheless, there have been efforts made in the past to measure the cost impacts of Federal mandates on State and local governments. And those efforts do show that costs appear to be rising. Since 1981, CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, has been preparing cost estimates of major legislation reported by committee with an expected annual cost to State and local governments in excess of $200 million. According to CBO, 89 bills, with an estimated annual cost in excess of $200 million each, were reported out of committee between 1983 and 1988. I would point out one major caveat with CBO's analysis--it does not indicate whether these bills funded the costs or not, nor how many of the bills were eventually enacted. Still, even with a rough calculation, CBO's analysis shows that committees reported out bills with an average estimated new cost of at least $17.8 billion per year to State and local governments. In total, 382 bills were reported from committees over the 6-year period with some new costs to State and local government. So, if anything, the $17.8 billion figure is a conservative estimate for reported bills. Federal environmental mandates head the list of areas that State and local officials claim to be the most burdensome. A closer look at two of the studies done on the cost of State and local governments of compliance with environmental statutes does indicate that these costs appear to be rising. A 1990 EPA study, titled ``Environmental Investments: The Cost of a Clean Environment,'' estimates that total annual costs of environmental mandates from all levels of Government to State and local governments will rise from $22.2 billion in 1987 to $37.1 billion by the year 2000--an increase in real terms of 67 percent. EPA estimates that the cost of environmental mandates to State governments will rise from $3 billion in 1987 to $4.5 billion by the year 2000, a 48-percent increase. Over the same timeframe, the annual costs of environmental mandates to local governments is estimated to increase from $19.2 billion to $32.6 billion. That is a 70-percent gain. According to the Vice President's National Performance Review, the total annual cost of environmental mandates to State and local governments, when adjusted for inflation, will reach close to $44 billion by the end of this century. The city of Columbus, in my home State of Ohio, also noted a trend in rising costs for city compliance with Federal environmental mandates. The mayor of Columbus, Gregg Lashutka, has taken a personal interest in this and has done a superb job in detailing what the impact is on a medium-sized U.S. city from Federal mandates. Our Governor, George Voinovich, has represented the National Governors Association in his representation of wanting this legislation through all and has given a lot of information that has come from the Governors across the country on this. Probably the most definitive study of all, as far as the impact on the city, is what Mayor Lashutka has done in Columbus, OH. In his study, the city concluded that its cost of compliance for environmental statutes would rise from $62.1 million in 1991 to $107.4 million in 1995. That is--in 1991 constant dollars--a 73-percent increase. The city estimates that its share of the total city budget going to pay for the mandates will increase from 10.6 percent to 18.3 percent over that timeframe. This is just one medium-sized American city. In addition to environmental requirements, State and local officials in our committee hearings cited other Federal requirements as burdensome and costly. They highlighted compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Motor-Voter Registration Act, complying with the administrative requirements that go with implementing many Federal programs and meeting Federal criminal justice and education requirements. Now, I note that while each of these individual programs or requirements clearly carries with them costs to State and local governments, costs which we have too often ignored in the past, I believe that on a case-by-case basis, each of these mandates has substantial benefits to our society and our Nation as a whole. Otherwise I, along with many of my colleagues in the Senate, would not have voted to enact them in the first place. State and local officials readily concede that individual mandates on a case-by-case basis may indeed be worthy, but when looking at all mandates spanning across the entire mammoth of Federal laws and regulations, we begin to understand that it is the aggregate impact of all Federal mandates that has spurred the calls for mandate reform and relief. The Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations testified in our April hearings that the number of major Federal statutes with explicit mandates on State and local governments went from zero during the period of 1941 to 1964. In other words, we did not pass along the bill during that period from 1941 to 1964. But then it went to the Federal mandates during the rest of the 1960's, went to 25 in the 1970's, and 27 in the 1980's. However, to truly reach a better understanding of the Federal mandates debate, we must also look at the Federal funding picture, vis-a-vis State and local governments. Addressing that first under Federal aid and to State and local governments, the record shows that Federal discretionary aid to State and local governments to both implement Federal policies and directives, as well as complying with them, saw a sharp drop in the 1980's. An examination of Census Bureau data on sources of State and local government revenue shows a decreasing Federal role in the funding of State and local governments. In 1979, the Federal Government's contribution to State and local governments' revenues reached 18.6 percent. By 1989, the Federal contribution of the State and local revenue pie had instead daily shrunk to 13.2 percent before edging up to 14.3 percent in 1991, the latest year data was available. What contributed to the declining trend in the Federal financing of State and local governments? A closer look at patterns in Federal discretionary aid programs to State and local governments during the 1980's provides the answer. According to the Federal Funds Information Service, between 1981 and 1990, Federal discretionary program funding to State and local government rose slightly from $47.5 to $51.6 billion. However, this figure, when adjusted for inflation, tells a much different story. Federal aid dropped 28 percent in real terms over the decade. A number of vital Federal aid programs to State and local government experienced during the decade. In 1986, the administration and Congress agreed to terminate the General Revenue Sharing Program. We all remember that one. That was a program that provided approximately $4.5 billion annually to local governments and allowed them very broad discretion on how to spend the funds. Since its inception in 1972, general revenue sharing has provided approximately $83 billion to State and local government. Unfortunately, the Reagan administration succeeded in terminating the program. Congress followed its lead and approved that. There were other important Federal and State and local programs that were substantially cut back between 1981 and 1990. They include the economic development assistance, community development block grants, mass transit, refugee assistance, and low-income home energy assistance. Luckily, under both the Bush and Clinton administrations, we managed to restore some of the needed funding--I repeat, needed funding--to these programs. And still, in real dollars, funds for discretionary aid programs to State and local governments remain today 18 percent below their 1981 levels. That is despite the fact we have put more of an unfunded mandates load onto the backs of the State and local governments. Looking at our committee's legislative efforts in the last Congress, eight bills were referred to the Governmental Affairs Committee that touched on this aspect of the unfunded mandates Federal mandates problem. After two hearings, we marked up a bill. I think it could be called, at least in part, a compromise bill. The basic part of it, though, was the bill that Senator Kempthorne has submitted, and it became the vehicle that borrowed the best of the various provisions and requirements from the bills that had been submitted. It was basically-- the basic bill--his work. We worked closely in a deliberative, bipartisan fashion, and he was the de facto leadership on this issue. Along with other Members, and with the administration, we moved ahead with this legislation. What became known as the Kempthorne-Glenn compromise has the endorsement and strong support of the seven groups representing State and local governments. They are the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislators, the Council on State Governments, the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, and the International City Management Association. It had the backing of the Clinton administration, and was endorsed by such editorial boards as the New York Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and other newspapers across the country, both large and small. That largely embodies or includes, also, all that we had last year in Senate bill 993. Let me just say that on this bill, if there is anyone who can be looked at as the father of this bill and the one who really kept going on this and kept interest going, it is Senator Kempthorne. He did a magnificent job on this bill, not only here in Washington, but he traveled all over the country, meeting repeatedly with different groups representing those seven organizations that I just mentioned in getting their views on this legislation and bringing it back, putting it together. And he did a superb job in keeping contact with all these people. He deserves the full credit for being the sparkplug for this legislation. (Mr. GORTON assumed the chair.)

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, let me explain what the bill does. It requires the Congressional Budget Office to conduct State, local and tribal cost estimates on legislation that imposes new Federal mandates in excess of $50 million annually onto the budgets of State, local, and tribal governments. The current law requires these estimates at a $200 million threshold, and I believe that that high a figure allows a lot of Federal mandates to slip through without being scored. Two hundred million dollars spread equally among all the States may not be much, but if it falls particularly hard on any one State or any one region, which does happen with legislation, it can be a substantial impact. Let me make clear, however, that what CBO will score here are new Federal mandates--new Federal mandates--not what State, local, and tribal governments are spending now to comply with existing mandates, nor what they are spending to comply with their own laws and mandates. Second, and I think most importantly, is that the bill holds Congress accountable for imposing additional unfunded Federal mandates. We do this by requiring a majority point-of-order vote on any legislation that imposes new unfunded Federal mandates in excess of a $50 million annual cost to State, local, or tribal governments. To avoid the point of order, the sponsor of the bill would have to authorize funding to cover the cost to State and local governments of the Federal mandate or otherwise find ways to pay for the mandate. This could come from the expansion of an existing grant or subsidized loan program or the creation of a new one or perhaps a raising of new revenues or user fees. The authorizing committee must also build into the legislation certain provisions to go into effect if funds for the mandate are not fully appropriated or not appropriated at all. This was the basic thrust of the Byrd amendment which the House receded to in conference and accepted in its entirety. The House bill would have left the fate of an unfunded or underfunded mandate in the hands of the Federal bureaucracy rather than in the hands of Congress where it properly lies. Under the Byrd amendment, the authorizing committee would have to put expedited procedures into the underlying intergovernmental mandates bill that would direct the relevant Federal agency to submit a statement based on a reestimate done in consultation with State, local, and tribal governments that appropriations are sufficient to pay for the mandate or the agency submits legislative recommendations to implement a less costly mandate or to render the mandate ineffective for the fiscal year. Under the expedited procedures, the authorizing committee must provide for consideration in both Houses of the agency statement or legislative recommendations within 60 calendar days. After the 60-day time period expires, the mandate ceases to be effective unless Congress provides otherwise by law. And I will discuss the Byrd amendment in greater detail a little later in my statement. The conference report on S. 1 also includes provisions for the analysis of legislation that imposes mandates on the private sector. CBO would have to complete a private sector cost estimate on bills reported by committee with a $100 million or more annual cost threshold. In the Senate bill, we had a threshold of $200 million and the House had $50 million as their threshold, so we split the difference and wound up with $100 million being our threshold. We do exempt certain Federal laws from this bill. Civil rights and constitutional rights are excluded. National security, emergency legislation, and ratification of international treaties are also exempt. I want to also point out that the bill does not prohibit Congress from passing unfunded Federal mandates. Let me repeat that. It does not prohibit Congress from passing unfunded Federal mandates. There may be times when it is appropriate, for whatever purpose, to ask State and local governments to pick up the tab for Federal mandates. But the legislation does force us to take into consideration the cost of the unfunded mandates up front, consider it in its entirety with a point of order to lie against it if it is not funded. But the debate over whether it is appropriate to ask State and local governments at times whether it is a constitutional matter or whatever it might be, to pick up the tab across the country--all States--let that debate take place on the Senate floor, as it will under this legislation, and let the majority work its will on the specific mandate in the legislation. The Kempthorne-Glenn bill also addresses regulatory mandates. We all know how the Federal bureaucracy can impose burdensome and inflexible regulations on State and local governments, as well as on others who end up trapped in the bureaucracy's regulatory net. In the committee's November hearing in 1993, we heard testimony from Susan Ritter. She is county auditor for Renville County, ND. Ms. Ritter State with a total population of 286 people, and they will have to spend $2,000, which is one-half of their annual budget on testing the water supply in order to comply with certain EPA regulations. Clearly, there is no way that that town is going to be able to meet this kind of a requirement. So, consistent with the President's Executive orders, we have required that Federal agencies conduct cost- benefit analysis and assessments on major regulations that impact State, local, and tribal governments, as well as the private sector. We have allowed a limited judicial review of agency preparation of some of those assessments and analysis. The House would have allowed full scale judicial review of practically everything, of both the agency analysis and the CBO cost estimates. This could have been a way of almost shutting down the whole regulatory process, as we saw it. Enactment of these provisions also would have resulted in what I termed the Lawyers Full Employment Act, and would have had the law firms along K Street breaking out the champagne all over. So we significantly curtailed and narrowed and focused the judicial review requirements, which I will discuss in a little more detail a little later on also. Further under S. 1, agencies must develop a timely and effective means of allowing State and local input into the regulatory process. Given the State and local governments are responsible for implementing many of our Federal laws, it is not only fair they be considered partners in the Federal regulatory process, but it is also good public policy as well. The bill also requires Federal agencies to make a special effort in performing outreach to the smallest governments. Then maybe we will be able to minimize the occurrence of situations like the one that took place in the town of Sherwood that I mentioned a moment ago. Let me put the issue into a larger perspective. As we all know, the Federal, State, and local relationship is a very complicated, a very complex one. It is a blurry line between where one line's level of responsibility ends and another begins. All three levels of government need to work together in a constructive fashion to provide the best possible delivery of services to the American people in the most cost- effective fashion. After all, as Federal, State, and local officials, we all serve the same constituency. Further, we serve the American people at a time when their confidence in all three levels of government may be at an all-time low. There are numerous explanations for this lack of confidence in government, and we will not go into a long discussion of those here. Vice President Gore's National Performance Review attributes ``an increasingly hidebound and paralyzed intergovernmental process'' as at least a part of the reason why many Americans feel that government is wasteful, inefficient, and ineffective. We need to restore balance to the intergovernmental partnership, as well as strengthen it so that government at all levels can operate in a more cost-effective manner. Both the administration and a number of my colleagues have made proposals to shift a number of Federal programs and responsibilities to State and local governments. Clearly, as this mandates debate has shown us, I believe we ought to at least experiment to see if State and local governments can carry out some of these programs in a more effective fashion than we have been doing at the Federal level. I know from my years as chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee that Americans do want more efficient and less costly government, and I, for one, do not believe that efficiency and government need necessarily be an oxymoron statement. We worked on the Governmental Affairs Committee to bring forth better ways of dealing with efficiency in the Federal Government, such as the Chief Financial Officer Act, the Inspectors General Act, Financial Management Act, and so on, and a number of different things we have done in that area. So it is not that we have ignored the efficiencies of government, but certainly we want to make the Government a more efficient and better and less costly government. That certainly is a big move. Maybe one way to help accomplish that objective is to grant more flexibility to State and local governments and let them run some of these programs. Where I think we should proceed with some degree of caution, we need to remember the reason many of these programs became part of the Federal level was back some 50 or 60 years ago when the country was in dire straits and we were not able, either would not or could not, at the State and local level to address problems and concerns of our citizens that had been dealt with in the family and local communities up to that time. We found soup kitchens on the corners, and we had people because of weather changes also--we remember the movies, famous movies of the Okies going West with a mattress on top of the car, and so on. The United States had lost its way at that time. I grew up in that Great Depression. I learned that State and local governments do not have sometimes the wherewithal and resources to meet all human needs. That is why President Roosevelt came through with the New Deal. That was to address economic and social problems that previously were dealt with by State and local governments or by the local communities and families themselves more likely. And we followed the New Deal up with the Great Society and moved more of these programs up to a national level. Now, I am the first to say many of these programs may have gone too far and so we need to tailor things back somewhat. But there has been and will continue to be the need for Federal involvement and decisionmaking in many domestic policy areas. But that should not preclude us from maybe loosening the reins on State and local governments in some areas or even dropping them entirely. But we should be careful and look at it on a case-by-case basis, not with a meat ax approach, not just swinging the ax and taking whole programs out without considering what is going to happen to a lot of people. Unfortunately, the House, in its race to devolve, as they call it, and seemingly block grant the entire Federal Government, I believe, is moving much too quickly in areas which should require closer scrutiny and greater deliberation. I believe that the conference report on S. 1 will help to restore the intergovernmental partnership and bring needed perspective and balance to future Federal decisionmaking. I think S. 1 is landmark legislation, as I said in starting out my remarks. I think it is landmark legislation that will help to redefine for the first time in 60 years the entire Federal, State and local relationship. And so I obviously urge my colleagues to vote for passage of this legislation. I have some remaining remarks concerning the conference report, and I would like to clarify some of the provisions of the proposed legislation. I would first refer to section 425(a)(2)(B)(iii)(III) of the conference report. Subsection (III) establishes a timeframe for expedited procedures under which Congress will consider the agency statement or legislative recommendations under subsections (aa) or (bb). The timeframe is 60 calendar days from which the agency submits its statement or legislative recommendations. Under such an expedited process, the mandate would cease to be effective 60 calendar days after the agency submission unless Congress provides otherwise by law. The Senate Parliamentarian has provided us with his interpretation of the 60-day time period in a letter which has been attached as an appendix to the conference report. The letter states that a sine die adjournment ``will result in the beginning again of the day counting process and that the sine die adjournment of a Congress results in all legislative action being terminated and any process [the counting of the 60 days] ended so that it must begin again in a new Congress.'' Thus, if Congress adjourns sine die prior to the end of the 60-day time period after the agency submission of its statement or legislative recommendations then the the 60-day time clock terminates and would start all over again, beginning with day one, when Congress convenes the next year. In those instances, Congress would then have 60 calendar days to act on the agency submission or the mandate would cease to be effective after the 60- January, the time period would likely expire sometime during the month of March. After a discussion with the Parliamentarian, I understand that his interpretation on the counting of days would also apply after sine die adjournment of the 1st session of a Congress as well. This clarification by the Parliamentarian over the counting of days under S. 1 is critically important. During election years we usually adjourn sometime in early October. My concern had been that with a continuous 60-day clock we might be forced in those years to reconvene for a lame-duck session in December to vote on an agency statement or legislative recommendation or otherwise the mandate would cease to be effective. I think as a general rule we should avoid having to convene lameduck sessions except in emergencies and times of national crisis. So I am pleased that the Parliamentarian's ruling would avoid putting us in a situation of having to schedule lameduck sessions to deal with agency statements or legislative recommendations. I would like to clarify another provision in the act. Section 202(a)(2) requires Federal agencies to prepare qualitative and quantitative assessments of the costs and benefits of Federal mandates as well as its effect on health, safety, and natural environment. I believe that the meaning of the word ``effect'' would include both qualitative and quantitative costs and benefits to health, safety and the environment as well as other impacts in those areas. Further, the statement of conferees states that included in the agency written statement under section 202 ``must be a qualitative, and if possible, quantitative assessment of the costs and benefits of the intergovernmental mandate.'' The word ``intergovernmental'' should be crossed out to make the sentence consistent with the statutory language. However, the sentence properly notes that a quantifiable assessment of the costs and benefits of a particular mandate may not be possible. This difficulty in preparing accurate quantitative assessments and estimates is noted in the statutory language for both section 202(a) (3) and (4). Indirect costs and benefits are particularly difficult to quantify and may be better addressed as part of an agency qualitative assessment of the Federal mandate. In addition to addressing indirect costs and benefits, such a qualitative assessment would also include an assessment of considerations other than economic costs and benefits but are still necessary and important in guiding an agency in the promulgation of a major rule. I would also like to discuss section 204, dealing with State, local, and tribal government input into the Federal regulatory process. Both the House and Senate bills required Federal agencies to develop an effective process to permit elected State, local, and tribal officials to provide timely and meaningful input into the development of agency regulatory proposals containing significant intergovernmental mandates. The language in both bills was consistent with the President's Executive order. The House bill, however, implicitly exempted all meetings and communications between Federal and State, local, and tribal officials under this process from the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The House felt that FACA was a bureaucratic encumbrance that impeded closer coordination between Federal, State, and local officials in the administration of programs with shared intergovernmental responsibilities. The Committee on Governmental Affairs has examined problems with FACA in the past and 3 years ago reported out unanimously legislation I wrote to reform FACA. The bill exempted elected State and local officials from some of its requirements. So I was sympathetic with the House position in this case. However, I believed that the House language needed to be tightened and narrowed so as not to give State and local officials an unfair advantage over others in the administrative process. So we developed compromise language in section 204(b) to provide an exemption from FACA for elected State, local, or tribal officials--or their designated employees with authority to act on their behalf--for meetings concerning the implementation or management of Federal programs that ``explicitly or inherently share intergovernmental responsibilities or administration.'' So we have been careful to limit the FACA exemption to instances where Federal officials and State, local, and tribal officials are coimplementers or managers of a program. We did not want to allow a FACA exemption in instances where State and local officials are acting as advocates, which is what the House bill would have likely allowed. Further, we have asked the administration to promulgate regulations to implement section 204 and to ensure that there are proper safeguards in place. I would note that the effective date of title I is January 1, 1996 or 90 days earlier if CBO receives appropriations as authorized. Thus, title I would apply to any bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report considered by the House or Senate on or after January 1, 1996. Finally, I would like to describe and explain the provisions of section 401, which deals with the subject of judicial review. The version of S. 1 that passed the Senate contained an absolute bar on all judicial review. However, the bill that passed the House authorized judicial review of regulatory agency compliance with many requirements in the bill. The conferees agreed to a compromise between the Senate and the House positions. Our goal was to provide for meaningful judicial review, so as to reassure the regulated community that agencies will prepare certain key statements and plans that are called for under S. 1. However, we also wanted to assure that agency rules and enforcement would not be stayed or invalidated by the judicial review, and that the regulatory process would not get bogged down in excessive litigation. I believe that section 401 achieves these goals. Sections 401(a) (1) and (2) provide for limited judicial review of agency compliance with section 202 and sections 203(a) (1) and (2). As I discussed a moment ago, section 202 requires preparation of statements to accompany significant regulatory actions, and sections 203(a) (1) and (2) require agencies to develop small agency plans before establishing certain regulatory requirements. Subparagraph (A) of section 401(a)(2) provides that judicial review is available only under section 706(l) of the Administrative Procedure Act. Section 706(l) of the APA authorizes a court to compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed. Subparagraph (A) also states that such review will only be as provided under subparagraph (B). Subparagraph (B) states that, if an agency fails to prepare the written statement under section 202 or the written plan under section 203(a) (1) and (2), a court may compel the agency to prepare such a written statement. Sections 401(a) (1) and (2) specify that the only remedy that a court may provide is to compel the agency to prepare the statement. So, for example, the court may not stay, enjoin, invalidate, or otherwise affect a rule. Nor may the court postpone the effective date of the rule, stay enforcement of the rule, or take any other action to preserve status or rights pending conclusion of the review proceeding or pending compliance by the agency with any court order to prepare a statement. Furthermore, in this review under sections 401(a) (1) and (2), the court may not review the adequacy of a written statement under section 202 or of a written plan under sections 203(a) (1) and (2). This is because paragraph (2)(B) provides that a court may compel preparation of a written statement only if the agency actually fails to prepare the written statement under section 202 or actually fails to prepare the written plan under sections 203(a) (1) and (2). Sections 401(a) (1) and (2) deal with the situation where rules that are subject to sections 202 and 203(a) and (b) undergo judicial review under Federal law other than section 401(a) (1) and (2). Paragraph (3) states that, in any such judicial review, the failure of an agency to prepare a required statement or plan shall not be used as a basis for staying, enjoining, invalidating, or otherwise affecting the agency rule. Subparagraph (3) further provides that, if the agency does prepare a statement not be used as a basis for staying, enjoining, invalidating, or otherwise affecting the agency rule. Subsection (3) not only forbids a court to use the inadequacy or failure to prepare a statement or plan as the sole basis for invalidating or otherwise affecting a rule; the subsection also prohibits the court from using such inadequacy or failure as any basis, even if considered together with other deficiencies in the rulemaking, for invalidating or otherwise affecting a rule. Subparagraph (4) states the circumstances when the information generated under section 202 or section 203(a) (1) and (2) may be considered by a court in the course of reviewing the rule under law other than sections 401(a) (1) and (2). Subparagraph (4) has two elements. First, the information may be considered by the court only if it is made part of the rulemaking record for judicial review. Second, if the information is made part of the record for review, then the information may be considered by the court as part of the entire record for the judicial review under the other law. The question of whether the information is made part of the record for judicial review is not determined by any provision of S. 1; the contents of the record is governed by the law and court procedures under which the judicial review takes place. In judicial review of agency rules, the agency makes the initial decision of what documents to include in the rulemaking record for judicial review. Thus, the agency would make the initial decision of whether to include any information generated under sections 202 and 203(a) (1) and (2) in the record for judicial review. If the agency makes such information part of the record for judicial review, the court may then proceed to consider such information as part of the record for judicial review pursuant to the other law. In no event may a court review whether the information generated under sections 202 or 203(a) (1) or (2) is adequate to satisfy requirements of S. 1. Such review is clearly prohibited by subparagraph (3). However, in reviewing a rule under law other than sections 401(a) (1) and (2), if information generated under section 202 or 203(a) (1) or (2) is included in the record for review, the court may consider whether such information is adequate or inadequate to satisfy the requirements of such other law. Any information that is made part of the record subject to judicial review, including information generated under sections 202 and 203(a) (1) and (2) that is made part of the record, may be considered by the court, to the extent relevant under the law governing the judicial review, as part of the entire record in determining whether the record before it supports the rule under the arbitrary capricious or substantial evidence or other applicable standard. Pursuant to the appropriate Federal law, a court looks at the totality of the record in assessing whether a particular rulemaking proceeding lacks sufficient support in the record. Section 401(a)(5) states that a petition under paragraph (2) to compel the agency to prepare a written statement shall be controlled by provisions of law that govern review of the rule under other law. This applies to such matters as exhaustion of administrative remedies, the time for and manner of seeking review, and venue. Consequently, the petition under paragraph (2) may be filed only after the final rule has been promulgated, at which time review of the rule may be available under other law. The petition under subparagraph (2) may be filed only in a court where a petition for review of the rule itself could also be filed under other law. And the same requirements for exhaustion of administrative remedies that would apply in review of the rule shall also apply to the petition under paragraph (2). However, if the other law does not have a statute of limitations that is less than 180 days, then paragraph (5) limits the time for filing a petition under paragraph (2) to 180 days. Section 401(a)(6) states the effective date for the judicial review provided under subsection (a). The effective date is October 1, 1995, and subsection (a) will apply to any agency rule for which a general notice of proposed rulemaking is promulgated on or after such date. Consequently, in the case of rules for which a general notice of proposed rulemaking is promulgated before October 1, 1995, subsection (a) does not apply. For these rules that are not subject to subsection (a), a petition under subsection (a)(2) may not be filed, and information generated under section 202 and 203(a) may not be considered as part of the record for judicial review pursuant to subsection (4). Section 401(b)(1) broadly prohibits all judicial review except as provided in subsection (a). Thus, all of title I, those portions of title II not expressly referenced in subsection (a), and all of title III are completely exempt from judicial review. This section also prohibits judicial review of any estimate, analysis, statement, description or report prepared under S. 1. This list is intended to cover all forms of documentation or analysis generated under S. 1, so that no such documentation or analysis is subject to any form of judicial review except as provided in subsection (a). For example, not only is an agency's compliance with section 205 not subject to judicial review; but also the regulatory alternatives and the explanations prepared under section 205, and other records of the agency's activities under section 205, may not be reviewed in any judicial proceeding. Subsection (b)(2) further states that, except as provided in subsection (a), no provision of S. 1 shall be construed to create any right or benefit enforceable by any person. Finally, the provisions of S. 1 do not affect the standards of underlying law, under which courts will review agency rules. In other words, insofar as they provide the basis for judicial review of a rule, neither the standards of the statute that authorizes promulgation of the rule, nor the procedural standards for rulemaking under the authorizing statute or the APA, nor the standards for judicial review of the rule, nor agency or court interpretations, are affected by the provisions of S. 1. Likewise, to the extent that applicable law vests discretion in an agency to determine what information and analysis to consider in developing a rule, nothing in S. 1 changes the standards under which a court will review and determine whether the agency properly exercised such discretion. Thus, even where the authorizing statute is vague or silent about what factors the agency must or may consider in promulgating a rule, a court reviewing the rule may not consider the requirements of section 202 or of any other provisions of S. 1 in interpreting the requirements of the statute. This is because, except as provided by a petition under section 401(a)(2), section 401 prohibits all judicial review of compliance or noncompliance with S. 1. If courts were allowed to interpret S. 1 as implicitly amending or superseding the provisions of another statute or to constrain the agency's discretion under another statute, and if the conference report had been written to allow a court to consider an agency's compliance or noncompliance with these amended or superseded provisions of the other statute, this would be the same thing as judicial review of the agency's compliance or noncompliance with the provisions of S. 1. But section 401 of the conference report clearly prohibits courts from doing this. Furthermore, even when an agency prepares any statement under section 202, nothing in section 202 authorizes or requires consideration of the statement in development of the rule. Where the conference report intends to require that agencies consider certain factors, the language of the bill is drafted to say so explicitly, as in the provision of section 205 requiring that agencies consider a reasonable number of regulatory alternatives under certain circumstances. Furthermore, an agency may choose to prepare a statement even if consideration is clearly prohibited under other statute, and an agency may prepare a statement even if the applicable statute affords discretion to the agency to consider or not to consider the statement. Therefore, neither the provisions of S. 1 nor the fact that an agency prepares any statement under S. 1 affects the standards and interpretations under which courts will review the rule and the agency's exercise of discretion in developing the rule. some people who deserve a great deal of credit for this legislation. This has been tough legislation to bring through, and we had a long debate in the Chamber about it after it came out of committee. We remember some of the difficulties of getting it out of the committee, and I will not go into all the details of that. I indicated earlier in my remarks, of all the people who have brought this through, Senator Dirk Kempthorne certainly deserves credit as the spark plug for this legislation. I have been glad and honored to join him in it. W.H. ``Buzz'' Fawcett, who is sitting here with him today, deserves credit for his work on this, and Gary Smith, who is on the floor also today. On our side of the aisle, those people who deserve a tremendous amount of credit are Sebastion O'Kelly, who is with me here today, who has worked on very little but this for the last couple of months, I guess, or ever since we came back into session; Larry Novey, who is not on the floor with us today--yes, he is back in the back. Larry worked on this legislation also, as did our minority staff director on the Governmental Affairs Committee, Len Weiss, who is here with us today. Congressman Rob Portman over in the House, who was the real sponsor of this and the prime mover of it, deserves a lot of credit, along with his principal staff person who worked on this, John Bridgeland; Congressman William Clinger over there, and the person on his staff, Christine Simmons, who worked so hard on this; Congresswoman Cardiss Collins and her staff person, Tom Goldberg, who met repeatedly with the group; Gary Condit over there, and his staffer, Steve Jones, played a vital role in this. And back on our side again, Senator Jim Exon and Meg Duncan on his staff, and on our Governmental Affairs staff again Senator Carl Levin and Linda Gustitis, who has done such yeoman work on a number of pieces of legislation on our Governmental Affairs Committee staff. I know to people out there maybe who watch this on television, the names are not associated directly with the people involved. You may or may not have seen them in the Chamber from time to time when we were debating the bill, sitting here beside us, keeping some of the legislative matters straight as we were debating some different parts of this bill. But they are people who should be known because they are the ones who have to write things up overnight, spend two-thirds of the night writing things up for our approval in the morning to go to another meeting and try to work things out, work differences out and different views on legislation. And this legislation did have a lot of things we had to work out together. It was together that we worked these things out. There was a lot of togetherness, legislative togetherness that let us get to the point where we are today. So I urge my colleagues to vote for passage of this bill. I think it is landmark legislation, and we have so many people who have been part of this I probably have left some people out. I regret that. But I am glad we have come to this day, and I look forward to tomorrow when we will have a record rollcall vote. I hope it will be unanimous. I yield the floor. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GLENN. I too would be pleased to enter into a colloquy with Mr. Harkin, who was also the chief sponsor of the ADA and the most recent bills reauthorizing the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the IDEA.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong concerns about the impact this rescission will have on DOE's nuclear weapons cleanup effort. The bill we have on the floor today reduces current year money for the cleanup program by $100 million. Other amendments being discussed may add to this cut. And we see where the House energy and water appropriations bill will reduce this year's funds for the program by an additional $45 million. Quite simply, if this trend continues one outcome can be guaranteed. The cost to the taxpayer to complete the DOE cleanup--over the life of the program--will increase dramatically. By dragging our heels and refusing to adequately fund this program, we stretch out the time it will take and will increase the overall cost--not to mention the increased risks to workers and the public who may be exposed to radiation as a result of these delays. Mr. President, I think it is important to discuss up front what the DOE cleanup budget is and is not. The majority of DOE's cleanup budget is dedicated to simply maintaining millions of tons of radioactive waste and scrap and thousands of contaminated facilities in a temporarily safe and secure condition while we try to figure out what to do with this material over the long haul. Let me repeat that. The majority of the DOE cleanup budget doesn't actually pay for anything to be cleaned up. The majority of DOE's cleanup budget pays for things like waste management and nuclear materials and facilities stabilization. While there are most certainly ways to reduce these so-called landlord costs--and DOE, under Secretary O'Leary and Assistant Secretary Grumbly are actively seeking ways to do just that--these costs simply cannot be wished away, nor reduced entirely. Only about one-quarter of the cleanup budget pays for environmental restoration, or actual cleanup. Mr. President, some of my colleagues may be interested in learning what the fastest growing part of DOE's environmental budget actually is. I can tell them what it is not. It is not environmental restoration. In fact the fastest growing portion of DOE's cleanup budget is the category of nuclear materials and facilities stabilization. This category represents costs to maintain closed nuclear weapons production facilities in a stable mode until their final decontamination. These costs are often referred to as landlord costs. They represent administrative costs, utility costs, and unique safety related costs that are absolutely necessary to maintain whether the facility is operating or shutdown. These costs only go off the books when the facility is finally decommissioned. Over the last several years, as policy decisions have been made to shut down these production facilities, these landlord costs have been transferred to the Environmental Management Program from the Defense Program within DOE. DOE's fiscal year 1996 budget request illustrates this process issue vividly. The fiscal year 1996 budget request for the Environmental Management program includes $843 million to manage former defense facilities at Savannah River, Mound, and Pinellas which no longer have a production mission. Prior to this year's budget, these costs were born by DOE's Defense programs office. Budget cutters should keep this fact in mind when examining the Environmental Management budget. The scope of work--the number of facilities, people, and inventory which must be managed--within the EM program has expanded dramatically over the past several years. Mr. President, as many of my colleague may know, my legislative and oversight work in environment, safety and health issues grew out of my concern about the condition of our country's nuclear weapon production complex. Ohio happens to be the location of 3 of the 17 major facilities in the United States which, over the past 45 years, produced the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. These 17 facilities are the ones we usually hear about when we talk about the DOE cleanup program--places like Fernald, Hanford, Savannah River, Rocky Flats, Los Alamos. However, many of my colleagues will be interested to find out that there are literally scores of sites around the country that fall under DOE's cleanup program. Most of these are associated in some way with the nuclear weapons program; however, some are associated with the nuclear navy program and others with energy research activities. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of the Department of Energy's cleanup sites--some 137 sites located in 34 states--be printed in the Record.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, it is my pleasure to rise today on behalf of myself and my distinguished colleagues, Senator DeWine and Senator Levin to introduce the Assessment and Remediation of Contaminated Sediments [ARCS] Reauthorization Act and on behalf of Senator DeWine, Senator Levin, and Senator Feingold to introduce the Great Lakes Federal Effectiveness Act. I am honored to be joined by a new Great Lakes Senator, Senator DeWine. I am pleased that the Senator from my home State, Ohio, has shown such significant leadership on Great Lakes issues so early on in the 104th Congress. Both Senator Levin and Senator Feingold's consistent leadership on issues of critical importance to the Great Lakes is exemplary. Furthermore, I am honored that another Ohio colleague, Congressman LaTourette, and Congressman Quinn are introducing a House companion bill for the Great Lakes Federal Effectiveness Act with Congressman Oberstar joining them on the ARCS Reauthorization Act. These two bills address the unique water resources in the Great Lakes region, the impact of contaminated sediments on our freshwater resources and the need for coordinated research efforts to efficiently apply science to our efforts to protect and restore the Great Lakes. I am proud to join my colleagues from the Great Lakes region in the introduction of the ARCS Reauthorization Act and the Great Lakes Federal Effectiveness Act. Sedimentation has created a need to dredge Great Lakes harbors for decades. Industrialization of our region and the nation increased the amount of erosion and storm water runoff which in turn escalates the amount of sediment being deposited on our lake and river bottoms and coastal shores. Unfortunately, recent times have seen dredging become increasingly costly largely due to the contaminants which accompany the silt. Contaminated dredge spoils require special handling for proper disposal which adds to the cost of the dredging. Contrary to what one might think, the bottom of a water body is not a safe depository for toxics. Resuspension of these toxics may result from both human and natural activity in the water thus acting as a continual discharge of contamination into the water. The contaminants become available to enter the food chain or come in contact with recreational users. Contaminated sediments can result in shellfish contamination, fish advisories and threats to human health by those who consume tainted fish. The ARCS Program is a demonstration program for innovative technology to address the problem of contaminated sediments. The 5-year ARCS program was originally authorized in the 1987 Clean Water Act. The ARCS Program authorized the implementation of pilot-scale tests of promising sediment remediation technologies to address the water pollution problems in the Great Lakes. Reauthorization of the ARCS Program takes us to the next level: full-scale demonstrations of contaminated sediment remediation. The ARCS Program, coordinated by the Administrator of the EPA, acting through the Great Lakes National Program Office, would implement three sediment remediation demonstration projects and at least one full-scale demonstration of a remediation technology. The second bill, the Great Lakes Federal Effectiveness Act [GLFEA] is consistent with the current efforts to streamline Government and reduce redundant or outdated programs. The GLFEA will prevent unnecessary duplication of efforts among Federal agencies which undertake Great Lakes research. The act establishes a Great Lakes Council, composed of offices from the Environmental Protection Research Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other Federal agencies conducting research in the Great Lakes basin. The Council will assess the current status of scientific research capabilities, identify research priorities for the region, make recommendations for integrated data collection and management of Great Lakes resources, and finally develop and disseminate its findings through a biennial report. The Great Lakes Federal Effectiveness Act does not require any new funding, rather it actually aims to help agencies better manage their research budgets and potentially cut costs through cooperative efforts to set research priorities and avoid unnecessary or duplicative projects. The Great Lakes Council will essentially serve as a clearinghouse for Great Lakes information and research findings and develop a uniform, multimedia, data collection protocol for use across the Great Lakes basin. The multimedia approach of this legislation allows our experts to share scientific knowledge and address air, water, soil, and wildlife factors in our efforts toward responsible stewardship of the Great Lakes ecosystem. This ecosystem perspective on the natural environment, if incorporated into our Federal environmental policy, promises to fundamentally improve the effectiveness and efficiency of environmental management. The Great Lakes Federal Effectiveness Act will provide Federal, State, academic and private sector officials with a vehicle through which information can be compiled and ultimately shared among the region's research community. The act will stretch our research dollars and help us to better tap scientific resources within the private sector, the academic community, and Federal agencies. I urge my colleagues of the Senate to endorse this legislation and move toward its timely enactment.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I am very happy that we are today one important step closer to reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act. This law is essential to reducing the burdens of Government paperwork on the American people. The law is also key to improving the management of Federal Government information systems--this is essential because the Federal Government is now spending $25 billion a year on information technology. The bill we bring to the floor today is the product of several years of bipartisan effort. In fact, this bill is virtually identical to the bill passed by unanimous consent in October 1994. This year, I hope we can quickly go all the way and get the bill signed into law. Our bill makes important improvements to the 1980 Paperwork Reduction Act. It strengthens the paperwork clearance process and information resources management--both in OMB and the agencies: We reauthorize the act for 5 years; We overturn the Dole versus United Steelworkers Supreme Court decision, so that information disclosure requirements are covered by the OMB paperwork clearance process; We require agencies to evaluate paperwork proposals and solicit public comment on them before the proposals go to OMB for review; We create additional opportunities for the public to participate in paperwork clearance and other information management decisions; management [IRM] requirements; We establish information dissemination standards and require the development of a Government Information Locator Service [GILS] to ensure improved public access to Government information, especially that maintained in electronic format; and We make other improvements in the areas of Government statistics, records management, computer security, and the management of information technology. These are important reforms and improvements to the act. We should act on this legislation quickly.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to add my voice to that of my colleagues who have made remarks commemorating the 50th anniversary of the heroic Battle of Iwo Jima, which began on February 19, 1945. I made some impromptu remarks on this subject last week when my colleague from Arkansas delivered his remarks. It was one of the most moving moments on the floor of the U.S. Senate that I have participated in. We had the Senators here who had been marines at one time in their lives, and it was a very moving moment. Each of the other former marines in the Senate have stood on the Senate floor over the last several days to pay tribute to the extraordinary bravery of the men who fought so ferociously in the Battle of Iwo Jima. It was this grueling 36-day battle that gave rise to Admiral Nimitz' famous description that ``Among the Americans who served on Iwo, uncommon valor was a common virtue.'' This battle also exacted one of the greatest casualty tolls in the history of the Marine Corps. For that uncommon valor, more medals of honor--27 in all--were awarded for that action than for any other action in World War II. Out of those 27, 14 were awarded posthumously. I was in World War II. I went in a few days after Pearl Harbor and started training. Fifty years ago, I had just returned to the United States from combat in the Pacific in the Marshall Islands, just when the Marine assault on the island of Iwo Jima began. Having participated in combat at that time in the Marshall Islands, we took our losses there, too, but nothing like Iwo, of course. But I understood the strategic importance this battle was to play in our island-hopping campaign in the Pacific. We watched that very closely, because I was in training, along with other members of the squadron I was in, to go back out again for the assault on Japan. Lying between Japan and our bomber bases in the Marianas was Iwo Jima, which would provide a critical base from which fighter escorts could protect our B-29's en route to the Japanese home islands. Our B-29's had the range to make their way from the Marianas, but without fighter escorts, they went unprotected and too often fell victim to attacks by Japanese fighters. Iwo Jima also would provide a haven for battle damaged bombers returning from their assaults on Japan. And taking Iwo Jima's three airfields would deprive the Japanese of a base from which they could intercept our bombers. This was part of the overall strategy, the strategy of saying we needed bases that bring the Japanese to their senses to bomb, to bomb, to bomb, and hope that we could end that war before we would need to make an invasion. Estimates of that invasion were that if the Japanese fought with the tenacity they had throughout that war, we could lose as many as a million people in that conquest of Japan. So it was in that strategy that Iwo was of critical importance. The challenge that 75,000 marines of the 3d, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions faced was an awesome one. Iwo Jima, despite the heavy bombing it had endured in the hours leading up to the Marine assault, remained heavily defended by Japanese in caves and pill boxes and bunkers. Just picture yourself coming to shore in a bobbing landing craft, coming in with shells landing and people being hit in the landing craft before it got there, and seeing other craft ahead of you that had already been hit. It was a very tough moment. The island provided no natural cover for attackers, and Marines were slowed by Iwo Jima's black sand beaches. It was a sand of large grain, where you would step up on the beach and try and go uphill, and you made two steps forward and went one step backward. As I mentioned the other night, Mr. President, I did not participate in the Battle of Iwo Jima. But after the war, following assignment to China, my squadron flew through Iwo. We were there for several days and we walked that territory. I stood on those beaches and on the cliffs and was up on Mount Suribachi. I tried to imagine what it must have been like in those days. Having seen the terrain, it is hard to imagine how anybody could have ever made it up those beaches. They were the only landing areas on the island, but above the beaches, the cliffs were literally honeycombed with caves, back in the rocks, interconnected so the defenders could go from one cave opening to another. From the caves, machine guns would come out and fire, and unless naval supporting gunfire was able to make an unlikely very direct hit on a tiny cave opening, the guns kept coming out and kept mowing people down, and mowing them down, and mowing them down. As far as that gunfire, I remember one large Japanese gun that had been shooting at ships, and it accidentally had been hit directly by a shell while coming in from the sea. The whole end of that gun barrel was splayed out just like a banana that you would peel down, or like a flower petal spread out in different directions. It was a savage, savage battle. We were there, and my squadron mates and I walked in the caves and walked on the beaches just as the Japanese gunners were able to during that combat. How anybody ever got ashore with that kind of withering fire coming right down their throats, on top of them, is something hard to fathom. It was an experience being impressed on my memory to this very day. As they came ashore, the usual thing would be to hunker down in a fox hole or a crater. But here was Mount Suribachi looking down. There was no such thing as a fox hole. They were being fired upon out on the beach. It is no wonder there were so many casualties. My visit to Iwo makes me appreciate just what is meant when it is said that the progress of the marines of the V Corps was measured in yards, as Japanese defenders resisted to the death. The Japanese were of a mood and psyche at that time, as they were through all of World War II, that they would rather be killed than give up. It was a Kamikaze mentality. We expected the assault on Japan, which we were training for, would be the same, and that, once again, emphasizes the importance of Iwo. Yet, by February 24, 1945, 4 days after the onslaught began, the American flag waived from the summit of Mount Suribachi, the proud image that to this day symbolizes the unwavering resolve of the Marine Corps, of our Nation, and of the staggering sacrifices that were made by the marines in their relentless advance on Iwo Jima. Uncommon valor was indeed a common virtue. Just imagine you are there, and just think of the determination. You have flamethrowers, tanks, bulldozers, landing craft hit and on the beach and shot up and out of commission, and still you have to advance and neutralize and silence the fire from those hundreds and hundreds of enemy caves. Well, by early March, the three Marine divisions had compressed the remaining enemy into isolated pockets of resistance. An awesome foe, the Japanese defenders fought with courage and determination, with the vast majority in their fanaticism, preferring death to surrender. The final pockets of resistance were finally eliminated, and the capture of the island was announced on March 26. The casualty statistics are harrowing. Almost 7,000 Americans were killed, and more than 17,000 were wounded. But the assault and capture of Iwo Jima was of critical importance to final victory in the Pacific, and the island proved to be an important base from which to deliver more and heavier blows against the enemy. It also became the emergency landing field it had been envisioned to be. And by the end of the war a total of 2,251 B-29 bombers, carrying 24,761 crewmen landed on Iwo Jima. A large number of these brave pilots and crewmen undoubtedly would have been lost if the land had not been taken. Once again, you can imagine those planes coming in, shot up, battle damaged, wounded being taken out, planes repaired, wounded being given help, back to Guam or Saipan, and out again to pound Japan after being repaired. Mr. President, I conclude my remarks by repeating the words of then Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal, who was present on the island during the campaign, when he expressed his ``tremendous admiration and reverence for the guy who walks up beaches and takes enemy positions with a rifle and grenades or his bare hands.'' We have had a lot of battles, Mr. President, battles we read about. The battle of Iwo Jima, like Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, and Normandy, was won literally not just by machines but by young Americans who wanted to live but were not afraid to die for their country. People go off to war with the flags flying and bands playing and we think about liberty and the pursuit of justice and world community and all of these things we like to talk about, loyalty to country. But to the people on a beach, it is a matter of them and their fellow marines that they are trying to survive alongside. And it is that Marine training, which makes them more afraid of letting their fellow marines down than they are of getting hurt, that wins those battles. Sometimes they are killed. Sometimes it is hard to explain that kind of psychology, that kind of mentality that wins battles, particularly a battle as vicious and as tough as was Iwo Jima. But that Marine gung ho spirit of being more afraid of letting each other down in a battle than they are of getting hurt or killed themselves, while hard to explain, is what is so important in winning battles. It means that a person will take grenades over to somebody and expose himself to fire because his fellow marines need that kind of help. It is what you have seen in the squadron where people dive back in on a target a second time to split up antiaircraft fire. You would think that would be the most stupid thing anybody can do, but it is done because they see somebody in trouble. So, Mr. President, to those brave Americans who paid the ultimate sacrifice on the black sand beaches of Iwo Jima and the rocky slopes of Mount Suribachi, ``Semper Fi,'' and may God's blessings rest on our Corps, on our military, and on this United States of America. Thank you, Mr. President I yield the floor.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, the real question here has been brought out repeatedly in this debate. What we have heard over and over and over again is that we need the balanced budget amendment because we need something to force us to act responsibly; we need something to give us political courage; we need something that says, ``I am going to put a gun to my head and I'm going to say I'll shoot if you don't prevent me from spending again.'' We need the discipline. We have heard that word over and over. And we have heard repeatedly, both here and over in the House, the term ``political will.'' They say this forces us to have the ``political will.'' Well, Mr. President, I do not believe that anyone worthy of being a U.S. Senator needs such legislation to gain political will--if they are doing their job properly. We are capable of spelling out just what steps we need to take, and our knees will not buckle when we know the truth, as was stated by one of the Members of the House. How do I know that? Because just 2 short years ago, the Congress voted for the largest deficit reduction package in history. Why so many people refuse to remember that, I do not know. With passage of that single bill, the budget deficit was cut by over $500 billion. And, I must add, we had to do it without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate. In fact, the Vice President had to break the tie in the Senate. President Clinton said 2 years ago, in both public and private conversations, that the most important thing is health of the economy. His campaign commitment on deficit reduction was not just election year rhetoric. In the first year of his Presidency, he presented a clear agenda for deficit reduction. He offered us real specifics, not a lot of rhetoric but real specifics--a program that combined both spending cuts and new taxes. He had the guts to do that. Mr. President, how did we do that? The President made his proposals. The Democratic Congress responded, and said OK, we will take on your deficit reduction agenda. We know it is going to mean tough votes, but we are going to do this. So it came up here to the Hill, and we farmed it out to various committees, and the committees were given assignments, so much of a cut per committee. And those were tough cuts and tough votes--tough, tough votes. And they were brought back here to the floor where we voted them out of the Senate. They went to conference with the House, and the conference package came back. And we voted it out--a tough vote as reflected by the fact some Members of the Senate were probably not reelected because of their vote on this package. I do not know why--with the deficit reduction record we've achieved over the past couple of years--the Republicans do not do the same thing right now. Instead of talking about grand ideals--be specific. Do not say trust us and we will tell you later how we are going to do this. That is not how we did it during that reconciliation vote in August 1993, less than 2 years ago. We stood up and made the hard choices at that time, and that is what we should do in dealing with the deficit. That was a tough package in the Senate and in the House. In fact, it came up to a 50-50 tie, one of the more dramatic moments in recent years in the Senate, and the Vice President had to break the tie during the vote in the Senate. Now, that bill became law despite the lack of bipartisan support, and we are now seeing our third year of declining deficits. Why do people ignore that? When that bill was passed, our deficits were going up and they were estimated to be close to $300 billion a year. The next year they went down to $250 billion. They are estimated to be around $190 billion a year now. But the proponents of this bill make a lot out of the fact that the President said, well, we are going to have deficits of $200 billion a year from here out into the near future. I do not like that either, but I can tell you what we ought to be concentrating on. Instead of a balanced budget amendment with all of its disadvantages, we should be concentrating on how to continue this trend of deficit reduction. For the first time since Harry Truman, we have seen consecutive years of deficit reduction. The President deserves a lot of credit for that, and the Democratic Congress deserves a lot of credit for that because we are the ones who put it through. I think we should be taking great pride in that. We do not need a balanced budget amendment to give us guts. Political courage should not stop at the middle aisle in this Chamber. It should be all across this Chamber. We demonstrated less than 2 years ago that that is the way to cut the deficit; not by some legislation that is supposed to instill a false sense of courage or a political will that we would lack otherwise. This new we will blame hard choices on the balanced budget amendment. We do not have to say that we lack responsibility or political will. We can do it. We know we can do it because the Democrats in this Senate did it before. And we can be very, very proud of that. Mr. President, when we have asked for specifics during this lengthy debate on whether taxes would be raised or on what would be cut, we have been stonewalled on the other side and amendment after amendment after amendment has been voted down to show that they mean business over there. They are not going to tell us how we will go about cutting programs or what will be threatened. They just want the balanced budget amendment to hide behind. Now, what if I would say to those watching at home, your Social Security is going to be cut. Oh, no, no, no, the proponents of the amendment say, we plan to take that off the table. That is going to be off budget. Well, if that is the case, then your Medicare is going to be cut. Oh, no, no, no, they say, that is not going to be cut. We are going to leave that off budget over here some place. Well, we know that national defense needs to be continued. It is not going to be cut substantially. In fact, the proposal is to increase national defense just a little bit, and I go along with that. Now, if you take Social Security, you take Medicare, and you take defense off, what does that result in? I can tell you, if you are going to put a balanced budget amendment in, it means that every other function in the budget has to be cut by well over 30 percent-- every other function: AIDS research, cancer research, you name it. Oh, well, we would not cut those. That means something else then is going to get cut double so you can keep up with AIDS research and cancer research and the other programs we would like to keep. Now, what if we included a couple of the other things I think would probably not be voted out here. Take tax cuts. Those are going to be put in. Take veterans programs, veterans retirement off, civilian retirement for civil service people who have retired. If you just add those things to it, do you know what we come up with? We come up with the fact that every other function in the Federal Government would have to be cut by over 50 percent--every other function of Government--including health and safety matters--every other function of Government. And yet we are supposed to vote for this and say we are going to put a gun to our heads and say we are going to force ourselves into this straitjacket so we will have this balanced budget amendment to hide behind when we start cutting such programs. Mr. President, I disagree with this approach. We need to be honest. If certain programs are going to be on the table, the American people need to know they will not be sacrosanct. But some people who say we would not dare cut Social Security would-- these same Senators--would not vote to exempt Social Security from the balanced budget amendment here on the Senate floor just last week. They would not vote to set Social Security aside. No, it is still on the table. So believe me, whether they like to say so or not, your Social Security benefits are in danger because everything is still in play. Everything is still in play. And to the States that are so concerned about unfunded mandates out there, wait until you look at that billions of dollars you are receiving every year for environmental concerns-- just for environmental concerns such as clean air and clean water. What happens to that? You can bet that is going to get cut back, and so all the Governors who have been here so concerned about this--and some of them supporting a balanced budget amendment--better look to what is going to happen to their Federal funding once something like this goes through. Mr. President, I believe we have had a good debate here in the Senate on the balanced budget amendment. We did not push it through for the sake of press releases and false deadlines. We did not set ourselves so many days and say we have to do this or else, because we take amendments to the Constitution very seriously in the Senate--very, very seriously indeed. I believe that the debate in the Senate has served to unearth some other very serious flaws with the balanced budget amendment. I wish to spell out what some of these other problems are besides the ones I have already mentioned--and to explain why I believe they make this balanced budget amendment unacceptable. Mr. President, as I stated earlier, the first step should have been to map out a plan to reach a balanced budget. That is why I supported the so-called right-to-know-amendment offered by the distinguished Democratic leader, Senator Daschle. We are now hearing there will be plans announced at a later date to balance the budget by the year 2002. Mr. President, when I talk to people back home in Ohio and when I visit back home in Ohio, people throughout Ohio feel they have a right to know up front how their lives are going to be affected, how their Social Security will be affected, how their Medicare will be affected, how their retirement will be affected, how their children will be affected. They want to know up front how we intend to achieve a balanced budget. Mr. President, while we debate the balanced budget amendment, we are seeing more headlines about tax cuts than about deficit reduction. Many of the proponents of the amendment, who should be laying out deficit- reduction proposals, are busy preparing tax-cut plans. Does that sound familiar? It reminds me of the very strategy that added more than $3.5 trillion to our national debt. Then, like today, there was a lot of talk about balancing the budget but almost no talk about how to get there. Instead we had feel-good budget plans. Cut taxes, smile, be happy--it is morning in America. What did we do back then? We cut taxes by one-fourth over a 3-year period of time, 5 percent the first year, 10 percent for each of the next 2 years. That was supposed to result in such economic growth we would not wind up losing money, we would wind up earning more in revenue because of the increased economic activity. It just did not work. That is what gave us the additional $3.8 trillion in debt that occurred over the 12 years before the Clinton administration. I take some Democratic responsibility for some of that, and for this reason. Back during the Jimmy Carter years when he was President, remember, we had 21-percent interest rates and 17-percent inflation rates for a while. Everybody was scared. I was, too. I was afraid what money I had was in jeopardy during a situation like that. I think that lack of control of the national economy is one of the things that led to the election of President Ronald Reagan. Then he came in and made his big proposals for supply-side economics, and those went into effect, and we have seen the budget deficit going up--not only the budget deficit but the national debt going up ever since. If we do everything the proponents say they want to do, take defense, Social Security, and Medicare off the table, we are faced with a prospect, as I said earlier, of more than 30-percent cuts. Everything else in the Federal budget would have to have about by more than 30 percent cut. And as I've said, we are not entirely sure if that will be the case because the same proponents of the amendment who say they feel Social Security should be off the table, voted against an amendment to exempt Social Security from the balanced budget amendment. They say the same about veterans benefits. They say they will not cut veterans programs. But then they turn around and vote down an amendment to exempt veterans programs. So nobody is exactly sure where they stand with this amendment. It is all speculation because no one is being told what will be cut, whether taxes will be raised or anything else, for that matter. I submit that my constituents in Ohio are the taxpayers and they have a right to know in advance what the impact is going to be on their lives if we put the balanced budget amendment into effect. We can spell out for the American people how we will reduce the budget. We do not need a balanced budget amendment. We on the Democratic side did that in the summer of deficit reduction of more than. We did it, and we did it without a single Republican vote from the other side of the aisle. So this idea that we do not have political courage, we do not have guts enough to make some of these hard decisions, fall on deaf ears, as far as I am concerned. We did it and we can do it again. What I would like to see, instead of these $200 billion deficits continuing as projected, is for us to come up with real proposals for continued reductions. What we should be doing instead of debating a balanced budget amendment, is try to decide how we will keep that reduction going. I want to see us achieve a balanced budget by the year 2002. I think we should start moving in that direction immediately--start working on it right now. I intend to support an amendment offered by my distinguished colleague from Arkansas, Senator Bumpers, which will require that our congressional budget resolutions from here on map out specifically how to reach a balanced budget by the year 2000. Do we have courage enough to do that? I hope we do. Real political courage is a true alternative to the balanced budget amendment. The problem with the balanced budget amendment is that it brings with it so many unintended consequences. First, it threatens the separation of powers, so carefully laid out in the Constitution. According to former solicitor and Federal Judge Robert Bork, the balanced budget amendment, and I quote him, ``Would likely result in hundreds if not thousands of lawsuits around the country, many of them on inconsistent theories, and providing inconsistent results.'' In fact, the judicial consequences of the proposed amendment have brought together an unexpected alliance of legal scholars who oppose the amendment. Conservatives such as Bork and Robert Fried and liberals such as Archibald Cox and Laurence Tribe all think it is a serious mistake. I fear activist Federal judges, trying to enforce the balanced budget amendment, would place themselves in the role of elected officials. These judges, appointed for life and insulated from the people, could usurp the power to tax and spend from elected officials. I believe our Founding Fathers, who fought a revolution against taxation without representation, would be shocked at that potential prospect. If the judiciary had a case before them and said, OK the Congress has not balanced this budget as the Constitution requires, what shall we do? Would they then say we will just cut certain programs? Or will they say one of the options is to tax? They might give the remedy. No one says they cannot do that. How do we deal with that? Some say the Missouri versus Jenkins precedent which opened up such a possibility should not be read in this way. Some state the courts have grown less activist and less likely to enter this sphere. I remind my colleagues, the Constitution will last throughout future generations of Americans. The judiciary of the future may or may not be activist, and it will be interpreting evolving precedents that we cannot predict. That is why I have and will continue to support amendments to the balanced budget amendment to add predictability to the area of judicial review and ensure the balanced budget amendment will not simply become a full employment act for lawyers. I am also deeply concerned about the impact of the amendment during tough economic times. There has been a great deal of discussion on the floor about this topic by other Senators. In times of economic downturn, our economy would be placed on autopilot. The economic downturn would cause an unpredictable hemorrhage of revenues. Tax increases and massive spending cuts would be forced just at the time when a fragile economy could not sustain them. We could not do the countercyclical spending that has held us out of more depressions since those days of the Great Depression. And that is just what turned a recession into the Great Depression in the 1930's, that lack of ability to make countercyclical spending. The supermajority requirements of the amendment would have a minority of legislators, deciding the fate of all Americans during these times. This same minority would be deciding the fate of Ohioans--or people anyplace else in the country, for that matter--who are hit by natural disasters. Over the years, tornadoes and floods have ravaged different parts of the country, as well as my own State of Ohio. The Federal Government always came to our aid. With this amendment in place, legislators who have never been to Ohio nor visited other areas impacted by disasters, would suddenly have veto power over Government compassion. Tough luck, you are on your own. That is why I support an amendment offered by my friend from California, Senator Boxer, to provide flexibility in cases of natural disaster. Another area of very great concern to me also is that of national defense. The amendment has a military conflict waiver which is extremely important but it certainly does not go far enough. What happens if America faces a military threat, not a conflict? Will we be able to gear our forces up in time? If you look back over our military history at military spending, we have operated since the days of the Spanish- American War on basically a 17-year cycle. It is really striking to look at the figures. Almost on an exact 17-year cycle we have seen buildup of 7 years, followed by a 10-year reduction in the military: 7- year buildup, then a 10-year builddown. Military spending follows that persistent trend almost exactly--except for World War II, where the peak was displaced by about 4 years. But every 17 years, we seem to decide the world is safe and that we can cut back on our military budget. Then something always happens which makes us reconsider, and we begin building up again to prepare for whatever the new threat is; threats that we could not foresee, threats that we could not define when we made the cuts to begin with. Military preparedness is not something that just happens overnight when we suddenly see a new threat. Congress is charged in the Constitution with the awesome responsibility of providing for the common defense of all of our people. Yet today, we are debating an amendment to the Constitution which I fear may not allow Congress to live up to that responsibility. There are trouble spots throughout the world that could erupt at any time. What will our adversaries think if they know we have no ability to rise to the occasion? What about our allies? I know that many here in Congress signed the Contract With America. But we all took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That certainly takes precedent over the Contract With America. Mr. President, I want us to achieve a balanced budget. We took an important step toward a balanced budget 2 years ago. We need to take the same sort of action in this Congress. I simply do not believe that this balanced budget amendment, as it currently is crafted, is a wise course to follow. We have had 3 consecutive years of deficit reduction. It went from about $300 billion, down to a little under $250 billion, down to about $190 billion right now. What we need to do is plan to continue that, not just going out with $200 billion into the indefinite future, as the President's budget has proposed. Mr. President, I come back again to where I started my remarks; that is, to ask: Why do we need this amendment to our Constitution? We are told by the other side that we need it for political courage, we need it for political will, we need it for discipline. We demonstrated political courage, political will, and discipline less than 2 years ago in this very Chamber when we voted a $500 billion budget deficit reduction package. That was a tough package. Putting it together involved many tough votes. We did it upfront in a responsible manner. We were honest. People knew exactly what we were voting on. We were accountable to the people we represent. We went home and explained why we voted the way we did. We did not hide behind some balanced budget amendment that gives cover for those hard votes. I think the way to go is to repeat what we did less than 2 years ago on this floor, and lay out a plan of how we will continue the deficit reduction program that President Clinton first presented, and we enacted into law. It has been effective; it has worked. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, today with my colleague, Mr. DeWine, I am introducing a bill to extend the time limitation on an already issued Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [FERC] license for the Summit pumped energy storage project in Norton, OH. Legislation authorizing the FERC to grant this extension has been introduced in the House by Congressman Sawyer. Upon completion of environmental, engineering and other project review, the FERC issued a license to Summit Energy Storage, Inc., for the Summit pumped storage hydropower project. The 1,500 megawatt Summit project, to be located in Summit and Medina Counties, OH, will generate an estimated maximum 3,900 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. Section 13 of the Federal Power Act prescribes the time limits for commencement of construction of a hydropower project once FERC has issued a license. The licensee must begin construction not more than 2 years from the date the license is issued, unless FERC extends the initial 2-year deadline. FERC has extended the Summit project's construction commencement deadline for the one permissible 2-year period, setting the current deadline of April 11, 1995. The bills we introduce would grant FERC authority to extend the commencement of construction deadline for up to 6 additional years. Mr. President, I urge the enactment of this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, the General Accounting Office [GAO] has just released its second series of reports which identify the Federal program areas they consider most vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement--placing hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars at risk. GAO began its high-risk program in 1990, with much encouragement on my behalf as the then-chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs. Its purpose was to highlight problems that were costing the Government--meaning U.S. taxpayers--billions of dollars. In 1992, GAO issued a series of reports that outlined the problems, root causes, and needed actions for each of the areas designated as high-risk. At that time, some agencies were beginning to address their high risks but progress was minimal and the task ahead was daunting. Under my leadership, the Committee on Governmental Affairs strongly supported GAO's high-risk effort. We worked with them as well as agency heads to address problems resulting from a lack of accountability and weak management controls. We also labored hard to provide the necessary oversight and follow-up legislation, on a bipartisan basis, to finally begin addressing these major problems and start a concentrated and systemic approach to governmentwide management. Efforts like strengthening and expanding the Inspectors General Act to detect and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. Or the Chief Financial Officers [CFO] Act of 1990, which is forcing Federal agencies to establish formal financial management structures, including a chief financial officer, and that for the very first time in our Nation's history will produce audited financial statements for certain accounts and programs. Just last year, we also passed the Government Management Reform Act [GMRA] which, among other things, will require--beginning with fiscal year 1997--an audited financial statement on programs and operations for the Government as a whole. Also, I was pleased to work with Senator Roth, our new committee chairman with a long interest in these areas, to pass the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act [GPRA]. This legislation mandates that Federal agencies develop performance measurement systems so that we can begin to determine how these programs are working, whether they meet their objectives, and what return and value we are getting for our money. Another important bipartisan effort is our committee's continuing work to reauthorize the Paperwork Reduction Act. As in the last Congress, our committee has reported out legislation to reauthorize and improve the act. We are now waiting action by the full Senate, which we are sure will duplicate last year's unanimous vote in favor of the legislation. Our bill strengthens the Act's paperwork clearance requirements. It also gives new focus to the Act's information resources management [IRM] provisions. The IRM reforms are critically important and will help agencies address the information technology risks highlighted in GAO's new report. One other area here deserves attention, that is comprehensive procurement reform legislation, the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act [FASA] of 1994, which was passed due to the efforts of myself and several other Members on both sides of the aisle. it significantly streamlines the procurement process, saving time and taxpayer dollars, through the revision and consolidation of acquisition states to bring a dose of common sense and reality into our acquisition process. I do believe that as these laws become more fully implemented, as well as integrated, we will have come a long way toward finally getting control of the creature we call ``government.'' These measures will, unlike any previous laws we have passed, improve the performance of Federal programs and allow us to use financial and budgetary information to better chart the course of Government expenditures. But, as this GAO series shows, we are not there yet. In fact, we have quite a ways to go. That is not to say there is not any good news the taxpayers can be thankful for. On the contrary, there is. For example, according to GAO, 5 out of the 18 previously designated high risk areas have made enough progress as a result of this concentrated effort to be taken off the list. The Bank Insurance Fund, for instance, went from being in the red, that is from having a negative fund balance to a $17.5 billion surplus since the last report. The dramatic turnaround was caused by the combination of an improving economy, legislative actions, and agency and industry reforms. Congressional actions also played a key role in reducing the risks posed by the Resolution Trust Corporation [PBGC], thereby enabling those agencies to be removed from the high- risk program. There is still a bit of more good news from which taxpayers can take some justifiable relief. According to GAO's report, 10 of the 13 areas that remain on its high-risk list have meaningful improvement initiatives underway. Because so many of these initiatives are in the earliest stages of implementation and will require continued commitment and resolve to see them through, it is premature to declare any victories. But there is some hope: The high-risk program experience clearly shows that focusing on high-risk problems prompts long-needed improvement actions. And hope will be needed because, notwithstanding the improvements cited and areas removed, GAO'S high-risk list has grown. In its new series, GAO has categorized its 20 current high-risk areas into 6 broad categories that represent the Government's most critical problems. These categories cover almost all of the Government's $1.25 trillion revenue collection efforts and hundreds of billions of dollars in expenditures. They represent areas where the Government is carelessly and needlessly losing billions of dollars and missing huge opportunities to achieve its objectives at less cost and with better service delivery. Let us take a look at them. First, accountability and cost-effective management is not provided for in Department of Defense [DOD] programs. DOD spending for 1995 is estimated at $270 billion, 18 percent of the total Federal budget and about half of all discretionary funds. Yet DOD cannot accurately account for how it spends its funds or for the $1 trillion in assets it has worldwide. GAO cites four areas particularly vulnerable: financial management systems, practices, and procedures; contract management; the weapons systems acquisition process, and inventory management. Because these areas are so broad and the weaknesses so pervasive, DOD's entire budget can be considered at-risk. Some egregious examples of Defense problems include: Vendors who have been paid $29 billion in disbursements that cannot be matched against purchase invoices to determine if these payments were proper. A former Navy officer received $3 million in fraudulent payments for over 100 false invoice claims, and approximately $8 million in Army payroll payments were made to unauthorized persons, including 6 ghost soldiers and 76 deserters. Contractors themselves--not DOD--detected and returned to the Pentagon $957 million in overpayments during fiscal year 1994 alone. DOD, with $80 billion a year at stake, has not yet solved pervasive problems in its weapons systems acquisition process, including unreliable cost data, unrealistic schedule estimates, and unaffordable program plans. DOD, even after disposing of $43 billion in unneeded inventory over the past 3 years, still holds unnecessary items valued at $36 billion, or 47 percent of its current inventory. Second, revenue owed to the Government is not collected and accounted for. The Internal Revenue Service [IRS] and the Customs Service [USCS] currently collect $1.25 trillion annually, but neither agency can say how much more is owed to the Government and ought to be collected. The inability to adequately estimate what is due the Government could be costing the Government billions of dollars. A 1992 IRS estimate put unreported taxes--the so-called tax gap--at $127 billion; however, IRS admits that this estimate was not based on current, complete data. In addition, both IRS and Customs remain unable to accurately account for amounts that have been collected. GAO considers four revenue collection areas to be high-risk: IRS financial management; IRS tax receivables; IRS filing fraud, and Customs Service financial management. Examples of revenue collection problems include: Over $90 billion of transactions were not posted to taxpayer accounts. Delinquent taxes receivable nearly doubled from $87 billion to $156 billion between 1990 and 1994, while annual collections of delinquent taxes declined from $25.5 billion to $23.5 billion. During the first 6 months of 1994, IRS identified nearly 35,000 fraudulent paper returns and 24,000 fraudulent electronic returns-- increases of 151 percent and 51 percent, respectively, over the same period 1 year before. While IRS admits to losing tens of millions of dollars to detected fraud schemes, some estimates indicate undetected fraud could be costing the Government billions of dollars. Serious problems remain in the seized asset program at the Customs Service, placing tons of illegal drugs and millions of dollars in cash and other property vulnerable to theft and misappropriation. In just one case, thieves broke into a Customs facility and stole 356 pounds of cocaine. The Customs Service has not implemented the controls, systems, and processes to ensure that carriers, importers, and their agents comply with trade laws, or that important trade statistics are reliable. Third, multibillion-dollar investments in information technology do not provide an adequate return. The Government has spent more than $200 billion on information management systems during the last 12 years. Yet, successful automation projects are the exception rather than the rule. As a result, critical financial, program, and management information systems remain largely incompatible, costly to operate and maintain, and woefully inadequate in meeting current users' needs. GAO has chosen four multibillion dollar information technology initiatives--there are evidently other projects with similar difficulties available to chose from--to add to its high-risk list because these particular ones have experienced past failures, involve complex technology, or are critical to agencies' missions. These projects do not just have financial implications. Rather, they impact the very health and safety of all Americans--the air traffic control system and the national weather system, for example. The $36 billion air traffic control modernization project has been plagued by failures and critical components have had to be canceled, replaced, and/or restructured. After spending $2.5 billion of its estimated $8 billion cost, IRS' tax system modernization [TSM] initiative still doesn't have the necessary business and technical foundation to achieve the systems' goals and objectives. To persuade IRS of the need to develop an overall plan for the modernization, Congress reduced IRS' fiscal year 1995 budget request by $339 million. DOD is spending some $3 billion annually on its corporate information management [CIM] initiative even though it has yet to examine the business processes being automated for reengineering opportunities. The National Weather Service modernization project has more than doubled in cost to $4 billion and its completion is estimated to be 4 years behind schedule. Fourth, Medicare claims fraud and abuse is widespread. Last year the Government spent over $440 million a day, or $162 billion, on Medicare. Only the costs for DOD, Social Security, and interest on the debt are higher. And it is estimated that Medicare spending will more than double by the year 2003 to more than $389 billion. While no one, including GAO, has been able to quantify exactly how much of Medicare spending is attributable to fraud and abuse, health care experts have estimated that 10 percent of national health spending is lost to such practices. Even if the number were lower--say 8 or 6 percent--when applied to $162 billion, that amount is devastating. And it will become even more devastating as the program grows. The Health Care Financing Administration [HCFA] is aware that health care scams and abusive practices plague Medicare, but the exploitation continues. For example: Medicare has been charged rates as high as $600 per hour for speech and occupational therapy, though therapists' salaries range from under $20 to $32 per hour. One shell company, which existed solely for the purpose of billing-- and bilking--Medicare, added about $135,000 in administrative costs to the cost of therapy services in 1 year. [HMO's] from 6 to 28 percent more than it would have spent had those same beneficiaries remained in the fee-for-service sector. A national psychiatric hospital chain, charged with fraudulently increasing its reimbursements, in 1994 paid over $300 million in the largest settlement to the Federal Government for health care fraud. Fifth, loan program losses are too high. The Federal Government has become the Nation's largest source of credit. It obligated almost $23 billion in new direct loans and guaranteed $204 billion in new non-Federal lending last year. Now, whether you agree with the Government's role as a banker or not, you have to agree that the Government is not doing a good job of minimizing its losses on its loan and guarantees. The Office of Management and Budget [OMB] has estimated that of the $241 billion owed the Government for direct loans and claims paid on defaulted guaranteed loans, $50 billion is delinquent and at risk of loss. GAO's high risk program concentrates on three lending programs: Farm loan programs have become a continuous source of credit for many borrowers and have had a high rate of loan defaults, resulting in the loss of over $6 billion of taxpayers' money from 1991 through 1994. In addition, its outstanding loan portfolio still contains nearly $5 billion in delinquent debt. Student financial aid programs have been successful in providing money for postsecondary education but have been costly, nearly $25 billion in losses in the guaranteed student loan program alone with $2.4 billion in losses just last year. The Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD], which ensures some $400 billion in housing loans, guarantees more than $400 billion in outstanding securities, and spends $25 billion a year on housing programs, is at risk because of fundamental management weaknesses. Sixth. The management of Federal contracts at civilian agencies needs improvement. Civilian agencies spend tens of billions of dollars per year on contracts, yet they often don't get what they pay for or they reimburse contractors for unallowable or unreasonable costs. According to GAO, at the heart of contracting problems, there is a lack of senior-level management attention. GAO has focused on three contracting areas: The Department of Energy [DOE] spends about $15 billion annually through management and operating contracts but has failed to protect the Government's interests. DOE did not require its contractors to prepare auditble financial statements nor did it audit, every 5 years as is required, the net expenditures reports contractors did prepare. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA] spends about $12 billion to $13 billion each year--90 percent of its funding--on contracts, but with poor oversight. In addition, NASA has traditionally assumed virtually all risks related to contract costs and results. This has led to frequent funding increases, schedule delays, and performance problems on many of NASA's large space projects. Contract management problems in the multibillion-dollar Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] Superfund hazardous waste cleanup program have provided contractors too little incentive to control costs. A recent review of three contractors showed that all three billed the Government for entertainment, tickets for sporting events, or alcoholic beverage costs that were not allowable. But contractors are probably not too worried about what they bill. As of August 1994, there were 528 unfilled requests for audits of Superfund contractor costs. These are just the highlights of GAO's new high-risk list. They show what we're up against if we are to achieve real and measurable progress in the battle against Government waste and mismanagement. While this series indicates that with a concerted and committed effort it is possible to correct and rectify program weaknesses--putting less taxpayer dollars at risk--it also reveals what happens when systems are deficient or administrators are less than vigilant, or both. Only with a continuing and persistent effort can we in Congress, working with the administration and GAO, attack these problems, one by one, case by case. If we are ever to restore people's faith in Government--and its overall credibility--it has to be done, and done quickly. As I have in the past, I will pledge my best efforts with the eventual hope that, one day, there will be no high-risk list at all. I urge my colleagues to work together to accomplish this goal.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I associate myself with the remarks of Senator Bumpers and the others that have spoken so eloquently about Iwo here today. I was in World War II and in the Pacific but not in the Battle of Iwo Jima. After the war, we were assigned to China. I was stationed for 6 months in Beijing; it was called Peking then. Our squadron flew out later on and landed at Iwo, and this was after the war. We had a chance to walk those same black sand beaches that they came in on during the battle of Iwo. It is hard to see how anybody could ever make it up those beaches, which were the only landing areas on the island, because the cliffs above that area were all honeycombed with caves back in the rocks. Guns would come out and fire. Machine guns would go out and fire and go back into the hole again. Unless the naval gunfire that supported them there made a direct hit on the tiny openings, they kept coming out and mowing people down, down below them. We walked in those caves and looked down as the Japanese gunners were able to look down on the beach at that time, and how anybody ever got ashore there with that kind of withering fire looking right down their throats is something that is hard to fathom. It was so impressive that I remember it very, very vividly to this very day. The reasons for the sacrifices have been spoken about here this afternoon. Senator Heflin has mentioned the motto that is on the Iwo statue at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue on the edge of Arlington Cemetery: ``Uncommon valor was a common virtue.'' Indeed it was. It is hard to look at Iwo and to be there on Mount Suribachi, or to go down and be in those caves and look down on the black sand beaches and imagine how anyone could come across those beaches, where the soft rolling sand underfoot--literally, where we tried to walk you would take almost two steps forward and one back, that type of situation. That loose, pebbly type sand was so difficult to even get tracks on. It was hard for them to move at that time. Uncommon valor was indeed a common virtue. One of my most prized possessions at home is a statue of Iwo. It is a smaller version of the Iwo statue that is over on the edge of Arlington Cemetery. It is not just a curiosity stand type statue you would buy from one of the souvenir stands here in Washington. When I had been on a space flight many years later, Felix de Weldon, the sculptor who designed the Iwo statue--it was his concept--was doing a bust of me later on and we become friends. He had one of his first working models that he had, from which he designed the Iwo statue. It is a one-tenth scale model, exact. If you took a picture of it at the right angle, I doubt that you could tell the difference between that and the big Iwo statue. It is a one-tenth scale model. Because I had been in the Marine Corps, he wanted me to have that. I did not want to take it. I thought it should go to the Smithsonian or Marine Headquarters or someplace. He wanted me to have it, so I finally took it. It is one of my most prized possessions at home. I am sure 1 day it will wind up exactly there, in the Smithsonian or Marine Headquarters. Every time I see that statue at home, I am reminded of that visit to Iwo and what it must have been like to be there that day when uncommon valor was such a common virtue. Mr. ROBB addressed the Chair.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and Senator DeWine, I would like to introduce legislation to correct a concern that was raised after the passage of the Dayton Aviation Heritage Preservation Act, establishing a national park to preserve historic sites in Dayton, OH, that are associated with the Wright brothers and the early development of aviation. Public Law 102-419 required that members of a commission established by the act to assist in preserving and managing the park would be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior from recommendations made by certain local and State officials. Concerns were raised that the language of the act may not be in accordance with the appointments clause of the Constitution. The legislation that I am introducing today addresses that concern and provides that the Secretary will appoint the Commission after consideration of recommendations made by those public officials. I hope that the Senate committee will consider this legislation expeditiously so that the Commission can undertake its full responsibilities.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. I appreciate the comments of my colleagues here, but I disagree on what happened. We have not gone 26 years without action. I disagree with that. In 1993, we took action that headed our budget deficit downhill. We were up to almost 300, we went down to around 250, one estimate this year was for 168. It is back up around 190 now. But the point is we have cast tough votes. We took tough action. We told the American people in advance how we were going to do it so they knew how they were going to be affected. We had things headed in the right direction. We can make all we want out of the President's budget that was submitted today, but let us continue on the track that we are on. And if there is to be, as my friend from Illinois says, a task force appointed to tell us how to do this, let us form the task force now. Hold up the balanced budget amendment. Let the task force get together and tell us where the cuts are going to occur it if it passes. Then I would be much more happy with this proposal. I think we are reading so many things off the record here. I started out my remarks this morning by saying if I go home to Ohio and I point to somebody and I say, ``Your Social Security is going to be cut,'' they say, ``Oh, no, wait a minute now, the other side says we are going to put Social Security off limits. That is not going to be cut.'' Then I say, ``They are going to cut your Medicare.'' And they say, ``Wait a minute, Medicare is going to be off budget here. We cannot cut that.'' Then we say, ``Interest on the national debt, we cannot cut back on that because that would destroy the trust in our Government. And defense is not going to be cut--probably it is cut a little too far already given our worldwide responsibilities.'' If you take those things off budget, then everything else in the Federal budget--Alzheimer's, cancer, AIDS--everything else, unless you make up the difference, is going to have to be cut by over 30 percent. Those are the facts. So back in 1993, I think we took real action. We took action that showed we can lay out these tough choices in advance and then have the political courage to enact them. And we did. Why do we say we cannot possibly make these decisions without a balanced budget amendment, when we did it 2 years ago? So I say once again, I would love to vote for a balanced budget amendment, but I am not going to vote for a pig in a poke that may wreck the support system for a lot of people in Ohio and across this country without knowing the details of what we are voting for. I yield the floor.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I quote just a short part of this, talking about a writer who commented on this and said: He raises another point that makes this whole business of tax policy just a bit more complex than the heroic tax slashers would have us believe. ``The question is whether [the 1993 tax increase] was a good idea or a bad idea, not whether it was the biggest tax increase. Suppose it was the biggest? I find it frustrating that the level of the debate about stuff like this as carried on by politicians is generally so low.'' So was it a good idea? ``We needed to reduce the deficit,'' he says, ``we still need to reduce the deficit. The bond market responded positively. Interest rates fell. There may be a longer term benefit in that it shows Congress and the President are capable of cutting the deficit even without a balanced budget amendment.'' Other long-term benefits, he says, are that ``more capital is freed up for private investment, and ultimately that can result in more productive and highly paid workers.'' How bad was the hit for those few who did have to pay more taxes? One tax attorney says that his increased taxes were more than offset by savings he was able to generate by refinancing the mortgage on his house at the lower interest rates we've had as a result. I hope, in addition to that, people can read the whole article. I do not want my speech today to be taken wrong. I am not looking for a job in the President's communications office to try to put out rosy scenarios for the White House. I am trying to make a very simple point. We have seen the wrong way to approach balancing the budget, and we have seen the right way, the honest way, the straightforward way for the American people. The wrong way led us to a $4 trillion debt, $4.6 trillion, I think, is the best estimate right now of what we actually owe. The right way of making the tough votes around here is such as we did in that reconciliation bill of 1993. That put us back on the track. What are we being told on the other side today? ``No, we won't put out any figures, just trust me.'' We are going back into supply-side economics again, that which gave us an additional $3.5 trillion in national debt that we now have to pay interest on. We are going back to some reconsideration of the Laffer curve. It was a ``laugher,'' all right, the way it worked. We have a new name for it; now we are going to rely on dynamic economics. That is what we hear from the House side. We are going to rely on dynamic economics, which is supply-side economics revisited. It says the dynamism comes from the fact that if you cut taxes, it gives more money to the people who will invest, move on to a new, higher level of economics; we will recoup a lot from that, and that will help mitigate the tax loss to begin with. That is exactly what we went through--exactly what we went through--in the early eighties, only then it was called supply-side economics. We are being asked today to vote on a balanced budget amendment without being told what the cuts are going to be, what the tax increases may have to be, what plans will be cut. Will it be Social Security, Medicare? ``No, those are off limits,'' we are told, ``we can't interfere with those.'' Interest on the national accident? ``Oh, off limits.'' Defense budget? ``Oh, off limits.'' And I favor that defense budget. I agree we probably cut a little further than I would like to see us cut on that. Take those four things off and everything else in the Federal budget is going to have to be cut by 30 percent if we are going to meet the objectives. And yet we are not told, they refuse to tell us how we are going to do this. If I ever saw peekaboo budgeting, this is it. Peekaboo budgeting. We just give you a little hint here that we are going to do dynamic economic modeling, or something, and that is supposed to quiet our curiosity, I guess, a little bit. Now you see it, now you do not. But we do not have any plan that lays out for us in this proposal, nothing that even comes close to the type of definition and specificity that we had the guts to vote back in 1993. As we debate the balanced budget amendment, let us do it the right way. I would like to vote for a balanced budget amendment. I truly would. And I have not said yet that I will vote against the balanced budget amendment positively. But I cannot vote for a balanced budget amendment that just asks the American people and the people of Ohio and all of us to just somehow accept this without any definition whatsoever of how we are going to get there, what is going to be cut, what programs people rely on now are going to be axed out of the program, as we have to get into doing this. So let us let the taxpayer know what is ahead. Let us lay out a 7- year plan. Let us present it to the American people. Let us make it in comparable specificity to what we did back in 1993, which had not one single Republican vote when we passed that. Then we will all know whether this balanced budget amendment is a good idea. In 1993, the Democrats in the Senate showed that we could lay out a plan. We did the hard work in committees, we did the hard debate, the hard work here on the Senate floor. In 1995, the process that is being proposed from the Republican side basically says they either cannot or will not give us any information on how we are going to achieve this balanced budget, if it passes. They say just, ``Trust us, we will somehow figure it out. We will force ourselves. We want a forcing mechanism here with a balanced budget amendment. We have to have that or we cannot get around to saying what the tough decisions are going to be and acting on them.'' And yet we have the history just 2 years ago in 1993 when we did this. We did have the guts to do it then. So it is possible in the Senate of the United States to have some political courage and say in advance what is going to happen. But the saying goes, or what we hear all the time is, if we force ourselves with a balanced budget amendment, then I think we will have an excuse, we will have an excuse for cuts that we would not have the guts to make otherwise, and we would tell the people back home, ``I'd have liked to have kept your veterans' benefits, I'd have liked to have kept Social Security, I'd have liked to have kept your Medicare, but we had the balanced budget amendment and so it forced me to vote to do this to you.'' So we are looking for cover. Do you remember the comedian Flip Wilson a few years ago? I remember him very well. I thought he was very good. He had this character called Geraldine. Every time Flip Wilson had something with this character of Geraldine that somebody was criticizing him for doing, he would say, ``Oh, the devil made me do it; oh, the devil made me do it.'' Remember that? It seems to me that is a little of what we are talking about here. The Republicans seem to want this, and some other people, too--not just Republicans--they want this balanced budget amendment so when we have to tell the elderly that we may have Social Security cuts, may have Medicare cuts, defense, may have cuts in women's and infants' programs, may have cuts in a lot of other things, ``Oh, the balanced budget amendment made me do it.'' In other words, not my fault, we have the cover of a balanced budget amendment. I do not think we need that for political courage here. That is sort of getting your courage out of a bottle or courage out of something false when we are not willing to say what the cuts are going to be, not willing to say what Let us say we pass it here and the States ratify it within about 2 months. Then what are we going to do? Where will the cuts have to be made? ``Oh, the balanced budget amendment made me do this thing.'' Supposedly that gives us political cover. But I will say, in the meantime, let us not be reckless. I would like to call on my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to show some guts and tell us where you will cut, tell us how much taxes will have to be increased when the balanced budget amendment passes. Tell us now. Tell us up front. Let us be honest. Let the American people know. Let the States know what they are going to have to pick up on this if it passes.

Mr. GLENN. Not right now. I am just about to end, and then I will take any questions. If we are honest, I say let us get started and do it now. So why wait? Why do we need to wait for a balanced budget gun, in effect, pointed to force us to action? We can take that action right now. So let us not be reckless. Our Constitution has been amended only 27 times in well over 200 years, and before we amend it again, we ought to at least know what the ramifications will be; for after all, none of us wants the 28th amendment to turn out like the 18th amendment did. I yield the floor. Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, there is not a single Senator who can rise in this Chamber and come out solidly for an unbalanced budget, for going further into debt than we already are. Every person, including myself, knows that we have to get to a balanced budget. We cannot afford to keep on, year after year after year after year, going deeper into debt and, along with it, deeper into the interest payments, increased interest payments on that debt. We have to resist what I would call ``secret agent'' budgeting. The proposal on the Republican side this year is you appoint me your agent, and I cannot tell you how I am going to balance the budget but in secret I will decide whether your Social Security is going to be cut, whether Medicare is going to be cut, whether your pension protections in the pension benefit guarantee are going to be cut, and on down with a whole host of things. I desperately want to achieve a balanced budget, but a little later in my remarks here I will point out what the Democrats did back in 1993 when we faced up to, in advance, laying out exactly what we were doing, what the cuts were going to be, what the tax increases were going to be. It was honesty in budgeting. It was truth in advertising, honesty in budgeting. I feel the only way to achieve a balanced budget, whether you have the balanced budget amendment in place or not, is to approach this difficult issue openly and honestly. How on Earth can we talk about the balanced budget amendment without talking about what is necessary to balance the budget? Let us say we vote this out of here; we are going to put out a balanced budget amendment, have the two-thirds vote here, put it out to the States; the States within a couple of months come back--surprising speed for the States. They are allowed 7 years to consider this but instead of that they all right down the line 39 or 40 States--it takes 38 to approve this. But let us say they come right back to us in 60 days, 90 days. They say we voted for it. We think it is a great idea. We have to do that in our States. How are you going to do it nationally? And we approve it. It is now part of the to balance the budget. That is pretty straightforward, really. All the people of the country want to know how the balanced budget amendment will affect them if it is passed. What is it going to do to them? What services will be reduced? What taxes will be increased? That is what they want to know. What is really going to happen? In theory, do we all want a balanced budget amendment? Yes, we do. But in practice, how do we get there? I do not think that secret agent budgeting is the way we should get there. The people of Ohio, the people of America are the taxpayers of this country and they deserve to know. If I go back home to the people of Ohio and I go to a discussion with some of the elderly people in our State, or I go to a nursing home or I go to a meeting of the AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, and I point at them and I say, ``They are going to cut your Social Security, make no mistake about it,'' the first person up would say, ``Oh, no, wait a minute. They have guaranteed they are going to take that off budget. They are going to take that off budget. They are not going to touch Social Security over here.'' I say: ``Oh? OK. I am glad to know that. Let me tell you something. They are going to cut your Medicare.'' The next person up would say, ``Oh, no, wait a minute. They have guaranteed they are not going to cut Medicare. That is going to be off base over here.'' So we have those two things now, Social Security and Medicare, which are not going to be touched by our new budgeting procedures here. Then we add a couple of other things to that. We cannot ignore interest on the national debt. That is running over $100 billion a year plus--$200 billion a year now. So we say OK, the interest on the national debt. Here we have Social Security, Medicare, and we have interest on the national debt. Then we say, ``How about defense?'' No, we think we are a little thin on defense already. In fact, the Republican side is saying we have to add money for defense. We cannot get any further down. And I do not necessarily disagree with that. I am on the Armed Services Committee. It has given me some concern, too, about how far we have cut, particularly in the area of personnel. I am not sure we could take care of two emergencies, as we are supposed to be able to do, with regard to Korea and the Persian Gulf. I am not at all sure we could do those right with the forces we have right now. Yet, we are the only power in the world that could do that. We have a lot of people who say, ``Yes but we are spending more than all the rest of the world put together on defense.'' And that is true, we are. But I also say we are the world's leader and we have greater responsibilities than anyone else, too. So you take Social Security--that is off over here. Then take Medicare--that is off base. We cannot cut into those two things, Social Security and Medicare. We have to pay interest on the national debt. The good faith of the U.S. Government is behind those payments. Then we take defense off. OK. We have those four items off budget. I do not quarrel one iota with taking all those off budget. But where does that leave us? I will tell you where it leaves us. It leaves us with everything else in the budget being cut about 30 percent. Everything else in the Federal budget has to average a cut of 30 percent if we are going to leave those four items off budget. Let me give an example of some of this. If you leave all spending programs on the table, the across-the- board cut for everything else is 13 percent, if you are going to achieve a balanced budget by fiscal year 2002; a 13-percent cut in everything across the board: Social Security, Medicare, defense, the whole works. If you take Social Security off the table then cut across the board for everything else, it goes up to 18 percent. If you take defense off the table, the across-the-board cut for everything else is 22 percent. If you also assume the tax cuts that the House Contract With America proposed, if you put that in, the across-the-board cut for everything else is 30 percent. And if you also take all veterans programs off the table, an across-the-board cut for everything else is 31 percent. If you take military retirement off the table--which has been proposed by some people--it goes up to 32 percent, as a cut that would have to be taken on everything else. If you take civilian retirement off the table, it goes up to 34 percent. And if you add Medicare to that, you take that list I just named there and you add Medicare onto it, it means everything else in the Federal budget--everything has to be cut by 50 percent. Let us go back just to the four basics I mentioned: Medicare, Social Security, interest on the national debt, and the defense budget. Just take those off and everything else in the budget has to be a 30-percent cut. Let us look at that a little bit. Do you want AIDS research cut by 30 percent? Oh, no; we cannot cut that. We are going to put that off budget here so we will have to consider that, of course. We are not going to that. So that means something else has to be cut more than its 30 percent. How about cancer research? No, we cannot cut cancer research. Let us get over in another area. How about air traffic control? We all fly airliners on occasion, some of us more than others. How about air traffic control? Are we going to cut out 30 percent of the controllers; 30 percent of the budget the FAA uses for air safety? No, I think we have to exempt that. How about the Food and Drug Administration? Do we want some more thalidomide tragedies contemplated in our future? Do we want to avoid those? Do we want the FDA to be cut by 30 percent? How about Alzheimer's research? Do you want that cut 30 percent? How about meat inspection, poultry inspection, salmonella prevention programs? Cutting out 30 percent of all agricultural research? How about your money in the bank? Do you want bank regulatory authorities to have their budgets cut by 30 percent? How about Americans on pensions? Do we want the Pension Benefit Guarantee Program that the Government has as a backup in case the pensions are not funded properly--do we want that to go? If we are cutting all these things, too--you know, we just passed an unfunded mandates program here--how about the States out there? They get about $230 billion a year for environmental programs. That is going to be pretty attractive for cutting, it seems to me, if we are forced to go into a 30- percent cut on everything else. We can name a whole host of things: Food stamps; highway money; higher education; Social Security for the blind and for the disabled; the Head Start Program; school lunch; the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children; all farm support; nuclear regulation--nuclear regulation for those places around the country where there are nuclear plants--nuclear cleanup; research funds; vaccines for children; dollars to track down the fathers of children of unwed mothers; veterans hospitals; eliminating deductions on mortgages--everything. All the other functions of Government, all of those and far, far more--that is not even beginning to be a complete list--would have to be cut 30 percent. If they are not cut 30 percent, then something else has to make up more than their 30 percent change. And that is only if we put off budget Social Security, Medicare, interest on the national debt, and the defense budget. No one will tell us what is going to be in this, what is going to be in the budget if we go ahead and pass a balanced budget amendment and it is placed into effect more rapidly than most people think. I want to know up front what is going to be cut. I think that is only reasonable. We did it on the Democratic side back in 1993, when we had the reconciliation bill on the floor. Yet the Republicans in 1995 tell us, ``Just trust us, somehow we are going to work this thing out. We are not going to name all these things, as Democrats did back in 1993.'' We named them in detail. We gave specifics of exactly how we were going to do this, including tax increases. We were honest about this thing. It was truth in budgeting. There have been a number of estimates of just how this amendment will affect Ohio in specific terms. It is all speculation because Ohioans are not being told what is going to be cut. watching this today, they are not willing to tell us, on the other side, what will be cut or how much your taxes will be raised, or anything about either one of those issues. We should be able to tell you back home how you are going to be affected by the balanced budget amendment. But we are not. Let me give you just a little bit of speculation on how this might impact Ohio. Here is the speculation. The Contract With America calls for balancing the Federal budget by the fiscal year 2002 while cutting some taxes. Experts estimate that doing so without cutting Social Security or defense spending or raising taxes would require slicing all other Federal expenditures by 30 percent. Children's programs could suffer even more, if cuts in such programs as Medicare or veterans' services were limited, as is likely. Costs might be cut in several ways: By dropping groups of children from programs, putting them on waiting lists, and reducing benefits or quality of services. For example, by ending Medicaid coverage for some health treatment, cutting AFDC grants by 30 percent, or by requiring families to put up more costs through copayments and cost sharing. Let me get down to the nut of this for Ohio. The following estimates how many children would be affected in fiscal year 2002 if costs were cut solely by reducing program enrollments. This is just Ohio alone. No. 1 on our list, 74,800 babies, preschoolers and pregnant women would lose infant formula and other WIC nutrition supplements; 183,350 children would lose food stamps; 291,800 children would lose free or subsidized school lunch programs; 284,400 children would lose Medicaid health coverage, those poorest of the poor, those who can afford to lose it the very least; 287,150 cases now served by the State child support agency would lose help to establish paternity or collect child support, something we all want to see happen; 141,900 children would lose welfare benefits under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children; 11,500 blind and disabled children would lose the help we give them under supplemental Social Security income; 10,150 or more children would lose the Federal child care subsidies that enable parents to work or get an education and training; 10,200 children would lose Head Start early childhood services; 20,950 children in child care and Head Start would lose child and adult care food program meals; and, 56,300 children would lose remedial education through title I. We hear the screams obviously from the other side saying we do not want to cut those programs. Let me repeat again, those estimates are for programs to be cut just for my home State of Ohio. Those are not national figures. We have just under 11 million population in Ohio. Those figures are the ones that would apply to just our people in Ohio. They say we are not going to cut all those things. All right, if you are not going to cut all those things, if they are off limits, tell us and tell us now so we do not have all the uncertainty that people have about which programs are going to be cut. Just tell us. That is all. Just be honest enough to do this up front. That is all we are asking. If you do not cut Social Security, Medicare, interest on the national debt, and national defense, then you have the across-the-board 30- percent cut that I mentioned earlier. What does this do to a State like Ohio? If the same services are to be provided as are provided now-- maybe some of those would be eliminated, I do not know--but if the same services are to be provided while we protect the programs at the Federal level, if Ohio is to pick up that difference, it would mean that the State taxes in Ohio would have to go up 14.4 percent to maintain services. If we are going to cut services, OK, those decisions would have to be made. But let us know in advance what we are doing so we know which people are going to be hurt. Other States get hit even more than Ohio. Some are around 19 percent; New York 17.4; Tennessee, 19.5; Mississippi, 20.8 percent. Their State taxes would have to be increased just to maintain the services. Mr. President, time and time again I have received letters from my constituents in Ohio asking why the Congress cannot act like the average citizens, why we cannot look at how much money we have, what the programs are, why we cannot in Congress sit down like the people do at home at the kitchen or dining room table and lay out all of the papers and act and decide how they are going to go about balancing the budget. Why cannot we in Congress in effect sit down at our table here and balance a budget and live within our means as every other person in this country has to do?'' If an average middle-class taxpayer can simply state that kind of a goal at home, like sitting there saying I want to pay off all my debts, I want to stop spending more than I am taking in and they look at all the papers in front of them on the dining room table. They say, ``Well, the first thing you have to do is--I am glad I sat down here. Now I have to plan out exactly where my belt is going to have to be tightened. I am going to have to decide where I am going to cut back. I am going to have to decide what my income is going to be, and then I am going to have to determine what sacrifices will have to be made so that I am planning for the future in a more realistic way than I have done in the past.'' Now, to carry out what the taxpayer sitting at the table back home has to do, the American taxpayers are really in a terrible debt. If they individually at home are in a terrible debt like the Federal Government and they individually end up in bankruptcy court, you can bet that taxpayer, he or she, will be forced to sit down and draw up a financial plan for the future. I would say today should we not do the same right here in the Senate? Should we be required to do exactly the same thing and not do it with blue smoke and mirrors, not hiding behind something that says we have to have a balanced budget amendment and then we are going to tell you how to balance this thing. Why not do it now? The Houston Chronicle had a recent editorial that commented on this type of situation. They said a citizen purchasing an automobile might reasonably be expected to be informed of such basics as what type of motor the car has, if it has one at all, what color the auto is, the drive-out price, et cetera. ``Would we not take the same or greater care with our Constitution than we would in buying a car? Mr. President, I have not given a commitment to either side in this issue about how I will vote on a balanced budget amendment. I frankly would like to be able to vote for it. But I would like to do it on an informed basis that tells me what is going to happen if the balanced budget amendment happens, if it comes back approved, if the States say yes, we want you to act this way. All the services that now we get from the Federal Government, are we going to cut those things out? Or are we going to alter them? And how are they going to be altered? If they would tell me ahead of time what is going to happen, I might assess that with regard to the whole country and my home State of Ohio and say, yes, maybe I can be for that balanced budget amendment. Maybe if that is where they want to cut and they specify those cuts and where the tax increases will be--and I have no doubt there will be some eventually--tell me what they are going to be before, not after I voted for it, tell me before so I know what I am getting my people of Ohio into. How could anything be more fair than that? Going back to the Houston Chronicle article, I want to make sure before this amendment leaves the lot that we know if we have a real lemon on our hands. Let us have truth in advertising. Let us check the sticker price. Let us look under the hood; let us kick the tires. If everything checks out, we will move down the road to our final destination to a balanced budget, which I absolutely think we have to get to. Above all, Mr. President, let us not embark on this trip without knowing the direction we will take to get there. Let us not do it with blue smoke and mirrors. Let us not hide our intentions. I think sometimes our fears are not well justified here. I do not think our knees will buckle if somebody says what we have to cut. We will consider it. I do not think the knees of the American people will buckle if somebody is honest with them and says: objective. There is an old Shakespeare quote, and I do not know what play it was in, but it said: Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt. Never is that more applicable or more true than in our budgeting considerations here. We have to have guts enough to allay those fears and be willing to attempt a balanced budget by telling the American people exactly how we are going to get there. Mr. President, here we are discussing the balanced budget amendment, and in the immortal words of Yogi Berra: It is deja vu all over again. The first time I was part of the debate on the balanced budget amendment here in the Senate was in 1982. That was the second year of our grand experiment with supply side economics. Remember that, where if we just cut taxes it was going to result in such an economic increase of our general economy in the country, the new revenue would more than make up the cuts in what revenue we lost with the cut. We reduced taxes 25 percent over a 3-year period; a 5-percent cut on income tax 1 year, and 10 percent each of the next 2 years. What happened? What happened on that was that the new economic level did not increase the way it was supposed to increase. We could not get those percentages changed through the years, and we wound up with another $3.5 trillion added to the $1 trillion in debt we had that had been accumulated from every single President from George Washington through Jimmy Carter. In the last 12 years, the deficit or the debt has gone up to a little over $4.5 trillion. That is what happened with supply side economics. Even back then, when we were talking about all this, like today, there was a lot of talk about balancing the budget but almost no talk about how to get there. Instead, we preferred to talk about tax cuts. Cut taxes, smile, be happy, it is morning in America; in the city set on a hill, we can make no mistakes. After 12 years of feel-good budgeting, we found ourselves with a $4.5 trillion debt; $4.5 trillion. It was a credit card. It was all done on a credit card, a great big national plastic credit card. Well, then what happened? We came along with the Presidential candidate who vowed to take the deficit seriously, not by talking about magical fixes, about supply side economics, about Laffer curves, and all the other things we heard about back in those days, but by presenting real options to reduce the deficit. Luckily for our Nation's fiscal health, that candidate's message of truth-in-budgeting resounded with the American public, and that candidate, of course, now occupies the White House, President Clinton. President Clinton showed us that his campaign commitment on deficit reduction was not just election-year rhetoric. I referred a little earlier here to what the Democrats did in 1993, contrasted to what the Republicans are proposing to do in 1995, and what happened. In the first year of the Clinton Presidency, he presented a clear agenda for deficit reduction. He offered us real specifics, but he offered us very tough choices, also. I mean, they were tough choices. Congress responded and assigned specific cuts, cut objectives, to the committees of the Senate here, in particular, and the committees went to work on this plan. We came up with a program at that time that was tough, tough, tough. And we made more tough voting decisions back in the summer of 1994 than almost any time since I have been in the Senate. Why can the Republicans not do the same thing right now that we did back in 1993? They are not giving specifics. Our program back then gave specifics. It was not hidden. It did not say, ``Trust me and I will tell you later about how we are going to get to these ends.'' It was tough. Do you know what happened? The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1993 was a major component of President Clinton's overall economic strategy to reduce the deficit by nearly $500 billion, half a trillion dollars, in 5 years, to create jobs and invest in the American people. It was the largest deficit reduction package in history. The President's deficit reduction and economic growth package, as reported by the House-Senate conference we voted on, was the largest deficit reduction in U.S. history. When the savings from this reconciliation bill were coupled with the savings on caps on discretionary spending and interest savings, deficit reduction would total almost $500 billion over the next 5 years. These historic reductions were achieved through spending cuts and by asking wealthy Americans, those who benefited through the 1980's, to make their fair contribution to make sure of the Nation's economic security. Was there a tax increase? Of course, there was. But there were tax cuts, also, in trying to get at least toward a balanced budget. The President's plan, though, as agreed to with the House and Senate conference, relied more on spending cuts than revenue increases. Under the plan, Federal revenue would be increased by $241 billion and Federal spending would be cut by $255 billion over a 5-year period, with every penny locked in a deficit reduction trust fund. The deficit reduction and economic growth package contained $88 billion in mandatory spending cuts over the next 5 years. In addition, with discretionary spending caps, there was a net savings of $102 billion through the regular annual appropriations process, and the resulting lower annual deficits and improved debt management will reduce interest payments by $65 billion over that same 5-year period. Those were laudable objectives and we put them into effect. We made tough judgments in such areas as agriculture, nutrition, forestry, and they were assigned to that committee to report a savings of $3.2 billion over 5 years. And they did that. They met their goal--$3.2 billion out of one committee. They modified the so-called Pay-92 programs and had changed some of the cotton targets, dairy products, tobacco assessments, sugar, oilseed, peanuts, home loan rate, wool and mohair programs, refinancing and prepayment of Federal financing, bank borrowing to finance and prepay loans subject to certain penalties, Federal crop insurance, CRP enrollment, Forest Service recreation fees--those were all tough votes and they were taken in committee and brought out here for discussion on the floor. Some were contested on the floor, and we stood up and made our votes on those subjects. The Armed Services Committee was assigned $12.63 billion over 5 years. That was tough to meet. We asked military retirees to forgo COLA's. That is a tough vote when you vote on something like that. It is very tough telling the veterans that, no, they are not like some other people who would get cost-of-living increases. We are asking them, in the interest of the national good, to forgo that for a little period. The reason I am pointing out some of these is we are being asked to accept this proposal on the other side as a pig in a poke. The veterans would not know now what was going to happen to them. The Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee was instructed to report savings of $3.31 billion over 5 years, and they met that goal. Depositor preference changes; transfer of Federal reserve surpluses; HUD-IRS income verification; Ginnie Mae REMIC's, the real estate mortgage investment conduits; and FHA premiums--all of these things were tough votes in committee and out here on the floor. But we did them back in 1993 as part of that reconciliation package. The Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. They were assigned $7.405 billion in cuts over 5 years and they achieved that goal, with some of the communications Spectrum auctions, as they are called, and user fees. And those are tough votes. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee, they were able to report savings of $737 million over 5 years. They came out $77 million under the target that was set out for them, but they still made major cuts. And they made controversial votes such as on recreation fees in national parks; some changes in the hard rock mining holding fees; state royalty collection costs. The Environment and Public Works Committee was assigned $1.254 billion over 5 years. They went into this on Nuclear Regulatory Commission user fees, the Army Corps of Engineers user fees, and a series of other things I will another one, requiring nuclear utilities to pay fees to cover all of NRC's operating budget. The Finance Committee was given a big target and they had to make a number of changes. They did some of these in changing tax rates for high-income earners. They changed gift and estate taxes, meals and entertainment, club dues, executive pay, moving deductions, individual estimated tax simplification, Social Security benefit changes, corporate income tax changes affecting business, lobbying expenses changes, corporate estimated tax rules, treatment of passive loss, credits and AMT credits. And in international businesses, excessive accumulated foreign earnings; research and experimental expenses allocation changes; oil, gas and shipping income foreign tax credit. Transportation fuels tax increase, 4.3 cents a gallon on all transportation fuels currently subject to the leaking underground storage tank trust fund; extension of transfer of current 2.5-cent-per- gallon tax. Other intangibles, change of appreciation of intangible assets; change in charitable contributions, change in expanding the 45- day interest rules for tax refunds, denying business travel deductions for spouses, increasing withholding rates on bonuses to 28 percent. They had more under the Finance Committee--education and training provisions, and extension of target job tax credit; research and development, R&D credit; targeted capital gains tax cut; real estate investment provisions: Permanent low-income housing credit, passive loss relief for real estate provision, exclusion for discharge of real property business debt. Luxury excise tax changes. Extension of the AMT, alternative minimum tax, provision. Changes in how we would treat empowerment zones and enterprise communities and some other changes also. They changed some of the things in Medicare and Medicaid also as to how those programs were to be treated. All these under the Finance Committee. Medicaid, some of the changes were made there. And let me add a couple others here. The food stamp program was changed. States had to match food stamp administrative costs; shelter expense; earned income tax credit. Human resources. I read all these not to bore my colleagues or to bore those watching but to point out that there were hundreds, literally hundreds, of changes made, hundreds of changes made that we voted up front in committee and/or out here on the floor in advance letting people know exactly how their future would be affected by the votes that we are were going to make on that reconciliation bill. Now, I submit to my colleagues and anyone watching or listening, if it was important enough on a reconciliation bill, just on a reconciliation bill, that we go through all that and let people know specifically how they were going to be affected and be up front about it on letting everyone know what the votes were, then that is the least we can do if we are taking up something so much more fundamentally important to our whole Government, our whole Constitution as a balanced budget amendment. The Foreign Relations Committee was assigned a savings of a $5 million target over 5 years. They met it. The Governmental Affairs Committee, which I chaired at that time, was assigned a $10.668 billion in savings. And I can tell you, we sweated over that one in committee and we made it. Once again we had to delay some retirement cost-of-living increases, the lump sum retirement option was knocked out for Civil Service employees, Medicare part B fee limits were changed, changed the extension of the proxy premium law, the D.C.-Federal Employee Health Benefits, payments by the U.S. Postal Service. All of these things were tough votes, and I hate to keep just saying that, but they were, but we did it up front and let people know exactly what was going to happen to them. Even the Judiciary Committee a $345 million target over a 5-year period, and they met that. The Labor and Human Resources Committee, $4.5 billion over 5 years, and they met that goal. They brought up such things as student benefits and cost savings that came from the Federal student loan programs being administered differently. The conference agreement also would require States to be responsible if a default rate for borrowing that attend institutions of higher education located in their State exceeds 20 percent. Those were hard votes--Home loan program changes. In other words, I bring up all these--and this is just a sampling; this is not a whole listing of everything, but I bring these up to indicate the tough votes. Now we put this whole package together. President Clinton led the way on this. He sent up where he felt we could cut; took the political heat for this. We joined him in taking the political heat for saying up front how we were going to vote on these things, laid it out. Everybody, all the special interest groups, crowded out here by the elevator, called on us in our offices and said, ``You can't touch this. You can't touch that.'' Yet we did. We made the tough votes. And there were several hundred votes, either in committee or out here on the floor to put this thing into effect. Let me come down to the bottom line. And here was what happened out of all that reconciliation bill. Here is what happened. Our budget deficit, at the time we passed that, was approaching $300 billion, just the budget deficit. We put that reconciliation bill into effect. The next year it went down to somewhere around $250 billion. This year some of the original estimates were that we were going to be down to a budget deficit of only $168 billion. I think it is back up a little bit now. I think the refined estimate is about $190 billion. But we have gone from around $300 to $250 to $190 billion. That is heading in the right direction with the budget deficit. You know, the last time that ever occurred, where we had 3 years where the budget deficit went down 3 years in a row, was under Harry Truman. Clear back to the time of Harry Truman, the last time we had the budget deficit go down 3 years in a row. It is working. That reconciliation bill that we made those tough votes on did have an effect. Now some of the forecasts are that it is going to level off or it may even turn up again, but let us modify that. Let us take action to correct that. We have it heading in the right direction. Why would anybody want to throw that out now and say we are in effect going to put a gun pointed at us all and say we have to do something that may cut the things I have mentioned earlier. Social Security, Medicare, no, those are off base; interest on the national debt, no, that is off base; the defense budget, no, that is off base. Take those four items off base and everything else in the budget has to average a 30-percent cut. And we are not willing to tell people up front what is going to happen, as we were back in 1993. Now in 1993, I say there were tough votes. When this bill went to conference with the House back in 1993, there were some changes made in the conference. When it came back out here on the Senate floor, it was one of the more dramatic moments I have seen in my 20 years here in the Senate. What happened over in the House was that not one single Republican voted for that conference package in the House. Not one single Republican. What happened here on the Senate floor? Not one single Republican voted for that conference package that has resulted in the first 3 years of continual budget deficit reduction since the days of Harry Truman. Not one single vote. The Vice President is the Presiding Officer in the Senate. He shows up quite often when there may be a close vote. That day there was a 50- 50 tie. The Vice President voted as is his constitutional duty to do. He broke that tie, and so we had a 51-50 vote to put that reconciliation bill into effect. We had been up front in telling people what the effect was going to be. What programs--all those that I went through. I did not go through all the litany of the committees here just to fill up time here on the Senate floor. I wanted to point out we went through things that affected every single man, woman and child in this country. We did it upfront. We did it to try and get to a balanced budget. We are trying to do it without a balanced budget amendment. it. We will not tell you what will happen. We will not tell you what the estimates are going to be, or how it will be implemented if the balanced budget amendment passes, and if it is ratified by the States. We will figure it out. Just trust us. Then we will figure out some things.'' Back in 1993 with that reconciliation bill we figured it out in advance and got it started on the right track, honestly and openly, and upfront, by telling every person in this country how they would be affected. That reconciliation bill of 1993 became law despite the lack of bipartisan support. So we are now seeing our third year of declining deficits. There were dire predictions then by some of our Republican friends. I will not quote names but we have the quotes available. There was going to be a recession and massive joblessness, a dire thing for the economy, we would go downhill because of what we are doing, because we increased taxes in some areas just on that top 1.2 percent of the wealthiest of this country, I would add, was most of it. None of these dire predictions panned out. The economy recovered, remains in good shape, and in Ohio, my home State, as near as we can calculate it has meant over the past several years about an average of 43,000 new jobs every year. Remember all the talk about how the cuts in that deficit reduction bill were not real? Over a quarter of a trillion dollars in spending has been cut. Has been cut. We are not talking about prospective. We are talking about what has happened. It has been cut. Fiscal year 1994, 342 Federal programs were reduced before the prior year spending levels. Fiscal year 1995 just ended in October, more than 400 Federal programs were reduced below their prior year's spending levels and another 40 were eliminated entirely. People talk about downsizing Government. Starting to cut back on Government, cut down on the size of the Government. Know what happened as a result of the programs voted back in 1993? We are doing that. The President set out a goal of cutting the Federal employment by 272,000 people. I thought that was a lot. In the Governmental Affairs Committee we oversee the civil service. We are the committee of jurisdiction that looks into matters involved with civil service. I thought when they talked about cutting back 272,000 people, that was a big cut. I did not quite know how we would do that. We went to work with the administration, at that time, when a lot of people were rolling their eyes and saying they would believe it when they see it. Well, just look at it now. People can believe it because they do see it. I think a lot of people still do not believe it. Of that 272,000, just over 101,000 positions have already been cut. This is not prospective. This is not looking on down the pike someplace. They have been cut. I worked with them on setting up programs that would help accomplish that on Governmental Affairs Committee. We passed that legislation. It helped them achieve those goals. There are early buyouts, early retirements. All sorts of things we put in to help get to that end. We were very, very successful. Know what else we did? We tailored that program at the time. And let me add a side bar: One of the problems in the Federal Government is that we have had too many bosses and too few employees carrying out the words of those bosses or the directions of those bosses. In private industry, across the country, the average is one boss for every 12 to 15 employees. What is it in the Federal Government? One to seven. While we are getting people out, we tailored these so that the different branches and agencies and departments of Government had some leeway, had some discretion to tailor these programs for the GS 13's, 14's, and 15's. So we got more of those people out who are the bosses. So we are at the same time reducing the overall size of Government, we are correcting some of this imbalance on the ratio between the supervisors and the employees. That means a more efficient Government as we go down the road to the future. So about 101,000 jobs have been cut from the Federal work force. We are ahead of schedule. We want to continue to work with the administration to make sure that the cuts continue and we get to the objective of 272,000. All of these things were accomplished because we made the tough cuts. We made the tough votes. We did not ask people to say ``Well, just trust us and somehow we will get around to this in the future. Somehow we will get to this end eventually.'' No, we made the tough votes. We Democrats stood up and took the heat. I would repeat, all these programs that we put through in that reconciliation bill, we did not have one single, not one, Republican vote across the aisle. The Vice President had to break the tie. There were probably a number of people, judging by what happened in last year's election, who stood up and made some of those tough votes who are not here today. It may have been a factor in why they are not here. I do not know. They had the political courage to stand up and tell people what was going to happen to their lives if we made the tax increases or made the cuts in programs that affect those people across the country. And they did it. And they had political courage, whether they are here today or not. We need to have that same kind of political courage today. There has been a lot of criticism about the tax increases that were part of that program back then to balance the budget. There is a good article in the Washington Post on the first of February by Judy Mann, entitled ``Fiddling With the Numbers.'' I will not read the whole article.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to make a few comments concerning the retirement of Mr. Donald E. Gessaman of Dayton, OH. Upon Mr. Gessaman's retirement, the Federal Government will lose one of its most effective public servants. Mr. Gessaman served as the Deputy Associate Director for National Security in the Office of Management and Budget. I would like to take this opportunity to commend Mr. Gessaman on 32 years of outstanding service to his country. He is known for exceptional intelligence, common sense, and good humor. Mr. President, his counsel and wisdom will be sorely missed. Mr. Gessaman began his career in 1963 as an analyst for the Air Force space program. In 1966, he moved to Washington to become a management intern in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The following year, he began his work at OMB and has remained there since, rising through the ranks and becoming a member of the Senior Executive Service. In 1990, he assumed his present position as Deputy Associate Director for National Security. Mr. Gessaman dedicated his career to ensuring that the taxpayers' investment in our Nation's Armed Forces is well spent. The importance of national security issues and the spending constraints imposed by the deficit have made this a daunting task. Yet, time and time again, Mr. Gessaman has shown that judgment, analysis, and a thorough understanding of defense programs can serve both our national security and our economic security. Mr. Gessaman's professionalism, his thorough analyses, and his commitment to the highest standards throughout his career have inspired his colleagues. I want to join those colleagues and his many friends in thanking Mr. Gessaman and wishing him all the best for the future.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. In setting aside time for comments until after the final vote, I also ask unanimous consent that the time reserved for Senator Byrd be included in that time transferred until after the final vote.

Mr. GLENN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 174

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I think this legislation may fall in the category where we put a lot of things that we considered on Governmental Affairs Committee to be some of the grunt work of Government. It is not the spectacular consideration of B-2 and M1-A1 tanks and things like that that are easy to visualize mentally and get a handle on. I think the choice of the word ``sunset'' may be a very poor choice of words. The word might more properly be ``spotlight'' or ``searchlight,'' that whether it is working or not working. It is not automatically terminated. Sunsetting, you are saying you are using that as a forcing device to say what we really will look at this thing and take a good look at it and see what is working and what is not working. The Senator from Michigan very wisely, I think, tailored this to fit exactly the money flow that is already programmed for CBO. That runs out to 2002. So, in effect, before we reauthorize the money for CBO, we will have to take a look at it. This means that we really have to put the thing under a spotlight, a microscope, and really consider what is going on. We know around here unless we are forced to do something like that we only rarely will go back and relook at a program and reanalyze it and make sure it is working right. I would say the reason I think this is so important that we do this is that this is historic legislation. It may be some of the grunt work of Government. It may be some of those mundane operations of Government that do not get that much public attention except a few editorials and the local officials who see this as being vitally important, as well as the State officials for the unfunded mandates that have been sent down to them over the years that are now just crushing them in, and crushing them in an economic vise from which they have no alternative but to do what they have been doing, scream to the Federal Government for relief. This is historic. I believe that this piece of legislation is truly the first piece of legislation that is going to start redefining the Federal, State, and local relationships, the first such redefinition I think since clear back in the New Deal days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Prior to Roosevelt, people took care of people. Communities took care of their own people. Neighbors took care of neighbors then. We were not a mobile, flowing society with people and families moving all over the country. In those days, most of the people lived in the same community they grew up in and people took care of their own, and families took care of families, and so on. Then in the days of the Great Depression this country really lost control. The American experience was in danger of going down the tubes. We had whole sections of the country moving out, the Okie going to California, people no longer capable of families taking care of families and communities taking care of themselves. The New Deal came in with all of its proposals that assumed many of those responsibilities that the local communities had had before. That resulted over the last 60 years in a mass of programs, some went too far, some were absolutely vital to the survival, to the social network and fabric of this country. So most of them were good. Some of them went too far. Now, some of the Federal mandates have so hit the States and local communities that they can no longer survive under this kind of an economic impact without saying the Federal Government has to fund those responsibilities being given to us, or we just can not do it anymore. So this is truly landmark legislation. We have come to a point where we are redefining this Federal, State, and local relationship. Now, I give that little bit of background to say that is why I think what the Senator from Michigan has done is so important. Because I think to say that if at the end of 6 years when the money runs out for this and we are getting ready to reauthorize the money for CBO to carry out their particularly important responsibilities under this act, at that point, we really will see how this relationship is working. That is all he is saying. ``Let's force ourself to look at it, something we never probably will do unless we are forced to do it by some amendment like this,'' and say that at that time period it will sunset, we will reauthorize and look at it. Nobody is proposing it will just go out of existence at that time. What he is saying, it will sunset and we will have to reauthorize and make sure it is fine-tuned and doing the job it is supposed to do. I see this only as common sense. That is the reason why I am so glad to cosponsor the amendment and speak in support of it. I think this truly is landmark legislation, and I think it is only common sense that we require ourselves to reexamine this new Federal-State relationship at the end of this first 6-year period. It will probably take a good part of that period, the first 3 or 4 years, to really get this system working well. We have forced upon ourselves the discipline here saying that we will no longer just pass things without taking into consideration in advance the economic impact on the States and local communities. We are saying we are forcing ourselves to do that, have to make these estimates and we have to have a vote that is required. It is not funded or not authorized for funding. Then we say a point of order will lie against it and we have to have a specific vote to go beyond that point and even consider that legislation.

Mr. GLENN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I would like to make some short remarks. I just am beginning to resent the implication that I am filibustering something that I am a cosponsor of, as we keep hearing that from the other side of the aisle. I addressed this at some length this morning for about 15 or 20 minutes on what happened in committee. We got railroaded in committee and could not bring up amendments. We wanted to bring them up there and could not. We came to the floor with a guarantee that we would be able to bring up anything we wanted to bring up, and then cloture is filed against us here. It has been one series of disasters after another in which the minority rights were trampled--no report from the committee, nothing at all. And yet I am a cosponsor of this legislation. The idea that we are somehow filibustering on this side is just not borne out by the facts, and I think the Record shows that. Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I am particularly appreciative of the remarks of my distinguished colleague from Idaho. He was not on the floor when I made my remarks about him a little while ago. But I talked about our excellent working relationship, and I appreciate the remarks very much.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, Wednesday, January 25 was a sad and somber day in southern Ohio. On that day, America lost a patriot, Ross County lost a legend, and I lost a friend. Bob Badgley was one of my earliest and strongest political supporters--and he came to be a good and dear personal friend as well. Over the years, I called on ``Badge'' often for advice and counsel. He was 76 years young when he passed away on Wednesday, and I know his hundreds of friends--indeed thousands--around the State are going to miss him as much as I already do. Although Badge never aspired to hold high public or elective office himself, he devoted countless hours to myriad volunteer activities that benefited his State, his community, and the Democratic Party that he loved so much for so long. On Tuesday, President Clinton delivered his State of the Union address. I don't know whether Bob was of Bob's life, but I hope he was. Because when the President recognized and lauded citizen involvement, he was saluting Bob Badgley and the kind of life he lived--and I know that would have made Badge smile. These days, I know it has become fashionable to be cynical about politics and all things political; to be suspicious about the motives of anyone who would willingly involve themselves in the political process of our Nation. But Bob believed that if we want good government, we have to be willing to help bring it about. And he believed that we all have a responsibility to try. So Bob served as Chairman of the Ross County Democratic Party; he served on that county party's executive committee continuously since 1957, and at the time of his death, he had served 29 years on the Ross County Board of Elections. Somehow, he also found time to run his own electronics and vending businesses, and to be active in the Ross County Senior Citizens Center and related community services. In fact, Badge devoted so much time to community service that he received the Humanitarian Award from the Chillocothe Businessmen's Association in 1973, and the Community Service Award from the Ohio Department of Aging in 1992--the only Ross countian ever to receive the latter award. Mr. President, there is a little story I want to tell about Bob that happened recently. I had my family out at Vail, CO, for a skiing vacation over the holidays. We came back to Washington a couple of days before we were to go back in session in early January. I think we came back on New Year's day. On our telephone answering machine at home there was a recorded message left. It was from Bob Badgley to Annie and to me. He said that he and Jeanne, his wife, had just been sitting around talking about particular friends and what they meant, and he thought it was a good time to call and just tell us what it meant. And he did so on that recording, and it meant much to me and I made a little note and had a note on my desk to call him back. Because of duties here in the Senate, being so busy in the next few weeks or so, I had not called. The note is still over there on my desk for me to call Bob Badgley. So it was particularly poignant for me when I heard of his demise the other evening. For all these reasons and more, Annie and I will miss Bob deeply. But we are grateful to have known him, and that the good Lord allowed Badge to touch our lives. And we hope that for his wife Jeanne--and for the entire Badgley family--it will be at least some consolation to know that Bob will live forever in our hearts and in our memories. In that most important sense, we will truly never lose, our Badge. I yield the floor. Mr. MOYNIHAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I want to respond to the very kind remarks made by several people about myself and Senator Kempthorne with relation to this bill. I do believe this is very, very important legislation. I referred to it several times during debate as landmark legislation, and I think it is that important. A lot of times some of these things about processes and procedures and what you have to consider before you do something else, the organization of Government, the intergovernmental relationships between the Federal, State and local governments and how that fits in with the Constitution and so on, are arcane. They are looked at as something boring and not too interesting. But we have referred to them, on the Governmental Affairs Committee, occasionally, as doing sort They are not as spectacular, not as interesting, maybe, as looking at B-2 bombers, M1A2 tanks, radars, and all the other things that go on. But improvements in these areas have, for the future--5, 10, 15, 20 years down the road--the potential of making our Government work better, work more efficiently, and that is what this is all about. That is why I do believe this is landmark legislation. What it has done basically is reversed a trend that was started some 60 years ago. I mentioned on the floor several times during this debate over the last 2 weeks, that I go back in my own lifetime to the days of the Great Depression. I remember that very well. Why is that important in considering unfunded mandates? Because prior to that time there were not some of the demands made on States that came to be common in the days during and after the Great Depression. Prior to that time in this country families took care of families, communities took care of communities. It was rare people could not take care of each other within the local community. Once in a while maybe some young person had to be sent to the county orphanage or some old person had to be sent to the county home. That was looked at as a failure of the community at that time. That was sufficient. That Norman Rockwell view of America was sufficient in the early days of this country. It worked and I wish America still worked that way. But what happened in the days of the Great Depression was there was hunger, there were soup kitchens in the United States of America. If the movies portray it properly, the Okies were heading west with a mattress on top of the car. The United States at that time had enough doubt about itself that it was questionable what would become of this country--it was that serious. There was hunger in America, if you can imagine that, on a big scale. Unemployment was over 20 percent for 4 straight years; 1 year, unemployment was right at 25 percent. America had lost its ability to cope and to take care of each other in that Norman Rockwell world that had been so great for this country and a hallmark of this country-- people taking care of each other. But that broke down. I remember my dad running an extra 2 acres of land, planting a big garden, and giving food away to the people in the town. We helped. I will not go into all the details of that. But then came along, out of that kind of disaster, the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. Whether people today think that was a good idea or not, I can tell you about those days when the mortgage on the home I was living in was saved by the FHA, and where people were put back to work, where I remember my dad, who had a little plumbing shop, going to work on a WPA project in New Concord replacing the water system that was made out of wooden pipes--wooden pipes--with a new and more modern water system--things like that went on all over the country. A program was started for rural electrification and the lines went out across the country. The farmers, then, had new energy sources to help them do their work. I will not go into all the things that were part and parcel of that whole New Deal. I think too many people these days speak of the New Deal in scathing tones. But the New Deal addressed the problems of America at a time when America had lost its own capability to take care of itself, person to person, community to community and so on. It was that serious. Did some of those programs over the last 60 years go too far? Why, of course they did, and I would be the first to admit that. We say now that all of the concern for people and for training and job training that has resulted in, I believe it is 128 different Government job training programs, many that overlap--is wasteful. Is this wasteful? Of course it is. Should we correct that? Of course we should. But some of the things that have happened over the last 60 years began in tragedy for this Nation, and the programs that were put in back at that time were lifesaving programs for this Nation. We have come to the point over the last dozen years or so where Federal demands on the States, pursuant to programs quite laudatory as far as their purposes go--but too many of the programs have been just mandates given to the States. ``Let the States pay for them.'' Maybe we pay 10 percent from the Federal level, but then put big demands on the States. Where that could be done, perhaps satisfactorily back maybe 15 or 20 years ago, it will no longer work because those Federal demands have become so great, with environmental concerns such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, building codes, police and law and order, and all the other things that we know about, where demands have been placed from the Federal level on the local communities or on the State government but the adequate money has not flowed along with that to help them implement those programs. Along with that, in the mid-1980's there was what was called the new federalism that cut out a lot of the normal Federal support. Community Development Block Grants and some of the other programs were cut out that the States had been depending on to help them cope with some of these Federal demands. So we have seen an enormous, exponential increase in the last 10 years or so in demands on the States and local government that has become intolerable. Starting back about 3 or 4 years ago we saw complaints coming from the States, complaints coming from counties, from local governments and increasing in volume and increasing in concerns expressed about where this country was going if we continued this. Were we violating the Constitution? Were we violating propriety? Just ``what is right'' might be even a better question than one about the Constitution, because we cannot just heap requirements on the States and expect them to be able to cope with that. That is the reason I think this legislation is so important. To those who just decry everything about New Deal and everything about the Democratic support for some of those programs and so on, I point out those programs were born of necessity in a time of crisis for this country. Now, after a period of some 60 years, though, we are saying that what finally happened with these programs, where the funding was put back on the States too much, that this has to be reversed. So that is the reason I see this as landmark legislation. I think we have reached a height. We are leveling this off. We are saying there absolutely has to be considered up front the costs of programs and there has to be a vote on those programs, if it is demanded, right here. So we have to assume our responsibility, where too often in the past we have just taken these programs and said: I am sure the States can take care of that. Let us vote that in. There has not been too much squealing recently, they must be able to do it. So we just go and vote that out. That will no longer be the case. When this legislation is finally through the House or whatever compromise version comes out of the House, we will have moved to a different level, a different relationship between the States and the Federal Government and the local governments. I have been getting an increasing amount of mail about this subject. I would say to the Governors out there across this country, I have been getting an increasing amount of mail from local officials, from city and county officials, saying, ``They do to us what you do to them.'' In other words, the State does to my county, the State does to my town, what they are complaining the Federal Government does to the States. So I think the Governors have to take it upon themselves to make certain that this ``no money, no mandate'' that is sweeping the country includes the relationship among the States and local governments. There have been some editorials in our home State of Ohio to that effect, where they pointed out some things where the State has given the local government problems in just such an issue as we are trying to address in the relationship between the Federal and State Governments. So I think there is another area where the Governors and the States have to make certain that they are also taking adequate action. There are still needs of the people out there across this country. There are still needs of the poor. There are still needs to have to be met with regard to Medicaid, medical care, and health care, allowed to become less available to the States. But the needs of the people have not changed. Can the States adapt to this new situation, particularly if we pass a balanced budget amendment? Can the States adapt to this and assume those services now that they could not or would not do back in the days of the Great Depression, and assume it now some 60 years later as we reverse this relationship between the Federal, State, and local governments? I think that has yet to be seen, and I think as a result of the legislation that we are here passing and will be passed over in the House one of these days, I hope, I think we have to very carefully watch this to make sure that some States are not less careful to take care of the needs of the people so that we do not see them once again going through a trough, as a Federal necessity to move in, and come about because of the States unwillingness to act. So with those caveats on this I am very, very glad to see this legislation passed today. We worked on it a long time. Commendation of Senator Kempthorne Mr. President, I want to mention briefly some of the people involved. Certainly Senator Kempthorne, who has been a real driving force behind this starting about 2 years ago, introduced the legislation along with about half-dozen other proposals that were put forth that were referred to the Governmental Affairs Committee, must be commended. I had been working on some legislation along this line myself. And so we combined forces on this. He has been an absolutely superb person to put this legislation forward. He has been a real spark plug on it, has kept after it when we were trying to have hearings in the Governmental Affairs Committee, and wanted to have hearings. If the hearings were not scheduled for a week or so, I would get a couple of phone calls from Senator Kempthorne very nicely, politely asking, ``John, couldn't we work this in? Don't you think maybe we could somehow work this in over there?'' And work it in we finally did, and we got the legislation out last August. I will not go through the litany which I have gone through a couple of times already today about what happened once we got it out of committee in August, and what happened during the fall when we could not get adequate time on the floor to have it considered. Then the election came about. There was a new attitude over in the House, and we thought perhaps S. 993, which was the first bill that was an adequate bill by all estimates, might not be the legislation that the House had wanted to agree to now with the changed political situation. So this new legislation, S. 1, was put forward and was given the preeminence that it deserved by being named S. 1, the No. 1 bill to be considered. Senator Kempthorne, through all of this, has been a superb person to work with, friendly, congenial. We have not had any harsh words. We have worked things out between us. I want to congratulate him for his persistence in this regard. It has been great to see him work, and as we mentioned here not too long ago on the floor--an hour or so ago--to have someone come here with a very complex piece of legislation and handle it the way he did is a real testimony to his capability. Commendation of Staff Mr. President, on Senator Kempthorne's staff, of course, Buster Fawcett, who is here and has worked on this, as the prime person working on it; Brian Waldmann, also, Senator Kempthorne's administrative assistant, and Gary Smith, all have worked on this, have done a superb job, and have done a lot of work. They have had a lot of sleepless nights. On my own staff, Leonard Weiss is our staff director on the Governmental Affairs Committee, who is here, along with Sebastian O'Kelly and Larry Novey, who is back in the back here. All of them worked and worked and worked on this, and did a superb job in all the negotiating back and forth. I want to give them full credit for that. Commendation of Senator Levin and His Staff Mr. President, let me say a word also about Senator Levin from Michigan. I have never known a Senator since I have been here who is more persistent, who, once he gets his teeth into something that he believes in, becomes a real pit bull for that purpose, and who by his background and training, having been president of the Detroit Council at one time, has a feel for local issues as well as the Federal issues that we deal with here, but he brings that kind of a background to this consideration of such legislation as this. Where other people may say that phrase is OK, he wants to dig into every phrase to see what its impact is going to be, to see what can be misconstrued under this and whether it can be corrected by a change of wording. In other words, his emphasis through all of this is one of principle, of how we make legislation work better. How is it going to apply to the States? How will it apply to the city of Detroit? How will it apply to the counties? On and on, he tries to set up scenarios to illustrate the weaknesses in legislation. That is what motivated him through all of this in committee. He was so unhappy when we were not able to get any amendments considered in committee. They were automatically voted down, and we had to bring them to the floor. But he persisted, and he brought those concerns to the floor and dealt with many of them right here on the floor. I want to pay credit to him, and particularly to his staff, Linda Gustitus, who is the staff on the Oversight and Government Management Subcommittee of Governmental Affairs. She has done a superb job on this. I want to give credit to them. Commendation of Senator Daschle's Staff Mr. President, on the minority leader's staff, Senator Daschle's staff, Mike Cole and Eric Washburn, all worked very hard on this. I know that we stand up and take credit and we get all the laudatory comments about doing some good with a bill like this. But it is the staff who worked the long nights sometimes with us, sometimes in our absence, while the Senators were home in bed quite frankly, and did such great work on this. I do think they can take great pride in seeing their work on landmark legislation. I think that will be the case as the years go on, and as they continue to work with us to make sure that this is fine tuned, and that this legislation is working as intended. So I want to give credit to all of those people and the other Senators involved here, and we are proud to have worked on this ourselves. We are glad we got the bill through. We have the job now of hoping to get it through over in the House, or a compromise version thereof. We look forward to being able to attend the signing ceremony, I hope in the not-too-distant future at the White House when this finally becomes law. I yield the floor. Mr. BURNS addressed the Chair.