T. Gorton

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Is there a time limitation on speeches? [[Page S6800]]

Mr. GORTON. Thank you, Mr. President.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. This morning, Mr. President, the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, announced that he intended to veto the rescissions bill, a proposal to save some $16 billion of already appropriated money as a modest down payment on the tremendous fiscal crisis facing the United States today. This announcement was both a surprise and, I believe, almost unprecedented because, Mr. President, I am informed by the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and can speak from my own personal knowledge as the chairman of one of the subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee, that there was no communication emanating from the White House and directed at the conference committee which has been in almost continuous session for some 2 weeks on this rescissions bill about the President's desires or about his bottom line. Mr. President, this is in dramatic contrast with conference committees on appropriations bills in the past, in either the Reagan administration or the Bush administration, in which that contact between the White House and the Congress was constant and in which the bottom line of the President was always well and clearly known to members of the conference. Here, by contrast, we had a situation in which the White House was almost totally silent with respect to its request about rescissions. The President still pays lip service to a $16 billion goal which must be seven or eight times larger than the goal of his original rescissions bill itself. But only after the deed is done, only when all that remains for the Congress is the formality of the approval of this conference committee report, do we hear, first, that it does not cut enough dollars from what the President describes as pork, and takes too much out of proposals which are of greater interest to him. Mr. President, a few general remarks. The President attacks spending on Federal courthouses, on the building of U.S. courthouses in various parts of the country. Mr. President, I have no dog in this fight. Earlier, there was a courthouse in Seattle in one of these appropriations bills, but it is rescinded in this bill. So none of the so-called pork exists in my State. And there is also criticism of a number of highway projects that were not rescinded. But note, Mr. President, I said ``not rescinded.'' Every one of these projects which the President of the United States now describes as pork, he signed into law less than a year ago. Last year's appropriations bill for transportation, for the Treasury Department, for GSA, for the Post Office, was signed and hailed by the President. Those bills had every one of these projects contained in them and more besides, a significant number that are rescinded in this bill. So today we have described as pork proposals which the President hailed last year and proposals which spent more last year when he signed them than this year when some but not all have been rescinded. What in the world could have happened to have changed the President's mind about specific projects in the course of 6 months, he does not tell us. Mr. President, as recently as about 2 months ago, when the original rescissions debate had been completed in both the House of Representatives and here in the U.S. Senate, the President said of the Senate proposal, The bill passed 99 to 0 in the Senate, and I will sign the Senate bill if the House and Senate will send it to me. That's how we should be doing the business of America. Mr. President, I think it is more than safe to say that the bill the President attacked today is considerably closer to the proposal passed by the Senate just a few weeks ago than those passed by the House of Representatives. In many of the very education and job training areas which the President now uses as an excuse to veto this bill, the Senate provision prevailed, lock, stock, and barrel, was accepted by the conferees. In several others, the compromise is considerably closer to the Senate provision than it is to the House provision, in some, it is 50-50, and maybe, in one or two, it is closer to the House provision. But, Mr. President, a tiny handful--2, 3, 4 percent--of the dollar amount of rescissions fall into the categories which the President now criticizes. And, Mr. President, one more repetition of my first point. Not a word about this 1, 2, 3, 4 percent of these rescissions being deal busters, being entirely unacceptable to the President, was communicated to the conference committee while it was in being. Mr. President, is it not safe to say, overwhelmingly safe to say, that the President of the United States wanted to have something in this bill that could give him a political excuse for a veto? I regret to say that I believe that to be the case. And one more not incidental point, Mr. President: there is a part of this bill that the President of the United States mentioned today which comes very close to home. I know the Presiding Officer will remember the debate on the floor of the Senate here on so-called timber language. That vote was very close in language, of which I was the author, and was substituted for much more stringent House language in the course of the debate here in the Senate. But even our milder language passed only by a narrow margin. Briefly, the House of Representatives mandated a certain harvest level of salvage timber in all of the national forests of the United States. The Senate, in language which I wrote, did not mandate any harvest at all but simply freed this administration to carry out its own plans for salvage timber and its own plans for harvest in the forests of the Pacific Northwest under option 9. In no way did the House language require President Clinton and his administration to do anything that it had not planned to do. It simply freed what the administration wants to do, consistent with its views of all the environmental laws from the constant blizzard of litigation to which it has been subjected over the last several years. And in fact, as recently as a week ago, the new Secretary of Agriculture, who, of course, has the Forest Service under his jurisdiction, wrote a letter to the chairman of this conference committee, one of the few interventions by anyone in the administration with the work of the conference committee, and said, and I am quoting him: We believe that the Senate provision which directs the Secretary, acting through the Chief of the Forest Service, to ``prepare, offer and award salvage timber sale contracts to the maximum extent feasible to reduce the backlog volume of salvage timber in the interior'' offers a more responsible approach than was adopted by the House. So a week ago this Senate timber provision was evidently acceptable to the administration. Now, Mr. President, the timber provision which is denominated by the President of the United States today as being a giveaway to big timber companies is the original Senate language amended only in minor details in a way that the administration itself asked us to amend it. I repeat, Mr. President, what Mr. Clinton now criticizes is a set of provisions his own Secretary of Agriculture approved of by this language a week ago with minor changes that they suggested themselves. It is not the original House language. Now, our Chief Executive is either ignorant of the rules which govern timber sales in the Forest Service or deliberately disingenuous when he begins, once again, the class warfare of big timber companies. Most of the big timber companies in the Pacific Northwest at least are not eligible to harvest Forest Service timber because they export some of the logs that they own from their own lands--the Plum Creeks, the Weyerhaeusers of this world are not a part of this process at all. Who are these so-called big timber companies that will benefit from this? Let me read you a couple of letters that I have received in the course of the last month. The first one is from Tom Mayr, of the Mayr Bros. Co. in Hoquiam, WA, a local mill in that community. I am quoting: Slade, you must realize that this amendment is the single most important piece of legislation in over 5 years to Mayr Brothers and many independent sawmills like ours. Congress and President Clinton have said [[Page S6801]] that they would get us timber, but there hasn't been any significance sold since 1990 on the Olympic National Forest. Your amendment would realize four of our 318 timber sales with enough log volume to run the large log mill two shifts for 1 year. This would put 50 people back to work immediately. Or another one from one of what apparently are these huge timber conglomerates, the Hurn Shingle Co. in Concrete, WA, and I quote: It is nice to see that there is some hope for our shake and shingle mill. We have not operated our mill, due to lack of raw materials, since December 1993. We only operated 12 weeks in 1993. So, as you and I both know, any help you can give us would be encouraging. These amendments are very important for our company, as a wood supply would be something that we have not had for a very long time. These are typical responses, Mr. President, and it is that kind of small-town, independently owned company providing employment where it is not otherwise available that will be modest beneficiaries of the President's inadequate, in my view, option 9 and of the opportunity to harvest timber which has been partly destroyed by forest fires or by bug infestation all across the country and which, within a relatively short period of time, will rot to the point at which it is not worth anything from a commercial point of view but becomes magnificent kindling wood for future forest fires, fires like that which devastated the Northwest last summer. So, Mr. President, we have a Chief Executive who criticizes timber provisions his own Secretary of Agriculture previously approved, who criticizes as pork spending on public buildings that he approved by his signature on appropriations bills last year, and who criticizes modest reductions in programs he likes about which he was entirely silent during the deliberations of the conference committee. Mr. President, that is not the way in which a Chief Executive of this country should act. It is not responsible to the affected people. It is not responsive to his duty to help us to begin to work toward a balanced budget. It is not responsive in his relationships with this body or with the House of Representatives. I regret this politicization of the process, and I have every hope that if we must begin this process over again, we say to the President, what we said this time we mean next time and if you want cooperation, if you want the additional money you have asked for for other programs, you need to be willing to work with the Congress and stick to your own word in the future. This is an extremely disappointing message, not just to the Members of this body who have worked so hard on coming up with an important bill, but because of its destructive impact on a drive toward responsibility, fiscal prudence, and a change in the way in which politics is practiced in the United States. We were selected last year, Mr. President--I know this is particularly true with respect to the Presiding Officer--because we were going to do things differently and keep our commitments. We have done so, and we are now frustrated in carrying out the people's will by this action. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, again, as I have stated, I am completely puzzled by the nature of the argument of those a committee and on a committee staff, who worked in a committee without a Member from the State affected by this amendment and who presume to know much more about the desires of the people of the State represented by Senator Murray and myself than they themselves do, and who continue to use language such as ``prospective'' and ``wide open'' and ``applicable to everyone.'' Well, Mr. President, we have offered to make a specific reference to the revised code of Washington, if they want to make certain that this applies only to the State of Washington. They are not interested, because, of course, such an amendment would be useless. The description we have in here now is single State in nature. We have offered to put in ``continue to exercise flow control'' in this amendment, but they are not interested because they know that this is not a prospective amendment as it is. Mr. President, this requires the State to have had a law before the year 1990 and it requires the plans to have been in existence in particular communities before May 15, 1994. Now, what is prospective about that? These are existing plans. These are existing systems of facilities in one single State. Now, if the bill is dead because one single State is permitted to continue to do what it wishes to do, it is already dead by reason of the Vermont amendment last week, which is much more broad and is prospective and does allow that State to go forward with plans in the future. The answer, Mr. President, is that this is just something that this committee did not consider and does not want to consider now. Senator Murray and I are asking for the continuation of an existing system in various counties of our State which has resulted, I believe, in more recycling and less disposal of solid waste perhaps than any other State in the United States of America. That is all we are asking for. It is not prospective. It does not allow new counties and new communities even in our State who already had these ordinances and these obligations underway a year ago yesterday, May 15, 1994, to do so at some time in the future. It is State-specific and it is system facilities-specific. That is all there is to it. And there is no reason in the world for this amendment to be turned down. Mr. BAUCUS addressed the chair.

Mr. GORTON. I would like to speak for perhaps 2 of those minutes, Mr. President, I say to the Senator from New Hampshire, and then I think his motion will be in order. My colleague from Washington reminds me of my own experience. I, too, live in the city of Seattle. I hear a great deal about monopolies and competition and the like. I can assure my colleagues I pay much less for a much more efficient system at home than I do in the District of Columbia by a long shot. What we are saying is that if we had a plan that was in place a year ago on which there is a contract--not some amorphous future plan, Mr. President. The municipality not only had to have a plan a year ago; it had to obligate itself by a contract--it has to be undertaking this process right now. It has to be in place. It is not in the future. And it has to have cost money. Now, somehow or another we are criticized because some of our communities were wise enough and responsible enough to pay for these major facilities out of cash, that they did not have to bond, but for some reason or other to this committee that is a terrible thing. A responsible municipality which has paid for these facilities already cannot recover for them. Now, that is another part of the absurdity of this amendment. This is State specific, Mr. President. It is not prospective. It deals only with things that are already in place. And it is in pursuance of a system which has worked very well and very effectively and should be allowed to be already a part of this bill for other States. Mr. President, with the permission of the other Senator from Washington, I will yield back the remainder of our time.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am puzzled, perhaps even bewildered at the necessity to speak here on behalf of an amendment for my State and Senator Murray's--an amendment designed under the parameters of a bill simply to allow the continuation of a flow control regime in our State which may very well have been the most successful of any State in the United States of America in reducing the amount of solid waste which is not recycled. This bill, of course, responds to a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. That decision invalidated flow control regimes all across America on the grounds that a State or municipality which directed or funneled the flow of its waste materials violated the dormant provisions of the interstate commerce clause. That is to say, States and local communities could not impact interstate commerce by flow control regimes in the absence of authority from the Congress of the United States. The Supreme Court, of course, invited the Congress to legislate in this area, and that is precisely what this bill does. The bill attempts to recognize the fact that many States already have flow control regimes. And while it wishes to move them out of those present regimes toward a greater degree of competition in the private sector, it nonetheless recognizes many, but not all, existing obligations. And that is the defect which leads to this amendment. While the bill recognizes and grandfathers for an extended period of time of up to 30 years regimes for single facilities financed by revenue bonds, it does not exempt systems of facilities financed in whole or in part by general obligation bonds. Beginning long before this bill was thought of, that was the method adopted by the State of Washington's system of facilities, generally speaking, financed by general obligation bonds; that is, bonds which were a call or a lien on taxpayers through the property that they own in particular counties. So all Senator Murray and I propose to do is to provide a narrowly defined fix by defining the nature of the State Washington and allow the continuation of its present regime for roughly the same period of time that it has allowed for other States in this bill. Nothing, Mr. President, could be more reasonable. One size does not fit all when we are legislating in a field which the States have occupied. One size certainly does not fit all when we are dealing with a State that has been as progressive and as successful with its flow control regime as has the State of Washington. Now, at one level this debate has already taken place. It took place last Thursday at the beginning of the discussion of this bill with the amendment proposed by the two Senators from Vermont for a special circumstance found in Vermont. This body accepted that Vermont amendment by a relatively close rollcall vote. This proposal is considerably narrower than that proposed by the two Senators from Vermont, because theirs talked about prospective systems not in existence at the present time; ours talks about existing systems which are in place, in operation, and have already been financed. Ours requires that significant financial commitments have been made or bonds have been issued, a major portion of which were used for the construction of solid waste facilities--a much more specific definition than that in the Vermont amendment. Nor can we come up with a single exception for a single county. Our counties and cities have been given fairly broad discretion in this field, and different metropolitan counties in the State of Washington have had subtle but distinct differences in the way in which they exercise flow control requirements. But I can say, Mr. President, that for those who feel that this should be a competitive field, not single-source contracts, that is exactly what the State of Washington does. The management of our solid waste is conducted on a competitive bid basis. So, Mr. President, we, the two Senators from Washington, are here simply to request the right to continue to do what we have already been doing so successfully--to pay off our bonds and to be subject to the provisions of this bill under essentially the same circumstances as are allowed other States, States to which the members of the committee paid some attention in drafting the bill in the first place. Mr. President, just as this was appropriate for those that were included in the bill in the first place on single State bases, those which have been added without controversy, that which was added by the amendment of the Senators from Vermont, we wish not to have the Federal Government interfere with us, to tell us that everything we have done in the past is wrong, that in spite of the success of our program, I am sorry, we do not fit into the exceptions and therefore we cannot have one. Mr. President, we should be allowed to have this exception. We should be allowed to continue a regime which has worked so successfully in our State in the past. Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON. Not quite yet. How much time is remaining to the Senator from Washington?

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am truly puzzled. The Senator from Rhode Island says we ought to be satisfied because 1 county out of 39 in the State of Washington might possibly qualify under a general bill that he has written to continue its present system. The Senator from Rhode Island says, ``They say the Constitution be damned, we just want to go ahead.'' He is entirely correct when he says that a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court stated that under the dormant reading of the interstate commerce clause, flow control regimes all across the United States were invalid. That same Supreme Court decision asked the Congress if it wished to do so to legislate in this area, pointing out that it could grant States full authority if it wished to do so, to continue forever all of their existing or any future regime. Now, the Senator from Rhode Island has done that. He is passing legislation which under certain circumstances States can exercise flow control regimes. One might ask, why does he not just simply allow it to the full extent that the Constitution would allow it, but he has not. He wants a certain pattern, but he has made exceptions to that certain pattern and we would like such an exception. Ours is all retrospective. Unless financial obligations have been undertaken or bonds sold, unless there is a system in place by a State statute that is some 5 years old or more, the exception does not apply. It does not apply in any other State, Mr. President. Why should a community be penalized because it had enough money to pay for these facilities in cash? Why should it be penalized if it pays for facilities as well, rather than a specific revenue bond for one specific facility? Now, Mr. President, this committee did not have to bring a bill out on this subject at all. It could just have told the country that it had to live with this Supreme Court decision. The committee decided that the Supreme Court decision mandated legislation. The legislation does have differences from one State to another. This body has adopted an amendment for Vermont which is infinitely broader than the amendment proposed for the State of Washington. Why in the world these people sitting here in this body have to tell the State of Washington, ``Sorry, you did it wrong and we are not going to let you do it anymore,'' is simply beyond the understanding of this Senator.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, it is my privilege to recognize the grand opening of the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center in Stevenson, WA on Wednesday, May 17, 1995. The grand opening celebration will start at 10:30 a.m. with the award-winning Stevenson High School Band and choir, and conclude with Nelson Moses of the Wishram Tribe and members of his family giving a native American blessing to the project. The Interpretive Center is dedicated to preserving the natural and cultural history of the magnificent Columbia River Gorge. Exhibits and displays will educate, entertain and inform adults and children alike. As they tour the center they will see the First Peoples and Harvesting Resources galleries and the multi-media Creation Theatre, which shows the cataclysmic events [[Page S6699]] that shaped the gorge. They will also learn about the people who built the communities of the gorge-- pioneers, missionaries, riverboat captains, soldiers, dam-builders and all the rest--in all, a wonderful cast of characters. Other exhibits feature natural resources, dams and other developments on the river. This center encourage Washingtonians to consider their role in the stewardship of the mighty Columbia River, one of our great natural wonders.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. That is correct.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 1995, for purposes of conducting a full committee hearing which is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. The purpose of this hearing is to consider the nomination of James J. Hoecker to be a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 1995, for purposes of conducting a full committee hearing which is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's notice of proposed rulemaking and supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking, ``Promoting Wholesale Competition Through Open-Access Non-discriminatory Transmission Services by Public Utilities'' (Docket No. RM95-8-000), and ``Recovery Stranded Costs by Public Utilities and Transmitting Utilities'' (Docket No. RM94-7-001).

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Immigration Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 1995, at 9:30 a.m., to hold a hearing on ``Verification of Applicant Identity for Purposes of Employment and Public Assistance.''

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be permitted to meet Wednesday, May 10, 1995, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-215, to conduct a hearing on the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Review Commission Act and on the nomination of Jeffrey Lang to be Deputy U.S. Trade Representative.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 1995, at 10 a.m.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 1995, at 2:30 p.m., to hold a hearing on ``The Role of the Military in Combating Terrorism.''

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 1995, at 2 p.m., to hold a closed hearing on intelligence matters.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GORTON. I move to table the Harkin amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays

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

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, this is now a reasonable amendment. There was a debate on the Shelby-Heflin amendment yesterday to which I had certain objections, but it is clear that the law of Alabama is unique and peculiar. from Alabama will want to give the Alabama Legislature sufficient time to consider that amendment. I think that is appropriate, and I believe that we can now accept the Shelby-Heflin amendment by voice vote. Assuming that we do so, Mr. President, there will only be one vote at 9:45.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, as I have just announced on behalf of the majority leader, we will have two votes in about 10 minutes. Seeing nobody here at the moment to speak, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. With that, Mr. President, now having cleared this with the Democratic side, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on, or in relation to, the Dorgan amendment, or in relation to any other amendment in order, and final passage occur back to back at the conclusion of the previously allotted time with the first vote limited to 15 minutes and the other consecutive votes in the voting sequence limited to 10 minutes each.