T. Gorton

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the effect of this amendment would be to strike the Colombian drug money appropriation of $934 million and substitute for that number $200 million. In other words, the passage of the amendment would result in savings--that is to say, not spending-- almost three-quarters of a billion dollars, and by implication using that money to pay down the national debt. Curiously enough, I think the justification for the amendment is as eloquently stated in the bill being managed by my friend from Kentucky and by the committee report--which I commend to my colleagues--that accompanies that amendment. I will read one paragraph now from the committee report: Historically, INL has provided support to the Colombian National Police. The Supplemental anticipates a 7:1 shift in funding from the Police to the Army. Given the past limited role and resources provided for counter-narcotics activities in Colombia and the region, the Committee is concerned about the rapid, new, and unprecedented levels of spending requested. The fiscal year 2000 program level of $50,000,000 for Colombia will now rise to nearly $1,000,000,000. The Committee has grave reservations regarding the Administration's ability to effectively manage the use of these resources to achieve the expected results of reducing production and supply of cocaine while protecting human rights. I could hardly state my case better. We have a profound and dramatic shift in focus. We have a huge 19-1 increase in the amount of money in this bill focused on this particular problem, and we lack even a clue as to whether or not it will have any positive impact on drug trafficking between Colombia and the United States. I will read the language found on page 151 of the bill, section 6106: Limitations on Support for Plan Colombia and on the Assignment of United States Personnel in Colombia (a) Limitation on Support for Plan Colombia.--Except for appropriations made by this Act and appropriations made by the Military Construction Appropriations Act, 2001, for such purpose, none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by any Act (including unobligated balances of prior appropriations) shall be available for support of Plan Colombia unless and until-- (1) the President submits a report to Congress requesting the availability of such funds; and (2) Congress enacts a joint resolution approving the request of the President under paragraph (1). In other words, let's spend $1 billion, and after it is spent, let's ask the President for a justification of why we were spending it and a plan for what we are going to do in the future. That is absolutely, totally, completely backwards. This is a major undertaking, a huge change in our relationship with Colombia, in what we sometimes fatuously denominate a war against drugs, with some kind of hope that it will have a positive impact. My guess is I will very shortly be asked to enter into a time agreement so we can vote on this amendment no later than 6 or 6:30 p.m. today. Time constraints will lead me to accept that time agreement. But is it not equally bizarre and irresponsible that we should put the United States into another military adventure on the basis of so short and superficial a debate about both means and ends in connection with this appropriation? The Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone, just proposed an amendment that got very few votes, that superficially at least was aimed at the same goal. I say ``superficially'' because Senator Wellstone did not propose to save any of the money. He simply proposed to spend about 25 percent of it with priorities that differed from those of the committee and those of the President of the United States. The war and all the equipment were still there under his amendment. We just had a quarter of a billion dollars spent on various social program purposes. His amendment, in other words, did not go to the heart of the question that is before us. That question is, Are we prepared casually, at this point, to take the first step in what has often in the past been an inevitable series of steps toward engaging in another shooting war? I grant you there is a limitation of no more than 250 American military personnel to accompany the equipment we will be selling to Colombia under the provisions of this bill. But isn't that almost always the way we begin an adventure of this nature, with pious declarations that our participation is limited; we are just helping some other country solve its own problems and challenges in some military fashion? I think so. But this is a shift from supporting a police force in a friendly country to supporting an army engaged in a civil war, a civil war that it has not been winning, a civil war in which the other side is very well financed--indirectly, at least, in large part by Americans who purchase cocaine--but without the slightest real control over the use of the equipment that the Colombian Army will be receiving pursuant to this bill. How long will it be until we read the first news story about some of this equipment showing up in the hands of the rebels, by capture or, for that matter, by purchase? I don't know, but that is what has constantly happened in the past in almost each of the other adventures of this nature in which the United States has found itself. But my fundamental point with respect to this amendment is that we are voting money first and asking for the justification later. We should get the justification first and make the determination as to whether to spend this amount of money or how much we ought to spend after we know exactly what the plan is and how the plan promises to lead to any kind of successful conclusion. But the bill says, right here on pages 151 and 152, we will spend the $934 million and then the President will tell us how he is going to spend future money, and we will get a joint resolution. At a later stage in a similar adventure, we went through an almost identical debate just a couple of weeks ago on Kosovo. We voted the money and lacked, by a small margin, the courage even to say that it had to be justified and authorized by Congress a year from now. I hope we may have learned something from that experience. Should we not seriously debate this matter first--not just in a couple of hearings in an Appropriations Committee and essentially a rider on an appropriations bill but seriously and extensively? Is this the single best way in which to spend the almost three-quarters of a billion dollars that is the subject of this amendment, even on drug interdiction, much less on any other potential program in the United States? Will it help Colombia? Does it really address drug problems in the United States? Is there an exit strategy? We know there was not any in Bosnia. We know there is not any in Kosovo. And we sure are not told what it is here. One consequence of passing this appropriations bill in its present form, however, is certain. It will not be a one-time appropriation. It will not be the only request we are asked to respond to, to deal with the Colombian military, almost $1 billion in this appropriation--a downpayment. But it isn't a downpayment we make on a home or an automobile. It is a downpayment on which we don't know the schedule of future payments; we don't know the total amount of future payments; we don't know how we will measure success if, indeed, any success exists. It is simply the beginning of an open-ended commitment, with the pious statement that the President must come back a year from now and justify future appropriations and get a joint resolution of Congress. I don't think those lines are worth the paper they are printed on because next year's foreign operations appropriations bill can just appropriate another $1 billion, and its passage will be that joint resolution, without any more justification than we have today. In one respect, at least, I must interject with this comment: I have been overly critical. In comparison with the way in which this problem has been treated in the House of Representatives, this appropriation is a model of responsibility. It includes considerably fewer dollars and considerably more in the way of conditions--future conditions though they may be. That means, unfortunately, the conference committee will end up spending more money than we are spending here and probably with fewer and less responsible requirements imposed on the administration in the way in which the money is spent. But my points in this amendment are simple. We are asked to engage in another civil war. I repeat that. We are asked to engage in another civil war with a major commitment to equipment and training for the Colombian Army. Very rarely does this kind of commitment get made without escalating into something more, in money or in personnel or the like. Very rarely are insurgencies such as the one in Colombia successfully met when those insurgencies have as large a source of monetary support as this one seems to have. In any event, I suppose one can even say that this is a good, thoughtful, and responsible idea, but we do not know that. We have not had any kind of national debate on the subject. We have not had anything more than the most superficial justification for it by an administration whose foreign policy guesses so far during the last few years do not lend a great degree of confidence to most of us with respect to the responsibility of this adventure. In the relatively short period of time we have available, I ask my colleagues to ask themselves the simple question: Do you know enough about this idea to risk $1 billion on it in an open-ended commitment to an entirely new adventure in a campaign which has rather spectacularly lacked in success for the last 10 or 20 years? Wouldn't you like a little bit more advanced justification? Wouldn't you like a little bit more time to thoughtfully consider whether we want to involve ourselves in this particular civil war? Isn't there somewhere that you can think of that $700 million would be spent more wisely, even in connection with our struggle against illegal drug usage in the United States or for some other program entirely or for the reduction in the national debt to which we all give so much lipservice, except when it comes up against a new spending program? What I offer is an amendment that will still have us spending four times as much money in Colombia than we are spending during the course of the current year--four times as much money, $50 million to $200 million--but one that will require the President to come up to us with the very requirements that are set out on pages 151 and 152 of this bill but with a difference. He will have to come up and justify it before we give him the money rather than after it is over. Next year, this request will be a very simple one: Oh, gosh, we have already spent $1 billion. We can't stop now; it is just beginning to show results; the helicopters have only been down there for 2 months; we are only asking another $1.5 billion, or whatever the request; we can't quit now; we won't show constancy; we won't show purpose. The time to show constancy and purpose is right now. This spending program, even with the restrictions and limitations included in this bill, is not responsible. It is not the right way to spend money. It is almost impossible to conceive that it will be successful, and we should deal with it today, here and now, by very simply saying: No; no, Mr. President, not until there is a far greater justification than any that you have presented so far. We should heed in our votes as well as in our words the very words of the committee and show ``grave reservations regarding the administration's ability to effectively manage the use of these resources.'' If we have grave reservations, we should not be spending the money until those reservations are met and we have a far greater degree of confidence than any of us can show today that this spending will be effective.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the capacity of this body for self- delusion seems to this Senator to be unlimited. Time after time, we permit this administration to involve us in some new armed conflict without seriously examining the consequences of that involvement, the cost of the involvement, the length of the involvement, or even the possibility that we will attain the goals of that involvement. Mark my words, we are on the verge of doing exactly the same thing here that we have done so frequently in the last 7 or 8 years. This bill includes almost $1 billion for an entirely new, and almost totally military, involvement in a civil war in Latin America, without the slightest promise that our intervention will be a success, and it does it in a totally backward fashion. The very committee report that recommends spending this almost $1 billion says that the committee ``has grave reservations regarding the administration's ability to effectively manage the use of these resources to achieve the expected results.'' Well, if we have grave reservations, why are we doing it before those reservations have been met? The bill is a paradox. It says to the administration, spend $934 million, and then come to us and tell us what you have done and why it should go on. But if Kosovo and Bosnia are any indication, when the administration comes back next year, the answer will be: Well, we are already in it; we can't quit now. That is what we have been told for 6 or 7 years in Bosnia and 2 or 3 in Kosovo, with no end in sight. And there will be no end in sight here either, Mr. President. This bill says let's get in a war now and justify it later. My amendment says let's hear the justification first; let's seriously consider what we are getting into and then maybe vote the money. This amendment takes $700 million of the $934 million and says, for now, let's pay down the debt with it. Let's expand our present help to Colombia and its police forces, rather substantially, but let's not get into a new armed conflict until we have far greater justification than we have received to this point. It just seems impossible to me to believe that in the absence of the debate of the whole country, with all of the lessons we must have learned not just in this administration, but in previous administrations, about how easy it is to get in and how hard it is to get out, we will blithely make this downpayment--and this is a downpayment only. Next year, maybe we will need a lot more money if they are not doing very well down there. And how much of the equipment is going to end up in the hands of rebels by sale or capture or otherwise? We have no way of controlling that without a presence on the ground. I urge this body to say to the administration: No, we are not going to do this until you first come to us with a formal overall plan with a beginning, middle, and an end, and a plan for how we are going to achieve our goals. Get the authority first and then fund it. It is 10 times better for this society to put that $700 million on our debt and not get in a civil war in South America. That is what this debate is all about--not that we don't like the Colombians or that we don't want them to be successful, but we don't want a part of their war.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am sorry, I did not hear.

Mr. GORTON. Will the Senator from Kentucky yield?

Mr. GORTON. This Senator has made his case. He will need 5 minutes at the most to repeat it. As the Senator from Kentucky knows, however, a somewhat more drastic version of this amendment received 11 votes on the Appropriations Committee, and there may very well be other Members who do wish to speak on it. While I am perfectly happy at this point to grant unanimous consent to go on to another amendment, I would like the two Cloakrooms to be able to circulate the thought that this amendment is before the body, and if other Members want to come, that they be given an opportunity to speak. I hope he defers his motion to table until that opportunity has been presented.

Mr. GORTON. If other people wish to speak, I want them to have that opportunity. I am perfectly happy to vote before we leave this evening.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, it is my pleasure to talk to you today about the Career and Technical Education Program in Walla Walla, Washington. Students in this program are learning skills that are highly important in the working world and will give them a leg up on the competition as they enter the workforce. This program has made a tremendous impact on the school's learning environment and also gives students an incentive to stay in school. Fifteen years ago, the faculty at Walla Walla High School wanted to create a program in which students would gain practical knowledge to supplement what is learned in the traditional classroom setting. The Career and Technical Education Program, created with the help of grant money, gives students the opportunity to gain technical skills along with the school's curriculum. For example, students enrolled in anatomy or physiology class can put their knowledge to work by taking Sports Medicine where they learn about treating sports injuries, CPR and other first aid skills. In addition, technology labs have been interwoven into the curriculum to teach robotics, flight simulation, and bridge analysis to enhance math and physics classes. Through this programs, students can see a direct link between their work in the classroom to a potential job. Gerald Cummins, Director of Career and Technical Education, says the Career and Technical Education Program has drastically improved the college bound population in Walla Walla over the last fifteen years. ``Fifteen years ago, there were barely any kids continuing on to the college level. Now most kids are achieving college credits through our program before even being accepted into college.'' The faculty at Walla Walla High School also has established strong communication between parents, the school and community members, giving students a sense of support that will encourage them to continue in their academic pursuits. Much credit should be given to the vision of the Walla Walla School Board and staff who have worked to ensure high standards of teaching. They have found new ways to improve upon their curriculum and provided excellent opportunities for each student to expand his or her horizons.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I yield such time to the distinguished senior Senator from California as she may use.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the opponents are absent for the time being, discussing what is at least a possible settlement of this matter. As a consequence, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent the time be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, if the Senator from Michigan wants to speak, I will not ask for a quorum call.

Mr. GORTON. The Senator may go ahead.

Mr. GORTON. That is also correct.

Mr. GORTON. With the permission of the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I have at the desk a revised motion to instruct the conferees on the Transportation appropriations bill. I ask unanimous consent it be in order to consider it and it be reported.

Mr. GORTON. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the motion be dispensed with.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I answer my friend from Michigan that I believe the widest range of considerations should be a part of this study, including, of course, those that the Senator from Michigan has set forth, and for that matter anything else the National Academy of Sciences considers to be relevant.

Mr. GORTON. The answer to the question was yes.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the Senator from Nevada had a question about the duration of the motion that was just agreed to. It probably would have been better to have stated that it expires on September 30, 2001, as does the entire bill on that date. I know he wished my assurance and the assurance of the people on the other side, Senator Levin, that it is our intention, and we will make that clear in any final conference committee report that this is a 1-fiscal-year provision only and that the entire provision expires at the end of fiscal year 2001.

Mr. GORTON. The Senator is correct.

Mr. GORTON. Certainly.

Mr. GORTON. The Senator from Michigan asked we use ``recommend'' rather than ``proposed.'' I think it is a distinction without a difference. The operative language here is nothing can go into effect unless Congress has approved it. Whether it comes in the form of a recommendation from the Department of Transportation or proposal from the Department of Transportation, Congress has to approve it.

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

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may use. Yesterday, both Senator Bryan and I came to the floor to discuss this motion, the reasons for dealing with corporate average fuel economy standards in this fashion, and to give a preview as to our reasons for this vitally important motion. Twenty-five years ago, in 1975, the Congress--an enlightened Congress, I may say--passed a certain set of requirements demanding that automobiles and small trucks on average from each manufacturer meet certain fuel efficiency standards; that is to say, that they get better gas mileage and, not at all incidentally, provide less pollution into the atmosphere of the United States. That statute was passed, of course, in the aftermath of the oil boycott on the part of Arab countries and a steep rise in gasoline prices. Though I am quite conservative and often critical of government regulation, I know of few, if any, regulatory regimes of the United States that were more successful. In a period of a little more than 5 years, the average fuel efficiency of automobiles in the United States for all practical purposes doubled. That proposal was passed, incidentally, over arguments that were not similar to the arguments that are made against this motion today but identical to the arguments made against this motion today. We were told by the Ford Motor Company that the passage of such standards would mean everyone would be driving a Maverick or something smaller than a Maverick. Chrysler and General Motors followed suit. The people of the United States would not be able to buy the kinds of automobiles they were accustomed to driving and those that they were in fact driving at the present time. Well, those predictions were so dramatically off kilter that the largest regular passenger cars manufactured today get better gas mileage than the Maverick about which they were speaking in the year 1975. Curiously enough, however, in spite of this huge success, a success that literally saves 3 million gallons of gasoline a day in the United States, for at least the last 10 years, the House of Representatives, in its appropriation bill for the Department of Transportation, has prohibited not only the promulgation of new corporate average fuel economy standards but even their study and proposal on the part of the Department of Transportation. The Senate, in each of those years, has been wiser. It has included no such prohibition. Regrettably, however, the Senate has without exception receded to the House position on this issue in each and every year of the last decade or two. As a consequence, the average fuel economy of our overall fleets has been decreasing rather than increasing. Last year, the distinguished Senator from California, Mr. Bryan from Nevada, and I introduced a sense-of-the-Senate resolution stating that we should not keep our heads in the sand any longer; We ought to allow these studies to go forward. We ended up with roughly 40 votes, a substantial and credible vote, but obviously not a majority vote of the Senate. What has happened during the course of the last year, Mr. President? Well, the most obvious occurrence has been a vast increase in the retail price of gasoline for each and every American consumer. A year ago, we were at the end of roughly a year of abnormally low gasoline prices. The reaction earlier this year on the part of OPEC was to get that cartel together, cut back on production, and thus hugely drive up the price of gasoline. Our Secretary of Energy was sent, hat in hand, around the world to plead with OPEC countries to please produce more gasoline, please don't punish Americans by driving up retail gasoline prices so high. This is what we in the United States were reduced to--pleading with OPEC countries for a greater degree of production. Well, they agreed to a little bit more. Prices dropped for a month or so, although nothing comparable to the increase that had preceded it. Now they are on the rise again. I believe it was Monday that the Washington Post indicated that retail prices for gasoline in the Midwest, where there are certain air pollution requirements, have gone up 30 to 50 cents a gallon in the course of 6 or 8 weeks. The same report indicated that we had 3 straight weeks of gasoline price increases all over the country, to the point where they are higher than ever before. Predictions are that they will hit $2 a gallon well before this year is over. Perhaps even more significant than this punishment of the American people with higher gasoline prices is the increased dependence the U.S. has on foreign sources of oil. Way more than 50 percent of our oil is produced overseas now, which, of course, subjects us to the effectiveness of the OPEC cartel. That is the first thing that has taken place. The second thing is this: We were accused last year in the debate with mandating new corporate efficiency standards when we didn't know what they would be, and when they would ignore completely the safety of automobiles that were produced and driven in the U.S. Curiously enough, that, too, was a major argument made 25 years ago: More people will be killed on the highways because we will be driving these tiny little Mavericks and subcompact automobiles. But do you know what has happened? Death rates on our highways, per hundred million miles driven, have dropped by more than 50 percent. Why? Because the big three automobile manufacturers' technology and imagination is far more efficient than their lobbying and the points they make during the course of political campaigns. They have made automobiles safer both because there has been a demand and because there have been mandated requirements through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for airbags, side impact matters, and a wide range of other safety devices. It is far safer to drive with the cars that we have today, which are twice as fuel efficient as those in the mid-1970s, than it was before these standards were adopted. Nevertheless, it is our view that safety is an appropriate consideration. So you have a different proposition before you this year than you had last year. All we are asking--so it is a very important request in this motion--is that the Senate not agree to a House prohibition that says you cannot study, propose, or promulgate new corporate average fuel-efficient standards for automobiles. To say that we can't study that in light of the technological changes in the last 20 years--it is incredible that anybody in the Senate would argue for such a proposition. No study? No proposal? No knowledge about what we are doing? I will be one of the conferees that will be appointed as soon as this debate is over and this voice vote is taken. Mr. President, because the House, of course, will maintain its position, my view is that not only an appropriate compromise but an appropriate course of action will be to permit the Department of Transportation study and propose new corporate average fuel efficiency standards. I think they ought to be studied. I think they ought to be proposed. I think they ought to consider safety as well as fuel efficiency. But I do think it quite appropriate that they be brought back here to this body into the House of Representatives before they be promulgated. So I will accept as a compromise with the House a prohibition against promulgating new standards until next year's Transportation appropriations bill has been deliberated, passed, and signed, obviously by a new President of the United States. We will not be running the risk of a runaway Federal agency by any stretch of the imagination. What risks will we be running? We will run the risk that we will vote on something we understand. We will run the risk that standards will be proposed that will increase the efficiency of our automobiles and lower the cost of gasoline for every American purchaser of a new car and help clean up our air--important considerations that are specific in nature and brought to us because they cannot be promulgated until we have had another chance to vote on them. I think it takes a great deal of imagination to say the United States of America, through its Department of Transportation, cannot engage in such a study and such a proposal. The arguments you will get on the other side you already have in a Dear Colleague letter, one that says, gee, we made our cars more efficient in 1975, and now we drive more. I don't think that is a criticism. I think that is a praise of better gas mileage. Of course, oil consumption has increased in 25 years. We have more people. We have better roads. And we have better automobiles. It may very well be that will be the case, if we have even better gas mileage. But to say we ought to cause people to stop driving because gasoline is too expensive and we are not going to do anything about it is, at the very best, a bizarre argument. The second is, of course, the very argument that there will no longer will be any choice--that cars will have to be so small that people won't be able to choose small trucks or SUVs. The Ford Motor Company has already told us it can greatly increase the fuel efficiency of SUVs. We know they can do this in the future, as they have in the past. I repeat that it is perfectly appropriate to say we will bring these standards back here to us with their actual impact before we actually pose them. Finally, they argue that we are doing so well already with creating more efficient cars that we shouldn't undercut that kind of research going into a new generation of engine by having some kind of mandate. True. We have. In fact, I chaired another appropriations subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Interior, which finances the studies for a new generation of vehicles. I do so with great enthusiasm. But I also note that while these studies have gone on, the automobile manufacturers have done nothing to actually increase their average fuel economy on the road. This proposal is not only not inconsistent with the studies that are going on with the cooperation of the Federal Government and the automobile manufacturers, but they are totally consistent with them. We are saying: Do a better job for Americans. Don't tell us that we will see future Secretaries of Energy every time the OPEC countries are moved to demand more money going hat in hand around the world. Use American technological genius to do the job that you did from 1975 until 1980. Produce a more efficient automobile. Don't make it less safe, make it more safe; the way you did then. To use the old expression, if you fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. They attempted to fool our predecessors in 1975. They didn't succeed. They were wrong in every single argument they made in 1975. If we let them fool us twice with the same arguments, shame on us.

Mr. GORTON. That is correct. We are prepared to implement that agreement now, if we have permission.