T. Gorton

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Earlier this afternoon, I introduced an amendment which would have instructed the U.S. representative to the International Monetary Fund to vote against any proposal with respect to Indonesia that would have benefited President Soeharto or his family or his close associates. I did so because it seemed to me that while several of the Nations in Southeast Asia that have been subjected to these runs on their currency and toward the present economic crisis were close friends of the United States, had developed democratic institutions like our own, were struggling toward free markets like our own, this was not taking place in Indonesia. It was a wholly-owned family subsidiary benefiting largely the Soeharto family and not the people of Indonesia. I pointed out that it seemed to me unfair to impose heavy requirements on friends of ours like the Republic of Korea and the Philippine Republic and allow any IMF money to go to Indonesia that was resisting all of the attempts by IMF to reform its economy. Others, including the Treasury, the distinguished chairman of the committee, and many others who have been interested in the International Monetary Fund asked me to modify my amendment. I have done so, to make it more narrow with respect to aid to the Soeharto family, narrow enough so I must say, I think it is symbolic only, but to require the United States not to favor any proposition with respect to Indonesia that is less stringent than those that the IMF is imposing on the Republic of Korea and the Philippine Republic, two of the closest allies and best friends with the longest association with the United States of any of the countries of Southeast Asia. With that motion, I understand the amendment is acceptable and will be adopted by a voice vote. But I do want to say that I know that I represent a strong strain of opinion in this Senate that we should not be bailing out the Soeharto family, even indirectly, through our contributions to the International Monetary Fund. I want the message to be heard loud and clear in Jakarta that true reforms to its economy are absolutely essential, that the International Monetary Fund and the United States are simply not interested in bailing out a family enterprise--fortunes stolen through corruption and inside dealing in the way that has been all too true in Indonesia over the course of the past decades--that there is a difference among the countries seeking aid in Southeast Asia from the International Monetary Fund. I am told that in some respects the requirements being imposed on Indonesia are tougher than those on South Korea and the Philippine Republic. If so, that is fine. But I certainly don't want us favoring Indonesia over those two nations that have been our allies for such an extended period of time. So even if this amendment is only symbolic at this point--and it may very well be--I think the symbolism is important. I think that symbolism is vitally important. I believe as a general proposition that it is in the interests of the United States to help the International Monetary Fund help countries that are willing to try to help themselves out of a severe economic crisis, even selfishly from the point of view of our own economy and our own exporters who are already seeing, in increasing trade deficits, the adverse impacts on trade in the crisis in Southeast Asia. Certain IMF assistance is in the interest of the United States. Bailing out the Soeharto family is not, and that is what this amendment is designed to accomplish.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the yeas and nays on that amendment be vitiated.

Mr. GORTON. I send a modification of that amendment to the desk.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I speak to you and my colleagues here today as a supporter of the International Monetary Fund. I believe that the crisis in Southeast Asia is one that is important to the economy of the United States, and that those nations in Southeast Asia that are in great financial difficulty can be helped to work their own way out of these economic difficulties by the kind of prescriptions to which the International Monetary Fund has subjected them. One of those nations, South Korea, is bound to us by the close-as-possible ties of blood and sentiment over almost half a century and, reflecting the views of the people of the United States, has become a free market and a democracy. Another of those nations, the Philippine Republic, has been tied to us for a full century and has struggled in the direction of free markets and of a democracy during that period of time. Today, it is a rather considerable success at both. Thailand and Malaysia are trying, with great difficulty, to meet the financial challenges with which they have been faced. One nation, however, does not fall into any of these categories. In Indonesia, President Soeharto is a wholly owned family enterprise. Its economy--behind those of all the other nations in Southeast Asia, from the point of view of the degree to which its benefits have been distributed among its people--is corrupt, undemocratic, and designed to primarily, it seems, at least through its economy, to benefit the immediate family and the close friends and henchmen of the now seven- term President of Indonesia, Mr. Soeharto. Indonesia has resisted, at every turn, the prescriptions that the International Monetary Fund has laid down for the recovery of its economy. As a consequence, I believe, and I believe firmly, that we in the United States should not bow to the will of this dictator, should not say that requirements that are being imposed on other nations that are trying, with great difficulties, to work their way out, with democratic institutions in place in those countries, should not be imposed on Indonesia. This amendment is quite simple. It doesn't attempt to dictate to the International Monetary Fund what it does, but it does direct our Secretary of the Treasury to instruct our representative on the International Monetary Fund to use the voice and vote of the United States to prevent the extension by the International Monetary Fund of loans or credits that would personally benefit the President of Indonesia or any member of the President's family or benefit any financial institution or commercial enterprise in which the President of Indonesia or any member of the President's family has a financial interest. Now, I understand, curiously enough, that there are those who object to this amendment on the grounds that that covers everything in Indonesia, that every institution that would be helped is owned, in whole or in part, by the President or by members of his family. In my view, that is the best possible argument in favor of this amendment. We have a financial structure in that country that has been built up to benefit the family of the President and his close associates, and only them. While my heart goes out to the people of Indonesia, I believe that if there is to be any International Monetary Fund aid to Indonesia with the consent and help of the United States, it should be to the people and not to the family of the President. Essentially, Mr. President, that is what this amendment says--neither more nor less. We should not use our credits in the International Monetary Fund, with our vote, to bail out a President whose sole interest seems to be in the aggrandizement of his own family, who is indifferent to the requirements that the International Monetary Fund has laid out to them, who has caused the crisis in his country to become much worse, sharply worse, as a result of his inaction than it would have been had he followed the requirements of the IMF some time ago. We should not lend ourselves to his intransigence in any respect whatsoever, Mr. President. As a consequence, I ask my colleagues to support the amendment. I will reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

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

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, these remarks are the second in a series that I call ``The Corps of Engineers Sweepstakes.'' Two or 3 weeks ago I was on the floor to speak about a series of foot-dragging and irrational decisions on the part of the Corps of Engineers in an area that affects not only your State and mine, including its proposal to bury an archeological site on which a 9,000-year-old human skeleton had been found. Because of the wishy-washy answers on that subject from the corps, there is now included in the supplemental appropriations bill about to be discussed on this floor a prohibition against the corps destroying that archeological site. But the corps is at it again, another installment in the comedy of errors. The bureaucrats in the Army Corps of Engineers office in Walla Walla, WA, have taken it upon themselves to promote and publish a survey of public opinion on the removal of four dams on the lower Snake River. The corps right now, today, is in the process of distributing this survey to some 12,000 people. Sending out a survey to 12,000 people to determine what they think about removing dams is one thing. But if you are the winner in this sweepstakes and get one of the surveys in the mail, out of the envelope drops a $2 bill. The corps is using $24,000 in taxpayers' money just to put $2 bills in the envelope that contains the survey. But that is not all. You get $2 for being the passive recipient of the survey. If you fill it out and send it back to the Corps of Engineers, they will send you another $10. That is much better than the odds in any of the multitude of sweepstakes we receive that say you may be a winner if you send it in, with odds of 100 billion to 1. Everybody gets the $2, and everybody who sends the survey in gets the additional $10. If they all answer, that is $144,000 of the taxpayers' money. Mr. President, both you and I are constantly on the backs of the corps to engage in constructive projects that really mean something for us. I am sure you have received the same reaction that I have, on a number of occasions, that ``We just don't have enough money to do that. You are going to have to appropriate more.'' Here is $144,000, plus the cost of the survey, designing it and totaling it up. That simply is a waste of money. Am I to believe that the Corps of Engineers is truly broke when it is littering mailboxes in my State with $2 bills and promises of more? Last night, when I was discussing this with a friend, he laughed and said that he had recently gotten a survey from Lexus about luxury automobiles. In dealing with automobiles that cost more than $35,000, Lexus promised that if you sent in the survey they would send you $1. Luxury automobiles, $1 per survey; the Corps of Engineers on removing dams, $12 per survey. This is just not the way in which to spend taxpayer money. This is not going to increase confidence in the way that our Government spends our money. This is such a totally outrageous use of the taxpayers' money that I cannot resist the temptation to make more than one set of remarks on the floor on the subject, so I can promise you, Mr. President, that I will be back next week to tell you what is in the survey. If you are shocked about free $2 bills and free $10 bills from your friendly neighborhood Corps of Engineers office, wait until you, as a Senator from Oregon, see the totally distorted way in which the corps seeks your views, completely stacked toward one set of answers to the questions rather than an objective survey. But that is for another time. For this morning, the sole remark is: Here is this Government agency, constantly crying poverty to us when we have constructive activities for it to engage in, dropping $2 bills in mailboxes across southeastern Washington, and maybe a part of Oregon, for all I know, and promising $10 more for 5 minutes' worth of work in filling out a phony survey. This is not the way we should be spending our taxpayers' money.

Mr. GORTON

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

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, half a century ago this year there were giants in the land. President Truman, followed by President Eisenhower, Senator Vandenberg in this body, others who first envisaged and passed the Marshall plan to secure economic freedom and prosperity in Western Europe and then to create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to provide physical security behind which the nations of Western Europe could build free and prosperous societies. Those giants were followed by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Members of this body who kept the faith--my predecessor, Scoop Jackson, from the State of Washington; Presidents down through and including Ronald Reagan and George Bush. And I come to the floor today astounded at opposition to this extension and to any other extension to free nations, so astounded that by comparison with those giants, I am reminded of Casius' description of Julius Caesar in Shakespeare's great play, when we are asked to live up to his description of: . . . we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves. Because of the vision of those men and those women and, for that matter, of the United States of America and our allies in Western Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization became the most successful single defense organization, security organization, in the history of the world. Its ultimate dreams came true both earlier and more completely than any of its founders could possibly have imagined when they put it together and brought the American people into it. It was a treaty that joined together not just allies in World War II, but joined those allies together with their principal enemies in World War II, Germany and Italy, in the feeling that if they were together, the kind of breakdown that took place in the years leading up to 1914 and, again, up to 1939 would be much less likely to take place. During that entire period of time, there was a line, a north-south line, through Central Europe: oppression and dictatorship and economic stagnation to the east; freedom, security and prosperity to the west. Not once in its most powerful days did the Soviet Union ever cross that line and not at all, incidentally--not once--during all those years did the Western powers with their military force cross that line to the east. It was a shield, a carapace behind which freedom could develop. But the dream of that freedom was not limited to those within the organization to the west of that line. It activated, it inspired men and women east of the line to be like the people of the West, to join the people of the West, tremendously costly to many of them. When the people of Hungary attempted to liberate themselves from that Soviet tyranny, they were brutally repressed by Soviet tanks. When the people of the Czech Republic, in the beginning of those years, attempted even a modest measure of freedom, they were repressed by Soviet tanks, and those tanks spent the better part of half a century in Poland absolutely to ensure that the liberty-loving people of Poland were not able to exercise that liberty or to have a government that was truly their own. Then wonder of wonders, in a very few short years, symbolized a little less than a decade ago by the destruction of the Berlin Wall, those nations and others became free nations. They began to realize their aspirations, and in the case of those three, each one, in a short period of time of less than a decade, has become a functioning democracy, has made a major beginning in reforming its armed services, has moved decisively in the direction of free markets and has begun the long, long journey to catch up with the West economically, but catch up with the West in spirit it has. What do those nations desire? They desire the security that history has never given them, that their own independent power has never given them. They desire to be a part of the West, lock, stock and barrel, and they see the essential element of being western to be members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They know, they have learned from history, that that membership, and that membership alone, will ensure that they can continue the freedom which is still so young in them and continue the move toward prosperity and toward Western institutions, and that we, who not only spent trillions of dollars in preserving the free world through our armed services, but hundreds of millions, billions of dollars in broadcasting to these countries the message of freedom and the, at least implicit and I think often explicit, promise that the day would come when they could be lock, stock and barrel a part of the West, are now asked by, hopefully, not much more than a handful of the Members in this body, to reject them, to say that somehow or another, there will be more security in a vacuum in Eastern and Central Europe than there will be with the very kind of precise line that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization drew so decisively and so successfully half a century ago. But nothing, Mr. President, nothing in the history of nations in this world indicates that a vacuum filled by small and weak powers can possibly be stable, can possibly be the object of anything other than irredentist aspirations on the part of one of the two nations that throughout its history has been the most aggressive in destroying the freedom of those countries. Germany, now totally integrated into the West, no longer a threat, but no longer a threat to France because they are joined together, and is soon to be no longer a threat to Poland or to Hungary or to the Czech Republic, because they will be joined together. The case for NATO expansion is simply overwhelming. It is stunning to me that we are so much as debating its desirability in this body and stunning to me that essentially the only reason for opposition to it is that the most truculent element left in Russia, its Duma, dominated by former Communists, those portions of its leadership that are most unwilling to give up what they have had previously, most desirous to restore the status quo ante-1989, will be offended if these countries are brought into alliance with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Mr. President, that is the best reason to join those countries with us. Far better to do it when there is no immediate threat from the East than when there is, when, I can assure you, the kind of opposition you have heard here today would be much louder than it is today. I think it is appropriate to go beyond the naming of these three nations. One of the most principled actions in American diplomatic history, in my view, was the absolute refusal for more than half a century on the part of the United States to recognize the Soviet conquest of the three Baltic republics. We, and almost we alone, continued to recognize their right to independence, and one can certainly make the proposition that it was the desire and the movement for independence in those three countries that was the immediate and proximate cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. I believe, Mr. President--I believe firmly--that any nation that adopts secure and democratic institutions, a free-market approach to its economy and a Western-oriented means of defense, has the right seriously to be considered in this part of Europe for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Personally, I believe that both Slovenia and Estonia have already met those qualifications. Other nations have not yet, though most of them strive in that direction. Again, to crush their aspirations, legitimate aspirations, aspirations that we have supported for more than half a century, by an arbitrary statement that they will not be considered for membership for a fixed period of time, no matter how successful they are, no matter how democratic they are, no matter how much they may be threatened by some future Russia in that period of time, is perverse and wrong and, even more significant, dangerous to the peace of Europe and to the peace of the world. A bright line is a much greater contributor to peace than a vague set of feelings or concerns or worries about the least regressive elements in Russian society. Just as a democratic and a free-market Germany appropriately became a pillar of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, so at some future date could a secure and stable and democratic and free-market Russia. I think that day is a long way off, much farther than I would like. But until that day, to say that others who have met those qualifications, who have had to live through occupation and repression from that country, should be left on their own flies in the face of all of the lessons of history that we have learned since the end of World War II. So, Mr. President, I believe that we should reject soundly the Warner-Moynihan pause proposal and enthusiastically and overwhelmingly adopt the resolution of ratification that we have before us. The cold war resulted in a victory for the ideals of the United States and its Western allies. And it should be consolidated by joining with it those who share those ideals, those who fought for those ideals, often to their very great detriment over the course of the last century. The position taken by my distinguished friend from Delaware is totally and entirely correct. I congratulate him for it. I am convinced that we should go forward boldly into the future with the greatest degree of confidence in the correctness of our cause and only in that fashion will we be worthy of our predecessors in this body who created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Mr. GORTON

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

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, last year the Senate approved the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997. I was the only Member to vote against this bill, not because I disagree with the premise of IDEA to ensure that children with special needs receive an education, but because its focus is so narrow it avoids entirely or interferes with the overall quality of education provided to all of our young people. This narrow focus also abrogates the rights of those who are closest to our children--their parents, teachers, school administrators and their elected school board members--to make judgments about how to provide the best possible education for the largest number of students. The new law, like the previous statute, proposes a series of largely unfunded mandates on every school district in the Nation. What Congress did was to say to each school district: We know what is best for you. We are going to tell you what to do and how to do it, but we won't pay the costs associated with our decisions. I was so frustrated by this attitude that Washington, DC, knows best, that last year I offered two amendments, one on school safety and the other on school funding. The two amendments were based on the same philosophy: Education policies are best determined by those closest to our children--their parents, teachers, principals and school boards. Their ability to teach kids and to create safe and conducive learning environments shouldn't be stifled by mandates from Congress or overregulation by the Department of Education. While the school safety amendment was narrowly defeated by only three votes, the Senate approved my amendment to send K through 12 funding directly to local school districts. In addition to giving local educators the authority to spend education funds on their priorities in their school districts, the amendment repealed hundreds of pages of regulations handed down by the Department of Education, placing the focus on teaching kids and not on endless paperwork. There is clearly significant support in the Senate for giving control of the schools back to parents, teachers, and locally elected school board members. Unfortunately, if the proposed regulations for the new IDEA are any indication, it seems that the Department of Education didn't get that message. Instead of reducing regulations, it has increased them. Instead of simply providing an interpretation of the new law, the Department ignores congressional intent and creates its own policies. The new regulations are more than 25,000 words longer than the old ones--a 71 percent increase in words about which to argue, litigate, and otherwise divert resources from educating kids. Instead, our teachers and principals will be saddled with the implementation of a more complex set of federally imposed requirements, some created by the Federal bureaucracy and never voted on by any Member of Congress. One special ed director told me, ``At least monthly, one of my staff tells me he or she is leaving special ed because of the paperwork.'' And another superintendent echoed that frustration when he wrote that, ``A process which is supposed to result in an education program . . . becomes a battleground on which procedures become more important than educational results.'' One district sent me the paperwork required just to start a child on special education programs. It is close to 40 feet long with one form pasted on to another. It is no wonder our educators are frustrated. I'm afraid that the new law, and most certainly the new regulations will not allow educators to focus on kids. Instead, they will have to focus on process and on ensuring that their district complies with myriad complex rules and procedures. Special ed teachers will continue to leave their profession in frustration; school districts will spend money on ensuring that ``I's'' are dotted and ``T's'' crossed to avoid litigation and kids won't receive the education they might otherwise receive in the absence of the regulations handed down by Washington DC bureaucrats. The 1997 amendments were developed in an unusual process in which the Department of Education had a seat at the table while the new law was being crafted. The Department knew where compromises were made, where Congress chose to act and where Congress intentionally remained silent. It is troubling, although perhaps not entirely unexpected, given the Department's past history, that the regulations seem to have turned into a vehicle for the Department to enact policies that it supports but that Congress specifically rejected. The proposed regulations include notes and previous policy letters, which instead of providing clarification, create new interpretations of the law. The Department of Education has also used these regulations to promote a particular approach to the provision of local services and to influence specific local educational decision making. These expansions beyond the Act not only continue the traditional federal overregulation in special education but also exceed the mission of the federal Department of Education in promoting or favoring a particular educational approach. All of this invites more litigation and less flexibility. The message these regulations send to each and every teacher and principal is that Washington DC doesn't trust you to do your job with care and compassion. Bureaucrats at the Department of Education are the best judge of what is necessary and appropriate at the local level and that uniform solutions can be applied to every situation. Who is more qualified to help our special needs students? Someone who dedicates each day to helping children learn? Or a faceless bureaucrat sitting behind a desk in Washington DC? Within the 110 pages of regulatory pronouncements there are literally hundreds of provisions of concern to the school districts in Washington state. There are simply too many to cover in the time I have on the floor, so I will focus on only a few issues. There is no other issue in IDEA as contentious as discipline procedures and there is no other area in regulation where the Department takes more liberty to act in defiance of Congressional intent. While I did not support the final provisions on discipline, they were the result of careful compromises on all sides--compromises in which the Department of Education was involved. Instead of honoring those agreements, the Department decided to legislate on its own. The Department decided that a child should be in an alternative education setting for no more than 10 school days in each school year. Congress based the length of a student's suspension on Honig v. Doe which allows a child to be placed in an alternative education setting or suspension for not more than 10 school days. Honig and thus the statute simply says 10 school days nothing more, nothing less. By overstepping its regulatory authority, the Department's proposal means that a young person with a few infractions during the school year such as smoking, cutting class, bad language and the like, could by the end of the school year commit the same minor infractions and be subject to no significant discipline or a very different one than his or her peers; and his or her peers would still be subject to the general rules established by the principal or school district. In effect we are telling these children, one set of rules applies to most kids and a very different, and much more lax set of rules applies to you. Once a child's disciplinary action exceeds the cumulative 10 days in a school year, the Department's regulations trigger a new array of requirements. Just a few disciplinary infractions within the 10 month school year could mean that a number of new, costly service and procedural requirements, including full educational services during suspension, IEP meetings, and assessment plans. The regulations also infer that a manifestation determination must be held for each infraction of school rules if the child has already exceeded this 10 school day limit--even if the misbehavior is relatively minor and would only result in a disciplinary action of one or two days. Schools would be forced to decide whether or not to pay for the costs of the manifestation determination or simply letting the behavior slide. This again has no legislative basis and will be especially burdensome for small school districts and those in rural areas that can't afford to keep specialists on staff in the event they might be needed. Additional proposed regulations, without legislative sanction, include the requirement of a decision within 10 days of the request for an expedited hearing. The Department also specifically discourages home bound placement except for medically fragile children, ignoring that under certain circumstances for safety, home bound instruction may be appropriate. Another note encourages returning a child who has been placed in an alternative placement for 45 days back to the classroom once behavior interventions are in place. It should be remembered, however, that the child was removed from his or her regular classroom because of dangerous behavior, either a weapons or drug violation, not simply the need to develop new remedies. Both the law and the regulations set an almost impossible standard for schools to meet in establishing requirements for this alternative educational placement. This placement must include services or modifications to address the original misbehavior so that it does not recur and the school must anticipate and provide modifications for any other behavior that would result in the child being removed from the regular education placement for more than 10 school days. One small school district with only 250 K-12 students had a student with a disability grab another student, put a saw to his neck and threaten to cut it off. Was the school district responsible for anticipating and preventing the outburst? The new regulations seem to imply that it would be. Additionally, nondisabled children can circumvent school disciplinary action by claiming a disability. A child or parent can come along after the fact and claim that the misbehavior was caused by a previously undiagnosed disability. Both the law and proposed regulations are so loosely structured that almost any noneligible child with a behavior problem can assert IDEA protections. What do all of these regulations mean for the classroom teacher and the children in our schools? One principal tells me that special education students brag to other students that the consequences of misbehavior do not apply to them. This will certainly continue to be the case under the new law and the regulations. In another small town in my state, one high school student with a learning disability brought a handgun into class. The gun discharged and a bullet passed through the leg of another student. After a review team determined the misconduct was not the result of the student's disabling condition, a one-year expulsion from school was initiated. The parents appealed, alleging the student's IDEA rights had been violated. The hearing officer ordered the continuation of educational services for the special education portion of the day. A tutorial program, off campus, was established to continue the child's special education services at substantial cost to the District. The new requirement to provide the full educational program would increase this cost four fold. Should the educational opportunities for other students be negatively impacted by redirecting $60,000 from other classrooms to pay for a tutorial program for a student who's behavior is not caused by their disability and who shoots another in class? If any of us here on the Senate floor were in the classroom and we were faced with a violent or disruptive child, how would we handle the situation? Would we rely on our years of classroom experience, or would we rely on a set of rules and regulations from Washington DC to guide us? Unfortunately, for every child and teacher in our country, the Department's proposed regulations result in an even more inflexible dual standard of discipline for students with disabilities, a standard that further sets them apart from other students and relieves them from responsibility for their own acts Because of its complexity and the provisions that make attorneys' fees a one way street for parents, IDEA is one of the most litigated of all federal statutes. Forbes magazine recently described it this way, ``Special ed has become the ambulance and lawyers are chasing it.'' Instead of ensuring that dollars stay focused on the classroom, the Department appears to encourage parents, through the policies it has developed in these regulations, to sue their school districts. Congress encouraged mediation, yet the department provides no regulatory ``guidance'' on mediation and in fact makes it easier for parents to get their lawyers fees paid for by encouraging states to enact laws allowing hearing officers to award attorneys' fees. The Department gives states new authority to order compensatory services and eliminates the administrative appellate option of Secretary-level federal review from current regulations. All of these changes are without legislative foundation. Again, little to no consideration has been given to the impact these regulations and the enormous costs that will most certainly accompany them will have on the education of all children in the school district. Overwhelmingly each school district I have heard from is concerned about the implementation date. Under the proposed regulations Individual Educational Plans for every child must comply with the new law and new requirements by July 1, 1998. Since most IEPs are reviewed on an annual basis, IEPs developed for a full year of services would be invalidated. School districts will have virtually no time between issuance of the final regulations and the July 1 implementation date to involve regular education teachers and to consider the many new IEP factors. For school districts with thousands of IEPs the tasks of revising each IEP according to the final regulations will be impossible by July 1, 1998. The imposition of a July 1 implementation date for all IEPs places all school districts in a position of massive potential financial liability. Administrative and judicial complaints concerning any service contained in a non-complying IEP that was developed to meet the requirements of the new regulations will likely result in major financial judgments against the nation's schools. This is by no means an exhaustive list of Washington state concerns. There are many other areas where the Department defies Congressional intent such as, the promotion of extended year services, or the Department's unilateral expansion of the definition of related services to include travel training, nutrition services and independent living. There are just simply too many to mention all of them here. The few I have mentioned are merely examples of the attitude that is pervasive at the Department of Education--we know better than local parents, teachers, principals and elected school board members. In most organizations the philosophies of its leader sets the standard for its employees. The Department of Education is no exception. In last year's state of education address, Secretary Riley speaking about national testing said that we should not ``cloud our childrens' future with silly arguments about federal government intrusion''. I can guarantee you, that to the thousands of schools that must comply with the rules, regulations, paperwork and direction from Washington DC laid down by these regulations the argument about federal government intrusion is far from silly. To add insult to injury, the administration apparently believes that school districts coffers are brimming with cash to implement the new regulations and absorb the associated costs. Clearly, no thought has been given to the impact on the education of the children in the school district or to minimizing the growing adversarial relationship between special education and regular education. The Department's regulations certainly demonstrate that indifference, but the President's budget request may be the most telling. This year, if the President has his way, the per child federal contribution for special education will actually go down. Further, the administration acknowledges that its proposed funded level represents a federal contribution of merely 9 percent of the excess costs of educating kids under IDEA. If the Administration wants to tell local schools how to run their special ed programs, the President and his Administration should have the common decency to adequately fund those demands. Contrary to what the Department of Education seems to believe, the 1997 Amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act were not a vehicle for empowering the federal bureaucracy to enact its own laws. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind the Department of a law Congress passed in 1996, the Small Business Growth and Fairness Act, which includes a provision giving Congress the authority to review and disprove each and every new regulation promulgated by the federal agencies. I am told that the Secretary is working with the committees of jurisdiction regarding the proposed regulations and I hope that process results in substantial improvement. Otherwise, I'm afraid the final regulations will be so onerous that Congress will have no choice but to ask the Department to start over again. Mr. President, I simply state that the law itself was detailed enough and bad enough in its centralization. The regulations are considerably worse. Once again, Mr. President, I could roll this out here on the floor. This is the set of forms required of a school district for a single disabled student. It is close to 40 feet in length. This is what we have done to our schoolchildren, to our teachers, and to our school districts. It's wrong. We aren't paying for it and we have to reform here, not in the school districts.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Gramm- Gorton amendment which modifies Section 1116(d), the Trade Corridor and Border Crossing Planning provision. This amendment will improve the criteria for receiving funds under this section and ensure that these funds are best utilized. The U.S. economy depends on the efficient flow of goods, and the federal government has realized that bottlenecks at U.S. ports are a national concern. The Ports of Seattle and Tacoma are the second largest load center in the United States, with more than 70 percent of their cargo traveling to or from points outside the Puget Sound region. Congestion around these ports can cause significant delays which are not acceptable in today's just-in-time high-technology economy. As a major gateway to Asia, Washington state serves as a major export and import hub for trans-Pacific trade. By 2015 Asia is expected to comprise 45% of the world population, and a significant amount of the goods traveling to and from this region will pass through Washington state ports, both land and sea. As the volume of trade grows, rail, truck, and air traffic will increase proportionally. Mr. President, as anyone who has driven in the Puget Sound region will attest, it is no joy to travel the I-5 or I-405 during rush hour. While the Sound and Lake Washington add so much of the beauty to this unique region, they also form geographical barriers that limit transportation options. These two bodies of water necessitate narrow transportation corridors, much like a funnel, that create massive congestion problems. When you add in freight traffic of trucks and trains, you have a serious situation that requires a serious solution. Local officials have recognized the severity of the transportation problems of the region and have developed the Freight Action Strategy for the Seattle-Tacoma Corridor (FAST Corridor) to address these needs. The FAST Corridor project identifies choke points from Everett to Tacoma that both hinder freight mobility and increase traffic congestion. Solutions to these problems will take a comprehensive effort encompassing federal, state, local, and private interests. The region is prepared to address these problems, and is awaiting assistance at the federal level to meet the daunting challenge of improving freight mobility and automobile traffic. The explosive projected growth in the Northwest, coupled with pressing infrastructure needs can only be mitigated by this cooperative effort which I look forward to facilitating.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill to grant a waiver to the Jones Act to a vessel named the Vesterhavet owned by Brett Snow. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill to grant a waiver to the Jones Act to a vessel named the Vesterhavet owned by Brett Snow. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the 14th amendment to the Constitution of the United States relevant to this discussion reads ``nor shall any State deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'' There was over an extended period of time a debate in the Supreme Court as to whether or not that equal protection clause, applicable by its terms only to States, applied as well to the Federal Government. The Supreme Court has decided that question essentially in the affirmative simply by stating that the fifth amendment to the Constitution, through its due process clause, incorporates the philosophy identical to the equal protection clause in the 14th amendment. The next debate is over whether or not a nonmember of a minority has the ability to claim discrimination by reason of a provision like the one that is at issue here today. The Supreme Court in the Adarand case, a case already discussed at length during the course of this debate, says, ``The principle of consistency simply means that whenever the Government treats any person unequally because of his or her race, that person has suffered an injury that falls squarely within the language and the spirit of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.'' Finally, with respect to this provision here, the Court in that case said, ``It follows from that principle that all governmental action based on race, a group classification, long recognized as in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibited, should be subjected to detailed judicial inquiry to ensure that the personal right to equal protection of the laws has not been infringed. A free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality should tolerate no retreat from the principle that government may treat people differently because of their race only for the most compelling reasons. Accordingly, we hold today that all racial classifications imposed by whatever Federal, State, or local governmental action must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny. In other words, such classifications are constitutional only if they are narrowly tailored measures that further compelling government interests.'' As against that, what do we have here? The heart of the amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky strikes a section identical to the present law that says, ``Except to the extent that the Secretary determines, otherwise not less than 10 percent of the amounts made available for any program under titles I and II of this Act shall be expended with small business concerns owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.'' The dual statutory definition of ``disadvantaged'' deals with sex and with racial minorities. Mr. President, I do not see that it can seriously be maintained that a national quota stating ``no less than 10 percent'' can possibly be justified under that Supreme Court language granting neutral equal protection of the laws of the United States to every single individual. Clearly, the Supreme Court allowed a case-by-case evaluation of disfavored classes, mostly racial minorities, to determine whether or not they had suffered discrimination and, therefore, required specific aid in order to catch up and to be put on an equal plane. But nothing in the portion of this bill which the McConnell amendment would strike speaks to that kind of consideration. It simply says that all of those not defined as disadvantaged in our society are absolutely barred and prohibited from getting certain governmental contracts. Once again, I read from the Supreme Court decision. ``A free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality should tolerate no retreat from the principle that government may treat people differently because of their race only for the most compelling reasons.'' Not only are there no compelling reasons in this section of this bill, there are no reasons at all. Simply 10 percent of contracts are barred from being awarded to any person outside this disfavored class. Is it any wonder that the district court on remand summarily entered judgment in favor of the plaintiff in that case? Of course. There is no possible way of finding this statute to be constitutional. That district court opinion is now on appeal in the 10th circuit, I understand. It is possible that the ensuing decision may again be appealed to the Supreme Court. I would give 20-to-1 odds that the Supreme Court will simply deny certiorari since the conclusion is so obvious. This does not mean that the sponsors of this bill could not have written in this bill a narrowly tailored specific set of preferences for people against whom specific discriminatory actions had been taken, tailoring it to meet the very requirements of the Constitution laid down by the Supreme Court in a decision, the result of which, it seems to me, was obvious. But, Mr. President, the sponsors of this bill did not do that. Whatever excuse the authors of the previous proposal 5 years ago may have had, the authors of this bill had none. They know what is required in order to discriminate. They ignored the views of the Supreme Court. And they say, we don't care, we are going to continue this flat quota. This is not the affirmative action about which we have been having a legitimate debate over whether or not there ought to be certain forms of assistance provided to disadvantaged people. This is a debate about the most explicit quota one can possibly imagine and it is simply irresponsible for us to continue. If the sponsors of the bill do not like the specific proposal that is substituted for this quota, proposed by Senator McConnell, fine. Let them come up with one that meets constitutional muster. I think they can. It is just that they have simply not done so to this point. Mr. President, the preceding speaker has talked about what the advantages of the present system have been, in a simple case. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record correspondence from a general contractor, Frank Gurney, Inc., in Spokane, WA.

Mr. GORTON. This illustrates what happened in the real world. It includes a half dozen responses to this small business company with respect to contract submissions in which it was the low bidder, in which the general contractor says, we would like to have picked you, we would have saved money for the taxpayers had we picked you, but we cannot pick you because of absolute orders from the Department of Transportation because of a quota system. Ironically, the winning high bidders in several of these contracts are larger business enterprises than is Frank Gurney, Inc., with a longer history. The net result is fewer roads are built and improved in order to provide contracts for people less disadvantaged than the low bidder. That is the real world impact of what we have done here. The Senator from Kentucky knows that we have certain disagreements over what the affirmative language in his amendment should have included. I would have done it somewhat differently. But I am here because I believe that the fundamental approach he has taken to strike an express percentage racial quota is not only the only appropriate response under the Constitution but is the only appropriate, just response in a society based on the proposition that people deserve equal treatment and only equal treatment. Mr. President, it seems to me that this is an open-and-shut case. We should repeal the sections to be stricken here. If a majority of this body believes in a form of affirmative action, then it should devise a form of affirmative action that meets the strict-scrutiny standards set down by the Supreme Court and does not include a quota system that is entirely unrelated to whether or not its beneficiaries have ever suffered any discrimination whatsoever.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, last week, when I was first informed of the proposal by the Senator from New Jersey, I was torn. I agreed totally with his philosophy, but I also have a great deal of respect for the States and for their legislatures that, of course, have full jurisdiction over this problem. Many States have acted, and other States are in the process of acting. Over the weekend, however, I ceased to be pulled in two separate directions on this subject by a remarkable article directly on point in the Sunday Seattle Times. I would like to share with my colleagues some of that article. Then at the end, I will place the entire news story in the Record. The news story was on a great success story in American society, the reduction in automobile deaths. While it deals with the State of Washington, I am certain that it is of relatively universal application, to a greater or lesser extent, all across the United States. An early paragraph in the article reads: The numbers are clear: The state's roads are not just a little safer in the 1990s than in decades past, they're much safer. You're a lot less likely to be in an accident than in earlier times. And if you are in one, you're less likely to be seriously injured or killed. Last year, there were 1.3 deaths for every 100 million miles driven on Washington's roads and highways. In 1953, as far back as comparable statistics are available, the figure was four times higher--at 5.1 deaths per 100 million miles. Incidentally, Mr. President, 1953 was the year in which I moved to the State of Washington straight out of school. So our roads are now four times safer than they were in 1953. The article goes on to speak about causes for this remarkable social success, and says: Dr. Fred Rivara, director of Harborview Medical Center's Injury Prevention and Research Center, says the long-term improvement is ``clearly due to a combination of a lot of factors''--safer cars, high seat-belt use, air bags, a gradual reduction in drunken driving, construction of interstate highways and improved trauma care for the seriously injured. Moffat, of the Traffic Safety Commission, identifies freeway construction as ``the single most significant safety factor'' because interstates are roughly three times as safe as other roads and city streets. . . . They go on to say--and it is relevant directly to the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey-- With the freeways built, the traffic-safety focus shifted to drunken driving and the simple defensive measure of encouraging drivers to use their seatbelts. ``Organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving deserve a lot of credit for bringing that about,'' says Rivara. ``They succeeded in changing public attitudes about drunk driving.'' One result has been a renewed effort in Olympia to pass tougher drunken-driving laws. One bill would lower the blood- alcohol concentration for driving under the influence to 0.08 percent from 0.10 percent. . . . Precisely what the Senator from New Jersey proposes. The state's death rate essentially has remained at its record-low level for the past six years. Further improvement will require a renewed focus on drunken drivers and seat-belt use, Moffat says, because at this stage ``belts and booze are the secrets of success.'' Figures from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration clearly indicate part of the problem. Nationwide, alcohol played a role in about 41 percent of traffic deaths in 1996. . . . In California, the figure was 40 percent and in Oregon, 42 percent. But in Washington, alcohol was involved in fully half of all traffic fatalities. Furthermore, NHTSA figures show that the influence of alcohol in traffic deaths hasn't dropped nearly as much in Washington as it has nationally or in California and Oregon. Moffat, a Seattle policeman for 25 years before moving to the Traffic Safety Commission in 1995, is convinced that tougher drunken-driving laws are the key to safer roads. Oregon and California both have them, and they work, he says. Moffat estimates that similar legislation here would cut fatalities by at least 10 percent. ``What that means in real terms is 70 fewer deaths'' each year, he says. Now, Mr. President, that, in one State, is what we are discussing here in this amendment. In the State of Washington, with roughly 2 percent of the population of the United States of America, approximately 70 fewer traffic deaths per year. Now, that figure may be smaller in some States that already have the .08 standard. I suspect it may be larger in those whose drunken-driving laws are less significantly enforced. But, Mr. President, this brings it down to the basic level of individual deaths in individual parts of our country. I found that article to be overwhelmingly persuasive. I trust that the legislature of my State will in fact pass a law which is now halfway through the legislative process. But to encourage strongly, to encourage every State to do exactly the same thing is the key to fewer traffic deaths. We are not dealing with unknowns here. We are not dealing with predictions. We are dealing with now a history, a history of more than 40 years of keeping track of traffic deaths in my State, a four-times reduction in traffic deaths. And now we have an opportunity to reduce them by another 10 percent, perhaps more than 10 percent through this action. It is, Mr. President, action that we ought to take and ought to take promptly. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the entire news article printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON. Yes.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I introduce the American Indian Equal Justice Act and ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I introduce the American Indian Equal Justice Act and ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, today I am introducing S. 1683, legislation to transfer approximately 23 acres of land from the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area to the Wenatchee National Forest. This legislation is supported by both the National Park Service and the United States Forest Service, and would end a 10-year ordeal for my constituent, Mr. George C. Wall. Mr. Wall has been trying since 1987 to shift his 23 acres from the Recreation Area to the National Forest in order to more effectively manage his entire 168 plot of land. S. 1683 is non-controversial and I hope this body will approve it as expeditiously as possible.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, today I am introducing S. 1683, legislation to transfer approximately 23 acres of land from the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area to the Wenatchee National Forest. This legislation is supported by both the National Park Service and the United States Forest Service, and would end a 10-year ordeal for my constituent, Mr. George C. Wall. Mr. Wall has been trying since 1987 to shift his 23 acres from the Recreation Area to the National Forest in order to more effectively manage his entire 168 plot of land. S. 1683 is non-controversial and I hope this body will approve it as expeditiously as possible.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on Tuesday March 3 entitled ``Market Power and Structural Change in the Software Industry.'' As most of my colleagues know, I am deeply concerned that the true aim of this hearing is not to improve the software industry, but to attack Microsoft and to give the federal government more control over the future of this company. If my suspicions are correct, this attack is not, as some may argue, an attempt to protect the American consumer, but rather, a concerted effort to handcuff Microsoft and provide its competitors with an opportunity to play catch-up that their competitive merits have not provided them in a free market. In a recent interview with Salon, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, my friend and colleague Senator Hatch, announced that his committee will release a report the morning of the hearing detailing its findings from an in-depth investigation of Microsoft. That report, no doubt, will claim that Microsoft is engaging in anti-competitive business practices. Releasing such a report only minutes before Bill Gates is scheduled to testify before the committee, without giving him adequate time to read and respond to its allegations, would be grossly unfair. I raised these concerns with the committee and was assured that the report would not be released before Mr. Gates has an opportunity to testify. I trust that my friend Senator Hatch will stand by his word and do what is fair and right. Witnesses at the hearing include some of the biggest players in the high-tech industry: Bill Gates, Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems, Jim Barksdale of Netscape, Michael Dell of Dell Computer, and Doug Burgum of Great Plains. These men and their colleagues in the high-tech industry are responsible for the technological revolution that has taken place in America. Twenty years ago, computers were hulking, outrageously expensive, inefficient machines accessible to only the wealthiest corporations. Today, personal computers are in virtually every business and in many homes and schools. This is the modern day version of the Industrial Revolution. Not only are the men and women of the hi-tech industry properly credited with allowing businesses to run more efficiently, making information on virtually any subject imaginable accessible to anyone with a PC and a modem, and providing our schools with increasingly effective learning tools, they are also responsible for the amazing pace of economic growth the United States has witnessed over the past 20 years. The computer software industry has grown more than seven times faster than the U.S. economy as a whole, and today provides 600,000 good paying jobs to Americans across the nation. Indirectly, thousands more jobs are provided through subcontractors and small businesses serving these corporations and their employees. Industry revenues totaled $253 billion last year. Clearly, Mr. President, the software industry is the quintessential American success story with Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and Netscape at the helm. The women and men responsible for these amazing achievements should be congratulated and thanked for their contribution to a better, smarter, richer America. But, Mr. President, the high-technology industry achieved these successes in a free market environment from which government was virtually absent. Government, of course, always lags behind commerce. When Bill Gates first developed what has today become the world's most popular personal computer operating system, the government didn't even know what an operating system was. When Jim Barksdale invented software enabling the average person to surf the web, the government was nowhere to be found. When Scott McNealy began marketing his Java system products government regulators did not place limits on his business opportunities. In fact, I would venture to say that the very corporations attacking Microsoft's successes are those that have gained the most from the absence of government interference in their businesses. But these companies, in their lust to gain a competitive advantage over Microsoft, are now advocating the unthinkable--big government intervention in the industry. According to an article in the Financial Times last week, Scott McNealy wants the big hand of government to step in and help his company compete with Microsoft. Mr. McNealy is quoted as announcing to a group of software industry executives in Silicon Valley that, ``only with government intervention will we be able to deal with this,'' this meaning competition from Microsoft. Many other unsuccessful corporate executives, Mr. President, have to come to Congress to petition for government interventions to save them from successful competitors. Only rarely, however, do members of my political party entertain those suggestions. But unfortunately, a member of this body from this side of the aisle, the party known for its embrace of free market principles and rejection of big-government solutions, has joined Mr. McNealy in his efforts not only in calling for a hearing on the matter, but in proposing an entirely new Federal regulatory agency, a ``network commerce commission'' to regulate online commerce. I am flabbergasted. It is truly a strange day when business speaks out against free enterprise and promotes big government. It goes against the grain. Sun Microsystems, Netscape and Novell, Microsoft's biggest detractors, are envious of Microsoft's success. Instead of doing business the old fashioned way and marshaling their forces for competition, they are going in a different, more dangerous direction. They are crying for help from big government in order to protect them from their more successful competitor. The anti-market forces led by Netscape, Sun Microsystems, and Novell are amassing in a dangerous attempt to pilfer the market share Microsoft has earned by being a leader in the industry, always out in front of the pack with new ideas and solutions. Adam Smith must be turning over in his grave, Mr. President. For it is precisely the absence of government intervention that has allowed all of these corporations to succeed. Competition has made this country great. America did not become the biggest economic power in the world through government regulation. And those nations that chose the path of government control of the economy are in a shambles today in almost direct proportion to the breadth of those controls. When you consider the impact that centralized control in Washington, D.C. has had on our nation's schools and the federal income tax code, I must admit that I'm amazed that anyone in the computer software industry would be calling out for more regulation, influence and decision-making from Washington, D.C. Let's consider how the Federal Government's gradual taking of authority from parents, teachers and school boards for education decisions has impacted children in our local schools. Test scores are falling, embittered educators are spending more time filling out forms than teaching our children, and schools are more dangerous than ever in the past. Instead of new ideas and new solutions to these problems, Washington, D.C. bureaucrats are capable of only one answer to these challenges-- more power for Washington, D.C. to decide how our local schools should be run. I ask my colleagues--based on the current state of public education in America, do you really think that Washington, D.C. bureaucrats know better than parents, teachers and locally-elected school boards what's best for the schools in your state? I believe that people in local communities know what's best for their children and their schools, not Washington, D.C. bureaucrats. I believe the same for the computer software industry. Knowing how the burdensome hand of the federal government has impacted our local schools, why would anyone in the software industry ask to have Washington, D.C. play a more burdensome role in the future of their industry? Another example of how centralized decision-making has hurt American life is the Federal income tax code. Instead of a simple, fair tax code in place to fund necessary Government programs, the tax code has become a social-engineering mechanism empowering Washington, D.C. to decide which activities in society should be rewarded, and which activities should be punished. More importantly, our complicated, messy tax code simply gives more control over our daily lives to Washington, D.C. bureaucrats in virtually every Federal Government agency. I ask my friends in the computer software industry--based on how warmly the American people have embraced the current tax code and the Internal Revenue Service, how could you possibly want the same federal government that created the tax monster to take a more powerful role in your business? Further, I find it troubling that the request for government intervention has come not from the American consumer, whom our antitrust laws were designed to protect, but from Microsoft's competitors. The consumer has benefited greatly from Microsoft's innovations and the innovations of its competitors. Bill Gates, summed it up best in a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal: If you asked customers whom they would rather have deciding what innovations go into their computer--the government or software companies--the answer would be clear. They'd want the decision left to the marketplace, with competition driving improvements. I vow today to do my best to ensure that consumers get exactly that. Microsoft is the American dream, arrived at through hard work and innovation. I want to assure my colleagues that I will not stand by and allow Bill Gates' adversaries to destroy the principles upon which this nation's success is based. I urge those of you who value the free market to join me in my fight against those who want the Federal Government to gain further control over the computer software industry. Big government is not now, has never been, and will never be the answer.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I think I do understand the Senator's feelings on that. I was simply asking whether she is exempting the television stations because she thinks she is required to by the first amendment.