T. Gorton

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, yesterday afternoon, less than 24 hours ago, in introducing this resolution, the distinguished minority manager of the bill, the Senator from New Jersey, had behind him a long and detailed chart from which he read all of the initiatives of his party, all of the spending programs of his party, that were a part of this budget resolution and were the justification for Members of his party who favored those spending programs to vote for and to support this resolution. Mr. President, some of those proposals were also Republican proposals with which a number of us on this side of the aisle agree. Many of them however were not. Many of them represent Government spending with which we disagree, which we think is wasteful, money that we think ought to be returned to the people of the United States. Nevertheless, we support the budget resolution and those spending programs because this resolution also provides tax relief for the American people and does overall reduce the rate of growth in Government spending. As a consequence, Mr. President, this is not a Republican budget resolution here today. This is a resolution the outlines of which were agreed to by the Republican leadership in both Houses, by the Democratic leadership in this body and the President of the United States. We have before us an amendment, however, that totally and completely breaches that set of agreements. It adds $30 billion in taxes on the backs of the American people. It adds $20 billion in spending programs on to the backs of the American people, in spite of the fact that the resolution itself includes $16 billion for health care for young people in our society. I have a copy of the amendment, Mr. President. Nothing in the amendment talks about tobacco taxes or child health care. It simply is three pages of increased spending and increased taxes --nothing more and nothing less. It is a total breach of the agreement made by the Democratic leadership, a total breach of the agreement made by the President of the United States. And bluntly, Mr. President, those of us on this side of the aisle, who felt constrained to agree to this budget agreement because it was bipartisan, expect the support for the resolution in its original form without increased taxes and without increased spending to be supported as eloquently and as strongly on the other side of the aisle as it is on this side of the aisle.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am proud to be a cosponsor of Senator Hagel's legislation commemorating the 15th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Senate Resolution 87. His resolution is a fitting tribute not only to the wall itself, but to the 58,196 American men and women who gave their lives for this country in Southeast Asia or who are still missing nearly 20 years after the conclusion of the war. The memorial, the names of Americans killed and missing engraved in its marble edifice, is an eery reminder of the sacrifice made by so many young men and women for a cause many here at home disputed. Nearly 9 million Americans served in Vietnam. Their valor in war was too often greeted with disrespect upon their return home. That is why the Vietnam Veterans Memorial plays such an important role in honoring the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers who served in an unpopular war at a tumultuous time in American history. While the memorial's design was at first controversial, it has become an important aspect of the National Mall in Washington, DC, visited by tens of thousands of tourists every year. For those whose loved ones perished in Vietnam, it is an opportunity to see firsthand, that their friends or relatives will be revered and remembered for a long time to come. For those who were not touched personally by the war, the memorial is a chance to understand and experience Vietnam. And for all Americans, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a lesson about the dangers of war and the bravery, character, and patriotism of the men and women of our Armed Forces. On this, the 15th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Senator Hagel's resolution is a timely and appropriate way to honor all those who served in Vietnam. I am proud, Mr. President, to be an original cosponsor.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, as we are going back and forth, I will take a very few moments and then yield to one of my Democratic colleagues, so I yield such time as I may use. Mr. President, the parentage of this successful budget resolution is ardently sought by many. Only failure is an orphan. In this case--I hope not to drive the metaphor too far--I believe that many properly may claim parentage of the resolution that is before us here. In the decade and a half during which I have served in the U.S. Senate, this budget resolution marks two firsts. It is the first resolution that genuinely will yield us, when passed and enforced, to a balanced budget, to a situation in which we will no longer be piling debt upon debt on the backs of our children and our grandchildren. It is also, remarkably, the first budget resolution during that period of time that seems likely to pass with significant majorities in favor of it from both political parties. As I look back on the history that has led to this point, I reflect on the fact that members of the Democratic Party and the President of the United States can claim some credit in moving in this direction for the highly controversial resolution that they proposed and passed without any support from the Republican Party some 4 years ago. Our predictions that that resolution would have dire consequences did not, in fact, turn out to be the case. We may still believe that a different course of action would have had even better results, but, obviously, at this point we cannot prove that. The Senator from New Jersey has already spoken to that proposition. At the same time, 2 years later, when the Republicans became a majority in both the House and in the Senate, we passed and attempted to enforce a budget resolution more dramatic even than the one that is before us today, with its reform of entitlement programs, its securing of Medicare for many, many years to come, and in the tax relief that it provided for the American people. Ultimately, the enforcing mechanism for that budget resolution was successfully vetoed by President Clinton, but, nonetheless, it charted a new and different course of action for the American economy and especially for the way in which the Congress and the President determined spending and taxing priorities. Before the President vetoed the results of that budget resolution, he had, for the first time, committed himself to balancing the budget. I think, again, many Members of this side discounted that commitment, as we believed that it was not carried out by the policies that he recommended pursuant to his commitment to a balanced budget. But nevertheless, the debate then became not whether to balance the budget but how. That debate, a debate separating the two political parties, continued until just a short few weeks ago. At that point, the President, the leaders of the Republican Party in both the House and the Senate, with the assent of much of the Democratic leadership, reached an agreement, not only on the ultimate goal but on the means by which to reach that goal, and it is some of the details of that agreement which, after further negotiation, are a part of the budget resolution that is before us this afternoon. The Senator from New Jersey has outlined many of the elements of this budget resolution which he believes meet the agenda of his party and of the President of the United States. Ours on this side may be fewer, but we think they may be more profound. We have reached the goal we have sought without wavering and without compromise: of a resolution that would, in real terms, promise a balance to the Federal budget with lower interest rates, with a fiscal dividend that that would bring with it. And we are now right at the edge of meeting that goal. We have succeeded in crafting a budget resolution and getting agreement to a budget resolution which will provide real genuine tax relief for the American people, for American families with children, for farmers and small businessmen, and estate tax relief, for investors and for job creators in the realm of capital gains, and we have also succeeded, at least modestly, in getting agreement to the beginnings of certain reforms in the entitlement programs, which are almost exclusively responsible for spending increases each and every year for decades that outpaced both inflation and the growth of our economy. Government will not grow as a result of this resolution at anything like the rapidity it would have grown without it. The distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, the Senator from New Mexico, has, in this illustration, shown what happens with respect to the budget deficit, even including the tax relief that is an integral part of this resolution today. So we will have more modest spending than would otherwise have been the case. We will have tax relief for the American people. We will have a balanced budget due to the diligence of the distinguished Senator from New Mexico and the broad support he has from his own party, due to the eloquence and hard work of the majority leader, the Senator from Mississippi, and the wonderful relationship he and the Senator from New Mexico created for one another, due to the hard work of many members of the Democratic Party and of the President and his advisers, and perhaps not least in all of the credit that should be given here in the parenting of this budget resolution would go to those outsiders led by the Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Chafee] and the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Breaux] who last year created a bipartisan budget resolution, with all of the elements that this one has--some to a more dramatic extent than this one has--and came within four votes of carrying that resolution on the floor of this U.S. Senate, even though they were opposed by the leadership in both parties and by the President of the United States. Many of the elements of their proposal are included today, but they blazed the trail for a degree of bipartisan cooperation that had not previously existed. So for my part at least, Mr. President, I am delighted to give credit where credit is due and to say that credit is extremely widely spread. I trust that after listening to the debate today and tomorrow--I hope not longer than that--that the resolution that is before us will not have been significantly changed by amendment, that it will be passed by a very substantial bipartisan majority, a majority of both parties, and that it will then be properly carried out and properly enforced by all of those who have supported it, for which the Congress and the President will deserve credit and thanks from the people of the United States, both for their responsibility and for having created the opportunities for greater economic growth and greater prosperity for the people of the United States. Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, from the time that I first became involved in national politics, it has seemed to me that, for mature adults, under most circumstances, the law was not an appropriate method of determining what are ultimately moral choices for the people most intimately involved with those choices. I believe that my views probably reflect those of a majority of the American people who believe that this should be a matter of an individual woman's choice and that of close family--under most cases. But, Mr. President, when we talk about late-term abortion and when we speak specifically about partial-birth abortion, we are not dealing with most cases. I think it is clear that the majority of the American people, as they have come increasingly to understand exactly what this procedure is, are horrified by it. I have been disturbed by the nature of this debate, by the intentional deceit and misinformation about the frequency and necessity of this practice. Only recently, have the opponents of this ban have admitted ``lying through their teeth'' about the facts on the number of partial-birth abortions performed and grounds for this horrific procedure. It is clear, Mr. President that this practice is not necessary. Just last week, the American Medical Association Board of Trustees said there is ``no identified situation'' that requires the use of this procedure and as of yesterday, endorsed this bill. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists state that there are ``no circumstances under which this procedure would be the only option to save the life of the mother''. This is a practice that is not compassionate, nor is it within the bounds of civilized or humane behavior. My colleagues have described it in detail, and I don't need to repeat that detail. But I do think that it is significant that those who oppose this bill generally speaking, talk in circumlocution, disguise the language, resist and object not only to a description of the procedure itself, but even to the title- partial-birth abortion. They speak about slippery slopes rather than the procedure itself and attempt to avoid the true brutality and extreme nature of the procedure. It is simple, this procedure is brutal, inhumane and clearly unnecessary. This vote will be a defining issue about our own society, about our feelings for indifference to brutality, about violence, about uncivilized, inhumane behavior. For all of those reasons, Mr. President, I am convinced that we should pass the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and I deeply hope that a sufficient majority of my colleagues will vote to do that.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Yes.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, this bill is a clear improvement over present law. Nevertheless, it remains a $35 billion per year almost totally unfunded mandate on the school districts of our country. It takes away control over quality of education that they can provide and, regrettably, in spite of the fact that it is a slight improvement, I am constrained to vote against it.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, in a recent article in the National Review, the author, Chester Finn, Jr., made the following comments about the present statute equally applicable to this bill. . . . prescriptive federal mandates that create heavy costs and regulatory burdens for local communities; extra benefits for government-protected populations and their exemption from rules that others must obey; ample opportunities for activists and lawyers to hustle taxpayer-financed largesse for their clients; barriers to needed reforms of school quality and discipline; . . . [and above all] the smug assumption that Washington knows best how the nation's schools should be run. While various professional organizations have more or less been required to endorse this bill because, as I have already said, it is an improvement over present law, just last month, USA Today published the results of a poll of 6,000 principals, 80 percent of whom said Federal law interfered with their ability to create safe schools. My two friends on this side of the aisle used the word ``balance.'' There is no balance in this bill. There is no balance at all. There is no consideration--no consideration, none--of the rights of nondisabled students. Yes, there are 16,000 school districts in this country. That is the genius of our country, that we solve our problems locally, and yet as far as these are concerned, we should have one school district, one Department of Education that should set one set of rules applicable to everyone under all circumstances and at all times. That is wrong. Let our teachers and our principals and our school boards make the decisions as to how their schools should be operated. If all time has been taken on the other side, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the amendment which we are about to vote on is extremely simple, plain, easy to understand and totally logical. It reads in its entirety: Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, each State educational agency or local educational agency may establish and implement uniform policies with respect to discipline and order applicable to all children within its jurisdiction to ensure the safety and appropriate educational atmosphere in its schools. Mr. President, I have spoken about the fact that this bill imposes a huge unfunded mandate, $35 billion a year, on the schools of this country with no more than 10 percent of that money paid for by the Federal Government. I have spoken of the huge complexity--327 pages in this bill-- imposing identical rules on every school district in the country no matter how large or how small. But the single aspect of this bill that is most questionable and most unjust is the double standard it sets with respect to discipline, response to violence, disorder in the classroom. Each and every school district retains its full and complete authority over all of these questions as they apply to students who are not disabled. They lose almost all of that authority under the present IDEA statute and regain only a modest amount of it under this revision. This double standard makes it difficult to provide an appropriate education to tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of our students around the country. They make it difficult to impose rational disciplinary measures on those students who are denominated disabled. They create a tremendous incentive to seek some ``expert'' who will provide for a given student the title ``disabled.'' We find the decisions that the very disorder, the very violence in classrooms that is to be the subject of discipline is found to be evidence of disability so that the discipline cannot be imposed. For the educational attainment of all of our students, for the proper protection of all of our students, we should allow each school, each school district, each State to set rules with respect to disorder, to discipline, to violence that are the same for all of the students. Nothing could be simpler. This amendment will not in any way undercut the right created by this bill for a free and complete education for every student, disabled or not. That remains. What is restored to each school district is the right on its own to make those decisions while looking at the educational atmosphere in which all of its students must learn. The vice of this bill is that it pretends that there are no nondisabled students, only the disabled students count, only their rights count. The rights of all other students and their parents are ignored. So we ask very simply that this bill be amended to allow each educational agency to establish and implement uniform policies with respect to discipline and order applicable to all children within its jurisdiction in order that they may be safe and have an appropriate educational atmosphere--nothing more, nothing less. This bill says that the U.S. Senators know more about how to educate students than do their teachers, their administrators, their school board members, people who have spent their lives and careers at this job. We do not know more. They know more. We should permit them to do their jobs. Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside and that the clerk report the amendment which I send to the desk.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, as you know, it is the custom in the Senate to ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. I did not ask for that unanimous consent this afternoon because I wanted to demonstrate that the amendment before us is exactly 7 lines long, to be added to a bill which is 327 pages long--327 pages of detailed requirements imposed on each and every school district in the United States of America from New York City to Los Angeles to one of my own, Harrington, WA, a small school district in a rural farm area. I will recap only briefly the remarks that I made yesterday relating to this entire bill, and then I will attempt to fit this amendment into some of the objections, perhaps the single most important objection that I have to the bill that is before us. As was the case yesterday, I must start by saying that we are not operating here today on a clean slate. An Individuals With Disabilities Education Act has been a part of the law of the United States for the last couple of decades. This revises and reauthorizes that proposal. On the narrow question of whether or not this bill is somewhat easier for school districts to administer and grants them somewhat more authority than they have at the present time, the answer can only be in the affirmative. If our only choice was between a continuation of the current law and the adoption of this bill, I would have to confess that this bill would be superior. Nevertheless, it retains all of the profound policy and balancing of power objections that are applicable to the current law to such extent that the relatively modest improvements in this bill simply do not make it an appropriate law to be passed by the Congress of the United States and imposed on every school authority and on every student and on every teacher of the United States. So it is with deep regret, and in spite of the view that the education of the disabled is an important priority, that some aid and assistance, at least, of the Federal Government to that end is an important priority, that I present this amendment and oppose the bill as a whole. It seems to me that fundamentally the objections to the bill fall into two quite separate categories. The first and the easiest to understand is that this bill, as is the case with the current IDEA statute, imposes a huge unfunded mandate on all of the school systems of the United States. We are told, I believe by the Congressional Budget Office, that the costs imposed on the school districts of the United States next year, 1998, in that 1 year alone, will be $35 billion. That number is greater than the sum of all of the discretionary appropriations for education from kindergarten through high school passed by this Congress. As against that $35 billion mandate, we will appropriate somewhere between $3 and $4 billion to the States and the school districts when we have finished our work for the year. For the current year, the figure is just over $3 billion. So, perhaps for every $10 of costs and expenses we impose on our school districts, we will reimburse our schools $1. It is difficult for me to imagine any Member of the U.S. Senate standing up on this floor supporting this bill if that Senator had to persuade the Congress to appropriate $35 billion to enforce it. Given the nature of our budget challenges, given our bipartisan desire for a balanced budget, given the agreement between the President of the United States and the leadership of the Congress on the budget for this year, we would not be able to find that $35 billion without repealing all of the other aid to K-12 education bills and a number of our higher education expenditures as well. So, what Congress is doing in this bill, just as it has done for the last 20 years, is saying to each school district: We know what is best for you. We are going to tell you what you have to do. But we are not going to pay for it. This is, I am informed, the largest unfunded mandate we impose in the U.S. Congress except for some of our environmental mandates that are spread out over the private sector as well as over the public sector. It is, we are told by the Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations, the piece of legislation that creates the fourth greatest amount of litigation of any of the statutes of the United States. Why? Because of its immense complexity. So, fundamentally, it is wrong that we should be debating a bill like this, or its predecessor, because we are not willing to pay for the consequences of our own actions. We make the rules. We do not pay the bills. That is the first objection to the bill, and I must confess the amendment I have just introduced does nothing about that unfunded mandate whatsoever. The second objection has to do with the highly valid but nevertheless extremely narrow focus of the bill. The theory of the bill, the philosophy of the bill, is to guarantee a free public education to all disabled students or potential students of a grade-school or high- school age. The focus is narrow because the bill allows school districts, in providing this education, to focus on nothing else. With respect to the bill and its mandates, no other interests are even relevant. The costs of providing the education are not relevant. The individual education plan can be literally unlimited in the cost for an individual student--costs which obviously come out of the same pool of money which educates every other student and thus deprives each and every other student of what that money could furnish. The safety of the schoolroom or the school grounds is not a relevant consideration, with the narrowest of limitations, slightly broadened by this bill over current law. The classroom environment for all of the other students is not relevant in the decisions that are made under this bill. So, whatever the impact on all of the other students, the school district simply may not consider them. Only the beneficiaries of the bill and their perceived welfare, by their parents or by an administrative officer or by a court, may be considered. One parent in the State of Washington wrote to me on this subject and made the following statement: I recently asked my school district attorney what rights I had as a parent when the education program of my child was interrupted by the behaviorally disabled due to legal decisions. His response was, you have no rights. ``You have no rights.'' Yesterday, I shared with my colleagues a letter from a parent in California who responded, as I suspect thousands of others have responded, to this frustrating decision by taking her child out of the school system entirely. She was required to find privately financed education for just such a student. In this connection, the fundamental flaw in this law, as in its predecessor, is the double standard it sets both for disciplinary proceedings and for classroom environment. Every school district in the United States retains all of the powers that it had previously to discipline students for what in a different context would be criminal offenses--weapons, drugs, assaults and the like. Every school district retains the authority to act on behalf of the majority of its students with respect to classroom atmosphere and environment so a learning environment conducive to the learning of all can be enforced. If, however, a student is disabled or contrives to get a finding of disability, all of those rules go out of the window. Discipline is severely limited. The right of ultimate and complete expulsion is wiped out entirely, and an elaborate set of requirements that take up many of the 327 pages of this bill are substituted, including legal proceedings in which attorney's fees can be imposed against the school district but not against a parent, even if the parent loses that litigation. And, inevitably, this double standard communicates itself to the students, to the subjects of our education system. Again, Mr. President, I would like to share with you a comment from the superintendent of the Edmonds School District in the State of Washington. Edmonds is a relatively prosperous, relatively large Seattle suburban school district. Brian Benzel, its superintendent, writes: Our major frustration is that we continue to have high expectations for programs thrust on us by the regulations with very little resources to achieve those expectations. The result is that good people do not understand why we do some of the things we do because they defy common sense. When we try to explain the regulations and the requirements, we all come away as losers and the public support necessary for the public schools is undermined. We have had several incidents with guns and dangerous knives. We have a strong policy and clearly set an expectation that possession of these items will result in expulsion. At same time, we often get into time-consuming and expensive due process hearings where our principals are the focus of concern rather than the student's behavior. We all begin to think we're attorneys rather than educators. Another letter from the superintendent of the Othello School District, a rural school district: Already this morning I have received two phone calls from principals asking for advice regarding disciplining disabled students. One student is in possession of a knife for the second time this year, and another middle school student has threatened to kill another student. Each time the principal is faced with one of these situations, s/he should not have to worry about negative consequences for trying to provide a safe environment for all of their staff and students. . . . please don't tie the hands of the administrators that are trying so hard to provide a safe learning environment for all of their students. This is a field which has made modest progress, but it is very modest. Expulsion, as one of the superintendents spoke about, still is not an alternative. And so, Mr. President, the amendment that I have sent to the desk, and I wish to read it just once again, in its entirety it reads: Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, each State educational agency or local educational agency may establish and implement uniform policies with respect to discipline and order applicable to all children within its jurisdiction to ensure the safety and appropriate educational atmosphere in its schools. No more and no less than that. No more and no less than considering maybe perhaps our local school boards, our principals and our teachers know more about running their classrooms and are equally concerned with all of their children as we are, we, in this artificial atmosphere, setting out 327 pages of regulations for the ordering of our public schools. Mr. President, that would be wrong if we paid for it, and, as I said earlier, we are not paying for it. Most States have laws relating to the education of the disabled. Most teachers in school districts would do the best job they possibly could in the absence of regulations, even from the State, and yet we feel in our wisdom we can set up one set of rules applicable to every school district across the country that ignores completely individual situations taking place in individual school rooms, each slightly different than the other, and that we can ignore completely the educational atmosphere in which the vast majority of our students live and work. Is it any wonder that since the passage of this act, we have a constantly increasing number of students who are denominated disabled, when every incentive to a parent is to get such a designation, when we have a large number of so-called experts who will say that the very fact that a student disrupts the classroom is proof of disability, so that the disruption cannot be effectively sanctioned? I believe that it is inevitable that even if we pass this slightly improved law, the number, the share of those who are denominated disabled will continue to increase; the percentage, the share of the limited dollars available for education will continue to increase. The amount of litigation and lawyer's fees, coming straight out of the educational budget, will continue to increase. One size does not fit all, and my amendment will not cure all of the shortcomings of this bill. It will leave intact the absolute requirement that a free public education be provided to every individual, disabled or not. That will not be affected. It will not solve the money problem of an unfunded mandate. It will, however, allow the reimposition of a single standard for discipline, classroom safety and classroom environment to be determined by the school authorities most affected by those standards. It will end the process of student after student leaving the public schools because of the impact of the bills, teachers leaving the profession because of the impact of those bills, and the fact that many of us, I know in my own case, receive more complaints about this aspect of the Federal program for education in the United States than we do on any other single subject. So, knowing in this case that the odds are stacked against me, I have tried to present this amendment in the simplest possible fashion. You either believe in a single standard of discipline and safety and educational atmosphere or you do not. If you believe in it, if you believe in the essential goodness and expertise of the people who are providing our children with their education, you will vote for the amendment. If you disbelieve in that good faith, if you disbelieve in that expertise, your problems and our problems with our public schools are far greater than those dealt with in this amendment. Free our school boards and our teachers and our administrators to provide the education we demand of them for all of our children. Free them by adopting this amendment. Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am sorry to interrupt. I know the Senator from Iowa wishes to speak, as do some Senators on this side. Unfortunately, I am now 1 hour late to a hearing that I am supposed to preside over. So I would like to make just one or two remarks after which I will yield the balance of my time to the control of Senator Smith and he can proceed as he wishes. Mr. President, I believe firmly that the case for my amendment has been established by the last two speakers, the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Indiana. We have heard a wave of arguments about manifestation determinations and individual education plans and the fine distinctions between various forms of violence and disorder. My good friend from Vermont has informed me not only that he knows more about education in the State of Washington than I do, but that he knows more about education in the State of Washington than do the superintendents of my schools in the State of Washington. Mr. President, that is the heart of this debate. If, in fact, you believe the Senator from Vermont knows more about how education ought to be provided to students in the State of Washington and in your State of Idaho, Mr. President, than do the professionals, the teachers and the administrators and the citizen school board members in your State and mine, then by all means, you should vote against my amendment and you should vote for this bill. If you believe that what uniformity means in education in the United States is that we should have exactly the same rules relating to discipline applicable to every one of the thousands of school districts and millions of students in the United States, then you should vote against my amendment and you should vote for this bill. If, however, you believe that uniformity means something quite different, and that is that the rules should be uniform with respect to every student in a given school rather than a demonstrable double standard, in which the student sitting at this desk is subject to one set of rules and the student at that desk, a totally different set of rules, that that student can do things without significant discipline that this student can't, then you should vote for my amendment. Somewhat naively, I had thought that all of us believed that education was so important that the most vital decisions relating to it ought to be made as close to the student and parent as possible. My friend from Indiana spoke of involving the parents more in these decisions. This bill does, but only those parents whose children can be determined to be disabled. What about the parents of the nondisabled students? Well, the quote from the letter to me, I simply need to repeat: I recently asked my school district attorney what rights I had as a parent when the education program of my child was interrupted by the behavioral disabled due to legal decisions. His response was, ``You have no rights.'' Yes, if uniformity means the same rule for every school district, for every school board member, for every principal across the country, then this bill is going in the right direction and my amendment is going in the wrong direction, except, of course, that we are making the rules but we are not paying the bills. I heard something about this being a constitutional responsibility. Well, Mr. President, if it were a constitutional responsibility, we would not have to legislate at all. But just recently, under the present law, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the State of Virginia ruled that the Virginia law that stated that there were certain offenses that were egregious enough to allow for the absolute expulsion of a student applied equally to the disabled and to the nondisabled. No constitutional right for this egregious behavior was found to limit the discretion of the school authorities of Virginia. This bill reverses that decision. It says, ``Oh, no, Virginia, you have to have a double standard. You can expel the nondisabled. You cannot expel the disabled no matter what the offense.'' That is what this bill says. That is not required by the Constitution of the United States. That is a value judgment made by the sponsors and the writers of this bill. Mr. President, I said yesterday--and it bears repeating just one more time--I have asked school districts to serve as advisory committees to me in every county of the State of Washington with whom I visit. I try to visit at least once a year, and sometimes more than once. Every one of them has someone who is a teacher or a school board member or a principal. This subject is the one brought up by far the most often by all of the people who actually provide education--the interference in the system. Oh, it is true, as the Senator from Vermont said, there are fewer lawsuits over it now than there were a few years ago. Why? Because the school district can't win the lawsuit. So it now surrenders before the process is so much as started. But the costs of that surrender are paid by every other student in those schools. So I repeat one last time. Mr. President, if the Senators in this body who have written this bill know more about schools and about education--not just another Senator--than the people who have devoted their lives to public schools and to education, then you should follow their example. Of course, many of the educational organizations have agreed with this bill. Their alternative was even worse--the present system. I don't blame them. I commend them for doing so. But, Mr. President, that doesn't mean they like it. That doesn't mean they think we know what we are doing. That means they were told that this was the most they could get, and you either go along or get lost. And they have chosen to go along. And they made a wise decision. But we don't have to make that decision. We can decide, if we wish, that these are the decisions that ought to be made by educators--not Senators. And, if you believe that, you vote for the Gorton amendment.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I spoke to the Senator recently, Madam President. I have one more modest redraft on my amendment and then we will be able to submit it during the course of the afternoon, I hope in the course of the next hour. I gather there is an attempt to see to it that there is some overall reasonable limitation of debate on the amendments and on the bill to which this Senator is certainly in accord. So, we will have that here so Members can read it so the Senator can critique it, as he will, in a relatively short period of time.

Mr. GORTON. Madam President, I have just a brief supplement to the remarks that I made earlier. I referred in general terms to the cost of the mandates under this bill and under the current IDEA legislation. I have checked it, and, at the present time, the current funding level is just over $3 billion. The amendment proposed by the Senator from New Hampshire, [Mr. Gregg], would, over roughly a 7-year period, reach the authorized level of having us here in Congress pay for 40 percent of the cost of IDEA and would reach, I am told, something like $13 billion or $13.5 billion. It seems to me that is a little short. My own figures are, if we were to fund it at 40 percent for next year, for 1998, the cost to the Congress, to the Federal Government, would be just over $14 billion. Now, that is 40 percent. My grade school arithmetic tells me that if the cost were $14 billion at 40 percent, the cost of 100 percent funding would be $35 billion. So we have created and will continue to impose a $35 billion cost on the school districts of the United States for the implementation of the requirements that are set out in the statute. Madam President, I went into the Cloakroom and checked how much we put into title I, which is, I believe, the single most expensive of all of our Federal aid to education in specific bills for all the disadvantaged children. The basic grants for the current year for title I are a little over $6 billion. When you add all of the special categories under title I, you get almost to $8 billion. I am told, without having checked every single one of these, that the second most expensive are the drug-free schools programs, which is roughly $4 billion. Now, if I am correct in these, Madam President, I simply go back to the proposition that here we are creating a set of mandates far more expensive than all, I think, of the programs of direct aid for education from kindergarten through the 12th grade. I guess I have to ask the manager of the bill, the chairman of the committee, if, in fact, we had to come up with $35 million right now for 1998 to pay all of the costs of this bill, and if, in fact, we had to work within the balanced budget agreement that has been entered into between the President and the leadership in the Congress, and if, in fact, paying for this bill caused us to either repeal or substantially wipe out a huge range of other programs of education assistance, would we be imposing this mandate? Now, I ask that question rhetorically. I know the answer. Of course we would not be. It is real easy to do it, Madam President, when somebody else has to pay the bill. But the Senator from Vermont is going to oppose even Senator Gregg's amendment, which allows us 7 years to get to 40 percent. Now, it is wonderful for us to say our educational theory is this or our educational theory is that. We think this is the way schools ought to be managed or we think that is the way schools ought to be managed. There are two objections to it. First, we do not know as much about the subject as educators do; and, second, I think we have a requirement to put our money where our mouth is. We are not putting our money where our mouth is in this bill. We never have, as long as this predecessor has been the law. How do we get to the point at which we tell everybody else in the United States how to run their businesses, but do not pay for it?

Mr. GORTON. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GORTON. Is it any wonder that every year, in school district after school district, more and more students find themselves denominated disabled? The incentives to do so are extremely significant. It is reported by the Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations that this current bill, of all Federal regulatory statutes, ranks fourth in the amount of litigation that it creates. That is a pretty good record. Of all of the regulatory statutes in the United States, this ranks fourth in the amount of litigation it creates. I note another element in that connection. We recently had a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States on a particular form of environmental litigation in which the successful challengers to a particular statute received their attorney's fees. In this bill, however, attorney's fees are a one-way street. If the representative of the individual student claiming discrimination under the statute prevails, that student or that student's family is awarded his or her attorney's fees. If the school district prevails, no attorney's fees can be awarded against the losing party. What does this do? Of course, it encourages litigation. The litigation is free. It also overwhelmingly encourages settlements which many school districts may regard as very, very unwise, simply because the potential downside is so great--again adding immensely to costs imposed on school districts. We tend to say ``school districts,'' but obviously in every case, every dollar paid out in attorney's fees, every disproportionate dollar paid out as a result of litigation or determinations pursuant to the statute, comes out of the finite pool of money that provides education for other students. A marvelous example of the way this works in the real world has taken place right here in the District of Columbia. Recently, the Washington Post highlighted the law firm that makes easy money by bringing administrative complaints and lawsuits over the shortcomings of the District of Columbia's schools' special education system. One of the lawyers quoted in the argument said, ``Winning those cases is like taking candy from a baby.'' I am not here to defend the quality of education in the District of Columbia. I think it is a magnificent paradox that it may spend more money per student than any other school district in the United States, or very close to that, and has pretty close to the worst results, but at least a modest portion of that has to be covered because of the fishing expeditions encouraged by this law that makes winning these cases ``like taking candy from a baby.'' In my own State of Washington, with which I am more familiar than others, lawyers' costs range from $60,000 a year, $90,000 a year, $300,000 a year, all coming out of the pool of money that would otherwise be used for educating particular children. However, I spoke a little earlier about the impact of this legislation on other, nondisabled schoolchildren. On that subject we received a letter from a concerned mother in California. She was working as a parent volunteer in her 5-year-old son's kindergarten classroom. In doing so she observed a student disrupting the classroom with loud outburst, running, kicking, screaming, hitting the teacher and aides. The child was in the class because of what is called, in this law, a full inclusion order. The net result was that my correspondent's 5-year-old child suffered from headaches every day the disruptive child was present in the classroom, was one of the victims of the child's outbursts, was punched by the child. The parent of the disabled child rejected the use of any normal method to control her child. The mother, who wrote me, writes that finally she had no choice but to remove her child from the school. She wrote, Fearing for my son's physical and emotional well-being, I finally removed my child from the kindergarten system. This occurred after the Federal court ordered the school district to readmit the special education student in spite of all the documented behavior aberrations. The statute did not protect that volunteer's child in school. It did not provide for her education. It did not guarantee her constitutional right to an adequate public education, because that child, together with the vast majority of other schoolchildren in all of the school systems in the United States, are nonpersons for the purpose of this statute. They do not count. Their safety does not count. The ability to learn in an orderly atmosphere for them does not count because the Congress of the United States has told them that it does not. All that can be considered in these cases is the situation surrounding plaintiff child, the child with a disability. One of my own favorite superintendents, who only recently retired, L.E. Scarr, superintendent of the Lake Washington school district, a large suburban district east of Seattle, put it a little differently when he wrote this to me. A process which is supposed to result in an education program agreed to by parents and school personnel at times becomes a battleground on which procedures become more important than educational results. Teacher after teacher, school district after school district say that this process depreciates, worsens the educational standards that they are able to impose. Dedicated schoolteachers give up their careers because of their frustration at being able to operate in what they consider to be an appropriate educational manner. We simply have not created a situation here in which there can be any balance. Even if it is appropriate for the Congress of the United States to pass legislation on this subject, even if it is appropriate to pass a 327- page bill setting out all of these requirements, is it not appropriate to give to each school district some method by which to determine the best educational outcome for the majority of its students? Isn't there some way to say there is some limitation on the amount of limited school district assets that have to be spent on any individual? Isn't there some limitation on the amount of litigation and the amount of attorney's fees that can be imposed on our educational system? Isn't it appropriate that some consideration be given to the safety and educational environment in which the vast majority of our young people are educated? But we do not see that here in this bill. I must return one more time to the proposition that, yes, it is an improvement over the present situation. My friend from Vermont, in a less public conversation, said I was not giving him enough credit when I said it was minimal or modest. It was substantial. I may be willing to stand corrected on that and say that there are an additional number of factors relating to immediate physical safety which will authorize at least some discipline against a dangerous but disabled student. And that is a step forward. That is why I, along with many of my colleagues, are, to a certain degree, on the horns of a dilemma when we deal with this bill. It would be easy to vote ``no'' if there were ``no'' Federal legislation on the subject at all. It is much more difficult when you must admit that, for all the criticisms you can make about the regime which this 327 pages creates, it is still something that is viewed with relief by the National Association of School Boards and the principals' and most of the teachers' organizations. But, it seems to me, that shows not how good this bill is, but how bad the current legislation is: the degree of desperation on the part of our school authorities, who have been willing to sign up for this proposal. I sympathize with them. I think, were I in their position, I would probably have done exactly the same thing, because the consequences of not agreeing were the continuation of the status quo. But, here we are, 100 of us in this peaceful but highly artificial set of surroundings, pretending that we are wiser than all of the school board members in the United States of America, pretending that we know more about their business than they do, making frequent speeches about the genius of local school systems and of local school boards but acting in a way that is totally inconsistent with that lip service. One of the features I have had in my service in the U.S. Senate in the last 8 years is to create advisory committees in every one of the 39 counties in the State of Washington. I meet with each one of them at least once a year, several of them more than once a year. I have made a conscious attempt in every one of these advisory committees to have at least one member, and sometimes more, who is a teacher, a school administrator, a school board member, in many cases recently a student, so I can hear, each time I meet with one of these groups, about their concerns with respect to the Federal involvement in public education. Madam President, I can say--and I am probably understating it--that in the course of the last 2 years, at least three-quarters of the comments that I have received from these people from education has been with respect to this law and the frustrations and the disruptions attendant upon its implementation. And so, I must say with some regret that I will feel constrained to vote against this bill for the reasons that I have stated. In preparing for this debate, I agreed with the sponsors that we can probably focus on one, not more than two, particular amendments to set out the differences that we have, and the proponents asked me to come to the floor this afternoon, both to engage in a discussion that is almost complete and to offer an amendment. I must say, through the Chair, to the chairman, while my first and perhaps my only amendment is relatively simple, I don't have it in form to offer at this moment, because I didn't like the form in which it arrived in my office from legislative drafting service. Unlike the 327-page bill, however, it will take up less than 1 page. It will simply state that notwithstanding any other provision in this statute, each local school authority shall have the right to set rules respective of the safety and educational atmosphere for students in that school system. I hope that I will have the final form of the amendment before this afternoon is up, but we do have another amendment pending at the present time, the funding amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire. So at this point, I simply want to say that the amendment that I will present and probably will not need to explain to the length I have explained my general position over the course of the last half-hour, the amendment that I will present goes to one element of the heart of this legislation, and that is, who makes decisions with respect to the safety of students in a given school system, who makes decisions with respect to the educational environment in which those students are educated? It does not go to the problem of attorney's fees or elaborate hearings or costs or the like, matters that I think are important but, perhaps, not quite so central to this legislation. I will explain it. We will vote on it. I believe that while in our heart of hearts perhaps a majority of the Members of this body agree with me in theory, I am not going to hold my breath until the amendment, or that matter the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire, is adopted. But it is healthy, I think vital, that we debate these fundamental concepts when we are talking about the education of our most priceless resource: our young people. Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I stand before you and my colleagues here in the Senate today in a situation for which I can remember no parallel during the course of my career. It is a position with which I have struggled considerably, not just as we worked toward the scheduling of this bill, but for the course of more than the last 2 years. I have an amendment to this bill, which I will introduce later on this afternoon, which I suspect, given the nature of this debate, has very little chance of acceptance. I will oppose this bill as one that I consider imposes not only an unfunded but an unwarranted mandate literally on every school district, every school director, every school administrator, every teacher in the public school systems of the United States. At the same time, Mr. President, I want to pay heartfelt tribute to the distinguished Senator from Vermont, who is managing the bill, to the distinguished junior Senator from Tennessee, who has perhaps spent more time on it during his 2-plus years in the U.S. Senate than he has on any other issue and, probably, than any other Senator has in that time. From their perspective--and it is a valid perspective--this bill represents a substantial step in the right direction from the current Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. It represents a careful balancing on their part of the many, the strong, the articulate lobbies on each side of the disability issues that surround this bill. In fact, it represents an exquisite compromise dealing effectively with at least some of the interests of every group involved in public education, except for the students and the quality of education that they are provided in our public schools. Education may be the single issue with the highest degree of prominence that will be discussed during the course of this Congress. The President has made both some real progress and far more rhetorical progress in bringing the quality of education provided for our students today, as they move into their lives in the 21st century, than he has on any other issue. This bill, however, has not played a significant part in that rhetoric. And almost nothing in the drafting or the debate over this bill has concerned itself with the overall quality of education that will be provided to the great mass of our young people as they move into an increasingly competitive world and increasingly competitive environment. No, Mr. President, this bill is aimed, as is its predecessor, at a relatively small, though growing--and I will speak to the nature of that growth a little later--element in our population who are subject to a number of disabilities. Like so many of our other statutes in many other fields, its focus is so narrow that it avoids entirely, or interferes with, the overall quality of education provided to all of our young people, together with the rights of those who are closest to those young people--their parents, their teachers, their school administrators, their elected school board members--to make judgments about how best to provide the best possible education for the largest number of students. We hear soaring rhetoric about the need for higher educational standards as we move into the 21st century. But, Mr. President, I regret to say that this bill will not help us in any way in providing those higher standards. In fact, it will increasingly interfere with and frustrate their attainment. And yet, I must return to the very real tribute and credit that ought to be paid to those on the committee of jurisdiction who have drafted this, not on a blank slate, but on the slate that has been inscribed with the current IDEA. Some of the remarks that I will make during the course of this debate, coming from individual parents or school districts, will of course relate to the enforcement of the law as it exists at the present time. But I believe, very much to my regret, that they will apply with equal force and merit to the bill that is before us, should it become law. The fundamental flaw with this bill, and with the present law, Mr. President, is that it imposes on every school district in the United States a double standard with respect to school discipline, with respect to order in the classroom, with respect to priorities in connection with the financial, the fiscal investment in our children's education. It is overwhelmingly an unfunded mandate of exactly the type the last Congress, at least so far as the future was concerned, tried to avoid. It is, however, an unfunded mandate in another sense. There is hardly a Member of this body, Republican or Democrat, who does not give eloquent lip service to the proposition of local control and local influence over our schools, particularly in their day-to-day operations, and even when we feel that certain national levels of achievement ought to be set--perhaps not imposed, but at least set against which to measure attainment. Yet, I pick up this bill, S. 717, and I note that it is 327 pages long, every page of which imposes a detailed mandate on the system of schools in New York City, NY, on the system of schools in the smallest and most rural district in the State of Kansas, or in the State of Washington--rules which cannot possibly be set in a universal fashion applicable to every student in every situation in every school district in a world which truly values education and truly believes that so much of education results from the dynamics of an individual teacher and an individual student. I had intended literally to read some of these requirements to you here, and I must confess that unless I wished to engage in a filibuster, I do not have time to do so. But in this bill, beginning on page 141, there are detailed procedural safeguards on behalf of any individual who claims a disability and who claims that that disability has not been dealt with precisely according to the rules in the other 300-plus pages of the statute. Those procedural requirements begin on page 141 and end on--well, I have not gotten to the end yet. I am at page 156 and working through this set of requirements--20, 30 or more pages simply of procedural requirements applicable to each disabled student, applicable to each school district, applicable to each individual determination. The only thing missing in those procedural requirements is the slightest expression of concern for any of the great majority of students who are not disabled, of the problems of individual teachers and individual classrooms or of the overall quality of education that will be provided by school districts subjected to the mandates included in this statute. The amendment that is before the body now proposed by the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Gregg] would raise from about 7 percent the current level of support from the Federal Government to defray the mandates imposed by this bill to somewhere closer to 40 percent that the original Individuals With Disabilities Education Act purported to mandate or at least to authorize. The Senator from Vermont has said that he has great sympathy with the Gregg amendment but that he must oppose it, and it will undoubtedly be defeated. We can afford to make the requirements but we cannot afford to pay for them. Why? Perhaps the Senator from Vermont will correct me on this. Because if we were to do so, if we were to pay entirely for the requirements we lay out in this statute, we would not have any money left over for any other educational purpose from K through 12. None of the wonderful promises of the President or of a multitude of Members of this body. In fact, Mr. President, I will be blunt. If the Congress were forced to pay all of the costs that it imposes by this bill or by its predecessor on individual school districts, there is not the remotest chance that the statute would ever have been passed in the first place or be passed here today. It would simply be too expensive. We can, however, please certain interest groups by making these requirements and by requiring someone else to pay for them. I suspect that you, Mr. President, and the Senator from Vermont and I all remember that magnificent motion picture about World War II, ``Bridge on the River Kwai.'' I think that is what this bill is. The sponsors or their predecessors who wrote the first bill have built a magnificent bridge that is a tremendous engineering feat, the net result of which is to lower the quality of education in the United States. We are looking at the bridge and not at the results of building that bridge. I spoke a little earlier about double standards. Overwhelmingly, the double standards in this bill have to do with rules of discipline. Perhaps the most fundamental authority in a local school district or of a State educational authority is setting rules of discipline designed for two purposes: one, to ensure to the maximum possible extent the physical safety of schools and teachers in schools and in an educational situation, and, second, to see to it that the atmosphere in those schools is one that is as conducive to learning as it can possibly be. And for the entire history of the Republic until the passing of the predecessor to this bill that authority, subject only to the Constitution, was delegated entirely to individual school districts. This bill, as its predecessor, sets up a dramatic double standard. For a nondisabled student, there is no change. For a disabled student, there is a tremendous change. Disciplinary procedures are greatly limited, are subjected to all of the procedural requirements that--I was going to say outlined--the details of which I described earlier, in such fashion that the slowest student cannot possibly escape as a part of his or her learning process if there is one rule for you and a very, very different rule for me, one that you can't get away with that I can get away with--not a very good set of lessons for impressionable young people on their way to becoming productive citizens. Now, what does this double standard do? Well, the proponents of the bill say, accurately, it prevents discrimination against students with disabilities, a wholesome and a valuable goal--a goal, I may say, incidentally, I think most school districts believe in and would reasonably enforce without any interference by the Federal Government, a goal on which most States have statutes themselves, here preempted by what we do. But there are other consequences of this double standard. The first is an overwhelming incentive for parents and for lawyers and for certain students to act in such a fashion that they can receive the designation that they are disabled because once you find yourself so designated, most disciplinary rules fly out the window or are greatly limited. You are likely to be entitled to a personal education plan, the cost of which is absolutely unlimited in present law or this bill. You are likely, in a controversy with your school district, to be entitled to a lawyer who will end up being paid for by the school district, that is to say, by the taxpayers, by the other students. And as I have said, whatever the average per student expenditure is in a school district is out the window. The administrative procedure, including a Federal district court, complete with lawyers and attorney's fees, can order any educational setting, any educational expenditure that it deems warranted, looking only at the disabled student, not viewing in any respect whatsoever the impact of those costs on the ability of the school district to provide an education for others. (Ms. COLLINS assumed the chair.)

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, today is National Tax Freedom Day-- the day when families around the country finally start working for themselves and not for the Government. For families in my home State of Washington, however, Tax Freedom Day does not come until May 14. In Washington State, families must work 5 additional days before the income they earn can go to meet their own needs and not the Government's. The residents of Washington State will bear the Nation's fifth highest tax burden in 1997 with each man, woman, and child of the State owing $6,572 in Federal taxes. Add this with State and local taxes and each Washington citizen will owe $9,881 or almost 37 percent of the average, annual income to support the Government . It is no wonder today's families are feeling squeezed. It is no wonder more and more families must rely on dual incomes and parents must work longer and longer hours. Families are paying more in taxes today than ever. They are now spending more just on taxes then they do on food, clothing, shelter, and transportation combined. This is not fairness. It is robbery. Clearly, it is time for Congress to seriously reexamine our current tax system. As Betty Dursh from Spokane, WA, stated in her recent letter to me: It is past time to reform the Tax Code. We are now in our fifth year, hear this, our fifth year, of working almost half the year before the taxes are paid. That is unconscionable! It is wrong! Yes, Ms. Dursh, it is wrong and it is far past the time for Congress to begin the work of reforming our tax system. The budget agreement announced by the President and Congress 1 week ago today gives me hope--hope that we can finally begin to put our fiscal house in order and provide some tax relief for the American people. If our efforts are successful this summer and we are able to begin the job of reforming some of our most oppressive taxes it will be a good step. But it will only be the first, small step in the direction of the real reform we need--reform that will, at last, provide us with a tax system that respects the right of American's to keep their earnings and investments. This will require much more than one or two changes to the volumes of provisions in the Tax Code, however. It will require a complete examination and, eventually, overhaul of the entire system. I want to leave my colleagues with one final thought--the words of a 52-year-old woman from Marysville, WA who lost both her husband and her job this past year and who is unable to sell her home to make ends meet because she would be required to give the Government 40 percent of the proceeds of the sale in capital gains tax. Ms. Linda Blasengame has this message for all of us here in Congress: I have lost so much and have always fought back but I can't imagine the pain of having to lose my dignity too. Please, look inside your heart and help me and so many others that are in my shoes. . . . I don't need a handout, I need your help. Congress must heed the cries for help from people like Ms. Blasengame and we must respond to the outrage of people like Ms. Dursh. The American people are slowly losing patience with our bandaid approaches. Americans overwhelming want a fairer and simpler tax system. They deserve this and they are relying on us to work toward this end.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I speak today on behalf of the thousands of citizens of my home State whose homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed by floods and landslides this year. Washington was hit hard in late December and early January by unprecedented weather patterns that wreaked havoc across the State and again in the spring by flooding caused by snow melt in the mountains. Freezing rain, snow, strong winds, and rapidly rising temperatures with warm rains led to unprecedented problems across the State. Mudslides and flooding eroded major roads and bridges, rendering them impassable; small businesses were destroyed by collapsing roofs due to heavy snow; and flooding harmed hundreds of homes and businesses. All but 1 of Washington's 39 counties were declared Federal disaster areas. I visited many of the people whose lives and livelihoods were affected by the storms. Traveling across the State in February, I witnessed first hand nature's devastating impact. In Kalama, ground movement caused by soggy soil led a natural gas pipeline to rupture and explode, sending flames hundreds of feet into the air and terrifying nearby neighborhoods. In Edmonds, heavy, wet snow collapsed the roof of a marina housing 400 private boats, causing $15 million in damage. Several homes, roads, and bridges were destroyed by landslides throughout the Seattle area. Tragically, on Bainbridge Island, a family of four was killed when a mudslide buried their home in the middle of the night without warning. And in Yakima, Wenatchee, and across eastern Washington, farms and farm buildings sustained heavy damage. Apple, pear, and potato storage houses and dairy farms were destroyed when roofs collapsed under heavy snow. Mr. President, when natural disasters touch the lives of so many people, it is the Federal Government's responsibility to offer a helping hand. The bill before the Senate today will do just that. The $5.8 billion in disaster relief funded by this legislation will go a long way to help Americans hurt by natural disasters across the Nation get back on their feet. Small Business Administration loans will help business and homeowners alike with necessary repairs. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will provide assistance to both individuals and State and local governments to repair private homes and businesses and roads and bridges damaged by the storms. And the Corps of Engineers will work to rebuild and strengthen levees and other flood protection measures to provide our communities better protection from rising rivers in the future. On behalf of the people of Washington State, I commend Senator Stevens for his dedication and diligence in bringing this legislation to the floor. His work and the work of my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee will ensure that America can recover from a particularly harsh winter and spring. This legislation will help millions of people who had the misfortune to be in the path of mother nature. I strongly support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. Dairy Price Reporting Amendment

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, by all accounts, Lt. Kelly Flinn has had a remarkable Air Force pilot's career. Becoming an astronaut was her childhood dream; becoming an Air Force pilot was an achievement accomplished upon completion of her basic pilot training in December 1994. She was the most distinguished graduate of her training class, rated exceptionally qualified to fly a B-52 bomber, an assignment earned from her high class ranking. Today, she is confined to a desk job, stripped of her security clearance, grounded, publicly disgraced. On May 20 the Air Force will court martial her for adultery. The United States military has experienced its share of scandal in the past 5 years. In Aberdeen, MD, a court-martial jury recently convicted an Army drill sergeant of raping six soldiers under his command. In 1991 the Tailhook scandal rocked the Navy and the Marines. In both instances women were physically abused by their colleagues or superiors, on military facilities or at military functions. The acts committed against these women range from the lewd to the violent. Lt. Kelly Flinn stands accused of conducting an affair with a married man, a civilian, who lied to her about his martial status. Their relationship was for all intents and purposes a private matter; they did not attend military functions together or while she was in uniform. If she is convicted, she will be grounded forever, dismissed from the Air Force and could even spend time in prison. I call attention to this particular case because I believe it speaks to the highly publicized gender schizophrenia we are witnessing as the military grapples with women's role in our Armed Forces. On one hand, women have had a traditional, but non-expanding role in the military. On the other hand, we are shocked by what appears to be a pervasive resistance to women in the ranks, and the scandals that bear the most extreme illustration of this behavior and mindset. Put differently, assimilation to the military's rules of conduct is separate and distinct from assimilation of the military's culture. The Armed Forces are institutions premised on order and command, governed rigidly by rules, written and implied; by codes, some memorized and some unspoken. In some instances however, the strict application of military codes appears to suspend reasonable judgment about the seriousness of the offense committed. In this case, clearly, the punishment does not appear to fit the crime. As Lieutenant Flinn says, ``I fell in love with the wrong man.'' For this offense, which she committed unknowingly because Mr. Zigo lied about being legally separated from his wife, her Air Force career is slated to come to an ignoble end. Lets not forget that of those 140 Navy officers involved in Tailhook, none were court-martialed. It is difficult for me as an officer who served for more than 20 years as an Air Force judge advocate, to imagine that no other officer at Minot Air Force Base has committed the offense of which Lieutenant Flinn stands accused. Wisdom and good judgment seem clearly to demand a dismissal of the criminal charges against Lieutenant Flinn and the substitution of nonjudicial or informal sanctions. I trust that the Air Force will promptly see the wisdom of this suggestion. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. BINGAMAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I am happy to do so.

Mr. GORTON. Within the $20,566,000 provided for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an estimated $4,736,000 has been identified for emergency needs in South Dakota, including emergency assistance for the Crow Creek Sioux. In distributing these amounts, I agree that the Bureau should take into consideration additional needs, including those of the Crow Creek Sioux, to the extent that Bureau policy regarding historical priorities for funding Indian roads, tribal administration buildings and irrigation projects is met. In addition, the Bureau must consider the availability of funding through other Federal agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Highway Administration's emergency road program [ERFO].

Mr. GORTON. I agree that the Bureau should consider the additional needs you have identified in distributing the funds provided.

Mr. GORTON. I fully appreciate the sentiments of the Senator from South Dakota. The President's request for emergency funding for the Bureau of Indian Affairs is $10,800,000. The Appropriation Committee's recommendation, based on updated information about the costs associated with these storms, is $20,566,000. Of the additional amount included in the committee-reported bill, $1,059,000 is directly attributable to the efforts of Senator Daschle.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I ask unanimous consent that I may speak as in morning business for not to exceed 5 minutes.