Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Yes.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today to honor two visionary statesmen--President Theodore Roosevelt and Senator John Chafee. Today, October 27, 1999, we celebrate what would have been President Theodore Roosevelt's 141st birthday. Last Friday, we celebrated John Chafee's 77th--and much to our sadness his last. Working at opposite ends of the 20th century, these two outstanding leaders contributed greatly to the cause of preserving our precious natural resources for this and especially for future generations. President Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858, in New York City. He is remembered as one of our finest Presidents. He is honored as such by being the only 20th century President to join Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln at Mount Rushmore. In 1901, after the assassination of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt became America's youngest President. As a child, Roosevelt was faced with poor health and asthma. To escape the pollution of New York City, Roosevelt's father would often take him to Long Island for extended visits. It was there that Roosevelt began his lifelong devotion to the outdoors and to vigorous exercise. His dedication to the ``strenuous life'' was a hallmark of his career. In 1884, his first wife, Alice Lee Roosevelt, and his mother died on the same day. Roosevelt spent much of the next two years on his ranch, the Elkhorn, located in the Badlands of the Dakota Territory. Today, a portion of this ranch is included in the national park named in his honor--the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. History shows Roosevelt to be a true visionary as one reviews his many accomplishments. The Panama Canal, one of the world's engineering marvels, would not have been complete without President Roosevelt's tenacious leadership. He is remembered by business and labor as a ``trust buster'' who spearheaded the dissolution of a large railroad monopoly in the Northwest using the Sherman Antitrust Act. In 1905, Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War. But perhaps his greatest contribution to future generations of Americans was his passionate advocacy of conservationism. The history of our Nation is marked by activism on public lands issues. The beginning of the 19th century was marked by President Thomas Jefferson's purchase of the Louisiana Territory. That one purchase added almost 530 million acres to the United States. The Louisiana Purchase changed America from an eastern coastal Nation to a continental empire. Roosevelt set the tone for public lands issues at the beginning of the 20th century. His words and his actions created a new call to America's environmental ethic. Theodore Roosevelt said, ``We must ask ourselves if we are leaving for future generations an environment that is as good, or better, than what we found.'' He lived up to his challenge. Mr. President, listen to what Theodore Roosevelt contributed to the public lands legacy of the United States. During his period in the White House, from 1901 to 1909, Theodore Roosevelt designated 150 national forests; the first 51 Federal bird reservations; 5 national parks; the first 18 national monuments; the first 4 national game preserves; and the first 21 reclamation projects. Theodore Roosevelt also established the National Wildlife Refuge System, beginning with Pelican Island in Florida, which was designated in 1903. Together, these projects equaled Federal protection for almost 230 million acres--a land area equivalent to that of all the east coast States from Maine to Florida and just under one-half of the area of the Louisiana Purchase. Theodore Roosevelt's contributions to the public land trust cannot be equaled. Perhaps even greater was his contagious passion for the ethic of conservation that he managed to instill for the first time in America's consciousness, the idea of conservation and environmental protection as goals worthy of pursuit. Mr. President, Senator John Chafee was a leader in the Theodore Roosevelt model. Senator Chafee was a major participant in every piece of environmental legislation that passed the Congress since the early 1980s. He authored the Superfund program, created in 1980 to direct and fund the cleanup of hazardous waste dump sites and leaking underground storage tanks. In 1982, he sponsored the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, a law that resulted in the preservation of thousands of acres of coastline throughout the Nation. He led major reform of the Clean Water Act in 1986, introducing more thorough controls on industrial pollution and a new emphasis on non- point source pollution. He created the National Estuary Program to protect coastal resources and steered the bill to enactment over a Presidential veto in 1987. In the 1980s, Senator Chafee turned his attention to the air, leading efforts to adopt the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, taking steps to control acid rain and toxic chemical emissions. In 1993, Senator Chafee wrote the law establishing the nation's first indoor air hazard research and response program. With his clear head, methodical mind, and ability to broker a compromise, Senator Chafee led us through these legislative battles to today's result--a legal infrastructure of environmental law that ensures our own health and safety and preserves the public land trust established by Theodore Roosevelt. On this day, as we celebrate the 141st anniversary of the birth of Theodore Roosevelt and pay tribute to the work of Senator John Chafee, we must ask ourselves, ``Can we meet the challenge posed by Theodore Roosevelt and leave an environment for future generations that is as good or better than it was when we found it?'' Are we worthy inheritors of the legacy of John Chafee? Senator Chafee leaves us with his model to follow as a member of this body which took Roosevelt's challenge to heart and led the Environment and Public Works Committee to take actions on the environment that have left us better off than when he arrived in the Senate. Sadly, I argue that we, the Senate, are struggling with a backlog of neglect and are ill prepared to assure the well being of one of the most prominent examples of America's environmental heritage: our national parks. In 1916, Congress created the National Park Service ``. . . to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.'' My friend and colleague, the Presiding Officer, and I have the privilege of living in two of our States which have been especially blessed by God and blessed by preceding generations willing to take the steps to protect the beauties of the Yellowstone, or of an Everglades. The challenge that we have is worthy of the standard that has been set by Theodore Roosevelt and the others who have made it possible for us to enjoy those wonders of nature. Today, the ``unimpaired'' status of our national parks is at-risk. On April 22, 1999, the National Parks and Conservation Association identified this year's ten-most endangered parks. In his opening remarks, Mr. Tom Kiernan, president of the NPCA, stated that these parks were chosen not because they are the only parks with endangered resources, but because they demonstrate the resource damages that are occurring at all of our parks. These parks demonstrate the breadth of the threats facing our park system. For example, Chaco Culture National Historical Park in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, contains the remains of thirteen major structures that represent the highest point of Pueblo pre-Columbian civilization. What is the status of this great world treasure? In the words of the NPCA, it is ``. . . falling victim to time and neglect.'' Weather damage, inadequate preservation, neglected maintenance, tourism impacts, and potential resource development on adjacent lands threaten the long-term life of these structures. Another example: All of the parks in the Florida Everglades region were included on the list of the most endangered. In this area, decades of manipulation of the water system led to loss of significant quantities of Florida's water supply to tide each day, a 90-percent decline in the wading bird population, invasion of non- native plants and animals, and shrinking wildlife habitat. Mr. President, you will be particularly interested and saddened by what the National Park and Conservation Association calls Yellowstone National Park, the ``poster child for the neglect that has marred our national parks.'' We have all heard Senator Thomas and others speak about the degradation of the sewage handling and treatment system at Yellowstone National Park--a situation that has caused spills into Yellowstone Lake and nearby meadows, sending more than 225,000 gallons of sewage into Yellowstone's waterways, threatening the water quality of this resource. I recently had an opportunity to visit yet another example of neglect, Ellis Island National Monument in New York Harbor. The state of the historical resources in this important part of the history and heritage of America--the space through which millions of people first gained their exposure and appreciation and commitment to America--is unconscionable. While there are a handful of buildings that have been restored to their previous level of majesty, over 30 buildings where immigrants came to the United States lie abandoned, in disrepair, and deteriorating. Particularly troubling was damage to the hospital buildings, which, when restored, will be a valuable tool in recreating an important era in our nation's history. The hospital on Ellis Island provided care for immigrants who were detained temporarily for medical reasons. This marked one of our country's earliest efforts at providing for public health and disease control and prevention. Broken windows and leaky roofs have allowed the elements to wreak havoc on these buildings and trees are sprouting from the floorboards of what was once an immigrant dormitory. Lead paint flakes fall from the walls and rats scurry down historic hallways. There are efforts being made to block further deterioration, but the existing damage is extensive. Small scale actions to prevent further destruction are wholly inadequate in the face of the extensive damage to these buildings which are so important to our nation's history. Mr. President, the sad circumstances of Chaco Canyon, of the Everglades, of Yellowstone, of Ellis Island, the sad circumstances of these few examples by no means mean that they are the extent of the challenge of our national parks. In fact, estimates of the maintenance backlog at our national parks reach as high as $3.5 billion. The National Park Service has now developed a 5-year plan to meet this requirement based on its ability to execute funds and the priorities of the National Park System. This year the National Park Service requested $194 million in order to commence the process of meeting this accumulated backlog of maintenance needs. I am pleased to say, Mr. President, that I believe Members of Congress should take some pride in the fact that as a result of this year's appropriations process the House and Senate have modified the National Park Service request of $194 million and increased it to $224.5 million. This is a very commendable step forward. I am proud of the actions of the appropriations committees. I know that there is likely to be further executive and legislative considerations of the budget of the National Park Service before we complete our action. But I hope that we will continue to maintain this level of commitment to meeting the backlog of urgent maintenance needs in our national parks. Although these actions demonstrate a willingness to work to meet the needs of the National Park Service, I believe we cannot adequately address the extent of needs, including the needs of natural resources within the Park System and the external threats to those natural resources with a piecemeal approach. There is a limit to what we can do with the tools we have today. The Senate is working to fund 21st century needs for construction and natural resource preservation using a 19th century, year-to-year annual appropriations process. What the National Park Service needs is a sustained, reliable funding source that will allow it to develop intelligent plans based on a prioritization of needs with confidence that the funds will be available when they are necessary to complete those plans. This approach will allow common sense to prevail when projects are prioritized for funding. Let me use the example which is closest to me. That is the effort about to be launched for restoration of the Florida Everglades. We are now over half a century into man's major manipulation of the Florida Everglades, a manipulation which has had many positive effects in terms of protecting millions of people from the ravages of flooding but has also very fundamentally changed the character of the Florida Everglades. The Corps of Engineers has presented to the Congress its recommendation of how to remedy the scars that have been imposed on the Everglades. If authorized by this Congress, the Everglades restoration plan of the Corps of Engineers will be the most extensive restoration of an environmental system ever undertaken in our Nation's history and, in all probability, in the history of the world. It will be an effort at the beginning of the 21st century of the scale, boldness, and challenge that the Panama Canal was at the beginning of the 20th century. This is also going to be a project which will challenge America financially. The estimate is that over the 20 years to complete this project, the total cost will be approximately $8 billion. The State of Florida will pay half; the Federal Government will pay half. The math indicates that for each year for the next 20 years, the average demand on Federal resources for this restoration project will be approximately $200 million. I think it is critical before we begin this restoration we have the maximum assurance of the resources necessary to complete the restoration. I use the analogy of open-heart surgery. If one is going to open up a system and take a great knife and begin to cleave the changes that have occurred in the Everglades over the last 50 years so that at the conclusion of this operation we will have a healthier, more natural system, it is incumbent upon those who start the surgery to be assured they will have the resources to complete the operation. Failure to have those resources at any stage throughout this 20-year process will certainly result in the death of the patient. We have taken some steps to attempt to assure a more reliable source of funds for the National Park Service. Your colleague, Senator Thomas, led the way to reform with his landmark legislation on the National Park Service called Vision 2000. This legislation adopted for the first time both concessions reform and science-based decisionmaking on resource needs within the Park Service. We took a big step forward last year with the extension of the fee demonstration program. The fee demonstration program allows individual parks to charge entrance fees and to use a portion of the proceeds for maintenance backlog and natural resource projects. This action generated about $100 million annually for the Park System. Now it is time to take the next step. Earlier this year with Senators Reid and my colleague, Senator Mack, we introduced legislation entitled ``The National Park Preservation Act.'' This legislation would provide dedicated funding to the National Park Service to restore and conserve the natural resources within our Park System. This legislation seeks to address the long-term efforts required to truly restore and protect our natural, cultural, and historic resources within the National Park Service. This legislation would allocate funds derived from the use of a nonrenewable resource, our offshore drilling in the outer continental shelf, to recover the American resource of oil and gas. We would then convert those funds derived from the Federal royalty on offshore oil and gas drilling for a program of restoration and preservation of our natural, cultural, and historic resources within the National Park Service. These funds provided by our bill would assure that each year the National Park Service would have the resources it needed to restore and prevent damages to its resources. At the beginning of this century, at a time of relative tranquility, President Theodore Roosevelt managed to instill a nation with a tradition of conservation with this simple challenge: Can we leave this world a better place for future generations? At the end of this century, we honor Senator John Chafee who leaves a legacy of a legal infrastructure that provides a foundation upon which we can continue to meet President Theodore Roosevelt's challenge. Let us keep the vision of these great leaders in mind as we embark together on our efforts to protect the National Park System into the new century. In the words of President Theodore Roosevelt: Nothing short of defending the country during wartime compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendents than it is for us.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Reserving the right to object. I say to my colleague from Idaho, I believe the junior Senator from Washington also wishes to make a statement after the Senator from Oregon. And I wish to make a statement after the junior Senator from Washington.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, today, I am pleased to introduce The Food Stamp Outreach and Research for Kids Act of 1999. Along with my House colleagues Representatives William Coyne and Sander Levin, I created this common sense piece of legislation with the goal of guarding children and their families against hunger. In 1998, over 14 million children lived in households that could not afford to buy food. That was an increase of almost 4 million children from 1997. At the same time, the number of poor children not getting Food Stamps reached its highest level in a decade. My bill, the Food Stamp Outreach for Kids Act of 1999 (the FORK Act), would help us to give children who are currently going hungry the Food Stamps that they need. Some time ago, food banks in Florida started telling me that the number of people coming to them for assistance was increasing, and that if demand continued at the current rate, they might run out of food. This crisis was not specific to Florida, Congressman Coyne and Congressman Levin were hearing the same concerns from food banks in Pennsylvania and Michigan. When we asked them whom the new people coming to the food banks were, we were told that they were mostly low-income working families. When the food banks screened these families using eligibility guidelines, it looked as if the majority of the new people coming to the food banks for assistance should have been receiving food stamps but were not. The General Accounting Office (GAO) researched this issue, and in their July, 1999 report found that while a number of people who have left the Food Stamp program because of the improved economy, economic growth alone does not explain the drop in Food Stamp participation. The GAO found that demand for emergency and supplemental food was increasing and that some state agencies were not correctly following federal laws regarding Food Stamp benefits. Perhaps most disturbing of all, the GAO found that almost half of the people who have lost Food Stamps since 1996 are children. The FORK Act is designed to address GAO's findings and recommendations to make certain that children and families in this country are not going hungry. The FORK Act would provide grant funding to food banks, schools, health clinics, local governments and other entities that interact with working families. The grants would allow those organizations to develop and expand innovative approaches to Food Stamp outreach, which would help the Food and Nutrition Service enroll many of the eligible families that currently go hungry. The FORK Act would require the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) to conduct onsite inspections of state Food Stamp programs to identify barriers to enrollment and work with states to develop corrective action plans. The FORK Act would authorize FNS to conduct research, which will help it to improve access, formulate nutrition policy and measure program impacts and integrity. The FORK Act would require the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to work with state Temporary Assistance for Children and Families (TANF) programs to train caseworkers and make sure that prospective and former TANF recipients are property informed about Food Stamp eligibility. Finally the FORK Act would authorize private-public partnerships to expand nutrition education programs. Mr. President, I do not believe that there is a member in this Congress who ever intended for children to go hungry because their parents left welfare to go to work. Now that we know it is happening, we must act quickly to make certain that the Food Stamp program works for children and families in need. I hope that my Senate colleagues will join me in supporting this important legislation. Mr. President, I ask that a list of groups supporting the bill be printed in the Record. The material follows: Organizations Supporting the Food Stamp Outreach and Research Act for Kids 1999 (The FORK Act) national organizations

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to recognize our Presiding Officer who is also one of the stalwart advocates of this reform in agricultural farm labor, as well as the Senator from Oregon who has given such leadership on this issue. In my opinion, those voices who you anticipate will decry the proposals we are making have to carry the burden of defending the status quo. In my opinion, that is an impossible defense. What has the status quo led to in this country? It has led to over 600,000 people who pick the fruits and vegetables upon which American families depend, upon which much of our agricultural economy is relying--600,000-plus of those persons ranging between a third and a half of all of the migrant workers in the country are illegal. They are here without documents. They are here without any legal status. Can we call the current system a humane system when it puts 600,000 people in the shadows of our society because they are without legal status or legal protection? I think not. It is also a system which denies benefits, ironically, to U.S. citizens and U.S. legal permanent residents who work as migrants in American agriculture, which we make available to non-U.S. citizens who come here under a temporary work visa that we call a H-2A visa. For instance, we provide transportation assistance to foreign visa workers that we do not provide to U.S. citizens. We provide housing benefits to foreign workers that we do not provide to U.S. citizens. We provide even a higher wage rate, a higher base salary to foreign visa workers than we do to U.S. citizens who work as migrant workers in American agriculture. We also have a system which is--to say antiquated is to give it a status that is beyond justification. We are using a system that is bureaucratic, that does not apply contemporary methods of technology, communication, which, while it approves some 90 percent of the petitions that are filed to make it possible for those non-U.S. visa workers to come into the United States, oftentimes the delay in getting that ultimate approval is so extended that by the time the approval arrives the crops have already rotted in the field. Anyone who wishes to attack our ideas, I think, has the burden of either attempting to defend a clearly--not broken but smashed status quo, and then to come forward with their own ideas. A few days ago, Senator Wyden and the Presiding Officer and myself offered an amendment to a Department of Labor appropriations bill in which we directed that the administration should come forward with its ideas as to how to correct the broken status quo of migrant farm labor in America. We look forward to receiving that response. We have been asking for that response for the better part of 2 to 3 years. I hope now that we are on the verge of introducing legislation, we will see an engagement by all the parties who have professed an interest in this issue so we can get their ideas. We do not believe, as thoughtful as we hope this legislation will be seen, that it came down from the mountain on plates of stone. It is the product of our best human effort and we invite others who have their ideas to participate in this process. But I believe we can all start from the fundamental position that the status quo is inhumane, illegal, and unacceptable to the United States of America as a great nation entering the 21st century. The legislation we are introducing--and we are actually introducing two pieces of legislation--the first is the Agricultural Job Opportunity Benefits and Security Act of 1999, which we intend to acronym into AG-JOBS, which is the comprehensive bill which includes all the elements the Presiding Officer outlined in his introductory remarks. We will then introduce a second bill which will be called the Farm Worker Adjustment Act of 1999, which will include only those provisions that relate to the adjustment of status by the some 600,000 undocumented aliens who are currently in the United States. We invite our colleagues to consider both of these pieces of legislation. We hope they would be inclined to cosponsor both of these pieces of legislation. What would be the consequence of passage of the legislation that we introduce this evening? What would be the consequences, first, for farm workers? Farm workers would receive better wages. Instead of having as the base the minimum wage, the base, as the Presiding Officer indicated, would be the greater of the minimum wage or the adverse wage rate plus 5 percent. In my State of Florida, the current calculation of the adverse wage rate plus 5 percent would be approximately $7.45, as compared to the current minimum wage of $5.15. Second, domestic farm workers, U.S. citizens, and permanent residents, as well as those who would have the temporary work permits under the adjustment of status legislation, would all be entitled to housing, either housing onsite or, if it were determined by the Governor of the State there was adequate housing in the vicinity of the agricultural work site, it could be a housing allowance, a voucher which would allow the farm worker to select their own places to live. It would also provide for the first time for domestic workers, citizens, permanent residents, and temporary work permit holders, access to a transportation allowance. If they had to go more than 100 miles to get from one job to the next, they would be entitled to compensation for their transportation. They would also receive the benefits of some modern technology. Just as we currently have a worker registry system for much of nonagricultural employment in America, this would provide a computer registry for agricultural workers where they can indicate: I am prepared to work in the following crops. I am prepared to work in the following locations and during the following time periods of the year. They would be permanently registered, so when a farmer was looking for workers who met those criteria, he would find this employee's name and a means by which to access that potential worker. We would increase worker protection. Farm workers would now be covered by the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act. We would not have this shadow workforce of 600,000 people without legal protection. There would be stricter penalties for employers who failed to follow the law. Employers could be barred from the H-2A program, including a permanent bar for violations of the rights of workers. The legal status would be available to all of the persons. They would either be working as a citizen, a permanent resident, a holder of a temporary work permit, or an H-2A visa. But our goal would be to create a situation, both legally and economically, in which all of the persons picking the fruits and vegetables in America's fields would be legal. How would the farmers benefit? The farmers would have access to this efficient, modern, streamlined register as a means of determining who is available to do the work that I need. They would have assurance that all of their workers were legal. We have had situations in the last few months in which there were raids on fields--Vidalia onion fields in Georgia, fruit fields in the Pacific Northwest where persons who could not show they had documents--and many could not--were arrested, where the farmer was put into a situation that his livelihood, his crop for the year was about to be lost because he would not have the people necessary to harvest the food. We would also provide to the farmer the assurance that there would be a streamlined means by which, if necessary, they could access non-U.S. workers to assure they had a full complement of workers to carry out the task. Mr. President, you have stated with force and eloquence the rationale for this legislation and what we hope to accomplish. I hope in the vein within which you entered this to ask our colleagues to carefully consider this legislation, particularly in the context of the unacceptable status quo. We look forward to engaging with their ideas and the ideas of others who have an interest in this issue so that this session of Congress will have as one of its achievements the closure of a chapter of inhumane abuse of hundreds of thousands of people and a denial to American agriculture of what it wants--a legal, humanely treated agricultural workforce to pick the fruits and vegetables upon which our Nation depends. I join with you and our colleagues as we start this effort this evening and will shortly be sending to the desk the legislation on the adjustment of status of agricultural workers. I thank the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to recognize our Presiding Officer who is also one of the stalwart advocates of this reform in agricultural farm labor, as well as the Senator from Oregon who has given such leadership on this issue. In my opinion, those voices who you anticipate will decry the proposals we are making have to carry the burden of defending the status quo. In my opinion, that is an impossible defense. What has the status quo led to in this country? It has led to over 600,000 people who pick the fruits and vegetables upon which American families depend, upon which much of our agricultural economy is relying--600,000-plus of those persons ranging between a third and a half of all of the migrant workers in the country are illegal. They are here without documents. They are here without any legal status. Can we call the current system a humane system when it puts 600,000 people in the shadows of our society because they are without legal status or legal protection? I think not. It is also a system which denies benefits, ironically, to U.S. citizens and U.S. legal permanent residents who work as migrants in American agriculture, which we make available to non-U.S. citizens who come here under a temporary work visa that we call a H-2A visa. For instance, we provide transportation assistance to foreign visa workers that we do not provide to U.S. citizens. We provide housing benefits to foreign workers that we do not provide to U.S. citizens. We provide even a higher wage rate, a higher base salary to foreign visa workers than we do to U.S. citizens who work as migrant workers in American agriculture. We also have a system which is--to say antiquated is to give it a status that is beyond justification. We are using a system that is bureaucratic, that does not apply contemporary methods of technology, communication, which, while it approves some 90 percent of the petitions that are filed to make it possible for those non-U.S. visa workers to come into the United States, oftentimes the delay in getting that ultimate approval is so extended that by the time the approval arrives the crops have already rotted in the field. Anyone who wishes to attack our ideas, I think, has the burden of either attempting to defend a clearly--not broken but smashed status quo, and then to come forward with their own ideas. A few days ago, Senator Wyden and the Presiding Officer and myself offered an amendment to a Department of Labor appropriations bill in which we directed that the administration should come forward with its ideas as to how to correct the broken status quo of migrant farm labor in America. We look forward to receiving that response. We have been asking for that response for the better part of 2 to 3 years. I hope now that we are on the verge of introducing legislation, we will see an engagement by all the parties who have professed an interest in this issue so we can get their ideas. We do not believe, as thoughtful as we hope this legislation will be seen, that it came down from the mountain on plates of stone. It is the product of our best human effort and we invite others who have their ideas to participate in this process. But I believe we can all start from the fundamental position that the status quo is inhumane, illegal, and unacceptable to the United States of America as a great nation entering the 21st century. The legislation we are introducing--and we are actually introducing two pieces of legislation--the first is the Agricultural Job Opportunity Benefits and Security Act of 1999, which we intend to acronym into AG-JOBS, which is the comprehensive bill which includes all the elements the Presiding Officer outlined in his introductory remarks. We will then introduce a second bill which will be called the Farm Worker Adjustment Act of 1999, which will include only those provisions that relate to the adjustment of status by the some 600,000 undocumented aliens who are currently in the United States. We invite our colleagues to consider both of these pieces of legislation. We hope they would be inclined to cosponsor both of these pieces of legislation. What would be the consequence of passage of the legislation that we introduce this evening? What would be the consequences, first, for farm workers? Farm workers would receive better wages. Instead of having as the base the minimum wage, the base, as the Presiding Officer indicated, would be the greater of the minimum wage or the adverse wage rate plus 5 percent. In my State of Florida, the current calculation of the adverse wage rate plus 5 percent would be approximately $7.45, as compared to the current minimum wage of $5.15. Second, domestic farm workers, U.S. citizens, and permanent residents, as well as those who would have the temporary work permits under the adjustment of status legislation, would all be entitled to housing, either housing onsite or, if it were determined by the Governor of the State there was adequate housing in the vicinity of the agricultural work site, it could be a housing allowance, a voucher which would allow the farm worker to select their own places to live. It would also provide for the first time for domestic workers, citizens, permanent residents, and temporary work permit holders, access to a transportation allowance. If they had to go more than 100 miles to get from one job to the next, they would be entitled to compensation for their transportation. They would also receive the benefits of some modern technology. Just as we currently have a worker registry system for much of nonagricultural employment in America, this would provide a computer registry for agricultural workers where they can indicate: I am prepared to work in the following crops. I am prepared to work in the following locations and during the following time periods of the year. They would be permanently registered, so when a farmer was looking for workers who met those criteria, he would find this employee's name and a means by which to access that potential worker. We would increase worker protection. Farm workers would now be covered by the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act. We would not have this shadow workforce of 600,000 people without legal protection. There would be stricter penalties for employers who failed to follow the law. Employers could be barred from the H-2A program, including a permanent bar for violations of the rights of workers. The legal status would be available to all of the persons. They would either be working as a citizen, a permanent resident, a holder of a temporary work permit, or an H-2A visa. But our goal would be to create a situation, both legally and economically, in which all of the persons picking the fruits and vegetables in America's fields would be legal. How would the farmers benefit? The farmers would have access to this efficient, modern, streamlined register as a means of determining who is available to do the work that I need. They would have assurance that all of their workers were legal. We have had situations in the last few months in which there were raids on fields--Vidalia onion fields in Georgia, fruit fields in the Pacific Northwest where persons who could not show they had documents--and many could not--were arrested, where the farmer was put into a situation that his livelihood, his crop for the year was about to be lost because he would not have the people necessary to harvest the food. We would also provide to the farmer the assurance that there would be a streamlined means by which, if necessary, they could access non-U.S. workers to assure they had a full complement of workers to carry out the task. Mr. President, you have stated with force and eloquence the rationale for this legislation and what we hope to accomplish. I hope in the vein within which you entered this to ask our colleagues to carefully consider this legislation, particularly in the context of the unacceptable status quo. We look forward to engaging with their ideas and the ideas of others who have an interest in this issue so that this session of Congress will have as one of its achievements the closure of a chapter of inhumane abuse of hundreds of thousands of people and a denial to American agriculture of what it wants--a legal, humanely treated agricultural workforce to pick the fruits and vegetables upon which our Nation depends. I join with you and our colleagues as we start this effort this evening and will shortly be sending to the desk the legislation on the adjustment of status of agricultural workers. I thank the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, today, I am pleased to introduce The Food Stamp Outreach and Research for Kids Act of 1999. Along with my House colleagues Representatives William Coyne and Sander Levin, I created this common sense piece of legislation with the goal of guarding children and their families against hunger. In 1998, over 14 million children lived in households that could not afford to buy food. That was an increase of almost 4 million children from 1997. At the same time, the number of poor children not getting Food Stamps reached its highest level in a decade. My bill, the Food Stamp Outreach for Kids Act of 1999 (the FORK Act), would help us to give children who are currently going hungry the Food Stamps that they need. Some time ago, food banks in Florida started telling me that the number of people coming to them for assistance was increasing, and that if demand continued at the current rate, they might run out of food. This crisis was not specific to Florida, Congressman Coyne and Congressman Levin were hearing the same concerns from food banks in Pennsylvania and Michigan. When we asked them whom the new people coming to the food banks were, we were told that they were mostly low-income working families. When the food banks screened these families using eligibility guidelines, it looked as if the majority of the new people coming to the food banks for assistance should have been receiving food stamps but were not. The General Accounting Office (GAO) researched this issue, and in their July, 1999 report found that while a number of people who have left the Food Stamp program because of the improved economy, economic growth alone does not explain the drop in Food Stamp participation. The GAO found that demand for emergency and supplemental food was increasing and that some state agencies were not correctly following federal laws regarding Food Stamp benefits. Perhaps most disturbing of all, the GAO found that almost half of the people who have lost Food Stamps since 1996 are children. The FORK Act is designed to address GAO's findings and recommendations to make certain that children and families in this country are not going hungry. The FORK Act would provide grant funding to food banks, schools, health clinics, local governments and other entities that interact with working families. The grants would allow those organizations to develop and expand innovative approaches to Food Stamp outreach, which would help the Food and Nutrition Service enroll many of the eligible families that currently go hungry. The FORK Act would require the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) to conduct onsite inspections of state Food Stamp programs to identify barriers to enrollment and work with states to develop corrective action plans. The FORK Act would authorize FNS to conduct research, which will help it to improve access, formulate nutrition policy and measure program impacts and integrity. The FORK Act would require the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to work with state Temporary Assistance for Children and Families (TANF) programs to train caseworkers and make sure that prospective and former TANF recipients are property informed about Food Stamp eligibility. Finally the FORK Act would authorize private-public partnerships to expand nutrition education programs. Mr. President, I do not believe that there is a member in this Congress who ever intended for children to go hungry because their parents left welfare to go to work. Now that we know it is happening, we must act quickly to make certain that the Food Stamp program works for children and families in need. I hope that my Senate colleagues will join me in supporting this important legislation. Mr. President, I ask that a list of groups supporting the bill be printed in the Record. The material follows: Organizations Supporting the Food Stamp Outreach and Research Act for Kids 1999 (The FORK Act) national organizations

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, one of the last conversations I had with John Chafee just a few days ago was about the legislation we are now considering. John Chafee, as in all things, was a commonsense pragmatist. I do not know how he would have voted on these measures, but I think he would have been appealed to by the practical rationale for the United States moving forward in the way this legislation directs us. This legislation, which was a product of the Committee on Finance, on which Senator Chafee served with such distinction, a committee in which he had voted for this legislation as a member of the committee during the time it was being considered there, I believe embodies many of the principles for which John Chafee stood. I want to particularly talk about one component of this legislation, and that is the United States- Caribbean Basin Trade Enhancement Act component. Since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, our Caribbean and Central American neighbors have been at a competitive disadvantage. There is now a benefit of in the range of 5 percent to 10 percent, having the identical production factories located in Mexico as opposed to in Central America or Caribbean nations which are members of the Caribbean Basin Initiative. It has been stated we should have dealt with this issue when the North American Free Trade Agreement was first adopted. Unfortunately, we did not. Today, we have the opportunity to begin the consideration of the restoration of parity and balance within our region. I thank Senator Lott for his support in bringing this important legislation to the floor. I also thank Senator Roth and Senator Moynihan for the leadership which they have provided through the consideration of this legislation in the Senate Finance Committee. Over the last 5 years, I have worked to enhance and build upon our existing trade relationship with our neighbors in the Caribbean Basin region. On February 3 of this year, in response to the overwhelming devastation and destruction caused first by Hurricane Georges and then by Hurricane Mitch, I introduced the Central American and Caribbean Relief Act. This bill represented a broad and comprehensive strategy to provide immediate disaster relief, economic and infrastructure recovery, and long-term trade enhancement that would benefit both the United States and the countries in the region. On March 23, 1999, we passed legislation that provided immediate disaster relief to the countries in the region that were impacted by Hurricanes Georges and Mitch. This legislation included $41 million of debt relief. We wiped out all of the bilateral debt of these countries to the United States and contributed to a Central American relief fund which will be beneficial in terms of reducing other forms of indebtedness of those countries that were so ravaged by the hurricanes. I am pleased that now we are considering a bill that includes many of the long-term trade enhancement provisions that were part of the Central American and Caribbean Relief Act. Enacting this legislation is critical to the continued economic growth and health of our Nation and the economic health of our closest neighbors in the Caribbean and Latin America. It is also in the national security interest of the United States of America. Let me review what are some of the compelling reasons for the adoption of this legislation. First, humanitarian. I have made three trips to Central America and the Caribbean since the devastation of Hurricane Georges and Hurricane Mitch. As a Floridian, I have had some exposure to the destruction that hurricanes can inflict upon a community. I can say I have seen nothing the likes of which I saw in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch. I know that many of my colleagues have also seen the destruction caused by these hurricanes. These two destructive storms caused a level of death and devastation not seen in the Western Hemisphere in over 200 years. We have all heard of the tremendous loss of life, the economic disruption, the human suffering caused by these hurricanes. As a neighbor, a friend, and a great Nation, the United States has both a history and a current obligation of response with assistance to those in need, especially those nations and those peoples who are our closest neighbors. Providing enhanced trade benefits will be a significant part of that humanitarian response. It will allow nations that had major parts of their economies, particularly agricultural economies, devastated by these hurricanes to begin to rebuild on a more diversified and stable economic basis. A second reason to pass this legislation is economic. Caribbean Basin enhancements are in the best economic interest of the United States. Experience shows us that providing trade benefits to the Caribbean Basin is good business for the United States. Following the enactment of the Caribbean Basin Initiative in 1983, our trade position with the region has improved from a trade deficit of $3 billion with the Caribbean Basin, which we suffered in 1983, to today approaching a $3.5 billion trade surplus. These are not only good neighbors, but they are good trading partners. They are trading partners who, on a per capita basis, have consistently outpaced all other regions of the world in terms of the U.S. trade surplus. Between 1983 and 1998, U.S. exports to the region increased fourfold, while total imports into the U.S. region grew by less than 20 percent. In fact, since 1995, U.S. exports to the CBI countries have increased by approximately 32 percent. There are over 58 million consumers in the 24 countries represented by the CBI region. Seventy percent of their nonpetroleum imports come from the United States. Let me repeat that: 58 million consumers in 24 countries close to the United States; 70 percent of their nonpetroleum imports come from the United States. Yet there is another reason to strengthen the Caribbean economies, and that is the importance of the stability of our closest neighbors. When the CBI bill was adopted in 1983, the Caribbean Basin, particularly Central America, was in flames with violent conflicts and rampant drug trafficking. The primary goal of the initial CBI legislation was to stabilize the region by building stronger, more diverse economies. These economies were seen as a critical element in supporting democratic governments. Our national security and our continued interest in reducing the level of flow of illegal drugs and illegal immigrants into the United States was also at stake in the stability of the region. According to the Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, increased law enforcement efforts along the Southwest border of the United States have again encouraged drug traffickers to reactivate their old, well-established smuggling routes in the Caribbean and Central America. Recent cocaine seizures in the regions bear this out. In 1998, authorities in the Dominican Republic seized 2.4 metric tons of cocaine. During the same period, Guatemalan authorities seized 9.2 metric tons of cocaine, and Panamanian authorities seized 11.8 metric tons of cocaine. Cocaine seizures in the Bahamas during 1998 totaled 3.7 metric tons, the highest level in that country since 1992, while at the same time an estimated 54 metric tons of cocaine flowed through Haiti. Experience tells us the vast majority of this cocaine was destined for the United States of America. Without assistance to restart the regional economy, without assistance to make it possible for people to provide for their families, the nations in this region will be even more susceptible to the scourge of drug trafficking. The people of this region must have opportunities in the legal economy so they may feed their families and resist the financial temptations associated with drug trafficking. Failing to enact CBI enhancements will increase the pressure for illegal immigration into the United States. The people of the CBI region must have the real opportunity at home so they are not forced to turn to illegal immigration to find employment and feed their families. The painful lessons of the 1980s need not be repeated as we move into the new century. We can act--we must act--to prevent it. Today, I want to focus on yet another reason why passing the Caribbean Basin Initiative enhancement legislation is so critical. The reason can best be demonstrated by looking at these two shirts. This golf shirt is made in China. It is made from fabric that was grown by Chinese farmers, woven in Chinese textile mills. This shirt costs approximately $4.75 to produce. This shirt was made by a Caribbean Basin country, similar plant. It was made with fabric that was grown on U.S. farms, and it was spun in U.S. textile mills. This shirt costs approximately $5 to produce. Both of these shirts were imported into the United States for sale at U.S. retail stores. There is no significant difference between these shirts, save the location, China and Nicaragua, where they were manufactured, and where the components were grown and spun into textile--China, the United States of America. Each of these shirts sells for approximately $19. That is the price the law of supply and demand has set upon these items. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to present these shirts before the Senate.

Mr. GRAHAM. One might ask the question of basic economics. If the Chinese shirt is identical to the Nicaraguan shirt, if the Chinese cotton that is spun into this shirt is to the consumer essentially the same as the American cotton, which is spun into the Nicaraguan- assembled shirt, and yet the Chinese shirt costs 5 percent less to produce, sells for the same price, why is it there are any shirts being produced in Nicaragua or in the other Caribbean Basin countries? Well, there are several reasons why there is a market for the more- expensive-to-produce CBI shirt. Transportation costs between the Caribbean Basin and the United States are less than the transportation costs between China and the United States. The proximity of the Caribbean Basin to the United States means that transit time for textile products manufactured in the CBI region and destined for sale in the United States is significantly less than transit time for Chinese products. This is a particularly important factor in the apparel industry with its rapid style changes. But neither of those are the most important reason. The most significant reason why there is a market for the Caribbean- assembled shirt, the shirt which assembles U.S. cotton which is milled in U.S. textile mills, the most important is because there is a limitation on the number of these shirts which can be imported from China. In 1999, the import quota for Chinese-manufactured shirts, such as the one I hold today, the exact number of these shirts which can be imported from China to the United States is 2,336,946 dozen per year. Imports of the shirt manufactured in Nicaragua, as well as other Caribbean Basin countries, where U.S.-grown and processed cotton is the basis of manufacture, are not subject to quota restrictions. The difference represented by these two shirts will become much more apparent in the year 2005, a watershed year for the textile and apparel industry in the United States and the Caribbean Basin. Why is 2005 such a significant date on the calendar? The import quotas which are currently applicable to textile products of most Asian nations, originally imposed under the Multi-Fiber Arrangement, now the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, will be phased out. There will no longer be, for most Asian nations, a quota limitation on the number of items such as this golf shirt which can be imported into the United States. At that time, textile production in the Caribbean Basin will be placed in a distinct and growing disadvantage due to its higher cost of production. Disinvestment in the region is a real potential, reducing the incentive to use any material from U.S. textile mills or cotton grown in the United States. We face the prospect in the year 2005, with the lifting of the quotas, that the already 5-percent production cost advantage of Asian countries will expand, as they are able to spread their production cost over an unlimited number of apparel items to be imported into the United States. The transportation and proximity advantages of the CBI country will not be able to sustain the raw economic advantage of the lower cost of production under current standards in Asia. That is why passing CBI enhancement legislation now, in 1999, is critical to U.S. textile and yarn industries as well as to U.S. cotton growers. There are 64,000 U.S. textile workers who are dependent on this partnership of textile produced in the United States and assembled in the Caribbean for their jobs. Overall, 400,000 U.S. jobs are dependent upon textile exports to the CBI region. Last year, $4.5 billion worth of U.S. textile and apparel products were exported to the CBI region for assembly. Only by providing incentives for the development of stronger relationships with apparel manufacturers in our hemisphere will we have any chance of maintaining a market for U.S. cotton and textiles after the quotas are eliminated in 2005. We must see this 5-year period as a period of challenge, a period in which we must increase the production competitiveness of U.S. textiles and Caribbean apparel. If we squander these 5 years, we face the very real prospect that we will be having a debate over nothing because, with the lifting of the quotas, there will be a strong incentive for this industry and the cotton farmers and the textile workers who support it to move from the Caribbean to Asia. Developing strong relations with the countries in the Caribbean Basin, therefore, will not only promote political stability, will not only be in our humanitarian tradition, but will also be critical to the economic health of an important American industry. An independent economic analysis funded by the Inter-American Development Bank and prepared by Professor Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda of the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research and Professor Robert K. McCleery of the Monterey Institute for International Studies makes just this point. The numbers are clear. According to the American Apparel Manufacturers Association, without CBI enhancement, U.S. textile and agriculture will be adversely affected, and the U.S. economy will suffer. Currently, 50 percent of the apparel items consumed in the United States are manufactured with U.S. cotton. Industry estimates indicate that if we can increase the attractiveness of the Caribbean Basin as the place of assembly, that number will grow from 50 percent of U.S.-consumed apparel made with U.S. cotton to 70 percent. But if we fail to act, if we allow this partnership of U.S. textile and Caribbean assembly to wither, this number will drop to 30 percent. Without these enhancements, the U.S. cotton content will continue to decline, as apparel producers look to reduce costs and will move towards products made from cheaper labor and cheaper materials, primarily in Asia. The impact of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing and year 2005 changes on man-made fiber industries will be comparable to the cotton situation. Without CBI enhancements, the U.S. man-made fiber content of imported apparel will continue to significantly decline. Without CBI legislation and in the face of year 2005 quota reductions, producers of man-made fibers will be inclined to relocate their production facilities in order to take advantage of lower wages and production costs. If we begin to work to establish stronger relationships with the nations of the Caribbean Basin, we will be able to provide incentives to sustain these industries in our own hemisphere. Inherent in our CBI enhancement efforts are public and private investment incentives that will increase productivity and the quality of life within the region. We anticipate the textile industry will provide investment capital targeted for the construction and maintenance of schools, health and child care facilities, and technology enhancements to increase the productivity of both workers and existing manufacturing facilities. A well trained and healthy workforce will be more productive and efficient as Caribbean Basin producers compete for shares of the international textile market. We have an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen our economic and national security through the enhancement of our trade relationship with our neighbors in the region. We must act prior to 2005 to build a dynamic, formidable Western Hemisphere trade alliance that encourages U.S. industry to invest in the region and to make commitment to rebuilding the industrial infrastructure in the region. We are about to make a fundamental decision that will impact our closest neighbors, a decision that will impact a significant part of the economy of the United States. We can choose to create a climate where the United States and our neighbors can be competitive into the 21st century or we can repeat the same turmoil of the 1980s. The choice is clear, it is stark, and I think it is beyond reasonable debate: Will we engage or will we retreat? I urge you to extend this assistance to our neighbors to expand commerce and promote economic and political stability in the region. A primary beneficiary of that stability and expansion, a primary beneficiary of the new enhanced partnership between the United States and our neighbors in the Caribbean, will be the United States of America and its citizens. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this sad and somber day, we recall our wonderful friend John Chafee and begin to appreciate how much he will be missed. We extend our love and respect to his family. I suspect John would like us to move forward with the business of the Senate. As Senator Byrd has just said, he was a crusty New Englander, and I believe John would be very happy with that description. One of the many admirable traits of crusty New Englanders is that they like to get down to business.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Will the Senator from Minnesota yield? I had indicated to our colleague, the Senator from Louisiana, who wishes to make a memorial statement for our colleague, Senator Chafee, that he would have an opportunity to do so at this time.

Mr. GRAHAM. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. GRAHAM. I am prepared to yield time to the Senator if he is prepared to speak at this time.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, before yielding time to the Senator from Minnesota, I will take a few moments to also share some thoughts about our departed colleague, John Chafee. I had the great privilege of serving with John Chafee for nearly 13 years. We served together on the Environment and Public Works Committee and on the Finance Committee and had many opportunities to work closely together. John Chafee was the kind of public servant whom citizens in a democracy hope to have representing them. He represented a small State, both geographically and relatively, in population. It is the kind of State where the citizens have an intimate relationship with their elected representatives; they know them personally; they can evaluate their character; they are not dependent on a flickering 30-second television ad to give them information about the people who are seeking their vote. Election after election, in a largely Democratic State, Republican John Chafee received the vote of the people of the State of Rhode Island, a great tribute to the fundamental character of the citizens of that State and the man who gave his life in the service of that State. John Chafee's life was epitomized by the word ``service.'' As Governor, as Secretary of the Navy, as a Senator, he displayed wisdom, dedication, and patriotism. Those qualities had been molded in the flames of World War II and the Korean war, where he served in some of the most intense combat. I imagine when some people suggested that a vote in the Senate was a testing vote, a difficult vote, he might have put that in the context of what he experienced in his young adult life at Guadalcanal. As a colleague, I particularly admired the thoughtful, pragmatic manner in which he approached his duties in the Senate. He was a mentor. I remember the first committee meeting in which I participated, which was a markup, a meeting in which legislation was before the Environment and Public Works Committee for action and then recommendation to the full Senate. It was the 1987 version of the transportation bill, always a controversial matter. I had come to that committee with a number of ideas from my previous State experience in Florida. I was enthusiastic and had some amendments to propose. On the first day of committee consideration of this legislation, I was fortunate to get two of my amendments adopted. After the vote on the second amendment, Senator Chafee, speaking across the committee room from his position on the Republican side, said to me: Good work; now I recommend you quit. That was good advice for that day. His willingness and distinctive ability to reach out to Senators with all points of view kept the Senate at the reasonable center of American politics. John Chafee was proud to be categorized a moderate, proud to assume the label of a centrist. He brought common sense to our deliberations. The Senate has sometimes been analogized to ``the saucer,'' as in a cup and saucer. It is the place where the hot tea or coffee is poured so that it can be cooled before it is consumed. That was one of the rationales of our Founding Fathers, establishing a bicameral legislature with one house being very close to the people and one house being, hopefully, a more deliberative body. John Chafee epitomized that concept of the place where the hot passions are reconciled. John Chafee was also the kind of person who was more interested in results than with recognition. There probably are some pieces of legislation that are known as the Chafee act, or have his personal name associated with them. But, frankly, today, I cannot recall what that might be. I think John Chafee is perfectly satisfied with that. His goal was not to have his name etched in legislative marble or stone but, rather, to achieve a result. He was interested in building the edifice, not whose name was on the cornerstone of the edifice. That was the kind of human being John Chafee was. As a result of his commitment to results rather than recognition, in fact, some of the Senate's most memorable achievements in recent years bear his imprint. Expanded environmental protections, a balanced budget, and an improved transportation system were the results of his leadership and influence. As with all of us, John Chafee was a good friend, a trusted colleague. John will be sorely missed. He leaves a legacy that adds distinction to this body and to the title of public servant. We all send our deepest sympathy and best wishes that solace will be found in the great accomplishments of this truly great man, and that his family and the thousands of persons fortunate enough to call John Chafee a friend will find a solace and a capacity to deal with the grief that we all suffer today. Mr. President, I yield such time as he may wish to the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, last night, surprisingly, our session adjourned early. This morning, even more surprisingly, we had no session at all. I am sad to say I am suspicious enough to think that the reason for the early adjournment yesterday and the absence of a session this morning was in order to reduce the opportunity for those such as myself who believe the issue we are debating is extremely fundamental, albeit also extremely sensitive to some, and therefore deserves a full discussion. By the shortening of the session yesterday and this morning's termination of the session, we lost several hours that would have otherwise been used to discuss this issue with our colleagues and with the American people. But there were some benefits of the fact that we were not in session last evening and we were not in session this morning. And that is that some of us--I hope many of us-- had an opportunity to see a repeat of a lecture that was given in 1995 by the eminent American historian, David McCullough. The lecture was given at the LBJ school at the University of Texas in Austin, TX. It was on a general topic of ``Character Above All''--``Character Above All.'' The topic of David McCullough's lecture was Harry Truman, a man who served in this Chamber with great distinction, presided over this Chamber briefly as Vice President of the United States, and then for the better part of 8 years served as President of the United States. In his lecture, Mr. McCullough outlined a number of the characteristics of Harry Truman that made him such a distinguished figure. Mr. McCullough said that he was a better American than he was a President; that he was the embodiment of the essential value of his country--a man who had been raised in rural circumstances in Missouri, was not particularly well educated but, in fact, by his own efforts became classically educated, and then rose to the highest position in the land at a time of extreme national urgency during those critical years immediately after World War II. Mr. McCullough said one of the characteristics of Harry Truman that made him such an effective American, an effective President, and revered citizen of this land was the fact that he had a set of core values. He knew who he was; he knew what he stood for; he did not have to wake up in the morning and put his finger in the air to find out which direction the wind was blowing. I suggest that this debate today is essentially about character-- individual character, yes, but more importantly the character of our Nation, the character of our democracy at the end of the 20th century. This debate is also about fundamental values. In what do we believe? What do we consider to be worthy of asking our fellow citizens and ourselves to sacrifice for? Mr. McCullough talked about the fact that some Presidents who do not rise to the highest ranks of history's estimation were Presidents who were reluctant to ask the American people to do great things; that the Presidents who have challenged us to our fullest potential as a people have been those Presidents whom we mark as being our most revered. I believe those comments about character, about values, about who we are as Americans, are significant in this debate this evening because we are talking about an issue that goes to the heart of our society, to the heart of the relationship between our society of America and the formal institution of government, which is the embodiment of our society. I regret to say that today the abuses, the pernicious effects of money in our political system, represent a cancer, a cancer that is eating away at the heart of our values, the heart of our compact as Americans, the heart of our democracy. There are symptoms of this cancer. They include the increased feeling of disaffection between citizens and their government, a feeling that government is not a part of the ``we'' of which we all belong, but it is the ``they'' who are in confrontation with our own personal desire; and the low level of participation--not only the low level of participation in the act of voting, but also the low level of participation in people's willingness to serve in civic activities. There was a long essay recently by a Harvard professor called ``Bowling Alone,'' about the fact that some of the institutions such as civic clubs and even sports organizations that have previously been a source of our national coherence have been increasingly shredded--low participation in people's willingness to accept positions of appointed responsibility, whether it is to the local PTA or to a governmental position, low participation of people in basic citizens' responsibilities such as jury duty, the very difficulty of our voluntary military to get an adequate number of persons to fill the ranks of our Army, Navy, and Air Force. I was struck over the weekend, which, frankly, was spent in part watching some football games, at how many ads were run by our services to try to entice people to join the military. Those ads are themselves an indication of the difficulty of securing the kind of citizen participation associated with our democracy--the difficulty of attracting people to run for public office. Unfortunately, many people today are running away from public office. I have had some considerable personal experience trying to encourage people who I thought had talent and integrity and would bring the experience of their lives to enhance public decisionmaking. How difficult it is to get those people to be willing to expose themselves to the kind of requirements of which the necessity to raise enormous amounts of money in a way that many people believe is degrading and requires them to pander makes seeking public office unattractive and in the final analysis is an option which is rejected. Another example of the symptoms of this disease of cancer eating away at the heart of our democracy is the fact that now leading business executives are declaring that they are going to opt out of this current fundraising system, that they no longer want to pick up the phone, as one of those executives said while interviewed on television, 1,000 times for people soliciting funds, and not just soliciting what might be considered a reasonable contribution but soliciting for thousands of dollars of contributions over and over and over. And so they have opted out of the system. Our efforts today are a part of a larger effort to try to restore those values of community, those values of common sharing of the excitement, the responsibilities, and the obligations of a democratic society. I hope that our efforts this week will be the beginning of true reform--reform that puts our political system back in the hands of the people. The current version of Senator McCain's and Senator Feingold's legislation focuses on soft money. That is the money which comes into a political party that is not subject to the normal regulations and is unlimited in amount; with only minor manipulation soft money now can be used for almost any political purpose. Other than soft money which we typically refer to as hard money, the money that is regulated, the money that is limited in amount, the money that is subject to full reporting, there is virtually no difference in what today's soft money can be used for and what hard money can be used for. We will have other amendments to consider in other areas of needed reform in our campaign finance system. All of these are important and worthy of debate. I hope we will keep our focus on what I suggest is the single most important issue we face: How can we eliminate from our system the amount that is coming from the enormous faucet of soft money? How can we begin to restore the American public's trust and confidence in their government? The public should be confident their elected representatives are voting on the basis of honestly held convictions, not on the basis of who has contributed tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to a political party, which money then is used to advance that particular public official's political candidacy. While we cannot legislate the trust of the American people, we can plant the seeds of confidence by enacting real campaign finance reform. We must change the path we are on to regain the public's trust. It is critical the American people have trust in their public institutions to assure the proper functioning of a democracy. In 1774, Edmund Burke was a member of the British Parliament. He had cast a vote which was contrary to the will of his constituency in the community of Bristol. They berated him for not having voted the way they--those who had elected him to the Parliament--would have preferred. Edmund Burke accepted the responsibility as a representative of the people to also become an educator of the people. He said to the electors of Bristol on November 3 of 1774, your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion. The people of Bristol may have temporarily been disappointed that Edmund Burke did not do what they felt at the moment was their desire, but they were satisfied with the fact he was giving them more than just a weather vane of their opinion; rather, he was giving them the benefit of his informed judgment. Today, unfortunately, many citizens believe their representatives follow neither their judgment nor popular opinion. Instead, they believe it is only the donors of huge amounts of soft money who hold the ear and the vote of their elected representatives. We are not the first branch of government to recognize the connection between our actions and our appearances and the public's confidence and willingness to respect and legitimize our actions. For many years, the Judiciary has imposed upon itself strict rules governing the conduct of judges and lawyers. These rules do not exist because it is assumed judges will engage in unethical behavior; rather, it is to make certain they avoid even the appearance of impropriety. This self-regulation helps to maintain the public's confidence in the integrity of our judicial system. I suggest we in Congress have a similar obligation to maintain the public's confidence in the integrity of the legislative system. Make no mistake, by any measure, the public's faith and confidence in the political process is eroding. Voter turnout is low, youth participation is low, institutional confidence is down. It is our obligation, as it is the obligation of the judicial branch, to take those steps that will restore the necessary public confidence. It is no coincidence participation and trust in our governmental institutions are at a low point at the same time the pursuit of campaign money by parties and politicians is at an all-time high. The crass chase for soft money by candidates of both parties is demeaning to the contributor; it is demeaning to the political recipient. I hope we can convince Members of both parties to put an end to it. The ever- increasing focus on fundraising has fundamentally and negatively changed the nature and the purpose of a congressional campaign. Our attention has been diverted from activities which are most beneficial to voters while we chase money. This need to amass a huge campaign war chest has led to the privatization of our traditionally public campaign process. Political campaigns should belong to the people, not to the few who can participate in the financing of those campaigns. Over the past two decades, we have watched as campaigns have been transformed. What used to be an effort to meet and to listen to voters has now become an exercise in raising money for carefully crafted, frequently negative television commercials. Candidates now move from the television studio to record sound bites to the telephone to solicit campaign contributions to pay to air those sound bites. This transformation has narrowed the range of issues debated to those few who can be broadcast in a 30-second commercial. What is lost? Lost is the interaction with voters. Lost are real debates about important substantive issues. Most important, what could be lost is our rich political heritage of a genuine dialog between candidates and voters. What had been a publicly owned campaign system has become a privately managed and staged event. The essential purpose of a political campaign is being subverted. Campaigns should provide the opportunity for two-way growth. Campaigns should prepare the candidate to represent and govern. Meeting the public, managing a campaign, a candidate learns important lessons crucial to government. A candidate learns important insights about the people he or she hopes to represent. I have suggested to newspaper editorial boards when they interview persons who are seeking their endorsement for a campaign that there are a set of questions that ought to be asked of all candidates. One of those questions is, What have you learned since you announced your intention to seek public office? What have you learned since that date that will make you a better person should you be elected to office? Has the candidate, in fact, used the campaign as a learning, growing process? Similarly, a political campaign and its interaction is important to the public. The observation of a candidate allows the voter to exercise a thoughtful judgment about who should be entrusted with the responsibility to govern. The shift from hard money to soft money has obliterated much of this relationship, the relationship of the candidate learning from the citizens, and the citizens' ability to assess the qualities of that candidate for public service. The shift from hard money to soft money brings many adverse effects which will move our campaigns away from this two-way growth. Soft money has no standards. It is unlimited, unregulated, unreported. It turns candidates away from seeking contributions from traditional fundraising sources. The public loses accountability. In relying on soft money, the candidate loses control of his or her campaign. There are not very many things that happen in a political campaign which are real. Most of the things that occur in a campaign are contrived or manipulated. One of the things that is real is how well a candidate runs their campaign. That requires acts of judgment as to the people with whom you will associate yourself in the campaign, how well you allocate resources to pursue your campaign, the kinds of priorities and issues upon which you base your campaign. Those are all indicators of how the person, if elected to office, is likely to carry out his or her public responsibilities in exactly the same area. But the heavy reliance on soft money and the ability of the candidate to turn his campaign essentially over to those who will present him or her in the most favorable television light causes the candidate to lose that control of the campaign and the public to lose the ability to use that campaign as an indicator of the individual's potential for public service. It is not just the candidate who loses control. The public also loses control. It loses the opportunity to see the candidate exercise his or her personal judgment and thereby loses an important opportunity to evaluate the candidate as a potential public servant. Finally, it is clear the distinction between the uses of hard and soft money have become pure sophistry. Experience has shown us that parties can advocate for a particular candidate with soft money every bit as effectively as they can with hard money. Just a few hours ago, I saw a television commercial that was a commercial which was paid for by one of the campaign committees of the Congress. The commercial was an attack against a candidate alleging that candidate had broken the trust of the people by spending Social Security surpluses for other than intended Social Security purposes. The ad did not say: Vote against candidate and current Member of Congress X. But, rather, it ran that individual's name in the ad and said: Call him and tell him to stop raiding Social Security. That is the kind of ad that is being bought and paid for and disseminated over the airways with this gush of soft money. It is an ad which is intended not to enlighten the public but to distort and manipulate the public. It is the type of negative ad which has contributed so substantially to the loss of public confidence in the political system. The McCain-Feingold bill will not correct all the problems in our current system, but it will give us a good start towards that solution. Banning soft money, in my opinion, is the first step. Opponents of campaign reform argue that more money is good for democracy because it increases political speech. They also argue that even modest attempts at reform violate the first amendment's protection of free speech. Now, presumably these opponents, who would argue any attempts at reform violate our protection of freedom of speech, do not favor any limits on campaign donations--no limits by non-U.S. persons, businesses, or even governments. We have had a lot of investigations, a lot of bemoaning the fact that non-U.S. persons, businesses, and possibly even non-U.S. governments have made contributions to American political campaigns and potentially were doing it in order to secure favor for their particular interest within the United States. The fact is, that is a very serious and, in my opinion, extremely noxious policy that allows non-U.S. persons, businesses, and even governments to involve themselves in U.S. political campaigns. But it is not illegal under the current law. The basis of the fact it is not illegal is this enormous loophole called soft money. Citizens of another country, business interests of another country, governments, foreign governments, can all contribute to American political campaigns through the gaping loophole of soft money. Yet the opponents of this legislation that is before us tonight would argue that to close even those loopholes would constitute an undue infringement on freedom of speech. How absurd. The arguments against reform confuse the quantity of speech with the quality of speech. We have a great deal of evidence that pouring more soft money into our campaigns has actually harmed our electoral process. Party soft money expenditures for the 1996 Presidential and congressional elections totaled $262 million. Let me repeat that. Soft money to American political parties in the 1996 Presidential and congressional elections totaled $262 million. That figure was three times the $86 million which was spent through soft money in the 1992 Presidential and congressional elections. Despite this threefold increase in soft money between 1992 and 1996, were there evidences that it had a positive effect on American participation in government? Are there evidences, as is suggested by the concept that more money is better for the political process, that these expenditures were used to energize the spirit of democracy? Oh, no. Presidential election turnout in 1996 was the lowest in 72 years. When you consider what a tripling of soft money that occurred between 1992 and 1996 did to voter turnout, you can shudder to think what will happen in next year's Presidential election when soft money expenditures are expected to double again, to over $500 million. Voters seem to recognize that, while money may buy an increase in the volume of speech, it does so at the price of the quality, the thoughtfulness of speech. And the volume finally drowns out the quality, and the voter turns off and retreats from participation. Removing unlimited, uncontrolled soft money from the process would not infringe on anyone's right to free speech. Contributions to candidates and parties would still be not only permitted but encouraged. They would simply have to be made according to the rules, rules already in place, rules that have been sanctioned by our judiciary as being consistent with first amendment freedom of speech privileges. For years we have regulated hard money and union and corporate contributions. Indeed, some of these regulations have existed since the time of Theodore Roosevelt. These regulations are consistent with the first amendment. So is the proposed ban on soft money. I believe the actual quality of political speech will be enhanced with a prohibition on soft money. It provides ample avenues for contributing to political candidates, for candidates communicating with and learning from voters, and for raising the credibility of the tattered system by which we elect public officials. We can have all of those benefits by using the system we thought we had, and that is the system that provides for controlled, limited, fully reported campaign contributions. Reform will encourage more voters to participate because they will have renewed hope that their individual voices are being heard, that their individual voices will make a difference. Our colleagues in the House of Representatives have acted. Many States have acted. The public is now rightfully waiting for us in this Chamber which has been described as the greatest deliberative body on Earth. Our people are waiting for us to act to put our campaign system back in order. The system is broken. We have the power, we have the obligation, to fix it. The McCain-Feingold bill is a significant step in that direction. I am proud to support it. I encourage my colleagues to do likewise. Tomorrow will be the testing hour. We are asked to vote on what appears to be a procedural matter, to proceed to another piece of legislation, legislation that has considerable support, legislation that this Senate has considered on a number of occasions in recent years, legislation which this Senate will undoubtedly consider during this session of Congress. Make no mistake about it, the effect of voting tomorrow morning to proceed to another piece of legislation is a vote to strike a stake in the heart of even the beginning of campaign finance reform in America because if we adopt this motion to leave this legislation and turn to another subject matter, I sadly suggest we will never return again to campaign finance reform. We will have done a disservice to the American people. I hope that we will rise to the standard of character above all, that we will demonstrate we are worthy of our previous colleagues in this Senate, such as Senator and later President Harry S. Truman, that we know who we are, we know what our responsibilities are to the American people, and we are prepared to discharge those responsibilities. I thank the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM. Object.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I rise to speak, as I did yesterday, on the latest appropriations conference report. Yesterday I expressed my concern about the Agriculture conference report, which contained within it $8.7 billion of designated emergency spending. Adding that $8.7 billion to $7 billion, which has previously been designated as an emergency, we have now spent almost $16 billion of the $21 billion that was originally estimated to be available as the non-Social Security surplus. We are clearly on the path of exhausting the non-Social Security surplus in a series of incremental decisions, without focusing on how we might use this opportunity of significant surplus for fundamental national policy issues. This legislation contains an additional expenditure of emergency funds in the amount of $7.2 billion. With the adoption of this conference report, we will have fully exhausted the non-Social Security surplus and probably will also begin to lap into the Social Security surplus. Mr. President, there was an interesting quotation in the press within the last 2 weeks by a leading figure in the German Government in 1991. He talked about missed opportunities and said that Germany, in 1991, as part of reunification, had a national opportunity to deal with some of their fundamental problems which would have built a stronger nation for the 21st century. But he went on to say: We promised the nation we could do reunification without pain; therefore, we were unable or unwilling to ask the country to take those steps that would have built a stronger Germany for the 21st century. I regretfully say that I believe we are ``in 1991''; we are not in Germany, we are in the United States of America, and we are missing a similar opportunity to take some important steps that will strengthen our Nation, for precisely the same reason: We are unwilling to tell the American people the truth of what we are about, what the consequences are in terms of missed opportunities, and we are attempting to hide all of this under a cascading number of gimmicks and unique accounting. In my judgment, this Defense appropriations conference report adds to that book another significant chapter which will make it more difficult for us to deal with Social Security solvency, Medicare reform, and debt reduction--three priority issues challenging America. What are some of the items in this Defense appropriations bill that raise those concerns? I have mentioned $7.2 billion listed as an emergency. What are the emergencies? Things such as routine operation and maintenance. Since the Bush administration, we have operated under a definition of what an emergency is which states that an emergency shall be ``spending which is necessary, sudden, urgent, unforeseen, and not permanent.'' Those five standards were developed by President Bush, not the current administration. Those are the five standards to which this Congress has adhered. How can anyone declare that operation and maintenance in the Department of Defense is not permanent, is unforeseen, and is a sudden and urgent condition? Beyond that, we are also slowing payments to contractors in order to move $1.2 billion of those costs out of the fiscal year in which we are currently operating into fiscal year 2001. We are advance appropriating $1.8 billion for the same purpose. We are offsetting $2.6 billion of this bill's cost by assuming the same level of proceeds from spectrum auction sales. This bill relies upon a direction that has been given to CBO to change the manner in which CBO estimates outlays so that $10.5 billion will occur after fiscal year 2000. I am about to leave for a meeting of the Finance Committee, and there is going to be an effort made there to overturn a congressional statute by directing the administration, through the Department of Health and Human Services, to change the method by which Medicare providers are compensated in order to increase spending to those providers by an excess of $5 billion--a violation of congressional statute, a timidity of Congress to deal with changing that statute, with the consequence that we are going to take over $5 billion off budget but directly out of Social Security surplus. So I regret, as my colleague from Arizona did, I will have to vote ``no'' on this legislation. But while recognizing the extreme importance of the national defense that is funded through this legislation, I believe it is also important that we exercise fiscal discipline and that we not commit ourselves to a pattern of accounting and budgetary devices which obscures the reality of what we are doing, which denies us the opportunity to use this rare opportunity of surplus to build a stronger America for the 21st century, and which I think fails to face the reality of what our long-term commitments are going to have to be to secure our national defense. So I regret my inability to support this legislation. I hope this will be a brief period in our American fiscal policy history and that before we complete the calendar year 1999, we will have an opportunity to revisit these issues with that higher standard of directness to the American people and a greater sense of importance of our protecting this rare period of fiscal strength and surplus, and we have to assure that America deals with its priorities as we enter the 21st century.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise to offer a tribute to a great Floridian and a great American: Mr. E. William ``Bill'' Crotty of Florida, the United States Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean. Bill Crotty died Sunday, October 10, 1999, at Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville, Florida. Funeral mass and burial will take place today in Bill's hometown of Daytona Beach, Florida. Among Bill Crotty's many friends in this world, some of his closest friends are members of this body. On behalf of them and the United States Senate, we offer our heart-felt sympathy to Bill's wife, Valerie, and to his large and loving family. During his rich and full life, Bill Crotty was many things: a five- sport athlete, lawyer, proud parent of seven children, successful businessman, Irish story-teller and political and civic activist. Above all, Bill Crotty was an ambassador. His smile, his laugh, his easy manner and his sense of humor were lifelong gifts to the countless individuals he encountered during his 68 years on this earth. Bill Crotty was an ambassador for his alma mater--Dartmouth College in his native New England. He was an ambassador for his adopted home of Daytona Beach, and its Bethune-Cookman College and International Speedway. The local Chamber of Commerce declared him Citizen of the Year in 1992. Late in life, Bill Crotty was officially certified as an ambassador. Last year, after Senate confirmation, he reported to our embassy in Barbados. He and Valerie have done an outstanding job representing the people of the United States in this important neighboring region. One of their efforts has been to help restore the historic home in Barbados where young George Washington once lived with his older brother. Like me, Bill Crotty was born during the Great Depression. Demographers note that America's birth rate declined during the Depression, prompting some social commentators to remark that the parents of those born during this troubled era were passionate or crazy or both. Bill was born with few material possessions. His strong family, his sharp mind, and agile body propelled him to top educational institutions and success in life. Most importantly, Bill Crotty was my friend. I fondly recall repeat visits to his home in Daytona Beach, and his tradition of preparing bountiful breakfasts to start the day. In addition to his cooking skills, Bill was rightfully proud of his agility on the tennis court. Mr. President, we mourn the loss of our friend, Ambassador Crotty, while recognizing and celebrating his many achievements in Daytona Beach, in Florida, in America, and throughout our hemisphere.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. The other two questions relative to the budget relate to advance funding. Is there any advance funding in this conference report, i.e., funds that were normal fiscal year 2000 expenditures which are delayed to a future fiscal year?

Mr. GRAHAM. Finally, relative to the payment adjustments, is there any change in this conference report relative to the timing of payments made to vendors that are beneficiaries which will have the effect of moving fiscal year 2000 costs into future years?

Mr. GRAHAM. If I can editorialize a moment on that question, it seems to me this would be analogous to a family which, for instance, in its budget had said: We will estimate the cost of medical care for our family will be $250. At the end of the year, they found, in fact, it was $1,000. They had to make certain end-of-the-year adjustments in order to fill that $750 missing element in their budget. When they began to write the budget for the next year, one would think prudence would say: Let's include $1,000 as our medical expenses, not a number which has been proven to be inadequate. I suggest somewhat the same analogy would be applicable here. If we have shown there is $8.7 billion of emergency spending and we have appropriated zero for those emergencies, for the future it would be prudent to begin to incorporate into our ongoing budget some funds to respond to these emergencies. We do not know the characteristics, we do not know the geographic location, we do not know when the emergency will occur, but we are pretty sure there is going to be some kind of emergency somewhere in American agriculture that will warrant a response. Prudence would indicate we ought to have a fund from which to meet those needs so that every year we are not in the position of having passed an emergency appropriation which, as we know, has the effect of vitiating all of the normal budgetary rules, including budgetary rules that require we offset spending with either reductions in spending elsewhere or with additional revenue. The effect of this is to go directly to the budget surplus.

Mr. GRAHAM. To the extent those criteria of emergency being necessary--sudden, urgent, unforeseen, and not permanent--if those were the criteria, what proportion of the $8.7 billion of emergency spending would meet those standards?

Mr. GRAHAM. In the fiscal year 2000 budget, how much is budgeted for emergencies that potentially will occur in the fiscal year that began on October 1?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise to ask the manager of the bill a question relative to fiscal provisions within this bill. The context of these questions is when we commenced this session of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the non-Social Security surplus for fiscal year 2000 would be approximately $21 billion. Thus far, we have committed $7 billion of that to the 1999 supplemental appropriations bills through the designation of various items as emergencies. This bill has additional items designated as emergencies totaling $8.7 billion. The effect of this, plus prior action, would be to reduce the estimated non-Social Security surplus to $5.3 billion. We also have in the offing other emergency provisions which will total approximately $15 billion and thus eliminate the non-Social Security surplus and place us in a position of having to do what we have all committed not to do, which is to dip into the Social Security surplus by in excess of $10 billion. In that context, I want to ask the manager a short list of questions, and I say to my good friend, the Senator from Mississippi, I commend him for the work he has done this year and in previous years on behalf of American agriculture. I know the frugality with which he approaches his task. He has been faced, as has happened in the past, with an unusual set of circumstances affecting American agriculture and thus the necessity for emergency spending. What is the level of emergency spending included in this conference committee report?