Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. How much has been designated for emergency spending in the Senate bill which this body passed?

Mr. GRAHAM. And how much had been approved by the House in its original version of the Agriculture appropriations bill?

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Senator. The emergency spending items which were included in the fiscal year 2000 conference report, what is their degree of adherence to the statutory criteria for emergency spending, which are that spending must be necessary, sudden, urgent, unforeseen, and not permanent in character?

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

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues from Vermont and Maine for their always courteous generosity, and my colleague from Oregon, with whom I have been working so closely for approximately 2 years-plus now on this important issue. There is one thing I believe we can agree on, and that is that the status quo of agricultural farm workers in America is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to have somewhere between 35 and 50 percent of all of our migratory farm work done by people who are here illegally. It is unfair to the individuals involved because it puts them in the shadows of our society. If I may, I will state a personal experience. Immediately after Hurricane Andrew, which hit south Florida in August of 1992, there was great concern about communicable diseases such as cholera; therefore the Public Health Service wanted to inoculate the whole population against the potential of these diseases. There is a substantial migrant farm worker population that lives in the southern part of our State, and many of those people refused to come forward to be inoculated, nor would they allow their children to be protected against communicable diseases because they live in such a dark shadow because of their undocumented status. They were fearful that if they came forward, even with firm promises and commitments by the Public Health Service that they would not be reported for any other purpose, they were still not willing to take the risk. So they put themselves, their families, and the entire community at risk. That is one anecdote of the degree to which, by our acceptance of the status quo, we have placed hundreds of thousands of people into a status of servitude and in the dark closet of our society. We also have placed honest farmers in an extremely difficult situation. They are frequently presented with documents that appear to be credible. They hire people to do necessary work during the brief period that is available to harvest the crops, and then they find out later that these people had fraudulent documents, were undocumented, and that they might be subject to various sanctions. We also know that because of the current system, we have farm workers--both those who are legal citizens or residents of the United States, as well as those who are undocumented--living in horrendous circumstances of housing, being transported in vehicles that don't meet basic safety standards, being placed in a position where their salaries are held each week in order to pay off previous debts, and they live in conditions that are reminiscent not of the 21st century but of the 17th or 18th century. These people are doing extremely difficult work, work that is vital to our Nation and vital to our Nation's economy. They deserve better from us, the policymakers of America, than we have done for them in the past. One thing we also know, in addition to the fact that the status quo is unacceptable, is the status quo will continue until we decide that this issue is important enough to engage in a serious debate in which we can analyze what the problems are with the status quo, and what the range of solutions to those problems are, and which of those solutions appear to be most appropriate. And it is regarding that which the Senator from Oregon has mentioned that we have had a series of efforts to try to elicit from the administration their plan. Now, why have we focused so much on the administration? Well, first, they happen to have a unique perspective on the problem, since they are responsible to the Department of Labor, and, secondarily, the Department of Agriculture, for the implementation of the status quo. Therefore, they should be in a specially advantaged position to analyze and recommend alteration to the status quo. We also know in this form of government we have that while the legislature's responsibility is to enact law, the President, because of his role and because of his constitutional veto authority, plays a key position in terms of legislation and the law. So beginning in June of 1997, we have been meeting with representatives of the administration, heads of departments, as well as representatives of the White House. Senator Wyden and myself, sometimes accompanied by others, have met face-to-face, occasionally by conference telephone call, and occasionally by correspondence with the administration on 12 separate occasions between June of 1997 and May of 1999. Each one of those had a common theme: What is your proposal? What is your diagnosis of the problem? What is your prescription against this problem? As of today, in early October of 1999, we have yet to receive a credible response to that question. Thus, the amendment that was accepted to the bill we have just adopted directs the administration to submit to the Congress such a plan. It is my hope that the administration will do so with a sense of expedition. I hope within a period of 60 or 90 days we receive its recommendations so that, if not at their first session of the 106th Congress, then at the earliest point in the second session of the 106th Congress, we would be in a position to have the administration's views as to how this very vexatious problem could be resolved. I might say that the fact we have made this request, and have made it now for the better part of 30 months, is not an indication that we are going to desist until we have heard the administration's plan. While we would like to have their guidance and suggestions, we consider it to be our ultimate responsibility, as we did in 1998 when we presented to the Senate and the Senate adopted by a margin of well over 2 to 1, the proposal that we submitted. We will continue to take effective action to keep this issue on America's agenda because we cannot tolerate a continuation of the status quo which places hundreds of thousands of human beings into a position of servitude and which places hundreds of thousands of legitimate farmers in a position in which they must operate at the fringe of the law when what they want to do is to be law-abiding citizens. Before this 106th Congress concludes, I hope we will have had the wisdom to reject the status quo and to have adopted humane, effective public policy which will erase the stain of the status quo of American farm workers, which will have lifted this cloud of illegality from American farmers, which will assure standards of treatment that we as fellow human beings would consider to be dignified and respectful for other human beings, and that we can move forward with a new era in America agriculture. I appreciate the work of my colleague from Oregon. I also commend our other colleague from Oregon, Senator Gordon Smith. It is an outstanding example of the people of Oregon who have sent to us these two Members of the Senate, who happen to be from different parties but understand their ultimate commitment is to America and to what is best for this great Nation. They are giving us, in this case, as in other areas, an example of what bipartisanship means and what bipartisanship can accomplish. For that, as well as for their friendship, I extend my gratitude.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am here today, as I was in July, to point out to my colleagues another stealth effort to kill competition within the Medicare program. Title I, section 214, buried in the middle of this long appropriations bill on page 49, carries the following statement: None of the funds provided in this Act or in any other Act making appropriations for fiscal year 2000 may be used to administer or implement in Arizona or in Kansas City, Missouri or in the Kansas City, Kansas area the Medicare Competitive Pricing Demonstration Project operated by the Secretary of Health and Human Services under authority granted in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. If that statement sounds familiar, it is. Almost the same language was buried in the HMO Patients' Bill of Rights bill as it passed the Senate back in July. It passed then undebated and undiscussed as to its implications--just as we are about to do here tonight. July's action was outrageous. This action is even more so. There is a certain irony here. We have just heard that the House of Representatives passed, by an overwhelming vote, a version of the HMO Patients' Bill of Rights which is very similar to the bipartisan bill offered but not considered in the Senate. Our bipartisan bill was strongly opposed by the HMO industry. Their basic argument is: let's keep government out of our business, let us operate based on a competitive model that will allow the consumer, the beneficiary of the HMO contract, to negotiate without government standards, without government sanctions for failure to deliver on those standards with the HMO industry. They wanted to have laissez-faire free enterprise; Adam Smith roams the land. However, today we are about to pass a provision that says when the HMOs are dealing with their pocketbook and the question of how they will get reimbursed, how much money they are going to get paid from Medicare, they don't want to have a free market of competition; they don't want to have a means by which the taxpayers can be assured what they are paying for the HMO product is what the market says they should be paying. There is a certain amount of irony there which I think underscores the motivations of a significant portion of this industry. There also is a procedural ploy here. If this provision I just quoted were to be offered as an amendment to this bill, it would be ruled out of order under rule XVI in part because it purports not only to control action in this act but in any other act that Congress might consider making in an appropriations bill. But this is not an amendment; this is in the bill itself as it has come out of the Appropriations Committee, and therefore rule XVI does not apply. Normally under the procedures the Congress has followed traditionally, we would be dealing with a House bill because the House traditionally has led in the appropriations process; therefore, we would be amending a House bill. Thus, we could have excised this provision. However, because we are violating tradition and taking up a Senate bill first, we do not have the opportunity to remove it by a point of order. I will state for the record that henceforth, when it is proposed we take up a Senate appropriations bill before a House bill, I am going to stand here and object. This is exactly the kind of procedural abuse we can expect in the future as is happening right now. If that isn't bad enough, this is just plain bad policy. It stifles innovation by eliminating the competitive demonstration which hopefully would have led to a competitive process of compensating HMOs. It forces Medicare to pay more than necessary for some services in certain areas of the country while it denies managed care to other areas of the country. This HMO pricing is not without its own history. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 included the competitive pricing demonstration program for Medicare. That provision was fought in the committee and fought in the Senate in 1997 by the HMO industry and certain Members of this body, but it prevailed. One by one, the HMO industry has been able to kill or has attempted to kill demonstrations which have been scheduled in many communities across the country. Today it is Arizona and Kansas City. The equation is pretty simple. It does not take rocket science to understand what is happening. Who benefits by continuing a system of paying Medicare HMOs that are not subject to competition? The HMOs benefit. Who loses when the same system is open to competition? The HMOs, because they no longer have the gravy train that exists today. Who gains by competition? Beneficiaries gain, particularly in rural areas which don't have managed care today. It would be the marketplace that would be establishing what the appropriate reimbursement level should be for an HMO in a currently unserved or underserved rural area--not a formula which underpays what the real cost of providing managed care would be in such an area. And the taxpayers lose because they do not get the benefit of the marketplace as a discipline of what the HMO's compensation should be. It is curious that out of one side of their mouth, they are screaming the current system of reimbursement is putting them out of business and causing them to have to leave hundreds of thousands of former HMO beneficiaries high and dry and also to curtail benefits such as prescription drugs, but at the same time, they are saying out of the left side of their mouth they are doing everything they can to prevent the insertion of competitive bidding as a means of establishing what their HMO contracts are really worth and what they should be paid. They cannot have it both ways. It takes a certain degree of political courage to make this reform happen. Let me give an example. In my own State of Florida, we were part of this demonstration project. We were selected to have a demonstration for Part B services for what are referred to as durable medical equipment. Lakeland, FL, was selected as the place to demonstrate the potential savings for medical equipment such as oxygen supplies and equipment, hospital beds and accessories, surgical dressings, enteral nutrition, and urological supplies. The savings that have been achieved in this project are impressive. They are 18-percent savings for oxygen supplies. I know the Senator from Iowa has stood on this floor and at times has even wrapped himself in medical bandages to demonstrate how much more Medicare was paying than, for instance, the Veterans' Administration for the same items. This competitive bidding process is attempting to bring the forces of the market into Medicare, and an 18-percent savings by competitively bidding oxygen supplies and equipment over the old formula we used to use. There were 30-percent savings for hospital beds and accessories, 13-percent savings for surgical dressings, 31 percent for enteral nutrition products, and 20 percent for urological supplies. It has been estimated if that Lakeland, FL, project were to be applied on a nationwide basis, the savings over 10 years would be in excess of $1 billion. We are not talking about small change. Beneficiaries have saved money from this demonstration, and access and quality have been preserved and protected. I find it troubling we are again today, as we were in July, debating, at the end of a major piece of legislation, a silently, surreptitiously included item which has the effect of sheltering HMOs from the marketplace. We might find some HMOs cannot compete and others will thrive, but that is what the marketplace should determine. That is what competition is all about. I urge my colleagues to examine this provision, to examine the implications of this provision in this kind of legislation and the restraints it imposes upon us, as Members of the Senate, to excise it as inappropriate legislative language on an appropriations bill. I hope our conferees, as they meet with the House, will resist the inclusion of this in the final legislation we might be asked to vote upon when this measure comes back from conference. This disserves the beneficiaries of the Medicare program. It disserves the taxpayers of America. It disserves the standards of public policy development by the Senate. I hope we will not have a further repetition of this stealth attack on the Medicare program.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise to join my distinguished colleague from Oklahoma in introducing legislation that creates public and private incentives to reduce the cost of future disasters. On June 1st, the start of the 1999 Hurricane Season, the National Weather Service predicted that the United States would face three or four intense hurricanes during the next six months. We did not have a long wait to experience the accuracy of that forecast. From September 12-15, 1999, Hurricane Floyd dragged 140 mph winds and eight foot tidal surges along the eastern seaboard. Floyd caused flooding, tornadoes, and massive damage from Florida to New Jersey. Evacuations were conducted as far north as Delaware. This disaster claimed the lives of 68 people. Initial damage estimates suggest that Floyd could cost the federal government more than $6 billion. Just days later, Tropical Storm Harvey struck Florida's west coast. We are still assessing the combine effects of these storms. Coming just seven years after Hurricane Andrew damaged 128,000 homes, left approximately 160,000 people homeless, and caused nearly $30 billion in damage, this year's developments remind us of the inevitability and destructive power of Mother Nature. We must prepare for natural disasters if we are going to minimize their devastating effects. It is impossible to stop violent weather. But Congress can reduce the losses from severe weather by legislating a comprehensive, nationwide mitigation strategy. Senator Inhofe and I have worked closely with FEMA, the National Emergency Management Association, the National League of Cities, the American Red Cross, and numerous other groups to construct a comprehensive proposal that will make mitigation--not response and recovery--the primary focus of emergency management. Our legislation amends the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. It will: Authorize programs for pre-disaster emergency preparedness; streamline the administration of disaster relief; restrain the Federal costs of disaster assistance; and provide incentives for the development of community-sponsored mitigation projects. Mr. President, history has demonstrated that no community in the United States is safe from disasters. From tropical weather along the Atlantic Coast to devastating floods in the Upper Midwest to earthquakes in the Pacific Rim, we have suffered as a result of Mother Nature's fury. She will strike again. But we can avoid some of the excessive human and financial costs of the past by applying what we have learned about preparedness technology. Florida has been a leader in incorporating the principles and practice of hazard mitigation into the mainstream of community preparedness. We have developed and implemented mitigation projects using funding from the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, the Flood Mitigation Assistance Program and other public-private partnerships. Everyone has a role in reducing the risks associated with natural and technological related hazards. Engineers, hospital administrators, business leaders, regional planners and emergency managers and volunteers are all significant contributors to mitigation efforts. An effective mitigation project may be as basic as the Miami Wind Shutter program. The installation of shutters is a cost-effective mitigation measure that has proven effective in protecting buildings from hurricane force winds, and in the process minimizing direct and indirect losses to vulnerable facilities. These shutters significantly increase strength and provide increased protection of life and property. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew did $17 million worth of damage to Baptist, Miami South, and Mercy Hospitals in Miami. As a result, these hospitals were later retrofitted with wind shutters through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. Six years after Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Georges brushed against South Florida. The shutter project paid dividends. Georges' track motivated evacuees to leave more vulnerable areas of South Florida to seek shelter. The protective shutters allowed these three Miami hospitals to serve as a safe haven for 200 pregnant mothers, prevented the need to evacuate critical patients, and helped the staff's families to secure shelter during the response effort. In July of 1994, Tropical Storm Alberto's landfall in the Florida Panhandle triggered more than $500 million in federal disaster assistance. State and local officials concluded that the direct solution to the problem of repetitive flooding was to remove or demolish the structures at risk. A Community Block Grant of $27.5 million was used to assist local governments in acquiring 388 extremely vulnerable properties. The success of this effort was evident when the same area experienced flooding again in the spring of 1998. While both floods were of comparable severity, the damages from the second disaster were significantly lower in the communities that acquired the flood prone properties. This mitigation project reduced their vulnerability. We have an opportunity today to continue the working partnership between the federal government, the states, local communities and the private sector. In mitigating the devastating effects of natural disasters, it is also imperative that we control the cost of disaster relief. Our legislation will help in this effort. I encourage my colleagues to support this initiative.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for 20 minutes.

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

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I understand we are in morning business with a 10-minute restriction on length of comments.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to speak on an issue which has already been addressed by several of our colleagues earlier in the week. Initially, I was reluctant to discuss this matter for fear of contributing to a charge of politicization of an issue which, in my judgment, should not be thought of as political but, rather, one to be judged and decided in the finest traditions of our Nation, the relationship of each of the branches of Government carrying out their appropriate responsibilities. The reticence I had to discuss this issue was overcome when I heard some of the comments made about our Justice Department and about our Attorney General relative to the decision made to file civil claims on behalf of the Federal Government and the citizens of the United States against the tobacco industry. The purpose of my remarks this afternoon is not to rebut comments made elsewhere; rather, it is my purpose to remind our colleagues of the bedrock principles upon which this body, upon which our Federal Government operates, the rule of law and the separation of powers. The level of rhetoric on the question of whether the Federal Government should have initiated civil litigation against the tobacco industry has been very high. The level of analysis, unfortunately, in my opinion, has been quite shallow. In their haste to spring to the tobacco industry's defense and to, once again, heap partisan abuse upon the Attorney General and the Justice Department, some Members of Congress have disregarded the very nature of our system of government. I have heard it said the Justice Department suit violates both separation of powers and the rule of law. In my opinion, these accusations turn the structure of our Government completely on its head. Nearly 200 years ago, Chief Justice John Marshall explained the powers of our coordinate branches of Government. In Marbury v. Madison, the seminal decision which established the concept of judicial review, the Chief Justice wrote: The powers of the legislature are defined and limited and that those limits not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written. The Chief Justice went on to say it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. For the last 200 years, the American people have understood the respective roles of the three branches of Government. As the national legislature, our duty as Congress is to find and limit it to the role of making law. It is the executive branch's role, in part through the Justice Department, to enforce that law. It is the Judiciary's role to interpret the law. Each branch of Government must be left to do its work without interference from the other branches. We in Congress have already done our job. We have made the laws which the Justice Department now seeks to enforce. Whether the Justice Department ultimately prevails is left to a third branch of Government, the judiciary. The only threat to the rule of law in filing this litigation on behalf of the American people against the tobacco industry is posed by those who seek to step beyond their proper relationship and usurp the power granted by the Constitution to other branches of Government. It is neither wise nor right for members in the legislature to attempt to tell the executive how to enforce the laws or to tell the courts how to interpret the laws. If we practice jurisprudence by press release, we become lawmakers, law enforcers, law judges. If we have learned anything at the end of this millennium, it is that such an aggregation of power is the antithesis of the rule of law and is, instead, the imposition of tyranny. Throughout the world--from East Timor to Kosovo to Cuba--we encourage other countries to follow the rule of law. We must do no less here. We have the greatest judicial system in the world. It resolves disputes based on evidence not rhetoric. Let us allow our court system to adjudicate this dispute without congressional interference. Undoubtedly there have been instances when individual Members, if not a majority of the Senate, have questioned the wisdom of lawsuits brought by the Justice Department. When powerful industries violate federal law, it is not uncommon for them to seek congressional interference. When individuals or groups have used their power and privilege to dominate others, and that power was challenged by the law, they have shrilled--``foul.'' Many disagreed when President Theodore Roosevelt's Justice Department sued to break up Standard Oil. Similar complaints were heard when President Reagan's Justice Department sued AT&T. And we can all remember the outcry in some quarters in the 1950's and 1960's when the Justice Department sought to enforce civil rights guarantees. While some influential members might have advocated congressional intervention, in none of those cases did the Congress step in to attempt to tell the Justice Department whom it can or cannot sue. We must not do that now. Some have asked why Congress was not consulted prior to this suit being filed. The questioners appear to have forgotten much of what has happened in the last year. Setting aside the fact that the Justice Department has no obligation to ask Congress for permission to enforce the law, Congress was well aware this litigation was under consideration. In his State of the Union address, the President discussed the possibility of this tobacco suit, by announcing that he had asked the Justice Department to prepare a litigation plan against the tobacco industry. Specifically, the President said: So tonight I announce that the Justice Department is preparing a litigation plan to take the tobacco companies to court--and with the funds we recover, to strengthen Medicare. It would have been hard to be clearer. Congress also considered the potential for a federal tobacco suit when it protected the states' tobacco settlements from federal incursion. In the budget resolution, passed on March 25, 1999, I offered a sense-of-the-Senate amendment which stated that the proceeds of a successful federal lawsuit should be used to shore up the Medicare Trust Fund and help to establish a prescription drug benefit. That amendment passed without dissent. In March of this year, during debate of the budget resolution, the Senate defeated an amendment offered by Senators Specter and Harkin to place strings on the states' tobacco settlements. Several Members of this body, including myself, stated that if the federal government believed it had claims against the tobacco industry, the Justice Department was free to bring those claims but that the Federal Government should not attempt to recoup State settlement proceeds. The matter was discussed yet again when the Commerce, Justice, and State Appropriations Subcommittee attempted to impede the Justice Department's ability to pursue litigation against the tobacco industry. Not only was the offensive report language effectively removed through a colloquy, the chairman of the subcommittee expressly acknowledged that: Nothing in the bill or the report language prohibits the Department from using generally appropriated funds, including funds from the Fees and Expenses of Witnesses Account, to pursue this litigation if the Department concludes such litigation has merit under existing law. Quite obviously, the Justice Department has reached the very conclusion discussed on the floor of the Senate just a few months ago. Surely it is absurd to suggest that the Justice Department somehow blind-sided Congress with the announcement of this lawsuit. But again, these facts beg the question. The Justice Department does not need my permission or your permission, or the permission of anyone else in this body to do its job, which is to enforce the law. Conversely, if we attempt to prevent the Justice Department from doing its job, we are engaging in obstruction of justice. Others have questioned the motivation for bringing this suit. I believe the motivation for the Attorney General's decision is similar to that of the attorneys general in many of our states: to enforce the law--and by doing so--protect the American people and particularly the children of America. The suit seeks to end the cycle of addiction to nicotine, an addiction created in part by false advertising and advertising targeting the youth of our country. It also seeks to recompense taxpayers for the billions of dollars this addiction has cost them--the taxpayers of America. These are motivations which should be celebrated, not ridiculed. The merits of this case rightfully will be determined in a court of law--not in this body, not in the Congress. But since some of my colleagues have seen fit to put on their own imaginary black robes and pretend to judge this case, I would like to offer a few observations of my own. It has been argued that the civil RICO statute does not apply in this case because tobacco is a legal product. But this argument ignores the claims made by the Justice Department. The Justice Department does not allege that tobacco itself is illegal. Nor does it suggest that the tobacco industry broke the law by selling or marketing tobacco products to adults. Instead, the Justice Department argues that tobacco companies violated the civil RICO statute--a Federal law, of course, enacted by Congress--by conspiring to illegally market their cigarettes to children and by wilfully withholding critical information from the public and the Government. The tobacco companies have known for years what we are just beginning to learn. If they don't hook you early, they'll never hook you. And if they never hook you, their business dies. It's as simple as that. Tobacco relies by necessity on addicting our children. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 89 percent of all smokers begin smoking before age 18. So, Mr. President, does it surprise us that the tobacco industry has spent millions of dollars each year to addict our children? It certainly should not. But whether it surprises us or not, we have an obligation to do something about it. In this case, we should simply let the Justice Department enforce the laws that we have passed. As documents introduced in state court actions have demonstrated, some of the marketing efforts of these companies have been directed at children as young as 10 years old. The fact that tobacco is legal for adults does not give these companies the right to market their products illegally to children or to misrepresent or conceal information. These allegations, if proven, will constitute a violation of the RICO statute. I am even more disturbed by another argument made by the pro-tobacco forces. They argue that even if the Justice Department can prove the tobacco companies lied and illegally marketed their products, the Federal Government has suffered no damages because tobacco use imposes no net cost to the taxpayer. Let me restate that: the Federal Government has suffered no damages because tobacco use imposes no net cost to the taxpayer. Let us be clear on what is being argued here. Big Tobacco says that the taxpayers incur no increased costs because tobacco kills people prematurely. Therefore, the industry argues that the taxpayers save money by not having to pay out Social Security or Medicare funds to Americans whose lives are cut short by tobacco before they reach 65. I imagine there might be some who would congratulate the tobacco industry for saving us all this money by killing our fellow American citizens before they become a burden. I, for one, and I am confident the vast majority of Americans, would much rather spend money on Social Security and Medicare than have millions of our fellow citizens die a slow, a painful, and a premature death. Along with being a ghoulish and despicable argument, the industry's twisted logic that it has imposed no net cost on the American taxpayer has also been properly rejected on public policy grounds. In January of 1998, the trial court in the Minnesota State suit against the tobacco industry upheld the motion of the State of Minnesota for summary judgment, effectively stating that the State of Minnesota had established its case with no further evidence required. In granting this motion, Judge Fitzpatrick ruled the tobacco industry defendants could not use the fact that they killed people prematurely to their advantage in defending against the suit. Predictably, the friends of tobacco also make another slippery slope argument. If the Justice Department can sue tobacco companies, they say, what other industries will not be safe? Will fast food or beef or dairy industries be the next in line? This argument is truly offensive. It is an affront to me personally and should be an affront to all legitimate owners of businesses, large and small, who contribute to this Nation, instead of destroying its health. My family happens to have been in the dairy business for almost 70 years. I take great offense at the comparison between the tobacco industry and the dairy industry. Neither the dairy industry, the beef industry, fast food industry, nor any other is comparable to tobacco. The tobacco industry is unique. Only the tobacco industry has stonewalled and lied to the American public and the American Government for half a century about the known addictive nature of its products. If anyone in this body wants to argue that the dairy or beef industries are analogous to big tobacco, then I invite them to come down to the Senate floor and let's have that debate. Better yet, go to Florida or Wisconsin and tell cattle and dairy farmers they should be treated like big tobacco, an industry which depends on destroying the health of our children in order to succeed. Let's spend a moment talking about those children. When all the legal arguments and all the political rhetoric fall away, our children remain. They, not lawsuits, not politicians, are our most important concern. It is our children who have been the targets of a predatory effort by the tobacco industry to entice them into an addiction which will eventually kill them. We also know that early cigarette habits are directly related to other drug use. A 1994 Surgeon General report showed that cigarettes are a gateway drug, a significant risk factor to increased incidents of alcohol and illicit drug use. This report highlighted the relationship of teenage smoking as a precursor to the use of alcohol and drugs, including recent data from the National Institute on Drug and Alcohol Abuse's ``Monitoring the Future'' project which showed that 33 percent of those surveyed admitted to starting drinking at the same time they started the use of tobacco. This same survey also indicated that 23 percent of the respondents began using both cigarettes and marijuana in the same year. Importantly, 65 percent of the respondents smoked cigarettes before they used marijuana. This relationship was more pronounced for cocaine: 98 percent of individuals who used cocaine first smoked cigarettes. Putting an end to the tobacco company's illegal marketing efforts toward our Nation's youth will reduce children's smoking. This, in turn, will go a long way to helping combat the use of other illegal drugs. I know the Justice Department's suit is not a panacea. It will take a combination of litigation and legislation to solve this problem. A court, for instance, cannot grant enhanced Food and Drug Administration authority to classify nicotine as a drug and cigarettes as a drug-delivery device, a powerful tool to prevent the tobacco industry from manipulating the product to addict even more people. Only Congress can give the Food and Drug Administration that authority. Should Congress find the tobacco industry responsible for the high rate of youth smoking, Congress may have to impose penalties on big tobacco based on the industry's failure to meet statutorily defined youth smoking reduction targets. A court cannot bind future entrants into the tobacco market to marketing and advertising restrictions which were entered into by the previous participants in the tobacco industry through a consent decree. That may also require congressional involvement. I stand ready to work with my colleagues on all of these and other necessary legislative issues, but this suit is, however, an important, a useful step in enforcing the rule of law. It is important in protecting our children and our grandchildren. I am proud to call Janet Reno a friend. As an American, I applaud her for her hard work, for her tenacity, and courage in the face of fierce partisan opposition. I say thank you, Madam Attorney General, on behalf of all of America's citizens. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I ask for a voice vote on the amendment.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, we are talking about one of those entitlement issues Senator Stevens just described. The Finance Committee of the Senate and the Ways and Means Committee of the House established the funding level for title XX of the SSBG of their bill at $2.38 billion. The appropriators have reduced that amount to $1.50 billion, a cut of over 50 percent. This violates a commitment the Congress made with the Governors in 1996 as part of the welfare-to- work legislation. Therefore, the Governors are opposing the position the committee has taken. This is a backdoor violation of the commitment that 71 Senators made when we voted against having the Federal Government direct how the States' tobacco settlement was spent. Why is this? Because the way in which the subcommittee recommends we make up this difference is to direct the States to use their tobacco money to fill this gap. Seventy-one Members of the Senate--48 Republicans and 23 Democrats--voted in March of this year to do exactly the opposite of what we are now being asked to do. Mr. President, this is a matter of honor of the Senate and our commitment to our partners in the Federal system, the States. I urge that this motion to table be defeated.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. GRAHAM. I would like to reserve time to close. If there are any speakers in opposition to the amendment, I would defer to them and then I would like to close.

Mr. GRAHAM. The arguments in favor of this amendment are numerous. The Federal Government made a commitment to the States as part of the welfare-to-work legislation that it would maintain funding for this program at the level of $2.38 billion each year. That commitment was made out of a recognition of the importance of the programs funded through title XX of the Social Security Act toward achieving the results, the goals of welfare to work. We are about to breach that commitment--not just to breach it, we are about to obliterate that commitment. Second, the proposal directs the States to spend a portion of their tobacco settlement to replace these Federal funds, the funds we have committed to make available to the States. We have voted in this Senate on numerous occasions, by margins of 70 to 30 or more, against that specific proposition, against the attempt of the Federal Government to play big father and direct the States as to how they should use their tobacco settlement money. Now, having beaten back the efforts at the front door, we see this effort coming in through the back door saying: Well, we are not going to tell you that you have to spend your money. We are just going to cut over half of a critical Federal partnership program with the States, a program we committed to as part of the States entering into the Welfare-to-Work Program. We are just going to suggest. And, by the way, you ought to spend your tobacco money to fund it. Outrageous. Third, this is not just a matter of what is in our heart; this is also what is in our mind. The reason Congress adopted this program in 1975--which, if I recall, was under the administration of President Ford--was the recognition that expenditure of Federal funds on programs that kept older Americans out of nursing homes, expenditure of Federal funds on programs that alleviated the suffering and the potential for further suffering of the disabled, saved the Federal Government money, programs that kept families together, that helped children in need, saved the Federal Government money. With almost no consideration, we are about to turn the clock back on this accomplishment of President Ford and 25 years of demonstrated success of this program in both helping people and saving the Federal Government money. Most important, we are about to pick out the most vulnerable people among us and say: It is upon your back that we are going to attempt to reduce the imbalance in our budget accounts. We are going to turn to the weakest to say: You should carry the fullest load. I don't want to just speak these closing remarks in my words. I will use the words of a few of the many organizations across America which, in the short period of time since the alert went out that this ridiculous action was even being considered by the most deliberative body in the world, have responded with their assessment of what this would mean. Let me mention a few of them. The National Governors' Association had this to say: Over the past few years, the [social services block grant] has taken more than its share of cuts in federal funding. As part of the 1996 welfare reform deal, Congress made a commitment to Governors that the SSBG would be level funded at $2.38 billion each year. Congress made a commitment to the States that this funding would be maintained. Now we are about to cut that funding by more than 50 percent, according to the National Governors' Association. The Fight Crime Invest in Kids Coalition, an organization that represents over 500 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, victims of violence, leaders of police organizations and violence prevention scholars, had this to say about this proposal: The Graham-Wellstone amendment to restore funding of $2.38 billion for the Title XX Social Services Block Grant would: Provide over $591 million to protect children from abuse and neglect. Since abused and neglected children are almost twice as likely to become chronic offenders, it is clear these services can have an important crime prevention impact. Provide $300 million to support child care in 47 States. The High/Scope Foundation study showed that quality child care can dramatically reduce the chances of children becoming criminals. That is what 500 chiefs of police and sheriffs and other leaders in the criminal justice community have said about the importance of this amendment. Catholic Charities USA said this in its letter: Cutting funds to services that keep people independent and in their communities is short sighted and will lead to unnecessary suffering and increases in other federal programs. This is what the Girl Scouts said about this proposal: The further cuts to this program which have been proposed by the Senate will no doubt negatively impact our communities, most of which are already struggling with limited resources for much needed services. Finally, the National Conference of State Legislatures in their letter stated: The current proposal in the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations legislation will jeopardize services to the elderly, disabled and children and families. It also represents a retreat from Federal commitments made during the enactment of welfare reform legislation. For all of those reasons, as well as the fact that Senators Kennedy and Cleland have asked to be added as additional cosponsors to this amendment, I urge my colleagues to step back from the precipice of irresponsibility and repudiation of commitment, to step back from the cliff that would have us, through the back door of this ill-considered proposal, breach our commitments to the States to keep our hands off their State-won tobacco settlement, and particularly so we can look in the eyes of the American people who would be most affected by this--the children, the disabled, and the frail elderly--and say: You are not the forgotten Americans. I urge the adoption of this amendment.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask that the underlying amendment, as amended, be voice voted.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to return to my second amendment for purposes of a voice vote.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I suggest the Senate is not in order.

Mr. GRAHAM. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRAHAM. I would like to dispose of this matter now. Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I think I had asked for the yeas and nays on the underlying amendment, as amended.

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank my colleague for her statement, and for her leadership in this important area.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, first, to yield to our colleague from Georgia for purposes of a request and then for purposes of making a unanimous consent request that has to do with establishing my order in the line to offer an amendment relative to the pending legislation.

Mr. GRAHAM. I accept that if I could be recognized between the Senators from Georgia and North Carolina for purposes of my procedural motion.