Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I yield to the Senator from New Mexico. Amendment No. 2575, as Modified

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President I ask unanimous consent to extend that 2 minutes.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I would request, immediately after disposition of the amendments from the Senator from Illinois, an amendment offered by Senator Bumpers and myself be the next Democratic amendment. And we have agreed to a time agreement of 2 hours equally divided.

Mr. GRAHAM. I would modify my request for unanimous consent just to be in sequence after the Senator from Illinois and settle at a later date the question of time.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. GRAHAM. My second amendment addresses the issue of unfunded mandates. In the spirit of S. 1, the first bill of this session that will seek to limit unfunded mandates in the future, a bill which was passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by the President, I am offering an amendment to apply the principles of S. 1--the unfunded mandates bill--to the welfare reform bill. My third amendment deals with the section of the Dole bill the calls for a ranking of States' compliance with the provisions of this bill. My thesis is that this ranking system would be inherently unfair, because of the disparate amounts that would flow to States under this bill. Therefore, if we're going to give the States a grade, my amendment would require the Secretary to take into account the number of poor children in each State. My fourth amendment deals with the work-participation goals in the Dole bill. My amendment would allow those work goals to be modified, based on the amount of funding a State receives. My final amendment would allow legal aliens currently receiving benefits to continue to be eligible under this legislation. Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I offered several amendments which I will explain in brief. My first amendment would change the formula for distributing Federal welfare funds to the States. I am offering this amendment with Senator Dale Bumpers. I would ask for unanimous consent to add Senators Bryan, Moseley-Braun, Pryor, Johnston, and Reid as cosponsors. In sum, our formula amendment would distribute funds under this bill on the basis of a State's number of children in poverty. In the interest of time, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at this point a description of the Graham-Bumpers formula amendment. Thank you.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask the pending amendment be set aside, and on behalf of myself and cosponsors, I send to the desk five amendments.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Connecticut. On behalf of Senator Kennedy, I send two amendments to the desk to be offered, and I ask the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. If I could.

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. President and my distinguished colleagues. I appreciate the courtesy. I want to talk some about the structure of the welfare reform proposal that is before us and some concerns I have as to whether we are building a foundation on reality with steel and concrete, or a foundation of sand based on theory, hope, and avoidance of responsibility. I am going to be talking from basically two sources. First, I will talk from some statistics that are generic and analytical of the legislation before us. I will also be talking from some anecdotes which are personal and specific. For the last 21 years, I have had a practice of taking an occasional job in a different area of interest within my State. In July, I took a job with one of the two welfare-to-work programs in Florida, this one in Pensacola. This is a program which is very similar to the objectives of both the underlying bill and the amendment that is before us. It is mandatory; that is, participation is required. It has the goal of placing a high percentage of those persons who are currently on welfare into employment. It is exploring what are the pragmatic requirements of accomplishing that objective, and it is doing so in the community of Pensacola, which is very representative of the kind of communities across America in which this type of program will be applied. I am going to be using some of the information and observations from that experience also as the basis of my comments on the plan which is before us today. Mr. President, I strongly support a serious effort to move people from the dependency of welfare to the independence of and self- sufficiency through employment. That is a fundamentally important objective. As we start this, I want us to understand almost the moral dimension of what we are doing, and I will place that in the context of eight women with whom I spent a considerable amount of time in Pensacola who are part of this process of making the transition. Just to describe these eight women, they were six white and two African American women. They were somewhat older than I had anticipated. The youngest was in the early twenties, up to the early forties. All of them had two or more children. Three of the eight women had a child with a serious medical disability. I was initially surprised that there would be that high an incidence of medical disability. But on reflection, given the fact that these women typically had no or very limited prenatal care with their children and had limited access to primary care since their children were born, it is not surprising that there would be that incidence of medical disability. These are women who are very committed to a better life for their children through the achievement of independence for themselves. Many of these women have limited educational backgrounds and, therefore, the kind of job training in which they are now engaged in Pensacola, the Welfare to Work program, is difficult for them. But they are making a maximum effort to be successful. In the course of attending one of the programs in which they are learning some of the basic skills that will be necessary, one of the women broke down and cried. She said: ``This is so difficult for me, but I understand the importance of this opportunity that I am being given and, if I do not succeed, not only will this likely be my last chance but it will fundamentally change the future for my children. I want to succeed.'' Our moral responsibility as a society, Mr. President, is we are telling these women that you have 2, maybe 3 years to be successful in preparing yourself and securing employment, and securing employment at a level that will allow you to support your children. We are making a commitment to them that not only are we going to provide them with what would be required to do so, but there will be a job there that they can secure upon the completion of their preparation. And the consequences of their failing to get that job is that they and their children will have the level of support that they are currently receiving terminated or substantially altered and reduced. So there is a commitment on both sides. And it is from that point that I would like to draw some observations about the underlying bill which is before us today, because I believe it is based on some unrealistic assessments of the world in which this proposal will actually operate and creates the potential of some serious unfairness and a violation of that moral commitment that we are making to these Americans. First, I believe that the goal of the welfare plan, which is to have 25 percent of the current welfare beneficiaries employed in year 1 of this plan and 50 percent employed in year 5, is unrealistic. In year 1, the definition of reaching that 25 percent is a month-by- month evaluation of how many persons who were on welfare had been moved into a work position. And if at the end of the first 12 months of the fiscal year, you do not have an average of 25 percent, then your State is subject to sanctions. I believe it is going to be virtually if not absolutely impossible to reach that 25 percent goal. There is a necessary startup period in terms of developing the job placement programs, the job training programs, and the support services such as transportation, as well as securing child care for the young dependents of these women, which makes reaching the goal of a 25-percent objective in year 1 highly unlikely. Equally as difficult will be to reach the 50-percent level in year 5. That is in large part because of whether the jobs are going to actually be available. Pensacola, FL, happens to be an area that has a relatively growing economy, an economy which is creating a substantial number of jobs. But even there the administrators of the program stated that it will be very difficult to reach a 50 percent placement level within a 5-year period. That would be true because of the competition for those jobs from all the other people in the community who will be seeking that employment--the issue of will there be jobs that will be not just at the barest minimum wage but at a level high enough or at least offering a sufficient potential to raise a sufficient amount of money to be able to support a family of a single mother and two children, which is the typical family in Pensacola. There are 6,600 welfare families in Pensacola, so the goal is to place 3,300 of those in work by the year 2000. That will be a challenge for Pensacola. But, Mr. President, let us put that in the context of another American city, a substantially larger city, and that is Philadelphia. Philadelphia has not 6,600 people on welfare; it has 500,000 people who are receiving some form of public assistance. In Philadelphia, using the statistics provided by DRI McGraw-Hill on U.S. Market Review, in 1994 there were 2,149,000 jobs in Philadelphia. In the last year of their survey, which is 1997, the projection is there will be 2,206,000 jobs in the Philadelphia area, or an increase of approximately 47,000 jobs over that period from 1994 to 1997. We do not have the statistics to the year 2000, but assuming that that rate of increase [[Page S 12762]] continues, we could expect maybe another 20,000 or 30,000 jobs to the year 2000, so well under a 100,000-job growth and yet we are saying that by the year 2000, half of this population of 500,000 people is supposed to be placed in jobs in Philadelphia. How is that going to happen? I think we have a level of unreality in terms of the scale of the population that we are saying has to be trained and placed and their children supported and the number of jobs which are going to be created, particularly in those areas of the country that are not experiencing the kind of robust economic growth that a community such as Pensacola, FL, has experienced. My first point is that I think we have a statistical unreality in terms of what we are saying has to happen and what, in fact, is likely to occur. And for that reason, independent groups such as the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office that have looked at this plan, have stated that 44 out of the 50 States will not be able to meet the expectations of this legislation--that 44 out of the 50 States are going to fall into the category of those that are nonperformers and therefore subject to a 5-percent penalty. I would suggest that these numbers are so unrealistic in terms of the kind of commitments that we are prepared to make that the 5 percent penalty will be accepted as a fact of life for many States and that any serious effort to meet these unrealistic goals is likely to be abandoned. It is interesting to me the difference in which we are treating those programs that we are about to ship off to the States and say, ``You run them,'' such as welfare reform and Medicaid, where we are setting these theoretical goals, and then essentially abandoning any effort to do those things that will be necessary to make those goals attainable, and how we are treating the one big program we are responsible for running and that at least as of today no one has suggested be sent to the States to run, which is Medicare. There we are saying that Medicare has to be treated above politics; that we have to be very, very careful it is structured properly because we know we are going to be held responsible for how that one is administered. With welfare and Medicaid, we essentially are saying we can abandon all responsibilities for the pragmatic implementation. That is going to be somebody else's responsibility. A second level of unreality is in the funding levels and specifically in the area of unfunded mandates to the States. It is interesting, when we came here back in January with a very expansive and aggressive agenda of domestic issues, which issue received primacy, which received that special recognition of being Senate bill No. 1. Well, that honor was assigned to the legislation that dealt with reducing unfunded mandates, that as our No. 1 domestic objective we were going to cease the process of having the Federal Government meet its responsibilities by telling somebody else, generally a State or local government, what to do and requiring them to use their resources in order to achieve that national objective.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Connecticut very much. I appreciate his courtesy. I want to commend the Senator from New York for the excellent statement, and particularly that he brings us back to reality, just what are the circumstances of the people that are going to be affected by our actions. I would like to inject, briefly, for the Senator's information and possibly further comment, some good news. I mentioned that in Pensacola, there were 6,600 welfare families. I am pleased to say that in the first 18 months of the transition program, which is a program based on the 1988 legislation that the Senator from New York sponsored, that almost 600 of those 6,600 have, in fact, been placed in employment, that having occurred because there was a willingness to put the resources required to provide the kind of training and support, including child care, to those families to allow it to happen. It can happen. This is not just a doom-and-gloom scenario. We are not consigned to have to deal with this problem in its current form forever. But it is not going to be easy, it is not going to be quick, and it is not going to be inexpensive if we are going to achieve real results. I appreciate the constant reminder of the Senator from New York of those realities.

Mr. GRAHAM. The reality is that this bill which we are about to pass will be the grandfather of all unfunded mandates. We are going to be imposing significant new responsibilities on the States, without the resources to fund those responsibilities, and that as we impose that grandfather of all unfunded mandates, we are going to be creating a whole series of stepchildren as its consequence. Let me just use the example of my State, a family of three typically, and in the case of all eight of the women I mentioned earlier, this is the case, a single mother with two children. The State of Florida provides $303 a month in economic support, cash assistance to that mother and two children. That $303 is roughly half Federal money and half State money. Under this proposal, it is going to take 75 percent of the Federal money that we have been providing for the support of that family of three in order to pay for the job training and related support activities and the child care of that mother and her family while she is preparing to work. There is no proposal to act to fund those additional activities. In fact, the level of funding at the Federal level will be declining over the period of this program. So instead of that family having $303, it will see that reduced to approximately $185 a month which will be available for economic support because the remainder of the money, approximately $135, will be used to pay for these other mandated services. So we are saying that this family, which has been living on $303 a month, is now going to have to start living on $180 a month while the remainder of the money is used to prepare the mother for a future job and to provide child care for her dependent children. Mr. President, I think that is an unrealistic economic scenario. And it becomes even more draconian since we are no longer going to be requiring States, at least after 2 years, and even in a very soft way during the first 2 years, to provide any continuing match. So potentially not $85. If the State of Florida were to decide to abandon its local match and not provide any State funds, we could have this family living on $35 a month, just that portion of the Federal money that is left over after you have met your mandates. I think that is highly unrealistic and would defeat not only the goal of moving people from welfare to work, but would also undermine our basic American humanitarian and compassionate sense of responsibility to all of our citizens. And finally, the reality of this proposal is in the extreme disparities that will exist from State to State under this plan. I mention unfunded mandates. In the case of Florida, about 75 percent of our Federal funds would be required to meet the unfunded mandates. We are better off than Mississippi, where it will take 88 percent of Mississippi's Federal money to meet their unfunded mandates, which compares to the District of Columbia, that can meet their unfunded mandates with only 46 percent of the Federal money. Why is there such a great disparity? Because we start off with a tremendous disparity in how much Federal money per child is available under the proposal that has been submitted by the majority leader. A stark difference is right within a mile of where we stand. A poor child in the District of Columbia will get three times as much money under this proposal of the majority leader as will a poor child across the Potomac River in Virginia. I think that is not only indefensible and unfair, but undermines the basic credibility of this proposal as a means of moving people from welfare to work. So, Mr. President, in those areas, I think we have a house that is being built on a foundation of sand. Mr. President, we need to guard against passing legislation which has rhetorical mandates and aspirations, but without the practical understanding of what it would mean in the lives of people and, therefore, virtually assuring that we will have a failure of accomplishing our objectives and will have more decades of exactly the kind of welfare issue, exactly the kind of continuing dependence that we are trying to ameliorate through this effort. Mr. President, I urge the adoption of the more pragmatic amendment which has been offered by Senator Daschle and his colleagues as the starting point for serious, meaningful welfare reform. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am pleased to be announcing the introduction of the Ricky Ray Hemophilia Relief Fund Act of 1995 with Senator DeWine in the U.S. Senate. This legislation is a companion to H.R. 1023, which was introduced by Florida Congressman Porter Goss and now has 115 cosponsors. The introduction of this bill comes less than a month after the release of a report by the National Academy of Sciences's Institute of Medicine [IOM] entitled ``HIV and the Blood Supply: An Analysis of Crisis Decisionmaking.'' The report, issued on July 13, 1995, came about as a result of a request in April 1993 from Senator Kennedy, Congressman Goss and me to Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala to open an investigation into the events leading to the transmission of HIV to persons with hemophilia from the use of contaminated blood products regulated by the U.S. Government. Secretary Shalala commissioned the study by the IOM. The report was the final product of an 18-month extensive review by an independent, scientific panel of experts of the events between 1982 and 1986 that lead to the infection of over 8,000 persons with hemophilia with HIV through the use of blood products. The IOM report is critical in understanding how this tragedy came to be and what actions need to be taken to change the system and better protect the blood supply in the future from other unforeseen viruses. The report's chronology of events tells a tragic story when the first case of immune deficiency linked to blood products was reported in a Floridian with hemophilia in January 1982. As also documented in Randy Shilt's book ``And the Band Played On: Politics. People and the AIDS Epidemic,'' evidence grew over the year that others with hemophilia were being infected and at least two transfusion-related AIDS cases were also reported. In June 1982, the first warning was issued by the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] to clotting-concentrate manufacturers, other Federal health agencies and the National Hemophilia Foundation. According to Harvey M. Sapolsky and Stephen L. Boswell in ``The History of Transfusion AIDS: Practice and Policy Alternatives,'' ``Weighing this evidence, the CDC epidemiologists began warning representatives of the several blood-banking organizations that the blood supply was possibly being contaminated with AIDS. These discussions culminated in a meeting in Atlanta in early January 1983, at which proposals were presented to screen out from the blood donor pool members of high-risk groups.'' Sapolsky and Boswell add, ``The opposition of the whole-blood collectors delayed governmental action intended to reduce the risks of AIDS transmission through transfusions. It was not until March 1983 that the Centers for Disease Control made public the recommendations for widespread screening.'' Moreover, it was not until even February 1984 that manufacturers included warnings about AIDS on their blood products--over 18 months after CDC's original warning. Calls for blood testing for evidence of hepatitis B with a core antibody test were also being made during the period. According to Sapolsky and Boswell, ``The Food and Drug Administration's Blood Products Advisory Committee studied the issues pertaining to screening the blood supply in early 1984, concluding that surrogate testing, and most specifically the hepatitis B core antibody test, was not appropriate as a means of identifying those at high risk for developing AIDS because it screened out too much of the blood supply.'' While some testing did occur like that at Stanford University Blood Bank, it was far from pervasive. In March 1985, the FDA licensed and put into place the first blood test for HIV antibodies. Meanwhile, due to the fact that clotting factors are made from pooled plasma lots composed of thousands of donors, approximately one-half of the estimated 20,000 Americans with hemophilia contracted AIDS. The result was, as Michael McLeod reports in his article``Bad Blood'' which [[Page S 12385]] was printed in the Orlando Sentinel on December 19, 1993, ``a quiet death march, caused by one of the worst medically induced calamities in history--one that has claimed more than 1,600 Americans already, with at least 8,000 more sure to follow.'' With respect to some of the clear steps that could have been taken in the early 1980's to protect the blood supply, the IOM writes: ``* * * preference for the status quo under the prevailing conditions of uncertainty and danger led decision makers to underestimate the threat of AIDS for blood recipients. The Committee concluded that when confronted with a range of options for using donor screening and deferral to reduce the probability of spreading HIV through the blood supply, blood bank officials and federal authorities consistently chose the least aggressive option * * * The FDA's failure to require [the implementation of screening procedures] is evidence that the agency did not adequately use its regulatory authority and therefore missed opportunities to protect the public health. A passage from Michael Crichton's book ``The Andromeda Strain'' is particularly relevant to this report. It reads: * * * I think it is important that the story be told. This country supports the largest scientific establishment in the history of mankind. New discoveries are constantly being made, and many of these discoveries have important political and social overtones. In the near future, we can expect more crises on the pattern of Andromeda. Thus I believe it is useful for the public to be made aware of the way in which scientific crises arise, are dealt with. As a result, I urge the Government Affairs Committee and Labor and Human Resources Committee to closely review this report, to learn from past mistakes, and to move quickly to enact the 14 recommendations made by the IOM to improve the safety of our Nation's blood supply. In recommendation No. 3, the IOM panel proposes a no-fault compensation program prospectively for future victims who suffer adverse consequences from the use of blood and blood products. Although the IOM panel felt that the question of what to do about past victims were outside its purview, the IOM suggests that its protective recommendation ``might serve to guide policymakers as they consider whether to implement a compensation system for those infected in the 1980's.'' As a result, I urge my colleagues to review the Ricky Ray Hemophilia Relief Fund Act, which establishes a compensation program for the victims of HIV infection from blood products in the 1980's. It is based on the premise that the Federal Government shares responsibility for what happened. As the IOM writes, ``* * * public concern about the inherent risks of blood and blood products has led the federal government through the agencies of the U.S. Public Health Service to take the lead in ensuring blood safety.'' Unfortunately for the hemophilia community, the Federal Government through the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] failed to adequately protect the blood supply in the early 1980's because it ``did not adequately use its regulatory authority,'' did not heed the warnings made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] about the danger to the blood supply, ``consistently chose the least aggressive option that was justifiable'' and overly relied on the blood industry ``for analysis of data and modeling of decision making.'' The IOM concludes in its executive summary that: The National Blood Policy of 1973 charges the Public Health Service (including the CDC, the FDA, and the NIH) with responsibility for protecting the nation's blood supply. The Committee has come to believe that a failure of leadership may have delayed effective action during the period from 1982 to 1984. This failure led to less than effective donor screening, weak regulatory actions, and insufficient communication to patients about the risks of AIDS. As for the title of this bill, it is named after a victim from the State of Florida. On December 13, 1992, Ricky Ray, a teenage boy in east Orange County, FL, died at home after his 6-year battle against AIDS and 15-year or lifelong battle with hemophilia. I attended Ricky's funeral later that week and read a letter from then President-elect Bill Clinton who, like I, was profoundly affected by this incredible human being and his family. In remembering Ricky, words such as perseverance and wisdom come to mind. Ricky and his family have, since that revelation in 1986, lived with the pain and questions caused by this horrible virus called AIDS. If that is not enough, there was also the pain of being banned from school in 1987, having their home burned down by an arsonist shortly thereafter, and spending a tremendous amount of time in court fighting with the DeSoto County School District and the pharmaceutical companies that sold the Ray family the contaminated blood products. Despite it all, Ricky was committed to teach others about his disease. His mother, Louise Ray, said of Ricky in an article written by Monica Davey at the St. Petersburg Times, ``He believed that his track in life was to educate people about a disease that nobody knew about. He believed that was his purpose.'' His father Clifford added, ``Ricky was a very old soul. He had a wisdom about him.'' Like others with hemophilia and AIDS, Ricky was interested in answers to the questions of why. Why did this happen and why was not more done to prevent this tragedy? As a result, it is in his name that the request for the IOM report was made and that this bill is named. As Harold L. Dalton, an editor of ``AIDS Law Today: A New Guide for the Public,'' writes: . . . we should remember that just as the law frames society's response to the AIDS epidemic, the society as a whole shapes the law. Like it or not, we must decide what kind of society we will be: mean-spirited, shortsighted, and judgmental or compassionate, clearheaded, and accepting. In the end, society will determine where the burden of AIDS-- social, financial, and emotional--will fall. We can make the choice consciously and purposely, or we can make it by indirection or default, but make it we will. When Ricky saw the headline that ``Ryan White loses battle with AIDS,'' he was very upset. As quoted by McLeod, he said to his mother, ``If I die, don't let them write that about me. Don't let them say that I lost. Just because you die, that doesn't mean you gave up. That doesn't mean you lost.'' Ricky is right because his call for answers, help for those with AIDS and fight for the safety of the blood supply lives on.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, my good friend and fellow Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack] and I would like to engage in a colloquy with the distinguished chairman regarding a matter of fiscal and military importance. In 1994, the House Armed Services Committee directed the Department of Defense to develop a master plan for future consolidations of DOD-wide electronic combat [EC] test and evaluation assets in the interest of reducing infrastructure costs. Unfortunately, to date, such a report has not been developed nor forwarded to Congress. The BRAC Commission, recognizing the delay by DOD to issue this report, recommended acceptance of the Air Force proposal to realign some of its electronic combat assets, and recommended that the master plan be used to establish the infrastructure for optimum asset utilization. In fact, during the June deliberations of the BRAC Commission, this issue was carefully considered by the Commission. The Commission's analysis demonstrated that the move would ``never net a return on investment,'' nor was it a part of a master plan to consolidate EC assets in a cost-effective manner. The Commission, in desiring to see a master plan developed, felt that by endorsing the Air Force proposal, they would prompt DOD to finally move ahead with the master plan. Mr. President, during any discussion of downsizing and consolidation there is no disagreement regarding the fact that all such decisions must be made in an intelligent and cost-efficient fashion. It is my, and my fellow Florida colleague's hope that the early completion of the master plan will allow DOD and the Congress to proceed according to these considerations. In that light, we would like to direct a few questions to the chairman to ensure that the committee's intent is clear with regards to the master plan and EC asset consolidation.

Mr. GRAHAM. Is it the committee's desire to see that the master plan is completed so that the services can go forward with optimum and cost- efficient asset utilization?

Mr. GRAHAM. Given the chairman's response, I ask that he send to the desk an amendment on my behalf, cosponsored by my colleague from Florida, which requires DOD to complete and submit to the congressional defense committees an EC master plan no later than March 31, 1996. We thank the chairman for his cooperation, and look forward to working with him in the future on this matter. radio communications systems for the LPD-17 class

Mr. GRAHAM

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

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I recognize that we have completed action on an amendment that was offered by Senator Jeffords relative to restoration of funds for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. However, I would like to make a brief statement on those issues. Mr. President, I am pleased with the action we have taken today. I share the disappointment of my colleague from Arkansas, Senator Bumpers, that it was not more substantial. And I hope that the action today is an indication of a continued interest by the Senate on the issue of national support for the arts and the humanities that we can build upon this decision in future years. I believe that this issue of the appropriateness of a national commitment to support the arts and humanities has unfortunately been trivialized in that a few extreme examples have been cited as representative of the totality of our national effort and have in fact distorted what the United States has done in terms of its support for the arts and humanities. Let me just mention a few things that benefit America in a very real and tangible sense which would not be but for this national commitment to the arts and the humanities. One of those is to bring the arts to the areas of America that would otherwise be excluded from such exposure because of their remoteness, because of their small population, because of their lack of a cultural infrastructure. In my own State of Florida, many small communities are benefited by having access to performing arts and creative arts which they would not have but for the grants that are made available either directly through the national endowments or through the State endowment programs that depend upon Federal support. One of the most important aspects of the National Endowment for the Humanities is the support for America's libraries. America's libraries are probably the most underappreciated aspect of our educational system. They provide resources increasingly in all of the means by which information and ideas and creativity are transmitted to all Americans. They are a free institution that contributes significantly to seeing that all Americans have an equal access to learning. We debated this extensively during the course of the telecommunications bill and decided that it was appropriate to give some special recognition to public libraries in terms of their access to the information highway. The National Endowment for the Humanities has been providing that on ramp for many years through its support of the expansion of opportunities available through public libraries. The preservation of historic documents is largely a responsibility of the National Endowment for the Humanities through programs like the Brittle Book program, which is converting tens of thousands of books which would otherwise evaporate in a physical sense, evaporate but for the efforts supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities to see that they are microfilmed and preserved. Today one of the most important aspects of this preservation relates to newspapers. As many newspapers, particularly smaller newspapers, go out of existence or merge, their libraries of old newspapers are now being preserved through the efforts of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an invaluable resource of the history and culture of our Nation. It is unfortunate that this debate on the national support for the humanities and arts is often characterized as elitist, that the only people who care about this issue are small groups of persons who are affluent enough to do this on their own and, therefore, inappropriate for public support. I disagree with that and so would the facts. As an example, Mr. President, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which most Americans have benefited from, even those who live thousands of miles away from New York City, that great world treasury draws more people annually than all of the sports teams in New York City. More people visit the Metropolitan Museum than visit the Giants, the Mets, the Yankees, the Knicks, and all of the other professional teams in New York City. It is not an elitist institution. It is an institution which serves the broadest public interest. There are important economic aspects of our support for the arts. Strong artistic institutions create a synergy in terms of the economics of the communities. There are many examples in my State. I would just cite the tremendous economic influence which the Miami City Ballet, which has received support through these endowments, has had in terms of supporting important artistic and economic components of our State. But beyond the economics, there are extremely important cultural aspects of our support for the arts. Throughout time, societies have influenced their world by the use of the arts. One of the reasons that the Greeks and the Romans, and the Egyptians before them, were such powerful influences and then have continued to influence our life today, is because of the arts and the use of the arts as a means of expressing a societal set of ideas and values which have had transcendence of importance. Today, the United States of America, while we may have a trade deficit in terms of the sale of products, has an enormous trade surplus in terms of the export of ideas and creativity. That not only has economic value, but it also helps to advance the cultural goals that the United States hopes to carry to the world. We want the world to see the values that we stand for--freedom, independence, respect for human rights, democracy, a market system that democratizes economic decisions. We would like to see the world adopt those values, not because we want to impose them but because we think those are the values that advance the human spirit. Our investment in and our dominant position in the culture of the world is an important means by which we will achieve that goal. The support for the small artistic institutions or the individual artists is the seed corn for our ability to exercise that type of a strong cultural influence in the world. One of my favorite political figures, Mr. President, was the President of Costa Rica during the 1940's and 1950's, President Figueres, whose son is now the President of Costa Rica. President Figueres did a number of bold acts as President of Costa Rica. He disbanded the army. He took the money that had been spent on the military and used it to enhance education and health and the arts, including the establishment of a national symphony for the small and relatively poor country of Costa Rica. President Figueres was much criticized for the establishment of a national symphony. It was too much for the economy of Costa Rica to be able to support. It was a diversion of funds away from more important and immediate needs of the people. President Figueres responded to those criticisms by saying, ``We in Costa Rica believe in work. We work hard on tractors. Why do we work hard on tractors if it is not to be able to listen to violins?'' The arts express the reason for life. Tractors are important, but they are a means by which we can enrich our spirit by exposure to the arts. So, Mr. President, we have made a small step forward today in recognizing the importance of that in our times and in our society, the United States of America. It is not as far as I would have wished that it could have been but by preserving this base of national support for the humanities and the arts, I hope that we will be planting our own form of seed corn that will allow us to grow a deeper and more abundant support for these important national initiatives. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a statement by the American Historian David McCullough in support of the Endowments for the Humanities and Arts.

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. Mr. PRYOR addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong support for the Reid/Chafee Amendment to restore funding for species conservation programs under the Endangered Species Act. Twenty-two years ago, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act with large bipartisan majorities. Even at that time, hundreds of species had become extinct since the creation of the United States. Today, scientists estimate that we are losing up to 100 species a day around the world. While I acknowledge that the act has significant problems, the ESA also has achieved remarkable success in recovering species. One of these is Florida's American alligator. Today, of the 900 species that are listed in the United States as threatened or endangered, 238 of those are stable or improving, and 7 species have been delisted. Americans understand that by protecting species, the Endangered Species Act protects us--our economy, our health, and our longterm existence. While we are pulling away from the brink of crisis, we cannot afford to reduce our vigilance on this issue. We should correct the shortcomings of the act, and benefit from all our efforts thus far. However, just as Congress is prepared to implement reforms to make the ESA work better, this appropriations bill undermines our efforts by cutting ESA science funding, outreach to landowners, and State assistance--the specific programs that will reduce conflicts. This budget would exacerbate rather than reduce problems we have identified with the ESA. The Reid-Chafee amendment will restore part of the disproportionate cut made in committee to endangered species programs, bringing it more in line with funding reductions in Interior across the board. More importantly, the Reid amendment invests money in the future of imperiled species, spending wisely now to save money in the long run. Two and one-half million dollars of the restored funds will go to prelisting programs that seek to conserve species before they reach the brink of extinction, forestalling the need for costly and sometimes controversial recovery efforts. In my own State, this funding will help prelisting activities to conserve the Florida black bear, to prevent it from going the way of the critically endangered Florida panther. Another $2 million will go to consultation activities under section 7 of the ESA to help Federal agencies better fulfill their responsibilities under the ESA. Section 7 is a powerful tool for solving, and in many cases avoiding, conflicts between Federal agency activities and species conservation. In Florida, for example, Federal projects that may have gravely impacted the conservation of Florida panthers and West Indian manatees were modified through the section 7 process in ways that did not significantly interfere with the projects and actually benefitted the species. It is hard to find a program where the money is better spent. Finally, $4 million would go to species recovery efforts. As Senator Kempthorne has emphasized in his very productive subcommittee hearings on the reauthorization of the ESA, recovery is, or should be, the heart of the ESA. Species such as the grizzly bear, the peregrine falcon--and our national symbol, the bald eagle--are recovered or recovering steadily due to ESA recovery efforts. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service need the resources to keep these successes coming. Again, expeditious recovery measures now will decrease the expense of recovery in the long run. Throughout its history, the ESA has enjoyed bipartisan support. The act was signed into law by President Nixon. The harm regulation was promulgated during the Ford administration, which was revamped to its current form during the Reagan administration. Now the program is being defended by the Clinton administration. There are many good reasons for this historical support. Let us bear them in mind, and address the act's obvious problems with consideration for the benefits that it has produced thus far. The Reid-Chafee amendment makes good fiscal sense, and will help conserve the endangered wildlife that all Americans value as part of this country's priceless natural heritage. I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in supporting it.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. One of the foundations of our democracy is our education system, which has the high calling of passing knowledge for one generation to the next, of preparing our young people for the future and teaching us about the past. Mr. President, in the United States, our great tradition of public education is personified by Dr. Robert H. McCabe, president of Miami- Dade Community College. After more than three decades of service to the college, Bob McCabe will retire, leaving a legacy that would inspire Socrates and Jefferson. A fundamental principle of our education system is that knowledge shall not be bounded by race or class or religion, that in a truly free society all people have access to learning. For some, that principle is an academic precept. For Bob McCabe, it is a lifelong passion. He lives that principle every day. Miami-Dade Community College is the latest of its kind in America, a nationally recognized institution which makes a consistent vital contribution to our future. Thousands of Floridians--productive, employed, having an immeasurable positive impact on America--got their start in higher education at Miami-Dade Community College. For them, the community college was a door to the future, and Bob McCabe made sure that door was open to everyone. As a native of Florida, as a former member of the Florida Legislature, as a past Governor of Florida and now a U.S. Senator representing Florida, I have a profound pride for our State's system of community colleges. These schools. located throughout our State, give real meaning to the sometimes fleeting goal of ``access to higher education.'' Community colleges are close to the students they serve and affordable. Community colleges are in the community and of the community. Bob McCabe is a tribute to that inter-connection between education and community, making multiple contributions to a greater south Florida. He helped establish the New World School of Arts and the New World Symphony, and worked with Miami's ``We Will Rebuild'' after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Bob McCabe's dedication to higher education earned him the 1988 Distinguished Graduate Award from the University of Miami and a MacArthur Fellowship in 1992. This year, he received the prestigious American Association of Community Colleges Leadership Award for his outstanding work on behalf of community colleges. For an active person with a creative mind like Bob McCabe's, retirement is perhaps a misnomer. As we mark this milestone in his career, we salute his leadership knowing the our community and our Nation will reap the benefits from his efforts into the next century.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I advise the Senate that on Tuesday, July 25, I was a delegate to the 1995 Defense Ministerial of the Americas in Williamsburg, VA. The Defense Ministerial, which brought together military personnel from throughout the Western Hemisphere, is a forum for the discussion of the role of militaries in democratic societies. Had I been present at the time of the final vote on S. 1060 on July 25, I would have voted in the affirmative.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I have been listening to this debate for the last 2 hours and I find the debate to be somewhat disassociated from the resolution we are being called upon to adopt. We have had it said that we are talking about American leadership. We are talking about American prestige. We are talking about America's willingness to assume its proper role in the world. Yet, when I look at the actual language of the resolution, particularly on page 5 where it states, ``Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as authorization for deployment of United States forces in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina for any purpose, including training, support or delivery of military equipment,'' that is not a heroic call to action. That is not a statement that stirs men's blood with a commitment to the protection of the innocent. I believe that what we have before us is a resolution which essentially is an abdication of some of the most basic national interests of the United States of America. What are those interests that will be affected by the proposal of the United States to unilaterally lift, and therefore abrogate, the resolution of the United Nations which had prohibited the international community from supplying additional arms to the former Yugoslavia? I suggest that we have at least five national interests at stake in this debate tonight. One of those is the national interest in terms of the protection of our fighting men and women. Do we wish to place U.S. military personnel, especially ground troops, at risk? Interest No. 2 is to contain the conflict and not allow it to become the catalyst of an even larger war in the Balkans and in southern Europe. Interest No. 3: We have an interest in preserving the integrity and capacity of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Interest No. 4: We have an interest in the international community respecting international agreements. Finally, we have an interest in the capacity of the United States, given the reality that we are a government of divided responsibility, and therefore the necessity of the executive and the legislative to work with some degree of harmony and mutual respect in order for the United States to be an effective force in the world community. I believe all five of those important goals are placed at risk through the adoption of this resolution. What I think is interesting about those goals is, if you think of them as concentric circles, only the first two of those relate directly to circumstances affecting Bosnia. The other three are more generic interests of the United States. And it is somewhat gratuitous that the circumstances in Bosnia are the basis of those interests being placed at risk. Let me just comment briefly as to why I believe each of those five interests are jeopardized by the adoption of this resolution. Our first interest is to avoid the unnecessary placing of U.S. military personnel at risk. There are a series of comments that have been made. Our closest allies in NATO, who do have military personnel on the ground in Bosnia, have stated repeatedly--and, I think, unequivocally--that it is their intention to withdraw from [[Page S 10629]] Bosnia if the United States unilaterally lifts the arms embargo. I believe they are sincere in that statement. The United States has made a commitment that if they do withdraw, we will provide up to 25,000 troops, to provide them cover while they are withdrawing. So the effect of adopting this resolution to unilaterally lift is that our allies will withdraw and that we will facilitate that withdrawal with up to 25,000 U.S. ground troops. So we have directly countered one of our interests, which is to avoid placing U.S. troops at risk on the ground. Second, containing the war. In my judgment, which is not particularly meaningful--but in the judgment of virtually every serious student of this issue, from the leadership of the United States military to our diplomatic leadership--they have all stated that if the arms embargo is lifted, it will precipitate an urgent move by the Bosnian Serbs to take advantage of the military circumstances as they now exist before those advantages are compromised by armaments reaching the Bosnian Moslems. So there will be an escalation of the conflict. There will be additional weapons introduced into the region and they will not all be the weapons that the United States might be prepared to introduce. Although this resolution explicitly indicates that we are not committing ourselves to provide any additional training, support or delivery of military equipment to the Bosnian Moslems, the Russians are not so circumspect. A news item from Tass, the Russian news bureau, dated July 12, states that the Russian Duma, the Russian Parliament, has condemned the new NATO bombing raids on the positions of the Bosnian Serbs near Srebrenica. Since this time, that former safe haven has fallen. According to the statement of the Duma, these bombardments have created a situation where armed provocations by the so-called Moslem Croatian Federation, unrestrained by the West and NATO, cause response from the Serbs which is always followed by a unilateral use of power by NATO. The Duma resolution goes on to call for the Russian participation in the lifting of the arms embargo for purposes of providing arms to the Bosnian Serbs. So we are going to have the Russians providing military equipment to the Serbs, the United States assumedly providing military equipment to the Moslems--a major escalation of the conflict within Bosnia, creating the potential of a serious overflow of this conflict into an already tinderbox adjacent area. This has the potential of a major conflagration throughout the Balkans and southern Europe, even the potential of drawing into that conflict Greece and Turkey, two of our NATO allies. So if one of our objectives is to try to contain the war, if that is why we have 400 United States military troops in Macedonia, the adoption of this resolution and all of the things that are likely to flow from it will have exactly the opposite effect. Third, it is in our interest to preserve the integrity of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That is an organization which is already under serious pressure as a result of events in Bosnia. This would raise that pressure. We have been besieged by our French and British allies not to unilaterally lift the embargo because of the greater danger that it will pose for its troops that are on the ground. We are going to be called upon, if this resolution is adopted, to protect our NATO allies by assisting them in withdrawal. I fear one of two things: I fear that we either will--or I fear that we will not--vote on an amendment to this resolution which will specifically authorize the United States to place some 25,000 troops in Bosnia in order to assist our NATO allies in their withdrawal. I fear that we would debate that because I fear that it will fail. In fact, I have a reason to believe that gives me confidence that the amendment would fail. Therefore, the Senate would be sending a statement to our NATO allies that we are not going to honor our commitment to protect them. I am distressed that we would not debate that amendment because it indicates I think the fundamental level of timidity which is part of this resolution that we are calling for actions that have very high probable consequences and yet are not willing to accept affirmatively the implications of those responsibilities. So in so doing we place our NATO alliance at risk. Fourth, is the respect for international agreements. This is not the only international agreement in which the United States has joined with the rest of the international community in adopting. Let me just refer to one of those other agreements; that is, the agreement that the United States led the Security Council in adopting on August 6, 1990, imposing on Iraq a sweeping set of sanctions. What are those sanctions? A ban on the import of any product originating in Iraq. This primarily relates to oil which is 90 percent of Iraq's exports. A worldwide freeze on Iraq's financial assets; a ban on all weapon sales to Iraq; a ban on any exports to Iraq with the exceptions of food and medical supplies. On September 25, 1990, to those set of sanctions was added an additional prohibition on civil air activity. That is an international agreement of which we are a party. There have been tremendous pressures on that Iraq embargo. Iraq has offered to Russia, France, Germany, and other countries huge quantities of oil at discounts, lucrative contracts for oil exploration and industrial redevelopment. Thus far our allies have resisted those entreaties. They have resisted them because Iraq has not lived up to its obligations, including its obligation to allow full surveillance of its capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, weapons which already have destabilized the Middle East, and have the potential to do so again. It is very much in our interest that this embargo against Iraq be honored by all of the world's countries. Yet, what moral ground do we have to continue to urge that they be honored if we have just unilaterally breach the United Nations' embargo which was arrived at with equal solemnity relative to the provision of armaments in the former Yugoslavia? Mr. President, I think we are about to shred our moral capacity to lead the world and to ask the world to follow the rule of law and international obligations. And there is no country which will pay a dearer price for that than will the United States of America. Fifth, and finally, Mr. President, I believe we have a great stake in the capacity of this Government of the United States of America to be able to function in international affairs. When I was a boy growing up in a home, the father of which had been born in Croswell, MI, our political hero was Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan. Senator Vandenberg accomplished much in his life and in his public career. But the thing for which he is best known is his cooperation with President Truman in the critical years after World War II in fashioning a bipartisan foreign policy for the United States which did in fact allow us to lead, to lead in a very difficult period of 45 years until finally the Soviet Union crumbled. That standard of cooperation is, I fear, one of the real potential casualties in the adoption of this resolution. If I can use as the example that commitment that the United States made to our allies to provide up to 25,000 troops to help extricate them from Bosnia should that be called upon, I imagine what happened was that a representative of this Government, possibly at the highest level, the President himself, possibly at the level of the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of State, in a meeting with our allies reviewed a series of contingencies. We were trying to encourage our allies to put troops into Bosnia as peacekeepers in hopes that they would play a positive role both in the humanitarian relief of the besieged people of Bosnia but also in the containment of the level of violence that had been occurring. One of those concerns of our allies before they would make that commitment is what would you do in the event that we have to remove our troops and our troops are under military siege? And we committed that as part of their obligation to go in, that we would assume the obligation to help them get out. That was a commitment that was made in the name of the United States of America through our Commander in Chief and President. [[Page S 10630]] If we are unwilling to now honor that commitment, as I fear the implications of this resolution is that we are so unwilling, I believe we strike a fundamental and maybe lethal blow to not only our world leadership but also our capacity to function as a Nation attempting to establish a singular credible policy position in the world. So, Mr. President, I fear that we have much at risk here to the United States' national interest. And as a U.S. Senator and as a U.S. Senate, I think that is where our principal focus should be. What is in our national interest? It is not in our national interest to adopt a resolution that would cause us to abrogate a solemn international agreement which had the result of placing the United States troops at risk, has the potential of causing this serious conflict in Bosnia to become an even greater fire throughout southern Europe. It is not in our interest to see the integrity of NATO put at risk. It is not in our interest to see a diminution of respect for international agreements, and it is not in our interest to see the necessity of bipartisanship in foreign policy development and implementation rendered by this action. So, Mr. President, I think this is a serious moment for the Nation and for this Senate. I would strongly urge that this resolution be substantially modified, and failing such modification be defeated. Several Senators addressed the Chair.