Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, much good work has gone into this bill. I am going to vote against cloture. I don't think the industry retention figures are high enough. I think the taxpayer is too exposed. I am afraid the secondary market will not develop under these circumstances, and, despite all our efforts, the bill still retains the provision that will produce punitive damage judgments against victims of terrorism. In my mind, that is licensing piracy on hospital ships and should not be allowed.

Mr. GRAMM

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

Mr. GRAMM. I could hardly say what I feel in my heart in 2 minutes. Too often, as people leave the Senate, they talk about things they are unhappy about. I want people to know I am not discouraged; I am not disillusioned; I am not disappointed. I am proud and I am honored. I am proud to have had an opportunity to serve the greatest country in the history of the world. I am proud to have served with extraordinary men and women. I think we are so close to them and what they have done here that it is hard to put it all in perspective. But someday when I am sitting in a nursing home talking to my grandchildren, I think I will have that perspective right and there will be names such as Senator Byrd, Senator Domenici, and others that will flow from my lips as men I was honored to know and to love. I thank the people of Texas for giving me an opportunity to serve. I conclude by reading a remark by, of all people, Aaron Burr. Senator Byrd is familiar with it. It is wonderful and I want to conclude by reading it. Aaron Burr was leaving the Senate, and he concluded with these remarks: . . . this house is a sanctuary and a citadel of law, of order, of liberty--and it is here--it is here--in this exalted--refuge, here, if anywhere will resistance be made to the storms of popular phrenzy and the silent arts of corruption:--And if the Constitution be destined ever to perish by the sacrilegious hands of the demagogue of the Usurper, which God avert, its expiring agonies will be witnessed on this floor. I am honored to have served here. I am honored to have served with those who will be sure, in their efforts, in their work, that the Constitution never expires. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, it is my understanding we have 2 minutes remaining.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, much good work has gone into this bill. I am going to vote against cloture. I don't think the industry retention figures are high enough. I think the taxpayer is too exposed. I am afraid the secondary market will not develop under these circumstances, and, despite all our efforts, the bill still retains the provision that will produce punitive damage judgments against victims of terrorism. In my mind, that is licensing piracy on hospital ships and should not be allowed.

Mr. GRAMM

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

Mr. GRAMM. I could hardly say what I feel in my heart in 2 minutes. Too often, as people leave the Senate, they talk about things they are unhappy about. I want people to know I am not discouraged; I am not disillusioned; I am not disappointed. I am proud and I am honored. I am proud to have had an opportunity to serve the greatest country in the history of the world. I am proud to have served with extraordinary men and women. I think we are so close to them and what they have done here that it is hard to put it all in perspective. But someday when I am sitting in a nursing home talking to my grandchildren, I think I will have that perspective right and there will be names such as Senator Byrd, Senator Domenici, and others that will flow from my lips as men I was honored to know and to love. I thank the people of Texas for giving me an opportunity to serve. I conclude by reading a remark by, of all people, Aaron Burr. Senator Byrd is familiar with it. It is wonderful and I want to conclude by reading it. Aaron Burr was leaving the Senate, and he concluded with these remarks: . . . this house is a sanctuary and a citadel of law, of order, of liberty--and it is here--it is here--in this exalted--refuge, here, if anywhere will resistance be made to the storms of popular phrenzy and the silent arts of corruption:--And if the Constitution be destined ever to perish by the sacrilegious hands of the demagogue of the Usurper, which God avert, its expiring agonies will be witnessed on this floor. I am honored to have served here. I am honored to have served with those who will be sure, in their efforts, in their work, that the Constitution never expires. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, it is my understanding we have 2 minutes remaining.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, it is my understanding that our staffs are talking. Someone just handed me this. If the Senator could wait for about 2 minutes, I think we are trying to run one more trap. I believe this is acceptable, and I am sorry to inconvenience him.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, the point I want to make--and I think it is a specific lesson of how government works--is that those who have followed this long debate, who have listened to the Senator from West Virginia, and know he has been on the losing side of vote after vote may say: What effect does he have? He has had a profound effect. Even though he is not a supporter of the bill today and won't be at the end of the day--and I have been in a similar position on many issues, as the distinguished Senator from West Virginia knows--his major concern about the bill has been resolved. The debate and the clarity of the argument we have had on the issue of the power of the purse has had a profound effect on the bill. So you can be on the losing side of the votes and yet have a profound effect on the end product. That is the point I wanted to make. The Senator is right. I thought it was a change that should be made, and it is a change that has been made. I think it represents an improvement. I want to talk very briefly about the bill. I think I have a copy of it right here. Let me remind people what happened. I think everybody will understand the dilemma we were in. We adjourned for the election with this issue unfinished. The President came back from the election with what I believe and what I think the public perceives to be a strong mandate that this is the important issue that should be dealt with. The President could have said: Well, I will wait until the new Congress when my party will be in control, and I will write this bill exactly like I want to write it. He could have done that. He did not do that. And I believe that is wise. Instead, he sat down with three members of the opposition party and negotiated out additional clarifications in the bill. These clarifications are not profound, but they are important. As this reorganization process goes forward, and as 170,000 people are moved into one agency, these changes the President agreed to will assure that these workers and their representatives will have an opportunity to give input. They will have a due process procedure, but in the end the reorganization will go forward. The President will have the right to exercise the same national security waiver that every President--first through executive order, and from the Carter administration forward under law--since John Kennedy has been able to exercise. The next thing we had to do to get into a position to pass this bill is make clear what the final version of the bill would look like. We didn't want to end up with a week or two weeks of a conference with the House during this session where Congress is meeting after the election--sometimes referred to as a lame duck session. Many Democrats who are supportive of the bill wanted to be sure in negotiating with the President and in negotiating with the authors of the bill that they wouldn't end up having to negotiate again with Republican leaders in the House. Over the weekend--not this weekend, but the weekend before-- we sat down with the House leaders on this issue, and we negotiated out a final product. I would say of this 484 page bill, 98 percent of it is the Gramm- Miller substitute which we debated for weeks. There were several changes made that have been much discussed. I believe there is a more efficient way of characterizing those changes than the way they have been characterized. I want to try to explain them. Let me just first start by saying when the House writes a bill and the Senate writes a bill, there are often differences in the bill, and there is always give and take. Some have talked about extraneous material in the bill. I would have to say that in my 24 years in Congress, there are almost always issues dealt with in a bill that some people view as extraneous. I would say there are relatively few in this bill. But let me talk about the issues that are subject to the amendment Senator Lieberman has offered. This amendment strikes provisions in the compromise--I think there are seven of them. I don't have my notes with me, but I remember them well enough to talk about them. Three of these provisions have to do with liability. Let me remind my colleagues that since the Civil War, we have had provisions of law that have dealt with liability for people who were producing new products for war efforts. One of the ways of encouraging people to be innovative and one of the ways to get products from the drawing board to the battlefield quickly is to protect people from liability. There was a provision in the original Senate amendment, the Gramm- Miller amendment, that the Senators from Virginia were responsible for. That was a provision whereby the Federal Government would indemnify manufacturers of products that would be used in the war on terrorism, so that if a liability issue arose, the Federal Government would step in and basically cover the liability. I would have to say that was not my preferred option, but in putting the amendment together we accepted it. The House had another approach, which was to basically limit liability, require that lawsuits occur in Federal court, and set up a procedure to deal with liability that arose in these issues. In putting together the compromise with the House, we took something between the two that did not have the liability limits the House adopted but was a movement toward reducing runaway liability and removing the taxpayer from the line of fire. That accounts for three of the criticisms made. I want to address the one that is most discussed, and that is the one that has to do with mercury-based injections and smallpox vaccine. Under the bill, as it is now written, we are treating smallpox vaccine as an instrument of the war on terrorism. Before, we had dealt with it as a response to a disease. We had a liability fund for vaccines in the past, but now that we have eradicated smallpox, the only fear we have of it is the reintroduction by terrorist elements. So we bring smallpox vaccine under this liability limit. Those of my age will remember, if you get a smallpox shot, you get a skin reaction which produces a permanent scar. I say to my colleagues that this is pretty terrorism specific because no one would take a smallpox vaccination except for the terrorist threat because there are risks involved. Some small percentage of people have very negative reactions, some people die, and almost everybody has a scar from smallpox. This bill would require people who sue to enter into a negotiation with the Justice Department before they file suit, and to negotiate the possibility of a payment out of an indemnity fund. Some of our colleagues have said: Why did you make it retroactive? Wasn't that some kind of benefit to some vaccine producer? I remind my colleagues that nobody is taking smallpox vaccine now, nor would anybody take it unless there was an imminent threat. But we do have some of the vaccine stockpiled. Why would you make it retroactive to cover that stockpile that has already been produced? The reason you do that is, if you give a protection against liability for all vaccine produced in the future but not for what we have stockpiled, the manufacturers will destroy the stockpile and produce more vaccine. And if we had a sudden threat, we would not have the stockpile. So if this were a vaccine that was routinely taken, then I think the criticism would be well founded. But I think it is a total mischaracterization to say this is some kind of pharmaceutical bailout when it is targeted toward smallpox vaccine and the stockpile now has relevance only in terms of terrorism. In terms of manufactured products to use in the war on terrorism, I simply say, in every major conflict in modern history, we have had some liability limits for the people producing things for wartime use. The fourth provision that would be stricken has to do with the Wellstone amendment. Senator Wellstone offered an amendment to the bill that said, if you had a company that had ever been domiciled in the United States, and it was now domiciled anywhere else in the world, that company could not participate in contracts for the war on terrorism. In the bill that is before us, a couple of provisions were added to the Wellstone amendment that allows the President some flexibility in cases where the application of the Wellstone amendment would actually cost American jobs, where it might leave only a sole bidder, or where the absence of competition could drive up costs. You might say, how could it cost America jobs? Well, let's say you have a company that was once based in America and still has very heavy presence in America but has its headquarters in France. Many companies are now international companies and where their home office is has ceased to have a lot of relevance, in my mind. In any case, the product made by the French-headquartered company might actually be produced in America. We could not buy it because the company is now domiciled in France but once was domiciled in America--maybe in 1812--but yet we could buy a product that was produced in another country by a company that never had an American presence. There might be national security reasons or job reasons to have a waiver. The amendment before us would strike that waiver. I think it is a good waiver. I think it is a good government provision. And I think it is one we should have. Another amendment has to do with advisory committees. I couldn't care less about advisory committees. I think sometimes they serve a productive purpose. I think in most cases they do not. But I think we are foolish to be striking advisory committees when the House has adjourned and may not come back to agree to the change if we make it. I do not think we ought to jeopardize this bill. Finally, there is a provision that establishes a broad authorization outline. No funds are appropriated for participating in the management of research. There is a definition that is written into the law that, as I understand it, would cover roughly 12 major research universities. I just ask my colleagues to look at these overall seven provisions, and to ask themselves a question: Would the bill be better off without all seven, because they are all stricken in one amendment? I think the answer is no. I think there is a logical justification for the amendments in general. And I urge my colleagues to get the whole story before they cast their vote. Finally--and I think this is of equal importance--this is an important bill. We are getting toward the end. This has been progress that has been hard coming. And I think we take a risk, one that we should not take, by making these changes. I do not think they are good changes. I think, overall, we are better off with these seven provisions in the bill than we are without them. I think, overall, they are defensible. Any changes you get in bringing the two Houses together in negotiation often are subject to criticism, but I think these are defensible. I think we would be taking an unnecessary risk by changing the bill. I hope we will not do it. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I wish to talk for just a moment about where we are on the homeland security bill. I wish to talk about the amendment on which we will be voting tomorrow morning because I think it is important for people to look at the issue, in terms of understanding the full picture, at least given each of our abilities to see the full picture. We now have debated homeland security, I think, for seven or even eight weeks. It is obviously an important issue. When you are creating a new Department that will have 170,000 members--the largest reorganization of Government since the creation of the Defense Department--I think having a pretty extended debate is justified. I say to people who are opposed to the bill that I hope they will recognize that the debate has had an effect. The distinguished Senator from West Virginia, who has been perhaps the most outspoken opponent of the bill, I think would agree that a major problem with the bill has been changed--that being, it would have transferred to the President a substantial ability to change the appropriation levels set by Congress, and as such would have redistributed power from the legislative branch to the executive branch.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I might have 10 additional minutes in morning business.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield for just 30 seconds? It is said, in the old Confederate Army, that they didn't give medals. So the single honor was to be mentioned in Robert E. Lee's communiques to Richmond. Having the distinguished Senator from West Virginia say something about me and to pronounce me a honest man I take in the same way that any private in Hood's brigade would have taken in the mention of their name in one of those communiques. I love the Senator from West Virginia, as he knows. I think he serves a great purpose in the Senate. In my opinion, he is not always right, but right is not always easy to find. I think it is the give and take that ultimately produces it. Senator Wellstone, in my opinion, was not always right, he did speak honestly and with clarity. And he knew where he was coming from, and you could be for it or against it. I do think that is important to the Senate. I thank the Senator.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I do not want to give a lengthy speech, but briefly I will talk about where we are and then talk about the amendment that is pending. We have now invoked cloture on the pending substitute, and so we are in a very tightly scripted 30-hour period. The Democrat majority leader put into place two amendments, and in the process no amendment now is in order. This produces a situation where at some point, at the end of 30 hours, there will be a vote on the pending Lieberman amendment. The pending Lieberman amendment is the amendment I will discuss. It is clear these amendments will not be dealt with until the 30 hours expires. So we will have one vote on the Lieberman amendment and then we will move to vote on final passage. I want to address the Lieberman amendment because what tends to happen in these cases, where things are done at the last minute, is that it is sort of easy to confuse people as to what has been done. I want people to understand where the provisions came from and why they are important. One can agree with them or disagree with them, but I want my colleagues to basically know where they came from. Over the weekend, we had a series of negotiations. I want to go back to the point that the President could have said, after the election, that he had a mandate, that this Congress could go home, that we would then have a new Congress and he would write the homeland security bill the way he wanted it written, or he would have Congress write it that way. I think it tells us a lot about our President that he decided not to do that. In fact, after having gotten a strong electoral mandate, the President actually negotiated further and made additional changes in his bill. The substitute that is before us is basically the Gramm-Miller amendment, which is well-known, which we debated for 6 weeks--few amendments have ever been debated that long in my 18-year career in the Senate--with two sets of changes. One, the agreements that the President reached with three Democrat Senators and an Independent Senator in negotiations over the weekend, whereby the following changes were made: Workers in the Federal sector and unions that represent them were given a greater voice in expressing their views about how the new Department is organized, and they were given more clearly defined due process. They were not given veto power, but they were given a guaranteed input under a specific time period. That is the significant change that was made. That represents a compromise from the original Gramm-Miller amendment. The second change that was made was recognized that the House had passed its own bill. So realizing that we were coming to the end of the Senate, one of the things we did over the weekend is we met with the House to try to make changes in our substitute to assure that at the end of the session we would not have to do a conference once we had passed the bill. Quite frankly, the Democrats who have been supportive of this effort felt strongly that they did not want to negotiate with us and then end up negotiating with other Republicans in conference. That makes sense. When a deal is cut, one wants it to be a deal. So we brought in the House. As a result, we took 95 percent of our provisions, took about 5 percent of the House provisions, and that now is the bill before us. This bill has been adopted by the House, which has now left town. They will be here in pro forma session on Monday, but practically the House has adjourned. I will address the generic issue about add-on provisions and then I want to talk about something else. I hope nobody is offended by this, but I have to say I have probably been as strong in speaking out against add-on provisions as anybody. I remind my colleagues that many times at midnight or 2 in the morning we have had seemingly noncontroversial amendments that did all kinds of special projects that we were going to accept. In fact, earlier this Congress I sat in that very room and went through a list of amendments. One amendment would have the Federal Government absorb a billion dollars of liability for a project in one State. Now that is pretty targeted. I am not going to mention the State, and it does not matter. Any time we negotiate with the House, with 435 Members focused on a very small congressional district, they are going to put in provisions that relate to their district. That has been the nature of the body from the very beginning. It started with the first Congress. It will end with the last Congress. It will never go away. For the people who say there are extraneous matters in this bill, of all the major bills I have looked at that have been agreed to by the House and Senate, there are probably fewer extraneous matters in this bill than any major bill I have looked at in a very long time. I would like go down the list of amendments being discussed and explain where they came from and why they make sense. The first one has to do with vaccines. We had a provision in our bill related to vaccines and related to the production of items to be used in the war on terrorism. In every war we have ever fought we have had some form of indemnification for people who produce things used in that war. The provision we had in the Senate bill was a taxpayer indemnification. I did not like that provision, but I had Republican colleagues who were for it. We were trying to get 51 votes. So I took it. The House had a far better procedure. That was a limit on liability. We did not take all the limits on liability they had in the compromise because we were afraid that might offend powerful special interest groups. But what we did in three of the six items mentioned is we simply applied the principle that has been applied to every war this Nation has ever fought: if you are producing a new vaccine or new weapon or new system for use in that effort, there are some liability limits involved. That is where the item of vaccines came from and where the item of airport screening came from and the item on manufacturers came from. To suggest this is some special interest sweetheart deal makes good political rhetoric, but the bottom line is it is not true. Not only do the provisions fit, not only are they part of the fabric of the bill, but we had a provision to have the taxpayer pay for the liability risk, and we picked a better, preferable approach, which is to limit liability when we introduce new technology like airport screening and new vaccines. We always had some limit on vaccines because they are risky, but the threat is now serious. It has never been relevant to a war effort before because we have not viewed smallpox as being a weapon. We do now. In three areas our colleagues have singled out as being special interests--vaccines, airport screening, and manufacturing of items used in the war on terrorism--those items were in the Senate substitute, but they were in it in the form where the taxpayer would have paid. We put in simple limits that make sense and that have been part of every war we ever fought of any significance in American history. The next item viewed as being extraneous is a change made to the Wellstone amendment. Senator Wellstone introduced an amendment adopted by a voice vote because it was clear it would pass and nobody wanted to vote on it. It said if any company has ever been domiciled in America, throughout American history, and that company is now domiciled somewhere else, that company cannot bid on contracts related to the war on terrorism. The change made in the amendment is a good government change. It is not an extraneous special interest provision. It is simply a provision that says the President, for national security reasons, has a right to waive this requirement. Why would he do it? First, there might be only one supplier. Second, there might be no competitor if it is not waived, in which case you could end up paying an exorbitant price. Finally, it might actually be better from America's point of view if the company has substantial production in America, even though its home office is somewhere else, for us to buy from that company for national security reasons, for job reasons, and for economic reasons. That provision is hardly an add-on provision. It is, in fact, a good government provision. Now, let me discuss transportation security rules. We know the provisions and deadlines we mandated for air travel security are so strenuous they cannot be met. Occasionally, we get into these situations where we are debating some deadline and we know the deadline cannot be met and will not be met, no matter what we write into law. What this bill does in a careful and reasoned way is set out a new deadline for meeting them, a deadline that can be met and that is reasonable. Instead of creating a farce in law where we say something will be done by December 31--and we know very well it cannot and will not be done and, as a result, you get no pressure to do it on time--we set a realistic deadline. Next we have these advisory committees. If there is anything more useless than an advisory committee, I don't know what it is. I am not saying advisory committees cannot be valuable. I am not saying there are not some that are valuable. But we use them so often they become irrelevant. The striking or not striking of these advisory committees has no import, no significance to this bill. If, however, by striking the committee we change the bill and end up killing homeland security because the House has adjourned, then it becomes very significant. Those are five of the six items that have been listed. The final item is the designation that a university be involved in the process. It is one item where there is an earmark. Seldom do we see a major piece of legislation that we do not have several dozen earmarks. We are down to a simple question, and I will conclude on this. This is hardly an unknown amendment. We have debated it for several weeks. I know there are strong feelings on the issue, but we had an election, and if anybody got a mandate out of that election on any issue, the President got a mandate: Pass homeland security. The House passed a bill. They negotiated with us in good faith. Was everyone involved in the negotiations? No. But I didn't help write the Lieberman amendment, either, because it was his amendment. We have bipartisan effort. We have a majority vote. We are down, now, to where an amendment has been proposed that would strike six provisions. I believe if the amendment is adopted, it will jeopardize the bill. The House passed the bill, they have gone home, and they are only going to be back in pro forma session. Five of the six provisions represent important elements in the bill. To suggest trying to protect and encourage the production and distribution of smallpox vaccine is a special interest favor to a drug company is taking politics beyond the realm of reason. On airport screening and manufacturer protection, this liability protection is something we have done in every war we fought. This is either a war or it is not a war. Should we start to buy from foreign companies over companies that are producing products in America but the headquarters was here in 1804 and it is now in London? I think we take this Buy America stuff too far. We should buy the best product at the lowest possible price that conforms with our national security. But to give the power to waive it when our national security interest is involved is hardly unreasonable. Changing the deadline on airport security--every Member of the Senate knows we are not going to meet the deadline. Why not change it? Finally, advisory committees--who cares? You could strip all of them out and I wouldn't care. But by stripping them out you are risking killing the bill. So, in the end, this amendment really comes down to a threat to the passage of homeland security. Five of the six provisions are totally defensible. The sixth one is important only if appropriations occur and we are going to pass the appropriations later, so we are not committing to anything. Contrary to the criticism that there are extraneous materials in this bill, there are fewer extraneous matters in this bill than any major bill I have seen in many years. When you reach an agreement between the two Houses, you are always going to have extraneous material. So, we will have a vote at 5 o'clock on Monday. First of all, I think it is bad policy to strike these six provisions. I think no legitimate case can be made against four of them. I think one of them is irrelevant--whether we have advisory committees or not. I think the other one is a small item in a big bill and I do not think it is worth risking this bill to make that change. Nor do I believe this issue would ever have been raised, that this amendment would ever have been offered, had this not been an extraordinarily controversial bill to begin with. So I just have to say, in the big picture, I feel totally comfortable in defending the great majority of these six provisions. I think we need them. On substantive grounds, we should limit liability for new vaccines that may save American lives; for airport screening equipment that may keep our children, our spouses, or ourselves from being killed on airplanes; and from new manufactured items and new weapons we need in the war on terrorism. Those items should not be stricken. I know special interest groups like the plaintiffs' attorneys are opposed to these provisions. But they are limited, they are narrow, they are reasonable, and the alternative, which we had in the Senate amendment, was to have the taxpayer pay all these damages. So this seems preferable to me. I urge my colleagues when we vote on Monday to vote against this amendment and, in the process, let us pass this bill in the form it passed the House and, to the maximum extent possible, guarantee that we are successful in seeing this bill become law. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I am glad the Senator picked one with which I am totally familiar. In the Senate bill, we had a provision where the Federal Government indemnified those manufacturers that produced items to be used in the war on terrorism whereby the taxpayer would pay liability that arose from it. I was never much for that provision, but I was desperately trying to get the votes to prevail, and so I took that provision. The House had a provision that limited liability, similar to what we did in World War II and what we have done in most major conflicts. When you produce an item for defense purposes, there is a limited liability. It seemed to me that, rather than the taxpayer bearing the burden, forcing these cases into Federal court and limiting liability was a preferable choice. That is where the negotiation came from. This was not a provision out of the clear blue sky. We had a provision, they had a provision, and we took less liability protection than they had. This is a good provision of the bill.

Mr. GRAMM. And the vote occur immediately thereafter.

Mr. GRAMM. Let me say when Senator Miller and I wrote the substitute, it is true we did not have any special interest provisions in it. It is true that there are a few special interest provisions in this bill. But I would have to say--without getting into an argument with anybody on what may be my last words in the Senate--that more often than not when you are negotiating between the two bodies, you end up with some provisions, (a) you don't like, and (b) that have are promoted by some special interest. I would have to say--and I am sure my colleagues will remember me going through bills at midnight looking at proposed amendments that were going to be accepted--seldom have I seen a bill that had none of those. I am not going to be here in future years, so I guess I will read about it in the paper. But if we do not invoke cloture, I would be willing to bet good money, and I hope to have it to bet at that time, that there will be more special interest provisions in it 4 months from now than there are right now.

Mr. GRAMM. I have the time.

Mr. GRAMM. I give the 2 minutes to Senator Byrd.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me address that and get back to the Senator's point, which is the relevant point. First of all, this bill results from three things: One is the old Gramm-Miller substitute with which we are all familiar and we debated for 6 weeks. It also includes compromises that were reached with three Democrat Members to try to increase input that public employees have in the process. I am first to say it does not give them veto power, but it gives them a greater degree to be heard. The third thing it entails is a compromise with the House. We had to meet with Members of the House to try to bring the two bills together, given we are at the end of the session, so they could pass the bill in the House and we could pass it in the Senate. Are there special interest provisions in the bill? There are. But does anyone believe we would go to conference in February or March and not have special interest provisions in the bill? I am proud that my colleague has noted I didn't have any in the substitute we offered. I say the following in addressing the important point of the Senator from West Virginia, and then I will conclude. I believe this is a good amendment. I believe it is a result of 6 weeks of work. It is a compromise that has been made, and then an additional compromise has been made on top of that. I believe from my point of view we might get a better bill in February, but I don't believe from the point of view of the opponents of this bill they would get a better bill. And to the extent we got greater support, we would get a bill that is not as good. Secondly, I remind my dear colleague from West Virginia that when Benjamin Franklin read the Constitution, he asked himself: Is this the best product that we are going to get? As he knows, better than I, there were things in it he was doubtful of. I am not comparing this 484 pages to what, in a secular sense, is a document that is pretty holy to me and the Senator from West Virginia, and that is the Constitution. But the point is relevant. This is a compromise. Even the Senator said his biggest concern has been dealt with. I say to critics, the fact that is the case says something about the fact that there was a genuine effort to compromise. I am not asking my colleagues that have taken a hard position to vote yes. I know that will not happen. I know I will not convince the Senator from West Virginia, but I hope I will convince him of two things. The first is the most important one, and that is this bill is not all bad and there are some good things in the bill and there has been some legitimate effort to compromise. Second, when we do get cloture, we are at a point where we need to go ahead and act and adopt the bill. I thank my colleague for the debate. Probably the Senator from West Virginia has had more impact in changing this bill than anyone else because of the strength of his arguments. I simply say, it is a long way from what he would like. I have voted on many bills here in my 18 years in the Senate, and they were a long way from what I liked. But you ultimately come down to, especially in these circumstances, the following questions: Is it going to get any better? Might it get worse? Is it worth waiting 3 months to find out? My conclusion, and it is one I feel very strongly about, is that I believe it is a good bill. I don't believe it would get better with time, especially from the point of view of people who are concerned about workers' rights. And finally, waiting 3 months does not serve anybody's interests. Thomas Jefferson said good men with the same opinion are prone to disagree.

Mr. GRAMM. I would be happy to yield, but I do want to make sure I have 3 minutes at the end to sum up and we are 5 minutes from the vote. I am happy to yield.