Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise in support of the cloture motion. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this motion. I spoke yesterday, at length, about why this bill is such an important piece of legislation. I guess the best proof of it is that it enjoys such bipartisan support, which does not happen too often on Capitol Hill. But I summed up, in yesterday's remarks, that this conference agreement is about opportunity--opportunity for 48 struggling nations of sub-Saharan Africa; and opportunity for the people of the Caribbean, many of whom are struggling to rebuild their lives following the devastation of their countries by natural disaster. Most importantly, we in the Congress must be concerned about American jobs--our working men and women. This bill does much for the American economy and for America's consumers, as well. The enhanced Caribbean Basin Initiative textile provisions in this conference agreement may create up to $8 billion in new sales and 120,000 new jobs over the next 5 years. Those are not my estimates. Those are not Senator Moynihan's estimates. Those are the textile industry's own estimates. In addition to the textile industry, this bill enjoys the support of many other industries as well. This is because American exports follow American investment when that investment moves abroad, especially exports of capital equipment. This conference agreement enjoys broad support among distinguished Members of both the majority and minority, who have worked together long and hard to fashion this agreement. It also enjoys the support of a vast majority of political, civic, and religious leaders around the United States, and the support of each of the nations that would benefit from its passage. I urge my colleagues to take a look at an advertisement in the Hill newspaper that was put out yesterday. It has a long list of prominent business leaders and organizations. It has a long list of American civic leaders who support this, including even organizations such as Empower America, which is headed by Republican Jack Kemp, and is supported by conservative leaders such as Bill Bennett. Since it enjoys this broad, bipartisan support--both within and outside the political environment--I hope that it gets the support of our colleagues as well. A vote for cloture is also a reaffirmation of America's historic leadership role in international trade. We have much to do in the international trade arena in the next year or two: Restore confidence in American trade policy, and leadership in trade; rebuild confidence in the World Trade Organization; win the fight for permanent normal trade relations status for China; and show our trading partners in Geneva, where negotiations are underway right now, that we in the Senate are engaged with the world, and the world can look to us for that leadership. I ask my colleagues to vote in support of the opportunity to continue America's leadership in the effort to reduce trade barriers. I ask my colleagues to vote in favor of this motion. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have that advertisement I mentioned in the Hill newspaper printed in the Record.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, it is my intention to use 5 minutes and then give the remainder of the time to one of the opponents of the legislation, the Senator from Wisconsin. So I ask the Chair to please inform me when 5 minutes are up.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, before I give the opening script for the leader, I would like to defer to the Senator from Hawaii for a few minutes.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, May 10, 2000, at 2 p.m., in SD226.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on International Operations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2000 at 10:30 a.m. to hold a hearing.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Lands of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct an oversight hearing. The subcommittee will receive testimony on the United States Forest Service's proposed regulations governing National Forest Planning.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2000, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on draft legislation to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. A business meeting on pending business will precede the hearing--agenda to be announced. The hearing will be held in the committee room, 485 Russell Senate Building.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Governmental Affairs Committee be authorized to meet on Wednesday, May 10, 2000, at 9:30 a.m., for a hearing to consider the nominations of Anna Blackburne-Rigsby, Thomas Motley, and John Mott to be Associate Judges of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2000, at 2 p.m. to hold a hearing.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 10, 2000, in executive session, to mark up the FY 2001 Defense authorization bill.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, pursuant to the consent agreement, I now send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, the cloture vote will occur on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Debate on this important trade legislation is expected to consume the remainder of the day. Order of Business

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we have agreed to give Senator Collins 5 minutes and Senator Feingold 5 minutes at this point. I ask unanimous consent that they be recognized.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to speak for a few minutes opening up debate on the African trade bill. Senator Moynihan will want to make opening comments. After we have completed our remarks, I will not object.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, as a person who supports the African trade bill, I rise in support of this conference committee report on the Trade and Development Act of 2000. This legislation contains the conference agreement on the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act, and even some miscellaneous trade measures that were passed as part of the Senate's consideration of this legislation in November last year. Passage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act conference agreement by the Senate will send to the President the first significant trade legislation to pass both Houses of Congress since 1988, other than legislation implementing trade agreements under very special fast-track procedures. If I could characterize this conference agreement with one word, it would be the word ``opportunity.'' That word is in the title of the African portion of this bill. First, this conference agreement provides people in sub-Saharan Africa with the opportunity and promise for a better life. In many cases, these countries are not able to sustain their own people. They lack even the simplest, most basic infrastructure. This prevents the people of Africa from meeting necessary agriculture, education, transportation, and health care needs. By giving these countries new tools to develop a textile and apparel industry, they will have new opportunities to participate in the global trade flows and the increased prosperity that have largely bypassed the majority of Africa's people. I stress this bill provides opportunity. Once again, this bill is about opportunity. It is not about a guarantee, and it is not about a panacea, but an opportunity that has, up until now, been missing for the people of sub-Saharan Africa. This legislation will give these countries the opportunity to build the essential capital that struggling economies need to increase their investment in their own people to help themselves. What we will create with this bill is opportunity for these struggling economies, and do it in a way that will not in any way jeopardize U.S. employment. Some 30 sub-Saharan countries of Africa have begun dynamic economic reform programs that help make it much easier to pass this bill because we know they are taking the first steps to help themselves. They are liberalizing exchange rates; they are privatizing state-owned enterprises; they are reducing harmful barriers to trade and investment; they are also ending costly trade-distorting subsidies. All of these things, for those who believe enhanced freedom of international trade is the right direction in which to go, always need a little bit of help from the indigenous economies of the respective countries. We believe the 30 countries of sub-Saharan Africa are doing all the right things. This legislation will create greater opportunities for new partnerships with these African nations based on economic directions they have already begun to take. The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act is designed to compliment the economic reform policies that African nations have already decided to pursue by offering increased access to U.S. markets for non-import- sensitive goods and textiles while creating enhanced opportunities to deepen our bilateral trade relations. Speaking of opportunity, we will open up for American goods and services a market for 700 million potential new consumers, more than in Japan and all the ASEAN nations combined, if we approve this conference agreement. Both the United States and African nations recognize this legislation for the win-win opportunity it is. The United States benefits and Africa benefits from this legislation. The African Growth and Opportunity Act has been endorsed by every African ambassador in Washington. We don't see unanimous agreement on many things in these cities these days. However, we do here. All of the 48 nations of sub- Saharan Africa are united in support of this legislation. The conference agreement is also a win-win opportunity for the countries of the Caribbean Basin region and for the United States. This conference report grants duty-free, quota-free benefits to apparel made in the Caribbean Basin Initiative countries from U.S. yarn and U.S. fabric. The Caribbean Basin nations will now have an opportunity to compete with Mexico and other developing countries in Asia in a way that will permit them to more fully participate in the global economy. Additionally, the conference report provides benefits for apparel made with regional fabric under clearly specified conditions to be fair to the United States. This will encourage additional U.S. export of cotton and yarn and U.S. investment in the region while also helping to create desperately needed jobs for the Caribbean workers. In fact, I cannot think of a time when this legislation was needed more. We have to act now to help rebuild the shattered Caribbean economies and the ruined lives of those whose nations were devastated by Hurricanes Georges and Mitch. This all happened in 1998, but the recovery is not what it should be. It is hard for us to imagine the destruction these storms inflicted. We were not there. We saw them on television, but, as so many things seen on television, they soon get out of mind. The devastation is still there, although there has been some cleaning up, some enhancement of the economy. But this will help, not by giving them our money, as we have done under the humanitarian programs we have, but helping them to help themselves through enhanced trade opportunities. In the worst-hit Caribbean countries, virtually all sectors of the economy were affected. Houses by the hundreds were washed away. Roads and bridges disappeared under tons of water. Hotels were wrecked. Beach erosion demolished tourism. Both the administration and the Congress deserve credit for joint efforts to enact an assistance package of close to $1 billion to aid in the reconstruction of the most basic elements of infrastructure--roads, bridges, and sewer systems--for what they did 2 years ago. But even this investment falls far short of what is needed to rehabilitate the economies of these countries. The Caribbean nations hit by these disasters have seen the basic pillars of their economies--agriculture and tourism--almost completely ruined. I have spoken to many of the ambassadors from the Caribbean nations about this. I just had a meeting this morning with the President of Costa Rica, thanking us for our work on this particular bill, telling us about how their economies are starting to turn around. In my view, based on these discussions, comprehensive reconstruction will not be possible without an effective trade and investment component. The ambassadors tell me--and the regional leaders and the U.S. officials all agree--it will take years for the hardest hit countries to recover. These countries are more than just our friends; they are our neighbors. They are right there in our backyard. We must put in place a program to help them rebuild and to sustain growth during the long road back to economic prosperity. We can do this without threatening jobs in our own country. The Caribbean Basin is one of the few regions of the world where the United States consistently--I want to emphasize consistently--maintains a trade surplus. In fact, close to 70 cents of every dollar spent in the region is returned in the form of increased exports from the United States. In 1999, the U.S. exports to Caribbean Basin countries exceeded $19 billion, making this group the sixth largest export market of U.S. goods in that year, 1999. We will see other long-term benefits to the United States if we approve this conference agreement and help our Caribbean neighbors to help themselves. We will contribute to the U.S. national security, in addition to our economy, by helping democratic countries in our own backyard maintain political and economic stability. In closing, I want to say a word, then, in addition to all the big components of this bill, a word about the significance of our work. This is very general, but this work is an example of U.S. leadership in trade policy. But that U.S. leadership in trade policy has suffered serious setbacks in the last few years. One obvious setback has been the repeated failure of the Congress to renew the President's fast- track trade negotiating authority. Another setback has been the failure of the negotiations on the multilateral agreement on investment in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And the most serious blow to U.S. leadership in global trade policy was the failure last December of the Seattle ministerial conference meeting of the World Trade Organization. The entire world is watching, wondering whether the lack of leadership on the part of the United States for the last 7 or 8 years, or maybe the last 5 or 6 years, is a pattern we are going to continue to follow because it is such a different pattern from what the United States has done as a world leader in breaking down barriers to international trade since 1947. I suppose you could go back to the 1930s, when we learned the lesson of the Smoot-Hawley legislation that brought about the world depression, and the world depression brought about World War II. We very quickly learned that high tariffs are not good for the world economy. It was not good for the American economy because we suffered as much or more than they did elsewhere in the world in that Great Depression as a result of Smoot-Hawley. Under Cordell Hull's leadership as Secretary of State, working for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we started reciprocal trade agreements at that particular time. They were the forerunner of gradually reducing some of these very high barriers to trade we had at that time around the world, mostly high tariffs--bringing them down on a reciprocal basis. But all of that eventually resulted in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade process that we led the world in establishing in 1949. There have been eight rounds of GATT. Those eight rounds have been very successful in breaking down barriers to trade, so successful that President Clinton can tell the American people with all honesty, on a factual basis, that one-third of the jobs created during his Presidency are a result of international trade. So if anybody thinks we are here promoting an African trade bill and Caribbean Basin Initiative bill to somehow benefit the economies of Africa and the Caribbean nations without any concern about the workers of America, the working men and women of America, the taxpaying people of our country, and are they going to have enough jobs, we have history, since 1947, to demonstrate the value of international trade to the economy of the United States and the economic benefit of the United States. Too often, in international trade, we look to the economic issues only. But I believe commerce does more to promote international peace and humanitarian progress than anything we as political leaders or diplomats can do--as important as political leadership is in the world, and as important as diplomats are. But there are just not enough political leaders or diplomats in the world--if you take all the countries combined--to guarantee any peace. But as you break down barriers among the diverse people of our world--that is, one on one, whether it is business or nonbusiness relationships--that has more to do with the promotion of international peace, prosperity, democratic principles, and free market principles than anything. So I see this legislation as part of a small process of promoting those issues as well as our concern about Africa, among others. So the entire world I think is watching what we do today because it is some show of America wanting to retain that leadership in the reduction of trade barriers and enhancing peace and prosperity of which we have been a part since 1947. It is vitally important to not only approve this conference agreement but to do it in a resounding way. If we do that, we can send a message to the rest of the world that American leadership in trade policy is alive and well. For many in the international community, that leadership, as I said before, is in serious doubt. It is especially important to approve this conference agreement after the profoundly disappointing failure of the Seattle WTO negotiations. We are only now beginning to pick up the pieces with the start of new agriculture and service trade negotiations in Geneva. I have been watching these negotiations very closely. They are both difficult and delicate. We are trying to rebuild confidence, both in the World Trade Organization and in U.S. leadership. After Seattle, this is necessary and vitally important. It is not an exaggeration to say that failure to approve this conference agreement, or even a tepid approval, would send a shockwave through these negotiations. It would undermine our negotiators, jeopardize any progress we might make in Geneva, and do great harm to our long-term international trade interests. By the same token, a strong Senate endorsement of this conference report would say to the entire world that the Senate is engaged, committed, and we want to reestablish the historic leadership role that has characterized U.S. trade policy for the last 50 years. Finally, I salute the hard work of the majority leader, Senator Lott, as well as that of my distinguished colleagues, Senator Roth and Senator Moynihan. Without their vision, their efforts, and their perseverance, we would not be here today. I urge my colleagues to join me in a resounding show of support for American leadership in world trade negotiations by supporting the Trade and Development Act of 2000. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Kurt Kovarik, a member of my staff, be given privileges of the floor this afternoon.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I need only a few minutes to respond to a couple previous remarks. I will not take very long, I say to the Senator from Florida. Mr. President, I want to, first of all, follow up on a comment that Senator Dodd and Senator Moynihan made about Colombia and including it in the Caribbean Basin Initiative. I was hopeful we could do that. I sent several communiques to the leaders about doing that. I am sorry it could not be done in this conference agreement. I hope we get an opportunity this year to include Colombia as a beneficiary country in the Caribbean Basin Initiative program because I think it will help the economy of Colombia, help them overcome the civil distress they have there, even more than the aid that we currently give to Colombia, although that aid is very necessary. I also want to make a short comment on the effort put forth by the Senator from California, Senator Feinstein, to explain the situation with AIDS in Africa, and her attempt to help relieve that terrible situation through the AIDS provision she included in the Africa trade bill. I applaud my distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from California, for her great concern for the victims of the AIDS disaster in Africa. We all could not help but be deeply moved by her presentation and the compassion that she expressed this morning. I supported Senator Roth's efforts to seek a compromise on her provisions that would have been acceptable to the House. The Senator from California, as well as Senator Roth, have performed a great service in bringing this issue to our attention and in trying to do something about it. Then lastly, I will say a few words on the comments made by Senator Hollings, in his long and very thorough presentation of his point of view--which I disagree with, or at least his conclusions. He is a distinguished Senator with great knowledge on this particular issue. I think he is wrong in opposing the bill because he says that this conference report will devastate the U.S. apparel industry. Sub-Saharan Africa currently supplies less than 1 percent of the total value of apparel imports to the United States. Under the most optimistic circumstances, the recent analysis by the nonpartisan International Trade Commission shows that passage of this legislation would increase apparel imports to this country from sub-Saharan Africa by about 3 percent. Most, if not all, of this increase would come at the expense of Far Eastern suppliers, not the U.S. manufacturers. Again, let me emphasize, that is from the nonpartisan--at least bipartisan--International Trade Commission. The legislation in the conference report establishes a mechanism under which domestic producers can petition for relief from import surges that threaten serious injury. Under these provisions, tariffs could be reimposed in limited instances in which a domestic producer could establish a meritorious case. So we have that option just in case the analysis made by the International Trade Commission might be wrong. I do not think it is going to be wrong. In fact, I have great confidence their predictions will not be wrong. But just in case there are some unexpected import surges, our legislation provides for a petition for relief in those instances. Furthermore, we have the industry's own analysis. It suggests that this legislation will create an additional 120,000 jobs, largely due to provisions requiring that all apparel items benefiting from provisions contained in the Caribbean Basin Initiative portion of this legislation must be assembled by textile components using U.S. fabrics. More generally, I want to say a word about the idea that free trade has not provided economic benefits to the average American. I want to quote from the economic report of the President, who is, of course, a member of the same party as the Senator from South Carolina. The President's own economic report for fiscal year 2000 shows that, because of trade agreements that have liberalized trade and opened new markets, the average American has realized an annual economic benefit of $1,000 every year since 1963. Since we traditionally measure economic benefits by how they affect families, with a family of four, that is an annual benefit of $4,000 per family. Think in terms of what we have tried to do for families through proposals for tax cuts. That amount of $4,000 is far more than any tax cut that we have debated in the Congress. The idea that the average American does not benefit from free trade is simply not true. My source of that information--I tell the Senator from South Carolina--is the leader of his party, President Clinton, making those statements in his own budget document. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when Senator Feinstein has finished speaking, Senator Feingold be able to consume his time for debate on this bill.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am sending a bill to the desk to help reinforce our national drug control effort. I held a hearing earlier today on the domestic consequences of a new wave of heroin use. This is a flesh and blood problem that touches all of us. What we see in our homes and schools across the nation is the emergence of a new threat to our young people. A purer form of heroin is making its presence felt. In rich neighborhoods and poor. In our cities and rural areas. In the lives of our young people and their families. No heroin consumed in this country is made here. Every gram of it is grown in some foreign field, processed in a distant, illegal lab, and smuggled into this country. Yet, this heroin makes its way here by every means possible. It walks, floats, flies, and sneaks across our borders. While the heroin used here comes from overseas, the consequences of its coming are felt in our homes, in our schools, in our neighborhoods. It is our young people who die. It is American families who bear the burden and pay the price. Heroin is an equal opportunity destroyer. It blights inner city streets, suburban neighborhoods, and rural communities alike. I fear that the problem is getting worse. And I am concerned that our current policies are simply not up to the challenge. Somewhere along the way, we lost the clear, consistent message that the only proper response to drugs is to say an emphatic ``NO''. We're supposed to be more sophisticated. More tolerant. More willing to listen to notions of making dangerous drugs more available. What all of this ``more'' has meant is that we have more young people using more drugs at younger ages. Today's heroin is cheaper and purer and more widely available. It is more aggressively marketed and it is presented as being safer, as ``user friendly''. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, heroin had a bad rap. All drugs did. That is less true today. In the last several years, heroin use among young people has doubled and attitudes about the dangers of the drug have shifted. While it is true that most of our 12 to 20 year olds still believe it bad, the new heroin that we see on our streets and in our schools is marketed to avoid this stigma. The chief reason that the old heroin was seen as bad was because you needed a needle to use it. With the new heroin you can get high from smoking or inhaling, at least at first. And we now have well-moneyed think tank talking heads who preach that the only consequence of heroin addiction is a mild case of constipation. That it is our drug laws that are dangerous not the drugs. In such an environment, we should not be too surprised that an increasing number of young people should be persuaded that heroin is okay. Communities in Plano, Texas and Orlando, Florida learned this to their dismay when dozens of high school kids died from heroin overdoses. I can think of no pain greater than that of a parent who must bid farewell forever to a child. It is somehow contrary to the natural order for a parent to precede a child in death. But the pain of addiction is a spreading circle of hurt. The hearing I held today on this problem brought this point home in the voices of those most affected: addicts and their families. The legislation that I offer today will help us address this new problem before it gets any worse. I am proposing that we look at the means to improve our prevention message to stop drug use before it starts. I hope to revitalize community and parent involvement. I am also proposing increased resources for addiction research and ways to get the best information and best practices into the hands of the professionals who must deal with addiction problems. In addition, I am calling for a new initiative to support juvenile residential treatment programs that work. Current research shows that we need more focused, long-term critical intervention for young addicts to break the cycle of addiction today before it becomes a worse problem tomorrow. Investment now means better chances for young people and for all of us later. It's not just a new heroin that plagues us. Designer drugs like methamphetamine and now Ecstasy are flooding this country. Along with heroin, these are marketed to our young people as safe and friendly. Left unanswered, we will see another generation of young lives blighted. We will see families torn up by a widening circle of hurt from drug use. We saw what a similar wave of drug use did to us and to a generaton of young people in the 1960s and 1970s. We cannot afford to go through this again. I hope we can begin today to renew our commitment to a drug free future for our young people. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting the Drug Treatment and Research Enhancement Act.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am sending a bill to the desk to help reinforce our national drug control effort. I held a hearing earlier today on the domestic consequences of a new wave of heroin use. This is a flesh and blood problem that touches all of us. What we see in our homes and schools across the nation is the emergence of a new threat to our young people. A purer form of heroin is making its presence felt. In rich neighborhoods and poor. In our cities and rural areas. In the lives of our young people and their families. No heroin consumed in this country is made here. Every gram of it is grown in some foreign field, processed in a distant, illegal lab, and smuggled into this country. Yet, this heroin makes its way here by every means possible. It walks, floats, flies, and sneaks across our borders. While the heroin used here comes from overseas, the consequences of its coming are felt in our homes, in our schools, in our neighborhoods. It is our young people who die. It is American families who bear the burden and pay the price. Heroin is an equal opportunity destroyer. It blights inner city streets, suburban neighborhoods, and rural communities alike. I fear that the problem is getting worse. And I am concerned that our current policies are simply not up to the challenge. Somewhere along the way, we lost the clear, consistent message that the only proper response to drugs is to say an emphatic ``NO''. We're supposed to be more sophisticated. More tolerant. More willing to listen to notions of making dangerous drugs more available. What all of this ``more'' has meant is that we have more young people using more drugs at younger ages. Today's heroin is cheaper and purer and more widely available. It is more aggressively marketed and it is presented as being safer, as ``user friendly''. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, heroin had a bad rap. All drugs did. That is less true today. In the last several years, heroin use among young people has doubled and attitudes about the dangers of the drug have shifted. While it is true that most of our 12 to 20 year olds still believe it bad, the new heroin that we see on our streets and in our schools is marketed to avoid this stigma. The chief reason that the old heroin was seen as bad was because you needed a needle to use it. With the new heroin you can get high from smoking or inhaling, at least at first. And we now have well-moneyed think tank talking heads who preach that the only consequence of heroin addiction is a mild case of constipation. That it is our drug laws that are dangerous not the drugs. In such an environment, we should not be too surprised that an increasing number of young people should be persuaded that heroin is okay. Communities in Plano, Texas and Orlando, Florida learned this to their dismay when dozens of high school kids died from heroin overdoses. I can think of no pain greater than that of a parent who must bid farewell forever to a child. It is somehow contrary to the natural order for a parent to precede a child in death. But the pain of addiction is a spreading circle of hurt. The hearing I held today on this problem brought this point home in the voices of those most affected: addicts and their families. The legislation that I offer today will help us address this new problem before it gets any worse. I am proposing that we look at the means to improve our prevention message to stop drug use before it starts. I hope to revitalize community and parent involvement. I am also proposing increased resources for addiction research and ways to get the best information and best practices into the hands of the professionals who must deal with addiction problems. In addition, I am calling for a new initiative to support juvenile residential treatment programs that work. Current research shows that we need more focused, long-term critical intervention for young addicts to break the cycle of addiction today before it becomes a worse problem tomorrow. Investment now means better chances for young people and for all of us later. It's not just a new heroin that plagues us. Designer drugs like methamphetamine and now Ecstasy are flooding this country. Along with heroin, these are marketed to our young people as safe and friendly. Left unanswered, we will see another generation of young lives blighted. We will see families torn up by a widening circle of hurt from drug use. We saw what a similar wave of drug use did to us and to a generaton of young people in the 1960s and 1970s. We cannot afford to go through this again. I hope we can begin today to renew our commitment to a drug free future for our young people. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting the Drug Treatment and Research Enhancement Act.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. For the leader, I ask unanimous consent the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on the Executive Calendar: Nos. 470 and 471. I ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Tomorrow morning the Senate will begin debate on the Lieberman alternative amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act at 10 o'clock. By previous consent, the vote on the Gregg amendment regarding teacher quality will occur at 2:15 p.m., immediately following the weekly party luncheons. It is hoped that a vote on the Lieberman amendment can be scheduled to immediately follow the vote on the Gregg amendment. Therefore, Senators can expect votes tomorrow afternoon and possibly into the evening. For the information of all Senators, it is expected the Senate will begin consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 434, the African trade legislation, prior to tomorrow's adjournment.