Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an issue which affects children across the country. Brachial plexus injuries (BPI), also known as Erb's palsy, occur when the nerves which control the muscles in the shoulders, arms and hands are injured. Any or all of the nerves which run from the spine to the arms and hands may be paralyzed. Often this injury is caused when an infant's brachial plexus nerves are stretched in the birth canal. What is devastating about BPI is that the children will have paralyzed arms and hands which may be misshapen or extending out from the body at unnatural angles. This can retard a child's physical development, making everyday tasks such as coloring, drawing, dressing and going to the bathroom, which their peers can perform with no trouble, almost impossible. The feeling in the children's arms and hands is similar to how a non-paralyzed person's arm feels when he or she sleeps on it. This numbness leads to more serious injuries-- toddlers and young children will accidentally or purposely burn or mutilate themselves because they lack feeling in their extremities. Some children can undergo expensive surgery and therapy and, though never fully recovering, can regain some normal function of their arms and hands. However, many children suffer permanent, debilitating paralysis from which they never fully recover. On Thursday, October 21, I sponsored a meeting between members of the United Brachial Plexus Network (UBPN), surgeons, occupational therapists and experts from the Social Security Administration to discuss why so many families with children with brachial plexus injuries were being turned down for Supplemental Security Income despite seeming to meet the qualifications for such payments as laid out in the Social Security Administration handbook. The Social Security Administration gave a presentation explaining the statutory qualifications for receiving SSI. Their presentations were followed by presentations by surgeons and therapists explaining how children with BPI function and why they feel children paralyzed by BPI should be eligible for SSI payments because of their disability. Most moving were the presentations made by children with BPI and parents of BPI children. These courageous people talked about their daily lives and the difficulties children with BPI must endure in attempting to perform everyday tasks. I want to commend UBPN board member Kathleen Kennedy from my home state of Iowa, Iowa State Senator Kitty Rehberg and Sharon Gavagan, who also sits on the board for UBPN, for their hard work and dedication in organizing the meeting between the UBPN and the Social Security Administration. I want to thank the surgeons and therapists who traveled from Texas to make presentations. I also want to commend Susan Daniels, Kenneth Nibali of the Social Security Administration and the experts from SSA for their willingness to travel from Baltimore to participate in the meeting. I am encouraged by their willingness to consider issuing new guidelines to the personnel in the SSA field offices regarding brachial plexus injuries. We must work to ensure that everyone who meets the guidelines for receiving SSI has the opportunity to apply for the benefits and be given a fair hearing. I look forward to seeing the new guidelines from SSA, and I am eager to continue working with the Social Security Administration on this issue.

Mr. GRASSLEY

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Paul Hamrick, a congressional fellow in Senator Graham's office, be granted the privilege of the floor during debate on this legislation.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this side yields back what unexpended time we have. Cloture Motion

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 26, for purposes of conducting a full committee hearing which is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. The purpose of this oversight hearing is to receive testimony on the interpretation and implementation plans of ``Subsistence Management Regulations for Public Lands in Alaska, Subparts A, B, C, and C, Redefinition to Include Water Subject to Subsistence Priority: Final Rule.''

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be permitted to meet on Tuesday, October 26, 1999 at 10:00 a.m., to hear testimony on the Use of Seclusion and Restraints in Mental Hospitals and the Nomination hearing for William Halter, to be Deputy Commissioner, Social Security Administration.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts requests unanimous consent to conduct a hearing on Tuesday, October 26, 1999 beginning at 2:00 p.m. in S-407, The Capitol.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the Committee on the Judiciary requests unanimous consent to conduct a hearing on Tuesday, October 26, 1999 beginning at 3:00 p.m. in Dirksen Room 226.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 26, 1999, in open session, to receive testimony on the Real Property Maintenance program and the Maintenance of Historic Homes and Senior Officers' Quarters.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet on Tuesday, October 26, 1999, at 9:30 a.m. in open session, to receive testimony on the status of U.S. military forces.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am introducing today for Senator Helms and myself legislation to help the Administration better understand the importance of representing the US national interest. I am sending to the desk a bill on additional considerations for assessment of cooperation of foreign countries with United States counter-drug efforts. The purpose of this bill is to help the Administration get its act together when it comes to the certification process on illegal drugs. Recent statements by the Drug Czar and other Administration officials on certification, along with their actions in regard to such countries as Syria and Iran, show that they may have misplaced US national interests when it comes to drug policy. I want to help them find it again. Over a decade ago, Congress passed measures in the Foreign Assistance Act that require US Administrations to certify whether other countries are taking serious steps to deal with major illegal drug production or trafficking in their territories. The view behind this legislation was to force an accounting, at least once a year, of what the US and other countries were doing to address a major foreign policy concern that, in the view of Congress, governments here and abroad would just as soon have ignored. Administrations do not like accounting for themselves. Not many foreign countries welcome it either. They would prefer that legislatures and the public give them the money and approval they want with no questions asked. It's less troubling than having to explain actions, account for shortfalls, or demonstrate that the money being provided is achieving anything. Congress, however, thinks differently. It should and it must, in my view. Today, the Clinton Administration, like its predecessors, is trying both to ignore certification as a genuine responsibility and to undo it where it can. It has made efforts to get Congress to scuttle the requirement. It has poor-mouthed the idea internationally while denying it has done so. It has resorted to lawerly gimmicks and low tricks to drop from certification some of the worst countries imaginable. And lately it has been trying to broaden, as it says, the evaluation and accountability process in the Western Hemisphere to make it fairer by participating with the Organization of American States in the creation of what is called the Multinational Evaluation Mechanism (MEM). This is a subterfuge for trying to get rid of the process by calling it something else. Given this Administration's poor performance on international drug control, I am not surprised at an effort to disguise shortcomings in some artful bureaucratic way. I am not surprised, but I am disappointed. As part of the effort to discredit certification, the Administration has resorted to distortions and misrepresentations about what it involves and has enlisted a set of arguments that, while sounding plausible, are really little more than the old magician's trick of ``watch the birdie'' while hoping that you will not notice what he is really doing with his other hand. Well, we deserve better than sleight- of-hand on an issue as important as this one. I thought it might be useful to provide an antidote to these shenanigans with a few home truths. There are many arguments advanced against certification, and I have addressed many of these in earlier statements on this floor, but the best one argues that while certification may once have been useful-- time unspecified--it has served its purpose and is counter-productive because it hampers further cooperation with other countries that resent being subject to a unilateral, U.S. judgment of their performance. Mexico is often advanced as an example. This view is fine if you are working from the idea--which seems to be so much of the philosophy behind our present foreign policy--that we should be guided by everyone in the world's interests before our own or in spite of our own. Now, I have no doubt that other countries resent being evaluated. In my experience, they resent being evaluated by any individual country or collectively. This is not new, whether we are talking drugs or policies on intellectual properties or nuclear proliferation. And I am sure that this resentment over being judged can complicate negotiations. Both these points, however, are irrelevant to the circumstances under consideration. As a matter of our national interest, we are obliged to make judgments about the actions of other countries whether they like it or not. Let me try to make this point clearer in a different context. The United States is currently embroiled in a controversy with the European Union over rules governing the importation of bananas. I am not going to comment on the merits of the particulars of the case, apart from noting that the United States, the present Administration, has determined--has judged--that EU restrictions, quotas, and preferences on the importation of bananas are unfair and prejudicial. This, folks, is an evaluation. And it is one deeply resented in Europe, as an infringement of the rights of not just one country but of an association of many countries, which happen to be our major allies. Nevertheless, the Administration is prepared to pursue the case in the teeth of this resentment to force a change it wants. And in doing this it is prepared to invoke sanctions to achieve its goals. Similarly, the Administration is prepared to condemn a gaggle of other countries for permitting the pirating of various intellectual properties, such as books, videos, and copyrighted products. It is prepared to pursue sanctions to achieve a remedy. I can extend this list to judgments about states that support terrorism or are engaged in systematic human rights abuses. This Administration involved this country in a major military engagement--the ultimate sanction--to stop what it regarded as gross violations of human rights. I have no doubt that Slobodan Milosevic and his cronies deeply resented U.S. judgments about the fitness of his actions and even more objected to the steps we took to change his behavior. I do not detect that this resentment at being judged or the knowledge that there were objections to the actions then taken based on that judgment carried any weight in the decisions made by this Administration to bomb and strafe military and civilian targets in the former Yugoslavia. What these examples show is that even this Administration understands, when it wants to, that there are matters of such import requiring judgments about the actions of other countries and involving responses based on those judgments that resentment or objections by others do not signify when it comes to deciding what we should do to protect interests we regard as important. Now, certification only requires that we make the involvement of other countries in the production and transit of illegal drugs--which kill more Americans every year that all the terrorists have in the last ten years or more than Mr. Milosevic did at any time--a matter of judgment and possible action of a degree at least as important as bananas. I happen to believe that judgments about drugs coming to the U.S. are at least as much in our interest as judgments about bananas going to Europe. I am puzzled by the Administration's reluctance to apply meaningful standards of judgment to the actions of other countries when it comes to drug policy. I am further puzzled by its willingness to be so moved by the resentment of other countries when it comes to judgments about drug policies and programs. The requirements in the law are not written in some mysterious dialect nor apply unfamiliar concepts. The idea is not so alien to our experience or even to this Administration's own actions as to be beyond comprehension. Yet, the Administration seems to have its own sources of bemusement when it comes to taking this issue seriously. In essence, what the law requires is that the Administration determine first whether countries are major producing or transit areas for illegal drugs. You would not think this terribly difficult or controversial, or too intrusive on the feelings of others. It then asks for the Administration to determine whether these countries are acting in good faith to enforce their own domestic laws against these practices; are acting in conformity with any bilateral agreements with the United States to address these activities; or are doing what is reasonable and responsible to do in light of international law that governs the conduct of all countries on this issue. I am hard pressed to see how this infringes on the sovereignty of other countries or what in it is so outrageous as to occasion abandonment of the effort. The law then requires that if, in the judgment of the Administration, any given country is not acting in good faith, it may then be subject to sanctions. The law does not require that the efforts of another country be successful in order to be certified. It does not require that judgments be without consideration of other national interests. It does ask, on this very important question, that the Administration supply to Congress and the American people at least once a year its considered opinion of whether other countries where a truly pernicious practice is being engaged in that affects directly the lives of U.S. citizens each and every day are, as a matter of fact, doing all that is reasonable to stop this practice. It then requires that if these countries are receiving U.S. assistance--that is, money from U.S. taxpayers--that this money be cut off--unless it is humanitarian aid or this self-same counter-drug assistance. While I understand perfectly why an aid recipient might squawk, I do not know what act of imagination it requires to manufacture outrage on behalf of other countries threatened with losing this assistance because in our judgment they are doing less than their best to cooperate with us. But that outrage is trotted out as an argument against certification. That aside, the most onerous part of the certification decision, and what other countries truly object to, is what world opinion makes of a U.S. judgment that a particular country is not cooperating with U.S. and international efforts to stop drug production or trafficking. What the Administration would have us do is forgo this judgment lest it hurt the feels of other countries. And yet, it is this judgment or the threat of it that has, in fact, been the primary impetus to encourage the very cooperation that the Administration says we do not need the certification process to achieve. What the Administration would really like to do is to stop accounting to Congress and the public for its international drug policy. It knows that this is a non-starter. So it has proposed instead to bury this accountability in an elaborate ruse in cooperation with the OAS to neuter the process. In doing this, it has helped to devise through the OAS a list of over 80 evaluation items to help in developing a so- called multinational evaluative mechanism. There are, of course, no teeth in the evaluation process, and each of the member states involved has an effective veto over any adverse judgments of their respective efforts. In this regard, I am reminded of the inhabitants of Garrison Keiller's Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average. The details behind the evaluation are to be kept confidential, which is okay since no one has much faith in the ability of most of the countries party to the evaluation to actually collect and evaluate the information in the first place. The countries involved lack the necessary reporting mechanisms, the budgets to sustain them, or the staffs to ensure ongoing, consistent information. This farrago is then supposed, gradually, to substitute for certification, somehow being fairer and more likely to ensure cooperation. Ironically, the premise underlying this process is the same as that informing certification, that is, that a judgment about performance does need to be made. The difference here is that somehow a multilateral judgment would be better, and it wouldn't be offensive since it would be collaborative. In my view, it won't be offensive because it won't be effective. You can make what you want to of a process that is supposed to involve judgments about the effectiveness of actions that are designed not to offend anyone being judged. But I am not reassured. And if this is the face of cooperation, then we are in for some rude shocks in our international relations. Having said this, I am prepared to help the Administration in its efforts. In order to give the Multinational Evaluation Mechanism some chance of effective implementation, I am, along with Senator Helms, today introducing legislation that would require that in future certification decisions the Administration incorporate the MEM as part of its deliberations in determining whether to certify other countries or not. Taking the Administration at its word that the mechanism is not an attempt to replace certification, but rather an effort to complement it, I offer this bill to enhance the process.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am introducing today for Senator Helms and myself legislation to help the Administration better understand the importance of representing the US national interest. I am sending to the desk a bill on additional considerations for assessment of cooperation of foreign countries with United States counter-drug efforts. The purpose of this bill is to help the Administration get its act together when it comes to the certification process on illegal drugs. Recent statements by the Drug Czar and other Administration officials on certification, along with their actions in regard to such countries as Syria and Iran, show that they may have misplaced US national interests when it comes to drug policy. I want to help them find it again. Over a decade ago, Congress passed measures in the Foreign Assistance Act that require US Administrations to certify whether other countries are taking serious steps to deal with major illegal drug production or trafficking in their territories. The view behind this legislation was to force an accounting, at least once a year, of what the US and other countries were doing to address a major foreign policy concern that, in the view of Congress, governments here and abroad would just as soon have ignored. Administrations do not like accounting for themselves. Not many foreign countries welcome it either. They would prefer that legislatures and the public give them the money and approval they want with no questions asked. It's less troubling than having to explain actions, account for shortfalls, or demonstrate that the money being provided is achieving anything. Congress, however, thinks differently. It should and it must, in my view. Today, the Clinton Administration, like its predecessors, is trying both to ignore certification as a genuine responsibility and to undo it where it can. It has made efforts to get Congress to scuttle the requirement. It has poor-mouthed the idea internationally while denying it has done so. It has resorted to lawerly gimmicks and low tricks to drop from certification some of the worst countries imaginable. And lately it has been trying to broaden, as it says, the evaluation and accountability process in the Western Hemisphere to make it fairer by participating with the Organization of American States in the creation of what is called the Multinational Evaluation Mechanism (MEM). This is a subterfuge for trying to get rid of the process by calling it something else. Given this Administration's poor performance on international drug control, I am not surprised at an effort to disguise shortcomings in some artful bureaucratic way. I am not surprised, but I am disappointed. As part of the effort to discredit certification, the Administration has resorted to distortions and misrepresentations about what it involves and has enlisted a set of arguments that, while sounding plausible, are really little more than the old magician's trick of ``watch the birdie'' while hoping that you will not notice what he is really doing with his other hand. Well, we deserve better than sleight- of-hand on an issue as important as this one. I thought it might be useful to provide an antidote to these shenanigans with a few home truths. There are many arguments advanced against certification, and I have addressed many of these in earlier statements on this floor, but the best one argues that while certification may once have been useful-- time unspecified--it has served its purpose and is counter-productive because it hampers further cooperation with other countries that resent being subject to a unilateral, U.S. judgment of their performance. Mexico is often advanced as an example. This view is fine if you are working from the idea--which seems to be so much of the philosophy behind our present foreign policy--that we should be guided by everyone in the world's interests before our own or in spite of our own. Now, I have no doubt that other countries resent being evaluated. In my experience, they resent being evaluated by any individual country or collectively. This is not new, whether we are talking drugs or policies on intellectual properties or nuclear proliferation. And I am sure that this resentment over being judged can complicate negotiations. Both these points, however, are irrelevant to the circumstances under consideration. As a matter of our national interest, we are obliged to make judgments about the actions of other countries whether they like it or not. Let me try to make this point clearer in a different context. The United States is currently embroiled in a controversy with the European Union over rules governing the importation of bananas. I am not going to comment on the merits of the particulars of the case, apart from noting that the United States, the present Administration, has determined--has judged--that EU restrictions, quotas, and preferences on the importation of bananas are unfair and prejudicial. This, folks, is an evaluation. And it is one deeply resented in Europe, as an infringement of the rights of not just one country but of an association of many countries, which happen to be our major allies. Nevertheless, the Administration is prepared to pursue the case in the teeth of this resentment to force a change it wants. And in doing this it is prepared to invoke sanctions to achieve its goals. Similarly, the Administration is prepared to condemn a gaggle of other countries for permitting the pirating of various intellectual properties, such as books, videos, and copyrighted products. It is prepared to pursue sanctions to achieve a remedy. I can extend this list to judgments about states that support terrorism or are engaged in systematic human rights abuses. This Administration involved this country in a major military engagement--the ultimate sanction--to stop what it regarded as gross violations of human rights. I have no doubt that Slobodan Milosevic and his cronies deeply resented U.S. judgments about the fitness of his actions and even more objected to the steps we took to change his behavior. I do not detect that this resentment at being judged or the knowledge that there were objections to the actions then taken based on that judgment carried any weight in the decisions made by this Administration to bomb and strafe military and civilian targets in the former Yugoslavia. What these examples show is that even this Administration understands, when it wants to, that there are matters of such import requiring judgments about the actions of other countries and involving responses based on those judgments that resentment or objections by others do not signify when it comes to deciding what we should do to protect interests we regard as important. Now, certification only requires that we make the involvement of other countries in the production and transit of illegal drugs--which kill more Americans every year that all the terrorists have in the last ten years or more than Mr. Milosevic did at any time--a matter of judgment and possible action of a degree at least as important as bananas. I happen to believe that judgments about drugs coming to the U.S. are at least as much in our interest as judgments about bananas going to Europe. I am puzzled by the Administration's reluctance to apply meaningful standards of judgment to the actions of other countries when it comes to drug policy. I am further puzzled by its willingness to be so moved by the resentment of other countries when it comes to judgments about drug policies and programs. The requirements in the law are not written in some mysterious dialect nor apply unfamiliar concepts. The idea is not so alien to our experience or even to this Administration's own actions as to be beyond comprehension. Yet, the Administration seems to have its own sources of bemusement when it comes to taking this issue seriously. In essence, what the law requires is that the Administration determine first whether countries are major producing or transit areas for illegal drugs. You would not think this terribly difficult or controversial, or too intrusive on the feelings of others. It then asks for the Administration to determine whether these countries are acting in good faith to enforce their own domestic laws against these practices; are acting in conformity with any bilateral agreements with the United States to address these activities; or are doing what is reasonable and responsible to do in light of international law that governs the conduct of all countries on this issue. I am hard pressed to see how this infringes on the sovereignty of other countries or what in it is so outrageous as to occasion abandonment of the effort. The law then requires that if, in the judgment of the Administration, any given country is not acting in good faith, it may then be subject to sanctions. The law does not require that the efforts of another country be successful in order to be certified. It does not require that judgments be without consideration of other national interests. It does ask, on this very important question, that the Administration supply to Congress and the American people at least once a year its considered opinion of whether other countries where a truly pernicious practice is being engaged in that affects directly the lives of U.S. citizens each and every day are, as a matter of fact, doing all that is reasonable to stop this practice. It then requires that if these countries are receiving U.S. assistance--that is, money from U.S. taxpayers--that this money be cut off--unless it is humanitarian aid or this self-same counter-drug assistance. While I understand perfectly why an aid recipient might squawk, I do not know what act of imagination it requires to manufacture outrage on behalf of other countries threatened with losing this assistance because in our judgment they are doing less than their best to cooperate with us. But that outrage is trotted out as an argument against certification. That aside, the most onerous part of the certification decision, and what other countries truly object to, is what world opinion makes of a U.S. judgment that a particular country is not cooperating with U.S. and international efforts to stop drug production or trafficking. What the Administration would have us do is forgo this judgment lest it hurt the feels of other countries. And yet, it is this judgment or the threat of it that has, in fact, been the primary impetus to encourage the very cooperation that the Administration says we do not need the certification process to achieve. What the Administration would really like to do is to stop accounting to Congress and the public for its international drug policy. It knows that this is a non-starter. So it has proposed instead to bury this accountability in an elaborate ruse in cooperation with the OAS to neuter the process. In doing this, it has helped to devise through the OAS a list of over 80 evaluation items to help in developing a so- called multinational evaluative mechanism. There are, of course, no teeth in the evaluation process, and each of the member states involved has an effective veto over any adverse judgments of their respective efforts. In this regard, I am reminded of the inhabitants of Garrison Keiller's Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average. The details behind the evaluation are to be kept confidential, which is okay since no one has much faith in the ability of most of the countries party to the evaluation to actually collect and evaluate the information in the first place. The countries involved lack the necessary reporting mechanisms, the budgets to sustain them, or the staffs to ensure ongoing, consistent information. This farrago is then supposed, gradually, to substitute for certification, somehow being fairer and more likely to ensure cooperation. Ironically, the premise underlying this process is the same as that informing certification, that is, that a judgment about performance does need to be made. The difference here is that somehow a multilateral judgment would be better, and it wouldn't be offensive since it would be collaborative. In my view, it won't be offensive because it won't be effective. You can make what you want to of a process that is supposed to involve judgments about the effectiveness of actions that are designed not to offend anyone being judged. But I am not reassured. And if this is the face of cooperation, then we are in for some rude shocks in our international relations. Having said this, I am prepared to help the Administration in its efforts. In order to give the Multinational Evaluation Mechanism some chance of effective implementation, I am, along with Senator Helms, today introducing legislation that would require that in future certification decisions the Administration incorporate the MEM as part of its deliberations in determining whether to certify other countries or not. Taking the Administration at its word that the mechanism is not an attempt to replace certification, but rather an effort to complement it, I offer this bill to enhance the process.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in light of this agreement, there will then be three votes beginning at 5:30 p.m. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY. That is our understanding.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent that the only amendments in order be the pending Smith of New Hampshire amendment and the pending Landrieu amendment, that they both be separate first-degree amendments, and the votes occur in relation to these amendments at 5:30 in the order listed, with 3 minutes prior to each vote for explanation. I further ask unanimous consent that following the votes described above, the bill be immediately advanced to third reading and passage occur, all without any intervening action or debate.

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

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. I thank the Chair. Madam President, it is my privilege, for a few moments, to take the place of our distinguished chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who will be here shortly, and in my capacity as chairman of that committee's Subcommittee on International Trade, to speak for our side in support of this legislation. From the standpoint of speaking for our side, this is pretty much a bipartisan approach that will have overwhelming support. It is all the more a privilege to work for legislation that does have such broad bipartisan support. So, Madam President, I rise in support of the motion to proceed to H.R. 434. When we have the opportunity, we intend to offer a managers' amendment. And we would do that as a substitute for the House-passed language. That substitute will include the Senate Finance Committee's reported bills on Africa, an expansion of the Caribbean Basin Initiative, an extension of the Generalized System of Preferences, and the reauthorization of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act. I want to explain the intent behind these different Finance Committee bills that will be grouped together in the managers' amendment. Africa, as everyone knows, has undergone significant changes, as recently as the last decade. Many of those changes have been enormously positive: an end to apartheid in South Africa, a groundswell in support of democracy in a number of the sub-Saharan countries, and a new openness to using the power of free markets to drive economic growth, with the resultant raising of living standards. At the same time, there is no continent that has suffered more from the ravages of war, disease, hunger, and just simple want than Africa. The daily news has more often been filled with the images of violence and starvation than the small seeds of economic hope. The question before us is, How can our great country, the United States, help the transition that Africans themselves have begun? There are many problems we might try to address and an equal number of approaches to solving those problems. I am not going to argue that our managers' amendment we will offer is an entire panacea; nor is it equal to the tasks that our African partners have before them in the sense that if there is going to be real change there, it has to come from within. Instead, what our approach attempts to do is to take a small but very significant step towards opening markets to African trade. The intent is to encourage productive investment there as a means of building a market economy and doing it from the ground up. It is a means of giving Africans the opportunity to guide their own economic destiny rather than the economic policies of the past that attempted to dictate a particular model of development that was based upon so much government control of the economy. The strongest endorsement I can offer for moving this legislation comes from these African countries themselves. Every one of the sub- Saharan African nations eligible for the benefits under this proposal has endorsed our efforts. There was a recent full-page advertisement in Roll Call that you may have seen recounting the number of U.S. organizations that support this initiative. They range from the NAACP to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to the National Council of Churches. Our supporters include such notables as Coretta Scott King, Andrew Young, and Robert Johnson--the head of Black Entertainment Television who testified eloquently about the need to create new economic opportunities in Africa when he appeared before our Senate Finance Committee. The effort to move the bill also enjoys broad bipartisan support that I have already alluded to and complimented our colleagues on. It goes beyond bipartisanship in this body. It goes to the President himself because in his State of the Union Address, he identified this bill as one of his top foreign policy and trade priorities. The Finance Committee's ranking member, as you have already heard, Senator Moynihan, is a cosponsor and public supporter of the Africa bill, along with being a tireless advocate of trade expansion in both word and deed over several decades. The distinguished minority leader was one of the first to recognize the need for a special focus on Africa in trade terms when he called for such a program as part of the Uruguay Round implementing legislation that passed this body 4 years ago. And, the very fact the majority leader has found time for us to debate this bill this late in this session, when there is so much pressure to address other issues, is indicative of our majority leader's support. So in summation, you can see strong bipartisan support exists for the managers' amendment, and that the managers' amendment will also include the Caribbean Basin Initiative. The approach adopted by the Finance Committee is consistent with the administration's own proposal. It is also broadly consistent with the proposal introduced by Senator Graham, who has also been a tireless advocate on behalf of the Caribbean Basin Initiative and the opportunity that that bill and that program provide for the beneficiary countries in the Caribbean and Central America. In substance, the managers' amendment on CBI adopts an approach similar to that afforded sub-Saharan Africa under the proposed bill. Indeed, both of those proposals build on the model established with the passage of the original CBI legislation, I believe, now, 15 or 16 years ago. In fact, it was 1983 that that bill was adopted. When it was adopted, the region was beset with economic problems and wrenched with civil strife. The goal of the original legislation was to encourage new economic opportunities and a path towards both political and economic renewal. It accomplished that by offering a unilateral grant of tariff preferences designed to encourage productive investment, economic growth, and the resultant higher standard of living. The original Caribbean Basin Initiative, which we made permanent in 1990, recognized that economic hope was essential to peace and political stability throughout the region. However, since 1990 we have had the intervening negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and that undercut the preferences initially offered to the Caribbean and Central American beneficiaries of the Caribbean Basin Initiative. So the managers' amendment we will offer is an attempt to restore that margin of preference to the Caribbean producers and the economic opportunity the original CBI legislation was designed to create. It is also an attempt to respond to the hardships the region has faced due to natural disaster. That region, as we know, including both the Caribbean and Central America, has been hard hit in the past 2 years by a series of hurricanes that in some instances devastated much of the existing economic infrastructure. No one can forget the pictures of devastation we saw of the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Honduras following Hurricane Mitch--homes, farms, factories, we saw on television, literally washing away overnight, buried in clay. Members of the Finance Committee and many of our other colleagues had the opportunity to meet recently with the presidents of a number of Central American countries. Those presidents indicated that the single most important action we in the United States and our Government could take in their interest was not foreign assistance but economic opportunity to compete in a growing regional market. They saw this proposed legislation as a fulfillment of the promise extended by this Congress in that original legislation of 1983, the promise for a new economic relationship with the Caribbean and Central America. We must continue to fulfill that promise as, hopefully, our country keeps its promises, and not act as a charity but as a continuation of the leadership we have shown in our continent and our hemisphere, leadership that has put us on the cusp of the ultimate goal of the 21st century version of the Monroe Doctrine, a hemisphere of democratically elected governments, a hemisphere of free markets, and a hemisphere with rising standards of living. By moving this legislation forward, we will help these economies continue to grow and we will be investing in important markets that will become more integrated with our own, a market integration that benefits the United States as well. In light of that fact, it might be worth mentioning the importance of this legislation to one industry in particular, the textile industry, something the Senator from South Carolina has addressed but from a different point of view than I. When I say textile industry, I mean everyone from a farmer growing cotton to the yarn spinner, the fabric maker, the apparel manufacturer, producers of textile manufacturing equipment, as well as the wholesalers and retailers, everything from the farm to the consumer. The Africa bill and the Caribbean Basin Initiative bills are drafted to create a win-win situation for both our trading partners and for our own domestic industries. The managers' amendment we will offer takes a different approach than that of the House bill. Our bill is designed to create a partnership between America and industries, not to the benefit of one or the other, but to the benefit of both regions. Our proposal would accomplish that by affording preferential tariff and also preferential quota treatment to apparel made from American-made fabric, and it would be American- made fabric in order to qualify. This does two things: First, it gives American firms an incentive to build a strong partnership with firms in both Africa and the Caribbean. Secondly, it helps establish a platform from which the American textile industry can compete in this global market. I want to refer to the industry's own analysis. That analysis shows that the approach adopted by our Senate Finance Committee offers real benefits to U.S. industry and to U.S. employment. It gives our industry a fighting chance in the years to come, as textile quotas are gradually eliminated pursuant to the World Trade Organization agreement on textiles. The reason I raise this point goes back to the efforts of our committee and our chairman to reestablish a bipartisan consensus on trade. In my view, the textile industry and all of its related parts will face significant economic adjustment as a result of the World Trade Organization textiles agreement. That adjustment has already begun to take place. What the industry found, however, based on its experience under NAFTA, is that partnering with Mexican firms or investing there for joint United States-Mexican production made our own United States firms very competitive. They discovered that United States firms became competitive even in the face of fierce competition they faced from textile industries in the developing world, and particularly the countries of China and India. The Finance Committee bills would broaden the base from which American firms could produce for the world market. In the context of the Uruguay Round, we made an implicit commitment to the textile industry to allow them a period of adjustment to a new economic reality. I am proud to support the proposed legislation and to make good on that promise by encouraging the industry to compete globally as well as locally. Through our managers' amendment, we intend to propose something that would take two other significant steps. The first is the renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences. We call that GSP for short. The GSP program has been on our statutes since 1975. GSP affords a grant of tariff preferences to developing countries generally, although not as extensive as those the proposal offers to Africa and to the Caribbean. GSP is generally described as a unilateral grant of preferences, and that is a very accurate description. What is little known is that the program has had more profound benefits for U.S. trade than is captured by that fairly significant description that doesn't describe the program so well. The original GSP program was instrumental in obtaining the commitment of continental powers like Great Britain to give up, finally, the highly discriminatory tariff systems they enforced in their economic relations with their former colonies. In other words, the creation of the GSP was instrumental in eliminating discriminatory trade barriers that distorted trade and thwarted our exporters' access to markets throughout the entire developing world. That beneficial program--GSP--has been around a while and accomplished a lot of good, but it has lapsed; it lapsed a few months ago, in June. So our managers' amendment would propose its renewal. The managers' amendment will also renew our Trade Adjustment Assistance programs. As my colleagues know, I am a strong supporter of free and fair trade. But I have, at the same time, consistently taken the view that those who benefit from expanding trade must look out for those who may be injured by the process of economic adjustment that trade brings. The Trade Adjustment Assistance programs are one part of that commitment. They offer assistance to both workers and firms that have faced a significant increase in import competition as they adjust to these new economic conditions. They have been on the books since the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. And the committee has made every effort to ensure that they are renewed to fulfill the bargain on trade policy originally struck with U.S. firms and U.S. workers over 30 years ago. So what we do with this reauthorization is keep our contract with these industries, and if trade unfairly affects them, we will be able to help them in a transition period. That is something we should do. It has worked well and we propose to continue it. There is, however, a real urgency to their renewal at this time. As I have said, they have lapsed and, unless they are renewed promptly, they will fall out of the budget baseline and will, in the future, need a revenue offset. In the context of the current debate over trade and trade policy, I view these programs as a minimum downpayment on reestablishing a bipartisan consensus on trade matters. And so I urge our colleagues to support the motion to proceed to the bill in order to renew these essential programs. Having discussed the intent behind each of the measures I intend to move as a part of the Senate substitute, I want to add one last point. We have before us in this legislation an opportunity to reestablish a strong measure of bipartisan support for what we in the Finance Committee view as an important trade and foreign policy initiative. So let us take this step and let us move forward in a way that will benefit Africa and the Caribbean--a way that will benefit much of the rest of the developing world--and a way that will serve our own national interests as well. And we propose this legislation with the U.S. national interest in mind, because we are cognizant of the fact that if we in the Congress do not look out for the interests of the American worker, we can't expect anybody else to do it. But when we can have the benefits of protecting our workers and creating jobs and expanding our economy and still help the rest of the world through these policies--and we have done that--we should continue to do that because, as President Kennedy said, ``Trade, not aid.'' For an American populace that doesn't like foreign aid, I hope that they will join us in the Congress behind these bipartisan efforts to promote our national interests and strengthen our world leadership through these trade policies that help us, as well as helping these developing nations. I yield the floor. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I would like to say a few words about the $69 billion annual U.S. Department of Agriculture appropriations bill that happens to contain $8.7 billion in emergency money for American farmers. This legislation was sent from Capitol Hill to the President's desk last Wednesday, October 13. Every day the President delays signing this bill is one more day relief money is not in the farmers' pockets at this time of the lowest prices in 25 years. Naturally, I know the White House is entitled to a few days to review the document for signature by the President. But that process does not and should not take 8 days that the bill has been sitting on the President's desk, particularly considering the emergency economic crisis in American agriculture. Since September 30, President Clinton has been engaged in a strategy to confuse the public and to try to get Congress to accept tax and spending increases. The only conclusion I can draw is that the President has decided to use the agricultural relief bill for leverage in the political game we have seen with the budget this year. If that is true--and I hope it is not true, based on some comments made by Secretary Glickman; but the fact remains, the President has not signed the bill containing emergency relief for farmers--then, of course, it is unforgivable on the part of the President, given the terrible situation our farmers face. Again, prices remain at 25-year lows. The package we moved through Congress is critical to helping farmers' cash-flow. President Clinton has given speeches about helping farmers. Why isn't he taking, then, affirmative action and putting pen to paper to help the farmers who he knows have tremendous needs at a time of prices being at 25-year lows? Last year, an election year, the President immediately signed the supplemental spending bill that contained more than $5 billion, when this crisis in agriculture started 12 months ago. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had those funds in the mail to farmers within 10 days. The President has already lost 7 days in that process. This year, of course, is a sharp contrast with getting the bill signed and getting the money to the farmers. Every day that President Clinton delays is one more day that farmers don't have the assistance Congress passed and they desperately need. I happen to know that the President understands American agriculture, being the Governor of the State of Arkansas for as long as he was. I know that one time, in his first couple years in office, he looked me in the eye at a meeting at the Blair House and he said, ``I understand farming more than any other President of the United States ever has.'' I believe that, but he doesn't show an understanding of the crisis in agriculture at this particular time, as he has waited now too many days to sign this bill. I urge the President this very evening to sign this bill so that the farmers who are in crisis--which he has even given speeches on, recognizing farming is in crisis--can have the help of the $2.7 billion provided for in this legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues in introducing the Multidistrict Jurisdiction Act of 1999. This legislation would make a technical fix to section 1407 of Title 28, the multidistrict litigation statute, in response to the recent Supreme Court decision in Lexecon v. Milberg Weiss. Section 1407(a) of Title 28 authorizes the Judicial Panel on Multi- District Litigation to transfer civil actions with common issues of fact to any district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings, but requires the Panel to remand any such action to the original district at or before the conclusion of such pretrial proceedings. Until the Lexecon decision, the federal courts followed the practice of allowing a transferee court to invoke the venue transfer provision and transfer a case to itself for trial purposes. However, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed this practice, holding that the literal terms of section 1407 do not give a district court conducting pretrial proceedings the authority to assign a transferred case to itself for trial. This legislation would amend section 1407 of Title 28 to permit a judge with a transferred case to retain jurisdiction over multidistrict litigation cases for trial. This change was approved by the Judicial Conference and is supported by the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation. The legislation also includes a provision under which a transferee court would transfer actions back to the federal district courts from which they came for a determination of compensatory damages if the interests of justice and the convenience of the parties so require. The Multidistrict Jurisdiction Act of 1999 will promote the efficient administration of justice by allowing the federal courts to continue an effective practice they have been using for almost thirty years. It makes sense to allow the transferee judge who has conducted the pretrial proceedings and is familiar with the facts and parties of the transferred case to retain that case for trial. This significantly benefits the parties to a case, and reduces wasteful use of judicial and litigants' resources. I am glad to support this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to support it as well.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues in introducing the Multidistrict Jurisdiction Act of 1999. This legislation would make a technical fix to section 1407 of Title 28, the multidistrict litigation statute, in response to the recent Supreme Court decision in Lexecon v. Milberg Weiss. Section 1407(a) of Title 28 authorizes the Judicial Panel on Multi- District Litigation to transfer civil actions with common issues of fact to any district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings, but requires the Panel to remand any such action to the original district at or before the conclusion of such pretrial proceedings. Until the Lexecon decision, the federal courts followed the practice of allowing a transferee court to invoke the venue transfer provision and transfer a case to itself for trial purposes. However, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed this practice, holding that the literal terms of section 1407 do not give a district court conducting pretrial proceedings the authority to assign a transferred case to itself for trial. This legislation would amend section 1407 of Title 28 to permit a judge with a transferred case to retain jurisdiction over multidistrict litigation cases for trial. This change was approved by the Judicial Conference and is supported by the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation. The legislation also includes a provision under which a transferee court would transfer actions back to the federal district courts from which they came for a determination of compensatory damages if the interests of justice and the convenience of the parties so require. The Multidistrict Jurisdiction Act of 1999 will promote the efficient administration of justice by allowing the federal courts to continue an effective practice they have been using for almost thirty years. It makes sense to allow the transferee judge who has conducted the pretrial proceedings and is familiar with the facts and parties of the transferred case to retain that case for trial. This significantly benefits the parties to a case, and reduces wasteful use of judicial and litigants' resources. I am glad to support this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to support it as well.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come before you today to submit a resolution which would designate the week of each November in which the holiday of Thanksgiving is observed as ``National Family Week.'' Each Congress since 1976 has passed legislation which established Family Week on a bi-annual basis, and I have been a frequent cosponsor of it. In fact, last Congress, I was the sponsor of the legislation, and am pleased to be able to further contribute to this longstanding tradition of recognizing the importance of family. This Congress, however, I would like to pay special tribute to the hard work of the man who founded the idea of Family Week, Mr. Sam Wiley. Ever since 1971, Mr. Wiley worked hard to see that Family Week was recognized on every Thanksgiving in every state, and by every president. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Wiley passed away in December after a long battle with cancer. Remarkably, even during this fight with the painful and deadly disease, Mr. Wiley was more concerned with making sure Family Week continue, as it was his constant vigilance that kept the idea and spirit of Family Week alive year after year. A friend, Mr. Noel Duerden, has said that Mr. Wiley's greatest desire was to make sure that after he died Family Week would still live on. As a tribute to Mr. Wiley, my legislation will guarantee that Family Week continues by making it permanent. The resolution I am submitting today will ensure that every year the President will issue a proclamation dedicating the week of the Thanksgiving holiday as Family Week. As we all know, the family is the most basic element of our society, and the tie that binds us to one another. It is the strength of any free and orderly society and it is appropriate to honor this unit as being essential to the well-being of the United States. Since Family Week will be observed during the weeks on which Thanksgiving falls, we will be paying homage to what we as a nation already know--the strength of the family provides the support through which we as individuals and a nation thrive. Therefore it is particularly suitable to pause during this special week in recognition of the celebrations and activities of the family which bring us closer together. I hope my colleagues will join me in this effort and ask that an article from the Indianapolis Star about Mr. Wiley and Family Week be placed in the Record. The article follows: Founder Wants To Make Sure Family Week Continues (By John Strauss) He founded National Family Week, but on a day when so many families were together for the holiday, Sam Wiley found it hard to say much. ``I've seen better days,'' he said Friday from a bed at St. Vincent Hospice. Wiley, 72, is in the terminal stages of pancreatic and liver cancer, but he is less concerned about his personal situation than making sure the National Family Week movement continues. Ever since he started it in 1971, the week has been recognized each Thanksgiving by every president and in every state through proclamations, seminars and other activities designed to recognize the importance of strong families. Wiley's movement has a Web page, www.familyweek.org. The former Whiteland High School administrator, teacher and basketball coach, who retired in 1988, has worked tirelessly to promote the week as a way to strengthen the regard and support for families. Along the way, he made 25 trips to Washington. His room at the hospice has photos on the wall of Wiley with presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and with former Vice President Dan Quayle as the proclamations for National Family Week were signed over the years. Wiley never married, but he came to believe in the importance of families through his work with students, said Rush Isenhour, a childhood friend from their days in Boone County. Isenhour was at Wiley's bedside on Friday, as her friend, who is heavily medicated for pain, drifted in and out of consciousness. Wiley's friends said he does not have long to live. ``He was a schoolteacher and he had so many children from underprivileged families,'' Isenhour said. ``He heard them talking about their family life, and that got him to thinking about it, and it got him started.'' Noel Duerden, a friend who helped Wiley over the years, said he and others are trying to find other groups to carry on the organizational work. One of the biggest tasks is writing and calling governors across the country to get them to issue proclamations which are only good for a year. ``Everybody's interested in National Family Week, but nobody's taking the lead except Sam at this point,'' Duerden said. ``His greatest desire before he dies is to make sure this continues,'' he said. ``Not just the proclamations, which are a heavy amount of work, but to promote it with the organizations and get right down to families.'' Duerden said he has been talking with the National Urban League, the American Legion, Girl Scouts and other groups to find support for continuing the annual observance. Judy Lifferth is coordinator of National Family Week activities in Columbus, where ``Families of the Year'' are recognized for sticking together and supporting each other in the face of difficulties. This year's program also included training in Active Parenting, a six-session video and discussion course that focuses on communication and other parenting skills. ``We live a fast-lane life, and National Family Week gives people a chance in the middle of their busy lives and realize how important their families are,'' Lifferth said. The Columbus mother of five has worked on National Family Week activities for 10 years but didn't realize until recently that the founder lived just up I-65 from her. ``I wish there was a way I could meet him,'' she said. ``I would like to tell him thank you from the bottom of my heart.''

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I greet my colleagues with the often bad news of drug use by young people, and particularly with reference to the very important role of parents in preventing youth drug use. As I do occasionally, in my capacity as chairman of the International Narcotics Control Caucus of the Senate, I come to the floor to report on national surveys that go on in this area, surveys that have been going on for a couple of decades, so we are able to compare the incidence of increasing drug experimentation by young people as well as following trends we had in the last decade in declines in drug use by young people. I seek the floor today to visit with my colleagues on this very same subject, as I have many times in the past since I have been chairman of this group of our colleagues who spend a great deal of time on drug problems generally and, of course, a lot of time on the issue of drug use by young people. So, again, as happens at the beginning of every school year, there are these national surveys that are made public. Within the last month or so, several of these have been made public. That is what I want to discuss with my colleagues. There have been three national surveys released that tell the story of drug use in the United States, particularly among teenagers. On September 8 of this year, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse--that is called CASA, for short. Let me say it again: It is a National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. That organization released its annual back-to-school survey on the attitudes of teens and parents regarding substance abuse. The survey stressed how essential it is for parents to get involved in their children's lives. The survey indicates that kids actually do listen to their parents. In fact, 42 percent of the teenagers who have never used marijuana credit their parents with that decision. Unfortunately, too many parents--45 percent--believe that teenagers' use of drugs is inevitable. In addition, 25 percent of the parents said they have little influence over their teen's substance abuse. I suggest to that 25 percent that they ought to consider that 42 percent of the young people in America have already responded to this survey, saying they do not use marijuana because their parents have influenced them not to. And for the 25 percent of the parents who do not think they can have any influence over their teen's substance abuse, they would probably have considerable and beneficial influence. CASA stresses how important parental involvement is. A child with a positive relationship with both parents is less likely to get involved with drugs. The survey also suggests that family-oriented activities such as eating dinners together and attending religious services together can reduce the risk of substance abuse. The second week in September also marked the release of the annual Parents Resource Institute for Drug Education survey. That acronym is PRIDE, P-R-I-D-E. PRIDE's survey on teenage drug use. The survey also indicated the importance of parents' influence in shaping the attitude of teens regarding the harmful effects of drugs, just like the CASA survey. Unfortunately, this past year the overall attitude among youth towards the harmful effects of drugs remains mostly unchanged. In fact, some attitudes worsened. Sadly, about 27 percent used an illegal drug at least once in the last year, and about 16 percent used drugs monthly or more often. Moreover, the number of students who regarded cocaine and heroin as harmful has decreased from the previous year. We know that, as perception of risk of use goes down, actual use of cocaine and heroin goes up. The monthly use of cocaine by high school students rose from 3.1 percent to 3.2 percent, hallucinogens went up from 3.9 percent to 4.2 percent, and liquor--and we don't often think enough of a legal product, liquor, being used illegally by young people as being a problem--but it went up from 26.9 percent to 28.1 percent. Worse yet, beer tends to be a gateway for uses of these other drugs that eventually leads, by some young people, to worse drugs. Unfortunately, in this PRIDE survey, the number of students who said drugs cause no harm increased over the previous year. So that message out there that is strong and hard and definitive and constant that drug use is bad, does work but not if it isn't consistently heard and reinforced. The PRIDE survey reiterates that parents have the power to change these attitudes. Those young people who say their parents talk with them a lot about drugs show a 37 percent lower drug use than those students who say their parents never talk to them about drugs. Despite this statistic, less than 31 percent of the students say their parents talk with them often or a lot about the problems of drugs. So we have one-third of the parents shirking their responsibility; and in shirking their responsibility, they are losing an opportunity to make a difference in whether or not their young people will experiment with drugs. Because we have that other survey that shows 42 percent of the young people in America do not use drugs because they have been influenced by their parents not to use drugs. The last survey I want to refer to is a National Household Survey on drug abuse. It was released 2 months ago. It gives a very clear picture that we still have much work ahead of us when it comes to educating our kids about drugs. The survey stated that almost 10 percent of our young people, ages 12 to 17, reported current use of illicit drugs. An estimated 8 percent of youths in the same age category reported current use of marijuana fairly regularly. Unfortunately, this was not a significant change from last year. According to the survey, young people reported great risk of using cigarettes, marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol; and that percentage was unchanged from the previous year. The disturbing fact is 56 percent of the kids, ages 12 to 17, reported that marijuana was very easy to get. And 14 percent of these young people reported being approached by someone selling drugs within 30 days of their interview for the survey. Although these statistics seem daunting, we have made some progress in keeping drugs out of children's hands. The National Household Survey--the last one I referred to--stated that the number of youths using inhalants has decreased significantly from 2 percent in 1997 to 1 percent last year. The PRIDE survey reported that monthly use of any illegal and illicit drugs fell from 17 percent last year to 16 percent this year. Even more important is the fact that 60 percent of the students say they do not expect to use drugs in the future. And this is a 9-percent increase from the 51 percent last year. There may be some hope shown in those statistics, then, that finally a message about ``just don't do it,'' ``drugs are bad,'' may be making some progress. But we all know the war on drugs is tough and it is not one that will be won easily, but it is not one from which we in public life or within our families can walk away. Although these numbers and statistics remain exceedingly high, our efforts can make a difference and are not futile. I believe creating a drug-free environment for our youth is an accessible goal that we must work to reach. Surveys such as these play an important role in measuring our progress and determining the work that lies ahead of us. It is clear that the public is aware of the problem and expects Congress and the administration to do their part in finding ways to make counterdrug programs work. In a national poll on national drug policy, produced last month by the Mellman Group, the public supports effective drug control programs. As you can see from chart No. 1--if you would look at chart No. 1--the public particularly supports strong interdiction programs and consistent interdiction efforts. The survey shows 92 percent of the people questioned view illegal drugs as a serious problem in this country. I will now refer to chart No. 2. The majority of individuals think drug use in this country is increasing. Few see it declining, in other words. So it seems obvious to me--and I hope to all of you--that the American people are aware of the problem and are eager for a more assertive national drug policy from Congress and from the administration. When Americans are more concerned about the availability of drugs than they are about crime, we clearly need to take action. We cannot afford to let drugs devastate our country any further; we cannot afford to let drugs devastate any more young people. We have to be proactive in our efforts if we want to change these disturbing numbers that have come out in the CASA survey, the National Household Survey, and the PRIDE survey. We do not need a miracle for our young people. We need a strong family life and positive role models to guide our youth in the right direction. Education of the dangers of drugs starts at home. But it needs to be carried over into all of society. Parents need help in sustaining a clear and consistent ``no use'' message. In closing, I refer to an effort I am making in my State called Face It Together, an organization that tries to bring together all elements of our society. There are two elements of our society--at least in my State--that I do not think have done enough to be supportive of families because the front line in the war against drugs is the home. We cannot, in the home, push it off on the school, off onto law enforcement, off onto substance abuse professions. That front line is the home. But two institutions of society, in my State, I think, can do a better job. Maybe it is true of the other 49 States as well. Although it is more encompassing than just involving industry and business on the one hand, and the churches on the other hand in supporting families, that is where I want to concentrate my effort. Because most businesses and industries in my State have substance abuse programs, as a matter of necessity, for the health and well-being of their workers and to maintain the productivity of their workforce, we want those businesses that have a drug education and drug awareness program in the workplace to get their workers--men and women alike--to carry that message home and use it in the families, in the home, to support the effort which ought to be in that family already, of telling their children of the dangers of drugs. The other place where I do not think we have used enough of our resources is in the churches of our State, for messages from the pulpit, and to use the institution of the church to disseminate educational information to, again, be supportive of the family--mom and dad--to keep that message strong back home. This is something we all need to work on. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we continue morning business until the hour of 1:05. I think it ends at 1 o'clock.

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. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to express my opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. First, let me say I do believe my colleagues and I share the goal of decreasing the number of weapons of mass destruction found throughout the world. With that aside, my utmost concern is for the safety of each American, and I take very seriously my constitutional responsibility to review the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as it relates to the security of American citizens. I must take into consideration not only the present state of the world, but the future as well. I have, in the past, supported moratoriums on nuclear testing. In 1992, I voted in favor of imposing a 9-month moratorium on testing of nuclear weapons with only limited tests following the moratorium. Since the Eisenhower Administration, each President has sought a ban on nuclear testing to some degree. However, never before has an administration proposed a ban on nuclear testing with a zero-yield threshold and an unlimited time duration. The goal of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, also known as CTBT, is to ban all nuclear testing. However, I have not been convinced this treaty is in the best interests of the United States. From the lack of clear definitions to the incorrectness of underlying assumptions to the verification and enforcement provisions, I believe the treaty is fundamentally flawed. And, these flaws cannot be changed by Senate amendment. I want to take a few moments to discuss my concerns regarding the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Verification is critical to the enforcement of any treaty. Without verification, enforcement cannot truthfully occur. The Clinton Administration has called for zero-yield under the CTBT. No yield. This means there should be no nuclear yield released when an explosion occurs. There is agreement among the Administration, the intelligence community and the Senate that a zero-yield threshold cannot be verified. The issue of zero yield takes on another level of importance when it becomes clear that zero-yield is not the standard defined in the Treaty. It is the standard interpreted by President Clinton. Nowhere in the Treaty is there a definition of what is meant by a ``test.'' Other countries, notably Russia, have not interpreted the Treaty in the same manner. We don't know how China has interpreted the ban on ``tests.'' We don't know because we cannot verify that China and Russia are not testing. Therefore, not only do we have a potential standard that is impossible to verify, but other countries have the ability to interpret the Treaty differently and act upon their interpretation, and the United States will not be able to enforce the higher standard. A second major concern of mine involves our existing nuclear stockpile. The cold war may be a thing of the past, but threats to our nation's security exist today. Our nuclear stockpile exists for a reason, and not only are new weapon technologies essential to our defense, it is also critical to maintain the security and safety of existing weapons. Proponents of the CTBT maintain the United States does not need to conduct nuclear tests to maintain the integrity of our existing stockpile because of President Clinton's Stockpile Stewardship Program. The Stockpile Stewardship Program relies upon computer modeling and simulations as a substitute for testing. I believe the intent of the Stockpile Stewardship Program is good. However, I am not confident in the ability of the Stockpile Stewardship Program to keep our existing stockpile safe. One-third of all weapons designs introduced into the U.S. stockpile since 1985 have required and received post-deployment nuclear tests to resolve problems. In three-fourths of these cases, the problems were discovered only because of ongoing nuclear tests. In each case, the weapons were thought to be reliable and thoroughly tested. I see three problems with the Stockpile Stewardship Program as it exists today. First, the technology has not been proven. In 1992 laboratory scientists proposed a series of tests to create the data bases and methodologies for stockpile stewardship under a ban on nuclear testing. These tests were not permitted. At the very least, actual nuclear tests are necessary to produce an accurate computer simulation. Second, data from past tests don't address aging, which is a central problem in light of the highly corrosive nature of weapon materials. Shelf life of U.S. nuclear weapons is expected to be 20 years, and many weapons are reaching that age. Without testing we will not have confidence in refurbished warheads. My third concern relates to China. Apparently, China has acquired the ``legacy'' computer codes of the U.S. nuclear test program. The Clinton administration proposes to base its efforts to assure stockpile viability on computer simulation which is highly vulnerable to espionage--and even to sabotage--by introducing false data. There is no such thing as a secure computer network. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will not go into effect until 44 specific countries both sign and ratify the Treaty. In addition to the United States, China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, India and Pakistan have yet to ratify, and India and Pakistan have not even signed the Treaty. The argument is made that U.S. ratification would quickly lead to ratification by these other countries. I would reply by saying that--as the Treaty is constructed--each of these countries could indeed sign and ratify the Treaty. Then, they could proceed with low- yield nuclear testing which cannot be verified. Even if nuclear testing is suspected, under the terms of the CTBT, any inspection must be supported by 30 of the 51 members of an Executive Council elected by all State Parties to the Treaty. And, the United States is not even guaranteed a position on the Executive Council. Furthermore, onsite inspections are subject to a number of limitations. First, inspection activities are subject to time limits (25 days.) Any collection of radioactive samples must be accompanied by an approval by a majority of the Executive Council. No State Party is required to accept simultaneous on-site inspections on its territory. And finally, the State party under inspection may refuse to accept an observer from the State party requesting the inspection. There is currently a supporter of inspection limitations similar to these; his name is Saddam Hussein. Effective arms control treaties can be extremely helpful in limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Moratoriums on nuclear testing and limiting the yield of tests have highlighted the ability of the United States and other responsible countries to shape the current environment while protecting against the intentions of rogue states. I remain hopeful that our technology will one day rise to the level of verifying a zero-yield nuclear test ban. I remain hopeful that China, Russia, India and Pakistan may one day commit themselves--in both words and actions--to cease developing and testing nuclear weapons. Until that day, or until a Treaty is brought before the Senate that can be verified and fairly enforced, I will continue to support policy that protects American citizens. And in this case, it means opposing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.