Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I can't really at this time agree to a timeframe because of the fact that I am not sure who wants to speak in opposition. I want to give them adequate time. I don't mind going to a vote as soon as we can. Mr. President, the sugar program as constituted and as it has evolved over the years has regrettably become a raid on the pocketbooks of the American consumer to benefit a small number of sugar producers in this Nation. The price of sugar in the United States is approximately 2 to 2\1/2\ times what the price of sugar is on the world market. The burden of that inflated price is borne by the consumers. In fact, the cost to the consumers is approximately $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion a year depending on whose estimate you use. That inflated price is a function of the fact that we have set up a system of nonrecourse loans, a very arcane system which essentially guarantees to the producer of sugar in this country 18 cents for its cane sugar and 22.99 cents for sugar beet sugar. In comparison with the fact that if they were to grow and try to sell that type of sugar in the open markets, the amount they would actually get would be somewhere in the vicinity of 9 cents. The effect is that the U.S. consumer is paying the difference between 9 cents, which is what the world price is, and 22 cents for sugar. If the market were appropriately adjusted to reflect world price, you would probably end up with a sugar price in the United States of around 12 cents, or approximately 55 percent of what the present price is in the United States. The effect of this is that all products that use sugar have an inflated cost. It costs a lot more than it should. Who bears that cost? The American consumer bears that cost. Who is the American consumer? We hear all of this debate about small family farms and how we are trying to protect small family farms. That is a worthy cause, indeed. But the American consumer is also under a lot of economic pressure. The American consumer--especially if you are living on a fixed income, if you are a senior citizen living off your Social Security check, if you are a welfare mother living off payments from the Government, if you are in a family with a mother and a father working two jobs trying to make ends meet, trying to send children to school, and trying to make sure they have a good lifestyle for their family--is under a lot of economic pressure, too. But it turns out that in order to benefit a very small number of growers--believe me, it is an incredibly small number of growers--we require all of these Americans to pay a lot more for the food they eat than they should have to pay if we had a market economy for sugar. Forty-two percent of the benefit of the subsidy for sugar goes to 1 percent of the growers. There are some extraordinarily wealthy families and businesses in this country who are essentially putting their hands not in the cookie jar but in the pockets of the American citizenry and taking money out of that pocket so that they can have this ridiculous subsidy on sugar that is so unrelated to what it costs, No. 1, to produce it, and No. 2, what the world price is. The sugar producer industry has told us for years: Well, this program doesn't cost a thing. It doesn't cost the American taxpayer anything because there was no tax payment to support the sugar program. That was true for many years. In fact, there was an assessment fee they paid into the Treasury. It was sort of what I call a purchase fee. They got to buy, with one dollar, five dollars. It was a great deal to them. They paid $1 into the Treasury but they got $5 back from the consumer. This is one of the great sweetheart deals in American political history. They could charge the sugar producers their assessment fee and pay into the Treasury $260 million, which I think they paid in on the average--something like that. What they failed to mention was that for that little assessment fee they got $1.5 billion of subsidy. That is a pretty good deal. There are not too many deals in this country even in our capitalist system where you get a guaranteed return of $1.5 billion when you pay in $260 million. There are not that many good deals like that out there anymore. I don't think there ever was. But there are for the sugar producers. That is history. That situation no longer exists. Today, they are not paying in any more as a net issue. They are actually now getting paid tax dollars on top of this subsidy they get-- tax dollars which amounted to about $465 million because the Government, under the nonrecourse loan process, had to go out and buy the sugar. Not only do we have to buy the sugar, but we have to store the sugar. We are getting back to that time of the 1970s and 1980s when President Reagan came in and found warehouses full of butter. There were people in this country who needed butter. Reagan was smart enough to ask why we were storing all of this butter and to get rid of it. They gave it to people who needed it. We are starting to do that with sugar again, just like we did with butter. We are starting to store sugar. Now we have one million tons of sugar. It is projected we are going to have 12 million tons of sugar in the next 10 years. It is going to cost us $1.4 billion in tax dollars. This isn't the subsidy that consumers pay. We are going to first hit people with a subsidy. They are going to have to pay more for sugar than they should have to pay. Then we are going to hit them with a tax to produce the sugar for which they are already paying too much--$1.4 billion it is projected. We are going to have 12 million tons of sugar. I do not know where we are going to put it. Maybe we are going to fill up the Grand Canyon. When you float the Grand Canyon, you will get all the sugar you ever wanted. We will have to find a place to put it. I am sure somebody will come up with a creative idea of where we are going to put it. Storing it will cost a huge amount of money. I have forgotten, but I think it is maybe $1 million. But there is an estimate for that, too. You have to figure we have to pay to store the sugar. So we are going to have all this sugar we do not need. We are going to pay all these taxes we should not have to pay to buy this sugar we do not need. And then we are going to have this program which continues to produce sugar we do not need at a price which has no relationship to what the open market charges for sugar. Just to reflect on that for a moment, I have a chart which shows the difference between the world market and the American price on sugar. Some people will say: Oh, but this world market is a subsidized market. In some places it is. I acknowledge that. In some places it is a subsidized market. But not universally and not for a majority of the sugar producers in the world. In fact, if we were to open American markets to competition, you could be absolutely sure we could structure it in a way that the sugar that came into the country in a competitive way was not subsidized. So we would not have that problem. So as a practical matter, we can get around that issue, and it is not a legitimate issue. So where are we? Basically, where we have been for many years. In the mid 1980s, the Congress had the good sense to say: Listen, this program makes very little sense. There are a lot of people making a lot of money at the expense of the consumers, and there is no market forces at work here at all. And there is no reason why we should continue a program that has all these detrimental effects. There is another detrimental effect I need to mention, as long as we are at it, that is not a monetary one. It is an environmental one. We know that because we have so grossly overpriced the sugar production that there has been more of an impetus to create more sugar cane capability, especially in Florida. The effect of that, on especially the Everglades, has been devastating--so devastating, in fact, that last year, under the leadership of Senator Smith from New Hampshire, we had to pass a new bill to correct the problems in the Everglades, which is another bill that is going to cost us a huge amount of money in order to correct the problem that was created by the subsidized sugar prices and the overproduction of sugar. We know as we clear these fields for sugar cane production, especially in Florida--although there is now in place a system to try to get some logic to that process--we know that has a huge detrimental impact on the environment of that area because most of these areas are marginal wetlands and also critical wetlands and especially recharge areas for the Everglades. So on top of all the other problems the program has, it has had this unintended consequence of creating a significantly environmentally damaging event, at least in Florida. So where does that leave us? As I was mentioning, in the mid-1980s, we had the good sense, as a Congress, to say: Hey, listen. This makes no sense. This program makes no sense. Why should we be paying twice the price of sugar on the open market? Why should we be paying taxes to buy sugar we do not need? And why should we be sending the majority of this money to a small number of producers when the vast majority of Americans are affected? So we actually had a few years without a sugar program. There will be an argument made, I suspect, that is what caused the price of sugar to fluctuate. Yes, it did. That was the idea, that you would start to see market activity in the sugar commodity. Unfortunately, we did not participate in this experiment long enough to find out whether we could bring market forces to bear. But we were clearly moving in that direction. The argument that that fluctuation in price, which was the precursor of having a market event, is one reason you do not want to have sugar production subsidized or one reason you have to have sugar production subsidized is as if to say because Ford Motor Company cuts the price of its car and comes out with zero financing, we should suddenly subsidize Ford Motor Company because the market is clearly having an effect on their price. This program is obviously important to a number of States that have producers. But you cannot justify it in its present structure. It needs to be reorganized. So what my amendment does is to eliminate the nonrecourse loan event. It makes the loans recourse and takes the savings and moves them over to the Food Stamp Program so that people who are on food stamps and who need to buy food commodities which are suffering from an inflated price because of the sugar industry will have more money available to them to do that. Remember, sugar goes beyond candy, by the way. Some people think it is always candy. Sugar is in just about any product you buy that is a processed product. It has sugar in it. So if you are on food stamps, and you are trying to buy some pasta or you are trying to buy a meat sauce or you are trying to buy some sort of hamburger assistance that gives it a little flare, all of those products, which are important to the nutrition of a person on food stamps, are having an inflated price because they have sugar in them. This amendment says, let's take the savings which will be regenerated here and move it into the Food Stamp Program. It is a very reasonable amendment. I am sure it is going to pass this year, even though it may not have passed in the last 7 years that I have offered it. I reserve the remainder of my time. Actually, I do not have any time left, so I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. My statement won't take more than about 15 or 20 minutes. I understand Senator McCain will speak and Senator Lugar may wish to speak. I don't know how long anyone else will want to take. I am going to ask for the yeas and nays as soon as our dialog is over. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

Mr. GREGG. I have no objection.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, we have heard a lot of debate on this program. I must take exception to some of the things said by the opposition because it appears they are inconsistent with the facts. For example, the representation that this program is not going to continue to cost the taxpayers money is one which is not supported by the facts. In fact, USDA, which is responsible for the agricultural products of this country, has said we will purchase close to 4 million tons of sugar over the next decade. Where we are going to put this we do not know--somebody's garage, I guess--and that will cost us $1.6 billion in tax revenue. So this is an expensive program. If we put it back into a marketplace concept, we will save the taxpayers those dollars, which dollars under this amendment can be used to assist people who are on food stamps who are trying to buy staples to live a decent life and have adequate nutrition. Secondly, the point was made, and I do not understand the concept here, that foreign sugar is coming in through molasses, through spiking of molasses, and that is clearly affecting the availability of sugar in this country, and that is what we have to stop. Why do you think it is coming in? It is coming in because the price of sugar in this country is so absurdly high. You can actually go through the huge exercise of taking molasses, spiking it in some other country, then shipping it into our country and refining it off, and you can still produce sugar that is dramatically less in cost than what it costs the American consumer to get sugar because we have this price which is 2\1/2\ to 3 times the going market rate of the sugar--22 cents and 18 cents versus about 9 cents. It is as if they are saying: The marketplace actually might work, but we are not going to allow it to work. If there is anything that shows that we can reduce the price of sugar to the American people, it is the fact people are willing to go through this huge machination to get sugar into this country, around all the barriers the sugar producers have produced. It is counterintuitive at the extreme to make that argument. This debate comes down to a very simple fact, which is this: 42 percent of the revenues and the benefit of this program are going to 1 percent of the farmers, but all the American people are paying $1.9 billion in extra cost to support that program. The price of sugar is 2\1/2\ to 3 times the cost on the world market because we are trying to benefit a very narrow group of people who are very effective constituents, I guess, and argue their case effectively as constituents but clearly have no equity to their argument. As a practical matter, they are reaching into the pockets of the American people and taking dollars out of those pockets which could otherwise be used to purchase more food or better commodities. It is a program which is totally counter to everything for which we as a capitalist, market-oriented society stand. It cannot be justified under any scenario other than it represents the power of one interest group to benefit at the expense of the American people and the American consumer. I greatly appreciate the statement of the Senator from Indiana who knows more about agricultural policy than I will ever know, who forgot more about agricultural policy than I will ever know. In his support of the amendment he gave one of the clearest statements as to why this program is such a disaster from a standpoint of economics and from a standpoint of production and from a standpoint of its impact on the consumers of America and from a standpoint of its impact on the American taxpayer. I thank him for his support of this amendment. I hope people will listen to his logic and his reason and oppose the motion to table this amendment, which I understand is going to now be made by the assistant leader. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I come to the floor to offer an amendment on behalf of myself, Senator Lugar, and Senator McCain, cosponsors of the amendment. This amendment deals with what has been a fairly well- debated and discussed issue in our farm policy; that is, how we price sugar in this country. The sugar program in this country has been, in my humble opinion, a fiasco and an atrocity with the inordinate and inappropriate burden on American consumers for years. I call up my amendment. Amendment No. 2466 to Amendment No. 2471

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Wellstone's amendment, of which I am an original cosponsor. Senator Wellstone has identified a problem which just cries out to be examined and answered. National Guard personnel are really extraordinary people who serve us as citizen soldiers. They give up their daily lives, they put tremendous stress on their families to serve us, and it's truly inappropriate that they should not be treated with the deference and the fair treatment that they would get if they were called up under a different circumstance What Senator Wellstone is doing here is correcting what was an obvious loophole in the understanding of how the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940 would work and is applying that Act to our National Guard men and women who are called up as a result of a national emergency declared by the President but who happen to be called up by Governors, and so it is an extremely appropriate action. It's certainly something that should be done at this time and should be done quickly so that those folks who are guarding our airport, our borders, and may well be in harm's way, but are certainly giving up their private lives in order to make our lives safer through their public service should receive fair treatment from our Government. During World War I, the Congress passed a law to help people who were called to serve in the military, people who had debts or financial obligations such as home mortgages, car loans, and bank loans. A similar law is in effect today, ``The Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940, as amended.'' Although not included in the title of the law, the safeguards of the law also apply to personnel in the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Provisions of the law protect a service member, who is called-up to serve in the military, from being evicted from rental property or from mortgaged property, protect against cancellation of life insurance, and protect against lose of home because of overdue taxes, if the service member's ability to make payments is materially affected by military service. Further provisions of the law require that interest of no more than 6 percent a year can be charged by a lender on a debt which a person on active duty in military service incurred before he or she went on active duty. The law does not cancel out the debt or financial obligations of those called up for active duty. What it does do is give them certain special rights and legal protections. The purpose of granting the special rights and protections, as stated in the law, is to help people who have been called up for active duty ``to devote their entire energy to the defense needs of the Nation.'' In the normal case of a National Guard call-up by the President, members of the National Guard get this civil relief. But in the case of a National Guard call-up by a Governor, at the request of the President, members of the National Guard do not get this civil relief. The members of our National Guard now protecting our airports therefore do not get this relief, because the President thought it best to have the Governors call-up the Guard. New Hampshire National Guard personnel are today assisting in providing protection at airports in New Hampshire, at the Manchester Airport, the Lebanon Airport, and the Pease International Tradeport Airport. The New Hampshire National Guard has a long and rich history. Colonial New Hampshire Governor John Cutt organized the New Hampshire militia in 1680. This militia served in all of the Colonial Wars. New Hampshire troops included Roger's Rangers, famed for their guerrilla tactics, and forerunners of today's U.S. Army Rangers, presently serving in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan. In December 1774, a group of patriots under the command of Captain Thomas Pickering, of Portsmouth, attacked and captured Fort William and Mary at Newcastle, NH. The ``shot heard round the world'' was not fired at Lexington, MA, until the following April. During the Civil War, New Hampshire furnished 17 infantry regiments, 1 cavalry regiment, 1 heavy artillery regiment, and 1 light artillery battery to the Union cause. The 5th New Hampshire Volunteers, led by Colonel Edward E. Cross, suffered the highest casualties of any Northern infantry regiment, having fought valiantly at Seven Pines, Malvern Hill, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. And now other equally patriotic members of the New Hampshire Guard have been called up by the Governor, at the request of President Bush, to help protect airports, as part of our country's war on terrorism. I assume members of the National Guards of my fellow Senators' States have also been called up by their respective Governors for airport protection duties. So this is not just a New Hampshire issue or a Minnesota issue. This is your issue also. When National Guard troops are called to active duty, whether by the President or by a Governor at the request of the President in response to war or national emergency declared by the Congress, they must essentially put their personal lives on hold. The intent of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act is to provide financial security and peace of mind to the men and women of our country who are unexpectedly called to serve their Nation in times of crisis. The law certainly should not be allowed to favor those called up by the President and exclude those called up by State Governors, at the request of the President. The National Guard personnel now helping to keep our airports safe deserve the same protections extended to National Guard troops fighting for our Nation all over the world. This amendment will allow the men and women who our Governors have called on, at the request of the President for an operation during a war or national emergency declared by the President or Congress, to focus on their task at hand without worrying about previous financial obligations. Fellow Senators, I ask you to support this amendment to correct a serious inequity involving National Guard men and women of our various States, including most likely your own States, who have been called to active duty for critical domestic operations such as protecting our Nation's airports.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about one of the problems we have had over the last few months, which is a failure of the majority party to address the issue of nominations sent up by the President. This failure has been most blatant, of course, in the area of judicial nominations where we now have well over 100 openings in the judiciary which have not been filled, which is an extraordinary number, especially when you put it in context of the prior administration. It is almost 100 percent larger than what the prior administration experienced under a Republican Senate. There are also, independent of the judiciary nominations, a number of other nominations critical to the operation of the Government which are being held up by the majority party. I rise to speak to one specifically. That is the nomination of Eugene Scalia to be the solicitor of the Department of Labor. Most people have never heard of the term or the individual solicitor of the Department of Labor. It is, however, a significant position within a significant department. It is the fair arbiter of the laws within the Labor Department. It is the place at which the Government represents its cases, the individual who carries forward a great deal of the policy of the Government, as it has been set forth by the Congress and the Executive. Why is Mr. Scalia not being brought to the floor? First off, you have to understand that it is not because the nomination hasn't been pending. The nomination has now been pending for 213 days. That is the longest period of time that any nomination has been pending around this body. Ironically, I think the reason it is not being brought forward is that it is tied to something that occurred 351 days ago, and that was the case of Gore v. Bush, or Bush v. Gore--the issue settled in the Supreme Court as to how the Florida law would be applied and the prior election, therefore, resolved. You see, Eugene Scalia, through family ties, appears to be tied to that case by the majority in the Senate. There is a lot of frustration about that case on the other side of the aisle. Many of my colleagues, with great energy, believe it was decided the wrong way. Many have taken it personally, I suspect. Obviously, they have taken it personally because they are applying it personally in the case of Eugene Scalia, a relative to one of the decisionmakers in that process --of course, Justice Anthony Scalia--and who was one of the majority in the decision of Bush v. Gore. Well, Eugene Scalia is his son. So we now have a scenario where the son has come up for a nomination to serve in the Government. I suppose you can argue, well, maybe he is not being approved because he was sent up quickly. I pointed out it was 313 days ago. You may argue he is not qualified. Actually, he is extraordinarily well qualified. He is one of the finest attorneys in the area of labor law in the country. In fact, five former Solicitors General of the Department of Labor have said he is unquestionably an extraordinarily qualified individual. To quote them, they say: We are unaware of any prior solicitor nominee with his combination of academic accomplishment, prolific writing on labor and employment matters, and many years of practice as a labor and employment lawyer. That is five prior Solicitors of the Department. They have said this is a great nomination. It is not because he holds views that are antithetical or inappropriate to the position. In fact, he strongly is supported by some of the leading civil rights attorneys in this country; for example, William Coleman, who is one of the leading civil rights attorneys in our Nation's history, said that Eugene Scalia would be among the best lawyers who have ever held the important position-- the position of Solicitor of the Department of Labor. He went on to say: Eugene Scalia is a bright, sophisticated lawyer whose writings are well within the mainstream of ideas. So he is not being attacked because he doesn't have the ability. He has all the ability you could possibly want. In fact, it is great that we can attract people of his talent and capability to public service. No, Eugene Scalia--Scalia the younger--is being attacked because of Scalia the elder. You might say, well, maybe he came up too quickly. We pointed out that isn't right. Maybe he doesn't qualify. That is not true either. Maybe he holds outrageous opinions. Actually, during the hearing process, the only significant attack made on his writings was a disagreement over his position on ergonomics. Eugene Scalia committed the ``cardinal sin'' of opposing the ergonomics rule as put forward by OSHA, so he was aggressively attacked during the hearings--not personally but on that issue relative to policy. Well, that is OK. You can disagree with him on that policy point, but you have to acknowledge that on that policy point he agreed with the majority of the Congress. The Congress found the regulation that was promulgated by OSHA to be too officious, bureaucratic, counterproductive, and we--the Senate and the House of Representatives--threw the regulation out. In my experience in the Congress, that has only occurred once or twice. We as a Congress actually rejected the regulation of OSHA on the issue of ergonomics, confirming the arguments that the younger Mr. Scalia had made on that issue. So it is pretty hard to come to the floor with a straight face and say this man should not be confirmed as Solicitor of the Department of Labor because he took a position on ergonomics, when that position was consistent with the position taken by the Congress earlier this year. No, regrettably, the younger Scalia is being held hostage because of attitudes toward the elder Scalia. That isn't the way we should govern. We should not prejudice an individual because of their race, their ethnic background, their gender, and we certainly should not prejudice an individual because they happen to be the son of an individual who some people do not agree with and who feel antipathy towards. Eugene Scalia's nomination should be brought to the floor of this Senate. If people want to vote against him, that is their right. Then if he is defeated on the floor of the Senate, so be it. But let's not shuttle him off and hold him hostage to try to make a point to his father. That is not right and that is what is being done by the leadership of this Senate at this time. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a member of my staff, Nancy Perkins, have floor privileges during the pendency of this bill.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I agree that additional funding for the consortium should be considered in the supplemental bill to support our antiterrorism efforts.

Mr. GREGG. It is my understanding, Madam President, that the Senator from Arizona, who had the other 15 minutes, is willing to yield back his time. I believe that is correct. So I yield back our time on this side, and I understand we are setting the vote for 12:45. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. GREGG. I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I begin by congratulating the Senator from South Carolina for bringing this bill forward. He has done a superb job. This is a bill that has a lot of moving parts. It covers a broad sector of the agencies of the Federal Government, some of the most critical agencies, of course, being the Justice Department, the State Department, the Commerce Department, SEC, FTC, FCC, and SBA. The list goes on and on, so it is a complex bill. As is typical of the Senator from South Carolina, he has handled it with great ability and acumen. As a result, we have before us what I think is an extraordinarily strong bill, and a bill which aggressively funds and promotes these agencies, and the primary roles of these agencies, as well as making a point of focusing on certain initiatives which are critical to better governance in this country, especially in light of September 11. A large percentage of the terrorism dollars that are domestically oriented, and the initiatives that are domestically oriented, are tied up in this bill with over $1.1 billion of funding. The initiatives which are necessary in order to secure strong action on the part of the Justice Department and the State Department are also part of the policy in this bill. So I congratulate the Senator from South Carolina for doing a superb job. But he could not have done it, and I could not have participated in this bill, without having exceptional staff. His staff, headed up by Lila Helms, has done an exceptional job. His staff has been extremely supportive of the efforts on our side of the aisle, and has worked with our staff, led by Jim Morhard, extraordinarily well. I specifically thank my staff people, including Jim Morhard and Kevin Linskey, Katherine Hennessy, and Nancy Perkins. They all work around the clock at this time of the year, and we very much appreciate it. We have produced an exceptional bill because of those efforts. The Senator from South Carolina has highlighted what amounts to the key areas in the bill, but I do want to return to a couple items and make a point to reinforce the commitment that this bill makes in those areas. First is the area of terrorism, as I mentioned. This committee long before this bill was brought forward, has focused a great deal on the issue of how we try to get ourselves up to speed to deal with terrorism. Regrettably, obviously, we were not up to speed when September 11 occurred. But in the past, this committee orchestrated the Central Command Center for Crisis Management at the FBI. It has orchestrated the legate services overseas in order to try to improve our intelligence capabilities. It was as a result of this committee that we undertook two major exercises in the area of terrorism, the top-off program, which showed us that we had cracks, but it also showed us where we needed to go. A lot of what is happening in the post-September climate is as a result of information we were able to develop especially out of the Denver bioterrorism top-off exercise. The bill specifically has in it the creation of a Deputy Attorney General for Combating Terrorism, the concept being there are a lot of different agencies, a lot of different moving parts just within the Justice Department that have responsibility for terrorism--the INS, obviously; the DEA; most importantly, the FBI; and the Justice Department itself. There needed to be a central focus where there was one person thinking solely about the issue of how Justice specifically manages the question of terrorism. There were some questions as to how this individual would relate to the Attorney General, and specifically to Governor Ridge in his role. My view is that he complements Governor Ridge in that he or she will give Governor Ridge a single point of contact where he can get action within the Justice Department and cut through red tape and turf. And, hopefully, as a result, this person will increase the capabilities of Governor Ridge as we try to manage the Federal response to terrorism. So I think it is an initiative which makes sense, and I understand that it has been worked out. Secondly, I congratulate the chairman and his staff and the participation of our staff in the area of NOAA. This is an agency which is really one of the premier science agencies in our country; of course, specifically, science related to the atmosphere and ocean. The maintenance of a series of vibrant NOAA programs is extremely important if we, as a country, are going to have the science we need in order to protect, preserve, and improve those resources, the ocean and our air, and manage issues such as hurricanes and tornadoes, and other potential God-driven catastrophes, and be ready for those events so that we can handle them more effectively as a Government. In addition, as the Senator mentioned, we have made a huge commitment in the area of technology. This is a very important function for us, not only in the Justice Department but equally important in the State Department, where they really have been lagging in their technological capability. We think progress is being made in this area, rather dramatic progress, as well as, of course, as was mentioned, the attempt to upgrade our facilities overseas, and especially harden them in light of the terrorist threat which they confront. One area that was left out of this bill, which was not left out because of any actions by the chairman--it was left out because of the House Ways and Means Committee--was the issue of conflict diamonds. When this bill passed the Senate, it had language in it which would limit the use of conflict diamonds. Conflict diamonds are those diamonds being produced primarily in Sierra Leone. They are diamonds which have blood on them. They are diamonds which are being used to fund not only the terrorist elements in Sierra Leone, known as the RUF, but it appears now there is a connection between those diamonds and al- Qaeda and the organizations of Osama bin Laden. These diamonds, where people are basically held in slavery in order to produce them, and children are used, child labor is used, and people are tortured in order to produce these diamonds, should not be on the open market in free countries. Therefore, we put in language which would attempt to set up a system that would track diamonds. Diamonds are an important part of our culture, especially when we get around the holidays. There are a lot of folks who express their love and concern for individuals by using diamonds, but we want Americans to know when they buy diamonds they are not funding terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda or the RUF. Regrettably, that language--which I think is very important, and which I know the chairman on the House side, Congressman Wolf, strongly supported because he was one of the authors of this language on the House side--was forced out of the bill on a procedural issue raised by the House Ways and Means Committee. It is my understanding the Ways and Means Committee is going to have hearings on this issue. I hope they have them soon. I hope we do not leave this session of Congress without having passed effective conflict diamond language. Again, in conclusion, I thank Chairman Hollings. I thank his staff, led by Lila Helms, and I thank my staff, led by Jim Morhard. I thank them all for the excellent job in producing what I think is an exceptional piece of legislation, which more than adequately aggressively funds our efforts to try to address the issue of terrorism, but it also strongly funds the agencies which are under our jurisdiction, especially agencies such as NOAA. Madam President, how much time do I have?

Mr. GREGG. I will be happy to yield you 6 minutes of my time after I have finished.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, does the Senator from New Hampshire seek recognition?

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, as I understand the regular order, the Senator from South Carolina has 15 minutes, I have 15 minutes, the Senator from Arizona has 15 minutes, and then we go to a vote.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, there are a number of issues that are raised by this amendment which are very significant. It comes to us tonight without having any hearings, without having any airing in the public sector of any significance. Yet it addresses some of the most fundamental issues of constitutional law, and the relationship between States and between the Federal Government and States, that we could confront as a Congress. It is simply precipitous to pass this amendment in this rushed format. The amendment would go right at the heart of what has been a long history of case law settled by the Supreme Court and reverse it. It would reverse the Bella Hess case and the Quill case which, essentially, are cases which said that there must be a nexus between the seller of the goods and the State in which the goods are sold before a tax can be assessed against the seller of the goods. This amendment would reverse that. That is the purpose of this amendment. It does not affect just Internet transactions. There is an equally large effort here to reverse the issue as it has been dealt with in catalog sales. Yet the proposal is going to be dealt with in 2 hours in the Senate Chamber. Clearly, it is precipitous because the implications are huge. The second major constitutional problem with the amendment is that it creates this brandnew regime where 20 States can bind the other 30 States. This is truly an excess of the minority over the majority. It reverses the concept of federalism and turns it on its head and says if 20 States reach agreement, then the rest of the 30 States have to follow that agreement. If you are going to change constitutional law, you have to have a three-fifths vote. There is no way you can do it with 20 States. And yet that is the attempt here. This is a roundabout way of trying to amend what is essentially a constitutional procedure without using the appropriate constitutional procedures. If it were passed, it would truly set up a precedent which would fundamentally harm the concept of federalism. If it is used here, I can see this concept of 20 States getting together and ganging up on the rest of the States being used fairly regularly. The amendment itself on the issue of substance is wrong and inappropriately presented. It certainly is wrong on the issue of the manner in which it has been brought forward in that it should have gotten more hearings. If this idea makes sense, it should go through a proper hearing process before it comes to the floor. It would create an atmosphere where 7,000 different jurisdictions across the States could end up taxing the Internet. That would be chaos and would fundamentally undermine this engine of prosperity and economic growth which we had and which we continue to have and which we continue to lead the world in, which is the Internet. Those are the substantive reasons why this is a bad idea at this time. There is probably an equally, if not more important procedural reason. If this amendment passes, it is a poison pill. It will kill the Internet tax moratorium. It will mean that there will be no moratorium for the next 2 years. The House has said it is not going to take this language. It is not going to conference this language. So as a practical matter, the Internet tax moratorium is dead. The underlying bill here would cause a 2-year tax moratorium. And if the language of this amendment makes sense, that will give us more than ample time to proceed in the proper course through the proper hearing procedure to listen to the arguments for this proposal. It can be passed any time during this next 2 years. What can't be done during the next 2 years, if we don't have an Internet tax moratorium, is put back together Humpty Dumpty because we will literally have thousands of jurisdictions which will put in place taxes against the Internet as soon as they have that opportunity, as soon as it is clear that there is going to be no moratorium. We will have chaos which we will never be able to sort out. The amendment, although obviously sincerely principled and aggressively pursued, has serious substantive problems. I hope we will not pass this amendment because it will represent a poison pill and it will end up killing the Internet tax moratorium.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I rise in opposition to the amendment and yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. The Senator from Iowa, of course, raises a valid point, which is the money is still going back to the States if it goes back to school construction. The point, however, which is the whole essence of this argument or debate--``argument'' is the wrong term. The essence of this debate is that the dollars under the title I program, especially the new formula which targets those dollars, is used on low-income kids and actually goes to the kids in low-income schools. The school construction money is outside title I. It is not an authorized program. It does not even exist as a Federal program. It just exists as an expenditure under the appropriating process, and it does not flow at all under the title I process. The goal of title I is to benefit the low-income child. School construction money does not benefit the low-income child. There is no structure to do that. It is money that is spent by the States however they want to spend it on construction. It makes much more sense to take this money and move it into the title I account into the new targeted formula so we end up with a child who comes from a low-income background actually benefiting from these dollars. That is the purpose of this amendment. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Wyoming. The ACTING PRESIDING pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Mississippi for making that very excellent point. This is not an either/or choice. We can vote for the Landrieu-Cochran amendment, and we can vote for this because essentially what this amendment does is take the construction money and move it into the title I targeted formula. What the Landrieu amendment does is restructure the new money for title I and reallocate some of it to the targeted formula, some of it to the equity formula. As a practical matter, the two are not exclusive. You can support both. If you are interested in getting more money into the title I accounts and especially more money into the accounts that benefit low- income kids under the targeted formula, then you should definitely vote for this amendment which takes the money from the school construction accounts. Just to cite a couple examples: California, under present law, gets $1.15 billion; under this proposal, they would get $1.5 billion. So they pick up about $430 million out of this account which would be going into the targeted formula. Florida gets $400 million. Under this proposal, they get $558 million. That is $158 million going to the targeted formula. The State of the presiding Senator from Georgia would get $250 million under present law; $330 million would go into the title I formula. Yes, it means there wouldn't be school construction money going into those States, but what would be happening is that dollars would now be flowing directly into the accounts which benefit low-income kids rather than into a general account which, as the Senator from Iowa mentioned, is basically where the States make the decision. It can go to a rich district or a poor district. It can go to Safe and Drug Free Schools, which we already fund under another account, or it can go to security, which we fund under another account, which is duplicative. The purpose of the Federal dollar should be to get the money to low-income kids. That is why we need to fund these targeted formulas, especially in areas where you have a large concentration of low-income children. That is why this amendment makes a lot of sense. I thank the Senator from Mississippi for his comments and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GREGG. I yield the Senator whatever time he needs.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator.

Mr. GREGG. I presume the Senator is taking her time.