Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I thank the floor leader, and I wish to congratulate the floor leader for his excellent work in moving this bill forward. This is a very important piece of legislation for improving the quality of education in this country, and specifically for empowering parents to have more of a role in choosing how their child is educated and being sure their children have the resources to obtain the type of education which parents want for their kids. It really is not a radical idea. It is a very reasonable idea. So reasonable it is hard to understand why there would be opposition to allowing parents to be able to save more, to use that savings for the benefit of their children, to educate their children. So I certainly congratulate the Senator from Georgia for his excellent work in bringing this legislation. I wanted to speak on a couple of specifics and then generally on the bill. There was an opportunity which I was going to undertake, along with Senator Gorton, to offer an amendment to try to clarify some of the issues relative to IDEA, especially in the questions dealing with the teacher role, in dealing with children who have special education needs but turn out to be violent. We did pass the IDEA reauthorization bill last year, which I worked hard on. I was proud to participate in it. Unfortunately, the Department of Education has not followed the rather explicit instructions from the Congress on how regulations should be issued under this bill. As a result, the question of how we deal with the school situation involving a child who is a physical threat to other children in the classroom and to the teacher has not been properly addressed. My amendment would have addressed that. It was an amendment which I worked on. Senator Gorton was the prime mover of such an amendment earlier last year, although it was the same amendment. The issue here, of course, is making sure that such language, should it be brought forward, does not allow school systems to in any arbitrary or capricious or inappropriate way bar the special-needs child from the classroom. That would be absolutely unacceptable. I headed up a school that dealt with special-needs children, and I understand, I think, this issue as well as anyone who is addressing it here in this Senate. I am very sensitive to the importance of making sure that nothing happens which would undermine the capacity of the child who is mainstream, and who is gaining from that mainstream experience, to receive that experience they have under the law. There is also a need to address the fact that in instances of true physical violence, teachers, principals, other children in the classroom, find themselves sometimes put in a position where they have no way of adequately dealing with a child who is a physical threat to them. In fact, there have been a lot of instances which reflect this problem. Without the Department of Education addressing the issue, which it should have addressed, it is probably going to be appropriate to address the issue in some other form such as this. We decided not to move forward on that because we did not want to complicate this bill any further than it had already been complicated, and therefore we-- Senator Gorton and myself--reserved our amendment on that point. I must say, the special education community, which I have worked with rather aggressively over the years--I have been probably their greatest champion on a number of issues, specifically on getting funding and on working on the last bill--has reacted, I think, overreacted to the proposal. They did not see the proposal. They simply characterized it and went forth to inform their constituency--misinform their constituency would be more accurate--as to what it would have done, which is ironic and inappropriate considering the support I have given that community. On the second point, which was the number of amendments which we saw here which were an attempt to basically move dollars from this Coverdell approach from the A+ plan into special education, a number of amendments were brought forth, and specifically the Dodd amendment, which I wanted to address because I didn't have a chance in the 15- minute limitation of time to respond on these points. I have led this fight in the Senate now for 3 years--well, actually since I got here, but I have actually been successful over the last 3 years--to try to increase funding for special education. The Federal Government made a commitment that it would do 40 percent of the cost in special education. When I arrived here, having served as Governor, that commitment was not being fulfilled. In fact, the Federal Government was only doing about 6 percent of the cost of special education. The fact that the Federal Government was failing to do its share of special education costs was having a disproportionate and unfair impact on the local school systems, and it was especially, in my opinion, putting the special-needs child and the parents of the special-needs child in an untenable position in local school board meetings, where they were being looked at as siphoning off resources from other activities of the school systems. They had every right to those resources, but unfortunately because the Federal Government wasn't paying the cost of that education, those resources had to come from other places. So the Federal Government has been totally irresponsible in this area of funding special education. As a result of my efforts and the efforts of Senator Lott, first we passed a commitment to fully fund special education to 40 percent, and we followed that up with making the Budget Act make that statement, and followed it up by having the first bill put forth by the Republican Senate being S. 1, a commitment to full funding for special education. Then we followed all those words up with hard dollars. Two years ago, we increased the funding of special education by almost $700 million. We followed that up with another almost $700 million--I think it is over $700 million in the first year. We have dramatically increased funding in special education, not as far as we need to go, but we have done that. The Republicans did that. We had no support from the administration on this initiative and only marginal support when it came to the actual votes on those budgets from the other side of the aisle on this initiative. So we have a track record of having delivered on this issue. The great irony here--another great irony--is that the amendments brought forth by the other side of the aisle were paper amendments meant to paper over, I think, the irresponsibility of this administration and the other side of the aisle on the issue of special ed because, once again, just a few weeks ago when we passed the budget in this body, we saw that the administration and the other side of the aisle were not willing to put their name on the line on the cause of special education and funding special education. The Republican budget increases special education by $2.5 billion. I don't think any Democrats--or maybe one or two--only a small number of Democrats voted for that budget. The President's budget that was brought forward and voted on in committee increased special education funding by a measly $35 million--$35 million. That was basically a nonexistent event that would have probably been used for administrative overhead down at the Department of Education. That $35 million probably would never have seen the light of day in any school system. So we made the commitment, and when it came to casting the vote, we cast the vote to increase special education funding. Now this cause has been taken up by the Speaker of the House, who talked about this, and the chairman of the House committee on this issue, and again the majority leader is aggressively pursuing it as well as myself. We intend to fulfill our obligations for special education funding as a Congress under Republican leadership. So when we saw these amendments coming at us, we had to almost smile at the political grandstanding of it because that is what they were, just political grandstanding. If those folks really want to fund special education, we are going to give them the chance to do that. We are going to be bringing bills out here that do that. I wish they had been there on the budget amendment. Please take those votes and those amendments for what they were, which was trying to paper over their own lack of effort in this area in the face of what was a hard action on our part of delivering hard dollars out to the school systems for assistance to special education. On the bill overall, what we have here is a choice between the status quo--and I have heard basically almost an unlimited defense of the status quo from those folks who oppose this piece of legislation--and people who want to empower parents to have more of a role in the education of their children. Now, I know that money is a factor in education. We all know that. I know that the building is a factor in education. I know that the number of kids in a classroom is a factor in education. I will tell you something. In my experience, and I think probably in the experience of anybody who is going to be honest, the single most significant impact on a child's education is the parental involvement and the parental activity. What this bill does is it brings the parents into the process more aggressively. It gives the parents a new tool to be able to help their children out as they try to move through this maze of education which we thrust at them. Why would we not want to do that? Well, I can't think of any reason. This is a parent-empowering amendment and proposal. The opposition really comes from people who seem to think that this threatens the status quo. That is where the opposition is coming from. They see this as a threat to some structure that presently exists out there. That has been the basic underlying theme of the opposition. Well, is the status quo so good? Is it so extraordinary and doing such a wonderful job that it should not be shaken a little bit? This is not a big shaking up; it's just sort of a little vibration. I am not sure this would appear on the Richter scale, but it is a significant and good step. It is a good step, but it is not a dramatic shaking up of the status quo. I can think of some things we should do to dramatically shake up the status quo, and hopefully we will. But this is a step in the right direction. It is a parent-empowering step, confronting the defenders of the status quo on education. I have to tell you, the status quo in education isn't cutting it. We know that as a society. Parents know it. Businesses that are trying to hire people coming out of our educational system know it. Regrettably, the world is seeing it. We have gotten to a point really where, in many instances, in many of our most cutting industries that are producing the jobs in this country, they are having to hire people from outside of the country because they don't have the educational expertise to do it, or they don't have enough educational expertise in this country. So the status quo is not working. We need to take some new, original approaches. Clearly, the proposal before us, the A+ accounts, is an attempt to empower parents to do something, to give parents an opportunity to do something to help their kids get a better education. What an appropriate purpose that is. We had a whole series of amendments and other ideas on how we should improve education. We had an amendment to build more schools, an amendment to change the teacher ratios, and an amendment to do after- school planning. These were all nice ideas, but they don't belong in this body. These are ideas that belong in a school board meeting. If these Senators want these ideas to move forward, they should go back home to their school board meeting and suggest it. These are local control issues. We should not be taking resources out of the local community, sending it to Washington, draining it off from the one program in Washington that we are not funding, which is special ed, which should be funded, and sending it back to the community and say that they have to do this or that with those dollars. You have to build a building, or you have to cut down your class size, or you have to do an after-school program with those dollars. That is a local control issue. That is where it belongs, in the local school board. They make those decisions. Let's give the local communities the flexibility to have the resources, and let's give them the resources to have the flexibility to make decisions as to whether they want a new school building or new art course or a foreign language course, or whether they want a new teacher who teaches some sort of high-grade technical computer science. The local school board knows best on that. But for us here in Washington to basically be taking the resources out of the local community by not fully funding special education and then telling the local school board that we are going to send the resources back covered with strings and directions, and, by the way, all of the things the local school board traditionally has control over, but we decide to take them over in Washington because we know better than you do. It is absurd. But it is classic Washington. I am glad that all of those items were defeated because they should have been defeated. Let's defeat them and send them back to the local school board. Again, I congratulate the Senator from Georgia. He has brought forward a concept and an idea that is going to empower the parents to be able to help their kids get a better education. I cannot think of any better sentiment or any better purpose for any bill. I look forward to its final passage. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I rise today to discuss efforts that were made to insert assumptions into the Budget Resolution that would hurt the Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary (CJS) Subcommittee. Those assumptions sought to amend the securities legislation that we negotiated with the Senate Banking Committee and House Commerce Committee in 1996. Specifically, they assume reductions in NASDAQ transaction fees. The result being that the Appropriations Committee pick up the cost of $73 million. Prior to 1996, the 6(b) fees were paid by corporations to register securities. Some interests felt that the 6(b) fees had grown too large. During negotiations with the White House and the authorizing committees it was agreed that over the next ten years 6(b) fees would be reduced. The creation of the NASDAQ transaction fees was a concession made to the CJS subcommittee as part of a larger compromise that led to a phasing out of the Section 6(b) registration fees. The intent was to minimize the impact on the Appropriations process. Since 1934, Section 31 transaction fees had been imposed on exchange listed securities but not on those sold in the Over the Counter (OTC) market. As part of the agreement in 1996, extending the section 31 fee to the OTC market allowed the 6(b) registration fees to be reduced while retaining adequate fee collections to support and offset the SEC's appropriation. In arriving at the compromise that resulted in the ten year funding mechanism, it was acknowledged that surpluses over the SEC's funding would likely exist until the end of the ten year schedule. After that time the SEC was to be fully funded by direct appropriations.

Mr. GREGG. I want to thank the Senator from New Mexico for his effort on this important issue. We must preserve our ability to fund the SEC in the future, when we may not be so fortunate to have such a good economy.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President I rise in support of the amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas. First, the underlying purpose of the amendment is legitimate. The fact is that these companies buy this opportunity to go on to Federal land at basically zero dollars. They make millions, billions of dollars over the years off of this land. They pay no depletion. They pay no taxes. They get a depletion allowance that gives them a tax deduction even though they didn't have to pay anything for the land to begin with, which makes absolutely no sense. The depletion allowance is the concept that you are using up an asset which you paid something for. They didn't pay anything for the land, so why should they get a depletion allowance? The Senator's amendment on the facts on substance is correct. More importantly, the Senator's amendment is taking this totally inappropriate deduction and applying the revenues which would occur by eliminating it to something which is totally appropriate, and that is special education. We all know that this administration has, regrettably, underfunded special education in its budget. We have attempted to correct that in the Republican budget, but we haven't gotten as far as we need to go. Thus this opportunity to put an additional revenue stream into special education is extraordinarily important. It means that kids who are in the special needs program, who are today being pushed into a position with other kids who are not in special needs programs over a confrontation of resources, will be put in less of a situation which is detrimental to them. The Federal Government committed to pay 40 percent of the costs of the special needs child. As a result of Republican initiatives, we have gotten from a 6 percent level to a 9.5 percent level, but we are still well short of the 40 percent commitment. This amendment by the Senator from Arkansas will help us move another step toward that 40 percent commitment. It will help relieve local taxpayers who are paying the Federal share of the tax burden of supporting special needs children from having to pay the difference between 9.5 percent and 40 percent, or some part of that. So, essentially, the proposal of the Senator from Arkansas is right on two counts. First, it is right on the concept of eliminating the depletion allowance because there is absolutely no justification for a depletion allowance where people pay essentially nothing for the lands they are mining and the land is owned by the public. Secondly, it is right because it will help special needs children and it will start to fulfill or assist in fulfilling the obligation of the Federal Government to fund the 40 percent share which we said we would fund when we started this program. It is a good amendment. I strongly support it.

Mr. GREGG. If I could have that.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to join my colleague, Senator John Breaux, in delivering a statement as to why we support the sense of the Senate language put forth by the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Roth. For the past year, Senator Breaux and I have co-chaired the National Commission on Retirement Policy, convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Our task is to review the situation facing our Nation with respect to retirement income in the 21st century. We will soon be releasing a final report of our findings and recommendations, and we need not preview them here in detail. Suffice to say that each of the major sources of retirement income--Social Security, employer-provided pensions, and personal savings--will be under severe strain in the 21st century, as a consequence of the aging of our population, and the declining ratio of workers to retirees. The situation facing Social Security is sufficiently dire to command our immediate attention. We, as co-chairs of the NCRP, wrote to President Clinton last December, urging him to make this issue a priority in his state of the union address, and we were extremely pleased that he did so. Social Security will begin running operating deficits in the year 2012 under current law, and even if the $2.89 trillion that the Federal Government will owe Social Security is repaid in full, the Trust Fund would still run dry in the year 2029. The unfunded liabilities of the Social Security--the gap between projected outlays and projected revenues--is on the order of $3 trillion. The true ``unfunded liability,'' however, is much greater, because those taxes haven't been collected yet, and therefore all of the future liabilities of the program are in a sense unfunded, to be financed from tax revenue at the time that they are paid. We have carefully studied this problem for a year, and we believe that there are several problems that must be solved simultaneously. The actuarial soundness of Social Security is but one of these. There is also a huge problem residing in the size of the tax burden that is awaiting the future economy if we do not advance fund some of Social Security's future liabilities. A solution to this problem is no solution at all if it achieves actuarial soundness at the price of an unfair tax burden on tomorrow's economy, or at the price of further worsening the quality of the deal that today's young workers will receive from the Social Security program. It is for this reason that Senator Breaux and I believe that personal accounts must be a component of the Social Security solution. Tough choices will need to be made in order to bring the outlays and the revenues of Social Security back into balance, and we believe that personal accounts should be established within this context. Creating a funded savings account component within the Social Security system is perhaps the only way to give something back to today's young workers to improve their treatment by the Social Security system relative to a set of traditional solutions alone. This is one way that we have found to prevent the income provided by the Social Security system from declining below the level that we expect from the program. Before turning to Senator Breaux, let me also note the flexibility of Senator Roth's language with regard to the administration of such accounts. This language does not commit the Senate to any particular method of administration. Senator Breaux and I, after a year of study, have reached the conclusion that the best way to administer personal accounts is through the existing payroll tax collection system. That money is already being paid in a timely way by employers on behalf of individual employees, and is a structure that we can practicably work through to set up accounts in every wage-earner's name through a refund of some portion of the payroll tax. The Roth language is flexible enough to permit a variety of approaches to administering the accounts, as it should be. I hope that Senators who differ as to the best administrative mechanism will be able to unite behind it.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I simply don't want to yield back the time on my amendment. I will be happy to have the Senator proceed----

Mr. GREGG. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, what this amendment says is it is the sense of the Senate that we won't grant immunity. Really this is a very simple vote for people. You can either come down on the side of setting the worst precedent I can imagine, which would be that the first major product liability reform in this country would be immunity, total absolute immunity, for all intents and purposes, granted to tobacco companies in exchange for their paying us money which we could obtain, if we decided to go that route, through some other policy without having to grant immunity. The same amount of revenue can be generated a number of other ways without their agreement for advertising restraints, which means little to us, because we can address the advertising in other forums. For those two reasons, we grant immunity and, in the process, give a product which, as I mentioned a number of times, is inherently harmful, addictive, and aimed at our children and kills you, protection from lawsuits. It makes no sense. Thus, I think the Congress should speak on this. I know a number of committees in the Congress are addressing this issue right now. They are negotiating through the process. But I believe we should as a Congress, as a Senate, speak on it early so that we lay out the framework of this debate early. If Members feel there is some value from giving immunity, let them vote that way. From my point of view, there is no value in giving this type of immunity. I just don't think the pluses outweigh the minuses in any sense of the word. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, a number of points have been made by the Senator from North Dakota. He always makes them well. Even when I disagree with him, I enjoy listening to him. Let me point out a few things that I want to talk about initially relative to this budget that, if you were to listen to the other side, you might not fully understand, because there appears to be an incomplete explanation. For example, on the issue of education, the Senator from North Dakota used the term: ``The Federal Government has niches which it is responsible for in the area of funding education.'' I think that is a good term, ``niches.'' The Federal Government does not have responsibility for the overall funding of elementary and secondary school education. In fact, that has always been reserved to the local community, and should be reserved to the local community. It should be parents and teachers who are empowered, controlling their schools by controlling their local dollars. But yes, we do have some niches that we are interested in as the Federal Government. Probably the primary niche we are interested in is taking care of the special-needs child. In fact, we have a law called 94-142, otherwise known as IDEA, the purpose of which is to make sure the special-needs children get adequate funding as they try to get decent schooling. When this law was passed, the Federal Government said it would pay 40 percent of the cost. Regrettably, the Federal Government, as of 2 years ago, was only paying about 6 percent of the cost. But as a result of the leadership of people on our side of the aisle, myself included, and Senator Lott and a number of other people-- Senator Collins from Maine--we have aggressively pursued trying to increase the funding for special education, and we have gotten it up to about 9.5 percent of the local cost. But it still remains the single largest unfunded mandate the Federal Government puts on local school districts and basically has the effect of saying to the local school district: You must educate these children. The Federal Government said it will pay 40 percent. We are not going to pay our 40 percent. Therefore, you must use your local tax dollars to pay the Federal share, and therefore you have very little flexibility in how you use your local tax dollars, because the Federal Government is requiring you to use them to educate children to pay for costs which the Federal Government was supposed to pay for in the first place. Well, the administration has been grotesquely lax in its fulfillment of this obligation also. When the Senator from North Dakota says the administration has all these wonderful new education initiatives--they are going to go out and build schools and reduce class sizes, they are going to add proposals and programs for after-school education--what they do not mention--what they do not mention--is the administration, the White House, the President, and the Democratic Members of this Congress, in their own budget as proposed, failed to increase at all, for all intents and purposes, funding for special-ed kids. They failed to even make a minor attempt to try to fulfill the obligation of the special-ed child, something that we are by law required to do. So, yes, the Federal Government has niches in education. One of those primary niches, which we have cited, by law, is that we will pay 40 percent of the cost of the special-needs child. We don't do it. The Democratic Membership is unwilling to do it. The White House is unwilling to do it. Why? They want to take all kinds of new programs to take care of new constituencies to generate new press releases. It is about time they lived up to the obligation on the books. Our budget, the Republican budget, does that. It moves one more time aggressively-- in fact, outlines $2.5 billion of new spending for special education over the next 5 years--with a strong, firm commitment to try to get to that 40 percent, something that is totally ignored on the other side. So, when you wanted to talk education, the Republican budget lives up to the obligation of the Congress, the Federal Government, in the area of education. The Democratic proposals just put out press releases and try to buy new constituencies and do nothing for the special-needs child. Basically, they failed in that arena. Now we go to the issue of the tobacco settlement, and that is what I want to talk about primarily here today. The tobacco settlement is obviously a very complex and intricate piece of process. But there should be some black-letter rules that guide us in this settlement. The Senator in the chair has been a leader on identifying one of these black-letter rules, which is that attorneys should not get an outrageous amount of income out of these settlements. The billions of dollars in attorney's fees that are being awarded in Texas and Florida are just obscene, obscene. They are going out of the pockets of the taxpayer into the attorneys' pockets, and they are not doing anything for anybody. Clearly, there should be some action taken in that arena. That should be a black-letter law addressing this issue, and I congratulate the Senator in the chair for his leadership on that count. Equally, we ought to recognize what the problems are that are created for the Federal Government as a result of tobacco smoking. The single biggest problem we have as a Federal Government as a result of tobacco smoking from a health standpoint is that senior citizens are disproportionately impacted by the health impacts of smoking all their life, and that impact on senior citizens flows directly back to the cost being on the Federal Treasury in the Medicare system. So it is perfectly reasonable and appropriate and right, to the extent that the Federal Government receives revenues as a result of this tobacco settlement, that those revenues should go to support the primary cost which the Federal Government incurs as a result of tobacco smoking in this country, which is the cost to take care of our senior citizens. I point out, the other side of the aisle suddenly has decided to spend this tobacco settlement money on all sorts of new initiatives for a panoply of new constituencies and programs, the purpose of which appears to be once again to create press releases rather than create substantive progress. I point out to the other side, it was just a year ago we saw from the other side such crocodile tears, it now appears-- because they wouldn't be genuine tears or they would be supporting us in this matter--crocodile tears about their concern for the trust fund, Medicare trust fund, and how it was being raided, they alleged, by the Republican side of the aisle. We made a firm, unalterable commitment to Medicare. We recognize on our side that Medicare remains probably the single most difficult entitlement program, from the standpoint of fiscal solvency, that we have on the books. Social Security is a tough one, but Medicare is even tougher. If we are going to address it effectively, we do need those revenues from the tobacco settlement in order to make sure that our seniors have a legitimate health insurance program. So this proposal that we have in this budget to put the money into Medicare is the most logical place that it should go. It should not go to some new program that the President announces. Every day, he seems to announce a new program on the basis of the tobacco settlement. There was a week where I think literally every day of the week he announced a new program. Let's support the programs we have on the books, both in education and in health care. The tobacco settlement raises other issues, issues that I am concerned about. I read in the papers about the movement toward an agreement on the tobacco settlement. From my standpoint, I find the issue of immunity to be really the core issue of how this settlement comes down. Of course, it is the issue of immunity which the tobacco companies are trying to buy as they try to settle this lawsuit--this situation; it is not a lawsuit. It is a lawsuit in some areas but not a lawsuit at the Federal level. They are trying to buy immunity, and I have a lot of problems with that, and I should think any thinking Americans would have a lot of problems with that. Basically, what we would be doing if we give the tobacco companies immunity--remember that we as a Congress have been unwilling to give product liability protection, not immunity, just plain little old protection to company after company that functions across this country producing legitimate products that make sense for the American people, that they use regularly and that they need, whether it happens to be your toaster oven, or whether it happens to be some gadget in your car, or whether it happens to be some other item--your computer screen. Company after company which has sought product liability reform in this Congress has met with a stone wall. The only product liability we have given in this Congress over the last 10 years has been for the small plane producer, which was a very good decision, and it has worked great for them. For every other industry in this country, legitimate industries producing legitimate products that are used daily by Americans and that benefit Americans--benefit Americans--we have said no, absolutely no product liability protection. Yet, the tobacco companies come to us--the producers of a product which, by its very nature, causes an addiction which it appears the tobacco companies knew caused an addiction, the purpose of which was to not only addict Americans generally but specifically targeted at our kids to addict them to something that will kill them--when the tobacco companies come to us, we say, ``Oh, maybe we should give them immunity.'' What great irony. What incredible irony. We won't give immunity to the person who is making the toaster oven or the person who is making the computer or the person who is maybe making the device that allows somebody to live longer and live a better life, but we will give immunity to companies which are producing a product the purpose of which is to kill people, addict people and specifically targeted on our kids. I just find it incredible--incredible--that we would be considering that. What is the argument for giving immunity? ``Well, if we don't give them immunity, the tobacco companies won't agree to advertising restraints.'' That is the only thing they give us for their immunity. We allow them to continue to produce a product which is inherently deadly, which is addictive, and what do we get? We get a little less of Joe Camel. What a great deal that is for the American people and for this Congress. It is absurd. Yes, we can't put limitations on their advertising without their agreeing to it because of the first amendment, in many ways, but there are limitations we can put on that are within the first amendment. More importantly, we could act unilaterally as a Congress in all the other areas of this tobacco settlement, whether it has to be raising the cost of cigarettes so they become less marketable--which is exactly what we should do--whether it happens to be addressing the issues of immunity, or whether it happens to be initiating our own counteradvertising campaign, and certainly the Government of the United States has the capacity, the will and the dollars to do that without any question in a manner that will be equally effective. I will be happy to go into the arena of advertising and debate the issue. We can do everything in this tobacco settlement without granting immunity, but by granting immunity, we get virtually nothing. All we get is the tobacco companies agreeing to advertising limits. To me, it is inherently inconsistent and affronts the logic of the institution for us to be having our first major product liability protection flow to companies, flow to an industry which is producing a product the purpose of which is to addict people, specifically children, with the knowledge that it will kill them. It makes no sense. For that reason, I am offering a sense-of-the-Senate amendment on the issue of immunity. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from North Dakota is willing to yield back the time remaining on my amendment.

Mr. GREGG. Right. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Massachusetts proceed under the bill and not under the time on my amendment which is pending.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent we both be allowed to yield back-- I yield back my time.

Mr. GREGG. I send to the desk an amendment in the nature of a second degree.

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

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I certainly appreciate the support of the Senator from North Dakota on this amendment. I believe he has summarized the concern which I have as well. The fact is you can't defend immunity. It is just inconsistent with the policies of discovery to give immunity to a business which has basically targeted young people with an addictive product which was intended to kill them. The idea that we would start by giving immunity to that industry is not only ironic but totally wrong. So I certainly appreciate the support of the Senator from North Dakota in this effort. Madam President, I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of the Governmental Affairs Committee to meet on Monday, March 30, 1998, at 2 p.m. for a hearing on the nominations of Elaine D. Kaplan to be the special counsel in the Office of Special Counsel, and Ruth Y. Goldway to be Commissioner of the Postal Rate Commission.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I would have to say at the outset that I believe the certification process is a mistake because clearly it isn't working. But the fact is that as long as we have it, we ought to have integrity in it. And the fact is that, if we are going to look at the question of whether or not there has been an effort to comply that meets the terms of the certification process by Mexico, we would have to conclude that they have failed. We can wish that they had complied. We can hope that they had complied. We can say as a matter of public policy we truly wanted them to comply. But the fact is that they have not complied. To claim they have complied is to delude ourselves. Essentially it would be the same as suggesting that the Red Sox are going to win the World Series. We want it to happen, but we know it isn't going to happen. The fact is that Mexico and the core elements that are necessary for us to pursue the drug war in Mexico have been undermined by the cartels which earn so much money from the sale of drugs. The real problem here isn't Mexico, though. The real problem is ourselves. We could use that phrase, ``We have met the enemy and it is us.'' The fact is that our consumption of narcotics has corrupted not only much of the mechanism of Mexico but has corrupted the mechanism of Belize, Colombia, a series of countries in the Central American area, Peru, and in the Caribbean. We, as a nation, should truly be ashamed of what we are doing to these nations. Were I a Mexican or were I a citizen of Belize or Colombia or Peru, or a citizen of many of our Caribbean neighbors, I would be angered and outraged at the fact that my nation and the government of my nation, as a result of the demand for drugs in this country, the United States, has become so debilitated. It is really our utilization of those drugs which has undermined those nations. But the fact is that we do have the certification process, and the integrity of the certification process requires that we at least comply with its terms. Under the terms of the certification process, there is no way that we should be certifying Mexico. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Well, I don't rise in opposition to the substance of what the Senator from New Jersey has said. I think he has made the argument for his case very effectively. Certainly, this is a major issue for him and his State--cleaning up of this superfund site. What we are dealing with here, however, is the fact that we have been contacted by the Attorney General. Obviously, I am not the spokesman for the administration, and I would not put myself in the position of the other party, but I believe we have an obligation when we are contacted by the Attorney General. She has expressed her strong opposition to having this sense of the Senate passed during the pendency of the negotiation and litigation of this case. I think she has a very legitimate procedural position. Now, again, I am not arguing the equities of this or the substance of the question. I am arguing that it would be inappropriate, as she represents, for the Congress to express the sense of the Senate, which would then put the administration--specifically, the Attorney General-- in the difficult position of having the Congress interject itself in the middle of what are ongoing negotiations relative to the settlement in this case. Let me read briefly from her letter: The Department of Justice opposes this amendment, which is intended to influence the department in its conduct of the pending litigation. That is essentially a summary of the letter. It goes on to explain why the Department thinks that this will affect the litigation as it goes forward. So I rise with significant reservation about this because I recognize that the Senator from New Jersey has a very strong feeling and is trying to put forward his constituents' feelings. I believe we would be setting a very difficult, very inappropriate precedent as a Congress if we start interjecting ourselves into issues of negotiation in active litigation, where we have been advised by the Attorney General of the United States that that would negatively or inappropriately impact that litigation. From that standpoint, I have to rise in opposition to this sense of the Senate, with all due respect to the Senator from New Jersey, who I think clearly has made his case well. In light of the letter from the Attorney General, I believe it would be inappropriate to proceed at this time.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from North Carolina for his amendment, because it clearly outlines the problems which we have as a Congress with the representations that we continue to hear from the United Nations and some of the member nations within the United Nations relative to the obligations of the U.S. arrearages and, as we go into the future, relative to the obligations for the payment of the operation of the United Nations and the payment for the international organizations for the United Nations and the payment for peacekeeping. The fact is that the United States and the taxpayers of this country, to whom we answer, have been extremely generous with the United Nations--extremely generous. We have undertaken as a nation far more-- far more--than our fair share of the costs of initiatives which the United Nations is pursuing, and we are today undertaking far more than is our fair share, both in Southwest Asia and also in Bosnia. This supplemental appropriations bill has in it $1.9 billion, the purpose of which is to try to put our Defense Department into a position of solvency, for lack of a better term, relative to the costs of these peacekeeping missions, so that we are not culling, draining from our core defense establishment, funds necessary to maintain that establishment in order to undertake these peacekeeping initiatives in two areas where the United Nations has a primary role and has been one of the primary promoters. That is why we are pursuing this supplemental appropriations. But it is part of a larger picture, and the Senator from North Carolina has outlined it and pointed out rather precisely the dollars involved and the commitments we have made just in these two areas. I want to highlight a couple of points, because I am very tired, as chairman of the appropriating subcommittee that has responsibility for the U.N. accounts--I am very tired of hearing this constant moaning from New York, from members of the United Nations, about American arrears. Let's look at what those arrears are. Only $54 million--$54 million--a small number in the context of the entire budget, although a big number in the context of a small State like New Hampshire and certainly a very expensive number for the people of New Hampshire because that is coming out of our taxes--only $54 million goes to the operation of the United Nations of the alleged arrears that are presented to us. Of the total arrearage--and the debate is out there as to whether it is $600 million, $900 million, or $1.2 billion--of that total arrearage, only $54 million goes to operating accounts within the United Nations. The vast majority of the balance--there are a couple of international organizations involved here--but the vast majority of the balance flows through the United Nations to other nations to reimburse them for their peacekeeping costs. Let me list a few of these: France alleges it is owed $151 million; Italy alleges it is owed $62 million; Belgium, $58 million; The Netherlands, $50 million; India, $47 million; Pakistan, $45 million; Russia, $36 million. So, of the arrearages that are allegedly owed by the United States, they do not go to the operations of the United Nations. So when I see a headline like was held up earlier by the Senator from North Carolina which said we were undermining the United Nations by our failure to pay these arrearages, that is just poppycock. That is purely a statement of politics, not a statement of substance. The fact is that of the arrearages that are owed, should we end up paying them in full under our definition of what is ``in full,'' almost all that money is not going to stay at the United Nations; it is going to flow out to these other countries. I think the question has to be asked, What part have these other countries played in undertaking the burden of our activities, for example, in Iraq? Were they participants in the costs that we just incurred as a nation, which were dramatic, in Iraq? The present estimate of the Iraq costs, I think, is somewhere in the vicinity of $4.6 billion to our Defense Department in order to try to contain Saddam Hussein, and this was purely--purely--a U.N. initiative and effort. We were there flying under the flag of the United Nations, although our country obviously bore the biggest responsibility, because we are the most capable military power in the world. But to the extent we were there, we were picking up this ticketed cost of $4.6 billion to date, and it goes up every day. How much of that cost did these other nations, which are claiming that we are in arrears on peacekeeping and that they want us to pay them, pay for? How much of that cost? Well, France did not participate and has not participated in this most recent Iraqi buildup, to my knowledge. Italy did not participate. Belgium did not participate. The Netherlands did not participate. India did not participate. Pakistan did not participate. Russia did not participate. So, essentially, they are asking us to pay twice. They are saying first we have to pay these peacekeeping arrears to them, and then we have to go out and keep peace for them in Iraq. At some point, the American taxpayer starts to scratch his or her head and say, ``Hold it. You know, this is our money. We recognize we have a responsibility to the United Nations, but don't try to make fools of us.'' And that is the concern. The concern is that we are being asked to pay a disproportionate share of the burden of the peacekeeping activities of the United Nations today in Bosnia and in Iraq, and we are not getting any credit for it. To the credit of the Senator from North Carolina, he worked very hard to reach an agreement on how these arrearages should be managed as part of an overall reform package for the United Nations. A basic element of that reform package was that our peacekeeping responsibility would drop from 30 percent to 25 percent and that our dues for the operational aspects of the United Nations would drop from 25 percent down to, hopefully, 20 percent, at least 22 percent. We have not seen any action in that area, nor have we seen any action in the fundamental reforms which were alluded to, not specifically, but alluded to by the Senator from North Carolina as to the management of the United Nations, where American tax dollars are being used to hire the friend of a friend who happened to be the president of some country somewhere; an institution which is replete with duplication, bureaucracy, and, regrettably, in many instances pure old-fashioned patronage. American tax dollars are not being accounted for. They do not have a system of telling us where they spent the money. They do not have a personnel system that can tell us whom they hire, and they do not have a system which can tell us how their programs are being delivered and what the overhead of those programs is. So we asked for that as a condition for paying any further arrearages. None of this has been met. I come here with the same frustration as that of the Senator from North Carolina and, I think, the Senator from West Virginia as a cosponsor of this, and he is certainly a much more eloquent spokesman on issues like this than I am. But I, like many Americans, am saying, how can they continue to come to us and say, ``Give us more,'' when they are not giving us credit for what we have already done? The American taxpayer has a legitimate complaint here. The amendment of the Senator from North Carolina is a way to try to raise the visibility of that complaint. I congratulate him for it, and I hope we will adopt it. I yield the floor. Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.

Mr. GREGG. If I could continue that line of questioning, if you were to support your amendment, you would be protecting the surplus for Social Security, or hopefully for Social Security, but at least this spending which is incurred as a result of this proposal would come under the budget process in the manner which would require it be accounted for in the caps and therefore it would not impact the surplus.

Mr. GREGG. Soft-spoken. The question I was asking the Senator from Oklahoma, didn't the President, in the State of the Union, say we were going to save the surplus until the issue of Social Security had been addressed? Shouldn't we be saving the surplus for Social Security? Doesn't this proposal which has come up from the administration essentially undermine that goal of saving the surplus for Social Security?

Mr. GREGG. Didn't we say we were saving the surplus for Social Security? Didn't the President in the State of the Union say that surplus would be reserved in addressing Social Security? And if we undertake this procedure, which is a request from the administration-- --