Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to submit a resolution for myself and the two Senators from Virginia, honoring emergency medical services [EMS] personnel across the country. I was asked by Martin Singer, chief of the bureau of emergency medical services in New Hampshire, to submit this resolution, recognizing this important annual event. I am pleased to be joined by my two colleagues from Virginia, Mr. Warner and Mr. Robb, as original cosponsors. In 1993, the Virginia Association of Volunteer Rescue Squads, Inc., and the Stanley Wise Foundation organized the first annual National Emergency Medical Services Memorial Service in Roanoke, VA. As the first State in the Nation to have a volunteer rescue squad, Virginia has taken the lead in recognizing the importance of these members of our communities both through the establishment of a museum devoted to EMS personnel called To The Rescue and now a memorial service to honor those EMS personnel who have died in the line of duty. They have opened their doors to communities across the Nation giving them the opportunity to honor these selfless individuals. It is time now that we, as a Nation, recognize Virginia's efforts and let EMS personnel across the country know that we appreciate their efforts and honor those who have given their lives to save the lives of others with this national memorial service. The memorial service which has been held in Virginia annually for 5 years has now honored 119 EMS personnel from 35 States. My own State of New Hampshire has had three providers who had served our State honored for their extraordinary service. Most recently, in the ceremony held on May 24, 1997, Mr. Lawrence A. Volz of Newington, NH was honored. Mr. Volz lost his life in 1971 at age 48 while driving a community ambulance. This memorial service lets the family and friends of these very important people know that the ultimate sacrifice made by their loved ones for their fellow man is recognized and honored. It is my hope that the introduction of this resolution will make this very special service more widely recognized by the country as a whole to let all EMS personnel know that their dedication and contributions to their communities are greatly appreciated.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I thank the chairman of the committee.

Mr. GREGG. I wish to join with others in stating my admiration for the chairman's efforts here in getting this bill forward. He understates his role if he thinks somebody has worked harder than he. He is clearly the person who has put the most time in this and developed an excellent bill. That is the point. The bill reported out of the committee came out of the committee with a huge vote, 14-4, a very definitive statement by the committee which has a fair number of experts, one of whom you just heard, Senator Mikulski from Maryland, on various parts of this bill, a fair number of experts who understand the importance of bringing the FDA into the 21st century. Why is it important? I think the statement has been made over and over again here in the last few days, but I think it needs to be made again. The fact is this involves people's lives. We have spent a lot of time on this bill and we have had a lot of votes on this bill. We had an 89-5 cloture vote on September 5; a 94-4 cloture vote on September 17; and yesterday, a 98-2 vote in favor of the bill. At some point, people should be willing to say enough is enough. It was inappropriate to delay this bill as much as it has been delayed. This is about people's lives. The capacity to get these drugs out, to get these devices out, to give people the ability to use these various pharmaceutical treatments and various device treatments which are in many instances going to save lives and in almost all instances going to improve lives, is critical. I have a situation in New Hampshire. An attorney named John Hanson wrote to me about a friend of his who, regrettably, has ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. This is a horrible disease. It is a disease that eats away at your capacity as an individual to function. Although your mind stays sharp, the rest of your body fails. Every day that goes by is a critical day to this individual, every day that goes by. Now, the FDA had a product before it called myotropin which is waiting for approval. The people who have ALS are very interested in getting this drug, but they can't get it because the FDA has taken the position that it is not yet available on the market. Why is that? It is because of this long lead time of bureaucratic activity that is the wrap-up period for the approval of drugs. Regrettably, as a result of that long lead time, which can be years and years and years, many people are unable to get these drugs which are so important to them. In a case like ALS, of course, it really is the individual who should have some option in being able to choose whether or not to use a drug. That individual has a pretty stark choice before them--die as a result of the disease you have; or maybe have a chance of surviving as a result of taking a drug which maybe has not had years of review but has only had a few years of review. So the issue is how do we get the FDA to approve these drugs, approve these devices in a prompter manner, in a manner which doesn't give up any of the need for making sure that the drugs are safe and that they work, making sure that the devices are safe and that they work, but does give up the bureaucracy which has for so long and so often stifled a prompt review process. So this bill which the Senator from Vermont has brought forward today really does attempt to overcome what you might call the culture of overcautiousness which has become, regrettably, the culture of the FDA. It is an attempt to say to the FDA in a very definitive way, listen, we understand the importance of what you do, we understand that you are sincere and committed individuals. But we also understand there is another part of this formula that is called getting the drugs to the patients, getting the devices to the patients. So, let's start working as a team to get these things out quickly. To accomplish that, a number of proposals were put forward to make the FDA work more effectively and make the drugs and devices which are distributed across this country more understandable in their usage and also more readily available when they work. We have heard a lot of discussion, of course, about section 404. I note that the Senator from Massachusetts has another group of lists up there on section 404 of people involved in this issue. One thing that has been mentioned is that this new section 404 may in some way be tied into the fen/phen issue. Well, it is not. Section 404 is a device section. It is not a drug section and does not apply to drugs or drug manufacturers. Using that as an example, which just recently occurred, is truly a red herring. The purpose of section 404 obviously is to try and get these devices out in a more prompt and efficient manner. Now this language was put together after a lot of work and a lot of negotiation, a lot of discussion, with all the different parties involved. I know the Senator from Vermont was actively involved, the Senator from Indiana was aggressively involved. My sense is that everybody who had a legitimate concern about section 404 had a fair hearing before the committee, and the committee decided that the compromise language which was put in the bill--and believe me, it was compromise language--on section 404 was the most effective and appropriate way to go. The committee decided it by a 14-4 vote. I hope this Congress and this Senate specifically would give considerable respect to the efforts that were made at the committee level on this specific issue. I do think in this instance the Senator from Massachusetts is just plain wrong. His position is not consistent, in my opinion, because he has brought in debate over drugs with the medical device issue, but more importantly, it is not the position which was adopted by a vast majority of the members of the committee, because we understood the importance as a majority in the committee, 14 people who voted for this, of getting out some major reform in the FDA laws which would allow for a prompter approval process without giving up any of the issues of safety or effectiveness of the drugs or the devices that are being involved here. I congratulate the Senator from Vermont again for moving forward. It appears we may actually be getting to the end of the day on this bill relative to passage. I hope we would not see any more of this delay tactic as we move down the road because every day that gets delayed potentially costs a life, and certainly causes people who need these drugs, need these devices, a tremendous amount of anxiety on top of a situation which in almost every instance is already filled with extraordinary anxiety because of the type of disease or problem they have. So let's get on with doing the business of the Senate and pass this bill.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I understand we are in the middle of debate on FDA which has been going on for some days. I did want to talk briefly about the President's comments in New York yesterday relative to the United Nations. The President went to the U.N. General Assembly and made a very eloquent speech, as he often does, in which he promised that he would be paying what is represented to be the arrears of the people of the United States that we owe to the United Nations, arrears which is somewhere around $1 billion. I think that was generous of the President to do that. But he should have made it much clearer what the conditions are for our paying those arrearages. As chairman of the committee that has the authority over the spending of the money relative to the U.N. accounts, I have been working with Senator Helms and Senator Grams, along with the administration and with House Members, and we have developed a package which makes that payment to the United Nations conditioned. Unfortunately, the way the President expressed it, the conditions were mentioned only in passing, and hardly even mentioned at that. But the conditions are critical. The American people simply are not going to send another $1 billion to the United Nations unless the United Nations cleans up its act-- unless they reduce the patronage; unless they put in place accounting procedures that are trackable--so that we when we send $1 there we know where it goes. Today the American citizens pay 25 cents of every $1 spent at the United Nations and the United Nations has no idea where that money is spent. Not only do they have no idea where most of that money is spent--they may have an idea but they certainly don't know specifically where it goes--but, more importantly than that, they don't have any systems in place to assess whether or not the money is getting anything for the dollars that are being spent. What we are seeing is an institution which is rampant with mismanagement and inefficiencies. Regrettably, the President didn't point that out. He had an excellent opportunity to stand before that body and say, ``Listen, if you expect the American taxpayers to pay for a quarter of the cost of this institution then the American taxpayers expect adequate accounting. And the American taxpayers expect that it will be spent on programs that work. And the American taxpayers do not want to have their money spent on patronage. And they don't want to have it mismanaged, and do not want to have it inefficiently used.'' The new Secretary General of the United Nations has given a significant number of talks on this topic. He has pushed forward an agenda for reform. But his agenda for reform doesn't go as far as the agreed to package, which passed out of this Senate with an overwhelming vote. The simple fact is that I have come to the floor today to restate the obvious, which is that we are not going to send $1 billion to the United Nations until the conditions of that package are met, until we know that the dollars are being spent effectively, and until we know that there is in place a reform effort which is going to work. I regret that the President did not take the opportunity to express that thought to the membership of the United Nations. But I think the point should be clarified before the people who are expecting to get their billion dollars think they have a blank check, because they don't. We are not going to tolerate it. I yield the time.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator yielding. I wanted to speak on another item.

Mr. GREGG. Can I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed for 5 minutes under morning business?

Mr. GREGG. The request was to proceed for 5 minutes as if in morning business.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wanted to speak briefly on the amendment that has been offered. I recognize the Senator from Washington has raised the issue of constitutionality on this amendment. I leave that to constitutional attorneys in this body--of which he happens to be a leading one--to debate and discuss. Let me mention quickly some of my concerns to the opposition of the underlying amendment. I believe the Senator from Arkansas has brought forward an appropriate amendment. What we are talking about here is essentially corporate welfare. This is not about family, and whose families does this or that, quite honestly. As a practical matter I believe the majority of the mining companies involved here, or a large percentage, come from other countries. We are talking about families. It would be how we benefit families from different countries. It is a classic case of corporate welfare. The Senator from Arkansas has outlined in great detail, and very appropriately, what appears to a considerable outrage being perpetrated on the taxpayers of America in that we are selling land at $2.50 an acre which generates billions of dollars worth of revenue to corporations who pay virtually nothing in relationship to that revenue as it relates to the ore brought out of that land. In fact, the irony is they get a depletion allowance, a depletion tax allowance on the basis of this $2.50 land--not using that as a basis--which shouldn't apply to them to begin with because the land isn't purchased at a fair value. Yet they are given a tax break, a depletion allowance, in order to subsidize what is already grossly subsidized. It is appropriate as we step forward, as the Senator from Arkansas has, and say if you are going to make this type of money off lands which are publicly owned--and the land is not publicly owned by the State, it is publicly owned by the Federal Government, and the Federal Government is the people of this country, not just the people of one State--if you are going to make money off publicly owned lands, the public should get some sort of return on it. That is only reasonable. The public should have the right to expect that it would benefit from the extraction of these valuable ores from land which they own, much as anybody who was a stockholder in a company would benefit from the profits of a company. The taxpayer is essentially the stockholder. The land is owned by the taxpayer. Therefore, there is a legitimacy to the position taken by the Senator from Arkansas that the value that is being withdrawn from this land should be returned in part, at least, to the people whose land is being used. If you own a farm and you discover there is oil under your land, as a private citizen, and you go to an oil company and say, ``Come on to my farm and pump my oil out,'' you are not going to say, ``I will sell you my land for $2.50,'' would you? Nobody would, no. You will say, ``Come on to my land, I may lease it to you for $2.50''--I find that hard to believe for the purposes of pumping oil, ``but when you pump that oil out I will want a percentage of that profit.'' It is called a royalty payment. That is what is being proposed by the Senator from Arkansas. It is totally reasonable in light of the staggering, staggering wealth which is generated from these mining claims in exchange for the minute amount of money that is paid for these mining claims. Estimates that have been pointed out by the Senator from Arkansas: For as little as $1,500, people purchased mining claims that generated over $3 billion; for as little as $275, people purchased mining claims worth over $1 billion; for as little as $9,000 people generated mining claims worth over $11 billion; and we have pending one where people will pay about $10,000 for benefits of approximately $38 billion. How can anybody in good conscience go back to their taxpayers and say we just sold a piece of your land that has $38 billion worth of assets on it; we just sold it for 10,000 bucks? Who would go to their neighbor, with a straight face, and say ``They just found oil on my land. I just sold it to the oil companies for $10,000. The oil is worth $38 billion. Didn't I get a good deal, neighbor?'' You would be laughed out of town. I think people who have the responsibility, the fiduciary responsibility of protecting the taxpayer and the taxpayers' land might also be laughed out of town, or at least be voted out of town if they continue to pursue this course. I strongly support the underlying amendment. I will leave it to the constitutional lawyers to settle the constitutional point. But the concept of giving the taxpayers a fair break on this issue, the concept of giving the taxpayers a decent return on this very valuable asset is, I think, very appropriate, and it is time we started putting an end to this kind of corporate welfare. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to rise in support of the bill which has been brought forth by the Senator from Washington. I think he has done an extraordinary job in developing this appropriations language in this bill relative to the Interior and various departments which the Interior impacts. I especially want to thank him for his sensitivity relative to the Northeast. There is a different view in this country between the Northeast and the West on a number of issues that involve land conservation and the question especially of protecting lands, public lands. In the Northeast, especially in northern New England, we are still struggling with the fact that we would like to protect some additional lands. We have a spectacular place called the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, and it is the most visited national forest in the country. In fact, it receives more visitors per year than Yellowstone, which is a national park. It is under tremendous pressures from popular use because it is so close to the megalopolis of New York, Boston, and Washington. It is an extraordinary place, but to maintain it and to maintain its character, it requires that we continue to address some of the inholding issues around the national forest, and the Senator from the West has been sensitive to the Senators from the East on this point. I thank very much the Senator from Washington for his sensitivity in allowing us to go forward in this bill and complete the purchase of a very critical piece of land called Lake Tarleton in New Hampshire. In addition, he has assisted us in a number of other areas in this bill, and I thank him for it. I also want to talk about a position that has been brought forward in this bill relative to the National Endowment for the Arts, because I think the Senator from Washington has reached the appropriate balance in the language which he has put in this bill relative to the National Endowment for the Arts. The National Endowment for the Arts, as we all know, has been a lightning rod of controversy, especially on the House side, less so on our side of the aisle, because of some of the things that the Endowment over the years has funded, which have been mistakes, to say the least. But the fact is that there is a role, in my opinion, it is a limited role, but there is a role for the Federal Government and for State governments in the area of assisting the arts in this country. Arts are an expression of the culture of a country or a nation, an expression of the attitude, personality, and the strength of a nation. The ability to have a vibrant arts community in a nation is critical, I believe, to the good health and the good education of a nation. The Federal role, in participating in this, should be one of an incubator. The Federal role should be one as the starter of the initiatives. And the dollars which are put in this bill for the purposes of assisting the NEA and the Humanities Council are just that--they are startup dollars. Essentially, these dollars multiply two times, three times, sometimes five times their basic number.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, is time controlled?

Mr. GREGG. That is a good question. I think it is one of the questions which we need to answer as we go forward with this bill. And there are a number of amendments--I think the Senator has one; and I believe there are other Senators who are offering them--as to the proper allocation of the dollars between the States and between the National Arts Council which administers the Federal moneys. But if I can come back to that point, I want to talk generally about the need for Government support of the arts; and then in the allocation area I would like to come back to that. Because I think, first, we have to reach a consensus that there is a need for any dollars in the arts community to come from the Federal Government or from the State governments, and that consensus is a long way from being reached. Certainly on the House side they appear to be very resistant to that. My view is, as I was saying earlier, that there is a need for the Federal Government to play a role as basically the initiator of arts activities, as the incubator that allows the multiplier to occur that creates funding for the arts. As Governor of New Hampshire I had the same issue before me as to whether or not the State government should be involved in funding the arts. And at a time when we were having the most severe recession probably ever in the history of the State of New Hampshire, regrettably, and we were having to curtail our funding in a variety of areas and cut them back dramatically, I maintained the arts funding, in fact increased it a little bit in the State because I felt strongly that, first, it gave definition and it gave a way of viewing our culture that was critical and, second, it also had a very positive impact, especially in New Hampshire, on our tourist industry. The arts--performing arts especially; but all forms of arts--go hand in hand, at least in New Hampshire, with the ability of the tourist industry, which happens to be our largest employer, to be a successful and vibrant industry. So there is an economic benefit of significant proportions to having a strong arts community. The investment which the State or the Federal Government makes in the arts community pays back not only in the way of getting more people involved in the arts, getting more schoolchildren involved in the arts, getting more parents involved with their kids in the arts, but also in the manner of producing economic activity which is fairly significant. The Senator from Arkansas has raised a very legitimate issue. I know his amendment raised this issue, an issue I raised in committee as a member of the authorizing committee. I sit on both the authorizing committee and have the good fortune to work with the Senator from Washington on the Appropriations Committee. But he has raised the issue, what is the proper allocation here? I think that is proper for debate. How much of the money should be retained with the central arts planning here in Washington and how much should go out to the States? I have always felt a larger percentage should go out to the States because I think that you get more benefit for the dollars spent at the State level. Therefore, a change in the formula would be something that I might well be amenable to. I have actually proposed such changes in committee. But I do think there is also a role, and I do not happen to believe we should eliminate a central arts council that manages a percentage of the dollars out of Washington. Why is that? Basically because there are a number of national efforts which do transcend State lines which need to get their funding out of a national fund as versus out of a State fund. For example, I believe the No. 1 item chosen by the NEA this year to fund--they have a competition obviously and, unfortunately, sometimes they choose some really poor ideas--but the No. 1 item that was agreed to on their list was to bring back out of mothballs the Egyptian exhibit which is now owned by the Brooklyn Museum. This is one of the most expansive exhibits of Egyptian art and artifacts in the world. It is competitive with the English collection and not completely competitive but certainly representative of even the collections in Cairo. These items had been sort of put in storage and collecting dust. Now the Brooklyn Museum has decided to bring them back. And I believe they are taking this around the country. It will be exceptionally educational for a large number of schoolchildren who participate in seeing this exhibit. It will be a national effort. That is the type of initiative that really should be supported from the national level as versus having to be absorbed by, for example, the State of New York which will obviously benefit from this exhibit but actually the whole country will benefit from it because it is going to travel around the country. There are other items, yes, that obviously are of a national nature and, yes, most of those institutions which are of a national nature, whether it be the New York Symphony or some sort of major proposal in Chicago or Los Angeles are centered in your major urban areas. That is just a fact of life. They are centered there for a variety of reasons and, therefore, those major urban areas do get a disproportionate amount of the national share of the NEA funding. But that is inevitably going to the happen that way as long as you have a national program that is trying to move these various cultural activities across the country. You are going to have to have a place where they are located where they start. The Boston Pops is in Boston, but it certainly has an impact across the country. Therefore, the main art centers of this Nation--and they do happen to be in your major urban areas--are always going to receive a disproportionate amount of the funds. So that does not bother me so much. What I do think is legitimate is the question of the proper allocation between the funds going to the National Endowment for the Arts versus going to the States. I do think we can take another look at that formula. I know the Senator from Arkansas is going to make a very aggressive and effective point for restructuring that formula, for restructuring the entire institution. I look forward to hearing his position on this. But I did want to make these initial comments first in support of the overall bill which I think the Senator from Washington has done an extraordinarily good job on and, second, in support of the basic thrust of his proposals relative to the endowments which are going to be the most controversial items I guess we will be hearing about on the floor. I yield back my time. Mr. HUTCHINSON addressed the Chair.

Mr. GREGG. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Arkansas for a question.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, this amendment, which we are now considering, is one which has been discussed already. It is something that has been worked out by the various parties involved. And certainly Senator Coats from Indiana has been the lead in trying to design this settlement of the matter. It essentially resolves the matter by making sure that the testing will be done by a totally independent organization, and it will in no way be influenced monetarily--by the monetary involvement of the Federal Government--by the Department of Education, or those forces in the Department of Education who are pushing for a national curriculum. It is, therefore, a totally voluntary effort, and something which I believe deserves our support as an attempt to try to move forward on this issue.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator from Alabama yield 5 minutes?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask the time, the 5 minutes, be divided evenly between those in favor and those in opposition.

Mr. GREGG. If I might ask a further question, it appears the Senator from Minnesota has launched an arrow that has missed its mark?

Mr. GREGG. So basically the amendment of the Senator from Minnesota doesn't apply to the Minnesota situation because the Minnesota situation is outside the underlying amendment. The amendment of the Senator from Minnesota applies to all the other States, except Minnesota, that are trying to reach an agreement through negotiation which has to be confirmed by this Congress.

Mr. GREGG. As I understand your underlying amendment, which has now been adopted, in the case where there is a settlement and the settlement has to come to the Congress to be confirmed, your amendment applies. But, in the case of Minnesota, where there is litigation going forward, and where there is a trial going forward and the matter will be decided by the courts through the litigation process rather than through a settlement confirmed by the Congress, your amendment would not apply.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, just to correct the Record, the $5 million the amendment of the Senator from Alabama presented is $5 million on top of ordinary and customary expenses. So if it cost $20 million or $100 million in the area of expenses to bring this lawsuit, that can be added to the $5 million base cost. My opposition--actually I probably will vote for it--but my position on the Durbin amendment is this. In concept, it is an excellent idea. But this is a sense of the Senate. A sense of the Senate means nothing. If the Senator from Illinois really means this, then he should have made it a matter of law. That is what it should be, a matter of law. We should be telling the tobacco companies you have to disclose. This sense of the Senate is a political document. It will give a lot of people in this body comfort politically, but it is not going to do one darned thing to get to the bottom of the question, which is how much are we going to end up paying to attorneys who are basically working with tobacco companies in obtaining their payment? How much is going to get paid to them as part of this settlement? The gravamen of this issue--to use the one legal term I remember from my law school days--is the point Senator Sessions made. When you have attorneys working against tobacco companies, and the tobacco company comes in and says, ``Well, here's another $1 billion in settlement,'' how long do they work against them? How aggressive are they in opposing them? If there is $40 billion of attorney's fees going out the door here, which is what is represented in some of the periodicals that have discussed this issue, how can you say that there is any sort of independence on the part of the plaintiff's counsel in the cases? The fact is, there are very few attorneys I know who, if somebody comes forward and says, ``Let's make this agreement,'' and they say, ``No, I can't agree to that,'' and then the person who says let's make this agreement says, ``Well, I'll give you another billion dollars in fees''--the attorneys are going to say that's pretty hard to turn down. Until we know what these attorneys are getting paid, we can't answer a lot of these questions. This Durbin amendment, as well-intentioned as it may be, accomplishes nothing in obtaining that knowledge. It is a sense of the Senate. We all know where those amendments go. This should be a matter of law.

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, first off, I am a cosponsor of the underlining Collins-Durbin or Durbin-Collins amendment. Second, I am a very suspicious of this tobacco agreement. I tend to think that there are some serious concerns here relative to what we are getting and what is being done. And especially I am concerned about the fact that I think the only winners out of this may be the trial lawyers and the tobacco companies. And I don't think that should be the result of the settlement. But I also strongly support what Senator Sessions, the former attorney general from Alabama, is proposing here because basically what we have here is an unholy alliance between the tobacco industry and the trial lawyers. It was pointed out very effectively by Senator Sessions that there is almost an ethical question here of whether then you pay off the people suing you to stop suing--pay them all off in terms of multiple billions of dollars. We are talking about here potentially $40 billion to $50 billion in attorney's fees, and whether or not when such an occurrence happens, whether you have any sort of agreement which is fair, ethical, or appropriate. So Senator Sessions has raised an extraordinarily legitimate question. I think it is extremely inconsistent for those who are opposing the tobacco settlement generally, and who have put forward this amendment-- the underlying amendment, which is a good one, to try to knock out at least one section of this proposal which was moved in the middle of the night--for that same position to be arguing on behalf of the trial lawyers, I find that to be entirely inconsistent. Moreover, I find the arguments that have been made from the either side to be filled with straw dogs and red herrings. Let's talk about them for a second. First is the argument that the Minnesota case wouldn't go forward. Of course the Minnesota case will be forward because the trial attorney's fees, which will be affected by the Sessions amendment, apply to the agreement--not to trying cases when there is a case tried, when it goes to trial, or when it is outside the parameters of the agreement. Then clearly the contingent fee will lie if the case is successful. So that is a red herring in the first order. The idea that this is unconstitutional because there is some sort of contract that is being abrogated, obviously it is constitutional because the fact is the Congress is being asked to create this contract. That is what we are being asked to do. There is no contract yet. The Congress is being asked to create a contract. If we are going to be asked to create this contract, we can certainly dictate one of the terms. And one nice term might be that we not end paying the trial lawyers $40 billion but rather pay NIH that $40 billion. In fact, by my estimate you can fund almost all the uninsured health care in this country today. Almost all of the people who do not have health care could be funded if we were to take $40 billion of the trial lawyer's fees and apply it to the uninsured people in this country. And, as a result, for almost a 5-year period I think you would have funding for the uninsured health care of people who do not have health insurance in this country. In fact, in the major debate that we just had over child health care insurance the issue was whether we should go from $16 to $24 billion in order to cover uninsured children in this country today--$24 billion for a 5-year period. This $50 billion for trial lawyers--let's put it toward the kids. Let's put it toward health care. It is a heck of a good idea that the Senator from Alabama has come up with. NIH can use this money much better. Uninsured people in the health care community can use this money much better. At the absolute minimum we should have some disclosure here as to what is going on. You talk about deals in the middle of the night, which the Senator from Illinois has so aptly pointed to, and the Senator from Maine has so aptly pointed to in the passage of this tax break, which is totally inappropriate, a deal in the middle of the night. This is a deal in the middle of night on some other continent. I mean, we can't even find out what this deal is. At least we found out what the tobacco deal was on the tax side, and the Sessions amendment will get us to the bottom of that issue to find out what the heck really happened here, and how much the attorney's fees are going to be. But we know they are going be massive. Otherwise they wouldn't be fighting so hard to keep us from finding out about them. So the Senator from Alabama has raised a totally appropriate amendment. It is a red herring to allege that this in any way assists the tobacco industry. It does just the opposite. The fact is that the trial lawyers have had a stranglehold on, regrettably, this administration. They have seen this administration veto two major product liability bills--the securities bill and the product liability bill, one of which we were smart enough to override, the other of which we couldn't override as a result of the trial lawyer influence. Now when we are trying to get to the bottom of just how much is going to be paid here, how much is coming out of the people's pockets, we run into this argument that it is inappropriate. The amendment of the Senator from Alabama is totally appropriate. And I strongly support it.

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I want to yield the floor to the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee who needs some time here to take up another issue, but just quickly before I do that, I do want to congratulate the Senator from Washington, Senator Gorton, for his proposal here, because it has highlighted what is the core debate in the issue of education, which has been raised in part by the President. This administration's approach to education is about the same as it has approached campaign finance reform--talks one game; does another game. Basically, the purpose of almost all the major initiatives that have come out of this administration on the issue of education have been to encourage and strengthen the control of the Federal Government over the process of educating children. Every initiative that seems to come out of this administration seems to have been drawn up in the bowels of the major labor unions, major teaching unions here in Washington, the purpose of which appears to be the fundamental goal of moving the control of education out of the local communities and into the Federal sector, out of the hands of the parents, out of the hands of the teachers, out of the hands of the school systems at the local level, into the hands of the Federal bureaucracy, into the hands of the big labor unions centered here in Washington. Their education initiatives can almost all be characterized as having that as their basic philosophical groundwork, whether it happens to be their initial proposal on Goals 2000, which luckily was amended so that that did not happen, or their initial proposal on national educational testing, which the President has now backed off of because the country has been alarmed by it and which he is changing. What Senator Gorton's proposal does is say, ``Let's end it right here. Let's return to the local folks, people who control the educational process, people who should be involved in the educational process, specifically, the parents, the teachers, the principals, local school boards, the capacity to manage the money we have the Federal Government presently controling. Let's end this huge bureaucracy which is draining off billions of dollars annually from the students of this country, turning it over to a class of individuals whose basic goal is to perpetuate their own careers versus perpetuating better education. Let's put an end to that. Let's give the dollars right to the schools. Let's let the schools, the parents, the teachers and the principals make the decision.'' It really should not be a unique or radical idea. It should be a very common, very appropriate idea. But in the context of the strange thought process which dominates the beltway, it appears to be a radical idea. Actually, I congratulate the Senator from Washington, Senator Gorton, for putting forward this initiative. I think it is going to generate a very huge and positive debate of the question of where the control of education should be. I look forward to participating in that debate. But I do not wish to take further time from the Senator from Delaware. Therefore, I yield the floor at this point. Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.

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