Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Wetlands, Private Property, and Nuclear Safety be granted permission to conduct a hearing Thursday, July 24, at 9:45 a.m., hearing room (SD-406).

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Lands of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, for purposes of conducting a subcommittee hearing which is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on H.R. 858 and S. 1028, to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct a pilot project on designated lands within Plumas, Lasse, and Tahoe National Forests in the State of California to demonstrate the effectiveness of the resource management activities proposed by the Qunicy Library Group and to amend current land and resource management.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on National Parks, Historic Preservation, and Recreation of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, for purposes of conducting a subcommittee hearing which is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. The purpose of this hearing is to review the process by which the National Park Service determines the suitability and feasibility of new areas to be added to the National Park System, and to examine the criteria used to determine national significance.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Securities of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, 1997, to conduct an oversight hearing on securities litigation abuses.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Does the Senator from California mind if we take another speaker?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, does the Senator from California have any additional speakers?

Mr. GREGG. We have 77 minutes?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Texas and engage in a colloquy.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. I object.

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

Mr. GREGG. I am sorry to break in. I was wondering if the Senator would agree to reducing the time of this amendment down to 3 hours equally divided?

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that, under the prior order on this amendment, the time be reduced to 3 hours.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from California.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator from Maine raising this very significant issue to the folks of Northeastern Maine. Those of us who have been to Caribou understand that it is the coldest place in America, consistently, and recognize that the issue of weather and predictability of weather is very important. Also, I know how important upgrading the Caribou Weather Service Office into a Weather Forecasting Office is for the people of Aroostook County. It is a major issue, and I can understand how strongly my friend and colleague from Maine feels about this matter. The Senator from Maine, Senator Collins, has made a very persuasive case for why the Weather Service Office in Caribou, ME, should be upgraded into a Weather Forecasting Office. We must always work to ensure public safety, and given the enormous land area, a Weather Forecasting Office would be a tremendous benefit for the people of northern Maine. You have my assurance, Senator Collins, that when the subcommittee receives the National Weather Service report and recommendations on a reorganization plan, the subcommittee will work closely with you regarding the Caribou, ME, Weather Service Office.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment that is pending and in support of the underlying bill, obviously. I think the Senator from Arkansas had certainly outlined rather effectively the problems with NED, the expense of this program, and the fact that the program, for all intents and purposes, involves a passing of Federal tax dollars, hard-earned tax dollars, on to a number of groups for the purposes of exercises which are of questionable value in the post-cold- war period: the Democratic National Committee, Republican National Committee, the AFL-CIO, and the Chamber of Commerce being the primary beneficiaries of this fund. I call this the club fund. You know, here in Washington there are a lot of folks who are sort of part of a club. The city has a bit of a clubby atmosphere. It is a you-scratch-my-back-and-I-scratch-your-back club. This is sort of one of the funding mechanisms for the club. I am not too surprised that some community of the press supports the exercise because the club, regrettably, involves some of the press, too. But, as a practical matter, there is very little substance done here. Let's take China, for example. I suppose if there is an example of a nation where we have concerns about democracy and its impact on our future as a country, China is probably it. How valuable is NED in relationship to China? Well, last year NED sent a lot of people over there. A lot of people took airline flights over there. There were a lot of good trips, I am sure, to China. China is a nice place to visit. I am absolutely sure of that. A lot of people had an opportunity to go there, people who were members of the Republican National Committee, Democratic National Committee, AFL-CIO activists, Chamber of Commerce activists, people who are friends--a lot of people who were friends of members of these different organizations went on trips. All of them went to China for a variety of meetings, and NED committed $2 million for various programs. They had about, I think, about 20 or 30 different meetings in China to tell China how to become a democracy; $20 million for 1 billion people. That works out to about 2 cents a person. I think they must have distributed toothpicks that said ``vote'' on them for 2 cents a person. The fact is, it had absolutely no impact. All it did was represent a nice trip for a bunch of folks from the United States who probably looked forward to going to China and meeting some folks in China. The inverse, of course, is that when China tried to influence our elections, I think we generated a fair amount of outrage here in the United States about that. We are still looking for Charlie Trie. Maybe he is working for NED in China now. The fact is, the influence of elections in the United States by a foreign country tends to really antagonize a few people--as it should, in the post-cold-war period. And vice versa. You know? Vice versa. So what's the purpose of NED? The purpose of NED is to, for the most part, be a nice gathering of folks who find it is a very effective way to fund various trips, various get-togethers around the globe. What does this amendment suggest we do to pay for these trips, to pay for this club activity? What is the suggestion of the way they are going to fund this? They are going to take the money out of the State Department capital account. Yes, the White House did not ask for as much money in the capital account as we put into it, because the White House wanted to spend the money on the United Nations and on international operations, international organizations. So they raided that fund for that account. That is a little more legitimate than NED but not a whole lot more legitimate than NED when you are talking about the capital account of the State Department. I submit to the people who are supporting this amendment that maybe they should read a few of the reports from the State Department about the present status of the State Department's capital situation. Maybe the people who offered this amendment would like to call up the United States on a dial telephone from Lagos. Maybe the people who offered this amendment would like to be working on a Wang computer that cannot communicate with any other computer in the United States. That is what we subject our people to at the State Department. The present infrastructure of the State Department is a disaster. They can't call home. And the practical effect of this amendment is that a lot of them aren't going to be able to call home. Or maybe when you have a constituent who has a family member who has run into a serious problem in one of these Third World nations and you are out trying to help your constituent out, you are going to be really upset that the State Department can't communicate with its people in the field effectively because 82 percent of the State Department radio equipment, 55 percent of their computer equipment, and 40 percent of their telephone equipment is totally obsolete. So what does this amendment suggest? It suggests we keep it obsolete so we can fund a bunch of folks at the Republican National Committee, Democratic National Committee, the AFL-CIO, and the Chamber of Commerce--who happen to have the best computer equipment in the world, the best communication equipment in the world--so we can fund them for their trips. What an absolute outrage. I cannot believe that we would consider doing this to the people who work at the State Department. It is an absolute affront. This is important. Yes, somebody said, this is serious business. You are darned right this is serious business. This is very serious business. You go out to these embassies in some of these Third World countries and you see what we subject our people to, and it is not right. They take their families along with them. They take their families along with them, and they get into some of these countries where Americans aren't all that popular, and their families are driving to work some morning, or driving to school, and their lives are threatened and they have no secure vehicles to travel in because we can't fund it--because we can't fund it. But we can fund a first-class airline ticket to China for somebody here in the United States to go to a meeting to talk about stuff and come back and have a good time on the trip. But we can't fund the protection of an American family serving overseas. It's really incredible. I heard somebody on this floor citing an editorial from the Wall Street Journal, or some commentary in the Wall Street Journal. You tell me the last time a reporter at the Wall Street Journal used a Wang computer to file their story. You tell me when that happened. Wang was a great company. It started right down the road from where I live. We were very sad to see it go by the way. The fact is that it did. Yet we still ask our people in the field to use Wang computers. This amendment takes from the capacity of the guys and women who are in the field doing the job of presenting American policy, it takes out of their hands the capacity to do their job and gives it to a bunch of folks who may be well intentioned but who do not accomplish a whole lot. I just find it unbelievable that the account into which you would dip to pay for the NED is the account which is absolutely critical to upgrading the State Department and giving our people in the field an adequate opportunity to represent us. But that is the amendment, and I look forward to this vote with some enthusiasm because this is going to be a real test of who really cares about the future of our State Department. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I withdraw my request, and we will just proceed here and see what happens.

Mr. GREGG. Well, I represent we will get the Senator his time.

Mr. GREGG. The Senator from North Dakota would like 15 minutes, the Senator from Arizona--does the Senator rise in support or opposition to the amendment?

Mr. GREGG. How much time would the Senator need?

Mr. GREGG. And the Senator from Arizona is asking for 10 minutes. I would suggest that neither myself nor the Senator from South Carolina, both of whom are involved in this issue, have had an opportunity to speak. So we may have to add a little bit more time. Why don't we add an additional--have the vote be at quarter of 5, add an additional 15 minutes with the time, an hour and 15 minutes equally divided, and 10 minutes to the Senator from Arizona. Is that acceptable?

Mr. GREGG. And the yeas and nays have been asked on that, is that correct?

Mr. GREGG. I believe the pending amendment is the second-degree. Whatever amendment is presently pending would be the intention of the Senator.

Mr. GREGG. If there is no objection from the other side, I would ask unanimous consent that the vote on the pending amendment be at 4:30, with the hour equally divided. I would ask, additionally, after the vote on the second-degree amendment offered by Senator McConnell, if the next matter before the body could be the matter of the ninth circuit and the amendment of the Senator from California.

Mr. GREGG. I was wondering if the Senator would be willing to enter into a time agreement so that we could move on with the bill. The Senator mentioned that after he had spoken for a while he might be willing to consider that. He has spoken now for approximately 40 minutes and the other side has taken approximately the same amount of time. I was wondering if we could enter an agreement which would limit debate to an additional hour with the time equally divided between the proponents and the opponents and have a vote here at 4:30.