Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I am aware of this, and this is a situation we must work to rectify. Despite the best efforts of those of us who serve on the Appropriations Committee, the FDA is not getting the budget it deserves. In fact, Senator Hatch and I had hoped to use our amendment as a vehicle for adding funds to the FDA's budget, but we were reluctant to divert funds from the many agriculture programs funded within this bill. For that reason, we are offering this amendment today, in the hopes that it will focus FDA's efforts on better enforcement of the law.

Mr. HARKIN. Implementation of this Act has not been a top priority of the Food and Drug Administration.

Mr. HARKIN. I am in complete agreement. It astounds me that we could add so many new authorities to the law and have it called ``deregulation.'' I am affronted by any suggestion that the majority of both bodies of Congress could have endangered the public health in a way these news reports have falsely claimed. That simply was not the case, and I hope whomever is planting all these inaccuracies will stop.

Mr. HARKIN. If I could just amplify on that. To address any lingering concerns our colleagues might have that the FDA did not have adequate authority to act against an unsafe supplement, we provided an additional sixth tool to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. We gave the Secretary emergency authority to act against any supplement he believes poses an ``imminent hazard'' to public health.

Mr. HARKIN. It is amazing to me, and a complete indication of how little-enforced DSHEA is, that the FDA has apparently never invoked this section of the law. We hope to correct that deficiency with our amendment today.

Mr. HARKIN. So that there was absolutely no question about the FDA's authority in this area, during the debate on DSHEA we made clear that the FDA maintained its ability to act against false and misleading claims under section 343(a)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. This is the third important tool FDA maintains to assure consumers that they are taking safe and accurately labeled dietary supplement products. I worked very hard to make certain that we provided the FDA with adequate authority in this area, but that we did not open up the opportunity for the agency to twist and torture the law as they had done in years past.

Mr. HARKIN. It is a broad coalition, from farm groups to labor unions to consumer groups to parent teachers. It covers the entire spectrum of the food safety chain from farm to table. Now, some may be surprised there is meat and poultry industry support for my amendment. Do not be surprised. My staff and I have spent hours and hours in meetings trying to arrive at a compromise with industry opponents of these microbiological performance standards. My door has been open to all. There is no one who can say I would not meet with them to discuss how we reach some agreement. The reason we have this support from many meat and poultry groups is because the pathogen reduction standard is simply the right thing to do for food safety.

Mr. HARKIN. I am delighted to yield to my friend from Illinois who has led the charge for a single food agency in this country. He is on the right course. I hope he gets it done soon.

Mr. HARKIN. I believe that is entirely true. As I said, the reason we have such broad support is because the pathogen reduction standards is the right thing to do for food safety. The vast majority of our packers and our processers in this country are conscientious and want to do the right thing. They work with the Department of Agriculture. As my chart shows, they have been energetically reducing the number of pathogens that enter our foods. But, as anything else, there are always some out there who believe they can shave a little bit, skim a little bit, make an extra buck here or there. And after all, they can cite the Supreme Beef case in Texas, and say: You don't have the authority to enforce this standard. Those who have refused to compromise at all have resorted to a campaign against this amendment based on untruths and misstatements. I want to set the record straight on some of these most egregious examples. First, industry opponents have said that the current administration does not support having enforceable pathogen standards. As my friend from Illinois pointed out, just read what Ari Fleischer said at that press conference that morning, they want the toughest standards. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from Under Secretary for Food Safety, Dr. Murano.

Mr. HARKIN. The Department of Agriculture believes we must have performance standards with pathogens. Second, the industry opponents have said my amendment will codify the salmonella performance standard. This is patently untrue. We only clarify that the Secretary has a generic authority. We do not set any standard. I leave that to the scientists. Industry opponents claim my amendment would limit the Secretary's discretion to determine when a plant has failed to meet the performance standard. This is demonstrably untrue. We worked with Secretary Veneman to ensure my amendment preserves the Secretary's existing flexibility to work with plants in danger of failing the standard. We both want to avoid withdrawing inspections where plants are genuinely working to come into compliance with the standard and there is no immediate threat to public health. Obviously, if there is an immediate threat to public health, like E. coli, or something like that which will kill you, obviously, the Secretary should have the authority to shut that plant down. There are a number of other arguments they have made which are patently untrue, but I will not get into them here. In deciding whether to support my amendment, my colleagues should consider the following question: How do you explain to America's families why a plant shipping ground beef with salmonella levels more than five times the national average, ground beef that is going into the School Lunch Program, how do you explain to our families that plant shouldn't even be asked to clean up its act? These are the facts of the case in Texas. The plant had the worst record on pathogen levels in the country and one of its biggest customers was the School Lunch Program. It failed three rounds of salmonella testing. No one said, we are shutting you down. They asked them to submit a plan for corrective action. The owner refused. I think when the health of our kids is at stake and our families are at stake, this is common sense. Last, in trying to reach an agreement with those who are opposed to this amendment, I added a section. I will be very clear so people understand this added section. I will read it: Not later than May 31, 2002, the Secretary shall initiate public rulemaking to ensure the scientific basis for any such pathogen reduction standard. Now, the first part of my amendment basically says that between now and then the Secretary has the statutory authority to enforce the existing pathogen reduction standards based upon the salmonella bacteria indicator. That is all it says. So those who are opposed to my amendment are saying they want to leave a gap that between now and some indefinite time in the future the Secretary will not have that authority, will not have that authority to enforce a pathogen reduction standard. People ought to take a look around and see what is happening in this country. The people of this country are demanding we reduce the pathogens in our food and in our food supply. We have been doing it under the existing standard, but because of one district court case in Texas that said we did not give the Secretary the statutory authority, that is now in question. All my amendment does is give the Secretary the statutory authority to enforce the standards. We don't set the standards. And then it says further, by May 31 of next year the Secretary has to initiate public rulemaking to ensure that a pathogen reduction standard is based on good science. How can anyone argue with that? I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, there is a fundamental difference here. Quite frankly, the standard in place now is, in fact, based upon the best science that was available during the time when they promulgated that standard. As I pointed out in my amendment on May 31, the Secretary has to start rulemaking based upon the best science available. I agree with that. Let us not be mistaken. This amendment says if you want to have uncertainty out there as to whether or not the Secretary can enforce a patent and pathogen reduction standard, this is the amendment for you because that is what we have. We have uncertainty right now because of the Supreme Beef case in Texas. This amendment by my good friend from Nebraska basically says that is what we are going to have. We are going to have this vast uncertainty out there. I don't want my kids and I don't want your kids and grandkids, or the people of this country having that cloud of uncertainty. That is why I believe this amendment should be defeated--because it leaves the uncertainty there. It would allow for plants such as Supreme Beef to continue to snub their noses at the Secretary of Agriculture and at reducing the pathogen standard. That is why I move to table the second-degree amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues' support for the amendment that Senator Hatch and I are offering today. The Harkin-Hatch amendment provides $1 million to Center for Food Services and Applied Nutrition at the Food and Drug Administration to enhance enforcement of requirements under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act related to the accuracy of product labeling and the truthfulness and substantiation of claims. This is an area of extreme importance to American consumers, literally millions of whom regularly take dietary supplements to maintain their health. I was extremely proud to author the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act with Senator Hatch back in 1994. I think this law has helped consumers reap the tremendous benefits of safe dietary supplements that are doing to much so improve public health. When we passed DSHEA unanimously, we noted that improving the health status of American citizens ranked at the top of the government's national priorities. Never was that statement more true. Over the past decade, the importance of nutrition and the benefits of dietary supplements to health promotion and disease prevention have been documented increasingly in scientific studies. And, we should not forget that healthy lifestyles, including proper nutrition, can mitigate the need for expensive medical procedures. Almost daily, we are seeing exciting new reports about the health benefits that dietary supplements offer our citizens. For example, a recent study showed that the specific combination of vitamins C, E, and beta-carotene, and the minerals zinc and copper, can slow age-related macular degeneration, an eye disease that afflicts some eight million Americans and is a leading cause of visual impairment, blindness, and loss of independence in those over age 65. According to the Alliance for Aging Research, the U.S. currently spends more than $26 billion annually in additional health care costs for people over age 65 who lose their ability to live independently. Obviously, slowing this loss of independence due to blindness for even one year not only dramatically improves quality of life for the aging population, but it can save the Federal government potentially billions of dollars.

Mr. HARKIN. There is no question that there are some problems here, but I believe the majority of dietary supplements are upstanding products that are safe and accurately labeled. What we hope to convince our colleagues, though, is that problems in the marketplace are largely a failure of enforcement, and not of the law. I want to make clear to our colleagues that the bill we passed unanimously in both houses--seven years ago--and I might add that the Senate passed it unanimously, not once, but twice contains all the tools the government needs to address these concerns, as we will outline. But just don't take my word for it. The Commissioner of Food and Drugs in the Clinton Administration--Jane Henney, a physician who we all respect a great deal--has assured the Congress on more than one occasion that she believed the law provided her with adequate authority to act against unsafe or mislabeled products. Commissioner Henney assured me both publicly and privately that she was confident the law is sufficient to allow the FDA to act against any bad actors in the dietary supplement marketplace. It might be beneficial for us to review some of the authorities that the FDA has. First, the law allows the Food and Drug Administration to deem any dietary supplement product adulterated if the label fails to list any of the ingredients contained within and the quantities of those ingredients. This provision is contained within section 403(s)(1) and (2) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. If a product is adulterated, it cannot be legally sold. So, a mislabeled dietary supplement product is, quite simply, illegal.

Mr. HARKIN. It is our hope that the funding provided in our amendment will allow the FDA to devote additional staff to this effort. In so doing, we will be making great strides toward assuring Americans--be they farmers in Iowa, athletes in Utah, stay-at-home moms throughout the U.S., or even members of Congress--that the dietary supplement products they take are safe and accurately labeled.

Mr. HARKIN. I am appreciative of the Senator from Utah's efforts as well. It is no secret here that he is the world's number one proponent of dietary supplements. He has done an effective job of helping promote the public health through safe dietary supplements and I am pleased we have joined together today in this amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Let me follow up on that. The second tool DSHEA provided to FDA is the authority to promulgate new GMPs specifically for dietary supplements. Those regulations have been in development for the past several years, a source of great frustration to me and the Senator from Utah as well. We have written, called, and implored the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Health and Human Services to release these regulations, which we understand have been ready in near-final form for almost a year. It is past time those regulations were issued.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this amendment, I believe, comes at a very critical time in our Nation for concerns about our safety, about food safety, about what the Secretary of Health and Human Services has told us--that less than 1 percent of our imported food is being inspected. There is great concern. Quite frankly, I have been involved in agricultural matters now for 27 years. For many of those 27 years, I was involved, in both the House and the Senate, in changing the inspection procedures at the U.S. Department of Agriculture dealing with meat, poultry, meat products, and poultry products to ensure that the people of our country would have the highest assurance that the meat products and poultry products they were purchasing in the store would be safe, that they would have reduced pathogens, and that people could buy them with the absolute assurance that every possible step was taken to ensure they would not get sick. We have had cases in the recent past. We know about the Jack In The Box and E. Coli 015787. People died. We know from some of the lunch meat packaged in a plant in Michigan where people got sick. Some died there as well. There isn't a week that goes by that we don't hear reports of some illness someplace because of food, food products. It is not always meat, it may be other things. So during these years, we changed the processes to ensure we would have meat and meat products that would be as free from pathogens as possible. We called that the HACCP. That is what everybody calls it. It stands for the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point rule. We adopted that in 1996. It was a landmark revision of the meat and poultry inspection system. This rule implemented sweeping changes to accomplish one primary goal: To ensure safer meat and poultry products, to reduce the level of pathogens on meat and poultry products. That is why we did it. It took us years to get to that point. It was a significant departure from previous meat and poultry inspection efforts--the old poke and sniff system. That is what it was. You looked at it, you poked it and sniffed it, and if it seemed OK, it went through. It did absolutely nothing to ensure the reduction of pathogens. So for the first time, USDA was not only focused on ensuring good sanitation in plants, which we had always done, going clear back to the Wholesome Meat Act, but also on reducing pathogens--the things that really were making people sick. You might have had a plant that wasn't the cleanest in the world, but it may not have had pathogens. Maybe the plant looked clean on the outside--clean and sparkling--but at some point in that processing plant, or packing plant, pathogens could be entering the meat or meat products. The pathogen reduction rule that accompanied the HACCP rule established a modern inspection system based on two fundamental principles: First, the meat and poultry industry has the primary responsibility to ensure the safety of our products by designing and implementing food safety plants. Again, this is something the industry wanted. All these years, the industry kept coming to us saying: We can do it ourselves. We can set up systems to control the safety of our food and our meat and our meat products. So we said: OK, fine, you can have that authority. We will give that to you, along with the responsibility. So that was the first fundamental principle--that the industry was now going to be responsible. The second fundamental principle was that the public health is best served by reducing the level of pathogens on meat and poultry products nationwide. You might say, well, if you buy something with pathogens on it, if you cook it well enough, you don't have to worry. Fine. But a lot of people don't. A lot of people don't. So we said the public health of America is best served by reducing the pathogens on meat and poultry products. To accomplish these two principles, USDA developed pathogen reduction standards using salmonella as the indicator bacteria. These standards set targets that plants have to meet for reducing microbial pathogen levels. If a plant repeatedly fails to meet these targets, USDA may refuse to inspect the plant's products, effectively shutting the plant down until that plant implements a corrective action plan to meet the pathogen reduction standard. Recognize, I say ``may.'' The USDA may refuse to inspect the plant's products. It does not say ``shall.'' It says, ``may.'' So there is broad authority for the Secretary of Agriculture to work with a plant. If it has a problem, if there are pathogens that have showed up in the meat or poultry products, the Secretary can work with the plant. How did the pathogens get there? From where did they come? How do you control it? How do you keep it from happening in the future? That has been the process by which USDA has operated under this rule. Quite frankly, we have had some pretty amazing results. I use this first chart again to repeat for the sake of emphasis what I said. To ensure safe food we needed two things: We needed the HACCP plan. Plus, we needed the pathogen reduction standards. If you take away one or the other, it does not work. So you need both. So what has happened since 1996 when we first changed this and started implementing it? From 1998 to 2000, 2 years, salmonella, which makes you pretty sick--I know because I had it once--the class of the product, using the present performance standard, the one we now have, boilers have gone from 20 percent to 11.4 percent, almost cut in half. As I understand, we are making even further progress there. Ground beef went from 7.5 percent to 4.4 percent, again almost a 50- percent reduction. Ground chicken, where we had some baseline studies, we went from 44.6 percent incidents in ground chicken of salmonella to 16.2 percent. Are our people safer today? You bet they are safer. By a long shot, they are safer in eating meat, meat products, poultry and poultry products. So it is working. So what is this amendment all about that I just offered? What happened was there was a plant in Texas called Supreme Beef. Basically, Supreme Beef had been warned three times by the Department of Agriculture that they had too high a level of pathogen, salmonella, on their ground beef. This was a ground beef plant. They warned them one time. Did they shut the plant down? No, they did not shut the plant down. They said: You have too much salmonella in your ground beef. We found it. Do something about it. Work with us. Sometime later, I think about a year later, if I am not mistaken, USDA inspected the plant again, took some samples, and found out there was still a high level of salmonella in the ground beef. The USDA said to Supreme Beef, you have to clean up your act. You have to find out where these are coming from and stop it. Again, some time went by. USDA went back, inspected them the third time and found that same high level of salmonella in their ground beef. This time they told them to shut down. During the entire time USDA was working with Supreme Beef to get them to clean up their act, we continued to buy ground beef from that same plant for the school lunch program, even though it had high levels of salmonella, putting our kids in school at risk. Yet the Department of Agriculture worked with Supreme Beef to get them to find out where was the salmonella coming from and to stop it--three times. Yet Supreme Beef just thumbed their nose at the USDA. Then what happened? After USDA shut them down, lawyers for Supreme Beef went to court. They went to court arguing the Secretary of Agriculture did not have the authority to shut down Supreme Beef based upon these salmonella standards. The case was argued in Federal District Court in Texas. Supreme Beef lawyers went to court challenging the authority of the Secretary to take that action. It was argued at length. On May 25 of 2000, 1\1/2\ years ago, the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas held the United States Department of Agriculture does not have the statutory authority to enforce its salmonella pathogen reduction standard for ground beef. That case is now on appeal to the appeals court. We do not know when a decision is going to be made. Quite frankly, the Texas case is a frontal assault on microbiological standards, the very thing the people of our country are highly concerned about right now. The decision undermines the only objective standard we have right now to ensure that meat and poultry plants are reducing the level of pathogens on its products. It threatens the very core of the pathogen reduction rule itself. Let me be very clear. I think the district court got it wrong. I believe the existing meat and poultry inspection acts do give USDA that authority to issue and enforce pathogen reduction standards. I think it is intolerable to have the very core of this rule trampled by a handful of industry lawyers bent on ensuring there are no enforceable pathogen standards--none. That is what they want. That is why I have offered this amendment. This amendment has broad support among public health groups, consumer groups, farmers, labor unions, senior citizens, even the meat and poultry industry itself. The American Farm Bureau Federation supports this amendment, AARP, the American Food Safety Institute, American Public Health Association, the Consumer Federation of America, the National Farmers Union, the National Parent Teachers Association, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, the Iowa Meat Processors Association from my own State, the Iowa Pork Producers Association, and the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, the Consumers Union. I ask unanimous consent the list of all these groups that support my amendment and the letters from these groups in support of my amendment be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of Senator Inhofe, Senator Baucus, Senator Burns, Senator Johnson, Senator Hollings and myself, to introduce the General Aviation Assistance Act. This legislation would provide assistance in the form of Small Business Administration grants, helping to support an essential part of our aviation industry at a very critical time. When many of the large passenger airlines were in trouble, we knew we had to act quickly to support this vital industry. When the planes were grounded following the September 11 attacks, many airlines were in a precarious position. The situation in the general aviation industry is equally, if not more, precarious. And the services general aviation businesses provide are no less critical to our economy. In Iowa and in many rural States, commercial service is very limited. Without general aviation, traveling by air means driving for hours to reach a small commercial airport that offers few flights, often at inconvenient times. That is not a workable situation for most businesses. Many could not locate to rural America without general aviation services. The general aviation industry is made up of a number of small business. It operates at more than 5,300 public use airports nationwide, compared to the 650 airports in the nation that have airline service. Ninety-two percent of the aircraft registered in the United States are general aviation aircraft. That includes charter businesses, crop dusters, the people who maintain small noncommercial airports and those that train future pilots. These businesses provide jobs for thousands of hard-working Americans and many cannot survive much longer without our help. Our failure to support general aviation now would deal a severe blow to the rural economy. Unlike the commercial airlines, general aviation is made up largely of small businesses. Their ability to remain in business rests on their ability to fly. A very significant number of these businesses are in danger of not making it through the year without relief. Over the past month, while visiting many of Iowa's airports to discuss airlines safety, I also met with a number of general aviation operators. For many small plane operators, flight restrictions lasted far longer than they did for the big airlines. Indeed, there are still some general aviation companies near large cities that are still closed today. Last week, I spoke with Bill Kyle from Charles City, IA who is a small independent operator. From September 11 to September 22, he lost two thousand dollars a day. He is still losing $800 dollars every day because his business is reduced at a similar rate to the reductions seen in commercial aviation. These are not the type of losses that a small business like Bill Kyle's can survive, not without some assistance. The legislation we are introducing today will provide small general aviation businesses with grants to make up for their actual losses from September 11 through the end of the year. The program would be administered by the Small Business Administration which would make sure that the amount of assistance provided was fairly determined. Grants could be as much as $6 million, although, of course, the vast majority would be far less. We must act. This assistance could be the difference between a general aviation business taking off or being grounded permanently. A number of my colleagues are working to assist small business to recover from this tragedy. I am sure that many have been hearing from their constituents about this issue. So, I am sure they know that few small businesses have been impacted as dramatically as the hard-working people in general aviation. I am committed to getting general aviation back on track. It is important to these small businesses. It is important to the people they employ. And it is important to the rural economy as a whole. I ask my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I thank my friend and colleague from Arizona for elaborating. That is a concern, and should be a concern, to all of us. Pakistan is a nuclear power. We want to make sure the control of those nuclear arms is in responsible hands and in the hands of a military that is closer to us. Again, we have tried over the years to reestablish our military training programs with Pakistan. I hope we can get that back on course. I remember when Pakistan, in good faith, purchased a number of F-16s from the United States. They paid for them, and then the United States reneged. I am not going to get into all those issues. Let me put it this way. There was a contractual relationship and the United States reneged on it. The F-16s never went. We kept their money and their planes for several years. Finally, the Clinton administration made good on the money in a sort of roundabout way. I often think today, with what we are doing in going after the terrorists and their sponsors in Afghanistan, would it not be nice to know that the Pakistani Air Force had those F-16s--the kind of planes that we fly--and maybe they would have had that close relationship to us. Yet after they purchased and paid for them, we would not let them have them and we kept their money for several years. It was one of the darkest times in our relationship with Pakistan. I remember it well. Several of us here, including myself, Senator Brownback from Kansas, and others, had worked long and hard to get that straightened out. Anyway, all of these steps--the debt relief, the sanctions being lifted, the restoration of the military cooperation, all of which I support--we need to do sooner rather than later. But still more needs to be done. We should use our voice and our vote in the IMF, the World Bank, and other international financial institutions, to help Pakistan secure new loans on more favorable terms for its beleaguered economy. We should also provide much more than the $100 million in assistance that President Bush has recently pledged to assist Pakistan with the rising flood of Afghan refugees. That is another thing I found when I visited Pakistan. There were over 1.5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. They are left over from the Afghan war against the Soviets. These Afghans, for the most part, are living in refugee camps, poorly educated, poorly fed, and poorly housed. Pakistan did everything we asked them to do in prosecuting this proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Yet they have all these Afghan refugees there. Now more are coming across the border. Madam President, it was said to me a long time ago, before anybody ever heard of Osama bin Laden that these Afghan refugee camps are a breeding ground for the terrorists, a breeding ground now I know for Osama bin Laden and others. Pakistan needs help with these Afghan refugees. It is something we should have done a long time ago. Most important, now is the time for the United States to forge a new strategic partnership with Pakistan, while at the same time not giving up our ties with India. I do not believe it is one or the other. I am not saying we have to become friendly just with Pakistan and cut off India. I am not saying that at all. I know India and Pakistan have fought several wars in the past. I understand that. I believe we can maintain our ties with India and, at the same time, build a new strategic partnership with Pakistan. This new United States-Pakistani strategic partnership should be built upon three principal shared interests. First, the United States must commit to supporting a stable democratic Pakistan with a growing economy and at peace. With our support, Pakistan could serve as a model to many of the newly independent, mostly Muslim, countries of west and central Asia. Muslims could begin to see the United States as a willing economic partner in the Islamic world. That has not been the case for far too long. I am encouraged by the recent visit of Secretary Powell. As I read in the newspaper this morning, Secretary Powell and President Musharraf had discussed several items, one of which I noted with interest was educational assistance to Pakistan. During a visit to Pakistan, the then-President and Prime Minister and the head of education in Pakistan all met with me to tell me how bad the educational system was in Pakistan. They had all these phantom schools where people were being paid but no one was teaching anything. The structure of education had totally broken down in Pakistan. They knew I was on the Education Committee and the appropriations subcommittee for education, that it is a big interest of mine. They quite forthrightly asked if we could help them with educational assistance in Pakistan. So I came back and had a personal conversation with President Clinton, sort of debriefed him on my trip to Pakistan. I talked to him about this very point. I then called up my good friend Secretary of Education Dick Riley, and I talked to him about this. I said: The President is getting ready to take a trip to Pakistan and India in a couple of months. I would like to arrange for you, Mr. Secretary, to go with him to meet with people in Pakistan to begin to set up a structure whereby the United States could be involved with Pakistan in helping rearrange, restructure, and help build up their educational system in Pakistan. Everything was a green light. Secretary Riley was going to go with the President. The meetings were going to be set up in Pakistan. I thought this was going to signal a whole new era in our relationship with Pakistan. Then we know what happened. India, I thought in a very unwise and provocative maneuver, started exploding underground nuclear weapons again. In response to that, Pakistan exploded underground nuclear weapons. The President's trip was called off. A few months later, there was a military coup in Pakistan, a military government took over. That trip occurred later, but only in its barest form. That was a missed opportunity to establish, again, a new relationship with Pakistan. I am very encouraged that the present Government of Pakistan under President Musharraf has at least spoken with Secretary Powell about educational assistance. I will do whatever I can to help the Secretary of State and President Bush in whatever way to help provide that assistance. For too long, Pakistan has seen us as an ally who was there when it was in our interest and, when it was not in our immediate interest, we were gone. It was sort of, the United States uses us, they abuse us, and then they lose us. It is time to change that, and we must change that. It is true that Pakistan over its lifetime has had about half democratic governments and half military governments. In large part, that is because we have not paid attention, that we have not been as involved in helping establish and maintain the democratic structures in Pakistan that are truly responsive to the wishes of the people of Pakistan. Now is the time to reestablish that. I said there are three principal shared interests: First, supporting a stable democratic Pakistan with a growing economy and at peace. Second, we share an interest in containing and reversing the nuclear arms race and missile technology proliferation in South Asia. An arms race may be good business for the arms dealers, but it is bad for the economic and social development of that entire region. Unless and until the issue of Kashmir is settled, or at least until we have such time that Kashmir becomes a negotiating issue between Pakistan and India, we are going to have trouble in South Asia. It is time for our ally India to recognize that it can no longer ignore this, it can no longer take the posture that there is nothing to negotiate, and it is time for the United States, I believe, to be involved as an honest broker, as a third party broker in bringing India and Pakistan together to begin the diplomatic resolution of the conflict in Kashmir. I believe now is the time to start that also, and I believe it is in all of our best interests to do so. I call upon Pakistan in that vein to use its powers to control any and all terrorist type activities that may be happening in Kashmir, to use its armed forces and its police power to keep and prevent any altercations that may then provoke India to fire back, as we saw happen just the other day. I call upon India to refrain from any military actions in Kashmir. There needs to be a hiatus, but there can only be that hiatus if the United States is willing to use its good offices as an honest third party broker to step in and help arrange the negotiations between India and Pakistan. Third, we must work together more closely and for as long as it takes to reduce the threat of not only the international terrorism of Pakistan but of international narcotics trafficking, the trafficking in women, and the use and abuse of child labor. Pakistan has been one of the more forthright of the nations in all of South Asia in cutting down on the use of child labor. At least the Pakistan Government in the past admitted there was child labor and that they were willing to do something about it. We engaged with them in efforts to cut back on child labor. Pakistan has been forthright in helping to cut down on narcotics trafficking. Pakistan has also been very helpful in trying to cut down on the trafficking in women all over South Asia. These are three things about which Pakistan and the United States share mutual concerns, and we need to work more closely with them on these threats. Madam President, the multifaceted war against terrorism and its sponsors is not a war against Islam. We know that. Pakistan was among the very first nations of the world to recognize this critical distinction and to act upon it. This is all the more courageous and noteworthy because obviously the vast majority of Pakistanis are Muslims. It is not enough to simply embrace our Muslim friends in Pakistan and elsewhere in times of armed conflict, uncertainty, and threats to the United States. We owe it to them, to ourselves, to a more peaceful world, to commit now to building a much closer, lasting relationship with an ever-expanding circle of Islamic nations based upon mutual understanding, democratization, more broad-based economic development, and shared prosperity. As I have often said since September 11, yes, we have to get these terrorists. We have to rip the wires out of their network. We have to bring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and the other networks to justice. We need to break down the states that sponsor these terrorists. But if we do all of that and we walk away, our children and my grandchildren, 30, 40 years from now, will be facing the same thing. From Indonesia in the South Pacific, to Morocco, in the east Atlantic, stretching across a broad belt of South Asia, southeast Asia, southwest Asia, and northern Africa, lies the Islamic world--1.5 billion-plus people. It has become clear to me that the United States is not fully engaged with the people of the Islamic world. We have only dealt with the thin veneer of whatever dictator might be in charge, whatever prince or king, whatever shah at that point in time, and only if it serves some short-term best interests of the United States. We have failed to recognize the vast amount of poverty and illiteracy, the lack of decent things that make up the basics of life such as clean water and decent housing, a decent diet. So many of these people who live in the Islamic world from Indonesia to Morocco, so many live without education, without decent nutrition, without decent housing, with no hope. Perhaps out of this dark cloud that has now covered us will come a silver lining, that we will rid the world of organized terrorists, but that we will also recognize we must engage and embrace and be involved with that part of the world that encompasses over 20 percent of the world's population and that we must do it in a way that embraces their hopes and desires, their need to have a better share of the world's prosperity, their need for economic development, their need to have some hope for their kids and their grandkids for a better life. One image will always stick in my mind. I was in a small town in Pakistan, right on the border with India. It was a very poor community. I remember I met with one of the individuals, a man in charge of some of the city planning, who went to Harvard. He was there with almost an unimaginable task. We were driving down the street, a little dirt street, with sewage on both sides of the street. On the side of the sidewalks, up on the walk, was something that looked to me like maybe a barber shop. I am not certain what it was. Inside, while sitting in the car, literally 20 feet away, we saw a bunch of men sitting watching a color television. Obviously, it was the only television for quite a way around. They were watching the television, and on the screen was a soccer match being broadcast from England. I marveled at this. I saw these people in a poor community, with sewage in the streets, with not much in the way of clean water, a terrible educational system, bad housing, and they were watching a color television of this soccer match in England, with all these people who were dressed up and they were looking at all of the finery coming through that television. I thought, what are they thinking? They live like this, but they know there is another world that lives a lot differently. The world has shrunk in my lifetime, and, Madam President, in yours. We live in a world where we have instant communications and CNN. People know what is going on--not like it was when I was a kid. People know, those 1.5 billion Muslims in that part of the world, that, for whatever reason, they are not sharing in the world's prosperity. They know their kids don't have as much hope and they don't have as much hope for a better life. So maybe out of this dark cloud will come some silver lining that we will engage with this world in a sense of shared prosperity for the future of our entire globe. I believe much of this will hinge on our relationship with Pakistan. If we are now willing to reengage, to support a moderate Islamic state that does not shield and harbor terrorists but has arrested them and turned them over to us time after time, that has courageously stood up against those terrorists, that is supporting us in every way we could hope right now, that by establishing that relationship with Pakistan and not abandoning Pakistan once we put an end to the terrorists, I believe we will go a long way toward bringing that silver lining out of this dark cloud, for the entire Islamic world and for all of us. In this spirit, I plan to work with interested colleagues in the Senate and the House on both sides of the aisle to establish a congressional caucus on Pakistan and United States-Pakistani relations. After the terrible attacks of September 11, we must think anew and act anew toward the Islamic world. Let's start now by more fully embracing our long-time friends and partners in Pakistan. Together, we can build a foundation of a just and lasting peace, as well as prosecute the war against the misguided fanatical terrorists who are our common enemy. I hope Senators and House Members will join together in establishing this congressional caucus on Pakistan and United States-Pakistani relations. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes, I am happy to.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I take the floor to talk about our relationship with one of the longest, strongest allies we have ever had in this world and why I think it is so important for us at this point in time to recognize that and to move more aggressively towards reestablishing the kind of connections and ties and mutual support we have had with the nation of Pakistan in the past. Following the attacks of September 11, all eyes turned to South Asia and particularly to Afghanistan. Just as quickly, we began to look for allies in that region of the world. As has always been the case, the United States found a steadfast ally in Pakistan. Through thick and thin, we have never had a better ally in that region of the world and, in fact, in almost the entire world, but we have often failed to recognize this fact. Let's look at the record. Our close relationship with Pakistan began when that State was born in 1947 with the partition from India. At that time, we watched as the world began to divide into two camps--one led by the United States and the free world and democracies, and the other by the Soviet Union and the Communists. The temptation for the Pakistanis to stay neutral at best or to be opportunistic and go with the Soviet Union, since it was so close to the borders of the Soviet states at that time, was enormous. But when Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Kahn, chose to undertake his first foreign travel out of Pakistan--this is the first prime minister of a newly formed country, very close to the Soviet Union, right on the border of Communist China--he took his first trip to the United States. In a speech to Members of the U.S. Congress at that time, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Kahn proclaimed: No threat or persuasion, no material peril or ideological allurement could deflect Pakistan from its chosen path of free democracy. Imagine that. This was in 1947. Since those days, Pakistan has stood with the United States time and time again. In 1950, Pakistan declared its unqualified support for our position in the Korean conflict. Keep in mind, Pakistan shares a border with Communist China. They sent troops to fight alongside us in Korea, barely 3 years after Pakistan became a nation. Soon after that, Pakistan joined CENTO and SEATO, the Southeast Treaty Organization, supporting the U.S. in the long struggle to contain communism. In 1959, the U.S. and Pakistan signed the mutual defense treaty, which, by the way, is still in effect today. One year after that, Pakistan allowed the United States to set up bases in their country to conduct U-2 flights over the Soviet Union. As those who are at least my age may recall, the U-2 flight of Francis Gary Powers, which we remember was the U-2 shot down by a missile in the Soviet Union, originated in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, which we read so much about today since it is right on the border of Pakistan. After that U-2 flight was downed in the Soviet Union, Nikita Khruschev, in one of his more infamous, belligerent speeches, threatened to ``wipe Peshawar off the face of the earth'' because they had allowed our U-2 flights to originate there. Despite its relative proximity to the Soviet Union and the immediate threat it posed, Pakistan continued to stand with America. The threat crept even closer as the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. From the onset of that invasion in 1979 until the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, Pakistan cooperated fully with the United States to roll back the Soviet threat. It became the staging area for our work with the rebel forces in Afghanistan to throw back the Soviets. Probably a little known fact: In every conflict the United States has fought since Korea, Pakistan has sent troops to fight alongside us every single time. They even sent troops to help us in Haiti, of all places. They sent troops to fight alongside us in the Gulf War. In the United Nations--check the record on this--Pakistan was one of our strongest allies in voting with us. Their neighbor to the east was voting more often with the Soviet Union, but Pakistan was one of the best votes we had to support the United States in all these years in the United Nations. Pakistan has also repeatedly taken courageous actions against terrorism in recent years. We may remember when the two CIA employees were shot and killed right in our own backyard. Pakistani authorities arrested and turned over several suspected terrorists, including Mr. Mir Aimal Kasi who was convicted of killing the two CIA employees. Pakistan picked him up, gave him over to our authorities so we could bring him here, try him, and convict him of those killings. They turned over Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Pakistan turned him over to us. In 1998, they detained Mohammed Sadiq Howaida, involved with the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. Time and time and time again, when we wanted the terrorists turned over, Pakistan not only helped us hunt them down, but arrested them and then turned them over to us. Since the dark day of September 11, when we turned to Pakistan once again in our time of great need, most Pakistanis and their government are bravely standing with us at substantial risk to themselves. I believe history will record this as one of Pakistan's finest hours. I hope the courageous support in the war against terrorism will now open a new era of unparalleled bilateral collaborations between our two great nations. Yes, we must continue to encourage Pakistan, as well as India, to pursue sound nuclear policies and to sign the comprehensive test ban treaty. I believe that will come with continued, positive engagement. It will come as Pakistanis see their role as a critical U.S. ally in the region and as they are more fully recognized as a great leader, especially among the Muslim nations of the world. Madam President, Pakistan now faces its gravest crisis since the 1971 war with India, especially given its ethnic and religious makeup. Nevertheless, the Government of Pakistan has been remarkably forthcoming in its willingness to help the U.S. prosecute the war against the terrorists who perpetrated the recent horrific attacks in our country and their sponsors. President Musharraf has pledged to give the Americans just about everything they want. Now, that is just about as strong as what we heard from Prime Minister Blair in England. Yet this is from the President of a country in which there are elements--large elements--who support the Taliban and, quite frankly, do not support what the United States is doing. So President Musharraf has courageously stepped forward to help our country once again. We asked for an expanded information exchange between the United States and Pakistani intelligence services. They have given that to us. We asked for permission to use their air space for military purposes. They have given it to us. We asked for logistical support for any U.S. military operations to be launched from Pakistani territory. They have given us that commitment also. In short, in standing up to terrorism, no government--no government-- has been more responsive to U.S. requests since September 11, and no government is assuming greater risk to itself than the Government of Pakistan. The Bush administration is already moving on several fronts to solidify our short-term and long-term cooperation with the Government of Pakistan and to show our deep appreciation for the Pakistanis' strong support for the U.S.-led coalition that is now embarked on ridding the world of the scourge of terrorism. The remaining sanctions on Pakistan are in the process of being lifted. I compliment President Bush and his administration for beginning that process. Debt relief is being hammered out. U.S.-Pakistani military cooperation is quickly being restored--at least I hope so. The Senator from Arizona and I were just discussing this issue on the floor. The Senator from Arizona, Mr. Kyl, was recently in Pakistan, I believe, toward the end of August and had several meetings with the military and with the President. We were discussing this issue. My friend, the Senator from Arizona, heard there are a lot of people in the Pakistani military--many of whom are retiring or getting ready to retire--who trained with or worked with our military who feel a close kinship with our military. Yet because we have cut off this military-to-military engagement over the last 20-some years, if I am not mistaken--pretty darn close to 20 years--we have a whole new generation of young military officers who have come in who have no connection with the United States. In many cases, they have come from areas of Pakistan where the forces maybe are not too supportive of the United States, and may be closer to the Taliban, have more sway. So I am hopeful that the President and the Congress will give him whatever authority he needs to allow our military, once again, to engage in military-to-military cooperation with the Pakistani military to make sure that we can bring Pakistani military officers over here for training and for the kind of intermilitary kind of cooperation that I believe will help build a more lasting and strong friendship between our two peoples.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of Senator Inhofe, Senator Baucus, Senator Burns, Senator Johnson, Senator Hollings and myself, to introduce the General Aviation Assistance Act. This legislation would provide assistance in the form of Small Business Administration grants, helping to support an essential part of our aviation industry at a very critical time. When many of the large passenger airlines were in trouble, we knew we had to act quickly to support this vital industry. When the planes were grounded following the September 11 attacks, many airlines were in a precarious position. The situation in the general aviation industry is equally, if not more, precarious. And the services general aviation businesses provide are no less critical to our economy. In Iowa and in many rural States, commercial service is very limited. Without general aviation, traveling by air means driving for hours to reach a small commercial airport that offers few flights, often at inconvenient times. That is not a workable situation for most businesses. Many could not locate to rural America without general aviation services. The general aviation industry is made up of a number of small business. It operates at more than 5,300 public use airports nationwide, compared to the 650 airports in the nation that have airline service. Ninety-two percent of the aircraft registered in the United States are general aviation aircraft. That includes charter businesses, crop dusters, the people who maintain small noncommercial airports and those that train future pilots. These businesses provide jobs for thousands of hard-working Americans and many cannot survive much longer without our help. Our failure to support general aviation now would deal a severe blow to the rural economy. Unlike the commercial airlines, general aviation is made up largely of small businesses. Their ability to remain in business rests on their ability to fly. A very significant number of these businesses are in danger of not making it through the year without relief. Over the past month, while visiting many of Iowa's airports to discuss airlines safety, I also met with a number of general aviation operators. For many small plane operators, flight restrictions lasted far longer than they did for the big airlines. Indeed, there are still some general aviation companies near large cities that are still closed today. Last week, I spoke with Bill Kyle from Charles City, IA who is a small independent operator. From September 11 to September 22, he lost two thousand dollars a day. He is still losing $800 dollars every day because his business is reduced at a similar rate to the reductions seen in commercial aviation. These are not the type of losses that a small business like Bill Kyle's can survive, not without some assistance. The legislation we are introducing today will provide small general aviation businesses with grants to make up for their actual losses from September 11 through the end of the year. The program would be administered by the Small Business Administration which would make sure that the amount of assistance provided was fairly determined. Grants could be as much as $6 million, although, of course, the vast majority would be far less. We must act. This assistance could be the difference between a general aviation business taking off or being grounded permanently. A number of my colleagues are working to assist small business to recover from this tragedy. I am sure that many have been hearing from their constituents about this issue. So, I am sure they know that few small businesses have been impacted as dramatically as the hard-working people in general aviation. I am committed to getting general aviation back on track. It is important to these small businesses. It is important to the people they employ. And it is important to the rural economy as a whole. I ask my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry will conduct a business meeting on October 18, 2001, in SR-328A at 11 a.m. The purpose of this business meeting will be to discuss the new Federal farm bill.