Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator for his leadership on this issue.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I commend and congratulate my friend and colleague from Pennsylvania for introducing this legislation to set up a commission. I think it is very timely. I would just say to my friend from Pennsylvania, it seems that one of the things I have picked up in traveling around Iowa is that people are deeply concerned and somewhat unnerved by the fact that we have all these different types of voting machines around the United States. We are a mobile society. We move a lot. We go from one jurisdiction to another. You can go from one county to another and have a completely different system of voting on machines. Plus, some of these are really outdated. We have technology today that really can ensure that your vote is as you want it and that there are no mistakes made unless you intentionally want to do something such as that. We just have not adopted that new technology. I think the proper course would be to set up some type of commission, give them the proper funding, and make sure it is a bipartisan commission that would be evenly divided, that could go out and look at these things and perhaps report back to Congress in due time. I understand the Senator said he wanted 1 year to report back, if I am not mistaken.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I understand we are in morning business; and we can speak for up to how long?

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator from Nevada. I note many Americans have expressed concern about the time it is taking to determine whom the American people elected as President last Tuesday. We just came out of a meeting. A bunch of reporters stopped me just off the floor, talking to me about the crisis and shouldn't we have to get this resolved. I said: Wait a minute, there is no crisis in this country right now. Frankly, I am heartened to see that most Americans' first priority is to ensure the votes are counted with precision, accuracy, and fairness. The American people know how important is one of the bedrocks of our great democracy, the idea no matter how rich or poor, powerful or weak, no matter what race, creed, or sex, the vote of every American counts equally: One person, one vote. We can all agree this Presidential election is one of the closest in our Nation's history. Now it appears that Vice President Al Gore has won the popular vote. He currently leads by about 223,000 votes. He also, right now, is ahead in the electoral college, but that electoral college outcome is much less clear. At this point, whichever candidate wins Florida probably wins the Presidency, and right now, according to the latest reports, only 388 votes separate the two candidates. To put it in context, that is .0067 percent of the votes in Florida. Frankly, I think we can all agree the spirit of ``whatever it takes to win and to heck with the will of the voters'' has no place in American politics. So I was pleased to see the initial polling shows that these efforts have failed. According to a recent Newsweek poll, 72 percent of American adults believe that making certain the count is fair and accurate is more important than rushing to judgment to get matters resolved quickly. Yes, democracy is slow. Yes, democracy takes time. But it is worth it, and the American people understand that. There is no crisis. We should take our time, and we should determine accurately what the will of the voters really is. Much has been said of the hand counting of ballots in Florida, as if that were something strange and new. We do hand counting of ballots all the time for sheriff, for local county commissioner--all the time. This is done at every election in the United States, Federal and State and local, when it is very close. Why is the office of President less important than local sheriff? It seems to me if hand counting of a ballot is important for the local sheriff's race, it is equally important, even more important, for the highest office of the land. It has been said that machines are neither Democratic nor Republican. That is true. But let's keep in mind, the only reason we use voting machines in this country is, No. 1, it is cheaper and, No. 2, it is quicker. Still, the most accurate way to determine each person's vote is to have that person walk into a voting place, give each a paper ballot, and have each go in there and mark the boxes with an x, fold the ballot, step out, and put it in a box. Then when the polls close, a committee looks at these ballots and counts each one. That is clearly the most accurate way of counting votes. Why don't we do that in America? Obviously, you would not know the outcome of elections for months afterwards because it would take that long to hand count all the ballots. Second, it would be prohibitively expensive. But the idea that somehow machines are more accurate than human counts is just nonsensical. It is just not true. The human count is still the most accurate. When the votes are really close and when the office is at stake because of the closeness of the votes--.0067 percent of the votes in Florida, as I stand here--it is incumbent upon us to do what we would do in a local sheriff's race or supervisor's race, and that is to hand count these ballots. Again, having said that, I will have more to say about it later on this afternoon. I see the hour is 12:30 so the time has come for our recess. We will be back in at 2:15. At that time, I want to explore a little further the idea of having a standardized procedure for standardized voting machines for the entire country, one on which people can rely no matter where they live. People move all the time. They should not have to be confronted with different voting machines. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be listed as a cosponsor of the legislation just introduced by Senator Specter of Pennsylvania.

Mr. HARKIN. Has the hour of 12:30 arrived, Mr. President?

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, it has been more than a year since the Columbine tragedy, but still this Republican Congress refuses to act on sensible gun safety legislation. Since Columbine, thousands of Americans have been killed by gunfire. Until we act, Democrats in the Senate will read the names of some of those who have lost their lives to gun violence in the past year, and we will continue to do so every day that the Senate is in session. In the name of those who died, we will continue this fight. Following are the names of some of the people who were killed by gunfire one year ago today. October 31, 1999: Francisco Aguillon, 31, Chicago, IL; Helton Calderio, 42, Detroit, MI; Lashon Carter, 18, Kansas City, MO; Archie Dean, 29, Pittsburgh, PA; Roland Ford, 15, Washington, DC; Eddie Griffith, Sr., 71, Memphis, TN; Richard Hall, 19, Pittsburgh, PA; Larry Lavigne, 22, New Orleans, LA; Willie Matthews, 48, Oakland, CA; Preston Noble, 25, Philadelphia, PA; William Ohlig, 21, Philadelphia, PA; Billijo M. Pyle, 51, Akron, OH; Derrick Smith, 20, Rochester, NY; Doniell Smith, 14, Washington, DC; Gene Thompkins, 57, Akron, OH; and Jorge Vega, 34, Miami-Dade County, FL. Two of the victims of gun violence I mentioned, 15-year-old Roland Ford and 14-year-old Doniell Smith of Washington, D.C., were shot and killed by four masked gunmen while the two boys and their friends were walking back from a Halloween party hosted by their church. The gunmen fired nearly 30 shots into the group, injuring two and killing Roland and Doniell. A police department representative described the two boys as ``strait-laced kids who weren't involved in any negative activity in the community.'' We cannot sit back and allow such senseless gun violence to continue. The deaths of these people are a reminder to all of us that we need to enact sensible gun legislation now.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Our word is our bond. When you can't trust people to keep their word, this institution goes downhill. I am afraid that is what is happening now.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I was going to speak about the bankruptcy bill and how bad it is for working families, especially the elderly, and talk about how most of the people who are getting into bankruptcy situations are families who have unusually high medical bills. That is true in my State of Iowa, and many of these are elderly people. I will talk about that as we go along. However, I have to take a few minutes today to follow up on what our minority leader, Senator Daschle, just spoke about a few minutes ago. That is the status of the most important bill we have to pass, the education bill. One day has passed since Republican and Democratic negotiators came to agreement on the health and education appropriations bill for this year. As I said on the floor yesterday, the agreement we reached was a product of long and difficult bipartisan negotiations. Senator Stevens, Senator Byrd, Senator Specter, and I, along with Congressmen Bill Young, Dave Obey, and John Porter, worked for months to craft this agreement. We worked past 1:30 yesterday morning to hammer out the last remaining differences. As I said yesterday, as with any honorable compromise, both sides gave and got. At times, the negotiations got a little heated, but both sides hung in there. In the end, we came up with a good compromise. Chairman Stevens and Chairman Young led these final negotiations. They have been charged by their leadership to come to closure so we can conclude our business and pass the bill. That is exactly what they did. Less than 12 hours after we reached an agreement and our staffs were busily writing the final conference report, a faction within the House Republican leadership, led by Congressman DeLay and Congressman Armey, decided to renege on our bipartisan compromise. As I said yesterday, I hope, in the interests of our children and our country, they will reconsider and let the bill go forward. None of us is happy with everything in this bill. That is what bipartisan compromise is all about. Overall, passing this bill is in our Nation's best interests. Right now, I will mention a few more details of the agreement we reached to demonstrate to my colleagues and the American people why it is so important. There is a 16-percent increase overall in education; class-size reduction, 35 percent more. That means 12,000 new teachers will be hired across America this next year. There is a provision I have been working on for 8 years called school modernization. There is $1 billion included for school modernization, the first time we have ever had it. If the Iowa experience is any standard--and I think it will be--this should generate somewhere between $7 and $9 billion in needed school repairs around the country. Individuals with disability education grants go from $4.9 billion to $6.9 billion, a 40-percent increase, the largest in history, to help our local school districts educate our kids with special needs; also, $250 million in funds to increase accountability and to turn around failing schools. That is almost double what it was before. We had the largest increase ever in Pell grants, to make college affordable to working families. In this bill, 70,000 more kids will be able to get Head Start, bringing the total in our Head Start Program to 950,000 kids. There is money in there for youth training and youth opportunity grants; a 66-percent increase in money for child care; community health centers, up $150 million to $1.2 billion, meaning 1.5 million more patients can be served next year; the important low-income heating and energy assistance program, $300 million more; Breast and cervical cancer screening, so that women can get the needed preventive health care they need, an $18 million increase; NIH, a $1.7 billion increase, the largest in our Nation's history. Afterschool care is almost double; it means 850,000 children will be served by afterschool programs. Also in the health end, 9,600 more research projects, one of which could bring major medical breakthroughs in cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, or Parkinson's disease. That is what is in this bill. Forty- two thousand more women would be screened for breast and cervical cancer. That is cost effective and saves lives. There are a lot of things in this bill that are too important to be destroyed by last-minute partisan politics. As I said, nothing is perfect. The conference agreement has a number of items about which I have concern. For example, at the insistence of Republicans, an important regulation protecting workers from workplace injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome was delayed yet again. We have delayed these worker protections for 3 years now, and last year's conference report contained explicit language that they would not be delayed any further. Yet as part of the give and take of the final negotiations, language was included to delay implementing this regulation until June 1. Each year over 600,000 American workers suffer disabling, work- related muskoloskeletal disorders, like carpal tunnel syndrome and back injuries. Employers spend $15 to 20 billion a year just for workers compensation related to these injuries. The estimated annual total cost to workers and the Nation due to ergonomics is a high as $60 billion, according to the Department of Labor. So this is a major problem. This proposal was initiated under Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole in the Bush administration 9 years ago. This is not a partisan issue. It is a worker protection issue plain and simple. Apparently, that is not good enough for Mr. DeLay. He wants to kill this important worker protection outright. I do not see how we can face the 600,000 people who are injured each year and say, ``No, your health and your safety just aren't important enough to be protected.'' How can you say, with a straight face that protecting these workers from serious injury is a ``special interest provision. So I again urge the House Republican leadership to reconsider their decision to kill this important bill. We had a good, honest bipartisan agreement. Nobody loved every part of it, but it was decided upon honorably and in good-faith. This is what the American people want and need. They want us to work together in good faith and to come up with a product that is in their best interest. A lot of sweat and debate and compromise went into doing just that. It is late, but it is not too late to bring back our agreement. I am confident we would have more than enough votes in the House and Senate to pass it. And I have personally been assured by President Clinton that he would sign it as it come out of committee. We ought to do what is right. I just learned a few minutes ago that there is a possibility we are going to renege on the agreement that we reached in conference; that the language we adopted there is now being changed to reflect original language that we conferees talked about, fought over, discussed, changed, modified over a period of about--over a period of a couple of months but finally, Sunday night, over a period of about 2 or 3 hours. We finally reached language with which everyone agreed. I am now being told that language is being thrown out. It is being thrown out and we are going back to the initial language that was the source of the contention. If that is so then, indeed, we have reached a very bad situation in this Congress. If this is what happens, what it means is when we go to conference with the House and we come up with our compromises and we shake hands on it, we sign our names to it, if you happen to be in the majority, and you want to change it, then tough luck; it means absolutely nothing. We operate on our word around here.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Yes.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have now served on the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee. I have been on that committee 15 years. Each year when we pass the budget for education and health, there are always tough negotiations, but we always manage to get through it and we get it to the President and move ahead. This year we had some long and tough negotiations on our bill. The first part of the year, the majority leader of the Senate said education was going to be their priority. Yet here we are at the end of the year--actually at the beginning of the new fiscal year; we are a month into the new fiscal year--and we still do not have our education budget through yet. It is going to be the last bill through. We have been working very hard over the last several weeks to bring this bill to its final conclusion. First of all, the chairman of our appropriations subcommittee, Senator Specter, worked very hard this year to get it through our committee and to get it through the Senate. Then we went to conference, and we have been locked in conference now for the better part of 3 months, most of it over the last month working out these differences, as we do on bills. Last night, Sunday night, we met for what was supposed to be our final negotiating process on the education budget. We started meeting last night after our vote in the Senate, so that must have been around 8 or 9 p.m. We met until almost 2 a.m. There were tough negotiations. Senator Stevens, as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Congressman Bill Young from Florida on the House side, Congressman Porter, Congressman Obey, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee and on the subcommittee that deals with education, and I and, of course, the Director of OMB, Mr. Lew, was there also. As I said, we had tough negotiations, but we had it down to about four or five issues, finally, and we hammered them out. Finally, at about 1:30 a.m. this morning, we reached our agreement. As is usually true of any agreement or compromise, there are things in the compromise that I do not like. I am sure there were things in there Senator Stevens does not like. There are items in there that Congressman Porter, a Republican from the House, and Congressman Obey do not like. Together we decided this was the best package we could do, and we all shook hands on it. Today, thinking we had finally reached an agreement on this important education bill, I find out that Majority Whip DeLay has turned his thumbs down on it, and so did Majority Leader Armey turn his thumbs down on it. Evidently, Speaker Hastert has said the same thing. What are we doing here? Why do we even have committees? Why don't we just let Speaker Hastert and Congressman DeLay and Congressman Armey deal with everything? The reason we have the committees is because people such as Senator Stevens know these issues. He has been working on these issues for years. And Congressman Porter and Congressman Young and Congressman Obey and Senator Specter and myself, we know these issues. We know the ins and outs of these issues. We have been working on them a long time. I am not on the Commerce-State-Justice Committee, so I could not negotiate on that because I do not know all the ins and outs of it, and neither does Congressman DeLay or Congressman Armey or Congressman Hastert know that. Yet they turned thumbs down on this deal we struck last night. Senator Stevens worked long and hard to reach this agreement. I am sure he was not happy with everything that was in it, just as I was not. But Senator Stevens dealt in good faith. We gave our word. We shook hands on it. So did Congressman Bill Young. I have worked with Congressman Young for 15 years--and Congressman Porter and Congressman Obey. We reached our agreements. We walked out of the room at 1:30 a.m. And today, Congressman DeLay and Congressman Armey say: No. I do not know. I feel very badly for Senator Stevens and the others who worked very hard on this, gave their word, shook hands. We had the agreement. What is at stake here? Is this all just an inside ball game, that it shouldn't bother anybody outside the beltway? Here is what is at stake. In education: Pell grants, some of the largest increases ever in Pell grants; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, giving money out to the States to help pay for the education of kids with disabilities; class size reduction, hiring more schoolteachers to reduce class size; school modernization so we can get money out to our schools so they can repair and fix up their schools. The average age of our schools in America is 42 years. They need to be fixed up. We had money for that. In health care, medical research: All the money for NIH for medical research; all the money for our community health centers that are doing so much to help our uninsured people in this country with health care; an important cancer-screening program for breast and cervical cancer for women. Child care: One of the biggest increases that we have ever had for child care. These issues are too important to be playing politics at this late moment. That is what is happening on the House side--pure politics. Again, I hope this is just a temporary setback. Congressman Armey, Congressman DeLay, and Speaker Hastert are talking about things that they do not understand. I am hopeful they will meet with Congressman Young and Senator Stevens, who understand that we had an agreement. Not everyone liked it, but it was a good agreement. It was one that we could live with, and one that I felt the President could sign. So these issues are much too important for our Nation's future, for our kids' future, for the health of women--too important for these kinds of partisan games this late in the year. I just want to take this time to urge our friends on the House side to not play games with this important education bill. We have to get this money out. We are already a month into our fiscal year. Our colleges, our school boards, our State departments of education need to know, need to have this money out there, so we can continue to hire teachers and reduce class size and modernize our schools. We need to get the money out there for breast and cervical cancer screening for women all over America. What we do not need is the kind of interference that we have had by Congressman DeLay and Congressman Armey and Congressman Hastert on the House side. Now is the time to pull together, as we did last night. This was a true bipartisan effort. Republicans in the House, Democrats in the House, Republicans in the Senate, and Democrats in the Senate worked together and we got an agreement. That is the way this place should work. Senator Stevens led it on the Senate side, Congressman Young on the House side. We got our agreements. It is too bad we see this last minute kind of partisan bickering from the House leadership. Again, I am hopeful this is a temporary setback. Let's get our education bill done. Let's get it to the President so he can sign it, so we can move ahead with the necessary task of educating our kids in this country. It is, indeed, a sad day today when we see what happened in education.

Mr. HARKIN. Months.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator from Nevada for his very kind remarks. I would just say to him, also, that, quite frankly, we had great cooperation from Senator Stevens on the Republican side in getting this bill through. He worked very hard on it, too. I just want to make that point because it is just a darn shame that in these last hours we have gotten thrown into this partisan thing on the House side by the House leadership. I thank the Senator.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am proud to reintroduce the Conservation Security Act today together with Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon. This important bipartisan legislation represents the first meaningful step toward comprehensive conservation on all of America's working farms and ranches. Although the reintroduction of this bill comes late in the session, it represents the beginning of the new approach for conservation in the next farm bill.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am proud to reintroduce the Conservation Security Act today together with Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon. This important bipartisan legislation represents the first meaningful step toward comprehensive conservation on all of America's working farms and ranches. Although the reintroduction of this bill comes late in the session, it represents the beginning of the new approach for conservation in the next farm bill.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I agree on targeted tax cuts, but I would appreciate the Senator expanding on his point.

Mr. HARKIN. Would the Senator enlighten us a little further?

Mr. HARKIN. The Senator is right. It does not pass the fairness test at all. I might ask the Senator one other question. We know that there are a lot of people in this country who lack health insurance. As I understand it, in this tax bill, there is a provision that is supposed to expand coverage. But the way it is drafted, $18,000 in tax benefits are provided for each estimated person who will gain health insurance coverage. I ask the Senator, does this sound like fiscal conservatism?

Mr. HARKIN. I really appreciate the Senator's remarks. What the Republicans have done is they have given us this tax package without involving any Democrat. So you are right, none of us was in the room to ever ask the question, Is this fair? They have now dropped this on us. What they have done, really, is sort of given lie to their whole campaign theme with Governor Bush, and that is that you need a tax cut--to just shotgun it out there--and they have given us a targeted tax cut. I am grateful to the Senator for pointing that out.

Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate the Senator from Nebraska bringing that out because obviously this is a targeted tax cut. As the Senator just said, they have targeted it to the wrong people: not the kind of people and the families whose sons and daughters lost their lives in the Persian Gulf recently, not those, but to those with the highest incomes. I know the Senator had the aggregate figures, but he mentioned the fact that most of these families make less than $40,000 a year. Under the Republicans' targeted tax cut, if you are a family making $24,000 to $39,300 a year, if you are in that group where average Americans are, you get $94 a year in a tax cut. If, however, you are making more than $319,000 a year, on average, you get 4,158 bucks a year in a tax cut from their targeted tax cut. So the Senator is right. They have targeted it to those who make more than $319,000 a year. And the Senator is right, you have to ask the question: What is fair about this?

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I enjoyed the exchange I just had with my good friend of longstanding, Senator Bob Kerrey from Nebraska. I just want to talk a little about my friend Bob Kerrey as he seeks to retire from the Senate to start a new career. Bob Kerrey is what I have often referred to as two dying breeds all rolled into one: He is a true American war hero, the likes of which this body hasn't seen for over a century, and he is a public servant who speaks his mind and the truth regardless of the political costs. Around here, that is refreshing, as we just heard. We all know that, as a young man, Bob volunteered for duty, was accepted into the elite Navy Seals--believe me, I was in the Navy, and that is tough duty. He served in Vietnam. Three months into his service, in a very daring night mission, a grenade exploded at his feet that was thrown by the enemy. He lost his right leg below the knee. Although he was in unbearable pain from that and from other wounds on other parts of his body--his arms and hands--barely conscious, he continued to direct his men until they were able to escape. He won the Congressional Medal of Honor--the highest American decoration--for his courage. He is the only current Member of Congress with this distinction and only the fifth Member of the Senate to win this medal. The other four won theirs during the Civil War. So Bob Kerrey is the first Member of the Senate to win the Congressional Medal of Honor since the Civil War. That is why we haven't seen his likes around here in over a century. Senator Kerrey will never tell you all this. It is funny how those who have done the most in battle talk about it the least, and those who have done the least, who have used money and family connections to skirt military service, are always the loudest supporters of more military spending. Well, Senator Kerrey and I go back a long way--back to when he first ran for Governor and won in 1982. I had been in Congress for three or four terms by then. I remember going from my district border, the Missouri River--right across the Missouri River from Omaha. And since I was somewhat known in Omaha, I went across the river to campaign for this guy I had heard so much about. In spite of my having campaigned for him, he won the governorship. Since then, we have campaigned for each other in almost every election. He has either come over to campaign with me, or I have gone over to campaign with him in Nebraska. The exception, of course, was the Presidential race of 1992 when we both sought the nomination. So I suppose looking back on how things turned out, we might as well have campaigned for each other that year. Throughout his service as Governor of Nebraska and as that State's Senator, Bob Kerrey has never been afraid to let his colleagues, his constituents, and the American public know what is on his mind. He is not afraid to learn and grow and modify his opinions when issues become more clear and convincing and when other views come into play. In this way, Bob Kerrey is a model legislator--not so rigid that he is mired in constancy and not so drifting that he has lost his anger. Senator Kerrey has brought his honesty and clear thinking to a host of important issues. Throughout his career, he has worked to improve education in America. He has been a staunch advocate for Head Start, youth and family mentoring, and vocational education. He has been a leader in our battle to bridge the digital divide and bring technology to the classroom. The e-rate amendment that he cosponsored allowed schools in rural areas across America to access the Internet. He has been a lifelong champion of family farmers in Nebraska and throughout the country. He has fought to strengthen market prices, improve agricultural education, empower producers in USDA decisionmaking, and, of course, he has been one of the best supporters of increasing the use of ethanol. Bob Kerrey has also been at the forefront of a host of important government reform initiatives. He has worked on a national bipartisan commission to reform Medicare. He is chair of a bipartisan commission on entitlement and tax reform. He is cochair of a national commission on restructuring the IRS, a commission which he created back in 1996. In addition, Bob has a strong record of service to the Democratic Party. As chair of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee in 1995, 1996, and 1997, he pulled the Democrats through some tough times. If it weren't for his hard work, we might be a lot more of a minority than we are now. Senator Kerrey's heroism in Vietnam was just the beginning. He continued to act bravely and sacrifice greatly for this country throughout his career in government. The New School University is lucky to have someone of his stature and character at its helm. Bob Kerrey is a truly unique American, one who my wife Ruth and I have been privileged to call a friend for many, many years. Ruth and I wish Bob the best in his future endeavors, and we hope he will continue to make himself available for further public service. Our country needs it.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, an article appeared today in the Washington Post, Thursday, October 26, 2000, in which the American Academy of Actuaries, a respected nonpartisan organization of financial and statistical experts, reported Governor Bush's plan to cut taxes and divert Social Security payroll taxes to establish individual accounts would make it all but impossible to eliminate the publicly held national debt. It is interesting. Ari Fleischer, a Bush spokesman, faulted the study because it relied on growth estimates contained in a recent Congressional Budget Office report that projected long-term budget trends. He said that this assumes growth ``at an unusually low level'' past 2010. Wait a minute. The Congressional Budget Office is run by the Republicans, not by the Democrats. Lastly, this report said ``counting his taxes and individual accounts, Bush is very much overspending Gore.'' I ask, in this campaign who is really the big spender? Obviously, it is Gov. George Bush of Texas. Don't take my word for it. Take the word of the American Academy of Actuaries for it. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, while we are encouraged by democratic gains in Serbia, the people of Burma continue to suffer at the hands of the world's most brutal military dictatorship--a regime which, perversely, calls itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Now more than ever, as a nation committed to democracy, freedom, and universal human and worker rights, America must dissociate itself from Burma's repressive regime. We must do all we can to deny any material support to the military dictators who rule that country with an iron fist. Amidst the most recent crackdown on pro-democracy forces launched in mid-August, we must demonstrate anew to the Burmese people our recognition of their nightmarish plight and our support for their noble struggle to achieve democratic governance. A few yeas ago, Congress enacted some sanctions and President Clinton issued an Executive Order in response to a prolonged pattern of egregious human rights violations in Burma. At the heart of those measures is the existing prohibition on U.S. private companies making new investments in Burma's infrastructure. Pre-1997 investments were not affected. Nevertheless, the ruling military junta in Burma has hung on to power and continues to blatantly violate internationally-recognized human and worker rights. The most recent State Department Human Rights Country Report on Burma cites ``credible reports that Burmese Army soldiers have committed rape, forced porterage, and extrajudicial killing.'' It mentions arbitrary arrests and the detention of at least 1300 political prisoners. Human Rights Watch/Asia reports that children from ethnic minorities are forced to work under inhumane conditions for the Burmese Army, deprived of adequate medical care and sometimes dying from beatings. The UN Special Rapporteur on Burma, just released a chilling and alarming account which puts the number of child soldiers at 50,000--the highest in the world. Sadly, the children most vulnerable to recruitment into the military are orphans, street children, and the children of ethnic minorities. The same UN report also discussed how minorities in Burma continue to be the targets of violence. It deals vicious human rights violations aimed at minorities including extortion, rape, torture and other forms of physical abuse, forced labor, ``portering'', arbitrary arrests, long-term imprisonment, forcible relocation, and in some cases, extrajudicial executions. It also cites reports of massacres in the Shan state in the months of January, February and May of this year. A 1998 International Labor Organization Commission of Inquiry has determined that forced labor in Burma is practiced in a ``widespread and systematic manner, with total disregard for the human dignity, safety, health and basic needs of the people.'' In one recent high-profile court case, California District Court Judge Ronald Lew found ``ample evidence in the record linking the Burmese Government's use of forced labor to human rights abuses.'' In sum, gross violations of human rights and systematic labor repression inside Burma go on and on, outside the purview of CNN and the rest of the international media. But despite the onslaught of the Burmese military regime and their vow to destroy the National League for Democracy (NLD) by the end of this year. Aung San Suu Kyi, a remarkably courageous leader, stands steadfast--like a living Statue of Liberty--in her work with the Burmese people for democracy. We must never forget that she and her NLD colleagues won 392 of 485 seats in a democratic election held in 1990. But they have never been allowed to take office. Still, Aung San Suu Kyi--the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner--and countless others are denied freedom of association, speech and movement on a daily basis. During the past two and a half months, she has come under renewed threats and intimidation. Last August, her vehicle was forced off the road by Burmese security forces when she tried to travel outside Rangoon to meet with her NLD colleagues. She sat in her car on the roadside for a week until a midnight raid of 200 riot police forced her back to her home and placed her under house arrest until September 14, 2000. Nevertheless, she tried again on September 21st, but she was prevented from boarding a train. The latest pathetic excuse from the authorities for abridging her freedom to travel within Burma on that occasion, was that all tickets had been sold out. Mr. President, we must answer anew the cry of the Burmese people and their courageous leaders. That is why I wrote to President Clinton on September 12th and I ask that my letter be included in the Record at this time. In that letter, I spelled out in detail all of the reasons why a ban on apparel and textile imports from Burma makes good sense. As yet, I don't have a formal reply from the White House. Accordingly, I am introducing legislation today with Senators Leahy, Wellstone, Hollings, Feingold, Lautenberg, and Schumer to ban soaring imports of apparel and textiles from Burma. I am pleased that U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos from California is introducing the companion bill in the U.S. House of Representatives at the same time. Most Americans think that a trade ban with Burma already exists. This is simply not true. In fact, imports of apparel and textiles from Burma are increasing, sending hundreds of millions of US dollars straight into the coffers of the Burmese military dictatorship. These ruthless military dictators and their drug-trafficking cohorts are spending this hard currency to purchase more guns and to buy loyalty among their troops to continue their policy of repression and cruelty. According to the National Labor Committee, U.S. apparel imports from Burma between 1995 and 1999 increased by 272%. The World Trade Atlas shows that in just one year (1998-1999), apparel imports more than doubled, dramatically rising from $61 million to $131 million. In particular, knit and woven apparel accounted for over 80% of US imports from Burma during 1999. In other words, every time American consumers buy travel and sports bags, women's underwear, jumpers, shorts, tank tops and towels made in the Burmese gulag, they are unwittingly helping to sustain and tighten the repressive military junta's grip on power. US apparel imports from Burma provide the SPDC with critically-needed hard currency because the military dictators directly own or have taken de facto control of production in many apparel and textile factories. They profit even more from a 5% export tax. As I said earlier, this hard currency is used to buy new weapons and ammunition from China and elsewhere, thus underwriting the perpetuation of modern-day slavery, forced labor and forced child labor in Burma. But you don't have to take my word for it. At a recent news conference in Washington, DC, U Maung Maung, the General Secretary of the Federation of Trade Unions in Burma stated that ``the practice of purchasing garments made in Burma extends the continued exploitation of my people, including the use of slave labor by the regime, by further delaying the return of democratic government in Burma.'' At grave personal risk, he and other NLD leaders have disclosed that apparel and textile exports to America and other foreign markets are increasingly important in helping sustain the Burmese military junta in power. Some may ask whether a ban on Burmese apparel and textile imports might harm American companies and consumers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Currently, U.S. apparel and textile imports from Burma account for less than one-half of one percent of total US apparel and textile imports. Other may assert that enactment of this legislation would violate WTO rules. But if and when the Government of Burma should file a WTO complaint, I don't think we should shy away from such a case. It would present the opportunity to argue the view that WTO member nations should have the right, at a minimum, to enact laws to block imports of products made by forced labor or in flagrant violation of other internationally-recognized worker rights. In effect, if national governments cannot take a stand against trafficking in products made with forced labor in international trade, then under what human rights conditions or by what standards of civility will it ever be possible in the WTO system? Mr. President, America must take a stronger stand in solidarity with the Burmese people and in defense of universal human rights and worker rights in that besieged nation. Banning apparel and textile imports from Burma reflects the belief of the American people that increased trade with foreign countries must promote respect for human rights and worker rights as well as property rights. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that additional material be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am also introducing legislation today that would ensure working men and women the representation they deserve in future trade negotiations. The Trade and Labor Negotiation Fairness Act would create a new, Presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed position of Chief Labor Negotiator at the United States Trade Representative's USTR office. The Chief Labor Negotiator would represent the interests of workers during trade negotiations. Nearly three years ago, farmers and others in the U.S. agriculture sector felt they needed stronger representation and greater attention by USTR. So I called for the creation of a new position at USTR having ambassadorial rank and devoted solely to representing the U.S. in agricultural trade matters. I met with Ambassador Barshefsky and pursued my proposal in the Administration. Peter Scher was appointed early in 1997 to the new USTR position and was succeeded by Greg Frazier. Both of them have done a good job representing U.S. farmers and our agriculture sector. Earlier this year, in the Trade and Development Act of 2000, Congress specified in statute that USTR shall have a Chief Agricultural Negotiator. That position will exist regardless of who is in the White House or USTR. This position would have equal status to that of the Chief Agricultural Negotiator at USTR. Why do we need a Chief Labor Negotiator at USTR? Because the crucial role that worker rights play in the global economy has been ignored for too long. Enforceable labor standards have been left out of the trade agreements the U.S. has negotiated. U.S. working men and women are placed at a disadvantage by this unfair competition. If this trend continues, U.S.-based companies will face continuing pressure to lower their standards to compete in the global economy. The result will be depressed wages, fewer benefits, unsafe working conditions for American workers, and little or no improvement in other countries. We need to use trade negotiations to raise standards around the world--not drag down standards here at home. We must ensure that labor rights are a key consideration in future trade negotiations and an integral part of future trade agreements. The Chief Labor Negotiator's primary job would be to make this happen by ensuring that the interests of workers are represented in future trade negotiations. I've heard the argument that other countries don't want to talk about labor rights in trade discussions. USTR needs to take the lead and insist labor standards are an essential part of future trade negotiations. Our own economy and the well being of our families depend on it. And if trade is truly going to improve living standards around the world, it is essential that labor standards are included in future trade agreements. USTR needs someone who represents workers' interests--not on the sidelines, but in the room during discussion of future trade agreements. Because the Chief Labor Negotiator at USTR will have ambassadorial rank, that person will be able to meet with the highest- level trade officials of other countries--and to insist that labor standards are on the table and are included in future agreements. Vice President Gore recognizes that. He has repeatedly said that as President, he would work to ensure workers' rights are included in future trade agreements. Establishing a Chief Labor Negotiator position at USTR would help him and future Presidents keep that commitment. I urge my colleagues to review this bill over the coming weeks because I will be re-introducing it next year with the hope of getting it passed in the Senate and signed into law.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I along with 15 of my colleagues are introducing a bill today that addresses an issue we haven't talked enough about in the Senate in recent years--but it's a critically important issue that we cannot continue to ignore. I am talking about workers rights--specifically the erosion of a worker's fundamental right to strike, to protect that right. Today, we are introducing the Workplace Fairness Act. This may sound familiar to many of my colleagues here in the Senate. It was a bill my good friend and former colleague Senator Howard Metzenbaum from Ohio introduced in the 102d and 103d Congress. The Workplace Fairness Act would amend the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act by prohibiting employers from hiring permanent replacement workers during a strike. It would also make it an unfair labor practice for an employer to refuse to allow a striking worker who has made an unconditional offer to return to go back to work. Why do we need this legislation? Because right now, a right to strike is a right to be permanently replaced--to lose your job. Every cut-rate, cutthroat employer knows they can break a union if they are willing to play hardball and ruin the lives of the people who have made their company what it is. In my own state of Iowa--Titan Tire Company out of Des Moines, is trying to drive out the union workers with permanent replacements--the union has been on strike for two and a half years now. Over the past two decades, workers' right to strike has too often been undermined by the destructive practice of hiring permanent replacement workers. Since the 1980s, permanent replacements have been used again and again to break unions and to shift the balance between workers and management. Titan Tire just outside is just one of many examples. On May 1, 1998, the 650 members of the United Steelworkers of America, Local 164, who work in Des Moines Titan Tire plant, were forced into an Unfair Labor Practice Strike. During the contract negotiations preceding this strike, Titan International Inc. President and CEO, Morry Taylor, attempted to eliminate pension and medical benefits and illegally move jobs and equipment out of the plant. He also forced employees to work excessive mandatory overtime, sometimes working people as many as 26 days in a row without a day off. Well, the membership decided that Titan's final offer was impossible to accept, and they voted to strike. Two months later, in July, 1998, Titan began hiring permanent replacement workers. During the past two and a half years, approximately 500 permanent replacement workers have been hired at the Des Moines plant. And little or no progress has been made toward reaching a fair settlement. In fact, on April 30, 2000, the day before the second anniversary of the Titan strike, Morrie Taylor predicted that the strike would never be settled. Workers deserve better than this. Workers aren't disposable assets that can be thrown away when labor disputes arise. When we considered this legislation in 1994, the Senator Labor and Human Resources Committee heard poignant testimony about the emotional and financial hardships caused by hiring permanent replacement workers. We heard about workers losing their homes; going without health insurance because of the high costs of COBRA coverage; feeling useless when they were permanently replaced after years of loyal service. The right to strike--which we all know is a last resort since no worker takes the financial risk of a strike lightly--is fundamental to preserving workers' right to bargain for better wages and better working conditions. Without the right to strike, workers forego their fair share of bargaining power. Permanent striker replacement not only affects the workers who were replaced. It affects other workers in competing companies. When one employer in an industry breaks a union, hires permanent replacements, and cuts salaries and benefits, it affects all the other companies in the industry. Now they either have to find a way to compete with the low-wages and shoddy benefits of a cut-rate, cut-throat business--or they have to follow suit. Also, workers faced with being replaced are forced to make a choice. They can either stay with the union and fight for their jobs, or they can cross the picket line to avoid losing the job they've held for ten or twenty or thirty years. Is this a free choice, as some of our colleagues would suggest? Or is this blackmail that takes away the rights and the dignity of the workers of this country? What does it mean to tell workers, ``you have the right to strike''--when we allow them to be summarily fired for exercising that right? In reality, there is no legal right to strike today. And because there is no legal right to strike, there is no legal right to bargain collectively. And since there is no legal right to bargain collectively, there is no level playing field between workers and management. In other words, Management gets to say that you must bargain on their terms--or find some other place to work. If you're permanently replaced, that means you're out of work; you lose all your pension rights; you lose your seniority; you lose your job forever. How did this happen? We've got to go back to the 1930's for the answer. In response to widespread worker abuses--and union busting--Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act--the Wagner Act--in 1935 and it was signed into law by President Roosevelt. The Wagner Act guarantees workers the right to organize and bargain collectively and strike if necessary. It makes it illegal for companies to interfere with these rights. In fact, it specifies the right to strike and states: `Nothing in this act--except as specifically provided herein--shall be construed so as to interfere with or impede or diminish in any way the right to strike.' In 1938, the Supreme Court dealt the Wagner Act a mortal blow in the case National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) versus Mackay Radio and Telegraph Co. In that case, the Court said that Mackay Radio could hire permanent replacement workers for those engaged in an economic strike. There are two types of strikes: economic and unfair labor practices. Employers must rehire employees in unfair labor practice strikes. The NLRB determines if the strike is economic or based on unfair labor practices. Union cannot know in advance whether NLRB will rule that their employer has engaged in unfair labor practices. So any employee participating in a strike runs a risk of permanently losing his or her job. What's interesting is that following the Court's ruling, companies did not take advantage of this loophole until the 1980s. Before then, they recognized that doing that would upset this level playing field. For almost 40 years, management rarely hired permanent replacements. That began to change in the 1980s. Since then, hiring permanent replacements has become a routine practice to break unions and shift the balance between workers and management. Again Mr. President, the Workplace Fairness Act would restore the fundamental principle of fair labor-management relations--the right of workers to strike without having to fear losing their jobs. Permanent striker replacement keeps us from moving forward as a nation into an era of high-wage, high-skilled, highly productive jobs in the global marketplace. Without the right to strike, workers' rights will continue to erode. The result will be fewer incentives and less motivation to produce good work, and companies will also suffer with less quality in their products. Obviously, Mr. President, this legislation won't be adopted this year. But we are introducing it today to begin the debate and to signal our intent on raising it and other fundamental labor law reforms in the next session of Congress. Its time for us to level the playing field for hard-working Americans.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that floor privileges be granted to Jerry Pannullo, John Sparrow, Valerie Mark, and Ben Gann of the Finance Committee staff until the end of the session. I make that request on behalf of Senator Moynihan.