Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate that. I want to take a few minutes, as I do every year when the debate comes up on IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, to set the record straight. There is hardly anyone left on the floor but my two good friends, the Senator from California and the distinguished chairman, the Senator from Pennsylvania. But I want to make clear that IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, is not a Federal mandate. The Senator from New Hampshire keeps talking about it as a Federal mandate. But saying it does not make it so. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is a civil rights bill. It is a bill that basically helps the States meet their constitutional obligation. In the early 1970s, there were two court cases in which the courts said that if a State chooses to fund public education, then children with disabilities enjoy a constitutional right to a free and appropriate public education. A State, if it wanted to, could say: We are not going to fund any public education, and they could do so. But if a State provides a free public education to its children, it cannot discriminate on the basis of race or sex or national origin. And as a result of these two cases that came up in the early 1970s, they cannot discriminate on the basis of disability, either. So as long as a State provides a free public education to its children, it cannot say, yes, for non-disabled students; but no to kids with disabilities. Constitutionally, they have to provide that free, appropriate public education to all kids. In 1975, the Congress said: Look, this is going to be a burden on the States, so we will help. We will help the States with some funding to meet their constitutional obligations. It is not a Federal mandate. So we set up this law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and we said: OK, we will provide you some funds to help you out if you do these certain things, meet these certain guidelines. No State has to take one penny of IDEA money. We do not force it on them. We do not say: You have to take it. We say: Look, because of the court cases, you have to provide a free, appropriate public education to every child with a disability. What we are saying at the Federal level is: We are going to help you do that. But, if you want our help here are the guidelines. Follow them and you get the money. That is the basis of IDEA. It is not a Federal mandate. We also keep hearing that somehow we guaranteed to help the States meet 40 percent of the cost of educating the kids with disabilities. That is not so. The maximum award to any State under IDEA would be 40 percent of the national per-pupil expenditure per year for education, not 40 percent of the cost of educating the kids in their State with disabilities. We said the maximum grant would be 40 percent of the national average cost of educating every child. That, right now, if I am not mistaken, is around $6,850. So $6,850 is the national per pupil average that we funded out of the Federal Government in 1998. The IDEA funding formula is 40 percent of the per pupil average or $2,750, give or take a few dollars. I am not going to figure it to the exact dollar. Under the legislation we have right now, it is about 11.7 percent. With the increase, it gets it up to about 15 percent. So we do have a ways to go before we reach the maximum of 40 percent.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, on January 6 of this year, the Majority Leader stood on the Senate Floor and told us that education would be a high priority for the Senate. This is what he said: Education is going to be a central issue this year. Democrats say it is important and it will be a high priority. Republicans say it will be a high priority. I don't think the Republican Leadership can make that claim today. We are now less than five legislative days--and that's counting Mondays and Fridays--before the end of the fiscal year, and there is one education bill that must be enacted--the education appropriations bill. Yet, despite proclamations that education would be a top priority, the Senate has been working on all but one of the thirteen appropriations bills. The only one left--the one that is now dead last--is the education bill. Mr. President, this is the wrong priority. Despite a valiant effort by the Chairman of the subcommittee--Senator Specter--the education appropriations bill has not even been written. Senator Specter has fought every day to move the bill. He tried in June, July, August, September. He tried last week. And, if that isn't bad enough, the leadership has robbed the education bill to pay for the others. As a result, we are looking at deep cuts in all of the programs funded by the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill. Not only is education dead last on the calendar, education is dead last for resources. Our subcommittee started with an allocation substantially below a freeze from last year. Now, it is even worse. Last week, the leadership staged a raid on education. They took another $7.276 billion in budget authority and $4.969 billion in outlays from education and other essential priorities in the bill. So now, our subcommittee allocation is $15.5 billion below a freeze. That means we are faced with cutting education programs a whopping 17%. What does a 17% cut mean? It means that 5,246 of the new teachers we hired to reduce class size will be fired. A 17% cut means that 142,000 students will be cut from the Head Start program. This cut means 2.1 million children will lose the extra help they receive from the Title I program to master the basics of reading and math. That is where we currently stand in the Senate. Yesterday, the House education appropriations subcommittee passed the FY 2000 bill. The news for education is not good. Under the House bill, U.S. schools will receive less money next year than last by $200 million. The bill falls $1.4 billion short of the President's budget request for the activities funded by the Department of Education and provides $500 million less for Head Start. The bill eliminates funding for the initiative to reduce class size so 30,000 will get pink slips next spring. The bill cut funding for education technology; froze funding for the Title I reading and math program and terminated the School to Work program. In addition, the bill cut, from current levels, funding for vital job training programs by $700 million because unemployment is low. Training programs do not only help workers when they lose a job but also help workers upgrade and improve their job skills to compete in the international marketplace. The gap between the rich and poor continues to grow and the key to reducing this disparity is to help workers improve their job skills. And yet, the House bill slashes funds to help workers upgrade their skills as we enter the new millenium. Last week, the Assistant Majority Leader said we should not be increasing funding for education. He was making a hypothetical statement about the education appropriations bill. The picture is becoming clear. The record is replete with statements from the other side talking about education as a priority. We now find those words are not even worth the paper on which they are written. The House has cut education, and the Assistant Majority Leader has concurred. The Republican leadership found $16 billion for the Pentagon. That's $4 billion more than DOD even asked for! And they found real money. But when it comes to education, we get platitudes and promises. The children of America deserve better. That's why we are offering this Sense of the Senate resolution. 17% cuts are unacceptable. Such cuts will savage our schools We must have significant new investments in education. There are more children in our public schools than at any time in our history and we must not turn our backs on them. We must keep our promise to help local school reduce class size. We must help keep our children safe by significantly increasing our investment in after school programs. We must increase our investments in IDEA and the Title I reading and math program. And we must help modernize our nation's crumbling schools. This resolution makes it clear that education will be a priority not just in words, but in deed. Actions by the Republican majority in Congress directly contradict the priorities of the American people. It is time to free the education spending bill and make the necessary investments in education. I urge my friends on the other side of the aisle to listen to the American people. Let us not get into another protracted battle over the education budget. I urge adoption of the resolution.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I don't think so. If I am wrong, someone please correct me because I would like to go out and buy some of that oil. I think I could turn it into a pretty handsome profit. I believe in the profit incentive. But you know darned well that you can't bill that oil at that price. They sell it to themselves at that price, and that is how they are getting out of paying the Government their fair share of royalties. I also have to ask the Senator from Nevada, I understand what the Senator from California is attempting to do is not to impose any kind of new tax--this is not a new tax, as I understand it--on the oil companies.

Mr. HARKIN. This is over centuries, thousands of years ago, tens of thousands of years ago, the winds blew and they blew up these huge mounds of fine dirt. There are only two places to this extent. One is here and one is in China. These are a natural phenomenon. They are beautiful, very scenic, and we are trying to reclaim them and preserve them for future generations. This money could help do that. I guess that is why I wanted to ask the Senator the question because he caught my attention when we talked about parks. We don't have national parks in Iowa. But we do have things such as the Loess Hills, Effigy Mounds, and some fishing and hunting areas that get money from the Water and Conservation Fund--and historic preservation. I am constrained on this. I am a big supporter of ethanol because ethanol is clean. We grow it. It is renewable. We don't have to import it from other countries. I have always thought that ethanol could compete fairly with oil. There is a provision in the law that gives a certain tax credit for the use of ethanol in gasoline. One of the Senators from Texas has always gone after it saying ethanol should not get any tax breaks; it should stand on its own two feet and compete against oil. I took the floor one time, I say to my friend from Nevada, and I said: Fine. Let's go back and recapture all of the tax breaks that all of the oil companies have gotten for the last 50 or 60 years. And how about the tax breaks they get now? How about this? If this doesn't amount to a tax break for big oil, I don't know what does. They want to keep that but they want to take away the small amount of tax credit that we have for ethanol. I want to get that off my chest because I hear these oil State Senators coming in here all the time telling me that we can't provide any kind of tax incentive for the use of ethanol because we don't for oil. Nonsense. This proves it right here.

Mr. HARKIN. I saw this figure. I can't attest to this. I thought this was pretty interesting--``Big Oil's Big Rip-off.'' The Hutchison amendment has already cost us $66 million in lost royalties, according to the Interior Department. Is that right? Already, to date, according to the Interior Department, taxpayers have lost $88 million. When you add the Hutchison amendment on that, it will cost us $154 million, according to the Interior Department. Is that correct?

Mr. HARKIN. Today, I learned a lot about the beauty of Nevada. I will take the Senator up on his offer to visit.

Mr. HARKIN. Secretary Babbitt came to Iowa and visited the Loess Hills area. He never knew they were there. No one ever talked about it. We are trying to preserve them. Let me, again, ask the Senator from Nevada, there was an editorial in USA Today.

Mr. HARKIN. There is an editorial in the USA Today, August 26 of last year, entitled, ``Time to clean up Big Oil's slick deal with Congress.'' They are talking about this very item, ripping off the taxpayers. ``According to the watchdog project on government oversight, there is more than $2 billion in uncollected Federal royalties at open market prices, and the total grows by more than $1 million every week.'' This editorial, along with an editorial that appeared in the Los Angeles Times of July 20 of this year, gave an indication of how much money was given by the oil companies in campaign contributions. Big oil contributed more than $35 million to national political committees and congressional candidates in this time over the last 12 years. I question no one's motives on this floor. I never question anyone's motives. I say this is another indication of why we need campaign finance reform.

Mr. HARKIN. But we have a different form. It is called ethanol. I will get to that in a second. Let me ask the Senator, I understand this loophole that allows a handful of oil companies to keep from paying their fair share of taxes for what is owed the Government--it is only just a few, and most of the oil companies pay their fair share. Is that right?

Mr. HARKIN. May I be heard on the point of order, Mr. President?

Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator will yield, I say it is absolutely relevant to the issue of oil companies, royalties, and how much they are paying, to say that Senators ought to have the right to defend their interests and to defend companies in their States. I don't question Senator Hutchison or anybody else is doing this in good conscience. They have their case to argue. That is fair. What I am saying, when we get editorials such as this that point out how much money has come from oil companies to the campaign coffers of the people making this debate, it demeans the whole debate. That is my point. I think the Senator would agree with me on that. My question is, this is tied into this debate. We could have a much better debate if we had that.

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent this editorial be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HARKIN. I have a statement and then a question. I thank the Senator for what he said about the land and water conservation funds because we use those in Iowa, too. Every dollar taken out, by losing it to the oil companies, is something we don't get to use to save some of our hunting grounds and fishing grounds.

Mr. HARKIN. We don't even have one.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator. I especially want to thank the Senator from California for her great leadership, and the Senator from Illinois who was making statements earlier. The Senator from Nevada has again put a finger on why we need to close this loophole and why what is happening right now is grossly unfair. It has come to my attention. I am not an expert on oil and all that kind of stuff. At least it is my understanding.

Mr. HARKIN. I am sure.

Mr. HARKIN. Doesn't it strike us as odd that 95 percent of the oil companies are good citizens? They pay their honest taxes. There are honest royalties. Yet we get 5 percent of the largest who are skirting the law, who are doing this, and keeping us from collecting the royalties that help us with our Land and Water Conservation Fund. So we are talking about 5 percent, a handful of the largest of all the oil companies. I ask my friend from Nevada, what sense does this make? Why would we excuse 5 percent of the largest when we stick it to the smaller oil companies and make them pay their royalties? If we are going to do this, why not do it for all of them? Second, we heard the Senator from North Dakota talking about how the railroads were putting up their value as par value, and he changed that when he became tax commissioner. I was thinking about that. I wonder if anyone has ever offered to buy a railroad at par value and whether they would sell it. I want to ask the Senator from Nevada, as to these oil companies, does the Senator think I could as a private individual--if I wanted to get an oil jobber and go buy oil--buy oil from those companies at the value they placed on this, at which they paid royalties?

Mr. HARKIN. Where do these royalties go? They don't go into the general coffers.

Mr. HARKIN. It is not a new tax. It is something they have known that they have had to pay all along and that they are supposed to pay. All, I guess, the Interior bill does is clarify the rules so they will pay their fair share, as I understand it. The amendment of the Senator from Texas stops this from happening. It lets the oil companies continue to underpay their royalties. Is that right?

Mr. HARKIN. It is not a new tax. It is a matter of having a handful of these companies pay what they owe. Is that correct?

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that an article appearing in the Los Angeles Times dated July 20--

Mr. HARKIN. I say to the Senator that we in Iowa are trying now to reclaim some of the Loess Hills. It is a wonderful natural phenomenon. It takes place in only two areas on Earth--here and in China. We are trying to reclaim these and make them a preserved area.

Mr. HARKIN

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