Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. Chief Justice, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HARKIN. I object. Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.

Mr. HARKIN. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I object.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. Chief Justice, I seek recognition.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of S. 281, to amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to clarify that forced or indentured labor includes forced or indentured child labor be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, let me take off a little bit on one aspect of this. Some people say, ``Well, there is a benefit to Senators meeting quietly, privately to discuss these.'' I believe that, and I would not, in any way, want to close, for example, some of the caucuses that we have--the occupant of the Chair remembers we had the closed caucus between the two parties to reach an agreement under which we are operating. I think there is a benefit to that, as the Washington Post article pointed out. That is fine, as we meet unofficially off the floor amongst ourselves to discuss things. But when the Senate meets as the Senate, as soon as that opening prayer is given by the Chaplain, this place should be open, and the trial should be open. Next, I believe that unless we open this trial up, we are going to sow the seeds of confusion, misinformation, suspicion and unnecessary conflict. Here is why I say that. As some wag once said, there is nothing secret about any secret meeting held here in Washington. Think, if you will, of a closed session of the Senate. The galleries are cleared, the cameras are shut off, reporters are gone, and we engage in debate on whatever issue we are going to debate. The debate is over. We open the galleries again, and 100 Senators rush out of here and they see all the reporters standing out here. What happens? ``Well, what happened, Senator?'' ``Well, don't quote me, not for attribution, but guess what this Senator said; guess what that Senator said?'' And so you get 100 different versions of what happened here on the Senate floor. I believe that will sow a lot of confusion, misinformation and unnecessary conflict. If the doors are open and if we debate in the open, there is no filter, it is unfiltered, and the public can see how and why we reached the decisions we reached. The press, quite frankly, obviously, as perhaps is their nature, is quick to pick up on conflict and rumor. I believe if we follow the rules to close the doors of this trial it will turn it more into a circus than anything else. If we open the debate, I don't believe we will have any problems. I was interested in an op-ed piece that was in the New York Times by former Senator Dale Bumpers. I read it, and there is a part in there I think really hits home. Former Senator Bumpers said: In a visit with Harry Truman in his home in Missouri in 1971, he admonished me to always put my trust in the people. ``They can handle it,'' he said. ``They can handle it.'' I believe the American people can handle it, too. I believe they can handle any debate, any discussion, any deliberation that we have on the Senate floor. Not only can they handle it, I believe they have a right to it. So Senator Wellstone and I will, at the first opportunity, when the first motion is made to dismiss the case, if that motion is made-- obviously the debate about that under the rules would be held in secret--we intend at that point to offer a preferential motion that the debate, the discussion in the Senate on the motion to dismiss be held openly, to suspend the rules. Obviously, that is a hurdle. To suspend the rules requires a two- thirds vote. It means that two-thirds of the Senate would have to vote to suspend the rules. As a further kind of anomaly, Mr. President, the motion to open up the Senate, to open up our debate and deliberation, the debate on that has to be held in private under the rules, strange as it may seem. And so we will at that point ask unanimous consent that the debate and discussion on whether we will open up the debate on the motion to dismiss be held openly. Of course, one Senator can object, and then we would have to go into a secret debate on our motion to open up the deliberation and the debate. And so that will happen sometime soon. Another issue has been raised, Mr. President--I would just like to cover it and then I am going to yield the floor to Senator Wellstone. The point has been raised, well, you know, if Senators start debating this and it gets in the open, then they get in front of the cameras, and, why, then this thing can go on and on and on because Senators--you know, we Senators like to talk, we can talk forever. Under the rules of the Senate, when we go into debate and deliberation on any motion, each Senator can be recognized only for 10 minutes--only for 10 minutes. And I think a lot of people are forgetting about that. Lastly, Mr. President, I remember in January of 1991 when I sat at the desk on that side over there and Senators had just been sworn in; housekeeping motions were being made. One motion was being made by the majority leader at that time that the Senate recess or adjourn--I forget--adjourn to a date certain--I think it was for the State of the Union--but during that period of time, that we would not have been in session, and the time would have run out on whether or not we would use force to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait, the gulf war. I stood at that time and raised an objection to the Senate recessing or adjourning over to that point. And I raised an objection that enabled us to have an open and public debate on whether or not we would authorize the President of the United States to conduct military operations in the gulf. We had that debate. And I think it was one of the Senate's finest hours. Even those with whom I disagreed I thought were eloquent and forceful in their arguments. We had the debate, we had the vote, and then we moved on. And I think the American people were better for that debate because it was held in the open. Mr. President, if we in the Senate can debate whether or not to send our sons and daughters off to distant lands to fight and die in a war-- something that touches every single American citizen--if we can debate that in open and in public, then in the name of all that is right about our Republic and our country and our openness and our system of government, why can we not debate and deliberate in the open something else that touches every American citizen? And that is, why or if the President of the United States should or should not be removed from office. If we can debate it openly, the issue of war, then certainly we can debate an issue in the open, the issue of whether or not the President would be removed from office. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I take the floor today with my colleague and friend from Minnesota, Senator Wellstone, to speak about an issue that is going to be coming up here in the next several days that is going to have an importance to all of the American people and, indeed, to future generations. That is the issue of whether or not the Senate, in its deliberations on the impeachment of President Clinton, will do it in secret or will do it in public; will do it behind closed doors, behind a curtain of secrecy, or do it openly so that the American people know what we are doing. I want to take just a few minutes to lay out the case for why I believe it should be open. Last week, Mr. President, I raised an objection during the trial to the continued use of the word ``jurors,'' as it pertains to Senators sitting in a Court of Impeachment. I did that for a number of reasons, because we are not jurors. We are more than that. We are not just simply triers of fact. We are not just simply finders of law. But sitting as a Court of Impeachment, we have a broad mandate, an expansive role to play. We have to take everything into account, everything from facts--yes, we have to take facts into account--we have to take law into account, but we also have to take into account a broad variety of things: how the case got here; what it is about; how important it is; how important is this piece of evidence weighed against that; what is the public will; how do the people feel about this; what will happen to the public good if one course of action is taken over another. These are all things we have to weigh, and that is why I felt strongly that Senators, in our own minds and in the public minds, should not be put in the box of simply being a juror. One other aspect of that is if, in fact, we are jurors, the argument went, then juries deliberate in secret and, therefore, if we are a jury, we should deliberate in secret. Now that we know we are not jurors, I believe that argument has gone away. I believe that we are, in fact, mandated by the Constitution to be more than that. I quote from an article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune by Professor Steven Lubet--he is a professor of law at Northwestern University--in which he pointed out that the Constitution does not allow us the luxury of being simply jurors. We have to decide; we have to judge. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Lubet's article be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, a couple of other things regarding openness. The hallmark of our Republic and of our system of government is openness and transparency. The history of this Senate has been one of opening the doors. The first three sessions of the U.S. Senate were held in secret behind closed doors, the whole sessions. Up until 1929, all nominations and treaties were debated behind closed doors. In 1972, 40 percent of all the committee meetings were done behind closed doors. In fact, up until 1975, many conference committees, and still committee meetings, were held behind closed doors. We have washed all that away. We have found through the years that the best political disinfectant is sunshine. I believe we are a better Senate, a better Congress and a better country for opening the doors and letting people see what we do and how we reach the decisions we reach. Mr. President, there has been a spate of editorials recently regarding opening up the trial. I quote from one from the Washington Post dated January 14. It says: It seems only right . . . that the Senate should be expected to debate in public any charge for which it is demanding of the president a public accounting. This is not to prevent senators from caucusing in private or even meeting unofficially, as senators did last week in crafting the procedural compromise that will govern the trial. Confidential contacts of this sort can certainly be constructive. But when the Senate meets as the Senate and considers arguments in its official trial proceedings, it should not do so behind closed doors. Absent the most unusual of circumstances, it should conduct its deliberations openly, thereby ensuring that the final adjudication of Mr. Clinton's case is as transparently accountable as possible. The New York Times basically said the same thing. The Los Angeles Times, the Des Moines Register and Roll Call. I think Roll Call basically said it best, Mr. President, when they said: . . . this is not a court trial . . . It is inherently a political proceeding . . . Their constituents [our constituents], the citizens of America, have a right to see how they perform and to fully understand why they decided to retain or remove their elected President. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all of these editorials be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the manager.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, today, I am introducing legislation for myself and Senator Johnson providing farmers with the option of receiving a refund from taxes paid in the past 10 years for their current operating losses. I was pleased to see a net operating loss provision included in the Omnibus Appropriations measure allowing farmers to carry back their losses for 5 years. But, a five year period is insufficient given the economic reality in Agriculture. Farmers are suffering huge losses through no fault of their own. No other business has less control of the price they can recieive for what they produce. Farmers cannot control the world's weather or the World economy. But, those factors determine the price of corn, soybeans and wheat. The Freedom to Farm bill passed in 1997 sharply reduced the farmer's safety net. Farm prices have crashed to levels not seen in decades. Many farmers are going to have a very difficult time being able to acquire the funds needed to plant their crops in the coming year or maintain their annual operations. Grain farmers received some assistance in the Omnibus Appropriations measure. But, it was not sufficient. Livestock producers received very limited help in that measure. And, in the last few months we have seen hog prices drop to levels that were, adjusted for inflation, far lower than anything seen at the worst point of the Great Depression. Many farmers could lose the farms that have been in their families for generations. Those low prices and the resulting sharp reduction in hog producers' financial resources is changing the whole structure of hog production. Cattle prices also have been significantly below the cost of production for over a year. And, the economic difficulty is far broader. It is already having a terrible ripple effect on the economies of rural areas. Layoffs have been occurring at agricultural equipment manufacturers and in stores of all kinds in small towns across the country. We are just at the beginning stages of what could become a very severe downturn in rural America. A number of Senators and I are proposing a series of modifications in agicultural programs to help alleviate these programs. But, I believe the Congress needs to also pass a provision broadening existing law allowing farmers to recover taxes paid in the past to cover their net operating losses for 10 years. I propose that the option to carry losses back for 10 years only apply to family farmers. That would include those with gross sales of less than $7 million and the losses covered would be up to $200,000 per year in operating losses. The benefit would only go to farmers whose families are actively engaged in farming and whose business activity is mostly farming. The amount of the rebate would be dependent on the amount of the loss and the tax rate paid by the farmer for the paid taxes that are being restored. The 10 year provision would only cover losses occurring in 1998 to 1999. For losses occuring in 1998, farmers would be able to calculate their loss now and seek an immediate rebate from the IRS for the taxes paid in earlier years. Current law already allows a few taxpayers in certain circumstances to go back and recover taxes that they paid for 10 years. I believe that it should be broadened to cover farmers in this difficult time. In fact, there is a precedent in the 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act in which Amtrak was allowed to use net operating losses of their predecessor railroads from over 25 years in the past. I urge that when the Congress considers a tax bill, this provision be considered and passed.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce S. 18 as part of the Democratic package, the SAFER Meat and Poultry Act, a bill that will make meat and poultry products safer for our families and our children. The bill provisions are simple, obvious authorities the USDA needs to assure that meat and poultry products are as safe as possible. In 1998, we had a record 13 recalls for deadly E. coli 0157:H7, involving more than 2 million pounds of meat products. Tragically, just over the recent holidays, a nationwide outbreak of Listeria was recognized, leading to the massive recall of hotdogs and cold cuts. At least a dozen people lost their lives during that outbreak just over the recent holiday season. Just last Friday, another recall for Listeria was announced. So despite the progress we have made in controlling some foodborne pathogens through improved meat inspection laws, problems with other pathogens may be getting worse. Mr. President, the bill really is targeted at kids, because it is our kids who are the most vulnerable. And this chart shows that. These are the numbers of cases just for the State of Iowa. And as you see by age, here is the number of cases. Here are the ages: 0 to 5, 6 to 10, up to 80 years of age. You can see, the bulk of the illnesses from foodborne pathogens happens when you are less than 6 years of age--our kids who have not built up the immunity that they need that get the sickest from these foodborne pathogens. This is for Salmonella, E. coli, and Campylobacter. It is really necessary to protect our children from these pathogens. S. 18 strengthens our laws in a number of ways. One is to give the Secretary of Agriculture the authority to mandate a recall. Most people assume that the Secretary has this authority, but he does not. Some argue that a packer or distributor will recall the tainted meat voluntarily, but recalls don't always go smoothly. In June of last year, a company challenged the USDA on a Federal test for E. coli. The Federal test showed E. coli was there. The company said no, it was not. They contested it. And, therefore, valuable time was lost in recalling that meat product. Consumers were shocked in 1997 by the largest recall in history, when a Hudson plant recalled 25 million pounds of ground beef linked to illnesses. When the Secretary of Agriculture is given recall authority, he can mandate what tasks must be done and whose responsibility these tasks will be. Communication is the most essential element of a timely recall. Another provision of the bill gives the Secretary the authority to levy civil fines for violations of meat and poultry laws. Right now, all the Secretary can do is close a plant down. That may not be the wisest course of action. You have people working there. It would put people out of work. The problem may not be their fault at all. Last year, the USDA referred dozens of cases for criminal prosecution for violation of meat and poultry laws. So clearly the current authorities are not an adequate incentive to protect consumer safety. I have here a chart, Mr. President, that shows what civil penalty authority the Secretary has. For example, if there is an introduction of an animal disease anywhere in the United States, the Secretary of Agriculture can levy a fine. If you mistreat an animal, you can be fined by the Secretary of Agriculture. If you have a deceptive practice, if you violate the Pecan Promotion Act, you can be fined by the Secretary of Agriculture. But if you violate the food safety laws, you cannot be fined. Civil fines are consistent with the new HACCP regulation for meat and poultry processing, and provide a ``just right'' option for the Secretary to assure compliance with food safety laws. What the Secretary has is an atom bomb. He can drop the atom bomb and close the plant down, which may not be the best course of action, but he cannot levy a civil fine, which may be the best action for certain violations. Finally, the bill requires, Mr. President, that someone who knows about a contaminated food product, other than a consumer, must notify the Secretary of Agriculture. These are commonsense authorities. Last year we saw a 50% increase in outbreaks, and a record number of recalls for the deadly E. coli O157-H7 in ground beef. More and more testing is done by grocery stores, and by purchasers for school lunch programs and restaurant chains. This bill would require that these parties notify the Secretary of Agriculture when there is a positive test. This law would allow public health authorities to oversee a recall that is timely and complete, and truly protects people from devastating illness. These are common sense authorities that most consumers assume the Secretary already has. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this important piece of food safety legislation. I also wish to indicate my strong support for legislation introduced today that will help restore and enhance farm income protection. Our farm sector, including livestock and crop production, is experiencing one of the worst downturns in over a decade. Pork producers have just experienced the worst real hog prices in history. There's a critical need for Congress to respond to this financial crisis that is threatening the livelihoods and life savings of America's farm families, and eroding the economies of rural communities. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this good, important piece of food safety legislation.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to Sarah Lister, a fellow on my staff, during the introduction of S. 18.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce S. 18 as part of the Democratic package, the SAFER Meat and Poultry Act, a bill that will make meat and poultry products safer for our families and our children. The bill provisions are simple, obvious authorities the USDA needs to assure that meat and poultry products are as safe as possible. In 1998, we had a record 13 recalls for deadly E. coli 0157:H7, involving more than 2 million pounds of meat products. Tragically, just over the recent holidays, a nationwide outbreak of Listeria was recognized, leading to the massive recall of hotdogs and cold cuts. At least a dozen people lost their lives during that outbreak just over the recent holiday season. Just last Friday, another recall for Listeria was announced. So despite the progress we have made in controlling some foodborne pathogens through improved meat inspection laws, problems with other pathogens may be getting worse. Mr. President, the bill really is targeted at kids, because it is our kids who are the most vulnerable. And this chart shows that. These are the numbers of cases just for the State of Iowa. And as you see by age, here is the number of cases. Here are the ages: 0 to 5, 6 to 10, up to 80 years of age. You can see, the bulk of the illnesses from foodborne pathogens happens when you are less than 6 years of age--our kids who have not built up the immunity that they need that get the sickest from these foodborne pathogens. This is for Salmonella, E. coli, and Campylobacter. It is really necessary to protect our children from these pathogens. S. 18 strengthens our laws in a number of ways. One is to give the Secretary of Agriculture the authority to mandate a recall. Most people assume that the Secretary has this authority, but he does not. Some argue that a packer or distributor will recall the tainted meat voluntarily, but recalls don't always go smoothly. In June of last year, a company challenged the USDA on a Federal test for E. coli. The Federal test showed E. coli was there. The company said no, it was not. They contested it. And, therefore, valuable time was lost in recalling that meat product. Consumers were shocked in 1997 by the largest recall in history, when a Hudson plant recalled 25 million pounds of ground beef linked to illnesses. When the Secretary of Agriculture is given recall authority, he can mandate what tasks must be done and whose responsibility these tasks will be. Communication is the most essential element of a timely recall. Another provision of the bill gives the Secretary the authority to levy civil fines for violations of meat and poultry laws. Right now, all the Secretary can do is close a plant down. That may not be the wisest course of action. You have people working there. It would put people out of work. The problem may not be their fault at all. Last year, the USDA referred dozens of cases for criminal prosecution for violation of meat and poultry laws. So clearly the current authorities are not an adequate incentive to protect consumer safety. I have here a chart, Mr. President, that shows what civil penalty authority the Secretary has. For example, if there is an introduction of an animal disease anywhere in the United States, the Secretary of Agriculture can levy a fine. If you mistreat an animal, you can be fined by the Secretary of Agriculture. If you have a deceptive practice, if you violate the Pecan Promotion Act, you can be fined by the Secretary of Agriculture. But if you violate the food safety laws, you cannot be fined. Civil fines are consistent with the new HACCP regulation for meat and poultry processing, and provide a ``just right'' option for the Secretary to assure compliance with food safety laws. What the Secretary has is an atom bomb. He can drop the atom bomb and close the plant down, which may not be the best course of action, but he cannot levy a civil fine, which may be the best action for certain violations. Finally, the bill requires, Mr. President, that someone who knows about a contaminated food product, other than a consumer, must notify the Secretary of Agriculture. These are commonsense authorities. Last year we saw a 50% increase in outbreaks, and a record number of recalls for the deadly E. coli O157-H7 in ground beef. More and more testing is done by grocery stores, and by purchasers for school lunch programs and restaurant chains. This bill would require that these parties notify the Secretary of Agriculture when there is a positive test. This law would allow public health authorities to oversee a recall that is timely and complete, and truly protects people from devastating illness. These are common sense authorities that most consumers assume the Secretary already has. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this important piece of food safety legislation. I also wish to indicate my strong support for legislation introduced today that will help restore and enhance farm income protection. Our farm sector, including livestock and crop production, is experiencing one of the worst downturns in over a decade. Pork producers have just experienced the worst real hog prices in history. There's a critical need for Congress to respond to this financial crisis that is threatening the livelihoods and life savings of America's farm families, and eroding the economies of rural communities. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this good, important piece of food safety legislation.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. Chief Justice, I was stating the reason because of the precedents that we set, and I do not believe it would be a valid precedent to leave future generations that we would be looked upon merely as jurors, but something other than being a juror. That is why I raise the objection.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. Chief Justice, I object to the use and the continued use of the word ``jurors'' when referring to the Senate sitting as triers in a trial of the impeachment of the President of the United States. Mr. Chief Justice, I base my objection on the following: First, article I, section 3, of the Constitution says the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments--not the courts, but the Senate. Article III of the Constitution says the trial of all crimes, except in the cases of impeachment, shall be by jury--a tremendous exculpatory clause when it comes to impeachments. Next, Mr. Chief Justice, I base my objection on the writings in ``The Federalist Papers,'' especially No. 65 by Alexander Hamilton, in which he is outlining the reasons why the framers of the Constitution gave the Senate the sole power to try impeachments. I won't read it all, but I will read this pertinent sentence: There will be no jury to stand between the judges who are to pronounce the sentence of the law and the party who is to receive or suffer it. Next, Mr. Chief Justice, I base my objection on the 26 rules of the Senate, adopted by the Senate, governing impeachments. Nowhere in any of those 26 rules is the word ``juror'' or ``jury'' ever used. Next, Mr. Chief Justice, I base my objection on the tremendous differences between regular jurors and Senators sitting as triers of an impeachment. Regular jurors, of course, are chosen, to the maximum extent possible, with no knowledge of the case. Not so when we try impeachments. Regular jurors are not supposed to know each other. Not so here. Regular jurors cannot overrule the judge. Not so here. Regular jurors do not decide what evidence should be heard, the standards of evidence, nor do they decide what witnesses shall be called. Not so here. Regular jurors do not decide when a trial is to be ended. Not so here. Now, Mr. Chief Justice, it may seem a small point, but I think a very important point. I think the framers of the Constitution meant us, the Senate, to be something other than a jury and not jurors. What we do here today does not just decide the fate of one man. Since the Senate sits on impeachment so rarely, and even more rarely on the impeachment of a President of the United States, what we do here sets precedence. Future generations will look back on this trial not just to find out what happened, but to try to decide what principles governed our actions. To leave the impression for future generations that we somehow are jurors and acting as a jury----

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Chair. Mr. Manager BARR. I thank the Court for his ruling. We urge the distinguished Senators who are sitting as triers of fact in this case not to be fooled. We urge you to use your common sense, your reasoning, your varied and successful career experiences, just as any trier of fact and law anywhere in America might do. Just as other triers of fact and law do, so, too, have each of you sworn to decide these momentous matters impartially. Your oath to look to the law and to our Constitution demands this of you. As this great body has done on so many occasions in the course of our Nation's history, I and all managers are confident you will neither shrink from nor cast aside that duty. Rather, I urge and fully anticipate that you will look to the volume of facts and to the clear and fully applicable statutes and conclude that William Jefferson Clinton, in fact and under the law, violated his oath and violated the laws of this land and convict him on both articles of impeachment. Even though such a high burden--that is, proof of criminal violations--is not strictly required of you under the law of impeachment, in fact, such evidence is here. That higher burden is met. Perjury is here; obstruction is here in the facts and the law which forms the basis for the articles of impeachment in the House which we believe properly would form the basis for conviction in the Senate. Perjury and obstruction, we respectfully ask you to strike down these insidious cancers that eat at the heart of our system of Government and laws. Strike them down with the Constitution so they might not fester as a gaping wound poisoning future generations of children, poisoning our court system, and perhaps even future generations of political leaders. Just as Members of both Houses of Congress have unfortunately over the years been convicted and removed from office for perjury and obstruction, and just as Federal judges have been removed from life tenure for perjury and obstruction, so must a President; so sadly should this President. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and thank you, Members of the U.S. Senate sitting here as jurors of fact and law in the trial of President William Jefferson Clinton.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I, too, would be pleased to engage in a colloquy with the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. HARKIN. I concur with the Chairman.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the legislation that is pending provides funding for nearly all domestic discretionary programs for the upcoming year. As we know, it combines 8 of the 13 regular spending bills, as well as a large number of other unrelated legislative provisions. It truly is a legislative behemoth, and is one which I have very mixed feelings about. One part I don't have any mixed feelings about is the process, particularly for the unrelated nonappropriation measures. It is the worst that I have witnessed in my years in Congress. Here we have a 40-pound, nearly 4,000-page bill which not only includes over half of the year's appropriations bills, but countless other unrelated measures, many of which were never debated and never brought to the floor of the Senate. Then we are given less than a day--just a matter of hours--to look it over. That certainly is not any way to do the people's business. In fact, I say that the Republican leadership in the Senate and the House has shown a tremendous disrespect for the taxpayers' dollars. This is really a cavalier treatment of taxpayers dollars when you think about the way this bill was put together. Nobody knows how much is in there. Billions of dollars are being spent, and a lot of it was never debated or shown the light of day in either the House or the Senate. The taxpayers deserve a little bit better treatment for their tax dollars than that. Before I get into my other concerns, I want to speak about what I see as one of the true bright spots, which will lead me to vote in favor of the overall measure, even with all my misgivings about it, and that is the progress it makes toward improving the quality and affordability of education, health care and job training for American families. As the ranking member on the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Department of Health and Human Services and Education, I want to focus my comments initially on that section of the bill. First, I want to thank Senator Specter for his outstanding leadership on the legislation. He has worked tirelessly to put together a strong, bipartisan bill. I want to publicly thank Bettilou Taylor, Jim Sourwine, Jack Chow, Mary Deitrich, Mark Laisch and Jennifer Stiefel. I also thank those on my staff, on the minority side--Marsha Simon and Ellen Murray--for their long and hard work in taking care of all of the important details of the legislation. They literally have been here around the clock for the last several weeks putting the bill and report together. I also extend my sincere appreciation to our colleagues in the House--Chairman Porter and ranking member Obey. There were many significant differences between our two bills and it required much work to bridge the gulf. I appreciate their willingness to work with us to craft a strong Labor-HHS-Education bill to send to the President. The Labor-HHS-Education component of this bill is notable in a number of areas. It makes many vital investments in the human infrastructure of our Nation. Mr. President, I am very pleased that the bill before us provides the biggest funding increase in history in our search for medical breakthroughs. Almost every day, the paper has a new story about one advance or another in medical research. New therapies, more effective intervention and treatment strategies--we are making great progress. We aren't suffering from a shortfall of ideas, but a shortfall of resources. At the present time, the National Institutes of Health is able to fund only one-fourth of their peer-reviewed grant proposals. As a result, too many worthy projects never get off the ground. The tragedy is that the 3 of 4 unfunded grants could have led to a cure for breast cancer, or a more effective treatment for Parkinson's disease, or a way to reverse spinal chord injury. This must change, and the pending legislation provides a generous 15 percent increase for the NIH and is the first step toward doubling the budget for biomedical research. Another important victory for improved health is the inclusion of a proposal I authored to substantially improve research on complementary and alternative medicine. Consumers need and deserve reliable information about these promising therapies. And, if appropriately implemented, the new National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH will provide just that. Mr. President, one of the great disappointments of the 105th Congress was the defeat by the Republican leadership of comprehensive legislation to protect children from tobacco. Their action is costly: Every day, more than 3,000 young people will start smoking, and one-third will die prematurely from tobacco-related diseases. I am pleased, however, that the bill before us makes at least a very modest downpayment on fighting tobacco. It provides $46 million to fund antitobacco activities--the largest increase for preventing and treating the addiction, disease, and death caused by tobacco use. The CDC will receive additional funding to help communities keep tobacco products out of the hands of children, help smokers kick the habit, and combat the tobacco industry's daily multimillion dollar misinformation campaigns. I want to be clear, however, that this is by no means a replacement for comprehensive reform. We should make reform of the tobacco scourge a major agenda item for the next Congress. Another important drug problem--and tobacco is a drug problem--facing us in this Nation is the scourge of methamphetamine. It is ravaging my State and other States in the Midwest. So I am pleased that the bill before us includes my proposal to expand support for prevention and treatment of meth addiction. It also contains a significant increase to boost our law enforcement efforts to combat this problem. But I am extremely disappointed that the leadership blocked inclusion of my Comprehensive Methamphetamine Control Act. Their action, I think, is extremely shortsighted and is a defeat for our efforts to get tougher on methamphetamine. The bill before us includes the important initiative to combat fraud, waste and abuse in Medicare. It would expand nationwide a program I started 2 years ago to train retired nurses, doctors, accountants, insurance writers, and other professionals to be expert resources in their local communities to help fellow seniors identify and report suspect cases of abuse. The Senior Waste Patrol, as it is known, has been a great success in Iowa and the 11 other States in which it now exists on a pilot program basis. This bill, as I said, will extend the Senior Waste Patrol to every State in the Nation. I believe it will be one of the keys that we will have in really cutting down on the waste, fraud and abuse that is so rampant in Medicare. Mr. President, for the last several years, I have worked to eradicate abusive child labor around the world, and I am pleased that the legislation provides resources to help end this exploitative practice here at home and around the world. The bill signals a strong commitment by the United States to ending this unconscionable practice of child labor by providing a $27 million increase, from $3 million to $30 million, to the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labor, otherwise known as IPEC. In the past, IPEC initiatives have been instrumental in reaching agreements in Bangladesh for child garment workers, and in Pakistan for the children making soccer balls. As a result, thousands of these children in both countries have been moved from factories to schools. This increase for IPEC will ensure that we can do in those countries and in other countries to get child laborers out of factories and into schools. However, if we intend to lead the world in ending this terrible practice of child labor, we must here lead by example. I am deeply concerned about the rising incidence of child labor in our own country. Although no official estimate exists, studies place the number of illegally employed children in the U.S. at between 300,000 a 800,000. To respond to the problem, this legislation has fully funded the President's child labor initiative by providing $15 million for migrant education and $5 million for at-risk youth in agriculture. Additionally, $4 million was added for 36 new investigators to enforce child labor laws. We must make eradication of child labor a top priority, and these resources will make that possible. I do want to publicly thank and compliment Secretary of Labor Herman for her leadership in this area and for her focus and determination to crack down on the use of child labor in our country. She has taken great leadership on this. The additional funding we put in this bill will enable her to do her job even more effectively. Mr. President, this legislation makes some significant investments in education, which are critical to the future of our country. The bill provides an additional $2.1 billion--that's $2.1 billion more than last year--to improve our Nation's schools and help them meet the needs of our schoolchildren. There are many problems facing our nation's schools. 14 million students attend classes in schools that are literally crumbling around them; too many students are in classes that are too big; and too many children do not have a safe place to be in the hours after school. We can and must address these important matters. The pending legislation provides us with a good foundation. The bill provides additional resources through the Title I program to reduce class size and it fully funds the President's after-school initiative. However, I was disappointed that we could not hold on to the funds provided in the Senate bill to help modernize and repair our nation's crumbling schools. I might add that I just came back, like so many Senators, last night from my home State to discover that in my State of Iowa over one- third--36 percent--of the elementary and secondary schools in Iowa don't even meet the fire and safety codes. I know that our State is very good. If it is that bad in Iowa, it has to be bad in other States, too. That is why the money is needed so desperately from the Federal Government--to help rebuild the infrastructure of our schools, not just in meeting the fire and safety codes but to make sure that they are wired, that they get the technology that they need to hookup to the Internet, and to get the technology to our kids in elementary and secondary schools. The legislation also makes other important investments in education. The bill provides a $500 million increase for special education and additional funds for Head Start to make sure that students are ready to start school. Education must be our Nation's top priority and while I am pleased with the investments made in this legislation, we must recognize that this is just the first step forward. Our future depends on us to do even more next year and the year after. The bill provides new funding to higher and train up to 100,000 new teachers, increases the maximum Pell grant to its highest level ever, $3,125, and provides additional resources for child care and eliminates cuts to worker protection programs. Mr. President, I am also pleased that the final bill restored the massive cuts contained in the House bill for the Summer Jobs Program and the Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program. These cuts in the House bill--not in the Senate bill--unfairly targeted some of our Nation's most needy citizens, and had to be reversed. I am glad it was reversed. As has been the case in recent years, the appropriations committees was confronted with a number of legislative riders. This is a source of continuing frustration for our committee because we continue to believe there should be no authorizing legislation on appropriations bills. The House bill included an amendment to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, that would have given school officials expanded authorities to remove children with disabilities from school. I vigorously opposed that amendment, because it would have removed critical civil rights protections for children with disabilities--this on the heels of just a little over a year ago, after years of negotiation, when Congress enacted the 1997 amendments to IDEA. These amendments made a number of important changes to the law, including provisions governing the discipline of children with disabilities. The '97 amendments give schools new tools for addressing the behavior of children with disabilities, including more flexible authorities for removing children with disabilities engaged in misconduct involving weapons, drugs, or behavior substantially likely to result in injury. More information is needed on the implementation of these amendments before any additional changes to the law are considered by the Congress. For example, I keep hearing from some people that if a child with a disability brings a gun to school there is nothing they can do with them, but if a nondisabled kid brought a gun to school they could expel them. Nothing could be further from the truth. If any child, such as a child with disabilities, under IDEA brings a gun, a weapon, a drug to school, they can be immediately dismissed, expelled, for up to 10 days, and then placed in an alternative setting for 45 more days. Again, people can expel a child right away who brings a gun or a dangerous weapon to school. I just say that as a way of pointing out that there is a lot of misinformation out there about the law, because the law was changed last year, and the rules and regulations have not yet been promulgated by the Department of Education. Hopefully, that will be done prior to the end of this year. Again, I would like to close these remarks on this section of the bill by thanking Chairman Specter for his outstanding leadership throughout the process of putting this part of the bill together. I therefore support the recommendation of the conferees for a GAO study on the discipline of children with disabilities in lieu of making any changes to the authorizing legislation itself. The conference agreement charges GAO with obtaining information on how the '97 amendments have affected the ability of schools to maintain safe school environments conducive to learning. In order to enable the Congress to differentiate between the need for amendments as opposed to better implementation of the law, it is critical that GAO look at the extent to which school personnel understand the provisions in the IDEA and make use of the options available under the law. For example, in the past, there has been considerable confusion and misunderstanding regarding the options available to school districts in disciplining children with disabilities. The GAO should determine whether schools are using the authorities currently available for removing children. These include: removing a child for up to 10 school days per incident; placing the child in an interim alternative educational setting; extending a child's placement in an interim alternative educational setting; suspending and expelling a child for behavior that is not a manifestation of the child's disability; seeking removal of the child through injunctive relief; and proposing a change in the child's placement. In addition, the law now explicitly requires schools to consider the need for behavioral strategies for children with behavior problems. I continue to believes that the incidence of misconduct by children with disabilities is closely related to how well these children are served, including whether they have appropriate individualized education plans, with behavioral interventions where necessary. Again, to enable the Congress to interpret information on the effect of the IDEA on dealing with misconduct, this GAO report should provide information on the extent to which the schools are appropriately addressing the needs of students engaged in this misconduct. I would be opposed to giving school officials expanded authority for removing children who engage in misconduct, if such misconduct could be ameliorated by giving these children the services to which they are entitled. We need information on the effect of appropriate implementation of the IDEA on the ability of schools to provide for safe and orderly environments, and that is what the GAO study should evaluate. Finally on this matter, I want to emphasize that the provisions in the IDEA for removing children are only needed in those cases in which parents and school officials disagree about a proposed disciplinary action. Therefore, it is important that the GAO study also provides us information on the extent to which parents are requesting due process hearings on discipline-related matters and the outcomes of three hearings. Turning to another important component of this bill, Mr. President, I'd like to talk for a few minutes about agriculture. Since early summer, I have been working, along with a number of my colleagues, to inform this body about the very serious economic crisis gripping our nation's agriculture sector and to develop an emergency assistance package. Farm families and rural communities are not currently sharing in the prosperity of our broader economy. With farm income down over 20 percent from just two years ago, our farm economy is suffering its worst downturn in over a decade. There are ominous signs that unless we turn this situation around, we are on the path to a full-blown agricultural depression on a scale of the 1980s farm crisis. My State of Iowa simply cannot stand to go down that road again, nor can our nation. So I am pleased that through our concerted efforts, this bill includes a substantial package of emergency assistance for America's farmers. President Clinton vetoed the first Agriculture appropriations bill. He was right to do so. It was woefully inadequate. So we brought it back. And that veto by the President set the stage for the extensive improvements that we now have in this bill. This bill increases funding by about 85 percent above the amount that was in the vetoed bill for assistance to replace income lost because of low commodity prices--an 85-percent increase over the bill that was vetoed. This is a victory but a partial victory. While this bill will provide a good deal of assistance in the form of a one-time payment, it falls far short of what is needed for the future. This bill really has been a ``missed opportunity'' in which we could have put underneath the so-called Freedom to Farm bill a farm income safety net, but did not. When the so-called Freedom to Farm bill was passed in 1996, commodity prices were high and the safety net was thrown out the window. But prices go down as well as go up. Since 1996 farm commodity prices have plummeted across our country. Now it is clear that the 1996 farm bill has failed, and has failed drastically, in protecting against disastrous losses in farm income. The bill that is before us just plows more money right into the Freedom to Farm payment system, which has already proven itself incapable of responding to low commodity prices. We proposed a better way. We proposed to focus assistance more carefully on farmers who really need it because of low prices. We proposed to direct the benefits towards actual farmers instead of toward landlords. We proposed to restore a farm income safety net responsive to commodity prices. And we proposed to link assistance to actual production to avoid windfalls for those choosing not to plant the supported crop. Lastly, we supported a measure of fiscal responsibility so that rising commodity prices would limit USDA farm program spending. Despite all of these advantages, the Republican majority rejected any alternative to the Freedom to Farm payment scheme. So what is going to happen is farmers will get a payment this fall. Even farmers who chose not to plant a crop will get a payment for it. They will get a payment having no relationship to the market price--just a flat payment across the board--fairly generous for those commodities with relatively better prices, much too little for commodities suffering the worst price losses. Also, a good number of farmers who will not be farming next year will get payments this fall, and somehow that will all have to be sorted out. With fixed cash payments, landlords are in a great position to put the pressure on and claim a lot of that money in the form of rent for next year. Again, farmers fortunate enough to produce a good crop and whose commodities already have high prices and who are not suffering will still get a payment. This scheme makes no sense whatsoever. And yet it is strictly the triumph of ideology over practicality. The Republican ideology is not to have any farm income safety net and if there is a crisis to throw money at it. So what we have done for the farm crisis is we have just thrown a lot of money at it. Well, that will help for this year, but it still won't be as good as what we proposed. Equally important, this bill does nothing toward restoring a farm income safety net for the longer term. What we proposed would have provided more income support for farmers and done so in a way that helps farmers deal with the practical reality of commodity markets. But, no, the Republican majority's ideology said we are going to stick with Freedom to Farm no matter what. And yet we know that a majority of farmers, a majority, a huge majority of the farmers wanted to take the caps off of marketing loan rates and they wanted to have some storage payments. Why? So they could take the bumper crop we are having this year, store it, wait for the grain prices to go up and market it later on. Well, this bill gives them nothing in this regard. Oh, they will get a payment this fall. But it will not be as much income protection as what we would have provided by taking the caps off of the marketing loan rates. Will it help? Sure, it will help. But it is a wasteful and fundamentally unsound way of helping our farmers. Well, as I said, Republicans just decided to throw money at the problem--a triumph of ideology over practicality. One last point. One of my biggest concerns about this bill is the $9 billion add-on to the Pentagon budget--$9 billion thrown in at the last minute. Despite the rhetoric from the Republican side, precious little of this fiscally irresponsible add-on is targeted at troop readiness and other emergencies in the military. Congressional leadership talks a lot about shortages of spare parts and about troop pay problems. So where are the proposals to fix the Pentagon's antiquated supply system? Where are the proposals to increase pay for the troops? Not in this bill. But there is $1 billion for star wars. There are billions more in pork barrel projects not requested by the Pentagon. And at the same time that this bill piles on the Pentagon pork, it is shortchanging reform. The General Accounting Office and the Pentagon's own inspector general constantly report rampant waste and mismanagement in the military's purchasing and supply system, yet this bill lets the waste and mismangement continue unchecked, and throws in a few more gold-plated weapons systems to boot. What a boondoggle. What a boondoggle. We talk about troop readiness, so where does this bill put the money? It puts it into star wars. It puts it into pork projects that the Pentagon doesn't want, some more gold-plated weapons systems, but precious little in fact, for troop readiness. I have mixed feelings about this 40-pound, 4,000-page whopper that we have before us. It has some important provisions that we worked together on in a bipartisan fashion--to improve medical research, for example, and to improve education. A number of the components of this bill truly will improve the lives of hard-working American families, but the bill also has a number of awful provisions, add-ons, fiscally irresponsible giveaways. In the end, I will vote for it because I believe the good does outweigh the bad, but I want to be clear that if this bill were in the many separate pieces of legislation as it should have been, a lot of them I would have voted against, and I don't think a lot of them would ever have gotten through this body. As I have said earlier, and as many of my colleagues have said, this process which we just went through is bad for Americans. This is no way to do the Nation's business. The Republican leadership, as I said earlier, has treated our taxpayer dollars cavalierly. This is no way to flagrantly throw around the hard-earned tax dollars of the taxpayers of this country, to throw it away on boondoggles, to throw it away on items that were never debated or saw the light of day in the Senate or the House. I can only hope that the next Congress will not go through this exercise again. I hope the leadership of the next Congress will get the appropriations bills through on time, will debate these matters openly so that we can have the opportunity to discuss them openly, so we will know what is in the bills before we vote on them. I think Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia said it best--as I read in the newspaper. He said, ``Only God knows what's in this bill.'' Well, I don't know, Mr. President, I don't know if we will ever know what all is in this bill, but I am certain, certain as I am standing here, we are going to see inquiring reporters, investigative journalists who will begin looking at this bill. They will begin looking at all of those hidden items, and I bet you piece by piece, bit by bit, it is going to come out, maybe next month, maybe in January, maybe in March, all of the little hidden things that were in there. And I say, shame on this Congress, shame on the leadership for treating the American taxpayers this way. We have got to do better in the way we do the Nation's business. Mr. President, I yield the floor. opposition to deletion of the agjobs amendment

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to thank Chairman Campbell for his hard work, commitment, and dedication to increasing the funding level for the high-intensity drug trafficking areas in the fiscal year 1999 Treasury and General Government appropriations bill. When the Senate version of this legislation was being debated on the floor, Chairman Campbell and I worked together to increase funding for several of these areas, including an additional $3.5 million for the Midwest HIDTA. Mr. President, in the last three years, the Midwest has experienced a phenomenal increase in the importation, distribution, and clandestine manufacturing of methamphetamine. The region's central location, variety of interstate highway systems, along with its air and rail hubs enhance, its popularity as a market for Mexican methamphetamine trafficking operating out of the Southwest border areas. The Midwest HIDTA is integral to the strategy employed by each state to reduce methamphetamine importation, distribution, manufacturing, and related criminal activity. Although the conference report for the fiscal year 1999 Treasury and General Government appropriations bill did not include specific funding for each HIDTA, the conferees did include a significant increase in HIDTA funding. Therefore, I would like to ask the Chairman of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee if it was the intent of the conferees that a large portion of the increase in HIDTA funding should go to the areas which were specifically listed in S. 2312 as passed by the Senate. These areas include the current Midwest HIDTA, an expansion of the Midwest HIDTA to include the State of North Dakota, the Central Florida HIDTA, the Cascade HIDTA, and the Southwest Border HIDTA.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank my colleague from Colorado for his assistance in this matter, and for his efforts to increase the safety of our citizens by substantially reducing drug-related crime and violence. energy efficiency

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, before this Congress ends, I want to bring to my colleagues' attention an important issue confronting our nation's biomedical research enterprise and its search for medical breakthroughs as we move into the next century. First, I want to say how pleased I am that we were able to provide the biggest increase ever for medical research this year. We worked hard to make that happen and I want to commend my colleague, Senator Arlen Specter, for his leadership and work with me on this important accomplishment. The Conference Agreement of the Fiscal 1999 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, provides a $2 billion, or 15 percent, increase for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the principal source of Federal funding for medical research conducted at our nation's universities and other research institutions. That 15 percent increase puts Congress on course to double funding for the NIH over the next five years, a target I've called for and agreed to by the Senate earlier in this Congress. However, as Congress embarks on this important investment in improved health, we must strengthen the totality of the biomedical research enterprise. While it is critical to focus on high quality, cutting edge basic and clinical research, we must also consider the quality of the laboratories and buildings where that research is being conducted, as well as the training of future scientists and the salaries of those scientists. In fact, Mr. President, the infrastructure of research institutions, including the need for new physical facilities, is central to our nation's leadership in medical research. Despite the significant scientific advances produced by Federally-funded research, most of that research is currently being done in medical facilities built in the 1950's and 1960's, a time when the Federal government obligated from $30 million to $100 million a year for facility and equipment modernization. Since then, however, annual appropriations for modernization of our biomedical research infrastructure have been greatly reduced, ranging from zero to $20 million annually over the past decade. As a result, many of our research facilities and laboratories are outdated and inadequate to meet the challenge of the next millennium. Over the past decade, I've worked hard both as chair and now Ranking Member of the health subcommittee to get the NIH budget increased to $15.5 billion. Yet, over that same period, support for facility and laboratory modernization totaled only $110 million. In the Fiscal 1999 appropriations bill, only 0.2 percent of the NIH budget will be directly devoted to improvement of the extramural laboratories that house NIH-funded scientists and support their research. As we work to double funding for medical research over the next 5 years, the already serious shortfall in the modernization of our nation's aging research facilities will grow unless we take specific action. According to the most recent National Science Foundation study of the status of biomedical research facilities (1996), 47 percent of all biomedical research-performing institutions classified the amount of biological science research space as inadequate, and 51 percent indicated that they had an inadequate amount of medical science research space. Only 45 percent of biomedical research space at research-performing institutions was considered ``suitable for scientifically competitive research.'' The 1996 NSF Report further found that 36 percent of all institutions with biomedical research space reported capital projects, involving either construction or renovation, that were needed but had to be deferred because funding was not available. The estimated costs for deferred biomedical research construction and renovation projects totaled $4.1 billion. The problem is more severe for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, where only 36 percent of their biomedical research space was rated as being suitable for use in the most competitive scientific research. The extramural facilities gap has been recognized by leading research organizations, the members of which have recommended a major construction and renovation funding initiative as part of any proposal to significantly increase funding for the NIH. In a March 1998 report, the Association of American Medical Colleges found that ``recent advances in science have generated demand for new facilities and instruments, much of which could most rationally be provided through federal programs that are merit reviewed. The AAMC report concluded that ``the government should establish and fund an NIH construction authority, consistent with the general recommendations of the Wyngaarden Committee report of 1988, which projected at that time the need for a 10-year spending plan of $5 billion for new facilities and renovation.'' These sentiments are echoed by a June 1998 report of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), one of the leading organizations of basic researchers. The FASEB report concluded that ``laboratories must be built and equipped for the science of the 21st century. Infrastructure investments should include renovation of existing space as well as new construction, where appropriate.'' Mr. President I am committed to addressing this need. I believe future increases in federal funding for the NIH must be matched with increased funding for repair, renovation, and construction of our extramural research facilities. To this end, I plan on introducing legislation next year to significantly expand our investment in research facility modernization to assure that 21st century research is conducted in 21st century labs and facilities. And over the next year I plan to meet with patients, health professionals, and academic leaders from across the country to discuss this initiative which is so vitally important for the future of the entire medical research enterprise. Mr. President, this is a very exciting time in the field of biomedical research. We are on the verge of major medical breakthroughs which hold the promise of improved health and reduced costs for the people of this nation and the world. The ravage of killers like cancer, heart disease and Parkinson's and the scores of other illnesses and conditions which take the lives and health of millions of Americans can be ended if we devote the resources. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the coming months and years to assure that this promise is realized.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to talk in as glowing terms as I can about a great friend, a great Senator, and a person I have admired both as a Senator and as a plain good person for all the years I have been in Washington. And he is leaving us. He is retiring at the end of this session. I am speaking about perhaps the epitome of what I believe to be a good Senator, and that Senator is Dale Bumpers of Arkansas. I am really going to miss him, and this country is going to miss him as well. So will this Chamber. He is truly one of the finest Senators to have ever graced this body. He has done so many good things over the years. It is hard to know where to begin. I know he started out as someone in the Marine Corps. As a Navy person I will not hold that against him. I can overlook that. But then he came back to Arkansas and practiced law, had a small business, and even raised some cattle. He had good practical experience, and knows the people of Arkansas and he knows the people of this country. The people of Arkansas rewarded that--first as Governor, and now finishing his tenure as a Senator. He was elected by more than 60 percent of the vote in the last two terms. Senator Bumpers came to the Senate at the same time I came to the House in 1974. For 24 years he has been here. Someone said once about Senators in general that some Senators come here to coin a phrase, or coin a slogan, and think they have solved the problem. But not Dale Bumpers. He has worked very hard to solve the problems of this country. He has been a close friend, a person of immense common sense. When it comes to helping farmers, seniors, working people, and children there is no better person to have as an ally than Dale Bumpers. He stuck to what he believed. He had the determination to get the job done with a strong commitment to the people of Arkansas. He is certainly one of the finest orators and debaters this Chamber has ever seen. He has led the fight in the Senate against government waste. I loved to listen to his speeches on that $12 billion boondoggle called the superconductor super collider. And he won. Unfortunately, we wasted a lot of money on it. But, the people finally came to their senses and saw it as the boondoggle that it was. I wasn't in the Senate at the time. I was in the House working to kill that other boondoggle called the Clinch River breeder reactor. Boy, you would think at that time it was the most important thing to civilization that we built that breeder reactor. But finally people came to their senses, and we stopped it. And we are better and we are stronger because of it. We saved billions of dollars that would have been wasted. Dale led the fight on that in the Senate. He has led the fight against other wasteful spending such as star wars and the space station. I believe that he has finally brought home to the American conscience the issue of mining interests and the abuse of our public lands and the fact that we need to update our laws. Anyway, with a common sense approach he has been a strong ally on the Appropriations Committee where we need that kind of common sense approach. On the Agriculture Committee, he placed the needs of America's rural communities at the top of the national debate including rural housing and rural economic development. He has been the strongest fighter for protecting the environment. On the Clean Air Act, and Clean Water Act, Dale Bumpers has been in the forefront of America's fight to keep our country clean. As the National Journal put it, Dale Bumpers is the Senator to whom ``other Senators pay attention.'' In numerous polls of Senate staffers, Dale Bumpers has consistently ranked as one of the best liked Senators. So we are going to miss him when we start the 106th Congress in January. We are going to miss Dale and his eloquence, his determination and his stick-to-itness. So to the entire Bumpers family, Dale and Betty, their children-- Brent, Bill and Brooke--and their five grandchildren, I want to extend my gratitude, and the gratitude of the citizens of my State, that I am so proud to represent, for loaning Dale to us for the past 24 years. America is a much better place because of Dale's service in the Senate. Mr. President, I want to close on the one note--the one area in which Dale has devoted so much of his time and effort, along with Betty on protecting our children from illnesses and diseases that have ravaged kids since time immemorial. No one has fought harder for childhood vaccinations, and to make them universal, affordable, and accessible than Dale and Betty Bumpers. So in recognition of their contributions, the Appropriations Committee, on which Dale served, voted unanimously, Republican and Democrats, to name a new vaccine facility at the National Institutes of Health after Senator Bumpers and his wife, Betty. This new facility, now under construction, will be named the ``Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Facility.'' As I said, Dale has been our resident expert on immunization since early in his Senate career. He has been a tireless advocate for funding to purchase vaccines and provide the public health system with the resources necessary to deliver those vaccines to the children who are most in need. He advocated a grant incentive program in the Senate that the Appropriations Committee has used each year to reward States that have been successful in preventing unnecessary diseases. So there have been a lot of tributes that have been paid to Dale. But, the most lasting tribute will be his and Betty Bumpers' name on that research facility at NIH because, that is truly where his heart has been in making sure that kids in places like rural Arkansas and rural Iowa, and all over America--including our inner cities--to make sure they have a healthy start in life by getting immunized. To me that says it all about Dale Bumpers. We are going to miss him. I hope that he doesn't go too far away. I for one look forward to his continued advice and counsel as I serve out my career in the U.S. Senate. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as a member of the Appropriations Committee and as the ranking member on the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee-- my chairman is the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter--we have been involved, as I am sure everyone knows, in a lot of negotiations over the last several days regarding the education portion of the bill. There are some other items there also, but basically on education. After reading some of the newspaper accounts and listening to some of the speeches on the Senate floor, I can only come to the realization that perhaps the American people are a little bit confused now about what is going on. I respectfully submit that may be the point of what is going on--to try to confuse the American people. I am going to try to set the record a little bit straight here, in my limited amount of time. I was in my office a little while ago listening to the Senator from Texas talk about education. He had a chart. He went on to say that only 37 cents of every dollar that comes in here, I think in the Department of Education, actually gets back out to the local schools. Having been involved both on the authorizing committee for now 14 years and on the Appropriations Committee, an equal amount of time on Education, I was quite astounded by this figure because I never heard this figure before. So I decided to go back and find out exactly what were the facts. So I guess the best place to look is in the committee report, compiled not by the Democrats but by the Republicans,--by Senator Specter for the Committee on Appropriations. Of course, I will say this, and most gratefully say, he and his staff have worked very closely with me and our appropriations staff in putting out this report. So I looked in the report, to check on administrative costs for the Department of Education, because I never heard that figure, 37 cents. I thought, ``Boy, if that's the truth, I might join the Senator from Texas in this argument.'' So I looked it up. In this report--this is the document right here; big and thick, has a lot of numbers in it, very boring reading--the committee recommendation for the Department of Education is $34.4 billion. That number is likely to increase as a result of the negotiations on the final bill. So then I said, ``OK, how much does the Department of Education spend administering these programs?'' Well, here is the line item. It is right here in the book. You do not have to go very far. General Departmental Management: $101 million. Well, I am not the best at math, but I tried to figure this out. And as best I can come, that is less than one-half of 1 percent of the total money that we appropriate to the Department of Education goes for administration--less than one-half of 1 percent. I then asked my staff to find out how much of was spent for administration at the State level. And that is about 2 percent. So 2.5 percent of all the money we take in that we give the Department of Education goes for administration; therefore providing 97.5 percent to local school districts and students. That is right; out of every $1 that goes to the Department of Education, 97 cents-plus goes out to schools and to students. Where the heck that 37-cent figure, that the Senator from Texas had, came from, I have not the foggiest idea. I have his comments. I still do not understand where he got that figure. The only thing I can expect is that maybe he did not take into account Pell grants that go directly to students that are paid to schools. I do not know. Whatever the reason is, that is not the correct figure. It is not chewed up in administration. The documentation is right here in black and white in the committee report. It just seems that all we have is we just have a lot of rhetoric around here and somehow we are supposed to take the rhetoric for substance. The substance is there. It is not a secret. You can find out how much goes for administration, and it is not as much as the Senator from Texas said. Fully 97 cents of every dollar that goes to the Department of Education goes out to schools, goes out to students. Again, it seems now that what I am hearing is that the Republicans, in the negotiations, are saying that they are going to match us dollar- for-dollar, but they just want to throw the money out there in the Title VI block grant to the States, so they can do with it basically what they want. So the sort of hue and cry is ``We'll give money to the States and let the States do what they want.'' There is a better way. To deal with class size, the President has an initiative to hire 100,000 teachers to reduce class size in this country. The President and those of us on this side of the aisle, what we want to do is put that money through title I reading and math program to reduce class sizes. I am told the Republicans want to send it out through the Title VI block grant. Again, I am sure that the American people watching me speak here are saying, ``Gobbledygook, Title I, Title VI, so what?'' Well, so what is a big difference in whether more money gets out to the students or not. There is a big difference. For example, in title I, we have a cap by law that says that no more than 1 percent of the money that goes out to Title I can be used for administration at the State level. One cent of every dollar, that is all, no more; so that 99 cents actually gets to the schools and the students. However, under Title VI, 15 percent of the money that goes out to the States is held at the State level; 15 cents out of every dollar is held at the State level. The remaining 85 cents then goes out to the school districts. Title I is more efficient and will get more resources into the classrooms and schools--99 cents of every dollar, to actually hire the teachers and reduce class size. What the Republicans are saying is, turn it over to the States. They keep 15 cents and send only 85 cents to the schools. So I submit, Mr. President, that if you really want to cut administrative costs, if you want to get the most money out there to get the most bang for the buck, let's put the money in Title I and not the Title VI program. There seems to be another strain going on around here and that is that ``the Federal Government is doing too much in education. The Federal Government should do less. We have got leave this to States and local communities.'' I would be the first to defend and the last person standing in defense of the right of local jurisdictions to control their schools. That does not mean that the Federal Government does not have a role to play in helping those schools. I believe it does; a significant role. And we have owned up to that over the years. But to say that the Federal Government is doing too much, I think, is to ignore what we have done in the past. In 1980--of every dollar that went for elementary and secondary education in America, for every dollar that went out, the Federal Government provided about 10 cents. So about 10 cents of every dollar that went out for elementary and secondary education came from the Federal Government. That was 1980. To those who say that today, in 1998, the Federal Government is doing too much in elementary and secondary education, I point out that from that point in 1980 to now the Federal Government is only providing about 6 percent of the money for elementary and secondary education. In other words, in the intervening 18 years, the Federal role in support of elementary and secondary education has been cut by almost. I always tell my constituents in Iowa, and other places, obviously, you wonder why your property taxes are going up. That is why. In order to keep the schools up and to meet their constitutional requirements to provide for new technology, to help fix up crumbling schools, the States then have to put it back on the local jurisdictions, and they have to raise property taxes. That is why the property taxes seem to be going up all over this country. So I always say to people, if you want property tax relief, the best thing is to get the Federal Government back up to where we were in 1980. You do that and you will find out we will be able to fix our crumbling schools, we will be able to hire 100,000 teachers and reduce class size, we will be able to wire the schools for the Internet, and get the technology these kids need at an early level. Mr. President, if we had just held constant from where we were in 1980 to today--do not increase but do not decrease; simply held constant--the Federal Government's share of elementary and secondary education would be about a 44-percent increase. We would be providing an additional $10 billion more each year our local schools. And any way you cut it, that spells property tax relief. That spells more technology for our schools. If I might digress just a moment, there are some who think that our kids in elementary school have to learn the basics first and then they can get on to computers. There are some who say that what our kids need is a No. 2 lead pencil and a Big Chief tablet; they learn that first, and then they can go into computers. They fail to recognize that the No. 2 lead pencil and the Big Chief tablet of today are the desktop computer. I know the occupant of the Chair is a little bit younger than I am, but when I was a kid in a two-room country schoolhouse in rural Iowa back in the 1940s and early 1950s, we had a blackboard and a piece of chalk. That was our computer. We used that blackboard and a piece of chalk; we had our Big Chief tablet and No. 2 lead pencil. That might have been OK for my generation. It is not OK for this generation; it is not OK for the kids today. It is not something they use after they get smart, it is something they use to help them learn smart, to understand what we are going to need in the 21st century to meet our needs. We could have that if the Federal Government would meet its obligations, if we just held constant where we were in 1980. That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to support the President's goal of reducing class size and getting 100,000 teachers out there. We are trying to support the President in his goal of getting money out to help fix our crumbling schools, so the kids don't have to go out and learn in trailers, so we don't have 30 to 35 kids in the class but something like 18 or 19, at the maximum, in any class. Last, we hear all the speeches about turning the money over to the States and let them decide how to respond. That all sounds good. What about all of the bipartisan accomplishments that we also hear about in this Congress? We passed the Higher Education Act; we reauthorized the vocational and technical education bill; we expanded the Federal Charter Schools Program. Senators on both sides of the aisle brag about this. How can you brag about it in one breath and turn around and say that we have to turn over all the money to the States? I am a little confused about that. If you are proud of the vocational and technical education and the fact that the Federal Government has supported it and we just reauthorized it, how can you then turn around and said we shouldn't do any of this? There is a role, a limited role, for the Federal Government, but a very powerful and important role. I believe this Congress is turning its back on its responsibilities, unless in the closing days of this session we can get an agreement to provide resources to reduce class size and fix our crumbling schools. We need the money in there right now so the kids don't have to go out in trailers in the back of the school to learn. I hope in the closing days we will be able to get the education funding that we need.