Mark Hatfield

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, the Senate has before it today an issue that goes to the heart of our democratic system of government. Limiting congressional terms has been one of the most consistently visible issues in our Nation's political arena for the past 6 years. In addition to being a significant plank of congressional campaigns, several States have voted to limit the terms of those elected to Federal offices. The Supreme Court ruled last year in the Thornton case that statutory efforts by Congress or individual States to impose term limits on Federal officials are unconstitutional. In lieu of this recent action by the Supreme Court, the only remaining option is a constitutional amendment limiting the number of terms a Member of Congress may serve. The Senate has before it and will soon vote on such a measure. I oppose amending the Constitution to limit the number of terms a Member of Congress may serve and will vote against this resolution. I will, however, vote in favor of cloture on this resolution so that debate on this important issue can be brought to a timely conclusion. It should be recognized that, despite their recent visibility, proposals to limit congressional terms are not a new phenomenon. This is a debate that has been evolving for many years. Our Founding Fathers considered including term limits in the Constitution. They grappled with the question and rejected the idea, preferring to allow such authority to be exercised by the citizenry at the ballot box. At the beginning of my career in the U.S. Senate, I introduced legislation to restrict Senators to no more than two terms. When this measure did not pass and my own second term came to an end, I decided I could be more effective for the people of Oregon by continuing my service in the Senate. My constituents agreed with me and, at the ballot box, chose to continue my term of service in this body. During the years of debate over term limits, many have argued the only way to remove entrenched incumbents from Congress is to override the will of the voters by placing a mandatory limit on the number of terms a member may serve. However, the American voters currently have the authority to limit the terms of any member of Congress during each election. Voters in the 1992 election gave 110 new individuals the opportunity to serve in the House. In 1994 86 new Members were elected to the House of Representatives and 11 to the Senate. The 1996 cycle, at least for the Senate, has already achieved the distinction of having the most retirements of any cycle in this century. An analysis of our recent elections shows that over half of the Members of the House of Representatives and nearly a third of the Members of the Senate have been elected since 1990. Mr. President, term limits are an important issue worthy of debate, but they are not a panacea for reforming Congress or improving the public's perception of this institution. In fact, I believe they have the potential to cause significant damage by depriving voters and this institution of the best qualified candidates. Congressional turnover is something best left in the hands of the local voters. The 1994 elections not only brought numerous new Members to Congress, but they also gave the Republican Party control of both Houses for the first time in over 40 years. This drastic change was accomplished by the American people exercising their constitutional right to vote for the candidate of their choice. It was not accomplished by imposing a structural change upon the electoral process so thoughtfully conceived by the Framers of the Constitution. As the Nation deliberates the issue of term limits, I would encourage proponents of limitation to consider each candidate individually. The difficulty in setting arbitrary limits is, simply, that they are arbitrary. Citizens should not be denied the service of the effective, elected representative of their choice merely because that person had already served them well. Candidates should not be judged by a constitutional provision that looks only at the length of their prior service. Rather, candidates should be judged by their constituents, who invariably look at the quality of the service provided in past terms and the likelihood of satisfactory representation over the next time-limited term.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, as we are all too aware, the past several months, it has grown exceedingly difficult for Members of Congress to focus their attention on anything other than sad circumstances of our Federal budget. As chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I share in the frustration. Fortunately, I am pleased to see that in the midst of our negotiations, and setbacks, excellent progress has been made in the area of health insurance reform. Senators Kassebaum and Kennedy are to be commended for their efforts this past year. While compromise may not be in fashion, they have utilized this tool with extreme skill, crafting a bill that makes great strides towards improving the infrastructure of health care in the United States. Accessibility to health care was the focus of debate in the 103d Congress and it has become our focus again. Many of you know that the State of Oregon is already on the cutting edge of improving accessibility for many groups. The Oregon Health Plan, with its focus on providing health care coverage under the Medicaid program, has successfully prioritized those health care services most important to its citizens. Oregon is therefore able to provide coverage to thousands of low-income individuals who would otherwise be uncovered. Oregon is also making progress improving its health insurance system. But issues to accessibility, affordability and portability are national issues as well. Several of my colleagues have already discussed the merits of the Health Insurance Reform Act. As one who is about to change jobs, I strongly support the goal of increasing health insurance portability. We must keep this focus in mind. Several amendments are being offered, which I would normally tend to vote for. However, in light of our need to ensure that this reform is passed and signed, I will not be supporting such amendments. Again, several of these amendments being considered today are excellent. But if their passage only serves to make health insurance reform impossible to pass, my support would be in vain and our goal to increase portability would be unmet. Increasing the availability and renewability of health coverage for millions of Americans is a reform Congress has sought for years. Individuals should not be refused the opportunity to renew or change health plans based on their preexisting conditions. Senator Kassebaum's bill addresses this problem and it is estimated it will serve over 25 million Americans each year. But I also want to thank Senator Kassebaum for clarifying in her bill that individuals with genetic information that predisposes them to a disease will also benefit from the Health Insurance Reform Act's portability conditions. This clarifying language is a first step toward bringing important issues surrounding genetics to their forefront. I would also like to thank Senator Harkin for his leadership on the Labor Committee in working to see that genetic information is protected in the health insurance reform bill. New biomedical technologies have resulted in scientific breakthroughs unimaginable just a generation ago. Scientists are working to decode our DNA and will ultimately map and sequence every gene in the human body. Such genetic research is our most advanced tool in the search for treatments and cures to diseases such as breast cancer, Alzheimer's or Huntington's disease. These are exciting medical frontiers, but if the fruit of this labor is to be realized, an unhindered commitment to genetic research must be promoted, and this includes protecting an individual from the threat of genetic discrimination. There have already been cases cited where a physically fit individual, with no previous health problems, is denied insurance on the basis of a single genetic test result. This is a problem for two reasons. First, information about our genes tells us much about who we are, but is not accurate enough to tell us the state of our health in the future. Our future medical condition is a complex puzzle, of which our genetic makeup is just one piece. Health plans should not be discriminating on the basis of this single piece. Second, cases have been documented of individuals who wanted to participate in a genetic test, but when they were told that their participation may threaten their insurability, they turned around and walked out of the lab. This is not in the best interest of research; this is not in the best interest of society; and it is certainly not in the best interest of the individual. Furthermore, while including genetic discrimination in the Health Insurance Reform Act is a good start, but is just the beginning of a process aimed at protecting the privacy and insurability of individuals, regardless of their genetic information or family history. As I mentioned earlier, it is estimated that this bill will affect about 25 million each year. I have sponsored a separate piece of legislation, the Generic Privacy and Nondiscrimination Act, S. 1416, with Senator Mack, which addresses the needs of millions of Americans who may not fit within the boundaries of the bill we are discussing today. S. 1416 also addresses issues of genetic privacy and employer discrimination. I am hopeful that the Senate's consideration of genetic information in this legislation will open the door wider to a deeper understanding of these important issues.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to John O. Hemperley, the Budget Officer of the Library of Congress, who passed away last Saturday. Members and staff of the Appropriations Committee rely heavily on the expertise, efficiency, and responsiveness of agency budget officers. Throughout our Federal Government there is a corps of budget professionals who set the example of dedicated public service. John Hemperley embodied the highest standards of his profession. He possessed a knowledge and understanding of the Library's budget that was unsurpassed, and he was unfailingly responsive in sharing that knowledge with our committee and its staff. He was fierce in his defense of the Library's mission and the budget funding that mission, but he never misrepresented the facts, and he always faithfully executed the budget enacted by the Congress. The Library of Congress is a unique and treasured institution. It is the greatest repository of knowledge in the history of the world, and for 196 years the Congress of the United States has supported and nurtured its development. Today the Library faces the challenge of providing new electronic services to all its constituent groups while maintaining its traditional services to the Congress and the Nation, all in a time of severe fiscal constraint. John O. Hemperley was a unique and treasured individual. For the past 23 years, he supported and nurtured the Library of Congress in its relationship with the Committee on Appropriations. He will be sorely missed, not only by those who knew and loved him here in the Senate and in the Library, but by all those who may never have known him but who benefit daily from the enormous resources the Library provides. The challenges the Library faces will be more daunting without him. Mr. President, I know I speak for Senator Mack, the chairman of our Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, and for all other members of the Appropriations Committee, and our staff, in expressing our great sorrow and extending sincere condolences to John's wife, Bess Hemperley, their children, and grandchildren. And may John rest in peace with God.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, my home State of Oregon has been hit hard in recent months. With the damage wrought by this winter's violent windstorms and recordbreaking floods, many Oregonians were left to wonder if God was somehow angry with us. The helping hand that a Mennonite group has provided to a small Oregon town reminds us how faith can be a powerful healer for a community. A recent feature in The Oregonian newspaper, titled ``Angels With Hammers'' by Bryan Denson, related the assistance the Christian Aid Ministries Disaster Response Service has brought to the tiny town of Vernonia, OR. Vernonia suffered $9 million worth of damage last February, when the cresting rivers flowed into the community's schools, homes, and businesses. Emergency services pulled out of town when the immediate crisis of the flood passed, and Vernonia's 2,250 residents faced the daunting task of rebuilding their community. They found help from a most unexpected source. The first of a wave of Mennonites arrived, led by Paul Weaver and Dan Hostetler. These volunteers were soon joined by some New Order Amish and Apostolic Christians. they offered to repair the dining hall of a local outdoor school in return for shelter. Then they volunteered their free labor and construction expertise for a number of the community's rebuilding needs. For the last 6 weeks, the Mennonites have worked side by side with the people of Vernonia, rebuilding homes destroyed by the flooding. By late May, the group expects to have renovated at least 30 Vernonia homes. Then they will quietly move on to another community in need of the same assistance. The Ohio-based Cristian Aid Ministries Disaster Response Service was formed in 1992 in the wake of Florida's Hurricane Andrew. They have helped rebuild hundreds of homes in disaster-stricken communities all over the Nation. I am always heartened by stories about the generosity of strangers, and the help these good samaritans have brought to one Oregon town is exceptional. I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank these Mennonite brethren and the volunteers working with them for the healing aid they have brought to Vernonia. Through their quiet and unexpected efforts, they have relieved a community in great need and inspired many with their faith. The mayor of Vernonia, Tony Hyde, summed up this act of selflessness perfectly when he said, ``It's pretty special-- Christianity at its best.'' As an aside, I would also like to commend the reporter that produced the account of this effort in Vernonia, Bryan Denson, and The Oregonian for publishing this piece. Oftentimes reading the morning paper causes one to want to crawl back in bed. The inspirational tone of this article would make any reader anxious to greet a new day and to lend a hand to their neighbor.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Madam President, As tax day approaches, I once again come before the Senate to introduce the United States Peace Tax Fund. I am joined in this effort by the Senator from Iowa, Senator Harkin, who has been a longtime original cosponsor of this bill. I first introduced the Peace Tax Fund during the 95th Congress, nearly 20 years ago. I have reintroduced the Peace Tax Fund in every Congress since then because I believe it is important legislation. Since 1945 eligible conscientious objectors have been excused from combat. Although our Nation long has recognized moral and religious opposition to war, it has failed to address the depth and scope of such objections. Our tax laws do not recognize that conscience not only prohibits participation on the battlefield, but also in the preparation for war through payments to the military. CO's may withhold their bodies but not their money. The Peace Tax Fund Act, if enacted, would allow complete participation in our Federal Government by all citizens without many being forced to compromise deeply held beliefs of any citizen. Over the years I have received many letters from constituents describing their disapproval of military taxes and their desire to have the Federal Government respect such objections. Some citizens write of their decision to set aside their beliefs and pay their taxes in full, despite the anguish such payment causes. Others, perhaps following Albert Einstein's advice, ``Never do anything against conscience even if the State demands it,'' refuse to pay a portion of their taxes. Some Americans purposefully keep their income below the taxable level, so that they can avoid the decision altogether. It is important to point out what the Peace Tax Fund legislation is not. The Peace tax Fund is not a method by which a citizen may lodge protest over wasteful defense programs. Nor is it a tool to circumvent foreign policy initiatives. Tax liabilities cannot be reduced through participation in the Peace Tax Fund. The Peace Tax Fund Act was developed not for those individuals seeking to alter national policy, but rather to allow certain individuals to fully uphold Federal law without violating their consciences. The Peace Tax Fund would allow these sincere conscientious objectors the opportunity to pay their Federal taxes in full. Those who qualify may choose to have that portion of their taxes which would go to military activities instead be diverted to a special trust fund--the Peace Tax Fund--and then disbursed to two Federal programs: Head Start and WIC. The bill would not reduce the amount of funding for military activities. Nor would it result in any significant loss of revenue, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. As defined by the Peace Tax Fund Act, an eligible conscientious objector is anyone who has obtained this status under the Military Selective Service Act. Others may submit a questionnaire to the Secretary of the Treasury certifying his or her beliefs and how those beliefs affect that individual's life. In the 20-plus years that this issue has been debated, only two hearings have been held. The last hearing was held by the House Ways and Means Committee in 1992. The Senate has never held hearings on the Peace Tax Fund. It is my hope that before I leave the Senate the Finance Committee will hold a hearing on this issue. The Peace Tax Fund has had the support of many committed religious and peace organizations throughout the years. I ask unanimous consent that a partial listing of the organizations endorsing the Peace Tax Fund be included in the Record. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation so important to the protection of personal and religious beliefs of many citizens who find themselves each tax season torn between the law and conscience.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, the natural resources of my State are indisputably among the most significant and spectacular in the world. It has been almost 30 years since the enactment of the Oregon wilderness bill--the massive, 100,000-acre Mt. Jefferson Wilderness in central Oregon. I sponsored that bill and two other comprehensive pieces of legislation in 1978 and 1984, which increased Oregon's wilderness system fourfold, from 500,000 acres to 2.1 million acres. Throughout my years in the Senate I have attempted to protect Oregon's resources by following the philosophy of the one of our Nation's first and foremost conservationists, the original U.S. Forest Service Chief, Gifford Pinchot. Gifford Pinchot said: The conservation of natural resources [in this country] is the key to the future. It is the key to the safety and prosperity of the American people. Conservation is the greatest material question of all. This principle of conservation has led me to sponsor numerous land protection bills over the years. Let me say, as I list this record of legislation, I want it clearly understood that, like anything else that happens in this Senate and in the legislative body, it was a team effort. It was a group effort. We had the advocates in the population and communities, we had the organizations sponsoring such issues in the public, and I had colleagues, colleagues not only in the Senate but colleagues in the House of Representatives, who were all part of this record that I am reciting today. In addition to that is the staff, the staff that serves these committees with such dedication, such expertise. None of it could have happened solely on the energy or effort of any one Member. I have also sponsored legislation enacting the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, Yaquina Head and Cascade Head on the Oregon coast, the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, the Newberry Crater National Monument, and the Oregon Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which includes protection of 42 Oregon rivers, more than any other State in the Union. In fact, the next highest State is California with 11. To put Oregon's 42 wild and scenic rivers into context, having just made that statement about California, Alaska has displaced California. Alaska now has 25 rivers. Next comes Michigan, with 16. California now has 13 and Arkansas 8. I am proud that Oregon has led the way in protecting our wild and scenic rivers. Again, having stated the figures of those other States, Oregon is 42. Each time I have labored to protect these special areas, I have been forcefully reminded that I represent a State that is often sharply divided on natural resource issues. These divides generally reflect the difference between the urban and the rural way of life. During the decades I have devoted to public service, I have sought to bridge the chasm that has formed between the urban and rural citizens of my State and bring some order and balance to natural resource conflicts by addressing both sides of the debate. Today, in a sense, I am coming full circle to where I started with the 1968 Mt. Jefferson Wilderness Act. Today, I am introducing legislation to, once again, increase Oregon's wilderness system and protect one of Oregon's most important low-elevation old growth forests, Opal Creek. This legislation, called the Oregon Resources Conservation Act, also includes solutions to two other natural resource issues in my State on which I have been working for many years: protection of the Mt. Hood corridor; and promotion of consensus-based working groups in the Klamath and Deschutes River Basins. I am also including a so-called placeholder title for the Coquille Forest proposal, which will require a significant amount of public input prior to the introduction of any legislation. Title I of the Oregon Resources Conservation Act creates a 25,800- acre Opal Creek Wilderness and National Scenic-Recreation Area. Opal Creek is truly one of Oregon's ecological crown jewels. It is one of the last remaining intact, low-elevation old-growth forest areas in western Oregon. Portions of Opal Creek are literally blanketed with majestic old-growth forests and crystal clear, stair-stepping waters. I have always felt this area should be protected in perpetuity from commercial timber harvesting and mining. In fact, I included it in the original versions of both my 1984 Oregon Wilderness Act and my 1988 Oregon Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Each time, however, the area was removed from these bills at the request of the State's Governor. In 1991, I sponsored additional Opal Creek protection legislation when I included a provision which was enacted as part of the fiscal year 1992 Department of Defense appropriations bill to to facilitate the issuance of a patent on the key access property to Opal Creek. This provision was necessary to facilitate a large charitable donation of land and mineral interests by a mining company to the Nature Conservancy for the protection of the area. Unfortunately, the Nature Conservancy was forced to reject this donation due to its concerns about potential liability for an existing contaminated abandoned mining site in the Opal Creek area. Subsequently the Friends of Opal Creek, a local conservation group, stepped forward to accept this large charitable donation. In 1994, there was another Opal Creek protection bill before the Congress. The bill, sponsored by my good friend, then-Representative Mike Kopetski of Oregon, passed the House of Representatives under his fine leadership and was referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in the final days of the 103d Congress. In fact, Mr. President, I invited my former colleague, Congressman Mike Kopetski, to be here today on this very historic occasion to share in the results of many of his long years of commitment and his dedicated effort. The Senate was unable to take final action on this legislation in the few remaining weeks prior to sine die. These difficulties were enhanced by the administration's initial opposition and ambivalence toward the proposal. I called for and chaired a hearing before the the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on October 5, 1994, which examined the concerns with the bill and sought to build momentum for a working group process at the local level which would attempt to build consensus and bring divergent parties together on this controversial issue. This hearing did, indeed, create the momentum necessary for the formation of an Opal Creek working group, and on September 1, 1995, the first meeting of the group was held in Salem, OR. The Willamette University Dispute Resolution Center agreed to facilitate the meeting and attempt to build a consensus on the issue. The group, with the benefit of the outstanding facilitation skills of Prof. Richard Birke, met from September 1995 to March of this year and has developed a several-hundred page report summarizing its deliberations. I believe the group has done an excellent job discussing difficult issues and working together to find a solution. Mind you, this was a very broadly based group representing industry, local officials, environmental organizations, user groups and so forth. While no clear-cut consensus emerged from the group, their report has given me a strong understanding of the existing natural values of the area, the issues involved in protection of the area and the positions of all groups involved in the debate. Indeed, this report has greatly assisted me in developing the legislation I am introducing today. As many of my colleagues know, we have a political environment in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest that is as splintered as any I have seen in my political career. This environment is characterized by a lack of trust on all sides of the political spectrum and extreme polarization. The Opal Creek working group, therefore, is a great success in bringing parties together in an attempt to heal old wounds and build new partnerships. The group also represents in my mind a great success in addressing one of my major concerns with the House's legislation from 1994, which was the general lack of agreements and limited dialog regarding protection of this forested area. I thank each and every member of the group of their dedication to this 6-month process and to resolving this difficult issue. Again, I want to say, parenthetically, that one of the outstanding members of that group is former Congressman Mike Kopetski who, again, was able to give leadership from some of his experience in giving his life effort to the development of Opal Creek. The legislation I am introducing today also addresses another major concern I had with the 1994 Opal Creek bill, its lack of ecosystem watershed management principles. The 1994 bill would have protected approximately 22,000 acres in the Opal Creek area. My bill protects 25,800 acres, including the creation of approximately 12,800 acres of new wilderness. Each and every one of the sub watersheds--we took a map, and we looked at that map as an ecosystem. We looked at that map as a great basin, a watershed. So we took from that map, with concern for protection of the entire ecosystem. Each and every one of those sub watersheds in the Little North Fork Santiam River drainage are addressed in some way in my legislation, either through a wilderness or a national scenic recreation area designation. By doing this, we have attempted to protect the outstanding resource values in each of these sub drainages, while at the same time addressing the area comprehensively as an intact ecosystem. In addition to addressing the protection of the entire watershed, the Opal Creek title of this bill maintains recreation at existing levels and allows for growth in uses where appropriate. The bill also calls for historical, cultural and ecological interpretation in the newly- created area to be conducted in a balanced and factually accurate manner. Motorized recreation will be prohibited except on the existing road system and nonmotorized use will be permitted throughout the area, except, of course, in the wilderness. The existing road system will be analyzed and evaluated through a management planning process, which will decide which roads to close and which to leave open. No new water impoundments will be allowed in this area. No new mining claims will be allowed to be filed under the 1872 mining law, and no existing claims will be allowed to be patented. In addition, the bill calls for the creation of an advisory council composed of members of the local community, industry, environmental groups, locally elected officials, the Forest Service and an appointee by the Governor. Finally, the bill will not allow commercial timber harvesting of any kind in the Opal Creek area except to prevent the spread of a forest fire or to to protect public health and safety. It is important to note that the lands covered by my legislation are not included--not included--in the timber base and are not open to commercial harvest today. The final element of the Opal Creek package, Mr. President, was an important part of the working group's discussions. I am referring to an economic development package for the Santiam Canyon, which includes the communities immediately adjacent to the Opal Creek area. This package is based, primarily, on a set of infrastructure improvements developed by these communities in conjunction with the State Economic Development Office, which are designed to improve the water quality and delivery systems of the communities in the area. I have made the first downpayment on this economic commitment package by including a $300,000 appropriation in the fiscal year 1996 Omnibus Appropriations Act to help begin the clean up of the contaminated Amalgamated Mill site at Jawbone Flats in Opal Creek. Throughout the coming fiscal year 1997 appropriations cycle, I will work closely with Oregon's Gov. John Kitzhaber, and my colleague on the House Appropriations Committee from Oregon, Jim Bunn, to further refine this package and provide additional funding, as needed, for the Amalgamated Mill cleanup and for the critical community infrastructure projects designed to allow these former timber communities to diversify their economic bases and improve their water systems. In short, the Opal Creek title of this bill attempts to address every issue raised both in the 1994 hearings on Opal Creek and in the working group process conducted out in Oregon. This is an issue I have worked on for almost 20 years. I am extremely pleased that, with this legislation and accompanying infrastructure development package, we will finally be able to address the protection of Opal Creek and the adjacent portions of the Little North Fork Santiam Watershed, as well as improvements to the water quality and delivery systems of nearby, timber-dependent communities. Mr. President, the Oregon Resources Conservation Act also contains two other titles. The first is a relatively noncontroversial provision which promulgates a land exchange in the Mt. Hood Corridor between the Bureau of Land Management and the Longview Fibre timber company in the State of Washington. Both parties are willing participants in this process, which seeks to protect the viewshed along the Highway 26 corridor on the way to Mt. Hood, the highest mountain peak in my State. Longview Fibre owns approximately 3,500 acres of timber land in the scenic Mt. Hood corridor, which are interspersed with BLM lands in a checkerboard fashion. Longview would like to harvest these lands within the next 5 years, but is sensitive about the public perception regarding these clearcuts along such a heavily traveled route. I agree with Longview Fibre and feel harvesting these trees along Highway 26 would be a disaster both for the ecological and visual characteristics of the resource. Longview, to their credit, has been extremely interested in working with local planning and environmental groups to identify BLM parcels elsewhere in western Oregon that could be traded for the Longview Fibre lands in the corridor. This proposal is a unique opportunity to forge ahead with a plan that has been built at the local level over the past 5 years and which has virtually unanimous support, including the local county government, local businesses, the timber industry, and local environmental groups. The third, and final, title of the Oregon Resource Conservation Act includes the establishment of a 5-year pilot project for two, consensus-based natural resource planning bodies now working in Oregon's Klamath and Deschutes Basins. Both of these bodies are already in place and have been working to provide the Federal agencies with recommendations about how best to prioritize spending for ecological restoration, economic health, and reducing drought impacts. I called for the creation of the Upper Klamath Basin working group in 1995. This group is citizen-led and includes environmentalists, irrigators, local business leaders, locally elected officials, educators, the Klamath Tribes, and Federal land management agencies in an advisory capacity. This group was charged with developing both short- and long-term recommendations for restoring ecological health in the Klamath Basin. They were successful in developing short-term funding recommendations ranging from riparian and wetland restoration, to fish passage and the coordination of geological information systems in the basin. I followed through on these recommendations and was able to obtain either funding or direction to the pertinent agencies in the fiscal year 1996 appropriations process. The group has also developed a long-term recommendation which includes a formal registration of the group as a State-sanctioned foundation and congressional legislation enabling them to help land management agencies set priorities for how money is spent in the basin on various ecological restoration and economic stabilization projects. The legislation I am introducing today addresses their long-term recommendation by creating a 5-year pilot project to allow the Upper Klamath Basin Working Group-Foundation, in conjunction with the Federal land management agencies in the basin, to develop funding priorities for ecological restoration in the basin. It will provide $1 million per year to be spent consistent with these priorities. This money will be administered by the agencies and matched by an equal amount of non- Federal dollars. The Deschutes Basin in central Oregon would also be allowed to develop a similar regime using, as its base, a group formed by the Warm Springs Tribes, the Environmental Defense Fund, local irrigators, and locally elected officials. This group has been meeting and collaborating on projects in the basin for several years. Recently, both of these working groups have been able to make significant progress in building coalitions and consensus on natural resource management challenges that, not too long ago, many felt were insurmountable. By given them more authority to temporarily assist Federal agencies with setting policy priorities using a finite amount of money, I hope we can begin to enter a new era of more local control and greater public input regarding resource management decisions. I also hope these groups, and others that may follow, will continue to use the consensus-based management approach to return resource management decisions to a collaborative, inclusive process rather than divisive, litigious morass in which we find ourselves today. Mr. President, today I had also planned on introducing a bill to create a 59,000-acre Coquille Forest as part of the federally- recognized Coquille Tribes' economic self-sufficiency plan. However, because of a number of unresolved issues, including the apparent lack of agreement, understanding or consensus at the local level, I am withholding my introduction of this bill until after I have had an opportunity to gather more public input through the congressional hearing process. And also there is a local election that is being held in May concerning this issue. I am extremely pleased with this bill. It protects two of Oregon's most important natural resource areas, Opal Creek and the Mt. Hood Corridor, and it promotes consensus-based, watershed planning at the local level in the Klamath and Deschutes Basins. I have worked many years to protect Oregon's magnificent natural resources. I am pleased that in this, my last year in the Senate, I will be able to continue this legacy of protecting Oregon's beauty for the enjoyment and use of future generations. I look forward to speedy hearings on the Oregon Resources Conservation Act, of which I have been promised by the chairman of the committee, Senator Murkowski of Alaska. We will have that hearing later in the month of April. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record. This bill is ready to be sent to the House.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, this joint resolution provides continuing appropriations until April 24, 1996, for the departments and agencies of the Federal Government normally provided for under the five appropriations bills that have not yet been signed into law. Special provision has been made for a labor-management matter at the Federal Aviation Administration, for the Federal payments to the District of Columbia, for a matter relative to the Auburn Indian Restoration Act, and for economic assistance to Bosnia. Adoption of this joint resolution will extend funding authority for the departments and agencies concerned for another 3\1/2\ weeks, enabling the appropriations committees, the joint leadership, and the White House to continue discussions on the omnibus appropriations bill now in conference, and reach agreement thereon. We have already made a great deal of progress on the omnibus bill. Mr. President, most of our issues have been resolved and major portions of the bill have been closed. But there are still some significant matters requiring leadership attention that will need to be discussed during the recess and resolved when we resume the conference on April 15. I have indicated that I will convene that conference on that date, April 15, at some hour during that afternoon. I am confident that our discussions will be fruitful and we will produce a bill that the President will endorse. That is our goal. I yield back the remainder of my time. Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the joint resolution was deemed passed.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I would like to express my thanks to the Senator from Iowa for his analysis of the situation we find ourselves in as the Appropriations Committee. I would also like to again reiterate that we have 13 appropriations subcommittees. In other words, we have 13 subcommittees with chairs for each of those subcommittees, ranking members for each one of those subcommittees. I think our committee is unique in that sense, because we do not bring a bill to the floor unless it has been a bill developed on a bipartisan basis within each of those subcommittees. Mr. Harkin, our colleague from Iowa, was formerly chairman of the Labor-HHS Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, which now is chaired by Senator Specter, of Pennsylvania. So he brought into that partnership that kind of background and understanding, as we have on most every one of our subcommittees. The chair is now being occupied by the Senator from Washington State, who chairs the Interior Subcommittee. His ranking member is former chairman, Senator Byrd. So, in effect, we have been jointly producing these bills; it is bipartisan, and giving the Senate a very strong position. Then, when we went to conference, we had 40 Democrats and 39 Republicans voting for the Senate product, including both the leaders, the Republican leader and the Democratic leader. Sure, we knew we were going to be in tough negotiations, but, nevertheless, we had a great number of accomplishments. We had, as the Senator knows, 12 of our 13 subcommittees involved, most of them with language, but with 5 unresolved appropriation bills. We were able to reduce the five to two. In other words, we closed the chapters on three of them. We closed the chapter on a couple of the others that were in the language area. So that, in effect, when we come back on April 15 and we take up the unfinished business of the Labor-HHS, for which the Senator from Iowa is the ranking member, we will have the figures, the dollars, pretty well resolved, as the Senator has said. We are now talking about language, riders. I wish we did not have them. I wish we would have those issues taken up by the authorizers where they belong. But there is a trend line upward, by the fact that the authorizing actions have become very, very slow. As an example, the Endangered Species Act; 4 years ago it expired. We, in the Appropriations Committee, have been keeping it funded and keeping it going. I could say that when there was an effort made by a few of my colleagues to convince me, as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, that we should not fund expired authorization programs, I did not have any idea what the scope of that might be, so I went to CBO. I asked CBO to give us a quick analysis of the expired authorizations that we were continuing to fund. Mr. President, $95 billion is what they came up with for their estimate on expired authorizations; a goodly percentage of them in the Justice Department, and particularly those relating to fighting crime--expired authorizations. So we, in effect, have almost taken on double our responsibility, of not only funding but, assuming that in that funding we authorize for that year, we extend the authorization that has expired. It is not a task that we have desired or we have asked for. I like to always remind our colleagues, no other committee but the Appropriations Committee has to pass legislation. Every other committee can consider authorization, but there is no basic command to perform. Only the Appropriations Committee must keep the Government running. We have to pass a bill--in fact, 13 of them. So, lots of times, knowing that, we get piggybacked. Others who are finding an inability to either extend authorization or renew authorization or deal with authorizing items come and piggyback on the appropriations bill. We are taking on those duties, but I am saying to the Senator, there are a lot of reasons why this situation becomes increasingly difficult. I thank the colleagues on the committee. I have never seen a more dedicated group working together on a bipartisan basis to do their duty as I have with the subcommittees of our Appropriations Committee and the staff. I just cannot pay too high a tribute to the staffs on both sides that assist the members. It is a collegial experience. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business in order to introduce a bill.

Mr. HATFIELD. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Hatfield pertaining to the introduction of S. 1662 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'') Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, the natural resources of my State are indisputably among the most significant and spectacular in the world. It has been almost 30 years since the enactment of the Oregon wilderness bill--the massive, 100,000-acre Mt. Jefferson Wilderness in central Oregon. I sponsored that bill and two other comprehensive pieces of legislation in 1978 and 1984, which increased Oregon's wilderness system fourfold, from 500,000 acres to 2.1 million acres. Throughout my years in the Senate I have attempted to protect Oregon's resources by following the philosophy of the one of our Nation's first and foremost conservationists, the original U.S. Forest Service Chief, Gifford Pinchot. Gifford Pinchot said: The conservation of natural resources [in this country] is the key to the future. It is the key to the safety and prosperity of the American people. Conservation is the greatest material question of all. This principle of conservation has led me to sponsor numerous land protection bills over the years. Let me say, as I list this record of legislation, I want it clearly understood that, like anything else that happens in this Senate and in the legislative body, it was a team effort. It was a group effort. We had the advocates in the population and communities, we had the organizations sponsoring such issues in the public, and I had colleagues, colleagues not only in the Senate but colleagues in the House of Representatives, who were all part of this record that I am reciting today. In addition to that is the staff, the staff that serves these committees with such dedication, such expertise. None of it could have happened solely on the energy or effort of any one Member. I have also sponsored legislation enacting the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, Yaquina Head and Cascade Head on the Oregon coast, the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, the Newberry Crater National Monument, and the Oregon Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which includes protection of 42 Oregon rivers, more than any other State in the Union. In fact, the next highest State is California with 11. To put Oregon's 42 wild and scenic rivers into context, having just made that statement about California, Alaska has displaced California. Alaska now has 25 rivers. Next comes Michigan, with 16. California now has 13 and Arkansas 8. I am proud that Oregon has led the way in protecting our wild and scenic rivers. Again, having stated the figures of those other States, Oregon is 42. Each time I have labored to protect these special areas, I have been forcefully reminded that I represent a State that is often sharply divided on natural resource issues. These divides generally reflect the difference between the urban and the rural way of life. During the decades I have devoted to public service, I have sought to bridge the chasm that has formed between the urban and rural citizens of my State and bring some order and balance to natural resource conflicts by addressing both sides of the debate. Today, in a sense, I am coming full circle to where I started with the 1968 Mt. Jefferson Wilderness Act. Today, I am introducing legislation to, once again, increase Oregon's wilderness system and protect one of Oregon's most important low-elevation old growth forests, Opal Creek. This legislation, called the Oregon Resources Conservation Act, also includes solutions to two other natural resource issues in my State on which I have been working for many years: protection of the Mt. Hood corridor; and promotion of consensus-based working groups in the Klamath and Deschutes River Basins. I am also including a so-called placeholder title for the Coquille Forest proposal, which will require a significant amount of public input prior to the introduction of any legislation. Title I of the Oregon Resources Conservation Act creates a 25,800- acre Opal Creek Wilderness and National Scenic-Recreation Area. Opal Creek is truly one of Oregon's ecological crown jewels. It is one of the last remaining intact, low-elevation old-growth forest areas in western Oregon. Portions of Opal Creek are literally blanketed with majestic old-growth forests and crystal clear, stair-stepping waters. I have always felt this area should be protected in perpetuity from commercial timber harvesting and mining. In fact, I included it in the original versions of both my 1984 Oregon Wilderness Act and my 1988 Oregon Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Each time, however, the area was removed from these bills at the request of the State's Governor. In 1991, I sponsored additional Opal Creek protection legislation when I included a provision which was enacted as part of the fiscal year 1992 Department of Defense appropriations bill to to facilitate the issuance of a patent on the key access property to Opal Creek. This provision was necessary to facilitate a large charitable donation of land and mineral interests by a mining company to the Nature Conservancy for the protection of the area. Unfortunately, the Nature Conservancy was forced to reject this donation due to its concerns about potential liability for an existing contaminated abandoned mining site in the Opal Creek area. Subsequently the Friends of Opal Creek, a local conservation group, stepped forward to accept this large charitable donation. In 1994, there was another Opal Creek protection bill before the Congress. The bill, sponsored by my good friend, then-Representative Mike Kopetski of Oregon, passed the House of Representatives under his fine leadership and was referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in the final days of the 103d Congress. In fact, Mr. President, I invited my former colleague, Congressman Mike Kopetski, to be here today on this very historic occasion to share in the results of many of his long years of commitment and his dedicated effort. The Senate was unable to take final action on this legislation in the few remaining weeks prior to sine die. These difficulties were enhanced by the administration's initial opposition and ambivalence toward the proposal. I called for and chaired a hearing before the the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on October 5, 1994, which examined the concerns with the bill and sought to build momentum for a working group process at the local level which would attempt to build consensus and bring divergent parties together on this controversial issue. This hearing did, indeed, create the momentum necessary for the formation of an Opal Creek working group, and on September 1, 1995, the first meeting of the group was held in Salem, OR. The Willamette University Dispute Resolution Center agreed to facilitate the meeting and attempt to build a consensus on the issue. The group, with the benefit of the outstanding facilitation skills of Prof. Richard Birke, met from September 1995 to March of this year and has developed a several-hundred page report summarizing its deliberations. I believe the group has done an excellent job discussing difficult issues and working together to find a solution. Mind you, this was a very broadly based group representing industry, local officials, environmental organizations, user groups and so forth. While no clear-cut consensus emerged from the group, their report has given me a strong understanding of the existing natural values of the area, the issues involved in protection of the area and the positions of all groups involved in the debate. Indeed, this report has greatly assisted me in developing the legislation I am introducing today. As many of my colleagues know, we have a political environment in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest that is as splintered as any I have seen in my political career. This environment is characterized by a lack of trust on all sides of the political spectrum and extreme polarization. The Opal Creek working group, therefore, is a great success in bringing parties together in an attempt to heal old wounds and build new partnerships. The group also represents in my mind a great success in addressing one of my major concerns with the House's legislation from 1994, which was the general lack of agreements and limited dialog regarding protection of this forested area. I thank each and every member of the group of their dedication to this 6-month process and to resolving this difficult issue. Again, I want to say, parenthetically, that one of the outstanding members of that group is former Congressman Mike Kopetski who, again, was able to give leadership from some of his experience in giving his life effort to the development of Opal Creek. The legislation I am introducing today also addresses another major concern I had with the 1994 Opal Creek bill, its lack of ecosystem watershed management principles. The 1994 bill would have protected approximately 22,000 acres in the Opal Creek area. My bill protects 25,800 acres, including the creation of approximately 12,800 acres of new wilderness. Each and every one of the sub watersheds--we took a map, and we looked at that map as an ecosystem. We looked at that map as a great basin, a watershed. So we took from that map, with concern for protection of the entire ecosystem. Each and every one of those sub watersheds in the Little North Fork Santiam River drainage are addressed in some way in my legislation, either through a wilderness or a national scenic recreation area designation. By doing this, we have attempted to protect the outstanding resource values in each of these sub drainages, while at the same time addressing the area comprehensively as an intact ecosystem. In addition to addressing the protection of the entire watershed, the Opal Creek title of this bill maintains recreation at existing levels and allows for growth in uses where appropriate. The bill also calls for historical, cultural and ecological interpretation in the newly- created area to be conducted in a balanced and factually accurate manner. Motorized recreation will be prohibited except on the existing road system and nonmotorized use will be permitted throughout the area, except, of course, in the wilderness. The existing road system will be analyzed and evaluated through a management planning process, which will decide which roads to close and which to leave open. No new water impoundments will be allowed in this area. No new mining claims will be allowed to be filed under the 1872 mining law, and no existing claims will be allowed to be patented. In addition, the bill calls for the creation of an advisory council composed of members of the local community, industry, environmental groups, locally elected officials, the Forest Service and an appointee by the Governor. Finally, the bill will not allow commercial timber harvesting of any kind in the Opal Creek area except to prevent the spread of a forest fire or to to protect public health and safety. It is important to note that the lands covered by my legislation are not included--not included--in the timber base and are not open to commercial harvest today. The final element of the Opal Creek package, Mr. President, was an important part of the working group's discussions. I am referring to an economic development package for the Santiam Canyon, which includes the communities immediately adjacent to the Opal Creek area. This package is based, primarily, on a set of infrastructure improvements developed by these communities in conjunction with the State Economic Development Office, which are designed to improve the water quality and delivery systems of the communities in the area. I have made the first downpayment on this economic commitment package by including a $300,000 appropriation in the fiscal year 1996 Omnibus Appropriations Act to help begin the clean up of the contaminated Amalgamated Mill site at Jawbone Flats in Opal Creek. Throughout the coming fiscal year 1997 appropriations cycle, I will work closely with Oregon's Gov. John Kitzhaber, and my colleague on the House Appropriations Committee from Oregon, Jim Bunn, to further refine this package and provide additional funding, as needed, for the Amalgamated Mill cleanup and for the critical community infrastructure projects designed to allow these former timber communities to diversify their economic bases and improve their water systems. In short, the Opal Creek title of this bill attempts to address every issue raised both in the 1994 hearings on Opal Creek and in the working group process conducted out in Oregon. This is an issue I have worked on for almost 20 years. I am extremely pleased that, with this legislation and accompanying infrastructure development package, we will finally be able to address the protection of Opal Creek and the adjacent portions of the Little North Fork Santiam Watershed, as well as improvements to the water quality and delivery systems of nearby, timber-dependent communities. Mr. President, the Oregon Resources Conservation Act also contains two other titles. The first is a relatively noncontroversial provision which promulgates a land exchange in the Mt. Hood Corridor between the Bureau of Land Management and the Longview Fibre timber company in the State of Washington. Both parties are willing participants in this process, which seeks to protect the viewshed along the Highway 26 corridor on the way to Mt. Hood, the highest mountain peak in my State. Longview Fibre owns approximately 3,500 acres of timber land in the scenic Mt. Hood corridor, which are interspersed with BLM lands in a checkerboard fashion. Longview would like to harvest these lands within the next 5 years, but is sensitive about the public perception regarding these clearcuts along such a heavily traveled route. I agree with Longview Fibre and feel harvesting these trees along Highway 26 would be a disaster both for the ecological and visual characteristics of the resource. Longview, to their credit, has been extremely interested in working with local planning and environmental groups to identify BLM parcels elsewhere in western Oregon that could be traded for the Longview Fibre lands in the corridor. This proposal is a unique opportunity to forge ahead with a plan that has been built at the local level over the past 5 years and which has virtually unanimous support, including the local county government, local businesses, the timber industry, and local environmental groups. The third, and final, title of the Oregon Resource Conservation Act includes the establishment of a 5-year pilot project for two, consensus-based natural resource planning bodies now working in Oregon's Klamath and Deschutes Basins. Both of these bodies are already in place and have been working to provide the Federal agencies with recommendations about how best to prioritize spending for ecological restoration, economic health, and reducing drought impacts. I called for the creation of the Upper Klamath Basin working group in 1995. This group is citizen-led and includes environmentalists, irrigators, local business leaders, locally elected officials, educators, the Klamath Tribes, and Federal land management agencies in an advisory capacity. This group was charged with developing both short- and long-term recommendations for restoring ecological health in the Klamath Basin. They were successful in developing short-term funding recommendations ranging from riparian and wetland restoration, to fish passage and the coordination of geological information systems in the basin. I followed through on these recommendations and was able to obtain either funding or direction to the pertinent agencies in the fiscal year 1996 appropriations process. The group has also developed a long-term recommendation which includes a formal registration of the group as a State-sanctioned foundation and congressional legislation enabling them to help land management agencies set priorities for how money is spent in the basin on various ecological restoration and economic stabilization projects. The legislation I am introducing today addresses their long-term recommendation by creating a 5-year pilot project to allow the Upper Klamath Basin Working Group-Foundation, in conjunction with the Federal land management agencies in the basin, to develop funding priorities for ecological restoration in the basin. It will provide $1 million per year to be spent consistent with these priorities. This money will be administered by the agencies and matched by an equal amount of non- Federal dollars. The Deschutes Basin in central Oregon would also be allowed to develop a similar regime using, as its base, a group formed by the Warm Springs Tribes, the Environmental Defense Fund, local irrigators, and locally elected officials. This group has been meeting and collaborating on projects in the basin for several years. Recently, both of these working groups have been able to make significant progress in building coalitions and consensus on natural resource management challenges that, not too long ago, many felt were insurmountable. By given them more authority to temporarily assist Federal agencies with setting policy priorities using a finite amount of money, I hope we can begin to enter a new era of more local control and greater public input regarding resource management decisions. I also hope these groups, and others that may follow, will continue to use the consensus-based management approach to return resource management decisions to a collaborative, inclusive process rather than divisive, litigious morass in which we find ourselves today. Mr. President, today I had also planned on introducing a bill to create a 59,000-acre Coquille Forest as part of the federally- recognized Coquille Tribes' economic self-sufficiency plan. However, because of a number of unresolved issues, including the apparent lack of agreement, understanding or consensus at the local level, I am withholding my introduction of this bill until after I have had an opportunity to gather more public input through the congressional hearing process. And also there is a local election that is being held in May concerning this issue. I am extremely pleased with this bill. It protects two of Oregon's most important natural resource areas, Opal Creek and the Mt. Hood Corridor, and it promotes consensus-based, watershed planning at the local level in the Klamath and Deschutes Basins. I have worked many years to protect Oregon's magnificent natural resources. I am pleased that in this, my last year in the Senate, I will be able to continue this legacy of protecting Oregon's beauty for the enjoyment and use of future generations. I look forward to speedy hearings on the Oregon Resources Conservation Act, of which I have been promised by the chairman of the committee, Senator Murkowski of Alaska. We will have that hearing later in the month of April. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record. This bill is ready to be sent to the House.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Madam President, As tax day approaches, I once again come before the Senate to introduce the United States Peace Tax Fund. I am joined in this effort by the Senator from Iowa, Senator Harkin, who has been a longtime original cosponsor of this bill. I first introduced the Peace Tax Fund during the 95th Congress, nearly 20 years ago. I have reintroduced the Peace Tax Fund in every Congress since then because I believe it is important legislation. Since 1945 eligible conscientious objectors have been excused from combat. Although our Nation long has recognized moral and religious opposition to war, it has failed to address the depth and scope of such objections. Our tax laws do not recognize that conscience not only prohibits participation on the battlefield, but also in the preparation for war through payments to the military. CO's may withhold their bodies but not their money. The Peace Tax Fund Act, if enacted, would allow complete participation in our Federal Government by all citizens without many being forced to compromise deeply held beliefs of any citizen. Over the years I have received many letters from constituents describing their disapproval of military taxes and their desire to have the Federal Government respect such objections. Some citizens write of their decision to set aside their beliefs and pay their taxes in full, despite the anguish such payment causes. Others, perhaps following Albert Einstein's advice, ``Never do anything against conscience even if the State demands it,'' refuse to pay a portion of their taxes. Some Americans purposefully keep their income below the taxable level, so that they can avoid the decision altogether. It is important to point out what the Peace Tax Fund legislation is not. The Peace tax Fund is not a method by which a citizen may lodge protest over wasteful defense programs. Nor is it a tool to circumvent foreign policy initiatives. Tax liabilities cannot be reduced through participation in the Peace Tax Fund. The Peace Tax Fund Act was developed not for those individuals seeking to alter national policy, but rather to allow certain individuals to fully uphold Federal law without violating their consciences. The Peace Tax Fund would allow these sincere conscientious objectors the opportunity to pay their Federal taxes in full. Those who qualify may choose to have that portion of their taxes which would go to military activities instead be diverted to a special trust fund--the Peace Tax Fund--and then disbursed to two Federal programs: Head Start and WIC. The bill would not reduce the amount of funding for military activities. Nor would it result in any significant loss of revenue, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. As defined by the Peace Tax Fund Act, an eligible conscientious objector is anyone who has obtained this status under the Military Selective Service Act. Others may submit a questionnaire to the Secretary of the Treasury certifying his or her beliefs and how those beliefs affect that individual's life. In the 20-plus years that this issue has been debated, only two hearings have been held. The last hearing was held by the House Ways and Means Committee in 1992. The Senate has never held hearings on the Peace Tax Fund. It is my hope that before I leave the Senate the Finance Committee will hold a hearing on this issue. The Peace Tax Fund has had the support of many committed religious and peace organizations throughout the years. I ask unanimous consent that a partial listing of the organizations endorsing the Peace Tax Fund be included in the Record. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation so important to the protection of personal and religious beliefs of many citizens who find themselves each tax season torn between the law and conscience.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of our Agriculture Committee, the Senator from Indiana, Mr. Lugar, for yielding time. I, too, want to add my word of congratulations to the leadership of this committee, Senator Lugar and Senator Leahy, for bringing forth an upgrading and updating of this agricultural legislation. Mr. President, the flood of 1996 in my part of the country has had a devastating impact on much of my State. What I have enjoyed for many years, and now in my adopted home, is the lush and green countryside of the coastal area. It is now barren and covered beneath 2 feet of river silt. The once bountiful pasture lands are no more, and the dairy cows struggle, searching the bare landscape to find scant morsels of food. Many businesses, homes, and families have been adversely affected by the flood. Imagine a small part of this flood damage area, a small county in northwestern Oregon, seven raging rivers running through it and the silt-laden waste water flooding into three bays of the Pacific Ocean. There is such a county, and that county, Mr. President, is Tillamook County, a good Indian name, Tillamook County. Tillamook County on the northern Oregon coast is the poorest per capita income county of the 36 counties in my State. The entire population of the town of Tillamook consists of only 4,000 people. Roads which connect Tillamook to the rest of the State have been and will be closed for months. Highway 6, which is the east-west corridor to Portland, will be closed for months. Highway 101, which is the north-south corridor out of Tillamook, has been closed since November when the storm started hitting this part of the State. The leading enterprise in the area is dairy. Mr. President, no industry has suffered more than the dairy industry in Tillamook. As a result of the floods primarily, and windstorms, is that thousands of acres of Tillamook are covered with silt--in some cases as high as 2 feet. It may take as long as 2 years for these lands to recover. Added to the destruction of the grazing land, there have been tremendous losses in livestock and feed, along with damaged equipment and facilities. Of this town of 4,000, more than 400 people work at the Tillamook County Creamery Association, a local co-op of producers and processors. In this county, there are over 2,000 people directly involved in the dairy industry. Those numbers do not include veterinarians, transporters, supply stores, restaurants, and businesses that live and die based on the health of the dairy farmers. In summary, Mr. President, this community is isolated due to closed roads. The land, which is the lifeblood of the communities, is smothered under 2 feet of silt. The economic base of this community has been decimated. The short-term prospects for this community are bleak. With such misery heaped upon this little community, it would have been easy for them to give up, but that is not what has happened. The community of Tillamook locked arms and is working their way back. Immediately after the floods, efforts were made to keep production levels as high as possible at the Tillamook County Creamery Association. Haygrowers throughout Oregon donated several thousand tons to feed the animals. The outpouring of relief efforts has been phenomenal. The Oregon Dairy Farmers Association coordinated relief efforts, which included $200,000 in donations from within the industry, lining up hay deliveries, and assisting hard-hit dairies outside of the town of Tillamook--which, by the way, this town of 4,000 is the largest town in that little county. Dairy farmers helping other dairy farmers. Local, State, and Federal agencies are also assisting with potential loan programs and technical expertise. I inquired if there was anything else that Congress could do for this community. The response was, ``Help us with the Pacific Northwest Milk Marketing order.'' Now, Mr. President, I attempted to include legislation in the farm bill which would have done so. My amendment would have separated, temporarily, Oregon from this regional milk marketing order. What is the Pacific Northwest Milk Marketing order? Let me explain. Oregon and Washington and a small part of northern Idaho are part of this regional marketing order. Federal milk orders are authorized by the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937. Mr. President, this depression legislation, almost 60 years old, unfortunately, is still governing much of our dairy industry. As the Senator from Idaho has indicated, this bill moves the dairy industry closer to the market economy. Under this law the Secretary of Agriculture establishes Federal orders that apply to buyers of milk. Orders are initiated by dairy farmers normally through cooperatives and can be issued only with the approval of the dairy farmers in the affected area. A milk order is a legal document issued to regulate the minimum prices paid to dairy farmers by handlers of grade A milk in a specified marketing area. Now, Mr. President, my amendment would have temporarily changed the milk marketing order for a period of 2 years to let flexibility apply to this unique situation in one part of that industry in the Northwest, the Tillamook County Creamery Association. The change would have allowed these farmers to get back on their feet and compete in an open market by giving them added flexibility in establishing their prices. It was at this point that I hit a brick wall. What was that brick wall? Darigold, Inc. Prior to 1989, Oregon had its own milk marketing order, and it was not until that time that efforts were made to combine the orders. Those efforts were headed up and dominated by Darigold. They used their size and their strength to combine Washington and Oregon under one marketing order, against the objections of the small milk handlers in Oregon. Darigold is the fourth largest cooperative in the Nation, the fourth largest cooperative in the entire Nation. Darigold had almost $1 billion in sales in 1994 alone, with much of their production--and please let me underscore this--with much of their production in powdered milk, for example, being purchased by Government surplus markets. Compare this with the Tillamook County Creamery Association, which had $124 million in sales, all in consumer products produced from local milk--consumer products, not big Government contracts. In their January 1996 member newsletter, Darigold claims a 1995 production of 4.7 billion pounds of milk, 10 times the volume of the Tillamook County Creamery Association, with milk purchased from three States. Darigold produces a wide variety of milk products, including powdered milk, ice cream, packaged cheese, and butter. Compared that with Tillamook, which focuses mainly on a specialty product known as the world famous Tillamook Cheese, which is sold to consumers. How did Darigold hold up this amendment? The same way most things are done in this litigious society we live in--the Darigold lawyers came forth and threatened to tie up this legislation in the courts. They were sure they could do so for at least a year, and this is the year that needs help. This would have blocked the temporary separation of Oregon from the Pacific Northwest Milk Marketing order for this year. Tillamook County and its dairy farmers do not have the luxury of waiting a year. The Darigold brick wall would have been able to thwart the very will of Congress by stalling this amendment, if it had been adopted. Mr. President, this is a terrible injustice and a black eye on the capitalistic system, when the giants can run out the small operators from the marketplace because they have Government contracts. Tillamook County is small, it is battered, but I know it is not out. The strong will of the people of this community and the dairy industry in Oregon will not allow this setback to discourage them. I am disappointed that we will not be able to give Tillamook a helping hand at this time of great need. I am disappointed with the Darigold lawyers for blocking this assistance, and I am disappointed by the greed of the Darigold, Inc. Mr. President, in this situation, the almighty dollar was the bottom line, and compassion was nowhere to be found. That is not and should not be the character of our economic system. I thank my good friends from Washington and Idaho, particularly Senator Gorton and Senator Craig, who have been very sympathetic of the situation in Oregon. They have offered their assistance where possible, and I thank my colleagues for their sensitivity to the plight of flood- damaged Tillamook and the State of Oregon. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I support the omnibus lands bill before the Senate today. I speak as one of the few Senators without a single item in this large package. Let me focus for a moment on the most controversial component of the package--title XX, the Utah Public Lands Management Act. As a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I have followed the divisive political debate that has raged for decades over the question of how much land in the State of Utah should be designated as wilderness. This debate has now spilled outside the boundaries of the Utah delegation and the State they represent. It is now a national debate in many ways outside their complete control. As a Senator who has seen this same thing happen in his own State, I can appreciate the difficulties of my colleagues from Utah. I have also followed the Bureau of Land Management [BLM] over the last 15 years as it has spent in excess of $10 million analyzing vast tracks of land in Utah to more precisely determine their suitability for wilderness designation. In 1991, Interior Secretary Lujan identified 1.9 million acres as suitable for wilderness designation. The bill before us, which recommends 2 million acres for designation, reflects the technical information gathered by BLM as well as input from over 75 formal public meetings and thousands of letters. Over the past two decades, our thinking about natural resource management has evolved, resulting in a more flexible and cooperative role for government at all levels--Federal, State, local, and tribal. As one who has looked for ways for the Federal Government to provide more flexibility in regulated activities, I am pleased that this evolution is taking place. Mr. President, during the consideration of this bill in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I raised a number of concerns about various aspects of this legislation. I compliment my colleagues from Utah for their willingness to work with me to address my concerns. The legislation now allows for more balance and predictability, two components that are vital in public land management and decisionmaking. Their revisions include the following: The release language, previously characterized as too hard, has been softened. The bill now clarifies BLM's role in administering the 1.2 million acres under study that were not designated as wilderness; Another 200,000 acres have been added, making the total wilderness designation slightly greater than BLM's 1991 final recommendation; The land exchanges allowed for in the legislation are now equal value exchanges; and, Provisions allowing the construction of dams, pipelines, or communication sites within the wilderness area have been deleted. There are those who are still not satisfied. They would like more acreage to be designated and tighter restrictions to be put on any existing uses of those lands proposed for inclusion. Some would even like to totally eliminate all existing uses. These goals are self-defeating. They run counter to the 1964 Wilderness Act, which called for designating lands untrammeled by man, for the purposes of retaining its primeval character. The goal was not to find lands that have been encroached upon and require they revert to their primeval character. The seemingly endless Utah wilderness debate demonstrates what can happen when either side takes an all or nothing approach. We must all recognize that wilderness is not the only protective designation available to us. There are other, more appropriate ways to protect our public lands while recognizing and allowing for prior uses. My colleagues from Utah have been fair and objective in their designations and in their release language. This proposal relies upon BLM's planning process for the nondesignated public lands. This provides the flexibility and cooperative spirit necessary for sound management. It is important to note that their approach does not prevent a future Congress from reconsidering these lands' wilderness potential. Nothing is set in stone. Nothing would prevent a future Congress from passing legislation to add land to or withdraw land from this plan. Those who depict this wilderness designation process as though we are faced with an irrevocable choice between wilderness or the bulldozer do us all a disservice. Even for those lands never designated as wilderness, all is not lost for preservationists. There are a host of BLM land classifications designed to protect the natural and cultural attributes of our public lands without eliminating existing uses. Releasing the 1.2 million acres not selected for wilderness designation provides BLM's land managers, working together with local communities, greater management flexibility while insuring continued resource protection. These other protective designations include the following: Areas of critical environmental concern; Outstanding natural areas; National landmarks; Research natural areas; Primitive areas; and Visual resource management class I areas. Mr. President, I have seen a fair number of wilderness bills become law during my three decades on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Since 1964, Congress has enacted 88 laws designating new wilderness areas or adding acreage to existing ones. We now have a system that includes 630 wilderness areas encompassing 104 million acres in 44 States. I support passage of the Utah wilderness bill. This legislation brings to a close a 15-year-long battle and addresses more than its share of difficult issues. It does so fairly and objectively. Failure to pass this bill would put us into a third decade of debate and would seriously undermine the wilderness study process. While I continue to view this legislation as pushing the edge of what is acceptable under the 1964 Wilderness Act, I take particular note of the longstanding and divisive debate this provision would allow us to move forward from. I look forward to following this debate in the coming days. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his yielding me time. Mr. President, a very interesting experience occurred this morning at the Senate prayer breakfast. That is that former Senator Joseph Tydings from Maryland came to join us and some of the newer Senators sitting in our area, and we were informed about Senator Joe Tydings' father, Senator Millard Tydings, who represented the State of Maryland and had a very interesting political experience; and that was that he stood up, as a Democrat, to the effort on the part of President Roosevelt in 1937 to alter the structure of the Supreme Court, and that, as a result, President Roosevelt undertook a purge in the 1938 elections of those Senators who blocked his effort to change the structure of the Supreme Court which was in effect termed in those days ``to pack the Court.'' But he failed because the people of Maryland, as well as the people from Georgia, both returned those Senators that helped fight the packing of the Supreme Court--Democrats. They said, in effect, we support Mr. Roosevelt and the New Deal, but when he begins to tamper with the separation of powers and the checks and balances that our forefathers established in the Constitution, President Roosevelt has gone too far. Mind you, at that time, Mr. President, there were about 19 Republicans sitting on this side of the aisle, out of the 96, and they had what they called the Cherokee strip because there were not enough seats for the Democrats to stay on that side of the aisle, and they took these back rows across this Senate and occupied those. Senator Charles McNary of Oregon, with his little band of 19 Senators, with the assistance of the Democrats who would not support a Democratic President in packing the Supreme Court, held Mr. Roosevelt's effort and blocked it. Mr. Roosevelt was not suggesting that we change the Supreme Court in terms of its rulings and its duties, ``But just let me appoint one here and one there and one somewhere else when they get a certain age and they have not retired,'' because he was facing a hostile Supreme Court which was knocking down his legislation point by point when they found it to be unconstitutional. Mr. President, this is the greatest effort to shift the balance of power to the White House that has happened since Franklin Roosevelt attempted to pack the Supreme Court. He is asking, ``Oh, just give me a little veto here and a little veto there and a little veto somewhere else, and I select.'' This is a concentration and transfer of power to the Chief Executive. I think it is contrary to sound constitutional practice. I am appalled that my colleagues on the Republican side should help by leading the effort to give more power to the White House, more power to the President of the United States. I suppose this is a generational gap. I grew up thinking only Franklin Roosevelt would ever be the President of the United States. And the Republican cry was, ``He's leading us to a dictatorship,'' the concentration of power in the President's hands. The Republican campaign songs, campaign speeches in campaign after campaign, whether you were running for county sheriff or for Governor or for Senator, was to point to the fact that under the New Deal and President Roosevelt, they were concentrating power in the hands of the Chief Executive. And they were. But here we are now, anxious to say, ``Oh, please, Mr. President, take this new power. We don't have the ability to exercise the constitutional responsibility of creating and holding the purse strings.'' That is what it is. Call it by any other name, it is still a transfer of power and an enhancement of power in the hands of the President. I think it is a sad commentary on the responsibility and the history and the constitutional duties of the U.S. Congress to say to the President, ``We don't have the capability to exercise this, so we're going to dump it in your lap.'' That was the story we talked about this morning with Senator Joe Tydings, because his father had the courage to stand firm as a Democrat against a Democratic President to stop this kind of imbalance that was being suggested by the President of the United States to add new members to the Supreme Court so he could have his total way. He controlled the Congress of the United States by extraordinary, extraordinary majorities. But it was the Supreme Court that got in his way. So he was going to change the structure of the Supreme Court so he could have more power. Now, here is an interesting thing. Here is a Republican-led effort to give more power to a Democratic President. Maybe the election will change that in November, but once you transfer that power, no matter who is the President, you have transferred power to the other branch of Government. One last little incident that I want to mention, and that is a few years ago Frank Church, a Democratic Senator from Idaho--Senator Church had been a strong supporter of President Johnson's Vietnam policy. The day came when he decided to join those of us who were opposing the Vietnam policy, and he got up over there--and I can remember how he made his speech, of stating his position now as an opponent of the Vietnam war. In that speech he quoted Walter Lippmann, who was a very renowned, very respected writer and had commented extensively on the issue of the Vietnam war. So he quoted Walter Lippmann in his speech in saying, ``I now stand, and I hate to say this to President Johnson, but I have to now take my position in opposition to the war policy.'' Well, a week or so later Senator Church and Bethine, his wife, were down at the White House for a social function that President Johnson invited them to. As was the custom, they were going through the receiving line to pay their respects to President Johnson. You say different kinds of little remarks at that point to the President, very much a personal eyeball to eyeball. So Frank Church said to President Johnson, ``You know, I have this Idaho project, and it's going to be coming down to the White House soon. I hope you'll help me on it.'' President Johnson looked him straight in the eye and said, ``Why don't you go ask Walter Lippmann for it.'' ``Why don't you go ask Walter Lippmann for it.'' I do not have to draw a picture to see the linkage in the President's mind that you have decided not to support me on a war policy, well, I probably will be less than helpful to you on some kind of a project you have in Idaho. It invites all sorts of mischief. I can imagine the days when I stood very much in the minority on this Senate floor in opposing that Vietnam policy. I can very well imagine that I could have been given the same kind of treatment that he was extending to Frank Church, probably more likely because I was a Republican. But let me say, there is not a single Senator in this body who could not become a target for that kind of political mischief exercised by a President when he wants your vote, when he needs your vote, when he, in effect, is demanding your vote. Then you stand there with your particular constituency when you have some funding of some kind in the Appropriations Committee, and he can just take that pen of his and, bop, just knock you out of the box; or he can say, ``Now, I'll listen to your willingness to support me on this.'' Likewise, it invites political mischief in this body, the Congress. They can load up a bill and say, ``Well, the President now will have to veto that. He'll have to take that kind of political stance. We can embarrass him by forcing him to veto that out of the bill.'' I do not think we want to do that either. I only wish that we would read our history, and remember that we came to this country to escape monarchies, dictators, czars, kaisers, and those powerful executives that ran everything in their governments. We deliberately set up three branches of government; we deliberately assigned different powers; at the same time, we had mixing of powers. We are in the middle of an appropriation effort. There is not one way the President of the United States can force us to appropriate a dollar we do not want to appropriate. However, we cannot appropriate a dollar without the President's approval or veto. That is the mixing of powers. He has legislative powers; we have executive powers. Consequently, we should not tinker with something that has worked very well for over 200 years in the separation of powers. I want to say, I do not trust any President--I do not care whether he is Democrat or Republican--wanting to exercise all the power we want to give to him. Every person in this body that votes for this in the younger generations will live to see the day when it passes that they will regret that they bestowed this kind of power on the Chief Executive of the United States. It is contrary to our Republican doctrine. We want diffusion of power. We want the diffusion and the decentralization of power. Yet the same Republicans that talk on the one hand about too much power in the Federal Government, we should give more power to local government or more power to the private sector, are now wanting to bestow an additional amount of power on the Chief Executive. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I support Senator Domenici's Public Rangelands Management Act. I had hoped to support a substitute or a series of amendments to address the concerns I expressed in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee meetings. However, we are faced with an amendment that fails to address my concerns and a substitute that goes beyond the changes that I believe we called for in the Domenici bill. I am concerned with two aspects of S. 1459--public participation and flexible management. We could have done a better job in these two areas. Affected interests should be consulted and allowed to protest and appeal decisions; Site-specific NEPA analysis should be allowed when it is determined to be useful; and A permittee or lessee should not have to be engaged in the livestock business and own base property in order to practice conservation use. The substitute makes an attempt to address these two areas, but fails in other respects: It continues to advocate two distinct range management programs, one for the Forest Service and one for the Bureau of Land Management; It fails to adequately address the water rights issue; and It does not adequately credit permittees for their rangeland investments. I oppose the amendment offered by Senators Bumpers and Jeffords for the following reasons: It would create two classes of rangeland users without improving natural resource management; It would become an administrative nightmare for the regulatory agencies; and It is bad policy for Government to ``reward'' small operators or ``penalize'' large operators. The goal is to charge a fair fee to all. I therefore will support Senator Domenici's bill. I see it as a reasonable, if flawed, attempt to bring closure to this longstanding issue. The long and often contentious rangeland management debate reflects the profound ties that we as a Nation feel for our public lands. These ties are more than economic or sentimental. They are true bonds we hold to our Nation's past and its future. The decades of debate have not been wasted. They have produced information that is leading to new management strategies and cooperation where previously rancor prevailed. We now have an inspiring number of coalitions of ranchers, conservation groups, and State and Federal agencies working together voluntarily to improve rangelands. In Southeastern Oregon's Trout Creek, for example, permittees are working together with Oregon Trout (a private conservation organization) and State and Federal agencies to improve riparian areas and resolve conflicts between big game and livestock. Their efforts have been very successful in improving range conditions on private, State, and Federal lands. The Malapai Border Project in my esteemed colleagues' State of New Mexico offers another example of cooperative management. Here, permittees, the Nature Conservancy, and State and Federal officials have come together voluntarily to solve regional ecosystem problems. Through their efforts, we hope to stop the encroachment of brush into grasslands. These and other examples should encourage us all. The condition of our grasslands is improving and should continue to do so if we work together. It is interesting to observe the evolution of grazing fee proposals. For years grazing fees provided the hot button for all sides of the argument. Ranchers let us know loud and clear that their fees were high enough. Today, by-and-large, they support the legislation before us, which would increase the fees. This change of heart reflects a better understanding of the issues and a desire to respond to others' concerns. We need to capitalize on this spirit and ensure that it grows. It is too easy to focus on remaining differences and go away convinced that they are too great to resolve. If we do this, we will inspire the cooperation necessary to resolve the remaining differerences. It is my hope that my Senate colleagues will work in conference, in cooperation with the House and the administration, to make the adjustments necessary to address my continuing concerns.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, this year Willamette University's Atkinson Graduate School of Management celebrates its 20th anniversary with an extremely prestigious award. Already considered a pioneering spirit in management education, the Atkinson School can profess a singularly unique achievement: accreditation from both the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration [NASPAA] and the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business [AACSB]. It is the first school in the country to receive both accreditations--it is my alma mater, located in Salem, OR. Representatives from both the AACSB and the NASPAA visited the school in February 1995 and initiated an intense review process. After the review, the two organizations awarded the Atkinson school unanimous recommendations for accreditation. The two review boards commended the school for the program's focus on teamwork and practical application, the teaching staff's commitment to quality instruction and growth of their students, the uniqueness of the school's mission, and the outstanding facilities. The admissions and placement services received high praise as well. These two distinguished national and international accreditations testify to the impressive and ground-breaking work being done at the Atkinson School. Long recognized as a leading institute of management education, the accreditations provide the school with recognition world wide, recognition that is duly deserved and places the school among the elite institutions of the Pacific region. Out of the more than 700 business schools in the Nation, the AACSB accredits 292. Among the Nation's 220 programs offering master's degrees in public management, the NASPAA accredits about half. The Atkinson School offers a curriculum that features quality instruction in both business and public management that will prepare students for the future in our global business community. It is telling that in a school that recognizes the importance of global management and multinational influence, international students comprise 25 percent of the total student body. The Atkinson School has distinguished itself as a model for the expanded role of an American institution, a role that embraces the cultures and perspectives of other nations. The Willamette University, nestled in the fertile Willamette Valley of Oregon, has long cultivated and developed inquisitive minds. The Atkinson School continues this storied tradition as its devotion to quality business management education aims for the 21st century. I wish to congratulate all the staff, supporters, and students who have participated in the unequaled success of the Atkinson School. I would also like to mention the outstanding leadership of the Atkinson School dean, G. Dave Weight, and the agenda of former Willamette University president, George Herbert Smith, whose vision led to the creation of the Atkinson School. A promising future faces the Atkinson School as it prepares its students to compete successfully in the demanding global business environment. Mr. President, I ask that the Atkinson School's formal mission statement be printed in the Record. The statement follows: Mission Statement The Mission of the Atkinson Graduate School of Management is to identify and convey principles of management shared by successful enterprises in the business, government and not- for-profit sectors. Consistent with these principles, the School educates managers to cooperate as well as compete, to create as well as to operate, and to learn as well as to know. Atkinson extends to management education the teaching and learning traditions of Willamette University, a small, liberal arts institution. Pursuing Willamette's mission to serve its community with distinctive graduate, professional education, the Atkinson School aims to be the preeminent small, independent management program in the Pacific region.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for yielding the floor at this time. Mr. President, we are about ready to wind this up. I yield the floor. Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. HATFIELD. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Vote on Amendment No. 3553

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the managers' package was adopted.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. May we have order?

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

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I inquire of the Chair if I am correct on indicating, as I did, that all the amendments that were part of the unanimous consent agreement have been acted upon and disposed of in some manner?

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, as I say, I am going to take this time to recite those amendments that are in the managers' package. Then I will ask for a quorum call to give time for people to come to the floor or to indicate an interest in either one of these. They are open to second degree or for striking: One amendment by Senators Chafee and Kempthorne on ESA funding; an amendment by Senator Burns on a hydroelectric facility in Montana; an amendment by the Finance Committee on reimbursement of certain claims under the Medicaid Program; an amendment by Senator Cohen to repeal the requirement to discharge or retire members of the Armed Services who are HIV positive; an amendment by Senators Dorgan and Conrad, additional funds for B-52's; an amendment by Senators Bennett and Hatch, photographic technology; an amendment by Senators Breaux and Johnston on machine tools; an amendment by Senator Bond earmarking ER highway funds within those appropriated; an amendment by Senator Daschle which earmark CDBG funds within those appropriated; two amendments by Senator Santorum, two sense-of-the-Senate amendments regarding offsets for title II disaster assistance and language that makes adjustments to discretionary spending to offset disaster assistance; an amendment by Senator Gorton, a Walla Walla, WA, veterans medical center naming; an amendment by Senators DeWine and McConnell, provides $11.8 million for local governments for the development of criminal justice identification systems, offset from foreign operations Eximbank. Let me say all of these amendments either have been offset or they do not have a major impact on the overall bill that we are recommending from the committee. But these are all part of the managers' package. I did not want anyone to be blindsided or have any thought of any right being diminished by the action of the committee. Excuse me, Mr. President, there is a second page. Amendments, like mushrooms, tend to grow in the night: An amendment by Senator McCain on allocation of health care resources at VA; an amendment by Senator Hatfield, Umpqua River basin from existing funds; an amendment by Senator McCain on disaster funds allocated in accordance with established prioritization processes; a technical amendment making section changes; an amendment by Senator Murkowski; Greens Creek, AK. Mr. President, at the time when we move to act on these packaged amendments, I will also ask unanimous consent that the following statements and colloquies be placed in the Record: A statement by Senator Hutchison; a statement by Senator DeWine; a colloquy by Senators Stevens and Campbell; a colloquy by Senators Specter and Pell; a colloquy by Senators Simon and Specter; a colloquy by Senators Hollings, McCain, and Specter; a colloquy by Senators McConnell and Leahy; and a colloquy by Senators Harkin, Johnston, and Specter. I would also ask further that a statement by Senator McCain be printed in the Record at the appropriate place following the Burns amendment adopted herein. That is a lot. Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.